"Hunters at Rest": Secrets of Perov's Most Famous Painting

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

Around this picture Vasily Perov From the moment of its appearance, serious passions were burning: V. Stasov compared the canvas with the best hunting stories of I. Turgenev, and M. Saltykov-Shchedrin accused the artist of excessive theatricalization and unnatural characters. Besides, in "Hunters at rest" everyone easily recognized the real prototypes - Perov's acquaintances. Despite the mixed reviews from critics, the picture became incredibly popular.

Vasily Perov himself was a passionate hunter, and the topic of hunting was well known to him. In the 1870s. he created the so-called "hunting series": paintings "Birds", "Fishermen", "Botanist", "Dovecote", "Fishing". For "Birdman" (1870), he received the title of professor, as well as a teaching position at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. But the most striking and recognizable in this cycle is undoubtedly the painting "Hunters at Rest".

The canvas was exhibited for the first time at the 1st Traveling Exhibition and immediately caused contradictory responses. The critic V. Stasov admired the work. M. Saltykov-Shchedrin criticized the picture for the lack of spontaneity and truth of life, for the pretense of emotions: “It’s as if when the picture is shown there is some actor who is instructed by the role to speak to the side: this is a liar, and this gullible, inviting the viewer not to believe the liar hunter and have fun with the gullibility of the novice hunter. Artistic truth should speak for itself, and not through interpretations. " But F. Dostoevsky did not agree with critical reviews: “What a beauty! Of course, to explain - so will the Germans understand, but after all, they will not understand, as we do, that this is a Russian liar and that he is lying in Russian. After all, we almost hear and know what he is talking about, we know the whole turn of his lies, his syllable, his feelings."

Real people, acquaintances of Vasily Perov, became the prototypes of the hunters. The role of the "liar", enthusiastically telling fables, was the doctor Dmitry Kuvshinnikov, a great lover of gun hunting - the same one who served as the prototype for Dr. Dymov in Chekhov's "Jumping". Kuvshinnikov's wife Sofya Petrovna was the owner of a literary and art salon, which was often visited by V. Perov, I. Levitan, I. Repin, A. Chekhov and other famous artists and writers.

In the image of an ironically grinning hunter, Perov portrayed the doctor and amateur artist Vasily Bessonov, and the 26-year-old Nikolai Nagornov, a future member of the Moscow City Council, served as the prototype for the young hunter, who naively listens to hunting tales. This is confirmed in her memoirs and A. Volodicheva - the daughter of Nagornov. In 1962 she wrote to art critic V. Mashtafarov: “Kuvshinnikov DP was one of my father's closest friends. They often went hunting for birds. My father had a dog, and therefore gathered with us: Dmitry Pavlovich, Nikolai Mikhailovich and Doctor VV Bessonov. They are depicted by Perov ("Hunters at a Halt"). Kuvshinnikov says, father and Bessonov are listening. Father - attentively, and Bessonov - with distrust … ".

Of great importance in this work are the gestures of the characters, with the help of which the artist creates psychological portraits of his heroes: the outstretched hands of the narrator illustrate his "terrible" story, the grinning commoner scratches his head in disbelief, the left hand of the young listener is tightly squeezed, the right hand with a cigarette froze, which gives enthusiasm and ingenuous horror,with which he listens to fables. The hunter's prey depicted in the lower left corner could well have become an independent still life with game, but the artist deliberately focused all his attention on the faces and hands of the characters, highlighting these accents with bright light.

Today, reproductions of this painting have become a traditional gift for avid hunters. The canvas, written by V. Perov, in 1871, is now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and a copy, created in 1877, is in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

And with the wife of D. Kuvshinnikov, who served as a prototype for one of the hunters, an equally interesting story is connected: because of what Levitan was going to challenge Chekhov to a duel