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Joy of beautiful paintings
Jan. 4th, 2007 05:05 pmArt of Mikhail Vrubel
One of my most beloved painters, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel, was born in my home city, Omsk, Siberia in 1856. His manner of painting is wonderfully unique and influenced by Late Byzantine style, though he is considered to belong to Art Nouveau wave.
He studied medieval Christian art and made some illustrations for "Hamlet" and "Anna Karenina". But his most famous and most controversial painting "Demon" was finished in 1890.
"Demon"
This is actually an illustration to Lermontov's long poem, "Demon". This poem tells the story of fallen angel's love to Georgian princess, Tamara. If any painting gives me irregular heart beat and shivers, this is the one. I used to have a period where I saw the eyes of Demon in my dreams at night.
Swan Princess
In 1896 Vrubel fell in love and married famous Russian opera singer, Nadezda Zabela. They lived together in Moscow where she performed in the private opera theatre of Vrubel's friend, Savva Mamontov. ( Yes, they used to have private opera thetres at that time :D). One of the most beautiful and poetic paintings "Swan Princess" portrays Zabela perfoming in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "The Tale of Tsar Saltan"
( The tale of Tsar Saltan (poem by Pushkin), synopsis. Basically it is a mix of many different fairytales )
( High resolution versions of Vrubel's paintings )
Sad things
At the end if his life, Vrubel had a mental breakdown. Because of the mental disease and failing eye sight he stopped painting. The other fact I find even sadder in a way - because Vrubel used bronze powder mixed into the paints to give his paintings particular shimmering and glittering look, we will be never able to see his painting as they were 100 years ago . :(
One of my most beloved painters, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel, was born in my home city, Omsk, Siberia in 1856. His manner of painting is wonderfully unique and influenced by Late Byzantine style, though he is considered to belong to Art Nouveau wave.
He studied medieval Christian art and made some illustrations for "Hamlet" and "Anna Karenina". But his most famous and most controversial painting "Demon" was finished in 1890.
"Demon"
This is actually an illustration to Lermontov's long poem, "Demon". This poem tells the story of fallen angel's love to Georgian princess, Tamara. If any painting gives me irregular heart beat and shivers, this is the one. I used to have a period where I saw the eyes of Demon in my dreams at night.
Swan Princess
In 1896 Vrubel fell in love and married famous Russian opera singer, Nadezda Zabela. They lived together in Moscow where she performed in the private opera theatre of Vrubel's friend, Savva Mamontov. ( Yes, they used to have private opera thetres at that time :D). One of the most beautiful and poetic paintings "Swan Princess" portrays Zabela perfoming in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "The Tale of Tsar Saltan"
( The tale of Tsar Saltan (poem by Pushkin), synopsis. Basically it is a mix of many different fairytales )
( High resolution versions of Vrubel's paintings )
Sad things
At the end if his life, Vrubel had a mental breakdown. Because of the mental disease and failing eye sight he stopped painting. The other fact I find even sadder in a way - because Vrubel used bronze powder mixed into the paints to give his paintings particular shimmering and glittering look, we will be never able to see his painting as they were 100 years ago . :(
