Viktor Vasnetsov (2)

Viktor Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov (May 15, 1848 —July 23, 1926) was a Russian artist who specialized in mythological and historical subjects. He is considered the co-founder of Russian folklorist and romantic modernist painting and a key figure in the revivalist movement.
Viktor Vasnetsov was born in a remote village Lopyal of Vyatka in 1848, the second of the six children. From the age of ten, Viktor studied in a seminary in Vyatka, each summer moving with his family to a rich merchant village of Ryabovo. During his seminary years, he worked for a local icon shopkeeper. Having graduated from the seminary, Viktor decided to move to Saint Petersburg to study art. He auctioned his paintings of Woman Harvester and Milk-maid (both 1867) in order to raise money required for the trip to the Russian capital. In August 1867 Viktor entered the Imperial Academy of Arts.
In the early 1870s he executed a lot of engravings depicting contemporary life. Two of them (Provincial Bookseller from 1870 and A Boy with a Bottle of Vodka from 1872) won him a bronze medal at the World Fair in London (1874).
At that period he also started producing genre paintings in oil. Such pieces as Peasant Singers (1873) and Moving House (1876) were warmly welcomed by democratic circles of Russian society.



"Moving House"

Vasnetsov concentrated on illustrating Russian fairy tales and bylinas, executing some of his best known pieces: Knight at the Crossroads (1878), Prince Igor's Battlefield (1878), Three tsarevnas of the Underground Kingdom (1879–1881), The Magic Carpet (1880), and Alionushka (1881).
In 1912, he was given a noble title by Czar Nicholas II. In 1914, he designed a revenue stamp intended for voluntary collection for victims of World War I.

"Knight at the Crossroads"




"Alionushka"
Presentation 1

Presentation 2

Film