The Mikhailovsky Palace

The landscape genre in the painting of the latter half of the nineteenth century was similar to the descriptions of nature in the Russian literature of those years. Artists and writers, however, did not confine themselves to visible reality. They used the state of nature to convey frames of mind and the emotional atmosphere of the surrounding world. Even such pictures as Moscow Courtyard by Vasily Polenov (1844–1927) — the pictorial tale of a little corner of Moscow — are tinged with fresh perception of an everyday subject.

Polenov was not only a landscapist. Like many at this time, he painted pictures on historical and biblical themes (Christ and the Adulteress (Who Is Without Sin?), 1888), as well as genre scenes and landscapes. This syncretism reflected the logical development of the art of the second half of the nineteenth century, with biblical and historical motifs coming to life in a plausible environment. As a young artist influenced by Alexander Ivanov, Vasily Polenov had the idea of “creating not Christ coming, but Christ already come into the world, making his way among the people.” This germ grew during his periods of study at the Imperial Academy of Arts and then abroad, where the first sketches were made in 1873 and 1876. In order to create an historically authentic setting, Polenov travelled across Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Greece in 1881 and 1882 and spent the winter of 1883/84 in Rome, creating many portraits and architectural and landscape studies. The painting was first shown at the fifteenth Travelling Art Exhibition in 1887.

In the room one can see works by the famous sculptor Mark Antokolsky (1843–1902) – Mephistopheles (1883), Nestor-Chronicler (1890), Spinoza, Christ Before the People (1878).