Wonderful landscapes by Arkhip Kuindzhi

Wonderful landscapes by Arkhip Kuindzhi. Vasnetsov. Portrait of Arkhip Kuindzhi

Creativity by Arkhip Kuindzhi occupies a special place in Russian landscape painting. Artist of a bright and original talent, Kuindzhi knew how to find exceptional, fantastically beautiful conditions in nature.
According to some researchers, Kuindzhi was born in 1840, and according to others in 1842, into the family of a poor Mariupol cobbler of Greek origin. The boy orphaned very early and at the age of eleven he had to earn his living. A Greek teacher taught him to write and read, and then the boy studied at the city school. He was fond of painting since childhood, he drew everywhere – on the walls of houses, fences, scraps of paper.

A view of Moscow from the Vorobyovy Gory. 1882

There is a suggestion that I.K. Aivazovsky played a positive role in the fate of the artist, who in the future helped him with advice. In 1868, Kuindzhi was already in St. Petersburg. In 1868 he received the title of a non-class artist and was admitted to the Academy of Arts. Subsequently, Kuindzhi joined the Wanderers and left the Academy.
The artist was in love with Ukrainian nature, where he spent his childhood and youth. On his paintings you can see Ukrainian summer evenings, the mighty Dnieper and its green shores.
In 1874, at an international exhibition in London, he received a bronze medal for his painting Snow.
In 1875, the artist visited France, where he bought a wedding dress coat with a cylinder. From France, the artist went to Mariupol, where he married the daughter of a rich merchant, Vera Leontievna Ketcherdzhi-Shapovalova, whom he fell in love with as a young man. After the wedding, the newlyweds went to Valaam.
At the end of his life, Kuindzhi was engaged in teaching activities. Many famous masters of Russian and later Soviet art were his students: N.K. Roerich, A.A. Rylov, N.P. Krymov and others. In 1910 the Society of Artists named after A.I. Kuindzhi was created.
Arkhip Kuindzhi died on July 11 (24), 1910 in St. Petersburg, the Russian Empire. Vera Leontievna Kuindzhi died in 1920 from hunger.