Bashkirtseva Maria Konstantinovna. Musical and vocal talent

Rodnina Irina Konstantinovna (born in 1949) Legendary Soviet figure skater. Three-time Olympic champion (1972, 1976, 1980). Ten-time world champion (1969–1978), eleven-time European champion (1969–1978, 1980), six-time USSR champion (1970–1971, 1973–1975,

Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva (French Marie Bashkirtseff; November 12, 1858, Gavrontsy, Poltava district, Poltava province, Russian Empire - October 19, 1884, Paris, France) - Russian artist, author of the famous diary. Most spent her life in France.

Maria Bashkirtseva, according to records found in the National Library of France[⇨], was born on November 24, 1858 in the estate of Gavrontsy (Gayvorontsy) near Poltava, Poltava province Russian Empire, in the family of the local leader of the nobility Konstantin Bashkirtsev and Maria Babanina. In posthumous editions of the diary, her age was reduced.

Maria spent her childhood in the village of Chernyakovka (the property of Colonel Chernyak), according to the modern administrative division - Chutovsky district, Poltava region of Ukraine. Every year, on Youth Day, an international fair takes place in Mariina Valley, named after Bashkirtseva.

After the divorce, the mother leaves with Maria, who was twelve years old at that time, to Europe: Vienna, Baden-Baden, Geneva. There the girl fell in love with the Duke of Hamilton, and later, in Nice, with the aristocrat Borel. Soon Borel's infatuation passes, and in 1873 the governess of a 15-year-old girl tells her terrible news: the Duke of Hamilton will marry, but, alas, not to her. “It’s like a knife stabbing into the chest,” Maria writes in her diary.

The next objects of her girlish loves are Count Alexandre de Larderel, Paul Granier de Cassagnac, Count Pietro Antonelli (nephew of Cardinal Giacomo), Audifre and others. Fascinated by de Cassagnac, a deputy and speaker, Maria seriously turns to politics. There is evidence that Bashkirtseva writes articles about feminism under a pseudonym, because even at the Julian Academy, where the girl studied painting, the ideas of feminism caused laughter.

At the age of sixteen, Maria learns that she has tuberculosis. Now she spends a lot of time at resorts and feels the approach of imminent death. However, the girl also thinks about the fate of her diary, which she decides to publish. Her well-known correspondence with Guy de Maupassant dates back to the same period (1884), who, having first received a letter from a certain modest teacher Joseph Savantin, brushes aside this “writing.” In a response letter, this time on behalf of the girl, and not the teacher, Bashkirtseva refuses what was proposed by the writer himself.

The last pages of the diary are dramatic - Maria's teacher, the famous French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, dies of cancer. Musya, as the girl was affectionately called, takes care of her teacher and... dies first. Her last entry in her diary: “...Woe to us! And long live the concierges!.. For two days now my bed has been in the salon, but it is so large that it has been partitioned off with screens, and I cannot see the piano and the sofa. It’s already difficult for me to climb the stairs.”

Maria Bashkirtseva died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. She was buried in Paris, in the Passy cemetery. The Mausoleum of Maria Bashkirtseva, built by Emile Bastien-Lepage, is also the burial place of many other members of the Bashkirtsev-Babanin family. Above the entrance there is a line from Andre Terrier, and inside are her easel, furniture, sculpture and some paintings, including one of latest works Bashkirtseva - “Holy Wives”.

Maupassant, visiting her grave, said:

From the age of twelve until her death, Maria kept a diary in French (one hundred and five notebooks), which later became famous and was repeatedly translated into many languages, including Russian. The diary is imbued with subtle psychologism, a romantic “thirst for glory” and at the same time a tragic feeling of doom.

At the beginning of the 20th century, this book was very popular in Russia, and the most famous admirer of Bashkirtseva’s work and personality was Marina Tsvetaeva, who in her youth corresponded with Bashkirtseva’s mother (who died in the 1920s) and dedicated her first collection of poems to the “brilliant memory” of Bashkirtseva. Evening album." On the cover of her second book, “The Magic Lantern,” Tsvetaeva announced an entire collection called “Maria Bashkirtseva. 3rd book of poems”, but it was not published (and, perhaps, was not written).

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Talented Russian realist artist. Author of about 150 paintings, drawings, watercolors, sculptural sketches and a personal “Diary”. (b. 11.11.1860 - d. 31.10.1884)

In one of the halls of the Luxembourg Museum in Paris there is a statue of the sculptor Longelier “Immortality”. It depicts a dying genius holding out to the angel of death a scroll of eight names of great men who went to their graves prematurely. Among them is one Russian name - Maria Bashkirtseva.

“Her Starry Road” began on the Gavrontsy estate, near Poltava. Masha belonged to a rich aristocratic family. Her father, Konstantin Pavlovich Bashkirtsev, quite educated and not without literary talent, was for a long time the leader of the Poltava nobility. Mother, nee M. S. Babanina, belonged to an ancient family descended from Tatar princes. One day a Jewish fortune teller predicted to her that “your son will be like all people, but your daughter will be a star.”

Parents and numerous relatives treated Musa like a star, like a queen, loved and deified her. As a child, she was “thin, frail and ugly,” but in the head of the plain little girl, who promised to become pretty, thoughts about the greatness bestowed on her from above were already crowded.

After the death of his father, the “terrible general” P. G. Bashkirtsev, Konstantin Pavlovich became free and very rich. Having received an inheritance, he “pounced on everything and was half ruined.” Musya's mother, due to disagreements in the family, decided to divorce and won the divorce proceedings. From the age of two, the girl actually remained in the care of her aunts and grandfather, S. Babanin, a brilliantly educated man.

Everyone pampered Masha, forgave her pranks and admired any of her achievements. Trembling for her fragile health, the Babanin family sent the girl with her mother and aunt abroad in 1868. After two years of traveling through European cities, they settled in Nice. In her youth, Masha lived for a long time in Italy: Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, the best hotels and expensive villas, social receptions of the highest nobility, the best museums in the world - everything was at the feet of a little girl, wise beyond her age, who felt locked in a gilded cage. Wealth and what it gave, she liked and took for granted, but her soul and mind were cramped within the confines of home. Masha categorically did not fit into any traditional canons. Life was in full swing in her. An arrogant aristocrat, mocking and arrogant even in her childhood, she was constantly looking for activities for herself that were not typical for young ladies of her age.

From the age of five, Masha studied dancing, but she dreamed not of balls, but of an acting career. At the age of 10, she tried to learn to draw, and success was obvious, but the desire to sing turned out to be stronger. The girl played the harp, piano, guitar, zither, mandolin, and organ perfectly. Her strong voice (mezzo-soprano) covered a range of three octaves minus two notes. She knew his value and confidently strived to become a great singer, and not to play music in fashionable salons. At the same time, the girl studied languages: Italian, English, German, and later ancient Greek and Latin. She knew Russian “for home use,” but thought and wrote in French.

“Until the age of 12, they spoiled me, fulfilled all my desires, but never cared about my upbringing. At the age of 12, I asked for teachers, and I compiled the program myself. I owe everything to myself." And the more Maria studied, the more she realized how much she had to do. Since 1873, she recorded all her thoughts, every action, every interesting phrase in her diary.

This is not a diary of a young lady with empty “ahs”, this is a confessional diary of a self-sufficient person who, with impartial frankness, reveals her thoughts, dreams, aspirations, confidently realizing that she is writing not only for herself, but for everyone: “Why lie and show off! Yes, there is no doubt that my desire, although not hope, is to remain on earth at all costs. it’s always interesting - a woman’s life written down day after day, without any dramatization, as if no one in the world should read what was written, and at the same time with a passionate desire for it to be read.”

106 large handwritten volumes in less than 12 years. She is all in them, with her “immense vanity”, the desire to be either a duchess or a famous actress, “a proud, real aristocrat”, preferring a rich husband, but irritated by communicating with banal people, “despising the human race - out of conviction” and trying to figure it out , what the world around us, man and his soul are worth. With childish maximalism at the age of 12, she declares: “I was created for titles. Fame, popularity, fame everywhere - these are my dreams, my dreams.” And next to it are mystical lines, heightened by the sense of the transience of time:

“.Life is so beautiful and so short!..if I waste time, what will become of me!”

And Maria wastes no time. Treatises by Horace and Tibulus, La Rochefoucauld and Plato, Savonarola and “my dear friend Plutarch” occupy her mind, as do books by Collins, Dickens, Dumas, Balzac, Flaubert and Gogol. This is not just a quick read, it is thoughtful work, comparing their views with her worldview.

She approaches any question seriously, openly talks about herself, like a psychologist, thoroughly understanding her feelings. Having fallen in love with Duke G. (Hamilton?), Masha, on the pages of her diary, talks in detail about her love and her upcoming, in her dreams, marriage. An attempt to understand the feelings that arose between her and the nephew of Cardinal Pietro Antonelli (1876) leads Maria to the conviction that she has outgrown her potential suitors and the level of her circle. This consciousness dooms her to spiritual loneliness.

How much was given to this girl, but her weak body could hardly cope with the exorbitant loads that Bashkirtseva placed on her brain and soul. At the age of 16, her health condition deteriorated sharply. Doctors, resorts, social life, travel - but the pace of work on yourself does not slow down for a minute. Already this year, Maria begins to live with the feeling of approaching death. “To die?.. It would be wild, and yet it seems to me that I should die. I cannot live: I am abnormally created, there is an abyss of excess in me and too much is missing; such a character cannot last. What about my future, what about my glory? Well, of course, then all this will end!”

Maria withstood the first blow, giving up her dreams of becoming a singer. Catarrh and inflammation of the larynx deprived her of her beautiful voice. Hope flared up and then faded away. “I will have it all or die,” she writes in 1876, on the eve of a trip to Russia. In six months she visited St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov. But mostly Musya was pampered by his father on his huge estate. She shone, flirted, made local aristocrats fall in love with her and counted her aimless days. Masha dreamed of reconciling her parents, who still loved each other. And this capricious young lady managed to reunite the family.

Returning to Paris, Bashkirtseva tries to take up drawing on her own. “Painting makes me despair. Because I have the ability to create miracles, and yet in terms of knowledge I am more insignificant than the first girl I meet.” She misses school. Maria finally decides not to waste her abilities, but to direct them to learning painting. In the fall of 1877, she entered the private Academy of R. Julien (Julian). With her remarkable abilities, she conquers teachers, makes up for lost time, working 8-10 hours a day, and achieves success “which is usually not expected from beginners” (she mastered the seven-year course in two years).

Her teachers R. Julien and T. Robert-Fleury recognized Bashkirtseva’s natural talent after just a week of classes. “I thought it was the whim of a spoiled child, but I must admit that she is well gifted. If this continues, then in three months her drawings may be accepted into the Salon,” Julien told the mother of the aspiring artist. In the spring of 1878, Maria participated in her first competition for Academy students and took third place. And after 11 months of training, the jury awards her the first medal. “This is the work of a young man, they said about me. There is a nerve here, it’s nature.”

This is a well-deserved award. The loads she puts on herself are excessive, but Bashkirtseva is tormented by the fact that she did not start painting at the age of 12-13 and “that now it’s too late.” She lives and works, feverishly trying to “do three years’ work in one year.” Maria counts the hours wasted irrevocably on sleep, dressing, social receptions, and at the same time finds a reserve for studying Roman history and literature. But her body cannot withstand such a stressful regime - she practically loses her hearing, and the first symptoms of tuberculosis appear. The aspiring artist is forced to interrupt her studies for consultations with medical luminaries and trips to the water. The doctors' diagnoses are vague (“the cough is purely nervous”), and Maria does not take treatment seriously, dreaming only of achieving heights in painting.

In 1880, under the pseudonym “Mademoiselle Mari Constantin Russ”, she took part in the Salon. The first painting, “Young Woman Reading Dumas’ Divorce,” was noticed and approved by critics.

In 1881, Bashkirtseva exhibited a large canvas “Julien's Atelier” - a complex multi-figure composition, distinguished by the vitality and solidity of the drawing. Her coloring is in warm gray and dark purple tones and is set off by a single dark figure - a portrait of the artist herself. The Salon jury awarded the film second place. Bashkirtseva creates a portrait of a “lovely American woman” and prepares a painting, uncharacteristic for a woman’s work, “Portrait of a Model.” It depicts a naked model waiting for the artist, she sits astride a chair, smokes a cigarette and looks at a skeleton with a pipe sticking out of its teeth. There are things carelessly scattered around and a small bouquet of violets. The work is not only designed in the realistic manner characteristic of Bashkirtseva, it is closer to naturalism and even symbolism. “The greatest masters are only great in truth. and those who laugh at naturalism are fools and do not understand what the matter is. You must be able to grasp nature and be able to choose. It’s all about the artist’s choice.”

For her next work, “Jean and Jacques” (1883), the artist chooses a genre scene spotted on the street, depicting two poor Parisian boys. The elder leads the younger by the hand with confidence and self-esteem. Strongly outlined figures of children stand out in dark silhouette against the background of a broadly and freely painted city landscape. This work already spoke of the artist’s mature skill. The Rain Umbrella (1883) depicts a shivering girl wrapped in a patched skirt. She stands holding a broken umbrella above her head, and in her childish, serious eyes there is a silent reproach for a small creature who has learned need early. Painted en plein air, in the rain

2) it is as real as the artist’s progressive illness. The year 1883 marks the bulk of her creative heritage: “Autumn”, the series “Three Smiles” (“Baby”, “Girl”, “Woman”), captivating with their kindness and truthfulness.

At the Salon of 1883, Bashkirtseva presented the painting “Parisian Woman” and the genre painting “Jean and Jacques” already under own name. In addition to the award, she receives praise not only in the French, but also in the Russian press. On the front page of the prestigious publication “World Illustration” there was a reproduction of the painting and a large article about the artist.

Bashkirtseva is full of new ideas and plans. But more and more often she is forced to stop working. Now the doctors are categorical - tuberculosis has affected the entire right lung, and there are lesions in the left one too. Maria is fully aware of how little she has been given: “I still have enough for a while.” She believes that painting will save her, and if it does not prolong her life, it will not allow her to disappear without a trace. In the large self-portrait “Portrait of Bashkirtseva at a Painting” (1883), she depicts herself in a creative impulse - the look of her gray eyes shines with inspiration, her facial features are confident and at the same time gentle. As in the small self-portrait painted earlier, she objectively and self-critically emphasizes the slant of her eyes and protruding cheekbones.

Presented at the Salon of 1884, the elegant landscape “Autumn” and the genre painting “Meeting” (together with the “Portrait of a Model” were acquired by the French government for the Luxembourg Museum in Paris) brought Bashkirtseva long-awaited fame. “Meeting” - this most significant work of the artist - depicts a group of children in the sun of a deserted street, interestedly examining a top. “After the opening of the exhibition, there was not a single magazine that did not talk about my painting,” Maria notes in her diary. - This is a real, genuine success. What happiness."

She is not embarrassed by constant comparisons of her creative style with the works of J. Bastien-Lepage. Maria liked his paintings, she was friends with the artist, and incurable illnesses brought them even closer together. But Bashkirtseva clearly saw the limitations of her friend’s skill and far surpassed him in color and looseness of plot. She views the world as a unity of man and nature. Her decorative screen "Spring" (1884) is not just women depicted in a landscape. “Delicate greenery, white and pink flowers of apple and peach trees, fresh sprouts everywhere. - this should be a harmonious chord of tones,” but the model for a dreamily dozing off girl will not be a languid shepherdess, but “a real hefty girl who will be captured by the first guy he meets.” The artist achieves reality not only through the depiction of “roughly simple things, but also in execution, which must be perfect.”

Despite the fact that Bashkirtseva is in a hurry to get everything done, her works are distinguished by the thoughtfulness of their composition, color scheme and the smallest details. She is in a hurry to finish “The Bench”, making sketches for “Julius Caesar” and “Ariadne”. He continues work on “Holy Wives” (“Myrrh-Bearing Wives”), which began back in 1880. Even in the sketches one can feel not just grief - “this is a colossal, complete, terrifying drama. The numbness of a soul that has nothing left.” Maria firmly believes that her hand will be able to accomplish what “the soul wants to express.”

Bashkirtseva also dreams of becoming a writer. She feels the need for some literary connoisseur to appreciate her epistolary work. She wants to entrust her diary to Guy de Maupassant, judging by his books, who understands so much about women. But the correspondence with him, started by Maria, disappoints her: “You are not the person I am looking for.” And on May 1, 1884, Bashkirtseva wrote the preface to her phenomenal “Diary” (her will was written back in June 1880). Such a diary, full of passion, desire for fame and greatness, understanding of one’s genius and creative potential, could have been written by any writer or artist, but no one except Bashkirtseva had enough honesty and frankness to reveal their secret aspirations and hopes. Perhaps she was so sincere because she subconsciously felt that she had a short time to live. Not having lived 12 days before her twenty-fourth birthday, on October 31, 1884, Maria Bashkirtseva died and was buried in the Passy cemetery in Paris. On the slabs near the large white monument, reminiscent of a Russian chapel, there are always modest violets.

A year after her death, the French Society of Women Artists opened an exhibition of works by M. K. Bashkirtseva, which presented 150 paintings, drawings, watercolors and sculptural sketches. In 1887, at the Amsterdam exhibition, the paintings of the Russian artist were sold out in great demand by the most famous galleries in the world, including representatives of the Alexander III Museum. In the same year, the “Diary” was published (in an abbreviated version), which was shared by I. Bunin, A. Chekhov, V. Bryusov, V. Khlebnikov, and Marina Tsvetaeva dedicated her “Evening Album” to the artist. Unfortunately, most of the paintings transported by Bashkirtseva’s mother to the family estate near Poltava were lost at the beginning of World War II. But in the Orsay Museum of 19th Century Art, which opened in 1988, an entire hall is devoted to her paintings.

Bashkirtseva could have become a great artist, the “Balzac of painting,” if she had been given a not so short life.

“I, who would like to live seven lives at once, live only a quarter of my life. And therefore it seems to me that the candle is broken into four parts and is burning from all ends.” - she wrote. And as if echoing her, Marina Tsvetaeva dedicated the following lines to Bashkirtseva:

“God has given her too much!

And too little - he let go.

Oh, her stellar path!

“I only had enough strength for the canvases...”

From book"100 famous artists XIV-XVIII centuries"; 2006

Portrait of Maria Bashkirtseva

Maria Bashkirtseva was born on the Gayvorontsy estate in the Poltava province; her father and mother were educated and wealthy people. Maria spent her childhood in the Poltava region, and at the age of 12 she went with her mother to Europe, as her parents decided to divorce. At this time, the girl began to keep a diary, and it was he who later brought her worldwide fame. In the meantime, this is a way of knowing yourself, recording your interests and experiences. “I am my own heroine,” this entry appeared in the Diary in 1874.

All her life Maria was engaged in self-education: she was fond of studying foreign languages(fluent in four European languages, read Latin and ancient Greek), practiced playing musical instruments and singing (she was even destined for fame as an opera diva, but the price for singing was a sore throat and partial deafness by the age of 16),
Portrait of Maria Bashkirtseva

Maria Bashkirtseva at the easel

Maria studied painting with the artist Rodolfo Julian, his course, designed for 7 years, was completed in two years, working tirelessly, she wrote more than 150 paintings and 200 drawings. Bashkirtseva’s exhibitions were a success; later critics would say that she could become the “Balzac of painting.”

Girl reading on a waterfall, circa 1882

Lilac. 1880

Meeting. 1884

Bashkirtseva’s fame was brought to her by her “Diary,” which she kept until her death. Its publication in France caused a real storm of interest in the extraordinary personality; in Russia, on the contrary, it was met with ambiguity. At the same time, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Khlebnikov, and Bryusov also read the diary. Marina Tsvetaeva highly appreciated Bashkirtseva’s talent; the poet’s “Evening Album” is dedicated to this unbroken spirit artist.

Autumn. 1883

Portrait of a girl

Rain umbrella. 1883

Maria had a presentiment that she was doomed to an early death, so as not to upset her relatives and not to become despondent herself, she worked tirelessly until last days life. She wrote a lot, visited her friend and mentor, artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, who was sick with cancer. At first she came to him herself, then Jules’ brother brought her, practically helpless, in his arms. Jules and Maria talked about painting as if nothing was happening, both were doomed, but sought solace in art. Maria Bashkirtseva was the first to leave on October 31, 1884.