Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin created at the turn of the century, became famous as an artist, illustrator, an excellent master of theatrical scenery. He created his own style in graphics, which was very fond of the viewer and found many imitators. The fate of this amazing master and his exquisite heritage in art invariably remain in the center of attention of a modern cultural man.
The beginning of the way
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin was born on August 4 (16), 1876 in the village of Tarkhovka, near St. Petersburg. The ancestors of the artist are famous Kaluga merchants who became famous for their patronage of arts and a lively interest in the fate of the fatherland. The artist's father, Yakov Ivanovich Bilibin, was a naval doctor, then head of the hospital and medical inspector of the imperial fleet, participated in the Russian-Turkish war. Father dreamed of seeing his son as a lawyer, and young Ivan Bilibin, after graduating from high school with a silver medal , entered the University of St. Petersburg at the Law School.
The young man studied conscientiously, attended a full course of lectures, defended his thesis. But next to this quite practical and promising brilliant legal future perspective was another dream. From childhood, he painted with enthusiasm. Along with his studies at the university, Bilibin comprehended the science of painting and graphics at the Drawing School of the Artists' Union (Society for the Promotion of Arts). For a month and a half, he took lessons at the private art school of the Austro-Hungarian artist Anton Azhbe in Munich. It was here that they attached special importance to the study of drawing and developed the ability of students to find an individual artistic style. At home, Bilibin worked diligently in the painting workshop under the guidance of Ilya Repin.
Favorite topic
At the time of Bilibin's studies at the Higher Art School of the Academy of Arts, where Repin arranged for a young man, there was an exhibition of Viktor Vasnetsov, who wrote in a unique romantic manner on the themes of Russian myths and fairy tales. Spectators of the exhibition were many of our artists who became famous in the future. Bilibin Ivan Yakovlevich was among them. Vasnetsov’s work struck the student to the very heart, he later admitted that he saw here what his soul was unknowingly torn to and longed for.
In the years 1899-1902, the Russian Expedition for the Preparation of Government Papers issued a series of books equipped with excellent illustrations for folk tales. Here were graphic paintings for the tales “Vasilisa the Beautiful”, “White Duck”, “Ivan Tsarevich and the Firebird” and many others. The author of the drawings was Bilibin Ivan Yakovlevich.
Illustrations to folk tales
His understanding of the national spirit and poetry, which breathes Russian folklore, evolved not only under the influence of a vague attraction to folk art. The artist passionately wanted to know and studied the spiritual component of his people, his poetics and everyday life. In 1899, Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin visited the village of Yegny, in the Tver province, in 1902 he studied culture and ethnography of the Vologda province, a year later the artist visited the Olonets and Arkhangelsk provinces. From trips Bilibin brought a collection of works by folk artists, photographs of wooden architecture.
His impressions resulted in journalistic works and scientific reports on folk art, architecture and national costume. An even more fruitful result of these trips was Bilibin's original works, in which the master's addiction to graphics and a very special style were revealed. In Bilibin lived two bright talents - a researcher and an artist, and one gift nourished the other. Ivan Yakovlevich worked with great care on the details, not allowing himself to be faked in a single dash.
Style specifics
What is so different in its manner from other artists Bilibin Ivan Yakovlevich? Photos of his wonderful and joyful works help to understand this. On a piece of paper we see a clear patterned graphic contour, executed with the utmost detail and colorized by a bizarre watercolor gamut of the most cheerful colors. His illustrations for epics and tales are surprisingly detailed, lively, poetic and not devoid of humor.
Caring for the historical authenticity of the image, which was shown in the drawings in the details of the costume, architecture, utensils, the master was able to create an atmosphere of magic and mysterious beauty. This is very close in spirit to the creative association "World of Art" Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, whose biography is closely connected with this group of artists. They were all related by interest in the culture of the past, in the enticing charms of antiquity.
Worldview in drawings
From 1907 to 1911, Bilibin created a number of unsurpassed illustrations for epics and for fabulous poetic works by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. Here are delightful and exquisite pictures for “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel” and “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”. The illustrations became not just a supplement, but a peculiar continuation of these verbal works, which, no doubt, were read by Bilibin with his soul.
Ivan Tsarevich and the frog who turned to the princess, Koschey the Immortal and Yaga, Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber, Elena the Beautiful, Churila Plenkovich, Svyatogor - how many heroes I felt with my heart and “revived” Ivan Yakovlevich on a piece of paper!
Folk art presented the master with some techniques: ornamental and popular methods of designing the artistic space, which Bilibin brought to perfection in his creations.
Activities in the print media
Ivan Bilibin worked as an artist in magazines of the time. He created the masterpieces of printing, which contributed much to the growth of this industry and its introduction into popular culture. Publications "People's Reading Room", "Golden Fleece", "Art Treasures of Russia" and others could not do without elegant and informative vignettes, screensavers, covers and posters of Bilibin.
World fame
The work of the Russian master of graphics became known abroad. They were shown at exhibitions in Prague and Paris, in Venice and Berlin, in Vienna, Brussels and Leipzig. They were reprinted by foreign magazines, and foreign theaters ordered Bilibin sketches for the design of performances.
Satirical drawings
In 1905, the first Russian revolution broke out. As a large part of the intelligentsia, Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, with inspiration, supported the decisive rise of the masses. In satirical magazines "Bogeyman" and "Infernal Mail" appeared caricatures of the artist. He makes hilarious sketches that make fun of the tsarist officials, using ink and in his famous fairy-tale style, draws a huge figure of King Peas, arrogantly towering above his subjects. For revolutionary drawings, the artist was even arrested for a day.
Master of scenery and watercolors
Bilibin's career as an author of theatrical scenery began with a collaboration with the Paris National Theater, which made him an order for sketches for Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Snow Maiden. Then there were scenery for productions in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The success of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Golden Cockerel” in Moscow was due in no small part to the magnificent fabulous scenery created by the hand of the master. Bilibin made sketches of outfits for Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov and Spanish costumes for Calderon’s drama Purgatory of St. Patrick, as well as for the comedy Lope de Vega's Sheep Spring. The artist talentedly developed the style of clothing for the Diaghilev ballet.
For ten years, starting in 1907, Bilibin taught graphics at the school of the Society for the Promotion of the Arts. After traveling across England and Ireland, Ivan Yakovlevich “fell ill” with the landscape. He tirelessly painted in watercolor the sea, the sky and the harsh British coast. The artist created rocky and seascapes in the Crimea, where he traveled every summer.
Revolutionary disasters, emigration
In February 1917, a revolution took place in Russia. Ivan Yakovlevich accepted her too. He even created a sketch of a drawing with a double-headed eagle, which crowned the coat of arms of the Provisional Government, and much later was used to mint coins.
The October Revolution did not arouse enthusiasm among the artist. In 1920, he went abroad from a port in Novorossiysk and ended up in Egypt. Here Bilibin was destined to live four years.
The works of this time are sketches with mysterious and eternal pyramids, sketches and sketches of portraits of Cairo residents.
In the fall of 1925, Ivan Yakovlevich arrived in Paris and began to work actively in print, illustrated Russian, Western and Eastern tales. At the time of emigration, Bilibin created magnificent sketches for the icons and frescoes of the Russian church at the Olshansky cemetery in Prague.
The decade between 1920-1930, Ivan Yakovlevich fruitfully and successfully worked on the design of theatrical productions: he made drawings for opera seasons at the Champs Elysees Theater, worked in the entreprise “Russian Opera in Paris”, and created outlandish sketches for Stravinsky’s ballet “The Firebird”.
Return
Life in exile was rich and free, but the artist did not leave the growing longing for Russia. During his voluntary exile, he never accepted foreign citizenship, and in 1935 took Soviet citizenship. Then he created the monumental panel "Mikula Selyaninovich" for the building of the Soviet embassy in the capital of France. A year later, the artist and his family returned to their homeland. Bilibin was warmly welcomed by the new authorities and became a professor at the graphic workshop of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture of the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. He did not leave work in the field of book graphics.
The famous artist died in siege of Leningrad in 1942 from starvation and was buried in a mass grave at the Smolensk cemetery.
A distinct and bright trace that was left in the history of world art by the amazing Russian artist Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin. Paintings, murals, graphics and other examples of his inspiring creativity are now stored in public and private collections. They decorate the halls of the "Russian Museum" in St. Petersburg, are exhibited at the Theater Museum. Bakhrushin in Moscow, in the Kiev Museum of Russian Art, in the London Museum of Victoria and Albert, in the Paris National Gallery, in the Oxford Museum of Ashmolean and many others.