Zabela Vrubel

"All shall be forgotten, and time will end..."

Marina Rakhmanova

Article: 
HERITAGE
Magazine issue: 
#3 2021 (72)

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.

"All shall be forgotten, and time will end..."

“Tsar Berendey is a portrait of Nikolai Andreyevich [Rimsky-Korsakov].”
From Anna Vrubel's letter to Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel. July 29, 1909*

* From Anna Vrubel's letter to Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel. July 29, 1909*

MIKHAIL VRUBEL’S "THE SWAN PRINCESS": "Unlock this secret, Tsar..." *

Vera Bodunova

Article: 
HISTORY OF A MASTERPIECE
Magazine issue: 
#3 2021 (72)

The composition “The Swan Princess” (Tretyakov Gallery) was produced by Mikhail Vrubel in 1900, when he was designing sets for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas at Savva Mamontov’s Russian Private Opera. Like the images from the “Demon” series, this painting projects an inscrutable magnetism. Many mysteries remain about both the history of the creation of the painting and the image of the enchanting bird maiden from the fairy tale. Among the most important of these is the identity of the model for the fair Swan Princess. Does the composition indeed feature Nadezhda Ivanovna Zabela-Vrubel - the artist’s wife and muse, as well as a splendid opera diva who performed the Swan Princess in Rimsky- Korsakov’s opera - or is it a composite image born of the artist’s imagination?

MIKHAIL VRUBEL’S "THE SWAN PRINCESS": "Unlock this secret, Tsar..."

* Quoted from: Libretto by Vladimir Belsky (after Pushkin) to the opera “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” by Rimsky-Korsakov. See: http://az.lib.ru/b/belxskij_w_i/text_1900_skazka_o_tzare_saltane.shtml

Vrubel: an Artist for the Ages

Irina Shumanova

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#3 2021 (72)

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’.

Vrubel: an Artist for the Ages

The Almighty gave us Pushkin to reveal what a poet is.
We could say the same about Vrubel - he is the embodiment of an artist.
Nikolai Ge[1]

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