Boris Israilovich Anisfeld, 1879-1973

Vienna, Vienna Secession, 1908
St.Petersburg, Venok, 1908
The Brooklyn Museum, New York, et.al., The Boris Anisfeld Exhibition (touring), 1918-1920, Cat. No.3
Reinhardt Gallery, The Boris Anisfeld Exhibition, 25 March to 12 April 1924, n.20
Boston Art Club and Twentieth Century Club, Boston, Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Boris Anisfeld, 10 December 1924 to 3 January 1925, Cat. No.1
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Boris Anisfeld - Fantast-Mystic: Twelve Russian Paintings from the Collection of Joey and Toby Tanenbaum, Cat. No. 4

C.Brinton, The Boris Anisfeld Exhibition, New York: 1918, No.3 (illustrated)

This work was executed in 1907.

Alder Grove-Tver depicts an area with particular emotional significance for the artist near the city of Tver (now Kalinin). During the summer of 1905, Anisfeld and his wife travelled along the Neva to Tver on a belated honeymoon. Anisfeld always asserted that he drew great inspiration from nature and stated that many of his landscapes were done en plein air in summer: “In painting I think in colour first. I paint what I think, not always what I see. In summer I paint only from nature and try to express my impressions of nature in all her phases. I do not always paint the colour another might see, but only what my impression of the scene is at the time. My moods vary, and I paint the scene before me to correspond with my mood of the moment”. Although, the size of the present lot makes it relatively unlikely that Anisfeld painted it during this trip, he probably incorporated many visual impressions from his trip along the Neva.

At the turn of the century all over Europe, painters and photographers alike were fascinated by the theme of the forest interior. The prototype for a textured screen of trees must be Seurat’s Undergrowth in Pontaubert, c.1882, (fig1). Anisfeld might have also found inspiration in Gustav Klimt’s impresionistic landscapes, such as Beech Forest I (fig.3), which were regularly exhibited throughout Europe. Klimt was also the director of the Vienna Secession at the time when the offered lot was exhibited there in 1908. A more immediate source for Anisfeld may have been Larionov’s Rain, 1905- 06, (fig.2) which is today in a Private Collection, Paris.

Anisfeld’s painterly skill becomes obvious in his great sensitivity to nuance in colour. The coolness and dampness of the grove makes itself felt through the multitude of delicate greens, greys and blues. However, unlike all the paintings mentioned before which are purely atmospheric landscapes, Alder Grove-Tver touches on the relationship between man and nature. A boy and his dog are seated in the grove, although their presence is barely felt and they have been integrated into the composition as part of the landscape. One might speculate that Anisfeld, who spent his early years ‘in close communion with nature’ as he put it, has painted Alder Grove-Tver in memory of his own childhood and a celebration of a child’s immersion in the beauty of nature.