Lot 7: GRIGORY GRIGORIEVICH MYASOEDOV

GRIGORY GRIGORIEVICH MYASOEDOV 1834-1911 ACROSS THE STEPPE (MIGRANTS) signed in Cyrillic and dated 1883 l.r. oil on canvas 79.3 by 153.6cm, 31 1/4 by 60 1/2 in.

St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov et al, XI Itinerant Exhibition, 2 March - 6 December 1883, No.3-118

I.Shuvalova, Myasoedov, Leningrad: Isskustvo, 1971
G.Romanov (Ed.), The Society of Fine Art Exhibtiions 1871-1923: An Encyclopaedia, St. Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburg Orkestr, 2003, p.67, No.3-118

After graduating from the Academy with a gold medal, Grigory Myasoedov was given a grant to travel abroad. While on his travels he wrote to his friends in St. Petersburg about the idea of setting up independent travelling exhibitions – an idea which would come into fruition after this return to Russia. Myasoyedov became one of the founder-members of the Society of Itinerants and regularly showed his paintings there, starting with the first exhibition in 1871, and finishing with the fortieth in 1912.

Across the Steppe, or Migrants as it is also known, was shown at the XI Itinerant Exhibition and listed in the catalogue under the former title. Irina Shuvalova, author of the 1971 monograph on the artist, suggested that the whereabouts of the painting were unknown; however, descriptions of the painting have survived in contemporary press reports on the exhibition. In The Odessa Messenger (No. 225, 1883) a reporter who saw the canvas at an exhibition in Elisavetgrad (present-day Kirovohrad in Ukraine) describes its intriguing subject: 'Heat, dust, an endless road, a procession of tired migrants dragging themselves to some unknown destination, and in the foreground, the drama of a broken wagon.' Another critic, Petr Polevoy, writing in The Artistic Survey (No. 13, 1883, p. 205), notes the excellent treatment of landscape in the work saying that 'the artist, who is very familiar with the flora of the southern steppe, has managed to convey the vast distances of the steppe and its pitiful vegetation – the squat shrubs and little trees bent low by the wind.' The correspondent from The Kievan was particularly intrigued by the central figure in the canvas—the peasant who owns the broken cart: 'So much inescapable pain, so much spiritual longing and suffering is written on that haggard face. This character gives meaning to the whole painting...'





Monumental in both intent and execution, Across the Steppe (Migrants) raised an issue which was very relevant at the time. Many peasants, deceived by political reform and left without land, were forced to abandon their homes in order to seek out a better life. For many of these peasants this search ended in tragedy. The style of this painting corresponds with the main tendencies in the development of genre painting in this period, as it strove to move away from idealized landscapes in favour of more topical paintings; the subject which attracted the attention of Myasoedov here was developed further in the work of the younger generation of Wanderers.

We are grateful to Dr Elena Nesterova for providing this note.