The artist is Nesterov
1915 Self -portrait is one of the strongest works of Nesterov of the pre -revolutionary era and a brilliant example of portrait art of the era of modern. Almost nothing is known about the history of its creation. The artist himself, apparently, did not like it and was almost immediately sold to him, and not to the museum, but to some kind of merchant from Astrakhan to take away. This fact makes us think, because he belonged to his self -portraits of Nesterov responsibly and carefully.
First of all, the “self -portrait” amazes with its restrained expression, barely hiding a huge internal stress. Moreover, in the work, there is absolutely no high degree of self-assessment of self-portraits of the late 1920s. The characteristic that Nesterov gives himself here is very impartial. The artist’s face, devoid of any honesty and charm, looks at the viewer an incredulous, prickly, unkind look, as if trying to keep him at a distance. This impression of detachment and internal isolation emphasizes the official severity of the wardrobe – a black coat, a white shirt, a dark tie and a hat. Does not bring warmth into the created image and a typical “Nesterovsky” landscape, against which the artist portrayed himself. Pacing cold -bearing autumn tones, nature brings even more dissonance into the general mood of the picture. A feeling of instability, confusion, confusion, even despair is also strengthened by compositional means. Nesterov deliberately gives the figure fragmentary to deprive the cloth of classical clarity: the cut off the top of the hat is read as a subconscious feeling of the impossibility of accommodating, accepting this world and accommodating it yourself. The artist, as it were, exposes the abyss, which finally opened between him and his heroes, seeking and being salvation in harmony with nature. He plunged into this situation, but he found neither salvation nor harmony. Obviously, the attitude of Nesterov in that and subsequent years, overshadowed by the world war and the foreboding of still highlights, was rather tragic than blessed.
Pavel Klimov. Lone wanderer // Mikhail Nesterov. SPb, 2012. With. 184-185.
Nesterov Mikhail Vasilievich (1862, Ufa – 1942, Moscow) – painter, schedule, monumentalist. Academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts (since 1898). Born in Ufa. Studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture at and. M. Pryanishnikova, a. To. Savrasov and in. G. Perova (1876–1880, 1884–1886), at the Academy of Arts at P. P. Chistyakova (1881-1884). Used advice and. N. Kramskoy. Member of the partnership of mobile art exhibitions (since 1896), society "World of Art" (1899–1901). Ceil member "Union of Russian artists" (1903).
Created many portraits, landscapes, paintings on historical and religious plots. The author of the paintings in the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv, the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery in Moscow, cardboard for the mosaic of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in St. Petersburg.
The work of Mikhail Nesterov revealed to the viewer an amazing, poetic world of Orthodox monasteries and Old Believers, the charm of the Central Russian nature, the spiritualized beauty of the national character. The main content of creativity is religious and moral searches, the desire to show a Russian person in the best manifestations of his spiritual qualities.
The opening type of distance with smooth bends of the river, the green banks and a strip of forest on the horizon is calm and pacified. A sharp contrast to the landscape is a massive and monumental figure of the artist, shifted to the left edge. Nesterov created the image of a man of great power of the spirit, which is in deep tense thought. A touching yellow flower near a figure written by several light strokes only emphasizes the detached loneliness of the depicted. (G. To.). Russian portrait. XX century: St. Petersburg, 2001. With. 128.
