How the real fate of the bride developed from the painting "Unequal Marriage" by artist Pukirev

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

In September 1863, at the next Academic Exhibition in St. Petersburg, a real sensation broke out. Thanks to his first large canvas, Vasily Pukirev, yesterday's graduate of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, immediately earned the title of professor at the Academy of Arts. Moscow and St. Petersburg were full of rumors that the picture was painted in memory of the story of unhappy love. But whose? There are still several versions on this score.

The plot of the picture is extremely clear and does not cause any ambiguous interpretations. Of course, the viewer's sympathy can only be on the side of the unfortunate girl - almost a child, her white dress seems to shine in the twilight of the church. It seems that there are no secrets and mysteries in the canvas. However, her background remains unsolved until the end. The artist depicted several real people in the picture, saying either too much or too little. For example, Pukirev's friend, the artist Pyotr Mikhailovich Shmelkov, stands behind the bride's back and looks directly at the viewer; you can also find there the head of the Grebensky frame-worker, who promised to make the artist a frame for the painting "which has never been before." But the best man (the extreme figure on the right), with all his pose expressing clear dissatisfaction with what is happening, undoubtedly has a portrait resemblance to Vasily Pukirev himself. From the first days of the exhibition, rumors that this painting actually tells about the personal tragedy of the artist himself did not subside.

However, according to one of the versions, Vasily Pukirev portrayed his friend's love drama in the picture. The young merchant Sergei Varentsov was in love with a girl, but his parents preferred to marry the beauty off to a man 13 years older than her. Moreover, the unfortunate lover himself was forced to play the role of best man at this wedding, since he was related to the groom's family. True, as a real creator, Vasily Pukirev, of course, gave drama to his work. The groom here is at least thirty or forty years older than the young bride. But that's what art is for, to reveal the vices of human society. In fact, the picture "shot" precisely because the phenomenon of unequal marriages at that time was indeed a sore common practice. This has already begun to be discussed in society, since, according to statistics, most of the alliances entered into were already such. In February 1861, a decree of the Holy Synod was even issued condemning marriages with a large age difference, but, of course, he did not change the situation.

Several facts indicate that the version of Sergei Vorontsov has a right to exist: Firstly, his relative Nikolai Varentsov told about it in his memoirs. Secondly, in the surviving sketch of the painting, behind the bride's back there is also the best man with his arms crossed on his chest, who bores the groom with a Byronic gaze, but here is clearly depicted a different person, indeed very similar to Sergei Varentsov!

This "replacement of characters" is explained by the fact that by the time the painting was painted, the situation with the artist's friend had already changed. It was this life incident that did not become indicative and tragic. The prototype of the tear-stained bride was very happy in his unequal marriage, and the young man literally a year later was going to propose to another worthy woman, and considered his "participation" in the picture as an unhappy lover inappropriate. On this occasion, he even quarreled with Pukirev, and he, in his hearts, drew a beard for the best man … At this point, the memoirist explains the resulting similarity with the artist himself by chance, and here we come to the second version of the history of this picture.

It is known that the model with which Pukirev drew the bride was Praskovya Matveeva Varentsova (here the coincidence of surnames with the hero of the previous version is really accidental). The girl was the illegitimate offspring of a very noble princely family, which took part in her fate. The fact that the artist was in love with her and made her an offer, writes the famous descriptor of Moscow life Gilyarovsky:

- V. A. Gilyarovsky. "Moscow and Muscovites"

N. A. Mudrogel, the oldest employee of the Tretyakov Gallery, recruited by Tretyakov himself, also recalled:

It is possible that, having fallen in love with his model, the artist really proposed to her and was rejected by a noble family, who preferred to choose a more worthy option for the girl. After that, the canvas actually became autobiographical, and the young painter, with his work, seems to have managed to predict the unhappy fate of his beloved. This version received unexpected confirmation in 2002, when a 1907 drawing by the famous Moscow artist and teacher Vladimir Dmitrievich Sukhov got into the Tretyakov Gallery. A pencil portrait of an elderly woman was signed by the author himself:

It turns out that even if the girl was married to a rich old man, this did not bring her happiness and wealth. Vasily Pukirev himself later painted several more interesting paintings, but they did not repeat the success of his first canvas. The artist's life also ended joylessly. Lonely old age and poverty became his lot. However, Pukirev's painting seems to have succeeded in doing what was beyond the power of the Decree of the Holy Synod. Public opinion has indeed condemned the "sale" of brides to wealthy old men. So, Ilya Efimovich Repin wrote that Pukirev, and the historian N. I. Kostomarov, confessed to friends that, having seen the picture, he abandoned the intention to marry a young girl. Although the problem of unequal marriages of convenience, probably belongs to the category of eternal ones.

And in continuation of the theme, the story of what secrets are hidden by the paintings of Kramskoy and Vrubel