1.
Ilya Repin
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Ilya Yefimovich Repin was a Russian realist painter. He was the most renowned Russian artist of the 19th century and he played a major role in bringing Russian art into the mainstream of European culture. His major works include Barge Haulers on the Volga, Religious Procession in Kursk Province, Repin was born in Chuguyev, in Kharkov Governorate, Ukraine into a family of military settlers. His father traded horses and his grandmother ran an inn and he entered military school to study surveying. In 1863 he went to St. Petersburg Art Academy to study painting but had to enter Ivan Kramskoi preparatory school first and he met fellow artist Ivan Kramskoi and the critic Vladimir Stasov during the 1860s, and his wife, Vera Shevtsova in 1872. In 1874–1876 he showed at the Salon in Paris and at the exhibitions of the Itinerants Society in Saint Petersburg and he was awarded the title of academician in 1876. In 1880 Repin travelled to Zaporozhia in Ukraine to gather material for the 1891 Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and his Religious Procession in Kursk Province was exhibited in 1883, and Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan in 1885. In 1892 he published the Letters on Art collection of essays and he taught at the Higher Art School attached to the Academy of Arts from 1894. In 1898 he purchased an estate, the Penates, in Kuokkala, in 1901 he was awarded the Legion of Honour. In 1911 he traveled with his common-law wife Natalia Nordman to the World Exhibition in Italy, in 1916 Repin worked on his book of reminiscences, Far and Near, with the assistance of Korney Chukovsky. He welcomed the Russian Revolution of 1917, celebrations were held in 1924 in Kuokkala to mark Repins 80th birthday, followed by an exhibition of his works in Moscow. In 1925 a jubilee exhibition of his works was held in the Russian Museum in Leningrad, Repin died in 1930 and was buried at the Penates. Repin was born in the town of Chuguyev, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire and his father Yefim Vasilyevich Repin was a private in the Uhlan Regiment of the Imperial Russian Army. As a boy Ilya was educated at the school where his mother taught. From 1854 he attended a military Cantonist school and he did not have fond recollections of his childhood, mainly due to the military settlements his family lived in. In 1856 he became a student of Ivan Bunakov, an icon painter. In 1859–1863 he painted icons and wall-paintings by commission for the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, in 1864 he began attending the Imperial Academy of Arts, and met the painter Ivan Kramskoi. In 1869 he was awarded a gold medal for his painting Job
2.
Barge Haulers on the Volga
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Barge Haulers on the Volga or Burlaki is an 1870–73 oil-on-canvas painting by the Russian realist painter and sculptor Ilya Repin. The work depicts 11 laboring men dragging a barge on the Volga River, the men seem to almost collapse forward in exhaustion under the burden of hauling a large boat upstream in heavy, hot weather. The work is both a celebration of the dignity and fortitude, and a highly emotional condemnation of those who sanctioned such inhumane labor. Repin conceived the painting during his travels through Russia as a young man and it drew international praise for its realistic portrayal of the hardships of working men, and launched his career. Soon after its completion, the painting was purchased by Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, Barge Haulers on the Volga has been described as perhaps the most famous painting of the Peredvizhniki movement. its unflinching portrayal of backbreaking labor. Repin was accepted into the Imperial Academy of Art in St. Petersburg in 1863, the academy at the time was known for its deep conservatism and leaning towards academic art, a fact that bred a sense of revolt and desire for change in many of its students. Barge Haulers is inspired by scenes witnessed by the artist while holidaying on the Volga in 1870 and he made a number of preparatory studies, mostly in oil, while staying in Shiriaev Buerak, near Stavropol. The sketches include landscapes, and views of the Volga and barge haulers, the characters depicted are based on actual people whom the artist came to know while preparing the work. He had had difficulty finding subjects to pose for him, even for a fee, the subjects include a former soldier, a former priest, and a painter. Repin found a particular empathy with Kanin, the defrocked priest, the artist wrote, There was something eastern about it, the face of a Scyth. and what eyes. What depth of vision. And his brow, so large and wise. He seemed to me a colossal mystery, and for that reason I loved him. Kanin, with a rag around his head, his head in patches made by himself and then worn out, appeared none the less as a man of dignity, he was like a saint. Barge Haulers on the Volga shows a row of eleven male burlaks dragging a barge on the Volga River that must be pulled upstream against the current, the men are dressed in rags and bound with leather harnesses. They are rendered as mostly stoical, although in obvious physical discomfort, the scene is rendered in a white, silvery light which has been described as almost Venetian. In earlier studies, it was dominated by blue tones, the men appear to be unsupervised and form the focus of the picture, with the barge relegated to a minor role at the rear of the frame. Further in the distance is a tiny steam-powered boat, perhaps a suggestion that the labor of the barge haulers is no longer necessary in the industrial age. Also worthy of note is the inverted Russian flag flying from the main mast of the barge, Repin echoes the stop-go rhythm of the labor in the undulating line of the workers heads. In the preparatory studies, many of the figures were positioned differently, the exception is a fair-haired boy in the center of the group
3.
Ivan Shishkin
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Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin was a Russian landscape painter closely associated with the Peredvizhniki movement. Shishkin was born in Yelabuga of Vyatka Governorate and graduated from the Kazan gymnasium, then he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for four years. After that, he attended the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts from 1856 to 1860 and graduated with the highest honours and he received the imperial scholarship for his further studies in Europe. Five years later Shishkin became a member of the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg and was professor of painting from 1873 to 1898, at the same time, Shishkin headed the landscape painting class at the Highest Art School in St. Petersburg. For some time, Shishkin lived and worked in Switzerland and Germany on scholarship from the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts, on his return to Saint Petersburg, he became a member of the Circle of the Itinerants and of the Society of Russian Watercolorists. He also took part in exhibitions at the Academy of Arts, the All-Russian Exhibition in Moscow, the Nizhniy Novgorod, shishkins painting method was based on analytical studies of nature. He became famous for his forest landscapes and was also an outstanding draftsman, Ivan Shishkin owned a dacha in Vyra, south from St. Petersburg. There he painted some of his finest landscapes and his works are notable for poetic depiction of seasons in the woods, wild nature, animals and birds. In 1891, he was appointed professor-director of the class in the Academy’s Advanced Art School. In 1898, he completed his painting The Pine Grove and died on 20 March in St. Petersburg, a minor planet 3558 Shishkin, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1978, is named after him. Ivan Shishkin’s paintings Ivan Shishkin at Tanais Gallery Ivan Shishkin, works Ivan Shishkin Memorial House Museum, Russia
4.
Konstantin Savitsky
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Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky was a Russian realist painter born in the city of Taganrog in the village Frankovka or Baronovka, named after former governor Otto Pfeilizer-Frank. Today this area is occupied by the Taganrog Iron and Steel Factory TAGMET, savitskys family lived in the building of the Taganrog Gymnasium for Boys, where his father worked as a doctor. In Frankovka the family rented a summer house, Savitsky spent his childhood and youth in Taganrog. He showed an interest for painting in early childhood, being on the shore of Azov Sea with his parents, he loved to make sketches, and drawing lessons at the Gymnasium were his favorite subject. When Konstantin was fifth-grader at Taganrog Gymnasium, his teenagers life changed unexpectedly, both of his parents died suddenly. Kostya was taken by his uncle who lived in present-day Latvia, there Savitsky entered a private boarding-school and in 1862 he graduated and left for Saint Petersburg, where he entered The Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. Soon Savitsky became one of the best students of the Imperial Academy of Arts and his student paintings were awarded with silver medals and for his painting Cain and Abel he received a gold medal. The artwork Repairing Railway was one of the first paintings of that dedicated to the life of the working class. Konstantin Savitsky is a co-author of the famous painting Morning in the Pine Forest, on the original Peredvizhniki exhibition the painting was shown by two authors Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. It was assumed that Savitsky had painted the bears and Shishkin the forest, later Savitsky withdrew his signature from the painting and it is currently attributed solely to Shishkin. The titles of his artworks as Lost all their possessions in the fire, To war, Herdsmen, Krutchnik, after graduation from the Imperial Academy of Arts the artist dedicated more than 20 years to teaching arts in the art schools of Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Penza. In 1897 Konstantin Savitsky became a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts, list of Russian artists Savitsky and Morning in the Pine Forest
5.
Morning in a Pine Forest
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The Morning in a Pine Forest is a painting by Russian artists Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. The Morning in a Pine Forest turned very popular, being reproduced on various items, according to one poll, the painting is the second most popular in Russia behind Bogatyrs by Viktor Vasnetsov. Shishkins similar paintings are the Forest in Spring and The Sestroretsk Forest and it is believed that Shishkin painted the pine trees near Narva-Jõesuu in Estonia, where he often liked to rest in summers
6.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
7.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
8.
Realism (arts)
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Realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in part a matter of technique and training. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the depiction of lifeforms, perspective. Realist works of art may emphasize the mundane, ugly or sordid, such as works of realism, regionalism. There have been various movements in the arts, such as the opera style of verismo, literary realism, theatrical realism. The realism art movement in painting began in France in the 1850s, the realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate French literature and art, with roots in the late 18th century. Realism is the precise, detailed and accurate representation in art of the appearance of scenes. Realism in this sense is also called naturalism, mimesis or illusionism, realistic art was created in many periods, and it is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. It becomes especially marked in European painting in the Early Netherlandish painting of Jan van Eyck, however such realism is often used to depict, for example, angels with wings, which were not things the artists had ever seen in real life. It is the choice and treatment of matter that defines Realism as a movement in painting. The development of increasingly accurate representation of the appearances of things has a long history in art. It includes elements such as the depiction of the anatomy of humans and animals, of perspective and effects of distance. Ancient Greek art is recognised as having made great progress in the representation of anatomy. Pliny the Elders famous story of birds pecking at grapes painted by Zeuxis in the 5th century BC may well be a legend, roman portraiture, when not under too much Greek influence, shows a greater commitment to a truthful depiction of its subjects. The art of Late Antiquity famously rejected illusionism for expressive force, scientific methods of representing perspective were developed in Italy and gradually spread across Europe, and accuracy in anatomy rediscovered under the influence of classical art. As in classical times, idealism remained the norm, intriguingly, having led the development of illusionic painting, still life was to be equally significant in its abandonment in Cubism. The depiction of ordinary, everyday subjects in art also has a history, though it was often squeezed into the edges of compositions. However these objects are at least largely there because they carry layers of complex significance, pieter Bruegel the Elder pioneered large panoramic scenes of peasant life
9.
Imperial Academy of Arts
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The Russian Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, the academy promoted the neoclassical style and technique, and sent its promising students to European capitals for further study. Training at the academy was virtually required for artists to make successful careers, formally abolished in 1918 after the Russian Revolution, the academy was renamed several times. It established free tuition, students from across the country competed fiercely for its few places annually, in 1947 the national institution was moved to Moscow, and much of its art collection was moved to the Hermitage. The building in Leningrad was devoted to the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, since 1991 it has been called the St. Petersburg Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. The academy was located in the Shuvalov Palace on Sadovaya Street, in 1764, Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned its first rector, Alexander Kokorinov, to design a new building. It took 25 years to complete the Neoclassical edifice, which opened in 1789, konstantin Thon was responsible for the sumptuous decoration of the interiors. He also designed a quayside in front of the building, with stairs down to the Neva River, Ivan Betskoy reorganized the academy into a de facto government department, it supervised matters concerning art throughout the country, distributing orders and awarding ranks to artists. The academy vigorously promoted the principles of Neoclassicism by sending the most notable Russian painters abroad, in order to learn the ancient and Renaissance styles of Italy and it also had its own sizable collection of choice artworks intended for study and copying. The adherents of this movement became known as peredvizhniki, led by Ivan Kramskoi, they publicly broke with the Academy and organized their own exhibitions, which traveled from town to town across Russia. Ilya Repin, Mikhail Vrubel and some other painters still regarded the academys training as indispensable for the development of professional and technical skills. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Imperial Academy passed through a series of transformations, after the Academys move to Moscow that year, the building in what was then called Leningrad was renamed Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. The national academy has stayed in Moscow, in 1991 it was renamed the Russian Academy of Arts. The old academys art collection, which included works by Poussin, David. During the Soviet era, academies were free of tuition fees as they were financed by the government, many would-be students would apply to the Academy for as many as six or seven years in a row without success. With just twenty places available and thousands of applicants, the competition was brutal, well-known graduates of Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1930–1950s include, The Russian Academy of Arts has been headquartered in Moscow since 1947. Its current president is Zurab Tsereteli and its vice-president is Tair Salakhov and it is also called the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts, Sculpture and Architecture. - Saint Petersburg, NP-Print Edition,2007, the Leningrad School Russian Academy of Arts The St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts Sergei V. Ivanov
10.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
11.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
12.
Kiev
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Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population in July 2015 was 2,887,974, Kiev is an important industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural centre of Eastern Europe. It is home to many industries, higher education institutions. The city has an infrastructure and highly developed system of public transport. The citys name is said to derive from the name of Kyi, during its history, Kiev, one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe, passed through several stages of great prominence and relative obscurity. The city probably existed as a centre as early as the 5th century. A Slavic settlement on the trade route between Scandinavia and Constantinople, Kiev was a tributary of the Khazars, until seized by the Varangians in the mid-9th century. Under Varangian rule, the city became a capital of the Kievan Rus, completely destroyed during the Mongol invasion in 1240, the city lost most of its influence for the centuries to come. It was a capital of marginal importance in the outskirts of the territories controlled by its powerful neighbours, first the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, followed by Poland. The city prospered again during the Russian Empires Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, in 1917, after the Ukrainian National Republic declared independence from the Russian Empire, Kiev became its capital. From 1919 Kiev was an important center of the Armed Forces of South Russia and was controlled by the White Army. From 1921 onwards Kiev was a city of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was proclaimed by the Red Army, during World War II, the city again suffered significant damage, but quickly recovered in the post-war years, remaining the third largest city of the Soviet Union. During the countrys transformation to an economy and electoral democracy. Kievs armament-dependent industrial output fell after the Soviet collapse, adversely affecting science, Kiev emerged as the most pro-Western region of Ukraine where parties advocating tighter integration with the European Union dominate during elections. As a prominent city with a history, its English name was subject to gradual evolution. The early English spelling was derived from Old East Slavic form Kyjev, the name is associated with that of Kyi, the legendary eponymous founder of the city. Early English sources use various names, including Kiou, Kiow, Kiew, on one of the oldest English maps of the region, Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae published by Ortelius the name of the city is spelled Kiou. On the 1650 map by Guillaume de Beauplan, the name of the city is Kiiow, in the book Travels, by Joseph Marshall, the city is referred to as Kiovia
13.
Kharkiv
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Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine. In the northeast of the country, it is the largest city of the Slobozhanshchyna historical region, the city has a population of about 1.5 million people. Kharkiv is the centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv district. The city was founded in 1654 and after a humble beginning as a small fortress grew to be a centre of Ukrainian industry, trade. Kharkiv was the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, from December 1919 to January 1934 and its industry specializes primarily in machinery and in electronics. There are hundreds of companies in the city, including the Morozov Design Bureau and the Malyshev Tank Factory, Khartron, the Turboatom. Some sources indicate that the city may have named after the Hunnic name for swan. Other sources offer that the city was named after its near-legendary founder, archeological evidence discovered in the area of present-day Kharkiv indicates that a population has existed in that area since the second millennium BC. Cultural artifacts date back to the Bronze Age, as well as those of later Scythian and Sarmatian settlers, there is also evidence that the Chernyakhov culture flourished in the area from the second to the sixth centuries. The city was founded by re-settlers who were running away from the war that engulfed Right-bank Ukraine in 1654, the years before the region was a sparsely populated part of the Cossack Hetmanate. The group of people came onto the banks of Lopan and Kharkiv rivers where a settlement stood. According to archive documents, the leader of the re-settlers was otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk, at first the settlement was self-governed under the jurisdiction of a voivode from Chuhuiv that is 40 kilometres to the east. The first appointed voivode from Moscow was Voyin Selifontov in 1656 who started to build a local ostrog, at that time the population of Kharkiv was just over 1000, half of whom were local cossacks, while Selifontov brought along a Moscow garrison of another 70 servicemen. The first Kharkiv voivode was replaced in two years after constantly complaining that locals refused to cooperate in building the fort, Kharkiv also became the centre of the local Sloboda cossack regiment as the area surrounding the Belgorod fortress was being heavily militarized. By 1657 the Kharkiv settlement had a fortress with underground passageways, in 1658 Ivan Ofrosimov was appointed as the new voivode, who worked on forcing locals to kiss the cross to show loyalty to the Moscow tsar. The locals led by their otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk refused, however, with the election of the new otaman Tymish Lavrynov the community sent a request to the tsar to establish a local Assumption market, signed by deans of Kharkiv churches. Relationships with the neighboring Chuhuiv sometimes were non-friendly and often their arguments were pacified by force, with the appointment of the third voivode Vasiliy Sukhotin was completely finished the construction of the city fort. Meanwhile, Kharkiv had become the centre of Sloboda Ukraine, the Kharkiv Fortress was erected around the Assumption Cathedral and its castle was at University Hill
14.
Kazan
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Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,535, it is the eighth most populous city in Russia, Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. The Kazan Kremlin is a World Heritage Site, in April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the right to brand itself as the Third Capital of Russia. In 2009 it was chosen as the Sports capital of Russia, in 2015, Kazan was visited by 2.1 million tourists, which is a 20% increase in comparison with 2014. The Kazan Kremlin was visited by 1.5 million tourists in 2015 and hotel, the origin of the name Kazan is uncertain. The most accepted legends derive it from the Bulgar word qazan, one legend claims that the city was named after the river Kazanka, which was named after the son of a Bulgar governor dropped a copper cauldron into it. Other local legends, including research by the Tatar scholar Shigabetdin Marjani, if there was a Bulgar city on the site, estimates of the date of its foundation range from the early 11th century to the late 13th century. It was a border post between Volga Bulgaria and two Finnic tribes, the Mari and the Udmurt, another vexatious question is where the citadel was built originally. The oldest of these seems to be the Kremlin, if Kazan existed in the 11th and 12th centuries, it could have been a stop on a Volga trade route from Scandinavia to Baghdad. It was a center, and possibly a major city for Bulgar settlers in the Kazan region. Kazan became a center of a duchy which was a dependency of the Golden Horde, two centuries later, in the 1430s, Kipchak descendants of Genghis Khan, such as Ghiasetdin of Kazan, usurped power from its Bolghar dynasty. Some Tatars also went to Lithuania, brought by Vytautas the Great, in 1438, after the destruction of the Golden Horde, Kazan became the capital of the powerful Khanate of Kazan. The city bazaar, Taş Ayaq became the most important trade center in the region, craft-based manufacturing also thrived, as the city gained a reputation for its leather and gold goods, as well as for the opulence of its palaces and mosques. The citadel and Bolaq channel were reconstructed, giving the city a strong defensive capacity, the Russians managed to occupy the city briefly several times. Kazan Khanate was making constant plundering raids on Russia, slavery in Kazan Khanate was legal. The number of slaves was up to 10% of the population, most of the slaves were Russian people who were captured during raids. All captured men were forced to turn Mohammedan, otherwise they could be killed or sold into slavery to other Muslim countries, as a result of the Siege of Kazan in 1552, Russia under Ivan the Terrible conquered the city and massacred the majority of the population. Also as a result of the Siege of Kazan 8,000 slaves were set free, in spite of the fact that under the treaty of 1551 all Russian slaves must be released Kazan Khanate still kept a lot of Russian slaves
15.
Oryol
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Oryol or Orel is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River, approximately 360 kilometers south-southwest of Moscow. The name of the fortress is unknown, it may not have been called Oryol at the time, in the 13th century the fortress became a part of the Zvenigorod district of the Karachev Principality. In the early 15th century, the territory was conquered by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the city was soon abandoned by its population, after being sacked either by Lithuanians or the Golden Horde. The territory became a part of the Tsardom of Russia in the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible decreed that a new fortress be built on the spot in 1566, for the purpose of defending the southern borders of the country. The fortress was built very speedily, work starting in the summer of 1566, the location chosen was less than ideal strategically, as the fortress was located on a seasonally flooded low ground easily targeted from the neighboring high ground. False Dmitry I and his army passed through Oryol in 1605, Ivan Bolotnikov in 1606, polish intervention sacked it in 1611 and 1615, the population fled after the second sacking and moved to Mtsensk. Orlovsky Uyezd nonetheless continued to exist on paper, the question of moving the fortress to the more advantageous high ground was in the air up until the 1670s, but the move was never made. The fortress was deemed unnecessary and taken apart in the early 18th century, in the mid-18th century Oryol became one of the major centers of grain production, with the Oka River being the major trade route until the 1860s when it was replaced by a railroad. Oryol was granted town status in 1702, in 1708, Oryol was included as a part of Kiev Governorate, in 1719, Oryol Province was created within Kiev Governorate. The Province was transferred to the newly created Belgorod Governorate in 1727, on March 11,1778 Oryol Vice-Royalty was created from parts of Voronezh and Belgorod Governorates. In 1779, the city was almost entirely based on a new plan. After the October Revolution of 1917, the city was in Bolshevik hands, Oryol was once again moved between different oblasts in the 1920s and 1930s, finally becoming the administrative center of its own Oryol Oblast on September 27,1937. The Oryol Prison was a place of incarceration for political prisoners. Christian Rakovsky, Maria Spiridonova, Olga Kameneva and 160 other prominent political prisoners were shot on September 11,1941 on Joseph Stalins orders in the Medvedev forest outside Oryol. During World War II, Oryol was occupied by the Wehrmacht on October 3,1941, the city was almost completely destroyed. In February 2012, the city abolished the direct election of mayor. In December 2013, a referendum was held, which 71% of the supported the return of direct mayoral election. As an administrative division, it is incorporated separately as the city of oblast significance of Oryol—an administrative unit with the equal to that of the districts
16.
Riga
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Riga is the capital and the largest city of Latvia. With 696,593 inhabitants, Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states, the city lies on the Gulf of Riga, at the mouth of the Daugava. Rigas territory covers 307.17 square kilometres and lies one and ten metres above sea level, on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201 and is a former Hanseatic League member, Rigas historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture during 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden, Riga hosted the 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, and the 2006 IIHF Mens World Ice Hockey Championships. It is home to the European Unions office of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, Riga is served by Riga International Airport, the largest airport in the Baltic states. Riga is a member of Eurocities, the Union of the Baltic Cities, another theory could be that Riga was named after Riege, the German name for the River Rīdzene, a tributary of the Daugava. The river Daugava has been a trade route since antiquity, part of the Vikings Dvina-Dnieper navigation route to Byzantium. A sheltered natural harbour 15 km upriver from the mouth of the Daugava — the site of todays Riga — has been recorded, as Duna Urbs and it was settled by the Livs, an ancient Finnic tribe. Riga began to develop as a centre of Viking trade during the early Middle Ages, Rigas inhabitants occupied themselves mainly with fishing, animal husbandry, and trading, later developing crafts. German traders began visiting Riga, establishing a nearby outpost in 1158, along with German traders also arrived the monk Meinhard of Segeberg to convert the Livonian pagans to Christianity. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity had already arrived in Latvia more than a century earlier, Meinhard settled among the Livs, building a castle and church at Ikšķile, upstream from Riga, and established his bishopric there. The Livs, however, continued to practice paganism and Meinhard died in Ikšķile in 1196, in 1198, the Bishop Berthold arrived with a contingent of crusaders and commenced a campaign of forced Christianization. Berthold was killed soon afterwards and his forces defeated, pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Livonians. Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Livonia by his uncle Hartwig of Uthlede, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, Albert landed in Riga in 1200 with 23 ships and 500 Westphalian crusaders. In 1201, he transferred the seat of the Livonian bishopric from Ikšķile to Riga, the year 1201 also marked the first arrival of German merchants in Novgorod, via the Dvina. To defend territory and trade, Albert established the Order of Livonian Brothers of the Sword in 1202, open to nobles, in 1207, Albert started on fortification of the town. Emperor Philip invested Albert with Livonia as a fief and principality of the Holy Roman Empire, until then, it had been customary for crusaders to serve for a year and then return home
17.
Odessa
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Odessa or Odesa is the third most populous city of Ukraine and a major seaport and transportation hub located on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. Odessa is also a center of the Odessa Oblast and a multiethnic cultural center. Odessa is sometimes called the pearl of the Black Sea, the South Capital, the predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement, was founded by Hacı I Giray, the Khan of Crimea, in 1440 and originally named after him as Hacıbey. After a period of Lithuanian control, it passed into the domain of the Ottoman Sultan in 1529, in 1794, the city of Odessa was founded by a decree of the Empress Catherine the Great. From 1819 to 1858, Odessa was a free port, during the Soviet period it was the most important port of trade in the Soviet Union and a Soviet naval base. On 1 January 2000, the Quarantine Pier at Odessa Commercial Sea Port was declared a free port, during the 19th century, it was the fourth largest city of Imperial Russia, after Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Warsaw. Its historical architecture has a style more Mediterranean than Russian, having heavily influenced by French. Some buildings are built in a mixture of different styles, including Art Nouveau, Renaissance, the city of Odessa hosts both the Port of Odessa and Port Yuzhne, a significant oil terminal situated in the citys suburbs. Another notable port, Chornomorsk, is located in the same oblast, together they represent a major transport hub integrating with railways. Odessas oil and chemical processing facilities are connected to Russian and European networks by strategic pipelines, the city was named in compliance with the Greek Plan of Catherine the Great. It was named after the ancient Greek city of Odessos, which was believed to have been located here. Although Odessa is located in between the ancient Greek cities of Tyras and Olbia, Odessos is believed to be the predecessor of the present day city of Varna, Catherines secretary of state Adrian Gribovsky claimed in his memoirs that the name was his suggestion. Some expressed doubts about this claim, while others noted the reputation of Gribovsky as an honest and modest man, Odessa was the site of a large Greek settlement not later than the middle of the 6th century BC. Some scholars believe it to be a settlement established by Histria. Whether the Bay of Odessa is the ancient Port of the Histrians cannot yet be considered a settled question based on the available evidence, archaeological artifacts confirm extensive links between the Odessa area and the eastern Mediterranean. In the Middle Ages successive rulers of the Odessa region included various nomadic tribes, the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Yedisan Crimean Tatars traded there in the 14th century. During the reign of Khan Hacı I Giray of Crimea, the Khanate was endangered by the Golden Horde and the Ottoman Turks and, in search of allies, the site of present-day Odessa was then a fortress known as Khadjibey. It was part of the Dykra region, however, most of the rest of the area remained largely uninhabited in this period
18.
Vissarion Belinsky
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Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky was a Russian literary critic of Westernizing tendency. He was an associate of Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, Belinsky played one of the key roles in the career of poet and publisher Nikolay Nekrasov and his popular magazine Sovremennik. Born in Sveaborg, Vissarion Belinsky lived in the town of Chembar and in Penza, in 1829—1832 he was a student of Moscow University. In Moscow he published his first famous articles, in 1839 Belinsky went to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he became a respected critic and editor of two major literary magazines, Otechestvennye Zapiski, and Sovremennik. In both magazines Belinsky worked with younger Nikolay Nekrasov and he was unlike most of the other Russian intellectuals of the 1830s and 1840s. The son of a medical doctor, he was not a wealthy aristocrat. But it was less for his skill that Belinsky was admired and more for emotional commitment. “For me, to think, to feel, to understand and to suffer are one and this was, of course, true to the Romantic ideal, to the beliefs that real understanding comes not only from mere thinking, but also from intuitive insight. This combination of thinking and feeling pervaded Belinsky’s life, with this idea in hand faced the world around him armed to do battle. He took on much conventional philosophical thinking among educated Russians, including the dry and abstract philosophizing of the German idealists and their Russian followers. In his words, “What is it to me that the Universal exists when the individual personality is suffering. ”Or, “The fate of the individual, of the person, is more important than the fate of the whole world. ”Also upon this principle, Belinsky constructed an extensive critique of the world around him. He bitterly criticized autocracy and serfdom but also poverty, prostitution, drunkenness, bureaucratic coldness, Belinsky worked most of his short life as a literary critic. His writings on literature were inseparable from these moral judgments, Belinsky believed that the only realm of freedom in the repressive reign of Nicholas I was through the written word. What Belinsky required most of a work of literature was “truth. ”Dostoevsky read aloud at several public events Belinskys letter, a secret press was assembled to print and distribute Belinskys letter. For these offenses Dostoevsky was arrested, convicted and condemned to death in 1849, in his role as perhaps the most influential liberal critic and ideologist of his day, Belinsky advocated literature that was socially conscious. He hailed Fyodor Dostoyevskys first novel, Poor Folk, however, inspired by these ideas, which led to thinking about radical changes in society’s organization, Belinsky began to call himself a socialist starting in 1841. Among his last great efforts were his move to join Nikolay Nekrasov in the popular magazine The Contemporary, at that time Belinsky published his Literary Review for the Year 1847. Belinsky died of consumption on the eve of his arrest by the Tsars police on account of his political views, in 1910, Russia celebrated the centenary of his birth with enthusiasm and appreciation
19.
Nikolay Chernyshevsky
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Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was a Russian revolutionary democrat, materialist philosopher, critic, and socialist. He was the leader of the democratic movement of the 1860s, and had an influence on Vladimir Lenin, Emma Goldman. The son of a priest, Chernyshevsky was born in Saratov in 1828 and he graduated at the local seminary where he learned English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek and Old Slavonic. It was there he gained a love of literature, at St Petersburg university he often struggled to warm his room. He kept a diary of trivia like the number of tears he shed over a dead friend and it was here that he became an atheist. He was inspired by the works of Ludwig Feuerbach and Charles Fourier, after graduating from Saint Petersburg University in 1850, he taught literature at a gymnasium in Saratov. From 1853 to 1862, he lived in Saint Petersburg, and became the editor of Sovremennik, in which he published his main literary reviews. In 1862, he was arrested and confined in the Fortress of St. Peter and Paul, among those who have referenced the novel include Lenin, who wrote a work of political theory of the same name. In 1862, Chernyshevsky was sentenced to execution, followed by penal servitude. He died at the age of 61, Chernyshevsky was a founder of Narodism, Russian populism, and agitated for the revolutionary overthrow of the autocracy and the creation of a socialist society based on the old peasant commune. Chernyshevskys ideas were influenced by Alexander Herzen, Vissarion Belinsky. He saw class struggle as the means of societys forward movement, in his view, the masses were the chief maker of history. He is reputed to have used the phrase the worse the better, to indicate that the worse the social conditions became for the poor, there are those arguing, in the words of Professor Joseph Frank, that Chernyshevskys novel What Is to Be Done. Far more than Marxs Das Kapital, supplied the emotional dynamic that eventually went to make the Russian Revolution. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was enraged by what he saw as the simplicity of the political and psychological ideas expressed in the book, Vladimir Nabokovs The Gift has the protagonist, Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, study Chernyshevsky and write the critical biography The Life of Chernychevski which represents Chapter Four of the novel. The publication of work caused a literary scandal. Paperno, Irina, Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism, A Study in the Semiotics of Behavior, the Thought and Teachings of N. G. Prologue The Nature of Human Knowledge Works by or about Nikolay Chernyshevsky at Internet Archive Works by Nikolay Chernyshevsky at LibriVox
20.
Serfs
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Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of bondage, which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe, serfs were often required not only to work on the lords fields, but also his mines, forests and roads. The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes been attributed to the Black Death, Serfdom became increasingly rare in most of Western Europe after the Renaissance, but conversely, it grew strong in Central and Eastern Europe, where it had previously been less common. In Eastern Europe the institution persisted until the mid-19th century, in the Austrian Empire serfdom was abolished by the 1781 Serfdom Patent, corvée continued to exist until 1848. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in the 1860s, in Finland, Norway and Sweden, feudalism was never fully established, and serfdom did not exist, however, serfdom-like institutions did exist in both Denmark and its vassal Iceland. According to Joseph R. Strayer, the concept of feudalism can also be applied to the societies of ancient Persia, ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Muslim India, China, james Lee and Cameron Campbell describe the Chinese Qing dynasty as also maintaining a form of serfdom. Tibet is described by Melvyn Goldstein to have had serfdom until 1959, bhutan is described by Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as abolishing serfdom officially by 1959, but Wangchuk believes less than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold situations. The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery also prohibits serfdom as a form of slavery, the word serf originated from the Middle French serf and can be traced further back to the Latin servus. In Late Antiquity and most of the Middle Ages, what are now called serfs were usually designated in Latin as coloni. As slavery gradually disappeared and the status of servi became nearly identical to that of the coloni. Serfs had a place in feudal society, as did barons and knights, in return for protection. Thus the manorial system exhibited a degree of reciprocity, one rationale held that a serf worked for all while a knight or baron fought for all and a churchman prayed for all, thus everyone had a place. The serf was the worst fed and rewarded, but at least he had his place and, unlike slaves, had rights in land. A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves and this unified system preserved for the lord long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, a freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate intimidated freeholders or allodial owners into dependency, often a few years of crop failure, a war, or brigandage might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case he could strike a bargain with a lord of a manor, in exchange for protection, service was required, in cash, produce or labour, or a combination of all. These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract, to become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serfs life
21.
Emancipation reform of 1861
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The Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia was the first and most important of liberal reforms effected during the reign of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. The reform effectively abolished serfdom throughout the Russian Empire, the 1861 Emancipation Manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of the serfs on private estates and of the domestic serfs. By this edict more than 23 million people received their liberty, serfs gained the full rights of free citizens, including rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property and to own a business. The Manifesto prescribed that peasants would be able to buy the land from the landlords, household serfs were the least affected, they gained only their freedom and no land. In Georgia the emancipation took place later, in 1864, the serfs were emancipated in 1861, following a speech given by Tsar Alexander II on 30 March 1856. State owned serfs, i. e. the serfs living on Imperial lands, were emancipated later in 1866 and they comprised an estimated 38% of the population. As well as having obligations to the state, they also were obliged to the landowner, by the mid-nineteenth century, less than half of Russian peasants were serfs. The rural population lived in households, gathered as villages, run by a mir —isolated, conservative, largely self-sufficient, Imperial Russia had around 20 million dvory, forty percent of them containing six to ten people. Intensely insular, the mir assembly, the skhod, appointed an elder, peasants within a mir shared land and resources. The fields were divided among the families as nadel —a complex of strip plots, the strips were periodically redistributed within the villages to produce level economic conditions. The peasants were duty-bound to make payments in labor and goods. It has been estimated that landowners took at least one third of income, the need for urgent reform was well understood in 19th-century Russia. Much support for it emanated from universities, authors and other intellectual circles, various projects of emancipation reforms were prepared by Mikhail Speransky, Nikolay Mordvinov, and Pavel Kiselyov. However, conservative or reactionary nobility thwarted their efforts, in Western guberniyas serfdom was abolished early in the century. In Congress Poland, serfdom had been abolished before it became Russian, Serfdom was abolished in the Governorate of Estonia in 1816, in Courland in 1817, and in Livonia in 1819. In 1797, Paul I of Russia decreed that corvee labor was limited to 3 days a week, but his law was not enforced. Beginning in 1801, Alexander I of Russia appointed a committee to study possible emancipation and my intention is to abolish serfdom. You can yourself understand that the present order of owning souls cannot remain unchanged and it is better to abolish serfdom from above, than to wait for that time when it starts to abolish itself from below
22.
Nationalmuseum
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Nationalmuseum is the national gallery of Sweden, located on the peninsula Blasieholmen in central Stockholm. The museums benefactors include King Gustav III and Carl Gustaf Tessin, the museum also has an art library, open to the public and academics alike. The current building, built between 1844 and 1866, was inspired by North Italian Renaissance architecture and it is the design of the German architect Friedrich August Stüler, who also designed the Neues Museum in Berlin. The relatively closed exterior, save for the entrance, gives no hint of the spacious interior dominated by the huge flight of stairs leading up to the topmost galleries. The museum was enlarged in 1961 to accommodate the museum workshops, the present restaurant was instated in 1996. The museum building closed for renovation in 2013 and is scheduled to reopen in 2018, the Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis by Rembrandt Midvinterblot by Carl Larsson Vid bäcken by Peter Adolf Persson Hallwyl Palace Swedish Museum of National Antiquities Johan Mårtelius. Stockholm, Arkitektur Förlag AB. p.67
23.
Vasily Surikov
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Vasily Ivanovich Surikov was a Russian Realist history painter. Many of his works have become familiar to the public through their use as illustrations. He was born to an old Don Cossack family that had settled in Siberia and his father was a Collegiate Registrar, a civil service rank that often served as postmasters. In 1854, as a result of his father being reassigned, the moved to the village of Sukhobuzimskoye. In 1859, his father died of tuberculosis so the family returned to Krasnoyarsk and were forced to rent the second floor of their house to make ends meet and he began drawing while attending the district school and was encouraged by the local art teacher. His first formal work dates from 1862, but his family could not afford to continue his education and he became a clerk in a government office. This brought him contact with Pavel Zamyatin, the Governor of Yenisei, who was able to find him a patron, Pyotr Kuznetsov. After a year there, he was allowed to audit classes at the Academy, from 1869 to 1875, he studied with Pavel Chistyakov, Bogdan Willewalde and Pyotr Shamshin, winning several medals. His great attention to composition earned him a nickname, The Composer, in 1875, he graduated with the title of Artist, first degree. In 1877, he received a commission to paint murals at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, unable to afford a house, he lived in rented apartments and hotels and visited Krasnoyarsk whenever possible. In 1878, he married Elisabeth Charais, a French woman who was descended from the Decembrist, Pyotr Svistunov, after that, he chose to remain in Moscow and began the series of historical paintings that would establish his reputation, starting with The Morning of the Streltsy Execution. In 1881, he had his first exhibition with the Peredvizhniki, in 1883, Menshikov in Berezov was bought by Pavel Tretyakov for a sum that allowed him to take a European tour. In 1887, he added portraits to his repertoire, beginning one of his mother. In 1888, his wife died and he returned to Krasnoyarsk with his daughters and this was followed by a visit to his ancestral home in Siberia. There, on the Ob River, he made sketches for one of his most familiar works and this brought him a full membership in the Imperial Academy. In 1897, he visited Switzerland and painted Suvorov Crossing the Alps, in 1907, he left the Peredvizhniki and joined the Union of Russian Artists. Three years later, he visited Spain, together with his son-in-law and that same year, he and the architect, Leonid Chernishyov, opened an art school. Four years later, he made a stay in Krasnoyarsk
24.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
25.
Latvia
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Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a seasonal climate. Latvia is a parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and 9 are cities. Latvians and Livs are the people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language, Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans, Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918, however, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule and it ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic and developed country and member of the European Union, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. For 2014, Latvia was listed 46th on the Human Development Index and it used the Latvian lats as its currency until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the countrys name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the name in Romance languages from Letonia. Around 3000 BC, the ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals, by 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia, Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians, as well as the Livonians speaking a Finnic language
26.
Armenia
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Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. The Republic of Armenia constitutes only one-tenth of historical Armenia, Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. Urartu was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia, in the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in between the late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century, the state became the first Christian nation. The official date of adoption of Christianity is 301 AD. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires around the early 5th century, under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the fell in 1045. An Armenian principality and later a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries. By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, during World War I, Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated in the Armenian Genocide. By 1920, the state was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, in 1936, the Transcaucasian state was dissolved, transforming its constituent states, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, into full Union republics. The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Armenia recognises the Armenian Apostolic Church, the worlds oldest national church, as the countrys primary religious establishment. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD, Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Council of Europe and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia supports the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which was proclaimed in 1991, the native Armenian name for the country is Հայք. The name in the Middle Ages was extended to Հայաստան, by addition of the Persian suffix -stan, the further origin of the name is uncertain. It is also postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. The exonym Armenia is attested in the Old Persian Behistun Inscription as Armina, the ancient Greek terms Ἀρμενία and Ἀρμένιοι are first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus. Xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. According to the histories of both Moses of Chorene and Michael Chamchian, Armenia derives from the name of Aram, a descendant of Hayk
27.
Mark Antokolsky
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Mark Matveyevich Antokolsky was a Russian-Jewish sculptor. Mordkukh Antokolsky was born in Vilna, Lithuania and he studied in the Imperial Academy of Arts at St. Petersburg. He first began with Jewish themes, statues, Jewish Tailor, Nathan The Wise, Inquisitions Attack against Jews, from 1868–1870, Mark Antokolsky lived in Berlin. His statue of Ivan the Terrible was purchased for the Hermitage by Emperor Alexander II of Russia, the latter approved his work and awarded the sculptor the title of Academic. Antokolsky believed that sculpture was a social and humane ideal, in order to improve his failing health, he moved to the Italian resorts in 1871 and settled in Paris six years later. Every year Antokolsky would come back to his town of Vilnius during his summer holidays. Namely here he created his first significant work, high relief A Jewish Tailor, the work of the young sculptor provoked debate in the Academy in Petersburg. On 28 October 1864, the Council of the Academy decided to award Antokolski with the Small Silver Medal for the Tailor by the majority of votes. While in Vilnius the following year, Antokolski created another high relief - A Stingy Man, the artist was born into a poor family and saw how his fathers financial situation improved. The sculpture might have reflected Antokolskis feelings towards his native town of Vilnius, in 1865, the high relief Stingy Man was awarded the Grand Silver Medal of the Academy. In later years the sculptor continued working on Jewish themes, which developed into complex, yet unfinished compositions, Talmud Dispute, the Inquisition was M. Antokolskis last work on the Jewish topic in his student years. According to the review of the Art Academy, Antokolsky was granted personal name of honorary citizen for wonderful knowledge of art on 7 April 1870 and this fact was also entered into an archival record. Moreover, an inscription remained that Morduchas was excluded from the register of Antakalnis Jewish community as a person awarded the name of an honorary citizen. In 1871 Antokolsky started his first Russian sculpture, Ivan the Terrible, when Emperor Alexander II saw the sculpture he asked to make its bronze copy and allocated the sculptor advance payment of 4,000 roubles. Pavel Tretyakov ordered a copy for his gallery. The funds received enabled the artist to resolve his personal problems, in 1871 Antokolski met Jelena, daughter of a rich Vilnius merchant Judelis Giršovičius Apatovas. The two married on 6 September 1872, Antokolsky used 4,000 rubles for the Ivan the Terrible to buy half of a big house in Vilnius, the other part of which had previously belonged to his wife. In 1876, upon his visits to Vilnius, Antokolsky rebuilt the house
28.
Vasily Vereshchagin
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Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin transcribed in English as Basil Verestchagin was one of the most famous Russian war artists and one of the first Russian artists to be widely recognized abroad. The graphic nature of his realist scenes led many of them to never be printed or exhibited, Vereshchagin was born at Cherepovets, Novgorod Governorate, Russia in 1842 as the middle of three brothers. His father was a landowner of noble birth, when he was eight years old he was sent to Tsarskoe Selo to enter the Alexander Cadet Corps, and three years later he entered the Sea Cadet Corps at St Petersburg, making his first voyage in 1858. He served on the frigate Kamchatka, which sailed to Denmark, France, Vereshchagin graduated first in the list at the naval school, but left the service immediately to begin the study of drawing in earnest. He won a two years later, in 1863, from the St Petersburg Academy for his Ulysses Slaying the Suitors. In 1864 he proceeded to Paris, where he studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme, in the Paris Salon of 1866 he exhibited a drawing of Dukhobors chanting their Psalms. In the next year he was invited to accompany General Konstantin Kaufmans expedition to Turkestan and he was granted the rank of ensign. His heroism at the siege of Samarkand from June 2–8,1868 resulted an award of the Cross of St George. He was a traveler, returning to St. Petersburg in late 1868, to Paris in 1869, back to St. Petersburg later in the year. In 1871, he established an atelier in Munich, and made an exhibition of his works at the Crystal Palace in London in 1873. He made another exhibition of his works in St, in late 1874, he departed for an extensive tour of the Himalayas, India and Tibet, spending over two years in travel. He returned to Paris in late 1876, with the start of the Russo-Turkish War, Vereshchagin left Paris and returned to active service with the Imperial Russian Army. At the conclusion of the war, he acted as secretary to General Skobelev at San Stefano, after the war, Vereshchagin settled at Munich, where he produced his war pictures so rapidly that he was freely accused of employing assistants. Vereshchagin painted several scenes of imperial rule in British India and his epic portrayal of The State Procession of the Prince of Wales into Jaipur in 1876 is claimed to be the third largest painting in the world. In 1882–1883, he traveled to India. He aroused much controversy by his series of three pictures of a Roman execution, of sepoys blown from the guns in India, and his picture Suppression of the Indian Revolt by the English depicted executions carried out by tying victims to the barrels of guns. Vereshchagins detractors argued that executions had only occurred in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Because of its style, the painting appeared to present itself as an impartial record of a real event
29.
Andrei Ryabushkin
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Andrei Petrovich Ryabushkin was a Russian painter. His major works were devoted to life of ordinary Russians of the 17th century, andrey Petrovich Ryabushkin was born in the village Stanichnaya sloboda, Borisoglebskiy uezd, Tambov gubernia in 1861. His father and brother were icon painters, and he started to help them from his early childhood, at 14 years old he became an orphan. A student of Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture A. Kh, preobrazhensky, who spent the summer in the village, happened to see the boy’s drawings and was greatly impressed by them. He started to give him lessons and helped him to enter the Moscow School of Painting, Ryabushkin was one of the youngest student of the school at all times. Ryabushkin stayed for seven years in the Moscow School, learning from Vasily Perov and his first large work Peasant Wedding was bought by Pavel Tretyakov in 1880. After the death of Vasiliy Perov, Ryabushkin moved to Saint Petersburg in 1882, the classes soon disappointed him, however, and he began to spend more and more time either in the library of the academy or sketching in the streets. His studies at the academy came to an end in 1892 and he did not receive an award for his diploma work, Descent from the Cross, as was expected, because he did not follow the approved project. But the work was so good that the president of the academy, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, provided Ryabushkin with a stipend for travel, instead of going to Italy or Paris, Ryabushkin chose to make a tour of ancient Russian towns. The inhabitants of them became his first models and his first critics and he studied the old architecture, items of folk crafts, old weapons, fabrics, tapestries, embroidery, icons, etc. He read ancient books, collected folklore and he took part in Peredvizhniki exhibitions in 1890,1892 and 1894 but later broke with the movement. In the 1890s he lived and worked in the estate of his friend V. F. Tymenev in town of Lyuban, in 1901 he built a studio in a village of Didvino close to Lubvino and the estate of his friend I. His paintings were mostly devoted to the 17th century and he also worked on frescoes for Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod and mosaics for the Church of the Savior on Blood in Saint Petersburg. There are 24 of his mosaics on the walls of Church of the Savior on Blood, in the later 19th century he became interested in the life of contemporary Russian peasants. The deep study of history made his paintings very reliable, unlike Vasily Surikov, who used the dramatic historical episodes as his subjects, Ryabushkin painted everyday life of the 17th century. His works lack action, they do not depict social conflicts, on the other hand, they are not so “beautiful” to reflect the tastes of the rich conservatives. Nobody knew where to place Ryabushkin’s paintings and just did not accept them, in 1903 Ryabushkin was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He went to Switzerland for treatment but it did not help and he died in his studio in Didvino on 27 April 1904
30.
Vladimir Stasov
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Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov, son of Russian architect Vasily Petrovich Stasov, was probably the most respected Russian critic during his lifetime. Stasov became a figure and, some critics argue, a tyrant—in mid-19th-century Russian culture. He discovered a number of its greatest talents, inspired many of their works and fought their battles in numerous articles. As such, he carried on a debate with Russian novelist and playwright Ivan Turgenev. He wanted Russian art to liberate itself from what he saw as Europes hold, by copying the west, he felt, Russian artists could be, at best, second-rate. However, by borrowing from their own traditions, they might create a truly national art that could match Europes with its high artistic standards. By national Stasov meant an art that would not only portray peoples lives but also be meaningful to them, in 1847, Stasov published a monograph on Mikhail Glinkas use of folk motifs in his music, from that time, Stasov advocated Russianness over European influence in music. In the years which followed he served as an adviser to the group of Russian composers known as The Five. He also warmed to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky after hearing the play the finale of his Little Russian Symphony at a Christmas 1872 gathering at Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakovs home. Shortly after this gathering, Stasov prompted Tchaikovsky to write a piece based on Shakespeares The Tempest and he also drafted a program, initially for Hector Berlioz, that Tchaikovsky eventually used for his Manfred Symphony. In between those two works, Stasov suggested an opera based on Alfred de Vignys historical romance Cinq-Mars, Tchaikovsky was then intent on writing Eugene Onegin, and Charles Gounod had already written an opera based on Cinq-Mars. Beginning in the 1870s, Stasov ardently supported the realistic painters known as Peredvizhniki as well as Ilya Repin, when artists did not follow his precepts, Stasov could become both intolerant and vocal. Stasov called the finale of Tchaikovskys Little Russian symphony one of the most important creations of the whole Russian school. Otherwise, his verdict on Tchaikovskys work was negative, The Conservatoire, academic training, eclecticism and overworking of musical materials laid its dread. Of his total output, a few works are first-rate and highly original, founder Mily Balakirev confided to Stasov that he thought Mussorgsky almost an idiot. Stasov replied, I think he is a total idiot and he was harsher still with the modernist art magazine Mir iskusstva and its founders, Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev when the magazine appeared in 1898. He called Diaghilev a decadent cheerleader in print and Mir iskusstva the courtyard of the lepers, stasovs correspondence with leading personalities of Russian art life is invaluable. He is known also for his opposition to music critic and erstwhile friend Alexander Serov concerning the merits of Glinkas two operas
31.
Pavel Tretyakov
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Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Gallery and Tretyakov Drive in Moscow. His brother Sergei Tretyakov was also a patron of art. In the first half of 1850 he inherited his fathers business and built up a trade in flax, linen processing. Together with other Moscow businessmen he acted as the founder of the Moscow merchant bank and he amassed a considerable fortune, consisting of real estate, securities, money and bills. Tretyakov started to collect art in 1854 at the age of 22 and he laid down for himself the aim of creating a Russian National Gallery. In his collection Tretyakov included the most valuable and remarkable products, first of all the contemporaries and he bought paintings at exhibitions and directly from artists studios, sometimes he bought the whole series, in 1874 he acquired V. V. Vereschagins Turkestan series, in 1880 - his Indian series, in his collection there were over 80 studies by Alexander Ivanov. In 1885 Tretyakov bought 102 studies by V. D, polenov painted by the artist during journeys across Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Palestine. He got also acquired Vasnetsov’s collection of the sketches made during work above lists in the Kiev St Volodymyrs Cathedral, Tretyakov had the fullest collection of such artists as, V. G. Kramskoi, Ilya Repin, Vasily Surikov, I. I and he also conceived the creation of a Russian pantheon - a portrait gallery of famous Russians. He commissioned especially for it portraits of figures of culture from leading masters of this genre - N. N. Ge, Kramskoi, N. V. Nevrev, Perov, in 1870-80 Tretyakov also began to collect illustrations, since 1890 he formed a collection of icons. During his lifetime they were not included in an exhibition, being kept in the owners study and he also collected sculpture, however this part of his collection was small. At first the gallery was located in Tretyakov’s house in Lavrushenski pereulok, but as his collection expanded he decided to reconstruct his house for his collection. In 1870-1880 the house was reconstructed by the architect Kaminski. Tretyakov wanted to transfer the gallery to the city as discreetly as possible, without any noise, he want to be in the center of general attention. But it was not possible to do it and he was very dissatisfied, from 1881 his gallery became popular. In 1892 Tretyakov inherited a collection of Western European painting from his brother, the collection in Tretyakov’s gallery was equal in importance with the largest museums in Russia at that time, and became one of sights of Moscow
32.
Art museum
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An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art. Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection, the term is used for both public galleries, which are non-profit or publicly owned museums that display selected collections of art. On the other hand, private galleries refers to the commercial enterprises for the sale of art, however, both types of gallery may host traveling exhibits or temporary exhibitions including art borrowed from elsewhere. In broad terms, in North American usage, the word gallery alone often implies a private gallery, the term contemporary art gallery refers usually to a privately owned for-profit commercial gallery. These galleries are found clustered together in large urban centers. Smaller cities are home to at least one gallery, but they may also be found in towns or villages. Contemporary art galleries are open to the general public without charge, however. They usually profit by taking a portion of art sales, from 25% to 50% is typical, there are also many non-profit or collective galleries. Some galleries in cities like Tokyo charge the artists a flat rate per day, curators often create group shows that say something about a certain theme, trend in art, or group of associated artists. Galleries sometimes choose to represent artists exclusively, giving them the opportunity to show regularly, a gallerys definition can also include the artist cooperative or artist-run space, which often operates as a space with a more democratic mission and selection process. A vanity gallery is an art gallery that charges fees from artists in order to show their work, the shows are not legitimately curated and will frequently or usually include as many artists as possible. Most art professionals are able to identify them on an artists resume, University art museums and galleries constitute collections of art that are developed, owned, and maintained by all kinds of schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. This phenomenon exists in both the West and East, making it a global practice, although largely overlooked, there are over 700 university art museums in America alone. This number, in comparison to other kinds of art museums, throughout history, large and expensive works of art have generally been commissioned by religious institutions and monarchs and been displayed in temples, churches, and palaces. Although these collections of art were private, they were made available for viewing for a portion of the public. In classical times, religious institutions began to function as a form of art gallery. Wealthy Roman collectors of engraved gems and other precious objects often donated their collections to temples and it is unclear how easy it was in practice for the public to view these items. At the Palace of Versailles, entrance was restricted to wearing the proper apparel – the appropriate accessories could be hired from shops outside
33.
En plein air
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En plein air, or plein air painting, is a phrase borrowed from the French equivalent meaning open air. It is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors, also called French, peinture sur le motif and this method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules, those might create a predetermined look. En plein air can also be used to other activities where a person partakes in an outdoor environment. Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the century, working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school, Hudson River School. The Newlyn School in England is considered another major proponent of the technique in the latter 19th century, the popularity of painting en plein air increased in the 1840s with the introduction of paints in tubes. Previously, painters made their own paints by grinding and mixing dry pigment powders with linseed oil, the act of outdoor painting from observation has been continually popular well into the 21st century. It was during the century that the box easel, typically known as the French box easel or field easel, was invented. It is uncertain who developed it, but these highly portable easels with telescopic legs and built-in paint box and palette made it easier to go into the forest and up the hillsides. Still made today, they remain a popular choice since they fold up to the size of a brief case and thus are easy to store. The Pochade Box is a box that allows the artist to keep all of their supplies. Some designs allow for a canvas which can be held by clamps built into the lid. There are designs which can hold a few wet painting canvases or panels within the lid. These boxes have a rising popularity as while they are used for plein air painting, can also be used in the studio, home. Since pochade boxes are used for painting on location, the canvas or work surface may be small. Challenges include the type of paint used to paint outdoors, animals, bugs, onlookers, acrylic paint may harden and dry quickly in warm, sunny weather and it cannot be reused. On the opposite side of the spectrum is the challenge of painting in moist or damp conditions with precipitation, the advent of plein air painting predated the invention of acrylics. The traditional and well-established method of painting en plein air incorporates the use of oil paint, but enthusiasts of plein air painting were not limited to the Old World. American impressionists too, such as those of the Old Lyme school, were avid painters en plein air, american impressionist painters noted for this style during this era included Guy Rose, Robert William Wood, Mary DeNeale Morgan, John Gamble, and Arthur Hill Gilbert
34.
Niva (magazine)
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Niva was the first of the thin magazines, illustrated weeklies that contrasted with the more serious and ideologically focused monthly thick journals intended for the educated reader. It was founded by A. F. Marx, a German immigrant who saw that Russia lacked moderately priced magazines of general interest and it was read by an audience that extended from primary schoolteachers, rural parish priests, and the urban middle class to the gentry. Placed in my ken a world which widened every day, a world splendid like the cities of romance and they brought me views of lofty peaks and lovely beaches. Life unfolded its marvels, earth became more enchanting, studded with towns, Niva was very successful, starting with 9,000 readers in its first year, by the early twentieth century it had a circulation of over 200,000. Its editorial office was at 22 Malaya Morskaya Street and it was a large publication, almost the size of a tabloid newspaper, in 1900 a typical issue had 24 pages. Its editors included Viktor Klyushnikov, Dmitry Stakheev, Fedor Berg, Mikhail Volkonsky, Alexei Tikhonov-Lugovoi, Rostislav Sementkovsky, among its contributors over the years were A. K. After Marxs death in 1904, Niva was published by the A. F. Marx Publishing and Printing Company and it continued to be popular after the October Revolution, especially in the provinces, but was closed by the Bolsheviks in September 1918
35.
Mir iskusstva
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In fact, few Europeans outside Russia actually saw issues of the magazine itself. From 1909, several of the miriskusniki also participated in productions of Sergei Diaghilevs Ballets Russes company based in Paris, the artistic group was founded in November 1898 by a group of students that included Alexandre Benois, Konstantin Somov, Dmitry Filosofov, Léon Bakst, and Eugene Lansere. The starting moments for the new group was organization of the Exhibition of Russian. The magazine was co-founded in 1899 in St. Petersburg by Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and they aimed at assailing low artistic standards of the obsolescent Peredvizhniki school and promoting artistic individualism and other principles of Art Nouveau. Apart from three founding fathers, active members of the World of Art included Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Eugene Lansere, exhibitions organized by the World of Art attracted many illustrious painters from Russia and abroad, notably Mikhail Vrubel, Mikhail Nesterov, and Isaac Levitan. Representative works In its classical period the art group organized six exhibitions,1899,1900,1901,1902,1903,1906, in 1904-1910, Mir iskusstva did not exist as a separate artistic group. Its place was inherited by the Union of Russian Artists which continued officially until 1910, the Union included painters, illustrators, restorators, and scenic designers. In 1910 Benois published an article in the magazine Rech about the Union of Russian Artists. Nicholas Roerich became the new chairman, the group admitted new members including Nathan Altman, Vladimir Tatlin, and Martiros Saryan. Some said that the inclusion of Russian avant-garde painters demonstrated that the group had become an organization rather than an art movement. In 1917 the chairman of the group became Ivan Bilibin, the same year most members of the Jack of Diamonds entered the group. The group organized numerous exhibitions,1911,1912,1913,1915,1916,1917,1918,1921,1922 Saint-Petersburg, the last exhibition of Mir iskusstva was organized in Paris in 1927. Some members of the group entered the Zhar-Tsvet and Four Arts artistic movements, like the Romantics before them, the miriskusniki promoted understanding and conservation of the art of previous epochs, particularly traditional folk art and the 18th-century rococo. Antoine Watteau was probably the single artist whom they admired the most, such Revivalist projects were treated by the miriskusniki humorously, in a spirit of self-parody. They were fascinated with masks and marionettes, with carnaval and puppet theater, with dreams, everything grotesque and playful appealed to them more than the serious and emotional. Their favorite city was Venice, so much so that Diaghilev, as for media, the miriskusniki preferred the light, airy effects of watercolor and gouache to full-scale oil paintings. Seeking to bring art into every house, they designed interiors. Bakst and Benois revolutionized theatrical design with their ground-breaking decor for Cléopâtre, Carnaval, Petrushka, potter, Michelle, ‘Mir iskusstva, Serge Diaghilev’s Art Journal’, in NLA News, July 2005, Volume XV, Number 10 Mir iskusstva Artists at the Russian Art Gallery
36.
Socialist realism
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Socialist realism is a style of realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in that country as well as in other socialist countries. Socialist realism is characterized by the depiction of communist values, such as the emancipation of the proletariat. Although related, it should not be confused with social realism, Socialist realism was the predominant form of approved art in the Soviet Union from its development in the early 1920s to its eventual fall from popularity in the late 1960s. While other countries have employed a prescribed canon of art, socialist realism in Soviet Union persisted longer and was more restricted than elsewhere in Europe, Socialist realism was developed by many thousands of artists, across a diverse society, over several decades. Early examples of realism in Russian art include the work of the Peredvizhnikis, while these works do not have the same political connotation, they exhibit the techniques exercised by their successors. After the Bolsheviks took control of Russia on October 25,1917, there had been a short period of artistic exploration in the time between the fall of the Tsar and the rise of the Bolsheviks. In 1917, Russian artists began to return to traditional forms of art. Shortly after the Bolsheviks took control, Anatoly Lunacharsky was appointed as head of Narkompros and this put Lunacharsky in the position of deciding the direction of art in the newly created Soviet state. Lunacharsky created a system of aesthetics based on the body that would become the main component of socialist realism for decades to come. He believed that the sight of a body, intelligent face or friendly smile was essentially life-enhancing. He concluded that art had an effect on the human organism. By depicting the perfect person, Lunacharsky believed art could educate citizens on how to be the perfect Soviets, there were two main groups debating the fate of Soviet art, futurists and traditionalists. Russian Futurists, many of whom had been creating abstract or leftist art before the Bolsheviks, believed communism required a complete rupture from the past and, therefore, traditionalists believed in the importance of realistic representations of everyday life. By 1928, the Soviet government had enough strength and authority to end private enterprises, at this point, although the term socialist realism was not being used, its defining characteristics became the norm. The first time the term socialist realism was officially used was in 1932, the term was settled upon in meetings that included politicians of the highest level, including Stalin himself. Maxim Gorky, a proponent of literary socialist realism, published an article titled Socialist Realism in 1933. During the Congress of 1934 four guidelines were laid out for socialist realism, the work must be, Proletarian, art relevant to the workers and understandable to them. Typical, scenes of life of the people
37.
AKhRR
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The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, later known as Association of Artists of the Revolution was a group of artists in the Soviet Union in 1922-1933. Diverse members of the group gained favor as the bearers of the Communist ideas into the world of art. The group formed within the Peredvizhniki movement, that held their last, 47th, public exhibition in 1922 and their first public statement as a new entity was a 1922 exhibition in Moscow, all proceeds were used for the relief of Russian famine of 1921. By 1928, the group sponsored 10 nationwide exhibitions with high publicity, in a decade, it grew up from 80 to over 300 members. Broad membership and dominance of mature artists born in the 1870s and 1880s helped in establishing AKhRR as a reliable institution, during the crackdown on independent art movements in 1932-1933, AKhRR served as the nucleus for the stalinist USSR Union of Artists, and was liquidated after its formation. Other groups in Soviet art of 1920s, Four Arts movement OST Valentina Knyazeva, I. M. Gronskiy, V. N. Perelman
38.
Religious Procession in Kursk Province
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Religious Procession in Kursk Province is a large oil on canvas painting by the Russian realist painter and sculptor Ilya Repin. The procession is led through a dusty landscape by robed, Orthodox priests holding icons, festoons, behind them follow a crowd mostly of peasants, but ranging from beggars and cripples, police and military officers to figures from the provincial elite. Religious Procession led to controversy when first exhibited due to the icon being held by a man who appears to be drunk, the work is a continuation of Repins social commentary in his work, and highlights perceived abuses by both church and state. At the right, burly peasants carry a platform holding the icon inside an elaborate neo-classical case, lines of peasants joining hands hold back the crowd, the foremost at the left trying to stop the crippled boy breaking through the cordon with his stick. Alongside ride peasant or priest stewards and officials and police in uniform, behind the icon follow priests and better-dressed people, carrying icons in front of their chest, and an effete, dandified and bored priest in vestments carefully straightens his hair. There is an effect with a stout middle-aged woman in a yellow dress and bonnet carrying an icon behind him. An empty icon-case, presumably that of the icon carried by the woman behind, is carried with as much reverence as the icon itself. The hillside at right appears to have been cleared of timber. Further back another platform, holding what appears to be an icon, is preceded by two large banners, and behind that a large processional cross can be made out through the cloud of dust. The Procession is representative of Repins style from the period, in that it first appears to be a scene from life in Russia. In fact, it shows people from a range of social strata united. The painting was popular, but controversial. The journal publishing a review by the leading critic Vladimir Stasov published an editorial in the next issue dissociating itself from his views. Stasov had made much of the violence of the riders to the crowd, apart from Leo Tolstoy, who praised the painting and regarded it as neutral in its depiction of the social system, all were agreed that it was hostile to the established social order. Critic Christian Brinton saw a mixture of fat, gold-robed priests, stupid peasants, wretched cripples, cruel mouthed officials, Repin is less sympathetic to the privileged members of the procession, whom he depicts as uncaring and indifferent to their struggling fellow travelers. The disenfranchised members of Russian society are represented by, amongst others, tretyakovs large collection was opened as a museum in his lifetime, and is now the much augmented, state-run Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Russia & Europe in the Nineteenth Century, ISBN 1-907200-02-9 Jackson, David L. Ilya Efimovitch Repin, Painter of Russian History
39.
Vladimir Makovsky
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Vladimir Yegorovich Makovsky was a Russian painter, art collector, and teacher. Makovsky was the son of collector, Yegor Ivanovich Makovsky, who was one of the founders of the Moscow Art School, vladimir had two brothers, Nikolay Makovsky and Konstantin Makovsky, and one sister, Alexandra Makovsky, all of whom were famous painters. Vladimir studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, during the seventies his paintings dealt primarily with small-town folk. His pictures, The Grape-juice Seller, Fruit-Preserving and The Congratulator depict various scenes where the mood is finely conceived, other works of his, such as The Benefactor and The Convict are profoundly socially conscious. In them, Makovsky either criticizes the false sympathy of the aristocracy towards the poor, or draws attention to the oppression and persecution by the tsarist gendarmerie, in 1878, he became an academician. In the eighties, during the time of Russian democratic painting, in 1882, he was made professor at the Moscow Art School after the death of Vasili Perov. Some of Makovskys greatest works of this period include In the Ante-room of the Court of Conciliation, The Released Prisoner, from the end of the 1880s, Makovsky began to produce more gloomy works. Quintessential works of this period include You Shall Not Go, in 1894, Makovsky became Rector of the Preparatory school of the Academy of Art. After the First Russian Revolution, he painted January 9,1905, after the 1917 October Revolution, Makovsky helped carry over the realist traditions to the early stages of Socialist Realism. Vladimir Fiala, Russian Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries, translated by Jean Layton, Artia,1981
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Grigoriy Myasoyedov
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Grigoriy Grigorievich Myasoyedov was a Russian Realist painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement. His father was a member of the gentry, and was the author of a book titled The Statistical Economic Review of the Southern Part of Tula Guberniya. In 1862, he received gold medal for his painting The Flight of Grigory Otrepyev from the Inn, having received a stipend for travelling from the Academy, he visited Paris, Florence, Rome and Spain on study trips. Upon returning to Russia in 1870, he was named an Academician, shortly thereafter, he became one of the founders of the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions, remaining a fervent participant and supporter for the rest of his life. In 1876, he went to live on a farm near Kharkiv, from 1861 to 1881, he was married to the pianist Ekaterina Krivtsova, but separated from her when she was pregnant with his son Ivan, on the suspicion that Ivan was not his child. He remarried shortly after, but his suspicions lingered and he wouldnt allow Kseniya to treat Ivan as a son, for several years, Ivan was placed in the care of Myasoyedovs friend and colleague, Alexander Kiselyov. In 1889, he acquired a manor house in Poltava, complete with a park, ponds and gardens. While there, he painted a curtain and designed scenery for the local theater and he also organized an art school in 1894 and wrote a book about gardening. He resigned from the Academy in 1902, in protest over their teaching methods, although he worked on a variety of subjects, he always had a fondness for religious painting and was planning a triptych of Holy Russia when he died. After some bureaucratic wrangling over health permits, he was buried on his estate which, natalya Vladimirovna Masalina, Мясоедов, Moscow, Искусство Biography, appreciation and selected works @ Russian Painting Myasoyedov Street, with biography @ Poltava History
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Alexei Savrasov
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Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov was a Russian landscape painter and creator of the lyrical landscape style. Savrasov was born into the family of a merchant and he began to draw early and in 1838 he enrolled as a student of professor Karl Rabus at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He graduated in 1850 and immediately began to specialize in landscape painting, in 1852, he traveled to Ukraine. Then, in 1854 by the invitation of the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, in 1857, Savrasov became a teacher at the MSPSA. His best students, Isaac Levitan and Konstantin Korovin, remembered their teacher with admiration, in 1857, he married Sophia Karlovna Hertz, sister of the art historian Karl Hertz. In their home they entertained artistic people and collectors including Pavel Tretyakov, Savrasov became especially close with Vasily Perov. Perov helped him paint the figures of the trackers in Savrasovs Volga near Yuryevets, Savrasov painted landscapes for Perovs Bird catcher. In the 1860s, he traveled to England to see the International Exhibition, in one of his letters he wrote that no academies in the world could so advance an artist as the present world exhibition. The painters who influenced him most were British painter John Constable, the Rooks Have Come Back is considered by many critics to be the high point in Savrasov’s artistic career. Using a common, even trivial, episode of birds returning home, and it was a new type of lyrical landscape painting, called later by critics the mood landscape. In 1870, he became a member of the Peredvizhniki group, in the late 1870s, he gradually became an alcoholic. The process may have begun with the death of his daughter in 1871, in 1882, he was dismissed from his position at the MSPSA. All attempts of his relatives and friends to him were in vain. His work suffered dramatically and the last years of his life were spent in poverty and he was usually drunk and often dressed in rags. Finally, he found himself wandering from shelter to shelter, only the doorkeeper of the MSPSA and Pavel Tretyakov, founder of the Tretyakov Gallery, were present at his funeral in 1897. List of Russian artists Faina Sergeyevna Maltseva, Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov, Leningrad,1989, ISBN 5-7370-0175-X Savrasovs works at Olgas Gallery
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Arkhip Kuindzhi
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Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was a landscape painter of Greek descent. Arkhip Kuindzhi was born in January 1842 in Mariupol but spent his youth in the city of Taganrog and his Christian name is a Russian and Ukrainian rendering of the Greek, Ἄρχιππος, and his surname came from his grandfathers vocational nickname meaning goldsmith in Tatar. He grew up in a family, his father was a Greek shoemaker. Arkhip was six years old when he lost his parents, so he was forced to make a living working at a building site, grazing domestic animals. He received the rudiments of an education from a Greek friend of the family who was a teacher and then went to the local school. In 1855, at age 13–14, Kuindzhi visited Feodosia to study art under Ivan Aivazovsky, however, he was engaged merely with mixing paints and instead studied with Adolf Fessler, Aivazovskys student. English art historian John E. Bowlt wrote that the sense of light and form associated with Aivazovskys sunsets, storms. During the five years from 1860 to 1865, Arkhip Kuindzhi worked as a retoucher in the studio of Simeon Isakovich in Taganrog. He tried to open his own studio, but without success. After that Kuindzhi left Taganrog for Saint Petersburg and he studied painting mainly independently and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. In 1872 the artist left the academy and worked as a freelancer, the painting On the Valaam Island was the first artwork which Pavel Tretyakov acquired for his art gallery. In 1873 Kuindzhi exhibited his painting The Snow which received the medal at the International Art Exhibition in London in 1874. In the middle of the 1870s he created a number of paintings in which the motif was designed for concrete social associations in the spirit of Peredvizhniki. In his mature period Kuindzhy aspired to capture the most expressive illuminative aspect of the natural condition and he applied composite receptions, creating panoramic views. Using light effects and intense colors shown in main tones, he depicted the illusion of illumination and his later works are remarkable for their decorative effects of color building. Kuindzhi lectured at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, among his students were artists such as Arkady Rylov, Nicholas Roerich, Konstantin Bogaevsky, and others. Kuindzhi initiated creation of the Society of Artists, manin Arkhip Ivanovich Kuinji, Leningrad,1990, ISBN 5-7370-0098-2 Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi Kuindzhi - Artist of Light
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Isaac Levitan
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Isaac Ilyich Levitan was a classical Russian landscape painter who advanced the genre of the mood landscape. Isaac Levitan was born in a shtetl of Kibarty, Augustów Governorate in Congress Poland and his father Elyashiv Levitan was the son of a rabbi, completed a Yeshiva and was self-educated. He taught German and French in Kowno and later worked as a translator at a bridge construction for a French building company. At the beginning of 1870 the Levitan family moved to Moscow, in September 1873, Isaac Levitan entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where his older brother Avel had already studied for two years. After a year in the copying class Isaac transferred into a naturalistic class, Levitans teachers were the famous Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Perov and Vasily Polenov. In 1875, his mother died, and his father seriously ill and became unable to support four children. The family slipped into abject poverty, as patronage for Levitans talent and achievements, his Jewish origins and to keep him in the school, he was given a scholarship. In 1877, Isaac Levitans works were first publicly exhibited and earned recognition from the press. In 1880 his painting Осенний день, Сокольники was bought by famous philanthropist and art collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov. In the spring of 1884 Levitan participated in the art exhibition by the group known as the Peredvizhniki. Levitan often visited Chekhov and some think Levitan was in love with his sister, in the early 1880s Levitan collaborated with the Chekhov brothers on the illustrated magazine Moscow and illustrated the M. Fabritsius edition Kremlin. Together with Korovin in 1885-1886 he painted scenery for performances of the Private Russian opera of Savva Mamontov, in the 1880s he participated in the drawing and watercolor gatherings at Polenov’s house. Levitans work was a response to the lyrical charm of the Russian landscape. Levitan did not paint urban landscapes, with the exception of the View of Simonov Monastery, mentioned by Nesterov, during work in Ostankino, he painted fragments of the mansion’s house and park, but he was most fond of poetic places in the forest or modest countryside. Characteristic of his work is a hushed and nearly melancholic reverie amidst pastoral landscapes largely devoid of human presence, fine examples of these qualities include The Vladimirka Road,1892 Evening Bells,1892, and Eternal Rest,1894, all in the Tretyakov Gallery. Though his late work displayed familiarity with Impressionism, his palette was generally muted, in the summer of 1890 Levitan went to Yuryevets and among numerous landscapes and etudes he painted The View of Krivooserski monastery. So the plan of one of his best pictures, The Silent Monastery, was born, the image of a silent monastery and planked bridges over the river, connecting it with the outside world, expressed the artists spiritual reflections. It is known that this made a strong impression on Chekhov
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Vasily Perov
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Vasily Grigorevich Perov was a Russian painter and one of the founding members of Peredvizhniki, a group of Russian realist painters. Although the parents married soon after his birth, there was no way to inherit his fathers name. He was written under the godfathers surname — Vasiliev and he later changed his surname to Perov — a nickname given by his teacher who taught him calligraphy as a child. After completing a course at Arzamas uezd school, he was transferred to the Alexander Stupin art school located in Arzamas. In 1853 he was admitted to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, in 1856 he was awarded with a minor silver medal for his sketch of a boys head, presented to the Imperial Academy of Arts. After receiving the right to a trip abroad together with a golden medal, in 1862 Perov went to Western Europe, visiting several German cities. In 1866 he received the title of an academician, and in 1871 the position of a Professor at Moscow School of Arts and it was around this period that he joined the Peredvizhniki. Perov died on 10 June,1882 in the village Kuzminki from tuberculosis and his body was interred at the Donskoe Cemetery. Perov at Olgas Gallery Artists Illustrating Boys Fashions, Vasily Perov Vasily Perov at Tanais Gallery
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. He began writing in his 20s, and his first novel and his most acclaimed works include Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevskys oeuvre consists of 11 novels, three novellas,17 short stories and numerous other works, many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature, born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoyevsky was introduced to literature at an early age through fairy tales and legends, and through books by Russian and foreign authors. His mother died in 1837 when he was 15, and around the time he left school to enter the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute. After graduating, he worked as an engineer and briefly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, in the mid-1840s he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which gained him entry into St. Petersburgs literary circles. Arrested in 1849 for belonging to a group that discussed banned books critical of Tsarist Russia, he was sentenced to death. He spent four years in a Siberian prison camp, followed by six years of military service in exile. In the following years, Dostoyevsky worked as a journalist, publishing and editing several magazines of his own and later A Writers Diary and he began to travel around western Europe and developed a gambling addiction, which led to financial hardship. For a time, he had to beg for money, but he became one of the most widely read. His books have been translated more than 170 languages. Dostoyevskys parents were part of a multi-ethnic and multi-denominational Lithuanian noble family from the Pinsk region, branches of the family included Russian Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and Eastern Catholics. Dostoyevskys immediate ancestors on his mothers side were merchants, the line on his fathers side were priests. His father, Mikhail, was expected to join the clergy but instead ran away from home, in 1809, the 20-year-old Mikhail Dostoyevsky enrolled in Moscows Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy. From there he was assigned to a Moscow hospital, where he served as military doctor, in 1819 he married Maria Nechayeva. The following year, he took up a post at the Mariinsky Hospital for the poor, Dostoyevskys parents subsequently had six more children, Varvara, Andrei, Lyubov, Vera, Nikolai and Aleksandra. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, born on 11 November 1821, was the child of Dr. Mikhail Dostoyevsky. He was raised in the home in the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor
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Ivan Kramskoi
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Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi was a Russian painter and art critic. He was a leader of the Russian democratic art movement in 1860-1880. Kramskoi came from an impoverished petit-bourgeois family and he became one of the main founders and ideologists of the Company of Itinerant Art Exhibitions. In 1863–1868 he taught at the school of a society for the promotion of applied arts. Kramskois democratic ideals found their brightest expression in his portraits of peasants, in one of Kramskoi’s most well known paintings, Christ in the Desert, he continued Alexander Ivanovs humanistic tradition by treating a religious subject in moral–philosophical terms. He imbued his image of Christ with dramatic experiences in a psychological and vital interpretation. Aspiring to expand the ideological expressiveness of his images, Kramskoi created art that existed on the cusp of portraiture and these paintings disclose their subjects complex and sincere emotions, their personalities and fates. Ivan Kramskois gallery and biography Ivan Kramskoi Gallery at MuseumSyndicate Долгополов, Игорь Викторович Мастера и шедевры, В3 т
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Portrait of an Unknown Woman
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Portrait of an Unknown Woman, also known as The Unknown Woman, An Unknown Lady or Stranger is a painting by the Russian artist Ivan Kramskoi, drawn in 1883. The model, whose identity is unknown, is a woman of quiet strength and it is one of Russias best-known art works, although a number of critics were indignant when the painting was first exhibited and condemned what they saw as a depiction of a haughty and immoral woman. Its popularity has grown with changes in public taste, the painting hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, while an earlier version, also dated 1883, is housed at the Arts Center in Kiel. Portrait of an Unknown Woman combines elements of the genre and portrait traditions in art and she is dressed in a black fur and velvet coat, fur hat, with leather gloves. The woman is seated on a carriage at the Anichkov Bridge in Saint Petersburg. Her identity has not been established by art historians, Kramskoi titled the painting Unknown, and did not mention her in any of his letters or diaries, leading to much speculation and the paintings highly enigmatic reputation. The portrait was painted late in Kramskois life and he had begun his career as a rebel working outside of the establishment, and was early on expelled from the Russian Academy. By 1883, he was at the height of his fame and reputation and working at the highest level of patronage, producing portraits of Czar Alexander III and he was also one of the founders and leaders of The Wanderers. However, Portrait of an Unknown Woman caused a sensation when first exhibited, a number of critics presumed that the woman was a prostitute. Kramskoi remarked, Some people have said it is not known who this woman is, is she decent, or does she sell herself. But within her is an entire epoch, pavel Tretyakov refused to buy the painting for his gallery. However, its popularity grew, in part as the beauty of sin became a popular theme amongst the following generation of Russian artists. It has been described as bright, densely painted. Kramskoi clearly tried to shine with his outstanding painterly mastery, the painting has been used as the cover for some editions of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. In 2008, Guggenheim curator Valerie Hillings observed that, Many people just think shes sort of like Anna Karenina and she has that kind of special feel, that special Russianness. ISBN 0-295-98647-6 Portrait of an Unknown Woman in Tretyakov Gallerys website
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Valentin Serov
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Valentin Alexandrovich Serov was a Russian painter, and one of the premier portrait artists of his era. Serov was born in Saint Petersburg, son of the Russian composer and music critic Alexander Serov, Serovs early creativity was sparked by the realistic art of Repin and strict pedagogical system of Chistyakov. The greatest works of Serovs early period were portraits, The Girl with Peaches, in these paintings Serov concentrated on spontaneity of perception of the model and nature. From 1890 on, the became the basic genre in Serovs art. It was in this field that his style would become apparent. Serovs favorite models were actors, artists, and writers, initially abstaining from the polychromatic, brightly colored painting style of the 1880s, Serov often preferred a dominant scale of black-grey or brown tones. Impressionistic features appeared sometimes in construction of a portrait, or to capture a sense of spontaneous movement. As in the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn, the impressionism is not doctrinaire, receiving wide popularity, in 1894 Serov joined with the Peredvizhniki, and took on important commissions, among them portraits of grand duke Pavel Alexandrovich, S. M. Botkin,1899, and Felix Yusupov,1903 as well as Princess Olga Orlova, in these truthful, compositionally skillful, and picturesque executions in the grand manner, Serov consistently used linear-rhythmic drawing coupled with decorative color combinations. At the same time, he developed a contrasting direction, he frequently produced intimate, heartfelt, chamber portraits, mainly of children and women. In portraits of children Serov aspired to capture pose and gesture, to reveal and emphasize a spontaneity of internal movement, Serov frequently called upon various graphic techniques - watercolors, pastels, lithographs and so forth. Figures in Serovs portraits gradually became more and more refined and economical. From 1890 to 1900 Serov produced many landscape compositions on country themes, Serov married Olga Trubnikova in 1889. His wife and his children were the subject of many of his works, notably, his painting Children was of his sons Yura and Sasha. M. Gorkis museum, Moscow, Maria Yermolova, Feodor Chaliapin - both in the Tretyakov Gallery, and Helena Roerich, Serovs democratic beliefs were clearly shown during the Revolution from 1905 to 1907, he depicted a number of satirical figures exposing chastisers. A full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts since 1903, in 1905 he resigned as a gesture of protest against the execution of striking workers and their families on 9 January, Bloody Sunday. His late creativity found expression in painting, and depth of comprehension of the historical maintenance of an epoch. The last years of Serovs life were marked by works on themes from classical mythology, while addressing images from the ancient tradition, Serov endowed classical subject matter with a personal interpretation
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Newcomer at School by Emily Shanks
An introduction to Peredvizhniki, 12:20, in Swedish with English subtitles.
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