Painting by Russian artists
Painting by Vasily Surikov "Morning of the Streltsy Execution". Canvas, oil, canvas size 218 × 379 cm. The young artist’s move to the “first throne”, impressions of ancient Moscow architecture (whose monuments, as he later told M. A. Voloshin, looked “like living people”) were an important incentive on the way to his first historical masterpiece - the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution". The artist, according to the same Voloshin, "realized from the forms", painted what he saw, possessing an amazing ability to open the historical and poetic aura of external visibility. Therefore, when he said that "Sagittarius" was born from the impression of a "burning candle on a white shirt", and "Boyar Morozova" - from a "crow in the snow", then this, of course, sounds like an anecdote, but at the same time affects the most the nerve of the master's creative method.

O personal impressions Surikov wrote: “It started here, in Moscow, with me something strange. First of all, I felt more comfortable here than in Petersburg. There was something much more reminiscent of Krasnoyarsk in Moscow, especially in winter. And, like forgotten dreams, pictures of what I saw in childhood, and then in my youth, began to rise more and more in my memory, types, costumes began to be remembered, and I was drawn to all this, as to something dear and inexpressibly dear. But the Kremlin with its walls and towers captured me the most. I don’t know why myself, but I felt in them something surprisingly close to me, as if I had known them well for a long time. As soon as it began to get dark, I ... set off to wander around Moscow and more and more to the Kremlin walls. These walls have become a favorite place for my walks at dusk. And then one day I was walking along Red Square, not a soul around ... And suddenly the scene of the archery execution flashed in my imagination, so clearly that even my heart began to beat. I felt that if I write what I imagined, then an amazing picture will come out.

Over the years of work on the canvas “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, huge changes have taken place in Surikov’s life. He managed to get married, two daughters were born in the family - Olga and Elena. His wife Elizaveta Avgustovna Share was French on her father's side, and on her mother's side she was a relative of the Decembrist Svistunov. They met back in St. Petersburg in the Church of St. Catherine on Nevsky Prospekt, where they came to listen to organ music. While working on the murals in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Vasily Ivanovich often came to the capital, met with Elizaveta Avgustovna, was introduced to her father August Chara, the owner of a small paper trade enterprise. The artist was not carried away by work in the temple, he dreamed of finishing it as soon as possible, becoming financially independent and getting married. The wedding took place on January 25, 1878 at the Vladimir Church in St. Petersburg. From the groom's side, only the Kuznetsov and Chistyakov families were present. Surikov was afraid of his mother's reaction to the news of his marriage to a Frenchwoman and did not inform his relatives in Krasnoyarsk about the wedding.

The young settled in Moscow. The painter went headlong into work on the painting “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”. He was finally free from material worries, household chores were taken over by his wife. However, in everyday life Vasily Ivanovich was always unpretentious and simple. For several years, Surikov did not write anything extraneous. The captivating idea of ​​the picture completely filled all his thoughts. Once upon a time, one image sunk into his memory, striking like a tragic allegory: a candle lit during the day is a sad symbol of funeral and death. He worried Surikov for many years, until he connected with the theme of the massacre of the archers. Dim in the gray air of a gloomy morning, the light of a candle in a still living hand was associated with execution. The architectural environment of the Execution Ground near the Kremlin suggested the basis for the multi-figure composition, and the images of archers and many candles became its key components.

An amazing picture is thoroughly permeated with symbols. An extinguished candle is an extinguished life. The inconsolable woman in the foreground presses the extinguished candle of the already executed archer to her head. Next to her, a barely smoldering candle of the one who is being taken away to execution is thrown into the mud. The soldier in the center has already taken the death candle from the grey-haired bearded man and is blowing it out. The rest of the candles still burn evenly and brightly.

The central storyline of the picture and its main emotional core is the opposition of archers to royal tyranny. The most symbolic is the image of a red-bearded soldier. His hands are tied, his legs are chained in stocks, but the irreconcilable gaze blazing with hatred beats through the entire space of the picture, colliding with the angry and equally implacable gaze of Peter. The foreigners depicted on the right, while calmly watching what is happening, but then they will describe in horror how the Russian autocrat himself acted as an executioner. Peter personally cut off the heads of five rebels and one clergyman who blessed the rebellion with an ax, and executed more than eighty archers with a sword. The tsar also forced his boyars to participate in the cruel massacre, who did not know how to handle an ax and caused unbearable torment to the condemned by their actions. Surikov read about all this in the diary of the secretary of the Austrian embassy Korb, an eyewitness to the events.

But there are no bloody scenes in the picture itself: the artist wanted to convey the greatness of the last minutes, and not the execution itself. Only a lot of red details of clothing, as well as the crimson silhouette of the Intercession Cathedral, towering over the Toyota of convicted archers and their families, reminds the viewer of how much blood was shed on that tragic morning.

The architectural design of the canvas is very important. The tower of the Kremlin standing alone corresponds to the lonely figure of the king; the second, the nearest tower, unites into one whole a crowd of observers, boyars and foreigners; the even formation of the soldiers exactly repeats the line of the Kremlin wall. The artist deliberately moved all the buildings to the Execution Ground, using the compositional technique of bringing plans closer together and creating the effect of a huge crowd of people. The cathedral continues and crowns this crowd of people, but the central dome of the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin did not seem to fit into the space: it is “cut off” by the upper edge of the picture and symbolizes the image of Russia, beheaded by Peter I. The remaining ten domes correspond to the ten depicted mortal candles.

The latter are clearly not randomly located in accordance with strict geometry. Four bright lights lie exactly on one sloping line starting from the lower left corner (in the hand of a person sitting with his back to us), passing through the candle flame of the red-bearded and black-bearded archers to the suicide bomber standing at the top and bowing to the people. But if, through a candle located on the canvas above the others in the hands of a standing archer, a straight line is drawn, directed downward - to the one that burns out in the mud, then this line will also connect the three flames, passing through the light blown out by the soldier. Thus, a strict cross is clearly manifested, as if crushing a crowd of doomed rebels. Three other, less noticeable candles, located in the background of the composition (on the left under the arc, in front of the archer standing at the top and immediately behind him), are also located on the same line, actually dividing the canvas in half. It is crossed along a strict perpendicular by a straight line drawn between the upper candle and the extinguished one. In total, there are three regular crosses on the cartan. The third is formed by the intersection of the “line of will and opposition” (from the eyes of the king to the eyes of the red-bearded archer) and the one that goes from the extinguished candle to the quiet light in the background, below the face of the standing archer.

All of Surikov’s work is characterized by an amazing concern for those who come to look at his paintings: “I had the idea not to disturb the viewer, so that there would be peace in everything ...”, he said about his Sagittarius. Despite the horror of the transmitted historical event, the artist tried to depict the tragedy of human destinies as restrained as possible. No outward pretentious showiness and theatricality, no raised axes, hands raised to the sky, bloody clothes, hangmen and severed heads. Only the deep drama of national grief. You don’t want to turn away from this picture with a shudder, on the contrary, looking at it, you are more and more immersed in the details, you empathize with its heroes, acutely understanding the cruelty of that time.

The canvas "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" was exhibited at the Ninth Traveling Exhibition in March 1881. Even before its discovery, Ilya Repin wrote to Pavel Tretyakov: “Surikov’s painting makes an irresistible, deep impression on everyone. All unanimously expressed their readiness to give her the most the best place; it is written on everyone's faces that she is our pride at this exhibition... Today she is already framed and finally placed... What a prospect, how far Peter has gone! Mighty picture! Tretyakov immediately purchased this ingenious historical work for his collection, paying the master eight thousand rubles.

But March 1, 1881 was marked by another event that constituted a mystical counterweight to the theme of reprisals against rebels. On the opening day of the exhibition, in which the central place was occupied by a painting depicting the execution of archers by Tsar Peter I, the Narodnaya Volya committed a terrorist act, cracking down on Emperor Alexander II.

Surikov Gor Gennady Samoilovich

V. "MORNING OF THE STRELETSKY EXECUTION"

V. "MORNING OF THE STRELETSKY EXECUTION"

The event depicted by Surikov in his first large picture - "Morning of the Streltsy Execution", marked a turning point in the new Russian history.

In the village of Preobrazhensky in October 1698 and at Lobnoye Mesto, the recalcitrant pre-Petrine Russia, defeated by the great reformer, was dying. “...Peter accelerated the adoption of Westernism by barbarian Russia, not stopping at barbaric means of struggle against barbarism,” wrote Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, revealing the essence of Peter's executions carried out in the name of the future of Russia.

Peter was in the "great embassy" in the West and lived in Vienna, when disturbing news came from Moscow: four streltsy regiments, sent after the Azov campaign to the western border, rebelled and went to Moscow to enthrone Princess Sophia.

The archers were exhausted by the heavy and long siege of Azov, excited and dissatisfied with non-payment of salaries and harassment. Their discontent was skillfully taken advantage of by the circles of the reactionary boyars, grouped around Princess Sophia, by that time already imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent, and her relatives Miloslavsky. Sophia herself gave the signal for a rebellion, sending a “pompous” letter to the archers with a call to take Moscow from the battle.

V. Surikov. Study for "The Morning of the Streltsy Execution" (a red-haired archer in a hat) (TG).

V. Surikov. Study for "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" (an old woman sitting on the ground) (TG).

Boyar demagogy deceived the archers. But it would be a mistake to reduce the whole meaning of the streltsy revolt to boyar intrigues.

The archers rose not only because they were deceived by the generous promises of Sophia and the Miloslavskys, not only because they became impoverished without a salary and did not want to be separated from Moscow and their families, leaving for a long time to the Lithuanian border. The streltsy movement reflected the hopes and aspirations of the oppressed, tormented, suffering people, who had to endure the historically progressive cause of Peter on their shoulders.

In a class society, progress is made at the expense of the oppressed. Such is the inexorable logic of history, such is its fundamental internal contradiction. Peter led Russia to a new, progressive path, but the great reforms were bought at the price of the people's blood and the unheard-of cruel enslavement of the masses.

Having opposed Peter and his innovations, the archers knew that the people sympathized with them, and they drew from the people's support the consciousness of their rightness.

Peter, having received news of the rebellion, gave a decree to his governor, Prince Romodanovsky, to mercilessly destroy the rebels, and he himself immediately left for Moscow. But the rebellion was crushed before his arrival. In June 1698, near New Jerusalem, the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky regiments met the archers under the command of the boyar Shein and General Gordon. Streltsy could not withstand the onslaught of regular troops and surrendered ...

On the "search" of Shane, 136 archers were hanged, 140 were beaten with a whip and about 2 thousand were sentenced to deportation to different cities. Peter, returning to Moscow, was dissatisfied with the "search", ordered to reconsider the whole case and personally led the investigation. The organizational role of Sophia became clear. The Streltsy army was destroyed. Sophia was tonsured a nun. Mass executions began. There was not a single square in Moscow where scaffolds and gallows with hanged archers did not stand. The opposition to the Petrine reforms was drowned in the blood of the archers.

“Surikov passionately loved art, always burned with it, and this fire warmed around him both the cold apartment and his empty rooms, which used to be: a chest, two broken chairs, always with holes in the seats, and a palette lying on the floor, small, very sparingly soiled with oil paints, immediately lying around in skinny tubes, ”says Repin.

One of the rooms was blocked by a huge canvas with the “Morning of the Streltsy Execution” begun. To capture the whole picture with a glance, Surikov had to look askance at her from a nearby dark room.

In a cramped apartment on Zubovsky Boulevard, hard, tireless, truly titanic work went on for almost three years.

The inspiration that lit up Surikov on Red Square gave him only an inner image, only a general feeling of the future picture. In order to clothe this image in living flesh, it took a long and careful study of historical sources and museum items, it took dozens of preliminary sketches and sketches from nature.

The artist found a description of the execution of archers in the “Diary of a Journey to Muscovy” by Johann Georg Korb, secretary of the Caesar (Austrian) embassy, ​​who was in Russia in 1698-1699.

The source was well chosen. Korb has earned a reputation as a careful and thoughtful observer. The well-known researcher of the Petrine era, historian N. G. Ustryalov, pointed out that Korb wrote with deep respect for Peter, with love for the truth, and if he was mistaken, it was only because he sometimes believed unfounded stories. There are no major inaccuracies in the descriptions of the shootings: Korb described what he saw with his own eyes or knew from direct witnesses. In his detailed and unhurried narration, the atmosphere of the era is sensitively captured.

Executions began in October 1698 in the village of Preobrazhensky and continued into February next year on Red Square in Moscow. Here is how Korb describes the first day of the executions:

“The dwellings of soldiers in Preobrazhenskoye are cut through by the Yauza River flowing there; on the other side of it, on small Moscow carts (which they call cabbies - sbosek), one hundred guilty were planted, awaiting their turn of execution. How many were guilty, as many carts and as many guard soldiers; there were no priests to guide the condemned, as if the criminals were unworthy of this feat of piety; yet everyone held a lit wax candle in their hands so as not to die without light and a cross. The bitter weeping of the wives increased their fear of the impending execution; from everywhere around the crowd of unfortunate groans and cries were heard. The mother wept for her son, the daughter mourned the fate of her father, the unfortunate wife lamented the fate of her husband; in others, the last tears were caused by various ties of blood and properties. And when fast horses carried the condemned to the very place of execution, the women's crying intensified, turning into loud sobs and cries ... From the estate of governor Shein, another one hundred and thirty archers were brought to death. On both sides of all the city gates, two gallows were erected, and each was intended that day for six rebels. When everyone was taken out to the places of execution and each six was distributed to each of the two gallows, his royal majesty in a green Polish caftan arrived, accompanied by many noble Muscovites, to the gate, where, by decree of his royal majesty, the tsar's ambassador stopped in his own carriage with representatives of Poland and Denmark…

Surikov took from this description a number of plot motifs, which later became part of the composition of his painting. He only moved the scene from the village of Preobrazhensky to Moscow. But to understand his plan, it is necessary to give a description of another day of executions that took place already on Red Square.

“This day will be overshadowed by the execution of two hundred people and in any case should be recognized as mournful; all criminals were beheaded. On a very large square, very close to the Kremlin, chopping blocks were placed on which the guilty were supposed to lay down their heads. His royal majesty arrived there in a gig with a certain Alexander, whose company gives him the greatest pleasure, and, having passed the ill-fated square, he entered the place next to it, where thirty condemned men atoned for the crime of their impious intent by death. In the meantime, the disastrous crowd of the guilty filled the space described above, and the king returned there, so that in his presence those who, in his absence, conceived such great wickedness in a blasphemous plan, were punished. The scribe, standing on a bench brought by the soldiers, read the sentence drawn up against the rebels in different places, so that the crowd standing around would know all the better the magnitude of their crime and the correctness of the execution imposed on him. When he fell silent, the executioner began the tragedy: the unfortunates had their own turn, they all approached one after another, not expressing on their faces any grief or horror at the death that threatened them ... One of them was escorted to the block by his wife and children with loud, terrible cries. Preparing to lie down on the chopping block, instead of the last farewell, he gave his wife and little children, who were crying a lot, his mittens and the handkerchief that he had left. Another, who was supposed to kiss the unfortunate chopping block in turn, complained about death, saying that he was forced to undergo it innocently. To this, the king, who was only a step away from him, replied: “Die, unfortunate one! If you turn out to be innocent, then the guilt for your blood will fall on me ”... At the end of the massacre, His Royal Majesty was pleased to dine with General Gordon. The king was by no means in a cheerful mood, but, on the contrary, bitterly complained about the stubbornness and stubbornness of the guilty. He indignantly told General Gordon and the Moscow nobles who were present how one of the convicts showed such inveterateness that, preparing to lie down on the chopping block, he dared to turn to the tsar, who was probably standing very close, with the following words: “Step aside, sir. I should lie down here."

In this passage, Surikov no longer found plot motives for the future picture, but something more important: the moral atmosphere of the executions was described here and the characters of the characters were shown; the pages of the diary of a visiting foreigner clearly reflected both the unshakable courage of the archers and the bitterness of punishing Peter.

Vasily Ivanovich later told how deeply he got used to his theme and how relentless were the thoughts about the bloody days that he decided to depict:

“When I wrote archers, I saw terrible dreams: every night I saw executions in a dream. Smells like blood all around. I was afraid of the night. Wake up and rejoice. Look at the picture. Thank God, there is no such horror in it. All I thought was not to disturb the viewer. To have peace in everything. Everyone was afraid that I would awaken an unpleasant feeling in the viewer. I myself am holy, but others ... I don’t have blood in my picture, and the execution has not yet begun. And I, after all, experienced all this - both blood and executions in myself. ”

In the same years, Repin worked on the painting "Princess Sophia" and, exactly following the instructions of historical sources, depicted a figure, a hanged archer, outside the window of the princess's cell.

In Repin's plan, this figure was necessary: ​​the spectacle of death thickened the tragic atmosphere in which the historical portrait he conceived arose. For Surikov, this turned out to be impossible.

Surikov told Voloshin:

“I remember, “Streltsov” I have almost finished. Ilya Efimovich Repin comes to see and says: “Why don’t you have a single executed person? You would hang here at least on the gallows, on the right plane.

As he left, I wanted to try. I knew that it was impossible, but I wanted to know what would have happened. I drew with chalk the figure of a hanged archer. And just then the nanny entered the room, - as she saw it, she collapsed without feelings.

Even that day, Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov stopped by: “What are you, want to spoil the whole picture?” - Yes, so that I, I say, sold my soul like that! Is that possible?”

Surikov refused to depict the execution, not only because he was repulsed by the rough physiology of the suffering and the streams of blood shed on Red Square (“Everyone was afraid that I would awaken an unpleasant feeling in the viewer”). The artist also had deeper foundations.

The dramatic effect created by the spectacle of torment and death, perhaps, would shock the audience, but at the same time it would inevitably reduce the plot of the picture to a private episode from the history of the archery revolt. And the artist wanted to concentrate in a single moment the very essence of the historical event he had chosen - to show a national tragedy. Depicting not execution, but only its expectation, Surikov could show the streltsy mass and Peter himself in all the fullness of their spiritual and physical strength, to reveal to the viewer the high spiritual beauty of the Russian people.

"Morning of Streltsy executions": someone called them well. I wanted to convey the solemnity of the last minutes, but not the execution at all, ”the artist later said.

Having deeply experienced his theme, mentally becoming, as it were, a participant in the historical drama, Surikov organized the material gleaned from historical sources in his own way.

In the picture, separate motifs are merged into a single whole, selected from different places in Korb's diary, and all of them are subject to one general spiritual mood - the solemnity of the last minutes.

It was a real creative rearrangement of the material. The feeling invested by the artist in the picture filled the historical images with the breath of true life.

“In a historical picture, after all, it is not necessary that it be completely so, but that there be a possibility, that it should be similar. The point is historical picture- guessing. If only the spirit of the time itself is observed, you can make any mistakes in the details. And when everything is point to point, it’s even disgusting, ”Surikov himself said.

The action in the film "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" takes place on Red Square, against the backdrop of the Kremlin towers and St. Basil's Cathedral. When looking at the picture, it seems that it is filled with an innumerable crowd. The people are worried, “like the sound of many waters,” as the artist liked to say. But all the boundless variety of poses, clothes, characters is brought to an amazing wholeness, to an indissoluble and harmonious unity. The Surikov crowd lives a common life, all its constituent parts are interconnected, as in a living organism, and at the same time, each face is individual, each character is unique and deeply thought out.

Already in a pencil sketch made by the artist on the back of a sheet of sheet music for the guitar, the peculiarity of the conceived picture clearly stands out: it does not have a separate “hero” in whose image the meaning of the work would be embodied. There is Peter in the picture, there are characteristic types of archers that carry a particularly large semantic load, but they are not singled out from the crowd, they are not opposed to it. The content of "The Morning of the Archery Execution" is revealed only in the action of the masses. The hero of the picture becomes the people themselves, and its theme is the people's tragedy.

The understanding of history as a movement of the masses was the big new word that marked the work of Surikov in historical painting. Mass historical scenes were painted by Bryullov, the image of the crowd played a major role in the concept of Ivanov's "The Appearance of Christ to the People", but only Surikov brought to the end the thoughts of his great predecessors.

Surikov considered the national character to be the key to the correct interpretation of the historical life of the people. To reveal this character, to help the viewer look into the spiritual world of ordinary Russian people - the artist saw a similar goal in front of him while working on "The Morning of the Streltsy Execution".

Hence comes the inexhaustible variety of folk types in the picture and at the same time their inner relationship. They are all similar and not similar to each other.

Sagittarius are imbued with the "solemnity of the last minutes", the spiritual strength of the archers is not broken, they all face death without fear. But a single feeling is refracted in them in different ways.

A red-haired archer in a red cap, convulsively squeezing a burning candle, raises his gaze, full of indomitable hatred, and, as it were, throws down a silent challenge to the winner. He could have said to Peter: “Step aside, sir. I should lie down here!” Another, a tall, elderly black-bearded archer, in a red caftan thrown over his shoulders, does not seem to notice his surroundings at all: he is so deeply immersed in his last thoughts. Further, almost in the very center of the picture, a gray-haired old man in a white shirt, majestically calm, courageously waiting for death, finds the strength in himself to console his crying children. Next to him, one of the archers, bent, apparently weakened from torture, stood on the cart and gives the people his last bow; he turned his back on the king and asks for forgiveness not from Peter, but from the people.

The harsh firmness and courage of the archers is opposed by the unbridled grief of the archers' children and wives. It seems that Surikov has exhausted the whole gamut of feelings here, from a violent explosion of despair to silent hopeless grief: unchildish fear distorts the face of a tiny girl lost in the crowd; the archer, separated from her husband, sobs uncontrollably; in mute despair, a decrepit old woman sank to the ground, seeing off her son ...

The figures of the Preobrazhensky soldiers, the executors of Peter's will, mingle with the streltsy crowd. In characterizing these, essentially secondary, characters, Surikov showed special psychological insight.

The soldiers are spiritually close to the archers, they are representatives of the simple Russian people. But at the same time, they seem to represent new Russia, which replaced pre-Petrine Russia. Without hesitation, they lead the condemned archers to execution, but there is nothing hostile in their treatment of the rebels. The young Preobrazhensky, standing near the black-bearded archer, looks at him with an expression of hidden pity. The soldier leading the archer to the gallows put his arm around him and supports him almost like a brother. Surikov acutely felt and truthfully expressed the complex, ambivalent attitude of the soldiers to the ongoing execution.

On the right side of the picture is Peter with his retinue.

In the royal retinue, no one is endowed with the expressiveness and strength of character that marks the images of archers - the interest and sympathy of the artist is not here.

In the foreground, like an indifferent witness, a gray-bearded boyar in a red coat looks indifferently in front of him. Behind him is a group of foreigners, in one of them, intensely and thoughtfully peering into the crowd, critics guess an imaginary portrait of Korb, the author of Journey to Muscovy. Further - some women look out of the windows of the carriage. But next to these secondary characters, the figure of Peter is sharply highlighted.

Peter's face with his angry and resolute look expresses unshakable confidence, in his whole figure, tense and impetuous, one feels a huge inner strength. Just like his opponents, Peter passionately believes in his rightness and, punishing the rebellious archers, sees them not as personal enemies, but as enemies of the state, destroyers of the Russian future.

He alone opposes the entire streltsy crowd, and his image becomes as ideologically significant as the collective image of the masses. In Surikov's interpretation, Peter is also the representative of the people and the bearer of the national character, like the archers.

This is where the meaning of the folk tragedy embodied in the “Morning of the Streltsy Execution” is revealed: the Russians are fighting the Russians, and each side has a deep consciousness of the rightness of its cause. Streltsy respond with rebellion to the oppression of the people, Peter defends the future of Russia, which he himself led to new paths.

Korb's notes gave Surikov only a starting point for the realization of his plan. The main source of Surikov's images was living reality itself.

“When I conceived them,” Surikov told Voloshin, “all my faces appeared at once. And coloring along with the composition. After all, I live from the canvas itself: everything arises from it. Remember, there I have an archer with a black beard - this is ... Stepan Fedorovich Torgoshin, my mother's brother. And the women - you know, I and my relatives had such old women. Sarafannitsy, though Cossacks. And the old man in "Sagittarius" is an exiled one, about seventy years old. I remember walking, carrying a bag, swaying from weakness - and bowing to the people.

Genuine historicism, deeply characteristic of Surikov, appears nowhere so clearly as precisely in this ability to see the past in the present, the historical image in living modern reality. Surikov does not modernize the past, transferring the features of the present into it, but through careful and accurate selection he reveals the most typical and, therefore, the most viable and persistent signs of the national character that lived and manifested themselves in the distant past, live and manifest themselves today.

The image found by the artist was sometimes subjected to several successive stages of processing, and everything accidental and insignificant fell away and the main, defining features of the character were persistently emphasized.

Sketches have been preserved in which Surikov looked for a type of red-bearded archer.

Repin tells about the beginning of the search: “Amazed by the similarity of the one archer he had outlined, sitting in a cart with a lit candle in his hand, I persuaded Surikov to go with me to the Vagankovskoye cemetery, where one gravedigger was a miracle type. Surikov was not disappointed: Kuzma posed for him for a long time, and Surikov, with the name of Kuzma, even later lit up with feeling from his gray eyes, kite-like nose and reclined forehead.

Surikov himself also mentioned this to Kuzma: “The red-haired archer is a gravedigger, I saw him in the cemetery. I tell him: "Let's go to me - pose." He was about to put his foot into the sledge, and his comrades began to laugh. He says, "I don't want to." And by nature, after all, such as a Sagittarius. The deep-set eyes startled me. Evil, rebellious type. The name was Kuzma. Chance: the catcher and the beast runs. Forcefully persuaded him. He, as he posed, asked: “What, will they chop my head off, or what?” And a sense of delicacy stopped me from telling those from whom I wrote that I was writing an execution.

In the first sketches made by Surikov from Kuzma, his features still bear little resemblance to the appearance of an implacable and passionate rebel, whom we see in the picture. Before us is a characteristic, strong-willed, but calm face, striking only by its resemblance to the profile, briefly drawn in the first compositional sketch of “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, that is, even before Surikov’s meeting with the gravedigger Kuzma. In subsequent sketches, the artist, as it were, evokes on the face of his model those feelings that once animated the rebellious archer. The lines of the silhouette become sharper, wrinkles deepen, the expression becomes more tense, a furious gleam lights up in sunken eyes - and through the features of the gravedigger, the image of an indomitable and passionate Moscow rebel comes through more and more clearly.

Other persons who served Surikov in kind were also reworked. In the portrait study of the black-bearded archer - Stepan Fedorovich Torgoshin - the features of everyday life have not yet been overcome. Only in the picture he is transformed and poeticized.

The "Study of a Seated Old Woman" still bears traces of direct copying of the model, and the image of the old archer in the picture, in terms of the power of generalization and poetry, echoes the images of the folk epic.

The deep ideological content of "The Morning of the Streltsy Execution" led to a holistic and perfect artistic form.

Surikov said that the idea of ​​a painting is born in his mind along with the form, and the thought is inseparable from the pictorial image. When he conceived The Morning of the Streltsy Execution, in front of him, in his words, “all the faces appeared at once. And coloring along with composition. But just as it happened when solving an ideological concept, the initial inspiration gave the artist only the general outlines of the task that was to be carried out on canvas.

“The main thing for me is composition,” said Surikov. “There is some kind of firm, inexorable law that can only be guessed by intuition, but which is so immutable that each added or subtracted inch of the canvas or an extra set point changes the entire composition at once.”

Surikov achieved unity and rhythmic completeness of the whole, never compromising the naturalness and expressiveness of the grouping of figures and the structure of the form. His composition is based not on dead schemes worked out once and for all, but on direct, keen observation of nature. No wonder he studied so carefully "how people grouped in the street." In life itself, he revealed the laws of harmonious and integral construction.

The scene of action in the picture is closed by the image of the Kremlin walls and St. Basil's Cathedral.

Already in the first pencil sketch of the future composition, the silhouette of the cathedral is outlined. A mute witness to the past, a remarkable monument of ancient Russian architecture, so closely connected in Surikov's mind with the "Morning of the Streltsy Execution", significantly influenced the artistic decision of the picture.

In the composition "Morning of the Archery Execution" there are hidden correspondences with the architecture of St. Basil the Blessed. The crowd in the picture is united by the same broad measured rhythms that connect the pillars and domes of the ancient Russian temple. characteristic feature the cathedral is a kind of asymmetry and a bizarre combination of various architectural and ornamental forms, brought, however, to a stable and harmonious unity. Surikov aptly captured this unity in diversity and recreated it in the image of the streltsy crowd.

Even more obvious is the influence of St. Basil's Cathedral on the color system of the "Morning of the Streltsy Execution". In the coloring of the cathedral with its green-blue, white and rich red tones, the color key of the whole picture is given, as it were. The same tones, only in a more intense sound, pass through the entire composition.

Surikov strove for realistic naturalness and harmony of color. The combination of colors in his painting truly conveys the feeling of a gloomy, damp October morning; in motionless autumn air all shades and color transitions are especially clearly distinguished. Color in Surikov becomes the bearer of the characteristic of feeling. The artist himself pointed out that a significant role in the color scheme was played by the effect he once noticed of combining daylight with a burning candle, throwing reflexes onto a white canvas. Lighted candles in the hands of archers dressed in white shirts, according to Surikov's plan, were supposed to create that special, disturbing feeling that marked the solemnity of the last minutes. This feeling is enhanced by the contrast of white with rich red, passing through the whole picture.

“And the arcs are carts for the Streltsy,” I wrote about the markets. You write and think - this is the most important thing in the whole picture, ”said Surikov.

These words should not be taken literally: “the most important” for Surikov was not decorative details. But he acutely felt and - the first among Russian artists - revealed in his picture the organic, inextricable connection of the Russian character with national folk art. So, the silhouette of an archer bowed in a farewell bow resembles; as noted by the Soviet art critic A. M. Kuznetsov, an ancient Russian icon from the “rank”. Depicting the ornaments of St. Basil the Blessed, painted arches, embroidered caftans and patterned dresses of women, Surikov introduced the whole world of Russian beauty, which has developed in folk art, into the Morning of the Streltsy.

On the day of the assassination of the tsar, March 1, 1881, the IX traveling exhibition opened, where for the first time the “Morning of the Streltsy Execution” appeared before the audience - a picture whose hero was the people.

Repin wrote to Surikov: “Vasily Ivanovich! The picture makes a big impression on almost everyone. The drawing is criticized, and especially Kuzya is attacked, the lousy academic party is the most ardent of all: they say that on Sunday Zhuravlev grimaced indecently, I did not see it. Chistyakov praises. Yes, all decent people are touched by the picture. It was written in Novoye Vremya on March 1st, in the Order on March 1st. Well, then an event happened, after which there is no time for pictures yet ... "

The intrigues of the “academic party” also found a response in the press. A review appeared in one of the reactionary newspapers, which placed "The Morning of the Streltsy "Execution"" below any mediocrity. But in general, criticism reacted to Surikov rather sympathetically. The picture was praised - however, with many reservations. “... The deep plan is not entirely fulfilled due to the weak perspective that is too heaped up with figures, but the details of the picture are of great merit,” wrote, for example, Russkiye Vedomosti.

What happened next was almost always repeated with Surikov's paintings: in the condescendingly restrained praise of criticism, a complete misunderstanding of the artist's originality was seen through. Innovation and deep ideological Surikov were not up to modern criticism.

Even the ardent fighter for national Russian art, the critic V. V. Stasov, who usually noted with great sensitivity everything original and talented in contemporary art, this time preferred to refrain from reviewing The Morning of the Streltsy Execution. Repin wrote to him shortly after the opening of the exhibition: “I still cannot understand one thing, how is it that Surikov’s painting “The Execution of Streltsy” did not inflame you?” And in the next letter, he again returns to the same thing: “Most of all, I am angry with you for letting Surikov pass. How did it happen? After compliments even Makovskaya (this is worthy of a gallant gentleman) suddenly pass in silence of such an elephant !!! I don’t understand - it terribly blew me up. ”

Surikov received unconditional recognition only from the leading Wanderers.

Repin, who closely followed Surikov's work on The Morning of the Archery Execution and was the first to highly appreciate this picture, wrote to P. M. Tretyakov:

“Surikov's painting makes an irresistible, deep impression on everyone. All with one voice expressed their readiness to give her the best place; everyone has written on their faces that she is our pride at this exhibition ... A powerful picture! Well, yes, they will write to you about it ... It was decided to offer Surikov immediately member our partnership." Only a few have received this honor.

"Morning of the Streltsy Execution" at the same time became part of the wonderful gallery of Russian art, created by a Moscow collector and public figure Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov.

From the first picture of Surikov, threads stretch to his further plans. "Streltsy" together with "Menshikov in Berezov" and "Boyarina Morozova" constitute a closed cycle devoted, in essence, to one circle of problems.

The folk tragedy that became the theme of "The Morning of the Archery Execution" had a prologue that took place in the second half of the 17th century, at the time when Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, together with Patriarch Nikon, reformed the Russian Church. A split movement rose up against the reform.

In 1881, Surikov made the first compositional sketches of the painting Boyar Morozova.

Following the era of Peter's reforms, the time came for reaction and foreign dominance, the time for the fall of Peter's followers.

Surikov made the tragedy of one of the largest figures of the time of Peter the Great the subject of his second big picture.

He turned to work on "Menshikov in Berezov" immediately after the "Morning of the Streltsy Execution".

Group of artists-peredvizhniki. 1899.

In Surikov. Detail of the painting "Menshikov in Berezov" (the eldest daughter of Meishikov) (PT).