Valentin Serov - a wonderful Russian artist, lived a rich and interesting life, full of various mishaps, adventures and incidents. Moreover, Serov himself was not really looking for them, was a man of modesty, in public preferred to keep silent rather than talk, so friends joked that in a large company, he can be taken for a piece of interior and just not notice. But all sorts of mishaps and incidents seemed to find him on their own.
Valentin Serov. Self-portrait
It all started during a trip to Paris. Then the young Valentine lived in an apartment with his mother, who was very busy and often disappeared on his business, and therefore the young man constantly had to be alone. But he made new acquaintances - with two pretty and cheerful girls. He immediately liked them very much for their ease and their love of merry companies, each time new and exclusively male. They were happy to see him, smiled at him, chatted with him lightly, and sometimes hugged him.
He was already thinking about how to express his feelings to the girls, but could not decide which of them to choose. But one day to Serov's apartment came to a solid gray-bearded man - the famous Russian writer Turgenev and asked Valentine, where his mother. He replied that she had gone on business and would not be back soon. "And jolly neighbors you have," remarked Turgenev. "Very merry, they have a new company every day, and they go out till morning. They'll call me soon, but don't tell my mother," boasted Valentine.
As it turned out, the cheerful girls were "priestesses of love," and the Serovs settled in "a house with a reputation." Soon they moved, and Valentin had to forget about the merry girls.
Nude model
Serov's mother Valentina Semyonovna in general was a woman of power, severe and brought up her son in strictness. Once he was late home, the door was not opened to him and the boy had to spend the night on the street. And soon Valentina Semyonovna sent her son "for education" to a nihilist in Munich, whom they had met in passing at a rally for women's rights.
Ilya Repin. Valentina Serov as Tsarevna Sofya.
At the age of 22, Serov, together with the Mamontov brothers, went to Vienna and, impressed by the beauty of St. Stephen's Cathedral, began to draw it on paper, making sketches. Police officers approached them and urged them to go to the station. As it turned out, they found the young people drawing something very suspicious - what if they were spies looking for secrets or making a map of Vienna and its state buildings for their own purposes. However, soon everything was sorted out and the artists were released, advising not to talk about this incident unnecessary. But young Serov was flattered that he was mistaken for a spy and he did not miss an opportunity to boast about it to his friends.
The Abduction of Europe
Valentin Serov had a nickname - Anton. It was born because the Mamontovs addressed him as a child - Tosha, which gradually transformed into Anton. This is what Ilya Repin called Serov in his letters when he was an adult.
Portrait of Savva Mamontov
Serov wrote slowly and very carefully, and therefore posing for him was a real torment. When he conceived his famous "Girl with Peaches", he offered Mamontov's twelve-year-old daughter Vera to become a model for this painting. But she such a prospect was not too happy - to sit still for a whole summer - a pleasure below average, it is better to play and socialize with friends. However, the cunning Serov managed to persuade her, promising every evening after artwork to ride horses with her. And he kept his promise, but for this he had to persuade Vera's mother Elizaveta Grigorievna to allow such a frivolous and somewhat dangerous entertainment.
Girl with peaches
Later Serov wrote that he always achieved a "special freshness" in his paintings, which is only possible in the artwork from life. Any sketches violated it, although Vera such posing was not easy and by the end of the artwork, she was "all exhausted". But who said that the real masterpieces are created after sleeves, without much effort. And the result was worth it, the painting turned out wonderful, as well as many of the things to which the immensely talented Valentin Serov put his hand.
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