VRUBEL, Mikhail, Featured Paintings in Detail (1)

VRUBEL, Mikhail

Featured Paintings in Detail

(1)

VRUBEL, MikhailSwan princess 1900Oil on canvas, 142 × 83 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

VRUBEL, MikhailSwan princess (detail)1900Oil on canvas, 142 × 83 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow





VRUBEL, MikhailThe Six Winged Seraph. (Azrael)1904Oil on canvas, 155 x 131 cm The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

VRUBEL, MikhailThe Six Winged Seraph. (Azrael) (detail)1904Oil on canvas, 155 x 131 cm The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg




VRUBEL, MikhailLilac 1900 Oil on canvas. 160x177 cmTretyakov Gallery, Moscow

VRUBEL, MikhailLilac (detail)1900 Oil on canvas. 160x177 cmTretyakov Gallery, Moscow



VRUBEL, MikhailPan1899Oil on canvas, 106.3 x 124 cmTretyakov Gallery, Moscow

VRUBEL, MikhailPan (detail)1899Oil on canvas, 106.3 x 124 cmTretyakov Gallery, Moscow



VRUBEL, Mikhail Flight of Faust and Mephisto 1896 Oil on canvas, 290 x 240 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

VRUBEL, Mikhail Flight of Faust and Mephisto (detail)1896 Oil on canvas, 290 x 240 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow



VRUBEL, Mikhail, Featured Paintings in Detail (1)

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VRUBEL, Mikhail Flight of Faust and Mephisto

Flying in the twilight of lead, riding magical horses, Doctor Faust and Mephistopheles. Curly mane mighty horses, fluttering from the devil capes flight. Faust thoughtful gaze, looking to the future uncertain. The severity of the terrible oath deprives him of the delights of sensation of flight. Freedom - a ghost.

Mephistopheles sees confusion victim. His glittering gaze penetrates into the heart of Faust.

VRUBEL, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Pan

The image of Pan, ancient Greek god of forests and pastures, patron of shepherds, reflects symbolism's interest in creatures of dual nature. Pan in Greek means all-pervading, omnipresent. With his ugly appearance as a fur-coated man with goat's horns and hooves, Pan sent people "panicking" if they

dared to disturb him. At the same time, Pan is a merry god, a companion of playful nymphs, the legendary creator of the pipe, the first musical instrument. He fashioned it from

the cane, in which was turned the nymph Syrinx, who rejected the love of the goat-like god.

Vrubel's "Pan" looks more like a Russian leshy, with the artist using its image to express the soul of dusky northern nature in an attempt to capture "the most intimate national note". The appearance of Vrubel's subject has nothing frightening; he seems to have sprung from the roots of an old tree in order

to sit on a stump and play his pipes. For the artist, Pan is an embodiment of sensitive, poetic soul. Listening to the rustling of the forest at night, murmuring of a brook, whispering of leaves, he draws in all the sounds and vibrations in order to give them voice in his sad plain tunes.

VRUBEL, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Lilac

The painting is a version of the theme "Lilac". It embodies symbolism's typical image of the elemental world concealed under the veil of twilight The artist seems to bring to life Nature's spirits lifted from ancient mythological consciousness. They are the souls of flowers and plants. The moon light

reveals the outline of one of them: the soul of lilac bush, a dryad.

Vrubel works with a palette-knife (thin steel plate), which makes it possible to apply paint in faceted dabs. Thanks to this technique, the lilac bunches grow, as it were, from the depth of dark space and turn into fantastic crystals, glistening in the moon light.

The artist does not complete the flower heads, making them look as if covered in flocks of fluttering moths, their shape in a state of continuous transformation. The concentration of purple shades gives rise to the illusion that the atmosphere is saturated with the aroma of lilacs, filling the dark

night with their breath.

VRUBEL, MikhailThe Six Winged Seraph. (Azrael)

In this painting, Vrubel uses an image derived from Alexander Pushkin's poem "The Prophet". In Pushkin's poem, the figure of the poet is described as dragging himself through a spiritual desert. He is met by a six-winged seraph who touches the poet's eyes, ears and lips, opening to him the mysteries of

the world, normally hidden from human eyes. Finally, he rips out the poet's heart and replaces it with a burning coal.

After this operation, the poet hears the voice of god who tells him: "Arise, poet, and see, hear/Fulfill my will/And passing through the land and seas/Ignite the souls of man with words." The notion of the artist as the mediating force between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds was immensely popular

among the symbolists.

VRUBEL, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Swan Czarevna

Swan Czarevna is the heroine of the "Tales about Tzar Saltan" by A.S.Pushkin, suggested by the images of Old-Slavic myths. Pushkin's fairy tale found new life in the opera of the same title by N.A.Rimsky-Korsakov

. Vrubel designed the scenery for the production, with the artist's wife, Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel starring as Swan Czarevna. "All the singers sing like birds; and Nadya, as a human being!" Vrubel used to say about her performance.

But the painting is not a costume portrait of the actress; it is a charming myth about supreme beauty, about the secret of its manifestation in the world. The aesthetics of symbolism interprets the swan as the epitome of inspiration, which may either elevate the soul or reveal to it darker, mysterious sides

of life. The artist imparts to his image demonic traits. Swan Czarevna is a creature of dual nature: she epitomizes two elements: the dark, cold element of water, and the airy, celestial element pointing

heavenward. The artist tries to seize the moment when a maiden turns into a bird, the miraculous metamorphosis of shapes, which seem to be melting in the last rays of the setting sun. He freezes the elusive movement of departing czarevna. The picture seems to be a disembodied phantom of a vision.

VRUBEL, Mikhail

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1865-1910) was a Russian artist of remarkable talent and a turbulent. His paintings were produced in a political climate that was alternately hostile and sympathetic. In his lifetime, he knew both praise and disdain, with critics calling his work everything from “wild ugliness” to “the fascinating symphonies of a genius”. Gradually, however, Vrubel’s painting came to be viewed as an integral part of Russian culture. Some modern scholars compare his work directly to Early Renaissance or Late Byzantine art and recognize Vrubel as a proud artistic individual who held aloof from contemporary trends. Others consider Vrubel the founder of Russian Art Nouveau and group him with that movement.

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VRUBEL, Mikhail, Featured Paintings in Detail (1)