The great Russian artist Shishkin

The great Russian landscape painter I.I. Shishkin was born in Vyatka province (today it is the republic of Tatarstan), in the city of Yelabuga, in the family of merchant IV Shishkin on the thirteenth of January 1832.

The father of the artist was an outstanding man. Thanks to his crystal honesty, he was respected by the townspeople and appreciated his concern for them. Eight years he served as the city head of Yelabuga and did a lot of good for his city. Built in the days of his service, the wooden water supply works in part at the present time. Ivan Vasilievich was a man of versatile knowledge, he was keenly interested in history, read a lot. He instilled love for knowledge from his early childhood. But most importantly, he encouraged the son's desire to paint, manifested from his early childhood.

However, seriously began to engage in painting Shishkin was only at the age of twenty, when he got to enter the painting school in Moscow, where he was trained under the guidance of Academician Apollon Mokritsky. The school immediately revealed Shishkin's love of the landscape. Artist Shishkin admires the Russian nature, all his free time he spends in the Moscow forests, studying plants. It gave him great pleasure.

When studying nature, he began to seriously engage in drawing. Of the early graphic works of interest is a drawing, made in 1853 and containing Twenty nine sketches. It becomes obvious that the artist Shishkin is looking for motives for the picture. By the time the school was over, Shishkin was already far ahead of his fellow students, his natural outstanding talent was revealed, and it was clear to all the teachers and students of the school that they were a great artist.

In January 1856, Ivan Shishkin went to the Academy of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg, where he established himself as an artist with outstanding abilities. After three months of training at the Academy, he attracted the attention of the professors with his landscape drawings.

As Shishkin himself claimed, Valaam became the real school of skill for him, where the students of the academy went to in the summer. Shishkina fascinated and beckoned to the wild and virgin pure nature of the Valaam archipelago: granite rocks, age-old firs and pines. Etude "Pine in Valaam" in 1858 was awarded a silver medal.

In 1860 the artist Shishkin with the Big Gold Medal finishes the Academy and receives the right to a foreign internship. He leaves Petersburg, but not abroad, but to Elabuga, where he works hard and hard.

Period from 1862 to 1865 Shishkin, an artist already known in creative circles, spends abroad. Most of the time he lives in Germany and Switzerland. In 1870, the Association of the Wanderers appeared, which became the symbol of a new creative era. Ideals of peredvizhnichestva the creator never changed. The paintings of the artist Shishkin took part in all traveling exhibitions of the Association.

The artist Shishkin died on the eighth day of March one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight. He worked in the workshop, then visited relatives, referring to malaise, returned home and started working again. After a while the assistant saw that Ivan Ivanovich had fallen from his chair. Running to him, he realized that the master was dead.