The younger Vasnetsov, or How Apollinarius managed not to remain in the shadow of his great brother-painter

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Although not many people know about the work of the younger brother of the famous artist Viktor Vasnetsov, nevertheless Apollinary Mikhailovich Vasnetsov in the history of art, he was not his timid shadow, but had a completely original talent and left behind a worthy legacy.

The Vasnetsov brothers were born into the family of a priest in the Vyatka province. Having received the blessing of his father, the elder decided to devote himself to art, and the younger decided to follow in his parent's footsteps - he entered the Vyatka Theological School. However, like his older brother, he was very fond of drawing. As a child, he often painted the walls of his home with chalk. From childhood memories of Appolinaria:

When the brothers were left orphans, Apollinaria was only 13 years old. Victor had to take care of him, who was 8 years older and had already studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. After the death of his father, he took his brother to him, where he lived with him for three years. Vasnetsov Jr. told:

Apollinaris, like a sponge, began to absorb the creative environment in which his brother lived, he became interested in painting and began to comprehend its basics through Viktor and his friends - Mikhail Nesterov, Ilya Repin, Mark Antakolsky, Vasily Polenov. This communication and joint work, with famous, and then only beginning artists, became for Apollinaris an excellent school for the study of pictorial art. He tried to take the best and most valuable from everyone.

However, making considerable progress in his work, the timid young man then did not dare to enter the Academy of Arts. But he "got sick" with a fashionable idea at that time - going to the people and, in 1877, having passed the exams for the title of people's teacher, moved to the village of Vyatka province, where he worked for a year at a local school.

But quickly, disillusioned with the populist ideas, Apollinaris again moved to his brother, but this time to Belokamennaya: And since that time, Apollinaris Vasnetsov has already completely devoted himself to art. In it, Vasnetsov the artist and Vasnetsov the researcher are very organically combined.

Interest in Mother Russia, her history and nature, the poeticization of the heroic past - all this was fully reflected in the paintings of both Vasnetsovs. Historical painting became the general theme of the masters.

However, if we recall the work of Viktor Vasnetsov, where various genres are very vividly represented, from everyday life to fairy tales, from easel painting to monumentalism, from the topical themes of the Itinerants to the newfangled Art Nouveau style; then his brother remained true to himself throughout the entire creative path. He painted mainly the majestic northern Russian landscapes of the Urals, harsh Siberia and historical genre paintings of Old Moscow.

The early works of Apollinarius struck with a gloomy coloring, muted colors, but gradually he discovered the power of colors, as Vasily Polenov taught him. Gradually gaining mastery A. Vasnetsov, became a mature and original master. His canvases breathed with the calmness and grandeur inherent in Russian nature.

Appolinarius traveled a lot in Russia, Ukraine, Crimea. He visited France, Italy, Germany, which played a lot in his development as a painter. And already since 1883, the works of Apollinarius Vasnetsov began to occupy a worthy place among the works of the Itinerant artists at the exhibitions of the Association.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, out of love for Russian history, the beauty of everyday life and the monuments of old Moscow, a new genre appears in the artist's work - a special type of historical landscape in which Appolinarius tries to revive the appearance and life of pre-Petrine Moscow. Its metropolitan streets are depicted in such a way that you quickly become convinced: "before you are real witnesses of global, world-wide significant historical events."

Some seven years will pass and Vasnetsov will become an academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. And a little later he will take an active part in organizing the Union of Russian Artists.

From 1901 to 1918 he will lead the landscape class of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. After that, he will head the Commission for the Study of Old Moscow and will conduct archaeological research during excavation work in the central part of the city.

In 1931, he became the only artist who publicly opposed the demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, writing a letter to the Izvestia newspaper.

Apollinary Vasnetsov died in Moscow in 1933.

On the one hand, the shadow of the famous older brother has always shaded the merits and achievements of Apollinarius Vasnetsov, and on the other, in fairness, it should be noted that thanks to Victor, he became what his story remembers.

The history of art knows many names of famous artists, whose smaller brothers were in the shadow of their glory. Vladimir Makovsky this is no exception.