One of the most remarkable representatives of Symbolism in Russian painting was Konstantin Fyodorovich Bogaevsky (1872–1943), an artist and graphic painter, the creator of an original epic and romantic style of landscape of the Eastern part of the Crimea, an author of romantic Crimean landscapes, images of architectural monuments and imagined landscapes taking us back into the past of Cimmeria and Taurida. Maximilian Voloshin, a poet and art critic, noted that ‘Bogaevsky’s art has emerged in its entirety from the land where he was born. To appreciate his work, one needs to get to know this land.’ Bogaevsky was born and lived most of his life in Feodosia.

In the artist’s landscapes, the city stands out as a place with a variety of cultural traditions. Feodosia was founded as an Ancient Greek colony; under the Ottoman rule it was known as ‘Little Istanbul’, and in the 19th century, already as part of Russia, it was glorified in the art of Ivan Aivazovsky.

Almost everyone in Feodosia had seen Aivazovsky’s paintings, and aspiring artists mastered the rudiments of art by copying them. Bogaevsky was no exception. As a boy he studied with one of Aivazovsky’s students, Adolf Fessler. Later, at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, he happened to become close to another outstanding seascape painter, Arkhip Kuindzhi. Bogaevsky completed his education with a trip across Italy.

In the early 1910s Bogaevsky participated in the exhibitions by the Mir isskustva group and was carried away by the ideas of symbolism which in Russia were most fully reflected in the art of Mikhail Vrubel. Symbolists ignored the reality around them and turned instead to the world of dreams, fantasies, myths and legends, relying on metaphoric images and allegories.