Artist Shishkin. creative laboratory
I. I. Shishkin (1832 - 1895)
“I hope the time will come when all Russian nature, alive and spiritual, will look from the canvases of Russian artists”
I. I. Shishkin
In the brilliant galaxy of Russian landscape artists, I. I. Shishkin belongs to one of the most important and honorable places. He was the largest landscape painter among the Itinerant artists of 1870 - 1880, a prominent representative and exponent of democratic realism in landscape painting. Shishkin devoted all his great talent, colossal ability to work and perseverance to the development of the national theme in the landscape, the creation of truthful images of Russian nature, mainly the Russian forest, of which he was an incomparable connoisseur and lover. With his work, Shishkin affirmed the beauty of Russian nature and showed how meaningful its images can be. He taught to love native nature and feel it more deeply.
Like all the Itinerant artists, Shishkin saw the task of his art as a truthful reflection of characteristic and typical phenomena of reality, without any idealization or embellishment. But the choice of subjects and their interpretation reflected the artist’s point of view, his assessment of this reality. It was a look at nature through the eyes of the people, an assessment of its phenomena from the point of view of working people. A democratic artist, Shishkin in his work seemed to clearly express Chernyshevsky’s thought: “a person looks at nature through the eyes of the owner, and on earth, what also seems beautiful to him is what is associated with happiness, the contentment of human life.”
Shishkin chose for his works mainly such motifs that could show the wealth, abundance and power of Russian nature, its benefits for humans. It depicts mighty coniferous and oak forests, the vast expanse of the flat landscape, and lush, eared fields. In a calm, courageous appearance, full of simple and clear beauty, he appears native land in paintings, drawings and engravings by Shishkin.
Shishkin entered the history of Russian art primarily as a master of painting. His paintings are widely popular and invariably attract the attention of large audiences. Shishkin's paintings are well known and highly valued by the Soviet people. But not less artistic significance have graphic works of the artist, his drawings, engravings, lithographs. Shishkin was one of the best draftsmen and the largest engraver and etcher of his time. Not one of the Russian landscape painters of that era played such an outstanding, in many ways decisive role as in Shishkin, not one of the Russian painters of the second half of the 19th century centuries, he did not pay so much attention and time to engraving, and was not such a master of etching as Shishkin.
He began etching while still in school at the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture in 1853, but became especially interested in this method of engraving from the early 1870s, joining the newly founded (in 1871) Society of Russian Aquafortists. Etching attracted Shishkin due to the relative speed of execution, the flexibility of the technique, and the combination of a graphic linear principle with a rich pictorial play of light and shadow. In etching, he worked mainly with a needle, sometimes using some other techniques characteristic of etching - soft varnish, finishing with aquatint.
Etching is an in-depth printing technique; printing is done on a manual press. Attaching great importance to etching, Shishkin experimented with creating a special, as he called, “convex” etching based on the principle of zincography, which could be printed in large quantities mechanically. These experiments did not yield entirely positive results, but they are typical of a democratic artist who sought to make his art mass and widely accessible. Along with engraving, Shishkin also worked in lithography.
Strict and precise drawing underlies all of Shishkin’s art, not only as a draftsman, but also as a painter. This meaning of drawing and the clear transmission of objectivity in Shishkin’s works are closely related to the nature of his work, in which the precise study of nature “scientifically,” as Kramskoy said, formed the basis. All landscape painters of the realistic school, contemporaries of Shishkin, strived for an objective representation of nature. But while A.K. Savrasov or F.A. Vasiliev were especially fascinated by the sincerity and lyricism of the images of Russian nature, and in their works they sought to convey the poetic experience of nature, Shishkin saw his task in the narration of nature and its life, narration simple, calm and very sober. He thus acts as a kind of “writer of nature”. His strict drawing serves these purposes, accurately depicting objects in all their detail and capturing the results of the study of nature in artistic images. “Nature must be sought in all its simplicity - the drawing must follow it in all its whims of form,” said Shishkin.
Shishkin's drawings are easily divided into two groups: numerous natural ones and relatively rare compositional ones. Among the first we see both long, detailed and quick sketches. But both of them are only sketch material for paintings or composite drawings with the same complete image of nature as in the paintings. As for the artist’s engraving sheets, in most cases these are original and independent compositions of great figurative content and high artistic beauty of execution.
Looking at Shishkin’s drawings and etchings, you clearly see how carefully and soulfully, with love and patience he studied nature in all its large and small manifestations, from mighty trees to thin openwork fern leaves, from proud clouds in the high sky to modest forest grasses and flowers.
The drawing “Oak” (1882) reproduced here (ill. 14) is typical in this regard. Carefully and accurately, truly as if in a “scientific way”, the artist conveys the powerful volumes of the old trunk, all the cracks in the bark, all the flaws that time and bad weather have left, conveys the huge spreading curved branches and twigs covering their lush patterned foliage. But following the bend of the branches and twigs, you feel how the artist was captivated by the beauty and grace of their forms, the rhythm of the bends, in which he tried to read the story of how this tree grew and lived. It’s as if he becomes his biographer. Careful study and a keen sense of nature are inextricably linked in this narrative; here the simplest and most ordinary object acquires deep content and expressive beauty. This living sense of nature, the artist’s love and interest in it make his accurate sketches free from deathly naturalistic herbarism. The small etching “Forest Flowers” (1873) attracts not only with its amazing accuracy and clarity of all the details, but also with its loving experience of nature. It seems that the landscape painter peered at these poor and modest flowers, grass and bushes with such close attention and heartfelt interest with which an attentive and subtle portrait painter strives to read the character and story of a person’s life in his facial features (ill. 10).
This meaningful perception of nature, lovingly peering into it, the ability to see and capture the quiet “life of objects” in nature, helped the artist in the most difficult task - to “understand” the complexity of the forest landscape: in all this abundance and interweaving of branches, one after another “layers” " foliage, in a pile of mosses, trunks, dry branches, windbreaks, herbs and flowers. The ability to perfectly understand all this, to see and convey the unique order of relationships between individual objects, is clearly evidenced by the drawing “Fir Tree” (1894), which conveys details with amazing clarity without loss of generality (ill. 13). In order to depict the wilderness of the forest in such a way as we see in the etching “Taiga” (1880), one must not only be able to draw wonderfully, have the fidelity of the eye and the steadiness of the hand, developed by the technique of a fine, sharpened line, but in addition to all this - an impeccable knowledge of the depicted objects - spruces , stones, mosses, etc. You need to deeply understand this forest thicket, breathe its heavy, humid air more than once, enter into its seemingly simple, but so complex, hidden from human eyes, life. It is precisely the fact that any “object” depicted here lives its own life, “behaves” in the drawing as in life, and allows one to depict a complex motif so clearly and simply, instilling a feeling of deep vitality and fidelity to the image. The etching “Taiga” is filled with the harsh beauty of nature itself (ill. 18).
Shishkin was a remarkable master of the most difficult thing: pen drawing, which does not allow corrections or alterations. Using this pen drawing technique, he sometimes produced large sheets with complex images. A pen drawing is somewhat reminiscent of a needle etching, when the artist, as it were, draws with a needle on the varnish with which a copper board is coated. Already during his studies at the Academy, Shishkin's pen drawings were sometimes mistaken for an excellent engraving. Shishkin’s lithographs, executed with a pen and collected in the album “Pen Sketches on Stone” (St. Petersburg, 1868), are essentially a type of pen drawing. The lithograph “Oak” (1867) gives a good idea of the skill and variety of strokes in Shishkin’s drawings when depicting foliage, how the artist creates the impression of each leaf being drawn with simple “brackets”, and depicts grass with straight strokes and flourishes. He also skillfully creates the impression of highlighting and deep shadows on the background (ill. 3). And in pencil drawing we see the same richness and variety of short, energetic lines and strokes when depicting various objects.
In the large pen drawing "Apiary" (1884), with the smallest detail, the artist managed to preserve the whole, the general. Conveying the volume and materiality of objects - beehives in the foreground, bushes in the background and pine trees in the depths, on a hillock, Shishkin gives here a spatial and very plastic sense of relief. The viewer seems to follow into the depths of the landscape, visually moving upward from the bottom of the picture (ill. 11). It should also be noted that with the fineness of the strokes, due to the detail of the rendering of objects, Shishkin managed not to “clog” such a large drawing, to avoid lethargy and monotony in the arrangement of light and shadow. The ability to combine refined details and completeness of the image with the unity of the landscape characterizes Shishkin’s best paintings.
The beauty of lines and the play of strokes in the rendering of vegetation are especially felt in etchings. Cut into the metal and convexly imprinted on the paper of the print, the line here receives a special emphasis, and the interweaving and crossing of lines - almost jewelry-like subtlety and beauty. At the same time, the line does not lose its visual significance. Shishkin felt well and knew how to use the depth of dark color and the sonority of highlighted areas, that glow of white paper that we see in engraving prints. Working as an etching, using deep re-etching in the right places, he was remarkably able to convey the reverent play of sunlight in the depths of the forest. Thus, in the etching “Cows in the Forest” (1873), the play of light and shadows, as if the sparkle of sunlit foliage next to dark trunks, well conveys the atmosphere of the forest. Perceiving this etching, you well understand the charm of merging the expressiveness of the image with the artistic beauty of the means of its depiction, as if a special “melody” of the engraving (ill. 5).
The second half of the 19th century knows many good draftsmen. But only in Shishkin at this time will we find a special interest in what could be called “graphism”.
Shishkin drew and engraved a lot all his life, because, naturally, he creative path reflected with the same clarity and certainty in graphic works, as in paintings. Shishkin's graphic heritage makes it possible to trace the entire path of formation and development of his realistic creative method and contains excellent examples of the artist's achievements in creating truthful and meaningful artistic image Russian nature. All this was reflected so clearly in Shishkin’s drawings and engravings that even the small amount that was possible to reproduce here testifies to this with sufficient clarity.
The lithograph “Slum” (1860), depicting a view on the island of Valaam, is a typical example of the artist’s early works during his studies at the Academy of Arts (ill. 2). Valaam in the 1850s was a favorite place for young artists to work, and the Academy sent Shishkin there twice - in the summer of 1858 and 1859. The reproduced lithograph, as it were, summarizes the artist’s impressions and sketches on location during these two years, as their two picturesque paintings summed up - views of Valaam, for which Shishkin received a gold medal and the right to travel abroad. Already in this early lithograph, the artist’s close attention and love for nature is evident, but they still manifest themselves in the naive form of passion for little things, individual objects and their details. The view as a whole is still constructed only as a simple combination of these particulars. Hence the cluttered image, unconnected plans, variegated contrasts of dark and light places. This reproduction of nature is very typical of the work of young people in the 1850s. This is how young A.K. Savrasov and M.K. Klodt painted their first landscapes naively and somewhat sentimentally and romantically. The features of romance, coming from the school tradition, are reflected in the lithograph “Slum” and in the choice of motif - a combination of huge stones and thickets - and in the interpretation that gives this virgin nature, through the transmission of gentle sunlight, a kind of intimacy and “coziness”.
Traditional techniques of drawing on colored paper, with tinting with white and shading the pencil with spots, were reflected in the complex technique of this lithography, which is a unique combination of a variety of techniques, including scratching. This testifies to the young artist’s diligent study of the technique of lithography and the great success he achieved in mastering its visual means and capabilities. Therefore, the review of similar works by Shishkin from his first teacher Mokritsky was fair: “These are the best landscape lithographs that have hitherto been printed here in Russia.”
Romantic moments are also palpable in the drawings of the 1860s, executed both in Russia and during his stay abroad. This is a period of searching for a young artist, expanding his horizons. In his desire for a realistic and meaningful landscape, Shishkin fills it with an external story, a story conveyed both by the actions of human and animal figures and by the reproduction of the complex state of nature. Characteristic in this regard is the drawing “Shepherd with a flock” (chic 4). The romantic motif of a cloud, the effect of sunlight and the dynamics of the image are interpreted by Shishkin in a completely realistic manner, while the artist strives to “tell” the viewer as much as possible.
This complexity of the story, yet external plot, is also characterized by those paintings by Shishkin of the late 1860s, in which he already gives clearly expressed national Russian landscape images, such as “Cutting Wood” (1867, Tretyakov Gallery). The etching “A Stream in the Forest” (1870) reproduced here corresponds to similar paintings by Shishkin. We see the same complexity of the motif, in which a detailed, but still outwardly descriptive, characteristic of the landscape is manifested (ill. 6).
Shishkin's further evolution follows the line of overcoming this external complexity of the image and creating a single complete image, delving into which the viewer gradually sees details and details. Shishkin comes to the display of nature in the paintings “Forest Wilderness” (1873, State Russian Museum) or “Rye” (1878, Tretyakov Gallery), striving to find content not in the plot introduced from the outside, but in revealing the very life of nature. In graphics, this goal is now served by both details and the complex, reverent play of light and shadows.
Here I would like to mention the beautiful drawing “Ferns in the Forest” (1877) - a completed sketch, twice repeated in painting (ill. 15). Before us is a holistic, immediately perceived view - the depths of the forest illuminated by the sun, overgrown with fern bushes. Shishkin remarkably succeeded in conveying the horizontally arranged patterned leaves of the fern and revealing the perspective movement of space in depth. Looking at these ferns and the play of the sun's rays softly illuminating them, the viewer seems to be immersed in the quiet life of nature, perceiving its charm. From a simple corner of the forest, Shishkin creates a charming image of nature, full of bright happiness and peace.
In the large etching “Hunter in the Swamp” (1873) we see an image of nature that is very rich in content and synthetic (ill. 8). In the far-spreading swampy rays, in the high sky with clouds, the depth of which is emphasized by a flying flock of birds, Shishkin shows breadth and spaciousness. Peering at this landscape, you see its wide appearance, filling it with the living breath of nature. But this is no longer the former complexity of a simple combination of particulars, but gradual development and the deepening of a single and holistic image of nature in which his inner life unfolds. This is not the complexity of the external description, but the richness of the content of the image, which the artist conveys, gradually revealing to us the depicted view. The greater degree of refinement and completeness of the drawing is the result of the fact that the artist has a lot to show the viewer. This is not a single impression, but the result of long-term observations - a thoughtful, experienced and deeply felt image of the artist’s native country. The figurine of the hunter invites the viewer to tune into the appropriate mood. It hints at what a person experiences during hunting wanderings, in long-term communication with nature.
This gradual unfolding of the image, in which the artist strives to convey the life of nature, acting as if it were a “writer of everyday life,” is manifested with no less clarity in the etching “Taiga” (1880) mentioned above.
The theme of endless expanses of fields, the breadth of Russian nature, its free breathing began to attract Shishkin early on. A typical example is his beautiful small painting “Noon. In the vicinity of Moscow” (1869, Tretyakov Gallery), with its high sky and large elegant cumulus clouds festively, joyfully floating in it. We find this bright and high expanse, festive summer image of nature in a number of the artist’s etchings. Such is the beautiful sheet of “Clouds over a Grove” (1878), with its complex motif of sun rays falling down onto fields and groves from behind clouds (ill. 7). It is interesting to note that this bright, joyful image is presented with Shishkin’s usual sobriety and calmness, without any special elation or pathos. But still, sometimes in this rendering of the endless distances and breadth of nature, Shishkin was captivated by an epic moment, a poetic experience of open spaces, the exciting power of space. This is how such canvases as “Among the Flat Valley...” (1883, Russian Museum) and such sheets as the etching “From the banks of the Kama near Yelabuga” (1885) (ill. 23) were born. Behind a cliff overgrown with huge fir trees, you can see the mirror of the river below, and behind it, an endless plain covered with forest goes towards the horizon. A large bird hovers over the cliff, enhancing the feeling of space beckoning into the distance. The mighty and harsh breath of the virgin nature of the Russian north emanates from this etching. The lively, free drawing “Forest River” (1876) is an example of Shishkin’s sketches from nature (ill. 12). With great knowledge and confidence, he draws the trunk of a pine tree, its branches and needles. The pencil easily and boldly draws on paper, outlining trees, a bank, a river and buildings in the distance. The motive is perfectly expressed and spatial plans are conveyed. With all the freedom of the full-scale sketch and drawing, compositional structure is evident. Before us is a typical example of the Itinerant method - finding a picture in nature itself.
Turning from this drawing to the drawings of the 1890s - “Tops of Pines” and “Clouds”, we see how Shishkin’s style of sketching from life becomes more and more free and broad. At the same time, however, the line retains all its clarity and accuracy. His knowledge of nature is so great that Shishkin immediately conveys the entire character of the subject in one or two lines. So, with amazing freedom, one quick contour line, with quick shading within the contour, he conveys the silhouette of the forest in the drawing “Clouds” (ill. 20), and we feel a living nature. Looking at the firmness and confidence of the lines of the drawing “Tops of Pines” (ill. 22), you involuntarily recall the drawings of the classical artist of the late 18th - early XIX century F. M. Matveev, his famous sketches of pine trees.
Thus preserving a linear drawing until the end of his work, Shishkin at the same time began to draw in a pictorial manner in the 1880s. Striving to convey air and light, he begins to draw with charcoal and chalk on colored paper. The drawing “Cobweb in the Forest” (1880s) is characteristic for its picturesqueness and soft transmission of air (ill. 16). Etching “Sands” (1886) - reflects in the graphics Shishkin’s passion for plein air tasks, the transmission of sunlight and air, the search for spontaneity in the depiction of nature (ill. 21). The etching is imbued with living dynamics; It seems you can hear the light noise of pine trees under the wind coming from the sea. The sand of the dunes overgrown with dry grass, illuminated by the sun, is perfectly conveyed. In a one-color engraving, Shishkin creates the impression of colorful nature - light yellow sand and dark green pine needles. Looking at this etching, you involuntarily recall Shishkin’s beautiful painting “Pines illuminated by the sun” (1886, Tretyakov Gallery), full of light, sun, air, imbued with the living thrill of life. In the same way, the painting "Oak Grove" (1887, Kiev State Museum Russian art) brings to mind the simultaneous sunny etching “Three Oaks” (1887), one of Shishkin’s best graphic works. The light of the sun, its play on the emerald grass, luminous, sun-pierced patterned foliage against the backdrop of dark oak trunks are conveyed here with amazing truthfulness. Taking the image against the light, Shishkin evokes a feeling of airiness by conveying the light contour. At the same time, he skillfully uses light reflexes to work out shapes in the shadows. Thanks to this, the dark trunks of oak trees do not appear as flat silhouettes. Shishkin achieves here a harmonious combination of graphically volumetric and pictorial principles. This leaf seems to breathe upon us forest freshness, the warmth of the sun, the moisture of greenery, the aroma of nature’s summer blossoms (see reproduction of the etching on the cover).
“Shishkin is a milestone in the development of Russian landscape, he is a man - a school,” wrote I. N. Kramskoy about him in 1878. I. I. Shishkin appears to us as a remarkable connoisseur of nature and a brilliant draftsman in his drawings and etchings. The images he created in graphics are deeply truthful, meaningful and impressive. The love for nature with which they were generated and with which they are permeated revealed a feeling of their native country, sincere and living patriotism. The artist faithfully served his country, his people, revealing to them the beauty and wealth of his homeland, teaching them to appreciate it and believe in it. In the images of nature he was the foremost man of his time. He uniquely captured the feelings and thoughts of democrats in the landscape. The images of nature in Shishkin’s works are topical and social. All this is valuable and instructive for us from the point of view of critical development of the heritage of classical Russian realistic art. Shishkin's graphics, delivering great and pure joy to the Soviet viewer, enriching his sense of nature, teach our Soviet landscape painters a lot.
July 26 - September 11
Central House of Artists, halls 14B and 15
Antique galleries "KABINET" presents an exhibition
“Unknown I.I. Shishkin. Etchings and drawings", Moscow, Central House of Artists, 2016
For the third century now, the name of Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin has been in the first rank of national artists, equally appreciated by both his contemporaries and their descendants. It is amazing to what extent the assessments of the master’s work drawn up during his lifetime - famous writers, art historians, fellow artists - are in tune with the perception of his work today. Art-critical articles of the late 19th century are replete with the most daring epithets.
One of the critics wrote about the publication of Shishkin’s etchings: “Russia can be studied in these artistic essays with all its endless diversity characteristic features, contrasts, subtle and elusive for other details. His only muse forever became Russian nature, which he glorifies in paintings, subtle lyrical drawings, and masterful etchings. 
At this exhibition, for the first time in a single exhibition space, all 60 etchings that made up the last and most complete album of printed graphics by the famous master of Russian landscape, published by A.F., will appear before the audience. Marx in 1894. “Artistic institution A.F. Marx", later the joint-stock company "Partnership of Publishing and Printing A. F. Marx" - one of the oldest and most famous Russian publishing houses - was founded in 1869 by the journalist and publisher Adolf Fedorovich Marx who came to Russia from Germany. Since 1870, Marx published the first mass-scale illustrated weekly magazine “for family reading”, Niva, which he founded and was the first in Russia. The magazine's circulation was huge; subscriptions to the magazine alone amounted to over 250 thousand copies. Of particular interest to readers were photo correspondence about the most important world events and reproductions of paintings by outstanding artists. 
Album “60 etchings by I.I. Shishkin" publishing house A.F. Marx in 1894 gives a comprehensive idea of the evolution of Shishkin’s work as an etcher. In preparing the album, Shishkin collected all the boards that he had preserved, went through most of them with an etching needle and additional etching, and remade some compositionally, such as the 1876 etching “Winter Night,” which in the new album was called “Winter Moonlit Night.” In addition to these works, the album also includes nineteen new, previously unpublished works, in particular, “Oak,” created in 1886 and becoming the artist’s last work using etching techniques. 
So what is etching? Etching (from French eau-forte) or aquaforte (from Italian acquaforte) is a type of metal engraving, known since the beginning of the 16th century. To make a printing plate (board), a metal plate, most often copper, is coated with acid-resistant varnish, on which the engraving design is scratched. The plate is then placed in an acid that etches away the metal in areas exposed to the varnish, after which the remaining varnish is removed from the plate. Before printing, ink is applied to the board, which penetrates into the acid-etched recesses. The paint is removed from the smooth surface of the board. When printing, ink from the recessed elements is transferred to the paper. 
Just as Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” is called an encyclopedia of Russian life, a unique album of Shishkin’s etchings, including 60 of his best works, can be consonantly called an encyclopedia of Russian nature. These paintings show all the smallest nuances of the seasons, day and night, sun and moon, air of thunderstorms and heat, forests and fields, rivers and lakes in the context of the inextricable “natural life” of Russian people. 
Unfortunately, the fate of the folders of Shishkin’s etchings, which happily existed in the cozy world of the office XIX culture century, which had special storage cabinets and tables for viewing engravings and etchings, turned out sadly in the subsequent turbulent times. The vast majority of folders and albums were disassembled and sold in the form of individual sheets. Today there are a lot of collectors who own many, perhaps even the best examples. But until now it was not possible to reproduce the famous folder in its entirety. The catalog published for the exhibition allows the viewer to see this encyclopedia of Russian nature and man in its entirety, without loss. 
The exhibition, organized by the Kabinet gallery, will feature 90 works of circulation graphics by the famous Wanderer, including 60 of the best etchings from a valuable folder from 1894
Antique galleries "Cabinet"
July 26 - September 4, 2016
daily, except Monday, from 11:00 to 20:00 in halls 14b and 15, 2nd floor
Moscow, Central House of Artists, st. Krymsky Val, 10
Etchings by Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin are among the undisputed leaders in terms of liquidity on the Russian auction market. We once calculated that in 2014/2015, out of 100 exhibited works by Shishkin, 69 were sold. This takes into account all categories, including painting and original graphics. And almost everything that is exhibited is sold separately in the circulation schedule.
And this is quite understandable.
The first reason: we are not talking about an exercise or a passing direction for the artist’s creativity, but about work in the technique in which Ivan Shishkin was especially strong. Shishkin was an impeccably accurate draftsman. And if he was not successful in painting and working with color, then drawing and complex printmaking techniques became his true element, where he felt like a fish in water.
The second reason is even simpler: these spectacular, painstaking, authentic etchings by a Russian artist of the first row cost quite affordable money on the Russian market - from 25,000 to 80,000 rubles per sheet, more often around 65,000 rubles. Many collectors can afford these items.
Quite a few of the Itinerant’s etchings were also sold at auctions at the Kabinet house, which became the organizer of the current exhibition “The Unknown Shishkin.” It will open at central halls Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val on June 26 and will last until September 4, 2016.
The center of the exhibition will probably be the rare folder of the publisher and bookseller Alfred Fedorovich Marx. The last folder, published in a small edition, included 60 selected etchings by Shishkin - the pinnacle of his creativity in printmaking. In preparing this album, Shishkin updated his old boards, went through the etching needle, and even modified some of them compositionally. In particular, the etching “Winter Night” of 1876 (made 18 years earlier), which Shishkin even renamed “Winter Moonlit Night,” underwent such modification. In addition to the old completed etchings, Shishkin included 19 new works in the album, previously unpublished.
The fate of complete albums (as well as artist's books and any books with lithographs) is often difficult. Owners and sellers are very tempted to dismantle them and sell them in parts - it’s easier and more profitable. The same thing happened with the Marx folder. It seems that there were not so few of them, and only a few have survived in complete form to this day. And the exhibition provides a rare chance to see it in its entirety.
The Central House of Artists will have not only Shishkin’s etchings. “Cabinet” will show a single-copy color self-portrait of Shishkin from the collection of publisher A.E. Palchikov, a unique etching on silk “Juniper. Crimea" from 1885 and Shishkin's last engraving "Oak" (1897).
"Cabinet" promises other surprises. There will be no Pokemon, but the organizers have come up with “a new interpretation of Shishkin’s etchings, transferring them into 3D images and combining the resulting stereo posters into thematic triptychs.” In general, it is not yet clear. But it is clear that there will be plates with reproductions of Shishkin’s works and posters produced using special technology. A catalog has been prepared for the exhibition, which includes not only reproductions of items from the exhibition, but all known etchings by Shishkin.
Vladimir Bogdanov,A.I.
May 22, 2015 at exhibition hall Belgorod State Art Museum within the framework of the project “Property of Russian Museums for Belgorod Citizens!” The grand opening of the exhibition “Ivan Shishkin. Etchings" from the funds of the Sevastopol Art Museum named after. M.P. Kroshitsky.
At the exhibition, the viewer can get acquainted with interesting and, at the same time, less known for the master’s heritage - engravings. To the M.P. Museum Kroshitsky's prints with images of nature came into possession in 1989; the complete collection of printed works was donated to the museum by the widow of botanist and geologist Evgeniy Lavrenko, a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and a passionate collector.
Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich was born on January 13, 1832 in small provincial town Yelabuga, located on the high bank of the Kama. At the age of 12, he was assigned to the 1st Kazan gymnasium, but, having reached the 5th grade, he left it, explaining his action by his lack of desire to become an official.
Shishkin entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1852–1856) only at the age of twenty, having difficulty overcoming the foundations of his family, which opposed (with the exception of his father) his desire to become an artist. In August 1852, he was already included in the list of students admitted to the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture, where he received good training under the guidance of Apollo Mokritsky, a former student of Alexei Venetsianov.
At the school, Ivan Shishkin immediately revealed himself as an unrivaled landscape painter. Here he first became acquainted with the technique of engraving and reproduced someone else’s work called “Mountain Road” (1853), but already in this work the original artistic style of the future master was felt.
The richness and diversity of plant forms truly captivated the artist. Everything seemed interesting to him - the image of an old stump, a snag, a dry tree, blades of grass in the wind. Ivan diligently studied the anatomy of nature, making many sketches from nature. All the drawings of the future master were extremely simple - a pine tree on a cliff or near water, a bush on a swampy plain, a rocky bank of a winding river. At the same time, the artist depicted carts, barns, fences, roadside chapels, apiaries and beehives, all kinds of boats, which later also found their place in many works, although they were of secondary importance.
By the end of his studies, Shishkin had already acquired some professional skills as a landscape painter and began to stand out noticeably for his talent among his comrades. But the desire to improve his drawing prompted him to go to St. Petersburg in January 1856 to enter the Academy of Arts.
A few months after admission, Shishkin began to attract the attention of teachers with his landscapes depicting the outskirts of St. Petersburg, and in 1857 he received two small silver medals for them, and in 1858 a small gold medal. These years also included the young artist’s first experiments in lithography. Based on the author’s sketches, Ivan Shishkin performs 14 works in lithographic pencil on stone for the book by Alexei Vladimirovich Vysheslavtsev “Pen and pencil sketches from a circumnavigation of the world (1857–1860).” But due to shortage cash These works were published in the “Russian Art Album” only in 1961.
Shishkin's training at the Academy of Arts with Socrates Vorobyov had almost no effect on his work. The island of Valaam, which served as a place for summer practice for academic students and amazed the artist with its granite rocks, centuries-old pines and spruces, became a real school for Ivan Ivanovich. Having graduated from the Academy of Arts in 1960 with a large gold medal for “The Locality of Cucco on Valaam,” Shishkin went on a retirement trip abroad.
In 1863, in Zurich (Switzerland), Shishkin visited the workshop of painting professor Rudolf Koller, an animal painter and landscape painter. Koller at that time lived and worked in a house on the shore of the beautiful Lake Zurich, which, like the city itself, is surrounded by mountains. It was there that Ivan Shishkin again tried his hand at the etching technique, popularly called “royal vodka” by engravers of that time. Later, the artist trially executed two more engravings, but they turned out so good that they awakened the master’s desire to take the creation of similar works more seriously. Unfortunately, the subsequent return to his homeland and the need to work hard on his paintings distracted the artist from his favorite pastime.
Having received the title of academician upon returning from his retirement trip, Shishkin became one of the founders of the Partnership of Mobile art exhibitions. In 1970, he again took up engraving and founded the “Society of Russian Aquafortists” (1871–1874), being a founding member of the partnership. As the more experienced member of the circle, he helps many with his advice and example, and together with them publishes his works in collective editions of engravings.
In the 70s, Shishkin began to devote more and more time to engravings, trying to find moments of leisure between painting large works of painting. His famous paintings “Apiary in the Forest” (1876) and “Rye” (1878) date back to this time.
If other contemporary artists mainly used etching to reproduce their works, then Ivan Shishkin found in it a way to create new works, allowing him to preserve the manner and richness of the line-line drawing. He produces prints, both individual sheets and entire series, each time increasingly awakening the enthusiasm of collectors and forcing them to compete in the pursuit of the first and best prints of works.
Shishkin devotes a lot of time and effort to making etching boards and creates over a hundred sheets during his life, devoting them entirely to depicting his native Russian nature, in which he managed to organically combine the features of romanticism and realism. In addition to the usual technique with a needle, the artist actively used soft varnish, aquatint and dry needle in his work. At one time, in order to find a new, less expensive and more effective way to reproduce his compositions, Shishkin undertook a series of experiments in zincography.
In 1968, the first album of his engravings (6 lithographs) “Studies from nature with pen and on stone” was published; in May 1873, he prepared and himself printed his first album of etchings (11 sheets), released as a prize from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. The next two folders were published in 1878 and 1886, and in 1894 the album “60 etchings by I.I. Shishkina. 1870–1892."
The retrospective album, released by the St. Petersburg publishing house of Adolf Fedorovich Marx, contains all the best engraving works of Ivan Shishkin. Today it is known for certain that although the publisher bought the etching boards from the artist as full ownership, he continued to reproduce the sheets under the strict guidance of the master. And this is not surprising; Marx and Shishkin have maintained partnerships for a long time. Their business connections were established when Ivan Ivanovich began illustrating Russia’s first mass weekly magazine “for family reading,” Niva.
It is noteworthy that the exhibition at the Belgorod State Art Museum presents all 60 etching sheets that were originally included in the album. Some of them were just being prepared as supplements to the magazines “Pchela”, “Svet” and “Niva”.
Similar works include the landscape “Beehives”, the artist brought the beehives and the thatched barn closer to the viewer, shortened detailed story and achieved great capacity and integrity of the artistic image.
In the 80s and 90s, the artist was increasingly attracted by the changing states of nature and quickly passing moments. Thanks to his interest in the light-air environment, he is good at creating works with the changing state of nature: the sky after the rain (“Before the Storm”, “On the River After the Rain”), at night (“At the Cutting Tree”, “Gurzuf”) and twilight (“Dawn” ).
In Shishkin's etchings one can find many images of monuments of natural and archaeological heritage. Among them are “Tsarev Kurgan”, “Fir trees in Shuvalovsky Park” and “Mount Ayu-Dag” - a portrait of a “failed” volcano, covered with relict plants, special varieties of pistachios and junipers.
“Forest Flowers”, “First Snow”, “Field”, “Crimea” and many other works, in addition to their amazing fidelity to nature, immerse the viewer in a world of elusive sensations. The forest stream flows slightly in the stones. Picturesque rock faults and cliffs can be seen all around. The centuries-old spruces, pines, oaks, groves of birches and fern bushes, keeping freshness in their leaves, are silent. The movement of water and grass is miraculous - you see it not with your eyes, but feel it. There is silence and space everywhere.
Among the most interesting works exhibition - the etching “Anthill”, and not one, but two. One of these valuable exhibits came to Belgorod with the remaining sheets of the album, and the second was donated to the Belgorod State art museum in 2007 by the Governor of the Belgorod region E.S. Savchenko at the opening of a new building.
The exhibition also includes a self-portrait of Ivan Shishkin, painted in 1886. The background of the portrait is made with a dynamic stroke, like most of the master’s works.
Etchings by I.I. Shishkin’s works are of great interest, as they provide a visual understanding of the various techniques of etching, the play of lines and shadows in black and white.
In his works one can see the artist’s desire for a plastic interpretation of natural forms, anatomical drawing, as well as good professional training.
Had he lived and worked in one of the European artistic centers of his time, or had he cared more about distributing prints abroad, Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin’s fame as an excellent engraver would have been greater. Unfortunately, today only ardent art lovers and passionate collectors pay tribute to Shishkin’s etchings.
And in the end I would like to note that this exhibition is truly unique. It not only introduces the visitor to a rare printed publication, but also allows you to enjoy little-known works of an outstanding master, the best of which have become classics of national painting and graphics.
