Fantastic painting occupies a special place in a bouquet of paintings by Russian artists. This is due to our culture with many tales and polytheistic beliefs. One of the artists who clearly caught the connection between the fictional and the real was Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy. In his canvases there is no obvious division into fiction and reality, these two factors smoothly intertwine and give the viewer a whole story. The principle of some nebula or even “dullness” of the surface, careful selection of images and dim colors give the very fabulousness inherent in the paintings of Ivan Nikolaevich. For example, we can say for sure that “Mermaids” is a picture of Kramskoy, its description coincides with the characteristic of other paintings by this author: mysticism is adjacent to calm nature. By the way, if we talk about realism, then we can see quite familiar landscapes, huts and houses with clearly drawn details.
Kramskoy: from a clerk to painters
The artist was born in May 1837 in the Voronezh province. His father was a clerk, so he wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. And so it happened. After graduation, Ivan worked as a clerk at the Duma in his city. But in 1853 his attention shifted to another activity, he began to process photographic images, this was taught to him by Tulinov, who was a fellow countryman of Kramskoy.
Thus began the path of the painter as an artist. Already in 1857 he enrolled at the Art Academy in St. Petersburg. The successes of the young man were so obvious that Ivan Nikolayevich received a gold medal for one of the paintings.
Among the works of the draftsman were portraits of famous people, with the help of which he filled his hand in this genre, but his most famous painting is “Christ in the Desert”. She became the peak of the development of Kramskoy in religious painting.
An unimaginable number of paintings and photographs remained to the heirs in memory of a wonderful artist who died of heart problems at the age of fifty.
Mystery of the painting “Mermaids”
Perhaps one of the most ardent lovers of mysticism in Russian painting is Kramskoy. The picture of “The Mermaid” gathered around itself so many rash opinions about her bad reputation that all, unfortunately, cannot be listed. The story of the work is, strangely enough, connected with Gogol and his story “May Night or The Drowned Woman”. According to popular rumor, drowned girls after death became mermaids, inviting travelers to their nets. It was them that the draftsman wanted to depict in the picture.
Why exactly Gogol? As you know, Nikolai Vasilievich was also not averse to writing about something mysterious, even to recall “Viya” or “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka”, and Kramskoy re-read these works several times. Probably, such an attraction to Gogol was the starting point in the field of fantastic painting. The artist wanted to convey the atmosphere of the May night in Ukraine in fine details, hence the effect of co-presence. As Kramskoy himself said, the picture of “The Mermaid” does not fully meet his requirements, because he so wanted to portray the light of the moon, but he failed to “catch” it. Although we see how the cold light of a night luminary glides over the images of mysterious mermaids. But this is only part of what the author himself intended.
It was believed that the mystical plots were dangerous, and if you write them off from the works of Gogol, then in general you can go crazy. Kramskoy even joked about this: “It’s good that with such a plot I didn’t completely break my neck, and if I didn’t catch the moon, then something fantastic happened.”
And indeed, in galleries and at exhibitions she could never find a place. Pictures near the “Mermaids” fell, and from the room a little audible singing was heard and a breath of coolness. But after the canvas was hung in a far corner, far from the sun, the supernatural stopped, probably the mermaids were too hot in the sunlight.
The picture is like a believable fantasy dream
But no matter what Kramskoy himself said, the picture of The Mermaid was a success, because for many it made a strong impression, though not always positive. This is due to what the artist wanted to depict on the canvas. And the faces of the drowned, and nature itself as if evoke unpleasant dreary thoughts.
The facial expressions of girls betray sadness in life, dreams of the past, and hopelessness. The whole picture is a symbol of deep sadness. Unusual images of mermaid girls are immediately evident. They have no tails, as you can see, they move very well on their two on the ground, only the viewer has the impression of weightlessness, since the white clothes of the undins make them look like ghosts.
Even if I was not completely satisfied with Kramskoy's work, the picture of The Mermaid was appreciated by professionals: many art critics equated this work with a magical dream, as everything is realistically depicted on it.
Pushkin's score
The sun of Russian poetry spoke extremely positively about the canvas of Ivan Nikolaevich. What amazed Pushkin in Kramskoy's “Mermaid” painting? Yes, all the same as all lovers of good creativity. He felt the atmosphere that the author was trying to convey, he admired the shades of mood, because Alexander Sergeyevich saw here playfulness, and daydreaming, and sadness. In the images of girls, he caught that present, which, alas, sometimes you will not find in living people. It was precisely such psychologism that was not usually characteristic of portrait painters that conquered Pushkin.
This work turned the world of artists upside down; it had a huge impact on subsequent works by the same author, as well as on the work of his followers. As Kramskoy wanted, the painting “The Mermaid” caught its moonlight, thanks to the competent use of folklore plots and the culture of the Russian people on canvas. Many schoolchildren consider the reproduction of the work as an illustration for Gogol’s “May Nights”, and then write impressions of what they saw. However, the composition of the painting “The Mermaid” by Ivan Kramskoy requires not only the ability to correctly express his thoughts, but also to understand the feelings of not only the characters, but also the artist himself.