Georgy Narbut: Magic lines of the book master. Russian artists

“They wanted to get gray oxen to carry, according to the old Ukrainian custom, his coffin, but they didn’t find it.”

George Narbut was buried in a Cossack zhupan with a silver button...

— I don't like Moscow region. I love Ukraine, and I will give it all my strength,” says artist Georgy Narbut to archivist Yakov Zhdanovich at the end of 1917.

A native of the Narbutovka farm near Glukhov - the current Sumy region - he lived in St. Petersburg for 10 years. Became one of the most popular book and magazine designers. Publishing houses compete for the right to cooperate with him. But after the February Revolution, he decides to move to his homeland. Power in Kyiv belongs to the Central Rada, they create the Ukrainian Academy of Arts. Narbut is offered to become her professor - the youngest of eight.

The Academy was opened on December 5, 1917. On the eve of the Pedagogical Museum, where the Council met, there is an exhibition of her teachers. Narbut presents 11 of his works. In particular, seven drawings from the series "Ukrainian alphabet" and his silhouette portrait. Among Ukrainian artists who knew little of Narbut before, the works made a splash. The author is no less impressive. “This cheerful, plump man with lively penetrating eyes, in the clothes of a Zemgusar, immediately captivated us with his attractiveness,” recalls his colleague professor Vasily Krichevsky.

Georgy Narbut was born on March 9, 1886. His ancestor was a well-born Cossack Moses Narbut. At the end of the 17th century, he had a mill near Glukhov - now the Sumy region - around which the Narbutovka family farm was subsequently formed.

After the abolition of the Hetmanate, the Narbuts became landowners. George's parents had nine children. “From an early age, as long as I can remember, I was drawn to drawing,” he recalled. “Due to the lack of paints, which I had not seen until I got to the gymnasium, and a pencil, I used colored paper: I cut it out with scissors and glued it with dough.” After graduating from the Glukhov Gymnasium, together with his brother Vladimir, who would later become a Russian-speaking poet, he entered St. Petersburg University.

He studied oriental languages, then transferred to the Faculty of Philology. He studied privately with the artists Ivan Bilibin and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. In 1909, he improved his skills with the Hungarian painter Shimon Golloshi in Munich. “Narbut sat down to draw in the morning, worked all day, all night, not going to bed, but only smoking mountains of cigarettes, he worked in the morning and handed over the drawing before lunch,” writes artist Dmitry Matrokhin.

His stamina, perseverance and stubbornness were extraordinary. Such an incredible capacity for work, not Russian any, quickly made him a master, an outstanding performer and illustrator of fonts, vignettes, wrappers and illustrations for children's books, wonderful in their ingenuity, wit and a barely noticeable smile. Having mastered the technique, Narbut with extraordinary ease and speed painted black endless combinations of strokes and spots from the inexhaustible treasury of imagination and memory.

With his wife, Vera Kiryakova, and two children, 3-year-old Marina and 12-month-old Daniel, they first live with friends on Vladimirskaya. Clashes are still going on in Kyiv - the troops of the Central Rada, the Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government are fighting for the city. Explosions rumble, power outages often. The essentials are missing - part of the family's luggage was lost on the road. Narbut works all day long, often spending the night at the printing house - it is dangerous to walk the streets in the evening.

“Narbut faced a huge task. Once graphics, art, printing flourished in Ukraine. Later, due to the bleeding and leveling of Ukrainian culture by the Russian government, the art of printing declined and lost its national features, the tradition was interrupted.

Publishing houses that printed books in Ukrainian produced something terrible on such paper and with such drawings, which were more hotbeds of petty-bourgeois bad taste, and rather compromised Ukrainian culture than agitated for it.

Thus, the task of the new graphic school was not limited to drawing individual pictures to the text, but the revival of the art of the book as a whole, to raise the skill of the printers themselves, to create not only an artistic, but also a national-Ukrainian book, to develop their own, new font, to re-educate in the artistic sense and the whole society,” writes the art historian Fyodor Ernst in an introductory article to the catalog of the posthumous exhibition of Georgy Narbut’s works in 1926.

“Life in Kyiv at that time was terrible in every respect,” Narbut’s wife writes in her memoirs. The city had a pitiful appearance and was a real province. The streets were not cleaned and in many places they were overgrown with grass, in the yards - a solid swamp and garbage. The traffic on the streets quickly stopped, the windows of the houses were covered with curtains, which made the poorly lit streets seem even darker and more deserted.

A month and a half later, the family rents an apartment on the second floor of a wooden house in Georgievsky Lane - near Sofia Kievskaya. In order to better see the cathedral from the windows, Narbut asks to cut down a dry tree in the garden. In the spring, his friend Vadym Modzalevsky, a historian who moved from Chernigov, moved in with them, having received a position in the Main Directorate of Art under the Ministry of Education of the UNR. Together with Modzalevsky - his wife Natalya, the sister of his first wife Alexandra, with whom he broke up in January 1907.

“They really needed each other,” historian Alexander Ogloblin describes the friends. — The stormy, irresistible, eternally searching spirit of Narbut was looking for a quiet and devoted, deep and intelligent friendship. He made great demands on her. And it is unlikely that in all the usual surroundings of Narbut there would be another person who met these requirements more, or even in the same way, than Vadim Modzalevsky.

Both Narbut and Modzalevsky are ardent admirers of Ukrainian antiquity. They regularly go to Podil to buy rare items on the market. Narbut jokes that he cannot even drink wine if it is not poured into a bottle painted with flowers. “The apartment gradually began to acquire the features of a museum. Here at Grigory Ivanovich everything reflected the high artistic taste that nature so generously bestowed on him,” recalls member of the Academy of Arts, artist Nikolai Burachek.

“From the light blue walls of Narbut’s workshop and the gray and black dining room look dozens of old portraits from the Modzalevsky collection and a strange nature morte with a shelf of books, folk carpets, Narbut’s drawings, miniatures, and against the wall is a rare set of Karelian birch with a colossal sofa , - Fedor Ernst describes the room. “On the table there are bears made of art glass, kegs, shtofs, mugs, old Mezhygorsk dishes, “miklashon” - not a single new dish.”

Historians, art historians, publishers, writers often visit here. Narbut welcomes guests in an unusual outfit: either in a dark blue Cossack caftan with silver buttons, or in a Persian robe and fez, or in a wide blouse with many folds and yellow boots. Entertains with funny and mystical stories. Once he says that he allegedly saw devils - with his own eyes, in the field.

George Narbut. Screensaver for the magazine "Mistetstvo", 1919. Ink, gouache. National Art Museum of Ukraine

- Such as small children, and not that - like large birds. As soon as we drove up to the dam, they jumped one by one from their roots into the water. I saw it myself!

— How much did you drink before that? the guests ask.

Well, there was a lot to drink! But where will small children take to the field at night? ..

The Academy does not have a permanent premises - it rents one or the other house. Narbut works with his students mainly at home. “If the work satisfied the professor, he purred good-naturedly, smiled, and joked,” writes Burachek.

- But when the "works" were made poorly, "not for themselves", but "for the professor", Georgy Ivanovich blushed, snorted like a cat, and, as if under the influence of a personal insult, began to scream. And after proofreading, the students sit downcast, shrouded in a sad mood. And it happened even worse when Georgy Ivanovich looked at the “work”, blushed, put his hands behind his belt and silently walked out the door, otherwise he would also slam the door.

In winter, the children fell ill with whooping cough. Doctors advise them to be outdoors more often. Narbut takes the family near Kyiv - to the dacha of his friend, art historian Nikolai Bilyashivsky. He returns to work. He does not visit his family for several months, he does not answer letters. Vera can't stand it and goes home. “I didn’t recognize my apartment at all,” he writes.

“The Modzalevskys moved all their belongings from Chernigov. Without my knowledge, but, obviously, with the consent of Georgy Ivanovich, they furnished our entire apartment in their own way, liquidated my room and the children's. Everything said without words that Modzalevskaya Natalya Lavrentievna became the sovereign mistress.

Argument. Vera leaves the apartment forever. Gap and official divorce. In January 1919, he learns that Narbut married Natalya Modzalevskaya. Until his last days, he lives in the same apartment with his new wife and her ex-husband.

After a short period of power of the Directorate of the UNR, Kyiv was suddenly occupied by the Bolsheviks. Soon they are replaced by Denikin's men. The academy — and Narbut has already been elected its rector — is being stripped of its state status, funding, and even the word “Ukrainian” from its name. For salvation, Grigory Ivanovich turns to the Dneprosoyuz - an association of Ukrainian cooperative organizations. With donated funds, he buys two apartments in a house in Georgievsky Lane. The library, workshops, museum and office of the academy are moving here. In his living room, he sets up a graphics workshop, in the other - a room for the council of professors and a reception room for the rector.

In the design of the stamp from the time of the Hetmanate of Pavel Skoropadsky, Georgy Narbut used the symbol of the Zaporizhian Army - a Cossack with a musket. National Art Museum of Ukraine

“It was a real chicken coop, in the attic of which the ceiling was covered with plywood so that during the rain the water would not gush so much,” writes Fedor Ernst. - The workshops were separated from the passage by large canvases - the works of professors. Above the high doors, which creaked loudly when opened, hung a yellow and black signboard in the familiar shapes of the Narbutian script - "Ukrainian Academy of Arts."

Artist Mikhail Boychuk in June 1919 arranges a reception in his Tatarka. “There are dishes on the terrace table - dumplings with cottage cheese, wheat porridge with potatoes and bacon, dumplings - there are no number of dumplings, and all with large pink cherries, and jugs of sour cream,” artist Georgy Lukomsky recalls that day. - It was fun. They rejoiced in everything. Forget about sadness, worries. It was getting dark.

It was restless on the streets at night: Murashko had recently been beaten. Everyone hurried home. They wanted to drink water. Not all. Only Narbut and another artist. They drank poison: the cold water from the well was full of typhoid bacilli. Both soon fell ill. Equally. And for a long time Narbut suffered from typhus. Fedor Ernst gives a different version of this moment: “During the break between two dishes, Narbut drank raw water from the bath - where thrifty Kievans kept water at that time in case it did not become available in the water supply. The result is typhoid fever.”

The disease gives a complication - relapsing fever. It is followed by inflammation of the liver and jaundice. Not enough money - almost no orders. Together with Modzalevsky, they should sell items that they bought up a year ago. But the demand for them is small - lack of money is everywhere.

In December 1919, the Bolsheviks occupied Kyiv for the third time. Narbut asks for a large house for the academy on the corner of Khreshchatyk and Dumskaya Square - the current Independence Square. Resigns from the post of rector. It becomes more and more difficult for him to move. Attaches a board to his bed and draws reclining. When an exhibition of professors and students of UAFM is organized in the house in Georgievsky Lane, he exhibits one of his latest works - the drawing “Fortune”. However, he does not dare to appear at the opening - he looks and feels too bad.

March 27, 1920 is the last party in Narbut's dwelling. “Watching the banquet all-night service, celebrating goodness, good at home: good luck and good health, there is a blessing in the comradeship of people of zest. Duck away the sun from the demons of comrade's lords, they can perversely vitlumachiti: supposedly a slug of some kind of ailment known from the benketnyh, ”says the invitation to the party, which Narbut and Modzalevsky compiled in a language stylized as a book from the time of the Hetmanate.

About 30 people are gathering. They drink "Spotykach Grabuzdovsky", "Nikolai's vodka", "Rector's malt" - from the owner's collection bottles. “Narbut was sitting in a solemn caftan on a wide sofa made of Karelian birch and was all beaming, all trembling with happiness,” Fedor Ernst recalls that evening. They put on a parody of the production of the Maly Theater, with the actors wringing their hands and howling in otherworldly voices. Narbut made me dress in a woman's dress and dance some wild waltz. At 3 o'clock Narbut was put to bed, but the guests did not disperse until morning.

The procession with the coffin of the artist Georgy Narbut passes by Dumskaya Square - the current Independence Square, May 25, 1920. National Art Museum of Ukraine

His health continues to deteriorate. The surgeon removes stones from the gallbladder.

- The liver is useless - at least throw it away, - he says when it's all over.

At that time, battles were going on near Kiev: the UNR army was advancing on the Bolsheviks.

His student from the academy, Robert Lisovsky, will describe his last conversation with Narbut 10 years later in his “Memoirs”: “Heavy gunfire was heard, ours were advancing, and the three of us were sitting here with his bosom friend Modzalevsky. Narbut seemed to come to life and, with full joyful hope, listened to the shots and said that he could not wait for ours.

On May 7, Ukrainian troops will enter Kyiv. And on the 23rd, 34-year-old Georgy Narbut
dies. “A wonderful spring day, the sun floods the streets, green gardens and wide squares of friendly Kyiv,” Fedor Ernst describes his funeral.

- The funeral procession has begun. They wanted to get gray oxen, so that they would carry, according to the old Ukrainian custom, his coffin - but they did not find it. I had to hire a dray driver, covered the cart with old Ukrainian carpets, covered the coffin with red Chinese. A military band marched ahead, academy students in bright dresses carried flowers. The whole artistic family of Kyiv - behind the coffin. His body lies on the green Baykova Mountain. Narbut was buried in his caftan.

38-year-old Vadim Modzalevsky survived his friend by less than three months - he fell ill from dysentery. He was buried at the Baikove cemetery near Narbut.

The son became a theater artist, and the daughter became a dancer

The first wife of George Narbut - Vera Kiryakova - was a member of the Commission for the preparation of the posthumous exhibition of his works in the All-Ukrainian Historical Museum. Taras Shevchenko in 1926. Soon she married Bronislav Linkevich, the former secretary of the chairman of the Directorate of the UNR Volodymyr Vynnichenko. Together with him she moved to live in Russia. There, in 1962, she wrote memoirs about George Narbut. She died in 1981 in Cherkasy - her son Daniel lived there.

He became a theater artist. During the Great Terror, Daniil Narbut received three years in labor camps for "anti-Soviet activities." Participated in the Finnish-Soviet war of 1939, in the defense of Kyiv in 1941. Under independence, he received the title of People's Artist of Ukraine and the Shevchenko Prize. Died in 1998.

Daughter Marina made a career as a dancer and choreographer. She worked in theaters in Kyiv, Nizhny Novgorod, Berlin. In 1949 she moved to Australia and taught at higher art institutions. Co-founder of the Ballet Company of Western Australia. She died four years ago.

The further fate of Natalia Modzalevskaya is unknown.

Narbut designed a chair for the State Senate “Narbut's state signs are our clear evidence of state maturity, our pride and glory,” writes art critic Vladimir Sochinsky. “In banknotes and stamps, Narbut, in addition to great phinesia of execution, graphic perfection and originality of content, has achieved a great creative synthesis of the Ukrainian national style, and for this reason they are very valuable to us.”

National Art Museum of Ukraine

In December 1917, the first banknote of the UNR was put into circulation - a banknote with a face value of 100 rubles. It is developed by Georgy Narbut. Here he depicts a trident - the family sign of Prince Vladimir the Great - and a crossbow - the old coat of arms of Kyiv. Ornaments are in the Ukrainian baroque style.

Narbut created 13 Ukrainian banknotes out of 24 issued in 1917-1920 under the Central Rada, the Hetmanate and the Directory. He also develops the first Ukrainian postage stamps, denominations of 30, 40 and 50 steps. The first one is blue. In the octagon, on a mesh background, there is a profile of a female head in a wreath of ears of wheat - “Ukrainized antiquity”. In the 1920s, the French magazine l'Amour de l'Art recommends using the Narbut brand as a model when making state symbols.

In April 1918, hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky came to power. Narbut draws sketches of new money. Develops draft uniforms for the hetman's court, government agencies and the army. And even chairs for the State Senate (pictured). In letters and invitations, diplomas of UAAM professors he uses a font designed by him, inspired by the letter of the Peresopnytsia Gospel of the 16th century.

Narbut designs the coat of arms of the Ukrainian State. He believes that its main element should be the symbol of the Zaporozhye Host - a Cossack with a musket, and the trident should be placed on top, above the shield. He is a member of the commission for the development of Ukrainian orders. He insists that they use a trident against the background of a blue and yellow ribbon in their design. When the chairman of the commission, Georgy Goncharenko, opposes and advises to focus on Russian imperial awards, he calls him a “katsap”.

Author Marta Gavrishko,
Candidate of Historical Sciences; illustrations: National Art Museum of Ukraine; published in the journal KRAINA

Fourteen drawings of the Ukrainian alphabet. St. Petersburg, 1921. s., 1 l. title, 14 pp. b/w lithographs. In Ukrainian. In a publisher's two-color font cover, designed in the style of issues of the Committee for the Promotion of Artistic Publications. 34x25.5 cm. 30 author's copies are known. Extreme rarity!

Bibliographic sources:

1. Beletsky P. "Georgy Ivanovich Narbut". Leningrad, Art, 1985, pp. 140-151.

2. Vengerovs A.A. and S.A. "Bibliochronika", vol. I, Moscow, 2004, No. 169

Ukrainian Georgy Ivanovich Narbut(1886-1920) is rightfully considered one of the remarkable Russian artists of the early 20th century. Entering St. Petersburg University in 1906, he became close to members of the World of Art association, rented a room from I.Ya. Bilibin and studied drawing with him; he also studied with L.S. Bakst, M.V. Dobuzhinsky and gradually became a virtuoso who enjoyed great popularity in the artistic and editorial and publishing world of both capitals. D.S. Mitrokhin recalled his drawing style: “Having fully mastered the technique, Narbut with extraordinary ease and speed painted countless black combinations of strokes and spots from the inexhaustible treasury of imagination and memory. Drawing for a book of children's songs, in one evening he made a dozen vignettes, technically impeccable. I drew by the clock, putting a clock on the table in front of me - a vignette of 25 minutes. AND I. Bilibin, whom Narbut himself called his teacher, wrote about him: "Huge, directly immense talent." Narbut's path in art was not long - some fifteen years, but even during this time he managed to become an outstanding book graphic artist, who determined the direction of book design for a long time to come. Formed under the influence of the masters of the "World of Art", he soon enthusiastically joined the revived association, began to exhibit next to those whom he revered as masters, his works appeared on the pages of the Apollo magazine.

However, true fame came to him a year and a half later, after the release of the fables of I.A. Krylov and fairy tales of G.Kh. Andersen with his illustrations. Narbut's name became fashionable, purely his orders steadily grew: if in 1912 sixteen editions with his decorations and illustrations were published, then in 1914 there were already thirty of them. He prepared children's books for the publishing house I.N. Knebel and solid research for "Brockhaus-Efron", designed the covers of the journal "Herboved" and poetry collections, during the First World War he created a number of stylized propaganda pictures and military allegories. At the same time, the theme of Ukraine has always remained one of the dominant ones in his work. Born in the village of Narbutovka, Glukhovsky district, Chernihiv province, he never forgot his Little Russian roots.

School friend of the artist F.L. Ernst wrote: "He was a Ukrainian, not only by blood, language, beliefs, all his works are saturated with the Ukrainian element, and the formal source of his genius invariably beats from the native Chernihiv region." Narbut took an active part in the preparation of the armorial of the hetmans of Little Russia, the publication of descriptions of the ancient estates of the Kharkov province and architectural monuments of Galicia. Throughout 1917, he worked on creating drawings for the Ukrainian alphabet. In them, the artist achieved the utmost simplicity and at the same time sophistication of composition, drawing and color. In solving the letters of the alphabet, Narbut combined the achievements of both the Ukrainian handwritten and printed books, and the achievements of Western European font masters. The Partnership of R. Golike and A. Vilborg agreed to release the alphabet in Ukrainian and Russian versions.

The originals have preserved 15 sheets of the alphabet. All of them are made with a pen and black ink, test prints were made from all of them, some of which were illuminated by the author. The artist did not complete work on the "ABC", creating compositions for the letters "A", "B", "C", "G", "Z", "I" ("I"), "K", "L", "M", "N", "O", "S", "F" and "H". The work remained unfinished: shortly before October 1917, Narbut left for Kiev, where he was elected professor of the newly created Ukrainian Academy of Arts. At the exhibition organized in honor of the opening of the academy, the artist exhibited six original sheets of the alphabet. At this time, Narbut was engaged in the creation of sketches of military uniforms of the Ukrainian army, the design of packaging and labels for Ukrainian goods. He created Ukrainian banknotes, charters, postcards and postage stamps, as well as a project of playing cards in the style of the Cossack parsuna of the 17th-18th centuries. After the proclamation of the Ukrainian state headed by P. Skoropadsky, Modzalevsky and Narbut began to seek the abolition of the approved coats of arms and seals of the UNR. On July 18, 1918, the hetman approved the new small State seal designed by Narbut: a Cossack with a musket was depicted on an octagonal shield. The shield was framed by a baroque cartouche and surmounted by the trident of St. Vladimir. In a circle on both sides was the inscription "Ukrainian State". It was printed on the 1000 karbovanets banknote, issued on November 13, 1918. The State Emblem, developed by Narbut, did not have time to be approved: on December 14, the hetman renounced power. Power in Ukraine is constantly changing. During one of these "changes" Narbut was appointed rector of the academy, during another he was removed. His Kiev acquaintance wrote about those days: “Narbut had no orders. As a Ukrainian who worked under Skoropadsky, he was persecuted, as a former worker under the Directory - also, as a worker under Soviet power - even more.

The extreme has come." The artist fell ill with typhoid fever. Having barely recovered from his illness, he set to work, again returning to the topic of the Ukrainian alphabet, but did not continue the work that he had begun for the Association of R. Golike and A. Vilborg, but preferred to do everything anew, in a different technique, in a different style. Only a few letters were completed: on May 23, 1920, having undergone a difficult operation, Narbut died. His last words were: "It's strange, I see, but it's dark." A year later, 14 drawings by Narbut for the Ukrainian alphabet were published in Petrograd in a separate edition. Very little is known about the book: neither the publisher nor the print run are given in the imprint. A single copy, illuminated with watercolors, has survived (now it is in the Russian State Library). Why did the artist, with his incredible capacity for work, not complete the work, although already in 1917 he gave the drawings to the printing house of R.R. Golike and A.I. Vilborg, where high-quality clichés were made from them?

This has long remained a mystery to art historians. The original cover and 10 of the 14 published drawings are kept in the Kharkiv Art Museum. All of them have the artist's initials and the date - 1917; another original of the same year - a sheet with the letter "A" and the image of a flying angel was not included in the book (kept in the Ivano-Frankivsk Art Museum), and another version of this letter was reproduced in the catalog of Narbut's posthumous exhibition in Kiev in 1926 - like sketches of the letters "B" and "C", it dates from 1919 (they are stored in the Kharkov Art Museum and in the Kiev Museum of Ukrainian Fine Arts). From which we can conclude that Narbut continued to improve the first letters, apparently hoping to redo the entire alphabet and publish it in an updated form. For a long time, the very origin of the uvrazh, published in Petrograd in 1921, with 14 drawings of letters and a title page drawn by Narbut, dated 1917, was unclear - the album did not contain information about the publisher or circulation. The bibliophile V.P. Pozdnyakov, who conducted research work in the archival fund of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, helped to deal with this issue. The Committee for the Popularization of Artistic Publications, the governing body of the Society, probably at the suggestion of I.M. Stepanov, who was friends with Narbut, on October 15, 1921, decided to purchase for the Russian Museum those stored in the 15th State Printing House (the former R.R. Golik and A .I. Vilborg) 14 prints of Narbut's drawings, after which Stepanov was instructed to order 110 copies of each drawing. Already on December 19 of the same year, the Committee received 72 sets of individual sheets of the “Fourteen Drawings of the Ukrainian Alphabet” and 38 copies of its album version, some of these copies (approximately 13) were nominal. The small circulation immediately made the publication a bibliographic rarity.

And then there was the famous flood on September 23, 1924, which destroyed part of the circulation remaining in the Committee (there is an act in archival documents about this). That is why the “home”, “only for their own” edition was not included either in the “Book Chronicle” of 1921 and 1922, or in the bibliographic report of the Committee for the Popularization of Art Publications “For Thirty Years” (L., 1928). Accordingly, legal copies were not sent to the largest libraries. "Fourteen Drawings of the Ukrainian Alphabet" is a really rare book that many bibliophiles and collectors of paintings and drawings are hunting for. At the same time, it is still not available in most large state book depositories.

We read in more detail in the monograph by P. Beletsky:

The artist did not complete the work on the "ABC" for Golike and Vilborg, but what he managed to do was an undoubted masterpiece. Later, already during the years of Soviet power, fourteen drawings of the Ukrainian alphabet were published as a separate uvrazh.

The cover of the ABC impresses with a composition full of inner movement. It concentrates the motifs that we will meet in the illustrations, but first of all, black silhouettes are striking: a figure brandishing a saber, sprawling fir trees, against which fiery splashes of rockets scatter. We have already seen a similar sinister "twitching" figure on the cover of The Steadfast Tin Soldier; fireworks, spruces - also from the Narbutov arsenal. The silhouettes seem to be at war with each other: the grunt attacks, the spruce twists his left arm, wants to hit him with branches, burn him with fire ... The pillars made of alphabetic cubes, fidgeting, not firmly standing on top of each other, are restless. These pillars and the inscription thrown between them frame the composition. Black silhouettes “fight” in its upper part, and in the lower part, past the obelisk towering in the old park, march serenely, devil-guided, an elephant, a lion, a hussar walks with a drill step, behind him, waddling from side to side, is a plump Ukrainian woman, riders are galloping - a Cossack and a Vyatka whistle. Everything in general is funny, can intrigue the child and arouse interest in the book.

It is not excluded that in this composition there is a subtext, involuntarily introduced by the artist, containing a hint of modernity: everything is struggling, staggering, moving, - where and why, by whose will, evil or good, - nothing can be understood ... However, maybe not by chance, it seems to be a small detail: one cube turned into the number “13”, which Narbut drew with a contour in order to highlight it with color and draw attention to it (illuminated print in the State Museum of Fine Arts). According to friends, he was ridiculously superstitious, considering the thirteenth an unlucky day. In the illustrations of the ABC, the artists usually chose the most ridiculous combinations of words beginning with a given letter. Narbut follows tradition and yet sometimes creates compositions full of mood or hidden meaning.

Sheet "A" was exhibited at the artist's posthumous exhibition in Kyiv in 1926, but only recently became available to researchers, having been acquired from a private collection by the Ivano-Frankivsk Art Museum. His composition combines visible images of words beginning with the letter "A". An angel flying in the sky unrolls a scroll on which letters are inscribed in alphabetical order, an airplane catches up with him; below - a building with a baroque pediment and a sign "Pharmacy", an old stone arch, overgrown with young tree shoots, painted more than once by Narbut and, of course, inspired by Dürer's paintings (I recall a similar motif in "The Nativity of Christ", the Munich Alte Pinakothek). The artist did not manage without a specific Ukrainian detail, although its name does not begin with "A": near the pharmacy there is a hut under a thatched roof. He could not resist the temptation to introduce something Petrograd into the composition: behind the high roof of the pharmacy, the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Fortress Cathedral is visible.

At first glance, there is no semantic connection between the elements of the image, especially since, with the exception of the angel, they are all borrowed from Narbutov's arsenal. And yet, knowing about the associative thinking of the artist, typical for him from a young age, one can read in his composition not for everyone, but for a child in particular, an accessible subtext. The key to deciphering it is given by an angel with stars on its wings and a scroll in its hands. This image, very likely, appeared in Narbut's mind under the influence of frequent references in the poetry of the pre-revolutionary years about the coming "end of the world." The Gospel book "The Revelation of John the Theologian" (Apocalypse) mentions among the harbingers of the "Last Judgment" "an angel flying in the middle of heaven, who had the eternal Gospel to preach the gospel to those who live on earth" (ch. XIV, 6). The content of the "eternal Gospel" is expressed in the words of God: "I am alpha and omega", that is, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet - the beginning and the end, what was and will be. The scroll with the alphabet in the hands of an angel, by the way, flying in the composition of Narbut just “in the middle of the sky”, is not a whim of the artist: it was prompted by the words of the Apocalypse. Thus, in the first sheet of the "ABC" of Narbut, one more word with "A" is encrypted - Apocalypse. An angel flies over the city doomed to death, according to the Apocalypse - Babylon, foreshadowing the "ulcers" mentioned in the gospel book, from which no medicine can cure.

Sheet "B" makes it impossible even presumably to find some subtext in it. The words "birch", "tower", "barrel", "bull" are taken to this letter. On the whole, nothing implausible: a wasteland with a lonely birch, a landfill site on which a broken barrel has been thrown. The ruins of a tower rise on it, the entrance gates of which are boarded up. A bull is grazing near the ruins. A disappointing picture of past glory and present desolation, typical of Narbut.

Sheet "B" again depicts a landscape. The wind rips off the last leaves from the hollow old diseased elm, knocks down a decorative vase from the pedestal, throws a bucket high, turns the wings of a windmill. The wind is a frequent motif in the work of poets of the revolutionary years. One can recall Blok's "The Twelve" and the lines of the Ukrainian poet Pavel Tychyna, who, just in 1917, listened to "the melodies of the steppes, clouds and winds."

Sheet "G" is built almost entirely on Ukrainian words. Three are written between the initials: "Hetman", "Golub", "Gvint". But in the figure we find more words for this letter. The ruins of the porch (“ganok” in Ukrainian) of a certain castle serve as a background, a coat of arms is attached to them, a cannon (“garmata”) is thrown on the ground at the feet of the hetman. We remember that Narbut had already painted Doroshenko on the cover of Tovstolesy. As a historical figure, this hetman could please Narbut with his desire to unite Ukraine - Western and Eastern, which had reunited with Russia even under Bogdan Khmelnitsky. The composition, despite the seeming randomness of the elements, is not too disguised an allegory for the acquisition of statehood by Ukraine: a revived hetman approached the porch, a dove flies out of the ruins to meet him - a symbol of peace and the holy spirit, cannons, a spear, cannonballs are laid aside. Doroshenko looks at the screw that he will use to hold together the divided parts of Ukraine.

Sheet "Z" - a landscape: a winter starry night, a hare runs through the snow. It certainly takes place in Ukraine, as evidenced by a typical wooden bell tower, huts under thatched roofs, and pyramidal poplars. In this case, there is no subtext, the elements of the composition are combined quite naturally. Winter night in the Ukrainian village - a lyrical landscape and nothing more.

For "I", of course, the artist's favorites came up - toys, willow, Indians. Two toys are specifically Ukrainian: a doll in an embroidered shirt and a Cossack with a saber. Narbut designed the last one himself from pieces of plywood fastened with hinges - it is worth pulling the thread and the Cossack will dance, brandish his saber (by the way, on the cover he is also depicted in a black silhouette). Zaporozhets is the main, in any case, the most active character.

Sheet “K” contains a Cossack on a horse (according to the drawing, it is close to the military popular prints of Narbut), a ship and an indispensable element in the artist’s arsenal, which does not belong to the illustrated letter - an obelisk, however, it is made of stones. Of course, the Ukrainian alphabet could not do without the Cossack, according to the concepts of that time.

"L" evokes in Narbut an association with the Linowitz. He draws a linden alley starting from the rotunda and leading to the pond. But, of course, not everyone, even Ukrainians, have been to Linowice. On "L" there are other words: lion, swan, lyre. Lion - a sculpture similar to those that guarded the entrance to the manor houses - Narbut transfers to the pond, near it he has two lyres - a classical and nothing in common with it, except for the name, a popular musical instrument in Ukraine, to the accompaniment of which wandering blind people sang bards - "lyre players", such Narbut portrayed in his time, working on the series "Former Little Russia". A swan swims on the pond in the old park, water lilies grow. This composition glorifies the charm of an empire-style estate, dear to the heart of Narbut, and not just any, but a specific one, located in the Poltava region. At the same time, the mood of the composition echoes many lines of Russian poets of the early 20th century. Let us recall, for example, in this regard, the poem by V. Ya. Bryusov "Estates":

Age-old parks are decrepit

With alleys of fragrant lindens.

Over the pond where the arbors rot,

In silence, in the evening hours

Only the bittern is heard unsteady sob.

Sheet "M" at the first cursory glance does not seem to include any specific Ukrainian motifs. At the edge of a birch grove a bear wanders, in the distance - a monastery, similar to which, it seems, could stand on Russian soil. Only by looking closely, one can recognize typical forms of Ukrainian baroque in the broken pediment of the monastery gate and the pear-shaped dome of the bell tower. Remove the bear from here - there will remain a cozy corner of Chernigov, a lyrical landscape, in mood close to some paintings by P. A. Levchenko, popular in Ukraine.

In leaf "H" there are birches again, extremely "graphic" trees. But here the artist is frankly clowning around, drawing nonsense (“what nonsense!” - one of Narbut’s favorite exclamations) or, to put it in Ukrainian, “nisenitnitsa”: a black man in a tailcoat and a top hat on an alley formed by kitchen knives stuck in the ground, putting his foot on anvil, cuts the thread with scissors. However, here, too, things are happening in Ukraine: in the background - windmills, huts, poplars.

Sheet "O", at first glance, is also devoid of any common sense. A broken trunk of a withered tree, drawn many times by Narbut, on it are military attributes - a shell, spears, a gun, a Cossack bunchuk and a mace. A hoop is leaning against the fence. A donkey jumps over the wattle fence, escaping from a military fire in the direction of a peaceful hut. It seems that Narbut is ridiculing his military allegories, and at the same time, perhaps, his move from Petrograd to Kyiv. It's in his spirit. A print painted in watercolor (collected by D. G. Narbut, Cherkassy) is very advantageous in comparison with a rather dry ink drawing. The cloudy sky filled a somewhat annoying void, the smooth lines of the landscape received support in the outlines of the clouds, the themes of verticals and horizontals sounded polyphonic.

Sheet "C" turned out to be amusing. A huge elephant climbed up the mountain - they ate like grass in comparison with him, and the dog barking at him was as tall as an ant, - Krylov's Moska is remembered. Under the mountain, on a chest covered with a napkin, there is a samovar, cups, a bowl of berries. It would be nice to sit down, have tea, but that's the trouble: a chair is small for an elephant, sits down - it breaks, and Moska is big - neither get in nor get off. Again - "What nonsense!". In the painted version (collected by D. G. Narbut, Cherkassy), the dark gray elephant on a white and blue background seems even larger, the green hill has thickened, the chairs and the chest have blossomed with colorful Poltava patterns. Massive silhouettes of the second plan seem to hang over the colorful spots of the first. The effect of the composition is determined to a large extent by grotesque contrasts of scale, large and fractional spots, and shifting plans.

With the help of linear rhythms, Narbut masterfully conveys a variety of movements: the swift jump of a hare, the jump of a donkey, the heavy tread of an elephant. If he aspired to this, he could make all the drawings understandable to children, amusing for them. “N”, “S”, of course, can make a child smile, but other compositions are clearly intended for adult viewers, and specifically Ukrainian ones.

There is one historical plot among the ABC sheets - sheet F. Here is a costumed ball in the garden in front of the palace of Kirill Razumovsky in Baturino. In the foreground we see the hetman himself - a nobleman in a camisole, stockings, a wig - and a Cossack in harem pants, a hat with a "shlyk", with a saber on his side, clearly feeling uncomfortable in an unusual environment for him. On "F" there are fireworks, a riot of "tricksters" and rockets in the night sky - one of the artist's favorite motifs. What else is on the "F"? One can only guess. Similar festivities in the 18th century were called festivals. There is a ball in front of the facade of the palace. Razumovsky was the nephew of the favorite of Empress Elizabeth, and he himself and Catherine II were in favor, he was early promoted to field marshal. The end of the funeral autonomy of Little Russia was the reign of Razumovsky. Apart from fireworks, all the words starting with "F" that can be thought up in connection with Narbut's drawing can only come to the mind of a person familiar with history.

The mistake of Ya. N. Zhdanovich, who saw this sheet in the work, when, perhaps, the initials were not drawn, is curious and to a certain extent characteristic: he connected the composition with the letter “R” - Razumovsky, rocket. This composition, among all others in the "ABC", is perhaps the most "World of Art", echoing some of the works of Somov and Benois.

The last sheet - "Ch" and in wit, and in composition, and in graphic technique can be attributed to the most successful and original works of Narbut. It depicts the old house in the Kruglik estate known to us from the watercolor "Night at the Landlord's Estate". In front of him, in the light of a lantern, devils are having fun. The old devil indulges in tea, the young people started leapfrog. The devils of Narbut are not scary, but funny, as usual in Ukrainian folklore, they are not copied from anywhere, they are entirely born from the imagination of an artist who is ready to believe in their existence. The old devil is thin, skin and bones, shoulder blades stick out, legs are thin, knees are sharp, arms are long, the spine is overgrown with hair, the forelock on the head is plucked. His muzzle looks like a goat, only the horns are small, and his tail is cow. But he differs from people not only in his horns and tail, but, first of all, in his movements, unthinkable for a person: he sits not to understand how - with his back or in profile, his arms and legs are splayed at random, his head on a tourniquet twisting neck turns 180 degrees. Apparently, the old man is addressing some kind of instruction to the youth. In a beam of light, a muzzled striped devil swirled, in turn unthinkably bent, others scatter, jump, and on the roof of the old house some kind of evil spirit is also dancing.

In the drawings of the Ukrainian alphabet, P. I. Neradovsky rightly noted the combination of fantasy, poetry and humor inherent in the nature of the artist. From among them, he singled out sheets “B”, “Z”, “L”, “M”, “N”, “C”, “F”, “H” as “brilliant pages of his work and great achievements of modern graphic art” . "G" and "0" with their hidden semantic layer, not understandable to everyone, he did not mention. But it is in these compositions that Narbut takes an important step towards creating his new Ukrainian style. In other illustrations of the "ABC" - the result of the St. Petersburg period of the master's work. In these two - the seeds of what he will sow in the field of Ukrainian art.

In fifteen sheets of the "ABC" Narbut demonstrates a wide variety of techniques, rare even for major masters of graphics. Here are silhouettes, black on white and white on black (cover, sheets "Z", "F"), strokes of various character, thin, fluent, vividly marking, for example, the figure of an elephant, the folds of his skin, and stylized, with thickenings, depicting a relief hillock on which the elephant walks. In sheet "L" - curly strokes depicting foliage, lines resembling engraving on metal (the body of a lion), dotted lines that convey the texture of the stone. In another case, the dotted lines indicate the transition from light to darkness (sheet "H"). There is an “L” in the sheet and dotted lines deliberately blurred, imitating mold on a stone. contours; lines drawing a shape; spots filled with black, shaded by hatching - all possible techniques for creating black and white images are used by the master. Lines and spots perform in him either a purely pictorial or an emotional-pictorial function. Its contours are sometimes naturally sinuous, sometimes smooth, sometimes drawn along a ruler. Some drawings have a completely finished look in black and white (sheets "Ch", "F"). Others require coloring, since they obviously have spots, the borders of which are not indicated by black lines.

Narbut can draw animals quite realistically, knows the features of the structure of toys, skillfully conveys the nature of various surfaces. But he also has figures that are unnatural, not alive and not toy. Such, for example, are the Cossack and his horse, the bear, Hetman Doroshenko. In them, the master acts as a stylist, inspired by the images of old engravings and paintings. Doroshenko is drawn from an old portrait from the Volokolamsky Monastery, where the former hetman and Vyatka governor was buried. A somewhat "wooden" Cossack is not drawn from a specific model, but with simplified and refined lines it is similar to the works of Ukrainian masters depicting Cossacks-Cossacks, the so-called "Mamai".

Narbut, who went through the school of Bilibin and understood the beauty of popular prints, appreciated the peculiar charm of parsuns and the Ukrainian folk primitive before Ukrainian art historians, for whom ancient portraits were at best a historical, everyday or genealogical illustration, and “Cossacks-mamai” were works of “extremely naive and rude » This is seen as one of the important results of the St. Petersburg-Petrograd period of the artist's work. Ukraine in his person received not only a master of high culture, brought up by the "World of Art", but also an enthusiast who is ready to devote all his outstanding talent and vigorous energy to the cause of building a national culture.

Narbut Georgy Ivanovich (1886-1920) lived only thirty-five years. But during this time he managed to create his own unique figurative world, where there were philosophical reflections, and sharp satire, and unusually colorful variations on the themes of fairy tales, and even an illustrated Ukrainian alphabet.

Today, publications with illustrations by Narbut are considered a bibliographic rarity. He believed that he could not afford to waste time on works that would not be sold. But in 1915 he painted an amazingly beautiful watercolor still life "Roses in a glass", which he wanted to give to his wife. Friends, knowing that the artist began this still life in Narbutovka, and finished from memory in Petrograd, were amazed at how he managed to preserve the extraordinary freshness of nature. At the exhibition "World of Art" his "Roses" were exhibited with a note "not for sale." However, Narbut sold this work as well. Yes, not to anyone, but to the royal family for huge money at that time - 800 rubles. Just at this time, in early 1916, his son Danila was born, and money was simply needed. Watercolor "Roses in a glass" is now in the collection of the State Russian Museum.

One of the well-known researchers of Narbut's work F. Ernst wrote about the artist: "He was a Ukrainian not only by blood, language, beliefs - all his works are saturated with the Ukrainian element, and the formal source of his genius invariably beats from the native Chernihiv region".

Georgy Ivanovich Narbut was born on February 26, 1886 in the Narbutovka farmstead of the Esmansky volost of the Glukhovsky district of the Chernigov province, in the family of a hereditary, but already impoverished nobleman, a graduate of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kiev University. Among the ancestors of the Narbuts were Zaporozhye Cossacks. The mother of the future artist was the daughter of a priest. The Narbutov family had seven children.

Later, Georgy Narbut recalled: “From an early age, as far as I can remember, painting attracted me. Due to the lack of colors, which I had not seen until I got to the gymnasium, and pencils, I used colored paper: I cut it out with scissors and glued it with flour glue.” It was this childhood passion that contributed to the formation of "silhouette thinking" in the future artist. By the way, among the peasants in the Ukrainian villages at that time, paper clippings, the so-called "vytinanki", were very popular, and George had the opportunity to improve his skills. Georgy studied at the Glukhov Gymnasium, and, as he himself later recalled, his first attempts at graphics were "Vladimir Monomakh's Teaching to His Children", "The Gospel of Matthew", "The Song of Roland" rewritten in Gothic type with ornamented capital letters.

The Kharkiv Art Museum still keeps a drawing he made at the age of seventeen for "The Song of Roland". The magazine "World of Art" had a huge influence on the young Narbut, where he especially liked Bilibin's illustrations. The young artist was very fond of nature, he could spend hours looking at herbs and flowers, catching butterflies, grasshoppers, and reading Russian folk tales.

In 1906, a large art exhibition was held in Glukhov, where Narbut's illustrations for the fairy tale "The Mushroom War" were exhibited. At the same time, he illustrated the fairy tales "The Snow Maiden" and "The Gorshenya". As Georgy Narbut himself later admitted, his muse at that time was a very intelligent, sensitive girl M. Belovskaya, who had come from Moscow. Secretly from his father, Georgy Narbut sent documents with his brother, and then entered the Faculty of Oriental Languages ​​of St. Petersburg University. After some time, he transferred to the Faculty of Philology and at the same time began to seriously engage in drawing with amateur artists like him. Having organized an exhibition of their works, they invited Benois, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Lansere and other "World of Art" to it, who supported young artists. And Bilibin, having learned how Narbut was robbed in the room he rented, offered him to move in with him and even found him a job. The Petersburg climate had a bad effect on Narbut's health, and in 1907, having gone on vacation, he was no longer going to return to the Academy.

At this time, his first sketches of Ukrainian life, humorous drawings, appeared. Narbut was a joker, he liked to make fun of both others and himself, which was very much appreciated in the circle of "world arts". Benois even introduced a special term "scurry" (from the Latin "scurra" - "jester").

In autumn, Narbut nevertheless returned to St. Petersburg and completely devoted himself to creativity. He designed more than 20 book covers, did illustrations. Unlike Somov, Bakst and the mannered Feoktistov, who was called the "Russian Beardsley", Narbut did not portray then fashionable feminine young men, languid women. This sickened his healthy nature. He learned to "see graphically", to subordinate the direction of the lines to the form.

At that time, painters tried to definitely visit Paris, and draftsmen - Munich. Narbut also went there. There he worked on illustrations for children's books, which were to be published by Knebel's publishing house, visited one of the studios and copied Dürer a lot.

In the 1910s, easel works by Narbut began to appear, in which something mystical appeared. These are "Landscape with a Comet", "Scientist's Study", etc.

Narbut made illustrations for many magazines published at that time, designed books for children in a peculiar "toy" style. Gradually, he moved away from imitating his idol Bilibin, became interested in the Empire style, heraldry and Ukrainian antiquity. At this time, his first silhouette illustrations appeared, compositions that allowed him to achieve maximum expressiveness of images. The composition of Andersen's book "The Nightingale" illustrated by Narbut in 1912 is very complex and exquisite.

Decorating the Little Russian department for one of the exhibitions, Narbut became seriously interested in Ukrainian antiquities. He traveled to his native places, made sketches of ancient churches, peasant life. Having designed the book of Krylov's fables, Narbut placed on the title page the silhouette profile of his bride, Vera Pavlovna Kiryanova, with whom he loved to wander around the outskirts of his native Narbutovka. Returning to St. Petersburg, he wrote letters to her almost daily. One of them contains the following lines: "Remember, you made me a wreath of lilac flowers and gave me a curl? Now I put both the wreath and the curl (inside the wreath) in a frame." And after a while: "I burned your curls. Levitsky, my friend, came, and, seeing a curl on the wall, he said that I should immediately burn it, that this cannot be done, that it is terribly unfortunate ..." In 1913 they got married .

Narbut illustrated new editions of Krylov's fables, Andersen's fairy tales, painted noble coats of arms for the "Little Russian Armorial". As contemporaries recalled, Narbut was able to work very quickly, as if playing. In addition to illustrations, he made a whole series of silhouette portraits of famous historical figures and residents of Narbutovka. In 1913-1914, he designed the Russian Icon collections published by S. Makovsky, demonstrating his exceptional ability to work with a wide variety of fonts.

In 1914 Narbut had a daughter, he wanted to make illustrations for Lermontov. However, the outbreak of the First World War brought great turmoil. Fanatics began to smash German workshops and shops. During one of the pogroms in the Knebel publishing house, copies of books designed by Narbut were lost - Krylov's "Fables", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", Andersen's "Old Street Lamp". In May 1915, Narbut got a job as a "clerical official" in the Senate. Contemporaries believed that it was thanks to Narbut that the books published at that time became more refined. Narbut designed publications on ancient culture for Brockhaus and Efron, made popular prints on a military theme, and made illustrations for the literary and artistic magazine "Lukomorye". Particularly interesting are the "military allegories" he made at that time.

Returning to Narbutovka, Narbut began to enthusiastically study the "Ukrainian style" in art, the literary Ukrainian language. In 1915, the Chernigov nobility entrusted him with the design of the book by V. L. Modzalevsky "Tovstolesy. Essay on the history of the family", and later he illustrated the books "Galicia and its antiquity" and "Ancient estates of the Kharkov province".

Narbut met the overthrow of the autocracy enthusiastically. M. Dobuzhinsky recalled: “I often met him in the early days of the spring revolution and observed his enthusiasm. He was definitely tipsy all the time and was glad to be able to throw out different things with impunity. he told me himself, with great pleasure, because these eagles always revolted his heraldic taste.

Narbut, along with other cultural figures, actively worked in the Special Council for the Arts under the Provisional Government, went to Kyiv, where he began to draw up an illustrated Ukrainian alphabet. He was elected professor at the Ukrainian Academy of Arts.

At this time, Narbut began to brew a conflict with his wife. Departing from solving real problems, he, together with V. Modzalevsky, who at that time moved to Kiev from Chernigov, created in his only room a fabulous, exquisite little world with expensive carpets, antique furniture, beautiful books. He himself walked in yellow boots, girded with a wide belt. At this time, he married Natalya Modzalevsky and, together with V. Modzalevsky, came up with the fictional character of the farmer Lupa Yudich Grabuzdov, whose life they enthusiastically described in a diary. They say that the beginning of this story was an old ring accidentally acquired by Narbut with the inscription "Grabuzdov". In this game situation provoked by the artist himself, many interesting drawings and illustrations were born.

After the October Revolution, Narbut designed many Ukrainian magazines, in particular "Mistetstvo", collections of poems, and in 1919 he began working on a new version of the Ukrainian alphabet.

Narbut was very fond of all sorts of ritual ceremonies and holidays. And even shortly before his death (he died on May 23, 1920), before going to the hospital for an operation, he organized a fun party in their apartment with Modzalevsky dedicated to the anniversary of Lupa Grabuzdov, whom he himself invented.

Bogdanov P.S., Bogdanova G.B.

http://www.ikleiner.ru/lib/painter/painter-0064.shtml

All drawings from the internet

Georgy Ivanovich was born on February 25 (March 9), 1886, on the Narbutovka farm (near Glukhov, now the Sumy region of Ukraine) in the family of a petty employee. His father, Ivan Yakovlevich, belonged to an old Lithuanian noble family, but completely seedy. He was an educated man: he graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kyiv University. The artist's mother, Neonila Nikolaevna, nee Makhnovich, was the daughter of a priest, orphaned early and married quite young. The Narbut family had seven children: five sons and two daughters. Even as a child, Georgy carved "vytynanki" - paper figures that served as decoration for the people's home. Since 1896, he studied at the Glukhov Gymnasium, where he became interested in book illustration, I. Bilibin's drawings for children's books, and became interested in heraldry. George received his primary art education on his own.

In 1906, after graduating from the gymnasium, Georgy and his brother Vladimir moved to St. Petersburg and at the end of August entered St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Oriental Languages. However, George immediately transferred to the Faculty of Philology. Having found amateur artists like him among the university students, Narbut organized drawing classes in the evening hours. For a short time, Narbut visited the private studio of E.N. Zvantseva, where his mentors were L.S. Bakst and M.V. Dobuzhinsky. In the early spring of 1909, Georgy Narbut participated for the first time in the most representative metropolitan exhibition of that time - the VI exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists. In the same year, on the advice of M. Dobuzhinsky, G. I. Narbut left for Munich, where he improved his skills for three months in the studio of the graphic artist S. Holloshi, studied books in the Munich Pinakothek. G. Narbut's work was influenced by the German graphic artist Emil Pretorius, who in 1909 founded the School of Illustration and Book Business in Munich.

After returning to St. Petersburg, Georgy Ivanovich became a member of the artistic association "World of Art", and in 1916, together with E. Lansere, K. Petrov-Vodkin, I. Bilibin, he was elected to the committee of this association. Narbut becomes a permanent contributor to the Apollo magazine. Since 1913, he also worked as an artist in the editorial office of the Herboved journal, which was published for two years.

On May 19, 1915, under the patronage of V.K. Lukomsky, who was appointed in 1914 to the post of manager of the Senate's coat of arms department, Narbut was appointed clerk of the department of heraldry. Later, the artist was called up for military service. He managed to get a job in the Red Cross with one ambulance train, with which he did not go anywhere, but had to be in Tsarskoye Selo every day. Then, with the help of Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, he was enrolled in the historical commission of the Red Cross. Now his "service" consisted of daily editing classes for a book about the 50th anniversary of the Red Cross and in graphic work for this publication.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Narbut, along with some other artists, as well as three representatives of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, became a member of a special Council for the Arts under the Provisional Government. G. Narbut lived in St. Petersburg with short breaks until 1917.

In March 1917, G. Narbut leaves for Kyiv. The trip was framed for him as a business trip in order to take measures to protect the Kyiv palace. In September of the same year, he became a professor of graphics at the newly formed Ukrainian Academy of Arts, and from December (according to other sources, from February 1918) - its rector. In Kyiv, Narbut was engaged in the creation of sketches of the military uniforms of the Ukrainian army, the design of packaging and labels for Ukrainian goods. He created Ukrainian banknotes, diplomas, postcards and postage stamps.

After the proclamation of the Ukrainian state headed by P. Skoropadsky, Modzalevsky and Narbut began to seek the abolition of the approved coats of arms and seals of the UNR. On July 18, 1918, the hetman approved the new small State seal designed by Narbut: a Cossack with a musket was depicted on an octagonal shield. The shield was framed by a baroque cartouche and surmounted by the trident of St. Vladimir. In a circle on both sides was the inscription "Ukrainian State". It was printed on the 1000 karbovanets banknote, issued on November 13, 1918. The State Emblem, developed by Narbut, did not have time to be approved: on December 14, the hetman renounced power.

The main thing in the work of Narbut was the work on the creation of drawings for the "Ukrainian alphabet", which he began in 1917 back in Petrograd. In it, the artist achieved the utmost simplicity and at the same time sophistication of composition, drawing and color. In solving the letters of the alphabet, Narbut combined the achievements of both the Ukrainian handwritten and printed books, and the achievements of Western European font masters.

After the establishment of Soviet power in Ukraine, G.I. Narbut began to receive orders from the publishing houses of the Council of the National Economy of Ukraine and the All-Ukrainian Literary Committee. To fulfill them, the artist finds new artistic solutions, becoming the father of Ukrainian Soviet book and magazine graphics. He based his new style on Ukrainian pictorial folklore - “Cossacks-mamai”, prints, carpets, painted ceramics, wood carvings, and so on. At the same time, from the Mazepa coat of arms, brocade zhupans and baroque pediments, it passes with amazing speed and ease to the five-pointed star and the harsh architecture of factory buildings.

On December 19, 1917, the first banknote of the Ukrainian People's Republic was printed - a banknote in denominations of 100 karbovanets, designed by Georgy Ivanovich Narbut. In the design of the banknote, Narbut used ornaments in the spirit of the Ukrainian baroque of the 17th-18th centuries, decorative fonts, the image of a crossbow (the coat of arms of the Kiev magistrate of the 16th-18th centuries) and the trident of St. Vladimir, which later became the state emblem of Ukraine.

On March 1, 1918, the Central Rada adopted a law on the introduction of a new monetary unit - the hryvnia. Banknotes were printed in denominations of 2, 10, 100, 500, 1000 and 2000 hryvnias (the projects of the last two were completed after the proclamation of the hetmanate). George Narbut made sketches of banknotes in denominations of 10, 100 and 500 hryvnias. In the sketch of the 10-hryvnia bill, he used the ornaments of Ukrainian book engravings of the 17th century, the 100-hryvnia bill - the image of a worker with a hammer and a peasant woman with a sickle against the background of a wreath of flowers and fruits, 500-hryvnia - the allegory "Young Ukraine" in the form of an illuminated girl's head in wreath (thanks to her, the bill received the ironic popular name "Gorpinka").

Having come to power, hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky restored the karbovanets as the currency of the Ukrainian state. Georgy Narbut owns a sketch of a 100-ruble banknote, where he used the portrait of Bohdan Khmelnitsky (watermark), industrial motifs and the design of the coat of arms of the Ukrainian state he created.

Immediately after the February Revolution, the Provisional Government decided to issue a postage stamp with new symbols. In the summer of 1917, the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs announced a competition for the best drawing of a new postage stamp, in which G. I. Narbut took part.

George Narbut was the author of the first stamps of the Ukrainian People's Republic, denominations of 30, 40 and 50 steps. The stamps were published on July 18, 1918 and were made in Kyiv on Pushkinskaya street, 6, where Vasily Kulzhenko's printing house was located in those years, as well as in the Odessa printing house of Yefim Fesenko. On the stamp of 30 steps, the allegory "Young Ukraine" was placed, on the miniature of 40 steps there is an image of the stylized trident of St. Vladimir, on the stamp of 50 steps - postal horns and a large number of face value.

G. I. Narbut was also the author of projects of unissued stamps with portraits of Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky, philosopher Grigory Skovoroda and Hetman Petro Doroshenko in 10, 20 and 40 steps, respectively, a stamp "in favor of the postman" with a face value of 30 steps and a stamp for the sale of tobacco in 10 hryvnia.

In 1926, a posthumous exhibition of the artist took place in Kyiv. In the same year, Erich Hollebrach's book "Silhouettes of Narbut" was published in Leningrad.

The Narbutov stamp with the allegory "Young Ukraine" served until 1986 as the main element for the emblem of the Union of Ukrainian Philatelists and Numismatists (USA). In 1992, the director of the SUFN, Ingert Kuzich-Berezovsky, established the prize named after Georgy Narbut "For the best project of a Ukrainian stamp." The prize is given annually to the artist whose stamp, series of stamps or postal block has been voted the best.

On May 16 and June 17, 1992, the first definitive stamps of Ukraine were issued. They repeated the drawing-allegory of G. I. Narbut "Young Ukraine", which he used for the stamp of the UNR with a face value of 30 steps.

In 2006, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a 2 hryvnia commemorative coin dedicated to the 120th anniversary of G. I. Narbut.

The obverse depicts a fragment of the design of the banknote of 1918 - a peasant woman and a worker against the background of a wreath of flowers and fruits, above which is placed the year of minting the coin "2006", the small State Emblem of Ukraine and the inscription - "NATIONAL BANK" / "UKRAINE"; below - "2 / HRYVNI" and the logo of the Mint of the National Bank of Ukraine.

On the reverse is a silhouette image of Georgy Narbut, to the right of which the Narbut family coat of arms is depicted, under which the years of life - “1886 / 1920” are placed and the inscription “GEORGE NARBUT” is placed in a semicircle.

In the same year, on March 10, a commemorative postage stamp with a coupon on the occasion of the artist's 120th birthday was issued by the Ukrainian Post and the Marka Ukrainy publishing house. The author of the stamp and coupon design is Vladimir Taran. A first-day envelope with a graphic portrait of Georgiy Narbut (artist V. Taran) and a special postmark (author Oleksandr Stalmokas) were also prepared, on which the Narbutian drawing of a female head, symbolizing Ukraine, was reproduced from the UPR stamp in 30 steps.

In 2008, the Ukrainian Post issued two postage blocks dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the first postage stamps of the UNR. On the stamps that make up the blocks, the first stamps of the UNR are depicted, and on the coupons - portraits of G.I. Narbut and A.F. Wednesdays.

“Stop being a schoolboy, diligently and trustingly listening to what stupid teachers say. Be an artist and learn from the art itself!” - A. N. Benois.

“He was a Ukrainian not only by blood, language, beliefs, but all his works are saturated with the Ukrainian element, and the formal source of his genius invariably beats from the native Chernozem of Chernihiv region”, - explains the originality of Narbut by its origin F.L. Ernst.

Georgy Narbut is best known as the author of the first Ukrainian state signs (banknotes and postage stamps) and the design of the coat of arms of the Ukrainian state. He was also a professor of graphics at the Ukrainian Academy of Arts, and later its rector. Georgy Narbut is an extraordinary and ambiguous personality, and in order to understand the source of his genius, it is important to know what kind of person he was.

Georgy Narbut found himself immediately. He did not have to spend years on doubts, on the choice of the type of art. He was primarily a master of book graphics, and in this business he was one of the best. He is not just called a nugget. Having not received a systematic art education, he prepared children's books for the publishing house I.N. Knebel and solid research for "Brockhaus-Efron", designed the covers of the magazine "Herboved" and poetry collections. After the release of the fables of I.A. Krylov and fairy tales of G.Kh. Andersen with his illustrations, Narbut's name became fashionable, the number of his orders steadily grew: if in 1912 sixteen editions with his decorations and illustrations were published, then in 1914 there were already thirty of them. AND I. Bilibin even considered it possible to say: “Narbut is a huge, truly immense talent ...” What kind of person was he? The secrets of the artist's personality are revealed by his autobiography and the memoirs of his friends.

First experiences in graphics

“I was born on February 26 (old style), 1886, on the farm Narbutovka, Glukhovsky district, Chernihiv province,” Narbut writes in his autobiography. Our family was quite large: I had four brothers and two sisters. My father, a small landowner with an average income, was little interested in household chores in general, and children in particular, and therefore our mother was in charge of our preschool education ...

Children grew up in the bosom of nature, played with rural children. They were taught literacy by an old psalm reader.

— From an early age, as far as I can remember, I was drawn to drawing. In the absence of paints, which I had not seen until I got to the gymnasium, and pencils, I used colored paper: I cut it out with scissors and glued it with paste from the dough.

This technique was prompted by the “vitinanki” popular in the Ukrainian village - paper clippings that served as decorations for local huts.

“I lived on my father’s farm until I was nine years old. In 1896 I was sent to the preparatory class of the Glukhov Gymnasium. I was not particularly well prepared for studying at the gymnasium and did not study well, so I “wintered” for two years in the first and second grades. Further study went better, but there were "favorite" and "unloved" subjects. History, literature interested me, and mathematics, for example, on the contrary.

- All the time of my stay at the gymnasium, I drew with paints and pencils without guides: what I could, how I could and what I wanted. I was very interested in the course of the Old Slavonic language, how books were written by hand in the old days, and, having found a sample of the font of the Ostromir Gospel, I began to try to write in the old way. First, he rewrote "Vladimir Monomakh's Teachings to His Children", then "The Gospel of Matthew", "The Song of Roland" (in Gothic type with ornamented capital letters). These were my first experiments in graphics.

In the Glukhov library, the young artist discovered the magazine Mir Iskusstva (published from 1899 to 1904), which had a decisive influence on the formation of his views.

“World of Art” was the first truly artistic publication. Here one could see reproductions relatively close to the originals. Everything was thoughtfully and exquisitely — the format, the font, the margins…

From what he read in the magazine, Narbut mentions "the writings of Alexander Benois." Fascinated by the drawing of lines, disgusted by the rules that drawing teachers tried in vain to explain to him, drawing as he wanted and what he wanted, the young artist soared, reading the words of Benoit: “One must understand once and for all what a good drawing is. Firstly, this is not necessarily a correct drawing ... ”Overshadowed, Narbut went in search of a magic line.

- In Glukhov then there was a rather large agricultural exhibition, and an “art department” was arranged at it. I was also invited to participate in this department, where I exhibited my first experiments in graphics. In the same year, 1904, my work was first published, which now I cannot look at without shame. It was a painted graphic sheet - "The icon of St. George the Victorious."

"Coat of arms of the city of Moscow" - George the Victorious - Narbut drew with a pen and painted with watercolors, stylizing partly in the icon-painting, partly in the Bilibino spirit. Connoisseur of heraldry V.K. Lukomsky later notes that this drawing lacks "all the signs of a coat of arms."

To St. Petersburg - to the "World of Art" ...

- Finally, on June 5, 1906, I had in my pocket a “Certificate of Matriculation”, albeit an unimportant one, covered with almost only “triples” ... In the fall I dreamed of getting to Northern Palmyra - to the “World of Art” close to my heart ... One is dreams, the other is reality. For a whole summer I had to fight for the right to go to St. Petersburg ... My father, on whose support I was brought up, did not want to let me or my brother Vladimir go there, who graduated from the same gymnasium at the same time as me.

Vladimir also aspired to St. Petersburg: he tried his hand at poetry, was fond of symbolists, unlike George, he was interested in politics. Secretly from their father, the brothers sent applications for admission to St. Petersburg University, to the faculty of Oriental languages. The risk paid off - at the end of August 1906 they were notified of enrollment. “Father, under the influence of his mother, who silently kept to our side,” continues Narbut, “somehow submitted; just saying he didn't care where we went, he just wanted to bet on his own.".

The bad weather, the high cost of apartments, the fact that, having finally rented a room, they were robbed "almost to the skin" - these were their first impressions of the capital.

- I started going to the university ... I immediately transferred from the oriental faculty to the philological faculty and thought about how to take up science, but I was attracted to art, drawn to artists ... Soon, among my colleagues in the faculty, I found several of the same as me, who missed without art. We were the founders of the art circle at the university.

- At the same time - it was the end of September or the beginning of October - I met the already outstanding Russian graphic artist Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin. Previously, I knew his works only from reproductions - they were my ideal ... Now I saw the originals, I saw the master himself. I got to know each other very simply: on one of the evenings in gloomy St. Petersburg, which begins so early in autumn, with trembling and emotional excitement I went to the master to talk to him and show him my work for evaluation. At first he received me mockingly… but then we got into a conversation, he looked at my drawings, gave some advice. He asked about my financial situation and in general about how I got settled in St. Petersburg, and, having learned about my adventure with an apartment where I was robbed, after talking with my wife - as I later found out, she was an artist M. Ya. Chambers-Bilibina, offered me a spare room for a rather small fee. It was a joy for me! My brother, who soon, however, left home due to illness, settled with me.

- I really liked my life with Bilibin and brought me great benefits. Not being his student, I actually learned from him. When he worked in his studio, he almost always called me to draw at his table “for company”. He also got me a salary: under his patronage, the publisher of the newspaper "Russian Reading" bought illustrations (made back in Glukhov) for publication from me for the fairy tales "The Snow Maiden" and "The Gorshenya", and then ordered me several graphic works (cover, drawings of riddles and endings) for my magazine ... I remember how, having received the first fee from Dubensky - one hundred rubles - I felt like Croesus ...

“There was something in him that brought him closer to him from a few words,” Dubensky recalled. - I clearly remember how on the very first day of our acquaintance (I didn’t know where he came from and who, I didn’t know his last name yet) we were already talking passionately about art. Immediately he showed his works, cleverly made, but to a large extent under the influence of Bilibin, and something was also felt from A.N. Benois and Bakst.

Narbut's love was Maria Belovskaya. It was she who had a great influence on the work of the artist of the early period.

Ukrainian traditions

Leaving home for the summer holidays in 1907, Narbut no longer thought about continuing his studies at the university, but only about graphic work. The manner of execution of his sketches and sketches, created in his native land, suggests that he learned to "think graphically."

A number of sketches were made for the series "Former Little Russia". Of course, the times of Zaporizhzhya freemen, Cossack colonels, centurions, hetmans could only be recreated by the power of imagination. But much from the 17th and 18th centuries has been preserved intact: blind kobza players wandered from village to village, rural girls dressed up in the old fashion, old men in wide-brimmed straw “brylya” slowly lit Zaporizhzhya “cradles”; among the greenery, hut-huts-huts turned white under the golden roofs, windmills blackened over their long life turned their wings - “windmills”, mounds with Polovtsian “stone women” towered in the plowed steppes, picturesque as of old, there were cities with majestic temples of the hetman’s times, in in particular - Novgorod-Seversky. Narbut captured all this in his album.

After T. G. Shevchenko with his “Picturesque Ukraine”, in the etchings of which history, village life are depicted, the “Little Russian theme” entered the Ukrainian and Russian graphics, but especially widely - in painting. However, no one has yet tried to work out the Ukrainian style. Nobody before Narbut.

Trip to Munich

Upon returning to St. Petersburg, Narbut completely devoted himself to creativity. M.V. Dobuzhinsky recalled: “Then my future dear friend Georgy Ivanovich was a shy and awkward young man, good-naturedly laughing off Bilibin’s amusing nit-picking…”

Narbut received independent work on book design first at the Rosepovnik publishing house (the first cover was published in 1907), and then from M.O. Wolf (since 1909). Since then, Rosehip is unthinkable without Narbut. In later years, he was inundated with cover commissions. On the fourth page of the cover there is a “coat of arms”, a porcini mushroom in a cartouche!

The artist managed to offer his hand and heart to his Glukhov inspirer, mentioned above M. Belovskaya, who had just graduated from the gymnasium, but received an evasive answer. Well, he's willing to wait. And Narbut works tirelessly.

In 1909, the artist unexpectedly went to Munich. Of course, the trip was not taken by Narbut by chance. Paris was a mecca for painters, Munich for draughtsmen. It was a very large art center, famous for its museums, where one could get acquainted with the masterpieces of various eras and, of course, with the "high modern" graphics.

Narbut spent his Munich days exploring the city and its environs. Of all the masters, Durer made the greatest impression on Narbut.

After Munich, the artist was seized by far from serene moods. Just recently, Halley's comet appeared. She caused a lot of rumors, many considered her an evil sign. And the impressionable Narbut, who absorbed the superstitions of the Ukrainian village, in the depths of his soul was afraid of comets. A trip abroad, which knocked him out of his usual rut, transferred him to an alien environment, stirred up hidden fears that came to life in images of fantasy. One of them is known as "Landscape with a Comet". A strange gloomy landscape: a building under a deep night sky. A huge wide jet of cold flame is rushing across the sky, it is about to incinerate everything that meets on the way ... Complete desertion, complete defenselessness in the face of the inevitable, the unknown ...

In the homeland of The Nutcracker, Narbut also conceived a series of books, the characters of which will be toys. Work on the first book - "Dance Matvey, do not spare bast shoes" - was started in Munich.

A trip abroad gave him a lot, but the artist was unable to live long in a foreign land. And half a year, unable to stand it, he returned to St. Petersburg. Never went abroad again.

Time for a change

Significant in the life of Narbut - both creative and personal - is the year 1912. New books of fables designed by him are published (following Krylov's Three Fables and Nightingale), which strengthened his reputation as a master with a delicate taste and unique manner. In the same year, his work at the same table with Bilibin ceased. Ivan Yakovlevich left his family. In such a situation, the bachelor tenant apparently became undesirable in M.Ya. Chambers-Bilibina, especially since Narbut persistently offered her a hand and a heart, having been refused by his bride (the same Belovskaya, whom he had been in love with since his gymnasium years).

Narbut moved to his friend G.K. Lukomsky, who later recalled: “We worked together with him, with might and main, fulfilling orders, arranging exhibitions ... We lived well. He led such a life: he runs around acquaintances every day - he loved people, he was very sociable, - and after dinner, from eleven or twelve in the evening, as soon as he sits down, until the morning, until seven or eight o'clock, everything works and works ... "

Communication with a talented architect-artist and his brother V.K. Lukomsky, a connoisseur of noble genealogies and coats of arms, significantly enriched Narbut. VC. Lukomsky recalled how eagerly he used to inquire about the sources of ancient and artistic coats of arms. Just at that time, V.K. Lukomsky was fascinated by the work on the "Little Russian Armorial", the drawings for which Narbut would later perform.

A real revolution in the mind of the artist took place in the same 1912, when he was commissioned by the Imperial Academy of Sciences to paint the walls of the hall "Little Russia" - for the exhibition "Lomonosov and Elizabethan Times". Narbut was always interested in Ukrainian culture and knew a lot about it. But here, at the exhibition, for the first time I touched on the archival and museum variety of old and handwritten books, documents, masterpieces of Ukrainian jewelry, saw photographs of architectural monuments, images of the Cossacks on ancient portraits, seals, glasses, powder flasks. After all, the best works of art from the occupied Cossack state were transported to the imperial capital. Subsequently, the art critic Fyodor Ernst wrote about this important event for the artist: “Such work on primary sources led the artist to a natural, the only possible conclusion: Tsarist Russia, having destroyed the autonomy of Ukraine, erased and depleted Ukrainian culture. And hence his hatred for those representatives of the Ukrainian people who willingly exchanged the freedom of Ukraine for a caftan of the court.”

Having gone to his native places for the summer months, Narbut peered with keen interest at the monuments of Ukrainian antiquity. Together with him, Dobuzhinsky made a trip to Ukraine. They met in Chernigov. “We are together,” says Narbut’s friend, “the whole city went out. Here and there he advised to sketch some church, with all the admiration for the curiosities of provincial and old architecture, he himself almost did not draw.

Georgy Ivanovich, after parting with Dobuzhinsky, went to Narbutovka for a short time, but some two or three weeks spent there turned out to be a turning point in his fate. His sister Agnes invited her friends to visit the farm. One of them was Vera Pavlovna Kiryakova, a pupil of General N.E. Skarzhinsky. She managed to graduate from the Poltava Institute for Noble Maidens and began to teach gymnastics at the gymnasium in the town of Lubny. Subsequently, she will remember the attention that Georgy Ivanovich immediately gave her. “We often walked with him, picked flowers, went to the station for mail, which he looked forward to with great impatience. Georgy Ivanovich received many letters, mainly from Moscow and St. Petersburg from his customers.

In the evenings, young people started amateur concerts. The guest sang romances by Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Denets, Ukrainian folk songs, Narbut's cousin accompanied, brother Vladimir read poetry, and he himself painted, finding pleasure in working to music, singing and noisy chatter. The singer-guest was struck by Narbut's hands - both by the beauty of the form, and by the dexterity, and by the flexibility of the fingers, and by the fact that "he drew with his right and left hand with equal firmness and skill."

After some time, George and Vera realized that they could no longer live without each other. “The day of July 15, 1912,” she recalls, “was celebrated in Narbutovka with unusual solemnity and fun. We celebrated the birthday of Vladimir Narbut and my engagement to Georgy Ivanovich.”

Since October, Narbut has been living in St. Petersburg, and his fiancee in Lubny. Yearning, he sends her letters. Almost daily.

On January 7, 1913, a wedding was played. At first, Narbut and his young wife settled in the apartment of M.Ya. Chambers-Bilibina. “We lived very amicably and conducted all our household work together ... Georgy Ivanovich worked from morning to night, and sometimes the whole night,” says Vera Pavlovna.

Senate official

In March 1914, Narbut had a daughter. Enjoying family life, he continued to work hard and fruitfully. Even in letters to his wife, Narbut is businesslike: “I sit at home and draw all the time. I want to finish everything and leave as soon as possible ... "

In the meantime, troubled times approached. In the summer of 1914, a patriotic Serbian high school student shot in Sarajevo, killing the heir to the Austrian throne, and Kaiser Wilhelm II had already uttered his infamous phrase: “Now or never!” On July 19 (August 1, New Style), Germany declared war on Russia.

In St. Petersburg, which became Petrograd, pogroms of German shops and workshops were carried out at that time. The same thing happened in Moscow and other cities. In May 1915, the turn will come to the publishing house of I.N. Knebel (the owner had the misfortune to be born in Western Ukraine - in Galicia, which was part of the Habsburg Empire). Among the publications that are ready to see the light, Narbut’s books will also die - “Krylov’s Fables” (which included “Kitten and Starling”, “Cornflower”, “Donkey and Nightingale”), “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” and Andersen’s “Old Street Lamp”.

Narbut briefly left the capital: he visited his native farm, probably in order to say goodbye to his brother Sergei, who was going to the front. The lines from a letter to his wife testify to the then mood of the artist: “It’s so sad here that my soul just hurts. Everything is somehow even more desolate and collapsed. All buildings are useless and are about to collapse. Yes, what to say! And I love Narbutovka so much and I'm sad"

In May 1915, the artist was appointed "clerical officer" of the Senate. About his public service, Narbut writes to his wife, who lives on the estate of relatives in Ukraine, in a humorous tone: “Yesterday we were at the funeral cortege of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, where we behaved with due indestructible dignity, which is why we received high marks of attention from imperial persons (verbal details) ... I attend the service strictly, that is, I was 2 times in the Senate. The impression is favorable. I will be there again. If my affairs continue to go on just as brilliantly, then no later than the spring of next year I hope to be elevated to senatorial dignity together with all orders, ranks and privileges.

Back to the Motherland

In 1915, the Chernihiv nobility entrusted Narbut with the design of the book by V.L. Modzalevsky "Tovstolesy. Essay on the history of the family. The Ukrainian suite of Narbut was supplemented by the book "Coats of Arms of the Hetmans of Little Russia". From the artistic side, its cover is especially interesting, on which a “Cossack with a towel” is depicted, subsequently he will be played more than once by Narbut. The design of another book was based on impressions from ancient Ukrainian estates. It is not surprising that the "Ancient Estates of the Kharkov Province" are among the best works of Narbut.

So, even in Petrograd, the artist begins his new, Ukrainian period of creativity. Little Russian antiquity, Cossack portraits, engravings gave Narbut the opportunity to create his own Ukrainian style.

But Narbut wants not only to write in the "Ukrainian style", but also to speak the Ukrainian literary language. And all this is fully possible only by living in Ukraine.

Time of Troubles

After the February Revolution of 1917, Narbut returned to Ukraine.

But contrary to Narbut's ardent desire, he did not immediately find a job for himself in Ukraine. The political situation in the country was very difficult. The publishing business fell into a complete decline: mainly pamphlets were published on newsprint, which did not require registration. Overwhelmed with orders in Petrograd, Narbut did not find any use in Kyiv.

And the master dreamed of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts. Meanwhile, Kyiv artists managed to organize an organization similar to the Academy before his arrival. Among its founders were mainly painters and one architect-artist V. G. Krichevsky. Narbut also sought the position of professor of graphics. With a long delay, he received it.

Having assumed the duties of rector since February 1918, Narbut in this troubled time was most worried about the fate of the Academy of Arts. At the suggestion of Narbut, she received the status of not only an educational institution, but also a research institute. Narbut joined the board of the newly created professional union of artists, headed the commission for the organization of the Second State Museum, the basis of the exposition of which was one of the best in Russia and the best in Ukraine collection of Western European, Eastern and Old Russian art.

In Kyiv, Narbut lived in the house at number 11 in Georgievsky Lane, where he rented five rooms. The creative elite often gathered at Narbut's apartment: artists, historians, publishers, actors. There were poets Nikolai Zerov, Pavel Tychina, Mikhail Semenko, Vladimir Mayakovsky, director Les Kurbas, literary critic Sergei Efremov, art critic Daniil Shcherbakovsky ...

Narbut rarely sat down at his desk, but he did not lose heart, although the sad news came from Glukhov about the death of his brother Sergei at the front and the severe wounding of Vladimir. On January 25, the government of the Central Rada left Kyiv, and on the 26th Soviet power was established in the city. His old friend Ya.N., who lived in Narbut's apartment, Zhdanovich was afraid of searches and arrests. “Narbut,” notes the artist’s wife, “reacted very cheerfully to the fears of Yakov Nikolaevich and answered that if they ask who lives in his apartment, he will say that Zhdanovich is a village teacher from Priluki by name ... and here Narbut called such funny surname that everyone burst into uncontrollable laughter. Immediately, Narbut wrote Zhdanovich a certificate for a village teacher, and in handwriting, as illiterate people write, he also drew a seal in ink, which could hardly be distinguished from the real one. When the Red Army men came to check the apartment, Narbut was at the Academy. When they found out that an artist lived here, they were quite satisfied with this and asked if there were any “strangers” here. Zhdanovich boldly went out and presented a certificate written by Narbut, after which the artist’s wife treated the soldiers to tea: “In general, everything worked out very well, and when Narbut came home, there was already a sticker on the door of our apartment that the apartment was checked.”

After the proclamation of the Ukrainian state headed by P. Skoropadsky, Modzalevsky and Narbut began to seek the abolition of the approved coats of arms and seals of the UNR. On July 18, 1918, the hetman approved the new Small State Seal designed by Narbut: on an octagonal shield, a Cossack with a towel was depicted. The shield was framed by a baroque cartouche and surmounted by the trident of St. Vladimir. In a circle on both sides was the inscription "Ukrainian State". It was printed on the 1000 karbovanets banknote issued on November 13, 1918.

"Everything went wrong for me"

Narbut wrote: “I was completely indifferent to politics, because I had never been interested in it and I had neither the time nor the desire to deal with social issues.” However, in a letter to A. N. Benois, he said about the feelings he experienced during the war: “... My heart is so deadly empty and heavy. After all, because of this damned war (how I hate it!) Everything went wrong for me ”

Denikin's army was approaching Kyiv, significantly outnumbering the city's military garrison. The Red Army retreated. The Petliura division, which was hiding nearby, was the first to enter Kyiv, followed by Denikin's cavalrymen. “The people of Kiev were completely confused,” recalled K.G. Paustovsky. — It was difficult to understand who would own the city. But all these doubts ended in the evening, when reinforcements approached Denikin's troops. Two Cossack regiments suddenly fell like lava from the steep Pechersk Mountains on the unsuspecting Petliurists. The Cossack regiments rushed along the quarry with lowered peaks, whooping, firing into the air and flashing their naked sabers. No nerves could withstand this wild and sudden attack. The Petliurists fled without firing a shot, leaving their cannons and weapons… The next morning, the order of General Bredov was pasted around the city that from now on and forever Kyiv would return to the united and indivisible Russia.”

“After all the luxury of the artistic life of Kyiv in the summer of 1919, stagnation set in,” says G.K. Lukomsky. - Kyiv turned into a provincial or, at best, a regional city. Narbut had no orders. As a Ukrainian who worked under Skoropadsky, he was persecuted, as a former worker under the Directory - too, as a worker under Soviet power - too, even more. Narbut had to stay at home in order to avoid stupid incidents, weakness also encouraged this. Friends were suspected, arrested or also in hiding. There was an extreme. Narbut needed. Oppression seized him. The work didn't work."

At the end of December 1919, Narbut began to write his memoirs. With some special sadness, he told about his beloved Narbutovka, about the times of his youth ... On May 23, having undergone a difficult operation to remove stones from the liver, Narbut died. His last words were: "Strange, I look, but it's dark."

Narbut - heraldic artist

A huge place in the work of Narbut was occupied by heraldry and questions of genealogy.

The idea that his ancestors were Zaporozhye Cossacks sharpened his interest in local antiquities and, of course, in the history of Narbutovka. This is evidenced by a document written in ancient Slavic letters, decorated with a letter and patterns - a letter from an eighteen-year-old artist to P.Ya. Doroshenko - a Glukhov doctor, a great connoisseur of Ukrainian antiquity - with a request to tell something about the Narbut family.

Subsequently, Doroshenko will give the artist a number of archival documents, including drawings of the coat of arms of the Narbuts.

“He draws an illustration for some fairy tale; draws everything according to the plot, and somewhere on the wall there is an unused free space; It seems “naked” to him - so he will “plant the coat of arms” there, - recalled G.K. Lukomsky, - ... “deliberate” or “invented”. And even his coat of arms "Tromba" (three hunting horns connected like a star) will be attached somewhere among the picturesque ruins. And he loved his coat of arms so much that even in his silhouette portrait he placed it in the center of his head; here he is Narbutissimus - to all Narbuts from Narbutovka Narbut.

Later, having become a recognized specialist in Ukrainian heraldry, Georgy Narbut created sketches of the military uniforms of the Ukrainian army, and was the author of the first stamps of the UNR. On December 19, 1917, the first banknote of the Ukrainian People's Republic was printed - a denomination of 100 karbovanets. Its authorship also belongs to Narbut. In the design of the banknote, the artist used ornaments in the spirit of the Ukrainian baroque of the 17th-18th centuries, the image of a crossbow (the coat of arms of the Kyiv magistrate of the 16th-18th centuries) and the trident of St. Vladimir, which later became the state emblem of Ukraine.

Ukrainian alphabet

The main work of Narbut in 1917 was the work on the creation of drawings for the Ukrainian alphabet, which was intended to be released in Ukrainian and Russian versions by the Partnership of R. Golike and A. Vilborg. The originals have preserved 15 sheets of the alphabet. All of them are made in pen and black ink, proof prints were made from all of them, some of them were illuminated by the author. The artist created compositions for the letters "A", "B", "C", "G", "3", "I" ("I"), "K", "L", "M", "H", "O", "S", "F" and "H". The work remained unfinished: shortly before October 1917, Narbut left for Kyiv.

Sheet "A" was exhibited at the artist's posthumous exhibition in Kyiv in 1926, but only many years later became available to researchers, having been acquired from a private collection by the Ivano-Frankivsk Art Museum. His composition combines visible images of words beginning with the letter "A". An angel flying in the sky unrolls a scroll on which letters are inscribed in alphabetical order, an airplane catches up with him; below - a building with a baroque pediment and a sign "Pharmacy", an old stone arch, overgrown with young tree shoots. The artist did not manage without a specific Ukrainian detail, although its name does not begin with "A": near the pharmacy there is a hut under a thatched roof. He could not resist the temptation to introduce something Petrograd into the composition: behind the high roof of the pharmacy, the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Fortress Cathedral is visible.

In the drawings of the Ukrainian alphabet P.I. Neradovsky rightly noted the combination of fantasy, poetry and humor inherent in the nature of the artist.