Kiprensky, a portrait of Pushkin. "I see myself in a mirror ..."

To estimate the whole scale of the great creative personality is a task often impossible, especially for contemporaries. Many artists tried to express the significance of Pushkin's genius through the means of fine art.

Among them - Orest Adamovich Kiprensky. Pushkin's portrait of an artist's brush is a rare example of a picturesque masterpiece of the Romantic era, which has a timeless significance.

Master of romantic portrait

Painter of the classical academic school, born in 1782, was the illegitimate son of a Russian landowner. Kiprensky became one of the first Russian artists who received real European recognition. The Academy of Fine Arts of Florence ordered him a self-portrait, housed in the Uffizi Gallery. The artist died in 1836 in Rome, being a professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, a member of the Neapolitan Academy.

The legacy of Kiprensky is diverse in artistic meaning. In it there are pictures on mythological subjects, full of mannered sentimentality. But the best canvases are a combination of outstanding painting skills and subtle psychologism. Portraits of the foster father of the artist - A.K. Schwalbe, the hero of the Patriotic War, E.V. Davydov, the poet VA. Zhukovsky, fabulist IA. Krylov is a real Kiprensky. Portrait of Pushkin - one of the highest upsets of the artistic talent of the master.

A friend of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum

The poet and journalist Baron Anton Antonovich Delvig (1798-1831) was one of Pushkin's closest friends. They have highly appreciated the poetry gift and the human qualities of each other since the Lyceum. Delvig was quicker than the rest to understand the greatness of Pushkin's literary genius. In 1827, he ordered for himself the image of a friend, and it was in his house that Kiprensky portrayed Pushkin's portrait. Delvig's writing of elegies and idylls became an example for the young Pushkin, and this in many ways predetermined the formation of the great poet.

The early death of Anton Antonovich shocked his great friend. Pushkin took care of the orphaned family and for the rest of his life recalled Delvig in verse. He did not forget the picture that Kiprensky wrote. The portrait of Pushkin passed to the heirs of Delvig and cost already very large sums of money. But Alexander Sergeyevich bought it and kept it until his death.

"A minute - and poems will freely flow ..."

The poet is depicted to the waist in a strict black frock coat with a cloak with a plaid lining over his shoulder. The hands are Napoleonic on the chest. In the background is a statuette of Erato's musical poetry with a lyre in his hands. The face and hand with the legendary long nails are illuminated more strongly and immediately attract attention.

Many people call this portrait a monument. There are all the attributes of monumentality and solemnity: majestic pose, symbols of belonging to high art. But not only did Kiprensky aspire to this. The portrait of Pushkin is very deep in its content. In the view of the poet - the mind and life experience, inspiration and indomitable temper, awareness of his talent and independence.

Much is seen in the guise of the poet to us - the descendants who know the future fate of genius. Pushkin's portrait of Kiprensky wrote when the poet had to live ten years. This decade included the unprecedented creative upsurge of the Boldin Autumn and the great plans that remained unfulfilled. Ahead - happy family years and financial turmoil, reverent veneration of some and the vicious hatred of others. There will be a painful death and a great immortality. Is not this what we see in Pushkin's view?

"You have created again, a wizard cute,

Me, the pet of pure muses ... "

The poet who saw the poet noted the wonderful accuracy of the brush of the master who painted this portrait of Pushkin. Kiprensky was able to convey all the nuances of the appearance of the poet and his huge soul. The poet's father, Sergei Lvovich, called the painting an expression of the very essence of the exterior and spiritual content of his great son.

The poet's appearance was known to the broad masses of the time only by a small youth portrait attached to the first edition of the "Caucasian Captive" (1822).

Portraits of Pushkin (Kiprensky and Tropinin - outstanding masters) were written almost simultaneously. They gave the Russian reader an opportunity to view the external appearance of his idol. From them were made engravings, which appeared soon in many houses of Russia and beyond its borders. It is for them the poet began to recognize strangers.

The portrait of the work of Vasiliy Andreevich Tropinin was highly appreciated by his contemporaries. Similar to the work of Kiprensky by the general elevation of the artistic image, he was distinguished by greater intimacy and romantic poetry. This portrait was commissioned by Pushkin himself for a present to a friend - SA Sobolevsky, and he had to emphasize the intrinsic value of private life inherent in the era of Romanticism. But also on it the poet looks first of all as a carrier of lofty ideas, devoid of spiritual laziness and blissful peace.

Alive Pushkin

Pushkin liked to joke over his "Arapian" features, and although he liked Kiprensky's portrait, he considered him flattering and called the artist "a fairy sorceress". But the value of master masterpiece is difficult to minimize. Kiprensky created not only an inspired image of a genius, he showed the face of a man with a difficult and tense life, whose mind and work laid the foundations of the modern language and culture of subsequent generations of our people.