In 1880, one opened in St. Petersburg extraordinary exhibition. There was a huge line of people waiting to get into the building on Bolshaya Morskaya Street. showroom. After waiting outside for several hours, visitors went inside to look at one single picture.
It was a landscape of the Russian artist-Itinerant. Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi entitled "". The canvas is quite small in size, and the sky, moon and river are painted on it. It would seem nothing special... However, the audience was amazed. In the dimly lit hall, it seemed to them that they had somehow magically been transported from the gray St. Petersburg morning into the moonlit Ukrainian night.
They saw a wide plain along which the Dnieper slowly carries its waters, and in the heights of the cloud-covered sky, through a small hole the moon shines, illuminating the river and its bank with a mysterious silvery light. Admiring this beautiful landscape, visitors to the exhibition recalled the words of the great N.V. Gogol, who sang the beauty of the Ukrainian night.
Singer of Light
In his own way he sang the poetry of this night and Kuindzhi, after all, it was not for nothing that he was called “the singer of open spaces and light.” He, like no one else, knew how to create amazing illusion Sveta.
This silvery-green light in the painting was so bright and visible that many viewers tried to find some kind of catch, trying to understand how the artist managed to achieve such an effect. 
It was rumored that the picture was painted not with strokes of oil on canvas, but with some mysterious lunar paints on glass and illuminated by a lamp from the back side.
Curious people looked behind the picture and did not find any lamp, and the moon continued to shine with a mysterious witch's light. Kuindzhi Of course, well-chosen lighting of the hall played its role. The picture looked especially advantageous with artificial lighting and drawn curtains. And paints
, indeed, were not quite ordinary and typical. The artist devoted a lot of time to serious study of the properties of paints, spending many hours in the university laboratory, even using special instruments to achieve the shades and effects he needed. Kuindzhi The process of creating a picture was long for him -
I spent a long time selecting paints, thought about each brush stroke for a long time, peering intently at the work being created.
But still, the main thing in his canvas is not special colors, but the ability to convey with their help all the splendor of nature, its mood. He was able to convey the space, silence and poetry of a warm Ukrainian night. And that is why people stood at the painting for a long time, unable to take their eyes off it. Many even left the hall with tears in their eyes, such a strong impression was made on them by this work Kuindzhi.
The audience was delighted. The entire press wrote about this exhibition at the time; reproductions of the painting were sold in huge quantities throughout the country. Poet inspired by this work K. Fofanov created the poem “Night on the Dnieper,” which was later set to music.
The painting itself was bought for enormous money by Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who valued it so much that he did not want to part with the masterpiece, even going to cruise. Unfortunately, the sea air had a detrimental effect on the canvas, and the colors darkened somewhat, but the moonlight did not dim, so even now people never tire of admiring this outstanding work of art.
Give me the beauty of this world...
Kuindzhi developed and masterfully applied his own hitherto unprecedented system of decorative plastics, came up with unusual visual techniques with lighting effects, intense tones and sharp compositional angles. 
But main secret paintings by Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi in that he knew how to convey and convey to the audience in his works feelings. And if in another it famous landscape (« Birch Grove") the main thing is joy, which is literally spilled in the air, here it is peace, harmony, and admiration for the extraordinary beauty of nature.
In his paintings, the painter created his ideal world, where life and the space around us is perceived as good, bringing people goodness, beauty and joy of impressions.
I.E. Repin wrote that A. Kuindzhi“brought back rapture to the landscape sense of beauty and the extraordinary things of the world."
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Moonlight night on the Dnieper, Kuindzhi created a real sensation and almost immediately acquired mystical fame. Many did not believe that the light of the moon could be conveyed in this way only through artistic means.
In the summer and autumn of 1880, Arkhip Kuindzhi worked on new picture. By that time, he had already severed his relationship with the Partnership of Itinerants, considering it too commercialized. Rumors that the artist was creating something enchanting spread throughout the Russian capital instantly. On Sundays he opened the workshop for two hours and those who wished could get acquainted with the work even before its completion. So the picture gained truly legendary fame. Writer Ivan Turgenev, artists Yakov Polonsky, Ilya Kramskoy and Pavel Chistyakov, and scientist Dmitry Mendelev came to Arkhip Ivanovich’s studio. The famous publisher and collector Kozma Soldatenkov had an eye on the painting. However, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was ahead of everyone. He bought “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” even before its presentation to the general public for five thousand rubles.
The painting was shown in St. Petersburg, and it was the first exhibition of one painting in Russia. Arkhip Kuindzhi has always been very attentive to the exhibition of his works. I placed them so that each was well lit and was not disturbed by neighboring paintings. IN separate room The Society for the Encouragement of Artists “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” hung alone on the wall. The room was not illuminated, but a bright electric beam fell on the picture. This deepened the image even more, and the moonlight became simply dazzling.
Visitors entered the dimly lit hall and stopped in front of the cold glow moonlight. A wide space stretching into the distance opened up before the audience. The plain, crossed by a greenish ribbon of a quiet river, almost merges at the horizon with a dark sky covered with rows of light clouds. The silvery-greenish disk of the moon flooded the earth with a mysterious light. There are no people on the canvas, and the main thing in the image is not the river or the moon itself, although none of the painters did it better than Kuindzhi. The main thing is light, giving peace and hope. This phosphorescent light was so strong that some of the spectators tried to look behind the painting to find a lantern or lamp. The curious were in for a strong disappointment - there was, of course, no lamp there.
Only Gogol sang about the Dnieper like that
This majestic spectacle still immerses viewers in thoughts about eternity and the enduring beauty of the world. So I only sang about the Dnieper before Kuindzhi the great Gogol. The number of sincere admirers of the artist’s talent grew. There were no indifferent spectators, and some even considered the picture to be witchcraft.
Decades later, witnesses to that triumph continued to recall the shock experienced by the audience who “got” the picture. This word perfectly suits the description of the exhibition. According to contemporaries, Bolshaya Morskaya, where the exhibition took place, was so densely packed with carriages that one had to wait for hours to see this extraordinary work. To avoid crowding, the public was allowed into the hall in groups.
Nicholas Roerich still found Maxim's servant alive, who received a ruble each (at that time the amount was simply huge - author) from those who tried to get to the painting out of turn. The artist’s performance with a personal exhibition, even consisting of only one small painting, became an unusual event. The success exceeded all expectations and turned into a real sensation.
There were rumors that Kuindzhi painted with “magic lunar” paints from Japan. Envious people said with contempt that drawing with them did not require great intelligence. The superstitious accused the master of being in cahoots with evil spirits.
The secret of the “artist of light” was his fantastic ability to play with contrasts and long experiments on color rendering. In the process of creating a painting, he mixed not only paints, but also added chemical elements. Kuindzhi was helped in this by his close friend Dmitry Mendeleev. Unfortunately, due to the careless mixing of chemically incompatible paints, the canvas became very dark.
The decisive role in creating the impression of the use of phosphorus was played by the unusual coloristic structure of the canvas. By using additional colors in the painting that enhance each other, the artist managed to achieve the incredible effect of the illusion of lunar color. For example, he contrasted the warm reddish tone of the earth with cold silvery shades and thereby deepened the space. Small dark strokes in illuminated areas created a feeling of vibrating light.
People left with tears in their eyes
People, according to Ilya Repin, stood in “prayerful silence” in front of Kuindzhi’s canvas and left the hall with tears in their eyes. “This is how the poetic spell of the artist acted on selected believers, and they lived in such moments with the best feelings of the soul and enjoyed the heavenly bliss of the art of painting,” wrote the great artist.
Newspapers and magazines responded to the exhibition with enthusiastic articles. Reproductions of “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” were sold in thousands of copies throughout Russia. The poet Yakov Polonsky wrote: “I honestly don’t remember standing in front of any painting for so long... What is it? Picture or reality? In a gold frame or open window Have we seen this month, these clouds, this dark distance, these “trembling lights of sad villages” and these shimmers of light, this silvery reflection of the month in the streams of the Dnieper, skirting the distance, this poetic, quiet, majestic night? And the poet Konstantin Fofanov, impressed by the painting, wrote the poem “Night on the Dnieper,” which was later set to music.
Ilya Kramskoy foresaw the fate of the canvas: “Perhaps Kuindzhi combined together such colors that are in natural antagonism with each other and after a certain time will either go out, or change and decompose to the point that descendants will shrug their shoulders in bewilderment: why did they come to the delight of the good-natured spectators? So, in order to avoid such unfair treatment in the future, I would not mind drawing up, so to speak, a protocol that his “Night on the Dnieper” is all filled with real light and air, and the sky is real, bottomless, deep.”
Unfortunately, our contemporaries cannot fully appreciate the initial effect of the painting. It has reached our times in a distorted form. And the reason for everything is the special attitude towards the canvas of its owner, Grand Duke Constantine, who, because of his great love, did not want to part with it and took it with him everywhere. The painting even traveled around the world, which could not but have a negative impact on its preservation.
It is worth saying that due to the enormous popularity of the painting, Kuindzhi created two copies of Moonlit Night on the Dnieper. One of them is kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the other in the Livadia Palace in Yalta. The original is in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
Plot
Before us is a landscape. The artist chose a point of view from afar and from above, leaving most of the canvas for the sky. The shining moon colors the contours of the clouds in cold tones. The light fluctuates on the dark waters of the river, which, as Kramskoy notes, “carries out its majestic course.”
"Moonlit night on the Dnieper." (wikipedia.org)
As in most of his other works, Kuindzhi wanted to convey natural phenomena that were not amenable to lengthy painting from life. The artist had a unique vision - he remembered tones, due to which he captured for centuries those moments that in nature last minutes.
"After the Rain", 1879. (wikipedia.org)
“The illusion of light was his god, and there was no artist equal to him in achieving this miracle of painting,” his friend and mentor Ilya Repin wrote about Kuindzhi.
Context
Especially for Moonlit Night on the Dnieper, Kuindzhi organized an exhibition of one painting - the first of its kind in Russia. Even before her, rumors circulated around St. Petersburg about an unprecedentedly beautiful painting that Kuindzhi was painting. Those wishing to see the canvas gathered under the artist’s windows. Every Sunday he allowed all curious people into the workshop for two hours.
For greater effect, the windows in the hall were curtained, a ray of light fell only on the canvas. When visitors entered the dimly lit hall, they could not believe their eyes - greenish moonlight flooded the entire room.
"Sea. Crimea", 1890s. (wikipedia.org)
People did not understand why such an unusual light emanated from the painting. It seemed that such an effect could not be created only with the help of oil. Some even tried to look behind the picture to see if there was a lamp there. What kind of rumors were circulating around St. Petersburg! That Kuindzhi paints with “magic lunar” colors from Japan. Someone even remembered the unclean one. There was such a fuss that the artist decided to go into seclusion for 20 years.
In fact, the secret was simple - long years work. Kuindzhi was a passionate experimenter. He mixed not only paints, but also added chemical elements to them. This could not have happened without the hand of the chemist of all Rus', Dmitry Mendeleev.
I bought the painting Grand Duke Konstantin. He was so fascinated by the canvas that he even took it with him to trip around the world.
The fate of the artist
Kuindzhi was born into the family of a poor shoemaker. Little Arkhip, who lost his parents early, studied very poorly. He liked drawing more, so everything that seemed suitable for this was covered with drawings.
The boy lived in great poverty, therefore with early childhood He got a job - herding geese, keeping records of bricks at a construction site, helping in a bakery. One day he was advised to go to Crimea to see Ivan Aivazovsky and learn to draw. Imagine his disappointment when Aivazovsky only allowed him to grind paint and paint the fence.
Arkhip Kuindzhi. Portrait by V. M. Vasnetsov, 1869. (wikipedia.org)
For the next almost 10 years, Kuindzhi retouched photographs, until one day he decided to take the exam for the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. It only worked the third time. At the academy, Arkhip met the Itinerants, under whose influence he wrote his first successful, in the opinion of academicians, canvases.
Fame came to him with " Moonlit night on the Dnieper." After exhibiting several more paintings after it, Kuindzhi unexpectedly went into seclusion. “...An artist needs to perform at exhibitions while he, like a singer, has a voice. And as soon as the voice subsides, you have to leave, not show yourself, so as not to be ridiculed,” said Kuindzhi.
For the next 20 years he wrote, but did not show his work to anyone. Kuindzhi emerged from seclusion in 1901. In November of the same year, the last public exhibition of the painter’s works was organized, after which no one saw new paintings until his death in 1910. Kuindzhi donated everything he had to the Society of Artists, which he organized shortly before his death.
Kuindzhi's painting Moonlight Night on the Dnieper was painted by the artist in 1880. After painting Birch Grove and the conflict between Kuindzhi and his colleague Klodt, Kuindzhi voluntarily left the membership of the Itinerant artists.
Visitors to the eighth exhibition of the TPHV immediately noticed the absence of Kuindzhi’s paintings, which caused considerable disappointment among his fans, even P.M. Tretyakov about this. wrote to the artist Kramskoy I., expressing his deep regret.
The work Moonlit Night on the Dnieper aroused considerable interest among the public of that time; while working on the painting, rumors quickly spread about the unusually lyrical beauty of the Moonlit Night. There were so many people who wanted to see the painting that the artist, even while working on Night, opened his workshop for visitors for 2 hours on Sundays. Among the first visitors were famous personalities Kramskoy I., Chistyakov P., Turgenev I. Mendeleev D. I. et al.
The painting quickly found its future buyer, who was not embarrassed by the high price of 5 thousand rubles, which at that time was a lot of money, reserving the right to purchase Moonlit Night for himself. Subsequently, Kuindzhi learned that it was none other than Grand Duke Constantine himself, who had long dreamed of such a picture.
It was decided to exhibit the painting Moonlit Night on the Dnieper in St. Petersburg on Bolshaya Morskaya Street. The uniqueness of this exhibition was extraordinary, that is, only one painting was exhibited, especially with a small canvas size of 144 cm by 105 cm.
Since the painting was painted in dark colors, the artist decided to demonstrate the Moonlit Night on the Dnieper under electric lighting, curtaining all the windows and directing a beam of light onto the canvas, in which the perception of the painting with the effect moonlight was the most inviting.
This whole spectacle delighted the guests of the exhibition; they admired both the painting itself and the uniqueness of the exhibition. Some viewers even thought that there was a light source under the canvas; the moon was actually shining brightly.
It was rumored that Kuindzhi was using various illusionistic techniques when demonstrating the painting and even wanted to convict him of charlatanism; others thought that the artist was using unusual colors when writing Moonlit Night, the secret of which they wanted to know, others gossiped about the artist’s connection with evil spirits.
In fact, the artist was always in new searches and he often managed to find the necessary and correct solutions in order to captivate the public, which is why Kuindzhi was sometimes also called the artist of light. The success of the painting Moonlight on the Dnieper was impressive; Kramskoy spoke very enthusiastically about Moonlit Night and said that no one had ever painted like this before.
The artist shows the viewer the night space going deep into the picture; the moon shines mysteriously, surrounded by rare clouds. The calm and majestic Dnieper River meanders into the distance, magically reflecting the moonlight. On the banks of the deep Dnieper there are dilapidated Ukrainian houses. The quiet state of nature is fascinating and gives rise to deep reflection on the unsurpassed beauty of nature, which he revealed in his painting. wonderful artist Arkhip Kuindzhi.
Due to the enormous popularity of the painting, Kuindzhi created two more copies of Moonlight Night, the first painting is kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the second is in the Livadia Palace in Yalta and the third in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
1. Kuindzhi worked on the painting “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” for about six months. A few months before the completion of the work, rumors spread throughout St. Petersburg about the incredible beauty of this work. Long lines lined up outside the windows of his workshop. Everyone wanted to at least get a glimpse of this work of art. Kuindzhi went to meet the people of St. Petersburg and lifted the veil of secrecy. Every Sunday, the artist opened the doors of his workshop to everyone for exactly 2 hours.
2. During this time, many great people of that time became guests of his workshop - I.S. Turgenev, D.I. Mendeleev, Ya.P. Polonsky, I.N. Kramskoy, P.P. Chistyakov. One Sunday, a modest naval officer came to the artist and inquired about the cost of the painting. Arkhip Ivanovich named an incredible amount for those times - 5 thousand rubles. He didn't expect him to agree at all. But the officer replied: “Okay. I’ll leave it behind.” It turned out that it was Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, who acquired the painting for his collection.
3. “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” was exhibited on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg, in the hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. It is important that this was the first exhibition of one painting in Russia. And people stood in line for hours to see the work of the “artist of light.” This is exactly what fans of his work began to call Kuindzhi.
4. Arkhip Kuindzhi approached the exhibition of his painting responsibly. The idea came to him in a dream: in order to achieve a greater effect, the artist asked to curtain all the windows in the hall and illuminate the picture with a beam focused on it. When visitors entered the dimly lit hall, they could not believe their eyes - the sparkling silvery-greenish disk of the moon flooded the entire room with its deep, bewitching light. Many of them looked behind the painting in the hope of finding a lamp there in order to convict the author of charlatanism. But she was not there.
5. In this painting, Kuindzhi managed to show all the beauty of nature on a calm and serene Ukrainian night - the majestic Dnieper, dilapidated huts and the cold radiance of moonlight. I.E. Repin recalled how dozens of people stood in front of the canvas “in prayerful silence” with tears in their eyes: “This is how the artist’s poetic charms acted on selected believers, and they lived in such moments with the best feelings of the soul and enjoyed the heavenly bliss of the art of painting.”
6. There were rumors that Kuindzhi paints with “magic lunar” paints from Japan. Envious people said with contempt that drawing with them did not require great intelligence. The superstitious accused the master of being in cahoots with evil spirits.
7. The secret of the “artist of light” was the artist’s fantastic ability to play with contrasts and long experiments on color rendering. In the process of creating a painting, he mixed not only paints, but also added chemical elements to them. Kuindzhi was helped in this by his close friend D.I. Mendeleev.
8. The new owner, Grand Duke Constantine, liked the painting so much that he decided not to part with it even when traveling. He placed the canvas on his yacht and went sailing. I.S. Turgenev was horrified by this. He wrote to D.V. Gigorovich: “There is no doubt that the picture... will return completely destroyed.” I even personally persuaded the prince to leave the painting, but he was adamant. Of course, dampness, wind and air saturated with salt negatively affected the condition of the canvas. The paint is cracked and faded. But despite this, the picture still fascinates the viewer.
9. The picture was extremely popular. This prompted Kuindzhi to create two more original copies of Moonlit Night on the Dnieper. They were written 2 years later - in 1882. The first is kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the other in the Livadia Palace in Yalta.
10. The fame that befell Kuindzhi after “Moonlit Night on the Dnieper” almost “crushed” the artist. In the prime of his creative powers, the great creator took an unexpected step. He closed the doors of his workshop and ceased exhibition activities. He explained his action this way: “...an artist needs to perform at exhibitions while he, like a singer, has a voice. And as soon as the voice subsides, you have to leave, not show yourself, so as not to be ridiculed.” For 30 years of “silence” there was not a day when the artist did not pick up a brush or pencil. Even before his death, he remained faithful to his life's work. Not having the strength to get out of bed, he lay down and drew pencil sketches.
11. The museum-apartment of the talented master is located in the famous “house of the artist” on Birzhevoy Lane. The initiative to create a museum-apartment was made by Kuindzhi’s student, Nicholas Roerich. Unfortunately, it was possible to open the exhibition only in 1991 - on the 150th anniversary of the artist.
HELP KP
Arkhip Ivanovich KUINDZHI born on January 27, 1842 in the family of a poor shoemaker. The surname Kuindzhi was given to him by his grandfather’s nickname, which in Tatar means “goldsmith.” In the 60s, the aspiring artist “failed” the exam twice and entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts only on the third try. There he became friends with V.M. Vasnetsov and I.E. Repin, met I.N. Kramskoy, the ideologist of advanced Russian artists. Early works The artist's works were written under the influence of Aivazovsky's manner. Over time, he begins to think about themes and writing style, independently studying paints, colors, lighting effects, and by the age of forty he becomes famous. In the early 90s, Kuindzhi began a period of “silence” and for almost 30 years he painted “on the table”. In the period 1894-1897, Kuindzhi led the highest art school at the Academy of Arts. His students were A. Rylov, N. Roerich, K. Bogaevsky. In 1909, Kuindzhi organized the Society of Artists. He donated his money, lands and paintings to this organization. The “Painter of Light” died in St. Petersburg on July 11, 1910.