Mikhail Vrubel

Mikhail Vrubel was born in 1856 as a son of a village priest. He showed an early talent for drawing and painting, and studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He became a member of the Peredvizhniki movement of realist painters who rebelled against the academic style. He also developed an interest in Russian folklore and history, and created many paintings inspired by fairy tales, legends, and medieval chronicles. He is considered a co-founder of Russian folklorist and romantic nationalistic painting, and a key figure in the Russian symbolist movement and modernist art. He also designed the facade of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and painted murals for the St. Vladimir's Cathedral in Kiev and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia. He died in 1910 from mental illness and was buried at the Vagankovo Cemetery in Moscow. He is regarded as one of the most original and influential Russian painters of the 19th and early 20th centuries.