The artist is a rylov landscape with a river. Rylov Arkady Alexandrovich: biography, photos and interesting facts

Rylov Arkady Alexandrovich (1870 - 1939)

Russian artist, master of picturesque landscapes in the spirit of symbolism.

Born in the village of Istobenskoye, (Vyatka province). He was brought up in the family of his stepfather, who served as a notary in Vyatka (Rylov's father suffered from a nervous breakdown). Having settled in St. Petersburg, he studied at the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron A.L. Stieglitz (1888-1891) under K.Ya. Kryzhitsky and at the Academy of Arts (1894-1897) under A.I. Participated in exhibitions "World of Art", "Union of Russian Artists", AHRR, was a founding member (in 1925-1930 chairman) of the AI ​​Kuindzhi Society.

Rylov in the full sense of the word can be considered a student and follower of Kuindzhi. Rylov forever retained his attachment to romantically elevated and generalizing, holistic images, lighting effects, and a decorative understanding of color, but at the same time he strictly followed the teacher's precept to work in nature as much as possible.

A. A. Rylov entered the history of Russian painting primarily as the author of two famous landscapes - "Green Noise" and "In the Blue Space". In 1904 "Green Noise" appeared. The artist worked on the painting for two years, painting it in the studio, using the experience of observing nature and a lot of sketches made in the vicinity of Vyatka and St. Petersburg. Contemporaries were struck by the young, joyful feeling that pervaded the landscape. The same joyful feeling and a similar spatial construction - in the painting "In the Blue Space" (1918). This image, full of faith in vitality, was later used for ideological purposes. The picture was declared the first Soviet landscape, and Rylova - the founder of Soviet landscape painting.

But he also had landscapes with a different mood - for example, "Wilderness" (1920). True, the artist has much more life-affirming works: "Hot Day", "Field Rowan", "Island" (all 1922), "Birch Grove" (1923), "Old Spruces by the River" (1925), "Forest River" ( 1928), "House with a Red Roof" (1933), "On the Green Banks" (1938), etc.

Rylov had another rare gift - teaching. Before the revolution, he taught the "animal drawing class" at the Drawing School at the OPH, and after 1917 he taught at the Academy of Arts. His advice and guidance was appreciated not only by students, but also by venerable artists. His rare spiritual purity and love for people were equally appreciated.

Rylov was also a subtle animal painter, as if attesting to this in the drawing "Self-Portrait with a Squirrel" (1931). He successfully worked as an illustrator (magazine "Chizh", 1936; books by V.V. Bianka "Teremok", 1936, and "Tales of the Trapper", 1937). Wrote a book of essays on nature, arranging them with his own watercolors ("When It Happens", 1936; published in 1946). From 1902 he actively worked as a teacher (at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and other schools).

Rylov died in Leningrad on June 22, 1939. His valuable "Memoirs" were published posthumously.
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Russian Soviet painter A.A. Rylov was born on January 17 (29), 1870 in the village of Istobenskoye, Vyatka province (now Istobensk, Kirov region). Arkady was born on the way, when his parents were going to Vyatka. Rylov's father suffered from a severe nervous breakdown, so the boy was brought up in the family of his stepfather, who served as a notary in Vyatka. To this city, where the future artist grew up, to the surrounding nature, Rylov later devoted many pages of his memoirs to his childhood. His childhood and youth were spent in the north. The family lived in Vyatka, on the banks of a wide river with the same name. The land of forests, lakes and rivers captivated the artist with its beauty. Rylov fell in love with nature passionately and for life. He could wander through forests and meadows all day long, sit by the water for hours, watching ducks, or follow a fluffy squirrel for a long time.

In 1888, after graduating from school in Vyatka, he came to St. Petersburg and, on the advice of his relatives, entered the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron A.L. Stieglitz, where he studied until 1891, studied with the famous artist and teacher K.Ya. Kryzhitsky (1858-1911). In parallel, A.A. Rylov studied at the Drawing School at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. In the midst of hard work, Rylov was unexpectedly drafted into the army. After serving his term, he returned to St. Petersburg.

In 1893 A.A. Rylov entered the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts, and a year later he was invited to his studio, whose training had long been a cherished dream of a young artist. Rylov in the full sense of the word can be considered a student and follower of Kuindzhi. He experienced the strongest influence not only of creativity, but also of the personality of his mentor. Kuindzhi was a born enthusiastic teacher, selflessly loved his work. He constantly took care of his pupils, financially helped poor students, took them to the Crimea for summer practice and even abroad at his own expense. Rylov forever retained his attachment to romantically elevated, holistic images, lighting effects, and a decorative understanding of color, but at the same time he strictly followed the teacher's precept to work as much as possible on nature. Kuindzhi paid much attention to work in nature, which he considered the very first and serious teacher of the painter. He taught the art of seeing, feeling, understanding nature. "Kuindzhievskaya" - romantic, dynamic - was Rylov's diploma painting "The Evil Tatars Ran" (1897). The artist himself was annoyed later: why did he turn to such a "crackling" plot and not take "a modest Russian landscape, familiar nature"?

In 1897, the course of study at the Academy of Arts was successfully completed and A.A. Rylov, having received the title of artist, toured Germany, France and Austria. Initially, Rylov painted not only landscapes, referring to the historical and everyday genre ("The Pechenegs raid on a Slavic village", 1897, private collection, St. Petersburg; "The Burning Fire", 1898, Tretyakov Gallery) and invariably attaching importance to nature not only as a background, but also full-fledged dramatic component.

By the early 1900s, Rylov's skill had reached maturity. Being a native of the Vyatka province, he dedicated his first landscapes, written after graduating from the Academy, to his native northern nature: "From the banks of the Vyatka" (1901), "Ripples" (1901), "Daredevils. Kama" (1903). Similar in character are the paintings made after the trip to Finland to study sketches: "Spring in Finland" (1905), "Quiet Lake" (1908). These northern landscapes brought him his first fame. We can say that at that time the artist's favorite themes were determined: the water element and wind-driven trees. This choice, according to A.I. Kuindzhi, testified to "an innate love for nature."

In 1904, Green Noise appeared. The artist worked on the painting for two years, painting it in the studio, using the experience of observing nature and a lot of sketches made in the vicinity of Vyatka and St. Petersburg. Contemporaries were struck by the young, joyful feeling that pervaded the landscape. Color is based on a combination of saturated color relationships. A dynamic spatial solution is the opposition of a very close foreground and the boundless distance that opens behind it. In this picture, as in some others by Rylov, historical symbols appear in natural motifs - a Slavic boat visible behind the trees.

In his "Memoirs" Rylov wrote: "... I lived in the summer on the steep, high bank of the Vyatka, under the windows birch trees rustled all day long, calming down only in the evening; a wide river flowed; I could see distances with lakes and forests ... I very much I worked on this motif, trying to convey my feeling from the spring noise of birches..." Seeing the picture, Rylov's friend, the artist Bogaevsky, recited the poem "Green Noise". A better name for the picture could not have been thought of. So Nekrasov's poems forever became related to one of Rylov's best paintings, which marks the heyday of his talent. Now one of the versions of the painting "Green Noise" adorns the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the other - the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. In 1904, "Green Noise" put the artist in the ranks of the best landscape painters in the country.

The level of professional performance of the paintings of the first stage of Rylov's work is evidenced by the fact that for the painting "From the Banks of the Vyatka" at the Munich exhibition he received a nominal gold medal. A.A. Rylov and in the famous exhibition of 1901 in Moscow, where the largest associations of artists of that time were presented. In 1902 he was invited to the prestigious Vienna Secession, and since 1908 he became a regular participant in exhibitions of the Union of Russian Artists under the direction of A. Vasnetsov.

Artistic life in the late XIX - early XX century. was difficult. Various associations of artists arranged their exhibitions. Their participants often differed in their views on the tasks and role of art, on the goals of creativity. But Rylov's sincere, poetic, fanned by a tender love for nature, Rylov's art was accepted everywhere: his paintings could be seen in the "Union of Russian Artists", and at exhibitions of the "World of Art" association, and at the "Spring" exhibitions organized by his teacher A. AND. Kuindzhi. The talented Russian landscape painter was also recognized by Paris, which was considered a trendsetter in art. Rylov was elected a member of the honorary jury of the Paris Salon (exhibition). And not just, but with the right to exhibit their paintings there without prior discussion of the jury. At international exhibitions, his work has been awarded gold medals more than once. In 1915, Rylov became an academician of painting.

Wanting to be as close to nature as possible, A.A. Rylov every summer, from 1902 to 1914, came to the Voronezh province, on the picturesque banks of the Oskol River, to the estate of his fellow Stieglitz A.P. Rogov, later a mosaic artist and teacher at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. For work, Arkady Alexandrovich built a summer workshop on the edge of the forest, from which there was a beautiful view of Oskol. This workshop, reminiscent of a fairy tale hut in its appearance and carved decorations, was captured by the artist in the etude "Red House" (1910). A.A. Rylov could spend hours watching animals, birds, insects in the forest or on the river in the early morning, afternoon, evening and late at night. Nature from the banks of the Oskol brought new colors to the palette of the artist's experiences. This was reflected both in the change in plots, color shades, and in the subject. In the paintings of 1910-1920, a forest-steppe landscape and a river in the middle of the forest appear. To this edge A.A. Rylov dedicated the paintings "Spring on Oskol", "Spring Morning. Oskol River", "Spring. Oskol River", "Oskol River", "Osok. (Oskol River)". All of them are kept in the museums of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kaluga, Kostroma, Kazan.

His paintings, dense in color, far from unsteady etude, are epic in mood, often appearing as some kind of "forebodings" or "prologues". Once, for the first time in his life, the artist saw white swans in freedom - beautiful proud birds made a spring migration. The free flight of white birds over the boundless northern sea captured the artist's imagination for a long time. And in 1918, in one breath, he painted the painting "In the Blue Space". It was a repetition of the painting "The Flight of Swans over Kama" painted by him in 1914, but this time in a major key. In the new picture A.A. Rylov achieved not only the expressive laconicism of the artistic language, but also the symbolic sound of the image. Blue-green waves crash against the reddish rocks of a distant island. Sparkling snow glitters on the tops of the rocks. A light sailboat sways on the waves. And over the horizon in a gentle azure, light clouds slowly float by. The majestic and severe northern nature meets the morning of a new day. White swans, as if bathing in the crystal air, soar above the water, now descending, then rising to the lilac curly clouds. There is so much air in the picture that the viewer seems to feel the fresh breath of the wind himself. The smooth rhythm of the movement and the major color, which the artist managed to convey, formed a poetic song.

Even today, white swans over the northern sea evoke a feeling of joy, a feeling of vast expanse and light. It is quite natural that this image, full of faith in vitality, was later used for ideological purposes. Rylov combined realism in the depiction of nature with the romanticization of the image, so his work received a symbolic interpretation: the motif of boundless expanse, harsh sea and strong wind was associated with the "winds of revolution". Canvas A.A. Rylov entered the official history of art as almost the first full-fledged "Soviet" painting, full of "revolutionary romance". The picture was declared the first Soviet landscape, and Rylova - the founder of Soviet landscape painting. Now the canvas "In the Blue Space" is in the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Creating mainly landscape paintings, Rylov sought to give a generalized, national-romantic in mood image of his native country. In the Soviet period of creativity, the artist in a number of cases showed the transformative activity of people in the landscape ("Tractor at Forestry Works", 1934, Tretyakov Gallery), turned directly to historical and revolutionary topics ("Lenin in Razliv", 1934, Russian Museum). But he also had landscapes with a different mood - for example, "Wilderness" (1920). A swamp with black water fills the entire foreground, and behind it is a gloomy, disturbing forest. True, the artist has much more life-affirming works: "Sunset" (1917), "Seagulls. Quiet Evening" (1918), "Swans" (1920), "Hot Day", "Field Rowan", "Island" (all 1922) , "Birch Grove" (1923), "Old Fir Trees by the River" (1925), "Forest River" (1928), "House with a Red Roof" (1933), "In Green Banks" (1938), etc.

Rylov was also a subtle animal painter, generally loved the whole living world, and this world paid him the same. He was loved by birds and animals, and the manifestations of such love and trust aroused the surprise of those around him. It is known that the artist had a whole corner of the forest in his studio, where its inhabitants walked - a monkey, hares, squirrels, birds and other animals. He bought them in the market or picked them up somewhere, sick and weakened, nursed them, fed them, and set them free in the spring. The animals and birds of Arkady Alexandrovich were not afraid. There were also two anthills. This touching trust of "our smaller brothers" the artist captured in the painting "Forest dwellers" (1910) and in "Self-portrait with a squirrel" (1931, Tretyakov Gallery). A.A. successfully worked. Rylov as an illustrator (magazine "Chizh", 1936; books by V.V. Bianka "Teremok", 1936, and "Tales of the Trapper", 1937). The artist himself wrote a book of essays about nature, When It Happens (1936; published in 1946), which he designed with his own watercolors.

A.A. Rylov had another gift - teaching. Before the revolution, he taught the "animal drawing class" at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts (1902-1918), and then taught at the Academy of Arts (1918-1929) and at the Leningrad Art and Industrial College (1923-1926). Arkady Rylov kept in his memory the bright image of his teacher A.I. Kuindzhi used his methods in his own pedagogical work. His advice and guidance was appreciated not only by students, but also by venerable artists. His rare spiritual purity and love for people were equally appreciated.

The artist not only supported the October Revolution, but also became an active figure in Soviet art. Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, Rylov's works became emphatically decorative. In the 1920s, A.A. Rylov was a member of the art association AHRR ("Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia"), participated in AHRR exhibitions. He was a founding member (and in 1925-1930 chairman) of the Society named after A.I. Kuindzhi. In 1935 he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.

Master of picturesque landscapes, academician of painting A.A. Rylov died in Leningrad on June 22, 1939. “Nature releases Rylovs very, very sparingly,” wrote a friend of the artist M.V. Nesterov after the sad news of his death. Posthumously published his "Memoirs" (1960). In the history of Russian painting A.A. Rylov entered primarily as the author of two famous landscapes - "Green Noise" and "In the Blue Space", although he left a legacy of a large and very high artistic level. And his most famous paintings "In the Blue Space" and "Green Noise", due to their decorative effect, the selection of colors and their combinations, the absence of tonal transitions, interesting angles and symbolism, have become not only textbooks, but also revered by everyone who is at least a little familiar with Russian painting.

Only Rylov, perhaps, knew how to look somehow especially poetically at the most ordinary pictures of nature, past which hundreds of people passed without noticing them: white dandelions in a green meadow; blue rivers where reflections of clouds floating across the sky bathe; a nimble squirrel jumping along fluffy spruce branches; spring migration of birds; birches fluttering in the wind with their branches; a sunbeam deftly jumping in the corolla of kupava ... The artist was overwhelmed with impressions from what he saw. Hands reached out to the brush, the brush to the canvas, and pictures were born about native nature, and therefore, about native land. Probably, the artist Rylov, with his paintings, wanted not only to sing the beauty and originality of his native nature, his native land, but also to remind that a person is responsible for its safety and prosperity.

The well-known artist and teacher Mikhail Nesterov, despite his usual restraint, gave the following assessment of Rylov’s works after visiting one of the exhibitions: “Dear Arkady Alexandrovich, my friends and I, who visited your exhibition, are in complete admiration. I want to talk about it, rejoice for art , for you, who retained all the freshness of feeling, all the most tender love for God's world and for every creature that inhabits it. Looking at your paintings, sketches, drawings, you feel that you were born young and have retained this wonderful gift until now. "

Quiet lake. 1908

The life of Arkady Alexandrovich Rylov coincided with the most difficult era of Russian history and culture - the years 1870-1930. And despite his quiet fame, the work of this artist is an important part of the national culture of the first third of the 20th century, one of its most inspired, poetic pages. In Rylov's paintings, it is not difficult to see the features of the complex and contradictory world of that artistic era, in which trends and influences of various kinds are intricately intertwined. The artist entirely belonged to the general stream of Russian art, he was firmly inscribed in it, since he was receptive to everything new, to the broadest search for artistic truth. But against the backdrop of the storms of his time, Rylov is one of the most harmonious artists, he melted everything that his time gave him into an integral and original pictorial world, which everyone can admire, regardless of his aesthetic convictions.

Arkady Rylov was a native of the Vyatka land - he was born in the village of Istobensky near Vyatka, in the family of a district official. In the ancient Russian city of Vyatka, his early years passed - happy, connected with nature, with Russian provincial life, filled with simple entertainments.
The artist later recalled that “as a child I did not see a single oil painting, I admired only oleographs in a stationery store and applications for Niva ... Portraits of famous artists and their biographies made a great impression on me. I was especially interested when I learned about the appearance in St. Petersburg of a mysterious wizard bearing the beautiful, original surname Kuindzhi. This artist captivates the audience with the living moonlight and sunlight spilled over his landscapes.
Rylov's dreams of St. Petersburg and art education were born early and were supported in the family. His stepfather, who had an interest in drawing, rejoiced at the boy's success and, together with him, made plans for the future. In the summer of 1888, he announced to Arkady that in mid-August he would take him to St. Petersburg. On the boat down the Vyatka to the Kama, then to the Volga to Nizhny Novgorod, and then to Moscow - this is how the life journey of Arkady Rylov began.
In St. Petersburg, the main center of art education in Russia, there were several educational institutions of various ranks that trained artists. The Academy of Arts extended its influence to all other institutions. At this time, another area of ​​art education became more and more relevant - it was represented by technical drawing schools that trained artists for applied art and industrial production.
One of the best educational institutions of this profile in Russia was the school of Baron Stieglitz, founded in 1876, where Rylov entered.

Rylov. Green noise. 1904

It was located in a building specially built in 1881 according to the project of the architect Maximilian Messmacher, who at that time was the director of the school. Spacious bright classrooms with high ceilings were superbly equipped, there was a rich museum and library. Strict, "German" order and discipline reigned in the school, it was forbidden to be late for classes.
Rylov recalled: "I liked the orders, but I felt too applied spirit." It must be said that at the Stieglitz School the basis of education was Western European art, the museum consisted of works of Western craft and art industry. This, according to the ideas of the organizers, was supposed to raise the level of domestic art production. The pro-Western orientation of education determined the specific face of the “Stieglichs” in Russian artistic culture.
The third most famous educational institution in St. Petersburg was the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. “We heard that in “Encouragement” (as Rylov calls this school. - N.M.) there is a more artistic direction. They did the same there. Classes there were three times a week from six to eight o'clock in the evening, and on Sundays - the prospect. One can imagine how great was the burden that the boy took upon himself, but also how great was his desire to become an artist.
However, the first results were not very encouraging: neither in Stieglitz's school nor in the "Encouragement" did his six-month work get good marks. So the young Rylov for the first time realized that there would be no easy bread in his life, but there would be endless work, without which success would not be achieved.
Among Rylov's comrades at the school, a circle was drawn up that was keen on painting. They were looking for their own approaches to painting, not satisfied with the volume of his teaching at the Stieglitz school. Among Rylov's friends appeared Konstantin Bogaevsky, at that time a student of the Academy of Arts, who for life became close to him in spirit and creative worldview.
The artist Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, who studied with Rylov, recalled: “He was a very attractive young man, with large blue radiant eyes, with a clear, affectionate and kind smile. He was modest, shy, and often blushed with embarrassment. ... But the main features of his character were diligence, concentration and passion for art - all the prerequisites for exceptional determination. Judging by her memoirs, at the school, Rylov surprised his comrades and aroused deep respect for his ability to work, this was especially true for summer sketches, which “were painted on small canvases, without stretchers, all of the same size and format. When he brought them to school, so that, at the request of his comrades, to show what he had accumulated over the summer, he laid the sketches on the floor in the form of a stack of pancakes, and it was a arshin high from the floor.

The call for military service in 1891 changed Rylov's life in St. Petersburg. But even there he continued to draw, and it was during his service that his first participation in an art exhibition dates back. It was an exhibition of the Society of Russian Watercolorists, where Rylov presented two Vyatka landscapes. And on the very first day, his landscapes were sold and received a flattering review in the Niva magazine. This brought him "fame" in the battalion and permission to take the exam at the Academy of Arts. At the exams, Rylov saw Repin, Vladimir Makovsky, the famous chemist Dmitry Mendeleev, who was a member of the Council of the Academy of Arts, and, finally, his old hero, the "mysterious artist" Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi.
Rylov was admitted to the Academy as a volunteer, as he did not have a completed preliminary education. Despite the continued military service, he diligently attended classes, and on Fridays he came to the Kuindzhi workshop, where the students showed the master their homework. Finally, Rylov dared to show him his own sketches and unexpectedly received an invitation from Kuindzhi to enter his workshop.
Kuindzhi, who began his professorial work at the Academy in 1893, was not an ordinary figure in artistic Petersburg. The novelty and originality of his works were manifested at traveling exhibitions, and the display at the Society for the Encouragement of Landscape Arts Moonlit Night on the Dnieper - just one small painting - became an event for the St. Petersburg public, which besieged the building on Morskaya. The ensuing seclusion of Kuindzhi with a refusal to participate in exhibitions continued until 1893, when he enthusiastically took up teaching activities.
Rylov among them became one of the most beloved and gifted students of Kuindzhi.
The basis of Kuindzhi's pedagogy was an individual attitude towards each student - he did not conduct a special teaching system. Viewings of students' work were of the greatest importance, at which everyone could speak out and disagree with the opinion of the teacher. Kuindzhi's workshop was more than just a classroom for him and his students. Evening conversations, Kuindzhi's stories gave an idea of ​​the artist's personality, he shared with them his creative and life experience, thoughts and observations. It was this touch not only to painting, but also to the creative personality that determined the inner connection between the students and the teacher, such a strong one that none of the teachers of the Academy had. It is impossible not to mention that Kuindzhi provided regular financial support to his students - both to their entire community through the student mutual aid fund, and to each individually.
In the evening conversations in the workshop, the idea of ​​a joint trip to the Crimea, where Kuindzhi owned a plot of land on the coast, was born. The trip of the "Kuinjists" began in May 1895 from Bakhchisarai. From here, on foot, they went to the coast along the beautiful Crimean steppe, stopping for etude work. And finally, the Baydar Gate.
Having settled in Kekeneiz, in a completely wild place on the Crimean coast, far from any habitation, surrounded by rocks, blue sea and forest, the “Kuinjists” lived here for two months, devoting all their time to studies.
Rylov also visited Kekeneiz after the death of Kuindzhi, having become attached to these places with his soul. He made his last trip here in 1914, before the war.

While part of the workshop was writing sketches in the Crimea, other students of Kuindzhi dispersed throughout Russia: Borisov worked in the North, Konstantin Vroblevsky in the Carpathians, Ferdinand Ruschits brought sketches from the Vilna province, Bondarenko from the island of Valaam, Purvit from Latvia, and Zarubin from Ukraine. In the autumn of 1895, an exhibition of the workshop's summer works was Kuindzhi's first major pedagogical success.
Kuindzhi, as a member of the Academy Council, constantly defended the interests of students. He criticized the financial policy of the Academy and its exhibition policy, in which there was no place for young people. The annual academic exhibition was designed for the interests of academicians and professors, and it was impossible for a novice artist to get to it.
In contrast to this exhibition, Kuindzhi organized a new, “Spring Exhibition” at the Academy, hosted by graduates who received the title of artists: they had the right to choose the jury and be elected to it themselves. Kuindzhi was the honorary chairman of the exhibition committee. “We, the Kuinjists, the youth of that time, were provocative and, without hesitation, fought against triviality, routine and vulgarity in art, trying not to let them go to the exhibition,” Rylov recalled. The jury most often elected students of Kuindzhi and Repin.
The new exhibition immediately gained popularity, it was visited by a huge number of people, and museums and the public willingly acquired paintings from the exhibition. Participants received income from the exhibition and could afford to travel during the summer months.
The public nature of Kuindzhi's pedagogical activity had a significant impact on students. He was a man with ideals, and this attracted them to him, made them be like him and keenly feel their belonging to the Kuinjist group. This applies in particular to Rylov, who felt himself to be his student for a very long time.
In March 1897, Kuindzhi was dismissed from the Academy for his involvement in student unrest, which caused him great resentment. His students, including Rylov, decided to write their theses outside the walls of the Academy.
Rylov's diploma painting, depicting a Pecheneg raid on a Slavic village, was determined by two circumstances: the influence of his friend Roerich, who captivated him with an interest in Slavic history, folklore, Russian music, and a desire to try himself in a big plot picture. This is how the painting “Evil Tatars Ran Away” appeared - Roerich came up with the name for it. Rylov made sketches of headdresses, costumes, and weapons of the Mongolian peoples for the painting at the Historical Museum.
In November 1897, Rylov and his comrades in the workshop received the title of "artist". Kuindzhi was a hero - the success of his workshop (although formally he was no longer its leader) was complete. In terms of its level, the exhibition of diploma works of his students was more significant than all the others.
Of all the graduates of the Kuindzhi workshop, only Purvit received the right to a pensioner's business trip from the Academy. But pride in his students prompted Arkhip Ivanovich to take the workshop abroad at his own expense as a reward to all of them. And in May 1898, fourteen young artists, led by their teacher, went to Europe - to Germany, Austria, France. The professor and his students talked a lot about this trip abroad in the artistic environment of St. Petersburg as a rare case that surprised contemporaries.
At home, in his native Vyatka, Rylov experienced European impressions for a long time: “My head, like a suitcase, is tightly stuffed with foreign luggage. It is difficult to set to work with this burden, to write sketches, but little by little, native nature replaced everything alien, and I again devoted myself to painting in the countryside with enthusiasm.
In the autumn of 1898, having settled in St. Petersburg, Rylov began to build his independent artistic life. To earn money, he collaborated in the magazine Theater and Art, and this brought him closer to the theatrical life, which he was very fond of. The problem of earning money was solved in different ways by artists at that time, although it faced almost everyone in the same way.
“Somehow I managed to get decent money: I painted a whole iconostasis for the church of the Vyatka women's gymnasium. With this money, I decided to go abroad to improve my art. I had to ask for the blessings of Arkhip Ivanovich, but he said to me: “Why spend a lot of money? You can learn how to draw cheaper, for only sixty kopecks: fifty kopecks for an album, and for a dime they will give you a pencil and an eraser.” Although reluctantly, I agreed. Rylov began daily drawing of nature. At this time, he visited the drawing evenings with the artist Ekaterina Zarudnaya-Kavos, where he met Repin, with the famous teacher Pavel Chistyakov.

The rest of the time was given to visits to drama theaters, musical concerts, and passion for Italian opera.
The painting From the Banks of Vyatka (1901) brought European recognition to the artist. The landscape permeated with light was the result of the first period of Rylov's work. Everything accumulated and learned in the 1890s was combined here, an original creative concept of the artist arose. The epic mood of the landscape is based on a powerful and concise perception of the light and spatial environment. The view of the wide distant space opens through the close-up of the foreground - the tops of the trees. Sunlight picks out individual branches from the forest twilight, the shadows of mighty fir trees fall on the bright shore. The generalization of the artistic language is combined in the picture with an amazing constructive feeling, which gives rise to the "architectural" nature of the landscape. This painting had a happy exhibition fate - it visited several representative exhibitions at once: at the Secessions in Munich and Vienna, at the World of Art exhibition in 1902, and, finally, was acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery.
A further development of the found artistic techniques was the painting Ripples (1901). In her landscape-genre solution, the theme of the unity of man and nature, and nature, embodied in dynamic plastic forms - a river ripples under the wind, its channel bends sharply, water moves quickly, the smoke of a fire goes aside under the wind. In light saturated colors, the unity of green and blue colors is formed. Here, the decorative properties of Rylov's painting are already quite clearly manifested - in the transparency of the water, the reddish bottom shining through the blueness, the plasticity and rhythm of small waves.
Rylov's painting at that time included the motif of expanses of water blown by the wind. Picture Daredevils. Kama (1903), depicting two votyak hunters crossing a stormy river in a canoe, to some extent embodied Rylov's old childhood impressions of overcoming the wind on the river. “I loved to hold the tackle of the inflated sail and the steering oar, to rush in the boat among the swaying red waves with yellow foam. Fresh wind will burn the face, cold water will warm the hands ... "
The boat is directed diagonally against the waves, and the angle in which it is depicted enhances the sense of danger, and the shore looks too far away. The silhouette of the boat seems to bend under the pressure of the waves, its outlines are unstable, in its very contours, the sides sitting low in the water, the fragility of this vessel, its unreliability, is embodied, and this emphasizes the courage of people who decided to fight the river. And only in elastic, generalized figures, in their movements, Rylov manages to convey a sense of stability and perseverance, comparable to the elements.
The painting Daredevils undoubtedly reflected the influence of Scandinavian and Finnish painting, especially the works of Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

Even in his academic years, an important acquaintance for Rylov with the painting of the Norwegian artist Frits Thaulov took place. Exhibitions with the participation of Scandinavian and Finnish artists became a great discovery for all St. Petersburg artists. Rylov's interest in these masters was generated not only by the peculiarities of their pictorial manner, but also by their common love for northern nature. Since the beginning of the 1880s, the winter landscapes of Scandinavian and Finnish artists have become in the perception of the foreign public special symbols of the nature of the North, its severity and dissimilarity to European smoothed and urbanized nature. Northern painting attracted Rylov's constant attention and determined the essential features of his own landscape style. These landscape images allegorically embodied the northern character.
In the 1890s, a deep interest of Russian artists was formed in the North as a special world, the expressiveness of which has its own properties, its own image, the main features of which are majestic calmness, the silence of the uninhabited provinces in 1894, the travels of comrades Rylov - Roerich, Borisov, the first of the artists who visited the farthest northern regions, beyond the Arctic Circle on Novaya Zemlya.
The trips of Russian artists to the North were associated with a new choice of landscape motif, different from the Central Russian nature. The choice was largely dictated by the aesthetics of symbolism. A new figurative world was opening up in a new geographical reality.
In the 1900s, Rylov began to travel to Finland to study sketches, to paint the “solemn silence” of the forest, “in which wild rocks and stones were piled up, covered with gray and multi-colored moss”, “thundering” rivers and “quiet” lakes, the famous Imatra waterfall on the Vuoksa River, the rapids of this beautiful northern river. These were the same places that Finnish artists painted - on one of his visits, Rylov lived and worked not far from Edelfelt's house. Influenced by the winter sketches of Gallen-Kallela, Rylov himself began to paint snow. He watched the moonlit nights in the mysterious Finnish winter forest, trying to remember all the details and colors, listened to the hidden life of the forest inhabitants and, returning to the house, wrote all this from memory. But at the same time, Rylov has quite a few winter landscapes; he was more attracted to the motives of autumn and spring.
The first period of Finnish studies (1901-1903) ended with the painting Spring in Finland (1905), and the second period (1906-1908) with the painting Silent Lake (1908). These two works, different in character, became the two poles of Rylov's "Finnish" line of painting.
The stones of Finland make up a kind of wealth of this country and largely determine the picturesqueness of its nature. Stone sculpture and coloring attracted Rylov, they are depicted in a number of sketches. This theme formed the basis of one of the most poetic and expressive works of the artist - Spring in Finland. The main active force here is the sun, although northern, but strong in spring. Its brightness transforms the harsh landscape, and it turns into a cheerful area playing with colors. Cheerfully jumping through the rapids, the blue river in the lamb of foam seems to scatter ringing laughter around. Ancient cold gray stones, seemingly asleep forever, are painted with colored stripes-shadows, painted in different shades. Finnish stones at Rylov's are both picturesque and sculptural and decorative at the same time. Spots of color are interpreted as light and shadows on the stones; a bizarre, even somewhat unrealistic picture of the play of light appears, which develops into an ornament, into an asymmetric carpet pattern. Linear and planar rhythms, patterns of forms, coming from real motifs, gradually form the basis of Rylov's decorative style. The sonorous motifs of the Finnish spring were embodied in a new way in the later painting Thundering River (1917). Here the river is still the source of the characteristic spring noise, which is reflected in the name. On its shore, like sleeping gray animals, all the same eternal stones lie.
Quiet Lake is one of Rylov's best works in terms of the integrity of the emotional system. The theme that Rylov had been developing for a long time - the fusion of man and nature - found full expression in the pictorial structure of the picture. Everything here is extremely organic: the vertical format, which emphasized the trees going up, the combination of near and far plans, the place of the fisherman's figure exactly found in the composition. Evening light gives a special tone to the mood reigning in the picture.
With the generalized silhouettes of the "stage" trees, as if opening the scene, a thin pine tree, written with amazing accuracy, touching with its uneven fragile branches, makes a special impression. In this clearly built picture, the etude, wide and free manner of writing is preserved. The Silent Lake is an important result of work on Finnish landscape studies, very close in theme and mood to the landscapes of Gallen-Kalela and Bruno Liljefors. Nature, wild and majestic, primordial and mysterious, opens up to those who have retained an innate connection with it. A new type of beauty, discovered in the nature of the North - discreet, even ordinary, but natural, devoid of sweetness or narrative - is embodied in the purity of forms, restraint and majesty of the image.
The properties of Art Nouveau painting in Rylov's Finnish sketches are clearly manifested. The freedom of painting acquired by the artist is connected with them - in the very manner of painting, in the stroke, in the colorful spot and stroke (Near Perk-Yarvi, 1908).
Rylov's closeness to Scandinavian culture was deeply felt by Mikhail Nesterov, who called him the "Russian Grieg", referring to the deep musical associations in Rylov's painting, which are quite natural for an artist who had a subtle feeling for music.
“At night, I admired the quiet birches from the window, their hanging strands did not move a single leaf. Behind the river, the fisherman's light was red.

Autumn on the river Tosna. 1920

The exhibition "36 Artists", organized in Moscow in 1901, brought fresh forces from the "Spring", traveling and "World of Art". Rylov was a participant in this first exhibition, which began the history of the Union of Russian Artists, one of the most representative creative and exhibition associations of the beginning of the century. He showed her a picture of Ripples.
With the "Spring Exhibition", which had long been uninteresting to him, Rylov tied his fate for many years, considering himself obliged to help Kuindzhi. And so he rejected the offer of Apollinary Vasnetsov to participate in the second exhibition "36 Artists" in 1902. He wrote to Vasnetsov: “I must by all means participate in the “Spring” exhibition (Academic). I don't want to leave my comrades and A.I. Kuindzhi, because I love him terribly, I owe him everything. And to tell the truth, I’m not particularly interested in participating in the “Spring”, thanks to its motley random composition ...
Kuindzhi lives by the idea of ​​a spring exhibition. It costs him a lot of work. This is a place where young people can perform, and I want to help this cause as much as I can, at least sacrificing my paintings.
Almost the same thing happened with Rylov and with the World of Art. At the World of Art exhibition in 1902, Rylov showed Ryab and From the Bank of the Vyatka and was elected a full member of the society: “I wanted to go completely to the World of Art, in which only I had to exhibit as a full member of the society. But Arkhip Ivanovich came to deliberately persuade me not to change Spring. He was so excited that I gave my word, as long as he was alive, to definitely participate in the “Spring” ... After Kuindzhi left, I immediately wrote to the “World of Art” a statement renouncing the title of an active member of society. Despite the persuasion of Diaghilev and Serov, Rylov kept his word given to Kuindzhi, and since then critics of the World of Art have stopped mentioning him in articles and noticing his work. But Diaghilev himself maintained good relations with Rylov and included his Green Noise in the famous exhibition of Russian art in Paris in 1906, and as a result Rylov was elected a member of the Paris Autumn Salon.
At the same time, Kuindzhi's students were ousted from the jury at the "Spring". Some of his comrades - Purvit, Ruschits, Roerich - completely stopped exhibiting here. Rylov wrote: “No matter how hard Arkhip Ivanovich tried to raise the value of the Spring Exhibition, raise young art with prizes, artists are proud people, and you can’t lure everyone with money. The awards offended many, the artists did not want to subject their works to the qualifications of members of the Academy ... Artists began to leave the "Spring", open their own small circles ... And I exhibited in the "New Society of Artists", without leaving the "Spring". Although I really wanted to leave there ... because of quarrels and squabbles, ”wrote Rylov. But at the 1904 exhibition, Green Noise was discovered: “To my sincere surprise, Green Noise was noticed by critics from the World of Art and others. In a word, it made a noise that I did not expect, ”the artist recalled.
Since 1905, Rylov participated in exhibitions of the New Society of Artists, and in 1908 he began to exhibit regularly with the Union of Russian Artists, whose permanent leader was Apollinary Vasnetsov. After the death of Kuindzhi, Rylov was no longer bound by the word and could leave the Spring Exhibition. “It was necessary to go to another company, with real masters of Russian art, where you have to look up to real artists,” he wrote.
In 1910, Rylov received an invitation to enter the new World of Art, of which Roerich became chairman. But, feeling his difference from the general tone characteristic of the "World of Art", which he called "secularism", Rylov remained with the Muscovites. His works next to the paintings of Surikov, Korovin, Yuon, Krymov, Vinogradov, Stepanov were in their place. Both the plots and the manner of painting by Moscow landscape painters and genre painters were close to his understanding of painting and Russian nature. But still among them he was a Petersburger, many features of his art reflected a connection with the St. Petersburg school, with the "World of Art".
Rylov liked the very atmosphere of Moscow exhibitions - bright, colorful, with a samovar and snacks, hospitable and devoid of stiffness, very "Russian", akin to Muscovite painting itself. At the last pre-war exhibition in 1914, Rylov showed his Swans over the Kama, and the famous Moscow writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky presented the artist with poems dedicated to two of his paintings - Swans and Green Noise.
In order not to depend on the sale of paintings, Rylov in the early 1900s entered the service of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, as a clerk and assistant director of the museum. The Society at that time had a vast field of activity - an art and industrial school and art and craft workshops, in which there were more than a thousand students, an Art and Industry Museum with a permanent exhibition and auction, a print shop, an annual competition in the field of painting, sculpture and graphics with personalized awards and much more. Rylov began teaching drawing at the Society's school, and this was the beginning of his official teaching career, although he had been giving private lessons for many years, starting in the 1890s.
At the school of the Society, a coherent and friendly team of artists-teachers was formed, which was even more united with the arrival in 1906 of Roerich as director of the school.
In July 1910, when Kuindzhi died, Rylov was in Vyatka. The teacher's death took a heavy toll on him. For the rest of his life, Kuindzhi remained for Rylov a measure of actions and creativity. Together with other students, Rylov was engaged in the analysis and systematization of the artistic heritage of Kuindzhi, which had passed to the society that bore the name of the artist.
In the last years of his life, Kuindzhi had the idea of ​​creating a fundamentally new association of artists, the purpose of which would be mutual support, solidarity in the name of high ideals of creativity. Shortly before his death, Kuindzhi made a will in favor of the Society, donating to him his works, property, five hundred thousand rubles and a plot of land in the Crimea. In February 1910, the grand opening of the Society took place at the Academy of Arts.
Kuindzhi's dreams of the unity of artists were utopian. Although the Society named after A.I. Kuindzhi and fulfilled the provisions of the charter created by the artist himself - annually acquired works from exhibitions for five thousand rubles with the transfer of part of them to provincial museums, exhibitions were arranged - but real unity did not work out. The society was a club with tea parties and dinners, with drawing evenings and concert "Fridays", which were very popular in St. Petersburg. But the "lordly" environment that had developed here became alien to Kuindzhi's students, and they gradually left the Society.
Summer for Rylov, especially after he finally connected his life with St. Petersburg and teaching, gave happiness and joy to a free life. The long daylight allowed him to work as much as he wanted, in contrast to the urban autumn and winter with their dark evenings, which brought great grief to the artist.
Rylov usually spent part of the summer with his sister's family in a village three versts from Vyatka, among fields and fir forests. Since 1902, they began to live in the summer in the Voronezh province, in picturesque places near the Oskol River. At the edge of the forest, Rylov set up a summer workshop for working in the heat or in the rain - a northern hut, which, according to his drawing, was made by a local carpenter. This workshop, with its fabulous appearance, with carved decorations, is captured in the sketch Red House (1910). The workshop was opened on all sides with wide windows and doors, so that, standing at the easel, one could see both the interior of the forest and the coastal distances of the Oskol River. Having thus placed "inside" nature, Rylov got the main opportunity - to observe the life of the forest directly, without introducing noise and disharmony into it,
merge with it, become a part of it. Birds and animals in this remote land felt calm, and their habits offered a wide field for joyful discoveries. Rylov was, as they say, a naturalist - love for nature, the feeling of oneness with it was his organic property, and the artistic embodiment of what he saw was a natural continuation of this love. Owls, herons, kingfishers, corncrakes - and he especially loved birds - showed the artist their grace and dignity.
The source of deep emotional impressions for the artist was the night forest, its secrets, inner life, unknown to man, the play of moonlight in the branches, noises and rustles, fluctuating lace shadows - all this, although not directly included in his paintings, but prepared their deep imagery and symbolic subtext.
The best moments of the artist's life were associated with his travels, with trips to sketches. He was a very mobile person when it came to work. Within one year and even one summer, he could visit the Crimea and Finland, the Vyatka and Voronezh forests, the Kama and Kryukov near Moscow. The sea in Kekeneiza always remained attractive for him.
Rylov had an amazing ability to reunite with nature. Alone or in the male company of artists, near rivers and forests, he felt best, his poetic nature began to live in full force. He tirelessly wrote sketches, and then - a bathhouse, a glass of dumplings, pies of "world significance", long and exciting conversations about art.
Rylov's love for nature acquired a special form in his attitude to the animal world. Attachment to any animal gave him the opportunity not to lose touch with the natural world in the city. In his workshop, Rylov arranged a corner of a real forest with a birch and fir trees, where at different times lived squirrels, a hare, birds - dawn, warbler, snipe, bullfinch, wounded gull, jackdaws and nuthatches - a lizard and a colony of ants. All of them served as the artist's sitters and at the same time were his friends. Communicating with them, listening to their voices, he "delves into their customs and habits in the same way that he observes and experiences in nature not only its general views, landscapes, but also details: the foliage of trees, bends of trunks, grass and flowers."
In 1906, Roerich established an animal drawing class at the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and appointed Rylov as its leader. So his love for animals took on a new form. He had to pass it on to his students. Rylov taught this class until 1917, when the school was closed.
Having made an attempt to put stuffed animals for drawing, Rylov immediately abandoned this and turned to live models. The search for "sitters" in the markets and pet stores cost him a lot of work. Animals were restless sitters, but it was drawing from a moving model that gave them good skills in capturing movement in a drawing. Different animals took turns in the "animal class", which was very popular among the students.
Rylov recalled: “In the middle of the class stood a large cage, surrounded by students, intensely catching the shape and movements of a restless model with charcoal. In addition to dogs and cats, he brought cubs, and a wolf cub, a fox, a roe deer, hares, squirrels, rabbits, snakes, guinea pigs, a goat, etc., and from birds, in addition to chickens and ducks, there were eagles, owls, swans, peacocks, magnificent pheasants, cranes, crows, magpies, parrots, etc. In the spring, in good weather, horses were painted in the yard.
One of the favorite models was the monkey Manka, who lived with Rylov. One day he brought a "blue bird" to class - thanks to Maeterlinck's play, this symbol of elusive happiness was widely known at that time. It was a swamp chicken "sultanka".
Rylov jokingly referred to his teaching activity as "pedagogy" and complained in letters that it was time-consuming. “From drawings, animals, stretchers, pupils, students and sitters, extraordinary chaos is obtained in my head.”
What Rylov did in the class can be considered a very progressive and lively teaching method, new for its time. She gave significant artistic skills to students - Rylov wrote that "soon the students began to make such progress that I myself was surprised." It is interesting that the successes of the "animal" class were noted even in the press - in reviews of the reporting exhibitions of the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts.
In his work, animalistic motifs have become a characteristic feature of the landscape image. Painting Forest dwellers (1910) is a prime example of the inclusion of animals and birds in the landscape. This is done by the artist very organically, since the fragmentation of the composition and the “close-up” effect are used, thanks to which what is currently in the chosen motif gets into the field of view - paws of fir trees, squirrels, a woodpecker - everything that lives its natural life among forest thicket. From this technique, the feeling is born that we are not outside observers, but are “inside” the motive, and our presence does not interfere with the forest inhabitants. Such a maximum approximation to nature was the task of the artist. Familiar with the poetry of a close experience of nature, he wanted to convey it to the viewer in a holistic way, to find a sincere understanding from him.
Here, as in other paintings by Rylov of this period, the decorative interpretation of the landscape is very strong with an exquisite pattern of branches covering the depth of the forest space with a lace net. The decorative beginning in the painting of that time helped the artists, not only Rylov, to emphasize the beauty of the motif solely through the beauty of the painting itself. And when decorativeness was combined with a natural motif, with a fragment taken from nature itself, a special sharpness and multidimensionality of the pictorial solution arose.
Rylov's characteristic variation of his favorite motif is especially pronounced in the depiction of water birds - they have become one of the largest themes in Rylov's work since 1904. The painting of the Seagull (1910) is built as a natural study, and this allows the artist to emphasize the immediacy of the perception of birds in their natural life. The fragmentation of the motif is such that there is no horizon line in it. This gives the image a flatness, makes it deeply decorative, which is complemented by the generalization of the silhouettes of birds, the outlines of stones, and the patterned pattern of waves.
Both in Seagulls and Swans, Rylov tried to convey the state of the landscape through images of wildlife (Seagulls. Stormy Day, 1917; Seagulls. Quiet Evening, 1918; Anxious Night, 1917). The emotional content of the images varies in them, depending on the task, the anxiety and dynamics of the composition are replaced by laconicism and the utmost restraint of the artistic language of the picture.
Art Nouveau in its northern version had a strong influence on Rylov, determined the expressive properties of his works of the 1910s. Flatness and decorativeness, the power and strength of color, the selection of colors, the musicality and symbolism of linear rhythms, the system of large local color spots, given in direct combinations, without tonal transitions, the silhouette of forms, sharp angles transform the easel painting into a decorative panel. This is especially noticeable in Seagulls and Swans.
Work on the motif of swans began on the Kama in 1911 - it was there that he saw beautiful white birds - and ended with the famous painting In the Blue Space. Alexei Fedorov-Davydov drew attention to the fact that Rylov's "landscapes with seagulls are usually more contemplative, passive and lyrical, while in paintings with swans there is more of an effective, epic beginning, the development of a motive in time." Swans are free flight, enjoyment of movement, resistance to the wind in a wide expanse. The power of the pictorial solution here is much greater than in the Seagulls, which are part of the landscape - in contrast to them, the swans are a semblance of a plot, in any case, a symbolic composition.
“For several years I kept secret the idea of ​​a painting of flying swans. I saw them in nature close, over my head, on the Kama, near the village of Pyany Bor ... Huge birds in a soaring flight descended to the very water and, relatively easily crashing into the smooth surface of the river, swam towards us. Realizing the flight of swans overcoming a strong wind over the yellow waves of a wide river, Rylov created several options, but they did not satisfy him. One almost finished painting on this motif, prepared for the exhibition, was destroyed by the artist. He painted a flying swan, using a huge effigy accidentally found in a scarecrow workshop - "as if made on purpose for me," as Rylov recalled. Raising it on a block, the artist depicted different angles of the flight of birds, combining this work with his natural impressions. Thus was completed in 1914 the painting of the Swans on the Kama - it became the first in a series of many subsequent incarnations of this motif.
The romantic image of the swan has steadily entered the art of the early 20th century, as have the seagulls, the albatross, and the petrel. These are images of freedom, freedom-loving, struggle, enjoying the storm. Rylov here again shows himself as an artist deeply connected with his era, and at the same time finds his own way in the interpretation of universally significant ethical and cultural symbols.
The years of hard trials were already close. In one of his letters in 1914, Rylov wrote: "It's hard to do art now, there's only one thought in my head: war, war, war." Having received an order from the Military Museum for a battle painting dedicated to the Brusilov breakthrough near Lutsk, in September 1916 Rylov went to the southwestern front to “see the world war with his own eyes,” but the picture was not painted.
During this period, he worked a lot on orders. “All the paintings were then bought “on the vine” by newly emerging collectors. …Often they ordered topics so broad that they did not in the least restrict my creative freedom. One asked him to write gray water with ripples, the other - birches in the wind or a stormy day and seagulls.
... I willingly wrote my favorite stories and also willingly accepted payment, and especially gifts. The products were of great value: “One customer paid me thirty pounds of white flour and twenty pounds of granulated sugar for a picture of Weasel on a stump. For a large picture of a Seagull at sunset, they offered me a sazhen of firewood and a goose.
But, despite the concern for daily bread, Rylov's best works of 1915-1918 acquired a special emotional force, tension, and drama. This was expressed both in the increased color of the color, and in the laconism and rigidity of the composition (Sunset, Thundering River, Anxious Night, all - 1917; Fresh Wind, 1918 and other landscapes of Kama). Decorativeness becomes one of the means of conveying a special mood in the landscape - the patterned forms act as a strong emotional means, the dynamics of space, the music of the landscape image sound in the pattern and rhythm.
In these paintings, of course, there was a reflection of the disturbing and harsh time, although not reflected by Rylov in real images, but associatively embodied in full.
In 1915, he received a diploma from the Academy of Arts for the title of academician "for fame in the artistic field."
Before the German offensive on Petrograd, the Hermitage was preparing for evacuation along with other institutions. “During all the anxieties and unrest of the war and revolution, during the confusion, confusion and devastation under the Provisional Government, I went to the Hermitage as if to say goodbye to it. In reverent silence, I stood in front of the shrines of art, majestically looking at me after four or five centuries. The days were devoted to painting, and the evenings to music. Rylov attended concerts at the Winter Palace, at the Conservatory, listened to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. October 1917 was approaching.
The painting In the Blue Space (1918) is usually included among the first works from which the history of Soviet painting begins. Considered as a response to the events of the revolution, it was in fact the result of many years of creative searches for the artist.
The blue expanse, made up of the sky and the sea, has acquired here an extremely symbolic and at the same time decorative content. This development of the Swans theme deviated far from the previous versions. On the one hand, the motive is embodied in perfect completeness, and on the other hand, it has acquired a certain posterity, in contrast to the free pictorial interpretation and emotional structure of the former Swans. Here appeared the unambiguity of too distinct major, romantic pathos, optimism. There is almost nothing left of the plein-air range; according to the conventionality of color, the picture resembles a ceramic panel or carpet. Here Rylov reached the absolute composition of the picture and created his classic work.
The painting was successfully shown at the 1st state free exhibition of works of art in Petrograd in 1919.
Thus, the idealism inherent at that time in a considerable part of the creative intelligentsia was expressed here.
“Work was getting difficult. Thoughts are occupied only with how to eat something. From hunger, my face began to swell, my knees protruded like those of an Indian, ”the artist recalled about the revolutionary years.
An equally difficult circumstance of these years was for Rylov the impossibility of going out into nature in the summer. To make up for this, he enrolled in a "seminary" for the study of Pavlovsk, which allowed him to go there on excursions, during which, instead of visiting the palace, he eagerly painted sketches.
On the Moika, in the house of the merchant Eliseev, the House of Arts was created, where the furnishings were preserved and one could get lunch. Personal exhibitions were organized in the House of Arts, and in 1920 Rylov showed 120 of his works there. The support for the artists was the Kuindzhi Society, although, of course, not a trace remained of the capital bequeathed to Kuindzhi.
In 1925, Rylov was elected chairman of the Kuindzhi Society and remained so until 1929. All people who knew him noted Rylov's special mental warehouse, his gentleness, goodwill and openness. Rylov's character won him the respect and trust of artists.
During the New Economic Policy, concert "Fridays" were resumed, at which, appreciating the home environment of the Society, artists liked to perform. Students of the conservatory staged entire operas to the piano. There were drawing evenings several times a week. Since 1926, the Kuindzhi Society has organized exhibitions in the halls of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts or at the Academy. On the anniversary of the founding of the Society, on the second of March, the days of memory of Kuindzhi usually took place, for which his students gathered. Rylov at these meetings opened chests with sketches, sketches of the master, and all those present were immersed in the examination of small works containing searches and experiments of the great artist.
But at this time, the "Kuinjists" were subjected to strong attacks from different sides, primarily from fellow artists. Rylov wrote that many “tried to annoy and simply get rid of the hated Kuinjists, who, thanks to their old school, their literacy and understandability to the masses, “take places” everywhere, get jobs, organize exhibitions that are visited by the public, and even sell paintings on them, they teach at the Academy, at the art technical school ... In a word, everywhere these “nasty” Kuinjists beat off bread from the “young”.
Checks, commissions followed ... The Kuindzhi Society was closed, the paintings were transferred to the Russian Museum. The decree of 1932 finally unified the artistic life of the country, uniting all art societies and organizations into one Union of Soviet Artists.
An important aspect of Rylov's life in the 1920s was again pedagogical activity. The former Academy of Fine Arts has been converted into Free Art Works, as well as works written in the workshop. In his paintings, he retains the fluency of the stroke, its freedom, the fragmentation of the composition, and the broad writing. And in etudes - picturesque
workshops. They were open to everyone, no exams were required for admission, and there were no approved training programs. A group of students invited a professor of their choice, and each teacher worked according to his own system. Among the students there were a lot of random people and very few trained ones. Fifteen individual workshops concentrated all artistic trends - both "right" and "left". Among the leaders were Vladimir Tatlin, Natan Altman, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Osip Braz, Vasily Savinsky, Vasily Shukhaev, Mikhail Matyushin. The reporting exhibitions of works, which united all the workshops, were a colorful and varied spectacle, reflecting the personality of the leaders, free at that time from any external institutions.
In the autumn of 1918, at the request of a group of students, Rylov became one of the professors, the head of the workshop. He received for her the premises of the former landscape class, where twenty years ago he himself studied with Kuindzhi. It was the most wonderful possible coincidence, it was a sign.
In his many years of teaching practice, Rylov intuitively or consciously followed in the footsteps of the teacher. He tried to build his relationship with his students the way Kuindzhi once did - in an informal atmosphere of common tea parties, in conversations over a samovar, stories about painting, Rylov introduced his students to the artist's inner life.
In 1922, the system of individual workshops was replaced by a collective teaching method, Vkhutein was formed, but this did not bring order to teaching. There was a massive destruction of the system of art education that had developed before the revolution - in 1917 the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts was closed, the Stieglitz School was liquidated. The Museum of the Academy of Arts was destroyed. All this took away the satisfaction of teaching, and in 1929 Rylov left Vkhutein. “When I left the Academy for the last time, I sighed lightly, feeling free. All these endless worries, constant resentment and dissatisfaction with both oneself and one's business were left behind.
Despite all the difficulties and hardships, it is quite obvious that in the 1920s Rylov experienced a creative upsurge, expressed precisely in the landscape. He was among those who fell to keeping the landscape genre in its lyrical integrity, a genre that in the 1920s and 1930s was considered secondary, irrelevant, of little interest to a new viewer.
He wrote many repetitions and variations of his old works (Glush, 1920). In some works, he turned to Levitan traditions (Spring near Moscow, 1922). Along with the previous motifs, another line is formed by sunny landscapes of a lyrical, intimate nature, reflecting a bright, cheerful image of nature. This is not only summer nature, but also magnificent autumn landscapes (Crimson Time, 1918; Autumn on the Tosna River, 1920).
In the work of Rylov, who worked a lot directly in nature, the distinction between sketch and painting was bound to be erased.
The artist's experience made it possible to use the most advantageous features of ONE AND THE OTHER as in natural alignment, the completeness of the embodiment of the motive. Field ash (1922) - one of the best variations of the "meadow" theme - just demonstrates the unity of etude and painting established in Rylov's painting. This is a landscape in which the leading role is given to its small detail - a flower, lush umbrellas of a field mountain ash, which has the greatest plastic expressiveness. She is close to the eyes of the viewer, and the landscape, the surrounding space is equivalent to her. The scale of the colors brought to the foreground is comparable to the trees. The flowers are also distinguished by their texture, they are painted with thick paint against the background of liquid grass, and the sonority of yellow (especially in comparison with the purple color of the water) is enhanced and supported by splashes of white flowers.
Wildflowers are interpreted as an emotional key to the image of summer. The image of small details is included in the overall emotional decision - the poetry of the image unites everything. Such "grass landscapes" were masterfully painted by Shishkin.
Sun-drenched, full of light and air, as if sparkling summer landscapes in the 1920s are characteristic not only for Rylov's painting, but also for many landscape painters associated with the traditions of impressionism (Konstantin Yuon, Nikolai Krymov). In the joyful experience of nature there is that elation, significance, which takes landscapes beyond the scope of simple sketches. Their lyrical intimacy gets a wider breath, they are imbued with a special calmness and silence that stand in the midst of summer, when nature is in its prime, all drunk with the sun, as if she radiates light herself.
Having gone through the possibilities of plein airism, impressionistic and post-impressionist painting in his time, Rylov included all this in his luggage. But basically his manner was decorative, associated with the features of Art Nouveau. In the landscapes of the 1920s, he returned to the impressionistic methods of interpreting the landscape, but in close connection with the decorative generalization of the pictorial form.
His favorite landscape motif was the smooth expanse of water with the reflection of motionless trees and bushes (Mirror River, 1922; Ostrovok, 1922).
The river island appears in sunny silence as a kind of blissful land of peace and happiness. In a simple landscape, Rylov chose a motif in which to show a variety of forms of nature: the bends of the river, the patterned outlines of the banks, the color of the sand on the shallows, shrubs, grassy meadows. Just as diverse are the shapes of the trees behind the islet, and behind the trees are the green meadow, and the yellowing field, and the blue forest. In the chamber landscape, the artist embodied a large and varied spectacle. A small corner of nature became general and collective, almost a panorama of his native land.
Close to Ostrovka are the landscapes of the outskirts of Leningrad, which became Rylov's favorite places for etude work - Siverskaya, the Oredezh and Orlinka rivers, which replaced the stormy Vyatka and Kama, beloved in his youth. These forest quiet rivers became a sign of the late period - their calm waters, mirror reflections, scenes of green banks are captured in the paintings of the Forest River, In Nature and many others.
In the landscapes of the 1920s, the color scheme, the green-blue color scheme, comes from the color scheme of Green Noise and the line of paintings associated with it. This color scheme was enriched in the process of development of Rylov's creativity, it became more intense and, at the same time, pure and transparent. The colors penetrated by light acquired great sonority, a huge variety of shades. Blue and green shadows are combined with the transmission of sunlight on the leaves in white. White strokes sparkle and silver along the edges of the crowns of trees and bushes - Rylov determined for himself that daylight should be written in cold tones. Cool colors, blues and greens, become luminous and contrast with the brown earth, reddish reflections in the water.
Among this direction of landscapes, the Mouth of Orlinka (1928) and Green Lace (1928) should be considered among the most beautiful and expressive.
In the landscape of the Mouth of Orlinka, there is the same amazing variety of forms as in Ostrovka - meanders of the river, meadow and forest banks, a variety of tree forms, including patterned spruces, “swirling” forms of bushes, loved by Rylov, thin tree trunks with small crowns. The choice of motif is very important - an aesthetically meaningful choice that turns pictures of nature into synthetic landscapes. Lush cumulus clouds dominating the green world give elegance to the landscapes.
Green lace is also both intimate and picturesquely significant. The view from the forest, from the shade to the sun-drenched clearing, is like a window into light and air. In backlight, the outlines of foliage, branches, light and quivering, really look like lace. The backstage and fragmentary nature of the motif - constant signs of Rylov's style - are also present here. In a sparkling green-blue scale, transparent, sparkling white strokes, liquid written colors are compared and dense in the image of trunks or a blue forest in the background. Through a wide and transparent stroke, the canvas shines through, enriching the texture of the picture and creating a vibration of light on the surface.
The innovations and achievements of Rylov's painting in the 1920s were especially vividly embodied in the paintings Hot Day (1927) and Forest River (1929), the largest and most complex works of this period. In them, pictorial composition is the strongest. In the painting Forest River, as is often the case in his paintings, the space is limited by the backstage of the forest thicket. The forest rises like a wall, covering the hiding fast river with clumps of trees that have come close to the water. In the foreground, spruce branches with squirrels sitting on them emphasize the symmetry of the wings. The branches, as if by chance, fell into the frame, turned out to be in the face of the artist, and he connected them with a highly generalized, widely painted distant landscape. The picture from such an approximation acquired concreteness, the reality of what was seen. Rylov literally draws the viewer into this corner of the forest, into its silence, into the wilderness, where a person can be alone with nature. And this was the main thing for the artist, he did not seek to mix the world of people with the world of nature, rather he saw in it a refuge or a temple.
For each tree species, Rylov uses a special manner of conveying the Kryukovo bow, where there was a house with a red roof. I have now learned to find motives for sketches near me, and as much as I like. A whole treasure trove of compositions, you just need to find them, ”he wrote about this trip. The House with a Red Roof (1933), with its juicy emotional painting, the reception of the contrast of hot and cold tones united by sunlight, testifies to foliage, branches, crown shape, its own range even within the same green color, its own tone and ebb. The large branches depicted are decorative, patterned, their sunlit, finely written needles contrast with the generalized image of dense masses of trees, and the rhythmic pattern of waves in the center of the picture is a response to it. The effect of comparing generalized forms with ornamentally written forms creates a characteristic pictorial structure of this picture.
In the 1920s, Rylov's sense of color became more and more strong, he used bright and pure colors. In Red Reflection (1928), the green of the trees and the blue of the river are accentuated by the brown-red tones of the reflection. Rylov's colorful gamut is becoming more and more intense, burning colors create an emotional intensity of the landscape, usually depicted as a space of nature frozen in silence. An example of color richness was the Dirty Road (1928) - one of the classic motifs of the Russian lyrical landscape. Rylov managed to create his own image of a rut rutted after the rain with deep puddles in which the sky and clouds are reflected. The free use of color, the effective juxtaposition of purple, blue, pink, yellow, blue colors, the expressiveness of lighting - everything adds up to a sonorous scale that matches the mood of the picture.
Large planes of color with thinly applied paint enhance the decoratively generalized sound of color.
At the exhibition "Artists of the RSFSR for XV Years" in 1932, Rylov showed nineteen works created from 1917 to 1932, and for the first time in many years he saw the works of many of his Moscow artist friends. From this exhibition, the Tretyakov Gallery acquired his painting In Nature.
Many significant landscapes were created by Rylov in the last period of creativity - in the 1930s. Among them, the painting On the Green Banks (the first version - 1930, the second - 1938) embodies a landscape that has reached its absolute expressiveness depicting the bends of the river and contrasting its high wooded and gently sloping banks.
In 1933, for the first time in many years, Rylov managed to go to Moscow and visit old friends in the Moscow region, about how the sonority of color and decorativeness are enhanced in later works.
In the latest works, one can see how the visual perception of form by an aging artist is changing - the clarity of details disappears, generalization remains, the transfer of objects in large masses, combined with liquid writing. According to the artist Pyotr Buchkin, “A.A. Rylov had good eyesight, but not very clear, not allowing him to see objects in great detail. His eyes saw in a somewhat generalized way, distinguishing common colors and their gradations in various shades.
Hence his picturesque looking... The nature of the perception of impressions from nature largely depends on the structure of the eyes, their natural qualities.
The landscape has the greatest immediacy of expressing feelings and experiences, complex, subtle, often not amenable to verbal description. At the same time, the symbolism in the landscape can act in the form of a real picture of nature, including an associative, emotional background. Rylov created landscapes, which, regardless of the will of the artist, became to some extent symbols of the era, expressing its essential moods.
The appeal to the Soviet thematic picture, which took on a universal character, is often explained by the artists' enthusiasm for a new life. But at the same time, one should not forget that in the second half of the 1920s a certain conjuncture had already taken shape, a powerful state order that controlled the artistic process, highlighting the tasks of ideological propaganda and encouraging artists who worked for a wide, mass audience. Thus, behind the “fascination” with topical themes in Soviet art of that time, there was a completely definite construction of a system of “state” culture.
Landscape painters in this system were not in the first roles. The landscape was seen as an "unprincipled" and "apolitical" art form. Rylov was very upset by the formed attitude to the landscape. The artist's right to his own theme, his own path in art - this problem has become painful for the aging artist. In one of his letters to a friend, a landscape painter, he wrote: “I don’t even want to think about societies, and about exhibitions too. Of course, neither you nor I are needed at the present time. What to do. This thought bothers me at times too. That's why I don't want to show up."
Genre elements have always been present in Rylov's painting. But the meaning and poetry of the genre motif remained on an emotional level. Fedorov-Davydov wrote that "it was not so much a deployment of a specific action as a movement and transitions of feelings ... it was always more musical and symphonic than a literary" story "".
Rylov's thematic paintings of recent years are an attempt to bridge the gap, to build a bridge to the mass audience, to the main process of Soviet artistic life. As he wrote, "I wanted to express my participation in the life of Soviet Russia more clearly in my works."
In an effort to make his work in demand, he took up an order for the painting Lenin in Razliv (1934). In a letter to Bogaevsky, he spoke about it this way: “Lenin’s theme in Razliv was ordered by the Lensoviet, and I myself invented the whole composition and the very moment. Communists love it. They did not expect such an interpretation from a landscape painter, and even from an old man. Lenin in Razliv was repeatedly repeated on orders from various museums and institutions. The picture has retained continuity in relation to Rylov's landscapes; here he is free from genre imagery techniques. It was the romantic interpretation of the theme, in which the landscape played the main role, that led to great interest in this painting.
Landscape-genre symbiosis has become a means for the artist to combine the familiar and familiar in painting with new thematic tasks. The winter landscape serves as a medium for the figure of a Red Army scout in the painting On Guard (1931), associated with the so-called "defense theme", popular in those years. The winter landscape in the paintings Tractor on Forest Works (1934) and On Guard is similar both in terms of interpretation by the general masses and in compositional construction. The artist used his favorite scenes and a sharp comparison of near and far plans. He acted in a similar way with plot and narrative elements - both the tractor loaded with logs and the border guards on horseback are immersed by the artist in a mass of spruce paws covered with snow, in a fabulous winter forest. This relieved him of the need to build a special curly composition. The pictorial elements motivatedly merge with the landscape. This decision ensured the integrity of the composition, and most importantly, allowed the artist to maintain his style.
The personal exhibition arranged by the Academy of Arts in December 1934 for the artist's sixty-fifth birthday was a considerable test for Rylov, who was not accustomed to publicity, despite all his exhibition experience. Among other artists, he felt confident, but here he had to go to the audience alone and show everything that he could create in his life. “In particular, I was afraid for sketches: it seemed to me that they were interesting only for myself as material for paintings; they are dear to me as memories of the happy moments of my life, as my conversation with nature.
Partly helped by the fact that the exhibition was held at the Academy, where he began his career. During the days of the exhibition, Rylov learned about the award of the title of Honored Art Worker to him.
It was all the more joyful to feel the love and recognition of the audience and fellow artists who came to the exhibition in Leningrad, and then in Moscow.
The exhibition revealed to him the panorama of his work, although not complete - many paintings ended up abroad, something he himself destroyed in moments of doubt.
The paintings lined up at the exhibition, contrary to chronology, starting from the works of recent years. Lenin in Razliv, of course, largely overshadowed his landscape works, attracting general attention, but on the other hand served as a moral support for the artist. After all, Rylov sincerely believed that showing his “ordinary, simple, uncomplicated” painting “in our heroic time” is not very timely.
Green noise with sketches was singled out as the main picture. The rest of the works were united among themselves “according to the types of hobbies”: pictures of the forest, “craze for stormy water”, “craze for white birds”, “night motifs”, “sparkling sunny day with white clouds”. Despite the confusion of chronology, Rylov liked this hanging.
In the winter of 1934-1935, Rylov lived, in his words, "in complete triumph." In January 1935, in the former School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts on the Moika, which now housed the Leningrad branch of the Union of Artists, he was honored - a "Russian feast", as he called it.
Among the last landscapes of the artist, the painting “Evening Silence” was a great success - it surprisingly accurately conveys the time of day, the state of nature, the nature of the lighting, embodied the infinitely touching image of a quiet forest, such peace and silence that only the brushes of a harmonious artist are subject to. Love for the world around him is inexhaustible - for every branch and bush, for every sunspot on a pine trunk, as well as confidence in the eternity of these pines and firs, this high blue sky and clouds - and in his own eternity, even if you have to dissolve in it sunny space. In recent years, only a person who lived his life with dignity and was convinced of his values, ineradicably kind and open to the world, could write like that.

A provincial young man who conquered the exquisitely artistic St. Petersburg and richly picturesque Moscow with his folklore brilliance, realistic and at the same time subtle landscapes, who earned the title of academician and the first proclaimed Soviet king of landscape for the creation of his famous painting “In the blue expanse”, recognized in Paris and Vienna and without a doubt famous in his homeland. And that's all - Arkady Alexandrovich Rylov.

In his art, the artist Rylov was in tune with the times. His work refuted the concept of the landscape as a secondary genre, less capacious than a portrait or painting. He strove to paint landscapes - paintings, to create a monumental, romantically disturbed image of his native nature and expressed in the abandoned landscapes the feelings and aspirations of his era.

He was born not far from Vyatka itself, in the Istobensky village of the Kirov region, on January 29, 1870. The artist's father, an official of the county province, had a penchant for drawing and painting. Often painted in watercolor. These non-preserved amateur painting classes were the first meeting of the boy Arkady with art. But still, the father could not further influence the artistic inclinations of the children. When Arkady Alexandrovich was not even six years old, his father fell seriously ill with a nervous breakdown and lost his mind. The psychiatric hospital in Kazan, where the boy's mother placed her husband, became a second home. The father died a short time later.

The mother very soon introduced the children, the artist had an older sister and two younger brothers, with a new stepfather, a former St. Petersburg resident Alexander Yegorovich Witt, who holds the position of a notary in Vyatka. It is interesting that both the native and non-native fathers of the artist did not draw badly at all - the latter in every possible way encouraged the bold creative thoughts of his adopted son and his passion for art, which arose at a very early age. The family lived together and, until the age of eighteen, Arkady Alexandrovich Rylov did not leave his hometown.

In adolescence, Arkady Alexandrovich and his brother built a boat for themselves and often spent time on the river, going far upstream, sometimes making a fascinating and long journey. Amazing landscapes, pine forests, high banks of the modest and enchanting Great Russian Nature - all this took shape, like a mosaic, in the artist's thinking, into a general picture, into a general plot. He could silently observe the picturesque beauty from the water for hours. The amazing and vibrant colors of the landscape amazed, captured and pushed him to creativity at first sight. How I would like, probably, to linger for a moment in this natural serenity and capture the beauty of places in my memory.

Subsequently, the artist admitted that these travels, life among pristine nature, spending the night by the fire had a great influence on the formation of a landscape painter in him. The flooded forest during the spring flood, the struggle with the wild storm wind, the noise of birches on the steep banks - all this experienced and felt was reflected somewhere in the subconscious, to be later embodied in painting.

From the age of eight, Rylov studied at the gymnasium and, even then, the brilliant abilities of a draftsman are manifested. For poor performance, the boy was expelled from the gymnasium, and his parents sent him to study at a real school. It should be noted that drawing was the only subject where Rylov showed brilliant success while studying at the school. In high school, Arkady meets a novice telegraph operator and a passionate lover of painting, Alexei Nikolaevich Yudin. The emerging brotherhood and friendship, later sealed by family ties (Aleksey Nikolaevich married his sister Rylova- Catherine), lasted a lifetime.

In August 1888, the stepfather was taking the young Arkady, who was accompanied by Yudin, to St. Petersburg. Yudin had to leave the telegraph service, where he received a salary of fifteen rubles. After a quiet, provincial town, where life woke up only with the ringing of bells, during festive religious processions, a couple of fairs, and a crowd of hungry prisoners on the way to Siberia, wandering under escort. Where dim and rare kerosene lanterns were lit in the evenings, you suddenly find yourself on Nevsky Prospekt, sparkling with the lights of electric and gas lanterns, with the front pavement, the clatter of hooves and the tapping of the wheels of countless carriages and carriages.

Young people enter the Central Technical School of Drawing of Baron Alexander Ludwigovich von Stieglitz and begin to work with great enthusiasm. Rylov studies with K.Ya. Kryzhitsky, at the same time studying at the school of painting at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. Without graduating from college, in 1891, he was unexpectedly drafted into the army. And here all free minutes are devoted to drawing. Having served the due term, non-commissioned officer Rylov returns to Petersburg. He is allowed to take an exam at the Academy of Arts. And in 1893 Rylov was a student of the Academy of Arts. And a year later, an old and secret dream comes true. In 1894, the “mysterious artist”, the magician of light, who conquered not only the Russian public with his art, Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, takes Rylov into his workshop, which subsequently produced many original and outstanding artists.

The irresistible power of talent, originality, brightness of nature, paternal understanding and attitude towards students conquer Rylov, he literally falls in love with a mentor, and for life.

Drawing in Kuindzhi's workshop, he meets new comrades. Close friends among them were the artists Nicholas Roerich and Konstantin Bogaevsky.

In 1895, Kuindzhi himself and his students made a Crimean campaign. It was a memorable time when they walked from Sevastopol through Bakhchisaray and Baydar gates to Simeiz. Here Arkhip Ivanovich owned two small plots of land. Young painters spent two months drawing days. During this period of time Rylov writes one of the first works: "", "", "".

In 1897, student unrest began at the Academy of Arts against the rector A.O. Tomishko. The protesters sought an apology for the insults that he had expressed against their comrade. The collection of rebels visited Kuindzhi. He convinced everyone to return to the audience. The consequence of this event was the abolition of Kuindzhi's workshop and the deprivation of the professorial title of head. In protest against the resignation of Arkhip Ivanovich, the students unanimously decided to write their theses outside the Academy. Among them was Rylov. The academy gave way to graduates. In November 1897, Rylov completed his art education with the painting "" and received the title of artist.

Kuindzhi, considering it unfair to award a trip abroad to only two of his students, at his own expense carries all of his graduates of the Academy on a traditional study tour of Germany, Austria and France.

Until the death of his teacher, Arkhip Ivanovich remained a friend to his students, a unique kind-hearted genius, magician and sorcerer of painting. Rylov it seemed impossible to do or do anything without his approval, because Kuindzhi was an excellent teacher.

The artist Bogaevsky recalled: “Kuindzhi taught his students to work carefully on sketches, to develop all the details if possible. We had to correctly convey the shape of the object, its color and relationships - everything is the same as in nature.

At the St. Petersburg exhibition of 1898, Arkady Alexandrovich introduces the public to the painting "". The work was not only bought for his Pinakothek by the collector, lover and connoisseur of painting P.M. Tretyakov, with her the artist was waiting for a fabulous success.

Rylov's summer journey through Western Europe gives him a lot of impressions, but sharpens his attentive devotion to the earth dear to the heart, to nature dear to the heart.

Already by the beginning of the 1900s, Rylov's works reached the highest pictorial authority: many of his famous paintings were exhibited at the exhibitions of the World of Art and the Union of Russian Artists; they impress, delight and attract the eye of the public with their individuality. For the summer time, he moves to his native Vyatka. Here he made many sketches, and each sketch is original, they dazzle with novelty, sudden originality, characteristic and unique motive.

The painting "" (1901) carries the beginnings of those moods with which Rylov came to Russian landscape painting as an original and original artist.

In an effort to be as close as possible to the inexhaustible source of his inspiration - to nature - Arkady Rylov visits the picturesque landscapes of the Oskol River in the Voronezh province. At the edge of the forest, next to the summer estate of his school friend A.P. Rogova, Arkady Alexandrovich built himself a workshop for work, from which a marvelous view of Oskol opened, and he could spend hours contemplating the magical nature. Rylov loved animals and was a delightful animal painter: in the artist’s studio there was a whole living corner of the forest, where four-legged and winged guests lived: birds, hares, squirrels and other forest animals. He picked them up somewhere, or bought them in the market, took care of them, nursed them, and in the spring set them free.

In 1902, Rylov was invited to the prestigious Vienna Secession in Munich. Then Munich was the second artistic capital of Europe after Paris. Rylov exhibits his painting "" (1901). And again, fate gave an unpredictable reward to the artist - the picture wins, she is awarded a gold medal. The artistic genius of the landscape is recognized not only by European countries, such as Germany and Austria, but also by Paris - a brilliant Rylova elected an honorary member of the jury of the Paris Salon with the right to exhibit their paintings without prior discussion by the jury.

Since Rylov lived rather poorly, he could hardly fit into a modest income, in order not to go around the world, he taught painting for the young offspring of aristocratic cells, and in 1902 he began service in the Society for the Encouragement of Arts as a clerk, and since 1906 as a teacher at the Drawing School of the Society. Rylov heads a special animal drawing class, opened especially for him. The director of the school, Nicholas Roerich, fully approved and sincerely trusted his colleague. To the doubts and questions that arose, Nikolai Konstantinovich answered: “As you wish, Arkasha, lead the class, it’s better for you to know ...»

His work has been closely intertwined with Finland for many years. On his first trip, in 1903, Rylov created several sketches of the Finnish forest. The artist was fascinated by the Finnish forest. He often appeared in oil painting Rylova, written with a wide brush, monumental strokes and even harshly. In 1908, Rylov wrote several more paintings - landscapes with landscapes of the Finnish forest. And always, giving the title to the picture, Rylov emphasized that he was writing not a simple forest, but “A Forest with Finnish Views”, not a simple autumn, but “Autumn in Finland”.

Wise and tall, with straight trunks, pines rise above the rocky cliffs in the painting "". The color scheme is less calm, rather heavier, - not the most life-affirming picture. The tops of the trees, presented in shades of brown and gray, touch the leaden sky swathed in angry clouds. Despite such gloomy thoughts, Rylov draws huge cold rocks in the foreground. They are not with sharp protrusions, but smoothed, like Levitan's, with an amazing natural pattern and emerald-violet coloring with moss. This image of Finland does not frighten, rather, it fascinates the devoted viewer.

And yet, in the Finnish studies of the artist there is always optimism, and in such as "" (1905), northern nature is improved in dazzling sunlight with colorful colors and sounds, the mosaic is based on a harmonious combination of natural stone with color spots, and lean tree trunks are helplessly bogged down between the stones, their branches seem like mighty wings of imaginary birds striving for freedom.

In a stream, a bright blue river broke through the stone ruins formed by lying wild boulders. Curly clouds have transformed in the sky, they are closely watching mother nature, guarding the silence of dark waters. And on the neighboring bank of the river, a radiant glade woke up from an enchanted dream and hills rose from a flat lowland. Remembering meetings with the nature of Finland, Rylov in his paintings he tries to convey wild and majestic nature, depicting rivers, trees, stones and waterfalls.

But the apogee of his inspiration was the Imatra waterfall. Until his death, the artist did not let go of his brush, working on studies of the Vuoksa River and the Imatra waterfall. In 1934, the artist remembers Imatra for the last time and paints a view of the waterfall "", but works on the sketches of his long-gone youth, animatedly drawing inspiration from the stormy stream of the immortal waterfall.

For two years, the artist created a work on " motif with birches”, and finally the longed-for day came when Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi came, not forgetting his pupils. Three of them lived in the same apartment: Rylov, Bogaevsky and Latri. Kuindzhi went first to Bogaevsky's room, and soon Arkhip Ivanovich's annoyed voice was heard, then turning into a cry: “These are not clouds, these are stones, and your stones look like pillows. Damn, this is decadence!” Arkady Alexandrovich, with bated breath, imagined his fate and was very surprised and frighteningly delighted when the teacher praised " Birch motif", which approached Bogaevsky, with general approval, was given the name" "" (1904).

And from that time on he went for a walk around the world ", glorifying the modest artist from distant Vyatka, delighting people with the cheerful noise of birches, the violent windy Russian expanse.

On the steep bank, over the multi-colored free meadows, over the boundless expanse of rivers, the curly foliage of birches was ruffled by the wind that suddenly swept in. Clouds are moving swiftly in the sky. Everything is moving, everything is in an unbridled impulse. Only majestically and smoothly the river rolls its blue cold waters. And above the free river, above the native and wide open spaces, generously filled with fresh air and the sun, a young wind playfully rustles in the green branches of birches.

He made a noise in 1906 "" and in Paris. The author was elected a full member of the Autumn Salon, which gave him the right to exhibit there without a jury. He was invited by the most authoritative associations of arts that appeared in Russia at the dawn of the 20th century, such as the World of Art. But, Rylov he remained faithful to Kuindzhi, and mostly exhibited at the Spring Exhibition, lovingly patronized by the teacher, although he was weary of the sodoms tearing it apart.

The artist of great creative temperament was constantly looking for new and original landscape motifs, conveying the infinite diversity of his native nature, striving for sharp and bold compositional and color solutions.

Many of Rylov's works are devoted to the sea and the water surface. Clear sea distances, drowning in a bluish-pink haze, brown rocks hot in the sun, washed by emerald-blue water, lazy ripples of a wave running ashore, seagulls on sandbanks - everything is inspired in the painter's paintings by a living poetic feeling.

IN " quiet lake(1908) there is a sense of peace. Looking at this amazingly harmonious canvas, you experience that incomparable bright joy that communion with nature brings.

In 1912, Rylov painted a large painting "" (1920). A topic that the artist will explore for years to come. Mighty white birds fly over the stormy, red water, against the backdrop of a cloudy sky. The artist worked painfully and for a long time on the picture, until the swans directed their flight into an unknown distance.

As early as 1910 appeared in the works Rylova and seagulls, dear to his heart. They continue to appear intermittently for two decades. Now in "" 1922, then in " Seagulls» 1933, then » 1918. One of the central canvases of Rylov's creativity "" (1918) belongs to the same time. The picture is destined to become a work expressing the era. The feeling of extraordinary vivacity is awakened by this picture depicting the flight of swans over the sea in the expanses of the blue spring sky. The major sound of this blue symphony, the freshness of the wind and the extraordinary transparency of the air, and most importantly, the feeling of boundless freedom. All this is a true feeling of the accomplished great revolution in the history of our planet.

The feeling of a new life, a flight into the boundless heights of the blue sky, a romantic, almost fabulous story. When this picture stood on easels, there was a famine in Petrograd, so the power of the artist's dream is felt more acutely. Water was freezing in the unheated workshop. He dressed like a polar explorer, in everything warm. An old bachelor, who wandered all his life to different apartments, at that time he lived completely alone in a large workshop on the 4th line of Vasilyevsky Island. He climbed the steep stairs with frosty walls to his fourth floor, with frozen hands he opened the apartment, in which it was a little warmer than on the street, and, probably, he himself looked with surprise at the major-sounding blue symphony, at the regal, dazzling white birds rushing into the boundless blue of the sky, onto the rocks illuminated by the cold rays of the northern sun.

And the point is not at all in the transmission of sunlight, not in the rocks, written with great persuasiveness, not in the boundlessness of the sea expanse and the swift flight of birds. The point is in the spiritual fullness of the mood, in that bright joy that, like the music of Mozart, fills the soul...

The picture "" is characterized by a spatial construction and a feeling of joy close to " Green noise". In "" Arkady Rylov achieved not only a distinct clarity and expressive pictorial line, but also the symbolic shades of a consonant image. The blue-green hue of the waves slowly rush one after another. They move smoothly, afraid to break on the reddish impregnable rocks of a distant uninhabited island. The cold northern sea rocks a light sailboat on the sea waves, and the harsh and majestic nature of the North welcomes a new day. White swans soar over the boundless blue expanse, either rising to the curly clouds, or descending to the endless sea. There is so much space, air, light and an irresistible desire for boundless space in the picture that a fresh breath of wind seems to be felt. The harmonious rhythm of the movement and life-affirming coloring formed a poetic song. The painting was proclaimed the first Soviet landscape, and Arkady Alexandrovich Rylov- the ancestor of Soviet landscape painting.

Since 1920, Rylov was appointed to the position of professor at the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops (Vkhutemas), created during the reorganization of the system of art education. Back in November 1918, Rylov had to gather strength and adapt to new realities. In solidarity with the students, Arkady Alexandrovich worked on the design of posters with revolutionary appeals and banners. The atmosphere in Vkhutemas, where Petrov-Vodkin ruled authoritarian rule, internal affairs and interests, was quite alarming. Kuindzhiev's pedagogical teaching methods did not function here - the student "material" turned out to be too raw.

After leaving Vkhutemas, Rylov breathed a sigh of relief - he yearned for great artistic work and his own identity. And certainly plunged into it with his head. Arkady Alexandrovich works more on field studies, however, they show a slightly different temperament than before. From under his brush comes a lot of beautiful landscapes. This is a small-sized painting with its own mood, interesting composition and pictorial solution: “ field rowan

Canvas on cardboard, oil. 50 x 38

A small canvas "" was first presented at the "Exhibition of paintings by sixteen artists" in Leningrad, held in 1924, and immediately attracted undoubted success. Rylov. The picture surprises with its small size and "trifle" theme. It can be assumed that this is a study, although in fact it is a full-fledged oil painting, which includes an uncountable amount of easily digestible share of generalized details with details. This determines the main features of the artist's work. Inspired by Levitan's painting, Arkady Rylov shows the splendor and diversity of nature, reveals spiritual emotionality, subtle poetry and genuine realism. He is not too keen on finding "big" ideas. His horizons covered everything to the smallest detail.

Backlighting with emerald, blue, even ultramarine shadows becomes a favorite. It is felt that the artist is looking for peace, that he is happy in communion with nature. The most significant work of this time can be considered the work "". Simplified forms and decorative color solutions become dominant in this thing. Old favorites appear - squirrels, funny, cute animals.

This decorative and ornamental canvas completes the series of his blue-green canvases, created in the 1920s. It is undoubtedly related to forest dwellers”, but, in comparison with them, it is more clearly calibrated in terms of composition. The artist builds the composition according to the theatrical principle: in the foreground, the branches are enlivened by the figurines of squirrels, bringing them, as it were, to the forefront. The branches themselves play the role of opening theatrical backstage, behind which the viewer's gaze is taken to an unusually cozy corner of the forest landscape - with rippled water, in which clouds are reflected, and with steep untouched sides solemnly rising along its banks.

The beginning of the 1930s was marked in the history of art by a sharp turn towards realism. Restoration on a new, realistic basis of the art school. Captivated by new perspectives, feeling attention to his work, Rylov begins to work again on large thematic paintings. Along with a number of beautiful sketches, where the artist, in love with nature, is still lyrical and bright, he writes such things as "". A man with a car came to the winter fabulous Berendey forest. This mechanism, gnashing with steel jaws, explodes the virgin silence of the forest, it invades the world of the sun and white, dazzling snows. His movements are inevitable, like the movement of life towards new horizons with new songs.

1934 brought great joy to the artist. His own exhibition is arranged. The first exhibition was met with great enthusiasm by the audience in St. Petersburg, and then the loyalty of the old master was appreciated in Moscow. The most significant picture of the exhibition is the picture of the "revolutionary" theme "" (1934). Both in the landscape and in the dynamic figure of the leader one can feel the excitement, anxiety, tension of the moment. Disturbing clouds rush from the west, gaps blaze with fire, a strong wind bends trees, and, as if resisting this anxiety of the colors of the sky, this humility of trees, a person rushed forward, towards the wind, towards an unknown future with a firm determination to win in the name of the cause to which life is given .

A. A. Rylov entered the history of Russian painting primarily as the author of two famous landscapes - "Green Noise" and "In the Blue Space", although he left a legacy of a large and very high artistic level.

Rylov was born on the way, when his parents were going to Vyatka. To this city, where the future artist grew up, to the surrounding nature, Rylov dedicated wonderful pages of his memories to his childhood.

In 1888, he came to St. Petersburg and, on the advice of his relatives, entered the CUTR. At the same time, he studied at the Drawing School at the OPH. In the midst of hard work, Rylov was unexpectedly drafted into the army. After serving his term, he returned to St. Petersburg.

In 1893, Rylov entered the Academy of Arts, and a year later he was invited to his studio by A. I. Kuindzhi, whose training had long been a cherished dream of a young artist.

Rylov in the full sense of the word can be considered a student and follower of Kuindzhi. They are surprisingly close in the nature of artistic talent. Rylov forever retained his attachment to romantically elevated and generalizing, holistic images, lighting effects, and a decorative understanding of color, but at the same time he strictly followed the teacher's precept to work in nature as much as possible. "Kuindzhievskaya" - romantic, dynamic, with a blaze of a night fire - was Rylov's diploma painting "The evil Tatars came running" (1897). The artist himself was annoyed later: why did he turn to such a "crackling" plot and not take "a modest Russian landscape, familiar nature"?

By the beginning of the 1900s. Rylov's skill reached maturity. In 1904 "Green Noise" appeared. The artist worked on the painting for two years, painting it in the studio, using the experience of observing nature and a lot of sketches made in the vicinity of Vyatka and St. Petersburg.

Contemporaries were struck by the young, joyful feeling that pervaded the landscape. This is an image of an eternally triumphant, ever-changing life, when one moment quickly replaces another and they are all equally beautiful. Color is based on a combination of saturated color relationships. A dynamic spatial solution is the opposition of a very close foreground and the boundless distance that opens behind it.

The same joyful feeling and a similar spatial construction - in the painting "In the Blue Space" (1918). It depicts a windy spring morning over a surging sea, streams of the golden rays of the rising sun, white swans flying home, the earth with the remnants of falling snow, and a light sailing ship rushing towards the sun's rays. This image, full of faith in vitality, was later used for ideological purposes. The picture was declared the first Soviet landscape, and Rylova - the founder of Soviet landscape painting.

But he also had landscapes with a different mood - for example, "Wilderness" (1920). A swamp with black water fills the entire foreground, and behind it is a gloomy, disturbing forest.

True, the artist has much more life-affirming works: "Hot Day", "Field Rowan", "Island" (all 1922), "Birch Grove" (1923), "Old Spruces by the River" (1925), "Forest River" ( 1928), "House with a Red Roof" (1933), "On the Green Banks" (1938), etc.

Rylov had another rare gift - teaching. Before the revolution, he taught the "animal drawing class" at the Drawing School at the OPH, and after 1917 he taught at the Academy of Arts. His advice and guidance was appreciated not only by students, but also by venerable artists. His rare spiritual purity and love for people were equally appreciated.

In general, he loved the whole living world, and this world paid him the same. He was loved by birds and animals, and the manifestations of such love and trust aroused the surprise of those around him. In his workshop, he arranged a corner of the forest. Birds lived here without a cage - robins, wrens, kinglets, nuthatches, seagulls, oystercatchers... He bought them in the market or picked them up somewhere, sick and weakened, nursed them, fed them, and set them free in the spring. There were also two anthills. Rylov also had hares, squirrels, Manka the monkey and other animals. Many shy animals and birds were not afraid of him, they came and flew to his summer forest workshop without fear. "Nature releases Rylovs very, very sparingly," wrote the artist's friend M. V. Nesterov after the sad news of his death.

Thundering river. 1917. Oil


Green noise. 1904. Oil


In blue space. 1918. Oil


Self-portrait. 1939. Graphite pencil


Field rowan. 1922. Oil