XVII-XX century

In Russia, for a number of centuries worked many foreign artists , especially : Byzantine , Italian, German and French . Many Baroque buildings in St. Petersburg was designed by the Swiss artist Domenico Trezziniego . Other foreign artists working in Russia were Italians : Bartolomeo Rastrelli , Antonio Rinaldi , Giacomo Quarenghi and Carlo Rossi , French : Étienne Falconet , Jean- Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe and Jean -Baptiste Le Blond and Andreas Schlüter . Many of them decided to settle in Russia permanently and artists have been court-appointed czars . The most important monuments of this period are: the historical center of St. Petersburg and related facilities in the villages of Tsarskoye Selo , Peterhof, Pavlovsk , Strelna , Gatchina, Oranienbaum , Ropsza , Pulkovo, Szlisselburg , Kronsztadt (XVIII -XX centuries) - all on the List UNESCO World Heritage Site .
In 1757, opened the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg , which gave the painting to the Russian role and international status . The most eminent painters of portraits of the Academy were: Ivan Argunow , Fyodor Rokotow , Dmitry and Vladimir Lewicki Borowikowski . In the nineteenth century began to dominate realism , which greatly influenced the Russian identity . Russian landscape with vast rivers, virgin forests and birch groves with full vigor genre scenes and disasters, heroes became a symbol of Russianness . An important event in the history of painting was the establishment of the association pieriedwieżników (1870 ) , organizing mobile exhibitions in different regions of Russia. Members of the association were, among others Viktor Vasnetsov , Ilya Repin , Vasily Surikov , Ivan Kramskoj , Isaac Levitan and Ivan Shishkin .
The Russian avant-garde cover a range of phenomena and different directions within modernism that dominated Russian art in the years 1890-1932 . A special place occupied directions: art nouveau, neoprymitywizm , Constructivism , Suprematism , Futurism , kubofuturyzm and rajonizm . Representatives of the Russian avant-garde architecture were : Mikhail Eisenstein , Ivan Leonids , El Lissitzky , Vladimir Tatlin , Konstantin Melnikov , in painting and graphic Mikhail Vrubel , Alexander Benois , Vasily Kandinskij , Marc Chagall , Alexander Rodchenko , Kazimir Malevich , Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova . Neoprymitywiści Russian art group formed a jack diamonds (1909 ) and kubofuturyści donkey tail (1910 ) . Other major Russian architects include neoclassicals Matvei Cossacks and Vasily Bazhenov and structural engineering representative Vladimir Shukhov .The most important sculptors include: Vera Mukhina socrealiści and Yevgeny Wuczeticz , conceptualist and a representative of the soc -art ( Soviet variety of pop art ) Dmitry Zurab Tsereteli Prigow well .Many Russian artists odniosło successes abroad , including one of the founders of abstract art Vasily Kandinskij , Cubist and fowista Marc Chagall , Naum Gabo and sculptor . The most important Russian art museums include the Hermitage, the Tretyakov Gallery , the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and the Museum of Fine Arts . Pushkin in Moscow. The richest collections of works of primitive peoples have the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.