Hunters on a halt the size of the picture. The painting "Hunters at rest": a description for schoolchildren

"Hunters at rest" (1871)

When I tell you my True Tales, I remind myself of a left hunter, and my friends are both incredulous, like an average one, and listening, like a right one.

The picture is known to absolutely any inhabitant of our country. She is in textbooks, she is on the walls in many houses, even on candy wrappers. We know it by heart. And yet, I will tell you a couple of points that you may not know.

"To be fully an artist, one must be a creator; and to be a creator, you need to study life, you need to educate the mind and heart, educate not by studying government models, but by vigilant observation and exercise in reproducing types and their inherent inclinations ... By this study, you need to adjust the sensitivity to perceive impressions so that not a single object swept past you without being reflected in you, as in a pure, correct mirror ... An artist must be a poet, a dreamer, and most importantly, a vigilant worker ... Who wants to be an artist must become a complete fanatic, living and eating one art and only art " .
V.G. Perov "Our teachers"

Vasily Grigoryevich Perov was born on January 4 (December 23, old style) 1833 in Tobolsk, in the family of the provincial prosecutor Baron Grigory Karlovich Kridener. The boy was illegitimate, his parents got married later. All his younger brothers received the titles of barons and the surname Kridener, Perov received the surname of his godfather - Vasiliev, later the artist changed it to the nickname "Perov", given in childhood for success in penmanship. The boy's real father, Baron G.K. Kridener, was a liberal, educated man, played the piano and violin, knew several foreign languages ​​and even wrote poetry. It was the latter that became the reason that some time after the birth of Vasily, the baron was dismissed for free-thinking rhymes.

Let's get back to the picture now.

And Perov did not write it alone, but in tandem with another famous artist - Alexei Savrasov. Together they taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Savrsov's share is not known to us, but there is an interesting point.

Perov wrote two versions of "Hunters at Rest": the first is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, and the second - in the Russian Museum. Perov writes the second version a few years later. Did he turn to Savrasov again?

And the hunters are all real people! Artist's friends.

Doctor Dmitry Kuvshinnikov was depicted in his famous painting "Hunters at rest" by the artist V.G. Perov. The Hunter Storyteller on the left is him. Two other characters in the picture were painted from Kuvshinnikov's friends: the skeptic hunter is the doctor and amateur artist Vasily Vladimirovich Bessonov, and the young hunter is Nikolai Mikhailovich Nagornov, a relative of Leo Tolstoy (he was married to his niece, Varvara Valerianovna Tolstoy).
http://proekt-wms.narod.ru/moscow/2_4.htm

The picture is very popular with the audience, but some celebrities have sharply criticized it.
They didn't like unnaturally exaggerated emotions

M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin criticized the picture for the lack of immediacy: “It is as if, when showing the picture, there is some kind of actor who is instructed by the role to speak aside: this is a liar, and this is a gullible one, inviting the viewer not to believe the liar hunter and to have fun with gullibility rookie hunter.

The landscape in the picture is written much better, compositionally it is closely connected with the characters. There is something disturbing in the surrounding nature - in the piercing wind, in the withered autumn grass, in the gloomy horizon. The sky is covered with clouds, thunderstorms cannot be avoided.

The most pronounced figure is, of course, the elderly hunter on the left, passionately telling his comrades about his hunting adventures. The second hunter, in the middle, is middle-aged, listens with a grin to an elderly hunter, scratches his ear, one might say, the narrator clearly makes him laugh with another tale, and he clearly does not trust him, but it is still interesting to listen to him. The young hunter, on the right, carefully and trustingly listens to the stories of the old hunter, it is likely that he himself also wants to tell something about his hunt, but the old man clearly does not give him a word to say.

I am not a hunter, but a hunter friend, he told me that there are many inaccuracies in the picture.

The dog in the background, apparently a setter, and with the cops do not hunt hares. The black grouse lying on the right is his prey, but there is also a horn in the picture, and it is used only when hunting with hounds. In addition, when hunting for black grouse is open (and, by the way, it is found in the forest, and not in the field), hunting for a hare is closed. But whether hunting was opened in that century, I do not know. He also said that a self-respecting hunter would not throw a gun like that - the barrel would become clogged, the trigger would break. These are the bells and whistles from the modern hunter.

In the vastness of the network, I found such a story about a picture, only I lost the link. But read:

"Hunters at Rest" is one of the most popular paintings by the outstanding artist of the second half of the 19th century, Vasily Grigorievich Perov.
Until recently, it was believed that the artist painted two versions of this painting. But there is an assumption that the author created three paintings "Hunters at rest". And one of them was kept in the Nikolaev Museum for 22 years as a copy ...

The most famous painting by Vasily Perov in the century before last made a splash at an exhibition in Europe, along with Repin's "Barge Haulers on the Volga". After the exhibition, the canvas was bought by the famous collector Tretyakov, the artist wrote the second author's version for the tsar, and now it is in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Sensation - the third version of the "hunters" was found in the Nikolaev Regional Museum.

The canvas was studied for two years. The picture was painted without a sketch in pencil, but immediately with paints - it was in this manner that Vasily Perov worked. "Nikolaev" picture of the same size and written in the same 1871 as the work, which is stored in the Tretyakov Gallery. And the version that Perov wrote for the tsar and which is kept in St. Petersburg was created later - in 1877 - and is smaller in area.

Kyiv restorers presented the results of the research to the Tretyakov Gallery. They agreed with the conclusions of experts from the National Academy of Arts; Perov's authorship is still under consideration.

It still remains a mystery who the artist Perov really was? Critical realist, Wanderer VG Perov was a friend of almost all the outstanding painters of his time.
He had eccentricities, which, perhaps, explain how Perov could paint such a canvas as "Hunters at Rest" in the 19th century. The picture is directly stuffed with encrypted messages, mathematical formulas and prophetic predictions.

Many years ago, the employees of the Russian Museum noticed that by the end of the working day, female caretakers gathered in the Perov Hall, not far from the Hunters at Rest. The work was rescheduled several times, but the result was the same. And caretakers, and visitors to the museum, and excursions most of all grouped and spent time near this picture.

There have been some studies that have revealed a real anomaly. The air temperature of this painting has always been 2.6 - 2.8 degrees higher than in the other rooms. The mechanical clock at Perov's painting slowed down, and the quartz movements began to beat down the rhythm and even stopped. The picture had a strange effect on people as well.

The canvas was subjected to infrared radiation and x-rays. In the picture we got an image of three men, very strongly reminiscent of someone. The picture was printed and ... the Yalta Conference arose! On the left, leaning slightly forward, sat Joseph Stalin and convincingly proved something. Opposite him, with his hands on his paralyzed legs, sat Roosevelt, and between them, looking skeptically at Stalin, lay Winston Churchill. By superimposing a transparent map of Europe on the picture, the experts were amazed. Stalin's hands accurately indicate the opening line of the second front, while the right hand rests on the coast of Normandy, where the allied landing took place seventy years later.

If we calculate the percentage of the area occupied by the three figures of hunters to the total area of ​​the picture, then we will get the exact figure as a percentage of the total share of the three countries of England, America and Russia in the production of weapons in relation to the rest of the world in 1945! The killed game in the right corner of the picture, circled in one line, strangely resembles the outlines of defeated Japan. And if we connect the eyes of three hunters with the same line, then we will get the exact geometry of the Bermuda Triangle.

Perov ideally placed his characters in parts of the world in relation to the gun, which lies slightly to the right and below the center of the picture and means the equator. It's the first thing that catches your eye...

The picture Hunters at rest Perov painted in 1871. In this work, the artist depicted three hunters resting on a halt after a successful hunt. The artist Perov, one must admit, was himself a passionate hunter.

More than once in his life, the artist saw such scenes, because he himself was a participant in all sorts of funny tales, gossip and unprecedented stories about hunting with his fellow hunters after a difficult but interesting hunt. To display such a scene on canvas, to show the different characters of the characters, without any ambiguity, one might even say so, is a topic close to the spirit of the common people.

As a result, there are three hunters with prey in the picture, not two or four, but three, in general, the holy trinity against the background of an evening, somewhat dull landscape, birds are still flying in the cloudy sky, a slight breeze is felt, clouds are gathering.

The texture of the still life objects was carefully written by the artist, no doubt everyone looks alive without a hitch, there are hunting trophies, a well-killed hare, partridges, hunting rifles, a horn with a net and other hunting paraphernalia necessary for hunting. But all this is not the main thing in the picture, Perov's task in this work is still three hunters with their different characteristics.

The most pronounced figure in the picture Hunters at Rest is, of course, an elderly-looking hunter, passionately telling his comrades about his explicit or not quite adventures on the hunt, a fragment from what he tells approximately: Here is an annoyance, spreading his hands to the side, he missed the second hare and it was already twice as large as the first one, I successfully shot the first one.

The second comrade, who is in the middle of middle age, is also an experienced hunter, listens with irony to an elderly hunter, scratches his ear, you can say the narrator clearly causes him a sarcastic grin with his hunting, regular and untruthful tale and he clearly does not trust him, but it’s still interesting to listen he thinks.

The young hunter, who on the right carefully and trustingly listens to the stories of the old hardened hunter, it is likely that he himself also wants to tell something about his partridge hunt, but the old man clearly does not allow him to say a word.

The plot of the picture Hunters at rest turned out to be directly anecdotal, relative to other works by Perov. Contemporaries reacted differently to the work of the master, Saltykov-Shchedrin criticized the artist for the unnatural looking faces of the hunters, as if they were actors and not live hunters. And Stasov V.V., on the contrary, enthusiastically admired the picture, comparing it with the stories of the writer Turgenev.

Whatever it was, but the picture Hunters at rest fell in love with the people, the hunters themselves speak very enthusiastically about this work. Nowadays, copies of this painting are considered a gift standard for avid hunters. Therefore, in the house of a good hunter, a similar plot always hangs on the wall, and sometimes with other faces of the characters in the picture. In the work of the artist Perov, this work and paintings: Dovecote, Rybolov and Ptitselov are associated with some departure from the highly critical paintings of the 1860s.

Plot

What good hunting is complete without tale-telling gatherings? Vasily Perov, as an enthusiastic hunter, has himself visited such meetings more than once, almost certainly also poisoned adventure stories about the strength of the beast, his prowess and good luck. That enthusiasm, which is read on the faces of the characters, causes the viewer to dialogue, we are involved in the scene, as if we read by the lips what exactly the bayun says.

“What a delight! Of course, to explain - so the Germans will understand, but they will not understand, like us, that this is a Russian liar and that he is lying in Russian. After all, we almost hear and know what he is talking about, we know the whole turn of his lies, his style, his feelings,” Fyodor Dostoevsky praised the picture.

"Hunters on the run". (wikipedia.org)

Contemporaries easily recognized the artist's acquaintances in the heroes. In real life, all three were comrades and colleagues. Doctor Dmitry Kuvshinnikov posed for the narrator, doctor Vasily Bessonov for the "experienced" one, and 26-year-old doctor Nikolai Nagornov for the newcomer. Together with Perov, they often went hunting.

Still life painted in detail. A simple snack is forgotten behind a fascinating story. However, are the narrator and his listeners so experienced? An excellent gun lies carelessly in the grass, which is unacceptable. The horn that was used for dog hunting looks superfluous - there are no signs of a flock of hounds, that is, the inventory was collected without really understanding its purpose. The heel of the shoes is high, which is not convenient when hunting. It is obvious that none of the hunters is a master, they are all amateurs.

The colors of the landscape and the hare among the prey say that the events take place in late autumn. However, the hazel grouse lying right there makes it obvious that the artist himself is lying to us: both a forest bird and a hare, an inhabitant of fields and steppe zones, could not be killed on the same hunt.

The landscape, which plays the role of a "listener" here, was completed by Alexei Savrasov. Perov reported this in one of his letters, without specifying exactly how much work was done by Savrasov.

"Birdcatcher", 1870. (wikipedia.org)

The canvas "Hunters at rest" was created in the late period of Perov's work. At this time, the artist departs from his usual themes of a heavy peasant lot, the hypocrisy of the authorities and churchmen, and the general disorder of the country. The image of a peasant-contemplator, who is in unity with nature, comes to the fore.

The fate of the artist

Vasily Perov, as the illegitimate son of the Tobolsk prosecutor, received the surname of his godfather - Vasiliev, and the pseudonym with which he entered the history of art was given to him by a clerk who taught to read and write: “He draws letters beautifully, as if he was born with a pen in his hand. And therefore I will call him Perov.

"Rural religious procession at Easter". (wikipedia.org)

In Vasily's childhood, the family often moved: his father was fired from the service and it was necessary to get settled in a new way. At the age of 10, the boy had smallpox, which affected his vision - it never fully recovered.

Already in childhood, Vasily decided to become an artist. He was sent to study in Arzamas, but was expelled from school for a plate of hot porridge thrown at a classmate. At the age of 19, he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Life was hard. In winter, he even skipped classes - there was nothing to go in the cold. It was hardly enough to pay for classes and an apartment, he lived from hand to mouth. If not for the help of one of the teachers, Perov would not have been able to complete the course.

Perov was one of those rare painters who did not benefit from a retirement trip to Italy. He returned ahead of schedule, saying that he did not understand Europe and could not create anything worthwhile. Perov spent the rest of his life in Moscow, where, despite his growing popularity, he continued to fight poverty.

"Troika". (wikipedia.org)

At the initial stage of the movement of the Wanderers, Perov worked closely with them. But as soon as he realized that their exhibitions did not bring him the financial peace he needed, he left the partnership. The last decade of Perov's life was marked by a state close to depression: he edited his early works and looked for new ideas. Those subjects that made him a name - the life of the streets, the faces of ordinary people, dullness, dirt and poverty, which some did not talk about, while others did not know at all - no longer captivated the artist. He was disappointed. Perov tried to prove himself in historical painting, in genre scenes, but many of his ideas remained at the stage of sketches. The last work of the artist was a large-scale painting "Nikita Pustosvyat".

In 1882, during his favorite hunt, Perov caught a cold, the disease developed into consumption, from which the artist died at the age of 48.

Free visit days at the museum

Every Wednesday, admission to the permanent exhibition "The Art of the 20th Century" and temporary exhibitions in (Krymsky Val, 10) is free for visitors without a guided tour (except for the exhibition "Ilya Repin" and the project "Avant-garde in three dimensions: Goncharova and Malevich").

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First and second Sunday of every month:

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Hunters at rest - Perov. Canvas, oil. 119x183

There is a period in Perov's work when the master avoids sharp social scenes. He refers to life simple, ordinary, familiar. Among these works, the most familiar is the painting "Hunters at Rest".

In the center of the composition are three hunters, very different, but each of them is interesting and meaningful in its own way. The attention of two listeners was attracted by the passionate and fascinating story of an older, experienced hunter. In his posture, facial expressions, eyes, there is a holy faith in the "truth" of the story, which he decided to tell his comrades. Listeners react differently to the story. The young hunter greedily absorbs every word of his experienced comrade, the third participant - a middle-aged man - is skeptical, he questions every word of the narrator.

If you carefully consider the composition proposed by the author, the idea becomes clear. The artist showed a certain life cycle: youth eagerly knowing the world, absorbing it with faith in a miracle; then comes maturity and experience, when nothing is taken on faith and is questioned; maturity is replaced by old age, living on memories, constantly falling into the idealization of the past.

Behind a simple and clear work is a deep content, philosophical, difficult. Critics noted the squalor and tension that characterize the surrounding landscape. Anxious sky, flying birds, faded grass - everything speaks of autumn, falling asleep, anticipation of winter. Why did the artist choose such a gloomy landscape to frame his painting? Most likely, it was important for the author to concentrate the viewer's attention on the central figures of the picture, the background should not distract from the main thing in the work.

The heroes of the picture are real people, friends of the artist, who served as prototypes of hunters. As you know, the author himself loved hunting. Therefore, every detail of the picture is written with skill. In the lower left corner of the picture, we see a delightful hunting still life, which, on the one hand, fits organically into the overall composition, on the other hand, it may well be separated into a separate work, written with remarkable skill and realism.

The light in the picture is concentrated on the faces and hands of the characters. This old technique, from the time of the Renaissance, allows the artist to more fully reveal the inner world of his models. All hunters are clearly satisfied with the results of the hunt, as evidenced by the trophies depicted right there. The artist depicted people of different social origins, but all of them were united by hunting, which made them forget about the realities of life and completely surrender to the ancient craft.

Interestingly, the artist again turned to this subject and created another painting for the Russian Museum. The second version of the plot is more schematic, simpler, the color scheme is simpler.

It is known that some critics accused the artist of the fact that the characters depicted by him express excessively simulated emotions. However, having unraveled the author's intention, we can consider this quite justified. Such a technique allows you to more clearly describe the character and inner world of the characters, to reveal the symbolic component of the picture.