Venetsianov School

a group of Russian painters of the second quarter of the 19th century, students of the artist A. G. Venetsianov, who taught in St. Petersburg and in the village of Safonkovo, Tver’ Province. The best known are N. S. Krylov (1802-31), A. V. Tyranov (1808-59), E. F. Krendovskii (1810 to after 1853), L. K. Plakhov (1810-81), A. A. Alekseev (1811-78), A. G. Denisov (1811-34), S. K. Zarianko (1818-70), and G. V. Soroka (1823-64). In keeping with their teacher’s principles, the artists of the Venetsianov school depicted the life of the democratic strata of society (Sailors in a Cobbler’s Shop, by A. G. Denisov, 1832, Russian Museum, Leningrad) and painted city and rural landscapes (Fishermen: View of Molodino Lake, by G. V. Soroka, 1840’s, Russian Museum), interiors (Workshop of A. G. Venetsianov, by A. A. Alekseev, 1827, Russian Museum), and still lifes (Reflection in a Mirror, by G. V. Soroka [?], 1840’s, Russian Museum). Venetsianov’s works are distinguished by the poetic spontaneity with which they represent life around him. From the mid-1830’s the work of some of the artists of the Venetsianov school, in particular of K. P. Brullov, lost its democratic and intimate character under the influence of academic art, and became superficially effective and naturalistic (the portrait of N. V. Sokurova by S. K. Zarianko, 1854, Russian Museum). The work of the Venetsianov school marks an important stage in the establishment of realism in the Russian art of the first half of the 19th century.