Emmanuilovich Igor Grabar
(1871-1960)

Nature has endowed Grabar many gifts which, much to the surprise of others, he was able to realize. Became a significant artist, art historian, art critic, art restorer, teacher, museum figures, a remarkable organizer, even an architect. In this case, for nearly sixty years, he, due to its boisterous temperament, was one of the most active participants and leaders in the artistic life of the country.

In 1876, Grabar parents who were among the supporters of the Slavic liberation movement, settled in Russia. After finishing high school, he studied at the Moscow Grabar high school (1882-89). He dreamed of painting, trying to get closer to the artistic community, visiting all the exhibits studied the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and other gatherings.

In autumn 1889, eighteen years of age, almost penniless Grabar went to St. Petersburg. Enters the university, studying there for four years in two faculties at once - the legal, historical and philological - and hard preparing to enter the Academy of Fine Arts. At that time, he makes his living writing humorous stories and illustrations for magazines. Stages of admission to the Academy of Arts (1894) and the beginning of training in it Grabar went brilliantly and swiftly. Already in 1895, he is in the studio very esteemed I. Repin .

But here in the summer of 1895 on a vacation Grabar traveled to Berlin, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. In Italy he was so shocked creation of Renaissance masters, and in Paris - the work of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists that Grabar during the years 1896-1900. travels to Europe "for a detailed and in-depth study of the art world and get architectural education."

In 1900 Grabar returned to Russia, and then begins, according to the artist, most of his "creative period." He again after a long separation, falls in love with Russian nature, stunned Russian beauty of winter, with no end writes "supernatural wood, wood-tale" - birch. In the suburbs created the most famous of his works: "The September Snow" (1903), "White Winter. Rooks Nest," "February Azure", "March Snow" (all 1904), "Flowers" (1905), "untidy table" ( 1907), and others Grabar writes in the open air, taking into account the results of the French Impressionists, but, not wanting to blindly imitate them, writes in Russian, loving the "reality and reality." "February Azure" - a majestic "portrait" of birch. We look at it from the bottom up, from a deep trench in the snow, which the author has dug and in which he worked, despite the brutal cold, crowded the joy of "chimes and pereklikany all colors combined with blue enamel sky." Landscape written pure colors, brush strokes laid a thick layer. "March Snow" - "bright impressionistic thing in its design and texture" - the artist also wrote in the open air "with such enthusiasm and excitement that throwing paint on the canvas, as in a frenzy, not too deliberating and weighing, trying only to convey the impression of dazzling vibrancy upbeat fanfare. " In these works, Grabar managed to create another, new (after Russian landscape painters of the XIX century), a generalized image of Russian nature.

See also: http://igor-grabar.ru - site of the artist I.Grabar.