Vasily Vasilievich Rozhdestvensky

Structural Condition The canvas is lined and is securely attached to a keyed wooden stretcher. This is ensuring a stable structural support. Brown paper gum tape is covering the tacking and turnover edges. Paint Surface The paint surface has a relatively even varnish layer. There is evidence of an ingrained dirt layer which is particularly evident within the pale impastoed passages of the composition. There are a few scattered tiny paint losses and a slightly larger paint loss above the right part of the lower edge. There is a very small area of fragile and lifting paint within the black pigments towards the centre of the right edge. There are also scattered localised areas of fine lines of craquelure. These appear stable. The first few digits of the signature are faint. It would appear the upper layer of the paint film in these areas has delaminated in the past. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows a slightly discoloured and degraded varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light also shows small scattered areas of white fluorescence, most notably within the upper right quadrant of the composition. This appears to be attributable to residual adhesive from a previous consolidation treatment and Japanese tissue paper which may have been applied as a facing. There are intermittent retouchings on and close to the extreme edges of the composition, most notably the upper and lower edges, and two further small retouchings within the trees in the lower centre of the composition. There may be further retouchings which are not easily identifiable under ultra-violet light. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in good condition.
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‘The explosion of a great volcano’ was how Malevich described the first Knave of Diamonds exhibition in 1910, a dramatic contrast to the flat and eternal plain of a serene and decorative art as he put it, that favoured calm, lyrical landscapes, shepherds, rising Ukrainian moons, love songs and psychological portraits. Instead, these paintings ‘were like a multi-coloured flame’. Although Cézannist elements had been advancing gradually among Russians artists, wrote Malevich, the power of feeling which it unleashed was unprecedented. In a humourous chart drawn up by Kuprin in 1913 portraying the Knave of Diamonds as a planetary system, Rozhdestvensky is the ring around ‘Planet Konchalovsky’ (Saturn), which has an incomparably greater magnetic pull thanks to its size, mass, volume and density. Though the two artists incorporated French influences in their work very differently, Rozhdestvensky has all the vibrancy of Konchalovsky’s palette in these landscapes of 1920.

The son of a priest, Rozhdestvensky moved to Moscow aged 16 to study at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he was taught by Serov, Korovin, Arkhipov and Pasternak. He travelled extensively in Russia and Central Asia after the war and participated in an impressive number of international exhibitions, throughout Europe as well as Japan and America.