Why was Taras Shevchenko sent to penal servitude and how much was paid to ransom him to freedom? The tragic fate of the artist and poet.

Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861) was a Ukrainian poet and painter. He managed to partially revolutionize Russian and Ukrainian painting, as he became one of the founders of realism, developing a distinctive and innovative style of painting for the time. During his studies at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, he mastered drawing to perfection and conducted a lot of research on the most realistic representation of light and shade. Shevchenko sincerely admired the works of Rembrandt, but soon Shevchenko himself was called “Ukrainian Rembrandt”. Like Rembrandt, Shevchenko often painted self-portraits, which reflected not only the change in appearance, but his inner essence, as they were characterized by deep psychology and allowed to judge how tragic life circumstances influenced the artist.

Self-portrait, 1861

In addition to self-portraits, he often painted genre scenes from the life of his native land, taking on the functions of ethnographer. Shevchenko's artistic techniques are also diverse: he worked in oil, watercolor, sepia, pencil, made etchings, in general, a jack of all trades, and on top of that he also wrote poetry. In general, a truly talented and multifaceted personality.

Peasant family

Shevchenko came from a family of many children serfs. By the way, the very fact of birth in such a family was already a kind of sentence: at best you will be able to become some clerk, and it is not a fact that the owners will want to give free. And so, no matter how talented you are, you will have to spend your life in hard and joyless peasant labor, which simply does not leave time for creativity. His mother died at the age of 38: numerous childbirths and hard life undermined the woman's health. Taras was 9 years old at that time. And 2 years later, having caught a severe cold during a plague march for salt, his father fell ill. Realizing that his death hour was coming, he made a will, in which he did not forget any member of his large family, except Taras. “Either a great man or a great idler will come out of him, and therefore he does not need an inheritance.”

Commemoration of the dead (Katya Kazashka)

Thirteen-year-old Taras continued herding lambs, which left a lot of time for his favorite painting. And here he was lucky: Mr. Engelhardt took the able orphan boy to his house as a Cossack. And two years later Engelhardt sent Shevchenko as a pupil to the Lithuanian artist Jan Rustem. Surely Rustem was delighted with his pupil, because Engelhardt decides to go with Shevchenko to St. Petersburg. However, for Engelhardt there were also practical considerations: a talented serf artist will be free to write paintings, which can be profitably sold or used at will. Engelhardt arranged Shevchenko in the artel of artist Shiryaev, which was engaged in decoration and restoration of buildings in the center of St. Petersburg. At the same time Shevchenko began to write poetry. However, his poems were of little interest to few people at that time, even no one to assess their quality, but his artistic talent was seen by everyone.

Katerina

Working on tedious restoration work, Shevchenko dreams of real painting, of studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, where Brullov himself taught, who was akin to a celestial for him. Thanks to the artist Ivan Soshenko, the talented young man was introduced to Bryullov, who by that time had already written “The Last Day of Pompeii”. Having communicated with Shevchenko and seen his drawings, Bryullov decides to buy him out of serfdom. However, Engelhardt asks for an unbelievable amount - 2.5 thousand rubles. Brullov did not have such money, so he involved in the redemption of Shevchenko poet Zhukovsky and painter Venetsianov. Briullov himself painted a portrait of Zhukovsky, which was the main prize in the charity lottery. Not without the help of monarchs, for example, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna contributed 400 rubles.

Gypsy fortune-teller

After the ransom, Shevchenko believed in his own exclusivity and immediately got involved in all the temptations of the big city, where he had previously been denied entry. He wrote and sold paintings, which allowed him to dress up as a real dandy, dine in restaurants and generally be a member of high society. True, not everyone was delighted with this change, the same Soshenko wrote: “well, why was it worth such efforts to buy Shevchenko, if he leads a life unworthy of a true artist, as if he was possessed by a vanity demon? True, personal motives are more likely to blame here: Shevchenko stole from Soshenko a pretty German woman Maria, who could not resist his charisma and pressure.

And Shevchenko enjoys life, paints portraits of wealthy citizens, tries his hand at the genre of nudes, studies oil painting, and at the same time composes poetry.

Maria (illustration for “Poltava” by Alexander Pushkin)

In 1845, after graduating from the Academy of Arts, Shevchenko went to Ukraine. Even then, he was welcomed there as a famous poet and artist. Inspired by this reception, Shevchenko asked for the hand of the daughter of the priest of his native village, where he lived before coming to St. Petersburg, Grigory Fedosya. But the old memories were too strong, Shevchenko refused, descriptively, did not come from, as he was of villein origin, and remained so, despite the fact that the artist and poet. And here it also turned out that his mistress - a married lady Ganna Zakrevskaya gave birth to a child, the father of which, most likely, was himself. All this plunges Shevchenko into despondency. To top it all he fell ill with typhus, and so seriously that he had already thought of making a will and announced his last will to his friends.

And in 1847 gendarmes on someone's tip Shevchenko seized, searched and found “obscene drawings with nudity” and seditious poems that criticized serfdom. This was regarded as black ingratitude: the Empress herself bought Shevchenko for her own money, and he wrote such things.

In the harem

Shevchenko was sent into exile near Orenburg, where for 10 years, being forty years old, turned into a deep old man. He, using a little connivance of local authorities, continued to draw, including his self-portraits. And then there was an expedition to the Aral Sea, where Shevchenko drew over 200 drawings. However, it also undermined his health: the time spent in such a harsh climate in sizzling heat unaccustomed Shevchenko cost a lot.

Пожар в степи

It was not until 1857 that the exile ended. He returned to St. Petersburg, where, in addition to his fame as an artist and poet, he faced the bitterness of betrayal and false accusations of blasphemy. Shevchenko began to work on engravings, in the manufacture of which were widely used poisonous acids. All this finally undermined his health, his heart and lungs failed and in the 47th year of life Shevchenko died. It is hard to be an artist and poet in Russia.

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