Autobiography of Kustodiev. The best paintings by Russian artist Boris Kustodiev. last years of life

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

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

Works on Wikimedia Commons

Biography

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.

• - taught at the New Art Workshop (St. Petersburg).
• - Member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia.

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 “Bug” (the famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), “Hell Mail” and “Sparks”.

With a keen sense of line, Kustodiev 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 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 the sketches for Repin’s “Gala Meeting” State Council On May 7, 1901, student Kustodiev showed his talent as a portrait painter. In the sketches and portrait sketches for this multi-figure composition he coped with the task of achieving similarities with in a creative manner Repina. 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 writes 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 concept - a series of canvases on the themes of brightly festive peasant and provincial 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”, “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 picture, 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 intention and the director’s interpretation of the play (“The Death of Pazukhin” by Saltykov-Shchedrin, 1914, Moscow Art Theater; never saw the light of day “ Thunderstorm" by Ostrovsky, 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 1918-20. opera performances (1920, “The Tsar’s Bride”, Bolshoi Opera Theater of the People’s House; 1918, “The Snow Maiden”, Grand Theatre(staging not carried out)).

Successful were the productions of Zamyatin’s “The Flea” (1925, Moscow Art Theater 2nd; 1926, Leningrad Bolshoi Theatre of Drama). 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 1st anniversary of the October Revolution, painted posters, popular prints and paintings on revolutionary themes (“Bolshevik”, 1919-20, Tretyakov Gallery; “Celebration in honor of the 2nd Congress of the Comintern on Uritsky Square” , 1921, Russian Museum).

Literary activity

B. M. Kustodiev. Letters. Articles, notes, interviews..., [L., 1967].

Gallery

• "Introduction. Moscow" drawing
• “Morning”, (1904, Russian Russian Museum)
• "Balagany"
• "Trade fairs"
• "Maslenitsa"
• self-portrait ( , Uffizi Gallery, Florence)
• “Merchantwomen in Kineshma” (tempera, Museum of Russian Art in Kyiv)
• portrait of A. I. Anisimov ( , Russian Museum)
• “Beauty” (1915, Tretyakov Gallery)
• “Merchant's Wife at Tea” (1918, Russian Museum)
• "Bolshevik" (1919-20, Tretyakov Gallery)
• "F. I. Chaliapin at the fair" ( , Russian Museum)
• "Moscow tavern" ()
• “Portrait of A.N. Protasova” ()
• "Nun" ()
• "Portrait of Ivan Bilibin" ()
• “Portrait of S.A. Nikolsky” ()
• “Portrait of Vasily Vasilyevich Mate” ()
• "Self-portrait" ()
• "Portrait of a Woman in Blue" ()
• “Portrait of the writer A.V. Shvarts” ()
• "Fair" ()
• "Zemstvo school in Moscow Rus'" ()
• “Portrait of Irina Kustodieva with her dog Shumka” ()
• "Nun" ()
• “Portrait of N.I. Zelenskaya” ()
• "Freezing day" ()
• “Portrait of N.K. von Mecca" ()
• "Portrait of Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich" ()
• "Harvest" ()
• “Illustration for N.S. Leskov’s story “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” ()
• “Village holiday. Fragment" ()
• “At the Icon of the Savior” ()
• “The square is at the exit of the city. Scenery sketch for A.N. Ostrovsky’s play “Warm Heart” ()
• "Red Tower of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra" ()

see also

• Astrakhan Art Gallery named after P. M. Dogadin (formerly named after B. M. Kustodiev)

Notes

Bibliography

• Voinov V. B. M. Kustodiev. - L., 1925.
• Knyazeva V. P. Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev: (1878-1927), exhibition catalog / State Russian Museum; [author preface]. - L.: State. Russian Museum, 1959. - 117, p., l. ill., portrait
• Etkind M. B. M. Kustodiev. - L. - M., 1960.
• Lebedeva V. E. Kustodiev: Painting. Drawing. Theater. Book. Printmaking. - M.: Nauka, 1966. - 244 p. - 10,000 copies.(in lane, superreg.)
• Savitskaya T. A. B. M. Kustodiev. - M.: Art, 1966. - 148, p. - 25,000 copies.(region, superregion)
• Etkind M. G. Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev. - L.: Artist of the RSFSR, 1968. - 64 p. - (People's Art Library). - 20,000 copies.(region)
• Alekseeva A. I. The sun on a frosty day: (Kustodiev) / Drawings in the text and on the tab by B. Kustodiev; Cover and titles by the artist B. Ardov.. - M.: Young Guard, 1978. - 176, p. - (Pioneer means first. Issue 60). - 100,000 copies.(in translation)
• Lebedeva V. E. Kustodiev: Time. Life. Creation. - L.: Children's literature, 1984. - 160 p. - 75,000 copies.(in translation)
• Turkov A. M. Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev. - M.: Art, 1986. - 160, p. - (Life in art). - 100,000 copies.
• Bogdanov-Berezovsky V. M. Kustodiev // Meetings. - M.: Art, 1967. - P. 159-190. - 280 s. - 25,000 copies.

Links

Categories:

• Personalities in alphabetical order
• Born on March 7
• Born in 1878
• Born in Astrakhan
• Died on May 26
• Died in 1927
• Died in St. Petersburg
• Artists by alphabet
• Artists of the World of Art association
• Union of Russian Artists
• Russian artists in the public domain
• Artists of Russia
• Graduates of the Repin Institute
• Artists of St. Petersburg
• Died from tuberculosis
• Buried at the Tikhvin Cemetery
• Pensioners of the Imperial Academy of Arts
• Graduates of the Imperial Academy of Arts

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See what “Kustodiev, Boris Mikhailovich” is in other dictionaries:

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev Self-portrait (1912) Date of birth: February 23 (March 7) 1878 Place of birth ... Wikipedia

Kustodiev, Boris Mikhailovich- Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev. KUSTODIEV Boris Mikhailovich (1878 1927), Russian painter. Colorful scenes of peasant and provincial philistine and merchant life (Fair series), portraits (Chaliapin, 1922), illustrations, theatrical... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (1878 1927), sov. artist. In 1905 he completed a number of illustrations. to “The Song about... the Merchant Kalashnikov” (ed. About literacy, St. Petersburg, 1906): ink 4 page illustrations. “Alena Dmitrievna and Kiribeevich”, “Fist Fight”, “Execution of Kalashnikov”, “Ivan the Terrible in Moscow... ... Lermontov Encyclopedia

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 Mikhail after his father, 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 his 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.

In the capital, Boris settled with his uncle, who was unhappy that his nephew left the seminary. Boris writes bitterly to his mother after another scandal: “I think that I won’t live with him for a long time if this happens again. I... walked around all day yesterday... stunned by my uncle's reproaches and swearing. I have 20 rubles left of your money. 60 k. It’s good if I enter the Academy.

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 good taste 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.

As they said 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. What kind did she have? wonderful eyes. 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. When they parted, 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 “Novoe 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 history. 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. They praised it very much in the Petersburg Newspaper...”

They became husband and wife on January 8, 1903. This is evidenced by the entry in the registry book of the Astrakhan Church of the Nativity of Christ, the same one where Boris was baptized: “Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, on January 8, 1903, entered into a legal marriage with the daughter of the court councilor Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya, 22 years old, Roman Catholic.. .” The Greek sisters did not live to see this wedding. Now Julia has only her beloved Boris left in her life.

Everything was going great. For the painting “Bazaar in the Village” Kustodiev was awarded gold medal and the right to a year-long trip abroad, at the international exhibition in Munich he was again awarded an award - for “Portrait of Varfolomeev”; a correspondent for the respected newspaper Birzhevye Vedomosti interviewed him, in which he wrote: “ To the young artist 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.

With him in January of the following year, they all went on a trip abroad, inviting Ekaterina Prokhorovna on the trip to help the young mother. The first stop is Paris, which shocked Kustodiev. Boris studied in the studio of the famous artist Rene Menard, and the rest of the time, with a notebook in his hands, he wandered the streets in fascination and made sketches. Only in Paris could such a lyrical Kustodiev painting as “Morning” appear: a young mother bathes her little son. A true hymn to motherhood and love...

And then Kustodiev went to Spain, and Yulia remained in Paris - after crying, she was consoled by his promise to write often. This promise was fulfilled, and Boris told his wife in letters about the paintings of Velazquez, about the trip to Seville, about bullfights, about Cordoba and the amazing cathedral-mosque...

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 dry 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, Julia was worried about him, complained about 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 work 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 was 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 lush, 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.

And he dreamed of the free Russian Maslenitsa - bright, joyful, happy... This large canvas was shown at the World of Art exhibition in the fall of 1916. Among the visitors to the exhibition was the surgeon Stukkey. He didn’t know much about painting, but this picture shook him to the core. “Where does this man chained to a chair have such a thirst for life? Where does this holiday come from? Where does this incredible power of creativity come from? - the doctor tried to understand. “Maybe his art is his best medicine?”

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 needed to be understood, somehow comprehended, learned to live in 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.

He came to Kustodiev every day, looked at the sketches of the scenery and costumes. They, these two, talented, strong, became friends. They recalled with pleasure their youth and their native places - after all, both were born on the Volga. One day Chaliapin came to Boris Mikhailovich wearing a luxurious fur coat. “Please pose for me in this fur coat,” the artist asked. - Your fur coat is very rich. It's a pleasure to write it." “Is it clever? The fur coat is good, but perhaps stolen,” Chaliapin noted. “How is this stolen? You’re kidding, Fyodor Mikhailovich!”

“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 write a singer in full height, that is, the height of the painting 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 heads ordinary people, according to their lives, destinies, which seem to be 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 would not have been able to withstand 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’s, or in the lap of nature, like Giorgione,” Boris Mikhailovich told his daughter Irina, who posed for him 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...

Anticipating the end, in his last year Kustodiev lived as few people can, even when completely healthy: he painted 8 portraits, several landscapes, posters, created dozens of engravings, illustrations for books, scenery for three performances... In 1927, when It became clear that his illness had worsened, he turned to the People's Commissariat for Education with a request for permission to go to Germany for treatment. The government allocated $1,000, and paperwork began. While waiting, Kustodiev asked to be taken to the Hermitage; he wanted to see the works of Rembrandt and Titian again.

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 performance, in leading role 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.

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 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 the theological seminary and at the same time attends classes with the famous artist P. A. Vlasov. In 1887, having first visited an exhibition of paintings by the Itinerants, 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 was extremely energetic; 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 “bathing” in mother's love baby.

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... He was created at different periods of his life sculptural portraits the artist’s family: “Children” (1909), “Mother with Child” (1910), executed in memory of the artist’s youngest son, who died after his birth.

Many art historians attribute to Kustodiev painting distinctive feature- theatricality. Kustodiev did a lot for the theater. 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 comes trouble - 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 paintings of colorful provincial life, 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 October revolution participates in the design 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 realized.

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...

The bright horse harness with bells and painted arches, the elegant attire of the townspeople, and the flying flags at 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 the traditions of its celebration.

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 performer folk songs his favorite dog is standing - 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 a 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, Civil War, human life is devalued...

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 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?

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev painted a huge number of paintings during his life. Many of them are full of bright colors, sun, and fun. But not many people know that he spent most of his life in a wheelchair. Despite all the hardships and adversities that he had to endure, his work is striking in its cheerfulness. Biography of the great artist, as well as Interesting Facts are offered to your attention.

Talented student

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev is rightfully considered one of the famous artists of the last century. He was a student of the great Ilya Efimovich Repin. Boris Mikhailovich not only inherited the style of his teacher, but also introduced something special into it. The makings of a creative nature were laid in him in early childhood. Let's take a closer look at the fate of this amazingly talented and courageous man.

Boris Kustodiev: biography

He was born in Astrakhan on February 23, 1878. Boris Kustodiev's childhood was not carefree. He hardly remembered his father at all. He died when the boy was only a few years old. A very young mother, Ekaterina Prokhorovna, was left alone with four children. There was very little money, and the family often lived from hand to mouth. What they had in abundance was kindness, tenderness, and motherly love. Despite all the difficulties and hardships, the mother was able to instill in her children a love of art. Such upbringing allowed Boris Kustodiev to decide on his choice of profession already at the age of nine. He really liked to observe any changes in nature and transfer it to a piece of paper. Rain, thunderstorm, sunny day, any other phenomena of the surrounding world were reflected in his work.

When Boris Kustodiev turned 15 years old, he began taking drawing lessons from P. Vlasov, a talented artist. Thanks to these studies, in 1896 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Popularity comes when he begins to draw the faces of the people around him. But the soul requires something else. He likes to depict genre scenes. He goes to Kostroma province. Here he is looking for a location for his competition film “At the Market”, and meets his future wife.

Fruitful time

Having brilliantly graduated from the Academy, he receives the right to a year-long retirement trip abroad and throughout Russia. Together with his family he goes to Paris. By this time they already had a son. Boris Kustodiev studied the work of great artists on trips to Germany, France and other countries. Six months later, returning to his homeland, he works fruitfully. New ideas are reflected in his work, and Boris Kustodiev’s paintings are highly appreciated by critics. As recognition of his merits, in 1907 he was accepted into the Union of Russian Artists.

Any information about the idol will always be of interest to his fans. We invite you to get acquainted with some details of the biography of Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, which few people know about:

1. The boy first began to draw at the age of five.
2. My parents were very fond of Russian art, literature, and philosophy.
3. Together with I. Repin, Boris Kustodiev completed the famous painting “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council”.
4. The artist's paintings became known throughout the world when he was only thirty years old. He was trusted to represent Russia outside its borders, and his works won numerous medals.
5. He was an excellent photographer.
6. Worked in the theater. Prepared scenery for performances.
7. Due to his illness, Boris Kustodiev was forced to wear a corset from his chin to his lower back.
8. Before his death, the artist asked to plant only a birch tree on his grave instead of a gravestone.

Boris Kustodiev: creativity

His very first paintings were portraits. It was with them that he began his creative journey. But the peculiarity of this artist is that he did not just draw the faces of the people around him. He revealed individuality human soul through the world. This is how the most striking portraits were created: Chaliapin, Roerich and others.

Later, the artist’s work switches to depicting the life of the people and the way of life of the Russian merchants. Every detail is in its place and carries a certain meaning. His paintings are always full of life and colors. Kustodiev liked to embody the world around him in his creations.

Most famous works

The artist Boris Kustodiev wrote throughout his life a large number of paintings There are more than five hundred of them in total. Let's remember the most famous paintings of Boris Kustodiev.

« Horses during a thunderstorm »

This most talented example of oil painting reflects the artist's love for nature. One of the amazing and terrible phenomena nature - thunderstorm - captured in the picture.

"Merchant's Wife at Tea"

The details here have a great meaning: a fat lazy cat rubbing against its owner’s shoulder; a merchant couple sitting on a balcony nearby; in the background of the picture you can see a city with shopping shops and a church; the still life of products located on the table evokes genuine admiration. All this is written incredibly brightly and colorfully, which makes the canvas almost tangible.

"Russian Venus" »

When the artist created this amazingly beautiful creation, he was tormented by severe pain. Knowing this, you never cease to admire the talent and fortitude of the great man. A girl washing in a bathhouse personifies feminine beauty, health, and life.

"Morning"

On this canvas, Boris Mikhailovich depicted his beloved wife and their first son. With genuine love and tenderness, he captured his loved ones in the picture. To paint this picture, the artist used only light and airy colors; he masterfully conveys the play of chiaroscuro in his work.

"Maslenitsa"

Boris Kustodiev wrote it after a long illness and surgery, which led to him being in a wheelchair. Despite the excruciating pain, he creates a picture completely permeated with light, fun and unbridled happiness. The main place on it is given to the racing troika, symbolizing movement. In addition, in the picture you can also see people participating in fist fights, festivities and booths. All this is painted so colorfully that it further enhances the whirlwind of dizzying emotions.

Family happiness

One can only envy his personal life. At the age of 22, in the Kostroma province, where he comes in search of nature, Boris Kustodiev meets his future wife. Yulia Evstafievna was only 20 years old when they got married. But for the rest of his life she became his support and reliable friend. It was his wife who helped him not break down after the operation and continue painting when it seemed that he had completely lost hope.

In their marriage they had three children. The very first - Kirill - can be seen in one of Boris Kustodiev’s paintings. The second was a girl, Irina, and then a boy, Igor, but, unfortunately, he died in infancy. Yulia Evstafievna survived her husband by fifteen years, remaining faithful to him until the end of her life.

Terrible disease

In 1909, Boris Kustodiev showed the first signs of a terrible disease - a spinal cord tumor. The artist underwent several operations, but, alas, all of them only temporarily relieved the pain. It soon becomes clear that the disease has penetrated much deeper, and during the operation it is impossible not to touch the nerve endings. This can lead to paralysis of the arms or legs. The choice faces the wife, and she understands how important it is for her husband to have at least hope of continuing to paint. And she chooses her hands.

Now Boris Kustodiev is confined to a wheelchair, but one could only envy his willpower. Despite his illness, he continued to paint while lying down. It is impossible not to admire his courage and fortitude. Indeed, despite all the suffering and excruciating pain he endured, all his works are imbued with bright colors and cheerfulness. It seems that even illness receded for some time before the great power of talent.

last years of life

Despite the illness and wild pain that he constantly experienced, the artist painted pictures until the end of his life. Boris Kustodiev died at the age of 49. He has not changed his writing style, and even his latest works are permeated with light, goodness and happiness.

Kustodiev B. M.

This artist was highly valued by his contemporaries - Repin and Nesterov, Chaliapin and Gorky. And many decades later, we look at his canvases with admiration - a wide panorama of the life of old Rus', masterfully captured, stands before us.

He was born and raised in Astrakhan, a city located between Europe and Asia. The motley world burst into his eyes with all its diversity and richness. The shop signs beckoned, the guest courtyard beckoned; attracted by Volga fairs, noisy bazaars, city gardens and quiet streets; colorful churches, bright, sparkling church utensils; folk customs and holidays - all this forever left its imprint on his emotional, receptive soul.

The artist loved Russia - calm, and bright, and lazy, and restless, and devoted all his work to it, to Russia.

Boris was born into the family of a teacher. Despite the fact that the Kustodievs had to face “financial hard times” more than once, the furnishings of the house were full of comfort, and even some grace. Music was played often. My mother played the piano and loved to sing with her nanny. Russians often sang folk songs. Kustodiev’s love for all things folk was instilled in him from childhood.

First, Boris studied at a theological school, and then at a theological seminary. But the craving for drawing, which manifested itself since childhood, did not give up hope of learning the profession of an artist. By that time, Boris’s father had already died, and the Kustodievs did not have their own funds for studying; his uncle, his father’s brother, helped him. At first, Boris took lessons from the artist Vlasov, who came to Astrakhan for permanent residence. Vlasov taught the future artist a lot, and Kustodiev was grateful to him all his life. Boris enters the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg and studies brilliantly. He graduated from the Kustodiev Academy at the age of 25 with a gold medal and received the right to travel abroad and throughout Russia to improve his skills.

By this time, Kustodiev was already married to Yulia Evstafievna Proshina, with whom he was very much in love and with whom he lived his whole life. She was his muse, friend, assistant and adviser (and later, for many years, a nurse and caregiver). After graduating from the Academy, their son Kirill was already born. Together with his family, Kustodiev went to Paris. Paris delighted him, but he didn’t really like the exhibitions. Then he traveled (already alone) to Spain, where he became acquainted with Spanish painting, with artists, and shared his impressions with his wife in letters (she was waiting for him in Paris).

In the summer of 1904, the Kustodievs returned to Russia, settled in the Kostroma province, where they bought a piece of land and built their house, which they called “Terem”.

As a person, Kustodiev was attractive, but complex, mysterious and contradictory. He reunited in art the general and the particular, the eternal and the momentary; he is a master psychological portrait and the author of monumental, symbolic paintings. He was attracted by the passing past, and at the same time he vividly responded to the events of today: a world war, popular unrest, two revolutions...

Kustodiev worked with enthusiasm in the most different genres and types of fine art: he painted portraits, everyday scenes, landscapes, and still lifes. He was engaged in painting, drawings, made decorations for performances, illustrations for books, and even created engravings.

Kustodiev is a faithful successor to the traditions of Russian realists. He was very fond of Russian folk popular print, which he used to stylize many of his works. He loved to depict colorful scenes from the life of the merchants, philistines, folk life. With great love he painted merchants' documents, folk holidays, festivities, and Russian nature. For the “popularity” of his paintings, many at exhibitions scolded the artist, and then for a long time they could not move away from his canvases, quietly admiring him.

Kustodiev received Active participation in the association "World of Art", exhibited his paintings in exhibitions of the association.

At the 33rd year of his life, a serious illness fell upon Kustodiev, it shackled him and deprived him of the ability to walk. Having undergone two operations, the artist was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. My hands hurt a lot. But Kustodiev was a man of high spirit and illness did not force him to give up his favorite work. Kustodiev continued to write. Moreover, this was the period of the highest flowering of his creativity.

At the beginning of May 1927, on a windy day, Kustodiev caught a cold and contracted pneumonia. And on May 26 it quietly faded away. His wife survived him by 15 years and died in Leningrad during the siege.

Bolshevik (1920)

Before us is a Russian city of revolutionary years. The streets are filled with dense crowds, and, towering above everyone and easily stepping over the houses, walks a giant man with a menacing face and burning eyes. In his hands is a huge red banner fluttering far behind his back. The street is sunny and snowy in Kustodiev style. Blue shadows in the fight with the sun make it festive. The scarlet banner, spread across the greenish sky, like fire, like a river of blood, like a whirlwind, like the wind, gives the picture a movement as inexorable as the step of a Bolshevik

Girl on the Volga (1915)

The same Kustodiev type of woman is repeated: a sweet, gentle girl-beauty, about whom in Rus' they said “written”, “sugar”. The face is full of the same sweet charm that the heroines of Russian epics, folk songs and fairy tales are endowed with: a light blush, as they say, blood with milk, high arched eyebrows, a chiseled nose, a cherry mouth, a tight braid thrown over the chest... She is alive , real and incredibly attractive, alluring.

She lay half-lying on a hillock among daisies and dandelions, and behind her, under the mountain, unfolds such a wide Volga expanse, such an abundance of churches that it takes your breath away.

Kustodiev merges this earthly here, beautiful girl and this nature, this Volga expanse into a single inextricable whole. The girl is the highest, poetic symbol of this land, of all of Russia.

In an unusual way, the painting “Girl on the Volga” ended up far from Russia - in Japan.

Blue House (1920)

With this painting, the artist wanted, according to his son, to cover the entire cycle human life. Although some connoisseurs of painting argued that Kustodiev was talking about the wretched existence of the tradesman, limited by the walls of the house. But this was not typical for Kustodiev - he loved the simple, peaceful life of ordinary people.

The picture is multi-figured and multi-valued. Here is a simple-minded provincial love duet of a girl sitting in an open window with a young man leaning against the fence, and if you move your gaze a little to the right, you seem to see a continuation of this romance in the woman with the child.

Look to the left - and in front of you is a most picturesque group: a policeman is peacefully playing checkers with a bearded man in the street, next to them a naive and beautiful-hearted man is speaking - in a hat and poor, but neat clothes, and gloomily listening to his speech, looking up from the newspaper, sitting near his establishment coffin master

And above, as the result of your whole life, is a peaceful tea party with someone who has gone through all life’s joys and hardships hand in hand.

And the mighty poplar, adjacent to the house and seemingly blessing it with its thick foliage, is not just a landscape detail, but almost a kind of double of human existence - the tree of life with its various branches.

And everything goes away, the viewer’s gaze goes up, to the boy illuminated by the sun, and to the doves soaring in the sky.

No, this picture definitely does not look like an arrogant or even slightly condescending, but still a guilty verdict to the inhabitants of the “blue house”!

Full of inescapable love for life, the artist, in the words of the poet, blesses “every blade of grass in the field, and every star in the sky” and affirms family closeness, the connection between “blades of grass” and “stars,” everyday prose and poetry.

Group portrait of the artists of the World of Art (1920)

From left to right:

I.E.Grabar, N.K.Roerich, E.E.Lancere, B.M.Kustodiev, I.Ya.Bilibin, A.P.Ostrumova-Lebedeva, A.N.Benois, G.I.Narbut, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, N.D. Milioti, K.A. Somov, M.V. Dobuzhinsky.

This portrait was commissioned from Kustodiev for the Tretyakov Gallery. The artist did not dare to paint it for a long time, feeling a high responsibility. But in the end he agreed and started working.

I thought for a long time about who and how to seat and introduce. He wanted not just to put them in a row, as in a photograph, but to show each artist as a Personality, with his character, characteristics, and to emphasize his talent.

Twelve people had to be depicted in the discussion process. Oh, these sizzling debates of the “World of Art”! The disputes are verbal, but more pictorial - with lines, paints...

Here is Bilibin, an old friend from the Academy of Arts. A joker and a merry fellow, a connoisseur of ditties and old songs, who, despite his stutter, can pronounce the longest and funniest toasts. That’s why he stands here, like a toastmaster, with a glass raised with a graceful movement of his hand. The Byzantine beard rose, eyebrows raised upward in bewilderment.

What was the conversation at the table about? It seems that gingerbread cookies were brought to the table, and Benoit found the letters “I.B.” on them.

Benoit turned to Bilibin with a smile: “Admit, Ivan Yakovlevich, these are your initials. Did you make a drawing for the bakers? Do you earn capital?” Bilibin laughed and jokingly began ranting about the history of the creation of gingerbread in Rus'.

But to the left of Bilibin sit Lanceray and Roerich. Everyone argues, but Roerich thinks, he doesn’t think, but he thinks. An archaeologist, historian, philosopher, educator with the makings of a prophet, a cautious man with the manners of a diplomat, he does not like to talk about himself, about his art. But his painting says so much that there is already a whole group of interpreters of his work, which finds in his painting elements of mystery, magic, and foresight. Roerich was elected chairman of the newly organized society "World of Art".

The wall is green. On the left is a bookcase and a bust of a Roman emperor. Tiled yellow and white stove. Everything is the same as in Dobuzhinsky’s house, where the first meeting of the founders of the World of Art took place.

At the center of the group is Benoit, a critic and theorist, an unquestioned authority. Kustodiev has a complex relationship with Benoit. Benoit is a wonderful artist. His favorite topics are life at the court of Louis XV and Catherine II, Versailles, fountains, palace interiors.

On the one hand, Benois liked Kustodiev’s paintings, but condemned that there was nothing European in them.

On the right is Konstantin Andreevich Somov, a calm and balanced figure. His portrait was easy to paint. Maybe because he reminded Kustodiev of a clerk? The artist has always been successful with Russian types. The starched collar is white, the cuffs of a fashionable speckled shirt, the black suit is ironed, sleek, plump hands are folded on the table. There is an expression of equanimity, contentment on the face...

Home owner - old friend Dobuzhinsky. How many things we experienced with him in St. Petersburg!.. How many different memories!..

Dobuzhinsky's pose seems to successfully express disagreement with something.

But Petrov-Vodkin abruptly pushed back his chair and turned around. He is diagonally from Bilibin. Petrov-Vodkin burst into art world noisy and bold, which some artists, for example Repin, did not like; they have a completely different view of art, a different vision.

On the left is a clear profile of Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar. Stocky, with a not very well-built figure, a shaved square head, he is full of keen interest in everything that happens...

And here he is, Kustodiev himself. He depicted himself from the back, in half profile. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, sitting next to him, is a new member of society. An energetic woman with a masculine character is having a conversation with Petrov-Vodkin

Beauty (1915)

Wallpaper in flowers, an ornate chest on which a lush bed is arranged, covered with a blanket, the pillowcases somehow show through the body. And from all this excessive abundance, like Aphrodite from the foam of the sea, the heroine of the picture is born.

Before us is a lush beauty, limp from sleeping on the feather bed. Throwing back the thick pink blanket, she lowered her feet onto the soft footrest. With inspiration, Kustodiev sings of chaste, Russian female beauty, popular among the people: bodily luxury, the purity of light blue affectionate eyes, an open smile.

The lush roses on the chest and the blue wallpaper behind her are in tune with the image of the beauty. By stylizing it as a splint, the artist made it “a little more” - both the fullness of the body and the brightness of the colors. But this bodily abundance did not cross the line beyond which it would have become unpleasant.

This is truly a beauty, caressing the eye, simple, natural, full of strength, like nature itself - as a symbol of health and fertility. She is waiting for love - just like the land of rain.

Bathing (1912)

It’s a hot sunny day, the water sparkles from the sun, mixing the reflections of the intensely blue sky, perhaps promising a thunderstorm, and the trees from the steep bank, as if melted on top by the sun. On the shore they are loading something into a boat. The roughly built bathhouse is also hot from the sun; the shadow inside is light, almost does not hide the women's bodies. The picture is full of greedily, sensually perceived life, its everyday flesh. The free play of light and shadows, reflections of the sun in the water makes us remember the mature Kustodiev’s interest in impressionism.

Merchant's Wife (1915)

One day, while walking along the banks of the Volga, Kustodiev saw a woman whose beauty, stature and greatness simply shocked him, and the artist painted this picture.

Here was a Russian landscape, which is loved by folk artists, storytellers, and songwriters of Rus'. Bright, like a popular print, cheerful, like a folk toy. Where else in Europe was so much gold placed on domes, golden stars thrown on blue? Where else are there such small cheerful churches, reflected in the lowlands of the waters, as in the vastness of Russia?

The artist took a large canvas for the painting and made the woman stand tall, in all her Russian beauty. Over the riot of colors, lilac and crimson reigned supreme. He was dressed up, festive and at the same time excited.

And the woman is beautiful and majestic, like the wide Volga behind her. This is the beautiful Russian Elena, who knows the power of her beauty, for which some merchant of the first guild chose her as his wife. This is a beauty sleeping in reality, standing high above the river, like a slender white-trunked birch tree, the personification of peace and contentment.

She is wearing a long, silky dress of alarming purple, hair combed in the middle, a dark braid, pear earrings sparkling in her ears, a warm blush on her cheeks, a shawl decorated with patterns on her hand.

She fits as naturally into the Volga landscape with its beauty and spaciousness as the world around her: there is a church, and birds are flying, and the river is flowing, steamboats are sailing, and a young merchant couple is walking - they also admired the beautiful merchant's wife.

Everything moves, runs, but she stands as a symbol of the constant, the best that was, is and will be.

Merchant's wife with a mirror

But the merchant’s wife admires herself in a new shawl painted with flowers. This is how Pushkin’s poem comes to mind: “Am I the cutest in the world, the most ruddy and whitest of all?..” And standing in the doorway, admiring his wife is her husband, a merchant who probably brought her this shawl from the fair. And he is happy that he was able to bring this joy to his beloved wife...

Merchant's wife at tea (1918)

Provincial town. Tea party. A young beautiful merchant's wife sits on the balcony on a warm evening. She is serene, like the evening sky above her. This is some kind of naive goddess of fertility and abundance. It’s not for nothing that the table in front of her is bursting with food: next to the samovar, gilded utensils, there are fruits and baked goods in plates.

A gentle blush sets off the whiteness of the sleek face, black eyebrows are slightly raised, blue eyes are carefully examining something in the distance. According to Russian custom, she drinks tea from a saucer, supporting it with her plump fingers. A cozy cat gently rubs against the owner’s shoulder, the wide neckline of the dress reveals the immensity of her round chest and shoulders. In the distance one can see the terrace of another house, where a merchant and a merchant's wife are sitting at the same occupation.

Here the everyday picture clearly develops into a fantastic allegory of a carefree life and earthly bounties bestowed upon man. And the artist slyly admires the most magnificent beauty, as if one of the sweetest fruits of the earth. Only the artist “grounded” her image a little - her body became a little plumper, her fingers plump...

Maslenitsa (1916)

The festive city with towering churches, bell towers, clumps of frost-covered trees and smoke from chimneys can be seen from the mountain on which Maslenitsa fun unfolds.

The boyish fight is in full swing, snowballs are flying, the sleigh is climbing up the mountain and rushing further. Here sits a coachman in a blue caftan, and those sitting in the sleigh rejoice at the holiday. And a gray horse rushed towards them, driven by a lone driver, who turned slightly towards those riding behind, as if daring them to compete in speed.

And below - the carousel, the crowds at the booth, the rows of living rooms! And in the sky there are clouds of birds, alarmed by the festive ringing! And everyone rejoices, rejoicing in the holiday...

A burning, immense joy overwhelms, looking at the canvas, carries away into this daring holiday, in which not only people in sleighs, at carousels and booths rejoice, not only accordions and bells ring - here the whole vast earth, dressed in snow and frost, rejoices and rings, and every tree rejoices, every house, and the sky, and the church, and even the dogs rejoice along with the boys sledding.

This is a holiday for the whole land, the Russian land. The sky, snow, motley crowds of people, sleds - everything is colored with green-yellow, pink-blue iridescent colors.

Moscow tavern (1916)

One day Kustodiev and his friend actor Luzhsky were riding in a carriage and got into conversation with the cab driver. Kustodiev drew attention to the cab driver’s large, pitch-black beard and asked him: “Where are you going to come from?” “We are from Kerzhensk,” answered the coachman. "Old Believers, then?" - “Exactly, your honor.” - “So, there are a lot of you, coachmen, here in Moscow?” - “Yes, that’s enough. There’s a tavern on Sukharevka.” - “That’s great, that’s where we’ll go...”

The carriage stopped not far from the Sukharev Tower and they entered the low, stone building of Rostovtsev's tavern with thick walls. The smell of tobacco, fusel, boiled crayfish, pickles, and pies filled my nose.

Huge ficus. Reddish walls. Low vaulted ceiling. And in the center at the table sat reckless cab drivers in blue caftans and red sashes. They drank tea, concentrated and silent. The heads are cropped like a pot. Beards - one longer than the other. They drank tea, holding the saucers on their outstretched fingers... And immediately a picture was born in the artist’s brain...

Against the background of drunken red walls sit seven bearded, flushed cab drivers in bright blue robes with saucers in their hands. They behave sedately and sedately. They devoutly drink hot tea, getting burned by blowing on the saucer of tea. They are talking quietly, slowly, and one is reading a newspaper.

The floormen rush into the hall with teapots and trays, their dashingly curved bodies amusingly echo the line of teapots, ready to line up on the shelves behind the bearded innkeeper; the idle servant took a nap; The cat carefully licks its fur (a good sign for the owner - for guests!)

And all this action is in bright, sparkling, frantic colors - cheerfully painted walls, and even palm trees, paintings, and white tablecloths, and teapots with painted trays. The picture is perceived as lively and cheerful.

Portrait of F. Chaliapin (1922)

In the winter of 1920, Fyodor Chaliapin, as a director, decided to stage the opera “Enemy Power”, and Kustodiev was entrusted with the decorations. In this regard, Chaliapin stopped by the artist’s home. Came in from the cold wearing a fur coat. He exhaled noisily - the white steam stopped in the cold air - there was no heating in the house, there was no firewood. Chaliapin said something about his probably freezing fingers, and Kustodiev could not take his eyes off his ruddy face, from his rich, picturesque fur coat. It would seem that the eyebrows are inconspicuous, whitish, and the eyes are faded, gray, but he is handsome! That's who to draw! This singer is a Russian genius, and his appearance should be preserved for posterity. And the fur coat! What a fur coat he's wearing!..

“Fyodor Ivanovich! Would you pose in this fur coat,” Kustodiev asked. “Is it clever, Boris Mikhailovich? The fur coat is good, but perhaps it was stolen,” Chaliapin muttered. “Are you kidding, Fyodor Ivanovich?” “No. A week ago I received it for a concert from some institution. They didn’t have the money or flour to pay me. So they offered me a fur coat.” “Well, we’ll fix it on the canvas... It’s too smooth and silky.”

And so Kustodiev took a pencil and began to draw cheerfully. And Chaliapin began to sing “Oh, you little night...” To the singing of Fyodor Ivanovich, the artist created this masterpiece.

Against the backdrop of a Russian city, a giant man, his fur coat wide open. He is important and representative in this luxurious, picturesquely open fur coat, with a ring on his hand and with a cane. Chaliapin is so dignified that you involuntarily remember how a certain spectator, seeing him in the role of Godunov, admiringly remarked: “A real king, not an impostor!”

And in his face we can feel a restrained (he already knew his worth) interest in everything around him.

Everything is dear to him here! The devil is grimacing on the stage of the booth. Trotters rush down the street or stand peacefully waiting for their riders. A bunch of multi-colored balls sway over the market square. A tipsy man moves his feet to the accordion. Shopkeepers are trading briskly, and there is a tea party in the cold near a huge samovar.

And above all this the sky is no, not blue, it is greenish, this is because the smoke is yellow. And of course, the favorite jackdaws in the sky. They provide an opportunity to express the bottomlessness of the heavenly space, which has always so attracted and tormented the artist...

All this has lived in Chaliapin himself since childhood. In some ways he resembles a simple-minded native of these places who, having succeeded in life, came to his native Palestine to show himself in all his splendor and glory, and at the same time is eager to prove that he has not forgotten anything and has not lost any of his former dexterity and strength.

How Yesenin’s passionate lines fit here:

"To hell, I'm taking off my English suit:

Well, give me the braid - I'll show you -

Am I not one of you, am I not close to you,

Don’t I value the memory of the village?”

And it looks like something similar is about to fall from Fyodor Ivanovich’s lips and his luxurious fur coat will fly into the snow.

Portrait of his wife Yulia Kustodieva (1903)

The artist painted this portrait shortly after the wedding; it is full of tender feelings for his wife. At first he wanted to write it standing, at full height, on the steps of the porch, but then he sat his “Kolobochka” (as he affectionately called her in his letters) on the terrace.

Everything is very simple - an ordinary terrace of an old, slightly silvery tree, the greenery of the garden approaching it closely, a table covered with a white tablecloth, a rough bench. And a woman, still almost a girl, with a restrained and at the same time very trusting gaze directed at us... and in fact at him, who came to this quiet corner and will now take her somewhere with him.

The dog stands and looks at the owner - calmly and at the same time, as if expecting that now she will get up and they will go somewhere.

A kind, poetic world lies behind the heroine of the picture, so dear to the artist himself, who joyfully recognizes it in other people close to him.

Russian Venus (1926)

It seems incredible that this huge painting was created by a seriously ill artist a year before his death and in the most unfavorable conditions (in the absence of canvas, they stretched it on a stretcher reverse side old picture). Only love for life, joy and cheerfulness, love for one’s own, Russian, dictated to him the painting “Russian Venus”.

The woman’s young, healthy, strong body glows, her teeth shine in her shy and at the same time innocently proud smile, the light plays in her silky flowing hair. It was as if the sun itself entered the usually dark bathhouse together with the heroine of the picture - and everything here lit up! The light shimmers in the soap foam (which the artist whipped in a basin with one hand and wrote with the other); the wet ceiling, on which clouds of steam were reflected, suddenly became like the sky with lush clouds. The door to the dressing room is open, and from there through the window you can see a sunlit winter city in frost, a horse in harness.

The natural, deeply national ideal of health and beauty was embodied in the “Russian Venus”. This beautiful image became a powerful final chord of the richest “Russian symphony” created by the artist in his painting.

Morning (1904)

The painting was painted in Paris, where Kustodiev came with his wife and recently born son Kirill after graduating from the Academy. A woman, who can easily be recognized as the artist’s wife, is bathing a child. “Birdie,” as the artist called him, doesn’t “scream”, doesn’t splash - he’s quiet and intently examining - either a toy, some duckling, or just sunny bunny: There are so many of them around - on his wet strong body, on the edges of his pelvis, on the walls, on a lush bouquet of flowers!

Fair (1906)

Fairs in the village of Semenovskoye were famous throughout the Kostroma province. On Sunday, the ancient village flaunts all its fair decorations, standing at the crossroads of old roads.

The owners laid out their goods on the counters: arches, shovels, birch bark beetroot, painted rollers, children's whistles, sieves. But most of all, perhaps, bast shoes, and therefore the name of the village is Semenovskoye-Lapotnoye. And in the center of the village there is a church - squat, strong.

The talkative fair is noisy and ringing. Human melodious talk merges with bird hubbub; the jackdaws in the bell tower staged their own fair.

Loud invitations are heard all around: “Here are the pretzel pies! Who cares about the heat, has a brown eye!”

- “Baps, there are bast shoes! Fast!”

_ “Oh, the box is full! Colored prints, incredible ones, about Foma, about Katenka, about Boris and about Prokhor!”

On the one hand, the artist depicted a girl gazing at the bright dolls, and on the other, a boy gaped at a bent bird-whistle, lagging behind his grandfather in the center of the picture. He calls him - “Where are you withering, you lack of hearing?”

And above the rows of counters, the awnings almost merge with each other, their gray panels smoothly turning into the dark roofs of distant huts. And then there are green distances, blue skies...

Fabulous! A purely Russian fair of colors, and it sounds like an accordion - iridescent and ringing!..

Booths

The Nun (1909)

Village Holiday (1910)

Girl's Head (1897)

Christening (Easter card) - 1912

Emperor Nicholas II (1915)

Bather (1921)

Merchant's Wife (1923)

Merchant's wife with purchases (1920)

Summer Landscape (1922)

Reclining Model (1915)

Skiers (1919)

The Sailor and the Sweetheart (1920)

Frosty Day (1919)

On the Terrace (1906)

On the Volga (1922)

Lobster and Pheasant (1912)

Autumn over the city (1915)

Portrait of I.B Kustodieva, the artist’s daughter (1926)

Portrait of Irina Kustodieva (1906)

Portrait of M.V. Chalyapina (1919)

Portrait of Rene Notgaft (1914)

After the Storm (1921)

Russian girl at the window (1923)

Country Fair (1920)

Staraya Russa (1921)

Trinity Day (1920)

In old Suzdal (1914)

Winter (1919)

 

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