Andrei Ryabushkin
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. His major works were devoted to life of ordinary Russians of the 17th century.
Biography
Andrey Petrovich Ryabushkin was born in the village Stanichnaya sloboda, Borisoglebskiy uezd, TambovTambov
Tambov is a city and the administrative center of Tambov Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tsna and Studenets Rivers southeast of Moscow...
gubernia in 1861. His father and brother were icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
painters, and he started to help them from his early childhood. At 14 years old he became an orphan. A student of Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was one of the largest educational institutions in Russia. The school was formed by the 1865 merger of a private art college, established in Moscow in 1832, and the Palace School of Architecture, established in 1749 by Dmitry Ukhtomsky. By...
A. Kh. Preobrazhensky, who spent the summer in the village, happened to see the boy’s drawings and was greatly impressed by them. He started to give him lessons and helped him to enter the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Ryabushkin was one of the youngest student of the school at all times.
Ryabushkin stayed for seven years (1875–82) in the Moscow School, learning from Vasily Perov
Vasily Perov
Vasily Grigorevich Perov ; 2 January 1834 – 10 June 1882) was a Russian painter and one of the founding members of Peredvizhniki, a group of Russian realist painters....
and Illarion Pryanishnikov
Illarion Pryanishnikov
Illarion Mikhailovich Pryanishnikov was a Russian painter, one of the founders of the Peredvizhniki artistic cooperative.Illarion Pryanishnikov was born in the village of Timashovo in a family of merchants...
. His first large work Peasant Wedding was bought by Pavel Tretyakov in 1880. After the death of Vasiliy Perov, Ryabushkin moved to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
in 1882, and entered the Imperial Academy of Arts
Imperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, completed 25 years later in 1789...
where he learned from Pavel Chistyakov
Pavel Chistyakov
Pavel Petrovich Chistiakov was a Russian painter and teacher of art.He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts under Petr Basin. He was a pensioner of the Academy of Arts in Paris and in Rome...
. The classes soon disappointed him, however, and he began to spend more and more time either in the library of the academy or sketching in the streets.
His studies at the academy came to an end in 1892. He did not receive an award for his diploma work, Descent from the Cross, as was expected, because he did not follow the approved project. But the work was so good that the president of the academy, Grand Duke
Grand Duke
The title grand duke is used in Western Europe and particularly in Germanic countries for provincial sovereigns. Grand duke is of a protocolary rank below a king but higher than a sovereign duke. Grand duke is also the usual and established translation of grand prince in languages which do not...
Vladimir Konstantinovich, provided Ryabushkin with a stipend for travel and studies abroad from his own means. Instead of going to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
or Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Ryabushkin chose to make a tour of ancient Russian towns (Novgorod, Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Uglich
Uglich
Uglich is a historic town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, which stands on the Volga River. Population: A local tradition dates the town's origins to 937. It was first documented in 1148 as Ugliche Pole...
, Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...
). The inhabitants of them became his first models and his first critics. He studied the old architecture, items of folk crafts, old weapons, fabrics, tapestries, embroidery, icons, etc. He read ancient books, collected folklore.
He took part in Peredvizhniki
Peredvizhniki
Peredvizhniki , often called The Wanderers or The Itinerants in English, were a group of Russian realist artists who in protest at academic restrictions formed an artists' cooperative; it evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions in 1870.- History :In 1863 a group of fourteen students...
exhibitions in 1890, 1892 and 1894 but later broke with the movement.
In the 1890s he lived and worked in the estate of his friend V.F. Tymenev in town of Lubvino (Saint-Petersburg gubernia). In 1901 he built a studio in a village of Didvino close to Lubvino and the estate of his friend I. Belyaev.
Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod
The Cathedral of St. Sophia in the Kremlin in Veliky Novgorod is the cathedral church of the Archbishop of Novgorod and the mother church of the Novgorodian Eparchy.-History:...
in Novgorod and mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
s for the Church of the Savior on Blood
Church of the Savior on Blood
The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood Khram Spasa na Krovi is one of the main sights of St. Petersburg, Russia. It is also variously called the Church on Spilt Blood and the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ , its official name....
in Saint Petersburg. There are 24 of his mosaics on the walls of Church of the Savior on Blood (17 inside and seven outside) (1897–1900). In the later 20th century he became interested in the life of contemporary Russian peasants (such paintings as Tea-Drinking and A Young Man Breaking into the Girls' Dance).
The deep study of history made his paintings very reliable, but they did not evoke any sympathy in his contemporaries. Unlike Vasily Surikov
Vasily Surikov
Vasily Ivanovich Surikov was the foremost Russian painter of large-scale historical subjects...
, who used the dramatic historical episodes as his subjects, Ryabushkin painted everyday life of the 17th century. His works lack action, they do not depict social conflicts, as the democrats
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
liked. On the other hand, they are not so “beautiful” to reflect the tastes of the rich conservatives. Nobody knew where to place Ryabushkin’s paintings and just did not accept them.
In 1903 Ryabushkin was diagnosed with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. He went to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
for treatment but it did not help. He died in his studio in Didvino on 27 April 1904.
External links
- On-line gallery of Ryabushkin works
- Ryabushkin biography in Russian
- Ðÿáóøêèí Àíäðåé Ïåòðîâè÷ at www.cathedral.ru
- ÐßÁÓØÊÈÍ, ÀÍÄÐÅÉ ÏÅÒÐÎÂÈ× at www.krugosvet.ru
- Topography of mosaics in the Church of Savior on Spilled Blood