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Son of a village clergyman, Victor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov prepared himself for the same career, but the passionate love for art brought the 19-year-old student of ecclesiastical seminary to St. Petersburg's Academy of Arts. During his years (1868-75) in the Academy Vasnetsov got a thorough professional training; an especially big role in his education was played by professorPavel Tchistyakov.
Victor Vasnetsov started as a scene painter; the influence of Fedotov and Perov in his early works is evident Moving House (1876), At a Bookseller's (1876), News from the Front (1878), A Game of Preference (1879). In the late 1870s early 1880s, Vasnetsov tried himself in historical genre Battle of Slavs and Scythians (1881), After Prince Igor's Battle with the Polovtsy (1880). He borrowed the subjects from ancient history. He found another source of subjects in Russian mythology ¨C legends, ballads, fairy-tales. Vasnetsov was born and grew up in a northern Russian village and almost to the age of 20 lived in an environment where the ¡®folklore outlook¡¯ was still alive; his very soul was steeped in the poetry of Russian epic literature. He wasn't only the first artist to use subjects from folklore, but also the first to borrow methods and techniques from national folk art. Thus he became the founder of new style in Russian painting.
Vasnetsov was an active member of the Abramtsevo circle (Abramtsevo is the estate of the well-known patron of arts Savva Mamontov), which sought to revive national traditions. Many undertakings by the Abramtsevo Colony, whether the construction of a church at Abramtsevo, where Vasnetsov, as the designer, first coped with the problem of creating a whole, integral ensemble, or the erection of the ¡®Witch¡¯s Hut¡± (also to his design), or the sets and costumes for the production of Alexander Ostrovsky¡¯s lyrical fairy-tale The Snow Maiden and for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov¡¯s opera of the same name, staged at Mamontov¡¯s private Opera in 1885, were to become milestones not only for Vasnetsov but also for the Russian art in whole.
In 1882, Vasnetsov received a commission to produce a decorative panel for the rotunda of the Historical Museum in Moscow, which was his first big monumental project. Yet the most significant and time-consuming work of this type was the decoration of the Cathedral of St. Vladimir in Kiev, which Vasnetsov began in the autumn of 1885 at the invitation of the art historian Adrian Prakhov, who supervised the construction of the cathedral. Vasnetsov jumped at this offer as it gave him the opportunity to create an integral ensemble comparable to those done by ancient fresco-painters. Work on the decoration of the cathedral took over 10 years, during which Vasnetsov executed nearly 400 sketches and stud.... |
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