Mikhail Vrubel and his demons

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel is a Russian symbolist artist. The artists say he is the first Russian artist to manage the Byzantine school with modernism. Vrubel has a wide range of fine art - painting and drawing, sculpture, theater art, frescoes, decorative panels, and book illustrations. Two Freudian forces unite the philosophy of his work - Love and Death. Probably the reason for this is his mental state. Ever since 1901, when the artist has already been known for his most popular work, "The Demon Seated," Vrubel is already ill and addicted to the theme of demons. Since 1892, the year he has infected, he has often begun to receive nervous crises that alternate with laziness and depression. Gradually, his eyesight deteriorates. He has to enter a psychiatric clinic in which he completely blinds. In 1906 he stopped painting and four years later he died.

Demon, Sculpture by Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910, Russia)

A large part of his paintings contain in his names the word "demon". This, according to some, suggested how powerful the will and desire of the artist to beat the demons in himself "It can be said that his entire creative life is a battle with the demon of the disease," says one critic. Vrubel himself gives another definition of his addiction to the demons: "The demon is a spirit that unites the masculine and feminine beginnings, it is not as bad but a suffering and sad spirit, and yet powerful and majestic," he says. One of his toughest paintings is "The Demon Seated" (1902). He is constantly excited that there is something "unspoken" in it that his brush can not perceive and betray. In fact, it is quite possible that this feverish perfectionism is due to his sensitive nervous system because of the progressive disease in him. This genius of fine arts soon after his infestation falls into its full captivity. Michael Vrubel was born on 17 March 1856 in the Russian town of Omsk, in the family of a military lawyer. He graduated with honors right at St. Petersburg. As a student, he engages in philosophy and music, studying languages. He even knows Latin. And while everyone thinks that he will become a brilliant lawyer, he spontaneously decides to study fine art and enrolls to follow in the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts. His first great passion as a student is the mosaic canvases from the Middle Ages. In 1884 Vrubel participated in the restoration of two churches in Kiev. There he fell in love with the riding of an Italian circus.

Mikhail Vrubel - Pan (1899)

He is carrying a lively blood and is devoted to everything. Both in work and in love. Actually, it's probably the reason to get infected by syphilis. That is why critics believe he is the first Russian artist to link the Byzantine school with modernism. In 1889, the artist moved to Moscow, with the support of a great Russian patron saint named Mamontov. He started working on the illustration of an anniversary edition of Lermontov's work and was literally conquered by his texts about the demons. Some of these illustrations are not approved to enter the book, but become valuable material for artists after the his death. The "Demon" theme in Vrubel's work seems to have been fateful. Thanks to the Mammonov martyr, in 1891 Vrubel went to Italy. There he feverishly draws - he is fascinated by everything he sees. Again he conquers his passion for the theater and returning to Moscow, he begins to paint large decorative panels, sets and theater costumes. In 1896 he married Nadezhda Zabella, the opera singer, who he often draws. She is the swan queen in the eponymous painting inspired by the fairy tale of Roman-Korsakov. The birth of the son of the family couple becomes a tragedy - the child has a rabbit lip, and Vrubel perceives this as a "punishment". He draws a portrait of the child with the sad acknowledgment:

I drew the most realistic portrait of my son, but I will never show it to him ..." The time coincides with the beginning of the artist's work on his painting "The Demon Seated." In the same - 1902, he enrolled in psychiatry for treatment. The diagnosis is "progressive paralysis due to syphilis.

According to the description in the hospital diary, the artist was constantly restless, suffered from a mania of greatness, spoke that he was an Emperor and wanted to drink champagne? "In 1903, Vrubel was put out of the clinic, but in reality a new great misfortune awaits him - his son Sava. This brings the painter back to the hell of his soul, and he has to return to psychiatry again. In fact, he stays there for the rest of his days. At the end of his life, besides being totally blind, he constantly opened the window to breathe fresh air, and he fell ill with pneumonia. In this terrible state of body and soul, he often lashed his knees around the room and prayed God for forgiveness. Suddenly he began to paint religious subjects with images of the Old and New Testaments. Many critics ask whether God has tried not just through the redemption of the disease to return this extremely gifted person to the bosom of the church and faith. Mikhail Vrubel dies on April 1, 1910. On his grave, the poet Alexander Blok say: "We lost the thread of Michael Vrubel's life, not when he lost his mind, and much earlier - when he created the dream of his life - the demon!"

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