Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin

Private Collection, Switzerland
Christie's Geneva, Russian Works of Art, 16 November 1994, lot 413

Imperial Academy of Arts, St Petersburg, Memorial Exhibition for I.I.Endogurov, I.I.Shishkin and N.A.Yaroshenko, 1899
Possibly Moscow, Posmertnaya vystavka kartin professora I.I.Shishkina, 1904, no.3

Zhivopisnoe obozrenie, 1899, no.2, p.32, illustrated engraving titled Sukhostoi

Structural Condition The canvas is unlined and is providing a secure structural support. The stretcher mitres have been strengthened in the four corners with metal brackets and the canvas is attached with tacks and staples on the turnover edges. There is a slight craquelure pattern which is not visually distracting and is as one would expect on an unlined canvas of this age. There are two slightly raised areas of old paint loss in the upper right of the sky which are approximately 22 cm from the right vertical framing edge. Paint Surface The paint surface has a reasonably even varnish layer although inspection under ultra-violet light does suggest that the varnish layers have slightly discoloured and that cleaning could be beneficial. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows a small few scattered retouchings, the most significant of which are, 1) two areas of retouching covering the small losses in the upper right of the sky mentioned above. These retouchings have slightly discoloured and are also visible in natural light. 2) Retouchings in the fir trees in the lower left of the composition, and 3) very small dots in the centre of the composition and small retouchings on the lower horizontal framing edge. There are a few other very small scattered retouchings. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in good and stable condition and would benefit from cleaning and revarnishing should this be required.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Few artists grow from strength to strength in their careers, producing some of their finest work in their final years, but Ivan Shishkin was among this elite group. The scale and grandeur of the landscapes he exhibited in the 1890s is extraordinary, none more so than his famous Korabel'naya roshcha,1898 in The State Russian Museum, St Petersburg (fig 2).  The numerous correspondences in composition and technique between the offered lot and this well-known masterpiece, painted only a year later, make this one of the most important works by Shishkin to have appeared at auction for several years.

A variant of the present work was exhibited in the 1899 Peredvizhniki exhibition, titled Sukhostoi, and is subsequently recorded as being in the collection of the Imperial Academy of Arts. There are some minor but key differences between these two paintings: the figure of the old woman leaning against the fence in the Peredvizhniki work is here replaced by a small fire; the two tree stumps on the left in the Peredvizhniki version are positioned differently, and so is the taller dead tree on the left. It was not at all unusual for Shishkin to repeat, rework and perfect a composition. Excitingly however, these small variations allows us to state conclusively that the offered lot was the version reproduced in the journal Zhivopisnoe obozrenie in 1899. Additionally, the journal notes that the present painting was exhibited in the memorial exhibition of three Peredvizhniki artists, Ivan Shishkin, Ivan Endogourov (1861—1898) and Nikolai Yaroshenko (1846-1898) – giants of the genre who all died in the same year. Finally, a painting titled Sukhostoi is also listed as no.3 in Shishkin's retrospective exhibition in Moscow in 1904, curated by V.Chekato; since the catalogue is not illustrated, we cannot presume which version was exhibited but it is entirely possible that it was the present work.

The strong trunks and bright canopies of the forest seem at first to be at odds with Shishkin's original title for the work. But as so often with Shishkin's landscapes, particularly his later works, the title draws out the several allegorical elements of the painting. The stump to the left of the central pine is perhaps the starkest juxtaposition of life and decay, echoed elsewhere in the left-hand leafless trees and brushwood, set  against the new growth on the forest floor and sunlit branches above. The track that stretches into the distance is a near-universal reference to the path of a man's life; the threatening clouds and darkness at the end of the track in contrast solemnly with the sunlit clearing of the present.

By this stage of his life Shishkin was so familiar with the idioms of nature that his moods and philosophies become linked inextricably with the landscapes he painted. The present work shows 'The Bogatyr of the Russian Forest' as he was called by his contemporaries, painting bogatyr-like pine trees at a time of gradual deterioration. As a statement of optimism and courage from an elderly man, the present work is among the boldest and most moving of Shishkin's career.

These motifs are signature elements of Shishkin's landscapes. The techniques employed in the present work are equally characteristic: the preparatory drawing, the faktura, the free movement of the brush, his precise manner of conveying light and the palette which is typical of his later works. By the 1890s he had moved away from an obsessive Dürer-like interest in every blade of grass and the ripple of each piece of bark, but his landscapes are no less alive or powerful – if anything, they are more so.

As one contemporary critic put it in 1895, it is difficult to find a more fitting definition for Shishkin than 'A Poet of Nature', 'a poet, who finds beauty where an ordinary man would pass through unmoved and indifferent... The smoke which drifts through the trunks of the pines in the distance, the bright patches of sky between the trembling branches – all of this speaks to his heart, illuminating the artist and viewer. You see that all of this lives, feels, smoulders and breathes under his brush and pencil' (V.Nemirovich-Danchenko quoted in I.Shuvalova, Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, 1978, p.291).

We are grateful to Elena Nesterova of The State Russian Museum for providing this catalogue note.