Ivan Kramskoy

Ivan Kramskoy was a young realism painter. Who’s Main goal as an artist was to paint the people he saw in his dreams. For example, he wrote extensively about how people would constantly reappear in his dreams. He built lives with these people; however, he never met any of them in real life. Here is a portrait he did of his “dream wife.”

In his dreams, this woman would reaper over and over again and they slowly built a relationship together. The dreams were only sometimes consistent in time; sometimes, these two would be at the beginning of their relations, and the next dream would be in a 20-year marriage with their four children. No matter where they were in their relationship, they were always together and very happy. This relationship in Ivan’s dreams led him to never truly pursue anyone in real life because he was convinced that this woman was genuine, and the realities separated them. What convinced him more was that he would see his “relatives” in some of these dreams.

This is a portrait Ivan did of his “ brother” from his dreams who Ivan was absolutely convinced that he was real, but when more research was done to look for these family members, nothing came up. Ivan grew up in an orphanage and was never adopted, so he grew up never really knowing who he was. Once he was 17, he set off to live in Moscow alone, trying to find work and build a life for himself. He wrote in his journal that these dreams started when he was about 19. He recorded his dreams in journals to remember everything he experienced with these people. Ivan didn’t have much of a social life, but people knew of him and knew him in the area. Once Ivan passed away, people only knew that he stopped showing up to his job and getting art supplies at his local art stores. The local neighbors later found him dead in his bed at the age of 49. It was said he passed away in his sleep.