Composition on Perov’s painting “Tea drinking in Mytishchi”


Perov, one of the main masters of the Wanderers’ Association, was interested in the life of a particular person, his pain and suffering, the fate of the humiliated and insulted. His work is characterized by social criticism, condemnation of injustice, general lack of color, perceived today not as a flaw, but as a feature of the “artistic grief” of the era.

In the early 60-ies Perov created a number of accusatory genre paintings: “Sermon on the village,” “Rural Easter procession on Easter,” “Tea drinking in Mytischi.” The artist sharpens the social characteristics of the characters down to the grotesque, in order to personally point to specific carriers of public evil – the churchmen.

The picture “Tea drinking in Mytischi” depicts a priest who refuses to help a disabled person who received the St. George Cross during the Crimean War.

The plot of “Tea Party”, as well as the “Rural Religious Procession”, was the actual incidents that Perov observed while traveling around the outskirts of Moscow. A similar tea-drinking took place before his eyes, when he went to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. He saw a self-satisfied indifferent priest, and a timid novice, whom he later painted in his painting. In this scene, we also see a warrior cripple with a ragged boy, whom the young servant drives away. Such poor people could often be found on the roads of Russia.


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Composition on Perov’s painting “Tea drinking in Mytishchi”