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Did you know that Vasnetsov's ‘Alyonushka’ isn't a fairytale character? This painting by Viktor Vasnetsov is usually associated with the fairytale plot of little sister Alyonushka and her naughty brother Ivanushka, who turns into a kid goat. But,...
... the artist intended it to be quite different. The painting's original title was ‘Alyonushka (Durochka’; aka ‘Little Fool’)’. In Summer 1880, the artist rented a dacha in the village of Akhtyrka, near #Moscow, where he met the girl whose image he, subsequently, transferred to canvas. "There was so much melancholy, loneliness and purely #Russian sadness in her eyes that I simply gasped when I met her," Vasnetsov recalled. While working on the painting, he made 15 sketches and numerous studi...