Niko Pirosmani, artist: biography, paintings. A million scarlet roses, or who was the woman who ruined the artist Niko Pirosmani Surprisingly simple but unique creative technique

I recently discovered a wonderful site dedicated to the life and work of the great Georgian painter Niko Pirosmani, and remembered that "in the table" is an interesting art essay about the artist from the magazine "CARAVAN OF HISTORIES".
And since you can get acquainted with the biography of the artist by clicking on the link above, I decided to place this article by Varvara Kholupets in the Diary, providing it with reproductions taken from the site about Pirosmani. I hope you enjoy reading this story, which formed the basis of a poem by Andrei Voznesensky and a song by Raymond Pauls.
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Niko Pirosmani
ნიკო ფიროსმანი
Real name Nikolai Aslanovich Pirosmanashvili

Georgian artist - self-taught, representative of primitivism.
Many facts of Pirosmani's biography are not documented, but are known either from his words or restored after his death.
Legends about Pirosmani's acquaintance with the classic of Georgian poetry Vazha Pshavela and about the influence of the latter on the poetic work of the artist (Niko really wrote poems that have not come down to us), as well as about his rejected love for the actress Margarita (the story that became the plot of the song "Million Scarlet Roses" ), do not yet have material documentary evidence, which, however, can be explained by the fact that during his lifetime they were simply not given any importance.
The largest collections of Pirosmani's works are in the State Museum of Oriental Art and the Tretyakov Gallery (exposition on Krymsky Val) in Moscow, as well as in the State Museum of Art of Georgia in Tbilisi.
In 1982, the house-museum of the artist was established in the village of Mirzaani.
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Flowers for Margarita.

Niko felt absolutely happy: he climbed the creaky, newly varnished steps to the second floor of a spacious wooden house. His home, where every little thing was made by his own hands. He stood for a moment in the large, light-filled living room and abruptly flung open the door to the terrace.
The fresh morning air took Pirosmani's breath away. The first rays of the sun covered the top of Mount Mtatsminda, the winding gorge, the meadow and the crowns of trees with light gilding. A brook in the garden, breaking through from under a huge gray boulder, welcomes the new day with a cheerful murmur. But what's next for Niko? That's right, sluggish fellow. Rather, for the canvas and paints, until the fresh morning fog hid this wondrous beauty from him!
Niko rushes back to the house, which for some reason suddenly becomes gloomy and empty, and tries in vain to find his easel. He remembers that he left it on the oak table in the living room. The darkness becomes so thick and dense that it seems to the artist that he is no longer in his own house, but in some mysterious labyrinth, from which he can never find a way out and where he begins to suffocate. Pain and fear bind the mind. And Niko screams, screams with all his might. Someone must hear him and come to the rescue! But no one in the whole world cares about him! He will die in this terrible labyrinth...

Niko shuddered and woke up. A wet face from tears and an unbearable heat that devours the inside. This vision haunted him for more than a year. No, really, it’s better to really die in a dream than once again to open your eyes and feel this burning sensation in your chest - an unbearable disappointment, because you are the only one like a finger on the whole earth and your dream will never come true.

The Lord created him as an incorrigible dreamer, if every time he wakes up in some dirty corner, he stubbornly continues to dream that he will have his own big house and workshop. No, he does not dream of becoming rich at all. He just wants to work, paint his paintings from morning till night. To draw, completely forgetting that once any fat dukhan who offered him to depict Queen Tamara on the wall of the institution for a plate of kharcho could easily shout: “Hey, Niko, go, I’ll tell you how best to paint a picture ...”.

Niko Pirosmanashvili was just a poor house painter. One of those who spend the whole day wandering around the narrow streets of Tiflis, waiting for an accidental order. And in the evening, he, a beggarly vagabond with bloody legs, stands idle for hours at the gates of other people's houses in the hope that he will be allowed to spend the night in the master's barn. Niko has been sleeping for a long time, wherever he can - in basements, in attics or roughly knocked together benches, from which his whole body then ache. However, he is not used to it. Pirosmani, who is already over thirty, even forgot that he once had his own house ...

Niko was orphaned early. He hardly remembered his mother, only her smell - the smell of fresh goat's milk, cheese, herbs and young pungent garlic. He was brought up by his father, a laconic, thin, sad man suffering from severe bouts of chest disease. Aslan Pirosmanashvili was a simple gardener, and therefore, as soon as he began to walk, he taught his son to dig in the ground. At the age of four, Niko knew how to take care of the vine and plant bulbs of outlandish flowers in neat round holes.

Niko Pirosmani Father and son.

And when he was six, he grew such a huge rose bush that the old gardeners of the small Kakhetian village of Mirzaani came to look at this miracle. Approvingly clattering, they whispered among themselves: the boy has a great future. Old man Aslan can die in peace, he has such a son! He will not let the land that fed his ancestors perish...

Niko Pirosmani On the farm.

Niko Pirosmani Holiday.

But, to be honest, the land that Niko was supposed to inherit, flower beds and vines soon ceased to excite his imagination. The boy still diligently helped his father, but as soon as he had a free minute, he rushed into the house. Having pulled a piece of old wrapping paper and a pencil stub out of his father's chest, Niko settled down in a secluded place and began to draw everything in a row that caught his eye. A pot-bellied earthenware jug with broken handles, a young lamb in a stall, a shaggy dog ​​guarding the vineyard.

Niko Pirosmani Man on a donkey.

Niko Pirosmani Still Life.

The father, catching his son at this occupation, only sighed sadly: “This is not a man’s business, son, to dirty paper. So it would be good for something else ... ".

The uncle, who after the death of his father took the boy to Tiflis, also persuaded the obstinate nephew to forget about stupid pictures: “Where is your head, Niko, what are you wasting your time on? ..” An honest tailor, he decided to help the orphan open a meat or dairy shop. Of course, at first the income will be small. But Niko will definitely not have to starve ...
But this beggar, you see, got it into his head that he must certainly learn to draw! Does he know how much brushes and paints cost in the art shop on the main square?
Niko, perhaps, and life is not enough to accumulate enough money. So it's better for him to quickly take up his mind.

Pirosmanashvili offended his uncle very much when he left home early one morning without warning. He managed to get a job as a railway conductor.
The young man wanted to earn his own living, he had already seen how one fine day, with a confident gait, he would enter that very fashionable shop on the Maidan and buy himself brushes, a box of the best paints and many, many canvases. Let everyone know: Niko Pirosmanashvili is a true artist...

Niko Pirosmani in his youth.

Niko Pirosmani Lion and the sun.

But six months passed, and Niko still could not cross the threshold of the coveted store. Every day, passing by, he lingered for a minute or two at the shop window. How unfair the world is, if working from morning to night and eating only stale bread with yogurt, he saved up only a few miserable pennies!
However, Niko was not used to complaining: everything is not so bad as long as in his canvas bag there is a piece of rough black oilcloth and vials with muddy solutions of various colors (Pirosmanashvili prepared paints himself, he was especially good at black: ash, a little bit of oven soot, a few drops of infusion of oak bark, a bit of oil - and it turned out a beautiful black color).

Niko Pirosmani Janitor.
Niko Pirosmani Cook.
Niko Pirosmani Nurse with a child.
Niko Pirosmani Carrier of flour.
Niko Pirosmani A man with a bag of wine.

But even on oilcloth, with paints that would have spread into one muddy spot for another, he will so skillfully paint his famous still lifes - shish kebab sticks, jugs of wine, baked lambs, that in 1902 they will write about him in the newspaper:
"A talent, a nugget who has perfectly studied the ancient Georgian and Persian frescoes ...". Unfamiliar words, they did not fit in so well with Niko Pirosmanashvili, a simple guy from the working outskirts, but he would remember them for a lifetime. And in the long cold nights, homeless and lonely Niko repeated them to himself. It made him feel a little warmer...

Niko Pirosmani Quinto spree.

It was an early morning. Niko, renting a miserable little closet from the janitor, tried to move and open his eyes, but nothing came of it. What is it with him? Is it time to go to work already? So, perhaps, the place will not be lost for long. Trains don't wait for latecomers. He tried to get up again, but fiery circles swam before his eyes, and he sank to the floor exhausted. Niko is sick. It is not surprising if you know what kind of drafts walk through the cars.
For a whole week he tossed about in the fierce heat. Thanks to the janitor's daughter, who, timidly looking into the guest's closet (her father forbade going there so as not to catch the infection), brought him hot herbal tea and a handful of crackers ... When a little stronger Niko reached the railway station, it turned out that he had long been calculated . Some nimble lad of about twenty was walking along the platform in his favorite blue conductor's uniform cap...

So Niko was left without a job and homeless (the janitor got rid of an uncomfortable guest who owed him a few months' pay). Thoughts were confused: where to go, how to live on, if you can’t even take a deep breath - after Niko’s illness, it seemed that some unknown beast settled inside him, turning all the insides inside out with a clawed paw.
Uncle Niko even shed a tear when one day in an alley on the outskirts of the city he ran into his nephew - emaciated, thin, in torn pants and a jacket from someone else's shoulder. This is what happens when you do not listen to the good advice of a relative. But nothing, Niko still has the opportunity to fix everything ...

Soon, Pirosmanashvili became the owner of his own dairy shop (merchants from the Maidan, under the guarantee of his uncle, lent him a small amount). He immediately drew a large sign - two cows, squinting at customers with cherry eyes in surprise, put on a white apron and stood behind the counter.

Niko Pirosmani White cow.

Who would have thought that trading would be such an interesting business! From morning until noon, he only had time to turn around, weighing round heads of fresh buttery cheese, pouring milk and cream, and carefully placing delicious, sweetish curd in small earthenware jars.

Niko Pirosmani Fruit shop.

And when the sun was already high at its zenith, seizing a moment, he sat down in the shade near the threshold and began to draw. How many customers passed in front of him in a day? Do not count ... And few of them guessed that the shopkeeper Niko, an incorrigible dreamer and dreamer, painted their portraits on an old black oilcloth.

Niko Pirosmani Friends of Begos.

Niko Pirosmani Childless millionaire and poor with children.

Many years later, Pirosmanashvili will remember that time as the most fertile in his life. He was a respected citizen, an honest worker, many mothers only dreamed of marrying their daughters to him. He had long since become his own man in a fashionable art shop and had even set aside some money to buy a small house on the outskirts of Tiflis. Life, in which everything was just getting better, collapsed overnight.

The theater of miniatures "Belle Vue" arrived in Tiflis, in which, as they said, some French celebrity shone.
On April 7, 1909, the Tiflis Leaflet reported "the only benefit performance of the beautiful Marguerite de Sèvres, who represents the new Parisian genre of metamorphosis..."

Niko Pirosmani Actress Margarita.

Niko really did not like noisy gatherings, therefore, dejectedly trailing after a friend who decided to bring him out into the world, he already imagined how desperately he would be bored. And so it happened. He was about to run away, when suddenly the curtain went up and he saw Her. A silk dress cinched at the waist, a large pink flower in her hair, and pumps. Margarita looked around the hall, straightened her unruly bangs and sang in a deep chesty voice. The girl sang in French, and Niko, not understanding a word, felt himself sucked in the stomach. An unpretentious song penetrated right into the soul. Niko did not hear the rumble of applause, did not notice how some especially zealous fans, handing Margarita bouquets, intimately whispered something in her ear. She didn't even try to pull away...

Niko Pirosmani Woman with flowers and umbrella.

As if in a fog, Pirosmani wandered around the city the whole night and at dawn he was already standing at the gate of the most famous gardener on the outskirts of Ortachala. At seven in the morning, carefully clutching a huge armful of fresh roses to his chest, he was already in the empty lobby of the hotel where Margarita was staying. The gloomy porter, rubbing his eyes with his fist, could not understand what the thin gentleman in a stale shirt and dusty boots wanted from him.
- Mademoiselle Marguerite? The young lady ordered not to let anyone in.
It's good that Niko had a few coins left in his pocket, which softened the heart of the stubborn old man...
Taking off like a bird to the second floor, he stands near the cherished door. How wildly the heart beats! The door was opened by a maid.

Niko Pirosmani Beauty.

Margarita, reclining on the sofa, muttered something angrily in French. Then she got up and, taking the bouquet from the dumbfounded Niko, casually threw it on the windowsill. Again those unbearable southern flowers, from which the head hurts so much! Margarita rummaged through her purse and, putting a silver coin into Niko's palm, immediately forgot about his existence. Stretching lazily, she threw off a light dressing gown from her shoulders and, remaining in one shirt, admired her reflection in the mirror: a mop of shiny hair, matte skin, high breasts. Niko looked spellbound.
And suddenly, in one second, the beauty turned into an angry lioness, how is this ragamuffin still here ?! “Get out! Get out!” For a few more days, falling asleep and waking up, he heard these words, whistling over his ear, like a blow of a whip.

Niko Pirosmani Woman with a glass of beer.

Margarita was right: Niko shouldn't have stood like a block of wood and stared at her with all his eyes. She mistook him for a messenger - well, rightly so. Tousled hair, stubble on cheeks, battered suit. What else could she think of him?

Going to Magarita for the second time, Pirosmanashvili carefully prepared. He cleared out the entire cash register in the dairy shop, grabbed the money set aside for the house, and first of all went to the best clothing store and a hairdresser. Brand new, swanky suit, patent-leather boots, pomaded hair. It only remained to go to the suburbs of Ortachala...

The footmen of the hotel fell from fatigue, for an hour raising huge baskets to the second floor: lilies, camellias, daffodils, roses. And the flowers kept coming.
Margarita came down with a severe migraine: some crazy admirer, apparently, dreams that her poor head would burst from pain. These terrible flowers filled her small room to capacity, but what is there a room - the whole floor, the whole hotel! Margarita lay with a wet towel on her forehead and every minute threatened to give her soul to God. However, she nevertheless asked the maid to find out what kind of noble gentleman (only a rich admirer could so shamelessly overspend!) seeks her favor ...

The servant did not have to find out anything: Niko Pirosmanashvili, a middling shopkeeper, was already standing on the threshold of her room.
Margarita could not recover from disappointment for a long time: thin, clumsy, having apparently spent all her savings on this flashily expensive suit and nasty flowers. Where have you seen it - to buy up five gardens in the bud! Positively, the guy is a real fool. How do you say it in Russian? Fool? Yes, a fool who has completely lost his mind ...
The girl forced herself to smile: "Merci, Monsieur, you are very kind..."

Niko Pirosmani Beauty with a fan.

And Niko was already on his knees: would Mademoiselle Margarita agree to take a walk with him in the evening through the city? Margarita agreed: maybe this madman will give a pretty little ring with a diamond, which she noticed a couple of days ago in a jewelry store window? After all, she has nothing to lose...
If Niko had at least some money left, he would certainly give his beloved a beautiful satin dress embroidered with beads, to which she pointed to him with a chiseled finger, and that ring ... But his pockets are empty, and Niko Pirosmanashvili reads to Margarita all evening poetry. She reads non-stop, and although the girl does not know a word of Georgian, Niko could swear that she understood what they were talking about. Even a block of stone could not remain indifferent to the words of love coming from the very heart.

Pirosmani did not remember how long his happiness lasted: a day, a week, or maybe an eternity ... One evening, he, as always timidly, knocked on the door of her room. But no one answered, and Niko ventured to lightly push her with his hand. Yes, he froze on the threshold: the windows were open, old posters were scattered in disorder on the floor, tiny shoes with knocked-off heels lay in the corner, a blue hat ribbon caught on the closet door ...

Niko was sitting on the banks of the Kura, looking at the muddy foamy stream. Gone...
Without saying goodbye, without leaving anything as a memory of yourself. Only a blue hat-band, which he took from the hotel, and which he will cherish for the rest of his days. (They wrote that the actress left incognito with some rich Georgian officer).

Niko became poor again. A new owner appeared in his shop, the first thing he ordered was to cover up with green paint two cows on the sign, instead writing briefly and clearly: “Dairy” ...
In the city, they laughed at Pirosmani: it’s necessary to spend a fortune on some kind of variety show singer! Rightfully so, now he learns what it means to save every penny.
So the artist Niko became a simple painter, and from now on his paintings adorned only the sooty walls of dukhans.
In 1912, famous artists Kirill Zdanevich and Mikhail Le Dantu arrived in Tiflis from Paris.

Reference:
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Mikhail Vasilievich Ledantyu (Le Dantu)

Russian artist. A six-month trip to Tiflis in 1912, to the house of the parents of his friend Kirill Zdanevich, had a great influence on creativity. There Ledantyu draws attention to the works of an unknown self-taught artist Niko Pirosmanishvili, decorating the walls and signs.
The most famous work of the artist himself is the canvas "Sazandar" (portrait of a playing Georgian musician).
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Kirill Mikhailovich Zdanevich

1892, Kojori, near Tiflis - 1969, Tbilisi

Georgian Soviet artist, Honored Art Worker of the Georgian SSR, elder brother of the artist Ilya Zdanevich. He was influenced by cubo-futurism, the founder of "orchestral painting" and "everything", a member of the "41" group. He worked in the theater, acted as a graphic artist and book illustrator.
Father - Pole, French teacher M. A. Zdanevich, mother - Georgian, pianist, student of P. Tchaikovsky, nee V. K. Gamkrelidze.
Kirill completed the painting and drawing courses of N. V. Sklifosovsky in Tiflis, entered the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, but did not finish the course.
In 1913, together with his brother and M. V. Le-Dantyu, N. Pirosmani discovered painting. He was close to M. Larionov and N. Goncharova, was a member of the "Donkey's Tail" and "Target" associations.
In Paris, he studied in the workshop of A. Archipenko, and earned the praise of P. Picasso.
In 1917-1920 he lived in independent Georgia, in 1920-1921 in Constantinople and Paris, then again in Tiflis. He took part in the activities of the Georgian futurists, designed performances in the theater. Shota Rustaveli.
July 30, 1949 was arrested, sentenced to 15 years, exiled to Vorkuta.
Released on February 25, 1957, in March of the same year he was rehabilitated and returned to Tbilisi.
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Thanks to them, “Feast of Kinto”, “Black Lion”, “Ortachal Beauties”, “Actress Margarita” and 80 more paintings by Pirosmani, painted on rough oilcloth and gathering dust somewhere among the janitor's rags, were saved.

Niko Pirosmani Portrait of Alexander Garanov.

Niko Pirosmani Sister and brother.

Niko Pirosmani Firewood seller.
Niko Pirosmani Cold beer.
Niko Pirosmani The son of a rich kinto.
Niko Pirosmani Man with a barrel.
Niko Pirosmani Girl with a balloon.

It was Zdanevich who arranged Pirosmani's first solo exhibition at the Louvre in 1969. Recognition came to the artist half a century after he died.
(Wikipedia has information that a one-day exhibition of Pirosmanashvili's works was held in the workshop of Kirill Zdanevich in Tiflis on May 5, 1916. It was a relative success, and in 1916 it was decided to invite Pirosmanashvili to the newly created Society of Georgian Artists).

Pirosmanashvili in sketches by Georgian artists made at a meeting of the Georgian Art Society in May 1916.
Drawing by Sh.Kikodze
Drawing by A.Mrevlishvili
Drawing by Ya.Nikoladze

In 1918, Pirosmani, gray-haired, thin as a skeleton, died without regaining consciousness in a Tiflis hospital. His grave was never found.
(Pirosmani died in Tiflis on May 5, 1918 from starvation and illness. He spent three days in the basement of house 29 on Molokan street. Having found him, he was taken to the hospital, where the artist died a day and a half later).

Niko Pirosmani

A small neatly dressed lady with a wrinkled face like a baked apple has been coming to the Louvre for several days now only to spend a couple of hours looking at a single painting - a portrait of the actress Marguerite. Few people would now recognize in this old woman the beautiful Mademoiselle de Sevres ...
It took her a lot of effort to remember her old tour in Tiflis and the eccentric admirer who filled her with flowers. The only pity is that she completely forgot his face ...
Madame looked around and, making sure that no one cared about her in the huge hall, she came up and kissed the painting. Let the artist Niko Pirosmani forgive her, forgive the actress Margarita, who turned out to be unworthy of his love ...

Niko Pirosmani Picnic.

Varvara Kholupets
magazine "Caravan of stories"

Primitivism stands apart in the world of art. Comparing paintings by artists with drawings by a nephew in kindergarten is the most obvious reaction to such art. However, by discarding snobbery and exposing the heart, you can get something very special. The impressions received from naive paintings are sometimes brighter and sharper than contact with the great examples of academicism. One of the most famous primitivists is Nikolay Pirosmanashvili. Using his example, let's try to understand how a strong effect is achieved by "simple" techniques.

She-bear with her cubs 1917

A little biography

Niko Pirosmani is a Georgian artist whose life is tightly intertwined with fiction and legends. Art historians do not even know exactly when he was born, because the documents have not been preserved, and Niko Pirosmani himself did not like to talk much about himself. Having not received a systematic education, he nevertheless learned to read and write in Georgian and Russian. Often changing his place of work (printing house, dairy shop, railway), Pirosmani still found the time and money to paint. Gradually, Pirosmani left all other work and began to fulfill orders from cafe owners or dukhans. Pirosmani made signs, painted the walls and windows of establishments for money and food.

In 1912, Russian futurists noticed Pirosmani's work and bought finished paintings from him to exhibit in Moscow. The popularity of Pirosmani's works grew, he was even included in the Tbilisi "Society for the Encouragement of Artists" and began to exhibit paintings. However, the dry law of 1914 deprived Pirosmani of orders, and the artist died in 1918 as a result of exhaustion and hypothermia, as he lived in a damp basement without a livelihood. After the death of Niko Pirosmani, his popularity grows and after 10 years serious scientific research of his work begins. Pirosmani's paintings could then still be found in the old cafes of Tbilisi and saved from destruction. It is unbelievable that cheap drinking establishments carelessly kept works that today are worth millions. In 2016, Roe Deer by the Stream was sold at Sotheby's in London for 629 thousand pounds (about 916 thousand dollars). And a year earlier, Arsenal Mountain at Night was sold by Christie's auction house for 963 thousand pounds (1 .5 million dollars).

Working a lot with commercial (signboards for dukhans and painting taverns) and personal projects, Niko Pirosmani analyzed his work and subsequently repeated successful techniques. Thanks to this, many art historians believe that the artist cannot be classified as a primitivist, rather, he is closer to the latest European movements in art for that time.

Color

The famous black color in Pirosmani's paintings appears due to the fact that black oilcloth often serves as the basis for the paintings. You can often read that the artist took ordinary oilcloth from cafe tables, for which he made signs. This well suits the image of a poor artist, but does not correspond to reality. Pirosmani consciously experimented using canvas, linoleum, oilcloth and cardboard. This opinion is supported by the approximately equal cost of these materials. Pirosmani settled on oilcloth, because he realized that its black uniform color could be successfully used. He wrote not in black on white, but on the contrary, in white on black. Completely priming the sometimes black plane of the oilcloth, changing the density of the layer and creating the necessary shape of the relief.

Font

The applied task of the sign meant informativeness and the presence of words. However, Niko Pirosmani, including the text in his works, makes them an organic part. Despite the frequent grammatical errors in these short phrases and abbreviations outside the norms of the Russian language, there are entire scientific works devoted to the text in Pirosmani's paintings, proving that these are not just inscriptions. He does not use contrasting colors and does not cover the figures with an inscription, but delicately fits the letters into the free space, leaving the main role to the image, not the text. So the word lemonade on the sign is not accidentally reinforced by the abundance of lemons in the background of the picture.

Kakhetian wine "Kardanakh"

Texture

The texture of the oilcloth is not visible on the reproductions of the works. However, if you look at the paintings in the museum, its important role becomes obvious. Studying the painting "Boar" it seems that you see the rough skin of a wild animal. In the paintings with the feast of Georgian men, the texture of the bare background with small cracks and irregularities is also appropriate for the image of stern men. In portraits of women and children, Pirosmani always hides the coarseness of the background, choosing light colors for this.

Today, Pirosmani's talent is appreciated not only in his native Georgia, but all over the world. His works adorn the best museums in the world, and the richest collectors hunt for his paintings. Songs and poems are written about him, films are made and performances are staged. And all this is based on only the only reliable materials: his paintings. So simple and crude, they have been inspiring and exciting for more than a hundred years, those who are ready to look and see.

The Georgian artist Pirosmani lived a short life, approximately 55-56 years old. Little attention was paid to him. The facts are not confirmed by documents, but by approximate stories of eyewitnesses. Therefore, the biography of Pirosmani has become overgrown with fiction, and we have no choice but to follow the legendary outline. The style of his work is called primitivism. There is no derogatory meaning in this word. It simply means "primary". After all, he is just a brilliant self-taught artist who did not study anywhere, but simply took paints and painted, as children do.

Signboard

Let's look at one of Pirosmani's masterpieces. The artist painted a sign for the Zakatala pub. It was painted in oil on oilcloth at an unknown time. The work is full of obscure charm. Either due to color, or due to the phaeton and the carriage with passengers drawn by horses in the foreground, or perhaps because of the largest inscription, made in red raised letters on a white background.

Two carriages are driving towards each other on the green grass. Behind them, the white background of the inscription spills like a lake. In the distance, against the background of the mountains, a peasant cart is riding, which is harnessed by oxen, and even further away you can see a horseman on a horse. And above all the dark, but joyful landscape in the background, the sky is blue with a full moon. She illuminates a distant city, bathed in her silvery light. However, against the background of the mountains, the red sun shines with rays departing from it. You might think that the pub is open around the clock. Admiration is the main thing that can be said about this sign.

What do we know about Niko's childhood and youth?

Turning over all the archives, art historians suggested that Niko Pirosmani was born in 1862. Nothing can be reliably said about him by dates, this is only an assumption. This event took place in a large peasant family in the village of Mirzaani. Niko was the youngest of four children. He was seven or eight years old when his father died, then his mother and older brother. Perhaps two sisters survived. The little boy was taken to the neighboring village of Shulaveri by the widow of a manufacturer from Baku, E. Kalantarova. He spent about 15 years in this family, learned to read and write in Georgian and Russian. It is believed that for a short time he returned to his sister in Mirzaani and was a shepherd. Together with his son Georgy Kalantarova, Niko left for Tiflis, where he learned to work in a printing house. Then he left there and lived in the house of his brother Kalantarova. From wandering artists, he learned how to handle paints and paint signs for dukhans and shops. He also visited the zoo. Let's see how Pirosmani worked. The artist often painted animals. He has the king of beasts, a noble deer in the background of a landscape, a simple cock family in the village, a clean pig with piglets. Behind the naivety of Pirosmani's works, the paintings hide sadness and sadness, joy and anxiety.

"Giraffe"

The artist dreamed of giving freedom to everyone, and he painted a giraffe without a cage. How can one not remember N. Gumilyov.

Somewhere far, far away on Lake Chad, an exquisite giraffe roams. He is slender and graceful. Its skin is decorated with a magical pattern. Only the moon dares to equal it when it breaks and sways in the waters of deep lakes. Sad, sad and full of silent question is the look of the large eyes of the giraffe Pirosmani. The artist wrote that he remembers the smell of unthinkable herbs, about his smooth and joyful run among them - this colored ship of the savannas. Only the azure sky reminds the captured and caged giraffe of his homeland.

Independent earnings

For four years, Niko worked on the railroad as a conductor and in repair shops. At this time, a magnificent vagabond storyteller came there. His name was Alyosha Peshkov. His stories captivated all who heard him. He was prompted to write down his stories. So Makar Chudra appeared in print, and a great Russian writer was born. Niko broke the rules: he was late and skipped. He was fined, and finally he quit himself. He was given a severance pay, and together with a friend, an aspiring artist, who had not yet fully found himself, opened a shop selling milk. At the same time, he saved up some money and built a house in Mirzaani. For the shop, Niko drew two signs with a black and a white cow. For six years Niko struggled with trading, almost quitting it. The companion gave him one ruble every day. Finally, he abandoned trade for good and began to do what his soul was drawn to - painting. This happened in 1900.

Freelancer

The long-awaited, albeit impoverished, freedom for Pirosmani has come. The pictures that he quickly drew for the dukhans, he sold very cheaply. For only thirty rubles, sometimes for lunch, dinner, or just a glass of chacha.

Most often he painted for Bego Yaksiyev. He lived with him for several years.

Later, Pirosmani will paint the painting "Bego Company" - a feast at the set table. According to one of the assumptions, the person who raised the fish high is a self-portrait.

For the son of the Eldorado steward, who stood in a large amusement park, Niko Pirosmani painted a magnificent lion on a black oilcloth.

Black royal lion

It strikes with grandeur and restraint of colors. There are not many of them: only four or five. Black oilcloth serves as a background, and all shades of the king of beasts shining in the sunset rays are made with whitewash. A painter from God understood color no worse than artists who graduated from academies.

A bronze body filled with unspent power, formidable fangs, a magnificent mane, and at the same time the saddest eyes. This picture is a masterpiece of Pirosmani, nowadays it is connected with thefts and scandals, lawsuits in the court of heirs. While she is still in Moscow. It is not known when she will return to her homeland, and according to auction estimates, she is worth more than one million dollars. That was the gift Pirosmani had. Paintings during his lifetime, few people appreciated, and even more so - understood. The exception is the collector Kirill Zdanevich, but we will talk about him a little later.

Fantastic love story

In 1905, or maybe in 1909, the beautiful Frenchwoman Marguerite de Sevres came to Tiflis on tour. She entertained the metropolitan audience with her singing and dancing. This is a historical character. Her photographs and posters have been preserved. True, in modern France they know nothing about it. It is also assumed that a beautiful love story for her by Pirosmani was invented by the romantic K. Paustovsky. He arrived in Tiflis when the artist himself was no longer alive. But, one way or another, I will have to tell this story, which is like a beautiful dream, the awakening from which was tragic. Pirosmani attended the performance of Margarita. He was shocked. Where he took the money is unknown, but in the morning the entire pavement and sidewalk in front of the house where Margarita lived were littered with flowers of all kinds: lilacs, acacia, anemones, poppies, peonies, lilies, honeysuckle, begonias, hawthorns.

Amazed, Margarita sent a note and a ticket to the performance to the fan, and the careless artist skipped the whole evening with friends. When he remembered the invitation, Margarita was no longer in the city. Pauls' song "A Million Scarlet Roses" is also a beautiful variation on this theme, nothing more. The portrait of Margaret presented above, as art historians suggest, is copied from a poster. And next to it stands an elderly woman who came to the Louvre in 1969 for the Pirosmani exhibition to see her portrait. Was this fairy tale story or not, but it is very poetic and beautiful.

Fame and recognition

By 1912, all the shops and taverns were covered with the works of Pirosmani. The artist painted more than two thousand paintings. During the years of war and revolution, their number was reduced to three hundred. Artists Kirill Zdanevich and his brother Ilya were the first to become interested in him as researchers and collectors.

Before you is a portrait of Ilya, painted by Pirosmani. In the 16th year, the brothers arranged a small exhibition of his paintings. The artist immediately dreamed of building a large house where one could gather, drink tea and talk about art.

harsh reality

Dreams were not destined to come true. The year of 1918 was hungry and cold. The artist caught a severe cold, spent three days half-dead in the basement, where he was accidentally found, and died in the hospital. He was buried in a common grave for the poor, and his resting place is unknown.

Creativity of the artist

Pirosmani's painting is a hymn to a constant holiday, which he created day after day in spite of his half-starved existence. These are mostly abundant feasts and feasts on signs. A large place in his work is occupied by images of animals. Donkeys with peasants, fallow deer, deer, beautiful well-fed cows, pigs. All the images have the sad eyes of the artist himself. In all the paintings there is a black background, since the artist did not use a canvas, but a black oilcloth, often taken from the table in the dukhan where he worked.

Pirosmani House-Museum

It is located in the village of Mirzaani in a house built by the artist himself. This one-storey building has a terrace and a cellar. It exhibits 13 early works of the master.

Nearby in Kakheti there is a local history museum in Sighnaghi, where 15 paintings by Pirosmani are exhibited.

Niko Pirosmani (real name Nikolai Aslanovich Pirosmanashvili (Pirosmanishvili), 1862 - May 5, 1918, Tbilisi) is a well-known Georgian artist of the 20th century, self-taught, a representative of primitivism.

Biography of Niko Pirosmani

Pirosmani was born presumably in 1862 in the village of Mirzaani (Kakheti) into a peasant family, the fourth and last child (brother George, sisters Mariam and Peputsa). In 1870, his father died, soon after that his mother and older brother.

Niko Pirosmani, the only one from the family, stayed in the village of Shulaveri with his father's last employer, the widow of a Baku manufacturer, Eprosine Kalantarova. He spent about fifteen years intermittently in the Kalantarov family, first in Shulaveri, then, together with his son Eprosine Georgy Kalantarov, moved to Tiflis in the mid-1870s. He learned to read Georgian and Russian, but received no formal education. For several months he was in training in the craft at a printing house, then he left and lived in the house of Elizabed Khankalamova (Kalantarov's sister), then with her brother. Presumably in 1876 he returned to Mirzaani for a short time to his sister and worked as a shepherd.

Little by little he studied painting with itinerant artists who painted signs for shops and dukhans. In the mid-1880s, together with the self-taught artist Gigo Zaziashvili, he opened a decorative painting workshop in Tiflis.

Creativity Pirosmani

A significant part of Pirosmani's works, both preserved and probably lost, are signboards. In Tiflis at the beginning of the 20th century, it was an extremely popular genre. Signboards usually contain inscriptions in Russian and Georgian, and Russians are often misspelled, obviously, the artist did not attach much importance to this. Very often they are made on a black background.

The black background is also characteristic of Pirosmani's other works, primarily for portraits. In order not to create too bright a contrast between the white face and the black background, he mixed the pigment into the white paint.

He often painted portraits from photographs. This is how the portrait of Ilya Zdanevich (1913) and the portrait of Alexander Garanov (1906) were painted. It is known that the portrait of Zdanevich was painted in three days from beginning to end. Pirosmani worked quickly and did not try to improve or correct his work in any way.

A large place in the artist's work is occupied by animalistic images. The animals painted by the artist are not so much similar to their real prototypes as to each other. As Lado Gudiashvili noted, the animals in the paintings have the eyes of the artist himself. As a rule, all animals are depicted in a three-quarter turn.

The constantly repeating plot of Pirosmani's work is the scene of a holiday or a feast. They can be part of the landscape, or they can be the subject of an independent work. These scenes provide a striking contrast to the half-starved existence of the artist himself.

The most famous works are "Janitor" (1904); "Seller of firewood"; "Fisherman among the rocks" (1906); "Bear on a Moonlit Night" (1905); "Barn" (1915); Doe (1916); "Feast of the Three Princes", "Margarita (1909)", "Giraffe".

The ideas about Pirosmani are dominated by legends and stereotypes. Stereotypes are obligingly turned up at every step: the stereotype of an orphan given into service, the stereotype of a beggar artist who has no money for paints, the stereotype of a sufferer ruined by enemies. Legends arose already during his lifetime, they appear even now. In the seemingly ingenuous and simple existence of Pirosmanashvili, there was too much inexplicable and incomprehensible, and his amazing art casts a bizarre light on him. The unusualness of fate, the originality of personality, the mystery of everyday life, he was as if created for a legend.

In its own way, it seemed mysterious to each of the two worlds that knew it: the world of dukhans, wine cellars and barrel organ - and the world of artists, writers, journalists. And both of these worlds - each in its own way - created legends about him and sincerely combined fiction with facts.

We really know very little about Pirosmanashvili, but much more than is commonly believed. Back in the late 1910s, enthusiasts - poets, artists, journalists - began to look for people who knew Pirosmanashvili and write down their stories. Many entries were published at the same time or somewhat later. The collection has not stopped until now, and from time to time, next to the undoubted apocrypha, clumsy fakes, shameless compilations, something new and interesting is found, although it comes to us most often from second or even third hands.

True, these materials are very specific. Recording an oral story is generally not the most reliable source, and even more so the stories of those spicy people who surrounded Pirosmanashvili. Their stories are sometimes extremely fascinating in themselves, they tell a lot of interesting things about the artist. But they suffer from incompleteness and incoherence: much of what interests us did not bother the narrators at all, much is distorted by their own perception; events separated from each other by years turn out to be connected, events that are closely interconnected are spoken of as if they had nothing to do with each other.

The thread broke, most of the beads-facts were lost, and the rest were mixed up - this is how his biography appears before us.

Pirosmanashvili did not tell us anything about himself. He corresponded with his sister, who lived in the country; these letters would have been worthless, but they died in an absurd way - they were destroyed by the sister herself, suddenly frightened of something, perhaps more and more frequent questions about her brother.

He carried a thick notebook with him and often made some notes in it; the notebook disappeared during his lifetime. And the companions of his everyday life were of little interest, and his inner motives were inaccessible, and from their memories one can extract only scattered hints that are difficult to interpret. Only towards the end of his life, Pirosmanashvili began to meet educated people, but they, as if understanding the significance of his work, or at least showing interest in him, turned out to be extremely inattentive: they did not write down, did not remember.

The artist Niko Pirosmani was unrecognized for a long time. Having developed his own, for some, downright unimaginable painting technique, he put creativity above all else. And, despite his difficult life, filled with hardships and hardships, perhaps with the help of his paintings he found temporary solace. Let's see his biography and paintings in high quality with titles. Being a poor man in Tiflis, with the help of simple materials and cheap paints of his own making, he sometimes created creations with an acute social meaning.

Biography of Niko Pirosmani

Nikolai Aslanovich Pirosmanishvili or Niko Pirosmani (as he preferred to call himself) was born around 1862 into a simple peasant family in the Kakheti village of Mirzaani. While still a boy, he was orphaned, then lost his sister.

In his youth, he was forced to engage in trade for some time and work as a brake conductor on freight trains. Unbeknownst to himself, he is fond of painting, painting the walls of his shop.

Perhaps, almost the whole life and biography of Pirosmanishvili is a test of poverty and hunger. Often he earned himself literally for dinner and a glass of wine by painting signs for entertainment establishments. But, perhaps, if his fate was easy and well-fed, then we would not have known the creative nature of this person.

Surprisingly simple yet unique art technique

It is striking that, living from hand to mouth and in dire need, the artist Pirosmani often painted pictures that personified feasts, festivities, and rich feasts. Some people find in his creations similarities with ancient Georgian frescoes. And, indeed, there is something majestic in his works, but at the same time simple and sincere.

Paintings by Pirosmani

Being a self-taught artist, he independently developed his own style, which in art is called primitivism.. Pirosmanashvili wrote quickly, easily, not wanting to correct inaccuracies. If you are interested in others trends in art, offer .

Having independently learned Georgian and Russian, he made inscriptions on signs in one and the other language. At the same time, he often made mistakes in Russian words, but, apparently, he was not very worried about this.

First of all, the artist showed himself as an animal painter and creator of portraits, he painted excellently from photographs.

It may seem strange to someone that Niko wrote on cardboard, ordinary white or black oilcloth. This is explained simply - oilcloth was in any, the poorest Georgian house, and for a talented artist, even this material and a few cheap paints will not become an obstacle to creating a masterpiece.