School & schoolkids in Russian art (PICS)

For the first time, Russian painters turned to depicting ordinary people in the 19th century. Peasant children and rural schools appeared in the paintings of realists and the Peredvizhniki artists. 

Vladimir Makovsky. In a Rural School, 1883  

They tended to show not only idyllic images and students’ bright faces, but also dramatic genre scenes, such as failing exams. 

Dmitry Zhukov. Failed, 1885

Alexei Korin. Failed Again, 1891

Alexei Korin. Reading, 1900

Artist Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky created a whole series of genre paintings of peasant education. He depicted not only children, but also adults in the classroom. There is an interesting contrast between the appearance of pupils (often in lapti bast shoes and tattered clothing) and the neat atmosphere of the school. 

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. Sunday Reading at Country School, 1895

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. A Rural School, 1890s

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. Mental Arithmetic, 1895

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. At the Doors of a School, 1897

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. The Essay, 1903

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. Beginners, 1904

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. Children in a Class, 1918

During the Soviet era, education became one of the key subjects of Socialist Realism, the only official art in the USSR. In those paintings, we see happy (and athletic) pioneers, students in school uniforms and preparations for September 1, which, from the 1930s, became the unified first day of the school year throughout the USSR (and, from 1984, an official day known as ‘Knowledge Day’).

Anatoly Volkov. 1st September, 1951

Ivan Tikhy. Admission to the pioneers, 1953

Vladimir Serov. Homework, 1956 

Tatyana Yablonskaya. Morning, 1954

One of the most famous paintings about school is Fyodor Reshetnikov’s ‘Low Marks Again’ (which, in a way, repeats the plot from Dmitry Zhukov’s painting ‘Failed’, 1885, but already in a new reality and setting. We see a whole palette of emotions - the shame on the face of the schoolboy, the sadness of his mother, the mockery of his younger brother and the reproach of his excelling sister. Only the dog sympathizes with the boy. 

Fyodor Reshetnikov. Low Marks Again, 1952

Reshetnikov has a whole trilogy about a schoolboy - the below artwork ‘Reexamination’ shows the same boy bored with his studies, while the other boys are enjoying the summer. 

Fyodor Reshetnikov. Reexamination, 1954

And the painting ‘Arrived on Vacation’ depicts an exemplary Suvorov cadet saluting his grandfather, whom he came to visit on winter vacation. The boy is obviously proud of his status and his uniform. 

Fyodor Reshetnikov. Arrived on Vacation, 1948

Sergei Grigoriev, a social realist artist, created a series of genre paintings about school. He pointedly showed the social side of school - admission to the Komsomol youth organization - as a whole exam, where the student appears before a commission of similar schoolchildren.

Sergei Grigoriev. Admission to the Komsomol, 1949

Or, for example, the frequent practice, in a special school assembly, of shaming a child for an F grade. Reproductions of this picture were widely circulated in Soviet schools.  

Sergei Grigoriev. Discussion of the Low Mark, 1950