Konstantin Fyodorovich BOGAEVSKY 1872 — 1943Костянтин Федорович БОГАЄВСЬКИЙ • Констанитин Фёдорович БОГАЕВСКИЙKonstantin Fyodorovich Bogaevsky was born in Feodosia, Crimea (today’s Ukraine) in 1872. Painter well known for his symbolist landscapes. He took his first art lessons from Ivan Aivazovsky. In 1891-1897 he studied at the St. Petersburg Art Academy (Imperial Academy of Arts) in the class of Arkhip Kuindzhi. The art of young Bogaevsky was not popular with the Academy and he was even at some stage temporarily discharged from the Academy for the "Lack of the Talents". Kuindzhi protected him. In 1898 Bogaevsky traveled to Italy and France where he became acquainted with works of Claude Lorrain, whom he proclaimed as his true teacher. His first exhibition took place in Moscow in 1898. The artists worked in Feodoria since 1900. The main theme of his works became the symbolist landscapes of a non-existent land (known to his friends as Bogaevia) that he saw only in his dreams. Konstantin Bogaevsky became a popular painter after Maximilian Voloshin published a series of essays titled Konstantin Bogaevsky. Voloshin highly praised the symbolism of Bogaevsky`s paintings. Contemporaries often drew parallel between Bogaevsky and Nicholas Roerich. Bogaevsky was a member of Mir iskusstva, Union of Russian Artists and the Zhar-Tsvet. In 1906 he exhibited his paintings on Exposition de l`Art Russe organized by Sergei Diaghilev. In 1911 he visited Italy and discovered for himself paintings of Andrea Mantegna. In Feodosia from 1912 Bogaevsky kept good relations with another famous artist, Alexander Grin, as well as with members of the Koktebel group of Intelligentsia including Maximilian Voloshin, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam. The artist died in Feodosia in 1943. |
