Aivazovsky Wagner Lev Arnoldovich
"He was, O sea, your singer"
"He was, O sea, your singer"
Among the letters received today was a letter from Moscow from the Historical Museum. In a year it will be a hundred years since Pushkin’s birth, and more and more often people are turning to him from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa with requests to paint new pictures about the poet. There are not many people alive who personally knew Alexander Sergeevich, who met him.
Aivazovsky values his paintings about Pushkin very much. He never forgot how kind the poet was to him, an aspiring artist. He also idolizes Pushkin because his poetry glorifies the nature of Crimea, his native Black Sea. And from his youth he strives to be imbued with Pushkin’s vision of the sea and realize it. Once upon a time, in Italy, the poet Yazykov wished him this. Years have passed, but Pushkin is still his ideal. He does not part with the poet's books. In them, now even more strongly than in their youth, clarity and harmony, eternal praise of nature and life, are revealed.
The letter received today from the Historical Museum particularly excited Ivan Konstantinovich. It reminded him that human life has its limits, that time goes on without stopping, and he has not yet realized all the plans that arose in his youth, when the outlines of future paintings about Pushkin on the shores of the Black Sea dimly appeared in his dreams.
But now he will write them. He will definitely write. He is ready to realize his lifelong plans. But, listening to himself, to the sound that is always born in him before each new picture and fills his entire being, he now distinguishes more than one all-consuming sound. With his inner vision, he clearly sees that the image of Pushkin moves slightly away from him, does not leave, but moves to the side and continues to gaze at him. Between him and Pushkin suddenly two water shafts rise. And he hears the sound filling him grow into a chorale. Pushkin’s eyes look at him expectantly, and then, when powerful music drowns out the sound of the waves, Pushkin laughs and waves his hand...
Aivazovsky almost screams: now he understands everything! Finally, the image of the sea, the only one to which he had been drawn all his life, appeared to him in all its beauty and strength. Came through Pushkin...
From now on it is clear to him that he should not strive to embody the portrait image of the poet, he is beyond his power; its purpose is to embody the sea in Pushkin’s style. This will be the image of the poet...
On the same day, minister Peter Dormenko stretched a colossal canvas. In the eighty-first year of his life, Aivazovsky climbed onto a high platform and began painting “Among the Waves.”
As usual, he did not have any sketches prepared for this painting, and he painted it out of inspiration, true to his improvisational method. But in fact, the artist had been gradually preparing for it for ten years. In 1889 he wrote his enormous "Wave". There rise two rows of waves, between them there is a deep depression and a dying ship. Six years later he writes a new “Wave”. The water mounds still rise, but there is no longer a ship that stands out from the overall composition, and the very rhythm of the waves is more natural. Now memory resurrects these two “Waves”. Could he have thought when he wrote them that they would only be sketches for this new work? As never before, the artist felt that he had approached the canvas, ready to reproduce everything that had been worn out, everything that had been thought out. Only at the beginning of his work did he briefly succumb to his former romantic interests and painted a boat in the center of the picture with people dying among the waves.
The grandchildren Nix and Kotik, who were watching his work, shouted in one voice:
No need, grandpa! No need for them to drown!..
But he already understood that he should not do this. The sea should not cause him fear, not horror! It doesn't exist to be feared. And it was as if his thoughts were conveyed to Jeanne, or maybe he was talking to himself so loudly that she heard... And now her singing came from the living room. She improvises a melody based on Pushkin’s poems:
Farewell, free elements!
For the last time before me
You're rolling blue waves
And you shine with proud beauty.
Yes Yes! That's it - he intends to depict the proud beauty of the sea... All his life he loved the sea, admired it. I fully realized that beauty makes a person happy, strong, kind... All these thoughts accompany every stroke of the brush. Now the canvas is divided into two parts: above there is a dark stormy sky, and below it is a huge raging sea. And here is the center, in it, like in a funnel, primordial chaos boils, from which two waves rise... And a miracle happens - nature sings a hymn to the waves born from chaos, forming two water cones in the center of the ring... A ray of sunlight illuminated the whole picture, and both rising waves are illuminated from within, but the white foam between them is even lighter... And again Jeanne’s voice:
Couldn't leave it forever
I find the boring, motionless shore...
Oh, my dear, clever girl, Zhanna!.. Yes, yes, not on a boring, motionless shore you will see the sea in all its grandeur and beauty. Pushkin understood this. And this was revealed to him when he wrote “The Black Sea”. He will place both himself and the viewer far from the boring shore, from here he must observe the unfolding storm, all its color shades...
...He was, O sea, your singer.
Your image was marked on it,
He was created by your spirit...
Zhanna's voice comes as if from afar. But this is so: he is far from both the living room and his workshop. Although the obedient brush does not stop running across the canvas, his spirit is among the waves and admires the seething circulation of transparent waves, the play of greenish-blue and lilac tones. It is they who sound the chord: “He was, O sea, your singer.”
Yes, with a clear conscience he accepts this title, which people gave him long ago.
The rumor that Aivazovsky painted a colossal painting in ten days quickly spread among Crimean artists. And again painters and copyists from Simferopol, Yalta, and Sevastopol flocked to him. Knowing the kindness of the artist, they all hoped that the master would allow them to immediately begin copying the new painting. But, as soon as they saw the huge canvas, they immediately forgot about their intentions. Every artist at that moment thought that it would take a lifetime to create such a picture. They told Ivan Konstantinovich about this.
You are absolutely right, my friends. My entire previous life was a preparation for the picture you see. In it, it seems to me, I managed to achieve a combination of flights of fantasy with technical techniques developed over my long life.
The canvas “Among the Waves” has found a permanent home - in the Gallery. This painting will never be sent from here anywhere, it will remain with him until the end of his life, and then when the Gallery becomes the property of his hometown. Now every day, before going to the workshop, Ivan Konstantinovich stands in front of him for a long time. And new paintings are born in the workshop: “Pushkin on the shore with the Raevsky family at Kuchuk-Lambat”, “Pushkin at the Gurzuf Rocks”, “Pushkin on the top of Ai-Petri at sunrise”. The artist pays his last tribute to the poet. Aivazovsky is the first to celebrate Pushkin’s centenary in Russia.
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Literary scholars call Pushkin’s “The Sea” an elegy. The poem appeared in November 1824. In it, Pushkin reflects on the freedom of the creative spirit, the human personality, comparing it with the free, all-powerful sea element. You can read the text of Pushkin’s poem “To the Sea” on the website.
An unknown romantic hero, standing on a motionless shore, listens to the murmur of the sea waves, looks at the powerful, impetuous unbridled water element. The sea does not obey any laws; the fate of both a flock of large ships and a fishing boat depends on its whim. The sea calls, conquers, attracts the hero with its solemn beauty, plunging into the mysterious abyss of inexplicable freedom. This freedom is given from above, it is not constrained by power, education, or a tyrant. But like Byron's proud romantic hero, Pushkin's lyrical hero remains alone on a deserted shore. He cannot break the shackles of human laws of life. However, no one has the right to deprive a poet of his highest gift - to immerse himself in the element of feelings, akin to the elements of the sea, and give birth to lyrical lines of amazing power of expression.
The poem “To the Sea” by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was a kind of result of the southern period of the poet’s work. You can download the work on the website.
Farewell, free elements!
For the last time before me
You're rolling blue waves
And you shine with proud beauty.
Like a friend's mournful murmur,
Like his call at the farewell hour,
Your sad noise, your inviting noise
I heard it for the last time.
My soul's desired limit!
How often along your shores
I wandered silent and foggy,
We languish with cherished intentions!
I loved your reviews so much
Muffled sounds, abyssal voices,
And silence in the evening hour,
And wayward impulses!
The humble sail of the fishermen,
Guarded by your whim,
Glides bravely among the swells:
But you jumped, irresistible, -
And a flock of ships are sinking.
Couldn't leave it forever
I find the boring, motionless shore
Congratulate you with delight
And guide along your ridges
My poetic escape.
You waited, you called... I was chained;
My soul was torn in vain:
Enchanted by powerful passion,
I was left by the shores.
What to regret? Wherever now
Have I set out on a careless path?
One item in your desert
It would strike my soul.
One rock, a tomb of glory...
There they fell into a cold sleep
Majestic memories:
Napoleon was dying there.
There he rested amidst torment.
And after him, like the noise of a storm,
Another genius rushed away from us,
Another ruler of our thoughts.
Disappeared, mourned by freedom,
Leaving the world your crown.
Make noise, get excited by bad weather:
He was, O sea, your singer.
Your image was marked on it,
He was created by your spirit:
How powerful, deep and gloomy you are,
Like you, indomitable by nothing.
The world is empty... Now where to
Would you take me out, ocean?
The fate of people everywhere is the same:
Where there is a drop of good, there is on guard
Enlightenment or tyrant.
Goodbye sea! I won't forget
Your solemn beauty
And I will hear for a long, long time
Your hum in the evening hours.
In the forests, in the deserts are silent
I’ll bear it, I’m full of you,
Your rocks, your bays,
And the shine, and the shadow, and the sound of the waves.
Continuing the theme of Pushkin in the work of Aivazovsky, paintings dedicated to the great poet.
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky dedicated about twenty paintings and drawings to the poet. Perhaps they were written in memory of their meeting. They met only once, briefly, in 1836. This acquaintance is very similar to how, at the Lyceum exam in 1815, Derzhavin, on the verge of death, blessed young Pushkin.
Then, in September 1836, Pushkin visited an exhibition at the Academy of Arts, where he was introduced to 19-year-old Aivazovsky as one of the most talented academicians.
This meeting sunk into Aivazovsky’s soul. 60 years later, in 1896, in a letter, he recalled it in detail:
Nowadays they talk so much about Pushkin and there are so few people left who knew personally the sun of Russian poetry, the great poet, that I kept wanting to write a few words from my memories of him.
Here they are: in 1836, three months before his death, precisely in September, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin came to the Academy with his wife Natalya Nikolaevna for our September exhibition. Having learned that Pushkin was at an exhibition in the Antique Gallery, we, students of the Academy and young artists, ran there and surrounded him. He stood arm in arm with his wife in front of a painting by Lebedev, a gifted landscape painter. Pushkin admired her.
Our inspector of the Academy, Krutov, who accompanied him, looked for Lebedev among everyone to introduce him to Pushkin, but Lebedev was not there, and when he saw me, he took my hand and introduced me to Pushkin, as he had received a gold medal at that time (I was graduating from the Academy). Pushkin greeted me very kindly and asked where my paintings were. I pointed them out to Pushkin; as I remember now, there were two of them: “Clouds from the Oranienbaum seashore” and the other - “A group of Chukhonians on the shore of the Gulf of Finland.” Having learned that I was a Crimean native, the great poet asked me what city I was from, and if I had been here for so long, then whether I was homesick and whether I was sick in the north. Then I took a good look at him and even remember what the lovely Natalya Nikolaevna was wearing.
The poet’s beautiful wife wore a black velvet dress, a bodice with intertwined black ribbons and real lace, and on her head was a large fawn straw hat with a large ostrich feather, and on her hands were long white gloves. We, all the students, escorted our dear guests to the entrance.
Since then, my already beloved poet has become the subject of my thoughts, inspiration and long conversations and questions about him...
Some of the artist’s famous paintings are about a visit to A.S. Pushkin, Aivazovsky’s homeland - Crimea, in those years also called Taurida. Few people saw it; only a few individuals went there. It was a land covered in legends, the blessed “midday land.”
“From the Taman Peninsula, the ancient Tmutarakan principality, the shores of the Crimea opened up to me.” The news that the legendary Russian principality was located on the Taman Peninsula became a sensation at the end of the 18th century. In 1792, a marble slab with a Russian inscription from 1068-1069 was found at the Taman settlement, which mentioned Tmutarakan. Pushkin was probably shown this stone, on which it was written: “In the summer of 6576 (1065), index 6, Prince Gleb measured the sea on the ice, from Tmutarakan to Kerch 30054 fathoms.”
Pushkin on the Black Sea coast. 1887.
Nikolaev Art Museum named after. V.V.Vereshchagina, Ukraine
In the spring of 1820, Pushkin was removed from St. Petersburg, having received a transfer from service - seconded to the office of General I.N. Inzov, trustee of foreign colonists in southern Russia.
“I see a distant shore, magical lands of the midday”
These lines were born when Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was crossing the Kerch Strait to the Crimean land on August 27 (new style) August 1820.
A.S. Pushkin in Crimea near the Gurzuf rocks. 1880
Pushkin came to Crimea with the family of General N.N. Raevsky. The general's son Nikolai Raevsky was Pushkin's friend from the Lyceum, and the disgraced poet was allowed to travel to the Caucasus and Crimea with this family.
Having stayed with a hospitable colleague Nikolai Raevsky in the Caucasus, they set off on August 30 by sea on the corvette “Abo” to Gurzuf. Pushkin and the Raevsky family sailed past Alushta, admiring its surroundings. There is no exact information, but there are assumptions that Alexander Sergeevich visited the places he saw from the sea during horseback rides that he made from Gurzuf.
A. S. Pushkin and Raevskaya in Gurzuf
A. S. Pushkin and Countess Raevskaya by the sea near Gurzuf 1886
“From here (from Feodosia) we set off by sea past the midday shores of Tauris to Yurzuf... The ship sailed in front of mountains covered with poplars, grapes, laurels and cypresses; Tatar villages flashed everywhere... When I woke up, I saw a captivating picture: multi-colored mountains shone; the flat roofs of Tatar huts from a distance they looked like beehives attached to the mountains; poplars, like green columns, rose slenderly between them; on the right was the huge Ayu-Dag... and all around was the blue, clear sky, and the bright sea, and the shine, and the midday air...” A.S. Pushkin
A. S. Pushkin on top of Ai-Petri at sunrise 1899
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
The poet recalled: “When I woke up at night, I loved to listen to the sound of the sea and listened for hours.”
It is noted that the artist also loved to depict his native Feodosia against the backdrop of the sunset sky - this is how Pushkin saw it and described it in his elegy when he sailed from Fedosia to Gurzuf in 1820:
The daylight has gone out;
The evening fog fell on the blue sea.
Make noise, make noise, obedient sail,
Worry beneath me, sullen ocean.
I see a distant shore
The lands of the midday are magical lands.
I rush there with excitement and longing,
Drunk with memories...
Moonrise in Feodosia 1892 
Moonlight night. Bath in Feodosia 1853
Feodosia on a moonlit night. View from the balcony of Aivazovsky's house to the sea and city 1880
Pushkin spent a month in Crimea, and almost three weeks in Gurzuf, which became not only a vacation in the circle of the Raevsky family dear to his heart, but also a fruitful creative period.
Farewell A.S. Pushkin with the sea. 1877
All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg
The picture was performed together with I.E. Repin. Repin painted Pushkin, the landscape was done by Aivazovsky. The painting is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death. The plot was taken from Pushkin’s poem “To the Sea”.
Goodbye sea! I won't forget
Your solemn beauty
And I will hear for a long, long time
Your hum in the evening hours.
In the forests, in the deserts are silent
I’ll bear it, I’m full of you,
Your rocks, your bays,
And the shine, and the shadow, and the sound of the waves.
In 1847, on the tenth anniversary of Pushkin’s death, Aivazovsky gave his widow his painting “Moonlit Night at the Seaside. Constantinople."
“Moonlit night by the seaside. Constantinople."1847
Feodosia Art Gallery named after. I.K. Aivazovsky
Contemporaries found that Aivazovsky looked like Pushkin!
Vyazemsky wrote to Pogodin before Aivazovsky’s visit to Moscow: “Our famous painter Aivazovsky would like to meet you. In addition to his excellent talent, he has one more special advantage: in appearance he resembles our A.S. Pushkin. Treat him in Moscow both for his talent and for his resemblance...”
Once Aivazovsky portrayed Pushkin in full height. Did Aivazovsky write Pushkin from memory? After all, the great poet never posed for the great marine painter. Aivazovsky created paintings with Pushkin in the last quarter of the 19th century, half a century after the death of his idol. And one cannot help but think that he wrote it from himself.
A.S. Pushkin on the Black Sea coast. 1897
Odessa Art Museum, Ukraine
Ivan Aivazvosky. Self-portrait, 1892
Feodosia Art Gallery
Ivan Aivazvosky. Self-portrait. 1874.
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Today, on A.S. Pushkin’s birthday (June 6, 1799), I would like to pay tribute to love and respect to the Great Poet in our Nautical Club.
His poem "To the Sea" is known to everyone. Rereading it again and again, we experience surprise at the beauty and grandeur of the elements, at the complete merging of the author with the sea.
However, what am I doing...All the words here are superfluous. I suggest you remember this poem yourself once again.
“To the Sea” Alexander Pushkin
Farewell, free elements!
For the last time before me
You're rolling blue waves
And you shine with proud beauty.
Like a friend's mournful murmur,
Like his call at the farewell hour,
Your sad noise, your inviting noise
I heard it for the last time.
My soul's desired limit!
How often along your shores
I wandered silent and foggy,
We languish with cherished intentions!
I loved your reviews so much
Muffled sounds, abyssal voices,
And silence in the evening hour,
And wayward impulses!
The humble sail of the fishermen,
Guarded by your whim,
Glides bravely among the swells:
But you jumped, irresistible, -
And a flock of ships are sinking.
Couldn't leave it forever
I find the boring, motionless shore
Congratulate you with delight
And guide along your ridges
My poetic escape.
You waited, you called... I was chained;
My soul was torn in vain:
Enchanted by powerful passion,
I was left by the shores.
What to regret? Wherever now
Have I set out on a careless path?
One item in your desert
It would strike my soul.
One rock, a tomb of glory...
There they fell into a cold sleep
Majestic memories:
Napoleon was dying there.
There he rested amidst torment.
And after him, like the noise of a storm,
Another genius rushed away from us,
Another ruler of our thoughts.
Disappeared, mourned by freedom,
Leaving the world your crown.
Make noise, get excited by bad weather:
He was, O sea, your singer.
Your image was marked on it,
He was created by your spirit:
How powerful, deep and gloomy you are,
Like you, indomitable by nothing.
The world is empty... Now where to
Would you take me out, ocean?
The fate of people everywhere is the same:
Where there is a drop of good, there is on guard
Enlightenment or tyrant.
Goodbye sea! I won't forget
Your solemn beauty
And I will hear for a long, long time
Your hum in the evening hours.
In the forests, in the deserts are silent
I’ll bear it, I’m full of you,
Your rocks, your bays,
And the shine, and the shadow, and the sound of the waves.
1824
..............................................................................................................................
And here is something that was not published during the poet’s lifetime. A translation of the beginning of the poem by the English poet R. Southey “Medoc” (1805). The poem is based on the legend of the Welsh prince Medoc, who discovered America (Mexico) back in the 12th century. The translated passage is dedicated to the return of the sailors to England.
The wind is blowing fair. - There is a ship coming, -
The flags are developed at full length, swollen
The sails are still sailing, and ahead of the stern
Sea foam is heard. - To many
All swimmers' chests became full.
Now that the dangerous path has been completed,
They saw their native land again;
One stands, looking into the distance,
And in dark sketches he draws
Dream of long-familiar objects,
Bay and cape - while the eyes are motionless
They won't get sick. Another comrade
Shakes hands and greets from the fatherland,
And he thanks the gentlemen, sobbing.
Another, silently making a prayer
To the saint and the most holy virgin,
And alms and distant worship
Renews ancient vows,
When he finds everything safely.
Thoughtful, mute and distant from everyone,
Medok himself is immersed in memories
About a glorious feat, then in dreams of hope,
Then in sorrowful forebodings and fear.
Beautiful evening and fair wind
It sounds between the ropes, and the ship is reliable
Runs, making noise, between the waves.
The sun is setting.
1829
Today, on the day of the 90th anniversary of Valentin Savvich Pikul, the All-Russian Literary and Historical Wardroom dedicated to the outstanding Russian writer, patriot, sailor and his creative heritage is being held in Moscow on Pushkin Square.
The event, organized by the All-Russian Fleet Support Movement (DPF) together with the Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport, will be attended by the widow of the writer A. I. Pikul, representatives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Transport, Rosmorrechflot, creative, veteran organizations, educational institutions, volunteer and search movements.
Valentin Savvich is a unique phenomenon in Russian literature. A nugget, deprived by the war of the opportunity to receive a full education, a patriot who, with the power of his talent and civic energy, breathed new life into the most interesting pages of Russian history. The peaceful childhood of Valentin Pikul was interrupted by the Great Patriotic War. When he was thirteen years old, he extinguished “lighters” in besieged Leningrad, at fourteen he studied at the Solovetsky school of cabin boys, and at fifteen he was appointed commander of a combat post on the destroyer Grozny.
A brilliant popularizer of history, he can be said to have returned the memory of several generations of Russian people. His books on historical and naval topics are read by both young and old. In his novels “On the Outskirts of the Great Empire”, “Paris for Three Hours”, “Pen and Sword”, “The Battle of the Iron Chancellors”, “The Favorite”, “I Have the Honor” and others, Pikul managed to combine the chronicle of events with a fascinating plot, which is attracts readers to his books to this day.
In his memoirs, the writer defined the meaning of his work as follows: “The task of a historical novelist is to destroy stereotypes and templates in order to resurrect the forgotten heroes of the Fatherland from oblivion.” And with his talent he brought back from oblivion many heroes of Russia, great and unnoticed, famous and undeservedly forgotten, with their unique character and extraordinary fate.
Today V. S. Pikul is one of the most published domestic writers in the world. The total circulation of his works, published in Russia and dozens of foreign countries, exceeded 500 million.
Pikul is especially loved by sailors and rivermen. For a series of works on maritime themes - “Ocean Patrol”, “From the Dead End”, “Moonzund”, “Requiem for the PQ-17 Caravan”, “Wealth”, “Three Ages of Okini-san”, “Katorga” - Pikul is called a marine painter . For the novel “Cruisers” in 1988 he was awarded the title of laureate of the State Prize of the RSFSR.
The writer's widow, Antonina Ilyinichna Pikul, with the support of public organizations, is doing a lot of work to disseminate the creative heritage of the great patriot-sailor. She is the author of 9 biographical books dedicated to the writer and his work.
The All-Russian Fleet Support Movement actively helps her in this. The history of the DPF is closely connected with the largest Russian writers who devoted their work to the domestic fleet, its history and Russian sailors, among whom V. S. Pikul occupies a special place. At the end of the 90s of the last century, the Movement led an all-Russian campaign to raise funds for the completion of ships for the Navy and maritime border guard. Using the funds raised, three warships were completed, including the sea minesweeper "Valentin Pikul", now serving in the Black Sea Fleet. On the initiative of the DPF, in 2013, on the occasion of Pikul’s 85th birthday, a monument was unveiled to the writer, who served as a cabin boy on a Northern Fleet destroyer during the war.
- Despite the difficult circumstances of his time, throughout his literary career, which had the widest thematic scope, Pikul strove to be extremely sincere in his assessments. The origins of this sincerity and the power of his creative method are in the colossal desire to influence the Russian people, the state, military, naval system for the better with the help of truth, the example of his ancestors. Valentin Savvich’s books have the main thing - they are read, figuratively speaking, in one breath,” notes the chairman of the DPF, captain of the 1st rank of the reserve Mikhail Petrovich Nenashev.
Prepared by Irina VIKTOROVA. Photo from the Internet