Karl Bryullov’s The Last Day of Pompeii (1833) made Russian painting a European story. Learn how it was made, who praised it, and where to see it.
Category: Artists
Get to know the people behind the art. This section is dedicated to deep-dive profiles on both celebrated and emerging Russian artists. Articles can cover biographical details, creative processes, signature works, and the lasting impact of these artists
Vasily Vereshchagin painted war as skulls, frozen sentries and unburied dead. Follow the Russian war artist from Turkestan to Port Arthur.
Ivan Shishkin painted Russia’s pine forests with a botanist’s eye. Learn how Morning in a Pine Forest was made, who painted its bears, and why it endures.
Zinaida Serebriakova turned self-portraits and peasant scenes into acts of quiet defiance, then kept painting through exile, revolution, and decades in Paris.
Discover Valentin Serov (1865-1911), Russia’s greatest portraitist, from Girl with Peaches to his unflinching studies of the last imperial aristocracy.
Isaac Levitan turned Russian fields, rivers, and skies into portraits of feeling. Learn how his mood landscapes redefined 19th century Russian painting.
How Mikhail Vrubel’s Demon paintings, from The Demon Seated to The Demon Downcast, tracked his descent into illness and reshaped Russian art.
Natalia Goncharova fused Russian folk art, icons, and Futurism into Rayonism. Explore her life, key works, and lasting influence on modern art.
Discover Andrei Rublev, Russia’s greatest icon painter: his life, teacher Theophanes the Greek, the Trinity icon, and his lasting influence on Russian art.
Discover Ivan Aivazovsky, the Armenian-Russian seascape painter behind The Ninth Wave, who spent 60 years turning the Black Sea’s moods into Romantic art.