Stanislav Zhukovsky

The name of Stanislav Zhukovsky (1875–1944) is inseparably connected with the flourishing of lyrical landscape in the Silver Age of Russian culture. A student of Vasily Polenov and Isaac Levitan at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Zhukovsky developed the traditions of realistic landscape of the second half of the 19th century, enriching the domestic “mood landscape” with the achievements of Impressionism, asserted his own, unlike anyone else’s word in painting and showed himself as an outstanding colourist. He was interested in the states of nature on the verge of changing seasons and daytimes, creating many lyrical “moonlit nights”, “late snows”, “early springs” close to the images in national poetry and music. Images of golden autumn created by Zhukovsky are sonorous and festive in colour. Like Ivan Bunin, Anton Chekhov, Andrei Bely, in the years when the old manor culture, which had existed for several centuries, was vanishing, he more than any other Russian painter cared about the motifs of old noble estates. The estate landscapes in his interpretation sound either optimistic or are imbued with light melancholy, a premonition of loss and hardship of people of the early 20th century, the eve of revolutions and wars. Faithful to the landscape genre, Zhukovsky also created, although occasionally, but always successful portraits, still lifes and theatre scenery. In the late 1900s – early 1920s, the artist played an important role in the revival of the old estate interiors in Russian painting. Zhukovsky’s estate interiors are of great aesthetic and historical value, as they depict objects that were mostly irretrievably lost during the years of revolutions and wars.

Stanislav Zhukovsky actively contributed to exhibitions in Russia and abroad, but considered the annual events of the Society of Traveling Art Exhibitions held in both Russian capitals to be his priority.

Marked by brilliant mastery and sincere lyricism, Stanislav Zhukovsky’s works have not acquired a tinge of the old fashioned in the race of time and have not lost their relevance but continue to nourish contemporary Russian culture in a beneficial way. The exhibition dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth features his works of the 1890s – 1920s from the collections of the Russian Museum and the Isaak Brodsky Apartment and Museum (branch of the Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts), as well as number of private collections, St. Petersburg.