Almost 2,000 years ago, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed several ancient Roman settlements, including the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. "The Futurist" chronicles the events of August 24-25, 79 AD.
The ancient Roman writer and lawyer Pliny the Younger said that this happened at the seventh hour after sunrise (at about noon) on August 24. His mother pointed out to his uncle, Pliny the Elder, the cloud unusual sizes and the form that arose at the top of the mountain. Pliny the Elder, who at that time was the commander of the Roman fleet, went to Misenum to observe a rare occurrence nature. Over the next two days, 16 thousand inhabitants of the Roman settlements of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae died: their bodies were buried under a layer of ash, stones and pumice thrown out by the raging volcano Vesuvius.
Casts of bodies found during excavations are now on display inside the Baths of Stabian at the archaeological site in Pompeii
Since then, interest in Pompeii has not waned: modern researchers draw digital maps of the destroyed city and go on archaeological expeditions to show us daily life people who died at the foot of the volcano.
Letters from Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus, excavation results and volcanological evidence allow scientists to reconstruct the timetable of the eruption.
Ruins of Pompeii with Vesuvius in the background
12:02 Pliny's mother tells his uncle Pliny the Elder about a strange cloud that appeared over Vesuvius. Before this, the city was shaken by tremors for several days, although this was uncharacteristic for the Campania region. Pliny the Younger would later describe this phenomenon as follows:
"huge black cloud was approaching quickly... long, fantastic tongues of flame, reminiscent of lightning flashes, only much larger, burst out of it every now and then...
Winds carry most of the ash to the southeast. The “Plinian phase” of the eruption begins.
13:00 To the east of the volcano, ash begins to fall. Pompeii is only six miles from Vesuvius.
14:00 First ash falls on Pompeii, and then white pumice. The layer of volcanic sediments that covered the earth grows at a rate of 10-15 cm per hour. Ultimately, the thickness of the pumice layer will be 280 cm.
The last day of Pompeii, painting by Karl Pavlovich Bryullov, painted in 1830-1833.
17:00 Roofs are collapsing under the mass of volcanic sediments in Pompeii. Fist-sized stones rain down on the city at a speed of 50 m/s. The sun has become covered with an ashy veil, and people seek refuge in the pitch darkness. Many rush to the harbor of Pompeii. In the evening it’s the turn of gray pumice.
23:15 The “Peleian eruption” begins, the first wave of which hit Herculaneum, Boscoreale and Oplontis.
00:00 The 14-kilometer ash column grew to 33 km. Pumice and ash enter the stratosphere. Over the next seven hours, six pyroclastic waves (a gas-laden flow of ash, pumice and lava) will hit the area. People are facing death everywhere. This is how volcanologist Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo describes the night for National Geographic:
“The temperature outside and indoors rose to 300 °C. This is more than enough to kill hundreds of people in a split second. When the pyroclastic wave swept over Pompeii, people did not have time to suffocate. The distorted poses of the victims’ bodies are not a consequence of prolonged agony, it is a spasm from heat shock that has bent already dead limbs.”
L. Osipova
Alexander Bryullov. Self-portrait. 1830.
“Karl, just imagine - eighteen centuries ago everything was exactly the same: the sun was shining dazzlingly, the pine trees were blackening along the edges of the road and donkeys, loaded with luggage, were stumbling over stones. We are on the main road leading to Pompeii. These are the ruins - country house rich Diomedes, excavations are still underway here, further on is Cicero’s Villa. Next is the hotel, here they found a lot of pottery, marble mortars, on a stone tablet there was a trace of what looked like a liquid that had just been spilled, and in the cellars there were wheat grains. If you crushed them and baked them, you could taste the very best classic bread, which is in our romantic era, I think, would amaze many with its taste. Bah, don’t you think that everything has become very lively? Crowds of people rush to the city. Here they are carrying some important gentleman on a stretcher. He is in a tunic of dazzling white, pinned at the shoulder with a gold buckle, in knee-length sandals decorated with diamonds, and behind him is a whole cortege of servants. Do you hear the cries of the mob? Chariots appeared, but it was so difficult for them to move, the narrow streets were all crowded with people. Everything is clear - everyone is rushing to the amphitheater. Today the battles between gladiators and wild animals are scheduled. Or maybe the judges sentenced one of the guilty to end his life in the arena in a fight with lions just brought from Africa? Oh, of course, this is a sight that no Pompeian can miss. 
Karl Bryullov. Self-portrait. OK. 1833.
- Calm down, your imagination is starting to bite! Just look at it, we ourselves will find ourselves condemned. - The Bryullov brothers laugh and, sitting down on a roadside stone, plunge into silence, broken only by the rustling of lizards and the rustle of thorny grass...
Alexander gets up and, finding convenient place on dilapidated steps, opens big album and begins to draw. A little later, Karl joins him. But they draw differently. Alexander, as an architect, is interested in the relationships of parts, the proportions that the builders of Pompeii adopted from the Greeks. Every now and then he runs up to Karl, asking him to pay attention to this simplicity and elegance of lines, combined with the richness and even sophistication of decorations - the capitals of the columns are either in the form of entwined dolphins, or a group of fauns, one of whom is teaching the other to play the pipe, that interweaving of fantastic fruits and leaves... Sophistication, an excess of imagination - this is already a phenomenon of modern times, the influence of Rome. And so it is with the Pompeians in everything: in the richest houses, all the rooms, even the banquet halls, are very small, according to the Greek model - after all, the number of guests must correspond to the number of graces (three) or the number of muses (nine). Meanwhile, it is known that Pompeii was not famous for moderation in food and pleasure. Vice versa. At the feasts here they served sirloin parts of an African lion, smoked camel legs, grape-fed foxes, aromatic rabbits, ostrich brain sauce, earthen spiders, not to mention iced wines scented with aromatic herbs... No, our imagination is powerless for all this imagine... Yes, Greece and Rome met in Pompeii in order to be buried in ash and stones for many centuries after the eruption of Vesuvius in August 79 after the birth of Christ...
Karl listens to his brother in half an ear. He sketches a sketch in a pencil in the album, regretting that he did not bring paints. He is already in the power of living beauty, he enjoys.
How amazing is the effect of light here, piercing and soft! And the throughness of the marble leaves an impression of tenderness. The torso of Venus, the statue of an athlete, recently dug up, cleared of earth, seem more authentic, natural than living people - this is best people. Here it is - this world, which he began to comprehend since childhood.
Father - Pavel Ivanovich Bryullov, academician of ornamental sculpture, forced children to draw from antiques as soon as they learned to hold a pencil in their hands. At the age of ten, Karl was accepted as a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and at fourteen he received a silver medal for a drawing in which, according to everyone, he revived the times of Phidias and Polycletus. IN dead world marble, he felt like he belonged, because with his whole being he felt the laws by which this world was created. Oh, how he believed in his own strength now! To embrace all objects, to clothe them in harmony, to turn all the feelings of the viewer into a calm and endless enjoyment of beauty. To create art that would penetrate everywhere: into a poor man’s hut, under the marble of columns, into a square seething with people - as it was in this city, as it was in distant bright Greece...
...Several years have passed. Alexander went to Paris to improve his knowledge and talent. He also had one more intention, which he soon happily carried out. He published a book about excavations in Pompeii - on luxurious paper, with his own drawings and drawings. The merits of the book were appreciated so much that after a very short time its author was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Architecture in London and a member of the Milan Academy of Arts. Alexander did not so much revel in fame as rejoice - he finally had something to report to the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, which seven years ago, in 1822, sent him and his brother abroad after they graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. But Karl... My God, what rumors have reached here about him from Rome! He managed to become known as a wonderful portrait painter, and every eminent Russian gentleman who came to Italy was in a hurry to order his portrait from him. But it would be a disaster if this man began to inspire antipathy in Karl. He could receive him (as was the case with Count Orlov-Davydov) in the most casual suit and the most casual pose and calmly declare that he was not in the mood to work today. Scandal!.. 
One of the sketches for the painting "The Last Day of Pompeii".
However, news reached Alexander that in lately Karl makes sketches for a large canvas, which he proposes to call “The Last Day of Pompeii.” This made him so happy that he immediately sat down to write a letter, in which he eagerly inquired whether his brother was going to use historical sources or it will be the fruit of his free imagination; Doesn’t he think that the death of Pompeii was predetermined from above: the Pompeians were wallowing in luxury and amusements, frivolously disregarding all signs and predictions, and languishing the first Christians in prison; where he suggests the setting of the picture; and most importantly, let him, for God’s sake, not be distracted from great work, which, perhaps, is destined for him to reveal his genius to the whole world.
His brother's letter caught Karl in an angry moment. He has already moved from sketches to canvas. It was enormous in size - 29 square meters. He worked voraciously, almost without breaks, to the point of complete exhaustion, so that he was often carried out of the workshop. And then the owner came asking to pay the bills...
Of course, everyone already doubts that he is capable of creating anything worthwhile. The Society for the Encouragement of Artists has not paid him a pension for the second year. They just gossip around about his frivolous and careless disposition. But a brother should know that if he works out of passion, then even if you put a shroud on him, he will not stop working.
K. P. Bryullov "The Last Day of Pompeii", 1830–1833. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
Karl took up pen and ink only in extreme cases. And then he decided: he will write now - both to his brothers (brother Fedor, also an artist, lived in St. Petersburg), and to the Encouragement Society. “The scenery... I took everything from life, without retreating or adding at all, standing with my back to the city gates in order to see part of Vesuvius as main reason, – without what would it look like a fire? By right side I place groups of mothers with two daughters on their laps (these skeletons were found in this position); behind this group you can see a group of people crowding on the stairs... covering their heads with stools and vases (the things they saved were all taken by me from the museum). Near this group is a fleeing family, thinking of finding refuge in the city: the husband, covering himself and his wife holding an infant child with a cloak, covering with his other hand his eldest son, lying at his father’s feet; in the middle of the picture there is a fallen woman, deprived of feelings; the baby on her chest, no longer supported by the mother’s hand, grasping her clothes, calmly looks at the living scene of death..."
Dozens of sketches and sketches, several years of exhausting work. No, it was not the horror of doom, nor the nearness of death that he wrote. “Passion, true, fiery feelings are expressed in such a beautiful appearance, in such wonderful person, that you enjoy to the point of rapture," Gogol said when he saw the picture. The death of a sensually beautiful, irrevocable world. Yes, fame came to the artist. Triumph accompanied his appearance on the streets, in the theater. In St. Petersburg, a wreath of laurels was placed on his head, magazines wrote that his works are the first that can be understood by an artist with the highest development of taste, and who does not know what art is.
Well, Bryullov treated fame as a given, as a burden, not at all burdensome. He laughed carelessly when Alexander, hugging him with tears, insisted that he had done more for Pompeii than any archaeologist or scientist...
Bryullov Karl Pavlovich (1799-1852). "The Last Day of Pompeii"With the magical touch of his brush, historical, portrait, watercolor, perspective, landscape painting was resurrected, for which he gave living examples in his paintings. The artist’s brush barely had time to follow his imagination; images of virtues and vices swarmed in his head, constantly replacing one another, whole historical events grew to the most vivid concrete outlines.
Self-portrait. Around 1833Karl Bryullov was 28 years old when he decided to paint the grandiose painting “The Last Day of Pompeii.” The artist owed the emergence of interest in this topic to his older brother, the architect Alexander Bryullov, who acquainted him in detail with the excavations of 1824-1825. K. Bryullov himself was in Rome during these years, the fifth year of his pension in Italy was expiring. He already had several serious works under his belt, which had considerable success in the artistic community, but none of them seemed to the artist himself to be quite worthy of his talent. He felt that he had not yet lived up to the expectations placed on him.
"The Last Day of Pompeii"
1830-1833
Oil on canvas. 456.5 x 651 cm
State Russian MuseumFor a long time now, Karl Bryullov has been haunted by the conviction that he can create a work more significant than those he has done so far. Conscious of his strengths, he wanted to complete a large and complex picture and thereby destroy the rumors that were beginning to circulate in Rome. He was especially annoyed by the gentleman Cammuccini, who was considered at that time the first Italian painter. It was he who was distrustful of the talent of the Russian artist and often said: “Well, this Russian painter is capable of small things. But a colossal work needs someone bigger!”
Others, too, although they recognized Karl Bryullov’s great talent, noted that frivolity and an absent-minded life would never allow him to concentrate on a serious work. Incited by these conversations, Karl Bryullov was constantly looking for a subject for a large painting that would glorify his name. For a long time he could not dwell on any of the topics that came to his mind. Finally he came across a plot that took over all his thoughts.
At this time, Paccini's opera "L" Ultimo giorno di Pompeia" was successfully performed on the stages of many Italian theaters. There is no doubt that Karl Bryullov saw it, maybe even more than once. In addition, together with the nobleman A.N. Demidov (a chamberlain and cavalier of His Majesty the Russian Emperor) he examined the destroyed Pompeii, and knew from his own experience what a strong impression these ruins make on the viewer, preserving traces of ancient chariots, these houses, as if these were only recently abandoned by their owners; public buildings and temples, amphitheaters, where it seems as if gladiatorial battles ended just yesterday; country tombs bearing the names and titles of those whose ashes are still preserved in surviving urns.
All around, just as many centuries ago, lush green vegetation covered the remains of the unfortunate city. And above all this rises the dark cone of Vesuvius, smoking menacingly in the welcoming azure sky. In Pompeii, Bryullov eagerly asked the servants who had been supervising the excavations for a long time about all the details.
Of course, the impressionable and receptive soul of the artist responded to the thoughts and feelings aroused by the remains of the ancient Italian city. At one of these moments, the thought flashed into his mind to imagine these scenes on a large canvas. He conveyed this idea to A.N. Demidov with such fervor that he promised to provide funds for the implementation of this plan and to purchase Karl Bryullov’s future painting in advance.
Karl Bryullov set about executing the painting with love and fervor and quite soon made the initial sketch. However, other activities distracted the artist from Demidov’s order and to deadline(late 1830) the painting was not ready. Dissatisfied with such circumstances, A.N. Demidov almost destroyed the terms of the agreement concluded between them, and only K. Bryullov’s assurances that he would immediately get to work corrected the whole matter.
Last day of Pompeii1. 1827-1830
Last day of Pompeii2. 1827-1830
Last day of Pompeii. 1828And indeed, he set to work with such diligence that two years later he completed the colossal canvas. Brilliant artist drew his inspiration not only from the ruins of destroyed Pompeii, he was also inspired classical prose Pliny the Younger, who described the eruption of Vesuvius in his letter to the Roman historian Tacitus.
Striving for the greatest reliability of the image, Bryullov studied excavation materials and historical documents. Architectural structures in the picture he restored them from the remains of ancient monuments; household items and women's jewelry were copied from exhibits located in the Naples Museum. The figures and heads of the people depicted were painted mainly from life, from the inhabitants of Rome. Numerous sketches of individual figures, entire groups and sketches of the painting show the author’s desire for maximum psychological, plastic and coloristic expressiveness.
Bryullov constructed the picture as separate episodes, at first glance not connected with each other. The connection becomes clear only when the gaze simultaneously covers all groups, the whole picture.
Long before the end, people in Rome began to talk about the marvelous work of the Russian artist. When the doors of his studio on St. Claudius Street opened wide to the public and when the painting was later exhibited in Milan, the Italians were indescribably delighted. The name of Karl Bryullov immediately became famous throughout the Italian peninsula - from one end to the other. When meeting on the streets, everyone took off their hat to him; when he appeared in the theaters, everyone stood up; at the door of the house where he lived, or the restaurant where he dined, many people always gathered to greet him.
Italian newspapers and magazines glorified Karl Bryullov as a genius equal to the greatest painters of all times, poets sang of him in poetry, about his new picture Entire treatises were written. English writer V. Scott called it an epic of painting, and Cammuccini (ashamed of his previous statements) hugged K. Bryullov and called him a colossus. Since the Renaissance itself, no artist has been the object of such universal worship in Italy as Karl Bryullov.
He presented to the amazed gaze all the merits of an impeccable artist, although it has long been known that even greatest painters did not possess equally all the perfections in their happiest combination. However, the drawing by K. Bryullov, the lighting of the picture, its artistic style absolutely inimitable. The painting “The Last Day of Pompeii” introduced Europe to the mighty Russian brush and Russian nature, which is capable of reaching almost unattainable heights in every field of art.
What is depicted in the painting by Karl Bryullov?
Vesuvius burning in the distance, from whose depths rivers of fiery lava flow in all directions. The light from them is so strong that the buildings closest to the volcano seem to be already on fire. One French newspaper noted this pictorial effect that the artist wanted to achieve and pointed out: “An ordinary artist, of course, would not fail to take advantage of the eruption of Vesuvius to illuminate his picture; but Mr. Bryullov neglected this means. Genius inspired him with a bold idea, equally happy, as well as inimitable: to illuminate the entire front part of the picture with the quick, minute and whitish brilliance of lightning, cutting through the thick cloud of ash covering the city, while the light from the eruption, hardly breaking through the deep darkness, casts a reddish penumbra into the background.”
Indeed, the main color scheme that K. Bryullov chose for his painting was extremely bold for that time. This was the gamma of the spectrum, built on blue, red and yellow flowers, illuminated by white light. Green, pink, blue are found as intermediate tones.
Having decided to paint a large canvas, K. Bryullov chose one of the most the hard way its compositional structure, namely light-shadow and spatial. This required the artist to accurately calculate the effect of the painting at a distance and mathematically determine the incidence of light. And in order to create the impression of deep space, he had to pay the most serious attention to the aerial perspective.
In the center of the canvas there is a prostrate figure of a murdered young woman, as if it was with her that Karl Bryullov wanted to symbolize the dying ancient world(a hint of such an interpretation was already found in the reviews of contemporaries). This noble family was leaving in a chariot, hoping to escape by hasty escape. But, alas, it’s too late: death overtook them on the way. The frightened horses shake the reins, the reins break, the axle of the chariot breaks, and the woman sitting in them falls to the ground and dies. Next to the unfortunate woman lie various jewelry and precious objects that she took with her to last path. And the unbridled horses carry her husband further - also to certain death, and he tries in vain to stay in the chariot. A child reaches out to the mother's lifeless body...
The unfortunate townspeople are looking for salvation, driven by fire, continuous eruptions of lava and falling ash. This is a whole tragedy of human horror and human suffering. The city perishes in a sea of fire, statues, buildings - everything falls down and flies towards the maddened crowd. How many different faces and positions, how many colors in these faces!
Here is a courageous warrior and his young brother in a hurry to shelter their elderly father from the inevitable death... They are carrying a weakened old man, who is trying to push away, to remove from himself the terrible ghost of death, trying to shield himself from the ash falling on him with his hand. The dazzling shine of lightning, reflected on his brow, makes the old man’s body tremble... And on the left, near the Christian, a group of women looks longingly at the ominous sky...
One of the first to appear in the picture was the group of Pliny and his mother. A young man in a wide-brimmed hat leans towards an elderly woman in an impetuous movement. Here (in the right corner of the picture) the figure of a mother and daughters emerges...
The owner of the painting, A.N. Demidov was delighted with the resounding success" Last day Pompeii" and certainly wanted to show the painting in Paris. Thanks to his efforts, it was exhibited at the Art Salon of 1834, but even before that the French had heard about the exceptional success of K. Bryullov’s painting among the Italians. But a completely different situation reigned in French painting 1830s, it was the scene of fierce struggle between various artistic directions, and therefore K. Bryullov’s work was greeted without the enthusiasm that befell him in Italy. Despite the fact that the reviews of the French press were not very favorable for the artist, the French Academy of Arts awarded Karl Bryullov an honorary gold medal.
The real triumph awaited K. Bryullov at home. The painting was brought to Russia in July 1834, and it immediately became a subject of patriotic pride and became the center of attention of Russian society. Numerous engraved and lithographic reproductions of “The Last Day of Pompeii” spread the fame of K. Bryullov far beyond the capital. The best representatives of Russian culture enthusiastically greeted the famous painting: A.S. Pushkin translated its plot into poetry, N.V. Gogol called the painting a “universal creation” in which everything is “so powerful, so bold, so harmoniously combined into one, as soon as it could arise in the head of a universal genius.” But even these own praises seemed insufficient to the writer, and he called the picture " bright resurrection painting. He (K. Bryullov) is trying to grasp nature with a gigantic embrace."
Evgeny Baratynsky dedicated the following lines to Karl Bryullov:
He brought the spoils of peace
Take it with you to your father's canopy.
And there was the "Last Day of Pompeii"
First day for the Russian brush."One Hundred Great Paintings" by N.A. Ionin, Veche Publishing House, 2002
Original post and comments at
After the demonstration of the painting, Nicholas I awarded Bryullov a laurel wreath,
after which the artist began to be called “Charlemagne”
Fragment of the painting by Karl Bryullov (1799-1852) “The Last Day of Pompeii” (1830-1833)
Karl Bryullov was so carried away by the tragedy of the city destroyed by Vesuvius that he personally participated in the excavations of Pompeii, and later carefully worked on the painting: instead three years indicated in the order of the young philanthropist Anatoly Demidov, the artist painted the picture for six whole years. About imitation of Raphael, plot parallels with The Bronze Horseman, tours of the work across Europe and the fashion for the tragedy of Pompeii among artists.
Before you start looking at the photographs that your son took in Pompeii, it’s worth understanding how things happened.
The eruption of Vesuvius on August 24-25 in 79 AD was the largest cataclysm Ancient world. About 5 thousand people died on that last day in several coastal cities. Even now modern man the word “destruction” will immediately associatively require the word “Pompeii”, and the phrase: “Yesterday I just had the death of Pompeii” is understandable and will metaphorically indicate the scale of the troubles, even if a sewer pipe burst and flooded the neighbors.
This story is especially well known to us from the painting by Karl Bryullov, which can be seen in the Russian Museum of St. Petersburg. This picture is memorable, a kind of blockbuster, it is clear that in a time when there was no cinema, it made an indelible impression on the audience
In 1834, a “presentation” of the painting took place in St. Petersburg. The poet Yevgeny Boratynsky wrote the lines: “The last day of Pompeii became the first day for the Russian brush!”The picture amazed Pushkin and Gogol. Gogol captured the secret of its popularity in his inspired article dedicated to the painting: “His works are the first that can be understood (although not in the same way) by an artist with the highest development of taste, and who does not know what art is.”Indeed, a work of genius is understandable to everyone, and at the same time, a more developed person will discover in it other planes of a different level.
Pushkin wrote poetry and even sketched part of the composition of the painting in the margins.
Vesuvius opened its mouth - smoke poured out in a cloud - flames
Widely developed as a battle flag.
The earth is agitated - from the shaky columns
Idols fall! A people driven by fear
Under the stone rain, under the inflamed ashes,
In crowds, old and young, flee from the city (III, 332).
This brief retelling a painting, multi-figured and compositionally complex, not a small canvas at all, in those days it was even the most big picture, which already amazed contemporaries: the scale of the picture, correlated with the scale of the disaster.
Our memory cannot absorb everything, its possibilities are not limitless, such a picture can be viewed more than once and each time we see something else. What did Pushkin single out and remember? A researcher of his work, Yuri Lotman, identified three main thoughts: “the uprising of the elements - the statues begin to move - the people (people) as a victim of disaster.” And he made a completely reasonable conclusion: Pushkin had just finished his “ Bronze Horseman” and saw what was close to him at that moment. Indeed, the plot is similar: the elements (flood) rage, the monument comes to life, the frightened Evgeniy runs away from the elements and the monument.
Lotman also writes about the direction of Pushkin’s view: “A comparison of the text with Bryullov’s canvas reveals that Pushkin’s gaze slides diagonally from the upper right corner to the lower left. This corresponds to the main compositional axis of the picture. Researcher of diagonal compositions, artist and art theorist N. Tarabukin wrote: “The content of a picture constructed compositionally along this diagonal is often one or another demonstration procession.” And further: “The viewer of the picture in in this case takes place as if among the crowd depicted on the canvas.”
Indeed, we are unusually captivated by what is happening; Bryullov managed to make the viewer involved in the events as much as possible. There is a “presence effect”.
Karl Bryullov graduated from the Academy of Arts in 1823 with a gold medal. Traditionally, gold medalists went to Italy for an internship. There Bryullov visits the workshop Italian artist and for 4 years he copies Raphael’s “School of Athens”, all 50 figures in life size. At this time, the writer Stendhal visits Bryullov. There is no doubt that Bryullov learned a lot from Raphael, the ability to organize a large canvas. Bryullov came to Pompeii in 1827 together with Countess Maria Grigorievna Razumovskaya. She became the first customer of the painting. However, the rights to the paintings are bought by sixteen-year-old Anatoly Nikolaevich Demidov, the owner of the Ural mining plants, a rich man and philanthropist. He had a net annual income of two million rubles. Nikolai Demidov, the father, who recently died, was a Russian envoy and sponsored excavations in Florence in the Forum and Capitol. Demidov would later give the painting to Nicholas the First, who would donate it to the Academy of Arts, from where it would go to the Russian Museum. Demidov signed a contract with Bryullov for a certain period and tried to adjust the artist, but he conceived a grandiose plan and in total the work on the painting took 6 years.
Bryullov makes a lot of sketches and collects material.
Bryullov was so carried away that he himself participated in the excavations. It must be said that the excavations began formally on October 22, 1738, by order of the Neapolitan king Charles III, they were carried out by an engineer from Andalusia, Roque Joaquin de Alcubierre, with 12 workers, and these were the first archaeological systematic excavations in history, when detailed records were made of everything that was found, before that, there were mainly pirate methods, when precious objects were snatched, and the rest could be barbarically destroyed. By the time Bryullov appeared, Herculaneum and Pompeii had become not only a site of excavations, but also a place of pilgrimage for tourists. In addition, Bryullov was inspired by Paccini’s opera “The Last Day of Pompeii,” which he saw in Italy. It is known that he dressed the sitters in costumes for the performance. Gogol, by the way, compared the picture with an opera, apparently sensing the “theatricality” of the mise-en-scène. She definitely misses musical accompaniment in the spirit of Carmina Burana.
So, after a long sketch, Bryullov painted the picture and already in Italy it aroused enormous interest. Demidov decided to take her to Paris to the Salon, where she also received a gold medal. In addition, it was exhibited in Milan and London. In London, the painting was seen by the writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who later wrote his novel “The Last Days of Pompeii” under the impression of the painting. It is interesting to compare two aspects of the interpretation of the plot. In Bryullov we see clearly all the action, somewhere nearby there is a fire and smoke, but in the foreground there is a clear image of the characters. When panic and mass exodus had already begun, the city was in a fair amount of smoke from the ash; the artist depicts the rockfall with fine St. Petersburg rain and pebbles , scattered along the sidewalk. People are more likely to run away from a fire. In fact, the city was already shrouded in smog, it was impossible to breathe; in Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, the heroes, a couple in love, are saved by a slave, blind from birth. Since she is blind, she easily finds her way in the dark. The heroes are saved and accept Christianity.
Were there Christians in Pompeii? At that time they were persecuted and it is unknown whether the new faith reached the provincial resort. However, Bryullov also contrasts the pagan faith and the death of the pagans with the Christian faith. In the left corner of the picture we see a group of an old man with a cross around his neck and women under his protection. The old man turned his gaze to the heavens, to his God, perhaps he would save him.
The picture is familiar to me from childhood, once upon a time, back in art school we took it apart whole lesson, using the example of “The Last Day of Pompeii”, the teacher talked about the main painting techniques that the artist used. Indeed, it can serve as a textbook on painting if you examine it carefully. The artist uses color and light contrasts and skillfully unites groups of people. Although contemporaries-artists nicknamed her “scrambled eggs” because bright colors, basically a bright compositional center, we understand that Italy with its bright natural colors could not help but influence. Bryullov is considered the founder of the “Italian genre” in Russian painting.
By the way, Bryullov copied some of the figures from figures from excavations. By that time, they began to fill the voids with plaster and obtained very real figures of the dead residents.
Classicist teachers scolded Karl for deviating from the canons of classical painting. Karl rushed between the classics absorbed at the Academy with its ideally sublime principles and the new aesthetics of romanticism.
If you look at the picture, you can identify several groups and individual characters, each with their own story. Some were inspired by excavations, some by historical facts.
The artist himself is present in the picture, his self-portrait is recognizable, here he is young, he is about 30 years old, on his head he carries the most necessary and expensive thing - a box of paints. This is a tribute to the tradition of Renaissance artists to paint their self-portrait in a painting.
The girl nearby is carrying a lamp.
The son carrying his father on himself is reminiscent of the classic story about Aeneas, who carried his father from the burning of Troy.
With one piece of material, the artist unites a family fleeing disaster into a group. During excavations, couples who embraced before death and children with their parents are especially moving.
Two figures, a son persuading his mother to get up and run further, are taken from the letters of Pliny the Younger.
Pliny the Younger turned out to be an eyewitness who left written evidence of the destruction of cities. Two letters have been preserved that he wrote to the historian Tacitus, in which he talks about the death of his uncle Pliny the Elder, a famous natural scientist, and his own misadventures.
Gaius Pliny was only 17 years old, at the time of the disaster he was studying the history of Titus Livy to write an essay, and therefore refused to go with his uncle to watch the volcanic eruption. Pliny the Elder was then admiral of the local fleet, the position he received for his scientific merits was easy. Curiosity ruined him, in addition, a certain Reczina sent him a letter asking for help; the only way to escape from her villa was by sea. Pliny sailed past Herculaneum; the people on the shore at that moment could still be saved, but he wanted to quickly see the eruption in all its glory. Then the ships, in the smoke, had difficulty finding their way to Stabia, where Pliny spent the night, but died the next day after inhaling air poisoned by sulfur.
Guy Pliny, who remained in Misenum, 30 kilometers from Pompeii, was forced to flee, since the disaster had reached him and his mother.
The painting by Swiss artist Angelika Kaufmann shows exactly this moment. A Spanish friend persuades Guy and his mother to run away, but they hesitate, thinking to wait for their uncle to return. The mother in the picture is not at all weak, but is still quite young.
They run, her mother asks her to leave her and save herself alone, but Guy helps her move on. Fortunately, they are saved.
Pliny described the horror of the disaster and described the appearance of the eruption, after which it began to be called "Plinian". He saw the eruption from a distance:
“The cloud (those who looked from afar could not determine over which mountain it arose; that it was Vesuvius was recognized later) was most like a pine tree in its shape: it was like a tall trunk rising upward and from it branches seemed to diverge in all directions. I think that it was thrown out by a current of air, but then the current weakened and the cloud began to spread wider due to its own gravity; In some places it was bright white, in others there were dirty spots, as if from earth and ash raised upward.”
The inhabitants of Pompeii had already experienced a volcanic eruption 15 years earlier, but did not draw any conclusions. Guilt - seductive sea coast and fertile lands. Every gardener knows how well crops grow on ashes. Humanity still believes in “maybe it will blow over.” Vesuvius woke up more than once after that, almost once every 20 years. Many drawings of eruptions from different centuries have been preserved.
This is what particularly influenced the death of the cities; the wind carried the suspension of ejected particles towards the southeast, just towards the cities of Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabia and several other small villas and villages. Within 24 hours they found themselves under a multi-meter layer of ash, but before that many people died from a rockfall, burned alive, and died of suffocation. A slight shaking did not indicate the approaching disaster, even when stones were already falling from the sky, many chose to pray to the gods and hide in houses, where they later found themselves walled up alive in a layer of ash.
Guy Pliny, who experienced all this in a lighter version in Mezim, describes what happened:“It’s already the first hour of the day, and the light is incorrect, as if sick. The houses around are shaking; it is very scary in an open narrow area; they are about to collapse. It was finally decided to leave the city; behind us is a crowd of people who have lost their heads and prefer someone else’s decision to their own; out of fear this seems reasonable; we are pressed and pushed in this crowd of people leaving. Coming out of the city, we stop. How many amazing and how many terrible things we have experienced! The carts that were ordered to accompany us were thrown in different directions on completely level ground; despite the stones placed, they could not stand in the same place. We saw the sea recede; the earth, shaking, seemed to push him away. The shore was clearly moving forward; many sea animals are stuck in the dry sand. On the other side there was a black terrible cloud, which was broken through in different places by running fiery zigzags; it opened up in wide blazing stripes, similar to lightning, but larger.”
We cannot even imagine the suffering of those whose brains exploded from the heat, their lungs became cement and their teeth and bones disintegrated.
How the disaster happened over the course of one day can be seen in the BBC film, or briefly in this installation:
Or watch the film "Pompeii", where, also with the help computer graphics the view of the city and the large-scale apocalypse were recreated.
And we'll see what archaeologists have dug up. for many years excavations..
Plot
The canvas shows one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in human history. In 79, Vesuvius, which had previously been silent for so long that it had long been considered extinct, suddenly “woke up” and forced all living things in the area to fall asleep forever.
It is known that Bryullov read the memoirs of Pliny the Younger, who witnessed the events in Misenum, which survived the disaster: “The panic-stricken crowd followed us and... pressed on us in a dense mass, pushing us forward when we came out... We froze in the midst of the most dangerous and terrifying scenes. The chariots that we ventured to take out shook so violently back and forth, although they were standing on the ground, that we could not hold them up even by placing large stones under the wheels. The sea seemed to roll back and be pulled away from the shores by the convulsive movements of the Earth; definitely the land expanded significantly, and some sea animals found themselves on the sand... Finally, the terrible darkness began to gradually dissipate, like a cloud of smoke; daylight appeared again, and the sun even came out, although its light was gloomy, as happens before an approaching eclipse. Every object that appeared before our eyes (which were extremely weakened) seemed to have changed, covered with a thick layer of ash, as if snow.”
Pompeii today
The devastating blow to the cities occurred 18-20 hours after the start of the eruption - people had enough time to escape. However, not everyone was prudent. And although it was not possible to establish the exact number of deaths, the number is in the thousands. Among them are mainly slaves whom their owners left to guard their property, as well as the elderly and sick who did not have time to leave. There were also those who hoped to wait out the disaster at home. In fact, they are still there.
As a child, Bryullov became deaf in one ear after being slapped by his father.
On the canvas, people are in panic; the elements will not spare either the rich man or the poor man. And what is noteworthy is that Bryullov used one model to write people of different classes. We are talking about Yulia Samoilova, her face appears on the canvas four times: a woman with a jug on her head on the left side of the canvas; a woman falling to her death in the center; a mother attracting her daughters to her in the left corner of the picture; a woman covering her children and saving with her husband. The artist looked for faces for the remaining characters on the streets of Rome.
What is also surprising in this picture is how the issue of light is resolved. “An ordinary artist, of course, would not fail to take advantage of the eruption of Vesuvius to illuminate his painting; but Mr. Bryullov neglected this remedy. Genius inspired him with a bold idea, as happy as it was inimitable: to illuminate the entire front part of the picture with the quick, minute and whitish brilliance of lightning, cutting through the thick cloud of ash that covered the city, while the light from the eruption, with difficulty breaking through the deep darkness, casts a reddish penumbra fades into the background,” the newspapers wrote at the time.
Context
By the time Bryullov decided to write the death of Pompeii, he was considered talented, but still promising. Serious work was needed to gain the status of a master.
At that time, the theme of Pompeii was popular in Italy. Firstly, excavations were very active, and secondly, there were a couple more eruptions of Vesuvius. This could not but be reflected in culture: Paccini’s opera “L" Ultimo giorno di Pompeia” was successfully performed on the stages of many Italian theaters. There is no doubt that the artist saw it, perhaps more than once.
The idea to write about the death of the city came from Pompeii itself, which Bryullov visited in 1827 on the initiative of his brother, the architect Alexander. It took 6 years to collect the material. The artist was meticulous in details. Thus, the things that fell out of the box, jewelry and other various objects in the picture were copied from those that archaeologists found during excavations.
Bryullov's watercolors were the most popular souvenir from Italy
Let's say a few words about Yulia Samoilova, whose face, as mentioned above, appears four times on the canvas. For the painting, Bryullov was looking for Italian types. And although Samoilova was Russian, her appearance corresponded to Bryullov’s ideas about how Italian women should look.
“Portrait of Yu. P. Samoilova with Giovanina Pacini and the Little Arab.” Bryullov, 1832-1834
They met in Italy in 1827. Bryullov there adopted the experience of senior masters and looked for inspiration, and Samoilova lived her life. In Russia, she had already managed to get a divorce, she had no children, and for her too turbulent bohemian life, Nicholas I asked her to move away from the court.
When work on the painting was completed and the Italian public saw the canvas, a boom in Bryullov began. It was a success! Everyone, when meeting the artist, considered it an honor to say hello; When he appeared in the theaters, everyone stood up, and at the doors of the house where he lived, or the restaurant where he dined, many people always gathered to greet him. Since the Renaissance itself, no artist has been the object of such worship in Italy as Karl Bryullov.
Triumph also awaited the painter in his homeland. The general euphoria about the film becomes clear after reading Baratynsky’s lines:
He brought the spoils of peace
Take it with you to your father's canopy.
And there was the “Last Day of Pompeii”
First day for the Russian brush.
Half conscious creative life Karl Bryullov spent in Europe. He went abroad for the first time after graduating Imperial Academy arts in St. Petersburg to improve their skills. Where else, if not in Italy, can you do this?! At first, Bryullov mainly painted Italian aristocrats, as well as watercolors with scenes from life. The latter have become a very popular souvenir from Italy. These were small-sized pictures with small-figure compositions, without psychological portraits. Such watercolors mainly glorified Italy with its beautiful nature and represented the Italians as a people who genetically preserved the ancient beauty of their ancestors.
Interrupted date (The water is already running over the edge). 1827
Bryullov wrote at the same time as Delacroix and Ingres. This was the time when the theme of the fate of huge masses of people came to the fore in painting. Therefore, it is not surprising that for his programmatic canvas Bryullov chose the story of the death of Pompeii.
Bryullov undermined his health while painting St. Isaac's Cathedral
The painting made such a strong impression on Nicholas I that he demanded that Bryullov return to his homeland and take the place of professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Returning to Russia, Bryullov met and became friends with Pushkin, Glinka, and Krylov.
Bryullov's frescoes in St. Isaac's Cathedral
The artist spent his last years in Italy, trying to save his health, which had been damaged while painting St. Isaac's Cathedral. Hours of long, hard work in the damp, unfinished cathedral had a bad effect on the heart and aggravated rheumatism.