Ivanov, Mikhail Matveevich

Born in 1748, in Novgorod; died Aug. 16 (28), 1823, in St. Petersburg. Russian draftsman and painter.

Ivanov studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts from 1762 to 1770. He studied under J. -B. Leprince in Paris from 1770 to 1773, and he completed his artistic training in Rome from 1773 to 1776. Ivanov became a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1785, where he began teaching battle-piece painting in 1800 and landscape painting in 1804. Attached to the staff of G.A. Potemkin during the 1780’s and early 1790’s, Ivanov painted the stormings of Ochakov and Izmail. He also painted scenes (primarily in watercolor) of the Ukraine, Bessarabia, the Crimea, and the Caucasus. These scenes, as well as Ivanov’s representations of Novgorod, St. Petersburg, and Tsarskoe Selo, are accurate documentations and majestic statements. They greatly contributed to the development of Russian landscape painting.