Fyodor Vasilyev

Fyodor Vasilyev was a Russian landscape painter who introduced the lyrical landscape style in Russian art. In his early works we can feel the influence of the Barbizon school; it affected his art but never resulted in a non-creative borrowing of the motifs. Though, at first, Vasilyev was somewhat inferior technically to the Barbizon painters, most critics agree that he eventually found his own way of handling the subject.  In 1870, Vasilyev traveled on the Volga with Ilya Repin, the picture Volga View, Barges (1870) was a great success. In 1870 he became a member of Peredvizhniki movement (one of the founder 20 members). The "boy genius", as he was called in the artistic circles of Russia, had no time to enjoy his popularity – he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died at the age of 23. His works had a strong influence on the next generation of Russian landscape painters; Nikolai Ge said: "He discovered for us the Sky."