The name of the original Mordovian painter who worked in the first half of the 20th century is Fedot Vasilievich Sychkov entered the history of painting into the category of “Forgotten Names”. However, at one time, the images of his Russian girls were very popular not only in Russia, but also abroad. So in the 1910s, the painter’s paintings had unprecedented success at the Paris Salon, where they were eagerly bought up by art lovers who showed a sincere interest in Russian village life.
F.V. Sychkov lived a long and fruitful life, wrote about six hundred paintings and over a thousand sketches. The main theme of the painter’s work was village life, rural holidays, folk festivals, and winter fun for young people. The master’s enormous legacy has spread throughout the country and abroad. His works are kept in many museums and private collections around the world. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, colorful postcards published by the Richard publishing house were very popular, which are a rarity today.
The future artist was born in March 1870 into a poor village family in a village in the Penza province. From early childhood, he and his mother walked around the villages with a bag, which is why their fellow villagers teased them as beggars. For the boy this was so humiliating that from an early age he dreamed of learning some kind of craft in order to earn a living from his labor.
Fedot's grandmother insisted on sending her grandson to a three-year zemstvo school. There the boy immediately showed great talent for drawing, and his teacher tried in every possible way to develop this gift in him.
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/xudozhnik_Fedot_Sychkov_06-e149892408291.jpg" alt=" “Christoslavs.” (Children of the old village). Author: Fedot Sychkov." title=""Waits". (Children of the old village).
Seeing extraordinary talent and desire in the young man, his fellow countrymen helped Fedot with money. And he graduated from the Drawing School in St. Petersburg, although not in six years, like everyone else, but in three years, since he managed to master the entire curriculum in a short time.
Letter from the war". А вот о дипломе не могло быть и речи, та как у художника не было документа о полном среднем образовании. !}
So Fedot Sychkov further followed his creative path without a diploma, but with extraordinary talent and the desire to develop and create.
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219412078.jpg" alt=" Portrait of a wife.
And in 1908, Sychkov and his wife went on a trip to Italy, France, and Germany to see with their own eyes the creations of world art. Abroad, he painted many serial landscapes and exhibited his works at the Paris Salon.
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0-Fedot_Sychkov_-009.jpg" alt=""Girl in a blue scarf."
Returning to his homeland after the revolution, the artist began to design revolutionary holidays and write genre paintings about life in the new country. In 1937, the artist, disillusioned with the new order and feeling unclaimed, tried to leave Russia.
But by chance, his work was noticed and appreciated; Fedot Vasilyevich was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Over the subsequent years of his life, the artist will paint a large number of colorful paintings, imbued with positivity, youth, and an energy charge.
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0-Fedot_Sychkov_-023.jpg" alt="Russian woman in a red scarf against the background of a landscape. (1923)." title="Russian woman in a red scarf against the background of a landscape. (1923)." border="0" vspace="5">!}
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0-Fedot_Sychkov_-002.jpg" alt="At the hut."
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/xudozhnik_Fedot_Sychkov_05-e149892404287.jpg" alt=""Girlfriends."
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/xudozhnik_Fedot_Sychkov_08-e149892416010.jpg" alt=""Collective Farm Bazaar"
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/xudozhnik_Fedot_Sychkov_09.jpg" alt=""Snowball". (1910).
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/xudozhnik_Fedot_Sychkov_11-e149892429537.jpg" alt=""Return from haymaking."
https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/xudozhnik_Fedot_Sychkov_14-e149892443128.jpg" alt=""Free time". (1910).
Sychkov Fedot Vasilievich (1870-1958) - famous Russian artist. He is an Honored Worker of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, an Honored Artist of the RSFSR, and a People's Artist of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
F.V. Sychkov was born on March 13, 1870 in the village. Kochelaevo, Mordovia, in a poor peasant family. He became interested in drawing and painting in early childhood. While staying in his native village, he worked in an icon-painting workshop and created portraits of fellow villagers from photographs. After Fedot Vasilyevich painted the painting “The Laying of the Arapovo Station,” the director of the drawing school, E. A. Sabaneev, who saw it, advised him to send the young talent to St. Petersburg for professional training in painting.
Fedot Vasilievich Sychkov went to St. Petersburg in 1892. Here he studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, as well as at the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts. Also took lessons from. This training and the extraordinary artist’s own talent were enough to glorify his name throughout the country. The paintings, amazing in their richness and emotionality, still make an indelible impression on the viewer today. He painted ordinary people, peasants, children, everyday scenes from people's lives, rural holidays and so on. These stories were so familiar and understandable to the average viewer that the art of Fedot Sychkov became truly popular. His works have repeatedly participated in Russian and international exhibitions and have earned many awards and prizes. The great Russian artist died in Saransk in 1958. During his life he painted more than 700 paintings and over a thousand sketches.
Sychkov Fedot Vasilievich
Blonde coquette
Returning from school
Returning from haymaking
Girl picking wild flowers
Girl in a blue scarf
Sychkov Fedot Vasilievich (1870-1958)
Peasant girl.
Nowadays, few people are familiar with the work of the most original artist Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov. And in the 1910s, his works were successful not only at exhibitions in Russia, but also at the Paris Salon, where they were eagerly bought up by art lovers who showed interest in the life and art of our country. Peasant girls and young ladies F.V. Sychkov’s works were close in popularity to the hawthorns of Konstantin Makovsky, although the lives and paths to art of the artists were polar different.
Self-portrait.
E.A. Nozdrin Portrait of F.V. Sychkova 1957
Fedot Sychkov was born in the village of Kochelaevo, Narovchatsky district, Penza province, now Kovylkinsky district of the Republic of Mordovia.
His childhood was spent in a family in hopeless need.
He received his general education at a three-year zemstvo school, where teacher P.E. Dyumayev was the first to draw attention to the artistically gifted peasant boy. But several more years passed before Sychkov picked up a brush and embarked on the thorny path of an artist. Based on the little knowledge in the field of drawing and painting that he received from P.E. Dyumaev, and then in the icon painting artel D.A. Reshetnikova, F.V. Sychkov began to work independently, painting icons and portraits of fellow villagers. Among the early works is the painting “The Laying of the Arapovo Station” (1892), which was commissioned by the St. Petersburg general I.A. Arapov, whose estate was located not far from Kochelaev. The creation of the painting became a kind of exam, a test of abilities, which Sychkov passed with dignity. The general showed the painting to the director of the Drawing School for Free People, E.A. Sabaneev. Noting Sychkov’s talent, he advised him to bring the young man to St. Petersburg. In 1892, Sychkov crossed the threshold of the Drawing School, where he studied with K.V. Lebedev, I.V. Tvorozhnikov, Ya.F. Tsionglinsky.
In 1895, as a volunteer, he entered the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts. He studied in the battle painting class with N.D. Kuznetsova and P.O. Kovalevsky
In 1900, he was awarded the title of artist for his painting “Letter from the War.”
After finishing his studies in St. Petersburg, Sychkov returned to his homeland, which became for him a life-giving source of creative inspiration. In love with the colorful element of full-blooded national life, he knew how to depict the most ordinary aspects of peasant life poetically, without gravitating towards excessive literaryism in the plots. Folk festivals, mountain skiing, weddings, gatherings - this is not a complete range of themes and motifs that attracted the master.
Regular participant in exhibitions of the St. Petersburg AI and St. Petersburg T-va of artists since 1905.
In the 1910s, his works were a success not only at exhibitions in Russia, but also at the Paris Salon, where they were eagerly purchased by art lovers who showed interest in the life and art of our country. Peasant girls and young ladies F.V. Sychkov’s works were close in popularity to the hawthorns of Konstantin Makovsky, although the lives and paths to art of the artists were polar different.
His still lifes are interesting: “Still life. Fruits", created in 1908 during a trip to Italy, still lifes with a landscape approach -
Honored Artist of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the RSFSR, People's Artist of Mordovia, awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.
Since 1960, the Mordovian Republican Museum of Fine Arts named after S. D. Erzya has housed a permanent exhibition of his works (the funds of this museum contain the largest collection of paintings and graphic works by Sychkov - about 600 works, including etudes and sketches).
F.V. died Sychkov in Saransk, being an Honored Artist of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Museum
Artist's paintings
Naughty girls
At the hut.
Waits.
By the hedge.
Difficult transition.
Troika.
From the mountains
Holiday.
Lunch break.
Nanny. The artist's sister.
Young woman.
Reaper.
Young woman.
Country beauty.
Girl in a blue scarf.
Girlish smile.
Still life.
THANK YOU EVERYONE.
You might also be interested in:
My dear old people (Paintings + poems)
Russian wooden hut "A treat for good people"
Tale of the Masters
Fedot Vasilievich Sychkov(March 13 (March 1, old style) 1870, Kochelaevo village, Penza province (now in the territory of Mordovia), Russian Empire - August 3, 1958, Saransk, Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR) - famous Russian (Soviet) artist, Honored Artist Mordovian ASSR (1937), Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1950), People's Artist of the Mordovian ASSR (1955).
Biography
Born into a poor peasant family. Orphaned early.
He studied at a three-year zemstvo school in the village of Kochelaev, showed a talent for drawing from childhood, and studied drawing with the school teacher P. E. Dyumaev. He worked in an icon-painting workshop, painted frescoes in churches, and made portraits from photographs. From 1885 to 1887 he worked in Serdobsk, Penza province, with the contractor icon painter D. A. Reshetnikov.
From 1887 to 1892 he lived in Kochelaev, independently painted, painted icons and portraits of fellow villagers. In 1892, by order of General I. A. Arapov (1844-1913), whose estate was located not far from Kochelaev, he painted the painting “The laying of the Arapovo station.” Shown to the director of the Drawing School for Free Visitors E. A. Sabaneev, the painting made an impression. Noting Sychkov’s talent, Sabaneev advised to bring the young man to St. Petersburg.
In 1892, Sychkov moved to St. Petersburg and entered the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. He was supported by General I. A. Arapov. In 1895, F. Sychkov graduated from the Drawing School and became a volunteer student at the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts. After completing his studies, the artist returned to his homeland.
In 1900, he was awarded the title of artist for the painting “News from the War.” In 1905 he was awarded the A.I. Kuindzhi Prize at the Spring Exhibition at the Academy of Arts for the painting “Flax Grinders”. Elected member of the Committee of the Society for Mutual Aid of Russian Artists.
In 1908 he went on a trip to Italy, France, Germany, bringing back many landscapes of Rome, Venice, Menton and sea views.
In 1909-1917, Sychkov’s works were repeatedly celebrated at Russian and international art exhibitions.
In 1918-1920 he participated in the design of revolutionary holidays in the city of Narovchat, at the Arapovo station and in his native village of Kochelaev.
In recent years he lived in Saransk.
Creation
The artist's main theme is the life of peasants and rural holidays. The most famous works of Sychkov:
- “Portrait of Anna Ivanovna Sychkova, the artist’s mother” (1898)
- "News from the War" (1900)
- "Portrait of a Woman" (1903)
- "Portrait in Black" (1904)
- “Flax Millers” (1905, A.I. Kuindzhi Prize at the Spring Exhibition at the Academy of Arts - 1905)
- "Girlfriends" (1909)
- "From the Mountains" (1910)
- "Return from Haymaking" (1911)
- “Riding at Maslenitsa” (1914)
- “Return from the Fair” (first prize at the closed All-Russian competition of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts - 1910)
- "Country Wedding"
- "Water Blessing"
- "Waits"
- “Difficult Passage” (incentive prize at the International Exhibition in Rome - 1911, prize at the Spring Exhibition at the Academy of Arts - 1913)
- "Holiday" (1927)
- "Holiday. Girlfriends. Winter" (1929)
- “Day off on the collective farm” (1936)
- "Collective Farm Bazaar" (1936)
- "Mordovian Teacher" (1937)
- “Mordovian Tractor Drivers” (1938)
- "Harvest Festival" (1938)
- “Deed for the eternal free use of land” (1938)
- "Back from School" (1945)
- "The Hero's Meeting" (1952).
Perpetuation of memory
- Since 1960, the Mordovian Republican Museum of Fine Arts named after S. D. Erzya has housed a permanent exhibition of his works (the funds of this museum contain the largest collection of paintings and graphic works by Sychkov - about 600 works, including etudes and sketches).
- In 1970, on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding painter, an order was issued by the Ministry of Culture of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to open a memorial museum in the artist’s homeland. The house-museum of F.V. Sychkov was opened on March 11, 1970 in the village. Kochelaev after some reconstruction of the premises.
- Mordovian Republican Art Gallery named after. F. V. Sychkova.
F. Sychkov’s painting “Pretty” was in the private collection of the famous aerodynamicist G. N. Abramovich
The name of our illustrious fellow countryman, a talented painter, one of the founders of Mordovian professional fine art, Honored Artist of the MASSR and the RSFSR, People's Artist of Mordovia Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov is known far beyond the borders of our homeland.
F.V. Sychkov created bright, memorable, convincing folk images in his canvases. Beautiful with their health and cheerfulness, they affirm the spiritual beauty and value of a working person, his right to happiness.
The creativity of F.V. Sychkov is distinguished by rare integrity. The artist’s sympathies were once and for all given to one theme - the life of his native village of Kochelaevo, in which he lived almost his entire life.
The native village of Kochelaevo, picturesquely located on the banks of the Moksha River, never left the artist for long. While studying in St. Petersburg, Sychkov came here on vacation; after traveling through European countries - Italy, Germany, Austria, France - he returned to Kochelaevo, settling here forever. In a small house that stood “on the very place and street called Rogozhinskaya” where he was born in March 1870, the artist lived a long life full of creative discoveries and achievements.
The artist's life spanned two eras. He met the October Revolution as an already established famous artist and worked for more than forty years in Soviet times. Russian by nationality, Sychkov dedicated his art to the young Mordovian republic and made a huge contribution to the formation and development of its pictorial culture.
Fedot Sychkov saw poverty from childhood and lost his father early. Like all the children of the Kochelaev peasants, the future artist could not even think about a good education. His destiny was only a three-year zemstvo school, where he received his first drawing skills. His path to art is similar to hundreds of others that came from the poorest strata of society in Russia at the end of the 19th century. They managed to become famous people and get an education at the cost of great work and enormous perseverance. On this path, Sychkov, in addition to a three-year zemstvo school, had work for a pittance as an apprentice in an icon painters’ artel, humiliation, and the first commissioned painting, “The Laying of the Arapovo Station,” thanks to which the local landowner, General I.A. Arapov, intervened in the fate of the talented self-taught student. He helped the capable boy enter the drawing school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in St. Petersburg in 1892.
F. Sychkov completed a six-year course at a drawing school in three years and in 1895 entered the Higher Art School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture at the Academy of Arts.
Within the walls of the Academy of Arts, his professional skills were not only strengthened, his artistic worldview was formed, but also his inclinations towards certain genres and themes were revealed. Along with portraits, he was most attracted to the everyday genre. The main theme of Sychkov’s work is the life of the village.
Art also played a major role in the development of Sychkov’s creativity. I.E. Repin and personal communication with him, which the artist recalled throughout his life. After graduating from the Academy (1900), Sychkov quite actively participated in the then St. Petersburg exhibitions. His name is gaining popularity. He shows his works at spring academic exhibitions, at exhibitions of the St. Petersburg Society of Artists and the Society of Russian Watercolorists, the A.I. Kuindzhi Society, at a number of international exhibitions and were awarded various prizes and awards.
A trip abroad, which the Sychkovs (Sychkov married Lydia Vasilyevna Ankudinova in 1903) took in 1908, played a major role in the formation of the artist. Its goal is to explore the best museums in Europe and get acquainted with the masterpieces of European painting.
The trip abroad gave the artist a lot of impressions and a lot of new knowledge in the field of painting. His palette, as if absorbing the sonorous colors of the south, becomes brighter and lighter. In terms of subject matter, the nature of Sychkov’s work has not changed. .Having received a powerful spiritual charge, he works intensively. This is the most fruitful period in the artist’s work. In less than ten years, he created about fifty different works, including over ten thematic canvases, such as “From the Mountains”, “Washers” (1910) , “Village Wedding” (1911) “Bachelorette Party”, “Difficult Transition” (1912) “Riding at Maslenitsa” (1914), “Again in the Motherland”, “Blessing of Water” (1916) During this period of his work, F.V. Sychkov enjoys great popularity among the general public.
The October Revolution radically changed Sychkov’s usual way of life and disrupted all his plans. Having lost his spacious workshop and rich customers in hungry, unheated St. Petersburg, he returned to his homeland, with which he never severed ties. In Kochelaev, he and his wife Lydia Vasilyevna settled in a thatched hut, adding a workshop to it, doing housework and cultivating their plot, like all Kochelaev peasants. It seemed to him that this was all temporary. As subsequent events showed, Kochelayevo became the place where the Sychkovs lived almost until the end of their lives.
At home, the artist was actively involved in the social life of the region. In 1918, he participated in decorating panels and banners for the holidays of the district town of Narovchata and the Arapovo station (from 1918 Kovylkino). At his place in Kochelaev, he decorated the club with slogans, posters, portraits of the leaders of the revolution, and painted scenery for performances staged on the amateur stage.
With the formation of Mordovian autonomy, Sychkov was the first of the artists of our republic to create in art a bright, memorable image of a Mordovian woman “At work of a friend”, “Schoolgirl-excellent student” (1935) “Mordovian teacher” (1937), “Harvest Festival”, “Tractor Drivers” Mordovians" (1938), "Erzyanka" (1952) With what dignity and pride Mordovian women and girls wear their national costumes, humiliated and hung with skillful decorations made of beads, bugles, gems and coins. Around the neck are all kinds of necklaces, colorful, strung and woven. And they are called differently: “kargavakskya”, “karganberf”. On the chest lies a wide iridescent collar - “bayaravan karganya”. The belt has several heavier tassels made of larger beads. On the feet are boots with equal corrugation above the ankle “accordion boots” or “sermaf kamot”, knitted stockings with patterns. On the head there is a colorful woolen scarf with tassels, on which the “ashkotf” wreath is also worn. This national pride - a man with a bright soul, in a costume that was created by the work of generations, is marked by the national understanding of beauty, and is glorified by the painter. In one of his letters to his colleague artist N.A. Kamenshchikov he wrote: “I am not a Mordovian, but a purely Russian and have seen little Mordovians since I was a child, only now over the last twenty years I have become interested in the Mordovians and I really love the past of the Mordovians, their national costumes and so on... I I have done a lot in recent years depicting Mordovian life, but how could it be otherwise, because I turned out to be a real resident of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Here I was awarded an honorary title and given a personal pension. Well, that’s why I am connected with the Mordovians tightly and for life.
From the mid-30s, a new period began in Sychkov’s work. Striving to be objective, in his works he reflects everything new, positive after the famine and devastation that steadily entered the life of his native village. The activation of the artistic life of Mordovia played a significant role in the evolution of his work. “The creation in 1937 of the Union of Artists of the MASSR, the systematic organization of republican art exhibitions in Saransk, in which F.V. Sychkov was an active participant, all this could not but affect the works of the already mature master. At this time he created a number of works telling about life of the Soviet village: “Harvest Festival”, “Day off on the collective farm”, “Collective farm bazaar”, “Girl in a blue scarf”, “Rolling from the mountains”, “Gathering for a visit”, “Grinka”, etc.
Although the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War changed the painter’s themes, in general his work does not contrast with previous periods. It is noteworthy that during this period the artist, who was distinguished by his extraordinary capacity for work and productivity, worked very little. If in pre-war times he created several paintings and portraits a year, then during the war he painted one completed canvas “For the Defense Fund”, two portraits “Portrait of a Man”, “Portrait of the Hero of the Soviet Union A.G. Kotov”, made sketches of paintings “Girls of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic study military affairs.” The main reason for this is the moral state of the artist, who was acutely worried about the events of the war.
F.V. Sychkov created his own memorable type of female beauty with pronounced national traits. His ideal has nothing in common with the classical one. His heroines captivate the viewer with their healthy and strong strength of people from the people, affirm the fullness and joy of being. The image created by the artist, although based on the image of specific people, is rather collective in nature. He has the charm of blooming youth, an abundance of vitality, overflowing energy, strength and health. Its creation is subject to the entire arsenal of expressive means used by the master. Instead of thin, slender forms, his canvases have dense, tightly knit figures, exuding vital energy.
Sychkovo beauties have blush on their full cheeks, sweet and clear eyes, and a cheerful, white-toothed smile. A smile is an indispensable feature of the artist’s heroines. Thanks to their smile, they come into direct contact with the viewer.
A woman is the main character not only in all thematic paintings by F.V. Sychkov. He created his complete type of folk beauty thanks to numerous portrait works. They were the laboratory where the main features of the artist’s favorite image crystallized. Particularly dear to him was the type of girl who was cheerful, red-cheeked, perky, strong, such as “Dancing Sonya”, “Nastya Knitting”, “The Reaper”, “Ustinya”, “Girl with Cabbage Seedlings”, etc.
Often the master paints paired portraits, in which he combines two models, placed either in the interior (“Away”, “Getting ready to visit”, “Girlfriends”), or outdoors (“Holiday. Girlfriends. Winter”, “Girlfriends, Children", "Friends", etc.).
The depiction of peasant children is one of Sychkov’s favorite themes. In his children’s portraits one can feel that traditional independence, the “work acumen” instilled from childhood, which still distinguishes village children from city children. He clearly shows the viewer that he loves his heroes, admires them, and understands their peculiar charm.
Distinguished by his extraordinary ability to work, F.V. Sychkov created over his long life more than three hundred completed works, wrote more than a thousand sketches, which are stored in the Mordovian Republican Museum of Fine Arts. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, Ivanovo and Ulyanovsk, Ufa and Chelyabinsk and others In cities across the country, works by F.V. Sychkov can be found in museums and private collections. Everywhere people admire the artist’s sonorous colors.
And no matter how many years pass, Sychkov’s paintings will always teach people to love their native land, they will give people joy, as they have given to more than one generation. Because the wonderful painter, singer of Mordovia, singer of folk life was inspired to create by enduring, eternal values: the beauty of the earth, the beauty of man, the beauty of human labor and happiness.