Paintings by Konstantin Makovsky

As I began to write this post about the paintings of Konstantin Makovsky (1839-1915), a friend called to tell me about today’s catastrophe in the Moscow Metro. This is a line I easily could have been on this morning. It’s the line my Russian friend was about to take en route to join me at my hotel.

Ironically Makovsky’s demise came about from a collision of his horse-drawn carriage with one of the new electric streetcars. That was big news when it happened, much as today’s terrible accident.

Makovsky was a wonderful artist who lived very much in a technologically expanding world. He traveled widely and was notably modern in many ways. His paintings invoked controversy because of their immediate popular appeal. His choice of subjects correspond with themes favored by the famous school of Russian Realists known as the Wanderers. There are wonderful historical paintings, such as several documenting the struggles of merchant Kuz’ma Minin and Prince Dmitrii Pozharsky to restore Russian rule after a dismal early 17th-century period known as “The Time of Troubles.”