Peredvizhniki (The Wanderers)

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1870 – 1923 · Eastern Europe & Russia · painting · origin: Saint Petersburg

Painting as social verdict: Russian life, history and landscape, toured across the empire

How to recognise it

• recognisable Russian types: haulers, peasants, pilgrims
• psychologically exact faces, direct gaze
• life-size dramas from Russian history
• modest central-Russian landscape
• restrained, muted palette

Why it emerged

In 1863 fourteen graduates walked out of the Imperial Academy rather than paint a set mythological subject. After the emancipation of the serfs artists wanted to depict the people, and merchant patrons like Tretyakov bought their work.

Examples

Barge Haulers on the Volga1870–1873 · Ilya RepinEleven faces and eleven lives in one harness, the picture that made Repin famousIvan the Terrible and His Son Ivan1883–1885 · Ilya RepinA murderous father's horror in close-up; Alexander III banned its displayThe Morning of the Streltsy Execution1881 · Vasily SurikovPeter and the Streltsy on Red Square: history as a clash between the people and the stateChrist in the Desert1872 · Ivan KramskoiA Gospel scene as a human moral choice, the programme work of the Wanderers' leader

More in this style

• 1889 Morning in a Pine Forest — Ivan Shishkin, Konstantin Savitsky

Meanwhile elsewhere

• Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
• Ming and Qing Porcelain Asia
• Realism Europe
• Impressionism Europe
• Post-Impressionism Europe
• Art Nouveau Europe
• Expressionism Europe
• Cubism Europe
• Russian avant-garde Eastern Europe & Russia
• Harlem Renaissance Americas
• Modern architecture (International Style) Whole world
• Constructivism Eastern Europe & Russia
• Art Deco Europe
• Mexican muralism Americas

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English)

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