Inspired by the stage image of his wife, who played the beautiful Swan Princess in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Tale of Tsar Saltan,” Vrubel decided to devote himself not only to the scenery for this stage production of Pushkin’s fairy tale of the same name, but also to the portrait of the sorceress at the moment of her transformation.

The character depicted on the canvas does not have the slightest resemblance to the opera diva, who managed to convey the mysterious and incredibly feminine image of the princess with the help of rare vocal abilities. Rather, it is a mystical-fairy-tale image that arose in Vrubel’s mind, and was skillfully embodied thanks to his incredible ability to work with color.

The magical princess from the canvas of a talented Russian painter is mysterious, mysterious and coldly beautiful. Her thin, regal face with large dark eyes reveals an incomprehensible sadness. A thin elegant nose, narrow lips, a thin graceful hand and pale aristocratic skin emphasize the fragility and femininity of the girl.

A huge golden kokoshnik with huge sparkling stones crowns the fragile head of the fairy-tale princess, and weightless white fabric with a wide silver border covers her long dark hair, braided into a tight braid.

The folds of the sorceress's dress have the same color and structure as her huge snow-white swan wings, and it is impossible to guess where this transition is from the feathers of the beautiful bird to the hem of the regal robe.

The Swan Princess is depicted on the seashore against the backdrop of the sunset sky and a distant city on a steep cliff during the gloomy evening twilight descending onto the sea. The cool tones of the picture and its subtle bluish pearlescent shades give rise to a feeling of ghostliness and elusiveness of the vision of the transformation of a proud, graceful swan into a beautiful girl.

The pose of the sorceress is natural and relaxed - she goes into the distance towards the city and only glances briefly at the viewer.

For many artists, the symbol of the swan personified creative inspiration, which elevates the soul and imagination, and also leads to the knowledge of the otherworldly - dark demonic forces. Unwittingly, the Swan Princess is a creature of dual nature, personifying two elements at the same time.

The first is a cold-dark, watery and demonic force, and the second is airy, heavenly and inspiring. The charm of this character is given not only by her feminine beauty and subtle demonic features.

Vrubel decided to depict her at the moment of a wonderful metamorphosis of forms, melting in the cold light of a sea sunset. This picture is about the mystery of the manifestation of the highest beauty that is born in our everyday world.

Beloved and familiar from childhood, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan, his son, the glorious and mighty hero Prince Guidon Saltanovich, and the beautiful Princess Swan” was created by A.S. Pushkin in 1831.

The heroine of A. S. Pushkin's fairy tale, the beautiful Princess Swan, is a poetic image of the beautiful Virgin from ancient Russian folklore, emerging from the depths of sea waters and snow-white sea foam. In the amazing painting by Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel, the Swan Princess appears before us in the foggy, white-winged robe of the morning Queen of the Dawn, majestically floating out of the darkness of the night or the shining evening Queen, leaving into the darkness of the night and casting her farewell glance, full of sadness and kindness.

The beautiful image of the young Virgin embodies the symbol of Russian maiden beauty, greatness and mysterious charm of Russian fairy-tale beauties.

In Slavic mythology, the goose and swan have the gift of speech.

In Vedic Sanskrit:
Lapat, lapat - lap, lapat – swan, (from words: to babble, to babble)
Lapat - lapat – to babble, babble, babble
Lapyati – lapyati – to babble (related words: to babble, swan)

We read about the Swan Princess from Pushkin:

There is a princess beyond the sea,
What you can't take your eyes off:
During the day the light of God is eclipsed,
At night it illuminates the earth,
The moon shines under the scythe,
And in the forehead the star is burning.
And she herself is majestic,
Swims out like a peahen;
And as the speech says,
It's like a river babbling.

Let's imagine that we are linguists from India who found the inscription in an unknown language related to Sanskrit. Let's, like Indian linguists, try to use Sanskrit to read Pushkin's lines.

The moon shines under the scythe
And in the forehead the star is burning

Month - māsa – month, new moon
under - pāda – base, stand, lower part,
braid - keśa – braid, braided hair
glitters - bhlāś – bhlāśate - shine, shine
a - a – a, and (conjunction)
in the forehead - lālāṭī - forehead
stars+yes - svasti - well-being, happiness, luck, success, prosperity;
Yes— da - give, give
lit - ghṛ, gharati - burn, shine
Purna + kandra - pūrṇacandra - face like the moon - standard of beauty = moon + face
Under "lucky star" : 1) star - zvez + da
2). svas(t) + da - happiness
svasti - svasti - well-being, happiness, luck, success, prosperity
svati - svāti – star Arcturus one of the wives of the Sun
da – give, give. “lucky star” - “lucky star”.
Mandible + yes - jval – burn brightly, shine, shine +da - give, give

The correlation between J and Z is not uncommon among Slavic languages. and Sanskrit.
The "l" sound could be lost in the medial position, leading to "zhva:da" = zva:da (*jva:da - zva:da) = star

So, we discovered that all the words of Pushkin’s poetic lines are related to Sanskrit:

Māsa pāda keśa bhlāśate
A...svasti+da gharati

And she herself is majestic
Performs like a peahen

A - a – a, and (conjunction)
Herself – sama – exactly like
That – to - that
Velichava – balaja+va – power, strength, might+like
you+steps - viś+step – move smoothly, perform
As if - bhūta - to be or to be like...
Peahen – pava – clean air, wind

Pavana - pāvana - pure, holy, living in the wind; goddess or Ganges
Pavna - pavna - stream, stream (dial.)
Pavana - water, clean and transparent
Pavane is a slow procession dance common in Europe in the 16th century (Renaissance).
Pava - the peacock in ancient times was considered a symbol of immortality.
Pavane - Pavane is a slow ceremonial dance common in Europe during the Renaissance in the 16th century.

So, all the words of Pushkin’s poetic lines are related to Sanskrit:

And sama to balaja+va
viś+step bhūta pava

And as the speech says,
Like a river babbling

A – a – a, and (conjunction)
How – kaḥ – like, like
speech - ṛc – utterance, recitation of a sacred verse
speaks – gava (go) – to speak in a chant, solemn chant,
shravana - śravaṇa – the one who heard the word of knowledge (see Slavs)

Shravakha- śravaḥ - loud praise (Glory), laudatory glory
Shravanya- śravaṇīya - Slavs, means “glorious”
Shravana- zravaNa - “acquisition of knowledge, wisdom”, teaching, “introduction to the Vedas”
Shravanya- śrāvaṇa - to teach, “to join the Vedas”

speech - ṛ-iyarti – singing a hymn in a sublime voice
murmurs - jarc, jarcati – murmur, speak melodiously
Ratu – ratū - heavenly river, heavenly Ganges, truthful speech
retas - retas – stream, stream, current, stream of rain or water,
from the root - ri(flow)+ka(as) = rī - ka = re+ka, speech+ka, speech+ka.
murmurs - JarC - jarcati - speak.

So, we discovered that all the words of Pushkin’s poetic lines related Sanskrit:

And kaḥ ṛc ta gau+iyarti
śravaṇa ṛc+ka jarcati

If you are asked what words of Vedic Sanskrit you know in Russian, you can safely read Pushkin: " There is a princess beyond the sea,
What you can't take your eyes off:
During the day the light of God is eclipsed,
At night it illuminates the earth,
The moon shines under the scythe,
And in the forehead the star is burning.
And she herself is majestic,
Swims out like a peahen;
And as the speech says,
It’s like a river babbling.”

Every word of Pushkin’s poetic lines has roots in Vedic Sanskrit, in which the “Rig-Veda” is written!

A passionate love for nature helps the artist convey its beauty. The lush clusters of Vrubel's "Lilac" (1900, Tretyakov Gallery), flashing with purple fire, live, breathe, and smell fragrant in the glow of the starry night. One of Vrubel’s contemporaries wrote: “Nature blinded him... because he peered too closely into its secrets.”

Along with epic themes, Vrubel worked on the image of the Demon throughout the 90s. In one of the letters to his father, the artist’s idea of ​​the Demon is expressed: “ A demon is not so much an evil spirit as a suffering and sorrowful one, but at the same time a powerful, majestic spirit". The first attempt to solve this topic dates back to 1885, but the work was destroyed by Vrubel.

In the painting "Demon Seated" (1890, Tretyakov Gallery) the young titan is depicted in the rays of sunset on the top of a cliff. The powerful, beautiful body doesn’t seem to fit in the frame, the arms are twisted, the face is touchingly beautiful, there is inhuman sorrow in the eyes. Vrubel's "Demon" is a combination of contradictions: beauty, greatness, strength and at the same time constraint, helplessness, melancholy; he is surrounded by a fabulously beautiful, but petrified, cold world. There are contrasts in the color of the painting. Cold lilac color “fights” with warm orange-golden. Rocks, flowers, a figure are painted in a special way, in Vrubel’s style: the artist seems to dissect the form into separate faces and it seems that the world is woven from blocks of jewels. A feeling of primordiality is born.

Thinking in fantastic images, Vrubel is closely connected with the life around him, his Demon is deeply modern, it reflects not only the artist’s personal emotional experiences, but the era itself with its contrasts and contradictions. As I wrote A. Blok : "Vrubel's demon is a symbol of our time, neither night nor day, neither darkness nor light".

In 1891, for the anniversary edition of his works Lermontov under the editorship of Konchalovsky, Vrubel completed illustrations, of the thirty, half were related to “The Demon”. These illustrations, in essence, represent independent works, significant in the history of Russian book graphics, and testify to Vrubel’s deep understanding of Lermontov’s poetry. Particularly noteworthy is the watercolor "Head of the Demon". It is truly monumental. Against the backdrop of rocky snow-capped peaks is a head with a cap of black curls. A pale face, parched lips, as if scorched by internal fire, burning eyes with a piercing gaze, with an expression of unbearable torment. In this look there is a thirst for “knowledge and freedom”, a rebellious spirit of doubt.

A few years later, Vrubel wrote “The Flying Demon” (1899, Russian Russian Museum). The image is permeated with a premonition of death and doom. The coloring of the picture is gloomy.

And finally, the last painting, “The Defeated Demon,” dates back to 1901-1902; Vrubel worked intensely and painfully on it. A. Benoit remembers that the painting was already at the World of Art exhibition, and Vrubel still continued to rewrite the Demon’s face, changing the coloring.

The broken, deformed body of the Demon with broken wings is stretched out in the gorge, his eyes burning with anger. The world plunges into darkness, the last ray flashes on the crown of the Demon, on the tops of the mountains. The rebellious spirit is overthrown, but not broken.

Contemporaries saw in this image a protesting principle, a beautiful unconquered person. Words come to mind A. Blok : “What instant powerlessness! Time is light smoke! We will spread our wings again! We will fly away again!..” and what was said a little later Chaliapin : “And he wrote his Demons! Strong, scary, creepy and irresistible... From Vrubel, my Demon.”

After finishing the defeated Demon, Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel became seriously ill and was placed in a hospital. With short breaks, the illness lasted until 1904, then a short recovery occurred.

In 1904 he goes to St. Petersburg. The final period of creativity begins.

In 1904, Vrubel wrote “The Six-Winged Seraphim,” which was intended to be related to Pushkin’s poem “The Prophet.” A mighty angel in sparkling rainbow plumage to a certain extent continues the theme of the Demon, but this image is distinguished by its integrity and harmony.

In the last years of his life, Vrubel created one of the most tender, fragile images - “Portrait of N. I. Zabela against the background of birch trees” (1904, Russian Russian Museum). Interesting self-portraits date back to this time. Since 1905, the artist has been in the hospital constantly, but continues to work, showing himself as a brilliant draftsman. He paints scenes of hospital life, portraits of doctors, landscapes. The drawings, made in different manners, are distinguished by sharp observation and great emotionality. Doctor Usoltsev, who treated Vrubel, writes: " He was an artist-creator with his whole being, right down to the deepest recesses of his mental personality. He always created, one might say, continuously, and creativity was for him as “easy and as necessary as breathing. While a person is alive, he still breathes, while Vrubel breathed, he created everything".

A few years before his death, Vrubel began working on a portrait V. Bryusova (1906, Russian Museum). Some time later, Bryusov wrote that all his life he tried to be like this portrait. Vrubel did not have time to complete this work; in 1906 the artist went blind. Tragically he experiences a terrible blow, in a difficult hospital situation he dreams of the blue sky over dark fields, of the mother-of-pearl colors of spring. Music was the only consolation. Vrubel died on April 1, 1910.

By creating tragic images, the artist embodied in them a bright, noble beginning. The struggle between light and darkness is the content of most of Vrubel’s works. A. Blok poetically spoke about this over the artist’s grave: “ Vrubel came to us as a messenger that the purple night was interspersed with the gold of a clear evening. He left us his Demons, as spellcasters against purple evil, against the night. I can only tremble at what Vrubel and others like him reveal to humanity once a century"

Materials from an article by Fedorova N.A. were used from the book: Dmitrienko A.F., Kuznetsova E.V., Petrova O.F., Fedorova N.A. 50 short biographies of masters of Russian art. Leningrad, 1971

Monograph about Vrubel. Unsung masterpieces

Girl on the background Persian carpet, 1886

A trip to Venice was undertaken to paint the commissioned iconostasis images - Christ, the Mother of God and saints - Cyril and Athanasius. Prakhov decided that it would be better for Vrubel to work on them not in Kyiv, but in Venice, the city-museum, where the Cathedral of St. Mark with his famous mosaics, 12th century mosaics in Torcello and paintings by famous Venetian colorists.
Vrubel spent about six months in Venice. From there I wrote to my sister: “I am leafing through my Venice (in which I sit all the time, because the order is on heavy zinc boards that you can’t roll with) as a useful special book, and not as a poetic fiction. What I find in it is interesting only to my palette.” What interested him most in his palette was not the luminaries of the High Renaissance - Titian, Veronese - but their predecessors, the masters of the Quattrocento (XV century), more closely associated with the medieval tradition - Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano and, especially, Giovanni Bellini. The influence of the Venetian Quattrocento was reflected in the monumental icons with full-length figures executed by Vrubel. Vrubel’s first biographer A.P. Ivanov wrote about them: “The plastic music of these icons is built in the majestic and clear modes of G. Bellini and Carpaccio, and in its depths, like the dominant element in the organ station, sounds the colorful magic of the mosaics of San Marco.”
Venice gave Vrubel a lot and became an important milestone in his creative development: if the meeting with Byzantine art enriched his understanding of form and elevated his expression, then Venetian painting awakened his gift for color. Still, he waited impatiently for his return. What happened to him is what often happens to people who find themselves outside their homeland for a long time: only then do they feel the full force of its attraction. A letter from the artist from Venice to his Academy comrade V.E. Savinsky has been preserved, where he, with obvious strain of thought, tries to present new and important conclusions for him, which he came to in Italy. He says that here, that is, in Italy, you can study, but create only on native soil; that to create means to feel, and to feel means “to forget that you are an artist and rejoice in the fact that you are, first of all, a human being.” “...How much beauty we have in Rus'!” - such an exclamation escapes from Vrubel for the first time. Before, he seemed to be rather indifferent to his “native soil”: it was something taken for granted, unnoticed, his ideas were drawn from world-wide sources: antiquity, Hamlet, Faust... And only now, abroad, his moods arise and thoughts that later led to a poetic interpretation of Russian fairy tales and Russian nature.

There was another reason why Vrubel wanted to return to Kyiv as soon as possible. He was in love with Prakhov’s wife Emilia Lvovna, which he mysteriously hinted at several times, without naming a name, in letters to his sister: it was his secret “heartfelt matter.”
Even before leaving abroad, he painted E.L. Prakhova several times - her face served him as a prototype for the face of the Mother of God. The portrait resemblance has been preserved in the icon itself, but there it is muted; more clearly - in two pencil sketches of the head of the Virgin. An amazing face looks out from these drawings: rather ugly than beautiful, the endlessly touching face of a wanderer - shawls to the eyebrows, a seemingly swollen mouth, dilated round light eyes as if contemplating something unknown to others.
Of the four iconostasis images, the artist was especially successful with the Mother of God. This is one of his undoubted masterpieces. It is painted on a golden background, in a robe of deep, velvety dark red tones, the pillow on the throne is embroidered with pearls, and at the foot there are delicate white roses. The Mother of God holds the baby on her knees, but does not bend towards him, but sits straight and looks ahead with a sad, prophetic gaze. In the features and expression of the face there is some resemblance to the type of Russian peasant woman, like those long-suffering female faces that are found in Surikov’s paintings.
The first felt love for the homeland, the first sublime love for a woman spiritualized this image and brought it closer to the human heart.
Returning from Venice, Vrubel was rushing about. It was as if he could not find a place for himself - either he decided to leave Kyiv (and indeed went to Odessa for several months), then he returned again; he was drawn to the intoxicating “cup of life”, he was violently infatuated with some visiting dancer, drank a lot, lived unsettledly, feverishly, and besides, he was in severe poverty, since there was no money, and his relationship with Prakhov became colder and more distant .
The artist’s father was worried: his son was already thirty years old, had a university education, art education, “an abyss of talent,” and yet no name, no secure position - no stake, no court. To persistent invitations to come and live at home (the family lived in Kharkov at that time) he did not respond. In the fall of 1886, A.M. Vrubel himself came to Kyiv to visit his son, and his fears were confirmed: “Misha is healthy (according to him), but he looks thin and pale. From the station I went straight to him and was saddened by his room and furnishings. Imagine, not a single table, not a single chair. All furnishings are two simple stools and a bed. I didn’t see a warm blanket, a warm coat, or a dress other than the one he was wearing (a greasy frock coat and worn out trousers). Maybe in a pawn... It was painful, bitter to the point of tears... I had to see all this. There are so many brilliant hopes!”

There is no direct evidence of the artist’s state of mind at that time - he did not like to be frank - but it is quite obvious that he was experiencing not only a financial crisis. He endured poverty carefree, the lack of fame too: he knew that sooner or later it would come, and if it didn’t come, so what? Love that has reached a dead end - that was serious. But not only that. He was visited by deep turmoil, which he shared with his era, although the immediate causes may have been intimate and personal. Vrubel early experienced what two decades later Blok called “the influx of purple worlds,” purple darkness overwhelming the golden light. An atheistic rebellion arose within him. For two years Vrubel worked for the church, in an atmosphere of religiosity that was as little consistent with those around him as the secular lady Emilia Prakhova was little in agreement with the ideal of the Mother of God. And for the first time, the gloomy image of the God-fighter, the Demon, began to tempt Vrubel and capture his imagination.
He was just working on “The Demon” when his father unexpectedly arrived. The father described the unfinished painting in the same letter, saying that the Demon seemed to him “an angry, sensual, repulsive old woman.” No traces of the Kyiv “Demon” have reached us - the artist destroyed it, all the now known “Demons” were made much later. But the idea and the beginning date back to the Kyiv period.
At the same time, Vrubel was working on other things at the time, commissioned by the Kyiv philanthropist I.N. Tereshchenko. They show a craving for the east - flowery, magical, spicy. For Tereshchenko, Vrubel undertook to paint the painting “An Oriental Tale,” but only made a sketch in watercolor, and even that was torn up when E.L. Prahova refused to accept it as a gift. Then, however, he glued together the torn sheet, which to this day is the pride of the Kyiv Museum of Russian Art. This large watercolor is amazing. At first glance, it is difficult to make out what is depicted: the eye is dazzled by an iridescent mosaic of precious particles, illuminated by flashes of bluish phosphorescent light, as if we had actually entered a cave, treasures from the Arabian Nights. But then the eye gets used to it and begins to distinguish the inside of the Persian prince’s tent, the carpets covering it, the prince himself and his odalisques. The figures are full of feeling and poetry: the prince, sitting up on the bed, looks with a thoughtful and heavy gaze at the beautiful girl standing in front of him with downcast eyes.

Monograph about Vrubel. Kyiv. Meeting with antiquity

Girl on the background Persian carpet, 1886

The artist L. Kovalsky, at that time a student at the Kyiv drawing school, later told how he first met Vrubel shortly after his arrival in Kyiv. Kowalski settled down to paint a sketch on a high hill overlooking the Dnieper and distant meadows. “The silence of the evening, the complete absence of anyone, except for the swallows that circled and chirped in the air. In calm contemplation I depicted, as best I could, my 30-verst landscape, but quiet steps, and then a fixed gaze made me turn around. The sight was more than extraordinary: against the backdrop of the primitive hills of Kirillovsky, standing behind me was a blond, almost white blond, young, with a very characteristic head, a small mustache, also almost white. He was short, of very proportionate build, dressed... this is what could have struck me most at that time... all in a black velvet suit, stockings, short trousers and boots. No one dressed like that in Kyiv, and this is what made the right impression on me. In general, it was a young Venetian from a painting by Tintoretto or Titian, but I learned this many years later, when I was in Venice. Now, against the backdrop of the Kirillov hills and the colossal dome of the blue Kyiv sky, the appearance of this contrasting figure, with blond hair, dressed in black velvet, was more than an incomprehensible anachronism.
...The stranger leaned closer, looked intently and in a serious tone, as if something was of unknown importance, and said: “Where is your first plan? Is it these haystacks? But they are several miles away! You can’t write like that, you’re doing nonsense - you need to start studying nature from a piece of paper, from the details, and not, like you, take all sorts of things and stuff them into an insignificant piece of paper - this is some kind of encyclopedia, not painting. Don’t be angry, I said this because I see your mistake.” He looked a little more and disappeared; I didn’t even turn around to look, I was overwhelmed by the offensive words, which seemed to me a lot in his remark, but it still interested me that he spoke so sincerely and seriously about my work, which I looked at as a thing not worth attention “I was taught this at school; no one there looked seriously at their own or other people’s work.”

The excited Kovalsky did not continue the sketch and went to the St. Cyril Church to see his comrades who were working on the restoration of the frescoes. In the choir he noticed a stranger he had just met; the comrades said that this was the artist Vrubel, and showed him the “Descent of the Holy Spirit” he had begun, as well as two angels: “Vrubel said that here he came closest to Byzantium.”
So, Vrubel in Kyiv had to supervise the restoration of Byzantine frescoes of the 12th century in the St. Cyril Church, in addition, paint several new figures and compositions on its walls to replace the lost ones, and also paint images for the iconostasis. The general management of the work belonged to Prahov.
A.V. Prakhov, in close communication with whom (and with his family) Vrubel spent five Kyiv years, was known in artistic circles. An art historian, archaeologist, professor at St. Petersburg University, he actively spoke in the 70s as an art critic in the magazine “Bee”. In articles under the pseudonym “Profan”, Prakhov promoted the art of the Wanderers with great literary brilliance and temperament. One of his most interesting articles, dedicated to the Sixth Traveling Exhibition of 1878 (in fact, two exhibits - Yaroshenko’s “Stoker” and Repin’s “Protodeacon”), was not allowed to pass by the censors. The article was preserved in proofs, and subsequently, even today, its authorship was at one time mistakenly attributed to I.N. Kramskoy. Then Prakhov completely withdrew from critical activity, stopped working in contemporary art (a characteristic symptom of the 80s!) and returned to the study of antiquities. However, he did not lose connections with artists, and his house in Kyiv was almost as open to them as the houses of Polenov and Mamontov in Moscow. Energetic, active, not yet forty years old, Prakhov stirred up the artistic life of Kyiv by undertaking the study and restoration of unique monuments of Kievan Rus. He also supervised the interior decoration of the new church - Vladimir, founded in the 1860s. Russian artists then had rather rough ideas about the Byzantine style, and the same about restoration techniques. The Kirillov frescoes were in poor condition; a team of students from the Kyiv drawing school, led by the artist N.I. Murashko (with whom Vrubel later became close friends), worked to “renew” them. With their unskilled hands, the frescoes were painted from above along the preserved contours (according to the “counts”); now such a method would be considered barbaric. There is information that Vrubel objected to him, proposing to simply clear the frescoes and leave them untouched, but they did not agree to this: the temple was active, and the half-erased figures of saints could confuse the parishioners. It was necessary to complete them, preserving as much as possible the style of the 12th century. How was it possible to save it? Not only Murashko’s students, but also Vrubel himself first encountered Byzantine art in Kyiv. For several months he immersed himself in the study of antiquities, using, in addition to the originals of the Cyril Church and the Cathedral of St. Sofia, books, color tables and photographs from Prahov’s rich library. He treated the restoration of old frescoes from surviving fragments with great care; as N. recalled A.Prahov (son of A.V.Prahov), “did not invent anything of his own, but studied the placement of figures and folds of clothing using materials preserved in other places.”
Now, in the middle of not the 19th, but the 20th century, the Kirillov frescoes have been restored according to all the rules of modern science, although most of them have been irretrievably lost, and only some pieces of ancient painting have been preserved intact. But now the Cyril Church has also gone down in history as a monument captured by the genius of Vrubel. Vrubel painted on the walls several figures of angels, the head of Christ, the head of Moses and, finally, two independent compositions - the huge “Descent of the Holy Spirit” in the choir and “Lamentation” in the narthex. When working on them, the artist no longer copied ancient samples. He had the inner right not to follow the letter of the ancient style - he penetrated into its spirit.

The noble and restrained expression of ancient mosaics and frescoes clarified Vrubel’s own quests. Expression was characteristic of his talent initially, but in his early works he strayed into exaggeration and romantic cliches. Thus, in the drawing “Anna Karenina’s Date with her Son,” made in the early 80s, Anna, with exaggerated ardor, almost strangles a child in her arms. In the drawings for Mozart and Salieri (1884), Salieri appears as a melodramatic villain. And only after familiarization with the monumental Byzantine and Old Russian art, Vrubel’s expression becomes majestic - the psychological pressure disappears, a characteristically Vrubelian expression of spiritual tension appears in the concentrated gaze of huge eyes (large eyes are also a feature of Byzantine painting), with poses that seem numb, a mean gesture, an atmosphere of deep silence. This is already in the “Descent of the Holy Spirit”, written on the vault of the Cyril Church. According to the Gospel tradition, the holy spirit appeared to the apostles in the form of a dove, and tongues of flame emanating from it “rested on each of them.” After this, the apostles acquired the gift of speaking in all languages ​​and preaching the teachings of Christ to all nations. Like other gospel tales, the plot of the “Descent” had its own iconographic scheme in church art, fixed by centuries-old tradition. Vrubel followed the scheme quite closely, apparently using miniatures of ancient gospels. But in his interpretation of figures and faces, he showed himself as a modern artist, as a psychologist. His apostles had living prototypes. Previously, it was thought that the artist made preparatory sketches of the mentally ill (the St. Cyril Church was located on the territory of a psychiatric hospital), but this is incorrect: the son of A.V. Prakhov N.A. Prakhov names by name a number of persons who are recognized in the “Descent” - Kyiv scientists , priests, archaeologists, among them Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov himself.
continuation ....

Mikhail Vrubel. Gallery of paintings. Painting

The demon is defeated. 1901	Seated demon, 1890. Sketch	The demon is defeated. 1902	Flying Demon. 1899
Lady in purple. Portrait of the artist N.I. Zabela-Vrubel. 1904	Red flowers and leaves of begonia in a basket. 1886-1887	Peacock. Early 1900s	East Dance. 1887
The demon is defeated. 1902. Watercolor sketch	Portrait of K.D. Artsybushev. 1897	Six-winged seraph. 1905	Night in Italy. 1891
Bogatyr. 1898	Hamlet and Ophelia. 1884	Snow Maiden. 1890s	Rose hip. 1884
Games of naiads and newts	Farewell of the king of the sea to princess Volkhova. 1899	Catania. Sicily. 1894	Porto Fino. Italy. 1894

Six-winged seraph (Azrael). 1904

Vrubel Mikhail Alexandrovich is one of the famous Russian artists of the 19-20 centuries.
On his canvases he brings to life Russian folk tales, epics, and legends.
Having once visited S. Mamontov’s private opera, Mikhail Vrubel was inspired to paint the painting “The Swan Princess”.
It is dedicated to the character of the opera N.A.
Rimsky-Korsakov based on the well-known fairy tale by A.S.
Pushkin "The Tale of Tsar Sultan".

The canvas is simply amazing.
In the painting, the author depicted the moment when the princess turns into a swan.
A very beautiful girl turned to face us and looked mysteriously from behind.
On her head is an expensive crown decorated with precious stones.
A long veil falls from her to the floor, sparkling with jewels along the edge.
Under the veil you can see a dark thick braid.
You can read sadness and loneliness on your face.
The eyes are very expressive and you can see farewell in them.
She must again become a lonely bird and sadly float on the waves.
We cannot see her clothes, since her whole body is already covered with feathers, only her face and hands remain.
Large wings spread out on both sides of the girl, as if they want to quickly hide her from our eyes.

In the distance of the picture you can see the castle of King Sultan.
This is the only brown spot in the picture.
All other colors are white and blue.
The sky in the background is dark and dark and you can see how the sea is raging, how the waves are hitting the shore and foaming with anger.
Nobody wants to part with such a beauty.
And only the fact that the Swan Princess is very light against the entire dark background tells us that she will return to us in the form of a beauty.

Mikhail Vrubel, with his reproduction of the Swan Princess, wants to show us how beautiful our women are and despite the fact that they are fragile and defenseless, without their support and support no king would have such power.

Vrubel M.A. - artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Looking at his canvases, you understand that a fairy tale can come to life, as evidenced by Vrubel’s painting The Swan Princess.

The Swan Princess Vrubel: a brief description of the painting

The work of Mikhail Alexandrovich The Swan Princess is an illustration for everyone’s favorite fairy tale About Tsar Saltan. You look at the reproduction of the painting we used to paint in 4th grade and I want to say only one thing: amazing, excellent, complete delight. I don’t want to say anything else, just watch and consider. Peer at every stroke and admire the color scheme.

What do we see on the canvas?

In the center of the picture we see a beautiful girl, the swan princess. She is dressed in a snow-white, airy and beautiful outfit that is blown by the wind and this makes it seem as if wings have appeared behind her back, making her look like a beautiful swan. On her head is a kokoshnik in the form of a beautiful crown strewn with jewels. A thin transparent veil falls from the hair.

The girl has very beautiful big eyes, a sweet gentle face and closed lips. Looking closely, you can notice her sadness and sadness, which gives you goosebumps. Why is she sad? Maybe because she broke up with her loved one, or maybe she is sad to watch the sunset of the summer sun, which occurs on the last day of summer. We won't know the truth, we can only guess.

Looking at the work, we see a stopped moment when the Swan Princess looked back, while before that she was leaving somewhere. She looked back to look at something important to her, perhaps to shout or say something. Turning back, she allowed us to see her beauty in all her angelic form. Yes, it is with the angel that I want to compare the heroine of Vrubel’s painting.

Behind us we see a gloomy sky and disturbing water. By this, the artist further emphasized the Princess’s melancholy.

How does this work make me feel?

The picture is fabulously luxurious and beautiful, but evokes ambiguous feelings that are difficult to convey in words, but I will say one thing. Looking at Vrubel’s painting, I mentally find myself in a fairy-tale kingdom, and this makes my soul feel warm and good.

Essay based on the painting The Swan Princess, version 2

Today we continue to work on an essay based on Vrubel’s painting The Swan Princess, where we will briefly get acquainted with the history of the creation of the canvas, and also dwell in more detail on the description of Vrubel’s painting The Swan Princess, sharing our emotions and thoughts.

An essay on the theme of the Swan Princess can be used for grades 3 and 4.

The history of the painting The Swan Princess

In writing a description according to plan on the theme of the Swan Princess, I would like to immediately note the amazing talent of the artist, who managed to paint not just a picture, but a truly mysterious work, which only vaguely resembles the plot of Pushkin’s famous fairy tale. In fact, we are immersed in some kind of mystical atmosphere, drowning in the gaze of the mysterious Swan Princess, and wondering what these beautiful eyes saw, what secrets do they keep, what knowledge is within her control and unknown to man? These questions arise from just one glance of the heroine, who is the central image of Vrubel’s painting.

The artist painted his picture, being inspired by the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, for which the artist himself created the scenery and worked on costume sketches, and his wife played the main role, performing the part of the Swan Princess. Inspired by the image of his wife and under the impression of the opera itself, the artist decides to create the image of the Princess, which was inspired by lyrical singing. Some people believe that on the canvas the artist depicts his wife as the heroine of a fairy tale, but this is not so. The image of the painting is the result of the imagination of a master of the pen who managed to combine the incongruous.

Vrubel's painting The Swan Princess, on which we are writing an essay, was born in the Chernigov province on the Ge farm in 1900. The canvas is located in. We will continue to work on the essay about the Swan Princess and focus on the description of the painting.

Description of Vrubel's painting The Swan Princess

When I look at the picture, I understand that the artist managed to capture the most mysterious moment. This is reincarnation. Some may think that this is the very moment when the swan turns into a girl, but I believe that the artist captured the moment when the beauty turns into a bird. All that remains of the heroine’s human appearance is her face, hands and a long braid. Another moment - and the girl, already in the body of a beautiful swan, will fly away into a world where there is no way for man. But why is she leaving? Who is he running from? From a loved one? Or is he running away from our mortal world?

She is in no hurry, so she decided to look back, and all the beauty of the charming woman is revealed to the viewer. She captivates with her beautiful face, delicate features, sensual lips, and simply enchants with soulful eyes that can look into anyone’s soul. Her blue eyes resemble an abyss in which you can drown. They sparkle like the stones of the kokoshnik with which the artist decorated the princess’s head, and its heaviness further emphasizes the girl’s fragility. The author of the painting emphasized the tenderness of the princess with a thin veil that falls down. The girl holds her with her hand and wraps her shoulders, as if trying to hide for some reason.