Ivanov, Aleksandr Andreevič

IVANOV, ALEKSANDR ANDREEVIČ. - Russian painter, b. 28 July 1806 in St. Petersburg, d. there 15 July 1858. He matured his art through the norms of the St. Petersburg Academy. He visited Dresden, Munich, Florence and Rome. In Rome he frequented the group of the "Nazarenes." He sought to amalgamate elements taken from life with those inspired by the ancient masters.

In his great painting The Appearance of Christ to the People (1833-55), which is in Moscow, he attempted to idealize the forms further, infusing into them the profound religious spirit of the Primitives, and succeeded in creating a truly monumental work, in which the highest moral and religious values of humanity are concentrated. The composition of this work of his involved hundreds of studies and sketches, now dispersed among the various galleries of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Almost at the end of his life he executed a series of studies on sacred history, creating one of the most brilliant illustrations of the Bible. He also illustrated David Strauss's famous volume The Life of Jesus, availing himself of his archaeological knowledge of the Eastern world. Some of his pictorial manifestations seem to anticipate the times; he left no school, since he always lived abroad. His works are found for the most part in the Rumyantsev Museum and in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, in the Russian Museum in Leningrad and in the Radishchev Museum in Saratov.

Maria Gibelino-Krasceninnicova