Animals. School encyclopedia Animalistic paintings by famous artists

N. Nadezhdina

Come, kitty, spend the night. K. Kuznetsov.

This will be a conversation about your friends, kind and faithful, familiar with early childhood, although you have never seen them yourself.
They came to your house silently, invisibly, like wizards. But you saw the things that their skillful hands touched, and these things seemed alive to you, they enchanted you.
As a child, I sincerely believed that the bear cub drawn on the bottom of my plate was alive.
Books with little animals also seemed alive. I remember how one little girl showed me where in the room her mother lived, where her father lived, where her grandmother was, where she herself was...
“And here,” the little girl said mysteriously, opening the bookcase, “Ukhti-Tukhti lives here!”
In the closet there was a book about the kind hedgehog Ukhti-Tukhti, who washed and mended the pants of bear cubs, bunnies and all the forest children.
The writer came up with the fairy tale, but if there had not been a drawing that made this image tangible, it is unlikely that the girl would have said that Ukhti-Tukhti lives in the closet.
Your grandmother also read books to you. And then the eyes of the cat in the drawing began to glow, and the shadow in the corner turned into a giant. This fairy tale approached your bed on velvet cat paws, or flew up on swan wings, dropping a feather on your pillow.
You started leafing through the books. Even if you don’t know the letters yet, it doesn’t matter! The painted animals themselves told you their adventures.


Bear in autumn. A. N. Komarov.

Take a look at the drawing by K. Kuznetsov - this is a story without words! But then you were still too young to think about the unknown friend who, with his magical art, made the drawing speak.
In fairy tales, animals and birds served man faithfully, but you saw that in life not only domestic animals, but also the free tit bird pays kindness for kindness. If you sprinkle crumbs on it in the winter, if you build a house for it in the spring, it will settle near a person’s home and protect the apple trees in the garden from caterpillars.
And for the first time in your life you came to the forest. Everything was new to you: smells, chirps, rustles, the play of light and shadow, sparks of dew, traces of someone’s paws in the mud by the stream. But you didn’t feel like a stranger here.
The conversation that the animals and birds had with you in the pictures was an invitation: bear cubs, titmouse cubs, fox cubs, hedgehogs invited you into nature, into their native, green home, rustling with branches. You didn’t know much here yet, but you already loved it all.
So, didn’t the artist, who conveyed to you his love of nature, revealed its beauty to you, deserve to be called your good friend, although you never saw him in person?
From the Latin word animal, meaning animal, artists who paint animals are called animalists. There will be a story about them.

Horse with foal. I. Efimov.

Here is a small picture: a woman, wrapped in an oriental blanket, is milking a mare. The obedient horse is motionless, but with all its being - its eyes, the restless bend of its neck - it reaches out to the foal.

Fountain "South" at the Northern River Station in Moscow. I. Efimov.

He stomps around here, cute, funny, long-legged, silently asking: “Will I have any milk left?” A gentle warmth emanates from the painting. The artist depicted not only a domestic animal - a human servant, he depicted a mother.
This painting is one of many excellent works by the artist Ivan Semenovich Efimov.
He began working at the end of the 19th century, just like A. N. Komarov and V. A. Vatagin. These three had a huge influence on younger generations of animal artists.
Vatagin is an artist-scientist. IN art school he came to study with a university degree in zoology. He was already known as an illustrator scientific books. A scientific drawing must be accurate. Vatagin is always accurate: he sees every muscle, every joint under the skin of the beast.


Persian tiger. V. Vatagin.

But in the young illustrator of scientific books lived the soul of an artist in love with nature. It was not enough for him that people would recognize from his drawings what a tiger was like. He wanted to convey the magnificent plasticity of the tiger’s gait and the play of its fur, and most importantly, its character. He wanted to create artistic image beast. And he achieved this.
The Vataginsky tiger is an expressive portrait of the ruler of the jungle: majestic predatory power, cat-like insinuation and hidden cunning. I can’t help but remember Kipling’s Shere Khan. By the way, illustrations for “Mowgli” were Vatagin’s favorite thing in life.


Childhood of a hippopotamus. V. Vatagin.

And the Vatagin foxes have a completely different character. How much slyness is in the relaxed poses of these forest beauties! But to convey this lightness and ease, you need not only talent, but also hard, hard work.
The beast does not pose like a model. You can’t persuade a fox not to turn around, you can’t order a running deer - stop! A moment - and everything disappeared. And you need to catch this unique moment with the tip of a pencil, you need to have time to put at least a few strokes on paper.


Foxes. V. Vatagin.

However, the artists have another secret. Aivazovsky drew the ever-changing sea from memory. With his inner vision he saw waves, storms and squalls. The sea roared in his workshop.
Likewise, an animal artist must have a sharp, tenacious visual memory, so that an eagle “comes close” to his workshop, and a deer “runs in.” And we need to train this memory, constantly enriching it with impressions. Only that eye is able to appreciate what was most important in a unique moment who has seen the animal in nature more than once.


Entry into the city. G. Nikolsky.

Some eccentric: he draws herons. How can mosquitoes not eat it?


In the north. Mail. V. Tsigal.

This is why animal artists are avid travelers. They sail on ships with oceanographers, go to the taiga with geologists, and sometimes a lonely fire is lit on an island lost among the swamps. Who lit it - a fisherman or a hunter? The villagers say:


Buffaloes. V. Trofimov.

Each picture is a story about what was seen. And we mentally travel together with the artists to the same places.


V. Trofimov. Monkeys. (Drawing.)

We ride camels with Nikolsky into the eastern city, climb with Gavrilov onto the rocks of the bird market, rush with Tsigal across the tundra on a dog sled, dive with Kozhin to the seabed, make our way with Trofimov through Belovezhskaya Pushcha to visit the bison, but then the tireless artist from Belarusian forests take us to the tropics, to the island of Ceylon.
And now, with the artist Pavel Ryabov, we will go on an amazing journey into the depths of centuries.

Man and moose. P. Ryabov.

Fine art is one of the most ancient arts. Man learned to draw before he could write. Not with a pencil on paper - with a hard stone, he carved or scratched his drawings on the rock, but as paint, he used soot from the fire and "bloodstone" - red ocher extracted from the earth.
Millennia have passed, but the paints of the first animal painters have retained their color. Yes, animalists. Because before himself, his wife, his home, which, in essence, did not yet exist, man began to draw the beast. After all, his whole life depended on a successful hunt for the beast. Meat is food, skin is clothing, fat is fuel, light. Primitive man believed that to draw a beast means to master the beast. It was witchcraft.


Wolves and a bunny. (Based on materials from ancient rock paintings.) P. Ryabov.

And in our country, for example, on the Siberian Selenge River, there are stones with ancient designs. They are covered with desert tan or fine crustose lichen.
You can walk past without seeing anything.
But the lighting changed, and the silhouette of an animal mysteriously appeared on the stone.
Ryabov was on the Selenga, on the Lena, and on the Angara. There are three rocky islands in the middle of the river, and on the stone foreheads of these islands there are paintings seven thousand years old: a huge frieze, a poem on a stone about moose.

Cat. (Linocut.) Ya. Manukhin.

Now these islands are under the waves of the Bratsk Sea, but the scribblings transferred by Ryabov from stone to paper delight and surprise our eyes. Only an artist with a keen sense of the relationship between the color of the figure and the background could solve this creative problem, but not every artist would take on this enormous work. It required patience and ingenuity, perseverance and obsession.
Moose writings pose riddles for scientists: why on the stone frieze, where moose are depicted walking in one direction, are the animals’ path suddenly blocked by vertical stripes of red ocher, through which dozens of heads are visible? Maybe these are the poles of the corral, where the future herd is driven, maybe this is the beginning of cattle breeding?


What kind of animals... (Wood engraving.) V. Frolov.

But people of art are no less interested in scribblings than scientists. How boldly and how simply, with a few meager lines, not only the elk’s appearance is conveyed, but also the feelings that these elk experienced: joy, contentment, excitement, horror, pain.
There are people who say that we can't be as sharp as primitive man, to feel the beast, we, modern people, are moving further and further from nature, and in the future animalism is doomed.
But we look at the future differently and say that a person cannot do without a four-legged friend. In the village of Pavlovo there is a monument to a dog, which, in the words of the great scientist, “brought man into the world.” Developing the same idea, we can say that the dog “brought” man into space.


Crows and eagle owl. (Figure.) V. Belyshev.

In the future, people will look at many things in nature differently. Why kill a beautiful animal for the sake of fur when there is a substitute - artificial fur! In the future, man’s relationship with animals will become more selfless, kinder, and more humane. And to express this new attitude, the art of the animal artist, his talent, his skill will again be needed.
What is skill anyway? How does the drawing of a beginner who is just trying his hand differ from the drawing of a master? A beginner wants to, but doesn’t know how, can’t. But the master wants and can, and finds the truest and most vivid expression of his plan.


Panther and cubs. V. Belyshev.

Craftsmanship is a talent developed to perfection, so it delights and captivates, but at the same time it is years of experience and work, so it is respected.
An artist can express his idea in different ways. You look at Belyshev’s drawing “Crows and an Eagle Owl” and it seems that you hear the alarming hoarse cries of angry birds. Belyshev took the plot from life and was faithful to it in everything. Using only shades of black blurred ink, he managed to convey even different color bird feathers.


Monitor lizards. V. Fedotov.

But Fedotov’s “Round-headed Lizards” were made completely differently. Lizards do not have a defined scaly pattern on their skin. But how expressively the characters are conveyed! Look at the tails: it is these tails that tell us the story of chasing a fly. One tail is jealous, the other tail is in despair, the third is philosophizing. This drawing is unusually cheerful and cheerful.


Round-headed lizards. (Linocut.) V. Fedotov.

The techniques used by artists are varied. It’s amazing how they sometimes reach the same goal through different means. To convey the fluffiness and lightness of fox fur, Vatagin used colored crayons – pastels – for his “Foxes”. And Frolov depicts bear cubs and chipmunks with hard, clear strokes of engraving. And yet we feel the same soft fluffiness here too.


Zebra. (Porcelain.) D. V. Gorlov.

I want to pet the donkey made by Gorlov. This is smooth, shiny, painted porcelain. Another work by Gorlov - a Himalayan bear - is also porcelain, but rough. We feel the shaggy fur of the bear, which looks sideways and slightly embarrassed at us. What did he do, you mischief maker?
Nikolaev liked the round speckled stone, which looked like a hedgehog curled up into a ball. And the artist woke him up. A nose peeked out of the recess, the eyes sparkled, the hedgehog woke up, and the stone, which at the artist’s will became a hedgehog, also woke up.


Yak. From the series "At the Moscow Zoo". (Paper.) L. Chaga.

In Vatagin’s hands, layers of wood of different colors become either streams of water through which the belly of a seal is visible, or a pattern on the scales of a tropical fish. Strakhov turns a yellow curved stone into the flexible body of a cobra. And what miracles the artist Chaga’s scissors do with paper! The stiff feathers of an ostrich, the silky fringe on the blanket of a white pony, the thick tufts of fur of a humpbacked yak - all this is paper.

Heron. (Wire.) V. Tsigal.

Chaga works magic with paper, Tsigal with wire. So he twisted a long wire into a knot - it turned out to be the ankle of a heron. Here he turned a steep curl and the eye of the Little Humpbacked Horse peeked through, and the five splayed wire ends are a loose tail, which is blown by the wind as it runs.
Everything: wire, bone, paper, wood, clay, stone - everything comes to life if the talented hand of a master touches it.
To draw an animal in order to master it - what a deep thought! But unlike primitive people, we understand it differently: to take possession not in order to kill, but in order to create a living, beautiful image.
Even though years have passed since you saw him, he is still in front of you. And this is wonderful, here the ancient people are absolutely right, this is really witchcraft!

Art: business or destiny?
Animalistics, - animalistic painting and animalistic drawing, -
despite others art projects, continues to remain
one of Marina Efremova’s favorite genres. And it’s no coincidence that exactly
animalism has become main theme interview "Pictorial Energy",
which journalist Olga Volkova took from Marina Efremova.

"Animal painting exhibition as an artistic and educational event"
Art critic Nikolai Efremov. Report at a scientific and practical conference,
dedicated to the 125th anniversary of Vasily Alekseevich Vatagin
(February 5, 2009 - State Tretyakov Gallery;
February 6, 2009 - State Darwin Museum)

Below are some animal paintings by Marina Efremova, painted in 1999-2010. Some of them are in private collections, some are in the artist’s collection.
Paintings with dogs: “Vaska the Basset Hound”, “Lying Yorkie”, “Portrait of the Yorkshire Terrier Lucky”, “White Guardian (Dogo Argentino)”, “Black Guardian (Rottweiler)”, “Yorkie Tofik”, “Yorkie Manya”, "Yorkie Chink", "Portrait of Timony", "Husky Team", "Mongrels", "Late Autumn", "Greyhounds in the Field", "Portrait of a German Shepherd", "Pugs", "Portrait of a Rottweiler", "St. Bernard Vanessa", "Puppy with a hare", "Boxer puppy", "Basset hound Archie".
Paintings with cats: “Cat Timych”, “Cat Gray”, “Cat Zhulka”, “Cat Murash”, “Black Keeper of the Hearth”, “White Keeper of the Hearth”, “Red Cat”.
Paintings with horses: “Black Horse”, “Bay”.
Paintings with wild animals: “Portrait of a Gorilla”, “Waiting (Portrait of a Wolf)”, “Portrait of a Tiger”, “White Tiger”, “Old Wolf”, “Last Dash”, “Bison Head”, “Mandrill”, “Portrait of a Lioness” ", "Lion and Falcon", "Orangutan", "Black Jaguar", "Belek", "Fox", "Wolf", "Portrait of a Wolf".
Paintings with birds: “Eagle”, “Ibis”, “Blue-and-yellow macaw”, “Kafian horned raven”.

Animal artists depict animals and birds on their canvases. This is a very unique direction fine arts. Its remarkable feature is that the paintings do not carry a deep semantic load.

Origins and development of animalism in the painting section

The roots of this direction of painting go back to the times of primitive people. They were the first animal artists to create rock carvings of animals and birds. And today scientists are amazed by their amazing accuracy in conveying the anatomical features of animals.

Animalism developed in Ancient Egypt. In this country, many of the gods that the inhabitants worshiped had the heads of animals or birds. Thus, the animalistic movement became part of religion and Egyptian culture as a whole. Images and sculptures of animals and birds are found in many ancient cultures of the world.

In the Middle Ages, artists mainly depicted animals in paintings as part of folklore. It was only during the Renaissance that animalism began to develop in a realistic direction. That is, for the first time, artists began to draw representatives of the animal world from life.

Modern animal artists are real masters. After all, it is very difficult to depict an animal or bird realistically, since it is impossible to force it to pose.

Paintings by animal artists are very popular. They delight the audience and attract attention. But despite this modern masters, whose works are known all over the world, there are not so many.

The most famous Russian artistic animal painters are:

• Vasily Vatagin Alekseevich (1863 - 1969) Being a biologist by training, he devoted his whole life to the study of the plasticity and habits of animals and tried to accurately convey this in his paintings. That is why his works are very expressive and interesting.
• Serov Valentin Aleksandrovich (1865 - 1911) He can deservedly be considered an animal artist, since many of his subject canvases depict animals, moreover, his works especially emphasize people’s attitude towards them.
• Kukunov Mikhail Maksimovich (1918 - 1998) His drawings are realistic and characteristic. The artist always painted from life and called it “hunting.” The master’s works are filled with love for animals and evoke sincere positive emotions.

Only a person who has a natural gift to feel the natural and animal world can become a real animal artist.

Conversation for younger schoolchildren on the topic: "Acquaintance with the work of animal artists, the founders of the animalistic genre in Russia."

Materials and equipment: photographic materials about the work of artists, a crossword puzzle about animals in riddles.
Lesson progress
I. Organizational moment(checking student readiness)
To become nature's friend,
Find out all her secrets,
Solve all the riddles
Learn to observe
Let's develop mindfulness together,
And our curiosity will help us find out everything.

II. Updating students' knowledge on the topic:
Teacher: Guys, in the last lesson we looked at how the image of an animal is embodied in folk arts and crafts.
- Let's remember from what folk toy did we meet? (Bogorodskaya, Gorodetskaya, Filimonovskaya).
- The image of what animal is embodied in them? (horse, deer, turkey, ram, chickens, bear).
- What other types of decorative folk art We looked at where the image of an animal is found? (the image of the animal is also found in Gorodets painting: horse, cat, lion, peacock; folk embroidery, Zhostovo trays).

III. Studying a new topic.
Today in the lesson we will get acquainted with the work of Russian animal artists who devoted their entire lives to animals: they studied their habits, drew, and embodied their image in various artistic materials. Animals are the main theme, the “hero” of the work, its image is the main goal of the artist.
Artists working in this genre are called animalists.
Animalism (from the Latin animal, beast) is one of the oldest genres of fine art, dedicated to the animal world.
Examples of unsurpassed perfection in the depiction of animals are provided by primitive art. Rock paintings found in Spain (Altamira), France (Lascaux, Font-de-Gaume), Russia (in the Southern Urals) amaze with their amazing vitality in conveying the appearance and movements of animals - bulls, wild horses, deer, bears, bison. They were depicted using simple means: coal, clay.

In Ancient Egypt and the states of ancient America, images of animals, in which they saw incarnations of gods, are found in painting, sculpture, and jewelry, which often served as “amulets” against evil forces. The cat, crocodile, black bull, scarab beetle - all these are sacred animals of Egypt.

Physical exercise “Animal exercise”

Animal exercise
Once - squat,
Two - jump.
This is a rabbit exercise.
How can the little foxes wake up?
(Rub your eyes with your fists)
They like to stretch for a long time
(stretch)
Be sure to yawn
(yawn, covering your mouth with your palm)
Well, wag your tail
(movement of hips to the sides)
And the wolf cubs arch their backs
(bend your back forward)
And jump lightly
(light jump up)
Well, the bear is clubfooted
(arms bent at the elbows, palms connected below the waist)
Paws spread wide
(feet shoulder width apart)
Either one or both together
(stepping from foot to foot)
Marks time for a long time
(swinging the body to the sides)
And for those who don’t have enough charging -
Starts all over again!
(spread your arms to the sides at waist level, palms up)

Dmitry Vladimirovich Gorlov was a student of Vasily Vatagin. Gorlov’s creative activity is closely connected with children and work for them.
The artist was involved in the development of children's toys.
At that time there was a boring assortment of lifeless dummies with natural colors.
He developed more than a hundred samples of wood and papier-mâché products, many of which had movement and hinges. His baby elephant, made from various parts, was a success. He moved his ears and trunk, and could either walk sedately, like an adult elephant, or run mischievously. And the puppy turned its head and, depending on the degree of rotation, was either sad or cheerful.

Guys, you are all probably familiar with the fables of Ivan Andreevich Krylov. Please name them.
Students:“Swan, Crayfish and Pike”, “Crow and Fox”, “Pig under the Oak”.
Teacher: Well done! Dmitry Vladimirovich Gorlov created a series of eight high reliefs for the monument to Krylov made of bronze.

IV. Reinforcing what has been learned in the lesson.
The work of the artists we met today was based on an inexhaustible love for the animal world, admiration and admiration for its amazing diversity and perfection.
To become a good animal artist, you need to deeply study nature, collect a lot of material about animals, their habits and life. For starters, you can start with the zoo.
If an artist has a love for a certain topic, then he doesn’t care what art materials work.

V. The final stage of the lesson.
1) Today in class we learned in more detail which genre of fine art? (animalistic)
2) What is animal art? (image of animals).
3) Who was the first to draw animal drawings and where were they located? ( primitive people painted in caves)
4) Which Russian animal artists did you meet in class today? (Serov, Vatagin, Gorlov, Efimov).
5) What materials did the artists use to embody the image of the animal? (clay, metal, painted with watercolors, pencils).
If time permits, you can invite children to solve a crossword puzzle.

Horizontal:

1. Who is cold in autumn
Walking around gloomy and hungry?
(Wolf)

3. He lives calmly, is in no hurry,
Carry a shield just in case.
Under him, without knowing fear,
Walking... (turtle)

7. I am a hunchbacked beast
And the guys like me.
(Camel)

Vertical:

2. What kind of horses -
Everyone is wearing vests.
(Zebras)

4. Crying at the threshold
Hides his claws
He will quietly enter the room,
He will purr and sing.
(Cat)

5. Sleeps in winter
In the summer - he stirs up the hives.
(Bear)

6. Behind the trees and bushes
It was like a flame flashed by.
It flashed, ran...
There is no smoke, no fire.
(Fox)

Homework: try to make a copy of an animal drawing made by an animal artist.
I will be glad to receive constructive criticism.

Artistic activity for schoolchildren

Animal art is a genre of fine art that combines natural science and artistic principles. Paintings belonging to this genre can differ dramatically from each other, depending on the tasks set by the artist and the drawing technique used in the work.

Maria Stanislavovna Pavlova is a talented artist from St. Petersburg. “I only paint what I would be happy to hang on the wall in my room,” says Maria Pavlova.

The name of the artist Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev is inextricably linked with fairy tales in which animals become characters. He was created the whole world inimitable and fabulous “Rachev animals”. “I wanted,” said the artist, “to draw a fairy-tale creature, like an animal and at the same time carrying the traits of a human character.”

Kris Surajaroenjai is a Thai artist whose work is imbued with love for one of the symbols of Thailand - the elephant.

English animal artist Peter Williams, who began his creative path As a self-taught artist, he created a whole world of bright and remarkable watercolor images.

Paintings by animal artist William Schimmel Jr. popular all over the world and reflect his sense of the Universe, the Earth and its inhabitants.

Carl Brenders is a famous Belgian animal artist. Watercolor hyperrealism is demonstrated at its highest level, with a high degree of detail.

Elena Averkina, an artist from Belarus, began painting in 2001, without having an art education. To date, she has participated in several international exhibitions. “The main joy of my work,” says Elena Averkina, “is that people thank me for my work even a year after purchasing my painting. And I am happy that I can bring happiness to other people.”

English animal artist Persis Clayton Weirs is known for his colorful and kind works. He paints not only cats, but they occupy a significant place in his work.

Animal artist Isaac Terry paints oil paintings. His animals and birds on his canvases seem to be alive.

Tatyana Samoshkina is a non-professional artist, but she manages to create her own kind and childishly naive world. Her paintings can reveal the most hidden corners human soul. In her work, many see their inner world, and for others, a whole universe opens up.

The presented selection of paintings demonstrates only a small part of the existing styles and trends that are rapidly developing. Once upon a time, our ancestor painted simple cave paintings of animals, trying to convey the anatomy and gracefulness of the animal’s movements with maximum accuracy. Nowadays, some animal artists are using advanced advances in computer graphics in an effort to convey their creative ideas. This suggests that despite its long history, animal art has inexhaustible potential.