Video: The mysterious artist Arseny Meshchersky, who studied painting from the age of 3 and became one of the best landscape painters of the 19th century
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
There are many artists in the history of art, whose life has been studied by historians up and down, documented and witnessed by eyewitnesses. But there are others like Arseny Ivanovich Meshchersky - a mysterious person, part of whose biography is covered with secrets and riddles. And what is interesting at all - Arseny Ivanovich always considered himself a "draftsman" of nature, and not a painter, as is customary.
The birth and origin of Meshchersky is still hotly debated in the circles of art critics. According to the main assumption, Arseny Ivanovich was born in the Tver province and his origin came from the noble princely family of the Meshchersky, which to this day is an unconfirmed fact. It is only known for certain that as a twenty-year-old youth, Arseny entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he learned the basics of painting for three years. His teachers were F. A. Bruni, S. M. Vorobiev, T. A. Neff.
While studying at the Academy, several times he received silver medals for competitive works. But this was not enough for an ambitious young artist, and he left his studies in St. Petersburg and went to Switzerland at his own expense as an apprentice to the artist A. Kalam - a famous Swiss landscape painter at that time.
And very soon he will send from abroad to the Academy the canvas "The Swiss View", for which he will receive a large gold medal, the title of a first-class artist and the right to full board abroad at the expense of an educational institution for four years.
A little time will pass and Arseny Meshchersky will have wide recognition both in Russia and in Europe, and will also become an academician and professor of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
Throughout his subsequent life he lived in St. Petersburg, teaching at the Academy and working on landscapes in various techniques: from watercolor and sepia to oil painting. And the landscape theme itself, Meshchersky had a wide range. The usual views of Russian nature at any time of the year, the sea and mountains, depicted by the master - all this was subordinated to one thing - the magnificent drawing technique, the amazing compositional structure and the extraordinary transmission of lighting effects.
All the landscapes of the master are amazing, unusually realistic, bright, canvases breathing life. Something in the manner of the painter is taken from the talented teacher Kalam. However, delving deeper, we see clearly visible artist's own style, which was and remains his "trademark".
The perfect drawing technique can be clearly traced in all of Meshchersky's works, therefore he called himself a "draftsman", rightly believing that drawing is the cornerstone of pictorial writing. His canvases can be viewed for a long time, looking from one detail, written with scrupulous care to another.
And having looked around the entire canvas, as if completely immersed in the wonderful world of that corner of nature that the artist wanted to show us. Russian winter and summer forest thickets were favorite motifs in the artist's work, and the landscapes of Switzerland and the Crimea enjoyed unprecedented success at academic exhibitions.
During his life, the landscape painter traveled a lot across Russia and Europe, repeatedly visited the Crimea and the Caucasus - hence the magnificent mountain and sea landscapes. And in 1867, Arseny Meshchersky was lucky enough to accompany the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich on a trip around the world. From there, the artist brought a large number of paintings, sketches, and sketches.
At the age of 45, the artist was seriously ill with pneumonia, which affected his general health. No one hoped that he would survive, but Arseny Ivanovich "got out of the clutches of death." However, constant suffocation and coughing from now on will haunt Meshchersky until the end of his days. And he will die at the age of 68 in St. Petersburg
In mid-November 1902, an obituary appeared in the Novoye Vremya newspaper. He reported that
Arseny Ivanovich Meshchersky is rightfully considered one of the greatest masters of landscape painting in Russia in the last third of the 19th century, an excellent colorist and draftsman.
His work is presented in the largest museum collections in the world, in particular, in the State Tretyakov Gallery. A Pavel Tretyakov knew a lot about true painting, he sensed it with his heart.
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