Kramskoy's paintings and the artist's biography

Self-portrait. 1867

Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy(1837-1887) - an outstanding artist of the second half of the 19th century, occupies one of the leading places in the history of Russian artistic culture. Early matured, thoughtful and well-read, he quickly gained authority among his comrades and, naturally, became one of the leaders of the "revolt of the fourteen" in 1863, when a group of graduates refused to write graduation pictures on a given mythological plot. After the rebels left the Academy of Arts, it was Kramskoy who headed the Artel of Artists, created on his initiative. Kramskoy is one of the main founders of the Wanderers association, a subtle art critic, passionately interested in the fate of Russian art, he was the ideologist of a whole generation of realist artists. He took part in the development of the charter of the Partnership and immediately became not only one of the most active and authoritative members of the board, but also the ideologist of the Partnership, who defended and substantiated the main positions. From other leaders of the Association, he was favorably distinguished by his independence of outlook, a rare breadth of views, sensitivity to everything new in the artistic process and intolerance to any dogmatism.

Biography of Kramskoy

The work of Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoy coincided with the brightest period in the history of Russian realistic art, when critical realism in painting and literature reached its highest level and acquired great importance in the world culture of the 19th century. However, the role of the artist in the history of Russian art is not limited to his personal work: with his gift as a teacher, ideologist of a new direction, with all his social activities, Kramskoy had a huge impact on the minds of his contemporaries.

Kramskoy was born in the city of Ostrogozhsk, Voronezh province. The future artist's early interest in art turned over time into a persistent attraction to creativity. The young Kramskoy worked for some time as a retoucher for the photographer Danilevsky and, as an assistant, wanders endlessly through the provincial cities of Russia. Finally, once in St. Petersburg, he fulfills his dream - he enters the Academy of Arts. However, the bright hopes of familiarizing with the secrets of great art were not destined to be realized, since at that time the main principles of academic teaching remained - the ideas of classicism that had already outlived themselves and did not correspond at all to the new time. Advanced social circles set before the artists the task of being a broad and truthful father of living reality. The appearance at that time of N. G. Chernyshevsky’s dissertation “The Aesthetic Relationship of Art to Reality” gave special weight to the issues of art. In the autumn of 1863, fourteen academicians were offered a “program” on a theme from the Scandinavian sagas “Feast in Valhalla”. Young artists refused to write on this topic and left the Academy. The break with the Academy was led by Kramskoy. This decisive step threatened the former students with political distrust from the state and material need, and therefore required great courage. Having led this movement, Kramskoy assumed responsibility for the future fate of Russian art. For the purpose of mutual assistance and material support, the Artel of Artists was created, which later became the base of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. A public figure by vocation, Kramskoy becomes one of the most active members of this organization. One of the main objectives of the Partnership was the development of democratic art, not only in the form of organization, but also in the ideological direction. In the Russian Wandering movement, democratic realism, as a phenomenon of world art, reached high peaks. The first traveling exhibition was opened on November 21, 1871 in the building of the Academy of Arts. In the spring of 1872, she was transported to Moscow, and then to Kyiv. Unlike academic exhibitions, traveling exhibitions "moved" from city to city, everywhere arousing keen interest in themselves. Thus began the activity of this public organization, which for a number of decades united all the leading artists of Russia.

At the first traveling exhibition, Kramskoy participated in a large painting "Mermaids" based on the plot of N.V. Gogol's story "May Night". Here the artist was attracted by the opportunity to convey the moonlight in the language of painting, so poetically changing everything around. Kramskoy wrote: “I am glad that with such a plot I didn’t finally break my neck, and if I didn’t catch the moon, something fantastic came out.”

For the next exhibition of the Wanderers, Kramskoy paints the painting “Christ in the Desert” (1872), which was conceived as the first in a series (and never realized) of paintings on gospel stories. The artist wrote that his task was to show the inner struggle of a person immersed in deep thoughts about choosing a life path. The painting "Christ in the Wilderness" was perceived by contemporaries as a symbol of a person of high civic duty.

In the summer of 1873, Kramskoy and his family settled in the Tula province, not far from the estate of Leo Tolstoy. Taking advantage of this neighborhood, Kramskoy paints a portrait of Tolstoy. The strength and solidity of the personality, a clear and energetic mind - this is how the writer appears in this portrait. From the whole gallery of portraits of L. N. Tolstoy, written by N. N. Ge, I. E. Repin, L. O. Pasternak, the portrait of Kramskoy is one of the best. In turn, the artist himself served as a prototype for the artist Mikhailov in the novel Anna Karenina. Almost at the same time, portraits of I. I. Shishkin and N. A. Ne-krasov were created. The portrait of “Nekrasov from the period of the Last Songs” (1877) was painted at a time when Nekrasov was already seriously ill, so the sessions lasted 10-15 minutes. The strongest impression from the portrait is the contrast between the clarity of mind, creative inspiration and the physical weakness of the dying poet.

Among the works of Kramskoy there are a number of poetic female images, such as "Girl with a loose braid" or the famous "Stranger", which was said to be the prototype of Anna Karenina. Back in 1874, the artist created a whole series of peasant types, the most powerful in character among them - "Woodsman" (1874).

In the 80s, Kramskoy painted the painting “Inconsolable Grief”, which is largely autobiographical: the artist survived the death of two children. Kai and in "The Widow" by Fedotov, the theme of human grief sounds mournful here. The face and the very image of the mother who lost her child are striking.

This woman, killed by an irreparable misfortune, exists, as it were, outside of time, it seems to have stopped. Since 1883, the artist's health has deteriorated, and Kramskoy's last years were extremely difficult. Constant household chores and work on orders do not allow him to finish work on the painting "Laughter" ("Christ before the people"), the idea of ​​​​which involved the development of the theme "Christ in the Desert", the theme of the sacrificial fate of man.

On March 25, 1887, while working on a portrait of Dr. Rauchfus, Kramskoy died unexpectedly.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Kramskoy's artistic and literary heritage for Russian culture. The main ideological orientation of his artistic activity is a deep interest in the knowledge of a person of his era, whether the artist depicted him in the guise of a gospel legend or in the guise of his contemporary. Social activities of Kramskoy, his work became a school for a whole generation of Russian artists.

Self-portrait. 1874.

Christ in the wilderness. 180 x 210 cm. 1872

Mermaids. 1871

ON THE. Nekrasov in the period of the Last Songs. 1877-1878

Prayer of Moses after the passage of the Israelites through the Black Sea. 1861

Herodias. 1884-1886

For reading. Portrait of Sophia Nikolaevna Kramskoy, the artist's wife. 1866-1869

Female portrait. 1884

Female portrait. 1867

A girl with a loose braid. 1873

A girl with linen on a yoke among the grass. 1874

Peasant's head. 1874

Convalescent. 1885

Bouquet of flowers. Phloxes. 1884

Actor Alexander Pavlovich Lensky as Petruchio in Shakespeare's comedy The Taming of the Shrew. 1883

Portrait of Vera Nikolaevna Tretyakova. 1879

Portrait of Vera Nikolaevna Tretyakova. 1876

Portrait of Anatoly Ivanovich Kramskoy, the artist's son. 1882

Portrait of Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov, art historian and art critic. 1879

Portrait of the artist Mikhail Klodt. 1872

Portrait of the artist K.A.Savitsky.

Portrait of the artist I.K. Aivazovsky

Portrait of the artist I. E. Repin

Portrait of the artist Grigory Myasoedov

Portrait of the artist Alexei Bogolyubov. 1869

Portrait of the philosopher Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov. 1885

Portrait of Sophia Ivanovna Kramskoy, the artist's daughter. 1882

Portrait of the sculptor Mark Matveyevich Antokolsky. 1876

Portrait of the poet Yakov Petrovich Polonsky. 1875

Portrait of the poet Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. 1877

Portrait of the poet and artist Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko. 1871

Portrait of the writer Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov. 1878

Portrait of the writer Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov (N. Shchedrin). 1879

Portrait of the writer Leo Tolstoy. 1873

Portrait of the writer Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov. 1874

Portrait of the writer Dmitry Vasilyevich Grigorovich. 1876

Portrait of the singer Elizaveta Andreevna Lavrovskaya, on the stage in the Nobility Assembly. 1879

Portrait of Nikolai Ivanovich Kramskoy, the artist's son. 1882

Portrait of Empress Maria Feodorovna

Portrait of the publisher and publicist Alexei Sergeevich Suvorin. 1881

Portrait of I.I. Shishkin. 1880

Portrait of the artist Ivan Shishkin. 1873

Laughter (Hail, king of the Jews). Late 1870s - 1880s

Poet Apollon Nikolaevich Maikov. 1883

Portrait of the artist F.A.Vasiliev. 1871

Kramskoy Ivan Nikolaevich (1837-1887)

Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy (1837 - 1887), Russian artist, critic and art theorist. Born in Ostrogozhsk (Voronezh province) May 27, 1837 in a poor bourgeois family.

From childhood he was fond of art and literature. He was self-taught in drawing since childhood, then, on the advice of a drawing lover, he began to work in watercolor. After graduating from the district school (1850), he served as a scribe, then as a retoucher for a photographer, with whom he wandered around Russia.

In 1857 he ended up in St. Petersburg, worked in the photo studio of A. I. Denier. In the autumn of the same year he entered the Academy of Arts, was a student of A. T. Markov. For the painting “Moses exudes water from a rock” (1863) he received a Small Gold Medal.

During the years of teaching, he rallied around himself the advanced academic youth. He led the protest of the graduates of the Academy (“rebellion of fourteen”), who refused to paint pictures (“programs”) based on the mythological plot set by the Council. The young artists petitioned the council of the academy to be allowed to choose a theme for each painting for a large gold medal. The Academy reacted unfavorably to the proposed innovation. One of the professors of the academy, the architect Ton, even described the attempt of young artists in this way: “in the past, you would have been given to the soldiers for this,” as a result of which 14 young artists, headed by Kramskoy, refused in 1863 to write on the topic set by the academy - “ Feast in Valhalla” and left the academy.

The artists who left the Academy united in the St. Petersburg artel. The atmosphere of mutual assistance, cooperation and deep spiritual interests that reigned here is largely due to Kramskoy. In his articles and extensive correspondence (with V. V. Stasov, A. S. Suvorin, and others), he defended the idea of ​​“tendentious” art, not only reflecting, but also morally transforming the inert, false world.

At this time, the vocation of Kramskoy as a portrait painter was also completely determined. Then he most often resorted to his favorite graphic technique using white, Italian pencil, he also worked using the so-called “wet sauce” method, which made it possible to imitate a photograph. Kramskoy had a painting technique - a subtle finish, which some sometimes considered superfluous or excessive. Nevertheless, Kramskoy wrote quickly and confidently: in a few hours the portrait acquired a similarity: in this respect, the portrait of Dr. Rauchfus, the last dying work of Kramskoy, is remarkable. This portrait was painted in one morning, but remained unfinished, since Kramskoy died while working on this picture.

The portraits created at this time were mostly commissioned, made for the sake of earning money. Portraits of artists (1868), (1869), (1861), (1861), N. A. Koshelev (1866) are well known. The nature of Kramskoy's pictorial portrait is meticulous in drawing and light and shade modeling, but restrained in color. The artistic language corresponded to the image of a raznochint-democrat, who was a frequent hero of the master's portraits. These are the "Self-portrait" of the artist (1867) and "Portrait of the agronomist Vyunnikov" (1868). In 1863-1868 Kramskoy taught at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists.

However, over time, Artel began to gradually deviate in its activities from the high moral principles declared at its inception, and Kramskoy left it, carried away by a new idea - the creation of a partnership of traveling art exhibitions. He took part in the development of the charter of the "Partnership" and immediately became not only one of the most active and authoritative members of the board, but also the ideologist of the Partnership, defending and substantiating the main positions. From other leaders of the Association, he was favorably distinguished by his independence of outlook, a rare breadth of views, sensitivity to everything new in the artistic process and intolerance to any dogmatism.

At the first exhibition of the Association, “Portrait of F. A. Vasiliev” and “Portrait of M. M. Antokolsky” were exhibited. A year later, the painting “Christ in the Desert” was shown, the idea of ​​which was nurtured for several years. According to Kramskoy, “for the former artists, too, the Bible, the Gospel and mythology served only as a pretext for expressing completely contemporary passions and thoughts.” He himself, like and, in the image of Christ expressed the ideal of a person full of high spiritual thoughts, preparing himself for self-sacrifice. The artist managed to speak convincingly here about the problem of moral choice, which is very important for the Russian intelligentsia, which confronts everyone who understands their responsibility for the fate of the world, and this painting, rather modest in terms of painting, entered the history of Russian art.

The artist repeatedly returned to the theme of Christ. The work on the originally conceived large painting “Laughter (“Hail, King of the Jews”)” (1877 - 1882), depicting the mockery of the crowd over Jesus Christ, ended in defeat. The artist selflessly worked on it for ten or twelve hours a day, but never finished, he soberly assessed his impotence. Collecting material for her, Kramskoy visited Italy (1876). He traveled to Europe in subsequent years.

Kramskoy's legacy is very unequal. The ideas of his paintings were significant and original, but their implementation ran into the limitations of his abilities as an artist, which he himself was well aware of and tried to overcome with persistent work, but not always successfully.

In general, Kramskoy was very demanding of artists, which earned him a lot of ill-wishers, but at the same time he was strict with himself and strove for self-improvement. His remarks and opinions about art were not subjective, they were, as a rule, conclusive, as far as it is generally possible in matters of aesthetics. Its main requirement is the content and nationality of works of art, their poetry; but he assigned not the last place to painting itself. You can be convinced of this by reading his correspondence published by A. Suvorin under the editorship of V. V. Stasov “Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy, his life, correspondence and art-critical articles” (St. Petersburg, 1888). Sometimes his opinions remained vacillating for a long time until he found a compromise. Kramskoy was not well educated, but he always regretted it and constantly tried to make up for this shortcoming.

In the small composition “Inspection of the old manor house” (1873 - 1880), Kramskoy found an unusual solution in terms of laconicism, successfully overcoming the stereotypes common in genre painting of that time. An outstanding work was his “Unknown” (1883), which still attracts viewers with its unsolved nature (and art historians with the mysteriousness of the circumstances of working on it). But the painting “Inconsolable grief” (1884), which he carried out in several versions, did not become a serious phenomenon, trying to convey a strong feeling with the help of the most restrained means. An attempt to embody a fantastic world in the painting "Mermaids" (1871) ended in failure.

Kramskoy managed to achieve the greatest success in portraiture. He captured many figures of Russian culture: L. N. Tolstoy (1873), I. I. Shishkin (1873), I. A. Goncharov (1874), Ya. P. Polonsky (1875), P. P. Tretyakov, D V. Grigorovich, M. M. Antokolsky (all 1876), N. A. Nekrasov (1877-1878), M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1879) and others; some of these portraits were painted specifically by order of P. P. Tretyakov for his art gallery.

Images of Russian peasants became a major art phenomenon: “Woodsman” (1874), “Contemplator” (1876), “Mina Moiseev” (1882), “Peasant with a bridle” (1883). Over time, Kramskoy as a portrait painter became very popular, he had many customers, up to members of the imperial family. This allowed him to live comfortably in the last years of his life. Not all of these good portraits were equally interesting. Yet it was in the 1880s. he rose to a new level - he achieved a deeper psychologism, which sometimes made it possible to expose the innermost essence of a person. So he showed himself in the portraits of I. I. Shishkin (1880), V. G. Perov (1881), A. S. Suvorin (1881), S. S. Botkin (1882), S. I. Kramskoy, the artist’s daughter (1882), V. S. Solovyov (1885). An intense life undermined the health of the artist, who did not live to be fifty years old.

Kramskoy is an outstanding figure in the cultural life of Russia in the 1860s-1880s. The organizer of the St. Petersburg artel, one of the founders of the association of the Wanderers, a subtle art critic, passionately interested in the fate of Russian art, he was the ideologist of a whole generation of realist artists.

The artist Ivan Kramskoy made an invaluable contribution to culture. He was an art rebel, an ideologue of the Wanderers, an adviser to the collector Pavel Tretyakov, who created the world-famous Tretyakov Gallery. Kramskoy's student Ilya Repin became a famous artist. This year, on May 27, Ivan Kramskoy celebrated his 180th birthday. In the museum. I. N. Kramskoy, named after the painter, houses paintings and drawings of the artist. The main exposition of the museum presents six paintings by Kramskoy. One of the most interesting works is a portrait of the artist's wife and daughter. Kramskoy did not have time to complete this picture.

The future ideologist of the Wanderers was born on May 27, 1837 in Ostrogozhsk in the family of a clerk. Ivan Kramskoy graduated from the district school, found a job as a retoucher with his countryman photographer Mikhail Tulinov. He corrected the portraits of people in the pictures with watercolors. Kramskoy left his hometown to work in Kharkov, and at the age of 19 he moved to St. Petersburg. A year after working in a photo studio in 1857, he entered the Academy of Arts the first time.

Ivan Kramskoy "Self-portrait", 1867

Kramskoy was one of the most talented students. For the painting "Moses exudes water from the rock" he received a small gold medal. However, both Kramskoy and other students of the Academy wanted more freedom. When they were offered the competition theme "Feast in Valhalla" (the author of the best picture received a large gold medal and the opportunity to go to Paris), the students refused and petitioned that everyone be allowed to develop their own theme. The Academy Council refused. Then 14 best graduates, led by Kramskoy, left the Academy and founded the first Artel of Free Artists in Russia, which lasted until 1871. This event went down in art history as the "Riot of the Fourteen".

– It is interesting that in 1863 the “Riot of the Fourteen” took place in Russia, in France in the same year the first exhibition of the Impressionists took place, – notes the head. exposition department of the museum. I. N. Kramskoy Olga Ryabchikova. “They were also rebels and were against the academic system. Artists of both France and Russia began to reach for the light, for greater freedom in creativity.

In 1870, the "Association of Traveling Exhibitions" was created, the main organizer of which was Ivan Kramskoy. He defended the views on the high social role of the artist, the principles of realism and the nationality of art. The Association held traveling exhibitions and conducted educational activities. It included famous artists of that time: Vasnetsov, Repin, Surikov, Shishkin, Levitan and others.

Ivan Kramskoy "Portrait of a lady". 1881

“Kramskoy was ahead of his time in many of his views,” says Olga Ryabchikova. – For example, he had an interesting approach to the system of art education. He believed that academies and schools were not needed, but it was worth creating artists' workshops, to which those who wanted to learn from these masters would come.

Ivan Kramskoy was an outstanding portrait painter, one of the best of his time. He had many orders. So, Pavel Tretyakov ordered him to create a gallery of images of prominent people, among whom were Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Nekrasov, Alexander Griboyedov, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and others. Due to the large number of orders, the artist did not have much time left to write "for the soul." Some of the work he did not have time to finish. Among them is "Portrait of Sofya Nikolaevna Kramskoy, the artist's wife, and Sofya Ivanovna Kramskoy, the artist's daughter." The picture can be viewed in the main exhibition of the museum. I. N. Kramskoy.

Ivan Kramskoy "Portrait of the artist's wife and daughter", 1875

He met his future wife Kramskoy in St. Petersburg, when he was already finishing his studies at the Academy of Arts. The girl got into trouble. She had an affair with a married artist who shamefully fled abroad with his lawful wife, leaving Sophia to fend for herself. Of course, she was condemned in society, but Kramskoy was so in love with her that he did not care about the opinions of others. The artist married Sophia in 1862.

The marriage was happy, the wife supported the artist in everything. She gave her husband six children. Unfortunately, two of Kramskoy's sons died in childhood. The painting "Portrait of a wife with a daughter" the artist began to paint after their death in 1875. The painter did not have time to finish this work, only the figures were worked out, and the background remained unfinished.

“He mentions this portrait in letters that he can’t finish it in any way, there’s no time,” says Olga Ryabchikova. - To some extent, a large flow of orders interfered with the artist, although he had to support his family, he made very good money, he was able to buy a summer house.

In the last years of his life, Ivan Kramskoy was ill with a heart aneurysm. The artist died on April 5, 1887 while working on a portrait of Dr. Rauchfuss. Kramskoy's grave is located at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

7 interesting facts about Ivan Kramskoy

1. At the first exhibition of the Association of the Wanderers, Ivan Kramskoy presented the painting "Mermaids" in 1871. It is based on Nikolai Gogol's story "May Night, or the Drowned Woman". To work on the painting, Kramskoy went to the village of Khoten, Kharkov province. "Mermaids" was bought by Pavel Tretyakov.

Ivan Kramskoy "Mermaids", 1871

2. Leo Tolstoy gave Ivan Kramskoy the prototype of the artist Mikhailov, to whom Vronsky commissioned a portrait of Anna in the fifth part of the novel Anna Karenina. The writer met the painter when Kramskoy arrived in the village of Kozlovka-Zaseka near Yasnaya Polyana to work on a portrait of Tolstoy. During the sessions, they had conversations about art and life. The writer attracted the artist with his energy, intelligence and simplicity of appearance. “He looks like a genius,” Kramskoy said about him. The personality of the artist also impressed Lev Nikolaevich.

Ivan Kramsko "Portrait of Leo Tolstoy", 1873

3. In the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, the dome is decorated with the painting "Patronymic" by Ivan Kramskoy. The chief architect of the temple, Konstantin Ton, entrusted the painting to Professor Alexei Markov from the Academy of Arts. He was supposed to receive 75,000 rubles for painting the dome. Markov took his student Evgraf Sorokin as an assistant. True, his version of the painting horrified Markov, then he offered to continue the work of another of his students, Ivan Kramskoy, paying him only ten thousand rubles. The amount of work was huge, so Kramskoy invited two fellow artists to help him. The painting turned out great. Unfortunately, on December 5, 1931, the Bolsheviks blew up the temple in order to build the Palace of Soviets in its place. Kramskoy's original painting was destroyed. When the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior began in 1988, the "Fatherland" was restored according to the sketches of the artist.

Painting "Fatherland"

4. About Kramskoy's 1872 painting "Christ in the Desert" Leo Tolstoy wrote: "This is the best Christ I know." The artist worked on this work for more than five years. Kramskoy said: “This is my first thing on which I worked seriously, wrote with tears and blood ... it is deeply suffered by me ... it is the result of many years of searching ... ". On the canvas, Christ is depicted during the 40-day fasting in the desert after his baptism. Kramskoy wanted to capture the moral choice that is inevitable in the life of every person. In a lonely figure, sitting among the cold gray stones, one feels not only thoughtfulness and fatigue, but also a readiness to take the first step on the path to Golgotha. Such a human image of Christ at that time could be perceived as blasphemy. "Christ in the Desert" Pavel Tretyakov at that time bought for fabulous money - six thousand rubles.

Ivan Kramskoy "Christ in the desert", 1872

5. Perhaps one of the most famous paintings by Kramskoy is the portrait "Unknown". The work was written in 1883. The painting depicts a young woman riding in an open carriage along Nevsky Prospekt. Who is this person depicted in the portrait, the artist left a mystery. Even in his letters and diaries there is no mention. The beauty, looking down on the audience, is dressed in the latest fashion: a Francis hat with a feather, a coat trimmed with sable fur, a gold bracelet ... All these things were not cheap. By the way, in the secular society of that time it was considered indecent to wear such fashionable outfits, and even flaunt them, so the appearance of a woman hinted at her “light” social position. Perhaps for this reason, Pavel Tretyakov, who was brought up in a family with strict views, did not buy the painting. The painter sold the painting to a small collector. "Unknown" wandered from one owner to another for a long time. And only in 1925 she ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery.

Ivan Kramskoy "Stranger", 1883

6. For the painting "Christ in the Desert", the Council of the Academy of Arts decided to award Kramskoy the title of professor. But the artist refused, wanting to remain independent of the Academy.

7. The daughter of the artist Sophia Kramskaya also became a painter. She worked in many genres, was a graphic artist, miniaturist, watercolorist. Kramskoy, having seen the talent in his daughter, did a lot of work with her himself. Sophia married a lawyer of Finnish origin Georgy Junker. She continued to paint, participated in exhibitions. The artist became so famous that in 1890-1900 she was invited to paint portraits of the royal family. For many years, Sophia, together with her brothers, took care of the Ostrogozhsk Art Gallery, donated many of her works (however, during a fire in 1942, most of the collection died). In 1930, Sophia was arrested under an article for counter-revolutionary propaganda. She was sent into exile in Krasnoyarsk. In 1932, she was released for health reasons, she returned home. She died a year later at the age of 66.

Sophia painted this portrait of her father shortly before his death.

BY THE WAY
In Ostrogozhsk, the house where the artist lived has been preserved

In Ostrogozhsk, a house has been preserved (Marshak St., 14), where Ivan Kramskoy spent his childhood. With whitewashed walls under a reed roof, it immediately stands out from the rest of the buildings. It preserves the layout of the rooms and restores the details of everyday life. The museum presents materials on the Ostrogozhsk period of the artist's life. He spent 16 years in his hometown. Ostrogozhsk Historical and Art Museum. I. N. Kramskoy (Kramskoy Boulevard, 4) you can see an exposition about the St. Petersburg period of the artist. The exposition contains graphic, mostly student works by Kramskoy, his students and friends.

The famous Wanderer, one of the main reformers in the art of the 19th century, the painter and portrait painter Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy could have remained in the history of Russian art by painting only a portrait of the Unknown. The painting, one of the gems of the Moscow Tretyakov Gallery, is known to everyone in the post-Soviet space. "Unknown" is called the Russian Mona Lisa.

However, the artist gave the world hundreds of paintings that delight, amaze and beckon. Among them are "Moonlight Night", "Mina Moiseev", "Mermaids", "Christ in the Desert". Headed in early youth "rebellion of fourteen", created an association of Wanderers, a subtle art critic - Kramskoy became the ideologist of a whole generation of realist artists.

Childhood and youth

The artist was born in the summer of 1837 in the suburban settlement Novaya Sotnya near Ostrogozhsk, in the Voronezh province. He was brought up in the family of an official-clerk, a tradesman.

The ultimate dream of the parents was for Vanya to grow up and become a clerk, but the plans were involuntarily violated by the neighboring self-taught artist Mikhail Tulinov. He opened the world of art to little Kramskoy and taught him how to paint with watercolors. Since then, the boy, at every opportunity, grabbed a pencil and sketched the world around him.

At the age of 12, Ivan Kramskoy graduated from the Ostrogozhsk school, having received diplomas in all subjects. In the same year, the teenager lost his father and went to work. He got a job in the City Duma, where his father had previously worked as a clerk. Kramskoy practiced calligraphy and was involved as an intermediary in amicable land surveying. The desire to draw did not disappear, and the guy got a job as a retoucher with a photographer, with whom he traveled all over Russia.

An event that happened in 1853 changed the biography of Ivan Kramskoy. When he turned 16, a regiment of dragoons arrived in Ostrogozhsk, and with him Yakov Danilevsky, a photographer. The young artist entered the service of Danilevsky. The work of the retoucher brought Kramskoy 2 rubles. 50 kop. per month, but most importantly, a talented photographer for 3 years, which Ivan worked for him, taught the young man a lot. With him, the artist moved from a provincial provincial town to St. Petersburg.

In the northern capital, Ivan Kramskoy moved to another photographer, Aleksandrovsky. At that time, the skill of the young retoucher reached such heights that he was called the "god of retouching." Even then, a talented portrait painter woke up in Kramskoy. Thanks to an assistant, Aleksandrovsky became a photographer for the imperial family and received an "Eagle", and Ivan was invited to the famous photo studio of Andrei Denyer. St. Petersburg's elite lined up in line for Kramskoy's retouched photo.

In St. Petersburg, Ivan Kramskoy fulfilled a dream he had cherished since childhood: he entered the Academy of Arts. The young man was assigned to the group of Professor Alexei Markov. The future painter in the very first years became the leader of academic youth.

In 1863, the Small Silver and Small Gold medals ended up in the piggy bank of a talented artist. From the main award - the Big Gold Medal and the paid 6-year trip abroad - Kramskoy moved away a little: at the creative competition, it was necessary to draw a picture on the proposed topic.

However, 14 out of 15 contenders for the medal refused to depict a plot from Scandinavian mythology - the interest in the realistic genre was growing in society, in paintings that depicted everyday life. The rebels were led by Ivan Kramskoy. The students were denied a request to draw a story other than mythical, and they dropped out of the final exam.

Painting

After graduating from the Academy, Kramskoy organized and headed the Artel of Free Artists, which included graduates and like-minded people. Masters took orders for portraits and copies of famous paintings, illustrated books.

Ivan Kramskoy impressed with diligence: he painted portraits, looked for customers, distributed money, took students. One of them became. In the mid-1860s, the artist took up painting the domes of the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior: Kramskoy made sketches on cardboard in his student years.

In 1869, the painter traveled to Europe for the first time to get acquainted with the art of the West. The impressions received by the Russian master after getting acquainted with the exhibits of art galleries of European capitals turned out to be contradictory. Unlike many compatriots, Western art did not delight him.

After returning home, the artist had a conflict with a colleague in the artel: having violated the rules of the "fourteen", he accepted a paid trip abroad from the Academy of Arts. Kramskoy left the artel. Without him, the community quickly fell apart.

The painter founded a new creative association, calling it the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. Together with Kramskoy, Grigory Myasoedov and Vasily Perov became co-founders of the partnership. Wandering artists opposed themselves to the adherents of academism, delivered traveling exhibitions to all cities of the empire, popularizing art and bringing it closer to the people.

At the exhibitions of the Wanderers, those who wished to purchase their favorite canvases. One of them - "May Night" by Kramskoy - was bought by a philanthropist and gallery owner. The mystical plot, inspired by the story, the artist painted in Little Russia.

In 1872, Ivan Kramskoy made the last strokes on the canvas "Christ in the Desert", which became his most famous work. Tretyakov immediately bought the painting for 6,000 rubles. The work made a splash, and the painter's alma mater almost awarded Kramskoy the title of professor, but he refused.

But Ivan Kramskoy acquired the greatest fame among his contemporaries as a portrait painter. His images, by Sergei Botkin, according to the painter's contemporaries, have a complete resemblance to the characters and convey the characters, the inner light of nature.

The artist gave the painting “Mina Moiseev” to the world in 1882. Admirers of Kramskoy and connoisseurs of art call the portrait of a peasant the best work of a Russian painter. In fact, Mina Moiseev is a sketch, a study for the canvas "Peasant with a Bridle", painted later. This work is a vivid example of Kramskoy the humanist who loved and understood the Russian people.

In the 1880s, Ivan Kramskoy struck and split the society with the canvas "Unknown". The depicted woman does not belong to high society. She is dressed in the latest fashion of those years, which was considered indecent by noble ladies.

Critic Vladimir Stasov delivered a verdict on the canvas, calling it "Kokotka in a stroller." Many contemporaries agreed that the portrait depicts a wealthy kept woman. Tretyakov refused to buy the painting - industrialist Pavel Kharitonenko bought it.

Kramskoy's painting technique is a subtle completeness, a careful and detailed depiction of faces. The artist did not paint landscapes, but in the canvases "May Night" and "Moonlight Night" he brilliantly depicted moonlight.

Ivan Kramskoy is rightly called the ideological leader of the Wanderers, the brightest representative of the democratic art of the 19th century. The portraits of the artist are surprisingly humane and inspired.

Personal life

The young artist met his future wife Sofya Prokhorova as a student at the academy. He loved the girl so much that he ignored the trail of rumors that followed her. Sonya's reputation was not impeccable: before meeting Kramskoy, Prokhorova lived in a civil marriage with a married artist, learning about his "not free" status too late.

However, for Ivan Kramskoy, Sophia became a model of purity and fidelity. His wife shared with him years of hardships and lack of money, the artist consulted with her during work, asked her to pray when he started a new canvas.

Sophia Kramskaya gave birth to her husband six children. Two of them - sons - died with a difference of 3 years. The famous painting "Inconsolable Grief" depicts the painter's wife. Ivan Kramskoy created the canvas for 4 years.

The artist's favorite, daughter Sofya Kramskaya, followed in her father's footsteps. In the 1930s, she fell under the rink of repression.

Death

In the last 5-6 years of his life, the presence of the artist was recognized by a strong dry cough: Kramskoy was diagnosed with angina pectoris (heart aneurysm). Morphine injections helped relieve the pain. The artist was treated by Sergei Botkin, who hid the name of the fatal disease from the patient. Ivan Kramskoy found out about him by chance, having read the symptoms in a medical encyclopedia, carelessly left by Botkin on the table.

Heart disease (aortic aneurysm) caused the death of the painter. He died at work - painting a portrait of Dr. Karl Rauchfuss. Kramskoy did not live 2 months before his 50th birthday.

He was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Artworks

• 1880 - "Moonlight Night"
• 1882 - "Mina Moiseev"
• 1871 - "Mermaids"
• 1872 - "Christ in the Wilderness"
• 1873 - "Portrait of the artist I. I. Shishkin"
• 1873 - "Portrait of Leo Tolstoy"
• 1877 - "Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna"
• 1878 - "D. I. Mendeleev»
• 1881 - "Portrait of a Lady"
• 1883 - "Unknown"
• 1884 - "Inconsolable grief"
• 1886 - "Alexander III"
• 1883 - "Portrait of the son of Sergei"
• 1878 - "N. A. Nekrasov during the "Last Songs" period

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