Graphics authors and their paintings. Masters of Soviet easel graphics. Technique and types of graphics

Graphics is a kind of fine art.

The term "graphics" comes from the Greek word "grapho" - I write. The main visual means of graphics are line, stroke, spot and point. The main color is black, although other colors can be used as an aid.

M. Vrubel. Illustration for the tragedy of A.S. Pushkin "Mozart and Salieri"
The background of the paper in graphics plays the role of space, which is important for a graphic drawing.
Graphics, in spite of the more stingy language in comparison with painting, is distinguished by its great possibilities of depicting and conveying emotions. One has only to remember the drawings of the young artist Nadya Rusheva. They fascinate with their lightness, precision and depth of images. You can read about this artist.

N. Rusheva "Pushkin and Pushchin"
Many famous artists used the possibilities of graphics: Bilibin, Bruegel, Van Gogh, Watteau, Vrubel, Goya, Quarenga, Leonardo da Vinci, Alphonse Mucha, Rembrandt, Titian, Somov, Hokusai, etc.

F. Tolstoy "To the game of Cupid" Tinted paper, pencil, sepia, whitewash

The genres of graphics are basically the same as the genres of painting. But here the portrait genre and landscape are more common, and to a lesser extent - the historical, everyday and other genres.

M. Demidov "Portrait of S. Rachmaninoff"

V. Favorsky "Mikhail Kutuzov" (1945). From the series "Great Russian Generals"

V. Favorsky "Pushkin Lyceum" (1935)

The landscape in the graphic drawing "does not play" with colors, but surprises with the subtlety of feelings and stimulates the imagination.

S. Nikireev "Dandelions"

Graphic works of world famous artists

Graphic art is diverse and attracts artists with the ability to convey feelings and thoughts using only a pencil or felt-tip pen. This opportunity captivates not only the graphic artist creating the work of art, but also the viewer.

A. Durer "Self-portrait" (1500). Alte Pinakothek (Munich)
Largest European artist Albrecht Durer(1471-1528), left a great legacy of drawings - about a thousand: landscapes, portraits, sketches of people, animals and plants. This artist was most fully revealed precisely in the graphic drawing, tk. in paintings, he was not always free from the arbitrariness of customers.
Dürer constantly practiced layout, generalization, construction of space. His animalistic and botanical drawings are distinguished by high skill of execution and observation. Most of his drawings are meticulously detailed. In his prints and paintings, he repeatedly repeated the motives of graphic works.

A. Durer "Praying Hands" (about 1508)

Katsushika Hokusai "Self-portrait"
Katsushika Hokusai(1760-1849) - the great Japanese artist of ukiyo-e (images of the changing world), illustrator, engraver. He is the author of many graphic drawings and engravings.

Katsushika Hokusai The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1823-1831)

Vladimir Andreevich Favorsky(1886-1964) - Russian and Soviet graphic artist, master of portrait, woodcut and book graphics, art critic, set designer, monumental painter, teacher and theorist of fine arts, professor.

Known for his cycles of graphics and engraving, as well as illustrations for the works of A.S. Pushkin, to "The Lay of Igor's Campaign", translations of Marshak, stories of Prishvin and Tolstoy, etc.
In his plastic vision, Favorsky is close to the Byzantine mosaicists, to Michelangelo, Vrubel.

V. Favorsky. Illustration for "Little Tragedies" by A.S. Pushkin
Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519). "Universal Man": Italian artist and scientist, inventor, writer, musician, one of the largest representatives of the art of the High Renaissance.

Alleged Self-Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci
The artist constantly recorded the results of his observations of the world around him in sketches, sketches performed in various techniques (Italian pencil, silver pencil, sanguine, pen, etc.), achieved sharpness in the transfer of facial expressions, physical features and movements of the human body, bringing everything to ideal matching the spiritual atmosphere of your composition.

Leonardo da Vinci. Sketch for the head of a young girl (Angel's head for the painting "Madonna of the Rocks")

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (1490). Venice Academy Gallery (Italy)
This drawing was created to determine the proportions of the (male) human body, as described in the treatise on architecture by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius.
Vitruvian Man- the figure of a naked man in two superimposed positions: with arms and legs spread apart, inscribed in a circle; with arms outstretched and legs brought together, inscribed in a square. The drawing and explanations to it are sometimes called "canonical proportions".
The drawing was made with a pen, ink and watercolors using a metal pencil, the dimensions of the drawing are 34.3 × 24.5 centimeters.
Drawing is both a scientific work and a work of art, it exemplifies Leonardo's interest in proportion.

Caricature

A specific graphic genre is caricature (satirical drawing, caricature).
Caricature is one of the oldest types of drawing. It reflects the problems of society and from early times served as a certain method of self-affirmation over the offender. So they mocked the enemies, so the people mocked their rulers or enslavers. Usually it was a drawing with gross distortions of the offenders' features or with horns, a tail, etc. drawn on. The origin of caricature in Russia took place in the 17th century. with folk popular prints.
Caricature in a satirical or humorous form and currently depicts any social, socio-political, everyday phenomena, real faces or characteristic types of people.
A modern caricature is a satirical or humorous drawing, an iso-anecdote. By subject matter, political cartoons are distinguished, social, everyday, etc. The genre of cartoons is developing all over the world.

Capitalism through the eyes of Herluf Bidstrup, Danish cartoonist ((1912-1988)
Famous Russian cartoonists: Cheremnykh, Rotov, Semyonov, Brodaty, Deni, Kukryniksy, Efimov.

Kukryniksy (from left to right: Porfiry Krylov, Mikhail Kupriyanov, Nikolay Sokolov)

Kukryniksy caricature
Cartoon(fr. charge) - a kind of caricature; a satirical or good-natured humorous image (usually a portrait), in which the external resemblance is observed, but the most characteristic features of the model are highlighted. Caricatures can depict people, animals and various objects. Unlike caricatures, cartoons do not ridicule the hero's shortcomings, they are good-natured, make people smile, but not laugh at those portrayed.

Cartoon on Maxim Galkin
Another type of caricature is grotesque.
Grotesque(FR. grotesque, literally - "bizarre", "comic" - a kind of artistic activity, comically or tragicomically generalizing and sharpening a life plot through a combination of the real and the fantastic. Grotesque is also inherent in other types of art: literature, painting, music. In fact, grotesque is inherent in a certain artistic thinking, it is a kind of gift. Aristophanes, F. Rabelais, E. T. A. Hoffman, N. V. Gogol, M. Twain, F. Kafka, M. A. Bulgakov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote in the genre of grotesque.But in this article we only consider the grotesque in the visual arts.

Lyrical grotesque

Famous painters, sculptors, graphic artists

Aivazovsky Ivan Konstantinovich(1817-1900) - Russian painter, master of seascape ("The Ninth Wave", "Black Sea").

Borovikovsky Vladimir Lukich(1757–1825) - Russian and Ukrainian portrait painter, sentimentalist (portraits of M. I. Lopukhina, A. B. Kurakin).

Bosch (Boss van Aken) Hieronymus (Hieronymus)(c. 1460-1516) - Dutch painter, one of the greatest masters of the Northern Renaissance.

Botticelli Sandro (Alessandro di Mariano di Vani Filipepi)(1445-1510) - the greatest Italian painter of the Early Renaissance.

Bruegel the elder Peter ("The Peasant")(c. 1525-1569) - Flemish painter and graphic artist, master of landscape and genre scenes.

Bryullov Karl Pavlovich(1799-1852) - Russian painter, draftsman, master of intense dramatic paintings ("The Last Day of Pompeii") and ceremonial portraits ("Horsewoman").

Van Gogh Vincent(1853–1890) - Dutch painter, representative of Post-Impressionism. Contrasts of color, impetuous rhythm are characteristic of his paintings. He created tragic images in a painfully tense, extremely expressive manner, built on contrasts of color, impetuous rhythm, on the free dynamics of a pasty brushstroke ("Night Cafe", "Landscape at Auvers after the rain").

Van Dyck Anthony (1599-1641) - Flemish painter, painting virtuoso, pupil of Rubens. His works are marked by noble spirituality ("Self-portrait").

Wang Eyck Yang(c. 1385 or 1390-1441) - Flemish painter of the Early Renaissance, master of portraiture, author of more than 100 compositions on religious subjects, one of the first artists who mastered the technique of painting with oil paints.

Vasnetsov Viktor Mikhailovich(1848–1926) - Russian Itinerant artist. He created canvases on themes of Russian epics and fairy tales ("Alyonushka", "Three heroes").

Watteau Antoine(1684-1721) - French artist, master of genre painting.

Velasquez Diego (Velasquez Rodriguez de Silva)(1599-1660) - Spanish artist. Velazquez's canvases ("Breakfast", "Delivery of Breda") are distinguished by a sense of harmony, subtlety and richness of color.

Alexey Venetsianov(1780-1847) - Russian painter. Most of his works are on the themes of peasant life, written from life.

Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilievich(1842-1904) - Russian battle painter. In his works he showed the horrors of war ("The Apotheosis of War"). Killed in the explosion of the battleship "Petropavlovsk" in Port Arthur.

Vermeer Delft Jan(1632-1675) - Dutch painter, distinguished by his poetic perception of everyday life ("Girl Reading a Letter").

Veronese (Cagliari) Paolo(1528-1588) - Italian painter of the Renaissance. The paintings he created are distinguished by festivity and sophistication.

Vrubel Mikhail Alexandrovich(1856-1910) - Russian artist of the Silver Age. Gravitated towards philosophical generalization, tragedy, symbolic understanding of the plot ("Princess of Dreams", "Demon").

Vuchetich Evgeny Viktorovich(1908-1974) - Russian Soviet sculptor (the figure of the Motherland on the Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd).

Ge Nikolay Nikolaevich(1831–1894) - famous Russian painter, master of portraits, historical and religious paintings ("The Last Supper", "Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich in Peterhof", "What is truth?").

Gainsborough Thomas(1727–1788) - English painter, graphic artist, portraitist and landscape painter.

Gauguin Eugene Henri Paul(1848–1903) - French painter, ceramic sculptor and graphic artist. Along with Cezanne and Van Gogh, he is considered the largest representative of post-impressionism.

Goya Francisco Jose de(1746–1828) - Spanish painter and graphic artist, daring innovator of form. Among his works - frescoes, paintings ("Maja Nude"), a series of prints ("Caprichos").

Greco (El Greco)(Domenikos Theotokopoulos) (1541-1614 ) - Spanish painter of Greek origin, whose works are characterized by mystical exaltation ("Portrait of the Inquisitor").

David Jacques Louis(1748–1825) - French painter, supporter of the classical school of painting ("The Oath of the Horatii").

Dali Salvador(1904–1989) - Spanish artist, one of the most prominent representatives of surrealism. In his paintings, he gave visible credibility to unnatural situations and combinations of objects.

Degas Edgar ( 1834–1917) - French impressionist painter, master of pastels (Blue Dancers).

Delacroix Eugene ( 1798–1863) - French painter and graphic artist, head of French romanticism ("Liberty Leading the People").

Giorgione(1477–1510) - Italian painter, one of the founders of the art of the High Renaissance ("Sleeping Venus", "Judith").

Giotto di Bondone(1266–1337) - Italian artist, founder of modern painting ("Lamentation of Christ").

Donatello (Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi) ( 1386–1466) - Italian sculptor, one of the "fathers" of the Renaissance.

Durer Albrecht(1471-1528) - German painter and graphic artist of the Renaissance, art theorist (self-portraits, "Madonna and Child", engravings).

Kandinsky Vasily Vasilievich(1866-1944) - Russian painter and graphic artist, avant-garde, one of the founders of abstract art.

Canova Antonio(1757-1822) - Italian sculptor, the most significant representative of classicism in European sculpture.

Caravaggio Michelangelo da (Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio)(1571-1610) - Italian artist, reformer of European painting of the 17th century, one of the greatest masters of the Baroque.

Kiprensky Orest Adamovich(1782-1836) - Russian painter and draftsman, representative of romanticism (portraits of Alexander Pushkin).

Klodt Petr Karlovich(1805-1867) - Russian sculptor, representative of classicism, animal painter (horses on the Anichkov bridge in St. Petersburg).

Korovin Konstantin Alekseevich(1861–1939) - Russian painter and theater artist, fine master of plein-air painting, close to impressionism.

Kramskoy Ivan Nikolaevich(1837-1887) - Russian painter, itinerant, teacher I. E. Repin ("May Night"). Master of psychological portrait, revealing complex emotional movements ("The Stranger").

Cranach Lucas the Elder(1472-1553) - German painter and graphic artist who combined the artistic principles of the Renaissance with the Gothic tradition, a brilliant portrait painter.

Kuindzhi Arkhip Ivanovich(1841-1910) - Russian landscape painter, itinerant. Kuindzhi's works demonstrate a decorative sonority of color, illusionary effects of lighting close to nature ("Night on the Dnieper").

Larionov Mikhail Fedorovich(1881-1964) - Russian painter, avant-garde, abstractionist, creator of the so-called rayonism.

Levitan Isaac Ilyich(1860-1900) - Russian painter-itinerant, landscape painter, creator of the "landscape of mood", revealing the subtle nuances of the states of nature ("Above Eternal Peace").

Dmitry Levitsky(1735–1822) - Russian portrait painter of the 18th century, master of ceremonial portraits.

Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519) - Italian painter, sculptor, architect and scientist. He embodied the ideal of female beauty in the world famous painting "La Gioconda" ("Mona Lisa").

Lysippus(IV century BC) - Ancient Greek sculptor, court painter of Alexander the Great.

Masaccio (Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassai)(1401-1428) - Italian painter, in his works sought to embody the idea of ​​human perfection.

Malevich Kazimir Severinovich(1878-1935) - Russian abstract painter ("Black Square"), the founder of Suprematism.

Manet Edward(1832-1883) - French artist, one of the brightest representatives of impressionism. His works are distinguished by the freshness and sharpness of perception of reality ("Concert at the Tuileries").

Matisse Henri(1869-1954) - French painter, graphic artist, who approved the ornamental style in stained glass windows, engravings, lithographs, the founder of Fauvism.

Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475-1564) - Italian painter, sculptor and architect ("David", painting of the Sistine Chapel in Rome).

Myron of Eleuthera(5th century BC) - Greek sculptor of the era immediately preceding the highest flowering of Greek art (late 6th - early 5th century). The most famous work of Miron is "Discobolus".

Modigliani Amedeo(1884-1920) - Italian painter. Modigliani's works are characterized by musical sophistication of silhouette and color, laconic composition.

Monet Oscar Claude(1840-1926) - French painter, one of the founders of impressionism.

Munch Edward(1863-1944) - Norwegian painter and graphic artist, one of the founders of Expressionism ("The Scream").

Mukhina Vera Ignatievna(1889-1953) - Soviet monumental sculptor ("Worker and Collective Farm Woman").

Perov Vasily Grigorievich (Kridener)(1834-1882) - Russian painter, one of the founding members of the "Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions" ("Troika", "Portrait of F. M. Dostoevsky", "Hunters at Rest").

Petrov-Vodkin Kuzma Sergeevich(1878-1939) - Russian Soviet painter ("Bathing the Red Horse"), symbolist, romantic.

Picasso Pablo Ruiz(1881-1973) - French artist, worked in several directions - cubism, realism, etc. He created works full of pain and protest ("Guernica"), the author of the famous "Dove of Peace".

Pirosmani Niko(1862-1918) - Georgian primitivist painter. He painted group portraits, signs, sharply conveying a sense of fullness and joy of life.

Praxitel(IV century BC) - Ancient Greek sculptor, was born in Athens approx. 390 BC NS. The author of the famous compositions "Hermes with the baby Dionysus", "Apollo killing a lizard". Most of Praxiteles' works are known from Roman copies or from descriptions by ancient authors.

Poussin Nicolas(1594-1665) - French painter, representative of the school of classicism ("Landscape with Polyphemus").

Raphael Santi(1483-1520) - Italian painter and architect, whose canvases are distinguished by classical clarity and majestic spirituality. He glorified the earthly existence of man, the harmony of his mental and physical strength ("The Sistine Madonna").

Reynolds Joshua(1723-1792) - English painter and art theorist. A virtuoso portrait painter ("J. O. Heathfield"), he also wrote on historical and mythological themes.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn(1606-1669) - Dutch painter, draftsman, etcher. He painted scenes with complex psychological structure, portraits ("Night Watch", "Danae").

Renoir Auguste(1841-1919) - French painter, graphic artist and sculptor, close to the Impressionists. He sang the sensual beauty and joy of being.

Repin Ilya Efimovich(1844-1930) - Russian and Ukrainian painter. He revealed the spiritual beauty of the people, their love of freedom ("The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan", "Barge Haulers on the Volga", "They Didn't Expect").

Roerich Nicholas Konstantinovich(1874-1947) - Russian artist, from the 1920s he lived in India, whose philosophy had a tremendous influence on his work.

Rodin Auguste(1840-1917) - French sculptor, innovator of form (The Thinker, Citizens of Calais).

Rokotov Fedor Stepanovich(1735-1808) - an outstanding Russian painter. Among the artist's works are subtle in painting, poetic portraits, imbued with an awareness of the spiritual and physical beauty of a person.

Rubens Peter Paul(1577-1640) - Flemish painter. His landscapes are imbued with a sense of powerful natural forces. Scenes of peasant life ("The Return of the Reapers") are imbued with a democratic spirit.

Rublev Andrey(c. 1360-c. 1430) - the great Russian painter, icon painter, the greatest master of the Moscow school of painting. Rublyov's works are imbued with deep humanity and sublime spirituality ("Trinity", paintings of many cathedrals, icons).

Alexey Savrasov(1830-1897) - Russian landscape painter, itinerant. He conveyed the poetic beauty and significance of everyday motives ("The Rooks Have Arrived").

Saryan Martiros Sergeevich(1880-1972) - Armenian artist. Master of life-affirming, emotional landscape, bright and decoratively generalized in style ("Valley of Ararat", "Armenia"), acute psychological portrait and still life festive in color.

Cezanne Paul(1839-1906) - French painter, post-impressionist ("The banks of the Marne", "Peaches and pears").

Serov Valentin Alexandrovich(1865-1911) - Russian painter and graphic artist, itinerant. Early works ("Girl with Peaches") are notable for their freshness and richness of color.

Snyders France(1579-1657) - Flemish painter, master of still lifes and animalistic compositions in the Baroque style ("Cockfighting", "Fruit Trader").

Surikov Vasily Ivanovich(1848-1916) - Russian artist-itinerant, many canvases are devoted to turning points in Russian history ("Boyarynya Morozova", etc.). Portrait master.

Tintoretto (Robusti) Jacopo(1518-1594) - Italian painter, one of the greatest painters of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance.

Titian (Titian Vecellio)(1476-1576) - Italian painter, head of the Venetian school. His works are notable for their cheerfulness, versatility of perception of life (Venus and Adonis, Danae), and in later works - intense drama.

Thorvaldsen Bertel(1768-1844) - Danish sculptor, representative of classicism. Thorvaldsen's sculptures are characterized by plastic completeness, restraint and idealization of images ("Jason").

Tropinin Vasily Andreevich(1776-1857) - Russian painter, master of romantic portraiture.

Toulouse-Lautrec Henri de(1864-1901) - French graphic artist and painter, post-impressionist.

Phidias(V century BC) - an ancient Greek sculptor of the high classics period. The work of Phidias is considered one of the highest achievements of ancient art (statues of Athena, Olympian Zeus).

Hokusai Katsushika(1760-1849) - Japanese painter and draftsman, master of color woodcut.

Cellini Benvenuto(1500-1571) - Italian sculptor, architect and writer. One of the most famous representatives of mannerism.

Chagall Marc(1887-1985) - French artist, follower of surrealism. Most of his images are inspired by Russian and Jewish folk motives.

Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich(1832-1898), Russian painter, one of the greatest masters of realistic landscape painting. Academician (1865), professor (1873), head of the landscape workshop (1894–1895) of the Academy of Arts. Founding member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions.

Asher Maurice Cornelis(1898-1972) - Dutch graphic artist. He is best known for his conceptual lithographs, woodcuts and metal engravings, in which he masterfully explored the plastic aspects of the concepts of infinity and symmetry, as well as the peculiarities of psychological perception of complex three-dimensional objects.

Yaroshenko Nikolay Alexandrovich(1846-1898) - Russian painter-itinerant. Portraits, landscapes, genre scenes ("Fireman", "Old and Young") are distinguished by their drama.

This text is an introductory fragment.

Graphics is the most ancient type of visual art. The first graphic works are considered to be rock paintings of a primitive man, reflecting his view of the world around him. The papyrus books of the ancient Egyptians contained graphic symbols (hieroglyphs) and illustrations. From ancient times, wonderful examples of graphics in the form of paintings on vases and ceramic vessels have come down to us.

For a long time, only writing and calligraphy were considered graphics. In the Middle Ages, book graphics became widespread: handwritten books were decorated with magnificent drawings and miniatures, and the creation of fonts turned into a hotel area of ​​art.

Outstanding graphic artists and their notable works

The greatest master of the Western European Renaissance, Albrecht Durer, is one of the founders of engraving. His most famous copper works are The Knight, Death and the Devil (1513), St. Jerome in his cell "and" Melancholy "(1514).

The great Italian artist and scientist of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, was an inimitable draftsman. His vast graphic heritage includes: preparatory drawings for paintings, images of animals and plants, illustrations for technical developments, drawings for treatises.

Technique and types of graphics

Drawing is the basis of all types of graphic art. Typically, a graphic is drawn on a piece of paper that plays the role of space. To create his works, the artist can use a whole arsenal of tools: pencil, ballpoint pen, charcoal, ink, ink, sanguine (red-brown pencils made of kaolin and iron oxides), colored chalk, sauce (one of the varieties of pastels), watercolor, gouache.

The main instrument of European drawing during the late Gothic and Renaissance era was the pen. At the end of the 17th century, they began to use graphite pencils to create drawings, drawings, sketches. In graphics, canvas is practically not used, since watercolors and gouache do not fit well on it. Color in graphic images is used much less than in paintings. The main graphic means of graphics are line, spot, chiaroscuro, stroke and point.

Graphics have the same wide variety of genres as painting. But here the genre of portrait and landscape is more common, to a lesser extent - still life, historical, everyday and others. Graphics are traditionally divided into monumental (poster, wall graphics), easel (drawing and printmaking), book (illustrations, postcards), as well as computer graphics, which, however, stands aside, since it does not use traditional materials.

Graphic art is distinguished by a wide variety of techniques that the artist uses in pure form or in various combinations. There are two types of graphics by technique: drawing and printed graphics (printmaking). The drawing is created only in a single copy. In ancient times, artists used papyrus, parchment, and from the 14th century they began to draw on paper.

On the contrary, printed graphics exist in many copies. For replication, an engraving is used - a drawing on a solid material, which is covered with paint, and then printed on a sheet of paper. Depending on the material, different types and techniques of engraving are distinguished: woodcut (wood engraving), linocut (drawing carved on linoleum), etching (metal engraving), lithography (stone engraving). With the advent of engraving, the printed book appeared and book graphics began to develop. Today, the development of graphics does not stop, new genres and techniques appear, but, as in ancient times, graphics remain an important component of the visual arts in our life.

The art of graphics is diverse. It includes political posters and newspaper and magazine drawings, book illustrations and cartoons, industrial applied graphics and film advertising. A large section of it is made up of easel graphics - drawings and engravings, executed independently, outside of special practical purposes. It is named so by analogy with easel painting, the works of which the artist creates on a special machine - an easel; the word "graphics" comes from the Greek grapho (grapho) - I write, draw. Of course, easel graphics are not completely devoid of purpose. Tackling the brush, pencil or cutter of the engraver, the artist always has a definite goal. He seeks to convey to people his thoughts and feelings, his understanding of life, to affirm the worthy in it and punish the negative, to show the amazing, hidden beauty of the world, seen only by him. But at the same time, the author of an easel drawing or engraving does not always pursue an agitational or accusatory goal with his work, like a master of poster and caricature, does not carry out advertising or utilitarian tasks, like artists of posters and industrial graphics, his images, finally, are not associated with literary heroes and situations, as in the works of illustrators.

In the same way, masters of easel painting and sculpture, unlike monumental painters and decorators, create independent works that are not associated with any artistic ensemble - a building, room, square, park, etc.

Easel graphics have much in common with easel painting. Although their leading artistic means are different, both of these types of art have large and in many respects similar possibilities of depicting nature, people, and all the wealth of the material world. Various aspects of a person's life, which has always been in the center of art's attention, prompted the addition of different genres in it - portrait, landscape, everyday or battle composition, still life, etc. These genres exist both in Soviet painting and in Soviet graphics. The world of the human soul is shown with special depth in numerous works of easel painting, sculpture and graphics. For this psychology, for a multifaceted and big conversation with the audience about a person, we especially value easel art.

Having much in common with painting, easel graphics, at the same time, in the way of execution - mainly on paper - in drawing and engraving techniques is close to all other types of graphics. She, like the whole family of graphic arts, is distinguished by the comparative speed of execution of things, as well as good opportunities for their reproduction. Thanks to this, firstly, graphics have big data in order to be topical art, quickly reacting to events in public life, art living in the rhythm of modernity. These possibilities inherent in the schedule, as we will see later, have been perfectly used by its craftsmen more than once. Secondly, since the graphic sheet is executed as a whole faster than a painting or sculpture (although no less mental strength, talent and skill is required from a graphic artist), it retains a special immediacy of communication with nature, the possibility of living it fixation. If we add to this that the technique of performing graphic works is very diverse, the ideological and aesthetic richness of this type of art becomes obvious.

A lot of interesting things await the attentive viewer of graphic works. Not immediately, gradually, the originality and beauty of each graphic technique is revealed to him - the silvery clarity of a graphite pencil drawing and the velvety blackness of an Italian pencil, the precise fluency of pen drawings in ink or ink, the tenderness of pastels and sanguine. We gradually learn to appreciate the rich range of gray and black tones available for drawing with charcoal, sauce, black watercolors or ink, the transparent lightness of colored watercolors and the heavier, material language of gouache. We are fascinated by the varied and flexible language of woodcuts, generalized and laconic forms of linocuts, the expressiveness of chiaroscuro and depth of color in etching, a free drawing with a lithographic pencil rich in shades of color, soft modeling.

Often, artists also work with mixed media, combining in their works, for example, charcoal, chalk and some kind of pencil or watercolor and pastel, watercolor and gouache, etc.

Both in lithography and in engraving techniques, the viewer sees the final result of the artist's work - a print or an imprint, otherwise - a print. Many such prints can be obtained from one board or stone, and all of them are equally original works of art. This feature of prints - their fairly large circulation while maintaining all the artistic merit - is especially valuable to us.

Increasingly wider circles of Soviet people are now becoming involved in art. They find in printmaking all the fullness of thoughts and aesthetic experiences that genuine great art delivers, and at the same time printmaking is not a distant museum piece that we see only occasionally, but a thing with which beauty enters our home, into everyday life.

Soviet easel graphics is a vast area of ​​our art, the yet unwritten history of which includes wonderful pages of great artistic searches and accomplishments. It has its own brilliant traditions both in Russian art and in a number of other national art schools. Almost all the greatest painters of the past were also great masters of drawing and watercolors. Watercolors by Alexander Ivanov and K. Bryullov, numerous drawings and watercolors by Repin, graphics by V. Serov and Vrubel are masterpieces of our art full of eternal charm. Lithography emerged in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century as democratic art, bringing the images and thoughts of artists to the people. She is fond of Kiprensky, Orlovsky, Venetsianov, later Perov, Shishkin, Vl. Makovsky, Levitan and other artists. In the forties of the XIX century Shchedrovsky in the album "Here are ours" shows the viewer commercial, artisan people, folk types. This was the first experience in creating color lithography in Russian art. Leading artists of the last century appreciate the art of engraving for its relatively greater accessibility to the people, for the fact that it brings their creations closer to the audience of the popular audience. The classic of Ukrainian poetry and artist T.G. Shevchenko, who worked in etching, wrote in 1857: “Of all the fine arts I now like engraving most of all. And not without reason. To be a good engraver means to be a distributor of the beautiful and instructive in society ". Shishkin was also an enthusiast of etching. I.E.Repin repeatedly turned to various engraving techniques. All the variety of genres - everyday life, historical scenes, portrait and landscape - develops in lithography, etching and drawing of the last century.

In the graphics of the beginning of the 20th century, as in all art, there is a complex interweaving of sometimes opposite tendencies. The events of the 1905 revolution capture magazine graphics with particular force, but they also find echoes in easel items - etchings by S. Ivanov, in pastels by V. Serov, a shocked witness to the tsarist crackdown on workers. In these works, as well as in Kasatkin's images of miners, workers, students, in S. Korovin's drawings depicting soldiers, in the pages of Sergei Ivanov dedicated to the poor migrants, there is an interest in the working man, characteristic of advanced Russian art, and his sympathy for the hard and often tragic fate. But in the schedule of these decades there is also a tendency to move away from the complexities and contradictions of social reality. In some cases, this tendency imposes a stamp of a kind of passive contemplation on the works of artists, in others it takes the artists in their work to palace halls and parks that are far away and alien to the wide audience. Landscape is almost the leading genre in pre-revolutionary graphics. Such great masters as A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, V. Falileev, K. Yuon, I. Nivinsky, I. Pavlov, E. Lansere and others work in it. They subtly see the beauty of the many-sided nature, its various states, the poetry of architecture in its relationship with the landscape. This admiration for the beauty of the world is the main eternal content of their works, which excites us to this day. But sometimes a tinge of contemplation is felt in their sheets.

In pre-revolutionary engraving, magazine and book illustrations, more than in other forms of art, the influence of the World of Art society was felt, perhaps because many of its members were graphic artists of a high professional level. Of these artists, this society included Ostroumova-Lebedeva and Lanceray. However, all the best aspects of their work took shape in spite of the aesthetic guidelines of the theorists of the World of Art, who advocated a far from life "pure art". Pictures, watercolors and drawings of the main figures of the "World of Art" A. Benois, K. Somov and others resurrected the gallant and inanimate world of the court life of past eras, were a sophisticated and learned game of history. Thus, in the pre-revolutionary schedule, works are created that are saturated with all the drama of social contradictions, a mass of chamber lyrical landscapes appear, and at the same time retrospectivism flourishes, that is, a departure from modernity, the aesthetics of the world of art.

In the first years after the revolution, the appearance of easel graphics changed little. These harsh years were the time of the loud-voiced fighting art of the poster, the agitational monumental sculpture, the new art of decorating mass holidays. Against the background of the rapid development of these types of art, easel graphics at first looks especially traditional. Basically, the same masters work here as in the pre-revolutionary years, and their work, to a large extent already determined, is far from immediately and not quickly undergoing complex changes associated with the influences of the new reality. Landscape and portrait became the leading genres of easel graphics. Artists lovingly depict the ancient corners of cities, remarkable architectural monuments, the eternal beauty of nature that is not subject to social storms. There is a lot of captivating skill in their works, calm admiration for the beauty of the world. But this closed world of a retrospective landscape, turned into the past, seems to be fenced off by an invisible wall from the events taking place in the country.

Works of everyday life, of which few were created, depict the same quiet and modest life, untouched by any social upheavals, simple domestic work.

The graphics of these years are dominated by engravings and lithographs; drawing and watercolors are not very common. Landscapes and portraits are often published in albums of engravings, and these are low-circulation and expensive editions for a few connoisseurs.

Chamberliness distinguishes portrait works. Models of portrait painters are usually painters, writers, actors, that is, a rather narrow circle of people spiritually close to the author. Their inner world is revealed subtly and carefully, but not yet at the level of great generalizations that will be available to Soviet art later.

And only in the portraits performed by N. Andreev, in particular in his images of V. I. Lenin, the portrait genre in graphics immediately acquires new qualities, generalizing power, public sound. These drawings are rightfully included among the best achievements of Soviet art, and today they admire us and participate in our life. But in the years of their creation, these sheets were, as it were, a brilliant exception, only confirming the rule - that is, the general chamber nature of most portrait works. With Andreev's drawings, as if ahead of the time, we will begin our acquaintance with Soviet easel graphics.

For N. Andreev (1873 - 1932), a famous sculptor, author of the Moscow monuments to Gogol, Ostrovsky, the Freedom Monument, drawing was not only a necessary preparatory stage of work, but also an independent field of creativity. In the early 1920s, he performed a large number of graphic portraits - of Dzerzhinsky, Lunacharsky, Gorky, Stanislavsky, artists of the Art Theater and others.

A man in all the integrity of his character - that was what interested Andreev as a portrait painter. In his sheets, the inner world of the model is outlined clearly, confidently, in detail, but without halftones and richness of nuances. Getting acquainted with the portraits of Andreev, we seem to get the sum of very accurate, verified knowledge about the people depicted on them. Precisely, the clarity of this knowledge is a kind of pathos of Andreev's work, and the manner in which portraits are made obeys him.

Much in this manner comes from the sculptural vision of the form by the artist. This is the emphasized plasticity of the pattern, the obligatory search for an expressive silhouette line, but also the rigidity of color, the absence of a sense of the air environment. But the main thing here was the positive thing that gave Andreev's sculptural talent - the ability to see the model as a whole, the main thing in the outline of the head, to see the characteristic appearance, cleared of random lines and turns. This wholeness of the silhouette, combined with the most detailed elaboration of the face, especially the eyes, constitutes the artist's peculiar manner. She was well served in the hands of Andreev sanguine, pastels, colored pencils, as well as charcoal or Italian pencil, which outlined the main volumes.

In the same manner, Andreev performed several portraits of V.I.Lenin, which are part of his famous Leniniana - a large cycle of sketches, drawings, sketches and sculptures, the creation of which was the main business of Andreev's life during the years of Soviet power. Portraits of Lenin by Andreev for us are not only things of a talented artist, but also a precious revelation of an eyewitness, a person who repeatedly observed Lenin at congresses and congresses and in his Kremlin office. A lot of cursory sketches were made by Andreev in the process of this work, but there are only three completed drawing portraits; the artist was well aware of the complexity and specificity of their tasks at the seemingly possible speed of execution.

In one of these portraits, a slight squint of Lenin's eyes, a barely noticeable smile breathed life into the image, created an image full of human warmth. At the same time, a sense of the social significance of the image of the leader lives in the portrait, and therefore this sheet is so new in content for the art of graphic portraiture of those years (ill. 1).

The theme of Lenin - the leader of the masses with even greater strength and expression - was developed by Andreev in the profile portrait of V.I. Lenin, often dated back to the early 1920s. The impulse and energy of this inspired image, its sublime heroism win hearts. At the same time, the understanding of the historical role of V.I.Lenin here is distinguished by such maturity that this work of Andreev seems to be much ahead of the art of the early 1920s. With all the wealth and achievements of art of these years, we will not find in it such a feeling of the scale of Lenin's deeds, the sweep of Lenin's thought, such a historical understanding of its image. And the recent assumption of Leniniana researcher L. Trifonova seems to be fair that the portrait, which became known only in the 1930s, was created not in the early 1920s, but later. Laconic language and inner meaningfulness give this sheet a real monumentality. It is not for nothing that this portrait is now familiar to a wide audience not only from many reproductions: it is made in a mosaic, it is painted in an H: t panel when decorating holidays. Enlarged to a huge size, the drawing loses nothing in its laconic expressiveness,

GS Vereisky (born 1886) also worked in the field of portraiture from the first years of the formation of Soviet graphics. The moment of assessing the social significance of a person will subsequently take an important place in his things, but the artist's path to this and especially the nature of his first works was different from that of Andreev. G.S. Vereisky received his first skills in art in a private studio in Kharkov, studying at the university, participating in a student revolutionary circle and revolutionary events in 1905, in connection with this, prison, and then several years of emigration - these are some moments of the artist's biography. From 1918, for a number of years, Vereisky worked in the department of engravings in the Hermitage. He came there already possessing significant information from the history of world art, while his long work in the Hermitage enriched him even more in this respect. Not a book, but a living knowledge of the masterpieces of world art left its mark on the artist's creative image; great culture, nobility, simplicity, behind which is exactingness, distinguish his numerous works. Vereisky began with portraits made with lithography, and although we now know him as an excellent draftsman and etcher, he did most of all in the field of lithography.

From the very beginning of his work, Vereisky was characterized by loyalty to nature, observation. Therefore, perhaps, the long journey of this artist in art seems at first glance even and calm. In fact, he is marked by constant quest, improvement of skills,

Bereisky's first album "Russian Artists" was released in 1922. We see here a fully represented group of artists of the "World of Art" society, from the founders to its second generation. Vereisky knows his models perfectly and accurately captures the emotional mood, the character of each of the artists - the gloomy seriousness and uncomfortable loneliness of Benoit, the joyless concentration of Somov, prickly expression, the tension of Mitrokhin's inner life, etc. we can learn a lot about the people depicted here, but in the portraits of Vereisky there is no moment of assessing people, so to speak, from a distance, the characterization is given in a chamber, intimate lyrical plan, and the question of the social significance of their activities has not yet been raised. In the subsequent albums of 1927-1928, Vereisky already more accurately finds a natural and relaxed pose of the model, draws more confidently and freer. The portraits of the artists Golovin, Zamirailr, the architect Shchuko, the critic Yaremich, Notgaft are successful. Vereisky was well able to convey the inner culture, liveliness of mind, the charm of great education inherent in the people portrayed by him.

In the 1930s, Vereisky worked a lot on portraits of pilots, admiring their courage and courage, trying to emphasize precisely these qualities in their characterization. And when, at the beginning of World War II, he created portraits of the brave participants in the battles of Fisanovich, Meshchersky, Osipov and others, they looked like a continuation of the artist's story about brave Soviet soldiers, begun with works of the 1930s.

But the main achievement of Vereisky during this period and further became portraits of cultural figures. During the war years, the artist felt with particular clarity that the theme of his portraits was creativity, the precious and inalienable ability of a person of art to work with creative inspiration even in a moment of heavy hardship. In these sheets, Vereisky's great technical skill seemed to be illuminated for the first time with deep emotional excitement, and his always correct and accurate portraits acquired a lively emotionality. Director of the Hermitage, orientalist IA Orbeli and poet N, Tikhonov were painted by him during the siege of Leningrad; Its hardships have left their mark on the appearance of these people, but in spite of the conditions they work and their creative depth is conveyed tangibly and clearly. The same poetry of inspired searches is also found in the portraits of the artist EE Lansere, conductor EA Mravinsky, painter T.N. Yablonskaya (ill. 2). Once again, cultural figures of different professions are represented here, but how their inner world has changed, their ardent devotion to art has been illuminated with a new meaning. The former seclusion of Vereisky's works disappears, and the question of the social role of art sounds in full force in his portraits of 1940-1950. The methods of his psychological writing did not become different, but only more accurate, but from the usual conscientious truthfulness of his characteristics, the contours of the great inner closeness of the people he portrayed, closeness in the main thing - in understanding the meaning of his work, seemed by themselves.

When pronouncing the name of G. S. Vereisky, we often immediately recall the works of M. S. Rodionov (1885 - 1956) - an artist whose art was in many respects internally close to G. S. Vereysky. And the main areas of work - portrait and landscape (which Vereisky also did a lot), and the strict beauty of manner, and thoughtfulness in the study of nature were common among these artists. Executed by M. S. Rodionov in 1944-1946, also in the technique of lithography, a series of portraits of scientists and artists - Abrikosov, Baranov, Vesnin and others - lays in our graphics the same line of serious portrait art devoid of external showiness, strong by the internal truthfulness of portrait art. which is also outlined by the works of G. S. Vereisky.

The works of Vereisky and Rodionov took us far from the first post-revolutionary years. Returning to them, we must supplement the range of portrait works already familiar to us with the works of B.M.Kustodiev (1878 - 1927). A major painter, Kustodiev worked a lot in graphics. Interesting is the portrait of F.I.Shalyapin, executed by him in 1921 in watercolor and pencil. If in the first version of this portrait the print of everyday life seems to extinguish the inner light in the person of Chaliapin, then the artist then creates a complex and at the same time convincing image; one can sense talent, breadth, elegance, and some kind of secret meditation (ill. 3).

The second widespread genre in 1920s graphics was landscape. One of its greatest masters was A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva (1871 - 1955). An early awakened interest in art led her to the Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing, where she studied under the guidance of an excellent teacher and engraver V.V. Mate, a great master of reproduction tone engraving. The creative profile of Ostroumova was not immediately determined. Having moved to the Academy of Arts, she studied there with various teachers, and later was accepted as one of I.E.Repin's students. This was an event that left its mark on all further activities of the artist. “In the depths, at the heart of our art, every cornerstone is Repin's vigorous, fresh and eternally living realism,” Ostroumova later wrote. Gradually, the artist's interest in engraving, and in particular in color woodcut, is becoming more and more determined. She studied fine examples of this art in various collections during her trip to Paris. Of all the engraving techniques, woodcut in Russia by the beginning of the 20th century had the least independent artistic value and existed mainly as a way of reproducing paintings. The color woodcut was completely forgotten. Therefore, when Ostroumova-Lebedeva submitted a number of her engravings to the Academy for the competition, including a color woodcut from the Flemish artist Rubens' Perseus and Andromeda, this sheet was initially rejected by the jury, mistaking it for watercolor.

Throughout her long creative life, Ostroumova-Lebedeva carried a commitment to woodcuts and watercolors. About the first of them, the artist herself writes with love and poetry:

"I appreciate in this art the incredible conciseness and brevity of presentation, its laconicism and, thanks to this, the sheer sharpness and expressiveness. I appreciate in wood engraving the merciless definiteness and clarity of its lines ... The technique itself does not allow for amendments and therefore there is no place for doubts and hesitation in wood engraving. ...

And how beautiful is the running of the tool on hard wood! The board is so polished that it seems velvety, and on this shiny golden surface the sharp chisel runs swiftly, and the whole work of the artist is to keep it within the bounds of his will!

There is a wonderful moment when, after a difficult and slow work associated with incessant intense attention - not to make a mistake - you roll the paint with a roller, and all the lines you left on the board begin to shine with black paint, and suddenly a drawing appears on the board.

I have always regretted that after such a brilliant flourishing of engraving, which was in the 16th and 17th centuries, this art began to decay, it became a service, craft! And I have always dreamed of giving him freedom! "

Even in the pre-revolutionary years, Ostroumova created many wonderful works - views of St. Petersburg and its environs, landscapes painted during travels in Italy, Spain, France,

Holland. Consistent accuracy and loyalty to nature are already combined in them with a great gift of generalization. The artist Petersburg is especially poetic and penetrating. The city appears in its sheets majestic, full of harmony and beauty. The slenderness of the composition, linear clarity, purity of color distinguish her works.

After the revolution, which caused the artist, in her recollections, a surge of creative energy and joyful enthusiasm, Ostroumova still works most of all in the genre of architectural landscape. In her sheets, as before, the city is not the streets bustling with an active crowd, but above all the kingdom of beautiful architecture, its enduring beauty.

At the same time, new features are revealed to the artist in the appearance of the city, and the restrained emotionality of her sheets is sometimes replaced by a more violent, impetuous feeling. Within the framework of a single landscape genre, Ostroumova creates things very diverse and always internally whole. Let us recall, for example, her 1918 watercolor "Petrograd. Field of Mars". This sheet with the rapid movement of clouds in the high sky, the spaciousness of the square and the slender, forward-looking figure of the monument to Suvorov is full of hidden tension and pathos. The artist's perception of the world is courageous, vigorous, the rhythms of life, heard by her, are rosary, like a march, and, like a march, musical. Ostroumova paints with light strokes, generalized in shape, using detail with wise moderation. It would seem that this sheet is quite simply drawn, but behind its simplicity lies skill and great artistic taste. It also manifests itself in the nobility of the modest and beautiful palette of this thing.

The woodcut "Smolny" is permeated with a stormy emotionality, unusual for Ostroumova. The breath of revolution seems to sweep over this landscape, and the building of calm classical forms seems to live again, as in the boil of October 1917. The collision of black and white doubles the strength of each of these colors. The columns of the Propylaea, marking the entrance to Smolny, are threateningly blackening, the earth shines with bright whiteness, strokes swirl in rapid motion, outlining the road to the building in the depths, a tree bends under a gusty wind, and oblique falling lines barely outline the sky above Smolny. An image is created that is full of impulse, movement, romantic emotion. Moreover, how beautiful and picturesque this black woodcut is, how great are its purely decorative merits.

The cycle of small woodcuts depicting Pavlovsk is also distinguished by its decorativeness. The artist saw the decorativeness in the outlines of a clump of trees, the silhouette of a statue or a lattice, was observed in life and therefore convincing.

A classic example of the great skill of Ostroumova-Lebedeva is the landscape "Summer Garden in Frost" (1929; ill. 4).

The tranquility of a desert garden engulfs you when you look at this engraving; you seem to find yourself in his alley - this is how the composition of the sheet is expanded by the author. The stitching of footprints in the deep snow and the rhythm of the snow-covered black lattice outline the movement into the depth of the leaf, and it is gently rounded there by the light silhouette of the bridge. The movement and distant figures of people enliven the entire leaf, but do not break its snowy charm. It is in the combination of amazing peace, silence with the feeling of the life of a big city, flowing somewhere very close, that the special charm of this engraving is born. The poetry of winter, its hazy colors, frosty air blowing over the crowns of trees in brittle pink frost, is perfectly conveyed here by the artist.

During the Great Patriotic War, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, who was already more than seventy years old, did not leave Leningrad. She shared with all the inhabitants the incredible hardships of the blockade and did not stop working as best she could. The pages of her memoirs related to these years are not only a chronicle of hardships and mental anxieties, but also evidence of eternal creative burning, a relentless desire to work. Such love for art, great devotion to it is still an example for young artists, and the achievements of Ostroumova-Lebedeva in engraving and, in particular, her revival of artistic color woodcut, remains as the unshakable contribution of a great master to our art.

The works of V.D.Falileev (1879 - 1948) are in many ways close to the works of Ostroumova-Lebedeva in terms of the worldview and stylistically. He was also a master of black and color woodcuts, and turned to etching and linoleum engraving in a constant search for new technical possibilities of his work, in particular coloristic. Falileev's landscapes, both depicting his native country and foreign ones, attract us with the same completeness of feelings, the ability to see beauty in ordinary motives of nature, as the works of Ostroumova-Lebedeva, but harmony and classical purity of lines are less common in his engravings, the manner of his drawing is freer and somehow more restless, the color is hotter and more picturesque. At the same time, the ability to generalize one's impressions, to create a capacious artistic image with a minimum of funds makes Falileev akin to Ostroumova-Lebedeva. In this sense, for example, Falileev's album of colored linoleum engravings "Italy" is typical, where the artist, having dedicated only one sheet to one city or another, in extremely laconic compositions, sometimes depicting only a fragment of a building, as it were, concentrates the most characteristic in the appearance of Italian cities.

The artist is also interested in stormy nature, he creates a series of etchings "Rains", in a number of sheets he varies, studying the changeable appearance of the sea, the outlines of a stormy sea wave. In landscapes with the motives of storms and rain, some researchers see a peculiar response of graphics to a revolutionary storm, but such a rapprochement still seems too straightforward. And with Falileev, we will not dare to establish a similar relationship between his plots and social events. But in the totality of his works, in the particular tension of their internal structure, there really is a sense of the complexity of the social world, and it is more distinct in his landscape sheets than, for example, in the linocut "Troops", because Falileev was primarily a landscape painter.

I. N. Pavlov (1872 - 1951) was also a representative of the landscape genre in graphics. In his person, Moscow had a poet as devoted and never tired of singing her praises as Leningrad in the person of Ostroumova-Lebedeva. Pavlov was almost the same age as Ostroumova, but his path in art began in other, more difficult living conditions. The son of a prison paramedic, later a watchman at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, he had to "go into the people" early, having enrolled as an apprentice in an engraving craft workshop. Reproduction prints from paintings by V. Makovsky were the first works that brought him success. Subsequently, Pavlov studied at the Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing and in the Mate workshop, as well as at the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, but not for long because of the need to work. In the reproduction of paintings, the artist achieves great skill, and his prints are published in popular magazines of those years, acquainting readers with the works of the greatest painters - from Repin to V. Makovsky. Photomechanics, however, further supersedes this mode of reproduction. In the works of Pavlov, the main theme of his work appears - the ancient corners of Moscow and provincial cities, the landscape of Russia receding into the past.

The transition to the creation of original engravings was not easy for the artist, but his hard work and love for his topic did a lot. Since 1914, albums of landscape engravings by I. N. Pavlov began to appear. His landscapes were based on impressions of the nature near Moscow, from trips along the Volga and Oka. The intimate perception of nature, the search for a kind of intimacy in it, distinguished these first works. “I strove to select corners and intended to see my prints as real landscapes of mood. On a large scale, in the panoramic image, it seemed to me that the intimacy and compositional clarity that I was trying to achieve could completely disappear,” the artist later recalled. Starting a large series of Moscow landscapes, Pavlov here, too, is looking primarily for chamber lyrical motifs, capturing antiquity. "I was looking for the rarest old buildings, courtyards, dead ends, century-old wooden houses, churches of old architecture; I did not ignore many outstanding monuments of antiquity ... Sometimes the old alternated with the new in order to emphasize the typicality of the taken piece of the city", - we read in his memoirs.

From year to year, the Moscow engravings of I. N. Pavlov accumulated, which made up his numerous albums. Much has changed in a relatively short time in Moscow, quiet corners painted by I. N. Pavlov have become unrecognizable in a huge modern city. And we are grateful to the artist who has preserved for us the modest coziness of silent alleys, the friendliness of small houses (ill. 5). And in other Russian cities - Kostroma, Uglich, Ryazan, Torzhok - Pavlov is attracted by ancient architecture. He felt her expressiveness and originality very well. But in general, Pavlov's works contain incomparably less artistry and plastic beauty than, for example, in the landscapes of Ostroumova-Lebedeva or Falileev. The documentary accuracy of his work often turns into photographism.

5. I. N. Pavlov. Sheet from the album "Old Moscow". At Varvarka. 1924

The cycle of modern landscapes was replenished by Pavlov in 1920 - 1930, when, having joined the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, he, like many masters of art, went on creative business trips to the industrial centers of the country. Colored linocut "Astrakhan" with a dark flock of ships and the lights of a large building of the People's Commissariat for Water on the shore, landscape "On the Volga" with sharp black silhouettes of sailing ships and slightly trembling water, "Baku", "Balakhna" and some other sheets executed during these years were included in the number the best works of the artist. The sheet "Zvenigorod. Outskirts", created by the 78-year-old master in 1949, also conquers with a joyful, light mood.

Inappropriate criticism of Pavlov's works in the late 1940s and early 1950s obscured the shortcomings of his works and, paradoxically, made it difficult to find out their true merits. A complete denial of his work is often encountered today. But we appreciate the great work of the artist and his rich experience, which he generously shared with many masters of Soviet graphics at the beginning of their career.

Pavlov's merit - along with V.D.Falileev - is the introduction into everyday life of Soviet artists of linocut, and the invention of a new method of printing prints with watercolors - aquatipia.

Among the students of I. N. Pavlov, he fruitfully works as an artist and teacher M. V. Matorin - master of color woodcut, landscape painter.

In his address to the architectural landscape, to the monuments of antiquity, I. N. Pavlov was not alone in the 1920s. Vl. Yves. Sokolov, a student of Levitan, whom the same I. N. Pavlov was able to interest in engraving techniques, released in 1917-1925 several albums dedicated to Sergiev Posad, old Moscow, Rostov. These are all good examples of the old landscape. In the albums of Yuon and Kustodiev's lithographs in the 1920s, one can also see Sergiev Posad, Russian landscapes, pictures of an untouched old provincial life. Classical buildings of St. Petersburg stand in the chased lines of woodcuts by P. A. Shillingovsky, whose album of landscapes, published in 1923, although called "St. Petersburg. Ruins and Renaissance", but mostly contained only woeful pictures of ruins - the destruction caused to Petrograd by military devastation. Having come to Armenia later, Shilling's veto-face again sees only the features of antiquity, publishing in 1927 the album of etchings "Old Erivan". Thus, the ancient landscape in the graphics of the first decade is not an accidental hobby of individual masters, but a whole phenomenon.

Only by about 1927 interest in him dries up, and the same Shillingovsky, a great zealot of architectural antiquity, in the next year, 1928, creates the album "New Armenia", as if noting in his work a characteristic turning point in graphics.

The new, of course, grows in the depths of the old, and works dedicated to the modern landscape appeared in graphics, so to speak, in its depths, among things already familiar to us. They were created by artists who yesterday gave their creativity to the contemplation of the eternal beauties of architecture and nature. For example, I. I. Nivinsky (1881-1933), the greatest master of Soviet etching, in the album "Crimea", published in 1925, artistically and easily, albeit with a tinge of contemplation, conveys the everyday festivity of the beautiful southern nature. By the 10th anniversary of October, by order of the Council of People's Commissars, Nivinsky creates several large etchings "Zages", where, depicting a power plant in Georgia, not only introduces a new plot into his landscapes, but also actively seeks new forms of expression for it.

Successful is the etching "Monument to V. I. Lenin in Zages" with its careful drawing and naturally dominating in the industrial landscape monument to V. I. Lenin - the creation of the sculptor I. D. Shadr (ill. 6). The beauty of this monument, its majestically effective silhouette, becomes the main component of the landscape image here. The artist now thinks of nature not only as an object of admiring contemplation, but also as a field of great human activity. For the first time, the notes of an active attitude to life sounded distinctly in the graphic landscape.

New motives appear in the second half of the 1920s in the works of the artist I. A. Sokolov (born 1890). Pupil and great admirer of V.D.Falileev I. A. Sokolov from the very beginning of his work depicts scenes of labor in engraving. At first, it is the hard and troublesome household work of a woman in the household, handicraft work is a cramped and limited world, shown with warmth and love. A shoemaker bent over at work, a laundress, a grandmother with her grandchildren in a cramped, nondescript room in the evening, a slender silhouette of a lacemaker against the background of a light fabric with an intricate pattern, obviously connected by her, - these are the first works of Sokolov (ill. 7).

By their nature, they are very close to the works of I. Pavlov, Vl. Sokolov and other artists who showed us the casual corners of big cities, their untouched antiquity. "So it seems that life, reflected in the engravings of IA Sokolov, flowed outside the walls of those small houses that I, N. Pavlov portrayed", - rightly writes the biographer of IA Sokolova M. Z. Kholodovskaya.

Obviously, because the artist has always been close to pictures of labor, it was he who was one of the first to expand the narrow framework of his theme and began to depict the new world of industrial labor - work at a large metallurgical plant. By 1925 his first sheets depicting the Moscow plant "Hammer and Sickle" belong. By this time, the artist had already mastered the technique of colored multi-board linoleum engraving, and the types of workshops, the interweaving of powerful steel trusses, the complex lighting of scenes with dazzling red-hot metal were reproduced by him accurately and in detail. Later, already a mature master, Sokolov again came to a familiar factory and in 1949 created a series of engravings dedicated to him. This time he also introduces portrait sheets into the series; one of them, depicting the steelmaker F.I.Sveshnikov, was especially successful for the artist. In the guise of Sveshnikov, intently observing the melting, he managed to convey the modesty, simplicity, charm of a person with great life and work experience. But even the first "factory" sheets of Sokolov retain their significance for us; in them conscientious accuracy of the first steps along the path unknown by the author himself and other artists.

Throughout his life, I. Sokolov has worked a lot in the field of landscape. His landscapes of 1920-1930 became widely known; the cold freshness of early spring and the fiery robe of autumn are captured in them with a clear, precise pattern, clear, pure colors. Improving the technique of color linoleum engraving, achieving a free transfer of a rich gamut of colors, the artist uses a large number of boards, and sometimes rolls on the board not one, as usual, but several colors. His famous engraving "Kuzminki, Autumn" captivating with the hot picturesque colors, for example, is executed on seven boards in nine colors.

The events of the war were reflected by the artist in the large series "Moscow in 1942" and "What the enemy ruined". In the first of them, drawing tanks leaving for the front on the streets of Moscow, herds driven to the rear, vegetable gardens in the yards, etc., the artist saturates his sheets with genre motives, but nevertheless remains primarily a landscape painter in solving the composition as a whole. In the second - landscape - series, the documentary task is deliberately highlighted, but sadness also colors these sheets, depicting the painful destruction of the beautiful ensembles of the suburbs of Leningrad. The same documentary task confronts the artist in his series of post-war years, in which he diligently and thoroughly reproduced the memorable places associated with the life and work of V. I. Lenin and A. M. Gorky.

The first works about the new life, like the sheets of Nivinsky or Sokolov, were few. However, their number is gradually increasing. During the years of the first five-year plan, business trips of painters and graphic artists were organized to the most important new buildings, industrial giants, to the first collective farms. The artists were enthusiastic about these new tasks. And although among the works created as a result of these trips, there were still few things of high artistic merit, with this work a new fresh stream comes into the graphics, the breath of the great life of the country.

The complexity of this work consisted both in the artists' insufficient knowledge of the everyday life of socialist construction, and in the controversial nature of many issues of the artistic form characteristic of those years. Numerous art groups often came out with opposite theoretical platforms, and in the disputes that arose at that time, the very right to existence of easel art was sometimes called into question. It should not be forgotten that these years were a period of conflicting searches in the field of art education. Often, incorrect training of artists in universities deprived them of the solid foundations of professional skill, and the young graphic artist had to catch up a lot later. True, the works of a number of excellent masters of the older generation, as well as the advice they gave young people, were often very instructive for them outside the official walls of the university. There were also such studios as, for example, Kardovsky's studio, in which the artists underwent a fruitful school of realistic drawing and composition. Yet the working conditions for the artists were challenging. They improved only with the liquidation of artistic groups in the early 1930s and the unification of all healthy creative forces on a single realistic platform.

When graphics turned to modern themes, several main directions of the work of artists developed quite quickly. One of them was, as we saw in I. Sokolov's engravings, by way of an accurate, somewhat descriptive, almost documentary reproduction of what was seen, mainly, of the industrial environment of labor. In works of this type, there was a lot of ingenuous and honest desire of the authors to tell the viewer as accurately and fully as possible about new buildings and factories. It is not for nothing that artists often do not limit themselves to one sheet, but in a number of them depict views of a factory, construction, etc.

The second direction can be called the art of industrial landscape warmed by lyrical feeling, laconic, preserving the vividness of the sketch, but also its lack of agreement, which was created in the late 1920s - early 1930s by N.N.Kupreyanov (1894 - 1933), a student of such different artists Like Kardovsky, Petrov-Vodkin, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Kupreyanov followed a short but difficult path in art, full of constant searches. He worked interestingly not only in easel graphics, but also in book illustration. One of the first Kupreyanov devoted his things to the revolution, and his woodcuts "Armored Car" (1918) and "Cruiser" Aurora "(1923), somewhat deliberate in their accentuated angularity or fast movement of lines, carried a particle of genuine spiritual enthusiasm, a lively response to the events of October. Soon leaving the woodcut, Kupreyanov works mainly in the manner of free, full of light and mysterious black-and-white transitions of ink and watercolors. Chamber landscapes and scenes of the "Selishchensky series", in which there is both the warmth and close isolation of the family world, form one of the sides of his work. But the art of Kupreyanov early emerges into the vastness of the vast country. In the series "Railroad tracks" (1927), his fast brush fills sheet by sheet with the booming movement of trains, and in a hurried rhythm one can hear the echo of the country's business life. cycles "Baltika", which began to be created in 1931, and "Fisheries of the Caspian Sea", which arose as a result of the artist's trips there - the same lightness is outwardly careless oh sketchy manner of drawing. Behind it, one can feel the search for images of modernity, which is far from completed yet, combining the expression of the fleeting and the capacious content of the characteristic.

Early death interrupted the work of the artist in the midst of it.

The third direction in the work of graphic artists on contemporary themes emerged with the early tendency of a romantically upbeat rendering of the plot. She turns industrial motives into a majestic, sometimes enchanting spectacle. It would seem that such works have the most creative, emotional approach to nature. Indeed, among them there are often significant and very beautiful things in execution. But their romantic uplifting most often bears a somewhat abstract and subjective character, it, like the descriptive accuracy of other works, is the result of only the artist's first contact with the topic. No wonder, being carried away by general types of construction, workshops of factories, etc., the authors of all early industrial works still devote a very modest place in them to people. An example of romantic works is NI Dormidontov's sheet "Dneprostroy" (1931; ill. 8). Dormidontov (b. 1898) is also one of the first contemporary graphic artists. Already in the mid-1920s, his worksheets devoted to labor appeared - at first, constrainedly accurate and dry, then more free and found by composition. In the drawing "Dneprostroy" the artist is carried away by the enormous scale of the structure, the enchanting picture of night work, illuminated by the harsh light of numerous lamps. In his drawing, the work turns into a spectacle striking the imagination, mysterious, grandiose and slightly fantastic.

A similar interpretation of labor can be seen in a series of engravings by A.I. Kravchenko (1889 - 1940), also dedicated to the construction of the Dneproges (1931). It was created by the artist already in his mature period of creativity, and his effective skill was clearly manifested in it,

In the engravings of this cycle, huge structures of the dam are piled up, going upward, the arrows of the cranes rise closely around them, the high sky swirls in clouds, and the sun sends its dazzling rays upward. Contrasts of black and white give rise to a bright, restless range of engravings. The spectacle of the construction near Kravchenko is grandiose and impressive. And people who create a new industrial giant under difficult conditions are presented only as rhythmically repeating groups of identical silhouette figures, as abstract carriers of movement. However, many artists at that time were attracted primarily by the general panoramic expressiveness of the construction site, workshop, etc. And in Kravchenko's engravings, it is only expressed most talentedly.

In general, Kravchenko's work is a bright and original page in the history of our graphics. A master of woodcuts, etching and drawing, very sensitive to the themes of acute social coloring in easel things, a science fiction writer and a magician in illustrations, Kravchenko quickly gained wide popularity at home and abroad. Coming from a peasant family, he was educated at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Famous Russian painters S. Ivanov, V. Serov, K. Korovin, A. Arkhipov were his teachers. Kravchenko began his career as a painter, but in the field of drawing and engraving, to which he turned during the years of Soviet power, his work is especially interesting. Numerous trips to India, France, Italy, America and the Soviet Union completed Kravchenko's artistic education and broadened his horizons. Kravchenko worked a lot. In book illustration, he created a bizarre world of images that combine fantasy and grotesque, the quivering magic of feelings and the energy of obsession. He constantly worked in the field of landscape, his various sheets capture the harmony, beauty and modest nature of the Moscow region, and the famous cities of Europe. He is one of the first graphic artists to create story series, responding to topics of a public nature. A cycle of engravings dedicated to the funeral of V.I. Lenin, executed in the same year, 1924, was a sad eyewitness testimony, and now it has acquired the significance of a historical work. The artist subsequently returned to the Leninist theme once again, having executed in 1933 a strict and solemn engraving "Mausoleum". He also made a cycle of engravings "Life of a Woman in the Past and Present" for the Soviet pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris. In contrasting paintings, the artist reproduced the fate of a woman-mother in Tsarist and Soviet Russia; he appeared here as a storyteller, whose speech is emotional and vivid, but there was no great inner and plastic expressiveness in his images. After the series "Dneprostroy" Kravchenko did not leave the industrial theme and in 1938, based on the materials of a creative trip, he created drawings and etching dedicated to the Azovstal plant.

In the etching depicting the spill of steel (ill. 9), the artist is still fascinated by the power of huge technical structures, the majesty of the picture of labor. He freely composes a complex scene, effectively illuminating it with streams of light and sparks. In addition, a real work rhythm appears here, and with it the expediency of everything that happens, instead of the somewhat abstract pathos of Dneproetroi. In addition to spectacular entertainment, the sheet also acquires great content.

This monumental etching was performed by Kravchenko for the All-Union Exhibition "Industry of Socialism". This exhibition in Soviet art is associated with the mass appeal of artists to modernity. Works for it were created for several years, starting in 1936. Shortly before the start of this work, 1,500 shock workers of one of the largest factories wrote on the pages of Pravda, addressing the artists:

"We expect great canvases from you. We want them not to be just simple photographs. We want passion to be embedded in them. We want them to excite us and our children. We want them to instill in us the joy of struggle. and a thirst for new victories. We want you to show the people of our country - the heroes and ordinary participants in our construction project. "

These hot words not only well formulated the tasks of our art, but also reflected that atmosphere of the people's demanding love for art, that sublime interest in it of a working man who helped artists in their work. Organized on the initiative of Sergo Ordzhonikidze and opened during the 18th Party Congress, the exhibition widely covered the life of the Soviet Union. Over 1000 works were exhibited here, of which about 340 were in the graphics department (except for satirical ones). Few among these sheets were works of great skill, few of them have survived to this day. But the new themes brought by them, seen by the artists in life - on the forests of new buildings, in the workshops of the plant - were a great conquest for graphic art. Dneprostroy and work at the Solikamsk potash mines, the construction of the metro and the development of the Arctic, gold mining in the taiga and the work of a miner - how different these topics are from the vicious circle of life phenomena that the world of easel graphics was limited to earlier, how little adherence to antiquity, fundamental retrospective! There were still many industrial landscapes here. But besides them, scenes of labor also appear; and a person working in a factory, in a field, in a laboratory, in a mine becomes the hero of graphic works for the first time. Artists still do not know his inner world well, at first they only feel well and are able to convey his confident habits in work, the plasticity of professional movements. Therefore, a labor gesture in drawings is more convincing than a facial expression, and some good works are spoiled by the outward roughness of the characters.

The artist A. Samokhvalov (born 1894), for example, in a series of watercolors showed the energy and optimism of the Metrostroy Girls well, but also emphasized their roughness. Such an emphasis, as it were, puts a limit to our knowledge of Samokhvalov's heroines and impoverishes his work, although in her very tone, in her atmosphere, there are features that are correctly seen in life. A more thoughtful characterization of the man of labor in watercolors S. M. Shor (born 1897) "Kozlovshchitsa" from the series "Old and New Qualifications of Donbass" (1936; ill, 10). Here the image of an intelligent and energetic woman has been created, her spiritual makeup and moral strength are sensitively guessed. It is not without reason that S. Shor later became a master of the graphic portrait, most often performed by her in the technique of etching.

In the pre-war years, there are worksheets dedicated to I. A. Lukomsky (born 1906). In his sepia drawing "Worker" (1941; ill. 11), the emphasis from the individual characteristic is transferred to the typical, presented with emphasis, as it were, in close-up. Inner freedom, pride in one's work is read in the face of the worker.

An important event for graphics was in the 1930s the preparation of an exhibition of illustrations for the history of the party. She focused the interest of many artists on historical subjects, made them rethink the path traversed by our state. The historical and revolutionary theme began its life in graphics in the early 1920s. However, then these were only separate works, mainly engravings, in which abstract decorativeness and schematism were often thought of as an integral part of engraving technique. Later, in 1927, as the complete opposite of these works, the image of the hero of the Perekop battles, fanned with revolutionary pathos, appeared under the chisel of the Ukrainian artist V.I.Kasiyan. V. I. Kasiyan (b. 1896) - a native of Western Ukraine, educated at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts - an artist seeking a soul, a bright temperamental manner. His leaf is bright, emotional, but he remains lonely in the schedule of these years.

Most of the works created for the above-mentioned exhibition have acquired easel rather than illustrative character. Opened in 1941, before the war, it was called the "Exhibition of New Works of Soviet Graphics" and included a number of good works. Many of them belonged to the masters of book graphics. Illustrators brought into the sphere of easel drawing the psychological nature of images and the accuracy of the historical setting, which were then recent and striking achievements of their art. Such were the sheets of the Kukryniksy group of artists - "On the Barricades", "Chkalov on Udd Island", "Political Leads", Kibrik - "Khalturin and Obnorsky", Shmarinov "Bauman's Funeral" and others.

In the 1920s and 1930s, graphic artists were also interested in historical themes in another aspect related to literature.

Inspirational images of Pushkin and Lermontov attracted the creative attention of artists for many years. N.P. Ulyanov (1875 - 1949) put a lot of work into his Pushkin series. One of the major Soviet painters of the older generation, a close student of V. A. Serov, Ulyanov was a master of historical painting and portraiture, as well as a theater artist.

Ulyanov's drawings tell about different periods of the great poet's life - from the lyceum days to the last tragic months; they are completed to varying degrees - some are more, others look like sketches, like pages of intense and unfinished searches, but in all of them the main thing for the artist is the fiery life of Pushkin's soul. One of the best is the drawing, executed in connection with the painting "Pushkin with his wife in front of the mirror at the court ball". The proud, beautiful appearance of Pushkin appears here in the laconic lines of a Serov-inspired drawing.

The Pushkin theme gets another interpretation in graphics - in the landscape of memorable places. The artist LS Khizhinsky (born 1896) acts in this genre. In his jewelry, with great skill in woodcuts, depicting Pushkin's and Lermontov's scenes, he achieves a difficult combination of documentary precision and emotional poetic beginning. Without this combination, the success of the memorial landscape is impossible, always built on subtle subtext, individual associations.

In the 1930s, new moments in the development of graphics are felt very strongly. They consist not only of new directions in the work of artists, which, as we have seen, - supported by exhibition activities! - are gaining in scope, but also in the new content of the traditional genres of portrait and landscape, and in the emergence of significant works by artists of the Union republics. So, V.I.Kasiyan, already mentioned above, created in these years engravings, full of serious thoughts, dedicated to Shevchenko. The artist also put a lot of spiritual fire into his later work about the great kobzar, depicting the unbroken angry Shevchenko against the background of episodes of the people's struggle (ill. 12).

Among the most important works of these years are landscapes and portraits of the Armenian master M. Abeghian, lithographs dedicated to Moldova, the Ukrainian G. Pustoviyt, a monumental etching by the Georgian artist D. Kutateladze, depicting S. Ordzhonikidze and S. M. Kirov. During this period, the famous Azerbaijani artist A. Azimzade - a cartoonist, draftsman and poster artist - creates the most interesting things in the field of easel graphics. Pictures of the past are reproduced in his sheets in an original manner of detailed, with a touch of ornamental design. What is new in the portrait and landscape of the 1930s? The former intimacy of these genres is disappearing, and their masters come out to meet life more and more boldly, recognizing new people, expanding the geographical scope of landscape works. The latter applies not only to the masters of the industrial, but also to the ordinary landscape. If earlier only EE Lancere, who tirelessly studied the nature and life of the peoples of the Caucasus, and Shillingovsky, who painted Armenia, deviated from the established Moscow-Leningrad tradition in landscape, now a whole galaxy of masters creates their works outside its narrow boundaries. Artists depict the nature of central Russia, the North, Crimea, the Caucasus, Central Asia. The landscape becomes an area of ​​brilliant use of watercolor techniques. The works of graphic artists L. Bruni, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, painters S. Gerasimov, A. Deineka, P. Konchalovsky testify to the real flourishing of the watercolor landscape. The activity of the author's perception of the world is a new feature of these works. Perhaps, with particular clarity, it is visible in the landscapes of those artists who during these years had a chance to visit abroad.

A keen vision of the contrasts of foreign reality is inherent, for example, in the Parisian and Roman landscapes of A. A, Deineka (ill. 13). The artist cannot surrender to the calm charm of stately architecture and statues, as was the case more than once in the pre-revolutionary foreign series of graphics; against this beautiful background, his eye notices both the figure of the unemployed and the sinister, self-confident figures of the church ministers. In the circle of such works as Deineka's sheets, journalistic passion, political intransigence inherent in Soviet graphics is born.

These qualities manifested themselves with great force in the "Spanish Series" of drawings by the Leningrader Yu. N. Petrov (1904 - 1944). The Petrov series was the contribution of easel graphics to the fight against fascism, which in those years was already actively pursued by both caricature masters and political poster artists. The art of Yu. Petrov, a draftsman and illustrator, was the art of great culture and deep feelings. Petrov was a participant in the struggle against fascism in Spain, he knew and loved this country, its people, its great writers and artists of the past, and his drawings reflected this love and reverence. Spain, its mountainous landscapes, houses destroyed by bombs, restrained, proud and ardent people - the soldiers of the People's Army, women and children who have lost their homes, are captured in laconic, slightly sad and courageous compositions. Other pages of Petrov's series seem to be sketches, but a gentle drawing with soft modeling so accurately outlines the plasticity of forms and landscape plans, such a quivering life fills them that one can feel the great thoughtfulness of each sheet. This series to this day remains one of the most experienced and sincere things in our schedule. Its author subsequently died at a combat post during the Great Patriotic War, and his art, which promised a lot, did not manage to reach its zenith.

The Great Patriotic War, which began in 1941, dramatically changed the nature and pace of development of all types of art. She also caused great changes in easel graphics. The efficiency of graphics, the comparative simplicity of its techniques have now become especially precious qualities. The burning need to say their word in the hour of national trials, to respond more quickly to the bitterness and heroism of the day that had come, led many artists to drawing, watercolors, and sometimes engraving. Along with its recognized masters, some painters, as well as, very successfully, illustrators, began to work in easel graphics.

From the very first year of the war, along with posters and caricatures, easel graphics became one of the most active forms of art that deeply excite the hearts of spectators. Masters of drawing and engraving performed many beautiful things, born of anger and inspiration. There are individual peaks in this string of works that are distinguished by their special plastic skill. But the general level of military graphics is also high. The artists created their drawings both in the ranks of the Red Army and in besieged Leningrad, in the cities through which a heavy wave of retreat passed, in the rear, where everything was subordinated to the tasks of the front, and outside the borders of our country in the last period of the battle against fascism. The graphics showed us different sides of the war, different facets of life in this crucial period in the history of our Motherland - from the fleeting pensiveness of a tired nurse to the panorama of a huge battle. At the same time, the difference in talents, the warehouse of the imaginative thinking of artists, was also vividly reflected. In the works of one of them, the war appears as long military roads, often uncomfortable, and sometimes so sharply pleasing to the eye with the unexpected beauty of the surviving forest. In the pages of another, she goes through a series of simple scenes of army life, sketched hastily, but accurately. In the drawings of the third, she is in the special expression of the eyes of a warrior or partisan who has met death more than once. The courage and patriotism of the Soviet people, so clearly manifested in the war years, were praised by the artists in these works of different nature. The graphic works are full of that special feeling of the beauty of our Soviet life, heightened by the war, with which the best things in all types of art were distinguished.

The appearance of a large number of sketches has become a characteristic feature of the graphics. Artists performed them sometimes in the most difficult combat situation, trying to more accurately and fully tell people about the war, to collect material for future compositions. In the preface to the album of drawings "Front Diary" by Moscow graphic artist P. Ya. Kirpichev, Hero of the Soviet Union S. Borzenko writes: "One after another, the pictures sketched in the wake of the war pass by the way the artist saw them at the moment of events ... No dangers and difficulties stopped him. He made his way to the chosen objects among the minefields and worked there from morning till evening, fearing to miss the moment, fearing that the fires would go out and the trophy teams would take away the destroyed guns and tanks. " This description of the front-line work of the artist is very characteristic, for just like Kirpichev, many graphic easel painters worked during the war. Sketches constitute a precious fund of our art, far from being published in full. Their authors are N. A. Avvakums, O. G. Vereyskiy, M. G. Deregus, U. M. Dzhaparidze, N. N. Zhukov, P. Ya. Kirpichev, A. V. Kokorii, D. K-Mochalsky, EK Okas, U. Tansykbaev, SS Uranova and others have created a whole chronicle of difficult military everyday life, a poem about a man in war, defending his homeland from fascism.

Despite the fluency that distinguishes sketches, they already indicate the peculiarities of the talent of each artist - and not only his master of drawing, but also a certain range of phenomena that touches him most of all.

So, A. V. Kokorin (born 1908), for example, will never pass by a picturesque scene, unexpectedly seen by him, he will sketch in his graphic diary both saddles hung on a gun and a broken truck with sticking out from under it on three sides the boots of the soldiers who are fixing it, and the soldier of the convoy, calmly sewing something on a sewing machine right in the field, and the figure of a priest with a large backpack talking to a Soviet soldier. The general character of the appearance of people is precisely captured by Kokorin, and behind his simple scenes you always feel a slight smile, an affection for his heroes. It was in these sketches that Kokorin's experience as a master of architectural landscape was accumulated, who knew how to outline the appearance of the city, the main contours of its architecture, and the life of the street - qualities that were developed in the post-war Indian drawings of the artist.

Warmth and lyricism distinguish sketches and drawings by DK Mochalsky. Even in the most unsuitable environment for this, in the hustle and bustle of front-line roads leading at the last stage of the war directly to Berlin, or already in Berlin - the citadel of fascism just taken by our troops - the warmth of life, its joyful ray, in a gentle guise will surely flash in Mochalsky's sheets girls-traffic controllers, in the gaze of a fighter, directed at a woman with a baby carriage.

As an artist-physiognomist, who can see a lot in a person, N. N. Zhukov (born 1908) appears in military sketches. The constant interest in the inner world of a person makes his most, it would seem, fluent drawings meaningful. Landscapes, sketches of soldiers, genre scenes alternate in his sheets. The manner of Zhukov's pencil drawing, devoid of any shade of external showiness, as it were, reflects this preoccupation of the artist with nature, the thoughtfulness of his approach to it. Zhukov's works gained fame even before the war, when he performed a series of illustrations for the biography of Karl Marx. Subsequently, Zhukov did not leave his work on this responsible topic. He also invested a lot of work in the creation of a series of drawings "V. I. Lenin". The most successful of her sheets are solved in the form of a light sketch that captures a short moment in the chain of others, in the form of a kind of portrait sketch. But it was precisely during the creation of military sketches that the artist's observation and skill of quick sketching were strengthened, which were useful to him later - both in an extensive series of drawings dedicated to children, popular with viewers, and in portraits. Most of all, the experience of wartime work was reflected in the illustrations for "The Tale of a Real Man" by B. Polevoy, created by Zhukov shortly after the war.

It must be said that the experience of military work played a role in the illustrative work of other artists. This experience helped O. G. Vereisky to create drawings for "Vasily Terkin" by A. Tvardovsky, for a long time brought A. V. Kokorin, later illustrator of "Sevastopol Tales" L. N. Tolstoy, closer to the military theme. The path of A. P. Livanov from the series "Partisans", created by him shortly after the war, to the illustration of "Chapaev" by D. A. Furmanov was also logical.

Another characteristic feature of the graphics of the war years was the artists' appeal to the form of a series, that is, a series of sheets united by a single concept and manner of execution. We could see that the series were created by artists before, but during the war years they became a leading phenomenon in graphics. A series is good only when the viewer learns something new with each of its pages, when the artist guides his impressions, in a certain way alternating sheets, that is, giving the series a clear composition. We always come across the concept of "composition" when analyzing a separate work of art. But in reality there is also a composition of a whole graphic series as an internal regularity of the alternation of its sheets, between which various connections arise. By clearly building the composition of the series, the artist finds in it a new means of great expressiveness. The author of the series essentially performs a polysyllabic, multifaceted work, each page of which should sound complete and strong, and at the same time be an integral part of the whole, created as if by a single breath. Of course, this is not an easy task. And quite often the sum of the sheets, called by the artist a series, in essence is not.

The composition of the series is different. So, a series can be built on a contrasting comparison of sheets, or, on the contrary, their even, identical sound. In another case, the author can begin his serial story, gradually increasing its emotional tension, creating in one or several sheets a kind of culmination of action and feelings and closing it with an ending.

This is how, for example, a large cycle of lithographs by AF Pakhomov "Leningrad in the days of the siege and liberation", published with the text of the poet NS Tikhonov in 1946, was composed. This cycle was the first major performance in easel graphics by A. F. Pakhomov (born 1900), a master of children's books, known for his illustrations to the works of N. A. Nekrasov and I. S. Turgenev. Pakhomov's lithographs are eyewitness accounts, and they touch us with the truth of what we saw, with the light of great human solidarity and courage.

The series opens with the sheet "Seeing off the people's militia", It immediately transports us into an atmosphere of anxiety, confusion of a disturbed happy life. Further events develop rapidly, the life of the city changes, shelling and bombing become an integral part of it. Leningraders are building bunkers on the streets, on duty during an alarm on the roofs, rescuing the wounded from destroyed houses. All this is shown in lithographs, rapidly replacing each other, as detailed as a story, but filled with inner tension. In them, time is condensed and saturated, people act without wasting a minute, bravely fighting the enemy.

The next page of the album - "On the Neva for Water" (ill. 14) takes us out of the fast rhythm of these episodes. Here time passes slowly - this is the heavy tread of the cold and hungry days of the Leningrad blockade. A girl with an unbearably heavy bucket is slowly moving up the stairs. This heroine of Pakhomova is one of the strongest characters not only in the series, but in the entire military graphics. The viewer's gaze first of all stops on the girl's face - this is how the composition of the lithograph is built, this is how the exceptional expressiveness of this face dictates. The artist developed his facial expressions in detail - dark eyes expressing deep fatigue seem especially large on a thinned face, frowned eyebrows are drawn together in a sharp movement, the bloodless lips of a half-open mouth are so pale that they hardly stand out on the face, and the artist slightly outlines their outline with a line. It would seem that the image of this girl would be the embodiment of fatigue and suffering. But the most remarkable thing about him is the combination of these traits of physical fatigue and exhaustion with mental hardness.

The perseverance and defiance of the heroine Pakhomov is a complex alloy of many aspects of her spiritual life, her inner qualities, and at the same time this is her main quality prevailing over all others. Here, along with Pakhomov's usual simplicity and ingenuous clarity of the image, his versatility and depth are born. Pakhomov is always especially close to the images of children. And in this lithograph he was able to tell a lot, showing how a girl pours water from a teapot; for her this is a matter in which she is completely absorbed - both a necessity and at the same time a game. In this combination, aching pain, in it is a genuine blockade life with its notes of acute tragedy in the midst of everyday life. The snowy expanse of the river and the chilling transparent winter air are well reproduced in lithographs. This sheet, like the next drawing "To the hospital", is the most powerful, filled with feeling. They form, as it were, the culmination of the series. Further, the artist's story is conducted more calmly and, in accordance with the tread of events, his sheets are made brighter and more joyful: "Roofs", "New Year's Eve" and others. The series logically ends with a picture of a salute on January 27, 1944 in honor of the breakthrough of the blockade of the city by the Soviet Army, a salute that so deeply and joyfully excites people, evoking a whole string of memories and hopes. Under the fireworks, people rejoice in different ways: noisily, completely surrendering to the bright triumph of this moment, and thoughtfully, slightly receding into memories, and deeply, with all their heart, feeling the safety of their children. Excitement and joy unites them, and the close composition of the leaf, as it were, makes this solidity visible and personally.

Many works by other artists are also dedicated to the military Leningrad. Let us name another series of linocuts by S. B. Yudovin (1892 - 1954). We saw how in Pakhomov's series the lithographic technique allowed the artist to present each painting he conceived in detail, delving into the details, combining their linear subtlety with the picturesqueness of the melting expanses of the winter landscape. Yudovin's series is executed with linocut. Yudovin is characterized by heightened feelings, tragic notes sound imperiously in his sheets. And the whole figurative structure of his sheets, and the manner of execution are subordinated to this feeling of the tragedy of what is happening. A heavy black color and a cold glow of snow reign in his prints. In the cooling silence of the city, people wander with difficulty, bending under the weight of the burden, under the burden of blockade troubles. Their figures, which are usually seen as if from above, stand out sharply against the background of snowy streets. An angular pattern, a merciless light that snatches sienna out of the darkness; everyday life, which became the frame of the tragedy - such are Yudovin's engravings. It is in vain to reproach the artist for their harsh truthfulness, for the lack of optimism. The nature of Yudovin's talent allowed him to express with particular sensitivity the tragic aspects of the struggle of the Leningraders with the enemy.

But the graphics as a whole were characterized by a brighter view of the world, even when depicting the trials that befell the Soviet people. We could see this already in Pakhomov's series and we will find new confirmation of this, having got acquainted with the series of drawings by D. A. Shmarinov "We will not forget, we will not forgive!" Shmarinov (born 1907) is one of those artists who made great strides in Soviet book illustration in the 1930s. He received good professional training at the art studios of Prakhov in Kiev and Kardovsky in Moscow. The psychologist's talent and great inner culture distinguish his book works. During the war years Shmarinov creates posters and easel drawings. The series "We will not forget, we will not forgive!" was executed by him in 1942 in a short time, but its plan was formed during the entire first year of the war.

Not gradually, the artist's story begins with an outset - he immediately shocks us with the high tragedy of the "Shooting" drawing. Pictures of the trials and calamities of the war follow one another, but the bright theme of the courage of the Soviet people, which emerged from the first page of the series, wins even in its most bitter pages. One of the best drawings in this cycle is the "Return" sheet (ill. 15). Thousands of Soviet collective farmers in life were familiar with the situation in which the woman depicted by the artist is. Shmarinov drew her at the moment when the sight of a devastated, destroyed home for the first time opened her eyes, forcing her to stop in a kind of numbness of sorrowful and indignant meditation. Her deep excitement outwardly hardly manifests itself in anything. This is the restraint of a strong person who does not allow himself an explosion of feelings, moments of despair. And how much the landscape speaks to the viewer here! The transparent purity of the air, the brightness of the sun's glare and shadows sliding over the thawed earth - this charming picture of early spring brings joy to the complex subtext of the scene. Liszt begins to sound like a lyrical story, and this is very characteristic of Shmarinov's talent. Shmarinov's drawings, executed in charcoal and black watercolor, go through many stages in the process. But they happily avoid dry external completeness, preserving the quivering liveliness of the strokes, as if just put by the artist.

Only in the last two sheets of the series - "Return" and "Meeting" - there is no image of the Nazis, and although joy is still very far away, the atmosphere becomes brighter, the characters breathe easier. The harsh life of the first year of the war, the events of which the artist summarized, suggested to him the composition of the series - the unrelenting tragic tension of most of its pages and the bright notes of the last drawings.

During the war years, V.A.Favorsky (born 1886), one of the oldest Soviet artists, a great master of wood engraving, also turns to easel graphics. Throughout his career, book illustration attracted most of his attention. And now Soviet and foreign viewers admire, first of all, the harmonious epic world of his engravings for "The Lay of Igor's Campaign", the tragedy and depth of illustrations for "Boris Godunov" to the tragedies of "Pushkin. But already at the end of the 1920s, Favorsky also created a wonderful portrait of F.M.Dostoevsky - a completely independent thing, although, of course, closely related to the writer's books. Light and shadow compete in this disturbing leaf; anxiously, strongly sculpted the image of a man overwhelmed by a whirlwind of painful thoughts. Here we come into contact with a psychic life of exceptional intensity, we guess an inner world full of contradictions and struggle. There is great skill in the free variety of strokes, in the wise use of color.

In the 1940s, Favorsky created the sheets "Minin and Pozharsky", "Kutuzov". The artist was not alone in his creative appeal to the glorious pages of the history of our Motherland; they naturally attracted the special attention of painters and graphic artists during the war years. In the Samarkand series of rhythmically thin linocuts performed at the same time, the course of everyday life is captured with unhurried grace and laconicism. The white background, which plays an important role in all of its sheets, accentuates the grace of silhouettes, the musicality of simple but thoughtful compositions.

Later, the artist more than once turned to easel graphics (sheet "Flying Birds", 1959; see frontispiece, etc.), but book illustration occupies him to an immeasurably greater degree.

A prominent place in the wartime schedule belongs to the works of L. V. Soyfertis (born 1911). Soifertis previously worked in the field of magazine satirical graphics, and now he often appears on the pages of the magazine "Crocodile". During the war years, he took part in battles in Sevastopol, Novorossiysk, Odessa. Soifertis had a lot of hard times in the war, more than once death was near him, but his light and light talent drew from this not the violent scenes of battle, not tragedy and death, but the smile of life, which remains itself and under the bombardment. A peculiar acuity, amusement distinguish the positions depicted by him. The sailor hurries to the front line in besieged Sevastopol, and the boys - for speed together - diligently polish his shoes. "Once upon a time" - this is the name of this sheet. There is an air battle over the city in the sunny sky, women are watching him, and the old woman calmly sews something, sitting right there on a chair at the gate. Sailors at a newspaper window read the latest news, standing in a tight group, bristling with bayonets of rifles (ill. 16), a sailor and a photographer are located in a bomb crater - they need a picture for a party document. All this, obviously, can be called everyday episodes, but this is a life that was established two steps from the front line, and the most unpretentious, even funny at first glance, scenes here are fanned with a breath of great courage and heroism. Soyfertis' drawings are truly graceful. And if in Favorsky's "Samarkand Series" the chased lines and silhouettes of linocuts were elegant, Soyfertis has graceful and beautiful light, brittle, as if careless lines of the contour drawing and a lively, breathing, slightly tinted transparent fill with watercolors.

Soifertis remains an artist of a fleeting smile and great sympathy for people in his drawings of the 1950s. His Metro series is a series of genre scenes noticed in the hustle and bustle of Moscow's underground palaces, and drawings and etchings dedicated to children are still surprisingly vigilantly seen, still illuminated by a demanding interest in man. Either touching and funny, now mocking and even slightly grotesque, acquiring sharpness in juxtapositions, these sheets always reveal to us some new features of life, new in the usual stream of everyday life.

A large amount of material accumulated during the war years did not fit calmly into the archives of artists. Many of them continued to work on military topics after the end of the war. Especially a lot of drawings and engravings about the war were shown at the exhibitions of the first peaceful years. At the same time, the work of graphic artists naturally followed the path of generalizing their knowledge and visual impressions, along the path from a sketch and sketch to an easel sheet and a whole graphic series. Thus, several series of lithographs based on the materials of his military sketches were executed in 1946 - 1950 by the artist V.V. Bogatkin (born 1922). During the war years, Bogatkin was just beginning his creative work. He painted a lot; one of his drawings, depicting a young soldier on the banks of the Tisza (1945), gained considerable fame. But the main area of ​​his work was the landscape. The silence of the deserted streets of besieged Leningrad, darkened Moscow, Berlin in the days of the collapse of fascism, mountains of broken equipment in its streets, Soviet tanks at the Brandenburg Gate are captured by Bogatkin in his lithographs. Over the years, the accuracy of what we saw, contained in these sheets, created in hot pursuit of the war, is more and more appreciated by us.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the picture of the development of easel graphics was complex and largely contradictory. The artists managed to notice and convey some very significant facets of our life and, above all, show a person who has gone through a war, the joy of his return to work, a passionate thirst for creation. This was especially pronounced in some works devoted to collective farm labor; the beauty of the peaceful fields of our Motherland was felt in them as a newly acquired, conquered property. At the same time, in the stream of drawings depicting Soviet people and their labor, the traits of illustrativeness, the poverty of thoughts and feelings were clearly manifested. Prose documentaryness prevented many artists in these works from rising to the level of poetic generalization of our life. Many drawings and engravings on historical and revolutionary themes appeared, artists gave their strength and talent to their creation, but the influence of the personality cult affected them especially hard. It prevented artists from creating works of great ideological saturation, led in some works to incorrect coverage of the role of the people as the creator of history.

The graphics of these years developed unilaterally in technical terms. Many graphic techniques were almost never used; ink, charcoal and black watercolor painting predominated. Only in the field of landscape was real watercolor painting and some types of engraving not uncommon. But a variety of techniques often coexisted in the landscape with the inner passivity of things.

On the other hand, in those years, works of great artistic merit were created. Thus, during this period, the original and strong talent of BI Prorokov, now one of the leading masters of Soviet graphics, was formed. The work of Proporokov is vitally connected with the years of the war, with what was seen and experienced by the artist at that time. But Prophets not only returned all these years with the memory of his heart to war, he was able to say with his art the most necessary words about peace.

BI Prorokov was born in 1911 in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. His penchant for drawing showed up early, in high school. His school drawings, sent to the competition of the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda", were awarded the first prize. This gave the author the right to get a ticket to the Higher Artistic and Technical Institute (Vhutein). However, the study there gave little to the Prophet and it lasted less than two years. Only the advice of the greatest master of political graphics D.S.Moor, who taught lithography, was very valuable for Proporokov. Without receiving a special education, Proporokov went through a good school - political and artistic - at work in "Komsomolskaya Pravda" and later in the magazine "Crocodil". On the assignments of the newspaper, he traveled a lot around the country, as a newspaperman, he learned to make a large supply of sketches for future use in order to quickly complete any task. Most of the pre-war works of Prorokov are caricatures on domestic and international themes. Individual posters, also executed by him, and in particular a sheet exposing the bestial anti-humanist nature of fascism, already foreshadowed the journalistic intensity, passion and acuteness of his future works.

From the first months of the war, the Prophets worked in the newspaper of the garrison of the Hanko Peninsula, which heroically withstood the siege of the enemy.

"We are sometimes embarrassed to speak about the feat of a man of art as loudly as about the feat of a soldier or commander, until it happens to a writer or artist to replace the killed commander in battle and lead the defense of the heights," wrote the member of the defense Hanko, who told about it in the story "The Ganguttsy" Vl. Rudny. - And I do not imagine to myself a steadfast struggle of the sailors of Gangut * ( * The Hanko Peninsula was called Gangut during the time of Peter I) in 1941 without prophetic laughter and satire, without his daily pictorial feuilletons, prints, portraits, carved due to the lack of zinc for clichés on linoleum stripped from the floors in houses destroyed by the war. "The artist left Hanko with the last detachments of sailors. Kronstadt and Leningrad in the blockade, Malaya Zemlya near Novorossiysk, Berlin and Port Arthur - these are the milestones of his military path. And everywhere, even in the most difficult conditions and right on the front line, the artist painted a lot.

The first post-war series of Prorokov - "In Kuomintang China" was created by him on the basis of what he saw in the Far East immediately after the defeat of the Japanese militarists. Small in volume, it only outlines some of the features of the life of the Chinese people, still experiencing colonial oppression and fighting for their national liberation. But the passion of the author's attitude to life is already fully reflected here. With sympathy, the artist draws a Chinese partisan - a simple, modest and courageous young man, with hatred and derision - elegant Americans who staged inhuman rickshaw races; he shares, it seems to us, both the frenzy of the frantic speaker at the rally and the heavy weariness of the rickshaw crouching under the scorching sun by the sidecar. In the next works of Proporokov, too, we will, as it were, feel his author's voice, his always ardent indignation or love, and therefore his works will seize us with special force.

In the subsequent cycles of drawings "Here it is, America!" and "For peace!" the voice of the Prophet-publicist grew stronger. Life on his pages takes on the wrathful force of the political exposure of imperialism. In the drawing "Tanks of the Aggressor to the Bottom", the artist in an exciting pathetic image shows the will of the workers for peace, the strength of their solidarity. A gust of indignation unleashed the forces, rallied a monolithic group of people, dropping a tank into the water. The sheet is laconic in composition, full of the pathos of struggle; it freely withstands a large increase, and more than once the supporters of peace outside our country carried it like a poster at demonstrations. The series "Here it is, America!" was performed by the Prophet as illustrative for the book of pamphlets and essays about America. But she essentially turned into an easel cycle - so independently, understandable and without text, the content of her sheets. Likewise, Prorokov's later illustrations for the book "Mayakovsky about America" ​​acquired easel features. The appeal to Mayakovsky was deeply logical in the work of Proporokov. The artist is very close to the passionate pressure of Mayakovsky's poems, and their characteristic alternation of anger and sarcasm, and bold allegorical images, and the obligatory political assessment of the phenomena.

In all his works performed after the war, Prophets fights for peace, exposes imperialism, the inhumanity of his colonial policy, his militaristic designs. But the artist's most powerful performance for peace was his series "This must not happen again!"

Two sheets of opposite mood are highlighted in his series: on one - "Hiroshima" - a doomed face still looking at us from the hell of an atomic explosion, on the other - a young mother, with arms in her hands, protecting a child, defending a bright life on earth. Between these two sheets, as in a frame, there is a line of pictures of the war. In them, people are fighting the death that fascism brings; and at the hour of death they despise the enemy, as a young woman despises the executioners, in whose eyes stands the bloody vision of Babi Yar (ill. 17). There are no details that dissipate huge tension, each leaf is a feeling taken at its highest moment, this is pain that is not destined to end yet. Sharp silhouette and close-up are chosen here as mandatory artistic techniques. Only an artist of great courage and ardent faith in people could repeat to us the cruel truth about the past war with such tremendous power. His sheets filled with pain, anger and suffering leave no one indifferent. The testament of the Czech communist J. Fucik "People, be vigilant!" again sounds for us in this series of the Soviet artist.

Among the works dedicated to V.I.Lenin, the drawings of the greatest master of book illustration E.A.Kibrik (born 1906) stand out. In separate sheets of the series, the artist, who carefully studied materials related to Lenin's activities in the year of the revolution, not only mastered the first truth of external similarity, but also advanced further, to the depths of internal characteristics.

The sheet "V. I. Lenin in the Underground" (ill. 18) reproduces the days of July 1917, when Lenin, while living in Petrograd, was forced to hide from the hounds of the Provisional Government. How did the artist himself imagine the plot of this drawing? According to him, here he wanted to show Lenin the theoretician, scientist, thinker, who daily appeared in those days with articles that armed the party in its struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat; the specific moment that needs to be depicted, the artist described as follows: "... Lenin, as it was characteristic of him, walked around the room, pondering the enormous material that every day brought life and in which he had to catch the most important thing, for what it is necessary to aim the party with another article in Pravda. Having found this important thing, he quickly sat down at the table, immediately forgetting about everything in the world, plunged into work. " It is characteristic that Kibrik imagines an image in motion and, drawing a single moment in the chain of others, takes into account the previous one as well. The silence of a small solitary room is full of the tension of great toil. The artist was able to convey Levin's busyness, preoccupation with business with the concentrated expression of his face, his posture of a quickly writing person.

The drawing "V. I. Lenin in Razliv" is different in mood: it contains excitement, a restrained impulse. The stream of Lenin's thoughts is far from the surrounding, and the vastness of the lakeside landscape, as it were, expands the scope of the sheet. In the book cited above, Kibrik sets out in detail the process of his work on these compositions, and everyone who is familiar with his drawings will be interested in reading these pages.

By the mid-1950s, there are wonderful things about our modern times in the graphics. The artist Yu. I. Pimenov - a painter, graphic artist and theater decorator - with his large series "Moscow Region" opened for us a whole big world, full of the bright joy of life. Pimenov possesses a rare gift of poetic description of everyday life, the ability to see the beauty of everyday life. And beauty, noticed in the ordinary, always finds its especially close paths to the heart of the viewer. The heated air of a hot day in the suburbs and the figurine of a girl on a boardwalk, perky workers at the construction of new houses and the shining of rain on the Moscow outskirts of the square - these are the simple plots of Pimenov's drawings and watercolors. "For a genre painter, it seems to me," he wrote, "the most precious finds are those genuine pieces of life he has seen, where the great truth of the country is revealed in ordinary, unthinkable, real cases of every day." The fast paced working rhythm of our time, its special, energetic and businesslike beauty live in the artist's works (see cover). In activity, activity, perhaps, lies the main charm of Pimenov's images, and in particular, his constant heroines - women working at a construction site, busy with apartment renovation, sewing, and household chores. The light, light coloring of his watercolors makes even the most seemingly ordinary scenes and things festive. The artist also brings great picturesqueness to the technique of black watercolors and charcoal. With gradations of black, he knows how to convey the depth of the shadows that fall on the water from the trees, and the transparent cold of early spring, and the freshness of the rain on the station platform, and the resinous comfort of the forest road. Pimenov is a very solid artist. His angle of view of the world, the circle of his favorite subjects remains the same in a series of paintings from 1940-1950s - genre scenes, still lifes, so simply and poetically telling about a contemporary, and in his graphics, and even in prose - in a book about the Moscow region, written with ardent enthusiasm, swiftly, gracefully and easily, with a purely artistic vision of life in its truly beautiful, multicolored guise.

Life in motion, new and joyful, born every day, rushes to capture Pimenov in his later series "New Quarters".

Having visited abroad more than once in the 1950s, Pimenov performed a series of small canvases and sketches based on the impressions of these trips or directly during his travels. Here, too, his gaze remains primarily the gaze of a man in love with beauty; journalism is not characteristic of him. But the sorrowful lyrics of some of his foreign things involuntarily sound like a contrast to the sonorous happiness of his sheets, dedicated to the ordinary days and affairs of our life.

Pimenov's foreign things were not alone in our schedule. In the 1950s and beyond, when the international cultural ties of our country expanded and many artists visited various countries of the world, a whole group of series appeared based on the impressions of these trips. They usually contained scenes of street life, landscapes, individual portrait sheets. Artists talked about what they saw, showing picturesque corners of nature, famous monuments of architecture and sculpture, everyday features, people met on trips. Forced fluency characterized most of these works. But as a result of travels, completed series were also created, in which reportage, sketchiness was replaced by real artistic generalization. From acquaintance with such cycles, the viewer received not only a chain of vivid tourist impressions, but also new knowledge of a particular country and aesthetic pleasure.

One of these things was the series by N. A. Ponomarev (born 1918) "North Vietnam", created in 1957. The appearance of this country, seen by the artist, is full of charm: a gray-blue high sky, expanses of calm waters, rice fields and a chain of lilac rocks on the horizon, now clearly visible, now melting in a pearl haze. The calm, slightly contemplative poetry of everyday life lives in these sheets. People are depicted with deep sympathy - the modest, hardworking people of Vietnam - fishermen, miners, women, going to the bazaar (ill. 19), waiting for the crossing by the bay. Delicate and subtle coloring gives expressiveness to the drawings. The Vietnamese series was in many ways a turning point for its author. The artist began his career with charcoal and black gouache drawings dedicated to the Donbass miners (1949-1950). They had a lot of conscientiousness and labor and less creative inspiration. Painting Vietnam, the artist discovered in his work not only new poetic notes, but also the ability of a colorist who knows how to see the harmony and decorativeness of the mixed technique of gouache and pastel.

Of the series based on foreign impressions, the works of O. G. Vereisky (born 1915) were also interesting. O. Vereisky - now a prominent illustrator of the books of Soviet writers and graphic easel painter - owes his first knowledge of art to his father G.S. Vereisky. He also studied at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. With equal freedom O. Vereisky also has a soft, picturesque tone drawing with black watercolors or ink, and bright contrasts of a clear, definite technique of drawing with a pen. Recently, the artist has become interested in some engraving techniques, and part of his drawings, executed as a result of trips to Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, was repeated in prints. One of the best among them is a leaf called "Rest on the Road. Syria" (ill. 20). He is beautiful in color and laconic composition, but his main charm is in the image of a woman. Refined beauty and slight sadness of the face, restrained tenderness of gesture and natural grace of a woman are reproduced by the artist with real aesthetic pleasure. The sheets of the "American Series" by O. Vereisky, who saw not only the ceremonial, but also the shadowy, everyday features of American life, are also full of accurate observations.

Our knowledge about this country is also replenished by the graceful in its linear sketchy pen drawings by V. Goryaev - an artist of a sharp, somewhat sarcastic manner, illustrator Mark Twain, a permanent employee of the Krokodil magazine.

Post-war graphics are characterized by the great successes of the artists of the Union republics. The most powerful graphic collectives are now in Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Both drawing and watercolors have their own great artists in these republics, and the art of printmaking was developed here and then, when in the late 1940s - early 1950s it was in decline in the RSFSR.

As an example of Ukrainian easel graphics, one can cite the series "Ukrainian People's Dumas and Songs" by M. Deregus. Widely conceived, including sheets of various moods and themes, this cycle characterizes the maturity of Ukrainian graphics, although in the work of Deregus himself - a landscape painter and illustrator par excellence - it stands somewhat apart. The sadness and hope of the sheet "The Duma of Marus Boguslavka" and the tragedy of loneliness, deceived faith in people in the sheet "The Duma of the Three Azov brothers" are replaced by the courageous poetry of our days in the composition "The Duma of the Partisans" with the central image of Kovpak. Young Ukrainian artists V. Panfilov, who dedicated his engravings to steelworkers, and I. Selivanov, who created sheets on historical and revolutionary themes, are successfully working in printmaking. A typical genre for Ukrainian graphics is an industrial landscape, usually performed in engraving techniques. Its masters are V. Mironenko, A. Pashchenko, N. Rodzin and others.

In the Baltic republics, landscape graphics are very diverse. There is a strong stream of a chamber lyrical landscape, emotional, possessing great charm. Its creators are Estonian artists, printers R. Kaljo, A. Kerend, L. Ennosaar, watercolourist K. Burman (junior), graphic artists of Latvia - A. Juncker, Lithuania - N. Kuzminskis and others. In their works, there are lyrical reflections, and close communication with nature that enriches the soul, and each time the beauty of their native fields, picturesque ancient Tallinn, etc., is understood in a new way.

In the work of the oldest Estonian draftsman G. Reindorf, landscape images acquire a more philosophical coloring. It is difficult for us now to fully imagine the long creative path of this artist, since almost all of his pre-war works perished during the Great Patriotic War. But the post-war period of his activity is also fruitful. Reindorf was born in 1889 in St. Petersburg. Having successfully graduated from the Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing, he received the right to travel abroad and left for France. The short period of overseas retirement was interrupted by the First World War. Returning to his homeland, Reindorf works in the field of applied and landscape graphics, is engaged in teaching. His main creative interests in 1940-1950 were absorbed by landscape and, in part, book illustration. During these years he performed his works mainly in the form of drawings; earlier the artist also created expressive engraving sheets. Reindorf's striving for objective accuracy of the image sometimes goes to the detriment of the emotional saturation of his sheets, but in his best works these two principles are combined. Most characteristic in this respect are his sheets "On the Hot Days of August" (1955). A peculiar harmony unites everything living in this rural landscape, and the virtuoso technique of drawing with a graphite pencil gives the sheets a tonal richness and a special filigree performance.

There is also a line of romantic landscape in the graphics of the Baltics, saturated with the pathos of turbulent restless human feelings. In the engravings of the Latvian artists P. Upītis, O. Abelīte, in separate sheets by M. Ozoliš, images of nature are colored with acute emotionality, full of inner tension.

In the etchings of the resident of Riga, E. Anderson, the landscape becomes the environment where the majestic action of labor unfolds.

Many Baltic artists act both as landscape painters and as authors of thematic things, and this only enriches their works. In the versatile work of the Estonian artist EK Okas (born 1915), for example, one can find landscape sheets, and a portrait, and thematic objects. Okas was born in Tallinn in a working class family and studied there - first at the State School of Industrial Art, and then at the State Higher Art School. During the Great Patriotic War, he worked as a front-line artist. Okas is both a painter and a master of book illustration. But if the images he created for the book pages are sometimes separated from us for decades and centuries, the heroes of his easel works always live in modernity, breathe its not at all serene atmosphere. A sense of the complexity of the modern world with its acute social contradictions fills, for example, the sheets of the Dutch and Italian series of travel sketches by Okas, fundamentally executed by him in various engraving techniques. Sharp-sighted and sternly truthful, these prints sound like real journalism. The Lithuanian artist V. Jurkunas (born 1910) also works in book and easel graphics. He graduated from the Kaunas Art School in 1935 and is constantly engaged in teaching. In his engravings, people seem to be especially closely connected with their native nature, their native land. Such are the heroes of Maironis's poem (1960; ill. 21), reproduced by him, such is the little collective farm woman who won the sympathy of many spectators - the image of youth walking on the beautiful land, ingeniously simple and perky, overwhelming with the unique integrity of feelings ("I will be a milkmaid", 1960). The linoleum engraving technique in V. Yurkunas's sheets possesses both laconicism and flexibility, it naturally serves to create his light, optimistic images.

Traffic of the Baltics work with enthusiasm in the field of portraiture, and if among the works of artists of the RSFSR we now have, in addition to the invariably successful, but already rare performances of G. S. Vereisky, only sharply characteristic etching portraits of M. Feigin, in the Baltics we will be pleased with the delicate and varied skill a number of portrait painters.

The Estonian artist E. Einmann (born 1913) has achieved a lot in this genre. He was educated at the State School of Applied Arts and at the Higher School of Art in Tallinn, his creative path began during the Great Patriotic War. Now, in a long series of his works, the features of his talent are clearly visible. Thoughtful and careful attitude of the artist to the inner world of his models. Respect for a person is a characteristic feature of his work. It always manifests itself, whether the artist is drawing an old fisherman or a young student of a vocational school, a nurse or an actress. At the same time, the author's direct experience, the assessment of the model, remains somewhere aside, the main thing is a restrained and objective story about it. Einmann's portraits captivate with the subtlety of a graphic manner that is alien to external effects. This subtlety distinguishes his sheets, executed with graphite or Italian pencil, and watercolors, and lithography.

Emotional and lyrical is the portrait work of the Estonian artist A. Bach-Liimand, who is especially successful in female and child images. The portraits and self-portrait of the Lithuanian artist A. Makunaite, who works in linocut, are full of serious thoughts. Charcoal portraits created by the young Latvian draftsman F. Pauluk are expressive.

Graphics in Ukraine and the Baltics have a long tradition and therefore its success is in many respects natural. But even in such republics as, for example, Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan, where graphic art is very young, it has already made noticeable successes.

The leading graphic artist in Kyrgyzstan is a student of the Moscow Polygraphic Institute, who has been working in Frunze for many years, L. Ilyina (born 1915). Monumentality, large forms, laconic speech are the characteristic features of her linocuts. In recent years, Ilyina, somewhat moving away from book illustration, has performed many easel works, in particular the landscape series of woodcuts "Native Lands" (1957), and a large series of color linocut, dedicated to the woman of her republic. The features of the new that distinguish our life, perhaps, are especially noticeable in the fates of women shown by the Kyrgyz artist. Labor does not bend women now, but only gives majesty and significance to posture. A free, easy-going position distinguishes both the beet-grower girl (1956) and the delegates of the distant Tien Shan, listening attentively to the speaker (1960). Linocut engravings by L. Ilyina are plastic, the volume is freely molded in them with a lively, rough stroke, large color spots. At the same time, the silhouette decorativeness of the leaf is always preserved (ill. 22).

In Azerbaijan, the artist M. Rahman-zade (born 1916), who depicts the offshore oil fields in the Caspian, works interestingly in the field of color lithography. She knows how to add a variety of motives to her series, seemingly similar and, at the same time, discovering something new every time in the industrial landscape. The sheet "Trestle" from her works in 1957 stands out among others for the harmony of the composition, the sonorous combination of the bright yellow tone of water and the black openwork of the structures. These are some of the achievements of the republican engravers and draftsmen.

The graphics of today are very different from those of the first post-war decade. What's new, so unlike the previous one, has appeared in it? If earlier, only in isolated things, modernity was captured with genuine poetic generalization, now its living features are scattered in many graphic works. The massive turn of artists towards modernity is yielding results. Modernity is assimilated in its not external, deep features, a new face of our country, of the Soviet man, is revealed to the artists. In many ways, the graphics of recent years have something in common with painting. The harsh and impetuous face of the times is seen by the artists of these arts, a special activity of the world perception permeates their works. And the craving for new, not yet tested artistic forms also turns out to be common for them. In graphics, all this primarily refers to printmaking. Its rise began in the mid-1950s, and now we can talk about its real heyday. This flourishing is associated primarily with the influx of new young forces into easel engraving. But already experienced artists also contributed to it. In the landscapes of A. Vedernikov, for example, Leningrad, burdened with many traditions of its depiction, unexpectedly appears in such a new appearance, sparkling with pure colors, that it seems to be seen for the first time. Vedernikov's technique of color lithography does not imitate either a colored pencil drawing or a detailed watercolor painting. The artist operates with generalized forms, bold combinations of several pure tones. His search for decorativeness in color lithography is one of the many now characteristic of printmaking.

Among the success of the prints, we also include the woodcuts of FD Konstantinov about rural labor, and especially his landscape sheet "Spring on a Collective Farm" (1957; ill. 23), and the landscapes of the Armenian artist MM Abegyan - "The Rocky Coast of Zangi", "In the Bjni Mountains" (1959) and many other works by artists of the older and middle generations.

But the new, distinguishing modern printmaking, is felt especially clearly in the things of the young. I. Golitsyn, A. Ushin, G. Zakharov, Ya.Manukhin, I. Sbrosov, L. Tukachev, K. Nazarov, V. Popkov, D. Nodia, I. Nekrasov, V. Volkov - a whole galaxy of young people in print. We see ordinary suburban landscapes in the "Suite about the wires" by A. Ushin (born 1927), a pupil of the Leningrad Art and Pedagogical School (ill. 24). No events happen in his sheets, only electric trains rush in silence, and, at the same time, a lot is happening here - steel trusses that support wires rise up, sheaves of light from the train window tear the thick night darkness, white lightning rain crosses it, and clouds are piling up in a dazzling heap in the black skies - life goes on, unique, alive, felt very sharply, in its most active, tense state. It is this acute, active perception of life in its constant dynamics that distinguishes many works of young people. It unites their works. But, in addition, young people are very individual in their work. Each of the named artists already has his own face in art, his own judgment about life, his own understanding of the engraving language.

The spacious landscapes and lyrical scenes of G. Zakharov with their emphasized rhythm of large black-and-white strokes and spots sound unique. Thoughtful, slightly ironic landscapes-novellas by I. Golitsyn are detailed, where each house is a whole story about the life of a huge city, and a street crossroads unfolds to us in an instant and somewhat pessimistic vision a scroll of human everyday life. Golitsyn's flexible silver engraving technique was largely influenced by Favorsky. The subtlety of woodcuts, its tonal richness, so subservient to Favorsky, seemed to broaden the horizons of Golitsyn, an artist of a larger, more courageous technique of linoleum engraving (ill. 25).

Slightly harsh, significant, and in its most ordinary manifestations, life flows 24. A. A. U shin. Rain. 1960 of a large city in etchings by Leningrader V. Volkov. Free from the hustle and bustle of trifles, his sheets monumentalize reality, as if exposing its masculine stately rhythm in the stream of everyday life. And people are shown by the artist in one, but essential aspect - they are stern, laconic people of labor.

The industrial landscape and scenes of labor are actively and dynamically seen by the Georgian artist D. Nodia. The transparent world of youth, a wonderful fusion of childish clarity of the soul and adult subtlety of mental movements, is revealed by Ya. Manukhin in the fragile image of his popular "Grass".

The same artist, in an engraving dedicated to the struggle for peace, achieves a special expression of the image that embodies the anger and pain of Hiroshima. At the same time, Manukhin learned a lot from the proximity of his easel sheet to the art of poster (ill. 26).

V. Popkov speaks in detail, with enthusiasm about the work of transport workers in a series of engravings and gouaches (ill. 27), who has appeared in recent years in an interesting way as a painter. In all these works, young artists reveal to us different facets of our modernity, seen in their own way and very freshly.

Of course, not everything in printmaking is only successful now. There is also a small description of everyday life, illustrativeness. We often meet with them in the series devoted to labor, as well as with the boring protocol in the industrial landscape. There are also things, the whole meaning of which is exhausted by their external decorativeness. On the other hand, something new that has been revealed in recent years in printmaking has also been born in drawing, although such a powerful group of young people has not appeared here. In this regard, the creative path of V. Ye. Tsigal (born 1916) is indicative. It began in the first post-war years with a series of ink and watercolor drawings, in which the life and work of Soviet people were shown authentically, and often lyrically and warmly, but still without great artistic discoveries. At the same time, Tsigal was partly hindered by his excessive activity, the desire to embrace with his art a too wide range of life phenomena. Tsigal worked quickly, large series of his sheets appeared at almost all major exhibitions. But real creative concentration came to him only when, having begun to travel and study the life of peasants in the mountain villages of Dagestan, for a relatively long time he was carried away by this one, of course, quite grateful for the artist, topic. This is how his series "Dagestan" (1959 - 1961) appeared, which was a big step forward for Tsigal. In this cycle there is both the undisturbed charm of the novelty of the life of the highlanders that was revealed to the artist, and some very intimate everyday features noticed by a friendly look, and a peculiar feeling of harmony between man and nature. Her sheets are built on a subtle juxtaposition of motives common for Dagestan, but suddenly brightly revealing to us both the specifics of the way of life and the relationship of people, eternal and at the same time somewhat elusively modern (ill. 28).

In the current rise of easel graphics, the complex / subtle art of watercolor has found its place. In watercolors, a faithful look and a quick, precise hand are especially needed. Corrections are almost impossible in it, and the movement of a brush with paint and water is deceptively easy and requires strict discipline from the artist. But the coloristic possibilities of watercolor are rich, and the translucence of the paper under a transparent paint layer gives it a unique lightness and grace. "Watercolor is a painting that secretly I would like to become a graphic. Water color is a graphic that becomes painting politely and delicately, building its achievements not on killing paper, but on the outlandish revelation of its elastic and unsteady surface," once wrote one of A. A. Sidorov, the greatest connoisseurs of Soviet graphics. Today, as well as in the 1930s, we are primarily landscape painters who are masters of watercolors. The works of S. Boim, N. Volkov, G. Khrapak, S. Semenov, V. Alfeevsky, D. Genin, A. Mogilevsky and many others show the life of a modern city, nature in the richness of its colors, in its beautiful diversity. And less and less passive descriptiveness finds its shelter in the landscape.

These are some of the features of modern Soviet graphics. However, her picture is so complex and rich that it certainly deserves a separate description. Our goal was only to get acquainted with the work of the most famous masters of easel graphics and individual moments of its history.

The artist Yu. I. Pimenov, whose drawings were discussed above, wrote: "The artist's road is the road of enchantment with life and the path of its expression full of disappointments and failures. But in every sincere thing there appears a grain, a microparticle of the desired, and it then an echo, somewhere a wave of this feeling is received and blossoms. " For the sake of this "grain of the desired", for the sake of a response wave of feeling, absolutely necessary for the artist, and all his difficult and joyful work is being done.

We have been planning to make a rating of the most expensive works on paper by artists of the orbit of Russian art for a long time. The best motive for us turned out to be a new record in Russian graphics - 2.098 million pounds for a drawing by Kazimir Malevich on June 2

Publishing our ratings, we really like to hang around with all sorts of reservations to warn of possible questions. So, the first principle: only original graphics. Second: we use the results of open auction sales for works by artists included in the orbit of Russian art, according to the site's database (perhaps gallery sales were at higher prices). Third: of course, it would be tempting to put $ 3.7 million in first place for Arshil Gorka's Husatonic. As you know, he himself strove in every possible way to ensure that he was considered a Russian artist, not shying away from hoaxes, took a pseudonym in honor of Maxim Gorky, etc .; In 2009, Gorki's works were shown by the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery at the exhibition "American Artists from the Russian Empire", we included it in the AI ​​database of auction results, but starting with it the rating of Russian graphics is unfair on formal grounds. Fourth: one sheet - one result. For this rating, we selected only works consisting of one sheet; a formal approach would force us to take into account three more items, each of which was sold as a single lot: 122 original ink drawings for the "Book of the Marquise" by Konstantin Somov, two folders with 58 drawings and gouaches for "The Brothers Karamazov" by F. M. Dostoevsky by Boris Grigoriev and part of the collection of Yakov Peremena. Fifth: one author - one work. If we formally took the top 10 by price (excluding the results of Gorka and prefabricated lots), then there would be five sheets by Kandinsky, three by Chagall and one by Malevich and Serebryakova. Boring. Sixth: we analyze the period from 2001 to the present day. Seventh: the price rating was compiled in dollars, the results in other currencies were converted into dollars at the exchange rate on the day of trading. Eighth: all results are given taking into account the seller's commission.

Kazimir Malevich's drawing "Peasant's Head", which is a preparatory sketch for the lost painting "Peasant Funeral" in 1911, quite expectedly became the top lot of Sotheby's Russian auction on June 2, 2014 in London. Malevich's works appear on the art market extremely rarely, "Peasant's Head" is the first work put up for auction since the sale of "Suprematist Composition" for $ 60 million at Sotheby's in 2008, and one of the last significant things of the artist in private collections. This sketch was one of 70 works exhibited by the artist in Berlin in 1927, and then abandoned in Germany in order to save them from the ban and artificial oblivion that would inevitably await them in Russia. The work came to the auction at Sotheby’s from some powerful German private collection of the Russian avant-garde. Almost all lots of this collection were gone with an excess of the estimate, but Malevich's drawing was simply out of competition. For him they gave three times the estimate - 2.098 million pounds. This is by far the most expensive graphic work of a Russian artist.

In the list of the most expensive graphic works of Wassily Kandinsky, there are as many as 18 original drawings worth over a million dollars. His watercolors in their abstract message are in no way inferior to paintings. Let us recall that it is precisely from the graphic work of Kandinsky - "The First Abstract Watercolor" of 1910 - that it is customary to count the history of modern abstract art. As the legend says, once Kandinsky, sitting in the semi-darkness of his workshop in Munich and looking at his figurative work, could not distinguish anything on it except color spots and shapes. And then he realized that he had to abandon objectivity and try to capture through the color of the "movement of the soul." The result was a work devoid of any connection with the outside world - "The First Abstract Watercolor" (Paris, Georges Pompidou Center).

Kandinsky's canvases are rare on the market and are very expensive, but the graphics will perfectly fit into any collection and will look dignified in it. Production graphics can be afforded for several thousand dollars. But for an original drawing, which, for example, is a sketch for a famous painting, you will have to pay several times more. The most expensive watercolor Untitled (1922) was sold during the 2008 art boom for $ 2.9 million.

Marc Chagall was an unusually productive artist for his time. Today, Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons are assisted by an army of assistants, and Mark Zakharovich has single-handedly created thousands of original graphic works for 97 years of his life, not to mention circulation works. Our database of Chagall's auction results includes more than 2000 original works on paper. This artist is steadily growing in price, and the investment prospects for buying his works are obvious - the main thing is that the authenticity of the work is confirmed by the Chagall Committee. Otherwise, the work may almost be burned (this is precisely what the Chagall Committee threatens to the owner, who recently sent a painting for examination to Paris, which turned out to be a fake). So the choice should only be made in favor of unconditionally authentic graphics. Its price can reach 2.16 million dollars - this is how much was paid in May 2013 for the drawing "Horsemen" (paper on cardboard, gouache, pastel, colored pencils).

The Lying Nude pastel is not only the most expensive graphic work of Zinaida Serebryakova, but also her most expensive work in general. The theme of the nude female body was one of the main themes in the artist's work. Nude Serebryakova evolved from images of bathers and Russian beauties in a bathhouse in the Russian period of creativity to lying naked, more in the spirit of European art in the Paris period. Looking at the beautiful, sensual, idealized naked Serebryakova, it is difficult to imagine how tragic the fate of the artist was - her husband died of typhus, leaving her with four children in her arms; I had to live from hand to mouth and, in the end, emigrate to Paris (as it turned out, forever), leaving the children in Russia (only two were able to be transported to France later, the other two had to be separated for more than 30 years).

Zinaida Serebryakova cultivated perfect, eternal, classical beauty in her works. Pastel in some ways even better conveys the lightness and airiness of her female images, in which there is almost always something of the artist herself and her children (daughter Katya was one of her favorite models).

The rather large Reclining Nude pastel was purchased during the art boom in June 2008 for £ 1.07 million ($ 2.11 million). No other work since then has managed to break this record. Interestingly, in the top 10 auction sales of Zinaida Serebryakova only nude, and three works are just pastels.

At the London auction of Sotheby’s on November 27, 2012, dedicated to the painting and graphics of Russian artists, the top lot was by no means a painting, but a pencil drawing on paper - "Portrait of Vsevolod Meyerhold" by Yuri Annenkov. Eight participants argued for the work in the hall and on the phones. As a result, the drawing, estimated at 30-50 thousand pounds, cost the new owner several tens of times more expensive than the estimate. The result of 1.05 million pounds (1.68 million dollars) overnight made "Portrait of Vsevolod Meyerhold" the most expensive graphics of the author and took the third place in the list of the highest auction prices for Annenkov's works in general.

Why was the interest in the portrait so strong? Annenkov is a brilliant portrait painter who left images of the best figures of the era - poets, writers, directors. In addition, he was very talented in graphics: his manner combined the techniques of classical drawing with avant-garde elements of cubism, futurism, expressionism .. He succeeded as a theater and film artist, as a book illustrator. The public's attention was, of course, attracted by the personality of the model in the portrait - the famous director Vsevolod Meyerhold. And to top it all off, this drawing comes from the collection of the composer Boris Tyomkin, a native of Kremenchug, who emigrated to the United States and became a famous American composer, a four-time Oscar winner for musical works in cinema.

One of the main artists of the World of Art association, Lev (Leon) Bakst, of course, should have been on our list of the most commercially successful graphic artists. His exquisite theatrical works - sketches of costumes for the best dancers of the era, scenery for performances - give us today an idea of ​​what a splendid spectacle Diaghilev's Russian Seasons was.

Bakst's most expensive graphic work, The Yellow Sultana, was created in the year that Diaghilev's ballet first toured the United States. By that time, Bakst was already a well-known artist, the recognizable style of his theatrical works became a brand, his influence is tangible in fashion, interior design and jewelry. Sensual nude "The Yellow Sultana", which grew out of his theatrical sketches, caused a fierce battle between two phones at Christie's auction on May 28, 2012. As a result, the figure reached 937,250 pounds ( 1 467 810 dollars) taking into account the commission, despite the fact that the estimate was 350-450 thousand pounds.

The world of noble nests, foggy manor parks and graceful young ladies strolling along the alleys, which are disappearing into oblivion, appears in the works of Viktor Elpidiforovich Borisov-Musatov. Some call his style "an elegy in painting", he is characterized by dreaminess, quiet melancholy, sadness for a bygone era. For Borisov-Musatov, the noble estates were the world of the present, but there is something otherworldly in his representations of this world, these parks, verandas and ponds seemed to have dreamed of the artist. He seemed to have a presentiment that soon this world would not be and he himself would not be (a serious illness took the artist away at the age of 35).

Victor Borisov-Musatov preferred pastels and watercolors to oil painting, they gave him the necessary lightness of the stroke and haze. The appearance at the Russian auction of Sotheby’s in 2006 of his pastels "The Last Day" was an event, since the main works of Borisov-Musatov are in museums, and only about a dozen of works got to the open auction for all the time. Pastel "The Last Day" comes from the collection of V. Napravnik, son of the Russian conductor and composer Eduard Napravnik. This pastel was depicted on the "Portrait of Maria Georgievna Napravnik" by Zinaida Serebryakova, now kept in the Chuvash Art Museum. In the monograph "Borisov-Musatov" (1916) NN Wrangel mentions "The Last Day" in the list of the artist's works. So, undoubtedly, the genuine thing quite expectedly reached a record price for an artist of 702,400 pounds, or 1,314,760 dollars.

Alexander Deineka was a brilliant graphic artist; at the initial stages of his career, graphic art attracted him even more than painting, primarily by its propaganda potential. The artist worked a lot as a book and magazine illustrator, created posters. Later, this "magazine-poster work" tired him, he began to work more and more in painting, in monumental art, but the acquired skills of a draftsman turned out to be very useful - for example, when creating preparatory sketches for paintings. "Girl Tying a Ribbon on Her Head" - a sketch for the painting "Bather" (1951, collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery). This most expensive work of Deineka to date belongs to the late period of creativity, when the artist's style from the avant-garde searches of the 1920s and 30s had already strongly evolved towards socialist realism. But Deineka was sincere in socialist realism. The power and beauty of a healthy human body is one of Deineka's favorite themes. "The Girl Tying the Ribbon" refers us to his naked, similar to the Greek goddesses - the Soviet Venuses, who find happiness in work and sports. This is a drawing of the textbook Deineka, and therefore it is not surprising that it was sold for a record 27,500,000 rubles (1,012,450 dollars) at the Sovcom auction.

Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev emigrated from Russia in 1919. Abroad, he became one of the most famous Russian artists, but at the same time in his homeland he was forgotten for many decades, and his first exhibitions in the USSR took place only in the late 1980s. But today he is one of the most demanded and highly appreciated authors on the Russian art market, his works, both pictorial and graphic, are sold for hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. The artist was extremely hard-working, he believed that he could handle any topic, any order.

Probably the best known are his cycles "Race" and "Faces of Russia" - very close in spirit and differing only in that the first was created before emigration, and the second already in Paris. In these cycles, we see a gallery of types ("faces") of the Russian peasantry - old men, women, children gaze gloomily at the viewer, they attract the eye and at the same time push him away. Grigoriev was by no means inclined to idealize or embellish those whom he wrote, on the contrary, sometimes he brings the images to the grotesque. One of the "faces", executed in gouache and watercolors on paper, became the most expensive graphic work of Boris Grigoriev: in November 2009, at the Sotheby’s auction, 986,500 dollars were paid for it.

And finally, the tenth author in our list of the most expensive works of Russian graphics - Konstantin Somov. The son of the curator of the Hermitage's collections and a musician, a love of art and everything beautiful was instilled from childhood, having studied at the Academy of Arts with Repin, Somov soon found himself in the World of Art society, which promoted the cult of beauty close to him. Especially this craving for decorativeness and "prettiness" manifested itself in his numerous drawings based on the images of the gallant era, the interest in which was observed in the work of other world artists (Lancer, Benois). "Somovskie" marquises and gallant gentlemen on secret dates, scenes of social receptions and masquerades with harlequins and ladies in wigs refer to the aesthetics of Baroque and Rococo.

Prices for Somov's works on the art market began to grow at a phenomenal and not always understandable pace since 2006, some of his paintings exceeded the estimate by 5, or even 13 times. His painting costs millions of pounds. As for the graphics, here Somov's best result so far is 620,727 dollars - this is just one of the drawings of the "gallant" series "Masquerade".

On April 22, 2010 at Sotheby's in New York, 86 works were sold in a single lot number 349 - paintings and graphics - by almost two dozen authors. This sale, by the way, introduces confusion into the auction statistics of those artists whose works were included in this lot. Yes, the collection is very valuable in itself, it has a long, complex and tragic history, and, on the one hand, it is good that the collection fell into the same hands. But, on the other hand, if someday the owner decides to sell individual works, then for most authors, no price level simply does not exist. After the deafening "artillery preparation" that preceded the sale of the collection, it could have appeared, but no, and if resold it would work in a huge minus.

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