"Seraphim six-winged" and other artistic heritage of Mikhail Vrubel

Mikhail Vrubel is a mysterious person and an outstanding artist in one person. His creative path is strewn with complex metamorphoses, which invariably led him to depict characteristic compositions, where one possession of the brush was not enough.

The character of Vrubel's work

The artist was a multifaceted personality. He traveled a lot and repeatedly visited the world centers of art: Italy, France, Germany. A lot of interest of Mikhail Alexandrovich was caused by Greece and Switzerland. Having visited many galleries, having studied history and met many characters on his way, Vrubel has made the human being and the moral and philosophical aspects of life the central theme of his work.

Art culture of the XIX century was quite contradictory, the artist had to fight for the opportunity to convey his vision of the world on canvas, constantly undergoing difficulties in depicting spiritual ways of solving problems.

Vrubel is an artist with vivid individualism and even some kind of mysticism. His work met with mixed reviews, and for a long time were not fully adopted.

The origins of the artist's work

M. Vrubel, whose paintings often acted as illustrations for literary works, often turns in his painting to the Romanticism of the Renaissance, as well as to ancient mythology. In view of the peculiarity of his activity, he was compelled to take an interest in the history of the development of folk tales.

In the absence of strict frames in the artistic style of the time, Mikhail Aleksandrovich often uses in his works techniques from different schools. Favorite tools for the transfer of images of the artist are mysterious and ephemeral techniques of early Russian symbolism.

Mikhail Vrubel is an artist with an ambiguous stylistic position. Being a versatile and sensitive person, he dreamed of uniting life and art in one canvas. To this end, he resorted to complex artistic solutions, using ornamental drawing, which very close him to the followers of Russian Art Nouveau.

Icon works of the master

You can list a lot of names of artists who would be equally good at work on a portrait, landscape and still life, but none of them can boast of such unprecedented mysticism and complexity of technology as Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel. Unconventional visual solutions along with the plot load found reflection in the following works of the master: triptych "Faust", "Morning". Here the spectator can trace the trend of the modernist school.

In an attempt to "expose" the human soul and prove its unity with nature, the artist creates pictures "Pan", "Lilac", "To the Night." However, this was not enough for Vrubel. Moving to Kiev in 1884, the master begins to work on the cycle of icons, and also finds its purpose in painting the walls of temples. He was engaged in this craft for 5 years and was somewhat disappointed, because he could not translate his ideas into his works - he had to serve the ideas of bourgeois society.

There is a process of metamorphosis, when Vrubel sees that all his dreams and vision of human nature are at variance with the surrounding reality. He becomes obsessed with the idea of creating works of monumental art, global works. An example of Vrubel's attempts to recreate his ideas on the canvas is his famous "Seraphim six-winged".

Moscow period of creativity Vrubel

In Kiev, the artist was cramped and he went to Moscow. Here he seriously engaged in decorative art. The prerequisite for this was the entry of Vrubel into the artistic circle of S.I. Mamontov's. From this moment the artist is working on panels and easel works, for example, "The Fortuneteller" and "Venice".

In the capital for Vrubel opened up new opportunities, and he began to participate in the design of performances, create architectural sketches. In these years, Vrubel's fruitful work begins on illustrations to the works of Lermontov.

"Seraphim six-winged" seems to be a complete creative antipode to the famous painting "Demon", over which the artist worked hard in 1890. The theme of good and evil becomes key in the works of Vrubel in his Moscow period of creativity. Oddly enough, it was the image of the demon that allowed the painter to maximally reveal himself in the symbolism of his personality, to show the audacious nature of the hero, rebel, a man who does not accept the whole lowland and ordinary life, forced to suffer from deep loneliness because of this. Techniques of the image on the canvas convey to the viewer all the intensity of the artist, all of his empathy and identification with himself. Symbolically, the picture resembles the confession of a man who was able to comprehend a lot in life, but did not master her resistance.

Mikhail Vrubel «Six-Winged Seraphim»

Mikhail Vrubel was a very educated person, and this simultaneously hindered and helped him in life. His "Seraphim six-winged" from an artistic point of view surpasses the famous work "Demon Defeated". Few could appreciate the whole work, invested by the artist in the image of the prophet. With a thorough study of the canvas, comparing the purity of lines and the degree of expression, we can conclude that "Seraphim six-winged" - the quintessence of the artist in search of images of good and evil. Here all the skills of Vrubel were mixed up. He managed to put this picture in the hope of monumental art, showing that he is still tormented by memories of the demon, but is no longer alone.

The canvas is written in a dense mosaic brushstroke, the color accompaniment of the painting conveys the mysticism of the other world, which the artist wished to show us through the fragments of stained glass.