Pyotr Brazhanov. A Portrait of Admiral St Fyodor Ushakov. 1912

A Portrait of Admiral St Fyodor Ushakov (Pyotr Brazhanov, 1912)

Admiral St Fyodor Ushakov (1744-1817) was one of the most illustrious Russian naval commanders of all time. He was not only a daring fighting sea-dog, he was a competent administrator and a serious Orthodox Christian. The port facilities in Sevastopol and Kherson were originally built by him, and he worked on the establishment of the towns surrounding the naval bases. Admiral Ushakov never lost a battle, but, that is not why he was canonised. He took good care of his officers and sailors, and he ended his life in one of the monasteries of the Church (he never became a monk, but, he lived in a monastery and led a pious lay life).

He was canonised in 2000, and is the patron saint of the navy and of the Dalnaya Aviatsiya (“Long-range Aviation”, the strategic bomber force).

Meet the Artist: Konstantin Alekseyevich Vasiliev

A Self-Portrait of Konstantin Vasiliev (1970)

Born: 3 September 1942, Maikop, Adygeya (Cherkess) Autonomous Oblast

Died: 29 October 1976, Vasilyevo, Tatar Autonomous SSR

This Russian artist left a creative heritage of more than 400 works, both paintings and drawings. His range of works included portraits, landscapes, realistic compositions, Russian epics, mythological scenes, and battle paintings.

He was born in 1942 in Maikop, in the southwest of Russia. His mother was Klavdia Shishkina and his father Aleksei Vasiliev was an engineer. Konstantin Alekseyevich had two younger sisters, Lyudmilla and Valya. In August 1942, the Nazis occupied Maikop, and his father fought as a partisan until February 1943, when the city was liberated and he could return home. In 1946, the family moved to Kazan, and, from 1949, he lived in the village of Vasilyevo, which was near the city of Kazan.

From a very young age, Vasiliev’s parents noticed that their son had great artistic talent. Therefore, they did their utmost to see that he received the education necessary to develop this gift. Between 1954 and 1957, he studied at an art boarding school in Moscow, and he became familiar with the aesthetic traditions of his Motherland. In the mid-1950s, the school changed its orientation and it became more ridden with communist ideology. Vasiliev was not comfortable with conditions placed on his artistic output by the school; he did not care for Socialist Realism at all.  Therefore, he decided to move his studies to the Kazan Artistic School (1957-61). His teachers were P. Speransky, V. Timofeyev, and N. Sokolsky, all of whom were exponents of the school of Classical Russian Realism that would form the stylistic foundation of Vasiliev’s œuvre.

Vasiliev finished studies with distinction, graduating from the faculty of theatre and stage scenery with distinction. His graduation project was a presentation of a series of sketches for the scenery and stage settings for a production of the musical drama Snegurochka by Aleksandr Ostrovsky, set to the music of Pyotr Chaikovsky. However, just when he had finished his studies, his father died of a heart attack. After graduation, he received a recommendation to work in the theatre in Menzelinsk, but, he did not get the job. Then, he worked as a teacher of art and drawing in a local secondary school and as a layout artist/graphic designer in a factory. The creative legacy of Vasiliev is extensive, comprising paintings, drawings, studies, illustrations, and sketches for the painting of a church in Omsk. In the early 1960s, his work began to take on influences from surrealism and even abstract expressionism. In the late 1960s, his abandoned artistic formalism and turned to a more mannered realism.

Vasiliev turned for inspiration from Russian folklore sources, to Russian songs, epics, fairy tales, Scandinavian and Irish sagas, and the poetry of the Edda. He produced works with motifs drawn from mythology, the Slavic and Scandinavian epics, and the Second Great Patriotic War (World War II on the Russian front). He did not neglect portraiture and landscape work. In addition, he created graphic cycles of great composers (1961-62) and on the Wagnerian operatic cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen (1970s).

Vasiliev participated in many exhibitions, such as “The Artist-Satirists of Kazan” (Moscow, 1963) and other shows in Zelenodolsk and Kazan (1968-76). Many posthumous exhibitions of his work took place throughout Russia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Spain in the 1980s and 90s. A memorial museum was opened in the village of Vasilyevo in 1996, a special gallery was dedicated in Kazan (1996), and a special museum dedicated to his work was opened in Moscow in Lianozovksy Park (1998). Also, his cycle of World War II paintings received the M. Dzhailiya Award of the Tatar ASSR Komsomol in 1988.

Konstantin Alekseyevich perished tragically with a friend when they were hit by a passing train at a railway crossing on 29 October 1976. He was buried in his home village, which was renamed in his honour. His grave is in a birch grove, where he greatly loved to climb in the trees when he was a youngster. A minor planet, 3930 Vasiliev, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmilla Zhuravlyova in 1982, is named after him.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B5%D0%B2,_%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 (in Russian)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Vasilyev (in English)

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstant%C3%ADn_Vas%C3%ADliev (in Spanish)

Editor’s Note:

The Wikipedia English article is only a stub, so, I translated the fuller material found in the Spanish and Russian editions and I conflated it all together into a coherent whole. Vasiliev is like Norman Rockwell. One either loves his work for its immediacy or one vilifies him as a “mere illustrator”. I am of the former persuasion, as you can no doubt guess. His early death was a real tragedy for the art world… what could he have created?

Nikolai Yaroshenko. A Portrait of the Painter Ivan Kramskoi. 1874

A Portrait of the Painter Ivan Kramskoi (NIkolai Yaroshenko, 1874)

Of course, we have seen a slew of works by Kramskoi (1837-87) lately. He was one of the founders and leading lights of the Peredvizhniki (Wanderers), the first truly Russian national “school of art”. It stressed the depiction of ordinary life and ordinary people engaged in their usual activities. Needless to say, if a portrait commission came their way, it was snatched up, and the resulting works were normally very true-to-life. Kramskoi’s most vibrant works were his touching and dignified paintings of the peasantry. If I were to name his three most powerful works, they are Christ in the Desert (1872), Unconsolable Grief (1884), and A Portrait of a Woman (1883). The last two are found below, the first painting is found above this post (it is considered his masterwork, it deserves to stand alone).

So, here is one of the greats of our Russian art world, little-known, if at all, in the West. I chose this portrait by Yaroshenko as it shows Kramskoi at work in his better “go to meetin’ grubbies” (you know what I mean, Bill!).

Meet the Artist: Pavel Dmitrievich Korin

A Portrait of Pavel Korin (Mikhail Nesterov, 1925). A portrait of the student by his teacher. A great honour, indeed.

KORIN Pavel Dmitrievich

Born: 25 June/7 July 1892, Palekh, Vladimir guberniya

Died: 22 November 1967, Moscow

Russian painter, People’s Painter of the USSR (1962), full member of the Academy of Fine Arts (1958), Lenin Prize Winner (1963), Director of the Aleksandr Pushkin Art Museum Restoration Atelier (1931-59)

Biography and Works

Pavel Dmitrievich Korin was born on 7 July 1892 in the village of Palekh in Vladimir guberniya into the family of a professional iconographer, Dmitri Nikolaevich Korin. Palekh first appeared in official documents in the first half of the 17^th century, in connection with an iconography school located there. At that early date, the Korin family had connections with iconography, according to “autographs” on icons and entries in account books. When he was only five, his father died, in 1897.

Korin’s life work appeared predetermined, but, his talent needed proper instruction and development. In 1903-07, he studied at the School for Iconography at Palekh, earning formal certification as a professional iconographer. In 1908, he went to Moscow, and, until 1911, worked at the iconography atelier of the Donskoi Monastery. In 1911, he became an assistant to Mikhail Nesterov and helped him paint the frescoes in the church of the Protection of the Mother of God at the Martha and Mary Convent on Bolshaya Ordynka Street. His instruction by Nesterov, who understood art to be a spiritual podvig (“struggle” or “exploit” are weak translations), and his encounter with the work of the celebrated Russian painter Aleksandr Andreyevich Ivanov, in particular, Ivanov’s monumental canvas The Appearance of Christ to the People (1857), intensified Korin’s resolve to devote his entire life to art, to reach the apex of craftsmanship, so that he could carry on the grand tradition of Russian painting.

The Eyes of the Saviour (Pavel Korin, 1932)

Nesterov insisted that Korin gain a formal education in painting and arranged his admission to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture (MUZhVZ) in 1912. During this period, he frequently travelled to his hometown of Palekh in the Vladimir guberniya. In 1916, Korin graduated, after studying with Konstantin Korovin, S. V. Malyutin, and Leonid Pasternak. Also in 1916, he worked on the frescoes for the mausoleum of Grand Princess Yelizaveta Fyodorovna at the Intercession Church at the Convent of Martha and Mary. In accordance with the wishes of the Grand Princess, he travelled to Yaroslavl and Rostov to study traditional fresco work in Old Russian churches. In February 1917, he began independent work in his attic studio on Arbat Street in Moscow and worked there until 1934.

He was not satisfied with his early work. He found that he fell far short of his desired ideal, and he felt that the path to his intended goal was almost impassable. In 1918-25, a time of great ferment, not only in Russia at large, but, in the Russian art world in particular, Korin worked as though he was under a voluntary obedience (“obedience” in this sense refers to the assigned task of a monastic, it implies a very high standard of responsibility).

In particular, in 1918-19, he taught at the 2nd State Art Studios (GSKhM). In 1919-20, he worked at the anatomical theatre of Moscow State University, as he believed that a painter needed a deep knowledge of human anatomy. In the evenings he copied paintings and sculptures from the Museum of Fine Arts. In 1923, he travelled throughout Northern Russia, visiting Vologda, Staraya Ladoga, Ferapontov Monastery, and Novgorod. In 1926-1931, he worked as an instructor of painting classes for beginners at the Museum of Fine Arts. He was convinced that the new artistic forms of the avant-garde did not enlarge the artistic horizon; rather, he felt that they restricted it.

In 1926, the Convent of Martha and Mary was closed by the Soviets and all the art there was to be destroyed. Pavel and his brother Aleksandr managed to smuggle out and save the iconostas and some of the frescoes. On 7 March of that year, he married Praskovya Tikhonovna Petrova, a former novice of the Convent of Martha and Mary.

My Motherland (Pavel Korin, 1928)

In 1925, Korin found a theme for his life’s work. In April of that year, Patriarch Tikhon Bellavin of Moscow and all Russia died, and the many thousands in the crowd at the Donskoi Monastery made it seem like all of Orthodox Russia gathered for his burial. Shaken by what he had seen, Korin vowed to paint the religious procession that took place during the service, for he wished to portray Holy Russia on the verge of a cataclysmic tragedy. Very soon afterwards, he began preparatory work on sketches for a painting that he entitled Rekviem (Requiem). At the same time, he created his first large-scale work; a panorama entitled Moya Rodina (My Motherland), which was a view of Palekh as seen from a distance. In 1928, Korin’s aquarelle Artist’s studio and his landscape Moya Rodina were bought by the State Tretyakov Gallery, which showed recognition for his work from the Soviet government.

It took some ten years for Korin to work on the studies for Rekviem. One of the first of these etudes was a portrait of Metropolitan Trifon of Turkistan, for he intended to place his figure at the centre of the composition. The last of these preparatory sketches, a portrait of Metropolitan Sergei Stagorodsky, later, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, was painted in 1937. These studies were done in a very realistic style rare for 20^th century art, and, taken together, they comprise a unique series of portraits. Before the eyes of the beholder, the entire panoply of Orthodox Russia, from the most common parishioner to the highest Church hierarch, appears in all its fullness. These characters are suffused with a common spirit, they are full of internal spiritual fire, yet, each retains their distinctive individuality.

St Aleksandr Nevsky (Pavel Korin, 1942)

In 1931, the writer Maksim Gorky unexpectedly visited Korin’s atelier. He suggested that Korin rename the projected painting Rus Ukhodyashchaya (A Farewell to Rus, literally, “The Russia that is Departing”). This new title was a departure from the original concept, but, Gorky believed that it would “shield” Korin from any possible attacks by the Party. Due to Gorky’s influence, the brothers Pavel and Aleksandr Korin were allowed to go to Italy and Germany to study the works of the Old Masters. Pavel Dmitrievich also painted landscapes and executed a portrait of Gorky in Sorrento in 1932. At this time, the characteristic style of Korin came into full flower. It was typified by strong and plastic modelling, a general respect for form, a restrained, yet, saturated palette with the introduction of colour accenting. One could say that his style was dense and multilayered. However, his personal style was much more austere than that of his mentor Nesterov.

In 1931, Korin started to work as the Director of the Restoration Atelier of Museum of the Foreign Art (former Museum of Fine Arts, later, Aleksandr Pushkin Art Museum). He held this position until 1959. After this, he held the position of the Director of the State Central Art Restoration Works (GTsRKhM) until his death. As one of the most senior Russian restorers of the time, he contributed enormously to the saving and restoration of famous paintings. In 1933, Korin moved to the studio on Malaya Pirogovka Street in Moscow where he worked until his death.

In 1936, with the death of Gorky, his circumstances abruptly changed, and he was forced to abandon work on his planned masterpiece. He had received direct threats from the NKVD. The already-prepared canvas was left untouched. The completed study for the work shows that Rus Ukhodyashchaya could have been the most significant, powerful, and symbolic painting of the post-1917 period if it had been completed. It portrays the Church, going forth as if to battle; it symbolises the Church, “departing” to eternity.

A Portrait of Nadezhda Peshkova (Pavel Korin, 1940)

In the same way, the same quality of spiritual selflessness is found in Korin’s portrait series of prominent cultural figures, a stream in his work that started in 1939. Amongst this set of paintings are portrayals of Mikhail Nesterov, Graf Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and Nadezhda Peshkova (Gorky’s daughter-in-law), and the actors V. I. Kachalov and Leonid Leonidov. The painterly craftsmanship and power of these works brings forth a sensation of tragedy, the painting itself is direct and focused, executed with smooth and dense brush-strokes. He painted the fresco March to the Future for the Palace of Soviets in the Moscow Kremlin. 

During World War II, Korin turned to historical themes, a direction that he continued until his death. Korin portrayed the essence of the soldier, whom he saw as not only the defender of the Motherland, but, also, the guardian of the spiritual ideals of Russia. One could see this in his famous triptych of 1942, which featured the famous hero Grand Prince St Aleksandr Nevsky. The saints of Old Russia and the powerful heroes of the Italian Revival are seen in these canvasses.

Korin’s entire life is best understood as a battle. First of all, he was an artist. Besides this, he was also a collector of seemingly-doomed Old Russian art and an outstanding art-restorer of universal import to mankind, for he restored many of the masterpieces of the Dresden Gallery after World War II. On top of all this, he was also a cultural activist who defended the cultural monuments of Russia from destruction. However, the completion of his projected masterpiece, the work to which he gave over so much of his life, was never realised.

A Portrait of Marshal Georgy Zhukov (Pavel Korin, 1945)

His best-known works are his triptych Aleksandr Nevsky and his portraits of Marshal Georgy Zhukov and the writer Maksim Gorky. The most significant (although unfinished) of his works is Rekviem/Rus Ukhodyashchaya. Amongst his monumental works are the mosaics at the Kosomolskaya station on the Ring Line of the Moscow Metro, the stained-glass panels at the Novoslobodskaya station and the mosaics at the Smolensk station, executed in the 1950s. In addition, he did the mosaics at the Great Hall of Moscow State University (MGU). Korin’s extensive icon collection is one of the most widely-known and most-studied in Russia.

He died on 22 November 1967 in Moscow and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery. In 1971, his home became the House-Museum of Pavel Dmitrievich Korin (address: Moscow, ul. Malaya Pirogovskaya d. 16 fligel 2), affiliated with the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Awards  

• 1954. State Prize of the USSR, for the mosaic panels of the Komsomolskaya metro station. Elected corresponding member of the Academy of Fine Arts.
• 1958. People’s Painter of the RSFSR. Elected full member of the Academy of Fine Arts.
• 1962. People’s Artist of the USSR.
• 1963. Lenin Prize for portraits of M. S. Sarayan, R. N. Simonov, and R. Guttuzo.
• 1967. Order of Lenin.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Корин,_Павел_Дмитриевич (in Russian)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Korin (in English)

http://www.art-catalog.ru/artist.php?artist=Korin%20P.&id_artist=108 (in Russian)

Additional information on Pavel Korin, and in particular, concerning his magnum opus, A Farewell to Rus, can be found in this earlier post on this site:

http://01varvara.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/pavel-korin-a-farewell-to-rus-1939/

My Favourite Russian Artist… and Some Thoughts on how Her Life has Meaning for Us…

A Self-Portrait by Zinaida Serebryakova (1956)

Without a doubt, my favourite Russian artist is ZInaida Serebryakova. She lived from 1884 to 1967, and emigrated to Paris after the Red victory in the Civil War.

I love her œuvre because of her masterful use of colour and life, for her loving depiction of the everyday, and the positive and life-affirming ethos that runs through her entire career, despite the many trials and sadnesses that she faced in her life (her husband dying young, being forced to emigrate from her beloved motherland, etc.) She was an optimist, but, not in the shallow and juvenile way that it is defined in contemporary American therapeutic usage. Ms Serebryakova took the best that life offered her, even in the midst of tragedy. She did not minimise the tragedy, nor did she “move on” as many fatuous American suburbanites advise. Her sufferings refined her, they allowed her to see “soulfully”, as we Russians say. In short, she became one of the greats by allowing her experience to send her wisdom, she did not run and hide in a Penza cave, to “move on” in deadness and sterility.

I would say to my Orthodox friends, this is why you must utterly reject people such as Bishop Benjamin Peterson. He says “move on” all too often. If you do so, you spit on the opportunity of growth that God gives you in the midst of your trial. God does not send us trials, that is a fallacy. God sends us the strength to deal with trials and the wisdom to draw the proper lessons from it. That is why you must stop your ears and not listen to Benjamin Petersons (and the other OCA/AOCANA Renovationists) when they spout their psychobabble. God did NOT send the present crisis in the OCA, we human beings are quite capable of creating such without His help, thank you very much. However, if you listen to the likes of Benjamin Peterson or the SVS crowd, you shall not grow, you shall not draw the wisdom from this as good Christians ought. Think on that.

Rather, be like Zinaida Serebryakova, use the lessons brought by the trials to see clearly, and, then, be able to portray things as they are, as she did. It is your choice.

Meet the Artist: Ilya Yefimovich Repin

REPIN Ilya Yefimovich

Born:  24 July 1844, Chuguyev, Kharkov Guberniya

Died: 29 September 1930, “Penatakh”, village of Kuokkala on the Karelian Isthmus

I wish to recreate a correct and whole picture of life in its full essence, in its full animated perception, to being into complete harmony the manner of the people depicted and the whole vital movement of the spirit in my paintings… this task is immense. I try to reproduce this ideal, which is an aspiration of most intelligent people, striving to live up to the highest ethical and aesthetical demands!

Ilya Repin

The portraiture of Repin reached the highest peaks known to the artistic spirit. Some of them are simply stunning in approach and execution.

Aleksandr Benois

Prayer Over the Chalice (Ilya Repin, beginning of the 1860s)

Ilya Yefimovich Repin, one of the greatest Russian artists, was born in Chuguyev in Kharkov gouberniya on 24 July (5 August, new style) 1844 into the family of a Great Russian military veteran settled in the region. His first formal artistic training was at the local school for military topographers (1854-57), and then he studied with I. M. Bunakov, a local iconographer. From 1859, when he was only 15-years-old, he undertook commissions to paint icons and church frescoes.

A Newspaper Vendor in Paris (Ilya Repin, 1873)

After moving to St Petersburg in 1863, he studied at the drawing school of the Society of the Encouragement of the Arts. Whilst studying there, he was introduced to the famous artist Ivan Kranskoi, and he continued his training at the Academy of Fine Arts (1864-71). Living on a stipend granted him by the Academy, he travelled through France and Italy from 1873 to 1876, where he thoroughly absorbed the currents found in Impressionism and Symbolism. In 1877, he returned to Chuguyev, then, he went to Moscow, and from 1882 he lived in St Petersburg. He moved into his much-loved estate “Penatakh” near Kuokkala on the Karelian Isthmus in 1900. Repin was one of the most active members in the exhibitions of the Peredvizhniki (Wanderers) and he warmly supported the Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) movement in the early 1900s.

Christ Raises the Daughter of Jairus (Ilya Repin, 1871)

His early religious paintings done according to the programme of the Academy’s exhibitions such as Job and His Friends (1869) and Christ Raises the Daughter of Jairus (1871) already show his surprising gift of artistic-psychological concentration, a skill that subordinated all the means at his disposal to create a major dramatic impact. He became a sensation with his Burlaki (Bargehaulers on the Volga) (1870-73), a work he completed only after doing numerous studies, some of which were painted whilst he was on a voyage down the Volga with fellow-artist Fyodor Vasiliev. The youthful Repin created a picture that is redolent of the impressively bright expressiveness of nature, yet, it also rings with a terrible force of protest that is ripening in these outcasts of society.

Refusing Confession (Ilya Repin, 1885)

The best works by Repin became landmarks of Russian social consciousness. Pathos and protest were inseparably connected in them at first, as in the solemn, yet, also sarcastic, Easter Procession in Kursk Guberniya (1880-83), now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. His other social protest works divide into two main parallel streams. Thus, together with his “revolutionary cycle” about the tragic disorder in society, Refusing Confession (1879-85), They did not Expect Him (1884), The Arrest of the Anarchist (1880-92), and The Demonstration on 17 October 1905 (1907), he also painted canvasses lauding the pomp and circumstance surrounding the ceremonial façade of the Empire, such as The Reception of the Small-Holding Elders by Tsar Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (1885) and The Solemn Session of the Supreme Council of State (1901-03). His spirited brush was saturated with a powerful emotional force in depicting the historical tales found in The Zaporozhe Cossacks Write a Mocking Letter to the Turkish Sultan (1878-91) and Tsar Ivan Grozny Murders His Son Ivan (1885). Now and again, these emotions literally splashed outside the canvasses. In 1913, the iconographer A. Balashov, positively hypnotized by Repin’s portrayal of the mad tsar Ivan Grozny, slashed the painting with a knife. This became the genesis of a public debate between Repin and M. A. Voloshin about the boundaries between art and reality.

A Portrait of Baroness Varvara Iskul von Hildebrandt (Ilya Repin, 1889)

Repin’s portraiture is amazingly lyrical and attractive. He created sharply-characterised general human studies such as A Peasant with an Evil Eye and The Protodeacon (both 1877), numerous depictions of prominent cultural figures such as Modest Mussorgsky (1881), P. A. Strepetov (1882), Pavel Tretyakov (1883), and several of Lev Tolstoy. He also created graceful portraits of figures in high society such as the Baroness Varvara Iskul von Hildebrandt (1889). His canvasses featuring his family are especially colourful and sincere, as in An Autumn Bouquet (Daughter Vera Repina) (1892), and a whole series of paintings featuring his second wife, Natalia Nordmann-Severova. He was also a virtuoso at graphic portraits done in pencil or charcoal, such as in works portraying E. Duze (1891), Princess M. K. Tenisheva [1898], and Valentin Serov (1901). Repin was also a skilled and exemplary teacher, being the professor-leader of his own atelier (1894-1907), and the rector of the Academy of Fine Arts (1898-99), whilst simultaneously teaching in the school workshop of Princess Tenisheva.

What Freedom! (Ilya Repin, 1903)

Even in his old age, he continued to astonish the public. The apogee of his impressionistic-picturesque freedom, and at the same time, a sign of his deep insight into the psychology of his subjects, was found in his portrait studies for The Solemn Session of the Supreme Council of State (1901-03). In his mystifying and contradictory painting What Freedom! (1903), with a young couple rejoicing on the shores of the iced-up Neva, Repin expressed an ambivalent attitude to the new generation, one could call it “love-hostility”.

Christ Wearing the Crown of Thorns (Ilya Repin, 1913)

After the October Revolution in 1917, the artist found himself outside of Russia as the part of the Karelian Isthmus where his estate, “Penatakh”, was located became part of independent Finland. It became part of Russia again only in 1946, after the artist’s death. In 1922-25, he painted some of his best religious canvasses, especially the pitch-dark tragic work Golgotha (now in the Art Museum of Princeton University in the USA). In spite of high-level invitations, as was shown by a letter from Klimenty Voroshilov in 1926, he did not return to his native land, although he kept in close contact with his friends there, especially K. I. Chukovsky. Ilya Repin died on 29 September 1930 in his beloved “Penatakh”. In 1937, Chukovsky issued Repin’s memoirs and an anthology of articles concerning his art entitled The Distant Close One (Dalekoye Blizkoye). The book has been reprinted numerous times up to the present.

Art-Katalog: zhivopis i grafika

http://www.art-catalog.ru/artist.php?id_artist=24 (in Russian)

The portrait at the top of the article is by Valentin Serov, and dates from 1892.          

Meet the Artist: Nikolai Andreyevich Koshelev

KOSHELEV Nikolai Andreyevich

Born: 1840

Died: 1916

Due to his lack of art supplies in his childhood years, the future professor of the Academy of Fine Arts Nikolai Andreyevich Koshelev could not study at the fine arts school in Arzamas established by Academician A. V. Stupin. So, instead of formal study, the eleven-year-old boy, who passionately loved to sketch, became an assistant to two different artists, but, alas, both situations in an apprenticeship in art proved unsuccessful. When it looked like it would be impossible to obtain another position as an artist’s apprentice, a local landowner intervened in his fate. For three years, she allowed him to work independently, at home, mastering all the techniques of fine art painting. Then, he took a trip with his benefactress to the Kazan School of Fine Arts, where he obtained lessons from professional instructors.

This led to Nikolai Andreyevich receiving commissions to paint the icons on the iconostases of several churches, and he also painted fresco icons on the walls of a local monastery. Finally, he was able to move to St Petersburg, and he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in 1861. For the first years of his residence in the capital, he lived in abject poverty and semi-starvation.  Nevertheless, in spite of all this, the impulse of his creative passion forced him forward to the extent that he received three silver medals at art competitions in 1862. At long last, in 1863, he was able to sell several of his artworks, which improved his financial situation tremendously.

From 1865, for some years, he was one of the team of artists who were working to paint the icons at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. It was specifically for this creative effort in beautifying the Cathedral that he became an Academician in 1873 and a Professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1878. Both by his life and his creative work, for he painted many remarkable portraits, landscapes, and genre pictures, he proved an old saying about artists. “In painting, there is no wide and easy path. The only one who can reach its shining summit is one who does not weary and lose heart as he clambers up her narrow and stony slopes”.

My Russkie –kakoi vostorg!

http://lj.rossia.org/users/john_petrov/1103598.html#cutid1 (in Russian)

Meet the Artist: Mikhail Petrovich Botkin

BOTKIN Mikhail Petrovich 

Born: 1839 

Died: 1914 

Mikhail Petrovich Botkin came from a famous family in Russia. One of his brothers was the famous author V. P. Botkin. Another brother was Sergei Petrovich Botkin (1832-1889), a brilliant physician. He introduced triage, pathological anatomy, and post mortem diagnostics into Russian medical practise. S. P. Botkin was also a court physician to Tsars Aleksandr Nikolaevich (1855-1881) and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (1881-1894). He was also the father of Yevgeny Sergeyevich Botkin, the court physician to Tsar St Nikolai Aleksandrovich, who was murdered along with the tsar in 1918 in Yekaterinburg. 

The ardent nature of M. P. Botkin did not allow him to occupy himself with mundane pursuits. He entered the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg in 1856, but, he left without finishing his studies there. He went to Italy, using his own means, and from there also visited Germany, France, and Spain, studying the techniques of the artists in these countries. It is no surprise that M. P. Botkin is known as an artist of the academic school with a strong leaning to “Italian” archetypes, which is characterised by strictness of technique, idealisation in composition, elevation of figure, and refinement of colour. In 1863, he returned to Russia, where he was occupied for some time with intensive work in painting, in particular, portraiture, and he also perfected his skills in another direction by learning etching. 

Mr Botkin also worked in business, taking part in commodities trading and financial activity. He was a director of several firms, including the Russian Steam Navigation and Trade Society, the first Russian insurance society, and a St Petersburg commercial bank. The means earned from such activity allowed him to be very energetic in supporting public initiatives connected with the encouragement and development of young artists. Mr Botkin was an avid art collector and connoisseur, and paintings from his collection were carried by the young artist Aleksandr Benois to many exhibitions in Russia and all over Europe. 

Finally, in 1880, Mr Botkin prepared and published an exhaustive monograph on the Russian artist Aleksandr Ivanov entitled Aleksandr Andreyevich Ivanov: His Life and Correspondence [1806-1858]. He obtained the source materials for this work through a bequest in the will of A. A. Ivanov, and the majority of the sketches and studies of Ivanov were passed on to the Rumyantsev Museum after the book was completed. 

My Russkie – kakoi vostorg! 

http://lj.rossia.org/users/john_petrov/1096023.html#cutid1 (in Russian)

Our Featured Artist: Mikhail Nikiforovich Valusko (spelled Walusko in the US)

Mikhail Nikiforovich Valusko (1917-1997), Honoured Russian-American Artist

I have been given some images of the mid-to-late 20th century Russian-American artist, Mikhail Nikiforovich Valusko (1917-1997). Mr Valusko was born in Smolensk in 1917, and died in Los Angeles in 1997 (Did you know Mr Walusko, Bill? You are both from California, after all. What about you, Lisa?). His daughter Tamara kindly wrote his biography, and I am putting it into publishable form at present, and shall post it as soon as it is done. Mr Valusko lived a fascinating life.

Tamara, I intend to give due honour to your father’s life and art, I can assure you of that!

Vechnaya pamyat, rab bozhii Mikhail! Eternal memory, servant of God, Mikhail!

Meet the Artist: Mikhail Yakovlevich Villie

Villie, Mikhail Yakovlevich

1838-1910

Until 1862, M. Ya. Villie was an officer in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment, one of the oldest and most famous units in the Russian army. His artistic formation began with private lessons from L. O. Premazzi, them, he attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg. In 1863, in recognition of the excellent quality of some of his early paintings (The Ruins of the Locks at Vezenburg, The Church of St Nicholas in Revel), he was awarded the rank of Artist. He subsequently went to Brussels and Munich to perfect his artistic technique, and, by 1868, he received the rank of Academician for his work in watercolour landscapes.

Although he lived abroad for most of the period from 1865 until 1885, creating many works in both oils and watercolours, he kept very close connections with the Russian art scene by participating actively in the exhibitions of the Academy and Society of Russian Watercolour Artists. On his return to Russia, he travelled extensively throughout the country, seeking out the old pre-Petrine districts, creating during the 1880s and 1890s numerous paintings of Old Russian architectural treasures (A General View of Yaroslavl, The Church of the Nativity of Christ, and The Moscow Gate in Yaroslavl).

His numerous professional and public activities led to his election as a full member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1903. In addition, he was a member of the Belgian Royal Watercolour Society. His paintings were displayed in many foreign venues, including international exhibitions. After his death, posthumous presentations of his artworks took place in St Petersburg in 1912 and 1913. Today, the paintings of Mikhail Yakovlevich Villie occupy honourable places in many museums of fine art in Russia.

Мы – русские. Какой восторг! 1000 русских художников http://lj.rossia.org/users/john_petrov/1090374.html#cutid1 (in Russian)

Editor’s Note:

As most of the five works available to me by this artist are religious, I decided to show them all on one day, a Sunday. Appropriate, no?

Bill, would you agree with me that this is “good work”, competently executed and well-done?

By the way, “Villie” in Russian has three syllables, and is pronounced “Vee-lee-eh”.