vetoslavsky Sergei Ivanovich
(Kiev 1857 - Kiev 1931)
Oriental Market Scene
Biography
Sergei Ivanovich Svetoslavsky was a Ukrainian painter of views and animated landscapes, close in style to Levitan (1860-1900).
He was born in Kiev and studied at the Moscow College between 1874 and 1882. He studied with Aleksej Kondratevic Savrasov (1830-1897), Vasilij Grigorievic Perov (1834-1882) and Vasili Dimitrevich Polenov (1844-1927).
His first independent work was From the Window of the Moscow School of Painting, 1878, and greatly impressed not only his tutors, but also the great collector of Russian painting, Pavel Tretyakov, who acquired the work for his collection. This particular painting had another important significance for Svetoslavsky in that it marked the beginning of a cycle of pictures, painted as if from the windows of different buildings in Moscow and Kiev. Svetoslavsky does not attempt to show the ceremonial forms of large cities, on the contrary his scenes are consciously ordinary and they frequently bear a feeling of compassion for the disorder of human, urban life.
Svetoslavsky exhibited with the Wanderers from 1884 and with the World of Art between 1900 and 1902. He later exhibited with the Union of Russian Artists. Svetoslavsky accomplished prolonged journeys through the Ukraine and the Caucasus, creating works that captured unique outskirts of what was then known as the Russia Empire. Unfortunately, from 1920 his eyesight deteriorated and prevented him from creating further works.