an oil portrait of the famous hunchback, one of Repin’s favourite models and the central figure in his Religious Procession in Kursk Province. Finally, in 1880, Serov accompanied his teacher to Zaporozhye to gather material for the Zaporozhye Cossacks and did many pencil sketches of typical local scenes with Repin.
Soon, however, their joint work came to an end. Repin concluded that he had nothing more to offer to the young Serov and decided to send him on to the St Petersburg Academy, to Pavel Chistiakov. The latter, in the opinion of many contemporaries, was the only man in the Academy capable of teaching a novice the basic principles of art.
Serov enrolled in the Academy in 1880. This was the beginning of an eventful existence for him: studies in the Academy, painting together with Vrubel and Derviz, his fellow pupils from Chistiakov’s class, in a jointly rented studio, and discussing art and its mission during evenings spent at the house of his maternal aunt, Adelaida Simonovich, an educationist and advocate of kindergartens in Russia; Serov maintained a long-standing friendship with her daughters.
Chistiakov was a brilliant and systematic interpreter and teacher of the laws of form in painting and drawing. He tried to show his pupils how the three-dimensional world can be transformed on a two-dimensional piece of canvas into an artistic phenomenon. He instilled in Serov the strict, demanding, and loving attitude to professional skill that was to become the bedrock of Serov’s art.
The young student worked tirelessly. He painted nude models, his friends, scenes of nature – in a word, everything that surrounded him. He devoted much effort to the perfection of his drawing, combining the strict, constructive system of draftsmanship taught by Chistiakov with the pictorial quality of Repin’s graphic works. Serov’s self-portrait of 1885 was an attempt to create an artistic image through the expressiveness of line and hatching. The barely designated figure, the white background, and the dense shading around the head conspire to focus the viewer’s attention on the face. The meaningful expression in the eyes, where one reads a far from youthful self-discipline, a deep concentration, estrangement, and withdrawal into himself, but above all the power of a unique mind and a somewhat precocious spiritual maturity, reflects not only the young Serov’s inner world but also his awareness of what it means to be a creative artist.
Portrait of the Singer Angelo Mazini, 1890.
Oil on canvas, 89 × 70 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Portrait of Konstantin Korovin, 1891.
Oil on canvas, 111.2 × 89 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Portrait of Ivan Zabelin, 1892.
Oil on canvas, 80 × 67 cm.
The State Historical Museum, Moscow.
Portrait of Nikolai Semionovich Leskov, 1894.
Oil on canvas, 64 × 53 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
The rigid formality that prevailed in the Academy was alien to Serov, and the only consideration that kept him from resigning was his faith in Chistiakov. He was extremely critical of the established system of teaching. In a letter to his fiancée (1885) he wrote: “I am very happy to be able to disregard their medals (you have no idea how pernicious are all these stratagems, all this chasing after medals). I can work on my own in any way I please, entrusting myself only to Repin and Chistiakov.”
The first flowering of Serov’s talent relates to the 1880s. Such an early rise to the top is almost unparalleled in the history of art. The two works that brought Serov into the limelight, Girl with Peaches and Sunlit Girl, were painted when he had barely turned twenty. The master later spoke of them with special affection and, according to Igor Grabar, considered these early canvases unexcelled by any of his subsequent works. This was, of course, an exaggeration, but one has to admit that Serov’s Girls were imbued with an absolutely unique quality, one that the artist never captured again. The period when Serov was carefree and happy, searching for and painting “only the joys of life”, did not last long.
These were Serov’s words, and in recent times they have come to define an entire school of Russian, and especially Moscow, painting. The early Korovin was a typical representative of this school; in the 1880s a joyful perception of nature came to characterise the art of Levitan; a tender lyricism marks the early paintings of Arkhipov and Alexei Stepanov, also of the Moscow school. All these artists sought to divorce their art from preconceived notions, from an analytical approach to life. Lyricism was becoming the main tendency in Moscow painting, and Serov with his program of the “joys of life” was its most consistent spokesman.
Of course, the common objectives pursued by the new generation of artists cannot alone explain the creation of Serov’s early masterpieces. An exceptional sequence of events had to occur for them to have been produced at all. Serov left the Academy, and this filled him with an exhilarating sense of freedom from all manner of rules and regulations. He went abroad, and there saw for himself the unfading beauty of the Old Masters, forever succumbing to their irresistible influence.
His absorption with the painting of the great Dutchmen, Spaniards, and Italians bred in Serov a desire to portray the beauty of man and express a love of life. At the same time the young artist began paying more and more attention to the problem of skill, to the “high craftsmanship” that characterised the Old Masters. Venice, with its divine architecture and fairy-tale canals, simply went to Serov’s head. He felt himself at the height of his powers. He was surrounded by friends and loved ones. Finally, he had recently, in 1885, done an inconspicuous little study in Odessa entitled Bullocks: the harmony achieved in the colour scheme of that piece filled him with satisfaction and led him to understand what an artist should aspire to.
Portrait of Maria Lvova, 1895.
Oil on canvas, 87 × 58 cm.
Private collection.
Alexander Pushkin on a Park Bench, 1899.
Graphite, watercolour, and whitewash on paper, 35 × 29.3 cm.
All-Russian Pushkin Museum, St Petersburg.
Also conducive to the young artist’s joyful mood was the environment he moved in, the friends he associated with, and the creative atmosphere that prevailed in Abramtsevo, the country estate of Savva Mamontov, the famous patron of the arts. This remarkable house in the picturesque Moscow countryside was where many innovations in late 19th-century art were conceived. Serov had stayed here with the Mamontov family for long periods as a child; it was an ideal place for bringing his outstanding talents into play. Amateur theatricals were a favourite pastime in Abramtsevo, and Serov himself played a variety of roles. Under the benevolent guidance of his elders – Repin, Victor Vasnetsov, Vasily Polenov – and the beneficial influence of communion with his coevals – Vrubel, Korovin, Mikhail Nesterov – the young Serov’s gift for painting blossomed and matured. It was also here that he came to love the central Russian landscape, the rural scene, the homely peasant horses, and the plain peasant faces.
Another haven of refuge for the young artist was Domotkanovo in Tver province, the country estate of Vladimir Derviz, an Academy friend who had married one of Serov’s cousins, Nadezhda Simonovich. Serov spent many happy
