Viktor Vasnetsov was born on May 15, 1848 in the Vyatka province (today - the Kirov region) in the family of a priest. Parents tried to give their children a versatile education: they read scientific magazines, taught them to draw. The first works of Viktor Vasnetsov were landscapes, scenes of rural life. The nature in his paintings is largely copied from the Vyatka species: winding rivers, hills, dense coniferous forests.
In 1858 Vasnetsov entered a theological school, then - to the seminary. He studied the lives of the saints, chronographs, annals, parables. Old Russian literature gave the artist an interest in antiquity. In his free time, Vasnetsov painted portraits of townspeople, made sketches from memory, helped paint the Vyatka Cathedral. In 1867, he illustrated a book by the ethnographer Nikolai Trapitsin on proverbs. Later, the artist published his drawings separately - in the album "Russian Proverbs and Sayings in the Drawings of V. M. Vasnetsov". During his studies, the painter created the first canvases "The Reaper" and "The Milkmaid".
In 1867, Viktor Vasnetsov dropped out of the seminary and went to St. Petersburg. In the winter of this year, he studied painting at the school of his friend, the artist Ivan Kramskoy, and a year later he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
Students of the Children's Art School No. 1 named after V.E. Tatlin, watched a film from the Russian Museum's media library dedicated to the work of the outstanding artist.
