Sergei Korovin

Born Aug. 7 (19), 1858, in Moscow; died there Oct. 13 (26), 1908. Russian genre painter. Brother of K. A. Korovin.

From 1876 to 1886, Korovin studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture under V. G. Perov and I. M. Prianishnikov. He taught there from 1888 to 1907. A member of the Union of Russian Artists, Korovin continued the democratic traditions of the art of the peredvizhniki, or “wanderers” (Before the Punishment, 1884, Museum of the Revolution of the USSR, Moscow). In his most significant picture dealing with a peasant theme, The Peasant Community (1893, Tret’iakov Gallery), which is marked by a distinctive composition (high horizon, full-length figures in the central foreground, and partially concealed figures on the sides), humanistic and critical tendencies are intensified by a sense of acute psychological conflict and a deep social analysis of the class stratification of the Russian countryside after the Emancipation.

After 1895, Korovin’s genre scenes were marked by elements of lyricism and an interest in the landscape. At the same time, the careful treatment of individual details that was characteristic of his early works gave way to a broad, sketchy painting technique (For Whitsunday, 1902, Tret’iakov Gallery). Of Korovin’s illustrations, his drawings for Gogol’s novella The Overcoat are particularly noted for their expressiveness and tragic element (1900-08, Tret’iakov Gallery and the Russian Museum).