Boris Kustodiev's beloved woman, in whose name he overcame hellish pain and created his best works

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

"Dear Yulik" - so called Boris Kustodiev Yulia Proshinskaya, who was everything for the artist: both a faithful selfless wife, and the greatest love, and a devoted friend, and a muse-inspirer, and a guardian angel. She was an integral part of Boris himself, who, by the will of fate, ended up in a wheelchair. It was her courageous decision, when the question arose of what to keep her husband for life - arms or legs, that made it possible to extend the artist's creative destiny for another 10 years. And it was during this time that he created his best works, which were included in the golden fund of world art.

Not only great love, but also a difficult fate fell to the lot of the talented painter. And not only on himself, but also on the woman who walked alongside him in life, despite the trials and troubles.

And today, in continuation of the theme of the wives of the great and famous masters of Russian painting, there is an amazing and heartbreaking love story of the Kustodiev couple.

Fateful meeting

Julia Proshinskaya was born in the Polish family of a court councilor, who died very early. The girl's mother, who was left without a means of subsistence, was of little interest in the fate of her five children. Julia and her sister were raised by the elderly Greek sisters from a wealthy family of Russified Englishmen who had their own estate in Vysokovo. A few years later, the grown up pupil was assigned to the Alexander School at the Smolny Institute. In winter, she lived in the state apartment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where her father worked until his death, and spent the summer in Vysokovo.

After graduating from college, Julia had to think about her daily bread herself. She got a job at the St. Petersburg Committee of Ministers as a typist, and at the same time attended the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, where she learned the basics of fine art. And she still spent the summer months with her guardians on the estate.

Once, at the end of the summer, three cheerfully-minded young people, unshaven, brightly dressed, looking like robbers, driving along a broken country road, decided to stop by at the Vysokovo estate. These were students of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, who had come to visit the neighboring estate for sketches. It was here that the acquaintance of Yulia Proshina and Boris Kustodiev took place.

This courtesy visit to the old Greek women and their pupils turned out to be fateful for Boris, although in fact Julia conquered all three guys, everyone was ready to hit her, without hesitation. Saying goodbye, the young students received an invitation from the mistresses of the estate to visit them again somehow. And then more than once they came to Vysokovo. Boris, at the sight of a sweet and shy girl, lost his head, and when he met her gaze, blood boiled in his veins.

Leaving for St. Petersburg, the future artist asks for permission to write letters to his beloved and she, of course, allows. But the correspondence had to be kept secret for a long time, since the old Grek women reacted very disapprovingly to Yulenka's novel with the aspiring artist. Probably they heard rumors about Boris's property status, and they decided that with such a groom, their pupil would have a hard time: except for uncertain hopes for the future, he had nothing in his heart. The thought that their Yulenka might marry a poor "artist from the provinces" horrified the old Greek women, and they immediately began to select the girl more worthy candidates for husbands.

And Boris then still had almost three years before graduating from the academy, where five years of study had already passed, which caused only melancholy in the heart. Kustodiev confessed to Yulia in letters:

By the winter of Yulia Proshinskaya, it was necessary to start the service, and, to the joy of Boris, she returned to St. Petersburg. Their meetings resumed and the young artist finally won the heart of his chosen one, their mutual love entered a new phase.

For an artist who decided to devote himself entirely to art, love was not just a wonderful obsession. At night he often reflected:

The girl, endowed with an equally gentle soul and a calm mind, realized that he was thinking about the future, about their joint future, and was ready for anything for him.

In 1903, young people get married, and soon Julia will give birth to Boris's first child. And he, after graduating from the Academy of Arts, will receive a gold medal for his competitive work and encouragement in the form of an annual retirement trip abroad, where he will go with his wife and newborn son. The young family settled in Paris, but the artist had to travel to Western European countries, study and copy the works of old masters.

Returning to Russia, in 1904 the painter became a founding member of the "New Society of Artists". In addition to his work, he works as a cartoonist for the satirical magazine "Bogey" and performs cycles of illustrations for classical works. Elected a member of the once hated Academy of Arts. He becomes the father of his daughter and youngest son, who died in infancy, and with all this he is immensely happy in marriage with his only and adored Julia.

And who would then have guessed that several years of their family happiness and creative well-being would be followed by decades of grief and despair … In truth, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to predict the fate of a person.

Guardian angel of Boris Kustodiev

Trouble came to the house of a young family in 1907, when their youngest son died of meningitis, not having lived even a year. And Boris Mikhailovich himself began to complain of pain in his hand and a terrible migraine. A couple of years later, Kustodiev showed the first signs of a spinal cord disease, so the pain in the spine and arm increased every day. The diagnosis was disappointing: a tumor in the spinal canal. And the operation carried out gave practically no results. In his early thirties, Kustodiev became disabled.

By 1916, Boris Mikhailovich developed irreversible paralysis of the lower body. It took a second complex operation, which lasted about five hours, during which the professor himself came out to his wife sitting in the corridor and said:

The woman, knowing full well that at best the fate of a paralytic nurse awaits her, confidently answered: "Leave your hands. An artist is without hands, he cannot live …"

The artist spent six months in a hospital bed, between pain and despair. But she was always next to him - his faithful and "dear Yulik", thanks to whom he continued to live and create. On the categorical prohibition of doctors to work, Kustodiev insisted: “If you don’t allow me to write, I will die” … Gritting his teeth and overcoming unbearable pain, he wrote lying down.

At home, fellow artists built a special hanging easel for the painter, on which a stretcher with a canvas could move in different directions. And later, Julia transplanted her husband into a wheelchair and taught him how to move around the room on it. She also came up with the idea of attaching a small table to the chair, where you could put paints and other accessories.

And what is most surprising, it was at this time that Kustodiev would paint those festive, life-loving pictures that became famous and entered the treasury of world painting. The colorful provincial life, holidays, the famous Kustodiev merchants and beauties - this is the fantastic and nostalgic world of the artist, which he lived in those difficult years.

And it is difficult to imagine that the artist created his artistic heritage half-starved in a cold apartment, practically helpless in a wheelchair, overcoming terrible pains ….

Nevertheless, it was an eerie reality for the master himself and his family. The last months of his life, meted out to the 49-year-old artist, he did not live - he was gradually dying: motionless legs, torn apart by hellish pain, a dry, completely weak hand, from which a pencil fell.

His wife was with him until the last minutes … For more than fifteen years - not a single reproach or complaint of fatigue, not a single complaint about an evil lot. The artist died on a warm May day from transient pneumonia.

And finally, fate seemed to laugh at the artist - ten days before his death, he received a notification that the Soviet government had allowed him to go abroad for treatment and allocated money for this trip. Evil irony, isn't it? … But that's not all.: Yulia Evstafievna died in 1942, in the harsh days of the siege of Leningrad from hunger … What can you say, fate harshly ordered the lives of two wonderful people.

Read also: What were the wives of great and famous Russian artists: Gallery of female portraits.