Architecture, as well as design, fascinated Vasnetsov, the reason for this was his participation in the Abramtsevo art circle, which zealously strived to create modern synthetic art. Vasnetsov’s development as an architect took place in Abramtsevo. Church of the Savior […]
The canvas “Christ Pantocrator” was created by Vasnetsov over 9 years, from 1885 to 1896. The artist depicted the image of Jesus Christ enclosed in a circle perfect shape, in the central part of the composition, with Vasnetsov in the background […]
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. The painting “The Shroud” (otherwise known as “Laying on the Coffin”) was painted by Viktor Vasnetsov in 1901. It depicts the gospel scene of the funeral of the crucified Jesus Christ. In the center of the canvas is Christ [...]
1885; watercolor; State Tretyakov Gallery. An expert in Russian folklore, a lover of dramatic fairy-tale plots, Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov appears in a form that is not the most familiar to him. Watercolor sketch called "Spring is Red" - not separate work, […]
In 1873, Alexander Ostrovsky wrote his famous play "The Snow Maiden", which was staged at theater stage. Many masters of that time worked on the decorations for the production, but the works of Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov occupy a special place. […]
Vasnetsov is known for his artwork on fairy-tale and epic themes. However, the list of themes in his work is extensive. He painted portraits and paintings on everyday and religious themes. Painting portraits of loved ones helped Vasnetsov create […]
Born in the village of Lopyal, Vyatka province. The son of the village priest Mikhail Vasilyevich Vasnetsov and Apollinaria Ivanovna. In total, there were six children in the family, including Apollinary Vasnetsov, an artist known for his picturesque reconstructions of old, pre-Petrine Moscow.
He received his primary education at the Vyatka Theological Seminary. In 1868–1875 he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. In 1876 he was in Paris, then in Italy. Since 1874, he constantly participated in exhibitions of the Itinerants. In 1892 he received the title of academician. Like many Russian artists of that time, he sought to go beyond the boundaries of the canons of academic art.
Since 1878, Vasnetsov settled in Moscow, where he wrote the most famous paintings and an illustrative and folklore orientation of creativity was developed. Contemporaries were amazed by the huge canvases on historical topics and themes of Russian fairy tales and epics - “After the Battle”, “Bogatyrs”, etc.
Vasnetsov's art gave rise to heated discussions. Many saw in him the beginning of a new one, truly national direction in Russian painting. But the majority considered his painting uninteresting, and attempts to revive Byzantine and Old Russian styles barren. Particular controversy arose after the publication of the first issue of the World of Art magazine in 1898, where Vasnetsov’s work was also presented. “I could not at all approve of the fact that in the very first issue, which after all had the meaning of a well-known credo of our ideals and aspirations, half of the illustrations were dedicated to the artist towards whom I had developed a certain negative attitude, namely to Viktor Vasnetsov” - A.N. was indignant. Benoit. A little later, Mikhail Nesterov wrote: “Dozens of Russians outstanding artists originate from a national source – the talent of Viktor Vasnetsov.”
However, the work of V.M. Vasnetsov influenced the artists of the Art Nouveau period and, especially, the artists of the Abramtsevo circle S.I. Mamontov, one of the organizers of which he was an active participant in the 1880s. Vasnetsov designed costumes and scenery for productions at the Mamontov Theater, and in 1881, together with V. Polenov, he built a church in the “Russian style” in Abramtsevo. Subsequently, he designed and completed many buildings: his own house and workshop in 3rd Troitsky Lane (now Vasnetsova), the Tsvetkov Gallery on Prechistenskaya Embankment, the facade of the main building Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane, etc.
In 1885-1896 he took part in the work on the paintings of the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv. He continued his appeal to the religious theme in mosaics for the Church of the Ascension in St. Petersburg, paintings and mosaics of the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist on Presnya, etc.
He was married to Alexandra Vladimirovna Ryazantseva. He had sons: Boris, Alexei, Mikhail, Vladimir and daughter Tatyana.
He died in Moscow in his studio while working on a portrait. He was buried at the Lazarevskoye cemetery. Later, his ashes were transferred to the Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Moscow.
Vasnetsov Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, a great Russian artist, one of the founders of Russian Art Nouveau in its national-romantic version.
Born in the village of Lopyal (Vyatka province) on May 3 (15), 1848 in the family of a priest. He studied at the theological seminary in Vyatka (1862–1867), then at the drawing school at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in St. Petersburg (where Vasnetsov’s mentor was Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy) and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1868–1875).
Vasnetsov is the founder of a special “Russian style” within pan-European symbolism and modernity. The painter Vasnetsov transformed the Russian historical genre, combining medieval motifs with the exciting atmosphere of a poetic legend or fairy tale; however, the fairy tales themselves often become the themes of his large canvases. Among these picturesque epics and fairy tales of Vasnetsov are the paintings The Knight at the Crossroads (1878, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), After the Battle of Igor Svyatoslavich with the Polovtsians (based on the legend The Lay of Igor’s Campaign, 1880), Alyonushka (1881), Three Heroes (1898 ), Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible (1897; all paintings are in the Tretyakov Gallery). Some of these works (Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom, 1881, ibid.) represent decorative panel paintings that are already typical of Art Nouveau, transporting the viewer to the world of dreams.
The same world came to life in Vasnetsov’s innovative theatrical works, in his sketches for the production of A. N. Ostrovsky’s fairy tale play The Snow Maiden on S. I. Mamontov’s home stage in Abramtsevo (1881–1882) and N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera of the same name in Moscow private Russian opera by S.I. Mamontov (1885).
The master also developed the principles of the “Russian style” in the field of architecture and design: according to Vasnetsov’s sketches, stylizing ancient Russian antiquity, the Church of the Savior Not Made by Hands (1881–1882) and the Hut on Chicken Legs (1883) were erected in Abramtsevo, and in Moscow - a memorial cross on the site of the murder of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in the Kremlin (1905, destroyed under Soviet rule, recreated on the territory of the Moscow Novospassky Monastery) and the facade of the Tretyakov Gallery (1906).
The most significant monumental and decorative achievement of the artist were the paintings of the Kyiv Vladimir Cathedral (1885–1896); in them, Vasnetsov sought to update the Byzantine canons, introducing into them a lyrical and personal element. After 1905, Vasnetsov joined the monarchical “Union of the Russian People”, designing the publications of this organization in Slavic motifs. October Revolution Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, as a convinced monarchist and Slavophile, did not accept.
mp-3 player
(musical accompaniment)
Sirin and Alkonost. Song of Joy and Sorrow
Oleg's farewell to his horse. Illustration for “Songs about prophetic Oleg"A.S. Pushkin
Vasnetsov Viktor Mikhailovich (Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, 1848–1926), great Russian artist, one of the founders of Russian Art Nouveau in its national-romantic version.
Born in the village of Lopyal (Vyatka province) on May 3 (15), 1848 in the family of a priest. He studied at the theological seminary in Vyatka (1862–1867), then at the drawing school at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in St. Petersburg (where Vasnetsov’s mentor was Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy) and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1868–1875).
Vasnetsov is the founder of a special “Russian style” within pan-European symbolism and modernity. The painter Vasnetsov transformed the Russian historical genre, combining medieval motifs with the exciting atmosphere of a poetic legend or fairy tale; however, the fairy tales themselves often become the themes of his large canvases. Among these picturesque epics and fairy tales of Vasnetsov are the paintings “The Knight at the Crossroads” (1878, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), “After the Battle of Igor Svyatoslavich with the Polovtsians” (based on the legend “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, 1880), “Alyonushka” (1881), “Three Heroes” (1898), “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible” (1897; all paintings are in the Tretyakov Gallery). Some of these works (“Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom,” 1881, ibid.) represent decorative panel paintings that are already typical of Art Nouveau, transporting the viewer to the world of dreams. For a long time the artist could not find a model for his painting “Alyonushka”. None of the girls, according to the artist, resembled the fairy-tale sister of Ivanushka, whom he so clearly imagined. But one day the artist realized that his heroine should have the eyes of Verochka Mamontova (the same one with whom Serov wrote his “Girl with Peaches”). And he immediately rewrote the face again, asking the girl to sit motionless in front of him for at least half an hour.
Master decorative painting Vasnetsov showed himself in the panel " Stone Age"(1883-85), written for the Moscow Historical Museum, depicting on it the ancient ancestors of the Slavs. But his greatest achievement in the field of monumental art was the painting of the Kyiv Vladimir Cathedral (1885-96); trying to update the Byzantine canons as much as possible, the artist introduces religious images the lyrical, personal principle frames them with folklore ornament.
Vasnetsov’s contribution to the history of architecture and design is also original. In the Russian style, he saw not just an excuse to imitate antiquity, but also the basis for reproducing such properties of ancient Russian architecture as organic, “vegetative” integrity and decorative richness of forms. According to his sketches, a church was built in Abramtsevo in the spirit of the medieval Pskov-Novgorod tradition (1881-82) and the humorous fairy-tale “Hut on Chicken Legs” (1883). He also developed the decorative composition of the facade of the Tretyakov Gallery (1906) with the coat of arms of Moscow (St. George defeating the dragon) in the center.
After 1917 the artist went entirely to fairy tale theme, as eloquently evidenced by the titles of the last large paintings: “The Sleeping Princess”, “The Frog Princess”, “Kashchei the Immortal”, “Princess Nesmeyana”, “Sivka-Burka”, “Baba Yaga”, “Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom”, “Sirin and Alkonost”... He lived on a pension granted to him as an honored artist by the Soviet government, to which he, in turn, was forced to sell the house, which is now a house-museum. In the upper room of this house, to this day there is a heroic oak table with an image of a huge Double-Headed Eagle in full width, which clearly illustrates the scale and spirit of Vasnetsov’s monarchism. The importance of Vasnetsov for the development of the creative element of Russian monarchism is difficult to overestimate. It was in his paintings that the generation of future theorists of the Russian autocracy was brought up (I. A. Ilyin, P. A. Florensky). It was Vasnetsov who gave rise to the national school in Russian painting (M. Nesterov, P. Korin, I. Bilibin). Black and white postcards with images of Vasnetsov’s paintings, published in millions of copies during the First World War, contributed to the high patriotic rise of the Russian spirit. No less great was the influence of the artist on soviet art and culture, it was in Vasnetsov’s budennovki (or as they were originally called - bogatyrki), designed by the artist for a single festive parade of the tsarist army, due to a special coincidence of circumstances, they became the form of the army that in 1918-1922 restored the unity of the country and repelled foreign interventions.
Vasnetsov died in Moscow in his studio, working on a portrait of the artist M. V. Nesterov.
The younger brother of the famous Viktor Vasnetsov, much less known, Appolinary Vasnetsov was also an artist - he was by no means his timid shadow, but had a completely original talent. An excellent master landscape painter, A. M. Vasnetsov became famous as an expert and inspired poet of old Moscow. It’s rare that someone, having once seen it, will not remember his paintings, watercolors, drawings, recreating the excitingly fabulous and at the same time so convincingly real image of the ancient Russian capital.
IN In 1900, Appolinary Vasnetsov became an academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, then headed the landscape class at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and since 1918 he headed the Commission for the Study of Old Moscow and conducted archaeological research during excavation work in the central part of the city.
The grandson of Viktor Vasnetsov, Andrei Vasnetsov, also became an artist, later the founder of the so-called “severe style”. In 1988-1992 Andrei Vasnetsov was the chairman of the Union of Artists of the USSR, a full member Russian Academy Arts, since 1998 - member of the Presidium. He was the honorary chairman of the Vasnetsov Foundation.