The schools of St. Petersburg and Moscow

The St. Petersburg and Moscow art schools were the centres of attraction for the talented youth from all parts of the great empire. The main educational establishment of arts in the Russian Empire was the Academy of Arts. The first student of Belarusian origin at the Academy was Michal Padalinski. In 1827–1839, Ivan Hrucki studied at the studio of Maxim Vorobyov. In 1832, after the ‘November uprising’ of 1830 was defeated, Vilna University with its Department of Fine Arts was closed. That geerated a new wave of students from the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania to St. Petersburg. In the 1840s, Ivan Hrucki was followed by his brothers Andrey and Evstafi . The tradition of family study was continued by brothers Sergey, Iosif, Vasily and Nikolay Zaranka; the Haraŭsky brothers — Ipalit (Apalinari and Hilari In the 1830s–1840s, Kanstantsin Kukevich and Kandrat Karsalin studied at the Academy of Arts; and in the 1850s — Nikadzim Silivanovich.

The state Drawing School at the Society for Encouraging Artists was founded in St. Petersburg in 1839. Apalinary Haraŭsky and Tadeush Dmahoŭsky were professors, while Marc Chagall, brother and sister Arkadz and Zinaida Astapovich were students there. In 1843, in Moscow, the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was opened. In 1856, a graduate of the Academy of Arts Sergey Zaranka started to teach there. In the 1890s, Vitold Bialynitsky-Birulya and Stanislaw Žukowski studied there with Levitan, S. Korovin, V. Polenov and I. Pryanishnikov as their teachers.

Not many graduates of the Russian art schools returned to Belarus in the 19th century. They were not in demand in their native land. The artists had to move to large artistic centres of Russia or of the Kingdom of Poland. At the turn of the 20th century, the situation changed. In the 1890s, Lev Alperovich, Yakaŭ Kruger, Ferdinand Ruszczyc, Moisie Sliepian after studies at the studio of the Itinerant artists went to their homeland to work and teach a new generation of artists. Yu. Pen was a teacher of Marc Chagall, Ossip Zadkine ; Yakaŭ Kruger had Chaïm Soutine and Ivan Akhremchyk as his students.