Mavrina Tatyana Alekseevna

Mavrina Tatiana

(1902 - 1996)

The creative path of the painter, graphic artist, illustrator T.A. Mavrina began in the 1920s, full of innovative searches in art.

She studied at Vkhutemas - Vkhutein (1922-29). Together with several fellow practitioners, she participated at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. in the exhibitions of the "13" group, where the lively, fast pace of a bold sketch-drawing was most appreciated. This lightness and freedom, almost childish immediacy in dealing with color, line and form, were characteristic of Mavrina's drawings and watercolors, passed into her painting and into book drawings with a pen, laying on the page in a transparent and subtle rhythmic pattern ("The Fate of Charles Lonsevil" K. G Paustovsky, 1933, etc.).

The desire for pattern, colorfulness was fueled by love for the Russian icon, for works of folk art.

The artist travels around the ancient Russian cities, draws from life, but in such a way that the elegantly colored sketches seem fictitious, created by the author's imagination. The result of Mavrina's many years of travels was the book-album "Ways-Roads" published in 1980, which contains watercolors and gouaches with views of the reserved corners of Russia - Zvenigorod, Uglich, Rostov the Great, Yaroslavl, Pavlovskaya Sloboda, Kasimov and other cities.

The artist knows how to be equally surprised by the old and the new, in everything to look for their signs and interpenetration. At the same time, she sees the surrounding reality through the prism of fabulous perception. And in book graphics, the favorite genre of the artist is a fairy tale.

Many times she illustrated for children the tales of A. S. Pushkin ("The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs", 1946; "Ruslan and Lyudmila", 1960; "At the Lukomorye", 1961), Russian folk tales. And each time in her books the color became denser and brighter, the planar drawing became freer and more patterned, the fairy-tale characters, especially animals, became more fantastic and funny. She no longer draws them with a pen, but with wide strokes of the brush.

In 1969, Mavrina's Fairytale Alphabet, amazing in its brilliance and richness of fantasy, was published. From beginning to end, it was made by the artist with almost no explanatory captions, because the whole meaning lies in the illustrations themselves. Each letter has its own little fairy tale. Pictures of the alphabet are full of slyness and mischief, kindness and cordiality, like all the art of the artist.

_______________________

Mavrina (Lebedeva) Tatyana Alekseevna (1900 - 1996). Painter, graphic artist. The childhood of T. A. Mavrina passed in Nizhny Novgorod. There were four children, and they were brought up as it was supposed to be in intelligent families: reading and drawing, learning music and languages, attention to folklore and folk art, which seemed to surround and permeate all life. From these years, albums-notebooks, which were made by children in the Lebedev family, have been preserved. It was a handwritten magazine game. In 1921, Mavrina had already definitely chosen the fine arts - she entered VKHUTEMAS, where she studied with R.R. Falka, N.V. Sinezubova, G.V. Fedorov.

Later, the artist recalled this time as the happiest years of her life. After graduating from VKhUTEMAS in 1929, she joined the association Group "13", became a participant in the exhibitions of the association. In the 1930s, Mavrina painted, painted watercolors, and made drawings. Many of her works of this time are close to the French post-impressionist currents. Mavrina's last oil painting on canvas was painted in the summer of 1942 ("Dancing on the Veranda of the Club"). What began after this picture Mavrina called her new life. After the war, the artist rediscovered the world of folk art. She not only loved and collected icons, clay toys, trays and embroideries - with her husband, artist N.V. Kuzmin, she collected a magnificent collection - Mavrina herself made copies of popular prints and spinning wheels, painted tueski, old trays and bottles, got used to the image of a folk master. She created her own, "Moorish" handwriting - decorative, dashing, based on the principles of folk primitive. In the 1950s and 60s, the artist made numerous trips to Russian cities, made sketches and sketches for future works. The favorite theme was nature, "earth and sky". A special place in the artist's work is occupied by her cheerful and always sunny illustrations for children's books. Made, as always, in the folk style, they perfectly fit the plots of Russian fairy tales. In the late 1980s, Mavrina hardly left her home. Despite illnesses and ailments, she gave herself up to her passion - painting, painted views from the window, still lifes, flowers. Her works of recent years are so plastically convincing, they carry such a powerful energy charge that Mavrina's later work can rightfully be put on a par with the canvases of the greatest masters of the 20th century. The works of Tatyana Mavrina are kept in almost all the largest museums in our country, including the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Saratov Art Museum and in private collections.

Mavrina was known and appreciated as a graphic artist and illustrator, who embodied in her work many principles of Russian folk art, which she knew very well. Russian icons, popular prints, embroideries, clay toys were of interest to her not only as collectibles, but also as examples of high artistic culture, a living language, to which she turned. Her illustrations for children's books and Russian fairy tales, albums of drawings made during her travels in Russian cities aroused great interest and were rightfully considered part of the national art of the 70s and 80s.

The artist was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR, had awards and prizes, including the State Prize of the USSR.

And yet, as if an invisible wall separated it from the official Soviet art. This "otherness" of hers was felt by everyone - from the main artists of state publishing houses, who were reluctant to sign Mavrinian books for publication, to the organizing committee of the G.-Kh. Andersen, who chose Mavrina, practically the only Soviet children's book artist, as the winner of this prestigious award in the field of book graphics.

Tatyana Mavrina was born in 1900, although she herself always called the year of her birth 1902, and it was this incorrect date that was included in almost all reference books and biographies written during the life of the artist. There was only one reason - female coquetry, the desire to appear a little younger. Her childhood was spent in Nizhny Novgorod, there were four children in the family, and they were brought up as it was supposed to be in intelligent families: reading and drawing, teaching music and languages, attention to folklore and folk art, which seemed to surround and permeate all life. “The geography is fantastic from mountains, rivers, swamps, ravines, forests, all sorts of legends, old cities around: Suzdal, Vladimir, Yuryev Polsky, Murom, Gorodets, and there are picturesque folk crafts - Gorodets, Semenov, Khokhloma, Palekh, Mstera. The city is surrounded by folklore,” Mavrina recalled about her childhood feelings. From these years, albums-notebooks, which were made by children in the Lebedev family, have been preserved. They contain poems and stories, drawings, watercolors. Playing with a handwritten journal awakened thought and creativity, gave rise to a feeling of the fullness of life, in which there was so much to comprehend and capture. From the usefulness of childhood, a feeling arose that “there is a lot of everything around,” and this feeling will not leave T. A. Mavrina throughout her long life.

In 1921, she had definitely chosen the fine arts - she entered the "fantastic university VKHUTEMAS", recklessly carried away by painting. Later, Mavrina recalled this time as the happiest years of her life. The real school of painting for her was the French Impressionists in the Shchukin and Morozov galleries. And the end of the 1920s included her membership in the Group of 13, participation in joint exhibitions and the search for her place in art.

But after the twenties came the thirties, and with them the dictates of the permitted path in art. During this tragic time for the whole country, Mavrina remained faithful to painting. In the spirit of the international pictorial tradition, the artists of the Group of 13 jointly hired a model.

Mavrina said that an artist equal in strength to Titian cannot be found among the Impressionists, but “all together the Impressionists will pull. They opened again the world of perfect harmony and everyday life. Many of her works of this time are close to the French post-impressionist currents. One of the paintings, written in radiant mother-of-pearl tones, is called “Imitation of Renoir” (1938).

Almost daily she painted or painted a nude female model, working in a variety of techniques. Imitations of Henri Matisse were replaced by full-scale sketches in the women's bath. Venuses in front of the mirror existed next to undressing aunts in underwear of that unforgettable blue color that was characteristic of the knitwear of the period of "construction of a communist society." From this time, there were many drawings and watercolors, several dozen canvases that for many years were kept literally under the bed - the artist did not show them to anyone: after all, nudity was an unlawful, almost forbidden topic.

It was only in the 1970s that some of the Mavrinian "nyushkas" (as she called them in a popular manner, playing on the French "nude") began to appear at exhibitions, striking with their joyful life-affirmation and raising the question: "Is it possible that an artist of the 20th century, having fenced off from the environment, stubbornly praised the joy of being at a time when one of the most cruel tyrannies reigned? Apparently, Mavrina allowed herself to ignore her, which was a desperate and resolute opposition to the general atmosphere of depression or hysteria.

The last painting on canvas with oil paints was painted in the summer of 1942 in the garden of the House of the Red Army and depicted dancing on the veranda of the club. What began after this picture, Mavrina called her new life.

After the war, the artist rediscovered the world of folk art. She not only loved and collected icons, clay toys, trays and embroideries - with her husband, the artist Nikolai Vasilievich Kuzmin, she amassed a magnificent collection - Mavrina herself made copies of popular prints and spinning wheels, painted tueski, old-fashioned trays and bottles, got used to the image of the folk masters. It was a brilliant move, it gave her the opportunity to move away from the principle of socialist realism with its illustrative description of everyday life in the only direction allowed then - towards Russian folk art. Henri Matisse acquired his own style through his passion for folk art, and Tatyana Mavrina, starting from Matisse, turns herself into a folk craftsman, creating her own, “Mavrinian” style - decorative, dashing, based on the principles of folk primitive.

Natural impressions were necessary for the artist's work. In the 1950s and 1960s, she made numerous trips to Russian cities, made sketches and sketches.

She so trained her memory, her eye, that at home she could easily reproduce the multicoloredness of nature from hasty sketches made from nature.

Animaisa Vladimirovna Mironova, her frequent confidante on these trips, recalls how at the very beginning of the 60s, in early spring, during the flood, she and Mavrina ended up in a small hotel forgotten by God. In the early morning, A. V. Mironova woke up and was surprised to find that Mavrina was not in the room. It turned out that Tatyana Alekseevna managed to persuade the fisherman, and on a fragile boat in the middle of the Volga flood, she enthusiastically painted the sunrise. The artist's words that "the earth and sky became the theme of landscapes and books" accurately express the essence of her work of these years.

Tatyana Alekseevna Mavrina in her autobiography divided her life, as she put it, but "three lives": the first - "from birth to VKhUTEMAS", the second - Moscow, studying painting with Robert Falk, passion for the Impressionists, participation in exhibitions of the Group "13", the third started during the war. But there was a fourth - the last decade of life.

In the late 1980s, Tatyana Alekseevna hardly left her home. The world closed in on the walls of a small apartment, pasted over with gold and silver paper, beloved by Mavrina. Those who happened to get into her house were amazed at the incredible inner strength that came from a wizened ninety-year-old woman. This will to live seemed to protect her from senile infirmity - she saw practically without glasses, was in a clear mind, and if she forgot something, it was never possible to tell for sure whether it was forgetfulness or cunning.

Despite illnesses and ailments, Mavrina devoted herself to her passion - painting - and painted still lifes as if she contained in them the inescapable power of her violent nature. Her two windows - from one the birch is visible, from the other - the tree and the garage - became her Universe, through them she observed the change of lighting, the alternation of the seasons, the rotation of the stars.

The artist asked for flowers to be brought to her and, having received a bouquet as a gift, she no longer concealed her desire to send the guest out as soon as possible and get to work. So there were daffodils against the background of pink birches, tulips on a snow-covered window, a handsome pink gladiolus in the blue summer. It would seem that what could be simpler than the image of an ordinary bouquet on the windowsill?

However, these works are so plastically convincing, they carry such a powerful energy charge that the later work of Mavrina can rightfully be put on a par with the canvases of Raoul Dufy and Henri Matisse. And one of the last still lifes, "Roses at Night" (1995), - wine-red flowers on the windowsill against the blue sky with the shining constellation of Orion - can be called a tragic requiem before the inevitable departure into oblivion.

“Time stood still or went back” - these lines of Rilke, familiar to us in Pasternak's translation, begin Mavrina's autobiography. The epigraph was not chosen by chance, just as there was nothing accidental in the fate of Tatyana Alekseevna. “The standing of time” is the feeling that amazes when looking at the late Moorish still lifes. The life-affirming power and color plastic energy of these works evoke associations not only with the art of the beginning of the century, but also with the work of a young, full of strength person. Almost always after the death of the artist, the value of his work is reassessed. Often it begins to fade, "shrinks" and fades, to eventually turn into a line in a special edition. Much less often, death translates ordinary epithets into sublime ones, and the word "brilliant", which they were embarrassed to pronounce during life, becomes just right. So, it seems, happened with Tatyana Alekseevna Mavrina.

Ya. Yu. Chudetskaya

From the album "A Moment Stopped by Color"

) in 1900 in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a teacher and writer Alexei Ivanovich Lebedev. Mother, Anastasia Petrovna, came from the noble family of the Mavrins and was also engaged in teaching. The younger brother Sergei is an academician, the founder of the Soviet computer industry. In 1920 the family moved to Moscow.

Awards and prizes

State Prize of the USSR (1975) - for a series of illustrations for the books "Russian Fairy Tales", "Fairy Tale Alphabet", "Lukomorye", "For distant lands", "The wind walks across the field ...", "A. S. Pushkin. Fairy Tales” and easel graphic series “Fairy Tale, Motherland, Beauty”
G. H. Andersen Prize (1976) - for his contribution to illustrating children's books (the only Russian artist)

Creation

She traveled a lot in ancient Russian cities. The result of Mavrina's travels was the book-album "Ways-Roads" published in 1980, in which watercolors and gouaches were collected with views of the reserved corners of Russia - Zvenigorod, Uglich, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Pavlovskaya Sloboda, Kasimov and other cities.

Many times she illustrated the tales of A. S. Pushkin (“The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs”, 1946; “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, 1960; “At the Lukomorya”, 1961), Russian folk tales. In 1969, the Fairy Alphabet was published. A large collection of paintings and graphic works by Mavrina is in the Russian Museum.

Artworks

Easel cycle "On the old Russian cities" (1942-1968)
Burn, Burn Bright (1957)
Mavrina T. Fairy animals. - M.: Det. lit., 1965.
Mavrina T. Gingerbread cookies are baked, they are not given into the paws of a cat. - M .: Malysh, 1966.
Mavrina T. A. Fairy alphabet. - Goznak, 1969. - 100,000 copies. - ISBN 985-428-419-0.

The illustrations of the capital letters of the Russian alphabet by the artist T. Mavrina are unusual: inside each letter are depicted characters from a Russian fairy tale whose names begin with this letter. The name of the fairy tale is given below, examples of heroes of other fairy tales are given, in whose names this letter is present. Performed by the artist T. Mavrina, the “ABC” turned out to be fabulous, bright ...

Essay books:

Mavrina T. A. Zagorsk. - L., 1968.
Mavrina T. A. Gorodets painting. - L., 1970.
Mavrina T. A. Between the Volga and the Dvina. - Leipzig, 1977.(German)

Mavrina T. A. Ways-roads. - Artist of the RSFSR, 1980. - 178 p. - 20,000 copies.

- Description (from the publisher; snippet): This edition of "Ways-Roads" (From the artist's travel albums) represents Moscow, the Moscow region, the ancient Volga and Oka miracle cities. The first drawings made in 1941-1942. in Moscow, work 60-70 years. made up a rich collection of images of ancient Russian cities.

Mavrina T. A. Moscow. Forty magpies. - Moscow textbooks and Cartolithography, 2001. - 120 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-7853-0157-1.

- Description (from the publisher; snippet): The book by the remarkable Russian artist T. A. Mavrina contains memories, diary notes, landscapes and drawings of the war years. T. A. Mavrina subtly felt the beauty of Moscow architecture. The Kremlin, monasteries, churches, cozy mansions, streets, boulevards and lanes - everything seen by the keen eye of the artist, moments of life taken by surprise, in the inseparable unity of modernity and antiquity, T. A. Mavrina rethought and turned into a picturesque chronicle of the city. Most of the works presented in the book are reproduced for the first time. For many years they lay in the artist's studio and only once, in 1995, some of them were shown at an exhibition in the Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkin. The uniqueness of the book is in the atmosphere of the war years captured on its pages, showing through in everyday details, soft colors of urban landscapes and vivid impressions of the artist’s lyrical diaries…

Mavrina T. A. Color jubilant: Diaries. Sketches about art. - M .: Young Guard, 2006. - 364 p. - (Library of memoirs: Near past). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-235-02676-4.

- Description (from the publisher; snippet): This book is the first edition of the diaries of the remarkable, original artist Tatyana Alekseevna Mavrina, laureate of the State Prize of the USSR, the International Prize. H. K. Andersen and others. A painter, graphic artist, illustrator of books, she also possessed an outstanding literary gift, as evidenced by her art history studies included in this book ...

Mavrina T. A. Geese, swans and cranes. - Moscow worker, 1983. - 144 p. - 50,000 copies.

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Notes

Links

in project
Dmitrieva N.
Andrusenko E.
Sheludchenko A. G. Moscow in the work of Tatyana Mavrina. - Moscow textbooks, 2006. - 304 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5-7853-0559-3.
in the State Museum of A. S. Pushkin
at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts

First composition

An excerpt characterizing Mavrina, Tatyana Alekseevna

Esaul looked in the direction indicated by Denisov.
- Two people are coming - an officer and a Cossack. Only it is not supposed that there was a lieutenant colonel himself, ”said the esaul, who liked to use words unknown to the Cossacks.
The riders, having gone downhill, disappeared from view and reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary gallop, urging on with a whip, rode an officer - disheveled, soaked through and with pantaloons fluffed up above the knees. Behind him, standing on stirrups, a Cossack trotted. This officer, a very young boy, with a broad ruddy face and quick, cheerful eyes, galloped up to Denisov and handed him a wet envelope.
“From the general,” the officer said, “sorry that it’s not quite dry ...
Denisov, frowning, took the envelope and began to open it.
“They said everything that is dangerous, dangerous,” the officer said, turning to the esaul, while Denisov read the envelope given to him. “However, Komarov and I,” he pointed to the Cossack, “got ready. We have two pistols each ... And what is this? he asked, seeing the French drummer, “a prisoner?” Have you already been in a fight? Can I talk to him?
- Rostov! Peter! Denisov shouted at that time, running through the envelope handed to him. “Why didn’t you say who you are?” - And Denisov, with a smile, turning around, held out his hand to the officer.
This officer was Petya Rostov.
All the way Petya was preparing himself for how, as a big and officer should, without hinting at his previous acquaintance, he would behave with Denisov. But as soon as Denisov smiled at him, Petya immediately beamed, blushed with joy and, forgetting the formality he had prepared, began to talk about how he drove past the French, and how glad he was that he had been given such an assignment, and that he was already in battle. near Vyazma, and that one hussar distinguished himself there.
“Well, I’m hell to see you,” Denisov interrupted him, and his face again took on a worried expression.
“Mikhail Feoklitich,” he turned to the esaul, “after all, this is again from a German. He is pg "and he is a member." And Denisov told the esaul that the content of the paper brought now consisted in a repeated demand from the German general to join in attacking the transport. "Wow," he concluded.
While Denisov was talking to the esaul, Petya, embarrassed by Denisov's cold tone and assuming that the position of his pantaloons was the reason for this tone, so that no one would notice this, adjusted his fluffy pantaloons under his greatcoat, trying to look as militant as possible.
“Will there be any order from your high nobility?” - he said to Denisov, putting his hand to his visor and again returning to the game of adjutant and general, for which he had prepared, - or should I remain with your honor?
“Orders?” Denisov said thoughtfully. - Can you stay until tomorrow?
- Oh, please ... Can I stay with you? Petya screamed.
- Yes, how exactly were you ordered from the geneg "ala - now to get out"? Denisov asked. Petya blushed.
Yes, he didn't say anything. I think it is possible? he said inquiringly.
“Well, all right,” said Denisov. And, turning to his subordinates, he made orders that the party go to the designated resting place near the guardhouse in the forest and that the officer on a Kyrgyz horse (this officer acted as adjutant) went to look for Dolokhov, find out where he was and whether he would come in the evening . Denisov himself, with the esaul and Petya, intended to drive up to the edge of the forest, overlooking Shamshev, in order to look at the location of the French, which was to be directed tomorrow's attack.
“Well, God’s ode,” he turned to the peasant conductor, “take me to Shamshev.
Denisov, Petya and the esaul, accompanied by several Cossacks and a hussar who was carrying a prisoner, drove to the left through the ravine, to the edge of the forest.

The rain had passed, only fog and drops of water fell from the branches of trees. Denisov, the esaul, and Petya silently followed the peasant in the cap, who, lightly and soundlessly stepping with his feet turned out in bast shoes over the roots and wet leaves, led them to the edge of the forest.
Coming out to the izvolok, the peasant paused, looked around and headed towards the thinning wall of trees. At a large oak tree, which had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and mysteriously beckoned to him with his hand.
Denisov and Petya drove up to him. From the place where the peasant stopped, the French were visible. Now a spring field was going down behind the forest like a semi-hillock. To the right, across a steep ravine, one could see a small village and a manor house with collapsed roofs. In this village, in the manor house, and along the whole hillock, in the garden, by the wells and the pond, and along the entire road uphill from the bridge to the village, no more than two hundred sazhens away, crowds of people could be seen in the wavering fog. Their non-Russian cries were clearly heard at the horses in the carts tearing up the mountain and calls to each other.
“Give the prisoner here,” Denisop said quietly, not taking his eyes off the French.
The Cossack dismounted from his horse, removed the boy, and together with him approached Denisov. Denisov, pointing to the French, asked what kind of troops they were. The boy, thrusting his chilled hands into his pockets and raising his eyebrows, looked frightened at Denisov and, despite his apparent desire to say everything he knew, got confused in his answers and only confirmed what Denisov was asking. Denisov, frowning, turned away from him and turned to the esaul, telling him his thoughts.
Petya, turning his head with quick movements, glanced first at the drummer, then at Denisov, then at the esaul, then at the French in the village and on the road, trying not to miss something important.
- Pg "is coming, not pg" is Dolokhov, you have to bg "at! .. Huh?" Denisov said, his eyes flashing merrily.
“The place is convenient,” said the esaul.
“We’ll send infantry from below—by swamps,” Denisov continued, “they’ll crawl up to the garden; you will call with the Cossacks from there, ”Denisov pointed to the forest outside the village,“ and I’m from here, with my gusags.
“It won’t be possible in a hollow - it’s a quagmire,” said the esaul. - You will bog down the horses, you have to go around to the left ...
While they were talking in an undertone in this way, below, in the hollow from the pond, one shot clicked, smoke began to turn white, another, and a friendly, as if cheerful, cry of hundreds of voices of the French who were on the half-mountain was heard. In the first minute, both Denisov and the esaul leaned back. They were so close that it seemed to them that they were the cause of these shots and screams. But the shots and screams did not belong to them. Below, through the swamps, a man in something red was running. Obviously, the French were shooting at him and shouting at him.
- After all, this is our Tikhon, - said the esaul.
- He! they are!
“Eka rogue,” said Denisov.
- Leave! - screwing up his eyes, said the esaul.
The man whom they called Tikhon, running up to the river, flopped into it so that the spray flew, and, hiding for a moment, all black from the water, got out on all fours and ran on. The French, who were running after him, stopped.
- Well, clever, - said the esaul.
- What a beast! Denisov said with the same expression of annoyance. And what has he done so far?
- Who is this? Petya asked.
- This is our plast. I sent him to pick up the language.
“Ah, yes,” said Petya from Denisov’s first word, nodding his head as if he understood everything, although he decidedly did not understand a single word.
Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most needed people in the party. He was a peasant from Pokrovsky near Gzhatya. When, at the beginning of his actions, Denisov came to Pokrovskoye and, as always, calling the headman, asked what they knew about the French, the headman answered, as all the headmen answered, as if defending themselves, that they did not know anything, know they don't know. But when Denisov explained to them that his goal was to beat the French, and when he asked if the French had wandered into them, the headman said that there had been marauders for sure, but that in their village only Tishka Shcherbaty was engaged in these matters. Denisov ordered Tikhon to be called to him and, praising him for his activities, said a few words in front of the headman about the loyalty to the tsar and the fatherland and hatred for the French, which the sons of the fatherland should observe.
“We do no harm to the French,” said Tikhon, apparently timid at these words of Denisov. - We only so, means, on hunting dabbled with the guys. It’s like two dozen Miroderov were beaten, otherwise we didn’t do anything bad ... - The next day, when Denisov, completely forgetting about this peasant, left Pokrovsky, he was informed that Tikhon had stuck to the party and asked to be left with it. Denisov ordered to leave him.
Tikhon, who at first corrected the menial work of laying fires, delivering water, skinning horses, etc., soon showed a great desire and ability for guerrilla warfare. He went out at night to plunder and each time brought with him a dress and French weapons, and when he was ordered, he brought prisoners. Denisov put Tikhon away from work, began to take him on trips with him and enrolled him in the Cossacks.
Tikhon did not like to ride and always walked, never falling behind the cavalry. His weapons were a blunderbuss, which he wore more for laughter, a lance and an ax, which he owned like a wolf owns teeth, equally easily picking fleas out of wool and biting thick bones with them. Tikhon equally faithfully, with all his might, split logs with an ax and, taking the ax by the butt, cut out thin pegs with it and cut out spoons. In the party of Denisov, Tikhon occupied his own special, exceptional place. When it was necessary to do something especially difficult and ugly - to turn a wagon in the mud with his shoulder, to pull a horse out of the swamp by the tail, skin it, climb into the very middle of the French, walk fifty miles a day - everyone pointed, chuckling, at Tikhon.

Tatyana Mavrina - Lebedeva (Tatyana Mavrina-Lebedeva) - the sorceress of children's fairy tales
Mavrina Tatyana Alekseevna - sorceress of children's fairy tales - Russian artist and illustrator

(Tatyana Mavrina-Lebedeva )

“I go to bed in the mountains. I put six fairy tales in my head:
one is talking, the other is asking, the third is ringing,
the fourth is making noise, the fifth is laughing, the sixth is crying.

TAtiana Alekseevna Mavrina lived a long life and did not stop working for more than seven decades.

Contemporaries recalled her cheerful disposition and the smile with which she started any business. Her diligence admired those around her, but Mavrina herself never understood this admiration: drawing, painting was as natural and necessary for her as breathing.
Tatyana Alekseevna Mavrina generously showed her talent in various creative directions.

She created cycles of sketches dedicated to ancient Russian cities, sketches of scenery and costumes for theatrical performances, and a number of cartoons.

A special place in her work was occupied by illustrating books for children. The most famous design of the fairy tales of A. S. Pushkin: "The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs", "Ruslan and Lyudmila", "Tales", as well as the collections "By Pike", "Russian Tales", "Far Far Away". T. A. Mavrina also acted as an illustrator of her own books: "Fairy-tale animals", "Gingerbreads are baked, they are not given into the paws of a cat", "Fairy-tale alphabet".

She made an amazing book "Lukomorye". There, the cat is present at every spread: either it looks out from behind the winter hillock, or it smiles slyly from the moon ...

And here he is peeking out from behind the poet's marvelous profile, familiar to everyone, drawn by a flying Moorish line ... With this double portrait: the storyteller-cat and the storyteller-poet, the artist completed "Lukomorye".

“For me, the most “soul-piercing work” is “Green oak near the seashore,” the artist writes. - The mysterious Lukomorye is not a geographical concept, but a dreamy vision, where is the oak tree, the cat and the whole fairy-tale world. These short lines contain for me all three volumes of Afanasiev's fairy tales, popular prints and epics.

This poem is like a magic casket, from which the city, and the army, and the people crawl out.

There is also a suitable fairy-tale image for this verse - a golden egg, into which the whole kingdom is folded.

All these images are from Russian folk tales. Pushkin's fairy tales are like folk tales for me. You won't find such a Russian poet... Each book has its own roots and requires its own special "tuning forks".

One can search for these "tuning forks" for Pushkin only in folk art.

"Buyan Island"

"Where is Lukomorye? I think it is necessary to look for it not on some geographical sea, but somewhere on the" blue sea "of fairy tales, on the" Okiyane Sea, on Buyan Island ". This is the land that stands on three whales, maybe even the whole universe, "naive cosmography" of old books."

Illustration "There the prince in passing captivates the formidable king"
to the book: A.S. Pushkin "Lukomorye". 1970. Paper, gouache, ink

factory of the Moskvoretsky District Industrial Trust, 1949, illus. T. Mavrina

The path of Tatyana Mavrina in children's illustration began with the fairy tales of A. S. Pushkin. The artist's first book was The Tale of the Dead Princess, published in 1949. Almost ten years later, her "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" was published. These books have not been reprinted since.
The artist herself said: in order to make drawings for Pushkin, "you need to live and think, travel and rummage through your notes, sketches, return to your childhood." Tatyana Mavrina illustrated the fairy tales of her beloved poet all her life. It was A. S. Pushkin who determined its artistic face and place in art.

"Wedding Feast"

"When designing her first books, Mavrina created much more traditional compositions. Her early illustrations are always narrative, realistic, each scene is clearly thought out in them, landscape backgrounds and the smallest details are drawn in detail, special attention is paid to the transfer of color shades. Take paint "in full force" an artist with a natural sense of color did not decide right away. "

“First there was Pushkin, then there were fairy tales ... Leshy in the forest - according to Pushkin, a mermaid above the water - according to Pushkin, Baba Yaga - also according to Pushkin. And the end: “I was there, and I drank honey”, of course, Pushkin was the first to invent, and then these interesting words were taken into fairy tales. I started drawing these topics shortly after the war, and finished in 1968, and I don’t know if I still finished it -" No, not finished. In 1974, Tatyana Mavrina once again illustrated all the fairy tales of A. S. Pushkin, which will be published in one book.

It seems that A. S. Pushkin himself, in whose mouth the lines sounded with a serious reproach: "The artist-barbarian with a sleepy brush-", could not reproach Tatyana Mavrina for a careless or sluggish interpretation of his fairy tales.

The artist saw the images of Pushkin literally in everything: in Moscow streets, in provincial towns, in the Russian landscape, "along which even a stupa with Baba Yaga will walk-wander by itself-".

"If there are such miracles in words, then what should be the illustrations?"- Tatyana Mavrina asked herself. All her life she answered this question with drawings, recreating the world that Pushkin's scientist whispered to her.

"The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs"

The drawings of the "mature" Mavrina are unusually fabulous compositions, in which there is a lot from folk art: Gorodets painting, Russian popular print, folk toys. In these illustrations, the color spot dominates.

With the help of color, Mavrina builds a composition, outlines the space, highlights the details. A deliberately careless, "live" line turns the drawing into a patterned whole. It is the late illustrations of Tatyana Mavrina, very consonant with the children's (light, joyful) perception of the fairy tale, that will bring her world recognition.

She is still the only Russian artist to be awarded the G. H. Andersen International Prize for her contribution to illustrating children's books.

"The Tale of the Golden Cockerel"

The artist does not put a collar on a cat: the beast freely walks along a golden chain, holding in its paws a scroll with a prologue to Ruslan and Lyudmila - alien, powerful, yellow-blue, like the sky and the moon, with black charmed stripes and dots.

"Return of Ruslan to Kyiv". Illustration for A. S. Pushkin's poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila". 1964. Cardboard, gouache, tempera

Tatyana Mavrina's illustrations certainly create a new dimension of the fairy tale.

In addition to their artistic merit, they carry many cognitive "ethnographic" details that are not described in the text: costumes in all their diversity - from a shirt to a banquet attire (and each character is dressed in his own way, in accordance with his status - for example, according to a suit Vasilisa the Wise, you can immediately guess in her precisely the royal daughter); buildings (a boyar and a merchant's house), crockery, an elegant cake resembling a Tula gingerbread; a table laden with dishes at a feast, a gusliar - there are a lot of things in the pictures that there is not a word about in the fairy tale, but which gives it “materiality” and even introduces it into a historical context.

Somehow it turns out that fabulous events unfold in a stylized Ancient Rus'.

Amazing colors chosen by the artist for drawings! Six horses, greenish from the moonlight, enter the painted gates of a beautiful palace.

Outside the gates in the blue night, only the stars shine and the mysterious forest in the distance darkens, and therefore the night spills over a sheet of paper in a purple color. The contrast of the blue mysterious night is the red chambers of the palace, where the guests have already gathered and the table is set with a white tablecloth.

Mavrina not only draws illustrations for fairy tales, but also retells the text of the fairy tale, finds a folk proverb that reflects its main idea, and writes the proverb with a brush over the title of the fairy tale.

The beginning of the tale, its ending and some of the words that its characters say, the artist also writes with a brush, subtly combining the font with the text of the tale and the pictorial drawing.

Marya-Morevna

"Fabulous Beasts", 1965

Her miraculous animals came from pagan times, from a magical far away, where the wolf served man and took off with him under the clouds. Oh, Tatyana Mavrina, like no one else, felt the magical nature of the Beast, its secret, its connection with the Universe.

Moorish animals really work wonders - the artist wrote a book about them "Fairy Beasts" and placed a mystical black green-eyed cat in a bouquet on the cover.

"Hare in the garden", 1963

"Lisa Patrikeevna", 1963

"Wolf she-wolf", 1963

"Bear clubfoot", 1963

Mavrina is called "the most Russian of all artists." Her unique style is easily recognizable. It merged painting techniques borrowed by the artist from icon painting, folk toys, Russian popular prints, gingerbread boards, and tiles. The magical animals created by Mavrina are organically connected with the images of Russian folk tales.

In the creative manner of Mavrina - a unique combination of the highest European pictorial culture, based on the achievements of impressionism and the Parisian school, and the elements of Russian folk art (icon painting, popular prints, clay toys).
World fame brought her illustrations for Russian folk tales and fairy tales.
A.S. Pushkin.
For her activities in the field of book graphics, she was awarded silver medals at the International Exhibition of Book Art in Leipzig (1960, 1965, 1977), the first prize at the International Exhibition of Book Graphics in Brno (1966), a diploma named after Ivan Fedorov, in 1975 she became a laureate State Prize of the USSR. One of the few Russian artists, she was awarded the International Prize
G.-H. Andersen for his contribution to the illustration of children's books (1976).

Tatyana Mavrina is the only Soviet artist who has been awarded the
G. H. Andersen for his contribution to the illustration of children's books. In the "Unified Artistic Rating" reference book, she is assigned to the highest category - 1A (world-famous artist).

1976

For the first time presented to the representative of Russia -
Mavrina Tatyana Alekseevna
(1902-1996) -
children's book illustrator

“... The agony of creativity that literature ascribes to us is simply incomprehensible to me, I am a working person. If it is difficult, then it is not necessary, the philosopher G.S. Skovoroda said a long time ago. I will repeat after him!”

Mavrina Tatyana Alekseevna (1902-1996)

The creative path of the painter, graphic artist, illustrator T. A. Mavrina began in the 1920s, full of innovative searches in art.

The desire for pattern, colorfulness was fueled by love for the Russian icon, for works of folk art.

Mavrina (Mavrina-Lebedeva) Tatyana Alekseevna

Born in Nizhny Novgorod.

The creative path of the painter, graphic artist, illustrator T. A. Mavrina began in the 1920s, full of innovative searches in art.

She studied at Vkhutemas - Vkhutein (1922-29). Together with several fellow practitioners, she participated at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. in the exhibitions of the "13" group, where the lively, fast pace of a bold sketch-drawing was most appreciated. This lightness and freedom, almost childish immediacy in handling color, line and form, were characteristic of Mavrina's drawings and watercolors, passed into her painting and book drawings with a pen, laying on the page in a transparent and subtle rhythmic pattern (“The Fate of Charles Launseville” by K. G Paustovsky, 1933, etc.).

The desire for pattern, colorfulness was fueled by love for the Russian icon, for works of folk art.

Many times she illustrated the fairy tales of A. S. Pushkin for children (“The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs”, 1946; “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, 1960; “At the Lukomorye”, 1961), Russian folk tales. And each time in her books the color became denser and brighter, the planar drawing became freer and more patterned, the fairy-tale characters, especially animals, became more fantastic and funny. She no longer draws them with a pen, but with wide strokes of the brush.

In 1969, Mavrina's Fabulous Alphabet, amazing in its brilliance and richness of fantasy, was published. From beginning to end, it was made by the artist with almost no explanatory captions, because the whole meaning lies in the illustrations themselves. Each letter has its own little fairy tale. Pictures of the alphabet are full of slyness and mischief, kindness and cordiality, like all the art of the artist.

The only Soviet artist who was awarded the G. Kh. Andersen Prize for his contribution to illustrating children's books.

She died on August 19, 1996 in Moscow. She was buried in Moscow, at the Novodevichy Cemetery (The newest territory. Columbarium, section 148).

Awards and prizes:

// Illustrator. for illustrations for the collection of fairy tales "For distant lands"