Ivan the Terrible was one the most popular historical figures in Russian art at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Following the aesthetics of the time artists did not turn to objectively scientific concepts about the life of the Russian Tsar but to folk ideas. In this painting by Alexander Alexandrov Ivan the Terrible appears at the height of his powers, as the mighty warrior from an epic tale and as a wise military leader at the wave of whose hand powerful regiments are ready to advance against the enemy.

Alexandrov Alexander

Alexandrov, Alexander Alexeyevich
1884, Kazan – after 1913
Painter. Studied at the school of art in Kazan (till 1905), at the Higher Art School of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1905–1913). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1908).