January 25 in Yelabuga (Tatarstan), the homeland of the landscape painter Ivan Shishkin, will celebrate the 185th anniversary of his birth on a large scale.
Descendants of the painter will come to Yelabuga. According to Nadezhda Kuryleva, a specialist in genealogy of the Shishkins and a senior researcher at the Ivan Shishkin Museum, the artist's family has 15 generations (506 names), and its history has been going on for 300 years. 80 people are our contemporaries. They live in Russia, USA, Ukraine, Serbia, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Sweden.
I.N. Kramskoy. Portrait of the artist I.I. Shishkin. 1873 Photo: reproduction
It is curious that many representatives of the genus are marked by a "creative gene", have shown good abilities for science, for drawing. So, the great-great-granddaughter Varvara Mezhinskaya-Antich (on the line of the artist's sister Anna) is engaged in mosaic technique, having graduated from the Academy of Arts in Belgrade. Her sister Elena Mezhinskaya-Milovanovic, a philologist and art critic, deputy director of an art gallery at the same Academy, published several research papers on the contribution of Russian artists to Serbian art. Shishkin's great-grandnephew Viktor Repin, who lives in Germany, is a designer and artist. There is enough talent in this family.
At one of the meetings of the descendants, the great-great-grandson of the artist on the line of the daughter of Lydia and her husband Boris Riedinger, Sergei Lebedev, Doctor of Economics, professor at the State Maritime Academy of St. Petersburg, visited with his son. He donated to the Shishkin Museum a copy of the portrait of the artist's granddaughter Alexandra, painted in 1918 by Ilya Repin himself. A descendant of Shishkin told the author of these lines: “The only relic of our family is the same drawing, a copy of which I brought to Yelabuga. Of course, Shishkin's originals were in the house, but during the siege of Leningrad, my grandmother exchanged them for food. And when the city was liberated, they issued a decree by which it was possible to return the forcedly sold valuables. Grandmother firmly said then: “This is out of the question! If not for Shishkin's paintings, it is not known whether we would have survived. In general, the members of our family, like everyone else, admire the canvases of the famous ancestor exclusively in the museum halls ... "
There are representatives of the genus in Kazan. A well-known researcher of history and urban planning, architect Sergei Sanachin is the great-great-grandson of the artist's sister Olga Ivanovna Shishkina (married Izhboldin). Sergei Pavlovich told AiF-Kazan that in the 1960s, his grandparents donated some family heirlooms to the Museum of Fine Arts - photographs, a bamboo bookcase, a cane. About the "Shishkin places" in Kazan, according to Sanachin, it is not necessary to speak. Directly related to the painter is only the building of the First Gymnasium (now the building of the KSTU-KAI named after Tupolev on Karl Marx Street), in which the artist studied from 1844 to 1848. But on the other hand, three houses were preserved, which were owned by the painter's sister Olga Ivanovna. These are beautiful wooden buildings in Shkolny Lane, including the one where the house-museum of the chemist Arbuzov is now.It is curious that among the numerous descendants, only one bears the surname Shishkin. This is the great-great-grandson of the uncle of the artist Vasily Vasilyevich, a retired military man Alexander Vasilyevich from Lipetsk. They say that he is strikingly similar to Ivan Ivanovich.
An exhibition of paintings by Ivan Shishkin has opened in the Museum of Fine Arts, and there are also little-known works here. Photo: AiF / Artem Dergunov
Russian hero
Shishkin was a man of heroic build - tall, slender, with a broad beard and lush hair, with a keen eye, broad shoulders and large palms that barely fit in his pockets. Contemporaries said about Shishkin: “Any clothes are cramped for him, his house is cramped, and the city is also cramped. Only in the forest is he free, there he is the master.
He perfectly knew the life of plants, surprised his colleagues with his knowledge, to some extent he was even a botanist. Once Shishkin wrote in his diary: “I have been writing forest, forest for more than forty years ... Why am I writing? To please someone's eye? No, not only for this. There is nothing more beautiful than forests. And the forest is life. People should remember this." He passionately loved Russian nature, and abroad - he languished in soul. When in 1893 the Petersburg newspaper offered him a questionnaire, then to the question: “What is your motto?” he replied, “My motto? Be Russian. Long live Russia!"
Mashilka Monk
As a child, Vanya Shishkin was called a “mash”, he painted everything, right up to the fence of his home. Unlike his father, who supported his son's desire to become an artist, his mother, the strict Daria Romanovna, was indignant: "Is my son really going to become a house painter?" It seemed to strangers that he was withdrawn and gloomy; at the school he had the nickname "monk". But in a close circle, he was a cheerful, deep person. And, they say, with a good sense of humor. Shishkin greatly valued his friendship with Ivan Kramskoy. He was also friends with Dmitri Mendeleev.
Hard worker
Shishkin was a workaholic: he wrote every day, strictly following the schedule. We read in his notes: “At 10.00. I make sketches on the river, at 14.00. - in the field, at 17.00 I work on the oak. Neither thunderstorm, nor wind, nor snowfall, nor heat could interfere. Forest, nature were his element, his real studio. And even when his health began to fail, his legs failed, Shishkin continued to travel to sketches in the winter. According to the memoirs of the old-timers of Yelabuga, a special person went to the forest together with the artist: he fanned the coals and put the master at the feet of the master in a special heating pad so that he would not get cold, did not get cold.
You can admire Shishkin's paintings in Kazan and Yelabuga. Photo: AiF / Artem Dergunov
The price of talent
Success and recognition came to him early. Shishkin's works sold well: a medium-sized charcoal drawing cost 500 rubles, a painting work - one and a half to two thousand rubles. By the time he graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Shishkin was already appreciated abroad. A case is described when the owner of a shop in Munich flatly refused to part with Shishkin's drawings and etchings, despite any promises of a huge jackpot. Shishkin's work is still valuable. In June 2016, Shishkin's landscape was sold for 1.4 million pounds at the Russian Auction Week in London at Sotheby's auction. By the way, the artist created this painting “On the Outskirts of a Pine Forest” based on memories from his last trip with his daughter Lydia to his native Yelabuga.
Shishkin loved the forest and how no one knew how to write it. Photo: AiF / Artem Dergunov
Failed marriages
Shishkin was married twice, both times for love, but he did not find family happiness. He entered into his first marriage at the age of 37, his wife Evgenia (Vasilyeva) was 15 years younger. Happiness did not last long, six years later his wife died of consumption. Eugenia gave birth to a daughter, Lydia, and two sons, but the boys did not survive. Only three years later, a young talented artist Olga Lagoda appeared in Shishkin's life. They got married in 1880, the second daughter of Shishkin, Ksenia, was born. A month and a half after giving birth, Olga died. The baby's mother was replaced by his wife's sister, Victoria Ladoga. This selfless woman lived in the Shishkin family all her life, took care of both the artist's two daughters and himself. Ivan Ivanovich never had more heirs.Dream of death
He dreamed of dying instantly and painlessly. At the age of 66, on March 20, 1898, Shishkin died at the easel, he had just begun the painting "Forest Tale". The critic wrote: "He fell like a mighty oak struck by lightning." The artist was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery in St. Petersburg, and in 1950 his ashes were transferred to the Tikhvin cemetery in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
Mishki and Shishkin
Everyone knows the painting "Morning in a Pine Forest". But not everyone knows that the cubs were painted not by Ivan Shishkin, but by his friend, artist Konstantin Savitsky. The latter looked into the workshop, looked at the new work and said - "Something is clearly missing here." So the trinity of clubfoot arose.
In Kazan there are not only landscapes, but also Shishkin's graphics. Photo: AiF / Artem Dergunov
The statement that Shishkin was bad at animals is fundamentally wrong. According to the representative of the State Tretyakov Gallery Galina Churak, there was a period when Shishkin was extremely carried away by the “animal theme”: cows and sheep literally moved from one picture to another.
For some time, Shishkin often painted animals. Photo: Public Domain
Wine still life
Shishkin painted large canvases in oils, created thousands of graphic drawings and etchings. But who suspected Shishkin the watercolorist? The collections of the Russian Museum contain albums of remarkable Shishkin watercolors. We usually talk about Shishkin as an unsurpassed landscape painter. However, the artist also showed himself in the genre of still life. Usually Shishkin used kitchen utensils, vegetables, fruits and ... wine bottles in the composition (Ivan Ivanovich at one time became very addicted to strong drinks after the death of his first wife).
Harvest after destruction
There are at least a dozen Shishkin streets in Russia. In St. Petersburg, an art school is named after him. But only in Yelabuga is the world's only monument to the great painter in full growth. The bronze monument stands on the embankment of the Toima River, not far from the memorial house-museum of Shishkin. The first of the famous paintings "The Harvest" is also stored here. Ivan wrote it in his youth, even before entering the art school. For a long time, the painting was considered lost. But 40 years ago, they began to restore the Shishkin family nest (in Soviet times, the house was completely plundered, there was a communal apartment here) and the floors were opened, and a bundle was found between the ceilings. The experts confirmed the authenticity. And "Harvest" remained in the house where it was created.
In the mid-1980s, young biologists from St. Petersburg conducted an experiment with paintings by a famous painter and found out that next to Shishkin’s painting “Ship Grove”, milk remains fresh for up to three or four days. With repeated experience, it turned out that the fastest milk (in a matter of two or three hours) turned sour in front of the paintings of abstractionists and surrealists - Dali, Kandinsky, Picasso, the fastest - in front of the famous "Black Square" by Malevich. The average result was shown by paintings by Levitan, Aivazovsky. The best result was shown, in particular, by Shishkin's works "Stream in the Forest" and "Ship Grove". By the way, the author wrote sketches for these paintings in the forest, in his native Yelabuga and - from nature.
Hi all! Here's what I've learned. . .
185 years ago, on January 25 (13th according to the old style), the great Russian painter Ivan Shishkin was born. For his commitment to Russian nature, he was called the "forest king." What is the secret of his popularity.
January 25 in Yelabuga (Tatarstan), the homeland of the landscape painter Ivan Shishkin, celebrated the 185th anniversary of his birth on a large scale.
Descendants of the painter came to Yelabuga. According to Nadezhda Kuryleva, a specialist in genealogy of the Shishkins and a senior researcher at the Ivan Shishkin Museum, the artist’s family has 15 generations (506 names), and its history has been going on for 300 years. 80 people are our contemporaries. They live in Russia, USA, Ukraine, Serbia, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Sweden.
It is curious that many representatives of the genus are marked by a "creative gene", have shown good abilities for science, for drawing. So, the great-great-granddaughter Varvara Mezhinskaya-Antich (on the line of the artist's sister Anna) is engaged in mosaic technique, having graduated from the Academy of Arts in Belgrade. Her sister Elena Mezhinskaya-Milovanovic, a philologist and art critic, deputy director of an art gallery at the same Academy, published several research papers on the contribution of Russian artists to Serbian art. Shishkin's great-grandnephew Viktor Repin, who lives in Germany, is a designer and artist. There is enough talent in this family.
At one of the meetings of the descendants, the great-great-grandson of the artist on the line of the daughter of Lydia and her husband Boris Riedinger, Sergei Lebedev, Doctor of Economics, professor at the State Maritime Academy of St. Petersburg, visited with his son. He donated to the Shishkin Museum a copy of the portrait of the artist's granddaughter Alexandra, painted in 1918 by Ilya Repin himself. A descendant of Shishkin told the author of these lines: “The only relic of our family is the same drawing, a copy of which I brought to Yelabuga. Of course, Shishkin's originals were in the house, but during the siege of Leningrad, my grandmother exchanged them for food. And when the city was liberated, they issued a decree by which it was possible to return the forcedly sold valuables. Grandmother firmly said then: “This is out of the question! If not for Shishkin's paintings, it is not known whether we would have survived. In general, the members of our family, like everyone else, admire the canvases of the famous ancestor exclusively in the museum halls ... "
There are representatives of the genus in Kazan. A well-known researcher of history and urban planning, architect Sergei Sanachin is the great-great-grandson of the artist's sister Olga Ivanovna Shishkina (Izhboldin in marriage). Sergei Pavlovich said that in the 1960s, his grandparents donated some family heirlooms to the Museum of Fine Arts - photographs, a bamboo bookcase, a cane. About the "Shishkin places" in Kazan, according to Sanachin, it is not necessary to speak. Directly related to the painter is only the building of the First Gymnasium (now the building of the KSTU-KAI named after Tupolev on Karl Marx Street), in which the artist studied from 1844 to 1848. But on the other hand, three houses were preserved, which were owned by the painter's sister Olga Ivanovna. These are beautiful wooden buildings in Shkolny Lane, including the one where the house-museum of the chemist Arbuzov is now.
It is curious that among the numerous descendants, only one bears the surname Shishkin. This is the great-great-grandson of the uncle of the artist Vasily Vasilyevich, a retired military man Alexander Vasilyevich from Lipetsk. They say that he is strikingly similar to Ivan Ivanovich.
Shishkin was a man of heroic build - tall, slender, with a broad beard and luxuriant hair, with a keen eye, broad shoulders and large palms that barely fit in his pockets. Contemporaries said about Shishkin: “Any clothes are cramped for him, his house is cramped, and the city is also cramped. Only in the forest is he free, there he is the master.
He perfectly knew the life of plants, surprised his colleagues with his knowledge, to some extent he was even a botanist. Once Shishkin wrote in his diary: “I have been writing forest, forest for more than forty years ... Why am I writing? To please someone's eye? No, not only for this. There is nothing more beautiful than forests. And the forest is life. People should remember this." He passionately loved Russian nature, and abroad he languished in soul. When in 1893 the Petersburg newspaper offered him a questionnaire, then to the question: “What is your motto?” he replied, “My motto? Be Russian. Long live Russia!"
As a child, Vanya Shishkin was called a “mash”, he painted everything, right up to the fence of his home. Unlike his father, who supported his son's desire to become an artist, his mother, the strict Daria Romanovna, was indignant: "Is my son really going to become a house painter?" It seemed to strangers that he was withdrawn and gloomy; at the school he had the nickname "monk". But in a close circle, he was a cheerful, deep person. And, they say, with a good sense of humor. Shishkin greatly valued his friendship with Ivan Kramskoy. He was also friends with Dmitri Mendeleev.
Shishkin was a workaholic: he wrote every day, strictly following the schedule. We read in his notes: “At 10.00. I make sketches on the river, at 14.00. - in the field, at 17.00 I work on the oak. Neither thunderstorm, nor wind, nor snowfall, nor heat could interfere. Forest, nature were his element, his real studio. And even when his health began to fail, his legs failed, Shishkin continued to travel to sketches in the winter. According to the memoirs of the old-timers of Yelabuga, a special person went to the forest together with the artist: he fanned the coals and put the master at the feet of the master in a special heating pad so that he would not get cold, did not get cold.
Everyone knows the painting "Morning in a Pine Forest". But not everyone knows that the cubs were painted not by Ivan Shishkin, but by his friend, artist Konstantin Savitsky. The latter looked into the workshop, looked at the new work and said - "Something is clearly missing here." So the trinity of clubfoot arose.
The statement that Shishkin was bad at animals is fundamentally wrong. According to the representative of the State Tretyakov Gallery Galina Churak, there was a period when Shishkin was extremely carried away by the “animal theme”: cows and sheep literally moved from one picture to another.
Marat Akhtyamov
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1932 - 1898) - the brightest star in the galaxy of Russian landscape masters. No one has shown greater skill in depicting Russian nature. All his work was subordinated to the idea of reflecting the beauty of nature as authentically as possible.
Hundreds of works came out from under the brush, pencil and engraving cutter of Shishkin. There are several hundreds of paintings alone. At the same time, it is very difficult to sort them by terms of writing or by skill. Of course, at 60 he painted differently than at 20. But there are no sharp differences in themes, technique or color schemes between Shishkin's paintings.
Such uniformity, coupled with external simplicity, played a cruel joke on Shishkin's creative heritage. Many involved in painting, knowledge about painting, or grains of knowledge about painting, consider the painting of I. I. Shishkin simple, even primitive. Marketers took advantage of this apparent simplicity, no matter how they were called in Russia when the political regime changed. As a result, at one time Shishkin could be seen everywhere: on reproductions, rugs, sweets, etc. There was an attitude towards Shishkin as a producer of something endlessly boring and stereotyped.
In fact, of course, the work of Ivan Shishkin is diverse and multifaceted. You just need to be able to see this diversity. But for this you need to know the language of painting, key events from the artist's biography and be able to make intellectual efforts to comprehend them.
1. Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin was born in Yelabuga (now Tatarstan). His father Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin was a gifted man, but completely unlucky in business. Having inherited the title of a merchant of the second guild, he traded so unsuccessfully that he first corresponded with the third guild, and then completely left the merchants for the tradesmen. But in Yelabuga, he had great authority as a scientist. He built a water pipe in the city, which was then a rarity even in larger cities. Ivan Vasilyevich understood mills and even wrote a manual for their construction. In addition, Shishkin Sr. was fond of history and archeology. He discovered the ancient Ananyinsky burial ground near Yelabuga, for which he was elected a corresponding member of the Moscow Archaeological Society. For several years Ivan Vasilyevich was the mayor.
Ivan Vasilievich Shishkin
2. Drawing was easy for Ivan and took up almost all of his free time. After studying for four years at the First Kazan Gymnasium, one of the best in the country, he refused to continue his education. He did not want to become a merchant or an official. For four long years, the family fought for the future of the youngest son, who wanted to study painting (“become a house painter,” according to his mother). Only at the age of 20 did his parents agree to let him go to the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture.
Self-portrait in youth
3. Despite the general unfavorable reviews about the political and cultural situation in Russia in the mid-19th century, the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture had quite free morals. This school was an approximate analogue of Soviet pedagogical schools - the best graduates went on to study further at the Academy of Arts, the rest could work as teachers drawing. From the students, in essence, they demanded one thing - to work more. Young Shishkin needed that. One of his friends in a letter gently reproached him - they say that he had already redrawn all Sokolniki. Yes, in those years Sokolniki and Sviblovo were dreams, where landscape painters went to study.
The building of the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture
4. At the school, Shishkin created his first etchings. He did not abandon graphics and engravings further. On the basis of a small workshop of the Artel of Artists in 1871, the Society of Russian Aquafortists was created. Shishkin was one of the first in Russia who began to treat pictorial engraving as a separate genre of painting. The early experiments of engravers explored more the possibility of replicating finished paintings. Shishkin, on the other hand, strove to create original engravings. He published five albums of etchings and gained fame as the best engraver in Russia.
Engraving "Clouds over the Grove"
5. Ivan Ivanovich from his youth was very painfully sideways to the external assessments of his works. However, no wonder - the family, due to their own constraint, helped him a little, so the well-being of the artist from the moment he left for Moscow almost entirely depended on his success. Much later, in adulthood, he will be sincerely upset when the Academy, having highly appreciated one of his works, awarded him an order, and did not confer the title of professor. The order was honorary, but did not give anything materially. In tsarist Russia, even military officers bought decorations on their own. And the title of professor gave a stable permanent income.
6. Having entered the Academy of Arts, Shishkin spent several summer academic seasons - as the Academy called what would later be dubbed industrial practice - spent on Valaam. The nature of the island, located in the north of Lake Ladoga, fascinated the artist. Each time he left Valaam, he began to think about returning. On Valaam, he learned to make large pen drawings, which even professionals sometimes took for engravings. For Valaam work, Shishkin was awarded several awards from the Academy, including the Big Gold Medal with the inscription "To the Worthy".
One of the sketches from Valaam
7. Ivan Ivanovich loved his Motherland not only as nature for landscapes. With the Big Gold Medal, he simultaneously received the right to a long-term paid creative business trip abroad. Given the income of the painter, this could be the first and last chance in life. But Shishkin asked the leadership of the Academy to replace his foreign voyage with a trip along the Kama and Volga to the Caspian Sea. It wasn't just the bosses who were shocked. Even close friends in chorus urged the artist to join the fruits of European enlightenment. In the end, Shishkin gave up. From the trip, by and large, nothing sensible came out. European masters did not surprise him. The artist tried to paint animals and city landscapes, but voluntarily or involuntarily chose nature, at least something similar to his beloved Valaam. The only thing that made me happy was the enthusiasm of my European colleagues and a picture painted under an advance payment in St. Petersburg, depicting a herd of cows in the forest. Shishkin dubbed Paris “perfect Babylon”, but he didn’t even go to Italy: “it’s too sweet.” From abroad, Shishkin fled early, using the last paid months to stay and work in Yelabuga.
The notorious herd of cows
8. Return to St. Petersburg was the triumph of the artist. While he was holed up in Yelabuga, his European works made a splash. On September 12, 1865, he became an academician. His painting "View in the vicinity of Dusseldorf" was asked for a while from the owner Nikolai Bykov to exhibit at the World Exhibition in Paris. There, Shishkin's canvas was side by side with paintings by Aivazovsky and Bogolyubov.
View around Düsseldorf
9. The aforementioned Nikolai Bykov not only partially paid for Shishkin's trip to Europe. In fact, his influence on the members of the Academy became decisive in the matter of classifying the artist as an academician. As soon as he received "View in the vicinity of Düsseldorf" by mail, he rushed to the venerable artists to demonstrate the picture. And Bykov's word had considerable weight in artistic circles. He himself graduated from the Academy, but wrote practically nothing. His self-portrait and a copy of the portrait of Zhukovsky by Karl Bryullov are known (it was this copy that was raffled off in a lottery to buy Taras Shevchenko from the serfs). But Bykov had the gift of foresight in relation to young artists. He bought paintings from the young Levitsky, Borovikovsky, Kiprensky and, of course, Shishkin, eventually collecting an extensive collection.
Nikolai Bykov
10. In the summer of 1868, Shishkin, who then took care of the young artist Fyodor Vasiliev, met his sister Evgenia Alexandrovna. Already in the autumn they played a wedding. The couple loved each other, but marriage did not bring them happiness. The black stripe began in 1872 - the father of Ivan Ivanovich died. A year later, a two-year-old son died of typhus (the artist himself was also seriously ill). Fyodor Vasiliev passed away behind him. In March 1874, Shishkin lost his wife, and a year later another little son died.
Evgenia Alexandrovna, the first wife of the artist
11. If I. I. Shishkin had not been an outstanding artist, he could well have become a botanist. The desire to realistically convey wildlife made him meticulously study plants. He did this both during his first trip to Europe and during his pensioner's (that is, undertaken at the expense of the Academy) voyage to the Czech Republic. At hand, he always had plant guides and a microscope, which was a rarity for landscape painters. But the naturalism of some of the artist's works looks very documentary.
12. The first work of Shishkin, bought by the famous philanthropist Pavel Tretyakov, was the painting “Noon. In the suburbs of Moscow. The artist was flattered by the attention of the famous collector, and even got 300 rubles for the canvas. Later, Tretyakov bought a lot of Shishkin's paintings, and their prices steadily increased. For example, for the painting “Pine Forest. Mast forest in the Vyatka province ”Tretyakov has already paid 1,500 rubles.
Noon. Around Moscow
13. Shishkin took an active part in the creation and work of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. In fact, his entire creative life since 1871 was associated with the Wanderers. The same "Pine Forest ..." the public first saw it at the first traveling exhibition. In the company of the Wanderers, Shishkin met Ivan Kramskoy, who highly appreciated the painting of Ivan Ivanovich. The artists became friends and spent a lot of time with their families on field sketches. Kramskoy considered Shishkin an artist of the European level. In one of his letters from Paris, he wrote to Ivan Ivanovich that if any of his paintings were brought to the Salon, the audience would sit on its hind legs.
Wanderers. When Shishkin spoke, his bass interrupted everyone.
14. In early 1873, Shishkin became a professor of landscape painting. This title was awarded by the Academy based on the results of a competition for which everyone who wished to submit their work. Shishkin became a professor for the painting "Wilderness". The title of professor, which allowed him to officially recruit students, he deserved a long time ago. Kramskoy wrote that Shishkin could recruit 5-6 people for sketches, and he would teach all the smart ones, while at the age of 10 he leaves the Academy alone, and even that one is crippled. One of his students, Olga Pagoda, Shishkin married in 1880. This marriage, unfortunately, was even shorter than the first - Olga Alexandrovna died, barely having time to give birth to a daughter, in 1881. In 1887, the artist published an album of drawings of his late wife. Shishkin's official teaching career was just as short. Unable to choose students, he resigned a year after his appointment.
15. The artist kept up with the times. When the process of photographing and making pictures became more or less accessible to the general public, he acquired a camera and the necessary accessories and began to actively use photography in his work. Recognizing the imperfection of photography at the time, Shishkin appreciated the fact that it made it possible to work in winter, when it was not possible to paint landscapes from nature.
16. Unlike most representatives of creative professions, I. I. Shishkin treated work as a service. He sincerely did not understand people waiting for inspiration to come. Work and inspiration will come. And colleagues, in turn, were surprised at Shishkin's efficiency. Everyone mentions this in letters and memoirs. Kramskoy, for example, was amazed by the heap of drawings brought by Shishkin from a short trip to the Crimea. Even a friend of Ivan Ivanovich assumed that unlike what his friend wrote, the landscapes would take some time to get used to. And Shishkin went out into nature and painted the Crimean mountains. This efficiency helped him get rid of alcohol addiction during difficult periods of his life (there was such a sin).
17. The famous painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” was written by I. I. Shishkin in collaboration with Konstantin Savitsky. Savitsky showed his colleague a genre sketch with two cubs. Shishkin mentally surrounded the figurines of the cubs with a landscape and suggested that Savitsky paint the picture together. It was agreed that Savitsky would receive a quarter of the sale price, and Shishkin would receive the rest. In the course of work, the number of cubs increased to four. Their figurines were painted by Savitsky. The painting was painted in 1889 and was a great success. Pavel Tretyakov bought it for 4,000 rubles, 1,000 of which was received by co-author Shishkin. Later, for some unknown reason, Tretyakov erased Savitsky's signature from the canvas.
Everyone has seen this picture.
18. In the 1890s, Shishkin maintained a close friendship with his colleague Arkhip Kuindzhi. According to Shishkin's niece, who lived in his house, Kuindzhi came to Shishkin almost daily. Both artists quarreled with some of the Wanderers on the issue of participation in the reform of the Academy of Arts: Shishki and Kuindzhi were in favor of participating, and even worked on a draft of a new charter, while some Wanderers were categorically against it. And Kuindzhi can be considered a co-author of Shishkin’s painting “In the Wild North” - Komarova recalls that Arkhip Ivanovich put a small dot on the finished canvas, depicting a distant light.
“In the wild north ...” Kuindzhi’s light is not visible, but it is
19. November 26, 1891 in the hall of the Academy opened a large exhibition of works by Ivan Shishkin. For the first time in the history of Russian painting, not only finished works were shown at a solo exhibition, but also preparatory fragments: sketches, sketches, drawings, etc. The artist decided to show how a picture is born, to illustrate the process of its birth. Despite the critical reviews of colleagues, he made such exhibitions traditional.
20. Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin died in his studio on March 8, 1898. He worked together with his student Grigory Gurkin. Gurkin was sitting in the far corner of the workshop and heard a wheeze. He managed to run up, grab the teacher, who was falling on his side, and drag him onto the couch. On it, Ivan Ivanovich died a few minutes later. He was buried at the Smolensk cemetery in St. Petersburg. In 1950, the burial place of I. I. Shishkin was transferred to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
You will learn interesting facts from the life of a famous artist, as well as about his paintings in this article.
Ivan Shishkin interesting facts
Ivan Shishkin's parents were enlightened and wealthy merchants.
He was drawn to the brush since childhood, so his parents called him "mud". Shishkin dropped out of high school at a young age and devoted himself to drawing.
By the time he graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Shishkin was already well known and appreciated abroad.
The painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" Shishkin wrote in collaboration with his friend, the famous animal painter Konstantin Savitsky. It is his brushes that belong to the figures of cubs. The painting was bought by the famous art collector Pavel Tretyakov. However, Tretyakov had a difficult relationship with Savitsky, and he ordered the second signature to be washed away.
Although the artist was nicknamed "monk" for his solitary lifestyle and gloomy appearance, in fact he loved entertainment, beautiful women and good wines. But only close friends knew about it.
Many sorrows befell the artist in his life: he was married twice, and both ardently beloved wives died early from serious illnesses. His second wife, Olga Antonovna Lagoda, was a talented artist and died a year after the wedding, shortly after the birth of her daughter.
About which of the domestic painters can we say: "The most Russian artist"? Of course, this is Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin. The biography of the master is the life path of a talented person who is not burdened with psychological or mental pathologies, that is, what drives many representatives of the art world. After all, talent, according to many, is a kind of deviation from the norm, a kind of anomaly. However, even the deepest psychoanalyst will not say that about Ivan Shishkin.
The attitude of the artist
The artist Shishkin, whose biography and work are well known and studied, is a vivid example of a kind soul, God's spark, diligence and love for native nature. His talent developed on fertile and pure soil
What does the biography of the artist Shishkin look like? From birth - a good family, Orthodox traditions, kindness, care and respect for every creature you meet on the way. This attitude was reflected in every painting that Shishkin created.
The biography and paintings of the artist will be considered in this article from a somewhat unusual perspective. We are driven by great love and respect for the master. His life and work are devoid of scandals and mysteries.
Early recognition and popularity
Glory itself found Ivan Ivanovich, and she came to him quite early, without infecting the dangerous. Probably, a deep inner peace, patriarchal upbringing, high morality and spirituality created strong immunity for him. But this disease - glory - ruined so many lives and destroyed entire destinies.
"Morning in a pine forest"
Ivan Shishkin was wonderful and honest. His biography is a description of a person who is rare in his spiritual qualities. In this regard, the story of the famous painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" is interesting. The canvas was written in collaboration with Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky. Savitsky suggested the idea. He wanted to paint a landscape with a family of bears.
Ivan Ivanovich drew a virgin dense forest, on which no human foot had set foot. For Shishkin, gloomy nature is nonsense. In all his paintings there is either the rays of the midday sun, or a lot of open sky, or a reservoir, or a road. "Morning ..." is completely devoid of all this. Accident? Dark mood? Nothing happened! The picture turned out full of life and joyful fresh energy. Three baby bear cubs can frolic in this way only when they are completely safe. A strict mother bear would not allow noisy fuss near a human dwelling. Moreover, she does not have two babies, as is usually the case, but already three. The bear and two cubs were drawn by Savitsky, and the third, the one on the right, was completed by Shishkin for greater harmony and credibility.
The famous collector Pyotr Tretyakov really liked the work, but he demanded that Savitsky's signature be erased, leaving the authorship to Shishkin. Savitsky agreed, although he considered the decision unfair. Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich was very upset because of this. A brief biography of a noble person who is able to compromise is shown on the example of the story with this picture. After all, Ivan Ivanovich wrote it for Savitsky and selected a landscape for the background that corresponded to the idea of a friend, because he himself did not like such deaf places. Tretyakov decided the fate of the picture in his own way. He had some friction of his own with Savitsky.
Childhood
How few of the artists Ivan Ivanovich understood the intricacies of depicting nature. Where did Shishkin draw his knowledge from? The artist's biography is closely and inextricably linked with the Central part of Russia, with its forests, fields and rivers. He was born in Yelabuga into a merchant family. And the merchant class in those days was a respected estate - educated and cultured.
Ivan Ivanovich's father loved books, was fond of history, even wrote a book about his native land. Being a wealthy and successful entrepreneur, he spent a lot of money on charity, whether it was building a church or
His son's interest in painting aroused his approval. The boy was bought paints, paper, hired good teachers. Ivan even painted the fence of his house as a child, which is preserved in the archives of his native city. After all, Shishkin's biography is not a secret and has no white spots. Everything is pure and transparent, like rays of sunlight on his landscapes. Not being complicated and not undergoing sharp ups and downs, the biography of Shishkin, an artist and a person, was by no means serenely happy and even.
Professional education
Ivan Ivanovich received a good education. He studied in Moscow at the School of Painting and Sculpture, then at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. These educational institutions gave excellent fundamental knowledge in the field of art and architecture. They have become a successful start for many talented people. Ivan Shishkin was no exception.
The biography of the artist shows that he took the study of the craft seriously and conscientiously. Professional education gave the artist an understanding that a painting is a complexly built ability to deal with light and shadow, to see everything, but to capture only the characteristic and basic on the canvas.
Attitude towards craft
Some amateurs claim that Shishkin's paintings are a kind of photograph of that time.
If we chronologically consider the paintings that Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich wrote, a brief biography, not even a short one, but a complete one, can be traced in his works. They have no politics and social orientation. It is obvious. In his paintings - a sensitive attitude to detail. Hence the authenticity and life in his paintings. Judge for yourself.
There remains evidence of a conversation that took place between Ivan Ivanovich and Ilya Efimovich Repin. Examining the sketches of the timber rafting, Shishkin asked Repin what kind of wood was rafted down the river. Repin was surprised: “I don’t know, but what’s the matter?” Ivan Ivanovich explained that each type of wood behaves differently from moisture. Some log cabins swell, others sink, and still others repel water. Apparently, he believed that it was important to correctly depict the logs from which the rafts were made. Then only the picture will look authentic. If you use colors corresponding to larch, which sinks in water, then the picture will have a feeling of unreliability, disharmony.
It is precisely the accuracy in the details that made the painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” so famous. Everything is accurate and honest. Therefore, his paintings are so loved and popular. Their calm harmony has never caused disputes and conflicts.
Fans of "fried" facts and boudoir secrets do not need to dig into the artist's personal life. Everything is honest and clean. Shishkin's biography, his emotional experiences, ups and downs - all this is in his paintings. During his life, and Ivan Ivanovich lived for 66 years, he painted several hundred paintings.
Artist of noon
Why Ivan Shishkin is called the artist of noon is not difficult to guess. In general, landscape painters are very fond of depicting nature during sunrises or sunsets, in a thunderstorm, storm or fog. Ivan Ivanovich chose a time of day when the shadow is practically absent, and expressiveness and authenticity are achieved in other ways. Having lived all his childhood in Yelabuga, having absorbed the beauty and peace of his beloved land, Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin will later return to his dear landscapes all his life. The artist's biography closely intertwines the milestones of his fate and the paintings he created. Characteristic in this sense is "Rye".
"Rye"
It was written in Yelabuga in 1878. The midday sun does not create a shadow, but we clearly feel the gusts of wind through the closeness of a summer day. They have just begun to ruffle the heavy ears of corn. In a few minutes, a thunderstorm will break out, which will moisten the earth, and the grain will not crumble.
The landscape is full of life and healthy energy, but why is there a withered pine tree in the background? That doesn't happen in real life. This tree should have been cut down for firewood a long time ago. What does Shishkin's biography say about this period of his life? He recently buried his wife and two young sons. This does not happen in real life, we repeat. The artist does not agree with such a fate, but he is trying to come to terms, looking for a way to learn how to live in a new reality. Hence the road, lost in the field. What's ahead? “Is it worth it to go along it, trying to cure grief with work?” thought Ivan Shishkin. The biography of the artist is encrypted in his creations. It is certain.
Trying to start a new life
After a series of tragedies with loved ones, Ivan Ivanovich tried to drown grief in the old way. However, it was not in his nature to give up. Gradually, he coped and began life anew. Shishkin's biography contains information about his second marriage, but it also ended in tragedy. The young wife is dead. Ivan Ivanovich was no longer looking for a life partner. The sister of the second wife came to help raise and educate two girls from her first marriage.
Pictures as a reflection of the situation in the country
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin was born on January 13, 1832, and died on March 8, 1898. Judging by his drawings, it was the most beautiful, calmest, most well-fed and serene time for our country, only occasionally clouded, but, in general, grew rich and prospered. This was in those years when ordinary students with good academic performance received state scholarships and studied partly in Russia, partly in Italy, France, Germany or other countries. It was the same with Shishkin.
farewell painting
How did Ivan Shishkin live his life? A short and poignant biography is read in his last testament work "Ship Grove". not breaking under the blows of fate, and until the end of his life retaining light and Christian humility in his heart, not letting darkness and a shadow of resentment and disappointment into it.
Hundreds of years will pass, and people, looking at Shishkin's paintings, will find out what our planet looked like when it still had forests and undeveloped territories. They will be embraced by a feeling of tenderness for their land, for their small homeland. The artist Shishkin, whose biography and work are inextricably linked with Russia, painted not only domestic landscapes. He has a whole layer of works made in Germany, Switzerland and Finland, where his eldest daughter lived with her husband. He often came to her, and, working in the open air, for his plots he chose places that reminded him of Yelabuga, the floodplain of the Kama, pine groves.
