Abramtsevo community of artists

"Minutiae of Life" FROM PHOTOGRAPH TO 3D

Yelena Mitrofanova

Article: 
“GRANY” FOUNDATION PRESENTS
Magazine issue: 
#3 2021 (72)

There are certain quintessential artistic phenomena associated with the name Savva Mamontov that, to a great extent, defined cultural life in Russia in the 1880s and 1890s. These include the Abramtsevo (Mamontov) Artistic Circle, which made significant advances in set design, architecture, painting and decorative and applied art; the Russian Private Opera, the birthplace of the leading school of national set design and home to brilliant performers headed by Feodor Chaliapin; and the carpentry and ceramics workshops linked to Yelena Polenova and Mikhail Vrubel, which, in many ways, set the tone for Russian Art Nouveau.

"Minutiae of Life" FROM PHOTOGRAPH TO 3D

Virtual tour “Abramtsevo: Travel to the Past. 19th-20th centuries”

“I am in Abramtsevo Once More..."[1]

Eleonora Paston

Article: 
MUSEUMS OF RUSSIA
Magazine issue: 
#3 2021 (72)

Mikhail Vrubel’s creative fascination with ceramics began in 1890, soon after his arrival in Moscow in autumn 1889. There, thanks to his old friends Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin, he became close with Savva Mamontov, a vivid and multifaceted character, someone who was possessed of a special sensitivity to new trends in art along with an ability to recognise talented people and understand the essence of their gift. A major entrepreneur and patron of the arts, in the 1870s and 1890s, he collected a circle of artists, later known as the Abramtsevo Circle, which spanned the generations: Ilya Repin, Vasily Polenov, Viktor Vasnetsov and the sculptor Mark Antokolsky from the older generation; Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin, Yelena Polenova, Apollinary Vasnetsov, Mikhail Vrubel, Mikhail Nesterov and Ilya Ostroukhov, among others, from the younger generation.

“I am in Abramtsevo Once More..."

“Everything that Vrubel tried his hand at was classically good. I worked with him in Mamontov's studio at Abramtsevo and I would look at something he was working on, be it a sketch or some pitcher or vase, or a head of an African woman or a tiger, and I would think 'everything here is where it should be', that there is nothing which could be re-done. That, I think, is the mark of classicism. He had the ability to express something of 'himself' in even an insignificant ornament.”[2]

The "Girl with Peaches": who is she?

Sergei Chernyshev

Article: 
EXCLUSIVE PUBLICATIONS
Magazine issue: 
#3 2015 (48)

Serov’s famous painting “Girl with Peaches” depicts my grandmother Vera Mamontova in her childhood. I never met her. She died when her daughter, my mother, was only just two. During her short life she managed to accomplish everything that was expected from a woman of her milieu at that time. She was an obedient daughter, a loving sister, a bride who suffered separation from her bridegroom, a caring mother... Her surviving letters, as well as the reminiscences of those who knew her, reveal much about her life.

The "Girl with Peaches": who is she?

Serov’s famous painting “Girl with Peaches” depicts my grandmother Vera Mamontova in her childhood. I never met her. She died when her daughter, my mother, was only just two. During her short life she managed to accomplish everything that was expected from a woman of her milieu at that time. She was an obedient daughter, a loving sister, a bride who suffered separation from her bridegroom, a caring mother... Her surviving letters, as well as the reminiscences of those who knew her, reveal much about her life.

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