Gerasimov Sergey artist. For the artist and poet, the spring revival of nature is consonant with the renewal of the feelings and moods of the Soviet people

The collection of works by the remarkable Russian artist, classic of Soviet art Sergei Vasilyevich Gerasimov is distinguished by its monographic completeness and, thanks to its high artistic quality, enjoys well-deserved authority in our country and abroad. Widely represented different sides Gerasimov’s multifaceted talent, and each stage of creative development is reflected in characteristic examples. A number of works are the pride of national culture. Gerasimov's creativity Soviet period is rightfully considered programmatic, clearly expressing the most fruitful tendencies of socialist realism.

All of Gerasimov’s works - be it a large-format thematic painting or a small pictorial sketch, an easel graphic composition or a book illustration - are immediately recognizable, at first glance, testifying to his artistic originality, the uniqueness of what he has done in art. They express - and express with talent - the spiritual and aesthetic ideal of the era in which the artist lived.

The collection of works by Gerasimov can tell about the artist’s versatile interest in the world around him, about conveying both the dramatic and harmonious aspects of existence. Gerasimov was distinguished by his close attention to the life of people and nature, to the life of an individual and phenomena of broad social significance, to the “small” and the significant.

Becoming creative individuality Gerasimov took place during a period of kaleidoscopic changes of various artistic directions, at a time of intense experimentation and intense ideological clashes between opposing groups, schools and ephemeral schools. The young artist was not carried away by the whirlpool of maximalist attitudes of numerous avant-garde movements. He remained faithful to the aesthetic precepts of the realistic school of Russian painting. This was facilitated by the lessons he learned from S.V. Ivanova, K.A. Korovina, V.A. Serova, A.E. Arkhipova, L.O. Pasternak while studying first at the Stroganov Central Art and Industrial School (1901 - 1907), and then at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1907-1911).

The Tretyakov Gallery has two paintings by the artist, executed in the pre-revolutionary period of creativity. The main body of his work from this time in the gallery consists of graphics. This disproportion is not due to a gap in the assembly, but the sooner the more preference that Gerasimov gave then graphic techniques, or rather, watercolors. He received the title of artist in 1912 for a watercolor sheet - “ Portrait of a man. Portrait of book publisher and educator I.D. Sytin».

The young Gerasimov worked most intensely and effectively in 1905 - 1913. Watercolors from those years allow us to speak about his early creative maturity; Even then he developed as an extraordinary artist, found his themes and his special intonation in art. His works testify to his keen powers of observation and his ability to vividly and convincingly convey his impressions. In such sheets as “” (1906), “” (1909), “” (1913) and many others, Gerasimov completely mastered the art of “erasing random features” from the depicted motif and revealing the poetic essence in it.

The nature of the selection of vital material and the chamber nature of images in early works talk about the artist's attraction to lyrical art. He purposefully developed his own type of soulful landscape and interior, intimate domestic scene and intimate portrait. He was worried about the theme of the Russian outback: the Russian province found in him a remarkably deep and thoughtful artist - a poet. With special attention and sensitivity, he looked closely at the undemanding beauty of rural nature, inseparable from the life of ordinary people.

Gerasimov saw folk life in those years as far from idyllic: he noticed contrasts in it, a complex interweaving of the joyful and the everyday. This is how she looks in his works" Recruitment"(1911), "" (1911).

In Gerasimov’s early works the precious quality of his art was already fully manifested: they are all surprisingly Russian not only in themes, but also in their attitude. One more thing important quality inherent in them: the purity of lyrical intonation. The young artist’s attitude towards the reproduced phenomenon as something extremely familiar, evoking a deep personal feeling, and at the same time as something general, national - this attitude is expressed in them with naturalness and artistic ease.

In terms of the depth of lyrical experience, the image of Russian nature created by Gerasimov in watercolor “” is akin to the “wind” landscape in the poetry of Alexander Blok. The main thing in it is not the external details, but strong feeling Motherland, thinking about its “tear-stained and ancient beauty.” The national note is clearly heard here, but is expressed without any ethnographic accents in the plot.

The content of this sheet is characterized by internal integrity, achieved by the organic fusion of landscape and genre-everyday images; and mentally they are inseparable, equally subordinate to the general artistic idea.

In search of a form adequate to ideological and lyrical tasks, the master developed individual stylistic techniques. He recreated a living and changeable image of the surrounding world, as a rule, in an impulsive, free manner. A dynamic watercolor (sometimes mixed with white) brushstroke, endowed with color-tonal richness, made it possible to convey the world in constant development and movement. This is typically Gerasimov's picturesqueness, capable of capturing instant changes in nature, its most fragile states. In each motif, the artist was not interested in a static moment, but in a state understood as a process, as a life that lasts and pulsates before the viewer’s eyes - be it the life of the human spirit or the surrounding nature. The genre scene in watercolor "" (1906) does not have a developed action, but is permeated with a reverent mood. The poetic perception of an ordinary fragment of rural reality here is largely achieved by the subtle harmony of warm and cold colors, the richness of, at first glance, a modest color palette, in which silvery-gray shades predominate, as if melting at the places of contact and transitions. Gerasimov continued the traditions of Russian lyrical landscape, the traditions of A.K. Savrasova, I.I. Levitan, V.A. Serova, K.A. Korovina.

Learned from K.A. Korovin’s impressionistic principle of the equivalent existence of each individual object in a light-air environment is masterfully embodied in such things by Gerasimov as “ Mozhaisk ranks" (1908), " Bazaar in Mozhai" (1908), " Fair"(1908).

In graphics, which was an independent area of interest for Gerasimov in initial period creativity, he was looking for modern themes, which he later developed into painting. IN " Portrait of A.G. Gerasimova, the artist's wife"(1913) translated into the language of painting and watercolor techniques: improvised fills, plastic hints. Form is created to a much greater extent by color than by academic chiaroscuro. Color achieves the illusion of an airy environment around the female figure.

The sketchy nature of the letter turned out to be equivalent to the living and direct characterization of the model. This is a kind of mood portrait. Despite all the artist’s passion for pictorial effects, the image of a person in a portrait is not reduced to a self-sufficient pictorial-plastic phenomenon. He attracts attention with a psychologically in-depth understanding of the internal state of the person depicted.

Military service since 1914 causes a rather long break in the artist’s work. Gerasimov returns to active duty creative activity only after the Great October Socialist Revolution. In the first years of Soviet power, radical changes took place in his art. If in the pre-revolutionary time, filled with the search for an individual creative style, Gerasimov was restrained, shunned extremes and throwing, did not enter into internal disputes with himself, worked smoothly, developing in a calm ascending manner to ever higher skill and professionalism, now he is reassessing previously acquired values . This relatively short period of Gerasimov’s creative biography was a unique period of storm and stress.

He responded to the events of the revolutionary era, which radically transformed the entire social and emotional atmosphere in the country, by changing his style, updating already proven artistic techniques and principles of form-building. The aesthetics and artistic practice of constructivism had a certain influence on him: for example, in some of the works of the first post-October years, he deliberately exposes the process of plastic composition. Among them there were also works in which the influence of folk art, in particular the artistic primitiveness, was traced. In those years, Gerasimov was not the only one affected by the fascination with the primitive. Traces of this influence, as well as the influence of general searches related to problems monumental art and artistic synthesis, are visible in the sketch of the panel "" (1918). By working on a panel intended to decorate the building of the former Moscow City Duma, Gerasimov took part in the implementation of Lenin’s plan for monumental propaganda.

The pictorial plane of the sketch was occupied by the figure of a peasant, whose large and confident step symbolized the movement of the Russian village towards a new life. At the heart of the image, conveyed in the language of “naive” folk art, the feeling of real prototype. The sketch revealed Gerasimov’s desire to create a monumental style of the revolutionary era. Experience in the field of monumental art helped him later create artistic images, epic in the breadth of phenomena covered.

The desire to express the heroic and dramatic collisions of the era with appropriate visual means led to the emergence of a monumental and expressive principle in Gerasimov’s art. But in parallel with this stylistic line in his work there is further development and enrichment lyrical motives, to which he returned after plastic experiments. The artist received new colors and emotional shades from the lyrical and optimistic aspects of realism.

In those same years, work on a new topic for him acquired fundamental importance for Gerasimov - self-portrait. The Tretyakov Gallery has two of his paintings, executed in 1923 and 1929.

The basis of their content is determined by the idea of responsibility imposed on the artist by the era of grandiose social changes. The entire structure of ideological and figurative characteristics in both works indicates the author’s deep sense of involvement in the new time. The power of expression of this feeling is brought in them to the degree of concentration at which the individual is organically transformed into the typical, and therefore the image of the person being portrayed is perceived as the personification of the artist of the Soviet era.

In the 1920s, Gerasimov's portrait genre underwent a noticeable evolution: the intimate chamber portrait was replaced by a type portrait. It reveals a new character Soviet people and the internal scale of the images is significantly enlarged. It is to the typical images of Russian peasants that Gerasimov owes his fame as the largest Soviet portrait painter. The most significant of these works: "", "". They summarize the destinies of people that took shape in new historical conditions.

The hero of the portrait "" (1926) is a peasant, still dressed in a soldier's overcoat, who has just returned to peaceful life.

Newspaper reports give rise to difficult thoughts about the peasant's lot, about the need to break the old way of rural life. The personal and social are intertwined in these reflections of the farmer; he weighs his fate against the fate of the multimillion-dollar peasant Russia, reared by the revolution. While preserving all the specificity of his model, Gerasimov transforms the impression of it into a holistic image, picturesque in nature, marked by signs of a capacious artistic generalization.

The search for the heroic in the everyday life of the Soviet village led Gerasimov to the creation of a classic work of the era - “ Collective farm watchman"(1933). This portrait takes us to the memorable years of collectivization and introduces us to one of the ordinary heroes of collective farm construction.

The feelings, thoughts and deeds of the depicted collective farmer are enlarged by the era itself, born of the awareness of the need for his modest work, an understanding of the importance of his contribution to the common cause. The artist succeeded in creating a typical image of a Soviet man, whose spiritual appearance and moral beauty were forged in the crucible of a great turning point, in the conditions of a new social reality. The image of this energetic person is visually activated by the dynamic manner of painting and the confident movement of a wide brush across the canvas. Striving for generalization, Gerasimov does not depict everyday trifles and particulars, but shows the figure of a peasant close-up, in strong motion.

In a number of paintings of the 1920s and 1930s, Gerasimov created a kind of group portraits of rural workers. These works are also interesting as pages of history Soviet country. In the film “” (1927), the viewer faces a multifaceted peasant Rus' seething with passions, entering on the threshold of a new life. The communist proletarian throws a revolutionary slogan into this socially heterogeneous crowd, passionately and convincingly calling for a conscious reorganization of the world. At the center of Gerasimov’s artistic research is the problem of self-determination and moral formation Russian peasantry in the first decade of Soviet power. In the depicted scene, the artist’s real impressions are condensed: in the depiction of each character, much that is unimportant is discarded and, on the contrary, attention is focused on revealing the socially typical. For the sake of this kind of expressiveness, Gerasimov consciously uses some possibilities of grotesque imagery. Thanks to this, the expressiveness of the characteristics increases, and the meaning of the depicted scene seems to be exposed and becomes clearly visible.

The kulaks are rich with gloomy faces and with leaden, heavy glances they hide behind the backs of the middle peasants and the poor. Among the latter, there are noticeable manifestations of enthusiasm and awakened faith in the possibility better life. It is in the images of these peasants that Gerasimov notes the sprouts of a new consciousness. The sharpness of his artistic vision and deep knowledge of folk psychology helped him sculpt extraordinary characters. The era of radical restructuring of the peasant worldview found in the person of Gerasimov an intelligent, historically insightful interpreter. Along with the colorfulness of the social type in creating a tense image of the picture big role belongs to the dynamic development of the plot and expressive dramaturgy compositional construction. As if restraining himself, the artist balances expressiveness creative expression turning to soft colors.

Close attention to the people's fate should have awakened Gerasimov's interest in historical picture. In the 1930s, his first works of the historical-revolutionary genre appeared. In the sketch for his famous painting "" (1932) deep drama has already appeared figurative solution plot. Depicting the scene of the farewell of the Red partisans to their fallen comrade, Gerasimov gives it an epic meaning and permeates it with the harsh and high “music of the revolution.”

There is no hopelessness in its tragedy: it is a heroic tragedy, conveying to the viewer the courageous truth about the historical inevitability of revolutionary victims. The scene is not overwhelming in its content and does not make a depressing impression. A private episode from the times of the civil war grew into a collective image of the revolutionary era. The depiction of an event is freed from the power of details and genre everyday life. The pathetic style achieved by the increased emotional intensity of plastic means and compositional construction is successfully correlated with the ideological and artistic concept of the work.

The historical and revolutionary theme in Gerasimov’s work organically develops the images and themes that form the basis of plot compositions from folk life and, of course, portraits - paintings like “ To the collective farm watchman».

One of the most significant works in Gerasimov’s creative heritage is the painting “” (1928 - 1930). In it he achieved that figurative completeness that gives rise to a feeling of universality, the universality of the content: somehow you forget that, according to its formal characteristics, the picture is a work of the everyday genre. Indeed, the massive boat seems to be a pedestal for a multi-figured monument to working people, and the scene of the fishing team’s dinner is perceived as some kind of significant event, endowed with almost universal meaning. An ordinary everyday situation is important for the artist as a reason for thinking about the moral beauty of work, which is affirmed as the basis of a harmonious and sustainable social existence. Gerasimov focused on the stocky human figures, imbuing the images of fishermen with epic power. The artel acts here as the guardian of the high moral standards of people's life.

One can say about each of the characters: a person is strong and beautiful only through hard work. In their manner of carrying themselves - sedately, unfussily, with a sense of self-esteem - Gerasimov emphasized those facets of the national character that were polished by the centuries-old experience of the Russian people. An epic landscape with a wide breath of river space matches the people. The reproduced scene is devoid of idealization: the characters are emphatically rude and brutal. Boldly sacrificing details, masterfully using the figurative possibilities of restrained coloring, the artist finds a laconic, plastically accurate, monumental form.

The most famous work Gerasimova - painting "" (1937). This work of his fully met the requirements big style socialist era. The canvas depicts how festive table, right in the field, collective farmers honor the heroine of rural labor. She, with an order on her chest, sits in the center next to an elderly peasant woman and the chairman of the collective farm, who enthusiastically delivers a welcoming speech. From the moment the picture appeared at the All-Union art exhibition“Industry of Socialism” was a constant success.

The secret of this popularity, again, lies not in the entertaining nature of the narrative, but in the emphasis on the most significant aspects of Soviet life. Not a sluggish statement of well-known facts, but a poetic statement of collective farm innovation sounds in the figurative structure of the work. I would like to believe that its author was completely alien to any social demagogy and desire to embellish reality. He was truthful in conveying the main essence and historical implications of the depicted event.

IN unbreakable connection With ideological content the painting contains its stylistic features. So that the viewer can feel the major atmosphere of a rural holiday, Gerasimov turns to plein air painting and creatively implements the lessons of impressionistic decorativeness. Loud-sounding colors, multi-colored reflexes on the clothes and faces of collective farmers, a whole colorful symphony of reflections on the tablecloth and on every object that came into the artist’s field of vision, subtle flows of warm and cold reflections - all this forms a picture amazing in its beauty and entertainment. But the artist needs the colorful radiance of the canvas and the entire light-colored element of the picture not as such, but to internally fill the scene with a certain content, to convey the emotional uplift and freshness of the feelings of the Soviet people. IN " Kolkhoz holiday"there is that thoroughness in the expression of social meaningful idea, which, as a rule, was excluded from the arsenal of tasks classical impressionism, who sought to recreate instant visual impressions. Being programmatic work Soviet art, "" became for many generations of our artists a school of painting skills, an example of an innovative solution to a modern theme.

It is easy to notice that in Gerasimov’s plot-thematic works the landscape is important not as a background, but as an organic environment integral to a person. It is impossible to achieve such an impression if you do not engage in pure landscape. For Gerasimov, starting from his first steps in art, landscape has always been a large and independent theme. In the field of the landscape genre, the artist created a lot of aesthetically valuable and significant things.

Nature in Gerasimov’s depiction evokes a feeling of calm balance and harmony; its innermost rhythms are inextricably linked with the rhythms mental life person. The above does not mean that the emotional palette of Gerasimov, a landscape painter, is monotonous. He did not confine himself within the confines of refined lyrics alone. Some of his landscapes are imbued with romantic elation and tension. And yet Gerasimov preferred various gradations of poetic and fragile manifestations of nature to dramatic states in nature. inner life. The masterly skill with which he reveals the chaste beauty of the modest and ordinary in nature gives charm and deep meaning to the simple motifs of his works. Everything in them breathes naturalness and attracts with the immediacy of the transmission of the measured existence of nature. Pessimism is not characteristic of Gerasimov’s worldview. His landscapes express the inexhaustible mental health of the Russian person.

The geography of Gerasimov’s landscape motifs is extremely wide, but his favorite theme invariably remained Central Russian nature. The city to which the artist constantly returned was Mozhaisk. Here, in his native places, with which the artist’s idea of the Motherland, of Russia, is firmly fused. Gerasimov created his best landscapes. Their distinctive feature is the organic interweaving of local and national-Russian flavor. In the historical and artistic lexicon the concept “ landscape by Sergei Gerasimov».

On best works of this kind, such as "" (1929), "" (1936), "" (1939). " Evening in the city"(1940), "" (1940) and others, it is impossible just to look: they require careful observation, you need to get used to them and listen for a long time to the almost physically tangible rich sound palette - from barely distinguishable voices and rustles to the incessantly loud noise falling from wooden dam of water.

"(1939) is one of the artist’s most poetic creations. The figurative content of this masterpiece of Soviet landscape painting is perceived through the prism of “ Winter dreams» P.I. Tchaikovsky, " winter morning » A.S. Pushkin and other lyrical works of Russian art that recreate the painting winter nature. In the context of these associations, it is especially clear national character landscape created by Gerasimov.

In the modest motif of a snow-covered village outskirts, on a gray day, the pristine silence of which is disturbed by the creaking of sled runners and the clear-voiced barking of a little dog, the artist noticed and revealed those qualities of Russian nature that we experience as something timeless, corresponding to the age-old ideas of our people about beauty and challenging we have a deep and precious feeling of love for our country.

The color scheme of Gerasimov’s landscape works is exquisitely complex, built on pure watercolor shades and the most delicate reflections. All this melodic “color music” sounds, as a rule, within the general limits (in “ Winter" - silver) tonality. The constant changes in color qualities, the vibration of shimmering colors is one of the explanations for the amazing vitality of the appearance of nature in Gerasimov’s paintings. They allow you to feel the continuity of the processes occurring in her, experience her inner spirituality and feel that “she has a soul, she has a language.”

Twice, in 1935 and 1939, Gerasimov visited the Caucasus and wrote a cycle there landscapes. The most famous are those created in Kislovodsk.

Like no one else before him, Gerasimov felt and captured the atmosphere of the resort town and the surrounding mountain landscapes. The constant “hero” of the works in this cycle is the southern sun, flooding the streets crowded with people with bright light and enhancing the light, shadow and color contrasts. Despite his attachment to the Central Russian landscape, Gerasimov perfectly, with the spontaneity and insight inherent in his art, conveyed the original beauty of southern nature.

In the creative heritage of Gerasimov important place occupied by industrial landscapes - images of landscapes transformed by the creative energy of Soviet people. They appeared, as a rule, as a result of the artist’s creative trips to various construction sites of the first five-year plans. The properties of this kind of landscapes can be judged from the painting “ White Sea - Baltic Canal. Nadvoitsky node"(1933). The Russian writer Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin, having visited this place before the revolution, called it the land of unafraid birds. Now a completely different region has opened up before the artist - transformed beyond recognition. Gerasimov remains a lyricist in the industrial landscape.

The panoramic coverage of the vast space seemed to exclude any intimacy in the picture. However, this landscape, like other similar works, is psychological. For the artist, it is a form of reflection about the “fathom steps” of the Soviet country, about Soviet people who are masterfully living in nature, which, as the artist shows, remains close and proportionate to man, despite the enormity of industrial incursions into it.

During the Great Patriotic War, Gerasimov’s brush effectively served his people: during this heroic and difficult time for the country, he created the canvas “” (1943). It is dedicated to the feat of a Russian peasant woman, whose son, a partisan, is taken away to be shot. A simple Russian woman boldly throws angry words of curse into the face of the fascist punisher. The ideological and moral significance of the depicted scene lies in the nature of the clash between its two main participants, personifying two different, irreconcilable ideologies. The moral superiority of a woman - a mother over an executioner - is shown with a degree of clarity that makes one recall the poster form: the declarative expression in art met the needs of wartime. The psychological completeness of the conflict gives visual persuasiveness to the main idea of the work, which incorporates historically rich content.

In characterizing the heroine, the artist proceeds from those high moral criteria that were the only acceptable for Soviet people during the harsh years of military trials: from the entire possible range of feelings of a woman, he emphasizes her feelings of civic duty and hatred of the enemy. The same categorical moral assessments are responsible for the lampooning sharpness in depicting the image of the fascist rapist. The smoke of fires and the corpses of executed people, as well as the huge dark shadow falling from him and seeming to trample on the Russian soil, complement his characterization.

The image of a peasant woman in " Partisan's mothers“embodied that unprecedented and unexpected rise of national self-awareness for the invaders, which determined the mass heroism of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. With its entire figurative structure, the picture inspired the idea of the impending victory of the Soviet people in their righteous struggle against fascism.

In 1941 - 1943, Gerasimov worked in Samarkand. The amount he accomplished during this period is worthy of surprise. In addition to the painting "" he writes landscapes, creates extensive graphic series.

After returning to Moscow, the artist makes a trip to the Ukrainian front, visiting the newly liberated Iskov and Novgorod. Depicting cities and monuments of ancient Russian architecture destroyed by the invaders, he every time raises his voice to an angry protest against the barbarity and savagery of the conquerors. Then Gerasimov began work on historical painting, dedicated to the Pugachev uprising. It is known that the historical genre during the Great Patriotic War experienced its heyday, and not only in the fine arts, but also in literature, cinema, and theater. Masters of art brought history to their service today. Their works told about the heroic events of the past in order to maintain among their contemporaries a sense of pride in their Motherland and its freedom-loving people. The image of Pugachev captured Gerasimov’s imagination for a long time. The artist returned to work on it later, in the 1950s. With this image he connected his ideas about the origins of the love of freedom, which has been inherent in the Russian character from time immemorial - that love of freedom, the heroic examples of which he observed during the war years. Watercolor "" (1943) introduces the artist to the world of these ideas and historical analogies.

Throughout the war years, Gerasimov did not stop working on the lyrical landscape. From his love for his native nature, he drew moral and spiritual strength that helped him withstand the difficult trials of wartime. These landscapes were inspired by a deep attachment to their father’s land - a feeling that was experienced especially intensely then. In the canvas “” (1945), written at the very end of the war, Gerasimov expressed a mood of joyful hope, a premonition of a long-awaited victory.

The theme of the eternal renewal of spring nature is perceived here as an artistic analogy of the victory of life over death. A similar comparison of moral forces with the inexhaustible forces of Russian nature can also be found in B.L. Pasternak, who wrote in the same year, 1945:

.. Spring breath of the homeland

Washes away the traces of winter from space

And the black ones are circled with tears

From the tear-stained eyes of the Slavs.

For the artist and poet, the spring revival of nature is consonant with the renewal of the feelings and moods of the Soviet people.

The freshness of the pioneering discovery of beauty in simple and everyday landscapes, sincerity and deep penetration are characteristic of a whole group of landscapes that were executed by the artist in the post-war period. Gerasimov likes to depict wide panoramic views. And, even when reproducing a closed space, he appreciates in it breakthroughs into the alluring distance - be it a piece of sky in the gap of branches or a forest road that draws the eye into the depths, as, for example, in his landscapes “ First green" (1954) and "" (1955).

In all these works, visual authenticity in the depiction of nature is complicated and inspired by the transfer of its rich inner life. Trembling admiration for the discreet beauty of a fragrant garden, washed by spring rain, is expressed in the painting “” (1955). At the sight of a wildly blooming lilac bush and the reflections of the sky on window glass country house, at the sight of wet greenery and leaves breaking through sun rays the viewer is given the opportunity to experience the fullness of existence and comprehend the internal connection that unites nature and man. Gerasimov glorifies in such landscapes the morally cleansing power contained in nature.

The theme “traditional for Russian fine art” played a noticeable role in Gerasimov’s creative practice. The foreign world through the eyes of a Russian artist" The Tretyakov Gallery houses works depicting views of cities in Austria, Greece, Italy, and Turkey. England.

Endowed with a subtle ability to capture the originality of new places, Gerasimov did not write their detailed “ portraits”, and shared with the viewer the poetic feelings that they evoked in him.

His love for nature found expression in Gerasimov’s use of the still life genre. Still life, in Gerasimov’s understanding, is not a “staging”, but an image of a part of life. The artist’s credo is especially clearly expressed in “ Bells"(1940 - 1945), where plucked meadow flowers and the landscape spreading outside the window are combined into a picturesque whole, subordinated to a single life rhythm.

Gerasimov's art is imbued with internal integrity and completeness and gives rise to the idea of a single, progressive creative path in its development. Marked by originality, high professional culture and unique intonation, his works are included in the golden fund of fine art.

Gerasimov Sergey Vasilievich (26(14).09.1885-20.04.1964) 2A

Painter and graphic artist, watercolorist, illustrator. A representative of Russian impressionism, who created a number of standard socialist realist paintings. He painted thematic and genre paintings, portraits, and landscapes of remarkable artistic skill. Master lyrical genre, author of paintings on agricultural themes, as well as works historical nature, illustrator of works of Russian and Soviet fiction.

People's Artist of the USSR (1958), full member Academy of Arts of the USSR (1947). USSR State Prize and Lenin Prize (1966, posthumously) for the series of paintings “Russian Land”. Silver medal at the International Exhibition “Art and Technology in Modern Life” in Paris (1937) and a 2nd degree diploma at the exhibition “Industry of Socialism” for the painting “Collective Farm Holiday” (1937); Golden medal World's Fair in Brussels (1958) for the painting “Mother of the Partisan” (1941-1943) and illustrations for M. Gorky’s novel “The Artamonov Case” (1939). Gold medal of the USSR Academy of Arts (1958) for the painting “For the Power of the Soviets” and the series “Mozhaisk Landscapes” and gold medal of the USSR Academy of Arts (1962). Awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and medals. Professor, Doctor of Art History (1956).

Born in Mozhaisk into a peasant family, he lived in Moscow and Mozhaisk, where in 1915 he built himself a house-workshop. Died in Moscow. He studied at the decorative department at the Moscow Central Art and Industrial School. S.G. Stroganov (1901-1907) from K.A. Korovin, S.V. Ivanov and S.V. Noakovsky; at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1907-1911) with V.A. Serov, S.V. Ivanov, A.E. Arkhipov, K.A. Korovin and A.M. Vasnetsov. In 1914 he was sent to the front, where he remained as an ordinary soldier until 1917.

Member of the associations “Moscow Salon” (1911-1920), “World of Art” (1921), “Makovets” (1922-1925), “Society of Moscow Artists” (1926-1929) and AHRR (1930-1932).

Personal exhibitions: in Moscow, Leningrad, Riga, Bucharest, Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava. Since 1906 participant of major international exhibitions. Exhibited at watercolor exhibitions of the society named after. Leonardo da Vinci.

Main works: “The Peasant” (1918), “On the Volkhov. Fishermen" (1931), "Oath of the Partisans" (1933), "Collective Farm Holiday" (1937), "Mother of the Partisan" (1943), "Kutuzov near Borodin" (1952).

IN early painting(“Front-line soldier”, 1926, Tretyakov Gallery) features of moderate cubism (“Cézanneism”) appear. I became interested in landscape painting in the 1930s. Following the precepts of his teachers, he chooses seemingly unassuming motifs of Russian nature as the object of his depiction. S.V. Gerasimov is a born colorist, he knows how to appreciate sonorous color combinations. In “The Oath of the Siberian Partisans” (1933, Russian Russian Museum) he masters the principles of the revolutionary propaganda “thematic picture”. If this image is remembered for its harsh severity, then the famous “Collective Farm Holiday” (1937, Tretyakov Gallery) looks like a stage colorful extravaganza, woven from individual “juicy” pieces. For the painting “Collective Farm Holiday” (1937) he was awarded a silver medal at the International Exhibition “Art and Technology in Modern Life” in Paris and a 2nd degree diploma at the exhibition “Industry of Socialism”. One of the most famous paintings Gerasimov’s “Mother of the Partisan” (1943-1950, Tretyakov Gallery) became about the war.

Through all his work there are real impressions of post-revolutionary upheavals and misfortunes - in the recurring motifs of the Luzhetsky Monastery adjacent to his house, destroyed and barbarously devastated after its closure in 1926. In simple plots, lyrically-soulful landscapes (series “Mozhaisk Landscapes”, 1954, Tretyakov Gallery) Gerasimov’s pictorial impressionism expressed itself most organically. The surrounding reality was combined in these compositions with memories of Russian provincial antiquity.

Taught at art school at typopolitography by I.D. Sytin (since 1912), at VKHUTEMAS-VKHUTEIN (1920-1923), Moscow Printing Institute (since 1935 reorganized into the Art Institute; 1930-1936), Moscow State Art Institute. V.I. Surikova (1936-1950); since 1940 professor.

Director of Moscow State Art Institute named after. V.I.Surikov (1946-1948). He gained a strong reputation as a cautious but persistent liberal (for which he was fired from his post as director of Moscow State Art Institute in 1948). Dean of the Faculty monumental painting MVHPU (formerly Stroganov School, 1950-1964).

Chairman of the Moscow Union of Artists (1940-1951). Since 1957, member of the Presidium, academician-secretary of the Painting Department of the Board of the Union of Artists of the USSR, since 1957 secretary, first secretary of the Board of the Union of Artists of the USSR (1958-1964).

Since 1963, member of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. Visited many European countries, Turkey. In the homeland of Sergei Gerasimov in Mozhaisk, a museum named after him has been opened.

The works are in the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin (Moscow), State Literary Museum (Moscow), State Museum Russian Art (Kyiv), Memorial House-Museum of S.V. Gerasimov (Mozhaisk), in art museums and private collections in Russia and abroad.

Essays: About art. M., 1973.

Bibliography: O. Roitenberg. “Did someone really remember that we were...” M., 2004. P.67-519; Vern Grosvenor Swanson. Soviet impressionism. Antique Collectors" Club. Italy. 2001. Plates 45; Matthew S.V. Socialist Realist Painting. London, 1998; Matthew S.V. Russian and soviet painters. 1900-1980s. London, 1998, p.96; Painting 20-30s. St. Petersburg. 1991. P.71-73; K. Kravchenko. S.V. Gerasimov. M. 1985; Kemenov V.S. Academy of Arts of the USSR. L. 1982. P.100-103, 400; Moscow in Russian And Soviet painting. Exhibition catalogue. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; Exhibition of works by People's Artist of the USSR S.V. Gerasimov. Catalog. M., 1966; Galushkina A.S. S.V.Gerasimov. L., 1964; Masters of Soviet art. S.V.Gerasimov. M. 1951; Razumovskaya S. S. V. Gerasimov. M., 1936; Shchekotov N.M. Sergey Vasilievich Gerasimov. M.-L.., 1944; Sergey Gerasimov. 40 years of creative activity. Exhibition catalogue. M., 1946.

A gifted painter and graphic artist, a master of book illustration, a born teacher, S. V. Gerasimov successfully realized his talent in all these areas of creativity.

Girl in a blue jacket

Winter

He received his artistic education at the Union of Artists and Artists of the Union of Artists (1901-07), then at the Moscow School of Painting and Painting (1907-12), where he studied with K.A. Korovin and S.V. Ivanov.

Kutuzov on the Borodino field.

V.I. Lenin at the Second Congress of Soviets among
peasant delegates.

In his youth, Gerasimov preferred watercolors and it was in this subtle technique that he developed the exquisite color scheme characteristic of his works with silvery-pearl tints of free, light strokes.

Cityscape.

Early spring

Along with portraits and landscapes, he often turned to motifs folk life, but it was not the narrative or ethnographic details that attracted the artist here, but the very elements of rural and provincial city life (“At the Cart,” 1906; “Mozhaisk Rows,” 1908; “Weddings in a Tavern,” 1909).

Golden autumn

For the power of the Soviets.

In drawings, lithographs, engravings of the early 1920s. ("Men" series) the artist was looking for a more acute, dramatically intense expression of peasant characters.

Illustration for the novel by A.M. Gorky The Artamonov Case

Collective farm holiday

These searches partly continued in painting: “Front-line soldier” (1926), “Collective farm watchman” (1933). Gerasimov is a lyricist by nature, an exquisite landscape painter.

Lilac in bloom

During elections

His highest achievements are in small full-scale sketches of Russian nature. They are remarkable for their poetry, subtle sense of life, harmony and freshness of color ("Winter", 1939; "The Ice Has Gone", 1945; " Spring morning", 1953; series "Mozhaisk Landscapes", 1950s, etc.) Meanwhile, according to the official hierarchy of genres adopted in his time, a painting with a detailed and ideologically consistent plot was considered a full-fledged work of painting.

Cow in the meadow

Partisan's mother

But such paintings were to a certain extent successful for Gerasimov only when in them he could convey a lyrical state that unites the poetry of the natural environment: “On the Volkhov. Fishermen” (1928-30), “Collective Farm Holiday” (1937).

Winter

The beginning of spring.

Attempts to convey dramatic situations turned out to be not very convincing (“The Oath of the Siberian Partisans,” 1933; “Mother of the Partisan,” 1947). Among graphic works The artist's most famous illustrations were for N. A. Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'" (1933-36) and for M. Gorky's novel "The Artamonov Case" (1939-54; for them Gerasimov was awarded a gold medal at the 1958 World Exhibition. in Brussels).

It's spring again

Spring morning.

From a young age and throughout his entire career, Gerasimov was passionate about teaching: at the art school at the printing house of the I. D. Sytin Partnership (1912-14), at the State School of Printing at the People's Commissariat for Education (1918-23), at the Vkhutemas - Vkhutein (1920 -29), Moscow Printing Institute (1930-36), MGHI (1937-50), MVHPU (1950-64). In 1956 he was awarded academic degree Doctor of Art History.

Oath of the Siberian partisans.

Church of the Intercession on the Nerl.

Landscape with a tower. The beginning of spring.

The collection of works by the remarkable Russian artist, classic of Soviet art Sergei Vasilyevich Gerasimov is distinguished by its monographic completeness and, thanks to its high artistic quality, enjoys well-deserved authority in our country and abroad. Various aspects of Gerasimov’s multifaceted talent are widely represented, and each stage of creative development is reflected in characteristic examples. A number of works are the pride of national culture. Gerasimov's work of the Soviet period is rightfully considered programmatic, clearly expressing the most fruitful tendencies of socialist realism.

The collection of works by Gerasimov can tell about the artist’s versatile interest in the world around him, about conveying both the dramatic and harmonious aspects of existence. Gerasimov was distinguished by his close attention to the life of people and nature, to the life of an individual and phenomena of broad social significance, to the “small” and the significant.

The formation of Gerasimov’s creative individuality took place during a period of kaleidoscopic changes in various artistic trends, during a time of intense experimentation and intense ideological clashes between opposing groups, schools and ephemeral schools. The young artist was not carried away by the maelstrom of maximalist attitudes of numerous avant-garde movements. He remained faithful to the aesthetic precepts of the realistic school of Russian painting. This was facilitated by the lessons he learned from S.V. Ivanova, K.A. Korovina, V.A. Serova, A.E. Arkhipova, L.O. Pasternak while studying first at the Stroganov Central Art and Industrial School (1901 - 1907), and then at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1907-1911).

The Tretyakov Gallery has two paintings by the artist, executed in the pre-revolutionary period of creativity. The main body of his work from this time in the gallery consists of graphics. This disproportion is not explained by a gap in the collection, but rather by the preference that Gerasimov then gave to graphic techniques, or more precisely, watercolors. He received the title of artist in 1912 for a watercolor sheet - “ Portrait of a man. Portrait of book publisher and educator I.D. Sytin».

The young Gerasimov worked most intensely and effectively in 1905 - 1913. Watercolors of those years allow us to speak about his early creative maturity; Even then he developed as an extraordinary artist, found his themes and his special intonation in art. His works testify to his keen powers of observation and his ability to vividly and convincingly convey his impressions. In such sheets as “” (1906), “” (1909), “” (1913) and many others, Gerasimov completely mastered the art of “erasing random features” from the depicted motif and revealing the poetic essence in it.

The nature of the selection of vital material and the chamber nature of the images in his early works indicate the artist’s attraction to lyrical art. He purposefully developed his own type of soulful landscape and interior, intimate domestic scenes and intimate portraits. He was worried about the theme of the Russian outback: the Russian province found in him a remarkably deep and thoughtful artist - a poet. With special attention and sensitivity, he looked closely at the undemanding beauty of rural nature, inseparable from the life of ordinary people.

Gerasimov saw folk life in those years as far from idyllic: he noticed contrasts in it, a complex interweaving of the joyful and the everyday. This is how she looks in his works" Recruitment"(1911), "" (1911).

In Gerasimov’s early works the precious quality of his art was already fully manifested: they are all surprisingly Russian not only in themes, but also in their attitude. And one more important quality is inherent in them: the purity of lyrical intonation. The young artist’s attitude towards the reproduced phenomenon as something extremely familiar, evoking a deep personal feeling, and at the same time as something general, national - this attitude is expressed in them with naturalness and artistic ease.

In terms of the depth of lyrical experience, the image of Russian nature created by Gerasimov in watercolor “” is akin to the “wind” landscape in the poetry of Alexander Blok. The main thing in it is not external details, but a strong feeling of the Motherland, a thought about its “tear-stained and ancient beauty.” The national note is clearly heard here, but is expressed without any ethnographic accents in the plot.

The content of this sheet is characterized by internal integrity, achieved by the organic fusion of landscape and genre-everyday images; and mentally they are inseparable, equally subordinate to the general artistic idea.

Learned from K.A. Korovin’s impressionistic principle of the equivalent existence of each individual object in a light-air environment is masterfully embodied in such things by Gerasimov as “ Mozhaisk ranks" (1908), " Bazaar in Mozhai" (1908), " Fair"(1908).

In graphics, which was an independent area of interest for Gerasimov in the initial period of his creativity, he looked for modern themes, which he later developed in painting. IN " Portrait of A.G. Gerasimova, the artist's wife"(1913) translated into the language of painting and watercolor techniques: improvised fills, plastic hints. Form is created to a much greater extent by color than by academic chiaroscuro. Color achieves the illusion of an airy environment around the female figure.

Military service since 1914 causes a rather long break in the artist’s work. Gerasimov returned to active creative activity only after the Great October Socialist Revolution. In the first years of Soviet power, radical changes took place in his art. If in the pre-revolutionary time, filled with the search for an individual creative style, Gerasimov was restrained, shunned extremes and throwing, did not enter into internal disputes with himself, worked smoothly, developing in a calm ascending manner to ever higher skill and professionalism, now he is reassessing previously acquired values . This relatively short period of Gerasimov’s creative biography was a unique period of storm and stress.

He responded to the events of the revolutionary era, which radically transformed the entire social and emotional atmosphere in the country, by changing his style, updating already proven artistic techniques and principles of form-building. The aesthetics and artistic practice of constructivism had a certain influence on him: for example, in some of the works of the first post-October years, he deliberately exposes the process of plastic composition. Among them there were also works in which the influence of folk art, in particular the artistic primitiveness, was traced. In those years, Gerasimov was not the only one affected by the fascination with the primitive. Traces of this influence, as well as the influence of general searches related to the problems of monumental art and artistic synthesis, are visible in the sketch of the panel "" (1918). By working on a panel intended to decorate the building of the former Moscow City Duma, Gerasimov took part in the implementation of Lenin’s plan for monumental propaganda.

The pictorial plane of the sketch was occupied by the figure of a peasant, whose large and confident step symbolized the movement of the Russian village towards a new life. The image, conveyed in the language of “naive” folk art, retains the feeling of a real prototype. The sketch revealed Gerasimov’s desire to create a monumental style of the revolutionary era. His experience in the field of monumental art helped him subsequently create artistic images that were epic in their breadth of phenomena.

The desire to express the heroic and dramatic collisions of the era with appropriate visual means led to the emergence of a monumental and expressive principle in Gerasimov’s art. But in parallel with this stylistic line in his work, there is a further development and enrichment of lyrical motifs, to which he returned after plastic experiments. The artist received new colors and emotional shades from the lyrical and optimistic aspects of realism.

In those same years, work on a new topic for him acquired fundamental importance for Gerasimov - self-portrait. The Tretyakov Gallery has two of his paintings, executed in 1923 and 1929.

In the 1920s, Gerasimov's portrait genre underwent a noticeable evolution: the intimate chamber portrait was replaced by a type portrait. It reveals the new character of Soviet people and significantly enlarges the internal scale of the images. It is to the typical images of Russian peasants that Gerasimov owes his fame as the largest Soviet portrait painter. The most significant of these works: "", "". They summarize the destinies of people that took shape in new historical conditions.

The hero of the portrait "" (1926) is a peasant, still dressed in a soldier's overcoat, who has just returned to peaceful life.

The search for the heroic in the everyday life of the Soviet village led Gerasimov to the creation of a classic work of the era - “ Collective farm watchman"(1933). This portrait takes us to the memorable years of collectivization and introduces us to one of the ordinary heroes of collective farm construction.

In a number of paintings of the 1920s and 1930s, Gerasimov created a kind of group portraits of rural workers. These works are also interesting as pages of the history of the Soviet country. In the film “” (1927), the viewer faces a multifaceted peasant Rus' seething with passions, entering on the threshold of a new life. The communist proletarian throws a revolutionary slogan into this socially heterogeneous crowd, passionately and convincingly calling for a conscious reorganization of the world. At the center of Gerasimov’s artistic research is the problem of self-determination and moral formation of the Russian peasantry in the first decade of Soviet power. In the depicted scene, the artist’s real impressions are condensed: in the depiction of each character, much that is unimportant is discarded and, on the contrary, attention is focused on revealing the socially typical. For the sake of this kind of expressiveness, Gerasimov consciously uses some possibilities of grotesque imagery. Thanks to this, the expressiveness of the characteristics increases, and the meaning of the depicted scene seems to be exposed and becomes clearly visible.

The kulaks, the rich with gloomy faces and leaden, heavy glances, hide behind the backs of the middle peasants and the poor. Among the latter, there are noticeable manifestations of enthusiasm and awakened faith in the possibility of a better life. It is in the images of these peasants that Gerasimov notes the sprouts of a new consciousness. The sharpness of his artistic vision and deep knowledge of folk psychology helped him sculpt extraordinary characters. The era of radical restructuring of the peasant worldview found in the person of Gerasimov an intelligent, historically insightful interpreter. Along with the colorfulness of the social type, a large role in creating the intense image of the picture belongs to the dynamic development of the plot and the expressive drama of the compositional structure. As if restraining himself, the artist balances the expressiveness of his creative expression by turning to a soft color scheme.

Close attention to the people's fate should have awakened Gerasimov's interest in the historical picture. In the 1930s, his first works of the historical-revolutionary genre appeared. In the sketch for his famous painting “” (1932), the deep dramatic character of the figurative solution to the plot was already evident. Depicting the scene of the farewell of the Red partisans to their fallen comrade, Gerasimov gives it an epic meaning and permeates it with the harsh and high “music of the revolution.”

The historical and revolutionary theme in Gerasimov’s work organically develops the images and themes that form the basis of plot compositions from folk life and, of course, portraits - paintings like “ To the collective farm watchman».

Gerasimov's most famous work is the painting "" (1937). This work of his fully met the requirements of the great style of the socialist era. The canvas depicts how, at a festive table, right in the field, collective farmers honor the heroine of rural labor. She, with an order on her chest, sits in the center next to an elderly peasant woman and the chairman of the collective farm, who enthusiastically delivers a welcoming speech. Since the painting’s appearance at the All-Union Art Exhibition “Industry of Socialism” it has been a constant success.

Inextricably linked with the ideological content of the painting are its stylistic features. So that the viewer can feel the major atmosphere of a rural holiday, Gerasimov turns to plein air painting and creatively implements the lessons of impressionistic decorativeness. Loud-sounding colors, multi-colored reflexes on the clothes and faces of collective farmers, a whole colorful symphony of reflections on the tablecloth and on every object that came into the artist’s field of vision, subtle flows of warm and cold reflections - all this forms a picture amazing in its beauty and entertainment. But the artist needs the colorful radiance of the canvas and the entire light-colored element of the picture not as such, but to internally fill the scene with a certain content, to convey the emotional uplift and freshness of the feelings of the Soviet people. IN " Kolkhoz holiday“There is that thoroughness in the expression of a socially significant idea, which, as a rule, was excluded from the arsenal of tasks of classical impressionism, which sought to recreate instant visual impressions. Being a programmatic work of Soviet art, "" became for many generations of our artists a school of painting skills, an example of an innovative solution to a modern theme.

Nature in Gerasimov’s depiction evokes a feeling of calm balance and harmony; its innermost rhythms are inextricably linked with the rhythms of a person’s mental life. The above does not mean that the emotional palette of Gerasimov, a landscape painter, is monotonous. He did not confine himself within the confines of refined lyrics alone. Some of his landscapes are imbued with romantic elation and tension. And yet, Gerasimov preferred various gradations of poetic and fragile manifestations of her inner life to dramatic states in nature. The masterly skill with which he reveals the chaste beauty of the modest and ordinary in nature gives charm and deep meaning to the simple motifs of his works. Everything in them breathes naturalness and attracts with the immediacy of the transmission of the measured existence of nature. Pessimism is not characteristic of Gerasimov’s worldview. His landscapes express the inexhaustible mental health of the Russian person.

The best works of this kind, such as "" (1929), "" (1936), "" (1939). " Evening in the city"(1940), "" (1940) and others, it is impossible just to look: they require careful observation, you need to get used to them and listen for a long time to the almost physically tangible rich sound palette - from barely distinguishable voices and rustles to the incessantly loud noise falling from wooden dam of water.

"(1939) is one of the artist’s most poetic creations. The figurative content of this masterpiece of Soviet landscape painting is perceived through the prism of “ Winter dreams» P.I. Tchaikovsky, " winter morning» A.S. Pushkin and other lyrical works of Russian art, recreating the picture of winter nature. In the context of these associations, the national character of the landscape created by Gerasimov becomes especially clear.

Twice, in 1935 and 1939, Gerasimov visited the Caucasus and wrote a cycle there landscapes. The most famous are those created in Kislovodsk.

Industrial landscapes occupy an important place in Gerasimov’s creative heritage - images of landscapes transformed by the creative energy of Soviet people. They appeared, as a rule, as a result of the artist’s creative trips to various construction sites of the first five-year plans. The properties of this kind of landscapes can be judged from the painting “ White Sea - Baltic Canal. Nadvoitsky node"(1933). The Russian writer Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin, having visited this place before the revolution, called it the land of unafraid birds. Now a completely different region has opened up before the artist - transformed beyond recognition. Gerasimov remains a lyricist in the industrial landscape.

The panoramic coverage of the vast space seemed to exclude any intimacy in the picture. However, this landscape, like other similar works, is psychological. For the artist, it is a form of reflection about the “fathom steps” of the Soviet country, about Soviet people, masterfully inhabiting nature, which, as the artist shows, remains close and commensurate with man, despite the enormity of industrial incursions into it.

The image of a peasant woman in " Partisan's mothers“embodied that unprecedented and unexpected rise of national self-awareness for the invaders, which determined the mass heroism of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. With its entire figurative structure, the picture inspired the idea of the impending victory of the Soviet people in their righteous struggle against fascism.

In 1941 - 1943, Gerasimov worked in Samarkand. The amount he accomplished during this period is worthy of surprise. In addition to the painting "" he writes landscapes, creates extensive graphic series.

After returning to Moscow, the artist makes a trip to the Ukrainian front, visiting the newly liberated Iskov and Novgorod. Depicting cities and monuments of ancient Russian architecture destroyed by the invaders, he every time raises his voice to an angry protest against the barbarity and savagery of the conquerors. At the same time, Gerasimov began work on a historical canvas dedicated to the Pugachev uprising. It is known that the historical genre during the Great Patriotic War experienced its heyday, and not only in the fine arts, but also in literature, cinema, and theater. Masters of art brought history to the service of today. Their works told about the heroic events of the past in order to maintain among their contemporaries a sense of pride in their Motherland and its freedom-loving people. The image of Pugachev captured Gerasimov’s imagination for a long time. The artist returned to work on it later, in the 1950s. With this image he connected his ideas about the origins of the love of freedom, which has been inherent in the Russian character from time immemorial - that love of freedom, the heroic examples of which he observed during the war years. Watercolor "" (1943) introduces the artist to the world of these ideas and historical analogies.

The theme of the eternal renewal of spring nature is perceived here as an artistic analogy of the victory of life over death. A similar comparison of moral forces with the inexhaustible forces of Russian nature can also be found in B.L. Pasternak, who wrote in the same year, 1945:

.. Spring breath of the homeland

Washes away the traces of winter from space

And the black ones are circled with tears

From the tear-stained eyes of the Slavs.

For the artist and poet, the spring revival of nature is consonant with the renewal of the feelings and moods of the Soviet people.

In all these works, visual authenticity in the depiction of nature is complicated and inspired by the transfer of its rich inner life. Trembling admiration for the discreet beauty of a fragrant garden, washed by spring rain, is expressed in the painting “” (1955). At the sight of a wildly blooming lilac bush and reflections of the sky on the window glass of a country house, at the sight of wet greenery and the sun's rays breaking through the foliage, the viewer is given the opportunity to experience the fullness of existence and comprehend the internal connection that unites nature and man. Gerasimov glorifies in such landscapes the morally cleansing power contained in nature.

The theme “traditional for Russian fine art” played a noticeable role in Gerasimov’s creative practice. The foreign world through the eyes of a Russian artist" The Tretyakov Gallery houses works depicting views of cities in Austria, Greece, Italy, and Turkey. England.

Endowed with a subtle ability to capture the originality of new places, Gerasimov did not write their detailed “ portraits”, and shared with the viewer the poetic feelings that they evoked in him.

Gerasimov's art is imbued with internal integrity and completeness and gives rise to the idea of a single, progressive creative path in its development. Marked by originality, high professional culture and unique intonation, his works are included in the golden fund of fine art.

He was not a private artist, living only in the world of his images, and actively participated in the life of his country. S. V. Gerasimov for a long time led the Union of Artists of the USSR, which means he participated in the leadership role of the Communist Party in the field of fine arts. He is remembered as an able administrator with a reputation as a moderate liberal, and was a careful and able teacher, leaving behind many students. But his main legacy is paintings, watercolors and graphics, marked with the stamp of enormous talent and a sensitive soul.

Small Motherland

In 1885, in Mozhaisk near Moscow, Sergei Vasilyevich Gerasimov was born into a poor family. The artist’s biography says that his life was connected with these places for a very long time. Subsequently, already occupying responsible positions in Moscow, he came to his Mozhaisk house, where there was a small workshop, and took every opportunity to paint, trying to express the dim beauty of the surroundings in landscapes.

The son of an artisan tanner, he managed to get an excellent education, graduating from two leading metropolitan art schools: Stroganov Art and Industry and School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was also lucky with his teachers, among whom were Sergei Ivanov. In addition to the virtuoso painting technique of working with oil paints, Sergei Vasilyevich mastered watercolors, lithography, etching and other types of graphics, which expanded his creative capabilities.

Search for style

He greeted the October Revolution as an accomplished master. S. V. Gerasimov was known for the works created in different materials and in various genres: “At the Cart” (1906), “Weddings in a Tavern” (1909), “Portrait of I. D. Sytin” (1912), “In the North” (1913). Genre scenes, portraits and especially landscapes of that time are filled with a subtle poetic feeling, expressed in a free pictorial manner close to impressionism.

The search for new forms in painting, which marked the beginning of the 20th century, could not pass by the young but very educated Gerasimov. Subsequently, the artist went through a period of fascination with Cezanne and the early Cubists (“Front Soldier” (1926)). There was a time when the primitivists seemed close to him. But opinion large number critics who classify Gerasimov as one of the outstanding masters of Russian impressionism seems most justified. Even the mechanical attribution of him to the founders of painting is more connected with his high position in the official hierarchy.

New times

After a long break caused by the First World War and the difficulties of the revolutionary times, S. V. Gerasimov joined the active artistic life young country. He participates in the work of such creative associations, like “Makovets”, “Society of Moscow Artists” and the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR), which became the forerunner of the Union of Artists of the USSR.

He is trying to master the revolutionary propaganda genre: “The Oath of the Siberian Partisans” (1933), “V. I. Lenin at the Second Congress of Soviets among the peasant delegates" (1931), "Collective Farm Holiday" (1937). S. V. Gerasimov successfully worked in the genre of illustration, creating graphic sheets for the “Artamonov Case”, “ The captain's daughter", to Nekrasov, Tolstoy, Ostrovsky's dramas, to other classical and contemporary books. His watercolors, which reflected the techniques of working with impasto and oil paints, were recognized as innovative by many domestic and foreign connoisseurs. But my favorite genre remained landscape.

Middle band singer

The artist traveled a lot. Sergei Vasilyevich Gerasimov, whose biography contains information about a tour of European countries, left a series of virtuosic sketches from nature made in Italy, France, and the Caucasus. During the Great Patriotic War he was evacuated to Central Asia. There, in his paintings, a hot one “settled” oriental flavor, With bright colors and blinding light. But there was a region where he was always drawn, where he always returned - the Moscow region, his native Mozhaisk.

In small sketches depicting the environs of his hometown, and in more elaborate canvases, the master’s talent is especially harmonious. Sergei Gerasimov is a Russian artist who continued the traditions of Levitan, Vasiliev, Kuindzhi. The main thing in it landscape paintings- “Winter” (1939), “Dam” (1929), “Spring Flood” (1935), a series of views of Mozhaisk (1940-1950) and many others - amazing emotional content, harmony and freshness of color, virtuoso pictorial skill.

1943, “Mother of the Partisan”

His work is truly multifaceted. A master of subtle poetic nuances, the artist Sergei Gerasimov during the war years created a canvas that became a symbol of the people’s fortitude shown in confronting a formidable and cruel enemy.

The image of an elderly peasant woman, whose son is taken away for execution, tells the story of spiritual strength that has become an insurmountable barrier for the invaders. This picture spoke more to foreign viewers about the Russian character than volumes of ideologically consistent literature. She explained a lot, telling about the reasons for the invincibility of our people. What prompted Gerasimov to paint this picture? To see here only a desire to meet ideological criteria is wrong. “Mother of the Partisan” is a work by a truly Russian artist, whose soul is inseparable from the people, from the land and nature that raised him.

Sergey Brief biography

Time and place of birth - September 14, 1885, Mozhaisk.
1901-1907 - studied in Stroganovka.
1907-1912 - studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
1912-1914 - participation in exhibitions, teaching at the art school at the printing house of I. D. Sytin.
In 1914 he was called up to military service.
1917 - return to Moscow, participation in creative artistic associations.
Teaching activities: State School of Printing at the People's Commissariat for Education (1918-1923), Higher Art and Technical Workshops (1920-1929), Moscow Printing Institute (1930-1936), Institute named after. Surikov (1937-1950), Moscow State Academy of Arts and Industry named after S. G. Stroganov (1950-1954).
1958-1964 - First Secretary of the Board of the Union of Artists of the USSR.
Died on April 20, 1964.

Gerasimov Sergey artist. For the artist and poet, the spring revival of nature is consonant with the renewal of the feelings and moods of the Soviet people

Gerasimov saw folk life in those years as far from idyllic: he noticed contrasts in it, a complex interweaving of the joyful and the everyday. This is how she looks in his works" Recruitment"(1911), "" (1911).

The content of this sheet is characterized by internal integrity, achieved by the organic fusion of landscape and genre-everyday images; and mentally they are inseparable, equally subordinate to the general artistic idea.

Learned from K.A. Korovin’s impressionistic principle of the equivalent existence of each individual object in a light-air environment is masterfully embodied in such things by Gerasimov as “ Mozhaisk ranks" (1908), " Bazaar in Mozhai" (1908), " Fair"(1908).

In those same years, work on a new topic for him acquired fundamental importance for Gerasimov - self-portrait. The Tretyakov Gallery has two of his paintings, executed in 1923 and 1929.

The hero of the portrait "" (1926) is a peasant, still dressed in a soldier's overcoat, who has just returned to peaceful life.

The historical and revolutionary theme in Gerasimov’s work organically develops the images and themes that form the basis of plot compositions from folk life and, of course, portraits - paintings like “ To the collective farm watchman».

Twice, in 1935 and 1939, Gerasimov visited the Caucasus and wrote a cycle there landscapes. The most famous are those created in Kislovodsk.

In 1941 - 1943, Gerasimov worked in Samarkand. The amount he accomplished during this period is worthy of surprise. In addition to the painting "" he writes landscapes, creates extensive graphic series.

The theme of the eternal renewal of spring nature is perceived here as an artistic analogy of the victory of life over death. A similar comparison of moral forces with the inexhaustible forces of Russian nature can also be found in B.L. Pasternak, who wrote in the same year, 1945:

.. Spring breath of the homeland

Washes away the traces of winter from space

And the black ones are circled with tears

From the tear-stained eyes of the Slavs.

For the artist and poet, the spring revival of nature is consonant with the renewal of the feelings and moods of the Soviet people.

The theme “traditional for Russian fine art” played a noticeable role in Gerasimov’s creative practice. The foreign world through the eyes of a Russian artist" The Tretyakov Gallery houses works depicting views of cities in Austria, Greece, Italy, and Turkey. England.

Endowed with a subtle ability to capture the originality of new places, Gerasimov did not write their detailed “ portraits”, and shared with the viewer the poetic feelings that they evoked in him.

Gerasimov's art is imbued with internal integrity and completeness and gives rise to the idea of ​​a single, progressive creative path in its development. Marked by originality, high professional culture and unique intonation, his works are included in the golden fund of fine art.

Gerasimov saw folk life in those years as far from idyllic: he noticed contrasts in it, a complex interweaving of the joyful and the everyday. This is how she looks in his works" Recruitment"(1911), "" (1911).

The content of this sheet is characterized by internal integrity, achieved by the organic fusion of landscape and genre-everyday images; and mentally they are inseparable, equally subordinate to the general artistic idea.

Learned from K.A. Korovin’s impressionistic principle of the equivalent existence of each individual object in a light-air environment is masterfully embodied in such things by Gerasimov as “ Mozhaisk ranks" (1908), " Bazaar in Mozhai" (1908), " Fair"(1908).

In those same years, work on a new topic for him acquired fundamental importance for Gerasimov - self-portrait. The Tretyakov Gallery has two of his paintings, executed in 1923 and 1929.

The hero of the portrait "" (1926) is a peasant, still dressed in a soldier's overcoat, who has just returned to peaceful life.

The historical and revolutionary theme in Gerasimov’s work organically develops the images and themes that form the basis of plot compositions from folk life and, of course, portraits - paintings like “ To the collective farm watchman».

Twice, in 1935 and 1939, Gerasimov visited the Caucasus and wrote a cycle there landscapes. The most famous are those created in Kislovodsk.

In 1941 - 1943, Gerasimov worked in Samarkand. The amount he accomplished during this period is worthy of surprise. In addition to the painting "" he writes landscapes, creates extensive graphic series.

The theme of the eternal renewal of spring nature is perceived here as an artistic analogy of the victory of life over death. A similar comparison of moral forces with the inexhaustible forces of Russian nature can also be found in B.L. Pasternak, who wrote in the same year, 1945:

.. Spring breath of the homeland

Washes away the traces of winter from space

And the black ones are circled with tears

From the tear-stained eyes of the Slavs.

For the artist and poet, the spring revival of nature is consonant with the renewal of the feelings and moods of the Soviet people.

The theme “traditional for Russian fine art” played a noticeable role in Gerasimov’s creative practice. The foreign world through the eyes of a Russian artist" The Tretyakov Gallery houses works depicting views of cities in Austria, Greece, Italy, and Turkey. England.

Endowed with a subtle ability to capture the originality of new places, Gerasimov did not write their detailed “ portraits”, and shared with the viewer the poetic feelings that they evoked in him.

Gerasimov's art is imbued with internal integrity and completeness and gives rise to the idea of ​​a single, progressive creative path in its development. Marked by originality, high professional culture and unique intonation, his works are included in the golden fund of fine art.

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Gerasimov's art is imbued with internal integrity and completeness and gives rise to the idea of a single, progressive creative path in its development. Marked by originality, high professional culture and unique intonation, his works are included in the golden fund of fine art.

Gerasimov's art is imbued with internal integrity and completeness and gives rise to the idea of a single, progressive creative path in its development. Marked by originality, high professional culture and unique intonation, his works are included in the golden fund of fine art.