Ivan Kramskoi

Ivan Kramskoi studied at Imperial Academy of Arts. Training under Alexey Tarasovich Markov and Mikhail Borisovich Tulinov is recorded. The recorded working language is Russian. The field of work recorded is painting and visual arts. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait and genre. Karl Bryullov is recorded as an influence. Places of work recorded in the authority are Saint Petersburg. Works named in the authority record are Portrait of an Unknown Woman and Self-portrait. Work by Ivan Kramskoi is recorded in the collections of Finnish National Gallery, Tretyakov Gallery, Kiev National Picture Gallery, Russian Museum and Hermitage Museum.

• Name — Ivan Kramskoi • Birthplace — Ostrogozhsk, Voronezh Governorate, Russia • Died — 5 April 1887 • Place of death — St. Petersburg, Russia • Resting Place — Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg • Children — seven, including Nikolai Kramskoi and Sophia • Training — * Mikhail Tulinov • Alexey Markov • Education — alumni • Elected — Member • Movement — Realism, Peredvizhniki • Notable Works — The Mermaids (1871) Christ in the Desert (1872) Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1883) • Patrons — Pavel Tretyakov

• Illustration — Self-Portrait, 1867 Kramskoi came from an impoverished petit-bourgeois family. From 1857 to 1863 he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts; he reacted against academic art and was an initiator of the "Revolt of the Fourteen" which ended with the expulsion from the Academy of a group of its graduates, who organized the Artel of Artists ("Артель художников"). Influenced by the ideas of the Russian revolutionary democrats, Kramskoi asserted the high public duty of the artist, principles of realism, and the moral substance and nationality of art. He became one of the main founders and ideologists of the Company of Itinerant Art Exhibitions (or Peredvizhniki). In 1863–1868, he taught at the drawing school of a society for the promotion of applied arts. In 1871, ten years after Taras Shevchenko's death, Kramskoi created a portrait of the poet that became widely popular. He created a gallery of portraits of important Russian writers, scientists, artists and public figures (Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, 1873, Ivan Shishkin, 1873, Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov, 1876, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, 1879, Sergei Botkin, 1880) in which expressive simplicity of composition and clarity of depiction emphasize profound psychological elements of character. Kramskoi's democratic ideals found their brightest expression in his portraits of peasants, which portrayed a wealth of character-details in representatives of the common people. In one of Kramskoi's most well known paintings, Christ in the Desert (1872, Tretyakov gallery), he continued Alexander Ivanov's humanistic tradition by treating a religious subject in moral–philosophical terms. He imbued his image of Christ with dramatic experiences in a deeply psychological and vital interpretation, evoking the idea of his heroic self-sacrifice. Aspiring to expand the ideological expressiveness of his images, Kramskoi created art that existed on the cusp of portraiture and genre-painting ("Nekrasov during the period of 'Last songs,'" 1877–78; "Unknown Woman," 1883; "Inconsolable grief," 1884; all in Tretyakov gallery). These paintings disclose their subjects' complex and sincere emotions, their personalities and fates. The orientation of Kramskoi's art, his acute critical judgments about it, and his persistent quest for objective public criteria for the evaluation of art exerted an essential influence on the development of realist art and aesthetics in Russia in the last third of the nineteenth century. Kramskoi was considered an eccentric for giving his works to customers in expensive frames and not charging money for it. He died from an aortic aneurysm while working at his easel, aged only forty-nine.

• Illustration — The Mermaids, 1871 • Illustration — Christ in the Desert, 1872 • Illustration — Inconsolable Grief, 1884 • Illustration — Taras Shevchenko, 1871, after the 1859 photograph by Andrey Denyer • Illustration — Old Man with a Crutch, 1872 • Illustration — Leo Tolstoy, 1873 • Illustration — Pavel Tretyakov, 1876 • Illustration — Ivan Shishkin, 1880 • Illustration — Empress Maria Feodorovna, 1880s • Illustration — The Reading, 1881 • Illustration — Mina Moiseyev, 1882 • Illustration — Portrait of an Unknown Woman, 1883 • Illustration — Vladimir Solovyov, 1885 • Illustration — Tsar Alexander III, 1886

The authorities additionally record the headings Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoy, Ivan Nikolaevič Kramskoj, Ivan Kramskoy, Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy and Iwan Nikolajewitsch Kramskoj. His recorded language was Russian. One child is recorded: Sofya Junker-Kramskaya.

Portrait of E.A. Portrait of V. Bouquet of Flowers.