IVANOV, ALEKSANDR ANDREEVIČ. — Russian painter, b. July 28, 1806 in St. Petersburg, d. there July 15, 1858. He matured his art according to 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), now in Moscow, he attempted to idealize forms further, infusing them with 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 entailed hundreds of studies and sketches, now dispersed among various galleries in 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 the famous volume by David Strauss *The Life of Jesus*, drawing on his archaeological knowledge of the Eastern world. Some of his pictorial manifestations seem to anticipate later times. He left no school, since he always lived abroad. His works are found largely in the Rumyantsev Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, in the Russian Museum in Leningrad, and in the Radishchev Museum in Saratov.