Anna Vrubel biography

Evgeny Demenok is all the more strange that we tend to attribute to “our” any famous person, even if a couple of times who had visited us to relax. And here - the great artist lived with us for almost five gymnasium years, studied at a drawing school, later, being a mature artist, it was our work on the famous “demon”; With his friend Valentin Serov, he planned to open an art school in Odessa, came to his parents who lived in our city for almost ten years ...

And yet - if they ask the educated Odessa - and Odessa is well formed - about the connection of Vrubel and Odessa, the answer will almost certainly be a perplexed silence. The number of articles about Odessa years of Vrubel is minimal, I'm not talking about more significant attention signs, for example, about a memorial plaque. Vrubel’s biographies have been written, first of all, the book of S.

Yaremich “Vrubel”, which became essentially the canonical, published in the editorship of Igor Grabar, before the revolution. Later, the authors of the biographies of Mikhail Alexandrovich became P. Suzdalev, N. Tarabukin, N. Dmitrieva, Dora Zinovievna Kogan and many others. But still, the main information is contained in the correspondence of the artist and memories of him. An amazing thing is often condemned and even ridicule during life and received recognition of academic circles and the general public, already in the hospital, shortly before his death, Mikhail Alexandrovich was so unusual that completely different people left the memories of meetings with him.

Kovalsky and G. Burdanov, pianist B. Nesterov, I. Ostroukhov, A. Golovin; Of course, Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin - his memories are one of the most interesting; Valery Bryusov, who posed almost blind Vrubel already in the hospital, and even Fedor Arsenievich Usoltsev - a psychiatrist who treated Vrubel. Many valuable information about the artist is contained in the book of Nikolai Andrianovich Prakhov “The page of the past” - including indirect information about the second “Odessa” period of the life of Vrubel.

But all the researchers of the life and work of the great artist experience, without a doubt, to his older sister - Anna Mikhailovna Vrubel. It was she, his good genius, who retained her correspondence and relatives with Mikhail Alexandrovich, created the artist’s archive and left memories. These materials are the most valuable, most impartial document.

Unfortunately, other Vrubel addressees - wife Nadezhda Ivanovna and Emilia Lvovna Prakhova - destroyed correspondence partially or completely. More precisely, in the case of Emilia, Lviv correspondence was destroyed by her daughter Olga - at the request of her mother. How did Vrubel get to Odessa? His father, to whom the artist was an externally and completely differently internally, was a drill officer who participated in the Crimean campaign, and then a military lawyer.

There was exactly a quarter of Russian blood in Vrubel: his father, Alexander Mikhailovich, was a purebred Pole, a Catholic of Wrobel in Polish-a sparrow. Mother, Anna Grigoryevna Basargina, was a descendant of the Decembrist of Basargin along her paternal line, on her mother’s dange, her mother had a story of her name Krabbe. Anna Grigoryevna died when Mikhail was three years old.

Four years later, Alexander Mikhailovich married again. The stepmother of Vrubel, Elizaveta Christianovna Wessel, was a serious pianist, and Misha, reaching for art, was her attentive listener. In the year, he finished it with a gold medal. The head of the family, Alexander Mikhailovich, served in those years the judge of the Military Court of the Odessa Military District.

The court was then in Kusakov’s house, on Guleva Street. In the years, Alexander Mikhailovich wore the title of Lt. Col., and he was already a colonel, a permanent member of the court. This can be read in the Novorossiysk Calendar, which was published every year. Unfortunately, in those years in the "Calendar" home addresses of officials were not yet printed. The artistic inclinations of Mikhail Vrubel manifested themselves early - in St.

Petersburg, his father drove an eight -year -old boy to the drawing classes of the Society for the Promotion of Arts, a year later in Saratov he was engaged in a teacher of drawing from the local gymnasium, who taught his drawing from nature. In Odessa, Mikhail Vrubel visited the drawing school of the Society of Fine Arts. With the help of Olga Mikhailovna Barkovskaya, I managed to find accurate information about the study of the future artist in a drawing school.

In the “Report of the Odessa Society of Fine Arts for the first decade” it is indicated that Mikhail Vrubel was a student of the school in M ​​and years. The school was then headed by Friedrich Friedrichovich Malman, and the teachers were: Acad. Karneev - by painting, acad. Gornostaev - in architecture, artist of the Milan Academy of Louis Iorini, so he was recorded in the “Report” - by sculpture and ornaments, artist of the Munich Academy Bauer - by drawing.

In the year, the school was in the house of the merchants of Aron and Boris Raykhov on Kolevskaya Street, and in the year she moved to the Sklifosovsky house, which was on Nezhinskaya. This is what A. writesVrubel: “... In the gymnasium years in St. Petersburg, the fifth gymnasium near Alarchin Bridge and in Odessa Richelevskaya distract his brother significantly from his beloved art; He is fond of in the first natural science and, by the way, forms a whole system of crystals from the chalk, and in the second - the story in which he writes, over norms, large works on topics from ancient life and the Middle Ages.

” An interesting detail - in her memoirs, Anna Alexandrovna mentions that Professor Mechnikov knew Mikhail still a gymnasium student and treated him with sympathy, which speaks of the intellectual abilities of the future artist. Unfortunately, the artist’s biographies are given to the first “Odessa” period of Vrubel’s life at least attention. The main source for us is the letters of Mikhail to the elder sister Anna, who at that time studied in St.

Petersburg, at pedagogical courses. There are five letters sent by the future artist from Odessa at the disposal of Odessa, dating - G. in letters a rather distinct image emerges: “A typical excellent student, partly, decent, decent natural youthful coquetry - sociable, read, with diverse musical and theatal -literary interests, flaunting foreign words and comical words and comical words Gallicisms, playing the beauty of the epistolary syllable not so much from an excess of literary fantasy, but from the desire to be funny in the boring genre of family correspondence.

” Vrubel is burdened by the provincial life of Odessa: “I envy you a thousand, a thousand times, dear Anyuta, that you are in St. Petersburg: do you understand, ma'am, which means for a person who is sitting in this trepidated Odessa, looking at all her stupid people, to read letters of the Petersburger, from which it seems that it seems that the freshness of the nonsense.

Parbleu, Madame! And here is another quote: “I am very, very glad to offer Uncle Kolya. I mastered in Gens Desiderium Petropolis! What is more in these words: poses, youthful maximalism or a real assessment of the situation? Probably a little by little. The young city, created as the southern sea trade gates of the Empire, really earned money. This is later, later, the Turkh will arise, Vladimir Postebsky will hold the famous salons ...

In the meantime, the drawing school did not even have a permanent address and existed for the money of philanthropists. Vrubel was generally harsh in his statements. The taken aback by Mamontov then demanded explanations from Korovin. Valkyrie what the future artist in our city did, in addition to studying? And where exactly in Odessa did the Vrubel family live? If the first question is more or less clear, then the answer to the second question is still difficult.

On some letters, Odessa is simply indicated, on some, summer - Lustdorf. The Vrubel family spent the summer months in the country in Listdorf. Whether it was their own cottage silt, they shot it - not known. In one of Mikhail’s letters, the sister’s number is mentioned: “So, during the summer I did nothing. All these paintings are written by self -taught, without any knowledge of the techniques of writing, and therefore the latter is more or less bad, however, better than others; She now stands in the Shmidt store and is sold for 25 rubles.

I am more oil letters with a pencil with a pencil, the dignity of which was indicated by one of our recent acquaintance Klimenko, a big expert in arts, a merry -challenge and, inseparable in a Russian person with aesthetic inclinations, a decent Gulyak; This is the last and something else does not like, including me. ” The demon address "Lustdorf" will be repeated in much later - from the year - the letters of the father of Vrubel Alexander Mikhailovich to Anna.

That is, the father continued the long tradition of summer life in the country. So, Mikhail Vrubel in Odessa: - Visit theaters and opera: “... and in the evening we went to the Italian opera. I’ll write something decent, ”I will send to Petersburg as a gift to Uncle Kolya.” ProChainement [soon French. Yes, by the way, about portraits: your portrait is over and hanging behind the glass above the sofa at the dad in the office.

” Delpant de Caulete with M-Medelpant very cute, funny and decent people, we drank tea several times, fiddled with Lilka and told us a lot of interesting things about French life. ” Such a not quite appropriate exception for the current holidays came from acquaintance with French actors, about which dad has already talked right to you. These are very cute people, and I have gotten away with them that I see in them excellent art connoisseurs and I, as an adept of the latter, find endless topics for conversation with them.

They really liked my Croquis a la Plume [Pen's sketches. Odessa port. The shore of the sea. He painted all his free time and even taught everything in the same school of drawing of the Odessa society of elegant arts. In the end, he abandoned the service and completely devoted himself to art. His works are stored in the State Tretyakov Gallery. By the way, the mysterious Klimenko, who is mentioned in a letter by a young gymnasium student as a “big connoisseur in the arts” and whom all biographers call only “someone Klimenko”, is also directly related to a drawing school.

In the “Report of the Odessa Society of Extraordinary Arts for the first decade” it was noted that 12 students studied in the classes of clay. Obviously, Vasily and Stepan were the children of that very merry and Balagur, an expert on the arts. So Vrubel’s letters to the sister indicate that cultural life - even if not the same as in St. Petersburg - in Odessa still existed.

Nevertheless: “You, dear Anyuta, on an excellent path: you study, live in a Russian, activity, fresh city and, therefore, lead an active life. Lord, as you look at the life of the young ladies of Novorossiysk slums, but, in order not to walk for long, - for the life of Sophie Garting, the sister of the gymnasium students who housed Vrubel - approx. If all this had been revived, life in the light has its own poetry, its good sides, but this is not; The clock clock, the t.

Men spend the time no better: food, sleep and cards. Portrait of Valentina Serov. This stagnation, a swamp with its nasty miasm, gives rise to dozens of diseases of society: tyranny, coquetry, fate, debauchery, fraud, etc. Nevertheless, it was to Odessa from Kyiv that he will go to check the mental wounds. He will go, as S. Yaremich writes, with the intention of staying in our city forever, inviting the best friend Valentin Serov to join him.

It will be in ten years, in m.