[Where] Shabanov has most succeeded is to demonstrate the diversity of works in the Peredvizhniki exhibitions. This diversity includes such aspects as the types of paintings exhibited as well as the social breadth of models represented in portraiture.

H-Shera

This groundbreaking work greatly advances our understanding of Russian realist painting, the professionalization of artists, and wider processes of cultural identity formation in the nineteenth century. In recovering the original ethos and agenda of the Peredvizhniki, Shabanov provides a vital revisionist account which uncovers the pragmatic and commercial nature of this well-known but long misunderstood artistic group.

Rosalind P. Blakesley, Professor of Russian and European Art, University of Cambridge, UK

In his masterful investigation Andrey Shabanov offers an alternative history of Russian Realist art. Confronting and undermining the stereotypes which have long afflicted studies of the peredvizhniki (owing in small degree to the highly tendentious social interpretations by Soviet scholars), Shabanov places artists such as Kramskoi, Perov, and Repin in the practical context of the “art market” of photographic reproduction, advertising, incorporation, and mass distribution. By providing new and often archival information on the pragmatic, promotional, and commercial aspects of the peredvizhniki, Shabanov furnishes us with a luminous and lucid account of one of Russia's primary artistic attainments.

John Bowlt, Professor Emeritus, Slavic Languages and Literatures, the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, USA