Mikhail Vrubel is a mysterious person and an outstanding artist all rolled into one. His career is littered with complex metamorphoses that invariably led him to portray characteristic compositions where brushing alone was not enough.
The nature of the work of Vrubel
The artist was a multi-faceted person. He traveled a lot and repeatedly visited the world art centers: Italy, France, Germany. Of considerable interest to Mikhail Alexandrovich was Greece and Switzerland. Having visited many galleries, studied history and met many characters on his way, Vrubel made human being and moral and philosophical aspects of life the central theme of his work.
The art culture of the 19th century was quite controversial, the artist was forced to fight for the opportunity to convey his vision of the world on canvas, constantly undergoing difficulties in depicting the spiritual solutions to problems.
Vrubel is an artist with vivid individualism and even some mysticism. His work received mixed reviews, and for a long time were not fully accepted.
The origins of the artist
M. Vrubel, whose paintings often served as illustrations for literary works, often turns in his painting to the romanticism of the Renaissance, as well as ancient mythology. In view of the peculiarities of his activity, he was forced to be interested in the history of the development of folk tales.
Due to the lack of a strict framework in the artistic style of the time, Mikhail Alexandrovich often uses techniques from different schools in his work. The favorite tools for conveying the artist’s images are mysterious and ephemeral techniques of early Russian symbolism.
Mikhail Vrubel is an artist with an ambiguous stylistic position. Being a versatile and sensitive person, he dreamed of combining life and art in one canvas. To this end, he resorted to complex artistic decisions, using an ornamental drawing, which brought him very close to the followers of Russian Art Nouveau.
Significant works of the master
You can list many names of artists who would be equally good at working on a portrait, landscape and still life, but none of them can boast such unprecedented mysticism and the complexity of technology as Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel. Extraordinary visual solutions along with the plot load were reflected in the following works of the master: triptych “Faust”, “Morning”. Here, the viewer can follow the trend of the modernist school.
In an attempt to “expose” the human soul and prove its unity with nature, the artist creates the paintings “Pan”, “Lilac”, “Towards Night”. However, this was not enough for Vrubel. Having moved to Kiev in 1884, the master begins to work on a cycle of icons, and also finds his mission in painting the walls of temples. He was engaged in this craft for 5 years and was somewhat disappointed, as he could not realize his ideas in his works - he was forced to serve the ventures of bourgeois society.
A process of metamorphosis occurs when Vrubel sees that all his dreams and vision of human nature are at variance with the reality surrounding him. He becomes obsessed with the idea of creating works of monumental art, global works. An example of Vrubel’s attempts to recreate his ideas on the canvas is his famous Seraph of the Six-Wing.
Moscow period of Vrubel
In Kiev, the artist was crowded and he went to Moscow. Here he seriously engaged in decorative art. A prerequisite for this was the entry of Vrubel into the art circle of S.I. Mamontov. From this moment, the artist works on panels and easel works, for example, “Fortune Teller” and “Venice”.
New opportunities opened up for Vrubel in the capital, and he began to participate in the design of performances and create architectural sketches. In these years, Vrubel began fruitful work on illustrations for the works of Lermontov.
"Six-winged Seraphim" seems to be a complete creative antipode to the famous painting "Demon", on which the artist worked hard in 1890. The theme of good and evil becomes key in the works of Vrubel in his Moscow period of creativity. Oddly enough, it was the image of the demon that allowed the painter to reveal himself as much as possible in the symbolism of his personality, to show the bold nature of the hero, rebel, person who does not accept all the lowland and everyday life of being forced to suffer from deep loneliness because of this. The techniques of the image on the canvas convey to the viewer all the tension of the artist, all his empathy and identification with himself. Symbolically, the picture resembles the confession of a man who managed to comprehend a lot in life, but did not overcome its resistance.
Mikhail Vrubel “Six-winged Seraphim”
Mikhail Vrubel was a very educated person, and at the same time it interfered and helped him in his life. His "Seraph of the Six-Winged" from an artistic point of view surpasses the famous work "Demon Downcast". Few people were able to appreciate all the work invested by the artist in the image of the prophet. With a deep study of the canvas, comparing the purity of the lines and the degree of expression, we can conclude that "Seraph of the Six-Winged" is the quintessence of the artist in search of images of good and evil. Here, all of Vrubel's acquired skills were mixed. He managed to put an end to this painting in the hope of monumental art, showing that he was still tormented by the memories of the demon, but was no longer alone.
The canvas is painted in a dense mosaic brushstroke, the color scheme of the painting conveys the mysticism of the other world, which the artist wanted to show us through the fragments of stained glass.