The accomplished Russian painter Vasily Polenov, a master of landscape and genre painting, is also famous for raising plein air studies to a self-contained work of art.
In the summer of 1885 Polenov lived in Menshovo, an old estate not far from Podolsk. The village of Turgenevo was three kilometers away, and it was one of the artist’s favorite places to go for walks. He painted the study Turgenevo Village at the same time as Konstantin Korovin and from the same vantage point, aiming to show him his method of plein air painting. The artist’s etude came out so good that seven years later, barely altering the composition and color scheme, he made the painting Backyards. Turgenevo Village, which was exhibited at the 20th Peredvizhniki exhibition in 1892. The study Backyards in the Museum’s collection is one of the versions of that painting, today part of the Polenovo Museum’s collection.
The painter was able to achieve an unusually poetic quality in his depiction of a simple country view thanks to its honest mood, its clear and delicate color scheme and the precise, minute details in the livestock and the shimmering stream.