The region’s integration into the Russian Empire, including it in the orbit of capitalist relations, led to a change in the life of society, changes in the traditional way of life, culture, art. This was especially evident in the “European” part of the cities of Uzbekistan, where buildings with architectural features of the central regions of Russia appeared.
New vehicles, industrial enterprises, banks, printing houses, stores, photo studios, European schools, gymnasiums, etc. also appeared. The European style was manifested not only in the appearance of architectural structures, but also in the style of clothing, industrial goods which the local market was flooded with, photographs, the first signboards and printed products.
Some stagnation in the development of traditional culture under changing sociocultural conditions in this period predetermined the need to introduce new European forms of painting, graphics, and sculpture into the artistic culture of Uzbekistan. The first artists in Uzbekistan that used a European style were Russian artists S. Yudin, I. Kazakov, M. Novikov, N. Karazin and R. Sommer, who arrived at the beginning of the 20th century searching for new plots and themes with the purpose of enriching their artistic expressive means. They were astonished by the beauty of ancient and medieval architectural monuments, crafts, the traditional way of life, customs and exemplars. The style of their works can be classified as “ethnographic realism”.
You can learn more about this topic in the book-album “The Collection of the State Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan” (Volume XIII) from the series “Cultural legacy of Uzbekistan in the world collections”.
The general sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.