Igor Grabar, the painting "Hoarfrost" is one of the best landscapes of Russian painting

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

In the Soviet Union, everyone knew who Igor Grabar was. The painting "March Snow" was familiar from textbooks. A remarkable Russian artist, a famous restorer, a talented art critic, who was awarded the Stalin Prize for his two-volume monograph on Ilya Repin, Igor Emmanuilovich was loved by many for his unique and very beautiful landscapes of Russian nature.

Russian artist born abroad

His father was a member of the Austrian parliament, so the future brilliant singer of Russian nature Grabar (the painting "February Blue" is the clearest confirmation of this) was born in Budapest. He was baptized in Orthodoxy, and his uncle became the famous Russian artist Kustodiev, who would later paint the famous portrait of Igor Emmanuilovich. In 1880 Olga Grabar brought her son to Russia. He attended the gymnasium in Yegorievsk, Ryazan province. Then there was a gold medal for training inthe Moscow Lyceum of Tsarevich Nikolai (1889), the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, which he graduated in 1893, and the choice of the main business of his life. I. E. Grabar, whose painting "Balustrade" (1901) declared him as a talented and original master, becomes an artist. During his life in St. Petersburg, he visited the workshop of Ilya Repin, who became his idol for life, along with Andrei Rublev. Malyavin, Bilibin, Somov studied with him at the same time at the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts.

Becoming

In 1895 the artist leaves for Italy and further across Europe. Grabar returned to Russia in 1901, and the beauty of Russian nature opened before him in a new perspective. The artist tried to convey the strength of his shock with several canvases - “White Winter”, “March Snow”.

February Blue

The event was the canvas, which in 1904 was painted by Igor Grabar - "February Blue". The picture is full of special poetry, the one that sounds in B. Pasternak's poems “February. Get ink and cry! Write about February sobbing. And Grabar painted his picture, too, sobbing. This is one of his most recognizable paintings, it is one of those paintings that create the author of his own name. The artist himself was very fond of this work, which depicts a sunny, still winter day in the Moscow region. In the joy that overwhelms the picture, a slight breath of spring is already felt.

The artist painted his masterpiece in Dugino. To convey the remoteness of the grove tohorizon, and huge masses of air against the azure sky, Grabar chose the angle, as it were, a little from below, for which he dug a deep trench in the snow and placed himself there with an easel. The artist felt that if he could convey at least part of the beauty that he sees, he would get a beautiful canvas.

The charm of the picture is unique. The trees seem to dance around the central birch, the artist's favorite tree. The size of the painting is 104 cm high and 80 cm wide. She was so good that she was immediately acquired by the Council of the Tretyakov Gallery. This work is to this day one of her main masterpieces. You can add that the canvas is one of the hundred best paintings in the world.

Winter, sun, birch, frost…

Another masterpiece created by Grabar is Hoarfrost, a 1905 painting. If he painted it alone, he would still remain in the memory of his descendants, and in textbooks on painting. This is one of those rare paintings that does not leave anyone indifferent. It glorifies the beauty and uniqueness of the unique nature of Russia and in itself demonstrates what great Russian painting is.

Most of all, Grabar liked to draw winter, especially snow. He believed that with the departure of winter, the landscape loses a lot. At the sight of trees covered with hoarfrost, almost always and everyone has a comparison with a fairy tale: “All the trees are in hoarfrost, as if in silver, like a marvelous fairy tale in the yard today …” And everyone knows S. Yesenin's poems about birch in silver. All the beauty of this natural phenomenon, sung by dozens of excellent poets, is reflected in this unique work. Grabar, whose picturededicated to winter, painted hoarfrost, which "glistens with a wonderful life." He believed that in nature there are very few such polyphonic moments as frost on a sunny day, and they are unusually fleeting. Lighting changes all the time, giving birth to new unique color schemes.

He himself called the branches covered with hoarfrost, diamond lace, sparkling with all colors on the "turquoise enamel of the sky." On a canvas measuring 122.4 x 160.3, all of the above is conveyed with amazing power. I must say that the winter landscapes of I. Grabar are the best in Russian painting, especially "Hoarfrost". Winter, sunny day, beauties of birch, a symbol of Russia and Russian nature, tall, with a lush crown, silvered and as if ringing. Their branches cast blue, blue and purple shadows on the snow. Beauties rejoice and are proud of their beauty. In this work, everything is unusual, it surprises and shocks the viewer. Written in oil, in small fractional strokes (divisionism), the picture made people talk about the author as the founder of Russian impressionism. The canvas is stored in the Yaroslavl Art Museum.

Grabar has several different paintings with this name, and they are all very good, but the work of 1905 is better than the others. As soon as they called Grabar's birch, they did not compare it with anything. The term "supernatural tree" seems to fit her best.

…Yesenin's plot, almost biblical…

Another painting by this artist was created taking into account all the canons of impressionism. This is the March Snow of 1904 mentioned above. Here, as in the previous twocanvases, the snow under the sun, which has conquered the soul of the artist forever, is glorified. It reflects the shadows of the surrounding nature, which can be conveyed by all shades of blue, purple, lilac. The deceptive March of Russia is conveyed surprisingly accurately: it is already spring, but the snow does not even think of melting. At the same time, the change of seasons is physically felt, despite the frost.

The canvas depicts a young woman carrying buckets of water on a yoke. It would seem that the usual rural landscape - buildings, already snowless trees, on which buds will soon appear, a hurried peasant woman, who is cheered up by frost. But the main character of the canvas is snow. It is not sparkling, as in winter, it is no longer snow-white, but there is still a lot of it. He is in the foreground of the picture, on which many bright spots are scattered. The canvas is full of charm. The painting is smaller than those described above - only 80 x 62 cm. It is stored in the Tretyakov Gallery.

Every inhabitant of our country knows the magnificent landscapes of Russian nature by such geniuses as Savrasov, Vasiliev, Shishkin, Levitan. Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar, People's Artist of Russia, who was the first of the Soviet painters to be awarded the honorary title "Honored Artist", worthily continued this honorary rank. His pre-revolutionary landscapes are very good, but the canvases painted in the Soviet period are no worse. Singer of the frosty sunny winter and early spring, Grabar remained a great painter even under the new state structure.