Apollinary Vasnetsov: The preserver of Moscow's past

On 6th August 2026, it will be 170 years since the birth of Apollinary Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, the artist whose paintings have allowed us to see what mediaeval Moscow looked like. His name is far less familiar than that of his famous elder brother Viktor, the creator of the iconic paintings “The Bogatyrs” and “Alyonushka”. Yet it was Apollinary, who headed the Commission for the Study of Old Moscow, who recreated the image of the mediaeval capital, transforming historical painting from romantic fantasy into precise scholarly reconstruction. Vasnetsov also distinguished himself as a talented landscape painter and theatre designer, creating sets and sketches for operas staged at leading theatres of the Russian Empire.

A son of the North

Apollinary Vasnetsov was born in 1856 in the village of Ryabovo in the Vyatka Governorate, into the family of a village priest. A childhood spent against the backdrop of the austere yet picturesque nature of the Russian North defined his path for ever. The artist later recalled: “The nature that surrounded me from childhood made me a landscape painter.” His father, an educated man, instilled in his son a love of learning, including astronomy. “At night he would draw my attention to the sky, and from childhood I knew the main constellations and stars,” - the artist wrote. His fascination with the night sky remained with him throughout his life and found expression not only in his landscapes, but even in articles published in the journals of the Russian Astronomical Society.

When the boy was thirteen, he was left an orphan. His elder brother Viktor, who was already studying at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, took responsibility for Apollinary’s upbringing and education. Viktor recognised his younger brother’s talent in drawing and insisted that he move to the capital. However, Apollinary never received a systematic formal art education. Moreover, in 1875, drawn to the ideas of the Narodniki, he passed the examination to become a people's teacher and left for three years to teach in a village school in the Vyatka Governorate. “By that time, the ships of Narodnichestvo had been burnt – although... love for my homeland, for the people, had not been burnt away,” - he would later say of that period.

Having returned to painting, he travelled extensively across Russia, creating monumental epic landscapes of the Urals, Siberia, and the Crimea. But the principal discovery awaited him in Moscow, to which he moved in 1878.

The “Artistic archaeologist” of the old capital

“I was struck by the sight of Moscow, and, of course, above all by the Kremlin,” – Vasnetsov recalled. This impression marked the beginning of his life’s work. Unlike his brother, who saw Moscow as a fairy-tale and spiritual symbol, Apollinary approached the ancient capital as a researcher. He created more than a hundred paintings and watercolours devoted to the history of Moscow from the 12th to the 17th centuries.

“One of the main reasons was probably that I simply love science: collecting material, classifying facts and studying them,” – he explained. Vasnetsov did not simply paint the city – he reconstructed it. His method was unique. The artist personally took part in archaeological excavations organised by the Moscow Archaeological Society, descended into trenches during sewer construction, studied the cultural layers of the city and sketched ancient masonry. He meticulously examined old maps of Moscow, chronicles and accounts written by foreign visitors. He meticulously studied old plans of Moscow, chronicles, and the accounts of foreign travellers, and before beginning a painting, he would draw precise perspective plans of the locality and even produce cardboard models of buildings in order to understand how the sunlight and shadows had fallen on structures that had disappeared centuries earlier.

This extraordinary attention to detail earned him great respect among his fellow artists. Alexander Benois called him an “artistic archaeologist.”

In 1900, in recognition of his achievements in painting, the Academy of Arts awarded him the title of Academician. Following the death of Isaac Levitan in 1901, Vasnetsov became head of the landscape class at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. In 1903, he became a full member of the Academy of Arts and one of the founders of the Union of Russian Artists, which brought together many of the leading masters of the period. In 1910, together with his brother Viktor, he initiated the creation of the Vyatka Art Museum, preserving forever a link with his native region. And the chief labour of his life became his work on the Commission for the Study of Old Moscow, which he headed from 1918.

Vasnetsov’s activities as head of the “Old Moscow” Commission coincided with an era of revolutionary upheaval and large-scale redevelopment. The commission was involved in saving historic monuments that were threatened with demolition: it documented them, took measurements and argued for their preservation before the new authorities. Vasnetsov himself delivered over sixty scholarly papers at the Commission's meetings, illustrating them with his own watercolours.

One of the most remarkable episodes in his biography is the story of the Voskresensky Bridge. This was Moscow’s first stone bridge across the Neglinnaya River, built in the 17th century. In the 19th century, it was buried when the river was diverted into an underground channel. In 1927, during construction work in the city centre, workers came across fragments of the bridge’s masonry. Scholars from the “Old Moscow” Commission immediately arrived at the site to measure and document the discoveries. Their research confirmed the astonishing accuracy of Vasnetsov’s paintings of the bridge, which he had created many years earlier. Moreover, the archival plans and drawings collected by the artist, together with his artistic reconstructions, later helped archaeologists in the late 20th century relocate and fully excavate the bridge during the construction of Manezhnaya Square. Today, its restored arches are the main exhibit of the Moscow Archaeology Museum.

Another monument with which the name of Vasnetsov is inseparably linked is the Sukharev Tower. The artist adored this masterpiece of the Petrine era, considering it a work of world-class architecture. When the question of demolishing the tower arose in the 1920s because it obstructed tram traffic, he launched a vigorous public campaign to save it. He wrote letters to the government, spoke at official meetings and proposed alternative solutions: either to route the tram tracks around the tower or to create pedestrian areas beneath its arches. Until his death in 1933, he used the authority of his commission to delay its destruction. However, a year after his death, the tower was finally dismantled. Thanks to Vasnetsov, however, highly accurate measurements and architectural drawings of the tower had been made. They remain a valuable source for architects and historians to this day.

Determined to preserve Moscow’s rapidly disappearing historic heritage, and possessing considerable authority, Vasnetsov was not afraid to publicly oppose redevelopment projects supported by the authorities when he believed they would lead to the destruction of architectural monuments. In 1931, he wrote a letter to the newspaper Izvestia, protesting against plans to demolish the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Yet even Vasnetsov was unable to save the cathedral.

His contemporaries valued the rare combination of artistic talent and meticulous scholarship that Vasnetsov possessed. His colleague on the commission, Moscow historian Pyotr Sytin, recalled that Vasnetsov’s authority as an archaeologist was unchallengeable: the artist “could see through the ground and read the stones where others saw nothing but construction debris.” At the same time, in his personal life, Apollinary Mikhailovich was, according to Konstantin Yuon, an exceptionally gentle, tactful, and even shy man. But whenever the protection of historical monuments was at stake, his shyness disappeared: he became unyielding and fearlessly championed the architectural legacy of Moscow.

An artist of the stage: opera “According to Vasnetsov”

In addition to easel painting, Apollinary Vasnetsov also made a significant contribution to theatre and set design. His involvement with the theatre began in the 1880s at the Abramtsevo estate, where members of the famous circle around Savva Mamontov were enthusiastic about amateur theatrical productions. The young artist helped his elder brother Viktor and Vasily Polenov create stage sets. The creative freedom that flourished at Abramtsevo played an important role in shaping his future artistic path. It was here that new ideas about theatrical production began to emerge, ideas that would later develop on the professional stage.

Vasnetsov’s first major success as a stage designer came with Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina, which premiered in the autumn of 1897 at Mamontov’s Moscow Private Opera. When embarking on the sketches, he turned, as always, to his sources: he studied old plans and engravings, historical writings, and the accounts of foreign travellers. Thanks to this meticulous preparation, the sets were convincing and historically accurate. In the sketch “Red Square”, Vasnetsov depicted the Kremlin and St Basil’s Cathedral with archaeological precision. For the panorama of ancient Moscow in the background of “Streltsy Settlement”, he used an engraving by Pieter Picart from 1708. The artist worked in his favourite muted ochre and pearlescent tones, characteristic of early Russian painting, and paid particular attention to details – whether it was a stone pillar erected by the Streltsy or a wooden peasant house decorated with intricate carvings.

In 1900, Vasnetsov received an offer from the Directorate of the Imperial Theatres to design Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Sadko at the Mariinsky Theatre. To gather material from life, he travelled to the Russian North, visiting the Pskov, Novgorod and Arkhangelsk Governorates, where he sketched architectural monuments, examples of wooden carving and traditional costumes. However, critics were divided over Sadko. The artist’s biographer Vladimir Kign wrote that Vasnetsov’s ideas had “not been fully realised by the theatre craftsmen”.

The master’s most significant theatrical work was created for the Bolshoi Theatre, where he frequently collaborated with Konstantin Korovin. Between 1904 and 1908, they jointly created set designs for A Life for the Tsar and The Snow Maiden. Korovin, who had served as the chief designer of the Imperial Theatres, knew perfectly well that he himself gravitated towards Impressionism, whereas Vasnetsov was a recognised master of scholarly historical reconstruction. That was precisely why Korovin advocated bringing his colleague into the projects: he wanted Russian antiquity to be presented on stage “in all its historical reality”. Vasnetsov’s greatest triumph at the Bolshoi Theatre was his work on The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (1908). His designs for the key acts determined the entire visual and monumental character of the production. The artist used muted colours reminiscent of icon painting to bring out the epic and spiritual dimensions of Rimsky-Korsakov’s music.

Vasnetsov’s talent as a stage designer received the highest praise from his contemporaries. Researchers and theatre professionals noted that his set designs were so valuable in both their scholarly and artistic approach that, decades later, new productions were still being staged “after Vasnetsov”. A striking example of his mastery was his design for Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s opera The Oprichnik at Zimin’s Private Opera in 1911. Even in the theatre, the stage designer remained true to himself: his sketches were not merely beautiful backdrops, but the result of a profound study of the historical period, whether it was Streltsy-era Moscow or a medieval city.

Today, when many monuments of ancient Moscow have been irretrievably lost, Apollinary Vasnetsov’s paintings remain the principal source of visual memory of the city. Historians compare their discoveries with his works; directors and theatre designers use them as reference models, and even creators of 3D reconstructions of medieval Moscow rely on the artist’s works as foundational visual references.

Behind his exquisite precision stood not merely talent, but also methodical discipline, scholarly integrity, and a profound love of his work. And today, as we walk through central Moscow or visit the underground museum on Manege Square, we can see the city through his eyes - alive, authentic, and, at the same time, wonderfully magical.