“His distinctiveness... is intact”

The solo show of Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov, titled “Artist the Sorcerer”, dedicated to the artist’s 160th anniversary, is being held at the Tretyakov Gallery in the “Year of France in Russia”, and its mirror event, “Russia in France”. Although unplanned, this overlap is extremely natural. It would be hard to find another artist of the second half of the 19th-the early 20th centuries whose oeuvre reflects Russo-French connections as naturally as Pokhitonov.

Some of his contemporary critics even questioned his identity as a Russian artist. One of them, writing under the pen-name “Sad Jardin”, opined in an article in 1918: “...For us, Russians, Pokhitonov is essentially a French artist; and not only for us. It will be the French section to which his art will be assigned. by future art historians”.¹ Pokhitonov, on his part, wrote in 1896 in a letter to Pavel Tretyakov: “Whatever you say, I am a Russian artist after all, and it makes me sad to think how small and barely noticeable is the trace I am to leave behind in my homeland”.² These words are a veritable cri du coeur of an outstanding artist who wants to be understood and recognized by his fellow citizens. Pokhitonov, with his congenital distaste for what he called “self-contained systems”,³ was, as Leo Tolstoy called him, a “natural born” artist whose “distinctiveness is intact”.⁴

The exhibition features the painter’s landscapes, pieces mixing landscape and genre, still-lifes and portraits from the funds of the Tretyakov Gallery and the collection of Otar Margania of Moscow, who responded to the Gallery’s proposal to take part in the anniversary show. The works on display showcase the universe of an artist who had a deep appreciation of the beauty and poetry of nature, and a faculty for conveying, through images, all the diversity and richness of the scenery of different countries, the poetry of everyday life of Russian, French and Belgian peasants, residents of the suburbs, artisans and hunters.

Pokhitonov arrived in Paris in 1877, at the age of 27, to study art professionally. Prior to that, this native son of Kherson province finished a private boarding school and a gymnasium in Nikolaev, studied for a couple of years at the Petrovsko-Razumovskaya Academy of Farming and Forestry in Moscow, and at the natural sciences department of the Novorossiisk University in Odessa, and worked as a cash register inspector at the Odessa State Bank. He then had to quit that job, as his sick father needed his help in managing their Matryonovka estate, where the artist was born and spent his childhood.

From infancy Pokhitonov was keen on drawing and painted with watercolour and oil. Pursuing his artistic interests with no outside help, he copied lithographs whose subjects he fancied and painted from nature Ukrainian little huts and the steppes around Kherson, as well as his family and friends. A major turnaround in his life occurred when he saw the 5th show of the Society of Traveling Art Exhibitions (the Wanderers, or “Peredvizhniki”) in 1876 in Elizavetgrad. The art of the “Peredvizhniki” left an indelible mark on the talented autodidact’s mind; he had visions of himself participating in such a show sometime in the future⁵, but there was no way to achieve this without a professional education, and he decided to do his study in Paris. At that time he could hardly imagine that, for a variety of reasons, he would stay there much longer than initially planned.

In Paris he joined a circle of resident Russian artists, writers and public figures who founded a Society for Mutual Assistance and Philanthropy of Russian Artists the year he came to the city. The founders included Mark Antokolsky, Alexei Bogolyubov, Ivan Turgenev, and Horatius Gintzburg. Pokhitonov became actively involved in the Society’s activities, and this opened up for him an opportunity to make new acquaintances in artistic circles, in particular, to visit Pauline Viardot’s salon, where he met the greatest French intellectuals and cultural figures. He became familiar with different art trends and carefully studied landscapes by the artists from the Barbizon School. The nonpareil talent of Pokhitonov, who was highly sensitive to the smallest nuances in nature, as well as his uniquely keen eyesight, which made it possible for him to take up miniature painting, then popular in Europe, and his great industry, outgoing manner and kindliness attracted to him the Society members. The sculptor Ilya Gintsburg wrote in his “Memoir”: “.whom I liked most then — it was the young (his popularity as an artist still in the making) Pokhitonov — tall, his looks unattractive, with a huge bushy tousle of hair and eyes set wide apart. For all his admiration for the French landscape artist, he more than the others remained Russian in soul. His modesty and simplicity prepossessed everyone in his favour”.⁶

At that time the artist started studying painting under Alexei Bogolyubov, a teacher by vocation who always warmly and enthusiastically welcomed Russian artists coming to Paris. One would assume that the tutor — an enthusiast of plein air painting and an admirer of the Barbizon artists — advised Pokhitonov to learn diligently to paint in the open air. From the late 1870s and throughout the 1880s Barbizon and its environs became Pokhitonov’s favourite painting site. He was eager not only to study the works of the Barbizon artists, which he could see in studios and private collections, but also to master their style. The show features one of his landscapes created in Barbizon — “After a Sunset. Barbizon” (1889, Tretyakov Gallery) — an emotionally expressive image of the transient state of nature in the light of the setting sun.

A couple of years prior to Pokhitonov’s arrival in Paris, in 1875, Bogolyubov initiated the creation of a Parisian Ceramics Workshop of Russian Artists, which operated until the early 1880s. It proved a great success. Pokhitonov’s anniversary exhibition is the first public display of six plates, from Margania’s collection⁷, featuring the artist’s drawings and signatures and fired in a kiln at the Workshop. Unassuming and with simple clear narratives, the plates introduce us to Pokhitonov’s early foray into landscape art.

As early as in 1878 his landscapes were for the first time admitted to an exhibition at the Salon des Champs-Elysees — a regular show that was a trend setter for Parisian artists the 1870s. The display of Pokhitonov’s works there immediately made him popular among Parisian art connoisseurs.

In 1882 Pokhitonov, together with Bogolyubov, was offered to represent Russian art at one of the series of Expositions Internationales de Peinture (International Exhibitions of Paintings) which, organized at a Champs-Elysees gallery by George Petit, was intended to bring together the best European painters. Some of the most distinguished critics of the time — Albert Wolf in “Le Figaro”, Emile Bergerat in “Voltaire”, Jules Claretie in “Le Temps” — singled out Pokhitonov’s paintings in their reviews. They wrote that he was a nonpareil artist, a first-rank talent deserving attention. Most critics emphasized the sense of vastness of space conveyed by the artist in paintings of a very small size⁸.

In 1882 Pokhitonov started working on a portrait of Ivan Turgenev, who was by then already seriously ill. The writer’s journal has an entry: “Besides, Pokhitonov is working on a portrait — it comes out very good and indeed resembles me. Here is a real master! He brought and showed to me and Viardot paintings he made last summer — charming.”⁹ Turgenev’s portrait was one of Pokhitonov’s first works to be acquired by Pavel Tretyakov.

The artist had a special gift for deeply understanding the life of nature and its close connections with the life of people, which enabled him to create deeply realistic and at the same time affectingly poetic and lyrical landscapes. It needs to be said that these qualities were also characteristic of Russian lyrical mood-focused landscapes of the 1880s-1900s, like the works ofAlexei Savrasov, Vasily Polenov and Isaac Levitan. But Pokhitonov’s pieces, very small in size — so called “mignons”¹⁰ — had the elegance typical of miniatures, as well as the austere beauty of composition and the richness and pinpoint precision of colour design characteristic of French art. It was these features of Pokhitonov’s artwork that the critic Sad Jardin pointed to: “. He has ... an infinite sobriety, wonderful sense of proportion, extreme accuracy, inner integrity, limpidity and light — both artistic and moral, if we may say so. And these are typical French qualities. They indicate Pokhitonov’s close affinity with the Barbizon School, whose masters, incidentally, he knew in his youth, when he came to Paris.”¹¹

Pokhitonov had extraordinary success in Paris. The newspaper critics wrote that Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier, then at the peak of his fame, admired Pokhitonov’s talent; more than once Pokhitonov was called “a Russian Meissonier” or “a Meissonier of landscape painting”.¹²

News about Pokhitonov’s success reached Russia too, as evidenced by the fact that Alexander III commissioned from him, in 1881, several murals with views of sites in Bulgaria where the Russian Army had fought against the Turks in 1877-1878.

In Paris in the 1880s Pokhitonov lived for a while in Montmartre in the home of Eugene Anatole Carriere, whose workshop he later took over. Ilya Repin wrote about that period in Pokhitonov’s life: “In Paris, in the 1880s, artists fancied a cite on the hills of Montmartre as a place to live in. The residents included [Georges Jules Victor] Clairin (a friend of [Jean-Baptiste] Regnault), [Jules] Bastien-Lepage, [Eugene Anatole] Carriere, our Pokhitonov and others. They met, had discussions. They believed perseverance was the main and undeniable sign of talent in an artist. With a more elaborate taste, he sinks his teeth into his work so deeply that there is no tearing him off before he achieves what he wants. Sometimes this can go on for very long: form eludes him; but a true talent won’t back down until he hits the mark.”¹³

Working at this time mostly in France, Pokhitonov did not sever ties with his homeland, and returned there regularly in summer. During one such visit he created a piece “Wedding in Matryonovka” (1880, private collection). The painting features a crowd of merry-making villagers in holiday clothes “inscribed” within the setting of an endless steppe in Kherson — the scene looks like an islet of happiness amidst the course of the villagers’ plain living. The artist left but a few multi-figure genre compositions — this one is an early specimen and, perhaps, the closest to the genre pieces of the “Peredvizhniki”.

Other works by Pokhitonov work accomplished in Russia, like “In the South of Russia. Sheep in a Pasture” (1885, Tretyakov Gallery), have a different style, closer to his Barbizon pieces. The motif chosen by the artist — a herd of sheep resting at night in a remote pasture in a steppe — attracted him with the combination of moonlight and the greenish-grey night lighting engulfing the land, the herd, and the herdsman’s little hut.

A Wanderers (“Peredvizhniki”) show in 1882 featured Pokhitonov’s portrait by Ilya Repin, which captured very accurately not only the sitter’s appearance but also his inner world, his “pure, kind soul”¹⁴, as Repin described him. This is the impression Pokhitonov and his art produced on many who came into contact with him. Vasily Polenov wrote about his meeting with Pokhitonov in Paris in 1889: “Yesterday I visited Pokhitonov in his studio and stayed there until two. I like him very much, he has an artistic intuition, and he is no mannerist as I’ve thought — on the contrary, he lovingly seeks the truth.”¹⁵

Pokhitonov’s style matured in the 1880s, to remain basically unchanged throughout his later life. He painted on small specially-primed plaques of redwood or lemon wood, with fine, sometimes miniscule, brushes, applied paints with accurate little dabs, plied palette-knives, fish bones and lancets, and used magnifiers and special double-glass spectacles¹⁶. Utilizing all these instruments, he achieved an all-round perfection of his pictures while preserving “the freshness of a first impression”.

Pokhitonov’s techniques remained a mystery for many. “This is the artist who is a sorcerer; the work so masterfully, so craftfully done; there is no way to figure out how he paints... A sorcerer!”¹⁷ — said Repin about his art. Pavel Tretyakov recognized Pokhitonov’s original talent: he bought 23 of his pictures in all.

The present show features several landscapes made by the artist during his travels in Pau, a community in the southwest of France by the river Gave de Pau. The earliest among them was created in 1885, “Early Spring. Pau. Laundrywomen on a Bank of the Gave de Pau” (in the Tretyakov Gallery). The painting that the artist considered his most “satisfying”¹⁸ piece features a plain carefully-balanced composition with an elaborately-arranged foreground, middle ground and background, which produces a strong sense of the depth of the clear far-reaching open space softly lit by a vernal sun. The foreground features landrywomen on the bank, working and merrily chatting with each other. Through the carefully-crafted colour scheme and the refined mixes of colours the artist conveyed the gleeful mood of nature and people in early spring.

The show features several hunting scenes created by Pokhitonov at different times in Russia, France and Belgium. These pictures portray the soul of the artist emotionally, as a keen hunter and a person in love with nature, their images evoking the mood of Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter”, Pokhitonov’s favourite book. The hunting pieces include “A Hunter in Winter” (1890, Tretyakov Gallery), “Hunting” (1887), “Hunters with Dogs” (1888), “Hunting” and “Hunter” (1890s), “Hunters at Rest Amidst Wild Grass in a Steppe” (1915, all from a private collection).

In 1891 Pokhitonov went to Italy, staying there for eight months in the town of Torre del Greco at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, where he painted many landscapes depicting the beauty and natural diversity of the “land of the noontide”. The show features two pictures from Italy — “Vesuvius” (Tretyakov Gallery) and “A Slope of Mount Vesuvius” (from a private collection). Pokhitonov’s plein air painting reached perfection at that time, the artist conveying not only the sunlight and the play of reflexes from the rays of sun, but also the fluctuations of a light-filled air.

In summer 1892 Pokhitonov moved to Belgium, where he first settled in Jupille near Liege, and later in a suburb of Liege named Bressoux, not far from Jupille. In 1894 he created two works now at the Tretyakov Gallery: “Trou-Louette. A Winter Day. Manured Field under Snow” and “Trou-Louette in Winter”. The exhibition also features two pictures from a private collection: “The Artist’s Garden in Bressoux, a Suburb of Liege” and “Snare for Sparrows. (Effect of snow)”. In these pictures every little inch of the image of the snow is painstakingly crafted. With an unbelievable thoroughness and affection the artist conveyed not only the resplendent dazzlingly white mantle of snow shining in the light of the morning sun, as in the paintings “Trou-Louette in Winter” or “The Plain of Bressoux under Snow”, but also the crumbly, dim-grey, damp melting snow, which street cleaners shovel aside from a street on a grey drab day, as in the picture “Snow in Pau” (1890, Tretyakov Gallery).

Pokhitonov combined romantic pantheism with the thoroughness and objectivity of a natural scientist. Living in a suburb of Liege and able to constantly watch his surroundings at different times of a day or a year, the painter studied the slightest changes in the life of nature. With the ease of a magician, he could convey in his paintings the bracing freshness of frosty air, the coolness of a springtime breeze, and even the smells of a garden in summer heat or in autumn. One such picture, “A Suburb of Liege” (from the late 1890s), depicts the marks of nature’s autumnal withering on a summer-like bright, sunny day with grass and shrubs still green.

The landscapes created in Bressoux most often depict people doing their unhurried everyday work, as in the picture “Trou-Louette. Early Spring” (1895, Tretyakov Gallery). Sometimes the landscapes are void of people while having a lived-in look thanks to individual details that indicate the proximity of human beings. These details include a clothes lines with clothes in “Trou-Louette. Autumn Evening” (1895, Tretyakov Gallery) or a section of a fence in a garden in “Trou-Louette in Winter” (1894, Tretyakov Gallery). But what is essential for the sense of a human presence in the pictures is their overwhelming mood resonating with the emotions of human beings.

In the 1890s Pokhitonov focused ever more frequently on genre pieces, with human images getting larger. People’s faces, poses and gestures became more pronounced, their occupations and emotions easier to guess. These new qualities, in such paintings as “Laundrywomen” (1894, Tretyakov Gallery) and “Springtime. Landscape with Two Figures” (1890s, in a private collection), lend an additional sense of vivacity and authenticity to the scene.

Pokhitonov painted not only the suburbs of Liege, but also views of a health resort La Panne in Belgium. The artist normally came to that town in summer, and lived and worked there for long spells of time in the 1890s, 1906-1913 and in the early 1920s. He captured his impressions from La Panne in several landscapes, such as “La Panne. A Sunset amid Sand-hills” and “La Panne. A Beach” (both at the Tretyakov Gallery, 1895), “La Panne. At the Edge of a Beach” (1890s), “Sea Coast. La Panne”, “A Small Sand-hill in the Evening”, “La Panne. Evening is Coming”, “After a Sunset. La Panne”, “A View from La Panne” (all made in the 1890s-1900s, from a private collection). The images portray the tender play of pearly colours of the sea and the velvety sand coast, the finest gradations of infinitely changing colours of the sky, and the mutable colouring of the sea. In these pieces colour is distinguished by a special limpidity and transparence.

With the passing of the years Pokhitonov began to think increasingly more often about his Russian identity as an artist and to feel the need for a more active involvement in Russian cultural life. In the late 1890s he felt he wanted to stay in his homeland for a longer period of time and came to Russia in 1901. In 1902 he bought a small estate called Zhabovshchizna, several dozen kilometers outside Minsk. Images of peasants’ steady-paced work continued to be one of his key subjects, and the focus of two of his “autumnal” landscapes — “Fence at the Edge of Zhabovshchizna” (1904, Tretyakov Gallery) and “At the Edge of a Village. Early Autumn” (early 1900s, from a private collection). Pokhitonov also focused on his another favorite genre, winter landscapes. These include “In Winter” (1900s, Tretyakov Gallery), an image of trees whose snow- and hoarfrost-coated limbs look more like lace, as well as the landscape “Snow” (1904, private collection) featuring an immense vastness of the fields under a pure white snow blanket. His attention was also captured by vernal thaw-holes in the soil and the first tender shoots of grass growing through them, as well as buds swelling on trees: “Early Spring. Thaw-holes”, “Thaw near a Cowshed, a Watering hole, Springtime” (early 1900s, all in private collections).

By that time some of Pokhitonov’s works had already been acquired by different museums and private collectors. Miniature painting was gradually gaining popularity in Russia, and in 1903 the artist participated in an exhibition called “Mignon” organized by the “Peredvizhniki” artists in St. Petersburg. In 1904 Pokhitonov was awarded the title of full member of the Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1905, after having displayed his works at the “Peredvizhniki” shows for many years, he became a member of the group.

In the summer of the same year the artist visited Leo Tolstoy’s estate at Yasnaya Polyana, creating several views of the place, as well as the writer’s portrait, and many portrait sketches. Tolstoy and Pokhitonov talked a lot, discussing vital issues of politics and art.
In January 1906 the painter left Zhabovshchizna and returned to Belgium, settling in Jupille. He continued to work a lot, with street scenes, such as “Bowling” (1910s, private collection), becoming one of his themes of choice at that time. In “Bowling” the artist captured poses and gestures with the precision of a genre painter. At that time he often preferred to concentrate only on views from his country home, like “View of Koksijde. La Panne” (early 1920s, private collection).

The artist’s exceptionally keen vision continued to serve him well, and he imaged vast expanses of open space seen from his windows. He also pictured his garden in Jupille, with garden pieces including “Summer Day” (1911), depicting plants in the garden and, amongst them, a woman who seems to be melting amid the odours and the revel of colours, as well as “Apple Trees in a Garden in Jupille” (1913, both from private collections), featuring trees in early autumn. Brightly lit by the sun, the images seem injected with a warm air and lingering memories of the summer.

“Apple Trees in a Garden in Jupille” was one of the last paintings Pokhitonov accomplished before returning to Russia in late 1913, where he stayed when war broke out. Residing in St.Petersburg, he visited Zhabovshchizna, his homeland in Kherson, and the Kuban.

The style and motifs of Pokhitonov’s pictures were now gaining popularity in Russia. In 1911 the Lemercier Gallery displayed some 60 of his works, and in 1915 and 1917 Pokhitonov exhibited his works at the “Peredvizhniki” shows; in 1916, the 3rd Show of Sketches and Pictures featured 11 of his pieces. One would think that the artist’s old dream had come true and his oeuvre had found its niche in Russian cultural life. But the force of circumstances would again drive him away from Russia.

In 1917, after the February Revolution, he left St. Petersburg for Ukraine, and then moved to the Kuban, before leaving Russia for good in 1919. In the year of his departure he lived in a Cossack village, Krasny Kliuch. Filled with joy and appreciation of the sweetness of life, the landscapes accomplished in the village depict people working in a garden, a kitchen garden or a field. The images have not a single sign of the deprivations suffered by the artist.

In Belgium Pokhitonov settled in Brussels with his family in the early 1920s, and he focused on landscape views of the city’s suburbs. The paintings from that series such as “Side-street in a Distant Borough. Boitsfort”, “Springtime Works in La Hulpe” (early 1920s) manifest the painter’s keen interest in Impressionism. The Impressionist influence shows itself in the way the artist renders colour, light and air, and in his concentration on plein air effects.

The artist worked right up to his death: he died in Brussels at the age of 72.

In a letter to Pokhitonov in 1896 Repin wrote: “I always admire your magnificent pictures — they will forever remain on the scroll of our art. I believe they clearly reflect your pure, kind soul.”’8 This judgment draws a line under the debate about the artist’s national identity. He was undoubtedly a “natural born” Russian artist with a perfect grasp of the newest achievements of European art, which translated into his own original painterly technique based on the high standards he set for his artwork.

In recent years the master’s elegant and lyrical pictures have been steadily gaining in popularity — yet another “Pokhitonov phenomenon”, along with the unprecedented success of his paintings at the shows in Paris in the late 1870s and throughout the 1880s.

1. Translation of selected excerpts from the article in Russian signed “Sad Jardin", 1918. Catalogue of post-mortem show of Pokhitonov in 1925. Ivan Pokhitonov. “Artist the sorcerer". Dedicated to the 160th anniversary of Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov. 1850-1923. Moscow, 2010. P. 159.
2. Ivan Pokhitonov to Pavel Tretyakov. January 20 1896. Department of Manuscripts of the State Tretyakov Gallery. Fund 1. Item 2745. Sheet 1.
3. More information in: Markevich, IB. “Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov". Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov. 1850-1923. Catalogue. Moscow, 1963. P. 7.
4. Zilbershtein, I.S. “The artist Ivan Pokhitonov visits Leo Tolstoy. Finds from Paris". Ogonyok. 1978. No. 37. P. 20.
5. “Vasily Polenov to Natalya Vasilevna Polenova. Paris, October 12/24, 1889". Sakharova, Ye.V. Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov, Yelena Dmitrievna Polenova. Chronicle of the artist's family. Moscow, 1964. P. 443.
6. Grebeniuk, V.A. Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov. Moscow, 1973. P. 10.
7. Further in the text, location of works from Margania's collection is either indicated as “private collection" or not indicated at all.
8. Markevich, I.B. “Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov". Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov. 1850-1923. Catalogue. Moscow, 1963. P. 8.
9. Grebeniuk, V.A. Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov. Moscow, 1973. P. 22.
10. From the French word mignon - tiny.
11. Translation of selected excerpts from the article in Russian signed “Sad Jardin”, 1918. Catalogue of post-mortem show of Pokhitonov in 1925. Op.cit. P. 159.
12. Grebeniuk, V.A. Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov. Moscow, 1973. P. 20.
13. Repin, Ilya. “Valentin Alexandrovich Serov (materials for a biography)”. Valentin Serov: memoirs about him and correspondence. Vol. 1. Leningrad, 1971. P. 31.
14. Zilbershtein, I.S. “The artist Ivan Pokhitonov visits Leo Tolstoy. Finds from Paris”. Ogonyok. 1978. No. 37. P. 20.
15. “Vasily Polenov to Natalia Vasilevna Polenova. Paris, October 12/24, 1889”. Sakharova, Ye.V. Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov, Yelena Dmitrievna Polenova.. Chronicle of the artist's family. Moscow, 1964. P. 443.
15. Grebeniuk, V.A. Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov. Moscow, 1973. P. 50.
16. Baksheev, V.N. A memoir. Moscow, 1963. P. 71.
17. Ivan Pokhitonov to Pavel Tretyakov. March 26/14, 1895. Department of Manuscripts of the State Tretyakov Gallery. Fund 1. Item 2744. Sheet 1.
18. Zilbershtein, I.S. “The artist Ivan Pokhitonov Visits Leo Tolstoy. Finds from Paris". Ogonyok magazine. 1978. No. 37. P. 20.

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