Petrov-Vodkin paintings: icon-painting faces of godless time

If someone at the top plans human destinies, they decided not to limit their imagination and not to adhere to any framework. The son of a shoemaker from a remote province, with a double surname similar to a parody nickname, and with an Old Testament name traveled Europe and Africa and was married to a Frenchwoman of Serbian descent.

Petrov-Vodkin's paintings are considered ideologically close by atheists and believers, aesthetes and marginals, red and white. He was called a prophet and a demon, and he was just an artist.

Shoemaker from Hlynovsk

Double surnames often become a reward for great exploits - who do not know Suvorov-Rymnikovsky or Potemkin-Zadunaisky ... Burlak from Privalzhye Khvalynsk named Petr was called Vodkin either for a certain predilection, or because of the masterful skill of his mother Efrosinya, who kept a hangout for free of people.

When his great-grandson Kuzma was born in 1878, they wrote him Vodkin. Kuzma's father - Sergei - was a shoemaker, but everyone knew him as a convinced abstainer, and he told his son: "First of all, you are Petrov, and only then - Vodkin." So there was a double surname, bringing to the thrill of auctioneers, collectors and just fans of painting - Petrov-Vodkin. Kuzma Sergeevich always remembered his origin, was proud of his parents and sought spiritual support on the Volga's banks in difficult times.

Years of study

He began his journey with acquaintance with the Bogomaz, who introduced him to the technology of making paints, priming boards, with the methods of icon painting. He did not immediately decide on the choice of occupation for life, was a repairman on the Volga vessels and wanted to enter the railway school in Samara.

Although he lacked a general education (which is why he did not pass the exam when entering the school at the railway), Kuzma was noted for his propensity for philosophical reflections and a generalized view of the world around him. Petrov-Vodkin's paintings are built on the principles of a spherical perspective, and for the first time he thought about it in his youth. He then described how, after a fight, he fell on his back, looked up into the sky and felt the curving of the horizon and the active convexity of the surface. To feel the Earth as a planet - this he was guided by himself and subsequently taught his students.

Classes of painting and drawing of the artist F.E. Burov in Samara, the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron Stieglitz in St. Petersburg, the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow, the school of the artist A. Ashbe in Munich - these are the stages of master training. He was a disciple of the great Serov and Korovin, studied landscape at Levitan, studied the collections of the best museums in Europe. The result was the highest level of knowledge, mastery in drawing and painting, which later allowed him to become a teacher of the school, created on the basis of the Petersburg Academy of Arts.

Stormy youth

He did not recognize canons either in creativity or in life. He writes prose, plays - once the question arose about the choice between literature and painting. With the money of a bicycle manufacturer, he makes a bike tour of Europe for advertising purposes, at the same time gets acquainted with European architecture and masterpieces of art collections. He studies geophysics and cosmogony and becomes a member of the French scientific community. Watching the eruption of Vesuvius and traveling through the Sahara with the Bedouins.

In a boarding house near Paris, he gets acquainted with the daughter of the hostess and tells her that she will be his wife. Marie-Josefina Jovanovic, daughter of a Serbian immigrant, became just Mara for him, although when he brought her to Khvalynsk to get acquainted with his mother, they decided for ever that Marie was a French princess.

The first steps in the world of art

He was reckoned among the followers of Matisse and Gauguin, he was called the French symbolist. For supporters of academic style, he was a radical formalist, avant-gardists considered the paintings of Petrov-Vodkin terribly archaic.

Only when he exhibited his first significant work within the framework of the World of Art, many became clear that there was a self-created master of European level with national roots and cosmic thinking.

"Dream" (1910) - a picture that made Petrov-Vodkin famous. Sleeping youth, awaiting his awakening two women and the beginning of the eruption of the volcano on the background are expressive in pattern and palette. Disputes about the picture reached scandals, many saw deliberate eroticism and nothing more. Great Repin scolded for empty decadence, and Alexander Benois and Leo Bakst, on the contrary, pointed to a profound philosophical content.

The most famous masterpiece

In 1912, the exhibition "The World of Art" was shown the painting "Bathing the Red Horse" Petrov-Vodkin. It became for many a real revelation, its meaning was realized by the most irreconcilable ideological opponents of the artist. The strength of the impact of the painting was determined by a combination of artistic means - both contemporary in that era, and based on icon painting traditions that go back in time. And the content was clearly understood by all as a presentiment of future global shocks for Russia and the world.

The First World War, the red banners of the February and October revolutions, the red and white armies of opposing forces in the civil war - all this periodically made the "Red Horse Bathing" very relevant. Petrov-Vodkin and himself sometimes surprised the accuracy of his own foresight.

Mirror and Prophet

"Playing Boys" (1911), "On the Line of Fire" (1916), "Bathers" (1917), "Petrograd Madonna" (1920), "The Death of the Commissioner" (1928) - Petrov- Vodkin's paintings amaze with the novelty of the picturesque language and the ecumenical The scope of awareness of everyday phenomena and historical events.

From our historical far away are seen the amazing visionary qualities of the master. Did the contemporaries of the artist realize this and Petrov-Vodkin himself? Pictures - still life "Herring" (1918), "1919. Anxiety "- seem to be accurate illustrations of both the future Leningrad blockade and repressions that ended only with the death of Stalin.

The origin gave him protection from the attacks of theorists of socialist realism, but too much freedom in choosing topics and in the way they expressed them would inevitably lead him to open ideological conflicts with the system. It is no accident that right after the death of the master, the creativity of Petrov-Vodkin was diligently hushed up. It was very difficult to do - the scale of talent that was valued throughout the art world was too great.

In 1939, the artist died of tuberculosis. But while there are people who can appreciate the greatness of talent and express gratitude to him for new emotions and thoughts, his way will continue.