Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov (; – 18 October 1942) was a Russian and Soviet painter; associated with the Peredvizhniki and Mir iskusstva. He was one of the first exponents of Symbolist art in Russia.

Biography

He was born to a strongly patriarchal merchant family. His father was a draper and

haberdasher __NOTOC__ In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a men's clothing st ...

, but always had a strong interest in history and literature. As a result, he was sympathetic to his son's desire to be an artist, but insisted that he acquire practical skills first and, in 1874, he was sent to Moscow where he enrolled at the Voskresensky

Realschule Real school (, ) is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola''), F ...

. In 1877, his counselors suggested that he transfer to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he studied with Pavel Sorokin, Illarion Pryanishnikov and Vasily Perov, who was his favorite teacher. In 1879, he began to participate in the school's exhibitions. Two years later, he entered the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, where he worked with Pavel Chistyakov. He was disappointed at the teaching there and returned to Moscow, only to find Perov on his deathbed, so he took lessons from Alexei Savrasov.Brief biography
@ RusArtNet. Mikhail Nesterov 009

After a brief stay in Ufa, where he met his future wife, Maria, he returned to Moscow and studied with Vladimir Makovsky. While creating a series of historical paintings, he supported himself doing illustrations for magazines and books published by Alexei Stupin, including a collection of fairy tales by Pushkin. In 1885, he was awarded the title "Free Artist" and married, against his parents' wishes. The following year, his wife died after giving birth to his daughter, Olga. Several of his works from this period feature his wife's image. His first major success came with his painting, "The Hermit" which was shown at the seventeenth exhibition of the Peredvizhniki in 1889. It was purchased by Pavel Tretyakov and the money enabled Nesterov to take an extended trip to Austria, Germany, France and Italy. Upon returning, his painting, "The Vision to the Youth Bartholomew", the first in a series of works on the life of Saint Sergius, was shown at the eighteenth Peredvizhniki exhibition and also purchased by Tretyakov. This series would eventually include fifteen large canvases and occupy him for fifty years.

Religious art

In 1890, Adrian Prakhov, who was overseeing work at St Volodymyr's Cathedral, became familiar with Nesterov's paintings and invited him to participate in creating murals and icons there. After some hesitation, he agreed, then travelled to Rome and Istanbul to acquaint himself with

Byzantine art Byzantine art comprises the body of artistic products of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as the nations and states that inherited culturally from the empire. Though the empire itself emerged from the decline of Rome, decline of western Rome and ...

. This project would take twenty-two years to complete. Although it brought him great popularity, he apparently came to feel that the images required were too clichéd and beneath his dignity as an artist, so he occasionally introduced some minor innovations, such as setting portraits of saints in a recognizable landscape. Annunciation nesterov

Despite this, he undertook other religious commissions. In 1898, Grand Duke George Alexandrovich asked him to work at the Alexander Nevsky church in Abastumani. He spent six years there, off and on, creating 50 small murals and the

iconostasis In Eastern Christianity, an iconostasis () is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a Church (building), church. ''Iconostasis'' also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere withi ...

, but was dissatisfied with the results. He was apparently much more pleased with later work at the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. He refused to work on the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw, because he did not approve of building an Orthodox cathedral in a predominantly Catholic city.Biographical notes
by Sergei Durylin @ Bibliotekar. In 1901, he wanted to deepen his spiritual appreciation of the monastic life, so he spent some time at the

Solovetsky Monastery The Solovetsky Monastery (, ) is a fortified monastery located on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea in northern Russia. It was one of the largest Christian citadels in northern Russia before it was converted into a Soviet Union, Soviet pris ...

on the coast of the

White Sea The White Sea (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; ) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the nort ...

. He painted numerous works there and the influence of his visit could be seen in his canvases for many years after. He was also inspired by the novels of Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov, dealing with the lives of the Old Believers in the Volga region. In 1902, he married Ekaterina Vasilyeva, whom he had met admiring his works at an exhibition.

Later years

In 1905, after the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

began, he joined the Union of the Russian People, an extreme right-wing and antisemitic nationalist party that supported the Tsar. As a result, he was in some danger after the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

. In 1918, he moved to Armavir, where he became ill and was unable to work. He returned to Moscow in 1920 and was forced to give up religious painting, although he continued to work on his Saint Sergius series in private. From then until his death, he painted mostly portraits; notably Ivan Ilyin, Ivan Pavlov, Otto Schmidt, Sergei Yudin, Alexey Shchusev and Vera Mukhina.Brief biography
@ Russian Paintings. In 1938, toward the end of the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, his son-in-law, Vladimir Schroeter, a prominent lawyer, was accused of being a spy and shot. His daughter was sent to a prison camp in Zhambyl, where she was brutally interrogated before being released. He was also arrested and held for two weeks at Butyrka prison. In 1941, he was awarded the Stalin Prize for his portrait of Pavlov (created in 1935). It was one of the first given to an artist. Shortly after, he received the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. As the war progressed, his health and financial situation deteriorated rapidly. He had a stroke while working on his painting "Autumn in the Village" and died at . His unfinished memoirs, which he had begun in 1926, were published later that year under the title "Bygone Days". In 1962, he was honored with a postage stamp. In 1996, his likeness appeared on the 50 Ural franc banknote and, in 2015, a monument to him was unveiled at the Bashkir Nesterov Art Museum in Ufa.

Gallery

File:Nesterov SaintRussia.JPG, ''Holy Rus'', 1901–06 Image:Mikhail Nesterov 002.jpg, '' The Great Taking of the Veil'', 1897–98 File:Mikhail Nesterov 005.jpeg, ''The Love Potion'', 1888 Image:Mikhail Nesterov 001.jpg, '' The Vision to the Youth Bartholomew'', 1889–1890 Image:Mikhail Nesterov 045.jpg, ''Beyond the Volga'', 1905 Image:Nesterov Florensky Bulgakov.jpg, ''Philosophers'', 1917 ( Pavel Florensky and Sergei Bulgakov) Image:Leo Tolstoy by Nesterov.jpg, ''Tolstoy'', 1906 (

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

) File:Mikhail Nesterov 026.jpeg, ''Three old men with a fox'', 1914 File:NesterovMV NaRusi206x483GTG.jpg, ''In Rus. The Soul of the People'', 1916. The last religious symbolic painting Nesterov painted before the revolution. The Russian people are following a young boy, while an old holy fool stays aside, praying ecstatically, wearing no clothes and possibly issuing a warning.

References

External links