Kustodiev Boris Mikhailovich
Born: February 23 (March 7), 1878.
Died: May 28, 1927 (age 49).
Biography
Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev February 23 (March 7) 1878, Astrakhan - May 26, 1927, Leningrad) - Russian artist.
Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, who came from the family of a gymnasium teacher, began studying painting in Astrakhan with P. A. Vlasov in 1893-1896.
Boris Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan. His father was a professor of philosophy, history of literature and taught logic at the local theological seminary.
His father died when the future artist was not even two years old. Boris studied at a parish school, then at a gymnasium. From the age of 15 he took drawing lessons from a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts P. Vlasov.
In 1896 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. He studied first in the workshop of V. E. Savinsky, and from the second year - with I. E. Repin. He took part in the work on Repin’s painting “The Ceremonial Meeting” State Council May 7, 1901" (1901–1903, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). Despite the fact that the young artist gained wide fame as a portrait painter, for his competition work Kustodiev chose a genre theme (“At the Market”) and in the fall of 1900 he went to the Kostroma province in search of nature. Here Kustodiev meets his future wife Yu. E. Poroshinskaya. Ends on October 31, 1903 training course with a gold medal and the right to an annual pensioner trip abroad and throughout Russia. Even before completing the course, he took part in international exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Munich (big gold medal of the International Association).
In December 1903, he came to Paris with his wife and son. During his trip, Kustodiev visited Germany, Italy, Spain, studied and copied the works of old masters. Entered the studio of Rene Menard.
Six months later, Kustodiev returned to Russia and worked in the Kostroma province on the series of paintings “Fairs” and “Village Holidays”. In 1904 he became a founding member of the New Society of Artists. In 1905–1907 worked as a cartoonist in the satirical magazine “Zhupel” (the famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), after its closure - in the magazines “Hellish Mail” and “Iskra”. Since 1907 - member of the Union of Russian Artists. In 1909, on the recommendation of Repin and other professors, he was elected a member of the Academy of Arts. At the same time, Kustodiev was offered to replace Serov as a teacher of the portrait-genre class at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but, fearing that this activity would take a lot of time from personal work and not wanting to move to Moscow, Kustodiev refused the position. Since 1910 - a member of the renewed "World of Art".
1913 - taught at the New Art Workshop (St. Petersburg). 1923 - member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. In 1909, Kustodiev showed the first signs of a spinal cord tumor. Several operations brought only temporary relief; for the last 15 years of his life, the artist was confined to a wheelchair. Due to illness at work, he was forced to write while lying down. However, it was during this difficult period of his life that his most vibrant, temperamental, and cheerful works appeared.
He lived in Petrograd-Leningrad during the post-revolutionary years. He was buried at the Nikolskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1948, the ashes and monument were moved to the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
Wife - Kustodieva Yu. E.
Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad
1914 - apartment building - Ekateringofsky Avenue, 105;
1915 - 05/26/1927 - apartment building of E.P. Mikhailov - Vvedenskaya street, 7, apt. 50.
Illustrations and book graphics
In 1905–1907 he worked in the satirical magazines “Zhupel” (the famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), “Hell Mail” and “Iskra”.
Kustodiev, who has a keen sense of line, performed cycles of illustrations for classical works and for the creations of his contemporaries (illustrations for Leskov’s works “The Darner”, 1922, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District”, 1923).
Possessing a strong touch, he worked in the technique of lithography and engraving on linoleum.
Painting
Kustodiev began his career as a portrait artist. Already while working on sketches for Repin’s “Great Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901,” student Kustodiev showed his talent as a portrait painter. In sketches and portrait sketches for this multi-figure composition, he coped with the task of achieving a resemblance to in a creative manner Repina. But Kustodiev the portrait painter was closer to Serov. Painterly plasticity, free long strokes, bright characteristics of appearance, emphasis on the artistry of the model - these were mostly portraits of fellow students and teachers of the Academy, but without Serov's psychologism. Kustodiev incredibly quickly for a young artist, but deservedly won fame as a portrait painter among the press and customers. However, according to A. Benoit:
“... the real Kustodiev is a Russian fair, motley, “big-eyed” calicoes, a barbaric “fight of colors”, a Russian suburb and a Russian village, with their accordions, gingerbread, dressed up girls and dashing guys... I claim that this is his real sphere, his real joy... When he paints fashionable ladies and respectable citizens, it is completely different - boring, sluggish, often even tasteless. And it seems to me that it’s not the plot, but the approach to it.”
Already from the beginning of the 1900s, Boris Mikhailovich was developing a unique genre of portrait, or rather, portrait-picture, portrait-type, in which the model is linked together with the surrounding landscape or interior. At the same time, this is a generalized image of a person and his unique individuality, revealing it through the world surrounding the model. In their form, these portraits are related to the genre images-types of Kustodiev (“Self-portrait” (1912), portraits of A. I. Anisimov (1915), F. I. Chaliapin (1922)).
But Kustodiev’s interests went beyond the portrait: it was no coincidence that he chose a genre painting (“At the Bazaar” (1903), not preserved) for his diploma work. In the early 1900s, for several years in a row he went to perform field work in the Kostroma province. In 1906, Kustodiev appeared with works that were new in their concept - a series of canvases on the themes of brightly festive peasant and provincial petty-bourgeois-merchant life (“Balagany”, “Maslenitsa”), in which the features of Art Nouveau are visible. The works are spectacular and decorative, revealing the Russian character through the everyday genre. On a deeply realistic basis, Kustodiev created a poetic dream, a fairy tale about provincial Russian life. In these works, great importance is attached to line, drawing, and color spots; forms are generalized and simplified - the artist turns to gouache and tempera. The artist's works are characterized by stylization - he studies Russian parsuna of the 16th–18th centuries, popular prints, signs of provincial shops and taverns, and folk crafts.
Subsequently, Kustodiev gradually shifted more and more towards an ironic stylization of folk and, especially, the life of the Russian merchants with a riot of colors and flesh (“Beauty”, “Russian Venus”, “Merchant’s Wife at Tea”).
Theater works
Like many artists of the turn of the century, Kustodiev also worked in the theater, transferring his vision of the work to the theater stage. The scenery performed by Kustodiev was colorful, close to his genre painting, but this was not always perceived as an advantage: creating a bright and convincing world, carried away by its material beauty, the artist sometimes did not coincide with the author’s plan and the director’s reading of the play (“The Death of Pazukhin” by Saltykov- Shchedrin, 1914, Moscow Art Theater; “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky, which never saw the light of day, 1918). In his later works for the theater, he moves away from a chamber interpretation to a more generalized one, seeks greater simplicity, builds the stage space, giving freedom to the director when constructing mise-en-scenes. Kustodiev's success was his design work in 1918–1920. opera performances (1920, “The Tsar’s Bride”, Bolshoi Opera Theater of the People’s House; 1918, “Snow Maiden”, Bolshoi Theater (not staged)). Scenery sketches, costumes and props for A. Serov’s opera “The Power of the Enemy” (Academic (former Mariinsky) Theater, 1921)
The productions of Zamyatin’s “The Flea” (1925, Moscow Art Theater 2nd; 1926, Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater) were successful. According to the memoirs of the director of the play A.D. Dikiy:
“It was so vivid, so precise that my role as a director accepting sketches was reduced to zero - I had nothing to correct or reject. It was as if he, Kustodiev, had been in my heart, overheard my thoughts, read Leskov’s story with the same eyes as me, and equally saw it in stage form. ... I have never had such complete, such inspiring like-mindedness with an artist as when working on the play “The Flea.” I learned the full meaning of this community when Kustodiev’s farcical, bright decorations appeared on the stage, and props and props made according to his sketches appeared. The artist led the entire performance, taking, as it were, the first part in the orchestra, which obediently and sensitively sounded in unison.”
After 1917, the artist participated in the decoration of Petrograd for the first anniversary of the October Revolution, painted posters, popular prints and paintings on revolutionary themes (“Bolshevik”, 1919–1920, Tretyakov Gallery; “Celebration in honor of the 2nd Congress of the Comintern on Uritsky Square”, 1921 , Russian Museum).
Memory
In 1978, a series of stamps with a post block and an artistic marked envelope were published, dedicated to the artist and his work. Also, an artistic marked envelope with the image of B. M. Kustodiev was released in 2003 (artist B. Ilyukhin, circulation 1,000,000 copies).
In Astrakhan, next to the Astrakhan Art Gallery named after P. M. Dogadin, there is a monument to Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev.
House-Museum of Kustodiev B.M. in Astrakhan is located at st. Kalinina, 26 / st. Sverdlova, 68.
A street in the Vyborg district of St. Petersburg is named after B. M. Kustodiev.
Kustodiev could not only see and appreciate the beauty of the natural world, but it was also in his power and in his power to recreate and embody this in as much detail as possible on his artistic canvases complex world wildlife.
Like most of the author’s works, Kustodiev’s landscape paintings are particularly bright, expressive and rich in color schemes. In Kustodiev’s paintings, nature is always much more than just a landscape image. Kustodiev creates his own artistic description of nature, makes it extremely individual, original, and unlike anything else.
In this regard, one of Kustodiev’s works, written by the artist in 1918, “Horses during a thunderstorm,” is especially noticeable.
The painting “Horses during a thunderstorm” is an example of a talented oil painting. IN at the moment the canvas belongs to the collection fine arts 20th century State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. The central image and motif of the canvas is stated in the very title of the painting.
Kustodiev Boris Mikhailovich (Kustodiev Boris) (1878–1927), Russian artist. Born in Astrakhan on February 23 (March 7), 1878 in the family of a theological seminary teacher.
Having visited the exhibition of the Itinerants in 1887 and seeing paintings by real painters for the first time, young Kustodiev was shocked. He firmly decided to become an artist. After graduating from theological seminary in 1896, Kustodiev went to St. Petersburg and entered the Academy of Arts. While studying in the workshop of I. E. Repin, Kustodiev writes a lot from life, striving to master the skill of conveying the colorful diversity of the world.
Walking on the Volga, 1909 Repin invited the young artist to co-author the painting “Meeting of the State Council” (1901–1903, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). Already in these years, the virtuoso talent of Kustodiev, a portrait painter, manifested itself (I. Ya. Bilibin, 1901). Living in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Kustodiev often visited picturesque corners of the Russian province, primarily in the cities and villages of the Upper Volga, where the artist’s brush created famous images of Russian traditional life (a series of “fairs”, “Maslenitsa”, “village holidays”) and colorful folk types (“merchant women”, “merchants”, beauties in the bathhouse - “Russian Venuses”). These series and related paintings (portrait of F. I. Chaliapin, 1922, Russian Museum) are like colorful dreams about old Russia.
Portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin, 1922, Russian Museum Although paralysis confined the artist to a wheelchair in 1916, Kustodiev continued to work actively in various forms of art, continuing his popular “Volga” series.
B.M. Kustodiev in his workshop. 1925 After the revolution, Kustodiev created his best works in the field of book illustration (“Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District” by N. S. Leskov; “Rus” by E. I. Zamyatin; both works - 1923; and other drawings) and stage design (“The Flea” by Zamyatin in Second Moscow Art Theater, 1925; and other scenery). Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev died in Leningrad on May 26, 1927.
Merchant's wife having tea, 1918 Russian Museum One of favorite characters Kustodiev’s works were a portly, healthy merchant’s wife. The artist painted merchants' bills many times - in the interior and against the backdrop of a landscape, naked and in elegant dresses.
The painting “Merchant's Wife at Tea” is unique in its impressive strength and harmonious integrity. In the plump, immensely fat Russian beauty sitting on the balcony at a table laden with dishes, the image of the merchant’s wife takes on a truly symbolic resonance. Large semantic load The canvas contains details: a fat lazy cat rubbing against the owner’s shoulder, a merchant couple drinking tea on a nearby balcony, a city depicted in the background with churches and shopping arcades, and, in particular, a magnificent “gastronomic” still life. A ripe red watermelon with black seeds, a fatty cake, buns, fruit, porcelain, a large samovar - all this is written in an unusually material and tangible way and at the same time not illusory, but deliberately simplified, like on shop signs.
In the hungry year of 1918, in the cold and devastation, the sick artist dreamed of beauty, a full-blooded bright life, and abundance. However, the savoring of a well-fed, thoughtless existence is accompanied here, as in other works by Kustodiev, with light irony and a good-natured grin.
Merchant's wife with a mirror, 1920, Russian Museum Youth always attracts with its brightness, beauty, and freshness. The artist presents us with an ordinary scene from the life of a merchant. A young girl tries on a new silk shawl. The picture is full of details that reveal the character of the heroine. Jewelry is laid out on the table, a girl from the servants is sorting through furs, a green chest by the stove clearly hides the heroine’s “riches.” A smiling merchant in a rich fur coat stands at the door. He admires his daughter, who is captivated by her new wardrobe.
Beauty, 1915, Tretyakov Gallery Kustodiev always drew his inspiration from Russian popular prints. So his famous “Beauty” seems to have been copied from a popular print or from a Dymkovo toy. However, it is known that the artist painted from life, and it is also known that the model was a famous actress of the Art Theater.
The artist approaches the curvaceous forms of his model delicately and with good humor. The beauty herself is not at all embarrassed, she calmly, with some curiosity, watches the viewer, very pleased with the impression she makes. Her pose is chaste. White lush body Blue eyes, golden hair, blush, scarlet lips - we really have before us beautiful woman.
Provinces. 1919 
View from the Sparrow Hills. 1919 
In old Suzdal, 1914 The exuberant luxury of colors blooms in lush colors in Kustodiev’s paintings, as soon as he turns to his favorite theme: depicting the foundations of life in the outback, its foundations, its roots. A colorfully depicted tea party in the courtyard cannot but please the eye with all the love of life that reigns in the picture.
Stately backs, proud posture, the obvious slowness of every movement, the conscious sense of self-esteem that is felt in all female figures - this is old Suzdal, the way the artist sees, feels, feels it. And he is all in front of us in full view - alive and bright, real. Warm. He definitely invites you to the table!
Morning, 1904, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg Depicted are Yulia Evstafievna Kustodieva, the artist’s wife, with her first-born son Kirill (1903-1971). The picture was painted in Paris.
Russian Venus, 1925, Nizhny Novgorod Art Museum, Nizhny Novgorod 
Bathing, 1912, Russian Museum According to Kustodiev’s style, the sunny day in the painting is filled with rich colors. Blue sky, green hillside, mirror-like shine of water, sunny yellow swimming pool - all together make up a warm summer.
The bathers are depicted by the artist schematically, very delicately. Kustodiev himself seems to take the viewer’s gaze away from the bathhouse and draws attention to the surrounding nature, filling it with unnatural bright colors.
Life goes on as usual on the shore. Boatmen offer the public a ride along the river; a loaded cart struggles up the mountain. On the hill there is a red church.
Twice the artist depicted the Russian tricolor. A white, blue and red cloth decorates the bathhouse and the side of a large boat. Most likely, we have a holiday ahead of us. Summer is a holiday for everyone who is able to appreciate it.
The bathers are having a leisurely conversation, enjoying the warmth, sun, and river. Slow, measured, happy life.
Merchant's wife and brownie, 1922 The artist depicted a very piquant scene. The brownie, walking around his property, froze in amazement in front of the naked body of the sleeping mistress of the house. But the details still tell the viewer that the heroine of the picture has prepared everything for this scene. The hot stove is left open so that the fire provides light. The pose is carefully thought out. One gets the feeling that the hostess’s dream is theatrical. It’s as if the beauty herself is luring the brownie to look at him. Fairy tale, Christmas story, miracle.
An elegant, fair-haired, dazzlingly beautiful merchant's wife - on the one hand, an eerie, fur-covered, pot-bellied brownie - on the other. They are like the embodiment of merchant female and male beauty. Two different beginnings, opposites.
Trinity Day, 1920, Saratov State Art Museum. A. N. Radishcheva 
Portrait of the artist Ivan Bilibin, 1901, Russian Museum This portrait is an early work of the master. It was created in the academic workshop of I. Repin. In this work, Kustodiev’s style barely shows through. It just hasn't formed yet. Bilibin is depicted very realistically. Before us is an exquisitely dressed young man: a black frock coat, a snow-white shirt. The red flower in the buttonhole is a detail that characterizes the model. The hero is dapper, a lover of women and entertainment. The look is ironic, even funny. The facial features are correct. Before us is a handsome young man.
Portrait of Yu.E. Kustodieva. 1920 
Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna.1911 
Merchant's wife with purchases.1920 
Moscow tavern, 1916, Tretyakov Gallery The Moscow tavern is a special, difficult place. The main thing in it is communication and relaxation. This is exactly how the tavern appears in the picture. The sex workers serving visitors are graceful and graceful. Red ceilings and vaults give the work a joyful and festive atmosphere. Judging by the bunch of willow behind the icon, the action takes place on the eve of Easter.
Name: Boris Kustodiev
Age: 49 years old
Place of birth: Astrakhan
Place of death: Saint Petersburg
Activity: artist, portrait painter
Marital status: was married
Boris Kustodiev - biography
The outstanding Russian artist Boris Kustodiev, whose 140th birthday is celebrated on February 23, managed to create on his canvases amazing world where the beautiful ones live good people, where they drink and eat deliciously, where the sun shines brightly and the dazzling white snow sparkles. And the worse the artist got - at the age of thirty he was confined to a wheelchair - the more joyful and colorful the life on his canvases was.
Boris Kustodiev hardly remembered his father - candidate of theology, teacher of the Astrakhan Theological Seminary Mikhail Lukich Kustodiev died a year after the birth of his son. In addition to Boris, two more girls were growing up in the family, Sasha and Katya, there was not enough money, and Mikhail Lukich earned money by teaching lessons. In the cold autumn he caught a cold and died at the age of 37, leaving a widow, Ekaterina Prokhorovna, who was not yet thirty, with four children - the youngest, named after his father Mikhail, was born a few months after his father's death - and a 50-ruble survivor's pension.
The mother did not have money for the children’s education, but Boris was lucky - as the son of a deceased teacher, at the age of nine he was accepted into the Astrakhan Theological School, and then into the seminary. He studied mediocrely, but in drawing he would have been the best in the class. From the age of five he did not let go of a pencil; he loved to draw on paper everything he saw. Boris decided to become an artist at the age of 11, when his sister Katya, who was fond of art, took him to an exhibition of paintings by capital artists from the Association of Traveling Exhibitions.
The pictures fascinated the boy. The second time he experienced this feeling was when, during the holidays, he went to visit his uncle in St. Petersburg and ended up in the Hermitage. And what was his happiness when Katya advised him to take drawing lessons and introduced him to a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Pavel Vlasov.
Vlasov, larger, stronger, with a loud voice, came from the Cossacks. Despite some rudeness, he was distinguished by extraordinary kindness, and most importantly, he had a special gift - he knew how to recognize talent in a student and help this talent develop. Vlasov taught Boris to carry a sketchbook and a pencil everywhere and sketch everything interesting. A capable student quickly mastered both watercolor and oil paints. And one day Pavel Alekseevich said to his student: “Stop wasting time. Apply to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. If it doesn’t work out in Moscow, go to St. Petersburg, to the Academy of Arts.”
Vlasov knew how to persuade, so he convinced Ekaterina Prokhorovna that Boris needed to leave the seminary, a brilliant future awaited him in painting. Sorry, I did this late. The Moscow School accepted students only up to the age of 18, and Boris had already turned 18. There was only one path - to St. Petersburg, to the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts.
In the capital, Boris settled with his uncle, who was unhappy that his nephew left the seminary. Boris writes bitterly to his mother after another scandal: “I think that I won’t live with him for a long time if this happens again. I... walked around all day yesterday... stunned by my uncle's reproaches and swearing. I have 20 rubles left of your money. 60 k. It’s good if I enter the Academy.
There, the students are all exempt from paying fees, and they also use government albums, etc.” Ekaterina Prokhorovna persuaded her son: “...there is no reason for you to leave him now, just be patient a little” - and believed in his future: “... we miss you, but I am consoled by the thought that someday I will see you a great and honest man, and maybe even famous - which doesn’t happen in the world!”
In October 1896, Kustodiev was admitted to the Academy. At first he studied in the workshop of the historical painter Vasily Savinsky, and in his second year he was transferred to the workshop of Repin. Students said different things about Repin. It often happened that today he liked what yesterday he called mediocre. But the students forgave Repin everything - after all, he was a real, great artist.
Life has twisted Boris. The provincial young man found himself in the very center of the capital's vibrant artistic life - theaters, exhibitions, new ideas, interesting people. But still, he didn’t really like it in St. Petersburg. “Everything around is gray, everything is somehow boring, cold - not like some kind of river with green banks and with white winged sails, with steamships - like the Volga...” - he wrote to his mother.
In the summer of 1900, Boris invited his friend Dmitry Stelletsky to go with him to Astrakhan. There he was joined by his old friend, also a student of Vlasov, Konstantin Mazin, and the three artists set off on a voyage up the Volga to paint en plein air. In Kineshma they went ashore, Mazin stayed with relatives in the village of Semenovskoye, and Kustodiev and Stelletsky stayed nearby, in the village of Kalganovo.
Once, acquaintances advised young artists to visit the Vysokovo estate - two charming young ladies, the Proshinsky sisters, lived there under the tutelage of the venerable Grek sisters. Their parents died early, and Maria and Yulia Grek, their close friends who did not have children of their own, took the girls in to raise them.
We went without an invitation, and therefore the most courageous inhabitant of Vysokov, Zoya Proshinskaya, greeted them at first as uninvited guests. Realizing that these were not some kind of robbers, but even artists, and even from St. Petersburg, the Greek sisters allowed them to enter the house. Antique furniture, dishes from Napoleonic times, landscapes and portraits on the walls, a piano - everything testified to the good taste of the owners. And then, during conversations over tea, it turned out that Yulenka, Zoya’s sister, was studying painting at the School for the Encouragement of Arts.
While saying goodbye, the young people received an invitation to visit Vysokovo again, which they took full advantage of. The initiator of these visits was Boris - he really liked Yulia Proshinskaya. It was somehow surprisingly simple and fun for him to be with her. They discovered many common interests. And what wonderful eyes she had. And how well she looked at him.
Apparently, he made a favorable impression on her - easily blushing from embarrassment, but at the same time cheerful, with humor, a light character, she clearly liked him. Separating, Boris and Yulia agreed to write to each other - and to meet in St. Petersburg. Yulia visited Vysokov only in the summer. In winter, she lived in the capital, worked as a typist for the Committee of Ministers, and took up painting.
They met. In letters to the old ladies, Greek Julia said that Kustodiev painted her portrait, that they went to the theater together, and in the newspaper “Novoe Vremya” her friend was highly praised for the portrait of Bilibin, which was a great success at an exhibition in Munich, where he was awarded a gold medal .
In general, it was a very good year, because in the spring of this year Repin invited him to work on a government order - the grandiose canvas “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council.” Working next to Repin, Boris learned a lot. Of the hundreds of portraits of the country's main dignitaries on the canvas, 20 were painted by Kustodiev. These people had enormous power back then. Today, few people remember their names, but the names of the artists who captured their faces have gone down in history. Russian culture.
In June, Boris again went to the Kostroma province. Having settled not far from Vysokov, he could meet with Yulia every day. And when he returned to St. Petersburg, he wrote letters to her every day. The guardian sisters did not welcome their friendship. They did not at all like the beginner artist without any fortune as a candidate for the husband of their beloved Yulenka. After all, she had other, more promising candidates.
Julia tried her best to get the Greek sisters to change their minds about Boris. “We see each other almost every day”, “yesterday I went with B.M. to the big skating rink in the evening”, “On Sunday... I visited the Kustodievs. Boris Mikh. treated me to tea and sweets,” she wrote in Vysokovo. She really wanted to show that her chosen one was worthy of respect: “At Bor. Mich. things are not bad. Now he has two commissions of portraits. One started today, and when he finishes, he will paint a lady - the wife of an official from the State Council”; “Tomorrow we are going to an exhibition where 2 portraits painted by Bohr are on display. Mich.", "Bor. Mich. They praised it very much in the Petersburg Newspaper...”
They became husband and wife on January 8, 1903. This is evidenced by the entry in the registry book of the Astrakhan Church of the Nativity of Christ, the same one where Boris was baptized: “Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, on January 8, 1903, entered into a legal marriage with the daughter of the court councilor Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya, 22 years old, Roman Catholic.. "The Greek sisters did not live to see this wedding. Now Julia has only her beloved Boris left in her life.
Everything was going great. For the painting “Bazaar in a Village,” Kustodiev was awarded a gold medal and the right to a year-long trip abroad; at the international exhibition in Munich he was again awarded for “Portrait of Varfolomeev”; a correspondent for the respected newspaper Birzhevye Vedomosti interviewed him, in which he wrote: “The young artist is only 25 years old. What a huge life ahead, and how much he can do with his love for work and ability to work hard,” but the main thing is that on October 11, Kustodiev’s son was born. The boy was named Kirill.
With him in January of the following year, they all went on a trip abroad, inviting Ekaterina Prokhorovna on the trip to help the young mother. The first stop is Paris, which shocked Kustodiev. Boris studied in the studio of the famous artist Rene Menard, and the rest of the time, with a notebook in his hands, he wandered the streets in fascination and made sketches. Only in Paris could such a lyrical Kustodiev painting as “Morning” appear: a young mother bathes her little son. A true hymn to motherhood and love...
And then Kustodiev went to Spain, and Yulia remained in Paris - after crying, she was consoled by his promise to write often. This promise was fulfilled, and Boris told his wife in letters about the paintings of Velazquez, about the trip to Seville, about bullfights, about Cordoba and the amazing cathedral-mosque...
In the summer of 1904, the Kustodievs returned to their homeland. Having bought a small plot of land near Kineshma, they began to build their own house - “Terem”. The house really looked like a tower from Russian fairy tales. Kustodiev enjoyed doing housework, doing carpentry, and cutting trim for windows. Julia and Boris were so happy, so full of love for each other and life, that when their daughter, Irina, was born in the spring of 1905, their friends gave them a painting parody of “Morning” - there are already 12 children in the bathtub, and the mother in looks at them in horror, throwing up his hands.
Once Julia wrote to Boris: “... it’s such happiness that you love me, we have something to live on, we are healthy... I’m even afraid...” And then misfortune came to their house. In January 1907, they had another son, Igor, who died without living even a year. “With his death, the first gray strand appeared in my mother’s black hair,” recalled Irina Kustodieva. That same year, Boris Kustodiev experienced the first pain in his hand - symptoms of an impending serious illness.
But he tried not to notice anything and work, work, so as not to damage the reputation of one of the best Russian portrait painters, because it was he, and not Serov, who was commissioned for portraits of Alexander II and Nicholas I. And it was his “Portrait of the Polenov Family”, shown at the exhibition in Vienna, purchased by the Belvedere Museum. Perhaps he suspected that his illness was serious and tried not to waste time.
Yulia, who was grieving the death of her son, lived with the children mainly in Terem, but Boris was in no hurry to go to them - he was full of his plans and work. That same year, he again traveled around Europe - this time it was Austria, Italy, and Germany. And new impressions distracted him from his family, especially the charming ladies who posed for him in Venetian gondolas. It was said that one Russian mistress was so diligent in posing that her jealous husband nervously ran on dry land during the sessions. But even after returning to St. Petersburg, Kustodiev was in no hurry to see his wife and children.
It seems, Julia wrote to her husband indignantly, you really like spending time with naked models. In his response letter, Boris, generally not feeling guilty at all, formulated his life credo: “I received your “terrible” letter today, but... for some reason I wasn’t very afraid of it. Somehow I can’t believe that you can “ask” me! And for what, exactly? Because I work and therefore don’t go? If this is so, then this is very strange, and it means that I was very deceived in you, in your understanding of my work and myself... My work is my life...
I fully understand your state of mind, but I will not do this now or ever in the future to give up what I have to do because of this. You must know this, or else I am not what you imagined, and you are not what I thought until now...” And at the end of the letter he again promised that he would soon come to Terem. And he came, brought gifts, painted his grown daughter, and then a month and a half later he left them alone again - his life was in St. Petersburg.
Soon, apparently at the insistence of Yulia, who was afraid of losing her husband, his entire family moved there. They settled on Myasnaya Street. They brought furniture from the one sold by Vysokov - it reminded Yulia of her childhood, of the old Greek women. They set up a workshop where Boris worked, and along the corridor Irina and Kirill were running around on roller skates, running and playing hide and seek.
Again they were close, Julia and Boris, and again she shared all his joys, successes and failures. And pain. Now his hands often hurt so much that his fingers could not hold his hand, and then his head began to hurt unbearably. It was necessary to go to the doctors. The famous doctor Ernest Augustovich Giese examined the artist for an hour and found neuralgia right hand and advised me to take an x-ray of my shoulder and neck. And work less. But he just couldn’t live without work. The orders were one more responsible than the other.
In 1911, the Alexander Lyceum was to celebrate its centenary, and a commission of former graduates decided to install marble busts of Tsars Nicholas II and the founder of the Lyceum, Alexander I, in the building. The busts were ordered from Kustodiev. Kustodiev spoke with obvious irony about how Nicholas II posed for him: “He was extremely graciously received, even to the point of surprise... We talked a lot - of course, not about politics (which my customers were very afraid of), but more about art - but I couldn’t enlighten him - he’s hopeless, alas... What’s also good is that he’s interested in antiquity, I just don’t know, deeply or so - “because of the gesture.”
The enemy of innovation, and confuses impressionism with revolution: “impressionism and I are two incompatible things” - his phrase. We parted on good terms, but apparently he was tired of the sessions...” In the spring of 1911, the pain became so severe that Boris went to Switzerland, to the town of Leysin near Lausanne, to be treated at the private clinic of Dr. Auguste Rollier, an honorary member of all European medical societies. Rollier diagnosed bone tuberculosis"and forced him to come in the fall, ordering him to wear a special corset, "unsuccessful, especially when sitting... It's only good to walk in it."
He worked in this terrible corset, hard as a shell, from neck to waist, taking it off only at night. In total, he stayed in the clinic for more than 9 months, but the pain, despite Rollier’s assurances, did not disappear. In St. Petersburg, Yulia was worried about him, complained of loneliness, it was not easy with children without a husband. She poured all this out in her letters. But what could he tell her? He himself was tormented by doubts, he himself did not know how to continue to live with these pains, with this growing weakness.
“...You write about the feeling of loneliness, and I fully understand it - it is even intensified for me... by the consciousness that I am unhealthy, that everything that others live with is almost impossible for me... In a life that rolls so quickly next to me and where I have to give my all, I can no longer participate - I have no strength. And this consciousness intensifies even more when I think about the lives connected with me - yours and the children. And if I were alone, it would be easier for me to bear this feeling of disability.” And he added: “Such wonderful days and everything is so beautiful around that you forget that you are sick... And never, it seems, have I felt so strong a desire to live and feel alive.”
The hand did not stop whining, the St. Petersburg aesculapians advised the sea and the sun, and the Kustodievs, all together, went for the sun and sea to France, to the town of Juan-les-Pins, not far from Antibes. Then they left for Italy, and then went to Berlin - many advised Kustodiev to see the famous neurosurgeon Professor Oppenheim. Herr Professor carefully examined the artist and made a conclusion that surprised everyone: “You have never had any bone tuberculosis. Remove the corset. You have a disease of the spinal cord, apparently there is a tumor in it, you urgently need surgery...” Treatment in Switzerland with Rollier, by the way, very expensive, was in vain.
In November, Kustodiev and his wife were again in Berlin. The operation took place on November 12. The professor found the tumor and removed it, but warned that a relapse was possible and, most likely, the operation would have to be repeated. But for now everyone hoped that the disease had been defeated.
And again Kustodiev was full of work, and everything worked out for him - both painting and business in the theater, which he was very interested in. While working on the play “The Death of Pazukhin” at the Moscow Art Theater, Kustodiev met actress Faina Shevchenko and became inspired to paint her portrait, and in the nude. Faina was young and pretty. She came to the Moscow Art Theater in 1909, still very young, at 16 years old. In 1914, when Kustodiev met her, she had already played almost all the leading roles.
No one knows how he persuaded her, a serious actress of a serious theater, to pose naked, but it happened! And he was happy, because in her, this sweet young woman, he saw the image of a real Russian beauty, the owner of a lush, appetizing body. This painting, “Beauty,” is bright, slightly ironic, and daring, and created a real sensation. The newspapers wrote: “The one who’s doing weird things is Kustodiev... It’s as if he’s deliberately throwing himself from side to side.
Either he paints ordinary good portraits of ladies, or suddenly he exhibits some plump “beauty” sitting on a chest painted with bouquets... Deliberate and invented bad taste.” But many people liked her, this Kustodian beauty, it was difficult to move away from the picture - she was mesmerizing, and one metropolitan, seeing her, said: “The devil himself led him with his hand, obviously, because she disturbed my peace.”
Kustodiev worked a lot at that time - and was happy that he was in demand and needed. And, he probably said, he overdid it a little - the pain appeared again, it became difficult to walk. More and more often he remembered the Berlin professor and his words about a repeat operation, but how to do this now that the war has begun and the Germans are enemies? He was treated again, went to Yalta for sun and sea, but nothing helped, his mood was very bad, and even new paintings, which were successful and he liked, did not significantly change the situation. It became clear that we could no longer delay the operation.
Kustodiev was admitted to the clinic of the Kaufman community of Red Cross sisters, which was headed by G.F. Zeidler. The operation was performed by the brilliant Russian neurosurgeon Lev Stukkey. “They gave me general anesthesia for 5 hours,” Irina Kustodieva said about the operation. - Mom is waiting in the corridor... Finally, Professor Zeidler came out himself and said that a dark piece of something was found in the very substance of the spinal cord closer to the chest, it may be necessary to cut the nerves to get to the tumor, you need to decide what to save the patient - arms or legs. “Leave your hands, hands! - Mom begged. -The artist has no hands! He won’t be able to live!” And Stukkey retained the mobility of Kustodiev’s hands. But - only hands!
Every day Stukkey came to the ward and felt his legs. No, Kustodiev did not feel anything. Yes, of course, the nerves are damaged, the doctor said, but perhaps the ability to move will appear. You need to believe. And Boris believed, and what else could he do? And fortunately, he was not alone in this faith, in this struggle for life - next to him was his Yulia, a devoted, faithful wife, the mother of his children, and now also a nurse. A month after the operation the pain was gone, but now he suffered from immobility and idleness.
He passionately wanted to work! However, the surgeon strictly forbade even the slightest tension. And Kustodiev began to create pictures in his mind. Only very soon this was not enough for him, and he begged his wife to bring him an album and watercolors. At first he painted in secret from the doctors, and when he was caught doing this, he declared: “If you don’t let me write, I’ll die!” And he painted the heroes of his night visions.
And he dreamed of the free Russian Maslenitsa - bright, joyful, happy... This large canvas was shown at the World of Art exhibition in the fall of 1916. Among the visitors to the exhibition was the surgeon Stukkey. He didn’t know much about painting, but this picture shook him to the core. “Where does this man chained to a chair have such a thirst for life? Where does this holiday come from? Where does this incredible power of creativity come from? - the doctor tried to understand. “Maybe his art is his best medicine?”
The year 1917 began both anxiously and joyfully. It seemed to everyone that real freedom had arrived and now everything in Russia would be wonderful. In those days, Kustodiev sat at the window with binoculars and tirelessly watched the life of the street. Excited by what was happening, he wrote to a friend in Moscow: “Congratulations on great joy! Here's Peter for you! ... he took it and did such a thing in 3-4 days that the whole world gasped. Everything has shifted, turned over... - take, for example, yesterday’s arbiters of our destinies, now sitting in Petropavlovka!
“From prince to rags...” On February 27, the general strike grew into a general uprising; in March, Russia ceased to be a monarchy - the tsar abdicated the throne. And then the October Revolution happened, power passed into the hands of the people - rude people in caps, leather jackets, with Mausers in their hands. All of this was incredible, all of this had to be understood, somehow comprehended, and learned to live in a new country, where people were often robbed and killed on the streets at night, and the shops were empty. And only thanks to Yulia, their house is warm, cozy and there is always something to treat guests - she was a wonderful hostess.
In 1920, the management of the Mariinsky Opera House decided to stage the opera “Enemy Power” by Alexander Serov, the artist’s father, about the life of the Russian merchants. The director of the play was Fyodor Chaliapin, and it was decided to entrust the design to Kustodiev, because who had a better feel for merchant Rus', its characters and morals. And the singer went to the artist to negotiate. “It was a pity to look at the deprivation of man (Kustodiev’s legs were paralyzed), but it was as if it was invisible to him: about forty years old, fair-haired, pale, he struck me with his cheerfulness...” said Chaliapin.
He came to Kustodiev every day, looked at the sketches of the scenery and costumes. They, these two, talented, strong, became friends. They recalled with pleasure their youth and their native places - after all, both were born on the Volga. One day Chaliapin came to Boris Mikhailovich wearing a luxurious fur coat. “Please pose for me in this fur coat,” the artist asked. - Your fur coat is very rich. It's a pleasure to write it." “Is it clever? The fur coat is good, but perhaps stolen,” Chaliapin noted. “How is this stolen? You’re kidding, Fyodor Mikhailovich!”
“Yes, yes. About three weeks ago I received it for a concert from some government agency. But you know the slogan: “Rob the loot.” Kustodiev decided that it was simply wonderful - in his painting the singer would be depicted in a fur coat of such dubious origin. “Both an actor and a singer, but he whistled his fur coat,” he joked. The premiere of Enemy Power took place on November 7, 1920 and was brilliant. The actors received a standing ovation, and then they loudly applauded the artist - both his art and his courage. “My father returned home excited, saying that Chaliapin was a genius and that for the sake of history it was necessary to paint his portrait,” recalled the artist’s son Kirill.
This work was especially difficult for Kustodiev. He decided to write a singer in full height, that is, the height of the painting had to be at least two meters. On the ceiling of the room, brother Mikhail fixed a block with a load, the canvas with a stretcher was suspended, and Kustodiev himself could bring it closer, move it away, move it left and right. The huge picture was painted in parts - Kustodiev transferred the preparatory drawings to the picture in cells. Thus, at the cost of incredible efforts, this amazingly joyful, sun-filled canvas was born.
Chaliapin was delighted with the portrait and bought it, as well as the sketches for Enemy Power. When he went abroad in 1922, he took the portrait with him. Years later he wrote: “I knew a lot of interesting, talented and good people. But if I have ever seen a truly high spirit in a person, it was in Kustodiev... It is impossible to think without excitement about the greatness of the moral force that lived in this man and which cannot otherwise be called heroic and valiant.”
Despite severe pain, Kustodiev worked with inspiration and joy - he painted pictures, made engravings, lithographs, was engaged in stage design, and illustrated books. On his canvases are charming merchant women, tea lovers, dashing cab drivers, crazy Maslenitsa, and a fun fair. Here are the heroes of past years - Stepan Razin, and of modern times - for example, the Bolshevik from the film of the same name. This strange, ambiguous picture is “Bolshevik”. It would seem that the artist is glorifying the revolution. But the huge man he depicts, this Bolshevik with thoughtless eyes, mercilessly walks over the heads of ordinary people, through their lives, destinies, which, it seems, are not at all important to him.
Everything that Kustodiev did was bright, fresh, interesting. It was impossible to believe that the creator of these powerful images was a seriously ill person, a disabled person who moved in a wheelchair. In 1923, Kustodiev was operated on again - for the third time. The operation was performed by the famous German neurosurgeon Otfried Förster, who was invited to treat Lenin.
“Anesthesia,” said the artist’s daughter, “was given locally, the general heart could not stand it. Four and a half hours of inhuman suffering... The doctors said that every minute there could be a shock and then it would be the end...” Like the previous ones, this operation did not bring significant relief.
The artist’s last major painting was the magnificent “Russian Venus”. “She will not lie naked on velvet, like Goya, or in the lap of nature, like Giorgione,” Boris Mikhailovich told his daughter Irina, who posed for this picture. - I will put my Venus in the bathhouse. Here the nudity of a Russian woman is natural.” At night he had nightmares - “black cats dig into his back with sharp claws and tear apart his vertebrae,” and during the day he created his Venus. Posing, Irina held a ruler in her hands instead of a broom, and her brother Kirill whipped foam in a wooden tub. His children created this masterpiece with him...
Anticipating the end, at your last year Kustodiev lived as few people can, even when completely healthy: he painted 8 portraits, several landscapes, posters, created dozens of engravings, illustrations for books, scenery for three performances... In 1927, when it became clear that his illness had worsened , he turned to the People's Commissariat for Education with a request to allow him to go to Germany for treatment. The government allocated $1,000, and paperwork began. While waiting, Kustodiev asked to be taken to the Hermitage; he wanted to see the works of Rembrandt and Titian again.
This gave the artist’s brother Mikhail the idea of building a car in which his relatives would take the artist out into the world of healthy people. The apartment began to look like a repair shop, but everyone in the household, including poor Yulia, put up with this horror, knowing in the name of what it was all being done. And the car was assembled. Now Kustodiev could even go on a visit. On May 5, 1927, when she and Yulia returned home from Detskoe Selo, where they had visited Alexei Tolstoy, he developed a fever. They decided it was a cold; the car was open.
The temperature remained stable, but on May 15, when his name day was celebrated, Kustodiev, sitting in front of the guests in a white shirt with a bow tie, joked and amused everyone. The next day he felt ill. On the evening of May 26, 1927, Irina asked her father if she could go to the theater - the Moscow Chamber Theater, which had come on tour to St. Petersburg, was giving a performance, in leading role Alisa Koonen. “Of course,” he replied. “Then you’ll tell me.” Returning home, she no longer found him alive. Kustodiev was only 49 years old. He was buried at the St. Petersburg Nikolskoye cemetery. So many unrealized plans went with him, but so many beautiful paintings remained after his death...
His widow Yulia Evstafievna lived alone, without her husband, for another 15 years, devoting all these years to serving his memory and preserving his legacy. She died during the siege in 1942.
Revolutionary changes B.M. Kustodiev accepted with enthusiasm, perhaps because they saw the possibility of realizing the dream of a joyful and free life for the people. In his paintings of the post-revolutionary years, the artist strives for a generalization capable of conveying the grandeur and greatness of the changes in the country. He created a new image folk hero(“Bolshevik”, 1919-1920), in 1920-1921, commissioned by the Petrograd Soviet, he painted large colorful canvases dedicated to national celebrations (“Celebration in honor of the Second Congress of the Comintern on Uritsky Square” and “Night celebration on the Neva”).
During these same years, Kustodiev actively worked in other areas, such as book illustration, poster, porcelain sculpture, engraving, decorative panel, theatrical scenography. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not leave his homeland, although it was especially difficult for the sick, chair-bound artist in those difficult years. He painted his cheerful canvases in a dark Petrograd apartment, in a cold workshop, barely heated by an iron stove. Death found Boris Kustodiev on May 26, 1927, working on a sketch of the triptych “The Joy of Work and Leisure”...
Collection of works by B.M. Kustodiev, stored in the State Tretyakov Gallery, allows us to get a fairly complete picture of the stages of his work. Analyzing these works, which are very different in content and execution, we seem to look into the artist’s creative laboratory, revealing for ourselves his worldview, attitude to the problems of artistic form and painting technique.
Kustodiev managed to combine in his work the national-romantic ideal of folk art with the classical tradition, and did not neglect the new things that impressionism and modernism carried in themselves. His paintings are filled with luminosity, bright color contrasts and exquisite decorative stylization of forms; they immerse the viewer in the creative element folk life. The artist seems to be admiring fairground, merchant Russia, which is inexorably fading into the past. Like other artists of the “World of Art”, this admiration is sometimes inseparable from Kustodiev’s subtle irony caused by the impossibility of returning to the past, however, due to the originality of the national-romantic theme of his works, he is still closer to the masters of the Union of Russian Artists.
Types of provincial town
Special themes in Kustodiev’s work were “fairs”, “holidays”, “merchants’ women”, “Russian Venuses”, depicted with humor and good nature, as well as theatrically romantic paintings representing an idealized, “invented” Russian life. “They call me a naturalist,” the artist once said, “what nonsense! After all, all my paintings are a complete illusion!.. I never paint my paintings from life, they are all a figment of my imagination, fantasy.
They are called “naturalistic” only because they give the impression of real life, which, however, I myself have never seen and which has never existed.” Kustodiev boldly “mixed all styles and genres”: portrait and Volga landscapes, fairy-tale fantasies, grotesque, true monumentality and caricature, breadth of decorative feeling and pedantic “ethnography”; they often say about him - a generous, happy talent, sincere, temperamental, loving.
Back in the 1900s, the artist became interested in the theme of the province. The main line of genre painting of these years is associated with types and life provincial town. The features of his talent are most clearly revealed in a series of paintings of “beauties”, representing a generalized, collective image female beauty. These are "Merchant's Wife" (1912), "Merchant's Wife", "Beauty", "Girl on the Volga" (all - 1915). He was also attracted to fairs and folk festivals, where the creative potential of the people was expressed especially clearly and concentratedly, as if demonstrating “what they are capable of.” The hero of Kustodiev’s works is the masses, the festive crowd living and acting in the streets and squares.
The monumental images of the “holidays” whimsically and wittily combine the traditions of popular prints and high museum classics, mainly beloved by the artist of the Venetians of the Renaissance. Marked by a developed narrative beginning, fascinating to the eye, emotional, they represented a kind of dreams about provincial Rus' of the passing time - well-fed and well-groomed, bright and generous, self-satisfied and somewhat limited, about its beauties, about never boring holidays with booths, carousels, the ringing bells of threes, with the sedate conversation of old people and the cheerful talk of young people.
The decisive, “style-forming” influence on the artist’s work was exerted by the world of the Russian village - a special, primordial, simple and healthy way of life, unaffected by the diseases of modern “urban” civilization. Popular ideas about what is “good” are peaceful life, free labor, wealth in the way of life, abundance born of the earth, fun and joy, physical health, - are reflected in the rich decorative ornamentation, colorful applied art, in folklore stories and images.
These are the ones exclusively positive images Kustodiev borrows for his paintings. It reflects the poetic beginning in folk life, bypassing everything dark and tragic, to which the Wanderers artists, as well as Nekrasov, Pisemsky and other “people's sad people” devoted themselves. Kustodiev did not allow “rain and dirt, slush, drunken peasants, terrifying pavements...” into his art - he saw this in life, but he preferred to create an image of joy.
As visual material B.M. Kustodiev used many household items: painted sleighs, arches, chests, children's toys, carpets, shawls. Not a single thing is repeated and each one is created and decorated by the hands of folk craftsmen - Kustodiev admired all this and widely introduced it into his canvases.
Even the shop signs in Kustodiev’s paintings are figurative signs, symbols of Russian abundance. Their colorful symphonies evoke a sense of well-being, expressing popular ideas of contentment. From folk arts and crafts came into his work ornamental ornateness and a decorative understanding of space and form, rich richness of color, bold combinations of local colors, breadth and freedom of painterly strokes.
However, drawing inspiration and images from a folk source, Kustodiev reserved the right to creative invention and free paraphrase. He managed to recreate in his painting not the letter, but the spirit of folk art. It is no coincidence that Repin called Kustodiev “the hero of Russian painting.”
A holiday embodied in colors
Kustodievskaya painting is both musical and literary. Like a song, a story flows about a beautiful and fabulously abundant life. His characters with naive frankness show the audience themselves, their home, their habits and tastes; they ingenuously talk about their simple life: what they eat and buy at the fair, how they drink tea, sleep, go to the bathhouse, trade in shops, ride in troikas, have fun in booths, courtship, get married, die, what, finally, are their relationships with God.
“Maslenitsa” (1916) is a painting that embodies all the beauty and diversity of Russian life. Created from imagination and memory, it amazes with its amazing stereoscopicity, panoramic coverage of space and almost jewelry-like elaboration of details, which gives rise to a charming duality of perception - like a vision sweeping in the distance and, at the same time, a precious lid of a lacquer box. To embody the colorfulness of the holiday, the master finds a form close to folk art.
In this country, bewitched by the spell of frost and the setting sun, everything is permeated with movement: troikas rush, spots of bright colors flash, snow shimmers in many shades. The energy of movement and the joy of life seem to strive to dispel the spell of the cold kingdom of winter. The sunset rays, dissolving in the frosty haze, acquire an enamel glow. The artist is equally fond of church tents and carousel tents. For him, this is the personification of a single element of national life, most clearly expressed in the celebration of Maslenitsa. Kustodiev said: “The church in my picture is my signature, because it is so characteristic of Russia.”
A special “Kustodievsky” view of the village was clearly reflected in “Fair” (1906), which whimsically combines folk art techniques and a passion for modernist style. Tempera "Fair", created by order of the Expedition for the Procurement of State Papers as a popular print for the planned series of "People's Editions". In this work, similar to a skillful appliqué, the author achieved such sharpness of characteristics and vitality of the whole, which he had once only dreamed of while working on his diploma work “Bazaar in the Village.”
The image of Kustodiev’s “Beauty” invariably attracts the viewer’s sympathy. There is a unique charm and a kind of grace in the image of a plump, blond woman with a sly and serene face sitting on a chest. In a clumsy and funny pose - naivety and chaste purity, in the face - kindness and gentleness. Kustodiev managed to combine the best traditions of world painting in the depiction of a nude model with a very “own”, very Russian ideal of beauty.
The golden-pinkish tones in which the body is painted rival the freshness and radiance of the colors with the rich satin blanket of the beauty. Surrounded by roses depicted on the chest and on the wallpaper, the young woman in all the glory of freshness and health herself resembles a lushly blooming flower. Every detail of the furnishings, including the porcelain figurines in front of the mirror, tells the attentive viewer about the simple tastes of the hostess, about the typical, “philistine” life. A.M. really liked the canvas. Gorky, and the artist gave him one of the versions of the painting. Kustodiev is an artist of the everyday genre, but he brings a monumental, epic element to everyday life.
In his paintings, scenes of harvesting, haymaking and grazing horses at night are perceived as a kind of ritual, filled with a high “existential” meaning. Life is interpreted as a continuous cycle, where everything is interconnected - new and old, work and rest, worries and fun. The most applicable to Kustodiev’s heroes beautiful words Russian folklore, any of its merchants, as in a fairy tale, and “swan”, and “princess”, and “written beauty”. They are cleared of all negative things, kind, poetic, do not lecture anyone, are full of respect for the viewer and the life depicted - calm, self-sufficient, organized according to “centuries-old” laws and traditions, although somewhat limited, which causes a slight smile from the author.
Artistic talent Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev a world-famous representative of Russian painting of the last century, gave us a nostalgic world, sunny and joyful, emphasizing the feeling of a holiday with bright colors. As a student, Kustodiev not only inherited Repin’s manner and style, but also introduced his unique play of colors, which involuntarily charges with positivity and happiness. It is worth noting that Boris Mikhailovich’s development as an artist began long before he met his teacher; this is evidenced by his work, permeated with the echo of childhood affections and experiences.
Kustodiev was born in the family of a seminary teacher in 1878 in Astrakhan. Fate decreed that Boris's father died when the boy was just over a year old, and all responsibility for raising him fell on the fragile shoulders of his mother - a 25-year-old widow with four children in her arms. Despite the very modest income, the family lived harmoniously, and maternal love brightened up the difficulties of life, giving the opportunity to develop a creative personality. It was the mother, Ekaterina Prokhorovna, who instilled in the children a love of high art - theater, literature, painting. This upbringing clearly determined Boris’s future, and already at the age of 9 he knew that he would become an artist.
In 1892, having entered the Astrakhan Theological Seminary, Kustodiev simultaneously began taking lessons from the local painter A.P. Vlasova. With the blessing of Vlasov, in 1896 Kustodiev became a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and, after two years, was accepted into the studio of Ilya Repin. Great artist immediately drew attention to the student, placing high hopes on him, which later resulted in joint work on a monumental canvas -. The consequence of such a successful start was the defense of a thesis with a gold medal and an internship abroad. On his trip to Europe, the artist went with his young family, his recently born son and his young wife, Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya.
Subsequently, in 1905, paying tribute to the fateful meeting with his love, Kustodiev built a house-workshop “Terem” near the city of Kineshma, on the Volga. “Terem” became the place of work and creativity of the artist, and here, almost every summer, Boris Mikhailovich was overcome by a feeling that is commonly called happiness, inspiring him to creativity and awareness of the fullness of life. The beloved wife, who became a faithful assistant, son and daughter, in the indestructible concept of family, were reflected in the artist’s work and became a separate big theme in his painting (the painting “Morning”).
A year earlier, in 1904, the artist spent several months abroad, in and around the world, visiting exhibitions and museums. The native expanses called Boris Mikhailovich to Russia and, returning to his homeland, Kustodiev plunged into the world of journalism, collaborating with the satirical magazines “Zhupel” and “Hellish Mail”. Thus, the first Russian revolution encouraged him to try his hand at cartoons and caricatures of government officials.
The year 1907 became eventful: a trip to, passion for sculpture, membership in the Union of Artists. And in 1908, the world of theater opened up for Kustodiev - he worked as a decorator at the Mariinsky. The popularity of Boris Mikhailovich is growing, the fame of the portrait painter becomes the reason for the famous work of Nicholas II in 1915, but long before that, in 1909, trouble came to the artist’s family - the first signs of a spinal cord tumor appeared. Despite this, he continues to actively travel around Europe and receives the title of academician of painting in the same year. After visiting Austria, Italy, France and Germany, Kustodiev goes to Switzerland, where he undergoes treatment. Subsequently, in Berlin in 1913, he underwent a complex operation.
It would seem that the disease had receded and 1914 was marked by exhibitions at the Bernheim Gallery in Paris, International Art Exhibitions in Venice and. In 1916, Kustodiev underwent a second operation, which resulted in paralysis of the lower body and amputation of the legs. Since then, the artist’s whole world is his room, memory and imagination. It was during this period that he painted his most vivid and festive paintings, depicting provincial life (, “Rural Holiday”) and the beauty of the body ().
But cheerfulness and optimism are unable to overcome the disease, which, as it progresses, allows the artist to hold a lifetime exhibition of his own works in 1920 at the Petrograd House of Arts. The last milestones of his life were marked by the design of the play “The Flea” and participation in the International Exhibition in Paris.
In 1927, on May 26, at the age of 49, Boris Mikhailovich died literally while working on a sketch of the triptych he had conceived, “The Joy of Work and Leisure.” Thus ended the difficult, but full of light and joyful notes, life of the famous artist, who left us a legacy demonstrating a thirst for life and knowledge.
