Konstantin Yuon was a master of architectural landscapes and theatrical scenery. He depicted Russian nature and monuments of ancient architecture surrounded by contemporary life, painted ancient provincial Russian cities and Moscow, where he was born and lived all his life.

Painter, theater artist and teacher

Konstantin Yuon. Self-portrait (detail). 1912. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Konstantin Yuon. Night hour. Portrait of the artist's wife (detail). 1911. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. Self-portrait (detail). 1953. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

“I was born in 1875 in Moscow, on 4th Meshchanskaya Street, near the Garden Ring, where I lived for the first five years of my life in a two-story house typical of the 1870s with a spacious garden of old elms, with flower beds and benches,”- wrote Konstantin Yuon in his autobiographical essay "Moscow in my work." His father was from Switzerland and served as an insurance agent. In a large family, 11 children were born. They loved music and theater in the house, arranged home concerts and performances, for which they themselves wrote texts and sewed costumes, and the scenery was created by Konstantin Yuon. He began painting and drawing at the age of eight, fell in love with the architecture of old Moscow as a child and became a regular visitor to the Tretyakov Gallery.

In 1893, Yuon entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, studied for a year at the architectural department and transferred to painting - "colors overpowered" as he later recalled. The young artist studied composition in the class of Konstantin Savitsky, studied with the Wanderers Abram Arkhipov and Nikolai Kasatkin. And Yuon improved the painting technique in the private workshop of Valentin Serov. Even in the years of study, the paintings brought Yuon a stable income, and the artist traveled around Russia and Europe with the proceeds. In 1900, his first landscape from the exhibition of the Wanderers - "At the Novodevichy Convent in the Spring" - was acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery.

Konstantin Yuon. Komsomol members. Young growth near Moscow (fragment). 1926. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Konstantin Yuon. Morning in the village. Hostess (detail). 1920. State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan

Konstantin Yuon. Young. Laughter (fragment). 1930. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

In the same year, in the small village of Ligachev in the Moscow region, Yuon met a peasant woman, Claudia Nikitina, who soon became his wife. Due to an unequal marriage, his father did not communicate with the artist for several years.

After graduating from college, Konstantin Yuon, together with the painter Ivan Dudin, opened the “Drawing and Painting Classes” - his own private school, similar to art studios and workshops. It worked until 1917, and more than three thousand students studied there. Among them were muralist Vera Mukhina, landscape painter Alexander Kuprin, Jack of Diamonds participant Robert Falk, graphic artist Vladimir Favorsky and other famous artists.

Konstantin Yuon. Beginning of spring (detail). 1935. Private collection

Konstantin Yuon. River pier (detail). 1912. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Konstantin Yuon. Blue house. Petrovskoye (detail). 1916. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In parallel, Konstantin Yuon designed the performances of Sergey Diaghilev's Russian Seasons in Paris, and in 1913 he created the scenery for Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov. The role of Godunov was played by opera singer Fyodor Chaliapin, who acquired the sketches he liked for his collection.

I bought from the artist Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon seven sketches for the scenery of "Boris Godunov", which are now written for Paris, and every day I admire them - excellent things ... I paid him one and a half thousand rubles, but I have a hundred and fifty pleasures. What a charm, by God, - a talented guy, the devil caress him!

Fyodor Chaliapin, from a letter to Maxim Gorky

Landscape painter of the Russian province

Konstantin Yuon. Winter sun. Ligachevo (detail). 1916. Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia

Konstantin Yuon. The end of winter (detail). 1929. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. March sun (detail). 1915. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Despite the fact that Konstantin Yuon was a successful theater artist, landscape was his favorite genre. The artist was inspired by Russian antiquity: colorful nature, ancient churches, bright folk costumes and scarves.

I wanted to paint pictures, how songs are written about life, about the history of the Russian people, about nature, about ancient Russian cities...

Konstantin Yuon

Konstantin Yuon. August evening. The last beam (fragment). 1948. Private collection

Konstantin Yuon. Window. Moscow. The apartment of the artist's parents (detail). 1905. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. Interior (detail). 1907. Sevastopol Art Museum named after M.P. Kroshitsky, Sevastopol

In the 1900s and 10s, Yuon traveled to ancient cities on the banks of the Volga and painted the painting “Above the Volga”. The artist called Nizhny Novgorod "a wonderful historical city". He came there at different times of the year: "to exhaust, even to a small extent, its substantial beauty was impossible". Yuon painted city bridges and piers, boats and brisk coastal merchants.

In 1915, Yuon created the painting "March Sun" - one of his main pre-revolutionary works. The artist painted the picture in Ligachev, near Moscow, where he lived for a long time and where he observed different states of nature ... Art critic Dmitry Sarabyanov wrote: “The picture can complement the series of Russian snowy landscapes, in which we included Grabar’s “February Azure”, Levitan’s “March” and Savrasov’s “Rooks Have Arrived” ... In the “March Sun” we find many of the elements of the landscape that we could meet with the Wanderers : an ordinary rural street with wooden houses ... horses with riding boys; dog trailing after a foal.

Chronicler of stone architecture

Konstantin Yuon. Spring sunny day (fragment). 1910. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Konstantin Yuon. Trinity Lavra in winter (detail). 1910. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Konstantin Yuon. Spring in the Trinity Lavra (detail). 1911. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Yuon loved the provincial Russian landscape and often painted views of Rostov the Great, Uglich, Torzhok and other ancient Russian cities. In the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, "To the Trinity" (1903), "Trinity Lavra in Winter" (1910) were written.

I had such a working method: to bring the canvas to nature, and then continue to work at home in anticipation of a new, suitable moment in nature. I always knew by the clock at what moment the sunlight I needed would come, and I would come an hour before that moment, and when that moment came, I put down the brush and only observed the interconnection of all parts of the picture, its essence.

Konstantin Yuon

Monuments of Russian architecture Yuon depicted in the environment of contemporary reality. He painted with bright, pure colors, and combined the urban architectural landscape with scenes from the life of the people. Yuon used in his paintings a high panoramic point of view, which made it possible to convey the spaciousness and light of the landscape.

Moscow: from scenes from suburban life to the majestic Kremlin

Konstantin Yuon. Lubyanka Square in winter (detail). 1905. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. Palm market on Red Square (fragment). 1916. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. Moskvoretsky bridge. Winter (detail). 1911. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Together with the artists Igor Grabar and Arbam Arkhipov in the 1900s, Konstantin Yuon became one of the initiators of the creation of the Union of Russian Artists, the core of which was made up of Moscow landscape painters.

Yuon created many paintings about Moscow: the artist painted famous architectural monuments, churches, towers, sledges and sheds, wooden houses of townspeople, gray fences with high gates and, of course, people in bright festive clothes. Yuon drew inspiration from Moscow holidays, festivities - noisy and elegant. He believed that "one of the many missions of an artist is to be a chronicler of his time, to capture the face of his native country and its people of a certain historical period."

Konstantin Yuon. Night. Tverskoy Boulevard (detail). 1909. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. August evening (detail). 1922. Simferopol Art Museum, Simferopol, Republic of Crimea

Konstantin Yuon. Troika near the old Yar (detail). 1909. Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts named after Gapar Aitiev, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

The great revival on this bridge, connecting Red Square with Zamoskvorechye, clearly expresses the confusion and hustle and bustle that invariably dominated Moscow street life. The picture is painted against the backdrop of the Kremlin and part of the Kitaigorod wall; it conveys the silver-gray, pearl color of a Moscow winter day.

Konstantin Yuon about the painting “Moskvoretsky Bridge. Winter "(1911)

Yuon was fascinated by the art of the French Impressionists. He wrote: “I accepted what seemed to help to better see the beauty of my native living world; my palette, which was previously somewhat gray, after meeting these masters, began to clear up and sounded louder. The influence of impressionism manifested itself in a series of evening and night landscapes with artificial lighting effects, which the artist called "Moscow nocturnes".

Konstantin Yuon. Parade of the Red Army (detail). 1923. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. New planet (detail). 1921. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. Parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941 (detail). 1942. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

After the revolution of 1917, Konstantin Yuon was captured by the new life of the country. He created a series of watercolors about the Moscow events of 1917, skillfully combining scenes from city life and the architectural landscape. Yuon was an eyewitness to the revolutionary events in Moscow: he visited the sites of recent battles and decided to capture the last moments of the struggle.

In the watercolor “Before Entering the Kremlin at the Nikolsky Gates,” he depicted soldiers and workers on trucks at the barricaded gates of the Kremlin.

Konstantin Yuon. Before entering the Kremlin in 1917. Nikolsky Gate (detail). 1927. State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. Morning of industrial Moscow (detail). 1949. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Konstantin Yuon. Morning of Moscow (detail). 1942. Irkutsk Regional Art Museum named after V.P. Sukachev, Irkutsk

The painting “New Planet” (1921) stands apart among the artist’s canvases. In those years, Yuon paid much attention to work in the theater, and the canvas was born from his sketch for the theatrical curtain for the Bolshoi Theater, which is why stage convention dominates the canvas. The opinions of viewers and critics about the picture were divided: some saw in it an image of a new world - the birth of the "red planet" of the revolution, others - a premonition of the coming upheavals of the 20th century.

Konstantin Yuon. Canopy. Ligachevo (detail). 1929. Private collection

Konstantin Yuon. Feeding pigeons on Red Square (detail). 1946. Chelyabinsk Regional Art Gallery, Chelyabinsk

In his mature years, Konstantin Yuon was engaged in social and pedagogical work. He taught at, at, wrote a collection of articles and essays "On Art" and other works.

In the 1940s, Yuon created sketches for mosaics for an unrealized project for the Palace of the Soviets and worked as a theater designer at the Maly Theatre. In wartime, he did not leave the capital and painted his beloved city. Konstantin Yuon. View from the balcony in autumn (detail). 1910. Private collection

Konstantin Yuon. Blue bush (detail). 1908. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Until the end of his life, landscape, including industrial, remained the main thing in Yuon's work. In 1949, he created the painting "Morning of Industrial Moscow" - a view of the capital from the window of the artist's studio on Chkalov Street. Yuon wrote about this work: “Through the old tall trees against the backdrop of the winter rising sun, a view of a complex industrial landscape with many smoking factory and factory chimneys opens up. Multi-colored smokes mixed with the snowy landscape and formed a mother-of-pearl color in the picture.

Konstantin Yuon died in 1958 at the age of 82 in Moscow. The artist's works are now kept in the collections of the largest museums in Russia. In addition to paintings, his legacy includes scientific articles on pedagogy, history and theory of fine arts.

Yuon Konstantin Fedorovich is a great Russian artist, landscape painter. In addition to painting, he was engaged in the design of theatrical productions, was an academician of the USSR Academy of Arts, People's Artist of the USSR.

Konstantin Yuon was born in Moscow in 1875. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His teachers were such renowned artists as K. A. Savitsky (genre artist, Wanderer), A. E. Arkhipov (Wanderer, founder of the Union of Russian Artists), N. A. Kasatkin (Wanderer, one of the founders of socialist realism). In life and work, Yuon Konstantin Fedorovich was a happy and successful person. He became an established painter at a fairly early age. Throughout his life, he regularly received awards, prizes, titles, and enjoyed various honors. His paintings sold out very quickly and were very popular. Also, his paintings participated in exhibitions of the Wanderers, exhibitions of the World of Art and others. The artist achieved such recognition from the public himself, with his painstaking work and incredible talent, with his poetic view of Russia and his love for ordinary human joys, which in his paintings seem unusually inspired and charming.

In addition to painting and designing theatrical productions, he founded his own studio, where he taught the basics and secrets of craftsmanship. A. V. Kuprin, Mukhina, the Vesnin brothers, A. V. Grishchenko, M. Reuter and others became his students. Also known as one of the founders of the Union of Russian Artists. He was one of the members-artists of the famous association "". He taught at the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov and other art institutions. Died April 11, 1958. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

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K. F. Yuon paintings

self-portrait

spring sunny day

Sorceress-winter in Ligachevo

blue bush

Walking on the Maiden's Field

Village of Novgorod province

Winter. Bridge

Komsomol members

Red goods. Rostov the Great

March sun

Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon(October 12, 1875 - April 11, 1958) - Russian artist, graphic artist, stage designer.

Born on October 12 (24), 1875 in Moscow in a Swiss-German family. Father - an employee of an insurance company, later - its director; mother is an amateur musician.

Landscape painter, author of portraits, genre paintings. Konstantin Yuon is a representative of symbolism and modernity, who organically continued these traditions in the Soviet era.

The painting style of Konstantin Yuon was influenced by the lessons of Kostantin Korovin and Valentin Serov. Konstantin Yuon took part in exhibitions of the Moscow Association of Artists (1899, 1902), the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (1900), the World of Art (1901, 1906). From 1903 he was a permanent exhibitor of the Union of Russian Artists, from 1904 he was a member of the Committee of the Union. Konstantin Yuon worked mainly as a landscape painter, gaining "wide fame" among the Moscow and St. Petersburg public. In the late 1900s and early 1910s, he designed opera productions of Russian Seasons by S. P. Diaghilev in Paris.

After the revolution, Konstantin Yuon was one of the initiators of the creation of schools of fine arts at the Moscow Department of Public Education. In 1920 he received the first prize for a curtain design for the Bolshoi Theatre. In 1921 he was elected a full member of the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences. Since 1925 - a member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. In 1938-1939 he directed a personal workshop at the All-Russian Academy of Arts in Leningrad. In 1940 he completed sketches of the mosaic decoration of the Palace of Soviets. In 1943 he was awarded the Stalin Prize, in 1947 he was elected a full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR. From 1943 to 1948 Konstantin Yuon worked as the chief artist of the Maly Theatre. In 1950 he was awarded the title of "People's Artist". In 1948-1950 he headed the Research Institute of History and Theory of Fine Arts of the Academy of Arts of the USSR. Doctor of Arts. In 1952-1955 he taught at the Moscow State Art Institute named after V.V. I. Surikova, professor. Since 1957 - First Secretary of the Board of the Union of Artists of the USSR.

After the revolution, the individual handwriting of the artist has changed little, the range of subjects has become somewhat different. In the 1920s - 1950s Konstantin Yuon created a number of portraits, paintings on the themes of the history of the revolution and contemporary life, in which he adhered to the realistic tradition. The landscapes of this time are close in the manner of execution to earlier works of the 1910s, in which elements of impressionism and "wandering realism" are closely intertwined. Filled with subtle lyricism, they are of the greatest value in the entire creative heritage of the master.

1912 Self-portrait of Konstantin Yuon. H., M. 54x36. timing

1890s Landscape with a church. Cardboard, oil.

1899 Birches. Petrovskoe. X.m. 147x80. Vologda

1899 Portrait of Z.A. Pertsova. Fragment.

1900 Monastery in the snow.

1900 At the Novodevichy Convent in the spring. B., aqua., ink, white. GTG

1901 Old elms.

1903 April morning.

1903 Holiday. Cardboard, tempera. 95.5x70. timing

1903 In the monastery settlement. At the Trinity-Sergius.

1903 Red sled. Trinity-Sergiev Posad.

In the monastic settlement. At the Trinity-Sergius.

1903 Landscape.

1904 Life on the coast. Pskov. Saratov

1905 Window. Moscow, apartment of the artist's parents. Cardboard, pastel. 49x64. GTG

1906 On the banks of the Pskov River. B. on cardboard, watercolour, whitewash, charcoal.

1906 Gate of the Rostov Kremlin.

1906. Spring evening. Rostov the Great. Hm. 70x96. Serpukhov

1906 Cathedral in Rostov the Great. B., aq., white. emergency

1906 Blue day. Rostov the Great. H., M. 77x160. Ryazan

1906 Winter. Rostov the Great.

1907 Interior.

1907 Elder bush. Decorative landscape. Pskov. H., M. 70.5x123. Tashkent

1908 In the Nobility Assembly. X. on cardboard, m. 71x95.7. GTG (q)

Winter forest, paper, gouache, 18x25

Seascape. Mountain slope. emergency

Autumn view from the balcony. Canvas, oil. 71.8x58.

1908 Bridge across the river. Oka in Nizhny Novgorod.

1908 City of Voskresensk.

1908 Blue bush. Canvas, oil.

1909 Troika at the old Yar. Winter. H., M. 71x89. Bishkek

1909 Walking on the Maiden's Field. Esq. to the cards. of the same name. 1909-47 from GTG. X., M., 30x44.5. CHS, M.

1909 Nizhny Novgorod in winter.

1909 Crossing the Oka. Nizhny Novgorod. B., aq., white.

1909 Night. Tverskoy boulevard. B., aq., white.

1910 Spring sunny day. Canvas, oil. 87x131. timing

Procession on the slope.

1910 Intimate world. B., temp. 62x95. Pskov

1910 View of Moscow from the Sparrow Hills. H., M. 71x198. Yerevan

1910 Winter day. X., M. 80x110.5. Kharkiv

1910s First day of Easter. B., aq. MN

1910s Landscape with birches. Canvas on cardboard, oil.

1910 Trinity Lavra. March. B., aq., white.

1910 Moscow. Kremlin. B., aq. 32x35. Yerevan

1910 Winter. Plywood, oil. 23.2x30.2. emergency

1910 Trinity Lavra in winter. Canvas, oil. 125x198. timing

1910s Landscape of the Novgorod province.

1910s Winter. Landscape with a red church.

1910 Village holiday. Tver province. Canvas, oil.

1911 Moskvoretsky bridge. Old Moscow. B., aq., white. 62.5x167.5. GTG. Fragment.

1912 Village of the Novgorod province. H., M. 58x70.5. timing

1912 Dance of matchmakers. Ligachevo. H., M. 134x200.

1912 Portrait of Boris Yuon, the artist's son. 87.7x69.8. GT

1913 Body.

1913 Esq. to Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov. II act. Terem of Tsar Boris. Map, gouache. 63.5x83.5. GTsTM

1913 Troika in Uglich. B., aq., white. 53x69. timing

1913 Carousel. Uglich. B., aq., white.

1913 Mill. October. Ligachevo. Canvas, oil. 60x81. GTG

1913 Coronation of Mikhail Fedorovich in 1613. Cathedral Square, Moscow Kremlin. Canvas, oil. 81х116

1913 Coronation of Mikhail Fedorovich in 1613. Cathedral Square, Moscow Kremlin. Canvas, oil. 81x116. Fragment

1914 Winter. Bridge. Canvas, oil. 68.6x104. Penza

1915 May morning. Nightingale place. Ligachevo. Hm.

1916 View of the Trinity Lavra. Paper, watercolor, whitewash. 22.5x30. GTG

1916 Winter sun. Ligachevo. H., M. 105x153. Riga

1916 Palm market on Red Square. 1916. B. on maps, aq., Bel.

1917 Privolye. Watering place (Ligachevo). Canvas, oil. 78x119. Irkutsk

1917 At the Pskov Cathedral. B. on the map, gouache. 30.3x22.9. M.-sq. Brodsky

1920 Bathing. OK. 1920

1920 Provincials. Paper pasted on cardboard, gouache. 62x75.5. Nikolaev

1920s Trinity-Sergius Lavra. In winter.

1920s Morning in the countryside. Mistress. Kazan

1921 Domes and swallows. Assumption Cathedral of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. H., M. 71x89. GTG

1921 New planet. Cardboard, tempera. 71x101. GTG

1922 Refectory of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Canvas, oil.

1922 Symphony of Action. X., M. 78x92. Private collection. Moscow

1922 August evening. Ligachevo. X., M. 76x98. Simferopol

1922 Annunciation Day. Canvas, oil.

1923 People. X., M. 91 x 121. Kharkov

1924 Portrait of K.A. Yuon, the artist's wife. X., M. 50x55. Collection of OI Yuon. Moscow

1924 Body. B., aq. 30.5x24.5. Sobr. O.I.Yuona. Moscow

1924 Alexander Garden near the Kremlin. Canvas, oil

1926 Portrait of the poet Grigory Shirman. emergency

1926 Komsomol members. 1926. H., M. 52x67. FMC

1926 Youth near Moscow. Ligachevo. X., m.

1926 In those days. At the House of Unions during the funeral of V.I. Lenin. B., aq., white. 32x49. Central Museum of V.I. Lenin

1927 The first appearance of V.I. Lenin at the meeting. Petrosoviet in Smolny 25 Oct. 1917 H., M. 132x191. timing

1928 Seeing the working detachment to the front. H., M. 198x310. TsMVS USSR

1928 Holiday of cooperation in the countryside. Plywood, m. 71x89. Sevastopol

1928 The first collective farmers. In the rays of the sun. Podolino. Moscow region Hm.

1928 Window to nature. Ligachevo, May. Oil on canvas, 65x100

1928 Picking apples. H., M. 94x120. Kaluga

1929 End of winter. Noon. Ligachevo. Canvas, oil. 89x112. GTG

1929 Departing province. H. on plywood, m. 79x104. Voronezh

1929 Seni. Ligachevo. X., M. 85x99. Private collection. Moscow

1929 Portrait of a boy Oleg Yuon, the artist's grandson. X., M. 31x25. Sobr. O.I.Yuona.

1929 People of the future. H. on plywood, m. 66.5x100. Tver

1929 University students. H. on plywood, m. 72x90. GTG

1930 Ski excursion. Canvas, oil. 71x123. GTG

1930 Meeting of the association "Nikitinsky subbotniks". Hm.

1930 Return from work. 1930. H., m.

1930 Cornflowers in the sun. Plywood, m. 49.5x40.6. Arkhangelsk

1930s Portrait of Shura. Early 1930s. Vologda

1930s Lefortovo Garden in Moscow. emergency

1930s Portrait of a woman. Late 1930s. Private collection

1935 Winter in the forest.

1935 Light and air. H., m. MN

1935 Beginning of spring. H., M. 93x133. Kishinev

1940 Esq. to Mussorgsky's opera "Khovanshchina". Martha. 1940(q)

Painting is the most visual of all the arts. It is a “song without words” and, by its nature, it would seem that it does not require any verbal additions and explanations. A skillful artist-author, through his art, can say everything and everything. Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon knew how to perceive and capture the living pulse of creative methods. And this gift of his, which developed and grew indefinitely, represents the diverse and deep culture of Russian art.

Russian art is rich in talents. Each era of its development has left a great many names of excellent artists. But with special warmth we remember those masters who devoted their whole lives to glorifying the beauty of their native land. These landscape painters include Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon. Throughout his creative life, the artist was looking for a unique Russian folk style, typical colors and shapes. Only in showing this characteristic originality did Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon see the true artistic truth, which is the most important value in his art.

The activity of such an artist is always of exceptional interest. Its significance is comparable to the role of a self-portrait. The artist always, unconsciously or not, builds his perfect image, draws himself as he would like to be. He catches the threads of life to weave some new yarn out of them, emphasizes other influences and influences, illuminates the familiar in a different way, because he sees and understands his own creativity from within in a completely different way than he who contemplates it from the outside.

Yuon as a representative of the most primordial Moscow school of painting, he was the son of immigrants from Switzerland, who became Russian in fact and in principle. Having long earned recognition and wide artistic and public popularity, he was one of the greatest masters of Russian art, whose work became a link between the art of the Silver Age and Soviet artistic culture. The breadth of his talent and artistic interests allowed K.F. Yuon to achieve amazing results both in easel painting and in the design of theatrical performances.

K. F. Yuon, born in 1875, a student of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, who studied for a year with Serov, who soon got on his feet, a member of the best and most advanced associations of the Russian art world, the head of the most popular art school in Moscow, at the same time strangely eludes the possibility of giving it any lasting historical-artistic label. The time of his first appearance and fruitful activity, the first twenty-fifth anniversary of the 20th century, is unusually rich in events, influences, novelties, revolutions, catastrophes, revivals of Russian painting.

The position of KF Yuon in this conglomerate of currents, clashes, partisanship and extremes was always special: maneuvering, central, non-partisan and - lonely. He was a member of the World of Art, but remained in his Moscow group after the breakup; became, perhaps, the most prominent member of the "Union of Russian Artists", fundamentally sympathizing more with the Petersburgers.

The new aesthetics of Mir Iskusstva was at that time a true revelation and influenced even the artistic circles of Western Europe through its magazine. Many of the ideas that have been cultivated have a truly permanent significance, among which, first of all, though always “relative”, but in itself the undying idea of ​​beauty. Beauty, as the principle of world harmony, always reflected by art, was hardly ever capable of being outlived.

At the same time, even the very first exhibitions of the World of Art, which enchanted with their specific sharpness, their sophisticated intimate world, seemed to be some kind of rare phenomenal toy, some kind of strange intoxicating flower in comparison with the heavy, but sober, close to the surrounding, living prose life, the art of the Wanderers, - and this impression somewhere in the depths of the soul left a bewildered and unsatisfied sediment. Yielding on one side to the call of the newly discovered and alluring beauties of the art of the artists of the World of Art, which is too armchair in nature, he vaguely protested against its isolation, in most cases, from living Russian life and from life in general, against the admixture to this art of some kind of foreign - an alien note and regretted that art seemed to have moved away from the grand style and from self-sufficing painting.

As a representative of the Union of Russian Artists, Yuon introduced novelty and freshness into the art of that time, developing a special plastic language in which he used the principle of impressionistic vision. This was reflected in the appeal to various impressionistic techniques: the creation of an etude - a small-format painting, work in the open air, connected the landscape with the everyday genre, interior or still life, which is a typical expression of the impressionistic mixture of genres; used an asymmetric construction of the composition, fragmentation, expressiveness of angles - all this gave rise to a feeling of randomness of an unexpectedly seen scene. Color became the main means of expression here - the artist actively worked with pure color, without mixing paint on the palette, used contrasts of additional tones, reflexes, which made it possible to create a real impression of bright sunlight, a feeling of "breathing" of nature.

Throughout his long career, KF Yuon turned to various activities in the field of art. In addition to his favorite painting, he was also engaged in graphics and performance design, was known as a major art critic and an excellent teacher.

He was a realist, an impressionist, a symbolist, a decorator and a draftsman to the end, and perhaps not being any of them. He was brought closer to Levitan, and of course it’s wrong, because Yuon is not a lyricist, and has no need for “moods” in his painting. Levitan gave much more responses to the main themes of the impressionistic search for air, light, blurring impressions. Painting forms Yuona too clear and sharp, too sharply noticed in their too random movement.

Now the connection between Yuon and Serov is more clear, but Yuon is much more colorful, festive and at the same time everyday. There is no Serov Europeanism in him, and the mere fact that a picturesque portrait, Serov's true kingdom, stands in the background for Yuon, decisively does not allow him to see Serov's successor and successor. Yuon was from the beginning a realist, retaining a certain strong leaven of wandering before membership in the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR).

The artist spent his entire life in Moscow, and he tried to choose apartments on quiet streets so that nothing would interfere with creativity. life circumstances Yuona contributed to the formation and development of his talent, he did not have to endure either painful wanderings in search of his place in art, or strong shocks. Inexhaustible optimism and a bright vision of the world left their mark on all the work of the master.

Konstantin began to draw early. Being by nature a man of seething energy, purposeful and sociable, the eight-year-old boy did not retreat from his passion. During these years, his bright charisma manifested itself in the creation of an exciting "game of architecture", which he managed to captivate his peers. These were fabulous cities with unprecedented and fantastic architecture. It was the passion for architecture that led him to the Moscow School of Painting, although soon, as Yuon’s memory refreshes, “the colors were overdrawn.” Yes, and the passion for architecture was colored by a special cosmic feeling, a rush to utopian extraordinary worlds.

With admission to the school, Yuon finds himself in an atmosphere of innovation in Russian art. His mentors and favorite teachers, who became a model of taste, were K.A. Korovin, K.A. Savitsky and A.E. Arkhipov. In 1898, after graduating from college, until 1900, Yuon studied in the workshop of Vladimir Serov. “Artistic youth,” recalled K.F. Yuon, who was looking for truth and striving for the future, saw in Serov that figure, that “artistic conscience”, without which it was difficult to work, let alone study. It seemed that he had in his hands the keys to resolving emerging conflicts and objections, intertwined with the traditions of the Wanderers, about a completely new aesthetics of a group of artists who rallied around the World of Art magazine, about the influence of the impressionist movement. V.A. Serov I trusted most of all "training time Yuon, traveling around Europe, gets acquainted with the works of Western European masters. Undoubtedly, the technique of the Impressionists influenced the young artist, although not so much as to muffle his inner aspirations and external style. Nevertheless, the Russian landscape, populated by cheerful Russians, is the main theme of his canvases.

In search of national, original beauty, Yuon traveled a lot, stopping in villages and in ancient Russian cities. During his apprenticeship, he painted many views of the Tver province: “ In the park. Petrovskoe. Tver province"(1897)," Birches. Petrovskoe. Tver province"(1899)," (1890).

Early 1900s Konstantin Fedorovich makes long trips to ancient Russian cities: Rostov the Great, Nizhny Novgorod, Uglich, Torzhok, Pskov, Veliky Novgorod, Kostroma.

Images of market days in Russian cities find a special place in the work of Konstantin Fedorovich. They are distinguished by exceptional festivity, spring hubbub and loudness: “ Red goods. Rostov Veliky"(1905), "" (1906), "" (1916). Some decorativeness in the paintings only slightly emphasizes the unique atmosphere of the holiday.

Konstantin Yuon could not imagine the image of architecture without everyday scenes that unfolded at the foot of the monuments of ancient Russian architecture, for example, cathedrals, the fortress walls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra or the Moscow Kremlin, as evidenced by the paintings "" (1903), "" (1904), " » (1903).

The artist does not prescribe the faces of his characters: the mass nature of the action itself, bogged down in the generality of a motley color spot, is more important to him.

Yuon can be called the discoverer of the unique artistic image of ancient Rus'. In the paintings "" (1906), "" (1914), "" (1913) and others, he introduces a special point of view into the development of landscape composition. In the everyday life of provincial cities and towns, the artist saw a truly national beauty. The whole inner world of the modern, bubbling life of Central Russian cities, combined with ancient architecture and beautiful nature, acquired a new meaning in Yuon's canvases and was embodied lovingly, with his inherent clarity and artistry.

In the painting "" (1906), a juicy body colorful stroke equally fully and visibly conveys the looseness of melted snow, and the reliable "flesh" of old walls, and the shimmer of the sunset sky. All these contrasting motifs are links of a single pictorial space. Since the 1900s, views of ancient Russian cities have become a favorite theme of the artist.

Solemn architectural images in his canvases are "enlivened" by the vigorous activity of staffing everyday scenes.

In each city, Yuon finds and accurately reproduces his face, his unique originality. In his works dedicated to the Russian provinces, the beauty and festivity of the worldview, the artist's delight in the nature and architecture of Russia dominate. His contemporaries often called his works “carnival”, as they resemble folk festivals with their symphony of colors with their richness and variety of colors. “The highest happiness of a painter is to sing with colors,” the artist himself said. Let us at least remember him Domes and swallows», «», « End of winter. Noon».

A large cycle of Yuon's works is dedicated to Nizhny Novgorod. In these landscapes, the artist is attracted by the infinity of space. According to the famous Soviet art critic N. G. Mashkovtsev, the Volga was of interest to the painter “where it is least touching and majestic.” He depicted her "crushed by the weary sands, forced by the chaos of steamships, wharves and barges." As a rule, these are not very attractive places near Nizhny Novgorod, where the Oka flows into the Volga.

A striking example of such a landscape is the painting "" (1909). A sketch of it is available in the State Tretyakov Gallery. It belongs to Yuon's favorite winter landscapes. For a better visual coverage of the panorama of the Oka banks, the artist chooses an upper viewpoint, and the main characters of his work are a gray cloudy sky and a flat snowy space with silhouettes of city buildings on the horizon.

Along the banks of the river, along the bridge across it, horse-drawn carts and pedestrians scurry about. Life is in full swing here. Behind the external picturesque chaos of movement lies a special order of the long-established business bustle of the river - the toiler. Here there is a connection, very characteristic of Yuon's work, on one canvas of the life of nature and the life of people.

The artist remained faithful to the landscape until the end of his life. But in Soviet times, being very sensitive to the social life of his country, he strives to introduce features of the new into his work. During these years, his thematic paintings appeared, reflecting the holidays and work of the Soviet people, the hard everyday life of the war, the joyful days of the Victory.

Yuon bought a house in the Ligachevo estate. The estate was located not far from the house of the parents of Claudia Alekseevna, the artist's wife, acquaintance with whom was the main page in the artist's life. Back in 1900, while working in nature, Yuon saw a young girl with a luxurious long braid, who slowly climbed up the mountain from the river. An early marriage brought the wrath of his father on the artist, driving him out of the house.

But this anger did not last long. The kindness and sincere generosity of a peasant girl from the village of Ligachevo near Moscow softened all class prejudices, making her beloved daughter-in-law.

Here he wrote his best works. In 1915, Yuon painted his most famous landscape "". And much later, in 1947, he will write a landscape "".

A large-sized painting "" has a tremendous impact on the audience. Standing in front of a painting, you seem to feel the frosty air and the blueness of the sky and snow. The March sun, flooding everything around with a bright flame, broke through at sunset, lighting the branches and trunks of trees.

The image of winter occupies a special page in the work of Konstantin Fedorovich. Winter was one of his favorite topics. The artist admitted: "The whiteness of the snow covers of my native land gives me the most dear experiences and colors for me." In the painting "" dedicated to winter, Konstantin Yuon appears as a true poet of Russian nature. Here he creates a clear and complete composition. Before the audience there is a picture of Russian life against the backdrop of a winter landscape.

The viewer observes soft and fluffy snow, a thick cover that clothed the earth, a fabulous dress of hoarfrost that adorned the branches of mighty trees, and wrapping all objects in a frosty haze. All this is conveyed with the help of many subtle shades of cold colors, while painting K.F. Yuona predominantly colorful. As a result, an image of a real Russian "mother - winter" is created.

In the 1910s, Yuon's work gained strong popularity with the viewer. For him, a period of maturity of talent begins. Inclined to bring his artistic world into a coherent system, Yuon singles out its main elements: architecture, snow, sky, light, space, movement, body.

He has his own, rather peculiar palette: he loves bright colors and bright sun, as well as the fresh yellowness of wood or the perfect human body. But of all the painters of the Yuonian time, he is distinguished by a positive attitude towards white: be it snow or a wall, the sky or a sheet of paper.

In his watercolors and pencil drawings, Yuon again refutes any kind of schemes. His portrait drawings infinitely interesting. He idealizes the upper part of the faces of his models.

His line is not clear, his graphics are not contrasting, and yet hardly anyone of his contemporary understood the true charm of a self-sufficing pencil drawing, transparent or very saturated watercolor, rich lithography or simply arabesque lace in black and white graphics like Yuon.

Konstantin Yuon symbolically comprehended the fatal grandiosity of the revolutionary changes in " Action symphonies”(1920), where he presented the global cosmic scale of events: people are dying on the open earth and cities are being destroyed, and against the backdrop of a flaming sky, vague outlines of the future, then unclear to anyone, appear. And in the revolutionary allegory "" (1921), the revolution is interpreted as an event of a universal scale: as a result of cosmic shifts and catastrophes, a new planet is born in the world, illuminating the earth with an alarming crimson-red light and causing great spiritual upheavals of people writhing in fear.

It was the tragedy of the people who mistook the bloody moons of the underworld for the rising of a radiant luminary. An easily readable symbolic plot acquires a much wider semantic range in pictorial performance. The multitude of people, conditionally outlined by a "fan" of tiny silhouettes and personifying humanity, is shown before the fact of an inexplicable "doomsday" in a full range of different reactions: from exalted delight to confusion and horror. The earthly firmament, on which this multitude nests, is tiny in comparison with the colossal scale of the cosmic world, transmitted through the abstract hyperbolism of huge planets and gigantic streams of light pouring from heaven. And there is no doubt that this flaming cosmos is capable of absorbing the mortal futility of the earthly home.

The sensational "section" of Yuon's artistic life includes work in the theater. If in the paintings of Konstantin Fedorovich everything is very stable, very objective, then becoming a theatrical decorator, Yuon does not sacrifice anything from this objective stability to the illusory conventions of the most unreal of all arts. Not without reason, on the stage of the Academic Maly Theater, the artist feels most at ease.

Work in the theater is one of the sparkling facets of the artist's work. He made scenery for twenty-five plays and operas. The main place in the artist's work belongs to Russian dramaturgy: the works of M.P. Mussorgsky " Khovanshchina”, A.N. Ostrovsky " Enough simplicity for every sage», « Guilty without guilt”, N.V. Gogol " Auditor”, A.M. Gorky " Foma Gordeev". The debut of the artist in the theater was sketches of scenery for the opera by M.P. Mussorgsky " Boris Godunov". It was staged in Paris in 1913 as part of Diaghilev's famous Russian Seasons.

By bonds of especially deep friendship, the artist was associated with the Moscow Maly Theater. This theater cannot be imagined without flowery costumes, picturesque interiors and scenic landscapes of Zamoskvorechye, made by Yuon for the plays by A.N. Ostrovsky " The heart is not a stone», « crazy money», Poverty is not a vice».

Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon belongs to those happy artists who already during their lifetime enjoyed well-deserved fame and love of the audience. So, in 1958, when, during the performance of one of Emil Braginsky’s plays in the theater, her heroine, seeing a reproduction of “Yuon” on the wall of the hero’s apartment, said: “Yuon ... I love Yuon ...”, the audience burst into applause . It was a tribute to the artist, admiration for his talent.

Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon is a representative of the older generation of Soviet painters. His creative activity began in the pre-revolutionary years. And then the name of Yuon the artist became famous.

He belongs to the circle of those masters whose activity was the link between Soviet artistic culture and advanced Russian pre-revolutionary art. Having absorbed the best traditions of full-blooded Russian realism of the 19th century, Yuon entered Soviet art as an artist with a wide creative range, giving the people his talent as a painter, theater decorator and teacher, the inexhaustible energy of a public figure, his knowledge of a historian and art theorist.

Yuon's life and creative path is closely connected with Moscow. Here he was born on October 24, 1875. In a large and friendly family, Yuonov was fond of music, the brothers and sisters of Konstantin Fedorovich studied at the Moscow Conservatory. Music played a big role in the upbringing of the future artist, taught him to understand beauty, poetry, developed a sense of rhythm. There were many young people in the house, live pictures were often staged and children's performances were staged. The melodies and texts for them were composed by the elder brother, Yuon was instructed to write scenery under the guidance of a family friend, the artist of the Maly Theater K. V. Kandaurov.

Love for the theater was brought up in a young man by his mother, Emilia Alekseevna, who made theatrical costumes for masquerades in the Moscow hunting club, where artistic youth gathered in those years.

The Yuon family lived in one of the oldest corners of Moscow - Lefortovo. This area, associated with the era of Peter I, could not but interest an impressionable boy who read the novels of I. I. Lazhechnikov, M. N. Zagoskin, A. K. Tolstoy. Yuon early began to be fascinated by the monuments of old Russian architecture, primarily in Moscow and the Moscow region: the Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Kolomenskoye. Over time, his interest in the history of his native country, in its original way of life and life, the traditions of folk life became more and more serious and deeper.

After the first visit to the Tretyakov Gallery in the 1880s, a talented young man discovered a new world of beauty in the work of great Russian artists: I. E. Repin, V. D. Polenov, V. M. Vasnetsov, I. I. Levitan and others.

The art of V. I. Surikov made a particularly great impression on him. Yuon was clear and close to the plots of Surikov's paintings, their original powerful heroes. Surikov taught the young artist a lot. On this occasion, Yuon wrote in Autobiography: “My own love for history and antiquities, for the decorative and eloquent brilliance of the forms of bygone centuries, combined with living life and in living light, attracted me to him (Surikov. - Ed.). He was more than any other Russian painter able to connect history with modernity, to reflect the general world ideas in the tragedies and struggle of a living person, to connect art with life.

While still a student at a real school, Yuon began to seriously study Russian architecture. Therefore, it was quite natural for him to enter the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1894 at the architectural department. Soon, however, he realized that his main vocation was painting and moved to the painting faculty. Nevertheless, the study of ancient architecture played a significant role in the development of his artistic taste and basically determined the range of themes of his paintings.

The time when Yuon entered the path of the painter coincided with a period of complex ideological and artistic struggle in Russian art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This struggle was the result of a deep crisis of bourgeois culture that came both in the West and in Russia. Representatives of reactionary art launched an open campaign against realism, advocating for an art liberated from all ideology and tendencies, for an art understandable only to individual "exceptional individuals."

The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where Yuon studied in those years, was a stronghold of ideological realism. It was taught by N. A. Kasatkin, K. A. Savitsky, A. E. Arkhipov - artists who continued the traditions of the art of the Wanderers. With their own creativity, they proved to their students how important a picture with a serious and deep social content is. Studying with these masters undoubtedly determined the progressiveness of the views on the art of future artists - pupils of the school, in particular, the views of Yuon.

Closest to Yuon was the bright, sunny art of A. E. Arkhipov, the beauty of folk motifs in his paintings, virtuoso skill in conveying the light-air environment. But the most important for Yuon were classes in the workshop of V. A. Serov, where he completed his art education at the school. With Serov, young people always found a solution to any creative issue. Serov was a remarkable artist and a sensitive teacher. He knew how to reveal the creative individuality of each student, to guide him along the path of a careful study of reality, appreciated the simplicity in expressing the artistic image, loyalty to the traditions of national culture. Serov taught young artists to look for three truths: human truth, social truth and pictorial truth. Yuon called Serov his artistic conscience, "without which it is difficult to work and difficult to comprehend new things."

“The Tretyakov Gallery and my teacher Serov were the two main springs from which I drew that saving beginning, which allowed me to carry a healthy attitude towards art through my whole life and did not let me stray from the realistic path, from the path of respect for Russian classics.”

The beginning of Yuon's career was controversial. Impressive and little versed in matters of art, he was influenced by many of the then existing artistic movements. At first, he was fascinated by the aesthetics of the “World of Art” with their cult of refined art for “selected individuals”, with their search for a new style. Then Yuon was captured by the pictorial principles of impressionism, although the desire of the impressionists to elevate the concept of instantaneousness and transience of impression into the basic law of creativity, their loss of compositional architectonics and plasticity of form always alarmed and stopped him.

Having not yet found his creative "I", but full of desire to find himself in art, Yuon undertakes a trip abroad. He travels to Italy, Germany, Switzerland and France, gets acquainted with the classical and modern art of these countries. In Paris, Yuon works in private workshops, is fond of Gauguin. Impressed by the art of Gauguin, he goes on a long journey through the South Caucasus. And here it finally became clear to Yuon that his "artistic happiness" should be sought only in his homeland. He understood and realized his attachment to central and northern Russia with its open spaces and freedom, with the whiteness of its snows and the radiance of morning and evening dawns.

“I was drawn back, as to a new promised land, but already consciously and with conviction. The alien south and alien influence in a negative way had their sobering effect, and it clearly seemed to me that the circle of my interests and activities was decisively found, ”he wrote in an autobiographical essay.

1900 was a significant year in the life of the artist. First of all, this year he completed his studies in Serov's workshop and embarked on the path of independent creativity. This year he married K. A. Nikitina, a peasant woman from the village of Ligachev, Moscow province. And, finally, in the same year, 1900, Yuon began his teaching career, opening in Moscow, together with the artist I. O. Dudin, a private art school called "Yuon's Studio", which lasted until 1917. Such prominent masters of Soviet art as V. I. Mukhina, A. V. Kuprin, V. A. Vatagin, V. A. Favorsky and others studied there.

Pedagogical work obliged Yuon a lot: he had to give accurate and clear answers to all the questions of students. To do this, he himself first of all had to gain clarity in artistic views. Yuon recalled that pedagogical work had a “disciplined meaning” for him in those years: it saved him from youthful hobbies for fashionable art trends, and helped develop firmness of convictions.

If during the years of his stay at the school Yuon painted mainly lyrical landscapes of the intimate corners of the Moscow region, then after graduation he was irresistibly drawn to the wide expanses of the Volga. In the early 1900s, he made a long trip to the ancient cities of the Volga. Uglich, Rostov, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod captivated the young artist with the colorful richness of ancient architecture, the Kremlin walls, monasteries, churches, white-stone arcades of shopping areas and rows, multi-colored carved patterns of wooden houses, the variegation of signboards and the immense blue expanse of the Volga expanse.

Yuon opened a new world of amazing beauty.

“I wanted to paint pictures, how songs are written about life, about the history of the Russian people, about nature, about ancient Russian cities” ...

The vivid impressions that he received from his acquaintance with the Volga cities were intensified by the influence of the work of M. Gorky. Yuon read Gorky's books. The novel "Foma Gordeev" was especially close to him. The artist was attracted by the wonderful descriptions of the pictures of the Volga nature and how deeply the author understood the spiritual wealth of the people. These qualities in the work of the great writer were related to Yuon.

Yuon, like Gorky, worked for a long time in Nizhny Novgorod; he was struck by the extraordinary picturesqueness and beauty of the historic city, in which modern life, imbued with the spirit of the people, was in full swing. Here Yuon painted many sketches from nature and created a large painting "Over the Volga" (1900), where the main characters were bourgeois, artisans and tramps like Gorky's heroes.

Of interest is the sketchy landscape “In Winter on Barges” (1902), depicting a corner of the Volga Bay near Nizhny Novgorod on a gray winter day. The barge, densely covered with snow, froze into ice, as if plunged into a long winter sleep. The figures of watchmen in huge red sheepskin coats stand silently. The white flakes of snow contrast with the bright blue of the barge house; whimsically intertwined against the background of a gray winter sky is a thin web of ropes and slender masts. Sustained in a harmonious silver scale, the study speaks of the keen observation and taste of the artist, of the richness and sophistication of his palette.

Yuon devoted many paintings, sketches and drawings to the monument of ancient Russian architecture of the 17th century - the Trinity-Sergius Lavra near Moscow. The artist called this wonderful architectural ensemble a national pearl, inexhaustible in its picturesque and decorative riches.

One of the first works devoted to this topic was the painting "To the Trinity" (1903). In a small canvas, the artist reproduces a bright and at the same time ordinary scene from the life of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Against the backdrop of pink, red, white towers and buildings of the Lavra and picturesquely scattered at the foot of them small houses and shops of the settlement, eminent Muscovites ride in a sleigh to "bow" to the Trinity. With a measured, calm step, horses are walking along the reddish-brown dirty spring road. Long figures of charioteers in black monastic robes rise majestically on the sled frames.

Written from nature, the picture is full of immediacy. Yuon masterfully conveys the airy haze of a gray winter day, through which multi-colored towers with golden and blue onion domes loomed. The wide pasty brushstroke with which the picture is painted contributes to the feeling of movement, enhances its colorfulness and decorativeness.

The painting “Red Goods” (1905), depicting a corner of the market square in Rostov Veliky, testified to the young artist’s subtle powers of observation. Characteristics of Yuon of the tag: here is a merchant who is concentrated on counting money; a wealthy bourgeois busily pays for the purchase; a woman and a girl choose new clothes, rummaging through a pile of colorful goods. Yuon perfectly felt the color of the Russian winter market with colorful fabrics hung and laid out on the ground, benches and two-story outbuildings covered with dry snow. Only an artist in love with Russia could see so much beauty and poetry in an ordinary scene.

In the late 1900s, Yuon enthusiastically worked on a series of paintings in which he set himself the task of conveying the effect of night lighting. These are the paintings “Night. Tverskoy Boulevard" (1909), "Troika near the old Yar. Winter "(1909) and others. In the first of them, against the backdrop of a brightly lit night cafe, bizarre, slightly grotesque silhouettes of its visitors appear - men in high top hats and ladies in huge fashionable hats. This picture is to some extent a tribute to impressionism by the artist. However, in contrast to late impressionism, which legitimized the sketch, Yuon continues the classical traditions of Russian realism, which has always considered the finished picture to be the highest result of creative work. Yuon fundamentally remained true to realistic traditions. Recalling his passion for the Impressionists, the artist wrote: “I was not even able to weaken in my mind the greatness of the previously perceived art of the Wanderers and the masterpieces collected in the Tretyakov Gallery ... Gravitation to Russian national forms, to images of the native past and present, to ideas folk art... was a sober regulator in my mind. It dictated to me the need not to turn the system of impressionism into an end in itself.

In 1908, Yuon settled in Ligachev. Here he lived for a long time in all seasons. "... I had the opportunity to get even closer to the people and people's life, in particular, to the life of the village, which nourished and nourishes my art a lot."

In 1910, Yuon painted one of his best works dedicated to the Trinity Lavra, the painting “Spring Sunny Day”. This is a very joyful work depicting a corner of Sergiev Posad on a sunny day in early spring. The artist placed the figures of people very freely, naturally and vividly: two girls are standing, basking in the sun, passing by, a hunched little old woman admires them, children are having fun by the snowdrifts. Rooks make noise at their nests. For an artist, everything is important and significant, he notices both big and small.

The coloring of the picture is unusually festive. Yuon lovingly reproduced blue and green shower coats, white and red shawls of girls, children's colored sheepskin coats, yellow houses, pink and white trunks of birches and the lace of their branches against the blue sky, solemn white stone houses, towers, bell towers of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. This is perhaps the most emotionally rich work from the entire cycle dedicated to the Trinity Lavra. In it, Yuon acted as a true poet, as a subtle master of realistic plein-air painting. In this work, the artist's pictorial language was already clearly defined, characterized by decorative color, bright sonority of color spots built on pure local colors. Moreover, Yuon combines this bright decorative effect with strict compositional construction, thoughtful placement of objects in space, and a clear graphic drawing of plans and forms.

Yuon has always been characterized by a love for epic landscapes, wide, solemn, depicting old Russian architecture and the new life boiling around it. Among these landscapes is the large canvas "Trinity Lavra in Winter" (1910).

“The blue distances, the all-consuming expanse of vast spaces, the rhythmically evenly toiling anthill of scurrying homogeneous people, homogeneous horses, flocks of homogeneous birds, thousands of homogeneous houses, pipes, smoke, merged in the imagination into a solemn unison, into a single element,” - this is how he perceived the winter Lavra is an artist himself.

All his life, Yuon was a patriot, singer, writer of everyday life of old and new Moscow. Even in his student years, he wrote everyday scenes from the life of the Moscow outskirts. In the paintings with the effects of night lighting, the action also took place in Moscow. In his mature years, the squares and streets of old Moscow, the wonderful monuments of its architecture inspired the artist to create beautiful paintings. “I have been writing Moscow all my life - and I still can’t get enough. Moscow has played a big role in my artistic life. My painting began in Moscow. Moscow nurtured my main interests and hobbies, ”said Yuon.

Among the Moscow works of the pre-revolutionary period, the large watercolor "Moskvoretsky Bridge" (1911) is significant. This is a typical Yuon composition: the action takes place against the backdrop of the architecture of the Kremlin and Kitay-gorod. The wide Moskvoretsky bridge blocked the flow of pedestrians. As always with Yuon, individual genre groups are easily distinguishable in the crowd: peasants with huge bags, confused from the hustle and bustle of the capital, business clerks, important merchants, dashing cabbies and slowly dragging carts. All this is depicted very vividly, directly, aptly.

The transparent clarity and softness of the tones of watercolor paints, a light airy haze soften the contours of the panoramic landscape and the variegation of color. In this work, as in a number of others of that time, Yuon showed himself to be a talented master watercolorist.

During all periods of his artistic activity, Yuon enthusiastically painted the modest and beautiful Central Russian nature. The artist's favorite theme was early spring. The joyful moment of the awakening of nature from winter sleep, when the air is very clean, the azure of the sky is bright, when everything is pierced by the sun's rays, and the blue-white snow crunches underfoot in a special way, the very moment that M. M. Prishvin aptly called "spring of light "was the theme of his landscape" The March sun. Ligachevo" (1915). This landscape is strict and lyrical at the same time. The strict architectonics of the composition is emphasized by the slender trunks of poplars and delicate spring birch trees turning pink against the blue sky. There is a special freshness and purity in this picture. Looking at her, one involuntarily recalls the constant desire of the artist “in Pushkin's way” to sing the landscapes of the Moscow region and central Russia.

By the time of the Great October Socialist Revolution, KF Yuon was already an established master. In the very first years of Soviet power, he began to engage in social activities. He worked in the Moscow Department of Public Education as an instructor-organizer in fine arts, patronized art schools, studios, houses of folk art.

In the person of Yuon, young, novice artists and talented self-taught people have always seen an experienced mentor, a sensitive, attentive, sincere person, always ready to help and give the right, good advice.

The range of topics that the artist worked on in the first period after 1917 was not new. He painted winter and summer landscapes, created pencil portraits of figures of Russian culture, views of Russian cities. At times he varied some of the old themes. In the same years, Yuon began to engage in autolithography and made two albums: Sergiev Posad and Russian Province. Separate sheets of the albums were graphic repetitions of previously completed paintings.

Of the works of the first years of the revolution, the most significant painting is Domes and Swallows (1921). In it, the artist again turned to the theme of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. He wrote it on a fresh, sunny, windy May day. The compositional solution of the picture is interesting and new. The Assumption Cathedral is depicted from the height of the domes, which have risen high into the blue sky. Below unfolds a wide, boundless expanse of land. You can see the smoke of a steam locomotive from a train rushing among the trees, bright Zagorsk houses scattered on the ground like a mosaic. Flocks of swallows soar in the blue of the sky, and leaving clouds are visible on the horizon.

In this work, the same wide panorama of the landscape that Yuon had before. But at the same time there is something new in it. This is new - a peculiar, brighter and more sublime attitude of the artist, a bolder and broader view of the world. This is the closeness of Yuon's landscape to Rylov's wonderful landscape "In the blue expanse".

The first works of Yuon on revolutionary themes were symbolic and allegorical in nature. “I wrote and lived at that time, as if in two epochs, capturing the past and the present,” the artist recalled ... “Under the influence of war and revolution, the thirst to find an artistic language, artistic formulas capable of expressing and expressing the agitated stream of ideas and images, has become strongly established in me and interests me very much - and here one cannot do without fantasies.

In the painting “The New Planet” (1921), Yuon presented the birth of the revolutionary era in an abstract fantasy image: a red-hot red planet rises above the globe into outer space. Crowds of people - the inhabitants of the earth rush to her, stretching out their hands, as if praying for happiness. Many, exhausted, fall and die. Those who are more enduring carry the weak. Their silhouettes against the background of enchanting rays are dramatic. The artist thought a lot and seriously about the revolutionary events that took place in his homeland, trying to understand the essence of the beauty that the revolution brought to the people. This was characteristic of many representatives of the old Russian artistic intelligentsia of that time - B. M. Kustodiev, S. T. Konenkov, A. A. Blok, V. Ya. Bryusov ...

Close affinity with the people, understanding of their interests and adherence to realistic traditions made it possible for Yuon to correctly determine the tasks facing Soviet artists.

“Thinking about the paths and goals of the revolution,” he wrote, “I need to follow the people, depict them as I have portrayed them before, but show their activities already illuminated and saturated with ideas of the revolution. The transition to the theme of the revolution was for me natural, organic; I continued to live with the people, as before, trying to express the new that the people's revolution brought to life, its new culture, new goals and new people.

The people of the Soviet country and new events become the themes of Yuon's paintings. The ancient architecture of Moscow is intertwined with the image of revolutionary deeds.

In 1923, at the exhibition of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR), a small-sized work "Parade on Red Square" appeared. The author conveyed the main thing - the beating of a new life, the appearance of a Soviet person who has gone through the years of the civil war and is celebrating the first five years of the great victory. The strict ranks of marching soldiers, the glitter of the orchestra's trumpets, the scarlet color of banners and posters, the motley festive crowd admiring the parade of troops, the majestic beauty of the architecture of the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral - all this gives the picture a festive, upbeat character.

The theme of several Yuon watercolors of the late 1920s was the events that took place in Moscow in November 1917, when workers and soldiers stormed the Kremlin, captured by the junkers.

The watercolor “Entering the Kremlin through the Nikolsky Gates” (1926) depicts a tense moment in the struggle for the Kremlin: the revolutionary people are attacking the Kremlin gates. And although the figures of people are given almost in silhouette, they are very expressive. The artist managed to convey in this work the revolutionary, fighting spirit of the times. Later, Yuon repeated the same theme in the film Storming the Kremlin in 1917 (1947).

In 1925, Yuon became a member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR), a progressive association that fought for the revival of the traditions of Russian classical painting in Soviet art. The tasks and requirements set by the AHRR artists played a big role in shaping the artist's new views on art and its role in the life of the country.

Yuon's work has become more purposeful. Characteristic, typical images of Soviet people appear in his works. These are the pictures “Young. Laughter" (1930) and "Moscow Region Youth" (1926). The latter is one of Yuon's best works of the 1920s. This is a group portrait of girls living in Ligachev. They are very different, and at the same time they have something in common. This is common - their youth, sincerity, cheerfulness. The composition, original in its fragmentation, gives the portrait a special vitality, as if snatching this group of youth from the mass of people directly surrounding us.

A special place in Soviet painting of the 1920s-1930s is occupied by Yuon's everyday paintings. In them, the characteristic Yuon features were again very clearly manifested: a sharp look at life, noticing and fixing new forms of rural and urban life, decorative coloring and, of course, the ability to organically combine architecture, landscape and genre scenes.

The painting "Celebration of Cooperation" (1928) depicts a meeting of members of the Ligachev agricultural cooperative. Yuon draws the viewer's attention to the red banners, the glitter of the copper pipes of the orchestra, home-made posters, festive white shirts, sweaters, bright scarves - these skillfully noticed details and accents create a unique image of a modern village.

Recalling his work, Yuon said that after the revolution it developed in the direction of complicating the content. The awareness of the need for a new approach to solving the big problems of our time dictated a desire to look for new forms of art - art of a great style, capable of expressing the beauty, significance and essence of the new Soviet reality.

In 1940, Yuon turned to work on works of monumental art. He makes sketches of mosaics for the Constitution Hall of the Palace of Soviets. This work was not carried out, only pencil sketches have been preserved. They speak of the artist's deep and versatile coverage of contemporary themes. You can be convinced of this by at least listing their names: “Cities and Transport”, “Industry”, “Aviation”, “Nedra of the Earth”, “State Farms and Collective Farms”, “Guarding the Sea Borders”.

In the harsh years of the Great Patriotic War, Yuon worked hard and hard, living all the time in Moscow.

His beloved city appeared before him in a new formidable guise. The events of the first years of the war required serious creative reflection. Gradually, an idea arose for a new painting dedicated to Moscow. The painting "Parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941" became one of the most significant in the artist's work. She draws Red Square, the Kremlin, the Soviet people on the historic day of the parade on November 7, 1941, when the war was declared "sacred, patriotic." On this gray, gloomy day, the first snow fell, the sky was covered with heavy, leaden clouds, the Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil's Cathedral looked especially severe and majestic. Moscow, as it were, froze, froze in formidable silence before a decisive crushing blow to the enemy.

Troops are marching in orderly rows along Red Square with a measured, chased step. In their firm step - strength, confidence in victory over the enemy. This painting, which is very significant in content and pictorial solution, reflects the artist’s deep thoughts about the fate of the Motherland in a time of difficult trials. Small in size, the picture is truly monumental and significant.

During the war, Yuon created a number of works dedicated to military events and heroes of the war: “Sandmaid at the Front” (1942), “After the Battle near Moscow” (1942) and others. For the Novosibirsk and Kuibyshev opera and ballet theaters, Yuon during the war years wrote sketches of scenery for M. I. Glinka's opera "Ivan Susanin".

In the post-war years, Yuon's paintings become more complex in composition and more generalized in terms of themes. “Recently,” the artist wrote, “I began to work not only analytically, as before, but more synthetically.” An example is his landscapes of the 1940s. The artist, as before, lives in Ligachev for a long time and works hard. In "Russian Winter" (1947), Yuon acts as a true poet of Russian nature. With remarkable skill, he creates a clear, complete composition. Looking at this large canvas, you involuntarily admire the soft, fluffy snow, the thick cover that covered the ground, the fabulous frosting that adorned the branches of mighty trees, and the frosty haze that enveloped all objects. Everything is observed in life. This is a real Russian "mother winter".

In the painting "Morning of Industrial Moscow" (1949), the artist gives the image of a huge industrial city. The city is waking up to a new working day. People go to work, a freight train rushes by, factory and factory chimneys smoke.

The seriousness of the theme, great skill in conveying the life of the city in the morning, the desire to show the poetry of the ordinary and the beauty of work - all this makes Yuon's work an interesting industrial landscape-picture.

The artistic activity of Yuon was closely connected with the work of Gorky. This has already been said in relation to his early works. In his mature years, Yuon is fond of Gorky's plays and writes scenery sketches for them.

In 1918 he created the design of the play "The Old Man" for the State Academic Maly Theater, in 1933 at the Moscow Art Academic Theater comes with scenery according to his sketches "Egor Bulychev and Others", in 1952 at the Theater named after Vl. Mayakovsky, the artist designs the play "Zykovs". Great success fell to Yuon's last work - sketches of scenery and costumes for the staging of Gorky's novel "Foma Gordeev" at the Theater named after Evg. Vakhtangov, on which he worked together with the People's Artist of the USSR R. N. Simonov.

Yuon created many pictorial and graphic portraits of Gorky. He sought to show the great writer in different periods of his life. In addition to portraits, he created several paintings dedicated to Gorky. In 1949, Yuon completed a painting depicting Gorky's visit to the Gigant state farm in 1929. The artist's last large painting was A. M. Gorky and F. I. Chaliapin in 1901 in Nizhny Novgorod” (1955).

Work in the theater has always fascinated Yuon. He designed about twenty-five plays and operas. The diversity of the repertoire of theatrical productions with the participation of Yuon is striking: plays by V. Shakespeare and Lope de Vega, A. N. Ostrovsky and A. M. Gorky, N. F. Pogodin, A. N. Tolstoy and S. Ya. Marshak, opera M I. Glinka, M. P. Mussorgsky, P. I. Tchaikovsky.

Yuon's earliest work in the theater was sketches for scenery for Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov, staged in Paris in 1913 during the Russian Season, organized by S. Ya. Diaghilev. Chaliapin sang the part of Boris. Simultaneous work with Chaliapin on the performance inspired and captivated the young artist. In the scenery for the opera, Yuon proved himself not only as a deeply national artist, but also as a serious researcher of the history of Russia, its life and architecture. The freshness and juiciness of Yuon's sketches delighted Chaliapin. He immediately purchased them from the author.

“Every day I admire and do not stop admiring them - excellent things ... - Chaliapin wrote to Gorky in 1913. - What a charm, by God, a talented guy ... "

Yuon wrote especially much for the theater after the Great October Revolution. Along with work in the Bolshoi, Maly, Art Theaters of Moscow, he created scenery for the theaters of Kazan, Novosibirsk, Kuibyshev.

The work of the artist in this area is characterized by a deep penetration into the essence of a dramatic or musical work. Creating scenery sketches for a particular performance, Yuon usually made a lot of preliminary options, achieving the most expressive solution. He painstakingly worked on the sketch of each costume, taking into account the individual characteristics of the actors-performers.

The scenery for Ostrovsky's plays "The Heart is Not a Stone" (1920-1921), "Mad Money" (1934), "Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man" (1940), "Guilty Without Guilt" (1940), "Poverty is not a vice" were successful. (1945) staged by the State Academic Maly Theatre. Life and types in the plays of Ostrovsky Yuon - an old Muscovite - were very familiar. His scenery and costume designs were very convincing.

A major achievement of Yuon as a theater artist was the sketches of scenery for Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina, staged at the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of the USSR in 1940. They found a deep inner correspondence of the pictorial language of the scenery with the musical speech of the opera.

The characterization of Yuon's creative personality will not be complete if one does not recall his numerous literary and research works on art. Yuon the theorist raised serious philosophical questions in his articles and oral presentations: about the synthesis of the arts, about the concept of art, about the problems of innovation in Soviet art, etc.

He was also concerned about the issues of artistic pedagogy. In his articles, Yuon set very serious and responsible tasks for the artists. He believed that Soviet art should not be limited to simply illustrating events. It must be an art of great style, asserting in perfect artistic forms the lofty ideas of morality.

Yuon was a doctor of art history, a full member of the Academy of Arts. In 1956, he was unanimously elected first secretary of the Union of Soviet Artists of the USSR.

Yuon was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR, the State Prize and was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner of Labor.

Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon died in April 1958. The whole life of a talented Soviet artist is an example of selfless service to his native art, his country, the life and nature of which he sang.

According to the book: I.T. Rostovtsev "Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon"