Alexander Alexandrovich Kiselev (1838–1911) is a Russian landscape painter, member of the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions and one of the most loyal followers of the Peredvizhniki’s (The Wanderers) realism. 

Ilya Efimovich Repin recalled the artist’s work: ‘I would call his landscapes the most integral, simple, with all the rigor of the real truth and the academic knowledge of the subject’. 

Landscapes by Alexander Kiselev, depicting the nature of central Russia, the Caucasus, Little Russia, were always popular among contemporaries. There are always a lot of air and light in the canvases of A.A. Kiselev: either in abandoned cites or in wide-open spaces.

In March 1876, Alexander Kiselev was elected a member of the Association of Wanderers (Peredvizhniki) and since then has become a regular participant in their annual exhibitions. The artist worked a lot, developing his own individual style of landscape painting. The range of his subjects was wide: from landscapes of quiet corners of Russian nature to large panoramic views of the Caucasus, Italy, Germany, France.

There are several of the artist’s works in the collection of the Penza Art Gallery named after K.A. Savitsky, all imbued with a lyrical attitude to nature, special poetry and attention to detail.

Harmony and serenity reign in a small sketch “Above the Cliff”. On a fine summer day, the viewer observes the unhurried life of a village, standing above a cliff of a river. A woman goes down the road to get water, a child waves, standing near the village buildings. Wooden houses with thatched roofs, stuck to a cliff along the road, go beyond the horizon. The eye rests on this typical Central Russian landscape, time stands still, and industrial progress doesn’t disturb this patriarchal way. Each day is similar to the previous one, and this is the joy of being, the predictable routine of life, and the backbone.