The image of Pushkin in the fine arts: portraits and sculptures

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

The name of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin has become a landmark for Russian culture. Sincere admiration for his personality and creativity is alive and multiplies in time. Thanks to the talented creations of famous sculptors and artists, the younger generation respectfully contemplates the images of the famous poet.

The image of Pushkin in the fine arts: portraits

Many people note the originality of the image of the poet. The image of Pushkin in the visual arts is an inexhaustible topic for study: the same poet appears before us from different angles, seen by the masters at different periods of the life of this genius. And thanks to their work, we have a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the new Pushkin every time.

It's the 21st century, and the crowds in Pushkin's places do not stop: people attend Pushkin's evenings and exhibitions with interest. The next exhibition event held in Pushkinskiye Gory is a vivid proof of this. Moscow State Museum named after A. S. Pushkin in cooperation with the State Museum-The Mikhailovskoye Reserve contributed to the perpetuation of the image of the poet in the visual arts and included this valuable exposition, consisting of 130 sculptural and graphic compositions, in a global project that reveals the image of Pushkin in the visual arts. The project is called "Pushkin's Portraits".

Project "Portraits of Pushkin"

The exhibition itself is unique: its visitors could not help but feel their presence in two centuries at once: there were images of Pushkin made by masters - the poet's contemporaries, and works created after his death. There are also copies from famous portraits of Pushkin by unknown masters (for example, "Ostafyevskaya copy"), confirming their true popularity at all times.

Kiprensky, Ge, Tropinin, Aivazovsky, Serov, Repin, Fomin, Petrov-Vodkin, Yuon, Laktionov, Ossovsky, Antokolsky… The list of famous portrait painters who turned to the image of a poetic genius can be continued. Their works are valuable in that there is not even a remotely similar vision of this outstanding personality, which traces the desire of the masters to "live" this image in their own way, as if to say: "This is MY Pushkin." The emphasized features of the image of Pushkin in the visual arts - portraits and sculptures - reveal to contemplators the features of past eras. And this connection of times is remarkable in its essence. The idea that Pushkin is a strong link connecting generations from different centuries makes us proud of our cultural roots.

Pushkin's silhouettes never cease to arouse admiration when-or born in the hands of talented sculptors: Anikushin, Bach, Terebenev, Balashova and others. Clearly grasped facial features (and their slightest possible change), postures and gestures characteristic of the poet, even folds in clothes - everything creates the feeling that the Real Pushkin will now extend his hand to you and speak heart to heart through the centuries …

An attempt to portray Pushkin in the 21st century

To advertising agents-creatives of the city of Alma-Ata, one such conversation with the classic seems not enough, they went further (or rather, went too far) in the idea of introducing the Kazakhs to the Pushkin theme. All their compatriots, and now all the regulars on the Internet, “remember the wonderful moment” when a huge poster of shocking content for advertising an entertainment club appeared at the intersection of Pushkin and Kurmangazy streets: a Russian poet and a Kazakh composer merged in a strong kiss … The reaction from the intelligentsia to the deed turned out to be contradictory: skeptics are outraged and condemn the authors for trying to encroach on the sacred, optimists see, albeit an unsuccessful, but significant step towards uniting the cultures of the two peoples, and even different types of art. a challenge to classical traditions or just an ingenious non-standard worldview? It remains to be believed that multinational (sometimes superficial) knowledge of everything Pushkin will still learn to coexist harmoniously with deep respect for both the individual and the poetic heritageRussian classic.

"Pushkin lived! Pushkin is alive! Pushkin will live!”

In general, the manifestation of the above-described cultural “explosions” becomes natural and periodic: an attempt to “throw Pushkin and his fellow writers off the ship of modernity” at the beginning of the 20th century was already undertaken by futurists. Why not be creative at the beginning of the twenty-first? Everyone who feels the "embryo" of the creator in himself has the right to a sonorous word! That's just time for everyone to decide which of the "tortured masterpieces" is a true work of art, and which turned out to be accidental in creative history. And this is true: all futuristic and advertising-creative attacks on Pushkin's unique heritage are doomed to failure. One feels like shouting at them an objection in their own spirit: “Pushkin lived! Pushkin is alive! Pushkin will live!”

The image of Pushkin in the fine arts: children's drawings

It is not for nothing that children see a bright hope for a happy future, which they boldly and sincerely draw on white sheets of paper. The results of the annual city, regional, all-Russian and international children's art competitions on Pushkin's themes inspire hope for the preservation of cultural traditions in future generations.

Children's portrait drawings based on the works of art by A. S. Pushkin are real revelations. Depicting on paper a favorite fragment of a poem, a fairy tale or a portrait of a poet, a childas if admitting: “Here he is, MY Pushkin, that’s how I see him, and I’m glad that I have HE!”

Children's drawings amaze with their rich color palette and design, and sometimes even the choice of a book, which sometimes happens to be not at all for the age of a young artist. Deserves special respect, for example, the work of a fifth-grader based on The Queen of Spades or Boris Godunov, which already has a serious attitude to reality, a deep respect for poetry, and a thoughtful reading of an “adult” work.

Hundreds of children who read the same books by Pushkin every day create hundreds of unique drawings based on the fragments they have experienced. Pushkin's source of creative ideas is inexhaustible: both children's children and children's grandchildren will have plenty of them. You can wander around the exhibitions of children's drawings for hours and read Pushkin's understandable episodes without words: here is a stupid pop in an absurd attempt to deceive the cunning worker Balda, here is the S altanovo kingdom with its fascinating history, and here are three girls under the window with their dreams…

Children's art competitions

Children of different nationalities from hundreds of cities and villages send thousands of creative works made in pencil and watercolor, felt-tip pens and gouache to the competitions. They turn their ideas into reality with interest, both independently and with the help of parents or teachers, grandparents, sisters or brothers. Favorite Pushkin motifs continue to bring people togetherdifferent ages in a creative impulse.

The image depicted in monuments

Today it is hard to imagine any civilized city in which the image of Pushkin is not immortalized in the fine arts: portraits, sculptures - everything suggests that the great poet is not forgotten. Streets, parks, museums, libraries and even shopping centers are named after the genius!

Hundreds of sculptural images of Pushkin are dispersed throughout Russia, and each sculptor recreated the image of Pushkin in his own way. In the visual arts, sculptures of the famous poet are numerous and popular. It is worth visiting Tsarskoye Selo, where the visitor will be greeted by three sculptures of Pushkin at once, symbolizing different stages of the life and work of the poet. It was here that the best years of youth and creative maturation of the future torch of Russian poetry rushed by. Bronze and granite had the high honor of perpetuating the living features of Pushkin.

Sculptures of foreign masters

Not always such images of a Russian poet belong to Russian sculptors. So, the famous statue of Pushkin, once acquired by Emperor Nicholas II, is of French origin: it was made by the master L. Bernshtam. Subsequently, the statue adorned the lobby of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum and is associated with the appearance of the name of the city - Pushkin. After the Great Patriotic War, this monument was subject to deep restoration: about 142 potholes from fascist shots at a bronze target were eliminated in it.

What does the Russian people associate a great writer with?

The image of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in the fine arts in peacetime evokes only bright emotions in a Russian cultured person. Yes, and how not to feel involved in the Russian intelligentsia, sitting in the park in the company of a romantic, infinitely loving life, Alexander Sergeevich! He, as if not wanting to leave for a long time, meets us near schools and museums, in city parks, on central squares, next to museums and libraries.

Sculptors love to depict Pushkin in a pensive but relaxed pose, with a pen and a notebook in his hands, sitting on a bench with a dreamy friendly look. Watching a creative impulse captured in bronze or stone, you believe that right now, right here, from the pen of a genius, another masterpiece not completed during his lifetime will appear.

Is it possible after that not to admire the endless possibilities of true, classical, fine art!