Bather G. (1834-1911)

GG Myasoedov was the son of the landed gentry. His father encouraged his precocious interest in making art. After teaching high school in Eagle, where drawing was taught by professional artist IA Volkov, the young man went to St. Petersburg, and in 1853 enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts.

The decade that Myasoedov held in the Academy (1853-63) coincided with a period of severe crisis of the institution, which ended the "revolt of fourteen." True, he "rebellion" Myasoedov not found - by this time he had finished the Arts and as a pensioner was abroad (1863-68), visited Berlin, Brussels, Paris, the city of Italy and Spain.

Even in years of training Myasoedov wrote a genre picture "Congratulations young landlord of the house" (1861) and the web on a historical theme "Escape Gregory Otrepiev from inn on the Lithuanian border" (1862), which Stasov called one of the first applications on the way create a realistic historical paintings. Later on historical themes will be developed in painting Myasoedova constantly parallel with the paintings of genre. These two lines of the artist approached very closely, sometimes passing each other.

Creative work all the time combined with the painter active in social activities. It was he who initiated the creation of a new type of organization of artists - the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. The idea of such an organization was born in Myasoedova back in 1867, when he was abroad and had the opportunity to observe the work of European artists on the organization of road shows held primarily for commercial purposes. December 16, 1870 held its first general meeting of the Association of Traveling Art, where the board was elected, of which entered and Myasoedov (along with INKramskoy , Nikolai Ge , Vasily Perov , MK Klodt ) .

A November 29, 1871 in St. Petersburg, I opened a traveling art exhibition, shown later in Moscow, Kiev and Kharkov. Myasoedov presented at this exhibition the painting "Grandfather of the Russian Navy. (Boat of Peter I)" (1871), in which the solution is given in historical themes everyday terms. In March 1872 II opened a traveling exhibition, which exhibited the most significant painting Myasoedova - "Zemstvo Lunch" (1872). A quiet provincial town. Solar noon. At the entrance to the County Council a group of peasants. One of them, perched on stone slabs and a knapsack under his head, asleep. Other leisurely eat: bread and salt onions yes - that's their dinner. And there, in the house, just dined gentlemen visible through the open window footman, carefully wash up the dishes immediately - the number of bottles and decanters. There is a critical story - a comparison zemstvo Zemstvo and gentlemen farmers, the contrast of wealth and poverty. But it was not for the artist in the main picture. He concentrated all his attention to the peasants themselves. In them the artist saw and captured a variety of characters, special decorum, internal discipline, a unique beauty.