Nikolai Nikanorovich Dubovskoy

Acquired by present owner in the 1960s

St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov et al, XXII Itinerant Exhibition, 1894, 6 March 1894 - 5 March 1895

G.Romanov (Ed.), The Society of Itinerant Fine Art Exhibitions 1871-1923: An Encyclopaedia, St Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburg Orkestr, 2003, p.160, no.8-45
Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok 1869-1899, Pis'ma, dokumenty, The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987, p.446, listed as no.25 Zemlya

The canvas is unlined and has recently been cleaned. There are some small spots of retouching in the sky and elsewhere.
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Dubovskoy was taught at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts by Mikhail Klodt, one of the first artists who consciously set off in search of the essential characteristics of the Russian countryside. The Land clearly references his tutor's painting, In the Field (fig 1, 1872, The State Tretyakov Gallery) in which the picturesque elements are similarly diminished 'to allow the impressive sweep of the land to become the subject, making something beautiful out of the most mundane material' (Russian Landscape, The National Gallery, 2004, p.57). Levitan had revived the leitmotif of the ploughman the previous year in A Ploughed Field at Evening (fig 2, 1883, The State Tretyakov Gallery), and again, it is the scale of the figures which generates the tremendous sense of space.

The attempts to define the motherland in late nineteenth century landscape painting were an inevitable corollary of the intensification of national consciousness that began in the literary sphere. In the words of the philosopher Fedor Stepan, 'the soul of the people is tied to its landscape'.  Flooded with light and imbued with an extraordinary sense of tranquillity, The Land is an exceptional example of Dubovskoy's contribution to this discourse and an important precursor to his monumental canvas, Motherland (1905, The Omsk Art Museum). Indeed, the existence of two other similar works, Motherland (1892) and The Furrow (1896), suggests that he deemed the present composition to be his most authentic evocation of the country.

The Land showcases many of his hallmark techniques: the barbed impasto for example, which gives the paint surface its rough texture, and the cool palette, predominantly light lilac combined with flashes of green. It also reflects his genius in conjuring perspective: by means of subtly juxtaposing the sharp, fresh foreground with the unfocused middle ground, he manages to suggest depth without resorting to a crude succession of bands of light and shade.  

One can trace interesting overlaps between the composition of these works and Apollinary Vasnetsov's Motherland (fig 3, 1886, The State Tretyakov Gallery) or Isaak Levitan's Lake, Rus' (1899). As Natalya Astakhova remarks, they are similarly constructed from 'gently rolling fields, illuminated by beams of light that slant downwards from gaps in the clouds' (Landscape, Russian Painting, Bely Gorod, 2000, p.256). The church spire which pierces the horizon also prompts reflection on the central role of religion in the Russian concept of nationhood.  

Within the endless horizons that characterise the Zeitgeist, Dubovskoy's perception of panorama was highly distinctive. Russia's closest equivalent to Constable, he was fascinated by cloudscapes to the extent that, like Arkhip Kuindzhi, the sky is often his main subject, from the dramatic storm cloud of It is Calm (1890), to the towering clouds of The Rainbow (1894), exhibited alongside The Land in the Wanderer's exhibition, or the calm expanse in the present work and On the Volga (1892).  

Few Russian artists managed as successfully as Dubovskoy to combine the two broad strains of landscape painting that had emerged by the 1880s - the first a celebration of the lyricism of the countryside, the second of which emphasised its epic dimensions. The blend of both strains that confronts the viewer on such a magnificent scale in The Land makes this the most impressive of his landscapes ever to be offered for public sale in recent times.

We are grateful to Dr Elena Nesterova for providing additional cataloguing information.