Konstantin Bogaevsky

Konstantin Bogaevsky was a Ukrainian and Russian painter from Crimea, notable for his Symbolist landscapes. He was born in 1872 to an old Italian-German family of the Genoese extraction. He took his first lessons in art from Ivan Aivazovsky, a famous marine painter. He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Arkhip Kuindzhi, who was a master of light and color. Bogaevsky traveled to Italy and France, where he was inspired by the works of Claude Lorrain, a classical landscape painter. He developed his own style of depicting imaginary and mystical scenes, often with a sense of mystery and melancholy. He was a member of various artistic groups, such as Mir iskusstva, Union of Russian Artists, and Zhar-Tsvet. He exhibited his paintings in Russia and abroad, and received recognition from critics and fellow artists. He was especially praised by Maximilian Voloshin, a poet and painter, who wrote a series of essays about him. Bogaevsky was also friends with Alexander Grin, a writer of fantasy stories, and other members of the Koktebel group of Russian intelligentsia. He lived most of his life in Feodosia, where he had a studio and a house. He died in 1943 during a Soviet air raid, when a shrapnel hit his head. He was buried in the St. Seraphim Cemetery in Feodosia. His paintings are now displayed in various museums and galleries, such as the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, and the Feodosia Art Gallery. He is considered one of the most original and influential Russian landscape painters of the 20th century.