Valentin Serov was one of the greatest masters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Serov’s works the characteristic and concrete merged with the timeless and the general. His work is distinguished by truthfulness, a deep understanding of human nature and on the motives behind human actions. To Serov the aesthetic programme of the Peredvizhniki seemed rather narrow and their purposes limited. Though a member of the Society for Circulating Art Exhibitions from 1894, Serov had sought from the very beginning of his artistic career much broader, philosophical generalizations.
Girl with Peaches (1887) is not so much a portrait of Vera Mamontova, the daughter of that great patron of the arts Savva Mamontov, as a synthetic image of radiant happiness. Having sat down for a fleeting moment at the table, the girl turns her tanned face with lively dark eyes to the spectator. In a moment and she will jump up and run though the rooms, filling them with merry laughter. Her charm is continuously changing, constantly moving. The sun beams piercing the room are reflected in blue patches on her pink blouse, and in pink patches on the tablecloth. Sparkling light reflected on the polished furniture conveys a feeling of a luminous, joyous, cloudless world, a world remote from the frustration and suffering that attracted the attention of the Peredvizhniki.
