Russian artist, musician and theater figure Vasily Polenov for a long time did not dare to turn to the Biblical theme in his work. Until something terrible happened: his beloved sister became seriously ill and before her death she made her brother promise that he would begin “to paint a large picture on the long-planned theme of “Christ and the Sinner.” And he kept his word. After the creation of this painting, Vasily Polenov Polenov began creating a whole series of paintings called “From the Life of Christ,” to which he devotes several decades of tireless creative and spiritual search. For this, Polenov even travels through Constantinople, Athens, Smyrna, Cairo and Port Said to Jerusalem.
The outstanding portrait artist Henryk Semiradsky, although he was Polish by origin, felt an organic connection with Russian culture from his youth. Perhaps this was facilitated by studying at the Kharkov gymnasium, where drawing was taught by Karl Bryullov’s student Dmitry Bezperchiy. Semiradsky brought picturesqueness to his canvases on biblical subjects, which made them bright, memorable, and lively. Detail: Took part in the painting of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Henryk Semiradsky
Alexander Ivanov “He left only the divine Raphael as his teacher. With a high inner instinct, he sensed the true meaning of the word: historical painting. And his inner feeling turned his brush to Christian subjects, the highest and last degree of the high,” Nikolai Gogol wrote about the famous painter. Alexander Ivanov is the author of the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People,” which cost him 20 years of real work and creative devotion. Ivanov also made watercolor sketches for the “Temple of Humanity” murals, but he showed them to almost no one. Only after the artist's death these drawings became known. This cycle entered the history of art under the name “biblical sketches”. These sketches were published more than 100 years ago in Berlin and have not been reprinted since then.
Nikolai Ge Ge’s painting “The Last Supper” shocked Russia, just like Karl Bryullov’s “The Last Day of Pompeii” once did. The newspaper “St. Petersburg Vedomosti” reported: “The Last Supper” amazes with its originality against the general background of dry fruits of academic bearing,” and members of the Academy of Arts, on the contrary, for a long time could not make up their minds. In “The Last Supper,” Ge interprets the traditional religious plot as a tragic confrontation between a hero who sacrifices himself for the good of humanity, and his student, who forever renounces the precepts of his teacher. In Ge’s image of Judas there is nothing private, only general. Judas is a collective image, a man “without a face.” Detail: Nikolai Ge first turned to gospel stories under the influence of Alexander Ivanov
N. I. Ge. "The Last Supper"
Ilya Repin It is believed that none of the Russian artists, except Karl Bryullov, enjoyed such fame during their lifetime as Ilya Repin. Contemporaries admired the masterfully executed multi-figure genre compositions and seemingly “living” portraits. Ilya Repin repeatedly turned to the gospel theme in his work. He even went as a pilgrim to the Holy Land to see for himself the places where Christ walked and preached. “I wrote almost nothing there once, I wanted to see more... I painted an image of the Russian church, the head of the Savior. I wanted to make my contribution to Jerusalem...” Later he said: “there is a living Bible everywhere,” “I felt the living God so grandiosely,” “God! How magnificently you feel your insignificance to the point of non-existence.”
Ivan Kramskoy Ivan Kramskoy pondered his painting “Christ in the Desert” for a whole decade. At the beginning of 1860, he made the first sketch, and only in 1867 the first version of the painting, which did not satisfy him. To see everything that has been done in this way, Kramskoy travels around Europe with a mandatory visit to the best museums in the world. leaves for Germany. He walks through art galleries in Vienna, Antwerp and Paris, gets acquainted with new art, and later makes a trip to Crimea to the areas of Bakhchisarai and Chufut-Kale, so similar to the Palestinian desert.
Marc Chagall The author of the famous “Biblical Message” Marc Chagall loved the Bible since childhood, considering it an extraordinary source of poetry. Since he came from a Jewish family, he began to learn the basics of education quite early at the school at the synagogue. Many years later, as an adult, Chagall in his work tried to comprehend not only the Old Testament, but also the New Testament, and gravitated towards understanding the figure of Christ.
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The work of Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov is one of the most significant phenomena in Russian painting of the second half of the 19th century. A remarkable landscape painter, he developed plein air painting systems in Russian art, creating works full of poetry and lyricism, beauty and truthfulness, and freshness of painting. The artist’s multifaceted creativity was not limited to achievements in the field of landscape genre. A painter and theater artist, an architect and a musician, he revealed his talent in each of the genres and types of art, and acted as an innovator in many respects... About creativity
Stages of life 1844 (June 1) born in St. Petersburg into a family of hereditary nobles Takes drawing and painting lessons from P.P. Chistyakova Moves with her parents to Petrozavodsk, studies at the gymnasium Enters simultaneously the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University and the Academy of Arts - 1876 Pensioner business trip Marries Natalya Vasilyevna Yakunchikova () Member of the Committee for the creation of the Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor Alexander III 1903 Performs church project for the village of Bekhovo 1926 Polenov was awarded the title of People's Artist of the Republic (July 18) Died in Borka. He was buried in the cemetery in Böchow.
Canvas » 43.5x30 cm Genre: » Religious subject Technique: » Oil Museum » State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg To the gallery To the gallery Martha took Him into her home(s)
Canvas » 29.8x43.3 cm Genre: » Landscape Technique: » Oil Museum » State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow To the gallery To the galleryParthenon. Temple of Athena Parthenos ()
Presentation Transcript
Topic: “Polenov Vasily Dmitrievich” (1844-1927) Teacher Smirnov Evgeniy Borisovich Prepared by student 8 “a” Saltykova Tatyana
Dmitrievich Polenov is one of the most significant phenomena in Russian painting of the second half of the 19th century. A remarkable landscape painter, he developed plein air painting systems in Russian art, creating works full of poetry and lyricism, beauty and truthfulness, and freshness of painting. His paintings "Moscow courtyard" "Grandmother's garden"; "Christ and the Sinner" brought recognition to the artist. They are not only widely known and popular, but have become a kind of “sign” of Russian fine art. The artist’s multifaceted creativity was not limited to achievements in the field of landscape genre. A painter and theater artist, an architect and a musician, he revealed his talent in every genre and type of art, and in many respects acted as an innovator.
From letters: “It seems to me that art should give happiness and joy, otherwise it is worth nothing.” It can be considered that these words contain the creative principle of the master, which he carried throughout his life. Polenov was born in St. Petersburg on May 20 (June 1), 1844 into a cultured noble family. His father, Dmitry Vasilyevich Polenov, the son of an academician in the department of Russian language and literature, was a famous archaeologist and bibliographer. The artist’s mother, Maria Alekseevna, nee Voeykova, wrote books for children and was engaged in painting.
Polenov's childhood impressions included trips to Olshanka, Tambov province, to the estate of grandmother V.N. Voeykova. Vera Nikolaevna, daughter of the famous architect N.A. Lvova, raised after the death of her parents in the house of G.R. Derzhavina knew Russian history and folk poetry well, and loved to tell her grandchildren Russian folk tales and epics. Vera Nikolaevna encouraged her grandchildren’s passion for painting, usually organizing competitions like academic ones among children, awarding a “medal” for the best work.
They were characteristic of most of the Polenov children. Two of them turned out to be the most gifted: the eldest son Vasily and the youngest daughter Elena, who later became real artists. The children had painting teachers from the Academy of Arts. Meeting with one of the teachers - P.P. Chistyakov - became decisive for Polenov’s life path. Chistyakov taught drawing and the basics of painting to Polenov and his sister in 1856-1861, while still a student at the Academy of Arts. Already at that time he demanded from his students a close study of nature. “The nature,” Polenov later recalled, “was established for a long time, and the drawing was developed systematically, not by a conventional method, but by careful study and, if possible, an accurate rendering of nature.” “Without thinking, don’t start anything, and once you start, don’t rush,” the teacher advised Polenov. Obviously, Chistyakov was able to convey to his student the main thing - a professional approach to painting, the understanding that real art can only arise as a result of hard work.
The path to becoming an artist was still very far away. This choice forced Polenov to move away from the “normal” path trodden by previous generations of his family associated with public service, which, in the end, could lead to the emergence of another Polenov-senator (the senator was the artist’s uncle, M.V. Polenov) . In any case, Polenov’s family could not imagine his future life without a university education. And, after much hesitation, in 1863, after graduating from high school, he entered, together with his brother Alexei, the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics (natural science) of St. Petersburg University. At the same time, in the evenings, as a visiting student, he attends the Academy of Arts, and studies not only in drawing classes, but listens with interest to lectures on subjects that are not in the university course - anatomy, construction art, descriptive geometry, history of fine arts. Polenov does not stop playing music. He was not only a regular visitor to the opera house and concerts (Polenov’s first acquaintance with Wagner’s music dates back to this time - his passion for the art of the great romantic composer, who performed in concerts in Russia in 1863, lasted throughout his life), but he himself sang in the student Academy Choir.
The Academy of Arts, already as a permanent student, Polenov left the university for a while, completely immersing himself in painting. In 1867, he completed his student course at the Academy of Arts and received silver medals for drawings and sketches. Following this, he participated in two competitions for gold medals in his chosen class of historical painting, and in January 1868 he again became a university student, but now at the Faculty of Law. In the summer of 1867, Polenov traveled to France and visited the World Exhibition there, where there was a large section with works of folk arts and crafts from various countries. The impressions from this exhibition will subsequently form the basis of the dissertation that he will defend at the university. In 1869, Polenov received a small gold medal for the painting “Job and His Friends” and the right to compete for a large gold medal; he prepared the theme “Resurrection of Jairus’s Daughter” for the competition together with Repin.
Create a work of high style, give a sublime character to the image. They coped with the given program brilliantly, almost on an equal footing. Although Polenov’s painting was not inferior to Repin’s canvas in terms of coloristic merits and skill in organizing the composition, it bore the features of a genre and was somewhat inferior in the depth and significance of the concept. However, many noted the great warmth of feeling expressed by Polenov in the image of a girl stretching her thin hand to Christ. Both Polenov and Repin received large gold medals and the right to travel abroad for pensioners. In the same year, 1871, Polenov graduated from the university - passed the final exams and presented a dissertation “On the importance of art in its application to craft and measures taken by individual states to enhance crafts, introducing an artistic element into it.” This topic is certainly not accidental. It is connected both with the author’s personal acquaintance with folk arts and crafts, and with the ideological movement of the era - a broad wave of attraction to the national in art. “Society,” writes Polenov, “the more versatile its development, the more aware it is of the need for aesthetics, the more urgent is the need for art (...) History shows what a strong influence art has on a person, on his morals, on their softening, on moral and mental development. Usually, where freedom penetrated, art appeared, or where art penetrated, the spirit of freedom developed, driving out the spirit of submission. In terms of influence on the masses, it acts more powerfully than science."
He played a very important role in Polenov’s creative development - greater than for Repin, who was abroad with him, who by this time had already found his line in art. Despite his age (he went abroad at the age of twenty-seven), he had not yet developed as an artist. This already made him more “open” to foreign influences. He continued to study intensively, visiting numerous galleries, museums, and private collections. Polenov's path - Germany, Italy (then temporary return to Russia), France. What has the greatest influence on the artist? Of course, it is impossible to list all European influences. For example, the impressions received from visiting ancient German knightly castles, from which Polenov made many sketches, will form the basis of his plan for the painting “The Right of the Master” (1874), and his visit to the Russian church in Paris, in the interior design of which Bogolyubov’s landscapes were used, will later find a response in the artist’s work on the cycle of paintings “From the Life” of “Christ” (1899-1909). Polenov also experiences the influence of the artistic atmosphere of the cities through which his travel route runs.
He was impressed by “Venezia la Bella” (the beauty of Venice), which appears (in his words) “to a passing traveler as something fantastic, some kind of magical dream.” Polenov's admiration for Venice was intensified by the fact that it was the birthplace of his favorite artist Paolo Veronese, who captivated him while still studying at the Academy of Arts. Since then, Veronese’s passion has not passed, becoming more meaningful and purposeful year after year. Polenov, with his inclinations as a colorist, was amazed by the enormous coloristic gift of the Venetian artist and the power of his painting. “What a subtle sense of colors,” Polenov admired, “what an extraordinary skill in combining and selecting tones, what strength in them, what a free and widely deployed composition, with all this ease of brush and work, like I don’t know from anyone!” Admiring the beauty of the colors of Veronese’s paintings, Polenov especially appreciated his objectivity, which perpetuated the colors of the beauty of Venice for posterity.
Artistic impressions Polenov arrived in Rome. Many plans and plans swarmed in his head, and in his soul there was a burning desire to work selflessly. But Rome very soon disappointed him, and the surrounding artistic life turned out to be little conducive to inspired creativity. “Rome itself... is somehow dead, backward, outdated,” Polenov shared his observations with Repin. “It exists... for so many centuries, but it doesn’t even have typicality, like in German medieval cities... There is no life in it original, their own, and all of it seems to exist for foreigners... There is no mention of artistic life in the modern sense, there are many artists, but there is little sense; everyone works in isolation, each nationality is separate from the other, although their studios are unlocked, but the main thing is way, again, for rich overseas buyers, so that the art is adjusted to their taste... The Roman artist is already a routine imitator in his first painting. Old Italians don’t captivate me either... "
With the Mamontov family, where artistic youth gathered, and began to visit them often. The talented, constantly enthusiastic owner of the house is S.I. Mamontov knew how to fill life with eternally new inventions, fun and entertainment, he knew how to arouse in people their artistic inclinations, no matter how modest they were. Home performances, concerts, carnivals followed each other continuously, and Polenov took an active part in all of this. The in-depth studies that the artist dreamed of receded into the background of their own accord, his plans remained unfulfilled day after day... “I found myself in such a whirlwind,” Polenov complained to Repin, “that I was completely wrapped up in the vanity of the world, but about my own ascetic feat and forgot...” He did not create a single painting in Rome.
Paris. Here he is fascinated by the variety of stylistic trends in which artists work - “whatever suits anyone,” their ability to “realize their strengths and abilities.” Polenov's retirement in Paris coincided with the first appearance of the Impressionists, whose works caused lively controversy in artistic circles. The art of the new direction did not deeply affect Polenov, but was an additional impetus for his mastery of plein air painting. Mastering the secrets of outdoor painting became an important task for many artists studying abroad at that time. On the advice of Bogolyubov, around whom a group of Russian artists working in the open air had gathered, Repin and then Polenov went to the north of France - to Normandy, to the sea, to the small town of Vel. In a month and a half, Polenov wrote a lot of excellent sketches. Among them are “White Horse, Normandy”, “Old Gate”, “Vel”, several “Ebb Tide”, “Fishing Boat. Etretat. Normandy”
Polenov in France was the work of the Spanish master M. Fortuny, who delighted everyone with his virtuoso artistic technique. In one of his letters to Kramskoy, he says: “But I was personally captured and absorbed by one artist, whose works constitute, in my understanding, the highest point in the development of our art: he, it seems to me, is the last word of artistry in painting at the present time. You can I would say technique - but this word is too narrow for his works, in them it appears in such richness, in such luxurious beauty that it ceases to be a manner, but becomes creativity... After his paintings you no longer see anything, that is, nothing in memory does not remain - they obscure everything else." The period of his retirement business trip helped Polenov understand that historical painting was not his true element. Polenov's gaze turned undividedly to the landscape. This was the result of his searches abroad. “It (the pensioner's business trip - T.Yu.) brought me benefits in many ways, the main thing is that everything that I have done so far is not right, I need to give it all up and start again - great. Here I tried and tried all kinds of painting: historical, genre, landscape, marina, portrait of a head, images of animals, nature morte [still life], etc., and came to the conclusion that my talent is closest to the landscape, everyday genre, which I will do."
His place in art came with the conviction that creativity can only be fruitful in his homeland, and an urgent need to return to Russia as soon as possible, no matter what. “The Salon opened the other day,” Polenov reported to his mother on April 30 (May 12), 1876, “and finally convinced me of the absurdity of hanging around here and studying...” But Polenov failed to settle in Moscow immediately upon returning from abroad. The wave of enthusiasm that swept Russian society in connection with the beginning of the Serbian struggle for liberation from Turkish oppression also captivated Polenov and prompted him to volunteer in September 1876 to the Serbian-Turkish front. For his participation in battles and his bravery, Polenov was awarded the Montenegrin medal "For Bravery" and the Serbian Golden Order "Takovsky Cross". The artist conveyed his military impressions in drawings made for the magazine "Pchela". Among them there are almost no sketches of military operations. For the most part, these are either landscape drawings ("View of the city of Paracin", "Belgrade from the eastern side", "Morava Valley in front of Deligrad", etc.), or ethnographic (types of Serbia), or everyday life ("Serbian horsemen at a watering hole", “At the bivouacs beyond the Danube”, “The rear of the Serbian army”, etc.). The explanation for this should be sought not only in Polenov’s passion for the landscape, everyday genre. Sympathizing with the goals of the liberation war, he at the same time could not look without shudder at the sacrifices that it brought with it. The war confronted Polenov, first of all, not with pictures of heroic battles and victories, but with thousands of deaths, the meaninglessness of destroying human lives.
Strength to convey this cruel truth of life in art. And it was inappropriate in official reports about the war, as the drawings in “The Bee”, performed for the sake of earning money, should have been. “You ask if I found subjects for paintings,” Polenov wrote to M.N. Klimentova. “Yes and no. The subjects are peaceful, that is, bivouacs, camps, movements, although interesting, sometimes very picturesque, but they draw little war, the plots of human disfigurement and death are too strong in nature to be conveyed on canvas, at least I still feel some kind of defect in myself, it doesn’t work out for me what is in reality, there it is so terrible and so Just..."
He returned to St. Petersburg, and already in March 1877, fulfilling his long-standing intention, he moved to Moscow. There he, together with his friend R.S. Levitsky rented an apartment in Trubnikovsky Lane (on Arbat) and began creating paintings of the “landscape, everyday genre,” inspired by the old Moscow that came to his heart. The sketch from the Savior on the Sands (as Polenov himself called it, who captured the view from the windows of his workshop) dates back to this time. Subsequently, on the basis of this sketch, his most famous painting, “Moscow Courtyard,” was painted. In parallel with this, Polenov began working on sketches for the painting “The Tonsuring of the Worthless Princess,” the idea for which came to him back in St. Petersburg (at the beginning of 1877). This plan was not realized, but in connection with it, Polenov created several wonderful studies of Kremlin cathedrals and towers, which are among the best creations of the artist in the first year of his life in Russia upon returning from abroad ("The Golden Tsarina's Chamber. Window", “Upper Golden Porch”, “Assumption Cathedral. Southern Gate”, “Terem Palace”, Exit from the chambers to the Golden Porch” and a number of others.. All belong to the Tretyakov Gallery).
Interior images. Polenov had a good feel for the intimate comfort of ancient Russian tower architecture, its elegant decorative festivity. Never before in his work have there been such carpet-like, flowery and joyful colors as in these sketches, such enthusiasm for the decorative richness of Russian architecture. Friendship with Mamontov and the artists who grouped around him and tried to revive the traditions of ancient Russian and, above all, applied art, helped Polenov so vividly, with such insight, to perceive the originality of architectural solutions and especially the decoration of the palace premises of Ancient Rus'. The mastery of plein air painting demonstrated by Polenov in the Kremlin sketches, this landscape perception of architecture allowed the artist a few months later to create a wonderful landscape image of old Moscow - “Moscow Courtyard”.
A painting by Polenov, exhibited by the Peredvizhniki, whose cause he had long sympathized with. The artist treated his debut with the Peredvizhniki with a sense of great responsibility and therefore was terribly tormented that, due to lack of time, he was giving for the exhibition such an “insignificant” piece as “Moscow Courtyard”, painted as if in jest, by inspiration, without serious and long-term work . “Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do a more significant thing, but I wanted to go to a traveling exhibition with something decent, I hope in the future to earn time lost for art,” Polenov lamented. However, Polenov was mistaken in his assessment of his painting, not suspecting that it would be among the pearls of the Russian school of painting and would become a landmark work in the history of Russian landscape. The film depicts a typical corner of old Moscow - with its mansions, churches, courtyards overgrown with green grass, and its almost provincial lifestyle. The morning of a clear sunny day at the beginning of summer (according to the artist’s own recollections). Clouds glide easily across the sky, the sun rises higher and higher, warming the earth with its warmth, lighting up the domes of churches with an unbearable brilliance, shortening the thick shadows. . . The courtyard comes to life: a woman with a bucket is hurriedly heading to the well, chickens are busily rummaging in the ground near the barn, children are starting to fuss in the thick green grass, a horse harnessed to a cart is about to set off. . . This everyday bustle does not disturb the serene clarity and silence diffused in the landscape.
Polenova finally reveals herself in her full strength and reveals herself precisely on Russian soil, revealing at the same time her Russian warehouse. There is no trace left of the “Frenchness” of Polenov, who returned from his retirement business trip, which so scared Stasov away from him. Repin turns out to be right. In Russia, Polenov becomes a truly Russian artist, and his “Moscow Yard” becomes the favorite work of every Russian person. In the future, Polenov had to, having mastered plein air painting, achieve the fullness and richness of colors, their emotional richness, which was achieved in the works that followed “Moscow Courtyard”, written with all the brilliance of pictorial skill - the paintings “Grandmother’s Garden” and “Overgrown Pond” ". The painting "Grandmother's Garden" was exhibited at the VII Traveling Exhibition in 1879. In his review of the exhibition, Stasov named “Grandma’s Garden” among the best works, noting its painting, which is distinguished by its “freshness of tones.” The painting really captivates first of all with its painting. Its ash-gray with a lilac and bluish tint, pale pink, sand, silver-green tones of various shades, harmoniously combined with each other, form a single color scheme. This range, noble and refined, immediately puts the viewer in a poetic mood. The image created in the painting by the artist is devoid of one-dimensionality; it naturally and harmoniously combines different aspects of the perception of life and its comprehension.
The mansion and its decrepit owner, Polenov, unlike Maximov with his painting “Everything is in the Past,” does not tell the viewer anything about the style of this life, does not emphasize the social affiliation of people to a certain class. An old woman dressed all in black, hunched over, walks along the overgrown path of the garden, accompanied by a lovely young girl in pink. This is the very personification of old age, as its companion is youth and beauty. As if echoing the change of generations, the nature depicted by the artist blooms again and again. This constant renewal of nature is subtly conveyed by Polenov. The lush greenery of the garden occupies most of the space of the picture, for the ineradicable creative power of life is manifested in it. It is characteristic that Polenov mainly shows in the picture the young growth, fresh and juicy, leaving the old trees, disfigured by time, outside the image. This makes nature seem forever young, never aging and as beautiful in its bloom as a charming young girl in pink walking along a garden path.
The nature that Polenov shows here makes those depicted similar to the inhabitants of a Moscow courtyard. Both live quietly and naturally, one life with nature, which gives their existence meaning and poetry. This feeling of harmony and beauty of life awakens in the viewer that bright, peaceful and joyful mood that allows him to elegiacally reflect on the scene captured by the artist. The painting “The Old Mill” (1880, Serpukhov Historical and Art Museum), painted two years later, tackles the same topic. Old destroyed mill. An abandoned corner of nature. Lush greenery. There is such an abundance of vegetation in the picture that it seems that there is not a single piece of land that is barren. There is silence all around. The figure of a white-headed fisherman boy, quiet by the creek waiting for a bite, does not bring anything of his own into the life of the depicted corner; it only emphasizes its coziness and the silence reigning in it and is almost lost in the lush, sun-drenched greenery. Nature, very human in the artist’s depiction, bright and joyful, is always more significant for him than man himself.
Polenov the colorist discovers the painting “Overgrown Pond,” which is almost entirely built on gradations of one green color. The green range, subtly developed in shades, is distinguished by its exceptional beauty and richness of nuance. It seems that there are no two absolutely identical tones in the landscape, just as there is no that somewhat neutral paint that completely covered individual pieces of canvas in the “Moscow Courtyard”. The painting “Overgrown Pond” completed a certain stage of Polenov’s work and marked the onset of creative maturity. Another very talented master entered the circle of Russian landscape painters, who had a great influence on the further development of landscape painting. The younger generation of Itinerant artists was brought up on his paintings, and especially the paintings of the late 70s and early 80s. From Polenov they learned the truthful rendering of light and air, a subtle vision of color and the beauty of painting, and a poetic perception of life. “From a young age, I was an admiring admirer of “Grandmother’s Garden,” “Moscow Courtyard,” “Swamp with Frogs,” Nesterov admitted to Polenov. “In them, with such a youthful, spontaneous feeling, with such colorful completeness, you showed me the poetry of the old native life ", the inexhaustible secrets of our nature. You seem to have rediscovered the magical charm of colors."
In art, Polenov fulfilled his long-standing intention - to connect his life path with the Wanderers, and in 1878, together with I.E. Repin joined the Association of Traveling Exhibitions. “It’s been six years now that I’ve been wanting to do what I wanted, but various external circumstances got in the way,” Polenov wrote to Chistyakov. “Now, as far as I understand, these circumstances no longer exist, and I’m free, and all my sympathies have been on the side of this society since its very beginning.” emergence..." He retained these sympathies for many years, becoming one of the prominent figures of the Partnership. In 1880, Repin met Tolstoy; Tolstoy's moral preaching and his destructive criticism of existing forms of life literally shocked Repin. Polenov met Tolstoy much later, in 1887, but it is difficult to imagine that Repin, Polenov’s friend, did not retell to him in every detail his conversations and meetings with the writer, which were quite frequent at that time. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that it was the influence of Tolstoy’s views on Polenov that aroused in the artist his interest in the old theme, the theme of Christ. In addition, in March 1881, Polenov suffered deep grief - his beloved sister Vera Dmitrievna Khrushchova died, who, before her death, took her brother’s word that he would begin to work “seriously”, that is, to paint a large picture on the long-planned theme “Christ and the Sinner” . In the Polenov family, only historical painting was recognized as truly great art, and therefore the artist’s pursuits in landscape painting were not given serious importance.
Polenov, having learned that Prince S.S. Abamelek-Lazarev and A.V. Prahov are going to take a trip to Egypt, Syria and Palestine, asked Prahov’s permission to join them and received consent. The journey began in November 1881 and ended in the spring of 1882. Polenov spent the summer of 1882 in Abramtsevo. During the trip, Polenov visited Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, from Cairo he took a boat up the Nile to Aswan, not far from which is the sacred island of Philae with the Temple of Isis, and, returning to Cairo, departed by train to Port Said; from there he reached Beirut by sea - a port in Syria - and headed to Jerusalem; On the way back, the artist visited Greece. The artist’s sketches executed during the trip served as a unique account of the artist’s journey and all the sights he saw and amazed him. They were shown at the Traveling Exhibition in 1885 and purchased directly from the exhibition by Tretyakov. The artistic community perceived Polenov's oriental sketches of 1881-1882 as a new word in painting. “The result of the trip,” Ostroukhov wrote, “was, first of all, a collection of sketches exhibited at a traveling exhibition, and the impression it made was very great.
Direct relation to the picture. These were bright notes about the colors of the East that amazed the artist, pieces of the azure sea, the peaks of the southern mountains glowing in the colors of sunset, spots of dark cypress trees in the deep blue sky, etc. It was something full of sincere passion for colorful beauty, and at the same time resolving colorful tasks in a completely new way for the Russian artist and in an unusual way for him. In these sketches, Polenov revealed to the Russian artist the secret of a new colorful power and awakened in him the courage to handle paint in a way that he had never even thought of before." And indeed, the bright, pure colors of the East produced a real revolution in Polenov’s painting, turning the artist to open, intense color. True, in the future this range turned out to be of little use for conveying the modest colors of the Central Russian summer and winter landscape, which prevailed in the work of Polenov the landscape painter in the era of the 80s. But the experience of painting with bright and at the same time gentle, contrasting and at the same time finely selected the colors were not wasted. It was very useful when creating the painting “Christ and the Sinner”, the cycle “From the Life of Christ” and helped a few years later to master the ringing, open colors of the golden Russian autumn, which, starting from the 90s, has become a favorite time of year Polenova.
Landscapes brought from a trip to the countries of the East represent views of Egypt, including “The Nile at the Theban Range” (1881), “The First Nile Threshold” (undated), “The Nile, Pyramids in the Distance” (1881), etc. (Tretyakov Gallery) . First of all, they are captivating by the convincingly conveyed distances - this is reflected in Polenov’s passion for spatial solutions, which was revealed in his work in the era of the 80s. The trip to the East gave Polenov a rich supply of observations, introduced him to the nature and architecture of Palestine, to the life of eastern cities, to the customs, appearance and clothing of their inhabitants. All this, undoubtedly, helped Polenov in the future to present the Gospel legend about Christ and the sinner as a real scene that took place in the square in front of the Jerusalem Temple. And in this sense, the eastern journey played a role in the creation of the picture. But the direct preparatory material for the painting was collected in insufficient quantities - apparently, vivid impressions of architectural monuments and the nature of the East distracted the artist from his plan, so Polenov’s relatives were inclined to consider the trip not very successful. An echo of these sentiments can be felt in a letter from Polenov’s wife, written a little later, in March 1884, in which she expresses fear that the same thing might happen to Polenov in Rome as in Palestine - “... the same thing would come out of this.” the same troubles as with the eastern journey,” she writes to E.D. Polenova.
Traveling around the East forced Polenov to make a second trip, this time to Italy, where he hoped to find a suitable subject and write the necessary sketches for the painting. The artist settled in Rome and spent the winter of 1883/84 and spring of 1884 there. In 1882, the artist married N.V. Yakunchikova - cousin of E.G. Mamontova. The foreign trip of 1883/84 was made with her. Polenov’s wife was very sympathetic to the idea of the painting “Christ and the Sinner” and, to the best of her ability, tried to help the artist in his work. She not only sewed the costumes for the film, but, most importantly, she constantly supported Polenov’s inspired attitude towards the theme and tried to direct him towards its in-depth development. This was all the more necessary because Polenov himself was often overly carried away by the external verisimilitude of what was depicted. This hobby arose in the artist as a consequence of the desire inspired by Renan to present Christ as a person who really existed, historical, and all the acts and events of his life attributed to him actually took place in the distant times of early Christianity. The search for external truthfulness distracted Polenov from those lofty ideas for the sake of which he decided to paint his picture. “He works a lot, but whether it’s successful is again terribly difficult to say; it seems to me that he is looking for too much and too little in his work,” wrote N.V. Polenova to the artist’s sister E.D. Polenova. “It would be peace of mind for me, if there were half as many sketches, but more in content."
For the first time I imagined my topic in its full scope. The pencil sketch of 1883 (Tretyakov Gallery) was its detailed development. It already contains all those characters who will later enter the picture: the Pharisee and the Sadducee, the angry crowd mocking the sinner, the sinner, Simon of Cyrene riding on a donkey, Christ, his disciples, traders, onlookers, etc. Their location is close to the picture. The appearance of a crowded crowd of people is the most fundamental innovation of the sketch. It is here that the artist begins to grope for his theme: the teachings of Christ and the people, which will form the basis of the picture. The episode with the sinner is now interpreted much more widely than before - as an object lesson in new morality taught by Christ to the people. Another significant feature of the 1883 sketch was that the scene was placed in the square in front of the temple. The chaotic, noisy life of a large eastern city is in full swing here. The square is literally crowded with people - traders, ragged boys scurrying around underfoot, crippled beggars, praying people, working people. But the artist too generously included in the sketch his travel impressions from the street life of eastern cities and thereby, as it were, turned the image into an ordinary travel sketch. Christ, his disciples and his opponents are lost among the idle onlookers surrounding them; the expressively gesticulating crowd is drowned in the chaotic commotion reigning in the square. Even lighting and detailed drawing of all figures make them equally noticeable, not much different from each other, especially since the images themselves are not yet sufficiently differentiated in their internal significance.
The concept is clearly visible in an oil sketch from 1885 (Tretyakov Gallery). First of all, the scale of all the figures in it changed - they became larger, more commensurate with the architecture. The point of view on what is depicted has also changed: previously it was a point of view somewhat from above, which is why all the figures were pressed to the ground; now the artist looks at what is happening a little from below, and the figures look more representative. The division into the crowd and the group of disciples of Christ was finally revealed. The image of Christ became more collected, more significant, his movements softer, smoother and more majestic. Shifted closer to the center and given almost in the middle of the stone ledge, against its background (in the sketch of 1883, Christ rather accidentally huddled near it), the figure of Christ stood out more clearly from the general environment of the disciples. The general color scheme of the image was found - it was all flooded with golden-pinkish rays of the setting sun. But the color scheme of the crowd, the contrast in the color sound of the Christ group and the crowd have not yet been determined. Compositionally, the sketch was close to the final design of the plan. This enabled Polenov to begin creating cardboard.
A charcoal drawing on canvas in the size of a painting (Museum named after V.D. Polenov), “which he left in this form and did not write down with paints, because he considered it a finished thing.” The picture itself, according to E.V. Sakharova, was written during 1886-1887 in Moscow, in the office of S.I. Mamontov (in his house on Sadovo-Spasskaya). The painting was exhibited at the XV Traveling Exhibition in 1887. Alexander III, who inspected the exhibition before its opening, purchased Polenov’s painting for his collection, ahead of Tretyakov, who negotiated with the artist to purchase the painting. The acquisition of the painting “Christ and the Sinner” by Alexander III resolved all the doubts of the censor Nikitin regarding the possibility of leaving the painting at the exhibition, aroused in the latter by the too “base” real interpretation of the gospel plot and the non-canonical image of Christ.
Attacks on her by the reactionary press. M. Soloviev, in an article published in Moskovskie Vedomosti, attacked Polenov for the fact that the “pseudo-historical element” predominates in his picture over the “idealistic-religious”. Another correspondent for Moskovskie Vedomosti put forward a demand for the artist to depict “the earthly image of Christ not in the possibly real, by assumption, but in the highest idealization of the human image, which is only accessible to the means of art.” “So, what, in the opinion of Mr. Polenov, is the Savior of the world, the Messiah, God! Why is He so simple and ordinary? Where is the seal of the divine calling that He serves, how does He differ from the rest of the crowd of slovenly ragamuffins surrounding Him?” - asked the author of the article “Biblical Motifs in the Russian School.” Polenov’s passion for conveying the authenticity of what was depicted, its life-like authenticity, had its own meaning. It was due to the fact that the artist persistently sought to affirm the reality of the personality of Christ and all the events associated with him, in order to prove the vitality of his teaching and its significance for the development of human society.
First of all, a teacher, a sage, a humanist who brings words of love to people, who teaches them humanity. “Your Christ,” his friend P.A. Spiro wrote to Polenov, “he gives me not only a strong mind, he gives me kindness, and also accessibility, simplicity, my God! Kindness in an intelligent, energetic person, and even accessible - but that This is what gives people the greatest joy! But the whole picture - human malice (narrow, vile, inhuman passion) is drowned in the kindness spilled throughout the whole picture, even in its air, and it spilled out for you because Christ is yours so simply , is usually so kind. And the plot is interpreted in such a way that if the crowd that attacked the woman were even more enraged, even more terribly unbridled, I would not be afraid for the woman and for people in general; I am excited and calm, I’m even glad that it’s here happened, - here the matter will be ended in the most humanely simple, comforting way: here there is a man, Christ - I see from his pose, from his face, from the whole complexion of everything around him, who thinks about the fact before about himself, and a man with with a heart of gold; you can’t pry him off, because there’s nothing - he has no hooks, he’s simple!” The tragically sad note that sounds in the picture despite its entire content is, as it were, an amendment made by life, the artist’s real ideas about it, to the dream of spreading the religion of love and forgiveness among people, which Polenov cherished in his soul.
The life characteristic of the young Polenov, who had just graduated from the Academy of Arts, gradually faded in the era of the 80s - the era of rampant reaction. Art increasingly became for him not only an area in which he affirms his ideals, reveals his understanding of beauty, captures what is near and dear to him in life, but also a sphere of activity that feeds his need for joy and beauty, which is not satisfied by the surrounding reality. “It seems to me,” Polenov wrote at the beginning of 1888, “that art should give happiness and joy, otherwise it is worth nothing. There is so much sorrow in life, so much vulgarity and dirt, that if art completely drenches you in horrors and atrocities, then life will become too difficult.” Polenov’s appeal to the religion of Christ did not cause a radical change in the artist’s views. It was a continuation of the search for ways to achieve those humanistic ideals that have always been decisive in Polenov’s worldview and which he did not change. In Christianity, he first of all saw a humanistic preaching of mercy and love for man, a protest against violence against the human person, a call to goodness, to high spiritual perfection, that is, everything that he valued before and that became especially dear to him in Russia in the 80s years - in an era of complete arbitrariness, gross violation of human rights, rampant reaction and despotism.
Over the years, Polenov managed to work only in fits and starts - the canvas “Christ and the Sinner” absorbed all the artist’s attention for many years, so most of the landscapes of the 80s were created either at the beginning of this period, before he became enthusiastic about working on the painting, or at the end of it, after its completion. The development of Polenov as a landscape painter in the era of the 90s is inextricably linked with his life on the banks of the Oka, which during these years became an inexhaustible source of his creative inspiration. Dreaming of settling “in nature,” Polenov acquired in 1890 a small estate “Bekhovo” in the former. Aleksinsky district, Tula province. There, according to his own design, he built a house with workshops for his artist friends. The estate was named "Borok". The choice of a new place to live happily coincided with the direction of Polenov’s creative searches in the 90s and can be said to have largely contributed to the success of these searches. The nature of the Prioksky region favored the development of Polenov's attraction to the epic landscape. The artist very quickly found his theme in the landscape and from that moment became a real poet of Oka.
A prominent place in the period is occupied by images of the Russian village ("Winter. Imochentsy", 1880, Kiev Museum of Russian Art; "Village Landscape with a Bridge", 1880s, private collection, Moscow; "Northern Village" - first appeared at the Traveling Exhibition in Moscow in 1889, Saratov Art Museum named after A. N. Radishchev). Together with Polenov’s appeal to the rural landscape, the theme of the Russian village naturally entered into his work, but it did not acquire that fundamental significance for the artist, was not saturated with the acutely critical social content that Perov, Vasiliev and his other predecessors had, who, through the means of their art, , with their images of a beggar lost in the depths of the forests and endless plains of a Russian village, with the motifs of driven country roads drowning in impassable mud, they were included in the struggle of the democratic strata of society against the darkness and backwardness of the village, with the remnants of serfdom in an era when the peasant question was one of the most pressing . The Russian village in Polenov’s depiction appears in a poeticized form. This is explained not so much by the insufficient maturity of the artist’s democracy, not only by the peculiarities of his bright talent, sensitive to beauty, but - most importantly - by the common tendencies in literature and art of the 80-90s towards the poeticization of the village with its simple and natural, close to nature life.
The depiction of a Russian village is executed in the same landscape and everyday genre as the paintings “Moscow Courtyard” and “Grandmother’s Garden”. Gradually, as we approach the 90s, people begin to disappear from the landscapes of Polenov, but the latter for some time still bear traces of their daily life and activities, and only in the era of the 90-900s is “pure”, untouched nature finally established in Polenov’s landscape painting. At the same time, naturally, the theme of the Russian village ends. Polenov’s series of “village landscapes” opens with the large painting “Winter. Imochentsy” (62.5x107.5).
A small village at the edge of a black forest. Its huts, typically of the northern type, are large, built from thick logs, with high roofs, with windows set almost to the height of a man from the ground, decorated with elegant, carved frames, do not drown in snowdrifts, are not lost in the snowy plain surrounding them, like this was usually in the landscapes of the 60s - early 70s ("The Thaw" by Vasiliev, for example). Closely huddled together, they make an impressive impression, seeming to match a dense, continuous wall of coniferous forest standing. Everything in this village breathes homeliness, contentment, and a strong way of life. Smoke billows from the chimneys, women with buckets talk leisurely on the street, a woman with luggage returns home in a sleigh, two dogs sit sedately in the snow. All these genre details, just like in the painting “Moscow Courtyard,” not only help to reveal the life of people, but also reveal the content of the image of a northern village created by the artist, which has largely preserved the features of patriarchy and antiquity.
The Okies did not disappoint the artist in her beauty. Polenov continued to tenderly love this nature and, above all, for the harmony diffused in it. He captures Oka in various seasons, in her various states, giving a real chronicle of her life, full of poetry and deep truth. These are the works: “Early Snow” (1891, private collection), “Summer on the Oka” (1893, private collection, Moscow), “Golden Autumn” (1893, V.D. Polenov Museum), “Autumn on the Oka near Tarusy" (1893, Kiev Museum of Russian Art), etc. “How I would like to show you our Oka,” Polenov wrote to Konstantin Korovin in 1914. “After all, you and I were the first to discover its beauty and choose a place to live. But then you for some reason it seemed that in this beauty and harmony, no, no, and even a harmonic would slip through. Now I’ve been living here for twenty-two years, and I’ve never heard it, but the beauty and harmony are still the same.”
The artist's first successes on the way to creating a broad lyrical-epic landscape of the Oka River. The first cover of fluffy snow lay on the ground, smoothing and softening its outlines, making the endless expanse of space even more noticeable. Thanks to the high point of view from which the landscape is painted, the viewer’s gaze easily glides over the surface of the snow-covered hills and freely goes into the distance, towards the horizon, where the snowy veil of fields merges with the sky covered with gray clouds. The silhouette of a bare tree with fallen leaves, clearly visible against this gray-white background, draws the viewer’s eye even more strongly to the distance, as does the turn of the river going into the distance, lost among the snowy expanses. Wide, smooth, rhythmically repeating lines on which the landscape is built give it greater clarity and harmony, calm and epic scope. At the same time, the nature depicted by the artist has not yet plunged into winter torpor, has not yet frozen in winter sleep. The river is not entirely covered with ice - there are wide openings left on it; the snow lies only on the ground: the bushes have not yet disappeared under the snowdrifts, and their reddish foliage flutters in the wind; only a few trees had completely lost their leaves, and therefore the forest had not yet lost its fluffiness, standing out as a dark spot, rich in its shades, against the background of the snow cover. This transitional state of nature, this mixture of summer and winter forms and colors makes the landscape very picturesque, allows you to more acutely experience the beauty of the late flowering of nature, the last manifestations of its life before the coming winter sleep.
The year of Polenov at this time is still a golden autumn. He managed to convey her beauty like no one else in Russian art. Following the painting “Autumn in Abramtsevo,” Polenov creates a large canvas, which he calls “Golden Autumn” (1893, V.D. Polenov Museum). A broad picture of nature opens up to the viewer's eyes. The majestic river calmly rolls its clear blue waters. Its high bank gives way to a slightly hilly plain that stretches to the horizon. The hills, outlined by smooth, flowing lines, gradually disappear and disappear into the blue distance. Only a small part of this plain falls into the artist’s field of vision - the hills, trees and river appear as if accidentally cut off by the frame of the picture. This forces the viewer to mentally continue the image, to imagine the whole view as a whole, which intensifies the feeling of the vastness of the Oka meadows captured by the artist.
The calm and wide spread of space, the abundance of light and air, the smooth, flowing rhythms of the terrain lines, and the centric, balanced composition produces a surprisingly peaceful impression. It is harmoniously combined with the state of the depicted nature. It is a transparent and clear autumn, slightly gilding the banks of the Oka and humbly shining with its “quiet beauty” (Pushkin). The wild flowering of the Abramtsevo autumn has ceased, its burning has faded. Peace, concentration, silence reigned. The colors have faded. Dim, gentle, harmonious and bright, they best express this mood. Air, which plays a primary role in the painting, facilitating the transfer of wide open spaces, extinguishes them even more. But this no longer worries Polenov. The sonorous, bright, rich colors of “Autumn in Abramtsevo” would be out of place here. A quiet, contemplative mood determines the entire structure of the landscape and leaves its mark on the interpretation of the image of nature. From the second half of the 90s, the pursuit of landscape painting increasingly began to fade into the background, supplanted by Polenov’s new serious plan - his cycle of paintings from the life of Christ.
The cycle, apparently, originated with Polenov during the period of his work on the painting “Christ and the Sinner”. A new work dedicated to Christ appeared shortly after the creation of the painting “Christ and the Sinner”. It was the painting “On Lake Genisaret”, or, as Polenov called it, “Christ walks along the shore of the lake” (Tretyakov Gallery). Desert, majestic nature. In the distance is a wide-spread mountainous country; chains of low mountains go to the very horizon, appearing against the sky with their smooth, softened outlines. The surface of a calm blue lake with almost motionless waters and distant shores. The sun has already stopped mercilessly scorching the earth, and the distant plans of the landscape are already beginning to plunge into the late afternoon blue haze.
As in the painting “Christ and the Sinner”. This is a man of strong build, with pronounced oriental facial features, meek and wise. But here it is given not in the process of communicating with people, but alone with oneself, one’s thoughts, in communication with nature. Immersed in himself, like a blind man, not seeing his surroundings, he walks with a measured, quiet step along the path along the lake and, it seems, there is no end to his path. His entire figure is almost not involved in the movement, almost motionless - Christ himself does not seem to notice that he is walking, the state of self-absorption has so strongly engulfed him. And at the same time, nature, with its silence and detachment from all earthly storms, so amazingly corresponds to the internal structure of the image of Christ that you involuntarily feel how it subjugates a person to itself, how, before the consciousness of the beauty and harmony of being born by it, purely human doubts and thoughts recede and remain one overwhelming feeling of merging with nature, dissolving in it. Continuing to work on the cycle of paintings “From the Life of Christ,” Polenov “to replenish the material” (according to E. V. Sakharova) went to Rome in the fall of 1894. There he spends the winter of 1894/95 and paints the painting “Among Teachers” (Tretyakov Gallery), conceived back in 1884.
East was undertaken in 1899. The route lay through Constantinople, Athens, Smyrna, Cairo, Port Said, and Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, a caravan was set up for Tiberias, Tire, Sidon, and Beirut. Beirut was the final destination of the journey. On the way back, Polenov traveled from Constantinople to Vienna and from there to Moscow. The entire journey took about three months. Having visited the places that the gospel legend associates with the name of Christ, Polenov collected a large amount of sketch material for his gospel cycle. The painting went well. In 1909, the enormous work of creating the cycle “From the Life of Christ” was completed. The works were shown to the public first in St. Petersburg (February - March 1909, 58 paintings), then in Moscow and Tver (in May 1909, 64 paintings). The series “From the Life of Christ” consisted of small sketches, divided into cycles in accordance with the Gospel legend: 1. Childhood and youth. 2. At the Jordan. 3. In Galilee. 4. Outside Galilee. 5. In Jerusalem. 6. Last days. Paintings dedicated to Christ, which were painted before Polenov began working on the cycle as a whole ("Christ and the Sinner", "On Lake Gennesaret" and "Among the Teachers"), were included in it in reduced repetitions.
Gospel themes, Polenov considers Christ as a really existing historical figure and therefore does not depict the miracles attributed to him at all in his cycle “From the Life of Christ”. At the same time, Polenov strives to capture not so much the dramatic episodes and events of his life, but rather to show Christ, the nature that surrounded him, and the people who stood in his way. “My paintings serve mainly as an image of nature and the environment in which the Gospel events took place,” Polenov wrote about his cycle to L. Tolstoy. Based on his real impressions from traveling in the East, Polenov paints pictures of peaceful and ideally beautiful nature, where the sun shines gently, skies that know no storms turn blue, majestic mountains rise, softened in their outlines, and the mirror surface of transparent blue lakes sparkles. In accordance with the nature of the landscape, the artist’s favorite tones are: turquoise blue, pinkish lilac, golden white, emerald green. The entire life of Christ and those close to him seems to pass in contemplation of this beautiful nature; such a significant place in Polenov’s cycle is occupied by the image of Christ and his disciples in the bosom of nature, in a state of internal immersion in its life, dissolution and merging with it.
Most characteristic of Polenov’s heroes and even often regardless of the moments of life they experience. This is how Christ lives in nature and exclusively by nature, not only in the paintings “On Lake Gennesaret”, “Dreams”, “Retired to a Deserted Place”, “In the Morning, Rising Early”, etc., where this state is determined by the plot itself, but also in the paintings “Was in the desert with the beasts”, “Returned to Galilee in the strength of spirit”, etc., the plot of which contains more general questions of Christ’s worldview related to his search for ways to serve truth, goodness, and people. Nature in many paintings of the cycle “From the Life of Christ” even begins to dominate people, acquiring in the artist’s eyes the only vital value and significance. In such paintings, people appear like small insects in the bosom of the grandiose earth (“They were baptized by him,” “He taught,” “Across the sown fields,” “He left the land of Gennesaret,” etc.).
Polenova remains much less often with people than alone with herself, alone with nature. His communication with people is limited to the sphere of selected people close to him, who share his views and has the character of an ideal communication of souls (such are the paintings “Simon and Andrew”, “Levi - Matthew”, “Mary Magdalene”, “Woman of Samaritan”, “Instruction to the Disciples”, “They brought the children”, “At Mary and Martha’s”, etc.; these paintings are absolutely devoid of genre principles; the images of people in them are inactive, contemplatively passive). Polenov almost never pits Christ against dissenters, with people hostile to him, creating an atmosphere of ideal human relationships around him.
It turns out that in Polenov’s depiction of the end of Christ, the artist was least successful. The paintings of the “Last Days” cycle - the most recent creations - suffer from external pathos, beauty and are not free from the serious influence of Art Nouveau, which affected the other sketches to a much lesser extent. And they were unsuccessful for the artist not simply because he could not cope with the dramatic scenes, but because they were alien to him, did not meet the search for inner harmony, the desire to create an idyllic picture of the world, which were characteristic of the series “From the Life of Christ.” That is why, in the paintings of the “Last Days” series, what was heard first of all was not the tragedy of an ideal personality, betrayed and misunderstood by the crowd, but “the pacifying principle of nature.”
“High,” noted Polenov, the attitude of the audience towards the exhibition of his paintings. The success of the exhibition was confirmed by everyone who sent congratulations to the artist on the occasion of its opening and the completion of his life’s work. “Dear and deeply respected Vasily Dmitrievich! I thank you for your attention and memory and for the delivered moments of unusual, especially aesthetic pleasure, which was the result, in addition to direct artistic merits, with which I wholeheartedly congratulate you, but also that deeply touching and important, serious attitude of yours to your enormous, all your life devoted to oeuvre"y [work]... I wish you and your dear family... to enjoy the success that is undoubted and which we also witnessed, for the audience (and a huge one) eagerly watched and experienced high moments: I haven’t seen such serious attention and interest for a long time,” wrote L.O. Pasternak to Polenov. P.P. Chistyakov, Polenov’s teacher, who came to the artist to cordially thank him for the exhibition of paintings “From the Life of Christ,” told him: “And many artists came with me, and everyone was silent... Makovsky Vladimir is wise, and he calmed down, saying: “ Here the purity of Christ is connected with the beauty of nature." This is true!" Serov also spoke to Polenov about the high impression the exhibition made on him. “I really liked the feeling, it even seemed to captivate me,” he admitted.
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Childhood
Vasily Polenov was born into a large, cultured noble family in St. Petersburg. His father, Dmitry Vasilyevich Polenov, was a famous archaeologist and bibliographer. Mother, Maria Alekseevna, wrote books for children and was engaged in painting.
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Polenov’s vivid childhood impressions were trips to the north, to the Olonets region with its pristine nature, and to Olshanka, Tambov province, to the estate of his grandmother Vera Nikolevna Voeykova.
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Studies
In 1863, Polenov, having graduated from high school, entered, together with his brother Alexei, the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University. In the evenings, Polenov attends the Academy of Arts as a visiting student. He studies not only in drawing classes, but also listens to lectures on anatomy, construction art, descriptive geometry, and the history of fine arts. He also does not give up his music studies; he writes his own works. Polenov was a regular visitor to the opera house and concerts, was fond of Wagner's music, and sang in the student choir of the Academy.
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Job and his friends
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Christ resurrects Jairus' daughter
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In 1872, Polenov went abroad. He visited Vienna, Munich, Venice, Florence and Naples, lived for a long time in Paris and painted there the painting “The Arrest of the Countess d'Etremont”, which secured him the title of academician in 1876.
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Arrest of the Countess d'Etremont
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In 1878, at the VI traveling exhibition, Polenov showed the painting “Moscow Courtyard”, which later became his calling card, painted from life in an Arbat lane. Since 1879 he was a member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions.
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Moscow courtyard
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Polenov depicted a typical corner of old Moscow - the Church of the Savior on the Sands, located in one of the alleys near the ancient Arbat Street. This church still stands today, now surrounded by a completely different urban environment. Sending his painting to the Peredvizhniki exhibition in 1878, Polenov wrote to Kramskoy: “Unfortunately, I did not have time to do a more significant thing - I wanted to come to Peredvizhnaya with something decent. I hope in the future to earn back the time lost for art.”
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In 1890, Polenov acquired a small estate in the Tula province, on a high bank above the Oka. He built a house according to his own original design, and there were art workshops in the house. The estate was named Borok. There Polenov worked hard and productively, willingly inviting rural children to visit him, conducting educational classes and performances for them, and developing his artistic taste. According to Polenov’s plan, the estate was to become a “nest of artists”, and over time turn into the first provincial public museum. Polenov built a folk theater for peasants and a church.
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Currently, in the Borok estate (modern name Polenovo) there is the State Memorial Historical, Artistic and Natural Museum-Reserve of V.D. Polenov, where the unique furnishings, interior, furniture, library and household items of the owner have been preserved.
Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov is a somewhat mysterious figure in Russian art. He entered the history of art with his quiet, but very strong and soulful words as a poet in painting, who revealed the intimate world of an ancient Russian estate, the secret of the attractive beauty of the national landscape and the colorful grandeur of the East.
Polenov was born in St. Petersburg on May 20 (June 1), 1844 into a cultured noble family. His father, Dmitry Vasilyevich Polenov, the son of an academician in the department of Russian language and literature, was a famous archaeologist and bibliographer. The artist’s mother, Maria Alekseevna, nee Voeykova, wrote books for children and was engaged in painting.
When Polenov was about 10 years old, his parents decided to take their son to the Imochentsy estate in the Olonets province; this place can be called a meeting place between little Polenov and nature. From this moment on, Polenov becomes a devoted servant and admirer of nature for the rest of his life.
In 1914, Igor Grabar, a famous art historian and artist, trustee of the Tretyakov Gallery, busy with the reorganization of its exhibition, wrote to Polenov: “I completely agree with you that there are sitting inside you, or, if you like, there were sitting as many as three artists: medieval, “Moscow” and Palestinian or generally eastern, and that all of them are very little connected with one another.”
From 1872 to 1876, Polenov spent abroad; he visited Germany, Italy, and France. For the young artist it was a time of self-determination. Here he finally managed to get acquainted with the work of his favorite painter, Paolo Veronese, and get acquainted with the art of the Impressionists and Barbizons. For Polenov, his time in Normandy turned out to be particularly productive, because it was there that the paintings were painted, on which the brush of the future painter could already be felt.
In 1877, Polenov changed his place of residence and moved to live in Moscow. The next year became a milestone for the artist. It was this year that Polenov, along with Repin, became a member of the Association of Traveling Exhibitions. In the same year, Polenov managed to show his work “Moscow Courtyard” at the VI traveling exhibition. This brought great fame to the artist, and also became the beginning of a new trend in painting - an “intimate” landscape, which absorbed many elements of a genre painting.
In 1899, Polenov managed to travel to the East for the second time in order to find as much material as possible for his grandiose series “From the Life of Christ”. Polenov managed to complete the cycle of these paintings by 1909. The exhibition of these paintings caused quite a serious resonance, and also became one of the largest events of those years.
About the work The work of Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov is one of the most significant phenomena in Russian painting of the second half of the 19th century. A remarkable landscape painter, he developed plein air painting systems in Russian art, creating works full of poetry and lyricism, beauty and truthfulness, and freshness of painting. The artist’s multifaceted creativity was not limited to achievements in the field of landscape genre. A painter and theater artist, an architect and a musician, he revealed his talent in every genre and type of art, and in many respects acted as an innovator...
Stages of life 1844 (June 1) born in St. Petersburg into a family of hereditary nobles Takes drawing and painting lessons from P.P. Chistyakova Moves with her parents to Petrozavodsk, studies at the gymnasium Enters simultaneously the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University and the Academy of Arts - 1876 Pensioner business trip Marries Natalya Vasilyevna Yakunchikova () Member of the Committee for the creation of the Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor Alexander III 1903 Executes the project church for the village of Bekhovo 1926 Polenov was awarded the title of People's Artist of the Republic (July 18) Died in Borka. Buried in the cemetery in Böchow
Canvas » 43.5x30 cm Genre: » Religious subject Technique: » Oil Museum » State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg To the gallery To the gallery Martha took Him into her home(s)
Canvas » 29.8x43.3 cm Genre: » Landscape Technique: » Oil Museum » State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow To the gallery To the galleryParthenon. Temple of Athena Parthenos ()
The last period in Polenov’s work was associated with the “Borok” estate he built on the banks of the Oka River. In 1892, Polenov moved to his own house, which was built according to his own design. Polenov often dreamed of turning his estate into a “nest of artists” and the first provincial public museum. He also founded a folk theater for peasants and built a church. Polenov was quite intensively involved in theater, and also worked as chairman of the people's theater.
