Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi - the famous Russian landscape painter, author of such famous works as "Moonlit Night on the Dnieper", "Birch Grove", "Night" and others. His paintings are easily recognizable by the original decorative manner, bright colors, enhanced transmission of natural light effects.
Childhood and youth
Kuindzhi was born in 1842 in Mariupol. The boy lost his parents early, and he was raised by his uncle and aunt on his father's side. The family lived very poorly, Arkhip from early childhood was forced to get a job. However, he managed to get an elementary education. He studied not very willingly, but even then he began to show an extraordinary love of drawing. For lack of materials, the boy left drawings on the walls, fences and torn pieces of paper.
At the age of 13, on the advice of his employer, the bread merchant Amoretti, he decided to go to Feodosia, where Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky lived and worked at that time. But the attempts to enter him as a student ended in failure: the great Russian artist did not recognize the talent of the young man. For two years, Arkhip served in the apprentices of Aivazovsky, rubbing paints and completing household tasks, but never received a painting lesson.
Creative way
The following years, Arkhip Kuindzhi worked as a retoucher in Mariupol, Odessa and Taganrog. Only in 1868 he was able to fulfill his dream: after several unsuccessful attempts, he managed to become a volunteer at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. At this time, he met I. Kramsky, I. Repin and other famous artists. Influenced by the ideas of the Wanderers, Kuindzhi is trying to focus on a realistic reflection of the world. He writes the paintings “On the Island of Valaam”, “Forgotten Village”, “Autumn Thaw”, “Lake Ladoga”, and others. The works are dominated by muted grayish shades, however, through the play of light, the effect of haze and twilight sky, nature is shown in a romantic, mysterious manner.
In 1875, Kuindzhi married Vera Leontievna Ketcherdzhi-Shapovalova, the daughter of a Mariupol merchant, whom she loved in her youth. After the wedding, the husband and wife went to the island of Valaam, where the artist continued to work on new paintings - "Steppes" and "Ukrainian Night". In these works, the artist departs from the ideas of the Wanderers, with whom, perhaps, he had never completely agreed. Now his painting is dominated by the desire to reflect the world around him without a critical assessment, directly and joyfully, as a child would do - admiring color and light, not lingering on details, in a simple, almost applicative manner.
During these years, the artist painted "Birch Grove", "After the Rain", "North" and others. All these works were successful: Kuindzhi amazed contemporaries with originality and innovation, with unprecedented ideas for transmitting space and a light-air environment. The greatest success was the work "Moonlit Night on the Dnieper." A bold experimenter, when creating this picture, Kuindzhi used bitumen - a dark material that can reflect light. The painting was exhibited in a room with tinted windows, and electric light was directed at it from above. Thanks to these techniques, the picture was an extraordinary success: when viewing the audience, they were struck by the effect of light, which seemed to come from the moon depicted in the picture.
