During his teenage years, in 1860s, Russia was energized by great minds promoting virtues of democracy, progress, education, and they would stand against oppression.

There he would meet important personalities at the time linked to the world of Art and Science: the painter Karl Briullov, the architect Roman Kuzmin (some years after, he would help design and build the Polenov family house at Imotchensy).

At his return to Russia, according to the advice he received during his life abroad, Dmitri Polenov started to do archaeological digs in ancient Russian sites.

His mother, Maria Alekseevna (1816–1895), was a painter and a portraitist; she received her lessons from the academician Moldavski, a partner of Karl Briullov.

Summer in Tsarkoye Selo was then re-edited with illustrations made by Vassili Polenov and his younger sister, Elena, also an artist.

From both parents and grandparents Vasily and his siblings would receive general knowledge about physics, history, geography and also the biographies of famous painters and musicians, and this tradition was stated in his mother's book in order to reach other children.

Today, at the Museum-House of Polenovo, we can see a glass cup with the Napoleonic coat of arm: Alexeï retrieved it from a chest containing French army official dinner service.

He participated to an essay competition organized by the Free Economic Society in 1766 on the following subject: “what is more useful to the State: that peasants should own land or own only property?”.

Polenov studied under Pavel Chistyakov and was a classmate and close friend of Rafail Levitsky, a fellow Peredvizhniki artist and photographer.

The price he received for this painting allowed him, along with other laureates, to become a pensioner (scholarship's owner) abroad and live in Europe at the expenses of the Russian State.

Vasily Polenov wrote about him: "He has something attractive, which makes anyone fall in love with his art; we feel the taste of life in the people he paints ".

In Paris, he attended Alexei Bogolyubov’s events (1824–1896), an official painter of the Russian Navy and also in charge of the orientation of the young residents of the Imperial Academy in France.

The creation of painted ceramics was also a good mean of acquiring additional incomes for the scholars, as these objects were highly prized in the French capital.

These Russian meetings were mainly frequented by the painters Ilya Repine, Vasily Polenov, Konstantin Savitski, Alexander Beggrov, Nikolai Dmitriev-Orenburgsky, Pentaleon Schyndler, Alexei Harlamov and Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolski.

When he returned from his trip, he made a decisive statement for his career: "There, I tried all kinds of painting [...], and I came to the conclusion that I have mostly talent for landscapes and scenes of everyday life, which I will exploit in the future. "

In the summer of 1874, Ilya Repine and Vasily Polenov followed the advice of their preceptor Bogoliubov and went to Normandy in quest for spontaneous impressions.

He completed his European work by returning to Paris, devoting himself to historical subjects after this momentous period of his career dedicated to Norman landscapes.

He attempted to impart the silent poetry of Russian nature, related to daily human life and his paintings generally reflect his sensitivity and delicacy, combining harmony and appeasement but also nostalgia.

In addition, the members promote the accessibility of art among the people by organizing traveling exhibitions (not limited to the artistic centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg).

In addition to Polenov, the main artists that took part of the circle were Repin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Constantin Korovin, Mikhail Vrubel, Elena Polenova (Polenov's younger sister, a brilliant watercolourist and ceramist), Mikhail Nesterov, Maria Iakountchikova (future sister-in-law of the artist) ... Abramtsevo even received the nickname of "Russian Barbizon".

He first made a real-sized preparatory study in the mansion of Savva Mamontov in Moscow before directly painting the final work that will be part of the fifteenth itinerant exhibition of the winter of 1887.

Thanks to the purchase by Tsar Alexander III of his painting Christ and the sinner (1884) for the amount, huge at the time, of 30 000 rubles, he bought a sandy hill overlooking the river, not far from the small village of Bekhovo.