Ivan Alekseevich Ermenev
Ermenev, Ivan Alekseevich
Born in 1746; died after 1797. Russian graphic artist and painter.
Ermenev, the son of a stableman, studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts from 1761 to 1767 and at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris from approximately 1775 to 1788. His sketch depicting the storming of the Bastille is known from the engraving by Gento fils (1789, Hermitage, Leningrad). Ermenev began living in St. Petersburg in the early 1790’s. His portrayals of peasants in the watercolors The Blind Singers, The Beggars, and The Peasants’ Meal (1770–75, Russian Museum, Leningrad) are notable for their stern truthfulness, a quality rarely found in 18th-century art.