Illustrations by artists writer Leo Tolstoy. L

Bouquet of flowers, butterfly and bird. 1820

Fyodor Tolstoy artist

"... I decided to devote myself to the artists"
Everyone who was familiar with Count Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy, and he was familiar with the whole world - both the imperial family, and high society, and everything that was artistic, artistic in Russia, noted the integrity of his nature, the nobility of his soul. Everyone who saw the works of the master was captivated by the healing harmony for the soul and heart and the graceful beauty of the images of his art.

An ascetic of art and a public figure, a man of duty and honor, he impressed his contemporaries with an amazing breadth of interests and knowledge. Respect and public recognition of Tolstoy's merits sounded on the day of the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of his creative activity: “The count loved art not for honors, not for spending time, not for money. He loved art for its own sake. For fifty years, the count was a constant, energetic, always strong defender of the rights of Russian art. For fifty years he patronized without patronage, not in a lordly way, but as a comrade and elder brother.
Fyodor Tolstoy was born in the reign of Catherine II in St. Petersburg on February 10, 1783. Parents, Count Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy and his wife Elizaveta Yegorovna, could not even imagine that their son Fyodor, the tenth of their thirteen children, fate destined fame in the artistic field. The future of the young count, it seemed, was predetermined by the nobility of birth. Already at baptism, the baby was granted the rank of sergeant of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Every year he was to receive leave from the regiment until the time when, having reached the age of majority, he could begin the service.
The beginning of the reign of Paul I, which changed many destinies, changed the fate of the young Tolstoy. The decree of the emperor forbade the registration of minor nobles in the regiments. In 1798, Fedor entered the St. Petersburg Naval Cadet Noble Corps, one of the best educational institutions in Russia, and in 1802 he brilliantly graduated from it, receiving the rank of midshipman.

Of course, all these years Tolstoy painted. His sister, Nadezhda Petrovna, kept her brother's children's drawings: a funny little man made of barrels, ancient allegories, small watercolors with imitation of burnt edges of paper. In the travel diaries of midshipman Tolstoy, who visited Sweden, Denmark and Norway during training voyages along the Baltic Sea, there are memories and views of cities (View of the city of Bergen, 1801).
Once, after graduating from the Naval Corps, "jokingly," as Tolstoy recalled, he made a wax copy of a cameo with a portrait of Napoleon. The professor of mathematics Fuss, who gave lessons to the young officer, having seen this copy, advised the young man to definitely go to study at the Academy of Arts.
In 1802, Tolstoy became a freelance student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
The Academy of Arts greeted students with marble sculptures of Hercules and Flora, copies of ancient Greek statues filled its galleries. Classicism, the leading style of the early 19th century, considered antiquity to be the standard of art perfection. The Academy of Arts provided excellent training for painters and sculptors. “To study the female forms and beauties of the forms of ancient Greek statues, I went to draw from them in the antique galleries of the Academy, ... admiring the graceful beauty of the forms and postures of these excellent works of antiquity, I could not help but be carried away by them ... Admiration and admiration for the culture of antiquity remained in Tolstoy's soul all life.
The cycle of classes at the Academy of Arts, designed for years, Tolstoy mastered in a few months. Then he met Orest Kiprensky, a wonderful draftsman, in whose work the notes of romanticism sounded especially bright. His advice, help, and just communication, perhaps, not only helped Tolstoy master the classical drawing, but also imbued with the ideals of romanticism: to realize the significance of a person, regardless of his class position, and the value of individuality, a creative person who is given what is not given to an ordinary mortal, the ability to live by inspiration, "divine illumination", to create freely, not obeying the rules and norms. The desire to realize oneself, to express one's own feelings and emotions caused a surge of interest in a previously rare genre - self-portrait at the beginning of the 19th century.

Tolstoy's earliest self-portrait is dated May 29, 1804. The naval officer presented himself as a secular, graceful young man in civilian clothes - he had already completed a full course at the Academy of Arts, he was a magnificent horseman, a wonderful dancer, to whom the famous Charles Didelot predicted a brilliant artistic career; a passionate hunter to fight with rapiers, which require not only agility, but greater subtlety and the ability to guess the intentions of the enemy in the eyes and facial expressions.
The range of his interests is wide. “I felt that I was missing a lot,” Tolstoy recalled. - The corps doctrine could only deliver just a decent naval officer, and not an educated person, but I have hope. Allegory. 1796 and therefore I have used every means to get acquainted with people who differ in the sciences, and to attend public lectures. Tolstoy studied political economy, history, physics, chemistry, zoology, and archaeology. He not only read enthusiastically, but also studied literature, became a member of all literary societies. He met Ivan Krylov, Vasily Zhukovsky, Nikolai Gnedich, Nikolai Karamzin. On Sunday evenings, friends gathered at the young officer's, smart, educated, striving, like him, to be useful to their beloved fatherland. The self-portrait seems to be evidence of a turning point in fate - shortly after its creation, Tolstoy resigned.
He dreamed of serving in a cavalry guard regiment, but Emperor Alexander I, having become acquainted with the works of Tolstoy, suggested that the young man choose the activity of a sculptor, noting that there were many cavalry guards, but few talents. “This proposal most of all agreed with my attachment to the arts and with the firm rules that I had adopted, to be obliged in the service only to myself for the awards and promotions I received, and by no means with the help of patronage and patronage, for which I was too proud,” Tolstoy wrote. . For a nobleman, even civil service, with the exception of diplomatic service, was considered an ignoble occupation. The decision of Count Tolstoy to devote himself to art stunned secular society and caused a real scandal.
The young master had to overcome the indignation of society, the hostility and misunderstanding of some fellow sculptors, and many bitter moments. Without a fortune, without a service, he made a living for two years by carving models for combs and brooches from wax, and the old nurse, his only support in these difficult years, sold these models on the market.

In 1806 Tolstoy joined the Hermitage and continued to improve his skills. He was the first of the sculptors to sculpt large wax bas-reliefs on subjects from Russian and ancient history and mythology.
In a pencil self-portrait (1810), the youngest honorary member of the Academy appeared enthusiastically and diligently working. In love with the art of Ancient Greece, he was not averse to trying on the cloak of a romantic hero, ingenuously presenting his favorite Hector in his Self-Portrait with a poodle next to him.
Tolstoy's self-portraits are not so much a confession of his soul - he is not a psychologist, although he feels and experiences sincerely and passionately - but an awareness of his changing position in society, an expression of his artistic interests and heartfelt affections.
In 1810, Tolstoy married Anna Fedorovna Dudina, the daughter of a poor commerce adviser. In his memoirs, introducing his chosen one, Tolstoy wrote about the nobility of her soul, good education, and love for Russian literature. There was no formal dinner or ball that day. They ate simply what God had sent, and the youth scattered around the garden, watered the flowers, cleaned the paths, rode in a boat on the pond, and in the evening ran into the burners in a large round meadow opposite the house. How simple! And how much real pure, holy love was here! ”Tolstoy’s work organically combined that which set the tone, originated, came with translated literature - everything that made up the originality of Russian culture at the beginning of the 19th century. The images of classicism coexisted or were filled with romantic intonations. The ideals of sentimentalism - the elegance of "natural simplicity" and the tender feelings of the soul and heart - have not yet lost their charm, but a desire and even a demand for a direct depiction of the real world has already appeared.
In Self-portrait with his family (1812), a miniature formal portrait molded with delicate pink wax on a slate board, artistic values ​​acquired the unity that determined the individuality of Tolstoy's creative personality and art. The class concept of the ceremonial portrait of the 18th century, which determined the significance of a person for society and the state by his nobility, high position in society, wealth, the artist replaced with a romantic one - an affirmation of the value of a person capable of living in the world of art and in the world of feelings.
Count Fyodor Tolstoy appeared in the portrait as an artist and sculptor. His relaxed appearance is full of self-esteem. Next to him are those who are dear to him - his beloved wife Anna Fedorovna and "heavenly joy", daughter Liza. The plastic solution of the bas-relief, the flexibility of the smooth lines that outline the figures, the elegance of the folds of antique clothes through which the perfection of forms appears, the sense of harmony are born from another love of Tolstoy - ancient culture. The majestic solemnity of the bas-relief is permeated with both idyllic serenity and that share
sensibilities that connect Tolstoy's worldview with sentimentalism. Sincerity and ingenuous spontaneity (even a ceremonial portrait, a kind of result of the years lived, did not escape either his beloved Hector or plantain leaves) became an indispensable component of the future artistic images of the master.

Sixteen years later, an unexpected but fortunate combination of circumstances contributed to the appearance of another Family Portrait (1830), which became one of the best works of both the master himself and the Russian portrait of the 19th century. Tolstoy decided to master the secrets of oil painting. “In secret” and “without asking anyone for advice”, with his characteristic perseverance, he mastered a new technique for himself within a few weeks. One of the professional disputes of artists of that time - whether it is necessary to write long-range plans of perspective views or natural landscapes with the same care in drawing all the details as close ones - was also interesting to Tolstoy. To prove that it is possible to paint distant and foreground plans and all objects extremely clearly and preserve the integrity of the overall impression, he, having also mastered “perspective writing”, painted in the newly mastered technique of oil painting an enfilade of three front rooms of his house.
When the picture was completed, the artists noted that, indeed, both the rooms and the objects in them were painted with an equal measure of distinctness, but they also noticed that the rooms were empty. Tolstoy ordered a canvas of such size to be sewn to the picture on the left side so that the first room could be painted in its entire length. Near the table, under the painting by Claude Vernet, Tolstoy painted himself and his family: his wife Anna Fedorovna and daughters - Elizabeth and Maria.
The sculptor appeared in the portrait as the embodiment of will and energy. The visible embodiment of his creative activity is a sculptural composition conceived by Tolstoy as a symbol of the victory of the strength of the human spirit over the physical strength of the beast.
Tolstoy painted the portrait for a long time, with the thoroughness of a miniaturist. Lovingly and attentively peering into the appearance of his wife and daughters, he, having caught their characteristic features, presented in them eternal female images.
The count and countess in the portrait are a dialogue and unity of masculine strength and the charm of femininity, independent activity and soft stamina, firmness and sophistication. The eldest daughter Elizabeth, with languid grace, examined something miniature - a cameo or a medal, thought. The younger Maria, resting her hand on her side, looks directly at the viewer.
The Creator, Muse and daughters - the Dreamer and the Shrew - with curly heads and in identical dresses.
Solving professional problems, Tolstoy unexpectedly created a picture of his family happiness and the atmosphere of aristocracy and comfort that reigned in his house on Vasilyevsky Island.
The proportions of the small empire interiors of this house create a feeling of spaciousness and comfort. The walls of the hall, living room and bedroom are pasted over with “French papers”, as wallpaper was called at the beginning of the 19th century. Copies from ancient statues of Apollo and Venus, a chandelier-lyre that overshadows the space of the living room, reminds of the passion for art of the inhabitants of this house. In the bedroom, near the mirror on an antique pedestal, there is a terracotta bust of the god of sleep, Morpheus (1822), Tolstoy's best sculptural work. The god of sleep is represented with his eyes closed, with small wings on his head as a sign of the speed of dreams, and in a wreath of lupine flowers, to which the ancient Greeks attributed soporific properties. In 1852 Tolstoy repeated the bust of Morpheus in marble.

Daylight fills the rooms. Tolstoy is attentive to the slightest changes in light and shadows. The light falls in reflections on the floor, interspersed with shadows from the walls of the windows, and gradually fades away, not reaching the darkness hiding in the corners and behind the doors. The lyrical experience of space, the quiet life of pieces of furniture, sculpture, the coziness of the image of a woman, embroidered by the window - everything expresses the intimacy and poetry of the unhurried flow of life.
Sunday evenings, masquerades, amateur performances, which were always given on the occasion of someone's name day, gathered young writers and poets, young officers of the General Staff and guards officers. In the autumn of 1825, a masquerade was held at which three Arcadian shepherdesses performed a trio on clarinets. They were Kondraty Ryleev, Alexander Bestuzhev and composer Alexei Verstovsky. And in December, Ryleev and Bestuzhev went to Senate Square. Before the Decembrist uprising, Fyodor Glinka, the Bestuzhev brothers, Sergei Trubetskoy, Nikita and Alexander Muravyov, and Sergei Muravyov-Apostol were frequent guests in the house.
In the spread of morality, enlightenment, education, he saw the possibility of improving society and delivering the people from poverty and serfdom. In his youth, he actively participated in the activities of Masonic lodges, and later was the initiator of the creation and organizer of free schools for the children of the poor. In 1818 Tolstoy became a member of the Union of Welfare. During the secret ballot that determined the form of government in Russia, he voted for a republican form of government in Russia. Tolstoy was against any violence, therefore his ties with the Union of Welfare are weakening, and he did not take part in the further activities of the future Decembrists. “My God,” Tolstoy wrote, surviving the death and exile of friends, “how many young people ... smart, gifted, excellently educated, who truly loved their fatherland, ready to sacrifice their lives for it, who could subsequently, due to their noble qualities of soul and heart, mind and education to be zealous workers for the benefit of their native land, champions of truth and defenders of the oppressed, an unfortunate, thoughtless, unrealizable conspiracy and an obvious uprising ruined themselves forever and deprived the fatherland of servants useful to it.
Not only the noisy gaiety and intimacy of the evenings attracted Tolstoy to the house.

“If I wanted to list all the wonderful people who gathered here, then I would have to change all our then outstanding writers and artists and very many professors, musicians, actors and visiting artists,” wrote Tolstoy’s daughter Ekaterina, who left wonderful memoirs. Tolstoy's guests and friends were Zhukovsky and Gnedich, Pushkin and Bryullov, Gogol and Glinka. Poets Apollon Maikov and Yakov Polonsky, writers Alexey Pisemsky, Ivan Turgenev and the owner's cousin Leo Tolstoy read their new works. Of course, artists, sculptors, and architects also visited the house, although service relations were maintained with academic professors. A real holiday was (at the request of Tolstoy to the emperor) the return of Taras Shevchenko from exile. The house was visited by Pavel Fedotov, who was supported by Tolstoy, and Alexander Ivanov, who returned from Italy, a “passionate artist,” as Tolstoy called him, highly appreciating his painting The Appearance of Christ to the People. Tolstoy helped the talented brothers Nikanor and Grigory Chernetsov, who later became well-known landscape painters, receive an art education. He provided assistance and support to Alexei Venetsianov and his students, well-known and emerging masters, taking advantage of the opportunities that he had as vice-president of the Academy of Arts and a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists.
A tiled stove, an object of panache in the decoration of the house of that time, copies of antique statues, a portrait of Homer, a romantic painting and a lyre chandelier that moved to a new place of residence, a special lordship, airiness and silence of space - the new house of Count Tolstoy, the very air of which, as contemporaries claimed , "was imbued with an attraction to art."
In one of the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery, a small painting In the Rooms is exhibited. For sewing. The painting is not signed, not dated and is waiting for its researcher. An inscription has been preserved on the stretcher, stating that the belonging of this work to Tolstoy's brush was certified by his daughter, Ekaterina Junge. The beauty of the girl, the gracefulness of her movements, the clarity of spatial construction and the chill of space are reminiscent of the images and intonations of Tolstoy's art. Perhaps, indeed, this is a work of Tolstoy?

Anna Feodorovna died in 1835. Five years later, in 1840, Tolstoy married the daughter of an army officer, Anastasia Ivanovna Ivanova. Two more daughters appeared in the count's family - Ekaterina and Olga.
The daughters preserved in their memoirs the details of family life. It is not known, however, what the numerous letters and memoirs of Tolstoy himself kept, who was always at the center of artistic and social life, who sincerely and wrote a lot about his impressions, reflections, feelings, assessments, meetings and conversations. This can be judged from the surviving notes made by him during his first trip abroad in 1845, and this is no less than 12 volumes of 200 pages each. His wife, not wanting the details of the private life of the family to become known, burned the letters and most of the autobiographical notes.
What was the main thing in Tolstoy's life has been preserved - his drawings, medals, sculptures.
In Memory of the Coming Ages in 1810, Tolstoy began working at the St. Petersburg Mint: "... I spend time from seven in the morning until eight in the evening with other medalists in the fortress where the Mint is located." So the young sculptor entered the field of a medalist, which he will consider the main thing for himself throughout his entire creative life.
The first medal was created by Tolstoy in 1809, and he created the last one in memory of the reform of February 19, 1861 - the abolition of serfdom in Russia.
Throughout his life, Tolstoy created medals only according to his own sketches, only according to models personally molded by him, and the artistic image of his medals was always determined by the nobility and grandeur of ancient Greek sculpture.
The battle of Borodino was the first of the battles depicted in the medallions created by Tolstoy. On the evening that M.I. Kutuzov spent with his relatives before leaving for the active army, Tolstoy was the only one invited and remembered the farewell phrase of the field marshal: “I would like nothing more than to deceive Napoleon!”
In the guise of a defender of the fatherland, both the ancient ideal of a valiant warrior and the firmness of the military spirit of Russian heroes organically merged. A helmet, light armor or chain mail, a shirt to the knees - items of somewhat conventional, but immediately recognizable clothing of the Slavic army, gave the Russian warrior in bas-reliefs the appearance of a hero of Ancient Russia.
Whose sword does not break on the rock of the people's hardness! - the motto of the bas-relief of the Battle of Maly Yaroslavets (1819). The burning city changed hands eight times. After leaving Moscow, the French rushed south to retreat along the fertile lands, but the Napoleonic troops had to retreat along the already devastated Smolensk road.
“... Such a furious wave, hitting a stone rock, recedes from it, scattered into small splashes,” Tolstoy's ardent imagination created an emotional image of the battle.
Tolstoy masterfully mastered the possibilities of sculpture. With the plasticity of the human figure, its movements and gestures of the hands, the turn or tilt of the head, the composition of two or three figures, the distribution of masses, the tension of forms, he could express various and subtle shades of feelings. By varying the height of the relief, the sculptor created images that were expressively picturesque and unmistakably coped with the most difficult foreshortenings. Miniature in size (the diameter of the circle of the medallion is only 15 cm!) Graceful forms Tolstoy endowed with the majesty and monumentality of ancient Greek sculpture, having worked out the contour of each figure and the general silhouette of the sculptural group with jewelry subtlety.
The festive and solemn composition expresses the victorious movement of the Russian army in the bas-relief The first step of Emperor Alexander outside Russia in 1813 (1820). In a complex whimsical drawing, the sculptor combined the figure of Alexander I, full of strength and valor, racing on a horse, "trampling the hissing snakes of envy and malice", the personification of Wisdom and Truth, accompanying the emperor, and the soaring winged goddess of Glory, hastening after the emperor.
White relief on a blue background - a combination reminiscent of delicate Wedgwood porcelain, made the medallions exquisitely beautiful, and they turned out to be desirable in the interiors of noble mansions, leaving forever the memory of the great victory in the everyday life of Russian society.
Medallions in memory of the Patriotic War of 1812 became an event not only in Russian medal art. Tolstoy was elected an honorary member of almost all European Academies of Arts.
A gold snuffbox with diamonds - an award to the sculptor for medallions from Emperor Nicholas I - became the dowry of Maria's daughter.
In The Ancients, graceful beauty has always fascinated my eyes in 1814, while working on sketches for medallions in memory of the Patriotic War of 1812, Tolstoy begins to work on bas-reliefs, the plots of which were the events of Homer's Odysseus. The wanderings of Odysseus, one of the heroes of the Trojan War, are full of amazing adventures, but it was not fantastic miracles that attracted Tolstoy. He opted for earthly events - the return of Odysseus to his home, where his wife and son have been waiting for him for ten years.
The kings of the kingdoms neighboring Ithaca force Odysseus' wife Penelope to agree to a marriage with one of them. Penelope, the personification of female love and fidelity, promises to make her choice as soon as she finishes weaving matter for the shroud of her husband's father, old Laertes, and at night unravels everything that was woven by her during the day.
In the bas-reliefs of the Feast of the suitors of Penelope, Telemachus visiting King Menelaus, Odysseus kills the suitors of Penelope, Mercury leads the shadows of the suitors to hell, Tolstoy addresses eternal and very significant topics for him - female fidelity, filial love, male prowess, justice and the inevitability of retribution.
In Homer's poem, the suitors, violating the laws of hospitality, outrageous and ruin the house of Odysseus. The feast of the suitors of Penelope, created by Tolstoy, is the embodiment of his love and dreams - the majestic, refined, enchanting Ancient Hellas.
With virtuoso skill, on small (12 x 23.5 cm) black slate boards, the sculptor fashioned a relief with pink wax, the highest point of which rises above the plane by only five millimeters.
The sculptor turned the translucent, thinnest layer of wax into a light drapery and the palace of Odysseus with high columns, decorated with reliefs on the walls.
A few years later, antiquity again captured Tolstoy's imagination. In 1820, Tolstoy began a series of drawings for Ippolit Bogdanovich's poem of fairy tales: Dushenka is saved by a huge pike, and instead of the palaces of Ceres and Juno, Dushenka, during his wanderings, ends up with the Serpent Gorynych and Koshchei the Immortal.
The tender sentimentality of the poem echoed in Tolstoy's soul, and his pen and ink drawings presented the development of the action of Bogdanovich's poem. However, Tolstoy returned all the events to his beloved world of art of Ancient Greece.
Drawings for Dushenka, the best work of Tolstoy the illustrator, are recognized as a classic creation of Russian sketch graphics. Elastic contour drawing gives out the hand of the medalist.
In the drawing Darling admires himself in the mirror (1825) Darling is charming, feminine, and majestic. With a strong pen pressure, the artist drew frame ornaments, patterns decorating the walls and ceiling of the bedroom, flowers in vases, floor tiles and, of course, Darling herself, and with barely noticeable, light touches, a ghostly mirror world in which reflections multiply and echo.

And when the artist added a magnificent red color to the drawing, Dushenka's appearance became royally beautiful.
In contrast to this drawing, picturesque and spatial, the drawing of Dushenka, when sowing the lamp, recognizes the wife of the beautiful Cupid (1827) created by Tolstoy as if for a medal performance. The lines of columns and draperies are honed, flying in brittle folds over a crystal bed, and then falling vertically. Even flexible lines seem to be chased, creating the captivating femininity of a naked Darling and the youthful masculinity of Cupid's figure.
Among the landscape drawings of the series, the most poetic, full of almost ancient harmony of nature, people and gods, is the drawing of Oak Branches Lowering Darling, Trying in Vain to Die, to the Ground (1829). Natural and seemingly animated oak, whose rigid branch bends with difficulty, and chubby cupids, diligently bending it to the ground. One of the cupids amusingly climbs this branch, the other hangs on it, the third was unlucky - the branch broke off and he flopped to the ground. Darling, sliding off the tree, steps to the ground, and ("Oh, what a passage!" - they would have exclaimed at the beginning of the 19th century, only in French) the edge of her tunic caught on a knot of a tree. The cupids who witnessed this piquant moment clasped their hands, and the embarrassed Darling shyly straightens her clothes. Separated from Darling Cupid sadly mourns in the clouds.
Based on drawings for Dushenka, Tolstoy created engravings. A series of engravings, testifying to the high skill of Tolstoy and as an engraver, was published as a separate edition in the form of an album. The President of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, ordered that a copy of this publication be sent to the kings of Prussia, Sweden, Bavaria, Saxony, the Emperor of Austria and to many European Academies of Arts. The academies awarded Tolstoy gold medals of the first denomination, accompanied by flattering reviews. The Swedish king expressed his admiration by awarding the artist with the Commander's Cross of the North Pole Star. The Prussian king accompanied the gold medal with a letter written in his own hand.
As one of the happiest days, Tolstoy recalled December 5, 1845. On that day in Rome, retired artists of the Academy of Arts gave a gala dinner in honor of Tolstoy. In his diary, the artist wrote: “No wealth, no honors would have produced such pure and lofty joy in my soul as the warm affection of this smart, educated and ardent youth, who make up the circle of Russian artists here.”
"Is the inexpressible subject to expression?"
The glory of a subtle and elegant draftsman accompanied Tolstoy throughout his long life.
At the beginning of the 19th century, drawing was no longer perceived only as a preparatory stage of work; moreover, it has become an independent field of art. Tolstoy, one of the first masters of the early 19th century, became interested in the chamber form of art - drawing.
“... Oh, how enviable the fate of the poet! exclaimed Tolstoy. “Lucky, he can convey his feelings, the joys of the heart, the delights of the soul, the amusements of the playful boundless fantasy to others in pleasant harmonic tunes for the ear, in delightful forms for the mind!” Brush, pen, pencil became for Tolstoy an expression of his feelings, fantasies, delights. More than a thousand of his drawings are kept in museums and private collections.
Let's leaf through the master's album of drawings, an imaginary album of the artist's lifetime. There are many outline sketches in which Tolstoy knew no equal. Brilliant with the line, he was well aware of the expressive possibilities of other graphic techniques and the subtleties of the impression they make. The choice of this or that technique and artistic devices was dictated by the idea and elegant taste of Tolstoy.
Pastorals are created with gentle watercolor overflows: the serene love of shepherds and shepherdesses, a daydreaming young man with a lyre in his hands, a small whimsical pattern of tree foliage, grazing sheep and cows, a river - of course, quiet, streams - of course, murmuring, captivating sweet world of idyll.
The plot of the picture Bacchic train Silenus (1808) - bacchanalia - a symbol of the joy of being, an expression of the power of the elemental forces of nature. A light pencil drawing with sepia spots laid with a soft brush, between which the unpainted paper seems dazzling, gives rise to a sense of movement. The violent, carnal, not always decent fury of the companions of the Backhailenes, satyrs, nymphs and maenads, gods and goddesses associated with the earth, with its inexhaustible life force, appears without gross sensuality.
Zhukovsky's translations introduced Russian readers to English and German romantic poetry, to a new image of romantic poetry of the 19th century - a man of black thoughts, who is overtaken by a terrible punishment. In 1819, Tolstoy created the scene of a fantastic vision based on the ballad Warwick by the Scottish poet Robert Southey, translated by Zhukovsky. This is the only attempt in Tolstoy's work to create a work filled with an ominous mystical sense of horror.
Twenty years later, Tolstoy painted a watercolor of the Knight of the Swan sacrificing his first child (1841). But in this work, the tragedy of feelings and events was dissolved
in the tenderness of moonlight, the sparkle of playing water, the exquisite beauty of a white swan, a pink sail and the harmony of blue and turquoise colors.
Unlike the young Russian romantics, who were subdued by the rebelliousness of the spirit, Tolstoy is closer to the feeling of spiritual enlightenment and hope, the state of dreams, sadness, and expectation.
In the gouache painting At a Window on a Moonlit Night (1822), ghostly moonlight transforms the interior, making inanimate objects appear to come to life. The girl in a white dress at the Venetian window is Alexandra, the younger sister of the artist's first wife. And outside the window of a mysterious and cozy room - a bewitching infinity of the sky and a frozen solemn city. The artist made visible the feeling of languor of a romantic soul, trusting its secret dreams to the sounds and magical beauty of the night.
Tolstoy - and this is also his closeness to romanticism - was always fascinated by the new. The desire of romantics to catch the beautiful not only in antiquity, but in different times, cultures and among different peoples is close to Tolstoy, sensitive to everything that appeared in literary and artistic life, to new trends and tastes, “... studying everything that is enlightened to the best of my ability the artist needs to know, I admire in my soul the works of truly great talents, however, I went and go, not adhering to or imitating any of them in my own way ... ”he admitted.
Scenes from chivalrous times could be illustrations of chivalric novels. Tolstoy, indeed, was sensitive to the peculiarities of different eras, but, referring to them, each time he recreated in his own way the world of Greece, and the Gothic, and the Renaissance.
In the works of the mature years of the master, new images appear.
Time is omnipotent, sometimes a few years change the name and appearance of things, their nature
and fate,” noted the philosopher and poet Plato.
In Tolstoy's drawings, Saturn mows down the ancient world (1843), Saturn, having mowed down the magnificent deeds of the ancient peoples, put them in a haystack and continues to mow down our century (1844), a symbol of the inexorable passage of time appeared.
But youth and beauty do not disappear in Tolstoy's later drawings either. “To the play of Cupid, Youth indulges in fun, and Time falls asleep” - the unhurried rhythm of trees, gentle hills, ponds with kissing swans, eternal flowering and silence. Beautiful dancing boy and girl. Slender, with graceful hand movements, WITH A GARLAND OF FLOWERS, WITH A WAVING Light scarf, slightly touching the ground, THEY seem to be floating.
The folds of the lightest clothes, naturally obeying the movements of the figures, are turned by the artist into a charming play of lines. Tolstoy chose golden-brown paper for the drawing, the slightly loose surface of which gives the impression of a softly shining velvety. The design on this paper takes on the jewel of embossed velvet.
Let's turn another page of an imaginary album.
You peer into the Architectural landscape under transparent paper (1837), you are surprised - how simple! But you can't take your admiring eyes away.
The translucent sheet is creased. Clumsy or impatient fingers moved the paper, and the traces of these movements - folds, wrinkles - gave it an even greater visual reality. Someone's fingers lifted the sheet and could not cope with its fragile thinness. The sheet turned out to be slightly torn, and the torn off corner of the sheet, which disappeared, alas, made it possible to see the edge of the hidden drawing, part of the author's signature with an elegant stroke, and the date.
Created by magic whitewash and ink on a white sheet of paper, the vaguely distinguishable outlines of trees, ancient buildings, someone's figures dressed in white, beckon with their mystery, causing a desire to lift the sheet of paper covering them. But to see what is hidden by a leaf is not given. What was more important for the artist: the illusion of the reality of the sheet, through which the landscape with towers is barely visible, or the architectural landscape itself, which is only slightly guessed and should remain a mystery?
A veil that hides the secrets of life and reveals them in rare moments of insight to an artist or poet is a favorite image of romantics. The light curtain created by Tolstoy's talent will never open, forever leaving a feeling of admiration for the skill of the artist, who so naturally combined the illusory accuracy and expressiveness of the image with romantic understatement, captivating into the world of the incarnate.
In Tolstoy's albums, sketches for the fountains of the Peterhof park remained - naked nymphs with locks of luxurious hair flying up, the continuation of which became water jets. Sculptures for fountains were made according to two sketches. Unfortunately, all the monumental sculptural works of Tolstoy, except for one of the tombstones in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, have not been preserved. During the explosion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Tolstoy's last sculptural work perished. In 1846-1852 he worked on sculptures for the twelve gates of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. This sculptural ensemble - 52 figures of the apostles, evangelists, saints and moldings - brought Tolstoy in 1849 the title of professor of sculpture. The albums preserved preparatory drawings for this ensemble.
Junge talked about her father’s method of work: “Having made a sketch of a drawing and soiled it with millions of intersecting lines that he alone could figure out, he would transfer it to another paper and start corrections again; many times the same drawing was translated, drawn clean with a pen, corrected again. We had whole piles of such redrawn and again changed sketches for the medals of the Patriotic and Turkish wars and for the doors of the Savior, which usually came into our children's hands and were mercilessly painted and cut out.
In 1838, Tolstoy, a great lover of music and theater, had a new idea - to stage a ballet performance. Based on Scandinavian legends, Tolstoy composed a tragic love story between the daughter of the lord of the castle Malvina and the poet Arminius and called the ballet the Aeolian harp. More than sixty pen and ink drawings are known, in which not only sketches of scenery and costumes were presented. Tolstoy also developed the choreography of the ballet. The poses and movements of the soloists composed by him were supposed to convey the character of the characters and express their feelings. He developed scenes of young men competing in strength, wrestling, archery, the art of wielding a spear and sword, as well as scenes of duels and battles, general group dances and tribal games. A clear drawing determined the poses of the dancers, and light strokes - fluttering clothes, floating scarves, giving the picture an impression of lightness, airiness, which the dance was supposed to create. Tolstoy was still captivated by Didlo's romantic dance.
In 1842, Tolstoy composed the libretto and choreography for another ballet performance, Echo. Forty-eight drawings - landscape scenery, dances of nymphs, cupids, gods and goddesses - embodied the ancient Greek myth. The goddess Nemesis punished the beautiful young man Narcissus, who did not respond to the love of the nymph Echo. He had to love the first thing he saw, and, seeing his reflection in the water, Narcissus could not take his eyes off the contemplation of his own beauty and died of love.
The royal family liked the libretto of the ballets and sketches. The Emperor allowed the ballets to be staged on the stage of the Bolshoi St. Petersburg Theatre. But the theater management, citing the high cost of the production and the fact that the St. Petersburg public does not like serious ballets, where pantomime
and whole dramas are played out with facial expressions, she postponed the production.
In 1856, Tolstoy recalled his promise to stage the ballets.
“…Having thoroughly studied choreography, I would gladly take it upon myself, as an author, to observe the performance of the ballet from an artistic point of view…” he suggested. But there was no response to this or subsequent letters. Dreams about ballet, not realized on the stage, remained in the drawings.
Flipping through the pages of an imaginary album, we find on its pages drawings for mosaics, sketches of oriental costumes for masquerades; unfortunately, sketches of medals in memory of architects Alexander Kokorinov, Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Giacomo Quarenghi, Ivan Starov remained only in drawings; projects of dachas, sketches for anniversary vases, goblets, bowls. According to Tolstoy's drawings, golden dishes and salt shakers were made, on which bread and salt were offered to members of the royal family after the coronation or on the occasion of marriage. The head of the merchants of St. Petersburg I.V. Kusov complained to Anna Fedorovna that her husband again refused to pay for work.
Tolstoy's still lifes with flowers and berries are called "tricks". To create an absolute illusion of similarity so that the viewer takes the image for a real object, to deceive the eye - that's what "deception" implies. In order for the deception to succeed, a canvas, for example, with painted book spines, was placed behind the glass door of a bookcase. The boundaries between "deceptions", botanical drawings, which were in great fashion at the beginning of the 19th century and also assumed the accuracy of reproducing the structure of the plant stem, the pattern of its leaves, petals, and the work of art of the unsteadiness. For the artist, the concrete accuracy of the image contains a special sense of visual expressiveness.
Is it possible to call Smorodina a “trick”, which equally captivates both an inexperienced viewer and a specialist. Two sprigs of currant lie on a non-existent surface. The berries are like precious stones, round, with a dense smooth skin, shiny, translucent, with delicate flesh, with tiny black “tails”, so weighty next to the tiny flexible branches naturally spreading around the average hard branch. Around the branches of the currant, Tolstoy leaves the sheet of paper clean, encloses the plane of the sheet in an elegant frame, emphasizing that the Currant is an image created by the artist. The pencil lines of the frame are even, thin, clear and suddenly ... dew drops, convex, transparent, in one of which, as if through a magnifying glass, a blurring and increasing letter "O" is visible.
Signing still lifes, Tolstoy each time indicated that he painted from nature. The artist remembered his first still life - a twig with light purple flowers, which, having plucked in the garden at a dacha in Tsarskoe Selo, he captured on paper.
Choosing a flower, berry, branch or bug for a still life, Tolstoy finds the most perfect example and recreates its beauty on a piece of paper. This is how flexible long leaves and a delicate atlas of white petals appear in his drawings, surrounding the carved pattern of the fragile corolla of narcissus, the juicy seductive pulp of strawberries, the weightlessness of the wings of dragonflies and flies, the spring transparency of shining dew drops, the metallic reflection of bird feathers...
A bunch of grapes in a still life on a tabletop of a linden tree - an elastic stem of a leaf and a delightful grace of a thin, flexible one - in what a complex perspective! - perpendicular to the plane of the written sheet, curving, playing with outlines and tints of color, and thin, curly tendrils and berries - small dense and still green, larger and large, poured with juice with an opal glow. And next to it are flowers in a glass vessel and favorite currant branches.
One of Tolstoy's masterpieces, Gooseberry Branch (1821) is a strong branch of rare beauty with pinkish-burgundy tints and prickly velvety gooseberry berries against the background of a light pattern of its leaves.
The artist liked to paint still lifes on colored paper with paints that he prepared himself, extremely finely rubbing thoroughly cleaned mineral paints. His brush movements are often indistinguishable, he skillfully painted with fused strokes, creating a smooth surface. Sometimes strokes of his colors are like small stitches, but not silk threads, but enamel, convex ones - this is how the artist sometimes painted feathers on birds. And once, while drawing a butterfly that shimmered and changed color (it looked brown from above, blue on one side, and green on the other), Tolstoy came up with a special way of drawing. To preserve the effect of variability, he, working with a magnifying glass, put a convex dot of brown paint, and when it dries, he added a blue dot from one edge, and a green one from the other, and so painstakingly created a wonderful butterfly.
Tolstoy made a series of drawings of dragonflies for Empress Maria Feodorovna, a series of drawings of butterflies for Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna. He created large, elegant still lifes, combining flowers, fruits, birds, butterflies - everything that is so beautiful and so pleasing to the eye, both on separate sheets and in albums.
The artist also painted by order, recalling how Smorodina helped him out in difficult times. Tolstoy had neither an inheritance nor an estate with serfs. Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna liked the sprigs of red and white currants he painted, and she expressed her admiration by presenting the artist with a diamond ring. This ring made it possible for the Tolstoy family to move from a house near the Smolensk cemetery, in front of whose windows mournful funeral processions followed every day, to a house on the Petersburg side. Subsequently, whenever the Empress wanted to give something especially elegant to her highest relatives, she asked Tolstoy to draw her exactly the same currant. The artist himself liked the drawing with currant branches very much, and he repeated it many times with pleasure and artistry and received a diamond ring as a reward.
Tolstoy recalled that he was offered to try to draw flowers
Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna. The Empress received as a gift an album depicting flowers by the famous Parisian artist and wished to know Tolstoy's opinion about his work. Noting the skill and "French chic" of the painter's work, Tolstoy noted that "the desire to show off the effect" made the flowers the same.
Nevertheless, it was in these still lifes that Tolstoy proved himself to be a true master of classicism. The artist surprisingly felt the structure of nature. All forms of his still lifes are outlined and honed, appearing on the sheet almost like a bas-relief, retaining a certain, local color.
Tolstoy valued the eternal and the beautiful. Once he wrote: “... I carelessly admire the beauty of nature and in its most insignificant works ...” Classical ideas are characterized by the opposition of a high, noble nature and a simple, low one. But the "insignificant" creation of nature - a flower, a leaf, a drop of dew, a worm or a fly - the artist from the living, but changing world of nature endured and left forever in the world of art, imprinting on a sheet of paper their perfection that does not know fading. With still lifes of flowers and berries, Tolstoy expanded the scope of the ideally beautiful for classicism.
But sometimes the reflection of the blue sky and the greenery of the trees on the glass or the reflection of light through the window frames on the shiny surfaces of the berries return to the world of eternity that living, natural and infinite, to which Tolstoy was just as sensitive.
Tolstoy's earliest signed still lifes are dated 1817. One of them, kept in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg - a fragile twig with white flowers, a butterfly with yellow wings, flies and dewdrops - is the only drawing, signing which the artist called himself a sculptor. Working on still lifes, Tolstoy felt himself to be an artist, he felt the magical ability of painting to convey the intoxicating beauty of the earthly.
“We have several times better in Russia…”
In 1845 Tolstoy went abroad. Doctors resolutely insisted on treatment with healing mud and waters of the famous resorts of Francesbad. The Academy of Arts instructed Vice-President Tolstoy to survey the situation of Russian retired artists in Rome and get acquainted with the work of mosaic workshops, so that upon his return he could lead the organization of mosaic production in Russia. To see Italy, its monuments has always been an artist's dream. Impressions, reflections of Tolstoy, who made a trip to Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, France, Italy, remained on the pages of his travel diaries.
Tolstoy assessed the political life of countries and, looking closely at the life of different strata of society, was shocked by social contrasts. He noticed the ignorance and narrow-mindedness in the aristocratic environment, he was offended by the ignorance of Russia, which seemed to many an almost barbaric country. In Rome, Tolstoy visited the workshops of Russian artists, got acquainted with their works, and helped with advice. Trying to change the plight of the pensioners of the Academy, Tolstoy writes to the president of the Academy of Arts about the need for material support for artists, seeks to remove the head of the pensioners, who did not fulfill his duty to help Russian artists, spreading bad rumors and slander about their behavior and morality.
Tolstoy visited the excavations of Pompeii and climbed Mount Vesuvius, carefully studied the art galleries of Florence, Venice, Genoa, the monuments of Ancient Rome, met with Russian and foreign artists, travelers. Tolstoy described meetings with Gogol, Alexander Ivanov, Nikolai Ge. The pages of his diaries contain comments and assessments of the works and sketches he saw - horses, donkeys, carts, unusual costumes, various scenes like a noisy company that climbed into a tarantass, buildings, churches, architectural fragments. In addition to sketches in pencil or watercolor - they were called in those days "crocades" - appeared on the pages of albums and on separate sheets of city views.
“You admire Italian views with a feeling of something majestic, but earthly, in which ancient monuments play the main role, and nature plays a secondary role. Memory imagines the actions of ancient people and weakens the impression of nature,” Tolstoy reflected on the pages of his diary.
However, the Italian drawings of the master refute these assertions, moreover, a new sense of nature appears in them. Poetry drawing Naples. The view from the Villa Reale (1845) Tolstoy found in reality, feeling and conveying the integrity of the space of heaven and earth, infinity, striking not with grandiosity, but with amazing harmony with earthly life. A cozy bay, a city located by the sea and protected by mountains, the carefree ease of walking on a promenade flooded with dazzling sun - poetry found in the land of Italy.
And the nature of the native land, the people's life in the beloved fatherland - were they noticed by Count Tolstoy? This question could have remained unanswered if not for one more of his hobbies.
Contemporaries considered Tolstoy the best master of the silhouette of the first half of the 19th century, and so do modern experts.
In the 18th century, a new graphic technique appeared in Europe and Russia - a silhouette, a contour image of figures and objects, usually filled in black. The charm of the silhouette lies not only in the expressiveness of the contour line and the contrast of black and white, but also in the conciseness and mystery of its image, innuendo and therefore ambiguity.
A silhouette is an opportunity to create a world of memories.
It is no coincidence that many years later, the events of the Patriotic War of 1812 were resurrected in Tolstoy's work as shadows of the past in black silhouettes. For the first time, the characteristic profile and outline of a figure, low and imposing, of the one who was the idol of youth, and later became the embodiment of a tyrant and a villain, appear in the silhouettes for the first time. Napoleon watches the movement of his troops or sits in gloomy thought by the fire. The slowness of the rhythms, the intonations of the images make one feel that many years have passed since these events. This is a wise and sad look into the past. Tolstoy was the first to create multi-figured scenes using the silhouette technique. The details are omitted, the main thing remains. Tolstoy captures the outline of the tiny figures of marshals, staff officers, mounted orderlies, sentry soldiers, their gestures in motion, as a photograph could capture them.
Museums keep about two hundred silhouettes of Tolstoy. They are not signed, the dates of their creation are not marked. Tolstoy experimented a lot, using paper of different colors for both the image and the background, sometimes supplementing the image with color.
The earliest known silhouette was made by the artist at the age of fourteen and is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery - a sailing boat cut out of thin white paper with high masts and retracted sails. Perhaps, recalling his youth as a midshipman, Tolstoy liked to cut out the raging waves of the sea, fishing boats, ships with wind-blown sails and "pyroscaphes" - wheeled steamers with tall pipes.
In addition to memories of the past, Tolstoy had several other favorite topics. Many times he cut out of paper scenes of military maneuvers, bivouacs, reviews, parades of cadet corps, which he saw in the summer in Peterhof.
Tolstoy's powers of observation captured in the hunting scenes both the behavior of the hunters and the habits of the animals. The running of the rushing deer and the dogs and riders chasing it is swift. The movements of a horse jumping over a river or climbing a slope, a bear rising on its hind legs and defending itself from deafeningly barking dogs attacking it, a fox leaving along a thrown tree are masterfully conveyed.
Depicting duck hunting, the artist chooses a point of view a little from above - one can see the calm expanse of lakes, individual trees or islands with lush tree crowns protruding from the water. The hunters fire, and the frightened ducks fan out. The artist creates the sparkle of water with cuts, and the foliage with pricking, this gives the clusters of trees a decorative sophistication.
The silhouettes retained what attracted Tolstoy's attention on the streets of provincial Russian cities. Expressive poses, characteristic gestures by the inhabitants, their garments - uniform, overcoat, scarf, cap - and in front of us is a watchman with a halberd in his hand showing the way to the rider, a lamplighter in a thrown overcoat drives away a dog chasing him, two gossips are talking, a wave of the coachman's whip and a stepping stone. hurrying, or maybe carefully on a slippery road a horse.
Bare branches of trees, fir-trees, protruding wicker poles, dilapidated bridges, a slowly wandering horse pulling a sleigh with hay, three horses rushing along winter roads - such is the winter image of Russian nature, captured by Tolstoy.
And in the summer, in the silhouettes of Tolstoy, men and women are busily harvesting hay, grazing cows, picking apples, climbing ladders to high apple trees. The girl draws water in the well, the fishermen pull the net. Fishermen sit motionless on the banks of the river with fishing rods, while their wives and children patiently watch them, standing at a distance on the bank. The shepherd plays the pipe, the guy and the girl dance merrily in the meadow or in the hut at gatherings.
“The peasant was in his eyes not a serf who could be despised,” Tolstoy’s daughter recalled, “and not an ideal to be bowed down to, not even a younger brother, but simply a person, just like himself.” Serfs appear in the artist's silhouettes as independent, deftly managing their affairs, whether they are picking apples, pulling out nets or dancing selflessly.
Rivers and bridges, hillocks, windmills, houses with two or three windows, hidden in the dense foliage of trees, rickety wattle fences, huts, a tall crane of a well, overflowing lakes - this is what Tolstoy noticed as characteristic in the appearance of the villages and nature of the Central Russian strip.
Listing everything that he created during his life, Tolstoy did not even mention his passion for the art of silhouette. Nevertheless, the silhouettes of Tolstoy attract attention not only by the amusing plots or the impeccable execution. Tolstoy in the art of the silhouette found a form of expression of his interest in the life of the people and the nature of Russia. National intonations sounded in the silhouettes of Tolstoy. In the contours of tiny human figures, nothing resembles a three-dimensional classical drawing with a flowing contour line. Rhythms and contours acquired a certain clumsiness due to the turns of the scissors, became a little “cut down like an axe”, while retaining that elegant decorative effect that is always characteristic of the artist’s works. Russian culture of the early 19th century, perceiving and evaluating the world through the prism of the perfection of antiquity, began to discover the poetry of its native nature.
... as well known as talented"

The life of Fyodor Tolstoy is a service to art and the Fatherland. Both in his youth and in his mature years, he was worried about the fate of Russia. He not only dreamed of her greatness and prosperity, but was firmly convinced that “every one, according to his strength and ability, should contribute to the improvement of human life both by his work and by his honest truthful word; hot by nature, he was agitated, indignant at everything that delays the course of human perfection.
Fifty years that have passed since the time when midshipman Tolstoy decisively changed his life, he, with his inherent passion and obsession, devoted his beloved art. His works, full of sincerity and elegance, citizenship and patriotism, greatness and harmony, made Tolstoy's name famous both in Russia and in Europe. The drawings, bas-reliefs, watercolors, silhouettes, engravings created by him, as well as pencil drawings by Orest Kiprensky or watercolors by Pyotr Sokolov, hung on the walls of mansions, were kept in caskets, were decoration of albums, creating an artistic environment for the everyday life of the nobility of that time. It is no coincidence that Pushkin in the novel Eugene Onegin, this "encyclopedia of Russian life", mentions the name of Tolstoy among the many great names of his contemporaries.
In May 1859, it was 50 years since the count was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Arts. Continuing his service in the Hermitage, working at the Mint, Tolstoy taught medal art, implementing the program that he created in his youth for himself. By his own efforts, and by educating medal-artists in his students, he turned medal-making from a handicraft into an art, deservedly receiving the honorary title of “the father of medal-making art in Russia.” Since 1828, having become vice-president of the Academy of Arts, Tolstoy directed the work of the Academy for 31 years. “It was an honorable retirement, but a retirement nonetheless,” his daughter wrote. - It was hard for my father to endure this, it was hard to leave his favorite activity, to leave the Academy, with which his life was inextricably linked; even the apartment where he lived, surrounded by his favorite objects, for almost half a century. This anniversary carried a palpable sense of bitterness. There were no official celebrations, but the fiftieth anniversary of Count Tolstoy's service at the Academy of Arts was celebrated in artistic and social life. The Saint-Petersburgskie Vedomosti newspaper wrote: “Not many so honestly live up to their 50th anniversary, while maintaining the goodwill of public opinion. By labor, conscientiousness, talent, he won the right to this public opinion, so that nothing can take it away. The artist's friends and his students arranged a friendly celebration with speeches, applause, performance, impromptu.
Fate was favorable to Fyodor Petrovich. Having generously endowed him with talents, energy, determination, strength of character, perseverance, dexterity, a taste for life, she gave him ninety years of life.
Over the years, health deteriorated, strength faded, but the count did not lose interest in the life of society and art. He was infinitely happy that the dream of his youth had come true - the peasants received freedom, serfdom was abolished. During the rebellion of young artists who were graduating from the Academy of Arts in 1863, Tolstoy agreed with the demand of the "rebels" - to choose the plot for the competition picture themselves, and not to fulfill the given program, because "by choosing the plot of his picture, the artist can, with greater freedom and love, work and express your thoughts better.
Many years of painstaking work, often with a magnifying glass, had an effect, he quickly lost his sight, in the last years of his life he was almost blind and did not hear well. But the beauty of the soul is not subject to time. “Just as there was no pride and self-importance in my father, so there was no cringing,” the daughter noted.
Tolstoy, even in old age, retained a clear mind, interest in life, sincere faith in the wonderful future of Russia and all mankind: “Everything on the globe grows both in the physical world and in the moral one. Thus, humanity will also grow to its proper position - to happiness.

Chronicle of the life of Fyodor Tolstoy
1811 Marriage to A.F. Dudina.
1814-1816 Worked on bas-reliefs based on the plots of Homer's Odysseus.
1815 Joined the Masonic Lodge of the Chosen Michael.
1818-1820 Participation in the creation of Lancaster schools in Russia.
1818-1820 Participation in the "Union of Welfare".
1820 Participation in the establishment of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists.
1820 Honorary member of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.
1822 Full member of the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin.
1825 Honorary member of the Courland Society of Literature and Art.
1835 Death of wife.
1836-1839 Work on a series of medals dedicated to the victories in the wars with Persia and Turkey in 1826-1829. Honorary Member of the Austrian Imperial Academy of Arts.
Awarded a gold medal by the King of Bavaria.
1838 Creation of drawings for the ballet Aeolian harp.
1840 Marriage to A.I. Ivanova.
1842 Creation of drawings for the ballet Echo.
1842 Awarded the title of professor of medal art.
1845-1846 First trip abroad.
1846-1852 Creation of models for sculptures and bas-reliefs for the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
1849 Awarded the title of Professor of Sculpture.
1851 Elected an honorary member of the Moscow Art Society.
Awarded a gold medal at the First World Exhibition in London.
Appointed manager of the art department of the Mosaic Institution at the Academy of Arts.
1852-1853 Painting Var in and k.
1853-1854 Creation of statues for Peterhof fountains.
1855 Painting View in the garden of the summer cottage Markovil in Finland.
1859 Appointed comrade of the president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
1861 Participation in the Paris Salon.
1861-1862 Second trip abroad.
1873 1 April 3 died in St. Petersburg; buried at the Lazarevsky cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Nikolai Ge's painting "Portrait of Leo Tolstoy" is one of the best portrait works of the artist. The portrait was painted in 1884, two years after Ge met the writer. In the last decade of his life, the artist repeatedly turned to the image of Tolstoy, becoming a follower of his religious and moral teachings. In the portrait of Tolstoy, Nikolai Ge's faith in man, in his unlimited spiritual and creative possibilities, was best embodied.

In the portrait, he sought to reveal the best qualities of a person, he never repeated himself, he never psychologically and artistically interpreted this or that person in a standard way.

The portrait of Leo Tolstoy is more reminiscent of a successful photograph of the writer at work, so realistically to the smallest detail Ge managed to reproduce not only the appearance of the writer, but also to record the richness of the inner world of his hero, the strength of his thought, inspired enthusiasm for writing.

"Portrait of Leo Tolstoy" will successfully complement the interior of a school literature office or your office, filling it with the energy of the movement of creative thought

You can buy a reproduction of this painting in our online store.

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Painting by Nikolai Ge Portrait of Leo Tolstoy: description, biography of the artist, customer reviews, other works of the author. A large catalog of paintings by Nikolai Ge on the website of the online store BigArtShop.

The BigArtShop online store presents a large catalog of paintings by the artist Nikolai Ge. You can choose and buy your favorite reproductions of paintings by Nikolai Ge on natural canvas.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge was born in 1831 in Voronezh in the family of a landowner. The unusual surname for central Russia is explained by the fact that his grandfather emigrated from France to Russia at the end of the 18th century, and in French the surname sounds Gay.

He was brought up by a nanny, a serf woman, since his mother died of cholera when the boy was three months old. At the age of 10, he was brought to Kyiv, where he entered the First Kyiv Gymnasium. Despite the fact that the teachers predicted the future of the artist for him, noticing his ability to draw, after graduating from the gymnasium, on the advice of his father, he entered the Kyiv University at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. Soon he transferred to the mathematical faculty of St. Petersburg University, moving to live with his older brother. Visiting the Hermitage, he continues to study drawing on his own.

In 1850 he left the university and entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in the class of Pyotr Basin.

In 1855, for the painting "Achilles mourns Patroclus" he received the Small Gold Medal of the Academy. For the painting "Saul at the Witch of Endor" in 1857 he was awarded the Big Gold Medal, which gave him the right to travel abroad at the expense of the Academy.

Ge visited Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy.

In 1863, upon returning to St. Petersburg, he exhibited the painting "The Last Supper" at the autumn exhibition at the Academy of Arts. This painting was purchased by the Russian Emperor for his personal collection.

For The Last Supper, the Academy awarded Nikolai Ge the title of professor. And, bypassing the title of academician, he was also elected a full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

After a short stay in Russia, at the beginning of 1864 Ge returned to Florence, where he wrote many sketches for gospel stories. During this stay in Florence, Ge meets and becomes close to Herzen. According to critics, the portrait of Herzen is the best in the creative heritage of Nikolai Ge.

At the end of 1869, Nikolai Ge returned to Russia, where he took part in the organization of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions.

From 1869 to 1875 Nikolai Ge lives and works in St. Petersburg. Here he painted brilliant portraits of the most famous intellectuals of Russia: the writer Ivan Turgenev, the poet Nikolai Nekrasov, the satirist writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, the historian Nikolai Kostomarov, the sculptor Mikhail Antokolsky and others.

In the "Petersburg period" of Ge's work, he also painted pictures on historical themes.

But dissatisfaction with his own work and material distress forced Nikolai Ge to leave St. Petersburg in 1875 and move to Ukraine. In the Chernigov province, he managed to buy a small farm.

Until 1879, the artist hardly worked. He took up issues of religion and morality, concluding that one must live by rural labor, that art cannot serve as a means of life, that it cannot be traded.

Extreme need, however, forced the artist to paint many “custom-made” portraits of local rich people in order to obtain a livelihood and pay off accumulated debts.

In 1882 Ge met Leo Tolstoy in Moscow, and in 1884 painted his portrait.

This was followed by a new series of paintings on religious subjects "Exit from the Last Supper", "What is truth?", "Judas", "Court of the Sanhedrin", "Guilty of death", "Crucifixion" In them, he "found" himself, having worked out as an independent a look at the surrounding reality, as well as his own virtuoso in expressiveness and inner expression of the manner of pictorial writing.

A year before his death, the artist writes "Self-portrait"

According to critics, Ge was the first among Russian artists to catch a new realistic trend in biblical subjects.

The texture of the canvas, high-quality paints and large-format printing allow our reproductions of Nikolai Ge to be as good as the original. The canvas will be stretched on a special stretcher, after which the picture can be framed in a baguette of your choice.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, L.N. Tolstoy became for Russia a kind of "conscience of the nation": they listened to him, consulted with him, imitated him. His views on life, expressed not only in works of art, but also in journalistic works, caused heated discussions in society. It is not without reason that the writer has become one of the most popular objects in the visual arts, not only in Russia, but also abroad. It is important to emphasize that artists often painted not just portraits, but paintings depicting Tolstoy on vacation or doing their favorite activities.
I.N. Kramskoy, I.E. Repin, L.O. Pasternak, N.N. Ge, M.V. Nesterov, V.N. Meshkov, Aina Leon, Jan Styka and many other Russian and foreign artists. In some cases, masters of painting even created entire series of works about Tolstoy. For example, a number of paintings are by I.E. Repin. The most famous of them are: “Portrait of the writer L.N. Tolstoy" (1887), "Plowman. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy on arable land "(1887)," L.N. Barefoot Tolstoy" (1901), "Leo Tolstoy in a room under the arches" (1891), "Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy on vacation in the forest" (1891), "L.N. Tolstoy at work at the round table "(1891)," Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy reading "(1891). The Tolstoy art gallery is also diverse in L.O. Pasternak: “Reading the Manuscript” (1893), “L.N. Tolstoy at the Traveling Exhibition” (1893), “L.N. Tolstoy reading by the lamp” (1901), “Leo Tolstoy” (1901), “Tolstoy against the backdrop of a stormy sky” (1901), “L.N. Tolstoy with his family” (1902), “Portrait of L.N. Tolstoy" (1906), "Portrait of L.N. Tolstoy" (1908).

Two recognized masterpieces in the iconography of L.N. Tolstoy - portraits of I.N. Kramskoy and I.E. Repin. We offer a more detailed commentary on them.

Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the writer Leo Tolstoy. (1873). Canvas, oil. 98x79. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Comment 1.
Write Tolstoy, whose portrait Tretyakov so wanted to get in his gallery, I.N. Kramskoy is taken in 1873, when in the summer he finds himself with his family in Kozlovka-Zaseka, five miles from Yasnaya Polyana. However, it was not easy to persuade the writer to pose, and Kramskoy had to interest in his personality a person who in those years was very far from Christian humility - tough, domineering and even tough: “I won’t describe to you my date with him, it’s too long: my conversation continued with over 2 hours, 4 times I returned to the portrait, and all to no avail; no requests and arguments had any effect on him.” Nevertheless, Tolstoy agreed to pose, while he set the artist a condition: he had to paint two portraits - one for Tretyakov, and the other for the writer's family. During the posing sessions, Tolstoy and Kramskoy talked a lot, getting to know each other.
With chiaroscuro, with a stroke in the form, Kramskoy sculpts a face, without smoothing out the roughness of the forms, the “bumpiness” of a wide nose, without trying to hide a large protruding ear. It is as if he trustingly follows nature, which has put a powerful and subtle intellect into a rude "muzhik" shell. And he focuses his attention on the eyes illuminating the face: carefully, but not pettily, marks the structure of the eye, slightly touches the red and white teardrop, writes the iris in a difficult way, highlighting the space between the dark pupil with a sharp glare and the blue border. It creates the impression of a sharp, piercing gaze. Kramskoy very accurately displays Tolstoy's famous eagle eyes, in which insight and spontaneity are combined.
In creative burning N.I. Kramskoy fused together intuition and professional skills, consciousness and unconscious movements of the soul, feeling and reason. As a result, an image of a huge force of emotional impact appeared on the canvas, an image of insight, the first image of a person who, during his lifetime, was recognized as a genius not only of the Russian land, but of all mankind. From the portrait hanging in the hall of the Tretyakov Gallery, the feeling remains of a huge, as if from a monolith carved block with boring, piercing eyes. Kramskoy monumentalized the short Tolstoy, and viewers who knew the writer from this portrait (including Repin) were often amazed at how little the image of the writer that had developed in their mind corresponded to the first life impression.
Kramskoy already in the early 1870s, having finished work on the portrait and summing up his impressions, which had taken shape in a picturesque form, wrote to Repin: “And Count Tolstoy, whom I painted, is an interesting person, even amazing. I spent several days with him and, I confess, was even in an excited state all the time. Looks like a genius."
The portrait was recognized as very similar by both artists (I.E. Repin: “The portrait is terribly similar”), and people close to Tolstoy (according to his wife: “It’s even scary to look at”).

Comment 2.
Portrait of L.N. Tolstoy was written by N.I. Kramskoy in 1873 and is considered the best portrait of the great writer.
Not a single artist managed to capture the image of Tolstoy - the great humanist, thinker, bearer of moral ideals, spokesman for popular interests - deeper than Kramskoy did. Anyone who has seen the portrait has experienced the great power of its impact.
The portrait is made in grayish-brown tones. With great skill as a painter and psychologist, he conveyed to Kramskoy the complexity and versatility of the nature of one of the greatest Russian geniuses. Tolstoy in the portrait is depicted sitting in an armchair in a natural pose with his hands folded at ease on his knees.
Cheeky face, big wide nose, lush beard - all this makes Tolstoy look like an ordinary Russian peasant. However, this is not a man - even a blue shirt, reminiscent of an ordinary peasant blouse, sits on him somehow very elegantly. The majestic silhouette, beautifully flowing folds of the shirt give the person being portrayed a special nobility.
However, the main thing in the portrait is the face of the writer. It is written surprisingly expressively - strictly and at the same time plastic, voluminous. Directly into the soul of the viewer, the gaze of Tolstoy's penetrating gray eyes is directed - alive, penetrating the interlocutor and powerfully attracting him, full of tremendous tension. A person with such a view, of course, has a difficult character. But the main thing that is read in this look is a clear mind, infinite sincerity, fortitude, purposefulness.
Both the simplicity of the writer and his wisdom are very soulfully displayed in the portrait. And these are precisely the qualities of a writer that bring his image closer to the people.

I.E. Repin. “Portrait of L.N. Tolstoy" (1887). Canvas, oil. 124x88

Comment 1.
The portrait of Tolstoy was painted by Repin in Yasnaya Polyana in August 1887. Bowing before the genius of the great writer, I.E. Repin at the same time disagreed with him on many beliefs.
Despite this, the writer and the artist had a warm friendship for many years. The portrait, painted in 1887, is one of a whole series of portraits by L.N. Tolstoy created by Repin.
Unusually simple in the chosen pose and colors, the picture is distinguished by its veracity and the great talent of the artist. This portrait can really tell more than long verbal descriptions. So Repin could only portray a person whom he deeply understood, respected, appreciated. Repin fully managed to show the greatness of the writer. The writer is depicted sitting in a somewhat unusual chair. In one of his hands is a small book, the other lies comfortably on the arm of the chair. The dark blouse is pulled together with a belt at the waist and is somewhat reminiscent of a cassock.
The writer is shown in a moment of anxious thoughtfulness - probably, looking up from what he has read, he is pondering some thought. Slightly tilting his head with overhanging eyebrows and a lush gray beard, Tolstoy looks at the viewer. As if the question that torments him now, he addresses him. In the deep-seated eyes of the writer - wisdom and insight, it seems that they inquisitively look directly into the soul.
Repin painted a portrait of Tolstoy, somewhat "elevating" the figure of the person being portrayed and giving it a monumental significance. Restrained, dark tones, range of colors, "unhurried" manner of painting - everything in the portrait emphasizes the scale of the personality of the person being portrayed. Sitting in an armchair leaves the impression of an extraordinary, truly brilliant person - few people can compare with him in kindness of heart, strength of mind, talent and unbending will.

Comment 2.
The portrait was painted in Yasnaya Polyana, as usual quickly, in three sessions (August 13-15). Tretyakov, having learned about the creation of the portrait, but not yet seeing it, in a letter to V.V. Stasov expressed the hope that Tolstoy was depicted by Repin standing to his full height and certainly against the backdrop of a landscape - only such a composition seemed to Tretyakov befitting a great writer.
Repin, however, managed to convey the greatness of Tolstoy by other means. The point of view chosen by the artist, with a low horizon, “elevating” the figure, gives it monumental significance. It is characteristic that Repin subsequently never built a portrait composition in this way, thus affirming the uniqueness, the uniqueness of Tolstoy's portrait.
The restrained, noble range of colors, the clear outline of the silhouette with excellent volumetric-spatial modeling, the smooth, wide, “unhurried” movement of the brush - everything in the portrait is subordinated to the atmosphere of majestic significance that surrounded Tolstoy.
Tolstoy is depicted in a moment of anxious thoughtfulness - this is precisely the minute, the specific moment when the writer, tearing himself away from the book, tries to resolve the question that has arisen about what he has read. Concentrated, wary thoughtfulness, an inquisitive, penetrating gaze, forcing the viewer involuntarily to attend to the content of this issue, are the features that form the portrait program.
High forehead, bushy beard, coarse features. Russian boyar, confidently sitting in an old chair. The look is detached, neutral, directed into the distance, as if it pierces the viewer, passes through him. The eyes are clear and kind. Simple black clothes, merging with the same black chair, visually increase the figure of the hero.
A light and clean background enhances the impression. The book is in hand, the detail is symbolic, not accidental. Before us is a writer at the moment of thinking about what he has read, at the moment of the birth of a new, brilliant idea. Looking at the portrait, anyone is able to feel the greatness and spiritual monumentality of Tolstoy.
Repin highly appreciated Kramskoy's portrait of Tolstoy. But if Kramskoy Tolstoy is full of epic calmness and clarity, and his gaze is stern and straightforward, then Repinsky Tolstoy is a searching, doubting person. It was at the end of the 1880s that the writer embarked on the path of preaching; it was no coincidence that it was suggested that in the portrait of Repin on Tolstoy's knees - the Gospel.

Other portraits of L.N. Tolstoy

Ge N.N. Portrait of L.N. Tolstoy (1884). Canvas, oil. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia Rapprochement with L.N. Tolstoy N.N. Ge considered the most important milestone of his life. The artist and the writer were united by an interest in posing global moral problems in their work. Ge paints a portrait of Tolstoy in his house in Khamovniki, when he was working on the manuscript of the treatise "What is my faith?". The portrait of the writer at work, in a familiar environment, is made in the spirit of the Wanderers traditions. The main thing the artist was striving for was to show the work of a brilliant mind, the course of his thoughts. Ge interprets Tolstoy as a teacher of life who does his job. In the writer's family, this image was considered the best "for the similarity and strength of facial expression, despite the lowered eyes." In a letter to V.P. Gaevsky dated February 6, 1884 to N.N. Ge reported: “... I went to Moscow, where I lived for 3 weeks, I went to see my good Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy and to paint his portrait, which I had planned for a long time, but could not fulfill. I'm glad I finally did it. In this portrait, I conveyed everything that is most precious in this amazing person.

Mikhail Nesterov. Portrait of L.N. Tolstoy (1907). Canvas, oil. 113x102. Museum of L.N. Tolstoy, Moscow, Russia As a background, the artist chose a pond in Yasnaya Polyana, spruces planted on its shore by Tolstoy himself, and in the distance - a village. Having chosen not the estate, but the rural character of the landscape, M.V. Nesterov emphasized the popular beginning of Tolstoy's worldview.

L.N. Tolstoy in the perception of artists of the late XX - early XXI century

IN AND. Plotnikov. Portrait of Leo Tolstoy (1978). Canvas. Oil

V.V. Shulzhenko. Leo Tolstoy on the horizontal bar (2006)

(Genre: figurative painting in the style of grotesque realism).

Photos by L.N. Tolstoy

L.N. Tolstoy in Crimea

L.N. Tolstoy with his grandchildren Sonya and Ilya in Krekshino

L.N. Tolstoy with his wife Sofia Andreevna

L.N. Tolstoy

L.N. Tolstoy with M. Gorky and A. Chekhov

L.N. Tolstoy at work in Yasnaya Polyana

L.N. Tolstoy plays chess with M.S. Sukhotin

Memories of L.N. Tolstoy

1. In 1897, the famous German playwright, feuilletonist and theater director Dr. Oscar Blumenthal took advantage of his stay in Moscow (where during the Lent a part of his Berlin troupe, the Lessing Theater, toured) to see Count L.N. Tolstoy.
“After going through a whole series of long corridors, I finally found myself face to face with this wonderful person. Tolstoy is exactly the same as the famous portrait showed him to the European reading public: in a wide peasant shirt, tied with a one-color belt, with a long white beard, with melancholic blue eyes and gray tufts of hair, with a forehead pitted with deep wrinkles - a worker of thought and rude, accustomed to heavy labor with his hands, which he willingly puts into his belt in conversation. A deep, soul-grabbing seriousness, as if flowing from his face, gives the impression of a meeting with a biblical figure. Count Tolstoy seems to suddenly come to life as an apostle of Leonardo da Vinci, but this impression is joined by the pleasure of civilized taste, which does not meet the slightest trace of deliberate originality in the figure of the great poet. Alienation from society and its prejudices is in such perfect harmony with the hermit figure of Tolstoy that even his oddities seem quite natural. The monastic simplicity of the room corresponds to the quiet grandeur of its inhabitant. White walls without any
decorations, black leather chairs, a shelf with a few books and a birch table littered with freshly written quarters of white paper - such is the secular cell of this monk by conviction.

2. "Petersburg newspaper". Unknown correspondent. Note “Count L.N. Tolstoy in Petersburg":
“Our readers already know that the famous author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, has recently arrived in St. Petersburg. The writer of these lines had the opportunity during this visit to St. Petersburg of our world-famous writer to get to know him. This meeting took place on the street. Early in the morning, February 9, I was walking along the Fontanka embankment, between Anichkov and Simeonovsky bridges. Towards me, I see, my acquaintance, the representative of one large book publishing company in Moscow, Mr. B., is walking, and some respectable old man was walking quickly beside him. His large gray beard, thick, gray eyebrows hanging over his eyes, a gray felt hat, from under which rather long gray hair is visible, finally, a rather short coat with a sheepskin collar, which small merchants or prasols usually wear, made this venerable the old man surprisingly similar to Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, as the artist I.E. Repin. “Who is this,” I think to myself, “is B. going with? Is it with Tolstoy? I had just been puzzled as to who was the author and who was the original of this extraordinary portrait, when in the wing occupied by Count Lev Lvovich Tolstoy the door was loudly slammed, and its knock echoed resoundingly in the frosty air...
- Lev Nikolaevich came out! my cicerone announced.
A minute later, at the end of a long linden alley connecting both stone outbuildings, a tall, very tall figure of the famous hermit Yasnaya Polyana appeared.
He walked quickly, chewing on the remnants of the last dish, wearing a gray round felt hat and wrapping himself, like in a dressing gown, in a long black coat, either an army coat or a coat without buttons ... I took a few steps towards the count ... The count took off galoshes, took off his hat, hung his coat-armyak on a hook of a penny iron hanger nailed to the wall, leaving me to do the same, and Leo Tolstoy appeared before me in full size in the form in which he is portrayed in all the portraits of recent times! In his overcoat-armyak or coat-robe, Count Tolstoy looks like an undoubted gentleman: in the suit in which he now finds himself, the familiar image of a "master who has cleared his throat" has grown up to everyone. Dark blue motley blouse or chuika, girded with a black belt, the notorious beef boots, which the Tolstoyans in the village told me about.

3. In Tula, the local aristocratic society decided to stage the comedy of the Count “The Fruits of Enlightenment” in the city theater ... It was summer, and a special honorary invitation was sent to Lev Nikolayevich in Yasnaya Polyana ... About an hour before the start of the performance, a stocky old man of medium height, dressed in a dark gray cloth blouse, the same trousers and coarse, obviously homemade, boots ... The old man's chest was half covered by a long gray beard, on his head was a simple cap with a leather visor. Leaning on a thick, gnarled stick, the old man opened the door and slowly walked towards the entrance to the theater stalls. Here he was stopped... - Hey, old man, where are you going, - one of the gatekeepers told him, - today all the gentlemen are playing here, you have nothing to do here ... Come in, brother, come in ... The old man began to protest, but they took him by the arms and led him out of the theater ... However, he turned out to be of an obstinate nature: he sat down near the entrance to the "temple of Melpomene" on a bench and remained here until one of the highest representatives of the local provincial administration drove up to the theater ... are you doing here? “I’m sitting,” answered Lev Nikolaevich, smiling, “I wanted to see my play, but they won’t let me in ... The misunderstanding, of course, was immediately settled.

4. From Igor Volgin's book “Get away from everyone. Leo Tolstoy as a Russian Wanderer. - M., 2010. -

• I.A. Bunin, 1894: "fast, light, scary, sharp-eyed, with frowning eyebrows." “... And I see,” continues Bunin, that these small gray-blue eyes are not at all scary and not sharp, but only vigilant in an animal way. Another contemporary clarifies that in the last decade of Tolstoy’s life, his eyes, “remaining penetrating, more and more lost their expression of severity, and his face, full of thought, acquired amazing beauty, as if glowing with kindness and goodwill…”
• “Portrait painters depict him incorrectly,” says an interviewer who visited Tolstoy in 1904. - Looking at him, you do not notice either the beard that artists so carefully write out, or the knobby, special forehead, or the stern expression on his face ... You see, first of all, only eyes: small, round and - this is their peculiarity - completely flat and one-color - shining; as if looking at a strong source of light: you see a solid radiance and you cannot distinguish where and how it comes from ... them ... First the eyes, and then everything else ... "
• “Is it possible,” exclaims K.S. Stanislavsky, - to convey on paper or canvas the eyes of L.N. Tolstoy, which pierced the soul and accurately probed it!” However, the recollector himself, with purely acting immediacy, is just trying to do this, assuring the venerable public that in the eyes of the author of "War and Peace" "sparks of a brilliant artist shone."
• IN AND. Nemirovich-Danchenko, recalling the first meeting with Tolstoy, writes: “Well, of course, ahead of all these famous eagle eyes - the eyes of a wise and kind predator. The most amazing thing is his appearance. Eyes that inspire everyone with the idea that no matter how virtuoso you are in a lie, you still can’t hide anything from them. They penetrate into the very depths of the soul. At the same time, in their very aspiration and sharpness there is an unrestrained spontaneity. This is not the vigilance of clever calculation, but, on the contrary, innocence in the most beautiful sense of the word.
• Tolstoy's hands were remembered by many: large, with long "aristocratic" fingers, white (or even, as others write, pale) - without age spots common at this age. I.A. Bunin calls these hands "rustic-noble"; A.B. Goldenweiser writes about strong, well-shaped nails. A.V. Zhirkevich looks demandingly ("thumbs are very large and thick, with wide nails"). But then Tolstoy sits down at the card table and, according to Maxim Gorky, plays “seriously, getting excited. And his hands become so nervous when he takes the cards, as if he were holding live birds in his fingers, and not dead pieces of cardboard ...
• Always dressed at home in the same way - in a white or gray blouse, girded with a wide belt, as a rule, in comfortable well-worn shoes - he did not show the slightest sign of grandeur at first contact. He quickly approached the visitor, took his hand into his large palm (“dry”, “hot”, “warm” - this tactile detail was noted by many), peered intently into the face and unexpectedly smiled “affectionate and somehow sad, even together with that pitiful smile.
• Remembering the meeting with Tolstoy in the spring of 1905, A.I. Kuprin wrote: “I remember the surprise that struck me: instead of a huge, venerable old man, like Michelangelo’s Moses, I saw an old man of medium height, cautious and precise in his movements.”

Portrait of Leo Tolstoy

The portrait was commissioned by P. Tretyakov. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, who considered painting "fun for the rich", agreed to pose for Kramskoy only after he promised to destroy the portrait if the writer did not like it. Tolstoy's wife recalled that the sessions were accompanied by lively conversations and disputes about art. Kramskoy portrayed Tolstoy in the halo of his preaching ideas: in a loose blue blouse, with intelligent, penetrating eyes, the look of which, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, was so difficult to withstand - they seem to drill through the viewer through and through. Kramskoy wrote to Repin: “L Count Leo Tolstoy, whom I wrote, is an interesting person, even amazing. I spent several days with him and, I confess, was even in an excited state all the time. Looks like a genius."

Portrait of Leo Tolstoy.1873. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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