Painting "Borodino": description. Borodino - battle paintings by different artists

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The Battle of Borodino captivates artists not only with the scope and strength of battle scenes, but also with extraordinary dedication and a burst of powerful national unity.

Historical battle

At the end of the summer of 1812, Napoleon approached Moscow. The Russian army detained the troops of the invaders 125 kilometers from Belokamennaya, near the village of Borodino. The picture of the battle, described by M. Yu. Lermontov in a poem known to every schoolchild, reproduces with detailed accuracy the tension and tragedy of the famous battle. The author managed to show both the unprecedented heroic spirit and the inspiration of Russian soldiers. It is not surprising that many paintings by artists about Borodino are based on the work of Lermontov.

Invincible

The battle lasted 12 hours, the French managed to partially win on the left flank and take the positions of our army in the center. After the hostilities stopped, Bonaparte decided to withdraw his troops to their starting lines. It is believed that the Russians won a victory near Borodino that day. Losses on both sides, however, were monstrous, so Mikhail Kutuzov ordered the Russian armyretreat: a reserve was already in a hurry to help the Napoleonic regiments from France.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Bonaparte appreciated the persistent indestructible spirit of the Russians, saying that they deserved to be invincible.

Documents of time

The chronicle of the bloodiest one-day battle in painting and graphics was conducted by artists from both sides. Russian and French etchings and Borodino paintings present the battle as a document of the era. Swift pencil sketches of attacks and their reflections covered in smoke and dust were later translated into engravings and lithographs.

French look

Gallic artist J. Ch. Langlois considered his compatriots the winners in the battle of Borodino, in his drawings we will not see a single defeat of the Napoleonic army. A draftsman A. Adam, who fought in the fourth Beauharnais corps, was deprived of such tendentiousness. Impartial sketches convey a chronicle of events, where there are no losers and winners, but only a decisive battle not for life, but for death. Returning home, the painter created a series of works in liquid oil on 83 paper sheets. Then they were recreated in lithography.

Russian Truth by Vereshchagin

The paintings of the battles near Borodino, created by Russian artists, deserve unconditional attention. Two paintings on this subject were painted at the end of the 19th century by the famous battle painter Vasily Vereshchagin. In the painting "Napoleon on the Borodino Heights" (1897), we see a smug and anxious emperor sitting in deep thought in front of the formationtheir generals, who are intensely peering through the lenses of binoculars at the Russian camp. The artist managed to express the involuntary confusion and uncertainty of the officers, accustomed to victories. Here they met with something beyond their understanding and experience.

Another painting is called "The End of the Battle of Borodino", the artist painted it in 1899-1900. A strange impression is born when you look at this canvas. Vereshchagin chose an amazing effect - the transfer of the tragedy and senselessness of the battle, which claimed more than 80 thousand lives, through the image of jubilant French soldiers in a smoky mess of overturned horse bodies, people dying from wounds, bristling bayonets and flying feathers of soldiers' shakos.

At the beginning of the 20th century

In the first decades of the 20th century, the pictures of the battle near Borodino were created by the Russian and Soviet battle painter Nikolai Semenovich Samokish. During the Russo-Japanese War, and then the First World War, he was a front-line correspondent.

Filled with the greatest tension canvas, which depicts the military operations of the Life Guards of the Lithuanian regiment. In the sketch, made in oil, the soldiers resolutely rushed to the attack, they are not afraid of bullets, they are not stopped by fear. A rapid impulse is supported by a picturesque composition: lines and color spots emanate from the center of the picture, mixing and getting lost beyond its edge.

Unparalleled prowess and readiness for self-sacrifice are represented by the soldiers of the Life Guards Grenadier Regiment on the Old Smolensk Road in the work of MitrofanGrekova (1913).

Soviet artists about the Battle of Moscow

Dedicated to the events at Borodino, paintings appeared a century and a half after the iconic battle. The picturesque “report” about the mortal wound on the battlefield of Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration in the work of the Georgian artist Alexei Vepkhadze (1948) is filled with sadness. The fallen general is concentrated, his eyebrows frown menacingly, he makes an attempt to rise, holding out his hand to the soldiers surrounding him. No one is able to believe that the illustrious officer will no longer get up from the bloodied earth. The general confusion contradicts the determination of the hopelessly wounded Bagration.

Let's pay special attention to the description of the painting "Borodino" by N. N. Pobedinskaya (1960), which created in the graphics a soulful scene of respite by the night fire. The soldiers are resting, forming a circle, busily cleaning their weapons, inspecting the details of uniforms, lighting a pipe. The lines of the famous Lermontov poem come to mind. Tongues of flame curl, smoke from a pot rushes to the sky. The faces of the characters are serenely calm. But in the background, the cannon muzzle leaned menacingly from under the wheel, and nearby, stacked in a pile, the cannonballs were waiting for the battle. At dawn, the fighters will face a serious battle.

Description of paintings about Borodino in a series of battle paintings by Roubaud

One of the most famous panoramas of the Battle of Borodino belongs to the talent of Franz Alekseevich Roubaud, a Russian artist of French origin. The exhibition opened in 1912 at Chistye Prudy. Half a century later, the panorama was restored and placed in a building onKutuzovsky prospect. Roubaud's project combines a painting with a 3D layout, making it look like the battle is happening right before your eyes.

The panoramic image consists of 12 fragments dedicated to the most decisive and difficult episodes of the Battle of Borodino. These are actions on the Semyonov Heights, hand-to-hand bayonet combat between Russian grenadiers and Friant's division, an attack on the Shevardinsky redoubt, seeing off the wounded Bagration to the rear. The realism of the panorama fascinates with a sense of belonging to the greatest feat in the history of Russia.

Legends of our age

The interest in the past victories of the Russian spirit over circumstances does not cool down today. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Russian artist Yuri Averyanov dedicated paintings to the events of Borodino.

On one of the canvases, the artist captured a legendary event when, at the moment of repelling a hot attack, General Kostenetsky, like an epic hero, grabbed an artillery bannik in his hands and began to knock down enemy horsemen with crushing blows. The fighters followed the example of the commander, wielding whatever came to hand. The attack was repulsed, and the glorious general subsequently received the Order of St. George. Fantastic palette, well-balanced composition, detailing of Averyanov's canvases make his paintings equally interesting for schoolchildren and wise historians.