Mykola Yaroshenko’s genre works “The Stoker”, “The Student”, “The Girl student”, “Life Is Everywhere” have long been canonical. Without them, it is impossible to imagine that bright page in the history of world art of the late nineteenth century which was inscribed in it by a large cohort of members of the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions.
Full of emotional tension, deep compassion for the depicted heroes, they contain the response of the sensitive soul of the artist to acute problems in society of that time. But the further into the past those events go, the more an understanding of the timelessness of Mykola Yaroshenko’s works becomes clearer. They have been and remain relevant.
The collection of the Poltava Art Museum (Art Gallery) named after Mykola Yaroshenko includes the genre painting “Old Servant”, unfinished work “Beggars in Kyiv Pechersk Lavra”, as well as an etude to it and etudes to the works “Judas”, “The Prisoner”, “Forgotten Temple”, “Loss of the Firstborn”.
During the Second World War, a significant part of the works of M.O. Yaroshenko belonging to the museum were lost among them and such significant genre paintings as “Nevsky Prospekt at night”, “Reasons unknown”, “Dreamer”, “Girl with toys”, “Summer”, ” Judas”.
