Альбом посвящен творчеству выдающегося мастера русского лирического пейзажа Станислава Юлиановича Жуковского, в работах которого, по словам И. Левитана, природа "профильтрована через темперамент художника". Он родился в Польше, в старинной дворянской усадьбе. И, хотя большую часть жизни прожил в России, тосковал по родному "дворянскому гнезду". Может, поэтому его пейзажи полны затаенной грусти.

Немалое место в наследии живописца занимает интерьер. Рассказывая языком живописи об убранстве помещений столетней давности, художник показывает связь времен.

Картины С.Ю. Жуковского экспонируются сегодня во множестве музеев, украшают частные собрания. Альбом, который Вы держите в руках, содержит около 200 репродукций С.Ю. Жуковского.

The album is devoted to work of the great Russian lyrical landscape painter Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky in whose pictures, according to I. Levitan, nature was "filtered through the artist's temper". He was born in Poland, in an old noble estate. And, although he spent major part of his life in Russia, he always felt a longing for his sweet "noble nest". Perhaps, that is why his landscapes are full of hidden sorrow.

Interior takes a large part in the artist's heritage. Describing furnishing of hundred-year-old rooms by means of painting, the artists shows the times in joint.

Nowadays pictures by S.Y. Zhukovsky are on display in lots of museums and private collections in the world. The album you are holding in your hands contains about 200 reproductions of Zhukovsky's works.

Artist Stanislav Zhukovsky was born in the former Polish territory in Western Belarus. According to all his contemporaries, he was "not only extraordinary gifted but also intelligent and insistent in carrying out his plans". In his dramatic life, he held up through all his troubles as firmly as mighty oaks withstood terrible storms in his pictures.

The artist's father, a Polish noble, was exiled to Siberia after suppression of the rebel in 1863 and had to spend several years there. At last, the family returned back to rent a flat in their former estate. The boy was sent to a gymnasium in Warsaw and then continued his education at a technical college. There, however, he became very fond of drawing at the expense of other subjects.

At the college, the youth was lucky to have a good teacher of art, a famous landscape painter S.N. Yuzhanin who noticed great potential of Zhukovsky. Both of them believed in need of further education of the youth. So at the age of seventeen Stanislav, without permission from his father, left for Moscow to enter the local College of Art, Sculpture, and Architecture. By that time he could already boast of several worthy studies, among them "Clearing at the Bank" and "Meadow with Haystacks", praised by their viewers. However, Stanislav's unexpected move made his father so angry that he abdicated from his son; and only after a long time he agreed to reconcile with Stanislav, a noted artist and wealthy man by then.

At the Moscow College, Zhukovsky was also lucky to enjoy study with a very strong team of teachers, among them such masters as S.A. Korovin and I.I. Levitan. One can say Zhukovsky as an artist was born in 1895. In that year he presented two pictures at the Exhibition of Moving Artists while the number increased to ten in the next year. Besides, his picture "The Neman" was exhibited at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art. In the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, Zhukovsky was also famous, as his picture "May" was awarded by it in 1896. Working most fruitfully all the time, Zhukovsky, although a student then, asked renowned patron of art P.M. Tretyakov to come and see his pictures and the latter bought his "Spring Evening" at the twenty-fifth Exhibition of 1897.

Later S.Y. Zhukovsky was frequently called an "heir" to Levitan, for he successfully continued the tradition of lyrical landscape in Russian painting. Of course, Levitan's influence on Zhukovsky's work was quite noticeable at first. From his teacher, Zhukovsky was able to borrow a noble and symphonic sound of painting.

Although a regular participant of annual College exhibitions, Zhukovsky was not granted a trip abroad to complete his education, being a son of an exiled Polish noble. However, he did deserve a big silver medal and the rank of an official painter for his "Moonlit Night" (1899). By that time he began to incorporate architectural elements in his paintings and achieved high level in using light effects. Rightly called one of the leading Russian landscape painters, he continued to portray views of middle Russia. They were mainly countryside motifs and ever-changing nature. According to his contemporary art historian, "Zhukovsky is an artist, combining necessary insistent study of all minutest hues and tones in his favourite motif with very strong and fresh and young poetic feeling".

In the first decade of the twentieth century, Zhukovsky's talent reached its peak and on October 29, 1907 the St. Petersburg Academy of Art granted him the rank of an Academician for his popularity.

In the same period, in the year of 1906, Zhukovsky founded his private two-year school for painters, and his establishment existed until 1917. The famous Russian poet V.V. Mayakovskiy, also master of graphic poster, was among his students. By the late 1910-s, Zhukovsky turned to architectural landscapes with special emphasis on harmony between nature and man-made elements. Although not the finest examples of architecture, the buildings on his paintings were aimed at creating a special emotional charge within viewers, to proclaim the idea of happiness in harmony between man and nature.

After the Revolution of 1917, Zhukovsky was among those painters who supported the Soviet power. Together with many of his colleagues, he did a lot to preserve art collections in abandoned estates of former nobles from destruction. However, that time was bad for art in general and Zhukovsky could hardly support his family by painting politically neutral landscapes. Even his move to the provincial town of Vyatka failed to help him to make both ends meet. In 1921, he managed to arrange an exhibition of his seventy-four later works in Moscow. But because of noble estates in his numerous landscapes, all art historians accused him of a lack of proletarian conscience. According to them, such artists were unwanted in the society, based on proletarian culture. In 1923, he was not even invited to the twenty-third Exhibition of Moving Artists, and he felt completely cast-off eventually. And so, after several miserable years, he immigrated to his native Poland to receive a warm welcome. There he had two more decades of fruitful work and popularity. His numerous works often won awards while he, together with his colleagues, also emigrants from Russia, K. Korovin, N. Bogdanov-Belskiy, and S. Vinogradov, participated in exhibitions in Paris, Oslo, and Copenhagen. His pictures were acquired by noted Polish museums.

The last exhibition of Zhukovsky's works took place in the spring of 1939 before the German invasion. Together with many his compatriots, he found himself in a concentration camp in Prushkov as an ordinary citizen, not wiling to co-operate with the fascists. He died there in the late 1944 and, only with identification number of his chest, was buried in a common grave.