Twice widower, brilliant landscape painter, author of the most famous candy wrapper. Ivan Shishkin

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

Ivan Shishkin's work is compared to the music of Tchaikovsky. Clear and powerful pictures radiate positive energy. His canvases are flooded with serene light. The artist brings joy to the viewer. But few people know what trials fell to his lot. Shishkin painted the sun even in the darkest moments of his life.

Family matters

Ivan Shishkin was born in 1832 into a merchant family. Their dynasty owned the first industrial enterprise in the city of Elabuga. The plant was engaged in the casting of bells. His father Ivan Vasilievich traded in grain. Old-timers said that the elder Shishkin was an honest and incorruptible person. He was elected city headman several times. The merchant's family had six children, but only his son Vanya was artistically gifted. And this boy glorified the Shishkin family all over the world.

It was important for the father to give his children a good education. The youngest Ivan was sent to study at a gymnasium in Kazan. At the age of 16, the young man came to his father's house on vacation and said that he did not want to be a merchant. Ivan Shishkin dreamed of becoming an artist. The family was not pleased with this news, because no one took the child's hobby for drawing seriously. Dad allowed his son to continue painting, but also demanded participation in family affairs. His father gave him instructions, hoping that his son would change his mind. Shishkin Sr. sent Ivan to sell grain to neighboring cities. The novice artist and merchant reluctantly returned from his travels with many sketches. But financially, these trips were not successful. The young man came at a loss! Everywhere he was weighed and deceived, the young man did not have a commercial streak. The family reluctantly accepted this fact. When Ivan was 20 years old, his parents let him go to study.

Non-profit genre. Stubbornness

He became an artist in defiance of fate. Few people supported him. But the young man was obsessed with art. In 1856, having successfully graduated from the School of Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow, he entered the main forge of creators - the Imperial Academy of Arts. Ivan Shishkin loved to work with landscapes most of all. But this genre was considered unprofitable. Teachers invited him to try his hand at painting portraits or historical subjects. But Ivan Shishkin was stubborn. And again I did not think about the benefits.

He strove to depict nature in all its splendor, and he already had his own style and handwriting. But the main difference between Shishkin the landscape painter is in the nature he paints. Before him, artists willingly depicted the spectacular and whimsical nature of Italy, but it was Ivan Shishkin who decided to show the face of the Russian forest, the vastness of the plains and the expanse of the mighty rivers.

Student friends recalled that Ivan kept away from noisy companies, awkwardly, like a bear, treated the opposite sex. For weeks he ate bread and molasses and walked in his father's old boots. But in the open air during the day I worked out a lot of sketches. Others could not write that amount in a week. During his student days, he had many envious people. Upon graduation, Shishkin received a gold medal, and the family changed their minds about his passion for drawing.

Success

Shishkin's career developed rapidly: exhibitions of etchings in France, a personal exposition in Germany, the title of academician of arts, an order and universal recognition. At 34, Ivan Shishkin already had his first student - Fedor Vasiliev. Shishkin will teach the young painter everything he knows himself. And he will give him all the subtleties and findings.

Shishkin's painting ran counter to the officially accepted art. But the pictures of the Itinerants aroused great interest among the public. Fedor Tretyakov also became interested. The collector purchased the artist's work for his new gallery. Shishkin's every tree is unique. Of course, this was not hidden from Tretyakov's eyes.

Losses

Shishkin liked to go to sketches when the sun was at its zenith, and his friends called him “the artist of the afternoon” for this. He married the sister of his student, Evgenia Vasilyeva. Family happiness flooded his life like the sun in the painting “Noon. In the vicinity of Moscow . But in serene joy, Shishkin did not have to live long. In five and a half years, there will be a series of bitter losses. Fate will begin testing the great Russian artist for strength.

Ivan Shishkin will first lose his father, then the brilliant student Fedor Vasiliev and his beloved wife Eugene will die from tuberculosis, and after them two sons will leave. The head of the family will be left alone with his daughter Lida in her arms. He is only 40 years old. A second marriage with a student of the Academy of Arts Olga Lagoda will also turn into misfortune. She will give birth to his daughter Xenia, and in a year and a half she will die. The widower will immerse himself in work.

In this tragic time, he will continue to paint sunny landscapes, as if in defiance of fate. One of the works of this time is the famous "Rye". But the painting "Morning in a Pine Forest" brought him special fame. A friend Pyotr Savitsky suggested that Shishkin's bear family fit into the familiar forest landscape. It was replicated. Printed on the covers of magazines and calendars. Reproductions and copies adorned almost every home. During the artist's lifetime, the Moscow confectionery factory launched the sale of Mishka Kosolapy chocolate sweets.

Shishkin will work on landscapes until his last breath. On March 8 (20), 1898, he will die at his easel, immersed in the creation of a new painting.

Continuing the conversation about Shishkin, the story of how a picture of a Russian landscape painter turned into a candy wrapper.