Pavel Fedotov (1815-1852) was a Russian artist who is considered by many critics to be the founder of critical realism. It was in this genre that the remarkable Russian painters Vasily Perov, Ilya Repin, Ivan Kramskoi, Nikolai Yaroshenko and others painted. By and large, almost all itinerant painters were critical realists, but it was Pavel Fedotov who was one of the first to paint such pictures.
Pavel Fedotov. self-portrait.
In general, his work in some ways can be compared to the early stories of Anton Chekhov, although they worked in different spheres. Fedotov's heroes in his paintings were officials, nobles, merchants, companies of bachelor officers, emancipated ladies. And he treated them with a light irony, through which sometimes seeped and quite harsh satire. In observation Fedotov can not be denied - he thoroughly knew all the manners and peculiarities of life depicted characters, clearly able to write out the character, perfectly built the composition.
The Major's Matchmaking
Except that Chekhov went further - he wrote wonderful dramatic novels: "The Men", "Chamber No6" and others, that is, he expanded the boundaries of critical realism, moved from satire to serious and profound drama. Fedotov is a little different - his life was not very happy and he died very early - at the age of 37, perhaps because his best works he never wrote. Why this happened, and what are the main features of his famous painting "Fresh Cavalier" we will tell in this article.
By his main profession Fedorov was a captain of the Guards, and drew on the dictates of the soul and so well that even the Emperor Nicholas I, deigned to issue the highest resolution: "drawing officer Paul Fedorov to leave the military service and engage in the arts, so that he to this occupation of great ability has and can serve the good of the Fatherland". So "drawing officer" officially became an artist, but he would have known what a bad service to serve him the change of his main activity.
Pavel Fedotov was born into a military family and unlike other artists, in particular Vasily Tropinin no ability to draw in childhood did not show. The usual childhood of a Moscow boy from a poor family - games with buddies, climbing in attics and cellars. But it was such a childhood, according to some art historians, and contributed to the formation of Fedotov as a critical realist, he saw real life and when he grew up, wanted to show it as it really is, without embellishments, but with only ruthless truth-matka. He saw merchants and tradeswomen at fairs, priests and clerks, matchmakers, cooks, domestic servants, janitors and craftsmen of all kinds of occupations possible in Moscow.
A choosy bride
And when Pavlik was 11 years old, he began to study in the Cadet Corps. No one asked him if he wanted to be a military man - his parents knew better. Pavlik did well in geography and history and had an excellent imagination. It was enough for him to read a page of the textbook and all the events described in it, stood before his eyes. But in art class he was among the laggards.
And this also became one of the foundations of his development as an artist. Drawing he was willingly and well, he was probably "put behind the plaster", began to hammer all the hardened foundations of classicism and would have come out the usual artist-laborer, without his own artistic style and vision. Fedotov drew all the books and notebooks of his own cartoons, he was flogged for this, but the craving for such drawings did not exterminate.
As time passed, Paul's cartoons became more and more mature, the humor in them became subtle and witty, quite worthy of an adult cartoonist. True, he drew watercolors and pencil drawings, on oil paints did not venture. The subject of his cartoons were teachers, and sometimes comrades, but they were not offended - very subtly and unkindly Fedotov portrayed them. They considered him their own in the board small, respected him for humor, drawings, the ability to sing and strum on the guitar.
And Fedotov continued to draw and when he grew up, but changed the subject - now it was battle scenes and portraits of military leaders, including Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich. The latter was delighted with his portrait and told Nicholas the First himself about it.
Portrait of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich
Fedotov decided to consolidate the technique, to get an academic education. And already an established artist with young students goes to classes, writes plaster casts, sitters and even corpses in the academic theater - so the Academy of Painting saved on sitters. But the more he studied at the Academy, then more inclined to a simple conclusion - the most interesting of all Russian everyday life, not painted hundreds of times antique and biblical subjects and pompous portraits of the aristocracy.
The year 1844 came and before Fedotov was a fundamental choice: or a military career - honor, fame, respect, or artist - a constant search for orders, the likelihood of a semi-impoverished existence, dependence on customers and critics.
The choice was determined by the great fable writer Krylov. Fedotov liked Fedotov's drawings so much that he advised the artist not to give up his work, but to serve the fatherland, denouncing the vices in his paintings - a mission difficult, fraught with disappointment and criticism, but noble. Fedotov agreed with the fable writer and retired.
The Aristocrat's Breakfast
For two years - from 1846 to 1848 were written the best of his paintings: "Fresh Cavalier", "Matchmaking Major", "Breakfast of an aristocrat" and "Discerning Bride". Let us dwell on the painting "Fresh Cavalier" in more detail.
A fresh beau
According to the plot of this picture, a petty official lives with his maid. The girl got pregnant by him, but he himself to his girlfriend does not care - he is all pompous with pride, because he received the Order of St. Stanislaus. As Gogol wrote: "got Stanislaus in his buttonhole and hemorrhoids in his loins". But our hero was lucky - he has no hemorrhoids yet, but he has the order. The fact is that until 1845, this order gave a new social status - with its awarding a man automatically became a nobleman. Was a simple clerk - became a nobleman, well, how not to be proud. And the girl herself the order of the cavalier is not very interesting - there are more important things, such as cleaning boots. In the painting Fedotov clearly laugh at the excessive importance of the cavalier, something it echoes Perov's canvas "First Rank. Son of a clerk" is only Perov wrote his "First Rank" after Fedotov and, of course, saw his painting.
The popularity of paintings Fedotov was high, the public liked his fresh approach to painting. He came up with a better way to capitalize on this - planned to sell lithographs with his signature, and at the same time and the picture itself to drive more expensive.
Except that the year for criticism and ridicule was very unlucky - 1848. (It was then that the painting was presented to the public, written two years earlier). There was a wave of bourgeois revolutions in Europe, and in Russia censorship was raging. Censors clung to Fedotov's painting: "how can you put a symbol of statehood - the Order of Stanislaus - on a dirty house robe. About lithographs had to forget, and the picture Fedotov sold cheaper than he expected - just 500 rubles. Money decent, but you have to take into account that he had to provide for his elderly parents and widowed sister with children.
Fedotov never got out of need. In 1851, he wrote the painting "Winter Day", which reflected his entire existence at that time.
Winter day. The 20th line of Vasilievsky Island.
The outskirts of St. Petersburg, endlessly long dreary fences, a chilly wind. And a lonely man carries a canvas to a rich customer, hoping to get some money for it. Routine, need, endless responsibility to his parents and sister, the dominance of censorship, which did not give a way to his paintings, eventually drove Fedotov crazy. Psychiatric hospital and death at 37 years of life. It is hard to be a realist painter in Russia.
Buy handmade goods or modern art you can on artAlebrio - is an international marketplace for people who want to create, sell, buy and collect unique items and art - buy the best with us artAlebrio.com.
By confirming your order you unconditionally accept these General Conditions of Sale
