Valentin Serov (1865-1911)

Valentin Serov was born in St. Petersburg in 1865. His father - Alexander Serov was a famous composer and prominent music critic, mother, son survived - a pianist and composer. The father was able to draw the same, even once dreamed to become a painter. Their home is often going to "St. Petersburg celebrity."

After his father's death in 1871, the boy began to feel lonely: passionate about the music, not the mother spoiled him with their concerns. But the future of her son she took care of very well. Noticing his passion for drawing, she's from Munich, where they then lived, went to Paris to her friend Repin and the winter 1874 - 1875 года Valentin took lessons from the author of "The Boatmen."

"It is with such selflessness stuck into their work - recalled Repin - that I sometimes made him leave her and freshen up on the balcony in front of my large window. There were two completely different pieces of the same boy. When he jumped into the air and started jumping in the breeze - there was a child, in the studio, he seemed older than ten years, looking serious and waving his pencil firmly and safely. Especially not a child, he took up the grasp of the character traits of energetic when I pointed it to him on a plaster mask. His ruthlessness in breaking not quite true, they have already completed parts brought me in admiration, I admired the emerging Hercules in art. "

Classes Repin with Serov continued later in Moscow, getting a more systematic and serious. In the end, Valentine even settled at Repin, becoming a member of the family. Together they drew and wrote sitters, went together to the sketches in Abramtzevo summer 1879, and together have made the trip to Kiev. It was a great school for young Serov. When Serov performed with a masterful study of the hunchback - the man who posed for a picture Repin "Religious Procession in Kursk Province" - Repin said to him, 'Well, Anton (Anton Valentin similar name), it's time to enter the Academy. " And with a letter Chistyakov Repin, Serov going to fall in 1880 in St. Petersburg, brilliantly withstands exam, became a student of the Academy of Fine Arts. With his usual leisurely tenacity he masters "Chistyakovskaya system of" strict construction, as it were mathematically calibrated picture, charms his teacher versatile abilities. "Chistyakov repeated often - wrote Repin - that he has not seen in the other person a comprehensive measure of artistic achievements in the arts, which was released by nature Serov. And the pattern and color, and chiaroscuro and specificity, and a sense of wholeness of its task, and the composition - everything was in Serov, and was in the superlative degree. "

In 1885, Serov out of the Academy. He has nothing in it was to learn, and to academic awards and diploma he was indifferent. It involves free creative work. He already felt like a completely independent artist. He wrote in the autumn of the same year etyudnogo nature painting "Oxen", which is now in the Tretyakov Gallery, confirms this. Easy on the plot motifs and composition, it is fresh painting and the general tone of the nobility. In harmony golden and silvery grays and he brought his farmyard with outbuildings and a piece of the autumn landscape, and pervoplannye figures of black and white oxen, slowly chewing hay. And thrown into the cart pinkish rag, Serov designed with the same richness of color and light reflections, like everything else, as it holds all the color composition of the picture.

"In this century written all heavy, nothing gratifying. I want, I want it is gratifying and I will write only gratifying, "- says Serov two years later. He creates these two masterpieces of the Russian school of painting as "Girl with Peaches" (1887) and "The Girl in the Sunlight" (1888).

In "Girl with Peaches" depicts the daughter of Mamontov - Vera. He spied on in the life of a natural relaxed pose crouching for a moment at the table with peaches girls, all of a sudden something to think about. The picture is surrounded with all the serene joy of springtime in human life. In the halo of light flowing gently emerges "girl in pink" with a black bow pinned to a red carnation. Faint half-smile makes it particularly attractive dark-skinned and delicate face with a quick glance of live brown eyes. Poetry youth expressed the poetry of light and color - that is, in fact, the theme of the picture. And no one else from the Russian artists, including the most famous, did not give this poetry youth with a captivating freshness, with an elegant, fine craftsmanship. "Girl with Peaches" - a lyrical poem about the bright youth, created by talented artist and a young twenty-two, immensely in love with life and the best of her generation - a man.

In "Girl in the Sunlight" there is no longer a direct poetry, although it is also imbued with a quiet joy of being. Instead of secretly-impulsive pose "Girl with Peaches" and live in the light thrown by the side view, sitting quietly in front of us, leaning against the trunk of the tree, the girl with quietly laid his hands on his knees. Trustingly she looks at us with wide light-gray eyes, her imperturbable peace of mind, clear as this sunny day under the old lime trees of the park. Both of these paintings were a resounding success and was seen as a new word in art, still considered the jewels of the domestic art.

"All I sought - Serov said about his works of these years - it - freshness that special freshness that you always feel in nature and do not see in the pictures." Persistently seeking "fresh painting at full completeness", Serov plaguing many days of sessions and Vera Mamontov and his cousin J. M. Simonovic, pose for him in Domotkanovo for "Girls, illuminated by the sun." But he has achieved his goal: they seem to be written on the first impression, easy and creative suffering. Both of these paintings were a resounding success and was seen as a new word in art, still they are considered gems of native art.

The beauty of refined appearance of the nerve-Levitan, his high intelligence, a tired-sad look on her pale face shadowed eyes Serov depicted in the portrait of Isaac Levitan 1893. Elegantly simple it pose a portrait expressive hand wearily laid back in his chair straw. Simple and beautiful color portrait, decided in a soft tune dark background of gray tones, dark-blue suit, golden ocher chairs and brownish-white face and hands, shaded snow-white stripe collar and cuffs spot. Levitan portrait of himself very much, and Serov - not really.

Serov was more than satisfied with the portrait of the writer Nikolai Leskov, written in 1894, is extremely simple in composition and strong in color. An exceptionally impressive tumult, anxious look Leskov, precisely anticipated his own impending death.

Since 1894 is a member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, and from 1897 to 1909 the artist taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Trained a galaxy of future innovators: NN Sapunov, MI Mashkov , P. Kuznetsova , N. Krymova P. , K. Petrov-Vodkin , S. Yu Sudeykin and others.

See also: http://vserov.ru - site of the artist Valentin Serov.