Saratov Radischev Fine Arts State Museum in 10 Artworks
Repin Ilya Efimovich.
Portrait of Nadya Repina. 1881
Ilya Repin was a wonderful master of children’s portrait. Most often he wrote his own children. The portrait of the artist’s daughter Nadya is one of Repin’s masterpieces and Russian realistic portrait art. The artist perfectly portrayed the pose of a child who had just woken up, relaxed after sleeping, a slight bend of a child’s figure lying on a pillow. A girl’s pink dress and a white pillow, against which a curly dark head stands out, are written difficult, with the thinnest reflexes. The painter sought to convey the state of a waking up child. The girl has woken up, but still does not want to move, children’s dreams captured her. Repin presented this picture to the founder of the Radishchev Museum, A.P. Bogolyubov, who was the godfather of Nadya.
Giorgio Vasari.
Bacchanalia. Late 1560s — early 1570s
Giorgio Vasari, an outstanding master of the late Renaissance, is almost not represented in native collections. Many people know his famous book of the biographies of artists of the Italian Renaissance.
It is distinguished by its original conception and remarkable craftsmanship. Preparatory drawings for this picture are in the Louvre (Paris) and the Uffizi Gallery (Florence). Vasari lived in Florence, was the court painter of the Medici dukes and the picture could have been painted by their order.
The Italian Renaissance inherited the glorification of Bacchus, the patron saint of winemaking and all the life-giving forces of nature, from antiquity. Nature was the natural environment of bacchanalia, but Vasari excludes this natural background. Tired after holiday Bacchus wearily lowered his golden hairs head. The free dances of the ancient bacchantes, who crush everything during their ritual procession, are replaced by the graceful dance of girls — an image in which there is a refinement of court ceremonies. Vasari knows the tastes of the customers who valued grace the most in art.
Looking at the picture, we can find the moralizing aspect of the author’s intention. On the one side of Bacchus there are young bacchantes and a little satyr, on the other side, on the ground, there are Silenus who is drinking wine from a jug and donkey — his constant companion. Above them there is an old bacchante who is glorifying Bacchus. The artist admonishes his viewers: if in their youth Bacchic joys are natural and beautiful, then in their old age it’s an unsightly scene. The picture is framed by a gilded frame which was artfully carved, apparently designed by the painter.
The painting belonged to the family of Florentine bankers and maecenases — Gerini. Their collection was sold in Europe in the 19th century. The «Bacchanalia» was acquired for the Imperial Hermitage in Florence by the artist Augustus Rible in 1860.
Bryullov Karl Pavlovich.
Portrait of the count K. A. Pozzo di Borgo. 1834
Extraordinary personalities with an interesting fate attracted artist’s attention. Pozzo di Borgo, a Corsican by birth, relative and friend, and later an implacable opponent of Napoleon, gave his mature years to the diplomatic service for the benefit of Russia. For his insightful mind and influence in political spheres he was called the “diplomatic marshal of Europe.” Pozzo di Borgo was portrayed by many European artists. The portrait by Brullov is perhaps one of the best. Despite the portrait was created-to-order (for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Bryullov managed to avoid official formality and aridness here. The artist combined the depth of the psychological characteristics of the model with a virtuoso technical performance. A magnificently painted parade uniform with a gold-embroidered collar and with a variety of medals fetches out a slightly tanned face with regular facial features. Vivid rich colors, confident painting, energetic turn of the figure emphasize the active character of this middle-aged person.
Bogolyubov Alexey Petrovich.
Vell. Rainbow. 1887
Vell is a small town on the Norman coast where the river of the same name flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Alexey Petrovich Bogolyubov came there almost annually during more than thirty years. We can see views of this amazingly picturesque corner of France on the hundreds of his paintings, etudes, drawings and watercolors.
The steep chalk cliffs stretching into the distance, a deserted shore, a stormy sea, and a spectacular natural phenomenon — a double rainbow — is above all this landscape. One end of the colorful arc hung over the darkened sea, at the horizon merging with a stormy sky, the other end is over alabaster cliffs and a lane of coast that appeared at low tide. The nature environment and the absence of people, which is not typical for Bogolyubov’s paintings, bring a romantic and sad mood to the landscape. The etude is written on a mahogany plate, the texture of which shines through a thin layer of paint especially on the image of the sky.
Bogolyubov Alexey Petrovich.
Winter in Paris. Mid 1870s.
The etude “Winter in Paris” was created in the second half of the 1870s, when the master lived in France. He pictured the part of the Rue de Roma street, where his workshop was located, and which became the center of a circle of Russian artists. Author likes this daily life of the city with its naturalness and harmony. There are types of streets of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rome, Pisa, Baku among his works. However, winter landscapes in the heritage of Bogolyubov are very rare (for example, the early painting “Riding on the Neva”, the Tretyakov Gallery). The Parisian winter presented a “coloristic” gift to the master — a red wagon of a merchant, leisurely riding in the evening snowy city.
Bogolyubov boldly combines cold and warm tones. The bright red rectangle of the wagon, giving a gentle pinkish hue to the overcast sky and milky snow, as if it does not allow the evening twilight to completely absorb the street. A few passers-by and frolicking boys violate the strict geometry of the city. Children, in contrast with the hunched-over merchant and the sluggish little dog, are sincerely glad of the onset of winter.
Mashkov Ilya Ivanovich
Still life. 1912–1913
The vigorous life-affirming art of I. Mashkov is based on the traditions of urban pictorial folklore — painted trays, bright rugs, smart lubok, intricate signboards of artisans and merchants. Visibility and decorativeness are well perceptible in this still life. Still life has become a leading genre in the works of the masters of the association “The Jack of Diamonds”, who found inspiration in the richness and diversity of the forms of the material world. Mashkov ecstatically recreates the transparency of glass and the whiteness of crockery, the density and volume of purple plums, blue-black grapes, velvety peaches. Even figurines of lubok panel with an oriental motive are painted with somewhat exaggerated physicality.
Lentulov Aristarkh Vasilyevich
Group portrait. 1919
Traditions of modern avant-garde trends are refracted in the paintings of A. Lentulov in an original way, including Cubism. The portrait of the art critic N. M. Schekokotov and his wife was painted in 1919. The master does not set himself the task of uncovering the characters. He is interested to convey the features of color and plastic interaction of objects in space. Both figures, especially male, are noticeably exaggerated. Lentulov models volumes with bright reflexes, which are similar to sonorous chords in a musical composition. The models are motionless, but it seems that the very picturesque surface of the canvas vibrates and shimmers with a multitude of multi-colored faces.
Kuznetsov Pavel Varfolomeevich.
In the steppe. Mirage. 1911
Like masters of frescoes, Pavel Kuznetsov feels plane perfectly. He actively works with the entire surface of the canvas, beaming gentle color waves. Exactly color creates light in his canvases. The coloring is based on the most subtle tints that enrich each other. The color is very nominal. He immediately switches the image into a symbolic-allegorical plan.
The luminous blueness of the hills is absolutely surreal here. The luminescence of the earth poetically transforms the visible world, gives a sense of boundlessness, planetaryism, cosmism. The slowness of the rhythmic movements of slightly elongated figures gives particular, almost ritual significance to their ordinary work and concerns. This is how the artistic switching of everyday life into being is accomplished.
Borisov-Musatov Victor Elpidiforovich.
Autumn motive. 1899
The painting “Autumn Motive” marks the most important turn in the artist’s work. The immediate freshness of perception and the natural persuasiveness of his etudes gives way to the enlightened and sad poetry of withering feelings, alienation, inevitable separation.
Psychologism here has a common decorative task. The faces of the characters are deprived of historical certainty: the gentleman is clearly from the XVIII century, the lady from the 40s of the XIX century. This does not confuse the artist: the subjective-lyrical recollection of the “beautiful era” was born because of his romantic dream. The fleeting breathing of the past, ghostly in its essence, finds an adequate form both in the soft tunefulness of the lines and in the fading color, and in the textural features. The musical-lyrical beginning of the “Autumn Motive” received a response in contemporary Russian poetry. Andrei Bely’s poem “Declaration of love” was written under the direct impression of this picture.
Malevich Kazimir Severinovich
Four squares. 1915.
The painting “Four squares” represents one of the stages of the formation of the original world of Malevich. It is more correct to speak about two squares which are diagonally located against the white absolute. Having come together in the center of the canvas, they set the whole composition to a dynamic rhythm, always striving to “break away” from each other.
Perhaps the best annotation to Malevich’s Suprematist canvas would be a clean sheet. White color in the works of the artist represented the infinity of the universe. White “conquered” the azure of the sky, and the black square eclipsed the sun.
Malevich’s suprematic experiments led him to a new understanding of beauty and classicism in art. The simple geometry of the forms and bright local colors in the “peasant” series of the late 1920s — early 1930s determine the particular monumentality of the figures and create a mood.