The famous Russian painter Orest Adamovich Kiprensky was the illegitimate son of foreman A.S. Dyakonov. He was born in 1785 in Oranienbaum district, was brought up in the family of Dyakonov, a servant, Adam Karlovich Shvalbe, and was baptized in Koporye, which is why he received the nickname Koporsky, which was later changed to the surname Kiprensky. When artistic abilities were noticed in five-year-old Kiprensky, Dyakonov gave him leave and assigned the boy to the educational department of the Academy of Arts.
Orest Kiprensky took an academic course - under the guidance of Professor Ugryumov and the French artist Doyen, who taught there - and acquired serious drawing and the basics of painting technique. In 1803, after graduating from the academy, Kiprensky remained to work with it. He painted a picture for a gold medal, studied the Dutch and Flemings in the Hermitage. In the painting “Dmitry Donskoy” (1805), the poses, movement and color reflected what Kiprensky took from the academy, but to this he added a romantic note of his own.
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky. Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo field, 1805
The portrait of Adam Schwalbe (1804) reflected Kiprensky’s nature, sensitive to color, and the results of his study of the old masters of the Hermitage. The portrait was painted colorfully and with such a wide and masterful brush that later even experts were inclined to attribute its execution to Rubens and Van Dyck.
Orest Kiprensky. Portrait of A. Schwalbe, 1804
In 1805, Orest Adamovich Kiprensky received a gold medal and the right to travel abroad. But Kiprensky did not have to immediately take advantage of this right due to wartime. Kiprensky remained in Russia, living in Moscow, Tver, St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo. He worked a lot from life and continued to improve. Especially the five years from 1809 to 1815 were marked by the flowering of the talent of Orest Kiprensky. At this time, he painted a number of portraits, of which the portraits of the Prince of Holstein-Oldenburg, Evgraf Davydov, Count F. Rostopchin, Countess E. Rostopchina, and the Khvostovs are extremely good. They are all written colorfully and powerfully. Along with painting, Kiprensky was fond of drawing and painted excellent portraits of Quarenghi, Dmitrevsky, Batyushkov, Krasnov, Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, a whole gallery of portraits of military men, and depicted merchants, peasants and peasant women.
Orest Kiprensky. Portrait of Life Hussar Colonel Evgraf Davydov, 1809
When peace came, in 1816 Kiprensky went abroad. This trip provided little for Kiprensky's further development. In Italy, Orest Kiprensky fell under the influence of diverse trends. He was admired by Raphael and Leonardo, and the echoes of Kiprensky’s enthusiasm were reflected in his “Gypsy with a branch of myrtle in her hand.” In communication with Thorvaldsen and Camucini, he became imbued with the prevailing passion for ancient subjects in their circles and composed “Anacreon’s Tomb” with a bacchante and a satyr dancing to the pipe of a young faun. Impressed by the reality around him, Kiprensky wrote “Girl with Flowers”, “Gypsy in a Wreath”, “Gardener”, interpreting in the style of indifferent Bolognese, bringing the thoroughness of the writing to excessive dryness and lethargy.
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky. Girl in a poppy wreath with a carnation in her hand (Mariuccia?), 1819
Kiprensky's coloring became sugary, composition, movements and tones became uninteresting. Only in portraits did Kiprensky’s talent still flare up from time to time. With a wide, rich brush, he depicted the dreamy Prince A. M. Golitsyn, boldly sketched his own portrait for the Uffizi, and made a poetic, gentle portrait of the prince with a pencil. Shcherbatova.
Despite his mature age, Orest Kiprensky turned out to be unstable both in art and in life. His life was chaotic, full of hobbies, and it came to the point that it was unsafe for Kiprensky to remain in Italy in view of the agitation that had risen against him among the population. Kiprensky went to Paris and in 1823 returned to St. Petersburg.
In Russia, Kiprensky was again passionate about work and again began to gravitate towards nature. Under the influence of quests new school Venetsianov, he began to introduce the setting into the portraits. Young cavalry guard gr. He depicted D.N. Sheremetev against the backdrop of a long row of rooms, old man Shishkov in an armchair. At this time, Kiprensky’s style changed: he began to lay down paints evenly, accurately, and draw outlines dryly and sharply. The former richness and strength are not visible in the portraits of Ryumina, A. S. Pushkin, N. S. Semyonova in the form of the Sibyl of Delphi.
Orest Kiprensky. Portrait of A. S. Pushkin, 1827
In 1828, Orest Adamovich Kiprensky left Russia again. He was drawn to Rome: little Mariuccia, the girl to whom he became attached during his first stay in Rome and whom he gave to be raised, now grew up, and Kiprensky married her, converting to Catholicism. Marriage did not change Kiprensky. Still weak and unstable, he led an intemperate life and indulged in a passion for wine. Three months after the wedding, Kiprensky died of fever in 1836.
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky. Self-portrait with a drawing pen in hand, 1828
Orest Kiprensky was a romantic at heart: he is called the “Russian Gericault" His landscapes and portraits are full of feeling. He didn't like peace and quiet. He liked the gloomy cloudy sky, riddled with lightning, the wind bending the trees, and the splashing waves. Quiet sadness and inspiration were dear to Kiprensky’s faces. With his attitude, he often ran counter to the main academic direction and did not seem significant to most of his contemporaries.
Orest Kiprensky. Portrait of Zinaida Volkonskaya, 1829
Kiprensky's closest descendants were almost forgotten, and only at the beginning of the 20th century did they pay him due tribute. They remembered that he was “the first to make the name of a Russian artist known in Europe”, having received an invitation to paint his portrait for the Uffizi, recognized him as a major talent, saw in him a pioneer of Russian romanticism and a painter who, during the reign of deathly, contrived academicism, gave examples of hot colors and immediate feeling.
Orest Kiprensky. Neapolitan girl with fruits, 1831
Literature about Orest Kiprensky
Baron N. Wrangel,“Kiprensky” (“Old Years”, 1908, No. 7 – 9)
Baron N. Wrangel,“Orest Adamovich Kiprensky in private collections” (1911)
The great Russian artist Orest Adamovich Kiprensky was the illegitimate son of a landowner, who, hiding his ends in the water, ordered his serf servant Adam Schwalbe to adopt the boy. Not everything is clear in the fate of this wonderful artist. Researchers are still unraveling the tight knot of truth and fiction, romantic stories and slander, different interpretations creative method an artist who is woven around his personality. But there is, perhaps, no mystery in the painter’s fate.
Mother - Anna Gavrilova, a serf of the poor Oranienbaum landowner A.S. Dyakonov, was married to his servant Adam Schwalbe a year after the birth of her son. For a long time historians believed that the boy was born in 1783, but this turned out to be the date of adoption. The name Orestes, a character in the Iliad, personifying filial loyalty to his father and male friendship, was given to the child by Dyakonov, who was not alien to the fashionable trends of classicism at that time.
The same reasons explain the fictitious surname Kiprensky - from the Greek goddess of love Cyprida (Aphrodite). (However, there is a more prosaic version of the origin of the surname - after the name of the ancient Russian fortress and area in Oranienbaum district - Kaporye.)
We should pay tribute to the landowner, whom researchers consider the artist’s father, for he took care of Orestes’ future. Dyakonov gave the boy his freedom and sent six-year-old Orestes, who apparently showed his abilities early, to the Educational School at the Academy of Arts. But this was, so to speak, the initial push. Kiprensky owes everything that follows to his talent.
Studying at the Educational School, then at the Academy of Arts, from which he graduated in 1803 in the class of historical painting, took 15 years. Young Kiprensky was a student of the famous Russian painter and portrait painter G.I. Ugryumov. This predetermined the artist’s creative destiny.
Already one of the first works of young Orest Kiprensky - a portrait of his adoptive father Adam Schwalbe - had big success: The student's work seemed to be the entire work of a 17th-century European master.
Portrait of A. Schwalbe
And upon graduation, the Council of the Academy of Arts awarded Kiprensky a Big Gold Medal for the painting “Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo Field,” which gave him the right to travel abroad.
But the Napoleonic wars were going on in Europe at that time, and therefore Kiprensky was sent to Moscow for three years. There he created several paintings, for which he was elected academician at the age of 29. One of them is a ceremonial portrait of hussar Evgraf Vladimirovich Davydov, which many today mistake for a portrait of him cousin poet and future hero Patriotic War Denis Davydov.
Then Kiprensky painted a magnificent portrait of the poet Vasily Zhukovsky and a number of other portraits of his contemporaries. His infinitely talented works brought him well-deserved fame.
V. Zhukovsky
Mysterious portrait
It was only in 1816 that Kiprensky, already an established master, went abroad for the first time. The artist lived in Italy for several years, working mainly on historical paintings. They were received with delight!
But one work stands apart, still exciting the minds of art critics and novelists.
This is a portrait of a seven-year-old girl, painted by Kiprensky in 1819 in Rome. In the “Register” of his paintings, Kiprensky called it long and pompously “A girl of a beautiful face in a poppy wreath with a flower in her hand.” For three years he did not show that portrait to anyone. Only in 1822 did he exhibit it at the Paris Salon under the title “Head of a Child.”
Later, in 1830, the painting entitled “Girl with a Flower in a Poppy Wreath” was exhibited at an exhibition in Naples. It was mistaken by local experts for a painting by an old European master, and Kiprensky, according to their opinion, could not have painted it, about which the artist wrote with a laugh to A.H. Benckendorff: “They told me to my face that professors<…>supposedly in the present century no one in Europe writes like that, and especially in Russia, can anyone produce such a miracle?
So what kind of miracle is this, what kind of girl is this? Then her name was Mariuccia, later Anna Maria Falkucci. She was born around 1812 and was the daughter of an Italian beauty model who not only posed for Kiprensky, but also lived in his house and was close to him.
But in 1822, a mysterious and tragic event occurred, which cast a dark shadow over the rest of Kiprensky’s life.
Two mysterious deaths
This is what Konstantin Paustovsky writes about this in his story “Orest Kiprensky”.
“One morning the model was found dead. She died from burns. On it lay a canvas doused with turpentine and set on fire. A few days later, in the city hospital “Santa Spirito”, Kiprensky’s servant, a young and daring Italian, died of an unknown illness. Silent rumors spread throughout Rome. Kiprensky claimed that the model was killed by a servant. The slow Roman police began an investigation after the death of the servant and, of course, established nothing. Roman inhabitants, and after them some of the artists, openly said that it was not the servant who killed the model, but Kiprensky. Rome turned its back on the artist. When he went out into the street, the boys threw stones at him from behind the fences and whistled, and his neighbors - artisans and merchants - threatened to kill him. Kiprensky could not stand the persecution and fled from Rome to Paris.”
But Paris did not accept him either: rumors of mysterious deaths reached here too. The doors of all the houses slammed in front of the artist. The exhibition of paintings he organized in Paris was met with indifference. The newspapers were silent about her. Kiprensky was thrown out of society. There was no return to Italy either. He held a grudge. There was only one place left on earth where he could go to forget about the terrible days and take up his brush again. It was an abandoned homeland that saw its prosperity and glory.
Leaving for Russia, Kiprensky wrote to the Italian Cardinal Gonzalvi with a request to place Mariuccia in a monastery boarding school. And he left money to raise an orphan.
In 1823 Kiprensky returned to St. Petersburg. At home, the artist found the inspiration he was looking for and painted many beautiful portraits, including a portrait of Pushkin, recognized as the best portrait of the brilliant poet.
Alexander Sergeevich himself then liked this work, and wrote somewhat ironically:
Light-winged fashion favorite,
Although not British, not French,
You created again, dear wizard,
Me, the pet of pure muses...
I see myself as in a mirror,
But this mirror flatters me.
So to Rome, Dresden, Paris
From now on my appearance will be known...
Girl and passion
Despite numerous orders, money and fame, Kiprensky always sought to leave Russia. And in 1828 he finally left his homeland - now forever.
He left because in distant Rome, in a monastery boarding house, a young sixteen-year-old girl was being brought up, for whom the aging forty-six-year-old artist had all these years experienced a tender affection bordering on passion. He was eager to leave Russia in order to find his love. And I found it.
But at the same time he lost himself as an artist. His previous success in Italy was forgotten, besides, Karl Bryullov had been shining in Rome for several years, pushing all his rivals far away. Kiprensky received almost no orders and began to feel the need. He traveled all over Italy, worked a lot, painted several good portraits, including a portrait of B. Thorvaldsen, but did not come close to his previous achievements. His strength as an artist was exhausted.
B. Thorvaldsen
But at the beginning of 1836, he nevertheless paid off his creditors and fulfilled his cherished, passionate desire - he married Mariuccia. To do this, Orthodox Kiprensky had to convert to Catholicism and get married without publicity.
Did he find happiness? Hardly. Contemporaries said that the poor girl did not love him, although she was grateful for his care for her. And the already elderly, fifty-four-year-old Kiprensky, in order to provide for his young wife, took on any job and took, borrowed, wherever he could. Contemporaries recalled that he constantly quarreled with his wife, which caused him to constantly drink heavily.
He also did not find happiness because he did not have time. That his life with Mariucci lasted just over three months. In his frantic work, Kiprensky caught a severe cold, contracted pneumonia and died in the arms of his young wife. A few more months later, his daughter Clotilde Kiprenskaya was born, but her trace, as well as that of her mother, was hopelessly lost in history...
Kiprensky was buried in Rome. Above the tombstone there is a stele with the inscription: “In honor and in memory of Orest Kiprensky, the most famous among Russian artists, professor and adviser to the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and member of the Naples Academy, Russian artists, architects and sculptors living in Rome, mourning the untimely extinguished torch of his people and such a virtuous soul..."
Orest Kiprensky, self-portrait
And in the Tretyakov Gallery hangs a portrait in which a sweet girl with a broken carnation leans on a high table and turns to the artist with interest.
In her movement there is the purity and naturalness of a child. And it also seems that she asked something a minute earlier and is waiting for an answer that has dragged on for many, many years...
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Orest Adamovich Kiprensky artist biography. The artist was born into the family of the serf A. Gavrilova, who was on the estate of the landowner A. S. Dyakonov, on March 13, 1782 in the town of Koporya, which was located in the vicinity of Oranienbaum. According to historians and biographers, Dyakonov was Kiprensky’s father outlaw, and according to local customs, he was brought up on this estate in the family of the butler Adam Schwalbe. Despite the fact that the mother was a serf peasant, for obvious reasons, her son was no longer a serf in 1788. Dyakonov, fussing over, formalized his son’s new surname, Kiprensky, and took care of him accordingly. Noticing the boy's passion for drawing in 1782, Dyakonov enrolled him as a student at the Academy of Arts. Having studied at this institution for 11 years, he successfully graduates, although without a gold medal and, accordingly, without the right to travel abroad.
The young artist was determined, worked hard and developed himself, trying to prove his abilities to the leadership of the academy. And already in 1804 he exhibited a portrait of Adam Schwalbe at the academy. as we remember, it was his adoptive father who raised him for many years. The portrait received commendable reviews in 1805, luck smiled on him, he was awarded the Big Gold Medal for his work “Dmitry Donskoy defeating Khan Mamai.” But despite this success, the trip abroad was postponed due to the bad situation in Europe itself, as we know this was the era Napoleonic wars. But Kiprensky did not lose heart; he worked, painted portraits, copied paintings by old European masters. No matter how it was, one can confidently say that the artist Kiprensky was very attracted to portraiture, where, of course, he excelled and was noticed by Russian contemporaries as a first-class portrait painter, and subsequently by those abroad. Notable among his first works are his portraits created in 1809, portraits of A.A. Chelishchev, E.V. Davydov, and also his Self-Portrait. He often turns to drawings and sketches, and draws a lot of children, including simple peasant children. He receives many orders for painting portraits, one can say that women were simply delighted with Kiprensky’s works: portraits of Ryumina O.A., Rostopchina E.P., Avdulina E/S., Shcherbatova S.S.. Khvostova D.N. and others.
For his services, Kiprensky was awarded the honorary title of academician in 1812. The artist’s long-desired trip abroad came true only in 1816; he was in Italy, where he enthusiastically studied the work of Raphael and art ancient Rome. Creates a number of works: “Apollo Slaying Python”, “Anacreon’s Tomb”, “The Young Gardener”, “Girl in a Poppy Wreath” and others.
Having returned to his homeland in 1828, recognized as a first-class artist in Italy, Kiprensky felt somewhat out of work in Russia, only occasionally fulfilling rare orders. All this was due to a certain rejection of Kiprensky in academic circles. Taking shelter for a while with Sheremetyev D.N. who gave him a warm welcome, painted his portrait, which he presented at the academy at an exhibition in 1824 along with his other works, but strangely enough, the exhibition did not evoke any positive responses. Being in a depressed state, the artist decides to take up
lithography, but this apparently did not really suit the artist’s creative soul and in 1828 Kiprensky again went to Italy, where the artist’s work was valued better than in his homeland, he married a local girl with beautiful name Mariuccia accordingly decides to stay there for a long time. Having settled in the city of Naples, he worked hard, wanting to attract the attention of the local public, exhibiting his works at exhibitions in 1831: “Girl with Ears of Ears and a Basket in Hand”, “Lazzaroni Boy”, “Girl with Grapes”, a portrait of his stepfather A. Schwalbe. , The portrait was perceived by Italian academics at the level of Rembrandt's own skill. The artist’s portrait of a group of people, “Newspaper Readers in Naples,” was very remarkable. But everything seemed to be nothing in the artist’s life in Italy; his health was failing because of this, he worked little, and in the last years of his life he did not particularly shine with his skill. In the fall of 1836, on October 5, Kiprensky dies far from his homeland in the capital of Italy.
Of course, the fate of a very talented artist was both happy and not entirely successful, perhaps if Kiprensky had received good support in Russia after arriving from abroad, everything could have been different, but due to someone’s not good will, what happened was what happened. Kiprensky painted many beautiful works throughout his history, of course, most noticeable are his wonderful portraits of various outstanding figures of that time, the fabulist Ivan Andreevich Krylov, portraits of the poets Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Nikolai Ivanovich Gnedich, Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov, Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky and Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, portrait of the sculptor Demuth -Malinovsky Vasily Ivanovich, Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, portrait statesman, historian, artist and archaeologist Alexey Nikolaevich Olenin, portrait of the artist Peter Vasilievich Basin. portrait of the Russian statesman, Minister of Public Education, antiquarian Sergei Semenovich Uvarov, Portrait of Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Golitsyn and many others.
The canvas is considered one of the artist's earliest and best works. The canvas depicts the master’s stepfather - a gloomy, self-confident old man who has seen a lot in his life, depicted expressively, prominently, as in Rembrandt’s paintings. […]
The canvas is a traditional chamber portrait typical of the 18th century. The senator and writer is shown as a private person - without awards or insignia, in ordinary clothes. There is no drama or tension in the reading of the image [...]
Dated 1814, materials – oil on canvas, size – 71 by 57.8 cm. It has a vertical arrangement, is located in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. Orest Adamovich is a magnificent master of romanticism and academic style, [...]
The painting depicts four young men in the center. The man on the left reads a newspaper sheet out loud, and the others listen to him attentively. Orest Kiprensky called the men depicted on the canvas Russian, although some of his contemporaries said […]
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky worked for the glory of his country. At international art exhibitions abroad, the artist positioned himself as an ambassador of Russian art. Master of portrait painting. He painted many famous people: generals, writers, poets. […]
Kiprensky Orest Adamovich (March 13, 1782 - October 5, 1836)
Outstanding Russian portrait artist.
He was the illegitimate son of a serf peasant woman and spent his childhood in a serf family. He received his freedom and was assigned to the educational school at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. K. studied at the Academy for 15 years and upon graduation (in 1803) was a pensioner for 6 years.
Already in these years, K. showed brilliant talent as a draftsman, achieving great freedom, expression and emotional expressiveness in his natural and compositional drawings.
In 1805, K. performed the painting “Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo Field,” which reflected the patriotic sentiments of the advanced noble intelligentsia. For this painting the artist received a 1st degree gold medal.
But K.’s true calling was reflected in the very first portrait he painted of A. K. Schwalbe (1804), which stood out for its expressive, energetic characterization and high pictorial skill. In 1804, portraits of A. R. Tomilov, E. P. Korsakov, and I. V. Kusov were executed, in which, with a certain pomp, the humaneness of the image that was already characteristic of K. was revealed.
From 1809 K. worked in Moscow and Tver. By this time, the portraits of Ev. Davydov, K. P. Rostopchina, F. V. Rostopchin (1809), the boy Chelishchev, self-portrait, portraits of N. S. Mosolov and I. A. Gagarin (1811). Truthfully conveying personality traits models, K. managed to embody great social content in his best portraits, to show the human dignity and depth of spiritual culture of the people depicted: for their external calm Living human feelings are always felt.
Returning to St. Petersburg in 1812, he began creating a series of pencil portraits of participants in the Patriotic War: among them were the hero of the Berezina K. I. Chaplits, brothers A. P. and M. P. Lansky, militiamen A. R. Tomilov and P. A Olenin (1813), poet K. N. Batyushkov (1815), etc.
In 1814-16, portraits of D. N. Khvostova, V. S. Khvostov, poet V. A. Zhukovsky and others were painted, belonging to the remarkable creations of an artist who had already gained wide fame.
In 1816 K. went to Italy to study the painting of the old masters. His fame spread far beyond Russia. In 1819, the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts commissioned K. to paint a self-portrait for the Uffizi Gallery.
Continuing to work in these years on portraits (K. M. Golitsin, ca. 1819, E. S. Avdulina, 1822), the artist turned to allegorical and ancient themes (sketches and cardboard “Apollo Slaying Python”, painting “Anacreno’s Tomb” , 1820). Features of conventionality and abstraction appeared in the paintings “The Young Gardener” (1817) and “Girl in a Crown of Poppies” (1819).
Returning to his homeland in 1823, K. created bright realistic portraits: the Decembrist I. A. Annenkov (1823), N. P. Trubetskoy (1826), E. A. Teleshova, self-portrait (1828), etc. Of particular importance is the portrait of A. S. Pushkin (1827), which inspiredly conveys the appearance of the brilliant poet, his “high aspirations.”
The Nikolaev reaction that followed the defeat of the Decembrists forced the artist to leave again in 1828 for Italy, where he died.
The last years of his life were full of creative fluctuations: he executed the superficial sentimental painting “The Lazzarone Boy” (1831), a magnificent and outwardly spectacular portrait of M. A. Pototskaya and S. A. Shuvalova. The most significant works recent years- the painting “Newspaper Readers in Naples” (1831), inspired by the national liberation movement in Poland, and a portrait of the sculptor B. Thorvaldsen (1833).
K.'s main works are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
