Konstantin Trutovsky
1826–1893 · Russian painter, illustrator and academic known for rural genre scenes
Konstantin Trutovsky (1826-1893) was a Russian painter, illustrator and academic born in Kursk into a family of the nobility. He matters because he portrayed rural life in Malorossiya, the region now part of Ukraine, at a time when Russian academic painting was still dominated by history and portraiture.
He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg under Fyodor Bruni, intending to become a history painter, but soon turned to scenes of everyday life. After a period of contact with the Petrashevsky Circle, from which he narrowly avoided arrest, he retreated to his family estate in Malorossiya, where he painted village life and peasants. In 1861 he was named an Academician for his depiction of a Russian khorovod. He also illustrated works by Gogol, Lermontov and Krylov. After a posthumous retrospective in Moscow in 1893, his reputation rests on his images of the Russian and Ukrainian countryside.
Works (1)
The painting, as its title indicates, depicts a return from a fair in rural Ukraine. Konstiantyn Trutovsky produced it in 1868. Without further documentation, it is not possible to say with confidence how the composition, technique or commission were handled, so this reading stays close to the subject announced by the title.