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Shishkin, Ivan (Ivanovich)
(b Yelabuyga, 25 Jan 1832; d St Petersburg, 20 March 1898). Russian painter, etcher and draughtsman. He studied at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow (1852–6) and at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg (1856–60). His early work is strongly Romantic in character, as exemplified by the idyllic View of Valaam Island (1858; Kiev, Mus. Rus. A.). On a government grant (1862–5) he studied at the academies of Munich, Prague and Düsseldorf, and during these years he turned to a more objective representation of the countryside, as in View in the Vicinity of Düsseldorf (1865; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). The depiction of forests then became the hallmark of his work. Shishkin was one of the founder-members of the WANDERERS (Peredvizhniki), exhibiting three works in their first exhibition in 1871. Shishkin strove for an accurate rendering of the endless variety of forms in the plant world (which earned him the sobriquet ‘the book-keeper of leaves’), but his best work is far from being a dry and punctilious exercise in recording botanical detail. Some scenes give a sense of the majesty of Russian forests and fields (e.g. Rye, 1878, and Vastness of the Forest, 1885; both Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.), while others evoke the changing moods of the landscape (e.g. Sunlit Pines, 1886, and Morning in the Pine Forest, 1889; both Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.). Shishkin also treated such subjects in drawings and in accomplished and very popular etchings. He produced four collections of etchings between 1873 and 1895; these did much to encourage the revival of interest in etching technique in Russia. In 1894–5 Shishkin taught landscape painting at the St Petersburg Academy.
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