"In The Fields" Original Soviet-Era Oil Painting (1977)

Original Soviet-era oil painting by the artist Pavel S. Semyachkin (1923-2001). 

The piece measures 51" x 38" overall. 

Closed corner, gilded frame handcrafted by Richard Tobey.

This painting comes from our collection of original Soviet-era oil paintings. 

The history of Russian Impressionist painting is the tale of an extraordinary movement in the art of the twentieth century.  The concept of "Soviet Social Realism," a.k.a. Russian impressionism, emphasized the social role of art; it insisted on the superiority of content over form and required a wholesale return to traditional skills, regarding history and European art from the Renaissance as a living source of inspiration.

In the ensuing years, artists struggled between their duty to reflect the ideals of the State and developing their own stylistic repertoire as party leaders demanded that art should be "understood" by the average person. Somehow, Russian artists managed to perform a delicate balancing act between the requirements of "accepted" working class art by painting poetic scenes in which the worker, farmer, or monumental Russian industry are the primary subjects.

With the death of Stalin in 1953, the darker academic pallet began to lighten and the need to conform to rigid subjects eased. This was the beginning of what is known as the "Severe Style" of Social Realism. The fall of the Soviet Empire took with it the last of the social realist art form. By 1990, all that was left of Russian Impressionism was a body of work created in the five previous decades by a few masters and their progeny.

About Pavel S. Semyachkin:

Semyachkin was born in Siberia in the city of Omsk in 1923. In 1945, he entered the Saratov Art College. After his studies in 1947, he moved to Moscow and entered the Surikov Art Institute. In 1953, Semyachkin was awarded a "Master of Art". In 1958, he became a "Member of Artist's Union in RSFSR (USSR)," a high honorary title granted to artists in the Soviet Union. Semyachkin worked under request of the government creating portraits for Lenin, Kuibyushev, Frunze, and Gorky.