Mikhail Vrubel
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel was a Russian painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. A prolific and innovative master in various media such as painting, drawing, decorative sculpture, and theatrical art, Vrubel is generally characterized as one of the most important artists in Russian symbolist tradition and a pioneering figure of Modernist art.
In a 1990 biography of Vrubel, the Soviet art historian considered his life and art as a three-act drama with prologue and epilogue, while the transition between acts was rapid and unexpected. The "Prologue" refers to his earlier years of studying and choosing a career path. The "first act" peaked in the 1880s when Vrubel was studying at the Imperial Academy of Arts and then moved to Kiev to study Byzantine and Christian art. The "second act" corresponded to the so-called "Moscow period" that started in 1890 with The Demon Seated, followed by Vrubel's 1896 marriage to the opera singer Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel, his longtime sitter, and ended in 1902 with The Demon Downcast and the subsequent hospitalization of the artist. The "third act" lasted from 1903 to 1906 when Vrubel was suffering from his mental illness that gradually undermined his physical and intellectual capabilities. For the last four years of his life, already being blind, Vrubel lived only physically.
In 1880–1890, Vrubel's creative aspirations did not find support of the Imperial Academy of Arts and art critics. However, many private collectors and patrons were fascinated with his paintings, including famous patron Savva Mamontov, as well as painters and critics who coalesced around the journal Mir iskusstva. Eventually, Vrubel's works were exhibited at Mir Iskusstva's own art exhibitions and Sergei Diaghilev retrospectives. At the beginning of the 20th century, Vrubel's art became an organic part of the Russian Art Nouveau. On November 28, 1905, he was awarded the title of Academician of Painting for his "fame in the artistic field" – just when Vrubel almost finished his career as an artist.
Becoming a painter
Origin, childhood, and adolescence
The Vrubel family did not belong to the nobility. The great-grandfather of the artist – Anton Antonovich Vrubel – was originally from Białystok and served as a judge in his local town. His son pursued a military career. He retired at the rank of Major General, was twice married and had three sons and four daughters. For the last ten years of his life, Mikhail Antonovich served as an ataman of the Astrakhan Cossacks. At that time, the Astrakhan governor was a famous cartographer and admiral. The governor's daughter Anna later married the second son of Mikhail Antonovich from the first marriage, Alexander, who previously graduated from the Cadet Corps, served in the Tengin Infantry Regiment, participated in the Caucasian and Crimean Wars. In 1855, their first child Anna Aleksandrovna was born. Altogether they had four children.Mikhail Vrubel was born on March 17, 1856. At that time, the Vrubel family lived in Omsk where Alexander was serving as a desk officer of the 2nd Steppe Siberian Corps. Two other children, Alexander and Ekaterina, were also born in Omsk, however, they died before adolescence. Frequent childbirth and adverse Siberian climate significantly weakened Mikhail's mother's health and in 1859 she died from consumption. The future painter was only three years old when his mother died. One of the memories that Mikhail had from that period is how his sick mother lay in bed and cut out for her children "little people, horses and different fantastic figures" from paper. Being a weak child from birth, Mikhail started to walk only at the age of three.
Due to constant relocations of their father, Anna and Mikhail spent their childhood moving to the places where Alexander was assigned to serve. In 1859, he was appointed to serve in Astrakhan where he had relatives able to help him with children, but already in 1861 the family had to relocate to Kharkov. There, little Mikhail quickly learned how to read and developed his interest in book illustrations, especially those from the journal Zhivopisnoe obozrenie.
In 1863, Alexander Vrubel got married for the second time to Elizaveta Vessel from Saint Petersburg, who dedicated herself to her husband's children. In 1867, the family moved to Saratov where podpolkovnik Vrubel took command of the provincial garrison. The Vessel family belonged to intelligentsia – a status class of educated people engaged in shaping the culture and politics of their society. Elizaveta's sister Alexandra Vessel graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and largely contributed to the introducing Mikhail to the world of music. Elizaveta herself spent a lot of time on improving Mikhail's health; later he even ironically recalled that she made him follow the "diet of raw meat and fish oil". However, there is no doubt that he owed his physical strength to the regime maintained by his stepmother. In addition, Elizaveta's brother, professional teacher, also participated in children's education by introducing educational games and home entertainment. Despite the generally good relationships among all the relatives, Anna and Mikhail kept a little aloof from them. Sometimes they behaved coldly to their stepmother calling her with an ironic nickname "Madrin'ka — perl materei". They also explicitly expressed their desire to start an independent life outside home thus making their father upset. By the age of 10, Mikhail expressed artistic talents through drawing, theater and music practicing; that altogether occupied in his future life no less place than painting. According to Dmitrieva, "the boy was like a boy, gifted, but rather promising a versatile amateur than an obsessed artist, whom he later became".
In addition, Alexander Vrubel hired for Mikhail a private teacher Andrei Godin from the Saratov gymnasium who taught advanced painting techniques. At that time, a copy of "The Last Judgement" by Michelangelo was exhibited in Saratov. The painting impressed Mikhail so much, that, according to his sister, he reproduced it from his memory in all details.
Gymnasium
Mikhail Vrubel started his education at the where the school directorate paid particular attention to the modernization of teaching methods, the advancement of classical studies, the literary development of high school students, dance and gymnastics lessons. His father Alexander was also in Saint Petersburg, voluntarily attending lectures at the Alexander Military Law Academy as an auditor. In addition to his studies at the gymnasium, Mikhail attended painting classes at the school of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. However, he was most interested in natural sciences thanks to his teacher Nicolai Peskov who was a political exile. In 1870, after living three years in Saint Petersburg, the Vrubel family moved to Odessa where Alexander was appointed as a judge in the garrison court.In Odessa, Mikhail studied at the Richelieu Lyceum. Several letters from him to his sister Anna who was receiving teacher education in Saint Petersburg have been preserved. The first letter dated October 1872; both letters are large and easy to read, with many quotes in French and Latin. In these letters, Mikhail mentioned the paintings that he made – the portrait of his smaller brother Alexander who died in 1869, and the portrait of Anna hanging in the father's office. However, comparing to other interests that Mikhail had, painting classes did not occupy much of his time. Vrubel was a quick learner and was the first in his class. He had a special interest in literature, languages, history, and, on vacations, he loved to read to his sister in original Latin. The future painter devoted even his free time to favourite activities. For instance, in one of his letters, he complained to Anna that instead of reading Goethe's Faust in original and completing 50 exercises in English textbook, he copied in oil "Sunset at Sea" by Ivan Aivazovsky. At the same time, one might say that at that time Mikhail was more interested in theatrical art rather than painting, since he barely mentioned the "Peredvizhniki" exhibition in Odessa but spent several pages describing the Saint Petersburg opera troupe.
University
After graduating with a distinction, neither Vrubel nor his parents thought of his career as an artist. It was decided to send Mikhail to Saint Petersburg where he could study at the Saint Petersburg State University and live with his uncle Nicolai Vessel, who would also cover Vrubel's everyday expenses. Mikhail's decision to study at the Faculty of Law was differently interpreted by Vrubel's biographers. For example, Alexandre Benois, who studied at the same faculty, suggested that the rationale behind this decision was the family tradition and values that legal profession had among their social circles. In 1876, Vrubel had to repeat the second year due to poor grades and a desire to strengthen his knowledge on the subjects. However, even though Mikhail studied for a year more than was expected, he could not defend his thesis and graduated in the rank of "" which was the lowest scientific degree that one can graduate with. Despite deep engagement with philosophy and, particularly, the theory of aesthetics by Immanuel Kant, Mikhail's s bohemian lifestyle that his uncle allowed him to maintain was partly to blame for not finishing the university. At that time, Vrubel did not spend much time on practicing painting, though he made several illustrations for literary works both classic and contemporary. According to Dmitrieva, "in general… Vrubel's art is thoroughly "literary": a rare work of his does not originate in a literary or theatrical source". One of the most famous compositions from that period is "The date of Anna Karenina with the son". According to Domitieva, this was his "pre-Vrubel" stage since the painting mostly reminds of journal illustrations of that time: "utterly romantic, even melodramatic, and very carefully decorated". Active participation in theatrical life required considerable expenses which is why Vrubel regularly worked as a tutor and a governess. In 1875, he even travelled to Europe with one of his pupils; together, they visited France, Switzerland and Germany. In addition, Mikhail spent the summer of 1875 at the estate that belonged to a Russian lawyer . Then, due to the excellent knowledge of Latin, Vrubel was hired as a tutor at the Papmel family where he guided his former university classmate. According to the memoirs of A. I. Ivanov:It was the Papmel family prone to aestheticism and bohemian lifestyle that encouraged Vrubel's dandyism and a desire to paint. In one of his letters from 1879, Vrubel mentioned that he renewed his acquaintance with a Russian watercolourist Emilie Villiers, who in every possible way patronized Mikhail' pictorial experiences in Odessa. Later, Vrubel began to communicate closely with students of the Imperial Academy of Arts who worked under the patronage of a famous Russian painter Pavel Chistyakov. Vrubel started attending evening academic classes where auditioning was allowed, and started to hone plastic skills. As a result, at the age of 24, Vrubel had a crucial turning point in his life – after graduating from the university and serving a short military service, Vrubel was admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts.