There are many Russian landscape painters who were famous during their lifetimes but have since been almost completely forgotten. One of them is Sokrat Vorobyov. He was a subtle and exquisite draftsman and watercolorist who was popular not only in Russia but also abroad. His father Maksim Vorobyov was a famous landscape painter and one of the leading representatives of Romanticism, as well as a professor of perspective and landscape painting. For a long time, Sokrat Vorobyov stayed in the shadow of his father’s fame.
Sokrat Vorobyov was born in St. Petersburg in 1817. At the age of sixteen, he entered the Academy of Arts where he chose landscape as his specialization. Sokrat Vorobyov borrowed from his father a romantic approach to depicting nature. The name of Maksim Nikiforovich Vorobyov is associated with the term “mood landscape”. Being able to capture the light and aerial effects, he conveyed subtle nuances of mood in his landscapes. His son Sokrat also mastered this skill. During his studies, he achieved significant success, receiving two small silver medals, a grand silver medal, a small gold medal, and finally a grand gold medal upon his graduation in 1838. As a result, he earned the right to a state-funded trip to Italy.
Among his paintings created during this trip, art critics praised two landscapes — “San Vito” and “View of Mount Pellegrino”. In 1844, Sokrat Vorobyov was in Palermo while it was visited by Nicholas I. The emperor commissioned him to create an album of paintings with views of Italy. These carefully and elegantly designed paintings by the young artist gained popularity at the court of the Russian emperor. After he returned to St. Petersburg in 1846, Sokrat Vorobyov was made a member of the Academy of Arts.
