Chaliapin

"We all come from our childhood," believed Fyodor Dostoevsky, and his statement is very applicable to the life story of Konstantin Korovin. The artist was born into a merchant family, once prosperous but completely ruined after his grandfather's death and therefore downgraded to the middle class. As a child, he did not immediately realise this and felt the family's tragedy, and was very glad when his parents had to move from a comfortable town house to a Moscow suburb where his father had found a job. Left to his own devices, he would spend the whole day hunting with his new friend Dubinin, his favourite dog Druzhok and a shot-gun offered to him by his father. Later, after returning to Moscow and joining his brother Sergei at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Korovin would continue to remember his life in the countryside, wishing to return there one day.