As we set out early in the Lenten time to contemplate the paintings of Vasily Polenov, it is important to meet this great lady, Vera Nikolaevna Voeikova, (1792-1873), his maternal grandmother. This portrait of Vera was painted by Ivan Kramskoi (1867) when Vera was about 75 years old. There is another similar portrait, but I have chosen this one because Vera is full-faced and looking out at us.
Here, Vasily's grandmother is wearing a black dress. She is perhaps still in mourning for her husband, Alexi, who died in 1865. But she might also be coming out of mourning as she wears a bonnet with blue flowers, tied with a shiney, ultra blue bow. She wears her wedding ring on her right hand. I feel I'd like to sit and talk with her awhile.
Vera Nikolaevana and her husband were what's called the gentry — wellborn, well-bred, intellectual, artistic people. Vera was a connoisseur of French and Russian Literature, well versed in Russian history, folk poetry, folk tales, epics and legends. Supportive of her daughter's talent, Maria (Vasily's mother), became a portrait painter and an author of children's books.
After Alexi's death, Vera dedicated herself to the education of Vasily and his sister, Elena. Her vast estate (Olshanka) became their classroom where Vasily wandered in the atmosphere of primal nature, amid plants and trees, topography, ponds, streams and the changes of sky and light. Here, he produced numerous sketches and his first landscape paintings. His grandmother encouraged creativity, imagination, and intellectual stimulation. What an amazing, growth-producing home-schooling!
Some years after Alexi's death, Vera had built a substantial church on the estate property, The Church of the Resurrection of Christ the Savior. It was a noble, red brick building with a massive central cupola and two classic snow-shedding "tents" on either side. After the Russian Revolution, the property was abandoned, while the church was robbed, gutted and turned into a storage barn for grain. Later a small iconostasis was found in the cellar. Today the church is used for services, but the cupola needs help.
The grounds (but not the house) and the pond (which we will see in a couple of Polenov paintings) have since been cleaned and restored. Maybe Olshanka will again invite young people to come and learn how to sketch, draw and paint. The culture needs to re-learn beauty. Television commercials hawking products that promise eternal sexiness and youth, mountain climbing super cars crashing through streams and snow, don't really cut it.
So let us be thankful for Vera Nikolaevna, so supportive of every creative impulse.
