Mikhail Konstantinovich Clodt
Encyclopedia
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
) was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n realistic
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
painter.
Mikhail Clodt was born to the artistic family of barons Clodt von Jürgensburg
Clodt von Jürgensburg
Barons Clodt von Jürgensburg were a German-Russian family. Many of its members were prominent artists. Among the notable members of the family were:...
, his father Konstantin Clodt was the first Russian wood engraver, his uncle Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg
Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg
Baron Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, known in Russian as Pyotr Karlovich Klodt , was a favourite sculptor of Nicholas I of Russia.Stemming from a distinguished family of Baltic Germans, Clodt von Jürgensburg, Klodt started his career as a professional artillery officer and amateur sculptor...
was a famous Russian sculptor.
He learnt drawing at the Saint Petersburg Mining Cadet Corps
Saint Petersburg Mining Institute
The G. V. Plekhanov Saint Petersburg State Mining Institute and Technical University is Russia's oldest higher education institute devoted to engineering...
, then at the Imperial Academy of Arts
Imperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, completed 25 years later in 1789...
(1851–1858). After receiving a Large Galod Medal he received scholarship for three years to study painting in France, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
but abandoned his foreign trip in a year. He complained that the foreign landscapes would not inspire him and that French and Italian school of painting is inferior to Russian one. After returning Clodt got permissions to use the rest of the scholarship funds in his travel over Russia.
In 1863 Clodt got recognition for his painting Highway in Autumn. Even higher praise was given for his work In the field (1872) and the Forest view in the Midday (1878). Observers celebrated his devotion to Russian landscape, attention to the details, stereoscopy of his works. On the other hand popular art critic Vladimir Stasov noted petty naturalism and the "slavish following to reality" in many Klodt works. As an example of such a work he stated Cows at Watering (1879). In both his devotion to the Russian landscape and some petty naturalism Clodt was probably the forerunner of Ivan Shishkin
Ivan Shishkin
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin was a Russian landscape painter closely associated with the Peredvizhniki movement.Shishkin was born in Yelabuga of Vyatka Governorate , and graduated from the Kazan gymnasium...
.
Mikhail Clodt was a founding member of Peredvizhniki
Peredvizhniki
Peredvizhniki , often called The Wanderers or The Itinerants in English, were a group of Russian realist artists who in protest at academic restrictions formed an artists' cooperative; it evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions in 1870.- History :In 1863 a group of fourteen students...
movement, but Peredvizhniki did not completely consider him as their own. That was partially due to the sharp criticisms from Clodt and partially because of him keeping his professorship of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1871–1886). After Clodt's particularly sharp criticism over Arkhip Kuindzhi
Arkhip Kuindzhi
Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was a Russian landscape painter.Arkhip Kuindzhi was born in January 1841 in Mariupol , but he spent his youth in the city of Taganrog. He grew up in a poor family, and his father was a Greek shoemaker Ivan Khristoforovich Kuindzhi...
Clodt was forced to break with Peredvizhniki. Soon he retired from the Academy as well.
Clodt did not paint anything of value after the 1870s. Half-blind and financially broken, he died in 1902.