Andrey (Petrovich) Ryabushkin

(b Borisoglebsk, Tambov province [now Voronezh region], 29 Oct 1861; d Didvino, near Lyuban', St Petersburg region, 10 May 1904). Russian painter. He was the son of a peasant icon painter, and studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1875 to 1882 under Vasily Perov and Illarion Pryanishnikov. At first he worked in the realist tradition of his teachers and their associates: an early painting of contemporary peasant life, Village Wedding (sketch, 1880; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.) is based on A Sorcerer Arrives at a Peasant Wedding (1875; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.) by Vasily Maksimov, which Ryabushkin had seen in 1875. From 1882 to 1890 Ryabushkin studied at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg and then settled there. He received a stipend for travel abroad but chose instead to study the architecture of old Russian towns, and to paint scenes of peasant life. He also painted historical and genre scenes set in 17th-century Moscow, as Vasily Surikov had done before him. Unlike his predecessor, however, Ryabushkin was not interested in dramatic scenes from Russian history, but rather in the lyrical charm of old Russian architecture and dress. In A 17th-century Moscow Street on a Holiday (1895; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.) he still worked in a realist style. The painting depicts a series of humorous incidents, with well-dressed merchants hesitating to cross the waterlogged streets, while the poor simply wade through the water.

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