Benois Alexander Nikolaevich (1870-1960) graphic artist, painter, theater artist, publisher, writer, one of the authors of the modern image of the book. Representative of Russian modernity.
Versailles.
Our community has already published a post about the work of Alexandre Benois:
We offer you a few more watercolors of this wonderful artist.
Versailles. (Versailles).
Paris. Karruzel.
Versailles. Versailles.
Versailles. Versailles.
Fountain "Neptune" in Versailles. Versailles.
Fontainebleau.
Villa Maurel, Cassis.
Pont Marie, Paris.
Capitol, Rome. Le Capitole, Rome.
Ufficio Scavi, Rome.
Pavlovsk.
Venice. Venice.
Palace by moonlight. (Gouache, paper)
Cassis. Cassis.
Cassis. (Grove in Cassis).
Walk of the King.
Chinese pavilion in Tsarskoye Selo. (watercolor on paper. 23 x 25.5 cm).
Image source:
From the comments to the post:
"..... Benois has long held me captive to his sophistication. I cannot ignore not only a post about him, but also some minor watercolor of his, exhibited to maintain the prestige and status of the exhibition. Attracts the eye, attracts the mind, attracts the essence. What kind of misfortune is this: to cling to Benoit for life! It is already the 21st century, and it is for nothing that the founder of the community, as we would say now, is horror to what extent formalized in content, and stormy (with beating faces, novels, scandals and quarrels) in essence. What is it that fascinates me so much? Calligraphic accuracy of details? Color scheme, muted and aristocratic? Lack of fuss and flickering in craftsmanship, in the hand? Visible, hanging outside the boundaries of work, education? Longing for an unseen and untested era? Samples of French parks, lined and clipped, living as phantoms in his watercolors? An axiom learned from childhood: he could see a partially preserved one, but you won’t even think of it, because you will never see it? Envy of his scenery and costumes made for Diaghilev, no matter how much you leaf through the elite edition of Diaghilev's seasons - you won't touch it, you won't understand the delicate, but deafening effect? What makes me all my life, in thought, stop near these chilly sheets of high-quality paper hidden under glass, note that it was put up there, but there was nothing there and there was nothing? Maybe a landscape without a person? And how good is a landscape without a person, from whom there are only troubles and the destruction of the harmony adjusted by classical standards? I do not know. But I'm looking...
A. N. Benois was born into the family of a famous architect and grew up in an atmosphere of reverence for art, but did not receive an art education. He studied at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University (1890-94), but at the same time independently studied the history of art and was engaged in drawing and painting (mainly watercolor). He did this so thoroughly that he managed to write a chapter on Russian art for the third volume of "The History of Painting in the 19th Century" by R. Muther, published in 1894.
They immediately started talking about him as a talented art critic who turned over the established ideas about the development of domestic art. In 1897, based on impressions from trips to France, he created the first serious work - a series of watercolors "The Last Walks of Louis XIV", - showing himself in it as an original artist.
Repeated trips to Italy and France and copying artistic treasures there, studying the writings of Saint-Simon, Western literature of the 17th-19th centuries, and interest in ancient engravings formed the foundation of his artistic education. In 1893, Benois acted as a landscape painter, creating watercolors of the environs of St. Petersburg. In 1897-1898 he paints in watercolor and gouache a series of landscape paintings of the Versailles parks, recreating in them the spirit and atmosphere of antiquity.
By the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, Benois again returns to the landscapes of Peterhof, Oranienbaum, Pavlovsk. It glorifies the beauty and grandeur of 18th century architecture. Nature interests the artist mainly in its connection with history. Possessing a pedagogical gift and erudition, he at the end of the 19th century. organized the "World of Art" association, becoming its theorist and inspirer. He worked a lot in book graphics. He often appeared in the press and every week published his "Artistic Letters" (1908-16) in the newspaper "Rech".
He worked no less fruitfully as an art historian: he published in two editions (1901, 1902) the widely known book Russian Painting in the 19th Century, substantially reworking his earlier essay for it; began to publish serial publications "Russian School of Painting" and "History of Painting of All Times and Peoples" (1910-17; the publication was interrupted with the beginning of the revolution) and the magazine "Art Treasures of Russia"; created a wonderful "Guide to the Hermitage Art Gallery" (1911).
After the revolution of 1917, Benois took an active part in the work of various organizations, mainly related to the protection of monuments of art and antiquity, and from 1918 he also took up museum work - he became in charge of the Hermitage Art Gallery. He developed and successfully implemented a completely new plan for the general exposition of the museum, which contributed to the most expressive demonstration of each work.
At the beginning of the XX century. Benois illustrates the works of Pushkin A.S. Acts as a critic and art historian. In the 1910s, people came to the center of the artist's interests. Such is his painting "Peter I on a walk in the Summer Garden", where in a multi-figured scene the appearance of a past life seen through the eyes of a contemporary is recreated.
In the work of Benois the artist, history decisively prevailed. Two topics invariably attracted his attention: "Petersburg in the 18th - early 19th centuries." and "The France of Louis XIV". He addressed them primarily in his historical compositions - in two "Versailles series" (1897, 1905-06), in the well-known paintings "Parade under Paul I" (1907), "Exit of Catherine II in Tsarskoye Selo Palace" (1907 ) and others, reproducing a long-gone life with deep knowledge and a subtle sense of style. The same themes, in essence, were devoted to his numerous natural landscapes, which he usually performed either in St. Petersburg and its suburbs, or in Versailles (Benoit regularly traveled to France and lived there for a long time). The artist entered the history of Russian book graphics with his book "The Alphabet in the Pictures of Alexander Benois" (1905) and illustrations for "The Queen of Spades" by A. S. Pushkin, performed in two versions (1899, 1910), as well as wonderful illustrations for "The Bronze Horseman" ", to the three variants of which he devoted almost twenty years of work (1903-22).
In the same years, he took part in the design of the "Russian Seasons", organized by Diaghilev S.P. in Paris, which included in their program not only opera and ballet performances, but also symphony concerts.
Benois designed R. Wagner's opera The Death of the Gods on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater and then performed sketches for the scenery for N. N. Tcherepnin's ballet The Pavilion of Armida (1903), the libretto of which he composed himself. The passion for ballet turned out to be so strong that on the initiative of Benois and with his direct participation, a private ballet troupe was organized, which began triumphant performances in Paris in 1909 - "Russian Seasons". Benois, who took the post of artistic director in the troupe, performed the design for several performances.
One of his highest achievements was the scenery for I. F. Stravinsky's ballet "Petrushka" (1911). Soon, Benois began working with the Moscow Art Theater, where he successfully designed two performances based on the plays of J.-B. Moliere (1913) and for some time even participated in the management of the theater along with K. S. Stanislavsky and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko.
From 1926 he lived in Paris, where he died. The main works of the artist: "The Walk of the King" (1906), "Fantasy on the Versailles theme" (1906), "Italian comedy" (1906), illustrations for the Bronze Horseman by Pushkin A.S. (1903) and others.
Benois Alexander Nikolaevich (1870 - 1960)
Walk of the King 1906
62×48 cm
Watercolor, Gouache, Pencil, Feather, Cardboard, Silver, Gold
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The Last Walks of the King is a series of drawings by Alexandre Benois dedicated to the walks of King Louis the Sun, his old age, as well as autumn and winter in the park of Versailles.
Versailles. Louis XIV feeding the fish
Description of the old age of Louis XIV (from here):
“... The king became sad and gloomy. According to Madame de Maintenon, he became "the most inconsolable person in all of France." Louis began to violate the laws of etiquette established by himself.
In the last years of his life, he acquired all the habits befitting an old man: he got up late, ate in bed, half-lying received ministers and secretaries of state (Louis XIV was engaged in the affairs of the kingdom until the last days of his life), and then sat for hours in a large armchair, placing a velvet chair under his back. pillow. In vain, the doctors repeated to their sovereign that the lack of bodily movements bored him and drowsiness and was a harbinger of imminent death.
The king could no longer resist the onset of decrepitude, and his age was approaching eighty.
Everything he agreed to was limited to trips through the gardens of Versailles in a small controlled carriage. 
Versailles. By the pool of Ceres
Walk of the king
“The source of inspiration for the artist is not the royal splendor of the castle and parks, but rather “unsteady, sad memories of the kings who still roam here.” It looks like some kind of almost mystical illusion (“I sometimes reach a state close to hallucinations”).
For Benois, those shadows that silently glide through the park of Versailles are more like memories than fantasies. According to his own statement, images of events that once happened here flash before his eyes. He "sees" the very creator of this magnificence, King Louis XIV, surrounded by his retinue. Moreover, he sees him already terribly old and sick, which surprisingly accurately reflects the former reality. 
Versailles. Greenhouse
Versailles. Trianon Garden
From an article by a French researcher:
“The images of The Last Walks of Louis XIV are certainly inspired, and sometimes even borrowed from the texts and engravings of the time of the “Sun King”.
However, such a view - the approach of an erudite and connoisseur - is by no means fraught with either dryness or pedantry and does not force the artist to engage in lifeless historical reconstructions. Indifferent to Montesquieu’s “complaints of stones that dream of decaying into oblivion,” so dear to Montesquieu’s heart, Benois did not capture either the dilapidation of the palace or the desolation of the park, which he still certainly found. He prefers flights of fantasy to historical accuracy - and at the same time, his fantasies are historically accurate. The artist's themes are the passage of time, the "romantic" intrusion of nature into the classic park of Le Nôtre; he is occupied - and amused - by the contrast between the sophistication of the park scenery, in which "every line, every statue, the smallest vase" reminds "of the divinity of monarchical power, the greatness of the sun king, the inviolability of the foundations" - and the grotesque figure of the king himself: a hunched old man in a gurney pushed by a footman in livery. 
Curtius
Allegory of the river
Allegory of the river
A few years later, Benoit would draw an equally irreverent verbal portrait of Louis XIV: "a gnarled old man with drooping cheeks, bad teeth, and a face eaten away by smallpox."
The king in Benois' Walks is a lonely old man, left by the courtiers and clinging to his confessor in anticipation of imminent death. But he appears rather not as a tragic hero, but as a staff character, an extra, whose almost ephemeral, ghostly presence emphasizes the inviolability of the scenery and the stage from which the once great actor leaves, "having uncomplainingly endured the burden of this monstrous comedy." 
The king walked in any weather ... (Saint-Simon)
At the same time, Benois seems to forget that Louis XIV was the main customer of the Versailles performance and was not at all mistaken about the role that he appointed himself to play. Since the story seemed to Benois to be a kind of theatrical play, the change of bright mise-en-scenes by less successful ones was inevitable: “Louis XIV was an excellent actor, and he deserved the applause of history. Louis XVI was only one of the "grandchildren of the great actor" who got on stage - and therefore it is very natural that he was driven away by the audience, and the play, which had recently had a huge success, also failed.
... the worst thing is that Mr. Benois, following the example of many, chose a special specialty for himself. Now it is very common among painters and young poets to find and defend their original individuality, choosing some kind of plot, sometimes ridiculously narrow and deliberate. M. Benois took a fancy to the Versailles park. A thousand and one studies of the Versailles park, and all more or less well done. And yet I want to say: "Strike once, strike twice, but it is impossible to insensibility." For Mr. Benois caused in the public a kind of special psychic stupor: Versailles ceased to function. "How good!" - says the audience and widely, widely yawns.
"Academician Alexander Benois is the finest esthete, a wonderful artist, a charming person." A.V. Lunacharsky
worldwide fame Alexander Nikolaevich Benois acquired as a decorator and director of Russian ballets in Paris, but this is only part of the activity of an ever-seeking, addicted nature, who had irresistible charm and the ability to light others with her necks. Art historian, art critic, editor of two major art magazines World of Art” and “Apollo”, head of the pictorial department of the Hermitage and, finally, just a painter.
Himself Benois Alexander Nikolaevich wrote to his son from Paris in 1953 that "... the only work worthy of outliving me ... will probably be" a multi-volume book " A. Benois remembers", because "this story about Shurenka is at the same time quite detailed about a whole culture."
In his memoirs, Benois calls himself "the product of an artistic family." Indeed, his father Nicholas Benois was a famous architect, maternal grandfather A.K. Kavos - no less significant architect, creator of St. Petersburg theaters. Elder brother A.N. Benois-Albert is a popular watercolourist. With no less success, one can say that he was a "product" of an international family. On the father's side - a Frenchman, on the mother's side - an Italian, more precisely a Venetian. His kinship with Venice - the city of beautiful corruption of once powerful muses - Alexander Nikolaevich Benois felt particularly acute. He also had Russian blood. The Catholic religion did not interfere with the amazing reverence of the family for the Orthodox Church. One of the strongest childhood impressions of A. Benois is St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral (St. Nicholas of the Sea), a work of the Baroque era, the view of which was opened from the windows of the Benois family house. With all the understandable cosmopolitanism, Benois was the only place in the world that he loved with all his heart and considered his homeland - Petersburg. In this creation of Peter, which crossed Russia and Europe, he felt "some great, strict force, great predestination."
That amazing charge of harmony and beauty, which A. Benois received in childhood, helped to make his life something like a work of art, striking in its integrity. This was especially evident in his novel of life. On the threshold of the ninth decade, Benoit admits that he feels very young, and explains this "curiosity" by the fact that his adored wife's attitude towards him has not changed over time. AND " Memories He dedicated his own to her, Dear Ate"- Anna Karlovna Benois (née Kind). Their lives are connected from the age of 16. Atya was the first to share his artistic enthusiasm, the first creative tests. She was his muse, sensitive, very cheerful, artistically gifted. Not being a beauty, she seemed irresistible to Benois with her charming appearance, grace, and lively mind. But the serene happiness of the children in love was to be tested. Tired of the disapproval of relatives, they parted, but the feeling of emptiness did not leave them during the years of separation. And, finally, with what joy they met again and married in 1893.
The couple Benoit had three children - two daughters: Anna and Elena, and son Nikolai, who became a worthy successor to his father's work, a theater artist who worked a lot in Rome and in the Milan theater ...
A. Benois is often called " artist of Versailles". Versailles symbolizes in his work the triumph of art over the chaos of the universe.
This theme determines the originality of Benoit's historical retrospectivism, the sophistication of his stylization. The first Versailles series appears in 1896 - 1898. She was named " The last walks of Louis XIV". It includes such famous works as " The king walked in any weather», « Fish feeding". Versailles Benoit begins in Peterhof and Oranienbaum, where he spent his childhood years.
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Nevertheless, the first impression of Versailles, where he got for the first time during his honeymoon trip, was stunning. The artist was seized by the feeling that he "already once experienced it." Everywhere in the works of Versailles there is a slightly dejected, but still outstanding personality of Louis XIV, the King - the Sun. The feeling of the decline of a once majestic culture was extremely consonant with the era of the end of the century, when he lived Benoit.
In a more refined form, these ideas were embodied in the second Versailles series of 1906, in the most famous works of the artist: "", "", " Chinese pavilion», « jealous», « Fantasy on a Versailles theme". The grandiose in them coexists with the curious and exquisitely fragile.
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Finally, let us turn to the most significant that was created by the artist in the theater. This is primarily a staging of the ballet "" to the music of N. Cherepnin in 1909 and the ballet " Parsley to the music of I. Stravinsky in 1911.
Benois in these productions showed himself not only as a brilliant theater artist, but also as a talented libretto author. These ballets, as it were, personify the two ideals that lived in his soul. "" - the embodiment of European culture, the Baroque style, its pomp and grandeur, combined with overripeness and withering. In the libretto, which is a free adaptation of the famous work by Torquato Tasso " Liberated Jerusalem”, tells about a certain young man, Viscount Rene de Beaugency, who, during a hunt, finds himself in the lost pavilion of an old park, where he is miraculously transported to the world of a living tapestry - the beautiful gardens of Armida. But the spell is dispelled, and he, having seen the highest beauty, returns to reality. What remains is the eerie impression of life forever poisoned by mortal longing for extinct beauty, for fantastic reality. In this magnificent performance, the world of retrospective paintings seems to come to life. Benoit.
AT " Petrushka But the Russian theme was embodied, the search for the ideal of the people's soul. This performance sounded all the more poignant and nostalgic because the booths and their hero Petrushka, so beloved by Benois, were already becoming the past. In the play, dolls animated by the evil will of the old man - a magician act: Petrushka - an inanimate character, endowed with all the living qualities that a suffering and spiritualized person has; his lady Colombina is a symbol of eternal femininity and "arap" is rude and undeservedly triumphant. But the end of this puppet drama Benoit sees not the same as in the usual farce theater.
In 1918, Benois became the head of the Hermitage art gallery and did a lot to make the museum the largest in the world. In the late 1920s, the artist left Russia and lived in Paris for almost half a century. He died in 1960 at the age of 90. A few years before death Benoit writes to his friend I.E. Grabar, to Russia: “And how I would like to be where my eyes were opened to the beauty of life and nature, where I first tasted love. Why am I not at home?! Everyone remembers some pieces of the most modest, but so sweet landscape.
1906 State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.
Paper on cardboard, gouache, watercolor, bronze paint, silver paint, graphite pencil, pen, brush 48 x 62
AT The King's Walk picture Alexandre Benois takes the viewer to the brilliant park of Versailles from the time of Louis XIV.
Against the backdrop of an autumn landscape, the artist depicts a solemn procession of the monarch with his courtiers. Plane modeling of marching figures seems to turn them into ghosts of a bygone era. Among the court retinue, it is difficult to find Louis XIV himself. The Sun King is not important to the artist. Benois is much more concerned about the atmosphere of the era, the breath of the Versailles park from the time of its crowned owner.
The author of the canvas Walk of the King Alexander Nikolaevich Benois is one of the organizers and ideological inspirer of the artistic association World of Art. He was a theorist and critic of art. Peru Benois owns research on the history of both domestic and Western European art. His multifaceted talent manifested itself in book graphics and set design.
The picturesque works of Benois are mainly devoted to two topics: France during the time of Louis XIV the "Sun King" and Petersburg in the 18th - early 19th centuries (see "
