Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon (1875-1958) - Russian painter, landscape master, theater artist, art theorist.
Academician of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1947). People's Artist of the USSR (1950). Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree (1943).
Born October 24, 1875 in Moscow, in a German-Swiss family. Father - an employee of an insurance company, later - its director; mother is an amateur musician.
Brother - composer P.F. Yuon, professor at the Berlin Conservatory, remained in Germany after the revolution, from where, after Adolf Hitler came to power, he emigrated to his historical homeland, Switzerland, where he died.
From 1892 to 1898 Konstantin Yuon studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His teachers were such masters as K. A. Savitsky, A. E. Arkhipov, N. A. Kasatkin.
After graduating from college, Yuon worked for two years in the workshop of V. A. Serov. Then he founded his own studio, where he taught from 1900 to 1917 together with I. O. Dudin. His students were, in particular, A. V. Kuprin, V. A. Favorsky, V. I. Mukhina, the Vesnin brothers, V. A. Vatagin, N. D. Kolli, A. V. Grishchenko, M. G. Reuter, N. Terpsikhorov, Yu. A. Bakhrushin.
In 1903, Yuon became one of the organizers of the Union of Russian Artists. He was also a member of the World of Art association.
Since 1907, he worked in the field of theatrical scenery, in particular, he was engaged in the design of the production of the opera Boris Godunov in Paris, as part of Sergei Diaghilev's Russian Seasons.
Before the revolution, the main theme of Yuon's work was landscapes of Russian cities (Moscow, Sergiev Posad, Nizhny Novgorod and others), made in a special manner, pierced with light, with a broad perspective, images of churches, women in folk costumes, will take traditional Russian life.
For example, the painting “Domes and Swallows. Assumption Cathedral of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra "(1921). This is a panoramic landscape, painted from the bell tower of the cathedral on a clear summer evening, at sunset. Under the gentle sky, the earth prospers, and in the foreground domes illuminated by the sun with golden patterned crosses shine. The motif itself is not only very effective, but also symbolizes the significant cultural and historical role of the church.
After the revolution, Konstantin Yuon remained in Russia. As a response to the revolutionary events, Yuon created the canvas “New Planet”, the interpretation of which by art historians varies up to the complete opposite. In Soviet times, it was believed that Yuon depicted on it "the cosmic-creating significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution." In modern Russia, it was reproduced, in particular, on the cover of Ivan Shmelev's book "The Sun of the Dead", describing the Red Terror in Crimea.
In another "cosmic" picture "People" (1923), we are also talking about the creation of a new world.
In 1925, Yuon became a member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR). In 1923 he completed the painting "Parade of the Red Army" (1923).
From 1948 to 1950 the artist worked as director of the Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Academy of Arts of the USSR. In addition to working in the pictorial genre, he continued to design theatrical productions, as well as graphics.
In 1951 he joined the CPSU(b).
From 1952 to 1955 he taught as a professor at the Moscow Art Institute. V. I. Surikov, as well as in a number of other educational institutions. Since 1957 he was the first secretary of the board of the Union of Artists of the USSR.
K. F. Yuon died on April 11, 1958. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (site No. 4).
A memorial plaque was installed on the Moscow house where he lived and worked (Zemlyanoy Val Street, 14-16).
This is part of a Wikipedia article used under the CC-BY-SA license. Full text of the article here →
The auction that took place on Saturday brought us a new price record for Russian painting on the territory of Russia: for 76 million rubles, the "Troika in Uglich" by the famous Russian and Soviet artist K. F. Yuon was bought
“I wanted to paint pictures, as songs are written about life,
about the history of the Russian people, about nature, about ancient Russian cities.
Konstantin Yuon
On Saturday, May 18, the auction of the house "Russian enamel" brought us a new price record for Russian painting in Russia: for 76 million rubles, "Troika in Uglich" by the famous Russian and Soviet artist K. F. Yuon was bought.
Thanks to the success of his work, K. Yuon visited Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and Germany from the end of the 1890s. From 1896 to the end of the 1900s, he repeatedly visited Paris, where he worked in private studios, made prints (aquatint) from landscapes (city views) by Camille Pissarro and other impressionists; the artist did not aim to copy the paintings of the masters of the new art with perfect accuracy in graphics, he tried to reproduce them in his own style.
Since 1898, KF Yuon began to accept the first students. In 1900-1917, he headed his own art school "Classes of drawing and painting" (together with I. O. Dudin) in Moscow. Among the students of the school at different times were many famous artists, architects and sculptors, including V.I. Mukhina, V.A. Vatagin, V.A. Favorsky, R. R. Falk and others.
In the late 1890s - 1900s, Yuon repeatedly traveled to ancient Russian cities. From 1908 until his death in 1958, he worked mainly in Ligachev, near Moscow, which became his permanent home and an invariable source of Russian motives.
Painting is the most visual of all the arts. It is a “song without words” and, by its nature, it would seem that it does not require any verbal additions and explanations. A skillful artist-author, through his art, can say everything and everything. Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon knew how to perceive and capture the living pulse of creative methods. And this gift of his, which developed and grew indefinitely, represents the diverse and deep culture of Russian art.
Russian art is rich in talents. Each era of its development has left a great many names of excellent artists. But with special warmth we remember those masters who devoted their whole lives to glorifying the beauty of their native land. These landscape painters include Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon. Throughout his creative life, the artist was looking for a unique Russian folk style, typical colors and shapes. Only in showing this characteristic originality did Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon see the true artistic truth, which is the most important value in his art.
The activity of such an artist is always of exceptional interest. Its significance is comparable to the role of a self-portrait. The artist always, unconsciously or not, builds his perfect image, draws himself as he would like to be. He catches the threads of life to weave some new yarn out of them, emphasizes other influences and influences, illuminates the familiar in a different way, because he sees and understands his own creativity from within in a completely different way than he who contemplates it from the outside.
Yuon as a representative of the most primordial Moscow school of painting, he was the son of immigrants from Switzerland, who became Russian in fact and in principle. Having long earned recognition and wide artistic and public popularity, he was one of the greatest masters of Russian art, whose work became a link between the art of the Silver Age and Soviet artistic culture. The breadth of his talent and artistic interests allowed K.F. Yuon to achieve amazing results both in easel painting and in the design of theatrical performances.
K. F. Yuon, born in 1875, a student of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, who studied for a year with Serov, who soon got on his feet, a member of the best and most advanced associations of the Russian art world, the head of the most popular art school in Moscow, at the same time strangely eludes the possibility of giving it any lasting historical-artistic label. The time of his first appearance and fruitful activity, the first twenty-fifth anniversary of the 20th century, is unusually rich in events, influences, novelties, revolutions, catastrophes, revivals of Russian painting.
The position of KF Yuon in this conglomerate of currents, clashes, partisanship and extremes was always special: maneuvering, central, non-partisan and - lonely. He was a member of the World of Art, but remained in his Moscow group after the breakup; became, perhaps, the most prominent member of the "Union of Russian Artists", fundamentally sympathizing more with the Petersburgers.
The new aesthetics of Mir Iskusstva was at that time a true revelation and influenced even the artistic circles of Western Europe through its magazine. Many of the ideas that have been cultivated have a truly permanent significance, among which, first of all, though always “relative”, but in itself the undying idea of beauty. Beauty, as the principle of world harmony, always reflected by art, was hardly ever capable of being outlived.
At the same time, even the very first exhibitions of the World of Art, which enchanted with their specific sharpness, their sophisticated intimate world, seemed to be some kind of rare phenomenal toy, some kind of strange intoxicating flower in comparison with the heavy, but sober, close to the surrounding, living prose life, the art of the Wanderers, - and this impression somewhere in the depths of the soul left a bewildered and unsatisfied sediment. Yielding on one side to the call of the newly discovered and alluring beauties of the art of the artists of the World of Art, which is too armchair in nature, he vaguely protested against its isolation, in most cases, from living Russian life and from life in general, against the admixture to this art of some kind of foreign - an alien note and regretted that art seemed to have moved away from the grand style and from self-sufficing painting.
As a representative of the Union of Russian Artists, Yuon introduced novelty and freshness into the art of that time, developing a special plastic language in which he used the principle of impressionistic vision. This was reflected in the appeal to various impressionistic techniques: the creation of an etude - a small-format painting, work in the open air, connected the landscape with the everyday genre, interior or still life, which is a typical expression of the impressionistic mixture of genres; used an asymmetric construction of the composition, fragmentation, expressiveness of angles - all this gave rise to a feeling of randomness of an unexpectedly seen scene. Color became the main means of expression here - the artist actively worked with pure color, without mixing paint on the palette, used contrasts of additional tones, reflexes, which made it possible to create a real impression of bright sunlight, a feeling of "breathing" of nature.
Throughout his long career, KF Yuon turned to various activities in the field of art. In addition to his favorite painting, he was also engaged in graphics and performance design, was known as a major art critic and an excellent teacher.
He was a realist, an impressionist, a symbolist, a decorator and a draftsman to the end, and perhaps not being any of them. He was brought closer to Levitan, and of course it’s wrong, because Yuon is not a lyricist, and has no need for “moods” in his painting. Levitan gave much more responses to the main themes of the impressionistic search for air, light, blurring impressions. Painting forms Yuona too clear and sharp, too sharply noticed in their too random movement.
Now the connection between Yuon and Serov is more clear, but Yuon is much more colorful, festive and at the same time everyday. There is no Serov Europeanism in him, and the mere fact that a picturesque portrait, Serov's true kingdom, stands in the background for Yuon, decisively does not allow him to see Serov's successor and successor. Yuon was from the beginning a realist, retaining a certain strong leaven of wandering before membership in the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR).
The artist spent his entire life in Moscow, and he tried to choose apartments on quiet streets so that nothing would interfere with creativity. life circumstances Yuona contributed to the formation and development of his talent, he did not have to endure either painful wanderings in search of his place in art, or strong shocks. Inexhaustible optimism and a bright vision of the world left their mark on all the work of the master.
Konstantin began to draw early. Being by nature a man of seething energy, purposeful and sociable, the eight-year-old boy did not retreat from his passion. During these years, his bright charisma manifested itself in the creation of an exciting "game of architecture", which he managed to captivate his peers. These were fabulous cities with unprecedented and fantastic architecture. It was the passion for architecture that led him to the Moscow School of Painting, although soon, as Yuon’s memory refreshes, “the colors were overdrawn.” Yes, and the passion for architecture was colored by a special cosmic feeling, a rush to utopian extraordinary worlds.
With admission to the school, Yuon finds himself in an atmosphere of innovation in Russian art. His mentors and favorite teachers, who became a model of taste, were K.A. Korovin, K.A. Savitsky and A.E. Arkhipov. In 1898, after graduating from college, until 1900, Yuon studied in the workshop of Vladimir Serov. “Artistic youth,” recalled K.F. Yuon, who was looking for truth and striving for the future, saw in Serov that figure, that “artistic conscience”, without which it was difficult to work, let alone study. It seemed that he had in his hands the keys to resolving emerging conflicts and objections, intertwined with the traditions of the Wanderers, about a completely new aesthetics of a group of artists who rallied around the World of Art magazine, about the influence of the impressionist movement. V.A. Serov I trusted most of all "training time Yuon, traveling around Europe, gets acquainted with the works of Western European masters. Undoubtedly, the technique of the Impressionists influenced the young artist, although not so much as to muffle his inner aspirations and external style. Nevertheless, the Russian landscape, populated by cheerful Russians, is the main theme of his canvases.
In search of national, original beauty, Yuon traveled a lot, stopping in villages and in ancient Russian cities. During his apprenticeship, he painted many views of the Tver province: “ In the park. Petrovskoe. Tver province"(1897)," Birches. Petrovskoe. Tver province"(1899)," (1890).
Early 1900s Konstantin Fedorovich makes long trips to ancient Russian cities: Rostov the Great, Nizhny Novgorod, Uglich, Torzhok, Pskov, Veliky Novgorod, Kostroma.
Images of market days in Russian cities find a special place in the work of Konstantin Fedorovich. They are distinguished by exceptional festivity, spring hubbub and loudness: “ Red goods. Rostov Veliky"(1905), "" (1906), "" (1916). Some decorativeness in the paintings only slightly emphasizes the unique atmosphere of the holiday.
|
|
|
|
Konstantin Yuon could not imagine the image of architecture without everyday scenes that unfolded at the foot of the monuments of ancient Russian architecture, for example, cathedrals, the fortress walls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra or the Moscow Kremlin, as evidenced by the paintings "" (1903), "" (1904), " » (1903).
|
|
1903. Oil on canvas. 53 x 107 |
|
The artist does not prescribe the faces of his characters: the mass nature of the action itself, bogged down in the generality of a motley color spot, is more important to him.
Yuon can be called the discoverer of the unique artistic image of ancient Rus'. In the paintings "" (1906), "" (1914), "" (1913) and others, he introduces a special point of view into the development of landscape composition. In the everyday life of provincial cities and towns, the artist saw a truly national beauty. The whole inner world of the modern, bubbling life of Central Russian cities, combined with ancient architecture and beautiful nature, acquired a new meaning in Yuon's canvases and was embodied lovingly, with his inherent clarity and artistry.
|
|
|
|
In the painting "" (1906), a juicy body colorful stroke equally fully and visibly conveys the looseness of melted snow, and the reliable "flesh" of old walls, and the shimmer of the sunset sky. All these contrasting motifs are links of a single pictorial space. Since the 1900s, views of ancient Russian cities have become a favorite theme of the artist.
Solemn architectural images in his canvases are "enlivened" by the vigorous activity of staffing everyday scenes.
In each city, Yuon finds and accurately reproduces his face, his unique originality. In his works dedicated to the Russian provinces, the beauty and festivity of the worldview, the artist's delight in the nature and architecture of Russia dominate. His contemporaries often called his works “carnival”, as they resemble folk festivals with their symphony of colors with their richness and variety of colors. “The highest happiness of a painter is to sing with colors,” the artist himself said. Let us at least remember him Domes and swallows», «», « End of winter. Noon».
|
|
|
|
A large cycle of Yuon's works is dedicated to Nizhny Novgorod. In these landscapes, the artist is attracted by the infinity of space. According to the famous Soviet art critic N. G. Mashkovtsev, the Volga was of interest to the painter “where it is least touching and majestic.” He depicted her "crushed by the weary sands, forced by the chaos of steamships, wharves and barges." As a rule, these are not very attractive places near Nizhny Novgorod, where the Oka flows into the Volga.
A striking example of such a landscape is the painting "" (1909). A sketch of it is available in the State Tretyakov Gallery. It belongs to Yuon's favorite winter landscapes. For a better visual coverage of the panorama of the Oka banks, the artist chooses an upper viewpoint, and the main characters of his work are a gray cloudy sky and a flat snowy space with silhouettes of city buildings on the horizon.
Along the banks of the river, along the bridge across it, horse-drawn carts and pedestrians scurry about. Life is in full swing here. Behind the external picturesque chaos of movement lies a special order of the long-established business bustle of the river - the toiler. Here there is a connection, very characteristic of Yuon's work, on one canvas of the life of nature and the life of people.
The artist remained faithful to the landscape until the end of his life. But in Soviet times, being very sensitive to the social life of his country, he strives to introduce features of the new into his work. During these years, his thematic paintings appeared, reflecting the holidays and work of the Soviet people, the hard everyday life of the war, the joyful days of the Victory.
Yuon bought a house in the Ligachevo estate. The estate was located not far from the house of the parents of Claudia Alekseevna, the artist's wife, acquaintance with whom was the main page in the artist's life. Back in 1900, while working in nature, Yuon saw a young girl with a luxurious long braid, who slowly climbed up the mountain from the river. An early marriage brought the wrath of his father on the artist, driving him out of the house.
|
|
|
|
But this anger did not last long. The kindness and sincere generosity of a peasant girl from the village of Ligachevo near Moscow softened all class prejudices, making her beloved daughter-in-law.
Here he wrote his best works. In 1915, Yuon painted his most famous landscape "". And much later, in 1947, he will write a landscape "".
A large-sized painting "" has a tremendous impact on the audience. Standing in front of a painting, you seem to feel the frosty air and the blueness of the sky and snow. The March sun, flooding everything around with a bright flame, broke through at sunset, lighting the branches and trunks of trees.
The image of winter occupies a special page in the work of Konstantin Fedorovich. Winter was one of his favorite topics. The artist admitted: "The whiteness of the snow covers of my native land gives me the most dear experiences and colors for me." In the painting "" dedicated to winter, Konstantin Yuon appears as a true poet of Russian nature. Here he creates a clear and complete composition. Before the audience there is a picture of Russian life against the backdrop of a winter landscape.
The viewer observes soft and fluffy snow, a thick cover that clothed the earth, a fabulous dress of hoarfrost that adorned the branches of mighty trees, and wrapping all objects in a frosty haze. All this is conveyed with the help of many subtle shades of cold colors, while painting K.F. Yuona predominantly colorful. As a result, an image of a real Russian "mother - winter" is created.
In the 1910s, Yuon's work gained strong popularity with the viewer. For him, a period of maturity of talent begins. Inclined to bring his artistic world into a coherent system, Yuon singles out its main elements: architecture, snow, sky, light, space, movement, body.
He has his own, rather peculiar palette: he loves bright colors and bright sun, as well as the fresh yellowness of wood or the perfect human body. But of all the painters of the Yuonian time, he is distinguished by a positive attitude towards white: be it snow or a wall, the sky or a sheet of paper.
In his watercolors and pencil drawings, Yuon again refutes any kind of schemes. His portrait drawings infinitely interesting. He idealizes the upper part of the faces of his models.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
His line is not clear, his graphics are not contrasting, and yet hardly anyone of his contemporary understood the true charm of a self-sufficing pencil drawing, transparent or very saturated watercolor, rich lithography or simply arabesque lace in black and white graphics like Yuon.
Konstantin Yuon symbolically comprehended the fatal grandiosity of the revolutionary changes in " Action symphonies”(1920), where he presented the global cosmic scale of events: people are dying on the open earth and cities are being destroyed, and against the backdrop of a flaming sky, vague outlines of the future, then unclear to anyone, appear. And in the revolutionary allegory "" (1921), the revolution is interpreted as an event of a universal scale: as a result of cosmic shifts and catastrophes, a new planet is born in the world, illuminating the earth with an alarming crimson-red light and causing great spiritual upheavals of people writhing in fear.
It was the tragedy of the people who mistook the bloody moons of the underworld for the rising of a radiant luminary. An easily readable symbolic plot acquires a much wider semantic range in pictorial performance. The multitude of people, conditionally outlined by a "fan" of tiny silhouettes and personifying humanity, is shown before the fact of an inexplicable "doomsday" in a full range of different reactions: from exalted delight to confusion and horror. The earthly firmament, on which this multitude nests, is scanty in comparison with the colossal scale of the cosmic world, conveyed through the abstract hyperbolism of huge planets and gigantic streams of light pouring from heaven. And there is no doubt that this flaming cosmos is capable of absorbing the mortal futility of the earthly home.
The sensational "section" of Yuon's artistic life includes work in the theater. If in the paintings of Konstantin Fedorovich everything is very stable, very objective, then becoming a theatrical decorator, Yuon does not sacrifice anything from this objective stability to the illusory conventions of the most unreal of all arts. Not without reason, on the stage of the Academic Maly Theater, the artist feels most at ease.
|
|
|
|
Work in the theater is one of the sparkling facets of the artist's work. He made scenery for twenty-five plays and operas. The main place in the artist's work belongs to Russian dramaturgy: the works of M.P. Mussorgsky " Khovanshchina”, A.N. Ostrovsky " Enough simplicity for every sage», « Guilty without guilt”, N.V. Gogol " Auditor”, A.M. Gorky " Foma Gordeev". The debut of the artist in the theater was sketches of scenery for the opera by M.P. Mussorgsky " Boris Godunov". It was staged in Paris in 1913 as part of Diaghilev's famous Russian Seasons.
|
|
|
|
By bonds of especially deep friendship, the artist was associated with the Moscow Maly Theater. This theater cannot be imagined without flowery costumes, picturesque interiors and scenic landscapes of Zamoskvorechye, made by Yuon for the plays by A.N. Ostrovsky " The heart is not a stone», « crazy money», Poverty is not a vice».
Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon belongs to those happy artists who already during their lifetime enjoyed well-deserved fame and love of the audience. So, in 1958, when, during the performance of one of Emil Braginsky’s plays in the theater, her heroine, seeing a reproduction of “Yuon” on the wall of the hero’s apartment, said: “Yuon ... I love Yuon ...”, the audience burst into applause . It was a tribute to the artist, admiration for his talent.
Konstantin Yuon (1875-1958) - Russian Soviet painter, master of landscape, theater artist, art theorist.
Biography of Konstantin Yuon
Born in the family of an insurance agent, a native of Switzerland. In 1894 he entered the MUZhViZ, the architectural department. Soon he moved to the painting department, studied with K. A. Savitsky, A. E. Arkhipov, L. O. Pasternak, in 1899 he worked in the studio of V. A. Serov.
From 1896 until the end of the 1900s he repeatedly visited Paris, where he studied in private studios. From 1898 he gave private lessons. In 1900–1917 he headed the School of K. F. Yuon and I. O. Dudin in Moscow. I became interested in the culture of Ancient Rus'.
In the late 1890s - 1900s, he repeatedly traveled to ancient Russian cities. He also visited Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany. Lived in Moscow, in Sergiev Posad (1903, 1911, 1918-1921), Tver province (1905-1906, 1916-1917), Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl.
He took part in exhibitions of the Moscow Association of Artists (1899, 1902), the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (1900), the World of Art (1901, 1906). From 1903 he was a permanent exhibitor of the Union of Russian Artists, from 1904 he was a member of the Committee of the Union.
He worked mainly as a landscape painter, gaining "wide fame" among the Moscow and St. Petersburg public.
Creativity Yuon
In his early work, Yuon often turned to the motives of the Russian village: the artist was interested in the state of nature, the change of seasons, the life of provincial towns and villages, the architecture of ancient churches and monasteries.
His painting style was influenced by the lessons of Korovin and Serov.
After the revolution, the individual handwriting of the artist has changed little, the range of subjects has become somewhat different. In the 1920s - 1950s, he created a number of portraits, paintings on the themes of the history of the revolution and contemporary life, in which he adhered to the realistic tradition.
The landscapes of this time are close in the manner of execution to earlier works of the 1910s, in which elements of impressionism and "wandering realism" are closely intertwined.
Filled with subtle lyricism, they are of the greatest value in the entire creative heritage of the master.
Yuon as a theater decorator is much inferior to Yuon the painter. Most of his theatrical works are not characterized by novelty and artistic imagination, which are characteristic of the scenography of many of his contemporaries.
Yuon's personal exhibitions were organized in 1926, 1945, 1955 at the State Tretyakov Gallery (they were dedicated to the 25th, 50th, 60th anniversary of his creative activity), 1931 - at the State Museum of Fine Arts, 1950 - at the USSR Academy of Arts.
Posthumous retrospectives of the master's works took place in 1962 and 1976 at the Tretyakov Gallery, and in 1976 at the Russian Museum. The artist's works are in the collections of many domestic museums, including the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin in Moscow, the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
Notable works of the artist
"Russian Winter. Ligachevo, 1947 Tretyakov Gallery
"To the Trinity. March, 1903, State Tretyakov Gallery
"Spring sunny day", 1910,
"Spring evening. Rostov the Great", 1906, Serpukhov Museum of History and Art (SIHM)
"Sergievsky Posad", 1911, Painted from the window of the Old Lavra Hotel. In the CAC MPDA collection.
Winter Sorceress, 1912
"March Sun", 1915,
"Domes and swallows", 1921, State Tretyakov Gallery
"New Planet", 1922,
"Moscow region youth", 1926;
“Before entering the Kremlin in 1917. Trinity Gates”, 1927, State Museum of the Revolution of the USSR
“The first collective farmers. In the rays of the sun", 1928, State Tretyakov Gallery
"Open Window", 1947
"The Storming of the Kremlin in 1917" 1947, State Tretyakov Gallery
"Parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941", 1949, State Tretyakov Gallery
"Morning of industrial Moscow", 1949, State Tretyakov Gallery
“End of winter. Noon", 1929
Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon (1875-1958) - Russian Soviet painter, master of landscape, theater artist, art theorist.
Academician of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1947). People's Artist of the USSR (1950). Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree (1943). Member of the CPSU (b) since 1951.
Born on October 12 (24), 1875 in Moscow, in a German-speaking Swiss family. Father - an employee of an insurance company, later - its director; mother is an amateur musician.
From 1892 to 1898 he studied at MUZhVZ. His teachers were such masters as K. A. Savitsky, A. E. Arkhipov, N. A. Kasatkin.
After graduating from college, he worked for two years in the workshop of V. A. Serov. Then he founded his own studio, where he taught from 1900 to 1917 together with I. O. Dudin. His students were, in particular, A. V. Kuprin, V. A. Favorsky, V. I. Mukhina, the Vesnin brothers, V. A. Vatagin, N. D. Kolli, A. V. Grishchenko, M. G. Reuther.
In 1903, Yuon became one of the organizers of the Union of Russian Artists. He was also a member of the World of Art association.
Since 1907 he worked in the field of theatrical scenery.
He led an art studio at the Prechistensky working courses with I. O. Dudin (one of the students is Yu. A. Bakhrushin.)
In 1925, Yuon became a member of the AHRR. There is every reason to believe that he sympathized with Bolshevism. So, in the painting “New Planet” created in 1921 or 1922, the artist depicted the cosmos-creating significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In another "cosmic" picture "People" (1923), we are talking about the creation of a new world filled with the same content, although some people want to "guess" the contours of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON). The painting “Parade of the Red Army” (1923) was made in the same plan.
The painting “Domes and Swallows. Assumption Cathedral of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra "(1921). This is a panoramic landscape, painted from the bell tower of the cathedral on a clear summer evening, at sunset. Under the gentle sky, the earth prospers, and in the foreground domes illuminated by the sun with golden patterned crosses shine. The motif itself is not only very effective, but also symbolizes the significant cultural and historical role of the church.
In addition to working in the pictorial genre, Yuon took up the design of theatrical productions (“Boris Godunov” at the Paris Diaghilev Theater, “The Inspector General” at the Art Theater, “Arakcheevshchina”, etc.), as well as artistic graphics.
From 1948 to 1950 the artist worked as director of the Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Academy of Arts of the USSR.
From 1952 to 1955 he taught as a professor at the Moscow Art Institute. V. I. Surikov, as well as in a number of other educational institutions. Since 1957 he was the first secretary of the board of the Union of Artists of the USSR.
K. F. Yuon died on April 11, 1958. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (plot No. 4)
