Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov was a Russian landscape painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement of realist artists. His contemporaries would call him the “Knight of Beauty” as he embodied both European and Russian traditions of painting.
Background
As a native of Saint Petersburg, he grew up in a wealthy, intellectual and artistic family. During his teenager years, in 1860s, Russia was energized by great minds promoting virtues of democracy, progress, education and they would stand against oppression. The painter’s dad, Dmitri Polenov, was a well-known archaeologist and bibliographer. As a representative of the Academy of Sciences and then as the secretary of the Russian embassy of Athens, he spent 3 years in Greece. There he would meet important personalities at the time linked to the world of Art and Science: the painter Karl Briullov and the architect Roman Kuzmin.
At his return to Russia, according to the advice he received during his life abroad, Dmitri Polenovo started to do archaeological digs in ancient Russian sites. For many years he devoted his knowledge and work to the Secretary of the Russian Archeological Society. In 1860, he traveled with his sons. This long horseback journey led them to Novgorod, Rostov, Yaroslav, Suzdal, Vladimir, Tver. Vasily Polenov was encouraged by his dad to draw sketches of any interesting ancient subject he would witness.
His mother, Maria Alekseevna, was a painter and a portraitist, she received her lessons from a partner of Karl Briullov, the academician Moldavski. She also wrote a book in 1852 about the life of a family spending the summertime in a dacha. “Summer in Tsarkoye Selo” was then re-edited with illustrations made by Vassili Polenov and his younger sister, Elena, also an artist.
His maternal grandmother was also really important during the painter’s childhood. Vera Voeikova received an excellent education as a young girl thanks to a woman that raised her after her parents’ death. She knew French and Russian literature. As a “mamie”, she managed to teach the importance of developing aristical abilities and she was also telling stories about the war of 1812. Her fiancé, the Colonel Alexeï Voeikov, had important missions back in the days as a military.
Other important ancestor of Vasily Polenov was his great grandfather, Alekseï Polenov. As a famous scholar, he was the first Russian jurist with a multidisciplinary education (economics, history, philosophy). He participated to an essay competition organized by the Free Economic Society in 1766 on the following subject: “what is more useful to the State: that peasants should own land or own only property?”
Education
From both parents and grandparents Vasily and his siblings would receive general knowledge about physics, history, geography and also the biographies of famous painters and musicians and this tradition was stated in this book in order to reach other kids. Vasily Polenov simultaneously enrolled to the Imperial Academy of Arts and to the Law University in Saint Petersbourg during 1863 - 1871. Polenov studied under Pavel Chistyakov and was a classmate and close friend of Rafail Levitsky, a fellow Peredvizhniki artist and famous photographer.
As one of the best students of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, Vasily Polenov received the Great Medal for his painting “The Resurrection of the daughter of Jairus” (1871, Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg). This work was his first approach to a biblical theme for which the young artist had a deep interest. The price he received for this painting allowed him, along with other laureates, to become a pensioner abroad and live in Europe at the expenses of the Russian State. At the end of the summer of 1872, Vasily Polenov crossed Germany and Switzerland before settling in Venice and then Rome the following year.
His Italian stay did not stimulate him much, he lacked from inspiration and worked very little. Nevertheless, there two major encounters happened and shaped his lifetime work. In "the Eternal City", he felt in love with the young Maroussia Obolenskaya who tragically died the same year of measles. However, Rome, has also been the scene of a fruitful and exciting meeting with Savva Mamontov, a rich entrepreneur, art lover and philanthrope. Together, in Italy, they were already planning to create a circle of multidisciplinary artists. The Mamontov’s estate in Abramtsevo seemed to be the ideal place to set up some artists' studios and a theater. It is also in Italy that his passion and admiration for the painter Paul Veronese, a great colorist of the Venetian golden age, was confirmed.
The second major chapter of his stay in Europe was in France, in Paris and Normandy. It is in Montmartre at 72 rue Blanche and at 13 rue Véron that he established his studio in the autumn of 1973. In Paris, he attended Alexei Bogolyubov’s events, an official painter of the Russian Navy and also in charge of the orientation of the young residents of the Imperial Academy in France. He played a vital role in the careers of young artists because he would find them clients and present them to the restricted circles of the Parisian artistic world. Every Tuesday, the preceptor organized ceramics and etching workshops while bringing together painters, writers, and singers. The creation of painted ceramics was also a good mean of acquiring additional incomes for the scholars, as these objects were highly prized in the French capital.
During these years, the painter tried all kinds of painting in order to find his true talent. He painted historical scenes, daily life scenes, portraits and many Normandy’s landscapes. In the summer of 1874, Ilya Repine and Vasily Polenov followed the advice of their preceptor Bogoliubov and went to Normandy in quest for spontaneous impressions. There, they would mainly work outdoors, according to the influence of the Barbizon School. They spent several months in the company of other Russian artists in Veules-les-Roses, a setting combining cliffs by the sea and countryside.
He completed his European work by returning to Paris, devoting himself to historical subjects after this momentous period of his career dedicated to Norman landscapes. In the late 1870s, Polenov concentrated on painting following the realist tradition of Aleksey Savrasov and Fyodor Vasilyev. He attempted to impart the silent poetry of Russian nature, related to daily human life and his paintings generally reflect his sensitivity and delicacy, combining harmony and appeasement but also nostalgia.
During the 1880s, his work was spotted by Vladimir Stassov, a supporter of the traveling exhibition society (the Wanderers). This artistic movement was born from the desire to break with the themes imposed by the Academy to better represent contemporary concerns. In addition, the members promote the accessibility of art among the people by organizing traveling exhibitions (not limited to the artistic centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg). Through their eminently realistic painting, they seek to denounce the living conditions of the Russian population and to promote greater literacy. His works won the admiration of Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov, who acquired many of them for his gallery. The principles developed by Polenov had a great impact on the further development of Russian (and especially Soviet) landscape painting.
He also began to attend retreats of the Abramtsevo circle. The name comes from the village where the property of Savva Mamontov is. Savva and Vasily had met a decade before in Italy and were now ready to create together surrounded by artists from all disciplines. The very essence of this place was to give freedom of creation, renouncing to academic aesthetic canons. Savva Mamontov would animate his workshops based on traditional art and Russian folklore.
There, all art practices were combined: painting, architecture, music but also decorative and popular arts such as wood crafting and ceramics. In addition to Polenov, the main artists that took part of the circle were Repin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Constantin Korovin, Mikhail Vrubel, Elena Polenova (Polenov's younger sister, a brilliant watercolorist and ceramist), Mikhail Nesterov, and Maria Iakountchikova.
In 1881, Polenov undertook a trip to the Middle East and Egypt to work on the biblical theme. He hopes to find details of daily life and landscapes that will inspire him to represent the life of the Christ. He painted many studies about scenes of the life of Christ but the most famous is “Christ and the sinner”, his lifetime masterpiece. This painting is considered as the work of his life for both his artistic career as for the realization of his dearest wishes. He first made a real-sized preparatory study in the mansion of Savva Mamontov in Moscow before directly painting the final work that will be part of the fifteenth itinerant exhibition of the winter of 1887. Alexander III will buy it, making the painter financially at ease after this sale.
From 1883 to 1895, Polenov coached many young artists at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His most talented students were Abram Arkhipov, Isaac Levitan, Konstantin Korovin, and Alexander Golovine. The artist was very important to the teaching of the technique, being very demanding on the quality of colors and canvases.
In the late 1880s, Polenov dreamed of a house-museum in the countryside in order to spread the benefits of a rich cultural life. He wanted to create his own place of creation and education but also a place where he could expose the archaeological and artistic collections gathered by his family along the decades. In 1889, he made a trip to the area of Taroussa, 130 km south of Moscow, with his friend and disciple Constantin Korovine. Struck by the beauty of the place, he decided that he will make his dream true there, on the banks of the river Oka. Thanks to the purchase by Tsar Alexander III of his painting “Christ and the sinner” (1884) for the amount, huge at the time, of 30 000 rubles, he bought a sandy hill overlooking the river, not far from the small village of Bekhovo.
The house, built based on the model his childhood’s house in Imotchentsy, was completed in 1892. It is a large three-storey wooden building. He realized himself the plans the design of it and the general style approaches Art Nouveau, which he himself called "Scandinavian", mixing Romanesque and Gothic architecture but also Western medieval style.
Paying tribute to the family’s humanist tradition, Polenov improved the living conditions of the surroundings ’populations. Struck by the pitiful state of schools and the difficult living conditions of the teachers, with his wife they built two schools and organized cultural trips to Moscow for the instructors. To meet the needs of the peasants, they also build a church of which Polenov was the architect. Children from surrounding villages were regularly invited to theatrical performances at the estate, "Old Borok." In 1918, after the Revolution, the house-museum became the first national museum and was renamed Polenovo after the death of the artist, in 1927.
Portrait of V. N. Voeikova, the grandmother of the artist
1867
House porch
1870
Public domain Huguenot
1870
Ressurection of Jairus daughter
1871
Crossing of the River Oyat
1872
Droit du seigneur
1874
Feast of of the Prodigal Son
1874
Italian landscape with a peasant
1874
Montenegrin girl
1874
Christ and the Sinner
1876
Views
As a painter and a humanist, he would truly believe in the civilizing mission of Art, Culture, and Education.
Quotations:
“Art should promote happiness and joy.”
Membership
In 1893 Vasily became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Polenov was elected a member of the St.Petersburg Academy of arts in 1893.
Interests
Artists
Paul Veronese
Connections
In Abramtsevo Vasily met his future wife, Natalia, Maria Iakountchikova's sister.