“He spoiled all exhibitions with his vulgar pictures”. About Konstantin Makovsky and his paintings, which will not be shown in school textbooks.

Russian artist Konstantin Makovsky became famous for his paintings in the “rich Russian style”, where aesthetics was always in the first place. Although he was a member of the Peredvizhniki Society, he flatly refused to depict the suffering of the people, preferring to “paint the people beautifully”, so peasant children in his paintings look like sweet angels, as if they had never known neither need, nor hunger, nor any diseases.

Children running from a thunderstorm

His fellow Peredvizhniki did not like this approach too much, because it contradicted the general idea of their paintings, which consists in the maximum truthful representation of “people's suffering”, but it was difficult to convince Makovsky to write otherwise. “He his vulgar pictures spoiled all the exhibitions” - indignant itinerant artists, and as a result Makovsky more and more often began to exhibit separately, the benefit of those wishing to buy his paintings were plentiful. And in fact, if you dress up herring in a rich dress, it is quite a portrait of the boyar's daughter - by the way, for this painting Makovsky was awarded the title of academician of painting.

The herring maid

He and took for his paintings more expensive than all other artists. Therefore, his paintings rarely acquired Tretyakov, believing that his talent is not worth such money and prices for them Makovsky takes from the ceiling. It came to the absurd: for the painting “Slavic composers” Makovsky asked for 25 thousand rubles, and Repin agreed to write for 1.5 thousand. But many rich people did not think so, and the lack of customers at Makovsky was not lacking, and brilliant technique and “stuffed hand” allowed him to work very quickly.

Russian beauty

Makovsky shamelessly took advantage of the gullibility of “rich simpletons” and already at the first posing usually completely finished the portrait. But so that the customer did not think that the artist takes too expensive, said that “the picture needs to be finalized,” then put it in a far corner and a month later handed it to a satisfied buyer, who was convinced that all this time the artist worked tirelessly on his portrait.

Portrait of Princess Zinaida Nikolayevna Yusupova in Russian costume

In addition to artwork to order, Makovsky wrote paintings and for exhibitions, such as the famous “Rusalki”. However, Makovsky had to listen to plenty of criticism about this painting: the Itinerant artists did not like the “frivolous nude”, immensely far from the ideas of nationalism.

Mermaids

Makovsky's mermaids are a hymn of aesthetics, admiration for the forbidden and surely “vicious” beauty of the unclean force - it is not by chance that they themselves, hitched together in a sort of round dance, move in the opposite direction from the church, forming a peculiar whirlwind of beautiful and attractive naked bodies that rushed to the heavens. It is not surprising that this painting left no one indifferent, and visitors to the exhibition, after standing “for decency” in front of the “correct” artworks of the Peredvizhniki, went to Makovsky's canvas, where the nude girls - an unprecedented and somewhat provocative innovation for Russian painting, and the plot is fantastic, and the technique of execution is impeccable, and in general, “everything is beautiful”.

A beautiful girl preparing for bathing

And there is no need to be surprised by the absence of tails on mermaids: according to Russian legends they should not be, and mermaids are drowned girls who died because of unhappy love. So, from the point of view of folk legends, Makovsky all right, and look such “mermaids” much more attractive than the classic. They all have long loose hair - another characteristic feature of mermaids, this time international.

Ophelia

Also impressive is the entourage of a magical southern night, marvelously drawn moonlight, and the general feeling of involvement in some forbidden, but from this even more attractive action. Indeed, Makovsky's paintings among the standard artwork of the Itinerant artists resemble a “white crow”, which is very easy to confuse with a fairy peacock.

What do you think of Konstantin Makovsky's artwork, write in the comments.

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