canvases. In 1893 he became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Polenov was elected a member of the St.Petersburg Academy of arts in 1893. The Artist’s studio museum, the House of the Oka In the late 1880s, Polenov dreamed of a house-museum in the countryside in order to spread the benefits of a rich cultural life. He wanted to create his own place of creation and education but also a place where he could expose the archaeological and artistic collections gathered by his family along the decades. In 1889, he made a trip to the area of Taroussa, 130 km south of Moscow, with his friend and disciple Constantin Korovine. Struck by the beauty of the place, he decided that he will make his dream true there, on the banks of the river Oka. 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. The house, built based on the model his childhood's house in Imotchentsy, was completed in 1892. It is a large three-storey wooden building. He realized himself the plans the design of it and the general style approaches Art Nouveau, which he himself called "Scandinavian", mixing Romanesque and Gothic architecture but also Western medieval style. From the outside, the house remains very original by multiplying volumes and facades, varying the roofs’ shapes and sizes. The ground floor is occupied by common rooms (library, dining room, games room). On the upper floors are the living rooms, Polenov's workshop and his wife's office. Large windows are arranged to admire the view of the Oka and Taroussa at the time. Since then, the trees planted by the artist, his children and local peasants, are closing a little bit the view but offers a dense forest. Pines mainly grew up on this sandy land. Little by little, he also built annexes: a cart shed, stables, a house for the workers, "the admiralty", intended to be the house for the boats (today the room is dedicated to the diorama), a small isba for children, and finally Polenov's final workshop, "the abbey" a large brick building to be his last studio (it was also used for theatrical performances). Paying tribute to the family's humanist tradition,