Viktor Vasnetsov: cuadros y dónde verlos

Víktor Mijáilovich Vasnetsov (en ruso: Виктор Михайлович Васнецов; Lopyal, gobernación de Viatka (hoy óblast de Kírov), Imperio ruso, 15 de mayo de 1848 - Moscú, Unión Soviética, 23 de julio de 1926) fue un pintor ruso que se especializó en temas mitológicos e históricos. Perfeccionó su arte en San Petersburgo y se dedicó a ilustrar cuentos rusos y bylinas (poemas épicos). Es considerado uno de los cofundadores del folclorismo ruso y la pintura nacionalista romántica, así como figura clave del estilo neorruso.

También se dedicó a la arquitectura, siendo una de sus edificios más importantes la fachada de la Galería Tretyakov, cercana al Kremlin, la cual tiene la apariencia de un «térem», la casa descrita en los cuentos de hadas rusos.

En 1912, Vasnetsov recibió del emperador Nicolás II un título nobiliario. En 1914, diseñó un sello de los ingresos destinados a la recogida voluntaria de las víctimas de la Primera Guerra Mundial.

Seguir leyendo en Wikipedia

Crónica

1848
Nacimiento · 3 de mayo de 1848
Lopyal
Evento · before birth
The artistic roots of the family: a great-grandfather and a grandmother
His great-grandfather Kozma Ivanovich (1776–1827), a priest, painted portraits, studies and still lifes and himself designed the bell tower and church wall in the village of Taloklyuchenny, while on the walls of his paternal grandmother Olga Vechtomova’s house large watercolours in gilt frames hung in rows.
Evento
From a line of village priests
He was born into the family of the village priest Mikhail Vasilyevich Vasnetsov, a versatile man who loved nature and drew well from life; his mother, Apollinaria Ivanovna (née Kibardina), came from a clerical family, and almost all the men of the Vasnetsov line had been priests for eight generations.
Evento · 1848–1858 · Ryabovo
His father as first teacher: reading, singing, drawing
Soon after his birth the family moved to the neighbouring village of Ryabovo, where he spent his childhood; his father taught his sons reading, writing, arithmetic and singing at home, gave them their first drawing skills and took them on long walks through the fields, telling them about the stars and the structure of the universe.
Evento · 1848–1858
Ships far from the sea, and the songs of village friends
He began drawing in earliest childhood — “mostly ships and sea battles”, hundreds of miles from any sea — and then landscapes and peasants from memory; growing up among peasant children, he knew folk songs, tales and rites from an early age and loved his playmates, in his own words, “not as a narodnik but simply as friends”.

1858
Formación · 1858–1867
Vyatka: the theological school and seminary
In 1858, aged ten, he entered the Vyatka theological school and in 1862 went on to the seminary, where he studied early Russian literature and the lives of the saints, took painting lessons from local teachers, worked for a local icon shopkeeper, and was influenced by the former seminary professor Alexander Krasovsky, a follower of Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky.

1863
Encuentro · 1863–1867 · Vyatka
Elwiro Andriolli: “Give up the seminary”
The Polish artist Elwiro Andriolli, exiled to Vyatka after the uprising of 1863, noticed the young man’s talent and urged him to give up the seminary and go to the Academy of Arts — there were priests enough, good and bad, without him, but few people with such gifts; Vasnetsov helped him execute frescoes for Vyatka’s Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.
1866
Familia
His mother, Apollinaria Ivanovna, dies
In 1866 his mother died; the family had six sons.
1867
Viaje · Saint Petersburg
He leaves the seminary for St Petersburg
In 1867, with his father’s blessing, he left the Vyatka seminary and set off for St Petersburg to enter the Academy of Arts; he raised the money for the journey by auctioning his paintings “Woman Harvester” and “Milk-maid” (both 1867).

1870
Encuentro · Saint Petersburg
He meets Pavel Chistyakov
Pavel Chistyakov, back from Rome, saw Vasnetsov’s drawing “A Prince’s Icon-painting Workshop” at an Academy exhibition, asked to be introduced to its author and soon made him a regular pupil; Vasnetsov remembered his teacher as “an enemy of the formula” who could show each pupil the road to his own development.
Familia
His father dies; his brother Nikolai becomes guardian
In 1870 his father, Mikhail Vasilyevich, died; the elder brother Nikolai became guardian of the younger children, and for some years their aunt Elizaveta Shilyaeva lived with the younger brothers.
1871
Familia · summer 1871 · Vyatka
He meets his future wife, Alexandra Ryazantseva
In the summer of 1871, home in Vyatka on academic leave, he met Alexandra Ryazantseva in the local library — a merchant’s daughter who would become one of the first women from Vyatka with a higher medical education; he was struck by “her eyes — stern and extraordinarily kind”.

1880
Obra
“After Prince Igor Svyatoslavich’s Battle with the Polovtsy”
He completed the painting on a theme from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (now in the Tretyakov Gallery) — one of the epic and historical canvases whose creation became the turning point of his career.
Encuentro · June 1880
His first visit to Mamontov’s Abramtsevo
In June 1880, with his brother Apollinary, he first came to Abramtsevo at Savva Mamontov’s invitation and joined the circle of Repin, Polenov, Serov and other artists, where he became one of the leaders of the national-romantic current.
1881
Obra
“Alyonushka”
- Alyonushka1881

1891
Evento · 1891–1894 · Moscow
He builds a terem-style house in Troitskaya Sloboda
In 1891 he bought land in Troitskaya Sloboda and himself devised a wooden mansion in the style of an ancient Russian terem; construction, carried out by peasants from Vladimir Governorate, was completed in 1894, and the second-floor studio (110 m², six-metre ceilings) became the place where the “Bogatyrs”, “The Snow Maiden” and the “Poem of Seven Fairy Tales” were painted; Governor-General Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich allowed the house to exceed the height limit.
1892
Carrera
Professor of the Imperial Academy of Arts
From 1892 he was a professor of the Imperial Academy of Arts, and in 1893–1905 a full member of the Academy (under its new statute).
1894
Obra · 1894–1897 · Saint Petersburg
The mosaics of the Church of the Saviour on Blood in St Petersburg
He proposed six works for the mosaics of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (“The Carrying of the Cross”, “The Crucifixion”, “The Deposition”, “The Harrowing of Hell”, and images of the Pantocrator and the Virgin); disagreeing with the church decoration committee’s demands about “the position of figures, heads, hands and so on”, he was ready to give up the commission, but the dispute was decided in his favour — the mosaics were executed from his cartoons by Alexander Frolov’s workshop.

1900
Obra · 1900–1904 · Moscow
The façade of the Tretyakov Gallery
In 1900 the council of the Tretyakov brothers’ City Art Gallery commissioned him to design a new façade; he approached the task with particular exactingness and worked free of charge — “for the memory of the deeply respected Pavel Mikhailovich”; the façade in Lavrushinsky Lane was built in 1902–1904.
1905
La época · after 1905
Closeness to the Union of the Russian People
After 1905 he was close to the Union of the Russian People, though not a member, and took part in financing and designing monarchist publications, including the “Book of Russian Sorrow”.

Спящая царевна. Эскизc. 1900

1912
Distinción
A patent of nobility from Nicholas II
In 1912 an imperial decree granted him, for his artistic merits, “the nobility of the Russian Empire with all his descendants”; in 1914 he received the rank of actual state councillor.
1914
Obra · 1914–1918 · Moscow
“Poem of Seven Fairy Tales”: pictures for the studio
During the First World War commissions stopped and he could give himself wholly to long-held plans — the cycle “Poem of Seven Fairy Tales” (“Sleeping Princess”, “Tsarevna Nesmeyana”, “Frog Princess”, “Koschei the Deathless”, “Baba Yaga”, “Sivka-Burka”, “The Flying Carpet”); he did not mean to show it to the public, and the pictures stayed in his studio.
Viaje
His last visit to Vyatka
In 1914 he came to Vyatka for the last time and visited the theological school and seminary where he had studied.

1920
Familia
His son Mikhail emigrates on the last steamer
During the Civil War Mikhail taught at the White Army’s flying school in Kiev; in 1920, escaping the Red Army, he sent his wife and son to his father’s house and left on the last steamer sailing from Crimea to Gallipoli — the family knew nothing of his fate until 1922.
Obra · 1920–1926 · Moscow
The last fairy tales: “Nesmeyana” and “The Sleeping Princess”
In the early 1920s he painted “The Flying Carpet” (1920–1925) and “Sivka-Burka”, while “Tsarevna Nesmeyana” (begun back in 1916) and “The Sleeping Princess” were completed in 1926 — the master’s last finished works; contemporaries took them as allegories.
1926
Obra · Moscow
His last work: a portrait of Mikhail Nesterov
His last work was a portrait of Mikhail Nesterov, on which he worked until the last hours of his life.