The description of the painting is unknown. Mystical paintings by Russian artists

This brush painting Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy , probably known to everyone, even to those who have never been to the Tretyakov Gallery.

But if you ask what this portrait is called, the majority will answer: "Stranger" . And they will be wrong.
Actually the picture is called "Unknown" .

The artist Ivan Kramskoy (1837 - 1887) painted this portrait of a beautiful woman driving in an open carriage along Nevsky Prospekt (the Alexandrinsky Theater can be guessed behind her on the right in the background of the picture), shortly before her death, in 1883.

Portrait of I. N. Kramskoy,
written in 1880 by I. I. Shishkin:

Wet big half-lidded eyes, thick eyelashes, clothes in the latest fashion of the 1880s. Who is she? The author of the portrait himself did not leave us an answer to this question. And the very name of the picture once again intrigues and creates an aura of mystery.

The version that I. Kramskoy depicted in his famous portrait a certain Kursk peasant woman Matryona Savvishna, who allegedly married Count Bestuzhev, captivated by her beauty, can hardly be considered reliable. At least, this legend has no historical evidence.

But another version seems more reliable, according to which the artist used his daughter Sophia as a medel for his painting.
The fate of this woman is tragic. Sofia Ivanovna Kramskaya was also an artist; in 1930 she was arrested as an "enemy of the people". Several camps in Siberia: in Krasnoyarsk, and then in Irkutsk; two strokes, a return to Leningrad and an accidental death from blood poisoning due to a finger prick with a herring bone.

However, lovers of painting all this is better not to know. Somehow, the beautiful young woman, looking at the viewers of the picture with a slightly sad, but at the same time regal look, does not really fit into one whole, with a prisoner of the camps who died in poverty. And what is she then "unknown"?

Perhaps that is why I like the erroneous from the point of view of the history of fine arts, but much more attractive title of the painting - "The Stranger". And for this you need to "blame" no one, but the great Russian poet Alexander Blok .

Even people who are far from literature, but forced to study it (with a greater or lesser degree of efficiency) in the course of the school curriculum, are familiar with one of the most famous poems by the most romantic poet of the Silver Age - "Stranger" .

Just don't tell me that you don't remember at least a couple of stanzas from these verses:

"... And every evening, at the appointed hour
(Is it just my dream?)
Maiden's camp, seized by silks
In the foggy window moves.

And slowly, passing among the drunk,
Always without companions, alone,
Breathing in spirits and mists,
She sits by the window...

Alexander Blok wrote "The Stranger" 23 years after the "Unknown" by Ivan Kramskoy.
But I would like to think that it was this picture that inspired the poet's "The Stranger". Judge for yourself:

"... And they breathe ancient beliefs
Her elastic silks
And a hat with mourning feathers
And in the rings a narrow hand ... "

"... And ostrich feathers bowed
In my brain sway.
And bottomless blue eyes
Blooming on the far shore..."

I imagine that "Unknown" arrived in her carriage, entered the institution, "where drunkards with rabbit eyes in vino veritas scream..." , and where every evening a poet in love with her (no, rather not with her, but with an image created by the magical power of art and his own imagination) waits. She takes off her outer clothes, puts her muff in the wardrobe, but remains in a fashionable hat with feathers, goes alone to a table by the window (at the same time, of course, "breathing spirits and mists" )...

And just don’t tell me that Alexander Blok, who sang in his poems the “Beautiful Lady” he invented, was in reality the disgusting husband of a woman whose love he had sought for many years and to whom he dedicated his poems (I mean Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva), and after marrying her, wandered around prostitutes and had many mistresses. Yes, this is the truth that I know, even though sometimes I think it would be better not to know. And yet, after all, we appreciate Blok not for the most attractive circumstances of his personal life (as well as Sergei Yesenin, by the way), but for the high poetry that is his legacy. Is not it?

Among the many poems of Alexander Blok, "The Stranger", despite the popularity and well-knownness, has been and remains one of my favorite poems of this poet.
Therefore, for me, the picture of Ivan Kramskoy is still not "Unknown" , A "Stranger" even though I know it's wrong.

Sergei Vorobyov .

In 1883, Kramskoy completed this "strange" picture and called it abruptly, defiantly - "Unknown". The riddle has been tormenting those who look at this picture for almost more than 160 years. Who is this woman? Secret behind seven seals. Kramskoy, neither in his diaries nor in his numerous letters, did not say a word or a hint about her.

This is perhaps the most famous work of Kramskoy, the most intriguing, which remains misunderstood and unsolved to this day. Calling his painting "Unknown", the clever Kramskoy fixed an aura of mystery forever behind it.

Contemporaries were literally at a loss. Her image caused anxiety and anxiety, a vague premonition of a depressing and dubious new - the appearance of a type of woman who did not fit into the old system of values. “It is not known who this lady is, decent or corrupt, but an entire era sits in her,” some stated.

In our time, Kramskoy's "Unknown" has become the embodiment of aristocracy and secular sophistication. Like a queen, she rises above the foggy white cold city, driving in an open carriage along the Anichkov Bridge. Her attire - a Francis hat trimmed with elegant light feathers, "Swedish" gloves made of the finest leather, a Skobelev coat decorated with sable fur and blue satin ribbons, a clutch, a gold bracelet - all these are fashionable details of a women's costume of the 1880s. years, claiming expensive elegance. However, this did not mean belonging to the high society, rather the opposite - a code of unwritten rules ruled out strict adherence to fashion in the highest circles of Russian society.

A young woman in furs with an arrogant expression was called "a fiend of big cities" by critics. In the picture they saw a revealing meaning. However, in the face of the heroine one can see not only arrogance, but also sadness, hidden drama.

History of a possible prototype:

Other versions:
It is also assumed that the wife of the artist Yaroshenko Maria Pavlovna posed. The portrait of Kramskoy's niece (the daughter of his older brother) is also a similarity in the face ... Or maybe it's just a collective image.

It is assumed that
in 1878, Emperor Alexander II became a father, he had a daughter, but his daughter was born not by the legitimate empress, but by his last and fiery love - Catherine Dolgorukaya. Therefore, Kramskoy kept a secret. Ekaterina Mikhailovna and her children were not recognized by the emperor's relatives. She expressed her desire to Kramskoy and indicated the place by which she should pass in the carriage in the picture. This is the Anichkov Palace, where the emperor's heir lived with his family.
Kramskoy worked on the portrait for a long time, reworking it many times. Two years passed and ... the customer of the portrait, Emperor Alexander II, was killed. The meaning of the work was lost. Dolgoruky with the children was sent abroad.
The portrait sadly stood in the studio and only three years after the death of the emperor, in 1883, the artist exhibited the painting at a traveling exhibition, calling it "Unknown"...

Compare: is Ekaterina Dolgorukaya similar to "Unknown"

Kramskoy is a very famous artist who has famous and unusual works of art. For example, one of his most famous masterpieces is a painting called "Portrait of an Unknown Woman". This work is full of mystery and mystery, this is its peculiarity.

The portrait is fraught with some intrigue. The mystery of this canvas has been preserved to our times, and no one can fully unravel the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe portrait of the unknown. Very often you can hear how this picture of Kramskoy is called - Painting of the Stranger. Still, this name cannot be considered true and correct. Because, it is the artist who can set the rules associated with his work. And Kramskoy called this work - Portrait of an Unknown. Although the words unknown and stranger are quite close in meaning, nevertheless, there is a definite difference.

At all times there were artists who painted portraits of women about whom they did not want to reveal the whole truth to the public. They tried to hide the heroines of the works. But still, after a while, the truth became clear. For a long time it was impossible to keep all this a secret. But, as for the portrait of Kramskoy, everything is different here. Kramskoy never revealed the name of his heroine to anyone in his entire life.

Apparently, he set himself such a goal, to generate many questions from his contemporaries. What were the conjectures built by the people of that time? Some suggested that the girl depicted by the artist was not attractive in appearance, and therefore Kramskoy hid her. Someone thought that the heroine was a lady from the highest ranks, and expected silence from Kramskoy. And others recognized in kind, the famous actress of that time from the bohemia of the theater. But these are only guesses, which are not facts.

Whoever the artist portrayed, the portrait was so magnificent that Kramskoy was carried in his arms, with delight when they saw this work of his. The work was simply charming and of extraordinary beauty. When Kramskoy began to be bombarded with questions, he did not answer any of them. Who is this lady, did he paint her from nature, maybe the heroine was invented? No, the writer did not consider it necessary to answer.

The portrait of an unknown artist created in 1883. He portrayed the heroine in an open carriage, and against the backdrop of a beautiful city, St. Petersburg. The stranger looked like an imperious, impregnable lady. The swarthy beauty, coquettishly narrowed her eyes, proudly throwing her gaze, on a walk along the Anichkov bridge. The mysterious heroine looks at the visitors of the Tretyakov Gallery with a majestic and mysterious look. She fascinates all connoisseurs of the beautiful and the great.

I.N. Kramskoy "Unknown" 1887. Moscow. Tretyakov Gallery.

WHO IS SHE, this captivating woman, that she leaned back so proudly on the back of the carriage? Anyone who has seen her at least once, in the morning winter fog in St. Petersburg, passing by the Anichkov Palace, is unlikely to forget this picture ... Why did this secular lady, dressed with all the luxury of fashion, excite the imagination of the democrat artist I. N. Kramskoy? Why did he paint her portrait?

Dressed in the latest fashion of the 1880s, with a proud, mysterious and slightly haughty look, she looks like a queen against the backdrop of a white foggy city. She is wearing a hat with light feathers, a coat trimmed with sable fur and satin ribbons, a gold bracelet, a muff, thin leather gloves. All these details characterize expensive elegance, but do not speak of belonging to high society, rather, on the contrary.

The image of a woman is not immersed in the atmosphere of a frosty winter landscape, but is placed as if in front of it. With great care, the artist paints all the details of the lady's wardrobe - there is a feeling of challenge, as if beauty is on display.

Fragment of a painting. Unknown".
The sensual beauty of a woman, her graceful posture, swarthy skin, dark eyes and velvet eyelashes seem to tease the viewer. But at the same time, in the eyes of a woman, one can also guess some sadness, some kind of drama - perhaps the author wants to show a sense of insecurity in front of the falsehood and cold calculation of the society in which she lives.

THERE ARE SEVERAL VERSIONS OF WHO IS SHOWN IN THIS PICTURE.
FIRST of them, that the portrait was painted from the wife of the artist Yaroshenko - Maria Pavlovna Yaroshenko., Or from his niece, because. there is some resemblance in the face.

Portrait of Maria Pavlovna Yaroshenko. 1875. Art. Yaroshenko

The SECOND version is that the picture depicts a collective image of a lady of the 1880s, dressed fashionably and tastefully. The slightly arrogant look of an experienced woman who has seen life, on the one hand, and the deep sadness of half-closed eyes, on the other, does not leave any viewer indifferent ... The soft fur of the collar emphasizes the warmth and amazing velvety of the skin, and behind the back - the frosty St. , and at the same time, warm, alluring, almost alive - it seems that he is about to take out an elegant hand in a leather glove from the clutch and give it to get out of the carriage ..

The NEXT version is that the Georgian princess Varvara Turkestanishvili posed for Kramskoy, who allegedly was the favorite of Alexander I and the maid of honor of Empress Maria Feodorovna.

EAT and a rather sensational suggestion that the "Unknown" is a portrait of Catherine Dolgoruky, the Serene Princess Yuryevskaya ...
In 1878, Emperor Alexander II became a father, his daughter was born. But ... his daughter was born not by the legitimate empress, but by his beloved woman, his last and most ardent love - Ekaterina Dolgorukaya. And the emperor asked I. Kramskoy to paint her portrait. The artist prepared to write it, but all this was kept in deep secrecy. Ekaterina Mikhailovna and her children were not recognized by the relatives of the emperor, and this offended her greatly. Therefore, when posing for Kramskoy, she expressed a desire to look proud and independent in the portrait, and indicated the place by which she should pass in the carriage in the picture. This is the Anichkov Palace, where the emperor's heir lived with his family.

THE MOST ROMANTIC VERSION and therefore perceived as the most truthful. According to this version, the painting depicts Matryona Savvishna, Bestuzhev's wife, a former Kursk peasant woman.

Bestuzhev was so fascinated by her beauty, seeing her in the maids of his landowner aunt, begged her and brought her to St. Petersburg, where she was taught etiquette, dancing, and literacy. Introduced her into high society. He took care of upbringing and education, invited the best teachers. The student turned out to be extremely capable. Later he married her.
Matrena Savvishna was unusually beautiful and had a strong pleasant voice. Word of her beauty spread far and wide. She was kind and truthful. She made many friends. But the high society was partial to the young woman and viciously slandered her. The secular nobility could not forgive her simple origin. It was said that one day Matrena Savvishna met her mistress on the road. The landowner waited for the former maid to bow to her, but Matrena Savvishna rode in a rich carriage and did not even look at her. This act literally infuriated the lady, but she was already powerless to do anything to Matryona Savvishna.
Perhaps the artist I. N. Kramskoy, who was familiar with the Bestuzhev family, heard this story and painted a picture in which Matryona Savvishna is depicted in a stroller. How much noble dignity in her proud posture! Kramskoy wrote the image with deep truth; this simple Russian; women, with great love showed her spiritual beauty

However, Bestuzhev's family life did not work out: because of the beauty of his wife, he several times initiated duels with especially active gentlemen, which ended in reconciliation, but still left a negative mark on family life. Then their only son died ... And the Bestuzhevs' relatives asked the church to dissolve the marriage, which was done.

Upon learning of this, Kramskoy considered it his duty to see off Matryona Savvishna - she decided to return to her native village to her older sister. At the same time, they agreed that she would write to him. For a long time there was no news. Kramskoy himself wrote a letter to the village, but received no answer. Arriving in Fatezh, Kramskoy learned the sad news: on the way, Matryona Savvishna fell seriously ill and died in Fatezh, in the Zemstvo hospital.

Unknown. Etude. 1883. Collection of Dr. Dushan Friedrich. Prague.

A pictorial study for the painting is kept in a private collection in Prague, convincing that Kramskoy was looking for the ambiguity of the artistic image. The etude is much simpler and sharper, the said and more definite than the picture. It shows the audacity and imperiousness of a woman, a feeling of emptiness and satiety, which are absent in the final version.

The appearance of the "Unknown" at the exhibition caused a great stir. Almost all of St. Petersburg came out to look at this mysterious lady. Proudly leaning back in the carriage, looking at the audience with a tantalizing gaze of half-open twinkling eyes, enticing with a delicate rounded chin, the elastic smoothness of her matte cheeks and a lush feather on her hat, she rode under the pearly sky of a huge canvas, as in the middle of the world.

Unable to calm his excitement, Kramskoy decided to leave the exhibition, where his "Unknown" was first shown, and return by the end of the opening day. A noisy crowd met him at the entrance and carried him in their arms. The success was complete. With the keen eye of an artist, he noted that everything is here: princes and officials, merchants and contractors, writers and artists, students and artisans...

Tell me who is she? - friends pestered the artist.

- "Unknown".

Call it what you want, but tell me where did you get this treasure?

Invented.

But did he write from nature?

Maybe from nature...

This is perhaps the most famous work of Kramskoy, the most intriguing, which remains misunderstood and unsolved to this day. Calling his painting "Unknown", the clever Kramskoy fixed an aura of mystery forever behind it. Contemporaries were literally at a loss. Her image caused anxiety and anxiety, a vague premonition of a depressing and dubious new - the appearance of a type of woman who did not fit into the old system of values. “It is not known who this lady is, decent or corrupt, but an entire era sits in her,” some stated. In our time, Kramskoy's "Unknown" has become the embodiment of aristocracy and secular sophistication.

HOW DO YOU LIKE? WHICH VERSION IS MORE CREDIBLE?

One of the most outstanding works of the Russian school of painting of the second half of the 19th century is the painting "The Stranger". Kramskoy painted it in 1883. The painting was first presented to the public in the same year at the exhibition of the Wanderers in St. Petersburg. Its original name is "Unknown". After the public saw it, a lot of rumors immediately appeared. Who is the young lady that Ivan Kramskoy depicted in the picture? The exact answer to this question could not be obtained until today. The study of the diaries and personal correspondence of the artist also failed to clarify the situation: Kramskoy nowhere mentioned the identity of the woman who became the main character of his most famous work.

The search for the prototype of an unknown girl

There are several versions about whose image the picture "The Stranger" conveys. The description of the appearance of the Kursk beauty peasant woman Matryona Savvishna, who became the wife of the nobleman Bestuzhev, is most suitable for the heroine of the canvas. Some researchers of Kramskoy's work believed that the model posing for him when painting the picture was his daughter Sofia. Some art critics were of the opinion that Anna Karenina is the prototype of the girl from the canvas, others attributed her resemblance to Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova, the heroine of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot. At the beginning of the 20th century, the young lady from the picture became associated with Blok's gentle and mysterious "The Stranger".

Critics' score

Many contemporaries of Kramskoy believed that the painting "The Stranger" was written in order to expose the moral foundations of society, which could not serve as an example to follow. Art critic V. Stasov called the beauty on canvas "cocotte in a stroller." According to N. Murashko, the canvas depicted "dear camellia", that is, a woman of easy virtue. Describing "The Stranger", critic P. Kovalevsky called her "one of the fiends of big cities."

Description of the young lady
What is the picture "The Stranger"? Kramskoy depicted on it a beautiful young woman driving in an open carriage along the Anichkov Bridge. The young lady, looking regal against the backdrop of snowy St. Petersburg, is dressed expensively and fashionably. All the details of the elegant wardrobe of a stranger, the artist prescribes with great care. A luxurious coat with blue satin ribbons, trimmed with sable furs, a hat with feathers, gloves made of the finest leather, a gold bracelet - all this betrays a wealthy woman in her.

The look of the beauty, framed by fluffy eyelashes, is arrogant, contempt for others slips in it. But at the same time, in her eyes one can read the uncertainty inherent in all people who depend on the world in which they live. Despite the dismissive attitude, the girl is very beautiful, graceful, she attracts admiring glances. The unknown young lady clearly did not belong to high society. The manner of dressing in the latest fashion, as well as made-up lips and richly furrowed eyebrows, indicate that she was most likely the kept woman of some noble gentleman.

Czech find

Approximately 60 years after writing "The Stranger", a study for this painting was accidentally discovered in one of the private Czech collections. On it, the young lady is dressed in a dark closed dress, her hair is gathered in a high hairstyle. The woman depicted in the sketch is strikingly similar to the "Stranger", but contempt for others is even more visible in her eyes. Kramskoy portrayed the beauty as impudent and self-satisfied, giving the expression of her face a kind of caricature. The sketch shows that the master had long nurtured the idea of ​​creating a revealing portrait that ridiculed the vices of society.

Rumors about the curse of the painting

Not only the mystery of the image of the main character attracts art lovers to the painting "The Stranger". The artist created a truly mystical work, because for decades it has attracted misfortunes and failures to its owners.
Having painted the canvas, Kramskoy offered Tretyakov to buy it for his gallery, but he refused, being sure that portraits of beautiful women are capable of drawing strength from a living person. "Stranger" found shelter in private collections, first in Russia, then abroad, but it brought misfortune to all its owners. The curse hung over Kramskoy himself: a few months after the picture saw the light, 2 sons passed away one after another.

After long travels in 1925, the mysterious "Stranger" returned to Russia and nevertheless took its place in the Tretyakov Gallery, where it is located to this day. Since then, she has ceased to bring misfortune to others. Admirers of Kramskoy's work are sure that if the canvas had originally ended up in the Tretyakov collection, then it would not have been pulled into disrepute, because that's where it should have been from the very beginning.