Grigory
Vasilyevich Soroka

The diploma was trained by Vasily Matveevich Vladimirov, in gratitude that Sorokin gave an album of drawings depicting the local farmers. In 1842-1847 years. studied painting with A. G. Venetsianov, was one of his favorite students. Between Lydia, eldest daughter of Milyukov, and Gregory broke out passion and then forcibly married father Sorokin on land (in this marriage he had two children, Lydia became the godmother of his eldest son), Lydia Nikolaevna gave police a man named captain Safonova... Once Miliukov ordered to be flogged Sorokin for some fault, after which the artist committed suicide — hung himself. Was buried behind the Church fence. Lydia later poisoned.

He was born in Pokrovskoye village (Tver Guberniya) 15 (27) November 1823 in the family of a serf. In 1841 was taken in the house of the owner, the landlord N. P.Milyukov (in the estate of Ostrovky). Finding brilliant talent of draughtsman, was one of the students of A. G. Venetsianov, who lived nearby on his estate Safonkovo. For several years he lived alternately in Safonkovo in the Islands.

The legacy of the artist small: indisputable can be considered no more than 20 undated paintings, executed mainly in 1840-ies. Especially the artist was backyard landscapes, full of contemplative peace and quiet these are, first and foremost, the painting in the village of Spassky (Tambov province) belonging to relatives of Milyukov (Fishermen. Lake view Moldino, view of the dam; both works are in the Russian Museum; Chapel in the Park, Hermitage). Wrote several interiors: Barn, an office in the Islands, the reflection in the mirror (all in the Russian Museum). Inherent in the works of magpies "naive" frozen forms, coupled with the poetic intuition, Podobnaya the simple act of perception of nature to a domestic miracle, brings his style of magical realism of the 20th century, making the artist the most "modern" of all venetsianova. Forty left a number of lyrical and subtle portraits (E. N. Milyukov, A. G. Venetsianov, both in ibid; etc.).

Not receiving the manumission, Forty were in a particularly difficult situation after the death Venetsianov (1847), his chief intercessor before the master. It clearly weighed heavily on the contrast between already formed therein internally of the artist-Creator and actual injustice. After leaving the estate in the early 1850's he returned to Pokrovskoye, where he painted icons for local churches (the Vernicle, a Picture gallery, Tver; on the whole range of those things not yet clearly defined). Involved in the peasant unrest after the abolition of serfdom (he wrote for his fellow villagers in a letter to Alexander II c complaint of unfair land acquisition), was subjected to corporal punishment, then he hung up.