Lot 28: Viktor Zarubin (1866-1928)

Viktor Zarubin (1866-1928)
Voice of silence
signed in Cyrillic and dated 'Zarubin/1907' (lower right)
oil on canvas
28¼ x 35¼ in. (72 x 89.5 cm.)

Moscow, Petrograd and elsewhere, 45th Wanderers' Exhibition, 20 December 1916-19 March 1917, no. 83.

G. B. Romanov, Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok, St Petersburg, 2003, listed p. 440, no. 1-83 as 'Golos bezmolviia'.

Viktor Zarubin received his initial training in the famous art studio of Egor Shreider in Kharkov, but, eager to promote the art of his homeland and make his debut on the international art scene, he set off for Paris in 1893. Here, in the artistic centre of the world, Zarubin studied at the Académie Julian and exhibited paintings at the famous Salon de Paris. On his return to Russia, he continued his studies at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg where he received instruction in landscape painting from Arkhip Kuindzhi.

The present work, Voice of silence, was painted in 1907 in the artist's native land of Kharkov; the numerous works set in Zarubin's homeland are particularly poignant and evocative. He returned there repeatedly over the course of his life to garner inspiration from the local people and the beautiful surrounding land. In the present work, monks from the Svyatogorsky Dormition Monastery can be seen sitting peacefully in the foreground of the painting. Their monastery was one of the most holy places of Ukrainian Orthodoxy and one of the largest in the whole of the eastern part of the Ukraine; hordes of people would journey to attend the services held there, their numbers reaching up to 20,000 on feast days. The figures of the monks provide the focal point of the composition while the stunning beauty of the surrounding landscape, testimony to the greatness of God, imbues the work with a spiritual sense of calm.