Collective interest in Russian hunting scenes

The surnames of Russian artists, which are heard by both a professional collector and a layman who does not have a professional relationship to the fine arts, are enough: Shishkin, Levitan, Surikov, Serov, Polenov, Savrasov, Aivazovsky ... and this collection has not undergone significant changes in the formation of modern history. At least until recently. Today this list has been replenished with new persons - Crickets, Karazin, Muravyov ... Moreover, these artists owe attention to their work to none other than Russian collectors, who indicated an unexpectedly great interest in the depiction of hunting scenes in Russian painting.

It would seem that it could attract collector-room Professional collectors "hunting" theme? Why didn't their collection require the addition of something else (such as landscapes, portraits)? And how do the newly discovered names of artists mentioned above relate to all this? And the “guilt” of everything is a mysterious and subtle Russian soul!

In particular, it all began with the fact that one of the adherents of the hobby once considered that his collection of paintings is not complete without depicting hunting scenes. Searching for reproductions on a topic of interest in fine art albums, he was surprised to discover that in the paintings of the vast majority of native Russian artists there are no hunting motives. After all, creativity in Russia came from the soul, from the heart, and in order to draw tough scenes of slaughter, it was necessary to be more of a hunter than an artist, or be able to write “with a cold”, “to order”, which is not typical for Russian masters of the brush.

The further development of events is not difficult to assume, this can be discussed at the forum of collectors. Still crowning the search with success and finding, albeit not very well-known painters, the mentioned images of hunting, the collection was replenished, rumors about this interesting phenomenon spread – and today we have a separate direction in collecting.

Of course, since Russian hunting painting for the above reasons is not enough for everyone, collector Often dilutes paintings and Western European masters (which, by the way, several dozen (!) times more) and “their” hunting. But even though the variety of plots, quality, and the level of execution of hunting scenes by “foreign” artists is several times higher, Russian canvases are of real value.

This collection trend continues to develop today, collectors from different countries take an active part in this. In particular, there is every reason to expect a new round, when the collection will begin to form exclusively from paintings with images of Russian hunting, but brushes of foreign painters.