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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 – 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 studies. The murals he painted
with his assistants covered almost two thousand square meters. Fulfilling
this assignment Vasnetsov relied on his favorite range of motifs and characters,
painting the walls with the images of princes Vladimir, Alexander Nevsky,
Andrey Bogoliubsky, Princess Olga, the chronicler Nestor, and other outstanding
figures from Russian history.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Vasnetsov actively worked in
different fields. He produced a number of architectural designs, including
those for his own house in Moscow (1894), for a pavilion at the World Fair
in Paris (1898), and for E. Tsvetkov’s house on the Moskva River (1901-03),
as well as designs for decoration of the Great Kremlin Palace (1898), the
Faceted Chamber (1901-03), and other buildings in the Kremlin. In 1904,
he designed the façade of the Tretyakov Gallery.
During the last 20 years of his life Vasnetsov turned to his favorite lyrical
subjects inspired by Russian fairy-tales. These include Three
Bogatyrs (1898), The
Frog Tsarevna (1918), The Tale of the Sleeping Beauty
(1900-26), and the Unsmiling Tsarevna
(1916-26). Thanks to his enchantment with Russian epos and history, thanks
to his search for a genuinely Russian pictorial idiom, Vasnetsov was able,
of the eve of the 20th century, to inspire many artists to reaffirm the
moral and aesthetic ideals of the people, to revive Russian’s spiritual
legacy.
His painting influenced greatly the development of modernism and symbolism
in Russian painting and poetry.
Bibliography:
Victor Vasnetsov by A. Lazuko. Russian Painters. Leningrad.
1990.
The
Art and Architecture of Russia (Pelican History Art) by George
Heard Hamilton. Yale Univ Pr, 1992.
A
Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Artists 1420-1970 by John
Milner. Antique Collectors' Club, 1993.