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
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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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