Nikolai Krymov, landscape painter: biography, creativity

Nikolai Petrovich Krymov is an artist who created in the last century. His favorite genre was landscapes. Fields, forests, rural houses, drowning in the snow or rays of light - Krymov wrote his native nature and did not change the chosen path despite the turbulent events that took place in the country. He survived three wars, knew poverty, but in his works he never touched politics or topical topics, just as he never tried to please anyone with creativity.

Family - everything started

The artist N.P. Krymov was born on May 2 (April 20 in the old style) in 1884. He did not belong to the number of those creators whose parents were categorically against following the child along the path of art. Nikolai's father, Pyotr Alekseevich, was a portraitist, worked in the manner of the "Wanderers", taught drawing in the Moscow gymnasiums. He noticed the boy's talent early and his wife Maria Egorovna. The head of a large family: Nikolai had eleven brothers and sisters - from his early years instilled in children love for nature, the ability to see the beauty of the world around them. He became the first teacher Nikolai Krymov.

Teachers

In 1904, the boy entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for the architectural department. In 1907 he transferred to the picturesque. Among his teachers were famous artists: V. Serov, who made many changes in the educational process, L.O. Pasternak, father of Boris Pasternak, illustrator of works by Leo Tolstoy, N. Kasatkin, artist-moviemaker of the younger generation. However, as Krymov himself writes, the artist, who became his main teacher, died before Nikolai became a student. It was Isaac Levitan. His work had a significant influence on the work of Krymov.

First success

Nikolay Krymov is an artist of a happy fate. His talent was appreciated already during his stay at the school. The sketch "Roofs with snow", written in 1906, impressed the teacher A. Vasnetsov, the brother of the famous artist. He bought a painting from a young master, and two years later it was bought by the Tretyakov Gallery. Krymov was then only twenty-four.

Blue Rose

Certainly, Krymov is a landscape painter: he defined his favorite genre only when he began his creative career, but his manner of writing underwent changes throughout his life. In 1907, Nikolai Petrovich became one of the youngest participants of the exhibition "Blue Rose". The masters participating in the exposition were distinguished by a special manner of image. They knew how to notice the mystery in ordinary beauty, to convey the poetry of the customary. At the exhibition, Krymov placed three works: "By spring" and two versions of "Sand Slopes".

The artists, who participated in the exhibition, began to be called "bluebearers". Their work was full of inner harmony and special silence. Representatives of the direction, including the Crimea, tried their hand at Impressionism. This genre was close in spirit to "bluebearers". Impressionists sought to convey in the works a fleeting impression, the beauty of the moment in his movement. However, as the formation of the Crimea and his colleagues who tried themselves in the young, originated in France direction, began to move away from him, translating in the canvases of new ideas, sometimes contrary to Impressionism.

Further Creative Search

The desire for symbolism, characteristic of the "goluborozovtsam", the artist N. Krymov fully satiated while working on the design of the magazine "Golden Fleece". The paintings of that period (1906-1909, Under the Sun, Snegiri and others) were somewhat like a blur of colors and a resemblance to a midday haze, like tapestries.

At the same time, the manner of writing Krymov began to change. Symbolism and understatement began to give way to irony, joke and grotesque. Paintings "Windy Day", "Moscow Landscape. Rainbow "," After the spring rain "," New Tavern "gravitate towards primitivism and convey new impressions that have accumulated over many years of life in Moscow with its fairs and holidays. New landscapes of Krymov are filled with children's perception. Light paintings literally breathe fun and mischief, joy because of simple and customary events: the appearance of a rainbow, sunrays or new tall houses on the street. And this is conveyed by the artist with the help of bright colors and geometrization of the form, which replaced the careful study of color combinations. However, this manner of writing was only an intermediate step in the creative development of Krymov.

Unattainable harmony

Since the 1910s, the classical motifs characteristic of the French landscape painters of the 17th century began to appear distinctly in Krymov's work. Claude Lorrain and Nicola Poussin developed the composition with three plans, each dominated by a certain color: brown, green and in the third plan - blue. Paintings written in this manner combined reality and fantasy at the same time. They conveyed completely earthly landscapes, but the harmony that reigned on the canvas was unattainably perfect.

Nikolai Krymov is an artist who never repeated blindly for teachers or recognized geniuses of the past. Classical manner of Poussin and Lorraine, he combined in his works with primitivism, as in the picture "Dawn", and later with his own theory of tone. Over time, he moved away from writing landscapes only from nature. Nikolai Petrovich began to supplement what he saw in reality with fantasy, reproducing plots from memory and creating the very harmony that the dream of which most masters of the beginning of the last century pursued.

Winter and Summer

From nature Krymov wrote only in the summer, when he and his wife left the country or stayed with friends. The artist always looked for shelter with a balcony to be able to work on the air and depict scenic landscapes.

In the winter, the master created from memory, supplementing real pictures with new elements. These works, like those written from nature, conveyed the beauty and harmony of nature, its secret and obvious life. One of the paintings, which thus created the artist Krymov, - "Winter Evening" (1919). Even if you do not know the name of the picture, the time of day on it is beyond doubt: the shadow gradually covers the snow, pink clouds can be seen in the sky. Due to the game of color and light, the artist was able to convey the weight of snowdrifts, under which the earth sleeps, the game of rays of the setting sun, not visible on the canvas, and even the feeling of frost driving travelers home to the heat of the hearth.

Tone system

In the memoirs of contemporaries, the artist Krymov, whose paintings are now kept in museums and private collections, appears to be a principled and consistent person, all having their own point of view. Among his views, the "general tone" theory, developed and repeatedly tested by him, stands out. The essence of it is that the main thing in painting is not color, but tone, that is, the strength of light in color. Krymov taught students to see that evening colors are always darker than daytime colors. Outlining the theory, he suggested comparing the white color of the sheet and the starched shirt. Nikolai Petrovich substantiated in his articles, and then showed in his works that the naturalness of the landscape is given by the correctly chosen tone, and the choice of color becomes a secondary task.

Through all the vicissitudes of the era

Unearthly harmony, the play of light and shadow, peace and the caught moment - all this is an artist of Krymov. The painting "Winter Evening", as well as paintings "Gray Day", "Evening in Zvenigorod", "House in Tarusa" and others, convey the beauty of the world in general and nature in particular. From this topic in his work, Nikolai Petrovich did not depart despite all the turbulent events that were going on at that time in the country. Political slogans and instructions of the party did not penetrate his canvases. His "tone system" he developed and passed on to the students. Nikolay Krymov died May 6, 1958, having managed to transfer the science of painting to many young artists who later became famous artists.

The contribution of Nikolai Krymov to the theory of painting is invaluable. Today, the work of the master can be seen in the museums of the country. Many of Krymov's paintings are kept in private collections. The artist's canvases still cause admiration, and his capacious and accurate statements among artists have long become popular expressions.