A performance by Kseniya Simonova on Ukraine’s Got Talent has become a viral hit on the internet, receiving more than 6 million views. We’ve scrounged up some background information on the 24-year-old artist and her performance…

1. Kseniya Simonova wasn’t trained as an artist and hasn’t been practicing for very long, either. Her business was one of many to fall apart with the credit crunch, and she used her newfound time to begin drawing in sand. She started out drawing in the sand at the beach and had only been experimenting with the medium for about a year when she appeared on Ukraine’s Got Talent.

2. Simonova’s sand animation—a series of evolving images drawn in a sand-filled lightbox projected onto a screen—brought the audience and judges to tears with its depiction of the “Great Patriotic War” (as Ukrainians call the USSR’s fight against the Nazis during WWII). Simonova received a standing ovation and was named the inaugural winner of the television competition, netting approximately $120,000.

3. The story in Simonova’s winning animation travels through the German invasion of the Ukraine, from a couple under a starry sky through warplanes and chaos to the Ukrainian monument to their Unknown Soldier and ending with a mother and child saying goodbye to a soldier. WWII was an especially sorrowful time in Ukraine’s history—the country lost between 8 and 11 million people, approximately 25 percent of its population. They suffered the largest loss of any country and attributed for about 20 percent of the total deaths during WWII.

4. Since the show, Simonova has returned to her hometown of Evpatoria, where she has stated she’ll stay. She has no interest in traveling or growing her fame. According to Simonova, “I only entered because there was a child I know who needed an operation and I wanted to help. I did not mean to make the whole country cry.” She used her prize money to set up a children’s charity and buy “a modest home” for herself.

5. After videos of Simonova’s performances appeared on YouTube, the praises for the young artist began rolling in. With her “brilliant display of a hitherto unknown art form,” Simonova is “well on the way to becoming an international sensation.” Freddy Nager at Jawbone.TV went so far as to say Simonova “has become the most popular artist in any genre or medium to emerge from the Ukraine since poet-painter Taras Shevchenko in 1840.”

The image at top, which reads “You are always near” in Ukrainian, is the final image from Simonova’s winning performance on Ukraine’s Got Talent, shown in the YouTube video directly above. (If that player doesn’t work, you can view it here.)

Fans should check out Kseniya Simonova’s Facebook page; Russia Today’s coverage of Simonova; and one of Simonova’s other performances for Ukraine’s Got Talent.

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

At the request of readers Melanie & Johnny, today’s “Feel Art Again” features Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). The Austrian artist overcame poverty in his youth to create paintings decorated with gold leaf, such as “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (above left) and “The Kiss”(above right).

1. Adele Bloch-Bauer, depicted in the painting above left, was the only person to be the subject of more than one Gustav Klimt portrait. His first painting of Bloch-Bauer, which measures 138 cm x 138 cm, took 3 years to complete and is considered the Austrian Mona Lisa. It was acquired in 2006 by Ronald Lauder, of the Estee Lauder fortune, for $135 million after a protracted legal dispute, which stemmed, in part, from the Nazi seizure of the portrait during WWII. The painting is featured in 3 documentaries: The Rape of Europa (2006), Stealing Klimt (2007), and Adele’s Wish (2008).

2. Klimt, who never painted a self-portrait, stated, “I am less interested in myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people, above all women…” The artist was renowned for his womanizing and fathered at least 14 children.

3. Klimt and his brother, Ernst, inherited their artistic abilities from their father, who was a gold engraver. The two brothers attended the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts and, with their friend Franz Matsch, took commissions as the “Company of Artists.” After the death of both his brother and his father in 1892, Klimt assumed financial responsibility for his siblings and his brother’s family, but was unable to paint for almost 6 years.

4. In 1894, Klimt was commissioned for three paintings for the ceiling of the Great Hall at the University of Vienna. The paintings—titled “Philosophy,” “Medicine,” and “Jurisprudence”—caused an uproar, with some critics declaring them “pornographic.” In total, 87 faculty members protested the paintings. The controversy even became the first cultural debate to land in front of the Parliament of Austria; only the education minister stood in Klimt’s defense. In the end, no action was taken and the paintings remained, although they were later destroyed by retreating SS forces in May 1945.

5. Klimt helped found the Wiener Sezession (Vienna Secession), of which he became the first president. Their basic principle: “We do not recognize any difference between great and minor art, between the art of the rich and that of the poor. Art belongs to all.” Supported in their efforts by the government, they were able to lease public land to erect an exhibition hall.

Larger versions of “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (above left), “The Kiss” (above right), and “Wasserschlangen (Freundinnen) II” (below) are available.

Fans should check out the iKlimt and Klimt Gallery web sites; the Klimt collections on Zeno and Wikimedia Commons; the Tate’s 2008 Klimt exhibition; the Klimt portfolio, One Hundred Drawings; the books Gustav Klimt: 1862-1918 and Gustav Klimt: Art Nouveau Visionary; the movie Klimt (2006), starring John Malkovich; and the photo series “La esencia de Klimt.”

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“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

Mary Moser (1744-1819) was “one of the most celebrated women artists of 18th-century Britain,” yet today she’s mostly overlooked. In honor of the 265th anniversary of her birth, we’ve rounded up some of the most interesting facts about Moser.

1. Mary Moser received training from George III’s own drawing master—her father, George Michael Moser, an artist and enameller. Thanks to her inherent skill and her father’s tutelage, Moser was an accomplished artist by her teens, winning her first Royal Society of Arts medal at age 14.

2. In 1786, Moser was one of the 36 founding members of the Royal Academy. (Her father was also a founder.) Angelica Kauffmann was the only other female founding member. More than 115 years passed after Moser’s death before another woman (Dame Laura Knight) would be elected a full member of the Royal Academy.

3. Moser “was notoriously marginalized,” according to the National Portrait Gallery, in Johann Zoffany’s “The Academicians of the Royal Academy” (1772). The painting depicts the founding members of the Academy surrounding a nude model but, since women weren’t allowed to participate in such training, Moser and Kauffmann are only shown in portraits hanging on the wall. A later painting by Henry Singleton, “The Royal Academicians in General Assembly” (1795), devoid of nude models, places Moser and Kauffmann directly behind the president of the Academy.

4. Due in part to her father’s royal connections, Moser received several commissions from King George and Queen Charlotte. The most prestigious and famous of those commissions was a floral decorative scheme for the Frogmore House in the 1790s. The “prestigious and lucrative commission”—Moser was paid £900—made Moser “the envy of her male colleagues.” It was also one of her last professional works, as she retired upon her marriage in 1793.

5. In 1793, shortly after she married Hugh Lloyd, Moser embarked on a six month sketching tour with the miniaturist Richard Cosway. Cosway, who was separated from his wife Maria (also a painter), made “lascivious statements” in his notebook about his sexual activities with Moser, directly comparing Moser’s skills in bed to those of his wife. Apparently, Moser was “more sexually responsive,” even though she was 50 and Maria was only 33.

Larger versions of the two Moser paintings shown, both titled “A Vase of Flowers,” are available here.

Fans should check out Moser’s paintings in the Royal Collection; the Moser works on artnet; the Mary Moser Room at the Frogmore House; and the paintings of Moser in the National Portrait Gallery.

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

In honor of last weekend’s big screen premiere of the classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, today’s “Feel Art Again” post features on the artwork of the man behind the masterpiece, Maurice Sendak.

Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

Arguably Maurice Sendak’s most popular work, Where the Wild Things Are was originally titled Where the Wild Horses Are, with none of the monsters for which Sendak is now known. Sendak had picked the title first, because it sounded “poetic,” but changed course when, as he says, “it became very plain that I couldn’t draw horses, nor would I ever be able to draw horses. And a whole book of horses was hopeless.” Instead, Sendak created a book full of monsters inspired by his “detested Brooklyn relatives,” the type who would “lean way over with their bad teeth and hairy noses, and say something threatening like, ‘You’re so cute I could eat you up.’”

Although the book has received some criticism for perhaps being too frightening for children, it has clearly hit home with readers: since Where the Wild Things Are was first published, more than 2 million copies have sold and it has been translated into 15 different languages. It was even brought to the stage as an opera by Sendak himself in 1979.

Purchase from HarperCollins here.

In the Night Kitchen (1970)

In the Night Kitchen is the second book in Sendak’s loose trilogy—which also includes Where the Wild Things Are and Outside Over There—that explores “how children master various feelings… and manage to come into grips with the realities of their lives.” Sendak wrote and illustrated the book around the time he moved to Connecticut from New York, right after he suffered a heart attack; the book was a way for him to “say goodbye to New York” and his parents, and to “tell a little bit about the narrow squeak [he] had just been through.”

Like many of Sendak’s books, In the Night Kitchen references Sendak’s own childhood fears. Sendak, who lost the majority of his European relatives in the Holocaust when he was a child, drew the chefs of the night kitchen with Hitler-esque mustaches. Their attempt to bake Mickey into a cake alludes to the gas chambers of Hitler’s death camps. The book was the 21st most frequently challenged book of the ‘90s, according to the American Library Association, not because of the Holocaust references, but instead due to the main character’s nudity for most of the book. Some librarians have gone so far as to draw diapers onto the boy, Mickey.

The book served as the namesake for Sendak’s theater company, The Night Kitchen, which he co-founded with Arthur Yorinks in 1990. The company aims to produce plays for children that don’t talk down to them.

Purchase from HarperCollins here.

Outside Over There (1981)

Sendak’s most personal work, Outside Over There is an homage to Sendak’s older sister, Natalie, who is the book’s Ida. The book draws inspiration from Sendak’s “babyhood,” when he was cared for by Natalie, and from the Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932. At the time, Sendak was “4 years old, sick in bed, and somehow confusing myself with this baby. I had a superstitious feeling that if he came back I’d be O.K., too.” Sendak had a lasting obsession with the case that ended last year, when he traded one of his drawings for “one of the tiny reproductions of the kidnapper’s ladder that were sold as souvenirs at the New Jersey trial.”

Purchase from HarperCollins here.

Brundibar (2003)

Based on a 1938 opera by Hans Krasa, a Jewish Czech composer, Brundibar was written by playwright Tony Kushner (a good friend of Sendak) and illustrated by Sendak. The opera was first performed in 1942 at a Jewish orphanage in Prague. Soon after, Krasa and the children at the orphanage were taken by the Nazis and placed in the Terezin concentration camp. With the help of other talented artists at Terezin and the permission of the Nazis, they performed the opera 55 times at the camp, including a performance for Red Cross representatives sent to inspect the camp. The Nazis even recorded the children for a propaganda film before they sent the group to their deaths at Auschwitz. For the picture book, Sendak and Kushner wove the opera’s historical background into the original story, adding shades of Hitler and the Nazis to Brundibar, the villain of the story.

For Sendak, Brundibar represents the sadness he felt about losing his family members during the Holocaust. He considers the book his “crowning achievement” and “last great collaboration.”

Purchase from Barnes & Noble here.

For larger versions of the book covers, click on the images.

Fans should check out the Maurice Sendak Gallery at the Rosenbach Museum and their Sendak videos; the collection of Sendak sketches at R. Michelson Galleries; the Maurice Sendak Papers at the University of Southern Mississippi; the envelope featuring original Sendak illustrations; Sendak’s interviews with Paul Vaughan (video) and Hank Nuwer; Rolling Stone’s 1976 profile of Sendak; his “Descent into Limbo” talk at MIT (video); HarperCollins’ “Browse Inside” version of Where the Wild Things Are; the official site for the Warner Brothers production of Where the Wild Things Are; and the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog (artwork inspired by Where the Wild Things Are).

Current Exhibitions:
Where the Wild Things Are: Original Drawings by Maurice Sendak (NYC: through November 1, 2009)
There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak (San Francisco: through January 19, 2010)

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“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

By the time Ernest “Ernie” Barnes, Jr. (1938-2009) passed away this past April, he had truly achieved the American dream. He went from being a “fat” and “introverted” child who wasn’t allowed into art museums because he was black to a renowned artist with exhibitions in prestigious galleries. Along the way, he was also an accomplished athlete.

Some things you might not know about Ernie Barnes…

1. He was paid a football salary to spend 6 months painting.

After six seasons of professional football (including a stint in Canada), Ernie Barnes had to retire from the game at the age of 26 due to an injury. The next year, the owner of the New York Jets, Sonny Werblin, contracted Barnes “to just paint” for six months at $14,500, about $1,000 more than Barnes’ football salary the previous year. The contract culminated with Barnes’ first solo exhibition, held at the prestigious Manhattan gallery founded by John Singer Sargent, the Grand Central Art Galleries, at which all 30 of Barnes’ paintings sold.

2. Singers loved his artwork for their album covers.

Barnes’ most famous painting, “The Sugar Shack,” was used by Marvin Gaye for his album I Want You. Other cover artwork includes “Late Night DJ” for Curtis Mayfield’s Something to Believe In, an untitled painting for Donald Byrd’s Donald Byrd and 125th Street, NYC, “Head Over Heels” for The Crusaders’ The Good and Bad Times, and “In Rapture” for B.B. King’s Making Love is Good for You.

3. Even as a pro athlete, he was devoted to his art.

“Big Rembrandt,” as his teammates called him, often spent team meetings, review sessions, and his time on the bench drawing, even though he was fined $50 each time his coach caught him. Playing for the San Diego Chargers, Barnes sketched the portraits of his teammates that appeared in the game programs. Those portraits spiraled into an appearance on Regis Philbin’s first talk show and an assignment to write and illustrate an article for a magazine. With the Denver Broncos, Barnes was asked to show his work at a team party. Six of the 11 works he displayed sold, and Barnes’ reluctance to sell his favorite painting, “The Bench,” resulted in a Sports Illustrated article, his first real national exposure as an artist.

4. Vincent Van Gogh inspired him to call Barron Hilton from a pay phone.

At one point, Barnes was so strapped for cash he was selling his possessions. Selling his books one day, Barnes saw an article about Van Gogh that featured a letter to the artist’s brother about his hardships. The letter gave Barnes “reaffirmation” and courage, and he marched home to pick out his best drawings, write up a proposal, and phone Hilton for a meeting. Lacking money for gas, Barnes walked 6 miles to Hilton’s office, where the hotelier commissioned a painting for $1,000 (of which Barnes received a $500 advance).

5. He’s the only sport artist to be named Sport Artist of the Year twice.

In 1984, Barnes was named the first Sport Artist of the Year by the American Sports Art Museum and Archives. Twenty years later, in 2004, he received the award again. He has received numerous other accolades, including being named America’s Best Painter of Sports, Official Artist of the American Football League, and Official Artist of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

6. He believed “we are blind to each other’s humanity.”

Almost all of the people in Barnes’ paintings are depicted with their faces obscured or their eyes closed. Barnes stated, “I won’t paint people with their eyes open,” explaining “We don’t see each other, we are blind to each other’s humanity.”

Shown above is Barnes’ “Olympic Finish.” (A larger version is not available.)

Fans should check out the official Ernie Barnes web site; From Pads to Palette, his autobiography; his TOPPS card; his brief NY Jets bio (Barnes played for the Jets when they were still the Titans); Ebony’s 1973 article about Barnes’ artwork; and the Americans in Focus vignette on Barnes.

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

Today’s post features two talented Bahraini artists, Abbas Yousif and Adnan AlAhmed, who were both born in 1960.

Although Abbas Yousif received a BA in Arabic Literature, not art, from Qatar University, he has made a name for himself in the art world. His works have been included in exhibits in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Macedonia, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, UAE, Ukraine, USA, and Yugoslavia. In addition to his work as an artist, Yousif writes about fine arts for local news.

Adnan AlAhmed is not as widely known as Yousif, but his works are still quite traveled. He has exhibited in Bahrain, Egypt, France, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Taiwain, UAE, and UK. AlAhmed graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in 1986. He works as a décor designer for the Bahrain Broadcasting and Television Corporation.

Larger versions of the two works pictured (the titles are unknown) are available. Just click on the images themselves for the larger versions.

Fans should check out the Yousif and AlAhmed galleries from the Bahrain Arts Society; Yousif’s works at the Zara Gallery; and Yousif’s web site.

For more information about Bahraini artists, check out the Bahrain Arts Society.

* Distance in title calculated from the center of New York City (where our online operations are based) to the center of Bahrain.

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

With the introduction of the “Feel Art Again” Facebook page, we held a contest to find our farthest fan. Reader Kelly Deaton in Russia easily beat the competition, winning a week of “Feel Art Again” posts on Russian artists.

The last of our series of Russian artists is Anna Golubkina (1864-1927), who is considered the first female Russian sculptor of note.

1. Anna Golubkina never attended primary school, but she was literate and she taught herself to draw and model clay. When she was 25, she sat for the entrance exams to Otto Gunst’s Classes for Elegant Arts (an architecture school). She failed some of the exams due to her lack of prior schooling, but she was so artistically skilled that one examiner convinced the others to admit her anyway and even go so far as to waive her tuition. He apparently challenged them to name any other sculptor who could produce works like Golubkina’s “Praying Old Woman.”

2. From 1897 through 1900, Golubkina served as Auguste Rodin’s assistant. She was often called upon to help the sculptor with the hands and legs of his creations. Under his tutelage, Golubkina created “The Old Age,” which used the same model in the same position as Rodin’s “The Thinker,” but 14 years later. Another source reports Rodin’s statuette “Helmet-Maker’s Wife” was the basis for Golubkina’s life-sized “Old Age.”

3. Golubkina was sensitive to the needs of the less fortunate, having herself lived in Paris for two years with so little money she was “literally starving.” She frequently gave back to others, donating her fee for a bust of Karl Marx to a fund for homeless workers, opening her house as a temporary hospital, and raising money for World War I victims through a personal exhibition of 150 sculptures.

4. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Golubkina distributed leaflets and encouraged serfs to rise against the tsar. She was arrested and sent to prison for a year, where she went on a hunger strike and was released because of her poor health.

5. Likened to Michelangelo, Golubkina was considered to have helped Russian sculpture achieve independence from painting. She was the first Russian sculptor to receive the Paris Salon prize, quite an accomplishment for a female artist. Five years after her death, her studio in Zaraysk was turned into a museum, making it the “first Russian museum of that type” and the only museum in Europe dedicated to a female sculptor.

Larger versions of Golubkina’s “Mist” (above left) and “Sleepers” (above right) are available.

Fans should check out the Wikimedia Commons gallery of Golubkina’s work; her studio; and NASA’s images of the Venus crater named for Golubkina (image 1 and image 2).

For more Russian art, check out our past posts on Karl Briullov, Alexei Harlamoff, Wassily Kandinsky, Pavel Korin (#9 on the page), Konstantin Korovin (a pupil of Polenov), Arkhip Kuindzhi (second on the page), Aristarkh Lentulov, Vasily Polenov, Illarion Pryanishnikov, Nicholas Roerich, Mark Rothko, Nadya Rusheva, Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Surikov, Vladimir Tretchikoff, Mikhail Vrubel, Konstantin Yuon, the joint post on Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, and the joint post on Marie Bashkirtseff, Boris Kustodiev, and Andrei Ryabushkin.

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

The everyman’s art quiz… Even if you haven’t followed the last two years of “Feel Art Again,” you’ll most likely recognize these masterpieces of art.

Take the quiz, and then come back here to let us know how you did.

Be sure to check out our other art quizzes: Feel Art Again: The Exam, A Happy Little Quiz (Bob Ross), and Who’s the Artist?

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

With the introduction of the “Feel Art Again” Facebook page, we held a contest to find our farthest fan. Reader Kelly Deaton from Russia easily beat the competition, winning a week of “Feel Art Again” posts on Russian artists.

Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964) and Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) were lifelong partners in romance and in art. The two were considered to be at the forefront of Russian art in the early 1900s. Although Larionov and Goncharova experimented with the same styles and were active in the same circles, Goncharova is generally accepted to be the better artist.

1. Their Education

Both Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1898, when they were 17, with Larionov on the painting track and Goncharova working on the 10-year sculpture curriculum. Larionov, who rarely attended classes, was kicked out of school at least three times, including once for refusing to remove some of his 150 paintings from critique after being told he had submitted too many. Natalia, on the other hand, seems to have been a good student, but she left the school after just three years, once Larionov convinced her to take up painting.

2. Their Romance

Soon after they met at school, Larionov and Goncharova became romantically involved. They lived together for several decades before they eventually married, emigrating to Switzerland and then to France together. Once they finally tied in the knot in 1955, it was only for estate-planning purposes: Larionov and Goncharova wanted to be able to inherit each other’s artwork.

3. Their Exhibitionism

The two artists were known to push boundaries in art, even on their own skin. Larionov was apparently “very interested” in tattooing. Larionov, Goncharova, and some of their other friends would paint on their bodies and then exhibit themselves in public and wealthy parts of Moscow. Goncharova once “painted her face then paraded topless through the streets of Moscow.” In 1910, Goncharova was put on trial for pornography for some nude life studies in one of her exhibitions, but was acquitted.

4. The Ballet

In 1915, Larionov and Goncharova left Russia for Switzerland to work with Sergei Diaghilev on Ballets Russes productions. They later moved to France and permanently settled there, where they continued to work with Diaghilev and, after his death, with other ballet troupes. Both artists designed scenery and costumes, but Larionov even ventured into choreography. Goncharova is considered “one of the best stage designers the 20th century ever knew.” Her illustrations for Diaghilev’s productions can fetch from about $150,000 for costume sketches to about $299,000 for décor sketches.

5. Their Contributions to Art

Larionov and Goncharova were founding members of the Russian groups the Jack of Diamonds and Donkey’s Tail; Larionov actually coined both groups’ names. In 1913, Larionov created Rayonism, which concentrates on the rays of colored light over all else, and Goncharova became one of movement’s most active practitioners. She was already considered by her contemporaries to be “the artist with the richest paints.” They published the Rayonist manifesto that same year, which some 9 other artists also signed.

6. Their Decline

Perhaps due in part to their increasing focus on ballet, Larionov and Goncharova fell upon hard times as they got older. Goncharova was hit by arthritis in her hands, leaving her to paint by tying paint brushes to her wrists. Larionov was still being exhibited in Paris, London, and Milan during the 1950s and 1960s, but lived in poverty for the last 14 years of his life. They didn’t receive widespread attention again until 2007, when the auction of Goncharova’s “Picking Apples” (1909) for $9.8 million set the record for work by a female artist. She achieved the distinction again the following year, when “The Flowers” (1912) sold for $10.8 million.

Larger versions of Larionov’s “Portrait of the Artist Natalia Goncharova” (above left) and Goncharova’s “Self Portrait with Yellow Lilies” (above right) are available.

Fans should check out the Larionov collections at Museum Syndicate, MoMA, and the Russian Avant-Garde Gallery; Mikhail Larionov and Ilya Zdanevich’s futurist manifesto; the Goncharova collections at Museum Syndicate, MoMA, USC, and the Russian Avant-Garde Gallery; the Hidden Treasures episode on Natalia Goncharova and Alexandra Exter; and this art deco dress designed by Goncharova.

For more Russian art, check out our past posts on Karl Briullov, Alexei Harlamoff, Wassily Kandinsky, Pavel Korin (#9 on the page), Konstantin Korovin (a pupil of Polenov), Arkhip Kuindzhi (second on the page), Aristarkh Lentulov, Vasily Polenov, Illarion Pryanishnikov, Nicholas Roerich, Mark Rothko, Nadya Rusheva, Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Surikov, Vladimir Tretchikoff, Mikhail Vrubel, Konstantin Yuon, and the joint post on Marie Bashkirtseff, Boris Kustodiev, and Andrei Ryabushkin.

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.

With the introduction of the “Feel Art Again” Facebook page, we held a contest to find our farthest fan. Reader Kelly Deaton from Russia easily beat the competition, winning a week of “Feel Art Again” posts on Russian artists.

Vasily Polenov (1844-1927) was the first artist to introduce the plein air techniques of France to Russia. The artist, who was exalted for his historical paintings but personally preferred landscapes, spent much of his career trying to balance the two genres.

1. After simultaneously studying both art (at the Imperial Academy of the Arts) and law (at St. Petersburg University), Vasily Polenov had to choose between the two careers. It wasn’t an easy decision for him to make: in 1871, he won the Grand Gold Medal for “Resurrection of Jairus’s Daughter” and received his law degree. Ultimately, though, he chose art.

2. Along with the Grand Gold Medal, Polenov also won a travel bursary for “Resurrection of Jairus’s Daughter.” He spent a year traveling through Germany and Italy, and then set up shop in France for four years. Polenov later traveled to Greece and the Middle East as well, causing him to be possibly one of the most traveled Russian artists of his generation.

3. The album Tolstoy’s Walk bears evidence that Polenov was also a skilled composer with “the potential to be a career composer of some note.” Three songs written by Polenov appear on the album—a compilation of Romantic-era music written by amateur composers—that also includes songs by Leo Tolstoy and Boris Pasternak (author of Doctor Zhivago).

4. Polenov’s little sister, Yelena Polenova (1850-1898), was also a skilled artist. Considered one of the first women in Russia to “achieve a durable status and reputation in art,” Polenova made contributions to almost every genre of art. She studied (and taught) painting and drawing, organized a carpentry and wood-carving studio, made sketches of furniture, created embroidery designs, worked on ceramic and porcelain, and illustrated folk tales. Polenova’s drawings were the basis for the Russian handicraft section of the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.

5. In the late 1800s, Polenov began creating theatrical decorations, including Savva Mamontov’s Russian Private Opera. (Mamontov was an industrialist, merchant, and entrepreneur.) Polenov continued his dedication to theatre in 1910, when he organized the first Moscow Folk Theater, and in 1915, when he built the House of Theatral Education [sic].

6. The Church of the Trinity at Bekhovo (1914-1916) was designed by Polenov for the local peasants. The church is located not far from Polenov’s estate in Borok, which was renamed Polenovo in memory of the artist. Included in most tours of the area are Polenov’s mansion-turned-museum, which houses Polenov’s artwork and that of his sister; his country studio, also known as The Abbey; and the Church of the Trinity.

A larger version of Polenov’s masterpiece, “Christ and the Sinner (Who is Without Sin?)” is available.

Fans should check out Wikimedia’s Polenov gallery and Ilya Repin’s portrait of Polenov.

For more Russian art, check out our past posts on Karl Briullov, Alexei Harlamoff, Wassily Kandinsky, Pavel Korin (#9 on the page), Konstantin Korovin (a pupil of Polenov), Arkhip Kuindzhi (second on the page), Aristarkh Lentulov, Illarion Pryanishnikov, Nicholas Roerich, Mark Rothko, Nadya Rusheva, Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Surikov, Vladimir Tretchikoff, Mikhail Vrubel, Konstantin Yuon, and the joint post on Marie Bashkirtseff, Boris Kustodiev, and Andrei Ryabushkin.

“Feel Art Again” appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at feelartagain@gmail.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place.