Here is how he describes his sessions in Tsarskoye Selo, in which Tsar Nicholas II served as a model: “Every day is calculated, vanity, no use: I went to Tsarskoe 12 times; I was extremely graciously received, even to the surprise – maybe they now it is in fashion to “caress”, as they used to “barked.” They talked a lot – of course, not about politics, but because of the art more – but I failed to enlighten him – hopeless, alas… What else is good – is interested in old times, not I know only deeply or so – because of the gesture.
The enemy of innovation and impressionism mixes with revolution. “Impressionism and I are two incompatible things” – his phrase. And everything like that. “The son of Volga, a native Russian, could not help but feel all the maelstrom and falsehood, all the officialdom of official St. Petersburg, especially since working with Repin on the famous” State Council “, Kustodiyev came into close contact with the elite of the state apparatus of the Russian Empire and I learned a lot about the price. As the cry of the soul sounds the words: “Peter opposed me to the impossibility, I want to go somewhere in the wilderness, to a village like that, perhaps, in the steppe, just away from this big foggy Peter with tall boxes-houses. .. “And how not to remember the words Islands, said the great Gogol: “The mysterious, inexplicable in 1834! Where do I mean you great works?
Are there any heaps of houses thundering on one another, thundering streets, boiling mercantile spirit – this ugly heap of fashions, parades, officials, wild northern nights, glitter and low colorlessness? .. “Petersburg offered the young writer a difficult artwork. Not everyone was given to cope with “Everything conspires against us,” wrote Gogol, “this whole seductive chain of refined inventions of luxury is harder and harder to drown out and put our senses to sleep. We are eager to save our poor soul, to run away from these terrible deceivers. “Not all artists were given” to run away from these terrible deceivers. “
Many were waiting for the fate of Chartkov from Gogol’s “Portrait”. Kustodiyev, hitting the whirlpool of Petersburg life, stood on the threshold of trouble. Vanity, senseless, everyday, absorbs time, kills talent. But the painter knew what he wanted. Few of his contemporaries felt that way about Russia. But Kustodiev was forced to paint formal portraits. “I am writing to the princess, I have finally got it, but: I will not have more than 5 sessions, since her highness is very tired of doing nothing, but they want to get a good portrait without posing.
The working conditions are very difficult, the ladies are all around, they chat and make their comments, they are not flattering for me at all, and they want me to make her both young and beautiful – but I don’t have this in front of me. I promise to do all this in a large portrait. “How not to recall the ill-starred Chartkov! But fate was pleased to dispose of it differently. The artist was thrown out of this vicious circle, removed from the sucking flow of orders.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)