Zabela Vrubel

The composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) and the painter Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910) were among the greatest Russian artists of the Silver Age. They did, however, belong to different generations - Vrubel’s entire career fit into this exceptional period in Russian cultural life, whereas Rimsky-Korsakov began writing music as early as the 1860s. Nonetheless, the composer reached his prime and created his best work in exactly that era, the late 19th to the early 20th centuries.

Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910) holds a unique place in the history of Russian art. On the one hand, he belonged to the legendary cohort of Russian Art Nouveau artists. According to his contemporaries, it was in his oeuvre that “we find the saddest and most beautiful artistic expression of the time” In a newspaper article on the occasion of Vrubel’s funeral, the celebrated Russian artist and art historian Alexandre Benois predicted: “Future generations, should true enlightenment shine upon the Russian public, will look back at the last decades of the 19th century as ‘the era of Vrubel’.” Nevertheless, there is clearly a great gap between Vrubel and his artistic milieu: he seems to be much more in touch with the future than with the world around him. “Here is what I do know: I can only stand in awe of the mysteries that Vrubel and others like him begin to reveal to mankind once in 100 years. We are unable to see the worlds that were open to them, and so all we can do is utter this feeble, indifferent word: ‘genius’.