Pavel Fedotov essay

The life and art of Pavel Fedotov were integrally connected with the time in which he lived. A man of vision and an artist of an unusual talent, he created a comprehensive picture of his own day.

Fedotov was born in Moscow in 1815, into the family of a retired officer. His Moscow experiences were later on materialized in his works, although most of the painter’s life was spent in St. Petersburg.

Having graduated from the Moscow cadet School, Fedotov served for ten years in the Finland Regiment of the Imperial Guards in St. Petersburg. In 1844, he retired and devoted himself entirely to painting. At one time Fedotov attended the evening classes at the Academy of Fine Arts. While in the army, he gained a reputation of a regiment painter by his portraits of officers and regiment scenes. He had a tremendous success at the Academy Exhibition of 1849. Later, after the trial of the Petrashevsky social democratic group with which he was closely associated, Fedotov found himself in isolation. In 1852, after a period of suffering he died in a mental clinic.

Fedotov’s creative work covers a rather short period of time, from 1844 through 1852. That was the time which was very significant for Russian art. Fedotov’s paintings manifested the beginning of the critical realism, the trend that was to live a long life in Russian art. In his genre compositions, the «Newly Decorated» (1846) and he «Difficult Bride» (1847), the artist portrays life full of contrasts and contradictions which he brings to the spectator’s verdict. The supreme achievement of the «genre period» in Fedotov’s painting is the «Major’s Marriage Proposal» (1848). Combining the dramatic and amusing aspects of the event, Fedotov managed to find expression for the sardonic humor, so peculiar to his talent. In the «Major’s Marriage Proposal» we find the concentration of all the problems the painter was concerned with. The characters of the painting – the major, the merchant and his wife – shaped by life itself are painted by Fedotov with care and delicacy. Actually, they are not evil, and the painter places them in the setting of beautiful things and gives the picture an air of harmonious perfection. The essence of Fedotov’s approach to art was to reconstruct the ugly behind the beautiful and to expose the true nature of the society. In his painting, the artist created a refined color scheme with intricate color merges which give the canvas a porcelain-like quality. In the «Major’s Marriage Proposal», Fedotov reveals the synthesis of various arts – literature, painting, and theatre – typical of Russian culture in the mid -1800’s. The picture has a certain similarity with the prose and theatrical works by Gogol and Ostrovsky. In no less degree this synthesis manifests itself in the «Aristocrat’s Breakfast» (1849-1850).

In the late 1840’s, Fedotov concentrated his effort on portraits. He painted many small portraits, mostly of his friends or their relatives.

In the end of his life, Fedotov produced his, probably, best works: the «Encore, Once More, Encore!» (1851-1852) and the «Gamblers» (1852). They were followed by the three versions of the «Young Widow» at which Fedotov was also working in the early 1850’s.
Fedotov’s significance for the history of Russian art can hardly be overestimated. His paintings, both satirical and poetic, belong to the best achievements of our national art.