Borisov-Musatov Elpidiforovich
(1870-1905)

Coming from a family of the railway, he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1890-91, 1893-95), the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts Chistyakov (1891-93), as well as in the studio F. Cormon (1895 - 98) in Paris. From 1898, he lived mostly in Saratov, from 1903 - in Podolsk and Tarus.

Influenced by P. Puvis de Chavannes and partly impressionist masters, joined the subtlest sense of natural light and air to the poetic imagination, transforming this framework in the field of mirages and nostalgic dreams.

Already in his early sketches, plein air paintings of Borisov-Musatov's lives exciting feeling, inexplicable mysteries ("Window", 1886, Tretyakov Gallery). The main motive through which the artist called "the other world", hidden under the mirage of colors, becoming "Gentry" dilapidated old mansions (usually worked in the estates and Sleptsovka Zubrilovka in the Saratov province). Smooth, "musical" rhythm patterns again and again reproduce the favorite themes of Borisov-Musatov: the corners of the park and female figures (the sister and wife of the artist), which seem to be images of the human souls wandering in the underworld realm of sleep.

 Most of his works master prefers oil to watercolor, tempera and pastel on achieving specific, "melting" smear ease. From picture to picture ("Tapestry", 1901, "Waters", 1902 "Ghosts", 1903) sense of "the other world" is growing, in "Requiem" (1905), written in memory of Nadezhda Stanyukovich, wife of a close friend of the artist, We already see the whole mystery of multi-figure, where the deceased accompany her "astral counterparts." In parallel, the wizard creates and clean, desolate landscapes full of the finest lyricism ("the hazel bush," "Autumn Song", both - 1905).

He tends to be large, monumental style of wall painting, but ideas of this kind (for example, the cycle of sketches on the theme of the seasons, 1904-05, everything - the Tretyakov Gallery) and did not manage to pull in architecture.

Dreamy temperament of the artist ("I live in a world of dreams and fantasies among the birch trees, dozing off in a deep sleep autumn mist" - he writes Benois in 1905 of Tarusa) does not deprive him of the work a sense of historicity.

 Poetics of estate life filled him (as well as in the literature of the time - in the works of Anton Chekhov, Bunin, A. White and others) premonition of approaching fatal, catastrophic boundaries. Early death of his master has strengthened the perception of images as lyric requiem dedicated to the old Russia. Borisov-Musatov was the immediate predecessor of artists "Blue Rose", which brings together, in particular, a deep respect for its heritage.