Born to a family of a village priest. He studied at the Vyatka religious school(he did not graduate), he was taught drawing by gymnasium teacher N.Chernyshov. From 1867 he lived in St.Petersburg. From 1867-1868 he studied at the Drawing School at the Society for the Encouragement of Artists under I.Kramskoy. In 1868 he entered the Academy of Arts where he intermittently studied until 1874 under P.Basin, V.Vereshchagin, S.Vorobiev and P.Chistyakov. In 1869 his drawing entitled "Two Nude Male Models" and a nature drawing won him small silver medals, in 1870 his study entitled "Christ and Pilate Before the People" won him the large silver medal. From 1867-1877 he lived in St.Petersburg, periodically visiting Vyatka. From 1876-1877 he travelled to France and in 1885 Italy. He took an active part in the work of S.Mamontov’s Abramtsevo circle. He designed drafts for the Church of Our Saviour Made without Hands (1881-1882, together with V.Polenov), and the Cabin on Hen’s Legs circus pavilion (1883) for the Abramtsevo estate. A member of the STAE (from 1878), Moscow Society of Art Lovers (1903) and the Society for the Encouragement of Arts (1903-1904). Member of the Izograph artists’ union (1917) and the Union of Russian Artists (1918). In 1893 he was elected a Full Member of the Academy of Arts, he cancelled his membership in 1905. In 1910 V.and A.Vasnetsov initiated the creation of the Vyatka Art and History Museum. V.Vasnetsov occupys a special place in Russian historical painting of the second half of the 19th century. Having started his creative life as a genre and battle painter, he addressed the Russian epic in the 1880s reconceptualizing folklore tales and historical events (After the Battle of Igor Svyatoslavich with the Polovtsians, 1880). The Russian life that the artist depicts is reminiscent of the traditions of old Russian art. His nationally romantic and decoratively monumental approach was the predecessor of Art Nouveau. Working on the frescoes at the Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev, Vasnetsov created works in which N.Ghe saw the "…synthesis of old Russian and Byzantine features, the Pre-Raphaelites’ art and even Michelangelo […] but most importantly is that it is Russian national spirit…" Many contemporaries highly valued Vasnetsov’s talent and regarded his creative work as the emergence of a new truly national trend in Russian painting which "emanated the grandeur and austerity of the Orthodox Church style"