Mikhail Vrubel

Mikhail Vrubel was born in Omsk, completed a law degree at Saint Petersburg University and then studied under Pavel Chistyakov at the Academy of Arts. In Kyiv he worked on restoring Saint Cyril’s Church paintings and made religious compositions of his own. This experience joined older art with new approaches to form.

Moving to Moscow brought him into Savva Mamontov’s circle. Vrubel worked for the Russian Private Opera, with ceramics, buildings and interiors. From 1890 he directed Abramtsevo’s ceramic workshops. Painting, theatre and applied arts remained interconnected parts of his activity rather than successive stages of a single profession.

Literature and music supplied subjects he freely transformed into images. His Demon relates to Lermontov and impressions from Rubinstein’s opera. Mamontov’s support provided working space for the 1890 painting. Documents and artistic process help explain such works while preserving a distinction between the artist’s biography and his fictional characters’ lives.