As an artist, Nikolai Yaroshenko combined the incompatible - he rose to the rank of general and became a world famous painter. Wanderer artist Nikolai Yaroshenko Artist Yaroshenko Nikolai Alexandrovich biography

Gunib. Dagestan

An outstanding (and almost forgotten) Russian landscape and portrait painter of the nineteenth century.

Biography of the artist Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko

Self-portrait of the artist

Artist Nikolai Yaroshenko was born in December 1846 in Poltava.

Little Kolya began to draw very early, but his parents diligently did not notice his obvious talent for the simple reason that they saw his future connected with military service.

Papa Nikolai Alexandrovich was a retired major general. And my mother was from a family of hereditary military. Nine-year-old Nikolai was assigned to the Poltava Cadet Corps. Two years later, the boy became a cadet of the First Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg.

In 1863, Nikolai Yaroshenko entered the First Military Pavlovsk School. Since the young man's abilities for the exact sciences were revealed, he was transferred to the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy.

During this period, Nikolai Alexandrovich, in parallel with the study of artillery, studied at the Academy of Arts. Time is sorely lacking. Yaroshenko tries to combine studies at the academies, and after classes he hurries to the cartridge factory, where he works as head of the stamping workshop. He also takes private drawing lessons from Andrian Volkov and attends the classes of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, where Ivan Kramskoy becomes his teacher.

In 1869, Nikolai Alexandrovich graduated from the Mikhailovsky Academy and was assigned to a cartridge factory in St. Petersburg. Yaroshenko will work at this plant for 20 years.

In 1874, the artist graduated from the Academy of Arts as an external student and married Maria Pavlovna Navrotina (a student, bestuzhev, social activist). Young people go on a honeymoon trip to Poltava, then they go to the North Caucasus to Pyatigorsk. Yaroshenko leaves his wife in Pyatigorsk, and for a whole month he writes sketches in Svaneti. These landscapes, painted during the honeymoon trip, will subsequently be enthusiastically received by the public.

In 1875, Yaroshenko made his debut with great success at the 4th Traveling Exhibition with just one painting, Nevsky Prospekt, and a year later became a member of the Association. And he was immediately elected to the board of this association of artists. Later Comrades will say that Yaroshenko was the real conscience of the Association of the Wanderers.

The Caucasian landscapes presented to the public were received, as I wrote above, with enthusiasm. Very soon, Nikolai Aleksandrovich was given the nickname "portrait painter of the mountains."

In 1885, the Yaroshenko family moved to Kislovodsk, where the artist bought a house. In the summer, numerous guests come to Yaroshenko, who were regular participants in the “Yaroshenko Saturdays” in St. Petersburg. These are writers, composers, artists, musicians... I will not list the names of the guests, because it is easier to name those who did not stay at the Yaroshenko family's house.

In the end, the hospitable hosts added several outbuildings to the five-room house for numerous guests. In this house, known as the "White Villa", the artist settled after he retired in 1892 (with the rank of major general). For health.

Yaroshenko developed tuberculosis.

In 1897, Nikolai Alexandrovich went on a big trip: the Volga region, Italy, Syria, Egypt. From this journey, he brought a huge number of paintings, sketches, portraits and graphic works.

Yaroshenko died in June 1898. And not from tuberculosis. He painted from life on Mount Big Saddle. It began to rain and the artist decided to run to his "White Villa". These 10 kilometers were the last in his life. He ran home, but felt ill, and the next day he died due to cardiac arrest.

The ashes of the artist were buried in Kislovodsk.

The artist left wonderful Caucasian landscapes (some of the works can be seen today in the Tretyakov Gallery), genre paintings of “civil sorrow”, and simply magnificent portraits.

I want to bring to your attention a small gallery of the artist's works.

Paintings by the artist Nikolai Aleksandrovich Yaroshenko

Mountain landscape
red stones
Pyatigorsk
Village in the mountains
Shat Mountain
Caucasus. Teberda lake
Jerusalem
Palermo
In the mountains of the Caucasus
Beshtau
At the doctor
Firstborn funeral
Conducted
Blind
Argument between old and young
choir
In the monastery In warm regions Portrait of a lady in a lace cape Girls with a letter Portrait of a lady with a cat Gypsy Portrait of the artist Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge Girl with a doll Portrait of an unknown Peasant female student Everywhere life

Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko was born on December 1 (December 13, according to the new style), 1846 in Poltava. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich, was a military man who rose to the rank of major general. Mother, Lyubov Vasilievna, also came from an officer's family. The boy's ability to draw showed up quite early, but did not affect his father's decision to send him to military service. Our hero later recalled the unbending character of Alexander Mikhailovich: "Honor and service to duty were sacred to him, before which everything in life had to bow."

Thus, in the tenth year, Nikolai was sent to the Poltava Cadet Corps. Despite the fact that this institution was located close to his home, the life of "Cadet Yaroshenko" differed little from the life of his comrades brought from distant counties. The same barracks life. Unless you could visit your parents more often.

In the cadet corps, the boy did not leave drawing classes. And the few drawings that have survived from this time allow us to conclude that he was making fair progress. The future artist was assiduous and diligent in other sciences, therefore, having graduated from the corps in 1863, he without any difficulty entered the Pavlovsk Military School in St. Petersburg. Soon he was transferred to the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, where he also went among the first students.

Classes "arts" Yaroshenko, however, at this time still did not leave. At first he studied with A. M. Volkov, and a little later he entered the evening classes of the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, where Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy became his mentor. In 1867, simultaneously with the "entry" to the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy, Yaroshenko began to attend the Academy of Arts as a volunteer.

It should be noted that the completely young artist "did not give himself up" to art, not only for fear of violating the will of his father. Possessing an exalted soul, he was at the same time a very pragmatic young man and understood perfectly well that a successful debut in the pictorial field did not yet ensure success. He could not count on the material support of his family. On the contrary, he foresaw that in the near future he himself would have to "cherish the old age" of his parents. However, our hero did not want to be promoted to the detriment of art. His wife recalled: "Nikolai Alexandrovich refused the rank of colonel for five years, since with this rank he was offered such places that did not give him the opportunity to paint ..."

Portrait of Maria Pavlovna Yaroshenko. 1875
Portrait of Maria Pavlovna Yaroshenko, the artist's wife. 1880s
Probably, if Yaroshenko had been a little bolder (and even not so much bolder as "more reckless"), then by the end of the 1860s, art critics would have spoken about him in full voice. But it was not so easy to combine military service with painting, and the first noteworthy Yaroshenko's "tests of the brush" date back to 1874. This year was generally a turning point in the fate of the artist. At the beginning of the summer, he married Maria Pavlovna Navrotina (by the way, a former student), then spent a month at Kramskoy's dacha, and after that he went to the Caucasus. But - in order.

Shat Mountain (Elbrus). 1884
Canvas, oil. 70 x 159 cm. Memorial Museum-estate of the artist N.A. Yaroshenko
The summer of 1874 turned out to be unkind. Kramskoy recalled that hardly ten sunny days could be counted for the entire season. The rain poured down like a bucket, and the young wife of Yaroshenko must have spent many tedious hours at Kramskoy's damp dacha (the stoves were stoked every day), waiting for her husband, at that time the captain of the guard, from service. The vacation was due to Yaroshenko at the end of the summer, but for the time being, he had to travel to St. Petersburg almost every day from the Siverskaya station of the Warsaw railway.

The month spent on Siverskaya played a big role in bringing the inhabitants of the dacha closer together (Yaroshenko had known Kramskoy for a long time, but this was the first time he had been his "long" guest). On August 26, after the departure of the young painter and his wife to the Caucasus (through Little Russia to see his parents), Ivan Nikolayevich wrote to the Wanderer Konstantin Savitsky: Kiev, and the guy is good." If not for this letter, we might not have paid attention to the very fact that Yaroshenko was visiting Kramskoy. It must be said that our hero, being a straightforward and honest man, at the same time was not too disposed to expand on the details of his life. Thus, it is known that he burned all the letters that were written to him, and asked his addressees to do the same with respect to his correspondence. By virtue of this "installation" we have practically no epistolary evidence of Yaroshenko's life - and after all, letters, coupled with diaries, are the most valuable "human documents" that allow us to accurately restore not only the biography of the person who wrote them, but also the atmosphere of the era itself. Alas, we are practically deprived of such an opportunity in the case of Yaroshenko.

Correspondents of the artist, with rare exceptions, followed his will, destroying the received letters. But those of them that have survived are of considerable interest. Thus, extremely "instructive" is Yaroshenko's letter, preserved by the manager Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov. In it, the master explains his view of the relationship of the painter with the "economic part" of his craft. “In my positive opinion,” he writes, “an artist should not deviate from the price once set, even if, having set a price too high by mistake, he risks not selling his picture at all. I will not bother your attention with a presentation reasons why I had such a conviction - I will only add that, before settling on a certain price, I interviewed the opinions of all the artists I knew and finally set prices - the lowest of those that were declared to me. Even more categorically and in a military clear tone are the "dispositions" of the artist, written by him to those who accompanied the next traveling exhibition: "From the opening day in Poltava, you will hold the exhibition there for 14 days; you will move to Elisavet-grad and will also hold the exhibition there 14 days; from there you will go to Chisinau and stay there with the exhibition for so long that you will open an exhibition in Odessa between December 1 and 10. By the time you arrive in Odessa, I will inform you of the further route ... "Many of the participants in the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (TPEV) they recalled the "strength of character" of Yaroshenko and the "some despotism" inherent in him ...

Portrait of Vera Glebovna Uspenskaya ~ Portrait of G.I. Uspensky. 1884

Portrait of the artist Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy. 1874
Portrait of the actress Pelageya Antipievna Strepetova. 1884

Portrait of D.I. Mendeleev. 1885
Portrait of Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin. 1886

Portrait of M.A. Pleshcheev. 1887 ~ Portrait of I.A. Goncharova. 1888

Portrait of the artist Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge. 1890
Portrait of the philosopher and poet Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov. 1895

Portrait of Nikolai Nikolaevich Obruchev. 1898
Portrait of S.V. Panina. 1892

Male portrait. 1875 ~ Portrait of a woman. 1880

An old man with a snuffbox. 1873 ~ Portrait of a young man. 1886
However, this Yaroshenko's "despotism", which manifested itself in full after he took the place of the "leader" of the Wanderers after the death of Kramskoy, served, according to the overwhelming number of his associates, to strengthen the "moral and ideological foundations of the Partnership", and therefore was perceived favorably by them . But a certain patronizing and benevolent despotism in the master's treatment of "comrades in the shop" still took place. “It seems to me,” he writes to N. Kasatkin, inviting him to his place in Kislovodsk (he bought a house here in 1885), “that you spend your summer time in the cities in vain, instead of having a good rest and strengthening physically and morally somewhere somewhere in the bosom of nature.

But not only the Kislovodsk house of Yaroshenko was always full of guests, but also his St. Petersburg apartment on Sergievskaya Street. Mikhail Nesterov, who knew the artist's family well, recalled that he often had up to fifty "visitors". Some of them stayed for a long time, and then confusion reigned in the apartment, in which there was no way to work. However, according to the testimony of relatives, Nikolai Alexandrovich was more amused than upset.

In 1892, the master retired (having risen, like his father, to the rank of major general). Two years earlier, doctors suspected he had consumption, and Yaroshenko realized that "it's time to get ready." He even made a will, according to which all his paintings remained to Maria Pavlovna. When she, who always and in everything wanted justice, tried to object that some of them must be transferred to his relatives, the artist sternly objected: "It was not their life, but ours." On June 25 (July 7, according to the new style), 1898, Yaroshenko died in Kislovodsk. But not from consumption, but from paralysis of the heart, to which the doctors, concerned about the development of the process in the lungs, did not pay attention.

on Yandex.Photos. Kislovodsk. Yaroshenko's grave on the territory of the Temple

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St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kislovodsk was consecrated on May 22, 2008.
The first Orthodox church in the resort town appeared along with its foundation. At the end of 1888, the main Temple of the city was consecrated in honor of one of the most revered saints - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.
In 1900, next to the cathedral, in the same architectural style, a five-tiered bell tower was built.
In 1936 the cathedral was blown up. On September 12, 1993, on the day of memory of the holy noble Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, the laying of the cathedral took place. Surviving photographs were used as a basis in order to embody the former appearance as much as possible.
The height of the temple is 54 meters. The cathedral is designed for 3500 people.

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Historical reference. In 1792, a pentagonal redoubt was built at the Sour Spring, as the Narzan Spring was then called, on a hill between the Olkhovka and Berezovka rivers. The commander of the troops of the Caucasian line, General Irakli Ivanovich Markov, spent the whole summer with his family at the Narzan spring in 1798. As part of his retinue was Adjutant Rebrov. By order of General Markov, a stone cross made of gray sandstone was erected on the mountain of the Holy Spirit - a symbol of the Orthodox faith that the Russians brought to the Caucasus, and the mountain began to be called Krestovaya.
with the increase in population and the emergence of the settlement, there was a need to build a parish church. Giuseppe and Johann Bernardazzi, the main organizers of the Kav Minvod, were invited to create the project.

By order of the commander of the troops of the Caucasian line, General A.P. Yermolov, one of the brothers went to the mountains to search for Orthodox churches of the ancient Alans. He created an album of sketches of temples, gave their description and measured them. All these data were used in the construction of temples in the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody. In 1824, the Bernardazzi brothers created a project for a church in Kislovodsk. In 1826-27. the church was built of wood, without the use of nails, with donations from the Slobozhanka Tolmacheva. The new temple, like the former fortress church, was consecrated by Archimandrite Tobias in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker..."

"... The St. Nicholas Church began to be called - "White Cathedral". The construction was completed in 1888, the consecration took place on October 22 (November 4, according to New Style). The main Throne was dedicated to St. - Holy Right-Believing Prince Alexander Nevsky.

The central iconostasis was tall, built of wood, and distinguished by skillful carvings. Nikolsky Cathedral repeated the traditional scheme of the five-domed church, worked out in the 12th century by the architects of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, but differed from ancient Russian churches in that the four snare drums were decorative, not illuminated. The cathedral had excellent acoustics and was designed for 500 people. At the level of the second tier, extensive choirs were arranged, the central dome and the drum were richly decorated with paintings. The majestic temple was painted by famous Russian artists - the Vasnetsov brothers, V.D. Polenov, N.A. Yaroshenko, M.V. Nesterov, who got married in this cathedral. Great sons of Russia F.I. Chaliapin and L.V. Sobinov was sung in the choir of St. Nicholas Cathedral. "
!
http://www.pravoslaviekmv.ru/index.php?page=66&art=114

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on Yandex.Photos. Chaliapin's dacha

on Yandex.Photos. Types of Kislovodsk. 12/10/2007

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Anton Ivanovich Tvalchrelidze (1858-1930) - a very famous person in his time in the Stavropol Territory, a former inspector of public schools in the region. Having visited all corners of the province, he compiled a reference book about the Stavropol Territory, a kind of encyclopedia of local history knowledge on almost 700 pages. He was married to the daughter of the Terek Cossack Timofey Astakhov, no less famous for his military deeds (a lot can and should be told about him separately), who owned the plot of land on which this dacha was built by Tvalchrelidze.
In 1915, the building was purchased from Tvalchrelidze for his sick wife (daughter of N.I. Prokhorov, the owner of the Trekhgornaya Manufactory) N.V. Lezhnev, the owner of the Elan stud farm in the Saratov region.
As for Kshesinskaya, it is known that she lived in Kislovodsk for a very short time in 1918, but whether this mansion was the place of her stay here is not known with certainty.

on Yandex.Photos. Narzan baths

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The main Narzan baths are located near the Narzan Gallery. They received the name “Main” not by chance: at the end of the 19th century, the Skalkovsky baths were built in Kislovodsk - a wooden one-story building, which, of course, could not be compared either in appearance or in terms of throughput with the new beautiful building of baths, which called - Main narzan baths.
The building features a richly finished façade, using architecture mainly characteristic of northern India.
The baths were built in 1901-1903 for the centenary of the resort. A memorial plaque reminds of the author and the time of construction: "Designed and built by engineer A.N. Klepinin. 1901-1903."

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The building of the Narzan Gallery is located in the center of Kislovodsk, there is also a source of Narzan, which existed during the stay of M. Yu. Lermontov in Kislovodsk.
Previously, the gallery was called Vorontsovskaya and was intended for walks in bad weather after drinking narzan.
Now the main drinking center is located here (there are 16 pump rooms), where narzan of three varieties is sold - common, dolomite and sulfate

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In 1895 the construction of the Kursaal was completed. Nearby in the same year, the construction of a light openwork station building was completed, which, together with the Kursaal, represents, as it were, one architectural ensemble. These buildings are beautiful and are a monument of ancient architecture. At one time, the Russian writer D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak wrote about Kislovodsk: “A wonderful city, sweeping its streets along the steep banks of the river. The general view was very beautiful, and the magnificent station could decorate any capital.”

on Yandex.Photos. House-museum of the artist Yaroshenko

on Yandex.Photos (c) vik6169 (Zheleznogorsk, Kursk region)
The museum was founded in 1959. It is located on the estate with a garden, a park and buildings, including four memorial buildings that belonged to the family of N.A. Yaroshenko from 1885 to 1915. Here the great Russian artist lived his last years of life. The estate was widely known as the "White Villa". The biography of the artist himself is also very unusual. He was a major general of artillery and at the same time directed the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. On the territory of his estate on Saturdays famous artists of Russia gathered: A.I. Kuindzhi, A.M. Vasnetsov, I.E. Repin, L.N. Tolstoy, F.I. Chaliapin. These meetings were called "Yaroshenko's Saturdays".

I have the brightest memories of a summer vacation with my parents in 1958 with Kislovodsk
- Kislovodsk pearl of KMD. Now everything is getting better and better there, put in order. And they will break a tunnel in the mountains to the sea for half an hour's drive

ABOUT! It seems that the next photo tour awaits us with the advent of the new album ;-) Already prepared to watch and read :-)
- I considered last year's photos not entirely successful, the weather was bad. But then I decided to collect on the album

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The manor was an established complex of residential, service and outbuildings and occupied one of the best places in the Kislovodsk settlement - the outskirts of the old fortress. The location of the estate was very successful, it occupied the edge of the upper terrace above the river Olkhovka and Olkhovaya beam, where outbuildings and an orchard were located, which adjoined the Kurortny Park.
From the side of the settlement, the estate was limited to Nizhnyaya Olkhovka Street (since 1903 - Dondukovskaya, renamed Yaroshenko Street in 1918), on the left was the estate of Colonel Aglintsev, and then there was the state land of the building of the Sloboda Administration, on the right was the estate of the landowner Bondarev, on the other side the estate was facing the resort Kislovodsk park.
This part of the city began to be settled in the late 1830s and early 1840s. mainly by soldiers and officers of the fortress garrison, and after the abolition of the Kislovodsk fortress by the Highest Decree of 1861 (when the suburb was transferred to the status of the Cossack Sloboda), the existing buildings, together with the land, were transferred to the private possession of householders.

Clean, comfortable. Just like a homestead should be. Thanks for the detailed description. I have not been there, so I will travel with you!
- In the three buildings of the exhibition of Yaroshenko himself, his contemporaries and new paintings.

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In his memoirs "Old Days" M.V. Nesterov, who first visited Kislovodsk in 1890, wrote. “Near the cathedral, two steps away, was the estate of Yaroshenko. Maria Pavlovna bought it by chance for nothing, gradually settled there, replacing the white huts with small houses, in which Yaroshenko's acquaintances began to live in the summer: V.G. Chertkov with his family, a large family of the historian S.M. Solovyov. Yaroshenko themselves fit in a nearby house, where there was also a small workshop of Nikolai Alexandrovich. A very roomy balcony adjoined the house; on it, as on the balcony of Dr. Sredin in Yalta, there were constantly visitors. Nikolai Alexandrovich conceived the idea of ​​painting the balcony in the Pompeian style according to the patterns; he was helped in this by the daughter of the historian Solovyov Poliksena Sergeevna (Allegro).

Spacious terrace. Is this the balcony?
- Yes. They call it a balcony.

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Outbuilding number 1. This building was erected in 1888 on the site of the outbuildings of the previous owners and is the first building implemented by Yaroshenko in the process of alteration and improvement of the estate. It was built in the same technique as the Main House (wooden, plastered). The peculiarity of the internal layout suggests that initially this building was assigned the role of the main manor house with front and residential parts, as well as an internal service corridor for servants. However, poor lighting forced the owners to move to the "white villa". It is characteristic that at the same time they added to the new Main House two rooms of the same size that were built for housing in the first house, which later turned into a guest house (in the 1890s, according to M.V. Nesterov, “a large family of the historian Solovyov).

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Outbuilding number 2. The building of the second wing went to Yaroshenko as a legacy from the old estate. First of all, the construction equipment in which the wing was built is noteworthy: its local name is “turluk”. The large building, about eight rooms, has adobe walls supported by a frame of posts and beams (the gaps between the posts are braided with willow, filled with clay and plastered with lime). Initially, the building had the traditional appearance of a white mud hut under a thatched roof, traditional for these places. Approximately in 1890, during the improvement of the estate, the outbuilding received a new appearance: the smeared adobe walls were plastered, the thatched roof was replaced with an iron roof, and a comb of metal lattice was arranged along the ridge.

In all estate-museums there is not enough "living spirit". A?
- The owner. That's for sure.

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Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko was born in 1846 in Poltava in the family of a retired major general. Fulfilling the will of his father, he graduated with honors from the military academy and was assigned to the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant. However, the service did not prevent young Nikolai from attending classes at the Academy of Arts in the evenings for four years. After serving at the plant for more than 20 years, Yaroshenko retired with the rank of major general and devoted himself entirely to painting.
The most famous paintings by Yaroshenko are "Stoker", "Prisoner", "Life Everywhere", "Student", "Sister of Mercy", "Student", "Old and Young", "Reasons Unknown" and "Nevsky Prospekt at Night".
In the summer of 1898, as in all previous years, the couple from St. Petersburg came to Kislovodsk to their dacha. During one of the walks in his favorite park, Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko got caught in the rain and began to quickly descend from the mountains. In the evening he felt unwell.
On June 25, in the morning, the heart of a wonderful person stopped, interrupting the life of Yaroshenko, who was sitting at the easel.

Ancient stones... How much they have seen in their lifetime.
- This way, the owners and guests went down to the lower park of the estate and through the city park went to drink narzan.

It is clear :-) Now the continuation of the story has appeared :-) Interesting.
- You just got to the installation. By the way, there is a curious fact Boris Savenkov was Yaroshenko's nephew.

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There was once a "Mendeleev" wing, which was dismantled for fuel during the Civil War. There was a myth that the great chemist used to work in this wing, surrounded by flasks and retorts. Later it became clear that this could not be, since Mendeleev visited Yaroshenko in Kislovodsk only once, on his way to Baku, where the artist went with him three days later. In addition, according to the staff of the D. Mendeleev Museum-Apartment in St. Petersburg, in the last decades of his life, the scientist was engaged in theoretical work, and he did not need chemical glassware. The name of the wing, as I think now, was rather associated with the name of the chemist's widow, who really visited L.P. Yaroshenko.

Nice and modest architecture :-) Wonderful story.
- Thank you. This photo will end this short story.

"Wildflowers ". 1889 (c) N.A. Yaroshenko
P.S. Artist N. A. Yaroshenko (c) allerleiten . 26.05.2010

Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko entered the history of Russian art as an itinerant artist who served the principles of high spirituality, humanism, honor and conscience. Excellently educated, who knew several foreign languages ​​to perfection, Yaroshenko enjoyed prestige and well-deserved respect among art comrades, friends and like-minded people. Undoubtedly, Yaroshenko owes certain traits of character, first of all, to family education, built on high moral principles.
Yaroshenko's ability to draw appeared very early, but the boy's stubborn desire to draw did not suggest to adults that he might have a talent that deserves attention and care. Parents do not imagine any other career for their son, except for the military, and at the age of 9 they assign him to the Poltava Cadet Corps.
Two years later, Yaroshenko was transferred to St. Petersburg to the First Cadet Corps, after graduating from it he entered the First Military Pavlovsk School (1863). From the Pavlovsky School, Yaroshenko was transferred to the Mikhailovsky Artillery School. During these years, he attends evening drawing classes, where the famous artist Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoy becomes his teacher and then friend.
In 1867 N.A. Yaroshenko enters the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy, and to complete his art education, he enters the Academy of Arts. The young artist had a very difficult time. It was necessary to combine classes at the Academy of Arts with classes at the Artillery Academy, and after the end of the latter, with work at the cartridge factory as head of the stamping workshop. It required strength of character and a passionate love for art in order to complete one's artistic education under such conditions.
Soon, after graduating from the Academy of Arts in 1874, N.A. Yaroshenko marries Maria Pavlovna Navrotina, who became his faithful companion and friend until the end of his life. The first visit to Kislovodsk by young spouses belongs to the same period. The famous "Yaroshenko Saturdays" took place in Yaroshenko's St. Petersburg apartment, which became a kind of club for the progressive St. Petersburg intelligentsia. Famous writers have been here: Garshin, Uspensky, Korolenko, artists Repin, Kuindzhi, Polenov, Maksimov, artists Strepetova, scientists Mendeleev, Pavlov.
The same atmosphere Yaroshenko was transferred to Kislovodsk, to the dacha, which was purchased in 1885. St. Petersburg friends gathered here, as well as a large community of famous artists, actors, scientists who are on vacation and treatment during the summer season. Of the numerous guests, it is enough to name only a few: these are the artists M.V. Nesterov, N.A. Kasatkin, N.N. Dubovskoy, A.M. Vasnetsov, I.E. Repin, A.I. Kuindzhi, V.E. Borisov-Musatov.
Large picnics were organized, trips to the Castle of deceit and love, to Saddle Hill, on the Bermamyt plateau. Longer trips were also undertaken: along the Georgian Military, Ossetian Military Highways, to Teberda, to the foot of Elbrus. And a large number of paintings, sketches, sketches were brought from everywhere.
In 1897, Yaroshenko undertook a trip to Syria, Egypt and Italy, replenishing his collection of works with a large number of paintings, sketches, portraits and graphic works.
They buried Nikolai Alexandrovich not far from the house, in the fence of St. Nicholas Cathedral. A year later, a monument was erected on his grave - a bronze bust of the artist on a black pedestal, against the background of a granite stele with a relief image of a cross, a palm branch and a palette with tassels. The artists N. Dubovskoy and P. Bryullov took part in the development of the tombstone project. The author of the sculptural portrait is a friend of the artist

Private bussiness

Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko (1846 - 1898) Born in Poltava in the family of a retired military man. His father managed to make a brilliant military career, rising from private to major general. He believed that his son would also become a military man, and although the boy showed the ability to draw from childhood, he sent him to the Poltava Cadet Corps. According to the artist's wife, Nikolai Yaroshenko entered the Poltava Cadet Corps in 1855. However, a commendation sheet with the inscription "to the young cadet Nikolai Yaroshenko", dated March 8, 1854, has been preserved, so that Yaroshenko was already a cadet at the age of eight. In Poltava, Yaroshenko began to study painting, his first mentor was the local artist Ivan Zaitsev, who served as a drawing teacher in the cadet corps.

Since 1856, Nikolai Yaroshenko was transferred to the First Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. After graduating from the cadet corps, Yaroshenko entered the Pavlovsk military school in August 1863. While still a cadet, he began taking private drawing lessons. One of his teachers was the artist Andrian Volkov. Later, Nikolai Yaroshenko attended evening classes at the drawing school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, where he taught. After completing his studies at the school, he, at the behest of his father, continued his military education, enrolling in the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy. At the same time he became a volunteer at the Academy of Arts. There he became close to members of the Association of Traveling Exhibitions. At the IV traveling exhibition, held in 1875, Yaroshenko's first painting "Nevsky Prospect at Night" was exhibited. March 7, 1876 Nikolai Yaroshenko was admitted to the Association, and was soon elected to its board.

After graduating from the military academy, Nikolai Yaroshenko entered the military service at the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant, where he served for more than 20 years, retiring in 1892 with the rank of major general. All this time, in parallel with the service, he was engaged in painting. He was a regular participant in traveling exhibitions.

In 1874, Yaroshenko married Maria Nevrotina, a student of the Bestuzhev courses. From his honeymoon trip to the Caucasus, he brought a lot of mountain landscapes, which were highly appreciated by critics and exhibition visitors. Among the friends of Nikolai Yaroshenko were not only artists: Nesterov, Kuindzhi, but also Sergei Rachmaninov, Leonid Sobinov, Gleb Uspensky, Leo Tolstoy. Many of them were frequent visitors to the "Yaroshenko Saturdays" in the St. Petersburg apartment of the artist.

In 1885, the artist buys a house in Kislovodsk, where he spends every summer. There, too, his friends often visit him.

After his retirement, Nikolai Yaroshenko lives most of the time in his Kislovodsk home. But in 1897 he made a great journey through the Volga region, Italy, the Middle East and Egypt. Then he went to the Urals, where he worked on sketches for a series of paintings he had conceived about the life of mining workers.

Nikolai Yaroshenko died in Kislovodsk on June 26 (July 7), 1898. He was buried near the city's St. Nicholas Cathedral.

What is famous

Self-portrait 1895

Nikolai Yaroshenko is best known as a portrait painter, author of genre paintings and images of social types of his time (“Stoker”, “Prisoner”, “Life is Everywhere”, “Student”, “Sister of Mercy”, “Cursist”, “Old and Young”, “ Cause unknown). In portraits, he tried, first of all, to convey the psychology of the hero. The artist's wife said: "He could not paint faces that did not represent any spiritual interest." Known are the portraits of I. Kramskoy, N. Ge, Vl. Solovyov, G. Uspensky, actresses P. Strepetova.

Many of Yaroshenko's paintings caused lively controversy among critics. The artist was often accused of tendentiousness, there were often discussions around social problems that were reflected in his paintings. The landscapes of Yaroshenko's work are less famous, although they received the highest rating from fellow artists. Repin even wrote: "Yaroshenko should have switched to landscapes instead of painting and portraits...".

What you need to know

Perhaps the most famous painting by Nikolai Yaroshenko was Life Everywhere (1888, kept in the Tretyakov Gallery), exhibited at the 16th exhibition of the Wanderers. The painting depicts the inhabitants of the prisoner's car: three men and a woman with a child, feeding pigeons through a barred window. Yaroshenko created it, being influenced by Tolstoy's ideas, and even wanted to give the painting the title "Where there is love, there is God." Many viewers tried to figure out what brought the heroes of the picture to jail: a widow in a black headscarf, an old peasant and others. “Behind the bars in the window you will see the holy family. The Madonna, thin and pale, holding the baby Savior on her knees with a hand stretched out for blessing and the figure of bald Joseph towering behind, ”wrote the critic Kovalevsky. Another review said that the picture embodies "the general idea of ​​the power of goodness and the power of love for life, attention to the" humiliated and offended ", the disclosure of humanity and the best aspects of the inner world in every person, no matter how criminal it may seem."

Direct speech

“Nikolai Alexandrovich had a whole nature. He always and everywhere kept himself open, without fear of expressing his views, he never went to any deals.<…>Nikolai Alexandrovich, truthful, principled, could not stand falsehood either in people or in art; he did not tolerate vulgarity and people affected by this disease. Nikolai Alexandrovich was not what is usually called a "politician", his actions were not intricate machinations - they were simple, sober and straightforward. He did not know any compromises. One could disagree with his views, challenge them, but never suspect petty, unworthy motives. His moral character was pure, not hypocritical.
The artist about Nikolai Yaroshenko

“Admire her: a man’s hat, a man’s cloak, dirty skirts, a ragged dress, a bronze or greenish complexion, a chin forward, everything in cloudy eyes: aimlessness, fatigue, anger, hatred, some kind of deep night with a reflection of a swamp fire - what it is? In outward appearance - some kind of hermaphrodite, inwardly a genuine daughter of Cain. She cut her hair, and not in vain: her mother so marked her Gapok and Palashki "for sin" ... Now she is alone, with a grave cold in her soul, with oppressive anger and longing in her heart. There is no one to pity her, there is no one to pray for her - everyone has abandoned her. Well, maybe it’s better: when he dies of childbirth or typhus, there will be no scandal at the funeral.”
Professor of law Petr Tsitovich in the film "Cursist"

“Each of us has seen and sees such girls“ with a book under her arm ”, in a plaid and a man’s round hat, every day and for many years in a row ... And now the artist, choosing from all this crowd of“ running with books ”one of the most ordinary, an ordinary figure, furnished with the most ordinary accessories of a simple dress, a plaid, a man's cap, cut hair, subtly notices and conveys to you, the "spectator", the "public", the most The main thing... This is the main thing: purely feminine, girlish features, imbued in the picture, so to speak, with the presence of a youthful, bright thought... , how to say, - a new male trait, a trait of bright thought in general (the result of all this running around with books) ... Here is this most elegant, not invented, and, moreover, the most real fusion of girlish and youthful features in one person, in one figure, overshadowed not feminine, not masculine, but “human” thought, immediately illuminated, comprehended both the cap, and the plaid, and the book, and turned it into a new, born, unprecedented and bright human image.
Gleb Uspensky "About one picture" (about the painting "Cursist")

“The portrait of Gleb Uspensky, exhibited simultaneously with the portrait of Strepetova, was perceived by the audience almost as a pair to him. Painting (composition, color) did not give grounds for comparison; the portraits were related by the "general character" of the depicted persons conveyed in them.
The portrait of Gleb Uspensky is, perhaps, "more open", more turned to the viewer than Strepetovsky, a cordial connection between the viewer and the person in the portrait is established instantly (Ge said in such cases: "Like Romeo and Juliet, looked back and forth - and that's it, feeling, Love"). Strepetova, written by Yaroshenko, is more "in itself", her portrait requires more intense mental work from the viewer: the idea of ​​​​the portrait, the "thought about", the "sum of signs" and the "general character" are taken in, realized by the viewer, evoke certain thoughts in him, create a certain mood with which he, as if from a higher spiritual point, continues to comprehend the portrait. Probably, Kramskoy, speaking about the portrait of Strepetova, remembered Dostoevsky not only because he found similarities in the work of the writer and artist, but also because in front of Yaroshenko's portrait of Strepetova, he came to mind the portrait of Dostoevsky himself, painted by Perov - also all "in itself ".
Approaching the portrait of Gleb Uspensky, the viewer meets a look directed directly into his eyes, into his soul, and in this look there is such grief, such unrepressed pain that it causes an instant response. In Strepetova, the power of a general nature is clearer; in Gleb Uspensky, this harmony - the harmony of tragedy in a man of the eighties - is somewhat broken, hacked - by the predominance of pain.
V. I. Porudominsky on portraits by Yaroshenko

Seven facts about Nikolai Yaroshenko

• Students of the Poltava Cadet Corps, whose pupil was Nikolai Yaroshenko, took part in the restoration of the fortifications of the Russian army at the site of the Poltava battle.
• One of the early drawings of Nikolai Yaroshenko is titled by him "Considerable chic." It depicts cadets at a summer camp. Against the backdrop of tents, one of them is blowing up the samovar with his boot, while the rest are preparing for tea.
• The hero of the painting "Stoker" Yaroshenko met in one of the workshops of the plant where he served.
• Anna Chertkova (Diterichs), the wife of Leo Tolstoy's secretary Vladimir Chertkhov, a student of the Higher Women's Courses, became the prototype of the "Cursist".
• Yaroshenko's first painting, Nevsky Prospekt at Night, was lost during World War II.
• Leo Tolstoy was going to take refuge in Yaroshenko's house in Kislovodsk when he planned his first escape from Yasnaya Polyana.

The canvas “Teberda Lake”, among many other works by Nikolai Yaroshenko, allowed the inhabitants of central Russia to discover the North Caucasus.

The name of this artist is not well known. Whichever of my acquaintances I asked about him, they all just shrugged their shoulders. But everyone to whom I showed reproductions of his work exclaimed in surprise, “Oh, so it's him! Of course I do!” I myself experienced something similar in Kislovodsk, where vacationers are entertained with various excursions - including the House-Museum of the artist Nikolai Yaroshenko. At first, I did not expect anything special from some unfamiliar painter, but suddenly I realized that I had seen these paintings more than once in the Russian Museum, and in the State Tretyakov Gallery, and even in the Native Speech textbook for the fourth grade ...

Nikolai Yaroshenko devoted himself to art without leaving military service. Listening to the story about the fate of the artist, I remembered that many glorious representatives of Russian culture served in the army - these are Mikhail Lermontov, Afanasy Fet, Alexander Kuprin, Pavel Fedotov, Vasily Vereshchagin, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Nikolay Yaroshenko was born in 1864 in Poltava in the family of a retired major general. From childhood, Nikolai was prepared for a military career. His father dreamed that the eldest son would follow in his footsteps, and did not pay attention to the boy's interest in painting. When the time came, the general sent his son to the Poltava Cadet Corps, where he once served, and after graduation, already a young man, young Yaroshenko left for St. Petersburg and entered the Pavlovsk School there. In parallel, Nikolai took private drawing lessons, and then attended evening classes at the drawing school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, where Ivan Kramskoy taught. The future military engineer continued his studies at the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy and at the same time began to attend the Academy of Arts.

The story of Yaroshenko's military career is very brief: he graduated with honors from the military academy and was assigned to the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant, where he served for more than 20 years. Having fulfilled his father's dream and repeating his path, he retired with the rank of major general. But the story about the artist and public figure Nikolai Yaroshenko should be more extensive.

The head of the stamping workshop of the St. Petersburg Cartridge Plant, Captain Yaroshenko, continued to attend classes at the Academy of Arts in the evenings for another four years. During this time, he became close to the Wandering artists and writers who united around the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine. Yaroshenko's worldview was shaped by the ideas of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, he was inspired by the poetry of Nekrasov. At the plant, Yaroshenko talked a lot with the workers. Gradually, he became imbued with their needs, and the views very characteristic of the Russian intelligentsia of the last quarter of the 19th century became close to him. This worldview played a decisive role in the choice of subjects for his paintings, and in the mood they convey.

The painting "Nevsky Prospekt at Night" depicts two women standing on the panel of a deserted avenue on a rainy night. It was she who brought Yaroshenko the first recognition - he was accepted into the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. Soon he became a member of his board and led the society together with Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy for more than 10 years, and after the death of his teacher, he became his successor and custodian of the ideas of the Partnership. And if Kramskoy was called the “reason” of the Wanderers, then Yaroshenko was called his “conscience”.

Depicting in his paintings ordinary people living a hard and joyless life, Yaroshenko followed the realistic traditions of the Wanderers - such are his "Stoker" and "Prisoner".

He “saw” his stoker in one of the workshops of his factory, and the image he created became one of the first in a series of portraits of workers in the history of Russian art. Even the critics of those times noted that the artist expressed sympathy not only for the personality of his hero, but also for the emerging labor movement as a whole. And in the painting “At the Lithuanian Castle” (1881), Yaroshenko’s military authorities found signs of social protest at all and placed him under a week-long house arrest, after which he was invited to a conversation with the Minister of Internal Affairs Loris-Melikov. And the painting was removed from the exposition of the Traveling Exhibition, which opened on March 1, 1881, on the day of the assassination of Alexander II.

After marrying Maria Navrotina - one of the few women of that time who received a higher education - Yaroshenko decided to organize a honeymoon trip. First, the newlyweds visited Poltava, and then went to the North Caucasus, to Pyatigorsk. There the artist left his young wife and spent a whole month painting sketches in Svaneti. And although later Yaroshenko traveled a lot around Russia, Western Europe, visited Egypt, Palestine and Turkey, his heart was forever captivated by the beauty of the Caucasus mountains.

In 1885, the Yaroshenko couple settled in the North Caucasus. They acquired a small estate in the settlement of Kislovodskaya, where at that time there were only seven streets. Yaroshenko spent the summer here. Numerous friends and guests began to come to them - writers, artists, scientists who often visited St. Petersburg on "Yaroshenko's Saturdays" - Sergei Rakhmaninov, Fyodor Chaliapin and Leonid Sobinov, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Gleb Uspensky, Ivan Pavlov and Dmitry Mendeleev. The artists Repin, Nesterov, Ge, Dubovskoy, Kasatkin, Kuindzhi did not forget their colleague. Leo Tolstoy was going to take refuge at Yaroshenko when he planned his first escape from Yasnaya Polyana. The hospitable hosts have added several outbuildings for guests to their cozy five-room house. The estate was called the White Villa. The painting of the house in the technique of Pompeii frescoes was done by the guests of the dacha. At the end of the 19th century, the White Villa became one of the main cultural centers in southern Russia.

Today, copies of paintings that have become famous due to their social poignancy - "Stoker", "Prisoner" and "Life Everywhere", which Leo Tolstoy called "Doves" - are collected in one of the rooms of the house. The rest of the space is devoted to portraits and landscapes.

With amazing skill, Yaroshenko created expressive portraits of typical representatives of his time. He painted people's faces, trying to convey not so much a portrait resemblance as a person's character. Here is a small study "The Old Jew" (1896), the painting "Boy" (1892), for which the neighbor boy posed with pleasure, or "Portrait of a Woman" (1880), which is believed to depict the artist's wife - they all attract the viewer with its expressiveness and brightness of characters. And the portrait of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, made by Yaroshenko three years before the death of the writer, shows an elderly sick man, severely shocked by the closure of the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, which he led for 15 years.

Particular attention should be paid to the portraits of the highlanders, who, despite the prohibitions of Sharia, posed for the artist out of respect for his skill, love and respect for the history and traditions of the Caucasus.

The first Caucasian landscapes, which the artist painted during their honeymoon, delighted the public. Ilya Repin wrote: “Yaroshenko should have switched to landscapes instead of painting and portraits…”, although he was worried that art was losing Yaroshenko the portrait painter. Sketches made during travels in the mountains of the North Caucasus or during walks around the outskirts of Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk fascinate with their colors and accuracy in conveying moods. For most of the inhabitants of the middle zone, the south of Russia was an unknown land. Therefore, when the artist brought the painting “Shat-mountain (Elbrus)” (1884) to St. Petersburg, many took the panorama of the Caucasus Range depicted there as a figment of the author’s fantasy. Following Pushkin and Lermontov, Yaroshenko discovered the beauties of the Caucasus for his compatriots, earning, with a light hand from the critic Vladimir Stasov, the nickname "mountain portrait painter". And Nikolai Alexandrovich died in the summer of 1898 the next day after he ran more than 10 kilometers from the Big Saddle mountain, where he painted from nature, to the house, fleeing the rain.

During his short life, Yaroshenko created more than two thousand paintings, combining painting with service at a military factory.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Alexander Benois, a researcher of Russian art, called Yaroshenko the last pillar and celebrity who entered the camp of the Wanderers. The critic noted that the name of Yaroshenko should not be forgotten by posterity. Not very technically skilled, the artist, who could not devote himself entirely to painting, vividly captured in his sketches and portraits the turbulent time of female students and students, young people eager for heroism and all kinds of “martyrs of the idea”.

In March 1962, through the efforts of the artist Vladimir Seklyutsky, the house-museum of N. A. Yaroshenko was opened in the White Villa. Today it is the only museum of its kind in the south of Russia, comparable in historical and cultural significance to Tolstoy's Yasnaya Polyana and Repin's Penates. The museum owns the entire territory of the estate, the museum staff, citizens and sponsors have restored the buildings, collected an extensive collection. 108 items of painting and graphics by Yaroshenko, 170 works of Wanderers are stored here. The house-museum of the artist remains the center of the cultural life of the region. Up to 20 thousand people visit it every year. And many of those who once visited the White Villa return to the museum again and again.

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