Pukirev Vasily Vladimirovich: biography, education, artist's career, paintings

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

Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev is a Russian artist of genre painting. In the 60s of the 19th century, he was among the most promising young artists. However, the only famous painting by Vasily Pukirev is "Unequal Marriage". Biography and work of Vasily Pukirev - later in this article.

Biography

Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev was born in 1832 in the Tula province, the exact date and place of birth are unknown. He grew up in a peasant family, but from an early age he gravitated towards drawing, and his parents allowed him to study icon painting. Young Vasily made great strides in this skill. One day his talent was noticed and highly appreciated by an icon buyer who came from Moscow. He invited the young man to go with him and enter the art institute. With the blessing of his parents, Vasily set off. He entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, on the course of painting professor Sergei Konstantinovich Zaryanko.

The success of the novice artist was truly brilliant - already in 185018-year-old Pukirev was awarded the title of gymnasium teacher of drawing, and by 1855 he had upgraded his qualifications to a non-class artist (a silver medal that allowed him to increase his artistic rank). Below is Vasily Pukirev's painting "Portrait of M. N. Obleukhova", for which he received this medal in 1855.

Vasily decided not to continue his professional development and already in 1858 graduated with the title of "free artist". However, in 1860, he nevertheless presented to the institute commission a portrait study called "Girl", for which he was awarded an academic degree in historical, genre and portrait painting. Since 1861, Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev became a teacher at his school and settled in a state-owned apartment on its territory. From 1862 to 1863, the artist was abroad, where he was sent by the directorate of the school at the expense of the charitable society of art lovers. The purpose of the trip was "viewing art galleries and getting acquainted with the works of pictorial art."

In 1863 Vasily Pukirev's painting "Unequal Marriage" was presented at the academic exhibition. She made an extraordinary sensation among art critics and art lovers, striking everyone with the freshness of the idea and the quality of execution, as well as an unusually large size for paintings of a similar plot - 173 by 136.5 cm. For this painting, Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev was awarded the title of professor of painting and received funds on another trip abroad - he has been traveling since Mayto July 1964.

In the second half of the 60s and early 70s, the paintings of Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev, although they were successful, could not surpass "Unequal Marriage". In 1873, due to he alth problems, the artist had to leave teaching. He continued to paint, but each new work was frankly weaker than the previous one. In the second half of the 70s, Pukirev again took up icon painting - his icons of that period are kept in the Church of the Passion Monastery and the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity.

In 1879, Vasily Pukirev's former colleagues secured a pension for him from the school, but this was not enough. The artist's he alth was deteriorating, and in the early 80s he took up illustrations - he created drawings for the works "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol and "Notes of a Hunter" by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. One of the illustrations for "Dead Souls" can be seen below.

On June 1, 1890, the forgotten artist Vasily Pukirev died in hunger and poverty. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery. Art critic Andrey Ivanovich Somov wrote a small obituary, which was published in the supplement to the journal "Bulletin of Fine Arts":

Among his comrades and students, he left a warm and lasting memory, and in the history of Russian art - a brilliant, albeit short trace.

Unequal marriage

The main work of Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev "Unequal Marriage" appeared inthe time when the issue of marriages of convenience in Russia was particularly acute. 8 out of 10 family unions by the middle of the 19th century were built on the basis of material gain, and only 2 were made out of love. In 1854, the premiere of Ostrovsky's play "Poverty is not a vice" took place on the stage of the Maly Theater, and in 1861 the Holy Synod proclaimed a ban on marriages with a large difference in age. Just three years later, "Unequal Marriage" saw the light of day - a picture as relevant and topical as ever. After all, many rich elderly men seeking marriage with dowry women, and young poor people who want marriage with rich elderly ladies, were outraged by this church ban and demanded its abolition.

The canvas depicts the wedding ceremony of a young girl and an elderly man. The artist himself is also depicted in the picture - in the form of a best man standing behind the bride and clearly unhappy with what is happening.

In the artist's studio

The next big painting by Vasily Pukirev was "In the Artist's Studio", painted immediately after returning from abroad, in 1865. Pukirev himself is depicted as the artist. In his studio, he shows a large icon to an art critic, while priests examine a painting with a secular subject. A maid looks timidly into the room - probably to look at the representatives of the church who have entered the house. The most interesting thing in the picture is the arrangement of Pukirev's workshop. It is not known for certain whether the author depicted some real case of the demonstration of icons and paintings, orportrayed a fictional plot.

Women's Jealousy

Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev painted this picture in 1868, and it became one of the first to approach the success of "Unequal Marriage". The highlight of the picture is a very dark window in which the viewer does not immediately distinguish between a man and a woman embracing. The title "Jealous Wife" ("Jealousy of a Woman") is clearly ironic - by the pity and sorrow with which the artist depicted the face of an unfortunate woman, it is difficult to say that he condemns her. The jealous woman was not mistaken in her suspicions and, having tracked down her unfaithful husband, she found herself face to face with his betrayal. Having moved from the village to the big city, Pukirev first encountered a secular way of life - material values, betrayals in the fate of unfortunate city women. All this fuss of the rich and aristocrats was clearly disgusting to the artist. Wanting to draw attention to the problems of society, Vasily Vladimirovich made them the center of his canvases.

Deacon explains the picture of the Last Judgment to the peasants

This picture was also painted by Vasily Pukirev in 1868, but here the plot is rather from his childhood and youthful memories - inside a simple peasant hut, a village clerk, using a special picture as an example, tells the peasants about the Last Judgment and its consequences. As in the case of the canvas "In the Artist's Studio", the facts of everyday life are very interesting here - the general view of the hut, its furnishings, peasant clothes, wall icons. Gestures are also characteristic - women holdhis head with his hand, thinking over the words of the deacon, and the little boy, in horror, cuddles up to his mother.

The boy with the bird's nest

The peasant boy from the painting "Deacon" is not the first such hero in Pukirev's paintings. In 1856, while studying at the school, the artist already depicted a small peasant in the painting "Boy with a Bird's Nest". It depicts a pensive boy about to cross a forest river - he carefully holds a bird's nest in his hand. It is not known whether the boy picked up the fallen nest from the ground or removed it from the branch on his own. One thing is clear - the boy's kind face does not in any way make him a bully and a destroyer of bird dwellings. Most likely, he found a nest on the ground and decided to bring it home in order to prevent future chicks from dying from the clutches of predators.

Receiving a dowry in a merchant family by painting

Another painting by Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev on the theme of marriage and its disgusting, material side. The painting shows a plot common for its time - the bride's family collects her dowry a few days before the wedding to send it to the groom's house. It is obvious how unpleasant this procedure is for the bride's family - the proud pose of the groom watching the process at the door, the unpleasant figure of the clerk with the list, who obviously found fault with the quality of the dress. The bride with her sister or girlfriend watches this picture with horror. Meanwhile, the mother of the bride, along with her youngest daughter, puts piles of laundry in a chest. Her face clearly expresses an attempt to abstractfrom what is happening.

The canvas was created in 1873, as in the previous paintings, the life and furnishings of a poor merchant's house are interesting here - modest furnishings, several paintings and a cage with a canary suspended from the ceiling.

Collection of arrears

With this picture in 1875, Vasily Vladimirovich Pukirev again returned to the peasant theme. Another sad story is depicted - a woman on her knees begs the bailiff not to take her cow. Obviously, the cattle are taken away on account of some debts, with which the peasants at that time were imposed on all sides - the artist knew this firsthand, because there is so much sincere suffering in the picture. The lighting solution is very interesting - as if on a stage, the praying peasant woman and the bailiff are in the light, while the woman's family remains in the shade. All their hopelessness is expressed in this - they are nearby, but they cannot influence what is happening in any way.

Interrupted wedding

One of the last paintings by Vasily Pukirev, which won approval and success, was this painting, painted in 1877. The second name of the picture - "Bigamist" - easily explains to the viewer what the wedding was interrupted and why the bride lost consciousness. The woman in a black robe next to the groom is his wife. Another plot on the theme of the wedding again made a splash at the exhibition: a runaway husband who wants to deceive two women at once and remarry another - this became a common problem by the end of the 19th century. The canvas is striking in its momentaryness - all the figures look alive,frozen motionless only a second before the viewer paid attention to them.