Mikhail Fyodorovich Shemyakin was born in Moscow in 1875. One of his grandfathers was a self-taught artist. The other one, Aleksey Abrikosov, was a famous and wealthy confectioner, a supplier to the court of His Imperial Majesty, and an active privy councilor. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Abrikosov factory was nationalized and later renamed the Babayevsky factory. Mikhail Shemyakin entered the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he studied under the guidance of Illarion Pryanishnikov, Vasily Polenov, and Abram Arkhipov. Still, he said that his favorite teachers were Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin who had the greatest influence on him. His painting style was also influenced by his time at the private art school of Anton Ažbe in Munich where he became acquainted with the latest trends in painting.

As a result, Mikhail Shemyakin combined elements of realism, impressionism, and Art Nouveau in his paintings. His works were always distinguished by detailed drawing and wide and free brushstrokes. The 1910 painting “Church” (also known as “Evening Light”) is indicative of his style. The artist later recalled this period in his work, saying,

Indeed, one of Shemyakin’s most recognizable features was the so-called “tricolor”, or “colorless” painting. It was in this manner that the artist captured the view from the window of his apartment in the conservatory building on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street where he lived his entire life. His wife Lyudmila Grzhimali was a musician and the daughter of a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. The windows of the living room in the corner faced the Church of the Ascension, or, as it was known, the “Small Ascension”. The painting is a vivid example of Shemyakin’s creative method. In the beginning, he would mark the main composition elements with charcoal or a brush, then design the clear structure of shapes, and finally, add color with energetic brushstrokes to achieve an expressive image.