How not to get confused in the artistic heritage of the Makovsky dynasty, even for an amateur

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

One surname, but different artists - this is about the works written by the Makovsky. They have a lot in common, each of the members of this amazing family created joyful, festive works that evil tongues called overly idealized. But such were the Makovskys - they admired the world around them and transferred their attitude towards it to canvases.

Artist and father of artists, Yegor Makovsky

The story about the Makovsky artists should begin with Yegor Ivanovich. He was born and raised in Zvenigorod, in a family of Russified Poles. In 1818, at the age of sixteen, Yegor Makovsky ended up in Moscow, where he lived until his death at a very respectable age. The young man found one position of assistant accountant, and there a place in the Expedition of the Kremlin structure, headed by Prince Yusupov. In this department, Makovsky served until old age.

But he was famous first of all for his special love for art, active, unfeigned love. Yegor Ivanovich collected a collection of engravings, played music, painted pictures, copied museum originals and, in particular, small Dutchmen. From the office he got an apartment near the Kremlin walls, where he lived with his beautiful wife Lyubov Kornilovna, nee Mollengauer, known throughout Moscow for her wonderful soprano.

Children who were born in the Makovsky family were immersed in the world of music, painting, theater from infancy. The Makovsky House became famous as a kind of cultural center, there were not only ministers of muses, but also representatives of the Moscow aristocracy. In 1833, it was with the active participation of Yegor Ivanovich Makovsky that the Moscow art class arose, which later turned into the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, which exists to this day.

Children Makovsky Sr. not only taught, but also inspired, infected with love for art. "Admire and remember" - he instructed everyone, equipping them for a walk with pocket albums and a pencil for sketches. A crow, the faces of passers-by, a street scene - all these sons and daughters of Makovsky are accustomed to leaving on the sheets of their notebooks, exactly as their father taught - admiring. Five children survived to adulthood at the Makovsky, daughter Maria became an actress, and another daughter, Alexandra, and three sons became artists.

Alexandra Makovskaya, Konstantin Makovsky

Alexandra Yegorovna was born in 1837. She did not receive a special education as a painter - for a woman in that era it was rather difficult. But her father's school, and even communication with family friends, among whom were Karl Bryullov and Vasily Tropinin, allowed her to master the profession of an artist without any educational institutions. Makovskaya painted landscapes - in the second half of the 19th century, this genre of painting was gaining popularity, becoming an independent direction in the visual arts.

The works of Alexandra Yegorovna resembled the work of the Impressionists, and the level of her skill was confirmed by the fact that they often turned out to be bought out in the collection of Bakhrushin and Tretyakov. Alexandra did not marry, she lived for a long time with her mother, who left her father "after long strife."

And, perhaps, the most famous of the Makovsky was Konstantin - the eldest of the sons of Yegor Ivanovich. He was born in 1839. From the age of four, he painted, and painted a lot. At the age of sixteen he entered the school of painting and sculpting, the same school that his father was engaged in. Seven years later, having shown himself to be a brilliant student and having received all possible awards, Konstantin Makovsky went to the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.

Makovsky was among the very fourteen students who in 1863 refused to participate in the competition for the Great Gold Medal, protesting against the theme for work imposed by the Academy. He joined an independent artel of artists led by Ivan Kramskoy. Since 1870, Konstantin Makovsky took part in the work of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. Having left the Academy and having lost the chance to receive a diploma, Makovsky, nevertheless, did not remain without customers: even then his portraits were successful; the artist equipped a workshop in the center of St. Petersburg and confidently moved towards the title of the most fashionable portrait painter of the capital. For his work, he took a lot, a lot, and yet orders were not transferred.

The Wanderers reproached Konstantin Makovsky for deviating from the principles of the Partnership: his "pictures of everyday life" turned out to be too idealized, and so it was: I wanted to admire the scenes depicted in these works, so fascinating was the simple and natural beauty of the moment "caught" by the artist.

For the painting "Folk festivities during Maslenitsa on the Admiralty Square in St. Petersburg" Makovsky received the title of professor of the Academy of Arts. And in the mid-1870s, in the company of his brother Nikolai, he traveled to Egypt, then fashionable, and then finally switched his attention from social problems to the problems of combining colors and shades in paintings., Russian collectors could not afford them. Pavel Tretyakov rarely bought the artist's paintings, considering their prices exorbitantly high. But the buyers were there - the style of Makovsky was very much to the taste - a blurred background, unworked details, which made the face and eyes in the portrait become the compositional center.

Konstantin Makovsky was married three times; with his second wife, who often posed for him, the artist divorced after he met a new love in 1889 at the World Fair in Paris - she later became a wife, and then a widow. After the death of Konstantin Makovsky, his huge collection, including paintings by Dutch, English and French masters, jewelry, antique tableware and even carriages, was sold at auction.

Nikolay Makovsky, Vladimir Makovsky

Nikolai Makovsky, middle brother, graduated from the Moscow Palace of Architecture School, then studied at the St. Petersburg Academy in the department of architecture. For the project of the village church, he received a Small Silver Medal. But Nikolai Yegorovich made painting his main occupation. He was among the founders of the Association of Itinerants, for not participating in exhibitions he was expelled two years later. Nikolai Makovsky's works are urban landscape and genre painting; he created, among others, the Ukrainian series and paintings with views of the historical part of Moscow.

The youngest of the brothers-artists, Vladimir Makovsky, was born in 1846. He, like the others, studied under Tropinin, adopting his pictorial manner; that is why the works of Constantine and Vladimir resemble those of Tropininsky. Like his older brother, the younger Makovsky valued his work highly, decorated the paintings in expensive gilded frames and sold them for very substantial sums. True, Vladimir made high demands on himself, he was distinguished by extreme organization and strict discipline, Every hour was set aside for his own work., every day was orderly.

This allowed the artist to combine work in the workshop with teaching and managing educational institutions - first at the Moscow School, then at the Moscow Academy of Arts. He became the first rector of this institution, remaining in office until his death at the age of seventy-four.

Vladimir Makovsky left behind several hundred paintings, mainly genre painting. With the appearance of his family, images of children began to appear more and more on the artist's canvases. And again they, like other characters, I want to admire, so fascinating is the moment of life caught in the picture, real and beautiful - for the Makovsky family these concepts were very close, almost equivalent.

About the forgotten Russian landscape painter: Nikolay Dubovskoy.