Invasion
The artist Konstantin Alekseevich Vasiliev wrote more than 400 works. This historical paintings, portraits and landscapes, fairy tales, epic and mythological subjects.
Self-portrait Very complex artist. And this applies not only to what is called creative heritage.
I'll try to explain.
On the one hand, we see such simply fundamental works as “Invasion” and “Marshal Zhukov”. And then there’s “Ilya Muromets – a fighter against the Christian plague” and “Self-portrait”. Especially “Self-Portrait”... Doesn’t it remind you of anything?
For this reason, the artist’s works are especially popular among modern neo-pagans and anti-Semites. I believe that neo-Nazis also like them (some of the paintings). However, about neo-Nazis - this is just my guess.
When on one of the fairly popular sites I saw “the source of inspiration for Vasiliev was the art of the Third Reich, Scandinavian and Slavic mythology”, then the first thought was a marketing, rather controversial, move.
And then I found a self-portrait of the artist. And “vague doubts” began to torment me...
He's definitely Soviet artist or is this an artist of the Soviet period who could not paint “from the heart” for the simple reason that in those years one could suffer greatly for loving the Third Reich? And not only from the KGB. Society was completely intolerant of fascism. The wounds from the war were too fresh and painful, if the word “too” is appropriate here. And there were enough knowledgeable people who saw with their own eyes the “art” of the Third Reich. Art both literally and figuratively.
This is where I faced a problem: Is it worth publishing the works of this artist and talking about my doubts?
On the other hand, these are just my assumptions and doubts. It may happen that I was the only one who saw this in some works Nazi symbols and hidden subtext? The artist has his own view of Russian culture, its origins and development paths. But I don't understand this.
Therefore, let me tell you about the artist himself.
Biography of the artist Konstantin Alekseevich Vasiliev
Konstantin Vasiliev was born on September 3, 1942 in the city of Maykop, during the occupation. His father, Alexey Alekseevich, worked as a chief engineer at one of the Maikop factories before the war, and during the war he went to join the partisans.
In 1946, the Vasiliev couple had a sister, Valentina. In 1949, the family moved to the village of Vasilyevo near Kazan. In 1950, Konstantin had another sister - Lyudmila.
Kostya Vasiliev has been drawing since early childhood and when the boy was eleven years old, he was sent to a boarding school at the Moscow State art institute named after V.I. Surikov.
For three years, Konstantin Vasiliev studied painting in Moscow, but then Alexey Alekseevich became seriously ill, and his mother demanded that her son return home.
Konstantin transferred to the second year of the Kazan Art School.
After graduating from college, the artist became interested in surrealism and abstract expressionism, but at the end of the sixties he dramatically changed both the subject matter and the technique of painting.
It is not known what happened, but it is assumed that the artist became interested in Scandinavian and Irish sagas, Russian epics, etc.
That’s when the paintings that I want to bring to your attention today appeared. Of course, this is not the entire creative heritage of the artist. I included in my gallery the most famous (with the exception of self-portrait) works of the artist.
In 1976, Konstantin Vasiliev died tragically - he was hit by a passing train along with his friend.
Now let's move on to the previously promised pictures.
Paintings by artist Konstantin Alekseevich Vasiliev
Invasion. Sketch 
Farewell of a Slav 
Forty-first parade 
Unter den Linden on fire 
Marshal Zhukov 
Northern Eagle 
Mermaid 
At someone else's window 
Russian knight 
Ilya Muromets and Gol Kabatskaya 
Accidental meeting 
Valkyrie over a slain warrior 
Birth of the Danube 
Ilya Muromets - fighter against the Christian plague 
Sviyazhsk 
Elder 
Sventovit 
One 
Fire Sword 
Fight with the snake 
Reaper 
Geese-swans 
Waiting for a Man with an Owl Yaroslavna's Lament 
Prince Igor 
Eupraxia Being an artist from the circle of Alexei Savrasov, Vasiliev sang touchingly and lyrically about nature native land. Paintings by Fyodor Vasiliev are preserved for posterity collective image native nature.
Such a short life!
Yes, the life of the artist Fyodor Vasiliev was indeed very short: he lived only twenty-three years. But even less was allotted to him for creativity - only five years. However, the artist’s creative heritage allows us to admire his insight and depth.
Vasiliev was born near St. Petersburg, in the small town of Gatchina on February 10, 1850. His father was a minor postal official.
Fyodor showed an early ability to draw. This hobby later determined his fate. From the age of twelve, Fyodor Vasiliev was forced to go to work in the postal department, at the Main Post Office. However, he did not work there for long, quit the service and began studying at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. In the evenings he also worked in the restoration workshop of P.K. Sokolov. This work provided additional opportunities for hands-on learning. In addition to Sokolov on creative development The artist was influenced by such masters of painting as Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy and Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, who taught at the drawing school. Both of them belonged to the movement of the Itinerants, who left the walls of the Academy of Arts due to disagreement with the traditions and views on art that had developed in the academic school. It was thanks to this that the Drawing School was opened, among the founders of which were Kramskoy and Shishkin.
Two landscape painters: a story of friendship
Shishkin was not only Vasiliev’s teacher, but soon after meeting him he became friends with his family, which also included two brothers and a sister, Evgenia. Later, I. I. Shishkin became related to Vasiliev: his wife Fyodor Vasiliev was his own sister.
I. I. Shishkin devoted a lot of time to Fedor, introducing him to landscape painting. One of important events Vasilyev's destiny was a trip with Shishkin to Valaam. The trip to the sketches took place in the summer of 1867, and the following year Shishkin spent the summer with the family of Fyodor Vasilyev in Konstantinovka.
It was thanks to Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin that Vasiliev learned to observe nature and distinguish the slightest details and nuances in it. It’s been in my heart since then young artist a lyrical perception of the Russian land has developed, a special ability to become one with the surrounding world.
Tribute to the great master
It was Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin with Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy and the writer Grigorovich, after the death of Fyodor Vasiliev, who organized his posthumous exhibition. All paintings from this exhibition were sold out. It is known that Pavel Tretyakov himself, the founder and owner of the painting gallery, now known to us as the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, bought eighteen paintings at once. And later he acquired some more paintings from the heirs. The money received for the paintings was given to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts to pay off Vasiliev’s debt, part of it was given to Tretyakov also for debts, and everything that remained was given to the landscape painter’s mother.
I. I. Shishkin installed on the grave of Fyodor Aleksandrovich Vasiliev at the Polikurovsky (Staromasandrovsky) cemetery in Yalta tombstone. This monument has not reached our time, since the grave was lost during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War, and later found, but without a gravestone. The modern monument was erected only in 1963 and did not repeat the previous one.
F. Vasiliev and I. Repin: teacher and student
Another important role in the formation of the artist’s personality and skill was played by famous painter- Ilya Efimovich Repin.
He and Vasiliev traveled through the Volga lands. Repin, being a master everyday genre, was also a very good landscape painter. For a whole month, they not only enjoyed the Volga nature, but also painted amazingly beautiful landscapes of the places where they stayed. In landscapes, young Repin tried to “slavishly imitate” Vasiliev, who admired him. Activity and acumen, the keen eye of the artist who noticed everything, the precision of stroke and line, enormous capacity for work and incredible hard work, an amazing vision of the moment and place - this is what amazed Repin in Vasiliev. In his memoirs, he even called him a teacher, whom all participants in the trip tried to imitate.
The role of Count Stroganov in the fate of Fyodor Alexandrovich Vasiliev
In 1969 to creativity young artist showed special attention Count Stroganov. Pavel Sergeevich not only acquired his paintings, but also invited him to his Znamenskoye estate in the Tambov province.
In 1971, when Vasiliev caught a bad cold after skating at the skating rink and suffered from a severe cough, Stroganov was very concerned about his condition. Doctors made a terrible diagnosis - pulmonary tuberculosis. Count Pyotr Sergeevich invited Fyodor Aleksandrovich Vasiliev to his estate in the Kharkov province in the summer, understanding the need for a climate change. However, this could not help Vasiliev recover.
Then Stroganov sends Fyodor Vasiliev to Yalta, where the sick artist continues to undermine his health, spending 10-12 hours a day at work. Such intense activity is also facilitated by the arrival in Yalta of Kramskoy, no less a workaholic than Vasiliev. All this leads to complete exhaustion of the young painter’s body. The talented and not fully realized artist Fyodor Vasiliev dies in the spring of 1873.
Characteristics of creativity
Fyodor Vasilyev’s paintings, although they belong to the period of the Itinerants in painting, are very different from the paintings of the Itinerant masters, first of all, in the peculiarity of their work with color. Instead of stingy and restrained coloring, the painter experimented with “adjacent tones.” Therefore, Vasiliev’s paintings are characterized by brightness and richness of color scheme.
The painter's work can be divided into periods: before the "Thaw" and after the "Thaw" according to the nature of the compositional structure. IN early works Fyodor Vasiliev uses a three-plane construction of the picture, but in “The Thaw” he no longer uses it, which achieves a special effect in conveying his new vision of nature and the world. As for the “Crimean” series of works, it should be noted that the master did not immediately appreciate the unusual beauty of southern nature, but took a long time to achieve this.
The painting that brought the celebrity
Every artist probably has a painting, after painting which “he woke up famous.” Such a picture in the work of Fyodor Vasiliev was the painting “The Thaw,” painted in 1871, two years before his death. Even then the canvas was filled with a feeling of tragedy and hopelessness.
The painting depicts a broken rural road, writhing like a snake, stretching towards the horizon, crisscrossed by sleighs and carts. What time of year is reflected in the canvas? Most likely winter during the thaw period, but perhaps early spring. In both cases, the motif of a thaw or the coming spring seems to be the artist’s hope for recovery or for a bright path to an as yet unknown distance... Stunted bushes and sleeping gloomy trees, a dilapidated hut on the side of the road - as if a symbol of a difficult period in the life of the master, and two people - a child with his enthusiastic and naive bright worldview and an old man, wise from experience, with a philosophical attitude towards life - an allegory of the artist’s “I” “before” and “now”, who came as a result of a long rethinking of his attitude to the universe.
The painting is now on display in Tretyakov Gallery. It is made in oil on canvas and has small dimensions - 55.5X105.5 cm.
Masterpieces: painting by Fyodor Vasiliev “Wet Meadow”
This picture was painted by Vasiliev already in Crimea, but is dedicated to the nature of central Russia. The master was very homesick for his favorite places and wrote it from memory. To some extent, the image of nature created in this canvas is collective, the way it was formed over the years of creativity in the author’s mind. But Vasiliev depicted very real places - he relied on sketches preserved in a small notebook, which was always in his pocket.
The color and light solution of the painting is amazing: the use of a huge palette of shades of green, a subtle, but quite obvious light source, as if penetrating through the milky white shade, giving the light a slightly yellowish, almost creamy tone.
Such a native landscape to all of us! The sky has not yet cleared from the passing thunderstorm, but a ray of sun is already shining through the clouds, highlighting with light reflections the flowers in the foreground of the canvas, the green cover of the meadow washed by the rain and part of the reservoir on the right side of the picture. The left part of it, where a narrow path leading to the shore, islands of weeping trees and a foggy forest on the horizon are depicted, still remain in the grip of the past bad weather. Perhaps the author, who left for Crimea at that time for treatment, reflected in the work his hope for recovery, but he definitely poured out his longing for his native land.
This painting was the last in a series of canvases depicting the nature of the central part of the Russian land. “Wet Meadow” by Fyodor Vasilyev is a painting that was awarded the Prize of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists.
The last picture in life
This painting, which closed Vasiliev’s “Crimean” cycle, was the work “In the Crimean Mountains.” And again we see the artist’s subtle work with the lighting design of the painting: the light gradually thickens in a wave-like manner - in the direction from the lower right to the upper left corner of the canvas, catching with a glare the cart lagging to the left, into which two bulls are harnessed. Moreover, in the illuminated area there is only the front part of the cart with a man in a white robe reclining in it. Other part vehicle and the man near his wheel are in a darker zone. Similarly, it is highlighted upper part paintings: the slope covered with grass on the right side of the picture is well lit, but the gorge on the left is in the shadow. At the same time, the uppermost part of the canvas - the sky - is illuminated entirely. But the top left corner is slightly lighter. The light source, as if from within, through the heavens, illuminates the earth, gradually moving the light. A feeling of movement of the light field is created, and it seems that everything that the author wrote is about to be illuminated with light.
This work was submitted to the competition of the Society for the Support of Artists, in which it took first place. Written shortly before his death, the work seems to be a hymn to the ascent to the light eternal life, to something unknown that awaited Fyodor Vasiliev there in heaven.
“A boy of genius” - this definition is most often found in assessments of the work of Fyodor Vasiliev. Active, witty, unusually charming, he seemed to everyone who saw him for the first time to have been born in a shirt. There was something reminiscent of Mozart or the young Pushkin in Vasiliev’s sunny and artistic nature.
“We do not have a landscape painter-poet in the real sense of the word, and if anyone can and should be one, it is only Vasiliev,” his contemporary I. Kramskoy said about the artist.
I. Kramskoy constantly admired the young man’s extraordinary talent, comparing him to “a fabulous rich man who is fabulously generous and throws his treasures by the handful to the right and left, without counting or even appreciating them.”
Fate has given the remarkable Russian landscape artist Vasiliev a very disappointingly short life: only 23 years of life. But even during this time he left a noticeable mark on Russian art.
Fyodor Vasiliev was born on February 22, 1850 in St. Petersburg, in the family of a poor post office official. As a twelve-year-old child, Fedor was sent to serve at the main post office.
From an early age, he became addicted to drawing and devoted all his free time from work to his favorite pastime. ChildhoodVasilyevawas overshadowed by poverty and the death of his father, after which the 15-year-oldFedoraworries about our daily bread have ceased.
Volga Lagoon. 1870
Vasiliev worked for the restorer of the Academy of Arts Sokolov and continued his studies in art. He entered the drawing school of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, where Kramskoy taught, with whom Vasiliev was close throughout his short life. Subsequently, Vasiliev became close to Shishkin, who became an authoritative mentor to the aspiring artist.
In June 1867Vasilievwith Shishkin goes to Valaam, where helearning to work on location. On Valaam, the artist became close to St. Petersburg landscape painters. In 1867, Vasiliev painted several sketches from life, which were then exhibited at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts.
Images of nature in Vasiliev’s paintings acquired spirituality, special poetry, romanticism and depth of feelings. These features were already defined in the landscapes of 1868 - 69 “Return of the Herd”, “Before the Rain”, in which the artist captured bright and spectacular moments of the life of nature. In these paintings, the painting style is characterized by sonorous accents of color spots and the dynamism of a free brushstroke.
The artist’s famous paintings “Village Street” and “After the Storm,” executed at the same time, are firmly connected with the topic that was relevant to Vasiliev rural landscape and are characterized by a semi-genre plot, a road motif, and a desire to take the content of the picture beyond what is depicted.Vasiliev is constantly in creative search. BigVmergingat himprovided works by artists of the Barbizon school T. Rousseau, J. Dupre, M. Diaz. They amazed him with their spiritual perception of nature, depicted in simple scenes.
After the thunderstorm
In 1868, Fyodor Vasiliev submitted the painting “Return of the Herd” to a competition at the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, and it was highly praised. Further creativity artistappears free from any influences.Admiring the sensual beauty of nature,Vasilievstrive to show the joy of his spiritual involvement in it. The following paintings from this period are known: “Early Morning”, “After the Rain”, “Evening”, “Village”...
In 1870, Vasiliev, Repin and Makarov took a trip along the Volga, as a result of which appeared paintings“View on the Volga. Barges”, “Volga lagoons”, “Winter landscape”, “Approaching thunderstorm”, “Before the storm”.
Thaw
Returning to St. Petersburg, Vasiliev writes one oftheirmain paintings - “The Thaw”. INin the spring of 1875year, she was awarded first prize at a competition in the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. "The Thaw" is imbued with melancholy and sadness, inspired by bitter thoughts about the life of the Russian village.
In the winter of 1870, Fyodor Vasiliev caught a cold, he was diagnosed with a severe lung disease, and with the onset of spring, the disease worsened and turned into tuberculosis. At the suggestion of Stroganov, Vasiliev, summer 1871spenton his estates in the Kharkov and Voronezh provinces. This period of his work includes: the plein air landscape “Rye”, “Poplars illuminated by the sun”, and the unfinished landscape “Village”.Despite favorable living conditionsStroganov, his health did not improve.Vasiliev was enrolled as a volunteer student at the Academy of Arts, he was awarded the title of artist of the 1st degree with the condition of passing the exam.
The Society for the Encouragement of Arts gave Vasiliev funds for a trip to Crimea.He moved to Yalta, taking with him a workbook with sketches of Ukrainian village motifs. In Crimea, based on these sketches and memories, he painted one of his best paintings - the wide epic canvas “Wet Meadow” (1872). The painting, strict in composition, amazes with its freshness, depth and rich internal gradation of color. The image of nature captured by Vasiliev conceals a complex range of feelings and experiences of the artist.This oneThe painting deeply moved Kramskoy.
Wet meadow
Vasiliev spent two years in Crimea; degree of tension creative life was amazing. Taking forced breaks from work due to illness and completing paintings commissioned from him, which took up more time, in the spring of 1872 the artist mastered the motifs of Crimean nature. In addition to many drawings, he painted two paintings: “Swamp” and “Crimean View”, for which hein 1872was awarded a prize from the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. He begins the painting “In the Crimean Mountains”, works on the canvas “Surf in Yalta”.The works of this period are characterized by a sublime idea of being mountain world. Vasiliev’s last completed work, “In the Crimean Mountains” (1873), is distinguished by its subtlety color relationships, united by a grayish-brown tone; nature takes on a shade of heroic grandeur. Kramskoy recognized this painting as brilliant.
Vasilyev’s latest works are “Morning”, “Swamp in the Forest. Autumn”, “Abandoned Mill” are partially unfinished. “Abandoned Mill” is best example such a picturesque solution that the artist dreamed of. He tried to test in practice his understanding of color. These pictures meant new stage in the work of the artist, who in a new way connected the meaningful romantic traditions of the 19th century with landscape painting second half of the 19th century century.
Abandoned mill
In the spring of 1873, painting classes continued. The artist needed to complete the commissioned and already paid for painting “Dawn,” but death cut short his work. Fyodor Vasiliev September 24, 1873passed away.
At the posthumous exhibition of his works organized in St. Petersburg, all the paintings were sold out even before its opening. Two of the artist's albums were purchased by Empress Maria Alexandrovna.
FedorAlexandrovichVasiliev -one of the most talented Russian landscape painters. His workswritten in shining, rich colors, imbued with a spiritual perception of nature and romanticexcitement, poetry and admiration for the sensual beauty of the world.
http://www.artsait.ru/art/v/vasilevF/main.htm
After a thunderstorm. 1868
Konstantin Vasiliev is a bright, original, unlike anyone else artist, whose life was tragically cut short during the stagnant years Soviet era. The main theme, leitmotif, core, space, air of Vasiliev’s paintings is Rus'. Ancient Rus'. The paintings, which were a true revelation in the seventies, collecting countless exhibitions in the eighties, continue to excite, delight, excite thousands and thousands of citizens of today's Russia with the awareness of their forgotten beginning.
In 1994, thanks to the incredible efforts of enthusiasts, a museum of the work of Konstantin Vasiliev was opened in Moscow, in Lianozovo. In 2009, the museum was set on fire. How is the museum doing today and, most importantly, what happened to the paintings? This is the story of Anatoly Ivanovich Doronin, director of the Museum Slavic culture named after the artist Konstantin Vasiliev.
The work of the artist Konstantin Vasiliev became widely known to the viewer only after his death. Together with my friend, Colonel Yuri Mikhailovich Gusev, we organized the first exhibition of the artist’s paintings in 1978 in the exhibition hall of VOOPI and K ( All-Russian Society protection of historical and cultural monuments), on Razin Street, now Varvarka. Now the building where the exhibition took place has been returned to the church and is known as the Znamensky Cathedral.
At that Soviet era It seemed incredible that the opening of an exhibition of a then unknown painter, not even a member of the Union of Artists, in the very center of Moscow. But apparently higher powers helped us.
And a miracle happened. Day by day, the number of visitors to the exhibition increased exponentially. Moscow began to buzz like an alarmed beehive. Such an explosive entry of the artist into the consciousness of people national history I'm unlikely to remember.
Then exhibitions took place in academic towns - Pushchino, Obninsk. Pundits and ordinary people enthusiastically accepted the work of the talented Russian artist. From month to month, the spiral of never-ending exhibitions of K. Vasiliev’s paintings unwinded across district and regional cities until it embraced almost the entire Soviet Union.
We also exported paintings abroad - to Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Spain.
An enthusiastic stream of emotional audience responses materialized in hundreds of books of reviews, in which Pushkin’s phrase sounded as an invariable refrain: “...Here is the Russian spirit, here it smells of Russia!”
The whirlpool of these events lasted ten years and, I must admit, demanded from us, two officers Soviet army, a huge strain of effort, since it deprived me of any days off and any free time. Indeed, in addition to the direct organization and holding of exhibitions, the audience's hunger for information about the life and work of an original artist required research work from us.
During these years I had to write several books about the artist, including “Rus’ Magic Palette” in the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, and also publish a book in the “Life” series there. wonderful people" We achieved the publication of sets of postcards with reproductions of paintings by K. Vasiliev in the publishing houses "Pravda" and " fine arts" This was already the official recognition of the painter!
But the colossal load on the paintings could not but cause concern for their safety. The artist’s mother Claudia Parmenovna, who entrusted us with the paintings, quite rightly raised the question of creating a museum or art gallery for her son's creative legacy. At the same time, she asked to be provided with housing in the city where the paintings would find their home.
In solving this problem, we encountered difficulty in meeting these two conditions.
In Podolsk, for example, a wonderful exhibition hall and the city authorities were ready to transfer it for a permanent exhibition of paintings by Konstantin Vasiliev. However, they didn’t even want to hear about the provision of housing and registration near Moscow! In the city of Vidnoye, on the contrary, they were ready to register and provide housing, but they could not find premises for the paintings.
Finally, in the city of Kolomna, where we held another exhibition, the chairman of the executive committee, Nikolai Redkin, proposed an antique two-story house a remarkable Russian writer of the century before last, a contemporary of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Lazhechnikov. It was planned to open an artist’s museum on one floor of the building, and on the other literary museum. The city allocated a four-room apartment to the Vasilyev family, where Klavdia Parmenovna and her family soon moved.
In gratitude for this, Konstantin Vasilyev’s mother donated seven works by her son from the “Epic Rus'” series to the city.
We were faced with the task of restoring Lazhechnikov’s house into a museum at our own expense. We have accumulated some money from sales entrance tickets at previous painting exhibitions. Unexpectedly, Komsomol members of the city came to the rescue, offering to open an account to raise additional funds for the restoration of the building. They opened such an account. We accumulated all our savings there and began to widely post information about collecting donations for the construction of the museum of the artist Konstantin Vasiliev. People actively responded to our call: the bank account was quickly replenished.
But after some time, the aforementioned chairman of the executive committee invited me to his place and told me about the visit to him of the city’s creative intelligentsia, led by the artist Mikhail Abakumov. These people unequivocally expressed their general “indignation” at the fact that the city decided to transfer the building to a museum “to some Varangian,” and not to a local artist. After apologizing, Redkin took away from us the premises he had previously allocated, saying that the Vasilyev family was now settled, and we could buy a building for a museum with the funds raised.
Within the city, we managed to find a private, again two-story, wooden building for sale. It could have been demolished and a new brick one built. With this proposal, I came to Igor Tarasov, who was responsible for the bank account opened by Komsomol members. His answer simply stunned me:
We will decide for ourselves how and what to spend the money on!..
...Klavdia Parmenovna and I thought for a long time about what we should do now. We decided to start all over again.
It was 1988, when I, along with the period of service in Sakhalin, accumulated twenty-five years of service and I decided to quit in order to devote myself entirely to one business. Having retired to the reserve, he created the Konstantin Vasiliev Painting Lovers Club at the Moscow city branch of VOOPI and K, and already in Moscow he began to look for suitable premises for the museum.
Meanwhile, in parallel with this, seven paintings donated to the city of Kolomna fell into the hands of the local “enterprising Komsomol members.” Thus the first blow was dealt to the collection of Vasiliev’s paintings...
Klavdia Parmenovna notarized the transfer of all remaining paintings to the Club, maintaining the same condition: she would have to live where the artist’s paintings would be located.
To solve this problem, the Club bought two big work son: “Valkyrie over the slain Siegfried” and “Birth of the Danube”. I bought it because otherwise it was impossible in Soviet times to simply withdraw funds from your account and transfer them to another person. With thirty-eight thousand transferred to the Vasiliev family, at that time it was easy to purchase a good, solid house in the nearest suburb of Moscow. But for some reason this did not happen.
Soon, in the Timiryazevsky district of the capital, the Club was offered to take on its balance a destroyed ancient mansion, which is a stone's throw from the Lianozovsky PK and O, and on own funds it should be restored as “our” museum.
It took us ten years to restore the building and the long-awaited opening of the Konstantin Vasiliev Museum in it. The lack of collected funds, most of which was spent on the purchase of two paintings by the Club, slowed down construction.
Unfortunately, the artist’s mother did not live to see happy day museum birth. She passed away in 1994...
From 1998 to 2008, we worked actively, attracting admirers of the artist’s talent from all over our country and abroad.
The artist's sister, Valentina Alekseevna, was appointed director of the museum. She immediately moved to live in Moscow and occupied the Club’s office - a three-room apartment allocated to us from the non-residential stock.
City authorities at one time promised to give the artist’s family own apartment upon completion of construction work, but when the museum opened, they demanded that part of the artist’s paintings be transferred to the city in return.
Valentina Alekseevna agreed to donate the entire military series to the city, plus the paintings “Fatherland” and “Birth of the Danube” on the condition that these paintings will remain in the artist’s museum. The Moscow Culture Committee valued the ten donated paintings by K. Vasiliev at 27 thousand rubles. As a response, the city transferred our office from non-residential to residential and registered it in the name of the Vasiliev family. The cost of the apartment that appeared in this way was 17 thousand rubles.
Despite the difference in prices, the exchange took place. According to the contract, the paintings were registered as the property of the New Manege.
Then we could not even imagine, we could not imagine that at the first possible opportunity the city, for a formal reason, would take the paintings away for a while, but then never return them.
Thus occurred the second noticeable loss of some of the paintings, which greatly traumatized the artist’s collection.
The reason for the removal of the paintings was the first raider seizure of the museum in 2002. Three years later, the raider attack was repeated.
Due to the nature of the artist’s talent, or perhaps for another reason, the museum staff never had a quiet life. The second reason for the constant attacks on the museum was the land - two and a half hectares of territory adjacent directly to the museum and allocated to the Club in 1993 for the construction of the Center for Slavic Culture.
The club prepared and approved a preliminary design for a cultural center, developed the first stage of a working design, and even managed to build a children's folk theater as part of the project in the form of a log Russian tower. But since 2002, all the creative work of the club has stopped.
We have been involved in various legal battles to defend our rights. The most difficult and dramatic events took place in 2009, when the artist’s sister entered into the inheritance of the paintings in court and demanded that the entire collection be transferred to her.
In accordance with the requirements of the bailiffs, the Club had to conduct an art examination to confirm the authenticity of the paintings. This could cost a lot of money. Unexpectedly, one law firm with which we had established long-standing friendly relations offered to provide such a service free of charge.
Not at all doubting the integrity of these people, I handed over the entire collection of paintings to the representative of their law office and handed him the acceptance certificate, signed by me.
Having unloaded the paintings from the car and taken the document, he said that he would sign it tomorrow with the management, since today there was no one in the company. He wrote me some kind of receipt as a guarantee.
Imagine my shock when the next day they told me that the company did not accept any paintings! Moreover, I was provided with a fake protocol of the Club meeting, at which I was allegedly removed from my position and demanded to hand over everything to the new Chairman of the Club, an employee of this law firm. constituent documents our public organization.
Naturally, I filed a crime report with the police and, together with other members of the Club, tried to bring some sense into the management of the company. To no avail.
A few days later, the newly appointed chairman of the Club himself called me and invited me to meet. With the hope that the person came to his senses and decided not to sin against his conscience and not break the laws, I rushed to the meeting. There I was given an ultimatum, which listed all the documents that I must hand over to these scammers. And in last paragraph a threatening warning was sounded that if I did not fulfill their “request” by September 22, I would have dire consequences.
Naturally, I reacted harshly to such a threat.
All members of the Club and the Club's Board of Trustees, as well as people close to us in spiritual aspirations, joined the fight for the return of the paintings. Sometimes television workers and newspaper journalists unknown to me would call, pointing out the trail of stolen paintings. I reported this to the investigator leading the criminal case into the theft of paintings, but he smoothly released everything. It was obvious that the case was biased, that the law firm was fulfilling someone’s “high” order and was legally protected.
We bombarded the General Prosecutor's Office, the FSB with letters, and even sent a letter to the President of the country, at that time D. Medvedev, signed by members of the Club's Board of Trustees: Valentin Grigoryevich Rasputin, Mikhail Ivanovich Nozhkin, Vladimir Nikolaevich Krupin.
This letter apparently had a reasonable effect, since the head of the ill-fated law firm began frantically calling respected people from the Board of Trustees and, threatening them with legal action, brazenly demanded to withdraw their signatures on the letter sent to the President. To the credit of these worthy people, they were not afraid of the threats and did not change their position.
In the end, through the efforts of many people and court decisions, we crushed the bastion of attackers. All the paintings were discovered, arrested and handed over to the legal successor - Valentina Alekseevna Vasilyeva.
For a long time, relatives were afraid to publicly display the paintings. However, after some time they were still exhibited in the very center of Kazan, at the address: Bauman Street, 8.
In the creative homeland of K. Vasiliev, his legacy is truly treated with reverence, having provided a mansion in the very center for a permanent exhibition of the painter! This exhibition was also joined by that part of the collection that previously belonged to the artist’s friends. Let's hope that the biography of Vasiliev's legacy will receive further development.
We, in the Moscow museum, have to be content with what we have. This is the canvas “Valkyrie over the slain Siegfried”, a number of early and children’s works by K. Vasiliev, and, of course, copies of his paintings.
The Museum of Slavic Culture named after Konstantin Vasiliev now unites under its roof artists working on Slavic themes and close in spirit to the creative heritage of the brilliant Russian painter, who managed to awaken our genetic memory and ignite our hearts with hope.
Paintings by Fyodor Vasiliev are presented in the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, and in the museums of Yalta and Odessa. According to the recollections of his contemporaries, he was very hardworking; not a single detail could escape his “magic pencil”.
If not for his perseverance and passion for painting, the art world might not have recognized his name. The boy was born into the family of a poor St. Petersburg postal official. Due to a lack of money, the young man at the age of 12 went to work at the main post office, but nevertheless did not abandon his passion for drawing. When he was 15 years old, he entered the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, where he met outstanding artists.
His good friend became Ivan Kramskoy. Despite the age difference (Ivan Ivanovich was 13 years older than Fedor), they became very close. A letter from the painter has been preserved, in which he confessed to Vasiliev: “My life would not have been so rich, my pride would not have been so solid, if I had not met you in life... You are definitely a part of me, and the part is very expensive, your development is my development. Your life echoes in mine...”
Self-portrait of Fyodor Vasiliev. Photo: Public Domain
Ivan Shishkin also played a significant role in Vasiliev’s development as an artist. He taught the young man to transfer what he saw onto canvas with utmost precision, and talked about the skill of drawing. Over time, they even became relatives: Shishkin married Evgenia Vasilyeva, Fedor’s sister.
Several letters have been preserved that the young artist sent to the Shishkins. One of them, dated August 11, 1872, was written from Yalta, where the artist moved due to lung disease.
“I work as always, but I have to work for money, which always upsets me greatly; Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, who had already received one of my paintings, ordered four more, which I could not get rid of, although I tried; To add insult to injury, these paintings must be completed by the deadline of December 24; so the paintings that were started will therefore go to waste, and I didn’t manage to paint for the competition this year, since there is only time left in January and February of next year, and you will probably put forward such a thing again, which is dangerous for me to even hope to paint.”
He failed to complete the work: two months later, on October 6, 1873, he died.
"Volga Lagoons", 1870
The painting “Volga Lagoons” attracted great interest at the posthumous exhibition of paintings by Fyodor Vasiliev. Photo: Public Domain
In 1870, 20-year-old Fyodor Vasiliev went on a trip along the Volga with his artists Ilya Repin and Evgeny Makarov. Years later, Ilya Efimovich wrote in his book “Far Close” that the young man impressed his companions with his manner of work and became an “excellent teacher” for his older comrades: “Not even a week had passed before we started, slavishly imitated Vasiliev and believed to the point of adoration.” to him. This living, brilliant example excluded all disputes and did not allow for reasoning; he was an excellent teacher to all of us.”
In his words, “his finely sharpened pencil with the speed of a machine sewing needle scribbled on a small leaf of his pocket album and accurately and impressively outlined the whole picture of a steep bank with houses crooked above the steep slopes, fences, stunted trees and pointed bell towers in the distance...”
Sketches made during the trip later served as the basis for several paintings, including “Volga Lagoons.”
In the future, the canvas ended up in the collection of Pavel Tretyakov. He took it after the posthumous exhibition of the artist’s paintings in 1874 to pay off a debt that Vasiliev was unable to pay to the patron due to his illness and death.
“View on the Volga. Barki", 1870
Currently, the canvas is exhibited in St. Petersburg at the Russian Museum. Photo: Public Domain
This picture was also painted after a trip along the Volga.
A year after the artist’s death, it was put on public display, where Tretyakov drew attention to it. His letter to Ivan Kramskoy has been preserved, in which he wrote that he should have it in his collection.
“I decided that for my goal, already known to you, I definitely need to have Vasily’s landscape with barges, since this copy gives an idea of what a wonderful marine painter he would also be; and so yesterday I sent you a telegram; I am sure that you sympathize with my intense love for Vasiliev’s works…” he wrote.
However, his plans were not destined to come true. Currently, the canvas is exhibited in St. Petersburg at the Russian Museum.
"Thaw", 1871
Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich ordered Vasiliev to create an original repetition of the painting “The Thaw”. Photo: Public Domain
“The painting “The Thaw” is so hot, strong, daring, with great poetic content and at the same time young (not in the sense of childhood) and young, awakened to life, demanding the right of citizenship among others, and although decisively new, it has roots somewhere far away,” is how Ivan Kramskoy described this work of Vasilyev.
“The Thaw” was first presented to the audience during a competitive exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, where it was awarded first prize. In the same 1871, Muscovites were also able to see her: she participated in the exhibition of the MOLKH - Moscow Society of Art Lovers.
Art critics note that this painting made Vasiliev truly famous. To a young man they began to offer to make original copies of the painting. He could not refuse one of the customers - Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich, the future Emperor Alexander III.
The landscape, executed in a slightly different color scheme, decorated the Anichkov Palace, from where in 1872 he went to the London Annual international exhibition. The film received rave reviews from the British.
Now a copy made for Alexandra III, presented in the Russian Museum. The original can be seen in one of the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery.
"Wet Meadow", 1872
The painting participated in a competitive exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. Photo: Public Domain
While working on “The Thaw”, Vasiliev undermined his health. It soon became clear to the doctors that they were dealing not with a simple cold, but with tuberculosis. To improve his health, Fedor was offered to go to Crimea.
Already on the peninsula, Vasiliev created the painting “Wet Meadow”, painted by him from his memories. In 1872, the painting was presented at the exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, where it took second place, losing to the work of his brother-in-law, Ivan Shishkin.
“Wet Meadow” was purchased by Pavel Tretyakov, who made a special trip to St. Petersburg even before the exhibition began.
“In the Crimean Mountains”, 1873
“A real painting is not like anything else, does not imitate anyone - not the slightest, even remote resemblance to any artist, to any school, it is something so original and isolated from all influences, standing outside the entire current movement art, that I can only say one thing: it’s not good, even bad in places, but it’s brilliant,” Ivan Kramskoy gave such an enthusiastic description of the canvas.
In his opinion, looking at a Tatar cart drawn by oxen, the viewer involuntarily finds himself inside this story: “obediently stands under the pine trees, listening to some noise high above his head.”
This picture became one of latest works Vasilyeva. It is known that he initially planned to use a wide canvas, but then changed his mind, choosing vertical. Thus, art critics believe, he wanted to emphasize the height of the mountains and upward direction.