*SERGEEV, NIKOLAI (1855-1919) Tsar-Svet signed, titled in Cyrillic and dated 1916 Oil on canvas, 112 by 112 cm. Authenticity has been confirmed by Vladimir Petrov. Exhibited: XIII Annual Spring Exhibition of Oils of the Union of Artists in the Rooms of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Petrograd, 1916-1917, No. 259. Literature: Exhibition catalogue, XIII Annual Spring Exhibition of Oils of the Union of Artists in the Rooms of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Petrograd, 1916-1917, No. 259, listed. Tsar-Svet is an object of extraordinary interest, both in terms of poetic mood and artistic purpose. It is a burning hot Ukrainian day. Gogol's beloved remote green landscapes of Poltava stand in the midday light. The air is white-hot in the blinding rays of the sun. A stream stands still, almost motionless between the low meadow banks. A small farmstead, drowsy in the heat, slumbers in the foreground. It is that midday time when all around is shrouded in a vague misty haze. All is visible, but at the same time sharp shadows lie on the earth. The sky is immense, endless — it occupies half the composition, hanging above the river which flows away into the distance, and above the lush green of the farm gardens. Seen at a sharp angle, it is crossed by many fine shadings of colour. In the foreground is the blue of the sky, in the mid-ground — a pale, pearly heat haze, and in the background — a dense, ashen-rose glow on the horizon. The artist was clearly inspired by the desire to convey that moment when sunlight is most intense, with all the force that colour can achieve. The midday heat and the brilliance and transparency of the abundant southern vegetation in the sun always captivated him. This same desire, in all probability, also explains the choice of large canvases, in which the carefully calculated scale of the landscape sometimes creates the illusion of real light. Characteristic in this respect is the gradual transition from the long format of the canvases to the square format of the paintings and studies, and the compositional device characteristic of Tsar-Svet, which allows the gaze to encompass all the vastness of the sky diffusing its light over the fertile southern land. There is no doubt that the view before us is July, when the burning heat is at its most intense, its breath felt on everything — on the mud huts, on the trees, in the air and on the lazy farm ani- mals which the good housewife has come out to feed. Throughout his life Sergeev delighted in painting the wonderful landscapes of Ukraine, “Little Russia”, which he had so loved since childhood: the shady forests and groves, the velvety green meadows, the quiet winding streams and the sun-drenched hills around Kharkov, Kiev, Poltava. His peers noted that “as a landscape painter, Sergeev did not confine himself to mere representation of the external forms of Nature, he perceived her with the soul of an artist and poet, sensitive to her life and many moods. His pictures are always poetic.., they are full of light, the brilliance of the sun's rays; they have a distinctive general tone and colouring, which made a favourable impression on Nikolai Alexandrovich from the very first appearance of his works at exhibitions”. Sergeev's brush captured images of Ukrainian huts, standing out so brightly in the meadow, the forest or by the river, homely village courtyards prettily shaded by a silver poplar, rowan or willow, and overgrown ponds. A generic motif is present in some of the artist's landscapes — peasants depicted against the background of a natural scene, working in the fields, gathering fruit or threshing. But the focus of interest in his best canvases was invariably the light, its effects and elusive changing states. It is no accident that many of the artist's paintings have such titles as Light and Shade, Rainbow, Light through the Clouds, Stars Dying Out, Ablaze, White Night, Mist, Rays, Fireflies, and so on. But the canvas Tsar-Svet presented here for auction, with its epic scope and pictorial perfection, stands out even in this series as an undoubtedly programmatic work of the artist. In his search for means to express the transparency and shades of light on canvas as fully as possible, Sergeev focused very much on texture and experimentation with painting techniques. For example, he would paint outlines in watercolours, sometimes leaving clean areas of the base layer showing through. Sergeev attached great importance to glazes and used them, even though they appear inconsistent with the character of his thickly textured painting on coarse canvas. Although Sergeev created a great number of meticulously precise nature studies, he often painted large works only from his impression, without preliminary studies, and subsequently regarded these paintings as his best works. By 1916 when he created Tsar-Svet, the artist had achieved the full flowering of his artistic gift and was widely known and highly esteemed by the intelligentsia of the capital. Thus, the author of an article in Khudozhestvennye Novosti wrote: “Sergeev is one of our most productive painters; in a comparatively short time, he has gained a reputation as a talented landscape painter and stands equal to the best of our painters of nature. In his manner, he partly resembles V. Orlowsky, but he develops slightly different themes: ... in his paintings we undoubtedly feel the scope of a true artist, pensive, poetically attuned and able without the slightest affectation to give emphasis to his own poetic feeling”. Sergeev received his early education in Kharkov, where he graduated from the same school as Semiradsky and Vasilkovsky, the best in the city. This school was famous, especially for the drawing lessons taught by the artist D. Bezperchiy, a pupil of the great Karl Brullov. Sergeev's parents encouraged their son's passion for painting, but did not take it seriously — they were preparing the young man for a career as a road engineer. Giving their blessings to their son on completion of his course, in 1876 they sent him to the St Petersburg School of Military Engineering. But Sergeev had other plans, and when he failed his drawing exam for the Academy of Arts, the tal- ented youth became a pupil in the private studio of Lev Lagorio. His lessons with the well-known painter of seascapes were successful, and in 1886 Sergeev was awarded a Large silver medal for works presented at the Academy exhibition: Outskirts of a Cossack Town, On a Country Road, On the Flood-Meadow. F. Bulgakov, a well- known art critic who visited the exhibition, so accurately caught the essential spirit of this emerging landscape painter in his early work, that he effectively defined the artist's creative credo for the rest of his life: “Sergeev is one of those artists who depict the beauty of nature in Ukraine, and his new landscapes show many original features … The picture On the Flood-Meadow is one of the best pieces in the exhibition, it brings to mind the characteristic features of Ukraine.