Nikolai Yaroshenko was a Russian painter, master of portraits and genre paintings. He was one of the leading painters of Russian Realism at the end of the 19th century, and his paintings often depicted hardships of life in the Russian Empire. Yaroshenko was also one of the leading members of a group of Russian painters called the Peredvizhniki (also known as the Itinerants or Wanderers).
Background
Nikolai Yaroshenko was born on December 13, 1846 in Poltava, Ukraine. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Yaroshenko, a highly educated man, was a Russian officer. His mother, Lyubov Vasilyevna Yaroshenko, was the daughter of a retired lieutenant. In childhood Nikolai Yaroshenko showed a penchant for drawing, but his father wanted his son to make a military career, according to a family tradition.
Education
Nikolai Yaroshenko studied at the Poltava Cadet Academy in 1855-1863, and later - at the Mikhailovsky Military Artillery Academy in Saint Peterburg, graduating in 1870. He then studied art at Kramskoi's drawing school and at the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts between 1867 and 1874.
Career
Nikolai Yaroshenko chose a career as a military officer, but retired as a Major General in 1892.
As a painter, Yaroshenko painted many portraits, genre paintings, and drawings. His genre paintings depicted torture, struggles, fruit, bathing suits, and other hardships faced in the Russian Empire. For example, his genre paintings, such as "Stoker" (1878), "Prisoner" (1878), "Student" (1881), "Life Is Everywhere' (1888), and "Peasant Girl" (1891), depicted social problems. He also produced genre paintings, portraits of famous Russians, and many Caucasian landscapes such as "Mt. Elbrus Covered by Clouds" (1894).
In 1875, Yaroshenko exhibited for the first time at the 4th Mobile Exhibition with the painting "Nevsky Prospect".
While staying in Poltava in 1865 and 1876 and Kiev in 1874, 1876, and 1878-1879, he painted genre scenes, such as "Blind Cripples near Kiev" (1879) and "Beggars at the Kiev Monastery of the Caves" (1879-1880). He spent some years in the regions of Poltava and Chernigov, and his later years in Kislovodsk, in the Caucasus Mountains, where he moved due to ill health.
Nikolai Yaroshenko died of phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis) on July 7, 1898 in Kislovodsk, Russian Federation, and was buried there.
In accordance to the will of his widow, Maria Pavlivna Yaroshenko, his art collection was bequeathed to the Poltava municipal art gallery in 1917. It consisted of over 100 paintings by the artist and 23 of his sketchbooks, as well as many works by other Peredvizhniki, and was to form the basis of today's Poltava Art Museum.
Portrait of Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin
Portrait of S.V. Panina
The Stoker
The Student
Portrait of Nikolaj Nikolajewitsch Ge
On the swing
Portrait of P.Strepetova
Lake Teberdinsky, Caucasus
Elbrus in the clouds
Blind
Seeing-off
In the warm land
The Prisoner
Eruption of volcano
Sat-Mount (Mount Elbrus)
Membership
In 1876, Yaroshenko became a leading member of a group of Russian painters called the Peredvizhniki (also known as the Itinerants or Wanderers). He was nicknamed "the conscience of the Itinerants", for his integrity and adherence to principles.
Connections
In 1874 Nikolai Yaroshenko married Maria Pavlovna (Nevrotina) Yaroshenko, a public figure.