(Russian: The Wanderers), group of Russian painters who in the second half of the 19th century rejected the restrictive and foreign-inspired classicism of the Russian Academy to form a new realist and nationalist art that would serve the common man. Believing that art should be useful, a vehicle for expressing humanitarian and social ideals, they produced realistic portrayals of inspiring or pathetic subjects from Russian middle-class and peasant life in a literal, easily understood style. Forming a Society of Wandering Exhibitions in 1870, they organized mobile exhibitions of their works in an effort to bring serious art to the people.