Russian artist Vasily Perov (1833-1882) was famous for many of his paintings, very authentically showing the life of ordinary people at that time. One of the most memorable - “The Arrival of a Governess in a Merchant's House”, still leaves few people indifferent, moreover, it remains relevant today, because it is written about manners and human psychology, which for 150 years has not changed too much.
Hunters in the wilderness
After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, a new type of people began to gain strength in Russia - former peasants who, thanks to their entrepreneurial talent, quickly became rich, became merchants and manufacturers. In some ways they resembled the same “New Russians” of the 90's, when the crazy money allowed them to take a very high position in society, to feel themselves “masters of life”. That's why the newly rich decided that they could look down on everyone else and treat them with a boorish disdain. “Our time has come” - that's the motto of such soon-to-be-rich, and the old orders and decency no longer give a damn.
The merchants squandered thousands of rubles in one evening in restaurants and brothels, built houses to their bourgeois taste, which stupefied all the representatives of the old intelligentsia and aristocracy, and hired artwork governesses from impoverished nobles, to emphasize once again their current position - I used to serve them at the table, I was their footman, and now they are mine.
The arrival of a governess in a merchant's house
Especially unenviable was the share of such governesses, as in Perov's painting, who were used to a strict upbringing, educated, graduated from the boarding school of noble maidens, with a certain concept of honor and decency. Now about all this will have to forget and come to terms with their new unenviable status as educated servants.
Perov approached the creation of this painting very carefully. Especially in 1865 he went to the Nizhny Novgorod Fair to better study the type of merchant and manufacturer. The effort was worth it, Perov received for this picture of the title of Academician of painting, when he showed it at an exhibition at the Academy of Arts along with another outstanding painting - “Troika. Apprentice apprentices carrying water”
Three. Apprentice apprentices carrying water
At first glance, the painting “The Governess's Arrival at a Merchant's House” is much less gloomy than “Troika”, but that is if we do not go into details and psychology. The governess herself stands in a rich, but not too elegantly furnished room, where dark openings sharply state with light-colored wallpaper. A rather eloquent device - everything is decent on the surface, but what is actually going on there is covered in darkness. The theme of contrast continues in the difference between the governess and the merchant family, which has come out in full force to look at the “new teacher”. In the foreground is the head of the family, puffed up with self-importance.
Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house. excerpt
It is to him that the girl bows her head and arranges artwork with him, pulling out of her purse a certificate of the title of class teacher. But the merchant does not care much about the certificate, he looks at the governess with an appraising eye - whether she is docile, whether she corresponds to his status, whether she is noble and good-looking enough to show off to his guests: “Look what kind of people I have in my service now.” And it is not excluded that he will try to hit on her, and here the girl can only sympathize - she will have to choose between artwork and personal dignity, and in his house he feels a complete master, who simply does not know what the word no means.
To match the merchant and the household - his wife immediately felt in the governess rival and probably already disliked her, will pester a hundred petty nagging. And next to her is the insolent and swaggering son of the factory owner, who looks at the girl with an expression of cynical smugness - you will not get away from me and you will still be mine.
Arrival of a governess in a merchant's house. excerpt
Why, marriage is still a long way off, and one wants to taste all the pleasures of “adult life” now, and when such a governess is around, why go to the merry girls to “dance the Limpopo”? Wouldn't it be better to boast to your friends about your relations with a real nobleman's daughter, and not with plebeian “priestesses of love” from peasant women and impoverished bourgeoisie.
So the girl can only sympathize, probably in that house she is waiting for a lot of humiliation and insolent molestation, and there is no one to intercede, on the young merchant's daughter, whom she must teach, there is little hope, she has no influence in the house. The servants are peering out of the door, probably wondering how long the new governess will last.
A janitor giving his apartment to the barina
Perov very reliably shows to show the clash between the impoverished intelligentsia, which still retained the notion of human dignity, and the newly rich, who have no idea about it. The fate of the girl is unenviable, but such are the realities of the situation in which she found herself, and, unfortunately, for the past 150 years, little has changed, so Perov's painting has not lost its relevance.
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