Russian painting

In the fifteenth century changes that began to take place in Russian icon painting brought about the birth of a national art. This evolution is visible in the gradual elimination of the Mediterranean scene represented in the background of icons. Greek basilicas with their porticoes and atria were substituted by Russian churches with their cupolas and kokoshniki. Russian saints and scenes from their lives became subjects for the Russian artists. Muscovite types and native costumes began to appear in icon painting. The colors were extraordinarily brilliant.
Many outstanding icon and fresco painters in the 16th century worked first at Novgorod and later at Moscow, thus linking these two schools of painting and introducing Byzantine artistic terms and features to Moscow. The literary movement of the 16th century had a great impact on contemporary painting. Artists were looking for new subjects. Some depicted church preoccupations and prayers or expressed the rites of the church in symbolic images; others pictured parables and legends.
At the end of the late 16th century the Stroganov school of painting appeared in Moscow. It represented the last vital stage of medieval painting before the westernization of Russian art at the end of the 17th century. This type was characterized by its small size, its miniature technique, its Eastern choice of colors, and its exquisite refinement of details. Monumentality was replaced by precious virtuosity and deep emotion by decorative elegance. The masters of the Stroganov school made icons specifically for private use. Some of them Prokopy Chirin, Nikifor, and Istoma Savin — later joined the ranks of the icon-painting studios in the Kremlin armoury in Moscow.
The Stroganov school remained influential until end of the 17th century, but after about 1650 it gradually and lost its refinement. The foundation of the new capital of St.Petersburg in 1703 by Tsar Peter I the Great became a point in Russian art. Although icon painting continued to the Russo-Byzantine tradition throughout the 19th century, major artistic activity shifted to secular art and Europe's Baroque style.

Baroque in Russia was brought from western Europe. It made little impact outside court circles. The traditional icon for the Orthodox church continued throughout the Baroque period by artists of the Novgorod and Moscow schools. During Peter's reign foreign painters began to arrive in Russia. At the same time groups of young Russians were sent to Italy, France, Holland, and England to study painting. Western influence determined the character of Russian painting for more than two centuries.
The art of Peter's age shows almost no trace of Byzantine influence. Only in iconography the old style lasted for some time. Early in the 18th century, religious painting began to give way to secular painting. Dmitry Levitsky stands out as the only important Russian painter of the 18th century to work in the Western style.

In 1757 the Academy of Fine Arts was founded in St. Petersburg. Foreign artists - mostly French - were invited to supervise the new school. They trained some remarkable native portraitists, such as Ivan Argunov, Anton Losenko, and Fyodor Rokotov. Their works reflected the ceremonial character of Elizabeth's tastes and showed a little evidence of native Russian sensibility.

The Wanderers (Peredvizhniki)

The second half of the 19th century saw the maturing of Realism in Russia. A sympathetic attitude toward the hard life of the people is reflected in the works of painters and sculptors of that time. The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality (1855) that art must not only reflect reality but also explain and judge it, became a starting point for contemporary artists.

A truly national tradition did not begin, however, until the 1870s with the appearance of the "Wanderers" — the Peredvizhniki. This society was formed by a group of Romantic artists who regarded themselves as Realists. They rejected the restrictive and foreign - inspired classicism of the Russian Academy to form a new realist and nationalist art that would serve the common men. Believing that art should be placed at the service of humanitarian and social ideals, they produced realistic portrayals of inspiring or pathetic subjects from Russian middle-class and peasant life in a literal, easily understood style.

Forming a Society of Wandering Exhibitions, they organised mobile exhibitions (hence the name) of their works in an effort to bring serious art to the people. The most prominent Russian artists of the 1870s and 1880s, including Ivan Kramskoy, Il'ya Repin, Vassily Surikov, Vassily Perov, and Vassily Vereshchagin, belonged to this group. The Wanderers attached much importance to the moral and literary aspects of art than to aesthetics. Its artistic creed was realism, national feeling, and social consciousness. The influence of the Wanderers spread throughout Russia. This group was dominant for nearly 30 years, but by the end of the century it had greatly declined nevertheless it became model for the Socialist Realism of the Soviet Union.

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