Oil painting Still life Vyacheslav Grigor'yevich Shvarts

№Vern 646


*** ABOUT THIS PAINTING ***
* TITLE: "Still life"
* ARTISTS: Vyacheslav Grigor'yevich Shvarts
* SIZE: 65x50 cm/'25.59x19.68 inches'
* MEDIUM: oil, canvas
* HAND PAINTED: Original painting from our collection

* CONDITION: we tried to convey the maximum information with the help of photos about this product

About the artist: Born on September 22, 1838 in the city of Kursk, he spent his childhood years in the Caucasus, where his father, Lieutenant General Grigory Efimovich Schwartz, whose ancestors were Danes, was the head of the Dzharo-Belokansky military district and Lezgi cordon line.

“John the Terrible at the body of his son killed”, (1864), oil on canvas - State Tretyakov Gallery.
In 1846, eight-year-old Schwartz moved with his mother to Moscow, where he continued to paint under the direction of S. Shchegolev, a former student at the Moscow School of Painting. The boy’s abilities were excellent: From the age of ten, he already knew French, German and English, and later he also learned Italian.

Back in 1847, Schwartz was granted the pages of the Imperial Court, but did not enter the Page Corps, and in 1851, when he was 13 years old, he was taken to St. Petersburg and sent first to the Speshnev boarding school, and a year later to the Imperial Alexander Lyceum. There, Schwartz managed to attract the attention of the lyceum drawing teacher Vasilevsky and made tremendous successes under his leadership. His second teacher of painting for the lyceum period of his life was A.I. Meshchersky (a famous landscape painter), with whom he began to try painting with oil paints. On May 24, 1859, Schwartz was the first to graduate from the Lyceum with a gold medal, and in the same year he entered service with the rank of class IX.

In September 1859, with the permission of his superiors, Schwartz enrolled as a volunteer at St. Petersburg University "in the field of Oriental languages" and immediately became interested in lectures by Professor Kostomarov on history, to which he always felt an inclination.

“A Scene from the Home Life of Russian Tsars”, (1865), oil on canvas - State Russian Museum.
Before entering the University, Schwartz began to study at the Academy of Arts and, thinking of devoting himself to battle painting, enrolled in the number of students of Professor B.P. Villevalde. However, probably due to the influence of Kostomarov's lectures, his first major works are compositions from ancient Russian history. Such are the cardboard “Shuisky and De la Guardi Entrance to Moscow” and “Date of the Grand Duke Svyatoslav and the Greek Emperor Tzimischius” painted in black and white pencil. For the last drawing, the Academy on December 18, 1859 awarded Schwartz a silver medal of the second dignity.

On May 24, 1860, the Academy awarded him another silver medal for the drawing “John the Terrible near Kazan”, and in early 1861, Schwartz went abroad for six months. Having gone primarily to Berlin, he stayed here for four months and first worked under the guidance of Schutz, and then he began to correct the coloring of Schrader.

At the end of June 1861, Schwartz left Berlin and visited successively Dresden, Cologne, Frankfurt and Mainz, after which he returned to Russia, bringing with him a very interesting album of his travel drawings. Immediately upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Schwartz set to work on his best: "John the Terrible at the body of his son killed." He put this cardboard on December 23, 1861 for the third exam, and on January 12, 1862, the Academy awarded him only a silver medal for him, that is, in other words, Schwartz was mixed with a host of other ordinary students. In the same winter, Schwartz painted a huge (5 arshins of width and 8 arshins of length) Walpurgis Night cardboard on the plot from Goethe's Faust. He conceived this thing back in Berlin, and it was greatly affected by the influence of Kaulbach, whose symbolic and allegorical compositions Schwartz was very fond of then. In the summer of 1862, Schwartz took two series of illustrations and made five very good drawings for the Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov by Lermontov and four for the Prince of Silver Count A. Tolstoy.

He was going to illustrate Kostomarov's “Stenka Razin Riot”, but this was prevented by a second trip abroad. The desire to see art Europe prompted him to give up service, to resign and take this trip in early 1863. Having traveled to Leipzig, Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Mainz and Cologne, he was based in Paris. Here he worked with the famous colorist genre Lefebvre (French: Jules Joseph Lefebvre), visited the studio of Comte (French Pierre-Charles Comte) and Jerome, and did sketches from nature both in Paris and in Fontainebleau and Barbizon. Of the major works in Paris, he made "Nikolai Ugodnik" (full-length) and the drawing "Abbot Daniel before Baldwin I" (for A. S. Norov).