It just so happened that a century ago, designers chose a painting by Shishkin and Savitsky for the packaging of sweets "Mishka kosolapy" and their analogues. And if Shishkin is known for forest landscapes, then Savitsky was remembered by a wide audience exclusively for bears.With rare exceptions, the plot of Shishkin's paintings (if you look at this issue broadly) is one - nature. Ivan Ivanovich is an enthusiastic, enamored contemplator. And the viewer becomes an eyewitness of the artist's meeting with his native spaces.
Shishkin was an extraordinary connoisseur of the forest. He knew everything about trees of different species and noticed mistakes in the drawing. In the open air, the artist’s students were literally ready to hide in the bushes, just not to hear the dressing in the spirit of “There can’t be such a birch” or “these fake pines”.
As for people and animals, they occasionally appeared in Ivan Ivanovich's paintings, but they were more of a background than an object of attention. "Morning in pine forest"- perhaps the only canvas where bears compete with the forest. For this, thanks to one of Shishkin's best friends - the artist Konstantin Savitsky.
The idea for the painting was suggested to Shishkin by Savitsky, who later acted as a co-author and depicted the figures of cubs. These bears, with some differences in posture and number (at first there were two of them), appear in preparatory drawings and sketches. The animals turned out so well for Savitsky that he even signed the painting together with Shishkin. Savitsky himself told his relatives: "The painting was sold for 4 thousand, and I am a participant in the 4th share."
“Morning in a Pine Forest” is a painting by Russian artists Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. Savitsky painted the bears, but the collector Pavel Tretyakov erased his signature, so Shishkin alone is often credited as the painting's author.
The picture conveys in detail the state of nature seen by the artist on the island of Gorodomlya. It is not a dense dense forest that is shown, but sunlight breaking through the columns of tall trees. You can feel the depth of the ravines, the power of centuries-old trees, the sunlight, as it were, timidly looks into this dense forest. The frolicking bear cubs feel the approach of morning.
Portrait of Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898) by I. N. Kramskoy. 1880
Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky
(1844 - 1905)
Photo.
Ivan Shishkin glorified not only his hometown(Elabuga) to the whole country, but also to the entire vast territory of Russia to the whole world. His most famous painting is Morning in a Pine Forest. Why is she so famous and why is she considered practically the standard of painting? Let's try to understand this issue.
Shishkin and landscapes
Ivan Shishkin - famous artist-landscape painter. His unique style of work has its origins in the Düsseldorf School of Drawing. But, unlike most of his colleagues, the artist passed the main techniques through himself, which allowed him 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 depict the flora as he sees it, without any exaggerations and decorations.
He tried to choose landscapes untouched by human hand. Virgin, like the forests of the taiga. 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's hard to imagine such brilliant artist the head of the city or the school teacher. But Shishkin combined many talents. Coming from a merchant family, he had to follow in the footsteps of his parent. In addition, Shishkin's good nature quickly attracted people all over the city to him. He was elected to the post of manager and helped to develop his native Yelabuga as best he could. Naturally, this manifested itself in the writing of paintings. Peru Shishkin owns the "History of the city of Yelabuga".
Ivan Ivanovich managed to draw pictures and participate in exciting archaeological excavations. For some time he lived abroad, and even became an academician in Düsseldorf.
Shishkin was an active member of the Wanderers, 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 decorations of museums and private collections around the globe.
After Shishkin, few people managed to depict the whole versatility of Russia's nature so realistically and so beautifully. Whatever happened in the artist's personal life, he did not let his troubles be reflected on the canvases.
background
The artist treated the forest nature with great trepidation, she literally captivated him with her countless colors, variety of shades, the rays of the sun breaking through the thick 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 was soon used in pop culture, on stamps, and even on candy wrappers. To this day, it is carefully preserved in Tretyakov Gallery.
Description: "Morning in a pine forest"
Ivan Shishkin managed to capture one moment from a whole forest life. He conveyed with the help of a 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 an awakening forest and still sleepy bear cubs 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 can see that the roots of the tree on which the cubs frolic have been torn out. 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 obvious.
co-authorship
Shishkin was an excellent landscape painter, but rarely took on the images of animals in his works. The painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" was no exception. He created the landscape, but the four cubs were painted by another artist, an animal specialist, Konstantin Savitsky. They say that it was he who suggested the very idea for this picture. Drawing morning in a pine forest, Shishkin took Savitsky as a co-author, and the picture was originally signed by the two of them. However, after the canvas was transferred to the gallery, Tretyakov considered Shishkin's work to be more extensive and erased the name of the second artist.
Story
Shishkin and Savitsky went to nature. This is how the story began. The morning in the 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 Gordomlya Island, which stands on Lake Seliger. 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 stood untouched. This could not leave artists indifferent.
Claims
The painting was born in 1889. Although initially Savitsky complained 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 fully corresponds to what Ivan Ivanovich did, and even the sketches of the bears originally belonged to him.
Facts and misconceptions
Like any well-known canvas, the painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” is of great interest. Consequently, she has a number of interpretations, she is mentioned in literature and in the cinema. This masterpiece is spoken about both in high society and on the streets.
Over time, some facts have been changed, and general misconceptions are 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 club of the Wanderers. However, Vasnetsov could not be 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 still mentioned together from time to time. Vasnetsov is not that artist. "Morning in a pine forest", without any doubt, drew Shishkin.
- The name of the painting sounds like "Morning in a pine forest." Bor is just a second name that people seemed to find more appropriate and mysterious.
- Unofficially, some Russians still call the painting "Three Bears", which is a gross mistake. The animals in the picture are not three, but four. It is likely that the canvas began to be called that because of the sweets popular in Soviet times called "Clumsy Bear". The wrapper depicted a reproduction of Shishkin's "Morning in a Pine Forest". The people gave the candy the name "Three Bears".
- The picture has its "first version". Shishkin painted another canvas of the same theme. He called it "Fog in the pine forest." Not many people know about this picture. She is rarely remembered. The canvas is not on the territory of the Russian Federation. To this day it is kept in a private collection in Poland.
- Initially, there were only two bear cubs in the picture. Shishkin later decided that four clubfoot must be present in the image. Thanks to the addition of two more bears, the genre of the picture has changed. She began to be on the "borderline", as some elements of the game scene appeared on the landscape.
This picture is known to everyone, young and old, because the very work of the great landscape painter Ivan Shishkin is the most notable pictorial masterpiece in the artist's creative heritage.
We all know that this artist was very fond of the forest and its nature, admired every bush and blade of grass, moldy tree trunks adorned with foliage and needles sagging from the weight. Shishkin reflected all this love on an ordinary linen canvas, so that later the whole world would see the unsurpassed and still mastery of the great Russian master.
At the first acquaintance in the Tretyakov Gallery with the painting Morning in a Pine Forest, one feels the indelible impression of the presence of the viewer, the human mind completely merges into the atmosphere of the forest with marvelous and mighty giant pines, from which it reeks of coniferous aroma. I want to breathe deeper this air, mixed with its freshness with the morning forest fog covering the surroundings of the forest.
The visible tops of centuries-old pines, sagging from the weight of the branches, are affectionately lit by the morning rays of the sun. As we understand, all this beauty was preceded by a terrible hurricane, the mighty wind of which uprooted and knocked down the pine tree, breaking it in two. All this contributed to what we see. Bear cubs frolic on the fragments of a tree, and their mischievous game is guarded by a mother bear. This plot can be said very clearly enlivened the picture by adding atmosphere to the whole composition. Everyday life forest nature.
Despite the fact that Shishkin rarely wrote animals in his works, he still prefers the beauties of earthly vegetation. Of course, he painted sheep and cows in some of his works, but apparently it was a little annoying for him. In this story, the bears were written by his colleague Savitsky K.A., who from time to time was engaged in creativity together with Shishkin. Maybe he offered to work together.
At the end of the work, Savitsky also signed in the picture, so there were two signatures. Everything would be fine, everyone liked the picture very much, including the well-known philanthropist Tretyakov, who decided to buy the painting for his collection, however, demanded that Savitsky's signature be removed, citing the fact that the bulk of the work was done by Shishkin, who was more familiar to him, who had to fulfill the requirement collector. As a result, a quarrel arose in this co-authorship, because the entire fee was paid to the main performer of the picture. Of course, there is practically no exact information on this matter, historians shrug their shoulders. One can, of course, only guess how this fee was divided and what discomfort were among fellow artists.
The plot with the painting Morning in a pine forest was widely known among contemporaries, there was a lot of talk and reasoning about the state of nature depicted by the artist. The fog is shown very colorfully, decorating the airiness of the morning forest with a soft blue haze. As we remember, the artist has already painted the painting "Fog in a Pine Forest" and this airy technique turned out to be very useful in this work.
Today, the picture is very common, as it was written above, it is known even to children who love sweets and souvenirs, often it is even called the Three Bears, perhaps because three cubs catch the eye and the bear is, as it were, in the shade and not quite noticeable, in the second case in The USSR so called sweets, where this reproduction was printed on candy wrappers.
Also today, modern masters draw copies, decorating various offices and representative secular halls with the beauties of our Russian nature, and of course our apartments. In the original, this masterpiece can be seen by visiting the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which is not often visited by many.
Over the past century" Morning in a pine forest”, which the rumor, defying the laws of arithmetic, baptized into “Three Bears”, became the most replicated picture in Russia: Shishkin bears look at us from candy wrappers, greeting cards, wall tapestries and calendars; even of all the cross-stitch kits that are sold in All for Needlework stores, these bears are the most popular.
By the way, what's the morning like here?!
It is known, after all, 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 bears themselves belonged to the brushes of the latter. But Pavel Tretyakov, who bought this canvas, ordered that the painting be renamed and only one artist, Ivan Shishkin, be left in all catalogs.
- Why? - with such a question, Tretyakov was overcome for many years.
Only once did Tretyakov explain the motives for his action.
- In the picture, - answered the philanthropist, - everything, from the idea to the execution, speaks of the manner of painting, of creative method characteristic of Shishkin.
"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 fun, 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 Yelabuga in 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 Vasilievich did not scold his son when, after four years of study at the Kazan gymnasium, he quit studying with the firm intention of never returning to study. “Well, I quit and quit,” Shishkin Sr. shrugged his shoulders, “it’s not for everyone to build bureaucratic careers.”
But Ivan was not interested in anything but hiking in the forests. Every time he ran away from home before dawn, but returned after dark. After dinner, he silently locked himself in his room. He had no interest either in women's society or in the company of his peers, to whom he seemed like a forest savage.
Parents tried to attach their son to the family business, but Ivan did not express any interest in trade either. Moreover, all merchants deceived and shortchanged him. “Our arithmetic grammarian is idiotic in matters of commerce,” his mother complained in a letter to her eldest son Nikolai.
But then in 1851, Moscow artists appeared in quiet Yelabuga, called to paint the iconostasis in the cathedral church. With one of them - Ivan Osokin - Ivan soon met. It was Osokin who noticed the young man's craving for drawing. He accepted the young Shishkin as an apprentice in an artel, taught him how to prepare 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.
Relatives, who had already given up on the undergrowth, 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 he himself would become the most famous Shishkin - as an amateur archaeologist who unearthed the ancient Devil's settlement near Yelabuga. Therefore, his father allocated money for education, and in 1852, 20-year-old Ivan Shishkin went to conquer Moscow.
It was his comrades at the School of Painting and Sculpture who were sharp-tongued and nicknamed him the Bear.
As his classmate Pyotr Krymov recalled, with whom Shishkin rented a room together in a mansion in Kharitonevsky Lane, “our Bear has already climbed all 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 wondered: in a day he turned out as many sketches 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 ranking table, graduates of the Moscow School actually had the same status as graduates of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Shishkin simply passionately wanted to learn to paint from the best European masters of painting.
Life in the noisy capital of the empire did not change Shishkin's unsociable character at all. As he wrote in letters to his parents, if it were not for the opportunity to learn painting from the best masters, he would have long ago returned home to his native forests.
“Petersburg is tired,” he wrote to his parents in the winter of 1858. - Today we were at Admiralteiskaya Square, where, as you know, the color of the St. Petersburg Shrovetide. It’s all such rubbish, nonsense, vulgarity, and on foot and in carriages the most respectable public, the so-called higher one, flocks to this vulgar mess, to kill part of their boring and idle time and immediately stare at how the lower public is having fun. And we, the people who make up the average audience, right, do not want to watch ... "
And here is another letter written already in the spring: “This incessant thunder of carriages appeared on the cobblestone pavement, at least it doesn’t bother me in winter. Here comes the first day of the holiday, countless people appear on the streets of all Petersburg, cocked hats, helmets, cockades and similar rubbish to make visits. Strange thing, in St. Petersburg every minute you meet either a pot-bellied general, or a pole of an officer, or a crooked official - these personalities are simply countless, you might think that all of Petersburg is full only of them, these animals ... "
The only consolation he finds in the capital is the church. Paradoxically, it was in noisy St. Petersburg, where many people in those years lost not only their faith, but also their very human appearance, Shishkin just found his way to God.
In letters to his parents, he wrote: “We have a church at the Academy in the building itself, and during the service we leave classes, go to church, but in the evening after the class to the vigil, there is no matins. And I’ll tell you with pleasure that it’s so pleasant, so good, as well as possible, like someone who did what, leaves everything, goes, comes back and again does the same thing as before. As the church is good, so the clergy fully respond to it, the priest is a respectable, kind old man, he often visits our classes, he speaks so simply, fascinatingly, so vividly ... "
Shishkin also 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 majestic alpine landscapes or the sultry nature of Greece or Italy. Russian spaces were considered the realm 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 eternally unattainable examples of the highest art. The professors saw it all, studied it, knew it, and led their students to the same goal, to the same unfading ideals…”
I.I. Shishkin. Oak.
But it was not only about ideals.
Starting from the time of Catherine II, foreigners flooded the artistic circles of St. Petersburg: the French and Italians, Germans and Swedes, the Dutch and the British worked on portraits of royal 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, who 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 Frentz shone at the court in St. Petersburg, who specialized in depicting high-society amusements - primarily balls and hunting. Moreover, judging by the pictures, the Russian nobles did not hunt at all in the northern forests, but somewhere in the Alpine valleys. And, naturally, foreigners, who considered Russia as a colony, tirelessly inspired the St. Petersburg elite with the idea of the 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 leads me along it; and how God will unexpectedly lead to my goal,” he wrote to his parents. “A firm hope in God consoles me in such cases, and involuntarily a shell of dark thoughts is thrown off me…”
Ignoring the criticism of teachers, he continued to paint pictures of Russian forests, honing his 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 denomination 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. The exhibition in Dresden is the identity of bad taste.
“Out of innocent modesty, we reproach ourselves that we don’t know how to write or we write rudely, tastelessly and not like abroad,” he wrote in his diary. - But, really, as much as we saw here in Berlin - we have much better, of course, I take the general. I have never 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 Düsseldorf, more or less all representatives of the great German nation. Of course, we look at them with the same obsequiousness as we look at everything abroad ... So far, from everything that I have seen abroad, nothing has brought me to a stun, as I expected, but, on the contrary, I have become more confident in myself ... »
He was not seduced by the mountain views of Saxon Switzerland, where he studied with the famous animal artist Rudolf Koller (so, contrary to rumor, Shishkin could draw animals excellently), nor the landscapes of Bohemia with miniature mountains, nor the beauty of old Munich, nor Prague.
“Now I just realized that I didn’t get there,” Shishkin wrote. “Prague is nothing remarkable, and its surroundings are also poor.”
I.I. Shishkin. Village near Prague. Watercolor.
Only the ancient Teutoburg forest with centuries-old oaks, still remembering the time of the invasion of the Roman legions, briefly captivated his imagination.
The more he traveled around Europe, the more he wanted to return to Russia.
From 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 a company of tipsy Germans who began to let go of rude ridicule about Russia and Russians. Ivan Ivanovich, without waiting for any explanation or apology from the Germans, got into a fight and, as witnesses claimed, knocked out seven Germans with his bare hands. As a result, the artist got into the police, and the case could take a very serious turn. But Shishkin was acquitted: the artist, after all, the judges considered, was 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 experience gained 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 from the other. It was a 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 it is difficult for us today to even imagine how this invention made life easier for artists. Now everyone can easily and quickly become a painter: go to the store, buy 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 prepared their own paints, buying dry pigments in powder from merchants, and then patiently mixing the powder with oil. But in the time 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 were 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 students to prepare paints for work. Ready-made paints were stored in hermetically sealed clay pots and bowls. It is clear that with a set of pots and jugs for oil, 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 get recognition in Russian art: painters simply redrawn landscapes from paintings by European masters, not being able to draw from nature.
Of course, the reader may object: if an artist cannot paint from nature, then why couldn't they draw from memory? Or just make it all 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, illustrating the importance of Shishkin's attitude to the truth of life.
“On my largest canvas, I began to paint rafts. Along the wide Volga, a whole string of rafts walked straight at the viewer, the artist wrote. - Ivan Shishkin, to whom I showed this picture, prompted me to destroy this picture.
- Well, what did you mean by that! And most importantly: after all, you didn’t write this from sketches from nature ?! Can you see it now.
No, I imagined...
- That's what it is. Imagined! After all, these logs in the water ... It should be clear: which logs - spruce, pine? And then what, some kind of "stoerosovye"! Haha! There is an impression, but it is not serious ... "
The word "not serious" 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 pen during walks, achieving a filigree drawing technique. Actually, in Western Europe, it was his forest sketches made with pen and ink that have always been valued. Shishkin also brilliantly painted with watercolors.
Of course, Shishkin was far from the first artist who dreamed of painting large canvases with Russian landscapes. But how to move the workshop to the forest or to the river bank? The artists did not have an 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.
River.
We also tried to pack ready-made mixed paints in pork bladders that were tied in a knot. Then they pierced the bubble with a needle to squeeze out some paint onto the palette, and the resulting hole was plugged with a nail. But more often than not, the bubbles just burst along the way.
And suddenly there are strong and light tubes with liquid paints that you could carry with you - just squeeze a little onto the palette and draw. Moreover, the colors themselves have become brighter and juicier.
Next came the easel, that is, a portable box with paints and a canvas stand that you could carry with you.
Of course, not all artists could lift the first easels, but Shishkin's bearish strength came in handy here.
The return of Shishkin to Russia with new colors and new painting technologies caused a sensation.
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, no wonder, because the French and Germans are no less tired of the "classic" Italian landscapes than the Russians.
At the Academy of Arts, he receives the title of professor. Moreover, at the request of the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Shishkin was introduced to Stanislav of the 3rd degree.
Also, a special landscape class is being opened 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.
There were changes in Shishkin's personal life: he married Evgenia Aleksandrovna Vasilyeva, the sister of his student. Soon the newlyweds had a daughter, Lydia, followed by sons Vladimir and Konstantin.
“In character, Ivan Ivanovich was born a family man; away from his people, he was never calm, almost could not work, it constantly seemed to him that someone was certainly sick at home, something happened, wrote the first biographer of the artist Natalya Komarova. – In an external device home life he had no rivals, creating a comfortable and beautiful environment from almost nothing; he was terribly tired of wandering around the furnished rooms, and he devoted himself wholeheartedly 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 allowed him to have modest comfort, although with an ever-increasing 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 shores of Lake Ilzhovsky 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 to sketches, climbing into the very depths of the forest, into the thicket.
Shishkin approached the matter very responsibly: he searched for a place for a long time, then began to clear the bushes, chopped off the 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, he knew how to speak himself. There was a lot in common in them, and therefore both reached out to each other. Savitsky even became the godfather of the artist's youngest son, also Konstantin.
During such a summer suffering, Kramskoy wrote the most famous portrait Shishkina: 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 his hands is an alpenstock, a sketchbook, a box of paints, a folding chair, an umbrella from the sun's rays hang casually on his shoulder - in a word, all the equipment.
- Not just a Bear, but a real owner of the forest! Kramskoy exclaimed.
It was Shishkin's last happy summer.
First came a telegram from Yelabuga: “This morning Father Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin died. I take it upon myself to inform 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 ill in the old way ... "
Then the blows of fate rained down one after another. A telegram came from Yalta about the death of Fyodor Vasiliev, and Evgenia Alexandrovna died next.
In a letter to a 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. More than I thought. But that's to be expected."
To top it off, the youngest son Konstantin also died.
Ivan Ivanovich became not himself. I didn’t hear what my relatives were saying, I didn’t 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 native graves, and then, after returning home after dark, he drank cheap wine to the point of complete unconsciousness.
Friends were afraid to come to him - they knew that Shishkin, being out of his mind, could well rush at uninvited guests with his fists. The only one who could console him was Savitsky, but he drank alone 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 could stop him from an irreparable act.
Only a few years later Shishkin found the strength to return to painting.
He painted the painting "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: "Death lies with a man, then judgment, that if a man sows in life, he will reap."
In the background are mighty pine trees and - as an eternal reminder of death, which is always nearby - a huge withered tree.
At the traveling exhibition of 1878, "Rye" admittedly took first place.
In the same year, he met the young artist Olga Lagoda. The daughter of a real state councilor and courtier, she was one of the first thirty women admitted to study by volunteers at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Olga fell into Shishkin's class, and Ivan Ivanovich, always gloomy and shaggy, who, moreover, grew a shaggy Old Testament beard, suddenly discovered with surprise that at the sight of this short girl with bottomless blue eyes and bangs of chestnut hair, his heart begins to beat a little stronger than usual, and hands suddenly begin to sweat, like a snotty high school student.
Ivan Ivanovich proposed, and in 1880 he and Olga got married. Soon the daughter Xenia 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 threw himself into work, trying to provide everything necessary for his two daughters, who were left without mothers.
Not giving himself the opportunity to become limp, finishing one picture, he stretched the canvas on a stretcher for the next. He began to engage in etching, mastered the technique of engraving, illustrated books.
- Work! - said Ivan Ivanovich. – Work every day, going to this job as if it were a service. There is nothing 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 George.
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 foster bear - looks somewhere in the thicket of the forest, as if waiting for 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 wilds of the forest near Yelabuga, believed that bears were the closest relatives of people, that it was into bears that the early dead sinless souls of children pass.
And if he himself was called the Bear, then this is his entire bear family: the bear is the wife of Evgeny Alexandrovna, and the cubs are Volodya and Kostya, and next to them is the bear Olga Antonovna and is waiting for him to come himself - the Bear and the king of the forest ...
“These bears need to be given a good background,” he finally suggested to Savitsky. - And I know what needs to be written here ... Let's work for a couple: I will write the forest, and you - the bears, they turned out to be very alive ...
And then Ivan Ivanovich made a sketch of the future picture with a pencil, recalling how on the island of Gorodomlya, on Lake Seliger, he saw mighty pine trees that a hurricane had uprooted and broken in half - like matches. Those who have seen such a catastrophe themselves will easily understand: the very sight of forest giants torn to pieces causes people to be dumbfounded and afraid, and at the place where the trees fell in the fabric of the forest, a strange empty space remains - such a defiant emptiness that nature itself does not tolerate, but that’s all. - still 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 at the place of breaking. But there were no other reminders of the storm. Now the soft golden light of God’s grace is pouring from heaven into the forest, in which His cub angels are bathing ...
The painting "The Bear Family in the Forest" was first presented to the public at the XVII Traveling Exhibition in April 1889, and on the eve of the exhibition, the painting 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 resentment in his old friend: he counted on a fairer 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. I once started a picture with bears in the forest, I took a fancy to it. I.I. Sh-n took over the execution of the landscape. The painting danced, and Tretyakov found a buyer. Thus we killed the bear and divided the skin! But this carve-up happened with some curious hesitations. So curious and unexpected that I even refused 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 concealed in a bag, courts and gossip began, and I had to sign the picture with Sh., and then divide the trophies of purchase and sale. The painting was sold for 4 tons, and I am a participant in the 4th share! I carry a lot of bad things in my heart on this issue, and out of joy and pleasure, something opposite happened.
I am writing to you 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 completely secret for everyone with whom I did not want to to talk."
However, later Savitsky found the strength to reconcile with Shishkin, although they no longer worked together and no longer rested with their families: soon Konstantin Apollonovich and his wife and children moved to live in Penza, where he was offered the position of director of the newly opened Art School.
When in May 1889 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 bought a painting from Shishkin. But the very fact of the presence next to the great Shishkin of the name of the “mediocre” Savitsky automatically reduced the market value of the picture, and reduced it decently. Judge for yourself: Tretyakov bought a painting in which the world-famous misanthrope Shishkin, who almost never painted people and animals, suddenly became an animal painter and depicted four animals. And not just any cows, seals or dogs, but ferocious "masters of the forest", which - any hunter will confirm this to you - is very difficult to portray from nature, because the she-bear will tear to shreds anyone who dares to approach her cubs. But all of Russia knows that Shishkin paints 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 it was not Shishkin himself who painted the she-bear with cubs, but “something there” 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 popular prints, while Shishkin's paintings had volume and depth.
Probably, Shishkin himself was of the same opinion, inviting a friend to participate only because of his idea.
That is why Tretyakov ordered Savitsky's signature to be erased with turpentine so as not to belittle Shishkin. And in general, he renamed the painting itself - they say, it’s not about the bears at all, but about that magical golden light that seems to flood the whole picture.
But here at folk painting"Three Bears" were two more co-authors, whose names have remained 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 chocolate, thematic sets of sweets were also produced - for example, “Treasures of the Earth and Sea”, “Vehicles”, “Types of Peoples of the Globe”. Or, for example, a set of cookies "Moscow of the Future": in each box one 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 Paintings" 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 Shishkin painting.
Soon the release of this series was stopped, but the candy with bears, called "Bear-toed Bear", began to be produced as a separate product.
In 1913, the artist Manuil Andreev redrawn the picture: he added a frame of spruce branches and Bethlehem stars to the plot of Shishkin and Savitsky, because in those years the “Bear” was for some reason considered the most expensive and desired gift for the Christmas holidays.
Surprisingly, this wrapper survived all the wars and revolutions of the tragic twentieth century. Moreover, in Soviet times, "Mishka" 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 “Mishka”, get yourself a passbook!”.
Very soon, the candy received a new name in popular life - "Three Bears". At the same time, Ivan Shishkin’s painting began to be called that, reproductions of which, cut out from the Ogonyok magazine, soon appeared in every Soviet house - either as a manifesto of a comfortable bourgeois life that despised Soviet reality, or as a reminder that sooner or later, but any the storm will pass.
The author of the painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" is the great Russian artist Ivan Ivanovich (1832-1898). However, only the landscape itself belongs to his hand. The main characters of the picture - three bear cubs and a bear were painted by another famous artist Konstantin Apollonovich. The erroneous notion that "Morning in a Pine Forest" was written only by Shishkin is due to the fact that Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov, who bought the painting for his collection, erased Savitsky's signature.
History of the painting
The picture was painted in 1889. Canvas, oil. Dimensions: 139 × 213 cm. Currently located in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Interestingly, the painting was originally called "The Bear Family in the Forest."
It is believed that Ivan Shishkin came up with the plot of the painting while visiting Gorodomlya Island, which is located on Lake Seliger. Here the painter saw untouched nature, a dense forest, which amazes the imagination with its beauty and pristine nature.
Initially, there were no bears in the picture, only the forest landscape itself. Ivan Shishkin was an unsurpassed landscape painter, but in animalism, that is, the depiction of animals, he was not strong. Therefore, the bears were painted by another artist - Konstantin Savitsky.
Description of the artwork «Morning in a pine forest»
The painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" literally captivates the viewer with its extraordinary beauty. The age-old forest impresses with its power, untouched nature. Pine trees with thick trunks and knotty branches seem to hint at their ancient nature. The forest is drowning in a whitish fog, which early in the morning covered everything around with a milky veil.
The painting depicts an early morning. The sun is just beginning to rise and the forest begins to turn into golden hues of dawn. Since the sun has cast its first rays to the very tops of the trees, they contrast sharply with the semi-darkness inside the forest. Such a beautiful transition of colors and shades is mesmerizing. The hues of the picture smoothly change from dark green at the bottom to bright gold at the top.
In the foreground is a fallen pine tree. The bear family has gathered here. Three restless bear cubs crawl along the broken trunk. Nearby is a mother bear, who watches over her children, who still want to play and explore everything unfamiliar. One of the cubs stood up on its hind legs and peered deep into the fog-shrouded forest. Thus, he intrigues the viewer, so you want to follow his gaze, peer deep into the picture to see what a frozen bear cub saw in the distance.
