Konstantín Alexeyevich Vasilyev (russian: Константи́н Алексе́евич Васи́льев; September 3, 1942 – October 29, 1976) was a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

symbolist painter Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

, who left more than 400

paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

drawings Drawing is a visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface. The instruments used to make a drawing are pencils, crayons, pens with inks, brushes with paints, or combinations of these, and in more modern times ...

. His range of works included

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this ...

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...

, realistic

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature * Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

s, Russian epics, Slavic and

Teutonic mythology Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...

, and battle paintings. Vasilyev popularized legendary characters of the Russian folk art, songs and fairy tales:

Ilya Muromets Ilya Muromets (russian: Илья Муромец), or Ilya of Murom, sometimes Ilya Murometz, is one of the '' bogatyrs'' (epic knights) in Bylinas of Kievan Rus. He is often featured alongside fellow bogatyrs Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha P ...

Mikula Selyaninovich Mikula Selyaninovich (russian: Микула Селянинович, Mikula the Villager's Son) is a Russian epic hero, a ''bogatyr'' - plowman, from the Novgorod Republic ''bylina A ( rus, были́на, p=bɨˈlʲinə; pl. ) is an Old Russ ...

Svyatogor Svyatogor () is a mythical ''bogatyr'' (knight/hero) in ancient bylinas of Kievan Rus'. His name derives from the words for "sacred mountain". Svyatogor's tale, ''Ilya Muromets and Svyatogor'', forms a part of the Ilya Muromets cycle. According ...

, ,

Dobrynya Nikitich Dobrynya Nikitich (russian: Добрыня Никитич) is one of the most popular bogatyrs (epic knights) from Russian folklore. Albeit fictional, this character is based on a real warlord Dobrynya, who led the armies of Svyatoslav the Gr ...

, Volga Svyatoslavich and others. His Scandinavian and Germanic saga cycle includes depictions of Odin,

Freyja In Norse paganism, Freyja ( Old Norse "(the) Lady") is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future). Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a char ...

and

valkyrie In Norse mythology, a valkyrie ("chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who guide souls of the dead to the god Odin's hall Valhalla. There, the deceased warriors become (Old Norse "single (or once) fighters"Orchard (1997:36 ...

s. Several paintings are devoted to the

Great Patriotic War The Eastern Front of World War II was a Theater (warfare), theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Polish Armed Forces in the East, Poland and other Allies of World War II, Allies, which encom ...

of the Soviet people. These include "Marshal Zhukov", "Invasion", "The Parade of 1941" and "Nostalgia."

Death and legacy

Konstantin Vasilyev died on October 29, 1976, in a railway accident near

Kazan Kazan ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: ɑzan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka rivers, covering ...

. His family and friends never believed in the official version of his death and suspected that the painter was murdered. Vasilyev was buried in the village of Vasilyevo, where he lived since 1949. Recognition came posthumously. A documentary "Vasilyev from Vasilyevo" was released in 1978. The Konstantin Vasilyev Museum opened in Moscow in 1998. Another film about the painter under the title "A man with an eagle-owl. Konstantin Vasilyev" was made in 2002. In 2012 Konstantin Vasilyev Museum in Moscow was renamed the Konstantin Vasilyev Centre of the Slavic Culture. Next year, in 2013, the Konstantin Vasilyev Art Gallery was opened in Kazan. Vasilyev's oeuvres steadily gained in popularity through the late Soviet and early post-Soviet periods, until they have reached a virtually iconic status among Russian nationalists, neo-pagans and fantasy geeks. The

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term '' ...

3930 Vasilev __NOTOC__ Year 393 ( CCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Augustus (or, less frequently, year 114 ...

, discovered by

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

astronomer

Lyudmila Zhuravlyova Lyudmila Vasilyevna Zhuravleva (russian: Людмила Васильевна Журавлёва, uk, Людмила Василівна Журавльова, Ljudmyla Vasylivna Žuravljova; born 22 May 1946) is a Soviet, Russian and Ukrainian ast ...

in 1982 is named after him.

References

Bibliography

*Doronin, A.I. ''Konstantin Vasilyev. Artist at the Call of the Heart'' - ("golden gallery of Russian painting) / Konstantin Vasilev. Khudozhnik po zovu serdtsa. Moscow: Art-rodnik, 2008. *Doronin, A.I. ''Rusi volshebnaia palitra.'' Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1992. *Kazakevich, G. ''Khudozhnik i poėt : stikhi po kartinam Konstantina Vasilʹeva''. St. Petersburg : Aleteĭia, 2015. *''Konstantin Vasilʹev glazami druzeĭ: vospominaniia, ėsse, stikhi.'' Kazan: Star, 1995. *Vasilʹev, A.A. ''Khudozhnik Konstantin Vasil'ev.'' Moscow: Bronzovyĭ vek : Proekt-F, 2004.

External links

Konstantin Vasilyev Gallery (Major Works) on slavs.org.uaKonstantin Vasilyev Gallery (chronological) on varvar.ruKonstantin Vasilyev Gallery on pinterest.comA man with an eagle-owl. Konstantin Vasilyev. (In Russian) Человек с филином. Константин ВасильевKonstantin Vasilyev (1942-1976) on petroart.ru
Russian symbolism Symbolism (arts) Russian artists Russian illustrators 1942 births 1976 deaths People from Maykop {{Russia-artist-stub