Landscape with River

Technique: Canvas on cardboard, oil.
Size: 15.7 × 19.4 cm.
Expertise: Grabar Art Conservation Center.

This small study of a river motif belongs to the landscape strand in the work of Mikhail Kirsanov, who trained at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Apollinary Vasnetsov, Alexei Korin and Konstantin Korovin. A native of Ryazan Province, Kirsanov served as a court painter before the Revolution and took part in creating views of the Feodorovsky Cathedral at Tsarskoe Selo; in the 1920s he returned to the Ryazan region, where he taught and painted extensively from nature. The landscape is handled in the impressionistic manner characteristic of the artist, built on direct observation of light and atmosphere. Kirsanov's works are held in the collections of the Hermitage, the State Historical Museum and the Ryazan Regional Art Museum.