Peasant painting. Russian life in the 19th century in living paintings by the forgotten artist Alexei Korzukhin, who is adored at Western auctions

"Return from the city". Fragment. / "Peasant Girls in the Forest". Fragment. Price: 266.5 thousand dollars. Christie's. (2011).

Name Alexei Ivanovich Korzukhin rarely mentioned among eminent Russian artists of the 19th century. But this does not make his creative heritage less significant in the history of art. Korzukhin - great artist, one of the best Russian painters of the domestic genre, whose name has been forgotten. While his paintings are real documentary evidence of the life and way of life of the Russian people in the century before last.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0korzyhin-029.jpg" alt=" "The drunken father of the family." (1861). Author: A.I. Korzukhin." title=""The Drunken Father of the Family" (1861).

The requirements of the Academy for students were high, and all achievements were not easy for Korzukhin, but with hard work and diligence he was close to receiving a gold medal and a trip abroad to improve his skills. Alas, by the will of fate, he was among those students, headed by Ivan Kramskoy, who left the Academy in protest against the imposed theme final work. This rebellion was called - "revolt of the 14th". A few years later, Alexei Korzukhin nevertheless returned to the Academy and received the title of academician.

Aleksey Ivanovich devoted all his skill and ability to the everyday genre, reflecting scenes from the everyday life of the people. But unlike the artists who wrote in this genre and denounced the unjust existing order, Korzukhin was not inclined to rebellion and indignation - on his canvases we do not see the accusatory pathos of the Wanderers.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0korzyhin-003.jpg" alt=""Bachelorette Party" (1889).

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0korzyhin-012.jpg" alt=""Commemoration at the Village Cemetery". Author: A.I.Korzukhin." title=""Commemoration at the Village Cemetery".

In 1865, Korzukhin was awarded the rank of artist of the first degree for the painting "Wake at the Village Cemetery", and in 1868, for the painting "The Return of the Father of the Family from the Fair", the Academy awarded him the title of academician.

"The return of the father of the family from the country fair." (1868)

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0korzyhin-010.jpg" alt=""Sunday"

All the skill of the painter is clearly visible on the canvas "Sunday". The composition of this particular painting is amazing. Its center is a boiling samovar, around which the whole plot is tied. The whole family is assembled and is about to start eating. In the meantime, they have fun, dance and play.

From such a lively and cheerful plot, family warmth and the delicious smell of dinner emanates. The viewer has a desire to get to this cheerful glade himself, go dancing, play along with the harmonist and just breathe in the air of this amazing spring day.

"Return from the city". (1870)

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0korzyhin-016.jpg" alt=""Bird Enemies" (1887).

Three peasant barefoot boys in the early morning bravely step on"охоту". Ловля птиц на продажу дает им неплохой доход, поэтому ребята подходят к этому занятию ответственно. Об этом говорят клетки для будущей добычи и длинный шест для ловли. Старший мальчик, по-видимому, увидел стаю пернатых и увлекает за собой, указывая другим, куда им следует двигаться.!}

"At the edge of bread." (1890)

What should I do?" And the viewer's heart contracts to the point of pain.

"Collection of arrears." (1868)

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/0korzyhin-008.jpg" alt=""Separation (1872)".

Pictures about difficult life and life common people, a contemporary of A. Korzukhin, a well-known Russian artist, also wrote about his hardships, sufferings and small joys
28.04.2017

Each of us carries the world of childhood. Everything that surrounded us in childhood acquires a deep meaning with age. Half-forgotten memories of that time in adulthood seem to us significant and deep. Often they determine the fate of a person, and if we are talking about a creative person, then they set the horizons of creative interests.

Simple Russian truth

Most of the Russian artists of the 19th century, who depicted the Russian village, were superficially familiar with its life. And only Vasily Maksimovich Maksimov (1844-1911) knew the world of the Russian village from birth, was a part of this world. Throughout his life, he carried his love for the patriarchal world of the Russian peasantry.

The childhood of the artist Vasily Maksimov passed in the village of Lopino, Novoladozhsky district, St. Petersburg province. His parents were state peasants, and until the age of ten Maximov grew up in the countryside. Poetic sensitivity woke up early in the boy. It was surrounded by the centuries-old way of peasant life, colorful ceremonies of weddings and agricultural holidays, huts with beautiful carvings, costumes, homemade fabrics, and embroideries on them. And most importantly, simple working people, from whom he learned diligence, honesty, sincerity and mercy.

The father and mother of the future artist were the only literate people in the village. Vasily's great-grandfather was also famous in the village as a literate man. The father began to teach his son to read early. Just as early, the boy began to draw. His mother encouraged this inclination. But already at the age of six, Vasily survived the death of his father, and at ten, his mother.

With what reverence he wrote much later in his memoirs of people dear to him! The description of the mother is especially striking: “The late uncle Father Trifilius, recalling his sister, said: “Everyone was ready to confess to your mother, she inspired such a feeling with her whole being.” She could not stand lies in people and did not lie herself, she always told the truth, but she was so able to say that very rarely anyone was offended by her. From us she demanded complete sincerity and, when she noticed the slightest evasiveness, reproachfully fixed her brown eyes and thereby returned to the truth.

Vasily Maksimovich did not remember his mother sitting idle, getting angry or condemning anyone. She bore her early widowhood with dignity, not falling into despair when she was left alone with her three sons, but trusting in the will of God.

Difficult path

During her lifetime, her mother managed to send her son to the monastery school, and then to the novices of the Nikolaev Monastery. In the house of Hieromonk Anthony (Bochkov), his entire "monastic spiritual life" proceeded. Here the boy read books by N.V. Gogol, I.A. Krylov, Plutarch, recognized the poems of A.S. Pushkin. But Vasily soon left the monastery to study drawing. On a wagon of hay, brother Alexei brought Vasily to St. Petersburg. Here, the future artist entered the icon-painting workshop, where he was often offended and punished. Having escaped from this owner, he ended up with another. Life here was no easier, but here he was at least allowed to go to the drawing school at the Technological Institute, where he was accepted immediately into the third grade.

To survive in such conditions, Vasily needed to have great perseverance and inner aspiration. To live, the young man painted icons and portraits of local merchants. Finally, at the age of eighteen, he passed the entrance exams to the Academy of Arts.

January 7, 1863 V.M. Maximov began his studies with reverence and delight. For him, the time of rapid success began. Soon he became the first in the class in drawing. Throughout the course, the peasant son Vasily Maksimov was one of the best students. He was talented in everything: he sang beautifully, wrote poetry, played in performances, was fond of woodcarving, etching, selflessly engaged in carpentry work - he made chairs, dishes and bowls. He did not tolerate idleness and satiety.

He passionately and genuinely loved his homeland. “I never considered a trip abroad to be the height of well-being, I even found it harmful for a young man who does not know his homeland. Love for the motherland instilled in me my mother with her stories about Moscow, Kyiv and other places. What a connoisseur of foreign cities I am when I haven’t seen my own, and upon returning, perhaps, you won’t be able to understand and appreciate your own, ”he wrote.

In the autumn of 1866, Vasily Maksimov received a certificate with the title of an artist of the 3rd degree, after which he settled in his native village. He lived in a hut, wore a Russian shirt and trousers; the tailor-brother sewed for him a tanned sheepskin coat with embroidery. The peasants accepted Maksimov, he became theirs for them. The authority of the artist was so great that the peasants went to him for advice, he was invited to family sections, he corresponded with many peasants for many years later. Village life and writing peasant paintings became a real asceticism of a deeply convinced and strong-willed artist.

Peasant son and general's daughter

Visiting the neighboring estate of General Izmailova, Vasily met her daughter. “I fell in love with this wonderful girl, I fell in love sacredly, I’m ready to lay down my head for her if circumstances demanded, but I concealed this feeling from everyone so that no one touched roughly this shrine. Meanwhile, the disturbing feeling of the unknown haunts me day and night,” the artist wrote.

Maximov was afraid that she and her parents, being nobles, would not accept him, a peasant son living with his brothers in a simple hut. He was not ashamed of his roots and wrote with pride that "he does not intend to abandon his relatives in the future."

The fears were in vain: Lydia warmly and simply accepted the timid and inept recognition of the artist. And soon, on January 29, 1868, the general's daughter became the wife of a peasant. Lydia Alexandrovna became the artist's muse and adviser.

“You are ours, if you write, it’s not for laughter”

Vasily Maximov works with enthusiasm, one after another paintings appear in which, without idealization, but also without rough naturalism, the artist, faithful to the truth, shows the Russian peasant world. Ilya Repin said best of all about Maksimov: “His paintings can be called pearls of folk art. They are modest, not spectacular, they do not scream with their colors, they do not cry out with their plots ... this is the simplest Russian eternal truth. She shines from Maximov's unpretentious paintings, from every face and gesture ... "

The audience paid attention to the work of Vasily Maksimov very early. His painting "Grandma's Tales", written by the artist at the age of 23, was bought for his famous gallery philanthropist P.M. Tretyakov, who later acquired all the major works of Vasily Maksimovich.

The peasants themselves, who posed for Maximov, told him: “You are ours, if you write, it’s not for laughter.” These pictures are amazing. Log huts with their modest and poor life at first glance seem miserable to the viewer. But it is worth peering, and an understanding comes of how complex and deep the world of their inhabitants is. The obligatory emphasis is made by the artist on the image of the red corner of the Russian hut. Rows of icons stand here, a lampada burns, illuminating the walls of a poor dwelling with a golden light. And in moments of despair, danger, disaster, it is these icons that the heroes of his paintings turn their eyes to.

A traveling exhibition in 1882 featured several of Maximov's paintings. One of them is "Sick Husband". The artist continued a theme close to him, depicting a sick village peasant on a couch in a hut, next to him his wife bent over the icons. This was part of his childhood memories of his father's illness and mother's fervent prayer.

Several times V. M. Maksimov traveled to the Volga. In the village of Varvarikha, near Yuryevets, he will write the touching "Blind Master". The blind owner of the house sits on a bench by the window, holding a small child on his lap. The father feeds the baby, next to it is a cradle-cradle stuffed with straw. Homemade in the field. Rods and tools are scattered everywhere. The owner weaves baskets, he is not a burden to the family, but its support. Surprisingly calm expression on his face. And here, in this poor house, they live with faith and hope in the mercy and help of God.

During these years, Maksimov created a whole series of paintings dedicated to the life of the poor, the difficult peasant lot: “Poor Dinner” (1879), “Auction for arrears” (1880), “Bread loan” (1882), “At my lane” (1891) , "The dashing mother-in-law" (1893). The artist could not stand falsehood and "writing". I. N. Kramskoy said about his works: “Yes, yes, the people themselves painted their own picture.”

"Unfashionable" artist

In 1885, the artist's wife, Lidia Alexandrovna, became the heiress of the Lyubsha estate. Maximov enthusiastically began to rebuild the dilapidated estate and located a workshop on the first floor. But hopes for a prosperous future did not come true. Need haunted the artist all his life. The family grew, there were already four children: two daughters and two sons. And his paintings were less and less interested in viewers and critics, they were less and less bought. The artist did not stop working, tried himself in new genres, participated in exhibitions of the Wanderers.

A new time has come, requiring complex images and ambiguous themes. Maximov did not want to follow the fleeting fashion. In addition, during a trip to his homeland, the artist fell into a ravine on the Volkhov, and was in cold water for a long time. Since then, the disease has ravaged his body. Constant poverty made life difficult for the family. Hopes for income from Lyubsha did not materialize, and Maksimov was completely ruined. Moved to Petersburg. The last surge of energy allowed the sick artist to take up the painting "Forgiveness Sunday". He made several sketches. But the picture remained unfinished. December 1, 1911 the artist died.

Peasant's son, truly folk artist Vasily Maksimov throughout his life, out of time and fashion, remained true to his main calling: "selfless service to his great people." “I feel right only in the fidelity of my view of the life of the people, which I love,” said V. M. Maksimov. And today we need this truth in order to feel with gratitude and love a part of our people, their past and present.

Prepared by Oksana BALANDINA

Venetsianov is called the singer of peasant life. The peasant theme did not correspond to the prevailing aesthetic views viewers of the time in which the artist lived. His predilection for the "low genre" caused misunderstanding. The best paintings found their audience only decades after the death of the painter.

Acquaintance of children with the work of Venetsianov should begin from preschool age. I offer educational material for children about the biography and paintings of the artist.
Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov - creator new topic in Russian painting. His work was original, free and original. He created, obeying his mind, listening to his heart, and did not seek to please anyone with his paintings.

A. G. Venetsianov was born in Moscow in 1780. His ancestors were immigrants from Greece. Father Gavril Yuryevich was a merchant and saw his successor in his son. Alexei from an early age copied pictures and painted from life. It was pointless to fight his son's passion, and his father bought him the book "A Curious Artist and Craftsman." From the memoirs of the artist's nephew N. Venetsianov, it is known that little Alexei had a teacher Pakhomych, who taught him how to prepare paints, make a primer on the canvas and stretch the canvas on a stretcher. Venetsianov studied at a private boarding school, after which he worked in the Drawing Department.

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In 1802 the artist moved to Petersburg. In 1807, he entered the service of the Post Office. There Venetsianov met the famous portrait painter V. L. Borovikovsky. So the novice painter found himself in the center of artistic life and in the circle of famous Russian writers and artists. In the same year, he began publishing the first humorous leaflet in Russia, “Journal of Caricatures of 1808 in Faces,” which was later banned by censorship for satire of officials.

In 1811, for the self-portrait submitted to the Academy of Arts, the artist received the title of "appointed". This stage could be overcome by all those who did not study at the Academy. A year later, Venetsianov completed the program, receiving the title of "academician". During the Patriotic War of 1812, Venetsianov created a series of caricatures of the French and gallomaniac nobles.

In 1815, the artist married a girl from a noble family, M. A. Azaryeva. A year later, the daughter of Alexander was born, three years later - the daughter of Felicity. In 1818, the Venetsianov family bought a small estate in the Tver region. From the memoirs of daughter Alexandra:

“Our peasants loved papa very much, and he took care of them like a father. Our poorest peasant had two horses, but for the most part four and six ... "

In Safonkovo, Venetsianov painted pictures of peasant life and portraits. These works, created from nature, are included in a number of new artistic direction, which was based on true reflection life. Here is what he wrote about hard way artist:

"brush contemporary painter need and politeness often govern, and he is forced to deviate from the truth and soil his virtues.

In 1820, the artist began to teach talented peasant children the craft of a painter. Over time, a group was formed known as the “Venetsianov School”. The teacher attached many of his students to the Academy of Arts. Venetsianov told his students:

"Talents then develop when they are led along the paths to which nature has assigned them."

He himself walked the path appointed by nature.

In 1824 he exhibited "peasant" canvases at the Academy of Arts. The Academic Council rejected the artist's sketches for a competitive painting, which would open the way for him to the title of "painting adviser".

In 1830, Venetsianov received the title of "Artist of the Sovereign Emperor." He was assigned an annual salary of 3,000 rubles and was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir 4th degree.

In 1831, his wife Marfa Afanasyevna died, leaving two young daughters to be raised by her father. In 1833, the father of Gavrila Yurievich died. The maintenance of the school demanded exorbitant expenses. For 20 years, more than 70 students have passed the school. Many students became famous artists: N.S. Krylov, L. K. Plakhov, A. V. Tyranov, A. A. Alekseev, G. V. Soroka…

Wanderers, monks, icon painters found shelter in Safonkovo ​​... Venetsianov stopped exhibiting his paintings. He had to mortgage his estate, take on commissioned works: portraits and icons for churches. In recent years, he suffered from a breakdown, fainted. On December 4, 1847, the artist was carrying sketches of icons from Safonkovo ​​to Tver. On the descent from the mountain, the horses suffered, and he was thrown out of the sleigh. This trip ended in tragedy.

"Zakharka" 1825

Portrait of a peasant boy painted with real person. Zakharka was the son of a peasant Fedula Stepanov. In the image of Zakharka, the artist showed a small hard-working peasant. His clothes, hat, mittens were not the right size. Not according to his age, they gave him a job. The boy is holding an ax on his shoulder.

Zakharka has been working since childhood and knows that the life of the whole family depends on his work. The boy's eyes are set aside, but the concentrated look captivates with simplicity, naturalness, kindness. Soft facial features, plump lips, huge pensive eyes, a turn of the head create at the same time a feeling of naivety and seeming adulthood, harshness. Looking into the face of a peasant boy, the viewer understands that it is on such simple workers that the world is kept.

Read and discuss with the child the poem by N. A. Nekrasov “A man with a fingernail”

Once upon a time in the cold winter time,
I came out of the forest; there was severe frost.
I look, it rises slowly uphill
Horse carrying firewood.
And, marching importantly, in serenity.
A man is leading a horse by the bridle
In big boots, in a sheepskin coat,
In big mittens ... and himself with a fingernail!
- Hello, boy! - “Go past yourself!”
- Painfully you are formidable, as I can see!
Where are the firewood from? - “From the forest, of course;
Father, you hear, cuts, and I take away.
(The woodcutter's ax was heard in the forest.)
- What about the father? big family? -
“The family is big, yes two people
All the men, something: my father and I ... "
- So there it is! What's your name? -
"Vlas".
- And what year are you? - “The sixth passed ...
Well, dead!" shouted the little one in a bass voice.
He jerked by the bridle and walked faster ...

As you discuss the poem, ask your child the following questions:

• Who does the poet Nekrasov talk about in his work? (About a boy)
• What's his name? How old is he?
• What is he doing in the forest? (carry brushwood)
• Why does Vlas have big boots and mittens? (Clothes were worn in a poor peasant family all in turn)
• How does Vlas behave? What is he? (hardworking, important, formidable, responsible…)

Consider the picture of Venetsianov "Zakharka". Ask your son (daughter) to answer the questions:

• Who is in this picture? How old is he? (7-9 years old)
• What is he holding in his hand? (Tool)
• Where is he going? (He goes to work)
• Why is the boy working? (He lives in a peasant family. Peasant children helped their parents from an early age)
• What feelings do you have for the hero of the picture? What is he? (Serious, thoughtful, strong, confident…)
• What do these two works have in common? (The main character of Nekrasov's poem and Venetsianov's painting is a village boy).
• How are Vlas and Zakharka similar? (Vlas and Zakharka know how to work. They are both from a peasant family, and, despite their young age, they work hard and consider themselves adults).
• How do the poet Nekrasov and the artist Venetsianov treat their heroes? (Nekrasov is experiencing to his little hero pity and tenderness, calling the boy "a man with a fingernail." However, he admires his maturity and prudence: "The family is big, but two people. There are only men: my father, yes I ...". Venetsianov's feelings for Zakharka are conveyed in the very image of the hero. The portrait is full of emotions: a sense of adulthood is indicated by the turn of the head and the boy's habitual handling of the instrument, the child's age is given out by the facial features and the size of the clothes).

At the end of the acquaintance with the picture, you can invite the child to learn Nekrasov's poem.

« Sleeping shepherd boy (between 1823-1826)

Summer day. The sun is shining brightly, illuminating with its rays the blue sky, a mirror-like river, green banks, wooded hills, distant arable land ... Here is a row of peasant houses with vegetable gardens fenced with palisades. A peasant woman carries water from the river. The village lives its unpretentious life, which is closely connected with nature.

In the foreground is a shepherd sleeping sweetly. He is wearing warm homespun clothes with a red belt, on his feet are bast shoes with onuchs. His right leg is extended forward, his arms are relaxed. In the image of a poor shepherdess, the harmony of man and nature is visible.

Ask the child to describe the picture. Ask him a few questions:

• What season is shown in the picture?
• How is nature depicted?
• What mood does the artist convey to us, the audience?
• What is the boy doing? (asleep)
• What does he do in his life? (grazing cows).
• What family is he from? What clothes does he have? (He is dressed in a shirt, trousers and an army coat).
• What is he wearing? (in bast shoes with onuchs).

When considering the clothes and shoes of the hero of the picture, parents should pay attention to the development of the child's vocabulary. It is necessary to explain to him the meaning of ancient words that have fallen into disuse today, such as armyak, ports, bast shoes, bast, bast, onuch ...

Word "ports" means long, narrow pants, Armenian- a peasant caftan sewn from Armenian. caftan– top men's clothing like a robe. Armenian- woolen fabric.

Bast shoes- the type of footwear that was used in every peasant family. They were woven from linden bast, from willow and oak bark. Lyko- young bast, fibrous, fragile underbark from any tree. Lub- the inner part of the bark of young trees. Onucha- a piece of dense cloth, wrapped around the leg when wearing bast shoes or boots.

After discussing the painting, invite your son or daughter to write a short story using the old words.

The date of the portrait's creation is unknown.

A young girl looks at the world openly and timidly. A pure, innocent soul is reflected in living eyes. A sincere look beckons with mystery. Her lips curled into a slight smile. Her brown hair is slicked back. A blue scarf carefully frames a delicate face. She does not know evil and the heavy peasant lot, believes in good, trusts people ...

This is not a peasant woman exhausted by labor, but a young beauty. Even in the way a girl holds her hand, there is a nobility of manners and feelings. The artist depicted an image full of harmony and youthful charm. He is sure that the young peasant woman brings light to the world and deserves happiness in life.

"Reapers" 1825

The picture shows a scene from peasant life, which the artist observed in the field, at the reaping work. The heroes of the picture are the peasant woman Anna Stepanovna and her son Zakharka. The reaper stopped to rest, and at that moment two butterflies landed on her hand. Her sad, tired look is striking. Doom is hidden in the eyes, a half-smile plays on the face. Holding her hand in the air, she shows the arriving beauties to her son. The boy examines them with surprise and interest. He enjoys life. The main idea of ​​the picture is that the peasants are close to nature, admire its beauty, imbued with it.

For a deeper depiction of the heavy peasant life, the artist uses individual details: a canvas women's shirt darkened from work, a sundress sewn from patches, a heat on the face of the reaper, exhausted tender hands holding a sickle, weathered fingers of a boy ... No matter how cruel fate is, the peasant woman strives to beauty. This is reminiscent of her modest beads.

“On the arable land. Spring" 1820

Early morning. A young peasant woman in a red sundress and a smart kokoshnik harrows the arable land. The first day of plowing was a real holiday. The peasants went out into the fields in their best clothes. The picture is full of allegories. The goddess of spring is embodied in the image of a woman. She smoothly steps on the arable land with bare feet. The horses pulling the plow obediently obey their mistress. On the outskirts of the field, a baby is playing, dressed in one shirt. A young mother admires her firstborn, entrusting him to mother earth. The child represents the beginning of life. On the plowed field, greenery is visible. Here, young trees grow next to a dried-up clumsy stump. In the distance, as if in a circle, another peasant woman leads the horses. This simple plot depicts the eternal cycle of life: the renewal of nature due to the change of seasons, its birth and decay.

“In the harvest. Summer" 1820

The picture is a window into Big world peasant worries. A harvested rye field stretches to the very horizon in some places. The yellow field glistens from the sun-hot air. In the distance, female figures of reapers are visible. The harvest goes on as usual - haystacks are knitted.

In the foreground sits a mother breastfeeding her baby. The older children brought him to feed him. A sickle lies next to the woman. The reaper looks at the ripe field, pressing the child to her heart. She has a job that needs to be done in a short time. In this picture, the artist showed an idyll - the beauty of peasant everyday life and the charm of Russian nature, hiding all the hardships of peasant labor.

The main theme of Venetsianov's work is man on earth, his connection with nature. The artist showed on his canvases the daily activities of the peasants, their way of life, characters, relationships with the outside world. He played his first violin in painting masterfully. This is the true value of the artist A. G. Venetsianov.

Dear reader! I invite you to take a tour of the work of the Russian painter A. G. Venetsianov. I wish you and your children pleasant impressions and emotions!

Russian painting of the XIX century.

A remarkable painter, the creator of a kind of national-romantic trend in Russian painting was Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780-1847) , a favorite student of Borovikovsky. Venetsianov created a unique style, combining in his works the traditions of the capital's academicism, Russian romanticism of the early 19th century. and idealization of peasant life. He became the ancestor of the Russian household genre. At the beginning of 1819, the artist left for the small estate of Safonkovo ​​in the Tver province. At the age of forty, he seems to start working again in painting. He was attracted by people from the people, serfs, who courageously and heroically fought in the war with Napoleon, who retained high human dignity and nobility, despite the heavy serf oppression. And although in the future the artist occasionally returned to portraits, his main interests from the beginning of the 1820s were connected with the everyday genre. Already the first paintings by Venetsianov in the new genre: the pastels "Cleaning the Beets", "The Reaper" - convincingly testified that Venetsianov consciously strove for realistic fidelity of the image, considering the main task of the painter "to depict nothing except in nature, which is to obey to her alone, without the admixture of the manner of any artist."

Russian peasants in the image of Venetsianov are people full of spiritual beauty and nobility, moral purity and inner integrity. In an effort to poetize the Russian man, to affirm his high dignity, the artist somewhat idealized the work and life of the peasants, did not show the true hardships of serf labor. But the very fact of addressing such a "base" theme of peasant life from the point of view of official aesthetics deserves special attention. Venetsianov, like no other of the artists of the first half of the 19th century, boldly and confidently, with unusual consistency, asserted in art the right to portray ordinary peasants. His true heyday creative talent falls on the 20-30s of the nineteenth century. It was during this period that such masterpieces appeared as "On the arable land. Spring", "On the harvest. Summer", "Children in the field" and a number of sketches.

The working peasants in the canvases of Venetsianov are beautiful, full of nobility. In the painting "On Plowed Field. Spring" the theme of labor is intertwined with the theme of motherhood, with the theme of the beauty of native nature. The best and most artistically perfect genre painting of the artist - "In the Harvest. Summer" is distinguished by lyrical-epic perception surrounding reality. If in the first picture Venetsianov depicted a spring landscape with wide expanses of fields, the first shoots of foliage, light clouds in the blue sky, then in the second the artist made it possible to feel the height of Russian summer - the time of rural suffering - with sparkling golden fields, sultry sky. Both canvases are painted with light, clear colors.
In 1824, paintings by Venetsianov were presented at an exhibition in St. Petersburg, which evoked an enthusiastic response from the progressive Russian public. "Finally, we have waited for an artist who turned his wonderful talent to the image of one Russian, to the presentation of objects around him, close to his heart and to ours ...", - wrote P. P. Svinin, the founder of the "Russian Museum" in St. Petersburg. In subsequent years, Venetsianov performed many portraits of young peasant girls: "Peasant Woman", "Peasant woman with mushrooms in the forest", "Sewing Girl", "Peasant woman with cornflowers" and others. For all the originality of each of these works, they are united by the artist's desire to embody new ideas about beauty in art, about folk beauty, soulful and noble.

The significance of Venetsianov in the history of Russian art is extremely great. He was one of the first artists who dedicated his work to the depiction of peasants and established the everyday genre as an equal and important area in art. Folk images appeared in the artist's canvases, full of spiritual nobility and great human dignity.
At the same time, romanticism, which at that time combined with academic classicism, was dominant in official artistic life.

In the 30-40s of the XIX century. leading role in fine arts belonged to painting, mainly historical. Its characteristic feature was the reflection of the events of ancient history into tragic climaxes. Unlike the historical painting of the previous era (A.P. Losenko), which gravitated towards national history with moralizing plots, where the bright beginning triumphs over the forces of evil, the historical compositions of K.P. Bryullov, F.A. Bruni, A.A. Ivanov have an abstract symbolic character. As a rule, their paintings are painted on religious subjects, the emphasis in the image is transferred from the central figure of the protagonist to the crowd at a critical moment.
The leading role here belongs to Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852) , who combined in his work a romantic idea with the classic canon of the image. Contemporaries unanimously considered the main work of Bryullov to be a large historical canvas. "The last day of Pompeii". Having visited the vicinity of Naples, where archaeological excavations were carried out on the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, he finally determined the theme of his future picture. Shocked by the sight of the city, buried under a layer of lava and ash during the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24, 79, he set about implementing his plan.

The artist admires fidelity, sublime love and indestructible faith in justice. The raging elements only helped to manifest their extraordinary spiritual beauty in people. The three foreground groups on the right represent these lofty feelings. The sons are trying to save on the shoulders of a weak old father who cannot come to terms with the death of the white marble gods falling down from the roofs of the palaces. Their fall is perceived as the collapse of his ideals about a rationally arranged life. Young Pliny, carefully raising and persuading his mother to gather the rest of her strength and try to escape, cannot leave the dearest person in the world. The young groom, not noticing the lightning and not hearing the roar of falling stones, holds the dead bride in his arms. The best day of their lives was the last day of their earthly happiness. The idea of ​​the picture was based on the romantic emotional contrast between the perfection of the people depicted and the inevitability of their death: buildings are collapsing, marble idols are falling, and no one, be he brave, beautiful and noble, can be saved during a catastrophe. K. P. Bryullov renounces the classic requirements of highlighting the main character. The whole human mass becomes his hero, where everyone is an equal participant in the historical drama, everyone experiences the power of the inevitable natural elements.

Bryullov was also one of the most significant and popular Russian portrait painters of his time. He is a master, above all, of a ceremonial oil portrait, where a person is presented to his full height in a solemn atmosphere, as well as excellent pencil and watercolor portraits. Bryullov's portraits reflect the romantic ideal of a beautiful and proud personality, standing above the environment. Such, for example, is the “Horsewoman”, executed in shining golden-yellow, pink and greenish-brown tones, reminiscent of a rich valerie painting of the 18th century.
In its full splendor, Bryullov's enormous talent, despite his academic training, manifested itself in two portraits of Countess Yu.P. Samoilova- with the pupil Dzhovanina and the black boy and with the pupil Amacillia in a masquerade. In the last portrait, the simplicity of the composition and the laconicism of color, built on a rich color contrast of blue and red, give the canvas a special decorative effect and at the same time monumentality. The beautiful chilly face of the countess, framed by black curls against the background of a bright red curtain, her attire of a masquerade queen, a young companion in oriental dress, a motley crowd of masks in the back of the hall - all contribute to creating a vivid romantic image.
Bryullov's name has become a symbol of a new pictorial academism with elements of romance.

Even more academic romanticism manifested itself in the work of Fedor Antonovich Bruni (1799-1875) . Work on the painting "The Copper Serpent" was carried out by the artist for fifteen years, and this is explained not only by the huge size of the canvas, but also by the difficulty of comprehending and writing the Old Testament plot, which is deep in philosophical content. Rescued from Egyptian captivity, the Jewish people led by Moses wandered in the waterless desert for forty long years. Tired people, tormented by thirst and hunger, grumbled, and the Lord sent punishment on them - a rain of poisonous snakes. Then the people repented and began to pray for mercy, to which the Lord ordered Moses to erect a colossus and put a snake on it. Those who look at him with true faith in salvation through the Lord will have mercy.

The artist set himself a difficult task - to portray the diverse reaction of a diverse crowd, to show the degree of faith and obedience to the divine will of each person. But the people represented on the canvas are rather seized with fear than filled with deep humility to the dictates of Heaven. The artist's attempt to present the action in night lighting, snatching out figured compositions by moonlight, gives the sound of the picture notes of symbolism and produces a mystical impression. His "Bronze Serpent" belongs entirely to its era: the faces merge into a crowd seized by common fear and slavish humility. The rhythm of the distribution of human figures, the distribution of light and shadow, as it were, repeats the rhythm in which the emotions of the crowd rise and fall. The religious and mystical orientation of the picture reflected the moods fashionable at court and in high society circles.

The most significant phenomenon in Russian painting of the 30-50s of the XIX century. – work Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806-1858) . Ivanov's spiritual homeland was Italy, where he came to continue his studies and work. Here he carefully considered the theme of his future canvas, which he wanted to devote to a turning point in the life of mankind - the appearance of the Savior in the world. In history, he is looking for a perfect image that can shake the soul of an inexperienced viewer, become an impulse for his spiritual rebirth. Unlike Bryullov, who sang a hymn to the beautiful man of Antiquity, Ivanov plunges into the world of the New Testament, studies the history of spiritual insight and the formation of mankind, freely making its moral choice. He really hoped that the future work would also be able to provide answers to many questions of our time. majestic picture "The Appearance of Christ to the People (The Appearance of the Messiah)" became the main result of his creative biography.
It took the artist twenty years to implement a difficult plan. The persistent search for composition, persistent and constant work on nature were caused by the desire to achieve maximum persuasiveness. The mastery of the academic school was clearly visible in the many preparatory sketches, sketches from nature, sketches (more than 300 of them!), Relating to individual fragments of the future canvas.
The content center of his canvas is not the actions of the heroes, but their reasons, not a deliberate demonstration of the ideal and heroic, but barely noticeable movements and transitions of feelings (from surprise, curiosity and distrust to reverence and delight). Combining in the picture two gospel events of different times - the sermon of John the Baptist and the appearance of Christ - he achieves an amazing integrity of perception of a significant event.
People of different ages and temperaments came to the banks of the Jordan in their own way, each with his own life experience, everyone heard something different in the words of John the Baptist, everyone makes his own choice. Some are ready to believe with joy the inspired words of the prophet who announced the coming of the Savior, others remain indifferent to them, and still others are filled with hope for deliverance from suffering. Despite the fact that everyone is at a certain stage of their spiritual and moral development, all together they express the universal dream of finding the truth.

The embodiment of the main author's idea is reflected in the composition of the picture. At first glance, it seems quite traditional. Following the classical principle, the artist arranges the participants of the scene in the foreground along the picture plane, balancing both its parts and focusing the audience's attention on the figure of John the Baptist. At the same time, he directs the movement inward, where the figure of the walking Christ is depicted. The multidirectional movement along and into the space is greatly enhanced by the turns, the views of the characters turned towards Christ. This is understandable, because it is here, according to the author's intention, that the center of the entire composition is located. All the invisible threads connecting disparate groups of people stretch to him. It is no coincidence that the cross in the hands of John and the spear of the Roman horseman are directed in his direction. Let us also pay attention to the fact that Jesus does not go to the righteous (the group of John), but to the Pharisees, accompanied by Roman horsemen.

Natural school, which has features critical realism and acute social orientation, arose in mid-nineteenth V. originally in Russian literature and appeared in the works of N.V. Gogol, N.A. Nekrasov, F.M. Dostoevsky, I.A. Goncharova, D.V. Grigorovich. At the same time with new literature, whose representatives strove for “naturalness, naturalness, depiction of life without embellishment”, by the mid-40s of the XIX century. there was a whole generation of artists - adherents natural school. And the first among them should be considered Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815-1852) , whose paintings are scenes from life, where the tragic essence of the situation is hidden under the cover of the ordinary. This is a kind of moral sermon, the purpose of which is the correction of others. These are " fresh cavalier”, “Picky Bride”, “Breakfast of an Aristocrat”, “Major’s Matchmaking”.
in the picture "Major's Matchmaking" there was a typical phenomenon of the then life - a marriage of convenience: a wealthy merchant and his whole family dream of getting "from rags to riches" through the marriage of a daughter with a ruined major. Here, the art of mise-en-scene, characteristic of Fedotov, is most tangible: in the center, the cutesy bride breaks out of the hands of her mother, who roughly grabs her by the skirt to keep her in the room, the rest of the characters are combined into groups, each of which “tells” in its own way about the merchant patriarchal life. The extraordinary sharpness, expressiveness of poses, gestures, facial expressions of the characters allow for a moment to see the true customs of this family. In a minute the daughter will straighten her dress, the mother will kindly smile and bow, the cook and the household will disappear into the back rooms. The characters are chosen by Fedotov with an amazing knowledge of Russian life and represent a curious and precious collection of physiognomies characteristic of the 1940s.
The picture is a true masterpiece in terms of painting: its color scheme is built on an expressive juxtaposition of pink, lilac with greenish-ocher and yellow. With a wonderful sense of material, the overflows of dense silk fabric, the shimmer of old bronze, the brilliance of transparent glass are conveyed. In the soft lines of the bride's tilted head, in her gesture, in addition to affectation, there is a lot of femininity, emphasized by the lightness of the white and pink fabrics of her dress. In all this, in addition to Fedotov the satirist, Fedotov the poet is felt.

The painting "Fresh Cavalier" was painted in 1846. This is a painting by P.A. Fedotova conveys to the viewer an episode from the life of an official. The official received his first award - an order - and appears to us as the main character of the picture. His pride and arrogance attracts the eye. The artist depicted his hero in a caricature image that makes the viewer smile. After all, the order received by an official is the lowest award that an official of those times could receive. But the main character, a petty official, sees promotion in this award. He dreams of a different life. The decor in the hero's room is not rich and explains the hero's reaction to such a low reward.

The comedy of the image was due to the contrast of his image. In the picture, he is depicted in a huge dressing gown, barefoot, in hairpins, standing in a squalid room. There is an award on the robe. A serious expression on the background of a dressing gown and a homely environment causes a smile. After all, the gentleman boasts in front of his maid. Most likely, he has no one else to show his award. The look of the maid is condescending. She did not stop doing her daily chores, and stands next to the gentleman, holding a boot in her hands. The hero's room is small, many things are piled on top of each other. On the dining table, which is most likely a worker, there is a sausage cut on a newspaper. There are fish bones under the table. Every corner of the room is a mess, things piled on top of each other. The uniform hangs on two chairs, some things are lying everywhere. On one of the chairs, the cat is tearing up the upholstery. The hero's papillots and hair curlers, which lie here on the table, speak of the hero's desire to be fashionable and well-groomed. But all the things of the hero, they are not properly cared for. The image of the hero and his desire to be higher in rank than he is looks ridiculous and ridiculous. Even the cat on the chair is thin and unkempt.

In the 60s, the artist began to demand "content", "explanation of life" and even "a sentence on the depicted phenomena." The main thing in Russian painting was the predominance of moral and social principles over the artistic. This feature was most clearly manifested in the work of democratically minded artists. In 1863, the Academy of Arts set a program for a gold medal with a plot from Scandinavian mythology. All thirteen applicants, among them I.N. Kramskoy, K.G. Makovsky, A.D. Litovchenko, who did not agree with this program and with programs in general, refused to participate in the competition and left the Academy. Defiantly leaving the Academy, the rebels organized the "Artel of Artists", and in 1870, together with Moscow painters - “Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions”. Starting with Perov and ending with Levitan, all the outstanding representatives of Russian art were participants in these exhibitions - the Wanderers.
Wandering artists turned their gaze to a difficult fate common man. In the portrait gallery Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy(1837-1887) There are many wonderful peasant types in which faith is expressed in the people, their spiritual strength, intelligence, talent and kindness. The best paintings of the artist on this topic - "The man in the shot cap" and “Mina Moiseev.” Kramskoy’s “preaching” activity to a certain extent interfered with him as a painter: he tried to solve by pictorial means what only journalism could do, and his plans did not find an adequate pictorial embodiment. Therefore, he moved from “Christ in the Desert” to “Mermaids”, from “Herodias” to “Inconsolable Grief”, from “ moonlit night” to “Unknown”. And yet, it should be said that it is Kramskoy's brushes that portray portraits of such geniuses of Russian literature as L.N. Tolstoy and N.A. Nekrasov. A smart, wise and extremely sharp-sighted person looks at us from the portrait of Tolstoy.

The plot of the picture "Christ in the Wilderness" associated with the forty-day fast of Jesus Christ described in the New Testament; in the wilderness, where he retired after his baptism, and with the temptation of Christ by the devil, which occurred during this fast. According to the artist, he wanted to capture the dramatic situation of moral choice, inevitable in the life of every person.
The painting depicts Christ seated on gray stone located on a hill in the same gray rocky desert. Kramskoy uses cold colors to depict the early morning - the dawn is just beginning. The horizon line is quite low and divides the picture roughly in half. In the lower part is a cold rocky desert, and in the upper part - the predawn sky, a symbol of light, hope and future transformation. As a result, the figure of Christ, dressed in a dark cloak and red tunic, dominates the space of the picture, but at the same time is in harmony with the harsh landscape surrounding it.
Restraint in the depiction of clothing allows the artist to give primary importance to the face and hands of Christ, which create the psychological persuasiveness and humanity of his image. Strongly clenched hands are located almost in the very geometric center of the canvas. Together with the face of Christ, they represent the semantic and emotional center of the composition, attracting the attention of the viewer.

"Unknown" considered one of the most significant and famous works of Ivan Kramskoy. Giving the canvas such a name, the artist gave it an aura of mystery and intrigue. In the ideological and artistic terms of the content of the image of the "Unknown", the painter managed to create a work that stood on the verge of a portrait and a thematic painting.

Among the first Russian artists who, in the spirit of the progressive press of the 60s, turned their paintings into a scourging sermon was Vasily Grigorievich Perov (1834-1882) . Already in his first picture "Sermon in the Village", published in the year of the liberation of the peasants, there was not a trace of Fedotov's harmless mockery: the obese landowner, indifferent to the words of the father, fell asleep on a chair; his young wife, seizing the moment, whispers with her admirer, thereby demonstrating the disdain for spiritual values ​​on the part of the “enlightened” society. Next picture “Easter Procession” was quite "Bazarov" in sharpness and consonant with the darkest accusatory novels of that time.
Procession in in full force with gonfalons and icons he comes out of the tselovalnik, having just treated himself to glory there: drunken pilgrims fall out of the tavern in disarray and slap on the spring slush; the priest, barely stepping with his feet, with great difficulty descends from the porch; The deacon with the censer stumbled and fell.

Both the clergy and the peasants are presented in the most unattractive form, leaving no doubt that everything in Russia is worthless and requires a radical breakdown and reorganization. All other paintings by Perov, with the exception of “Arrival of the governess” and "Troika", rather sad than accusatory, filled with sorrow for "poor humanity." Compared with early paintings, which were distinguished by excessive narrative details, fragmentation of form and lack of a sense of color, integrity appeared in Perov's later works. Particularly good portraits of F.M. Dostoevsky and A.N. Ostrovsky, great Russian writers. These works rightfully allow us to rank Perov among the founders of the psychological portrait in Russian painting - so accurately and fully did he manage to show the spirituality of his heroes. Despite the “ideological nature” of his art, Perov remains a very great master in terms of the accuracy and persuasiveness of his characteristics.
One of the most expressive is the picture "Seeing the Dead". Written

upon Perov's return from abroad, where he studied painting, she brought him the first prize of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. The skinny horse slowly and dejectedly drags along the hillock towards the gusts of wind. In the sleigh - a roughly knocked together coffin, covered with matting and tied with ropes. On either side of him perched on a sleigh children. The girl looks sad. Opposite is a boy in a huge fur hat that slides down over his eyes. He is shivering from the cold, wrapping himself in his father's large sheepskin coat. Next to the sleigh, seeing off the owner on his last journey, a dog runs, emphasizing even more expressively the loneliness and homelessness of an orphaned peasant family. We do not see the mother's face, but how eloquent her bowed head and lowered shoulders are! No one is around, no one, along with them, escorts the sole breadwinner of a peasant family on his last journey. And because they have no sympathizers, the tragedy of what is happening is even more felt. This impression is strengthened by a bleak, dull landscape: snow-covered fields, gathering dusk, low-hanging gloomy, leaden clouds. All around is cold silence and endless, painful silence...

Among the Wanderers, the largest is Ilya Efimovich Repin (1844-1930) . He, like the rest of the Wanderers, saw the content of the paintings in what can be subtracted from them, so he constantly resorted to literary themes, strove to write an evil satire as expressively as possible (“The procession in the Kursk province”), a cheerful sermon (“Cossacks” ), a gloomy tragedy (“Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581”), an everyday scene with political overtones (“The arrest of a propagandist”, “Seeing off a recruit”, “They didn’t wait”). In almost every one of his paintings one can feel not only rationality, but also a burning temperament, albeit with a bit of theatricality, and absolute psychological accuracy. Characters in his paintings, very accurately located, expressively gesticulating, all the same, actors playing a role, and not deeply feeling people. Only in "Barge haulers on the Volga", written in his youth under the direct impression of what he saw during a trip along the Volga, the drama is simply and clearly expressed.
From the picture "Barge Haulers on the Volga", which became the highest achievement of the art of realism in the 1870s, his "glory throughout the great Rus'" began. In it, he abandoned the edification and rebuke that is customary for household painting, and for the first time expressed not only the suffering of people of hard labor, but also a formidable social force. With amazing skill, Repin gave a socio-psychological "biography" of the people, recreated the unique individuality of each character. In eleven figures of barge haulers, a typical portrait was created people's Rus', and all classes of Russian society appeared before the viewer. In a letter to V.V. Stasov regarding this picture, Repin wrote: “The judge is now a man, and therefore it is necessary to reproduce his interests.” Barge haulers inspired the author not with contemptuous disgust, but with respect and admiration for their inner strength and beauty. According to F. M. Dostoevsky, on the canvas was revealed true truth"Without special explanations and labels." IN greatest merit Dostoevsky set the artist that none of his barge haulers shouts from the picture: "Look how unhappy I am and to what extent you owe the people."

The multifaceted talent of I. E. Repin was vividly expressed in historical canvases, which amaze with the reliability of the depiction of events and the depth of psychological characteristics. In the events that had gone into the distant past, he was looking for the culminating moments of life, dramatic situations in which the true essence of a person was most fully manifested. He skillfully could show his heroes at turning points in life, take them by surprise, in moments of extreme tension of mental strength. At the same time, Repin was generously endowed with the ability to feel continuity and draw parallels between the historical past and the present.
Yes, the idea of ​​the picture Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan arose in connection with the assassination of Alexander II by Narodnaya Volya. “The feelings were overwhelmed by the horrors of the present,” Repin wrote in those days. Repin found “a way out for the sore in history” in the image of a terrible moment of insight of a son-killer, who suddenly realized the impossibility of changing anything in his life. The picture clearly sounded the thought of the criminality of murder, the violation of the immutable commandment "Thou shalt not kill." Equally terrible is the loneliness and repentance of the crouching old man, who is trying to lift his son's heavy body, and the merciful gesture of forgiveness of the son, who touches his father with his weakening hand. The ambiguity and diversity, the psychological depth of the work could not leave anyone indifferent.

The picture is filled with other life-affirming content "The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan", expressing the elements of the national character, the spirit of his chivalry and camaraderie. With a sense of optimism, Repin managed to convey the power of the Cossack freemen, her inexhaustible sense of humor and desire for freedom. For the first time in Russian painting, a sense of unity was conveyed populace and the leader - the leader of the military brotherhood. In a huge canvas (203 x 358 cm) he created a kind of anthem folk spirit, a whole "symphony of laughter." Repin worked on this painting for more than 15 years: the work did not let go of the artist's imagination. About her heroes, he wrote with pleasure to V.V. Stasov: “Well, what a people!!! The head is spinning from their din and noise, you can’t part with them! Damn people!

I. E. Repin made a significant contribution to the art of portraiture. Successfully developing the best traditions of Russian painting, in each work of this genre he revealed the "dialectics of the soul", the complex emotional world and the unique features of each individual person. In each portrait of the artist, a rare observation, psychological vigilance, a desire for truthfulness, and a rejection of falsehood found expression. Repin never "corrected" his individuality, did not seek to "improve" or idealize it, he did not like it when models deliberately "posed for him." In most cases, the portrait was born in an atmosphere of lively communication, conversations, and sometimes heated debates. That is why their artistic solution is so diverse.
Repin could paint a portrait in one session, on a sudden impulse, captured by the world of his model, but at the same time he could work long and painfully, rewriting and changing canvases more than once. With exceptional interest, he wrote people close to him in spirit, "dear nation, its best sons", with many of them he was connected by deep friendly relations. Even when he painted the same face several times, he discovered something new and unique in him.
The pinnacle of the artist's portrait art are portraits of the composer M. P. Mussorgsky and the writer L. N. Tolstoy, in which the "power of the immortal spirit" is conveyed, the impression of the integrity of the individual and the harmony of being.
The portrait has always remained the artist's favorite genre, he turned to it throughout his creative life. Researchers have repeatedly argued that if Repin would have painted only portraits, he would still remain a great artist in the history of Russian art.

An outstanding contribution to the development of the historical genre of painting was made by Vasily Ivanovich Surikov (1848-1916). For his canvases, he chose historically significant, turning points in the life of Russia, showing their incredible complexity, tragedy and psychological depth. He fully mastered the art of revealing in concrete, real facts general historical patterns, to show the origins of internal national contradictions. By creating artistic image historical past, he often saw it through the fate of an individual who embodied the “heroic soul of his people” (M. V. Nesterov). At the same time, he drew material for his paintings from modern reality, seeing in it suitable associations, characteristic touches and significant details. Surikov never denounced, did not pass sentences and did not give marks. In everything he depicted, he allowed himself only empathy and emotional objectivity.
As a master of historical painting, Surikov first loudly declared himself in the picture "Morning of the Streltsy Execution", in which he reflected the consequences of the rebellion of the archers, who supported Princess Sophia in 1698 and opposed the legitimate authority that belonged to her younger brother, Peter I. The author did not want to convey blood or execution in this work, but a national national tragedy, to tell about that terrible the price paid by a people living in an era of change and caught under the wheel of history. The author saw the dramatic sound of the canvas in the “solemnity last minutes”, experienced by archers.
Each image in the crowd is an individual, portrait character, which was created in an intense search for sitters and in careful work on sketches. All archers experience tragedy in their own way, express rebelliousness, rebellious spirit and indignation. On their faces and in their poses there is a whole gamut of feelings: gloomy silence and sad farewell, stubborn anger, painful reflection and dull humility.
The emotional center of the composition is a silent duel, a "duel of glances", a confrontation between the two main characters - Peter I and the red-bearded archer. The head of an irreconcilable and not broken by torture rebel is proudly raised, directing his gaze, full of indomitable hatred, towards the young king. He alone did not take off his hat in front of him and convulsively squeezes a burning candle in his hands. Peter I is depicted against the backdrop of the Kremlin wall - a stronghold state power. In his whole figure one can feel a big inner strength and confidence in the rightness of their struggle. There are no right and wrong in this confrontation, everyone has their own resentment and their own truth. Reflecting on the reasons for the collapse of many undertakings of the tsar-reformer, the author expresses the idea of ​​his moral defeat and tragic disunity with the people.
With great skill, Surikov painted bright female characters in which the folk tragedy is perceived especially tangibly and emotionally. For a long time, the old women sitting motionless in the road mess in the foreground, the desperately crying little girl in a red scarf, the heart-rendingly screaming young woman, whose husband is already being led to execution, remain in the memory of the audience for a long time. Despite the fact that the artist in most cases does not show their faces, the viewer is given a feeling of the last degree of their grief and despair. Each female image created by the painter is distinguished by an amazing life truth and psychological persuasiveness.
The ideological concept of the author is subject to the artistic solution of the picture. An important semantic and compositional role is played by its architectural frame. To colorful heads and the asymmetric forms of St. Basil's Cathedral are opposed by the severity of the powerful Kremlin walls, and the spontaneous mass of the crowd is opposed by the strict regularity of Peter's regiments. The upper edge of the picture with the domes of St. Basil's Cathedral is cut off. As if beheaded, the cathedral is perceived as a symbol of pre-Petrine Rus' and recalcitrant archers.

It is difficult to find a single compositional center in the picture: separate groups are formed around some figures of archers, symbolically embodying the elements of national grief. Data in various rotations and angles, all of them are subject to strict internal logic that meets the author's intention. Surikov said more than once that the composition "needs to be properly shaken up so that the figures do not separate in the picture, but are all firmly connected to each other." So the "crowding" of the crowd of archers can be perceived as a conscious author's method of uniting the people into a single, integral artistic image.

in the picture "Menshikov in Beryozov" echoes of the "senseless and merciless" "Russian rebellion" are also heard. It presents the tragedy of the family of a man who was once one of the most influential figures of the time of Peter the Great, who was exiled with his family to distant Berezov. Surikov invites the viewer to peer into the face of a man who symbolizes an entire historical era for the artist. The lonely "chick of Petrov's nest", immersed in his hopeless thoughts, seemed to be frozen in a cramped, small house. The size of his figure clearly contrasts with the size of the room, which drew the attention of the author I. N. Kramskoy: “After all, if your Menshikov gets up, he will break through the ceiling with his head.” But this compositional irregularity was fully justified, since the artist really wanted to emphasize the scale of his hero's personality. The amazing contrast between the intimacy of space and the monumental psychological scale allows the artist to achieve the integrity of the figurative solution of the work.
Nothing happens in the picture, but against the background of this eventlessness, the story of the past and the future is led by objects surrounding people. Surikov fills every detail with a deep figurative meaning. Menshikov's hair, which has not yet grown back, bristles, recalling that quite recently this head was adorned with a wig with lush long curls. In the wretched interior of the hut, the remnants of former luxury (candlestick, prince's ring, Maria's chain) and Siberian realities (bear skin, bed rug, youngest daughter's deer warmer, prince's boots) look very eloquent and expressive. The light of a burning lamp near ancient icons is perceived as a symbol that gives hope for changes for the better.

Vasnetsov Viktor Mikhailovich (1848-1926)- the founder of a special "Russian style" within the pan-European symbolism and modernity. The painter Vasnetsov transformed the Russian historical genre, combining the motifs of the Middle Ages with the exciting atmosphere of a poetic legend or fairy tale; however, the tales themselves often become the themes of his large canvases. Among these picturesque epics and tales of Vasnetsov are paintings "Knight at the Crossroads" (1878), "After the battle of Igor Svyatoslavich with the Polovtsy"(based on the legend "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", 1880), "Alyonushka" (1881), "Three Heroes" (1898), "Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible"(1897). Some of these works ("Three princesses underworld", 1881, ibid.) present decorative panel paintings already typical of Art Nouveau, taking the viewer into the world of dreams.

V.M. Vasnetsov. "Three heroes"

The power, scope and grandeur of Russian nature was especially appreciated by Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898), who is rightly called the "singer of the Russian forest." In the history of world painting, there is hardly another artist who would so clearly, calmly and majestically show the hidden beauty of the vast forest expanses. Before Shishkin, the motif of the heroic strength of the Russian forest, its qualities, surprisingly consonant with the character of a Russian person, never sounded so vividly in painting.
A poetic image of the forest, trees of any species in their various combinations, in groups and singly, at different times of the year: barely touched by the first greenery, luxurious in their summer decoration, severely and deafly noisy in autumn, covered with heavy and lush snow caps in winter - that's what happened the main and favorite theme of this artist's work.

I.I. Shishkin. "Morning in a pine forest"

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900) entered the history of world painting as "the fiery poet of the sea". He devoted his whole life to this topic and never changed it. In the created marinas (there were about three thousand of them, according to the artist's own admission), he remained faithful to the romantic ideal of a beautiful and spiritualized nature. If in his youth he was more interested in the serene silence of the sea, flooded with golden sunlight or the silvery light of the moon, then later he turns to the image of a powerful, raging element, foreshadowing grandiose catastrophes.
Aivazovsky's painting "The Ninth Wave" caused a real pilgrimage of admiring spectators. A huge wave of the raging sea is ready to fall on people convulsively clinging to the wreckage of the masts of the dead ship. All night the crew fearlessly struggled with the elements of the sea. But then the first rays of the sun pierced the water, illuminating it with thousands of bright highlights and the finest shades of colors. The water seems transparent, it seems to glow from within, absorbing the bubbling fury of the waves, which means giving a fragile hope of salvation. According to sailors, the ninth wave heralds the last gust of a storm. Will people be able to resist? Will they emerge victorious from the deadly battle with the raging elements? It is difficult to answer this question, but the color scheme of the picture, full of optimism, inspires such confidence.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1856-1910) - the brightest representative of symbolism in Russian fine arts. The images he created reflected not only the spiritual searches of the master himself, but also the internal contradictions of the difficult time in which he lived. The era recognized itself in his works, he himself was “our era” (K.S. Petrov-Vodkin). It combines the inherent philosophic nature of Russian culture and the moral tension of an individual creative manner. Vrubel was one of the first Russian artists who tried to discern another, more important inner reality behind reality and express it in the language of painting, combining decorative and expressive properties. He saw being split into the non-existent world of visible objects and the mysterious world of invisible entities.
Sincerely believing in beauty that transforms the world, knowledge of the essence of phenomena in the process artistic creativity, he expressed his creative credo in these words: "It is impossible and unnecessary to write nature, you must catch its beauty." He searched for his own concept of beauty and harmony in the world of mysterious dreams, myths, mystical visions and vague forebodings. A characteristic feature of the work of M. A. Vrubel is the organic unity of the real and the fantastic, the symbol and the myth. Only Vrubel could see reality from angles that were unknown to anyone else. He created new reality- a beautiful and tragic world, capable of development, movement and transformation. In his creative imagination vague outlines of objects arose, which either anxiously “drowned” in a barely distinguishable space, then unexpectedly flashed, flickered, shimmering with mysterious light glare. In this mysterious world, its mythological, fairy-tale and epic characters lived and acted: "The Swan Princess", "Muse", "Pan", "Six-winged Seraphim", "Prophet", "Bogatyr", "Mikula Selyaninovich", "Snegurochka", "Volkhova".

M.A. Vrubel "The Swan Princess"

Painting by M. A. Vrubel "Demon Seated" full of symbolic generalizations that express the ideals and dreams of the author himself. The canvas, created on the plot of Lermontov's poem, was literally suffered by the artist. Here is how he himself described it: “A half-naked, winged, young, sadly pensive figure sits, hugging her knees, against the background of a sunset and looks at a flowering meadow, from which branches bending under flowers stretch out to her.”
Vrubel's demon is far from the traditional embodiment of deceit and evil, it's not just artistic allegory, reflecting the contradictory world of a lone rebel, rejected by the outside world and cast down from heaven for his pride. Like any symbol, this image is based on several aspects, and therefore cannot be deciphered unambiguously. What did the author want to capture in it? Your own loneliness, the spirit of rebellion, anxiety and dreams of beauty? What is hidden in his rebellious soul, forced to remain inactive? According to Vrubel, the sad Demon is “not so much an evil spirit as suffering and mournful, but for all that, powerful ... majestic.” Here is the key to understanding the essence of this image as a creature personifying "the eternal struggle of the restless human spirit”, seeking and not finding answers either in heaven or on earth.
The figure, which occupies almost the entire space of the canvas, is too cramped within the framework of the picture, so the author deliberately crops it from above and below. The Demon's hands are tragically clasped, his gaze is sad, a concentrated and intense thought froze on his forehead. His whole figure is perceived as a symbol of the suffering of a captive spirit and absolute loneliness in the fetters of alien earthly matter. Bizarre fractures of rocks, motionless clouds frozen in the sky, glittering petals of unprecedented fabulous flowers and crystals, refracting the pink-yellow reflections of the setting sun in their faces, enhance the supernatural, unreality of this image. The color scheme, represented by a combination of crimson, purple, purple gold and ash gray tones, also helps to create an almost unreal, fantasy world. Against the background of this grandiose color mystery, the blue clothes of a young titan look especially expressive, symbolizing the realization of his hopes and ideals.

Vrubel's Demon is a deeply tragic nature, a symbol of the spirit of the times, the expectation of change and fear of the unknown. It reflects not only the personal experiences of the artist, but also time itself with its breaks and contradictions. Vrubel did not consider this picture the final embodiment of the plan, he was going to paint his "monumental" Demon later. Soon he continued the cycle he had begun with the painting “The Demon Flying”, imbued with a premonition of the death and doom of the world. He completed the cycle "Demon Defeated", which did not leave the slightest hope for a change for the better, which became the visible embodiment of the tragedy of the artist himself.

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The peasant - the representative of the "silent majority" - did not occupy any prominent place in the visual arts until the 19th century, before the era of social revolutions and urbanization, with which the formation of modern nations and the construction of their mythology was associated. In the Romantic era of the beginning of the century, the cultural image villager acquired a specific meaning in Europe: when the nation was understood as a collective body growing from the eternal soil, it was the tiller who began to be perceived as its purest, fullest, unalloyed incarnation. But in the public consciousness of Russia in the 19th century, the peasantry occupied a very special place: it became in fact a synonym for the concept of “nation”, and the rural worker turned into a moral standard for various political and intellectual movements. Our art, with unprecedented clarity, embodied this process of visual self-knowledge of the country and the formation of the image of the peasantry as the backbone of Russia.

It must be said that by the second half XVIII century European painting knew only a few basic models for depicting the peasantry. The first took shape in Venice in the 16th century. Its appearance was sanctioned by a literary tradition dating back to the poem "Georgics" by the Roman poet Virgil, in which hard labour farmers acted as a guarantee of harmony with nature. Repaying-ni-em for him served as agreement with the laws of natural existence established from the ages, which the inhabitants of cities are deprived of. The second mode developed in urbanized Holland XVII century: in the long-winded genre scenes, the peasants appeared as an amusing, sometimes rude, intemperate, and therefore worthy audience cheerful smile or malicious ridicule that lifted the urban viewer in their own eyes. Finally, during the Enlightenment, another way of presenting the peasant as a noble, sensitive villager was born, whose natural morality stemmed from closeness to nature and served as a reproach to the depraved man of civilization.

Ivan Argunov. Portrait of an unknown woman in Russian costume. 1784

Mikhail Shibanov. Celebration of the wedding contract. 1777State Tretyakov Gallery

Ivan Ermenev. Singing blind. Watercolor from the "Beggars" series. 1764–1765

In this respect, the surviving Russia of the 18th century did not stand out against the European background. We can find isolated examples of images of representatives of the lower social strata, and the circumstances of the creation of some works of this kind are not always clear. Such are the cunning "Portrait of an Unknown Woman in Russian Costume" by Ivan Argunov (1784), the calmly noble "Feast of the Wedding Contract" by Mikhail Shibanov (1777) or the cruelly truthful images of the beggars by Ivan Ermenev. Visual comprehension of the "people's" space of Russia at first took place within the framework of ethnography. Atlases - descriptions of the empire were provided with detailed illustrations representing social and ethnic types: from the peasants of the European provinces to the inhabitants of Kamchatka. It is natural that the artist's attention was primarily focused on original costumes, hairstyles, physiognomic features that emphasize the originality of the characters depicted, and in this respect, such engravings differed slightly from illustrations for descriptions of exotic lands - America or Oceania.

The situation changed in the 19th century, when a person "from the plow" began to be perceived as the bearer of the spirit of the nation. But if in France or Germany of that time in the image of the “people” as a whole the peasantry occupied only a certain, albeit important share, in Russia there were two decisive circumstances that made the problem of its image a key one. The first is the westernization of the elite under Peter. The dramatic social difference between the minority and the majority was at the same time a cultural difference: the nobility lived “in European fashion”, and the vast majority of the people followed the customs of their ancestors to one degree or another, which deprived the two parts of the nation of a common language. The second most important factor is serfdom, which was abolished only on February 19, 1861, which was evidence of a deep moral vice that underlay Russian life. Thus, the suffering peasant, the peasant victim of injustice, became the bearer of genuine social and cultural values.

The turning point was the Patriotic War of 1812, when, in the fight against foreign invasion, Russia, at least in the person of the upper strata, realized itself as one. It was the patriotic upsurge that first set the task of visually embodying the nation. In the propaganda cartoons of Ivan Terebenev and Alexei Venetsianov, the Russian people who defeated the French were in most cases presented in the form of a peasant. But the “high” art oriented towards the universal ancient ideal was not able to solve this problem. In 1813, Vasily Demut-Malinovsky created the "Russian Scaevola" statue, which reproduced an unlikely story spread by patriotic propaganda. The sculpture depicts a peasant who cuts off his hand with a Napoleonic brand with an ax and thus follows the example of the legendary Roman hero. The rural worker is endowed here with an ideal, evenly developed body of the heroes of the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles. A curly beard seems to be a sure sign of the nationality, but even a cursory comparison of the head of the statue with images of the Roman emperors Lucius Verus or Marcus Aurelius destroys this illusion. Of the obvious signs of ethnic and social affiliation, only an Orthodox pectoral cross and a peasant ax remain.

"Russian Scaevola". Sculpture by Vasily Demut-Malinovsky. 1813 State Tretyakov Gallery

A new word on this path was the painting of Venetsianov. Free from the academic school based on the ancient canon and offering ready-made solutions, the artist made his own serfs the heroes of his canvases. The peasant women and peasants of Venetsianov are for the most part devoid of sentimental idealization, which is characteristic, for example, of similar images of Vasily Tropinin. On the other hand, they are immersed in a special harmonious world, only partly connected with reality. Venetsianov often depicts peasants in moments of rest, sometimes completely out of sync with their occupations. Such, for example, are the paintings of the 1820s “The Sleeping Shepherd” and “The Reapers”: a mother and son with sickles in their hands, frozen for a moment so as not to frighten away the hives that sat on their hands. For a second, a frozen butterfly conveys the fleetingness of a stopped moment. But here it is important that Venetsianov immortalizes his workers in a brief moment of rest, thus granting them, in the eyes of the viewer, the privilege of a free person - leisure.

Alexey Venetsianov. Sleeping shepherd. 1823–1826State Russian Museum

Alexey Venetsianov. Reapers. Late 1820sState Russian Museum

Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter (1847-1852) became an important milestone in the understanding of the peasant. In them, the peasant was seen as an equal, worthy of the same close look and careful penetration into the character as the noble heroes of the novels. The trend that gradually unfolded in Russian literature of the middle of the century, which opened up folk life, can be described in the words of Nekrasov, known from the memoirs of a contemporary:

“... I increased the material processed by poetry, by the personalities of the peasants ... Before me, never depicted, were millions of living beings! They asked for a loving look! And whatever a person is, then a mu-che-nick, whatever life is, then a tragedy!

In the wake of the social upsurge caused by the Great Reforms of the 1860s (primarily the emancipation of the serfs), Russian art, following literature, included in its field of vision an exceptionally wide range of everyday phenomena. The main thing is that it has moved from neutral descriptiveness to social and moral evaluation. It is no coincidence that at that time the everyday genre clearly dominated painting. He allowed the artist to represent a variety of types and characters, to play in front of the audience typical situations from the life of various strata of society. The peasantry was so far only one of the objects of interest of artists - however, it was scenes from rural life that allowed the appearance of works in which the accusatory pathos of the "sixties" manifested itself with the greatest distinctness.

Village procession at Easter. Painting by Vasily Perov. 1861 State Tretyakov Gallery

In 1862, at the insistence of the Synod, a painting by the leader of the new artistic generation, Vasily Perov, "Rural Procession at Easter" (1861) was removed from the permanent exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. The procession stretching under the gloomy sky, kneading the spring mud with their feet, made it possible to show a cross-section of the rural world, where vice captured everyone - from the priest and wealthy peasants to the last poor. If the well-dressed participants in the procession only turned pink from what they had drunk and eaten, then other characters demonstrate deeper stages of degradation and profanation of shrines: a ragged man carries the image upside down, and a drunken priest, walking from the porch, crushes the Easter egg.

At the same time, a new image of the peasants' habitat, free from idealization, came into Russian painting. The most impressive example is Pyotr Sukhodolsky's Noon in the Village (1864). This is a protocol-accurate image of a specific area - the village of Zhelny, Mosalsky district, Kaluga province: huts and sheds with perpetually holey roofs scattered without visible order (only in the background is the construction of a new house visible), lean trees, a swampy stream. The summer heat caught the inhabitants in their daily activities: women carry water or wash clothes, children play by the barn, men sleep in the sun, representing the same element of the landscape as a spotted pig that fell on its side, a harrow thrown directly into the grass or a plow stuck in a puddle that does not dry out. .

Afternoon in the village. Painting by Pyotr Sukhodolsky. 1864 State Russian Museum

From Gogol's colorful descriptions of a hot rural day, this view is distinguished by the objective view of the painter, devoid of visible emotion. In a certain sense, this depiction of the Russian countryside is even more bleak than Perov's demonstratively but tendentious picture. Meanwhile, the society of that time was obviously ready for such a spectacle: in 1864 Sukhodolsky received the Great Gold Medal of the Academy of Arts for this painting, and in 1867 it was shown in the Russian department of the World Exhibition in Paris. However, it should be noted that in more later years Russian painters painted the village as such relatively rarely, preferring to represent the peasants in a different environment.

The depiction of characters from the people in the 1860s was distinguished, as a rule, by the openly declared position of the artist: it was a publicly demanded criticism of social injustice and moral decline, the main victims of which were “humiliated and insulted”. Using Well-Developed Narrative Tools genre painting, the artist told "stories", similar in their rhetoric to theatrical mise-en-scenes.

The next decade brought a more multidimensional image of the people, which is becoming more and more clearly associated with the social lower classes. Instead of a silent reproach to the educated classes, the "simple" person becomes a moral model for them. This trend was expressed in its own way in the novels and journalism of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The socialist ideology of populism is also connected with it, with its idealization of the peasant community as not only the economic, but also the socio-ethical core of the nation. But although Russian painting was in the general ideological context of the era, literal parallels between it, literature or journalism are far from always appropriate. For example, the realism professed by members of the most influential artistic association of the second half of the 19th century, the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, can hardly be understood as a direct analogy to the populist understanding of the peasantry.

For centuries, the depiction of a man from the people in European and Russian art suggested a distance between the character and the viewer, who invariably retained his privileged position. Now toolkit psychological analysis, worked out by literature and built up by realistic painting XIX century, was to be applied to the commoner-din. “... Its inner essence ... is not some kind of special and curious, but a universal human essence, drawing its originality exclusively from the external situation,” Saltykov-Shchedrin argued in 1868. In a similar way, one can describe the aspirations of the Wandering realism of the 1870s and 80s.

Illarion Pryanishnikov. Kaliki are transitional. 1870State Tretyakov Gallery

Illarion Pryanishnikov. Fire victims. 1871Private collection / rusgenre.ru

Nikolay Yaroshenko. Blind. 1879Samara Regional Art Museum

Ivan Kramskoy. contemplator. 1876

The other side of the individualizing view was the building of the psycho-logical and social typology of the people. Ivan Kramskoy wrote in 1878: "... the type, and only for the time being, one type is today the entire historical task of our art." The search for such types of Russian painting was conducted throughout the 1870s. Among them stand out images of people, one way or another cut off from the roots, who, by their way of life or system of thought, are separated from the established way of life - a kind of children of the upheaval carried out by the reform of 1861. Such are the Passing Kaliki (1870) and the Pogoreltsy (1871) by Pryanishnikov, Sharvin's The Tramp (1872), Yaroshenko's Blind Men (1879) or Kramskoy's The Contemplator (1876), which Dostoevsky used in The Brothers Karamazov to characterize Smerdyakov:

“... in the forest, on the road, in a torn cafta-niche and bast shoes, stands alone, in the deepest solitude, a peasant wandered ... but he does not think, but “contemplates” something.<…>... Maybe, suddenly, having accumulated impressions over many years, he will leave everything and go to Jerusalem, wander and escape, or maybe he will suddenly burn his native village, or maybe both will happen together.

Barge Haulers on the Volga. Painting by Ilya Repin. 1872-1873 years State Russian Museum

The turning point in relation to folk images is associated with Ilya Repin's (1872-1873) Barge Haulers on the Volga, whose heroes were precisely people uprooted from their familiar soil. By following how the artist’s attitude to the dramaturgy of his canvas changed, one can understand how in painting as a whole there was a transition from genre narrative and a patronizing-pitying look to an image where folk organism becomes self-sufficient. Repin abandoned the original idea of ​​confronting the city's "pure" society at a picnic with "dank, terrible monsters" - from the depiction of an episode that he himself witnessed. IN final version he created a canvas, the paradoxicality of which eludes the modern viewer. Before us is a large canvas that instantly stops the visitor of the exhibition: the blue sky, the blue of the river and the sand of the Volga banks create an exceptionally strong color chord. But this is not a landscape or a genre canvas: Repin consistently refuses those compositional decisions that suggest some kind of plot plot. He chooses the moment when eleven people almost stopped, as if posing for a painter. This is actually a group portrait of people who are at the very bottom of Russian society. Looking at the canvas, we can read the characters and origin of barge haulers: from the stoic sage priest-stripper Kanin (the root of the human team) to the young Larka, as if resisting his fate (the brightest figure in the center of this gloomy row is a young barge hauler, in right -laying strap). On the other hand, eleven people, pulling a huge bark, turn into a many-headed creature, make up a single body. If we take into account that barge haulers are presented against the backdrop of a river expanse, behind them is depicted a ship drawn by them (an old symbol of the human community) under the Russian merchant flag, then we have to admit that we have before us a collective image of the people, appearing at the same time in desperate poverty and primordial natural force.

The public reaction to "Barge haulers" is indicative: conservative criticism deliberately emphasized the "tendentiousness" of the picture, believing that "this is Nekrasov's poem, transferred to the canvas, a reflection of his" civil tears "". But observers as varied as Dostoevsky and Stasov saw Burlaki as an objective image of reality. Dostoevsky wrote:

“None of them shouts from the picture to the viewer: “Look how unhappy I am and to what extent you owe the people!” ... -nom his position.

A peculiar result of the assessment of the canvas summed up Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksan-dro-vich, who bought it for 3,000 rubles. In his palace, "Barge haulers" remained until.

Vasily Petrov. Fomushka-owl. 1868State Tretyakov Gallery

Ilya Repin. A timid man. 1877Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum

Ilya Repin. The man with the evil eye. 1877State Tretyakov Gallery

In the 1870s, realistic painting strives not only to show "social ulcers", but also to find a positive beginning in Russian life. In the work of the Wanderers, it is embodied in the landscape (Savrasov, Shish-kin) and portraits of the intelligentsia (Kramskoy, Perov, Repin). It was the portrait genre that opened up the possibility of combining the typical and the specific in folk images, made it possible to focus primarily on the character of a person and accept him as an equal. These are Perov's Fomushka the Owl (1868), Repin's The Timid Man and The Man with the Evil Eye (both 1877). But at the exhibitions, the images of specific peasants were not accidentally called “studies”: the portrait still retained the status of a social privilege.

Forester. Painting by Ivan Kramskoy. 1874 State Tretyakov Gallery

Kramskoy advanced further than anyone along the path of creating a strong and independent peasant character. Commenting in a letter to the collector Pavel Tretyakov on the study "Woodsman" (1874), depicting a forester in a hat shot through, Kramskoy wrote:

“... one of those types ... who are a lot of social and political system folk life understand with their minds and who have deep-seated displeasure, bordering on hatred. From such people, in difficult moments, Stenka Razina, Pugachevs recruit their gangs, and in ordinary times they act alone, where and how they have to, but they never reconcile.

Ivan Kramskoy. Peasant with a bridle. 1883National Museum "Kyiv Art Gallery"

Ivan Kramskoy. Mina Moiseev. 1882State Russian Museum

The most perfect implementation of this approach to folk type became Kramskoy's Peasant with a Bridle (1883). This is an infrequent case when we know the hero of the canvas - a resident of the village of Siversky near St. Petersburg. Preceding the picture by just one year, the study bears the name of the model - “Mina Moiseev”. A man with a gray beard and a wrinkled, tanned face in a casual blue shirt crossed his arms over his chest and leaned forward, as if engaged in a conversation. A characteristic pose, leaving a feeling of the hero's involvement in some process external to the picture, and a look directed outward and to the side, do not allow us to attribute this canvas to portraits in the strict sense of the word. On the contrary, the title of the canvas, where the image of Mina Moiseev is given worthy solidity, no longer contains the name of its hero, presenting now the peasant as such. This generalized character of the image was realized by Kramskoy himself. In a letter to the entrepreneur Tereshchenko, who later purchased the painting, the artist wrote that he was offering "a large study of the 'Russian peasant', in the form in which they discuss their village affairs."

It is the portrait-type that Kramskoy creates: Mina Moiseev is depicted straightened up, in the same worn blue shirt. An overcoat is thrown over it, a bridle hangs on the elbows of the left hand. The peasant is shown with undisguised sympathy, but it is unlikely that he himself would have agreed to appear before his descendants in this form: his hair is combed hastily, his shirt collar is open, and the coarse clothes thrown over his shoulders are torn somewhere, and somewhere patched up. If the hero of the canvas ordered his image himself, he would be depicted with well-groomed hair and a beard, dressed in the best outfit and, most likely, with some sign of prosperity, for example, a samovar: this is how we see in the photographs of wealthy peasants of that pores.

Of course, the addressee of this canvas was an educated visitor to the exhibition, and Kramskoy counted on his visual experience when creating this canvas, deliberately ascetic and noble in color. The figure of a peasant, depicted knee-deep, turns into a pyramid - a simple monumental form. The viewer looks at him as if from below. This technique, in its forced version, was used by Baroque portrait painters to convey an impression of majesty to their heroes. A stick in the hard-working hands of a peasant, which may well be the handle of a pitchfork or a shovel, seems to be a staff, that is, a traditional sign of authority, and the poor mantle with holes appears as the embodiment of the artless simplicity of a noble person. These concise, but effective means Kramskoy forms the image of his hero as a person endowed with an unintentional sense of dignity and inner benevolent strength, “common sense, clarity and positivity in the mind,” as Belinsky once wrote about the properties of a Russian peasant.

The arrival of a sorcerer at a peasant wedding. Painting by Vasily Maksimov. 1875 State Tretyakov Gallery

The 1870s brought genre painting to new level. At the 6th traveling exhibition in 1875, Vasily Maksimov showed the painting "The Arrival of a Sorcerer at a Peasant Wedding". The artist himself came from a peasant family, he knew rural life well, and the painting was based on his childhood memory of the appearance of a mysterious and somewhat sinister village character at the wedding of his older brother. This multi-figured composition, larger than a standard genre painting, adds a new dimension to the peasant scenes. The urban viewer is faced with a situation where he is completely alien, he has no key to what is happening, and the peasants - young and old - are lined up in a subtly nuanced mise-en-scene, where everything - both the measured ritual of the holiday, and the appearance of an intruder - inherently belongs to the peasant world. Maximov organizes his narration without overt action, skillfully creating the psychological tension of the situation, the meaning of which may not be completely clear to an external viewer. This is the peasants' own world, in which they behave appropriately, without thinking about an outside observer. Maximov seemed to respond to Shchedrin's expectation:

Vasily Maksimov. Blind owner. 1884State Russian Museum

Vasily Maksimov. Family section. 1876State Tretyakov Gallery

Vladimir Makovsky. On the boulevard 1886State Tretyakov Gallery

Edgar Degas. Absinthe. 1876 Musee d'Orsay

Maximov more than once later turned to village life, his most notable works told about the hard fate of the people ("Sick Husband", 1881; "Blind Master", 1884). In his "Family Division" (1876), as if on a theatrical stage, in the presence of representatives of the community, a family strife is committed - the division of property. Opinions were expressed that such a deliberately played out conflict runs counter to the traditional ways of resolving disputes within the community, but be that as it may, this canvas testifies that the Wanderers' painting was able to challenge the ideal image of the peasant world, constructed by the populist intelligentsia. Another conflict, dictated by the social transformations of the era, is presented in Vladimir Makovsky's painting "On the Boulevard" (1886). On a bench sit a young festively dressed tipsy craftsman with a fashionable accordion and a wife with a baby who came to visit him from the village: this is one of the sharpest images of irreversible mutual alienation in Russian painting, evoking images of “loneliness together" by Edgar Degas (for example, his "Absinthe", 1875-1876).

Ilya Repin. The arrest of the propagandist. 1892 State Tretyakov Gallery

The failure of "going to the people" - a campaign of revolutionary propaganda in the countryside, crushed by the government in 1877 - showed the illusory nature of the populist hope for the socialist and collectivist principles of the Russian peasantry. This dramatic story for the opposition intelligentsia prompted Repin to work on the canvas "The Arrest of the Propaganda", which took almost a decade. Naturally, the peasants were to become important participants in the scene. But if the central image of the picture is an agitator tied to a pole and therefore provocative with the scourge of Christ, remained virtually unchanged compositionally, then the characters responsible for his capture were radically transformed. In the early sketches, the pro-propagandist is tightly surrounded by the locals who have seized him (one of them is rummaging through a suitcase with proclamations). But gradually, Repin actually removes direct blame from the common people for the catastrophic mutual misunderstanding between the peasantry and the intelligentsia, which became the basis for the failure of the populist sermon: in later versions of the composition, the peasants gradually left the forefront, and in the final version of the canvas, completed in 1892, they are almost completely relieved of responsibility for the arrest, being present as silent witnesses in the far corner of the hut. Only one of them helps the gendarme to restrain the violent captive, and the search is carried out by officials and policemen.

Ilya Repin. Reception of volost foremen by Emperor Alexander III in the courtyard of the Petrovsky Palace in Moscow on May 5, 1883. 1885-1886 State Tretyakov Gallery

Peasant occupied central location not only in populist and Slavic-Philo views, but also in the ideology of the Orthodox kingdom of Alexander III. The state has not yet considered art as a means of propaganda, and the image of a loyal peasantry is rarely found in Russian painting. But a noteworthy exception is Repin's painting "Reception of Volost Elders by Emperor Alexander III in the courtyard of the Petrovsky Palace in Moscow on May 5, 1883" (1885-1886), commissioned by the Ministry of the Imperial Court. Although the artist was dissatisfied with the fact that a quote from the royal speech marking the beginning of the reaction was placed on the magnificent frame of the canvas, the picture successfully represents the basic myth of the reign of Alexander III - a mystical union between self- holder and tillers over the heads of the elites. The sovereign rises here in the middle of a sun-drenched courtyard, he is surrounded by an attentive crowd of foremen, in which the whole empire is embodied: great Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars and Poles. All the other witnesses of the event, including the royal family, are crowded in the background.

In this vein is the opening by the artists of the Abramtsevo circle of the beauty of peasant art and attempts to renew the urban culture with its help. But at the same time, they mean that now the peasant world is becoming for artists not so much a social phenomenon as a bearer of eternal, universal artistic and national values. With its power and beauty, it will be able to inspire painters for a long time to come - from Philip Malyavin to Kazimir Malevich. But his artistic comprehension is now gradually but irreversibly losing that social and political relevance that allowed Russian painting of the 1860s-80s to create a unique image of the Russian peasant as the bearer of core social and moral values.