Rise above the earthly.
This Venetian-looking man, who comes off as if he has just stepped out of a Titian painting, was born in Omsk, Russia, in 1856. A cold industrial city where the famous writer Fyodor Dostovsky spent his exile.
This Venetian-looking man, who comes off as if he has just stepped out of a Titian painting, was born in Omsk, Russia, in 1856. A cold industrial city where the famous writer Fyodor Dostovsky spent his exile. Allow me to introduce you Mikhail Vrubel.
Too early in life the painter learned the pain of loss. A baby, he lost his mother to tuberculosis. Soon after his little brother was gone. Alcoholism, mania, drug addiction ran in the family, surrounding the artist growing. Oh, the sweet, cheerful days of childhood... His only close friend, his confidante, his older sister, struggled with depression, exacerbated by temporary paralysis. The cherry on top.
And there he was: well-bred and educated, emotional and sophisticated, eccentric, dazzling and intense. A man in whom two forces merged and the unquenchable thirst for life met the longing for the other world, the world of unseen.
A Demon. His muse, his mission. Demon wanted to be witnessed and felt. He broke into our world through the painter. No, he's always been here among us; Vrubel just shed a light on him, made us finally acknowledge his presence.
The fairy-mystical world of Mikhail Vrubel and his sensual aesthetics are fascinating, captivating, yet repelling and frightening. His mysterious spirit remained an enigma. Was it a morbid or brilliant mind that drove this creator?
Each character, each entity illustrates the exaltation of the deepest human emotions: agony, desperation, anguish, longing and sorrow. This is what psychiatrist Carl Jung called "the shadow". But the depths of those emotions are beyond the range of a mortal. Vrubel showed us how magnificent they were—those darkest corners of our psyche, rejected ones, forsaken ones. Those overlooked from fear, yet those he gently swaddled with love, dressed in beauty, permeated with compassion.
His art is so powerful—it’s soul-healing. Like therapy in a painting.
Every experience we encounter in life—every emotion, every challenge—is here so we can discover love through them. You can’t leave the place until you learn to love where you are. In this perspective, Vrubel’s demons are liberating. They help us get closer to our own "demons," see beauty in them, and rise above.
The first Demon
Abandonment. Separation.
Could a child who’s lost his mother hope to ever meet with her again? Yes, Serezha Karenin (from Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina) got lucky: once, when he was deep asleep, his mother broke into his room and vigorously picked her son up, glaring at him with desperate greed, knowing she would never see him again.
How often has Misha Vrubel imagined this moment of reunion with his own mother? They say, a child who has lost their mother mourns for a lifetime. The grief changes, but the missing never goes away. He lost her at the age of three. Loneliness, emptiness, anguish, and melancholy. Since then, they have filled the painter’s heart, became the fuel for his work.
The second demon.
Boredom. Blues.
Mikhail’s father was a military man. His family had to move from city to city: Omsk, Saratov, Astrakhan, St. Petersburg, Kharkov, Odessa… Long-term attachments were out of the question. His stay in Odessa was short, but here, from a teenager, Misha turned into a sophisticated young man, arousing interest and delight in people. He was excelling in literature, languages and history, reading Roman classics in the original, and graduated from Richelieu Gymnasium with a gold medal. The painter was peering into this world in search of his place in the structure of creation. He turned to philosophy books for the answers. And found Immanuel Kant with his theory of aesthetics. This genius of thought has pushed our future maestro into the fine arts. Inspired by the philosopher's work, Vrubel attended the drawing school. Here, the painter was born.
A social butterfly, he took great pleasure in music, theater and literature, became acquainted with people of art and science. In the letters to his sister Anna, he expressed strong enthusiasm for the local opera, art exhibitions and galleries, his pleasure in visiting them, his passion, his excitement... And yet he was bored to death. Sharing his disappointing observations on how shallow and superficial the locals were, how narrow-minded they seemed. How dull and boring their interests were, limited to eating, sleeping, playing cards and wasting time in meaningless conversations.
Vrubel was dreaming of St. Petersburg with its crispness, freshness, esthetics and culture. The mustiness of local minds was suffocating him. The emotions spilled onto the painting Triptych Faust, which soaked up the melancholy and boredom. Perhaps these were the echoes of his youthful maximalism, but the lines from Pushkin’s Faust come to mind: “ Demon, I’m bored.”
The third demon
Unrequited love.
In 1884, Vrubel was invited to Kiev to work on the restoration of St. Cyril’s Church. Here, he immediately fell in love with his patron’s wife, Emilia, an unattractive, overbearing, pretentious and eccentric woman.
His friend, the painter Korovin, remembered that he had seen the large scars on Vrubel’s chest while swimming in a pond. To his question, the unfortunate lover responded: “I loved a woman; she didn’t love me; well, she did, but many things stood in the way of her understanding me. I suffered from an inability to explain myself to her. I suffered, but when I cut myself, the suffering subsided.”
If you were to look into the face of the Virgin Mary in the famous Madonna icon, you would recognize that very Emilia, the painter’s unrequited love.
The fourth demon
Despondency.
To mend his broken heart, Vrubel went back to Odessa. Here, he began his work on the image of his seated Demon. Serov, his friend and painter, recalled having seen a half-length picture of the Demon: “...when inverted, the painting presented a surprisingly complex pattern, similar to an extinct crater or a lunar landscape.”
Mikhail’s father did not like the work: “This demon seemed to me like an evil, sensual, repulsive old woman.” The artist destroyed this version but returned to the theme later, in Moscow.
From a letter to his sister: “For about a month now, I have been painting the Demon. It is not yet a monumental one, which I will create over time, but a “demonic” creature—a half-naked, winged, young, sadly pensive figure sitting, hugging his knees, with the sunset in the background. He’s looking at the blooming meadow. he branches are stretching out to him and bending under the weight of the flowers.”
The Fifth Demon.
Forbidden love. Obsession.
In 1891, Vrubel was offered to create illustrations for the collected works of Lermontov, published by the Kushnerev’s house. Naturally, he began with the poem "Demon"! The painter plunged headlong into the work, making many sketches and variations.
He wandered, now long-since outcast;
His desert had no refuge in it:
And one by one the ages passed,
Divine landscape; but that proud soul
Viewed with disdain and some derision
The product of his Maker’s will;
His lofty forehead at this vision
Expressed no thought, exactly nil.
Love’s swooning and love’s agitation-
For the first time the Demon now
Experienced them; in shock and shiver
He thinks of fleeing- but no quiver
Stirs in his wing! From his dimmed brow
A heavy teardrop, a slow river…
Hat marvel! Till today, quite near
That cell, there stands in wondrous fashion
A stone scorched by a tear of passion,
Burnt through by an inhuman tear!...
The public was not ready to face such a Demon: Vrubel’s illustrations were harshly criticized for “rudeness, ugliness, caricature and absurdity.”
The sixth demon
Unfulfilled Dream. Remorse.
In 1896, Savva Mamontov, a famous merchant, entrepreneur and patron of the arts, ordered two paintings from Vrubel: the 20x5m panels for the All-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod, which was dedicated to the coronation of Nicholas II. Enough with the demons! The painter conceived the idea of Reverie—a muse who inspired him in his work. She too was a foreign spirit, but quite a friendly one.
The committee classified the “Princess Reverie” as monstrous. In response, Mamontov erected a separate pavilion that was named “Exhibition of decorative panels created by M. A. Vrubel and rejected by the jury of the Imperial Academy of Arts.” However the last few words had to be painted over before the imperial couple arrived.
The newspapers exploded with criticism. The writer Maxim Gorky was particularly triggered by the painter’s grandiose creations and dedicated five articles to the exhibition, in which he exposed Vrubel’s “poverty of spirit and poverty of imagination.”
The seventh demon.
Predestination. Fatalism.
The eyes tell more than words could ever say. You get pulled inside the painting by the mysterious and bewitching gaze that screams inevitability. Are they bidding a farewell or inviting you to join them in their journey into the unknown?
Why is the fortune teller looking at you like that? She knows something you do not. She knows your fate is predestined. She sees your fate. Something that is beyond your control. What a helplessness- you have no power over your own destiny, no choice. Just like her. Something bigger and stronger has decided your life for you. Accept it. Resistance is futile. Look at the girl standing against a Persian carpet. This portrait was commissioned by her father and rejected after it was completed. What frightened him so much? The eyes. No pearls in the world could outshine that doom. Loud and clear. Powerlessness in the face of what fate had decreed.
The eighth demon
Parting. Forsaking.
The Swan Princess. In that face, in those enormously big eyes, in the turn of her head—is there the same demonic melancholy? She’s going back to her world and looking at you for the last time. This “otherness” made “The Swan Princess” the poet Alexander Blok's favorite painting, but for the rest of the public it was a subject of fierce criticism.
She has to go; that torments you. You want her to stay or at least to come back. Is there any hope? Is there any chance that you will ever see her again? It hurts her, as she knows she's not coming back.
The nineth demon
Homesickness, belonging, and loneliness.
The animism inherent in the painter, manifests itself in his work, shaping the personality of nature, its humanized appearance. And he returns again and again to mythological images.
For the summer vacation, the Vrubels were invited to the Tenisheva Mention. Here, impressed by the novel “Saint Satyr”, the painter created his famous “Pan” in one day.
Oh, my lonely moon, painter’s faithful companion! It is so quiet here. The song of Pan’s flute has been interrupted and now you only hear the lulling chirping of the crickets. You feel lonely, all alone in this world, and yet you feel at home. Nature is your home, the birch trees, the moon, the creek- they’re all your dear friends. And that makes you feel even lonelier. A creeping homesickness that’s slowly enveloping you. Pan’s eyes, those deeply sad eyes, they're telling you: “You are safe, I am with you, I know how you feel”. He is a Father Nature, a warm-hearted and wise grandfather that Vrubel never had. He’s sitting here, one of a kind, and only the moon can hear him playing his beautiful, nostalgic song.
The tenth
Death.
Vrubel explained that his Demon should not be confused with the traditional devil. Demons are “mythical creatures, messengers... The spirit is not evil, but suffering and mournful, and at the same time it is powerful... majestic.”
Demons, angels and seraphim—for the painter, they are divine beings that embody the deepest human feelings in all their intensity. Vrubel’s Demons, although they personify his profound melancholy and pain, are endowed with greatness, beauty and love in its highest and purest form. Love that is all-embracing, all-powerful, non-judgmental and truly unconditional.
The six-winged seraph Azrael, the angel of death, also has a dual nature. He serves as a portal to the other world; his otherworldly eyes tell you that. “Their eyes," for he is both male and female, good and evil. He appears compassionate and empathetic and at the same time detached and distant. He is the unity of our deeply dual world. He is the bringer of death, but he’s also a traveler, a chaperone who leads you to the other world. Rebirth. He feels your fear, but he means you no harm, he only does what he’s put here to do. He feels your pain, but he is on duty. He serves God.
Eleventh demon
Compulsion.
Something is stronger than me. I cannot resist it. Determination and contempt. Indifference. Compulsion. Disgust, guilt, pity, anger. Numbness.
A decade later, in 1898, Vrubel returned to Lermontov’s “Demon” (Lermontov himself revised his poem until the end of his life; nine of the editions have survived). He vacillated between the ideas of “The Flying Demon” and “The Demon Defeated.”
Compulsion. He can’t help but do what he was sent here to do. He knows he brings Tamara death, but the desire is stronger than his reasoning. Compulsion is the eleventh Demon, which sores into the sky and rushes towards the target. He looks indifferent on the outside, but deep within, the conflict of opposing forces is tearing him apart. Unbearable.
The twelfth Demon
Futility.
While the "Flying Demon" remained unfinished, Vrubel worked frenetically on “The Demon Defeated,” taking no breaks, burning himself out and endlessly reworking... Driven by a manic obsession to conquer his own demons the painter got caught in a trap. He felt as if the Demon himself was playing a trick on him.
“You cannot beat the river into submission. You have to surrender to its current and use its power as your own.”
Next, he has been diagnosed with “incurable progressive paralysis” and committed to a mental hospital.
“My dear woman, wonderful woman, save me from my demons,” Vrubel wrote to his wife from the institution.
Futility. In his pursuit of feeling felt, loved, and understood, in his attempt to create something monumental—as grandiose as his own spirit. That way, he would finally be acknowledged in his suffering. A genius that was not recognized and valued during his lifetime. Futility. No matter how hard he tried... His Defeated Demon has empty, glassy eyes; the plumage of his once powerful wings has turned into decorative peacock feathers. As if he were some kind of joke. With the inhuman depth of feelings and majesty that he carried into this world. Criticized, ostracized, judged and ridiculed. Never truly appreciated.
The thirteenth demon
Judgment. Deliverance.
The painter felt his time was near. He sought relief, deliverance from his own demons. As beautiful as they were, the intensity of emotion was overwhelming. He was exhausted. He wanted peace.
The last of his “otherworldly subjects"—the "Visions of the Prophet Ezekiel"—remains unfinished: at the beginning of 1906, Vrubel ceased to exist as a painter—he went blind.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel. Visions of the prophet Ezekiel. 1905
Messenger of other worlds
Demons, the embodiments of human “shadow”, they spoke through the painter. They wanted to be witnessed and felt. Not reasoned with. And Vrubel fulfilled his mission brilliantly. Perhaps the only one who, during his lifetime, fully accepted the painter’s world was the poet Alexander Blok:
“By constantly returning to the Demon in his creations, he only gave away the secret of his mission. He himself was a demon, a beautiful fallen angel, for whom the world was endless joy and endless torment... He left us his Demons, like exorcist fighting the purple evil of the night. I can only apotheosize what Vrubel and others like him reveal to humanity once a century. We can’t see the worlds they did.”
