"Morning of the Streltsy Execution"- painting by Russian artist V.I. Surikov, dedicated to the execution of the Streltsy after the unsuccessful riot of 1698.
The painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was Surikov’s first large canvas on the theme of Russian history. The artist began work on it in 1878. He created the painting in Moscow, where he moved permanently after graduating from the Academy of Arts. The artist turned to the events of the era of Peter I, when the Streltsy rebellion, led by Princess Sophia, was suppressed and the Streltsy were executed. However, Surikov did not show the execution itself, since he did not want to shock the viewer, but wanted to talk about the tragic fate of the people at the moment of historical turning point. The artist focused on state of mind sentenced and what each of them experiences in last minutes own life.
Composition
There are two main characters in the picture - young Peter, sitting on a horse near the Kremlin walls, and a red-haired archer, angrily looking at the king. This frantic man represents the emotional center of the composition. His hands are tied, his feet are put in stocks, but he has not resigned himself to his fate. In his hands he clutches a candle with a flickering tongue of flame. Peter looks at the archers with an equally angry and irreconcilable gaze. He is full of consciousness that he is right. A diagonal line can be drawn between the figures of Sagittarius and Peter, which visually demonstrates the confrontation between these characters.
Peter I. Fragment of the painting.
Other Sagittarians are shown just as emotionally. A black-bearded archer in a red caftan draped over his shoulders looks around gloomily and from under his brows. And he did not submit to Peter's sentence. The gray-haired archer's consciousness is clouded by the horror of the impending execution; he does not see the children who have fallen to him. The soldier snatches the candle from his unclenched, powerless hand. The bowed head of the archer standing on the cart foreshadows his future fate. The soldiers are dragging another exhausted archer to the gallows. The already unnecessary caftan and cap have been thrown onto the ground, the wick of a candle that has fallen from his hands is slightly smoldering. The young Streltsy wife screams in despair, the son clings to his mother and hides his face in the folds of her clothes. The old woman sank heavily to the ground. Next to her, a little girl in a red scarf screams, overcome with fear.
The deep tragedy of the moment is also emphasized by the dark coloring of the picture. The artist chose the time to depict the execution - the morning after a rainy autumn night, when it was just beginning to get light and the cold morning fog over the square had not yet completely dissipated. In this setting, the white shirts of the condemned and the flickering lights of their candles stand out among the dark crowd. In the film “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” Surikov used compositional device bringing plans closer together, reducing the distance between Lobnoye Mesto, St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin wall. This is how he achieved the effect of a huge crowd of people, full of life and movement, while in reality depicting only a few dozen characters. Important It also has an architectural background to the picture. The motley domes of St. Basil's Cathedral correspond to the figures of archers, and the Kremlin tower corresponds to the figure of Peter I on horseback.
Reception
“The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was the first work exhibited by Surikov to the audience. It was presented on March 1, 1881 at the next exhibition of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. P. M. Tretyakov’s daughter A. P. Botkina recalled Surikov: “... no one started like that. He didn’t sway, didn’t try it on, and this work struck like thunder.” Tretyakov immediately acquired this painting for his collection, and later the next two historical paintings, “Menshikov in Berezovo” and “Boyarina Morozova”.
Notes
Sources
- State Tretyakov Gallery. Art of the XII - early XX centuries. - M.: ScanRus, 2007. - P. 216-219. - ISBN 978-5-93221-120-5
- World art. Russian painting. - St. Petersburg: SZKEO Kristall LLC, 2007. - P. 157. - 192 p. - ISBN 5-9603-0064-8
- Wonderful canvases. - L., 1966. - P. 302.
Categories:
- Pictures in alphabetical order
- Paintings from 1881
- Paintings from the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery
- Paintings by Vasily Surikov
- Moscow in painting
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See what “Morning of the Streltsy Execution” is in other dictionaries:
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Books
- Masterpieces from A to Z. Issue 6, Astakhov A.Yu. With the new project of the publishing house 'Gallery of Russian Painting', art lovers will have new - truly unique - opportunities. We offer you the most comprehensive thematic selections... Category: Art history and theory Series: Gallery of Russian painting Publisher:
In Vasily Surikov’s painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” we see a tragic scene of the execution of Moscow Streltsy in the fall of 1698. The artist worked on the canvas for three years. This is the first large-scale painting by Vasily Surikov and one of his most famous works. The canvas dimensions are 218 by 379 cm.
The first Streletsky riot occurred in the spring of 1682 after the death of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich. The Tsar had no children, and his young brothers Ivan and Peter, who had different mothers - Maria Miloslavskaya and Natalya Naryshkina, claimed the throne. Ivan was a sickly boy from childhood and was not at all interested in state affairs, and Peter was only 10 years old at that time. With the support of Patriarch Joachim, the Naryshkins and their supporters elevated Peter to the throne.
The Miloslavskys saw this as an infringement of their interests and, taking advantage of the discontent of the Moscow archers, to come to power, provoked their rebellion. Due to the empty treasury, the archers' salaries were delayed; in addition, at the instigation of the Miloslavsky clan, false rumors were spread: allegedly, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich did not die a natural death, that he was poisoned, and Tsarevich Ivan was dead - he was strangled by the Naryshkins.
The archers burst into the royal palace and began to commit atrocities, catching and killing the Naryshkins. As a result, two brothers of Natalya Naryshkina, the elderly Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, his son and many of their supporters died. The bloodshed took place for three days from April 15 to April 17, 1682, in front of the eyes of 10-year-old Peter. It’s unlikely that the archers could have thought how terribly the young king would take revenge on them for the humiliation and murder of his relatives.
As a result, at the insistence of the Miloslavskys, in June 1682, both brothers were crowned kings - Ivan, who was unable to rule the country, and Peter. But in fact, power passed to Princess Sophia, who took up residence in the Kremlin, and Peter and his mother Natalya Kirillovna were forced to retire to Preobrazhenskoye.
In 1689, Peter turned 17 years old and there were no formal conditions left for Sophia’s regency. But the princess did not intend to give up the throne, and a tough confrontation remained between her and Peter. In August, Peter was informed that an assassination attempt was being prepared on him. Frightened, he hid in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, where his amusing army, which by that time represented a significant force, also headed. Here he signed a decree in which he orderedStreltsy colonels to appear at his disposal, accompanied by Streltsy electors. For failure to comply with the order, the king threatened them with the death penalty.
Soon, most of the archers obeyed Peter and arrived at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, and Sophia, left without support, was imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent.
The second Streltsy riot occurred in 1698. Its cause is considered to be the archers' dissatisfaction with low salaries and isolation from their families. At the same time, Sophia, who dreamed of returning to the throne, called on the archers to come to her aid and protect Russia from the invasion of infidels. Taking advantage of Peter's departure from Moscow, the archers headed to the capital, but they only managed to reach the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery. Here they were defeated by troops loyal to Peter.
Returning from abroad, the king began an investigation, accompanied by torture and executions. By his order, more than a thousand rebels were executed by the most different ways, about six hundred people were sent into exile. Queen Sophia, tonsured a nun, died in 1704, outliving her Streltsy supporters by 6 years.
Artist Vasily Surikov addresses tragic story Streltsy riot. On the canvas we see an execution scene taking place on Red Square, on Lobnoye Mesto. The artist depicted the moment preceding the massacre itself, the last minutes of the life of the archers. Sentenced to death, they say goodbye to their relatives and like-minded people, one of them is already being led to execution.
Initially, Vasily Surikov wanted to depict several executed people in the painting. However, after his maid fainted after seeing a hanged man drawn in chalk, the artist abandoned his plan.
Central storyline The painting is a confrontation between two personalities - Sagittarius, in whose hands there is a candle (a symbol of funeral and death) and Peter, proudly sitting on a horse. Their views are irreconcilable, full of hatred and anger.
Note that the soldiers are lined up exactly along the Kremlin wall, over which crows circle, and those sentenced to death, dressed in white clothes, holding candles, are depicted against the backdrop of St. Basil's Cathedral. Even death did not force them to renounce their views.
One of the archers was led to execution, his candle was extinguished and thrown into the mud. The soldier in the center took the candle from the gray-haired archer and extinguished it. Soon even that one will face reprisals. Several candles are still burning evenly and brightly. How much bitterness and despair there is in the faces of the wives, mothers and children doomed to death, but unrepentant archers!
In Vasily Surikov’s painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” the main actor the people appear, it is them that the artist depicted in the foreground. The faces of the archers and the soldiers are somewhat similar, and the soldiers support the rebel leading to execution in a friendly manner. Thus, the artist wanted to show that a people divided by history remains united.
Jacques Louis David's painting "The Oath of the Horatii" is a turning point in history European painting. Stylistically, it still belongs to classicism; This is a style oriented toward Antiquity, and at first glance, David retains this orientation. "The Oath of the Horatii" is based on the story of how the Roman patriots three brothers Horace were chosen to fight the representatives of the hostile city of Alba Longa, the Curiatii brothers. Titus Livy and Diodorus Siculus have this story; Pierre Corneille wrote a tragedy based on its plot.
“But it is precisely the oath of the Horatii that is missing from these classical texts. <...>It is David who turns the oath into the central episode of the tragedy. The old man holds three swords. He stands in the center, he represents the axis of the picture. To his left are three sons merging into one figure, to his right are three women. This picture is stunningly simple. Before David, classicism, with all its orientation towards Raphael and Greece, could not find such a harsh, simple male tongue to express civic values. David seemed to hear what Diderot said, who did not have time to see this canvas: “You need to paint as they said in Sparta.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
In the time of David, Antiquity first became tangible through the archaeological discovery of Pompeii. Before him, Antiquity was the sum of the texts of ancient authors - Homer, Virgil and others - and several dozen or hundreds of imperfectly preserved sculptures. Now it has become tangible, right down to the furniture and beads.
“But there is none of this in David’s painting. In it, Antiquity is amazingly reduced not so much to the surroundings (helmets, irregular swords, togas, columns), but to the spirit of primitive, furious simplicity.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
David carefully orchestrated the appearance of his masterpiece. He painted and exhibited it in Rome, receiving enthusiastic criticism there, and then sent a letter to his French patron. In it, the artist reported that at some point he stopped painting a picture for the king and began to paint it for himself, and, in particular, decided to make it not square, as required for the Paris Salon, but rectangular. As the artist had hoped, the rumors and letter fueled the public excitement, and the painting was booked a prime spot at the already opened Salon.
“And so, belatedly, the picture is put back in place and stands out as the only one. If it had been square, it would have been hung in line with the others. And by changing the size, David turned it into a unique one. It was a very powerful artistic gesture. On the one hand, he declared himself to be the main one in creating the canvas. On the other hand, he attracted everyone’s attention to this picture.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
The painting has another important meaning, which makes it a masterpiece for all time:
“This painting does not address the individual—it addresses the person standing in line. This is a team. And this is a command to a person who first acts and then thinks. David very correctly showed two non-overlapping, absolutely tragically separated worlds - the world of active men and the world of suffering women. And this juxtaposition - very energetic and beautiful - shows the horror that actually lies behind the story of the Horatii and behind this picture. And since this horror is universal, “The Oath of the Horatii” will not leave us anywhere.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
Abstract
In 1816, the French frigate Medusa was wrecked off the coast of Senegal. 140 passengers left the brig on a raft, but only 15 were saved; to survive the 12-day wandering on the waves, they had to resort to cannibalism. A scandal broke out in French society; The incompetent captain, a royalist by conviction, was found guilty of the disaster.
“For liberal French society, the disaster of the frigate “Medusa”, the death of the ship, which for a Christian person symbolizes the community (first the church, and now the nation), became a symbol, a very bad sign of the emerging new regime of the Restoration.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
In 1818, the young artist Theodore Gericault, looking for a worthy subject, read the book of survivors and began working on his painting. In 1819, the painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon and became a hit, a symbol of romanticism in painting. Géricault quickly abandoned his intention to depict the most seductive thing - a scene of cannibalism; he did not show the stabbing, despair or the moment of salvation itself.
“Gradually he chose the only right moment. This is the moment of maximum hope and maximum uncertainty. This is the moment when the people who survived on the raft first see the brig Argus on the horizon, which first passed by the raft (he did not notice it).
And only then, walking on a counter course, I came across him. In the sketch, where the idea has already been found, “Argus” is noticeable, but in the picture it turns into a small dot on the horizon, disappearing, which attracts the eye, but does not seem to exist.”Ilya Doronchenkov
Géricault refuses naturalism: instead of emaciated bodies, he has beautiful, courageous athletes in his paintings. But this is not idealization, this is universalization: the film is not about specific passengers of the Medusa, it is about everyone.
“Gericault scatters the dead in the foreground. It was not he who came up with this: French youth raved about the dead and wounded bodies. It excited, hit the nerves, destroyed conventions: a classicist cannot show the ugly and terrible, but we will. But these corpses have another meaning. Look what is happening in the middle of the picture: there is a storm, there is a funnel into which the eye is drawn. And along the bodies, the viewer, standing right in front of the picture, steps onto this raft. We're all there."
Ilya Doronchenkov
Gericault's painting works in a new way: it is addressed not to an army of spectators, but to every person, everyone is invited to the raft. And the ocean is not just the ocean of lost hopes of 1816. This is human destiny.
Abstract
By 1814, France was tired of Napoleon, and the arrival of the Bourbons was greeted with relief. However, many political freedoms were abolished, the Restoration began, and by the end of the 1820s the younger generation began to realize the ontological mediocrity of power.
“Eugene Delacroix belonged to that layer of the French elite that rose under Napoleon and was pushed aside by the Bourbons. But nevertheless, he was treated kindly: he received a gold medal for his first painting at the Salon, “Dante’s Boat,” in 1822. And in 1824 he produced the painting “The Massacre of Chios,” depicting ethnic cleansing when the Greek population of the island of Chios was deported and exterminated during the Greek War of Independence. This is the first sign of political liberalism in painting, which concerned still very distant countries.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
In July 1830, Charles X issued several laws seriously restricting political freedoms and sent troops to destroy the printing house of an opposition newspaper. But the Parisians responded with fire, the city was covered with barricades, and during the “Three Glorious Days” the Bourbon regime fell.
On famous painting Delacroix dedicated revolutionary events 1830, different social strata are represented: a dandy in a top hat, a tramp boy, a worker in a shirt. But the main one, of course, is a young beautiful woman with a bare chest and shoulder.
“Delacroix succeeds here in something that almost never succeeds in artists of the 19th century century, increasingly more realistically thinking. He manages in one picture - very pathetic, very romantic, very sonorous - to combine reality, physically tangible and brutal (look at the corpses beloved by romantics in the foreground) and symbols. Because this full-blooded woman is, of course, Freedom itself. Political developments since the 18th century have confronted artists with the need to visualize what cannot be seen. How can you see freedom? Christian values are conveyed to a person through a very human way - through the life of Christ and his suffering. But such political abstractions as freedom, equality, fraternity have no appearance. And Delacroix is perhaps the first and not the only one who, in general, successfully coped with this task: we now know what freedom looks like.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
One of the political symbols in the painting is the Phrygian cap on the girl's head, a permanent heraldic symbol of democracy. Another telling motif is nudity.
“Nudity has long been associated with naturalness and with nature, and in the 18th century this association was forced. The history of the French Revolution even knows a unique performance when in the cathedral Notre Dame of Paris nudie French theater depicted nature. And nature is freedom, it is naturalness. And that’s what it turns out, this tangible, sensual, attractive woman denotes. It denotes natural freedom."
Ilya Doronchenkov
Although this painting made Delacroix famous, it was soon removed from view for a long time, and it is clear why. The viewer standing in front of her finds himself in the position of those who are attacked by Freedom, who are attacked by the revolution. The uncontrollable movement that will crush you is very uncomfortable to watch.
Abstract
On May 2, 1808, an anti-Napoleonic rebellion broke out in Madrid, the city was in the hands of protesters, but by the evening of the 3rd, mass executions of rebels were taking place in the vicinity of the Spanish capital. These events soon led to a guerrilla war that lasted six years. When it ends, the painter Francisco Goya will be commissioned two paintings to immortalize the uprising. The first is “The Uprising of May 2, 1808 in Madrid.”
“Goya really depicts the moment the attack began - that first blow by the Navajo that started the war. It is this compression of the moment that is extremely important here. It’s as if he’s bringing the camera closer; from a panorama he moves to an extremely close-up shot, which also hasn’t happened to this extent before. There is another exciting thing: the sense of chaos and stabbing is extremely important here. There is no person here whom you feel sorry for. There are victims and there are killers. And these murderers with bloodshot eyes, Spanish patriots, in general, are engaged in the butcher’s business.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
In the second picture, the characters change places: those who are cut in the first picture, in the second they shoot those who cut them. And the moral ambivalence of the street battle gives way to moral clarity: Goya is on the side of those who rebelled and are dying.
“The enemies are now separated. On the right are those who will live. This is a series of people in uniform with guns, absolutely identical, even more identical than David’s Horace brothers. Their faces are invisible, and their shakos make them look like machines, like robots. These are not human figures. They stand out in black silhouette in the darkness of the night against the backdrop of a lantern flooding a small clearing.
On the left are those who will die. They move, swirl, gesticulate, and for some reason it seems that they are taller than their executioners. Although the main, central character - a Madrid man in orange pants and a white shirt - is on his knees. He’s still higher, he’s a little bit on the hill.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
The dying rebel stands in the pose of Christ, and for greater persuasiveness, Goya depicts stigmata on his palms. In addition, the artist makes you constantly go through a difficult experience - look at last moment before execution. Finally, Goya changes the understanding of a historical event. Before him, an event was depicted with its ritual, rhetorical side; for Goya, an event is a moment, a passion, a non-literary cry.
In the first picture of the diptych it is clear that the Spaniards are not slaughtering the French: the riders falling under the horses’ feet are dressed in Muslim costumes.
The fact is that Napoleon’s troops included a detachment of Mamelukes, Egyptian cavalrymen.
“It would seem strange that the artist turns Muslim fighters into a symbol of the French occupation. But this allows Goya to turn a modern event into a link in the history of Spain. For any nation that forged its identity during Napoleonic Wars, it was extremely important to realize that this war is part of the eternal war for one’s values. And such a mythological war for the Spanish people was the Reconquista, the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim kingdoms. Thus, Goya, while remaining faithful to documentary and modernity, puts this event in connection with the national myth, forcing us to understand the struggle of 1808 as the eternal struggle of the Spaniards for the national and Christian.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
The artist managed to create an iconographic formula for execution. Every time his colleagues - be it Manet, Dix or Picasso - addressed the topic of execution, they followed Goya.
Abstract
The pictorial revolution of the 19th century took place in the landscape even more palpably than in the event picture.
“The landscape completely changes the optics. A person changes his scale, a person experiences himself differently in the world. Landscape is a realistic representation of what is around us, with a sense of the moisture-laden air and everyday details in which we are immersed. Or it can be a projection of our experiences, and then in the shimmer of sunset or in joyful sunny day we see the state of our soul. But there are striking landscapes that belong to both modes. And it’s very difficult to know, in fact, which one is dominant.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
This duality is clearly manifested in German artist Caspar David Friedrich: his landscapes tell us about the nature of the Baltic, and at the same time represent philosophical statement. There is a languid sense of melancholy in Frederick's landscapes; the person in them rarely penetrates further than the background and usually has his back turned to the viewer.
on his last picture“Ages of Life” depicts a family in the foreground: children, parents, an old man. And further, behind the spatial gap - the sunset sky, the sea and sailboats.
“If we look at how this canvas is constructed, we will see a striking echo between the rhythm of the human figures in the foreground and the rhythm of the sailboats at sea. Here are tall figures, here are low figures, here are large sailboats, here are boats under sail. Nature and sailboats are what is called the music of the spheres, it is eternal and independent of man. The man in the foreground is his ultimate being. Friedrich’s sea is very often a metaphor for otherness, death. But death for him, a believer, is a promise eternal life, about which we do not know. These people in the foreground - small, clumsy, not very attractively written - with their rhythm repeat the rhythm of a sailboat, like a pianist repeats the music of the spheres. This is our human music, but it all rhymes with the very music that for Friedrich fills nature. Therefore, it seems to me that in this painting Friedrich promises not an afterlife paradise, but that our finite existence is still in harmony with the universe.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
Abstract
After the Great french revolution people realized that they had a past. The 19th century, through the efforts of romantic aesthetes and positivist historians, created modern idea stories.
"The 19th century created historical painting, as we know it. Not abstract Greek and Roman heroes, acting in an ideal setting, guided by ideal motives. History XIX century becomes theatrically melodramatic, it comes closer to man, and we are now able to empathize not with great deeds, but with misfortunes and tragedies. Each European nation created a history for herself in the 19th century, and by constructing history, she, in general, created her portrait and plans for the future. In this sense, European historical painting XIX centuries are terribly interesting to study, although, in my opinion, she did not leave, almost no, truly great works. And among these great works, I see one exception, which we Russians can rightfully be proud of. This is “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” by Vasily Surikov.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
19th-century history painting, focused on superficial verisimilitude, typically follows a single hero who guides history or fails. Surikov’s painting here is a striking exception. Its hero is a crowd in colorful outfits, which occupies almost four-fifths of the picture; This makes the painting appear strikingly disorganized. Behind the living, swirling crowd, some of which will soon die, stands the motley, undulating St. Basil's Cathedral. Behind the frozen Peter, a line of soldiers, a line of gallows - a line of battlements of the Kremlin wall. The picture is cemented by the duel of glances between Peter and the red-bearded archer.
“A lot can be said about the conflict between society and the state, the people and the empire. But I think there are some other meanings to this piece that make it unique. Vladimir Stasov, a promoter of the work of the Peredvizhniki and a defender of Russian realism, who wrote a lot of unnecessary things about them, said very well about Surikov. He called paintings of this kind “choral.” Indeed, they lack one hero - they lack one engine. The people become the engine. But in this picture the role of the people is very clearly visible. Joseph Brodsky said beautifully in his Nobel lecture that the real tragedy is not when a hero dies, but when a choir dies.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
Events take place in Surikov’s paintings as if against the will of their characters - and in this the artist’s concept of history is obviously close to Tolstoy’s.
“Society, people, nation in this picture seem divided. Peter's soldiers in uniforms that appear to be black and the archers in white are contrasted as good and evil. What connects these two unequal parts of the composition? This is an archer in a white shirt going to execution, and a soldier in uniform who supports him by the shoulder. If we mentally remove everything that surrounds them, we will never in our lives be able to imagine that this person is being led to execution. These are two friends returning home, and one supports the other with friendship and warmth. When Petrusha Grinev in „ The captain's daughter“The Pugachevites hung them up, they said: “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” as if they really wanted to cheer you up. This feeling that a people divided by the will of history is at the same time fraternal and united is an amazing quality of Surikov’s canvas, which I also don’t know anywhere else.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
Abstract
In painting, size matters, but not every subject can be depicted on a large canvas. Various pictorial traditions depicted villagers, but most often - not in huge paintings, but this is exactly what “Funeral at Ornans” by Gustave Courbet is. Ornans is a wealthy provincial town, where the artist himself comes from.
“Courbet moved to Paris, but did not become part of the artistic establishment. He did not receive an academic education, but he had a powerful hand, a very tenacious eye and great ambition. He always felt like a provincial, and he was best at home in Ornans. But he lived almost his entire life in Paris, fighting with the art that was already dying, fighting with the art that idealizes and talks about the general, about the past, about the beautiful, without noticing the present. Such art, which rather praises, which rather delights, as a rule, finds a very great demand. Courbet was, indeed, a revolutionary in painting, although now this revolutionary nature of him is not very clear to us, because he writes life, he writes prose. The main thing that was revolutionary about him was that he stopped idealizing his nature and began to paint it exactly as he saw it, or as he believed that he saw it.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
On giant painting almost in full height about fifty people are depicted. All of them real faces, and experts identified almost all the funeral participants. Courbet painted his fellow countrymen, and they were pleased to be seen in the picture exactly as they were.
“But when this painting was exhibited in 1851 in Paris, it created a scandal. She went against everything that the Parisian public was accustomed to at that moment. She insulted artists with the lack of a clear composition and rough, dense impasto painting, which conveys the materiality of things, but does not want to be beautiful. She frightened the average person by the fact that he could not really understand who it was. The breakdown of communications between the spectators of provincial France and the Parisians was striking. Parisians perceived the image of this respectable, wealthy crowd as an image of the poor. One of the critics said: “Yes, this is a disgrace, but this is the disgrace of the province, and Paris has its own disgrace.” Ugliness actually meant the utmost truthfulness.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
Courbet refused to idealize, which made him a true avant-garde of the 19th century. He focuses on French popular prints, and a Dutch group portrait, and ancient solemnity. Courbet teaches us to perceive modernity in its uniqueness, in its tragedy and in its beauty.
“French salons knew images of hard peasant labor, poor peasants. But the mode of depiction was generally accepted. The peasants needed to be pitied, the peasants needed to be sympathized with. It was a somewhat top-down view. A person who sympathizes is, by definition, in a priority position. And Courbet deprived his viewer of the possibility of such patronizing empathy. His characters are majestic, monumental, they ignore their viewers, and they do not allow one to establish such contact with them, which makes them part of the familiar world, they very powerfully break stereotypes.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
Abstract
The 19th century did not love itself, preferring to look for beauty in something else, be it Antiquity, the Middle Ages or the East. Charles Baudelaire was the first to learn to see the beauty of modernity, and it was embodied in painting by artists whom Baudelaire was not destined to see: for example, Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet.
“Manet is a provocateur. Manet is at the same time a brilliant painter, the charm of whose colors, colors very paradoxically combined, forces the viewer not to ask himself obvious questions. If we look closely at his paintings, we will often be forced to admit that we do not understand what brought these people here, what they are doing next to each other, why these objects are connected on the table. The simplest answer: Manet is first and foremost a painter, Manet is first and foremost an eye. He is interested in the combination of colors and textures, and the logical pairing of objects and people is the tenth thing. Such pictures often confuse the viewer who is looking for content, who is looking for stories. Manet doesn't tell stories. He could have remained such an amazingly accurate and exquisite optical apparatus if he had not created his last masterpiece already in those years when he was in the grip of a fatal illness.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
The painting "Bar at the Folies Bergere" was exhibited in 1882, at first earned ridicule from critics, and then was quickly recognized as a masterpiece. Its theme is a café-concert, a striking phenomenon Parisian life second half of the century. It seems that Manet vividly and authentically captured the life of the Folies Bergere.
“But when we start to take a closer look at what Manet did in his painting, we will understand that there are a huge number of inconsistencies that are subconsciously disturbing and, in general, do not receive a clear resolution. The girl we see is a saleswoman, she must use her physical attractiveness to make customers stop, flirt with her and order more drinks. Meanwhile, she does not flirt with us, but looks through us. There are four bottles of champagne on the table, warm - but why not in ice? In the mirror image, these bottles are not on the same edge of the table as they are in the foreground. The glass with roses is seen from a different angle than all the other objects on the table. And the girl in the mirror does not look exactly like the girl who looks at us: she is thicker, she has more rounded shapes, she is leaning towards the visitor. In general, she behaves as the one we are looking at should behave.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
Feminist criticism drew attention to the fact that the girl’s outline resembles a bottle of champagne standing on the counter. This is an apt observation, but hardly exhaustive: the melancholy of the picture and the psychological isolation of the heroine resist a straightforward interpretation.
“These optical plot and psychological mysteries of the picture, which seem to have no definite answer, force us to approach it again every time and ask these questions, subconsciously imbued with that feeling of beautiful, sad, tragic, everyday modern life, which Baudelaire dreamed of and which Manet left before us forever.”
Ilya Doronchenkov
“The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” is one of the most famous paintings the great Russian artist Vasily Ivanovich (1848-1916). Work on the painting was carried out in 1878 to 1881, oil on canvas. 218 × 379 cm. Currently, the canvas is in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
The painting is dedicated historical event- execution of the archers who staged a riot in 1698. The artist turned to the era of the reign of Peter I, when Princess Sophia led the so-called Streletsky revolt. The riot was suppressed and the rebels were executed. In total, about 2,000 archers were executed, 601 were punished, whipped, branded and exiled. It is known that Peter I personally cut off the heads of five of the condemned.
In his painting, Surikov did not depict the moment of execution itself, but the moment of farewell to life and family looks no less exciting. The condemned archers were brought to the place of execution, and Surikov tried to convey how each of them felt in last moment own life. The picture turned out to be very emotional and filled with acute tragedy.
The picture shows two main characters. These characters are easy to read because they are two opposing centers. From the side of power, Peter I himself is represented here on horseback, looking at the condemned with an implacable gaze. He is angry and full of confidence in the correctness of his decision. Second main character is on the left side of the picture - a man with an angry look and with a candle in his hands. He looks towards Peter I with an embittered gaze. Despite the fact that his fate was decided, he was chained and in the complete power of his captors, he did not give up and did not accept his fate. For his part, he is also confident in the correctness of his actions and is full of hatred for the king and the authorities.
The other characters in the film are shown no less emotionally. Sagittarius with a black beard looks around gloomily; a gray-haired Sagittarius nearby says goodbye to his children; another rebel stands behind, bowing his head, thereby showing that his fate is sealed; soldiers lead another condemned man to the gallows; a young Streltsy wife screams in despair; the mother of one of the archers sank exhausted to the ground; there are clothes on the ground that are no longer needed and that there is no one else to wear; the flame of a fallen candle smolders, which is a symbol of the soul of a person whose life is about to go out.
In addition to the heartbreaking spectacle, the picture is also interesting for its compositional solutions. Vasily Surikov visually brought together St. Basil's Cathedral, the Kremlin Wall and the Place of Execution. This technique helped him achieve the effect of a large crowd. In order for the picture to convey the full horror of mass execution, Surikov chose the early morning for the time of the image, when it was not yet fully dawn and there was morning fog after a rainy night. The location of the two central plots is also interesting. The condemned archers are depicted by Surikov against the background of St. Basil's Cathedral, thereby emphasizing their role as martyrs, and Peter I, high-ranking people and soldiers are depicted against the background of the Kremlin wall and Kremlin towers over which crows circle.
The painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was Surikov’s first large canvas on a historical theme. Moreover, it became the first to be presented to the audience by Surikov. The work was first shown on March 1, 1881 at the exhibition of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, where it made a huge impression on art connoisseurs and ordinary viewers. Pavel Tretyakov immediately purchased it for his collection.
Vasily Surikov’s painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” is recognized as one of best works this wonderful Russian artist. This masterpiece tells viewers about a controversial and bloody event in the history of the Russian state. There was almost a coup in the country - Peter I's sister Sophia, having enlisted the support of the Streltsy army, wanted to remove Peter from the throne and take all power in the country into her own hands. After exposing the conspiracy and suppressing the rebellion, Peter I made a cruel but necessary decision: to execute the participants in the armed uprising. This is what Vasily Surikov’s painting tells about. But instead of scenes of violence, the artist shows us the mental and moral state of the participants in the Streltsy execution.
In the central part of the canvas, the artist depicted the archers themselves, led to execution, and their loved ones. Many of the characters, so carefully drawn by Surikov, behave completely differently. For example, a well-dressed woman, apparently the wife of one of the archers, raises her hands to the sky in despair, and buries himself in her clothes a little boy- her son. Another woman covered her face with her hands out of fear of the inevitable. Old woman out of grief and powerlessness she sank to the ground, next to her a little girl in a red scarf screams something.
A variety of emotions can also be read on the faces of Sagittarius. One resigned to the circumstances and hung his head in despair, the other - already elderly - does not believe in what is happening and looks around with an unseeing gaze. The black-bearded Sagittarius sits with a stone face - he has collected all his inner strength into a fist so as not to give himself any slack and to withstand with honor the severe trials that befell him. And the Sagittarius with red hair and a red hat looks directly and with hatred at Tsar Peter I.
Enormous tension is felt in the pose of Peter himself, sitting on a horse and somewhat towering over the other participants in the action. It comes from him enormous strength and a feeling of power.
Vasily Surikov’s painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” shows the confrontation between the old and the new, telling the viewer that in order for something new to be born, the old, outdated, must be destroyed.
Year of painting: 1881.
Dimensions of the painting: 218 x 379 cm.
Material: canvas.
Writing technique: oil.
Genre: historical painting.
Style: realism.
Gallery: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
