Viktor Vasnetsov

Viktor Vasnetsov
The Flying Carpet (1880)

Viktor Vasnetsov is one of the most famous Russian painters of the late nineteenth – early twentieth century. He was the first to find his inspiration in folk and mythological subjects, convinced that «fairy tales, songs of gesture, legends, dramas etc. reflect the people in their entirety, their appearances and aspirations, their past, their present and, who knows, perhaps their future.»

Vasnetsov imagined the flying carpet from a popular fairy tale as an enormous bird with the back curved upward and the wings wide open. Ivan Tsarevich returns on this flying carpet from his daring journey to the end of the world and brings back with him the magical firebird capable of fulfilling wishes.

The canvas was initially commissioned to Vasnetsov by Savva Mamontov, a great industrialist and patron who contributed enormously to the development of Russian art, architecture and theater at the end of the 19^th century. Various artists stayed and worked for long periods in the house of Mamontov, who often helped them and supported them financially.

Created in 1880, the painting is astonishingly persuasive. It is the incarnation of the irresistible human desire to fly, create and conquer. The Flying Carpet is the first of Vasnetsov’s paintings with mythological subjects. The artist, then aged 30, chose a subject hitherto unimaginable in art, undertaking to express the dream of free flight and giving his work poetic connotations. The canvas caused much debate and made its author famous. Vasnetsov was the founder of the so-called particular «Russian style» within Pan-European symbolism and modernism. The artist transformed Russian historical painting, combining medieval subjects with the moving atmosphere of poetic fairy tales. The same principles of «Russian style» were applied by Vasnetsov in architecture and design: the Church of the Holy Face in Abramtsevo (1881 – 1882) and the facade of the famous Tretyakov Gallery (1906) were designed based on his drawings and are reminiscent of ancient Russian art. But the culmination in the monumental and decorative work of the artist is the frescoes of the Cathedral of Saint Vladimir of Kiev (1885 – 1896) in Ukraine. There, Vasnetsov set himself the goal of renewing the traditions of the Byzantine icon by introducing lyrical and personal notes.