The landscape painter Manuil Christophorovich Aladjalov was born into an Armenian merchant family in the town of Nakhichevan-on-Don on June 8, 1862. After graduating from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1890, he spent most of his life in Moscow, never traveling further than the Volga region on his study trips.

Manuil Aladjalov’s teachers included outstanding Russian artists who inspired in him a love for Russian realist landscape painting — Vasily Polenov, Vladimir Makovsky, and Illarion Pryanishnikov. In turn, Manuil Aladjalov gained the admiration and affection of great Russian painters, including Isaac Levitan, Abram Arkhipov, and Konstantin Korovin.

Manuil Aladjalov is recognized as a masterful landscape painter. In many of his works, he depicted the nature of Central Russia.

In her book “Moscow Art Wednesdays”, the researcher Yekaterina Kiselyova wrote about him,

From his short trips, the artist would bring home numerous sketches and studies, inspiration for his future paintings depicting the beauty of Central Russia.

Although Manuil Aladjalov did not become as famous as his teachers, he is rightfully considered one of the most distinguished realist painters of the early 20th century. The artist’s works are kept in many museums and private collections across Russia. The Khimki Art Gallery houses his study “Wide Expanses”.