Unknown Ivan Shishkin: what personal dramas drove the artist to despair

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

119 years ago, on March 20 (according to the old style - March 8), 1898, the famous Russian passed away landscape painter Ivan Shishkin … He died at an easel, his death was sudden and came from a broken heart. The textbook image of Shishkin as a “poet of nature” and “singer of the Russian forest” does not give an idea of what passions were actually raging in the artist's soul. He had to endure so many personal tragedies that such an outcome was quite natural.

In the first half of his life, Ivan Shishkin's only passion was painting. He was born and raised in Elabuga, on the banks of the Kama, and the picturesque surroundings have inspired him since childhood. At the age of 20, he went to Moscow to enter the School of Painting and Sculpture. He took his studies very seriously: “An artist should be a supreme being, living in the ideal world of art and striving only for perfection. The qualities of an artist: sobriety, moderation in everything, love for art, modesty of character, conscientiousness and honesty … The landscape painter is a true artist, he feels deeper, cleaner."

In 1867, Shishkin began teaching the young artist Fyodor Vasiliev, and soon met his sister, Eugenia, who in 1868 became his wife. At that time, Shishkin was already 36 years old, and his chosen one was 21 years old. The artist's niece said: “He was terribly tired of wandering around the furnished rooms, and he devoted himself with all his heart to his family and his household. For his children, this was the most gentle, loving father, especially when the children were small. Evgenia Alexandrovna was a simple and good woman, and the years of her life with Ivan Ivanovich passed in quiet and peaceful work."

They lived together for only 6 years. In 1872, the artist began a black streak in his life: first his father died, then his little son Vladimir. His wife's brother Fyodor, with whom Shishkin was very friendly, died of consumption. And the next year, the disease took away his beloved wife, another year later, his son Konstantin died. The artist only has a daughter, Lydia. He recalled that period with horror: “The white light faded, everything, as in a black-and-white engraving, lost its color. Native Yelabuga brought back to life”.

For a while, he stopped writing and became addicted to alcohol. But painting saved him from despair. During this period, the artist creates paintings that would later be called his programmatic works, life-affirming and glorifying the beauty of Russian nature. However, in reality, these landscapes can hardly be called idyllic. In one of his most famous paintings - "Rye" - one detail makes some researchers assume that it was not painted from life, but added deliberately. The dead tree in the background looks like a dissonance against the background of this triumph and the power of life. Perhaps this is how the author designated a personal tragedy: after the loss of his father, wife and two children, he himself felt like a withered tree.

He was revived to life not only by his native Elabuga, but also by a new feeling that flared up towards the artist Olga Lagoda. She was one of the first 30 women to be admitted as a volunteer to the Academy of Arts. Olga became a student of Shishkin, and in 1880 - his second wife. The couple had a daughter, Ksenia, and a month and a half after her birth, Olga died of inflammation of the peritoneum. Her death was a terrible blow for the artist, in a letter to a friend he confessed: “What a loss I have suffered … What kind of person was this. A woman, wife, mother, at the same time a talented artist. My heart stops in pain."

Olga's sister Victoria replaced her newborn mother. She lived in the Shishkin family, taking care of her niece, and about his daughter from her first marriage, and about himself. His death came as a complete surprise to everyone. Shishkin was 66 years old, he did not complain of health and continued to write. That morning, as usual, he studied with the student and worked on a new painting "Forest Kingdom". Suddenly he shuddered, dropped his head on his chest, the student rushed to him, but it was too late - death came instantly. The arriving doctor ascertained heart rupture.

The most famous paintings of the great Russian landscape paintercreated after these tragedies, are filled with such harmony and peace that, looking at them, one cannot even suspect what the artist had to endure.