Mark Antokolski

Mark Antokolski was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, in 1843. He was from a poor Jewish family and showed an early talent for wood carving. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1862 and enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he studied under Nikolai Pimenov and Alexander Terebenev. He won several medals for his works, such as "The Jewish Tailor" (1864) and "The Miser" (1865), which depicted the life of the Jewish people in Russia. He also created some religious sculptures, such as "The Judas Kiss" (1866) and "Christ Before the People" (1874), which expressed his sympathy for the oppressed and suffering. He became an academician in 1871 and a professor in 1880. He traveled extensively in Europe and visited Italy, Germany, France, and England. He was influenced by the works of the Old Masters, especially Michelangelo, and the Italian vedutisti, who painted realistic views of cities. He applied their techniques to his sculptures and created many vedute of Russian and European cities, such as "Moscow Kremlin" (1872), "View of the Neva" (1873), "View of Rome" (1875), and "View of Paris" (1880). He also made portraits of famous historical and cultural figures, such as "Ivan the Terrible" (1870), "Peter the Great" (1872), "Spinoza" (1882), "Mephistopheles" (1884), and "Nestor the Chronicler" (1886). He was praised for his realism, expressiveness, and originality, and received many awards and honors, such as the Legion of Honor from France and the Order of St. Stanislaus from Russia. He settled in Paris in 1880 and became a prominent member of the artistic community there. He died of pneumonia in 1902 and was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery. His works are displayed in many museums and public places in Russia and abroad. He is regarded as one of the most influential Russian sculptors of the 19th century and a pioneer of the vedute genre in sculpture.