Exhibition of one painting "Poultry yard"

On January 14, the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts (104 Lenina st.) Will open an exhibition of one painting "Poultry yard".

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the French animal painter Claude Marie Guilleminet (12.01.1821 - 08.02.1885). His name is almost unknown in Russia, because most of his works are in private collections in France and two in the Fabre Museum in the French city of Montpellier. The collection of the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts contains two of his paintings, perhaps the only ones in Russia. They come from the collection of N.I. Vasiliev, the founder of the art museum in Kaluga.

One of them, called “Poultry Yard”, depicts a small corner of the courtyard where domestic birds have gathered around a bowl of water: a rooster and several hens with chickens are drinking water, behind them lies a duck with ducklings in straw. In the depths, two turkeys peep out from behind a wooden lattice, a peacock proudly perches above them on a perch. Introduced into the composition, it brings an element of exoticism into the life of a poultry yard, which were many on farms in France.

The genre, called "Birds Yards", originated in Holland in the 17th century as a kind of still life in the work of Melchior de Hondecutor (1636 - 1695), and soon became very popular. The subject of the image were birds, both domestic and exotic, inhabiting poultry yards on peasant farms and on the estates of wealthy burghers. Artists, as well as spectators, were attracted by the beauty of the birds’ plumage, their habits and behavior. In the 18th - 19th centuries, the image of "Birds Yards" began to be considered as one of the types of animalistic genre. C. M. Guillemines was one of the few artists in France in the mid-19th century who worked in this genre. Little is known about the artist himself: he was born and died in Paris. Judging by his works, he received a professional education, his paintings are masterfully executed.

The composition of the painting "Poultry yard" develops vertically. The birds, scattered in a small corner of the courtyard, are nevertheless compositionally united by turns towards each other and around the dish with water. The painting is sustained in a brownish-golden scale with the inclusion of white, black, dark green, red spots in the plumage of birds. These colorful accents enliven the overall flavor of the painting. Soft warm light floods its central part. The artist carefully depicts not only birds, their habits, characteristic movements, beauty of plumage, but also objects that fill the yard: a tub, a pitchfork, folded in the corner of a pole. Depicting this modest corner of the poultry yard and its inhabitants, K. M. Guilleminet reveals the picturesque beauty in the ordinary for the viewer.

The exhibition will run until February 10.