Bilibin Snow Maiden. Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin: biography, illustrations and paintings of the artist
There was a lot in his life: incredible success, emigration, life in Egypt and Paris, two failed marriages, unhappy love and a completely unexpected marriage that saved him from death, and in the end - returning to his homeland and death in besieged Leningrad.B. Kustodiev. Portrait of Ivan Bilibin. 1901
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin was a real star of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. A famous graphic artist, glorified by the World of Arts magazine, a designer of high-profile theatrical productions and an illustrator of the best book novelties, he was a successful man, lived in a big way, loved to have fun and joke...
He was born in 1876, in the village of Tarkhovka near St. Petersburg, in the family of a naval doctor. After graduating from high school silver medal, entered the law school, but at the same time studied at the drawing school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and then with Repin himself, so by the time he graduated from the university he was already a member of the new association of artists "World of Art".
In addition, already in 1899, Bilibin found his own, "Bilibin" style. Having accidentally arrived in the village of Yegny, Vesyegonsky district, Tver province, he creates illustrations for his first book, The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf.
Ivan Tsarevich and the Firebird. 1899
The impeccable thin black line of contours in his paintings was drawn not with a pen, but with the thinnest kolinsky brush, and for its clarity and hardness it was called "steel wire". Within a clear contour, Bilibin applied coloring in solid tones - it turned out like in a stained glass window. It seemed that everything that Bilibin's hand touched became beautiful, and Bilibin's fairy tales immediately became fashionable.
No one painted the characters of Russian fairy tales like him. The refined technique of drawing in his works was combined with the elegance of newfangled modernism, while it was felt that Russian fairy tales were his own, dear to Bilibin.
Vasilisa the Beautiful. 1899-1900
Illustrations for Russian fairy tales and epics went one after another: folk tales, Pushkin's tales ... Mastery was supported by excellent knowledge of the subject: Bilibin spent a lot of time on ethnographic expeditions, where he studied primary sources and collected antiquities. Bilibino fairy tales, beautifully illustrated, beautifully published and at the same time inexpensive, gained nationwide fame. They were an achievement in the field of book design - a real ensemble with a typical cover, drop caps, ornaments. On the covers were three heroes, the bird Sirin, the Serpent Gorynych, a hut on chicken legs, and along the edges - flowers, Christmas trees, birch trees, fly agaric mushrooms ... Books with these illustrations were published fifty and a hundred years later.
In parallel, Bilibin worked a lot for the theater. He made sketches of scenery for Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel (Zimin's Moscow Opera), and for the operas Sadko and The Golden Cockerel (People's House Theater in St. Petersburg), participated in the design of Boris Godunov for Diaghilev's entreprise .. .
B. Kustodiev. Portrait of Ivan Bilibin. 1914
It is surprising that with such a love for Russian culture, Bilibin married an Englishwoman. The father of the artist Masha Chambers was an Irishman and his name was James Stephen Chambers, and her mother was a pure Englishwoman (Elizabeth Mary Page), but Masha (Mary Elizabeth Veronica) was born in St. Petersburg and bore the middle name Yakovlevna. Having given birth to two sons, in 1911 his wife left Bilibin - she could not stand his binges. This misfortune - drunkenness - accompanied the artist all his life, and he managed to escape from it only by work.
His second wife, a civilian, was also an Englishwoman, Renee O'Connell. Bilibin once captured her in the image of Strelchikha in illustrations for the fairy tale “Go there - I don’t know where ...”
Archer in front of the king and retinue. Illustration for the fairy tale "Go there, I don't know where"
Ivan Yakovlevich welcomed the revolution. A venerable artist, after the change of power, he entered a special meeting on arts and the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Art and Antiquity. He went to meetings, led almost the same life, drank - good, he managed to get alcohol, and then ... then Bilibin stopped liking the Bolsheviks and he left - both from the Bolsheviks and from his wife - to the Crimea, where he had a house in the country house cooperative of artists and other intelligentsia Batiliman. The difficulties of the Time of Troubles hardly touched him. He painted a little, walked a lot, liked to talk and drink on the shore with the fishermen.
Ivan Bilibin. About how the Germans released a Bolshevik to Russia. Poster. 1917
There he fell in love with a neighbor in the country. Lyudmila Chirikova was almost 20 years younger. Her father, the writer Yevgeny Chirikov, went to Perekop to rescue his high school student mobilized into the White Army, and his wife left with him. They could not return to Novorossiysk: the Whites were losing civil war trains stopped running. Bilibin visited Lyudmila and her sister, who were left without support, twice a day. To get food for them, he sold his sketches for next to nothing. But he did not achieve reciprocity from Lyudmila.
I. Bilibin. Crimea. Batiliman. 1940
Soon the parents of the Chirikov sisters left Russia. The girls decided to follow them. And Bilibin, in order to be close to Lyudmila, ended up on board the Saratov steamer, packed with people fleeing from Russia. On March 13, 1920, the ship arrived in Egypt, in the port of Alexandria. Former Petersburg ladies, officers, university professors settled in a refugee camp.
Bilibin quickly showed merchant ingenuity. He got acquainted with compatriots from the Russian consulate, they introduced him to the customers. The artist moved from the camp to the city, became a completely respected person. Lyudmila Chirikova also found a job - she danced in nightclubs as part of a Russian troupe. In the hope of winning her heart, Bilibin rented a room for her, offered her the job of his assistant.
I. Bilibin. Egypt. Pyramids. 1924
For some time Bilibin lives by work, but soon Lyudmila leaves for Berlin to her parents, and the artist starts drinking again. Everything changed when suddenly in 1922 Ivan Yakovlevich received a letter from Russia, from his girlfriend ex-wife, the artist Alexandra - more precisely, as everyone called her, Shurochka - Shchekotikhina. Shurochka was a widow, worked at a porcelain factory in Petrograd, lived with her little son in former home merchants Eliseevs, which became the hostel of the "House of Arts". The poets Osip Mandelstam and Vladimir Khodasevich, the prose writer Alexander Grin, the artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky also lived here, there were potbelly stoves everywhere, which drowned themselves with books and stretchers.
Simple and kind letter Shurochka was so touched by the yearning artist that he sent her a telegram: “Be my wife. Waiting for an answer". Shurochka agreed. In February 1923, she and her son arrived in Alexandria.
Alexandra Shchekotikhina-Pototskaya
Shurochka brought success to Bilibin: orders rained down on him. She herself did not sit idle either: she equipped a small porcelain workshop and began to trade in painted services. She also sold plates with sickles and hammers: the British were willing to buy revolutionary exotics.
Bilibin in the 1920s
Soon the couple decided that it was time to move to Europe. Subsequently, Bilibin was not very pleased with this decision: in Europe, his art was primarily of interest to emigrants like him, and they were mostly poor people. And although he and his wife lived in grand style, kept an atelier and even built a small cottage on the Mediterranean coast, more and more often one could hear from Ivan Yakovlevich that he was disappointed with life in Paris. In the early 1930s, he began to communicate closely with people from the Soviet embassy, in 1935 he already had a Soviet passport, and in 1936 he arrived in Leningrad with his wife and son.
The book "Tales of the hut". Russian folk tales on French. Paris. 1931
They were well received, they were given an apartment on Gulyarnaya Street, the current Liza Chaikina Street. Ivan Yakovlevich became a professor at the graphic workshop at the Academy, designed The Tale of Tsar Saltan for the Kirov Theater, made illustrations for this tale and for the Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov for a publishing house, and was involved in decorative work for the Palace of Soviets in Moscow. Shurochka returned to the porcelain factory.
When the war began, Bilibin refused to evacuate and remained in hungry and cold Leningrad.
I. Bilibin. Dobrynya Nikitich frees Zabava Putyaticna from the Serpent Gorynych. 1941
According to the memoirs of the artist A.I. Brodsky, who also lived during the siege in Leningrad, once the head of the city propaganda department, Colonel Tsvetkov, promised to treat Brodsky and Bilibin with millet porridge and herring. To do this, they had to cross the frozen Neva and walk for two hours. Having fed the guests, the colonel asked Bilibin to inscribe for him postcards with reproductions of Bilibino watercolors. The inscriptions were:
“What a salmon in these places! Whoever has not tried fresh salmon cannot imagine what kind of divine fish it is! Written during the hunger strike: December 1941 Leningrad. I. Bilibin "
“These would be fungi, but now in a pan with sour cream. Eh-ma!.. December 30, 1941.
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin died on February 7, 1942, and was buried without a coffin in the mass grave of professors of the Academy of Arts near the Smolensk cemetery.
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin - famous Russian artist, illustrator. Born on August 4, 1876 in the village of Tarkhovka, St. Petersburg province - passed away on February 7, 1942 in Leningrad. The main genre in which Ivan Bilibin worked is book graphics. In addition, he created various murals, panels and made decorations for theatrical performances, engaged in the creation of theatrical costumes.
Nevertheless, most of the admirers of the talent of this wonderful Russian know him by his merit in fine arts. I must say that Ivan Bilibin had good school to study the art of painting and graphics. It all started with the drawing school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. Then there was the workshop of the artist A. Ashbe in Munich; at the school-workshop of Princess Maria Tenisheva, he studied painting under the guidance of Ilya Repin himself, then, under his own guidance, there was a Higher art school Academy of Arts.
Most of his life, I.Ya. Bilibin lived in St. Petersburg. He was a member of the World of Art association. He began to show interest in the ethnographic style of painting after he saw a painting by the great artist Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov "Bogatyrs" at one of the exhibitions. For the first time, he created several illustrations in his recognizable "Bilibinsky" style after he accidentally ended up in the village of Yegny in the Tver province. The Russian hinterland with its dense untrodden forests, wooden houses, similar to the very fairy tales of Pushkin and the paintings of Viktor Vasnetsov, inspired him so much with its originality that he, without thinking twice, set about creating drawings. It was these drawings that became illustrations for the book "The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf." We can say that it was here, in the heart of Russia, in its distant, lost in the forests, settlements, that all the talent of this wonderful artist manifested itself. After that, he began to actively visit other regions of our country and write more and more illustrations for fairy tales and epics. It was in the villages that the image was still preserved ancient Rus'. People continued to wear ancient Russian costumes, spent traditional holidays, decorated houses with intricate carvings, etc. Ivan Bilibin captured all this in his illustrations, making them head and shoulders above the illustrations of other artists due to their realism and accurately noticed details.
His work is the tradition of ancient Russian folk art on modern way, in accordance with all laws book graphics. What he did is an example of how modernity and the culture of our past can coexist. great country. Being, in fact, an illustrator of children's books, he attracted the attention of a much larger audience of spectators, critics and connoisseurs of beauty with his art.
Ivan Bilibin illustrated such tales as: "The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf" (1899), "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" (1905), "Volga" (1905), "The Golden Cockerel" (1909 ), "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel" (1910) and others. In addition, he designed the covers of various magazines, including: World of Art, Golden Fleece, editions of Rosehip and Moscow Book Publishing House.
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin is famous not only for his illustrations in the traditional Russian style. After the February Revolution, he painted a double-headed eagle, which at first was the coat of arms of the Provisional Government, and from 1992 to this day adorns the coins of the Bank of Russia. The great Russian artist died in Leningrad during the blockade on February 7, 1942 in the hospital. Last work became an illustration for the epic "Duke Stepanovich". He was buried in the mass grave of professors of the Academy of Arts near the Smolensk cemetery.
The ingenious words of Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin: “Only quite recently, like America, they discovered the old artistic Rus', vandal mutilated, covered with dust and mold. But even under the dust it was beautiful, so beautiful that the first minute impulse of those who discovered it is quite understandable: to return it! return!".
Ivan Bilibin paintings
Baba Yaga. Illustration for the fairy tale Vasilisa the Beautiful
White rider. Fairy tale Vasilisa the Beautiful
Illustration for the epic Volga
Illustration for the fairy tale The White Duck
Fairy tale Marya Morevna
Illustration for the Tale of the Golden Cockerel
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
Illustration for the Tale of Tsar Saltan
Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf
Illustration for the Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf
Illustration for the fairy tale Feather Finist the Bright Falcon
It's been more than twenty years since I've been in the tiny kitchen of our first apartment. A lot of time, but I still can the smallest details remember a picture of a Russian hero cut out by my grandmother from some magazine and pasted on the refrigerator. It always seemed that this wonderful Russian hero was about to fly out on his wonderful horse through the window, hit Vanka with a mace from the third entrance, and then he would certainly marry me. And the picture was drawn by Ivan Bilibin - a magnificent master of "Old Russian" illustration.
The special "Bilibino" style is recognizable today at first sight: it is a perfect mastery of the art of book graphics, when cover, text, font, drawings, andornamentssubordinate to one common idea Books, and virtuoso drawing of old Russian clothes and household items, Andreturn to the traditions of ancient Russian and folk art, with theirpattern and decoration, Anda peculiar interpretation of epic and fairy-tale images.
But the main thing is that Bilibin, from the clumsiness of peasant buildings, carved architraves, embroidered tablecloths and towels, painted wooden and earthenware was able to create an atmosphere of Russian antiquity, epic and a real fairy tale.
Fame Ivan Bilibin brought illustrations to the Russian folk tales. Over the course of four years, he illustrated seven fairy tales: "Sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka", "White Duck", "The Frog Princess", "Marya Morevna", "The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and gray wolf”, “Feather of Finist Yasna-Falcon” and “Vasilisa the Beautiful”.
The editions of fairy tales that I have preserved are small large-format notebooks. All six books have the same cover from which Russians look fairy tale characters. In the IDM reissue, everything is also under one cover. The names of the fairy tales are filled with Slavic script, page illustrations are surrounded by ornamental frames, like rustic windows with carved platbands.
Pushkin's fairy tales with drawings by the master were also a huge success. Russian Museum Alexander III bought illustrations for The Tale of Tsar Saltan, and the Tretyakov Gallery acquired the entire illustrated cycle of Tale of the Golden Cockerel. "The luxurious royal chambers are completely covered with patterns, paintings, decorations. Here, the ornament so abundantly covers the floor, ceiling, walls, clothes of the king and boyars that everything turns into a kind of unsteady vision that exists in a special illusory world and is about to disappear."
The words of Bilibin himself are the best fit for reprinting books with his illustrations. Publishing House Meshcheryakova: "Only quite recently, like America, they discovered the old artistic Rus', covered with dust. But even under the dust it was beautiful, so beautiful that the first minute impulse of those who discovered it is quite understandable: return! return!"
And in this impulse, quite recently IDM published a book, which includes all the works with illustrations by Bilibin, previously published in two separate editions: andPushkin's fairy tales, and Russian folk tales, and epics. Seeing this edition live, I thought - why not buy it? And this despite the fact that I already have all the same in separate books. Unfortunately, there were no old editions with me to compare in detail, but new compilation Offhand, it differs only in that the paper is coated, not offset, and the magenta color balance is normal this time. The quality of the book is top notch. Inside - the same as under the cut, only more. In general, I advise everyone.
in the "Labyrinth"IDM also took care of those who want a little Bilibin to diversify the children's library, and released a novelty - a budget version in the "Library of Far Far Away" series - a collection that includes two Pushkin's fairy tales: "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel" and "The Tale of the Fisherman and a fish."
in the "Labyrinth"
And again Amphora in my favorite series "Artists for Children", about which I have already written a million times laudatory posts. The quality of the books is excellent: a cozy reduced format, which is convenient for children to view on their own, a hard glossy cover, very thick white offset paper, large print. It is a pity that there are only two books in the series with illustrations by Bilibin, each with two fairy tales: The Frog Princess and Marya Morevna, Vasilisa the Beautiful andFeather Finist Yasna Sokol.
There is on sale a collection of Russian folk tales with Bilibin's drawings for "Tales of the Hut", published in 1936 in Paris. In Russia, this book with works french period the artist has not previously been published in its entirety. But I haven't seen it live, so I can't judge the quality.
Illustrated collection of Pushkin, where drawings by Bilibin including:
Andersen, about whom I already wrote:
Only quite recently, like America,
discovered old artistic Rus',
vandalized, covered in dust and mold.
But even under the dust it was beautiful, so beautiful that the first minute impulse of those who discovered it is quite understandable:
return! return!
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, 1876–1942
IVAN YAKOVLEVICH BILIBIN (illustrations for Russian fairy tales)
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin(1876-1942) - Russian artist, book illustrator and theater designer.
The most famous are Ivan Bilibin's poetic and colorful illustrations for Russian fairy tales and epics, recreating the fabulous and fantastic world of Russian folklore.
Since 1899, creating design cycles for publishing fairy tales (Vasilisa the Beautiful, Sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka, Finist Yasny Sokol, the Frog Princess ..., including Pushkin's fairy tales about Tsar Saltan and the Golden Cockerel), Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin developed - in the technique of ink drawing, tinted with watercolors - special style book illustration, based on a sophisticated stylization of the motifs of folk and medieval Russian art (lubok, embroidery, woodcarving, manuscript miniatures ...). This colorful style filled with the Russian spirit is rightly called Bilibino!
Vasilisa the Beautiful (Russian folk tale)
... Vasilisa walked all night and all day, only by the next evening she came to a clearing where the hut of a yaga-baba stood; a fence around the hut made of human bones, human skulls stick out on the fence, with eyes; instead of pillars at the gate - human legs, instead of constipation - hands, instead of a lock - a mouth with sharp teeth. Vasilisa was stupefied with horror and became rooted to the spot. Suddenly a rider rides again: he is black himself, dressed in all black and on a black horse; galloped to the gates of the baba-yaga and disappeared, as if he had fallen through the earth - night came ...
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§ Baba Yaga surrounded by mermaids on the green page “Which of the heroes defeated the Serpent Gorynych?” - solution logical tasks means of the algebra of logic.
Ruslan and Lyudmila:: Fingal's Cave
... But suddenly there is a cave in front of the hero;
There is light in the cave. He's right up to her
Goes under dormant vaults,
Peers of nature itself ...
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin
Sadko:: Night on the shore of Ilmen Lake
…Light summer night Sadko went out to the steep bank of Lake Ilmen, sat down on a white-combustible stone and thought sadly. “Listen, you, quick wave, you, wide expanse, is it about my bitter fate and about my cherished thought” ...
§ I suggest to poetic natures to enjoy moonlight on the green page of "The Moon in Painting".
§ About variability and impermanence the colors of the moon read on the green page "Description of the Moon in poetic works" - moonlight poetry and painting walk.
Fairy tale "The Frog Princess"
... The older brother fired an arrow - she fell on the boyar yard, right against the girl's tower; let the middle brother let go - an arrow flew to the merchant in the yard and stopped at the red porch, and on the porch there stood a maiden soul, the merchant's daughter, let the younger brother let go - an arrow hit a dirty swamp, and a frog frog picked it up.
Ivan Tsarevich says: “How can I take a frog for myself? Quakusha is no match for me!”
– “Take it! The king answers him. “Know that this is your fate.”
"The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf"
... The gray wolf uttered these speeches, hit the damp earth - and became the beautiful royal Helen, so there’s no way to know that it wasn’t her. Ivan Tsarevich took the gray wolf, went to the palace to Tsar Afron, and ordered the beautiful princess Elena to wait outside the city. When Ivan Tsarevich came to Tsar Afron with the imaginary Elena the Beautiful, the Tsar rejoiced in his heart that he had received such a treasure that he had long desired ...
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Costume designs
to Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel, 1908
Ivan Bilibin also used the graphic-ornamental style of his illustrations in theatrical works . In 1908, Ivan Bilibin created a series of scenery and costume designs for the opera. Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov "The Golden Cockerel"(1909, Opera theatre Sergei Ivanovich Zimin, Moscow) and The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1937, Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater named after Sergei Mironovich Kirov).
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin - Russian artist, graphic artist, theater artist, member of the "World of Art", author of illustrations for Russian fairy tales and epics in a decorative and graphic ornamental manner based on the stylization of the motifs of Russian folk and medieval art; one of the largest masters of the national-romantic direction in the Russian version of the Art Nouveau style.
BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST
Ivan Bilibin was born on August 16 (August 4 according to the old style), 1876, in Tarkhovka, near St. Petersburg. A descendant of an old merchant family. He studied at the studio of Anton Azhbe in Munich (1898), as well as at the school-workshop of Princess Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva with Ilya Efimovich Repin (1898-1900). Lived in St. Petersburg, was an active member of the World of Art association.
In 1899, Bilibin arrived in the village of Yegny, Vesyegonsky district, Tver province. Here, for the first time, he creates illustrations in the later "Bilibino" style for his first book, The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf.
During the revolution of 1905, the artist creates revolutionary caricatures.
Since 1907, Bilibin has been teaching a class graphic art at the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, continuing teaching until 1917. Among his students at the school were G.I. Narbut, K.S. Eliseev, L.Ya. Hortik, A. Roosileht (August Roosileht), N.V. Kuzmin, Rene O'Connell, K.D. Voronets-Popova.
In 1915, he participated in the establishment of the Renaissance Society artistic Rus' along with many other artists of his time. After October revolution Bilibin leaves for the Crimea in Batiliman, where he lives until September. Until December 1919, he was in Rostov-on-Don, then, with the retreat of the White Army, he ended up in Novorossiysk.
February 21, 1920 on the steamer "Saratov" Bilibin sails from Novorossiysk. Since 1920 he has been living in Cairo. In Egypt, Bilibin is working on sketches for panels and frescoes in the Byzantine style for the mansions of wealthy Greek merchants.
In February 1923, Bilibin marries the artist Alexandra Vasilievna Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya. In the summer of 1924 he travels with his family through Syria and Palestine. In October 1924 he settled in Alexandria. In August 1925, Bilibin moved to Paris.
In 1936 the artist returned to his homeland and settled in Leningrad. Bilibin teaches at the All-Russian Academy of Arts, continues to work as an illustrator and theater designer.
Bilibin died in besieged Leningrad on February 7, 1942 in a hospital at the All-Russian Academy of Arts. He was buried in the mass grave of professors of the Academy of Arts near the Smolensk cemetery.
CREATIVITY OF IVAN BILIBIN
Bilibin began to draw very early, and later clarified this: "As far as I can remember, I have always painted."
As an artist, Bilibin was “impressed” by the exhibition of works by V. M. Vasnetsov in the halls of the Academy of Arts (1898). The national-romantic trend in painting at that time captured him as a supporter and successor of the “contour line”, which Fyodor Tolstoy was so fond of 100 years before and which became the textural basis of drawing in contemporary Bilibin art style"modern".
Illustrations for six Russian fairy tales (starting with the first and most notable "Tales of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf"), which were published in 1901-1903, immediately made Bilibin's name famous. But he reached full social significance and creative heights in further works: two illustrative cycles “according to Pushkin” “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” and “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel” were acquired by the Russian Museum of Alexander III and Tretyakov Gallery respectively.
Ivan Tsarevich and the Firebird Ivan Tsarevich and Vasilisa the Beautiful Ivan Tsarevich and the Frog Princess
After February Revolution Bilibin drew a drawing of a double-headed eagle, which was used as the coat of arms of the Provisional Government, and since 1992 this eagle has been on the coins of the Bank of Russia.
Book, magazine and newspaper illustrations were only part of Bilibin's professional life.
Since 1904, he declared himself as a highly gifted theater artist, a connoisseur of old costumes. different peoples, but primarily Russian. Starting cooperation with the newly organized in St. Petersburg Ancient theater(the idea of the director and theater theorist N.N. Evreinov), Bilibin participated in S. Diaghilev’s enterprise, creating sketches of Russian costumes for M. Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov (1908), Spanish costumes for Lope de Vega’s comedy The Sheep Spring and to the drama of Calderon "The Purgatory of St. Patrick" (1911), etc. Bilibin vividly demonstrated the art of the decorator in famous production opera by N. Rimsky-Korsakov "The Golden Cockerel" (staged at the Moscow theater of S. Zimin in 1909).
Bilibin also has works related to church painting. In it, he remains himself, retains his individual style. After leaving St. Petersburg, Bilibin lived for some time in Cairo and actively participated in the design of the Russian house church in the premises of a clinic arranged by Russian doctors. According to his project, the iconostasis of this temple was built.
There is a trace of him in Prague - he made sketches of frescoes and an iconostasis for a Russian church at the Olshansky cemetery in the Czech capital.
BILIBI STYLE
The Bilibino drawing is characterized by a graphical representation. Starting work on the drawing, Bilibin sketched out a sketch of the future composition. Black ornamental lines clearly limit the colors, set the volume and perspective in the plane of the sheet. filling watercolor paints black and white graphic drawing only emphasize the given lines. Bilibin generously uses ornament to frame the drawings.
INTERESTING FACTS FROM THE LIFE OF IVAN BILIBIN
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin was going to become a lawyer, studied diligently at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University and successfully graduated full course in 1900.
