Romadin white night. Nikolai Romadin. Fragments from diaries of different years

04.03.2020

One day, the writer Alexei Tolstoy came to the workshop of Nikolai Mikhailovich Romadin. He really liked the small landscape, he took it off the wall, looked at it for a long time and then said only one word: “Witchcraft!”

The future artist was born in Samara, into the family of a railway worker. His father was no stranger to painting; in moments of rest, he took out paints and brushes - he painted pictures about the sea, which he had never seen. But he really did not want his son to become an artist - this profession, in his opinion, was not serious for a man. However, when his father was away, Kolya took his paints and brushes - then he could not be torn away from them. My father didn’t like this, and a conflict was brewing in the family. In 1922, Nikolai collected his simple belongings and left for Moscow to enter Vkhutemas.

It is unlikely that the angry father imagined that his son would become famous artist, which will make his modest painting experiments a world heritage - in 1997 in spanish city Seville hosted an unusual exhibition “Three Generations of Russian Artists of the Romadins,” at which his, Mikhail Andreevich’s, paintings, his son Nikolai and grandson Mikhail were exhibited. The exhibition was a great success.

Nikolai Romadin, being a passionate, temperamental and enthusiastic person, rushed from one extreme to another in painting, tried everything in it - both thematic canvases on “current” topics, and portraits, in which he achieved great recognition. His Self-Portrait, executed in 1948, is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Great honor!

At the end of the 1930s, Romadin unexpectedly abandoned everything he had already created, which he could well be proud of, and went into a pure landscape. With an easel, canvases, paints and brushes, and a small backpack, he disappeared for months in the northern, central Russian and other distances and villages.

Exhibited at his first solo exhibition in 1940, his work appeared in national painting a new, original name. A big event was the visit to the exhibition by Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov. The meeting was very important for the artist.

An unexpected and, perhaps, highest award was a photograph of Levitan; Mikhail Vasilyevich handed it to Romadin with the words: “Levitan gave me a photograph as a continuer of the traditions of Russian landscape. Keep it, and then, when you see fit, pass it on to the young artist, who with honor can continue this line!

During the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Romadin created a large series of paintings “Volga - Russian River”. Almost all of it is now in Tretyakov Gallery. Just like another significant painting series, “The Season,” created under the influence of the music of Tchaikovsky and the paintings of Claude Lorrain.

The painting “Kerzhenets”, painted in 1946, became a milestone in the artist’s work. The most characteristic of him, the most romantic and mysterious. Its plot, at first glance, is very simple. It's time for the spring flood, a dense forest, as if growing out of dark, gloomy water and frozen in some kind of languid expectation. And even a fragile boat with two human silhouettes does not disturb this magical, “Berendey” kingdom.

And “Kerzhenets”, and other most significant works - “Kudinskoye Lake”, “Yarensky Forest”, “White Night”, “Winter in Ostrovsky”, “Senezh. Pink Winter”, “Elegant Winter”, “Fog. Eye”, “ Yesenin's Ryazan Places" are amazing in their emotional impact, in their subtle figurative magic.

Evgraf KONCHIN (from the article "The Witch Lake of Nikolai Romadin")

Another Russian artist whose name was unknown to me.
Romadina N.M. called an outstanding Russian artist, a master of the lyrical Russian landscape.

Spring rain. 1967

Memories of Ventsianov

Thunderstorm, 1967
The formation of art N.M. Romadin, the son of an amateur artist, fell in the post-revolutionary years, when the influence of the avant-garde was gradually fading away. Romadin, initially the author of portraits and paintings everyday genre, in the 1930s he found himself in a lyrical landscape, where it remained possible to “hide” from the pathos of socialist realism, which was alien to the artist.

Bird cherry, 1971

High water
The brightest period of Romadin’s art was the 1940-1950s, when his paintings were perceived as the development of the landscape line of the largest masters of this genre of the first half of the century - M.V. Nesterova, I.E. Grabar, N.P. Krymova. But Romadin is an original artist, capable of peering into a motif almost until he dissolves in it - be it completely traditional views, as in the series “Volga - Russian River” (1949), “Seasons” (1953), or, conversely, bewitching, mysterious corners ("Kerzhenets", 1946; "Flooded Forest", 1950s).

Kerzhenets, 1946

Flooded forest, 1970

Spring stream

Berendeyev forest. 1978

Spring forest, 1956
N. M. Romadin died on April 10, 1987. He was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

Spring thicket, 1972

Spruce illuminated by the sun, 1964

Forest river, 1956

Willows in flood

Pink Spring

fresh wind

Forest Lake, 1959

Kudinskoye Lake

Village Khmelevka

In Yesenin's native places, 1957

In the forest in winter. December, 1956.

Unfrozen river

Night melancholy, 1958

At the village council, 1957

N. ROMADIN.

Self-portrait of N. M. Romadin. 1943 Uffizi Gallery. Florence.

"View of Samara from the Volga". 1920s.

"Tarantas". 1939

Portrait of a daughter - Nina Nikolaevna Romadina. 1943

"Path in the forest." 1940

From the series "Volga - Russian River". Road. 1944

From the series "Volga - Russian River". Moonrise. 1944

"Crimea". 1965

N. M. Romadin. "Pond". 1940

N. M. Romadin. "White Night". 1947

What a riot of blooms!
What an uncontrollable outcome:
Lilac starry vision,
Kustov space flight.
The universe blooms with jasmine,
Gives birth to the milky way.
They float, they pass by,
I can get close to them
Take the spiral of galaxies with your hand,
Bring the flames of the stars closer to you,
Forget - am I a dreamer or a practitioner,
For a moment, breathe in the universe's splash.
Sergey Gorodetsky (Poem written in the guest book at the exhibition of N. M. Romadin.)

ABOUT MYSELF

I was born on May 19, 1903 in Samara, on Sadovaya Street, in a house in the courtyard, an outbuilding of a large apartment building. This house is long gone. Father, Mikhail Andreevich Romadin, and mother, Maria Kuzminichna Golovina, were peasants of the Stavropol district of the Samara province, people from neighboring villages with the peculiar names of Piskala and Tashla. They were located 40 kilometers from the Volga and were surrounded by a huge pine forest. Peasants worked cutting down these forests. After graduation military service Father settled in the city forever and became a railway worker. In addition, he was a self-taught painter all his life. He was a very gifted man.

After Samara, we moved to Orenburg, where my father worked as the chief conductor on an express train. Because of his restlessness, my father often changed cities, and they were always cities, not villages.

He even spent some time in Merv and Kushka, obviously, this is due to the fact that his father served in the army in these very places, in a railway battalion.

When I was 7-8 years old, we lived in Melekes - a quiet village surrounded by forest. The forest stood close, heavy, dark, eternal. I loved him, watched him all day, dreamed about him and was afraid of him. It seemed that goblin, werewolves and Baba Yaga lived there.

And suddenly, in 1913, Samara again. A huge city, “Russian Chicago”, as it was called then. Broken, noisy, with a huge pier, with the Volga, dammed with hundreds of barges, boats. Constant horns of steamships. And right there next to the station, just as uncontrollably full of energy and movement, people always running after happiness. Samara was famous throughout Russia for Zhiguli beer, the secret of which was spring water, especially suitable for brewing, which lay at great depths.

Samara was surrounded by apple orchards, melon fields, and vegetable gardens. It was no coincidence that our street was called Sadovaya. Along it, towards the huge, endless, fragrant, bright, noisy marketplace - the Trinity Bazaar - endless carts of apples, melons, and watermelons walked and walked along the cobblestone street. The smell of ripe fruits, the aroma of suburban gardens, it seems, never disappeared from our Sadovaya Street.

But my whole soul belongs to the Volga. This is the wide happiness of morning peace, the mighty, great Volga, taking everything into itself; what a happiness, what a joy to run to her in the morning to lie on the sand, “fly” on a boat “to the other side”, endless Volozhki, their clear streams and pebbles shining through the water on the sand, riverside bushes, burdocks... and serene feeling of joy and almost constant sunshine. No, I won’t forget this free, short childhood!

It was 1914 - First world war. The house is in dire need. My father’s meager earnings and a large family (five children, I am the youngest) forced me to go sell newspapers.

Every day I got up at 4-5 o'clock in the morning, ran to get newspapers, quickly sold them at the station and went to school. At school, he was terribly ashamed of his position, hiding it from everyone, because at that time newspapermen were the most “scum”, unfortunate orphans, abandoned, street children, half-thieves, who were born of need and war. Therefore, I grew up silent and secretive.

At dawn, a crowd gathered for newspapers, and fights and children's fights began in front of the small window where newspapers were handed out. Every morning, with fear, I again ran to the queue for the newspapers “Volzhsky Day” and “Volzhsky Word”. I was persistent. It was necessary to run from the Volga to the station before others with a heavy canvas bag on my shoulder. Then you will sell newspapers first. I remember the first time I brought my mother 11 kopecks, they were enough for two pounds of meat, although there was a “failure,” that is, all sorts of off-grade parts.

I remember clearly: a hot, dusty day, I’m sitting on the asphalt, leaning against the wall of a house on Shikhovalovskaya Street, I’m wearing a shirt, pants, a canvas bag next to me, and boots. Almost all the newspapers have been sold. I'm 11-12 years old. It’s very sad, the weight of harsh life and injustice has already fallen on my children’s shoulders. The future is very vague. Now I’ll run to the Trinity Bazaar for lunch - okroshka (kopeck) and a bun. From a huge vat, a cheerful young man pours okroshka into a bowl with a ladle - pieces of meat, roach, cucumbers and other things all together. Cheap, but good quality and satisfying. How much do I, almost a child, need? And tomorrow morning again my torment. There's a line for newspapers again. Sad, offensive, almost to the point of tears. The sun is burning, the street is deserted, it’s hot, but I love the heat. In the moments when I was free, I drew and painted in watercolors, imitating my father.

Father was always doing something, humming quietly. It was a joy to look at him: he is kind. “Threatened”, but never laid a finger. From early childhood I remember how he would sit down and paint his amazing boats, trees, his dreams. I stood next to him as if spellbound and could not believe that it was my father. He seemed like a supernatural being to me. At that moment I was afraid of him. Apparently, my condition reached him, he turned, smiled and brushed me under my nose or on my cheek. I was offended for a minute, and yet he continued to seem to me like a very special person.

My father’s wanderings around Russia, moving from city to city with his family, and sometimes without it (he simply left his mother with the children and left), I explain by his desire to get out of poverty, to get out of the circle, above which he was superior in his abilities. Essentially a wasted talent.

After his death, a small library remained, containing books on astronomy, botany, medicine, “In Praise of Stupidity” by E. Rotterdamsky and “Herbalists”. He knew nothing but herbs, treated himself, and treated others. Sometimes, taking a piece of bread, he went into the forest for two or three days and emerged from there all hung, as if overgrown with herbs, dark, stocky (he was short), as if a picturesque shock had emerged from the forest. Light Blue eyes glowed like Vrubel's "master". He only graduated from a two-year parochial school.

When I started drawing at the age of 8, my father resisted it with all his might, took away the paints, destroyed the drawings, saying: “I don’t want you to starve, and if you become an artist, you will be poor all your life. You need to be a technician.” He died in 1936, when I had long since graduated from college, I exhibited a lot, they wrote about me - his joy and pride in me were immeasurable.

My mother, nee Golovina, was an illiterate, but naturally very intelligent woman. Powerful, stern, deeply religious and highly moral, she was demanding of herself and people. She retained pure Russian speech. Sayings, proverbs, said to the point, poured out of her mouth. When I was young, I didn’t appreciate it much. I was offended that she was unkind and harsh. But later I understood why: the father calmly left home, leaving five children in her arms. He knew that she could handle it and feed her family. The mother never complained, she firmly knew her strengths, knew how to stand up for the children and only allowed herself to “kill herself” and sigh in conversations with neighbors.

I remember my mother’s serious illness. She had already been given unction and sent into the unknown. From noon and all night I knelt and prayed for her, for her life. I remember how she said: “Kolya, get up.” “I will not get up,” I answered, “until I beg for your life.” Mom recovered. A hard life left its mark on her character, she was not cheerful, she never sang, but the arrival of guests in the house was sacred to her. The best was shown to the guests, to the detriment of their own. Even in her old age, she sometimes spent winters with me. Greeting my friends with dumplings, pies, and showing them her son’s wealth was happiness and pride for her. Recent years my parents lived in Tashkent throughout their lives. At that time, many former railway workers, friends of their youth, lived in Uzbekistan at that time.

The life of a newspaperman, a seller of all sorts of small things (cigarettes, notebooks, pencils) and even the bread that his mother baked from a stall at the station, continued until 1918. There was no time to go to school. For the last two years - 15 and 16 years - I hardly studied; school seemed far away to me. The life of the Volga city during the days of war and revolution, the station, demobilized soldiers, sailors - that’s who I was among.

In 1918 I volunteered to join the Red Guard. For my good handwriting and ability to handle horses, I was hired as the personal messenger of the regional commissar. I carried the Commissioner's errands around the city on thoroughbred horses. This, of course, gave me great pleasure. I received military rations, on which our whole family lived. This is how I remember myself - thin, pale, always half-starved.

Since 1919 Samara has healed peaceful life. I understood that I needed to study. He was demobilized and went back to school. At the end of the summer I made an attempt to enter the art institute in Moscow. A trip to Moscow at that time was a whole epic. All of Russia was moving. The demobilized returned to the east. Crowds of people were traveling from east to west, in different directions: returning home, looking for their own, carrying bags of flour and bread. The trains were filled with exhausted, tired people; there were no train tickets. You need to contrive, climb into the heated vehicle when departing and win a place for yourself there, but there was none not only to sit, but, in fact, to stand.

With a folder of drawings, a piece of bread, a bottle of boiled water (there was cholera) and only a shirt, I climbed into the carriage. They stood close together. Gradually they sat down on the floor and fell asleep in the evening, hugging each other tightly. The next morning, I saw with horror that the side of my shirt was soaked with herring, a bag of which had been dumped on me by a neighbor sleeping next to me.

On the fifth day I am in Moscow. He settled down on Razgulay, in the attic. The workers' faculty lived there. Hungry. Moscow is deserted, Denikin was advancing.

I failed to enter Vkhutemas. I was given a certificate from the Council people's commissars signed by Ulyanov-Lenin that this year there is no admission to Vkhutemas.

On the second day of my arrival I went to the Tretyakov Gallery. I walked barefoot, I was so unaccustomed to wearing shoes in Samara in the summer; I walked, of course, from Razgulay. Came very early. Opposite the Tretyakov Gallery, where it is now art school, lay down on the grass and fell asleep. When the gallery opened, I put on my shoes and entered.

It is impossible to describe the impression. I was stunned by the beauty, depth and height of Russian art. I knew many of the paintings from postcards (my father loved to paint from postcards), some from reproductions. But then I saw everything real, magnificent. Vrubel completely bewitched me. Nesterov, Repin, Surikov, is it really possible to list them all! Then I realized that I had to study. Go home and finish high school, return to Moscow prepared and go to college. Which is what I did.

The way back home to Samara was even more difficult. On Razgulay, I exchanged my outer shirt for bread, but, unfortunately, I ate it so quickly that I didn’t even notice.

On the train I was lying on the top bunk, terribly hungry. The carriage carried demobilized sailors and soldiers. The next day, one of them noticed that I wasn't eating anything or coming down from the shelf, and shared some food with me. Seeing my folder, he asked if I could draw it. After the first drawing, others also wanted to pose. I drew, and they fed me, and everyone was happy.

What an alarming, extraordinary time. Quarrels often broke out between soldiers and sailors in the carriage. They grabbed their weapons, everyone was armed. I remember how one handsome sailor, speaking with contempt about the infantry, said: “Well, what do you have - breeches, breeches, breeches (meaning rifle shots), and we have bell-bottoms! bell-bottoms! bell-bottoms! And immediately five hundred under ice (implying artillery salvoes from the ship)."

So we got to Syzran. Bridge over the Volga. Trains with civilians are not allowed through it. This is understandable, the bridge is strategic, the only one connecting the two parts of Russia. There were countless people at the station in Syzran. I'm waiting, hungry again, with only a folder of drawings with me. My Red Guard neighbor, who had a certificate with an octagonal stamp stating that he had been demobilized and was returning home, suggested: “Now we will get lunch for two.” I wrote on the certificate with a chemical pencil: “Lunch for two,” and we walked across the rails to the evacuation point, where the cook, standing by a huge cauldron, poured out liquid soup with a ladle. There was a pile of certificates next to him. Looking at ours, he said: “One certificate - one lunch” - and splashed it into the pot. My good friend shared it with me, we sat down on the asphalt of the platform and took turns, scooping it with one spoon, and ate the soup. He brought home only one, albeit huge, basket with a lock (the kind they used to carry things at that time), and in the basket there was only a pot and a spoon.

When the military train moved toward the bridge, everyone rushed after it, clinging to the steps as they went. There was a chain of soldiers with rifles standing around, they shot us down with rifle butts: after all, they had no right to carry people across the bridge. But one way or another, people made their way into the carriages. I made it too. The doors and windows were closed. We were out of breath. Red Army soldiers with rifles stood on the “brakes” and when the passengers tried to open the windows, they started shooting. Finally they moved the Volga, the windows and doors were opened. The train reached Samara without any hindrance.

I'M HOME!

There are several in Samara last months Before my trip to Moscow, I studied at a country commune school. That's where I returned.

This school, which went down in history under the name “Bashkirovka” because it was located in the house and gardens of the Volga flour milling millionaire Bashkirov, had a great influence on my development. The house, or rather several houses, stood on the beautiful high bank of the Volga, surrounded by gardens. We had our own descent to the Volga, our own boats. It was heaven. We have our own electricity. The wood was brought up by a machine - an electric gate. We all worked: sawing, chopping wood, heating the stoves ourselves. There was also a turning workshop and a lot of its own land. We also worked in the gardens. It had its own food pantry.

The house has preserved a magnificent library, publications of classics, casts of ancient sculptures, and huge photographs of the sculptures of Phidias. And a wonderful assembly hall.

The teaching staff is of a very high professional level. At that time of famine, university teachers taught us, and at Samara University there were mainly teachers from Petrograd, who ended up in this Volga city during the war and devastation.

The soul and organizer of "Bashkirovka" is the school director, who is also a history teacher - Vera Nikolaevna Lukashevich. The daughter of a Narodnaya Volya member, who took a history course at the Sorbonne, is active and fair man, she brought into everything the sublime enthusiasm of Russian democracy. IN hard time famine in the Volga region, she achieved everything possible and impossible for the school. I went to Samara to oblono on foot, wearing bast shoes (no boots), and the school was located 10 kilometers from Samara. This truly Russian woman endured hardships and difficulties with dignity.

There were all kinds of clubs at school. Music education practically everyone could get it: there was such an abundance musical instruments- 12 pianos, 5 grand pianos. The music and drama classes were supervised by Nikolai Dmitrievich Samarin, who graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. They staged operas and dramas. In "Boris Godunov" I played Boris and painted the scenery. The school bound those who studied there for life. Calling yourself a “Bashkir” was flattering.

Once a delegation from Moscow came to the school. Whether it was acquaintance with a new beginning - the organization of a school-commune - or just an artistic group, I don’t know. Among them was a certain Goroschenko, who performed at the concert as a violinist. Before the concert, as always for all performances, I drew a poster. On it he depicted the Volga, the Zhiguli Gate. Goroshchenko became interested in the poster, met me and said that he would send me J. Ruskin’s book about art from Moscow. And he really sent it. This book made a huge impression on me. I studied it from cover to cover. He quoted many passages from memory: “Science studies the relationship of things to each other, and art only studies their relationship to man.” In the letter that Goroschenko included in the book, he wrote that I needed to go to study in Moscow. I read about the same thing from Ruskin: “Half of our artists, having knowledge, perish from lack of education; the best of those I met were educated and illiterate. However, the ideal of an artist is not illiteracy; he must be very well read, knowledgeable about best books and completely well-mannered, both on the inside and on the outside. In a word, he must be fit for a better society and keep aloof from everyone."

Until 1940, I never met Goroschenko again; I didn’t know who he was or where he lived. Suddenly in 1940 in Tarusa I met him, I don’t remember which artist introduced us. He taught drawing at one of the institutes, which means that, in addition to the violinist, he was also an artist. I didn’t remember about the book that was sent, too many years had passed. Obviously, doing good is in him. He was pleased to know how much his priceless gift meant to me when I was 16 years old.

I studied with extraordinary zeal and passed exams for two classes within a year. In the spring of 1922, I graduated from school and entered the Samara Art College, the three-year course of which I completed in one year. That same winter, he attended lectures at Samara University.

In Samara, we, art college students, organized a theater studio, prepared two performances, including Gogol’s “The Marriage,” played them on club stages, divided the fees, and lived and studied on it.

In 1923 I came again to Moscow, passed the entrance exams and was accepted into Vkhutemas. All mine later life connected with Moscow.

First course - drawing from Shcherbinovsky. A wonderful teacher and artist, friend of Chaliapin and Korovin. He has 105 people in his workshop. At the same time, some professors have only 8-10 people. Painting by Drevin. I studied with great enthusiasm and was the first to come to the workshop. The guards already knew me and let me in.

Two scenes in Shcherbinovsky's workshop. First. He himself, turning sternly to me: “You let your hair grow, are you drawing in an album?” I’m terribly embarrassed, I try to explain that I have a voucher for the bathhouse, a voucher for free, a haircut too, but while the line is going on, I came to draw. The scholarship is 8 rubles, you can’t do without a free bathhouse and hairdresser. Second scene. We draw, there are 105 of us. Kostya Dorokhov, our friend and student, is posing. He also poses out of dire need. Shcherbinovsky passes by me, looks at my drawing and says: “Stop, look at him, I predict a great future for him. I had to teach for thirty years to say these words. Here is a lion, and you are all kittens.” This is so unexpected and so flattering for me, a first-year student.

Since my second year I studied with Falk. He treated me very well. He and I walked around Moscow, went to museums. I asked him not to come near me during classes, he agreed and did not touch me. The thing was that, approaching a student, Falk liked to take a brush and make a black outline at work. This really confused me, and I asked him to leave me to my own devices: “If things turn out worse, you tell me about it, Robert Rafailovich,” I asked him. He agreed, and we talked about work while walking around Moscow in the evenings.

When I was in my second year, eight works from all over Vkhutemas were selected for the Paris exhibition, and one of mine was chosen among them. The Tretyakov Gallery acquired two of my landscapes from the Moscow art exhibition. In 1930 I graduated from the institute with the title of “1st category easel artist”. Since then my life has been entirely devoted to art.

Through all the ordeals and trials, I carried one dream - art. And now my dream has come true. In 1939 I went to the Volga and began to paint small landscapes. Worked very hard. I decided to make an exhibition. Mashkov, Lentulov, Turzhansky performed at the opening. Nesterov came to the exhibition. Before this, he had not gone to exhibitions for 20 years. And Olga Valentinovna Serova, Serov’s daughter, brought him. Since then, I have become a regular participant in all all-Union and anniversary exhibitions, and my first personal exhibition took place in 1940. Since 1950, my monographs began to be published.

FRAGMENTS FROM DIARIES OF DIFFERENT YEARS

Art does not depict the visible, but makes it visible.

I want nothing from life except a feeling of joy and a sense of justice, the purposefulness of life and the love with which I am filled with everything: Russia, women, children, human sorrow.

I have a duty to Russia, to my country, to the best Russian people. I separate the best, kind, loving Russian people. The best are those who have been given the Gift of love.

I myself never tire of thanking life for this Gift. My love for nature, for all these twigs, fir trees, deep forest, calm water, the stormy spring chirping of sparrows, the cawing of crows, the cry of a magpie and the ever-eternal murmur of a stream fills my heart with the meaning of existence.

I live on my trips uncomfortably, without any comfort, but joyfully. It seems to me that I am honestly fulfilling my duty, overcoming the capricious desire for peace and everyday well-being. I've always tried to avoid this. Happiness and unhappiness are not always distinguishable; often one follows from the other. With this view of life, I am almost constantly happy.

God gave me the happiness of loving the beauty of nature, its pure, unsullied soul, absorbing and transmitting my feelings for it.

You are the only one, my beautiful Earth - there is hardly a more beautiful living planet. Apparently, religion and the ancient thinkers who considered the Earth to be the center of the universe are more right than everyone else newest discoveries, assumptions and scientific hypotheses. It will be such a pity to part with you, with the happiness that you give, with that indescribable joy of life, with its great instincts - love, kindness, preservation of life and prolongation of the family.

What lies ahead? I know that I did not live, worry, think in vain - as if preparing for a new activity. Now the earth is sleeping. It is a beautiful autumn in its eternal uniqueness. The fallen snow created a marvelous ornament on the trees, branches, bushes, and created a fragile shape on the delicate branches. And the secret...

The landscape opens up a complete opportunity to freely express your feelings.

The landscapes of Pushkin, Tyutchev, Turgenev, Yesenin, Levitan and others are surprisingly consonant with man and will constantly resound in our hearts.

Today, as usual, I thought a lot - why do I pay so much attention to craftsmanship? What is this about me - the notorious "Russian academicism"? After all, the main thing is the feeling. It is during periods of decline, degradation of the spirit, that skill begins to replace feeling.

There is no greater truth in art than life itself. Only she reveals the beauty comprehended by the senses, which the artist tries to reproduce.

ABOUT NESTEROV

I began to especially highlight Nesterov among artists from the age of 16, when I first came to Moscow and ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery. His “Bartholomew” touched me so deeply that I immediately put him on a par with Vrubel; I was also struck by the portrait of Mikhail Vasilyevich’s wife, Ekaterina Petrovna.

Then, already in 1935, his personal exhibition took place at the Museum fine arts in the Round Hall. She made me incredibly happy, and I, then a pantsless student at Vkhutemas, dreamed of purchasing his shepherdess - “Pipe”.

I listened eagerly and read everything I could find out and get my hands on about Nesterov. Judgments about him were quite uniform and characterized him as stern, fanatically honest about his work and purpose in life as an artist.

My ideas about Nesterov became much deeper after my meetings and conversations with Pavel Dmitrievich Korin, whom I had known for quite some time. But all these were just distant sensations.

And we met Mikhail Vasilyevich in 1940 at my personal exhibition on Kuznetsky Most.

When I brought the works to the showroom and stacked them together in a corner, they fit into a very small space. I was surprised: how will they occupy the entire hall? And only unaccountable courage told me not to retreat, to be as brave as when I swam across the Volga near Samara as a young man.

But even now, when I bring my works to the Academy of Arts, I continue to be amazed at how little work is needed to occupy all the halls! In 1940, at that exhibition, I had the same impression. How much excitement before the exhibition!

Nikolai Vasilyevich Vlasov, a friend of all famous Moscow artists, an organizer of exhibitions from private collections, an expert on Russian painting, informed me that tomorrow, I don’t remember the date, at 11 o’clock in the morning Nesterov himself will visit my exhibition, and his daughter Valentina Serova will bring him.

I was very excited - it seemed to me that this was absolutely impossible for one reason or another. When I arrived at the exhibition in the morning, the hall was already quite full. The message that Nesterov was coming instantly spread, excited many. Everyone wanted to see him, but I must say that art exhibitions he didn't visit then.

I was sitting in the middle of the hall and suddenly I saw a man of small stature, with sharp movements, sharp, with the dry face of a sage and ascetic. You should have seen how he approached the doorman, took off the muffler with both hands and handed it to him. I was struck by his imperious gesture and his hands clenched into fists. This gesture reminded me of the portrait of I.P. Pavlov. Mikhail Vasilyevich walked around the exhibition several times and came up to me. He said a few good, praiseworthy words and invited him to visit him. I became his second student after Korin, who had been his student for 26 years before me.

Two days later I came to Nesterov’s house for the first time. He lived in Sivtsev Vrazhek. He sat me in a small room in a chair with him and hugged me. It was very crowded for two people in the chair. He asked: “How do you know this?” I immediately understood that he was asking about the essence of creativity, and began to answer from afar. He said that he studied with Falk. He remarked: “Falk doesn’t know.” I told him that I consider Shcherbinovsky my first teacher, Mikhail Vasilyevich objected: “How could Shcherbinovsky know this? However,” he added, “Shcherbinovsky was a friend of Korovin, he could have heard from him, but he himself did not know.” Then I said that I also consider Krymov to be my first teacher. He nodded: “Krymov knows. Bring everything you write, bad and good. Definitely. And especially the bad.”

I brought him everything, I then painted small things, the size of a palm, after I painted the paintings for which I was “famous”, with life-size figures: 50 figures - “Country of the Soviets”. I realized that this was not mine, this art was in the service of polemics, politics, reviews. With Nesterov’s help, I realized that you can’t go far with this art. I realized that I needed an endless study of nature, this was not enough for me, because the frantic pace did not provide the opportunity to study nature, and without a deep knowledge of nature there can be no artist. True, Nesterov told me at the exhibition that these things of mine, these compositions, are also art, but I had little preparation for them. Even before my first visit to Mikhail Vasilyevich’s house, at our first meeting at the exhibition, he seriously asked: “Before you come to me, please answer two questions: do you have a will and do you love money?” I answered him definitely that I don’t like money, but I seemed to have a will.

Soon Mikhail Vasilyevich asked to show him my wife. We were received in the evening very warmly, cordially, by the whole family: Ekaterina Petrovna, daughter Natasha and son Alyosha. The impression is as if we had known each other for a very long time. My wife, Nina Gerasimovna, came in a dark blue dress that she had worn for 8 years. When we parted, in the hallway, Mikhail Vasilyevich handed her his coat, quickly jumped away from the door (he was afraid of catching a cold) and quietly said to me: “And from this side I am calm.” From that day our friendship with the Nesterov family began, which continues to this day.

June 1 is Mikhail Vasilyevich’s birthday, he turned 78 years old. Having previously sent a congratulatory telegram and received an invitation from him by telephone, he came with his wife.

A lot of people gathered. Mikhail Vasilyevich sat me down on the chest, pressed me to him and said: “Here, on this chest, only artists are sitting.” That evening I had the good fortune to meet Mikhail Vasilyevich’s friends: Tyutchev’s grandson Nikolai Ivanovich, architect Shchusev, artist Kruglikova, singers Ksenia Georgievna Derzhinskaya and Nadezhda Andreevna Obukhova, baritone Panteleimon Markovich Nortsov ( the best Onegin) and others. We had a close friendship with Ksenia Georgievna Derzhinskaya until her death.

The evening turned out to be very festive, very cordial and very simple. Ordinary words, ordinary congratulations, but everything is inspired by the presence of a great artist.

I remember another evening. The phone rang: “Mikhail Vasilyevich is speaking to you. I invite you to my place today at four o’clock, would you like someone else to come? I don’t know who you want, but if you don’t mind, Konchalovsky will be there.” . I arrived in a minute, and a little later Pyotr Petrovich and his wife appeared. The Konchalovsky couple, I remember, were carried away, they said what interesting portraits writes Pyotr Petrovich and how wonderful Olga Vasilievna is. When I felt that we had stayed too long, I began to persuade everyone to leave because it was late and Mikhail Vasilyevich needed to go to bed. And indeed, the owner began to fall asleep. But Pyotr Petrovich was very carried away, and Olga Vasilievna too. They didn’t want to leave, and everyone said it was too early. They were cheerful and carefree, like children. And by the end of our meeting Nesterov was sitting completely gray, he needed to undergo procedures - his illness was developing.

Nesterov inspired me: “Your perception will weaken with age, and therefore you must develop technique in advance. Having mastered the technique to perfection, you will be able, without reducing your merits, to work in the same way. An artist needs technique and its improvement so that the feeling is not spent on overcoming difficulties connected with the depiction of nature, and when freed, it would flow freely. The main thing in painting is not to lose what is given. This is the great law.

Oh, how good, how good it is to have talent, and dachas, and pleasures, of which money comes in great abundance, and praise, praise... But remember, talent is a heavy duty, it is not pleasure. You are responsible to the nation for the talent entrusted to you. You must carry it through to the end of your life. This is what you live for.

The word search in art is false from beginning to end. Search can only be understood in the sense of overcoming the difficulties of expressing nature. You need to search in order to achieve authenticity, sublimity, and not meaningless distortion of forms of expression. The distortion of forms in art is not new, it is a fanaticism that takes melancholy. In Greece and Rome, they took a fine from an artist or sculptor if he did not express in his work his soul, that very thing that is truly valuable, survives centuries and leaves an indescribable feeling of eternal truth, speaks about our ancestors, ancestors, their thoughts, deeds and love.

All great eras created nameless art: Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance. Our great icon painting was also nameless. She is above any individual talent, and she is not fragmented into individualities. We only assume from the brush of the master Rublev, Dionysius, and so on.

Our new era will eventually come to the same thing. And now there is still a lot of searching, extreme individualism. All these searches do not determine anything and will be dismissed by themselves. We are facing a new beginning and new era in art, but it matures over centuries, not decades.

Humanity cannot exist without art, and our art will be great and prophetic, will be higher than what was in late XIX and 20th century.

There are three geniuses in Russian painting: Rublev, Ivanov and Vrubel."

Nesterov said that when he expressed his feelings to Vrubel, his admiration for his work, Vrubel replied: “But Bartholomew is with you!”

Why did such a picky person like Vrubel rate this painting so highly?

Nesterov has a simple, unpretentious, “frail” nature, sincere and quiet, containing hidden joy. Her simplicity and humanity are so deeply connected with the Russian heart! Only Nesterov understood this feeling. He has the deepest secret of the relationship between man and nature. His nature is the environment that raised a person, gave him spirit and strength.

I asked Mikhail Vasilyevich if it was possible to paint on old canvases. He replied: “Only if the canvas is cleaned down to the ground, but it’s better not to paint. I had one case when the work was completely lost, and a second case when I managed to save it. I painted a portrait, I liked the person. This portrait was praised by V. Vasnetsov. He was already old, like I am now, but he came to me. After a while, the portrait began to fall off in pieces. It’s on the roll, but it’s as if it doesn’t exist. , which is in the Russian Museum, was painted on a cleaned canvas. They even helped me clean it. good people. I put it at the World of Art exhibition. It was purchased for the Russian Museum. They paid well. One day I came to an exhibition and touched a corner of the painting with my finger, just lightly. I see that a piece fell off, then caught it with a fingernail - the paint peels off quite easily. And the painting was going to be sent to the World Exhibition in Paris. I told him what was the matter - the painting could not be sent either to Paris or even be sold to a museum. After inspection, I was told that it would not be sent to Paris, but it should remain in the Russian Museum. After the World of Art exhibition, it was handed over to restorers, they spent a long time fiddling with it and transferred the painting to a new canvas. "Father Sergius" remained on another canvas."

In 1941, the war began, I took my family to Tashkent, our meetings and conversations stopped, and on October 19, 1942, Mikhail Vasilyevich died. Before I left Moscow, when saying goodbye, he said about the war: “You have to lose your head in order to attack Russia; Russia cannot be defeated.”

It is infinitely difficult to say a new word in art, to find your own language in painting. This is especially difficult to do in a landscape. Nikolai Romadin’s canvases, at first glance, are traditional. But the longer you look at the artist’s paintings, the more you comprehend the special Romadin style.

It is unlikely that the angry father imagined that his son would become a famous artist, which would make his modest painting experiences a world heritage - in 1997, in the Spanish city of Seville, an unusual exhibition “Three Generations of Russian Artists Romadin” was held, at which his, Mikhail Andreevich’s, paintings were exhibited , his son Nikolai and grandson Mikhail. The exhibition was a great success.

Exhibited at his first personal exhibition in 1940, his work gave a new, original name to Russian painting. A big event was the visit to the exhibition by Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov. The meeting was very important for the artist.

During the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Romadin created a large series of paintings “Volga - Russian River”. Almost all of it is now in the Tretyakov Gallery. Just like another significant painting series, “The Season,” created under the influence of the music of Tchaikovsky and the paintings of Claude Lorrain.