Apollinary Vasnetsov

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Mikhail Nesterov: Portrait of Apollinary Vasnetsov. Study for "Youth of St. Sergiy Radonezhsky". 1890

Apollinary Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (Russian: Аполлинарий Михайлович Васнецов) (July 25 (N.S. August 6), 1856, the village of Riabovo, Vyatka province - January 23, 1933, Moscow) was a Russian painter and graphic artist whose elder brother was the more famous Viktor Vasnetsov. He specialized in scenes from medieval history of Moscow.

Vasnetsov was a painter and a graphic artist. He did not receive a formal artistic education. He studied under his older brother Viktor Vasnetsov, the famous Russian painter. From 1883, he and his brother lived and worked in Abramtsevo where he fell under the influence of Vasily Polenov. In 1898–1899, he traveled across Europe. In addition to epic landscapes of Russian nature, Apollinary Vasnetsov created his own genre of historical landscape reconstruction on the basis of historical and archaeological data. His paintings present a visual picture of medieval Moscow. He was a member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (Peredvizhniki) from 1899, and an academician from 1900. He became one of the founders and supervisors of the Union of Russian Artists.