The belated love of the "knight of beauty" Vasily Polenov: Unknown pages of the personal life of the Russian genius

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

Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov was a completely unique person, having not only the talent of a brilliant landscape painter, but also the gift of an architect, a musician who composes music and plays keyboards, violin and accordion; artist and director of his own theater, a talented teacher. And in addition to all his talents, Vasily Dmitrievich was called "the knight of beauty". But why it so happened that he walked to his love half of his whole life, further in the review.

The famous landscape painter Vasily Polenov (1844-1927), who became an artist, was, as they say, "written in the family," was the maternal great-grandson of the architect Nikolai Lvov, the grandson of Vera Voeikova, who was a pupil of Gavrila Derzhavin, a wise and highly educated woman. Many of the artist's creations are influenced and inspired by the family stories that grandmother told her grandchildren.

Vasya's father, Dmitry Vasilyevich, served as a diplomat in Greece, and his mother Marya Alekseevna studied painting with Karl Bryullov himself and was a good portrait painter. Five children in the Polenov family from an early age were introduced to art: the atmosphere in the house was filled with creativity, and visits to art galleries were constant in their family. This became the determining factor for the future artist.

When Vasily grew up, his parents took him a student, Pavel Chistyakov, to teach their son painting. He immediately noticed the gift of young Vasya for an unusually harmonious combination of a colorful palette.

All Polenov's landscapes, with their calm and wide spread of space, an abundance of light and air, carry in themselves peace and delight, and the color of his paintings delights. In those years, buyers of paints in Moscow shops naively demanded from traders:

Marusya Obolenskaya - the artist's first love

The first serious love came to Polenov when he was already twenty-eight. This happened in Rome. In those years, Polenov, being a pensioner of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, traveled around Europe. Austria, Switzerland, Germany with their famous art galleries were left behind. Upon arrival in Rome, he was warmly received in the families of Adrian Prakhov and Savva Morozov.

There he met for the first time 18-year-old Marusya Obolenskaya, a Russian girl who had studied opera in Italy. During joint walks in the Roman Campania between 28-year-old Vasily and 18-year-old Marusya, tender affection and love arise, and soon Polenov's brightly flashed feelings were so strong that he lost sleep and peace. About four months his love suffering lasted, but he still did not have the heart to explain himself with Marusya.

And a little later, the irreparable happened, the girl contracted measles from the children of Savva Mamontov and died as a result of the doctors' oversight: the vaccination against smallpox turned out to be fatal. Heartbroken mother Marusya asks Polenov to paint a portrait of her daughter from memory. The artist fulfilled the request, and soon the portrait was sent to the Obolensky family. In a letter of thanks, the mother will write to Vasily Polenov:.

But unfortunately this creation of the master was lost, and his further fate is not known. Only the painting "Sick" has survived to our time, the first sketch of which the artist made at the head of the fading Marusya. And later, when sister Vera is on her deathbed, her brother will create this gloomy picture, where the features of both the artist's girlfriend and his beloved sister will be visible.

They buried Obolenskaya in the white dress of the bride. And Polenov, very hard going through the loss of his beloved and regretting that he did not have time to confess his feelings to her, kept walking and walking to the old cemetery along the dark cypress alleys to the monument, where his first love found his last refuge.

The gravestone at the Testaccio cemetery is the work of the sculptor Mark Antokolsky. He depicted the allegorical figure of a young Christian girl mournfully sitting at the entrance to the crypt …

Vasily Polenov's second love

Five years after the death of Obolenskaya, a second unexpected love overtook Polenov on the road, when a stranger entered his compartment. As it later turned out, to the surprise of the artist, her name was Maria - Maria Klimentova. And besides, she studied opera singing at the Moscow Conservatory, like his Marusya. Seeing the sign of fate in such an amazing coincidence, Vasily Dmitrievich immediately fell in love passionately and ardently.

The girl was twenty years old, and he was thirty-three … But this love was not destined to come true either. Klimentova, not responding with particular reciprocity, then brought the artist closer to herself, then pushed him away. And having already become an opera singer, she will start the same affair, based on empty female vanity, with the writer Anton Chekhov.

And once Polenov, returning from another trip abroad, learned with bitterness that Maria Klimentova had married a successful lawyer Muromtsev. Over time, the opera diva began to drink out of dissatisfaction, and joined the card game. From the 1920s she lived abroad in France. She died in Paris.

Love for the rest of your life

In addition to his unhappy love, Polenov's twin sister Vera, whom he loved very much, dies. Torment and suffering make the artist look for an outlet in the hospitable house of the Mamontovs in Abramtsevo, where he always found consolation, support and inspiration.

And Vasily Dmitrievich did not immediately understand, and then for a long time he could not believe that a relative of the Mamontovs, Natalya Yakunchikova, the daughter of a Moscow merchant and industrialist, was sighing for him. The quiet, modest girl was fourteen years younger than Polenov, and for several years she had loved him faithfully, silently and ardently.

In addition, Natalia also had a talent for painting: sometimes she painted landscapes. But her younger sister Maria Vasilievna, after the marriage of Yakunchikova-Weber, became a famous artist.

And then one day, while working together on sketches of embroidery for church banners, Polenov finally opened his eyes, and he guessed everything. The 40-year-old artist did not have that burning passion for this girl that he felt for Obolenskaya or Klementova, but with her he felt so warm, comfortable and good.

And when the construction of the temple, designed by Polenov and Viktor Vasnetsov, was completed in Abramtsevo, Natalia Yakunchikova and Vasily Polenov were the first to be married there.

Natalya Vasilievna will be one of the most devoted wives of Russian artists: he himself and his work will make up the whole meaning of her life.

And now, a few years later, the Polenov family will move to the Borok estate on the banks of the Oka. Their family will have six children - two sons and four daughters (the oldest son will die as a baby). There, at their own expense, they will build a church, schools, will personally pay for the work of teachers, create a folk theater, in which Natalya Vasilyevna Polenova will become the first director. And they will also found a "diorama" of the artist's canvases, which for the local peasantry will become like a "trip around the world" around the world.

And only for four years Natalya Vasilievna will outlive her husband, the brilliant landscape painter Vasily Polenov.

In addition to his sister Vera, with whom they were born on the same day, Polenov had two more sisters and a brother. The youngest "Lilya" (Elena Polenova) will follow in the footsteps of her famous brother and become the first professional woman artist in Russia. She <a href = "https://kulturologia.ru/blogs/220216/28545/"/> illustrated many Russian fairy tales, which she became famous for.