The Russian Peredvizhniks painted many wonderful pictures showing the vices of our society, as well as the "humiliated and insulted". But if Perov's "Troika" or Repin 's textbook "Burlaki on the Volga" were known to every schoolchild in Soviet times, and their reproductions were printed in textbooks, then there were paintings by the Russian Peredvizhniks, which in art galleries, especially in the present time, tried to be placed in the far corner, and certainly they would not have been included in school textbooks - neither in Soviet nor in modern ones. And it's not even about their artistic merits - everything was fine with them, but about the too obvious and unconcealed display of the vices of our society - drunkenness, prostitution, ignorance and corporal punishment. We will talk about the paintings of the Russian itinerant artists, which would definitely not be in the school textbooks in this article.
Nikolai Nevrev. Protodeacon proclaiming longevity at merchant's birthday parties
"Fun in Russia is drinking" as it is said in a famous saying. Except that some characters understand it too literally and only they are having fun, while their family members want to cry bitterly. This situation is depicted by Nikolai Kasatkin in the painting "Drunken Father of the Family".
Nikolai Kasatkin. A drunken father of a family.
A clearly overdrunk father falls into his miserable room, where his wife and small child are waiting for him with fear. And they are completely defenseless in front of a healthy man, who in a drunken rage is capable of anything. He stares at his wife with a meaningless stare, looking for the slightest excuse for violence, and the poor woman has lowered her head, afraid of somehow inadvertently making her husband angry. Kasatkin raised a rather burning theme of the disempowerment of women and children in front of such drunken men, who coincidentally become their husbands and fathers. But this is not a support and protector, rather it is necessary to protect from him, but there is no one to wait for help. For centuries it was not customary to interfere in family affairs, they say, they will sort it out themselves, but sometimes it happens that investigators and police officers have to sort it out.
Vasily Maximov. Following the example of their elders
Young men like to take an example from the older generation to at least resemble their fathers and their friends, to feel themselves grown up and matured men. The boy in Vasily Maximov's painting secretly pours from a bottle left on the table while no one sees him. But only a bad example is contagious, and you can get used to alcohol very quickly, especially at a tender age, and it is possible that soon such a "novice alcoholic" will become a real mature drunkard, who drags things out of the house to exchange them for a bottle, and getting married, in a few years will turn into a drunken tyrant who has lost his human face from the previous picture by Kasatkin.
Pavel Kovalevsky. Flogging
Pedagogy in the XIX century was very peculiar, even the most enlightened parents, believed that without a thorough flogging to educate a child will not work, and therefore mercilessly flogged birches, say, through the soft place all comes much better. And the flogging of children was then taken for granted, corporal punishment was widespread in schools, so that not learned a lesson for a hapless student could lead to a humiliating and painful procedure. But even then some intellectuals said that it would be good to abolish flogging in schools at least, otherwise how would it be possible to raise an unspoiled generation? Artist Pavel Kovalevsky and raised the problem of corporal punishment, and strange looking seemingly well-mannered ladies with rapture subjecting the boy to such a humiliating and unpleasant punishment.
Ivan Bogdanov. Newcomer
In poor families was widely practiced practice of giving a little grown up children in apprentices, where they were forced to run for vodka for the master, who became their full master, to do the hardest and low-skilled work and at the same time to listen to his drunken rants and teachings, accompanied by slaps and slaps.
Vladimir Makovsky. Consecration of a brothel
Brothels officially existed in Russia before the revolution, and Vladimir Makovsky depicted a scene in one of them. Makovsky wanted to play on the contrast - the lowest point of the fall - the brothel itself and the elevated church rite of consecration. It turned out to be at least unusual, although it is strange, as a clergyman is generally ready to illuminate such a sinful place. But a good baksheesh for some not too sensitive priests can be a very powerful argument.
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