The best paintings of the Russian artist Boris Kustodiev. Kustodiev's painting "Shrovetide": description

An essay based on Kustodiev's painting "Maslenitsa" should begin with brief reference about the artist himself. For example, the fact that Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev is one of the greatest Russian Soviet artists, who worked in various periods of the life of Russia: he was born in Russian Empire and died in the Soviet Union. He was distinguished by talent already in his early years and received many medals and awards during his studies and at the end of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Despite the fact that he was widely known as a portrait painter, his soul lay in everyday genre- combining a portrait with a landscape or interior. Such is his painting "Shrovetide", painted in 1919.

The plan for writing an essay on the theme "Shrovetide" based on the painting by Kustodiev

Like any other essay, this work must begin with a thoughtful plan.

The first item, as usual, is the introduction. An example of an introduction is at the beginning of this article, it can be expanded if necessary and introduce other facts about the artist or painting.
Further, in the essay on the painting "Shrovetide" by Kustodiev, one should describe the details of the picture: what is in the foreground and background, what objects or parts focus attention on themselves, consider color scheme And general mood works.
After that, you need to describe your feelings and emotions caused by viewing the picture. You should also not skimp on assumptions about what the emotions of the characters in the picture and its general mood can be caused by.
At the very end, it remains to draw a capacious conclusion that will summarize the entire essay as a whole.

Composition based on the painting by Kustodiev "Pancake week"

In this picture, the artist sought to convey the general cheerful and cheerful mood, which is caused by the primordially Russian and long-awaited holiday - Maslenitsa. It is so long-awaited because people associate it with fragrance. tasty food, with fairs, with the onset of spring and city festivities. In the foreground of the picture, the artist depicted harnessed horses with people briskly riding in a sleigh, cheerful children next to a shop with cheeses and caviar, merchants slowly leading a conversation, a merchant behind a small shop and a lively crowd at the theater. The central object of the composition is an elegant trio of horses, which with difficulty overcomes fluffy snowdrifts and carries wealthy ladies in a sleigh. Despite the fact that it is clearly cold outside (all the characters are dressed in warm fur coats), the color scheme of the picture warms its viewer: a variety of warm brown, red and yellow shades in the foreground of the picture complements the general mood of the work. In the background, the fun seems to subside a little: a calm church glistens in the sun, birch trees covered with snow stand quietly, there seem to be not so many people.

Completion of the essay

In conclusion of the composition based on the painting "Maslenitsa" by Kustodiev Boris Mikhailovich, I would like to note that he was a true master in creating such bright, festive household paintings which will not let the Russian person remain indifferent to them. Everyone will find themselves in his paintings, recognize the emotions that this artist tried to convey. talented artist. His paintings turned out so lively and truthful, because he was close to the people and sincerely loved them.

The famous Russian artist Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev several times in his work turned to holiday theme seeing off winter, opening it every time with a feeling of joy from the brightness and frosty freshness. One of these bright works, the painting by Kustodiev Maslenitsa was painted in 1916, subsequently continuing this creative theme, he creates two more colorful canvases in 1919 and in 1920. Although some sketches and sketches of the Russian holiday were made by him earlier.

This is a difficult time for Russia, forced to take part in the First World War. Kustodiev is seriously ill and has not picked up brushes for a long time. But after the operation, overcoming excruciating pain, being in a wheelchair, he begins work and creates works about provincial life. He writes "Shrovetide", full of cheerful frosty happiness, as if opposing her illness.

The traditional folk festival of the long-awaited meeting of spring, seeing off winter, various competitions, the best outfits, obligatory pancakes, the construction of a snowy town, tug of war, spread tents and sleigh rides get from the chests. Shaggy earflaps, colorful scarves and shawls, bright mittens - all this flickers like in a round dance.

Kustodiev's Maslenitsa painting stands out significantly compared to the works of other Russian masters, with its unusual brilliance of writing and a certain primitivism of pictorial strokes, nevertheless, the perception of his colorful holiday idyll in the Russian provinces is very easy and understandable, which accordingly cheers up.

Horseback riding, sledding down the mountains, burning a straw man, which was a symbol of a long cold winter… This is a whole week on the eve of Lent. The celebration of the meeting of spring and seeing off winter was carried out in Russia in pagan times by the ancient Slavs. at the center of any locality fun festivities were organized. Shrovetide ended with the burning of a straw effigy, symbolizing winter.

The last evening rays illuminate the snow-covered city, high spiers and multi-colored domes of churches. And below, multi-colored swings and carousels creak, rotating, from afar you can hear the cheerful hubbub of the fair. A brightly painted sleigh driven by a pair of horses along the street. It can be seen that there is a competition, who is faster, louder, more distant. Fun embraces everyone.

This is a fabulous reality, like a testament of a sick artist to always look at life with optimism and certainly believe that life itself is a holiday. The sun is nearing sunset, but its rays seem to linger to look at the merry festivities. The winter landscape, which served Kustodiev as a backdrop for his work, creates an atmosphere of carnival.

Painted sleighs, birds soaring up, downhills. The viewer seems to be watching the action from a bird's eye view. Fun, Russian prowess - all this is depicted by the painter in in a collective way - national holiday. The size of the canvas is 89 by 190.5 cm, 1916. The painting is in the Russian Museum, in the city of St. Petersburg.

One such holiday is depicted in another painting by Kustodiev in 1919. In the pink-golden rays of the sunset, a mass celebration of the inhabitants of a provincial town takes place. The movement of the holiday can be felt on the dashingly racing sleigh. The work of the artist on the theme of winter is filled with genuine joy.

Here you have a dashing trio of horses in the center of the canvas, a team drawn by two horses is catching up with it, and in the foreground on the left, a merchant’s woman modestly but cheerfully cuts through the alley married couple on a sleigh with a white horse harnessed.

Seeing off winter is a special folk holiday, which Kustodiev so repeatedly sought to convey: painted sledges, merchants conduct leisurely trade and the nobility march imposingly. Carefree fun, and in the distance you can see the domes of a small church - a symbol of Orthodoxy. The author chooses bright colors: a bright red or green pattern of painted sleighs, the facade of houses. But the temple is depicted as bright and located between beautiful trees. This expresses his attitude towards faith. Canvas size 71 by 98 cm, located in St. Petersburg, in the museum apartment of I. Brodsky

In 1920, another painting “Shrovetide” comes out from under the brush of Kustodiev - this is the life of the people of Russia and its centuries-old history. The artist unfolds before us the most fascinating stories with the smallest details, in multi-figured compositions, colored with admiration and its elusive irony.

This holiday is very famous among the people. folk amusements and colorful fair booths. It looks like a carnival, against the backdrop of a high church, where everything is so decorative: the townspeople dressed in expensive fur coats walk leisurely, someone sells only baked pies, horses dash dashingly, merrily jingling with golden bells.

In the foreground, children are sledding. It seems that even nature dressed up for this occasion by decorating the trees with hoarfrost, delighting the townspeople with its spring-like sunny but still frosty weather. This is an amazing, bright, multi-colored and festive sketch, reminiscent of popular prints. folk art. The size of the painting is 69x90 cm, the location of the painting is unknown.

In the paintings that are dedicated to the mass festivities, the artist sought to note the reckless and daring whirlwind of emotions. Most often, this was expressed in the image of a racing Russian troika. In these works there is something from the scenery of the theater: the contrast and even the use of "backstage". They are very colorful, in composition, reminiscent of unique Russian caskets.

Many of Kustodiev's paintings were painted from memory. The main characters of such works seem to be cleansed of negativity: they are kind, poetic, and full of dignity. There is a feeling that the way of the patriarchal Russian life gone into the past. The plot of such paintings is often associated with festive images in Russian painting. Kustodiev conveys the brightest side of life, in which there is light, fun, happiness. And Maslenitsa - mass holiday, with the participation of people regardless of their class and material wealth.

Kustodiev's painting becomes more colorful with each new work, becoming truly national. It carries a charge of amazing energy, a radiant feeling of the fullness of life. The artist is vigilant and sometimes mockingly observant, he knows how to find joy in any manifestation of life, so diverse and colorful.

“The people are the crown of earthly color, the beauty and joy of all flowers ...”

Alexander Blok

First World War, revolution, Civil War... And at this time, the sick master creates wonderful in composition and color, cheerful and joyful images of ideal Rus', with its bright scarves and pot-bellied samovars, cheerful peasants and broken merchants, shining church domes and carved platbands of huts. Like the city of Kitezh or "Summer of the Lord" by Ivan Shmelev, the Russia of Boris Kustodiev appears before the viewer. And a special place here is occupied by a series of works dedicated to Maslenitsa.

The first three paintings "Shrovetide" were written in 1916, and this theme did not leave the artist until 1922. So, more and more new versions are created in 1917 and 1919, and in 1921 Kustodiev paints a portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin again against the background carnival festivities. The action of these works always takes place in a city, the landscape of which is a collective image of many provincial and metropolitan places, and the plot is almost always divided into many mise-en-scenes, in which a variety of “folk” types participate - peasants, merchants, peddlers, merchants, officers and accordionists. . The atmosphere of the holiday and carnival is conveyed by the artist through an extremely rich and bright color. Here the viewer sees sleigh rides, a booth, and ice slides - typical "pre-revolutionary" entertainments at Maslenitsa.

In "Maslenitsa" Kustodiev's passion for painting by old Netherlandish masters, first of all, was most fully reflected. It should be noted as a similarity in composition, abundance small parts and scenes, as well as the peculiarities of the angle of all the paintings - a look at what is happening with high point, as if "in flight", which allows you to simultaneously show the beauty of the landscape, and give a lot of "theatrical" plans for the action of the characters. But what is even more important to note is the common (both for Kustodiev and for Brueghel) love for everyday joys. ordinary people, sincere admiration for life and its poetry.

Here is what the artist himself wrote about this: “In my works I want to approach Dutch masters, to their attitude to their home life ... Dutch artists they loved simple, everyday life, for them there was neither “high”, nor “vulgar”, “low”, they all wrote with the same enthusiasm and love.

The canvases of Boris Kustodiev, dedicated to Russian festive life, are always realistic at the same time, full of reliable details - beautifully painted costumes and utensils, architectural motifs, signs of the season. And at the same time, these are, of course, collective, idealized images, broadcasting to the viewer a special, magical and complete folk poetry a world similar to the fairy tales of Pushkin and Gogol.

And it is impossible not to admire the feat of the master, who recreated in his works a picture of the bygone Russian world with its bright festive colors shining against the backdrop of a white winter, the joys of the “little people” so beloved by Russian literature. “Love for life, joy, vivacity, love for one’s own, “Russian”, have always been the only “plot” of my paintings,” this is how Boris Kustodiev himself described his work at the end of his life.

Boris Kustodiev

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan in 1878. There he received his first painting lessons, and then as a young man he went to St. Petersburg and ended up in the workshop of Ilya Efimovich Repin at the Academy of Arts. Kustodiev quickly grew from a simple student into an assistant and young colleague his professor, helped Repin in his work on the monumental canvas "The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901". In response, Ilya Efimovich did not skimp on praise: “I have high hopes for Kustodiev. He is a gifted artist loving art, thoughtful, serious, carefully studying nature. Distinctive features his talents: independence, originality and a deeply felt nationality ... "

Even during his studies, Boris Kustodiev proved himself to be an excellent and subtle portrait painter (suffice it to recall the wonderful portrait of the artist Ivan Bilibin). However, as a diploma, he chooses genre painting and creates, based on Kostroma studies and observations, the work “At the Bazaar”, which received gold medal and the right to retire abroad.

Upon his return from Europe, where the artist copied and studied old masters, Kustodiev worked hard, later becoming a member of the Academy of Arts and various artistic groups, communities and circles, the most famous of which was, of course, the World of Art. It continues to be occupied by peasant and folk life- this is how series are created village holidays” and “Fairs”.

The brighter and purer the colors on the canvases of Boris Kustodiev become, the heavier the atmosphere in Russia and the personal circumstances of the artist's life. Since 1909, he has undergone a series of operations caused by a tumor of the spinal cord. For the last 15 years of his life, Kustodiev was actually chained to wheelchair and paints pictures lying down.

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev several times in his work turned to the festive theme of seeing off winter, revealing it each time with a feeling of joy from brightness and frosty freshness. One of these bright works "Maslenitsa" was written in 1916, subsequently continuing this creative theme, he creates two more colorful canvases in 1919 and in 1920. Although some sketches and sketches of the Russian holiday were made by him earlier.

Maslenitsa. 1916
Canvas, oil. 61 x 123 cm
State Tretyakov Gallery,
Moscow

Maslenitsa. 1916
Canvas, oil. 47 x 80 cm

Saint Petersburg

Maslenitsa 1916. The last evening rays illuminate the snow-covered city, high spiers and multi-colored domes of churches. And below, multi-colored swings and carousels creak, rotating, from afar you can hear the cheerful hubbub of the fair. A brightly painted sleigh driven by a pair of horses along the street. It can be seen that there is a competition, who is faster, louder, more distant. Fun embraces everyone. This is a fabulous reality, like a testament of a sick artist to always look at life with optimism and certainly believe that life itself is a holiday. The sun is nearing sunset, but its rays seem to linger to look at the merry festivities. The winter landscape, which served Kustodiev as a backdrop for his work, creates an atmosphere of carnival. Painted sleighs, birds soaring up, downhills. The viewer seems to be watching the action from a bird's eye view. Fun, Russian prowess - all this is depicted by the painter in a collective image - a folk holiday. The size of the canvas is 89 by 190.5 cm, 1916. The painting is in the Russian Museum, in the city of St. Petersburg.

Maslenitsa1. 1916
Canvas, oil. 89x190.5 cm
State Russian Museum,
Saint Petersburg

Kustodiev's painting "Maslenitsa" stands out significantly in relation to the works of other Russian masters, with its unusual brilliance of writing and a certain primitivism of pictorial strokes, nevertheless, the perception of his colorful idyll of the holiday in the Russian provinces is very easy and understandable, which accordingly cheers up. Horseback riding, sledding down the mountains, burning a straw effigy, which was a symbol of a long cold winter ... This is a whole week on the eve of Lent. The celebration of the meeting of spring and seeing off winter was carried out in Russia in pagan times by the ancient Slavs. Fun festivities were held in the center of any settlement. Shrovetide ended with the burning of a straw effigy, symbolizing winter.

http://www.art-portrets.ru/art20veka/

artistic talent Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev world-famous representative of Russian painting of the last century, gave us a nostalgic world, sunny and joyful, emphasizing bright colors holiday feeling. As a student, Kustodiev not only inherited Repin's manner and style, but also introduced a play of colors inherent only to him, which involuntarily charges with positive and happiness. It is worth noting that the formation of Boris Mikhailovich as an artist began long before he met the teacher, this is evidenced by his work, riddled with echoes of childhood attachments and experiences.

Kustodiev was born in the family of a seminary teacher in 1878 in Astrakhan. Fate decreed that Boris's father died when the boy was a little over a year old, and all responsibility for upbringing fell on the fragile shoulders of his mother - a 25-year-old widow with four children in her arms. Despite a very modest income, the family lived together, and mother's love brightened up the difficulties of life, giving the opportunity to form creative personality. It was the mother, Ekaterina Prokhorovna, who instilled in her children a love for high art theater, literature, painting. Such an upbringing clearly defined the future of Boris, and already at the age of 9 he knew that he would become an artist.

In 1892, having entered the Astrakhan Theological Seminary, Kustodiev simultaneously began to take lessons from the local painter A.P. Vlasov. With the blessing of Vlasov, in 1896 Kustodiev became a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and after two years was accepted into the studio of Ilya Repin. great artist immediately drew attention to the student, placing great hopes on him, which subsequently resulted in joint work above the monumental canvas -. The consequence of such successful start became protection thesis with a gold medal and an internship abroad. On his trip to Europe, the artist went with a young family, a recently born son and a young wife - Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya.

Subsequently, in 1905, paying tribute fateful meeting with his love, Kustodiev built the house-workshop "Terem" near the city of Kineshma, on the Volga. "Terem" became the place of work and creativity of the artist, and here, almost every summer, Boris Mikhailovich was seized by a feeling that is commonly called happiness, inspiring him to create and realize the fullness of life. Beloved wife, who became a faithful assistant, son and daughter, in the indestructible concept of the family, were reflected in the artist's work and became a separate big theme in his painting (the painting "Morning").

A year earlier, in 1904, the artist spent several months abroad, in and out, visiting exhibitions and museums. Native expanses called Boris Mikhailovich to Russia and, returning to his homeland, Kustodiev plunged into the world of journalism, collaborating with the satirical magazines Zhupel and Infernal Mail. So, the first Russian revolution inspired him to try his hand at cartoons and caricatures of government officials.

The year 1907 became eventful: a trip to, a passion for sculpture, membership in the Union of Artists. And in 1908, the world of theater opens up for Kustodiev - he works as a decorator at the Mariinsky. The popularity of Boris Mikhailovich is growing, the fame of the portrait painter becomes the reason famous work Nicholas II in 1915, but long before that, in 1909, trouble came to the artist's family - the first signs of a spinal cord tumor appeared. Despite this, he continues to actively travel around Europe, receiving the title of academician of painting in the same year. Having visited Austria, Italy, France and Germany, Kustodiev goes to Switzerland, where he undergoes treatment. Subsequently, in Berlin in 1913, he undergoes a complex operation.

It would seem that the disease receded and 1914 was marked by exhibitions at the Bernheim Gallery in Paris, International art exhibitions in Venice and In 1916, Kustodiev underwent a second operation, which resulted in paralysis of the lower body and amputation of the legs. Since then, the whole world of the artist is his room, memory and imagination. It was during this period that he wrote his most vivid and festive paintings, depicting provincial life(, "Rural holiday") and the beauty of the body ().

But cheerfulness and optimism are not able to overcome the disease, which, as it progresses, gives the artist a single lifetime exhibition of his own works in 1920 at the Petrograd House of Arts. The last milestones of life were marked by the design of the play "Flea" and participation in International Exhibition in Paris.

In 1927, on May 26, at the age of 49, Boris Mikhailovich dies literally while working on a sketch of the triptych conceived by him “The Joy of Work and Rest”. So ended not easy, but full of light and joyful notes of life famous artist who left us a legacy, demonstrating a thirst for life and knowledge.