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KLODT, Mikhail Konstantinovich
Russian painter (1832-1902)
* 1832 (1833), - † 1902, St. Petersburg
Mikhail Klodt was a descendant of an art dynasty. His father was an engraver, his uncle was a sculptor, and his cousin was also a painter. Klodt studied at the Institute of Mining Engineers where drawing was taught, and later at the Academy of Arts (1851–1858). After receiving the Great Gold Medal, Klodt left on a pensioner’s trip across Germany, Switzerland and France (1858–1861). Upon his return, he lived and worked in St. Petersburg, and traveled to Russian provinces. Klodt was a professor and a member of the Academy of Arts Council. He was a founding member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions in 1870, but left its ranks in 1880. However, he continued to display his landscapes at exhibitions put on by the Association.
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Cows at a Watering-Place
1871
oil on canvas
34 x 51 cm
Samara Art Museum
Cows at a Watering-Place is a copy by the painter of the landscape he submitted to the first travelling exhibition of 1871. The artist depicts a typical Central Russian landscape, opening up on a broad and distant perspective; in it, he has been able to render the slow pace of everyday rural life. The painter pays such special attention to details, that he comes close to naturalism. This overly careful attention to detail led to occasional criticism from some of his contemporaries.
On a Ploughed Field
1872
oil on canvas
71.0 x 131.2 cm
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Mikhail Klodt, like the other painters of the Itinerant movement, preferred rural landscapes. His are narrative, and they speak to us of the countryside, the people who live there, and the eternal work of the land. The silhouettes of peasant women are inserted so harmoniously into the painting that any motif, no matter how ordinary, can be taken to be a symbol of life, which continually renews itself. According to Klodt and his colleagues, the people and the land are the secular foundation, the roots and the essence of the Russian universe. The famous critic Stassov wrote that the painter “...was attempting simply to seize Russian nature in all its simplicity and discretion, without any pretension or pomposity...”.
