Peasants practically did not appear in the paintings of Russian artists until the beginning of the 19th century. After Peter the Great’s reforms, there was a huge cultural gap between the upper and lower classes of society. The lack of rights of serfs also did not contribute to the interest of the nobility – the main customers of works of art – to see peasants as the main characters in the plot on canvases.

This situation partly changed after the victory over Napoleon in 1812. During this period, Russian society recognized itself as a single nation, and in military caricatures, the people were usually depicted as simple peasants. Artists appeared who depicted peasant life in a romantic vein. The most prominent of them was Alexei Venetsianov, Borovikovsky’s favorite student. He is considered the founder of the genre of everyday life in Russia. Venetsianov worked on his estate, depicting his own serfs. The artist poeticizes their life: instead of exhausting labor, he shows moments of pleasant rest.

Abolition of Serfdom and the Revolt of the Itinerants

A new wave of interest in the peasant theme in painting occurred in the 1850s, largely due to the publication of Turgenev’s Sketches of a Hunter. But the most serious changes occurred in the early 1860s. In 1861, serfdom was abolished, and the problem of social injustice became more pressing than ever. At the same time, society’s demands on works of art changed. In addition to aesthetics, they were expected to have moral content and social issues. The result of the new approach to creativity was a revolt by graduates of the Academy of Arts. They demonstratively refused to paint a mythological plot for a gold medal. Instead, democratically minded young artists founded the Society of the Itinerants and began to develop the genre of everyday life.

Vasily Perov, one of the founders of the Society, became a vocal critic of social injustice. In the first years after the abolition of serfdom, his paintings were like an accusatory sermon. Then they become calmer, but peasant life still appears sad and joyless.

Another artist from the Society of the Itinerants is Vasily Maksimov. He graduated from the Academy of Arts 3 years later than the famous group of 14 rebels, but followed their example and also refused the competition for a large gold medal. The award could have been a trip abroad, but Maksimov decided to dedicate his work to the poor Russian village. He was a peasant by origin, knew rural life well and depicted ordinary people – sometimes in a realistic manner, and sometimes as the embodiment of the best features of the Russian character.

Vladimir Makovsky also created a series of works dedicated to everyday peasant life. But these are paintings of a completely different nature, because the artist studied with a successor of the Venetian school. Exhibiting together with the Itinerants, Makovsky was simultaneously an academician and then the rector of the Academy of Arts. His paintings are bright and cheerful.

The heyday of the peasant theme in Russian painting falls on the 60-80s of the 19th century. After that, the image of the people as the bearer of universal moral values ​​inspired artists more than once – from Repin to Malevich. But the image of the Russian peasant no longer acquired its former significance and relevance.