Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov (1844-1927) - Russian Itinerant artist, famous for his plein air landscapes, everyday, historical and religious paintings. In his creative path, the painter organically combined loyalty to the traditions of 19th-century realism with the features of symbolism and modernism. Since the late 1870s, the art and personality of V. D. Polenov were surrounded not just by fame, but by the real enthusiastic worship of artistic youth. The colors of the artist’s paintings seemed sparkling and enchanting to his contemporaries, perceived as a pictorial revelation. Polenov’s early paintings (such as “The Right of the Master”) were designed in the spirit of salon romanticism. But his fame was brought to him by much more natural and intimate images, where the influence of I. E. Repin and A. P. Bogolyubov was combined with rich experience in working with landscapes. The mastery of plein air painting and individual features of impressionism are combined in these canvases with thoughtful lyrics, consonant with the “mood landscape” of the Savrasov-Levitan sense (“Moscow Courtyard”, “Grandmother’s Garden”, “Overgrown Pond”). Over the years, Polenov strives to give his palette more and more psychological expressiveness (“Sick”), his numerous sketches from life are full of sincere warmth of feeling. But these feelings are more contemplative than dramatically passionate or mystical. Therefore, the series of gospel paintings, on which the artist worked earnestly for many years (“Christ and the Sinner,” “On Lake Tiberias,” “Among the Teachers”) produces an ambivalent impression. Believing that from the church, which is in a state of deep decline, the property of giving people “happiness and joy” passes to art (“Otherwise it’s worth nothing,” from a letter to V.M. Vasnetsov), Polenov strives to solve the moral super-task precisely in religious images - which, however, fascinate not at all with their ethical message, but with the liveliness of landscape and ethnographic observations. The features of Art Nouveau, with its desire to create “super-works” that synthetically unite different types of art, were most clearly manifested in Polenov’s theatrical and architectural works. He designed performances at the Abramtsevo House and the Moscow Private Russian Opera of S.I. Mamontov, closely bringing together the principles of “picturesque theater” with the musical and dramatic texture of the play. The master's keen interest in national architectural antiquity was already evident in sketches depicting the Terem Palace and the cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin. Polenov made a great contribution to the Russian style within Art Nouveau, creating sketches of churches built in Abramtsevo (in collaboration with V. M. Vasnetsov) and Bekhov near Tarusa. After the October Revolution, the artist lived in his Borok estate, as if on an island of old Rus', painting and leading village theater clubs. Polenov's students (at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he taught in 1882-1895) were I. I. Levitan, K. A. and S. A. Korovin, A. E. Arkhipov, A. Ya. Golovin .