Even in his youth, Boris Kustodiev became famous as a talented portrait painter. However, painting portraits was boring and he came up with his own unique style.
Self-portrait
He was lucky enough to become a student of Ilya Repin himself, but he rejected the canons of his teacher. The public refused to recognize him as an artist and called him an eccentric; a serious illness put him in a wheelchair, but he continued to write.
Astrakhan childhood of Boris Kustodiev
Artist Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan in March 1878, in the family of a teacher at a theological seminary. And a year after Boris’s birth, his father passed away and the artist’s mother, who became a widow at the age of 25, raised and supported four children alone.
Boris studied at a parochial school, then entered a gymnasium. In 1887, when Boris was 9 years old at the time, an exhibition of Peredvizhniki artists came to Astrakhan. The paintings of the Wanderers impressed the boy so much that he firmly decided to learn to draw and draw truly skillfully. The mother met her son’s wishes and found money so that her son could attend lessons from a well-known artist in Astrakhan, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, P.A. Vlasova.
Pyotr Vlasov instructed:
Learning to draw a little is the same as learning nothing. Art requires a lifetime. If you don’t know human anatomy, don’t try to paint nudes, you won’t succeed. Repin says: “Educate your eye even more than your hand.”
In a letter to his sister, Boris wrote:
I have just returned from Vlasov and am sitting down to write you a letter. Already a whole month I go to him and today I have already started drawing the head. At first I painted ornaments, parts of the body, and now I started drawing heads. The other day I painted two quinces and two carrots from life in watercolors. When I drew them, I was surprised - did I draw them or someone else?
Artist Boris Kustodiev. The beginning of a creative journey
Church parade of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment
In 1896, after graduating from high school, Boris Kustodiev went to Moscow with the desire to enter college. art school. However, Boris Mikhailovich was not accepted into the school because of his age - the future artist was already 18 years old at that time, and only minors were accepted into the school. Kustodiev goes to St. Petersburg and submits documents to the Higher art school at the Academy of Arts.
Hurray, hurray, hurray! Virtue is punished, vice triumphs! I'm accepted! Yes! Today, after ten days of ordeal, they finally released me. At three o'clock the doors opened and everyone poured into the hall where our works stood. I found mine, it had “accepted” written on it in chalk.
Kustodiev studies with great diligence, works a lot and with soul, and is especially interested in portrait painting. Boris’s “most important” teacher Ilya Repin wrote:
I have high hopes for Kustodiev. He is a gifted artist, loving art, thoughtful, serious; carefully studying nature...
In 1900, student Kustodiev went to the Kostroma province, where he wrote sketches and met Yulenka Proshenskaya, who in 1903 would become his wife.
Portrait of the artist's wife
In 1901, Repin painted a huge canvas “The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council” and attracted his best student Kustodiev to paint the picture - Boris Mikhailovich painted 27 portraits for this canvas.
Ceremonial meeting of the State Council
In 1903, Kustodiev graduated from the Academy with a gold medal and, as a pensioner of the Academy, with his wife and three-month-old daughter, went to Paris, traveled around France and Spain, visited Germany, worked a lot in European museums and even enters the studio of Rene Menard.
Boris Kustodiev. Finding your way
The artist lives and works in Europe for six months, then returns to Russia, buys a plot of land near Kineshma and builds, with his own hands, a house, which he gives the name “Terem”.
On the terrace
The name of the house is not accidental, since, while building the house, Kustodiev, at this very time, is painfully looking for his own style– he does not want to be an imitator of his teacher Repin. Boris Mikhailovich does not want to expose the ulcers of society; he does not like to write “realism”.
The artist is more attracted to “Russian beauty”, about which the artist has already formed his own idea. For example, he really likes folk festivals and fairs:
The fair was such that I stood there stunned. Oh, if only I had the superhuman ability to capture it all. He dragged a man from the market and wrote in front of the people. Damn hard! It's like it's the first time. You need to make a decent sketch in 2-3 hours... I’m writing a flexible woman - she’ll stand for at least a week! Only the cheeks and nose turn red.
Frosty day
Village holiday
In 1904, Kustodiev founded the “New Society of Artists”, became interested in graphics and wrote cartoons for the magazines “Zhupel”, “Hell Mail” and “Sparks”, illustrated Gogol’s “The Overcoat”, and created scenery at the Mariinsky Theater.
In 1909, Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev became an academician - his candidacy on the Council of the Academy of Arts was supported by Arkhip Kuindzhi, Vasily Mate and the “most important teacher” Ilya Repin. At this time, Kustodiev is enthusiastically working on paintings for the “Fairs” series.
Kustodiev is weird
Kustodiev is worried about attacks of pain in his arm. In 1911, these pains became unbearable, but medicine was powerless. The artist travels to Switzerland, where he is treated in a clinic, and then travels to Germany, where he undergoes surgery.
Returning to Russia, Boris Mikhailovich again plunges into work - he writes genre sketches and portraits: “Merchant's Wife”, “Merchant's Wife”, “Beauty” and others.
Gorgeous
These are not finished paintings, but experiments, searching for a theme and developing your own style. However, the public did not accept the “experiments”, and newspapers wrote:
The one who's acting weird is Kustodiev... It's as if he's deliberately throwing himself from side to side. Either he paints ordinary good portraits of ladies, like Mrs. Notgaft or Bazilevskaya... and then he suddenly exhibits some plump “beauty” sitting on a chest painted with bouquets... Deliberate and invented bad taste.
They treated Kustodiev the theater artist completely differently - there were orders huge amount. Now the artist creates not only scenery, but also costumes, paints portraits of great Russian directors and actors of the Moscow Art Theater.
Illness, revolution and “Russian Venus”
In 1916, the artist again began to be bothered by pain in his hand. However, it was impossible to get to the German clinic - the First World War was going on. I had to undergo surgery in St. Petersburg, where the doctors made a terrible verdict - you can maintain the mobility of either your arms or your legs.
This is already the 13th day that I have been lying motionless, and it seems to me that not 13 days, but 13 years have passed since I lay down. Now I’ve caught my breath a little, but I was in torment and suffered a lot. It even seemed that all my strength had dried up and there was no hope. I know that it’s not all over yet and not weeks, but long months will pass until I begin to feel at least a little human, and not like something half-dead.
Doctors forbade Kustodiev to work, but he ignored this ban - too many ideas and plans had accumulated during his forced idleness. Boris Mikhailovich writes Maslenitsa, which is very well received by the public.
Carnival
Merchant's wife having tea
During this period, Kustodiev wrote as much as he did not write in those days when he was healthy. There is a whole series of portraits here, including famous portrait Fyodor Chaliapin, and the ideal of Russian beauty in “Gone Rus'”, and posters for revolutionary propaganda, covers for the magazine “Communist International”, and the painting “Bolshevik”.
Bolshevik
Portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin
The artist, as in the old days, illustrates books and creates scenery for theaters and costume designs. Subsequently, director Alexey Dikiy recalled:
I have never had such complete, such inspiring like-mindedness with an artist as when working on the play “The Flea.” I learned the full meaning of this community when Kustodiev’s farcical, bright decorations appeared on the stage, and props and props made according to his sketches appeared. The artist led the entire performance, taking, as it were, the first part in the orchestra, which obediently and sensitively sounded in unison.
About a year before his death, Boris Kustodiev finished working on his secret painting “Russian Venus” - the artist was very ill, could only work a few hours a day, and therefore painted the picture for a whole year.
Russian Venus
At the end of March 1927, permission was received from the People's Education Committee to travel to Germany for treatment. In addition, a government subsidy was received for this trip. However, while officials were preparing a foreign passport, the artist Boris Kustodiev died. This happened on May 26, 1927.
I have already talked about how in his younger years Kustodiev became famous as a portrait artist.
But here is what he says about the work of the artist A. Benois:
...the real Kustodiev is a Russian fair, motley, “big-eyed” calicoes, a barbaric “fight of colors,” a Russian suburb and a Russian village, with their accordions, gingerbread, dressed up girls and dashing guys... I claim that this is his real sphere, his real joy... When he paints fashionable ladies and respectable citizens, it is completely different - boring, sluggish, often even tasteless. And it seems to me that it’s not the plot, but the approach to it.
Even at the beginning creative path Boris Mikhailovich developed his own genre of portraiture - a portrait-painting, a portrait-landscape that combines a generalized image of a person and a unique individuality that is revealed through the world around him.
Spectacular works reveal the character of an entire nation through accessible and understandable everyday genre- this is such a dream, a beautiful fairy tale about provincial life, a poem in painting, a riot of colors and a riot of flesh.
Maslenitsa celebration
Fans of Russian painting are well aware of the name of such a wonderful domestic artist, like Boris Kustodiev. Let's consider in this article creative biography this person.
Boris Kustodiev: short biography, stages of creative maturity
The future artist was born in Astrakhan, in Tsarist Russia, in 1878. He came from an intelligent teaching family. His parents loved Russian art and passed this love on to their children. The artist's father taught philosophy, logic and literature at the theological seminary. When Boris was 2 years old, his father suddenly died.
Nevertheless, the family was able to provide the boy with a decent education: he studied at a parochial school, then at a gymnasium. Boris Kustodiev received his first painting lessons at the local Astrakhan gymnasium.
In 1896, the young man entered the prestigious department. From the second year, I. E. Repin became his teacher.
In his last year at the academy, Boris Kustodiev, while working on his diploma painting in the Kostroma province, met his future wife Yu. E. Poroshinskaya. He graduated from the academy brilliantly: with a gold medal and excellent prospects.
First successes
After the wedding and completion of the course, artist Boris Kustodiev goes on a tour abroad to get better acquainted with all the colors European life. He visited Paris, Germany, and Italy. Met the famous European artists that time, sat down to visit many creative exhibitions and galleries.
Returning to Russia, Kustodiev continued to work on genre paintings. He created a series of works “Village Holidays” and “Fairs”. Talent young man attracted the attention of his contemporaries. At Repin's recommendation, Kustodiev was elected to the position of professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, became a member of the Union of Russian Artists, and began collaborating with many literary and art magazines.
Portraits of Kustodiev: peculiarity of the genre
Boris Kustodiev entered the history of Russian art primarily as a very talented portrait painter. It was he who created a whole series of portraits of his contemporaries, and his canvases are still considered masterful works.
Critics noted that in his art both the power of Repin’s colors and subjects and the subtle psychologism of Serov’s paintings found expression. However, the artist was able to create his own style: in his portraits a person is characterized not only by his face and appearance, but also the entire environment around him.
Let us consider from this point of view the famous “Merchant's Wife at Tea,” written in the troubled year of 1918.
Everything in this picture is permeated with a feeling of contentment and peace. Full face the merchant's wife, her bright clothes, the household items surrounding her, even the cat that clings to its owner - a certain thought is felt in everything: this is both gentle humor and an attempt to understand the essence of the soul of a Russian person.
In the artist’s works there is a lot from Russian folk popular art, and from ancient parsuns, and from ancient Russian fairy-tale images of people and animals.
Most famous works
In addition to the above-mentioned “Merchant's Wife at Tea,” the following portraits of Kustodiev received the most popularity: the portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin, painted in 1921, the portrait of Maximilian Voloshin (1924), the painting “Bolshevik” (1920), the work “Russian Venus” (1925), the painting “ Fair in Saratov".
All these paintings are imbued with a sense of beauty folk spirit, a feeling of deep patriotism, their characteristic features there was a riot of colors and monumental images.
The great Russian singer Fyodor Chaliapin and the writer Chaliapin stand as Russian heroes, standing in an open fur coat, he is dressed like a dandy, but at the same time there is something folk, powerful and inspired in his image. Equally huge and majestic is Voloshin, whose head rests on the clouds.
In the painting “Bolshevik,” the main character, depicted against the backdrop of a bright red banner, is ready to take a swing at the temple. The Bolshevik's height is equal to his height architectural structure. Thus, the artist dismantles man new era who perceives himself as the winner of the old order and the creator of a new life.
He wrote many paintings for his creative life Boris Kustodiev, his paintings amaze viewers with their scope and majesty.
Illustrations for literary works and theatrical works
Kustodiev also became famous as an excellent illustrator. During his life, he created many works for magazines, which conveyed the appearance of the main characters of Russian works as he understood them. classical literature. He wonderfully illustrated Leskov’s works, drew engravings and even caricatures.
Boris Kustodiev appreciated various types of Russian art, and his paintings were actively used in the theatrical environment. The artist’s talent was especially vividly embodied when creating scenery for Moscow Art Theater performances. These are works based on the works of Ostrovsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin and even Zamyatin (by the way, one of the most famous portraits Zamyatin). His works were liked by his contemporaries for their simplicity, the power of embodiment of the image and the magnificent selection of colors.
Last years of life
Boris Kustodiev managed to do a lot during his creative life, his biography is direct confirmation of this.
For the last 15 years of his life, the artist was confined to a wheelchair. The fact is that he was tormented by a dangerous and severe tumor of the spine, which was not amenable to surgical treatment. Kustodiev was forced to write first while sitting and then lying down.
However, he continued to engage not only in art, but also social activities, and even in 1923 joined the association of artists of revolutionary Russia.
Boris Mikhailovich died in 1927 and was buried in Leningrad - in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
Name: Boris Kustodiev
Age: 49 years old
Place of birth: Astrakhan
Place of death: Saint Petersburg
Activity: artist, portrait painter
Marital status: was married
Boris Kustodiev - biography
The outstanding Russian artist Boris Kustodiev, whose 140th birthday is celebrated on February 23, managed to create on his canvases amazing world where the beautiful ones live good people, where they drink and eat deliciously, where the sun shines brightly and the dazzling white snow sparkles. And the worse the artist got - at the age of thirty he was confined to a wheelchair - the more joyful and colorful the life on his canvases was.
Boris Kustodiev hardly remembered his father - candidate of theology, teacher of the Astrakhan Theological Seminary Mikhail Lukich Kustodiev died a year after the birth of his son. In addition to Boris, two more girls were growing up in the family, Sasha and Katya, there was not enough money, and Mikhail Lukich earned money by teaching lessons. In the cold autumn he caught a cold and died at the age of 37, leaving a widow, Ekaterina Prokhorovna, who was not yet thirty, with four children - the youngest, named after his father Mikhail, was born a few months after his father's death - and a 50-ruble survivor's pension.
The mother did not have money for the children’s education, but Boris was lucky - as the son of a deceased teacher, at the age of nine he was accepted into the Astrakhan Theological School, and then into the seminary. He studied mediocrely, but in drawing he would have been the best in the class. From the age of five he did not let go of a pencil; he loved to draw on paper everything he saw. Boris decided to become an artist at the age of 11, when his sister Katya, who was fond of art, took him to an exhibition of paintings by capital artists from the Association of Traveling Exhibitions.
The pictures fascinated the boy. The second time he experienced this feeling was when, during the holidays, he went to visit his uncle in St. Petersburg and ended up in the Hermitage. And what was his happiness when Katya advised him to take drawing lessons and introduced him to a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Pavel Vlasov.
Vlasov, larger, stronger, with a loud voice, came from the Cossacks. Despite some rudeness, he was distinguished by extraordinary kindness, and most importantly, he had special gift- he knew how to recognize talent in a student and help this talent develop. Vlasov taught Boris to carry a sketchbook and a pencil everywhere and sketch everything interesting. A capable student quickly mastered both watercolor and oil paints. And one day Pavel Alekseevich said to his student: “Stop wasting time. Apply to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. If it doesn’t work out in Moscow, go to St. Petersburg, to the Academy of Arts.”
Vlasov knew how to persuade, so he convinced Ekaterina Prokhorovna that Boris needed to leave the seminary, a brilliant future awaited him in painting. Sorry, I did this late. The Moscow School accepted students only up to the age of 18, and Boris had already turned 18. There was only one path - to St. Petersburg, to the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts.
In the capital, Boris settled with his uncle, who was unhappy that his nephew left the seminary. Boris writes bitterly to his mother after another scandal: “I think that I won’t live with him for a long time if this happens again. I... walked around all day yesterday... stunned by my uncle's reproaches and swearing. I have 20 rubles left of your money. 60 k. It’s good if I enter the Academy.
There, the students are all exempt from paying fees, and they also use government albums, etc.” Ekaterina Prokhorovna persuaded her son: “...there is no reason for you to leave him now, just be patient a little” - and believed in his future: “... we miss you, but I am consoled by the thought that someday I will see you big and an honest man, and maybe even famous - which doesn’t happen in the world!”
In October 1896, Kustodiev was admitted to the Academy. At first he studied in the workshop of the historical painter Vasily Savinsky, and in his second year he was transferred to the workshop of Repin. Students said different things about Repin. It often happened that today he liked what yesterday he called mediocre. But the students forgave Repin everything - after all, he was real, great artist.
Life has twisted Boris. The provincial young man found himself in the very center of the capital's vibrant artistic life - theaters, exhibitions, new ideas, interesting people. But still, he didn’t really like it in St. Petersburg. “Everything around is gray, everything is somehow boring, cold - not like some kind of river with green banks and with white winged sails, with steamships - like the Volga...” - he wrote to his mother.
In the summer of 1900, Boris invited his friend Dmitry Stelletsky to go with him to Astrakhan. There he was joined by his old friend, also a student of Vlasov, Konstantin Mazin, and the three artists set off on a voyage up the Volga to paint en plein air. In Kineshma they went ashore, Mazin stayed with relatives in the village of Semenovskoye, and Kustodiev and Stelletsky stayed nearby, in the village of Kalganovo.
Once, acquaintances advised young artists to visit the Vysokovo estate - two charming young ladies, the Proshinsky sisters, lived there under the tutelage of the venerable Grek sisters. Their parents died early, and Maria and Yulia Grek, their close friends who did not have children of their own, took the girls in to raise them.
We went without an invitation, and therefore the most courageous inhabitant of Vysokov, Zoya Proshinskaya, greeted them at first as uninvited guests. Realizing that these were not some kind of robbers, but even artists, and even from St. Petersburg, the Greek sisters allowed them to enter the house. Antique furniture, dishes from Napoleonic times, landscapes and portraits on the walls, a piano - everything testified to the good taste of the owners. And then, during conversations over tea, it turned out that Yulenka, Zoya’s sister, was studying painting at the School for the Encouragement of Arts.
While saying goodbye, the young people received an invitation to visit Vysokovo again, which they took full advantage of. The initiator of these visits was Boris - he really liked Yulia Proshinskaya. It was somehow surprisingly simple and fun for him to be with her. They discovered many common interests. And what wonderful eyes she had. And how well she looked at him.
Apparently, he made a favorable impression on her - easily blushing from embarrassment, but at the same time cheerful, with humor, a light character, she clearly liked him. Separating, Boris and Yulia agreed to write to each other - and to meet in St. Petersburg. Yulia visited Vysokov only in the summer. In winter, she lived in the capital, worked as a typist for the Committee of Ministers, and took up painting.
They met. In letters to the old ladies, Greek Julia said that Kustodiev painted her portrait, that they went to the theater together, and in the newspaper “Novoe Vremya” her friend was highly praised for the portrait of Bilibin, which was a great success at an exhibition in Munich, where he was awarded a gold medal .
It was generally very good year, because in the spring of this particular year Repin invited him to work on a government order - the grandiose canvas “Great Meeting of the State Council”. Working next to Repin, Boris learned a lot. Of the hundreds of portraits of the country's main dignitaries on the canvas, 20 were painted by Kustodiev. These people had enormous power back then. Today, few people remember their names, but the names of the artists who captured their faces have gone down in history. Russian culture.
In June, Boris again went to the Kostroma province. Having settled not far from Vysokov, he could meet with Yulia every day. And when he returned to St. Petersburg, he wrote letters to her every day. The guardian sisters did not welcome their friendship. They did not at all like the beginner artist without any fortune as a candidate for the husband of their beloved Yulenka. After all, she had other, more promising candidates.
Julia tried her best to get the Greek sisters to change their minds about Boris. “We see each other almost every day”, “yesterday I went with B.M. to the big skating rink in the evening”, “On Sunday... I visited the Kustodievs. Boris Mikh. treated me to tea and sweets,” she wrote in Vysokovo. She really wanted to show that her chosen one was worthy of respect: “At Bor. Mich. things are not bad. Now he has two commissions of portraits. One started today, and when he finishes, he will paint a lady - the wife of an official from the State Council”; “Tomorrow we are going to an exhibition where 2 portraits painted by Bohr are on display. Mich.", "Bor. Mich. They praised it very much in the Petersburg Newspaper...”
They became husband and wife on January 8, 1903. This is evidenced by the entry in the registry book of the Astrakhan Church of the Nativity of Christ, the same one where Boris was baptized: “Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, on January 8, 1903, entered into a legal marriage with the daughter of the court councilor Yulia Evstafievna Proshinskaya, 22 years old, Roman Catholic.. "The Greek sisters did not live to see this wedding. Now Julia has only her beloved Boris left in her life.
Everything was going great. For the painting “Bazaar in a Village,” Kustodiev was awarded a gold medal and the right to a year-long trip abroad; at the international exhibition in Munich he was again awarded for “Portrait of Varfolomeev”; a correspondent for the respected newspaper Birzhevye Vedomosti interviewed him, in which he wrote: “The young artist is only 25 years old. What a huge life ahead, and how much he can do with his love for work and ability to work hard,” but the main thing is that on October 11, Kustodiev’s son was born. The boy was named Kirill.
With him in January of the following year, they all went on a trip abroad, inviting Ekaterina Prokhorovna on the trip to help the young mother. The first stop is Paris, which shocked Kustodiev. Boris studied in the studio of the famous artist Rene Menard, and the rest of the time, with a notebook in his hands, he wandered the streets in fascination and made sketches. Only in Paris could such a lyrical Kustodiev painting as “Morning” appear: a young mother bathes her little son. A true hymn to motherhood and love...
And then Kustodiev went to Spain, and Yulia remained in Paris - after crying, she was consoled by his promise to write often. This promise was fulfilled, and Boris told his wife in letters about the paintings of Velazquez, about the trip to Seville, about bullfights, about Cordoba and the amazing cathedral-mosque...
In the summer of 1904, the Kustodievs returned to their homeland. Having bought a small plot of land near Kineshma, they began to build their own house- "Terem". The house really looked like a tower from Russian fairy tales. Kustodiev enjoyed doing housework, doing carpentry, and cutting trim for windows. Julia and Boris were so happy, so full of love for each other and life, that when their daughter, Irina, was born in the spring of 1905, their friends gave them a painting parody of “Morning” - there are already 12 children in the bathtub, and the mother in looks at them in horror, throwing up his hands.
Once Julia wrote to Boris: “... it’s such happiness that you love me, we have something to live on, we are healthy... I’m even afraid...” And then misfortune came to their house. In January 1907, they had another son, Igor, who died without living even a year. “With his death, the first gray strand appeared in my mother’s black hair,” recalled Irina Kustodieva. That same year, Boris Kustodiev experienced the first pain in his hand - symptoms of an impending serious illness.
But he tried not to notice anything and work, work, so as not to damage the reputation of one of the best Russian portrait painters, because it was he, and not Serov, who was commissioned for portraits of Alexander II and Nicholas I. And it was his “Portrait of the Polenov Family”, shown at the exhibition in Vienna, purchased by the Belvedere Museum. Perhaps he suspected that his illness was serious and tried not to waste time.
Yulia, who was grieving the death of her son, lived with the children mainly in Terem, but Boris was in no hurry to go to them - he was full of his plans and work. That same year, he again traveled around Europe - this time it was Austria, Italy, and Germany. And new impressions distracted him from his family, especially the charming ladies who posed for him in Venetian gondolas. It was said that one Russian mistress was so diligent in posing that her jealous husband nervously ran on dry land during the sessions. But even after returning to St. Petersburg, Kustodiev was in no hurry to see his wife and children.
It seems, Julia wrote to her husband indignantly, you really like spending time with naked models. In his response letter, Boris, generally not feeling guilty at all, formulated his life credo: “I received your “terrible” letter today, but... for some reason I wasn’t very afraid of it. Somehow I can’t believe that you can “ask” me! And for what, exactly? Because I work and therefore don’t go? If this is so, then this is very strange, and it means that I was very deceived in you, in your understanding of my work and myself... My work is my life...
Yours state of mind I completely understand, but because of this I will not give up what I have to do, neither now nor ever in the future. You must know this, or else I am not what you imagined, and you are not what I thought until now...” And at the end of the letter he again promised that he would soon come to Terem. And he came, brought gifts, painted his grown daughter, and then a month and a half later he left them alone again - his life was in St. Petersburg.
Soon, apparently at the insistence of Yulia, who was afraid of losing her husband, his entire family moved there. They settled on Myasnaya Street. They brought furniture from the one sold by Vysokov - it reminded Yulia of her childhood, of the old Greek women. They set up a workshop where Boris worked, and along the corridor Irina and Kirill were running around on roller skates, running and playing hide and seek.
Again they were close, Julia and Boris, and again she shared all his joys, successes and failures. And pain. Now his hands often hurt so much that his fingers could not hold his hand, and then his head began to hurt unbearably. It was necessary to go to the doctors. The famous doctor Ernest Augustovich Giese examined the artist for an hour and found neuralgia right hand and advised me to take an x-ray of my shoulder and neck. And work less. But he just couldn’t live without work. The orders were one more responsible than the other.
In 1911, the Alexander Lyceum was to celebrate its centenary, and a commission of former graduates decided to install marble busts of Tsars Nicholas II and the founder of the Lyceum, Alexander I, in the building. The busts were ordered from Kustodiev. Kustodiev spoke with obvious irony about how Nicholas II posed for him: “He was extremely graciously received, even to the point of surprise... We talked a lot - of course, not about politics (which my customers were very afraid of), but more about art - but I couldn’t enlighten him - he’s hopeless, alas... What’s also good is that he’s interested in antiquity, I just don’t know, deeply or so - “because of the gesture.”
The enemy of innovation, and confuses impressionism with revolution: “impressionism and I are two incompatible things” - his phrase. We parted on good terms, but apparently he was tired of the sessions...” In the spring of 1911, the pain became so severe that Boris went to Switzerland, to the town of Leysin near Lausanne, to be treated at the private clinic of Dr. Auguste Rollier, an honorary member of all European medical societies. Rollier diagnosed him with “bone tuberculosis” and forced him to come in the fall, ordering him to wear a special corset “unsuccessful, especially when sitting... It’s only good to walk in it.”
He worked in this terrible corset, hard as a shell, from neck to waist, taking it off only at night. In total, he stayed in the clinic for more than 9 months, but the pain, despite Rollier’s assurances, did not disappear. In St. Petersburg, Yulia was worried about him, complained of loneliness, it was not easy with children without a husband. She poured all this out in her letters. But what could he tell her? He himself was tormented by doubts, he himself did not know how to continue to live with these pains, with this growing weakness.
“...You write about the feeling of loneliness, and I fully understand it - it is even intensified for me... by the consciousness that I am unhealthy, that everything that others live with is almost impossible for me... In a life that rolls so quickly next to me and where I have to give my all, I can no longer participate - I have no strength. And this consciousness intensifies even more when I think about the lives connected with me - yours and the children. And if I were alone, it would be easier for me to bear this feeling of disability.” And he added: “Such wonderful days and everything is so beautiful around that you forget that you are sick... And never, it seems, have I felt so strong a desire to live and feel alive.”
The hand did not stop whining, the St. Petersburg aesculapians advised the sea and the sun, and the Kustodievs, all together, went for the sun and sea to France, to the town of Juan-les-Pins, not far from Antibes. Then they left for Italy, and then went to Berlin - many advised Kustodiev to see the famous neurosurgeon Professor Oppenheim. Herr Professor carefully examined the artist and made a conclusion that surprised everyone: “You have never had any bone tuberculosis. Remove the corset. You have a disease of the spinal cord, apparently there is a tumor in it, you urgently need surgery...” Treatment in Switzerland with Rollier, by the way, very expensive, was in vain.
In November, Kustodiev and his wife were again in Berlin. The operation took place on November 12. The professor found the tumor and removed it, but warned that a relapse was possible and, most likely, the operation would have to be repeated. But for now everyone hoped that the disease had been defeated.
And again Kustodiev was full of work, and everything worked out for him - both painting and business in the theater, which he was very interested in. While working on the play “The Death of Pazukhin” at the Moscow art theater Kustodiev met actress Faina Shevchenko and was inspired to paint her portrait, and in the nude. Faina was young and pretty. She came to the Moscow Art Theater in 1909, still very young, at 16 years old. In 1914, when Kustodiev met her, she had already played almost all the leading roles.
No one knows how he persuaded her, a serious actress of a serious theater, to pose naked, but it happened! And he was happy, because in her, this sweet young woman, he saw the image of a real Russian beauty, the owner of a lush, appetizing body. This painting, “Beauty,” is bright, slightly ironic, and daring, and created a real sensation. The newspapers wrote: “The one who’s doing weird things is Kustodiev... It’s as if he’s deliberately throwing himself from side to side.
Either he paints ordinary good portraits of ladies, or suddenly he exhibits some plump “beauty” sitting on a chest painted with bouquets... Deliberate and invented bad taste.” But many people liked her, this Kustodian beauty, it was difficult to move away from the picture - she was mesmerizing, and one metropolitan, seeing her, said: “The devil himself led him with his hand, obviously, because she disturbed my peace.”
Kustodiev worked a lot at that time - and was happy that he was in demand and needed. And, he probably said, he overdid it a little - the pain appeared again, it became difficult to walk. More and more often he remembered the Berlin professor and his words about a repeat operation, but how to do this now that the war has begun and the Germans are enemies? He was treated again, went to Yalta for sun and sea, but nothing helped, his mood was very bad, and even new paintings, which were successful and he liked, did not significantly change the situation. It became clear that we could no longer delay the operation.
Kustodiev was admitted to the clinic of the Kaufman community of Red Cross sisters, which was headed by G.F. Zeidler. The operation was performed by the brilliant Russian neurosurgeon Lev Stukkey. “They gave me general anesthesia for 5 hours,” Irina Kustodieva said about the operation. - Mom is waiting in the corridor... Finally, Professor Zeidler came out himself and said that a dark piece of something was found in the very substance of the spinal cord closer to the chest, it may be necessary to cut the nerves to get to the tumor, you need to decide what to save the patient - arms or legs. “Leave your hands, hands! - Mom begged. -The artist has no hands! He won’t be able to live!” And Stukkey retained the mobility of Kustodiev’s hands. But - only hands!
Every day Stukkey came to the ward and felt his legs. No, Kustodiev did not feel anything. Yes, of course, the nerves are damaged, the doctor said, but perhaps the ability to move will appear. You need to believe. And Boris believed, and what else could he do? And fortunately, he was not alone in this faith, in this struggle for life - next to him was his Yulia, a devoted, faithful wife, the mother of his children, and now also a nurse. A month after the operation the pain was gone, but now he suffered from immobility and idleness.
He passionately wanted to work! However, the surgeon strictly forbade even the slightest tension. And Kustodiev began to create pictures in his mind. Only very soon this was not enough for him, and he begged his wife to bring him the album and watercolor paints. At first he painted in secret from the doctors, and when he was caught doing this, he declared: “If you don’t let me write, I’ll die!” And he painted the heroes of his night visions.
And he dreamed of the free Russian Maslenitsa - bright, joyful, happy... This large canvas was shown at the World of Art exhibition in the fall of 1916. Among the visitors to the exhibition was the surgeon Stukkey. He didn’t know much about painting, but this picture shook him to the core. “Where does this man chained to a chair have such a thirst for life? Where does this holiday come from? Where does this incredible power of creativity come from? - the doctor tried to understand. “Maybe his art is his best medicine?”
The year 1917 began both anxiously and joyfully. It seemed to everyone that real freedom had arrived and now everything in Russia would be wonderful. In those days, Kustodiev sat at the window with binoculars and tirelessly watched the life of the street. Excited by what was happening, he wrote to a friend in Moscow: “Congratulations on great joy! Here's Peter for you! ... he took it and did such a thing in 3-4 days that the whole world gasped. Everything has shifted, turned over... - take, for example, yesterday’s arbiters of our destinies, now sitting in Petropavlovka!
“From prince to rags...” On February 27, the general strike grew into a general uprising; in March, Russia ceased to be a monarchy - the tsar abdicated the throne. And then it happened October Revolution, power passed into the hands of the people - rude people in caps, leather jackets, with Mausers in their hands. All of this was incredible, all of this had to be understood, somehow comprehended, and learned to live in a new country, where people were often robbed and killed on the streets at night, and the shops were empty. And only thanks to Yulia, their house is warm, cozy and there is always something to treat guests - she was a wonderful hostess.
In 1920, the management of the Mariinsky opera house decided to stage the opera “Enemy Power” by Alexander Serov, the artist’s father, about the life of the Russian merchants. The director of the play was Fyodor Chaliapin, and it was decided to entrust the design to Kustodiev, because who had a better feel for merchant Rus', its characters and morals. And the singer went to the artist to negotiate. “It was a pity to look at the deprivation of man (Kustodiev’s legs were paralyzed), but it was as if it was invisible to him: about forty years old, fair-haired, pale, he struck me with his cheerfulness...” said Chaliapin.
He came to Kustodiev every day, looked at the sketches of the scenery and costumes. They, these two, talented, strong, became friends. They recalled with pleasure their youth and their native places - after all, both were born on the Volga. One day Chaliapin came to Boris Mikhailovich wearing a luxurious fur coat. “Please pose for me in this fur coat,” the artist asked. - Your fur coat is very rich. It's a pleasure to write it." “Is it clever? The fur coat is good, but perhaps stolen,” Chaliapin noted. “How is this stolen? You’re kidding, Fyodor Mikhailovich!”
“Yes, yes. About three weeks ago I received it for a concert from some government agency. But you know the slogan: “Rob the loot.” Kustodiev decided that it was simply wonderful - in his painting the singer would be depicted in a fur coat of such dubious origin. “Both an actor and a singer, but he whistled his fur coat,” he joked. The premiere of Enemy Power took place on November 7, 1920 and was brilliant. The actors received a standing ovation, and then they loudly applauded the artist - both his art and his courage. “My father returned home excited, saying that Chaliapin was a genius and that for the sake of history it was necessary to paint his portrait,” recalled the artist’s son Kirill.
This work was especially difficult for Kustodiev. He decided to write a singer in full height, that is, the height of the painting had to be at least two meters. On the ceiling of the room, brother Mikhail fixed a block with a load, the canvas with a stretcher was suspended, and Kustodiev himself could bring it closer, move it away, move it left and right. The huge picture was painted in parts - Kustodiev transferred the preparatory drawings to the picture in cells. Thus, at the cost of incredible efforts, this amazingly joyful, sun-filled canvas was born.
Chaliapin was delighted with the portrait and bought it, as well as the sketches for Enemy Power. When he went abroad in 1922, he took the portrait with him. Years later he wrote: “I knew a lot of interesting, talented and good people. 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 cannot otherwise be called heroic and valiant.”
Despite severe pain, Kustodiev worked with inspiration and joy - he painted pictures, made engravings, lithographs, was engaged in stage design, and illustrated books. On his canvases are charming merchant women, tea lovers, dashing cab drivers, crazy Maslenitsa, and a fun fair. Here are the heroes of past years - Stepan Razin, and of modern times - for example, the Bolshevik from the film of the same name. This strange, ambiguous picture is “Bolshevik”. It would seem that the artist is glorifying the revolution. But the huge man he depicts, this Bolshevik with thoughtless eyes, mercilessly walks over heads ordinary people, according to their lives, destinies, which seem to be not at all important to him.
Everything that Kustodiev did was bright, fresh, interesting. It was impossible to believe that the creator of these powerful images was a seriously ill person, a disabled person who moved in a wheelchair. In 1923, Kustodiev was operated on again - for the third time. The operation was performed by the famous German neurosurgeon Otfried Förster, who was invited to treat Lenin.
“Anesthesia,” said the artist’s daughter, “was given locally, the general heart could not stand it. Four and a half hours of inhuman suffering... The doctors said that every minute there could be a shock and then it would be the end...” Like the previous ones, this operation did not bring significant relief.
Last big picture The artist became the magnificent “Russian Venus”. “She will not lie naked on velvet, like Goya, or in the lap of nature, like Giorgione,” Boris Mikhailovich told his daughter Irina, who posed for this picture. - I will put my Venus in the bathhouse. Here the nudity of a Russian woman is natural.” At night he had nightmares - “black cats dig into his back with sharp claws and tear apart his vertebrae,” and during the day he created his Venus. Posing, Irina held a ruler in her hands instead of a broom, and her brother Kirill whipped foam in a wooden tub. His children created this masterpiece with him...
Anticipating the end, at your last year Kustodiev lived as few people can, even when completely healthy: he painted 8 portraits, several landscapes, posters, created dozens of engravings, illustrations for books, scenery for three performances... In 1927, when it became clear that his illness had worsened , he turned to the People's Commissariat for Education with a request to allow him to go to Germany for treatment. The government allocated $1,000, and paperwork began. While waiting, Kustodiev asked to be taken to the Hermitage; he wanted to see the works of Rembrandt and Titian again.
This gave the artist’s brother Mikhail the idea of building a car in which his relatives would take the artist out into the world of healthy people. The apartment began to look like a repair shop, but everyone in the household, including poor Yulia, put up with this horror, knowing in the name of what it was all being done. And the car was assembled. Now Kustodiev could even go on a visit. On May 5, 1927, when she and Yulia returned home from Detskoe Selo, where they had visited Alexei Tolstoy, he developed a fever. They decided it was a cold; the car was open.
The temperature remained stable, but on May 15, when his name day was celebrated, Kustodiev, sitting in front of the guests in a white shirt with a bow tie, joked and amused everyone. The next day he felt ill. On the evening of May 26, 1927, Irina asked her father if she could go to the theater - a performance was being given by a Moscow theater director who had come on tour to St. Petersburg Chamber theater, V leading role Alisa Koonen. “Of course,” he replied. “Then you’ll tell me.” Returning home, she no longer found him alive. Kustodiev was only 49 years old. He was buried at the St. Petersburg Nikolskoye cemetery. So many unrealized plans went with him, but so many beautiful paintings remained after his death...
His widow Yulia Evstafievna lived alone, without her husband, for another 15 years, devoting all these years to serving his memory and preserving his legacy. She died during the siege in 1942.
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). Portraitist, 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 Petersburg Academy 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 genre theme(“At the market”) and in the fall of 1900 he went in search of nature to the Kostroma province. 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 finishing the course, he took part in international exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Munich (large gold medal 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 “Zhupel” (the famous drawing “Introduction. Moscow”), “Hell Mail” and “Iskra”.
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