Maksim Nikiforovich Vorobev

Born Aug. 6 (17), 1787, in Pskov; died Aug. 30 (Sept. 11), 1885, in St. Petersburg. Russian painter. Son of a soldier.

Vorob’ev studied in the St. Petersburg Academy of Art (1798-1809) with F. la. Alekseev and taught there from 1815, becoming a professor in 1823. During 1809-12 and 1817-18 he sketched views of Russian cities. He was assigned to the Russian Army in Germany and France (1813-14) and in the Balkans (1828); he traveled in the Middle East (1820-21) and Italy (1844-45). He painted pictures based on his travel sketches and executed a number of views of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Vorob’ev’s landscapes combine accurate architectural perspective with romantic elation and use various effects of light (View of the Moscow Kremlin, 1815; Autumn Night in St. Petersburg, 1835, Tret’iakov Gallery). A pioneer of Russian romantic landscape painting, Vorob’ev was the teacher of M. I. Lebedev, I. K. Aivazovskii, and both G. G. and N. G. Chernetsov.