Encyclopedia
Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev was a
Russian
painter and stage designer.
Biography
Boris Kustodiev was born in
Astrakhan into the family of a professor of
philosophy, history of
literature, and logic at the local theological seminary. His father died young, and all financial and material burdens laid on his mother's shoulders. The Kustodiev family rented a small wing in a rich merchant's house. It was there that the boy's first impressions were formed of the way of life of the provincial merchant class. The artist later wrote, "The whole tenor of the rich and plentiful merchant way of life was there right under my nose... It was like something out of an
Ostrovsky play." The artist retained these childhood observations for years, recreating them later in oils and water-colours.
Between 1893 and 1896, Boris studied in theological seminary and took private art lessons in Astrakhan from Pavel Vlasov, a pupil of
Vasily Perov. Subsequently, from 1896 to 1903, he attended
Ilya Repin’s studio at the
Imperial Academy of Arts in
St. Petersburg. Concurrently, he took classes in
sculpture under Dmitry Stelletsky and in etching under
Vasiliy Mate. He first exhibited in 1896.
"I have great hopes for Kustodiev," wrote Repin. "He is a talented artist and a thoughtful and serious man with a deep love of art; he is making a careful study of nature..." When Repin was commissioned to paint a
, he invited Kustodiev to be his assistant. The painting was extremely complex and involved a great deal of hard work. Together with his teacher, the young artist made portrait studies tor the painting, and then executed the right-hand side of the final work. Also at this time, Kustodiev made a series of portraits of contemporaries whom he felt to be his spiritual comrades. These included the artist
Ivan Bilibin , Moldovtsev , and the engraver Mate . Working on these portraits considerably helped the artist, forcing him to make a close study of his model and to penetrate the complex world of the human soul.
In 1903, he married Julia Proshinskaya .
He visited
France and
Spain on a grant from the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1904. Also in 1904, he attended the private studio of René Ménard in
Paris. After that he traveled to Spain, then, in 1907, to
Italy, and in 1909 he visited
Austria and
Germany, and again France and Italy. During these years he painted many portraits and genre pieces. However, no matter where Kustodiev happened to be—in sunny
Seville or in the park at
Versailles—he felt the irresistible pull of his
motherland. After five months in France he returned to Russia. Joyfully he wrote to his friend Mate that he was back once more "in our blessed Russian land".
The
Russian Revolution of 1905, which shook the foundations of society, evoked a vivid response in the artist's soul. He contributed to the satirical journals
Zhupel and
Adskaya Pochta . At that time, he first met the artists of
Mir Iskusstva was a Russia [i]n magazine [i] and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, whi ...
, a group of innovative Russian artists. He joined their association in 1910 and subsequently took part in all their exhibitions.
In 1905, Kustodiev first turned to book illustrating, a genre in which he worked throughout his entire life. He illustrated many works of classical Russian literature, including
Nikolai Gogol's
Dead Souls,
The Carriage, and
The Overcoat;
Mikhail Lermontov's
The Lay of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, His Young Oprichnik and the Stouthearted Merchant Kalashnikov; and
Leo Tolstoy's
How the Devil Stole the Peasants Hunk of Bread and
The Candle.
In 1909, he was elected into
Imperial Academy of Arts.
He continued to work intensively, but a grave illness—
tuberculosis of the
spine—required urgent attention. On the advice of his doctors he went to
Switzerland, where he spent a year undergoing treatment in a private clinic. He pined for his distant homeland, and Russian themes continued to provide the basic material for the works he painted during that year. In 1918, he painted
The Merchant's Wife, which became the most famous of his paintings.
In 1916, he became paraplegic. "Now my whole world is my room", he wrote. His ability to remain joyful and lively despite his paralysis was amazing. His colourful paintings and joyful genre pieces do not reveal his physical suffering, and on the contrary give the impression of a carefree and cheerful life. His
Pancake Tuesday/Maslenitsa and
Fontanka are all painted from his memories. He meticulously restores his own childhood in the busy city on the
Volga banks.
In the first years after the
Russian Revolution of 1917 the artist worked with great inspiration in various fields. Contemporary themes became the basis for his work, being embodied in drawings for calendars and book covers, and in illustrations and sketches of street decorations. His covers for the journals
The Red Cornfield and
Red Panorama attracted attention because of their vividness and the sharpness of their subject matter. Kustodiev also worked in
lithography, illustrating works by
Nekrasov. His illustrations for
Leskov's stories
The Darner and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District were landmarks in the history of Russian book designing, so well did they correspond to the literary images.
The artist was also interested in designing stage scenery. He first started work in the theatre in 1911, when he designed the sets for Alexandr Ostrovskv's
An Ardent Heart. Such was his success that further orders came pouring in. In 1913, he designed the sets and costumes for
The Death of Pazukhin at the Moscow Art Theatre. His talent in this sphere was especially apparent in his work for Ostrovsky's plays;
It's a Family Affair,
A Stroke of Luck,
Wolves and Sheep, and
The Storm. The milieu of Ostrovsky's plays—provincial life and the world of the merchant class—was close to Kustodiev's own genre paintings, and he worked easily and quickly on the stage sets.
In 1923, Kustodiev joined the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. He continued to paint, make engravings, illustrate books, and design for the theater up until his death on May 28, 1927, in Leningrad.
Selected works
References
