To start: As you know, many epoch-making events in world history are inextricably linked with the city of Vyatka (in some versions - Kirov (who is Sergei Mironych)). What is the reason for this - the stars may have stood up like that, maybe the air or alumina is somehow especially healing there, maybe the collager has influenced, but the fact remains: no matter what happens in the world is especially significant, the "hand of Vyatka" can be traced in almost everything. However, so far no one has taken responsibility and the hard work of systematizing all the significant phenomena that are directly linked to the history of Vyatka. In this situation, a group of young promising historians (in my person) undertook to make this attempt. As a result, a cycle of highly artistic scientific and historical essays on documented historical facts was born under the heading "Vyatka - the birthplace of elephants." Which I plan to post on this resource from time to time. So, let's begin.
Vyatka - the birthplace of elephants
Vyatka bear - the main character of the painting "Morning in a pine forest"
Art critics have long proven that Shishkin painted the painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” from nature, and not from the wrapper of the candy “Clumsy Bear”. The history of writing a masterpiece is quite interesting.
In 1885, Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin decided to paint a canvas that would reflect the deep strength and immense power of the Russian pine forest. The artist chose the Bryansk forests as the place for writing the canvas. For three months, Shishkin lived in a hut, seeking unity with nature. The result of the action was the landscape “Pine Forest. Morning". However, the wife of Ivan Ivanovich Sofya Karlovna, who served as the main expert and critic of the paintings of the great painter, considered that the canvas lacked dynamics. At the family council, it was decided to supplement the landscape with forest animals. Initially, it was planned to "let the hares along the canvas", however, their small dimensions would hardly have been able to convey the power and strength of the Russian forest. I had to choose from three textured representatives of the fauna: a bear, a wild boar and an elk. The selection was made by the cut-off method. The boar fell away immediately - Sofya Karlovna did not like pork. Sukhaty also did not pass the competition, as an elk climbing a tree would look unnatural. In search of a suitable bear that won the tender, Shishkin was again resettled in the Bryansk forests. However, this time he was disappointed. All the Bryansk bears seemed to the painter to be skinny and unsympathetic. Shishkin continued his search in other provinces. For 4 years the artist wandered through the forests of the Orel, Ryazan and Pskov regions, but never found an exhibit worthy of a masterpiece. “Today the bear, which is not purebred, has gone, maybe a wild boar will do?” Shishkin wrote to his wife from the hut. Sofya Karlovna helped her husband here too - in Brem's encyclopedia "Animal Life" she read that the bears living in the Vyatka province have the best exterior. The biologist described the brown bear of the Vyatka line as "a strongly built animal with a correct bite and well-standing ears." Shishkin went to Vyatka, to the Omutninsky district, in search of the ideal animal. On the sixth day of his stay in the forest, not far from his cozy dugout, the artist discovered a lair of magnificent representatives of the brown breed of bears. The bears also discovered Shishkin and Ivan Ivanovich added them from memory. In 1889, the great canvas was completed, certified by Sofia Karlovna and placed in the Tretyakov Gallery.
Unfortunately, few people remember the significant contribution of Vyatka nature to the painting “Morning in a Pine Forest”. But in vain. And to this day, the bear in these parts is found powerful and thoroughbred. It is a well-known fact that the Gromyk bear from the Zonikha animal farm posed for the emblem of the 1980 Olympics.
Vyacheslav Sykchin,
independent historian,
chairman of the cell of medvedologists
Vyatka Society of Darwinists.
This picture is known to everyone, young and old, because the very work of the great landscape painter Ivan Shishkin is the most notable pictorial masterpiece in the artist's creative heritage.
We all know that this artist was very fond of the forest and its nature, admired every bush and blade of grass, moldy tree trunks adorned with foliage and needles hanging from the weight. Shishkin reflected all this love on an ordinary linen canvas, so that later the whole world would see the unsurpassed and still mastery of the great Russian master.
At the first acquaintance in the Tretyakov Gallery with the painting Morning in a Pine Forest, one feels the indelible impression of the presence of the viewer, the human mind completely merges into the atmosphere of the forest with marvelous and mighty giant pines, from which it reeks of coniferous aroma. I want to breathe deeper this air, mixed with its freshness with the morning forest fog covering the surroundings of the forest.
The visible tops of centuries-old pines, sagging from the weight of the branches, are affectionately lit by the morning rays of the sun. As we understand, all this beauty was preceded by a terrible hurricane, the mighty wind of which uprooted and knocked down the pine tree, breaking it in two. All this contributed to what we see. Bear cubs frolic on the fragments of a tree, and their mischievous game is guarded by a mother bear. This plot can be said to very clearly enliven the picture adding atmosphere to the whole composition. Everyday life forest nature.
Despite the fact that Shishkin rarely wrote animals in his works, he still prefers the beauties of earthly vegetation. Of course, he painted sheep and cows in some of his works, but apparently it was a little annoying for him. In this story, the bears were written by his colleague Savitsky K.A., who from time to time was engaged in creativity together with Shishkin. Maybe he offered to work together.
At the end of the work, Savitsky also signed in the picture, so there were two signatures. Everything would be fine, everyone liked the picture very much, including the well-known philanthropist Tretyakov, who decided to buy the painting for his collection, however, demanded that Savitsky's signature be removed, citing the fact that the bulk of the work was done by Shishkin, who was more familiar to him, who had to fulfill the requirement collector. As a result, a quarrel arose in this co-authorship, because the entire fee was paid to the main performer of the picture. Of course, there is practically no exact information on this matter, historians shrug their shoulders. One can, of course, only guess how this fee was divided and what unpleasant sensations were in the circle of fellow artists.
The plot with the painting Morning in a pine forest was widely known among contemporaries, there was a lot of talk and reasoning about the state of nature depicted by the artist. The fog is shown very colorfully, decorating the airiness of the morning forest with a soft blue haze. As we remember, the artist has already painted the painting "Fog in a Pine Forest" and this airy technique turned out to be very useful in this work.
Today, the picture is very common, as it was written above, it is known even to children who love sweets and souvenirs, often it is even called the Three Bears, perhaps because three cubs catch the eye and the bear is, as it were, in the shade and not quite noticeable, in the second case in The USSR so called sweets, where this reproduction was printed on candy wrappers.
Also today, modern masters draw copies, decorating various offices and representative secular halls with the beauties of our Russian nature, and of course our apartments. In the original, this masterpiece can be seen by visiting the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which is not often visited by many.
The Nun by Ilya Repin
Ilya Repin. Nun. 1878. State Tretyakov Gallery / Portrait under X-ray
A young girl in strict monastic clothes looks thoughtfully at the viewer from the portrait. The image is classic and familiar - it probably would not have aroused interest among art critics if it were not for the memoirs of Lyudmila Alekseevna Shevtsova-Spore, the niece of Repin's wife. They have an interesting history.
Sophia Repina, née Shevtsova, posed for Ilya Repin for The Nun. The girl was the artist's sister-in-law - and at one time Repin himself was seriously infatuated with her, but married her younger sister Vera. Sophia also became the wife of Repin's brother - Vasily, an orchestra member of the Mariinsky Theater.
This did not prevent the artist from repeatedly painting portraits of Sophia. For one of them, the girl posed in a ceremonial ballroom: a light elegant dress, lace sleeves, high hair. While working on the painting, Repin seriously quarreled with the model. As you know, everyone can offend an artist, but few can take revenge as inventively as Repin did. The offended artist "dressed" Sophia in the portrait in monastic clothes.
The story, similar to a joke, was confirmed by an x-ray. The researchers were lucky: Repin did not clean off the original paint layer, which made it possible to examine in detail the heroine's original outfit.
"Park Alley" by Isaac Brodsky
Isaac Brodsky. Park alley. 1930. Private collection / Isaac Brodsky. Park alley in Rome. 1911
Repin's student Isaac Brodsky left an equally interesting mystery for researchers. The Tretyakov Gallery holds his painting “Park Alley”, which at first glance is unremarkable: Brodsky had a lot of works on the “park” theme. However, the further into the park - the more colorful layers.
One of the researchers noticed that the composition of the painting was suspiciously reminiscent of another work by the artist - "Park Alley in Rome" (Brodsky was stingy with the original titles). This painting was considered lost for a long time, and its reproduction was published only in a rather rare edition of 1929. With the help of a radiograph, a Roman alley that had mysteriously disappeared was found - right under the Soviet one. The artist did not clean off the already finished image and simply made a number of simple changes to it: he changed the clothes of passers-by in the fashion of the 30s of the XX century, “took away” the serso from the children, removed the marble statues and slightly modified the trees. So the sunny Italian park with a couple of light hand movements turned into an exemplary Soviet one.
When asked why Brodsky decided to hide his Roman alley, they did not find an answer. But it can be assumed that the depiction of the "modest charm of the bourgeoisie" in 1930 was already inappropriate from an ideological point of view. Nevertheless, of all Brodsky's post-revolutionary landscape works, "Park Alley" is the most interesting: despite the changes, the picture retained the charming elegance of modernity, which, alas, was no longer in Soviet realism.
"Morning in a Pine Forest" by Ivan Shishkin
Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. Morning in a pine forest. 1889. State Tretyakov Gallery
A forest landscape with cubs playing on a fallen tree is perhaps the most famous work of the artist. That's just the idea of the landscape Ivan Shishkin prompted another artist - Konstantin Savitsky. He also painted a she-bear with three cubs: bears, an expert on the forest, Shishkin, did not succeed in any way.
Shishkin impeccably understood the forest flora, noticed the slightest mistakes in the drawings of his students - either the birch bark is not depicted in the same way, or the pine looks like a fake one. However, people and animals in his work have always been a rarity. This is where Savitsky came to the rescue. By the way, he left several preparatory drawings and sketches with cubs - he was looking for suitable poses. “Morning in a Pine Forest” was not originally “Morning”: the painting was called “Bear Family in the Forest”, and there were only two bears on it. As a co-author, Savitsky put his signature on the canvas.
When the canvas was delivered to the merchant Pavel Tretyakov, he was indignant: he paid for Shishkin (ordered the author's work), but received Shishkin and Savitsky. Shishkin, as an honest man, did not attribute authorship to himself. But Tretyakov went on principle and blasphemously erased Savitsky's signature from the picture with turpentine. Savitsky later nobly refused copyright, and the bears were attributed to Shishkin for a long time.
"Portrait of a Chorus Girl" by Konstantin Korovin
Konstantin Korovin. Portrait of a chorus girl. 1887. State Tretyakov Gallery / Reverse side of the portrait
On the back of the canvas, the researchers found a message from Konstantin Korovin on cardboard, which turned out to be almost more interesting than the painting itself:
“In 1883 in Kharkov, a portrait of a chorus girl. Written on a balcony in a commercial public garden. Repin said, when this sketch was shown to him by Mamontov S.I., that he, Korovin, writes and is looking for something else, but what is it for - this is painting for painting only. Serov had not yet painted portraits at that time. And the painting of this sketch was found incomprehensible??!! So Polenov asked me to remove this sketch from the exhibition, since neither the artists nor the members - Mr. Mosolov and some others like it. The model was an ugly woman, even somewhat ugly.The "letter" disarmed with its directness and bold challenge to the entire artistic community: "Serov had not yet painted portraits at that time" - but they were painted by him, Konstantin Korovin. And he was allegedly the first to use techniques characteristic of the style that would later be called Russian impressionism. But all this turned out to be a myth that the artist created intentionally.Konstantin Korovin
The harmonious theory "Korovin - the forerunner of Russian impressionism" was mercilessly destroyed by objective technical and technological research. On the front side of the portrait, they found the artist's signature in paint, a little lower - in ink: "1883, Kharkov." In Kharkov, the artist worked in May - June 1887: he painted scenery for the performances of the Russian Private Mamontov Opera. In addition, art critics found out that the "Portrait of a chorus girl" was made in a certain artistic manner - a la prima. This technique of oil painting made it possible to paint a picture in one session. Korovin began to use this technique only in the late 1880s.
After analyzing these two inconsistencies, the employees of the Tretyakov Gallery came to the conclusion that the portrait was painted only in 1887, and Korovin added an earlier date to emphasize his own innovation.
"Man and Cradle" by Ivan Yakimov
Ivan Yakimov. Man and cradle.1770. State Tretyakov Gallery / Full version of the work
For a long time, Ivan Yakimov's painting "A Man and a Cradle" puzzled art critics. And the point was not even that such everyday sketches were absolutely uncharacteristic of 18th-century painting - the rocking horse in the lower right corner of the picture had a rope stretched too unnaturally, which logically should have been lying on the floor. Yes, and it was too early for a child from the cradle to play such toys. Also, the fireplace did not even fit halfway on the canvas, which looked very strange.
"Enlightened" the situation - in the literal sense - x-ray. She showed that the canvas was cut on the right and top.
The painting came to the Tretyakov Gallery after the sale of the collection of Pavel Petrovich Tugogoi-Svinin. He owned the so-called "Russian Museum" - a collection of paintings, sculptures and antiques. But in 1834, due to financial problems, the collection had to be sold - and the painting "A Man and a Cradle" ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery: not all, but only its left half. The right one, unfortunately, was lost, but you can still see the work in its entirety, thanks to another unique exhibit of the Tretyakov Gallery. The full version of Yakimov's work was found in the album "Collection of excellent works of Russian artists and curious domestic antiquities", which contains drawings from most of the paintings that were part of the Svinin collection.
Picture painted: 1889
Canvas, oil.
Size: 139 × 213 cm
Description of the painting "Three Bears" by I. Shishkin
Artist: Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky
Name of the painting: "Morning in a pine forest"
Picture painted: 1889
Canvas, oil.
Size: 139 × 213 cm
In domestic spaces, you will not find a second such “hit” canvas, the plot of which is present on a rare grandmother’s bedspread, an embroidered little thought, tablecloths, plates, and even on wrappers with cute clubfoot. Memories of parents, chocolates and PR moves - that's what keeps us from forgetting I. Shishkin's painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" or, in the common people, "Three Bears".
Is it only Shishkin? Bears on canvas were painted by K. Savitsky, who at first depicted two clubfoot, and then raised their number to four. It used to be that Shishkin, despite his rather significant success in animal painting, was not able to depict bears, so he simply exploited poor Savitsky and did not even allow him to sign on the picture. In fact, the artists were friends, and the bears appeared only after the latter said that the canvas was not dynamic. Shishkin could draw anyone, but not bears, so he gave Savitsky the opportunity to revive the picture and sign it. Collector P. Tretyakov was not so loyal: he bought the painting from Shishkin, which means that the authorship is his, so there can be no Savitskys here. In general, the inscription was erased and "Morning in a Pine Forest" began to be considered one of the key paintings in the work of one of the most prominent Russian landscape painters.
Sweets "Mishka clumsy" with Shishkin's reproduction on a wrapper gave the name to the canvas "Three Bears". The delicacy that appeared had a filling of almonds, cocoa beans, was expensive, but it was so tasty that even the agitator of everyone and everything V. Mayakovsky could not resist and wrote they say, if you want "Bears", then set aside a certain amount of money in a savings book. That's how "Clumsy Bear" became "Three Bears" (and there are four of them in the picture), candy - one of the signs of the USSR, and I. Shishkin - a people's artist.
True, he was a singer of the nature of his native land even before the "Bears". The artist wanted and knew how to surprise, first of all, with landscapes, which he painted in such a fine manner that he earned the fame of a master of detailing. Only here you will see a haze of fog, as if floating among the branches of centennial pines, soft and cozy moss on boulders, clear water of a stream, morning or evening coolness, midday heat of summer. Interestingly, all the artist's canvases are partially epic, but always monumental. At the same time, Shishkin is not pretentious, he is simply the person who sincerely admires the majestic nature of his native land and knows how to portray it.
"Morning in a Pine Forest" pacifies the balance of its composition. Three bear cubs look very harmonious with their mother bear, and one wants to apply a divine proportion to the two halves of a fallen pine tree. This picture is like a random shot on an old camera that a tourist managed to make, who has been looking for true virgin nature for so long.
And if you look at the color of the picture, then the artist seems to be trying to capture all the richness of the colors of the dawn time. We see the air, but it is not the usual blue hue, but rather blue-green, a little cloudy and foggy. The predominant colors that surrounded the clumsy inhabitants of the forest are green, blue and sunny yellow, reflecting the mood of awakened nature. The bright shimmering golden rays in the background seem to hint at the sun, which is about to illuminate the earth. It is these highlights that give the picture solemnity, it is they who speak of the realism of the fog above the ground. "Morning in a pine forest" is another confirmation of the tangibility of Shishkin's paintings, because you can even feel the cool air.
Look closely at the forest. Its appearance is conveyed so realistically that it becomes clear: this is not a forest glade, but a deaf thicket - a true concentration of wildlife. Above it, the sun had just risen, the rays of which had already managed to make their way to the top of the treetops, splashing them with gold and again hiding in the thicket. Wet fog that has not yet dissipated seems to have awakened the inhabitants of the ancient forest.
Here the cubs and the she-bear woke up, having developed their stormy activity. Satisfied and well-fed, the bears explore the world around them from the very morning, exploring the nearest fallen pine tree, and the mother bear watches over the cubs, who climb the tree with touching clumsiness. Moreover, the bear watches not only the cubs, but also tries to catch the slightest sounds that can disturb their idyll. It is simply amazing how these animals, painted by another artist, could revive the compositional solution of the picture: the fallen pine seemed to have been created for this bear family, busy with their important affairs against the backdrop of a remote and wild corner of Russian nature.
The painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” reveals the mastery of a realistic image and its quality, which is in many respects ahead of modern digital technology. Every blade of grass, every ray of sun, every pine needle is written by Shishkin lovingly and reverently. If the foreground of the canvas depicts a fallen pine tree with bears climbing on it, then an ancient forest is located in the background. Bear cubs and the rest of nature evoke calming positive emotions in every person. Animals, like toys, fill the beginning of a new day with kindness and tune in to positive thinking. Looking at these cute animals, one cannot believe that they are predators by nature and cannot be capable of cruelty. But the main thing is not even that. Shishkin focuses the viewer's attention on the harmony of the sunlight that comes from the background of the picture with the cubs in the foreground. Draw a visual line through them - and you will certainly notice that these are the brightest objects in the picture, and everything else, including irregularly shaped pine trees, are just complementary strokes.
It seems that "Morning in a Pine Forest" depicts real, live bears in some fantastic landscape. The Vyatka forest, from which nature is written off, the researchers say, is very different from the Shishkin forest. I just wonder if there are bears there now, because the picture has been educating the aesthetic and moral taste of people for a century, and asks to take care of the environment.
Probably, perhaps the most famous painting by the Russian painter is "Morning in a pine forest". This picture has been known and loved by many since childhood for the wrapper of the no less beloved chocolates “Bear-toed Bear”. Only a few paintings by Russian artists can argue with the popularity of this painting.
The idea of the painting was once suggested to the painter Shishkin by the artist Konstantin Savitsky, who acted as a co-author and depicted the figures of bears. As a result, Savitsky's animals turned out so well that he signed the painting together with Shishkin. But when Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov bought the painting, he removed Savitsky's signature, and the authorship remained only with Shishkin. Tretyakov considered that everything in the picture speaks of the manner of painting and the creative method peculiar to Shishkin.
The canvas depicts a dense thicket of a pine forest with a fallen, broken tree on the edge of a ravine. The left side of the picture still retains the twilight of the cold night of a dense forest. Moss covers uprooted tree roots and fallen broken branches. Soft green grass creates a feeling of comfort and tranquility. But the rays of the rising sun had already gilded the tops of the age-old pines and made the morning mist glow. And although the sun is not yet able to completely dispel this night fog, which hides the entire depth of the pine forest from the viewer’s gaze, the cubs are already playing on the broken trunk of a fallen pine tree, and the mother bear is guarding them. One of the cubs, having climbed up the trunk closer to the ravine, stood on its hind legs and looks curiously into the distance at the light of the haze from the rising sun.
We see not just a monumental painting about the greatness and beauty of Russian nature. Before us is not only a deaf dense frozen forest with its deep power, but a living picture of nature. Sunlight, breaking through the haze and columns of tall trees, makes you feel the depth of the ravine behind the fallen pine, the power of centuries-old trees. The light of the morning sun is still looking timidly into this pine forest. But the animals already feel the approach of the sunny morning - frolicking cubs and their mother. The picture is filled with movement and life thanks not only to these four bears, who love solitude in the forest, but also to the transitional moment of the early sunny morning waking up after the cold night, accurately depicted by the painter. The peaceful smile of the forest spreads: the day will be sunny. It begins to seem to the viewer that the birds have already voiced their morning songs. The beginning of a new day promises light and tranquility!
