Iosif Evstaf'evic Krachkovsky, 
Russian 1854-1914- 

A wooded river landscape; 

oil on canvas, signed in Cyrillic (lower left), 61.7 x 107 cm. 

Provenance: 
Private Collection. 

Note: 
Born in St Petersburg, Krachkovsky studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts there from 1871, where he was taught by Michail Konstantinovich Klodt (1835-1914), whose other students included Nikolay Dubovskoy (1859-1918) and Gevorg Bashinjagyan (1857-1925). Klodt was one of the leading landscape painters of 19th-century Russia, and his influence on Krachkovsky’s work is unmistakeable, with the latter particularly inspired by his broad, expansive views. Whilst still studying, Krachkovsky won awards for his paintings ‘Morning’, in 1878, and ‘Evening’, in the following year, titles which reveal his fascination with the depiction of light, and the way in which it transforms the landscape it illuminates over the course of a single day. This is a preoccupation which endured throughout the artist’s career, illustrated by his repeated return to scenes set at sunrise and sunset. 

In 1880, Krachkovsky embarked on extensive travels across Europe, visiting Munich, Berlin, Milan, and Madrid, and settling into the bustling artistic hub of Paris before his return to St Petersburg in 1884. His talent was recognised by contemporaries across Europe, with exhibitions of his work held at St Petersburg in 1902, and in Paris and Nice in 1908. 

The present work is a particularly charming example of Krachkovsky’s oeuvre, depicting as it does an idyllic, open landscape undisturbed by human presence. It gestures towards the Realist tendencies of his teacher Klodt, and of many of his contemporaries in the ‘Peredvizhniki’, or ‘Itinerant’, movement, which rejected the Academic tendency to value the ‘High Art’ of history scenes above the genre of landscapes. This painting also exhibits Krachkovsky’s preoccupation with the changing light throughout the day, with a very faint pinky hue towards the horizon gently and masterfully suggesting the eventual coming of sunset.