Detected's artist of the week: Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898)

Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin was born 13 (25) january 1832 into the family of a merchant. His father, a self-made and broad-minded man, educated his son to love books, nature and antiquity. Also his father was good in making different kind of woodwork and stone engraving, but his grandfather created silver crafts. His niece in her memories remarked that Shishkins father wanted his son to have a good education, so before he started his studies in Kazan gymnasium father send him to different private teachers, though more than to read Shishkin loved to draw. He met few comrades when started his studies in Kazan gymnasium, with who spent lot of time drawing and discussing about art, though in 1848 Shishkin quit studies there (to not become a clerk what he was afraid, as Shishkin said later) and returned to fathers home where he stayed next four years. That time he had a feeling of protest against most people, which was surrounding him, narrow turn of mind. Meanwhile he couldn't decide how to fulfil his creativity. Systematic work on paintings Shishkin started when he was 20 in Moscow school of painting. Hardly dealing with his family (except his father) opinion about his choice. Though his father too, just after long hesitations, supported his son's desire to become an artist. In 1852 august he finally oficially become a student in Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Soon was obvious his love to nature. In his diary later he writed "...landscape painter - truly artist who feel clear and deeper. Nature is always young and ready to bring for us it's never ending gift, what we call life. What can be better than nature". He was excaited about nature no matter what it was - an old tree or a grass. He permanently paintend in forest near Moscow, meanwhile learning form of herbs and anatomy of nature. As his niece said "after some time whole school knew that Shishkin is painting like nobody did it before him - a simple field, wood, river, but his paintings are so beautiful". In 1856 january he went to St.Petersburg to continue his studies in Imperial Academy of Arts, which he graduated in 1860 with gold medal and also he got an Academy grant for studies abroad, Shishkin spent 3 years (1862-1865) in Germany, Switzerland, Czech, France, Belgium and Holland. Gradually he got disappointed in his foreign teachers and European authorities in landscape painting. Now he felt free and independent and longed to return home, to Russia, what he did in 1865 and settled in St.Petersburg, before spending summer in his birthplace. In 1868 he married painters F.A.Vasiljev sister Evgenija Aleksandrovna, who was simple and good person. They were well situated, though couldn't afford overmuch. They had a lot of friends who visited Shishkins family very often. In april 1874 Evgenija died and Shishkin was left with his two children - son and daughter who soon died too. From the sorrow he started heavy drinking, lost his friends and spend his time with ex classmates from Kazan gymnasium, who had problems with alcohol too, and were useless like an artists. Only Shishkins success saved him, what was already guaranteed with his previous work. In winter 1877 he met young painter Olga Antonovna Lagoda and in summer 1880 they married. Shishkin became a member of the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg and was professor of painting from 1873. At the same time, Shishkin headed the landscape painting class at the Higher Art School in St. Petersburg. He was famous for his forest landscapes, but he was also an outstanding draftsman and printmaker. Shishkin was a member of The Itinerants, also known as The Society for Circulating Art Exhibitions. The society was active between 1870 to about 1923. It’s difficult today to discern exactly what the aims of the original group were, because so much of Russia’s history has been hijacked and rewritten since those days. It's known that members of the Society organised annual exhibitions in St Petersburg and Moscow, which later moved to the provincial towns. Shishkin died in 8 (20) march 1989 in his studio while working on his new painting. Oh and yes...my favourite paintings are: Coniferous Forest.Sunny Day (1895) and In the Wilds of the North. After Mikhail Lermontov's verse The Pine (1891).