NICHOLAS I (1796–1855), Russian emperor from 1825 133 At the slightest indignation<…> I will destroy Warsaw, and, of course, I will not rebuild it again. Speech 5 October. 1835 in Lazienki Palace in front of the deputies of Warsaw? Nicholas I: Husband. Father. Emperor. - M., 2000, p. 391134 Turkey is a dying man. we

N. ROMADIN.

Self-portrait of N.M. Romadin. 1943 year. Uffizi Gallery. Florence.

"View of Samara from the Volga". 1920s.

"Tarantas". 1939 year.

Portrait of her daughter - Nina Nikolaevna Romadina. 1943 year.

"Path in the forest". 1940 year.

From the series "Volga - Russian River". Road. 1944 year.

From the series "Volga - Russian River". Moon rise. 1944 year.

"Crimea". 1965 year.

N.M. Romadin. "Pond". 1940 year.

N.M. Romadin. "White Night". 1947 year.

What an exuberant bloom
What a rampant outcome:
Lilac star vision
Bushes space flight.
The universe is blooming with jasmine
Gives birth to the milky way.
They float, pass by
I can get close to them,
Take the spiral of galaxies with your hand
Bring the flame of the stars closer to you
To forget - I am a dreamer or a practitioner,
Breathe a splash into the universe for a moment.
Sergei Gorodetsky (Poem written in the guest book at the exhibition of N.M. Romadin.)

ABOUT YOURSELF

I was born on May 19, 1903 in Samara, on Sadovaya Street, in a house in the courtyard, in the wing of a large apartment building. This house is long gone. Father, Mikhail Andreevich Romadin, and mother, Maria Kuzminichna Golovina, were peasants of the Stavropol district of the Samara province, natives of neighboring villages with the peculiar names of Piskaly and Tashla. They were located 40 kilometers from the Volga and were surrounded by a huge pine forest. The peasants worked in the felling of these forests. After graduation military service father settled in the city forever, became a railroad worker. In addition, he has been a self-taught painting artist all his life. He was a very gifted person.

After Samara, we moved to Orenburg, where my father worked as the chief conductor on the express train. Because of his restlessness, my father often changed cities, and these were always cities, not villages.

For some time he even stayed in Merv and Kushka, obviously, this is due to the fact that his father served in the army just in these places, in the railway battalion.

When I was 7-8 years old, we lived in Melekes - a quiet settlement surrounded by forest. The forest stood close to each other, heavy, dark, eternal. I loved him, watched for days, dreamed of him and was afraid. It seemed that goblin, werewolves and Baba Yaga lived there.

And suddenly, in 1913, Samara again. A huge city, "Russian Chicago", as it was called then. Broken, noisy, with a huge dock, with the Volga, filled with hundreds of barges, embroidery, boats. Constant whistles of steamers. And right there next to the station, the same unrestrainedly full of energy and movement, always running for happiness of people. Samara was famous throughout Russia for its Zhiguli beer, the secret of which was in the spring water, which was especially suitable for brewing, which lay at great depths.

Samara was surrounded by apple orchards, melons and vegetable gardens. It is no coincidence that our street was called Sadovaya. On it to the huge, endless, fragrant, bright, noisy marketplace - the Trinity Bazaar - endless carts with apples, melons, watermelons walked and walked along the cobblestone street. The smell of ripe fruits, the aroma of suburban gardens, it seems, never disappeared from our Sadovaya Street.

But my whole soul belongs to the Volga. This is the wide happiness of morning peace, the mighty, great, taking everything into itself Volga; what happiness, what joy in the morning to run to her to wallow in the sand, "fly" on a boat "to the other side", endless Volozhki, their clean streams and pebbles shining through the water on the sand, riverside bushes, burdocks ... and serene a feeling of joy and an almost constant sun. No, I won't forget this free, short childhood!

It was 1914 - the First World War. The house is in dire need. My father's meager earnings and the large family (five children, I am the youngest) made me go to sell newspapers.

I got up every day at 4-5 in the morning, ran to get newspapers, quickly sold at the station and went to school. At school he was terribly embarrassed of his position, hid it from everyone, because then the newspapermen were the most "scum", unfortunate orphans, abandoned, street children, half-thieves, who were spawned by need and war. Therefore, I grew up silent and secretive.

A crowd gathered behind newspapers at dawn, and fights broke out, children's dumps in front of a small window where newspapers were given out. Every morning, with fear, I again ran to the queue for the newspapers Volzhsky Den, Volzhskoe Slovo. I was persistent. It was necessary to run from the Volga to the station before the others with a heavy canvas sack on his shoulder. Then sell the newspapers first. I remember, the first time I brought my mother 11 kopecks, they were enough for two pounds of meat, however, "failure", that is, all sorts of non-varietal parts.

I clearly remember: a sultry, dusty day, I am sitting on the asphalt, leaning against the wall of a house on Shikhovalovskaya Street, I am wearing a shirt, pants, a canvas bag next to me, shoes. Almost all newspapers have been sold. I am 11-12 years old. It is very sad, the burden of a harsh life and injustice has already fallen on my childish shoulders. The future is very vague. Now I will run to the Trinity Bazaar for lunch - okroshka (kopeck) and a roll. From a huge vat with a scoop, a cheerful fellow pours okroshka into a bowl - pieces of meat, roach, cucumbers and so on, all together. Cheap, but solid and satisfying. How much do I need, almost a child? And tomorrow morning again my torment. Again the queue for newspapers. Sad, insulting, almost to tears. The sun is burning, the street is deserted, it's hot, but I love the heat. In moments when I was free, I painted and painted in watercolors, imitating my father.

Father always did something, humming softly. It was joyful to look at him: he is kind. "Threatened", but never touched a finger. From early childhood, I remember how he sat down and painted his amazing boats, trees, his dreams. I stood beside me as if spellbound and could not believe that it was my father. He seemed to me a supernatural being. At that moment I was afraid of him. Apparently, my state reached him, he turned, smiled and smeared me with a brush under the nose or on the cheek. I was offended for a minute, and yet he continued to seem to me a super special person.

My father's wanderings in Russia, moving from city to city with his family, and sometimes without her (he simply left his mother with the children and left), I explain by his desire to get out of want, to get out of the circle above which he was in his abilities. Essentially a ruined talent.

After his death, there remained a small library, in it books on astronomy, botany, medicine, "Praise of stupidity" by E. Rotterdam and "Herbalists". He knew only about herbs, he treated himself, healed others. Sometimes, taking a piece of bread, he would go to the forest for two or three days and appear from there all hung, as if overgrown with grasses, dark-skinned, stocky (he was short), as if a picturesque shock emerged from the forest. Light blue eyes shone like Vrubel's "Pan". He graduated only from a two-year parish school.

When I started painting at the age of 8, my father resisted it with all his might, took away the paint, destroyed the drawings, saying at the same time: "I don't want you to go hungry, but if you become an artist, you will be in poverty all your life. You have to be a technician." He died in 1936, when I had long since graduated from the institute, exhibited a lot, they wrote about me - his joy and pride for me were immense.

My mother, nee Golovina, was an illiterate, but by nature very intelligent woman. Domineering, stern, deeply religious and highly moral, she was demanding of herself and people. She retained her pure Russian speech. Sayings, proverbs, spoken to the place, and poured from her lips. When I was young, I didn't appreciate it much. He was offended that she was unkind, harsh. But later I understood why: the father calmly left home, leaving five children in her arms. He knew that she would cope, feed her family. The mother never complained, she firmly knew her strength, knew how to stand up for the children and only allowed herself to "kill herself" and sigh in conversations with her neighbors.

I remember my mother's serious illness. They had already collected her, sent into the unknown. From noon and all night I knelt down and prayed for her, for her life. I remember how she said: "Kolya, get up." "I will not get up," I answered, "until I pray for your life." Mom recovered. A hard life left its mark on her character, she was not cheerful, she never sang, but the arrival of guests at the house was sacred to her. The guests were exposed to all the best, to the detriment of their own. Already in old age she sometimes spent winters with me. Meeting my friends with dumplings, pies, showing them the wealth of her son was her happiness and pride. Last years my parents lived in Tashkent. At that time, many former railway workers, friends of their youth, lived in Uzbekistan.

The life of a newspaperman, a seller from a stall at the station of every little thing (cigarettes, notebooks, pencils) and even bread, which his mother baked, continued until 1918. There was no time to go to school. The last two years - 15 and 16 years - I hardly studied, school seemed to me far away. The life of the Volga city in the days of war and revolution, the station, demobilized soldiers, sailors - that's among whom I was.

In 1918, I volunteered for the Red Guard. For my good handwriting and ability to handle horses, I was hired as a personal messenger for the regional commissioner. I carried the commissioner's errands around the city on thoroughbred horses. This, of course, gave me great pleasure. I received a military ration, which our whole family lived on. This is how I remember myself - thin, pale, always half-starved.

Since 1919, Samara has started a peaceful life. I understood that I needed to learn. Demobilized, re-entered school. At the end of the summer, he made an attempt to enter an art institute in Moscow. A trip to Moscow at that time was a whole epic. All of Russia was moving. The demobilized returned to the east. Crowds of people rode from east to west, in every direction: returning home, looking for their own people, carrying sacks of flour and bread. Echelons are packed with exhausted, tired people; train tickets did not exist. You need to contrive, to get into the heating house when leaving and there to win a place for yourself, and he was not there not only to sit, but, in essence, to stand.

With a folder of drawings, a piece of bread, a bottle of boiled water (there was cholera) and in one shirt, I climbed into the carriage. They stood close to each other. Gradually sat down on the floor and fell asleep in the evening, tightly hugging each other. The next morning I saw with horror that the side of my shirt was soaked with herring, a bag with which a neighbor sleeping next to me had piled on me.

On the fifth day I am in Moscow. I settled down in Razgulyai, in the attic. The workers of the workers lived there. Hungry. Moscow is deserted, Denikin was advancing.

It was not possible to enter Vkhutemas. I was given a certificate from the Council of People's Commissars signed by Ulyanov-Lenin that this year there is no admission to the Vkhutemas.

On the second day of my arrival I went to the Tretyakov Gallery. I walked barefoot, I was so unaccustomed to wearing summer shoes in Samara, of course, I walked on foot from Razgulyai. Came very early. Opposite the Tretyakov Gallery, where the art school is now, I lay down on the grass and fell asleep. When the gallery was opened, I put on my shoes and entered.

It is impossible to describe the impression. I was stunned by the beauty, depth and height of Russian art. I knew many pictures from postcards (my father liked to write from postcards), some from reproductions. But then I saw everything real, magnificent. Vrubel completely bewitched me. Nesterov, Repin, Surikov, how can you list them all! Then I realized that I had to learn. Drive home, finish high school, return to Moscow prepared and go to college. Which I did.

The way back home to Samara was even more difficult. On Razgulyai I exchanged my top shirt for bread, but, unfortunately, I ate it so quickly that I didn't even notice.

On the train, I was terribly hungry on the top shelf. Demobilized sailors and soldiers were traveling in the car. The next day, one of them noticed that I was not eating anything and did not go down from the shelf, and shared the food with me. Seeing my folder asked if I could draw it. After the first drawing, others also wanted to pose. I drew, and they fed me, and everyone was happy.

How disturbing extraordinary time... In the carriage, quarrels often broke out between soldiers and sailors. They grabbed their arms, everyone was armed. I remember how one handsome sailor, speaking with contempt of the infantry, said: "Well, what do you have - riding breeches, riding breeches, riding breeches (meaning rifle shots), but we have - flare! Flare! Flare! And immediately five hundred under ice (meaning artillery salvos from the ship) ".

So we got to Syzran. Bridge over the Volga. Echelons with civilians are not allowed through it. This is understandable, the bridge is strategic, the only one connecting the two parts of Russia. There were countless people at the station in Syzran. I'm waiting, hungry again, with me only a folder with pictures. My neighbor, a Red Guard, who has a certificate with an octagonal seal stating that he has been demobilized and is returning home, suggested: "Now we will get lunch for two." I wrote in the certificate with a chemical pencil: "Dinner for two", and we went across the rails to the evacuation center, where the cook, standing at a huge cauldron, was pouring liquid soup with a ladle. Information lay piled up beside him. Glancing at ours, he said: "One certificate - one lunch" - and poured it into the pot. My good friend shared with me, we sat down on the asphalt of the platform and took turns, scooping up with one spoon, ate soup. He was taking home only one, albeit huge, basket with a lock (in which things were carried at that time), and in the basket there was only a pot and a spoon.

When the military train moved to the bridge, everyone rushed after it, clinging to the footpegs on the way. Around there was a chain of soldiers with rifles, they shot us down with rifle butts: they had no right to carry people across the bridge. But one way or another, the people made their way into the cars. I made my way too. The doors and windows were closed. We were suffocating. Red Army men with rifles stood on the "brakes" and, when the passengers tried to open the windows, they started shooting. Finally the Volga was moved, the windows and doors were opened. The train reached Samara without hindrance.

I'M AT HOME!

In Samara, for the last few months before my trip to Moscow, I studied at a suburban commune school. I returned there.

This school, which went down in history as "Bashkirovka" because it was in the house and gardens of the Volga flour-grinding millionaire Bashkirov, had a great influence on my development. A house, or rather, several houses, stood on the beautiful high bank of the Volga, buried in gardens. They had their own descent to the Volga, their own boats. It was heaven. We have our own electricity. The timber was fed upstairs by a machine - an electric gate. We all worked: sawing, chopping wood, heating the stoves ourselves. There was also a lathe shop, a lot of their own land. We also worked in vegetable gardens. It had its own grocery pantry.

The house has preserved a magnificent library, editions of the classics, casts from antique sculptures, huge photographs of the sculptures of Phidias. And a wonderful assembly hall.

The teaching staff is of a very high professional level. At that time of famine, we were taught by university teachers, and at Samara University there were mainly teachers from Petrograd, who came to this Volga city during the war and devastation.

The soul and organizer of "Bashkirovka" is the director of the school, she is also a history teacher - Vera Nikolaevna Lukashevich. The daughter of a Narodnaya Volya, who took a course in history at the Sorbonne, an active and just person, she brought into everything the sublime enthusiasm of Russian democracy. In a difficult time of famine in the Volga region, she sought everything possible and impossible for the school. I went to Samara on foot, in bast shoes (there were no shoes), and the school was located 10 kilometers from Samara. This truly Russian woman endured hardships and hardships with dignity.

All kinds of circles worked at the school. Almost everyone could get a musical education: there was such an abundance of musical instruments - 12 pianos, 5 grand pianos. Nikolai Dmitrievich Samarin, who graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, supervised the musical and dramatic studies. They staged operas and dramas. In "Boris Godunov" I played Boris and painted the scenery. The school connected the students in it for life. Calling himself a "Bashkir" was flattering.

Once a delegation from Moscow arrived at the school. Whether I was familiar with a new undertaking - the organization of a school-commune - or just an artistic group, I don't know. Among them was a certain Goroshchenko, at the concert he performed as a violinist. Before the concert, as always for all performances, I drew a poster. On it he depicted the Volga, the Zhigulevsky gate. Goroshchenko became interested in the poster, got to know me and said that he would send me a book by J. Ruskin about art from Moscow. And he really did. This book made a huge impression on me. I studied it from cover to cover. He quoted many passages from memory: "Science studies the relationship of things to each other, and art only their relationship to man." In a letter that Goroshchenko put into the book, he wrote that I needed to go to Moscow to study. I read about the same thing from Ruskin: "Half of our artists, possessing knowledge, perish from a lack of education; the best of those whom I have met were educated and illiterate. However, the ideal of an artist is not illiteracy; he must be very well-read, versed in the best books and perfectly well-bred, both on the inside and on the outside. In a word, he must be fit for a better society and keep away from everyone. "

Until 1940, I never met Goroshchenko again, did not know who he was and where he lived. Suddenly, in 1940 in Tarusa, I met him, I do not remember which of the artists introduced us. He taught drawing at some of the institutes, which means, besides the violinist, he was also an artist. I did not remember the book I had sent, too many years had passed. Obviously, doing good is inherent in him. He was pleased to know how important his invaluable gift was to me at my 16 years old.

I studied with extraordinary zeal, passing exams for two classes in a year. In 1922, in the spring, I graduated from school, entered the Samara Art College, the three-year course of which I finished in one year. In the same winter he attended lectures at the Samara University.

In Samara, we, students of the art technical school, organized a theater studio, prepared two performances, including Gogol's "The Marriage", played them on club stages, divided the camps and lived and studied for this.

In 1923, I came to Moscow again, passed the entrance exams and was admitted to the Vkhutemas. My whole future life is connected with Moscow.

The first course - drawing by Shcherbinovsky. A wonderful teacher and artist, a friend of Chaliapin and Korovin. He has 105 people in his workshop. At the same time, some professors have only 8-10 people. Painting - at Drevin. I studied with great enthusiasm, came to the workshop first. The guards already knew me and let me go.

Two scenes in Shcherbinovsky's studio. First. He himself, sternly addressing me: "You let go of your hair, are you drawing for an album?" I am terribly embarrassed, I try to explain that I have a bath ticket, a free ticket, a haircut too, but while it’s the turn, I came to draw. The scholarship is 8 rubles, you can't do without free baths and a hairdresser. Second scene. We draw, we are 105 people. Kostya Dorokhov, our friend, student, is posing. Posing also because of the dire need. Shcherbinovsky walks past me, looks at my drawing and says: "Stop, look at him, I predict a great future for him. I had to teach for thirty years to say these words. Here is a lion, and you are all kittens." This is so unexpected and so flattering, to me, a first year student.

From the second year I studied with Falk. He treated me very well. We walked around Moscow with him, went to museums. I asked him not to come up to me during class, he agreed and did not touch me. The fact was that, approaching a student, Falk liked to take a brush and make a black outline at work. This very confused me, and I asked him to leave me to myself: "If it turns out worse, you tell me about it, Robert Rafailovich," I asked him. He agreed, and we talked about work with him, walking in the evenings in Moscow.

When I was in my second year, eight works from all over the Vkhutemas were selected for the Paris exhibition, among them one of mine was chosen. The Tretyakov Gallery acquired two of my landscapes from the Moscow Art Exhibition. In 1930 I graduated from the institute with the title of "1st category easel painter". Since then, my life has been entirely devoted to art.

Through all the ordeals and trials, I carried one dream - art. And now my dream has come true. In 1939 I went to the Volga and started painting small landscapes. I worked very hard. I decided to make an exhibition. Mashkov, Lentulov, Turzhansky spoke at the opening. Nesterov came to the exhibition. Before that, he did not go to exhibitions for 20 years. And Olga Valentinovna Serova, Serov's daughter, brought it. Since then, I have become a regular participant in all all-Union and anniversary exhibitions, and my first personal exhibition took place in 1940. Since 1950 my monographs have been published.

FRAGMENTS FROM THE DIARY OF DIFFERENT YEARS

Art does not depict what is visible, but makes it visible.

I do not want anything from life, except for the feeling of joy and a sense of justice, the purposefulness of life and the love with which I am overwhelmed with everything: Russia, women, children, human sorrow.

I have a duty to Russia, to my country, to the best Russian people. I separate the best, kind, loving Russian people. The best are those who have been given the Gift of love.

I myself do not get tired of thanking life for this Gift. My love for nature, for all these twigs, fir-trees, deep forest, calm water, stormy spring chirping of sparrows, croaking of crows, cry of magpies and eternal murmur of a brook fills my heart with the meaning of existence.

I live in my trips uncomfortably, without any comfort, but joyfully. It seems to me that I honestly fulfill my duty, overcome the capricious desire for tranquility, worldly well-being. I've always tried to avoid this. Happiness and unhappiness are not always distinguishable, often one follows from the other. Holding this view of life, I am almost constantly happy.

God gave me happiness to love the beauty of nature, its pure, unblemished soul, to absorb and transmit my feelings to her.

You are the only one, my beautiful Earth - there is hardly any more beautiful living planet. Apparently, religion and ancient thinkers, who considered the Earth as the center of the universe, are more right than all the latest discoveries, assumptions and scientific hypotheses. It will be so pitiful to part with you, with the happiness that you give, with that unspeakable joy of life, with its great instincts - love, kindness, preservation of life and prolongation of the family.

What lies ahead? I know that it was not in vain that I lived, worried, thought - as if preparing for a new activity. Now the earth is sleeping. Autumn is beautiful in its eternal uniqueness. The fallen snow created a wonderful ornament on trees, branches, bushes, created a fragile shape on delicate branches. And the secret ...

The landscape offers the full opportunity to freely express your feelings.

The landscapes of Pushkin, Tyutchev, Turgenev, Yesenin, Levitan and others are surprisingly consonant with people and will constantly sound in our hearts.

Today, as usual, I thought a lot - why do I pay so much attention to skill? What is it with me - the notorious "Russian academicism"? After all, the main thing is feeling. It is during periods of decline, degradation of the spirit that mastery begins to replace feeling.

There is no greater truth in art than life itself. Only she is the beauty comprehended by the feeling, which the artist tries to reproduce.

ABOUT NESTEROV

I began to emphasize Nesterov among artists from the age of 16, when I first came to Moscow and got into the Tretyakov Gallery. His "Bartholomew" touched me so deeply that I immediately put him on a par with Vrubel; I was also struck by the portrait of Mikhail Vasilyevich's wife, Ekaterina Petrovna.

Then, already in 1935, his personal exhibition took place at the Museum of Fine Arts in the Round Hall. She made me incredibly happy, and I, then a pantsless student of Vkhutemas, dreamed of buying it a shepherdess - "Svirel".

I eagerly listened and read about Nesterov everything I could find out and get hold of. Judgments about him were fairly uniform and characterized him as stern, fanatically honest about his work and purpose in the life of an artist.

My ideas about Nesterov became much deeper after my meetings and conversations with Pavel Dmitrievich Korin, with whom I had known for a long time. But all these were just sensations in absentia.

And we met Mikhail Vasilyevich in 1940 at my personal exhibition at Kuznetsky Most.

When I brought the works to the showroom and put them together in a corner, they fit into a very small space. I was surprised: how will they occupy the whole hall? And only unaccountable courage prompted me not to retreat, so that I was as brave as when the youth swam across the Volga near Samara.

But even now, when I bring my works to the Academy of Arts, I continue to wonder how little work is needed to occupy all the halls! In 1940, at that exhibition, I had the same impression. How much excitement before the exhibition!

Nikolai Vasilievich Vlasov, a friend of all famous Moscow artists, organizer of exhibitions from private collections, an expert in Russian painting, informed me that tomorrow, I do not remember the date, at 11 o'clock in the morning Nesterov himself will visit my exhibition, and his daughter Valentina Serova will bring him.

I was very excited - it seemed to me that it was absolutely impossible for one reason or another. When I came to the exhibition in the morning, the hall was already quite full. The instantly scattered message that Nesterov would arrive excited many. Everyone wanted to see him, but I must say that he did not attend art exhibitions then.

I was sitting in the middle of the hall and suddenly I saw a man of small stature, with sharp movements, a sharp, dry-faced sage and ascetic. You should have seen how he went up to the doorman, took off his muffler with both hands and handed it over. I was struck by his imperious gesture and his hands clenched into fists. This gesture reminded me of the portrait of I.P. Pavlov. Mikhail Vasilyevich walked around the exhibition several times and came up to me. He said some good, praiseworthy words and invited him to visit him. I became his second student after Corin, who had been his student for 26 years before me.

Two days later I came to Nesterov's house for the first time. He lived in Sivtsevoy Vrazhk. He sat me in a small room in a chair with him and hugged me. The two were very cramped in the chair. He asked, "How do you know this?" I immediately realized that he was asking about the essence of creativity, and began to answer from afar. He said that he studied with Falk. He remarked: "Falk does not know." I told him that I consider Shcherbinovsky to be my first teacher, Mikhail Vasilyevich objected: "How could Shcherbinovsky know this? However," he added, "Shcherbinovsky was a friend of Korovin, he could hear from him, but he did not know himself." Then I said that I also consider Krymov my first teacher. He nodded: "Krymov knows. Bring everything that you write, good and bad. It is obligatory. And especially bad."

I brought him everything, I then painted small things, the size of a palm, after I painted the paintings for which I was "glorified", with figures of life size: 50 figures - "Land of the Soviets". I realized that this was not mine, this art was at the service of polemics, politics, and reviews. With the help of Nesterov, I realized that with this art you can't go far. I realized that I needed an endless study of nature, this was not enough for me, because the frantic pace did not make it possible to study nature, and without a deep knowledge of nature there can be no artist. True, Nesterov told me at the exhibition that these things, my compositions, are also art, only I had little preparation for them. Even before my first visit to the house of Mikhail Vasilyevich, at our first meeting at the exhibition, he seriously asked: "Before you come to me, please answer two questions: do you have the will and do you like money?" I definitely answered him that I don't like money, but I seem to have will.

Soon Mikhail Vasilyevich asked to show him my wife. They received us in the evening, very friendly, sincerely, with the whole family: Ekaterina Petrovna, daughter Natasha and son Alyosha. The impression is as if we have known each other for a long time. My wife, Nina Gerasimovna, came in a dark blue dress that she had been wearing for 8 years. At parting, in the hallway, Mikhail Vasilyevich handed her a coat, quickly jumped away from the door (he was afraid of catching a cold) and quietly said to me: "And from this side I am calm." From that day, our friendship with the Nesterov family began, which continues to this day.

June 1 is Mikhail Vasilyevich's birthday, he turned 78 years old. Having sent a preliminary congratulatory telegram and received an invitation from him by phone, he came with his wife.

A lot of people gathered. Mikhail Vasilyevich sat me down on a chest, pressed me to him and said: "Here, on this chest, some artists are sitting." That evening I had the good fortune to meet Mikhail Vasilyevich's friends: Tyutchev's grandson Nikolai Ivanovich, architect Shchusev, artist Kruglikova, singers Ksenia Georgievna Derzhinskaya and Nadezhda Andreevna Obukhova, baritone Panteleimon Markovich Nortsov (the best Onegin) and others. With Ksenia Georgievna Derzhinskaya, we were connected by close friendship until her death.

The evening turned out to be very festive, very cordial and very simple. Ordinary words, the usual congratulations, but everything is inspired by the presence of a great artist.

I remember another evening. The phone rang: "Mikhail Vasilyevich is talking to you. I invite you to my place today at four o'clock, would you like someone else to be there? I don't know who you want, but if you don't mind, Konchalovsky will be there." ... I arrived minute by minute, a little later Pyotr Petrovich appeared with his wife. The Konchalovsky couple was, I remember, carried away, they said what interesting portraits Pyotr Petrovich painted and what a wonderful Olga Vasilievna. When I felt that we were too late, I began to persuade everyone to leave because it was too late and Mikhail Vasilyevich needed to go to bed. Indeed, the owner began to fall asleep. But Pyotr Petrovich was very carried away, and Olga Vasilievna too. They did not want to leave, and everyone said that it was too early. They were cheerful and carefree, like children. And by the end of our meeting, Nesterov was sitting completely gray, he needed to undergo procedures - he developed an illness.

Nesterov instilled in me: "Your perception will weaken with age, and therefore you must develop the technique in advance. Having mastered the technique perfectly, you will be able to work in the same way without diminishing your merits. An artist needs technique and its improvement so that the feeling does not go to overcome difficulties. connected with the image of nature, and being freed, it would flow freely. The main thing in painting is not to lose what is given. This is a great law.

Oh, how good, how good it is to have talent, and give, and enjoyment, which with money appears a great many, and praise, praise ... But remember, talent is a heavy duty, it is not pleasure. You are responsible to the nation for the talent handed over to you. You must carry it to the end of your life. This is what you live for.

The word search in art is false from start to finish. Search can be understood only in the sense of overcoming the difficulties of expressing nature. You need to search in order to achieve authenticity, sublimity, and not a senseless distortion of forms of expression. Distortion of forms in art is not new, it is a fanaticism, from which longing takes. In Greece and Rome, they took a fine from an artist or sculptor if he did not express in the work of his soul, the very thing that is truly valuable, survives centuries and leaves an unspeakable feeling of eternal truth, speaks about our ancestors, ancestors, their thoughts, deeds and love.

All great eras created art without a name: Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance. Our great icon painting was also nameless. She is above all individual talent, and she is not fragmented into individualities. We only assume Rublev, Dionisy and so on according to the brush of the master.

Our new era will eventually come to the same. And now there are many searches, extreme individualism. All these searches do not determine anything and will be swept away by themselves. We are facing a new beginning and new era in art, but it matures for centuries, not decades.

Humanity cannot exist without art, and our art will be great and prophetic, it will be higher than what was at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries.

There are three geniuses in Russian painting: Rublev, Ivanov and Vrubel. "

Nesterov said that when he expressed his feelings to Vrubel, his admiration for his work, Vrubel replied: "You have Bartholomew!"

Why did such a picky person like Vrubel appreciate this picture so highly?

Nesterov has a simple, unpretentious, "frail" nature, sincere and quiet, keeping hidden joy in itself. Her simplicity and humanity are so deeply connected with the Russian heart! Only Nesterov understood this feeling. He has the deepest secret of the relationship between man and nature. His nature is the environment that raised a person, gave him spirit and strength.

I asked Mikhail Vasilyevich if it was possible to paint on old canvases. He replied: "Only if the canvas is cleaned to the ground, but it is better not to paint. I had one case when the work was completely lost, and the second when I managed to save it. I painted a portrait, I liked the person. This portrait was praised by V. Vasnetsov. He was already old, as I am now, but he came to me. He liked the portrait. After a while, the portrait began to crumble. And nothing can be done with it. It is on a roll, but it does not seem to exist. Painting "Father Sergius" , which is in the Russian Museum, painted on a cleaned canvas. Good people even helped me to clean it off. I put it on the exhibition "The World of Art". It was purchased for the Russian Museum. It paid well. , to the corner of the picture. I see - a piece fell off, then - hooked with a fingernail - the paint peels off quite easily. And the picture was going to be sent to the World Exhibition in Paris. I told what was the matter - the picture could not be sent either to Paris or even to be sold to the museum. Inspection I was told that she would not be sent to Paris, but she should stay in the Russian Museum. After the exhibition "World of Art" it was handed over to restorers, they spent a long time with it and transferred the painting to a new canvas. "Father Sergius" remained on another canvas. "

In 1941, the war broke out, I took my family to Tashkent, our meetings and conversations stopped, and on October 19, 1942 Mikhail Vasilyevich died. Before my departure from Moscow, at parting, he said about the war: "You have to lose your head to attack Russia, Russia cannot be defeated."

Film group: replenishment

“There are things full of deep meaning, which in art can be understood much more clearly than in science. They say that the water of some seas is more transparent in the light of the moon than in the light of the sun. "
Lucian BLAGA.

The application for the film was filed on December 18, 1968, and already on March 3, 1970, the literary script was approved and permission to run was obtained.
Film critics have calculated: work on "Solaris" lasted three years, four months and five days.
The new material required special solutions, and, therefore, different means of embodiment and people.
The operator of the film was Vadim Yusov, who shot all the previous films of Andrei Tarkovsky.

Andrey Tarkovsky and Vadim Yusov on the set of Solaris.

But as an artist (whose duties included not only the creation of the scenery for the film, but - taking them into account - and the production), the director invited his old friend, since his studies at VGIK, Mikhail Romadin, about whom we already wrote in connection with “ Andrey Rublev ".

Gennady Shpalikov, Mikhail Romadin and Andrei Tarkovsky. 1960s.

“Mikhail Nikolaevich,” wrote journalist Valentina Rechkina in her essay about Romadin, “artist of the films“ The First Teacher ”,“ The Story of Asya Klyachina ... ”,“ Noble nest”Andron Konchalovsky and the film parables of Andrei Tarkovsky“ Solaris ”.
And lastly, his main title for centuries, although Romadin was a People's Artist of Russia, a laureate of the State Prize of the RSFSR, an honorary professor at VGIK, an honorary doctor of the Belgian Academy of Contemporary Art, and so on.
How did that density and reliability of the dreamy, prophetic dream about the noosphere, the sphere of the mind, shown in Solaris, come about?
We all come from childhood, and Misha was incredibly lucky in this sense, he is an artist in the third generation - his grandfather, M.A. Romadin, primitivist painter; and father, N.M. Romadin, a landscape painter and academician, created a house - a center of culture.

Mikhail Romadin, his wife Victoria Dukhina, mother Nina Romadina and father - academician landscape painting Nikolay Romadin. Photo by V. Khetagurov.

Mikhail felt cramped within the framework of realism, which at that time was the only accepted one, and he graduated from the art department of VGIK. Cinema, as a "dream factory", was closer to his aspirations, his method, which rejects determinism.
In Romadin's world, order is a derivative of chaos.

Hereinafter - sketches by Mikhail Romadin for the film "Solaris". 1970-1972

Andrei Tarkovsky wrote about this feature: “Romadin's temperament is hidden, driven inside. In his best works, temperament from outwardly understandable dynamism and chaos, superficially ordered, as often happens, is melted into a calm and noble form, quiet and simple. In my understanding, a high artistic principle is hidden in this principle ”.

Tarkovsky studied at an art school in Chudovsky lane, where Romadin later studied with the same teachers. In general, the interest of that stratum, which was called the intelligentsia, in art was general.
Romadin says that they liked to play like this: cover the reproduction in the album with a sheet with a one and a half centimeter hole, and guess the master “by a stroke”.

This common cultural field promised not only mutual understanding, but also a completely different level of comprehension of the material and the solution of the tasks posed as a result.
Thus, according to the memoirs of Mikhail Romadin, “for Solaris, Tarkovsky proposed to create an atmosphere similar to the painting by the early Renaissance artist Vittore Carpaccio.
In the picture, the embankment of Venice, ships, in the foreground - a lot of people. But the most important thing is that all the characters are immersed in themselves, do not look at each other [...] do not interact with each other in any way. "

Vittore Carpaccio. Miracle relics of the Holy Cross. 1494. Fragment.

To translate this idea into the film, the method of detachment was used.
So, in the frame of Chris' farewell to the Earth, it is raining. According to the director's plan, the actor Banionis should not have reacted in any way. However, he still shivered from the cold.
“The shot is ruined, what a pity,” Andrei Tarkovsky responded to this.

“Tarkovsky, - recalled the actress Natalya Bondarchuk, - could not stand props, trying to achieve from every detail of the image. So, in the cold functionality of cosmic existence, touching islands of spirituality, living worlds of people who voluntarily left the Earth for the eternal search for universal Contact arose. "

This "earthly" (in this case, it is, in fact, a synonym for "spiritual"), scattered in the cabins of the Solaris researchers, is concentrated in the library.
“When we with Tarkovsky and the operator Yusov,” recalled M.N. Romadin, - just started working on the film "Solaris", we were able to see the new film "A Space Odyssey" by Stanley Kubrick. I wanted to do something exactly the opposite. This is how the film turned out - not science fiction, but nostalgic - for culture, love, loyalty. "

Working with Andrei Tarkovsky in this film, in turn, had a significant impact on the work of Mikhail Romadin as a painter. It is here that one should look for the origins of the artist's fantastic realism.

Mikhail Romadin. Self-portrait. 1975 year

Solaris became the first full-length film by Andrei Tarkovsky shot in color. He did not shoot more black and white films, although he loved monochrome, as evidenced by the episodes filmed in this way, which are present in all the other films of the director.
This circumstance, as well as the formally fantastic genre of the film, required a detailed study of the costumes of the characters in the picture.
Andrei Tarkovsky proposed to take the place of costume designer Nelly Fomina. The choice was successful: later she worked on all the films of the director, shot by him in the USSR.
“Before me, another costume designer worked at Solaris,” recalled Nelly Fomina. She offered Andrey costumes of so-called promising models, for example, unusual shoes with thick soles with bulldog toes. Andrey refused to work with this artist, invited me. […]
For 16 years I have been friends with his family. We met long before he invited me to work with him. This did not affect the work in any way, there was no, as they say, familiarity. Work is work. I never aspired to be friends with directors, never asked for them, as many did, never curry favor. I'm not that kind of person, I have a very tough character. "

Nelly Fomina is a costume designer in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.

In an interview, she talked about how a costume designer usually works. First, he “reads a literary or director's script, working through the scenes all the changes in costumes that should take place in the film.
After the script has been read, there is a meeting with the director, where he talks about each character, about his character. Then the costume for each scene is discussed, when and how it changes - so throughout the script. And after the costume has been figuratively solved, the artist makes sketches or picks up a costume from the wardrobe warehouses.
This is not an easy task, since the men's section at Mosfilm alone has 220,000 suits. The main thing is to find the only correct solution that will correctly carry the image.
Andrei Tarkovsky did not like new costumes. Even the costumes sewn for the shooting had to be aged. All this happened even before the actors were approved for roles.
The idea of \u200b\u200bcostumes for the heroes of the film "Solaris" belonged directly to the director himself.
“Andrei Arsenievich raised the question of not making the costumes of the future, fantastic costumes, but making modern ones that would not distract the viewer from the text, from the meaning.”
There was another reason for that: "he immediately said that we will not make any fantasy costumes, because in a few years they will be laughed at."
“My solution to the“ space ”images,” says Nelly Fomina, “was as follows: only some details from real cosmonaut suits were sewn onto completely ordinary suits. Thus, belonging to the cosmos was emphasized, but at the same time we avoided any notions. […]
The hero's leather jacket is a very precise item of clothing, because an astronaut is, first of all, a pilot.
There were also crocheted female models, but this is not annoying, but only adds a philosophical note to the story. After all, today fashion looks back at the 1940s, 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, as if saying: the future is our past.

Crochet dresses for women were becoming fashionable in the early 1970s.

Actually, the film clearly reads the same idea: “People of the future live and strive for the way of life of the past, for the aesthetics of the past,” said cameraman Vadim Yusov about the concept of the film.
Crocheted (like the napkins of our grandmothers) mother's dress in the protagonist's memories creates a feeling of home coziness and comfort. […]

Chris's mother (Olga Barnet).

I want to draw your attention to the beautiful color scheme of the characters' costumes, there is nothing accidental here. A clash of warm and cold shades.
These are all - the colors of the earth, sky and sun.
Hari's earth-colored suit. This is how Chris remembered her. These are warm shades of brown. Soft, and inviting textures to touch them: suede dresses (like a warm skin of a tender animal), voluminous yarn of the cape ...

Hari (Natalia Bondarchuk) in her dress.

The dress is graphic in design and includes shades of yellow, the colors of the Sun, and Solaris influences. Hari belongs to both the Earth (as a memory) and Solaris (as a phantom born to him).
I liked how in one interview Natalya Bondarchuk said: “I don’t remember what Rhea (the heroine of Soderbergh’s Solaris) is wearing. And you will remember our dress forever ”.
There is a lot of yellow in the costumes, as if the mysterious space Ocean casts bright highlights on the characters ...
These colors contrast beautifully with the bright blue, the color of the sky.
And reflective white. White is the absence of color, space, airless space ...
And complements the color palette interspersed with pearl gray. Colors of the steel plating of the spacecraft ...
The costumes, of course, do not exist in the film by themselves, they are perfectly integrated into the scenery of the most talented artist Mikhail Romadin. "

Chris (Donatas Banionis) with his mother (Olga Barnet).

For Andrei Tarkovsky, Nelly Fomina became a real member of his team, as she was a true professional who understood his ideas well and grasped literally everything on the fly.
The director, as a rule, did not tolerate being on the set of people who were not directly involved in the work, asked her, if possible, not to leave, to always be there.
“I often asked Tarkovsky's wife, Larisa,” the artist recalled, “why he doesn't let me go, because I needed to work on the next costume. She replied that he was calmer with me. Apparently, I didn't irritate him. "
As for the stage where the film was made, and the director's reverent attitude to this process and the place where it takes place, here is how the actor Donatas Banionis, who played the main role in Solaris, recalled it:
“I remember one of the workers setting the scenery was standing behind the camera and eating a sandwich. Andrey shouted at him: “Get out of here! This is a holy place! This is not a place to eat! ” […]
For Tarkovsky, the altar was a film set. Holy place!"

After Solaris, Nelly Fomina worked with Andrei Tarkovsky in the films Mirror and Stalker.
Unfortunately, few of the costumes for those famous paintings have survived. “The film ended,” Nelly Fomina recalled, “they were dumped somewhere in warehouses, and everything was lost.”
True, the famous dress of Khari has been preserved in the Mosfilm museum, and the artist herself has a sheepskin coat, in which the actress Alisa Freindlich starred - Stalker's wife.

Currently Nelly Fomina teaches at the Advanced Directing Courses. She has no professional experience. She has created hundreds of costumes for 44 domestic and foreign films and performances. She worked with directors A. Ptushko, M. Kalatozov, N. Mikhalkov, A. Konchalovsky, E. Ryazanov, R. Balayan, S. Bondarchuk, O. Efremov, V. Fokin and others.
Sketches of her costumes are now kept in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Bakhrushin Museum, the Pushkin Literary Museum, the Gogol, Turgenev museums, " Yasnaya Polyana", Film studio" Mosfilm ".

Cover of Nelly Fomina's book-album "Costumes for the films of Andrei Tarkovsky". Cygnet. 2015.

The collaboration with the composer Eduard Artemyev, which began with the film Solaris, was of great importance for Andrei Tarkovsky. The relationship that emerged continued later while working on the paintings "Mirror" and "Stalker".
Eduard Nikolaevich received his musical education first at the Moscow Choir School, and then at the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with Andrei Konchalovsky.
He got along with his brother - Nikita Mikhalkov. "We are old friends," says Eduard Artemiev, "and we also became related to him ... I am the godfather of his daughter Ani, and he is my grandchildren ..."
Thus, he was a person very close to Andrei Arsenievich's circle.
After graduating from the conservatory, the composer recalled, “our entire course - string players, pianists, theorists - was sent to Magadan, and I was going there, but there was a fateful meeting with Evgeny Alexandrovich Murzin.
He was a military man, engaged in a closed topic, intercepting a moving target. The fact is that he, too, was in love with Scriabin's music, and under the influence of this music he decided to build a synthesizer. "
This is how the creative path of one of the pioneers of electronic music began.
“The first picture, - said Eduard Nikolaevich, - I made in 1963 at the Odessa studio. […] The film was about space travel. At that time I was one of the few people involved in electronic music, and the composer Vano Muradeli invited me just to design space episodes. "
Eduard Artemiev first met Andrei Tarkovsky, according to him, "in the year 1970" at the apartment of the artist Mikhail Romadin. At the time, he was working as a senior instructor in instrumentation at the Institute of Culture.
“After the studio,” the composer recalled about that fateful meeting, “Andrei and I drove to my house, on the way I shared my dream with him, which, unfortunately, could not be realized to this day. I then decided to write a cycle for a voice with electronic instruments and various sub-noises that I hoped to pick up in the Mosfilm music library.
In fact, in those years I came close to the idea of \u200b\u200bvideo music: realizing that electronics does not yet have a charge of powerful emotional impact, I began to look for another art that could attract an audience. My choice fell on cinema. […]
… I told Andrey about my plan and he replied: “Yes, curious. But you know it can be an inadequate investment. ” - "In what sense?" He explained: “You will compose your music, put in some idea, and I will just take a puddle, pour oil in it and remove it. At the same time, I will not be at all interested in what efforts you have spent. The main thing is that the music and the image match. "
With that we parted. We have not seen each other since spring. And in the fall of 1970, Andrei himself found me, handed over the script for Solaris and offered to work with him. […]
True, Andrei immediately added that, in fact, he does not need music as such in the film, and he sees my task in organizing natural noises, maybe their timbre-rhythmic processing on a synthesizer, "saturating" with some kind of musical fabric with that so that their sound would acquire a bright individuality, specificity and emotional expressiveness. "
Long before this conversation, one familiar film director once said to Artemyev: “There is only one director in the film, and I alone know what I want. Therefore, you must trust me. I alone am responsible for the picture, I will finish it. If you listen to the director, you will always hit the target. And the directors will always invite you. You will listen to me, you will work in Hollywood (these words turned out to be prophetic, and so it happened). And if you don't listen to me, your music won't sound beyond Berdichev. "
Having thoroughly learned this lesson, Artemyev since then, in his words, "did not invent anything, only wrote down the director's decision in notes."

Eduard Artemiev, Natalya Bondarchuk and Andrei Tarkovsky during the filming of Solaris.

Recalling his work with Andrei Tarkovsky, the composer wrote: “The tasks there were unusual. Working with him, I developed my own specific film language. Which is only used in his paintings. […] We made three pictures in a row with him, with breaks of three years. In total, they worked together for twelve years.
He had no talk about music at all. Only ideas, philosophy, historical parallels. Depths, excursions into the history of the issue. There was almost never emotional specifics - he did not specify what he wanted to say emotionally. Conversations in general.
Andrei invited me to Solaris for the first time. Prior to that, he worked with Slava Ovchinnikov, my classmate, a wonderful composer. They parted for some reason. And then he called me. I knew that I was engaged in electronics, somehow I trusted. But, on the other hand, after Ovchinnikov, to whom he was accustomed, he was very wary of other musicians. Therefore, at the very beginning, he controlled me ... "
According to Eduard Atemyev, the director “attached great importance to the scene“ Chris says goodbye to the earth ”. Andrey wanted a stream to “sing” there, the voices of invisible birds sounded, “musical” drops would fall, “musical” rustles of grass would be born out of nothingness.
I did everything as he asked, using electronics, but during the re-recording, when mixing music and noises with an image, Andrei decided to leave only pure “live” noises. Not because something didn't work out for me, no. He just felt that if in this episode to keep the music, then later, when the action moves into space, to the mysterious planet Solaris, the impression may arise that there is too much music in the film, especially electronic. In addition, the sense of the difference between the world of earth and space will be lost. Therefore, he wanted to change the sound image of the earth, filling it with natural noises. "
At that time, the composer wrote, Tarkovsky “had not yet parted with human feelings in his work. Then he was carried away by global stories, ideas, questions of the world - they came to the fore. And here there is also a personal theme ... And a fantastic story with a long-dead woman is such a ringing string ... "
Evaluating his work in Solaris, Eduard Artemiev, considered it as a whole "successful", adding at the same time: "Not all, but the image of the ocean ..."

To be continued.