"The Sacrifice of Jephthah"

The plot of the painting, related to the Russian epic "Ilya Muromets and the Robbers", fascinated the artist back in the early 1870s, as can be seen from Vasnetsov's sketches. In its final form, the composition was first performed for the VI Traveling Exhibition in 1878. Thus, "The Knight ..." is the first great work by V. M. Vasnetsov on the epic theme. The painting from the sixth Mobile was also presented at the first exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists in 1903, and soon after it was sold to a collector from the USA. In early 2013, she was supposed to participate in the auction of the London auction house Mac Dougall's; message dated February 21, 2013, 8:45 a.m. In general, up to ten author's versions of this composition are known, and among them the painting of 1882 in the State Russian Museum is especially famous. If at the VI Traveling Exhibition the figure of the horseman was presented in a three-quarter, left turn, facing the viewer, then in the Serpukhov version the Knight is already in profile, and in the painting from the Russian Museum he will be facing the viewer with his back. The general logic of Vasnetsov's idea is that the artist gradually "immerses" the viewer in the narrative; having "depersonalized" his hero in the end, he thereby forced the "participation effect": so that we no longer look at the hero, but at the world of the painting, through the eyes of this hero. The popular name "Knight at the Crossroads" is not copyrighted. V. M. Vasnetsov himself defined his plot with the words "A Knight in thought before a straight road" (in a letter to Pavel Petrovich Chistyakov dated April 25, 1882). There is no crossroads or choice of one of the three roads in most of the repetitions of his painting. The dramatic situation of the borderlands is shown: the hero found himself on the edge of an alien, unknown, disastrous "wild field" and must now overcome this milestone. If in the early version of the painting the inscription on the stone repeated the epic text in its entirety: "To the right, go to be married, to the left, go to be rich...", then later (as here) the artist left only the terrible ending: "How straight I go — I don't live, there is no way for either passer-by or passer-by, not a flyby." The theme of the tense, fateful choice of a direct path in this version is reinforced by the "Hamlet dialogue": the profile of the Knight is directed directly at the human skull lying next to the boundary stone. The muted colors of twilight enhance the mood of anxiety, but the figure of the white "triumphant" horse can also be read against this background as a harbinger of the coming victory of the hero of the picture.

In his youth, Makovsky was influenced by V.A. Tropinin and Sylv. F. Shchedrin. In 1863, he was among the participants in the "Riot of the 14"; he soon moved away from the democratic movement in art, although he retained an interest in subjects from folk life. Since 1867 – academician, since 1869 – professor, since 1898 – full member of the Russian Academy of Arts. In 1876, he traveled to the Balkans, Egypt, and the Middle East. In the 1880s, he discovered a craving for melodramatic salon themes. In the late 1880s and 1890s, he turned to subjects from pre-Petrine Russia. His paintings have been awarded at World Exhibitions. The painting "The Demon and Tamara" is based on the plot of M.Y. Lermontov's poem "The Demon". The climax is depicted: A demon, having entered Tamara's monastery cell, tempts her and, giving her a deadly kiss, "triumphs." The theme of the collision of two opposing worlds is solved by the artist in a melodramatic way; the composition is built like a theatrical mise en scene. The "evil Spirit" is represented by a sultry handsome young man holding a dying victim in his arms, who is also ideally beautiful. The cold bluish-ash color and skillful light direction create a mysterious atmosphere. The characters are pulled out of the darkness of the night by the light of two different sources. The cold light of the moon casts a deathly pallor over Tamara. The warm reddish light of the lamp "enlivens" the Demon's face, at the same time igniting red lights in his eyes, similar to the reflections of hellfire. The painting was awarded a gold medal at the World's Fair in Paris in 1889.

In the still life of 1910, the background, draperies and a pot with a plant are interpreted by the artist as a living, integral structure: a blue-scarlet horizontal plane, pink fabric "exchange" exquisite reflexes.; in the pattern on the tablecloth, the folds of the draperies, the curves of the plant and the iridescence of the green background, a single general rhythm is read. Fruits and vessels "fall out" of this harmonious environment: rigidly defined, concentrated and fragile "things-in-themselves".

This painting is an example of the work of Henry Ippolitovich Semiradsky in the 1880s, when the artist's language became an "unheroic", life-descriptive interpretation of ancient life, starting with "Dance among Swords" in 1881 (in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), and up to the apogee of this theme in the large canvas "Phryne at the Poseidon Festival in Eleusis" in 1889 (The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). The artist's creative techniques are characteristic: the motif of a serenely beautiful spectacle, the compositional balance of landscape and figures, and major plein-airism. The uniqueness of the latter was noted by the Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz, who was very close to this painter in spirit: "No one conveys the element of sunlight like Semiradsky. Only those who have looked at the surroundings of Rome with their own eyes will be able to understand how much truth and soul there is in this landscape, in this harmony of pink and blue flowers, in this transparent distance,"— quoted by the publication: Henry Semiradsky. Album. Compiled by D. N. Lebedeva, Moscow, 1997. The composition "Songs of a Slave" combines the traditionally academic alternation of three plans with the variable variety of techniques characteristic of "salon" painting of the second half of the 19th century. If the group of figures in the foreground is distinguished by its "jewelery" completeness, the precision of exquisitely drawn details, then the silhouettes of architecture in the background are already slightly blurred, and the distant landscape generally tends to the pure decorative color spots. But with the removal of the viewer's gaze into the depths of the picturesque space, the intensity of colors increases: bright light floods the scene from the depths of the canvas, while shadow and peace reign in the foreground. The singing slave is obviously from the East: Egyptian, Syrian, or Jewish. She accompanies herself on a Middle Eastern framed harp of the type that was known back to the Sumero-Akkadian civilization of the third millennium BC. In the background, we see a purely Mediterranean kithara, designed for the previous (or maybe upcoming) concert number. Garden swings were very popular among the Romans: They were usually found in every more or less well-to-do household as a symbol of family well-being. Swinging the bride by her groom was part of the marriage ritual. Mature men, relaxing on the swing, philosophized.

The painting "Bride's wedding preparations" depicts the pre–wedding preparations of the bride in the boyar family of the XVI-XVII centuries. The scene is the upper floor of the rich chambers of the terem. These rooms were intended for women and children of both sexes up to 7 years old. The bride's braid is combed as a sign of her farewell to her girlhood. In Ancient Russia, one braid was the hairstyle of girls, and "married wives" wore two braids. At the feet of the bride sits a girl who is mesmerized by her face, their intertwined hands symbolize girlhood and marriage. The women around are dressed in formal headdresses — kokoshniks. A man with a white towel tied over his left shoulder stands in the doorway — this is a friend, a representative of the groom, who brought a chest with his gifts. Its most important ceremonial function was to protect the newlyweds from corruption and the evil eye. Makovsky carefully reproduced the details of the historical setting, but also added everyday realities familiar to the public of the 19th century. The pre-Petrine way of life did not yet know either a floor carpet or window curtains. In a rich Old Russian house, carpets were considered too beautiful and valuable to put under your feet. But the most shocking thing would be a bride in white, the color adopted for a mortal shroud. In the past, the betrothed was dressed in a red sundress. The overall pictorial structure of the painting is a bright but fragmented combination of colorful spots. Konstantin Makovsky overcame this diversity in his subsequent works.

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky is the founder of the original tradition of the Russian landscape, inspired by the nature of the coastal Crimea (to which Lev Felixovich Lagorio, Konstantin Fedorovich Bogaevsky, Maximilian Alexandrovich Voloshin and many others also belong). The legacy of I.K. Aivazovsky consists of about six thousand seascapes. The basis of the artist's manner was an improvisational method: "The Tide", like many paintings by I. K. Aivazovsky, was painted from memory based on a motif found during a morning walk along the seashore, just a few hours after lunch and before the almost instantaneous southern sunset. The composition is characterized by free clarity; the interpretation of mobile textures (sea water, air, light) is organic; the color is also refined, subordinated to a tempered color scheme. The painting belongs to the 1870s, a transitional period in the work of Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky from the ornately striking, carefully executed paintings of the forties, fifties and sixties to a more restrained, but at the same time more flexible, rich in pictorial techniques, the late manner of the artist. The works of I.K. Aivazovsky during this period were characterized by a virtuoso shade of blue. In this painting, the artist chose that soul—stirring moment when the sea is moving towards the viewer, coming from the depths directly at us: the merged mass of water at the horizon, gradually approaching, dissipates into a sparkling variety of ridges, ridges and drops - and suddenly freezes, as if separated from the shore by an invisible border. Parallel silhouettes of a fast—moving sailboat on the waves and a modest gig slowly rolling along the shore develop the theme of the borderland in front of the viewer.: there is a sea swell, and here is the earth's surface. We see something similar in the depths of the landscape, where an expressive horizon line separates the bluish expanse of water and swirling masses of pinkish clouds. The two-wheeled, walking carriage expresses the ordinary leisurely way of life of old Feodosia. The ship under the French flag is a representative of the big world, so organically connected by the sea with the small homeland of the author of the painting. The distant view is probably the coast of Koktebel with Camel Mountain.

Since his apprenticeship at the Imperial Academy of Arts, Ivan Shishkin has been attracted by the picturesque surroundings of Sestroretsk, a town on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, 34 km north of St. Petersburg. Once upon a time, Sestroretsk was the summer residence of Peter the Great — a protected oak forest is preserved there, planted under the active leadership of Tsar Peter. Compositionally, this painting is analogous to I.I. Shishkin's "Path among the Pines" (1883, State Central Theater Museum named after A.A. Bakhrushin, Moscow); in terms of the festive sound of the palette, it is close to such famous works of the artist as "Pines illuminated by the Sun" (1886, Tretyakov Gallery); "Oak Grove" (1887, Museum of Russian Art, Kiev).

This painting has an author's signature: in the lower right corner of the canvas, on the image of a wheelbarrow. At least three modified versions of her composition are known: in the Amsterdam Historical Museum (dated 1654), in the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts and exhibited in the 1970s at an auction in Wiesbaden. The same painting came to our museum from the collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in 1962 as a result of an exchange. The image of the wandering healer has been found in the fine art of the Netherlands very early on. Jan Vickers painted this popular moral theme more than once, using the same models in his compositions, but changing the poses and roles of the latter. In the Serpukhov version, the author clearly shifts the satirical emphasis from the figure of the doctor to the crowd: a gathering of irresponsible onlookers who did not come for treatment at all, but for idle fun. In the central part of the painting, a woman is depicted, so engrossed in the spectacle that she does not feel like a boy is stealing grapes from her basket — an ancient symbol of Christ (The Gospel of John, chapter 15 — a sign of hidden grace and atonement for sins). In the Western European culture of the early Modern period, the wandering healer was the personification of cheating. Compare the old saying: "Lie like a dentist." Grapes, which are quite rare in the north, were perceived by the Dutch symbolically, and above all as a Christian image. So, this figure embodies the blindness of humanity, attracted by idle fuss, penny temptations, and imperceptibly losing spiritual values.