Why the impressionist Igor Grabar dug a trench in the forest: The secret of the painting "February Azure"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For centuries, the winter season has fascinated both poets and artists with its marvelous beauty, who glorified it in their work. So today is our review of the famous impressionist of the Soviet period. Igor Emmanuilovich Grabare, who went down in the history of Russian painting as the poet of the Russian winter. It was she who was the artist's favorite season, felt by every fiber of his soul, and reproduced on canvases with great love and trepidation. When the master undertook to paint from life the frost sparkling in the sun, he always regretted that his palette lacked the necessary colors to convey his unearthly beauty on the canvas.

Winter landscapes of Igor Grabar - a state of mind

It was the frost that impressed the master so much that it awakened in him an irresistible desire to paint winter, despite the fact that in severe frosts the oil paints literally froze to the brush and canvas. This fact did not prevent the master from writing his works directly from life. For this, Grabar, who became famous for his unique pictorial technique of writing, was deservedly called "the last of the plein air painters of Russia."

Sincerely admiring the bewitching phenomenon of nature - frost, the painter portrayed it "in every way": sparkling, in the rays of the early sun, pink - at sunset of a sunny day, blue - on gloomy evenings. This theme was especially strongly manifested in his work in the first decade of the 20th century. So, for several years Igor Emmanuilovich created more than a hundred works devoted to the winter decoration of sleeping trees. They made up a cycle of his sketches - "The Day of Frost".

And, curiously, when, upon the arrival of spring, the snow melted and the trees lost their winter outfit, the artist practically stopped working on landscapes and switched to portrait genre and still lifes. Of course, there are many works in the painter's legacy that depict other seasons, but he himself honestly admitted that neither spring, nor summer, even autumn landscapes evoked in his imagination such picturesque enthusiasm and inspiration as winter.

The story of one painting - "February Azure"

Under such an extraordinary impression, more than a century ago, an amazing work of the master was created - "February Azure", namely, when the artist was visiting good friends in the suburbs.

The idea of creating "February azure" was suggested to the painter by Mother Nature herself during his morning walk through the forest. Passing by the birch trees growing by the side of the road, the master, due to a coincidence of circumstances, came into indescribable delight, he was very deeply touched by what suddenly opened up to his eyes.

The inspired artist immediately ran for his art supplies, and when he returned, in one session he sketched a small sketch of the future work. The next day, Igor Emmanuilovich again returned to the same birches, only this time with a canvas on a large stretcher. Before starting work, the artist dug a trench in the snow, in which he placed his easel in order to be as low as possible in relation to the birches and capture as much of the heavenly space as possible.

For more than two weeks the master went to his birches, trying to transfer their charm in winter decoration and of course the amazing azure sky to the canvas as accurately as possible. Grabar achieved the maximum azure saturation by applying strokes in a dense layer, using only pure color. A low point of view relative to the horizon line opened up the artist's ability to convey all the gradations of blue and solve compositional problems. He perfectly captured the transition of heavenly color - from a light green underneath to a dark ultramarine at the top.

Using his unique technique in an impressionistic manner, he not only skillfully showed the volumes of tree trunks, the patterns of branches, and the unevenness of the snow, but also conveyed the radiant mood of nature in anticipation of the spring awakening. The artist himself called "February Azure" his most significant work. And this amazing story of its creation, after a while, he told himself.

Turning the pages of the biography of the Russian impressionist

Igor Grabar was born in 1871 in Austria-Hungary (Hungary), in Budapest. When the boy was five years old, the family, due to the Russophile views of his father, a lawyer and a member of the Hungarian parliament, was forced to emigrate to Russia. Having settled in the city of Yegoryevsk, Ryazan province, father Emmanuel Grabar became a teacher at a local gymnasium, and little Igor, already in elementary school, became seriously interested in painting.

At the age of 11, he was sent to study at the Moscow Imperial Lyceum. And there the life of a poor Hungarian teenager was not sweet at all. He was surrounded by peers from wealthy families, who did not miss the opportunity to cruelly play a trick on the boy's poverty. But that absolutely did not bother him: he went headlong into drawing, depicting literally everything that he saw around - teachers and workers of the lyceum, acquaintances and classmates. And the talented boy spent his weekends at the Tretyakov Gallery and at Moscow exhibitions.

In 1889 he entered two faculties of St. Petersburg University at once - law and history and philology. And, surprisingly, the gifted 18-year-old boy simultaneously managed to compose biographies of classic artists, write humorous stories for the popular Niva magazine, draw illustrations and act as an art critic with reviews of exhibitions.

However, having successfully graduated from the university, Grabar did not stop there, and decided to devote himself entirely to painting. In 1894, having entered the Academy of Arts, he became a student of Ilya Repin himself. During his studies, he visited Europe, where he became seriously interested in impressionism. The artist has always been upset by the rapid change in the natural environment and in lighting, so it was in this artistic direction that he found what allowed him to quickly capture what was happening. Later, working on his paintings, he wrote with great passion, literally.

Having mastered the best achievements of the impressionists of world painting, Grabar found his own artistic style in art - unique and original. The natural landscape of Russia acquired a completely new look in its landscapes, sparkled with rainbow colors, filled with the feeling of vast space and air.

Conducted an artist and scientific activity in the field of the history of Russian painting. so, from 1908 until the outbreak of the First World War, he managed to publish eight volumes of his monumental work entitled "History of Russian Art" (with the planned 12). But the war disrupted the plans of Igor Emmanuilovich. A huge amount of collected material was destroyed, and, of course, the author lost his heart.

Since 1913 Igor Grabar headed the Tretyakov Gallery. As he later admitted, he agreed to this position in order to study the art of artists not through glass, Here he showed all his talent as an organizer, his architectural abilities, having carried out a large-scale redevelopment of the museum's exposition.

Before his arrival, the walls in the halls of the gallery were hung from floor to ceiling with paintings, without any logic. Grabar laid the foundation for the new exhibition on monographic and historical principles that were innovative for that time. Thanks to this, the private collection has become a European-style museum. In those years, Igor Emmanuilovich traveled a lot not only in Russia, but also around the world, he was invited by museums as a well-known expert art critic.

After the revolution, on his initiative, the Central Restoration Workshops were opened in Moscow. Grabar sought to make restoration a science: he attracted scientists - chemists, physicists and microbiologists to work. It was thanks to this approach that the results were stunning. This helped to save a lot of the artistic heritage of Russian painters.

In later years, the artist was in charge of the museum-estate "Abramtsevo", headed the Institute named after V. I. Surikov, was engaged in social activities, without ceasing to create his painting.

Igor Grabar (1871-1960) served art as a painter and artist, as an art historian and art critic, as an architect and restorer. His creative path as a painter was more than 60 years. By the way, the honorary title of Honored Art Worker, established in our country in 1928, was the first to be received by Igor Emmanuilovich. Agree, not every artist could boast of such longevity in creativity and track record.

At the jubilee exhibition in 1951, the artist demonstrated both works of the end of the century before last, and those on which the last strokes were laid before the very exposition. He could never simply contemplate the world around him and always strove to capture it in colors.

Of course, the artist had a personal life, and no less interesting than his work. Read about this: Not only sisters, but also wives: What secret is hidden in the painting "Cornflowers" by Igor Grabar.