Kuindzhi biography and creativity short description. Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi - biography and paintings. Childhood and youth

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (1840 (1842?) -1910) was born in the Azov city of Mariupol. Kuindzhi's father was a shoemaker. In 1845, his father died, and then his mother, and was left an orphan at an early age. The boy failed to get an education. Apparently, until the age of ten, he attended an elementary Greek school. And a year later he entered the contractor for the construction of the church, then served as a rich grain merchant. It was at this age that he developed a passion for drawing. However, soon a turn is planned in the fate of Kuindzhi - the Feodosia grain merchant Durante advises him to go to study with a man whom everyone considered an unsurpassed master of the brush - I.K. Aivazovsky. Kuindzhi decides to become artist and goes to Feodosia on foot. Kuindzhi stayed with the famous marine painter for 2-3 summer months; most likely, he received his first painting lessons not from Aivazovsky, but from his relative Adolf Fessler. Returning to Mariupol, Kuindzhi became a retoucher for a local photographer, and then went to Odessa, which at that time was a major cultural center with a vibrant artistic life.

In 1860-1861. Kuindzhi is already in St. Petersburg. Not being a student of the Academy, he shows at the exhibition in 1868 the painting "Tatar village by moonlight on the southern coast of Crimea", for which he receives the title of a free artist. The lack of education was often blamed on the painter, he was reproached for the weakness of the drawing, for the naivete of the composition, for the variegation of color. But, perhaps, just this circumstance allowed Kuindzhi to preserve originality and originality, the immediacy of a sense of the beauty of nature until the end of his days.

For the next exhibition in 1869, Kuindzhi presented three landscapes: "A Fishing Hut on the Shore of the Sea of Azov", "Storm on the Black Sea", "View of St. Isaac's Cathedral in Moonlight". They clearly felt the young artist's passion for the style and pictorial manner of I.K. Aivazovsky and his desire to master the basics of the academic school. Kuindzhi meets V.D. Polenov, V.M. Vasnetsov, M.M. Antokolsky, I.E. Repin and understands that the classical landscape was already yesterday for students of the Academy of Arts in the late 1860s.

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View of St. Isaac's Cathedral by moonlight

The life of Arkhip Ivanovich in St. Petersburg was at first extremely difficult, he had almost no means of subsistence. Trying to earn the minimum amount of money that makes it possible to improve in painting and drawing, the young man remembered his former profession as a retoucher. The work occupied all the days, only the evening hours remained for classes and meetings with like-minded friends. Even then, Kuindzhi attracted the attention of his comrades with his eccentricity of thinking and the depth of his statements about art, about social problems, but he did not manage to avoid the influence of ideas that were relevant among his artist friends. This is confirmed by the creation in 1870 of the landscape "Autumn Thaw". This work, which seems to be sustained in the laws of the landscape genre, tells about the dull life of the Russian village, is filled with the same pain that pervades the best works Wanderers dedicated to the peasant theme. A cart slowly moves along the road, muddy in the rain, and along the path leading to the miserable huts visible in the distance, a woman with a child trudges with difficulty - these are almost all the details of the gloomy landscape. The picture is filled with deep compassion and sadness.

autumn thaw

Kuindzhi begins to feel the harmony of the soft colors of the northern landscape and, for a while, completely surrenders to new impressions. The source of inspiration for the painter is the island of Valaam, located on Lake Ladoga. There he found subjects for his future landscapes. Huge, like the sea, a lake with clear water, granite boulders polished by rain and wind, dark mighty firs and pines, thin luminous trunks of birches, a sky overcast with clouds through which the pale northern sun sometimes peeps. Kuindzhi spends the summer of 1870 on Valaam, working a lot and enthusiastically from nature, creating dozens of sketches and drawings. Returning to St. Petersburg, Kuindzhi wrote two landscapes in 1873: Lake Ladoga and On the Island of Valaam. It is from these works that interest in Kuindzhi's work arises not only among artists, but also among the public.

"Lake Ladoga" with a relatively small size looks like a monumental epic canvas. The canvas is divided into two unequal parts, contrastingly opposed to each other. The sunlit, stone-strewn coast, the transparent expanse of water and the high light sky with swirling clouds coexist in the landscape in an unstable balance. A lightly written piece of blue sky, a warm ocher tone of the coast relieve tension. Harmony and peace reign in the northern nature. With enthusiasm, the artist draws every pebble on the shore of the lake, achieving the illusion of the bottom translucent through the water column. He considered this effect his discovery and was proud of it.

Ladoga lake

On the island of Valaam

In the landscape "On the Island of Valaam", the dramatic interpretation of nature, only outlined in "Lake Ladoga", is intensified. The emotional impact of the image on the viewer also increases. The spiritualized image of the harsh northern landscape, embodied by the artist in the picture, as it were, combines the features of the ideal and nature. A heavy stormy sky hung over the deserted northern island. Two thin trees with broken branches - a pine and a birch - illuminated by a harsh light, seem especially lonely and fragile against the background of a dark solid spot of the forest. The slow rhythm of the image, the careful attention to detail, the accuracy of all elements of the composition contribute to the creation of an ideal image of the nature of the Russian North, harsh and majestic, dramatic and spiritual. “On the Island of Valaam” is the first work by Kuindzhi bought by P.M. Tretyakov for his Gallery. Kuindzhi occupies a prominent place among the leading artists of his time.

In 1873, after the great success of the Valaam landscapes, Kuindzhi went on his first trip abroad. His path lay through Germany, in Munich and Berlin he was expected to meet with excellent collections of old masters. Then the artist stopped in Paris, visited London, Basel, Vienna. Kuindzhi believed that Russian painting was worth much more than the famous, but meaningless examples of the Paris Salon.

Returning from a foreign trip in 1874, Kuindzhi began work on a new landscape, The Forgotten Village, which was a natural consequence of Kuindzhi's close contact with the Wanderers. The artist exhibited it at the third exhibition of the Association. The picture seems to be deliberately devoid of eye-pleasing details. Everything in it is dull, bleak, dull. Gray, without a single gap, boring sky, flat brown earth, silhouettes of miserable village huts, barely visible against the sky, merge with the earth. The village seems to have died out, only the smoke curling from the chimney indicates that it is inhabited. "The Forgotten Village" is a painting folk life given indirectly, through the perception of nature. Hence the rejection of the landscape by some artists.

forgotten village

For the fourth traveling exhibition in 1875, Kuindzhi prepared three works: “Chumatsky tract in Mariupol”, “Steppe” and “Steppe in spring”. The artist turns to the southern landscape, but the "Chumatsky tract in Mariupol" continues the line of the "Forgotten Village". Working on the landscape, the painter, first of all, sought to express his civil position. Acute social problems, as it were, forced Kuindzhi to abandon the poeticization of reality. Again, the artist turns to the horizontally elongated format of the canvas, which creates a sense of extension. The autumn steppe, flat and even to the lowest horizon, is filled with carts of Chumaks. Fine sowing rain blurs the outlines of objects, and the carts in the background merge into a single stream. People sit dejectedly on wagons or wander, drowning in mud, with difficulty pulling ox carts, a dog howls. In the audience, this picture evoked a feeling of hopeless longing. It can be seen how the painting skill of Kuindzhi has increased. The color solution loses its monotony and is built on the subtlest relationships of cold lilac, grayish shades of clouds, thickening to purple spots of wagons, and warm yellowish-pinkish tones, in which the sky near the horizon is written. The picture already has a characteristic technique for Kuindzhi - a certain generalization of form, a transition from sculptural light and shade modeling of volume to a spot. Some artists were perplexed by these new qualities and were the reason for the accusation of the painter that he did not complete his canvases.

Chumatsky tract in Mariupol

After the "Chumatsky tract in Mariupol", the artist seemed to start a new page in his creative life: from now on he paints landscapes in which he creates ideal images, full of harmony and beauty. The appearance at the traveling exhibition of the paintings "Steppe" and "Steppe in Spring", completely devoid of pessimistic overtones, full of light and air, was enthusiastically received by the audience. With "Steppe in Spring", the brilliant path of the true Kuindzhi poet, in love with the beauty of the world, begins.

Steppe.Niva

1875 was full of important events for Kuindzhi. He becomes a famous landscape painter, recognized by both criticism and the public, joins the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, marries a Russified Greek Vera Ketcherji, whom he met in Mariupol back in youth. Kuindzhi again goes abroad, to Paris. The Impressionists did not attract Kuindzhi's attention. He studied the paintings of the painters of the Barbizon school. Kuindzhi's judgments about French painting were rather harsh.

In 1876, at the fifth traveling exhibition, Kuindzhi showed a picture that literally stunned everyone - this is “Ukrainian Night”. Against the backdrop of night silence, white Ukrainian huts, two pyramidal poplars, a quiet, slow river doze, illuminated by moonlight. A world full of bliss, beauty and peace. "Ukrainian Night" is the beginning of the master's maturity. The creative method of the artist is also determined. He refuses to write out, detail, generalizes the subject, making the main color spot in the composition. The construction of the picture is sustained in a leisurely, smooth rhythm of coloristic planes passing into each other. The foreground is painted almost sketchily, with broad strokes of deep blue. With a muted tone of blue and brownish shades, the emerald path shining under the light of the moon and the chilly yellowness of the walls of the huts effectively contrast.

Ukrainian night

A surprisingly original artist appeared in Russian art. "Ukrainian Night" was demonstrated at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878. Along with it, "Steppe", "Forgotten Village", "On the Island of Valaam" were shown, but critics noticed only "Ukrainian Night". Unfortunately, after a short time the colors of the "Ukrainian Night" began to darken disastrously, the canvas to wither. In "Ukrainian Night" the main elements of Kuindzhi's style were revealed: the desire for decorativeness of color, the construction of a composition through the rhythmic alternation of generalized spots, the flattening of the volume of objects, the combination of a romantic interpretation of the image of nature with convincing life details. The artist is attracted by the light of the full moon, purple sunsets blazing with fire.

In 1878, at the sixth traveling exhibition, Kuindzhi presented two landscapes: “Sunset in the Forest” (“Twilight in the Forest”) and “Evening”. "Sunset in the Forest" (or "Gap", as the critics called the picture) again caused a storm of responses. The landscape could not be called luck. Kuindzhi closely fills the space with tree trunks stretched upwards with cut tops. The trunks are illuminated by the pink light of the setting sun, which bursts into the landscape through the gap between the trees. There is something salon-beautiful, theatrical in this landscape. Was not accepted by the artists and "Evening". For The Evening, Kuindzhi again resorts to the national Ukrainian motif: a white hut with a thatched roof, immersed in the lush, curly greenery of trees. The walls of the hut are flooded with sunlight, which paints them in a bright pink-crimson color. Kuindzhi deliberately forces the color scheme, making it almost fantastic. For him, natural observations are only the starting point for creating an ideal image. Contemporaries could not yet fully realize the significance of his innovations.

Sunset in the forest

Whatever the attitude of artists towards Kuindzhi, his fame grows from exhibition to exhibition, becoming truly popular. People crowd in front of the master’s paintings, they are waiting for his works, hoping to see something new and unusual in them every time. At the seventh traveling exhibition in 1879, the artist had to present three paintings, and the exhibition was not opened, since Kuindzhi did not have time to meet the deadline. The artists were nervous, but magical effect named Kuindzhi on the audience was so great that the opening took place a week later than scheduled. Finally, the artist presented three large canvases to the audience: "North", "After the Rain" and "Birch Grove".

In the "North" Kuindzhi again refers to the northern Russian nature. The picture is painted almost sketchily, with broad strokes freely lying on the surface of the canvas. In the vertical composition of the canvas, the image of a high light sky, painted with dynamic thick strokes, occupies most of the image. The foreground of the picture - a rocky mountain on which a lone pine tree grows - was painted by the artist in the same sketchy and wide way. On the contrary, the plain opening as if from above with a winding ribbon of the river is immersed in shadow and worked out more carefully and generally. "North" logically completes the trilogy begun by the artist back in 1870. The harsh northern nature no longer inspires Kuindzhi. Now he is looking for bright colors in nature, intense contrasts of light and shadow, unusual lighting effects.

After the rain

The second landscape "After the Rain" can be called one of the artist's successes. In fact, there are only two large color masses in the landscape - a stormy sky painted in the most complex combinations of brown, blue, greenish hues and a meadow shimmering with bright greenery. Several small details - houses, a grazing cow, trees - are concentrated in the center of the canvas and serve only as staffing to enliven the composition. In the construction of space, light plays an important role: the dark meadow in the foreground gradually brightens and, as if on the highest note, collides on the horizon with a dark sky, which, on the contrary, brightens towards the foreground.

Birch Grove

The Birch Grove enjoyed the greatest success at the exhibition. Next to her, all the other paintings seemed dull and dark, so bright and saturated was the sunlight. The newspapers were filled with laudatory articles. A cartoon appeared in one of the magazines, in which Kuindzhi was depicted at the time of work on Birch Grove: he has brushes in one hand, and an electric light bulb instead of a palette in the other, the sun rubs the paints, and the moon squeezes them out of the tubes.

"Birch Grove" - the ideal of nature. There are no distracting details in the landscape, the meadow looks like a flat green spot, birch trunks with cut crowns look like conditional scenery, the sky and dense crowns of trees in the background look like a smoothly colored theatrical background. The sun becomes the main thing in the picture actor. It paints details in pure, sonorous tones, flattens volumes, emphasizes the radiant clarity and purity of the world. The picture fully reveals the capabilities of Kuindzhi as a colorist. The limited palette of "Birch Grove" is filled with the finest shades of green, red, yellow, which sound differently in the light and in the shade. The artist had an unusually acute susceptibility to color harmony. In general, Kuindzhi strives for a decorative sound of color in the landscape.

This quality, still unusual for Russian painting, was immediately noted by critics, who at first perceived it as a creative flaw. Focusing on the problems of color, Kuindzhi sacrifices the illusion of the volume of objects. For his contemporaries, such an interpretation of the natural motive seemed unacceptable, some accuse Kuindzhi of ignorance and professional failure. The first among the critics was the landscape painter Mikhail Konstantinovich Klodt. It was because of him that Kuindzhi's quarrel with the Partnership took place, which ended with the artist's exit from the association of the Wanderers. In addition, Kuindzhi noticeably lost interest in the ideas of the Wanderers. In an effort to create an ideal image of nature, the artist turns to new plastic means of expression: he is occupied with the problem of form.

In the summer and autumn of 1880, Kuindzhi worked on a new painting. Petersburg, rumors spread about the enchanting beauty of Moonlight Night on the Dnieper, a painting that became Kuindzhi's most famous work and, perhaps, the loudest phenomenon in Russian artistic life at the end of the 19th century. From early morning until late evening, endless crowds of people stretched from Nevsky Prospekt to the building of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. A new miracle picture of Kuindzhi was shown there. " Moonlight night on the Dnieper" hung on the wall alone. Kuindzhi ordered to drape the windows in the hall and illuminate the picture with a beam of electric light focused on it. Visitors entered the semi-dark hall and, spellbound, stopped in front of the cold glow of moonlight, which was so strong that some viewers tried to look behind the picture in search of a light bulb.

Moonlit night on the Dnieper

The sparkling silver-greenish disk of the moon solemnly shines, flooding the earth immersed in night sleep with a mysterious phosphorescent light. A smooth mirror reflects the light of the waters of the Dnieper, the walls of Ukrainian huts are snatched out of the velvety blue of the night, clouds are drawn in the bottomless depths of the sky with a whimsical exquisite ornament. This majestic, solemn spectacle plunges one into thinking about eternity and the enduring beauty of the world. Achieving the desired effect, Kuindzhi applied a complex pictorial technique. To deepen the space, the artist contrasts the warm reddish tone of the earth with cold silvery-green hues. Small dark strokes in illuminated areas create a feeling of vibration of light. The foreground is written in sketches, while the sky is worked out with numerous glazes and becomes the compositional center of the picture. The painting "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" was bought by Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich and, going to trip around the world wished to take her to the ship with him. Humid, salt-soaked sea air, of course, had a negative effect on the condition of the paints. The landscape began to darken irreversibly.

In 1881, Kuindzhi exhibited in the same room and under the same lighting a new version of the Birch Grove, written for the Ural miner P.P. Demidov. The deal was upset, and the picture was bought for a fabulous sum by the millionaire F.A. Tereshchenko. The landscape was sold for seven thousand rubles. This is ten times more than the amounts that were paid for portraits to Kramskoy, for landscapes to Shishkin. Birch Grove enjoyed no less success with the public than Moonlit Night on the Dnieper. The space of the new version of "Birch Grove" is densely filled with vertically elongated tree trunks, which part in the center, forming a triangle that leads the eye into the depths. In comparison with the first version of the picture, here all the details are written out more carefully. Kuindzhi, referring to his favorite motive, tries, experiments, thinks about different ways expressions.

Dnieper in the morning

The landscape "Dnepr in the morning" is written in a different pictorial manner. There is no bright light source here. Kuindzhi paints the majestic river in calm gray-bluish tones. Colored with shades of blue and purple, the air blurs the clear outlines of the coast and the steppe.

In 1882, Kuindzhi performed several versions of "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper", wrote the Moonlight Night on the Don close to it, created the landscape "Rainbow", reminiscent of the painting "After the Rain". None of these works enjoyed such popularity as the famous landscapes of 1881. The artist, faced with the difficult problem of continuing countless repetitions of an already found scheme or looking for new ways, chose to close the doors of the studio for almost thirteen years. But the artist did not spend a day without taking up a pencil or brush, he worked hard, but he did not let anyone into the studio and did not show his sketches to anyone. The audience could see them only after the death of the artist, about five hundred sketches remained. The painter often rewrote his works, returning to them over a decade. Along with constant creative pursuits, Kuindzhi also shows his practical abilities. He becomes the owner of several tenement houses in St. Petersburg, buys a plot of land in the Crimea. Kuindzhi, having become a millionaire, continued to live extremely modestly, but spent large sums to encourage poor young painters, he did not refuse anyone to help.

Beginning in 1888, Kuindzhi turned to images of the majestic mountain peaks of the Caucasus - Elbrus and Kazbek. Kuindzhi first came to the Caucasus at the invitation of N.A. Yaroshenko, but then traveled there until 1909. The number of Caucasian sketches is enormous. It is noteworthy that Kuindzhi writes many sketches in the workshop from memory. The artist is attracted by the snowy peak of the mountain, either dazzling white, or bright crimson in the rays of the setting sun, or cold bluish in the evening.

Sunrise

Darial Gorge. Moonlight night

snow peaks

Elbrus on a moonlit night

Snow peaks. Caucasus

Elbrus in the evening

Flower garden. Caucasus

Around 1890, the artist turns to winter studies - “Moonlight Spots in the Forest. Winter", "Winter. Spots of light on the roofs of huts”, “Sun spots on frost” look like excellent examples of the artist’s use of the possibilities of direct work on nature. With their help, Kuindzhi comes to a generalization of the image of a winter landscape.

Winter. Thaw

Moon spot in the winter forest

Sun spots on frost

In a word, Kuindzhi's landscapes of the 1890s. lose the plastic clarity and harmony characteristic of his works of the late 1870s. They become more individualized in mood, reflecting the feelings experienced by the artist himself. Nature seems to Kuindzhi so grandiose that a person in it seems small, pitiful. Kuindzhi introduces disturbing, restless combinations of purple, blue, reddish-brown hues into his paintings. The theme of the transience of earthly life and eternal beauty, the grandeur of nature, which appeared in the work of a number of artists of the late 19th century, is also heard in the works of Kuindzhi.

Despite the solitude in the workshop, Kuindzhi nevertheless took a keen interest in the artistic life of St. Petersburg and Moscow. He visited exhibitions, continued to communicate with the Wanderers. Kuindzhi believed that if the Wanderers were among the teachers of the highest art school in Russia, they would be able to win the minds of young people and influence the future of Russian art. Kuindzhi in 1889 accepted the offer of the leadership of the Academy of Arts to head the landscape painting workshop. The election of Kuindzhi as a professor was the reason for the artist's final break with the Wanderers.

V teaching activities Kuindzhi showed all the originality of the master's personality. He did not put pressure on the students with the authority of the famous landscape painter, respected their individuality, talked with the beginnerstrong width=/praquo; hung on strong /pp style=wall alone. Kuindzhi ordered to drape the windows in the hall and illuminate the picture with a beam of electric light focused on it. Visitors entered the semi-dark hall and, fascinated, stopped in front of the cold glow of moonlight, which was so strong that some viewers tried to look behind the picture in search of a light bulb./pi artists as equals. It was not for nothing that the later famous landscape painters N.K. Roerich and A.A. Rylov, V.G. Purvit and F.E. Rushits, K.F. Bogaevsky and A.A. Kuindzhi's love for his students can only be compared with a father's love for children, and they responded to the teacher with no less ardent feelings.

Work in Kuindzhi's workshop went without a special system, but the logic of training was thought out very carefully. Kuindzhi believed that for a novice artist, the most important thing is thoughtful, long-term work on nature, the ability to see nature and honestly convey what he saw. Therefore, he demanded that students bring sketches to each lesson, which they all discussed together. In his workshop, future artists copied the landscapes of the artists of the Barbizon school, painted still lifes from nature, academic productions. Kuindzhi attached great importance painting in the open air, but believed that the picture should be created from memory. Kuindzhi paid much attention to the acquisition of skills by students in the correct use of color harmonies, the master spoke a lot about composition, perspective, and the construction of space in a landscape.

In 1895, an exhibition of Kuindzhi's workshop was held at the Academy of Arts with great success. The master was able to bring up a group of like-minded people from people of different abilities, age, education, origin. Their works stood out against the academic background for their maturity, pictorial skill, and knowledge of the laws of composition. And this is a huge merit width=raquo; - this is a picture of people's life, given indirectly, through the perception of nature. Hence the rejection of the landscape by some artists.img style= width= Kuindzhi. February 15, 1897 Kuindzhi unexpectedly submits his resignation to the President of the Academy of Arts. The students, offended by the rector's rude behavior, decided to go on strike. Kuindzhi stood up for the students, for which he was removed from teaching. A.A. Kiselev became the head of the landscape workshop. Kuindzhi's students decided to leave the Academy, but he convinced everyone to complete their studies. As a result, the student exhibition of landscape painters became a triumph for Kuindzhi the teacher. In the summer, Kuindzhi took his students to his Crimean estate, and in April 1898 he took all his pupils abroad at his own expense. He was convinced that this was how he should spend his capital. The money went to encourage young talents. This ended Kuindzhi's short career in the teaching field, but he did not leave his students without help and support until the end of his life.

In 1901, for the first time after twenty years of seclusion, Kuindzhi decided to show his work to selected viewers. Among them are students, an old friend of the artist D.I.Mendeleev, landscape painter A.A.Kiselev, architect N.V.Sultanov, journalists. Kuindzhi exhibits four paintings in the studio: "Evening in Ukraine" (1878-1901), "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane", "Dnepr", a new version of "Birch Grove" (all 1901). The pictures were successful.

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane

More and more often, works of a deep dramatic beginning appear in his work, accurately conveying the state of mind of the artist. It is no coincidence that the landscape painter Kuindzhi turned to a genre painting, a dramatic gospel story. “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” is a work in which the theme of loneliness, the doom of a person who has come into conflict with society, is clearly heard. The plot of the picture is decided by the artist with landscape means. The composition of the work, the dramaturgy of the theme are developed quite straightforwardly: the lonely figure of Christ, bathed in moonlight, is located in the center, the persecutors of Christ are depicted in the shadow. Intensifying the tragic intensity of the scene, the artist sharply collides additional colors: the background is painted in cold blue-green tones, the front in warm brown-reddish. In the figure of Christ, the colors suddenly light up with blue, yellowish, pinkish hues. The artist conveys the clash of good and evil by opposing light and shadow.

The master’s appeal to the thematic painting is an episode in his creative biography. The artist could express a wide variety of feelings in the landscape. But still, the main thoughts of Kuindzhi in his work on the landscape were to convey the grandeur and eternal beauty of nature. The artist is looking for phenomena in the world around him that would amaze the viewer. Apparently, this explains Kuindzhi's special predilection for depicting sunsets. "Red Sunset" (1905-1908) was painted by the artist in the most complex gradations of red - from the brownish-brown tones of the earth in the foreground to the blazing shades of pink, crimson, purple in the sky. In "Sunset in the steppe on the seashore" (1898-1908), Kuindzhi makes a powerful color chord sound, consisting of pale shades of yellow, bluish, pinkish through yellow, red, blue, purple tones of the sky, turning into rich green, brown, brownish colors earth. Kuindzhi's "sunsets" are ambiguous: either they reflect the elegiac sadness of the contemplator at the sight of a fading luminary, or they are stormy and expressive.

Sunset in winter. Sea shore

Sunset with trees

sunset effect

Sea shore

Cypress trees on the seashore. Crimea

Crimea. South coast

Noon. Herd in the steppe

Ai-Petri. Crimea

Seashore with rock

Sunset in the steppe on the seashore

Sea. Crimea

Sunset in the steppe

After the rain. Rainbow

Having stepped aside from teaching at the Academy of Arts, Kuindzhi remained a member of its council until the end of his life. He actively intervened in all current affairs, defending his views with harshness and intolerance towards opponents. His temperamental outbursts at council meetings led to quarrels with many friends. Kuindzhi continues to help young artists in every possible way. In 1904, he allocates a fund of one hundred thousand rubles to encourage talented youth, which was intended for the annual payment of prizes to students of the Academy of Arts. So the competition named after A.I. Kuindzhi appeared. The first competitive spring exhibition opened in 1905. But it could not serve the ideas that Kuindzhi nurtured. He dreamed of a union where all artists would be equal and could create freely, without regard to the tastes of customers. In 1908, a number of painters - participants in academic exhibitions - decide to create a new society, in which Kuindzhi proposes to invest his millionth capital. It included N. K. Roerich, A. A. Rylov, A. A. Borisov, N. P. Khimona, V. I. Zarubin, V. E. Makovsky, V. A. Beklemishev, A. V. Shchusev other. Thus, the core of the future association was Kuindzhi's students. Actually, it was a kind of "trade union" of artists, which was supposed to provide material and moral support to those in need, organize exhibitions, build exhibition facilities. By 1910, the Society consisted of one hundred and one people. Unfortunately, over the years of its existence, the association has not turned into a cohesive organization. Kuindzhi's dream of a creative unity of artists, of merging everyone into one family, was not destined to come true.

In 1909, Kuindzhi began to develop a severe heart disease. During the period of improvement in the spring of 1910, Kuindzhi went to his Crimean estate, but on the way he felt so bad that he was forced to stop in Yalta. He developed pneumonia, suffered debilitating attacks of suffocation. In a life-threatening condition, Kuindzhi was transferred to St. Petersburg. The suffering of the artist was unbearable. Roerich, Zarubin, Rylov were on duty near the teacher, replacing each other. July 11, 1910 Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi died. His apartment struck everyone with its modesty, but the number of sketches stored in the studio was enormous. According to Kuindzhi's will, all his capital and all artistic heritage were transferred to a society that bore the name of the artist.

Arkhip Kuindzhi (at the birth of Kuyumdzhi; (15 (27) January 1841, according to another version 1842, the town of Karasu (Karasevka), now within the boundaries of Mariupol - July 11 (24), 1910, St. Petersburg, Russian empire) is a Russian artist of Greek origin, a master of landscape painting.

Biography of Arkhip Kuindzhi

Born in 1842 in the family of a shoemaker in Mariupol. He lost his parents early and lived in great poverty, herded geese, served with a contractor for the construction of a church, then with a grain merchant; He learned to read and write in Greek from a Greek teacher, then briefly attended the city school.

Creativity Kuindzhi

WITH early years manifested in him an attraction to painting; he painted wherever he could, on walls, fences, and scraps of paper.

Having been a retoucher for photographers in Mariupol, Odessa and St. Petersburg, he paints a large picture: “Tatar saklya in the Crimea”, which he exhibits at an academic exhibition in 1868, and becomes an auditor of the academy.

In 1873, Kuindzhi exhibited the painting “Snow” at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, for which in 1874 he received a bronze medal at an international exhibition in London.

In the same 1873, he exhibited his painting “View of the Island of Valaam” in Vienna, and “Lake Ladoga” in St. Petersburg. In 1874, at the exhibition of the Association of Traveling Exhibitions, Kuindzhi exhibited The Forgotten Village, in 1875 - two: "Steppes" and "Chumatsky Trakt", in 1876 - the famous "Ukrainian Night". Critics unanimously appreciate the outstanding merits of his work.

In 1878, "Ukrainian Night", together with "View of the island of Valaam" and "Chumatsky tract", appears at the world exhibition in Paris.

In 1878 he exhibited The Forest and Evening in Little Russia, which aroused a lot of controversy and created many imitators. In 1879, Kuindzhi exhibited "North", "Birch Grove", "After the Thunderstorm"; in the same year, Kuindzhi left the exhibitions of the association of the Wanderers. In 1880, he arranges an exhibition of one of his paintings at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts: “Night on the Dnieper”; This exhibition was an unprecedented success; not only ordinary art critics wrote about it, but also Polonsky, Strakhov, Mendeleev, Turgenev.

In the same year, the painting was exhibited in Paris. In 1881, also separately, Kuindzhi exhibited Birch Grove, which had an equally great success, and in 1882 Dnepr in the Morning, along with Birch Grove and Night on the Dnieper.

After this exhibition, until the very death of his Kuindzhi, he did not exhibit his paintings anywhere else, and until the 1900s he did not show them to anyone. From 1894 to 1897 Kuindzhi was professor-head of the higher art school at the Academy of Arts.

In 1904, he donated 100,000 rubles to the Academy for the issuance of 24 annual prizes; in 1909 he donated 150,000 rubles and his estate in the Crimea to the art society of his own name, and 11,700 rubles to the society for the promotion of arts for a prize in landscape painting; July 11, 1910 Kuindzhi died.

At the academy, Kuindzhi made friends with Repin, V. Vasnetsov and others, and together with them joined the group of Wanderers; for this period, his “Autumn Thaw”, “The Forgotten Village” and “Chumatsky Trakt” are most characteristic, although in the latter one already notices an evasion from carefully writing out details and a desire for generalization.

"Ukrainian Night" marks a turning point in Kuindzhi's work.

Kuindzhi boldly paved the way for impressionism; he himself said that the artist is the one who knows how to capture and recreate the inner unity. He was fascinated primarily by the light effect, his goal was to convey the impression of light; he studied the laws of combining additional tones to convey the power of light. Sometimes the pursuit of the power of light led him to overly theatrical effects; his manner was sometimes rude, his drawing primitive, but his role in Russian painting is enormous; he was the first completely original Russian impressionist.

Despite the fact that since 1882 Kuindzhi did not exhibit anything, he worked hard in his studio and was deeply interested in art; he also took a close part in the development of a new charter for the Academy of Arts; having entered the leadership of the landscape class, he, having been a professor for only three years, created a whole school of artists.

Independent and independent, Kuindzhi played a big role in the academy; he made many enemies with his directness and harshness.

A man of exceptional kindness, he sought to help his students and comrades both with advice and materially; his dream was to free the artist from the power of the market, to give him the opportunity to develop his talent outside of heavy material worries. The prizes he had founded seemed to him such a partial deliverance; the same goal was to be served by the society named after him, provided by him with large capital, the managers of which were the artists themselves.

Artist's work

Kuindzhi's paintings are in museums and private individuals; all that remained after his death were bequeathed by him to the Society in his name, which some of them transferred to the metropolitan and provincial museums.

"Night on the Dnieper" is at the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich,
"Birch Grove" and "Steppe" - in the Tereshchenko collection in Kiev.

The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow houses:

"On the island of Valaam",
"Forgotten Village"
"Steppe",
"Chumatsky tract",

"Birch Grove",
"After the Storm"
"Dnepr in the morning" and "Sunset in the forest".

Museum of Emperor Alexander III in Petrograd:

"Evening in Little Russia",
"Fog on the Sea"
"Rainbow" and sketches.

Bibliography

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi: Album / Compiler of the album and author of the introductory article N. Novouspensky. - M.-L.: State. Publishing House of Fine Arts, 1961. - 40 p. - (Masters of Russian art). - 27,500 copies. (reg.)
The light of Kuindzhi: Roman / Viktor Shutov, Semyon Ilyushin; [art. I. A. Galyuchenko], 268 ill., 5 sheets. col. ill., Donetsk Donbass 1983
The Light of Kuindzhi: Roman / Viktor Shutov, 462, p., l. portrait 22 cm, Kiev Dnipro 1990
Ilyushin S. V. Youth Kuindzhi.: A Tale. - Donetsk: Donbass, 1977. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
Melnikova L. Kuindzhi / In the series "Great Artists" - V.5 - K., 2010 - 48 p.

When writing this article, materials from such sites were used:smallbay.ru

If you find any inaccuracies or wish to supplement this article, please send us information to the email address [email protected] site, we and our readers will be very grateful to you.

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Kuindzhi A.I.

I want to devote several posts to the general history of the life and work of A.I. Kuindzhi, about which I wrote last time. I will not invent anything from myself here, but I will use the excellent site "Encyclopedia of Russian Artists". Where are they collected and short biographies and work. I get my material from there.

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was born in 1842 on the outskirts of Mariupol in the family of a Greek, a poor shoemaker. The surname Kuindzhi was given to him by the nickname of grandfather, which in Tatar means "goldsmith". Orphaned early, the boy lived with relatives, worked with strangers: he was a servant at a grain merchant, served with a contractor, worked as a retoucher for a photographer.

Kuindzhi received the basics of literacy from a friend of a Greek teacher, and then studied at a city school. His love for drawing manifested itself in childhood, he painted wherever he had to - on the walls of houses, fences, scraps of paper. Passion for drawing led him to Feodosia to I.K. Aivazovsky. After spending several months with the famous artist, Kuindzhi goes to St. Petersburg with the dream of entering the Academy of Arts.

But he did not immediately manage to become a student of the Academy: his artistic training turned out to be weak. He took the exams twice and failed both times. But this could not stop the stubborn and persistent young man. In 1868, at an academic exhibition, he presented the painting "Tatar saklya", for which he received the title of a non-class artist. In the same year he was accepted as a volunteer at the Academy.

Kuindzhi plunged into the atmosphere of artistic life. He is friends with I. E. Repin and V. M. Vasnetsov, gets acquainted with I. N. Kramskoy, the ideologist of leading Russian artists. The lyricism of Savrasov's landscapes, the poetic perception of nature in Vasiliev's paintings, the epic nature of Shishkin's paintings - everything opens up before the attentive gaze of the young artist.
Kuindzhi begins to look for independent ways in art. Created by him in 1872, the painting "Autumn Thaw" (GRM) in its realistic orientation was close to the paintings of the Wanderers. Kuindzhi not only conveyed a cold autumn day, a washed-out road with dull gleaming puddles - he introduced into the landscape a lonely figure of a woman with a child, who is hardly walking through the mud. The autumn landscape, permeated with dampness and darkness, becomes a sad story about ordinary Russian people, about a dreary, joyless life.

"Autumn thaw", 1872

Kuindzhi spent the summer of 1872 on Lake Ladoga, on the island of Valaam. As a result, paintings appeared: "Lake Ladoga" (1872, Russian Museum), "On the Island of Valaam" (1873, State Tretyakov Gallery). Slowly, calmly, the artist in his paintings tells the story of the nature of the island, with its granite shores washed by channels, with dark dense forests, fallen trees. This picture can be compared with the epic epic, a picturesque legend about the mighty northern side. The silver-bluish tone of the picture gave her a special emotional uplift. After the exhibition of 1873, at which this work was shown, Kuindzhi was talked about in the press, noting his original and great talent.

"Lake Ladoga", 1872

"On the island of Valaam", 1873

In 1874, Kuindzhi painted the picture "The Forgotten Village" (TG), which, in terms of the sharpness of the social sound, the merciless truth of the display of the post-reform Russian village, echoed the paintings of the Wanderers. The following year, Kuindzhi exhibited three paintings: "Chumatsky tract in Mariupol" (TG), "Steppe in bloom" and "Steppe in the evening" (location unknown). In the painting "Chumatsky Trakt" the artist depicted an endless stream of carts moving slowly on a gloomy day across the autumn steppe. The feeling of cold, dampness is enhanced by the color scheme of the canvas.
Completely different in mood are "Steppe in the Evening" and "Steppe in Bloom". The artist affirmed the beauty of nature in them, admired the life-giving power of solar heat. With these works, in essence, a new stage in the work of a well-established artist begins.

"Forgotten Village", 1874

"Chumatsky tract in Mariupol", 1875

"Steppe in the evening", 1875

However, Kuindzhi made a sudden turn. This was undoubtedly facilitated by his trips to Western Europe and acquaintance with the latest achievements of painting. In 1876, he showed the painting "Ukrainian Night", in which he managed to convey the sensual perception of the southern summer night, generalizing the color and simplifying the form with unprecedented courage for his time.

"Ukrainian night", 1876

With great poetic power, the amazing beauty of the Ukrainian night was revealed. On the bank of a small river nestled Ukrainian huts illuminated by moonlight. Poplars rushed up. Silence, tranquility are poured into nature. Bright stars twinkle in the blue, as if made of velvet, sky. In order to convey the moonlight and the twinkling of the stars so naturally and expressively, the artist had to solve the most difficult pictorial problems. In the picture, everything is built on the virtuosic development of tonal relationships, on the richness of color combinations. In 1878 "Ukrainian Night" was shown at the World Exhibition in Paris. "Kuindzhi," wrote French criticism, "is undoubtedly the most interesting among young Russian painters. He has an original nationality even more than others."

The painting became a sensational event in artistic life, and it was followed by others that were not inferior to it in defiant decorativeness: "Birch Grove" (1879), "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" (1880), "Dnepr in the Morning" (1881) and others.

"Birch Grove", 1879

"Dnepr in the morning", 1881

"Steppe. Niva", 1875

*****

The picture should be written from oneself, by heart, based on the knowledge acquired on the sketch. The picture should have "internal", that is, thought, artistic content.
Kuindzhi A.I.

In 1879, the artist paints three landscapes: "North", "After a Thunderstorm", "Birch Grove" (all in the State Tretyakov Gallery). Different in motives, they are united by a great poetic feeling. The painting "North" continued the series of northern landscapes begun by "Lake Ladoga". In it, Kuindzhi moved away from the image of a certain corner of nature. His canvas is a generalized poetic image of the North, created by the artist's imagination, the result of reflections, reflections on the majestic and harsh nature. The painting "North" completed the trilogy, conceived back in 1872, and was the last of this series.

"North", 1879

For many years then Kuindzhi gives his talent to the chanting of the nature of the southern and middle lane Russia. Full of life, movement, a feeling of freshness of nature washed by rain, the landscape "After the Thunderstorm".

"After the Thunderstorm", 1879

But the greatest success at the exhibition fell to the share of the painting "Birch Grove".

"Birch Grove", 1879

Crowds of people stood by this canvas for hours. It seemed as if the sun itself penetrated into the exhibition hall, illuminating the green meadow, playing on the white trunks of birches, on the branches of mighty trees. Working on the picture, Kuindzhi was looking primarily for the most expressive composition. From sketch to sketch, the location of the trees and the size of the clearing were specified. In the final version there is nothing accidental, "written off" from nature. The foreground is immersed in shadow - this emphasizes the sonority, saturation of the green meadow with the sun. The artist managed, avoiding theatricality, to create a decorative painting in the best sense of the word. Kuindzhi with great inspiration sings in it the beauty and poetry of nature, the dazzling brightness of the sun's rays, bringing joy to people.

In 1880, an extraordinary exhibition was opened in St. Petersburg on Bolshaya Morskaya (now Herzen Street): one painting was shown - "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper" (RM). She caused an uproar. There was a huge line at the entrance to the exhibition.

"Moonlit night on the Dnieper", 1880

At a time when in Russia even solo exhibitions still seemed a curiosity, this step was fraught with enormous risk, but the success of the exhibition, which attracted crowds of spectators, exceeded all expectations. The next year, 1881, Kuindzhi showed a new version of Birch Grove in the same way, and a year later - three more paintings. Kuindzhi's skill in transmitting moonlight is the result of the artist's enormous work, a long search. His workshop was a researcher's laboratory. He experimented a lot, studied the laws of action of complementary colors, looking for the right tone, checked it with color relationships in nature itself. With hard, persistent work, Kuindzhi achieved a virtuoso mastery of color, that compositional simplicity that distinguishes his best works.
In 1881, the artist created the painting "Dnepr in the Morning" (TG).

"Dnepr in the morning", 1881

There is no play of light, bright decorativeness in it, it attracts with calm majesty, inner power, the mighty force of nature. An amazingly subtle combination of pure golden-pink, lilac, silvery and greenish-gray tones allows you to convey the charm of flowering herbs, endless distances, early steppe mornings. The 1882 exhibition was the last for the artist.

"Sunset"

*****

The illusion of light was his god, and there was no artist equal to him in achieving this miracle of painting. Kuindzhi is an artist of light.
Repin I.E.

At the zenith of Kuindzhi's fame, he took a new unexpected step: he stopped exhibiting his works altogether. There were long years of silence. Friends did not understand the reasons, they were worried. Kuindzhi himself explained it this way: "... An artist needs to perform at exhibitions as long as he, like a singer, has a voice. And as soon as his voice subsides, he must leave, not show himself, so as not to be ridiculed. So I became Arkhip Ivanovich, known to everyone, well, that's good, but then I saw that I wouldn’t be able to do it anymore, that my voice seemed to subside. Well, they’ll say: there was Kuindzhi, and Kuindzhi was gone! So I don’t want this, but that Kuindzhi will remain forever. "
But Kuindzhi continued to work hard, but he showed what he had done only to close people.

Having become a wealthy man (his earnings were very high), he could now work as he wanted - slowly and experimenting to his heart's content. Among the works performed were not only landscapes that continued what had been started earlier, such as "Evening in Ukraine" (1878-1901), "Oaks" (1900-03), etc., but also quite unusual tiny pictures in which he sharply, with with amazing laconism he conveyed his impressions of nature ("Moon spots on the snow", "Flower Garden", etc.).

"Evening in Ukraine" (1878-1901)

"Oaks" (1900-1903)

"Moon Spots in the Snow"

Compared to a decade active participation at exhibitions, over the remaining thirty years, Kuindzhi did relatively little. According to the recollections of the artist's friends, in the early 1900s, Kuindzhi invited them to his studio and showed them the paintings "Evening in Ukraine", "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane", "Dnepr" and "Birch Grove", which they were delighted with. But Kuindzhi was dissatisfied with these works and did not present them to the exhibition.

"Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane"

"Dnieper"

"Birch Grove"

"Night" - one of the last works makes us remember the best paintings of Kuindzhi from the heyday of his talent. It also feels a poetic attitude to nature, the desire to sing of its majestic and solemn beauty.

"Night"

Kuindzhi did not become a recluse. In 1894, he willingly accepted an offer to be a professor at the landscape workshop at the Academy of Arts, which had just been radically reformed. He set to work enthusiastically, taught according to a well-thought-out system and managed to educate excellent masters: A. A. Rylov, K. F. Bogaevsky, N. K. Roerich. Unfortunately, his teaching did not last long: already in 1897 he was suspended from service for communicating with participants in student unrest. But he continued to study privately with his students, and the following year arranged for them to travel to Western Europe at his own expense. A little later, he donated capital to the Academy of Arts, the interest from which went annually to pay prizes to young artists. His last good deed was the foundation in 1909 of the Kuindzhi Society - an independent association of artists, to which he donated 150,000 rubles and 225 acres of land in the Crimea, and bequeathed all his paintings and money. The society existed until 1930, and Kuindzhi died a few months after its opening.

It is conjectural - three passports of the artist are stored in the archives: one of them indicates that he was born in 1841, the second - in 1842, and the third - in 1843.

Not everything is unambiguous with the name of the artist. He came from a family of Russified Greeks. It was recorded in the metric that he was the son of Ivan Yemendzhi. But the boy, presumably, got the name of his grandfather, the jeweler Kuyumdzhi, later entered in the wrong transcription.

Kuindzhi's father was a shoemaker. In 1845 he died, and Arkhip's mother soon passed away. Orphaned at an early age, the boy could not get an education. Presumably, until the age of ten, he attended an elementary Greek school, and a year later he entered the contractor for the construction of the church, then served as a rich grain merchant. It was at this age that he developed a passion for drawing. One of the Feodosia grain merchants advised Arkhip to go to study in Feodosia to the famous marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky. Kuindzhi went to Feodosia on foot, stayed there almost all summer, but the great master did not appreciate the talent of the teenager. Therefore, Kuindzhi received his first painting lessons from a relative of Aivazovsky, Adolf Fessler. Returning to Mariupol, Kuindzhi began working as a retoucher for a local photographer, and then went to Odessa, where he and his brothers thought about opening their own studio, but could not raise the necessary funds for this.

In the early 1860s, he came to St. Petersburg, hoping to enter the Academy of Arts, but he never became a student of the Academy. In 1868, having put up for the competition the painting "Tatar village by moonlight on the southern coast of Crimea", he received the title of a free artist and became a volunteer at the academy.

In 1872, for the painting "Autumn thaw" he received the title of class artist.

In 1873, Kuindzhi exhibited the painting "Snow" at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, for which he received a bronze medal at an international exhibition in London in 1874. In the same year, he exhibited his painting "View of the Island of Valaam" in Vienna, and "Lake Ladoga" in St. Petersburg.

In 1874, at the exhibition of the Association of Traveling Exhibitions, Kuindzhi presented "The Forgotten Village", in 1875 - the paintings "Steppes" and "Chumatsky Trakt", in 1876 - "Ukrainian Night", which in 1878, together with "View of the Island of Valaam" and "Chumatsky tract" appeared at the world exhibition in Paris.

In 1877 Kuindzhi became a member of the Association of Traveling Exhibitions. In 1878, the artist exhibited his paintings "Forest" and "Evening in Little Russia", in 1879 - "North", "Birch Grove", "After a Thunderstorm". In the same year, Kuindzhi left the exhibitions of the partnership.

In 1880, he organized an exhibition of one of his paintings "Night on the Dnieper" at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, which was an unprecedented success, and was exhibited in Paris the same year.

In 1881, Kuindzhi also exhibited "Birch Grove" separately, which had an equally great success, in 1882 - "Dnepr in the morning" along with "Birch Grove" and "Night on the Dnieper". After this exhibition, until the end of his life, Kuindzhi did not exhibit his paintings anywhere else, and until the 1900s he did not show anyone.

Artist Arkhip Kuindzhi is a world-famous master of landscape painting, the author of amazing paintings with an amazing fate. However, his fate is very similar to the fate of most Russian artists of the nineteenth century.

Biography of the artist Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi

Arkhip Kuindzhi

There is no reliable information about the date and place of birth of Arkhip Ivanovich. Someone claims that the future artist was born in January 1841, according to other sources, this event took place in 1842.

Approximately the same "reliable" information is available about the name of the painter. In the metric about the birth of a child, the surname Emendzhi (translated as “working person”) appears, and later Emendzhi turned into Kuindzhi (translated from Urum - goldsmith).

This is the same version about the Greek roots of the artist. Rather, it is possible, with a high degree of certainty, to talk about Tatar roots.

The artist's brother took the name Zolotarev.

However, Arkhip Ivanovich himself always called himself Russian.

Now back to the childhood of the artist.

The artist Arkhip Kuindzhi was born into the family of a poor shoemaker. In early childhood, Arkhip Ivanovich became an orphan and lived in the family of his uncle. The family was very poor and the boy worked from early childhood - shepherd geese, worked in construction, served in a bakery.

He studied privately with a Greek teacher, and for some time attended classes at a real school. Subsequently, Arkhip's comrades recalled that he did poorly and the only subject that fascinated the boy was drawing. Kuindzhi drew not only on paper, but also on the walls of buildings, on the school fence, etc.

The baker Amoretti, for whom Kuindzhi worked, saw Arkhip's drawings and advised Kuindzhi to go to Ivan Aivazovsky in the Crimea and become a student of the famous artist.

In the summer of 1855, the future artist reached Feodosia on foot. Not close at all. Crimean landscapes simply fascinated Arkhip. But, Aivazovsky was not in the Crimea at that time, and Kuindzhi turned for help to Adof Fessler, who worked for Aivazovsky as a copyist. Fessler was sympathetic to Arkhip's desire to study and became the first real teacher of painting in the boy's life.

Kuindzhi stayed at Aivazovsky's house for several months: he studied and waited for the return of the famous artist. However, Aivazovsky did not see talent in a modest, shy boy and refused to take classes with Kuindzhi. Aivazovsky instructed Arkhip to mix paints and ordered ... to paint the fence around his house.

Disappointed and simply destroyed by such a cold reception, Kuindzhi set off on his way back to a bakery in Mariupol.

However, in Mariupol, Arkhip found a job as a retoucher with a local photographer. Arkhip worked in a photo studio for several months, saved up some money and moved to Odessa, where he again got a job as a retoucher, but already with an Odessa photographer. Then there was Taganrog and again the work of a retoucher. Arkhip even tried to open his own photography studio, but to no avail.

It took 10 years to retouch other people's photos, to experience the failure that befell him with Aivazovsky. And finally, in 1865, Kuindzhi decided to enter the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Petersburg met the future artist very coolly - two attempts to enter the academy ended sadly. It seemed that the failures would break Arkhip, but he did not leave painting and in 1868 offered his painting “Tatar saklya in the Crimea” for an academic exhibition.

On September 15, 1868, the Council of the Academy of Arts awarded Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi the title of a free artist.

However, the artist had to apply to the same Council for permission to take examinations for a diploma.

Two years later, in 1870, Kuindzhi received the title of non-class artist.

Three times the artist passed exams for the right to become a volunteer of the academy and, in the end, he achieved this right.

During this period, Arkhip Ivanovich became friends with I.E. Repin and I.N. Kramskoy. This meeting played a big role in the creative destiny of the artist - he was carried away by the ideas of wandering. And the result of this passion was the painting "Autumn thaw", "Forgotten village" and "Chumatsky tract in Mariupol". The last two paintings very quickly ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery, and for the "Autumn thaw" Arkhip Kuindzhi was awarded the title of class artist.

forgotten village

Chumatsky tract in Mariupol

autumn thaw

All three works were exhibited at the exhibition of the Association of the Wanderers and made a splash - they started talking about Kuindzhi and his works.

The artist, finally, believed in his talent, in his strength. And he stopped attending classes at the Academy.

However, Kuindzhi was not so carried away by the ideas of wandering to completely abandon the vision of his path in painting.

In the early seventies, the artist often visited the island of Valaam (it was a favorite place for St. Petersburg landscape painters) and painted two very interesting landscapes: "On the Island of Valaam" and "Lake Ladoga".

On the island of Valaam

Ladoga lake

You do not think that in a few years of creativity, only two landscapes were painted. "On the Island of Valaam" and "Lake Ladoga" became another stage in the artist's work - it was a breakthrough in the itinerant landscape, or rather a departure from the itinerant movement. Realistic nature with romantic elements. And wandering does not imply romanticism.

1873 was a very successful year for the artist. This is the success of the Valaam landscapes, and the exhibiting of the painting "Snow" at the exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. And again a huge success. In 1874, the painting "Snow" received a bronze medal at an international exhibition in London.

In 1875, the artist leaves for France, but is engaged, to a greater extent, not in painting, but in ordering a wedding tailcoat. From childhood, poor years, Arkhip was in love with the daughter of a wealthy Mariupol merchant, Vera Ketcherdzhi-Shapovalova. And then a miracle happened - the beauty (and her parents) agreed to this marriage.

After the wedding, the young people leave for Valaam. In this happy year, the artist painted "The Steppe" and his famous "Ukrainian Night". Art historians say that the romantic period in the artist's work began with the "Ukrainian Night". And I think that the romantic period began with the wedding and the appearance in the life of the artist of his Faith.

Ukrainian night

Steppe. Niva

In 1875, Kuindzhi was accepted into the Association of the Wanderers, but he was already far from the ideas of the Wanderers. He does not want to open the ulcers and interpret life. Kuindzhi has a different view of painting and its place - to show beauty and enjoy beauty.

In 1878, the young couple went to Paris for the World Exhibition. Kuindzhi's works delight Parisians and guests of the exhibition. Critics all over the world speak and write about the talented Russian artist.

Returning from the exhibition, Arkhip Ivanovich begins to write "Evening in Ukraine". He will paint this picture for 23 years.

Evening in Ukraine

In March 1879 A.I. Kuindzhi finally breaks off his relationship with the Association of the Wanderers. The reason for the break was an article by an unknown author in one of the newspapers. The author was very critical of the work of the Wanderers, but Kuindzhi was subjected to special derogatory criticism. It soon became clear that the author of the article was M.K. Klodt.

At the meeting, Kuindzhi demanded that Klodt be expelled from the ranks of the Wanderers, but the meeting refused to satisfy this demand. And then he left the Association. A.I. Kuindzhi.

And soon Kuindzhi arranged, in the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, an exhibition of just one painting. The painter thought out this unusual exhibition to the smallest detail: the windows in the hall were draped, and the picture (it was “Moonlight Night on the Dnieper”) was illuminated with a beam of electric light.

Moonlit night on the Dnieper

The exhibition was an unprecedented success and caused a real stir in the world.

Alas, the picture was painted with paints based on bitumen. Subsequently, it turned out that asphalt paints decompose and darken under the intense influence of light and air.

Acquired the painting Grand Duke Konstantin, who just fell in love with this landscape, and decided to take it with him on a trip around the world. Under the influence of sea air and light, the composition of paints has changed ... And today we have the opportunity to admire not the pristine beauty that so impressed the audience 150 years ago, but only the echoes of beauty. However, art historians say that even today the picture is striking in its depth, power and beauty.

Inspired by the success of Kuindzhi in 1881, he arranges an exhibition of one painting for the Birch Grove. And again success.

Birch Grove

In 1882, the exhibition of the painting "Dnepr in the Morning" ended in failure. Public skepticism, cool reviews of art historians and critics.

Dnieper in the morning

In the same year, the artist arranges an exhibition of two paintings: "Birch Grove" and "Moonlight Night on the Dnieper". And for many years he retires in his workshop.

What happened and why did the artist choose voluntary seclusion at the height of his fame? There is no answer to this question.

In 1886, not far from the village of Kikeneiz (in the Crimea), the Kuindzhi family acquired 245 acres of land, built a hut on this site and enjoyed serene happiness. Some time later, a small family estate, Sara Kikeneis, appears in this place.

Many years later, the artist will bring his students to the estate in the open air.

In 1901, Kuindzhi renounced voluntary seclusion and showed, at first only to students and friends, and then to the public, four of his paintings: the completed “Evening in Ukraine”, the new “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane”, the third version of “Birch Grove” and already once unsuccessfully shown "Dnepr in the morning".

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane

The audience was absolutely delighted!

In November 1901, the artist arranges a large public exhibition of works. This was the last exhibition. More A.I. Kuindzhi did not show his works to the public.

After the November exhibition, "Rainbow", "Red Sunset", "Night" and other works of the artist were painted. But the public saw these paintings after the death of the painter.

If the artist did not exhibit his work, then what income did he live on?

At the very peak of his fame and financial well-being, Kuindzhi bought a large house in St. Petersburg (on Vasilyevsky Island), renovated it and turned the house into a profitable one, i.e. intended for renting apartments, as they would say now. This house gave the artist a very decent income. In 1904, Kuindzhi donated 100,000 rubles to the Academy for the issuance of 24 annual awards. There were other significant donations as well.

And the Kuindzhi family lived quite modestly.

In the summer of 1910, in the Crimea, the artist fell ill with pneumonia. At the insistence of the doctors, the wife transported her sick husband to St. Petersburg, but the doctors were powerless. In July 1910, the artist died. He was buried at the Smolensk cemetery in St. Petersburg.

And Vera Leontievna Kuindzhi outlived her husband by 10 years. She died in 1920 from starvation.

I have collected a small gallery of the artist's work. I hope that you will enjoy the work of the great Russian landscape painter.