The painting "Inconsolable Grief" by its design is deeply personal. It was written under the impression of the death of the artist's two younger sons. “I was in no hurry to purchase this painting in St. Petersburg, knowing, probably, that it would not find buyers in terms of content, but I then decided to purchase it,” Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov wrote to Kramskoy. “It is quite fair that my painting “Inconsolable grief” will not meet a buyer,” Kramskoy answered the collector, “I know this just as well, maybe even better, but after all, the Russian artist is still on the way to the goal, as long as he considers that serving art is his task until he has mastered everything, he is not yet corrupted and therefore still able to write a thing without counting on sales. Right or wrong, but in this case I only wanted to serve art.
If no one needs a picture now, it is not superfluous in the school of Russian painting in general. This is not self-deception, because I sincerely sympathized with my mother's grief, I searched for a long time for a pure form and finally settled on this form, because for more than 2 years this form did not arouse criticism in me ...
This work of the artist reflected his personal tragedy - the loss of his youngest son. It is no coincidence that in the main character of the canvas, the features of Kramskoy's wife, Sofya Nikolaevna, are easily read. He painted a picture of Kramskoy for a long time and painfully - the final version was preceded by three options in which the search for the right compositional solution took place. At the same time, the heroine herself grew old and, as it were, gradually “rose” to her feet: at first she was sitting by the hearse; then - on a chair; and finally - she stood near the coffin. It is curious that this is the only work of the artist of the 1880s, bought from him by P. Tretyakov.
The 1880s are not the best time for their friendship; at this time, relations between Kramskoy and Tretyakov did not work out; apparently, Pavel Mikhailovich did not seem far-fetched all the accusations that his former friends, the Wanderers, threw in Kramskoy's face. Nevertheless, Tretyakov became interested in "Inconsolable Grief" (although, according to some evidence, he did not like it too much). “I was in no hurry to purchase this painting in St. Petersburg,” the collector wrote to its author, “knowing for sure that it would not find buyers in terms of content, but I then decided to purchase it ...” And this acquisition was realized.
There is dead silence in this work. All inner movement is concentrated in the eyes of the heroine, full of inescapable longing, and hands pressing a handkerchief to her lips - these are the only bright spots in the composition, the rest, as it were, fades into the shadows.
This red flower in a pot stretching up is symbolic. There is a strange precariousness in it, telling us how fragile human life is.
The large picture hanging on the wall is quite concrete - we have a fragment of Aivazovsky's "Black Sea" in front of us. “This is one of the most grandiose paintings that I know of,” Kramskoy admitted. This detail also carries a symbolic meaning, bringing the life of a person closer to the life of the sea element, in which storms are replaced by calm.
The bright wreath placed on the coffin contrasts sharply with the grief-stricken mother's mourning dress and seems out of place next to him - this dissonance emphasizes the atmosphere of lostness that reigns in the work.
Ivan Kramskoy. Inconsolable grief.
1884. Oil on canvas. 228 x 141. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
In February 1884, the twelfth traveling exhibition opened. Kramskoy gave the exhibition the painting "Inconsolable Grief" - about the grief of a mother who lost her child. The idea to paint such a picture arose long ago, several years after his two sons died one after another.
Not a single painting by Kramskoy has such an amount of preparatory material - options, sketches, sketches, sketches. In them, the artist goes to an ever greater rigor in the selection of artistic means. One of the first versions (State Russian Museum) depicts a young woman with a fixed, dead look, exhausted from tears, sank to the floor.
The variant, located in the Museum of Latvian and Russian Art in Riga, is distinguished by a greater severity of cold tones, a more sparse narrative. The coffin has been moved into the depths of the canvas, it is hidden by a curtain, which a woman in deep mourning clutched convulsively. However, the excessive frankness of too clearly expressed suffering was alien to Kramskoy, he is looking for an expression of a restrained, chaste feeling that is not carried out on people, for whom someone else's look is offensive.
In the final version (1884, State Tretyakov Gallery), all the power of expressiveness is concentrated on the face and figure of a standing woman.
Mother is standing by the table, alone... She looks straight ahead. She is wearing a black mourning dress, her hair is carelessly pinned up, a handkerchief is pressed to her lips. She no longer cries. Nearby on an armchair is a box with flowers, flowers on the floor. The baby lace dress is the last one she will wear for her child. The door to the next room is ajar. On the floor near the door there is a reflection of a reddish light: wax candles are burning near the coffin. Everything is over. A child has passed away, but everything around has remained the same: a carpet on the floor, pictures on the walls, an album with photographs, books on the table...
There is dead silence in this picture. All internal movement is concentrated in the eyes of the heroine, full of inescapable longing, and the hands pressing the handkerchief to her lips - these are the only bright spots in the composition, the rest seems to fade into the shadows. The bright wreath contrasts sharply with the grief-stricken mother's mourning dress and seems out of place next to him - this dissonance emphasizes the atmosphere of loss that reigns in the picture. Symbolic is a red flower in a pot stretching upwards. It has a strange unreliability that tells us how fragile human life is.
The mother seems to be alone with her grief, and her restraint gives the appearance of features of true greatness, tragedy. The universal meaning of the image is emphasized by a detail that was easily read by contemporaries: in the upper right corner of the composition, the artist places a fragment of I.K. Aivazovsky's painting The Black Sea, cut off by a frame, in which Kramskoy himself saw the embodiment of human thoughts about the fundamental principles of being. “This is one of the most grandiose paintings that I know of,” Kramskoy admitted. This detail also carries a symbolic meaning, bringing the life of a person closer to the life of the sea element, in which storms are replaced by calm.
This is one of the best paintings by Kramskoy. She made a terrific impression on her contemporaries and one cannot still look at her without excitement. After all, it was not for nothing that Repin said that "this is not a picture, but a reality."
“I was in no hurry to purchase this painting in St. Petersburg, knowing, probably, that it would not find buyers in terms of content, but at the same time I decided to purchase it,” Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov wrote to Kramskoy.
“It is quite fair that my painting “Inconsolable grief” will not meet a buyer,” Kramskoy answered the collector, “I know this just as well, maybe even better, but after all, the Russian artist is still on the way to the goal, as long as he considers that serving art is his task until he has mastered everything, he is not yet corrupted and therefore still able to write a thing without counting on sales. Right or wrong, but in this case I only wanted to serve art. If no one needs a picture now, it is not superfluous in the school of Russian painting in general. This is not self-delusion, because I sincerely sympathized with maternal grief, I was looking for a clean form for a long time and finally settled on this form because for more than 2 years this form did not arouse criticism in me ... "
I. N. Kramskoy. Inconsolable grief. 1884
This picture is one of the most famous in the artist's work. It tells about the grief of a mother who lost her child. The tragic plot of the picture was close to the artist, who in the 70s. lost two of his sons in a short time.
He worked on the painting by Kramskoy painfully and for a very long time. This is probably why the picture turned out, according to Repin, "like a living reality."
“I was in no hurry to purchase this painting in St. Petersburg, knowing, probably, that it would not find buyers in terms of content, but at the same time I decided to purchase it,” Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov wrote to Kramskoy.
“It is quite fair that my painting “Inconsolable grief” will not meet a buyer,” Kramskoy answered the collector, “I know this just as well, maybe even better, but after all, the Russian artist is still on the way to the goal, as long as he considers that serving art is his task until he has mastered everything, he is not yet corrupted and therefore still able to write a thing without counting on sales. Right or wrong, but in this case I only wanted to serve art.
In the main character of the picture, the features of the artist's wife are guessed.
The painting seems to be very simple to execute. The only heroine of the canvas is the mother of the deceased child. On the canvas, we do not see either a violent expression of maternal suffering, or sympathetic relatives.
Mother stands alone - she seems lost and as if petrified with grief. Her appearance is full of tragedy and - at the same time - amazing dignity. It seems that her gaze is directed inward to herself. Hair, smoothly combed yesterday, today, it seems, did not touch the comb. The woman had just put on her mourning dress. The eyes are full of endless longing, they are swollen, but there are no more tears. A crumpled handkerchief, wet with tears, the woman presses to her lips.
Vladimir Porudominsky wrote about this picture in his book about Kramskoy:
A woman in a black dress undeniably simply, naturally stopped at a box of flowers, one step away from the viewer, in the only fatal step that separates grief from the one who sympathizes with grief - amazingly visible and complete lay down in the picture in front of the woman this look only outlined emptiness.
The woman's gaze (the eyes are not tragically dark, but routinely reddened) powerfully attracts the viewer's gaze, but does not respond to it. At the back of the room, on the left, behind a curtain, a door is ajar, and there is also emptiness, an unusually expressive, narrow, high emptiness, pierced by the dull red flame of wax candles.
There is dead silence in this work. All internal movement is concentrated in the eyes of the heroine, full of inescapable longing, and the hands pressing the handkerchief to her lips - these are the only bright spots in the composition, the rest seems to fade into the shadows.
External attributes of grief are bright wreaths, flowers prepared for burial, and a yellowish glow of candles from behind the half-open door to the next room. Pictures in rich frames, curtains, carpets and books - all these things, indicating the prosperity of the family, are relegated by Kramskoy to the background as insignificant.
The large picture hanging on the wall is quite concrete - we have a fragment of Aivazovsky's "Black Sea" in front of us. “This is one of the most grandiose paintings that I know of,” Kramskoy admitted. This detail also carries a symbolic meaning, bringing the life of a person closer to the life of the sea element, in which storms are replaced by calm.
The bright wreath placed on the coffin contrasts sharply with the grief-stricken mother's mourning dress and seems out of place next to him - this dissonance emphasizes the atmosphere of lostness that reigns in the work.
In this deeply personal picture, Kramskoy tells how much strength a person needs to continue to live after a great grief. The artist managed to achieve in the picture a feeling of deep tragedy and amazing psychological persuasiveness and at the same time avoid the external melodramatic effects that are almost inevitable in such a plot.
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Reviews
this is a brilliant picture. the point is that there is no grief in the face of the heroine, there is nothing at all except a look into nowhere, because everything that a glance can stumble upon has become meaningless. this is the very state of a person when meaning has disappeared, all solid walls have collapsed, all laws have ceased to work, nothing is important anymore. a great masterpiece, no one else has seen such an understanding of key events in the human soul, only Kramskoy.
"Inconsolable grief"- a painting by the Russian artist Ivan Kramskoy (1837-1887), written in 1884. The painting is part of the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery (inv. 679). The size of the painting is 228 × 141 cm.
History and description
The painting "Inconsolable grief" was conceived and painted under the impression of a personal tragedy that befell the artist - the death of his youngest son Mark in 1876. The painting depicts a mourning woman in a mourning black dress - in her features one can guess the resemblance to the artist's wife Sofya Nikolaevna.
Kramskoy worked on this painting for about four years. Before settling on the final compositional solution, he created several preliminary versions. Kramskoy spoke about the final version of the picture: “Finally, I settled on this form, because for more than two years this form did not cause criticism in me.”
In the final version of the picture, the artist is extremely restrained in showing the external manifestations of human feelings. They are mainly concentrated in the eyes of a woman and in her hands. With one hand she presses a handkerchief to her lips, the other hand is lowered. Eyes detached, full of hopeless longing.
| A woman in a black dress, undeniably simply, naturally, stopped at a box of flowers, one step away from the viewer, in the only fatal step that separates grief from the one who sympathizes with grief - surprisingly visible and complete lay down in the picture in front of the woman, this look is only an outlined emptiness . The woman's gaze (the eyes are not tragically dark, but routinely reddened) powerfully attracts the viewer's gaze, but does not respond to it. At the back of the room, on the left, behind a curtain (not behind a curtain-decoration, but a curtain - an ordinary and inconspicuous piece of furniture) a door is ajar, and there is also a void, an unusually expressive, narrow, high void, pierced by the dull red flame of wax candles (all , what is left of the light effect). |
When the picture was ready, Kramskoy wrote to Pavel Tretyakov: "Accept this tragic picture from me as a gift, if it is not superfluous in Russian painting and finds a place in your gallery." Tretyakov took the painting to his collection, but forced the artist to accept money for it.
In the poem “Moscow-Petushki”, the picture “Inconsolable grief” haunts the protagonist in a drunken delirium: for example, in the train car “a woman, all in black from head to toe, stood at the window and, staring blankly at the darkness outside the window, pressed a lace to her lips handkerchief."
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Notes
- State Tretyakov Gallery - collection catalog / Y. V. Brook, L. I. Iovleva. - Moscow: Red Square, 2001. - T. 4: Painting of the second half of the 19th century, book 1, A-M. - S. 316. - 528 p. - ISBN 5-900743-56-X.
- (HTML). State Tretyakov Gallery, www.tretyakovgallery.ru. Retrieved September 29, 2012. .
- (HTML). www.art-catalog.ru Retrieved 29 September 2012.
- (HTML). www.kramskoy.info. Retrieved September 29, 2012. .
- IN AND. Porudominsky.(HTML). tphv.ru. Retrieved September 29, 2012. .
- R. Kononenko. Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoy (Great Artists, Volume 13). - Moscow: Direct Media and Komsomolskaya Pravda, 2009. - ISBN 978-5-87107-186-1.
- Hope Grishina.(HTML). News of the Radishchev Museum - www.radmuseumart.ru. Retrieved September 30, 2012. .
Links
- in the database of the Tretyakov Gallery
An excerpt characterizing the inconsolable grief
Nikolai, without talking to the hunter, asked his sister and Petya to wait for him and went to the place where this hostile Ilaginsky hunt was.The victorious hunter rode into the crowd of hunters and there, surrounded by sympathetic curious, told his feat.
The fact was that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs were in a quarrel and trial, hunted in places that, according to custom, belonged to the Rostovs, and now, as if on purpose, he ordered to drive up to the island where the Rostovs hunted, and allowed his hunter to poison from under other people's hounds.
Nikolai never saw Ilagin, but, as always, in his judgments and feelings, not knowing the middle ground, according to rumors about the riot and self-will of this landowner, he hated him with all his heart and considered him his worst enemy. Angered and agitated, he now rode towards him, tightly clutching the rapnik in his hand, in full readiness for the most decisive and dangerous actions against his enemy.
As soon as he rode beyond the ledge of the forest, he saw a fat gentleman in a beaver cap on a beautiful black horse, accompanied by two stirrups, advancing towards him.
Instead of an enemy, Nikolai found in Ilagina a representative, courteous gentleman, who especially wanted to get acquainted with the young count. Having approached Rostov, Ilagin raised his beaver cap and said that he was very sorry for what had happened; that orders to punish the hunter, who allowed himself to poison from under other people's dogs, asks the count to be acquainted and offers him his places for hunting.
Natasha, who was afraid that her brother would do something terrible, rode not far behind him in excitement. Seeing that the enemies bowed friendly, she rode up to them. Ilagin raised his beaver cap even higher in front of Natasha and, smiling pleasantly, said that the countess represented Diana both in her passion for hunting and in her beauty, about which he had heard a lot.
Ilagin, in order to make amends for his hunter, urged Rostov to go into his eel, which was a mile away, which he saved for himself and in which, according to him, hares were poured. Nikolai agreed, and the hunt, which had doubled in size, moved on.
It was necessary to go through the fields to the Ilaginsky eel. The hunters leveled out. The gentlemen traveled together. Uncle, Rostov, Ilagin secretly glanced at other people's dogs, trying not to let others notice it, and anxiously looked for rivals among these dogs for their dogs.
Rostov was especially struck by her beauty, a small purebred, narrow, but with steel muscles, a thin forceps (muzzle) and rolling black eyes, a red-spotted bitch in Ilagin's pack. He heard about the playfulness of the Ilaginsky dogs, and in this beautiful bitch he saw a rival to his Milka.
In the middle of a sedate conversation about the harvest of this year, which Ilagin started, Nikolai pointed out to him his red-spotted bitch.
- You have a good bitch! he said casually. - Rezva?
- This? Yes, this one is a kind dog, it catches, ”Ilagin said in an indifferent voice about his red-haired Yerza, for whom a year ago he gave his neighbor three families of courtyards. - So you, Count, do not boast of being hammered? He continued the conversation. And considering it polite to repay the young count in the same way, Ilagin examined his dogs and chose Milka, who caught his eye with her width.
- You have a good black-pie - okay! - he said.
“Yes, nothing, he’s jumping,” answered Nikolai. “If only a hardened hare would run into the field, I would show you what kind of dog this is!” he thought, and turning to the stirrup said that he gives a ruble to someone who suspects, that is, finds a lying hare.
“I don’t understand,” Ilagin continued, “how other hunters are envious of the beast and dogs. I'll tell you about myself, Count. It amuses me, you know, to take a ride; now you’ll move in with such a company ... what’s better already (he again took off his beaver cap in front of Natasha); and this is to count the skins, how many he brought - I don’t care!
- Well, yes.
- Or so that I would be offended that someone else's dog would catch, and not mine - I just would like to admire the persecution, right, count? Then I judge...
- Atu - his, - a drawn-out cry of one of the stopped greyhounds was heard at that time. He stood on a semi-mound of stubble, raising a rapnik, and once again repeated drawlingly: - A - that - him! (This sound and the raised rapnik meant that he sees a hare lying in front of him.)
“Ah, I suspect, I think,” Ilagin said casually. - Well, let's go, count!
- Yes, you need to drive up ... yes - well, together? Nikolai answered, peering at Yerza and at the red Uncle Rugai, at his two rivals, with whom he had never yet managed to equalize his dogs. “Well, how will my Milka be cut off from my ears!” he thought, moving towards the hare next to his uncle and Ilagin.
- Mother? Ilagin asked, moving towards the suspicious hunter, and not without excitement, looking around and whistling to Yerza...
“And you, Mikhail Nikanorych?” he turned to his uncle.
Uncle rode frowning.
- Why should I meddle, because yours is a pure march! - in the village they paid for the dog, your thousandths. You measure yours, and I'll take a look!
- Scold! On, on, he shouted. - Scold! he added, involuntarily expressing by this diminutive his tenderness and hope placed in this red dog. Natasha saw and felt the excitement hidden by these two old men and her brother, and she herself was worried.
The hunter stood on a half-hill with a raised rapnik, the gentlemen drove up to him at a step; the hounds, walking on the very horizon, turned away from the hare; hunters, not gentlemen, also drove off. Everything moved slowly and sedately.
The painting "Inconsolable grief" - one of the most famous works of I. Kramskoy - was written in 1884. This painting is about the grief of a mother who lost her child.
The tragic plot of the picture was close to the artist, who in the 70s. lost two of his sons in a short time. In the main character of the picture, the features of the artist's wife are guessed.
He worked on the painting by Kramskoy painfully and for a very long time. This is probably why the picture turned out, according to Repin, "like a living reality."
The painting seems to be very simple to execute. The only heroine of the canvas is the mother of the deceased child. On the canvas, we do not see either a violent expression of maternal suffering, or sympathetic relatives.
Mother stands alone - she seems lost and as if petrified with grief. Her appearance is full of tragedy and - at the same time - amazing dignity. It seems that her gaze is directed inward to herself. Hair, smoothly combed yesterday, today, it seems, did not touch the comb.
The woman had just put on her mourning dress. The eyes are full of endless longing, they are swollen, but there are no more tears. A crumpled handkerchief, wet with tears, the woman presses to her lips.
External attributes of grief are bright wreaths, flowers prepared for burial, and a yellowish glow of candles from behind the half-open door to the next room. Pictures in rich frames, curtains, carpets and books - all these things, indicating the prosperity of the family, are relegated by Kramskoy to the background as insignificant.
In one of the paintings on the wall, Aivazovsky’s painting “The Black Sea” is guessed. Having introduced this detail into the picture, Kramskoy seems to compare human life with the sea, where calms alternate with storms.
In this deeply personal picture, Kramskoy tells how much strength a person needs to continue to live after a great grief. The artist managed to achieve in the picture a feeling of deep tragedy and amazing psychological persuasiveness and at the same time avoid the external melodramatic effects that are almost inevitable in such a plot.
In addition to the description of the painting by I. N. Kramskoy “Inconsolable grief”, our website has collected many other descriptions of paintings by various artists, which can be used both in preparation for writing an essay on a painting, and simply for a more complete acquaintance with the work of famous masters of the past.
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