History
Originally owned by the author Sergei Aksakov, other writers and artists — such as Nikolai Gogol — at first came there as his guests. Under Aksakov, visitors to the estate discussed ways of ridding Russian art of Western influences to revive a purely national style. In 1870, eleven years after Aksakov's death, it was purchased by Savva Mamontov, a wealthy industrialist and patron of the arts.
Under Mamontov, Russian themes and folk art flourished there. During the 1870s and 1880s, Abramtsevo hosted a colony of artists who sought to recapture the quality and spirit of medieval Russian art in a manner parallel to the Arts and Crafts movement in Great Britain. Several workshops were set up there to produce handmade furniture, ceramic tiles, and silks imbued with traditional Russian imagery and themes.
Working together in a cooperative spirit, the artists Vasily Polenov and Viktor Vasnetsov designed a plain but picturesque church, with murals painted by Polenov, Vasnetsov and his brother, a gilded iconostasis by Ilya Repin and Mikhail Nesterov, and folklore-inspired sculptures by Viktor Hartmann and Mark Antokolsky. Towards the turn of the 20th century, drama and opera on Russian folklore themes (e.g., Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden ) were produced in Abramtsevo by the likes of Konstantin Stanislavsky, with sets contributed by Vasnetsov, Mikhail Vrubel, and other distinguished artists.
In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga, also spelled Baba Jaga, is a supernatural being who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking woman. In fairy tales Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs. Baba Yaga may help or hinder those that encounter or seek her out and may play a maternal role; she has associations with forest wildlife. According to Vladimir Propp's folktale morphology, Baba Yaga commonly appears as either a donor or a villain, or may be altogether ambiguous.
Peredvizhniki, often called The Wanderers or The Itinerants in English, were a group of Russian realist artists who formed an artists' cooperative in protest of academic restrictions; it evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions in 1870.
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. His vision of life was summarized as following: “Art should promote happiness and joy”. As a painter and a humanist, he would truly believe in the civilizing mission of Art, Culture and Education.
The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel was a Russian painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. A prolific and innovative in such media as painting, drawing, decorative sculpture, and theatrical art, Vrubel is considered as a pioneering figure of Modernist art. In 1896, Vrubel married the famous singer Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel whom he regularly painted.
Viktor Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov was a Russian artist who specialized in mythological and historical subjects. He is considered the co-founder of Russian folklorist and romantic nationalistic painting, and a key figure in the Russian revivalist movement.
Viktor Alexandrovich Hartmann was a Russian architect and painter. He was associated with the Abramtsevo Colony, purchased and preserved beginning in 1870 by Savva Mamontov, and the Russian Revival.
Konstantin Alekseyevich Korovin was a leading Russian Impressionist painter.
Vasilisa the Beautiful or Vasilisa the Fair is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.
Apollinary Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov was a Russian painter and graphic artist whose elder brother was the more famous Viktor Vasnetsov. He specialized in scenes from the medieval history of Moscow.
Savva Ivanovich Mamontov was a Russian industrialist, merchant, entrepreneur and patron of the arts.
Yelena Dmitrievna Polenova was a Russian painter and graphic artist in the Art Nouveau style. She was one of the first illustrators of children's books in Russia. Her brother was the landscape painter Vasily Polenov.
Ilya Yevgrafovich Bondarenko was a Russian-Soviet architect, historian and preservationist, notable for developing a particular style of Old Believers architecture in 1905-1917, blending Northern Russian revival with Art Nouveau.
Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky was a Russian Empire and Soviet genre, romantic, and impressionist artist who was an active participant in the Peredvizhniki (Itinerant) Movement.
Taganrog Museum of Architecture and Urbanism is a museum in the city of Taganrog, Russia. The building was designed by the architect Fyodor Schechtel's studio.
Yuri Andreyevich Zhelyabuzhsky was a Russian and Soviet cinematographer, film director, screenwriter and animator, film theorist and professor at VGIK.
Girl with Peaches is an 1887 painting by the Russian painter Valentin Serov.
The Last Knight, also known as The Last Warrior is a 2017 Russian fantasy comedy film directed by Dmitriy Dyachenko. The story develops around Baba Yaga and Koschei, both villains in traditional Russian fairy tales. The film was produced by American film companies The Walt Disney Company CIS with Russian film companies Yellow, Black and White and Kinoslovo. The film stars Viktor Khorinyak, Mila Sivatskaya, Elena Yakovleva, Ekaterina Vilkova, Konstantin Lavronenko and Yevgeny Dyatlov.
The Outbuilding of the town estate of Savva Mamontov is a house in Moscow on the Garden Ring. The only surviving building of the city manor. Built in the 1870s, it was built in the beginning of the 1890s to the design of artist Mikhail Vrubel, who after that lived there for some time. The building has the status of an object of cultural heritage of federal significance.
Nikolai Avenirovich Martynov was a Russian painter and watercolorist.
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
