Vs. Dmitriev. Vrubel's precepts
The Commands of the Rubel, Apollo No. 5, 1913
Apollo, 1913 No. 5
ROUBEL'S WITNESS
Vsevolod Dmitriev
For us too close to Vrubel in time, his true image is undoubtedly obscured. accidental. But this consideration must not stop us from trying to understand Vrubel’s precepts, for it is also certain that such attempts, however inaccurate, will not stop us. We are approaching the coming right word about Vrubel. We are spectators and participants of a significant reassessment: ancient Russian icon painting, which until recently was dead and unnecessary for us, now attracts us with more and more force as a spring of beauty alive and close. This reassessment, which has significantly changed our taste and requirements, has affected and He is the one who created the most of his works, and the one who made the most of them. In the nineteenth year of his life, we became more comfortable. They begin to seem to us a tribute to their time, the same tribute as Ivanov’s Appearance of the Messiah or Ge’s historical paintings were, while the paintings of the Cyril Church, the sketches for the Vladimir Cathedral are the last “Byzantine” ones. Vrubel’s works, previously understood only as an introduction and conclusion to the main Moscow period of the artist’s work, we want to push forward as the main one. the most vital in Vrubel...
An artist who sees the future through the heads of contemporaries It is necessary in art and this. The “righteous” one must surely guess. Or he would only give a series of random, unrelated That's why it's not convincing. From Ivanov’s correspondence we see that he realized his importance before everyone else, and most certainly everyone else. We see the same thing when we read Ge’s letters. And now, in Vrubel’s letters and memoirs already published, we find indications that Vrubel in the last years of his life approached the same interpretation of the meaning of art to which we now approach. So our reassessment -- result fashion of the day. We are only trying to follow the path indicated by Vrubel himself.
“Every day I feel more and more that the renunciation of one’s individuality and What nature has unconsciously created in defense of it is half the work of the artist. Maybe I'm talking nonsense. I'm sorry, I got up this morning. I have a very severe migraine that comes to me once or twice a month, and it cramps my neck with pain. I don’t know how long it will be, why? Suddenly, I wanted radishes and simple black So, despite the fact that each step was painfully given to the head, he wandered to the market to buy both and began to eat, and the pain began to grow. pass. When will I feel so relieved in art?
So Vrubel wrote to his sister in the mid-eighties, in the Kiev period of his life, That is, in the period of youth-fire, but also youth-unaccountable. Vrubel, prophetically saying that “the renunciation of one’s own individuality is half the task of the artist,” hastened. add Maybe I'm talking nonsense.” We see the same lack of accountability. Vrubelovsky On the one hand, a wonderful penetration into the Byzantine spirit: only for a genius is the power with which he fused his individuality with the Byzantine form possible. But on the other hand, the deviation is precisely to the sharpening of one’s individuality; to this time the first sketch of the Demon applies.
The mature period of Vrubel is the period when the human spirit is most subject to reason. He tries to reconcile his search with the prevailing search for it. time. Here is a remarkable coincidence (already mentioned). beginning articles) with mature periods of creativity in Ivanov and Ge; and with them this period passed in a tense and unsuccessful struggle with the instinctive demands of their spirit, in attempts to bend down. These requirements are up to the level of contemporary artistic norms. From this we can conclude that in the future, the next Russian genius faces a tragic fate - to waste his precious years, his maturity. into It is a cruel struggle against ourselves unless we try to elevate our artistic ideal to the ideal. those artists.
Vrubel tries to be a peaceful adorner of life, tries to replace beauty with pleasantness, style with stylization, his great spirituality with intimate soulfulness, but this is not the case. He's failing. Not finding a way out, his religious The tension increases with extraordinary rapidity: the stages of this increase are "Demons", and it was resolved by an attack of mental illness. A fit of insanity temporarily calmed Vrubel, how subside The stresses of thunderstorm nature. And then we see an extremely significant return of Vrubel to his youthful experiences: I cannot without excitement remember the words of Vrubel, said in the spring. 1901) In the Church of Cyril before the "Mountain Weeping": "That's what I really should go back to." (S. Jaremic)
Vrubel’s works of recent years are an answer to the question he posed in his youth: “When will I feel so relieved in art?” No wonder now his favorite image became a visionary prophet, as indomitable as in the Moscow period was a lonely and yearning Demon. But the last period of Vrubel is of great importance not only for the artist himself; in it we hear "relief" for all Russian art.
We have several testimonies from persons close to Vrubel in his last years, pointing to an important change in the artist.
“Vrubel’s taste has completely changed, now he despises artists who are not interested in meaning, and before he only recognized art for art.” S. Jaremić In Vrubel's understanding there was a change - now he insisted The importance of content in art. It is interesting that he now began to appreciate the previously denied Ge. But this direction of spirit led Vrubel to abnormality, or rather was already its fruit.”
We cannot agree with such an interpretation of the Vrubel fracture; from the following words of Ge and Vrubel, we will see that understanding the meaning of art by both, understanding, To which they have come through all the creative experience of life, they come in close touch. Therefore, Vrubel's interest in Ge - Not the fruit of abnormality, but the result of a long overdue attempt to find relief. in you x o d z n and so on and so on and so on. ah
"Artist-- He who brings to his living work his living thought, that is, by which he lived. The form. One without content gives a work of death – a corpse, a thing. (N.N.Ge).
Vrubel in a letter to his wife, analyzing the works of Serov, writes: “Serov does not have the hardness of technique; he takes the right tone, the right drawing, but in neither of them there is an onslaught of delight.” Here is the clue why Serov portraits leave you indifferent. - Here is identical with Ge understanding of the meaning of form only as a visible reflection of the spirit.
Creativity of the artist is a search for form, the most complete and simple, and therefore most powerfully and completely embodying his spirit. W-w-w-w-w s and s and s. Vrubel toward and both t Oh, yeah. There, therefore, Vrubel saw the form most adapted for the realization of his living, so exciting and close to us spirit, but this approach was by no means accompanied by the copying of icon painting technique. Already in Kirillovski. In his paintings, Vrubel perceives the Byzantine canons as their master, not a slave, he boldly breaks them and builds new combinations; but strangely, it is this break-up that convinces us that he really penetrated into Byzantine secrets!
In sketches for Vladimir Cathedral, Vrubel moves further away from icons But here we see a new fact of extreme importance - these watercolors are close to Ivanovo, and meanwhile Ivanov's drawings with Assyrian, not Byzantine attribution.
Therefore, in the Vrubelian works, it is not a visible approach to Byzantium that is important, but piece internal, which puts them on a par with Ivanov and icon painting. “The Head of the Prophet” (1904) is not a recreation of the icon-painting manner; there are no conventional gaps, conditional wrinkles or deliberate sharpness and elongation of the oval, the technique here is exactly the same as in the last self-portraits.This is not a drawing in the Byzantine style, this is not a Vasnetsovsky theatrical extra, dressed in a Byzantine costume and became in a Byzantine pose, and not the same extra, only magnificently made-up under the name of the iconic face of some modern recreators of icon painting, but the face of the prophet, really visible by Vrubel, which he I tried to write the letter, the most simple and real.
If Vrubel is here It only proves that it had the same religious tension, the same spiritual height that now so fascinates us to other icons. Impossible length of the arms, body, unnatural fracture of the eyes, neck – previously seemed a clear anatomical blunder, a consequence of Vrubel’s disease, but now we have learned to appreciate the form, only how accurately it reflects the spirit of the artist, and these recent blunders we perceive now as genius. expressed truth. Through the tragic experience of Vrubel, we realized that the perfection of form is inextricably linked with the spirit of the artist. I don't know. fl no n and oh, oh, oh in and out I'm sorry. (c) In the United States e ooh.
Academician Ivanov, the Wanderer Ge, the aesthetician Vrubel are on the same path when, breaking the conventional dogmas of their time, they are looking for a living form for their living spirit, and these searches undoubtedly lead them. closer to Byzantium. I want to believe that now will not disappear without a trace precious The Vrubelian experience as passed without echoing the achievements of Ivanov and Ge, which are modern The artistic movement will not turn directly to Byzantium, bypassing Vrubel, as it used to go directly to the West, bypassing Ivanov and Ge, but will go through it, because Vrubel with all his heroic life pointed out the true path to the revival of ancient Russian iconography - this wonderful art that could close together in one - benefit and beauty, high content and perfect form - art, before which we now, as an ideal, stand.