“Meeting of the Icon”, Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky – description of the painting
Description of the picture:
Icon meeting – Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky. 1878. Oil on canvas 100 40 one x two hundred 20 eight cm
Looking at the painting “Meetings of the Icon” by Russian realist artist Konstantin Savitsky, one cannot help but recall the more famous painting with a similar plot – Repinsky “Religious procession in the Kursk province”.
There really are a lot of common features: a multi-figure composition, an image not of a faceless crowd, but the subtle psychological properties of each hero, an abundance of feelings in relation to the icon. And the differences between the paintings are also clear. If Ilya Repin depicted a typical estate cut, from local nobles to Kalik people, then only farmers became the heroes of Savitsky, but in all their diversity: men and ladies, old and old women, children who are furiously believers and restrained in their own feelings, mute and unhurried impetuous and agile. A wide range of ordinary and lively images.
On a wide, wheeled land road, a carriage stops – this brought the miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary. The holy face is accompanied by a representative of the clergy in a dark cassock. The local confessor is dressed more ordinarily – there is neither a hat on his head nor epitrache.
The farmers’ public is all from the adjoining village – you can see thatched roofs of houses in the distance to the right. For the inhabitants, the meeting of the icon is a real event. That’s why they dumped onto the road, not allowing to get to the local church, in awe. The shrine is held by a servant boy. Pious old women rushed to the ground, almost reaching their heads to the ground in the deepest bow, men behave more modestly – with downcast eyes and hands clasped, they silently look at the icon. Curiosity, surprise, and admiration are immediately read on the faces of the children.
The cohort of people meeting the icon is not just poor farmers, but hundreds of hopes, hearts, thoughts, aspirations, requests addressed to the icon in the hope of a better happy life. This picture is a telling evidence that it was no coincidence that Savitsky was called “Nekrasov in painting.” So not a single painter was a fan of the fate of Russian farmers."