Description of the picture:
Nestor the Chronicler – Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. One thousand eight hundred eighty five – 1893. A sketch of the mural of the Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev. Watercolor.
The figure of the legendary creator of The Tale of Bygone Years – the first Russian annals – is shrouded in the mystery and haze of time. The artist portrayed him as a wise old man in a dark monastic vestment, busy writing his famous annals. He looked up from work for a second, thinking about the text. The gray-bearded old man with a deep eagle eye is depicted as a saint, with a halo over his head, against the background of his cell.
It rests on a massive wooden music stand, decorated with carved details in the Russian style. On it are the attributes of his type of activity – a big pot-bellied inkwell, feathers, a penknife, scrolls of parchment. The artist depicts a stylized interior in the old Russian style as it was presented to most intelligentsia at that time – curly arched windows, bare plastered walls, tiled floors, massive, rather crude carved furniture.
Nestor’s robes are also stylized – he wears a cassock with recognizable features of ancient Russian boyar robes and a dark cloak with a hood. Thanks to the use of saturated colors and a clearly defined figure with an expressive face, all the viewer’s attention is focused on the personality of the chronicler. She seems to be a very wise and knowledgeable person, aware of the responsibility lying on him before the descendants."