CHEKRYGIN Vasily Nikolaevich- (1897 1922) Russian artist. Spiritual founder of the society Makovets. Having gone through futurism, he returned to the tradition of symbolism, creating in 1921 22 a large cycle of charcoal drawings Resurrection of the Dead, ideologically connected with the philosophy of N. F. Fedorov. ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Chekrygin Vasily Nikolaevich- (1897 1922), painter and graphic artist. He went through a passion for futurism, returned to the traditions of symbolism, creating in 1921 22 a large cycle of charcoal drawings "Resurrection of the Dead", ideologically connected with the philosophical utopian views of N. F. Fedorov. Dreamed … encyclopedic Dictionary
Chekrygin, Vasily Nikolaevich- (1897 1922) painter. He studied painting at the icon-painting school of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow. He continued his art education abroad. Organizer and theorist of the art society "Art ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia
Chekrygin Vasily Nikolaevich
Chekrygin, Vasily Nikolaevich- (01/18/1897, Zhizdra, Kaluga province 06/03/1922, Moscow) Russian graphic artist and painter. A native of their bourgeois environment. In 1910 1914 he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (I. Levitan scholarship holder). In 1914 he made ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Expressionism
Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin- Vasily Chekrygin, self-portrait Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (January 19, 1897), Zhizdra, Kaluga province June 3, 1922, Mamontovka station, Moscow region) Russian painter, graphic artist, one of the founders and most prominent artists of Makovets. ... ... Wikipedia
Chekrygin, Vasily- Vasily Chekrygin, self-portrait Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (January 19, 1897), Zhizdra, Kaluga province June 3, 1922, Mamontovka station, Moscow region) Russian painter, graphic artist, one of the founders and most prominent artists of Makovets. ... ... Wikipedia
Chekrygin- Chekrygin surname. Known carriers: Chekrygin, Alexander Ivanovich (1884-1942) ballet dancer, teacher, choreographer. Chekrygin, Vasily Nikolaevich (1897-1922) Russian painter, graphic artist. Chekrygin, Ivan Ivanovich (1880 1942) ... ... Wikipedia
Vasily Chekrygin- Vasily Chekrygin, self-portrait Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (January 19, 1897), Zhizdra, Kaluga province June 3, 1922, Mamontovka station, Moscow region) Russian painter, graphic artist, one of the founders and most prominent artists of Makovets. ... ... Wikipedia
Chekrygin V.- Vasily Chekrygin, self-portrait Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (January 19, 1897), Zhizdra, Kaluga province June 3, 1922, Mamontovka station, Moscow region) Russian painter, graphic artist, one of the founders and most prominent artists of Makovets. ... ... Wikipedia
Vasily Chekrygin. self-portrait
March 14, 2017 Tuesday. A tragic paradox: the artist, carried away by the ideas of the philosopher Fedorov to restore life to all past generations, himself spent only 25 years in the world of people. On June 3, 1922, he was hit by a train on the stretch between Pushkino and Mamontovka near Moscow. In chronological notes about his life, work and death, his wife, V. Chekrygina, and his closest friend, L. Zhegin, the son of the famous architect Shekhtel, wrote: “Death on the eve of Trinity Day - a favorite holiday.<…>V.N. [Chekrygin] died instantly. On the head, to the back of the head, a small abrasion was found, the right leg was cut off at the ankle, the left one was crushed. The face is calm with the usual smile, eyes open.
Chekrygin's life unfolded, as it were, in three spirals, at different distances from the "weighty, rough, visible" reality that surrounded him.
And the first spiral was his direct, active participation in this very reality, marked by the great, fateful and tragic earthquakes of the early twentieth century (and even ancient thinkers warned: God forbid a person to live in such eras). 1914 World War. He volunteers for the front: “There is suffering, I must go there.” 1916 As part of a machine-gun company, he takes part in fierce battles near Dvinsk. Pinsk swamps endow with rheumatism and chronic bronchitis. In 1917 he taught classes at the Sokolniki House of Arts. In the fall of 1919, he was called up for military service, to a camouflage school. Then he was seconded to the People's Commissariat for Education. Meets with Lunacharsky. Works in a number of commissions initiated by him.
In a word, the biography of a completely reliable citizen of the RSFSR, who accepted October, but did not live to see the proclamation of the USSR. But this is only the outer contour of the biography. On its inner, deep subtexts, there is an imprint of the tragic, deadly time in which he happened to live.
Much, in his short earthly existence, including the fanatical, superhuman thirst to work, to create, is explained by this heightened personal feeling the universal struggle of life and death, the preciousness of the years, months, days, minutes, seconds allotted to him on earth. The reason for this was the loss of loved ones, in their concentration sharply exceeding those that fall to the lot of one ordinary human life (especially in youth). And, perhaps, an intuitive foresight of his early departure.
The second life spiral of Chekrygin is his path in art. In his manner, style, plastique, one can find something in common with the great Western masters, and with ours - Rublev, Dionysius. After all, in search of his handwriting in the visual arts, he “scanned” almost all the “isms” that existed in it (do I need to remind you what a “melting pot”, what a concentration of explosive extremes - extremes in both assertions and denials was domestic art first decades of the last century), tried to write in a variety of manners. Almost as a child, he was shocked by Larionov’s Luchism, went through an excellent professional school, first at the icon-painting workshop at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, then at the legendary Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (by the way, who later worked mainly in contrasting black and white was considered the best there colorist), then teaching abroad. However, at the same time, it is perhaps impossible to name one specific Master, from whose “overcoat” the author of the graphic sheets of “Genesis” and “Resurrection of the Dead” came out.
At the same time, of course, the rays and threads coming from such a truly renaissance personality as Chekrygin, with the widest range of his interests, can be extended to the masters of the past a lot. In the notes already mentioned, L. Zhegin and V. Chekrygina testify: “The “eternal companions” are being determined”: Phidias, Rublev, Leonardo; loves Giotto, Masaccio, Tintoretto. Negative attitude towards Michelangelo. His traveling library: Bible, Dante, Cervantes. He likes to read Gogol aloud and he himself bursts out laughing at him.<…>The distant influence of Goya is a gray-green-red scale, and "Stonecutters" in compositional dependence on Courbet. Knows French. Love Cezanne. Gets acquainted with the cultures of Greece, Byzantium, Egypt and India. He loves the murals in Kut-el-Amarna and the mosaics of Mystra very much, but he especially delves into icon painting (Russian) and fresco.<…>He writes poetry, a poem.
All this is a record of only one, 1911. When Chekrygin is 14. Just a boy!
Plus to everything - acquaintance with futurists. Mayakovsky. Burliuk. By the way, among the exhibits of the exhibition - "I". The very, very first book by Vladimir Mayakovsky. With the autograph of the author. It was illustrated by Vasily Chekrygin and Lev Zhegin (then still Shekhtel) in a pronounced futuristic manner.
And finally the third spiral. Chekrygin belonged to that rare group of thinkers who were by no means satisfied with the very noble role of expressing the contradictions and prejudices, aspirations and ideals of his time in a consistent series of individual works. All this was for them only a foundation, a footstool on the way to a certain unifying spiritual, intellectual peak, a kind of goal-setting, bringing closer to the knowledge of the meaning of our own and common life.
Such was, for example, through dozens of sketches, each of which was a wonderful example of first-class painting, the rise of Alexander Ivanov to his summit "The Appearance of Christ to the People." This was also the path of Vasily Chekrygin to the grandiose murals "Genesis" and "Resurrection of the Dead" conceived by him. But the work was interrupted by death. I can not say: at the very beginning of the path. For in the year and five months that had passed from his acquaintance with the "Philosophy of the Common Cause" by Nikolai Fedorov, to his own death, he managed to create more than 1,400 sketches. And what sketches!
Fedorov's idea to resurrect all people who have ever lived on Earth attracted the attention of Leo Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Bryusov and Tsiolkovsky. The name of the latter in this series is especially significant, not only because they were countrymen (in Borovsk and Kaluga). But also because both are listed among the founders of Russian cosmism. In the second hypostasis of his teaching, Fedorov struggled with the problem: how to settle on our small planet all the mankind that preceded us? And he came up with the idea of cosmic migration of people to other planets. Such thoughts of Tsiolkovsky (remember: mankind cannot remain forever in the cradle) were especially popular with us during the first space launches.
Fedorov's fundamentally utopian concept nevertheless carried a rational grain: a premonition, a harbinger of that belief in the omnipotence of science that gripped people in the 20th century, in which the philosopher himself would no longer have a chance to live (he died in 1903). According to Fedorov, the first condition for nullifying many natural and social catastrophes awaiting us in the near future and even defeating death itself was the unification of the intellectual and spiritual efforts of art, science, and religion of all mankind. The second main condition for the victory over death was the merging of the most disparate humanity into a single brotherhood.
The end of the past and the beginning of the present century have greatly cooled faith in the omnipotence of such unions. Although, of course, there are many reasons for feeding it. One information revolution is worth something! And all these genocopies of living organisms, stem cells, chips implanted in us ... etc., etc. But still, our hopes for a reasonable reorganization of the world through the combined efforts of all mankind turned out to be pretty overestimated, especially in terms of the global triumph of social justice and in terms of faith in the victorious pace of scientific and technological progress, too. But, on the other hand, we simply have no other choice but to implement Fedorov's project, if not in the author's utopian, but in a more realistic version.
Disunited humanity has brought our Earth and the existence of all living beings and plants on it, including man, to such an extreme state that either "peoples, having forgotten strife, will unite in a single family", and humanity, being now - according to Vernadsky - a gigantic geological force, will direct it in a creative, rather than destructive vector, or we are waiting ahead - and the count has already begun - a nuclear, environmental (or what else are the ends of the world?) Apocalypse. And then there will be no one and no one to resurrect on a depopulated planet.
March 22, 2017 Wednesday. In our everyday life, we too often and easily slide to the definition of complex, voluminous phenomena through unambiguous stereotypes: “Fedorov? Ah, it's about raising the dead!" In fact, in the same "Philosophy of the Common Cause" no less powerful beginning than the "rebellion against death" was, for example, an analysis of what content the concept of the price and meaning of a person's life is filled with in interaction with the surrounding human communities.
"How is it possible, writes N. Fedorov, — altruism without selfishness? Those who sacrifice their lives are altruists, and those who accept the sacrifice, who are they?<…>If life is good, then sacrificing it will be a loss of good for those who gave their lives for the preservation of it by others; but will life be good for those who accepted the sacrifice and saved their lives at the cost of the death of others?
This beginning was directly connected with the moral quest in modern public life for both Fedorov and Chekrygin. It is no coincidence that the problem of “unity and struggle of opposites” – egoism and altruism, outlined in the “Philosophy of a Common Cause” – had such a long and resounding echo not only in philosophical discussions, but also in our fiction.
Starting with one of the most famous early stories by Maxim Gorky, “Old Woman Izergil”, where through the thick, viscous, intertwined fabric of the old woman’s confessions break out at the beginning and at the end, two prominences - legends: about the egoist Larr, sentenced by people to the very terrible execution - endless torture by immortality, and about the altruist Danko, who tore his burning heart out of his chest in order to lead people out of the stinking dark forest to the light. By the way, the author himself is not so simple here in depicting the seemingly obvious contrast-frontal clash of the personalities of Larra and Danko, if you pay attention to how the human groups interacting with them are written in the story. In any case, Gorky (and his circle of reading has always been quite wide and versatile), in my opinion, clearly reveals here that he is familiar with the Philosophy of the Common Cause.
And ending with a later entry from the diaries of Mikhail Prishvin: “The highest morality is the sacrifice of one's personality in favor of the collective. The highest immorality is when the collective sacrifices the personality in favor of itself.
Memories convey to us the image of Chekrygin as a highly moral, conscientious person who was close to these Fedorov's searches for self-determination of a person in a world of his own kind.
In personal comments on his graphic sheets, he seemed somewhat ashamed of his intoxication with the beauty of the human body (which is so natural for a true artist), urging him to see in his images not real people, but some kind of phantoms, ghosts. Such modesty, of course, is in many ways in tune with the character of this man, his super-sensitivity, super-responsiveness to any human pain and any joy nearby (how selflessly, better than professional nurses, he cared for his sick wife, and then for his sick brother, with what tenderness he surrounded his born daughter !).
But the point here is still something else. It was important for him that, “seeing” the moments of the resurrection of human bodies, the viewer did not lose the main landmark to which the artist leads him. And this is resurrection, affirmation - no matter what! - spiritual principles in a person, faith in the invincibility of these principles.
Still, in order to believe in Fedorov's resurrection of all humankind who lived before us on Earth in our, albeit sometimes crazy, existence, one must be a little out of this world. Or an artist. Like Chekrygin. But to find in art an equivalent to the ideas of this philosopher, strange even for the spiritual searches of the early twentieth century, it seemed, in principle, an unsolvable task.
It is known that illustrations for the Divine Comedy were not easy even for such Masters as Francesco Michelino, Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Dore, Ernst Neizvestny. But there, in Dante, there are much more purely artistic clues than in Fedorov.
Vasily Chekrygin is the only one who managed to express, so to speak, in the flesh these very moments of Fedorov's "resurrection from the dead." Although, it would seem, no, there cannot be such an artist on Earth. This is not about visual means (here the author can, of course, refer to the experience of other masters), but about a philosophical and artistic task, which no master would undertake to solve. How Chekrygin managed to do this is his main mystery. This is how, perhaps, the main “subtext” of this exhibition was explained to me by its curator Elizaveta Vladimirovna Efremova (in the Tretyakov Gallery she is the curator of the graphics department of the 20th century).
The first attempts to penetrate this secret were made immediately after the death of Chekrygin. In the second issue of the Makovets magazine, published in 1922 (many of the materials in the issue are dedicated to his memory), B. Shaposhnikov defined the stylistic features most often found in the Chekrygin series "Resurrection of the Dead" as follows: “In various places on the surface, the artist draws dots with charcoal or pencil; they mark the eyes, breast nipples, mouth, but sometimes they fall into seemingly random places of the shaded background, between the figures. It is enough to look closely at the drawing, and it becomes obvious that these points are never random - they achieve the dynamism of the composition. It is also characteristic that, when drawing his spirit-images, V.N. never outlined the contours of the figures, they seem to arise from the air, and only the skull, the contour of the top of the head, he carefully draws with a sharpened pencil, as if it were the only material part of the whole figure . It seems that these dots and outlined contours of the crown, being the subconscious handwriting of the artist, provide the key to revealing the process of his, mainly subconscious, creativity.
Well, yes, of course, art historians will explain to us how it is done technically. How, by thickening dark spots in some cases, blurring them in others, the artist achieves the maximum emotional impact on the viewer. But still, they are unlikely to be able to fully explain how magic we get the impression that these figures are moving volumetrically on the flat space of the sheet, as if this very sacrament of the resurrection from the dead is happening before our eyes. It has only just begun and is far from over. It - in move from afterlife shadows to real, reviving human flesh.
Particularly impressive are the luminiferous sheets, allegorically reproducing the beginning of the great interplanetary migration of mankind. Imagine a revived Socrates or Aristotle, setting off for his cosmic ascension... Of course, these sheets are neither at the exhibition nor in nature. But it is already possible to imagine, to “finish” this in your imagination, after what Chekrygin managed to create.
Naturally, he does not bring his heroes to individual recognition, but, in full accordance with Fedorov's essentially democratic plan to resurrect all people, and not just the righteous, he populates the sketches with very different characters. And those who, perhaps, stayed in the past on Parnassus, and those who spent their lives in medieval taverns and taverns.
The first who drew general attention to the work of Chekrygin, art critic A.V. Bakushinsky said about his "Resurrection of the Dead" as follows: “... A penetrating artistic vision, in which the great mortal pain of the feeling of accomplished, as well as inevitably future catastrophes and the great joy of anticipation of a new heaven and a new earth - a new person in new, hitherto unseen, social and cosmic relations found their expression."
By the way, the exhibition, held as part of the project “The Tretyakov Gallery opens its storerooms” and dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the artist’s birth, is called: “Graphics by Vasily Chekrygin. Premonition of the future».
Title page of the current exhibition. "Little Slave with a Horse" This small, only two halls, exposition is perfectly conceived and organized. Above the first hall (the life and creative path of the artist before he got acquainted with the ideas of Fedorov), as it were, the idea prevails to express what he experienced in a cycle of graphic studies, where from the multitude of modern, historical and mythological events - “Uprising”, “Execution”, “Faces”, “Crazy ”, “Head of a Bacchante”, “Screaming”, “Little Slave with a Horse”, “Chimera with a Boy” - crystallizes what should have become the monumental mural “Genesis” in the finale. And the future fresco "Resurrection of the Dead" dominates the second hall.
But I still lacked the third hall here. Of course, in the form of separate artifacts, exhibits, his imaginary exposition was also presented separately in the first two. However…
"Insurrection" In general, the general interest in the uprising against death raised by Fedorov with its still, in the 21st century, unknown ending and in its equivalent reflection in Chekrygin's graphic sheets is understandable. But this still somewhat distracts the attention of the audience from another artistic and philosophical peak, which Vasily Chekrygin managed to take in his short life. It is called "Makovets".
These were a magazine founded in 1922 and at the same time a community of artists, poets, philosophers, and scientists. History gave the name to the journal and the association. That was the name of the hill on which Sergius of Radonezh founded the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. This unifying symbol for Russian self-consciousness gathered around itself a truly diamond personal crown: P. Florensky, V. Khlebnikov, B. Pasternak, P. Antakolsky, S. Gerasimov, V. Chekrygin, A. and N. Chernyshev, L. Zhegin, A. Fonvizin, A. Shevchenko, S. Romanovich, K. Zefirov and others.
They were brought together by a number of principles that save culture. They were most fully expressed in the manifesto “Our Prologue” written by Vasily Chekrygin, as well as in such policy documents as “Art at the Turn of the Century” by Lev Zhegin, “A Letter to the Honorable“ Makovets ”by Pavel Florensky, a number of articles by Nikolai Chernyshev.
In contrast to the contemporary desire of people of art to isolate themselves, to withdraw only into themselves, to invent unique means of self-expression, the Makovites called for the unity of the spiritual world of the artist and Total world around him, defended genuine, deep democracy, the responsibility of the artist for the spiritual principles in his people, for the aesthetic self-organization of his life: “Art, while preserving the wisdom of the people, growing from the depths of gray centuries and giving the artist scope for the manifestation of his personality in powerful and creative creativity, should lead the people to a high culture of knowledge and feeling, to participation in creativity and to the ability to evaluate and judge.”(V. Chekrygin. "Our prologue").
Vasily Chekrygin. Composition with an angel, 1922. From the cycle "Resurrection of the Dead" In the days of the revolutionary, and more often the nihilistic denial of the past, the throwing of the classics “from the ship of modernity”, the Makovites called for the unity of the world not only in the momentary, but also in historical time, perceiving art as a process with a centuries-long extension, realizing their blood, filial connection with everything what was created in art before them: “Revival is possible only with strict continuity with the great masters of the past, with the resurrection of everything eternal and living that has been mined so far ...”
The peculiar spiritual ecologism of Makovets is also characteristic: “The task of our creativity is to merge the unaccountable voices of nature, which have risen to the highest sphere of spiritual life, into one with it, to conclude in powerful, integral objective images synthesizing these states”. In this passage from Our Prologue, the notion culture ecology, which, with the light hand of Andrei Voznesensky (and to be more objective, Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev stands at the origins of this concept), was established in our country in the 80s of the last century.
Vasily Chekrygin. Multi-figured composition. Fragment. 1921 From the series "Resurrection of the Dead" Having started their journey with the rejection of false prophets, their self-isolation from the “guiding ideal”, from universal values, the participants of “Makovets” continued this path, declaring their consonance with divine plans and natural laws. And they came to an understanding of the prophetic destiny, the predestination of art: “The artist again accepted the high appointment of the envoy. He will see before him the whole mystery of images as a radiant, dazzling reality.(L. Zhegin. "Art at the turn of the century").
About "Makovets" as a constellation of different springs running down from a single hill, Pavel Florensky said well: "Makovets" should be Makovets- the central elevation of Russian culture, from which the waters of creativity flow in different directions. in different- first, and from a single- Secondly. "Makovets" is not a geometric center and not the arithmetic mean of different currents, but a living knot from which threads are pulled.
Chekrygin, together with Florensky and the Chernyshev brothers, played an outstanding, title role in the formation of the philosophical and artistic foundations of Makovets. And although after his death the association existed for several more years, until 1926, the reflection of this remarkable personality lay on all the undertakings, deeds, accomplishments of Makovets, preventing its spiritual unity from disintegrating, its human circle holding hands breaking apart.
Vasily Chekrygin. Multi-figured composition with a sphere. 1921-1922 From the cycle "Resurrection of the Dead" April 1, 2017 Saturday. Both of his main plans - the murals "Genesis" and "Resurrection of the Dead" - remained unfulfilled. Although on display at the current exhibition approach to these peaks one can imagine what artistic and spiritual power these creations would have been. And we can only agree with his friend Lev Zhegin: if it were given to Chekrygin to climb these two of his peaks, he would certainly be called a great, world-class Master of frescoes (in past centuries there was such a custom to give the best artists the titles: Master of winter landscapes, A master of female half-figures; I heard, however, another version: they are, they say, already ours, modern art historians, without establishing the names of unknown painters, gave them such “pseudonyms”).
However, what would have happened to the murals "Genesis" and "Resurrection of the Dead" themselves, had they been completed, during the famous "five-year plan of godlessness", when bells were thrown from bell towers and belfries, bells were smashed to the ground and old frescoes were chipped off temple walls? And what fate would have awaited in the bad memory of the 37th their author himself, who during his lifetime did not endure any violence against the inner, secret freedom of creativity? This riddle has no solution in the realm of common sense.
From the cycle "Resurrection of the Dead" When the future artist was two years old, the family moved to Kyiv, which he always perceived as his hometown. His father served as a clerk in a ready-made dress shop, and his mother, who came from an impoverished family of Polish aristocrats, raised children. Vasily was the sixth of ten children.
For two years Chekrygin studied at a four-year city school (since 1904). In 1906-1910 he was a student of the icon-painting workshop in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
V.N. Chekrygin. Resurrection of the dead. 1922. Oil on canvas. 71x54. GTG
V.N. Chekrygin. Horse head and slave. 1920. Paper, graphite pencil, charcoal. 23.5x22.5. GTG
V.N. Chekrygin. Stenka Razin. 1921. Paper, graphite pencil. 25.9x22.3. GTG
In 1910 Chekrygin went to Moscow and entered the Moscow School of Painting and Art. He writes sketches at the Simonov Monastery in the spirit of I.I. Levitan. His work at the school is liked, he is exempt from tuition fees.
1911 became very important in Chekrygin's biography. He became friends with L.F. Zhegin, the son of the architect, a classic of the Moscow Art Nouveau F.O. Shekhtel. At the school he communicates with D.D. Burlyuk and V.V. Mayakovsky. During the holidays in Kyiv, he met K.N. Redko and I.M. Rabinovich.
In the fall, Chekrygin brought to Moscow works that spoke of a keen interest in new trends in art. In 1912, history almost repeats itself. He brings from Kiev bold and unusual canvases - "Adam and Eve", "Portrait of M. Fabbri" and shows his works to M.F. Larionov, V.E. Tatlin, N.S. Goncharova, M.V. Le -Dantyu, N.E. Rogovin. Interested in Byzantine and Old Russian frescoes.
In 1913, together with Zhegin, he visited an exhibition of icons several times.
In 1913 he tries to write something in the spirit of Rayonism, but not for long. In March, Mayakovsky's "I" (circulation of 300 copies) comes out with four illustrations of "Chekryzhka", as his friends call him. On October 13, in the hall of the Society of Art Lovers, together with Burliuk, Zhegin and K.S.Malevich, he performs at the evening “Futurists. The first evening of speech-makers in Russia” (the poster was printed on toilet paper).
In 1914 he met in Moscow with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
Burliuk and Mayakovsky are expelled from the school on February 25. Following them leaves the school and Chekrygin.
It would seem that the scandalous career of a futurist or cubo-futurist began. Exhibition “No. 4. Futurists, Radiants, Primitives” surprised many of Chekrygin’s acquaintances. His paintings opened a new chapter in the history of Russian painting - the bright individuality of the artist opposed the standards of the "isms" of those days.
In the spring of 1914, Chekrygin went to Warsaw via Kyiv. Together with Zhegin, he travels around Europe, studying the museums of Dresden, Vienna, Munich, Paris. With the outbreak of war, friends find themselves in London, in September they return to Moscow through Scandinavia.
In autumn, Chekrygin makes four posters for the Segodnyashny Lubok publishing house.
In 1915, he worked on illustrations for N.N. Aseeva's "War", which he took with him to the front. The illustrations are gone.
From the army, where Chekrygin went voluntarily, in 1917 he returned to Moscow. The attempt to demobilize failed immediately, only in September 1919.
In August 1917, together with P.V. Kuznetsov and Malevich, he was a member of the artistic commission of the Council of Soldiers' Deputies. In Moscow, he often visits P.I. Bromirsky. He draws a lot and returns to painting again, trying to determine his individual position in art.
In 1920 he prepared a course of lectures for the newly created Vkhutemas - a course of lectures on the philosophy of art (only three lectures were given in December 1920). Correspondence with N.N. Punin about the tasks of contemporary art begins. Chekrygin considers art as a special integral phenomenon of spiritual life.
The exhibition of icon painting in the halls of the former Stroganov School, where the Vladimir Mother of God, Rublev's Trinity and other masterpieces were shown, became a strong stimulus for the artist's work. These new sensations from the icon lined up for him on a par with the painting of Jacopo Tintoretto, El Greco and the painting of Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso. Simultaneously with this exhibition, there was an exhibition of Obmokha, which Chekrygin, who seeks synthetic modern art, evaluates only as an exhibition of "a group of young and bad, hopeless artists."
At the end of 1920, Chekrygin makes mystical drawings, as fragments, episodes of some future fresco, inspired by the ideas of the "Common Cause" of the religious thinker N.F. Fedorov. He is surprised by the appearance of Fedorov, his thoughts about death and eternal life, about the earth and man in the cosmic universe. The union of earth and sky spiritualizes the earthly. Chekrygin called his manuscript about the art and ideas of Fedorov “On the Cathedral of the Resurrecting Museum”.
Chekrygin's art, monumental at its core, wanted to make the world spiritual, to transform it so that it could withstand the pressure of tragic social reality. Chekrygin was one of the founders of Makovets.
The artist died at the age of 25 in an accident (hit by a train).
Chekrygin's works are kept in the Pushkin Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the GLM, the GMM, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, and a number of private collections.
(1897, Kyiv - 1922, Moscow). Painter, graphic artist, art theorist.
1920? Vasily Chekrygin, self-portrait
V.N. Chekrygin was born in the family of a clerk. After graduating from the city school, he studied at the icon-painting workshop at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. At the age of fourteen, the young man left for Moscow and entered the MUZhVZ, which he left at the end of 1913. In the summer of 1914, together with L.F. Zhegin, the artist traveled to France, Germany and Austria. Most of all, Chekrygin valued ancient Russian art and the work of Andrei Rublev, and during his stay in Europe, such names as Phidias, El Greco, f. Goya, Rembrandt, Masaccio, Giotto, J. Tintoretto, Leonardo da Vinci and Paul Cezanne. In 1915, Chekrygin signed up as a volunteer in the army, participated in the battles near Dvinsk. Several times due to illness he was evacuated to the rear, and in the summer of 1917 he returned to Moscow.
During the year, Chekrygin served in the artistic commission of the Council of Soldiers' Deputies, in 1918 he taught painting at the House of Arts in the Sokolniki District, then again went to military service at the Higher School of Military Camouflage. In a short period of several years, Chekrygin, in his creative search, went from futurism, which played a large role in shaping his artistic principles, to synthetic monumental art. Fascinated by the cubist experiments of Picasso, he painted in the spirit of cubism (1912-1913), and after a while already admired A.A. Ivanov and M.A. Vrubel, participated in a student exhibition, presenting a portrait "IMITATION OF EL GRECO AND CESANNE" (1913), illustrated a collection of poems by V.V. Mayakovsky "I" with biblical scenes. In 1914, at the program exhibition of the M.F. Larionov "No. 4. Futurists, Radiants, Primitive" Chekrygin showed cubist works. In 1920, the artist worked at the Children's Theater, made excellent sketches for the production of "Princess Turandot", participated in the design work to decorate Moscow for the revolutionary holidays.
Chekrygin lived a short life - only 25 years old, but during this time he managed to do an incredible amount both in theoretical and practical terms. As a teenager, he was friends with people a few years older than himself and amazed them with the breadth of erudition, maturity and precise knowledge of the goals that he set for himself. In the artistic life of the turn of the 1910-1920s, creativity, theoretical work, the very personality of Chekrygin occupy a very special, significant place. He was interested in the general problems of the philosophy of art, the course of which he intended to read at Vkhutemas, but he “was denied this. Only the artist's notes on this topic have survived. Chekrygin's theoretical position received concrete expression in the manifesto of the association "Makovets" ("Art and Life"), called "Our Prologue". Chekrygin was the ideological inspirer of the group. The artists were united by the desire for high synthetic art, for monumental forms. The manifesto said: “We appreciate the high feeling that gives rise to monumental art. We know that art becomes monumental only when it has mastered the highest degree of skill. From here, our task is to turn feeling into representation, finding the limits of the relationship of the material side (form) with the spirit.
The life path of the Russian artist, unfortunately, ended very early. At the age of nineteen, Chekrygin, having fallen under a train, died tragically.
