Mikhail Nesterov
1862–1942
Mikhail Nesterov was born in Ufa and studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts. His teachers included Vasily Perov, Alexei Savrasov and Pavel Chistyakov. Associated with Abramtsevo from the late 1880s, he exhibited with the Wanderers and World of Art and helped found the Union of Russian Artists. He also made church murals and mosaic designs.
The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew began his series devoted to Sergius of Radonezh. He visited places associated with the saint and used landscapes near Abramtsevo. Some senior Wanderers objected to its religious character, but Pavel Tretyakov purchased it. The episode demonstrates Nesterov’s expansion of exhibition painting: closely observed nature accommodated a miraculous sacred event. His work also includes portraits, landscapes and monumental church commissions in Kyiv and Moscow.
