They say that landscape is a portrait of nature. And with a good artist, he is full of dynamism, a kind of mystery that opens to the viewer only on an intuitively sensual level. He observes an ordinary, even unremarkable sketch of nature - a lonely tree, a restless sea or mountainous terrain - and nevertheless does not cease to admire the unusual angle of the depicted, photographically precisely noticed mood, impressionist game with flowers. All these features can be described and paintings by Igor Grabar. Let’s try to give a description of the painting “February Azure”.
History of creation
As a rule, evidence of the history of the creation of a work of art is extremely short-lived. Some time passes - and the artist himself doesn’t remember exactly when he was visited by the intention to capture something on paper. Fortunately, the history of the picture “February Blue” has not sunk into oblivion. It is known that the canvas was created when Grabar visited Dugino at the hospitable philanthropist Nikolai Mescherin. The Dugin period is considered to be perhaps the most fruitful in the artist’s work, museums and exhibitions painted with pleasure for 13 years took pictures.
Once on a fine February morning, the artist simply decided to take a walk - without paints and an easel. One of the birches seemed to Grabar especially beautiful, he looked at her and ... dropped the stick. And picking it up, he looked at the tree from the bottom up. The effect was just extraordinary! The artist rushed for accessories and sketched what he saw in order to start creating a full-fledged picture in a few days. To do this, Grabar dug a trench in the snow, covered the canvas with an umbrella, which enhanced the effect of the presence of blue, and began to create. He worked for about two weeks, and all this time nature spoiled the artist with beautiful weather.
Image subject
Description of the painting “February Blue” will begin with the main thing - birches in the foreground. The tree is shrouded in the finest winter lace, capable of sparkling merrily even on a cloudy day. A little further visible are the smaller girlfriends of the white-stemmed queen, small birches. And so it comes to mind comparison with the girls who are spinning in a round dance, they call the spring and see off February. It seems that wait a little longer next to the canvas - and you will hear a song about the symbol of our country, the birch.
The tree is depicted against a snow-white bedspread and a piercing blue sky. That is why its branches, giving the birch tree an interesting, even somewhat strange shape, look mysterious, fairy-tale, bewitched. It was as if a white-barreled beauty had just woken up and was reaching for the sky to greet spring, which made it seem that the birch was akimbo.
Color scheme
We continue the work "Description of the painting" February Azure "." It would seem that the image of the winter month requires the use of white paint. However, Grabar acted differently. On the canvas, the viewer can clearly see that the snow is not very clear, thawed spots are visible in some places, which means that spring is approaching. At the same time, the artist generously uses pastel and bright colors. It is believed that in the canvas he reached the limit of color saturation, painting, in fact, with pure light. We will see many shades of blue, ultramarine. All of them merge into the unique music of painting, the main purpose of which is to convey another moment from the life of nature, sometimes invisible to a simple person. By a similar installation, the canvas created by Grabar - “February Blue” - draws closer to the masterpieces of the French Impressionists, such as “Poppies” by Claude Monet.
Dominant mood
The main ideological message of the canvas can be described as anticipation. The winter cold will surely be replaced by warm weather, the depicted birch will dress in a beautiful outfit of green leaves, and nature will begin a new round of its development. This explains the unusual, optimistic emotional background of the canvas. This description of the picture “February Blue” should be taken into account.
Other facts
For Grabar, the glory of the wintertime painter was entrenched. There is even an interesting parallel between the aforementioned Dugin period and Pushkin’s Bolda autumn as one of the most fruitful periods of the poet’s activity. However, Grabar - “February Azure” and other “winter” paintings do not count! - captured other seasons, as well as the faces of people. An artist has worked very fruitfully in his entire life: not every painter can create for almost 60 years without stopping!
The artist originally called the canvas of interest to us “Blue Winter” - an analogy with other paintings by Grabar - but when he gave his brainchild to the Tretyakov Gallery, he renamed it. A masterpiece to this day is there. Visitors look at the canvas, they are surprised to find that they cannot even convey the most skillful reproductions: strokes, individual points from which the canvas is composed. This is also a trace of one of the currents of art - divisionism.
On this description of the picture “February Blue” can be considered complete.