Portrait of Tchaikovsky - a great gift to the descendants

It so happened that the best portrait of Tchaikovsky became the last lifetime written nine months before the death of the genius composer. Its author is a traveling artist from Odessa Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov (1850-1930).

Academician Nikolay Kuznetsov

How did it happen that the portrait of a man who during his lifetime was considered a demigod belongs to a brush of a provincial painter from Little Russia and who is he? Coming from a family of a large landowner ND Kuznetsov, carried away by the Wanderers and being a talented painter, he enters the Russian Academy of Arts, where he receives three silver medals. From the age of 30 he regularly participates in exhibitions of the Wanderers. The importance of his paintings is evidenced by the fact that six of them are kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery, and a fine canvas, written, like the portrait of Tchaikovsky, in 1893, "The Sleeping Girl" was bought by Alexander III in his personal collection. Kuznetsov wrote several magnificent portraits - VM Vasnetsov and Shalyapin, IE Repin and Count M. M. Tolstoy. All of them are very good, but the portrait of Tchaikovsky glorified the name of the artist in the centuries.

The most reliable

In general, the composer did not draw much, maybe because photos were already in fashion, for which it was not necessary to pose for hours. Images of great composers were ordered for the Great Hall of the Conservatory . The oval portrait of Tchaikovsky was written by Nikolai Kornilievich Bodarevsky. But as a rule, when one mentions a painter's depiction of a composer, they always mean a portrait of Nikolai Kuznetsov's brush, which Modest Ilyich, the artist's brother, called "an amazingly vital image." He said that he does not know the best portrait and that the artist managed to guess and reliably convey the tragedy of the mood of the greatest composer in which he was at that time.

Enemies always blacken what is especially expensive

P. Tchaikovsky, whose portrait, according to the testimony of a person close to him and who knows him well, is very good and reliable, at this time he was tormented by fears and doubts. Speculations on the topic of voluntary withdrawal from life, like other myths about a man who is the glory of Russia, pursue one goal - to blacken what is proud and what every Russian loves. The official version of premature death suggests that Tchaikovsky died of cholera, which he picked up after drinking a glass of raw water. This handsome man, suffering all his life with excruciating shyness, would hardly have chosen voluntary withdrawal from life, accompanied by exhausting vomiting and diarrhea. But the fact that something world-wide (he conducted a symphony orchestra at the opening of Carnegie Hall and was a doctor at the University of Cambridge) recognized genius in the last years of his life did not give rest, there is much evidence of contemporaries.

History of creation

P. Tchaikovsky, whose portrait was written in Odessa, was invited to this city to close the season of the opera house, which was one of the best in Russia at that time. Theater director Raysky wanted to perpetuate this event with a portrait of the great maestro, whom he would hang in the hall of the theater, giving it, therefore, even greater importance. P. Tchaikovsky agreed to pose for the 43-year-old graduate of the Academy N. Kuznetsov. For several hours he honestly was a model, and then asked to let him go, as standing in the heat in a suit was a mortal torment. The artist finished the portrait of Pyotr Tchaikovsky without a model. When Kuznetsov brought the composer to the finished work, Tchaikovsky appreciated it worthily, calling it "wonderful". Tretyakov had the same opinion about the work and immediately acquired a portrait for his collection. A canvas measuring 623 x 800 mm, captured a smart, thinking, suffering, handsome man, "the glory and pride of the Russian land." A dark background, a black suit and two bright spots - a face and a hand on an open score. Maybe the background is not fully finished, but he so well emphasizes the beautiful face of genius. You can think in the darkness of the background of some monsters allegedly tormenting the composer, but you can rejoice at how successfully the face framed by gray hair has been singled out, and how the look of the titan is emphasized, how the mind, genius and rare talent are transferred.