Maksim Nikiforovich Vorobyov (1787 - 1855)

Maksim Nikiforovich Vorobyov

Maksim Nikiforovich Vorobyov (Russian: Максим Никифорович Воробьёв) was a Russian painter and teacher of the first half of the 19th century. He is considered the "father of Russian landscape painting" and is also known as a mentor who educated a whole pleiad of famous Russian painters.

Maksim Vorobyov painted at a time when photography had not yet been invented, so his pictures give a unique opportunity to see the look of Russian cities at that time. Already in the first works of the artist showed his individual style - an interweaving of academism and romanticism. Views of St. Petersburg occupy a special place in Vorobyov's work, and his "Oriental series" opened the theme of Orientalism in Russian art. From his trip to the Middle East, he brought back landscapes of cities, portraits, and paintings depicting everyday scenes. The exoticism of the region inspired the artist in his first night and seascapes, in which he revealed himself as a colorist, in many ways ahead of his time.

As a professor in the landscape class of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, Vorobyov trained such painters as Ivan Shishkin, Ivan Aivazovsky, Mikhail Lebedev, Mikhail Clodt, Alexey Bogolyubov and many others.