THE ARTIST FYODOR VASILYEV

Fyodor Alexandrovich Vasilyev was born in Gatchina, February 22, 1850, and later the family moved to Petersburg. Father, a minor official, was a gambler, drank a lot. Small apartment on Vasilievsky island not left need. Twelve-year-old child, the future artist was in the post office, time for drawing found with difficulty, studied in the evenings and Sundays. After his father"s death in 1865, at the age of fifteen years he was the backbone of the family, left without any means. I chose the path of the artist, Vasiliev acts with the seriousness of an adult, already burdened by the cares of the family, and is subject to their decision the whole life. He gets to the restorer of the Academy of arts of P. K. Sokolov, and simultaneously enrolled in evening drawing school, which was run by the Society for the encouragement of artists. Among the teachers of the school was then not only enjoyed great love and authority of archaeology, but also other artists from the group of the fourteen Protestants, pointedly emerged from the Academy in 1863 and organized" Артель artists". The atmosphere of camaraderie, disputes, hot discussions all the new phenomena of art and life and, more importantly, the daily hard work — all this fascinated the young artist. By the time of graduation (1867) "ev already met with a number of artists and became from their environment. Especially close were relations with V. I. Kramskoi, who took him under careful guardianship, and with Ivan Shishkin, with whom he constantly worked on location. Under the influence of I. I. Shishkina for eighteen years Vasilev was convinced by the artist: few artists so early was able to identify my calling.

Already in 1868, the artist has created quite Mature of his paintings.

" Возвращение herd".