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| | ArtRoots.com - For the Love of Fine Art |
 | | The first study for *Boyarynya Morozova* appeared in 1881; Surikov began work on the picture itself three years later, having meanwhile painted *Menshikov in Beryozovo* and made a trip abroad. |
 | | Once again, the tragic fate of a strong, passionate figure is, for the artist, indivisible from the fate of the people, who opposed the church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nicon, seeing in them an encroachment on the customary run of their lives, on their rites and—in the final analysis—on their spiritual freedom. |
 | | The work is national not only in subject (based on events of the seventeenth century) but in its national types, its architecture, its winter landscape, and its treatment of colour, whose rich, limpid strength is akin to the Russian people's sunny perception of the world. |
| artroots.com /ra/bio/surikov/vasilysurikovbio.htm (2525 words) |
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