Vasily Polenov

Etretat – The Artists – Polenov, Vasily

May 10, 2023 / ° Artists, Etretat, Normandy, West

This page forms part of a series of pages dedicated to the many artists who worked in Etretat. A full list of all the artists with a link to their works can be found at the bottom of this page.

Vasily Polenov
Vasily Polenov

Movements: –

Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov (1844 – 1927) was a Russian landscape painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement of realist artists. His contemporaries would call him the “Knight of Beauty” as he embodied both European and Russian traditions of painting.

As a native of St. Petersburg, Polenov grew up in a wealthy, intellectual and artistic family. During his teenage years, in 1860s, Russia was energized by great minds promoting virtues of democracy, progress, education, and they would stand against oppression.

Vasily Polenov simultaneously enrolled to the Imperial Academy of Arts and to the Law University in Saint Petersbourg (1863–1871). Polenov studied under Pavel Chistyakov and was a classmate and close friend of Rafail Levitsky, a fellow Peredvizhniki artist and photographer.

The second major chapter of his stay in Europe is in France, in Paris and Normandy. It is in Montmartre at 72 rue Blanche and at 13 rue Véron that he established his studio in the autumn of 1973. In Paris, he attended Alexei Bogolyubov’s events (1824–1896), an official painter of the Russian Navy and also in charge of the orientation of the young residents of the Imperial Academy in France.

In the summer of 1874, Ilya Repine and Vasily Polenov followed the advice of their preceptor Bogoliubov and went to Normandy in quest for spontaneous impressions. There, they would mainly work outdoors, according to the influence of the Barbizon School. They spent several months in the company of other Russian artists in Veules-les-Roses, a setting combining cliffs by the sea and countryside. He completed his European work by returning to Paris, devoting himself to historical subjects after this momentous period of his career dedicated to Norman landscapes.

Click here to read more of Polenov’s bio on Wikipedia.

NOTE: Click on any image below for a bigger version (no new window will open).

1874 - Vasily Polenov - Fishing boat, Normandy
1874 – Vasily Polenov – Fishing boat, Normandy

Polenov painted mostly in Normandy and Brittany (and Paris). Here are the places he painted in (a link “⇠” to his works will appear when published):

Etretat is the second most popular and visited place in Normandy (the first being Mont Saint-Michel). And since it was popular, many artists came here to be inspired by its nature and scenic environments. Here is a list of artists who worked in Etretat (a link “⇠” to their work will appear when published).

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