Biography of Vereshchagin Book

Visitors in the chapter “Creative activity of the artist Vereshchagin in the period from the year” I said that the arrival of an outsider to the estate was a rarity. The obstacle to this was the very location of the estate far beyond the borders of the city line. But the main reason was, of course, the desire of his father is possible to use the time to work more fully, as a result of which he accepted only those visitors who were in one respect or another.

But their number was very insignificant.

As an exception, I remember only the beginner artist Ivanov, a poorly dressed, quiet and modest person who had come about once every six months and persistently achieved a date with the artist Vereshchagin. Each time he received a small money benefit from his father, but this was not this brought him to our house, but an extraordinary love of painting and the desire to become an artist, although he had no data for this, in the opinion of his father.

He brought his father samples of his works, asked his opinion and asked for advice. After his, his father repeatedly said with chagrin that he did not know how to help this young man, because "his hunt is mortal, and the fate is bitter." Once Panya remarked: “If so, Vasily Vasilievich, then, perhaps, you should try to persuade him to change the occupation.” To which his father replied that he had already advised him to engage in any craft simultaneously with the painting that would give a livelihood, and there it will be seen whether he would be able to subsequently fulfill his dream to become an artist.

But the young man did not want to hear such tips! I do not know about the further fate of Ivanov, but in the last years of our life he did not appear behind the Serpukhov outpost. When I was six or seven years old, his good acquaintance sculptor Ilya Yakovlevich Ginzburg came to his father, who in the beginning of the 10ths had taken off a number of figurines of outstanding Russian people: writers, musicians, sculptors, artists, including V., the famous figurine “V.

Vereshchagin at work ”differs not only in great external similarities, but also expresses nature, character of the father. The plaster cast from this figurine stood in the workshop. I had memories of this visit thanks to a comical incident, which was well -kept in my memory. Ilya Yakovlevich, a small stature, a mobile and handsome person, after a conversation with his father in the workshop agreed to stay for lunch.

In addition to father and guest, they sat at the table: my mother, grandmother, Panya and I and my sister Anya. I sat near Ilya Yakovlevich, and next to me is a sister. The lively conversation finally switched to children. Ilya Yakovlevich took a piece of a bread crumb, crumpled it in his fingers, and then quickly pulled me a cockerel, and his sister was a chicken. After his departure, his mother said that the fashioned figures should have been preserved as a keepsake and, turning to me, asked where I was the rooster.

I had to admit that my mother was horrified! I ate, so ate. Father laughed very much, and Panya, who was present at this stage, said that now there would probably be a sculptor, no less known than Ginzburg. The prediction, however, did not come true. Later, when I have already grown up, my parents, wanting to experience if I have the ability to sculpture, bought me clay for modeling and the tools necessary for that.

I made a notorious copy of the tiger hanging on the wall of the gypsum head and a copy of Napoleon’s bust, but resolutely refused to do this case further, which absolutely did not interest me. Shortly before the start of the Russian-Japanese war, the publisher I. Sytin visited his father, who arrived with the elderly printing worker. The purpose of their visit remained unknown to me.

Visitors arrived at ten in the morning and remained in the workshop of his father’s watch until twelve. After their departure, at dinner, talking with Pania, his father recalled his conversation with the worker and expressed surprise that he completely openly and without fear expressed his revolutionary beliefs. Moreover, he not only condemned, but also directly scolded the government, saying that in the near future the working class will be counted with him and show its strength.

Panya replied that he was well aware of the mood of the working circles, but as for the frankness with which the typographic worker was expressed, this was not surprising - he knew who he was talking to, and did not fear any consequences. This topic of the conversation was so unusual that I drew my attention, and I remembered my father’s conversation with Pana tightly.