At least the light-winged fashion darling is not British. A.S. Pushkin in fine arts. the light-winged darling of fashion, although not British or French, you have created again, dear wizard, me, a pet of the pure. Analysis of Pushkin's poem "Kiprensky"

06.02.2022 | Injuries

"Kiprensky" Alexander Pushkin

Light-winged fashion favorite,
Although not British, not French,
You created again, dear wizard,
Me, the pet of pure muses, -
And I laugh at my grave
Left forever from mortal bonds.

I see myself as in a mirror,
But this mirror flatters me.
It says that I will not humiliate
Predilections of important aonides.
So to Rome, Dresden, Paris
From now on my appearance will be known.

Analysis of Pushkin's poem "Kiprensky"

The author, who was critical of his appearance, rarely had his own portraits done. An exception was made only for the work of Kiprensky, written in 1827. After the death of the customer of the work, the “said brother” Delvig, the poet purchased the painting from the widow. According to the recollections of friends, the portrait of the owner of the house stood out against the background of the rest of the interior of Pushkin’s last St. Petersburg apartment.

A poetic response dates back to this period, in which the reaction of the person being portrayed is conveyed. Pleasant surprise and gratitude, admiration for the work of the master - these are the emotions heard in the analyzed work.

Pushkin’s text is also interesting because it reflected the topics of conversations between two talented contemporaries. They concerned the whims of secular fashion in matters of artistic creativity. Society often gives preference to foreigners, ignoring Russian masters who are no less worthy of praise. This idea is emphasized in the beginning of the work: the abilities of the lyrical addressee were improved by the domestic academic school, and the painter’s successes were achieved despite his “non-prestigious” origin. “Magician”, “favorite of fashion” - the admiring subject of speech does not skimp on compliments to the gifted performer.

Having expressed gratitude to the master, the lyrical hero turns to the impressions inspired by the picture, and the rest of the poem is devoted to this topic. The model peers into the canvas as if into a mirror, seeing both similarities and differences in the portrait. Reflections on the latter give rise to the motive of flattery. In this fragment, the author expresses the well-known opinion that the artist smoothed out the features of the poet’s unusual appearance, concentrating on the eyes - lively, thoughtful, conveying the course of sublime thought.

An unambiguous conclusion is formulated: the painter created the image of a true poet, the beloved “pet of the muses.” The image can be put on public display: it will not offend the refined tastes of the “important” patron muses. In other words, the work is consistent with idealized ideas about the bearer of the poetic gift.

It is natural for the motives of recognition and immortality to appear, which are intensified at the end of both six-line lines. The hero is satisfied with the result: with the help of a picturesque double, he will be able to get rid of the oppression of “mortal bonds” and become recognizable not only among domestic admirers, but also abroad.

For many years, painting was the only way to capture the image of a person over the centuries. And the artist’s skill played a huge role for those who wanted to leave their mark on history. Often a talentedly executed portrait brought the painter such fame that it outlived him.

Orest Adamovich Kiprensky known as one of the most gifted portrait painters of the 19th century. He is one of the few Russian painters whose talents were recognized abroad during his lifetime. Kiprensky's self-portrait is kept in the Uffizi Gallery, along with works by other prominent artists.

The fate of Orest Kiprensky was remarkable in many ways. He was born on March 24, 1782 in Oranienbaum district into a serf family. The son of a courtyard man might never see the world outside his native St. Petersburg province. However, the stars aligned in such a way that the landowner Dyakonov, who married Orestes’ mother to his servant Adam Schwalbe, saw the sprouts of great talent in the boy. Impressed by this discovery, he signed his freedom certificate, and at the age of six he sent him to study at the Educational School at the Academy of Arts. This ticket to life, and, perhaps, the name Orest - a tribute to the then trends of classicism - that’s all that young Kiprensky owed to Dyakonov. The artist’s surname itself is a pseudonym taken later. The persistent rumor that Dyakonov was the boy’s father is just one of many unconfirmed facts in the painter’s biography.

Over the years of study, Orest Kiprensky showed himself brilliantly in many areas. In the historical painting class, his mentors were the famous G.I. Ugryumov and master of decorative painting G.F. Doyen. For his graduation work “Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo Field” in 1805, the Academy awarded him a large gold medal, as well as the right to a foreign pension.

But the Napoleonic Wars were raging in Europe, and the situation was far from calm. Therefore, Kiprensky stayed in Moscow, improving his style. Later, he nevertheless spent several years abroad, demonstrating his works at exhibitions in Italy and in French salons.

Perhaps not all of our contemporaries are familiar with the surname Kiprensky, but the portrait of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin - one of his most famous works - is certainly known to many.

The poet himself was pleased with the artist’s vision, and even dedicated several lines to him:

Light-winged fashion favorite,
Although not British, not French,
You created again, dear wizard,
Me, the pet of pure muses...

I see myself as in a mirror,
But this mirror flatters me...
...So to Rome, Dresden, Paris
From now on my appearance will be known...

Another recognizable work of the painter is a female portrait depicting the main character of Karamzin’s story of the same name “Poor Liza.”

Both paintings date from the artist’s mature period, when he had already acquired his own style, developed over years of hard work. As for the early works, the influence of the Flemish masters is clearly visible in them, and in character they differ significantly from the later portraits.

One of them was a portrait of the artist's named father, Adam Schwalbe. Exhibited in 1830 at an exhibition in Naples, it caused a stir among art lovers. The work was attributed to many masters, for example, and, citing the fact that not a single modern portrait painter is capable of painting in such a manner. It was with great difficulty that Kiprensky managed to convince critics of his authorship.

It is all the more surprising that a man so talented in portraiture, all his life considered historical painting to be his recognition.

The artist spent almost ten years - from 1813 to 1822 - in Italy. This period turned out to be one of the most fruitful. The works he painted were appreciated by the European public, orders followed one after another, and in 1820 there was an offer to paint a self-portrait for the Uffizi Gallery.

The return home was not so triumphant. The paintings created in Italy were late, and in Russia there was no longer the same success. True, after the stagnation, the name of Kiprensky sounded again, but not for long. It was during that period that the famous portrait of Pushkin was created.

But in his heart the artist was eager to return to Italy. And it was not at all a matter of recognition and glory - the daughter of Kiprensky’s model, young Mariuccia (Anna-Maria Falkucci), was growing up in one of the monastery orphanages. For her sake, the already middle-aged artist in 1828 left his homeland forever, where fame finally returned to him, and even converted to Catholicism. But family happiness was short-lived. His life was already coming to an end.

Orest Adamovich Kiprensky died after a long illness on October 17, 1936. After his death, his daughter Clotilde was born. But about her fate, like the fate of Kiprensky’s wife, no information has survived to our time.

Kiprensky's creative heritage is enormous. It includes hundreds of portraits of famous people of that era, painted in his inimitable style. Among them are images of V.A. Zhukovsky, Countess Rostopchina, E.V. Davydova. Many pencil sketches of peasant children have also survived. The style, changing over time, acquired new features and reflected the life experience of the artist at all stages of his creative path. It is difficult to overestimate the contribution to art of people like Kiprensky. The inscription on his tombstone in Rome reads:

“In honor and in memory of Orest Kiprensky, the most famous among Russian artists, professor and adviser to the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and member of the Naples Academy, Russian artists, architects and sculptors living in Rome, mourning the untimely extinguished light of their people and so virtuous soul..."

“Favorite of light-winged fashion...” Orest Kiprensky (1782–1836)

There is so much useful information about Kiprensky’s era in a short message from the great poet to a famous artist:

Light-winged fashion favorite,

Although not British, not French,

You created again, dear wizard,

Me, the pet of pure muses...

In the first line there is information about the popularity of Orest Kiprensky as “the favorite painter of the Russian public”, in the second there is a mention of the fact that, despite the fashion widespread in Russian society in the first half of the 19th century, to commission portraits from the British and French, namely Kiprensky , by order of Delvig, was entrusted in 1827 with painting a portrait of Pushkin.

And then there’s the riddle that researchers have been struggling with for decades: “He created again”... So, did Kiprensky have several portraits of Pushkin? However, only one is known, the textbook, famous one...

However, there are mysteries even in the date of birth and death: they accurately recorded the baby’s birthday, given that he was born to the courtyard girl Anna Gavrilova, which was later indicated in the birth register: the child was illegitimate. As for death, modern authors I. Bocharov and Y. Glushakova, having examined the “Book of the Dead” of the Church of Sant Andrea delle Fratte in Italy, in Rome, not far from the famous Piazza di Spagna, where the artist died on the neighboring Gregorian Street, proved what happened this is not October 5/17, 1836, but October 12/24.

Millions of our compatriots have known the portrait of Pushkin by Kiprensky since childhood. I remember that the author is a Russian artist. But that’s why his name, patronymic, and surname are not Russian—even if they knew, they forgot.

In our essays we are trying not only to reproduce certain pages of the history of the Russian state and Russian culture, but also to show how, firstly, the era influenced the biography and work of the artist, and, secondly, how the master’s creativity influenced the era . And regardless of whether the artist “wavered” along with the line outlining the era or “broke out” of it, whether he left a deep trace in it, like an object pressed into a mass of plasticine, or only touched the era with his life and biography , - great cultural masters always conquered their “niche” in the era and thus remained in history.

The fate and creativity of Orest Kiprensky, as they say, were congenial to the era. In his life there was a dramaturgy of contradictions: between serfdom and the highest peaks of Russian enlightenment and culture; noble nobility and common stubbornness... In the life of Kiprensky there is a bizarre combination of the romanticism of life with tragic love and death dissolved in rumors and legends, with the realism left for the study of the history of the Fatherland by the descendants of the realistic gallery of portraits of his contemporaries.

This artist was adored by the empress, he was highly valued by the sovereign, who bought paintings from him, while he was hated by certain high ranks of culture and enlightenment; he was adored by the Italians and offended by the leaders of the Academy of Arts. He was the first Russian artist to achieve the highest recognition abroad (he was called the “Russian Van Dyck”), he was elected a member of the Florence Academy of Arts and he was the first Russian painter to receive the high honor of being asked to make a self-portrait for the famous Uffizi Gallery in Florence, moreover, Unlike the self-portraits of other Russian masters made later, his work was in the permanent exhibition of the museum, and not in the storerooms...

He became Great! And he started life, entered it as “insignificant.”

What could be more terrible than being born in feudal Russia to a serf, a courtyard girl. However, I was lucky. His mother Anna Gavrilova was a pleasant and pretty woman, which attracted the attention of her owner, landowner and foreman (rank, if the reader remembers, somewhere between colonel and general) Alexei Stepanovich Dyakonov, owner of an estate near the town of Koporye. He was an enlightened, kind man and gave his son and his mother freedom. As a well-read man, he gave his son an “elegant” name, a literary one - Orestes, and when recording in the birth register, he ordered the surname to be given according to the locality - Koporsky, which later allegedly grew into Kiprensky. According to another version, Orestes was immediately recorded by Kiprensky, which meant the son of Cypris, the ancient goddess of beauty and love. The second version seems not only logical (since Orestes, then the son of Cypris), but also echoes the biography of the master - for he knew passionate love, and, according to one version, mutual, and understood the meaning of beauty, as evidenced by his numerous works of amazing craftsmanship.

Most likely, Orestes took his gentleness of character and kindness from his mother, and from his father - interest and love for the humanities and the arts. From the memoirs of contemporaries, for example, from the words of Vladimir Tolbin, who twenty years after Kiprensky’s death published his first biography in the newspaper “Son of the Fatherland,” it became known that the artist was a multifaceted, capable, educated, witty and cheerful person. “It remains to be regretted that there is no opportunity<…>present Kiprensky from the other side of his talent - from the side of his attempts in poetry and literature, in which he also tested his strength, delving into satire, then into elegy, manifesting himself now in an ode, now in a madrigal...” According to the biographer ( and it’s hard to disagree with him, because the entire history of art shows that education has never harmed artists), Kiprensky’s versatile culture most directly contributed to his artistic achievements...

And one more thing... Maybe it’s a matter of genes, character, perhaps other circumstances, a different environment... But V.A. Tropinin, also the son of a serf peasant woman, realizing the scale of his talent, was not an ambitious person. Kiprensky - was. Whether it was a combination of pride inherited from his nobleman father, self-confidence and that timidity and constraint that came as an inheritance from a “courtyard girl,” but in Kiprensky this combination produced an explosive mixture.

Characterizing the purposefulness and ambition of the artist Kiprensky, unusual even among talented Russian masters, Vladimir Tolbin wrote in 1856: “It seemed that he wanted to leave behind himself, as a souvenir for posterity, only that which was inaccessible to the will and efforts of an ordinary gifted mortal.” According to the biographer, it is difficult to find another example in the history of world art in which an artist moved so rapidly towards the goals he set for himself. “Like a Roman gladiator, defending the field he once occupied until the last exhaustion of his strength...”

The noble father took care of the fate of his son. He not only oversaw his education, but also gave him the status necessary for life by marrying his serf mistress, who had received her freedom, to Adam Karlovich Schwalbe. How this German gentleman himself ended up in serfdom is still an unsolved mystery. We are interested in something else. In 1804, Orest Kiprensky will paint a portrait of his official father in the form of a “Rembrandt” old man, in the style of a ceremonial portrait of the 17th century. And this portrait, later acquired by the emperor and now kept in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, will become one of the most dramatic, even tragic portraits in the history of Russian painting. Serfdom did not allow a powerful and passionate nature to manifest itself; in the features of a strong face and in the gaze - the pain, the torment of an unrealized, remarkable personality. This is not the case in Kiprensky’s self-portraits. They are harmonious and calm. In his gaze there is peace of mind and acceptance of the world around him. All the pain that lack of freedom gives rise to (and he, Kiprensky, was destined to experience it many times in his life, although not as clearly as his adoptive father), the artist seems to have put into the portrait of Adam Schwalbe.

Art historians love to speculate about the mystery of the portrait of Eug. Davydov... It is extremely tempting, starting from the painting “Girl in a Poppy Wreath (Mariuccia)”, stored in the Tretyakov Gallery, to write in the style of “Lolita” a short story about Orest Kiprensky’s passionate love for a young Italian woman, about his participation in her fate, about his subsequent marriage on the grown-up “betrothed” and their short and, according to one version, very dramatic life...

Even the textbook portrait of Pushkin contains at least one secret - how many of them were there, Pushkin portraits?

For me, the most dramatic and most mysterious in my entire creative biography and one of the greatest in terms of the skill of conveying the inner drama of a person remains the portrait of A. Schwalbe with his hand clenched painfully around an ancient staff and his eyes looking into space, full of melancholy.

How did his blood father, foreman A.S. Dyakonov, see the future artist in a very small boy? Only God knows. Researchers suggest that, experiencing a paternal interest in the boy, the foreman father allowed him to play in the manor house, where young Orestes could see portraits of his ancestors, traditional in a noble estate, on the walls. The version is quite possible. An amazing moment is noteworthy.

In the documents on Orest’s appointment to the Academy of Arts for education, it is written that the surname Kipreysky, later modified into Kiprensky, was taken at the request of the boy himself. And he was only five years old at that time. At this age he began to show interest in drawing and painting. And foreman A.S. Dyakonov personally took him to the Academy.

The character of the seemingly sweet and timid young man was just as independent and independent years later, when he “threw out a trick”, which was remembered for a long time within the walls of the Academy.

On his birthday, March 13, 1799, during a parade in front of the Winter Palace, Orestes threw himself at the feet of Paul I, begging to be released for military service. According to one version, the reason for this act lay in the girl with whom Orestes was in love and who was partial to the military uniform. Considering that passionate love will run like a harsh refrain throughout his entire adult life, this version is possible. However, something else is more likely - Orestes was even more passionate in his ambitious dreams. He didn't know that he was destined to become a great artist. And I didn't want to wait. In military affairs it was possible to become famous faster... Orest Kiprensky was always ready to make a sharp turn in his destiny...

Ambitious, impetuous, ambitious, he quite possibly would have become an excellent officer. And thank God that this did not happen. There have always been enough defenders of the Fatherland in Russia. There can never be too many cultural creators of Kiprensky’s caliber.

He was also lucky in that his time at the Academy coincided with important reforms in this unique educational institution: after 1802, new disciplines were introduced - art history and aesthetics; More attention is paid to the study of Russian history, literature, and geography. Students are introduced to “the interpretative reading of historians and poets for the education of taste and imitation of the beauty found in their creations.”

At the origins of these reforms was Count A. S. Stroganov, who headed the Academy of Arts in 1800, who sincerely loved and knew art and cared about its development in Russia. A true patriot of his Fatherland, he took measures to ensure that young artists created works on themes of national life and history. In December 1802, the Academy Council adopted a project for the development of special programs for artists and sculptors with the goal of “glorifying domestic memorable men and incidents.” Under the guidance of the famous historical painter Professor G.I. Ugryumov and the Frenchman G.-F., who headed the historical painting class. Doyen Orest Kiprensky paints the historical picture “Dmitry Donskoy after winning the victory over Mamai.” And he even received his first gold medal for it in 1805. However, it becomes obvious to both him and the people close to him - professors and fellow students - that he is only good at depicting “memorable incidents” at a professional level. Not higher. He makes genuine discoveries in the depiction of “domestic memorable men.”

Back in 1804, he created the already mentioned portrait of his adoptive father, Adam Schwalbe, which later famous Italian art historians, after the 1830 exhibition in Naples, attributed to the brushes of Rubens and even Rembrandt.

Following the advice of his professors, upon graduating from the Academy, Orest Kiprensky devoted himself almost entirely to one genre, precisely the one in which he was destined to write a golden page in the history of world painting - portrait art. According to the observations of art historians, Kiprensky was the first Russian artist who, along with other representatives of the Russian intelligentsia of his time, created a whole gallery of portraits of writers, with many of whom he was friends, met, corresponded - Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Krylov, Karamzin, Batyushkov, Gnedich and others. By the way, Kiprensky was one of the most well-read Russian artists - from a young age he was a regular at libraries, in particular, he was a regular reader of the library of the Academy of Arts, famous for its selection of books on the history of literature, art, and history. During his student years, he read not only Lomonosov, Shcherbatov, Sumarokov, but also Voltaire, Moliere, Racine.

In this context, it seems extremely interesting to cite the opinion of the wonderful Russian writer K. Paustovsky about Orest Kiprensky.

“...Each face,” our contemporary wrote about the artist’s portraits of the early 19th century, “conveyed a complete inner image of a person, the most remarkable features of his character.” I think it would be worthwhile for my readers who are interested in Kiprensky’s work in the context of his era to reread K. Paustovsky’s short story “Orest Kiprensky.”

Studying Kiprensky’s portraits, as the writer accurately notes, causes the same excitement as if you had a long conversation with many generals, writers, poets and women of the early nineteenth century. In his portraits there are not only faces, but, as it were, the whole life of the people he painted - their suffering, impulses, courage and love. One of Kiprensky’s contemporaries said that when he was alone with his portraits, he heard people’s voices.

And again I will repeat my favorite thesis, this time in relation to Kiprensky, - you cannot study the history of Russia, in this case the first half of the 19th century, only from Kiprensky’s portraits. However, a conscientious historiographer can no longer do without them.

Kiprensky's portrait gallery is extremely extensive and diverse: he painted himself, his beloved and future wife Mariuccia, other people's children... He depicted his contemporaries, regardless of whether they were part of his circle of friends, were revered by him, or were ordinary customers and (need forced) did not inspire him with sympathy. He wrote poets, prose writers, government officials, sovereigns and empresses, generals and merchants, actors and peasants, sailors and sculptors, embezzlers and Decembrists, masons and collectors, architects and beauties.

Moreover, paying main attention to conveying the character and soul of the person being portrayed and thus leaving us, historians, the most valuable information about the spiritual life and morals of his time, he was very accurate in detail (and this, it seems to me, is what art critics unfairly blamed him for ), trying to give each person portrayed his own inherent attribute, accurately convey the details of the costume, uniform, show orders, and thus leaving us with a huge and extremely useful iconographic material as an invaluable historical source of the era.

What different, but what significant people - Pushkin and Krylov, Batyushkov and the poet Kozlov, Rostopchin and Countess Kochubey, art connoisseur Olenin and Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Freemasons Komarovsky and Golitsyn, Admiral Kushelev, partisan Figner, translator of the Iliad Gnedich, builder of the Odessa port de Volland, Decembrist Muravyov, poets Vyazemsky and Zhukovsky, architect Quarenghi.

The fate of Kiprensky the portrait painter was, in all likelihood, discerned by the President of the Academy, Alexander Sergeevich Stroganov, on whose recommendation he was retained at the Academy for another three years, already as a pensioner, to prepare work for the competition for the Big Gold Medal.

On September 1, 1803, Kiprensky received a first degree certificate and a sword - a sign of noble dignity, which was awarded to graduates of the Academy. As a pensioner, he received the right to a separate workshop and to produce paid orders - in parallel with the preparation of the competition picture. Moreover, judging by the fact that during these years Kiprensky portrayed mainly people close to him and pleasant - the adoptive father of Adam Schwalbe, foreman G. I. Zhukov, who inherited the Nezhinskaya manor, where the artist was born, after the death of A. S. Dyakonov; landscape painter S. F. Shchedrin, - he did not paint portraits to earn money. In total, by 1807 he had made 11 portraits, of which only the portrait of A. Schwalbe has survived to this day. But from a later time - 1808-1809. - true masterpieces have already been preserved, now stored in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Thus, in 1808, his friendship began with the famous collector and philanthropist A.R. Tomilov, whose house was one of the centers of artistic culture in the first quarter of the 19th century, and an excellent portrait of him was created. In the same year, beautiful portraits of A. V. Shcherbatova and P. P. Shcherbatov, A. I. Korsakov, “Self-Portrait” (c. 1809, stored in "Tretyakov Gallery") and portraits of father and son Kusov. The latest portraits are so curious from the point of view of reflecting the life and customs of the era in portraiture that they require at least a short stop...

The paradox is that, perhaps, of all the people portrayed by Orest Kiprensky, Ivan Vasilyevich Kusov was the most ordinary and least interesting person. At the same time, I. Kusov is, in the language of the history of European art, a typical example of a donor. That is, he was a wealthy customer of paintings or family portraits. In 1808, the poor, although already famous, artist could not refuse a lucrative and flattering offer - to paint a portrait of a millionaire merchant and his numerous household members. So Kiprensky ended up on Krestovsky Island in St. Petersburg, at the Kusovs’ dacha. The famous millionaire was favored by Tsar Alexander I himself, the merchant's dacha neighbor (the Tsar's palace was on Kamenny Island, but both islands were connected by order of His Highness by a bridge). Moreover, the Emperor often, according to contemporaries, ate meals with the Kusovo family. The son of a millionaire was married to the daughter of an impoverished nobleman, cousin of Vigel, a good acquaintance of Kiprensky. However, the dramatic fate of the girl should not distract us from the main thing: the young artist’s portrait of Kusov turned out to be amazing. The fact is that he managed to simultaneously please the tastes of the millionaire, giving him a noble stature and significance, and at the same time introduce a certain caricature, or at least irony, into the ceremonial portrait, made in the best traditions of the 18th - early 19th centuries. The merchant advisor, awarded many orders, had neither extensive education nor deep culture, and it is unlikely that during his life he read a thousandth of the books read by the author of the portrait himself. However, with the whimsical imagination of a portrait painter, the merchant holds an open book in his hands, which should emphasize his enlightenment. Then it was customary to use some attribute of the profession - a part, an object, a tool - to emphasize the field of activity in which the customer was engaged. It was impossible to find anything further than a book from the spiritual world of the merchant Kusov.

The fact that this is an absolute whim of the ironic master, which in its own way characterizes his attitude to commissioned portraits, is also indicated by the fact that in the images of his friend, art critic, philanthropist A.R. Tomilin and A.I., written with love and respect for the portraits. Korsakov, he also uses the attributes of their professions, in the first case - a miniature in his hand, in the second - a drawing of the Mining Corps. At the same time, he painted “The Artist with Brushes Behind His Ear” - a portrait of the painter, which for almost a century was attributed as a self-portrait. And again - an attribute of the profession. But in all cases, except for the portrait of Kusov, without irony. Also, you see, a sign of the century, a kind of internal opposition of the creative intelligentsia, Frond, distance from the “new Russians” of their era......Shortly before the war of 1812, Kiprensky was sent to Moscow. The business trip at first glance is more than strange.

“To help associate professor I.P. Martos” - for work on the monument to Minin and Pozharsky. The short trip of one of the best, if not the best, draftsman of his time turned out to be not only not burdensome, but also very useful. Freedom from the control of the Academy, new meetings and impressions.

From Moscow he moved to Tver, where at that time the daughter of Paul I, Princess Ekaterina Pavlovna, lived. She invited Kiprensky to work. The princess's palace was at that time, according to K. Paustovsky, a kind of literary and artistic club - many outstanding people of Russian culture visited, worked, and socialized here. And Moscow is nearby...

I. Bocharov and Y. Glushakova in their book about Kiprensky accurately notice an important feature of the artistic life of pre-reform Russia. A select circle of the most educated people of their time, mostly nobles, often high-born, were reluctant to accept the nouveau riche, upstarts, or, to put it mildly, commoners. Especially in St. Petersburg. The Stroganov Salon, where the President of the Academy introduced his especially gifted students, made exceptions for geniuses who emerged from the “bottom.” The rest of St. Petersburg coldly pushed away, rejected the “strangers.” As a rule, either high-born origin or all-Russian fame were needed, preferably both. Yesterday's graduate of the Academy, Orest Kiprensky, has so far found it difficult to fit into this select St. Petersburg circle. In Moscow it was easier, because she traditionally “didn’t believe in tears” and, accepting “according to her clothes,” she saw her off “according to her mind.” In Moscow, Kiprensky quickly became one of the welcome guests in numerous literary and artistic salons. He met such outstanding people of his time as N. M. Karamzin, P. A. Vyazemsky, V. A. Zhukovsky, painted portraits of them, which made him even more popular in the artistic environment of Moscow... “Elitist” Moscow even then, and now – small. Its representatives at the beginning of the century constantly communicated with each other - either in the Assembly of the Nobility, or in the English Club, or in famous salons. The young, sociable, brightly gifted artist quickly becomes famous in this “all of Moscow.” He is also a hard worker - he works quickly and with inspiration.

His portraits of noble and famous Muscovites soon brought him not just fame - fame. Particularly successful were the portraits of his Moscow patrons - Count Fyodor Vasilyevich Rostopchin and Countess Ekaterina Petrovna. Kiprensky also became friends with the brothers Vladimir Denisovich and Vasily Denisovich Davydov, often visited Vasily Davydov’s spacious house on Prechistenka, and portraits these extraordinary, purely Moscow nobles. As for the sons of Vasily Denisovich, friendship with them was still ahead - sons Denis and Evdokim, nephew Evgraf would still enter into the work of Kiprensky, posing a riddle to art historians - which of the brave men and officers of the Davydovs - Denis, Evdokim or Evgraf - is depicted in the famous portrait . It is clear that it is not Denis - all the lifetime portraits and memoirs of his contemporaries paint a completely different picture of this dashing grunt and romantic poet. Historian of Russian art E. N. Atsarkina in the 40s. Already in the 20th century, she discovered a document that seemed to shed light on this mystery - in 1831, Kiprensky wrote from Naples to Nicholas I, asking to purchase some of the paintings from him. The letter mentioned the work: “Portrait of Ev. V. Davydov, in the life hussar uniform, an almost full-length picture. Written in 1809 in Moscow." For a hundred years it was believed that the portrait by Kiprensky was of the poet and partisan Denis Davydov (despite the obvious dissimilarity of faces). But it turns out, E. Atsarkina confidently suggested, this is his brother, Evdokim. And everything would be fine if it weren’t for pedantic military historians. They reasonably noted that Evdokim was a cavalry guard and therefore could not show off with a hussar mentik. It was assumed that the “hero” of Kiprensky’s portrait was Denis and Evdokim’s cousin, Evgraf Vladimirovich, who in 1809 had the rank of colonel of the Life Hussar Regiment. But it is also impossible to definitively settle on this version - the rank of the officer cannot be determined from the portrait. Moreover, in the portrait there are so many inaccuracies in the depicted hussar uniform that modern specialist I.P. Shinkarenko expressed a bold hypothesis - in the portrait it is still the same Denis Davydov, because only he, due to his “partisan” character and poetic carelessness, could appear before already a famous painter in a costume consisting of a mixture of parts of guards and army uniforms. Let us be glad that the painting was preserved and did not perish with other portraits of the Moscow period in the fire of 1812, and who is in it is interesting, of course, but not so important. It is important that the very type of Russian officer, a nobleman, a dashing grunt, in some ways already clearly a freethinker, and definitely one of those who won the war with Napoleon, was precisely captured. In March 1812, after three years, which included both Tver and Moscow, Kiprensky returned to St. Petersburg. The portraits he presented at the Academy of Prince Georg of Oldenburg, officer Davydov, I. A. Gagarin, I. V. Kusov were met with respect and admiration by professionals. He is awarded the title of academician. Now all the eminent people of the capital were striving to become one of his “models”.

The medal of glory has at least two sides. “Kiprensky became fashionable,” K. Paustovsky wrote in his short story “Orest Kiprensky,” just as coral necklaces were fashionable at that time among women and ringing “charivari” keychains among men... Kiprensky (what exact word was found by Paustovsky)— plunged into the blaze of glory." Inspired by fame, he worked like a man possessed. And perhaps he would have overstrained himself and died young, if not for the decision to send him on a business trip to Rome - “to improve his painting skills.”

He already has fame behind him. There is anticipation of even greater success ahead. And for an art historian, a pause that includes the road from St. Petersburg to Rome is an opportunity to reflect and understand what his St. Petersburg period left in the history of Russian art.

First of all, this is a series of pencil portraits of heroes of the war of 1812–1814. – a huge iconographic material on the history of Russia. Yesterday's war heroes, tomorrow's Decembrists, future exiles... Particularly interesting are the portraits of the same people, taken “with a break for the war.” It’s not the costumes that have changed, but what to think about fashion when the Fatherland is changing... The faces of the Russian nobles have changed. Having passed through death and seen Europe, they thought about the fate of their compatriots.

In this regard, the portraits of Nikita Muravyov, his relative, friend and colleague in the secret society, Mikhail Lunin, are full of enormous energy and internal drama. Even in the portrait of art critic Alexei Tomilov there is this anxiety. Which is not surprising - during the war he created a partisan detachment and fought bravely, as the orders in the portrait by Kiprensky remind of. It’s amazing how an artist, who himself has not fought, depicts heroes of bloody battles, experienced warriors - for example, 45-year-old General Efim Ignatievich Chaplits, the hero of Shengraben, Austerlitz, Friedland - and, it would seem, a deeply civilian intellectual-militiaman, the son of the director Public Library of A. N. Olenin - Pyotr Alekseevich... The portrait shows the fate of hundreds of people like him. Before his eyes, his brother died in battle, he himself fought bravely, but the war is over - and he will return to his former civilian occupations. And something in the character, in the face, in the way of life will change.

Perhaps the artist Kiprensky, like no one else in Russian painting of the 19th century, was able to create biographies of people and entire generations in a portrait that seemed to capture only one moment in a person’s life.

O. Kiprensky's contribution to the iconography of the 19th century. simply priceless. He is attracted not only by faces with a biography - portraits of war heroes. No less interesting from the point of view of studying the history of the era, using the “testimony” of the painter and graphic artist Orest Kiprensky, are his female portraits. What is his portrait of Natasha, the daughter of Viktor Pavlovich Kochubey, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia, worth? And this lovely girl is interesting to us not because she is the daughter of a prince and a minister, although this is also curious in the context of the era, but because she was the first object of love

A. S. Pushkin. Natalie in 1813–1815 spent the summer in Tsarskoe Selo, where O. Kiprensky wrote it. Natalie was a year younger than the poet and in 1813 she was 13. Kiprensky managed to paint the image of the future beauty... In general, one cannot but agree with those researchers of Kiprensky’s work who believed that he, like no other master of the 19th century, was able to convey the soul Russian girl, woman. “His female images are surprisingly Pushkin in character, in their poetic integrity,” write I. Bocharov and Yu. Glushakova in the monograph “Kiprensky”. From the youthful charm of Natalie Kochubey to the mature beauty of Ekaterina Semenova...

Kiprensky has been connected with Semenova for years of mutual sympathy and friendship - since the early 1800s. until 1826, the time of her departure from the stage and move to Moscow. Semenova was called the great tragic actress of the “Decembrist period of Russian culture,” Pushkin appreciated her, and she was admired by the most enlightened and “freedom-loving” Russian nobles of the first quarter of the century.

Of course, heading to one of the most romantic cities of that time - Rome, Orest Kiprensky also recalled the portraits of the actress Semenova he made in Russia. This gallery of the best female portraits includes both Countess Rostopchina and the daughter of the hero of the assault, Izmail Khvostov. And ahead, after returning from Rome, is one of his best female portraits - Daria Feodorovna Fikelmon, Kutuzov’s beloved granddaughter, charming Dolly, the same one in whose salon in St. Petersburg Pushkin read his poems to her, the wife of the Austrian envoy... And again Let us repeat: in the 19th century. and Moscow is a small city, and Russia was not large for the people of their circle... Perhaps - a bizarre line of fate - while working on portraits of Ekaterina Semenova, Orest Kiprensky first met with the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. Mickiewicz, expelled on the Philomat case, met with Kiprensky, perhaps on the very first day of his stay in St. Petersburg, perhaps later, but definitely - between November 8–9, 1824 and January 26, 1825. This is Mickiewicz from the time of the “Dziadov” , fresh from prison and personal shock. This is how Kiprensky wrote it, sanctified by inner fire. However, he could have met the poet at E. Semenova’s, or he could have met with the poet’s compatriot, the artist Orlovsky. Relations between official St. Petersburg and Poland are not simple. And for Kiprensky - “artists are all brothers.” They could have met among the Decembrists - Mitskevich was just as friendly with Ryleev and Alexander Bestuzhev as Kiprensky.

They will meet years after the creation of one of the best portraits of Mickiewicz - in Italy in 1829. And it is no coincidence that in 1831, after the defeat of the rebels in Warsaw, Kiprensky will create this one of his strangest paintings - “Newspaper Readers in Naples”. He will send it to St. Petersburg as a group portrait of Russian travelers. But for the Russian frontiers, everything here was full of meaning - Vesuvius in the background, as a symbol of an explosion, an uprising, and a portrait of Adam Mickiewicz, who was easily recognized in a group of Russian travelers.

The painting was intended for Count Dmitry Nikolaevich Sheremetev. A scandal was brewing. But it didn't happen. The king liked the picture, and no one at court saw dangerous allusions in it. The painting graced the exhibition of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Moreover, just in the year of the uprising of 1830, which was so ambiguously met by Kiprensky, he was most mercifully granted the title of professor of historical and portrait painting, “as an excellent artist known for his works,” which gave the title of adviser “two ranks higher,” namely VII class, which, as is known, gave nobility to the Russian Empire. Apotheosis. The illegitimate son of a Russian nobleman also became a nobleman. He is ready to return to his homeland.

And in Rome he works on portraits of Russian people and writes - the portrait of Prince Golitsyn, according to a number of experts, is one of the most poetic portraits of Russian painting. And again a masterpiece - a portrait of Princess Shcherbatova.

Both are in an exquisitely thought-out range, both portraits, according to contemporaries, with an unusually accurate description of the subjects being portrayed. And in these two portraits there was something that is most difficult to analyze, parse, and define.

These were, alas, the last successes of the great artist. After them, he “wrote sugary and false things - cutesy landowners, boring rich people, representatives of the indifferent nobility,” notes Konstantin Paustovsky.

Once he refused to paint a portrait of Arakcheev, citing the fact that he did not have the “dirt and blood” needed for such a portrait on his palette...

Now he agrees, upon returning to St. Petersburg, to paint portraits of the children of the all-powerful Benckendorff. Children are children everywhere. However, writing the children of the jailer of his friends for a piece of bread was not in the spirit of the times.

He will again become the old Kiprensky when he takes on the portrait of Pushkin. It was a work congenial to the model. “The artist imparted to the eyes an almost inaccessible purity, brilliance and tranquility, and gave the poet’s fingers nervous delicacy and strength,” wrote K. Paustovsky.

The portrait was commissioned by Delvig. Kiprensky began work in the last days of May, following Tropinin, who painted the poet in the spring of 1827. Those who saw the portrait at the exhibition in the fall wrote: “... this is a living Pushkin.” This is what people who knew the poet well said. This is what those who have seen Pushkin only in portraits confidently repeat today. Pushkin himself felt this, dedicating the lines to Kiprensky:

I see myself as if in a mirror...

But this mirror flatters me.

“You flatter me, Orestes,”

Pushkin said sadly.”

This is a phrase from K. Paustovsky’s story about Kiprensky. In terms of thought, in terms of the amount of information - the same, but one word was ingeniously added - “sad”. And you begin to understand what kind of people lived in the first half of the 19th century. The gift of empathy, the ability to be involved, in tune, the harmony of spiritual relationships between people who supported the Fatherland... Take a look at Kiprensky’s self-portrait of 1828 - it seems to be paired with Pushkin’s - it so accurately shows the closeness of their worldview. “This portrait can be called the confession of an artist who, with intense efforts, is trying to maintain the harmony of his inner world,” noted I. Kislyakova in the book “Orest Kiprensky. The Epoch and Heroes,” to this we can sadly add that Orest Kiprensky never achieved this harmony. He, scraping his elbows bloody, broke out of everyday life, made his way through time, which was sometimes kind, sometimes merciless towards him. One thing can be said for sure: it was not easy for him, despite the ease of his talent. From the point of view of the average person, a fashion designer is certainly happy. And happiness is not at all the same as success.

And success often turned away from Orest Kiprensky. In Naples, having gathered his last strength, he will also write a masterpiece - an unusually poetic portrait of Golenishcheva-Kutuzova.

One of the most fashionable painters in the first half of the century ended his life in poverty. He didn’t make any money, and his later works sold poorly. The bills from the Sovereign, who bought his painting, were late, his patron D.N. Sheremetev was careless with payments, there was no money...

However, the paradox of a genius who did not have time, who was unable to realize himself fully, is that even when the money comes, bitterness remains.

The portrait of Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky is a kind of point in the creative biography of the master. Not his life, because he still had two years to live, but his creative biography. Comparing the dates, it is easy to verify that the portrait was made five days after the death of Pashenka, who was brought by Vyazemsky to the warm Italian climate for treatment. The treatment didn't help. The daughter died. A man of fine spiritual organization, Vyazemsky suffered cruelly. Depression by grief, a feeling of the meaninglessness of life (“the young leave, the old remain”), loss of life perspective - everything is in the face of Vyazemsky in Kiprensky’s portrait. The poet understood well and deeply sympathized with his model.

At the end of his brilliantly begun creative biography, he himself experienced the bitterness of emptiness and the sadness of the meaninglessness of simply living out life. This was the last pencil portrait of Orest Kiprensky known to us. He died on October 10, 1836, aged 49 years. On a stele near the Church of Sant’Andrea in Rome are engraved the words: “In honor and in memory of Orest of Kiprensky, the most famous among Russian artists...”

“Following the thoughts of a great man is the most entertaining science,” wrote Pushkin. If we keep in our memory the image of a great man created by a good artist, how it enlivens and deepens the most entertaining science! But the artist is also passionate about the same science: he follows the thoughts of a great man with a brush in his hand, capturing and exploring his living image. From the first day we begin to live surrounded by Pushkin’s portraits, from our first days we know his unique appearance. And people who lived at the same time as the poet repeated, like an oath, the ode to Liberty, To Chaadaev, people who walked with Pushkin under the same sky, through the same city, along the same streets, could meet Pushkin and pass by without recognizing him.

The very first portrait, a miniature work by an unknown artist, depicting Pushkin as a child of three, three and a half years old, was kept by the descendants of the famous Moscow doctor Matvey Yakovlevich the Wise, who treated the Pushkins when they were in Moscow. This portrait, made by a serf artist, according to family legend, was a gift from the mother of the poet N.O. Pushkina's only daughter Mudrov - Sophia. Xavier de Maistre. "Pushkin - child"

Pushkin spent six years at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, opened on October 19, 1811. Here the young poet experienced the events of the Patriotic War of 1812. Here his poetic gift was first discovered and highly appreciated. Memories of the years spent at the Lyceum, of the Lyceum brotherhood, remained forever in the poet’s soul.

In 1822, the poem Prisoner of the Caucasus was first published. Attached to it is a portrait of the author, engraved by master Yegor Geitman. The drawing from which the engraving was made was apparently completed before Pushkin’s exile. One of the tourists of that time found the portrait very similar, but Pushkin himself - he was in Chisinau at that time - barely received copies of the poem, he responded in a letter to Gnedich (by mistake calling the engraving a lithograph): A. Pushkin is masterfully lithographed, but I don’t know, Is he similar... - No, he still doesn’t think he’s very similar. If my consent is needed, then I don’t agree,” he writes. A.S. Pushkin portrait by Geitman

Pushkin did not like to pose for artists, jokingly referring to the “Arap disgrace.” That is why there are so few portraits of the poet made from life. But in 1827, two such portraits appeared at once and both of them became classics, rightfully entering the history of Russian portrait inventory and national culture as the best images of Pushkin. One of them belongs to the brush of Orest Kiprensky, and the other to Vasily Tropinin.

At the beginning of 1827, the poet ordered his portrait from the Moscow artist V.A. Tropinin. “Until recently, it was believed that the customer of Tropinin’s work was a friend of the poet, Sergei Aleksandrovich Sobolevsky. Going abroad, he really wanted to have a portrait of Pushkin “as he is, in his dressing gown, disheveled, with the treasured mystical ring on the thumb of one hand.” But this version is incorrect, since from a letter from Sobolevsky himself to M.M. Pogodin, published only in 1952, it is obvious that “Pushkin himself secretly ordered the portrait of Tropinin and presented it to me as a surprise with various farces (it cost him 350 rubles).”

It is known that for the first acquaintance with Pushkin, the artist at the beginning of 1827 came to Sobolevsky’s house on Sobachaya Square, where the poet then lived. Tropinin found him in his office, fiddling with the puppies. It was then, probably, based on first impressions, that a small sketch was written. There was no richness of color, no sophistication of brushwork, no masterfully executed details. The main advantage of this preparatory little thing was the spontaneity and liveliness of the model’s perception, friendly trust, which excluded the usual romantic pathos. But the idea of the poet’s greatness was expressed in a quick pencil sketch, which emphasized the proud position of his head, framed by the open collar of his shirt.

Tropinin V.A. Portrait of A.S. Pushkin. Sketch of the All-Union Museum of A.S. Pushkin

The final version of the pictorial portrait successfully combines the sublimity of the idea found in the graphic sketch with the living sensation of nature captured in the sketch. The poet's figure is turned towards the viewer, his calm and concentrated face is shown in a slight three-quarter turn. The hand, decorated with the favorite “mystical” ring, is placed on the sheets of the manuscript. The poet's home clothes, contrary to expectations, do not create an atmosphere of trust between the model and the viewer. The robe in this case is not a “comrade of idle bliss,” but the loose clothing of a free person. Unlike other Moscow portraits by Tropinin, which belong to the “negligent genre,” the external simplicity of Pushkin’s portrait is apparent. The artist does not so much strive to create an atmosphere of domesticity as emphasize the importance of private life, which increased in the era of romanticism. He demonstratively contrasts it with the official stiffness of the uniform.

A.P. Elagina. "Portrait of Pushkin" Tropinin V.A. Portrait of A.S. Pushkin All-Union Museum of A.S. Pushkin

In 1827, almost simultaneously with Tropinin, O. Kiprensky painted a wonderful portrait of Pushkin, commissioned by the poet’s friend A. A. Delvig. This is undoubtedly one of Kiprensky's most significant works. He exudes genius, the flight of poetic thought, and the illumination of inspiration. The poet himself greeted this incarnation in painting with satisfaction and greeted the artist with a poetic message. To emphasize the theme of creativity, Delvig asked the master to add a bronze figure of a muse to the painting. In the depths of the portrait, Kiprensky placed a stand, and on it a bronze figurine of the muse of lyric poetry Erato, who usually had a zither or lyre as an attribute.

“The poet’s face is softly highlighted by light. It delicately depicts the Arab characteristic features: wide nostrils, slightly protruding large lips. Curly dark brown hair frames a high forehead. Pushkin’s appearance is distinguished by restrained simplicity, but there is also a special fragile grace and some kind of exotic elegance in it” (Golovina L. Two textbook portraits // Young Artist) The image is filled with internal dynamics, which is expressed by an energetic “Napoleonic” pose with arms crossed on the chest . A Scottish cloak with a checkered ecosaise lining (Scottish fabric with a large check) is effectively thrown over the shoulder. This detail enhances the sublime romantic sound of the entire composition, evoking associations with the poetry of George Byron and the hero of his poem, Childe Harold. Some critical reviews of Kiprensky's work were drowned in an enthusiastic chorus of praise. It is curious that contemporaries recognized Pushkin precisely by this portrait, first presented to the public at an exhibition in St. Petersburg on September 1, 1827. Later, Pushkin’s portrait served as a model for many artists and sculptors when recreating the poet’s appearance.

I.E. Vivien. "Portrait of Pushkin" Paper, Italian pencil, whitewash.

B.M. Kustodiev. "Portrait of A.S. Pushkin" Mr. Gippius. "Portrait of Pushkin" Lithography. T. Wright. "Portrait of Pushkin" Steel engraving. P.I. Chelishchev. "Pushkin and Count D.I. Khvostov." Beginning of 1830. Unknown artist. "Portrait of Pushkin". 1831? G.

In 1938 I.S. Zilberstein wrote: One image of Pushkin still remains almost a complete mystery - this is his portrait by I.L. Lineva. Neither the history of its creation, nor the time of its writing, nor its origin are still essentially unknown to us, just as we know nothing about its author. And none of the modern researchers of Pushkin’s iconography added anything to the fact that exactly 50 years ago they first reported about this portrait. S. Librovich, who studied it for the first time. Who is this artist who not only understood Pushkin’s drama, but also clearly sympathized with him, and managed to convey the poet’s tragedy to his descendants? The last lifetime portrait of A.S. Pushkin by the artist I.L. Linev, 1836.

WORK OF I. AIVAZOVSKY At one of the exhibitions in St. Petersburg (1836), two artists met - an artist of the pen and an artist of the brush. Acquaintance with Pushkin made an indelible impression on the young Aivazovsky. “Since then, my already beloved poet has become the subject of my thoughts, inspiration and long conversations and stories about him,” the artist recalled. Aivazovsky admired the talent of the greatest Russian poet all his life, dedicating a whole series of paintings to him. In them he combined the poetry of the sea with the image of a poet. In 1887, Aivazovsky was working on the painting "Pushkin's Farewell to the Sea." ("Farewell, free elements..."). invited Repin to paint the poet, because he knew his weakness in portraiture. Later I.E. Repin spoke about the joint work as follows: “The Wonderful Sea was painted by Aivazovsky (...) And I was honored to paint a figure there