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Ivan
Nikolayevich Kramskoy is an outstanding representative of the democratic
culture in Russia of the second half of the 19th century. He is known as
a wonderful painter and draughtsman, a remarkable art critic and theoretician
of art, a talented teacher. Besides, he was an originator and ardent inspirer
of the first independent artistic organizations, namely the Itinerants’
Society of Traveling Exhibitions and St. Petersburg Team of Artists, which
had played an important part in the development of art in Russia.
Born into the family of a provincial state clerk, Kramskoy had no opportunity
to study art during childhood. At the age of 15 he became an apprentice
to an icon-painter, a year later a photographer took him as a retoucher.
Only in 1857, he managed to come to St. Petersburg and enter the Academy
of Arts. There he soon became a popular leader among the students. In 1863,
he was among the 14 best graduates who refused to fulfill the diploma work
on a given mythological theme. All 14 were dismissed from the Academy,
and Kramskoy headed the St. Petersburg Team of Artists, a commune where
artists shared studios and household. The young wife of Kramskoy, Sophia
Nikolayevna, née Prokhorova, took care of their mutual household.
Ivan Kramskoy is famous mainly as a portraitist; his portraits of the 60s
are not large, and very often monochrome, reminding of photographs. At
the same period (1863-68) Kramskoy taught in The Drawing School of the
Society for Promoting of the Artists; his pupils, among others, were Iliya
Repin and Nicolay Yaroshenko.
Since 1869, Kramskoy started to receive regular commissions from the collector
of Russian art Pavel Tretyakov. Tretyakov
commissioned portraits of personalities of Russian culture and science.
These portraits have become an innate part of the Russian art and social
history. For Kramskoy it was a feat to preserve, for the generations to
come, the likeliness of his outstanding contemporaries. Portrait
of the Author Ivan Goncharov. Portrait of
the Sculptor Mark Antokolsky. Portrait of
Dmitry Mendeleyev.
In 1869, St. Petersburg Academy chose him an academician. The same year
he made his first trip abroad: he visited Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Düsseldorf,
Antwerp, Paris, and Vienna, where he studied famous art collections. After
his return to Russia he started organizing the Itinerants’ Society of Traveling
Exhibitions. The aim of the Society was:
1) to give the opportunity to everybody in Russia to get acquainted
with its contemporary art;
2) to develop love for art in Russian society;
3) to make selling their works easier for the artists.
In 1872 Kramskoy painted his masterpiece Christ
in the Desert, a traditional topic, yet, in Kramskoy’s work
it acquired new social interpretation and deep philosophical meaning.
Christ in the Desert carried the idea of man’s moral duty to society and
therefore it greatly impressed the painter’s contemporaries, who found
a definite affinity to their attitudes and feelings in it in the crucial
period of Russian history, which demanded personal heroism and sacrifice
for the sake of people. “The best Christ I ever saw”– Leo Tolstoy.
In 1873 Tretyakov commissioned the Portrait
of Leo Tolstoy for his gallery. Tolstoy had refused several
times. “Please use all your charm to persuade him “, wrote Tretyakov to
Kramskoy. And Kramskoy managed to do this, the writer and the artist were
both impressed by each other’s personalities. Kramskoy painted one of the
best of all Tolstoy’s portraits. Tolstoy was working on Anna Karenina
at the time and he used Kramskoy’s character as one of the secondary personages
in the novel – the artist Mikhailov.
Kramskoy
always understood the capturing charm of color, admired Alexander
Ivanov, his younger contemporaries – Repin, Vasiliyev,
Polenov,
French Impressionists - “…Just a small group of laughed at painters, but
the future belongs to them…”, he wrote in the 70s about his French colleagues.
But he himself was a poor colorist. Once during the work on the portrait
of Adrian Prakhov, the mother of the sitter
saw the portrait after the first day of painting and impressed by it, took
it away and did not allow Kramskoy to finish it, she said that if the artist
went on working he would dry it as usual. Kramskoy himself understood his
drawbacks and limits, but was afraid to change his manner.
The artist died on 24 March 1887 during his work on the portrait of Doctor
Rauhphus with brush in his hand.
Kramskoy’s works embody the high moral and social ideals of his time.
For him, artistic truth and beauty, moral and aesthetic values were inseparable.
His works greatly influenced his contemporaries’ ideology. Today they still
affect people because the artist’s attitude to life was based on love and
respect of man, on his belief in truth and justice.
Lavrovskaya, Elizaveta Andreyevna
(1849-1919), Princess Tserteleva, singer and teacher, professor of the
Moscow conservatory since 1888. Performed in Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the
Singer Elizaveta Lavrovskaya on Stage.
Suvorin, Alexey Sergeevich (1834-1912),
publisher, journalist, theater critic. Published in St. Petersburg the
paper “New Time” (since 1876), magazine “Historical Bulletin” (1880), works
by Russian and foreign authors, scientific literature. By 1900 published
about 1000 titles.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of Alexey
Suvorin.
Soloviev, Vladimir Sergeevich
(1853-1900) Russian philosopher, theologian and poet, born in Moscow, son
of the historian Sergey Mikhailovich Soloviev. He proposed a universal
Christianity, which would unite the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and
attempted a synthesis of religious philosophy with science. His main works
were The Crisis of Western Philosophy (1875), The Philosophical
Principles and Integral Knowledge (1877), Russia and the Universal
Church (1889) and The Justification of the Good (1898).
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the
Philosopher and Poet Vladimir Soloviev.
Valuyev, Piotr Alexandrovich (1815-1890),
statesman, Count (1880). In 1861-1868 he was the minister for internal
affairs of Russia. In 1872-79 minister for state property and taxes, in
1879-81 Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers. Wrote memoirs “Diary”.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of Piotr
Valuyev.
Grigorovich, Dmitry (1822-99) Russian
prose writer, fellow member of the Academy of Science (1888), Author of
novels Village (1848), Fishers, and Migrants (1850s),
stood against serfdom.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the
Author Dmitry Grigorovich.
Maikov, Apollon Nikolayevich (1821-1897)
Russian lyrical poet, glorified the beauty of Russian nature. His political
views, that of a Slavophil, were reflected in his poems Wanderer
(1867), Princess (1878) and others. Wrote several poems in praise
of Christianity: Three Deaths (1857), Two Worlds (1882) and
others. See Ivan Kramskoy. Poet Apollon
Maikov Fishing.
Vasily Perov. Portrait of
the Poet Apollon Maikov.
Empress Maria Fedorovna (1847-1928),
wife of the Russian Emperor Alexander III, married him October 28, 1866.
Daughter of the Danish King Christian IX, before adopting Russian Orthodox
Christianity had the name of Maria-Sophia-Frederica-Dagmara. Bride of the
Crown Prince Nicolas, the elder brother of Alexander; but after Nicolas’
premature death in 1866, she was married to the next brother Alexander,
future Alexander III; gave birth to 6 children. Maria Fedorovna was strongly
against the marriage of her son, Nicolas, the Crown Prince, to the German
princess. At last she had to give her consent to the marriage, but she
never was on good terms with her daughter-in-law, who quarreled practically
with all the members of the tzar family and ruled her husband and Russia
with dim-witted self-confidence.
After February revolution of 1917 and Nicholas II abdication she left
for Crimea. In April 1919 her sister, English Queen Alexandra, mother of
George V, sent cruiser Marlboro, which took Maria Fedorovna and
some other members of the imperial family to London. Maria Fedorovna settled
in Copenhagen, where she died in 1928.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the
Empress Maria Feodorovna.
Polonsky, Yakov (1819-1898) Russian lyrical
poet, author of the novels and stories, fellow member of the St. Petersburg
Academy of science (1886). Many of his lyrical poems became popular songs.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the
Poet Yakov Polonsky.
Goncharov, Ivan Alexandrovich (1812-91);
Russian prose writer. From 1834 to 1867 he was at state service, from 1855
worked as an official censor. In 1852-54 he journeyed round the world as
secretary to an admiral, his book about this travel The Frigate Pallas.
Goncharov’s most important works are novels An Ordinary Story (1847),
The
Ravine (1869); Oblomov (1859) are all translated into English.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the
Author Ivan Goncharov.
Botkin, Sergey Petrovich (1832-89)
physician, founder of the Russian school of clinical physicians. In 1860-61
organized the first lab on clinical pharmacology and experimental therapy.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the
Doctor Sergey Botkin.
Struve, Otto Wilhelm (1819-1905),
German astronomer, son of Friedrich Struve, born in Dorpat. He succeeded
his father at Pulkovo observatory near St. Petersburg, which had been constructed
to his father’s specifications through the patronage of Tzar Nicolas I.
Otto Struve discovered 500 double stars and a satellite of Uranus (1847),
and studied the rings of Saturn. Otto’s son Hermann (1854-1920) was director
of the Berlin observatory; another son, Ludwig (1858-1920) was professor
of astronomy at Kharkov. Ludwig’s son, Otto (1897-1963) became an American
citizen and director of the Yerkes and McDonald observatories (1932).
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of the
Astronomer Otto Struve, Director of the Pulkovo Observatory.
Unknown Woman is the title of the picture,
which the artist gave to it. Many contemporaries were indignant with the
painting, “Coquette in a carriage”, “Women of her sort”, “Product of big
cities”, critics said. Tretyakov refused to buy the depiction of “immoral
woman” for his gallery. The artist was sad that his viewers did not understand
him and never gave explanations to the painting. The later viewers saw
in the woman Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the more later - the Unknown Woman
of Block.
See: Ivan Kramskoy. Unknown Woman.
Bibliography:
Kramskoy. by T. Kurochkina. Russian Painters of the XIX century.
Moscow. 1989.
The
Art and Architecture of Russia (Pelican History Art) by George
Heard Hamilton. Yale Univ Pr, 1992.
A
Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Artists 1420-1970 by John
Milner. Antique Collectors' Club, 1993.