Nikolai Feshin (1881-1955) was a Russian artist who painted stunning Art Nouveau and Impressionist paintings and whose amazing fate is no less interesting than his artwork. He can be called a real lucky man - as if some guardian angel tirelessly took care of the artist throughout his life.
It all began with childhood. Nikolai Feshin's father covered iconostases with gold and was a metal and wood carver, had his own workshop in Kazan, where little Kolya often visited and watched his father's artwork. But at the age of four, Kolya became seriously ill with meningitis, and the doctor who arrived said that the boy would not have long to live, and even if he survived, he would remain an idiot forever. And advised him to pray, hoping for a miracle.
Mrs. Feshina with her daughter.
The father was well regarded among the highest ranking churchmen of Kazan, so he was allowed to bring the icon of Our Lady of Tikhvin into the house. Several times they went with her around the bed with a sick child, who gave no signs of life, and when they tilted the icon Kolya suddenly moved. Since then, he slowly began to recover, and fortunately everything was without consequences, but Nicholas was a man withdrawn and did not really like to get along with people, but it is difficult to say whether it is a property of his character or the consequences of the disease suffered in childhood. And he began to draw after that incident, as if the icon had given him a piece of some divine talent.
Self-portrait
Nikolay entered Kazan Art School, but his family started to have serious problems. His father drank, lost his artwork, divorced his wife, and at the age of 13 Nikolai was left in the position of an orphan with living parents. Money was catastrophically lacking, only a little help from his aunt helped somehow to make ends meet. But the main thing is that he can learn, and everything else is just the trivialities of life and an opportunity to harden his character.
Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya
After the Kazan school, Feshin began to study at the Academy of Arts. He was already able to work part-time, drawing illustrations. Repin himself took him as a pupil, and this was considered a great success, but Nikolai learned most of all after Repin left the post of a teacher at the Academy.
Teachers replaced each other, each had his own approach to painting, his own manner of painting, and Feshin diligently studied everything and tried to develop his own style - innovative, unlike anything else, to write not like the Wanderers of the past, but in a new way, based on the requirements of the early 20th century.
Cabbage Girl
His painting "Kapustnitsa" made a sensation, Feshin was awarded a gold medal and allowed to go to Italy and France at public expense. He would have tried to study with someone in Paris, but 13 years of study in Russia - it's too much, Feshin realized that more will not be able to cope. When he returned, he worked as a teacher in Kazan. As a result, the old school, where Feshin first began to learn the basics of painting at the age of 13, can be considered purely Feshinsky - students idolized him and tried to imitate him in everything, especially since he was the only worthwhile artist in the area.
Lady in purple
And he also wrote paintings that were exhibited at major European exhibitions, for example, "Lady in purple" was deservedly awarded a gold medal. Gradually his artwork appeared in and America - there learned about the new Russian talented artist, and those acquaintances with American gallerists played a key role in the fate of Feshin.
Nude in the bathtub
At 32, he married Alexandra Belkevich, often painted her portraits and finally bought his own house near Kazan - this after 19 years of living in rented corners. There the couple hoped to survive the social upheavals, although it did not always succeed. They had to write the right paintings to order, and also Feshin categorically did not want to accept the revolution, he was not satisfied with many things, so in 1921, when a delegation from America came to Kazan on humanitarian aid, appealed to them with a request to assist in emigration. And here again his guardian angel helped Feshin - instead of a half-starved existence in Kazan, he was able to come to New York in 1923.
The sitter
There and he created the rest of his life, received well-deserved recognition, wrote many wonderful paintings, including in the style of nude, traveled and lived a truly worthy life, clearly proving that that divine miracle in childhood was not in vain.
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