Lebedev, Mikhail Ivanovich

Born Nov. 4 (16), 1811, in Tartu, now in the Estonian SSR; died between July 6 (18) and 13 (25), 1837, in Naples. Russian landscape painter. Son of a serf.

Lebedev studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art (1829–33) under M. N. Vorob’ev. In 1834 he went to study in Italy on an academy grant. A number of Lebedev’s early works were close to the landscape painting of the Venetian school—for example, Vasil’kovo: The Estate of A. I. Krutov (1833, Tret’iakov Gallery). During the last years of his life Lebedev strove to depict accurately light and air and the character of a given locale. His intensified colors and the contrast between shaded foreground and airy sunlit distances invest his paintings with a mood of romantic elation—for example, Allée in Albano and In Ghigi Park (both 1837, Tret’iakov Gallery).