Abram Efimovich Arkhipov

Girl from Lesnoye is a remarkable rediscovery, descended in a private collection since it was first exhibited at the Exhibition of Contemporary Art of Soviet Russia at the Grand Central Palace in New York in February, 1929 (see figs. 1,2 & 3).  This painting has been lost to public view for over seventy years.  This extraordinary depiction of a peasant woman showcases Arkhipov’s inimitable technique and belongs to a series of portraits of peasant girls, women and men Arkhipov painted from Riazan and Nizhny Novgorod.  Dressed in bright national costumes, donning embroidered headscarves and beaded necklaces, these peasants are characteristically painted with broad impastoed strokes, in bright colors dominated by pinks, reds, oranges and yellows. Girl from Lesnoye is one of the most accomplished from this series.  This larger than life peasant girl emerges from a kaleidoscopic background, gloriously engulfing the entire composition.  Her towering, corporeal form commands the painting.  She appears to burst through the picture plane, practically entering the viewer’s space.  Her sanguine face and open smile exudes intimate warmth and joyfully communicates life’s intensity. Arkhipov achieves a dizzying dynamism in this portrait.  Broad, thick brushstrokes expand, recede and pulsate with vivid color, sculpting her character and revealing her personality. She is a modern icon, a fertility goddess, imbued with grace and vigor. 

Abraham Efimovich Arkhipov was born to a peasant family in the remote village of Riazan Gubernia; his precocious talents were immediately recognized and encouraged at the local school.  Despite financial difficulties in finding the necessary funds, his parents sent him to study at the School of Art, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow in 1871.  Greatly influenced by his teacher Vasili Perov, Arkhipov was also inspired by Makovsky, Savrasov and Polenov, artists who played an important role in his schooling.  An able and prodigious student, Arkhipov rapidly began to win prizes at exhibitions.  In his third year he completed A Game of ‘Svaikia’, and in the early 1880’s The Second-Hand Shop (1882), The Drunkard (1883) and The Tavern (1883), all of which are now in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.  These works demonstrate the influence of Perov in their inherent social criticism.

In 1883, Arkhipov enrolled at the Academy of Arts, where he was to achieve great acclaim with several works, though despite his success he was dissatisfied with their teaching methods and returned to the Moscow School, where he was taught by Vasili Polenov.  A coalescence of these early influences is seen in Friends Visiting the Sick Women (1885, Tretyakov Gallery), which depicts the artist’s mother.

In 1888, Arkipov embarked on a trip along the Volga which proved extremely productive. During his stay in various villages Arkhipov honed his craft and experimented with fusing genre and landscape painting into a unified whole.  (See On the Volga, 1889 Russian Museum).  In 1889 Arkhipov exhibited with the Wanderers, and in 1891 he became an active member of the Society of Wanderers.  In 1891 he also completed one of his most famous works, Along the River Oka (Tretyakov Gallery).  Its muted color scheme, somber subject matter and expansive brushwork represented a major change in the artist’s style.

In the 1890s Arkhipov predominantly painted en plein air.  His fascination with the effects of light sustained his interest throughout his career.  He later determined that bright light always mutes color, and should be expressed in relation to the tonalities, ``When painting in the sun and the person, the stone, and wall - are all drenched in light and nothing stands out, this is the way to paint’’  (N.I. Rozhdestvenskaya, Narodny Khidozhnik A.E. Arkhipov, Moscow, 1930, p. 42).  He was later to paint several works of strident social criticism and drama.  The Convoy, (1893) in the Tretyakov Gallery, handles the tragedy of disenfranchised impoverished peasants passively awaiting their fate, and in his later work of 1896, Women Laborers at the Iron Foundry, Arkhipov draws attention to the inhumane conditions of women laborers.  This theme was further explored in one his most important works, The Washer-Women of 1896 (Russian Museum).  Painstakingly researched, Arkhipov was profoundly moved by an image of a washerwoman he encountered at the Smolensk Market in Moscow.