Rating and value of paintings, Views of Paris by Constantin Korovine

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Rating and value of the artist Constantin Korovine

Korivine is a Russian-born painter who is relatively unknown to the general public. He leaves behind a unique artistic repertoire characteristic of Russian post-impressionism.

This legacy consists of paintings that are predominantly oils on canvas. At present, prices for his works are flying off the auctioneers' hammers.

His paintings and other works are particularly prized, especially by European and American buyers, and the price at which they sell on the art market ranges from €50 to €1,649,740, a considerable delta but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to Korovine's works.

In 2008, his composition Boulevard des Capucines, dating from 1912 was sold for €924,850 by Sotheby's, while it was estimated at between €624,900 and €874,860.

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

Style and technique of artist Constantin Korovine

In his views of Paris, Constantin Korovine transposes the Impressionist heritage into a pictorial syntax where the nervous touch and fluid impastos translate the mobility of urban light.

The structure of space is often deliberately unstable, with planes superimposed without clear demarcation, in a chromatic dissolution dominated by silvery grays, nocturnal blues and the vibrant golds of streetlamps.

The pictorial material, applied in broad, fragmented strokes, captures the reflections on the damp asphalt, the diffuse flicker of signs and the uncertain transparency of the Seine's mists.

In Korovine's work, color is never treated as a flat surface, but as a network of shifting strata where contrasts are resolved in an optical continuity akin to sfumato effects.

This fast, flexible style, inherited from his work as a decorator, favors instant impressions over the rigorous construction of the motif: forms almost fade away under the glare of artificial lights, in a vision where matter and atmosphere merge in a sensory shimmer.

In contrast to the precise framing of realist painters, his Parisian views are akin to fleeting captures in which the city dissolves into a luminous effervescence, placing his work in the continuity of late Impressionism, sublimated by a sensibility that is properly theatrical.

Constantin Korovine, a prized painter

Constantin Korovine (1861-1939), a Russian-born artist, became a figure prized by collectors, as did Krachkowsky and Bessonov.

The artist was born in Moscow into a family of merchants, and quickly entered painting school, aged just 14. Savrassov was one of his teachers.

Didn't like it there, he preferred to travel first to Scandinavia, then to France, where his works began to be strongly inspired by Impressionism  this is why critics would call him a postimpressionist.

Painter but also decorator, he worked like other artists (we'll mention Vassilew Slavik) for ballet and decoration. In 1900, he designed the sets for the Russian pavilion at the Universal Exhibition.

The following year, he returned to Russia, where he taught painting alongside Serov ; while working for the Russian ballet. Still close to the Ambulants, from whom he drew inspiration early in his career, and despite his disconnect with their austerity and rigor, he exhibited his paintings alongside theirs, but also at the Société des Trente-Six as well as the Société des artistes russes.

In 1923, he emigrated to France due to the political context in his native country, where he continued to produce ballet and theater sets.

Korovine died in Paris in 1939, aged 77.

Les vues de Paris

In his views of Paris, Constantin Korovine captures the city in a shifting radiance where artificial light and the humidity of the air transform urban space into an incessant shimmer.

The rapid, fluid brushstrokes follow the pulsations of the city: broad impastos thrown onto the canvas in a supple, almost liquid material, where the reflections of streetlamps stretch out in vibrant sheets on the damp pavement.

The boulevards, bridges and quays are never treated with architectural rigor, but in a chromatic dissolution where forms seem absorbed by the atmosphere.

The golden yellows of the lampposts stand out against inky blues, translucent greys and blurred mauves, in a fragile balance between luminous flashes and nocturnal depth.

In contrast to Caillebotte, who fixes the city in an ordered geometry, Korovine favors the instantaneous and the quivering, multiplying the vibrations of color to render the effervescence of the capital.

There is, in these canvases, a diffuse theatricality, a taste for staging modern Paris, where the pictorial material, by almost fading into the light, tends to confuse the city and its reflection, architecture and atmosphere, in a luminous fade where sensation prevails over structure.

Focus on Boulevard des Capucines, Constantin Korovine

In Boulevard des Capucines, Constantin Korovine captures the effervescence of the capital in a luminous explosion where the scene seems to dissolve in a haze of brilliant colors.

The reflections of the streetlamps, almost spectral, glide across the cobblestones, mingling with the puffs of air created by the traffic.

The space, barely structured, is lost in a succession of bright, intertwined strokes, where yellows, blues and grays are superimposed without clear transition, with an intensity that captures the immediacy of the scene.

The perspective is deliberately blurred, the lines of the buildings melting into a sea of light, as if the artist had wanted to convey the sensation of movement rather than the solidity of the place.

Through this nervous, vibrant facture, Korovine captures the dynamics of the boulevard in its most fleeting reality: the light spilling onto the sidewalks, the blurred silhouettes of passers-by, the lively air of a street in perpetual motion.

It's less the street as such that is painted than the soul of the street, a constant vibration, where form is lost to better render the energy of urban life.

Korovine's imprint on his period

Korovine left his mark on his era in Russia and France, although the general public no longer remembers him today. Nevertheless, his technical mastery interests collectors and his works are highly sought-after on the auction market.

The stylistic influences of Constantin Korovine

The stylistic influences of Constantin Korovine unfold in an osmosis between the great currents of French painting and the sensibility specific to his Russian eye.

First, his passage through the Moscow School of Fine Arts and his first contacts with Impressionism mark a synthesis of Monet's exploded touch and attention to light, inherited from l'école de Barbizon.

In Paris, where he frequented workshops and salons, he quickly integrated the principles of art nouveau, where fluidity of line and harmony of color dictate composition.

However, he was not content with simple imitation. The vibrant hues, which he borrows from Impressionism, are nuanced by a more personal influence from the Peredvizhniki school, particularly visible in his Russian landscapes, where color, though vibrant, is structured and denser.

Korovine doesn't limit himself to one technique; he captures the essence of light, oscillating between the finesse of nuances and the density of pictorial matter.

Hence, his views of Paris, for example, also draw on the lesson of the Fauves, who valued pure color as a means of expressing the dynamism of urban space.

He fuses these influences to offer a deeply sensory vision, where the brilliance of light translates into a fluid construction of atmosphere, and where the sensation of the moment prevails over the precise figuration of the world.

Recognizing Korovine's signature

Often, Contantin Korovine's paintings are signed at the bottom left of the painting. He signs with his surname and first name, often in a dark tone ; sometimes with the town where he painted the picture, or the date.

Knowing the value of a work

If you happen to own a work by or after Constantin Korovine, don't hesitate to request a free appraisal using our form on our website.

A member of our team of experts and licensed auctioneers will contact you promptly to provide you with an estimate of the market value of your work, not forgetting to send you ad hoc information about it.

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