The main goal of Chistiakov was the preparation of the artist-citizen possessing high professional skill. His pedagogical method assumed the merger of the direct perception of nature by the artist with its scientific study. In creative practice he aspired to dramatization of a historical plot and psychological saturation in historical and genre portraits (Head of a Ciucciara , 1864, in the Russian Museum, St.Petersburg; Boyar, 1876, in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow).