The eternal consequences of the revelry. "Fresh Cavalier" Pavel Fedotov is not outdated even today

In our new section, we will tell and show the most significant paintings for the events of our history and not only try to decipher the colorful details that are well understood by the artist’s contemporaries, but also show that paintings often live for a very long time and reflect problems that are well known even today. Let's start with the eternal theme - the Russian bureaucracy. Even today it is by no means ideal and often comes across in various abuses. 170 years ago, during the time of Emperor Nicholas I, the shortcomings of officials were in many respects the same as those that the observant artist Pavel Fedotov showed in his ageless picture.

ironic realist

Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815-1852), who lived for a very short time, but managed to become famous, for the first time in the Russian everyday genre tried to give a critical analysis of everyday life. The painter's father was a military man, and Fedotov himself served in St. Petersburg, where he attended evening classes at the Academy of Arts. In 1846 he produced his first significant painting, The Fresh Cavalier. In 1848, the no less famous "Courtship of a Major" was written. The paintings of the first years are characterized by irony and sharpness of plots, and later Fedotov also mastered the art of psychological drama, an example of this in his later paintings The Widow (1851) and The Players (1852). The images of the artist hit the mark - already at the end of the 1840s, many painters appeared who imitated Fedotov.

Pavel Fedotov, Major's Matchmaking (1848)

Eye of censorship

Fedotov's painting, painted in 1846, bore several names at once: "The Fresh Cavalier", or "The Morning of the Official Who Received the First Cross", or "The Consequences of the Feast". Now it is stored in the State Tretyakov Gallery.

The first sketches of the future masterpiece appeared in the early 1840s. On the advice of the fabulist Ivan Andreevich Krylov, Fedotov decided to develop the plot and rework the sketches into a full-fledged canvas. After the painting was ready, the artist presented it to the Academy of Arts, where it was highly appreciated. In 1847, the "Fresh Cavalier" was presented to the public and caused a real sensation, bringing fame to its creator. But censorship immediately drew attention to the picture: the removal of lithographs from it was prohibited due to ... an irreverent image of the order.

Gloomy morning

All three names of the picture tell about its plot. We see an ordinary average official on the morning after receiving his first order and celebrating such an important event. Himself offending censorship, the Order of St. Stanislav of the 3rd degree was the youngest in the hierarchy of state awards and was often used to distinguish officials.

Such a small award contrasts on the canvas with the very appearance of the newly-made cavalier: a proud and swaggering facial expression, the pose of a Roman senator wrapped up as if in a toga, and not a shabby robe, and an order attached not to a uniform, but to the same robe - all this should evoke in the viewer a sense of contradiction and inconsistency between the event and its perception by the main character.

But the irony of the maid depicted to the left of the order bearer completely coincides with ours, the audience. A simple maid, in front of whom the gentleman exposes his robe, looks at him with undisguised mockery and defiantly holding the owner’s old worn boots in her hands. The comical image of the official, who imagines himself an important bird after receiving a small award, is emphasized by the papillots in his head (perhaps, with a hero's hangover, they turn into a laurel crown?) And his bare feet.

Pavel Fedotov, Fresh Cavalier (1846)

The situation around also shows the contrast between the gentleman's attitude towards himself and the harsh reality. In the room of the order-bearer, furniture of various colors, a terrible mess reigns everywhere, things are scattered. On the table, we can see the sausage left over from the party, lying not on a plate, but on a newspaper, and not an easy one, but on Vedomosti of the St. Petersburg City Police. Skeletons of herring and shards of broken dishes are lying around the table. A guitar with broken strings leaned against a chair. A skinny mongrel cat is tearing at the upholstery of a chair.

All this taken together is a pitiful sight, but it does not prevent the newly minted gentleman from cherishing his ambitions. He dreams of being no worse than everyone else and keeping up with the fashion of the capital - this is what the curling irons, mirror and shaving accessories lying on the table tell us about. A fashionable book is a moralizing novel by Faddey Bulgarin, close to power, Ivan Vyzhigin. But the book is lying under the chair - it seems that our hero could not master it either.

The painting by Pavel Fedotov is incredibly saturated with telling details (which generally distinguishes the everyday genre in painting). The “Fresh Cavalier” makes it possible to judge the life of St. Petersburg officials of the 1840s, who were able to receive an order, but actually live in poverty and are spiritually poor. Today, by the way, it is much more difficult to obtain an order than in 1846, but the morals, conceit and manners of bureaucrats have not changed very much. That is why we are interested in the artist Fedotov, who died 165 years ago.

Pavel Fedotov, "It's all cholera's fault!" (1848)

The Fresh Cavalier (Morning of the official who received the first cross) is the first oil painting he painted in his life, the first finished painting.
Many, including the art critic Stasov, saw in the depicted official a despot, a bloodsucker and a bribe taker. But the hero of Fedotov is a small fry. The artist himself persistently rested on this, calling him a "poor official" and even a "hard worker" "with a small content", experiencing "constant scarcity and deprivation." This is too frankly clear from the picture itself - from a variegated piece of furniture, mostly “white wood”, from a plank floor, a tattered dressing gown and mercilessly worn boots. It is clear that he has only one room - and a bedroom, and an office, and a dining room; it is clear that the cook is not his own, but the master's. But he is not one of the last - so he snatched off the order, and went bankrupt at a feast, but still he is poor and miserable. This is a small man, all the ambitions of which are only enough to show off in front of the cook.
Fedotov gave a certain share of his sympathy to the cook. A not bad-looking, neat woman, with a pleasantly rounded, common people's face, with her whole appearance showing the opposite of the disheveled owner and his behavior, looks at him from the position of an outside and unsullied observer. The cook is not afraid of the owner, looks at him with a mockery and hands him a tattered boot.
"Where a bad connection is made, there is dirt on the great holiday," Fedotov wrote about this picture, apparently alluding to the cook's pregnancy, whose waist is suspiciously rounded.
The owner, on the other hand, has decisively lost what allows him to be treated with any kindness. He was filled with swagger and anger, bristled. The ambition of the boor, who wants to put the cook in his place, rushes out of him, disfiguring, really, quite good features of his face.
The pitiful official stands in the pose of an ancient hero, with the gesture of an orator, bringing his right hand to his chest (to the place where the ill-fated order hangs), and his left, resting on his side, deftly picking up the folds of a spacious robe, as if it were not a robe, but a toga. There is something classical, Greco-Roman in his very pose with the support of the body on one leg, in the position of the head slowly turned towards us in profile and proudly thrown back, in his bare feet protruding from under the dressing gown, and even shreds of papillots stick out of his hair is like a laurel wreath.
One must think that the official felt himself just so victorious, majestic and proud to the point of arrogance. But the ancient hero, ascended among broken chairs, empty bottles and shards, could only be ridiculous, and humiliatingly ridiculous - all the squalor of his ambitions crawled out.
The disorder reigning in the room is fantastic - the most unbridled revelry could not produce it: everything is scattered, broken, turned upside down. Not only is the smoking pipe broken, but the strings of the guitar are broken, and the chair is mutilated, and herring tails are lying on the floor next to the bottles, with shards from a crushed plate, with an open book (the name of the author, Faddey Bulgarin, diligently written out on the first page, - another reproach to the owner).

E. Kuznetsov

(Morning of the official who received the first cross)

Pavel Fedotov. fresh cavalier

Pavel Fedotov spied on his hero at a shameful moment and did everything to make shamefulness visible: the little man found himself someone even smaller, over whom he could rise, the slave found himself a slave, the trampled yearned to trample.

Well, Fedotov himself was a small man, he himself patiently rose and slowly rose, and each milestone of the path traveled was imprinted firmly in his heart: now he was accepted into the cadet corps, here is the “first role” at the graduation act (childish joy, but he remembered that he told about her in his autobiography, albeit slightly ironically), here is the first rank, here is the next, here is a diamond ring from Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich ...

In the film "The Fresh Cavalier" he denied not only from his hero, but also a little from himself - with mockery, disgusted alienation. Never before has he been and never will be so mercilessly caustic as he is here.

The disorder reigning in the room is fantastic - the most unbridled revelry could not produce it: everything is scattered, broken, turned upside down. Not only is the smoking pipe broken, but the strings of the guitar are broken, and the chair is mutilated,

and herring tails are lying on the floor next to the bottles, with shards from a crushed plate,

Fedotov gave a certain share of his sympathy to the cook. A not bad-looking, neat woman, with a pleasantly rounded, common people's face, with her whole appearance showing the opposite of the disheveled owner and his behavior, looks at him from the position of an outside and unsullied observer.

The owner, on the other hand, has decisively lost what allows him to be treated with any kindness.

“Debauchery in Russia is not deep at all, it is more wild, salen, noisy and rude, disheveled and shameless, than deep ...” - it seems that these words of Herzen were written directly about him. He was filled with swagger and anger, bristled. The ambition of the boor, who wants to put the cook in his place, rushes out of him, disfiguring, really, quite good features of his face.

Fedotov, on the other hand, is completely alien to the spirit of accusation - he, not so much by accident, but most likely unconsciously, touched a secret - a sore spot, and touched it so unexpectedly that he was not even correctly understood.

Who is really the unbridled boor depicted by him? This is not at all the soulless careerist official whom the audience wanted to see, including such a sophisticated viewer as V. Stasov, who wrote after a considerable time, that is, having fully established himself in the initial perception:
“... before you is a smart, stiff nature, a corrupt bribe taker, a soulless slave of his boss, who no longer thinks about anything, except that he will give him money and a cross in his buttonhole. He is ferocious and ruthless, he will drown anyone and whatever he wants, and not a single wrinkle on his face made of rhinocers (that is, rhinoceros. - E.K.) skin will not tremble. Anger, arrogance, callousness, idolization of the order as the highest and peremptory argument, life completely vulgarized.

It is written, as always with Stasov, strongly, but about a completely different person. The hero of Fedotov is a small fry. The artist himself persistently rested on this, calling him a "poor official" and even a "hard worker" "with a small content", experiencing "constant scarcity and deprivation." This is too frankly clear from the picture itself - from the variegated furniture, mostly "white wood", from the plank floor, a tattered dressing gown and mercilessly worn boots.

It is clear that he has only one room - and a bedroom, and an office, and a dining room; it is clear that the cook is not his own, but the master's.

Well, he is not one of the last, not Bashmachkin or Poprishchin, not some kind of rag - so he snatched off the order and went bankrupt at a feast, but still he is poor and miserable.

This is a small man, all the ambitions of which are only enough to show off in front of the cook.

Stasov's mistake in assessing Fedotov's unfortunate hero was not his personal and instructive in its way. Poverty, the insignificance of an official, of course, was seen, but not perceived, missed: it did not fit into the usual stereotype.

With the light hand of Gogol, the official became the central figure of Russian literature of the 1830s-1850s, almost the only theme for vaudeville, comedies, stories, satirical scenes, and so on. The official was sympathetic. Yes, sometimes they made fun of him, but the note of sympathy for the little man, tormented by the powerful of this world, remained unchanged.

The pitiful official stands in the pose of an ancient hero, with the gesture of an orator, bringing his right hand to his chest (to the place where the ill-fated order hangs), and his left, resting on his side, deftly picking up the folds of a spacious robe, as if it were not a robe, but a toga.

There is something classical, Greco-Roman in his very pose with the support of the body on one leg, in the position of the head slowly turned towards us in profile and proudly thrown back, in his bare feet protruding from under the dressing gown, and even shreds of papillots stick out of his hair is like a laurel wreath.

One must think that the official felt himself just so victorious, majestic and proud to the point of arrogance.

But the ancient hero, ascended among broken chairs, empty bottles and shards, could only be ridiculous, and humiliatingly ridiculous - all the squalor of his ambitions crawled out.

Of course, the painter's brush often turns out to be wiser than his thoughts, or at least overtakes them, but did Fedotov's parody of an academic painting really involuntarily arise? After all, he had shown a tendency to joke about the venerable arsenal of classical art before. That comic effect, which arose by itself in some of his sepia, Fedotov used this time quite deliberately, for the purpose of ironic ridicule. Debunking his hero, Fedotov simultaneously debunked academic art with its ossified antics and gimmicks. In his first picture, Russian painting, laughing, parted with academicism.

Based on the book by E. Kuznetsov

Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (June 22, 1815, Moscow - November 14, 1852, St. Petersburg) - Russian painter and graphic artist, academician of painting, one of the largest representatives of Russian romanticism, the founder of critical realism in Russian painting.

Pavel Andreevich Fedotov was an incredibly talented person. He had a good ear, sang, played music, composed music. While studying at the Moscow Cadet School, he achieved such success that he was among the four best students. However, the passion for painting conquered everything. Already during his service in the Finnish regiment, Pavel enrolled in the classes of the Imperial Academy of Arts under the guidance of battle painting professor Alexander Sauerweid.

For study, he turned out to be too old, which Karl Bryullov, another teacher at the academy, did not fail to tell him about. In those days, art began to be taught early, usually between the ages of nine and eleven. And Fedotov crossed this line a long time ago ... But he worked diligently and hard. Soon he began to get good watercolors. The first work exhibited to the audience was the watercolor “Meeting of the Grand Duke”.

Its theme was prompted by the meeting of the guardsmen with the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich in the Krasnoselsky camp, which the young artist saw, who joyfully greeted the high person. These emotions struck the future painter and he managed to create a masterpiece. His Highness liked the picture, Fedotov was even granted a diamond ring. This award, according to the artist, "finally imprinted in his soul artistic pride."

However, Pavel Andreevich's teachers were not satisfied with the work of the novice artist. They wanted to get from him polished and polished in the image of soldiers, which was required from the servicemen by the authorities at the May parades.

One artist guessed another

Fedotov did not like all this, for which he listened to constant remarks. Only at home did he divert his soul, depicting the most ordinary scenes, illuminated by good-natured humor. As a result, Ivan Andreevich Krylov understood what Bryullov and Sauerweid did not understand. The fabulist accidentally saw the sketches of a young painter and wrote him a letter, urging him to leave horses and soldiers forever and take up the real thing - the genre. One artist sensitively guessed another.

Fedotov believed the fabulist and left the Academy. Now it is difficult to imagine how his fate would have developed if he had not listened to Ivan Andreevich. And the artist would not have left the same mark in Russian painting as Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin in literature. He was one of the first painters of the mid-19th century to resolutely embark on the path of critical realism and began to openly denounce the vices of Russian reality.

High mark

In 1846, the artist painted the first painting in the new genre, which he decided to present to the professors. This painting was called "The Fresh Cavalier". It is also known as "The Morning of the Official Who Received the First Cross" and "The Consequences of the Revel". Working on it was hard. “This is my first chick, which I“ nursed ”with various amendments for about nine months,” Fedotov wrote in his diary.

He showed the finished painting together with his second work - "The Picky Bride" at the Academy. And a miracle happened - Karl Bryullov, who had not particularly welcomed Pavel Andreevich before, gave his canvases the highest rating. The Council of the Academy nominated him for the title of academician and assigned a financial allowance. This allowed Fedotov to continue the begun painting "Major's Matchmaking". In 1848, she, along with The Fresh Cavalier and The Picky Bride, appears at an academic exhibition.

The next exhibition, along with fame, brought censorship attention. It was forbidden to remove lithographs from the "Fresh Cavalier" because of the irreverent image of the order, and it was impossible to remove the order from the picture without destroying its plot. In a letter to the censor Mikhail Musin-Pushkin, Fedotov wrote: “... where there is constant poverty and deprivation, there the expression of the joy of the reward will reach the point of childishness to rush around with it day and night. ... stars are worn on robes, and this is only a sign that they value them.

However, the request to allow distribution of the painting "in its present form" was denied.

"Fresh Cavalier"

Here is what Fedotov wrote in his diary when he came from the Censorship Committee about the painting: “The morning after the feast on the occasion of the order received. The new cavalier couldn't stand it, he put on his new clothes on his dressing gown and proudly reminds the cook of his importance. But she mockingly shows him the only, but even then worn and perforated boots, which she carried to clean. Leftovers and fragments of yesterday's feast are scattered on the floor, and under the table in the background one can see a cavalier waking up, probably left on the battlefield, too, but one of those who stick with a passport to those passing by. The waist of the cook does not give the owner the right to have guests of the best tone. “Where there is a bad connection, there is a great holiday - dirt.”

In his work, Pavel Fedotov gave a certain share of his sympathy to the cook. Not bad-looking, a neat young woman, with a rounded, common people's face. A scarf tied around her head says that she is not married. Married women in those days wore a warrior on their heads. By the looks of it, she's expecting a baby. One can only guess who his father is.

"The Fresh Cavalier" Pavel Fedotov for the first time paints in oils. Perhaps that is why the work on it was carried out for quite a long time, although the idea was formed long ago. The new technique contributed to the emergence of a new impression - the complete realism, materiality of the depicted world. The artist worked on the painting as if he were painting a miniature, paying attention to the smallest details, leaving not a single piece of space unfilled. By the way, critics later reproached him for this.

poor official

As soon as they didn’t call the gentleman of criticism: “an unbridled boor”, “a soulless careerist official”. After many years, the critic Vladimir Stasov completely burst into an angry tirade: “... before you is a smart, stiff nature, a corrupt bribe taker, a soulless slave of his boss, who no longer thinks about anything, except that he will give him money and a cross in his buttonhole. He is fierce and ruthless, he will drown whom and what he wants, and not a single wrinkle on his face of rhinocers skin will not flinch. Anger, arrogance, callousness, idolization of the order as the highest and peremptory argument, life completely vulgarized.

However, Fedotov did not agree with him. He called his hero a "poor official" and even a "hard worker" "with a small content", experiencing "constant scarcity and deprivation." It is difficult to argue with the latter - the interior of his dwelling, which is at the same time a bedroom, an office and a dining room, is rather poor. This little man found himself someone even smaller to rise above ...

He, of course, is not Akaky Akakievich from Gogol's "Overcoat". He has a small award, which entitles him to a number of privileges, in particular, to receive the nobility. Thus, receiving this very lowest order in the Russian award system was very attractive for all officials and members of their families.

The gentleman missed his chance

Thanks to Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, the official became the central figure in Russian literature of the 1830s-1850s. It was made hardly the only theme for vaudeville, comedies, stories, satirical scenes and other things. Even though they made fun of the official, they sympathized and sympathized with him. After all, he was tormented by the powers that be and he did not have the right to vote at all.

Thanks to Pavel Fedotov, it became possible to see the image of this small performer on the canvas. By the way, today the topic raised in the middle of the 19th century sounds no less relevant. But there is no Gogol among the writers who is able to describe the suffering of a modern official, for example, from the council, and there is no Fedotov, who, with his inherent share of irony, would draw a local-level official with a letter of thanks in his hands from another official, higher in his rank. Cash bonuses and serious awards are received by the leadership ...

The picture was painted in 1846. And in 1845, the awarding of the Order of Stanislav was suspended. So it is quite likely that the laughter of the cook, which is clearly heard from the canvas, just indicates that the broken girl knows the whole truth. They are no longer awarded and the "fresh gentleman" missed his only chance to change his life.

The genres of his paintings are varied.

Pavel Fedotov influenced the development of fine arts and went down in history as a talented artist who made important steps in the development of Russian painting.

The genres of his paintings are quite diverse, ranging from portraits, genre scenes and ending with battle paintings. Particular attention is paid to those written in his characteristic style of satire or critical realism. In them, he exposes human weaknesses and the very human essence for show. These paintings are witty, and during the life of the master were a real revelation. Genre scenes, where vulgarity, stupidity and, in general, different sides of human weaknesses are ridiculed, were an innovation in Russian art of the 19th century.

However, the artist's adherence to principles, along with the satirical orientation of his work, caused increased attention of censorship. As a result, patrons who previously favored him began to turn away from Fedotov. And then health problems began: vision deteriorated, headaches became more frequent, he suffered from rushes of blood to the head ... Which is why his character changed for the worse.

Fedotov died forgotten by everyone except friends

Fedotov's life ended tragically. In the spring of 1852, Pavel Andreevich showed signs of an acute mental disorder. And soon the academy was informed by the police that "a madman is kept at the unit who says that he is the artist Fedotov."

Friends and the administration of the Academy placed Fedotov in one of the private St. Petersburg hospitals for the mentally ill. The sovereign granted him 500 rubles for his maintenance in this institution. The disease progressed rapidly. In the autumn of 1852, acquaintances secured the transfer of Pavel Andreevich to the hospital of All Who Sorrow on Peterhof Highway. Here Fedotov died on November 14 of the same year, forgotten by all but a few close friends.

He was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery in the uniform of the captain of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment. The censorship committee forbade publishing the news of Pavel Andreevich's death in the press.

Pavel FEDOTOV
FRESH CAVALIER
(Morning of an official who received the first cross the day before)
1846. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

C a gentleman”, or “Morning of an official who received the first cross” - a picture in which Fedotov first turned to oil technique. Perhaps that is why the work on it was carried out for quite a long time, although the idea was formed a long time ago, back in the sepia series. The new technique contributed to the emergence of a new impression - the complete realism, materiality of the depicted world. Fedotov worked on the picture as if he were painting a miniature, paying attention to the smallest details, leaving not a single fragment of space unfilled (critics later reproached him for this).

The action takes place in a cramped little room, crammed to capacity with broken furniture, broken dishes and empty bottles. Fedotov uses every detail to describe the character and habits of the person living here, right down to the title of the novel he is reading (“Ivan Vyzhigin” by F. Bulgarin - quite popular at that time, but a low-quality book). The remains of yesterday's "ceremonial" dinner eloquently flaunt on the table - a decanter of vodka, pieces of sausage, a candle end with tongs mixed with toiletries.

Under one table, a dog sleeps serenely, and under another - no less serene - one of the participants in yesterday's feast, sleepily watching the scene unfolding in front of him. In the midst of this chaos, the figure of a newly-made order bearer proudly rises. Apparently, in his dreams, “he ascended higher as the head of the recalcitrant Pillar of Alexandria”, draped himself in a greasy robe, as in an antique toga, and imagines himself to be nothing less than the greatest hero of antiquity. A leg protruding forward, an arrogant look, a proudly raised head ... He is downright puffed up with pride and swagger, and he is not at all embarrassed that his appearance - in papillottes and a stale dressing gown - somewhat does not correspond to the traditional idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe ancient hero.

And the cook demonstrates her leaky soles to her master, not at all paying attention to the new order. She knows his price, and it is she who is the true mistress in this house. “Where there is a bad relationship, there is dirt on a great holiday ...” - this is how Fedotov begins a poetic explanation for his picture, hinting at the “hazing” of an official and a servant.

Morning of an official who received the first cross the day before.
Sketch. 1844. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The famous critic Vladimir Stasov saw a tragic and even scary content in the comic scene: “He is fierce and ruthless,” he writes about the main character, “he will drown anyone and whatever he wants, and not a single wrinkle on his face will flinch. Anger, swagger, completely vulgar life - all this is present in this face, in this pose and the figure of an inveterate official in a dressing gown and barefoot, in hairpins and with an order on his chest.

However, Fedotov himself was still not so unambiguous about his work. Yes, he sharply ridicules his hero, but at the same time justifies and pities him in some way. In any case, Fedotov’s letter to Count Musin-Pushkin has been preserved: “... isn’t it natural that where there is constant scarcity and deprivation, there the expression of the joy of the reward will reach the point of childishness to rush around with it day and night.”

Perhaps one should believe the opinion of Benois, who believed that, in essence, Fedotov was always at the same time with his heroes ...