The 1860's were marked by a strong realistic movement in Russian painting. Artists became interested in depicting the lives and customs of their fellow countrymen. This new art form was mostly the work of the itinerants group, who wanted to take art to the people and paint the outdoors.

Mikhail Guerman traces the converging lines of Russian and French art in the immensely fertile period of the late 19th and early 20th century.

The 1860"s were marked by a strong realistic movement in Russian painting. Artists became interested in depicting the lives and customs of their fellow countrymen. This new art form was mostly the work of the itinerants group, who wanted to take art to the people and paint the outdoors.

This new direction in Russian painting can be compared with French Impressionism. Shishkin, Polenov, Korovine, Ivanov and even Levitan were all inspired by it. The works of Repin, who, for a time, lived in France were marked by the Impressionist techniques. In the 1890"s the artist of the World of Art movement introduced a modern style, which would greatly influence the next generation of painters.

Russian taste was well ahead of other countries, as evidenced by the presence of so many fine Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings in the collection of Shchukin and Morozov.

France-Russia Sources of dialogue

The beginning

Contemporaries

<Etudisme>

Impressionism at the roots of the Avant-Garde