"Morning in pine forest"is perhaps one of the most famous paintings Ivan Shishkin. The first thing that attracts and touches the audience looking at the masterpiece is the bears. Without animals, the picture would hardly have turned out so attractive. Meanwhile, few people know that it was not Shishkin, another artist named Savitsky, who painted the animals.
Bear Master
Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky is now not as famous as Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, whose name probably even a child knows. Nevertheless, Savitsky is also one of the most talented Russian painters. At one time he was an academician and member of the Imperial Academy of Arts. It is clear that it was on the basis of art that Savitsky met Shishkin.
Both of them loved Russian nature and selflessly depicted it on their canvases. But Ivan Ivanovich preferred landscapes in which people or animals, if they appeared, were only in the role minor characters. Savitsky, on the contrary, actively portrayed both. Apparently, thanks to his friend’s skill, Shishkin became convinced that he was not very successful with the figures of living beings.
Help from a friend
At the end of the 1880s, Ivan Shishkin completed another landscape, in which he depicted an unusually picturesque morning in a pine forest. However, according to the artist, the picture lacked some kind of accent, for which he planned to paint 2 bears. Shishkin even made sketches for future characters, but was dissatisfied with his work. It was then that he turned to Konstantin Savitsky with a request to help him with the animals. Shishkin’s friend did not refuse and happily got down to business. The bears turned out to be enviable. In addition, the number of clubfoot has doubled.
To be fair, it is worth noting that Shishkin himself had no intention of cheating at all, and when the picture was ready, he indicated not only his last name, but also Savitsky’s. Both friends were satisfied with their joint work. But everything was ruined by the founder of the world-famous gallery, Pavel Tretyakov.
Stubborn Tretyakov
It was Tretyakov who purchased “Morning in a Pine Forest” from Shishkin. However, the patron did not like the 2 signatures on the painting. And since, after purchasing this or that work of art, Tretyakov considered himself its sole and rightful owner, he went ahead and erased Savitsky’s name. Shishkin began to object, but Pavel Mikhailovich remained adamant. He said that the style of writing, including regarding bears, corresponds to the manner of Shishkin, and Savitsky is clearly superfluous here.
Ivan Shishkin shared the fee he received from Tretyakov with a friend. However, he gave Savitsky only the 4th part of the money, explaining this by the fact that he did the sketches for “Morning” without the help of Konstantin Apollonovich.
Surely Savitsky was offended by such treatment. In any case, he never painted another painting together with Shishkin. And Savitsky’s bears, in any case, really became the decoration of the picture: without them, “Morning in a Pine Forest” would hardly have received such recognition.
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Over the past century, “Morning in a Pine Forest,” which rumor, disregarding the laws of arithmetic, christened into “Three Bears,” has become the most widely circulated painting in Russia: Shishkin bears look at us from candy wrappers, greeting cards, wall tapestries and calendars; Even of all the cross-stitch kits that are sold in “Everything for needlework” stores, these bears are the most popular.
By the way, what does morning have to do with it?!
It is known that this painting was originally called “Bear Family in the Forest.” And it had two authors - Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky: Shishkin painted the forest, but the latter’s brushes belonged to the bears themselves. But Pavel Tretyakov, who bought this canvas, ordered the painting to be renamed and only one artist to be left in all catalogs - Ivan Shishkin.
- Why? – Tretyakov was faced with this question for many years.
Only once did Tretyakov explain the motives for his action.
“In a painting,” answered the patron, “everything, from the concept to the execution, speaks about the manner of painting, about creative method, characteristic of Shishkin.
I.I. Shishkin. Morning in pine forest.
“Bear” was the nickname of Ivan Shishkin himself in his youth.
Huge in stature, gloomy and silent, Shishkin always tried to stay away from noisy companies and fun, preferring to walk somewhere in the forest completely alone.
He was born in January 1832 in the most bearish corner of the empire - in the city of Elabuga in the then Vyatka province, in the family of the merchant of the first guild Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin, a local romantic and eccentric who was interested not so much in the grain trade as in archaeological research and social activities.
Perhaps that is why Ivan Vasilyevich did not scold his son when, after four years of studying at the Kazan gymnasium, he quit studying with the firm intention of never returning to school. “Well, he gave up and gave up,” Shishkin Sr. shrugged, “not everyone can build bureaucratic careers.”
But Ivan was not interested in anything other than hiking through the forests. Each time he ran away from home before dawn and returned after dark. After dinner, he silently locked himself in his room. He had no interest in either female society or the company of peers, to whom he seemed like a forest savage.
The parents tried to place their son in family business, but Ivan did not express any interest in trading. Moreover, all the merchants deceived and cheated him. “Our arithmetic and grammarian is idiotic in matters of commerce,” his mother complained in a letter to her eldest son Nikolai.
But then, in 1851, Moscow artists appeared in quiet Yelabuga, summoned to paint the iconostasis in the cathedral church. Ivan soon met one of them, Ivan Osokin. It was Osokin who noticed the craving young man to drawing. He accepted young Shishkin as an apprentice in the artel, teaching him how to cook and stir paints, and later advised him to go to Moscow and study at the School of Painting and Sculpture at the Moscow Art Society.
I.I. Shishkin. Self-portrait.
The relatives, who had already given up on the undergrowth, even perked up when they learned about their son’s desire to become an artist. Especially the father, who dreamed of glorifying the Shishkin family for centuries. True, he believed that he himself would become the most famous Shishkin - as an amateur archaeologist who excavated the ancient Devil's settlement near Yelabuga. Therefore, his father allocated money for training, and in 1852, 20-year-old Ivan Shishkin set off to conquer Moscow.
It was his sharp-tongued comrades at the School of Painting and Sculpture who nicknamed him the Bear.
As his classmate Pyotr Krymov, with whom Shishkin shared a room in a mansion on Kharitonyevsky Lane, recalled, “our Bear has already climbed all over Sokolniki and painted all the clearings.”
However, he went to sketches in Ostankino, and in Sviblovo, and even in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra - Shishkin worked as if tirelessly. Many were amazed: in a day he produced as many sketches as others could barely do in a week.
In 1855, having brilliantly graduated from the School of Painting, Shishkin decided to enroll in Imperial Academy arts in St. Petersburg. And although, according to the then table of ranks, graduates of the Moscow School actually had the same status as graduates of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Shishkin simply passionately wanted to learn to paint from the best European masters of painting.
Life in the noisy capital of the empire did not change Shishkin’s unsociable character at all. As he wrote in letters to his parents, if not for the opportunity to study painting with the best masters, he would have returned home to his native forests long ago.
“I’m tired of Petersburg,” he wrote to his parents in the winter of 1858. – Today we were on Admiralteyskaya Square, where, as you know, the color of St. Petersburg Maslenitsa. It’s all such rubbish, nonsense, vulgarity, and the most respectable public, the so-called higher ones, flock to this vulgar chaos on foot and in carriages, in order to kill part of their boring and idle time and immediately watch how the lower public is having fun. But we, the people who make up the average public, really don’t want to watch...”
And here is another letter, written in the spring: “This incessant thunder of carriages appeared on the cobblestone street; at least in winter it doesn’t bother me. When the first day of the holiday comes, countless numbers of cocked hats, helmets, cockades and similar rubbish will appear on the streets of all St. Petersburg to make visits. It’s a strange thing, in St. Petersburg every minute you meet either a pot-bellied general, or a pole-shaped officer, or a crooked official - these personalities are simply countless, you might think that the whole of Petersburg is full only of them, these animals ... "
The only consolation he finds in the capital is the church. Paradoxically, it was in noisy St. Petersburg, where many people in those years lost not only their faith, but also their very human appearance, that Shishkin just found his way to God.
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin.
In letters to his parents, he wrote: “We have a church in the Academy building itself, and during divine services we leave classes, go to church, and in the evening after class to the all-night vigil, there is no matins there. And I’ll be happy to tell you that it’s so pleasant, so good, in the best possible way, like someone who did something, leaves everything, goes, comes and again does the same thing as before. Just as the church is good, the clergy fully respond to it, the priest is a venerable, kind old man, he often visits our classes, he speaks so simply, captivatingly, so vividly...”
Shishkin saw God's will in his studies: he had to prove to the Academy professors the right of a Russian artist to paint Russian landscapes. This was not so easy to do, because at that time the Frenchman Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain were considered the luminaries and gods of the landscape genre, who painted either majestic alpine landscapes or the sultry nature of Greece or Italy. Russian spaces were considered a kingdom of savagery, unworthy of depiction on canvas.
Ilya Repin, who studied a little later at the Academy, wrote: “Real nature, beautiful nature was recognized only in Italy, where there were eternally unattainable examples the highest art. The professors saw all this, studied it, knew it, and led their students to the same goal, to the same unfading ideals...”
I.I. Shishkin. Oak.
But it wasn't just about ideals.
Starting from the time of Catherine the Second, foreigners flooded the artistic circles of St. Petersburg: the French and Italians, the Germans and Swedes, the Dutch and the British worked on portraits of royal dignitaries and members of the imperial family. Suffice it to recall the Englishman George Dow, the author of a series of portraits of heroes Patriotic War 1812, who under Nicholas I was officially appointed First Artist of the Imperial Court. And while Shishkin was studying at the Academy, the Germans Franz Kruger and Peter von Hess, Johann Schwabe and Rudolf Frenz, who specialized in depicting high society amusements - primarily balls and hunting, shone at the court in St. Petersburg. Moreover, judging by the pictures, Russian nobles did not hunt in the northern forests at all, but somewhere in the Alpine valleys. And, naturally, foreigners who viewed Russia as a colony tirelessly instilled in the St. Petersburg elite the idea of the natural superiority of everything European over Russian.
However, it was impossible to break Shishkin's stubbornness.
“God showed me this path; the path on which I am now is the one that leads me along it; and how God will unexpectedly lead me to my goal,” he wrote to his parents. “A firm hope in God consoles me in such cases, and involuntarily the shell of dark thoughts is cast off from me...”
Ignoring the criticism of his teachers, he continued to paint pictures of Russian forests, honing his drawing technique to perfection.
And he achieved his goal: in 1858, Shishkin received the Great Silver Medal of the Academy of Arts for drawings with pen and pictorial sketches, written on the island of Valaam. The following year, Shishkin received the Gold medal second dignity, which also gives the right to study abroad at the expense of the state.
I.I. Shishkin. View on the island of Valaam.
While abroad, Shishkin quickly became homesick.
The Berlin Academy of Arts seemed like a dirty barn. The exhibition in Dresden is an example of bad taste.
“Out of innocent modesty, we reproach ourselves for not being able to write or for writing rudely, tastelessly and differently from what we write abroad,” he wrote in his diary. – But, really, as much as we saw here in Berlin, ours is much better, I, of course, take it in general. I have never seen anything more callous and tasteless than the painting here at the permanent exhibition - and here there are not only Dresden artists, but from Munich, Zurich, Leipzig and Düsseldorf, more or less all representatives of the great German nation. We, of course, look at them in the same obsequious way as we look at everything abroad... So far, of everything that I have seen abroad, nothing has brought me to the point of stunning, as I expected, but, on the contrary, I have become more confident in myself... »
Neither the mountain views seduced him Saxon Switzerland where he studied with famous artist-animal painter Rudolf Koller (so, contrary to rumor, Shishkin knew how to draw animals excellently), nor the landscapes of Bohemia with miniature mountains, nor the beauty of old Munich, nor Prague.
“Now I just realized that I was in the wrong place,” wrote Shishkin. “Prague is nothing remarkable; its surroundings are also poor.”
I.I. Shishkin. Village near Prague. Watercolor.
Only the ancient Teutoburg Forest with centuries-old oak trees, still remembering the times of the invasion of the Roman legions, briefly captivated his imagination.
The more he traveled around Europe, the more he wanted to return to Russia.
Out of boredom, he even once got into a very unpleasant situation. He was once sitting in a Munich beer hall, drinking about a liter of Mosel wine. And there was something he didn’t share with a group of tipsy Germans who began making rude ridicule about Russia and Russians. Ivan Ivanovich, without waiting for any explanations or apologies from the Germans, got into a fight and, as witnesses stated, knocked out seven Germans with his bare hands. As a result, the artist ended up with the police, and the case could have taken a very serious turn. But Shishkin was acquitted: the artist was, after all, the judges considered, a vulnerable soul. And this turned out to be almost his only positive impression of his European trip.
But at the same time, it was thanks to the work experience acquired in Europe that Shishkin was able to become what he became in Russia.
In 1841, an event occurred in London that was not immediately appreciated by his contemporaries: the American John Goff Rand received a patent for a tin tube for storing paint, wrapped at one end and capped at the other. This was the prototype of the current tubes, in which today not only paint is packaged, but also a lot of useful things: cream, toothpaste, food for astronauts.
What could be more ordinary than a tube?
It is perhaps difficult for us today to even imagine how this invention made life easier for artists. Nowadays, anyone can easily and quickly become a painter: go to the store, buy a primed canvas, brushes and a set of acrylic or oil paints– and please draw as much as you like! In earlier times, artists prepared their own paints by buying dry powdered pigments from traders, and then patiently mixing the powder with oil. But in the time of Leonardo da Vinci, artists prepared their own coloring pigments, which was an extremely labor-intensive process. And, let’s say, the process of soaking crushed lead in acetic acid to make white paint took the lion’s share of the painters’ working time, which is why, by the way, the paintings of the old masters were so dark, artists tried to save on white.
But even mixing paints based on semi-finished pigments took a lot of time and effort. Many painters recruited students to prepare paints for work. The finished paints were stored in hermetically sealed clay pots and bowls. It is clear that with a set of pots and jugs for oil it was impossible to go plein air, that is, to paint landscapes from nature.
I.I. Shishkin. Forest.
And this was another reason why the Russian landscape could not gain recognition in Russian art: painters simply redrew landscapes from paintings by European masters, without being able to paint from life.
Of course, the reader may object: if an artist cannot paint from life, then why couldn’t they draw from memory? Or just make it all up out of your head?
But drawing “from the head” was completely unacceptable for graduates of the Imperial Academy of Arts.
Ilya Repin has an interesting episode in his memoirs that illustrates the importance of Shishkin’s attitude to the truth of life.
“On my largest canvas, I began to paint rafts. “A whole string of rafts was walking along the wide Volga straight towards the viewer,” the artist wrote. – Ivan Shishkin encouraged me to destroy this painting, to whom I showed this painting.
- Well, what did you mean by that! And most importantly: you didn’t write this from sketches from life?! Can you see it now.
- No, that’s what I imagined...
- That's exactly what it is. I imagined! After all, these logs are in the water... It should be clear: what logs are spruce or pine? Why, some kind of “stoeros”! Ha ha! There is an impression, but it’s not serious...”
The word “frivolously” sounded like a sentence, and Repin destroyed the painting.
Shishkin himself, who did not have the opportunity to paint sketches in the forest with paints from nature, made sketches with a pencil and pen during his walks, achieving a filigree drawing technique. Actually, in Western Europe It was his forest sketches made with pen and ink that were always valued. Shishkin also painted brilliantly in watercolors.
Of course, Shishkin was far from the first artist who dreamed of painting large canvases with Russian landscapes. But how to move the workshop to the forest or to the river bank? The artists had no answer to this question. Some of them built temporary workshops (such as Surikov and Aivazovsky), but moving such workshops from place to place was too expensive and troublesome even for famous painters.
We also tried packaging ready-made mixed paints into pig bladders, which were tied in a knot. Then they pierced the bubble with a needle to squeeze out a little paint onto the palette, and the resulting hole was plugged with a nail. But more often than not, the bubbles simply burst along the way.
And suddenly durable and lightweight tubes with liquid paints appeared that you could carry with you - just squeeze a little onto the palette and paint. Moreover, the colors themselves have become brighter and richer.
Next came an easel, that is, a portable box with paints and a canvas stand that could be carried with you.
Of course, not all artists could lift the first easels, but this is where Shishkin’s bearish strength came in handy.
Shishkin's return to Russia with new colors and new painting technologies caused a sensation.
Ivan Ivanovich not only fit into fashion - no, he himself became a trendsetter in artistic fashion, not only in St. Petersburg, but also in Western Europe: his works become a discovery at the Paris World Exhibition, receive flattering reviews at an exhibition in Dusseldorf, which, however, it is not surprising, because the French and Germans were no less tired of the “classical” Italian landscapes than the Russians.
At the Academy of Arts he receives the title of professor. Moreover, at the request Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna Shishkin was introduced to Stanislav of the 3rd degree.
Also, a special landscape class opens at the Academy, and Ivan Ivanovich gets both a stable income and students. Moreover, the very first student - Fyodor Vasiliev - in short time achieves universal recognition.
Changes also occurred in Shishkin’s personal life: he married Evgenia Aleksandrovna Vasilyeva, his student’s sister. Soon the newlyweds had a daughter, Lydia, and then sons Vladimir and Konstantin were born.
Evgenia Shishkina, Shishkin's first wife.
“By nature, Ivan Ivanovich was born a family man; away from his family, he was never calm, he could hardly work, it always seemed to him that someone was sure to be sick at home, something had happened,” wrote the artist’s first biographer Natalya Komarova. – In an external device home life he had no rivals, creating a comfortable and beautiful environment out of almost nothing; He was terribly tired of wandering around furnished rooms, and with all his soul he devoted himself to his family and his household. For his children, he was the most tender loving father, especially while the children were small. Evgenia Alexandrovna was simple and good woman, and the years of her life with Ivan Ivanovich passed in quiet and peaceful work. The funds already made it possible to have modest comfort, although with an ever-increasing family, Ivan Ivanovich could not afford anything extra. He had many acquaintances, friends often gathered with them and games were arranged between times, and Ivan Ivanovich was the most hospitable host and the soul of the society.”
He establishes especially warm relations with the founders of the Partnership for Mobile art exhibitions artists Ivan Kramskoy and Konstantin Savitsky. For the summer, the three of them rented a spacious house in the village of Ilzho on the shores of Lake Ilzhovo not far from St. Petersburg. From early morning, Kramskoy locked himself in the studio, working on “Christ in the Desert,” and Shishkin and Savitsky usually went to sketches, climbing into the very depths of the forest, into the thicket.
Shishkin approached the matter very responsibly: he looked for a place for a long time, then began to clear the bushes, cut off the branches so that nothing would interfere with seeing the landscape he liked, made a seat out of branches and moss, strengthened the easel and got to work.
Savitsky, an early orphaned nobleman from Bialystok, took a liking to Ivan Ivanovich. Sociable person, lover of long walks, practically knower of life, he knew how to listen, he knew how to speak himself. There was a lot in common between them, and therefore both were drawn to each other. Savitsky even became the godfather of the artist’s youngest son, also Konstantin.
During such a summer harvest, Kramskoy wrote the most famous portrait Shishkina: not an artist, but a gold miner in the wilds of the Amazon - in a fashionable cowboy hat, English breeches and light leather boots with iron heels. In his hands is an alpenstock, a sketchbook, a box of paints, a folding chair, an umbrella from the sun’s rays are casually hanging on his shoulder - in a word, all the equipment.
– Not just a Bear, but a real owner of the forest! - Kramskoy exclaimed.
This was Shishkin's last happy summer.
Kramskoy. Portrait of I. I. Shishkin.
First a telegram came from Yelabuga: “This morning Father Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin died. I consider it my duty to inform you.”
Then little Volodya Shishkin died. Evgenia Alexandrovna turned black with grief and fell ill.
“Shishkin has been biting his nails for three months and that’s all,” Kramskoy wrote in November 1873. “His wife is still ill…”
Then the blows of fate fell one after another. A telegram arrived from Yalta about the death of Fyodor Vasiliev, and then Evgenia Alexandrovna died.
In a letter to his friend Savitsky, Kramskoy wrote: “E.A. Shishkina ordered to live long. She died last Wednesday, on the night of Thursday from March 5 to 6. On Saturday we saw her off. Soon. Sooner than I thought. But this is expected.”
To top it all off, he died and younger son Konstantin.
Ivan Ivanovich became not himself. I couldn’t hear what my loved ones were saying, I couldn’t find a place for myself either at home or in the workshop, even endless wanderings in the forest couldn’t ease the pain of loss. Every day he went to visit his family’s graves, and then, returning home after dark, he drank cheap wine until he was completely unconscious.
Friends were afraid to come to him - they knew that Shishkin, being out of his mind, could easily rush at uninvited guests with his fists. The only one who could console him was Savitsky, but he drank himself to death alone in Paris, mourning the death of his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna, who either committed suicide or died in an accident due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Savitsky himself was close to suicide. Perhaps only the misfortune that befell his friend in St. Petersburg could stop him from committing an irreparable act.
Only a few years later Shishkin found it in himself to return to painting.
He painted the canvas “Rye” - especially for the VI Traveling Exhibition. The huge field that he sketched somewhere near Yelabuga became for him the embodiment of his father’s words read in one of the old letters: “Death lies with man, then comes judgment; what a man sows in life, that he will also reap.”
In the background are mighty pine trees and - as an eternal reminder of death, which is always nearby - a huge withered tree.
At the traveling exhibition of 1878, “Rye”, by all accounts, took first place.
I.I. Shishkin. Rye.
That same year he met the young artist Olga Lagoda. The daughter of an actual state councilor and a courtier, she was one of the first thirty women accepted to study as volunteers at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Olga ended up in Shishkin’s class, and the always gloomy and shaggy Ivan Ivanovich, who had also grown a straggly Old Testament beard, suddenly discovered with surprise that at the sight of this short girl with bottomless blue eyes and bangs of brown hair, his heart began to beat a little stronger than usual, and your hands suddenly begin to sweat, like a snotty high school student.
Ivan Ivanovich proposed, and in 1880 he and Olga got married. Soon their daughter Ksenia was born. Happy Shishkin ran around the house and sang, sweeping away everything in his path.
And a month and a half after giving birth, Olga Antonovna died from inflammation of the peritoneum.
No, Shishkin didn’t drink this time. He threw himself into his work, trying to provide everything necessary for his two daughters, left without mothers.
Without giving himself the opportunity to become slack, finishing one painting, he stretched the canvas onto a stretcher for the next one. He began making etchings, mastered the technique of engravings, and illustrated books.
- Work! - said Ivan Ivanovich. – Work every day, going to this work as if it were a service. There is no need to wait for the notorious “inspiration”... Inspiration is the work itself!
In the summer of 1888, they again had a “family vacation” with Konstantin Savitsky. Ivan Ivanovich - with two daughters, Konstantin Apollonovich - with his new wife Elena and little son Georgy.
And so Savitsky sketched a comic drawing for Ksenia Shishkina: a mother bear is watching her three cubs play. Moreover, two kids are carefree chasing each other, and one - the so-called one-year-old breeding bear - is looking somewhere into the thicket of the forest, as if waiting for someone...
Shishkin, who saw his friend’s drawing, could not take his eyes off the cubs for a long time.
What was he thinking? Perhaps the artist remembered that the pagan Votyaks, who still lived in the forest wilds near Yelabuga, believed that bears were the closest relatives of people, and that it was the bears that the sinless souls of children who died early died.
And if he himself was called Bear, then this is his entire bear family: the bear is his wife Evgenia Alexandrovna, and the cubs are Volodya and Kostya, and next to them stands the bear Olga Antonovna and is waiting for him to come - the Bear and the king of the forest...
“These bears need to be given a good background,” he finally suggested to Savitsky. – And I know what needs to be written here... Let’s work together: I’ll write the forest, and you – the bears, they turned out very alive...
And then Ivan Ivanovich made a pencil sketch of the future painting, recalling how on the island of Gorodomlya, on Lake Seliger, he saw mighty pine trees, which a hurricane had uprooted and broken in half - like matches. Anyone who has seen such a catastrophe himself will easily understand: the very sight of forest giants torn to pieces causes shock and fear in people, and in the place where the trees fell, a strange empty space remains in the forest fabric - such a defiant emptiness that nature itself does not tolerate, but everything - still forced to endure; the same unhealing emptiness after the death of loved ones formed in the heart of Ivan Ivanovich.
Mentally remove the bears from the picture, and the scale of the catastrophe that happened in the forest, which occurred quite recently, will be revealed to you, judging by the yellowed pine needles and the fresh color of the wood where it was broken. But there were no other reminders of the storm. Now the soft golden light of God’s grace is pouring from heaven onto the forest, in which His bear angels are bathing...
The painting “Bear Family in the Forest” was first presented to the public at the XVII Traveling Exhibition in April 1889, and on the eve of the exhibition the painting was bought by Pavel Tretyakov for 4 thousand rubles. Of this amount, Ivan Ivanovich gave his co-author a fourth part - a thousand rubles, which offended his old friend: he was counting on a fairer assessment of his contribution to the picture.
I.I. Shishkin. Morning in a pine forest. Etude.
Savitsky wrote to his relatives: “I don’t remember if we wrote to you about the fact that I was not completely absent from the exhibition. I once started a painting with bears in the forest and was drawn to it. I.I. Sh-and took upon himself the execution of the landscape. The picture danced, and a buyer was found in Tretyakov. Thus we killed the bear and divided the skin! But this division happened with some curious stumbles. So curious and unexpected that I even refused any participation in this picture; it is exhibited under the name of Sh-na and is listed as such in the catalogue.
It turns out that issues of such a delicate nature cannot be hidden in a bag, courts and gossip ensued, and I had to sign the painting together with Sh., and then divide the very spoils of the purchase and sale. The painting was sold for 4 thousand, and I am a participant in the 4th share! I carry a lot of bad things in my heart regarding this issue, and out of joy and pleasure something opposite happened.
I am writing to you about this because I am used to keeping my heart open to you, but you, too, Dear friends“You understand that this whole issue is of an extremely delicate nature, and therefore it is necessary that all this should be completely secret for everyone with whom I would not want to talk.”
However, then Savitsky found the strength to reconcile with Shishkin, although they no longer worked together and no longer had family vacations: soon Konstantin Apollonovich with his wife and children moved to live in Penza, where he was offered the position of director of the newly opened Art School.
When in May 1889 the XVII Traveling Exhibition moved to the halls of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Tretyakov saw that “The Bear Family in the Forest” was already hanging with two signatures.
Pavel Mikhailovich was surprised, to put it mildly: he bought the painting from Shishkin. But the very fact of the presence next to the great Shishkin of the name of the “mediocre” Savitsky automatically reduced the market value of the painting, and reduced it significantly. Judge for yourself: Tretyakov acquired a painting in which the world-famous misanthrope Shishkin, who almost never painted people or animals, suddenly became an animal artist and depicted four animals. And not just any cows, cats or dogs, but the ferocious “masters of the forest”, which - any hunter will tell you - are very difficult to depict from life, because the bear will tear to shreds anyone who dares to get close to her cubs. But all of Russia knows that Shishkin paints only from life, and, therefore, the painter saw the bear family in the forest as clearly as he painted it on canvas. And now it turns out that the bear and cubs were painted not by Shishkin himself, but by “some kind of” Savitsky, who, as Tretyakov himself believed, did not know how to work with color at all - all his canvases turned out either deliberately bright or somehow earthy -gray. But both of them were completely flat, like popular prints, while Shishkin’s paintings had volume and depth.
Probably Shishkin himself held the same opinion, inviting his friend to participate only because of his idea.
That’s why Tretyakov ordered Savitsky’s signature to be erased with turpentine, so as not to belittle Shishkin. And in general he renamed the picture itself - they say that it’s not about the bears at all, but about that magical golden light that seems to flood the whole picture.
But here folk painting“The Three Bears” had two more co-authors, whose names remained in history, although they do not appear in any exhibition or art catalogue.
One of them is Julius Geis, one of the founders and leaders of the Einem Partnership (later the Red October confectionery factory). At the Einem factory, among all other sweets and chocolates, they also produced thematic sets of sweets - for example, “Treasures of the Land and Sea”, “Vehicles”, “Types of Peoples of the Globe”. Or, for example, a set of cookies “Moscow of the Future”: in each box you could find a postcard with futuristic drawings about Moscow of the 23rd century. Julius Geis also decided to release the series “Russian Artists and Their Paintings” and reached an agreement with Tretyakov, receiving permission to place reproductions of paintings from his gallery on the wrappers. One of the most delicious candies, made from a thick layer of almond praline, sandwiched between two wafer plates and covered with a thick layer of enrobed chocolate, and received a wrapper with a painting by Shishkin.
Candy wrapper.
Soon the production of this series was stopped, but the candy with bears, called “Bear-Toed Bear,” began to be produced as a separate product.
In 1913, the artist Manuil Andreev redrew the picture: to the plot of Shishkin and Savitsky, he added a frame from spruce branches and the Stars of Bethlehem, because in those years “Bear” for some reason was considered the most expensive and desired gift for the Christmas holidays.
Surprisingly, this wrapper survived all the wars and revolutions of the tragic twentieth century. Moreover, even in Soviet times, “Mishka” became the most expensive delicacy: in the 1920s, a kilogram of candy was sold for four rubles. The candy even had a slogan, which was composed by Vladimir Mayakovsky himself: “If you want to eat Mishka, get yourself a savings book!”
Very soon the candy received a new name in popular usage - “Three Bears”. At the same time, this was also the name given to a painting by Ivan Shishkin, reproductions of which, cut out from the magazine Ogonyok, soon appeared in every Soviet home - either as a manifesto of a comfortable bourgeois life that despised Soviet reality, or as a reminder that sooner or later, any the storm will pass.
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This painting is known to everyone, young and old, because the work itself of the great landscape painter Ivan Shishkin is the most notable painting masterpiece in the artist’s creative heritage.
We all know that this artist loved the forest and its nature very much, admired every bush and blade of grass, moldy tree trunks decorated with branches sagging from the weight of foliage and pine needles. Shishkin reflected all this love on an ordinary linen canvas, so that later the whole world could see the unsurpassed skill of the great Russian master.
When you first meet the painting Morning in a Pine Forest in the Tretyakov Hall, you feel the indelible impression of the viewer’s presence; the person’s mind is completely immersed in the atmosphere of the forest with marvelous and mighty giant pine trees, which reek of pine aroma. I want to breathe deeper in this air, its freshness mixed with the morning forest fog covering the surrounding forest.
The visible tops of centuries-old pines, their branches bent from the weight of their branches, are gently illuminated by the morning rays of the sun. As we understand, all this beauty was preceded by a terrible hurricane, the mighty wind of which uprooted and felled the pine tree, breaking it in two. All this contributed to what we see. Bear cubs frolic on the ruins of a tree and their mischievous play is guarded by the mother bear. This plot can be said to have very clearly enlivened the picture, adding atmosphere to the whole composition. Everyday life forest nature.
Despite the fact that Shishkin rarely wrote animals in his works, still giving preference to the beauties of earthly vegetation. Of course, he painted sheep and cows in some of his works, but apparently this bothered him somewhat. In this story, the bears were written by his colleague Savitsky K.A., who from time to time was engaged in creativity together with Shishkin. Perhaps he suggested working together.
Upon completion of the work, Savitsky also signed the painting, so there were two signatures. Everything would be fine, everyone really liked the picture, including famous philanthropist Tretyakov, who decided to buy the canvas for his collection, however, demanded that Savitsky’s signature be removed, citing the fact that the bulk of the work was executed by Shishkin, who was more familiar to him, and who had to fulfill the collector’s demand. As a result, a quarrel arose in this co-authorship, because the entire fee was paid to the main performer of the film. Of course, there is practically no accurate information on this matter; historians shrug their shoulders. One can, of course, only guess how this fee was divided and what unpleasant feelings there were among the artists’ colleagues.
The subject of the painting Morning in a Pine Forest became widely known among contemporaries; there was a lot of talk and speculation regarding the state of nature depicted by the artist. The fog is shown very colorfully, decorating the airiness of the morning forest with a soft blue haze. As we remember, the artist had already painted the painting “Fog in a Pine Forest” and this airiness technique came in handy in this work as well.
Today the picture is very common, as written above, it is known even to children who love candy and souvenirs, often it is even called the Three Bears, perhaps because three bear cubs catch the eye and the bear is as if in the shadows and is not entirely noticeable, in the second case in The USSR was the name for candy, where this reproduction was printed on candy wrappers.
Also today, modern masters draw copies, decorating various offices and representative social halls, and of course our apartments with the beauties of our Russian nature. In the original, this masterpiece can be seen by visiting a place not often visited by many Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Morning in a pine forest
The painting by the famous artist I. I. Shishkin depicts an early morning in the forest. The pine forest is awakening from sleep, the sun has not yet fully come out and has not yet had time to warm up the clearing. Tall green pines are shrouded in thick fog.
The mother bear and three brown bear cubs had already woken up and went out to frolic in the forest clearing. The clumsy bear cubs, still very small, climbed onto a huge fallen tree. It was uprooted from the ground, apparently after a recent hurricane.
One, the most agile bear cub, climbed to the very top of the broken trunk. He watches the second bear cub, who sat down in the middle of the trunk and looks at the bear. The third, apparently the smallest of them, stands on another broken part of a mighty tree, his gaze directed deep into the forest.
A large, brown bear closely monitors the mischievous cubs. She knows that the forest is fraught with many dangers and is ready to protect her children at any time.
When you look at a picture, it’s as if you are immersed in it. You feel the cool breath of the green forest, hear the forest rustles and sounds made by animals, birds and insects.
The plot of the film turned out to be lively and quite realistic. wild nature delights, and funny little bear cubs touch and make you want to be in the clearing and play with them.
Essay on the painting Morning in a Pine Forest by Shishkin
In front of me is a creation by I. Shishkin “Morning in a Pine Forest” (sometimes called “Morning in a Pine Forest”). This painting can truly be called the most the most famous masterpiece, because everyone, both children and adults, undoubtedly knows this beautiful picture.
The artist, with unprecedented trepidation, care and tenderness, masterfully painted every needle of the mighty pine trees, every root and twig. Inspired by the power and grandeur of nature, he breathed into his creation the unprecedented realism and magic of an ordinary forest morning.
The painting depicts the morning hours in a pine thicket. Nature is just waking up after a cool night, cold dew has fallen on the grass and trees, the air is clean and fresh. The air is still cold, but it’s about to warm up, and the smell of rotten grass and pine needles will spread throughout the forest. Surely the day will be hot, and therefore this cool morning is truly wonderful.
There is silence in the gloomy forest, only occasionally the cry of an early bird cuts through the wilderness.
Giant pine trees, majestically reaching into the sky, greet the first rays of sunshine sliding across the treetops with their bushy branches. Sunrise is the awakening and beginning of a new day. And all of nature is looking forward to his arrival.
Warm golden and yellow shades are mesmerizing, contrasting brightly with the dark palette of the gloomy forest, which creates the image of a mysterious, mysterious forest, as if straight from the pages of Russian folk tales. Muted, calm tones do not irritate the eyes, but rather delight the eye.
In the center of the picture are the main characters, without whom the painting would lose its charm.
The she-bear and her three brave cubs, having woken up with the first rays of the sun, are already in full swing in the forest, prowling in search of food.
Mischievous kids started a game - they jump and climb on a fallen pine tree trunk, as if they were playing tag. The furry animals look completely defenseless, but under the supervision of their vigilant mother, they are safe. Huge fallen trees, like heroes defeated in battle, lie high with their gnarled thick roots raised up, showing their former strength and power with all their appearance.
The brown mother grumbles with displeasure, trying to pacify the naughty child, but the nimble little hooligans do not take their mother’s angry growls seriously.
Looking at the picture, it’s as if you are inhaling the aroma of the forest, its pine freshness, you feel the shady coolness of the forest, you hear the rustle of the breeze, the cracking of branches under the strong paws of animals.
Together with the inspired creator, imbued with the beauty of Russian nature, the viewer will involuntarily hold his breath, amazed by the deep mystery of life and joy that radiates from the landscape.
This essay is assigned in grades 2, 5, 3, 7.
Essay “Morning in a pine forest” based on Shishkin’s painting, grade 5
You’ve probably been familiar with Shishkin’s painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” since childhood. Even if you are not deeply interested in art, almost everyone is familiar with this picture, thanks to its image on the candy. A mother bear with three cubs against the backdrop of a pine forest.
Shishkin’s idea was suggested to him by his friend, also an artist. And he even had a hand in adding bears to the landscape. They turned out so well that the artists both signed the painting. However, Tretyakov, who later acquired this painting, left only Shishkin’s signature and covered up the second signature. Considering that the main style of writing is still closer in spirit to Shishkin.
And, indeed, Shishkin very accurately conveyed the general atmosphere of the awakening forest. We can observe the rays of the rising morning sun, which just touches the treetops. In the depths of the picture, the forest is shrouded in morning fog. And its lightness and airiness conveys to the observer a freshness that is usually still present at this time of day.
In the foreground is a whole bear family. A mother bear and three little bear cubs frolicking on a large fallen tree. It can be assumed that they just crawled out of the den after a night's sleep. They are not yet so playful and sleepy, but the mother does not sleep and watches the area and her pets, growling a little at her careless offspring.
The picture is very positive both in its motif and colors. The artist very accurately conveyed the atmosphere of awakening nature.
It’s amazing how the life of a work of art that comes from the brush of a master can turn out. Everyone knows I. Shishkin’s painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” and mainly as the painting “Three Bears”. The paradox also lies in the fact that the canvas depicts four bears, which were completed by the magnificent genre painter K. A. Savitsky.
A little from the biography of I. Shishkin
The future artist was born in Yelabuga in 1832, on January 13, in the family of a poor merchant who was passionate about local history and archeology. He enthusiastically passed on his knowledge to his son. The boy stopped attending the Kazan gymnasium after the fifth grade, and all free time spent drawing from life. Then he graduated not only from the painting school in Moscow, but also from the academy in St. Petersburg. His talent as a landscape painter was fully developed by this time. After a short trip abroad, the young artist went to his native place, where he painted nature untouched by human hands. He exhibited his new works at exhibitions of the Peredvizhniki, amazing and delighting viewers with the almost photographic veracity of his canvases. But the most famous painting was “Three Bears,” painted in 1889.
Friend and co-author Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky
K.A. Savitsky was born in Taganrog into the family of a military doctor in 1844. He graduated from the Academy in St. Petersburg and continued to improve his skills in Paris. When he returned, P. M. Tretyakov acquired his first work for his collection. Since the 70s of the 19th century, the artist exhibited his most interesting genre works at exhibitions of the Itinerants. K. A. Savitsky quickly gained popularity among the general public. The author especially likes his canvas “Acquainted with the Evil One,” which can now be seen in the State Tretyakov Gallery. Shishkin and Savitsky became such close friends that Ivan Ivanovich asked his friend to become godfather own son. Unfortunately for both of them, the boy died at the age of three. And then other tragedies swept over them. Both buried their wives. Shishkin, submitting to the will of the Creator, believed that troubles reveal an artistic gift in him. He also appreciated his friend’s great talent. Therefore, it is not surprising that K.A. Savitsky became the co-author of the film “Three Bears”. Although Ivan Ivanovich himself knew how to write animals very well.
“Three Bears”: description of the painting
Art critics honestly admit that they do not know the history of the painting. Her plan, the very idea of the canvas, apparently arose while searching for nature on one of large islands Seliger Gorodomlya. The night is receding. Dawn is breaking. The first rays of the sun break through the thick tree trunks and the fog rising from the lake. One powerful pine tree, uprooted from the ground and half broken, occupies the central part of the composition. A fragment of it with a dried crown falls into the ravine on the right. It is not written, but its presence is felt. And what a wealth of colors the landscape painter used! The cool morning air is blue-green, slightly cloudy and foggy. The mood of awakening nature is conveyed in green, blue and sunny yellow colors. In the background, golden rays flicker brightly in the high crowns. The hand of I. Shishkin is felt throughout the work.
Meeting of two friends
Show new job Ivan Ivanovich wanted it for his friend. Savitsky came to the workshop. This is where questions arise. Either Shishkin suggested that Konstantin Apollonovich add three bears to the picture, or Savitsky himself looked at it with a fresh look and made a proposal to introduce an animalistic element into it. This, undoubtedly, should have enlivened the desert landscape. And so it was done. Savitsky very successfully, very organically fit four animals onto a fallen tree. The well-fed, cheerful cubs turned out to be like little children frolicking and exploring the world under the supervision of a strict mother. He, like Ivan Ivanovich, signed on canvas. But when Shishkin’s painting “Three Bears” came to P. M. Tretyakov, he, having paid the money, demanded that Savitsky’s signature be washed away, since the main work was done by Ivan Ivanovich, and his style was undeniable. This is where we can finish the description of Shishkin’s painting “Three Bears”. But this story has a “sweet” continuation.
Confectionery factory
In the 70s XIX century enterprising Germans Einem and Geis built a confectionery factory in Moscow that produced very high-quality candies, cookies and other similar products. To increase sales, an advertising proposal was invented: print reproductions of Russian paintings on candy wrappers, and brief information about the painting on the back. It turned out both tasty and educational. It is now unknown when P. Tretyakov’s permission was received to put reproductions of paintings from his collection on candy, but on one of the candy wrappers, which depicts the painting “Three Bears” by Shishkin, the year is 1896.
After the revolution, the factory expanded, and V. Mayakovsky was inspired and composed an advertisement, which is printed on the side of the candy wrapper. She called for saving money in the savings bank to buy tasty, but expensive candies. And up to today in any chain store you can buy " Clubfoot bear”, which is remembered by all sweet tooths as “The Three Bears”. The same name was assigned to the painting by I. Shishkin.