Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon, 1875-1958

Ya.V. Apushkina, Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon, Moscow: Vsekokhudozhnik, 1936, illustrated p25
Yu. Osmolovsky, Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon, Moscow: Sovetsky Khudozhnik, 1982, p37, 227, 245; illustrated plate 32

Matchmakers’ Dance. Ligachevo is the finest composition by Yuon to have been offered on the market in recent history. This rare, figurative work is an enchanting celebration of youthful passion for life and reflects the artist’s own love of the Russian countryside.

Yuon moved to the suburb of Ligachevo, just outside Moscow, following his marriage in 1910. The offered work is from an important cycle of paintings depicting provincial life in Central Russia, which demonstrate Yuon at the peak of his stylistic maturity. His winter scenes in particular are considered to be amongst the best he ever produced.

Yuon found great inspiration in what he called the ‘culture of luminous painting’ practised by Cezanne and Van Gogh. It has been said that in Russian art snow plays the same role as water in French Impressionism and Yuon takes full advantage of the artistic possibilities in its treatment.

I would often find myself captivated by the music of the colour symphonies, created by the winter sunshine on this most sensitive and receptive of materials

He employs the Impressionists’ fresh, polychromatic approach in his vibrant colour scheme to convey the vitality and energy of the moment.

In his compositions from the 1910s a shift is noticeable in Yuon’s landscape painting towards the realisation of greater synthesis and harmony between man and his environment. This quality is unmistakable in the offered lot. Captured in the spontaneity of their revel, the figures dance across the canvas in a whirlwind of colours, the bright hues of their clothes reflected throughout the whole picture.

There is a great sense of theatricality to the composition and this is enhanced by the striking contrast between the near life-size figures dominating the foreground and the houses on the distant horizon. The fact that in 1912 Yuon was designing Diaghilev’s production of Boris Godunov suggests that when he painted Matchmaker’s Dance, Ligachevo, the theatre was very much on his mind.