Efim
Efimovich Volkov

Efim Efimovich Volkov (March 23 (April 4) 1844, St. Petersburg - February 17, 1920, Petrograd) - Russian peredvizhnik artist, master of lyrical landscape.

Features of the artist Efim Volkov: Colleagues and viewers valued Volkov for his ability to breathe poetry into the inconspicuous views of forests and rivulets, for the calm contemplativeness of the author, thanks to which in unpretentious, everyday, even boring landscapes suddenly appear greatness and solemnity; the artist was especially interested in the changeability of nature - he was attracted by the incipient dawn, the sunset colors of the sunset, frosts, and not the sweeping manifestations of the elements.

Famous paintings by Efim Volkov: "Landscape with a pond", "Moonlit Night in the Forest", "Early snow", "Ukrainian landscape with a hut".

Efim Volkov studied craft at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists and at the Academy of Arts, but gained mastery and found his handwriting as a result of hard work - he tirelessly wrote sketches, preferring nature to professors and training classes.

The rapid rise of the artist Efim Volkov

He entered the drawing school only at 22 years old, having worked in the office of the Ministry of Justice, and finished it in a year (instead of four). Volkov Academy will throw - his universities will be country roads, overgrown ponds and gloomy swamps, where he will hunt the game of sunlight on the water, behind the mists, watch the dried grass, old snags and the frozen ground, which barely covered the first snow.

Marshes will be one of his favorite objects. It is with this picture that the artist Volkov will become famous in 1872: his landscape "Swamp in the fall"sent to London to the World Exhibition, where he will be marked with bronze. Upon his return, in 1873, with the same picture, Efim Volkov will take the second place at the review of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and the triumphant Alexey Savrasov- Another landscape painter who entered the history of art with muffled, unpretentious landscapes. Efim Efimovich will be awarded more than once in competitions of the Society, and in 1877 he will take the first prize - for the landscape "In the forest in the spring".

Pictures of Efim Volkov at the exhibitions of the Wanderers

In 1878, Volkov became a regular participant in the projects of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. Pictures of the artist Volkov are regularly exhibited and collect positive feedback, including from peredvizhniki colleagues. One of them, "October", art critic Stasov will give praise: he will call this landscape one of the best paintings of Efim Volkov, make a compliment "Relief lean trees, bare autumn" and to the painter himself: “So good are the prospects through the sparse wood, there is so much air everywhere and falling autumn light ...”

Volkov disagreed with Shishkin- they even went to paint pictures to the Crimea. But communication with LevitanIt was not without creative differences: once at the exhibition of the Wanderers, Levitan noted that in the paintings of the artist Volkov "Paint screaming"and this was by no means praise. Modern art critics also note that, as a draftsman, Efim Volkov will be stronger than Volkov the painter, that the summer on his landscapes is variegated and bright, but “quiet” paintings with bogs and ponds are another matter.

Efim Efimovich Volkov who left the Academy of Arts will eventually become an academician, his paintings will be in the Tretyakov Gallery.

The author: Natalia Kandaurova