Artist Stepanov Alex Stepanovich
About Alexei Stepanovich Stepanov's still very little is written, is not collected the memories of friends and many have already been lost. Until recently, there were only fleeting mentions of it and a few brief responses to exhibitions of his works. And even in the memories of those with whom Stepanov was strongly connected with work and friendship, known in the memoirs of his contemporaries, he is usually silent shadow, and only casually thrown comments indicate that right here, close by, lived, dreamed, worked great artist. And yet, after all it it together with Levitan and Kuvshinnikova were sailing along the Oka river and the Volga, we stopped in ples, where I experienced wonderful months of creative research. He's a friend of Anton and Nikolai Chekhov, the first Illustrator Kashtanka, a frequent visitor Babkina and flats on Kudrinskaya. Each Nesterov, Arkhipov, Valentin Serov, each of the progressive circles of the Maly theater, a close friend of fine, intelligent, deeply educated A. P. Lensky. Artist supremely Russian, who had the finest knowledge of Russian nature and life, he listened carefully to everything that was going on in his era, we in the West. Nevertheless, it is always consistently went his own way. Picturesque mastering the methods and techniques of French impressionism, he managed to turn them to his own, for him the only important goals, establish them as one of the means realistic depiction of Russian nature, which knew and loved like no other. Stepanov has its own, unique place in the history of Russian painting. The artist, whose works were established on deep national basis, the finest connoisseur of Russian nature, the poet of the Russian village, 1 of the founders of Russian realistic plein air, the incomparable animal painter (superiority in this area recognized him Serov himself), Stepanov is in the Russian realist school of the late XIX - early XX century a place of honor. One of the characteristics of his work - a deep and enduring optimism.
