Yaroshenko Nikolai Alexandrovich

Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko is a Russian painter, wanderer, master of realistic portraiture; military artilleryman, major General.

Biography

Early years. He was born in Poltava in the family of an officer of the Russian Imperial Army. His father wanted his son to pursue a military career.
Education. He studied in the Petrovsky Poltava Cadet Corps, then in the First Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg.‑St. Petersburg. He graduated from the Mikhailovsky Artillery College (1865) and the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy (1870) with honors.
Military service. He served at the St. Petersburg Cartridge Factory since 1869. He retired with the rank of Major General in 1892.
Art education. He studied under I.N. Kramskoy (1863-1867), was a volunteer at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1867-1874), and graduated from the Academy in 1874. He also took private drawing lessons and attended evening classes at the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts.
Peredvizhnichestvo. In 1876, he joined the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions and became one of its leaders. Ivan Kramskoy was called the "mind" of Peredvizheniye, and Yaroshenko was called his "conscience."
Personal life. In 1874, he married Maria Pavlovna Neurotina, a social activist.
Recent years. He died in Kislovodsk in 1898.

Creation

Yaroshenko has worked in several genres:

Portraits of Russian cultural figures (painted about a hundred portraits):

P. A. Strepetova (1884, Tretyakov Gallery);
V. S. Solovyov (1895, Tretyakov Gallery);
N. N. Ge (1890, Russian Museum).

Portraits are types with a social orientation:

"The Stoker" (1878, Tretyakov Gallery) is one of the first portraits of workers in Russian art.;
The Student (1881, Tretyakov Gallery);
"The Terrorist" (1881, N. A. Yaroshenko Kislovodsk Art Museum).

Household genre:

"Life is Everywhere" (1888, Tretyakov Gallery) is one of the most famous works.;
"The Prisoner" (1878);
"Sister of Mercy";
"Student student" (prototype — Anna Dieterichs).

Landscapes:

"Elbrus in the clouds" (1894, Russian Museum);
"Shat‑gora (Elbrus)" (1884);
"Red Stones" (1892);
landscapes of Poltava region, the Caucasus, the Middle East.

Other jobs:

Nevsky Prospekt at Night;
"At the Lithuanian Castle" (1881, not preserved) — the painting caused a public outcry and led to the artist's house arrest.

Features of creativity and contribution to art

A representative of critical realism in painting.
In portraits, he sought to reveal the psychology of a person, especially people of intellectual work.
In genre paintings, he reflected the "motives of civic sorrow", sympathy for the plight of ordinary people.
He actively supported the idea of exhibitions of peredvizhniki in the province — they became significant social events.
He discovered the beauty of the Caucasus for his compatriots, earning the nickname "portrait painter of the mountains."

Heritage

His works are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the N.A. Yaroshenko Kislovodsk Art Museum, the Serpukhov Museum of History and Art and other collections.
There is a house museum of N. A. Yaroshenko ("White Villa") in Kislovodsk, where his works and works by Peredvizhnik artists are collected.