His early iconographic work used special creative effects based on the curve of the globe, but its images were considered blasphemous by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Still, Petrov-Vodkin didn't quite see himself in art at that time; after graduating from middle school, he took a summer job at a small shipyard with plans to get into railroad college in Samara.

He also met at this time Victor Borisov-Musatov, an important painter resident in Saratov, who encouraged Petrov-Vodkin to continue his studies.

Petrov-Vodkin stayed in Saint Petersburg from 1895 to 1897 studying at the Stieglitz Academy, before moving to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

Even during his college years, Petrov-Vodkin managed to enter into conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church, which discarded his work on a chapel in Samara and ultimately destroyed it as unacceptable.

During this stage in his artistic development, Petrov-Vodkin extensively used an aesthetic of Orthodox icon together with brighter colours and unusual compositions.

He used it extensively through his works like Death of a Commissar and In the Line of Fire, which make the observer seem more distant, but actually close.

He turned to literature and wrote three major semi-autobiographical volumes, Khlynovsk, Euclid's Space and Samarkandia.

In the spring of 1932 the Central Committee of the Communist Party decreed that all existing literary and artistic groups and organizations should be disbanded and replaced with unified associations of creative professions.

His most famous literary works are the 3 self-illustrated autobiographical novellas: "Khlynovsk", "Euclidean Space" and "Samarkandia".

The largest collection of Petrov-Vodkin's works is in the Russian Museum in St Petersburg, where, as of 2012, a whole room in the permanent exhibition is devoted to the painter.