"The ABC in Pictures" by Alexandre Benois (1904)
Alexandre Benois, painter, graphic artist, theater artist, historian and art theorist, began with landscapes and worked mainly in watercolors. Since 1898, he mastered the genre of book illustration, discovering a new area of fine art. The main body of his graphic works is associated with illustrations to the works of Pushkin. In 1904, “The ABC in Pictures” was released, during the creation of which Benoit acted simultaneously as the author of the concept, and as an illustrator and designer. The artist was faced with the task of not just illustrating, but inventing the artistic design of the “ABC”.
Benoit does not depict a specific object alone, but a situation where this object plays a key role. The artist gives preference not to a portrait, but to a detailed narrative scene, with characters, and many small details. A cross-cutting character also appears in “ABC”, who, according to the author’s plan, masters the alphabet together with the child: his first portrait opens a series of illustrations, and the second completes it.
Each era in Russia offered its own type of alphabet. The Silver Age brought readers the ABC in the style of the World of Art. Benoit's exquisite graphics are still an unsurpassed example of book illustration. Each page of the ABC is an amazing, bewitching fairy-tale world.
Looking at a book evokes many associations, and when performing the traditional task for children “telling a story from a picture,” the imagination of little readers and their parents or mentors can be simply limitless. “Azbuka” received censorship permission on October 24, 1904, the production cycle for its publication took about six months. According to some information, 34 chromolithographs with gold and silver were printed in collaboration with the printing house of I. Kadushin. The book had a high retail price of 3 rubles. The circulation was 2500 copies.
Each page of "ABC" is an amazing, bewitching, fairy-tale world - a cheerful scene, full of action and characters. These scenes are imbued with the spirit of home theaters, which were not uncommon in Russia in former cozy times, with the poetry of “St. Petersburg children’s rooms,” which was noted with admiration by the writer Mikhail Kuzmin, according to whom Benoit “himself, completely, entirely in these rooms, these delights and phantasmagoria. It's very homely, local, personal..."
Once, reflecting on children's books, Benoit said that he would like to express in them “immediate passion, fun, real, unimagined feelings, sun, forest, flowers, dreams of distant and dangerous things, courageous, heroic spirit, desire for achievement, beautiful pride ". We can easily find all this on the pages of “The ABC in Pictures” sparkling with fantasy and fun...
Before the reform of Russian spelling in 1918, the letter “i” existed in the Russian language. It was used before vowels and before the letter “y” in words such as iod, history, Russian, Jerusalem.
Now, when we read pre-revolutionary texts, we sometimes need to be very careful, since the letter “i” could seriously change the meaning of the word. For example, Vladimir Dal in his famous “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” distinguished between the words “mir” and “peace”.
"mir" - "universe"<…>, our land, the globe, all people, the whole world, community, society of peasants,”
“peace” - “the absence of quarrel, hostility, disagreement, war.”
The letter “i” also appeared in the famous “ABC in Pictures” created by Alexandre Benois in 1904.
15.
BENOIT Alexander Nikolaevich. A set of postcards with the artist’s illustrations for the poem by A.S. Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman" (Publishing "Soviet Artist". Moscow. 1966)
Illustration from 1916
On the shore of desert waves
He stood there, full of great thoughts,
And he looked into the distance. Wide before him
The river rushed...
Illustration from 1903
A hundred years have passed, and the young city,
There is beauty and wonder in full countries,
From the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat
He ascended magnificently and proudly;
Where was the Finnish fisherman before?
Nature's sad stepson
Alone on the low banks
Thrown into unknown waters
Your old net, now there
Along busy shores
Slender communities crowd together
Palaces and towers; ships
A crowd from all over the world
They strive for rich marinas;
The Neva is dressed in granite;
Bridges hung over the waters;
Dark green gardens
Islands covered it...
Illustration from 1916
I love you, Petra's creation,
I love your strict, slender appearance,
Neva sovereign current,
Its coastal granite,
Your fences have a cast iron pattern,
of your thoughtful nights
Transparent twilight, moonless shine,
When I'm in my room
I write, I read without a lamp,
And the sleeping communities are clear
Deserted streets and light
Admiralty needle,
And, not letting the darkness of the night,
To golden skies
One dawn gives way to another
He hurries, giving the night half an hour.
Illustration 1903
Over darkened Petrograd
November breathed the autumn chill.
Splashing with a noisy wave
To the edges of your slender fence,
Neva was tossing around like a sick person
Restless in my bed.
It was already late and dark;
The rain beat angrily on the window,
And the wind blew, howling sadly.
At that time from the guests home
Young Evgeniy came...
Illustration 1903
Terrible day!
Neva all night
Longing for the sea against the storm,
Without overcoming their violent foolishness...
And she couldn’t bear to argue...
In the morning over its banks
There were crowds of people crowded together,
Admiring the splashes, mountains
And the foam of angry waters
Illustration 1903
And Petropol surfaced like Triton,
Waist-deep in water.
Siege! Attack! Evil waves
Like thieves, they climb into windows. Chelny
From the run the windows are smashed by the stern.
Trays under a wet veil,
Fragments of huts, logs, roofs,
Stock trade goods,
The belongings of pale poverty,
Bridges demolished by thunderstorms,
Coffins from a washed-out cemetery
Floating through the streets!
Illustration 1916
Then, on Petrova Square,
Where a new house has risen in the corner,
Where above the elevated porch
With a raised paw, as if alive,
There are two guard lions standing,
Riding a marble beast,
Without a hat, hands clasped in a cross
Sat motionless, terribly pale
Eugene….
Illustration 1916
The water has subsided and the pavement
It opened, and Evgeny is mine
He hurries, his soul sinking,
In hope, fear and longing
To the barely subdued river.
But victories are full of triumph,
The waves were still boiling angrily,
It was as if a fire was smoldering underneath them,
The foam still covered them,
And Neva was breathing heavily,
Like a horse running back from battle.
Evgeny looks: he sees a boat;
He runs to her as if he were a find;
He's calling the carrier...
Illustration 1903
And long with stormy waves
An experienced rower fought
And hide deep between their rows
Every hour with daring swimmers
The boat was ready...
Illustration 1903
What is this?...
He stopped.
I went back and came back.
He looks... he walks... he still looks.
This is the place where their house stands;
Here is the willow. There was a gate here -
Apparently they were blown away. Where is home?
And, full of gloomy care,
He keeps walking and walking around...
Illustration 1903
But my poor, poor Evgeniy...
Alas, his troubled mind
Against terrible shocks
I couldn't resist. Rebellious noise
The Neva and the winds were heard
In his ears. Terrible thoughts
Silently full, he wandered.
...He'll be out soon
Became alien. I wandered on foot all day,
And he slept on the pier; ate
In the window served in a piece.
His clothes are shabby
It tore and smoldered. Angry children
They threw stones after him.
Illustration 1903
He found himself under the pillars
Big house. On the porch
With a raised paw, as if alive,
The lions stood guard,
And right in the dark heights
Above the fenced rock
Idol with outstretched hand
Sat on a bronze horse.
Evgeny shuddered. cleared up
The thoughts in it are scary. He found out
And the place where the flood played,
Where the waves of predators crowded,
Rioting angrily around him,
And lviv, and the square, and that,
Who stood motionless
In the darkness with a copper head,
The one whose will is fatal
A city was founded under the sea...
Illustration 1903
Around the foot of the idol
The poor madman walked around
And brought wild glances
The face of the ruler of half the world.
His chest felt tight... 
Illustration 1903
And its area is empty
He runs and hears behind him -
It's like thunder roaring -
Heavy ringing galloping
Along the shaken pavement...
And, illuminated by the pale moon,
Stretching out your hand on high,
The Bronze Horseman rushes after him
On a loud galloping horse...
Illustration 1903
And all night long the poor madman
Wherever you turn your feet,
Behind him is the Bronze Horseman everywhere
He galloped with a heavy stomp.
Illustration 1903
And from the time when it happened
He should go to that square
His face showed
Confusion. To your heart
He hastily pressed his hand
As if subduing him with torment
A worn out cap,
Didn’t raise embarrassed eyes
And he walked aside.
Famous St. Petersburg painter and graphic artist, book illustrator, master of theatrical decoration, historian and art critic. The inspirer and leader of the artists' association "World of Art", he played a prominent role in the artistic life of Russia for many years. “Miriskusniki,” as the artists of this artistic movement were called, unlike traditional artistic groups, least of all aspired to become a “society of painters.”
Benois’s father is a famous St. Petersburg architect, his mother, nee Kavos, is also the daughter of an architect, the builder of the Mariinsky Theater, near whom they lived in St. Petersburg on Nikolskaya Street in the “Benois House.” Every minute of “Shura” Benoit’s life was filled with art. The first drawings are scenes from the performances we have seen. The theater is like a box at the opera and is visited every week. Theater is his god, his faith for life. The sets for the ballets and operas of Sergei Diaghilev's Russian Seasons in Paris will bring Benois European fame. “Alexandre Benois decorator” will be written on his Parisian business card. My passion for theater will affect my future work on book design. In 1894, after graduating from university, Benoit went abroad. He travels through Germany and Italy, studying the heritage of German and Italian masters, in Paris he intensively studies French culture and creates a series of his watercolors.
A.N. Benois lived a long life and saw a lot. I saw the heyday of Repin and Stasov. He was Diaghilev's teacher and colleague. He was friends with Serov. Worked with Stanislavsky, Gorky, Lunacharsky.
French and Italian by birth, Benoit is Russian by upbringing and conviction. He spoke, wrote and thought in Russian. With all his multifaceted activities, he contributed to the flourishing of national culture, introducing Russia to the art of the West and the West to the art of Russia.
In 1926, having received another interesting order for the design of a performance and preparing his first personal exhibition, Benois left for Paris, where he was forced to stay until the end of his days.
One of Benoit’s first published works in the field of book illustration is his famous “ABC in Pictures”, designed as an exquisite example of St. Petersburg graphics, strict and sophisticated. In 1904 it was printed in the best printing house at that time - the Expedition for the Procurement of State Papers. In 1990 it was reproduced in facsimile. The artist with his “ABC” made his dream come true - to give “a beautiful book to Russian children.” In it, each letter of the alphabet is dedicated to a page with an entertaining drawing in colors, whimsically combining the real with the fabulous. In “ABC” the artist achieved the complete artistic unity of the “book organism”; the drawings of each page became masterpieces of graphic art. Thanks to Benoit's illustrations, almost every page becomes a fairy tale performance
ILLUSTRATIONS
BENOIT Alexander Nikolaevich. A set of postcards with the artist’s illustrations for the poem by A.S. Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman" (Publishing "Soviet Artist". Moscow. 1966)
Illustration from 1916
On the shore of desert waves
He stood there, full of great thoughts,
And he looked into the distance. Wide before him
The river rushed...
Illustration from 1903
A hundred years have passed, and the young city,
There is beauty and wonder in full countries,
From the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat
He ascended magnificently and proudly;
Where was the Finnish fisherman before?
Nature's sad stepson
Alone on the low banks
Thrown into unknown waters
Your old net, now there
Along busy shores
Slender communities crowd together
Palaces and towers; ships
A crowd from all over the world
They strive for rich marinas;
The Neva is dressed in granite;
Bridges hung over the waters;
Dark green gardens
Islands covered it...
Illustration from 1916
I love you, Petra's creation,
I love your strict, slender appearance,
Neva sovereign current,
Its coastal granite,
Your fences have a cast iron pattern,
of your thoughtful nights
Transparent twilight, moonless shine,
When I'm in my room
I write, I read without a lamp,
And the sleeping communities are clear
Deserted streets and light
Admiralty needle,
And, not letting the darkness of the night,
To golden skies
One dawn gives way to another
He hurries, giving the night half an hour.
Illustration 1903
Over darkened Petrograd
November breathed the autumn chill.
Splashing with a noisy wave
To the edges of your slender fence,
Neva was tossing around like a sick person
Restless in my bed.
It was already late and dark;
The rain beat angrily on the window,
And the wind blew, howling sadly.
At that time from the guests home
Young Evgeniy came...
Illustration 1903
Terrible day!
Neva all night
Longing for the sea against the storm,
Without overcoming their violent foolishness...
And she couldn’t bear to argue...
In the morning over its banks
There were crowds of people crowded together,
Admiring the splashes, mountains
And the foam of angry waters
Illustration 1903
And Petropol surfaced like Triton,
Waist-deep in water.
Siege! Attack! Evil waves
Like thieves, they climb into windows. Chelny
From the run the windows are smashed by the stern.
Trays under a wet veil,
Fragments of huts, logs, roofs,
Stock trade goods,
The belongings of pale poverty,
Bridges demolished by thunderstorms,
Coffins from a washed-out cemetery
Floating through the streets!
Illustration 1916
Then, on Petrova Square,
Where a new house has risen in the corner,
Where above the elevated porch
With a raised paw, as if alive,
There are two guard lions standing,
Riding a marble beast,
Without a hat, hands clasped in a cross
Sat motionless, terribly pale
Eugene….
Illustration 1916
The water has subsided and the pavement
It opened, and Evgeny is mine
He hurries, his soul sinking,
In hope, fear and longing
To the barely subdued river.
But victories are full of triumph,
The waves were still boiling angrily,
It was as if a fire was smoldering underneath them,
The foam still covered them,
And Neva was breathing heavily,
Like a horse running back from battle.
Evgeny looks: he sees a boat;
He runs to her as if he were a find;
He's calling the carrier...
Illustration 1903
And long with stormy waves
An experienced rower fought
And hide deep between their rows
Every hour with daring swimmers
The boat was ready...
Illustration 1903
What is this?...
He stopped.
I went back and came back.
He looks... he walks... he still looks.
This is the place where their house stands;
Here is the willow. There was a gate here -
Apparently they were blown away. Where is home?
And, full of gloomy care,
He keeps walking and walking around...
Illustration 1903
But my poor, poor Evgeniy...
Alas, his troubled mind
Against terrible shocks
I couldn't resist. Rebellious noise
The Neva and the winds were heard
In his ears. Terrible thoughts
Silently full, he wandered.
...He'll be out soon
Became alien. I wandered on foot all day,
And he slept on the pier; ate
In the window served in a piece.
His clothes are shabby
It tore and smoldered. Angry children
They threw stones after him.
Illustration 1903
He found himself under the pillars
Big house. On the porch
With a raised paw, as if alive,
The lions stood guard,
And right in the dark heights
Above the fenced rock
Idol with outstretched hand
Sat on a bronze horse.
Evgeny shuddered. cleared up
The thoughts in it are scary. He found out
And the place where the flood played,
Where the waves of predators crowded,
Rioting angrily around him,
And lviv, and the square, and that,
Who stood motionless
In the darkness with a copper head,
The one whose will is fatal
A city was founded under the sea...
Illustration 1903
Around the foot of the idol
The poor madman walked around
And brought wild glances
The face of the ruler of half the world.
His chest felt tight...
Illustration 1903
And its area is empty
He runs and hears behind him -
It's like thunder roaring -
Heavy ringing galloping
Along the shaken pavement...
And, illuminated by the pale moon,
Stretching out your hand on high,
The Bronze Horseman rushes after him
On a loud galloping horse...
Illustration 1903
And all night long the poor madman
Wherever you turn your feet,
Behind him is the Bronze Horseman everywhere
He galloped with a heavy stomp.
Illustration 1903
And from the time when it happened
He should go to that square
His face showed
Confusion. To your heart
He hastily pressed his hand
As if subduing him with torment
A worn out cap,
Didn’t raise embarrassed eyes
And he walked aside.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, drawings by Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870 – 1960) were made for “The Bronze Horseman” - the best that was created in the entire history of Pushkin’s illustrations. In the drawings of A.N. Benois, the images of A.S. Pushkin’s “Petersburg Tale” are, as it were, colored by the reflections and experiences of a person at the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, it was the “modernity” of Benois’s illustrations that caught the eye of art connoisseurs at the beginning of the 20th century; it seemed to them no less essential than the artist’s inherent sense of style, understanding of Pushkin’s era and the ability to skillfully theatricalize the action, developing a series of “masterfully choreographed mise-en-scenes.”
The Bronze Horseman (read by I. Smoktunovsky)
St. Petersburg: Committee for the Popularization of Art Publications, 1923. 73, p.: color. ill., 1 l. front, (ill.). Circulation 1000 copies. Copies are numbered, the publication is printed on laid paper. In an illustrated two-color publisher's cover. 35x27 cm. The typesetting was made back in 1917 in the old orthography with a special decorative font. The edition was printed in the printing house named after Ivan Fedorov (former printing house of suppliers of the Court of His Imperial Majesty R. Golike and A. Vilborg - one of the best Russian printing houses) under the supervision of the most authoritative printer of the first quarter of the twentieth century V.I. Anisimova. The publication is made on handmade paper, made before the revolution. Filigree - “Seal of the Imperial Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture” with a double-headed eagle. A bibliophile publication that has become a work of printed and artistic art.
The publication was designed by the outstanding watercolor artist, talented art critic Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960), creator and inspirer of the famous art association “World of Art”. Contemporaries saw in the artist a living embodiment of the spirit of artistry. In his work, A. Benois is inspired by the aesthetics of French romanticism of the 18th century, the architecture of Versailles and old St. Petersburg. It is here that lies the origins of the bold revaluation of the art of the 18th century, which is one of the greatest merits of the World of Art and A. Benois personally. Of great importance in the formation of A. Benois’s artistic ideas was his passion for theater and the genre of drama, one of the clearest expressions of which was the production of works by A.S. Pushkin. The first edition of illustrations for The Bronze Horseman was created in 1903 in Rome and St. Petersburg. “The Crown of St. Petersburg Illustration”, “the most remarkable book of the Committee”, this publication was conceived by the Circle of Lovers of Russian Fine Publications: in 1903, by order! Chairman of the Circle V.A. Vereshchagina A.N. Benoit completed 33 black ink drawings, but they were rejected as “decadent.” Illustrations were purchased by S.P. Diaghilev and published them along with the poem in the magazine “World of Art! (1904. No. 1). Benoit's drawings "created a sensation and were recognized by all book experts as an ideal graphic work." In 1905, the artist, while in Versailles, reworked six of his previous illustrations and completed the frontispiece for “The Bronze Horseman” - for a publication published in 1912 by the St. Petersburg Literacy Society, and then in 1916 - for the Community of St. Evgenia. In 1916, 1921-1922, the cycle was revised for the third time and supplemented with new drawings, and in this final form it was released. The year the book was published marked 20 years since the start of work on this series. In 1917, the book was typed at the printing house of R.R. Golike and A.I. Vilborg, but the enterprise was nationalized, and the book was published only in 1923 - under the brand of the Committee for the Popularization of Art Publications.
It was printed at the State Printing House named after. Ivan Fedorov under the supervision of its director V.I. Anisimov and with the assistance of the Petrograd branch of the State Publishing House. The book included 37 drawings by Benoit: a frontispiece, 29 full-page illustrations (they accompanied each page of text on the spread), 6 black-and-white headpieces and endings, and a plot vignette on the cover. All of them, with the exception of the famous frontispiece, made for the first edition of the cycle in 1905, were created anew. Using the best of the previous drawings, Benoit reworked them, increasing the size and outlining each with a contour line. Made in ink and watercolor, the drawings imitated colored woodcuts. In the book, all images in color are reproduced by photochromolithography, black ones by zincography, and the vignette on the cover by phototype. In an effort to create a compositional harmony between the drawing and the text, the artist carefully thought out the layout of the book. He placed drawings of different sizes, shapes and proportions either horizontally or vertically, each time giving the spread visual variety.
And although the opinion of critics was not unanimous, the majority still agreed that “the illustrations for “The Bronze Horseman” complemented Pushkin’s work to such an extent that the graphics and the St. Petersburg story were an inextricable whole and are currently unthinkable without the other.” The text of “The Bronze Horseman” was first published in the poet’s final edition, without censorship distortions and according to the old spelling (from a typesetting made back in 1917, for which the publishing house had to obtain special permission). The font of the publication is stylized to resemble the font of Pushkin’s time, which completed the feeling of organic unity of all elements of the publication and formed its unique aesthetics. The introductory article to the publication was written by the famous Pushkin scholar P.E. Shchegolev. At the end of the book there was a “Information about the illustrations for “The Bronze Horseman”,” which briefly outlined the history of the creation of this graphic series. The publication was published with an illustrated cover and dust jacket. The title, the author's surname on the cover, the title page and titles, and the texts inside the book were typed in a typographic font stylized as the font of Pushkin's era. The circulation included registered and numbered copies.
Most of the edition was printed on yellowish paper, the rest on white paper with a watermark depicting a double-headed eagle, with the inscription around it: “Print by Imi. Academician painting, sculpture and architecture." The publication was sold quite expensively - 15 rubles. The significance of Benoit's illustrations for The Bronze Horseman is far from being limited to their purely graphic quality. The artist also put his life experience into this work. It is the “modernity” of Benoit’s illustrations that is no less significant in this publication than the artist’s sense of style, understanding of Pushkin’s era and the ability to skillfully theatricalize the action. In Benoit’s drawings, the images of Pushkin’s “Petersburg story” are colored by the reflections and experiences of a person at the beginning of the 20th century, which makes “The Bronze Horseman” of the KPHI a historically significant publication. The publication of “The Bronze Horseman” with illustrations by A. Benois became a landmark event in the history of publishing and book graphics.
