In a psychiatric clinic, the artist made brilliant drawings
A grandiose exhibition of Mikhail Vrubel has opened in the Tretyakov Gallery, timed to coincide with the 165th anniversary of the master’s birth. The last big opening day of the works of the most “demonic” artist of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries took place 65 years ago. Now all the demons, angels and spirits were brought together and presented in a space with unusual architecture. On the eve of the opening, the correspondent of “MK” saw Vrubel’s universe.
Before us is the universe – a special creative world that either exists on the dark side, or plunges into the light. This universe has its own otherworldly motive that is heard through the painting. The famous Swan Princess (1900) became the title work that meets the viewer at the entrance to the exhibition in the New Tretyakov Gallery. It depicts the artist’s wife, actress Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel, in the image of the heroine of the opera by Rimsky-Korsakov – that ray of light that warmed the master in the most difficult moments, his wife stayed with him until the very end. We will come across the image of a swan more than once at this exhibition – it is special for an artist. A year after the creation of this canvas, he will paint a picture of the Swan, paired with him, which shows the reverse metamorphosis – the princess turns back into a bird.
The main image for Vrubel is a demon. The artist was “infected” with it in his youth and especially immersed himself in it when he made illustrations for Lermontov’s poem (they are abundant here). The first hall is the main one: the three main demons of Vrubel meet here. “Demon Sitting”, “Demon Flying” and “Demon Defeated” have never been exhibited in the same space before (“Demon Flying” was in a private collection for a long time). Now they are looking at each other for the first time. They are also metamorphoses. The fact is that the demon for Vrubel was not evil, he is the soul itself, the very same Lermontov “spirit of exile”.
The walls of the hall, where the demons met, are “torn” – they contain holes of broken geometric shapes, through which you can see other works of the artist. “The seated demon”, for example, looks through the “window” at the lilacs, which the master loved to paint so much. In them, mysterious mermaids almost merge with the landscape – another mystical image that has not left Vrubel alone for years. In this series, the same blue-violet tone, which is present in the “demonic” cycle, and in the “swan” – the color of Vrubel’s universe, the color of the abyss.
The artist copied the Demon of the Defeated every day at the St. Petersburg exhibition of the World of Art association in 1902, so that the audience saw a new picture every time. “There were days when“ The Demon ”was very scary, and then again deep sadness and new beauty appeared in the expression on the Demon’s face,” recalls the sister of Vrubel’s wife, Ekaterina Ge. This picture is directed to another artistic story that looks through the “torn window”: “The Judgment of Paris” – about the legendary apple of discord, which was shared by three goddesses: Aphrodite, Athena and Hera. The panel created for the lobby of the mansion of Botkin’s daughter is about the philosophical concept of beauty.
The first floor of the exhibition plunges headlong into the first stages of his life – the restoration of the St. Cyril Church in Kiev, on the territory of which a psychiatric clinic is located, where the artist will end up at the end of his life. There he experienced an unhappy love for Emilia Prakhova, who became another of his demon-angels. The second floor begins with a portrait of Savva, the son of Nadezhda and Mikhail, who, although born with a hare lip, was a beloved and desired child. The boy died in 1902, not having lived a year, just in the midst of work on “The Demon”. The artist, we must pay tribute to him, took all the trouble of organizing the funeral and behaved well during the ceremony, but then he fell through. And then he himself came to the doctors, was treated in psychiatric clinics. In the end, he ended up in the Usoltsev clinic in Kiev at the Kirillovsky monastery. Doctor Fyodor Usoltsev let him draw with a pencil, and Vrubel drew tirelessly. On the white walls, we see clear, detailed, realistic portraits and landscapes, where color is guessed behind the black and white graphics. Somewhere here – pure Picasso, somewhere absolute Miro.
The opening of this exhibition was two canvases, from the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum, which were once one. The artist painted a demon at the top, below a swan, and at the very bottom – Nadezhda sitting by the fireplace. It turned out that the wings cover her. He superimposed one subject on another, apparently, there were not enough canvases; and then the picture was divided into two canvases, until, during the preparation of the exhibition, art critics found out that this was one work.
A special series of the finale of this project is the shells, which the artist has depicted dozens of times in recent years.
The last chord is the last painting of the artist. The same demon, but light, with the bottomless eyes of his wife, deathly pale skin and bewitching beauty. The portrait resembles an icon-painting image, it contains all the borderline charm of the art of the great master of light and darkness.
Newspaper headline:
Vrubel’s demons met for the first time
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