ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ

From February to May the Museum of Russian Impressionism will present the exhibition ‘The Excellent’, showcasing the European travels of young Russian masters — the best graduates of the Imperial Academy of Arts and the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. At the turn of the 20th century ambitious aspiring artists, reluctant to imitate foreign masters, gave impetus to the development of Russian art by reinterpreting the experience they gained abroad. This turning point can be seen in the works of those who participated in state-funded ‘pensioner’ trips, from the academic paintings of Henryk Siemiradzki to the new modes of artistic expression of Ilya Repin, Vasily Polenov and their followers.

Mention of foreign travel ‘for improvement in art’ is often found in the biographies of famous artists. This exhibition will be one of the first major studies devoted to pensioner trips in the 1870s to 1910s, to their influence on the stylistic formation of individual painters, and the way in which traditions of the national art school evolved.

The diversity of modernist trends in Europe at the end of the 19th century offered young artists new guidelines. As a consequence, the academic subjects of Henryk Siemiradzki and Ivan Aivazovsky with ancient ruins and sea views were replaced by the plein air paintings of Vasily Polenov and Ilya Repin. After the 1893 reform of the Academy of Arts reports on pensioner trips were greatly simplified and painters of the new generation such as Yefim Cheptsov and Mikhail Demyanov depicted the daily life of ordinary Europeans, referring both to works by the Wanderers and the bold manner of Vincent van Gogh.