Song of Spring

An outstanding landscape artist Leonard Turzhansky studied under Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Like Korovin, Nikolai Krymov, and Nikolai Klodt, Turzhansky was a member of the Union of Russian Artists. Turzhansky was involved in the literary and art association Sreda along with his close friend and fellow artist Pyotr Petrovichev.

‘Poet of the Village and Outskirts’, Leonard Turzhansky incorporates motifs drawn from daily life. Each work shows a view through the window out onto wooden huts, dilapidated country roads, horses at pasture, and reddish clots of freshly-ploughed earth. His favourite – horizontal – approach to his paintings’ format offers a panorama of that ordinary unhurried life which inspired the artist. Layers of soft snow blanketing the fields, fences and thawed paths leading to the village on the hill, the low sky with tufts of clouds – all creates a lyrical sense speaking to the inherent authenticity of this experience. A narrow colour palette comprising early and grey tones is used as a tuning fork in this highly emotive perception of nature. The heavy sketch approach taken to the settling drifts and dark line of the horizon show nature reluctantly shaking off its winter blanket. The damp air and drowsy numbness of this world creates a sense of homelessness, making the viewer shiver. But the sun’s rays shining out from behind the clouds, blindingly bright on the rooftops, give rise to the hope that spring will come, and that it is slowly driving out the long dark nights. Their still-timid rays warm our spirits, open us up to a world ready to be filled with colour. The uniform bold brushstrokes expressively used to build shapes up enhance the sense of this awakening, the first signs of which are the cheerful magpies with their shining plumage.