Ivan Shishkin glorified not only his hometown (Yelabuga) for the whole country, but also for the entire vast territory of Russia for the whole world. His most famous painting is "Morning in pine forest". Why is she so famous and why is it considered almost the standard of painting? Let's try to understand this issue.

Shishkin and landscapes

Ivan Shishkin is a famous landscape painter. His unique style of work has its origins in the Düsseldorf School of Painting. But, unlike most of his colleagues, the artist passed the basic techniques through himself, which made it possible to create a unique style that is not inherent in anyone else.

Shishkin admired nature all his life, she inspired him to create numerous masterpieces from a million colors and shades. The artist has always tried to portray the flora as he sees it, without various exaggerations and decorations.

He tried to choose landscapes untouched by human hand. Virgin, like taiga forests. combine realism with a poetic view of nature. Ivan Ivanovich saw poetry in the play of light and shadow, in the power of Mother Earth, in the fragility of one Christmas tree standing in the wind.

The versatility of the artist

It is difficult to imagine such a brilliant artist as the head of the city or as a school teacher. But Shishkin combined a lot of talents. Coming from a merchant's family, he had to follow in the footsteps of his parent. In addition, Shishkin's kind disposition quickly attracted people throughout the city to him. He was elected to the post of manager and helped to develop his native Elabuga as best he could. Naturally, this also manifested itself in painting. Peru Shishkin belongs to the "History of the city of Elabuga".

Ivan Ivanovich managed to draw pictures and participate in fascinating archaeological excavations. For some time he lived abroad, and even became an academician in Dusseldorf.

Shishkin was an active member of the Itinerant Society, where he met with other famous russian artists... He was considered a real authority among other painters. They tried to inherit the style of the master, and the paintings inspired both writers and painters.

After himself, he left a memory of numerous landscapes that have become adornments of museums and private collections around the globe.

After Shishkin, few people succeeded in portraying so realistically and so beautifully all the multifaceted nature of Russia. Whatever happened in the artist's personal life, he did not let his troubles be reflected in his canvases.

Background

The artist treated the forest nature with great trepidation; she literally captivated him with her countless number of colors, a variety of shades, and the rays of the sun shining through the dense pine branches.

The painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" became the embodiment of Shishkin's love for the forest. It gained popularity very quickly, and soon it was already used in pop culture, on stamps, and even on candy wrappers. To this day, it is carefully kept in the Tretyakov Gallery.

Description: "Morning in a pine forest"

Ivan Shishkin managed to capture one moment from the whole forest life. He conveyed with the help of drawing the moment of the beginning of the day, when the sun had just begun to rise. An amazing moment of the birth of a new life. The painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" depicts a waking forest and still sleepy bears who are getting out of a secluded dwelling.

In this picture, as in many others, the artist wanted to emphasize the immensity of nature. To do this, he cut off the tops of the pines at the top of the canvas.

If you look closely, you will notice that the roots have been torn out from the tree on which the cubs are frolicking. Shishkin seemed to emphasize that this forest is so unsociable and deaf that only animals can live in it, and the trees fall by themselves, from old age.

In the morning in a pine forest, Shishkin indicated with the help of the fog that we see between the trees. Thanks to this artistic move, the time of day becomes apparent.

Co-authorship

Shishkin was an excellent landscape painter, but he rarely took up the images of animals in his works. The painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" was no exception. He created a landscape, but four cubs were painted by another artist, an expert on animals, Konstantin Savitsky. They say that it was he who suggested the very idea for this picture. Painting the morning in a pine forest, Shishkin took Savitsky as a co-author, and the painting was originally signed by both of them. However, after the canvas was transferred to the gallery, Tretyakov considered Shishkin's work more extensive and erased the name of the second artist.

History

Shishkin and Savitsky went to nature. So the story began. The morning in a pine forest seemed so beautiful to them that it was impossible not to immortalize it on canvas. To search for a prototype, they went to the island of Gordomlya, which stands on Lake Seliger. There they found this landscape and new inspiration for the painting.

The island, all covered with forests, kept the remains of virgin nature. For many centuries it has stood untouched. This could not leave artists indifferent.

Claims

The painting was born in 1889. Although initially Savitsky made a claim to Tretyakov that he erased his name, he soon changed his mind and abandoned this masterpiece in favor of Shishkin.

He substantiated his decision by the fact that the style of the painting is fully consistent with what Ivan Ivanovich did, and even the sketches of the bears originally belonged to him.

Facts and misconceptions

Like any famous painting, the painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" arouses great interest. Consequently, she has a number of interpretations, she is mentioned in literature and cinema. This masterpiece is spoken about both in high society and on the streets.

Over time, some facts have changed, and common misconceptions have become firmly rooted in society:

• One of the common mistakes is the opinion that Vasnetsov created Morning in a Pine Forest together with Shishkin. Viktor Mikhailovich, of course, was familiar with Ivan Ivanovich, since they were together in the Itinerant Club. Nevertheless, Vasnetsov could never have been the author of such a landscape. If you pay attention to his style, he is not at all like Shishkin, they belong to different art schools. These names are mentioned together from time to time. Vasnetsov is not that artist. “Morning in a pine forest”, without a doubt, was drawn by Shishkin.
• The title of the picture sounds like "Morning in a pine forest." Boron is just a second name, which, apparently, seemed to people more appropriate and mysterious.
• Unofficially, some Russians still call the painting "Three Bears", which is a gross mistake. There are not three animals in the picture, but four. It is likely that the canvas began to be called so because of the sweets popular in Soviet times called "Bear Footed". On the wrapper was a reproduction of Shishkin "Morning in a pine forest." The people called the candy "Three Bears".
• The picture has its "first version". Shishkin painted another canvas on the same subject. He called it "Fog in the Pine Forest". Few know about this picture. She is rarely remembered. There is no canvas on the territory of the Russian Federation. To this day, it is kept in a private collection in Poland.
• Initially, there were only two teddy bears in the picture. Later, Shishkin decided that four clubfoot should be present in the image. With the addition of two more bears, the painting changed its genre. She began to be on the "borderland", as some elements of the game scene appeared in the landscape.

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Over the past century, "Morning in a pine forest", which the rumor, disdaining the laws of arithmetic, baptized in "Three Bears", has become the most replicated picture in Russia: Shishkin bears look at us from candy wrappers, greeting card, wall tapestries and calendars; even of all the cross-stitch kits sold in Vse for Needlework stores, these bears are the most popular.

By the way, what does morning have to do with it ?!

It is known that this painting was originally called "The Bear Family in the Forest." And she had two authors - Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky: Shishkin painted the forest, but the brushes of the latter belonged to the bears themselves. But Pavel Tretyakov, who bought this canvas, ordered to rename the painting and leave only one artist in all catalogs - Ivan Shishkin.

- Why? - Tretyakov was overcome with such a question for many years.

Only once did Tretyakov explain the motives for his act.

- In the picture, - answered the patron, - everything, from the concept to the execution, speaks about the manner of painting, about the creative method peculiar to Shishkin.

I.I. Shishkin. Morning in a pine forest.

"Bear" - that was the nickname of Ivan Shishkin himself in his youth.

Huge growth, gloomy and silent, Shishkin always tried to stay away from noisy companies and amusements, preferring to walk somewhere in the forest all alone.

He was born in January 1832 in the most bearish corner of the empire - in the city of Elabuga of the then Vyatka province, in the family of the merchant of the first guild Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin, a local romantic and eccentric, who was fond of not so much grain trade as archaeological research and social activities.

Perhaps that is why Ivan Vasilyevich did not scold his son when, after four years of study at the Kazan gymnasium, he quit studying with a firm intention not to return to school. "Well, he threw it and threw it," Shishkin Sr. shrugged his shoulders. "Not everyone can build bureaucratic careers."

But Ivan was not interested in anything except hiking in the woods. Every time he ran out of the house before dawn, he returned after dark. After supper, he silently locked himself in his room. He had no interest in either female society or the company of his peers, to whom he seemed a forest savage.

Parents tried to attach their son to the family business, but Ivan did not show any interest in trade either. Moreover, all the merchants deceived and cheated him. “Our arithmetic grammar is idiotic in matters of commerce,” his mother complained in a letter to her eldest son Nikolai.

But then, in 1851, in quiet Elabuga, Moscow artists appeared, summoned to paint the iconostasis in the cathedral church. Ivan soon met one of them - Ivan Osokin. It was Osokin who noticed the craving young man to drawing. He accepted the young Shishkin as an apprentice in the artel, teaching him how to cook and stir paints, and later advised him to go to Moscow and study at the School of Painting and Sculpture at the Moscow Art Society.

I.I. Shishkin. Self-portrait.

Relatives, who had already waved their hand at the ignoramus, even perked up when they learned about their son's desire to become an artist. Especially the father, who dreamed of glorifying the Shishkin family for centuries. True, he believed that the most famous Shishkin he himself will become - as an amateur archaeologist who excavated the ancient Devil's settlement near Yelabuga. Therefore, my father allocated money for training, and in 1852 20-year-old Ivan Shishkin set off to conquer Moscow.

It was precisely the comrades at the School of Painting and Sculpture who were well-aimed at the language and called him the Bear.

As his classmate Pyotr Krymov, with whom Shishkin rented a room in a mansion in Kharitonevsky Lane, recalled, "our Bear has already climbed all the Sokolniki and painted all the glades."

However, he went to sketches in Ostankino, and in Sviblovo, and even in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra - Shishkin worked as if tirelessly. Many were amazed: he worked out as many studies in a day as others could hardly do in a week.

In 1855, having brilliantly graduated from the School of Painting, Shishkin decided to enter the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. And although, according to the then table of ranks, graduates of the Moscow School actually had the same status as graduates of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Shishkin just passionately wanted to learn to write from the best European masters of painting.

Life in the noisy capital of the empire did not change Shishkin's unsociable character in the least. As he wrote in letters to his parents, if not for the opportunity to learn painting from the best masters, he would have returned home long ago, to his native forests.

“I'm tired of Petersburg,” he wrote to his parents in the winter of 1858. - We were today at the Admiralteyskaya Square, where, as you know, the color of the Petersburg Shrovetide. Such all rubbish, nonsense, vulgarity, and for this vulgar mess, the most respectable public, the so-called superior, flock on foot and in carriages to kill part of their boring and idle time and immediately gawk at how the lower audience is having fun. And we, people who make up an average audience, really don't want to watch ... "

And here is another letter, written in the spring: “This incessant thunder of carriages appeared on the cobblestone pavement, although it does not bother me in winter. The first day of the holiday will come, countless numbers of cocked hats, helmets, cockades and other similar rubbish will appear on the streets of all Petersburg. It's a strange thing, in St. Petersburg every minute you meet either a pot-bellied general, or an officer's rail, or a crooked official - these personalities are simply innumerable, you might think that the whole of St. Petersburg is full only of them, these animals ... "

The only consolation he finds in the capital is the church. Paradoxically, it was in noisy Petersburg, where many people in those years lost not only their faith, but also their human appearance, that Shishkin just found his way to God.

Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin.

In letters to his parents, he wrote: “We have a church at the Academy in the building itself, and during the divine service we leave classes, go to church, but in the evening after class to the all-night service, there is no matins there. And I will tell you with pleasure that it is so pleasant, so good, as good as possible, as who did what, leaves everything, goes, comes and again does the same thing as before. As the church is good, so the clergy fully respond to it, the priest is an old man, respectable, kind, he often attends our classes, speaks so simply, engagingly, so lively ... "

Shishkin saw God's will in his studies: he had to prove to the professors of the Academy the right of a Russian artist to paint Russian landscapes. It was not so easy to do this, because at that time the Frenchman Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain were considered the luminaries and gods of the landscape genre, who painted either the majestic alpine landscapes or the sultry nature of Greece or Italy. Russian spaces were considered a kingdom of savagery, unworthy of being depicted on canvas.

Ilya Repin, who studied a little later at the Academy, wrote: “Nature is real, beautiful nature was recognized only in Italy, where there were always inaccessible examples of the highest art. The professors saw all this, studied, knew, and led their students to the same goal, to the same unfading ideals ... "

I.I. Shishkin. Oak.

But it wasn't just about ideals.

Since the time of Catherine II, foreigners have flooded the artistic circles of St. Petersburg: the French and Italians, the Germans and the Swedes, the Dutch and the British have worked on portraits of tsarist dignitaries and members of the imperial family. Suffice it to recall the Englishman George Doe, the author of the portrait series of heroes Patriotic War 1812, which under Nicholas I was officially appointed the First Artist of the Imperial Court. And while Shishkin was studying at the Academy, the Germans Franz Kruger and Peter von Hess, Johann Schwabe and Rudolf Franz, who specialized in depicting high-society fun - primarily balls and hunting, shone at the court in St. Petersburg. Moreover, judging by the pictures, the Russian nobles were hunting not at all in the northern forests, but somewhere in alpine valleys... And, of course, foreigners who viewed Russia as a colony tirelessly instilled in the Petersburg elite the idea of \u200b\u200bthe natural superiority of everything European over Russian.

However, it was impossible to break Shishkin's stubbornness.

“God showed me this way; the path on which I am now, he also leads me along it; and how God will unexpectedly lead to my goal, - he wrote to his parents. “A firm hope in God comforts in such cases, and the shell of dark thoughts is involuntarily thrown off me ...”

Ignoring the criticism of teachers, he continued to paint pictures of Russian forests, honing the drawing technique to perfection.

And he achieved his goal: in 1858, Shishkin received the Great Silver Medal of the Academy of Arts for pen drawings and pictorial sketches, written on the island of Valaam. The following year, Shishkin received the Gold Medal of the second dignity for the Valaam landscape, which also gives the right to study abroad at the expense of the state.

I.I. Shishkin. View on the island of Valaam.

Abroad, Shishkin quickly yearned for his homeland.

The Berlin Academy of Arts seemed like a dirty barn. An exhibition in Dresden is an identity of bad taste.

“We, out of innocent modesty, reproach ourselves for not being able to write or that we write rudely, tastelessly and differently from abroad,” he wrote in his diary. - But, really, how many we saw here in Berlin - we have much better, I, of course, take in common. I haven't seen anything more callous and tasteless than painting here at the permanent exhibition - and here there are not only Dresden artists, but from Munich, Zurich, Leipzig and Dusseldorf, more or less all representatives of the great German nation. We, of course, look at them with the same obsequiousness as at everything abroad ... Until now, from everything that I saw abroad, nothing has led to the stunning, as I expected, but, on the contrary, I became more confident ... "

He was not seduced by the mountain views of Saxon Switzerland, where he studied with the famous animal painter Rudolf Koller (so, contrary to rumor, Shishkin knew how to draw animals perfectly), nor the landscapes of Bohemia with miniature mountains, nor the beauty of old Munich, nor Prague.

“Now I just realized that I got to the wrong place,” Shishkin wrote. "Prague is nothing wonderful, its surroundings are poor too."

I.I. Shishkin. Village near Prague. Watercolor.

Only the ancient Teutoburg forest with centuries-old oaks, which still remembered the times of the invasion of the Roman legions, briefly captivated his imagination.

The more he traveled to Europe, the more he wanted to return to Russia.

Out of longing, he even once got into a very unpleasant story. Once he was sitting in a Munich pub, having drunk about a liter of Moselle wine. And he didn’t share something with the company of drunken Germans, who began to let go of rude ridicule about Russia and the Russians. Ivan Ivanovich, without waiting for any explanation or apology from the Germans, got into a fight and, according to witnesses, knocked out seven Germans with his bare hands. As a result, the artist ended up in the police, and the case could have taken the most serious turn. But Shishkin was acquitted: the artist still, the judges considered, a vulnerable soul. And this turned out to be almost his only positive impression of the European trip.

But at the same time, thanks to the work experience acquired in Europe, Shishkin was able to become in Russia what he became.

In 1841, an event took place in London that was not immediately appreciated by contemporaries: the American John Goff Rand received a patent for a tin tube for storing paint, wrapped at one end and twisted with a cap at the other. It was the prototype of the current tubes, in which today not only paint is packed, but also a lot of useful things: cream, toothpaste, food for astronauts.

What could be more common than a tube?

Perhaps today it is difficult for us even to imagine how this invention made life easier for artists. Nowadays everyone can easily and quickly become a painter: he went to the store, bought a primed canvas, brushes and a set of acrylic or oil paints - and please draw as much as you like! In the old days, artists made their own paints, buying dry pigments in powders from merchants, and then patiently mixing the powder with oil. But in the days of Leonardo da Vinci, artists themselves prepared coloring pigments, which was an extremely time-consuming process. And, let's say, the process of soaking crushed lead in acetic acid to make white paint took the lion's share of the painters' working time, which is why, by the way, the paintings of the old masters are so dark, the artists tried to save on whitewash.

But even mixing paints based on semi-finished pigments took a lot of time and effort. Many painters recruited apprentices to prepare paints for work. The finished paints were kept in hermetically sealed clay pots and bowls. It is clear that with a set of pots and jugs for butter it was impossible to go to the open air, that is, to paint landscapes from nature.

I.I. Shishkin. Forest.

And this was another reason why the Russian landscape could not gain recognition in Russian art: the painters simply redrawn landscapes from the paintings of European masters, not being able to draw from nature.

Of course, the reader may object: if an artist cannot paint from life, then why couldn't they paint from memory? Or do you just invent everything out of your head?

But drawing "from the head" was completely unacceptable for graduates of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Ilya Repin has a curious episode in his memoirs that illustrates the importance of Shishkin's attitude to the truth of life.

“I started painting rafts on my largest canvas. A whole line of rafts was going straight towards the viewer along the wide Volga, the artist wrote. - Ivan Shishkin brought me to the destruction of this picture, and showed him this picture.

- Well, what did you mean by that! And most importantly: after all, you did not write this from sketches from nature ?! Can you see it now.

- No, I was just imagining ...

- That's what it is. Imagined! After all, these logs in the water ... It should be clear: what kind of logs - spruce, pine? And then what, some "stoerosovye"! Ha ha! There is an impression, but this is not serious ... "

The word “frivolous” sounded like a sentence, and Repin destroyed the painting.

Shishkin himself, who did not have the opportunity to paint sketches in the forest with paints from nature, made sketches with a pencil and a pen during walks, achieving a filigree drawing technique. Actually, in Western Europe it was his forest sketches made with pen and ink that were always appreciated. Shishkin also painted brilliantly with watercolors.

Of course, Shishkin was far from the first artist who dreamed of painting large canvases with Russian landscapes. But how to transfer the workshop to the forest or to the river bank? The artists had no answer to this question. Some of them built temporary workshops (such as Surikov and Aivazovsky), but moving such workshops from place to place was too expensive and troublesome, even for eminent painters.

They also tried to pack ready mixed paints in pig bladders, which were tied in a knot. Then they pierced the bubble with a needle in order to squeeze a little paint onto the palette, and the resulting hole was plugged with a nail. But more often than not, the bubbles just burst on the way.

And suddenly there are strong and light tubes with liquid paints that you could carry with you - just squeeze a little onto a palette and paint. Moreover, the colors themselves have become brighter and richer.

Next came the easel, that is, a portable box with paints and a canvas holder that you could carry with you.

Of course, not all artists could lift the first easels, but here Shishkin's bearish strength came in handy.

Shishkin's return to Russia with new colors and new painting technologies caused a furor.

Ivan Ivanovich did not just fit into fashion - no, he himself became a trendsetter in artistic fashion, not only in St. Petersburg, but also in Western Europe: his works become a discovery at the Paris World Exhibition, receive flattering reviews at an exhibition in Dusseldorf, which, however, not surprising, because the French and the Germans are fed up with "classical" Italian landscapes no less than the Russians.

At the Academy of Arts, he receives the title of professor. Moreover, at the request of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Shishkin was presented to Stanislav 3rd degree.

Also, a special landscape class opens at the Academy, and Ivan Ivanovich has both a stable income and students. Moreover, the very first student - Fedor Vasiliev - in a short time achieves universal recognition.

Changes took place in Shishkin's personal life: he married Evgenia Alexandrovna Vasilyeva, the sister of his student. Soon the newlyweds had a daughter, Lydia, and then their sons Vladimir and Konstantin were born.

Evgenia Shishkina, Shishkin's first wife.

“By his nature, Ivan Ivanovich was born a family man; far from his own, he was never calm, almost could not work, it constantly seemed to him that at home someone was certainly sick, something had happened, - wrote the first biographer of the artist Natalya Komarova. - In the external structure of home life, he had no rivals, creating from almost nothing a comfortable and beautiful environment; wandering around the furnished rooms he was terribly tired of, and with all his heart he devoted himself to his family and his household. For his children, this was the most tender loving father, especially when the children were small. Evgenia Alexandrovna was a simple and good woman, and the years of her life with Ivan Ivanovich passed in quiet and peaceful work. The funds already made it possible to have modest comfort, although with an ever-growing family, Ivan Ivanovich could not afford anything superfluous. He had many acquaintances, comrades often gathered to them and games were arranged between times, and Ivan Ivanovich was the most hospitable host and the soul of society. "

He has especially warm relations with the founders of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, artists Ivan Kramskoy and Konstantin Savitsky. For the summer, the three of them rented a spacious house in the village of Ilzho on the shore of Lake Ilzhov not far from St. Petersburg. From early morning Kramskoy locked himself in the studio, working on "Christ in the Desert", and Shishkin and Savitsky usually went on sketches, climbing into the very depths of the forest, into the thicket.

Shishkin approached the matter very responsibly: he looked for a place for a long time, then he began to clear the bushes, chopped off branches so that nothing would interfere with seeing the landscape he liked, made a seat out of branches and moss, strengthened the easel and set to work.

Savitsky - an early orphaned nobleman from Bialystok - fell in love with Ivan Ivanovich. A sociable person, a lover of long walks, practically knowing life, he knew how to listen, knew how to speak himself. There was a lot in common in them, and therefore both were drawn to each other. Savitsky even became the godfather of the artist's youngest son, also Konstantin.

During such a summer harvest, Kramskoy painted the most famous portrait of Shishkin: not an artist, but a gold digger in the wilds of the Amazon - in a fashionable cowboy hat, English breeches and light leather boots with iron heels. In the hands - an alpenstock, a sketchbook, a box with paints, a folding chair, an umbrella from the sun's rays - in a word, all the equipment - hang casually on the shoulder.

- Not just a Bear, but a real master of the forest! - exclaimed Kramskoy.

It was Shishkin's last happy summer.

Kramskoy. Portrait of I. I. Shishkin.

First, a telegram came from Yelabuga: “Father Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin died this morning. I consider it my duty to notify you. "

Then little Volodya Shishkin died. Yevgenia Alexandrovna turned black with grief and took to her bed.

“Shishkin has been biting his nails for three months and nothing more,” wrote Kramskoy in November 1873. - His wife is sick in the old way ... "

Then the blows of fate rained down one after another. A telegram came from Yalta about the death of Fyodor Vasilyev, followed by Evgenia Alexandrovna.

In a letter to his friend Savitsky, Kramskoy wrote: “E.A. Shishkina ordered to live long. She died last Wednesday, on the night of Thursday from 5 to 6 March. On Saturday we saw her off. Soon. Rather than I thought. But this is expected. "

To crown it all, the youngest son Konstantin also died.

Ivan Ivanovich became not himself. I did not hear what my relatives were saying, I did not find a place for myself either at home or in the workshop, even endless wanderings in the forest could not ease the pain of loss. Every day he went to visit his own graves, and then, after dark, he returned home, he drank cheap wine until he was completely unconscious.

Friends were afraid to come to him - they knew that Shishkin, being not himself, could well rush at the uninvited guests with his fists. The only one who could comfort him was Savitsky, but he drank himself to death in Paris, mourning the death of his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna, who either committed suicide or died in an accident, poisoned by carbon monoxide.

Savitsky himself was close to suicide. Perhaps only the misfortune that happened to his friend in St. Petersburg was able to stop him from an irreparable act.

Only a few years later, Shishkin found the pitchfork in himself to return to painting.

He painted the canvas "Rye" - especially for the VI Traveling Exhibition. A huge field, which he sketched somewhere near Yelabuga, became for him the embodiment of his father's words read in one of the old letters: "A man lies death, then a judgment, what a man sows in life, he will reap."

In the background are mighty pines and - as an eternal reminder of death, which is always near - a huge dried tree.

At the traveling exhibition of 1878 "Rye", admittedly, took first place.

I.I. Shishkin. Rye.

In the same year, he met the young artist Olga Lagoda. The daughter of an actual state councilor and courtier, she was one of the first thirty women who were admitted to study as volunteers at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Olga got into Shishkin's class, and the eternally gloomy and shaggy Ivan Ivanovich, who had also grown a loose Old Testament beard, was suddenly surprised to find that at the sight of this short girl with bottomless blue eyes and a bang of brown hair, his heart began to pound a little harder than usual, and hands suddenly begin to sweat, like a snotty schoolboy.

Ivan Ivanovich made an offer, and in 1880 he and Olga got married. Soon the daughter Ksenia was born. Happy Shishkin ran around the house and sang, sweeping away everything in his path.

And a month and a half after giving birth, Olga Antonovna died of inflammation of the peritoneum.

No, Shishkin did not drink this time. He went headlong into work, trying to provide everything necessary for two daughters who were left without mothers.

Without giving himself the opportunity to become limp, finishing one painting, he pulled the canvas onto a stretcher for the next. He began to study etchings, mastered the technique of engraving, illustrated books.

- Work! - said Ivan Ivanovich. - To work every day, going to this job as to the service. There is no need to wait for the notorious "inspiration" ... Inspiration is the work itself!

In the summer of 1888, they again rested "like a family" with Konstantin Savitsky. Ivan Ivanovich - with two daughters, Konstantin Apollonovich - with his new wife Elena and little son Georgy.

And so Savitsky sketched a comic drawing for Ksenia Shishkina: a mother bear watches her three cubs play. Moreover, two kids carelessly chase each other, and one - the so-called one-year-old pestun bear - is looking somewhere in the thicket of the forest, as if expecting someone ...

Shishkin, who saw his friend's drawing, could not take his eyes off the cubs for a long time.

What was he thinking? Perhaps the artist remembered that the pagan Votyaks, who still lived in the forest wilderness near Elabuga, believed that bears were the closest relatives of people, that it was into bears that the sinless souls of children who died early passed on.

And if he himself was called Bear, then this is all his bear family: the bear is the wife of Evgenia Alexandrovna, and the bear cubs are Volodya and Kostya, and next to them stands Olga Antonovna, the bear, and waits for him to come - the Bear and the king of the forest ...

“These bears need a good background,” he finally suggested to Savitsky. - And I know that I need to write here ... Let's work for a couple of times: I will write the forest, and you - bears, they turned out very lively for you ...

And then Ivan Ivanovich made a pencil sketch of the future picture, recalling how on the Gorodomlya island, on Lake Seliger, he saw mighty pines, which were uprooted by a hurricane and broke in half like matches. Anyone who has seen such a catastrophe himself will easily understand: the very sight of forest giants torn to pieces causes shock and fear in people, and a strange empty space remains in the forest tissue at the place of falling trees - such a defiant emptiness that nature itself does not tolerate, but that's it. -so forced to endure; The same unhealed emptiness after the death of loved ones formed in the heart of Ivan Ivanovich.

Mentally remove the bears from the picture, and you will see the scope of the catastrophe that happened in the forest, which happened quite recently, judging by the yellowed pine needles and the fresh color of the wood in the place of the break. But there are no other reminders of the storm left. Now from heaven the soft golden light of God's grace is pouring into the forest, in which His angels-bear cubs bathe ...

The painting "Bear Family in the Forest" was first presented to the public at the 17th Traveling Exhibition in April 1889, and on the eve of the exhibition the canvas was bought by Pavel Tretyakov for 4 thousand rubles. Of this amount, Ivan Ivanovich gave his co-author a fourth part - a thousand rubles, which caused an insult to his old friend: he was counting on a more fair assessment of his contribution to the picture.

I.I. Shishkin. Morning in a pine forest. Etude.

Savitsky wrote to his relatives: “I don’t remember if we wrote to you that I was not completely absent from the exhibition. Once I started a painting with bears in the forest, I got a taste for it. I.I. Shn and took over the execution of the landscape. The picture danced, and a buyer was found in the person of Tretyakov. Thus we killed the bear and divided the skin! But this carve-up happened with some curious hesitations. So curious and unexpected that I refused even any participation in this picture, it is exhibited under the name of Sh-na and is listed as such in the catalog.

It turns out that questions of such a delicate nature cannot be hidden in the bag, the courts and gossip went, and I had to sign the painting with Sh., And then share the most trophies of purchase and sale. The painting was sold for 4 tons, and I'm a participant in the 4th share! I carry a lot of bad things in my heart on this matter, and out of joy and pleasure, something opposite happened.

I am writing about this because I am used to keeping my heart open to you, but you, dear friends, understand that this whole issue is of an extremely delicate nature, and therefore it is necessary that all this be top secret for everyone with whom I did not wish to talk. "

However, then Savitsky found the strength to come to terms with Shishkin, although they no longer worked together and no longer rested with their families: soon Konstantin Apollonovich with his wife and children moved to Penza, where he was offered the position of director of the newly opened Art School.

When in May 1889 the XVII Traveling Exhibition moved to the halls of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Tretyakov saw that the "Bear Family in the Forest" was already hanging with two signatures.

Pavel Mikhailovich was, to put it mildly, surprised: he was buying a painting from Shishkin. But the very fact of the presence next to the great Shishkin of the surname of the "mediocre" Savitsky automatically reduced the market value of the picture, and reduced it considerably. Judge for yourself: Tretyakov acquired a painting in which the world famous misanthrope Shishkin, who practically never painted people and animals, suddenly became an animal painter and depicted four animals. And not just some cows, seals or dogs, but fierce "owners of the forest", which - any hunter will confirm to you - is very difficult to portray from nature, because the bear will tear anyone who dares to approach her cubs to shreds. But all of Russia knows that Shishkin writes only from life, and, therefore, the painter saw the bear family in the forest as clearly as he painted on canvas. And now it turns out that the bear with the cubs was painted not by Shishkin himself, but by "some kind" Savitsky, who, as Tretyakov himself believed, did not know how to work with color at all - all his canvases turned out to be deliberately bright, then somehow earthy - gray. But both of them were completely flat, like splints, while Shishkin's paintings had volume and depth.

Probably, the same opinion was held by Shishkin himself, who invited a friend to participate only because of his idea.

That is why Tretyakov ordered to erase Savitsky's signature with turpentine, so as not to belittle Shishkin. In general, he renamed the painting itself - they say, it's not about the bears, but that magical golden light that seems to fill the whole picture.

But the folk painting "Three Bears" had two more co-authors, whose names remain in history, although they do not appear in any exhibition and art catalog.

One of them is Julius Geis, one of the founders and leaders of the Einem Partnership (later the Krasny Oktyabr confectionery factory). At the Einem factory, among all other sweets and chocolates, themed sets of sweets were also produced - for example, “Treasures of the Earth and the Sea”, “Vehicles”, “Types of the Nations of the Globe”. Or, for example, a set of cookies "Moscow of the Future": in each box you could find a postcard with futuristic drawings about Moscow in the 23rd century. Julius Geis also decided to release a series of "Russian Artists and Their Pictures" and agreed with Tretyakov, having received permission to place reproductions of paintings from his gallery on the wrappers. One of the most delicious sweets, made from a thick layer of almond praline sandwiched between two waffle plates and covered with a thick layer of glazed chocolate, and received a wrapper with a picture of Shishkin.

Candy wrapper.

Soon the release of this series was discontinued, but the candy with bears, named "Bear Footed", began to be produced as a separate product.

In 1913, the artist Manuil Andreev redrawn the picture: he added a frame made of fir branches and the stars of Bethlehem to the plot of Shishkin and Savitsky, because in those years "Teddy Bear" for some reason was considered the most expensive and desired gift for the Christmas holidays.

Surprisingly, this wrapper has survived all the wars and revolutions of the tragic twentieth century. Moreover, in Soviet times, "Bear" became the most expensive delicacy: in the 1920s, a kilogram of sweets was sold for four rubles. The candy even had a slogan, which was composed by Vladimir Mayakovsky himself: "If you want to eat" Bear ", get yourself a savings bank!".

Very soon the candy received a new name in the popular usage - "Three Bears". At the same time, they began to call the painting by Ivan Shishkin, reproductions of which, cut from the Ogonyok magazine, soon appeared in every Soviet house - either as a manifesto of a comfortable bourgeois life, despising Soviet reality, or as a reminder that sooner or later, but any the storm will pass.

Editor's Choice

Genre painting in all eras was considered the most vivid display of people's lives and the reality around them. Therefore, there has always been so much interest from the audience in this species. visual arts... And today I would like to show readers a magnificent gallery of plot paintings by the famous Russian itinerant artist Konstantin Savitsky, who gave the descendants a piece of the history of Russia in the 19th century. And also tell about the legendary history of co-authorship with Ivan Shishkin, which Pavel Tretyakov personally canceled.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219414246.jpg "alt \u003d" (! LANG: “Morning in a pine forest.” Joint work of Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. Tretyakov Gallery." title=""Morning in a pine forest". Joint work of Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. Tretyakov Gallery." border="0" vspace="5">!}

And, remembering this talented master, one cannot but mention one touchy story from his life. Many people know that it is Savitsky who is the author of the famous bears depicted on Shishkin's painting Morning in a Pine Forest. Initially, even in the corner of the canvas, there were two autographs - Shishkin and Savitsky. However, the name of the second author was erased with his own hand by Pavel Tretyakov, who bought "Morning" for his gallery.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219417441.jpg "alt \u003d" (! LANG: Hunter.

And the incident with the removal of the second autograph occurred most likely due to the fact that when buying the painting, Tretyakov saw only Shishkin's signature, Savitsky signed a little later. Therefore, when the painting was delivered to the gallery, the indignant patron ordered to bring turpentine and erased the second signature with his own hand. This act of Tretyakov did not affect the friendship of the two artists. Ivan Shishkin then gave a fourth of the fee, that is, a thousand rubles to Savitsky for co-authorship.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219416499.jpg" alt="Dark people.

During that difficult period of his friend's life, Ivan Ivanovich made an entry in his diary, noting that Providence makes the artist suffer, bringing up God's gift in him. And that was indeed the case. In his life, Konstantin Apollonovich had to experience the bitterness of loss more than once, but his favorite work always saved him.

Several pages from the artist's biography

Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky (1844-1905) was a man of exceptional intelligence and talent, a brilliant Russian genre painter-realist, academician, member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, the first director of the Penza art school... He happened to live and create in an era of political and social turmoil, which is directly reflected in his works.

Strong, memorable images of ordinary people from the people - peasants, workers and soldiers - became the main characters of his works.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219417709.jpg "alt \u003d" (! LANG: "Panikhida on the 9th day at the cemetery." (1885). Author: K.A. Savitsky." title=""Memorial service on the 9th day at the cemetery." (1885).

By that time, Konstantin had definitely dreamed of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and three years later he left the boarding house and entered the class of historical painting as a volunteer. However, he was forced to leave almost immediately after admission. Affected by the insufficient training of a gifted young man who aspired to become a real painter.

Two years of persistent independent training and Savitsky is again a student at the Academy. Now a talented young artist is successfully mastering the academic course and very soon becomes one of the best students of the academy, having received six silver medals and one gold medal for his competitive works.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219417940.jpg" alt=""To the war." (1888).

Returning to St. Petersburg in 1883, Savitsky began teaching at the technical drawing school in St. Petersburg, then at the Moscow School, and finally moved to Penza, where he became the first director of a painting gallery and a city art school. And it should be noted that in this position, the painter proved himself to be a very professional manager. Konstantin Apollonovich personally developed a curriculum for his students, who, as a result of training, received excellent training, which allowed the best graduates of the school to be enrolled in the Academy of Arts without entrance exams.

Bears of discord, or how Shishkin and Savitsky quarreled

Everyone knows this picture, and its author, the great Russian landscape painter Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, is also known. The name of the painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" is less remembered, more often they say "Three Bears", although there are actually four of them (however, the picture was originally called "Bear Family in the Forest"). The fact that the bears in the picture were painted by Shishkin's friend, artist Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky, is known to an even narrower circle of art lovers, but it is also not a secret behind seven seals. But how the co-authors divided the fee, and why Savitsky's signature in the picture is almost indistinguishable, the story is shyly silent about this.
The case was something like this ...

They say that Savitsky first saw Shishkin in the Artists' Artel. This Artel was both a workshop and a canteen, and something like a club where problems of creativity were discussed. And then one day the young Savitsky was having dinner at the Artel, and next to him, some artist of a heroic physique was joking, and between jokes he was completing the drawing. To Savitsky, this approach to business seemed frivolous. When the artist began rubbing the drawing with his rough fingers, Savitsky had no doubt that this a strange man now all his work will spoil.

But the drawing is very good. Savitsky forgot about dinner in excitement, and the hero went up to him and rumbled in a friendly bass that it’s worthless to eat, and that only someone with an excellent appetite and a cheerful disposition can cope with any work.

So they became friends: young Savitsky and already well-known, respected Artel Shishkin. Since then they have met more than once, went on sketches together. Both were in love with the Russian forest and once started talking about how it would be nice to write a large-scale canvas with bears. Savitsky allegedly said that he had drawn bears for his son more than once and had already figured out how to depict them on a large canvas. And Shishkin seemed to smile slyly:

Why don't you come to me? I waved one thing off ...

The thing turned out to be "Morning in a pine forest". Only no bears. Savitsky was delighted. And Shishkin said that now he had to work on the bears: there was a place for them on the canvas. And then Savitsky asked: "Excuse me!" - and soon a bear family settled in the place indicated by Shishkin.

P.M. Tretyakov acquired this painting from I.I. Shishkin for 4 thousand rubles, when the signatures of K.A. Savitsky has not yet been there. Having learned about such an impressive amount, Konstantin Apollonovich, who had seven in the shops, came to Ivan Ivanovich for his share. Shishkin suggested that he first fix his co-authorship by putting a signature on the picture, which was done. However, Tretyakov did not like this trick. After the transaction, he rightfully considered the paintings to be his property and did not allow any of the authors to touch them.

I bought a painting from Shishkin. Why else Savitsky? Give me some turpentine, - said Pavel Mikhailovich and erased Savitsky's signature with his own hand. He also paid money to one Shishkin.

Now Ivan Ivanovich was already offended, who reasonably considered the picture to be a completely independent work even without the bears. Indeed, the landscape is charming. This is not just a dense pine forest, but it is morning in the forest with its not yet dispersed fog, with easily pink tops of huge pines, cold shadows in the thickets. In addition, Shishkin drew sketches of the bear family himself.

It is not known for certain how the case ended and how the artists divided the money, but only since then did Shishkin and Savitsky not paint pictures together.

And "Morning in a Pine Forest" became wildly popular among the people, nevertheless, thanks to the figures of a bear and three funny bear cubs, so vividly painted by Savitsky.

MOSCOW, January 25 - RIA Novosti, Victoria Salnikova. 185 years ago, on January 25, 1832, Ivan Shishkin was born, perhaps the most "popular" Russian artist.

In Soviet times, reproductions of his paintings hung in many apartments, and the famous bear cubs from the painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" migrated to candy wrappers.

Ivan Shishkin's paintings still live their own life, far from the museum space. What role Vladimir Mayakovsky played in their history and how Shishkin's bears got on the wrappers of pre-revolutionary sweets - in the material of RIA Novosti.

"Start a Savings Book!"

In Soviet times, the design of the candy wrapper did not change, but the "Mishka" became the most expensive delicacy: in the 1920s, a kilogram of sweets was sold for four rubles. The candy even has a slogan: "If you want to eat" Bear ", get yourself a Savings Book!". This phrase of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky even began to be printed on the wrappers.

Despite the high price, the delicacy was in demand among buyers: the artist and graphic artist Alexander Rodchenko even captured it on the Mosselprom building in Moscow in 1925.

In the 1950s, the clubfoot bear candy went to Brussels: the Red October factory took part in the World Exhibition and received the highest award.

Art in every home

But the story of "Morning in a Pine Forest" was not limited to sweets. Reproduction was another popular trend during the Soviet era. classical pieces art.

© Photo: Public Domain Ivan Shishkin. "Rye". Canvas, oil. 1878 year.

Unlike oil paintings, they were cheap and sold in any bookstore, so they were available to almost every family. "Morning in a pine forest" and "Rye", another popular painting Ivan Shishkin, decorated the walls of many Soviet apartments and dachas.

"Bears" also hit the tapestries - a favorite part of the interior of a Soviet person. Over the century, "Morning in a Pine Forest" has become one of the most recognizable paintings in Russia. True, a casual viewer is unlikely to immediately recall its real name.

In exchange for drugs

Ivan Shishkin's creativity is popular with robbers and swindlers. On January 25, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus found a work of art stolen in Russia in the car of drug couriers. The painting "Forest. Spruce" in 1897 was stolen in 2013 from the Vyaznikovsky History and Art Museum in the Vladimir region. According to preliminary information, drug couriers brought the canvas to Belarus at the request of a potential buyer from Europe. The cost of the painting can reach two million dollars, but the attackers planned to sell it for 100 thousand euros and three kilograms of cocaine.

Last year, employees of the criminal investigation department suspected a 57-year-old woman of stealing the 1896 painting "Preobrazhenskoye". The woman received this work from a well-known collector for sale, however, according to the investigation, she appropriated it.