Peskov, Mikhail Ivanovich

Born in Irkutsk in 1834 in a military family. In 1850-1855 he served in the office of the Irkutsk Provincial Administration . He was engaged in painting on his own, painted portraits of local residents of Irkutsk. The most famous of Irkutsk paintings: "Portrait of Sukachev with his son." In 1855, the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, N. N. Muravyov-Amursky, sent him to study at the Academy of Fine Arts at public expense.

Entering the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1855, he used the advice of Professor A.T. Markov there . In 1859, for a sketch from nature, he received a second silver medal and, in the same year, another same medal for the painting “A House in Kolomna” on the plot from Pushkin’s novel, and in the following (1860) year, the first silver medal for the picture: “ Ermak Timofeevich, conspiring the chieftains of the Volga gangs to march to Siberia. "

In 1861, he received a second gold medal for the painting: “An appeal to citizen Minin to Nizhny Novgorod.” This painting was bought for a thousand rubles by the famous financier and collector V.A. Kokorev , and from his gallery was subsequently acquired by the heir, Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich and donated to the Rumyantsev Museum . In 1862, for the painting "Pugilism under John IV Vasilievich the Terrible" ^[2] he received a large gold medal "for expression ."

In 1863, Peskov also painted a picture, already of a domestic nature: “The exile-immigrant, Siberian scene”, exhibited at the Academic Exhibition and, in the same year, had to compete for the first gold medal. But then came the memorable in the history of Russian art on November 9, 1863 , when all competitors refused to write on a given program and filed petitions for issuing certificates to them for the title of class artists. M. I. Peskov did the same and, leaving the Academy , took part in the construction of the then - organized St. Petersburg Artel . At the exhibition in 1867 in the Society for the Encouragement of Artists was his painting "Shepherd with a Dog." In addition, three more of his original lithographs are known in the Russian Art Album for 1861, depicting Torgovka, Russian in a fur coat and high hat, and The Head of a Man Looking Up. Peskov died in Yalta from consumption on August 1 , 1864 , before his talent was fully developed ^[3] .

After much deliberation, they came to the conclusion that it was necessary to arrange, with the permission of the government, an artists' artel - something like an art firm, a workshop and an office accepting orders from the street, with a sign and an approved charter. They hired a large apartment in the Seventeenth Line of Vasilievsky Island and moved (most of them) to live there together. And then they immediately came to life, cheered up. A common large bright room, comfortable rooms for everyone, their own household, which was conducted by Kramskoy’s wife, all this encouraged them. Life has become more fun, and some orders have appeared.

 

M. I. Peskov (fourth from the right) in the photograph of the St. Petersburg Artel of Artists (1863-1864)

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But before they could recover and breathe freely, grief befell them: one of them fell ill, and very seriously, consuming, Peskov: his comrades considered him the most talented in his family. The doctor found it necessary for Peskov to go to the Crimea. What was to be done? (What would he do alone!) But the artel is power; they hastily collected the necessary amount and sent it south. And to support him, they immediately arranged an art lottery. Each artisan-comrade pledged to do something in Peskov’s favor, and soon their hall - the general workshop - was decorated with a beautiful exhibition of fifteen gizmos. There were watercolors, sepia drawings, oil paintings and heads. With great troubles, according to their friends, they handed out tickets and gained three hundred rubles for the entire collection. The proceeds were sent to Peskov. But he, to the general grief of his comrades, did not return from the Crimea and did not recover there.

Upon his death, his sketches, very talented genres, were sent to the artel. I especially remember: “A third-class carriage at night”: men, workers filled it all up with their clumsy bodies and graceful suits; but at Peskov it turned out unusually picturesque in the dim light of lanterns. Another sketch was "The officers' feast in the apartment" somewhere in the Western Territory, which is easy to guess from a Jew at the door who is servilely reporting something to a dashing hussar with a guitar in one shirt. In the picture, picturesquely arranged, there were a lot of life and types. In Crimea, Peskov painted his own portrait. It was a melancholy blond, somewhat reminiscent of Karl Bryullov ^[4] .

- Ilya Repin “A Faraway Close” (Autobiography)

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• Peskov, Mikhail Ivanovich // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.
• Peskov // Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : in 4 volumes - St. Petersburg. 1907-1909.
• Turunov A. N. Realist artist M.I. Sands (1834-1864). - Irkutsk: Ogiz. Irkutsk Regional Publishing House, 1938. - 80 p.
• Tarasov V. Appeal to history // Culture. - 2002. - No. 6 (oct.) . - S. 10, 11 .
• S. N. Kondakov. Anniversary Directory of the Imperial Academy of Arts. 1764-1914 . - St. Petersburg: Partnership R. Golike and A. Vilborg, 1915. - T. 2 (Biographical part). - S. 150 .-- 459 p.

• Peskov Mikhail Ivanovich on the site Art-catalog (Russian) .