Empties by Illarion Pryanishnikov. (Photo/China Daily)
Beijing show shines a light on Pavel Tretyakov, a leading figure in the Russian art movement.
Echoes from the Volga River is an exhibition that seeks to showcase masters of Peredvizhniki, or the Itinerants, as the group founded by Russian realistic artists was once known.
The ongoing show at Beijing's National Museum of China highlights the life and times of Pavel Tretyakov (1832-98), a leading patron of the Itinerant movement, although many Chinese are likely unfamiliar with his name.
Some 64 paintings of the Peredvizhniki group are on display at the exhibition that was curated from Tretyakov's collections.
The merchant-cum-art connoisseur was responsible for building the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Gallery director Zelphira Tregulova describes the displayed works in Beijing as representing the finest of Peredvizhniki art from among those housed at his Moscow-based museum.
Born to a merchant's family, Pavel and his younger brother, Sergei, helped out with their father Mikhail's textile shops at an early age. After his father died in 1850, Pavel inherited the business and expanded it.
It was during this time that his fondness for art grew. He started to buy art in 1853 from a market, where he often bought books.
Initially, he bought some Dutch oil paintings, but gradually his preference for Russian painters started to show. In 1856, he bought Skirmish with Finnish Smugglers by Vasily Khudyakov and Temptation by Nikolay Shilder. The two paintings are considered the beginning of Tretyakov's deeper engagement with Russian artists that led to the creation of the Tretyakov gallery.
Tretyakov went on to collect more paintings in the following years. It is believed that he first thought about establishing a national gallery of Russian paintings around 1860. That year, he stated in a will: "I bequeath the sum of 150,000 silver rouble for the foundation of an art museum or a public picture gallery in Moscow ..."
Tretyakov purchased many realist paintings that stood as testaments of the artists' sympathy for the oppressed. The collection includes Drowned Woman from 1867, in which its creator Vasily Perov, a founding member of the Peredvizhniki, used a young woman's tragedy to criticize authorities' indifference to ordinary people.
His collection of such paintings shows his concern for social issues. He also stated in his will that he would leave several thousand rouble for poor women to get married.
