Vrubel's paintings on the theme of the demon. In general order

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Demons once brought him fame, thanks to his "Demons" he is admired today. But why did the artist himself at the end of his life consider these paintings his burden, why was he burdened by them and suffered from them? And why, after many “demonic years,” did he still return to Scripture?

Demon. For some reason, throughout his entire creative life, Vrubel returned to this image. And each time another appeared on the canvas, not like the previous one: in his face, now loneliness and longing, now despair. And, finally, the last one appeared, “Demon Defeated” - there is already only anger and cold in it. Chills from his gaze. “I believe that the Prince of Peace posed for him,” said Alexander Benois. - These sessions were continuous mockery and teasing. Vrubel saw one or another feature of his deity, then both at once, and in pursuit of this elusive, he began to quickly move towards the abyss.

Art is our religion

Funeral cry. Sketch for the painting of the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv.
1887

In a strange way, Mikhail Vrubel first began to paint the Demon at the time when he painted the St. Cyril's Church and made sketches for the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv. By order, he painted Christ, while in his free time, for himself, he turned to a completely different hero.

Emperor Nicholas I liked the idea of building Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv, dedicated to the 900th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia. Construction began in 1862, already under Alexander II, and dragged on for thirty long years. Many artists were invited to paint the Vladimir Cathedral and St. Cyril's Church - Vasnetsov, Surikov, Polenov, Repin. Not all of them agreed. To paint real icons, you need the authenticity of faith. Vasnetsov, who did the main work on the painting of the cathedral, studied at the Theological Seminary before the Academy of Arts. The son of a priest, he understood well what he was doing. For him, work in the Vladimir Cathedral was "the way to the light", the way to comprehend great values.

Mikhail Vrubel's attitude to church painting was quite different. Vrubel did not really know Christ, did not feel. And Christ Himself was for him neither the ultimate truth nor the ultimate depth.

“Art is our religion,” Mikhail Alexandrovich once remarked while working on one of the paintings that captured him. “However,” he added, “who knows, maybe you still have to be touched.” The temple for him was primarily a temple of art. He was attracted not by a religious feeling, but by the scale and monumentality of churches.

While working in St. Cyril’s Church, Vrubel admitted in a letter to his sister: “I draw and write with all my might of Christ, but meanwhile all religious rituals, including Christ’s Sunday, are even annoying to me, so alien.”

It seems difficult to look at the ground with one eye and the sky with the other. Perhaps that is why the line between good and evil in Vrubel's Kyiv works becomes too shaky, the images of earthly and heavenly images in his icons are too double.

Lilac. 1900. The height of Vrubel's "demonic period". Even delicate flowers pull the viewer into a funnel, into a stuffy purple dusk.

It was surprisingly easy for Vrubel to paint a portrait of a circus rider in a muslin skirt that captivated him over the “Prayer for a Cup”, only because there was no blank canvas at hand.

And in the image of the Mother of God Vrubel, the features of an earthly woman, Emilia Prakhova, are frankly visible. In Kyiv, Vrubel was painfully and unrequitedly in love with her.

And there is little holiness in the faces of his angels and saints. They are much more like spirits, formidable and disturbing.

Vrubel painted icons for the "Byzantine iconostasis" of St. Cyril's Church. But his sketches for the Vladimir Cathedral were not accepted. They were too different from traditional icon painting. It was a crash. Vrubel dreamed of painting monumental canvases. Did not happen. He did not write Christ, but he will write the Demon.

Demon Gallery

In the autumn of 1889, Vrubel moved from Kyiv to Moscow. He really hopes that in Moscow everything will turn out differently for him. Vrubel converges with the Abramtsevo circle and somehow quickly fits into Moscow life. He became, in the words of Konstantin Korovin, "the chick of Moscow." He got acquainted with everyone, was a frequent guest of Moscow rich houses, where his company was loved. Mikhail Alexandrovich was well educated, graduated from St. Petersburg University, two faculties - law and history and philology, both with a gold medal, spoke eight languages.

Vrubel was a dandy. With the last money he could buy expensive perfumes and, standing in an earthen basin, doused himself with warm water with perfume. I went to the hairdresser almost every day. I almost cried when the cuffs were at least a little stained with paint. Sometimes he lived from hand to mouth, but he was always dressed elegantly and elegantly. All that he received for his work, often spent in one day. I went to the best restaurant and ordered various gourmet dishes. He was known as a gourmet, he knew the brands of wines, what and after which it is supposed to drink.

It seemed that there was nothing demonic in Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel. He had a great talent, and great passions raged in his soul. Konstantin Korovin said: one summer he and Vrubel went swimming, and Korovin saw large white stripes on his chest, like scars, on his friend’s chest. When asked what it was, Mikhail Alexandrovich replied that he had cut himself with a knife. “I don’t know if you will understand me, I loved a woman, but she didn’t love me, she even loved me, but many things prevented her from understanding me. I suffered, and when I cut myself, the suffering lessened.” It was about Emilia Prakhova.

Alien to everyone

There was nothing demonic in Vrubel, and yet, why the Demon? Why does this image haunt him all his life? Even then, in Kyiv, in 1885, when the Demon first began to appear on canvas, Vrubel believed that his idol would be his name. Then he made dozens of different sketches and felt - not that. He tore, sketched what he had done and started all over again. He even decided to fashion the Demon out of clay: "... fashioned, he can only help painting." In drawing, in painting, in clay, a whole gallery of demons unfolds, an endless demonic suite.

In Moscow, Vrubel receives an order - to complete illustrations for the collected works of Lermontov, including "The Demon".

How often on top of the icy

One between heaven and earth

Under the roof of a fiery rainbow

He sat gloomy and dumb ...

Vrubel often quoted Lermontov by heart. Listened to the opera "Demon" by Rubinstein. But it was important for him to find the image of his demon. As if he knew his thoughts and desires. And no longer by order, in the Morozovsky mansion, on Sadovo-Spasskaya, Vrubel draws the “Seated Demon”.

On the canvas - not an evil spirit and not a crafty tempter. Vrubel painted melancholy. Overworld longing and loneliness. His Demon is a stranger to everyone and everything. But it has superhuman strength. He will not yield to anyone either on the ground or above the ground. An unearthly landscape opens up around this lonely gigantic figure. A blue-lilac tone covers the sky, illuminates the frozen masses of mountains.

“There is no smile in purple,” said Goethe.

Above the crowd

For Vrubel, the creator, the artist, is always above the crowd.

He is chosen to "awake the soul from the little things of everyday life." And trifles, nonsense and everyday life are filled for the most part with human life. Hence the doom to misunderstanding and endless loneliness: “I am an artist, but no one needs me. No one understands what I'm doing, but I want it that way, ”Vrubel complained to Korovin.

Vrubel's father wrote about his son: "In conversations, he revealed incredible self-conceit as an artist, creator and, as a result, did not allow any generalization, no measure, no comparison of him - the artist - with ordinary people."

“There is no comparison with ordinary people” - perhaps, in this contemptuous look at an ordinary person, in an effort to assert oneself above the world, the demonic is revealed? Maybe this is the path to the Demon?

Monumentality, the power of the whole figure is a statement of the strength, pride of man.

The motionless giant. He is immensely sad in the deserted closed kingdom of his own soul. Where is the way out of this isolation? Where is that single ray that will both illuminate and resolve everything?

The great artist Vrubel sees through the personal breath of the era. Blok will see in Vrubel's demons a prediction of the fate of the Russian intelligentsia at the turn of the century. The creators of the Silver Age, they knew the transition of light into darkness.

Elizaveta Karavaeva-Kuzmina, who went down in history as mother Maria (Skobtsova), wrote about those gatherings and fermentations of the intelligentsia, which she knew firsthand:

“I remember one of our first visits to Vyacheslav Ivanov's Tower. All Russia is sleeping. Midnight. There are a lot of people in the dining room. Probably, there is not a single inhabitant here, a person in general or just a person. We had not yet had time to say hello to everyone, and Merezhkovsky was already shouting to my husband: “Who are you with - with Christ or with the Antichrist ?!” And the controversy continues. Everything is out, everything is almost shameless.

A cab horse runs at a slow trot through the sleepy streets.

Some drunkenness without wine. Food that doesn't fill you up. Again sadness.

The anguish of the Vrubel Demon. Intelligentsia at the turn of the century. They made an idol out of art, deified themselves as creators. Food that doesn't fill you up.

Six-winged Seraphim. 1904. The painting was painted after Vrubel's spiritual break. The demonic veil falls, the artist gains prophetic vision.

“My dear woman, wonderful woman, save me from my demons…” - this is what Vrubel would write to his wife, Nadezhda Zabela, almost at the end of his life, while in a psychiatric hospital.

Zabela became for Vrubel a bright angel who warmed, inspired, saved from loneliness. When they got married, Vrubel was 39. Fate opened the next page. Some general disorder, which was remembered by many, left his life.

After meeting with Zabela, Vrubel stopped drawing the Demon. The lilac gloom dissipated. He seemed to be freed from demonic spells and oppression. Both around him and in himself, everything brightened up. And the usual abuse of critics was perceived differently - easier.

When he met Nadezhda Zabela, a scandal erupted over the panels “Princess Dream” and “Mikula Selyaninovich”. Vrubel presented these huge panels commissioned by Mamontov to decorate the pavilion of arts at the All-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod. "Princess Dream" - the eternal dream of artists about the beautiful. And "Mikula Selyaninovich" - the power of the Russian land. The academic jury did not accept Vrubel's work. Critics argued: "decadent ugliness"! Angry Mamontov builds a separate pavilion for these panels.

“I couldn’t figure it out, but something animal was felt in the hearts of the audience,” Korovin recalled. - I listened to what curses they carried, looking at these panels. Mikhail Alexandrovich was even more convinced of his non-recognition and felt even more like an orphan of this life.

The “Seated Demon” and Vrubel's illustrations for Lermontov's poem were also scolded in the same way. Many scolded, but there were also those who felt this strong, special gift and could not help but bow before it. Among them was Savva Mamontov, in whose private opera Nadezhda Zabela sang.

She became the muse of the composer Rimsky-Korsakov and performed the parts of the Snow Maiden, the Swan Princess, Volkhova.

And soon this whole fabulous family will come to life in Vrubel's paintings, in stage costumes, in sculptures.

90 times Zabela sang the Sea Princess, and 90 times Vrubel attended the performance.

He idolized his wife. As an aesthete, I could not help admiring her voice. He designed stage costumes for her, painted scenery for operas.

That was a bright, harmonious time in Vrubel's life. He wanted wholeness and clarity of being.

Now he is reaching for the primordially Russian, folk: “The Sea Princess”, “Thirty-three Bogatyrs”, majolica “Snegurochka”, “Kupava”, “Sadko”.

In response to all accusations of decadence, Vrubel writes his Bogatyr. Dumpy, earthy, powerful - the salt of the Russian land.

Sign of fate

And yet, even in Vrubel's fairy tale paintings, the second plan is visible - disturbing and eerie. There is duality and craftiness in Vrubel's Pan. Is he a good-natured old forest man or a witching goblin with transparent eyes, turned around from tree bark and roots?

And the landscape of the painting "Towards the Night" breathes mysterious, disturbing. In all the presence of otherworldly forces. Even Vrubel's "Lilac" draws the viewer into a funnel, into a stuffy, purple twilight.

No lightness. Everywhere there is growing anxiety and tension.

A strong, special gift of the artist, but some kind of defenselessness of the soul before the forces of darkness.

“Take me somewhere, otherwise I’ll make trouble for you ...” - Vrubel will say after the funeral of his son, Savva. The child did not live even two years. Mikhail Alexandrovich was then taken to a psychiatric clinic in Riga, then placed in the Serbsky clinic in Moscow.

Blok remarked: "The little that I heard about Vrubel is more like a fairy tale than ordinary life."

Sometimes a fairy tale, and sometimes a parable. Well, it seemed that Vrubel was a dandy and an esthete, for whom the last truth was beauty. Is it by chance, but it is he who has a son with a congenital deformity - a cleft lip? And Vrubel, who created a cult of beauty, experiences this sign or hint of his fate so hard and terribly.

On the eve of the birth of his son, Savva, in 1899, Vrubel again takes on the image of the Demon. A completely different demon is born in the artist's soul. At that time, the first translations of Nietzsche's atheistic writings had just appeared in Russia. Ibsen's dramaturgy became fashionable.

A new hero is being cultivated, free, powerful. A person who has an effective will to resist a society that tries to enslave and depersonalize him.

The trouble is that the lofty mission of the new hero often sweeps away ordinary people and, in general, everything human on its “high” path.

…And now a new face of the Demon is peeping through. This time it is not a mournful young man in the arms of world anguish and loneliness.

Vrubel passionately gets to work. In incredible excitement, he sends a note to his admirer, Mr. von Meck, who bought his paintings:

“Help and quickly get somewhere photographs of mountains, better than the Caucasus. I won't sleep until I get them."

In one night, desert mountain ranges grew on the canvas behind the figure of the Demon. Unearthly cold and inanimate peace of this landscape. All. The human is impossible here.

In the end, Vrubel left the work unfinished. The reasons are not entirely clear.

In the flight of the Demon, instead of the intended feeling of power and freedom of the spirit, there is a feeling of catastrophe, the threshold of the end. It seems that something appeared on the canvas, in addition to the will of Vrubel himself: perhaps that is what the “liberated” nihilist person carries with him.

Then they will write that Vrubel ingeniously saw the spirit of Evil that hung over Europe at the turn of the century. He caught then still barely audible, underground rumble of future upheavals.

Not so many years will pass - and this rumble will break out. The builders of happiness for future generations will march in orderly rows across Russia. And over the confused, frightened country, where hunger, communal apartments and devastation, the voice of Mayakovsky will thunder like a thunderous peal: “Down with your love! Down with your art! Down with your system! Down with your religion!”

This is later. In the meantime, in 1899, a powerful Demon on Vrubel's canvas flies straight at the viewer, and features of torment and doom appear in his appearance.

obscuration

The image of the Demon as a freedom-loving rebel came to art only after romanticism. The New Testament texts completely abandon the graphic images of Satan. Theological literature does not describe the appearance of the devil or use metaphors. On the contrary, folklore and fine arts pay great attention to it. In the Middle Ages, portraying Satan, they endowed him with a gigantic body of incredible size, animal features, and multi-armedness. But it has always been an image of evil and darkness.

Prophet's head. 1905 The demons are behind us. He looks at the world
with contempt, but seeing the beautiful mystery and depth of life itself.

XVIII-XIX century. In art - the era of romanticism with the image of strong (often rebellious) passions and characters. The image of Satan becomes almost positive. The demon as a symbol of a lone rebel who challenges an ossified society. A whole gallery of rebellious demons appears in art - both in Byron and in Lermontov.

Vrubel is the heir to this tradition.

At one time, Lermontov got rid of his demonic hero relatively easily.

And this wild nonsense

Haunted my mind for many years.

But I, having parted with other dreams,

And got rid of him - with verses!

With Vrubel, everything turned out much more tragically. The painting "Flying Demon" remained unfinished. But the image of the Prince of this world once again completely dominates the artist. The demon is looking for its new incarnation.

In December 1901, another painting appeared - "Demon Downtrodden". Vrubel rewrites his canvas again and again, without stopping work even at exhibitions in Moscow and especially in St. Petersburg. On the canvas, a broken body turned inside out, as if under torture.

Vrubel hoped that the Tretyakov Gallery would acquire the painting. The artist friends, on whom the acquisition of his cherished painting depended, criticize the incorrect anatomy in the depiction of the Demon figure. Vrubel was furious. Having lost all tact, he openly insulted Serov, Ostroukhov, and even his wife. Ostroukhov, a member of the Artistic Council of the Tretyakov Gallery, wrote about this:

“Vrubel so tormented me with his scenes that I can’t calmly watch his thing, every peacock eye of the Demon’s wings is exactly screaming at me with Vrubel’s nervous cries ...”

Mikhail Alexandrovich worked on this picture in an incredible nervous frenzy. He did not follow anatomical correctness. Realism was not important to him. Finally, he found the one he was looking for - his truly tragic Demon. His twisted, broken body is a metaphor for the inner torment experienced, the struggles of the spirit. The strong, the sublime in the man-creator is crushed, trampled upon by the heavy foundations of society. This man is hunted, defeated, but not broken. He continues his lawsuit with God, with the world, with people. There is no reconciliation in him, and forces are gathering in the soul for a new uprising.

Vrubel intends to go to Paris and exhibit his "Demon" under the name "Icon" there.

While working on this picture, Mikhail Alexandrovich will fall into a real spiritual stupefaction. Those who saw him in those days at the exhibition in St. Petersburg were shocked by what was happening. However, it is better to give the floor to eyewitnesses. Alexandre Benois recalls:

“Every morning, until 12, the public could see how Vrubel was “finishing” his picture. There was something terrible and monstrous about this last struggle. Every day we found new and new changes. The face of the Demon at one time became more and more terrible, more painful and more painful.

But it seems that the spirit, which Vrubel was captivated by and exalted, laughed at him.

After the euphoric upsurge of work, Vrubel falls into a severe depression. The mind of the artist cannot withstand the incredible creative tension. In April 1902, Vrubel was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. The illness of Mikhail Alexandrovich is mysterious. Much played a role in this breakdown: the misunderstanding of Vrubel by fellow artists, deafness to his search. And, of course, the exhausting creative struggle in which Vrubel tried to capture the essence of the Demon. But the Demon was constantly changing, slipping away, and this duel becomes an obsession for the artist.

Or maybe the fluidity of the essence is the essence of the demonic. Everything doubles, triples, in nothing one can find solid ground. Found truth soon turns into a crafty deception.

Enlightenment

In the hospital, Mikhail Alexandrovich soon loses his gloss and sophistication, it is difficult to recognize the former dandy in him. The disease disfigured his appearance. The sister of Vrubel's wife, Ekaterina Ivanovna Ge, wrote: "... and poor Misha himself is now covered in acne, red spots, without teeth."

It's external. And inside - flour bought enlightenment.

Vrubel finally parted with his demons.

In the hospital, Mikhail Alexandrovich paints a portrait of his doctor, Dr. Usoltsev, a very religious man.

“For my 48 years, I have completely lost the image of an honest person, especially in portraits, and acquired the image of an evil spirit. Now I must see others and the fullness of the image of my God,” Vrubel writes on the back of this picture.

A spiritual turning point begins in Vrubel's quest.

Prophet. Late work of Vrubel

Now his main works are devoted to the theme of the prophet: "Six-winged Seraphim", "Head of the Prophet", "Vision of Ezekiel".

"Six-winged seraphim" - an angel close to the throne of God. An angel who destroys all obscuration:

With fingers as light as a dream,

He touched my cheeks.

The prophetic apples opened up ...

The demonic veil falls, and Vrubel gains prophetic vision. Such is the law of all true knowledge. It begins with cleansing and renewal.

A lot of personal for Vrubel in the painting "Head of the Prophet". The resemblance is so obvious here. How much this man has suffered. A look filled with pain, but also enlightened, sublime. He looks at the world not with hatred and contempt, as once "Demon defeated", but seeing the beautiful mystery and depth of life itself. Truly flour-bought enlightenment.

Times of exacerbation of a mental disorder are replaced by calm periods for the artist. He leaves the hospital, lives in St. Petersburg, writes and draws. But since 1906, Mikhail Alexandrovich almost never left the clinic. His latest works: "The Vision of the Prophet Ezekiel" and a portrait of the poet Bryusov. Bryusov recalled these sessions in the hospital. “Vrubel was very tormented by the thought that he lived his life badly, sinfully, and that obscene scenes appeared in his paintings as a punishment for it, against his will. “This is what the devil is doing with my paintings. He was given power, for the fact that I, being unworthy, wrote the Mother of God and Christ. He distorted all my pictures.”

These confessions can be attributed to the unhealthy state of Vrubel's psyche. And, perhaps, here is a true and bitter regret that insight came to him as an artist so late; about how he spent his undoubted gift on the exaltation of the void.

For the last four years, Vrubel, blind and insane, lived out in St. Petersburg psychiatric clinics. His wife came to him and sang, sang only for him. Mikhail Alexandrovich loved it very much.

Vrubel is an anxious, sighted soul. He was captivated by a demon, but the demon turned out to be a false prophet. Behind all his temptations, in fact, lay an emptiness, an abyss. Vrubel touched this terrible emptiness with his soul and paid too dear a price for this knowledge - the destruction of the soul.

At his funeral, Blok will say: "Vrubel left us his demons as spellcasters against purple evil, against the night." Hardly as spellcasters. These are not the chimeras of Notre Dame de Paris. These are images of darkness that haunted the artist all his life.

Perhaps, in our today's world, it is worth considering his will. About what creative freedom without moral restrictions is worth, about the fact that self-aggrandizement sooner or later turns into a fall, and about the fact that, having stopped looking for light, a person not only does not find happiness, but fills the world with disappointment and despair.

We thank the publishing house "Bely Gorod" for the provided reproductions

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Vrubel, Mikhail Alexandrovich Demon Seated ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Demon (meanings). Demon ... Wikipedia

Wiktionary has an entry for "demon" A demon in mythology is an elemental or evil spirit. "Demon" (1823) poem by A. S. P ... Wikipedia

Vrubel, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Seated Demon, 1890 Oil on canvas. 114 × 211 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow "Seated Demon" (1890) painting by a Russian artist ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Demon (meanings). "Demons" redirects here; for the film, see Demons (film). Saint Anthony the Great ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Pan ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Vrubel. Mikhail Vrubel ... Wikipedia

- (1856 1910), Russian. painter. In 1880 84 he studied at the Academy of Arts. A special place in his work is occupied by L.'s poetry, which in many of its aspirations is close to the artist's worldview. Romantic. pathos, powerful rebellious images (primarily the tragic image of the Demon), ... ... Lermontov Encyclopedia

Mikhail Alexandrovich (1856, Omsk - 1910, St. Petersburg), an outstanding Russian painter and graphic artist, muralist, theater decorator, master of arts and crafts; representative of symbolism, a spokesman for modern trends. Participant… … Art Encyclopedia

ILLUSTRATION OF THE WORKS OF Lermontov. During the life of the poet, his work. not illustrated. The exception is 3 auth. illustrations preserved in manuscripts: frontispiece to the poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus" (gouache, 1828), cover of the poem "Circassians" (pen, ... ... Lermontov Encyclopedia

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, . Stylish hardcover notebook with thick unlined paper and silk ribbon lace. It can be used not only as a notebook, but also as a sketchbook. Each…
Mikhail Vrubel. Demon seated. Notebook , . The notepad is part of the "Eco Notebook" series - an eco-project by the Folio publishing house. The edition of the notebook uses eco-friendly kraft paper - a product of secondary processing of raw materials. Sheets are not...

In 1891, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Mikhail Lermontov, a two-volume collection of the poet's works was published with illustrations by the best artists of that time. The jubilee edition also included works by Mikhail Vrubel, these were illustrations made in black watercolor for the poem "The Demon". At the same time, the artist painted the painting "Seated Demon", which became the first and most famous painting dedicated to the hero of Lermontov's poem.

Mikhail Lermontov worked on The Demon for ten years. Written in 1839, the work was not allowed to print by censors and was first published only in 1860.

Let's remember the poem. The sad Demon flies over the beautiful mountains and rivers of the Caucasus. But nothing attracts him, he is bored, tired of even the unlimited power over the earth. And suddenly he saw preparations for the wedding of the daughter of the Georgian prince Gudala. In her father's house, in anticipation of the wedding, the beautiful girl Tamara performs a dance with a tambourine. She loves the groom and therefore is happy, the guests admire her.

The demon again returns to the Gudala estate and also admires the beautiful Tamara. Feelings arise in his soul, he cannot allow the wedding and acts like an evil tyrant. The demon unleashes robbers on the groom. Having taken away all the wedding gifts, they injure and then kill the beloved princess.

Tamara mourns her beloved, she cannot fall asleep, but someone's gentle voice calms her down. Every evening, a beautiful "alien" flies to her on wings. The girl realizes that this is not an angel, but rather an evil spirit and asks her father to send her to a monastery.

But even here she is haunted by this pleasant voice and the same eyes of an unearthly guest. The princess falls in love and prays to him. However, the Demon knows that the closeness of a mortal girl with an unearthly being will lead her to death. He tries to resist his feelings, but his wing does not rise and he remains with the princess. The demon is embodied in a beautiful courageous winged young man, swears in love, that he will not deceive Tamara.

Soon the watchman, passing by the nun's cell, he heard unusual sounds of tenderness and love, and then Tamara's moan and death cry.

Father buried Tamara high in the mountains, where there is a small temple, where no one can reach.

The demon in Vrubel's painting is depicted against the backdrop of mountains and a scarlet sunset. We see a beautiful but lonely young man. He sits surrounded by flowers, but there is no life in the flowers, they are like frozen crystals, and the clouds look like stone. The demon is sad, and his clenched hands speak of doubts and worries, he is calm, but at the same time he is a domineering and strong-willed young man.

His soul rushes about in search of the meaning of life, but there is no answer to his questions either on earth or in heaven. Vrubel's demon is not an absolute evil, but a suffering creature. He is able to admire nature and sympathize with Tamara, who has lost her fiancé, and at the same time kill her with a kiss.

The painting by Mikhail Vrubel "The Demon Seated" was created in 1890. Later in 1899 he wrote "The Flying Demon". Unlike the motionless character of the first canvas, here the ruler of the world is depicted in a stream of air, in free flight. The work "Demon Defeated", written in 1901-1902, is filled with the chaos of the fall. On the canvas, we see a hero with desperately outstretched arms and powerless, broken wings. He corrected this picture even during its presentation at the exhibition in front of an astonished public. The demon sucked all the strength from the artist and devastated his soul. The fate of the artist is tragic - the death of a young son, madness and blindness.

Enchantingly - mysterious Lermontov's lines are familiar to all of us from school. And once they delighted the artist Mikhail Vrubel - after all, this gloomy demonic image was so in tune with the gloom and tragedy that reigned in the soul of the great master.

Vrubel and Demon. It is difficult to talk about what united the mythical hero and the artist, just as difficult as the feelings, emotions, and, most importantly, the soul of a genius, were not fully called even by himself.

He really was a genius who had a special gift to look not only into the depths of himself, but also into the depths of the entire universe, and the ability to convey to people everything that so worried and tormented him throughout his life, which seemed outwardly so simple, but so spiritually rich and extraordinary.

His paintings - bright, fabulous or gloomy, full of mystery and secret power - do not leave anyone indifferent. "", " Princess - Swan», «», «», «», « Dream Princess a”, “”, “” are masterpieces that rightfully occupy a special place in world art.

And among them - the brightest and most powerful in terms of power of perception - " Demon". All connoisseurs and lovers of painting know it, but, probably, only specialists know how much time and inner strength it took to work on the most important Vrubel theme - demoniana, the theme of world sorrow, so close and understandable to him, who knew both sorrow and the torment of loneliness, and pain.

The demon stood before the artist at the beginning of his creative path, pursued all subsequent years and overshadowed the tragic decline of his life...

When did it all start? At what point Vrubel felt that he almost merged with the image of his future tragic hero? Did he realize that discord of spirit and body, from which he suffered all his life, and which is so similar to the torments of the mythical Demon?

Most likely, it was this discord that led to such a tragic end.

In life Vrubel there was everything: worldly disorder, and need, and suffering, and misunderstanding of others, and unhappy love (the Kyiv period), and love that took place, which gave the artist great happiness. Despite everything, even a terrible disease, he still managed to remain a winner in life.

His victory is his amazing creativity, his famous demoniana, which should be told especially.

1875 In those years, a young student of the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, Mikhail Vrubel, was already completely fascinated by Lermontov's poem " Demon". He wrote to his older sister about the indescribable feelings this deeply tragic story and the stunning images of the Demon and Tamara evoke in him. Proud, lonely, longing for love and independence, always unhappy and sad, the Demon was very close Vrubel, is so close, as if Lermontov wrote off his favorite hero from a young artist. After all, Vrubel, according to the recollections of people close to him, was withdrawn, silent, coldly reserved.

True, sometimes on this outwardly calm face "a nervous color flashed, and a strange, even unhealthy gleam appeared in the eyes."

Probably, this similarity can explain Vrubel's special attachment, which lasted almost his entire creative life, to the image of the Demon, personifying the tragedy of a proud soul and the struggle with life in complete solitude. It appeared immediately after acquaintance with Lermontov's poetry, but only since 1885 this complex image began to be outlined in Vrubel's works, which at first did not want to obey him, and only after many years it finally acquired a complete, full of mysterious meaning appearance.

Apparently, for this to happen, a special creative insight was required and, of course, a special, close to genius, skill. All this appeared later, but for now ... so far, these were just ideas. The artist dreamed of creating an unusual tetralogy: Demon, Tamara and Tamara's death. But the image of the Demon was still too vague, too vague, and there was still a long search and disappointment ahead.

Father Vrubel, who visited him in Kyiv, was shocked:

And although those around could not fully understand Vrubel's inexplicable desire to capture the Lermontov hero on the canvas, nevertheless, for four years of the "Kyiv period" (1885 - 1889) " Demon”remained not only a spiritual hope for the artist, but, one might say, lived in it: paintings depicting the Demon moved with Vrubel from apartment to apartment, from one workshop to another, he often covered over already painted canvases and painted all over again.

Unfortunately, the constant need and the need to perform commissioned work distracted Vrubel from his beloved image of a suffering, but majestic spirit. He had already studied the character of the Demon well, and more and more often he appeared to him, "with eyes full of sadness ..." The image of the Demon finally took shape only in 1890 during the artist's stay in Moscow.

Vrubel stopped here, as he himself thought, for several days, on his way from Kazan, where he was visiting his sick father, to Kyiv. But he remained in this city until the end of his days.

He was lucky: he found himself among philanthropists, young artists, writers, artists, architects - people who at that time were striving to make a revolutionary revolution in Russian culture.

Savva Mamontov and his family became real Moscow friends for Vrubel.

In his house and in the estate of Abramtsevo Vrubel communicated with Polenov, Golovin, Korovin, Serov. And although their views differed on many things in art, the main thing that united these great people was the desire to bring people joy, spiritual happiness and enjoyment of art.

It was in Mamontov's house that the already established image of the Demon appeared to Vrubel, and the artist hastened to capture this vision on canvas - "". There was a lot in this Demon: youth, and softness, and unspent heat, and demonic malice and contempt were completely absent in him, at the same time, he seemed to embody all the sorrow of the world. The picture was a success for Vrubel, as he himself believed, thanks to painful years of reflection and searching.

And then a new period began - Mikhail Vrubel was invited to illustrate the anniversary collection of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov. No one doubted that it was Vrubel who would be able to cope with this work better than others - after all, starting it, the artist must not only feel, but also become related to the characters, and such a kinship of souls has long matured in him.

Beautiful illustrations were born: "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "" and "" - large eyes radiating inner light, and lips parched with unimaginable passion. But the publishers demanded to replace the "Head ...". It seemed to them that this image did not quite correspond to Lermontov's hero. And Vrubel remade "Head ..." - now we have an evil, arrogant and vengeful "defeated hero".

1890 - 1891. Paper, black watercolor, whitewash. 23x36