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| Охотники на привале, Hunters at Rest. 1871. Vasily Perov (1833-1882). |
I was waiting for the sun to shine on green apples and orange persimmons, for the smell of
olea fragrans under my bedroom window, for the blooming of autumn crocuses under the cherry tree. I was waiting for the first days of autumn to read
Sketches from a Hunter's Album.
The book, published in 1852, is a collection of twenty-five short
stories written, between 1847 and 1850, by the Russian novelist Ivan Sergeevic Turgenev
(1818-1883) for the Russian journal
The Contemporary. He was abroad in this period, travelling in Germany and France, and the unexpected success of these hunting stories situated in the Russian countryside gave him new strength and determination to pursue his literary ambitions.
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| Сборы на охоту, Preparation for Hunting. 1836. |
A passionate hunter himself, Turgenev found inspiration in life at Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, the family's estate near Oryol, a town 360 kilometres southwest of Moscow. Rural life: sky and clouds, woods, fields, hay, narrow dusty paths, flocks of birds, 'eggs, milk and rye bread.' And people. In his hunting expeditions, the hunter meets landowners, administrators and, above all, the multitude of serfs that lived and worked in their properties. He shares with them frugal food and nights under the stars, talking and listening to their stories. He observes them, describing with minute details faces, clothes and izbas, intentions and gestures, tragic destinies marked by the absurd decisions of despotic and cruel landowners, and quiet and hard-working families. If hunting literature was a successful literary genre in Russia in the 1840s, Turgenev’s choice was not obvious: no sentimental and pathetic tones, no stereotypes about peasant life or judgements, just the reality told with the serfs' words. He considers them people, a revolutionary idea that would lead to the abolition of serfdom in 1861.
Turgenev describes a world that was disappearing relying on unheard voices and on the beauty of the Russian countryside. The golden leaves of linden trees in a foggy day of autumn move on the page. But it is not just autumn. A sudden storm, the unbearable heat of a summer afternoon, the first light at dawn in a spring day, Turgenev's words reveal his passionate love for nature. Hunting was part of it, a tradition that put man in touch with nature, with untamed nature. Birch woods, old orchards and a vegetable garden in autumn:
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Рука с цветами, A Hand with Flowers. 1896.
Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942). |
".... A recently cleared path quickly let us out of the lime grove and we entered a vegetable garden. Amid old apple trees and overgrown gooseberry bushes there grew innumerable round pale-green heads of cabbage with hop tendrils winding round their tall stems; sticking up in the beds were close-set rows of brown sticks all entwined with peas; large flat pumpkins literally lay about on the ground; cucumbers hung yellowing under dusty angular leaves; tall nettles sway above the fence; in two or three places there grew masses of wild honeysuckle, elder and dog rose, the remains of what had formerly been well-kept flowerbeds."
from My neighbour Radilov.
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осень в деревне,
Autumn in a Village. 1942. Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942). |
. 1871. Oil on canvas. Vasily Perov (1833–1882).
1934. Oil on canvas. Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942).
1942, Oil on canvas. Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942).
Fresh flowers welcome visitors in the atrium of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington D.C. Every day.
I took these pictures last year in November. I met Mr. Kim while he was finishing his work. He was sweeping around the compositions but answered politely to my questions, and, after a last glance, he left the Gallery. Many new flowers have been displayed in the Gallery since then.
