Mikhail Vrubel

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Вру́бель, March 17, 1856 – April 14, 1910) was a Russian painter, sketcher, and sculptor. He demonstrated a rich and innovative artistic practice in a variety of media including painting, drawing, decorative sculpture and drama. He is generally regarded as one of the most important artists in the Russian Symbolist tradition and a pioneer of modern art. According to a biography of Vrubel written in 1990 by Soviet art historian Nina Dmitrieva, she viewed Vrubel's life and art as a three-act play, with rapid and unexpected transitions between acts. The "Prologue" refers to his early years of study and career choices; the "First Act" peaks in the 1880s, when Vrubel studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts, and then went to Kiev to study Byzantine and Christian art; the "Second Act" corresponds to the so-called "Moscow Period", which began in 1890 with the work "The Devil Is Sitting", and subsequently It was his marriage to the opera singer Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel (his long-time model) in 1896, which ended in 1902 with "The Fallen Devil" and the ensuing treatment; "Act III" lasted from 1903 to 1906, during which Vrubel suffered from mental illness and an increasingly weakened physical and mental state. In the 1880s and 1890s, Vrubel's artistic ambitions were not recognized by the Imperial Academy of Art and art critics, but he attracted the favor of many private collectors and patrons, including the famous patron Savva Mamontov, as well as painters and critics who gathered around the magazine "World of Art". Eventually, Vrubel's work was included in the Art World exhibition and in a retrospective curated by Sergey Diaghilev. By the beginning of the 20th century, Vrubel's art naturally integrated into the Russian Art Nouveau movement. On November 28, 1905, he was awarded the honorary title of "Academician of Painting" for his "reputation in the field of art".