On February 27, 1831, exactly 185 years ago, a son, Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge, was born into a family of large landowners, who was destined to become an outstanding Russian artist.
Origin
It's hard to get around this unusual last name, whose carriers became famous, by the way, not only in painting, but also in the theatrical field, such as, for example, younger brother Nicholas Ge - Ivan. The origin of the surname is explained rather trivially: even the grandfather of Nikolai Ge, who bore the surname Gay, emigrated to Russia from France in late XVIII century. Ge's ancestors, due to their high origin, almost immediately received the title of hereditary nobles Russian Empire.
Difficult childhood
Nikolai Ge was born in Voronezh in 1831, at a time when cholera was rampant in the central provinces of the Russian Empire. A serious illness did not bypass the house of hereditary nobles either: Nikolai Ge's mother died when the boy was only three months old. From that moment until Ge entered the First Kyiv Gymnasium, that is, for ten years, Nikolai was educated by a serf nanny, chosen by the father of the future artist.
Makings of an artist
Capabilities young Nicholas to drawing appeared already during his studies in Kyiv, but the father had already made a decision for his son: after graduating from the gymnasium, Nikolai entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kyiv University.
Imperial Academy of Arts
The natural attraction to art literally forced Nikolai to move to his brother in the capital, to St. Petersburg, where he, however, was forced to continue studying at the mathematical faculty, but already at St. Petersburg University. Life in St. Petersburg gave Nikolai the opportunity to go to the Hermitage almost every day and study the best examples of painting of those years. After two years of such campaigns, Nikolai could not stand it - he left the university and entered the Imperial Academy of Arts.
Courage Award
At the Academy of Arts, Nikolai Ge became one of the most diligent students: day after day he painted, trying to copy the styles different artists, especially Karl Bryullov. Seven years later, Ge's efforts were appreciated: in 1857, Nikolai received a Large Gold Medal for his work Saul at the Fairy of Endor, which gave him the right to go abroad at the expense of the Academy. Nikolai did not fail to take advantage of this chance and soon traveled around Germany, France and Italy. Such travelers from the Academy were then called "pensioners", because for six years, while the artists or sculptors perfected their craft, the Academy paid them a pension, or allowance.
Saul at the Fairy of Endor, 1856
"The Triumph of Materialism and Nihilism"
It was precisely this characterization among Russian critics that the picture over which Ge for a long time worked in Florence. A very strange situation happened with The Last Supper: censorship officially forbade the reproduction of this picture in copies (due to the unconvincing image of Christ), but the original itself was purchased by Alexander II for his personal collection. For The Last Supper, the Academy awarded Nikolai Ge the title of professor, bypassing the title of academician.
« The Last Supper", 1863
rural life
Root fracture in life philosophy Nikolai Ge happened in 1875: then the artist suddenly decided that art cannot serve as a means of life, but only rural labor can be this means. For four years, the artist practically did not work on paintings, using a brush only because of extreme need and painting portraits of local rich people from the Chernihiv province. In 1880, Ge decided to write something else: in his painting “Mercy”, the artist violated all the then existing canons of the image of Christ (he depicted Jesus in the form of a beggar), for which, in fact, he received negative feedback experts.
"What is Truth?", 1890
Until recently, no one knew about future fate paintings, however, specialists of the Tretyakov Gallery, using X-rays, found under one of the most famous paintings Ge - "What is truth?" - just the failed work "Mercy".
About the main picture of Nikolai Ge "The Last Supper" Ilya Repin said: "In all of Europe, for all periods of Christian art, there was no equal to this picture on this topic." But the path to Ge's virtuosity was not easy: long years the artist studied mathematics, and then went against the will of his father and entered the Academy of Arts.
Ilya Repin. Portrait of Nicholas Ge (detail). 1880. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Nikolay Yaroshenko. Portrait of Nicholas Ge (detail). 1890. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Nicholas Ge. Self-portrait (detail). 1892. Kyiv state museum Russian art, Kyiv, Ukraine
Nikolai Ge was born in a manor near Voronezh, in the family of a landowner of French origin: the grandfather of the future artist, Matvey Ge, emigrated from France at the end of the 18th century. The artist's mother died of cholera when he was less than four months old. The same fate could have awaited Nicholas and his brothers, but the serfs took the children to the city, to their grandmother, where the infection was not so common, and saved them from death. When the danger passed, the family returned to the estate. The father was rarely at home, the grandmother and nanny Natalya, a serf woman, were engaged in raising children. The elder Ge brothers were interested in exact sciences, and Nikolai loved to draw from childhood.
I started drawing, I don't remember when; I only remember that I drew horses and an archimandrite in a robe on the floor with chalk, which I liked terribly. Grandmother noticed that you can draw horses on the floor, but you can’t draw an archimandrite.
Nikolai Ge
They began to give out sheets of paper to Nikolai so that he could draw “holy things” on them. Soon Ge Sr. married a second time, sold the estate in Voronezh and moved with his family to Podolsk. From there, in 1841, Nikolai was sent to the First Kyiv Gymnasium, where his older brothers studied.
Ge took his first painting lessons from the drawing teacher Fyodor Belyaev. At first I tried watercolor, later - oil paints. Ge often went to the teacher's house and looked at his paintings, sketches and casts plaster heads, as well as lithographs of paintings by other artists.
After graduating from the gymnasium, Ge, at the insistence of his relatives, entered the mathematical faculty of Kyiv University. Here he met the curator of the university museum, with whom he often talked about painting - in particular, about the works of Karl Bryullov. “I asked him countless times, forced him to tell me in detail which figures in Bryullov’s Pompeii (then famous throughout Russia), - the artist recalled, - I have not yet been to St. Petersburg, we did not have any engravings or lithographs at the university. But he knew the picture so well that he could, it seems, paint it all..
In addition to the exact sciences, Ge continued to study painting on his own. He did not study long at the University of Kyiv: his elder brother Osip took him to St. Petersburg. In the capital, Nikolai first went to the exhibition hall Imperial Academy art to look at Bryullov's paintings. “I came, I saw Pompeii - and I couldn’t get enough of it”- recalled Nikolai Ge.
In St. Petersburg, Ge entered the university, and again - contrary to his own preferences - at the Faculty of Mathematics. But he was drawn to art: free time Nicholas spent in art galleries, and on Sundays he visited university music concerts. In 1850 he left the university and entered the Academy of Arts.
Nicholas Ge. Saul at the Witch of Endor (detail). 1856. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Nicholas Ge. Return from the funeral of Christ (detail). 1859. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Nicholas Ge. Achilles mourns Patroclus (detail). 1855. National Museum"Kiev Art Gallery", Kyiv, Ukraine
At the Academy of Arts, Nikolai Ge found friends and like-minded people. But the main thing for him was the opportunity to be closer to the work of his idol, Karl Bryullov. In those years famous artist was already weak and ill and did not come to the Academy. Therefore, Ge asked his senior comrades and sitters about him, copied his style and technique, and in his free time carefully examined his paintings hung in exhibition halls. “He was still alive, but we felt that he would not return to us, Ge recalled. - A huge store of anecdotes, stories about him, his sayings, his remarks - how to draw, how to write, how to compose, what it means to draw, what art is - all this nourished us during our search for a new path, he bequeathed to us, along which we all, his disciples in spirit, ran after him.
During his student years, Ge painted custom-made portraits of officials and gave drawing lessons in the homes of the capital's nobility for a modest fee. Once he managed to buy a tailcoat, and this acquisition for Ge was incredibly successful: young artist dreamed of getting into the Hermitage, and in those years they were not allowed into the museum without a tailcoat. Despite the difficult financial position, the artist often helped his comrades. Three of them lived in his room, Nikolai allowed others to wear their formal clothes, and therefore often spent evenings at home, not being able to go out.
In 1855, Ge presented the painting "Achilles mourns Patroclus" to the Council of the Academy and successfully passed the exam for the Small Gold Medal. And two years later, for the painting “Saul at the Witch of Endor”, he received the Big Gold Medal and went on a pensioner trip to Europe at the expense of the Academy.
Nicholas Ge. Love of a Vestal Virgin, sketch (detail). 1857. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Nicholas Ge. The Last Supper (detail). 1883. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Nicholas Ge. Death of Virginia, sketch (detail). 1850s State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Ge went abroad immediately after the exam at the Academy. He traveled to Switzerland, Germany and Italy. In Rome, Ge visited art galleries and created sketches. He wrote several portraits of women, a view of the city from the window of the workshop, and the painting "Morning", on which he signed "Imitation of Bryullov". At the same time, the sketches “Death of Virginia” and “Love of a Vestal Virgin” appeared.
in Italy Russian art and Russian artists interested me even more than before. In Rome, I met with my predecessors, found the old artists, and between them the famous Ivanov and his brother-architect. Ivanov was before his departure to Russia, where he was taking his famous painting. I still managed to see her.
Nikolai Ge
Ge was one of the first to appreciate "The Appearance of Christ to the People" by Alexander Ivanov, and under the influence of this work he himself turned to religious motives. One of Ge's first paintings biblical story became "The Return from the Burial of Christ".
Soon Nikolay Ge faced creative crisis. Roman sketches remained sketches - he could not paint the canvases that he had planned earlier, and work on a new plot - "The Death of Lambertation" - did not progress beyond a sketch. Moreover, the artist could not manage to create main picture, which he was supposed to bring back from his retirement trip. Technique academic painting did not suit Ge, he threw the sketch as soon as he saw the “trace of the Academy”. He even left painting for a while and intended to return to Russia empty-handed, without paintings. But at some point he turned to the gospel. “And suddenly I saw there the grief of the Savior, losing forever a disciple-man, Ge recalled. John lay next to him: he understood everything, but did not believe the possibility of such a break; I saw Peter jump up, because he also understood everything and became indignant - he is a hot man; Finally, I saw Judas: he will certainly leave..
Thus the idea for The Last Supper was born. Ge took to painting without a sketch and completed the painting, done in a realistic manner, in just two weeks. Leo Tolstoy said that "own idea of last night Christ with the disciples coincided with what Ge conveyed in his picture., and Ilya Repin spoke of the canvas like this: “Not only here in Russia, but, we can safely say - in all of Europe for all periods of Christian art there was no equal to this picture on this topic”.
When Nikolai Ge returned to St. Petersburg in 1863, the Council awarded him the title of professor for The Last Supper. history painting. And the next year, Emperor Alexander II bought the painting for 10,000 rubles.
A. S. Pushkin in the village of Mikhailovsky.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge- the famous Russian painter, master of portraits, historical and religious paintings, a skilled landscape painter.
Nikolai Ge was bornFebruary 27, 1831in Voronezh, in the family of a landowner. Early childhood Nicholas passed in the village, and in 1841 he was brought to Kyiv, where he entered the First Kyiv Gymnasium. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, first at Kyiv, then at St. Petersburg University. In 1850, Nikolai Ge left the university and entered the Academy of Arts, where he studied under the guidance of P. Basin. Ge stayed at the academy for seven years. For the work "Achilles mourns Patroclus" he received a small gold medal in 1855.
Achilles mourning Patroclus. 1855.
From this canvas, the viewer hears not only the echo of the biblical drama - Nicholas I died a year before, and the mythical despot Saul (it was he who was likened to the Russian Tsar in Herzen's "Polar Star") the prophet on the canvas predicts a quick death. The formidable shadow of the prophet Samuel Ge gave in the picture the features of the beloved critic Belinsky. Ge showed that he was not only a born colorist, but also a master, able to experience the fruits of fantasy with his own heart. For the canvas, the artist was awarded a large gold medal, which gave him the right to stay abroad for six years as a pensioner of the Academy of Arts.In Paris on him strong impression produced the Salon of 1857 and a posthumous exhibition by Paul Delaroche. In Rome, he met Alexander Ivanov.
Portrait of the artist's wife A.P. Ge. 1858.
Nikolai Gefor a whilethrows work at historical themes and writes from nature, travels to Naples, where he writes many sketches. In 1860 he leaves Rome and moves to Florence. In 1861, Ge began to paint The Last Supper, and in 1863 he brought it to St. Petersburg and exhibited it at the autumn exhibition at the Academy of Arts.The picture made a splash close to, which Bryullov once produced with the canvas “The Last Day of Pompeii”.
All Petersburg rushed to the exhibition at the Academy of Arts. The novelty of the approach to the mythical event that struck everyone was its radical rethinking. Gyo took from gospel story its ecclesiastical meaning, while the images of the apostles have canonical spirituality. Christ appeared to the artist as a man and only a man, moreover, blasphemously acquired a portrait resemblance to Herzen, the publisher of The Bells. And in the indignant Apostle Peter, the author of the unusual “religious” picture was recognized. But even more unexpected was the image of Judas. The master did everything to actor turned out to be "titanic" (Gyo's own expression). Later, revealing his plan, Gyo said that at the "Last Supper" there is "a gap between one student and a beloved teacher, that gap that occurs among us from generation to generation, from century to century."Ge's painting made a strong impression on the public. For The Last Supper, Ge received the title of professor, bypassing the title of academician.
The Last Supper. 1866.
At the beginning of 1864, Ge returned to Florence, wrote many sketches for gospel stories (“Christ and Mary, the sister of Lazarus”, “Brothers of the Savior” and others), began a new large painting “Messengers of the Resurrection”. During this stay in Florence, Ge met and became close to Herzen and painted his portrait in 1867.Herzen readily agreed to pose and, as Ge recalled, came to the sessions with "German precision." Herzen noted in a letter that Ge was performing his portrait in Rembrandtian style, and this casually thrown phrase has a deep meaning. The artist deliberately chose a half-length type of portrait, focused only on the face, excluding even the image of hands, created a biography portrait outstanding personality at the turning point of life. He saw the wonderful past of the aristocrat who became a fighter and the bleak present of an emigrant, torn from his roots and less and less understood by his homeland.
In 1867, Nikolai Ge completed his painting "Messengers of the Resurrection", andNicholasGe sends her to the exhibition of the Academy of Arts, but she is not accepted there. The artist's friends exhibit his painting at the art club, but it is not successful. The same fate befell his new work, "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane."
In the Garden of Gethsemane. 1869.
In 1870, Nikolai Ge returned to St. Petersburg. Failure with his last paintings on religious themes forced Ge to leave such subjects for a while, and he again turned to history, this time Russian, dear and close to him. At the first exhibition of the Wanderers in 1871, Ge exhibited the painting "Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei in Peterhof."
Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich in Peterhof. 1871.
According to Ge's memoirs, he conceived the painting when he returned to Russia after ten years of living in Italy. “... I returned from there a perfect Italian, seeing everything in Russia in a new light. I felt in everything and everywhere the influence and trace of the Petrine reform. This feeling was so strong that I involuntarily became interested in Peter and, under the influence of this passion, conceived this picture. Psychologism, the confrontation of two worldviews - makes the picture tense, makes you peer into it. There is no division into "positive" and "negative" characters in it. “While painting the picture, I had sympathy for Peter,” said the artist. - But then, having studied many documents, I saw that there could be no sympathy. I inflated my sympathy for Peter, saying that his public interests were higher than his father’s feelings, and this justified cruelty, but killed the ideal ... ”Ge achieved the main thing: the death sentence is ready to be signed not by a crowned executioner who is alien to doubts, but by a father wounded in the heart , a politician who weighed everything, but still a wavering person. Such multidimensional characters were not yet known in Russian historical painting.
Portrait of A.G. Slyusareva. (Gapka with oxen). 1875.
In the portrait - Agafya Ignatievna Slyusareva, later the wife of N. N. Ge, the artist's son
Portrait of A.A. Potekhin. 1876
The portrait of the playwright A. A. Potekhin is the last canvas of the St. Petersburg cycle. The author of "peasant" dramas, a man who has experienced a lot, who knew the Russian village firsthand - such is Potekhin on the canvas. Some internal strings seem to be stretched in it to the limit, a heavy knotted hand with swollen veins is tightly intercepted by another, eyebrows are convulsively drawn together - this is the most intense, full of tragic anguish image of Ge of the 1870s. The calm thoroughness of the pictorial manner here has exhausted itself, one more step, and it will explode.
Later paintings by Nikolai Ge
In 1875, Nikolai Ge left St. Petersburg forever and moved to Ukraine, where he bought a small farm. In 1884 Ge painted a portraitL. N. Tolstoy,whom he metin Moscow in1882 .
Then followed new row paintings of Ge on religious subjects - "Exit from the Last Supper" (1889), "What is truth?" (1890), "Judas" (Conscience) (1891), "Sanhedrin" (1892) and "Crucifixion" in several versions.
"What is truth?" Christ and Pilate. 1890.
Ge infirst wrote a picture-parable. Everything in it is exaggerated, even poster-like, the conflict is exposed. The artist broke not only with the church, but also with the centuries-old pictorial canon - "you can not write a" beautiful "Christ after tens of thousands of Christs, Husses, Bruns have been burned and killed." Again, his canvas aroused fierce controversy. “How could it happen that the government allowed public display of a blasphemous picture, deeply offending religious feelings, and at the same time undoubtedly tendentious,” wroteChief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod of the VictoriousAlexander III. Ge's painting "What is truth?" soonwasprohibited. Tolstoyliked the pictureand he persuaded Tretyakov to buy it, but the painting was in storage for a long time.
At this time, Ge painted portraits of Likhacheva, Kostychev, N. I. Petrunkevich, self-portrait. He makes drawings for Leo Tolstoy's story "What makes people alive" and sculpts a bust of Leo Tolstoy.
Self-portrait. 1893.
Road in the forest.
Bridge in Vico
Portrait of N.I. Kostomarov. 1870.
He was always looking for the truth, often thought
that he was close to her, but not for long,
since the search for truth was in his nature ...
G. Myasoedov
If we imagine a biographical
film about Ge, then it should consist of
several scenes with different decorations,
different landscape backgrounds, different environments.
T. Karpova
Craft Basics
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Was born future artist in Voronezh. Ge - a surname, strange for a Russian province. French nobles moved to Russia to escape the revolutionary terror. Joseph Ge married the daughter of a Poltava landowner. When did it start Patriotic War, his son Nicholas was sixteen. Russian army officer Nikolai Ge fought with Napoleon's army, participated in the capture of Paris. So Ge became Russian.
The artist Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge is the third son of the hero of the war of 1812.
Mother died shortly after his birth. The family moved to Little Russia. Children studied in Kyiv. Gymnasium, then Kiev University - the mathematical department of the Faculty of Philosophy. Nikolai Ge had the ability to exact sciences. Suddenly you remember this "accidental episode" when you read the description of his workshop on the farm:
A wide window overlooked the west, and in order to be able to give overhead light to nature, posing for painting, N.N. arranged a system of small-caliber mirrors - 8 × 8 inches, inserted into the binding of the window frame. Several such mirror frames were attached near the window: at the top, from the sides and below, which on hinges became at the desired slopes, catching the light from the clear sky ... The light sent by these mirrors was some kind of special, grayish-ashy, pleasant and mysterious.
He did not complete his university course either in Kyiv or in St. Petersburg. Passion for drawing was stronger than mathematical abilities. At the Academy of Arts, he patiently and persistently mastered the basics of painting. The gold medal opened the way for him to Italy.
In 1857, in the spring, we - my wife and I - ran abroad ... If they asked me: why are you going? I would perhaps answer: engage in art; but that would be an external answer. I would answer myself: I can’t stay here, where there is expanse, where there is freedom, I want to go there; 6 years of gymnasium, 3 years of student life, 7 years of academy - that's enough, you can't take it anymore. What he learned, acquired, crushed, poisoned. There was not enough air, freedom.
The desire for independence is an important character trait of Nikolai Ge.
At liberty, a serious work of self-education began for the pensioner of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Ge conscientiously studies Roman antiquities, reads a lot. His graceful and spectacular sketches, which can be counted in the hundreds, are like notes in the margins of books you read. He honestly tried to arouse in himself sympathy for the heroes of antiquity - "The Love of the Vestal Virgin", "The Death of Virginia", "The Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple", - but there was no real excitement in his soul. Sketches did not become paintings.
Death of Virginia.Sketch. 1858. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
On his Italian works there are notes - “imitation of Bryullov”, “under the impression of Ivanov”. Karl Bryullov has been an idol for Gekumir since the days of the Academy. The young artist admired his independence and creative freedom: he was the first to become himself.
The grandiose painting by Alexander Ivanov "The Appearance of the Messiah" - Ge managed to see it in a Roman workshop - did not make a direct impression on him, since there was no illusion. It seemed to him that the picture was late, that the requirements of art had already gone far ahead. But italian landscapes Ge - sea, rocks, clouds - written seriously and accurately, without beautiful phrases, nevertheless, they are more reminiscent of Ivanov's natural-philosophical studies than Bryullov's elegant pictures.
Florence. "The Last Supper"
Half of the retirement period was left behind, and there was nothing to report to the Academy.
I wanted to go to Russia and say ... that I was convinced that I had no artistic talent.
Sons were born in Italy. Living with children in Rome was inconvenient, Ge moved to Florence. There were many acquaintances here. Ge's house was open to everyone. Russians, Italians, French came here. Evenings passed in "terrible disputes." Argued about art, philosophy, politics
In this tense atmosphere of disputes about life, the idea of the first real picture Nicholas Ge.
I analyzed Holy Scripture, read Strauss's work and began to understand Holy Scripture in modern sense, in terms of art. When I read the chapter on The Last Supper, I saw the presence of drama here ... I saw those scenes when Judas leaves the Last Supper, and there is a complete break between Judas and Christ. Judas was a good disciple of Christ, he alone was a Jew, the others were from Galilee. But he could not understand Christ, because in general materialists do not understand idealists.
A week later, the picture was underpainted, in real size, without a sketch.
By building the room of the Last Supper on the canvas, the artist creates an illusion (which he so lacked in Alexander Ivanov's painting).
I believe in this room, the "triclinium", illuminated to the illusion of lamps with moving wide shadows on the walls from the figures of the apostles, with glimpses of deep evening azure in the window - the young Ilya Repin described his impression.
Ge leads us into the room. When we enter, we collide with those who leave. He blocked the light. Can't see faces. Only a dark silhouette, noiselessly, like a ghost moving forward. Judas - main intrigue paintings. Gospel text, "translated" from a high literary style into a common colloquial, found a stunning witticism. Why did Judas betray his teacher? Money? Want to assert yourself? Disappointed with a teacher? Or the pursuit of the public good?
Ge recalled the impression the picture made on Herzen.
He watched The Last Supper for a long time. "How new, how true." I reminded him of the rupture of friends, hinted at his rupture with Granovsky. "Yes, yes, it's deep, eternal, true."
Ge's painting made us think about the main paradox modern era. Why disputes between smart people striving for the public good, lead to a break in relations, enmity that does not stop at betrayal? And what is the "struggle for the public good" in the light of Christian love?
In the autumn of 1863 Ge brought The Last Supper to St. Petersburg. At the academic exhibition, she was a resounding success. This was the first success of the artist, who had the gift of "raising the questions of life everywhere." The picture was praised, scolded, it was talked about everywhere. She burned, disturbed, did not let go.
Ge suddenly became famous. For students of the Academy, he became a legend, as beautiful as the legend of the "great Charles".
Majestic, graceful, dressed in all black ... his whole figure blew the Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael immediately stood up in the imagination when looking at him.
Returning to Florence, he plunged into work. Many ideas swirled in his head. They ripened inside the Last Supper, like seeds ripen inside a fruit: the selfless feat of Christ, materialists and idealists who never understand each other ... He wrote two large paintings- "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane" and "Messengers of the Resurrection". But he was in too much of a hurry. The seeds didn't germinate.
News of the Resurrection. 1866. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Unconditional creative successes in this period were portraits. He rarely wrote on commission. For Ge it was very important to get carried away with nature. In February 1867 Herzen arrived in Florence. Ge had long dreamed of this meeting.
He was a favorite writer of our youth. I gave my wife, still a bride, "About a Drama" as the most expensive gift. Despite the fact that I had his photographic portrait, which he sent me through a mutual friend, the impression upon meeting was new, complete, lively ...
On February 7, Herzen wrote to Ogarev: “Today famous painter Ge came with a demand to make my portrait "for posterity" - he does it amazingly. March 8: “The portrait is finished. It's a first class masterpiece."
Portrait of A.I. Herzen. 1867. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Conversations with Herzen about Russia disturbed the artist. After Petersburg, the circle of Russian Florentines seemed too close. But the main thing: here in Florence, in the lanes between Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce, one could not hear the intense pulse of Russian life. Shir and Svoboda were now in Russia.
Ge started to go home.
Petersburg. "Peter I and Tsarevich Alexei"
He settled on Vasilyevsky Island, in the Seventh Line, in the courtyard, in a low outbuilding of the Russian monastic style, with an original staircase decorated with thick columns. On Thursdays, friends and acquaintances gathered at Ge's, mostly writers - Turgenev, Nekrasov, Saltykov, Kostomarov, Kavelin, Pypin, Potekhin and other interesting personalities. Arguing, discussing new articles in magazines, new books, new trends in public life. A born orator, Ge spoke a lot and well. He knew a lot... “Everything that appeared interesting on the western horizon of our enlightenment was known to Ge ...”
Portrait of N.I. Kostomarov. 1870. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
In St. Petersburg Ge renewed his acquaintance with G. Myasoedov. They became friends in Florence. Ge recalled that it was there between us passed information about traveling exhibitions that were arranged in England ... We discussed issues related to the position of artists, the idea sunk into me to free the artist from the influence of the buyer on his work by paying for the exhibition in favor of the artists.
Now in Russia this idea has begun to take shape. Myasoedov was busy organizing a partnership of traveling exhibitions. Ge supported him. Here, not only his authority was important, his mathematical abilities were also useful. “The new business of exhibition movement in Russia bound us into a very small and close group. Ge, Kramskoy and I were members of the board, i.e. conducted the whole thing, ”recalled Myasoedov. Ge, in addition, was a cashier, introducing into this business the usual ability to get carried away, he came up with his own ways of keeping books and his own accounting techniques.
On I traveling exhibition in 1871, Ge showed his new, St. Petersburg painting "Peter I and Tsarevich Alexei"
Ten years in Italy had an impact on me, and I returned from there a perfect Italian, seeing everything in Russia in a new light. I felt in everything and everywhere the influence and trace of the Petrine reform. This feeling was so strong that I was involuntarily carried away by Peter.
The picture turned out to be complex. Which side is the truth on? Viewers' opinions were divided.
As if two extreme human opposites converged from different parts of the world. One is energy itself, an unbending and powerful will, a handsome giant, all agitated and turning his wonderful, inflamed head to this son ... He is insignificant, he is contemptible, he is disgusting in his pallor and cowardice of the Old Believers ...
Involuntarily, all participation, all the sympathy of the viewer passes to the prince. Despite his somewhat seminary appearance, there is something Hamletian, attractively sad in his posture, in the expression of his face, in his tired and submissively bowed head. You sympathize with him, you pity him as a martyr of thought, as a victim of senseless terror...
Ge liked to repeat that the first impression is important for painting. The first impression of this picture is cold. The cold stone floor, lined with squares like a chessboard. Dark fireplace. Pale cold light, barely dissipating the twilight of an uncomfortable hall, not warmed by warmth. There can be no winner in this confrontation between father and son, because the main thing is lost in this battle - love for each other. In a historical conflict for the artist, it turned out to be the most important moral sense historical event.
I inflated my sympathy for Peter, saying that his public interests were higher than the feelings of his father, and this justified his cruelty, but killed the ideal.
The picture had big success. But this success did not bring real satisfaction to the artist. For the idealist Ge, work on plots where historical heroes trampling Christian ideals, assert state interests, turned out to be a painful test. After the success of Peter and Alexei, a streak of failures began again. Worried about the financial situation. The artist had an unbearable desire to free himself, to gain independence.
Farm. L.N. Tolstoy
And he changed life dramatically. That's what his father used to do. Bought land. He left to manage, so that art was free.
The farm was located five versts from the Pliski station. The artist built a house, extremely peculiar .
It was wooden, lined with brick on the outside. Inside, it was plastered and almost all the rooms were painted with some kind of brown paint, the tone of which Ge was very fond of ... the furnishings were the simplest, and the main decoration of the rooms were portraits, and in the workshop there were paintings ... In the so-called living room, large portraits of writers hung on the walls: Saltykov , Turgenev, Herzen, Nekrasov and Pypin. In the dining room there was an extendable oak table from the time of Peter the Great.
It was his new world. Warmly painted rooms brown paint. Books. Workshop equipped with a system of mirrors that give a mysterious light . It was the conquered territory of free creativity. Now he could do what he was excited about.
Three "historical" paintings were enough for me to get out of the tight circle to freedom, again to where you can find the most intimate, the most precious - your own and the world.
He again turned to the text of the Gospel. From the place where he left off: Judas put on a cloak and went out into the night ... Ge copied "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane." He did not return to the Heralds of the Resurrection. By Sunday, the path ran through Golgotha.
The return to creativity was not easy for the artist. Household chores required a lot of effort. Field, garden, bees, cold in a thatched house. Family troubles. All this tormented, prevented me from concentrating on the main thing. He suddenly found support. He caught the eye of an article by Leo Tolstoy: “There will always be this business, and one thing worth putting all your life on ... This business is the loving communication of people with people and the destruction of those barriers that people have erected among themselves ...”
At that moment, Ge realized that he was not alone. He has a like-minded person, a friend who loves the same thing as him.
Now I could name what I loved all my life ... he told me this. Everything became clear to me. Art has sunk in what is above it, incommensurably.
If art can serve that which is incommensurably higher, then this is worth doing. Creativity took on a higher meaning again.
Passion cycle. "Living Form"
Petersburg forgot about the artist Ge. Sometimes one of the former acquaintances stopped by to visit him on the farm. They told about the eccentricities of the old man: he lays down stoves, reads the Gospel to the peasants, wanders along the roads of Little Russia, preaching wherever he can.
And suddenly - a surprise: at a traveling exhibition new picture Ge. Now, every year, his paintings will inexorably appear in St. Petersburg: “The Exit of Christ with His Disciples into the Garden of Gethsemane” (1889), “What is Truth?” (1890), “Conscience. Judas (1891), Guilty of death! Court of the Sanhedrin”, “Crucifixion” (1892).
It was like a stone thrown into a still pond, like an exploding bomb, like the messages of an apostle. The audience got excited. Is this downtrodden, tormented vagabond Christ? Is it permissible to lay paint so casually? He completely forgot how to write, this Ge! Take away these scary pictures!
Forbidden pictures! Crowds went to watch latest works banned artist... Ge again became unusually popular. Young artists were ready to listen to this apostle of the new art for hours. No one could talk about art so sincerely and passionately. Ge told them about living form, a form that conveys a feeling.
Do not think about strokes and not about how to put them, but think about what you want to convey. Living form gives birth to living content. Living form cannot be learned by studying dead nature. Learn to generalize, develop imagination. He himself painted the way he taught: without contour, without nature and without a sketch.
It was new philosophy of art where the essence becomes more important than the phenomenon, where the content subjugates the form, deforms it, where the expression destroys the established canons of beauty.
In Russia, Ge became the first herald of expressionism. Few understood him then. Among colleagues, he was known as a loser who ruined his talent. Materialists do not understand idealists. This theme resounds persistently in his work. "What is truth?" - Pilate asks Christ ironically. Real sunlight floods a dense figure, reveals its materiality.
The realist Repin describes the picture as follows: “The setting light of the sun shone like a living ray into his picture and quite by chance, that is, quite artistically, like nature, like God, impartially illuminated Pilate’s back, the corridor of a Roman character, and left Christ in the shade, touching only part of him. legs and hem of the tunic. This hot beam brightly flooded the squares of the floor of white and black marble and, from below, lit up all the shadows with a dusty warmth. Illuminated Pilate is real, it's obvious. Is truth what is obvious?
For some reason, Repin was not interested in the shadow half of the picture. It is written in a fundamentally different way. If the clearly outlined figure of Pilate persistently asserts itself in space, then the shadowed figure of Christ reveals a metaphysical depth. The brownish color of his tunic turns out to be a regal purple, where the cosmic blue shows through the dark red. Where the stream of sunlight, generously pouring light on Pilate, touches the clothes of Christ, the artist slightly outlines the contours, and the figure loses its density, as if slipping away from the imperious onslaught of the real world. The voice of truth is heard in silence. Fantastic beauty emerges in the shadows, stone floor tiles transform into precious mosaics.
The old artist was no longer interested in the materialists. This debate was over for him. In his last picture“Crucifixion”, he cut off a part of the canvas, where there was a cross with an unrepentant robber. A person who is not able to believe was superfluous in his picture. "Crucifixion" - the last message of the artist Ge.
It must be written in such a way that the viewer endures the impression of horror. After all, Christ cried out on the cross.
…None outer sides art is not expensive, but the difference that is shown between what we should be and what we are is expensive ...(from the speech of N.N. Ge at the First Congress of Russian Artists on April 30, 1894).
Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge was born on February 17, 1833 in Voronezh. The Ge family had French origin. The childhood of the future artist took place in the countryside. Ge received his education at the Kyiv gymnasium. Finishing it educational institution, he entered Kiev University, then moved to St. Petersburg. Ge studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. Subsequently, however, Ge felt an interest in painting. Leaving the university, he successfully passed the exams at the Academy of Arts. P. Basin became the head of the novice artist, but Ge himself considered Karl Bryullov his mentor. It was the picture of Pompey that Ge considered the ideal work.
For the picture, Ge receives a business trip abroad. The artist travels from 1857 to 1863. He visits Paris, Rome, Switzerland. The exhibition of paintings by Paul Delaroche, which he visited in Paris, had a huge impact on character traits Creativity Ge.
During this period, numerous portraits appear, as well as sketches (“Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple”,). The picture that brought him real popularity was. This canvas, imbued with unprecedented dramatic excitement, distinguished by a new interpretation of the gospel story, Ge presented to the public in 1863. For this canvas, Ge received from the Academy of Arts immediately the status of a professor.
Ge continues to work on various gospel stories. The paintings "Brothers of the Savior" appear. While working in Florence, Ge paints a portrait of Herzen, with whom the artist became close during this period.
Last works Christian themes are not successful, therefore, having returned to St. Petersburg in 1870, Ge temporarily departs from this subject. The artist again shows interest in Russian history.
In 1871, Ge participates in the first exhibition of the Wanderers, presenting the work. This picture has become another success of the artist, it is distinguished by its special truthfulness and reliability. In the face of father and son, Ge saw the confrontation between the two forces of that time.
Since 1875, the artist permanently moved to Ukraine, where he buys a small farm. This period is associated with a serious moral upheaval, with the artist's conversion to morality and religion. In this connection important role Ge's acquaintance with L.N. Tolstoy. In 1884 the artist paints a portrait famous writer. Subsequently, Ge mainly works only on religious subjects (, "Exit from the Last Supper",). Ge's latest work has caused a lot of criticism, but the artist himself was pleased with them. He managed for the first time to introduce notes of realism into canvases on a religious theme.
The best pictures of Ge N.N.
