Artist Boris Kustodiev: the main milestones of his creative biography. Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev and his circle of interests Kustodiev, works of the artist

04.07.2020

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev painted a huge number of paintings during his life. Many of them are full of bright colors, sun, and fun. But not many people know that he spent most of his life in a wheelchair. Despite all the hardships and adversities that he had to endure, his work is striking in its cheerfulness. Biography of the great artist, as well as interesting facts are offered to your attention.

Talented student

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev is rightfully considered one of the famous artists of the last century. He was a student of the great Ilya Efimovich Repin. Boris Mikhailovich not only inherited the style of his teacher, but also introduced something special into it. The makings of a creative nature were laid in him as early as early childhood. Let's take a closer look at the fate of this amazingly talented and courageous man.

Boris Kustodiev: biography

He was born in Astrakhan on February 23, 1878. Boris Kustodiev's childhood was not carefree. He hardly remembered his father at all. He died when the boy was only a few years old. A very young mother, Ekaterina Prokhorovna, was left alone with four children. There was very little money, and the family often lived from hand to mouth. What they had in abundance was kindness, tenderness, and motherly love. Despite all the difficulties and hardships, the mother was able to instill in her children a love of art. Such upbringing allowed Boris Kustodiev to decide on his choice of profession already at the age of nine. He really liked to observe any changes in nature and transfer it to a piece of paper. Rain, thunderstorm, sunny day, any other phenomena of the surrounding world were reflected in his work.

When Boris Kustodiev turned 15 years old, he began taking drawing lessons from P. Vlasov - talented artist. Thanks to these studies, in 1896 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Popularity comes when he begins to draw the faces of the people around him. But the soul requires something else. He likes to pretend genre scenes. He goes to Kostroma province. Here he is looking for a location for his competition painting “At the Bazaar”, and meets his future wife.

Fruitful time

Having brilliantly graduated from the Academy, he receives the right to a year-long retirement trip abroad and throughout Russia. Together with his family he goes to Paris. By this time they already had a son. Boris Kustodiev studied the work of great artists on trips to Germany, France and other countries. Six months later, returning to his homeland, he works fruitfully. New ideas are reflected in his work, and Boris Kustodiev’s paintings are highly appreciated by critics. As recognition of his merits, in 1907 he was accepted into the Union of Russian Artists.

Any information about the idol will always be of interest to his fans. We invite you to get acquainted with some details of the biography of Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, which few people know about:

The boy first began to draw at the age of five.
My parents were very fond of Russian art, literature, and philosophy.
Together with I. Repin I finished writing famous painting“The ceremonial meeting of the State Council” Boris Kustodiev.
The artist's paintings became known throughout the world when he was only thirty years old. He was trusted to represent Russia outside its borders, and his works won numerous medals.
He was an excellent photographer.
Worked in the theater. Prepared scenery for performances.
Due to his illness, Boris Kustodiev was forced to wear a corset from his chin to his lower back.
Before his death, the artist asked only a birch tree to be planted on his grave instead of a gravestone.

Boris Kustodiev: creativity

His very first paintings were portraits. It was with them that he began his creative path. But the peculiarity of this artist is that he did not just draw the faces of the people around him. He revealed individuality human soul through the world around us. This is how the most striking portraits were created: Chaliapin, Roerich and others.

Later, the artist’s work switches to depicting the life of the people and the way of life of the Russian merchants. Every detail is in its place and carries a certain meaning. His paintings are always full of life and colors. Kustodiev liked to embody the world around him in his creations.

Most famous works

The artist Boris Kustodiev wrote throughout his life large number paintings There are more than five hundred of them in total. Let's remember the most famous paintings of Boris Kustodiev.

« Horses during a thunderstorm »

This most talented example of oil painting reflects the artist's love for nature. One of the amazing and terrible phenomena of nature - a thunderstorm - is captured in the picture.

"Merchant's Wife at Tea"

The details here have a great meaning: a fat lazy cat rubbing against its owner’s shoulder; a merchant couple sitting on a balcony nearby; in the background of the picture you can see a city with shopping shops and a church; the still life of products located on the table evokes genuine admiration. All this is written incredibly brightly and colorfully, which makes the canvas almost tangible.

"Russian Venus" »

When the artist created this amazingly beautiful creation, he was tormented by severe pain. Knowing this, you never cease to admire the talent and fortitude of the great man. A girl washing in a bathhouse personifies feminine beauty, health, and life.

"Morning"

On this canvas, Boris Mikhailovich depicted his beloved wife and their first son. With genuine love and tenderness, he captured his loved ones in the picture. To paint this picture, the artist used only light and airy colors; he masterfully conveys the play of chiaroscuro in his work.

"Carnival"

Boris Kustodiev wrote it after a long illness and surgery, which led to him being in a wheelchair. Despite the excruciating pain, he creates a picture completely permeated with light, fun and unbridled happiness. The main place on it is given to the racing troika, symbolizing movement. In addition, in the picture you can also see people participating in fist fights, festivities and booths. All this is painted so colorfully that it further enhances the whirlwind of dizzying emotions.

Family happiness

One can only envy his personal life. At the age of 22, in the Kostroma province, where he comes in search of nature, Boris Kustodiev meets his future wife. Yulia Evstafievna was only 20 years old when they got married. But for the rest of his life she became his support and reliable friend. It was his wife who helped him not to break down after the operation and continue painting when it seemed that he had completely lost hope.

In their marriage they had three children. The very first - Kirill - can be seen in one of Boris Kustodiev’s paintings. The second was a girl, Irina, and then a boy, Igor, but, unfortunately, he died in infancy. Yulia Evstafievna survived her husband by fifteen years, remaining faithful to him until the end of her life.

Terrible disease

In 1909, Boris Kustodiev showed the first signs of a terrible disease - a spinal cord tumor. The artist underwent several operations, but, alas, all of them only temporarily relieved the pain. It soon becomes clear that the disease has penetrated much deeper, and during the operation it is impossible not to touch the nerve endings. This can lead to paralysis of the arms or legs. The choice faces the wife, and she understands how important it is for her husband to have at least hope of continuing to paint. And she chooses her hands.

Now Boris Kustodiev is confined to a wheelchair, but one could only envy his willpower. Despite his illness, he continued to paint while lying down. It is impossible not to admire his courage and fortitude. Indeed, despite all the suffering and excruciating pain he endured, all his works are imbued with bright colors and cheerfulness. It seems that even the disease receded for some time before great power talent.

Last years of life

Despite the illness and wild pain that he constantly experienced, the artist painted pictures until the end of his life. Boris Kustodiev died at the age of 49. He has not changed his writing style, and even his latest works are permeated with light, goodness and happiness.

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev as a master of several artistic directions was alien and inconvenient for many of his contemporaries. Having a liking for different types of painting and participating in several artistic associations, he confidently followed his own creative path.

The Peredvizhniki accused Kustodiev of being “popular”, modernists called him hopelessly straightforward, avant-garde artists were indignant at his umbilical attachment to their teacher Repin, proletarian artists saw in him “a singer of the merchant-kulak environment.” And all these accusations were provoked by the artist’s creative scatteredness.

In Kustodiev, several artistic attachments coexisted together, which distinguished him from others. It’s easy to see this if you take one year of his work offhand. For example, in 1920 he painted “Merchant’s Wife with a Mirror”, “Blue House”, “Merchant’s Wife with Purchases”, “Trinity Day (provincial holiday), a classic portrait of his wife, the painting “Bolshevik”, “May Day Parade. Petrograd. Field of Mars."

In an artistic environment, as in any other, you cannot be talented in everything. Kustodiev’s simultaneous appeal to completely different topics and styles came down to the lack of internal integrity of the artist. “Multipurpose” equaled “aimlessness,” which already foreshadowed a sad verdict on his future career.

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was born in 1878 in Astrakhan. The artist’s father, a teacher at the theological seminary Mikhail Lukich Kustodiev, died of consumption when his son was in his second year. Mother Ekaterina Prokhorovna devotes herself entirely to her four children, instilling in them a love of music, literature, painting, theater...

The family lived in a rented small wing of a merchant's house. Years later, children's impressions of the merchant world will be materialized in the paintings of B. M. Kustodiev. Here is what the artist himself recalled about this period:

“The whole way of rich and abundant merchant life was in full view... These were Ostrovsky’s living types...”

From the age of seven, Boris attended a parish school, then moved to a gymnasium. At the age of 14, Boris begins his studies at the theological seminary and at the same time attends classes famous artist P. A. Vlasova. In 1887, having visited for the first time an exhibition of paintings by the Itinerants, he finally decided to become an artist. In 1896, on the advice of his first teacher P. A. Vlasov, Boris entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. After two years of studying in general classes, he was accepted into I. Repin’s workshop. The young student writes a lot from life and is interested in portraiture.

Before graduating from the Academy, as the best student, he was involved in working on a painting commissioned from his mentor, “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901.” For this canvas, Kustodiev painted 27 portraits. Repin himself sometimes did not distinguish between his own and Kustodiev’s sketches in this work.

Kustodiev had a great work ethic; along with sketches, he painted portraits of people close to him in spirit: I. Ya. Bilibin, D. L. Moldovtsev, V. V Mate...

In 1901, at the Munich International Exhibition, the portrait of I. Ya. Bilibin was awarded a gold medal.

In 1903, Kustodiev was awarded a gold medal and the right to a foreign pensioner internship for one year for thesis"Bazaar in the village." In the same year, he married Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya, a former Smolyanka. Kustodiev met his fate back in 1900 while traveling along the Volga. On his first European trip to France and Spain, the artist was accompanied by his wife and newly born son Kirill. Yu. E. Proshinskaya was the artist’s most faithful friend. In 1905, a house-workshop was built near Kineshma, which the artist lovingly called “Terem”. The family spent every summer here, and this time was the happiest for her.

B. M. Kustodiev did not limit himself exclusively to painting; he was engaged in the design and illustration of works of Russian classics. Among them: “Dubrovsky” by A. S. Pushkin, “ Dead souls"and stories by N.V. Gogol, "Song about the merchant Kalashnikov" by M. Yu. Lermontov, "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" by N. S. Leskov, "Singers" by I. S. Turgenev, poems by N. A. Nekrasov, stories A. N. Tolstoy...

The main theme of the artist’s work was family. In Paris he writes lyrical picture“Morning”, where he depicts his wife and his first-born son bathing in a trough. The mother gently holds the back and legs of the child with her hands, who is clapping his hands in the water. Warm rays of the sun shine from the window, brightly illuminating the table, the fireplace and the mother bending over the child. Sunbeams play in the water, which the baby does not take his eyes off, clumsily trying to catch. It is no coincidence that the child is depicted in the center of the picture. He is the meaning of a family’s life, the joy of being, made up of the blood affection of mother and child.

The very plot of the painting suggests that for the artist, family happiness lies in “bathing” in mother's love baby.

In search of himself, Kustodiev returns to his wife’s homeland, to the Kostroma province, urgently interrupting his pensioner period of stay abroad.

Since 1900 he has traveled extensively around home country and abroad, gets acquainted with the works of old and modern masters.

Kustodiev’s formative years as an artist coincided with an increased interest in graphics in the artistic community. Not only representatives of the World of Art, but also Kustodiev’s teacher I.E. Repin were involved in drawing.

Kustodiev, of course, did not stand aside, declaring himself as a wonderful draftsman.

During the first Russian revolution, he contributed to satirical magazines, creating cartoons and caricatures of influential dignitaries. He created a mass of graphically sharp portraits, nudes, many studies and sketches, allowing him to study in detail the mechanisms of this period of creativity.

In 1907, Kustodiev received the title of member of the Union of Russian Artists, and in 1909 - the title of academician of painting. His paintings are shown at domestic and international exhibitions. Many influential people commission portraits from him.

By the end of the 1900s, the Kustodievs already had two children. From the memories of daughter Irina:

“I remember my father when he was still young, unusually active, elegant, cheerful, affectionate. I remember an apartment near the Kalinkin Bridge, on Myasnaya Street, 19. We lived on the third floor. The height of the rooms is unusual. There are five rooms, all of them arranged in a suite. The first is a living room with green striped wallpaper. Behind the living room there is a workshop with two windows, a dining room, a children's room and a parents' bedroom. Parallel to the rooms there is a huge corridor where Kirill and I skated around on roller skates. They ran hide and seek. Sometimes my dad also put on roller skates: he generally loved roller skating. Our house was always full of dogs and cats. Dad closely followed their “personal life”, loved to watch them, and imitated their habits with amazing skill. It seems to me that in this he was similar to A.P. Chekhov - both of them “respected” animals and depicted them in their works as equal “members of society.”

In the 1900s, Kustodiev was interested in sculpture. The heroes of his sculptural portraits were A. M. Remizov, F. K. Sologub, M. V. Dobuzhinsky, Emperor Nicholas II... different periods life, sculptural portraits of the artist’s family were created: “Children” (1909), “Mother with Child” (1910), made in memory of youngest son an artist who died after his birth.

Many art historians attribute to Kustodiev painting distinctive feature- theatricality. Kustodiev did a lot for the theater. The success of many theatrical productions in capital theaters depended largely on the artist.

In 1911, Kustodiev wrote the scenery for the play based on A. Ostrovsky’s play “Warm Heart” for the Moscow theater of K. N. Nezlobin. Sketches for the performance were created in Switzerland, where the artist was treated for a diagnosis of bone tuberculosis. Along with recognition and fame, trouble comes to him - a serious illness.

In 1913, in Berlin, he underwent the first operation to remove a tumor in the spinal canal. In 1916 there was a repeat operation, after which the lower part of the body was paralyzed. Then the doctors asked Yu. E. Kustodieva’s wife what to save: arms or legs? “Of course, hands. “He is an artist, and he cannot live without hands,” she answered.

At this most difficult time for the artist, the most festive pictures of colorful provincial life appear, the famous beautiful merchant women... Finding himself cut off from the outside world, he writes fantastic works, more real than reality itself.

In 1913-1916, a group portrait of the artists of the “World of Art” was created (N.K. Roerich (1913), M.V. Dobuzhinsky (1913), I.Ya. Bilibin (1914), E.E. Lansere (1915). I. E. Grabar (1916)). These portraits are distinguished by skill and originality of composition.

The artist received the revolution of 1917 with enthusiasm. On the eve of the anniversary October Revolution participates in the design of Petrograd. In the 20s, he depicted modern life in his canvases festive processions and political demonstrations, illustrates Lenin's collections. In 1925 he went to Moscow to design several performances at the new theater. One of the performances he designed was “The Flea,” written by E. I. Zamyatin based on “Lefty” by N. S. Leskov. The Kustodiev scenery mixed everything that appealed to the viewer: fun and tragedy, parody, reality, popular print, grotesque... He designed Ostrovsky’s plays “Our People - We Will Be Numbered”, “Wolves and Sheep”, “There Wasn’t a Penny, Yes Suddenly Altyn", "Thunderstorm".

However, not all of his plans were implemented.

Due to the progression of the disease, the artist could not cope with a cold, which resulted in pneumonia. On May 26, 1927, his heart stopped. B. M. Kustodiev was only 49 years old.

Famous paintings by B. M. Kustodiev

Kustodiev's holiday paintings are imbued with love for everything Russian. They will be understandable and interesting to preschool children.

"Maslenitsa" (1916)

The famous painting “Maslenitsa” is a symbol of the artist’s creative maturity. Beginning of March. Still standing winter frosts. All the trees are shrouded in white fluffy frost. The spring sky, painted with delicate pink, green, and yellow colors, spreads over the snow-covered city. Birds from distant lands return with loud cries.

Crowds of people took to the city streets. It is felt that all the people, from rich to poor, were looking forward to the end of winter. The sky, birds, people rejoice at the arrival of spring. Townspeople, young and old, gathered at the booths for cheerful performances. Children ride down the icy mountains and play at taking the snowy town. In the foreground of the picture there are huge snowdrifts with fresh marks from felt boots, which emphasizes the crowded nature of the holiday.

Decorated sleighs drawn by pairs and triplets of horses are flying everywhere. On logs near the very outskirts of the city, people welcome spring with Maslenitsa songs accompanied by an accordion. Maslenitsa is celebrated on a grand scale: the accordion plays, birds scream, children laugh, runners creak, buffoons make noise...

The bright horse harness with bells and painted arches, the elegant attire of the townspeople, and the flying flags at the booths give the picture a festive feel. We see and hear the Russian daring Maslenitsa.

The artist managed to show us the aesthetic, theatrical side of the holiday, its special flavor, publicity, and street character.

In Russian literature, the painting “Maslenitsa” found many “responses”. In I. Shmelev’s novel “The Summer of the Lord” there is an excerpt:

“Maslenitsa...Even now I still feel this word... bright spots, ringing sounds - it evokes in me; flaming stoves, bluish waves of smoke... a bumpy snowy road, already oily in the sun, with cheerful sleighs diving along it, with cheerful horses in roses, bells and bells, with playful strumming of an accordion..."

The painting was painted after the second operation, at a time when doctors prescribed complete rest to the artist.

Repin accepted the work enthusiastically, perceiving in it the search for a new ideal of beauty. A scandal broke out at the Academy of Arts when purchasing the painting “Maslenitsa”. Some council members decided that this work had nothing to do with art, calling it “popular print.”

“I think,” he said, “the diversity and brightness is very typical of Russian life.”

Tell your child about the history of the celebration. Look carefully at the picture and try, together with your son (daughter), to describe Maslenitsa and the traditions of its celebration.

Offer your child an exciting journey through Kustodiev’s paintings. This excursion is unusual. Of the brightest Kustodiev paintings, a beautiful good fairy tale. Welcome to the fairy tale!

Children of middle school age usually become acquainted with some of Kustodiev’s portraits at school. Parents should be familiar with the artist's portraits in order to answer all the child's questions.

Portrait of F. I. Chaliapin

The acquaintance of the two great people took place in 1919. Chaliapin turned to Kustodiev with a proposal to make the scenery and costumes for the opera “Enemy Power” based on A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” which he staged at the Mariinsky Theater.

The portrait was created thanks to a fur coat, which attracted the artist’s attention. At the first meeting, the artist asked Chaliapin:

“...Pose for me in this fur coat. Your fur coat is too rich.”

Chaliapin loved the artist’s provincial paintings, which amaze, in his words, “with such cheerful ease of drawing and such appetizing richness of paint in the tireless depiction of Russian people.” It so happened that one day he too became the hero of Kustodiev’s portrait.

F. I. Chaliapin recalled:

“I have known a lot of interesting, talented and good people in my life, but if I have ever seen a truly high spirit in a person, it was in Kustodiev... It is impossible to think without excitement about the greatness of the moral force that lived in this man and which would otherwise cannot be called heroic and valiant.”

Chaliapin posed for the wheelchair-bound artist. The canvas with the stretcher had to be moved with a special device mounted under the ceiling.

Initially the painting was titled “F. I. Chaliapin in an unfamiliar city."

The portrait of Chaliapin enjoys special fame. The singer's figure occupies the entire foreground. It barely fits into the canvas format. A beautiful ruddy face, a free stage pose, a ring on the little finger, an open fur coat with shimmering fur, a concert costume with a bow, a colorful scarf fluttering in the wind, a cane set aside...

The portrait conveys the spirit of creativity of the owner of a unique voice. The landscape background with folk festivities, aptly chosen by the artist, emphasizes Chaliapin as a man of a broad soul. Behind the artist’s back there is everything that usually happens at Russian Maslenitsa: booths, tables with food, painted carts, ice slides... A poster on the street corner announcing Chaliapin’s tour indicates Chaliapin’s great love for Russian traditions and his homeland.

At the feet of the performer folk songs his favorite dog is standing - a white bulldog. The appearance of this real character in the portrait speaks of the author’s good-natured irony, which was present when creating the picture.

Tell your child about the life and work of F.I. Chaliapin, about his acquaintance with the artist Kustodiev. Listen to his songs.

Children can begin to get acquainted with the gallery of merchant images at primary school age.

"Merchant's Wife at Tea" (1918)

The merchant image personifies the harmony of the Russian world. The artist seems to be saying goodbye to a familiar, understandable, close world for him, defeated (overthrown) in a few days... The work sounds a nostalgic note for the past of Russia, for the picturesque life of the Russian province...

Before us is a Volga town where the artist spent his childhood, where a quiet and measured life flowed.

The merchant's wife embodies the ideal of folk beauty: arched eyebrows, bow-shaped lips, a luxurious body, proud to become... A well-groomed face with a pronounced healthy blush speaks of her peace. An important cat, very similar to its owner, clung to the heroine’s shoulder. He is comfortable in this world. On the table there is a huge samovar, a vase with jam, bowls of fruit, a basket with buns and sweets... There is a saucer in the merchant’s hand. Shown here old tradition, which existed in Rus' - drinking tea from a saucer.

In the distance, on the veranda, a merchant family is sitting having tea. The artist emphasizes the iron regularity of her existence against the background of a frozen landscape and a provincial town, showing time as if stopped.

In the year the picture was created, the year of famine and devastation, the collapse of old Russia occurs, civil war, human life is devalued...

Until recently, incorrect associations associated with the Kustodiev merchant women were accepted. The description of the painting corresponded to political requirements. And the arbitrary meaning of the works was chosen, far from the author’s. Lazy merchant women symbolized a well-fed, frozen merchant Russia. The description of the painting was as follows: The merchant's wife has a narrow range of interests. She thoughtlessly and languidly looks at the life around them. It is no coincidence that the lush still life was introduced into the picture. It helps to imagine the environment of abundance in which the heroine lives. In the paintings we see ripe fruits and vegetables (“The Merchant’s Wife”), watermelon, grapes, apples, gilded cups (“The Merchant’s Wife at Tea”), rings, silk, necklaces (“The Merchant’s Wife with a Mirror”)…

Nowadays, parents and teachers should look at things objectively and should not impose the wrong point of view on the child.

Tell your child about the artist’s childhood and the history of merchants in Rus'. It is important to show merchant life, its way of life and foundations as a significant part of Russian culture.

Ask your child to describe the picture and name the Russian features of merchant life that the artist depicted.

Kustodiev’s works dedicated to the revolution arouse interest among children of high school age. It is difficult for a high school student to understand the meaning of these works. The parents’ task is to study the works and explain their content. It is incorrect to talk to a child about Kustodiev’s closeness to Bolshevik ideas. Kustodiev belonged to that part of the intelligentsia that greeted the February Revolution with the expectation of change. The October Revolution split society, which resulted in a bloody civil war.

"Bolshevik" (1919)

Some art historians argue that the Bolshevik, in his appearance, determination and courage, resembles the “All-Russian elder” M.I. Kalinin.

The image of a Bolshevik is a generalized image that expresses the scale of the transformations that turned Russia upside down. Kustodiev managed to summarize his own impressions of the revolution using allegory. A crowd flows through the narrow streets of Moscow in a viscous stream. The sky is shining. The sun casts its rays on the roofs of houses, forming blue shadows. A Bolshevik walks above the crowd and houses with a red banner in his hands. The scarlet banner flutters in the wind, capturing the entire city with its flame. A red cloth covered the upper part of the church dome, where the cross is attached, which symbolizes the denial of Orthodoxy in the new ideology. Bright colors give the picture a major sound. The picture evokes fear and anxiety. The armed people below are in a hurry to deal with the old world. There is coldness in the eyes of the huge Bolshevik, as a sign of the irreversibility of change.

The picture “Bolshevik” is quite complex. To understand the author's intention, it is necessary to carefully consider its individual details.

B. M. Kustodiev lived in an era that could not but affect his work. He strove for freedom, truth and beauty, and his dream came true.

I. E. Repin gave a high assessment of Kustodiev’s work, calling him “a hero of Russian painting.”

Here is what the artist N.A. Sautin wrote about him:

“Kustodiev is an artist of versatile talent. A magnificent painter. He entered Russian art as the author of significant works of the everyday genre, original landscapes and portraits with deep content. An excellent draftsman and graphic artist. Kustodiev worked in linocut and woodcut, performed book illustrations and theatrical sketches. He developed his own original artistic system, managed to feel and embody the original features of Russian life.”

Dear reader! What attracts you to the work of the artist B. M. Kustodiev?

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (February 23 (March 7) 1878, Astrakhan - May 26, 1927, Leningrad) - Russian Soviet artist. Academician of painting (1909). Member of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (since 1923). Portrait painter, theater artist, decorator.

Boris Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan. His father, Mikhail Lukich Kustodiev (1841-1879), was a professor of philosophy, literary history and taught logic at a local theological seminary.

His father died when the future artist was not even two years old. Boris studied at a parochial school, then at a gymnasium. From the age of 15 he took drawing lessons from a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts P. Vlasov.

In 1896 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. He studied first in the workshop of V. E. Savinsky, from the second year - with I. E. Repin. He took part in the work on Repin’s painting “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901” (1901-1903, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). Despite the fact that the young artist gained wide fame as a portrait painter, for his competition work Kustodiev chose a genre theme (“At the Bazaar”) and in the fall of 1900 he went to the Kostroma province in search of nature. Here Kustodiev met his future wife, 20-year-old Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya. Subsequently, the artist completed several picturesque portraits of his beloved wife.

On October 31, 1903, he completed the training course with a gold medal and the right to an annual pensioner's trip abroad and throughout Russia. Even before completing the course, he took part in international exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Munich (big gold medal of the International Association).

In December 1903, he came to Paris with his wife and son. During his trip, Kustodiev visited Germany, Italy, Spain, studied and copied the works of old masters. Entered the studio of Rene Menard.

Six months later, Kustodiev returned to Russia and worked in the Kostroma province on a series of paintings “Fairs” and “Village Holidays”.
In 1904 he became a founding member of the New Society of Artists. In 1905-1907 he worked as a cartoonist in the satirical magazine “Zhupel” (the famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), after its closure - in the magazines “Hellish Mail” and “Iskra”. Since 1907 - member of the Union of Russian Artists. In 1909, on the recommendation of Repin and other professors, he was elected a member of the Academy of Arts. At the same time, Kustodiev was asked to replace Serov as a teacher of the portrait-genre class at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, but fearing that this activity would take a lot of time from personal work and not wanting to move to Moscow, Kustodiev refused the position. Since 1910 - a member of the renewed "World of Art".

In 1909, Kustodiev showed the first signs of a spinal cord tumor. Several operations brought only temporary relief; For the last 15 years of his life, the artist was confined to a wheelchair. Due to illness, he was forced to write his works while lying down. However, it was during this difficult period of his life that his most vibrant, temperamental, and cheerful works appeared.

He lived in Petrograd-Leningrad during the post-revolutionary years. He was buried at the Nikolskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1948, the ashes and monument were moved to the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Wife - Yulia Evstafievna Kustodieva, nee Proshinskaya born in 1880. In 1900, she met her future husband in the Kostroma province, where Boris Kustodiev went to sketch in the summer. She reciprocated the young artist’s feelings and became his wife, taking her husband’s surname. In their marriage, the Kustodievs had a son, Kirill, and a daughter, Irina. The third child, Igor, died in infancy. Yulia Kustodieva survived her husband and died in 1942.

In 1905-1907 he worked in the satirical magazines “Bug” (the famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), “Hell Mail” and “Iskra”.

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Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (February 23 (March 7) 1878, Astrakhan - May 26, 1927, Leningrad) - Russian artist.

Biography of Boris Kustodiev

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, who came from the family of a gymnasium teacher, began studying painting in Astrakhan with P. A. Vlasov in 1893-1896.

Born in 1878. Took drawing lessons from P.A. Vlasov, who graduated Moscow school painting.

After a two-year stay in the general classes of the Academy of Arts, he entered the workshop of I.E. Repin, whom he helped in painting “Meeting of the State Council” (Kustodiev painted the entire right side of the picture, with sketches for it).

Received a business trip abroad for the film “Village Fair”.

He exhibited his works successively at the “Spring Exhibitions” at the Academy of Arts, at exhibitions of the “New Society”, at exhibitions of the “Union”, at the “Salon”, and since 1910 at exhibitions of the “World of Art”, abroad - in Paris, Vienna , Munich, Budapest, Brussels, Rome, Venice, Malmo and other cities.

Kustodiev's creativity

Kustodiev began his career as a portrait artist. Already while working on sketches for Repin’s “Great Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901,” student Kustodiev showed his talent as a portrait painter. In sketches and portrait sketches for this multi-figure composition, he coped with the task of achieving similarities with Repin’s creative style. But Kustodiev the portrait painter was closer to Serov.

Already from the beginning of the 1900s, Boris Mikhailovich was developing a unique genre of portrait, or rather, portrait-picture, portrait-type, in which the model is linked together with the surrounding landscape or interior.

At the same time, this is a generalized image of a person and his unique individuality, revealing it through the world surrounding the model. In their form, these portraits are related to the genre images-types of Kustodiev (“Self-portrait” (1912), portraits of A. I. Anisimov (1915), F. I. Chaliapin (1922)).

Subsequently, Kustodiev gradually shifted more and more towards an ironic stylization of folk and, especially, the life of the Russian merchants with a riot of colors and flesh (“Beauty”, “Russian Venus”, “Merchant’s Wife at Tea”).

Like many artists of the turn of the century, Kustodiev also worked in the theater, transferring his vision of the work to the theater stage.

The scenery performed by Kustodiev was colorful, close to his genre painting, but this was not always perceived as an advantage: creating a bright and convincing world, carried away by its material beauty, the artist sometimes did not coincide with the author’s plan and the director’s interpretation of the play (“The Death of Pazukhin” by Saltykov- Shchedrin, 1914, Moscow Art Theater; “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky, which never saw the light of day, 1918).

In their more later works for the theater, he moves away from the chamber interpretation to a more generalized one, seeks greater simplicity, builds the stage space, giving freedom to the director when constructing mise-en-scène.

Kustodiev's success was his design work in 1918-20. opera performances (1920, " The Tsar's Bride", Bolshoi Opera House of the People's House; 1918, “Snow Maiden”, Bolshoi Theater(staging not carried out)). Scenery sketches, costumes and props for A. Serov’s opera “The Power of the Enemy” (Academic (former Mariinsky) Theatre, 1921).

Artist's works

“Introduction. Moscow" drawing
“Morning”, (1904, Russian Russian Museum)
"Balagany"
"Fairs"
"Maslenitsa"

"Lilac" (1906)
self-portrait (1912, Uffizi Gallery, Florence)
“Merchantwomen in Kineshma” (tempera, 1912, Museum of Russian Art in Kyiv)
portrait of A. I. Anisimov (1915, Russian Museum)
“Beauty” (1915, Tretyakov Gallery)
“Merchant's Wife at Tea” (1918, Russian Museum)
"Bolshevik" (1919-20, Tretyakov Gallery)
"F. I. Chaliapin at the fair" (1922, Russian Russian Museum)
"Moscow tavern" (1919)
“Portrait of A.N. Protasova” (1900)
"The Nun" (1901)
"Portrait of Ivan Bilibin" (1901)
“Portrait of S.A. Nikolsky” (1901)
“Portrait of Vasily Vasilyevich Mate” (1902)
"Self-Portrait" (1904)
"Portrait of a Lady in Blue" (1906)
“Portrait of the writer A.V. Shvarts” (1906)
"Fair" (1906)
“Zemstvo school in Moscow Rus'” (1907)
“Portrait of Irina Kustodieva with her dog Shumka” (1907)
"The Nun" (1908)
“Portrait of N.I. Zelenskaya” (1912)
"Frosty Day" (1913)

Kustodiev B. M.

This artist was highly valued by his contemporaries - Repin and Nesterov, Chaliapin and Gorky. And many decades later, we look at his canvases with admiration - a wide panorama of the life of old Rus', masterfully captured, stands before us.

He was born and raised in Astrakhan, a city located between Europe and Asia. The motley world burst into his eyes with all its diversity and richness. The shop signs beckoned, the guest courtyard beckoned; attracted by Volga fairs, noisy bazaars, city gardens and quiet streets; colorful churches, bright, sparkling colors church utensils; folk customs and holidays - all this forever left its imprint on his emotional, receptive soul.

The artist loved Russia - calm, and bright, and lazy, and restless, and devoted all his work to it, to Russia.

Boris was born into the family of a teacher. Despite the fact that the Kustodievs had to face “financial hardships” more than once, the furnishings of the house were full of comfort, and even some grace. Music was played often. My mother played the piano and loved to sing with her nanny. Russian folk songs were often sung. Kustodiev’s love for all things folk was instilled in him from childhood.

First, Boris studied at a theological school, and then at a theological seminary. But the craving for drawing, which manifested itself since childhood, did not give up hope of learning the profession of an artist. By that time, Boris’s father had already died, and the Kustodievs did not have their own funds for studying; his uncle, his father’s brother, helped him. At first, Boris took lessons from the artist Vlasov, who came to Astrakhan for permanent residence. Vlasov taught the future artist a lot, and Kustodiev was grateful to him all his life. Boris enters the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg and studies brilliantly. He graduated from the Kustodiev Academy at the age of 25 with a gold medal and received the right to travel abroad and throughout Russia to improve his skills.

By this time, Kustodiev was already married to Yulia Evstafievna Proshina, with whom he was very much in love and with whom he lived his whole life. She was his muse, friend, assistant and adviser (and later, for many years, a nurse and caregiver). After graduating from the Academy, their son Kirill was already born. Together with his family, Kustodiev went to Paris. Paris delighted him, but he didn’t really like the exhibitions. Then he traveled (already alone) to Spain, where he became acquainted with Spanish painting, with artists, and shared his impressions with his wife in letters (she was waiting for him in Paris).

In the summer of 1904, the Kustodievs returned to Russia, settled in the Kostroma province, where they bought a piece of land and built their house, which they called “Terem”.

As a person, Kustodiev was attractive, but complex, mysterious and contradictory. He reunited in art the general and the particular, the eternal and the momentary; he is a master psychological portrait and the author of monumental, symbolic paintings. He was attracted by the passing past, and at the same time he responded vividly to events today: world war, popular unrest, two revolutions...

Kustodiev worked with enthusiasm in the most different genres and types of fine art: he painted portraits, everyday scenes, landscapes, and still lifes. He was engaged in painting, drawings, made decorations for performances, illustrations for books, and even created engravings.

Kustodiev is a faithful successor to the traditions of Russian realists. He was very fond of Russian folk popular print, which he used to stylize many of his works. He loved to depict colorful scenes from the life of the merchants, philistines, folk life. With great love he wrote the bills of sale, folk holidays, festivities, Russian nature. For the “popular style” of his paintings, many at exhibitions scolded the artist, and then for a long time they could not move away from his canvases, quietly admiring him.

Kustodiev took an active part in the World of Art association and exhibited his paintings in exhibitions of the association.

At the 33rd year of his life, a serious illness fell upon Kustodiev, it shackled him and deprived him of the ability to walk. Having undergone two operations, the artist was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. My hands hurt a lot. But Kustodiev was a man of high spirit and illness did not force him to give up his favorite business. Kustodiev continued to write. Moreover, this was the period of the highest flowering of his creativity.

At the beginning of May 1927, on a windy day, Kustodiev caught a cold and contracted pneumonia. And on May 26 it quietly faded away. His wife survived him by 15 years and died in Leningrad during the siege.

Bolshevik (1920)

Before us is a Russian city of revolutionary years. The streets are filled with dense crowds, and, towering above everyone and easily stepping over the houses, walks a giant man with a menacing face and burning eyes. In his hands is a huge red banner fluttering far behind his back. The street is sunny and snowy in Kustodiev style. Blue shadows in the fight with the sun make it festive. The scarlet banner, spread across the greenish sky, like fire, like a river of blood, like a whirlwind, like the wind, gives the picture a movement as inexorable as the step of a Bolshevik

Girl on the Volga (1915)

The same Kustodiev type of woman is repeated: a sweet, gentle girl-beauty, about whom in Rus' they said “written”, “sugar”. The face is full of the same sweet charm that the heroines of Russian epics, folk songs and fairy tales are endowed with: a light blush, as they say, blood with milk, high arched eyebrows, a chiseled nose, a cherry mouth, a tight braid thrown over the chest... She is alive , real and incredibly attractive, alluring.

She lay half-lying on a hillock among daisies and dandelions, and behind her, under the mountain, unfolds such a wide Volga expanse, such an abundance of churches that it takes your breath away.

Kustodiev merges this earthly here, beautiful girl and this nature, this Volga expanse into a single inextricable whole. The girl is the highest, poetic symbol of this land, of all of Russia.

In an unusual way, the painting “Girl on the Volga” ended up far from Russia - in Japan.

Blue House (1920)

With this painting, the artist wanted, according to his son, to cover the entire cycle human life. Although some connoisseurs of painting argued that Kustodiev was talking about the wretched existence of the tradesman, limited by the walls of the house. But this was not typical for Kustodiev - he loved the simple, peaceful life of ordinary people.

The picture is multi-figured and multi-valued. Here is a simple-minded provincial love duet of a girl sitting in open window, with a young man leaning against the fence, and if you look a little to the right, you seem to see a continuation of this novel in the woman with the child.

Look to the left - and in front of you is a most picturesque group: a policeman is peacefully playing checkers with a bearded man in the street, next to them a naive and beautiful-hearted man is speaking - in a hat and poor, but neat clothes, and gloomily listening to his speech, looking up from the newspaper, sitting near his establishment coffin master

And above, as the result of your whole life, is a peaceful tea party with someone who has gone through all life’s joys and hardships hand in hand.

And the mighty poplar, adjacent to the house and seemingly blessing it with its thick foliage, is not just a landscape detail, but almost a kind of double of human existence - the tree of life with its various branches.

And everything goes away, the viewer’s gaze goes up, to the boy illuminated by the sun, and to the doves soaring in the sky.

No, this picture definitely does not look like an arrogant or even slightly condescending, but still a guilty verdict to the inhabitants of the “blue house”!

Full of inescapable love for life, the artist, in the words of the poet, blesses “every blade of grass in the field, and every star in the sky” and affirms family closeness, the connection between “blades of grass” and “stars,” everyday prose and poetry.

Group portrait of the artists of the World of Art (1920)

From left to right:

I.E.Grabar, N.K.Roerich, E.E.Lancere, B.M.Kustodiev, I.Ya.Bilibin, A.P.Ostrumova-Lebedeva, A.N.Benois, G.I.Narbut, K.S.Petrov-Vodkin, N.D.Milioti, K.A.Somov, M.V.Dobuzhinsky.

This portrait was commissioned from Kustodiev for Tretyakov Gallery. The artist did not dare to paint it for a long time, feeling a high responsibility. But in the end he agreed and started working.

I thought for a long time about who and how to seat and introduce. He wanted not just to put them in a row, as in a photograph, but to show each artist as a Personality, with his character, characteristics, to emphasize his talent.

Twelve people had to be depicted in the discussion process. Oh, these sizzling debates of the “World of Art”! The disputes are verbal, but more pictorial - with lines, paints...

Here is Bilibin, an old friend from the Academy of Arts. A jokester and a merry fellow, a connoisseur of ditties and old songs, able, despite his stutter, to pronounce the longest and funniest toasts. That’s why he stands here, like a toastmaster, with a glass raised with a graceful movement of his hand. The Byzantine beard rose, eyebrows raised upward in bewilderment.

What was the conversation at the table about? It seems that gingerbread cookies were brought to the table, and Benoit found the letters “I.B.” on them.

Benoit turned to Bilibin with a smile: “Admit it, Ivan Yakovlevich, these are your initials. Did you make a drawing for the bakers? Do you earn capital?” Bilibin laughed and jokingly began ranting about the history of the creation of gingerbread in Rus'.

But to the left of Bilibin sit Lanceray and Roerich. Everyone argues, but Roerich thinks, he doesn’t think, but he thinks. An archaeologist, historian, philosopher, educator with the makings of a prophet, a cautious man with the manners of a diplomat, he does not like to talk about himself, about his art. But his painting says so much that there is already a whole group of interpreters of his work, which finds in his painting elements of mystery, magic, and foresight. Roerich was elected chairman of the newly organized society "World of Art".

The wall is green. On the left is a bookcase and a bust of a Roman emperor. Tiled yellow and white stove. Everything is the same as in Dobuzhinsky’s house, where the first meeting of the founders of the World of Art took place.

At the center of the group is Benoit, a critic and theorist, an unquestioned authority. With Benoit at Kustodiev's difficult relationships. Benoit is a wonderful artist. His favorite topics are life at the court of Louis XV and Catherine II, Versailles, fountains, palace interiors.

On the one hand, Benois liked Kustodiev’s paintings, but condemned that there was nothing European in them.

On the right is Konstantin Andreevich Somov, a calm and balanced figure. His portrait was easy to paint. Maybe because he reminded Kustodiev of a clerk? The artist has always been successful with Russian types. The starched collar is white, the cuffs of a fashionable speckled shirt, the black suit is ironed, sleek, plump hands are folded on the table. There is an expression of equanimity, contentment on the face...

The owner of the house is an old friend Dobuzhinsky. How many things we experienced with him in St. Petersburg!.. How many different memories!..

Dobuzhinsky's pose seems to successfully express disagreement with something.

But Petrov-Vodkin abruptly pushed back his chair and turned around. He is diagonally from Bilibin. Petrov-Vodkin burst into art world noisy and bold, which some artists, for example Repin, did not like; they have a completely different view of art, a different vision.

On the left is a clear profile of Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar. Stocky, with a not very well-built figure, a shaved square head, he is full of keen interest in everything that happens...

And here he is, Kustodiev himself. He depicted himself from the back, in half profile. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, sitting next to him, is a new member of society. Energetic woman with masculine character Conversing with Petrov-Vodkin

Beauty (1915)

Wallpaper in flowers, an ornate chest on which a lush bed is arranged, covered with a blanket, the pillowcases somehow show through the body. And from all this excessive abundance, like Aphrodite from the foam of the sea, the heroine of the picture is born.

Before us is a lush beauty, limp from sleeping on the feather bed. Throwing back the thick pink blanket, she lowered her feet onto the soft footrest. With inspiration, Kustodiev sings of chaste, Russian female beauty, popular among the people: bodily luxury, the purity of light blue affectionate eyes, an open smile.

The lush roses on the chest and the blue wallpaper behind her are in tune with the image of the beauty. By stylizing it as a splint, the artist made it “a little more” - both the fullness of the body and the brightness of the colors. But this bodily abundance did not cross the line beyond which it would have become unpleasant.

This is truly a beauty, caressing the eye, simple, natural, full of strength, like nature itself - as a symbol of health and fertility. She is waiting for love - just like the land of rain.

Bathing (1912)

It’s a hot sunny day, the water sparkles from the sun, mixing the reflections of the intensely blue sky, perhaps promising a thunderstorm, and the trees from the steep bank, as if melted on top by the sun. On the shore they are loading something into a boat. The roughly built bathhouse is also hot from the sun; the shadow inside is light, almost does not hide the women's bodies. The picture is full of greedily, sensually perceived life, its everyday flesh. The free play of light and shadows, reflections of the sun in the water makes us remember the mature Kustodiev’s interest in impressionism.

Merchant's Wife (1915)

One day, while walking along the banks of the Volga, Kustodiev saw a woman whose beauty, stature and greatness simply shocked him, and the artist painted this picture.

Here was a Russian landscape, which is loved by folk artists, storytellers, and songwriters of Rus'. Bright, like a popular print, cheerful, like folk toy. Where else in Europe was so much gold placed on domes, golden stars thrown on blue? Where else are there such small cheerful churches, reflected in the lowlands of the waters, as in the vastness of Russia?

The artist took a large canvas for the painting and made the woman stand tall, in all her Russian beauty. Over the riot of colors, lilac and crimson reigned supreme. He was dressed up, festive and at the same time excited.

And the woman is beautiful and majestic, like the wide Volga behind her. This is the beautiful Russian Elena, who knows the power of her beauty, for which some merchant of the first guild chose her as his wife. This is a beauty sleeping in reality, standing high above the river, like a slender white-trunked birch tree, the personification of peace and contentment.

She is wearing a long, silk-shimmering dress of an alarming purple color, her hair is parted in the middle, a dark braid, pear earrings glitter in her ears, a warm blush on her cheeks, and a shawl decorated with patterns on her hand.

She fits as naturally into the Volga landscape with its beauty and spaciousness as the world around her: there is a church, and birds are flying, and the river is flowing, steamboats are sailing, and a young merchant couple is walking - they also admired the beautiful merchant's wife.

Everything moves, runs, but she stands as a symbol of the constant, the best that was, is and will be.

Merchant's wife with a mirror

But the merchant’s wife admires herself in a new shawl painted with flowers. This is how Pushkin’s poem comes to mind: “Am I the sweetest, the most ruddy and whitest in the world?..” And standing in the doorway, admiring his wife, is the husband, a merchant who probably brought her this shawl from the fair. And he is happy that he was able to bring this joy to his beloved wife...

Merchant's wife at tea (1918)

Provincial town. Tea party. A young beautiful merchant's wife sits on the balcony on a warm evening. She is serene, like the evening sky above her. This is some kind of naive goddess of fertility and abundance. It’s not for nothing that the table in front of her is bursting with food: next to the samovar, gilded utensils, there are fruits and baked goods in plates.

A gentle blush sets off the whiteness of the sleek face, black eyebrows are slightly raised, blue eyes are carefully examining something in the distance. According to Russian custom, she drinks tea from a saucer, supporting it with her plump fingers. A cozy cat gently rubs against the owner’s shoulder, the wide neckline of the dress reveals the immensity of her round chest and shoulders. In the distance you can see the terrace of another house, where a merchant and his merchant’s wife are sitting at the same occupation.

Here the everyday picture clearly develops into a fantastic allegory of a carefree life and earthly bounties bestowed upon man. And the artist slyly admires the most magnificent beauty, as if one of the sweetest fruits of the earth. Only the artist “grounded” her image a little - her body became a little plumper, her fingers plump...

Maslenitsa (1916)

Holiday city with churches stretching upward, bell towers, clumps of frost-covered trees and smoke from chimneys, visible from the mountain on which Maslenitsa fun unfolds.

The boyish fight is in full swing, snowballs are flying, the sleigh is climbing up the mountain and rushing further. Here sits a coachman in a blue caftan, and those sitting in the sleigh rejoice at the holiday. And a gray horse rushed towards them, driven by a lone driver, who turned slightly towards those riding behind, as if daring them to compete in speed.

And below - the carousel, the crowds at the booth, the rows of living rooms! And in the sky there are clouds of birds, alarmed by the festive ringing! And everyone rejoices, rejoicing in the holiday...

A burning, immense joy overwhelms, looking at the canvas, carries away into this daring holiday, in which not only people in sleighs, at carousels and booths rejoice, not only accordions and bells ring - here the whole vast earth, dressed in snow and frost, rejoices and rings, and every tree rejoices, every house, and the sky, and the church, and even the dogs rejoice along with the boys sledding.

This is a holiday for the whole land, the Russian land. The sky, snow, motley crowds of people, sleds - everything is colored with green-yellow, pink-blue iridescent colors.

Moscow tavern (1916)

One day Kustodiev and his friend, actor Luzhsky, were riding in a carriage and got into conversation with the cab driver. Kustodiev drew attention to the cab driver’s large, pitch-black beard and asked him: “Where are you going to come from?” “We are from Kerzhensk,” answered the coachman. "Old Believers, then?" - “Exactly, your honor.” - “So, there are a lot of you, coachmen, here in Moscow?” - “Yes, that’s enough. There’s a tavern on Sukharevka.” - “That’s great, that’s where we’ll go...”

The carriage stopped not far from the Sukharev Tower and they entered the low, stone building of Rostovtsev's tavern with thick walls. The smell of tobacco, fusel, boiled crayfish, pickles, and pies filled my nose.

Huge ficus. Reddish walls. Low vaulted ceiling. And in the center at the table sat reckless cab drivers in blue caftans and red sashes. They drank tea, concentrated and silent. The heads are cropped like a pot. Beards - one longer than the other. They drank tea, holding the saucers on their outstretched fingers... And immediately a picture was born in the artist’s brain...

Against the background of drunken red walls sit seven bearded, flushed cab drivers in bright blue robes with saucers in their hands. They behave sedately and sedately. They devoutly drink hot tea, getting burned by blowing on the saucer of tea. They are talking quietly, slowly, and one is reading a newspaper.

The floormen rush into the hall with teapots and trays, their dashingly curved bodies amusingly echo the line of teapots, ready to line up on the shelves behind the bearded innkeeper; the idle servant took a nap; The cat carefully licks its fur (a good sign for the owner - for guests!)

And all this action is in bright, sparkling, frantic colors - cheerfully painted walls, and even palm trees, paintings, and white tablecloths, and teapots with painted trays. The picture is perceived as lively and cheerful.

Portrait of F. Chaliapin (1922)

In the winter of 1920, Fyodor Chaliapin, as a director, decided to stage the opera “Enemy Power”, and Kustodiev was entrusted with the decorations. In this regard, Chaliapin stopped by the artist’s home. Came in from the cold wearing a fur coat. He exhaled noisily - the white steam stopped in the cold air - there was no heating in the house, there was no firewood. Chaliapin said something about his probably freezing fingers, and Kustodiev could not take his eyes off his ruddy face, from his rich, picturesque fur coat. It would seem that the eyebrows are inconspicuous, whitish, and the eyes are faded, gray, but he is handsome! That's who to draw! This singer is a Russian genius, and his appearance should be preserved for posterity. And the fur coat! What a fur coat he's wearing!..

“Fyodor Ivanovich! Would you pose in this fur coat,” Kustodiev asked. “Is it clever, Boris Mikhailovich? The fur coat is good, but perhaps it was stolen,” Chaliapin muttered. “Are you kidding, Fyodor Ivanovich?” “No. A week ago I received it for a concert from some institution. They didn’t have the money or flour to pay me. So they offered me a fur coat.” “Well, we’ll fix it on the canvas... It’s too smooth and silky.”

And so Kustodiev took a pencil and began to draw cheerfully. And Chaliapin began to sing “Oh, you little night...” To the singing of Fyodor Ivanovich, the artist created this masterpiece.

Against the backdrop of a Russian city, a giant man, his fur coat wide open. He is important and representative in this luxurious, picturesquely open fur coat, with a ring on his hand and with a cane. Chaliapin is so dignified that you involuntarily remember how a certain spectator, seeing him in the role of Godunov, admiringly remarked: “A real king, not an impostor!”

And in his face we can feel a restrained (he already knew his worth) interest in everything around him.

Everything is dear to him here! The devil is grimacing on the stage of the booth. Trotters rush down the street or stand peacefully waiting for their riders. A bunch of multi-colored balls sway over the market square. A tipsy man moves his feet to the accordion. Shopkeepers are trading briskly, and there is a tea party in the cold near a huge samovar.

And above all this the sky is no, not blue, it is greenish, this is because the smoke is yellow. And of course, the favorite jackdaws in the sky. They provide an opportunity to express the bottomlessness of the heavenly space, which has always so attracted and tormented the artist...

All this has lived in Chaliapin himself since childhood. In some ways he resembles a simple-minded native of these places who, having succeeded in life, came to his native Palestine to show himself in all his splendor and glory, and at the same time is eager to prove that he has not forgotten anything and has not lost any of his former dexterity and strength.

How Yesenin’s passionate lines fit here:

"To hell, I'm taking off my English suit:

Well, give me the braid - I'll show you -

Am I not one of you, am I not close to you,

Don’t I value the memory of the village?”

And it looks like something similar is about to fall from Fyodor Ivanovich’s lips and his luxurious fur coat will fly into the snow.

Portrait of his wife Yulia Kustodieva (1903)

The artist painted this portrait shortly after the wedding; it is full of tender feelings for his wife. At first he wanted to write it standing, at full height, on the steps of the porch, but then he sat his “Kolobochka” (as he affectionately called her in his letters) on the terrace.

Everything is very simple - an ordinary terrace of an old, slightly silvery tree, the greenery of the garden approaching it closely, a table covered with a white tablecloth, a rough bench. And a woman, still almost a girl, with a restrained and at the same time very trusting gaze directed at us... and in fact at him, who came to this quiet corner and will now take her somewhere with him.

The dog stands and looks at the owner - calmly and at the same time, as if expecting that now she will get up and they will go somewhere.

A kind, poetic world lies behind the heroine of the picture, so dear to the artist himself, who joyfully recognizes it in other people close to him.

Russian Venus (1926)

It seems incredible that this huge painting was created by a seriously ill artist a year before his death and in the most unfavorable conditions (in the absence of canvas, they stretched the old painting onto a stretcher with the reverse side). Only love for life, joy and cheerfulness, love for his own, Russian, dictated to him the painting “Russian Venus”.

The woman’s young, healthy, strong body glows, her teeth shine in her shy and at the same time innocently proud smile, the light plays in her silky flowing hair. It was as if the sun itself entered the usually dark bathhouse together with the heroine of the picture - and everything here lit up! The light shimmers in the soap foam (which the artist whipped in a basin with one hand and wrote with the other); the wet ceiling, on which clouds of steam were reflected, suddenly became like the sky with lush clouds. The door to the dressing room is open, and from there through the window you can see a sunlit winter city in frost, a horse in harness.

The natural, deeply national ideal of health and beauty was embodied in the “Russian Venus”. This beautiful image became a powerful final chord of the richest “Russian symphony” created by the artist in his painting.

Morning (1904)

The painting was painted in Paris, where Kustodiev came with his wife and recently born son Kirill after graduating from the Academy. A woman, who can easily be recognized as the artist’s wife, is bathing a child. “Birdie,” as the artist called him, does not “yell”, does not splash - he is quiet and intently examining - either a toy, some duckling, or just a sunbeam: there are so many of them around - on his wet strong body, on the edges of the pelvis , on the walls, on a lush bouquet of flowers!

Fair (1906)

Fairs in the village of Semenovskoye were famous throughout the Kostroma province. On Sunday, the ancient village flaunts all its fair decorations, standing at the crossroads of old roads.

The owners laid out their goods on the counters: arches, shovels, birch bark beetroot, painted rollers, children's whistles, sieves. But most of all, perhaps, bast shoes, and therefore the name of the village is Semenovskoye-Lapotnoye. And in the center of the village there is a church - squat, strong.

The talkative fair is noisy and ringing. Human melodious talk merges with bird hubbub; the jackdaws in the bell tower staged their own fair.

Loud invitations are heard all around: “Here are the pretzel pies! Who cares about the heat, has a brown eye!”

- “Baps, there are bast shoes! Fast!”

_ "Oh, the box is full! Colored prints, incredible ones, about Foma, about Katenka, about Boris and about Prokhor!,"

On the one hand, the artist depicted a girl gazing at the bright dolls, and on the other, a boy gaped at a bent bird-whistle, lagging behind his grandfather in the center of the picture. He calls him - “Where are you withering, you lack of hearing?”

And above the rows of counters, the awnings almost merge with each other, their gray panels smoothly turning into the dark roofs of distant huts. And then there are green distances, blue skies...

Fabulous! A purely Russian fair of colors, and it sounds like an accordion - iridescent and ringing!..

Booths