Riabushkin, Andrei

Born Oct. 17 (29), 1861, in the village of Stanichnaia Sloboda, in present-day Voronezh Oblast; died Apr. 27 (May 10), 1904, in Didvino, near Liuban’ station, in present-day Leningrad Oblast. Russian painter.

Riabushkin, the son of a peasant icon-painter, studied with V. G. Perov and I. M. Prianishkov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1875 to 1882. He also attended the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts between 1882 and 1890. Riabushkin settled in St. Petersburg. His works included genre paintings that mainly portrayed the festive side of peasant life (Peasant Wedding in Tambov Province, 1880, Tret’-iakov Gallery; Tea-drinking, 1903, private collection, Moscow). Riabushkin also painted scenes from Russian history, chiefly of the 17th century. The works are marked by genre elements and intimate scale (Russian Women of the 17th Century in Church, 1899, Tret’iakov Gallery; Bridal Procession in Moscow [17th Century], 1901, Tret’iakov Gallery; Riding, 1901, Russian Museum, Leningrad).

On the whole, Riabushkin remained faithful to the traditions of late-19th-century Russian painting. His representations of furnishings, costumes, and landscape were convincingly accurate. Yet Riabushkin frequently abstracted forms, imparting to his compositions dynamism and a certain flatness. He strove to emphasize the national character of his subjects through a decorative use of color suggestive of folk art and through the introduction of ornamental and architectural motifs. Riabushkin also worked as an illustrator.