Viktor Lazarev

Viktor Nikitich Lazarev (; 3 September [22 August O.S.] 1897 – 1 February 1976) was a Soviet and Russian art critic and historian who specialized in medieval Byzantine, Russian, and Armenian religious art. He was the son of Nikita Lazarev, a Moscow architect, and was related by blood to Wassily Kandinsky.

Viktor studied at the Moscow State University in 1917–1920, He later taught at the Moscow State University, and since 1961 headed the faculty of History of Foreign Art. The faculty library was named "Lazarev cabinet" in his honour. He is buried at the Vagankovo Cemetery.

Lazarev was a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union since 1943. The Art History Institute in Moscow owes its origin to Lazarev's efforts. His magnum opus is The History of Byzantine Painting, published in 2 volumes in 1947 and 1948. It was translated into Italian in an expanded and revised version as Storia della pittura bizantina (1967). Lazarev was also known for his many writings on the Italian Renaissance, its beginnings and the evolution of Western portrait painting.

Works Portrait in European Art of the 17th Century , 1937 Origins of the Italian Renaissance , 1956–1959 Andrei Rublev and Rublev's School , 1966 Old Italian Masters , 1972 Kievan Rus' Mosaics and Frescoes , 1973 Byzantine and Kievan Rus' Art , 1978