Konstantin Yuon

23 August 2020

Red Goods, Veliky Rostov 1905

The works of the painter Konstantin Yuon that I am familiar with are his depictions of pre-Revolutionary Russian life, such as his great panoramas of festivals and village gatherings. Or of street scenes, such as the one above of a market in Rostov, where peasant women go to buy ‘red goods’ – (ie ‘beautiful goods’, which was the term given to the bright printed cottons used so widely in folk dress). Reading more about him recently, I discovered that he had a long career, stretching beyond the 1917 Revolution and into the Soviet era, and his later works provide evocative glimpses into the changing preoccupations of those times.

Some of Yuon’s paintings from the 1920s are in the Symbolist style.

Many works from the mid-20th century in the Stalin-approved Socialist Realist style depict military parades in Red Square and the like. But I prefer his calm scenes of life in the countryside and domestic interiors, like these shown below.

Window to nature, Ligachevo 1928

Open window, Ligachevo 1947

Portrait of Shura

August evening – the last ray 1948

Songs of the collective farm. Ligachevo 1954

Konstantin Yuon – born and died in Moscow, 1875 – 1958