Ivan Shishkin is not only “Morning in pine forest", but this picture has its own interesting story. To begin with, who actually drew these bears?

In the Tretyakov Gallery they are called “notebooks”. Because they are small and shabby, with signatures - a student of Shishkin or simply “Sha”. They don’t leaf through it too much - even something so plain-looking in appearance there is no price for them. Of the seven, one is empty - half a century ago the former owner sold it into private hands. Tearing off one leaf at a time. It was more expensive that way. Inside are sketches of future masterpieces and... refutations of idle gossip - now try to prove that Shishkin painted only forests...

Nina Markova, senior researcher at the Tretyakov Gallery: “The talk that Shishkin did not know how to draw animals and human figures is a myth! Let’s start with the fact that Shishkin studied with an animal painter, so cows and sheep came out great for him.”

Even during the artist’s lifetime, this animal theme became a burning issue for art connoisseurs. Feel the difference, they said - a pine forest and two bears. Barely distinguishable. This is Shishkin's hand. And here is another pine forest and two signatures below. One is almost worn out.

This is the only case of so-called co-authorship, art historians say - morning in a pine forest. These cheerful bears inside the painting were not painted by Shishkin, but by his friend and colleague, the artist Savitsky. It’s so wonderful that I decided to sign the work together with Ivan Shishkin. However, the Tretyakov collector ordered Savitsky’s signature to be removed - bears are by no means the main characters of the painting by the artist Shishkin, he considered.

They actually worked together often. And only the bear quartet is literally a work of discord in the long-term friendship of the artists. The relatives of Konstantin Savitsky have an alternative version of the disappearance of the signature - allegedly Shishkin received the entire fee for Savitsky’s plan.

Evelina Polishchuk, senior researcher at the Tretyakov Gallery, relative of Konstantin Savitsky: “There was such resentment and he erased his signature and said “I don’t need anything,” although he had 7 children.”

“If I weren’t an artist, I would have become a botanist,” the artist, who was already called that by his students, repeated many times. He strongly recommended that they examine the object through a magnifying glass or take a photograph in order to remember it - he did this himself, here are his devices. And only then did he transfer it onto paper with precision down to a pine needle.

Galina Churak, head of the department at the Tretyakov Gallery: “The main work was in the summer and spring on location, and he brought hundreds of sketches to St. Petersburg, where he worked on large canvases in the fall and winter.”

He scolded his friend Repin for his rafts in the paintings, saying that it was impossible to understand what kind of tree logs they were made of. It’s either matter - Shishkin forest - “oaks” or “pine”. But according to Lermontov’s motives - in the wild north. Each picture has its own face - rye is Rus', wide, grain-producing. The pine forest is our wild denseness. He doesn't have a single rep. These landscapes are like people different. Over the course of my life, there are almost eight hundred portraits of nature.

Painting: 1889
Oil on canvas.
Size: 139 × 213 cm

Description of the painting “Three Bears” by I. Shishkin

Artist: Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky
Title of the painting: “Morning in a pine forest”
Painting: 1889
Oil on canvas.
Size: 139 × 213 cm

In our country, you will not find another such “hit” canvas, the plot of which is present on a rare grandmother’s bedspread, an embroidered little thought, a tablecloth, plates, and even on wrappers with cute clubtoes. Memories of parents chocolates and the moves of PR people - this is what does not allow us to forget about I. Shishkin’s painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” or, in common parlance, “Three Bears”.

But only Shishkin? The bears were painted on canvas by K. Savitsky, who at first depicted two clubfooted bears, and then raised their number to four. Previously, it was believed that Shishkin, despite his rather significant successes in animal painting, was not able to depict bears, so he simply exploited poor Savitsky and did not even allow him to sign the picture. In fact, the artists were friends, and the bears appeared after the latter said that the canvas was not dynamic. Shishkin could draw anyone, but not bears, so he gave Savitsky the opportunity to revive the picture and put a signature. The collector P. Tretyakov was not so loyal: he bought the painting from Shishkin, which means that the authorship is his, so there can be no Savitskys here. In general, the inscription was erased and “Morning in a Pine Forest” began to be considered one of the key paintings in the work of one of the most outstanding Russian landscape painters.

The “Teddy Bear” candies with Shishkin’s reproduction on the candy wrapper gave the name to the painting “Three Bears”. The delicacy that appeared was filled with almonds and cocoa beans, it was expensive, but it was so tasty that even the agitator of everyone and everything, V. Mayakovsky, could not resist and wrote that if you want “Bears,” then put a certain amount of money into a savings book. This is how “Teddy Bear” became “Three Bears” (and there are four of them in the picture), candy became one of the signs of the USSR, and I. Shishkin became a people’s artist.

True, he was a singer of nature native land and before the Bears. The artist wanted and knew how to surprise, first of all, with landscapes, which he painted so brilliantly that he earned the reputation of a master of detail. Only here you will see a haze of fog, as if floating among the branches of hundred-year-old pines, soft and cozy moss on boulders, clear water of a stream, morning or evening coolness, midday heat of summer. What’s interesting is that all the artist’s paintings are partly epic, but always monumental. At the same time, Shishkin is not pretentious, he is simply the person who sincerely admires majestic nature native land and knows how to portray it.

“Morning in a Pine Forest” pacifies with the balance of its composition. Three bear cubs look very harmonious with their mother bear, and you just want to apply divine proportion to the two halves of a fallen pine tree. This picture is like a random shot on an old camera that a tourist managed to take after searching for true virgin nature for so long.

And if you look at the coloring of the picture, it’s as if the artist is trying to capture all the richness of the colors of the dawn time. We see air, but it is not the usual shade of blue, but rather blue-green, a little cloudy and foggy. The predominant colors that surrounded the clubfooted inhabitants of the forest are green, blue and sunny yellow, reflecting the mood of awakened nature. The bright flickering of golden rays in the background seems to hint at the sun that is about to illuminate the earth. It is these highlights that give the picture solemnity; it is they that speak of the realism of the fog above the ground. “Morning in a Pine Forest” is another confirmation of the tactility of Shishkin’s paintings, because you can even feel the cool air.

Look closely at the forest. Its appearance is conveyed so realistically that it becomes clear: this is not a forest clearing, but a deep thicket - a true concentration of living nature. The sun had just risen above her, the rays of which had already managed to make their way to the top of the tree crowns, splashing them with gold and again hiding in the thicket. The damp fog, which has not yet cleared, seems to have awakened the inhabitants of the ancient forest.

The cubs and the mother bear woke up, developing their vigorous activity. Satisfied and well-fed bears have been exploring the world around them since the very morning, exploring the nearest fallen pine tree, and the mother bear is watching the babies, who are touchingly clumsily climbing the tree. Moreover, the mother bear watches not only the cubs, but also tries to catch the slightest sounds that could disturb their idyll. It’s simply amazing how these animals, painted by another artist, could come to life compositional solution paintings: a fallen pine tree seemed to have been created for this bear family, busy with their important affairs against the backdrop of a remote and wild corner of Russian nature.

The painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” reveals mastery realistic image and its quality, which is in many ways superior to modern digital technology. Every blade of grass, every ray of sun, every pine needle was written by Shishkin lovingly and reverently. If the foreground of the canvas depicts a fallen pine tree with bears climbing on it, then in the background there is an ancient forest. Bear cubs and the rest of nature evoke calming positive emotions in every person. Animals, like toy animals, fill the beginning of a new day with kindness and set the mood for positive thinking. Looking at these cute animals, it’s hard to believe that they are predators by nature and cannot be capable of cruelty. But that’s not even the main thing. Shishkin focuses the viewer's attention on the harmony of sunlight that comes from the background of the painting with bear cubs in the foreground. Visually draw a line through them - and you will certainly notice that these are the brightest objects in the picture, and everything else, including the irregularly shaped pine tree, is just complementary touches.

It seems that “Morning in a Pine Forest” depicts real, living bears in some kind of fantastic landscape. The Vyatka forest, from which nature is copied, says researchers, is very different from the Shishkin forest. I just wonder if bears exist there now, because for a century the painting has been nurturing the aesthetic and moral taste of people, asking them to take care of the surrounding nature.

Bears of discord, or how Shishkin and Savitsky quarreled

Everyone knows this painting, and they also know its author, the great Russian landscape painter Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin. The title of the painting “Morning in a Pine Forest” is less remembered; more often they say “Three Bears”, although there are actually four of them (however, the painting was originally called “Bear Family in the Forest”). The fact that the bears in the picture were painted by Shishkin’s friend, the artist Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky, is known to an even narrower circle of art lovers, but is also not a secret behind seven seals. But how the co-authors divided the fee, and why Savitsky’s signature on the picture is almost indistinguishable, history is bashfully silent about this.
It went something like this...

They say that Savitsky first saw Shishkin in the Artel of Artists. This Artel was both a workshop and a canteen, and something like a club where problems of creativity were discussed. And then one day young Savitsky was having dinner at the Artel, and next to him some artist of a heroic physique kept joking, and between jokes he completed a drawing. Savitsky found this approach to the matter frivolous. When the artist began to erase the drawing with his rough fingers, Savitsky had no doubt that this strange man Now all your work will be ruined.

But the drawing turned out very good. Savitsky, in his excitement, forgot about dinner, and the hero came up to him and rumbled in a friendly bass voice that it was bad to eat, and that only those with an excellent appetite and a cheerful disposition could cope with any work.

That’s how they became friends: young Savitsky and the already famous, respected Artel Shishkin. Since then, they met more than once and went to sketches together. Both were in love with the Russian forest and once started talking about how it would be nice to paint a large-scale canvas with bears. Savitsky allegedly said that he had painted bears more than once for his son and had already figured out how to depict them on a large canvas. And Shishkin seemed to smile slyly:

Why don't you come to me? I waved one thing away...

The thing turned out to be “Morning in a Pine Forest.” Just no bears. Savitsky was delighted. And Shishkin said that now all that remains is to work on the bears: there is a place for them on the canvas, they say. And then Savitsky asked: “Excuse me!” - and soon a bear family settled in the place indicated by Shishkin.

P.M. Tretyakov purchased this painting from I.I. Shishkin for 4 thousand rubles, when the signatures of K.A. Savitsky was not there yet. Having learned about such an impressive sum, Konstantin Apollonovich, who had seven shops, came to Ivan Ivanovich for his share. Shishkin suggested that he first register his co-authorship by signing the painting, which was done. However, Tretyakov did not like this trick. After the transaction was completed, he rightfully considered the paintings his property and did not allow any of the authors to touch them.

I bought a painting from Shishkin. Why else Savitsky? Give me some turpentine,” said Pavel Mikhailovich and erased Savitsky’s signature with his own hand. He also paid money to Shishkin alone.

Now Ivan Ivanovich was already offended; he justifiably thought that the picture was quite an independent work. Indeed, the landscape is charming. This is not just a dense pine forest, but a morning in the forest with its fog that has not yet dissipated, with the lightly pinked tops of huge pines, and cold shadows in the thickets. In addition, Shishkin drew sketches of the bear family himself.

How the matter ended and how the artists divided the money is not known for certain, but since then Shishkin and Savitsky have not painted pictures together.

And “Morning in a Pine Forest” gained wild popularity among the people thanks to the figures of a mother bear and three cheerful cubs, so vividly painted by Savitsky.

It just so happened that for the packaging of the “Teddy Bear” sweets and their analogues a century ago, designers chose a painting by Shishkin and Savitsky. And if Shishkin is known for his forest landscapes, then Savitsky is remembered by the general public exclusively for his bears.

With rare exceptions, the subject of Shishkin's paintings (if you look at this issue broadly) is one - nature. Ivan Ivanovich is an enthusiastic, loving contemplator. And the viewer becomes an eyewitness to the painter’s meeting with his native expanses.

Shishkin was an extraordinary expert on the forest. About trees different breeds he knew everything and noticed errors in the drawing. During plein airs, the artist’s students were ready to literally hide in the bushes, just so as not to hear criticism in the spirit of “Such a birch cannot exist” or “these pine trees are fake.”

As for people and animals, they occasionally appeared in Ivan Ivanovich’s paintings, but they were more of a background than an object of attention. “Morning in a Pine Forest” is perhaps the only painting where bears compete with the forest. For this, thanks to one of Shishkin’s best friends - the artist Konstantin Savitsky.

The idea for the painting was suggested to Shishkin by Savitsky, who later acted as a co-author and depicted the figures of the bear cubs. These bears, with some differences in poses and numbers (at first there were two of them), appear in the preparatory drawings and sketches. Savitsky turned out the animals so well that he even signed the painting together with Shishkin. Savitsky himself told his family: “The painting was sold for 4 thousand, and I am a participant in the 4th share.”

“Morning in a Pine Forest” is a painting by Russian artists Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. Savitsky painted the bears, but the collector Pavel Tretyakov erased his signature, so that Shishkin alone is often indicated as the author of the painting.

The painting conveys in detail the state of nature seen by the artist on Gorodomlya Island. What is shown is not a dense dense forest, but sunlight, breaking through the columns of tall trees. You can feel the depth of the ravines, the power of centuries-old trees, the sunlight seems to timidly peek into this dense forest. The frolicking cubs feel the approach of morning.

Portrait of Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898) by I. N. Kramskoy. 1880

Konstantin Apollonovich Savitsky
(1844 - 1905)
Photo.

Wikipedia

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“The Nun” by Ilya Repin

Ilya Repin. Nun. 1878. State Tretyakov Gallery / Portrait under an X-ray

From the portrait, a young girl in strict monastic clothes looks thoughtfully at the viewer. The image is classic and familiar - it probably would not have aroused interest among art critics if not for the memoirs of Lyudmila Alekseevna Shevtsova-Spore, the niece of Repin’s wife. They revealed interesting story.

Sofia Repina, née Shevtsova, posed for Ilya Repina for The Nun. The girl was the artist’s sister-in-law - and at one time Repin himself was seriously infatuated with her, but he married her younger sister Vera. Sophia became the wife of Repin’s brother Vasily, an orchestra member of the Mariinsky Theater.

This did not stop the artist from repeatedly painting portraits of Sophia. For one of them, the girl posed in a formal ball gown: a light elegant dress, lace sleeves, and a high hairstyle. While working on the painting, Repin had a serious quarrel with the model. As you know, anyone can offend an artist, but few can take revenge as creatively as Repin did. The offended artist “dressed” Sophia in the portrait in monastic clothes.

The story, similar to an anecdote, was confirmed by an x-ray. The researchers were lucky: Repin did not remove the original paint layer, which allowed them to examine the heroine’s original outfit in detail.

"Park Alley" by Isaac Brodsky

Isaac Brodsky. Park alley. 1930. Private collection / Isaac Brodsky. Alley of the park in Rome. 1911

No less interesting riddle left for researchers by Repin's student, Isaac Brodsky. The Tretyakov Gallery houses his painting “Park Alley,” which at first glance is unremarkable: Brodsky had many works on “park” themes. However, the further you go into the park, the more colorful layers there are.

One of the researchers noticed that the composition of the painting was suspiciously reminiscent of another work of the artist - “Park Alley in Rome” (Brodsky was stingy with original titles). This painting was considered lost for a long time, and its reproduction was published only in a rather rare edition in 1929. With the help of x-rays, the Roman alley that had mysteriously disappeared was found - right under the Soviet one. The artist did not clean up the already finished image and simply made a number of simple changes to it: he dressed the passers-by according to the fashion of the 30s of the 20th century, “took away” the children’s clothes, removed the marble statues and slightly modified the trees. So, with a couple of light movements of the hand, the sunny Italian park turned into an exemplary Soviet one.

When asked why Brodsky decided to hide his Roman alley, they did not find an answer. But it can be assumed that the depiction of the “modest charm of the bourgeoisie” in 1930 was no longer inappropriate from an ideological point of view. Nevertheless, of all Brodsky’s post-revolutionary landscape works, “Park Alley” is the most interesting: despite the changes, the picture retained the charming grace of Art Nouveau, which, alas, no longer existed in Soviet realism.

“Morning in a Pine Forest” by Ivan Shishkin

Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. Morning in a pine forest. 1889. State Tretyakov Gallery

A forest landscape with bear cubs playing on a fallen tree is perhaps the most famous work artist. But the idea for the landscape was suggested to Ivan Shishkin by another artist, Konstantin Savitsky. He also painted a bear with three cubs: the forest expert Shishkin had no luck with the bears.

Shishkin had an impeccable understanding of forest flora; he noticed the slightest mistakes in the drawings of his students - either the birch bark was depicted incorrectly, or the pine looked like a fake one. However, people and animals have always been rare in his works. This is where Savitsky came to the rescue. By the way, he left several preparatory drawings and sketches with bear cubs - he was looking for suitable poses. “Morning in a Pine Forest” was not originally “Morning”: the painting was called “Bear Family in the Forest,” and there were only two bears in it. As a co-author, Savitsky also put his signature on the canvas.

When the canvas was delivered to the merchant Pavel Tretyakov, he was indignant: he paid for Shishkin (ordered an original work), but received Shishkin and Savitsky. Shishkin, how honest man, did not attribute authorship to himself. But Tretyakov followed the principle and blasphemously erased Savitsky’s signature from the painting with turpentine. Savitsky later nobly renounced copyright, and the bears were attributed to Shishkin for a long time.

“Portrait of a Chorus Girl” by Konstantin Korovin

Konstantin Korovin. Portrait of a chorus girl. 1887. State Tretyakov Gallery / Reverse side of the portrait

On the back of the canvas, researchers found a message from Konstantin Korovin on cardboard, which turned out to be almost more interesting than the painting itself:

“In 1883 in Kharkov, a portrait of a chorus girl. Written on a balcony in a commercial public garden. Repin said when S.I. Mamontov showed him this sketch that he, Korovin, was writing and looking for something else, but what is it for - this is painting for painting’s sake only. Serov had not yet painted portraits at this time. And the painting of this sketch was found incomprehensible??!! So Polenov asked me to remove this sketch from the exhibition, since neither the artists nor the members - Mr. Mosolov and some others - liked it. The model was not a beautiful woman, even somewhat ugly.”

Konstantin Korovin

The “Letter” was disarming with its directness and daring challenge to the entire artistic community: “Serov had not yet painted portraits at that time,” but he, Konstantin Korovin, painted them. And he was allegedly the first to use techniques characteristic of the style that would later be called Russian impressionism. But all this turned out to be a myth that the artist created intentionally.

The harmonious theory “Korovin is the forerunner of Russian impressionism” was mercilessly destroyed by objective technical and technological research. On the front side of the portrait they found the artist’s signature in paint, and just below in ink: “1883, Kharkov.” The artist worked in Kharkov in May - June 1887: he painted scenery for performances of the Mamontov Russian Private Opera. In addition, art historians have found that the “Portrait of a Chorus Girl” was made in a certain artistic manner- a la prima. This technique oil painting allowed me to paint a picture in one session. Korovin began to use this technique only in the late 1880s.

After analyzing these two inconsistencies, the Tretyakov Gallery staff came to the conclusion that the portrait was painted only in 1887, and Korovin added an earlier date to emphasize his own innovation.

“The Man and the Cradle” by Ivan Yakimov

Ivan Yakimov. Man and cradle.1770. State Tretyakov Gallery / Full version work

For a long time Ivan Yakimov’s painting “Man and Cradle” puzzled art critics. And the point was not even that this kind of everyday sketches are absolutely not typical for painting XVIII centuries - the rocking horse in the lower right corner of the picture has a rope that is too unnaturally stretched, which logically should be lying on the floor. And it was too early for a child to play with such toys from the cradle. Also, the fireplace did not even fit half onto the canvas, which looked very strange.

The situation was “clarified” - in the literal sense - by an x-ray. She showed that the canvas was cut on the right and top.

IN Tretyakov Gallery The painting arrived after the sale of the collection of Pavel Petrovich Tugoy-Svinin. He owned the so-called “Russian Museum” - a collection of paintings, sculptures and antiques. But in 1834, due to financial problems, the collection had to be sold - and the painting “Man and Cradle” ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery: not all of it, but only its left half. The right one, unfortunately, was lost, but you can still see the work in its entirety, thanks to another unique exhibit of the Tretyakov Gallery. The full version of Yakimov’s work was found in the album “Collection of Excellent Works Russian artists and curious domestic antiquities”, which contains drawings from most of the paintings that were part of Svinin’s collection.