The public was shown drawings of Russian tsars: Nicholas II depicted landscapes

The public was shown drawings of Russian tsars: Nicholas II depicted landscapes


The main theme of the historical and documentary exposition “The Romanovs. Drawing Lesson, which is deployed in the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Archives - the artistic education of royal children.

- The exhibits presented here tell about one small page in the private life of the imperial family - home drawing, - explains the curator of the exhibition Marina Sidorova. - All drawings that visitors will see are taken from the funds of the State Archives of the Russian Federation. It is in the GARF that most of the drawings of members of the Romanov family are collected, ranging from the children of Emperor Paul I to the children of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II.

At present, about 2,500 such "Romanov" works have been identified and described in the archive. Of these, we have selected for display about 300 works from the period 1787–1917. For the most part, this is children's and youthful creativity.

As in all aristocratic families, the royal family attached great importance to the artistic education of sons and daughters. They started learning to draw early. At the most tender age, children colored with colored pencils or pastels the pictures drawn for them by mentors and special “coloring books”, thereby learning to recognize the color scheme.

From the age of seven, drawing was already part of the compulsory course of study, which took place under the guidance of famous artists. These lessons were given 2 hours a week.

At first, the children copied the drawings of their teachers, specially prepared for this purpose. Then they gradually moved on to “composing” their own drawings. Their stories are simple - favorite pets, birds, flowers, rural landscapes ...

Then the serious work began. The royal sons and daughters learned to depict parts of the human body, geometric figures and perspectives, individual parts of buildings, copied paintings by famous masters. The purpose of drawing lessons is to develop artistic imagination and taste in the august children. Although they also had applied value. For the growing up grand dukes, the ability to quickly and accurately draw sketches of the terrain, to complete rather complex technical sketches, was necessary in their future military service.

Our exhibition shows different genres of creativity of the Romanovs-younger of different generations. Here are the first “pen tests”, and the first study studios, classical copying from plaster, landscapes and interiors, portraits, travel sketches, illustrations for works of art ... You can see how throughout the 19th century the content of the drawings changed, just as and learning to draw.

In the first half of the century before last, the royal children were taught the skills of quick use of a pencil, they were taught an accurate - almost photographic - image of all the details of a drawing. Therefore, the main genres were interior and landscape sketches, portraits, images of military uniforms.

In the second half of the century, when the advent of photography made the accuracy of the details fixed with a pencil less important, interest in the art of drawing declined somewhat. The younger generation of the Romanovs created fewer works, but they became more fantasy, depicting all kinds of genre scenes, still lifes, illustrations for works of art.

It is very valuable for us that some of these drawings not only reveal the inner world of their authors, but also scrupulously fix household trifles, the domestic way of the royal family, the interior palace interiors...

For example, works from the album of the daughter of Nicholas I, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, provide an opportunity to see how the interior of the Winter Palace was before the terrible fire of 1837. And some of the drawings of Olga Alexandrovna, daughter of Alexander III, captured the forever lost chambers of the palace in Abbas-Tuman. Images of individual household items, furniture, tableware, toys and decorations complement the interior sketches and convey the little things of the royal family's home life.

But the last Russian emperor in his younger years, judging by his works presented at the exhibition, preferred to paint landscapes. Among his artworks are "Old House", "Finnish Skerries", "Landscape with a Birch Tree"...

The portrait work of the Romanovs is also very interesting. Here, attention should be paid, for example, to a series of portraits of the lower ranks of the Russian army, made by the children of Nicholas I as a gift to their father.

By the way, drawings depicting military uniforms are the favorite form of artistic creativity of Emperors Nicholas I and Alexander II. But if Alexander Nikolayevich scrupulously drew the details of the uniform, then his father, while observing all the accuracy in detailing the uniform, preferred to make the drawing either plot, or even performed it in the manner of a caricature.

The exhibition presents a very interesting work from a historical point of view - a sketch made by Nicholas I in 1850 for the artist A. Ladurner, who painted a picture about the Decembrist uprising - "Coming to the Winter Palace of the battalion of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment." The emperor, as an eyewitness and participant in those events, helped the painter figure out how the military units were located in the center of St. Petersburg on that memorable day.

In the summer, drawing lessons for the royal children were held outdoors. The main genre in this case was the landscape. Quite specific plants, flowers, tree branches captured by the “August” draftsmen harmoniously complement the landscape genre, reminding the viewer of the lost beauty of the landscapes of the St. Petersburg imperial residences.

In addition to the works of children - members of the royal family, the exhibition also presents the artistic work of representatives of the older generation - drawings in the letters of Empresses Maria Alexandrovna, Maria Feodorovna and Alexandra Feodorovna.

Exposition “Romanovs. Drawing Lesson" will be open at the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Archives (Bolshaya Pirogovskaya St., 17) from August 31 to October 9, 2022 daily from 12:00 to 18:00. Days off - Monday, Tuesday. Admission is free upon presentation of an identity document.

Paintings created by Russian emperors and their children: photographs of royal works

Paintings created by Russian emperors and their children: photographs of royal works

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