December 5, 1861 was born Konstantin Korovin
He was born in Moscow into a wealthy merchant family. Konstantin Korovin — an artist of the Silver Age. One of the leading Russian impressionists.
The main thing in a painting is not what is written, but how it is written.
After the death of his grandfather, a first-guild merchant and owner of a coaching service, his father went bankrupt. The family was forced to move to a village near Moscow. Bolshiye Mytishchi.
There he first began to notice the beauty of nature: he was raised by his mother, who painted a lot with watercolors and played the harp.
At 13 he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He studied under Savrasova, Polenova и Serov. He continued his education at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Petersburg. After three months he left, disappointed.
One of his most famous early paintings is "Portrait of a Chorus Girl." He painted it at the age of 26. Kharkov, where the Russian Private Opera toured Savva Mamontov — in one session.
That same year I saw it for the first time Paris and the paintings of the French Impressionists. In his works (he visited there several more times), he conveyed life in the French capital.
In one Parisian newspaper, the authors said they'd like to see Asian features in a Russian artist, but Korovin doesn't have them because he looks European. I thought, "What a shame."
By 1900, after traveling to the North (Murmansk, northern Norway, Swedish Lapland), created a series of landscapes for the World's Fair in Paris. Among others, he brought to the exhibition the portrait "Spanish Woman at the Balcony"—for this painting and the design of the Russian pavilions, he received two gold medals.
He participated in exhibitions of artists from various movements and associations, including the Itinerants, the World of Art, and the Union of Russian Artists.
He was called a "gourmet of painting" and said that he had "enough talent for three."
What Kuindzhi imagined, Korovin achieved
What a joy of color! What a temperament… and purely colorful. He was our first impressionist. We young men stood before Korovin's paintings and experienced for the first time the rapture of painting, of pure painting.
(Alexander Benois)
He designed theatrical sets, considering them "pure art." He taught at his native Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, mentoring many talented artists.
"Money is sh...," he would often throw in a strong word. "Never think about money. It will come to you. Write more about what's here, on the street, right before your eyes. Try your hand at everything."
(student Nikolai Chernyshov)
In the 1910s he lived for long periods at his dacha in Gurzuf, Especially after the accident with his son (he was hit by a tram and lost a foot). There he painted a whole series of works: "In the Garden," "Cafe in Yalta," "Evening on the Veranda," and "The Pier in Gurzuf."
During World War I, he advised the Russian army headquarters on camouflage. He continued to create: pre-revolutionary motifs can be found in his canvases from this period.
Konstantin rages in a dazzling whirlwind of colors
(Valentin Serov)
After the 1917 revolution, Korovin's dacha was converted into a recreation center, and later into a creative center for the Art Fund.
During the Civil War, he organized auctions and exhibitions for political prisoners and collaborated with theaters. He lived in the Tver province and taught at free state art workshops at his dacha near Vyshny Volochok.
The capital and the new government only wasted his time—he was elected to the artists' commission, the theater artists' board, and the plastic arts department. All of this weighed heavily on Korovin.
God, I'm so tired of politics!
In 1922, on the advice of the People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky He emigrated and settled in France. In his later years, due to poor eyesight, he devoted himself to writing instead of painting. He wrote over 400 short stories, which he published in Russian émigré publications.
As a result of the constant guilt of the Russian people, the eyes acquire an expression of surprise - “bulge”, as a friend, the commandant of the house where I lived, told me
He died in 1939, 10 days after the start of World War II, on a Parisian street of a heart attack. He is buried in an Orthodox cemetery in the suburbs of Paris.
