Before World War I

Ivan Djeneeff had enjoyed a career as an artist for over a decade on the eve of the First World War. His portraits and scenes from history and legend follow the traditions of academic painting, while his landscapes show an affinity for the distinctive effects of twilight and reflections on water developed by his friend and mentor Arkhip Kuindzhi. Although many of Djeneeff’s early works were lost during the Revolution, period photographs and replicas painted decades later share the restrained palette typical of much late nineteenth century art in Russia and abroad. Several of these early paintings were sent to America by the artist’s sister before October 1917. Many of his works completed in Russia include genre subjects and figural studies.

In the work Olga by the Donets (1914), Djeneeff painted his fiancée during a visit to Semenovka, his family’s estate near Kharkov in Ukraine. While clearly intending to record Olga’s appearance accurately, Djeneeff adds a psychological dimension to the composition by placing the figure at a slight distance, having her gaze off to the side rather than directly at the artist. The sweep of silvery water surrounds and frames the young woman in her simple white dress, while the high horizon and the lack of specific features in the setting contribute to a mood of quiet reflection. The implication that landscape embodies human emotions, a concept of the romantic era, was further developed in the late nineteenth century by artists such as Ilia Repin, Mikhail Nesterov, and Valentin Serov, whose works Djeneeff knew. One of few surviving paintings from Djeneeff’s early career, this portrait was a reminder - almost a symbol - of a way of life that virtually ceased to exist after the war.

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