Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy "Unfortunate grief"

Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoy entered the domestic painting as an innovator, reformer and popularizer.

short biography

Kramskoy was born in 1837 in Ostrogozhsk, Voronezh province, in the family of a clerk.

He graduated with honors from the school in the same city, studied painting and worked as an apprentice in the icon-painting studio, but only a year. At the age of 16 he left his native city and traveled for three years in Russia, practicing in the skill of the painter, watercolorist and retoucher at the Kharkov photographer.

In 1857, Kramskoy entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, without any special education. However, the Academy did not finish his studies, since he headed the "revolt of fourteen" and, in the form of a protest against the existing traditions of the institution, left the students, interrupting his studies.

In 1863 he began to work in the Society for the Support of Artists as a teacher. It is at the head of a group of associates, which are organized by the Artel of Artists, and then by the Association of Traveling Exhibitions.

I. Kramskoy: Characteristics of Creativity

The main genre in which I. Kramskoy worked was a portrait that sometimes stood on the brink of a domestic genre. The artist was interested in his characters as a person-citizen, with the wealth and dignity of his inner world, with his feelings and experiences, hopes and aspirations. Kramskoy was a master of psychological characteristics.

Devoted to his work and possessed a great desire for painting, diligence and irrepressible efficiency, IN Kramskoy died after the easel, working on the portrait of Dr. Raufhus. He lived for only half a century, but left a rich artistic heritage to his descendants. Many of the master's canvases are kept in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery.

The history of the creation of the most dramatic canvas

Kramskoy's family life was tragic. Very quickly, he lost two younger sons. As a result of the artist's tragic experiences, he also wrote a dramatic canvas. "The inconsolable grief" of Kramskoy, according to I. Repin, was "a living reality." Sources say that in the features of the main character are traced features of the wife of the author Sophia Nikolaevna.

For "Unfortunate Grief" Kramskoy very long chose the compositional solution. He drew several of his options, but stopped at the simplest and concise. In general, the work lasted four years.

Kramskoy's canvas "The Desolate Grief": a description

Most of the canvas is taken up by a figure of a grieving woman in a mourning dress, with a handkerchief in her hand, which she covers her mouth. Tears are no longer there, but the gaze is fixed on one point. The figure seemed frozen in its sculpture. There is something similar to the image of the mother on the canvas of Kramskoy and the Monument to Motherland, grieving for her sons.

At the feet of a woman scattered, as if laid to a monument, flowers. Each of them is not just a flower - a symbol. The red tulip symbolizes a huge all-consuming love, yellow daffodils - symbols of death in adolescence, but at the same time a rebirth. Narcissuses also symbolize the possibility of insanity, which, according to mythology, can result in a long inhalation of their fragrance, as well as deceived hopes. The green stems of the buds that have bloomed and not yet emptied symbolize eternal life. Continuing the description of Kramskoy's painting "Unfortunate sorrow", it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that a woman stands near a box of flowers and a wreath, ready, apparently, for a funeral ceremony. The wreath of round form also means eternity and immortality. And the pink, white and light yellow roses woven into it - tenderness, purity and purity, caring for a loving woman - in this case mother.

The heroine is in a simple domestic setting, which further emphasizes the reality of what is happening. It stands at the very edge of the picture, almost stepping out of it in the direction of emptiness and frightening suspense. The same black emptiness gaping behind mother's back - in the background behind the curtain. A symbol of emotional emptiness, of darkness that filled the heart of a woman, a vision of a positive future - only black grief, pain and longing after the tragedy await her ahead!

The coloring of Kramskoy's canvas "Unsuspicious Grief", like her mood, is gloomy. Colors of brown and gray scale are used.

Kramskoy's canvas "The Desolate Grief" is one of the most dramatically rich works of the master.