The landscape painter Orlovsky did not sleep at night, trying to penetrate into the essence of Kuindzhi’s discoveries. At first he was involuntarily delighted, but soon envy began to speak. Kuindzhi's laurels gave him no rest; especially when all the newspapers and magazines started talking about the artist’s success, Orlovsky became completely angry - it seemed to him that Kuindzhi was undeservedly praised. Everywhere where it was possible to express his “enlightened” opinion, Orlovsky criticized the picture. But internally he was still shocked by the extraordinary lighting and decided to reveal the “secret” of Kuindzhi.

Wanting to see the painting in daylight, Orlovsky waited until the exhibition was closed, slipped a ruble to the guard and received permission to admire “Night on the Dnieper.”
This is the “St. Petersburg miracle”! In daylight, the impression of a “window into nature” was lost. It was only a picture, but never surpassed by anyone. A little past the canvas, bright sunlight fell from the window, in which the painting benefited in the subtlety of colors, nuances and overall color. In spite of everything, the moon shone in the picture, the lights were burning, the Dnieper sparkled and shimmered, and the fabulous southern night was before our eyes in all its beauty and power.
Returning from the exhibition, Orlovsky began his research even more diligently. He sought to solve the question of why the shine of the moon in a painting has the same effect on the eyes as in nature. If you look at a dark object after looking at the moon of Kuindzhi, you get a light effect in your eyes, as if from a small light source.
The artist spent hours mixing paints, changing proportions, but, becoming convinced of the futility, he abandoned the work and went to the other end of his studio, where old newspapers and magazines lay in disarray on an oval table. He searched for the truth even there, re-reading more than once everything that was written about this picture.
“...“Night on the Dnieper” by Kuindzhi is not a movement of painting forward, but a leap, a huge leap. The impression it gives is decidedly magical: it is not a painting, but nature itself, transferred to the canvas, in miniature. There is no other picture like this in the whole world, not in the world of art. This is the triumph of that inspired realism that senses nature, senses the harmony of its colors and shadows, senses its life, and the viewer stands before its reproduction, stunned and does not believe that paints could speak like that. This picture is a great social phenomenon: the Russian artist decisively and boldly breaks new paths in art and guesses and discovers what true realism consists of. Kuindzhi is a great talent; he has a great future..."
Gradually, Orlovsky went deeper into reading and did not notice how two friends appeared in the workshop, who, hiding behind the easel, watched with interest the changing expression of his face. He continued to read:
“Kuindzhi understood nature much higher than naturalists had hitherto understood it, and as a result of this, with Kuindzhi’s paintings a new era in painting should truly begin; his things will be studied, they will give rise to a special school. Peering at Kuindzhi’s works and discussing them, artists will understand that they must not copy, not copy only from nature, but peer into it, think about it, see nature in general, in harmony...”
“There is no doubt that Kuindzhi did just that, there is no doubt that he did not copy day after day, but observed, felt and thought. This is... his power and witchcraft.”
Friends couldn't stand it:
- Good! We've been watching you whisper for an hour. It won't take long for you to go crazy.
- “I tore apart the music like a corpse. I believed harmony with algebra...” - another recited, getting into an artistic pose.
“It will be for you, I’m not Salieri, I’m reading what they write about “Night on the Dnieper,” answered Orlovsky. - All this is theory, but what is the practical strength? They write, therefore, they understand, but if they force it to be done, who will take it? Strakhov, Wagner, poet Polonsky, Turgenev. .. Let's say they write about art or for art all their lives. But Mendeleev! He's a chemist, a chemist! - he drawled, shaking the newspaper. - Listen, I’ll read: “Before the “Dnieper Night” by Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, I think, the dreamer will forget, the artist will involuntarily have his own new thought about art, the poet will speak in poetry, new concepts will be born in the thinker - it will give its own to everyone.”
“Come on, show us your paintings,” the friends protested.
A little later, when they left, Orlovsky returned to the table again, and the first thing he saw were the words in the open book of the “Art Journal”:
“The Kuindzhi exhibition was a brilliant triumph for the artist. Here journalists, writers, professors, scientists, and poets agreed on the power of his talent. Everyone was fascinated by the picture, and everyone expressed, each in their own way, their feelings, everyone raised full glasses in honor of Kuindzhi.”
Kramskoy was one of the first to see “Night on the Dnieper” while still in the studio. He felt that Kuindzhi, as an innovator, departed somewhat from the Itinerants in his approach to visual means and technical techniques. What power of skill and talent!
With an attentive, inquisitive gaze, he studied the picture for a long time, trying to more accurately determine the meaning of the discovery. On his nervous, active face, in addition to admiration and joy for his comrade, a restless feeling was involuntarily expressed: “Will the picture fade over time, won’t this wonderful glow of colors go out?”
Kramskoy knew that Kuindzhi mixed paints in his own way and did not always take into account the laws established over centuries in oil painting.
But how skillful Arkhip Ivanovich was at choosing tones! Under his magic brush, simple paint turned into gold in an instant. Ivan Nikolaevich remembered how Kuindzhi helped him out: once he couldn’t get the golden shine on the shoulder straps of an officer’s uniform. At this time Kuindzhi entered the studio, looked at the portrait and said:
- It’s so simple, Ivan Nikolaevich! - He took a palette, a brush, squeezed paint out of the tubes, thought for a moment, mixed it, smeared it on the edge of the palette. - That's it!
Kramskoy slightly touched the shoulder straps with this paint, which immediately sparkled. Just as easily, apparently, his moon lit up! Much later, when the first wave of enthusiasm had already swept through the city and newspapers and magazines were talking about the picture, it became clear to Kramskoy that no one else had thought about the question that was troubling him. With his characteristic integrity, Ivan Nikolayevich wrote a letter to Suvorin in Novoye Vremya, in which he outlined his views:
“Two words about Kuindzhi’s painting. The following thought occupies me: is the combination of colors that the artist discovered durable? Perhaps Kuindzhi combined together (knowing or not knowing - it makes no difference) such colors that are in natural antagonism with each other and, after a certain time, will either fade, or change and decompose to the point that descendants will shrug their shoulders in bewilderment: Why were the good-natured spectators delighted? Now, in order to avoid such an unfair attitude towards us in the future, I would not mind drawing up, so to speak, a protocol that his “Night on the Dnieper” is completely filled with real light and air, his river really makes its majestic flow, and the sky is real, bottomless and deep. The painting was painted a little over six months ago, I have known it for a long time and have seen it at all times of the day and in all lighting conditions, and I can testify that just as when I first met it, I could not get rid of the physiological irritation in my eye, as if from actual light, so and all subsequent times when I happened to see it, each time the same feeling arose in me when looking at the picture and, at the same time, the enjoyment of the night, the fantastic light and air.
Indeed, the question is worth asking. Let posterity know that we were aware of this and that, in view of the incredible and new phenomenon, we left this reservation for information.”
The concern turned out to be fruitless: the letter, which fell under the good cloth of the publishing table, did not see the light of day. Kuindzhi soon ceased to rejoice in his fame. He was tired of everyone's attention.
Carriages stopped at the house every now and then. People rang the bell at the door, burst into the workshop without asking, praised, congratulated, begged. There was no peace in the evenings either. There were those who begged the artist to sell them this painting:
- Take as much as you like, we are not rich, but we will pay in installments for everything you charge for a sketch, a sketch, a painting, or even a small repetition.
It ended with the annoyed Kuindzhi posting a notice on the door: “I don’t accept anyone.”
After reading the sticker, the friends laughed:
- Arkhip Ivanovich, how are your laurels?
- Yes, you know, this is a disgrace... One gentleman has been walking around for more than a month, asking, getting on his knees, so that I could give him “Night on the Dnieper.” And How! Still demands! Now I can recognize his calls by the sound. I don’t let him in, so he’s waiting outside at the entrance.
At one of the evenings with the Wanderers, Orlovsky admitted that he was working hard on Kuindzhi’s secret.
- Over the “secret”? - Arkhip Ivanovich laughed. - Yes, I honestly don’t have any secrets.
- Don’t pretend, I’ll comprehend it and tell you.
- I agree, but really, it’s a waste of effort to look for something that doesn’t exist. What are my secrets? - he was surprised.
On one of the first spring days, the bright sun filled the entire city, and street cleaners began to rake melted snow into piles. Kuindzhi met a preoccupied but triumphant Orlovsky on the embankment. Seeing Kuindzhi, he began gesticulating from afar, offering to follow him. “Should I go or not? - Kuindzhi doubted. “It’s like an eccentric has gone crazy.”
But Orlovsky had such a conspiratorial air that Kuindzhi silently followed him to the workshop at the Academy of Arts. - The secret of your landscapes is in the harmony of tones. You take a single tone and paint the whole picture from it. But it's not that easy. It is difficult to maintain this harmony of unity. I discovered all your tricks!
Opening the door to the workshop, he led Arkhip Ivanovich to the window overlooking the garden and handed him a shard of green glass.
- That's your secret!
- What's happened? Where is the secret, what is it? .. - Kuindzhi was perplexed.
“Don’t be cunning,” Orlovsky whispered passionately. - To maintain this dominant tone, you paint nature in colored glass! Through such greenery you wrote “Birch Grove”, and through this “Night on the Dnieper”? I understand? Right?
Kuindzhi looked blankly, first at the glass, then at the artist, and suddenly burst into furious laughter.
- But the blue one - you wrote “Ukrainian Night” through it. Here is the raspberry one - “Evening in Ukraine,” Orlovsky continued. Without saying a word, Kuindzhi quickly left the workshop. You could hear him still laughing as he walked down the stairs.
Orlovsky rushed around the room: “Have I really made a mistake again?” He went to the table where the newspapers were lying. Again a phrase from an open magazine caught my eye: “There is no such other picture in the whole world...”
From Orlovsky's workshop, Kuindzhi walked out onto the Neva embankment. The snow that had been lying on the heads and backs of the sphinxes all winter had melted, only dark stripes remained on the sides - traces of flowing water.
Kuindzhi looked closely at the stony face of the sphinx, and it seemed to him that the sphinx smiled. More than twenty years had passed since he saw them for the first time. Kuindzhi clearly remembered the feeling of fear that gripped him when he unexpectedly encountered these stone monsters. Then they seemed to him strict, arrogant guardians of the old academy. Suddenly, remembering Orlovsky, he laughed cheerfully: “And he came up with an absurdity on my head!”

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, being a famous landscape painter, did not undertake plot works. The painting “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” is an exception; this is his only work painted on a gospel subject. She appeared after a long creative break. And as always with Kuindzhi, the main active principle of the picture is Light. Today, on the 106th anniversary of the death of this great artist, a talented self-taught person, let us remember the life of Kuinzhi and his unique work in his creative heritage.

“Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” is an eternal theme of search for many artists from different times and peoples. Many great people began to write a gospel series, but not everyone was able to understand, feel, or experience it. Polenov, Ge, Kramskoy, Kuindzhi, Vrubel, Dore, Durer, Gauguin... The theme is the same, but the paintings seem to be about different things: everyone sees something different, everyone has their own accents.

In this row is a painting by A.I. Kuindzhi remained underestimated, as did its author. In the world of academic painting, Kuindzhi was known as a lone rebel and a “savage” - his painting technique was so far from the established canons.

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was born in 1842 in Ukraine, on the outskirts of Mariupol, into a Russified Greek family. He was the son of a shoemaker, but, having lost his father and mother at an early age, he was raised by relatives. He did not have the opportunity to receive a systematic education. From the age of ten, Arkhip worked - first herding geese, then working for a construction contractor and a bread merchant.

Kuindzhi early felt a passion for drawing. His owner, the grain merchant Durante, gave him a letter of recommendation to I.K. Aivazovsky. In 1855, Kuindzhi went on foot to Crimea from Mariupol. In Aivazovsky's workshop in Feodosia, Kuindzhi received the basics of painting. And although he did not have the opportunity to study with Aivazovsky himself, he considered himself his student.

Since 1856, he worked as a retoucher for a photographer, while continuing to paint independently. Later Kuindzhi moved to St. Petersburg. While continuing to work as a retoucher, he attended the landscape class of the Academy of Arts as a volunteer student. And although Kuindzhi did not complete the academic course, in 1878 he received the title of class artist of the 1st degree for a number of his paintings.

Genius or amateur?

Kuindzhi became close to students of the Academy of Arts who were looking for new paths in art - I. E. Repin, V. M. Vasnetsov, I. N. Kramskoy.

Since the mid-1870s, the study of light in nature has become a characteristic feature of his art. Kuindzhi was fascinated by lighting effects and the color contrasts they caused. He strove to faithfully recreate natural light on canvas in the depiction of sunsets, sunrises, midday sun and moonlit nights. His canvas “Ukrainian Night” deeply impressed viewers with its superbly realized illusion of moonlight. “Master of Light” was the nickname given to Kuindzhi by his contemporaries.

His work aroused great delight among the audience. But the reaction of venerable artists was more than restrained. Even the sensitive and far-sighted I.N. Kramskoy wrote about his paintings: “There is something in his principles about color that is completely inaccessible to me; perhaps this is a completely new pictorial principle... his setting sun on the huts is decidedly beyond my understanding. I see that the very light on the white hut is so true that it is as tiresome for my eye to look at it as at living reality; after five minutes my eye hurts... In short, I don’t quite understand Kuindzhi.”

Light or backlight?

The novelty of Kuindzhi’s paintings, with their generalized forms, sharpness and laconism of compositions, color and light effects and a special poetic interpretation of nature, did not meet with due understanding among artists. Benois believed that Kuindzhi “was a man of little culture, praised beyond measure by his contemporaries; he did not create anything absolutely beautiful or artistically mature. In technology he remained an amateur; in his motives he indulged the crudest demands for showiness; in the poetry of his design he did not stray from the “commonplaces.”

Indeed, in his paintings there are no tricky compositional schemes or complex author's plans. Only light vibration. Sometimes powerful, overwhelming the will; sometimes soft. And sometimes cold, evoking involuntary fear. Some called Kuindzhi the “Russian Monet” for his masterly exploration of the possibilities of paint. Others accused the artist of striving for cheap effects and using secret techniques, such as hidden illumination of the canvases.

In the end, at the peak of the noise around his name, Arkhip Ivanovich simply went into voluntary exile for 30 years. After that, until the end of his life he did not open his workshop to anyone except the narrowest circle of friends.

“Some kind of dazzling, incomprehensible vision”

It was during this period of creative “silence” that the painting “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” was painted. Russian writer I.I. Yasinsky, having looked at the painting “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” at the only showing, wrote: “The black calico gathered into folds again - and we saw a dark leafy cedar and Shrovetide garden on the Mount of Olives with a bright dark blue clearing in the middle, along which, drenched in dark in the moonlight, the Savior of the world walked. This is not a lunar effect, this is moonlight in all its indescribable power, golden-silver, soft, merging with the greenery of trees and grass and penetrating the white fabrics of clothing. Some kind of dazzling, incomprehensible vision.”

The expressiveness of the artistic means of the painting “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” allowed the artist to go beyond the boundaries of a specific plot. It is in this canvas that the magical light, characteristic of Kuindzhi’s works, materializes into the figure of Christ.

The picture shocked the audience. It was not like any other works of contemporary artists who turned to the gospel theme. In most artists, Jesus Christ is presented either as a rebel or as a missionary, but in all these cases He is a mortal man. Kuindzhi approached the image of Christ differently: there is no prosaic descriptiveness in the picture, few details acquire a symbolic meaning.

Light and shadow

Kuindzhi the landscape painter remains true to himself. The plot of the painting was decided by the artist using landscape means. The composition of the work and the dramaturgy of the theme were developed quite straightforwardly: the lonely figure of Christ, bathed in moonlight, was located in the center, the pursuers of Christ are depicted in the shadows. Intensifying the tragic intensity of the scene, the artist sharply juxtaposed additional colors: the background was painted in cold blue-green tones, the foreground in warm brownish-reddish tones. In the figure of Christ, the colors suddenly lit up with blue, yellowish, pinkish hues. The artist conveyed the clash of good and evil by contrasting light and shadow.

In the canvas “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane”, like in no other work of his, a pictorial method is expressed, based on the comparison of illuminated and darkened color planes. Kuindzhi uses the effect of moonlight to convey the tension and drama of the situation. The figure of Jesus is illuminated by an invisible light source so that the illusion of the Savior Himself is illuminated.

The light that came into the world, so that whoever believes in Him would not remain in darkness. This light outlines the figures of those who follow Christ, his successors. Looking closely, we can distinguish the figures of three adults and a child. Everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed, because they are evil, but he who does righteousness comes to the light, so that his deeds may be revealed, because they were done in God (John 3:20). -21). The first lines refer to those hiding among the giant trees of the garden - the Roman legionaries preparing to capture Jesus Christ. The entire Garden of Gethsemane is covered in impenetrable darkness.

I.E. Repin in a letter to I.S. Ostroukhov writes: “But the rumors about Kuindzhi are completely different: people are amazed, some even cry in front of his new works - they touch everyone.”

Artist and Christian

This picture most concentratedly embodied the artist’s ideas about the moral ideal. Kuindzhi interpreted the Gospel plot in accordance with his experience of the meaning of existence: the figure of Christ illuminated by the moonlight really shows in his picture “light from light” and is captured in sharp contrast with the surrounding darkness, with which the carriers of evil approaching Christ merge. The greatness and at the same time lonely doom of the image of the Savior are conveyed by Kuindzhi with deep, hard-won expressiveness.

Arkhip Kuindzhi was Orthodox. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky called his paintings a frozen prayer. The artist and his wife often visited.

Persistence, hard work, focus, constancy in love and friendship - these are precisely these personality traits of Arkhip Ivanovich that are primarily emphasized by his colleagues and contemporaries who described him.

There were no children in Arkhip Ivanovich’s family, but he managed to become a loved one for many of his students. Kuindzhi was an excellent teacher; protecting his students from imitation, he sought to develop originality in each of them, to breathe into them his ardent love for nature.

He loved people not in words, but in deeds. Arkhip Kuindzhi was sincerely perplexed: “This... what is this? If you don’t have money, that means you’ll be hungry, sick, and you can’t study, as was the case with me...” And he tried to save his students from want. A man of exceptional kindness, he helped people a lot and selflessly, protected, donated huge sums to help strangers in need, and he and his wife lived modestly, did not keep servants. The readiness to effectively help others was Kuindzhi’s most touching trait until the very end. “Since childhood, I’ve gotten used to the fact that I’m stronger and have to help,” said Arkhip Ivanovich.

He died on July 11, 1910, and, feeling orphaned, several of his students and friends bequeathed to be buried next to Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi after their death.

Prepared by Oksana BALANDINA

, Saint Petersburg

For over 30 years, the great Russian scientist was connected by bonds of friendship with the wonderful landscape artist A. I. Kuindzhi, a native of our city.

D. I. Mendeleev plays chess with A. I. Kuindzhi

Their acquaintance apparently took place in the mid-70s, when the name Kuindzhi began to become increasingly famous. Dmitry Ivanovich loved painting and was a keen expert and connoisseur of it. He did not miss a single significant opening day, made acquaintances with artists, and visited their workshops. He became so interested in painting that he began buying paintings and amassed a significant collection. His knowledge in this area was so serious that Mendeleev was subsequently elected a full member of the Academy of Arts.

In the history of Russian culture, Mendeleev’s “environments” are widely known, where the creative intelligentsia of the capital, the flower of Russian culture, gathered. Almost all the Itinerants visited here: Kramskoy, Repin, Kuindzhi, Yaroshenko, Vasnetsov, Shishkin. Kuindzhi also met Mendeleev at Kirill Vikentievich Lemokh, who since the 80s became perhaps Arkhip Ivanovich’s closest friend among artists. Mendeleev’s eldest son from his first marriage, Vladimir, a naval officer, who in the last century drew up a project for the “Azov dam,” that is, blocking the Kerch Strait with a dam, which, according to the author of the project, would change for the better the fate of the Sea of ​​Azov in general, was married to Lemokh’s daughter. and Mariupol in particular. Both Kuindzhi and Mendeleev regularly attended Lemokh’s “Tuesdays,” which brought together the Itinerants, professors of the Academy of Arts and people from the world of scientists.

Dmitry Ivanovich was well acquainted with all the Wanderers, but he established especially close and friendly relations with three: Kuindzhi, Yaroshenko and Repin. He had the closest friendship with the first of them.

Having an excellent understanding of painting, Mendeleev nevertheless never spoke in print on this topic. He made the only exception to this rule for Kuindzhi, when his “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” appeared. The delight caused by this masterpiece of Russian painting was so great that Dmitry Ivanovich wrote an article about it.

Mendeleev was, of course, among those who saw “Night on the Dnieper” in daylight, that is, in the artist’s apartment. And many times. He brought to Kuindzhi’s house a young student of the Academy of Arts, A.I. Popova, who soon became the wife of Dmitry Ivanovich. (I will note in parentheses: Anna Ivanovna outlived her husband by 35 years. She died in 1942. I dare say - in besieged Leningrad from hunger. If this is so, the wives of both friends suffered a similar fate - death from hunger. In the same city . Only with a difference of 21 years),

In his memoirs “Mendeleev in Life”, an excerpt from which we have included in this collection. Anna Ivanovna painted the following portrait of the artist: “The door swung open and Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi himself appeared. In front of us stood a man of small stature, but large, thick-set, broad-shouldered; his large beautiful head, with a black cap of long wavy hair and a curly beard, with brown sparkling eyes, resembled the head of Zeus. He was dressed completely at home, in a worn gray jacket, from which he seemed to have grown out of. ...We sat for a long time in front of the painting, listening to Dmitry Ivanovich, who spoke about the landscape in general.”

These considerations formed the basis of the aforementioned article “Before Kuindzhi’s painting,” in which the great chemist noted, in particular, the existing connection between art and science. Apparently, not without the influence of Mendeleev, Kuindzhi already in the second half of the 70s became convinced that it was necessary to use new chemical and physical discoveries to perfect pictorial effects. A genius without a systematic education, Arkhip Ivanovich began studying the interaction of light and colors, which he obtained by intuitive mixing, as well as the properties of colorful pigments. He realized that the amazing colors he obtained by intuitively mixing paints could be unstable and fade over time. And the artist persistently searched in science for a means to achieve a durable combination of colors.

Mendeleev introduced Kuindzhi (like many Itinerants) into the circle of scientists, introduced him to the outstanding physicist, professor at St. Petersburg University Fyodor Fomich Petrushevsky. Among other things, this scientist was engaged, in short, in the scientific development of painting technology. This is what Ilya Efimovich Repin writes in his memoirs: “In a large physics room on the university courtyard, we, the Perdvizhniki artists, gathered in the company of D. I. Mendeleev and F. F. Petrushevsky to study under their leadership the properties of different paints. There is a device that measures the sensitivity of the eye to subtle nuances of tones. Kuindzhi broke the record in sensitivity to ideal subtleties, and some of his comrades had this sensitivity that was laughably crude.”

“During the years of silence,” Kuindzhi’s friendship with the great scientist became even closer. “We knew everything that happened to him,” A.I. Mendeleeva writes in her memoirs, “his thoughts, plans. In addition to “Wednesdays,” Arkhip Ivanovich came in on other days, and when he experienced something, then several times a day. He often played chess with Dmitry Ivanovich. I loved watching their nervous, always interesting play, but I loved it even more when they left chess for conversation.”

They talked about many things, but most of all, of course, about art, the questions of which were no less close to Mendeleev than the problems of science. Dmitry Ivanovich enthusiastically outlined grandiose plans for the economic reconstruction of Russia and, like a poet, dreamed of a happy future.

Arkhip Ivanovich was also an original interlocutor. Contemporaries recall that his speech was not very coherent and smooth, but no matter what he talked about, he knew how to find a new side to a matter or issue. The solutions he proposed were always simple and practical. His views on art and authors often surprised him with their originality and accuracy. They always reflected, on the one hand, a kind of unfamiliarity with what others thought and said about it, and on the other, the ability to look at things from an unexpected angle.

On November 4, 1901, after a break of almost twenty years, Arkhip Ivanovich opened the doors of his workshop to a small group of people, among them, of course, primarily Dmitry Ivanovich and Anna Ivanovna Mendeleev.

The paintings made a great impression. The writer I. Yasinsky, who was present, says in his memoirs that when Kuindzhi showed the painting “Dnieper,” Mendeleev coughed. Arkhip Ivanovich asked him:

Why are you coughing like that, Dmitry Ivanovich?

I’ve been coughing for sixty-eight years, it’s nothing, but this is the first time I’ve seen a picture like this.

The new version of “Birch Grove” also caused general delight.

What's the secret, Arkhip Ivanovich? - Mendeleev began the conversation again.

There is no secret, Dmitry Ivanovich,” Kuindzhi said, laughing, holding the picture closed.

“I have many secrets in my soul,” Mendeleev concluded, “but I don’t know your secret...

“Our friendship with Kuindzhi,” writes A.I. Mendeleeva, “continued until the end of Arkhip Ivanovich’s life.” This means that even after the death of the great scientist, “Arkhip Ivanovich outlived his friend by three years,” the Kuindzhi and Mendeleev families continued to be friends at home.

2. In 1880, the artist staged an extraordinary exhibition in the hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. People stood in line for hours to get into the hall, where only one painting was shown in a dark hall - “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper.”
There were rumors that it was painted with magical lunar paints, which Mendeleev himself invented. The impression of the flickering moonlight was so incredible that some viewers looked behind the painting to see if the canvas was illuminated by a lamp, while others stated that phosphorus was mixed into the paints.
The mystery of the “luminous” paintings was not in the special composition of the colors. The colors were ordinary, the painting technique was unusual...
The effect was achieved through multi-layered painting, light and color contrast, thereby deepening the space, and less dark strokes in illuminated areas created a feeling of vibrating light. He contrasted the warm reddish tone of the earth with cold silvery shades.

In the summer and autumn of 1880 A.I. Kuindzhi worked on this painting. Rumors spread throughout the Russian capital about the enchanting beauty of “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper.”
For two hours on Sundays, the artist opened the doors of his studio to those interested, and the St. Petersburg public began to besiege her long before the completion of the work.
The picture gained truly legendary fame. I.S. Turgenev and Ya. Polonsky, I. Kramskoy and P. Chistyakov, D.I. Mendelev came to the workshop of A.I. Kuindzhi, and the famous publisher and collector K.T. Soldatenkov had an eye on the painting. Directly from the workshop, even before the exhibition, “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” was bought by Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich for huge money.


He had been working towards this picture for a long time. I went to the Dnieper, perhaps, precisely for this story. For days, weeks, Kuindzhi almost did not leave the workshop. The work engrossed him so much that even as a recluse, his wife brought him lunch upstairs. The intended picture, shimmering and alive, stood before the artist’s eyes.
The memories of Kuindzhi’s wife are interesting: “Kuindzhi woke up at night. The thought was like an insight: “What if... “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” was shown in a dark room?!” He jumped up, lit a kerosene lamp and, shuffling with slippers, ran up the stairs to workshop. There he lit another lamp, placed them both on the floor at the edges of the picture. The effect was striking: the space in the picture expanded, the moon was shining surrounded by a flickering radiance, the Dnieper played with its reflection. Everything was like in life, but more beautiful, more sublime. Arkhip Ivanovich placed a chair at the right distance, as he believed, he sat down, leaned back and looked and looked until it was dawn outside the huge window. Amazed by the effect he found, he knew that he had to show “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” in a dark hall, alone..."
The painting was exhibited on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg. The artist’s performance with a personal exhibition, and even consisting of only one small painting, was an unusual event. Moreover, this picture did not interpret some unusual historical plot, but was a landscape of a very modest size (105 x 144). Knowing that the effect of moonlight would be fully manifested under artificial lighting, the artist ordered the windows in the hall to be draped and the painting illuminated with a beam of electric light focused on it. Visitors entered the dimly lit hall and, as if enchanted, stood before the cold glow of moonlight.
A.I. Kuindzhi focused his efforts on the illusory transfer of the real lighting effect, on the search for such a composition of the picture that would allow the most convincing expression of the feeling of broad spatiality. And he coped with these tasks brilliantly. In addition, the artist beat everyone in distinguishing the slightest changes in color and light relationships.
Kuindzhi used the property of warm colors to ignite from lamp light, and of cold colors to be absorbed by it. The effect of such exposure was extraordinary. I.N. Kramskoy exclaimed: “What a storm of enthusiasm Kuindzhi raised!.. Such a charming fellow.”
Kuindzhi's success gave rise to imitators of his bright, intense painting, his amazingly constructed space with a striking illusion of depth. Among the imitators generated by the “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” effect, this is primarily L.F. Lagorio, who wrote “Moonlit Night on the Neva” in 1882, then Klodt, Yu.Yu.Klever...
Kuindzhi’s unprecedented triumph gave rise to envious people who spread ridiculous rumors about the artist. The atmosphere of envy was captured by P.P. Chistyakov: “All landscape painters say that the Kuindzhi effect is a simple matter, but they themselves cannot do it.”

"D.I. Mendeleev and A.I. Kuindzhi"

A crowd similar to the recent “queue for Serov” stood for hours outside one of the St. Petersburg exhibition halls in 1880. People were eager to see “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” by Arkhip Kuindzhi and unravel the secret of the landscape glowing from within. Very soon, the works of the famous artist will visit Russia again - at the Kuindzhi exhibition at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow from October 6, 2018 to February 17, 2019, more than 120 works by Kuindzhi from several museums around the world will be presented.

Painting “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper”
Oil on canvas 105 × 144 cm
1880
Kept in the Russian Museum

Repetitions-variants: in the Astrakhan State Art Gallery named after. B.M. Kustodieva (1882);
Simferopol Art Museum (1882);
Kiev Museum of Russian Art (“Night on the Don”, 1882);
Tretyakov Gallery (“Night on the Dnieper”, 1882; “Night on the Dnieper”, reduced undated version);
National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus (“Night over the Dnieper”, 1880s).

“All landscape painters say that the Kuindzhi effect is a simple matter, but they themselves cannot do it,” wrote artist Pavel Chistyakov. “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper”, exhibited for the first time, shocked even the sophisticated St. Petersburg public. Kuindzhi stirred up interest in this work in advance, allowing individual spectators into his workshop on Sundays, so that by the opening of the exhibition they would spread the word about the amazing painting. As a result, the building of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, where the painting was exhibited, was besieged by a crowd all day, and the entire street and part of Nevsky Prospekt were packed with carriages. Kuindzhi himself had to calm down the impatient visitors and divide the crowd into groups, which were allowed into the hall in turn. There, in the twilight, a single painting hung on the wall, despite the fact that at that time they could only exhibit a monumental historical painting, but not a landscape. However, “Moonlit Night...” was worth such honors: the moon and its reflection on the canvas seemed to emit real light, and it even stung the viewers’ eyes. Newspapers vied with each other to write about the incredibly realistic landscape, the entire capital was discussing the painting and the artist’s secret, and in attempts to explain the “light painting” the most extravagant versions were put forward, including collusion with evil spirits.

Kuindzhi’s paintings with “special effects” in the transmission of moonlight and sunlight began to be sold for huge sums of money, but when his creative search took him further, the interest of viewers and critics began to wane. Two years after the success of “Moonlit Night...”, the landscape painter closed himself off from the public for almost twenty years, not wanting to listen to discussions on the topic “Kuindzhi is no longer the same.”

Light reflection. Some viewers tried to look behind the stretcher, thinking that the painting was painted on glass, behind which a lit lamp was hidden, and that’s why it “glowed” like that. In fact, one of the effects was actually created by a lamp, but placed not behind the picture, but in front of it. At the exhibition, Kuindzhi decided to make maximum use of the light-reflecting properties of light colors and the light-absorbing properties of dark colors, draping the windows in the hall and, in this twilight, directing the beam of an electric lamp to the center of the picture. And the moon shone on the canvas.

Glazing. Some viewers thought that the painting was painted on a mother-of-pearl or gold substrate, but its basis was an ordinary canvas. Art critic Sofya Kudryavtseva, in a book about Kuindzhi’s work, noted that the artist, wanting to visually deepen and highlight the sky, painted the earth in the foreground in a more sketchy manner, but carefully worked out the moon, clouds and the space surrounding them using glaze: the overlay of numerous translucent layers of paint.

Additional colors. Kuindzhi was interested in the opinion of scientists about the mutual influence of different colors and other features of their perception by the human eye and used scientific theories in painting. Complementary colors - shades of red and green, blue and orange - placed side by side, enhance each other on his canvases.

Small strokes. Dark strokes on light areas create a feeling of vibrating light.

Shades. Ilya Repin recalled how one painter enthusiastically told Kuindzhi that he had unraveled his secret: he, they say, painted his amazing landscapes through colored glass. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” - Kuindzhi answered. However, he did have a specific “optics” in some way. Physicist Fyodor Petrushevsky used a special device to measure the ability of different artists to distinguish the finest shades of colors, and it turned out that Kuindzhi was significantly superior to his fellow Wanderers in this.

Asphalt paint. Visitors to the exhibition were in vain to think that Kuindzhi’s trick was that he painted with luminous phosphorus paints or some mysterious “lunar” paints. However, the artist still experimented with materials: for the sake of the effect of depth, he used a translucent brown asphalt underpainting, and also added asphalt to the paints to make the tones deeper. However, such paint often darkens as a result of external influences. “Moonlit Night...” was purchased by the nephew of Tsar Alexander II, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich (also the poet K.R.) even before the exhibition and, unable to part with the painting, took it with him on a voyage around the world, as a result the landscape faded and darkened.

ARTIST
Arkhip Kuindzhi

Around 1842- was born in Karasevka, on the outskirts of Mariupol, in the family of a shoemaker of Greek origin.
1868 - for the painting “Tatar village under moonlight on the southern coast of Crimea” shown at the exhibition, he was recognized by the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as worthy of the title of free artist.
1875 - elected to the Association of Traveling Exhibitions; married Vera Kechedzhi-Shapovalova, the daughter of a merchant from Mariupol.
1876 - wrote “Ukrainian Night”, which amazed everyone with its original manner of performance.
1880 - left the Association of Traveling Exhibitions.
1882–1901 - refused to participate in exhibitions and closed his workshop from visitors.
1894–1897 - was a professor-director of the landscape workshop of the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts; Among his students is Nicholas Roerich.
1910 - Died in St. Petersburg from heart disease.

“The illusion of light was his god, and there was no artist equal to him in achieving this miracle of painting” (I.E. Repin).

Leonardo da Vinci called painting “silent poetry.” When you look at the paintings of A. Kuindzhi, you completely agree with these words.

Biography of the artist

I.E. Repin. Portrait of the artist Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (1877)
Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was born on January 27, 1842 in Mariupol in the family of a poor Greek shoemaker. The boy was orphaned early and lived with relatives, doing various jobs for strangers since childhood.
His love for drawing manifested itself in early childhood; he drew everywhere: on the walls of houses, on fences, on scraps of paper. In Feodosia he met Aivazovsky, whose seascapes captivated him and inspired him all his life. Due to poor artistic training, he twice failed the exam at the Academy of Arts. In 1868, he presented the painting “Tatar Saklya” at an academic exhibition, for which he received the title of non-class artist, and in the same year he was accepted as a volunteer student at the Academy.

Realistic period

At this time, he met the Itinerant artists, including I.N. Kramskoy and I.E. Repin. This acquaintance had a great influence on Kuindzhi’s work, directing him towards realism. The works he created during the period of cooperation with the Partnership of Itinerants were a great success (“Autumn thaw” 1872, “Forgotten village” 1874, “Chumatsky tract in Mariupol” 1875).

A. Kuindzhi “Autumn thaw” (1872)
Since 1870, the artist repeatedly visited the island of Valaam, a favorite place of St. Petersburg landscape painters, and created two wonderful landscapes “On the Island of Valaam” (State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) and “Lake Ladoga” (State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), which have already differed from the landscapes of the Wanderers: the artist sought his own path in landscape painting and gradually moved away from realism. The main thing for him was the desire not to interpret life, like the Wanderers, but to enjoy it.

A. Kuindzhi “Lake Ladoga” (1873). Canvas, oil. 79.5 × 62.5 cm. State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg)
The painting depicts a sandy and rocky shore of the lake, the coastal stones gradually sink under the clear water and picturesquely shine through it. A boat with fishermen is visible on the lake, and in the distance the sail of another boat is white. The horizon line is quite low, about two-thirds of the picture is occupied by the sky with clouds.

Romantic period of creativity

With “Ukrainian Night,” written in 1876, which aroused universal admiration, a romantic period began in his work. The main means of expression was the depth of space through the flattening of objects and the search for new visual means. The artist began to introduce bright color into painting, based on a system of complementary colors, and this technique became the main means of achieving the unusual color scheme of his paintings. This was an innovation for Russian art. In 1875, Kuindzhi was accepted as a member of the Association of Itinerants, but from the next year he abandoned the ideas of Itinerants in his paintings.

A. Kuindzhi “Ukrainian Night” (1876). Canvas, oil. 79 × 162 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow)
The main tone of the painting “Ukrainian Night” is velvety blue-black, and only the light walls of the village hut houses on the right side of the picture shine brightly in the moonlight.
In the paintings “North”, “Birch Grove” and “After the Rain” the influence of the Impressionists is already obvious, but not in the sense of impressionistic techniques, but in the passion for conveying the light-air environment in various ways.

A. Kuindzhi “After the Rain” (1879). Canvas, oil. 102 × 159 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow)

A. Kuindzhi “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” (1880)

At the end of 1880, the Society for the Encouragement of Arts hosted an exhibition of one of Kuindzhi’s paintings, “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper,” this exhibition was an unprecedented success. The windows in the hall were draped, and the picture itself was illuminated by a beam of electric light. The illusion of moonlight was created, and it was such an unusual effect that the picture caused a real stir among the public. How did the artist achieve such an effect? He experimented with paint pigments and used bitumen. Even while working on the painting, Kuindzhi opened the doors of his workshop for two hours on Sundays, and the St. Petersburg public could watch the progress of the work. We visited the artist’s studio by I.S. Turgenev, Y. Polonsky, I. Kramskoy, P. Chistyakov and even the famous chemist D.I. Mendeleev.

A. Kuindzhi “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” (1880). Canvas, oil. 105 × 144 cm. State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg)
And when the painting was exhibited, its success exceeded all expectations and turned into a real sensation. Long queues formed on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, and people waited for hours to see this extraordinary work.
Subsequently, it turned out that asphalt paints are fragile and, when exposed to light and air, decompose and darken. Grand Duke Constantine bought the painting and took it with him on a trip around the world.
Under the influence of sea air, the composition of the colors changed, and the landscape darkened. But the beauty, depth and power of the picture is still felt by the viewer.

Description of the picture

The painting depicts a wide space stretching into the distance; the plain is intersected by the greenish ribbon of a quiet river. The dark sky is covered with light clouds. The moon peered into the gap between them and illuminated the Dnieper, the huts and paths on the near bank. Everything in nature froze, as if enchanted by the moonlight. The moon's disk phosphorescently creates the illusion of a mysterious light. This light fascinated people so much that some tried to look behind the painting in search of an additional source of light.
The waters of the Dnieper reflect this light, and the walls of Ukrainian huts turn white from the velvety blue of the night. This majestic spectacle still immerses viewers in thoughts about eternity and the enduring beauty of the world. It's a rare person who can remain indifferent to this picture.
Rumors about the secret of A.I.’s artistic method Kuindzhi, the secret of his colors was discussed even during the artist’s lifetime; some tried to catch him playing tricks, even in connection with evil spirits.
Moonlight is the most amazing thing in this picture. He achieved this effect as a result of multi-layer glazing and the ability to use light and color contrasts.
Glazing is thin transparent or translucent layers of paints that are applied to dried or semi-dried paint layers in order to change the color, to enhance or weaken it.
When a year later Kuindzhi exhibited his new painting “Dnieper in the Morning”, it was greeted dryly by the audience - it was painted without bright lighting effects.

A. Kuindzhi “Dnieper in the morning” (1881). Canvas, oil. 105 × 167 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow)
The surface of the river is depicted in soft colors. In the foreground is modest green steppe vegetation on a hill, a burdock bush in the middle. The picture creates the impression of space and endless breadth. The style of writing shows the influence of impressionism.
Writer and artist Leonid Volynsky assessed this painting and Kuindzhi’s work in general: “And Kuindzhi’s main strength was not in stunning effects. In his farewell painting “Dnieper in the Morning” (the last one shown at the exhibition during his lifetime) there is neither the moon nor the crimson setting sun - nothing but a bank overgrown with burnt grass, wildflowers and thistles and the distances beyond the river, shrouded in a hazy haze. Much easier! And yet, stopping in front of this picture, you experience a special joy - this is what happens when you find yourself early in the morning on a high bank above the river, above boundless expanses filled with soft light, and you stand in happy silence.”
This painting was the last one Kuindzhi exhibited to the public before he completely refused to participate in exhibitions.

A. Kuindzhi “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” (1901). Canvas, oil. 107.5 × 143.5 cm. Vorontsov Palace Museum (Alupka)
“Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” is one of the few subject paintings in the work of the landscape painter Kuindzhi. The artist’s main goal was not a new interpretation of the gospel story, but the ability to use the effect of moonlight to convey the tension and drama of the situation.
In the center of the canvas, Christ is depicted illuminated by moonlight in white clothes, and the entire Garden of Gethsemane surrounding him is covered in darkness.

Only in 1901 did Kuindzhi break his seclusion and show a limited circle of people 2 new paintings (“Evening in the Ukraine”, “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane”, as well as the third version of “Birch Grove” and “Dnieper in the Morning”. People started talking about the artist again. In In November of the same year, he exhibited his works for the last time and never did it again, although he continued to work intensively.

A. Kuindzhi “Rainbow” (1900-1905). Canvas, oil. 110 × 171 cm. State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg)
This is a masterpiece of the late period of Kuindzhi’s work.
In the summer of 1910, in Crimea, Kuindzhi fell ill with pneumonia. A bad heart complicated the course of the disease, and on July 24, 1910, the artist died in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery, and in 1952 his ashes were transferred to the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
It is impossible not to say a few words about another type of activity of this wonderful person.

Charity of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi

His student Nicholas Roerich wrote about his teacher: “All of cultural Russia knew Kuindzhi. Even the attacks made this name even more significant. They know about Kuindzhi - a great, original artist. They know how, after unprecedented success, he stopped exhibiting; worked for myself. He is known as a friend of youth and a mourner for the disadvantaged. They know him as a glorious dreamer in an effort to embrace the great and reconcile everyone, who gave away his entire million-dollar fortune. They are known as a strict critic.”
In 1898, Kuindzhi, at his own expense, organized a trip abroad for young artists and donated one hundred thousand rubles to the Academy for this purpose. When the students decided to create a Society named after A.I. Kuindzhi, the artist transferred into his ownership all the paintings and funds he had, as well as the lands he owned in Crimea.

The result of artistic searches

A. Kuindzhi “Cloud” (1898-1908). Paper on cardboard, oil. 10.9 x 17.5. State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg)

Looking at the artist’s paintings, it is impossible not to feel the unusualness of the light depicted in them. The unusually effective rendering of moonlight, color contrasts, and compositional decorativeness of Kuindzhi’s paintings broke old pictorial stereotypes. But this was the result of his artistic search. He was interested in the works of professors at St. Petersburg University, physicist F.F. Petrushevsky, who studied painting technology, the relationship between primary and secondary colors, and chemist D.I. Mendeleev. He wrote the book “Light and Color in themselves and in relation to painting,” which was published in 1883. In his studio, he constantly experimented with paints.
Repin talked about the lessons that D. Mendeleev gave to artists. During lessons, Mendeleev talked about the physical properties of paints. One day he demonstrated a device that measured the sensitivity of the eye to subtle nuances of tones and invited them to “check it out.” Kuindzhi had no equal!