In 1870 the wealthy Russian railroad tycoon Sawwa Mamontow acquired the estate of Abramtsewo, some 70 km north-east of Moscow, in the middle of the Russian forest. Mamontow and his wife Elisabetha Grigoriewna had a passion for Russian art and culture and invited many artists - among them Ilja Repin - to come and live on the estate in order to revive the Russian artistic tradition in painting and the crafts. Thus an artists’ colony was created. Studios for painting, furniture and ceramics were built as well as a Museum of Folk Art and a construction which now hosts a permanent exhibition of modernist paintings. The creative diversity of the artists' colony of Abramsevo spawned the term "Russian Style", which was used to designate a siginficant component of the nationalist and romantic trend in Jugendstil/Art Nouveau.
Many of the buildings have been renovated or are under renovation. The estate is open to visitors who are free to wander around the majority of the buildings.
Pictures:
Top: at the estate of Abramtsevo
Bottom: Vasilij Dmitieeviç Polenov (1844-1927), Birch avenue, 1880, , oil on canvas, Museum Abramtsevo
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