Chumaks path in Mariupol

Chumaks path in Mariupol was first exhibited at the 4th exhibition of the Peredvizhniki (the Society of Traveling Art Exhibitions) in 1875. Along with other realistic works by Kuindzhi from the early 1870s, such as Autumn Muddy Road (1872) and Forgotten Village (1874), it received positive reviews from democratic publications. This marked the culmination of Kuindzhi’s close relationship with the Peredvizhniki, and he became a full member of the society in 1875. Pavel Tretyakov purchased the painting directly from the 1875 exhibition. In 1878, Kuindzhi received the title of a first-degree Class artist for this work, along with paintings On the Island of Valaam (1873, Tretyakov Gallery), Ukrainian Night (1876, Tretyakov Gallery), and Steppe (1875, Yaroslavl Art Museum).^[3]

Art historian Vladimir Petrov compared the painting to Forgotten Village, noting:

Similar moods appear in Chumaks path in Mariupol, where Kuindzhi depicted a caravan of Chumak wagons stretching across a brown steppe burnt by the summer sun and soaked by autumn rains. Details such as the Chumaks wrapped in wet sackcloth and a dog howling at the roadside are expressive. However, it would be incorrect, as some critics do, to see only a "protest sent into the void" in these gloomy works of Kuindzhi.

Writer Mikhail Nevedomsky described the painting:

The inclination towards Impressionism, towards generalized interpretation, appears decisively here. It is not individual wagons or Chumak figures, but the entire convoy, the general movement of this dark, living ribbon winding across the wide steppe, that occupies the artist. All details submerge into the general impression of gloomy steppe twilight.