Magie du paysage russe.
Chefs-d’œuvre de la Galerie nationale Trétiakov, Moscou

The museum hosted an exhibition tracing the history of Russian landscape painting from the reign of Alexander II to the October Revolution. This event provided a unique opportunity to discover, for the first time in Switzerland, a remarkable selection of works exceptionally loaned by the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, one of the most important and prestigious collections of Russian art in the world.

In the mid-19th century, a group of artists broke away from the classical idealism promoted by the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg and joined the broader European realist movement. This rupture was driven by a political project, a socialist utopia. At a time when Russia was modernizing – with the abolition of serfdom in 1861 – and seeking a national identity, these artists contributed to the liberal aspirations of a nascent intelligentsia. For these rebels, art had to influence social life, contribute to the emancipation of the “people,” awaken their pride, and develop their critical consciousness.

Landscape played a crucial role in creating a new repertoire of themes accessible to all. Painters explored the seas, mountains, and forests of the vast Russian Empire, its skies, the changing seasons from dawn to nightfall, peasant customs, and rural and urban architecture. To promote this new style of painting, the “Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions” was founded in 1870, organizing itinerant exhibitions that would dominate the art scene for over thirty years.

Featuring works by Ivan Aivazovsky, Ivan Shishkin, Arkhip Kuindzhi, Mikhail Nesterov, Ilya Repin, Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Vereshchagin.

The exhibition was curated by Tatiana Karpova, Deputy Director of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and Catherine Lepdor, Chief Curator at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne.