Vassily Maximov

{{Infobox artist | native_name = | image = Maximov by Kramskoi.jpg | image_size = 200px | caption = Vassily Maximov;<br /> portrait by [[Ivan Kramskoi]] (1878) | birth_date = {{Birth date|1844|01|17}} | birth_place = [[Volkhovsky District|Lopino]], [[Novoladozhsky Uyezd]], [[Saint Petersburg Governorate]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|1911|11|18|1844|01|17}} | death_place = [[Saint Petersburg]] | known_for = [[Painting]] | style = [[Realism (art movement)|Realism]] | movement = [[Peredvizhniki]] | alma_mater = {{Imperial Academy of Arts|Alumni|1866}} | education = {{Imperial Academy of Arts|Member|1878}} | awards = }} '''Vassily Maximovich Maximov''' ({{langx|ru|Васи́лий Максимо́вич Макси́мов}}; {{OldStyleDate|29 January|1844|17 January}} – {{OldStyleDate|1 December|1911|18 November}}) was a Russian painter, a prominent member of the [[Peredvizhniki]] group.

==Biography== Maximov was born to a peasant family in the village of [[Volkhovsky District|Lopino]] in the [[Saint Petersburg Governorate]], near [[Novaya Ladoga]]. He became an orphan early and worked for an [[Icon]]painting shop, where he first learned to paint. In 1863 he entered the [[Imperial Academy of Arts]] and in 1864 he became a member of an [[Artel of Artists]] created by P.N. Krestonovtsev by the example of [[Ivan Kramskoi]]. The artel existed only one year and was then disbanded. Maximov painted the ''Sick Child'' (1864) at that time, when received a Gold Medal of the Academia.

He completed all the courses of the Academy in three years. In 1865 he (like the group of fourteen led by Ivan Kramskoi had done earlier) refused to take part in the competitions for the Major Gold Medal by Academia. He argued that he did not need to study abroad (that was a part of the prize) but rather would study the Russian village. Indeed, after graduation from the Academia he moved to the village of Shubino, in the [[gubernia]] of [[Tver]], where he painted the peasant life, earning money as a painting teacher of the Princes Golenischev-Kutuzov (descendants of [[Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov]]).

His painting ''Grandmother's tales'' (1867) was shown at an exhibition of the [[Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts]], where it won a prize and was bought by [[Pavel Tretyakov]]. In 1872 he was admitted to the Peredvizhniki group, and soon became one of its most prominent and rigorous members. [[Ilya Yefimovich Repin]] described Maximov as "the most uncrushable stone in the foundation of ''peredvizhnechestvo''". Maximov painted many paintings of the peasant life.

In the last twenty years of his life, realism paintings fell out of fashion. Maximov still painted almost exclusively scenes of the peasant lives that had almost no buyers. The artist lived a life full of poverty and illnesses. He died in [[Saint Petersburg]].

==Selected works== <gallery mode="packed" heights="150px"> Image:Максимов Бабушкины сказки 1867.jpg|''[[Grandma's Fairy Tales]]'', 1867 Image:MaksimovVM MalchMehanMIN.jpg|''Boy-engineer'', 1871 Image:Maximov Sorcerer Wedding.jpg|''[[A Sorcerer Comes to a Peasant Wedding]]'', 1875 Image:Wassilij Maximowitsch Maximow 002b.jpg|''Sick husband'', 1881 Image:Maximov Everything In the Past.jpg|''[[All in the past|Everything is in the past]]'', 1889 </gallery>

==References== {{commons category|Vassily Maximov}} *[http://staratel.com/pictures/ruspaint/373.htm Biography at Старатель.com] {{in lang|ru}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maximov, Vassily}} [[Category:1844 births]] [[Category:1911 deaths]] [[Category:People from Volkhovsky District]] [[Category:People from Novoladozhsky Uyezd]] [[Category:Peredvizhniki]] [[Category:Russian male painters]] [[Category:Russian realist painters]] [[Category:19th-century painters from the Russian Empire]] [[Category:19th-century male artists from the Russian Empire]] [[Category:20th-century Russian male artists]] [[Category:20th-century Russian painters]]