Apollon Mokritsky

Apollon Mokritsky ( _uk. Аполлон Мокрицький, "Apollon Mokrytskyi"; _ru. Аполлон Мокрицкий, "Apollon Mokritsky", August 1810 –- 1870) was a Russian-Ukrainian painter of the Biedermeier school of uncontrolled Realist art. From 1849, he was a full member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts.

Life, art, and death

Mokrytsky was born in August 1810, in Pyriatyn, Poltava Governorate, modern day Ukraine. [http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/M/O/MokrytskyApollon.htm Mokrytsky, Apollon] . Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3. (1993)] His early art education was completed at the Nizhyn Lyceum of Prince Bezborodko, under the supervision of Kapiton Pavlov. After this, Mokrytsky studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art between 1830 and 1839, under Alexei Venetsianov and later with Karl Briullov. A year after completing his studies, Mokrytsky worked in Ukraine and visited Italy.

Around 1850, Mokrytsky was appointed "an academician of painting""Spirit of Ukraine: 500 Years of Painting." Winnipeg Art Gallery. 1991, pg. 192 ISBN 0-88915-163-6.] at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture.

Mokrytsky preferred to work in portraiture, representing "the Biedermeier school of uncontrolled Realist art which exhibited romantic overtones". "Artist's Wife" is one example of this style. Others include portraits of Yevhen Hrebinka (1840) and Nikolai Gogol, a self-portrait (1840), and numerous Italian landscapes.

In the history of Ukraine, Mokrytsky is known for the significant role he played in the life of Taras Shevchenko, the nation's poet and artist, born in conditions of serfdom. Mokrytsky introduced Shevchenko to the Russian and Ukrainian intelligentsia: artists Karl Briullov and Alexei Venetsianov, poet Vasilii Zhukovsky, writer Yevhen Hrebinka, intellectuals Panteleimon Kulish, Vasyl Hryhorovych and others. These individuals became interested in Shevchenko's fate, and helped to secure his freedom from serfdom. Mokrytsky left a diary (1975) which contains much material about Shevchenko.

In 1870, Mokrytsky died in Moscow aged 60.

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