Artists who were part of the Association of mobileart exhibitions - "the Wanderers" - left a bright trace in Russian painting of the last third of the XIX century. This is a very Russian phenomenon in the history of art, because its main feature has become the inseparable interaction of the artistic and social life of the country.
He was one of three sons of Yegor IvanovichMakovsky - an outstanding artistic figure of Moscow, a collector, one of the founders of the famous Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Both brothers, Konstantin and Nikolai, and Alexander’s sister became artists, and the other sister, Maria, became a singer. In childhood, one of the teachers of Vladimir was the famous Vasily Tropinin.
The very first paintings of Makovsky, starting withwritten in 15 years of genre scenes "Boy, selling kvass" (1861), revealed his great abilities both in observing the events of his life, and in transferring them to the canvas. In 1861, he enrolled at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture - a school, one of the founders of which was his father. He graduated with a silver medal, awarded for the painting "Literary reading" (1865).
Many of Makovsky’s paintings became stages in hiscreative and professional development. For the painting “Peasant Boys Watching Horses” (1869), he received the title of “first-class artist class”, and for “Lovers of Nightingales” (1973) he was promoted to academician of painting.
A lot of time occupied in the life of the masterpedagogical activity. For 12 years he taught at MUZHVZ - from 1882 to 1894, and the next 24 years at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, becoming in 1895 the rector of the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts.
The famous artist died in February 1920 in Petrograd.
The artist married early, and in 1869 heborn the first son, who later also became an artist - Alexander Makovsky. Vladimir Egorovich, whose paintings already had a distinct genre identity, has since paid much attention to the children's theme. Among these canvases of his stands a picture that became the first one purchased by the famous collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov. This became for Makovsky a symbol of his final recognition as a painter.
Peasant children play the most affordable forthem play It uses grandmothers - small bones from the skeleton of domestic animals - cows or pigs. This is a competition in accuracy: those bones, which were hit by a special cue (grandmother, weighted with lead), become the prey of the player.
... Now the main thing for them is the game they areare given with all passion. One, sitting, intently counts the loot, others carefully wait for the next throw. Makovsky, whose paintings are distinguished by meticulousness in everyday details, is also accurate in psychological nuances. All players have their own temperament, their own character. General - a gentle humor and optimism, ineradicable, even the poverty of clothing and dilapidation of the surrounding buildings.
Makovsky's early paintings are distinguished by an excesselaboration of details, sometimes interfering with holistic perception. In the future, the artist's brush acquires greater freedom, and the palette will become more integral, which will allow to avoid a certain diversity inherent, in particular, to the picture we have examined.
This canvas represented Russian painting at the World Exhibition in Vienna, where it received much attention from the audience.
Outside the window there was a nightingale trill, and threethe peasants heard, interrupting their simple feast. One, standing, froze, looking out the window, trying to look out for a little birdie. The second, clearly drunk more than his friends, with a wave of his hand counts the play of the nightingale song. The third, the most solid, listens, thoughtfully plucking his beard. Here everything is full of life and sound: the light from the window, the poses and gestures of the characters, the hot pot-bellied samovar, simple but “tasty” written still-life.
There is a review about this picture of the great Dostoevsky, who highly appreciated the kindness and attention to the common man, which had not only Russian, but also human scale, that came from the picture.
Gradually in the plots of the artist disappears inherentearly pictures of humor and ironic attitude to the characters. Cloths acquire drama and ambiguity. These are several variants of the painting depicting the commoners who have taken the path of the revolutionary struggle, and the attitude of representatives of different layers of the Russian people to such figures.
A young man armed convoy leads outCourthouse. At the exit of his expect relatives, including mother, father, young girl and an elderly person. Apparently, the main character by origin from the peasants or the urban poor. His bride and her father belong to a more prosperous class. The artist does not show obvious goodwill towards the convicted person, there is no sympathy for him and among others. He brought one kind of suffering to his relatives - his mother appealed pleadingly, admonishing her son, the father crying inconsolably.
Yes, and the revolutionary himself does not look adamantsufferer hero for the people. In his view - lostness and lack of self-righteousness. Makovsky, whose pictures are an exact reflection of the mood prevailing in society, shows a change in attitude towards methods of dealing with the existing system, which was resorted to by radical parties and movements similar to Narodnaya Volya.
Children is a topic that Makovsky often worked on.Vladimir Egorovich, whose paintings from the beginning are only a reflection of the child’s spontaneity, admiring the beginning of a new life, further speaks about different, often dramatic aspects of childhood in Russia of that time.
In poor families it was customary to give the children "inpeople". The child often became powerless servant or apprentice, loaded with overwork. Receiving from the owner only miserable food and unsettled shelter, the children ceased to be a burden for the family, losing their family comfort and early maturing. This path was especially common and familiar to peasant families, who gave the boy to serve in the city.
It is about such a children's fate tellsMakovsky. A picture description can take many pages, although there are only two characters on the canvas. The peasant woman has come a long way with a small bundle and a stick in her hands. She brought her son a roll to please her child. A woman with pity looks at a barefoot boy dressed in a dirty apron - obviously, he works in a workshop and got a few minutes of free time for a meeting with his mother.
The painterly style of the artist has also changed - inthere are no detailed and carefully written details that distract attention and crush the image. The gloomy color is not an expression of the joy of a short meeting, but a reflection of the heavy mood of a lost childhood.
Makovsky often said that he hadartist only a few minutes, during which you must have time to tell something that a writer can take many pages. In 1880, the master attained the highest skill in creating such paintings-stories. One of these peaks, and the scenic skill and content is the canvas "On the boulevard." During this period, the paintings of V.E. Makovsky contain only two characters, but they are enough for a deep analysis of social problems of enormous scale.
Before us is a little tale of dramaticbreak in the life of a young family. It seems that they come from a village where they were prepared to live, like their parents, in the usual works and joys of the peasant way of life. But her husband was drawn to the city, to earn money, to a new, “beautiful” and interesting life. And after some time my wife came to visit her husband. Now they are strangers. He managed to get saturated with the urban spirit - he carefully monitors his appearance, he holds a small harmonica in his hands - it is clear that he likes most of all in urban life.
The girl is still quite young, but already understands thatShe can wait for her in the future, where she sees total hopelessness. From this picture of Vladimir Makovsky, it breathes longingly, it is a kind of reflection of the private drama of two small people, and demonstrates the scale of the national problem of destroying a habitual way of life that has evolved over the centuries, and now collapses as industrial centers develop.
Vladimir Egorovich differed huge diligenceand creative fecundity. The result of his many years of work was a genuine encyclopedia of the most typical phenomena of Russian reality at the break of two centuries. He turned to themes of various sizes - from domestic scenes to mass political actions - and embodied them with genuine artistic skill.
Historians of Russian art have noted thatAt the end of his life, V.Ye. Makovsky became a supporter of more conservative views on the development of painting, and had a negative attitude towards the search for new themes and means of expression. But the scale of this figure in Russian visual art does not make it any smaller.
