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Alexey
Gavrilovich Venetsianov was born on family of a merchant of Greek
origin. He entered the state service in early 1800s and was moved
to St. Petersburg, where in his spare time he began to study art. He
copied pictures in Hermitage, painted friends. He got acquainted with
the outstanding painter of his time Vladimir
Borovikovsky and for some period lived in his house as a
disciple. He tried to work as a freelance portraitist, but had a little
commissions. In 1811 the Board of the Academy of Arts awarded him the
title of an Academician for his two works - the
Self-Portrait
and Portrait
of K. I. Golovachevsky and the Younger Pupils of the Academy.
In
1819, wishing to devote himself wholly to art, Venetsianov left the
service, bought a village of Safonkovo in Tver province, and settled
there. He decided to paint the surrounding life as it was. In 1820s he
created many canvases in which he followed his idea. These works
determined his contribution into Russian art. He painted portraits
of peasants, scenes of rural life; he depicted them truthfully, with
kindness, but rather sentimental. With his pictures In
the Fields. Spring.
(1827), Harvesting.
Summer.
(1827), Sleeping
Herd-Boy.
(1824) and others he was the first to depict peasants' life in Russian
art. His works were of great success at the exhibition of 1824, and
enjoyed good critics in press.
Venetsianov's ambition was to become a professor in the Academy of
Arts, but the academicians did not approve him: he was a stranger, he
lacked, unlike them, academic training. But Venetsianov was a naturally
born teacher. At the end of 1810s he began to attract young people from
commons with low means and even serfs (all of whom, in most cases, he
was able to emancipate from bondage) to teach them painting. In the
middle 1820s he had a group of disciples. Thus he started his own school
of painting. Tsar Nicholas I, who liked to stimulate 'national
trends', expressed his approval to the artist and appointed him a
court painter. This title gave him a financial support, necessary for
running school, where tuition was practically free.
Venetsianov died in an accident in 1847: his horses dashed off and the
carriage fell down from a steep slope.
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