8 June 1837
Ivan Kramskoy, a realist artist and the founder and ideologist of the Peredvizhniki (Wanderers) Society of Artists, was born in the Voronezh Governorate.
Without an idea there is no art, but at the same time, even more than that, without living and striking painting there are no pictures, but only good intentions and nothing more...
Born into a clerk's family, he apprenticed himself to an icon painter at 15. At 16, he worked as a retoucher in a photo studio. At 20, he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. At 26, with just a few years left before graduation—a painting for a competition and a place to study abroad—he took part in the Revolt of the Fourteen. Fourteen out of fifteen students refused to paint a painting on an assigned mythological theme. They were not allowed to choose their own theme. And so the rebels left the Academy.
…We stocked up, just in case, with petitions stating that “for domestic or other reasons, I, such-and-such, cannot continue my course at the Academy and I ask the Council to issue me a diploma corresponding to the medals with which I was awarded.”
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When all the petitions had already been submitted, we left the board, then the walls of the Academy, and I finally felt that terrible freedom, to which we all so eagerly strove.
Freelance artists formed an Artel, illustrated books, and painted portraits. In 1870, Kramskoy became the ideologist of the Society of Traveling Art Exhibitions. The Traveling Art Exhibitions saw their mission as depicting scenes from everyday life, adhering to the principles of authenticity and a critical perspective.
A true artist has a tremendous task ahead of him - to shout loudly to the world... to put a mirror in front of people's faces, from which their hearts would beat an alarm and make everyone say that he will see his portrait
Kramskoy painted his contemporaries—Tolstoy, Shishkin, and Tretyakov. His "Unknown Woman" has been called the "Russian Mona Lisa." And his "Christ in the Desert" is full of relatable experiences before the start of his long journey to Golgotha.
Can I paint Christ? No, my dear, I can't... but I couldn't help but paint him... I painted him with tears and blood.
