The arrival of the governess in the merchant's house description. Description of the painting by Perov “Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house. Selfishness is a desolate cover

Vasily Perov. The arrival of the governess merchant's house.
1866. Oil on canvas.
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

Vasily Grigorievich Perov is not just one of the greatest artists of the second half of XIX century. This is a milestone figure, standing on a par with such masters as V.I. Surikov, His work marked the birth of new artistic principles and became a milestone in the history of Russian art.

In 1862 V.G. Perov, as a boarder from the Academy of Arts, left for Paris, where he improved his skills and, as he himself writes, "advanced in the technical side." At that time, many Russian artists who were abroad turned to genre scenes that resembled Russian reality. V.G. Perov then worked on the compositions "Feast in the Outskirts of Paris", "Organ-grinder", "Orphans" and others. But he does not stand the deadline set for him and asks the Academy of Arts to allow him to return to his homeland: “It is absolutely impossible to paint a picture without knowing either the people, or their way of life, or character; without knowing the types of folk, which is the basis of the genre.

Creative activity of V.G. Perov was closely connected with Moscow: here he received his education, and then lived and worked in this city. Entire generations of artists were brought up on the canvases of this master. Like the best representatives of Russian literature, V.G. Perov devoted all his talent and all his skill to the protection of the oppressed and disadvantaged, probably because the official authorities did not favor him during his lifetime. And even at the artist's posthumous exhibition, neither the Imperial Hermitage nor the Imperial Academy of Arts, under the pretext of "no money", purchased a single of his paintings16. Official Russia could not forgive the great realist artist for his freethinking and open sympathy for the common people.

The painting “Arrival of a Governess at a Merchant’s House”, along with the famous “Troika”, “Seeing the Dead Man” and other canvases, also depicts the plight of people forced by hired work to become humiliating all the time. In the 1860s, Russia was turning into a capitalist country, and the new master of life - a merchant, a manufacturer, a wealthy peasant - stood next to the former landowner, trying to snatch his share of power over the oppressed Russian people.

Advanced Russian literature sensitively noted the emergence of a new predator, correctly discerned its habits, its merciless greed and spiritual limitations. Vivid images representatives of the "new Russian" bourgeoisie - all these Derunovs, Kolupaevs, Razuvaevs - were created by the great satirist M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. In those same years, A.N. Ostrovsky denounced in his plays the tyranny of the Russian "masters of life". Following the progressive writers V.G. Perov turned his artistic weapon against the rising bourgeoisie.

In 1865, in search of nature for the planned work, the artist went to the famous Nizhny Novgorod fair, where merchants from all cities of Russia annually gathered. Trades took place here, contracts and deals were concluded, Russian merchants traded and feasted here.

Walking along the Volga pier, walking around Gostiny Dvor, visiting the shops and caravans of merchant ships on the Volga, sitting up in taverns where merchants carried out their business behind a pot-bellied samovar, V. Perov gazed intently at the appearance of the new rulers of life. And a year later, at the exhibition at the Academy of Arts, his painting “The arrival of a governess in a merchant's house” appeared, for which he received the title of academician.

Everything in this picture looks unusual: a clean, bright room with lace curtains, gold stars on the wallpaper, garlands of greenery, polished furniture, a portrait of one of the representatives of the family. But the viewer immediately gets the feeling that; this is just a facade, a decoration, and the true life of the house reminds of itself with dark doorways and people huddled in them. In the center of general attention is a young girl, modestly but tastefully dressed in a dark brown dress and a bonnet with a blue silk ribbon. She has a reticule in her hands, and she takes out of it a certificate for the title of home teacher. Her slender, slightly inclined figure, graceful outlined in a thin line; the profile of the gentle face - everything is in striking contrast with the outlines of the squat figures of the merchant family, whose faces reflected both curiosity, and surprise, and suspicious hostility, and a cynical self-satisfied smile.

The whole merchant family poured out to meet the poor governess. "Sam" was in such a hurry to meet with the future teacher of his children that he did not even bother to dress more decently: as he was in a crimson housecoat, he went out into the hall. “Do not interfere with my temper” - is read in all his self-satisfied figure. Legs wide apart, the obese owner impudently considers the girl - as a product, the quality factor of which he wants to determine. There is something bullish in his whole appearance, endless complacency is poured over his entire corpulent figure and expressed in sleepy eyes, senselessly fixed on the girl. What kind of a merchant's son is, it is not difficult to guess from his cheeky pose and impudent facial expression. This future “tavern reveler” and womanizer cynically examines the teacher. Behind the merchant crowded his wife and daughters. The fat merchant's wife arrogantly and hostilely looks at the young governess, and the merchant's daughters look at the young girl with some kind of senseless fright.

It will be hard for an intelligent, educated girl in this family, and the viewer needs a little insight to guess: after messing around with merchant children for some time, she will run away from them, wherever her eyes look.

The canvas “Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house” was a typical painting for the 1860s, and not only in the work of V.G. Perov. Small in size, with a clearly defined plot, taken from life with all its ordinary peeping and eavesdropping details, this picture was extremely characteristic of the painting of those years. In the same years, the works of A. Yushanov "Seeing the Chief" and N. Nevrev "Torg" appear. V.G. Perov not only shaped realism in painting himself, but was also shaped by it, absorbed many of the artistic achievements of his contemporaries, but by the power of his talent raised these achievements to a higher social and aesthetic level.

In Fedotov's "Courtship of a Major" the merchant was still fawning over the nobility, and his most cherished desire was to intermarry with an officer in thick epaulettes. In the painting by P. Fedotov, the merchant is depicted in a pose of still respectful embarrassment. He hurriedly puts on an unusual dress coat for himself in order to adequately meet an important guest. With V. Perov, the merchant and all his household feel themselves to be much more significant people than the intelligent girl entering their service.

Humiliation human dignity, the clash of spiritual subtlety and well-fed philistinism, the merchant’s attempt to “bow down pride” are revealed by V. Perov with such fullness of sympathy and contempt that today (almost 150 years later) we take everything to heart, like the first viewers of the picture.

"The Arrival of the Governess" was often criticized for the dryness of color, and even A.A. Fedorov-Davydov noted: “One of the sharpest in terms of subject matter, impressive paintings by V. Perov, this last one, is unpleasant in a picturesque sense ... The tone of this picture hurts the eyes unpleasantly.” But here the artist struck the viewer with his flowery sophistication: black and purple, yellow and pink - all colors shine in full force. You just need to take a closer look at how the central group is colored, how softly, but definitely in color, the figures of the second plan are taken.

A special place in the artist's work is occupied by his small canvas "The Arrival of a Governess at a Merchant's House" (1866).

The plot of the picture, as always with Perov, is uncomplicated, and the dramaturgy of the work itself is based not on an open, external action, but on a conflict of states. The master paints colorfully, on the one hand, a merchant family with servants, who, as usual, slavishly plays along with their masters, and on the other hand, a governess, a modestly but tastefully dressed girl, whose whole appearance, for all that, betrays her by no means bourgeois, but all the more merchant origin. This biography is read not only in the image of the governess herself, but also on the faces of the household, for whom she is a person from another world. And therefore there is an element of distrust and even fear in the general reaction of people to the newcomer: what will she bring with her to their established foundations, born, perhaps, in a peasant hut.

It would seem that the essence of the conflict is obvious. But his social exposure is only the beginning, followed by the growing psychological severity of what is happening. Blushing in a blush from the awkwardness of the situation, from the unusually close attention to herself, the girl finally tries to pull out a letter of recommendation from her purse in order, among other things, to hide behind this action, to protect herself from the humiliating and shameless examination of her. From the heavy gaze of the owner of the house, for whom she is the subject of bargaining, from the lustful eyes of a merchant's son, from the household members, distrustful in their curiosity, on whose faces both surprise, and mockery, and even mockery are at the same time. And she stands, poor thing, in the middle of the room - lonely and defenseless in her shyness and meekness, under the cross fire of malevolence.

But the achieved psychological level artistic narrative- also not yet the ultimate goal, but only a means to promote it. With just one, albeit small, but very expressive detail, Perov rearranges the semantic accents and thereby transfers the conflict into other areas.

In the interior of a prosperous merchant's house, given the patriarchal nature of the environment, the artist did not depict a single icon. Instead, in plain sight is a portrait of an ancestor, from which, probably, the prosperity of the family began. She prays to him, her benefactor, confessing only hypocrisy and pragmatism. And therefore, the fate of the poor girl is unenviable in the cynical, stuffy atmosphere of the house, where mirrors reflect only darkness and emptiness, where a young life can be wrinkled, like this shawl slashed with deep folds, which is carelessly thrown, casually, as unnecessary.

And, as if to complete the moral characteristics of the household, the artist depicts both the merchant family itself and its servants against a dark background. While the figure of the governess is projected by him onto the soft ocher, with a golden tint, the wallpaper on the wall, where extinguished candles turned white in the radiance of a gilded sconce. The staging of the girl's figure on the floorboard, moreover, its lightest section, moreover, bleached out by the glare of folds, became a response coloristic move. Thus, the governess found herself in her own, special, coloristically built space, filled with light, before which both the shadow creeping on the left and the darkness that stretches from the inner chambers of the house recede. So the psychological confrontation develops into a struggle between light and darkness, where moral purity is opposed to cynicism. And here Perov makes another takeoff. Just as the darkness in his picture is not represented by a homogeneous mass, so the merchant family is not all hopelessly hardened in its hypocrisy. The daughter of the owner of the house, a teenager, is the only character from all households, written in bright, sonorous colors, standing out from the general color grayness and darkness. Everything in this girl - both the gaze fixed on the visitor, not curious, but amazed, and eyes wide open in amazement, as if they saw something that others do not see, and some still not conscious, barely restrained impulse betray the child's soul, already stretched to that purity, to that light that this stranger brought with her. This is how an internal pairing of two characters arises - a girl and a governess, determining the temporal perspective artistic image paintings.

January 2 (December 21, old style) marks the 183rd anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian painter Vasily Perov. His name is usually associated with famous paintings "Hunters at rest" and "Troika", where other works are less known, such as, for example, "The Governess's Arrival at the Merchant's House". Many interesting facts are hidden in the details of this picture.

Vasily Perov was often called the successor of the work of the artist Pavel Fedotov, with whose paintings Perov is related to the choice of acute social topics, the critical focus of his work, and the special significance of details that are invisible at first glance. In the 1860s each new picture of Perov became a social phenomenon, his works, revealing the ulcers of society, were in tune with the era of great reforms. The artist was one of the first to draw attention to the lack of rights ordinary people his time.

One of these works was the painting "The arrival of a governess in a merchant's house" (1866). Compositionally and stylistically, it is very close to the genre paintings of P. Fedotov, first of all, the echoes are noticeable with the Major's Matchmaking. But Perov's work is more tragic and hopeless. In 1865, in search of nature for the planned work, the artist went to the Nizhny Novgorod fair, where merchants from all cities of Russia gathered and "peeped" the necessary types there.

They seemed to have descended from the pages of A. Ostrovsky's works. These conspicuous analogies sometimes even led to Perov being accused of being secondary to the art world writer. So, for example, I. Kramskoy wrote about this picture: “The governess herself is charming, there is embarrassment in her, some kind of haste and something that immediately makes the viewer understand the personality and even the moment, the owner is also not bad, although not new: taken from Ostrovsky. The rest of the faces are superfluous and only spoil the matter.

It is hardly possible to fully agree with the opinion of Kramskoy. The rest of the characters were by no means "superfluous". A colorful figure of a young merchant, the son of the owner, who stands next to his father and looks at the young lady without hesitation. Commenting on this picture, Perov spoke of "shameless curiosity" - this phrase characterizes the merchant in the best possible way.

The merchant feels himself not only the rightful owner of the house, but also the absolute master of the situation. He stands with his hips akimbo, legs wide apart, his belly stuck out and frankly looks at the newcomer, well aware of the fact that from now on she will be in his power. The reception cannot be called warm - the merchant looks at the girl condescendingly, from top to bottom, as if immediately pointing her to her place in this house.

In the bowed head of the governess, in the uncertain movement of her hands, when she takes out a letter of recommendation, one feels doom and, as it were, a premonition of future death, inevitable due to the obvious alienation of this poor girl to the dark kingdom of the merchant world. Critic V. Stasov defined the content of this picture as follows: "Not a tragedy yet, but a real prologue to the tragedy."

On the wall hangs a portrait of a merchant, apparently the founder of this family, whose representatives are currently trying to hide their true nature behind a decent appearance. Although not everyone succeeds equally. The merchant's wife looks at the girl with undisguised distrust and ill will. She herself is clearly far from those “manners” and “sciences” that the governess will teach her daughter, but she wants everything to be “like people” in their family, which is why she agreed to let the girl into the house.

In the left corner of the doorway crowded servants. They also look at the young lady with curiosity, but there is no arrogance on their faces - only interest in the one that will soon keep them company. Probably, the girl, having received a good education, did not dream of such a fate at all. It is unlikely that at least someone in this house understands why the merchant's daughters need to know foreign languages and high society manners.

The only bright spot in the picture is the figure of the merchant's daughter, to whom the governess was invited. Pink color Perov usually uses to emphasize spiritual purity. The girl's face is the only one on which, besides curiosity, sincere sympathy is reflected.

Not a single character in the picture can be called superfluous or random, they are all in their place and serve to realize artistic idea. Perov, like Gogol, whose work he admired, was obsessed with the idea of creating in his works an encyclopedia of Russian types. And he really succeeded. Details play a big role in other works of the artist.

We read the picture of V.G. Perov "Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house"
(to help in the study of N. Ostrovsky's plays).

Purpose: - to teach the correct perception of a work of art,

Expand knowledge in the field of painting;

To give a concept of the connection between fine arts and literature in the study of N. Ostrovsky's plays;

Develop aesthetic taste, logical thinking, attention, memory, correct literary speech;

Develop the ability to listen carefully to the speaker and perceive what is heard;

Cultivate interest in fine arts to history, to literature.

In 1866, Vasily Grigorievich Perov painted the painting "The arrival of a governess to a merchant's house." We are familiar with the artist from his canvases “Troika” and “Rural procession at Easter”. We know with what excitement and sincere participation he spoke about small people oppressed by fate. This time the picture takes us to a small town, to a remote Russian province. More than a hundred years ago, the artist painted this picture, but even today visitors Tretyakov Gallery they stop for a long time in front of this canvas by Perov.

As in most of the artist's works, the painting "Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house" is modest in colors and small in size. In front of us is a room in a wealthy merchant's house. In the center of the picture and attention is a young girl. She has just finished her studies and, after a long journey, she enters a strange house, where she will teach and educate a merchant's daughter. The whole family poured out to meet her. Ahead is the owner - a fat merchant. Next to him is a dandy son, behind him are all the household members. The servants, too, have come running to stare at the newcomer, and look out from the hallway.

What are these people? How did they meet the governess? What awaits the girl in the merchant's house? The picture tells about all this in detail.

Let's try to read this story, as one reads an interesting book. Read slowly to really understand and feel the picture.

Of course, it is not so easy to do this for the first time, because we still do not know how to “read” the picture. Remember how you learned to read your first books. First you learned the letters, then you began to read by syllables. Only after that they began to read whole phrases, learned punctuation marks - commas, periods, colons. And a lot of time passed until you learned to read fluently and confidently, both aloud and to yourself - to read with expression, with enthusiasm, getting joy from the read page.

Artists also have their own alphabet, their own syllables and warehouses that make up the picture. And only knowing the ABC of painting, having learned to fluently "read" the works of artists, you will be able to look at the paintings with interest and enthusiasm and deeply understand their content.

Let's start with the first, most important syllable.

What is the most important thing?

In his painting, the artist Perov depicted nine human figures. Imagine for a moment that he would put them all in a row, as in the photograph. Of course, in such a picture, we would get to know all the characters, but we would not know what is happening here, what are the relations between these people. Such a picture would not tell about anything. And the artist had to tell about the fate of the poor girl. Young woman - main character paintings. So the artist put it in the center, in the very foreground.

Bowing her head, in a modest dark dress, the girl stands facing the viewer, and the whole merchant family came out to meet her from the wide door.

By arranging the figures against each other, the artist emphasizes main idea his picture: he seems to be pushing two worlds - an ignorant merchant class and a modest educated girl, who will now have to unquestioningly fulfill all the orders of her new masters. The plush path thrown obliquely across the floor is not accidental in the picture: it further emphasizes oncoming traffic. The girl has just entered, the merchant has just stopped. What will happen now?

This arrangement of figures already reveals the main content of the picture. But if you look closely, you will see three more figures in the picture: a maid, a footman and an errand boy look out of the doors on the left. They look at the visitor with undisguised curiosity, and the boy, in a long oversized camisole, even laughs. These figures are also necessary for the artist: located on the left, they balance the group of the merchant and his family, depicted on the right side of the canvas, and enrich the content of the picture. You may have sung with two voices. The first voice leads the main melody, the second voice echoes it and enriches the melody and the sound of the song. These two figures, located on the side, play the role of the second voice in the picture.

The first syllable of the pictorial alphabet - the arrangement of figures in the picture - artists call composition. Composition is the basis of painting. It expresses the main idea of the artist, the idea of the picture.

Whatever the face, the character.

When the composition is found, and all the figures are placed in their places, you can draw them: write out the faces, costumes, poses of the characters.

“Whatever the type, whatever the face, whatever the character, then the peculiarity of the expression of any feeling,” the artist said more than once to his students.

Indeed, imagine two people - one of them is a young man, and the other is an old man. Both rejoice, both laugh, but the same feeling will be reflected in quite different ways on these two completely dissimilar faces. Let's say that one of them is poor and the other is rich, one is Russian. And the other Frenchman, one returned from a walk, and the other just woke up. All these shades of feeling must be depicted on the faces of their heroes by a true artist. He must be very observant. Of the many faces, he must choose only one necessary face for his picture and enliven it with joy, sadness, surprise - exactly the feeling that he needs for the intended scene. And the more observant the artist is, the better he knows life, the more accurate and subtle the drawing, the more meaningful his picture is, and the more it excites us.

Here we come to the second syllable of our pictorial alphabet: this is a drawing. He is the main narrator. He talks in detail about the main character, about each hero, about his past and present, talks about all the events of the picture.

The girl has just entered the room. Look how much embarrassment on her pretty face. She almost turned away from us, but how expressive her whole figure is, how vividly her every movement is conveyed. Elbows tightly pressed, fingers nervously squeezing a small purse. The girl is excited. She tries to get a piece of paper out of her purse.

A lot depends on the letter. Probably, the girl's mother begged him from some noble patron. And now in this letter the whole fate of the girl, all her hope for a piece of bread, for meager hard earnings.

And how beautiful is the girl's dress! How easily its loose folds lie down, how it hugs a slender young figure, and how touchingly this modest dress looks next to an expensive, carelessly worn merchant's dressing gown!

The artist described the owner and his family with merciless truth. This is not a caricature, the artist did not exaggerate anything, but just look at the legs of the merchant and his little bartender son.

The merchant has spread his legs widely, shod in Russian boots: he stands confidently, like a master, whose will no one in this house dares to contradict. And the son was brought up in the "European manner": he crossed his legs with the most independent look.

Now let's look higher - at the hands of the owner. These are not working hands, these are the hands of a well-fed, ill-mannered person. Fingers spread out: they would only count money! The merchant had just got out of bed. She barely bothered to wrap up the skirts of her dressing gown, and even then she did it somehow: one floor was higher, the other lower.

But the main thing in the picture, of course, is the faces.

On the face of the merchant, we read poorly hidden discontent. It can be seen that he would have preferred to hire a "real madam" for his daughter, a Frenchwoman with fashionable manners, but stinginess and merchant's thrift forced him to write out a cheaper teacher. He looks straight at the governess and already doubts whether she will be able to teach his daughter all the "delicate sciences": chirp in French and strum on an out-of-tune piano.

The son's face is full of irony: this dandy with curled curls and a fashionable tie considers himself smarter than everyone else and, of course, smarter than this poorly dressed girl.

Another heroine peeps out of the door on the right - the daughter of a merchant, who will be taught by a governess. Curiosity and fear are on her face at the same time: won't the new teacher be too strict? Yes, and daddy will not have mercy if she prepares lessons poorly!

Behind the merchant, behind his elbow, stands the hostess. Having learned about the arrival of the governess, she quit her job in the kitchen and came to look at the girl, she did not even have time to roll up her sleeves. And on the left, servants look out from the front. And here everyone has their own expression! The maid looks with sympathy: someone, but she knows how the servants live in this house, and the governess is also a servant. The mustachioed lackey looks with curiosity, and the boy laughs: the girl is a stranger to him, from the city - a young lady, from the masters. He laughs at the city dress of the girl, and her timid manners - this one will not be able to stand up for herself. “It will be fun,” the boy thinks, “how the owner and mistress will begin to honor her, knock down the master's arrogance from her!”

For his painting V.G. Perov chose the most tense moment: he portrayed the first meeting of a girl and a merchant. No one has yet said a word, but the timid voice of the governess, trembling with excitement, is about to be heard. And the viewer already knows: no, the life of a modest educated girl in a rich house will not be sweet.

All this was told to us by the second syllable of the picturesque alphabet - the main storyteller-drawing.

What does the cardboard say?

Perov's paintings can be viewed for hours, and the more you look at them, the more you learn about the characters in the picture and their fate.

We met the young governess, the merchant and his family, and noticed the servants peering out of the hallway. The picture has already made us think about the fate of a poor girl in someone else's rich house. And yet, we haven't learned everything yet. In Perov's paintings, not only people take part in the story, but also all the objects depicted by the artist. Perov gave objects great importance, carefully thought out and wrote out every smallest detail. The details in his paintings are not accidental, they also tell. We already know that the life of a governess in a rich house will not be easy, but let's take a closer look: is it possible to find out at least something about the past of our heroes.

On the left, at the open door, there is a suitcase on the floor, and on it is a cardboard box. It is easy to guess that these things do not stay in the room all the time, they are placed on the road, they have just been brought in. An old suitcase and a cardboard box are all that the governess brought with her. With their modest appearance, they once again speak of the girl's poverty. Things are covered with dust, which means that she has made a long journey. But this is not a village chest, but a suitcase with copper locks, made by a city craftsman. Even more interesting is the hat box. Looking closely, you can see a sticker of a fashion company on it. This tells us that the governess came to the provincial merchant's house from the capital, that her family once knew her and better times. It is possible that the girl's father and mother have been abroad, vacationing in fashionable resorts and brought this cardboard box with them. And now, after the death of her breadwinner, the family fell into poverty, and the girl is forced to look for work from strangers. Thus, a small detail reveals to us yet another page from the biography of the young governess.

But is there a detail in the picture that would tell us about the merchant, the owner of the house?

Look left. High on the wall, in a gilded frame, hangs a portrait of an old man with a bushy beard. Broad-faced, muzzy, he is very similar to the owner of the house. Of course, this is his father or grandfather - just like him, an ignorant tyrant. This portrait tells us a lot and, above all, that the young governess ended up in the house of hereditary merchants, where the Old Testament way of life reigns, where all the household members follow the line and even “do not dare to utter a word”, submissive to the word of the owner. This " dark kingdom"money-mongers-merchants, where a person is valued not for his mind, not for his dignity, but for a fat wallet, for the ability to deceive, buy cheaply and sell at exorbitant prices.

The artist also thought deeply about the furnishings of the merchant's house. There are shaped chairs on both sides of the arch. At first glance, it is clear that no one ever sits on them, that they are put up for “chic”. And the wallpaper embossed with gold, and the gilded sconce with candles, and the intricate garland over the arch - all this rich, but tasteless decoration of the hall speaks of the owner’s desire to emphasize his wealth, to “splurge” everyone who enters this room. And behind its ostentatious luxury hides the grossest ignorance. There are not so many objects or accessories, as the artists call them, in the picture. Their colors are not bright, they are all left a little in the shade: they should not distract the viewer from the main thing: from the action. But at the same time, each of the objects is necessary, each complements the depicted scene and helps to express the artist's thought.

Music of colors.

Here we come to the third, last syllable of our pictorial alphabet. The third syllable of painting is all the variety of colors, shades of tones, spots of light and shadow that a picture speaks to us, or, as artists call it, the color of painting.

The coloring of the painting "Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house" is modest, dim. After all, the artist does not talk about some special festive event - he talks about an ordinary everyday day in a merchant's house, speaks in restrained, calm tones.

But imagine that the picture, like a photograph, is devoid of color and written only in black and white. Without colors, she would immediately lose her expressiveness, the characteristics of the characters would turn pale, the enchanting harmony of calm brown-reddish and golden-green tones would disappear. Of course, even without colors we would have understood what was happening in the room, but the mood of tense silence, the momentary silence at the moment of the first meeting of the merchant with the girl, would have disappeared. It is this mood that creates the color of the picture, its colors.

How does the artist use lighting and light?

The color is directed towards the central group - the merchant's family. Look at how beautifully painted the owner's dark crimson robe: the light falls on its deep folds, and you immediately feel that it is soft, heavy velvet. Next to the rich crimson tone of the dressing gown, the silk on the hostess's blouse glistens, and right there is the girl's cheerful pink skirt. The whole group is brightly lit, and its colorful colors are emphasized by the calm bluish tone of the plush carpet. Having directed the light at the merchant's family, the artist, as it were, points to him to the viewer, and with a flashy variegation of tones characterizes a wealthy merchant family.

Completely different colors were found by the artist for the governess. He chose the most modest brown scale and revived it only with a touching blue ribbon on the girl's cap. A dark silhouette looms her figure against a light wall. The noble calm tones of her dress speak of modesty and the ability to dress to the face and simply. Thus, the painter emphasizes the main idea of the picture - the collision of two worlds.

The third syllable of the pictorial alphabet - the color of the picture - once again emphasized and completed the characteristics of the characters, highlighted the main ones with light and tone even brighter. characters, calm harmony of colors created a mood that helps us to understand and feel the picture even better.

So everything artistic means painting: composition, drawing and color, complementing each other, reveal the idea of the picture.

The picture touches, excites, calls.

The picturesque alphabet helped us read the picture syllable by syllable. We found out what was happening in the merchant's house, got acquainted with the characters of the picture, with their characters, even with the past, tried to look into the future of the characters.

This was told not by a thick book, not by a performance that the actors played in front of us for three hours, but by a small piece of canvas. The magic of painting at one moment miraculously transferred us to distant times, to the dark realm of the provincial merchants. We not only learned about how people once lived - no, we did not remain indifferent to their fate: we were worried about the heroes, because through the drawing and paints we conveyed excitement, his pain and anxiety for the fate of the girl.

You can look at the picture carefully for a long time, understand and even be able to retell its content, but not only this is the art of looking at pictures. The heart of painting is not in the arrangement of figures and spots of colors and light, but in those thoughts and feelings that the artist put into his work. To feel his excitement, his joy, sadness, indignation, anger, delight - this is what it means to “look at the picture”, create and experience together with the artist.

Irina Timofeevna Derunets,

teacher of Russian language and literature

MBOU "Novofedorovskaya school-lyceum",

Saki district, Republic of Crimea

Description of the painting by Perov “Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house”

It is impossible not to note that Perov was well versed in the technique of painting portraits.
Every detail of the picture is a whole topic for discussion, each character is an open book that can be read to the end, understanding all aspects of the character.
So I liked this picture because all the details are psychologically subtly noticed.

People gathered, everyone is interested to look at the new person who will live in this house.
This girl is hired as a governess in a merchant's house for the youngest of her daughters.
She is afraid of an unknown future, she is in despair that she had to decide on this step.
But no one thinks about the state of the future servant, which obviously brings her to tears.
On the contrary, they examine it like a commodity on the market.
How can such an attitude not frighten her, and not instill excitement in her heart?

The most formidable character in the picture is the owner of the house.
His overbearing appearance, tenacious, unkind look, frighten a young girl.
With one of his postures, he wants to "crush" any free-thinking in the servants.
The older daughters, peering over his shoulder, had already adopted their father's habit of seeing people as inferior.
And now they look at the newcomer with contempt.
Even the merchant's secretary, whose role is slightly higher than the position assigned to the governess, looks at the girl with laughter and mockery.

Maybe the young lady will receive support from the servants? No, I did not see on the faces of the servants a hint of pity and sympathy.
There is ridicule on their faces, they sneer at the small baggage, at the humiliation of an inexperienced girl, at her modest appearance.
But, in the picture there is still a person who is glad for the arrival of the governess.
This is the youngest daughter of a merchant.
It is lit with delight and curiosity.
The artist gave her a bright dress and a clear face.
And only this ray of hope can warm the heart of a frightened governess.

I like that Perov even tried to convey the history of the house.
On the walls of the spacious room there are no icons familiar for that time, instead a portrait hangs, one can see the father or grandfather of the merchant, for whom he has respect.
Sturdy furniture, simple decoration.
All this shows a modern family with innovative views and an understandable way of life.
This additional acquaintance with the family helps to better understand his views.

January 2 (December 21, old style) marks 183 years since the birth of the outstanding Russian painter Vasily Perov.

His name is usually associated with famous paintings. "Hunters at rest" and "Troika", where other works are less known, such as, for example, "The Governess's Arrival at the Merchant's House".

Many interesting facts are hidden in the details of this picture.

I. Kramskoy. Portrait of V. Perov, 1881 |

V. Perov. Self portrait, 1870 |

V. Perov. Arrival of a governess to a merchant's house, 1866. Sketch |

They seemed to have descended from the pages of A. Ostrovsky's works. These notable analogies sometimes even led to the accusation that Perov was secondary to the writer's artistic world. So, for example, I. Kramskoy wrote about this picture: “The governess herself is charming, there is embarrassment in her, some kind of haste and something that immediately makes the viewer understand the personality and even the moment, the owner is also not bad, although not new: taken from Ostrovsky. The rest of the faces are superfluous and only spoil the matter.
It is hardly possible to fully agree with the opinion of Kramskoy. The rest of the characters were by no means "superfluous". A colorful figure of a young merchant, the son of the owner, who stands next to his father and looks at the young lady without hesitation. Commenting on this picture, Perov spoke of "shameless curiosity" - this phrase characterizes the merchant in the best possible way.

V. Perov. Arrival of a governess to a merchant's house, 1866. Fragment |

The only bright spot in the picture is the figure of the merchant's daughter, to whom the governess was invited. The pink color of Perov is usually used to emphasize spiritual purity. The girl's face is the only one on which, besides curiosity, sincere sympathy is reflected.

Painting *Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house* in the Tretyakov Gallery