Lydia Brodskaya is the daughter of the largest Soviet artist Isaac Izrailevich Brodsky. This is about him in 1926 in one of his letters Ilya Repin wrote: "I. Brodsky is ours, and not only ours - of the whole world - of our time RAFAEL, in the greatest sense of this recognition. The same integrity, simplicity and persuasiveness of creativity! Oh how I love it!!! - and the more I look at him, i.e. on his latest creations, the severity of the drawing, the endurance, the higher the dignity grows - this artist by the grace of God.
In 1974, a large exhibition of works by Lidia Brodskaya opened in Chisinau.
Natalya Alekseevna's father, artist Alexei Vasiliev, responded to Brodskaya's exhibition in the city newspaper.
"Evening Chisinau"
Loyalty to the best traditions
With the exhibition of Lydia Isaakovna Brodskaya, one must begin acquaintance by first looking through the book of reviews. How many kind words of gratitude are written there for the great aesthetic pleasure delivered, how many wishes for new creative successes! The voice of the viewer is always a demanding assessment, an examination for an artist, and a well-deserved reward.
Corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, Honored Artist of the RSFSR Lidia Isaakovna Brodskaya is a well-known master of landscape painting in the country, a long-term participant in all-Union, international and academic exhibitions. Her works attract the viewer with their spontaneity, deep love for the nature of Russia. Brodskaya is a convinced realist artist, a poetic interpreter of charming landscape moods and emotions.
There are artists who today remain faithful and devoted to the traditions of the Russian landscape school, who even today, among the variety of creative aspirations, choose the seemingly well-trodden path in art, experiencing fear and fear of straying from it.
This devotion to the great traditions and artists of the past is close to me, this desire to keep her love for nature and nature, L. Brodskaya inherited not so much the handwriting or manner of the great masters as their commitment to native motives, blue expanses and distances, human paths, a stream in the forest or ringing spring drop.
The poetic traditions of Russian landscape painting by A. Savrasov, V. Polenov, I. Levitan, F. Vasiliev, I. Ostroukhov, V. Baksheev and many others were the school in which the art of Lydia Isaakovna was formed and strengthened. That is why the work of Brodskaya, so widely represented at her solo exhibition, is best to raise the program issues of our artistic practice. These questions are raised by the exhibition itself, by Brodskaya's work itself. When a conversation arises about the painting of Lidia Isaakovna, it slowly acquires the tone of a dispute about traditions, continuity, attitude to heritage ... And the deep words of the wonderful Soviet landscape painter V. Baksheev involuntarily come to mind. He said: “Continuity in art reminds me of a baton, which is very easy to drop, but difficult to pick up, sometimes impossible. In the history of world painting, this baton has been dropped more than once, sometimes irrevocably…”.
However, even in the most heated debate there was no doubt about the artist's right to turn to the advanced and progressive art of the past, to carry on the precious baton.
Brodskaya's favorite motifs are forests, deep distances, a luminous sky and lighting effects, streams in the forest and paths in rye ... Everything that we call landscape, everything that we love, admire, all this acquires a deep emotional coloring in Brodskaya the viewer has a sense of aesthetic satisfaction.
At the exhibition, small sketches from different years conquer with their sincerity and freshness of first impressions -
real artistic diaries and short stories, in which the features of Brodskaya's work are already fully revealed: her sincere love for nature.
A beam of light illuminated the clearing, lit the top of the mountain, the cloud. A rainbow lit up in the sky. A spring stream makes its way through the loose snow... Poetry of blue expanses, precise natural and color characteristics. And everywhere the main concern of the artist is to convey the mood and state of nature, a task that was set by the masters in the past, which will be set by artists in the future, because these qualities express the basis of the landscape painting, the deep and indestructible love of the people for the charm of nature.
If only to list some of the names of the best landscapes of L. Brodskaya - “Spring breathed”,
“Mowed rye, “After the rain”, “Noon”, “Away - Moscow”, “Winter in the Moscow region”, “Clear day”,
“Autumn”, “Over the Expanses of Russia”, “Thaw”, “After the Thunderstorm” - and then you already feel how much they are familiar to everyone: these are our native lands, with their, perhaps, unassuming, but amazing beauty.
But the painting "Swan Lake" can be argued. A new note suddenly bursts into the stream of the author's realistic design. It turns out that among a flock of swans, on a real, not a fabulous, lake, among real mountains, a swan princess suddenly appears. Appears, but does not fit, conflicts with the whole system of the picture. The response to Vrubel's theme hangs in the air. And you think: Brodskaya is an artist of natural painting, and not a fabulously romantic allegory.
Lydia Isaakovna is an undoubted master of compositional landscape painting. Her large canvases, and especially such as “Baikal”, “Kazbek”, “Rainbow over the Dnieper”, “Spring” and others, are whole stories about which I want to say in the words of Chernyshevsky: “... In general, a person looks at nature through the eyes of the owner, and on earth, it seems beautiful to him that with which happiness, the contentment of human life is connected ... ".
The exhibition of L.I. Brodskaya, so warmly received by the Chisinau audience, is undoubtedly a great event in the cultural life of the capital. Everyone who happened to get acquainted with the works of this artist feels a deep gratitude to the wonderful master of the brush, who sang the beauty of Russian nature with such love.
Al.Vasiliev , Honored Artist of the MSSR.
Lydia Brodskaya was the daughter of an outstanding artist (I.I. Brodsky) and the wife of another, no less outstanding, artist Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov.
Reshetnikov Fedor Pavlovich (1906 - 1988)
People's Artist of the USSR (1974), full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1953, vice-president of the Academy of Arts since 1974).
Born in Ukraine in the village of Sursko-Litovskoe in the family of an icon painter. At the age of three, he remained an orphan and was brought up in the family of his older brother Vasily, who, for the sake of his family, was forced to leave the Kiev Art School.
In the second half of the 1920s, Reshetnikov entered the art department of the workers' faculty in Moscow. Then, from 1929 to 1934, he studied at the Higher Art and Technical Institute (VKhUTEIN) - in the workshops of D. S. Moor and S. V. Gerasimov.
Mastery of graphic techniques helped Fyodor Pavlovich to become - as an artist-reporter - a member of the famous polar expeditions on the icebreakers "Sibiryakov" (1932) and "Chelyuskin" (1933-1934). Artistic reporting of these events was a significant success.
In the work of Reshetnikov, his satirical gift was clearly manifested. Fyodor Pavlovich was an outstanding cartoonist. He created a number of memorable sculptural cartoons (some of the works are in the Tretyakov Gallery).
In the field of easel painting, he is known as the author of works of the academic everyday genre.His paintings "Again deuce" and "Arrived for the holidays" have gained wide popularity.
Unfortunately, the master's paintings in the so-called "plein air" landscape remain completely unknown to the general public. This legacy in the 90s of the last century turned out to be outside Russia and settled in private collections.
The artist was engaged in pedagogical activity. He taught at the Moscow State Art Institute. V. I. Surikov (1953-1957) and the Moscow Pedagogical Institute (1956-1962).
Reshetnikov died in 1988. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow.
F. Reshetnikov. Arrived for the holidays! Oil. 1948
Reshetnikov Fedor Pavlovich People's Artist of the USSR
Of course, you know the works of this recognized master of genre painting. They became classics - “Arrived for the holidays!”, “For peace!”, “Again, a deuce”. The heroes of these and many other works of the artist are children. Bullies, dreamers, mischievous people, truth-seekers, crybabies, tireless explorers of life - they are exactly what you yourself were yesterday. And what all boys and girls are destined to be at all times.
People's Artist of the USSR, Vice-President of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, laureate of the State Prize of the USSR Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov was also once a boy. And, as he himself says, "ruffy." His biography is simple and at the same time unusual. Simple, because the fate of the artist is similar to the fate of many of his peers, who entered into life shortly after the victory of the Great October Revolution. Unusual, because it is inseparable from the amazing biography of our Motherland.
Fedor Pavlovich - guest of the "Young Artist". In a conversation with a correspondent of the magazine, he recalls his youth, talks about his work.
- Fedor Pavlovich, among your paintings dedicated to children, there is one called “From the Window”. Climbing into a chair, the baby looks out of the window. Stretches, trying to see more. What is he thinking about now?
Maybe he doesn't think about it yet. Just looking. There is a man walking over there. There is still something to be seen. What? In the next moment, he will ask himself this question. Ask the elders - they will try to explain. The boy will think and ask the following question: “What is there where it is not visible?” Then more, more ... In a word, now he will not give peace to adults. I love these kids. Here in another picture - "Boys" - I also depict such people. Only older. They climbed onto the roof, looking out for the satellite. Imagine what will happen to mothers if they find out where the guys are! And those - about their own: "Flies!" Then they will grow up completely and understand that it is time to answer the questions themselves. Then not only beyond the horizon - they will climb beyond the edge of the world.
Fyodor Pavlovich, is it true that you ran away from home as a boy?
- Escaped. I took a bunch of brushes, a bundle of paints, crackers, some clothes - and to the station. Only then I was already fifteen years old. In those days, quite an adult.
- Did you start drawing early?
- You see, what a thing. My father was a hereditary icon painter. True, I don’t remember him or my mother. I was not even three years old when they died. But I remember very well the workshop that my father built with his own hands. There my brother and I often spent time, and my nose was always in the paint. The older sister who raised us liked that the children were always at home.
But one day the house burned down. For some time we lived as people, until our elder brother Vasily took us to him. He followed in the footsteps of his father, studied at the Kiev Art College. But he left the third year - we, the kids, had to be fed. He knew how to do everything: he painted the walls, made stucco molding, painted the scenery. I have learned a lot from him. At first, I just watched. Then, | when he got older, he began to help Vasily. Washed brushes, rubbed paints. Not surprisingly, over time, I began to draw myself. I was especially good at portraits, as they said. I remember I even made money on them: some gave a piece of cake, some a handful of grain. It was handy. The brother started a family, and the time was hungry - it was 1922. And then one time I thought that I could, perhaps, feed myself.
And I left. The first time the escape failed. My brother overtook me at the station and took me home. But I firmly decided to start an independent life and the next time I was smarter. He went to a friend and did not show up anywhere for three days. And when everyone decided that Fedya was already far away, I went to the station, got into a freight train full of bagmen and left ... I wandered for about a year. My portraits turned out to be of little use to anyone, because there was a strong famine and people were thinking about something else. I drew little. But one day I ended up at the Grishino station in the Donbass. It was there that I felt like an artist for the first time.
- Please tell us more about it.
- I was attracted by the sounds of the piano, which rushed from the broken windows of a mansion. Has entered. Apart from the sofa and the broken piano, there was nothing in the house. Empty frames hung on the walls - the owner must have taken the pictures abroad. It was winter, people in outerwear walked around the halls, smoked, talked. Somehow, I realized that this is a club. One
The room was especially crowded and smoky. I went there and asked if an artist was needed. "What can you do?" - the question followed. I replied that I could draw Karl Marx. They gave me a piece of wallpaper, I had coal. Passed the exam.
I was assigned to live with one old woman - right there at the club. A stove was burning in her closet, and I immediately warmed up ... From time to time they gave new tasks - to write a slogan, then a poster, then a scenery. I soon decided that the bare walls of the club needed to be painted, and offered my services to the board. I must say that, constantly being among the workers, I have already gone through some school of political literacy. Therefore, when asked what I would paint on the walls, I blurted out: "The bond between the city and the countryside." The management reacted approvingly, as the topic was relevant.
But how to solve it? After all, I had never painted walls before, I just watched my brother work. My trick was rather impudent, but there was no turning back. He remembered what and how Vasya did, and set to work. On the central wall he wrote a "bow", on the side - the figures of a worker with an anvil and a Red Army soldier with a gun. The walls were occupied by satirical images: a bourgeois, a White Guard, a fist. Everything was executed rather primitively, although with an eye to the excellent work of Moore and Denis. But the worse thing is that before the primer, I forgot to remove the whitewash, as my brother always did. After a while, my painting began to crack. However, the club management and the audience liked her. What to do here - be proud or upset? In any case, I did not lose heart. I understood that the most important tests were yet to come.
I had to grow up to the institute. After all, my education was then two classes of elementary school. I worked for two more years. Shoemaker, painter, carpenter, descended into the mine. And, of course, he painted. In the end, I ended up at the Pobedinsky coal mine - this is not far from Moscow. What wonderful guys there were! At the mine, I joined the Komsomol. And soon, on a ticket from the Rudkom, he was sent to Moscow. At first, at the Rabfak of Arts, he received his half-received letter, mastered the basics of fine art. And only then did he enter VKHUTEIN ... By the way, both at the workers' faculty and at the institute, he went everywhere with a notebook and made many caricatures and friendly cartoons. This helped me to become a member of the famous polar voyage on the icebreaker "Sibiryakov".
- But how did you, a student, manage to get on an expedition, where you were selected from a thousand - one?
F. Reshetnikov. "... We carried the ship literally on our shoulders." Watercolor. 1932.
This is a whole story! .. That was the time of the rapid development of the Arctic. Expeditions followed one after another. The Sibiryakov campaign was scheduled for the summer of 1932. The icebreaker was supposed to fulfill the age-old dream of seafarers - to pass from Arkhangelsk to the Bering Strait in one navigation. I did not have a very good idea of the significance of this expedition, but I really wanted to visit the Arctic. To see eternal ice, polar lights, polar bears... In a word, a purely boyish thirst for something new, unknown. And I set a goal for myself: to get on the icebreaker at all costs. Twenty-five days remained before sailing, no more.
The head of the expedition was the remarkable Soviet scientist Otto Yulievich Schmidt. I knew him by sight. And then suddenly I saw it on the street. Followed. He got on the tram, and so did I. He stood a little behind, looked, remembered. Then he began to sketch it in a notebook. Schmidt was given a coin - without turning around, he handed it to me. I deliberately do not take it, I wait for him to turn around to get a better look. turned around. I did the same thing again ... I then made a friendly caricature from this sketch and carried it to show Otto Yulievich. Leonid Mukhanov - my comrade, enrolled as the secretary of the expedition - introduced me. Schmidt liked the drawing, but when he heard about my request, he immediately became cold: “There are no places. The expedition recruited a year ago.
What to do? I packed my suitcase and went to Arkhangelsk, where the Sibiryakov was being loaded. Mukhanov was simply horrified when he saw me: “Why are you?” I explained to him my adventurous plan: to hide in a secluded corner and go out somewhere in the middle of the Barents Sea, when no one would dare to throw me into the waves. Mukhanov promised to help, and we began to prepare a place in the hold and food.
But before that, I decided to take another ride on my favorite skate. Mukhanov started a conversation with one of the members of the expedition, and I, hiding behind a newspaper, stood aside and quickly made a sketch. Soon a whole gallery of friendly caricatures accumulated. We pasted the drawings on large sheets of drawing paper and hung them in the wardroom. People immediately ran up - they recognize each other, they laugh ... They sent for Schmidt. He came and also began to look at the cartoons. I was standing in the corner, neither alive nor dead, and suddenly I saw: Otto Yulievich's shoulders were shaking with laughter. "Who did it?" - asks. They showed me. Schmidt immediately recognized, frowned, his beard in a fist and left.
But then everyone was on my side. A delegation was sent to Otto Yulievich. At first he did not want to listen, but then he thought. And suddenly he asks: “How is our library?” Mukhanov immediately to the forefront: "Very big and in a terrible mess." - "Okay," says Schmidt, "I enroll you as a librarian, but you will work like everyone else." The next day the icebreaker went to sea. It was the happiest day of my life. By the way, it's my birthday.
- What did you do at Sibiryakov as an artist?
- From the very beginning, in addition to all sorts of other things, of which there were a lot, I worked on "Arctic Crocodiles". Such long paper sheets, on which drawings and friendly cartoons with playful captions are pasted. They talked about certain events from the life of the expedition. For example, in the Chukchi Sea, in the fight against heavy ice, a propeller broke on the ice-dock. First the blades, and when they were replaced with new ones, the shaft broke off. How to be? They began to blow up ice with ammonal in front of the nose of the icebreaker. When a hole was formed one and a half meters in diameter, they threw a tugboat on the hummocks and pulled it up with a winch. They blew up again and pulled up again. Sails were put on the masts from all available tarpaulins. If they approached the polynya, then a fair wind drove the ship to the next edge. The last fifty miles went fifteen days, but we got there! Meanwhile, drawings dedicated to these events appeared in the Arctic Crocodile.
There was great interest in the newspaper. We usually hang it out at night. But people still left the cabins to watch the new episode. Together, these newspapers made up a kind of chronicle of the expedition ... In parallel, other work was going on, hidden from people. I observed, made sketches, sketches, portraits. Prepared materials for future work. I have contacted them several times since.
- Fedor Pavlovich, for the trip on the Sibiryakov you were awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and you were the first among Komsomol members, students to receive this high award ...
- If we are talking about the results of the expedition, I will say this. I went to the Arctic for the exotic. But first of all, I saw people. Remarkable people who became my comrades, an example in life.
- A year later, you met with many at Chelyuskin?
- I was officially invited to the second expedition. The icebreaker was supposed to repeat the path of the Sibiryakov, but with a practical purpose: to deliver cargo to Wrangel Island, to change winterers who could not get out of there for four years. That is why there were women with children on the ship, a whole team of carpenters who were sent to build a collapsible barrack. But we didn't get to the island...
Now I understand well what Schmidt had in mind when he suddenly decided to take me on board. The hike was going to be difficult. There could be a wintering, a catastrophe could happen. Otto Yulievich saw how people react to my cartoons, and thought that a funny joke in such a dangerous business could be very useful. The Chelyuskin expedition showed that he was not mistaken.
Interviewed by V. Sidorov
The works of Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov are well known to the Soviet audience. His paintings “Again the deuce” and “Arrived for the holidays” won wide popularity for their warmth and sincerity in depicting Soviet children, a sense of modernity in describing the new way of life and relationships. Looking closely at the people depicted, the artist notices brightly individual, expressive features in each. Hence - the success of the portrait genre Reshetnikov. In his genre paintings, portraits, landscapes, the integrity of the worldview of the realist artist, his loyalty to his convictions, and ardent love for his native country are manifested. And, at the same time, an extraordinary sharpness of gaze, a sense of observation and humor allowed him to reveal the other side of his talent. Reshetnikov is one of the most prominent Soviet satirists, a master of cartoons and caricatures, working not only in the field of painting and graphics, but also the creator of wonderful sculptural works of a satirical and humorous nature.
Fedor Pavlovich Reshetnikov was born in 1906 in the village of Sursko-Litovsky, Dnepropetrovsk region. He was orphaned early and had to think about earning money from a young age. At first, he helped his older brother, who was engaged in icon painting and alfreyan business, and from the age of fourteen he began an independent working life. The young man took on any work in tin, carpentry, painting workshops. Despite all the difficulties of life, the passionate desire for art that had manifested in him since childhood did not go away. He painted while working in the mines of the Donbass and the Moscow region, designed festive demonstrations, newspapers, performances, and painted the walls of clubs. In 1926, the mining committee sent Fyodor Reshetnikov to Moscow to study.
Since that time, the years of stubborn mastery of the artist's skill began, first at the art department of the workers' faculty, and then at the graphic department of the VKhUTEIN and at the Moscow Art Institute under D. S. Moor and S. V. Gerasimov.
From the very first creative steps, the young artist's craving for search and experiment was manifested. The desire to be useful to the people, to the motherland leads him to the very thick of life. He makes sketches at the Hammer and Sickle factory, creates an anti-religious poster for the youth exhibition of 1930, at which he makes his debut with his work. Fascinated by the romance of great discoveries, in 1932 Reshetnikov set off with the expedition of the Sibiryakov icebreaker on an Arctic trip. For the first time in one navigation, an icebreaker passed the Great Northern Sea Route from West to East.
The harsh conditions of the campaign, close proximity to the participants had a huge impact on the artist. “On this expedition, I realized that I would face a serious test before the people,” Reshetnikov wrote later, “I had to report with my art in what I saw. And I saw real people devoted to their Motherland.” Such a report of the artist turned out to be his portraits of polar explorers and paintings dedicated to the historical flight of the Sibiryakov. Of considerable value were sketches made from nature during the campaign—views of ports, winter quarters, and portrait sketches. A year later, in 1933, Reshetnikov took part in the expedition of the Chelyuskin icebreaker. In the most difficult conditions of work on the Chelyuskin, and then during the drift on the ice floe, after the death of the icebreaker, the remarkable qualities of all members of the expedition appeared. An equal member of the team, Reshetnikov served as a simple sailor, and at the same time he continued to work as an artist. He designed the wall newspaper "We Will Not Surrender", raised the morale of the team with lively humorous drawings.
The most difficult Arctic expeditions, for which Reshetnikov was awarded government awards, strengthened his determination and courage, the thirst for constant search and indefatigable energy that distinguish all his further creative activity.
He continues to study, mastering new, previously unknown areas of painting. The wonderful landscape painter N. P. Krymov becomes his teacher, with whom Reshetnikov writes sketches, improving his skills as a painter. At the same time, he continued to develop the theme of the North, made illustrations, satirical drawings and caricatures for the "Crocodile", tried his hand at monumental painting.
The fighting qualities of the art of F. P. Reshetnikov, and above all his graphics, again appeared during the Great Patriotic War. The artist from the very first days of the war went into the army. Having been sent to Sevastopol as a military correspondent for the Krasny Chernomorets newspaper, he made drawings telling about the heroism of the Black Sea sailors, the defenders of Sevastopol, created posters mobilizing to fight the enemy, drew cartoons exposing the disgusting appearance of fascist thugs.
At the end of the war, he painted a small genre painting “They Got the Language” (1943), which opened a series of paintings on a children's theme, which became one of the main ones in the artist’s work throughout a significant post-war period. Lively powers of observation and mild humor characterize the unpretentious composition based on direct impressions, showing how the great events of the war years found their reflection in the minds of the children. Subsequently, he created paintings dedicated to children: “On a Visit” (1947), “Arrived for Vacation” (1948), “For Peace” (1950) and, perhaps, the most popular - “Again Deuce” (1952). This is a whole story about an unlucky student who received a deuce. The skates in his swollen briefcase, his whole embarrassingly disheveled appearance, clearly explains the reason for the bad mark. The reproachfully regretful look of the mother, the stern look of the older sister, the mischievous younger brother, the joy of the faithful Beetle greeting the owner - everything here is captured exactly, everything corresponds to the definition of the tasks of a genre painting, about which the author himself wrote: “A genre painting can be compared with a short story; that. the concreteness of the plot, the convexly outlined characters, the accuracy of the composition. The artist captures the viewer, just as the writer does with the reader. ... The picture gives only one specific moment from the life of the characters. Everything else is up to the viewer to guess.
For the paintings "Arrived on Vacation" and "For Peace" F. P. Reshetnikov was twice awarded the title of laureate of the State Prize. In 1953 he was elected a full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, in 1966 he received the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR. It would seem that Reshetnikov has found his creative path, but he does not rest on his laurels.
In 1959, Reshetnikov performed in a new genre: in the triptych "Secrets of Abstractionism" he created a kind of satirical pamphlet in painting, caustic in revealing pathos, catchy decorative. And after a while, a series of friendly cartoons appeared, executed in pencil, watercolor and even in sculpture.
Knowing his fellow artists perfectly well, drawing them repeatedly during friendly meetings, meetings, Reshetnikov managed to create grotesque portraits, sharply characteristic in gesture, facial expressions, and movements. He found a variety of compositional techniques, witty metaphors, positions, details. In caricatures of the sculptor S. T. Konenkov, artists N. N. Zhukov, A. M. Kanevsky and others, Reshetnikov combined the sharpness of the characteristics with a deep penetration into the human essence. No less witty, unusual in their plasticity, are caricatures-sculptures: Kukryniksy, A. A. Deineka. Executed with professional brilliance, these works reveal the remarkable gift of Reshetnikov the sculptor.
In sculpture, he performed compositions on Gogol's themes.
By the mid-1960s, F. P. Reshetnikov again turned to experiment. This time he was fascinated by the possibilities of using durable epoxy resins in monumental painting. The artist speaks enthusiastically about the new material and its possibilities: “The material is difficult, but it gives interesting decorative effects”; Behind these words is a firm belief in the possibilities of a creator who brings joy to people with his art, a seeker who aspires to tomorrow.
M. Kuzmina
 |
| Again a deuce. 1952 |
For lessons. 1952
Arrived for vacation. 1948 State Tretyakov Gallery
Got the language. 1943 State Zagorsk Museum
N.N. Zhukov (friendly cartoon) 1961 State Tretyakov Gallery
Morning (interior) 1950
The works of Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov are well known to the Soviet audience. His paintings “Again the deuce” and “Arrived for the holidays” won wide popularity for their warmth and sincerity in depicting Soviet children, a sense of modernity in describing the new way of life and relationships. Looking closely at the people depicted, the artist notices brightly individual, expressive features in each. Hence - the success of the portrait genre Reshetnikov. In his genre paintings, portraits, landscapes, the integrity of the worldview of the realist artist, his loyalty to his convictions, and ardent love for his native country are manifested. And, at the same time, an extraordinary sharpness of gaze, a sense of observation and humor allowed him to reveal the other side of his talent. Reshetnikov is one of the most prominent Soviet satirists, a master of cartoons and caricatures, working not only in the field of painting and graphics, but also the creator of wonderful sculptural works of a satirical and humorous nature.
Fedor Pavlovich Reshetnikov was born in 1906 in the village of Sursko-Litovsky, Dnepropetrovsk region. He was orphaned early and had to think about earning money from a young age. At first, he helped his older brother, who was engaged in icon painting and alfreyan business, and from the age of fourteen he began an independent working life. The young man took on any work in tin, carpentry, painting workshops. Despite all the difficulties of life, the passionate desire for art that had manifested in him since childhood did not go away. He painted while working in the mines of the Donbass and the Moscow region, designed festive demonstrations, newspapers, performances, and painted the walls of clubs. In 1926, the mining committee sent Fyodor Reshetnikov to Moscow to study.
Since that time, the years of stubborn mastery of the artist's skill began, first at the art department of the workers' faculty, and then at the graphic department of the VKhUTEIN and at the Moscow Art Institute under D. S. Moor and S. V. Gerasimov.
From the very first creative steps, the young artist's craving for search and experiment was manifested. The desire to be useful to the people, to the motherland leads him to the very thick of life. He makes sketches at the Hammer and Sickle factory, creates an anti-religious poster for the youth exhibition of 1930, at which he makes his debut with his work. Fascinated by the romance of great discoveries, in 1932 Reshetnikov set off with the expedition of the Sibiryakov icebreaker on an Arctic trip. For the first time in one navigation, an icebreaker passed the Great Northern Sea Route from West to East.
The harsh conditions of the campaign, close proximity to the participants had a huge impact on the artist. “On this expedition, I realized that I would face a serious test before the people,” Reshetnikov wrote later, “I had to report with my art in what I saw. And I saw real people devoted to their Motherland.” Such a report of the artist turned out to be his portraits of polar explorers and paintings dedicated to the historical flight of the Sibiryakov. Of considerable value were sketches made from nature during the campaign—views of ports, winter quarters, and portrait sketches. A year later, in 1933, Reshetnikov took part in the expedition of the Chelyuskin icebreaker. In the most difficult conditions of work on the Chelyuskin, and then during the drift on the ice floe, after the death of the icebreaker, the remarkable qualities of all members of the expedition appeared. An equal member of the team, Reshetnikov served as a simple sailor, and at the same time he continued to work as an artist. He designed the wall newspaper "We Will Not Surrender", raised the morale of the team with lively humorous drawings.
The most difficult Arctic expeditions, for which Reshetnikov was awarded government awards, strengthened his determination and courage, the thirst for constant search and indefatigable energy that distinguish all his further creative activity.
He continues to study, mastering new, previously unknown areas of painting. The wonderful landscape painter N. P. Krymov becomes his teacher, with whom Reshetnikov writes sketches, improving his skills as a painter. At the same time, he continued to develop the theme of the North, made illustrations, satirical drawings and caricatures for the "Crocodile", tried his hand at monumental painting.
The fighting qualities of the art of F. P. Reshetnikov, and above all his graphics, again appeared during the Great Patriotic War. The artist from the very first days of the war went into the army. Having been sent to Sevastopol as a military correspondent for the Krasny Chernomorets newspaper, he made drawings telling about the heroism of the Black Sea sailors, the defenders of Sevastopol, created posters mobilizing to fight the enemy, drew cartoons exposing the disgusting appearance of fascist thugs.
At the end of the war, he painted a small genre painting “They Got the Language” (1943), which opened a series of paintings on a children's theme, which became one of the main ones in the artist’s work throughout a significant post-war period. Lively powers of observation and mild humor characterize the unpretentious composition based on direct impressions, showing how the great events of the war years found their reflection in the minds of the children. Subsequently, he created paintings dedicated to children: “On a Visit” (1947), “Arrived for Vacation” (1948), “For Peace” (1950) and, perhaps, the most popular - “Again Deuce” (1952). This is a whole story about an unlucky student who received a deuce. The skates in his swollen briefcase, his whole embarrassingly disheveled appearance, clearly explains the reason for the bad mark. The reproachfully regretful look of the mother, the stern look of the older sister, the mischievous younger brother, the joy of the faithful Beetle greeting the owner - everything here is captured exactly, everything corresponds to the definition of the tasks of a genre painting, about which the author himself wrote: “A genre painting can be compared with a short story; that. the concreteness of the plot, the convexly outlined characters, the accuracy of the composition. The artist captures the viewer, just as the writer does with the reader. ... The picture gives only one specific moment from the life of the characters. Everything else is up to the viewer to guess.
For the paintings "Arrived on Vacation" and "For Peace" F. P. Reshetnikov was twice awarded the title of laureate of the State Prize. In 1953 he was elected a full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, in 1966 he received the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR. It would seem that Reshetnikov has found his creative path, but he does not rest on his laurels.
In 1959, Reshetnikov performed in a new genre: in the triptych "Secrets of Abstractionism" he created a kind of satirical pamphlet in painting, caustic in revealing pathos, catchy decorative. And after a while, a series of friendly cartoons appeared, executed in pencil, watercolor and even in sculpture.
Knowing his fellow artists perfectly well, drawing them repeatedly during friendly meetings, meetings, Reshetnikov managed to create grotesque portraits, sharply characteristic in gesture, facial expressions, and movements. He found a variety of compositional techniques, witty metaphors, positions, details. In caricatures of the sculptor S. T. Konenkov, artists N. N. Zhukov, A. M. Kanevsky and others, Reshetnikov combined the sharpness of the characteristics with a deep penetration into the human essence. No less witty, unusual in their plasticity, are caricatures-sculptures: Kukryniksy, A. A. Deineka. Executed with professional brilliance, these works reveal the remarkable gift of Reshetnikov the sculptor.
In sculpture, he performed compositions on Gogol's themes.
By the mid-1960s, F. P. Reshetnikov again turned to experiment. This time he was fascinated by the possibilities of using durable epoxy resins in monumental painting. The artist speaks enthusiastically about the new material and its possibilities: “The material is difficult, but it gives interesting decorative effects”; Behind these words is a firm belief in the possibilities of a creator who brings joy to people with his art, a seeker who aspires to tomorrow.
M. Kuzmina
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| Again a deuce. 1952 |
For lessons. 1952
Arrived for vacation. 1948 State Tretyakov Gallery
Got the language. 1943 State Zagorsk Museum
N.N. Zhukov (friendly cartoon) 1961 State Tretyakov Gallery
Morning (interior) 1950
In his student years he became famous as a master of graphic cartoons, as an artist-reporter he became a member of polar expeditions on the icebreakers Sibiryakov (1932) and Chelyuskin (1933-1934). The sketches brought in were successful, especially against the backdrop of the triumphant completion of the famous "Chelyuskin epic". Consolidating success, Fyodor Reshetnikov turned to easel painting, created a number of works in a conservative realistic manner, which were also greeted favorably by the audience and critics (“Sick O. Yu. Schmidt leaves the Chelyuskin camp”, “Captain V. I. Voronin”, “ Icebreaker "Sibiryakov" in the ice", "Rally on an ice floe", "The first galley on an ice floe", "I hear the earth!", All 1934; "The first Heroes of the Soviet Union. A. Lyapidevsky, V. Molokov, S. Levanevsky, M Vodopyanov, N. Kamanin, I. Doronin, M. Slepnev”).
During the war years, he was engaged in propaganda art, made several patriotic anti-Hitler posters mobilizing to fight the enemy, drew cartoons exposing the disgusting appearance of the Nazis (“Crimea will be Soviet” 1942).
Classical examples of Stalinist social realism were his paintings dedicated to children and the struggle for peace: “They got the “language”” (1945), “With victory” (1947), “Arrived for the holidays (1948), “For peace!” (1950), "On a visit" (1950), "Again deuce" (1952), "Letter to distant lands" (1952), "Re-examination" (1954), "Doves of the world" (1956). In these works, F. Reshetnikov perfectly conveyed the mischievous characters of the children, the life and life of Soviet schoolchildren in the 1940s and 50s.
He painted politically biased pictures: Generalissimo of the Soviet Union IV Stalin (1948). He established himself as a good portrait painter who can convey the resemblance and character of the person being portrayed (“Portrait of L. Brodskaya” 1949, “Portrait of a Student” 1957, “Boys” 1971, “Portrait of Pilot A. Lyapidevsky” 1979).
Despite certain successes and recognition of the painter, Fyodor Reshetnikov always engaged in satire with enthusiasm. Exposing "formalism" in art, he even invented a unique form of caricature triptych (Secrets of Abstractionism, 1960; all works - the Tretyakov Gallery), supplementing it with a book of the same name (1963).
Created sharp political posters aimed at criticizing the aggressive plans of NATO and the United States, imperialism, the nuclear arms race: "NATO Policy", "New Nuclear Strategy".
Surprisingly expressive and sharp are his caricatures of the masters of Soviet art (1950-1970s), graphic and sculptural - especially the latter: “A. Kibalnikov (1956), I. Grabar", "E. Kibrik", "Z. Azgur and N. Romadin "(all 1962),
Paintings by F. P. Reshetnikov are kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery (TG), the Bryansk Art Museum, private Russian and Western collections.
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