Sychkov Fedot Vasilyevich (1870-1958) - famous Russian artist. He is an Honored Worker of the Mordovian ASSR, Honored Artist of the RSFSR, People's Artist of the Mordovian ASSR.
F.V. Sychkov was born on March 13, 1870 in the village. Kochelaevo, Mordovia, in a poor peasant family. He became interested in drawing and painting at an early age. During his stay in his native village, he worked in an icon-painting workshop and created portraits of fellow villagers from photographs. After Fedot Vasilyevich painted the painting “Laying the Arapovo Station”, the director of the drawing school E. A. Sabaneev, who saw it, advised sending the young talent to St. Petersburg for professional painting training.
Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov went to Petersburg in 1892. Here he studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, as well as at the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts. He also took lessons from This training and his own talent as an extraordinary artist was enough to glorify his name throughout the country. Surprising in richness and emotionality, the paintings still make an indelible impression on the viewer. He painted ordinary people, peasants, children, everyday scenes from people's lives, rural holidays and so on. These stories were so familiar and understandable to the average viewer that the art of Fedot Sychkov became truly popular. His works have repeatedly participated in Russian and international exhibitions and have earned many awards and prizes. The great Russian artist died in Saransk in 1958. During his life he painted more than 700 paintings and over a thousand sketches.
Sychkov Fedot Vasilievich
Blonde coquette
Return from school
Return from the hayfield
Girl picking wild flowers
Girl in a blue scarf
Fedot Sychkov. Difficult transition. 1900-1910
In our time, few are familiar with the work of the most original artist Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov. And in the 1910s, his works were successful not only at exhibitions in Russia, but also at the Paris Salon, where they were eagerly bought up by art lovers who showed interest in the life and art of our country.
Peasant girls and young ladies F.V. Sychkov in popularity approached the hawthorns of Konstantin Makovsky, although the lives and paths in the art of the artists were polarly different.
Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov was born on March 1, 1870 into a poor peasant family in the village of Kochelaevo, Penza province. As a child, Fedot himself had to walk with his mother with a bag, because of which his peers teased him as a beggar.
Even then, the future painter decided to learn something useful in order to earn a living. Little Fedot wanted to study, but his mother was against it. Only thanks to the insistence of the grandmother of the eight-year-old Fedot was sent to study in a three-year zemstvo school. There, the teacher P.E. Dyumaev drew attention to the artistic inclinations of the boy and tried to develop them, passing on to him basic knowledge in the field of drawing and painting.
The artist's mother Anna Ivanovna Sychkova. 1898
A portrait created in the best traditions of democratic artists. In the silhouette of a small, slightly hunched figure, one feels crushed by life. This poignant note develops in a coloration sustained in a gray-black monochrome scale.
After graduating from school, Sychkov went to work in the Saratov province and stopped in the city of Serdobsk, where he worked in the icon-painting artel of D.A. Reshetnikov.
In 1892, he left for St. Petersburg, to the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts with the support of General I. A. Arapov (1844-1913), who drew attention to a talented young self-taught artist. In 1895, F. Sychkov graduated from the Drawing School and became a volunteer at the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts. After graduation, the artist returned to his homeland.
The main theme of the artist is the life of peasants, rural holidays.
Since 1960, the Mordovian Republican Museum of Fine Arts named after S. D. Erzya has housed a permanent exhibition of his works (the funds of this museum contain the largest collection of paintings and graphic works by Sychkov - about 600 works, including sketches and sketches).
In 1970, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding painter, an order was issued by the Ministry of Culture of the Mordovian ASSR to open a memorial museum in the artist's homeland. The house-museum of F. V. Sychkov was opened on March 11, 1970 in the village. Kochelaev after some reconstruction of the premises.
Folk festivals, skiing from the mountains, weddings, gatherings - this is far from a complete range of topics and motives that attracted the master. He managed to convey in the pictures the ingenuous amusements of the villagers.
The paintings are written easily and freely with the true skill of a genre painter. They are attracted by the brightness of the portrait characteristics of the heroes, the ability to plastically accurately compose multi-figure compositions, to find expressive poses and gestures that give a special emotional openness to the images.
In parallel with the main line devoted to the life and way of life of the peasantry, a second line developed in Sychkov's work in the 1900s - this line is associated with a ceremonial commissioned portrait.
Portrait in black. Portrait of Lydia Vasilievna Sychkova, the Artist's Wife. 1904
The portrait reveals the richness of the inner world of a woman, dreaminess, enlightened sadness, echoing in their tone with the images of Chekhov's heroines. Lidia Vasilievna Ankudinova, an elegant, fragile young lady from St. Petersburg, became a real muse for the artist. The role of this woman in the fate of F.V. Sychkova was significant and invaluable.
In 1903, she became the artist's wife, sharing with him all the joys and sorrows until the end of her life. Together with him she lived in the village of Kochelaevo, in the Mordovian outback, visited exhibitions, was aware of all the events of artistic life. She was respected and appreciated by many artists - friends of F.V. Sychkov.
An interesting page in the artist's work was children's portraits. He first turned to them in the 900s, except for a few student sketches, where children posed for him as a model. Both picturesque and watercolor portraits of children show a serious and deep understanding of the child's soul by the author.
Tirelessly he painted his native village, rickety wattle fences, huts grown into the ground, spring floods of full-flowing Moksha. Intimacy and warmth of mood are imbued with small-sized winter sketches, sustained in gray-bluish tones.
At the heart of the landscapes is a deep poetic feeling, the admiration of the master for the beauty of Russian nature, exciting in its modest charm.
Sychkov wrote: "I have done a lot in recent years, depicting Mordovian life, but how could it be otherwise, because I turned out to be a real resident of the Mordovian ASSR. Here I was ... awarded the honorary title of Honored Artist of the MASSR ... they gave me a personal pension. Well, that's why I am connected with the Mordovians firmly and for life.” It is no coincidence that in the 1930s, when the Mordovian autonomy was formed, the national theme occupied a special place in the painter's work.
Mordovian teacher. 1937
Mordovian tractor drivers, 1938
In the second half of the 1930s, the themes of Sychkov's art expanded by referring to Soviet reality.
Collective farm market. 1936
Harvest Festival. 1938
Similar canvases, glorifying a happy collective farm life, were painted by many artists at that time. These two large-sized canvases were created by the author in the shortest possible time by order of the exhibition committee of the Volga Region pavilion for the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow.
Sychkov did not strive to depict people with complex, contradictory characters. Almost in each of his works one can feel a soft, benevolent view of the world, sincerity and humanity. It is true that a portrait is always a double image: the image of the artist and the image of the model.
“I don’t want to be old,” Sychkov wrote in one of his letters to the artist E. M. Cheptsov. “As they say, artists cannot grow old, their work must always be young and interesting.” In the eighth decade of his life, he created such canvases full of freshness of feelings as "Return from School" (1945), "Meeting the Hero" (1952).
The last two years before his death, Sychkov lived in Saransk. He worked as before a lot, with rapture, with inspiration. For him, painting was a real source of joy. “Life on earth is so beautiful ... but the life of an artist in the full sense is the most interesting of all activities ...” - lines from a letter from F.V. Sychkov can be an epigraph to the work of this painter, in love with the world around him. He died in 1958.
A gallery of the artist's work can be viewed here.http://maxpark.com/community/6782/content/5002408
ღ Artist Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov. Young peasant women ღOne of the large and unique parts of the museum collection is a collection of works (about 600 paintings, sketches, sketches) by the People's Artist of Mordovia, Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR and the MASSR Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov (1870-1958), a talented, original, artist-life writer of the village, standing at origins of Mordovian professional fine arts. Cheerful, skillfully executed works of the artist, the heroes of which were his countrymen, are a kind of chronicle of the life of his native land.
Its purpose in the art of F.V. Sychkov saw it in revealing the beauty, the uniqueness of rural life, which he felt and understood more deeply than many other masters, since he came out of this environment and never broke with it. “I dedicated my art to reflecting the life of the Russian village,” wrote the artist. 
In a controversial era of social upheavals and complex ideological and aesthetic quests, F.V. Sychkov remained a faithful successor to the best traditions of the Russian realistic school of painting of the 19th century. The artistic worldview of the master turned out to be alien to avant-garde tendencies, the desire for constructivist forms that had nothing to do with the real world, and then the false pathos of the art of the Stalin era. The tonality of his worldview as an artist of the joy of being is closer to the aesthetics of the second generation of the World of Art with their cult of beauty, which triumphed over the social realism of the Wanderers. 
Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov was born in 1870 in the village of Kochelaevo, Narovchatsky district of the Penza province, now the Kovylkinsky district of the Republic of Mordovia, into a poor peasant family. Orphaned early. He received his general education at a three-year zemstvo school, where teacher P.E. Dyumaev was the first to pay attention to the artistically gifted peasant boy. But a few more years passed before Sychkov picked up a brush and embarked on the thorny path of the artist. Based on the little knowledge in the field of drawing and painting that he received from P.E. Dyumaev, and then in the icon-painting artel of D.A. Reshetnikova, F.V. Sychkov began to work independently, painted icons, portraits of his fellow villagers. Among the early works is the painting "Laying the Arapovo Station" (1892), which was commissioned by the St. Petersburg general I.A. Arapov, whose estate was located not far from Kochelaev. The creation of the picture became a kind of exam, a test of abilities that Sychkov withstood with dignity. The general showed the picture to the director of the Drawing School for Volunteers E.A. Sabaneev. Noting the talent of Sychkov, he advised to bring the young man to St. Petersburg. In 1892, Sychkov crossed the threshold of the Drawing School, where he studied with K.V. Lebedev, I.V. Tvorozhnikov, Ya.F. Tsionglinsky. 
The evolution of Sychkov from a self-taught artist to a professional took place rapidly. Within the walls of the school, he received basic knowledge in the field of drawing and painting, and after a year of classes, his skills become more confident, freer, drawing more accurate. Among the most successful early works is "Portrait of the artist's younger sister Ekaterina Vasilievna Sychkova" (1893). In the way the texture of the fabric is conveyed by pictorial means, how the colors are coordinated, one can see the colossal work that Sychkov did during the year of study. At the same time, he began to paint commissioned portraits. This was due to the difficulty of his financial situation, but he also had a brilliant example of work in a commissioned portrait of the leading masters of that time. Constant work in this genre honed the skills of the young artist. 
In 1895, as a volunteer, he entered the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts. He studied in the class of battle painting with N.D. Kuznetsova and P.O. Kovalevsky, who adhered to the democratic principles of the Wanderers in their pedagogical practice. 
By the time of study at the Academy of Arts is "Portrait of Anna Ivanovna Sychkova, mother of the artist" (1898), created in the best traditions of democratic artists. In the silhouette of a small, slightly hunched figure, one feels crushed by life. This poignant note develops in a color scheme sustained in gray-black monochrome scales. 
During his studies, Sychkov painted several self-portraits. The earliest among them, 1893, dates back to the time of study at the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. The artist carefully examines his own face, psychologically accurately and subtly expressing his inner state through his external appearance - a passionate desire to comprehend the world around him, to find his place in the artistic environment. A completely different, more secular, representative character, has a "Self-portrait", written a year before the end of the Academy of Arts. A large head with dark short-cropped hair is modeled clearly, confidently. A high, clean forehead, a calm look of deep-set eyes, in which one can read self-confidence, self-esteem. 
Like many young painters of that time, Sychkov dreamed of studying in the workshop of Repin, whom he had known through General Arapov since the time when he had just arrived in St. Petersburg and entered the School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. The general showed Repin the work of his talented protégé, whom he called only "my Rafael." During the entrance exams to the Academy of Arts, Repin recognized Sychkov and made several useful remarks. More than once he turned to Repin for advice, in particular, when creating his graduation work “News from the War” (1900). Despite the fact that while studying at the Academy of Arts Sychkov studied battle painting, after graduation he found his vocation as a portrait painter and genre painter. 
The end of the Academy of Arts by Sychkov in 1900 happened at the turn of the century, with its fireworks of artistic movements and directions, a whole galaxy of the most brilliant creators in their daring avant-garde searches. In the context of the difficult era at the turn of the century, Sychkov's work seems traditional. He did not experience mental confusion and confusion before the onset of a new one. He was distinguished by a clear position in life, a firm confidence in the chosen once and for all path of the artist-life writer of the Russian village. In his artistic pursuits, he is close to the group of such painters as S.A. Korovin, F.A. Malyavin, A.E. Arkhipov. 
The paintings of that time, and Sychkov was an active participant in many all-Russian and foreign exhibitions, attracted the attention of the audience with the vitality of the plots, that measure of realism that was successfully combined with the lyrical sound of folk images. This was achieved not just by a deep knowledge of peasant life, but by constant existence in this environment - familiar, understandable, beloved. After graduating from St. Petersburg, Sychkov returned to his homeland, which became for him a life-giving source of creative inspiration. In love with the colorful element of full-blooded folk life, he knew how to display the most ordinary aspects of peasant life poetically, without gravitating towards excessive literary content in the plots. Folk festivals, skiing from the mountains, weddings, gatherings - this is far from a complete range of topics and motives that attracted the master. He was able to convey in the paintings of the ingenuous amusements of the villagers (“From the Mountains” (1910), “Shrovetide Riding” (1914), etc.) an atmosphere of unconstrained fun and love of life. 
However, it would be a mistake to reduce all of Sychkov's work to an "eternal" holiday. Own impressions of childhood and youth, coupled with a time of poverty, humiliation, determined Sychkov's democracy, the ability to empathize, to subtly understand the essence of the way of life of the Russian peasantry. 1900 - 1910s - the time of Sychkov's creative maturity. Then he created canvases - “Return from the Fair”, “Village Wedding”, “Blessing of Water”, “Christoslavs”, “Difficult Transition” and a number of others, where the master sought to tell about different aspects of rural life, acting as an attentive observant narrator, without embellishing realities, but also without focusing on the social contradictions of the village community. Sychkov's everyday canvases are formed into a holistic image of a working people living on earth according to their own laws of peaceful existence. They are written lightly and freely with the true skill of a genre painter. They are attracted by the brightness of the portrait characteristics of the heroes, the ability to plastically accurately compose multi-figure compositions, to find expressive poses and gestures that give a special emotional openness to the images. 
He simply and truthfully showed the measured labor rhythm of the life of the village in the paintings “The Flax Millers” (1905), “Return from the Hayfield” (1911). The artist does not dramatize, does not build a complex plot plot, it seems that it did not cost him much effort and effort to transfer scenes of labor to the canvas. But in this ease and naturalness of the construction of the composition, which appears as a living reality, his originality and power of talent. Sychkov's ability to show the everyday everyday phenomenon in an artistic poetic form is evidence of great knowledge, love and understanding of village life. 
In parallel with the main line devoted to the life and way of life of the peasantry, a second line developed in Sychkov's work in the 1900s - this line is associated with a ceremonial commissioned portrait. Sychkov was at that time an unusually popular portrait painter in St. Petersburg. Customers were probably attracted by his ability to write quickly and accurately, capturing the features of the external appearance of the portrayed. Among his "models" are bankers, officials, secular ladies. An excellent example of a ceremonial portrait is "Portrait in Black" (1904), where the very interest in the model - this is the artist's wife Lidia Vasilyevna - made it possible to soften the beauty of the salon and introduce notes of a certain psychologism and decorative refinement into a representative composition. L.V. Sychkova openly poses, the artist takes a point of view from below, giving it majesty, which is typical for a formal portrait, but this motif does not detract from the natural, which is conveyed in a lively and truthful interpretation of the face. The portrait reveals the richness of a person's inner world: dreaminess, enlightened sadness, echoing in their tone with the images of Chekhov's heroines. Lidia Vasilievna Ankudinova, an elegant, fragile young lady from St. Petersburg, became a real muse for the artist. The role of this woman in the fate of F.V. Sychkova was significant and invaluable. In 1903, she became the artist's wife, sharing with him all the joys and sorrows until the end of her life. Together with him she lived in the village of Kochelaevo, in the Mordovian outback, visited exhibitions, was aware of all the events of artistic life. She was respected and appreciated by many artists - friends of F.V. Sychkov. Her pretty face with transparent blue eyes can be recognized in many of the master's paintings. In "Portrait of a Woman" (1903), she is depicted walking along the alley with a lace umbrella in her hands. A strikingly bold combination of a bright red dress with blooming greens. Perhaps this is one of the few works of the master, where he tried to convey in an impressionistic manner the movement of air, green reflexes, harmoniously shading the melancholy-calm state of the model. Often Lydia Vasilievna posed for the artist in the clothes of a Russian peasant woman and looked as natural in this role as in the role of a secular lady. She appears as a peasant girl in Summer (1909). 
An interesting page in the artist's work was children's portraits. He first turned to them in the 900s, except for a few student sketches, where children posed for him as a model. Both picturesque and watercolor portraits of children show a serious and deep understanding of the child's soul by the author. They are captivatingly sincere in their artless simplicity and clarity, the ability to convey the spiritual world of children. "Friends" (1911), "Girlfriends. Children" (1916), "Grinka" (1937) are fundamentally different from the portraits of peasant children painted by the late Wanderers. The social accent is softened in them, there is no sweetness and sentimentalism. 
Sychkov's life was not rich in external events. One of his most vivid life impressions was a trip abroad in 1908. Acquaintance with the masterpieces of Western European art became a powerful impetus for the further creative activity of the painter, raised it to a qualitatively new artistic level. He brought many landscapes from Italy and France - these are marinas, architectural landscapes of Rome, Venice, Menton. The grandiose buildings of Ancient Rome - the Arch of Constantine, the Forum, the Colosseum appear in them as symbols of the former greatness of the ancient empire. The color scheme, built on combinations of light yellow-green and blue tones, conveys the sultry haze of the southern air, in which the outlines of ancient monuments seem to melt. 
However, with the undoubted artistic merits of these landscapes, the artist's soul is most fully revealed in the works dedicated to his native places. He tirelessly painted his native village, rickety wattle fences, huts grown into the ground, spring floods of full-flowing Moksha. Intimacy and warmth of mood are imbued with small-sized winter sketches, sustained in gray-bluish tones. At the heart of the landscapes is a deep poetic feeling, the admiration of the master for the beauty of Russian nature, exciting in its modest charm. 
Sychkov's creative range was quite wide. In addition to portraits, landscapes, genre paintings, throughout his life he painted still lifes: from classically clear in the manner of execution, such as “Still Life. Fruit", created in 1908 during a trip to Italy, to more characteristic still lifes with a landscape approach - "Strawberries" (1910), "Cucumbers" (1917), etc., in which all that sounds in a slightly different refraction. same theme of life and life of the village. Sychkov liked to work in the garden, in the garden. Proudly said: "I am a village man!". Knowing the way of life of the village helped him to create such fresh, colorful still lifes. 
October 1917 he met as a recognized established master. However, for him, as for most of the creative intelligentsia of that time, this event was a difficult test. In Petrograd, his workshop was looted, many works were lost. Nevertheless, he accepted the new government as truly popular, participated in the design of revolutionary holidays, painted posters, portraits of leaders. 
Late 1910s-1920s - the time when Sychkov created, mainly, variants or repetitions of his early works, continuing to develop his favorite and characteristic theme of holidays, varying the plots of pre-revolutionary paintings - Girlfriends (1920), Holiday Day (1927), Holiday Day . Girlfriends. Winter "(1929) and a number of others. His pictorial style evolved at this time in the direction of greater coloristic brightness. The emotional mood of the canvases corresponded to an open temperamental brushstroke. But the era could not but manifest itself in the work of this realist artist. “Portrait of the Chairman of the Kochelaev Party Cell K.I. Chizhikov" (1919) can be seen as an attempt to create an image of the hero of the new time. However, the artist was not too inspired by the social changes taking place at that time in the village. He always aspired to be independent and dependent on no one. This character was formed by many circumstances of his life - the habit of relying only on his own strength, his talent, his conviction in the right of a creative person to be independent. “An artist ... should not be constrained by anyone, and even more so from power. The authorities, especially now the Soviet government, must preserve and protect talents, ”these are lines from Sychkov’s petition, which he was forced to send to Saransk in the 30s, when the new authorities in Kochelaev tried to dispossess him of the kulaks, ranking him among the individual farmers. It was a difficult time in Sychkov's life. 
Time of painful reflections about whether he and his art are needed by the Motherland. Perhaps then, in a fit of despair, he turned to his friend from the time of his studies at the Academy of Arts, K. A. Veshchilov, who emigrated from the USSR in the 1920s, with a request to help him settle in Paris. Veshchilov developed a vigorous activity, in letters he painted bright prospects, how they would paint pictures together in a creative tandem, how comfortable the existence of the Sychkovs would be abroad. And who knows how the circumstances would have developed further if there had not been an unexpected turn in the fate of the master. Sychkov continued at that time to actively participate in the exhibition life of Moscow and Leningrad, but few people knew him in Mordovia. In 1937, the Union of Artists was created in Mordovia. Director of the Academy of Arts I. I. Brodsky took part in the organization of the Union. 
He arrived in Saransk and was extremely surprised that the republic did not know the work of the famous Russian artist F.V. Sychkov, who settled not far from the Mordovian capital. The painter was invited as an exhibitor of the republican exhibition in Saransk. Sychkov's paintings made a splash. Against the backdrop of semi-amateur works by Mordovian artists, the bright, technically perfect Sychkov canvases looked like masterpieces. It was then that Sychkov, who survived a real triumph, was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the MASSR by the government of the republic. Here, perhaps, then the doubts finally disappeared, where his place is, in his homeland or far from it. 
Such a turn in fate somewhat changed Sychkov's relationship with the authorities. In one of his letters to an artist from Chuvashia, N. Kamenshchikov, he wrote: “... I am not a Mordvinian, but a purely Russian one and have seen Mordvinians a little, only now, over the past twenty years, Mordovians have been interested and I really love the past of Mordovians, their national costumes ... I have a lot in recent years, I did it, depicting Mordovian life, but how could it be otherwise, because I turned out to be a real resident of the Mordovian ASSR. Here I was ... awarded the honorary title of Honored Artist of the MASSR ... I was given a personal pension. Well, that's why I'm connected with the Mordovians firmly and for life. It is no coincidence that in the 1930s, when the Mordovian autonomy was formed, the national theme occupied a special place in the painter's work. 
However, addressing this topic cannot be regarded as a nod to the authorities, since the Mordovian ethno-culture has long aroused the interest of the master, as evidenced by numerous photographs from Sychkov's archive. Unlike Russian peasant women, Mordovians continued to wear national clothes during the Soviet period. Dozens of sketches, sketches of the Mordovian national costume, which preceded the creation of such well-known paintings as "Mordovian Teacher" (1937), "Mordovian Tractor Drivers" (1938), - a visual confirmation of the solidity of the artist's creative method, which was based on painstaking work, the desire for deep comprehension of the material of interest to him. 
At the same time, in the works dedicated to representatives of the indigenous nationality, the painter succeeded, harmoniously combining the colorfulness of the Mordovian national costume with the features of typification and generalization in the characteristics of the heroines, to create full-blooded images of women of the “new formation” in their poetic sound. 
In the second half of the 1930s, the themes of Sychkov's art expanded by referring to Soviet reality. The canvases created by him at that time, “A day off on a collective farm” (1936), “A collective farm market” (1936), and others, are distinguished by the mastery of arranging multi-figure compositions, the ability to distinguish individual bright characters among the mass of characters. The above works in their ideological orientation were quite in line with the official Stalinist art. Certain traces of the influence of the techniques common at that time, in an outwardly pompous form glorifying the Soviet man-worker, can be seen in the custom-made panels “Harvest Festival” (1938) and “Presenting an act for the eternal free use of land” (1938). 
Similar canvases, glorifying a happy collective farm life, were painted by many artists at that time. These two large-sized canvases were created by the author in the shortest possible time by order of the exhibition committee of the Volga Region pavilion for the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow. In addition to the fact that the author wrote them in a short time, he was dominated by the dictates of the exhibition committee, which required the creation of types of propaganda and journalistic orientation, to which many masters of painting of that era were oriented in their work. 
At the same time, Sychkov's work, if you single out frankly custom-made things, is surprisingly whole. His works, with their open, jubilant joy of human existence, turned out to be quite in tune with the pathetic line of socialist realism of the Stalin era. However, despite this, an organic relationship with the aesthetics of that time, Sychkov's position as a free independent personality was different. He openly declares this in a letter to the artist E.M. Cheptsov: “Now it is also known to me that in order to paint pictures about the past and present close to Soviet life, one should not forget the ideas expressed by Lenin and Stalin. 
Well, let the youth, the new Soviet artists, write what is close to them, and we are outdated. We are, after all, dear to the habit of the old. "Old" for Sychkov is, first of all, a folk portrait, of which he was a brilliant master even in the pre-revolutionary period. The master associated all the brightest and most beautiful things in life with a woman who became the main character of most of his not only genre works, but also a number of beautiful portraits. Favorite Sychkovsky type - firmly knocked down, smiling peasant women, boldly looking at the viewer, with some coquetry and enthusiasm, with captivating sincerity and openness. Confidently Sychkov models their cheerful faces with highlights of light and shadow, expressive reflexes that bring special trepidation and liveliness to the disclosure of images. 
His stroke is accurate, free, he is a virtuoso master of glazing painting. This is the Sychkovsky ideal, which, perhaps, is far from perfect beauty, but how much sparkling liveliness, vital trepidation, and poetry are in it. The master's favorite angle is a three-quarter turn, a cut of the figure, either knee-deep or waist-deep. The most characteristic for him was a one-figure or two-figure composition. Despite the similarity of the type, portraits were solved in different ways. This can be a clean portrait, where the model is depicted against a neutral background. 
But Sychkov's portrait is more developed - a picture where he introduces elements of the genre. The main thing in them was the natural coexistence of man with the natural world. In his portraits-paintings, a large emotional role is always assigned to the landscape. The state of nature is in harmony with the state of mind of the heroines or sets it off in contrast. 
In the works of Sychkov there are not so many compositional finds. His predilection for the same motives that run through all the work of the master is known, for example, by the fence, skiing from the mountains. At the same time, it cannot be reproached for monotony and template. In these works, he achieved freedom and genuine pictorial artistry. 
Sychkov did not strive to depict people with complex, contradictory characters. Almost in each of his works one can feel a soft, benevolent view of the world, sincerity and humanity. It is true that a portrait is always a double image: the image of the artist and the image of the model. And although Sychkov is not considered a great psychologist, one can find both depth and spirituality of images in his best portraits. The female images of Sychkov carry certain features of the symbol of national beauty and moral purity. 
The phenomenon of Sychkov as a creative person is in adherence to the criteria he acquired at the beginning of his creative path, loyalty to one theme - the theme of the life and life of the Russian village, passed through the prism of his artistic vision of peasant life as well-established centuries-old traditions. They broke before his eyes in the Soviet period, but he did not want to paint that average type of Soviet collective farm woman in a sweatshirt or a gray jacket, in which both men and women walked, and which was a visual personification of gender equality. A large amount of photo-documentary material has been preserved in his archive. In the photographs of the 1940s, women dance to the harmonica, dressed in gray scarves, tarpaulin boots, and baggy jackets. The faces are the same as on the canvases of the master of an earlier period - open, perky, and laughing. 
The artist actively used photographs as an auxiliary material in his work. But he depicted his models traditionally in Russian sundresses, bright scarves, beads. He was disgusted by the bureaucracy in the clothes of the Soviet era. He kept a pile of Pavlovian shawls, colorful skirts, lace blouses in which he dressed his models in a chest in his workshop. He created a gallery of brilliant portraits of Russian peasant women. 
The works of the 1940s and 1950s can also be regarded as the result of the master's real devotion. It is known that at this time he had serious problems with his eyesight. For him - the artist - it was a real tragedy. But, despite this, with spiritual stoicism, rejecting the disease, he continued to work. “I don’t want to be old,” Sychkov wrote in one of his letters to the artist E. M. Cheptsov. “As they say, artists cannot grow old, their work must always be young and interesting.” In the eighth decade of his life, he created such canvases full of freshness of feelings as "Return from School" (1945), "Meeting the Hero" (1952). 
The last two years before his death, Sychkov lived in Saransk. He worked as before a lot, with rapture, with inspiration. For him, painting was a real source of joy. "Life on earth is so beautiful... 
but the life of an artist in the full sense is the most interesting of all occupations ... ”- lines from a letter from F.V. Sychkov can be an epigraph to the work of this painter, in love with the world around him.
Artist Sychkov Fedot Vasilyevich (1870-1958)
In our time, few are familiar with the work of the most original artist Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov. And in the 1910s, his works were successful not only at exhibitions in Russia, but also at the Paris Salon, where they were eagerly bought up by art lovers who showed interest in the life and art of our country. Peasant girls and young ladies F.V. Sychkov in popularity approached the hawthorns of Konstantin Makovsky, although the lives and paths in the art of the artists were polarly different.
"Self-portrait", 1893
Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov (1870 -1958) - a famous Russian artist, was born into a poor peasant family in the village of Kochelaevo, Penza province. At the age of twelve, the future artist lost his father.
The mother, left with her children without a piece of bread, was forced to walk around the yards with a knapsack, collecting “For Christ's sake”. Showing kindred concern, the grandmother sent her grandson to elementary school.
The school drawing teacher P. E. Dyumaev discovered the boy's ability to draw and wrote a letter of petition to the court painter Mikhail Zichy.
The teacher and the student waited a long time for an answer from St. Petersburg, but they waited. The response letter contained advice - to send a capable student to a St. Petersburg art school, but there was no hint of what means. Fedot realized the main thing: he himself had to earn money for the journey and education.
From childhood, Fedot Sychkov showed the ability to paint. He worked in an icon-painting workshop, painted frescoes in churches, made portraits from photographs.
In 1892, he left for St. Petersburg, to the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts with the support of General Arapov, who drew attention to a talented young self-taught artist.
In 1895, Sychkov graduated from the Drawing School and became a volunteer at the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts.
After graduation, the artist returned to his homeland. In 1900, he was awarded the title of artist for the painting "News from the War." The main theme of the artist is the life of peasants, rural holidays.
"Girl in a blue headscarf", 1935
The canvases of Fedot Sychkov attract with cheerful colors, white-toothed smiles framed by colored scarves, the radiance of the sun and snow, the aroma of field herbs .. 
He received six awards at academic exhibitions in St. Petersburg.
He was awarded a silver medal at an exhibition in San Louis (USA).
He earned an honorable mention at the International Exhibition in Rome.
And in 1908 he personally visited England, France and Germany.
These trips hardly added anything to his realistic, purely Russian painting.
But the feeling of satisfaction from the foreign voyage as a result of what has been achieved, of course, was. Upon arrival in Russia, he returned to his native Kochelaevo.
Behind almost every brilliant creator is a woman who, with her support and wisdom, supported the fire of the talent of a loved one.
Such a muse was for Fedot Vasilievich Sychkov his wife - Lidia Nikolaevna. She, like her husband, was keenly interested in folk culture, including Mordovian. 
"Youth", 1928
Lidia Nikolaevna carefully collected items of national costume and jewelry. In her collection there was an incredible amount of shawls, shirts, hats, belts, beads ... Fedot Vasilyevich used all this wealth in his portraits.
He died in Saransk, being an honored worker of arts of the Mordovian ASSR
Blonde coquette
"Mordovian teacher", 1937
among the sunflowers
"Peasant Girl"
Girl picking wild flowers
There is no sweeter business for women than knitting.
Their attentive faces are detached and serious.
The tilt of the head is calm, and the eyelashes seem to be sleeping.
Only the hands are like flying birds in the clouds.
Loops of white and fluffy yarn stretch towards each other
and lie on their knees - like a blizzard in full sun
made hillocks and folds in the middle of a colored meadow.
Will lower the loops like a rosary - circle after circle, circle
around the circle.
What will come out is a shawl and a jacket, just an excuse,
one name.
The spokes beat in the rhythm of the heart, like an omen.
Do you want to become complete about your beloved knowledge?
Follow her quietly at the hour of evening knitting.
Ksenia Firsova
"Nastya for knitting" 1925
"Girlfriends", 1916
"Kolkhozny Bazaar", 1936
The light of the high skies, and the shining snow,
And a distant sleigh running lonely...
"From the mountains", 1910
"Troika", 1906
"Children"
"Shrovetide Ride"
Sychkov Fedot Vasilievich Sychkov Fedot Vasilievich
The artist Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov (1887-1958) was the founder of professional painting in the Mordovian region. He connected all his life and work with his native places, with his countrymen, devoting all his rich creative heritage to them. F. Sychkov was born in the village of Kochelaevo, Penza province (now the Republic of Mordovia) in the family of a poor peasant. In his youth, the future artist worked in the artel of icon painters. The participation in his fate of a landowner from an estate adjacent to the village of Kochelaevo, a St. Petersburg official, General Ivan Arapov, allowed Sychkov to enter the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in St. Petersburg. Thanks to his ability and perseverance, he completed the six-year school course in 3 years, and then continued his education at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1895-1900). No one has experienced so much grief and no one has sung joy, laughter, a lively smile so brightly and sincerely as Sychkov. Maybe he deliberately avoided the dark sides of life? No, there are many sketches in the artist's archive that depict these aspects of life as well. But here, for example, is what the journal Nature and People wrote in 1878 in a July book about Mordovians: songs." Sychkov wholeheartedly accepted this "hidden engine" of the moral health of the people and spoke about it with all the strength of his outstanding talent.
