Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev(February 23 (March 7), Astrakhan - May 26, Leningrad) - Russian Soviet artist. Academician of painting (1909). Member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (since 1923). Portrait painter, theater artist, decorator.

Biography [ | ]

Six months later, Kustodiev returned to Russia and worked in the Kostroma province on a series of paintings “Fairs” and “Village Holidays”. In 1904 he became a founding member of the New Society of Artists. In 1905-1907 he worked as a cartoonist in the satirical magazine “Bug” (famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), after its closure - in the magazines “Hellish Mail” and “Sparks”. Since 1907 - member of the Union of Russian Artists. In 1909, on the recommendation of Repin and other professors, he was elected a member of the Academy of Arts. At the same time, Kustodiev was asked to replace Serov as a teacher of the portrait-genre class at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but fearing that this activity would take a lot of time from personal work and not wanting to move to Moscow, Kustodiev refused the position. Since 1910 - a member of the renewed "World of Art".

In 1909, Kustodiev showed the first signs of a spinal cord tumor. Several operations brought only temporary relief; For the last 15 years of his life, the artist was confined to a wheelchair. Due to illness, he was forced to write his works while lying down. However, it was during this difficult period of his life that his most vivid, temperamental, and cheerful works appeared. In 1913 he taught at the New Art Workshop (St. Petersburg).

In 1914, Kustodiev rented an apartment in a St. Petersburg apartment building at the address: Ekateringofsky Prospekt, 105. From 1915 until the end of his life he lived in the apartment building of E. P. Mikhailov (Vvedenskaya Street, 7, apt. 50). He was buried at the Nikolskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1948, the ashes and monument were moved to the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra (photo of the grave).

Family [ | ]

Kustodiev Boris with his wife Yulia. 1903

Wife Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya was born in 1880. In 1900, she met her future husband in the Kostroma province, where Boris Kustodiev went to sketch in the summer. She reciprocated the young artist’s feelings and became his wife in the early 1900s, taking her husband’s surname. In their marriage, the Kustodievs had a son, Kirill (1903–1971, also became an artist) and a daughter, Irina (1905–1981). The third child, Igor, died in infancy. Yulia Kustodieva survived her husband and died in 1942.

Illustrations and book graphics[ | ]

In 1905-1907 he worked in the satirical magazines “Bug” (famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), “Hell Mail” and “Sparks”.

Kustodiev, who has a fine sense of line, performed cycles of illustrations for classical works and for the creations of his contemporaries (illustrations for Leskov’s works: “The Darner,” 1922; “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” 1923).

Possessing a firm touch, he worked in the techniques of lithography and linoleum engraving.

Painting [ | ]

Kustodiev began his career as a portrait artist. Already while working on sketches for Repin’s “Great Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901,” student Kustodiev showed his talent as a portrait painter. In sketches and portrait sketches for this multi-figure composition, he coped with the task of achieving similarities with Repin’s creative style. But Kustodiev the portrait painter was closer to Serov. Painterly plasticity, free long strokes, bright characteristics of appearance, emphasis on the artistry of the model - these were mostly portraits of fellow students and teachers of the Academy - but without Serov's psychologism. Kustodiev incredibly quickly for a young artist, but deservedly won fame as a portrait painter among the press and customers. However, according to A. Benoit:

“... the real Kustodiev is a Russian fair, motley, “big-eyed” calicoes, a barbaric “fight of colors,” a Russian suburb and a Russian village, with their accordions, gingerbread, dressed up girls and dashing guys... I claim that this is his real sphere, his real joy... When he paints fashionable ladies and respectable citizens, it is completely different - boring, sluggish, often even tasteless. And it seems to me that it’s not the plot, but the approach to it.”

Already from the beginning of the 1900s, Boris Mikhailovich was developing a unique genre of portrait, or rather, portrait-picture, portrait-type, in which the model is linked together with the surrounding landscape or interior. At the same time, this is a generalized image of a person and his unique individuality, revealing it through the world surrounding the model. In their form, these portraits are related to the genre images-types of Kustodiev (“Self-portrait” (1912), portraits of A. I. Anisimov (1915), F. I. Chaliapin (1922)).

But Kustodiev’s interests went beyond the portrait: it was no coincidence that he chose a genre painting (“At the Bazaar” (1903), not preserved) for his diploma work. In the early 1900s, for several years in a row he went to perform field work in the Kostroma province. In 1906, Kustodiev presented works that were new in their concept - a series of canvases on the themes of brightly festive peasant and provincial petty-bourgeois-merchant life (“Balagany”, “Maslenitsa”), in which the features of Art Nouveau are visible. The works are spectacular and decorative, revealing the Russian character through the everyday genre. On a deeply realistic basis, Kustodiev created a poetic dream, a fairy tale about provincial Russian life. In these works, great importance is attached to line, pattern, color spot, forms are generalized and simplified - the artist turns to gouache, tempera. The artist's works are characterized by stylization - he studies Russian parsuna of the 16th-18th centuries, lubok, signs of provincial shops and taverns, and folk crafts.

Subsequently, Kustodiev gradually shifted more and more towards an ironic stylization of folk and, especially, the life of the Russian merchants with a riot of colors and flesh (“Beauty”, “Russian Venus”, “Merchant’s Wife at Tea”).

For “Russian Venus” Kustodiev did not have a ready-made canvas. Then the artist took his own painting “On the Terrace” and began to write on its reverse side. Boris Mikhailovich was very ill. He could only sit in a special wheelchair for no more than two or three hours a day, overcoming terrible pain throughout his body. Sometimes I couldn’t pick up a brush. His life at this time was a feat. This painting became, as it were, the result of his life - a year later Kustodiev died.

One of the artist’s friends recalled:

“He rolled up to his canvases and drove away from them, as if challenging... impending death to a duel...”

“I have known a lot of interesting, talented and good people in my life, but if I have ever seen a truly high spirit in a person, it was in Kustodiev...” Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin

Theater works[ | ]

Like many artists of the turn of the century, Kustodiev also worked in the theater, transferring his vision of the work to the theater stage. The scenery performed by Kustodiev was colorful, close to his genre painting, but this was not always perceived as an advantage: creating a bright and convincing world, carried away by its material beauty, the artist sometimes did not coincide with the author’s plan and the director’s reading of the play (“The Death of Pazukhin” by Saltykov- Shchedrin, 1914, Moscow Art Theater; “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky, which never saw the light of day, 1918). In his later works for the theater, he moves away from a chamber interpretation to a more generalized one, seeks greater simplicity, builds the stage space, giving freedom to the director when constructing mise-en-scenes. Kustodiev's success was his design work in 1918-1920. opera performances (1920, “The Tsar’s Bride”, Bolshoi Opera Theater of the People’s House; 1918, “Snow Maiden”, Bolshoi Theater (not staged)). Scenery sketches, costumes and props for A. Serov’s opera “The Power of the Enemy” (Academic (former Mariinsky) Theater, 1921)

The productions of Zamyatin’s “The Flea” (1925, Moscow Art Theater 2nd; 1926, Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater) were successful. According to the memoirs of the director of the play A.D. Dikiy:

“It was so vivid, so precise that my role as a director accepting sketches was reduced to zero - I had nothing to correct or reject. It was as if he, Kustodiev, had been in my heart, overheard my thoughts, read Leskov’s story with the same eyes as me, and equally saw it in stage form. ... I have never had such complete, such inspiring like-mindedness with an artist as when working on the play “The Flea.” I learned the full meaning of this community when Kustodiev’s farcical, bright decorations appeared on the stage, and props and props made according to his sketches appeared. The artist led the entire performance, taking, as it were, the first part in the orchestra, which obediently and sensitively sounded in unison.”

After 1917, the artist participated in the decoration of Petrograd for the first anniversary of the October Revolution, painted posters, popular prints and paintings on revolutionary themes (“Bolshevik”, 1919-1920, Tretyakov Gallery; “Celebration in honor of the 2nd Congress of the Comintern on Uritsky Square”, 1921 , Russian Museum).

Significant works [ | ]

The wide panoramic canvas belongs to the brush of a Russian Soviet artist, known for his ability to create a bright, lush world in his paintings - Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev. The work of art was created in 1910, when the painter’s health had already begun […]

It was no coincidence that Kustodiev chose one of the most significant rituals for the people as the theme for his work. The artist’s unique idea was to show the attractive aspects of the national way of life, of which […]

Kustodiev, who managed to combine classical traditions with the national ideal of folk art in his work, did not refuse the innovations created by modernism and impressionism. The canvas is filled with bright light contrasts and sophistication of decorative stylization of the external […]

The painting “Trinity Day” recreated the broad spirit of folk festivities. Everyone knows the deep faith and respect for traditions on the part of the Russian people, and Trinity is one of the main Christian celebrations. In his work, Kustodiev lovingly [...]

The picturesque canvas “Bathers” by Boris Kustodiev, now stored in Minsk in the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, was written in 1917. By this time, the artist was suffering from an incurable disease - a spinal cord tumor - […]

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was born in 1878 into the family of an Astrakhan gymnasium teacher. At the age of fifteen, the artist began to actively master the mystery of drawing from the Russian painter Pavel Vlasov. Then Boris entered […]

In the last week of February, Maslenitsa is traditionally celebrated in Rus'. Everyone, young and old, takes part in Maslenitsa festivities. Broad Maslenitsa is a national holiday, celebrated colorfully and riotously with songs, round dances, […]

The nature and culture of Russia have been ideological inspirations for many creators. Among them is the famous artist Boris Kustodiev. The master admired the harsh winter and the festive rituals of the common people. One of the sunny days he [...]

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, as a master of several artistic movements, was alien and inconvenient for many of his contemporaries. Having a liking for different types of painting and participating in several artistic associations, he confidently followed his own creative path.

The Peredvizhniki accused Kustodiev of being “popular”, modernists called him hopelessly straightforward, avant-garde artists were indignant at his umbilical attachment to their teacher Repin, proletarian artists saw in him “a singer of the merchant-kulak environment.” And all these accusations were provoked by the artist’s creative scatteredness.

In Kustodiev, several artistic attachments coexisted together, which distinguished him from others. It’s easy to see this if you take one year of his work offhand. For example, in 1920 he painted “Merchant’s Wife with a Mirror”, “Blue House”, “Merchant’s Wife with Purchases”, “Trinity Day (provincial holiday), a classic portrait of his wife, the painting “Bolshevik”, “May Day Parade. Petrograd. Field of Mars."

In an artistic environment, as in any other, you cannot be talented in everything. Kustodiev’s simultaneous appeal to completely different themes and styles came down to the lack of internal integrity of the artist. “Multipurpose” equaled “aimlessness,” which already foreshadowed a sad verdict on his future career.

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was born in 1878 in Astrakhan. The artist’s father, a teacher at the theological seminary Mikhail Lukich Kustodiev, died of consumption when his son was in his second year. Mother Ekaterina Prokhorovna devotes herself entirely to her four children, instilling in them a love of music, literature, painting, theater...

The family lived in a rented small wing of a merchant's house. Years later, childhood impressions of the merchant world will be materialized in the paintings of B. M. Kustodiev. Here is what the artist himself recalled about this period:

“The whole way of rich and abundant merchant life was in full view... These were Ostrovsky’s living types...”

From the age of seven, Boris attended a parochial school, then moved to a gymnasium. At the age of 14, Boris begins his studies at a theological seminary and at the same time attends classes with the famous artist P. A. Vlasov. In 1887, having visited for the first time an exhibition of paintings by the Wanderers, he finally decided to become an artist. In 1896, on the advice of his first teacher P. A. Vlasov, Boris entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. After two years of studying in general classes, he was accepted into I. Repin’s workshop. The young student writes a lot from life and is interested in portraiture.

Before graduating from the Academy, as the best student, he was involved in working on a painting commissioned from his mentor, “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901.” For this canvas, Kustodiev painted 27 portraits. Repin himself sometimes did not distinguish between his own and Kustodiev’s sketches in this work.

Kustodiev had a great work ethic; along with sketches, he painted portraits of people close to him in spirit: I. Ya. Bilibin, D. L. Moldovtsev, V. V Mate...

In 1901, at the Munich International Exhibition, the portrait of I. Ya. Bilibin was awarded a gold medal.

In 1903, Kustodiev was awarded a gold medal and the right to a pensioner internship abroad for one year for his thesis “Bazaar in the Village.” In the same year, he married Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya, a former Smolyanka. Kustodiev met his fate back in 1900 while traveling along the Volga. On his first European trip to France and Spain, the artist was accompanied by his wife and newly born son Kirill. Yu. E. Proshinskaya was the artist’s most faithful friend. In 1905, a house-workshop was built near Kineshma, which the artist lovingly called “Terem”. The family spent every summer here, and this time was the happiest for her.

B. M. Kustodiev did not limit himself exclusively to painting; he was engaged in the design and illustration of works of Russian classics. Among them: “Dubrovsky” by A. S. Pushkin, “Dead Souls” and stories by N. V. Gogol, “Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov” by M. Yu. Lermontov, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” by N. S. Leskov, “Singers” "I. S. Turgenev, poems by N. A. Nekrasov, stories by A. N. Tolstoy...

The main theme of the artist’s work was family. In Paris, he painted the lyrical painting “Morning,” where he depicts his wife and his first-born son bathing in a trough. The mother gently holds the back and legs of the child with her hands, who is clapping his hands in the water. Warm rays of the sun shine from the window, brightly illuminating the table, the fireplace and the mother bending over the child. Sunbeams play in the water, which the baby does not take his eyes off, clumsily trying to catch. It is no coincidence that the child is depicted in the center of the picture. He is the meaning of a family’s life, the joy of being, made up of the blood affection of mother and child.

The very plot of the painting suggests that for the artist, family happiness lies in a baby “bathing” in maternal love.

In search of himself, Kustodiev returns to his wife’s homeland, to the Kostroma province, urgently interrupting his pensioner period of stay abroad.

Since 1900, he has traveled a lot in his native country and abroad, getting acquainted with the works of old and modern masters.

Kustodiev’s formative years as an artist coincided with an increased interest in graphics in the artistic community. Not only representatives of the World of Art, but also Kustodiev’s teacher I.E. Repin were involved in drawing.

Kustodiev, of course, did not stand aside, declaring himself as a wonderful draftsman.

During the first Russian revolution, he contributed to satirical magazines, creating cartoons and caricatures of influential dignitaries. He created a mass of graphically sharp portraits, nudes, many studies and sketches, allowing him to study in detail the mechanisms of this period of creativity.

In 1907, Kustodiev received the title of member of the Union of Russian Artists, and in 1909 - the title of academician of painting. His paintings are shown at domestic and international exhibitions. Many influential people commission portraits from him.

By the end of the 1900s, the Kustodievs already had two children. From the memories of daughter Irina:

“I remember my father when he was still young, unusually active, elegant, cheerful, affectionate. I remember an apartment near the Kalinkin Bridge, on Myasnaya Street, 19. We lived on the third floor. The height of the rooms is unusual. There are five rooms, all of them arranged in a suite. The first is a living room with green striped wallpaper. Behind the living room there is a workshop with two windows, a dining room, a children's room and a parents' bedroom. Parallel to the rooms there is a huge corridor where Kirill and I skated around on roller skates. They ran hide and seek. Sometimes my dad also put on roller skates: he generally loved roller skating. Our house was always full of dogs and cats. Dad closely followed their “personal life”, loved to watch them, and imitated their habits with amazing skill. It seems to me that in this he was similar to A.P. Chekhov - both of them “respected” animals and depicted them in their works as equal “members of society.”

In the 1900s, Kustodiev was interested in sculpture. The heroes of his sculptural portraits were A. M. Remizov, F. K. Sologub, M. V. Dobuzhinsky, Emperor Nicholas II... At different periods of his life, sculptural portraits of the artist’s family were created: “Children” (1909), “Mother with Child” ( 1910), made in memory of the artist’s youngest son, who died after his birth.

Many art historians attribute a distinctive feature to Kustodiev painting - theatricality. Kustodiev did a lot for the theater. The success of many theatrical productions in the capital's theaters depended largely on the artist.

In 1911, Kustodiev wrote the scenery for the play based on A. Ostrovsky’s play “Warm Heart” for the Moscow theater of K. N. Nezlobin. Sketches for the performance were created in Switzerland, where the artist was treated for a diagnosis of bone tuberculosis. Along with recognition and fame, trouble comes to him - a serious illness.

In 1913, in Berlin, he underwent the first operation to remove a tumor in the spinal canal. In 1916 there was a repeat operation, after which the lower part of the body was paralyzed. Then the doctors asked Yu. E. Kustodieva’s wife what to save: arms or legs? “Of course, hands. “He is an artist, and he cannot live without hands,” she answered.

At this most difficult time for the artist, the most festive pictures of colorful provincial life appear, the famous beautiful merchant women... Finding himself cut off from the outside world, he writes fantastic works, more real than reality itself.

In 1913-1916, a group portrait of the artists of the “World of Art” was created (N.K. Roerich (1913), M.V. Dobuzhinsky (1913), I.Ya. Bilibin (1914), E.E. Lansere (1915). I. E. Grabar (1916)). These portraits are distinguished by skill and originality of composition.

The artist received the revolution of 1917 with enthusiasm. On the eve of the anniversary of the October Revolution, he takes part in the decoration of Petrograd. In the 20s, he depicted modern life in his canvases in festive processions and political demonstrations, and was engaged in illustrating Lenin’s collections. In 1925 he went to Moscow to design several performances at the new theater. One of the performances he designed was “The Flea,” written by E. I. Zamyatin based on “Lefty” by N. S. Leskov. The Kustodiev scenery mixed everything that appealed to the viewer: fun and tragedy, parody, reality, popular print, grotesque... He designed Ostrovsky’s plays “Our People - We Will Be Numbered”, “Wolves and Sheep”, “There Wasn’t a Penny, Yes Suddenly Altyn", "Thunderstorm".

However, not all of his plans were implemented.

Due to the progression of the disease, the artist could not cope with a cold, which resulted in pneumonia. On May 26, 1927, his heart stopped. B. M. Kustodiev was only 49 years old.

Famous paintings by B. M. Kustodiev

Kustodiev's holiday paintings are imbued with love for everything Russian. They will be understandable and interesting to preschool children.

"Maslenitsa" (1916)

The famous painting “Maslenitsa” is a symbol of the artist’s creative maturity. Early March. There are still winter frosts. All the trees are shrouded in white fluffy frost. The spring sky, painted with delicate pink, green, and yellow colors, spreads over the snow-covered city. Birds from distant lands return with loud cries.

Crowds of people took to the city streets. It is felt that all the people, from rich to poor, were looking forward to the end of winter. The sky, birds, people rejoice at the arrival of spring. Townspeople, young and old, gathered at the booths for cheerful performances. Children ride down the icy mountains and play at taking the snowy town. In the foreground of the picture there are huge snowdrifts with fresh marks from felt boots, which emphasizes the crowded nature of the holiday.

Decorated sleighs drawn by pairs and threes of horses are flying everywhere. On logs near the very outskirts of the city, people welcome spring with Maslenitsa songs accompanied by an accordion. Maslenitsa is celebrated on a grand scale: the accordion plays, birds scream, children laugh, runners creak, buffoons make noise...

Bright horse harness with bells and painted arches, elegant attire of the townspeople, flying flags on the booths give the picture a festive feel. We see and hear the Russian daring Maslenitsa.

The artist managed to show us the aesthetic, theatrical side of the holiday, its special flavor, publicity, and street character.

In Russian literature, the painting “Maslenitsa” found many “responses”. In I. Shmelev’s novel “The Summer of the Lord” there is an excerpt:

“Maslenitsa...Even now I still feel this word... bright spots, ringing sounds - it evokes in me; flaming stoves, bluish waves of smoke... a bumpy snowy road, already oily in the sun, with cheerful sleighs diving along it, with cheerful horses in roses, bells and bells, with playful strumming of an accordion..."

The painting was painted after the second operation, at a time when doctors prescribed complete rest to the artist.

Repin accepted the work enthusiastically, perceiving in it the search for a new ideal of beauty. A scandal broke out at the Academy of Arts when purchasing the painting “Maslenitsa”. Some council members decided that this work had nothing to do with art, calling it “popular print.”

“I think,” he said, “the diversity and brightness is very typical of Russian life.”

Tell your child about the history of the celebration. Look carefully at the picture and try, together with your son (daughter), to describe Maslenitsa and its traditions.

Offer your child an exciting journey through Kustodiev’s paintings. This excursion is unusual. A beautiful, kind fairy tale is composed of the brightest Kustodiev paintings. Welcome to the fairy tale!

Children of middle school age usually become acquainted with some of Kustodiev’s portraits at school. Parents should be familiar with the artist's portraits in order to answer all the child's questions.

Portrait of F. I. Chaliapin

The acquaintance of the two great people took place in 1919. Chaliapin turned to Kustodiev with a proposal to make the scenery and costumes for the opera “Enemy Power” based on A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” which he staged at the Mariinsky Theater.

The portrait was created thanks to a fur coat, which attracted the artist’s attention. At the first meeting, the artist asked Chaliapin:

“...Pose for me in this fur coat. Your fur coat is too rich.”

Chaliapin loved the artist’s provincial paintings, which amaze, in his words, “with such cheerful ease of drawing and such appetizing richness of paint in the tireless depiction of Russian people.” It so happened that one day he too became the hero of Kustodiev’s portrait.

F. I. Chaliapin recalled:

“I have known a lot of interesting, talented and good people in my life, but if I have ever seen a truly high spirit in a person, it was in Kustodiev... It is impossible to think without excitement about the greatness of the moral force that lived in this man and which would otherwise cannot be called heroic and valiant.”

Chaliapin posed for the wheelchair-bound artist. The canvas with the stretcher had to be moved with a special device mounted under the ceiling.

Initially the painting was titled “F. I. Chaliapin in an unfamiliar city."

The portrait of Chaliapin enjoys special fame. The singer's figure occupies the entire foreground. It barely fits into the canvas format. A beautiful ruddy face, a free stage pose, a ring on the little finger, an open fur coat with shimmering fur, a concert costume with a bow, a colorful scarf fluttering in the wind, a cane set aside...

The portrait conveys the spirit of creativity of the owner of a unique voice. The landscape background with folk festivities, aptly chosen by the artist, emphasizes Chaliapin as a man of a broad soul. Behind the artist’s back there is everything that usually happens at Russian Maslenitsa: booths, tables with food, painted carts, ice slides... A poster on the street corner announcing Chaliapin’s tour indicates Chaliapin’s great love for Russian traditions and his homeland.

At the feet of the folk singer stands his favorite dog - a white bulldog. The appearance of this real character in the portrait speaks of the author’s good-natured irony, which was present when creating the picture.

Tell your child about the life and work of F.I. Chaliapin, about his acquaintance with the artist Kustodiev. Listen to his songs.

Children can begin to get acquainted with the gallery of merchant images at primary school age.

"Merchant's Wife at Tea" (1918)

The merchant image personifies the harmony of the Russian world. The artist seems to be saying goodbye to a familiar, understandable, close world for him, defeated (overthrown) in a few days... The work sounds a nostalgic note for the past of Russia, for the picturesque life of the Russian province...

Before us is the Volga town where the artist spent his childhood, where a quiet and measured life flowed.

The merchant's wife embodies the ideal of folk beauty: arched eyebrows, bow-shaped lips, a luxurious body, proud to become... A well-groomed face with a pronounced healthy blush speaks of her peace. An important cat, very similar to its owner, clung to the heroine’s shoulder. He is comfortable in this world. On the table there is a huge samovar, a vase with jam, bowls of fruit, a basket with buns and sweets... There is a saucer in the merchant’s hand. Shown here is an old tradition that existed in Rus' - drinking tea from a saucer.

In the distance, on the veranda, a merchant family is sitting having tea. The artist emphasizes the iron regularity of her existence against the background of a frozen landscape and a provincial town, showing time as if stopped.

In the year the picture was created, the year of famine and devastation, the collapse of old Russia occurs, a civil war breaks out, human life depreciates...

Until recently, incorrect associations associated with the Kustodiev merchant women were accepted. The description of the painting corresponded to political requirements. And the arbitrary meaning of the works was chosen, far from the author’s. Lazy merchant women symbolized a well-fed, frozen merchant Russia. The description of the painting was as follows: The merchant's wife has a narrow range of interests. She thoughtlessly and languidly looks at the life around them. It is no coincidence that the lush still life was introduced into the picture. It helps to imagine the environment of abundance in which the heroine lives. In the paintings we see ripe fruits and vegetables (“The Merchant’s Wife”), watermelon, grapes, apples, gilded cups (“The Merchant’s Wife at Tea”), rings, silk, necklaces (“The Merchant’s Wife with a Mirror”)...

Nowadays, parents and teachers should look at things objectively and should not impose the wrong point of view on the child.

Tell your child about the artist’s childhood and the history of merchants in Rus'. It is important to show merchant life, its way of life and foundations as a significant part of Russian culture.

Ask your child to describe the picture and name the Russian features of merchant life that the artist depicted.

Kustodiev’s works dedicated to the revolution arouse interest among children of high school age. It is difficult for a high school student to understand the meaning of these works. The parents’ task is to study the works and explain their content. It is incorrect to talk to a child about Kustodiev’s closeness to Bolshevik ideas. Kustodiev belonged to that part of the intelligentsia that greeted the February Revolution with the expectation of change. The October Revolution split society, which resulted in a bloody civil war.

"Bolshevik" (1919)

Some art historians argue that the Bolshevik, in his appearance, determination and courage, resembles the “All-Russian elder” M.I. Kalinin.

The image of a Bolshevik is a generalized image that expresses the scale of the transformations that turned Russia upside down. Kustodiev managed to summarize his own impressions of the revolution using allegory. A crowd flows through the narrow streets of Moscow in a viscous stream. The sky is shining. The sun casts its rays on the roofs of houses, forming blue shadows. A Bolshevik walks above the crowd and houses with a red banner in his hands. The scarlet banner flutters in the wind, capturing the entire city with its flame. A red cloth covered the upper part of the church dome, where the cross is attached, which symbolizes the denial of Orthodoxy in the new ideology. Bright colors give the picture a major sound. The picture evokes fear and anxiety. The armed people below are in a hurry to deal with the old world. There is coldness in the eyes of the huge Bolshevik, as a sign of the irreversibility of change.

The picture “Bolshevik” is quite complex. To understand the author's intention, it is necessary to carefully consider its individual details.

B. M. Kustodiev lived in an era that could not but affect his work. He strove for freedom, truth and beauty, and his dream came true.

I. E. Repin gave a high assessment of Kustodiev’s work, calling him “a hero of Russian painting.”

Here is what the artist N.A. Sautin wrote about him:

“Kustodiev is an artist of versatile talent. A magnificent painter. He entered Russian art as the author of significant works of the everyday genre, original landscapes and portraits with deep content. An excellent draftsman and graphic artist. Kustodiev worked in linocut and woodcuts, performed book illustrations and theatrical sketches. He developed his own original artistic system, managed to feel and embody the original features of Russian life.”

Dear reader! What attracts you to the work of the artist B. M. Kustodiev?

Name: Boris Kustodiev

Age: 49 years old

Place of Birth: Astrakhan

A place of death: Saint Petersburg

Activity: artist, portrait painter

Family status: was married

Boris Kustodiev - biography

The outstanding Russian artist Boris Kustodiev, whose 140th birthday is celebrated on February 23, managed to create on his canvases an amazing world where beautiful, kind people live, where they drink and eat deliciously, where the sun shines brightly and dazzling white snow sparkles. And the worse the artist got - at the age of thirty he was confined to a wheelchair - the more joyful and colorful the life on his canvases was.

Boris Kustodiev hardly remembered his father - candidate of theology, teacher of the Astrakhan Theological Seminary Mikhail Lukich Kustodiev died a year after the birth of his son. In addition to Boris, two more girls were growing up in the family, Sasha and Katya, there was not enough money, and Mikhail Lukich earned money by teaching lessons. In the cold autumn he caught a cold and died at the age of 37, leaving a widow, Ekaterina Prokhorovna, who was not yet thirty, with four children - the youngest, named after his father Mikhail, was born a few months after his father's death - and a 50-ruble survivor's pension.

The mother did not have money for the children’s education, but Boris was lucky - as the son of a deceased teacher, at the age of nine he was accepted into the Astrakhan Theological School, and then into the seminary. He studied mediocrely, but in drawing he would have been the best in the class. From the age of five he never let go of a pencil and loved to draw on paper everything he saw. Boris decided to become an artist at the age of 11, when his sister Katya, who was fond of art, took him to an exhibition of paintings by capital artists from the Association of Traveling Exhibitions.

The pictures fascinated the boy. The second time he experienced this feeling was when, during the holidays, he went to visit his uncle in St. Petersburg and ended up in the Hermitage. And what was his happiness when Katya advised him to take drawing lessons and introduced him to a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Pavel Vlasov.

Vlasov, larger, stronger, with a loud voice, came from the Cossacks. Despite some rudeness, he was distinguished by extraordinary kindness, and most importantly, he had a special gift - he knew how to recognize talent in a student and help this talent develop. Vlasov taught Boris to carry a sketchbook and a pencil everywhere and sketch everything interesting. The capable student quickly mastered both watercolor and oil paints. And one day Pavel Alekseevich said to a student: “Stop wasting time. Apply to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. If it doesn’t work out in Moscow, go to St. Petersburg, to the Academy of Arts.”

Vlasov knew how to persuade, so he convinced Ekaterina Prokhorovna that Boris needed to leave the seminary, a brilliant future awaited him in painting. Sorry, I did this late. The Moscow School accepted students only up to the age of 18, and Boris had already turned 18. There was only one path - to St. Petersburg, to the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts.

There, the students are all exempt from paying fees, and they also use government albums, etc.” Ekaterina Prokhorovna persuaded her son: “...there is no reason for you to leave him now, just be patient a little” - and believed in his future: “... we miss you, but I am consoled by the thought that someday I will see you a great and honest man, and maybe even famous - which doesn’t happen in the world!”

In October 1896, Kustodiev was admitted to the Academy. At first he studied in the workshop of the historical painter Vasily Savinsky, and in his second year he was transferred to the workshop of Repin. Students said different things about Repin. It often happened that today he liked what yesterday he called mediocre. But the students forgave Repin everything - after all, he was a real, great artist.

Life has twisted Boris. A provincial young man found himself in the very center of the capital's vibrant artistic life - theaters, exhibitions, new ideas, interesting people. But still, he didn’t really like it in St. Petersburg. “Everything around is gray, everything is somehow boring, cold - not like some kind of river with green banks and with white winged sails, with steamships - like the Volga...” - he wrote to his mother.

In the summer of 1900, Boris invited his friend Dmitry Stelletsky to go with him to Astrakhan. There he was joined by his old friend, also a student of Vlasov, Konstantin Mazin, and the three artists set off on a voyage up the Volga to paint en plein air. In Kineshma they went ashore, Mazin stayed with relatives in the village of Semenovskoye, and Kustodiev and Stelletsky stayed nearby, in the village of Kalganovo.

Once, acquaintances advised young artists to visit the Vysokovo estate - two charming young ladies, the Proshinsky sisters, lived there under the tutelage of the venerable Grek sisters. Their parents died early, and Maria and Yulia Grek, their close friends who did not have children of their own, took the girls in to raise them.

We went without an invitation, and therefore the most courageous inhabitant of Vysokov, Zoya Proshinskaya, greeted them at first as uninvited guests. Realizing that these were not some kind of robbers, but even artists, and even from St. Petersburg, the Greek sisters allowed them to enter the house. Antique furniture, dishes from Napoleonic times, landscapes and portraits on the walls, a piano - everything testified to the good taste of the owners. And then, during conversations over tea, it turned out that Yulenka, Zoya’s sister, was studying painting at the School for the Encouragement of Arts.

While saying goodbye, the young people received an invitation to visit Vysokovo again, which they took full advantage of. The initiator of these visits was Boris - he really liked Yulia Proshinskaya. It was somehow surprisingly simple and fun for him to be with her. They discovered many common interests. And what wonderful eyes she had. And how well she looked at him.

Apparently, he made a favorable impression on her - easily blushing from embarrassment, but at the same time cheerful, with humor, a light character, she clearly liked him. Separating, Boris and Yulia agreed to write to each other - and to meet in St. Petersburg. Yulia visited Vysokov only in the summer. In winter, she lived in the capital, worked as a typist for the Committee of Ministers, and took up painting.

They met. In letters to the old ladies, Greek Julia said that Kustodiev painted her portrait, that they went to the theater together, and in the newspaper “Novoye Vremya” her friend was highly praised for the portrait of Bilibin, which was a great success at an exhibition in Munich, where he was awarded a gold medal .

In general, it was a very good year, because in the spring of this year Repin invited him to work on a government order - the grandiose canvas “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council.” Working next to Repin, Boris learned a lot. Of the hundreds of portraits of the country's main dignitaries on the canvas, 20 were painted by Kustodiev. These people had enormous power back then. Today, few people remember their names, but the names of the artists who captured their faces have gone down in the history of Russian culture.

In June, Boris again went to the Kostroma province. Having settled not far from Vysokov, he could meet with Yulia every day. And when he returned to St. Petersburg, he wrote letters to her every day. The guardian sisters did not welcome their friendship. They did not at all like the beginner artist without any fortune as a candidate for the husband of their beloved Yulenka. After all, she had other, more promising candidates.

Julia tried her best to get the Greek sisters to change their minds about Boris. “We see each other almost every day”, “yesterday I went with B.M. to the big skating rink in the evening”, “On Sunday... I visited the Kustodievs. Boris Mikh. treated me to tea and sweets,” she wrote in Vysokovo. She really wanted to show that her chosen one was worthy of respect: “At Bor. Mich. things are not bad. Now he has two commissions of portraits. One started today, and when he finishes, he will paint a lady - the wife of an official from the State Council”; “Tomorrow we are going to an exhibition where 2 portraits painted by Bohr are on display. Mich.", "Bor. Mich. “Petersburgskaya Gazeta” praised it very much...”

Everything was going great. For the painting “Bazaar in a Village,” Kustodiev was awarded a gold medal and the right to a year-long trip abroad; at the international exhibition in Munich he was again awarded for “Portrait of Varfolomeev”; a correspondent for the respected newspaper Birzhevye Vedomosti interviewed him, in which he wrote: “The young artist is only 25 years old. What a huge life ahead, and how much he can do with his love for work and ability to work hard,” but the main thing is that on October 11, Kustodiev’s son was born. The boy was named Kirill.

In the summer of 1904, the Kustodievs returned to their homeland. Having bought a small plot of land near Kineshma, they began to build their own house - “Terem”. The house really looked like a tower from Russian fairy tales. Kustodiev enjoyed doing housework, doing carpentry, and cutting trim for windows. Julia and Boris were so happy, so full of love for each other and life, that when their daughter, Irina, was born in the spring of 1905, their friends gave them a painting parody of “Morning” - there are already 12 children in the bathtub, and the mother in looks at them in horror, throwing up his hands.

Once Julia wrote to Boris: “... it’s such happiness that you love me, we have something to live on, we are healthy... I’m even afraid...” And then misfortune came to their house. In January 1907, they had another son, Igor, who died without living even a year. “With his death, the first gray strand appeared in my mother’s black hair,” recalled Irina Kustodieva. That same year, Boris Kustodiev experienced the first pain in his hand - symptoms of an impending serious illness.

But he tried not to notice anything and work, work, so as not to damage the reputation of one of the best Russian portrait painters, because it was he, and not Serov, who was commissioned for portraits of Alexander II and Nicholas I. And it was his “Portrait of the Polenov Family”, shown at the exhibition in Vienna, purchased by the Belvedere Museum. Perhaps he suspected that his illness was serious and tried not to waste time.

Yulia, who was grieving the death of her son, lived with the children mainly in Terem, but Boris was in no hurry to go to them - he was full of his plans and work. That same year, he again traveled around Europe - this time it was Austria, Italy, and Germany. And new impressions distracted him from his family, especially the charming ladies who posed for him in Venetian gondolas. It was said that one Russian mistress was so diligent in posing that her jealous husband nervously ran on land during the sessions. But even after returning to St. Petersburg, Kustodiev was in no hurry to see his wife and children.

It seems, Julia wrote to her husband indignantly, you really like spending time with naked models. In his response letter, Boris, generally not feeling guilty at all, formulated his life credo: “I received your “terrible” letter today, but... for some reason I wasn’t very afraid of it. Somehow I can’t believe that you can “ask” me! And for what, exactly? Because I work and therefore don’t go? If this is so, then this is very strange, and it means that I was very deceived in you, in your understanding of my work and myself... My work is my life...

I fully understand your state of mind, but I will not do this now or ever in the future to give up what I have to do because of this. You must know this, or else I am not what you imagined, and you are not what I thought until now...” And at the end of the letter he again promised that he would soon come to Terem. And he came, brought gifts, painted his grown daughter, and then a month and a half later he left them alone again - his life was in St. Petersburg.

Soon, apparently at the insistence of Yulia, who was afraid of losing her husband, his entire family moved there. They settled on Myasnaya Street. They brought furniture from the one sold by Vysokov - it reminded Yulia of her childhood, of the old Greek women. They set up a workshop where Boris worked, and along the corridor Irina and Kirill were running around on roller skates, running and playing hide and seek.

Again they were close, Julia and Boris, and again she shared all his joys, successes and failures. And pain. Now his hands often hurt so much that his fingers could not hold his hand, and then his head began to hurt unbearably. It was necessary to go to the doctors. The famous doctor Ernest Augustovich Giese examined the artist for an hour, found neuralgia in the right hand and advised him to take an X-ray of the shoulder and neck. And work less. But he just couldn’t live without work. The orders were one more responsible than the other.

In 1911, the Alexander Lyceum was to celebrate its centenary, and a commission of former graduates decided to install marble busts of Tsars Nicholas II and the founder of the Lyceum, Alexander I, in the building. The busts were ordered from Kustodiev. Kustodiev spoke with obvious irony about how Nicholas II posed for him: “He was extremely graciously received, even to the point of surprise... We talked a lot - of course, not about politics (which my customers were very afraid of), but more about art - but I couldn’t enlighten him - he’s hopeless, alas... What’s also good is that he’s interested in antiquity, I just don’t know, deeply or so - “because of the gesture.”

The enemy of innovation, and confuses impressionism with revolution: “impressionism and I are two incompatible things” - his phrase. We parted on good terms, but apparently he was tired of the sessions...” In the spring of 1911, the pain became so severe that Boris went to Switzerland, to the town of Leysin near Lausanne, to be treated at the private clinic of Dr. Auguste Rollier, an honorary member of all European medical societies. Rollier diagnosed him with “bone tuberculosis” and forced him to come in the fall, ordering him to wear a special corset “unsuccessful, especially when sitting... It’s only good to walk in it.”

He worked in this terrible corset, hard as a shell, from neck to waist, taking it off only at night. In total, he stayed in the clinic for more than 9 months, but the pain, despite Rollier’s assurances, did not disappear. In St. Petersburg, Yulia was worried about him, complained of loneliness, it was not easy with children without a husband. She poured all this out in her letters. But what could he tell her? He himself was tormented by doubts, he himself did not know how to continue to live with these pains, with this growing weakness.

“...You write about the feeling of loneliness, and I fully understand it - it is even intensified for me... by the consciousness that I am unhealthy, that everything that others live with is almost impossible for me... In a life that rolls so quickly next to me and where I have to give my all, I can no longer participate - I have no strength. And this consciousness intensifies even more when I think about the lives connected with me - yours and the children. And if I were alone, it would be easier for me to bear this feeling of disability.” And he added: “Such wonderful days and everything is so beautiful around that you forget that you are sick... And never, it seems, have I felt so strong a desire to live and feel alive.”

The hand did not stop whining, the St. Petersburg aesculapians advised the sea and the sun, and the Kustodievs, all together, went for the sun and sea to France, to the town of Juan-les-Pins, not far from Antibes. Then they left for Italy, and then went to Berlin - many advised Kustodiev to see the famous neurosurgeon Professor Oppenheim. Herr Professor carefully examined the artist and made a conclusion that surprised everyone: “You have never had any bone tuberculosis. Remove the corset. You have a disease of the spinal cord, apparently there is a tumor in it, you urgently need surgery...” Treatment in Switzerland with Rollier, by the way, very expensive, was in vain.

In November, Kustodiev and his wife were again in Berlin. The operation took place on November 12. The professor found the tumor and removed it, but warned that a relapse was possible and, most likely, the operation would have to be repeated. But for now everyone hoped that the disease had been defeated.

And again Kustodiev was full of work, and everything worked out for him - both painting and business in the theater, which he was very interested in. While working on the play “The Death of Pazukhin” at the Moscow Art Theater, Kustodiev met actress Faina Shevchenko and became inspired to paint her portrait, and in the nude. Faina was young and pretty. She came to the Moscow Art Theater in 1909, still very young, at 16 years old. In 1914, when Kustodiev met her, she had already played almost all the leading roles.

No one knows how he persuaded her, a serious actress of a serious theater, to pose naked, but it happened! And he was happy, because in her, this sweet young woman, he saw the image of a real Russian beauty, the owner of a magnificent, appetizing body. This painting, “Beauty,” is bright, slightly ironic, and daring, and created a real sensation. The newspapers wrote: “The one who’s doing weird things is Kustodiev... It’s as if he’s deliberately throwing himself from side to side.

Either he paints ordinary good portraits of ladies, or suddenly he exhibits some plump “beauty” sitting on a chest painted with bouquets... Deliberate and invented bad taste.” But many people liked her, this Kustodian beauty, it was difficult to move away from the picture - she was mesmerizing, and one metropolitan, seeing her, said: “The devil himself led him with his hand, obviously, because she disturbed my peace.”

Kustodiev worked a lot at that time - and was happy that he was in demand and needed. And, he probably said, he overdid it a little - the pain appeared again, it became difficult to walk. More and more often he remembered the Berlin professor and his words about a repeat operation, but how to do this now that the war has begun and the Germans are enemies? He was treated again, went to Yalta for sun and sea, but nothing helped, his mood was very bad, and even new paintings, which were successful and he liked, did not significantly change the situation. It became clear that we could no longer delay the operation.

Kustodiev was admitted to the clinic of the Kaufman community of Red Cross sisters, which was headed by G.F. Zeidler. The operation was performed by the brilliant Russian neurosurgeon Lev Stukkey. “They gave me general anesthesia for 5 hours,” Irina Kustodieva said about the operation. - Mom is waiting in the corridor... Finally, Professor Zeidler came out himself and said that a dark piece of something was found in the very substance of the spinal cord closer to the chest, it may be necessary to cut the nerves to get to the tumor, you need to decide what to save the patient - arms or legs. “Leave your hands, hands! - Mom begged. -The artist has no hands! He won’t be able to live!” And Stukkey retained the mobility of Kustodiev’s hands. But - only hands!

Every day Stukkey came to the ward and felt his legs. No, Kustodiev did not feel anything. Yes, of course, the nerves are damaged, the doctor said, but perhaps the ability to move will appear. Need to believe. And Boris believed, and what else could he do? And fortunately, he was not alone in this faith, in this struggle for life - next to him was his Yulia, a devoted, faithful wife, the mother of his children, and now also a nurse. A month after the operation the pain was gone, but now he suffered from immobility and idleness.

He passionately wanted to work! However, the surgeon strictly forbade even the slightest tension. And Kustodiev began to create pictures in his mind. Only very soon this was not enough for him, and he begged his wife to bring him an album and watercolors. At first, he painted in secret from the doctors, and when he was caught doing this, he declared: “If you don’t let me write, I’ll die!” And he painted the heroes of his night visions.

The year 1917 began both anxiously and joyfully. It seemed to everyone that real freedom had arrived and now everything in Russia would be wonderful. In those days, Kustodiev sat at the window with binoculars and tirelessly watched the life of the street. Excited by what was happening, he wrote to a friend in Moscow: “Congratulations on great joy! Here's Peter for you! ... he took it and did such a thing in 3-4 days that the whole world gasped. Everything has shifted, turned over... - take, for example, yesterday’s arbiters of our destinies, now sitting in Petropavlovka!

“From prince to rags...” On February 27, the general strike grew into a general uprising; in March, Russia ceased to be a monarchy - the tsar abdicated the throne. And then the October Revolution happened, power passed into the hands of the people - rude people in caps, leather jackets, with Mausers in their hands. All this was incredible, all this had to be understood, somehow comprehended, learned to live in a new country, where at night the streets were often robbed and killed, the shops were empty. And only thanks to Yulia, their house is warm, cozy and there is always something to treat guests - she was a wonderful hostess.

In 1920, the management of the Mariinsky Opera House decided to stage the opera “Enemy Power” by Alexander Serov, the artist’s father, about the life of the Russian merchants. The director of the play was Fyodor Chaliapin, and it was decided to entrust the design to Kustodiev, because who had a better feel for merchant Rus', its characters and morals. And the singer went to the artist to negotiate. “It was a pity to look at the deprivation of man (Kustodiev’s legs were paralyzed), but it was as if it was invisible to him: about forty years old, fair-haired, pale, he struck me with his cheerfulness...” said Chaliapin.

“Yes, yes. About three weeks ago I received it for a concert from some government agency. But you know the slogan: “Rob the loot.” Kustodiev decided that it was simply wonderful - in his painting the singer would be depicted in a fur coat of such dubious origin. “Both an actor and a singer, but he whistled his fur coat,” he joked. The premiere of Enemy Power took place on November 7, 1920 and was brilliant. The actors received a standing ovation, and then they loudly applauded the artist - both his art and his courage. “My father returned home excited, saying that Chaliapin was a genius and that for the sake of history it was necessary to paint his portrait,” recalled the artist’s son Kirill.

This work was especially difficult for Kustodiev. He decided to paint the singer in full height, that is, the height of the picture had to be at least two meters. On the ceiling of the room, brother Mikhail fixed a block with a load, the canvas with a stretcher was suspended, and Kustodiev himself could bring it closer, move it away, move it left and right. The huge picture was painted in parts - Kustodiev transferred the preparatory drawings to the picture in cells. Thus, at the cost of incredible efforts, this amazingly joyful, sun-filled canvas was born.

Chaliapin was delighted with the portrait and bought it, as well as the sketches for Enemy Power. When he went abroad in 1922, he took the portrait with him. Years later he wrote: “I knew a lot of interesting, talented and good people in my life. But if I have ever seen a truly high spirit in a person, it was in Kustodiev... It is impossible to think without excitement about the greatness of the moral force that lived in this man and which cannot otherwise be called heroic and valiant.”

Despite severe pain, Kustodiev worked with inspiration and joy - he painted pictures, made engravings, lithographs, was engaged in stage design, and illustrated books. On his canvases are charming merchant women, tea lovers, dashing cab drivers, crazy Maslenitsa, and a fun fair. Here are the heroes of past years - Stepan Razin, and of modern times - for example, the Bolshevik from the film of the same name. This strange, ambiguous picture is “Bolshevik”. It would seem that the artist is glorifying the revolution. But the huge man he depicts, this Bolshevik with thoughtless eyes, mercilessly walks over the heads of ordinary people, through their lives, destinies, which, it seems, are not at all important to him.

Everything that Kustodiev did was bright, fresh, interesting. It was impossible to believe that the creator of these powerful images was a seriously ill person, a disabled person who moved in a wheelchair. In 1923, Kustodiev was operated on again - for the third time. The operation was performed by the famous German neurosurgeon Otfried Förster, who was invited to treat Lenin.

“Anesthesia,” said the artist’s daughter, “was given locally, the general heart could not stand it. Four and a half hours of inhuman suffering... The doctors said that every minute there could be a shock and then it would be the end...” Like the previous ones, this operation did not bring significant relief.

The artist’s last major painting was the magnificent “Russian Venus”. “She will not lie naked on velvet, like Goya, or in the lap of nature, like Giorgione,” Boris Mikhailovich told his daughter Irina, who posed for this picture. - I will put my Venus in the bathhouse. Here the nudity of a Russian woman is natural.” At night he had nightmares - “black cats dig into his back with sharp claws and tear apart his vertebrae,” and during the day he created his Venus. Posing, Irina held a ruler in her hands instead of a broom, and her brother Kirill whipped foam in a wooden tub. His children created this masterpiece with him...

This gave the artist’s brother Mikhail the idea of ​​building a car in which his relatives would take the artist out into the world of healthy people. The apartment began to look like a repair shop, but everyone in the household, including poor Yulia, put up with this horror, knowing in the name of what it was all being done. And the car was assembled. Now Kustodiev could even go on a visit. On May 5, 1927, when she and Yulia returned home from Detskoe Selo, where they had visited Alexei Tolstoy, he developed a fever. They decided it was a cold; the car was open.

The temperature remained stable, but on May 15, when his name day was celebrated, Kustodiev, sitting in front of the guests in a white shirt with a bow tie, joked and amused everyone. The next day he felt ill. On the evening of May 26, 1927, Irina asked her father if she could go to the theater - the Moscow Chamber Theater, which had come on tour to St. Petersburg, was giving a play, starring Alisa Koonen. “Of course,” he replied. - You will tell me later". Returning home, she no longer found him alive. Kustodiev was only 49 years old. He was buried at the St. Petersburg Nikolskoye cemetery. So many unrealized plans went with him, but so many beautiful paintings remained after his death...

His widow Yulia Evstafievna lived alone, without her husband, for another 15 years, devoting all these years to serving his memory and preserving his legacy. She died during the siege in 1942.

Kustodiev Boris Mikhailovich
Born: February 23 (March 7), 1878.
Died: May 28, 1927 (age 49).

Biography

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev February 23 (March 7) 1878, Astrakhan - May 26, 1927, Leningrad) - Russian artist.

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, who came from the family of a gymnasium teacher, began studying painting in Astrakhan with P. A. Vlasov in 1893-1896.

Boris Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan. His father was a professor of philosophy, history of literature and taught logic at the local theological seminary.

His father died when the future artist was not even two years old. Boris studied at a parish school, then at a gymnasium. From the age of 15 he took drawing lessons from a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts P. Vlasov.

In 1896 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. He studied first in the workshop of V. E. Savinsky, and from the second year - with I. E. Repin. He took part in the work on Repin’s painting “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901” (1901–1903, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). Despite the fact that the young artist gained wide fame as a portrait painter, for his competition work Kustodiev chose a genre theme (“At the Market”) and in the fall of 1900 he went to the Kostroma province in search of nature. Here Kustodiev meets his future wife Yu. E. Poroshinskaya. On October 31, 1903, he completed the course with a gold medal and the right to an annual pensioner’s trip abroad and throughout Russia. Even before completing the course, he took part in international exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Munich (big gold medal of the International Association).

In December 1903, he came to Paris with his wife and son. During his trip, Kustodiev visited Germany, Italy, Spain, studied and copied the works of old masters. Entered the studio of Rene Menard.

Six months later, Kustodiev returned to Russia and worked in the Kostroma province on the series of paintings “Fairs” and “Village Holidays”. In 1904 he became a founding member of the New Society of Artists. In 1905–1907 worked as a cartoonist in the satirical magazine “Zhupel” (the famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), after its closure - in the magazines “Hellish Mail” and “Iskra”. Since 1907 - member of the Union of Russian Artists. In 1909, on the recommendation of Repin and other professors, he was elected a member of the Academy of Arts. At the same time, Kustodiev was asked to replace Serov as a teacher of the portrait-genre class at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but, fearing that this activity would take a lot of time from personal work and not wanting to move to Moscow, Kustodiev refused the position. Since 1910 - a member of the renewed "World of Art".

1913 - taught at the New Art Workshop (St. Petersburg). 1923 - member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. In 1909, Kustodiev showed the first signs of a spinal cord tumor. Several operations brought only temporary relief; for the last 15 years of his life, the artist was confined to a wheelchair. Due to illness at work, he was forced to write while lying down. However, it was during this difficult period of his life that his most vivid, temperamental, and cheerful works appeared.

He lived in Petrograd-Leningrad during the post-revolutionary years. He was buried at the Nikolskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1948, the ashes and monument were moved to the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Wife - Kustodieva Yu. E.

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

1914 - apartment building - Ekateringofsky Avenue, 105;
1915 - 05/26/1927 - apartment building of E.P. Mikhailov - Vvedenskaya street, 7, apt. 50.

Illustrations and book graphics

In 1905–1907 he worked in the satirical magazines “Zhupel” (the famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), “Hell Mail” and “Iskra”.

Kustodiev, who has a keen sense of line, performed cycles of illustrations for classical works and for the creations of his contemporaries (illustrations for Leskov’s works “The Darner”, 1922, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District”, 1923).

Possessing a strong touch, he worked in the technique of lithography and engraving on linoleum.

Painting

Kustodiev began his career as a portrait artist. Already while working on sketches for Repin’s “Great Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901,” student Kustodiev showed his talent as a portrait painter. In sketches and portrait sketches for this multi-figure composition, he coped with the task of achieving similarities with Repin’s creative style. But Kustodiev the portrait painter was closer to Serov. Painterly plasticity, free long strokes, bright characteristics of appearance, emphasis on the artistry of the model - these were mostly portraits of fellow students and teachers of the Academy - but without Serov's psychologism. Kustodiev incredibly quickly for a young artist, but deservedly won fame as a portrait painter among the press and customers. However, according to A. Benoit:

“... the real Kustodiev is a Russian fair, motley, “big-eyed” calicoes, a barbaric “fight of colors,” a Russian suburb and a Russian village, with their accordions, gingerbread, dressed up girls and dashing guys... I claim that this is his real sphere, his real joy... When he paints fashionable ladies and respectable citizens, it is completely different - boring, sluggish, often even tasteless. And it seems to me that it’s not the plot, but the approach to it.”

Already from the beginning of the 1900s, Boris Mikhailovich was developing a unique genre of portrait, or rather, portrait-picture, portrait-type, in which the model is linked together with the surrounding landscape or interior. At the same time, this is a generalized image of a person and his unique individuality, revealing it through the world surrounding the model. In their form, these portraits are related to the genre images-types of Kustodiev (“Self-portrait” (1912), portraits of A. I. Anisimov (1915), F. I. Chaliapin (1922)).

But Kustodiev’s interests went beyond the portrait: it was no coincidence that he chose a genre painting (“At the Bazaar” (1903), not preserved) for his diploma work. In the early 1900s, for several years in a row he went to perform field work in the Kostroma province. In 1906, Kustodiev appeared with works that were new in their concept - a series of canvases on the themes of brightly festive peasant and provincial petty-bourgeois-merchant life (“Balagany”, “Maslenitsa”), in which the features of Art Nouveau are visible. The works are spectacular and decorative, revealing the Russian character through the everyday genre. On a deeply realistic basis, Kustodiev created a poetic dream, a fairy tale about provincial Russian life. In these works, great importance is attached to line, drawing, and color spots; forms are generalized and simplified - the artist turns to gouache and tempera. The artist's works are characterized by stylization - he studies Russian parsuna of the 16th–18th centuries, popular prints, signs of provincial shops and taverns, and folk crafts.

Subsequently, Kustodiev gradually shifted more and more towards an ironic stylization of folk and, especially, the life of the Russian merchants with a riot of colors and flesh (“Beauty”, “Russian Venus”, “Merchant’s Wife at Tea”).

Theater works

Like many artists of the turn of the century, Kustodiev also worked in the theater, transferring his vision of the work to the theater stage. The scenery performed by Kustodiev was colorful, close to his genre painting, but this was not always perceived as an advantage: creating a bright and convincing world, carried away by its material beauty, the artist sometimes did not coincide with the author’s plan and the director’s reading of the play (“The Death of Pazukhin” by Saltykov- Shchedrin, 1914, Moscow Art Theater; “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky, which never saw the light of day, 1918). In his later works for the theater, he moves away from a chamber interpretation to a more generalized one, seeks greater simplicity, builds the stage space, giving freedom to the director when constructing mise-en-scenes. Kustodiev's success was his design work in 1918–1920. opera performances (1920, “The Tsar’s Bride”, Bolshoi Opera Theater of the People’s House; 1918, “Snow Maiden”, Bolshoi Theater (not staged)). Scenery sketches, costumes and props for A. Serov’s opera “The Power of the Enemy” (Academic (former Mariinsky) Theater, 1921)

The productions of Zamyatin’s “The Flea” (1925, Moscow Art Theater 2nd; 1926, Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater) were successful. According to the memoirs of the director of the play A.D. Dikiy:

“It was so vivid, so precise that my role as a director accepting sketches was reduced to zero - I had nothing to correct or reject. It was as if he, Kustodiev, had been in my heart, overheard my thoughts, read Leskov’s story with the same eyes as me, and equally saw it in stage form. ... I have never had such complete, such inspiring like-mindedness with an artist as when working on the play “The Flea.” I learned the full meaning of this community when Kustodiev’s farcical, bright decorations appeared on the stage, and props and props made according to his sketches appeared. The artist led the entire performance, taking, as it were, the first part in the orchestra, which obediently and sensitively sounded in unison.”

After 1917, the artist participated in the decoration of Petrograd for the first anniversary of the October Revolution, painted posters, popular prints and paintings on revolutionary themes (“Bolshevik”, 1919–1920, Tretyakov Gallery; “Celebration in honor of the 2nd Congress of the Comintern on Uritsky Square”, 1921 , Russian Museum).

Memory

In 1978, a series of stamps with a post block and an artistic marked envelope were published, dedicated to the artist and his work. Also, an artistic marked envelope with the image of B. M. Kustodiev was released in 2003 (artist B. Ilyukhin, circulation 1,000,000 copies).

In Astrakhan, next to the Astrakhan Art Gallery named after P. M. Dogadin, there is a monument to Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev.

House-Museum of Kustodiev B.M. in Astrakhan is located at st. Kalinina, 26 / st. Sverdlova, 68.

A street in the Vyborg district of St. Petersburg is named after B. M. Kustodiev.