« Moonlight night on the Dnieper" (1880) - one of the most famous paintings Arkhip Kuindzhi. This work made a splash and gained mystical fame. Many did not believe that the light of the moon could be conveyed in this way only artistic means, and looked behind the canvas, looking for a lamp there. Many silently stood for hours in front of the picture, and then left in tears. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich bought "Moonlight Night" for his personal collection and took it everywhere with him, which had sad consequences.

Which? This is what we now find out...

In the summer and autumn of 1880, during a break with the Wanderers, A.I. Kuindzhi worked on new painting. By Russian capital rumors spread about the enchanting beauty of the Moonlit Night on the Dnieper. For two hours on Sundays, the artist opened the doors of his studio to those who wished, and the St. Petersburg public began to besiege her long before the completion of the work. This painting gained truly legendary fame. I.S. Turgenev and Y. Polonsky, I. Kramskoy and P. Chistyakov, D. I. Mendelev came to the workshop of A. I. Kuindzhi, they looked at the picture famous publisher and collector K.T. Soldatenkov. Directly from the workshop, even before the exhibition, “Moonlight Night on the Dnieper” was bought for huge money by the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. And then the picture was exhibited in St. Petersburg. It was the first exhibition of one painting in Russia.

The house in St. Petersburg, where Kuindzhi's apartment is located, is often called the "House of Artists", since many Russian painters lived here at different times: A. Beggrov, E. Volkov, M. Klodt, I. Kramskoy, the Chernetsov brothers.

The work was exhibited in a separate hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists on Bolshaya Morskaya. At the same time, the hall was not illuminated, only a bright electric beam fell on the picture. The image from this "deepened" even more, and the moonlight became simply dazzling. And decades later, the witnesses of this triumph continued to recall the shock experienced by the audience, who “got it” to the picture. It was the “worthy ones” - during the exhibition days, Bolshaya Morskaya was densely packed with carriages, and a long queue lined up at the doors to the building and people waited for hours to see this extraordinary work. To avoid a crush, the audience was allowed into the hall in groups.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich

Roerich still found the servant Maxim alive, who received rubles (!) from those who tried to get to the picture out of turn. Artist's performance personal exhibition, and even consisting of only one small picture, was an unusual event. Moreover, this picture interpreted not some unusual historical plot, but a very modest landscape. But AI Kuindzhi knew how to win. The success exceeded all expectations and turned into real sensation.




A.I. Kuindzhi was always very attentive to the exposure of his paintings, placed them so that they were well lit, so that neighboring canvases did not interfere with them. This time, "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" hung on the wall alone. Knowing that the effect moonlight fully manifested under artificial lighting, the artist ordered to drape the windows in the hall and illuminate the picture with a beam of electric light focused on it. Visitors entered the semi-dark hall and, spellbound, stopped in front of the cold radiance moonlight. Before the audience a wide space stretching into the distance opened up; plain, crossed by a greenish ribbon of a quiet river, almost merges at the horizon with dark skies covered with rows of light clouds. Above, they parted a little, and the moon peered through the resulting window, illuminating the Dnieper, the huts and the web of paths on the near bank.

And everything in nature fell silent, enchanted by the wonderful radiance of the sky and the Dnieper waters. The sparkling silvery-greenish disk of the moon flooded the earth immersed in night peace with its mysterious phosphorescent light. He was so strong that some of the spectators tried to look behind the picture to find a lantern or lamp there. But there was no lamp, and the moon continued to radiate its bewitching, mysterious light. The waters of the Dnieper reflect this light like a smooth mirror, the walls of Ukrainian huts turn white from the velvety blue of the night. This majestic spectacle still immerses viewers in thoughts about eternity and the enduring beauty of the world. So before A.I. Kuindzhi, only the great N.V. Gogol sang about nature. The number of sincere admirers of the talent of A.I. Kuindzhi grew, rare person could remain indifferent before this picture, which seemed like witchcraft.

celestial sphere AI Kuindzhi portrays majestic and eternal, striking the audience with the power of the Universe, its immensity and solemnity. Numerous attributes of the landscape - huts creeping along the slope, bushy trees, gnarled stalks of the tartar - are absorbed by darkness, their color is dissolved in a brown tone. The bright silvery light of the moon is shaded by depth of blue color. With his phosphorescence, he turns the traditional motif with the moon into such a rare, meaningful, attractive and mysterious that it transforms into poetic and excited delight. There have even been speculations about unusual colors and even strange artistic techniques that the artist allegedly used. Rumors of a secret artistic method A.I. Kuindzhi, the secret of his colors was talked about even during the life of the artist, some tried to convict him of tricks, even in connection with evil spirits. Maybe this happened because A.I. Kuindzhi concentrated his efforts on the illusory transfer of the real the effect of lighting, on the search for such a composition of the picture, which would allow the most convincing expression of the feeling of wide spatiality.



Famous artist Arkhip Kuindzhi, 1907

And with these tasks he coped brilliantly. In addition, the artist defeated everyone in distinguishing the slightest changes in color and light ratios (for example, even during experiments with a special device, which were carried out by D.I. Mendeleev and others). Some have claimed the use chemical compositions based on phosphorus. However, this is not entirely true. A decisive role in creating an impression is played by the unusual color structure of the canvas. Applying in the picture additional colors reinforcing each other, the artist achieves incredible effect moon color illusions. True, it is known that the experiments still took place. Kuindzhi intensively used bituminous paints, but did not use phosphorus. Unfortunately, due to the careless mixing of chemically incompatible paints, the canvas darkened greatly.

Creating this canvas, A.I. Kuindzhi applied a complex scenic reception. For example, he contrasted the warm reddish tone of the earth with cold silvery shades and thereby deepened the space, and small dark strokes in the illuminated places created a feeling of vibrating light. All newspapers and magazines responded to the exhibition with enthusiastic articles, reproductions of Moonlight Night on the Dnieper were distributed in thousands of copies throughout Russia. The poet Y. Polonsky, a friend of A. I. Kuindzhi, wrote then: “I positively do not remember that people stagnated in front of any picture for so long ... What is it? Picture or reality? In a golden frame or through an open window, did we see this month, these clouds, this dark distance, these “trembling lights of sad villages” and these play of light, this silvery reflection of the month in the jets of the Dnieper, bending around the distance, this poetic, quiet, majestic night? » The poet K. Fofanov wrote the poem "Night on the Dnieper", which was later set to music.





I. Kramskoy foresaw the fate of the canvas: “Perhaps Kuindzhi put together such colors that are in natural antagonism with each other and after a certain time they will either go out, or change and decompose to the point that the descendants will shrug their shoulders in bewilderment: from what they came to the delight of the good-natured spectators? Here's how to avoid this unfair treatment in the future, I would not mind drawing up, so to speak, a protocol that his “Night on the Dnieper” is all filled with real light and air, and the sky is real, bottomless, deep.

Unfortunately, our contemporaries cannot fully appreciate the initial effect of the picture, since it has reached our times in a distorted form. And it's all to blame special treatment to the canvas of its owner, Grand Duke Konstantin.




Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who bought the painting, did not want to part with the canvas, even going to trip around the world. I.S. Turgenev, who was in Paris at that time (in January 1881), was horrified by this thought, about which he wrote indignantly to the writer D.V. Grigorovich: “There is no doubt that the picture ... will return completely ruined , thanks to the salty vapors of the air, etc.” He even visited the Grand Duke in Paris, while his frigate was in the port of Cherbourg, and persuaded him to send a picture to a short time in Paris.

I.S. Turgenev hoped that he would be able to persuade him to leave the painting at the exhibition in the Zedelmeyer Gallery, but he failed to persuade the prince. Humid, salt-soaked sea air, of course, had a negative effect on the composition of paints, and the landscape began to darken. But the lunar ripples on the river and the radiance of the moon itself are conveyed by the brilliant A.I. Kuindzhi with such force that, looking at the picture even now, the audience immediately falls under the power of the eternal and Divine.

The name of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi became famous as soon as the public saw his paintings “After the Rain” and “ Birch Grove". But at the Eighth Exhibition of Wanderers, the works of A.I. Kuindzhi were absent, and this was immediately noticed by the audience. P. M. Tretyakov wrote to I. Kramskoy from Moscow that even those few who had not previously treated the artist’s works were grieving over this.
In the summer and autumn of 1880, during a break with the Wanderers, A.I. Kuindzhi worked on a new painting. Rumors about the enchanting beauty of the "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" spread throughout the Russian capital. For two hours on Sundays, the artist opened the doors of his studio to those who wished, and the St. Petersburg public began to besiege her long before the completion of the work.
This picture has gained a truly legendary fame. I.S. Turgenev and Y. Polonsky, I. Kramskoy and P. Chistyakov, D. I. Mendelev came to the workshop of A. I. Kuindzhi, the well-known publisher and collector K. T. Soldatenkov asked the price of the painting. Directly from the workshop, even before the exhibition, “Moonlight Night on the Dnieper” was bought for a huge amount of money by the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.
In his book about the artist O.P. Voronova describes the purchase of the painting as follows: “Soldatenkov wanted to buy Moonlit Night on the Dnieper, but it turned out that it no longer belonged to Arkhip Ivanovich. It was sold still smelling of fresh paint, right in the workshop. One Sunday, a naval officer inquired about its price. “Yes, why do you? Kuindzhi shrugged. “After all, don’t buy it anyway: it’s expensive.” – “And yet?” “Yes, five thousand,” Arkhip Ivanovich called an incredible amount for those times, almost a fantastic amount. And suddenly he heard in response: “Good. I leave behind." And only after the officer left, the artist found out that Grand Duke Konstantin had visited him.
And then the picture was exhibited on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg, in the hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. The performance of the artist with a solo exhibition, and even consisting of just one small painting, was an unusual event. Moreover, this picture did not interpret some unusual historical plot, but was a very modest landscape in size. But AI Kuindzhi knew how to win. The success exceeded all expectations and turned into a real sensation. St. Petersburg was full of rumors, they say, for huge money, special paints with mother-of-pearl were brought to the artist Kuindzhi from Japan or China, and now his picture radiates light.
Long queues lined up on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, and people waited for hours to see this extraordinary work. To avoid a crush, the audience was allowed into the hall in groups.
A.I. Kuindzhi was always very attentive to the exposure of his paintings, placed them so that they were well lit, so that neighboring canvases did not interfere with them. This time, "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" hung on the wall alone. Knowing that the effect of moonlight would be fully manifested under artificial lighting, the artist ordered the windows in the hall to be draped and the picture to be illuminated with a beam of electric light focused on it.
Visitors entered the semi-dark hall and, spellbound, stopped in front of the cold glow of moonlight. The effect of the painting was amazing. Even artists were at a loss, not understanding how he painted the moon and glitter on the water. It seemed to everyone that the moon shone with its true light. I.N. Kramskoy, an authority recognized in artistic circles, did not hide his emotions: “What a storm of enthusiasm Kuindzhi raised! A kind of fellow - charm.
Ivan Bunin.
My night will come...
My night will come, a long, silent night,
Then the Lord who works miracles commands
A new luminary to ascend to heaven.-
Shine, shine, moon, lifting higher and higher
Your face, given by the Sun.
Let the world know
That my day has burned out, but my trace
in the world is.
Before the audience a wide space stretching into the distance opened up; the plain, crossed by a greenish ribbon of a quiet river, almost merges at the horizon with a dark sky covered with rows of light clouds. Above, they parted a little, and the moon peered through the resulting window, illuminating the Dnieper, the huts and the web of paths on the near bank. And everything in nature fell silent, enchanted by the wonderful radiance of the sky and the Dnieper waters.
The sparkling silvery-greenish disk of the moon flooded the earth immersed in night peace with its mysterious phosphorescent light. He was so strong that some of the spectators tried to look behind the picture to find a lantern or lamp there. But there was no lamp, and the moon continued to radiate its bewitching, mysterious light.
The waters of the Dnieper reflect this light like a smooth mirror, the walls of Ukrainian huts turn white from the velvety blue of the night. This majestic spectacle still immerses viewers in thoughts about eternity and the enduring beauty of the world. So before A.I. Kuindzhi, only the great N.V. Gogol sang about nature.
The number of sincere admirers of the talent of A.I. Kuindzhi grew, a rare person could remain indifferent to this picture, which seemed like witchcraft. AI Kuindzhi depicts the celestial sphere majestic and eternal, striking the audience with the power of the Universe, its immensity and solemnity. Numerous attributes of the landscape - huts creeping along the slope, bushy trees, gnarled stalks of the tartar - are absorbed by darkness, their color is dissolved in a brown tone.
The bright silvery light of the moon is shaded by the depth of blue. With his phosphorescence, he turns the traditional motif with the moon into such a rare, meaningful, attractive and mysterious that it transforms into poetic and excited delight. There were even suggestions about some unusual colors and even about strange artistic techniques that the artist allegedly used. Rumors about the secret of the artistic method of A.I. Kuindzhi, about the secret of his colors went around during the life of the artist, some tried to convict him of tricks, even in connection with evil spirits.
Perhaps this happened because A.I. Kuindzhi concentrated his efforts on the illusory transmission of the real effect of lighting, on the search for such a composition of the picture that would allow the most convincing expression of the feeling of wide spatiality. And with these tasks he coped brilliantly. In addition, the artist defeated everyone in distinguishing the slightest changes in color and light ratios (for example, even during experiments with a special device, which were carried out by D.I. Mendeleev and others).
Creating this canvas, A.I. Kuindzhi applied a complex pictorial technique. For example, he contrasted the warm reddish tone of the earth with cold silvery shades and thereby deepened the space, and small dark strokes in the illuminated places created a feeling of vibrating light.
All newspapers and magazines responded to the exhibition with enthusiastic articles, reproductions of Moonlight Night on the Dnieper were distributed in thousands of copies throughout Russia. The poet Y. Polonsky, a friend of A. I. Kuindzhi, wrote then: “I positively do not remember that people stagnated for so long in front of any picture ... What is it? Picture or reality? In a golden frame or through an open window, did we see this month, these clouds, this dark distance, these “trembling lights of sad villages” and these play of light, this silvery reflection of the month in the jets of the Dnieper, bending around the distance, this poetic, quiet, majestic night? » The poet K. Fofanov wrote the poem "Night on the Dnieper", which was later set to music.
The picture caused an ambiguous reaction and made a real sensation among the comrades-in-arms in the brush. Repin recalled: “Having scolded Kuindzhi loudly, the opponents could not help imitating and vied with passion, tried to jump forward with their fakes, passing them off as their personal paintings.” Couldn't resist this one famous landscape painter like Lagorio. He recreated the "Kuindzhi effect" in the landscape "Night on the Neva". But instead of glory, he only waited for the fact that they began to point the finger at him.
The audience was delighted with the illusion of natural moonlight, and people, according to I.E. Repin, who stood in “prayerful silence” in front of the canvas by A.I. Kuindzhi, left the hall with tears in their eyes: believers, and they lived in such moments with the best feelings of the soul and enjoyed the heavenly bliss of the art of painting.
F. Tyutchev
Vision
1829
There is a certain hour, in the night, of universal silence,
And in that hour of phenomena and miracles
Living chariot of the universe
Rolling openly into the sanctuary of heaven.
Then the night thickens like chaos on the waters,
Unconsciousness, like Atlas, crushes the land;
Only the Muses a virgin soul
In prophetic dreams the gods disturb!
AI Kuindzhi seemed to be trying to penetrate the world of the ideal, but stopped before its incomprehensibility. Reproducing the earthly appearance, the artist created an ideal world of harmony and beauty. In such a comparison, echoes of Christian philosophy are heard, according to which earthly life- only lowest level the sphere of ideal being that extends above it, created by a higher mind.
Kuindzhi strove for a way of being, where the thought of a person is absorbed above peaceful forces, dissolved in the philosophy of time and peace. In the view of the artist, being is motionless and majestic. Visual means correspond to the essence of the image. lines romantic works Kuindzhi are smooth and viscous, the color spreads over the canvas in slow motion, the almost phosphorescent light is mysterious, deep and spatial composition as if preparing the ground for a breakthrough of imagination into other worlds.
Kramskoy was stunned, fascinated. The instinct of a true artist gave rise to anxiety for the fate of this extraordinary masterpiece; he wrote to Stasov: “Maybe Kuindzhi’s colors will wither or change and decompose to the point that descendants will shrug their shoulders in bewilderment: what kind-hearted viewers were delighted with ...” Kramskoy could not come to terms with this - the picture should live in the future! He decided that it was necessary to draw up a "protocol", where a few of the best contemporary artists confirmed that they had seen “Night on the Dnieper” with their own eyes, that in the picture “everything is filled with real light and air, the river really makes its majestic course and the sky is real bottomless and deep.” Such a "protocol" was written, but it was not possible to print it.
Unfortunately, Kramskoy's fears came true much sooner than he expected. The painting was in trouble. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who bought the painting, did not want to part with the canvas, even going on a trip around the world. I.S. Turgenev, who was in Paris at that time (in January 1881), was horrified by this thought, about which he wrote indignantly to the writer D.V. Grigorovich: “There is no doubt that the picture ... will return completely ruined, thanks to salty vapors of the air, etc.” He even visited the Grand Duke in Paris, while his frigate was in the port of Cherbourg, and persuaded him to send the painting to Paris for a short time. I.S. Turgenev hoped that he would be able to persuade him to leave the painting at the exhibition in the Zedelmeyer Gallery, but he failed to persuade the prince.
Humid, salt-soaked sea air, of course, had a negative effect on the composition of paints, and the landscape began to darken. Now we cannot see many details of the landscape in the picture. But the lunar ripples on the river and the radiance of the moon itself are conveyed by the brilliant A.I. Kuindzhi with such force that, looking at the picture even now, the audience immediately falls under the power of the eternal and Divine.

"Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" by Arkhip Kuindzhi. Glory and tragedy of the picture

The name of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi became famous as soon as the public saw his paintings "After the Rain" and "Birch Grove". But at the Eighth Exhibition of Wanderers, the works of A.I. Kuindzhi were absent, and this was immediately noticed by the audience. P. M. Tretyakov wrote to I. Kramskoy from Moscow that even those few who had not previously treated the artist’s works were grieving over this.
In the summer and autumn of 1880, during a break with the Wanderers, A.I. Kuindzhi worked on a new painting. Rumors about the enchanting beauty of the "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" spread throughout the Russian capital. For two hours on Sundays, the artist opened the doors of his studio to those who wished, and the St. Petersburg public began to besiege her long before the completion of the work.
This picture has gained a truly legendary fame. I.S. Turgenev and Y. Polonsky, I. Kramskoy and P. Chistyakov, D. I. Mendeleev came to the workshop of A. I. Kuindzhi, the well-known publisher and collector K. T. Soldatenkov asked the price of the painting. Directly from the workshop, even before the exhibition, “Moonlight Night on the Dnieper” was bought for a huge amount of money by the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.
And then the picture was exhibited on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg, in the hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. The performance of the artist with a solo exhibition, and even consisting of just one small painting, was an unusual event. Moreover, this picture did not interpret some unusual historical plot, but was a very modest landscape in size. But AI Kuindzhi knew how to win. The success exceeded all expectations and turned into a real sensation. Long queues lined up on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, and people waited for hours to see this extraordinary work. To avoid a crush, the audience was allowed into the hall in groups.
A.I. Kuindzhi was always very attentive to the exposure of his paintings, placed them so that they were well lit, so that neighboring canvases did not interfere with them. This time, "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" hung on the wall alone. Knowing that the effect of moonlight would be fully manifested under artificial lighting, the artist ordered the windows in the hall to be draped and the picture to be illuminated with a beam of electric light focused on it. Visitors entered the semi-dark hall and, spellbound, stopped in front of the cold glow of moonlight.
Before the audience a wide space stretching into the distance opened up; the plain, crossed by a greenish ribbon of a quiet river, almost merges at the horizon with a dark sky covered with rows of light clouds. Above, they parted a little, and the moon peered through the resulting window, illuminating the Dnieper, the huts and the web of paths on the near bank. And everything in nature fell silent, enchanted by the wonderful radiance of the sky and the Dnieper waters.
The sparkling silvery-greenish disk of the moon flooded the earth immersed in night peace with its mysterious phosphorescent light. He was so strong that some of the spectators tried to look behind the picture to find a lantern or lamp there. But there was no lamp, and the moon continued to radiate its bewitching, mysterious light.
The waters of the Dnieper reflect this light like a smooth mirror, the walls of Ukrainian huts turn white from the velvety blue of the night. This majestic spectacle still immerses viewers in thoughts about eternity and the enduring beauty of the world. So before A.I. Kuindzhi, only the great N.V. Gogol sang about nature. The number of sincere admirers of the talent of A.I. Kuindzhi grew, a rare person could remain indifferent to this picture, which seemed like witchcraft.
AI Kuindzhi depicts the celestial sphere majestic and eternal, striking the audience with the power of the Universe, its immensity and solemnity. Numerous attributes of the landscape - huts creeping along the slope, bushy trees, gnarled stalks of the tartar - are absorbed by darkness, their color is dissolved in a brown tone.
The bright silvery light of the moon is shaded by the depth of blue. With his phosphorescence, he turns the traditional motif with the moon into such a rare, meaningful, attractive and mysterious that it transforms into poetic and excited delight. There were even suggestions about some unusual colors and even about strange artistic techniques that the artist allegedly used. Rumors about the secret of the artistic method of A.I. Kuindzhi, about the secret of his colors went around during the life of the artist, some tried to convict him of tricks, even in connection with evil spirits.
Perhaps this happened because A.I. Kuindzhi concentrated his efforts on the illusory transmission of the real effect of lighting, on the search for such a composition of the picture that would allow the most convincing expression of the feeling of wide spatiality. And with these tasks he coped brilliantly. In addition, the artist defeated everyone in distinguishing the slightest changes in color and light ratios (for example, even during experiments with a special device, which were carried out by D.I. Mendeleev and others).
Creating this canvas, A.I. Kuindzhi applied a complex pictorial technique. For example, he contrasted the warm reddish tone of the earth with cold silvery shades and thereby deepened the space, and small dark strokes in the illuminated places created a feeling of vibrating light.
All newspapers and magazines responded to the exhibition with enthusiastic articles, reproductions of Moonlight Night on the Dnieper were distributed in thousands of copies throughout Russia. The poet Y. Polonsky, a friend of A. I. Kuindzhi, wrote then: “I positively do not remember that people stagnated in front of any picture for so long ... What is it? Picture or reality? In a golden frame or through an open window, did we see this month, these clouds, this dark distance, these “trembling lights of sad villages” and these play of light, this silvery reflection of the month in the jets of the Dnieper, bending around the distance, this poetic, quiet, majestic night? » The poet K. Fofanov wrote the poem "Night on the Dnieper", which was later set to music.
The audience was delighted with the illusion of natural moonlight, and people, according to I.E. Repin, who stood in “prayerful silence” in front of the canvas by A.I. Kuindzhi, left the hall with tears in their eyes: believers, and they lived in such moments with the best feelings of the soul and enjoyed the heavenly bliss of the art of painting.
Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who bought the painting, did not want to part with the canvas, even going on a trip around the world. I.S. Turgenev, who was in Paris at that time (in January 1881), was horrified by this thought, about which he wrote indignantly to the writer D.V. Grigorovich: “There is no doubt that the picture ... will return completely ruined , thanks to the salty vapors of the air, etc.” He even visited the Grand Duke in Paris, while his frigate was in the port of Cherbourg, and persuaded him to send the painting to Paris for a short time. I.S. Turgenev hoped that he would be able to persuade him to leave the painting at the exhibition in the Zedelmeyer Gallery, but he failed to persuade the prince.
Humid, salt-soaked sea air, of course, had a negative effect on the composition of paints, and the landscape began to darken. But the lunar ripples on the river and the radiance of the moon itself are conveyed by the brilliant A.I. Kuindzhi with such force that, looking at the picture even now, the audience immediately falls under the power of the eternal and Divine.

Kuindzhi's painting Moonlight Night on the Dnieper was painted by the artist in 1880. After painting the picture Birch Grove and Kuindzhi's conflict with his colleague Klodt, Kuindzhi voluntarily left the membership of the Wanderers artists.

Visitors to the eighth exhibition of the Society for Contemporary Art Exhibition immediately noticed the absence of Kuindzhi's paintings, which caused considerable disappointment among his fans, on this occasion even Tretyakov P.M. wrote to the artist Kramskoy I., expressing his deep regret.

The work Moonlight Night on the Dnieper aroused considerable interest among the then public, while working on the picture, rumors quickly spread about the unusually lyrical beauty of Moonlight Night. There were so many people who wanted to see the picture that the artist, even while working on the Night, opened the workshop for visitors for 2 hours on Sundays. Among the first visitors were famous people Kramskoy I., Chistyakov P., Turgenev I. Mendeleev D. I. and others.

The painting quickly found its future buyer, who was not embarrassed high price 5 thousand rubles, at that time it was a lot of money, leaving the right to buy a moonlit night. Subsequently, Kuindzhi learned that it was none other than the Grand Duke Konstantin himself, who had long dreamed of such a picture.

It was decided to exhibit the painting Moonlight Night on the Dnieper in St. Petersburg on Bolshaya Morskaya Street. The uniqueness of this exposition was extraordinary, that is, only one painting was exhibited, especially the small canvas size of 144 cm by 105 cm.

Since the picture is executed in dark colors, the artist decided to demonstrate the Moonlit Night on the Dnieper under electric lighting, curtaining all the windows and directing a beam of light onto the canvas, in which the perception of the picture with the effect of moonlight was the most inviting.

All this spectacle delighted the guests of the exhibition, they admired both the painting itself and the uniqueness of the exposition. Some viewers even thought that a light source was placed under the canvas, the moon actually shone brightly.

It was rumored that Kuindzhi uses various illusionistic techniques when demonstrating a picture and even wanted to convict him of charlatanism, others thought that the artist uses unusual colors when writing the Moonlight Night, the secret of which they wanted to know, others gossiped about the artist’s connection with evil spirits.

In fact, the artist was always on a new quest and he often managed to find the right and right solutions in order to captivate the public, so Kuindzhi was sometimes also called the artist of light. The success of the painting Moonlight on the Dnieper was impressive, Kramskoy spoke very enthusiastically about the Moonlit Night and said that no one had ever painted like that.

The artist shows the viewer the night space that goes into the depths of the picture, the moon mysteriously shines surrounded by rare clouds. The calm and majestic Dnieper River meanders into the distance, magically reflecting the moonlight. Dilapidated Ukrainian houses are located on the banks of the full-flowing Dnieper. The quiet state of nature fascinates and gives ground for deep reflection on the unsurpassed beauty of nature, which he revealed in his picture wonderful artist Arkhip Kuindzhi.

Due to the huge popularity of the painting, Kuindzhi created two more copies of the Moonlit Night, the first painting is stored in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the other is in the Livadia Palace in Yalta and the third in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

The tragic fate of "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" October 18th, 2016

"Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" (1880) is one of the most famous paintings by Arkhip Kuindzhi. This work made a splash and gained mystical fame. Many did not believe that the light of the moon could be conveyed in this way only by artistic means, and looked behind the canvas, looking for a lamp there. Many silently stood for hours in front of the picture, and then left in tears. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich bought the "Moonlight Night" for his personal collection and took it everywhere with him, which had sad consequences.

Which? This is what we now find out...

In the summer and autumn of 1880, during a break with the Wanderers, A.I. Kuindzhi worked on a new painting. Rumors about the enchanting beauty of the "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" spread throughout the Russian capital. For two hours on Sundays, the artist opened the doors of his studio to those who wished, and the St. Petersburg public began to besiege her long before the completion of the work. This painting gained truly legendary fame. I.S. Turgenev and Y. Polonsky, I. Kramskoy and P. Chistyakov, D. I. Mendelev came to the workshop of A. I. Kuindzhi, the well-known publisher and collector K. T. Soldatenkov asked the price of the painting. Directly from the workshop, even before the exhibition, “Moonlight Night on the Dnieper” was bought for huge money by the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. And then the picture was exhibited in St. Petersburg. It was the first exhibition of one painting in Russia.

The work was exhibited in a separate hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists on Bolshaya Morskaya. At the same time, the hall was not illuminated, only a bright electric beam fell on the picture. The image from this "deepened" even more, and the moonlight became simply dazzling. And decades later, the witnesses of this triumph continued to recall the shock experienced by the audience, who “got it” to the picture. It was the “worthy ones” - during the exhibition days, Bolshaya Morskaya was densely packed with carriages, and a long queue lined up at the doors to the building and people waited for hours to see this extraordinary work. To avoid a crush, the audience was allowed into the hall in groups.

Roerich still found the servant Maxim alive, who received rubles (!) from those who tried to get to the picture out of turn. The performance of the artist with a solo exhibition, and even consisting of just one small painting, was an unusual event. Moreover, this picture interpreted not some unusual historical plot, but a landscape of a very modest size. But AI Kuindzhi knew how to win. The success exceeded all expectations and turned into a real sensation.

A.I. Kuindzhi was always very attentive to the exposure of his paintings, placed them so that they were well lit, so that neighboring canvases did not interfere with them. This time, "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" hung on the wall alone. Knowing that the effect of moonlight would be fully manifested under artificial lighting, the artist ordered the windows in the hall to be draped and the picture to be illuminated with a beam of electric light focused on it. Visitors entered the semi-dark hall and, spellbound, stopped in front of the cold glow of moonlight. Before the audience a wide space stretching into the distance opened up; the plain, crossed by a greenish ribbon of a quiet river, almost merges at the horizon with a dark sky covered with rows of light clouds. Above, they parted a little, and the moon peered through the resulting window, illuminating the Dnieper, the huts and the web of paths on the near bank.

And everything in nature fell silent, enchanted by the wonderful radiance of the sky and the Dnieper waters. The sparkling silvery-greenish disk of the moon flooded the earth immersed in night peace with its mysterious phosphorescent light. He was so strong that some of the spectators tried to look behind the picture to find a lantern or lamp there. But there was no lamp, and the moon continued to radiate its bewitching, mysterious light. The waters of the Dnieper reflect this light like a smooth mirror, the walls of Ukrainian huts turn white from the velvety blue of the night. This majestic spectacle still immerses viewers in thoughts about eternity and the enduring beauty of the world. So before A.I. Kuindzhi, only the great N.V. Gogol sang about nature. The number of sincere admirers of the talent of A.I. Kuindzhi grew, a rare person could remain indifferent to this picture, which seemed like witchcraft.

AI Kuindzhi depicts the celestial sphere majestic and eternal, striking the audience with the power of the Universe, its immensity and solemnity. Numerous attributes of the landscape - huts creeping along the slope, bushy trees, gnarled stalks of the tartar - are absorbed by darkness, their color is dissolved in a brown tone. The bright silvery light of the moon is shaded by the depth of blue. With his phosphorescence, he turns the traditional motif with the moon into such a rare, meaningful, attractive and mysterious that it transforms into poetic and excited delight. There were even suggestions about some unusual colors and even about strange artistic techniques that the artist allegedly used. Rumors about the secret of the artistic method of A.I. Kuindzhi, about the secret of his colors went around during the life of the artist, some tried to convict him of tricks, even in connection with evil spirits. Maybe this happened because A.I. Kuindzhi concentrated his efforts on the illusory transmission of the real effect of lighting, on the search for such a composition of the picture that would allow the most convincing expression of the feeling of wide spatiality.

Famous artist Arkhip Kuindzhi, 1907

And with these tasks he coped brilliantly. In addition, the artist defeated everyone in distinguishing the slightest changes in color and light ratios (for example, even during experiments with a special device, which were carried out by D.I. Mendeleev and others). Some have argued for the use of phosphorus-based chemistries. However, this is not entirely true. A decisive role in creating an impression is played by the unusual color structure of the canvas. Using complementary colors in the picture that reinforce each other, the artist achieves an incredible effect of the illusion of moonlight. True, it is known that the experiments still took place. Kuindzhi intensively used bituminous paints, but did not use phosphorus. Unfortunately, due to the careless mixing of chemically incompatible paints, the canvas darkened greatly.

Creating this canvas, A.I. Kuindzhi applied a complex pictorial technique. For example, he contrasted the warm reddish tone of the earth with cold silvery shades and thereby deepened the space, and small dark strokes in the illuminated places created a feeling of vibrating light. All newspapers and magazines responded to the exhibition with enthusiastic articles, reproductions of Moonlight Night on the Dnieper were distributed in thousands of copies throughout Russia. The poet Y. Polonsky, a friend of A. I. Kuindzhi, wrote then: “I positively do not remember that people stagnated in front of any picture for so long ... What is it? Picture or reality? In a golden frame or through an open window, did we see this month, these clouds, this dark distance, these “trembling lights of sad villages” and these play of light, this silvery reflection of the month in the jets of the Dnieper, bending around the distance, this poetic, quiet, majestic night? » The poet K. Fofanov wrote the poem "Night on the Dnieper", which was later set to music.

The audience was delighted with the illusion of natural moonlight, and people, according to I.E. Repin, who stood in “prayerful silence” in front of the canvas by A.I. Kuindzhi, left the hall with tears in their eyes: believers, and they lived in such moments with the best feelings of the soul and enjoyed the heavenly bliss of the art of painting. The poet Y. Polonsky was surprised: “I positively do not remember that people stagnated for so long in front of any picture ... What is it? Picture or reality? And the poet K. Fofanov, impressed by this canvas, wrote the poem "Night on the Dnieper", which was later set to music.

I. Kramskoy foresaw the fate of the canvas: “Perhaps Kuindzhi put together such colors that are in natural antagonism with each other and after a certain time they will either go out, or change and decompose to the point that the descendants will shrug their shoulders in bewilderment: from what they came to the delight of the good-natured spectators? Here, in order to avoid such an unfair attitude in the future, I would not mind drawing up, so to speak, a protocol that his “Night on the Dnieper” is all filled with real light and air, and the sky is real, bottomless, deep.

Unfortunately, our contemporaries cannot fully appreciate the initial effect of the picture, since it has reached our times in a distorted form. And the reason for everything is the special attitude to the canvas of its owner, Grand Duke Konstantin.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who bought the painting, did not want to part with the canvas, even going on a trip around the world. I.S. Turgenev, who was in Paris at that time (in January 1881), was horrified by this thought, about which he wrote indignantly to the writer D.V. Grigorovich: “There is no doubt that the picture ... will return completely ruined , thanks to the salty vapors of the air, etc.” He even visited the Grand Duke in Paris, while his frigate was in the port of Cherbourg, and persuaded him to send the painting to Paris for a short time.

I.S. Turgenev hoped that he would be able to persuade him to leave the painting at the exhibition in the Zedelmeyer Gallery, but he failed to persuade the prince. Humid, salt-soaked sea air, of course, had a negative effect on the composition of paints, and the landscape began to darken. But the lunar ripples on the river and the radiance of the moon itself are conveyed by the brilliant A.I. Kuindzhi with such force that, looking at the picture even now, the audience immediately falls under the power of the eternal and Divine.

In fairness, it should be noted that due to the huge popularity of the painting, Kuindzhi created two more copies of the Moonlight Night, the first painting is kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the other is in the Livadia Palace in Yalta and the third in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

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