RZHEV Antonina – Merry minute 900 Classic russian paintings

Description of Antonina Rzhevskaya’s painting "A Merry Minute"

1897; canvas, oil; 83 x 64; Tretyakov Gallery.

"Merry Minute" is the most recognizable of the works of artist Antonina Leonardovna Rzhevskaya. A descendant of an impoverished noble family from Tver, Antonina Leonardovna studied in the Mariinsky Gymnasium and then, after moving to Moscow, completed courses at the Moscow Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Her paintings are full of life and light, they are often simple everyday scenes, as if accidentally spotted in the most ordinary homes.

Such is the case of the "Jolly Minute", a painting that is loved by many generations, a canvas that brings an involuntary smile of joy when you look at it. Dynamic, executed almost exclusively in light colors, full of motion. Looking at the presented subject, the viewer can hear, as if in reality, the sounds of music filling the small room of a wooden hut, where the grandfather and his two grandchildren are having fun.

In the foreground is the figure of a young boy, flooded with light. The child stands with his back to the viewer, wearing a loose shirt, short pants and shoes, stomping in place to the sounds of the harmonica, played by his older brother, who is seated on the bench in the left corner of the picture. The teenager with the harmonica is no more than fourteen years old, wearing a white apron over a scarlet shirt, and he has clearly only been away from work for a moment. Perhaps he was distracted by the arrival of his grandfather, who is depicted in the picture in a street coat. The old man with a white beard is dancing around selflessly, admiring his little grandson.

The whole action of the scene takes place in the studio. Sawdust is scattered around the three characters, and carpentry tools hang on the back wall of the room. It is obvious that work is boiling here, and only for a short time has labor given way to entertainment.