«Russian Light» (On the 175th Anniversary Since the Birth of P.N. Yablochkov)

Abstract

For a short period of time (from the late 1870s to the early 1880s), the "Russian light" conquered the whole world. The triumphant march of Yablochkov’s lighting system was reflected in numerous publications, which were often accompanied by brilliant illustrations. The article attempts to collect visual materials reflecting the tireless activity of the Russian inventor and his associates. Many famous artists, who were the eyewitnesses of those events, captured Yablochkov’s “Russian light” on their canvases and engravings: Apollinary Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, Nikolai Nikolaevich Karazin, Louis Poyet, Charles Amédée de Noé (Cham), Edgar Degas, Jacques-Joseph Tissot, and others. The article gives the reader the opportunity to see all the splendor of the new electric light through the eyes of the artists of those years. The illustrations given in the article are important visual primary sources, valuable keepers of information that expand our understanding of the time the electrical engineering was in the making and showed rapid development.