The exhibition "Learning from Nature. Landscapes by Mikhail Matyushin"

On October 18, the St. Petersburg Avant-Garde Museum, a branch of the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, will open the exhibition "Learning from Nature. Landscapes by Mikhail Matyushin". The exhibition will open on October 18 and will last until February 17, 2026.

Landscapes occupy a special place in the artistic heritage of the painter, composer, and researcher Mikhail Matyushin (1861-1934). Throughout his career, he drew inspiration from nature and constantly sought to capture it — in paintings, drawings, photographs, and even in music. It was the genre of landscape that became Matyushin's "laboratory". In it, he went through a period of apprenticeship, presented his own interpretation of Impressionism, took steps towards Cubism, came close to abstraction, embodied the innovative concept of extended viewing and finally turned to realism.

However, with all the stylistic metamorphoses, one thing remained unchanged — the desire not only to capture the visible, but to penetrate into the very essence of the phenomenon, to comprehend the inner logic, deep wisdom, the "soul" of forests, fields, mountains, lakes. To achieve such harmony in his works, which is inherent in all living things.

"Nature tells us: don't imitate me by impersonating me. Create yourself the same way. Learn my work," declared Matyushin. And he followed this covenant himself. He saw art in tree roots — and exhibited them as art objects. He heard music in the rustle of leaves, the chirping of grasshoppers — and tried to achieve the same freedom, naturalness in his own melodies.…

Mikhail Matyushin perceived the world as an organic whole. His work also has a rare integrity. He has the same motifs and ideas that pass from painting and graphics to photography, from photography to root sculptures; from early things to later ones, from figurative images to non-objective ones. Like a plant, Matyushin's art is constantly being reborn, changing, and developing, without losing its individuality and originality.

The exhibition, located in the premises of the former house of MV Matyushin, is designed to demonstrate this quality and reflect the evolution of the master's style using the example of works of the only genre — landscape and the only collection — the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg.