Genre painting in all eras it was considered the most vivid reflection of people’s lives and the reality around them. That is why the interest of spectators in this species has always been so excessively great. visual arts. And today I would like to show readers a magnificent gallery plot paintings famous Russian Itinerant artist Konstantin Savitsky, who gave his descendants a piece of the history of Russia in the 19th century. And also tell about legendary history co-authorship with Ivan Shishkin, which Pavel Tretyakov personally canceled.

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And, remembering this talented master, one cannot help but mention one sensitive story from his life. Many people know that Savitsky is the author of the famous bears depicted in Shishkin’s painting “Morning in a Pine Forest.” Initially, even in the corner of the canvas there were two autographs - Shishkin and Savitsky. However, the name of the second author was erased with his own hand by Pavel Tretyakov, who bought “Morning” for his gallery.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219417441.jpg" alt="Hunter.

And the incident with the removal of the second autograph most likely occurred due to the fact that when purchasing the painting, Tretyakov saw only Shishkin’s signature, while Savitsky signed it a little later. Therefore, when the painting was delivered to the gallery, the indignant patron of the arts ordered turpentine to be brought and erased the second signature with his own hand. This act of Tretyakov did not in any way affect the friendship of the two artists. Ivan Shishkin then gave a fourth of the fee, that is, the amount of a thousand rubles, to Savitsky for co-authorship.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219416499.jpg" alt="Dark people.

During that difficult period in his friend’s life, Ivan Ivanovich made an entry in his diary, noting that providence makes the artist suffer, nurturing God’s gift in him. And this was true. In his life, Konstantin Apollonovich had to experience the bitterness of loss more than once, but his favorite work always saved him.

A few pages from the artist's biography

Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky (1844-1905) was a man of exceptional intelligence and talent, a brilliant Russian genre realist painter, academician, member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, and the first director of the Penza Art School. He had the opportunity to live and work in an era of political and social troubles, which was directly reflected in his works.

Strong, memorable images ordinary people from the people - peasants, workers and soldiers - became the main characters of his works.

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By that time, Konstantin was definitely dreaming of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and three years later he left the boarding school and entered the historical painting class as a volunteer. However, he was forced to leave almost immediately after admission. This was due to the insufficient preparation of the gifted young man, who aspired to become a real painter.

Two years of persistent self-study and Savitsky is again a student at the Academy. Now the talented young artist is successfully mastering the academic course and very soon becomes one of best students Academy, receiving six silver and one gold medals for competitive works.

https://static.kulturologia.ru/files/u21941/219417940.jpg" alt=" “To war.” (1888).

Returning to St. Petersburg in 1883, Savitsky began teaching at the Technical Drawing School in St. Petersburg, then at the Moscow School, and finally moved to Penza, where he became the first director of a painting gallery and city art school. And it should be noted that in this position the painter proved himself to be a very professional manager. Konstantin Apollonovich personally developed a curriculum for his students, who, as a result of their training, received excellent preparation that allowed the best graduates of the school to be admitted to the Academy of Arts without entrance exams.

Plot

With rare exceptions, the subject of Shishkin's paintings (if you look at this issue broadly) is one - nature. Ivan Ivanovich is an enthusiastic, loving contemplator. And the viewer becomes an eyewitness to the painter’s meeting with his native expanses.

Shishkin was an extraordinary expert on the forest. He knew everything about trees of different species and noticed errors in the drawing. During plein airs, the artist’s students were ready to literally hide in the bushes, just so as not to hear criticism in the spirit of “Such a birch cannot exist” or “these pine trees are fake.”

The students were so afraid of Shishkin that they hid in the bushes

As for people and animals, they occasionally appeared in Ivan Ivanovich’s paintings, but they were more of a background than an object of attention. “Morning in a Pine Forest” is perhaps the only painting where bears compete with the forest. For this, thanks to one of Shishkin’s best friends - the artist Konstantin Savitsky. He suggested such a composition and depicted animals. True, Pavel Tretyakov, who bought the canvas, erased Savitsky’s name, so for a long time the bears were attributed to Shishkin.

Portrait of Shishkin by I. N. Kramskoy. 1880

Context

Before Shishkin, it was fashionable to paint Italian and Swiss landscapes. “Even in those rare cases when artists took on the task of depicting Russian localities, Russian nature became Italianized, adjusted to the ideal of Italian beauty,” recalled Alexandra Komarova, Shishkin’s niece. Ivan Ivanovich was the first who painted Russian nature realistically with such ecstasy. So that looking at his paintings, a person would say: “There is a Russian spirit there, it smells like Russia.”

Rye. 1878

And now the story of how Shishkin’s canvas became a wrapper. Around the same time that “Morning in a Pine Forest” was presented to the public, Julius Geis, head of the Einem Partnership, was brought a candy to try: a thick layer of almond praline between two wafer plates and enrobed chocolate. The confectioner liked the candy. Geis thought about the name. Then his gaze lingered on a reproduction of a painting by Shishkin and Savitsky. This is how the idea of ​​“Teddy Bear” came about.

The wrapper, familiar to everyone, appeared in 1913, created by the artist Manuil Andreev. To the plot of Shishkin and Savitsky, he added a frame of fir branches and the stars of Bethlehem - in those years, candy was the most expensive and desired gift for the Christmas holidays. Over time, the wrapper has gone through various adjustments, but remains conceptually the same.

The fate of the artist

“Lord, will my son really be a painter!” — Ivan Shishkin’s mother lamented when she realized that she could not convince her son, who had decided to become an artist. The boy was terribly afraid of becoming an official. And, by the way, it’s good that he didn’t. The fact is that Shishkin had an uncontrollable urge to draw. Literally every sheet that was in Ivan’s hands was covered with drawings. Just imagine what the official Shishkin could do with the documents!

Shishkin knew all the botanical details about trees

Ivan Ivanovich studied painting first in Moscow, then in St. Petersburg. Life was hard. The artist Pyotr Neradovsky, whose father studied and lived with Ivan Ivanovich, wrote in his memoirs: “Shishkin was so poor that he often did not have his own boots. To go out somewhere from the house, it happened that he put on his father's boots. On Sundays they went to lunch together with my father’s sister.”

In the wild north. 1891

But everything was forgotten in the summer in the open air. Together with Savrasov and other classmates, they went somewhere out of town and painted sketches from life there. “It was there, in nature, that we really learned... In nature, we studied, and also took a break from the casts,” Shishkin recalled. Even then he chose the theme of his life: “I truly love the Russian forest and only write about it. The artist needs to choose the one thing that he loves most... There is no way to throw it away.” By the way, Shishkin learned to masterfully paint Russian nature abroad. He studied in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Switzerland. The paintings brought from Europe brought in the first decent money.

After the death of his wife, brother and son, Shishkin drank for a long time and could not work

Meanwhile, in Russia, the Peredvizhniki protested against the academicians. Shishkin was incredibly happy about this. In addition, many of the rebels were friends of Ivan Ivanovich. True, over time he quarreled with both of them and was very worried about this.

Shishkin died suddenly. I sat down at the canvas, just about to start working, and yawned once. and that's all. This is exactly what the painter wanted - “instantly, right away, so as not to suffer.” Ivan Ivanovich was 66 years old.

To start: As you know, many epochal events in world history are inextricably linked with the city of Vyatka (in some versions - Kirov (which is Sergei Mironych)). What is the reason for this - the stars may have risen this way, maybe the air or alumina there is particularly healing, maybe the collahedron influenced, but the fact remains: no matter what particularly significant happens in the world, “Vyatka’s hand” can be traced in almost everything. However, until now no one has taken upon themselves the responsibility and hard work of systematizing all significant phenomena that are directly related to the history of Vyatka. In this situation, a group of young promising historians (in my person) undertook to carry out this attempt. As a result, a series of highly artistic scientific and historical essays about documented historical facts under the heading "Vyatka - the birthplace of elephants." Which is what I plan to post on this resource from time to time. So, let's begin.

Vyatka - the birthplace of elephants

Vyatka bear - main character paintings "Morning in pine forest»

Art historians have long proven that Shishkin painted the painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” from life, and not from the wrapper of the “Teddy Bear” candy. The history of writing the masterpiece is quite interesting.

In 1885, Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin decided to paint a canvas that would reflect the deep strength and immense power of the Russian pine forest. The artist chose the Bryansk forests as the place to paint the canvas. For three months Shishkin lived in a hut, seeking unity with nature. The result of the action was the landscape “Sosnovy Bor. Morning". However, Ivan Ivanovich’s wife Sofya Karlovna, who served as the main expert and critic of the great painter’s paintings, felt that the canvas lacked dynamics. At the family council, it was decided to add forest life to the landscape. Initially, it was planned to “launch” hares along the canvas, however, their small dimensions would hardly have been able to convey power and strength Russian forest. We had to choose from three textured representatives of the fauna: bear, wild boar and elk. The selection was made using the cut-off method. The boar disappeared immediately - Sofya Karlovna did not like pork. Sokhaty also did not qualify for the competition, since an elk climbing a tree would have looked unnatural. In search of a suitable bear that won the tender, Shishkin was again resettled in the Bryansk forests. However, this time he was disappointed. All Bryansk bears seemed skinny and unattractive to the painter. Shishkin continued his search in other provinces. For 4 years the artist wandered through the forests of the Oryol, Ryazan and Pskov regions, but never found an exhibit worthy of a masterpiece. “The bear is not purebred today, maybe a wild boar will do after all?” Shishkin wrote to his wife from the hut. Sofya Karlovna helped her husband here too - in Brem’s encyclopedia “Animal Life” she read that the bears living in the Vyatka province have the best exterior. A biologist described the brown bear of the Vyatka line as “a well-built animal with a correct bite and well-standing ears.” Shishkin went to Vyatka, Omutninsky district, in search of the ideal animal. On the sixth day of living in the forest, not far from his cozy dugout, the artist discovered a den of magnificent representatives of the brown bear breed. The bears also discovered Shishkin and Ivan Ivanovich completed them from memory. In 1889, the great canvas was ready, certified by Sofia Karlovna and placed in the Tretyakov Gallery.

Unfortunately, few people now remember the significant contribution of Vyatka nature to the painting “Morning in a Pine Forest”. But in vain. To this day, the bear in these parts is powerful and purebred. It is a well-known fact that the Gromyk bear from the Zonikha animal farm posed for the emblem of the 1980 Olympics.

Vyacheslav Sykchin,
independent historian,
chairman of the bearologists' cell
Vyatka Darwinist Society.

“Morning in a Pine Forest” is perhaps one of the most famous paintings by Ivan Shishkin. The first thing that attracts and touches the audience looking at the masterpiece is the bears. Without animals, the picture would hardly have turned out so attractive. Meanwhile, few people know that it was not Shishkin, another artist named Savitsky, who painted the animals.

Bear Master

Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky is now not as famous as Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, whose name probably even a child knows. Nevertheless, Savitsky is also one of the most talented Russian painters. At one time he was an academician and a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts. It is clear that it was on the basis of art that Savitsky met Shishkin.
Both of them loved Russian nature and selflessly depicted it on their canvases. But Ivan Ivanovich preferred landscapes in which people or animals, if they appeared, were only in the role minor characters. Savitsky, on the contrary, actively portrayed both. Apparently, thanks to his friend’s skill, Shishkin became convinced that he was not very successful with the figures of living beings.

Help from a friend

At the end of the 1880s, Ivan Shishkin completed another landscape, in which he depicted an unusually picturesque morning in a pine forest. However, according to the artist, the picture lacked some kind of accent, for which he planned to paint 2 bears. Shishkin even made sketches for future characters, but was dissatisfied with his work. It was then that he turned to Konstantin Savitsky with a request to help him with the animals. Shishkin’s friend did not refuse and happily got down to business. The bears turned out to be enviable. In addition, the number of clubfoot has doubled.
To be fair, it is worth noting that Shishkin himself had no intention of cheating at all, and when the picture was ready, he indicated not only his last name, but also Savitsky’s. Both friends were satisfied with their joint work. But everything was ruined by the founder of the world-famous gallery, Pavel Tretyakov.

Stubborn Tretyakov

It was Tretyakov who purchased “Morning in a Pine Forest” from Shishkin. However, the patron did not like the 2 signatures on the painting. And since, after purchasing this or that work of art, Tretyakov considered himself its sole and rightful owner, he went ahead and erased Savitsky’s name. Shishkin began to object, but Pavel Mikhailovich remained adamant. He said that the style of writing, including regarding bears, corresponds to the manner of Shishkin, and Savitsky is clearly superfluous here.
Ivan Shishkin shared the fee he received from Tretyakov with a friend. However, he gave Savitsky only the 4th part of the money, explaining this by the fact that he did the sketches for “Morning” without the help of Konstantin Apollonovich.
Surely Savitsky was offended by such treatment. In any case, he never painted another painting together with Shishkin. And Savitsky’s bears, in any case, really became the decoration of the picture: without them, “Morning in a Pine Forest” would hardly have received such recognition.

SPECIAL PROJECTS

Over the past century, “Morning in a Pine Forest,” which rumor, disregarding the laws of arithmetic, christened into “Three Bears,” has become the most widely circulated painting in Russia: Shishkin bears look at us from candy wrappers, greeting cards, wall tapestries and calendars; Even of all the cross-stitch kits that are sold in “Everything for needlework” stores, these bears are the most popular.

By the way, what does morning have to do with it?!

It is known that this painting was originally called “Bear Family in the Forest.” And it had two authors - Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky: Shishkin painted the forest, but the latter’s brushes belonged to the bears themselves. But Pavel Tretyakov, who bought this canvas, ordered the painting to be renamed and only one artist to be left in all catalogs - Ivan Shishkin.

- Why? – Tretyakov was faced with this question for many years.

Only once did Tretyakov explain the motives for his action.

“In the painting,” answered the patron, “everything, from the concept to the execution, speaks of the manner of painting, of the creative method that is characteristic of Shishkin.”

I.I. Shishkin. Morning in a pine forest.

“Bear” was the nickname of Ivan Shishkin himself in his youth.

Huge in stature, gloomy and silent, Shishkin always tried to stay away from noisy companies and fun, preferring to walk somewhere in the forest completely alone.

He was born in January 1832 in the darkest corner of the empire - in the city of Elabuga in the then Vyatka province, in the family of the merchant of the first guild Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin, a local romantic and eccentric who was interested not so much in the grain trade as in archaeological research and social activities.

Perhaps that is why Ivan Vasilyevich did not scold his son when, after four years of studying at the Kazan gymnasium, he quit studying with the firm intention of never returning to school. “Well, he gave up and gave up,” Shishkin Sr. shrugged, “not everyone can build bureaucratic careers.”

But Ivan was not interested in anything other than hiking through the forests. Each time he ran away from home before dawn and returned after dark. After dinner, he silently locked himself in his room. He had no interest in either female society or the company of peers, to whom he seemed like a forest savage.

The parents tried to place their son in the family business, but Ivan did not express any interest in trading. Moreover, all the merchants deceived and cheated him. “Our arithmetic and grammarian is idiotic in matters of commerce,” his mother complained in a letter to her eldest son Nikolai.

But then, in 1851, Moscow artists appeared in quiet Yelabuga, summoned to paint the iconostasis in the cathedral church. Ivan soon met one of them, Ivan Osokin. It was Osokin who noticed the craving young man to drawing. He accepted young Shishkin as an apprentice in the artel, teaching him how to cook and stir paints, and later advised him to go to Moscow and study at the School of Painting and Sculpture at the Moscow Art Society.

I.I. Shishkin. Self-portrait.

The relatives, who had already given up on the undergrowth, even perked up when they learned about their son’s desire to become an artist. Especially the father, who dreamed of glorifying the Shishkin family for centuries. True, he believed that he himself would become the most famous Shishkin - as an amateur archaeologist who excavated the ancient Devil's settlement near Yelabuga. Therefore, his father allocated money for training, and in 1852, 20-year-old Ivan Shishkin set off to conquer Moscow.

It was his sharp-tongued comrades at the School of Painting and Sculpture who nicknamed him the Bear.

As his classmate Pyotr Krymov, with whom Shishkin shared a room in a mansion on Kharitonyevsky Lane, recalled, “our Bear has already climbed all over Sokolniki and painted all the clearings.”

However, he went to sketches in Ostankino, and in Sviblovo, and even in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra - Shishkin worked as if tirelessly. Many were amazed: in a day he produced as many sketches as others could barely do in a week.

In 1855, having brilliantly graduated from the School of Painting, Shishkin decided to enter the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. And although, according to the then table of ranks, graduates of the Moscow School actually had the same status as graduates of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Shishkin simply passionately wanted to learn to paint from the best European masters of painting.

Life in the noisy capital of the empire did not change Shishkin’s unsociable character at all. As he wrote in letters to his parents, if not for the opportunity to study painting with the best masters, he would have returned home to his native forests long ago.

“I’m tired of Petersburg,” he wrote to his parents in the winter of 1858. – Today we were on Admiralteyskaya Square, where, as you know, the color of St. Petersburg Maslenitsa. It’s all such rubbish, nonsense, vulgarity, and the most respectable public, the so-called higher ones, flock to this vulgar chaos on foot and in carriages, in order to kill part of their boring and idle time and immediately watch how the lower public is having fun. But we, the people who make up the average public, really don’t want to watch...”

And here is another letter, written in the spring: “This incessant thunder of carriages appeared on the cobblestone street; at least in winter it doesn’t bother me. When the first day of the holiday comes, countless numbers of cocked hats, helmets, cockades and similar rubbish will appear on the streets of all St. Petersburg to make visits. It’s a strange thing, in St. Petersburg every minute you meet either a pot-bellied general, or a pole-shaped officer, or a crooked official - these personalities are simply countless, you would think that the whole of Petersburg is full only of them, these animals ... "

The only consolation he finds in the capital is the church. Paradoxically, it was in noisy St. Petersburg, where many people in those years lost not only their faith, but also their very human appearance, that Shishkin just found his way to God.

Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin.

In letters to his parents, he wrote: “In our Academy, there is a church in the building itself, and during divine services we leave classes, go to church, and in the evening after class to the all-night vigil, there is no matins there. And I’ll be happy to tell you that it’s so pleasant, so good, it couldn’t be better, like someone who did something, leaves everything, goes, comes and again does the same thing as before. Just as the church is good, the clergy fully respond to it, the priest is a venerable, kind old man, he often visits our classes, he speaks so simply, captivatingly, so vividly...”

Shishkin also saw God’s will in his studies: he had to prove to the Academy professors the right of a Russian artist to paint Russian landscapes. It was not so easy to do this, because at that time the Frenchman Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain were considered the luminaries and gods of the landscape genre, who painted either majestic alpine landscapes or the sultry nature of Greece or Italy. Russian spaces were considered a kingdom of savagery, unworthy of depiction on canvas.

Ilya Repin, who studied a little later at the Academy, wrote: “Real nature, beautiful nature was recognized only in Italy, where there were eternally unattainable examples of the highest art. The professors saw all this, studied it, knew it, and led their students to the same goal, to the same unfading ideals...”

I.I. Shishkin. Oak.

But it wasn't just about ideals.

Since the time of Catherine II, foreigners have flooded artistic circles Petersburg: French and Italians, Germans and Swedes, Dutch and English worked on portraits of royal dignitaries and members of the imperial family. Suffice it to recall the Englishman George Dow, the author of a series of portraits of heroes Patriotic War 1812, who under Nicholas I was officially appointed First Artist of the Imperial Court. And while Shishkin was studying at the Academy, the Germans Franz Kruger and Peter von Hess, Johann Schwabe and Rudolf Frenz, who specialized in depicting high society amusements - primarily balls and hunting, shone at the court in St. Petersburg. Moreover, judging by the pictures, Russian nobles did not hunt in the northern forests at all, but somewhere in alpine valleys. And, naturally, foreigners who viewed Russia as a colony tirelessly instilled in the St. Petersburg elite the idea of ​​the natural superiority of everything European over Russian.

However, it was impossible to break Shishkin's stubbornness.

“God showed me this path; the path on which I am now is the one that leads me along it; and how God will unexpectedly lead me to my goal,” he wrote to his parents. “A firm hope in God consoles me in such cases, and involuntarily the shell of dark thoughts is cast off from me...”

Ignoring the criticism of his teachers, he continued to paint pictures of Russian forests, honing his drawing technique to perfection.

And he achieved his goal: in 1858, Shishkin received the Great Silver Medal of the Academy of Arts for pen drawings and pictorial sketches written on the island of Valaam. The following year, Shishkin received a second-class Gold Medal for the Valaam landscape, which also gave him the right to study abroad at the expense of the state.

I.I. Shishkin. View on the island of Valaam.

While abroad, Shishkin quickly became homesick.

The Berlin Academy of Arts seemed like a dirty barn. The exhibition in Dresden is an example of bad taste.

“Out of innocent modesty, we reproach ourselves for not being able to write or for writing rudely, tastelessly and differently from what we write abroad,” he wrote in his diary. – But, really, as much as we saw here in Berlin, ours is much better, I, of course, take it in general. I have never seen anything more callous and tasteless than the painting here at the permanent exhibition - and here there are not only Dresden artists, but from Munich, Zurich, Leipzig and Düsseldorf, more or less all representatives of the great German nation. We, of course, look at them in the same obsequious way as we look at everything abroad... So far, of everything I have seen abroad, nothing has brought me to the point of stunning, as I expected, but, on the contrary, I have become more confident in myself... »

He was not enticed by the mountain views of Saxon Switzerland, where he studied with the famous animal artist Rudolf Koller (so, contrary to rumor, Shishkin could draw animals excellently), nor by the landscapes of Bohemia with miniature mountains, nor by the beauty of old Munich, nor by Prague.

“Now I just realized that I was in the wrong place,” wrote Shishkin. “Prague is nothing remarkable; its surroundings are also poor.”

I.I. Shishkin. Village near Prague. Watercolor.

Only the ancient Teutoburg Forest with centuries-old oak trees, still remembering the times of the invasion of the Roman legions, briefly captivated his imagination.

The more he traveled around Europe, the more he wanted to return to Russia.

Out of boredom, he even once got into a very unpleasant situation. He was once sitting in a Munich beer hall, drinking about a liter of Mosel wine. And he didn’t share something with a group of tipsy Germans who began making rude ridicule about Russia and Russians. Ivan Ivanovich, without waiting for any explanations or apologies from the Germans, got into a fight and, as witnesses stated, knocked out seven Germans with his bare hands. As a result, the artist ended up with the police, and the case could have taken a very serious turn. But Shishkin was acquitted: the artist was, after all, the judges considered, a vulnerable soul. And this turned out to be almost his only positive impression of his European trip.

But at the same time, it was thanks to the work experience acquired in Europe that Shishkin was able to become what he became in Russia.

In 1841, an event occurred in London that was not immediately appreciated by his contemporaries: the American John Goff Rand received a patent for a tin tube for storing paint, wrapped at one end and capped at the other. This was the prototype of the current tubes, in which today not only paint is packaged, but also a lot of useful things: cream, toothpaste, food for astronauts.

What could be more ordinary than a tube?

It is perhaps difficult for us today to even imagine how this invention made life easier for artists. Nowadays, anyone can easily and quickly become a painter: go to the store, buy a primed canvas, brushes and a set of acrylic or oil paints– and please draw as much as you like! In earlier times, artists prepared their own paints by buying dry powdered pigments from traders, and then patiently mixing the powder with oil. But in the time of Leonardo da Vinci, artists prepared their own coloring pigments, which was an extremely labor-intensive process. And, let’s say, the process of soaking crushed lead in acetic acid to make white paint took the lion’s share of the painters’ working time, which is why, by the way, the paintings of the old masters were so dark, artists tried to save on white.

But even mixing paints based on semi-finished pigments took a lot of time and effort. Many painters recruited students to prepare paints for work. The finished paints were stored in hermetically sealed clay pots and bowls. It is clear that with a set of pots and jugs for oil it was impossible to go plein air, that is, to paint landscapes from nature.

I.I. Shishkin. Forest.

And this was another reason why the Russian landscape could not gain recognition in Russian art: painters simply redrew landscapes from paintings by European masters, without being able to paint from life.

Of course, the reader may object: if an artist cannot paint from life, then why couldn’t they draw from memory? Or just make it all up out of your head?

But drawing “from the head” was completely unacceptable for graduates of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Ilya Repin has an interesting episode in his memoirs that illustrates the importance of Shishkin’s attitude to the truth of life.

“On my largest canvas, I began to paint rafts. “A whole string of rafts was walking along the wide Volga straight towards the viewer,” the artist wrote. – Ivan Shishkin encouraged me to destroy this painting, to whom I showed this painting.

- Well, what did you mean by that! And most importantly: you didn’t write this from sketches from life?! Can you see it now.

- No, that’s what I imagined...

- That's exactly what it is. I imagined! After all, these logs are in the water... It should be clear: what logs are spruce or pine? Why, some kind of “stoeros”! Ha ha! There is an impression, but it’s not serious...”

The word “frivolously” sounded like a sentence, and Repin destroyed the painting.

Shishkin himself, who did not have the opportunity to paint sketches in the forest with paints from nature, made sketches with a pencil and pen during his walks, achieving a filigree drawing technique. Actually, in Western Europe It was his forest sketches made with pen and ink that were always valued. Shishkin also painted brilliantly in watercolors.

Of course, Shishkin was far from the first artist who dreamed of painting large canvases with Russian landscapes. But how to move the workshop to the forest or to the river bank? The artists had no answer to this question. Some of them built temporary workshops (such as Surikov and Aivazovsky), but moving such workshops from place to place was too expensive and troublesome even for famous painters.

They also tried packaging ready-mixed paints in pig bladders, which were tied in a knot. Then they pierced the bubble with a needle to squeeze out a little paint onto the palette, and the resulting hole was plugged with a nail. But more often than not, the bubbles simply burst along the way.

And suddenly strong and lightweight tubes with liquid paints appeared that you could carry with you - just squeeze a little onto the palette and paint. Moreover, the colors themselves have become brighter and richer.

Next came an easel, that is, a portable box with paints and a canvas stand that could be carried with you.

Of course, not all artists could lift the first easels, but this is where Shishkin’s bearish strength came in handy.

Shishkin's return to Russia with new colors and new painting technologies caused a sensation.

Ivan Ivanovich not only fit into fashion - no, he himself became a trendsetter in artistic fashion, not only in St. Petersburg, but also in Western Europe: his works became a discovery at the Paris World Exhibition, received flattering reviews at an exhibition in Dusseldorf, which, however, it is not surprising, because the French and Germans were no less tired of the “classical” Italian landscapes than the Russians.

At the Academy of Arts he receives the title of professor. Moreover, at the request Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna Shishkin was introduced to Stanislav of the 3rd degree.

Also, a special landscape class opens at the Academy, and Ivan Ivanovich gets both a stable income and students. Moreover, the very first student - Fyodor Vasiliev - in a short time achieves universal recognition.

Changes also occurred in Shishkin’s personal life: he married Evgenia Aleksandrovna Vasilyeva, his student’s sister. Soon the newlyweds had a daughter, Lydia, and then sons Vladimir and Konstantin were born.

Evgenia Shishkina, Shishkin's first wife.

“By nature, Ivan Ivanovich was born a family man; away from his family, he was never calm, he could hardly work, it always seemed to him that someone was sure to be sick at home, something had happened,” wrote the artist’s first biographer Natalya Komarova. – In the external arrangement of home life, he had no rivals, creating a comfortable and beautiful environment out of almost nothing; He was terribly tired of wandering around furnished rooms, and with all his soul he devoted himself to his family and his household. For his children, he was the most tender loving father, especially while the children were small. Evgenia Alexandrovna was simple and good woman, and the years of her life with Ivan Ivanovich passed in quiet and peaceful work. The funds already made it possible to have modest comfort, although with an ever-increasing family, Ivan Ivanovich could not afford anything extra. He had many acquaintances, comrades often gathered with them and games were arranged between times, and Ivan Ivanovich was the most hospitable host and the soul of society.”

He establishes especially warm relations with the founders of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, artists Ivan Kramskoy and Konstantin Savitsky. For the summer, the three of them rented a spacious house in the village of Ilzho on the shores of Lake Ilzhovo not far from St. Petersburg. From early morning, Kramskoy locked himself in the studio, working on “Christ in the Desert,” and Shishkin and Savitsky usually went to sketches, climbing into the very depths of the forest, into the thicket.

Shishkin approached the matter very responsibly: he looked for a place for a long time, then began to clear the bushes, cut off the branches so that nothing would interfere with seeing the landscape he liked, made a seat out of branches and moss, strengthened the easel and got to work.

Savitsky, an early orphaned nobleman from Bialystok, took a liking to Ivan Ivanovich. A sociable person, a lover of long walks, practically knowledgeable about life, he knew how to listen, and he knew how to speak himself. There was a lot in common between them, and therefore both were drawn to each other. Savitsky even became the godfather of the artist’s youngest son, also Konstantin.

During such a summer harvest, Kramskoy painted the most famous portrait of Shishkin: not an artist, but a gold miner in the wilds of the Amazon - in a fashionable cowboy hat, English breeches and light leather boots with iron heels. In his hands is an alpenstock, a sketchbook, a box of paints, a folding chair, an umbrella from the sun’s rays are casually hanging on his shoulder - in a word, all the equipment.

– Not just a Bear, but a real owner of the forest! - Kramskoy exclaimed.

This was Shishkin's last happy summer.

Kramskoy. Portrait of I. I. Shishkin.

First a telegram came from Yelabuga: “This morning Father Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin died. I consider it my duty to inform you.”

Then little Volodya Shishkin died. Evgenia Alexandrovna turned black with grief and fell ill.

“Shishkin has been biting his nails for three months and that’s all,” Kramskoy wrote in November 1873. “His wife is still ill…”

Then the blows of fate fell one after another. A telegram arrived from Yalta about the death of Fyodor Vasiliev, and then Evgenia Alexandrovna died.

In a letter to his friend Savitsky, Kramskoy wrote: “E.A. Shishkina ordered to live long. She died last Wednesday, on the night of Thursday from March 5 to 6. On Saturday we saw her off. Soon. Sooner than I thought. But this is expected.”

To top it all off, the youngest son Konstantin also died.

Ivan Ivanovich became not himself. I couldn’t hear what my loved ones were saying, I couldn’t find a place for myself either at home or in the workshop, even endless wanderings in the forest couldn’t ease the pain of loss. Every day he went to visit his family’s graves, and then, returning home after dark, he drank cheap wine until he was completely unconscious.

Friends were afraid to come to him - they knew that Shishkin, being out of his mind, could easily rush at uninvited guests with his fists. The only one who could console him was Savitsky, but he drank himself to death alone in Paris, mourning the death of his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna, who either committed suicide or died in an accident due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Savitsky himself was close to suicide. Perhaps only the misfortune that befell his friend in St. Petersburg could stop him from committing an irreparable act.

Only a few years later Shishkin found it in himself to return to painting.

He painted the canvas “Rye” - especially for the VI Traveling Exhibition. The huge field that he sketched somewhere near Yelabuga became for him the embodiment of his father’s words read in one of his old letters: “Death lies with man, then comes judgment; what a man sows in life, that he will also reap.”

In the background are mighty pine trees and - as an eternal reminder of death, which is always nearby - a huge withered tree.

At the traveling exhibition of 1878, “Rye”, by all accounts, took first place.

I.I. Shishkin. Rye.

That same year he met the young artist Olga Lagoda. The daughter of an actual state councilor and a courtier, she was one of the first thirty women accepted to study as volunteers at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Olga ended up in Shishkin’s class, and the always gloomy and shaggy Ivan Ivanovich, who had also grown a rambling Old Testament beard, suddenly discovered with surprise that at the sight of this short girl with bottomless blue eyes and bangs brown hair his heart begins to beat a little stronger than usual, and his hands suddenly begin to sweat, like a snotty high school student.

Ivan Ivanovich proposed, and in 1880 he and Olga got married. Soon their daughter Ksenia was born. Happy Shishkin ran around the house and sang, sweeping away everything in his path.

And a month and a half after giving birth, Olga Antonovna died from inflammation of the peritoneum.

No, Shishkin didn’t drink this time. He threw himself into his work, trying to provide everything necessary for his two daughters, left without mothers.

Without giving himself the opportunity to become slack, finishing one painting, he stretched the canvas onto a stretcher for the next one. He began making etchings, mastered the technique of engravings, and illustrated books.

- Work! - said Ivan Ivanovich. – Work every day, going to this work as if it were a service. There is no need to wait for the notorious “inspiration”... Inspiration is the work itself!

In the summer of 1888, they again had a “family vacation” with Konstantin Savitsky. Ivan Ivanovich - with two daughters, Konstantin Apollonovich - with his new wife Elena and little son Georgy.

And so Savitsky sketched a comic drawing for Ksenia Shishkina: a mother bear is watching her three cubs play. Moreover, two kids are carefree chasing each other, and one - the so-called one-year-old breeding bear - is looking somewhere into the thicket of the forest, as if waiting for someone...

Shishkin, who saw his friend’s drawing, could not take his eyes off the cubs for a long time.

What was he thinking? Perhaps the artist remembered that the pagan Votyaks, who still lived in the forest wilds near Yelabuga, believed that bears were the closest relatives of people, and that it was the bears that the sinless souls of children who died early died.

And if he himself was called Bear, then this is his entire bear family: the bear is his wife Evgenia Alexandrovna, and the cubs are Volodya and Kostya, and next to them stands the bear Olga Antonovna and is waiting for him to come - the Bear and the king of the forest...

“These bears need to be given a good background,” he finally suggested to Savitsky. – And I know what needs to be written here... Let’s work together: I’ll write the forest, and you – the bears, they turned out very alive...

And then Ivan Ivanovich made a pencil sketch of the future painting, recalling how on the island of Gorodomlya, on Lake Seliger, he saw mighty pine trees, which a hurricane had uprooted and broken in half - like matches. Anyone who has seen such a catastrophe himself will easily understand: the very sight of forest giants torn to pieces causes shock and fear in people, and in the place where the trees fell, a strange empty space remains in the forest fabric - such a defiant emptiness that nature itself does not tolerate, but everything - still forced to endure; the same unhealing emptiness after the death of loved ones formed in the heart of Ivan Ivanovich.

Mentally remove the bears from the picture, and the scale of the catastrophe that happened in the forest, which occurred quite recently, will be revealed to you, judging by the yellowed pine needles and the fresh color of the wood at the site of the breakdown. But there were no other reminders of the storm. Now the soft golden light of God’s grace is pouring from heaven onto the forest, in which His bear angels are bathing...

The painting “Bear Family in the Forest” was first presented to the public at the XVII Traveling Exhibition in April 1889, and on the eve of the exhibition the painting was bought by Pavel Tretyakov for 4 thousand rubles. Of this amount, Ivan Ivanovich gave his co-author a fourth part - a thousand rubles, which offended his old friend: he was counting on a fairer assessment of his contribution to the picture.

I.I. Shishkin. Morning in a pine forest. Etude.

Savitsky wrote to his relatives: “I don’t remember if we wrote to you about the fact that I was not completely absent from the exhibition. I once started a painting with bears in the forest and was drawn to it. I.I. Sh-and took upon himself the execution of the landscape. The picture danced, and a buyer was found in Tretyakov. Thus we killed the bear and divided the skin! But this division happened with some curious stumbles. So curious and unexpected that I even refused any participation in this picture; it is exhibited under the name of Sh-na and is listed as such in the catalogue.

It turns out that questions of such a delicate nature cannot be hidden in a bag, courts and gossip ensued, and I had to sign the painting together with Sh., and then divide the very spoils of the purchase and sale. The painting was sold for 4 thousand, and I am a participant in the 4th share! I carry a lot of bad things in my heart regarding this issue, and out of joy and pleasure something opposite happened.

I am writing to you about this because I am used to keeping my heart open to you, but you, dear friends, understand that this whole issue is of an extremely delicate nature, and therefore it is necessary for all this to be completely secret for everyone with whom I did not want would like to talk."

However, then Savitsky found the strength to reconcile with Shishkin, although they no longer worked together and no longer had family vacations: soon Konstantin Apollonovich with his wife and children moved to live in Penza, where he was offered the position of director of the newly opened Art School.

When in May 1889 the XVII Traveling Exhibition moved to the halls of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Tretyakov saw that “The Bear Family in the Forest” was already hanging with two signatures.

Pavel Mikhailovich was surprised, to put it mildly: he bought the painting from Shishkin. But the very fact of the presence next to the great Shishkin of the name of the “mediocre” Savitsky automatically reduced the market value of the painting, and reduced it significantly. Judge for yourself: Tretyakov acquired a painting in which the world-famous misanthrope Shishkin, who almost never painted people or animals, suddenly became an animal artist and depicted four animals. And not just any cows, cats or dogs, but the ferocious “masters of the forest”, which - any hunter will tell you - are very difficult to depict from life, because the bear will tear to shreds anyone who dares to get close to her cubs. But all of Russia knows that Shishkin paints only from life, and, therefore, the painter saw the bear family in the forest as clearly as he painted it on canvas. And now it turns out that the bear and cubs were painted not by Shishkin himself, but by “some kind of” Savitsky, who, as Tretyakov himself believed, did not know how to work with color at all - all his canvases turned out either deliberately bright or somehow earthy -gray. But both of them were completely flat, like popular prints, while Shishkin’s paintings had volume and depth.

Probably Shishkin himself held the same opinion, inviting his friend to participate only because of his idea.

That’s why Tretyakov ordered Savitsky’s signature to be erased with turpentine, so as not to belittle Shishkin. And in general he renamed the picture itself - they say, it’s not about the bears at all, but about that magical golden light that seems to flood the whole picture.

But the folk painting “Three Bears” had two more co-authors, whose names remained in history, although they do not appear in any exhibition or art catalogue.

One of them is Julius Geis, one of the founders and leaders of the Einem Partnership (later the Red October confectionery factory). At the Einem factory, among all other candies and chocolates, they also produced thematic sets of sweets - for example, “Treasures of the Land and Sea”, “Vehicles”, “Types of Peoples” globe" Or, for example, a set of cookies “Moscow of the Future”: in each box you could find postcard with futuristic drawings about Moscow of the 23rd century. Julius Geis also decided to release the series “Russian Artists and Their Paintings” and reached an agreement with Tretyakov, receiving permission to place reproductions of paintings from his gallery on the wrappers. One of the most delicious candies, made from a thick layer of almond praline, sandwiched between two wafer plates and covered with a thick layer of enrobed chocolate, and received a wrapper with a painting by Shishkin.

Candy wrapper.

Soon the production of this series was stopped, but the candy with bears, called “Bear-toed Bear,” began to be produced as a separate product.

In 1913, the artist Manuil Andreev redrawn the picture: to the plot of Shishkin and Savitsky, he added a frame of fir branches and the stars of Bethlehem, because in those years “Bear” for some reason was considered the most expensive and desired gift for the Christmas holidays.

Surprisingly, this wrapper survived all the wars and revolutions of the tragic twentieth century. Moreover, even in Soviet times, “Mishka” became the most expensive delicacy: in the 1920s, a kilogram of candy was sold for four rubles. The candy even had a slogan, which was composed by Vladimir Mayakovsky himself: “If you want to eat Mishka, get yourself a savings book!”

Very soon the candy received a new name in popular usage - “Three Bears”. At the same time, the painting by Ivan Shishkin also began to be called this way, reproductions of which, cut out from the magazine Ogonyok, soon appeared in every Soviet home - either as a manifesto of a comfortable bourgeois life that despised Soviet reality, or as a reminder that sooner or later, but any the storm will pass.

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