He was married to a "fallen woman" and was criticized by his friends artist-Peredvizhniks. The controversial Ivan Kramskoi and his marvelous paintings.

Ivan Kramskoi (1837-1887) was a Russian artist who painted magnificent portraits and genre scenes, the organizer and ideologist of the Peredvizhniki exhibitions - he was the leader of the Peredvizhniki, the instigator of the famous Revolt 14, when the most talented and concerned students of the Academy of Arts protested against the rigid academicism reigning in the institution.

Few artists have done more for the development of Russian painting than Kramskoi and this is his invaluable contribution to art. He painted magnificent portraits - for example, the famous "Unknown" with a simple and logical composition, deep psychology and impeccable technique.

Unknown

The image in Kramskoi's portraits always perfectly reflects the appearance of the person from whom it was written, he did not embellish anything, and the artist's task was to show the inner essence, to "find the face" of the people painted in the portraits.

But the very life of Kramskoi turned out to be largely tragic and quite ambiguous, not like the paintings - they usually do not cause any questions, rather only admiration for the skill of the artist. We will talk about it in more detail in this article, because without knowing the details of Kramskoi's biography, it is difficult to truly appreciate his work.

Ivan Kramskoi. Self-Portrait.

Kramskoi managed to show the way to many, determined the development of Russian painting in the XIX century, but never managed to come to a unified opinion on many key issues. He was inconsistent and this, perhaps, is his main misfortune. At first glance, he seems to be an irrefutable fighter against academism - here and the rebellion 14 and the organization of the Artel of Artists and the Society of Itinerants, where outstanding Russian artists Repin, Perov, Fedotov and Kramskoi himself tried to show the real Russia without gloss and embellishments, to ridicule the vices and sympathize with the poor, to point out their terrible position in society and the difficult, often unbearable living conditions. However, Kramskoi, despite the fact that he left the Academy of Arts with a scandal, received the title of academician of painting, and did not give it up.

Mermaids

True, there was a refusal of a professorship, but rather simply because Kramskoi earned more directly from painting - why waste time on less paid teaching work? However, he was a teacher at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and his job performed admirably. leaving a good memory of all his students, including Ilya Repin.

Kramskoi has always been an irreconcilable fighter against autocracy, a classical liberal who considered autocracy a brake in the development of Russia and our society. But when he received an order to paint portraits of Empress Maria Feodorovna and Alexander III himself, he painted them masterfully and did not even think of refusing, although he was in dire need of funds.

Portrait of Alexander III

Kramskoi sincerely believed that art should raise global issues of moral choice, to seek an answer to the search for the meaning of life and human purpose, it was to them was dedicated to his outstanding painting "Christ in the Desert", but now he is better known as the artist of "indecent" by the standards of the XIX century painting "Unknown". Truly not the kind of fame wanted for himself Kramskoi.

Even portraits, which Kramskoi wrote masterfully, were for him only a means of earning money, an opportunity to provide for his wife and children. He was weary of writing them, worked without joy and pleasure, and dreamed of real, deep genre paintings, like "Christ in the Desert".

Christ in the desert

By the way, Kramskoi began working with portraits even before he learned to paint. He was a photographer's assistant in the remote provincial town of Ostrogozhsk and retouched photographs, as they desperately needed it due to the imperfection of the technique.

At the age of 20, finding himself in St. Petersburg, not particularly embarrassed decided to enter the Academy of Arts and successfully did so, passing the entrance exam. But Kramskoi had to earn a living, so he was engaged in retouching photographs and he did it wonderfully, he was even called "the god of retouching".

And also had to write portraits and do it constantly from day to day, every year throughout his life. Kramskoi admitted that he was very tired of "heads", but for portraits well paid, and the need for money in Kramskoi was always. In total, during his life he painted about 3 thousand portraits - a huge number and most of them at a very good level.

Portrait of writer Leo Tolstoy

It was because of the need to paint many portraits that there was not enough time for work on genre paintings. The example of the exhibition of the Peredvizhniki is indicative. On it Repin presented the epochal painting "Godfather's Procession in Tula Province", Vladimir Makovsky magnificent genre artwork "Date" reflecting the unseemly truth about the hard child labor in pre-revolutionary Russia, only slightly disguised as "teaching a craft", Surikov wrote a stunning canvas "Menshikov in Berezov", where he shows the disgraced favorite, that is, again expresses a certain protest against autocracy, and Kramskoi - the painting "Unknown", which, for all its merits, still had a remote relation to the ideology of itinerantism.

Vasily Surikov. Menshikov in Berezov

That is, the main ideologist of Itinerantism and follower of Chernyshevsky's ideas again spoke not so unambiguously due to the circumstances. "How in general here was this cocotte in the carriage?" - asked the famous art critic Vladimir Stasov. And the picture was exhibited at the exhibition solely taking into account the merits of Kramsky himself and his organizational skills.

In his personal life, he was quite true to his views on life, in which he did not pay any attention to the opinion of society. For example, he married a "fallen woman" Sophia Prokhorova, who had previously cohabited with the already married painter Popov. That soon left with his lawful wife abroad, and Sophia was left without means of subsistence. She helped Kramskoi, who at that time was 22 years old. She became his lawful wife, gave birth to six children, of whom only two survived, and all her life was inseparable from Ivan Kramskoi. However, the artist himself believed that personal happiness is something secondary, not "filling life".

Moonlit Night

Gradually, especially after painting portraits of Alexander III and his wife, all former friends of the artists turned away from Kramskoi. They considered him sold out to the autocrat, betrayed their interests, wallowing in luxury, especially put in guilt love for red stockings for his wife. "Give me a year of creative life," he asked Tretyakov. But who would give him this very year, given Kramskoi's needs?

An inconsolable grief

Already at the age of 50 Kramskoi looked like a tired, exhausted old man. He began to have serious heart problems, and in order to relieve the pain on the recommendation of the then doctors actively used morphine and continued to paint portraits for 5-6 hours a day. He died during artwork when he was working on a portrait of Dr. Karl Rauchfuss. The latter, despite all his knowledge, could not help in any way. So ended the life path of Kramskoi, a talented artist who failed to create in the name of pure art.

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