At the mercy of demons: the famous paintings by Mikhail Vrubel, created one step away from madness

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

Paintings Mikhail Vrubel, the first Russian symbolist artist of the late 19th century, is hard not to recognize: his creative manner is so original that it is impossible to confuse his works with others. The central image, to which he turned throughout almost his entire life, is the image of Lermontov Demon … Even during his lifetime, there were many rumors about the artist - for example, that he sold his soul to the devil, and he revealed his true face to him. What he saw led to blindness and insanity, and the artist spent the last years of his life in a clinic for the mentally ill. What is true and what is fiction?

The image of the Demon really did not give the artist peace of mind. He first turned to this topic in 1890, when he happened to work on illustrations for the anniversary edition of M. Lermontov's works. Some of the drawings never made it into the book - contemporaries could not appreciate the artist's talent. He was accused of illiteracy and inability to draw, of misunderstanding Lermontov, and his creative manner was contemptuously called “genius”. Only decades after Vrubel's death did art critics agree that these are the best illustrations for Lermontov's poem, subtly conveying the very essence of the character.

Vrubel dedicated several paintings to the Demon, and all of the characters have huge eyes filled with longing. Seeing them, it is impossible to introduce Lermontov's Demon to others. Vrubel wrote: "The demon is not so much an evil spirit as a suffering and sorrowful spirit, but for all that, imperious and dignified." This is how we see him in the painting "Demon (seated)". There is as much hidden strength and power in him as sorrow and doom.

In Vrubel's understanding, the Demon is not a devil and not a devil, since "devil" in Greek simply means "horned", "devil" - "slanderer", and "demon" means "soul". This makes him very similar to Lermontov's interpretation: "It looked like a clear evening: neither day, nor night - neither darkness, nor light!".

The Demon (Seated) is Vrubel's most famous work. However, besides her, there are several other paintings on the same topic. And they were written at a time when the artist began to be overcome by the disease. The first signs of mental disorder appeared at the time when Vrubel was working on Demon Defeated, in 1902. And in 1903 a tragedy struck - his son died, which finally undermined the artist's mental health.

From then until his death in 1910, Vrubel lived in clinics, and in brief moments of enlightenment creates outstanding works that breathe something otherworldly. Perhaps this gave rise to contemporaries to assert that the artist sold his soul to the devil and paid for it with his own health.

No one knows what visions Vrubel attended at the end of his life, and whether it was actually a mystical revelation of otherworldly forces - but it really drove him crazy. And in the eyes of the demons, more is written in his paintings than can be explained in words.

Genius on the verge of insanity - so they said about Vincent Van Gogh, who also spent many years in a clinic for the mentally ill. The attack provoked the incident with Paul Gauguin: a friendship that ended with a severed ear