Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov (1 June 1844 – 18 July 1927) was a Russian landscape painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement of realist artists. His contemporaries would call him the “Knight of Beauty” as he embodied both European and Russian traditions of painting. His vision of life was summarized as following: “Art should promote happiness and joy”. As a painter and a humanist, he would truly believe in the civilizing mission of Art, Culture and Education.
As a native of St. Petersburg, he grew up in a wealthy, intellectual and artistic family. During his teenager years, in 1860s, Russia was energized by great minds promoting virtues of democracy, progress, education and they would stand against oppression.
The painter's dad, Dmitri Polenov (1806–1872), was a well known archaeologist and bibliographer. As a representative of the Academy of Sciences and then as the secretary of the Russian embassy of Athens, he spent 3 years in Greece. There he would meet important personalities at the time linked to the world of Art and Science: the painter Karl Briullov, the architect Roman Kuzmin (some years after, he will help designing and building the Polenov family house at Imotchensy). At his return to Russia, according to the advice he received during his life abroad, Dmitri Polenovo started to do archaeological digs in ancient Russian sites. For many years he devoted his knowledge and work to the Secretary of the Russian Archeological Society. In 1860, he travelled with his sons. This long horseback journey led them to Novgorod, Rostov, Yaroslav, Suzdal, Vladimir, Tver. Vasily Polenov was encouraged by his dad to draw sketches of any interesting ancient subject he would witness. His mother, Maria Alekseevna (1816–1895), was a painter and a portraitist, she received her lessons from a partner of Karl Briullov, the academician Moldavski. She also wrote a book in 1852 about the life of a family spending the summertime in a dacha. Summer in Tsarkoye Selo was then re-edited with illustrations made by Vassili Polenov and his younger sister, Elena, also an artist. From both parents and grandparents Vasily and his siblings would receive general knowledge about physics, history, geography and also the biographies of famous painters and musicians and this tradition was stated in this book in order to reach other kids.
His maternal grandmother was also really important during the painter's childhood. Vera Voeikova (1792–1873) received an excellent education as a young girl thanks to a woman that raised her after her parents’ death. She knew French and Russian literature. As a “mamie”, she managed to teach the importance of developing aristical abilities and she was also telling stories about the war of 1812. Her fiancé, the Colonel Alexeï Voeikov, had important missions back in the days as a military. Today, at the Museum-House of Polenovo, we can see a glass cup with the Napoleonic coat of arm: Alexeï retrieved it from a chest containing French army official dinner service.
Other important ancestor of Vasily Polenov was his great grandfather, Alekseï Polenov (1738–1816). As a famous scholar, he was the first Russian jurist with a multidisciplinary education (economics, history, philosophy...). He participated to an essay competition organized by the Free Economic Society in 1766 on the following subject: “what is more useful to the State: that peasants should own land or own only property?”. His text was then entitled “On the abolition of the serfdom of russian peasants”, which became effective 100 years after.
