Villevalde Bogdan Pavlovich (1818-1903)

BP Villevalde, received his art education at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1838-42), his chosen battleground battle genre - a very honorable in the era of Nicholas I. This kind of painting skills he learned from his teacher, AI Sauerweid.

 All his life he wrote Villevalde spectacular big picture of the historical victories of Russian weapons, as well as official events - the inauguration of the monument "Millennium of Russia" in Novgorod or entry of Emperor Alexander II in Moscow for the coronation. Yet he managed and dusted battle genre.

 It is much more common than has been long turned to the present or of recent history, so it is not just imprinted events difficult and time dragged the Caucasian War (1817-64). Following the general trend of the time and, obviously, his own propensity to domestic realism, the artist tried to cover as much as pomp and splendor.

 He often went to the place of combat, gaining experience needed for true image of reality. From sweeping paintings of battles Villevalde willingly passed to the reconstruction of small, private episodes, allowing a closer look into what is happening ("Episode of the Russian-Hungarian War", 1872, "The Battle of Bistrica," 1881 "Battle Etude", "head of the military," both 1880 and others).

 In the last two decades of his life Villevalde actually transgressed the border battle genre in a series of small paintings devoted to a campaign of the Russian army in Western Europe in the years 1813-15., Here he is with sympathy and humor, sometimes with a simple depict the relationship developing between Russian soldiers and locals.