The first oil painting is a fresh cavalier. Pavel Fedotov
P. A. Fedotov. Fresh Cavalier 1846. Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery
The plot of "The Fresh Cavalier" by P. A. Fedotov was explained by the author himself.
- “Morning after the feast on the occasion of the order received. The new cavalier could not stand it: than the world put on his new clothes on his dressing gown and proudly reminds the cook of his significance, but she mockingly shows him the only, but even then worn and perforated boots, which she carried to clean. Leftovers and fragments of yesterday's feast are scattered on the floor, and under the table in the background one can see a cavalier awakening, probably left on the battlefield, but one of those who stick with passports to those passing by. The waist of the cook does not give the owner the right to have guests of the best tone. Where there is a bad connection, there is dirt on a great holiday.
It is quite obvious that the picture is not reduced to a direct narrative: a pictorial story includes rhetorical turns. Such a rhetorical figure appears, first of all, the main character. His posture is that of a speaker draped in a “toga”, with an “antique” body position, a characteristic support on one leg, and bare feet. Such is his overly eloquent gesture and stylized relief profile; papillots form a kind of laurel wreath.
However, the translation into the language of the high classical tradition is unacceptable for the picture as a whole. The behavior of the hero, at the will of the artist, becomes playful behavior, but objective reality immediately exposes the game: the toga turns into an old dressing gown, laurels into hairpins, bare feet into bare feet. Perception is twofold: on the one hand, we see before us the comically pitiful face of real life, on the other hand, we have before us the dramatic position of a rhetorical figure in an unacceptable “lowered” context.
By giving the hero a pose that does not correspond to the real state of affairs, the artist ridiculed the hero and the event itself. But is this the only expressiveness of the picture?
Russian painting of the preceding period was inclined to maintain a completely serious tone in its appeal to the classical heritage. This is largely due to the leading role of the historical genre in the artistic system of academism. It was believed that only a work of this kind was capable of raising Russian painting to a truly historical height, and the stunning success of Bryullov's "The Last Day of Pompeii" strengthened this position.
K. P. Bryullov. The last day of Pompeii 1830-1833. Leningrad, State Russian Museum
The painting by K. P. Bryullov was perceived by contemporaries as a revived classic. “... It seemed to me,” N. V. Gogol wrote, “that sculpture is the sculpture that was comprehended in such plastic perfection by the ancients that this sculpture finally passed into painting ...”. Indeed, inspired by the plot of the ancient era, Bryullov, as it were, set in motion a whole museum of ancient plastic art. The introduction of a self-portrait into the picture completes the effect of "resettlement" in the depicted classics.
Bringing one of his first heroes to public view, Fedotov puts him in a classic pose, but completely changes the plot-pictorial context. Removed from the context of "high" speech, this form of expressiveness is in clear contradiction with reality - a contradiction at the same time comic and tragic, because it comes to life precisely in order to immediately reveal its unviability. It must be emphasized that it is not the form as such that is ridiculed, but precisely the one-sidedly serious way of using it - a convention that claims to be the place of reality itself. This creates a parody effect.
Researchers have already paid attention to this feature of Fedotov's artistic language.
Fedotov. Consequence of Fidelka's death. 1844
“In the sepia-caricature “Polstofe”, in the sepia “Consequence of the death of Fidelka”, in the film “The Fresh Cavalier”, the category of the historical is ridiculed. Fedotov does this in different ways: instead of the sitter in a heroic pose, he puts half a shtof, puts the corpse of a dog in the main place, surrounding him with the figures of those present, likens one of the characters to a Roman hero or orator. But each time, exposing and ridiculing habits, character traits, laws, he ridicules them through signs and attributes of the academic genre. But it's not just a matter of denial. Denying, Fedotov at the same time and uses the techniques of academic art.
Sarabyanov D.P. P.A. Fedotov and Russian artistic culture of the 40s of the XIX century. p.45
The last remark is very significant; it proves that Fedotov's category of the historical (in its academic interpretation) is subjected not just to ridicule, but precisely to parody. From this, the fundamental orientation of Fedotov's painting towards “reading”, towards correlation with the art of the word, which is most subject to the game of meanings, becomes clear. It is not out of place to recall here the work of Fedotov the poet and his literary comments - oral and written - to his own paintings and drawings. Close analogies can be found in the work of a group of writers who glorified the art of parody under the pseudonym Kozma Prutkov.
The subjective oversaturation of the image in Fedotov is by no means a naturalistic property. The meaning of things here is like the meaning of actors. This is the situation we encounter in The Fresh Cavalier, where a great many things are presented, each with an individual voice, and they all seemed to speak at once, hurrying to tell about the event and interrupting each other in a hurry. This can be explained by the inexperience of the artist. But this does not exclude the possibility of seeing in this little ordered action of things crowding around the pseudo-classical figure, a parody of the conditionally regular structure of the historical picture. Recall the overly ordered confusion of Pompeii's Last Day.
K. P. Bryullov. The last day of Pompeii. Fragment
“Faces and bodies are in perfect proportions; beautifulness, roundness of body shapes are not disturbed, not distorted by pain, cramps and grimace. The stones are hanging in the air - and not a single bruised, wounded or contaminated person.
Ioffe I.I. Synthetic Art History
Let us also recall that in the author's commentary to The Fresh Cavalier, quoted above, the space of action is referred to only as a "battlefield", the event, the consequences of which we see, as a "feast", and the hero awakening under the table as " remaining on the battlefield, also a cavalier, but one of those who pester passers-by with passports ”(that is, a policeman).
P. A. Fedotov. Fresh Cavalier 1846. Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery. Fragment. policeman
Finally, the very name of the picture is ambiguous: the hero is a cavalier of the order and a “cavalier” of the cook; the use of the word "fresh" is marked by the same duality. All this testifies to a parody of the "high style".
Thus, the meaning of the image is not reduced to the meaning of the visible; the picture is perceived as a complex ensemble of meanings, and this is due to the stylistic game, the combination of different settings. Contrary to popular belief, painting is able to master the language of parody. It is possible to express this position in a more concrete form: the Russian everyday genre goes through the stage of parody as a natural stage of self-affirmation. It is clear that parody does not imply negation as such. Dostoevsky parodied Gogol, learning from him. It is also clear that parody is not reduced to ridicule. Its nature lies in the unity of two foundations, comic and tragic, and "laughter through tears" is much closer to its essence than comic imitation or mimicry.
In the later work of Fedotov, the parodic principle becomes almost elusive, entering a much more “closer” personal context. Perhaps it is appropriate here to talk about autoparody, about playing on the verge of exhausting mental strength, when laughter and tears, irony and pain, art and reality celebrate their meeting on the eve of the death of the very person who united them.
Who is this funny official, who is hardly coming to his senses the next morning after a fun feast arranged on the occasion of his first order? What a miserable environment. How awkward the order looks on an old dressing gown and how mockingly the cook looks at her master, holding tattered boots.
The painting "Fresh Cavalier" is an accurate reproduction of reality. In addition to his excellent command of writing technique, Fedotov surprisingly conveys a psychological portrait. The artist clearly sympathizes with his "cavalier".
Laquo; Morning after the feast on the occasion of the received order. The new cavalier could not stand it, than the world put on his new dress on his dressing gown and proudly reminds the cook of his significance. But she mockingly shows him the only, but even then worn and perforated boots, which she carried to clean. Leftovers and fragments of yesterday's feast are scattered on the floor, and under the table in the background one can see a cavalier awakening, probably left on the battlefield, too, but one of those who stick with a passport to those passing by. The waist of the cook does not give the owner the right to have guests of the best tone. "Where a bad connection has started, there is a great holiday - dirt." So Fedotov himself described the picture. It is no less interesting how his contemporaries described this picture, in particular, Maikov, who, having visited the exhibition, described that the gentleman was sitting and shaving - there is a jar with a shaving brush - and then suddenly jumped up. This means that there was a knock of falling furniture. We also see a cat tearing apart the upholstery of a chair. Therefore, the picture is filled with sounds. But it is still full of smells. It is no coincidence that Maykov had the idea that cockroaches are also depicted in the picture. But no, in fact there are none, it's just the rich imagination of the critic who added insects to this plot. Although, indeed, the picture is very densely populated. Here is not only the cavalier himself with the cook, there is also a cage with a canary, and a dog under the table, and a cat on a chair; leftovers everywhere, a herring head lying around, which the cat has eaten. In general, a cat is often found in Fedotov, for example, in his painting "Major's Courtship". What else do we see? We see that the dishes fell from the table, bottles. That is, the holiday was very noisy. But look at the gentleman himself, he is also very untidy. He is wearing a tattered robe, but he has wrapped it up like a Roman senator wearing a toga. The gentleman's head is in papillots: these are pieces of paper in which the hair was wrapped, and then burned with tongs through that piece of paper so that the hairstyle could be styled. It seems that all these procedures are helped by the cook, whose waist is indeed suspiciously rounded, so that the morals of this apartment are not of the best quality. The fact that the cook is wearing a headscarf, and not a povoinik, the headdress of a married woman, means that she is a girl, although she is not supposed to wear a girl's headscarf either. It can be seen that the cook is not in the least afraid of her "terrible" master, she looks at him with a mockery and shows him the holey boots. Because although in general the order, of course, means a lot in the life of an official, but not in the life of this person. Perhaps the cook is the only one who knows the truth about this order: that they are no longer awarded and that this gentleman has missed his only chance to arrange life somehow differently. Interestingly, the remains of yesterday's sausage on the table are wrapped in newspaper. Fedotov prudently did not indicate what kind of newspaper it was - "Police Vedomosti" Moscow or St. Petersburg.
In the plot and composition of the picture, the influence of English artists - masters of the everyday genre is clearly visible.
Pavel Andreevich Fedotov was an incredibly talented person. He had a good ear, sang, played music, composed music. While studying at the Moscow Cadet School, he achieved such success that he was among the four best students. However, the passion for painting conquered everything. Already during his service in the Finnish regiment, Pavel enrolled in the classes of the Imperial Academy of Arts under the guidance of battle painting professor Alexander Sauerweid.
For study, he turned out to be too old, which Karl Bryullov, another teacher at the academy, did not fail to tell him about. In those days, art began to be taught early, usually between the ages of nine and eleven. And Fedotov crossed this line a long time ago ... But he worked diligently and hard. Soon he began to get good watercolors. The first work exhibited to the audience was the watercolor “Meeting of the Grand Duke”.
Its theme was prompted by the meeting of the guardsmen with the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich in the Krasnoselsk camp, which the young artist saw, who joyfully greeted the high person. These emotions struck the future painter and he managed to create a masterpiece. His Highness liked the picture, Fedotov was even granted a diamond ring. This award, according to the artist, "finally imprinted in his soul artistic pride."
However, Pavel Andreevich's teachers were not satisfied with the work of the novice artist. They wanted to get from him polished and polished in the image of soldiers, which was required from the servicemen by the authorities at the May parades.
One artist guessed another
Fedotov did not like all this, for which he listened to constant remarks. Only at home did he divert his soul, depicting the most ordinary scenes, illuminated by good-natured humor. As a result, Ivan Andreevich Krylov understood what Bryullov and Sauerweid did not understand. The fabulist accidentally saw the sketches of a young painter and wrote him a letter, urging him to leave horses and soldiers forever and take up the real thing - the genre. One artist sensitively guessed another.
Fedotov believed the fabulist and left the Academy. Now it is difficult to imagine how his fate would have developed if he had not listened to Ivan Andreevich. And the artist would not have left the same mark in Russian painting as Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin in literature. He was one of the first painters of the mid-19th century to resolutely embark on the path of critical realism and began to openly denounce the vices of Russian reality.
High mark
In 1846, the artist painted the first painting in the new genre, which he decided to present to the professors. This painting was called "The Fresh Cavalier". It is also known as "The Morning of the Official Who Received the First Cross" and "The Consequences of the Revel". Working on it was hard. “This is my first chick, which I“ nursed ”with various amendments for about nine months,” Fedotov wrote in his diary.
He showed the finished painting together with his second work - "The Picky Bride" at the Academy. And a miracle happened - Karl Bryullov, who had not particularly welcomed Pavel Andreevich before, gave his canvases the highest rating. The Council of the Academy nominated him for the title of academician and assigned a financial allowance. This allowed Fedotov to continue the begun painting "Major's Matchmaking". In 1848, she, along with The Fresh Cavalier and The Picky Bride, appears at an academic exhibition.
The next exhibition, along with fame, brought censorship attention. It was forbidden to remove lithographs from the "Fresh Cavalier" because of the irreverent image of the order, and it was impossible to remove the order from the picture without destroying its plot. In a letter to the censor Mikhail Musin-Pushkin, Fedotov wrote: “... where there is constant poverty and deprivation, there the expression of the joy of the reward will reach the point of childishness to rush around with it day and night. ... stars are worn on robes, and this is only a sign that they value them.
However, the request to allow distribution of the painting "in its present form" was denied.
"Fresh Cavalier"
Here is what Fedotov wrote in his diary when he came from the Censorship Committee about the painting: “The morning after the feast on the occasion of the order received. The new cavalier couldn't stand it, he put on his new clothes on his dressing gown and proudly reminds the cook of his importance. But she mockingly shows him the only, but even then worn and perforated boots, which she carried to clean. Leftovers and fragments of yesterday's feast are scattered on the floor, and under the table in the background one can see a cavalier awakening, probably left on the battlefield, too, but one of those who stick with a passport to those passing by. The waist of the cook does not give the owner the right to have guests of the best tone. “Where there is a bad connection, there is a great holiday - dirt.”
In his work, Pavel Fedotov gave a certain share of his sympathy to the cook. Not bad-looking, a neat young woman, with a rounded, common people's face. A scarf tied around her head says that she is not married. Married women in those days wore a warrior on their heads. By the looks of it, she's expecting a baby. One can only guess who his father is.
"The Fresh Cavalier" Pavel Fedotov for the first time paints in oils. Perhaps that is why the work on it was carried out for quite a long time, although the idea was formed long ago. The new technique contributed to the emergence of a new impression - the complete realism, materiality of the depicted world. The artist worked on the painting as if he were painting a miniature, paying attention to the smallest details, leaving not a single piece of space unfilled. By the way, critics later reproached him for this.
poor official
As soon as they didn’t call the gentleman of criticism: “an unbridled boor”, “a soulless careerist official”. After many years, critic Vladimir Stasov completely burst into an angry tirade: “... before you is a smart, stiff nature, a corrupt bribe taker, a soulless slave of his boss, who no longer thinks about anything, except that he will give him money and a cross in his buttonhole. He is fierce and ruthless, he will drown whom and what he wants, and not a single wrinkle on his face of rhinocers skin will not flinch. Anger, arrogance, callousness, idolization of the order as the highest and peremptory argument, life completely vulgarized.
However, Fedotov did not agree with him. He called his hero a "poor official" and even a "hard worker" "with a small content", experiencing "constant scarcity and deprivation." It is difficult to argue with the latter - the interior of his dwelling, which is at the same time a bedroom, an office and a dining room, is rather poor. This little man found himself someone even smaller to rise above ...
He, of course, is not Akaky Akakievich from Gogol's "Overcoat". He has a small award, which entitles him to a number of privileges, in particular, to receive the nobility. Thus, receiving this very lowest order in the Russian award system was very attractive for all officials and members of their families.
The gentleman missed his chance
Thanks to Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, the official became the central figure in Russian literature of the 1830s-1850s. It was made hardly the only theme for vaudeville, comedies, stories, satirical scenes and other things. Even though they made fun of the official, they sympathized and sympathized with him. After all, he was tormented by the powers that be and he did not have the right to vote at all.
Thanks to Pavel Fedotov, it became possible to see the image of this small performer on the canvas. By the way, today the topic raised in the middle of the 19th century sounds no less relevant. But there is no Gogol among the writers who is able to describe the suffering of a modern official, for example, from the council, and there is no Fedotov, who, with his inherent share of irony, would draw a local-level official with a letter of thanks in his hands from another official, higher in his rank. Cash bonuses and serious awards are received by the leadership ...
The picture was painted in 1846. And in 1845, the awarding of the Order of Stanislav was suspended. So it is quite likely that the laughter of the cook, which is clearly heard from the canvas, just indicates that the broken girl knows the whole truth. They are no longer awarded and the "fresh gentleman" missed his only chance to change his life.
The genres of his paintings are varied.
Pavel Fedotov influenced the development of fine arts and went down in history as a talented artist who made important steps in the development of Russian painting.
The genres of his paintings are quite diverse, ranging from portraits, genre scenes and ending with battle paintings. Particular attention is paid to those written in his characteristic style of satire or critical realism. In them, he exposes human weaknesses and the very human essence for show. These paintings are witty, and during the life of the master were a real revelation. Genre scenes, where vulgarity, stupidity and, in general, different sides of human weaknesses are ridiculed, were an innovation in Russian art of the 19th century.
However, the artist's adherence to principles, along with the satirical orientation of his work, caused increased attention of censorship. As a result, patrons who previously favored him began to turn away from Fedotov. And then health problems began: vision deteriorated, headaches became more frequent, he suffered from rushes of blood to the head ... Which is why his character changed for the worse.
Fedotov died forgotten by everyone except friends
Fedotov's life ended tragically. In the spring of 1852, Pavel Andreevich showed signs of an acute mental disorder. And soon the academy was informed by the police that "a madman is kept at the unit who says that he is the artist Fedotov."
Friends and the administration of the Academy placed Fedotov in one of the private St. Petersburg hospitals for the mentally ill. The sovereign granted him 500 rubles for his maintenance in this institution. The disease progressed rapidly. In the autumn of 1852, acquaintances secured the transfer of Pavel Andreevich to the hospital of All Who Sorrow on Peterhof Highway. Here Fedotov died on November 14 of the same year, forgotten by all but a few close friends.
He was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery in the uniform of the captain of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment. The censorship committee forbade publishing the news of Pavel Andreevich's death in the press.
The painting “A Fresh Cavalier (Morning of an official who received the first cross)” by P. A. Fedotov, the first work of the domestic genre in Russian painting, was painted in 1847. The canvas was highly appreciated by critics and among the progressive intelligentsia.
In the plot and composition of the picture, the influence of English artists - masters of the everyday genre is clearly visible. On the canvas, we see an official who is hardly coming to his senses the next morning after a fun feast arranged on the occasion of his first order.
The official is depicted in a wretched environment, in an old dressing gown, unshod, with hairpins on his head and with an order fastened directly on the dressing gown. Haughtily and reluctantly, he argues about something with the cook, who shows him the fallen boots.
Before us is a typical representative of his environment - a corrupt bribe-taker and a slave to his boss. Immensely swaggering, he idolizes the order as if it were evidence of some unseen merit. Probably, in his dreams, he flew very high, but the fervent shout of the cook immediately returns him to his place.
The painting "The Fresh Cavalier" is an accurate reproduction of reality in its entirety. In addition to excellent mastery of writing technique, Fedotov demonstrates the subtlety of psychological characteristics. The artist depicts his hero with amazing sharpness and accuracy. At the same time, it is obvious that the artist, denouncing his character, at the same time sympathizes with him, treats him with mild humor.
In addition to the description of the painting by P. A. Fedotov “The Fresh Cavalier”, our website has collected many other descriptions of paintings by various artists, which can be used both in preparation for writing an essay on a painting, and simply for a more complete acquaintance with the work of famous masters of the past.
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“Several times I wanted to get to the source of all these differences. Why am I a titular adviser, why am I a titular adviser? Maybe I'm not a titular adviser at all? Maybe I'm some kind of count or general, but only in this way I seem like a titular adviser. Maybe I don't know who I am yet. After all, there are so many examples from history: some simple, not so much a nobleman, but just some tradesman or even a peasant - and suddenly it turns out that he is some kind of nobleman or baron, or something like him ... "
It seems that at these words the small face of Gogol's Poprishchin, clenched into a fist, suddenly smoothes out, blissful contentment spreads over him, a lively gleam lights up in his eyes, and he becomes taller, and the figure is different - as if he had thrown off his shoulders along with a worn out uniform, a feeling of one’s own insignificance, oppression, one’s wretchedness ...
The plot of the painting “Fresh Cavalier”
Just why did we remember the Gogol hero, considering painting by Fedotov "Fresh cavalier"? Here we have an official who celebrated the receipt of the order. In the morning after the feast, not yet having slept properly, he put on his new clothes on his dressing gown and stood in a pose in front of the cook.
Fedotov, apparently, was occupied with a completely different story. But what is a plot for a true artist! Isn’t this a reason, a purely accidental opportunity to fashion such characters, to reveal such sides of human nature, in order to make people sympathize, resent, despise those with whom they encounter as living creatures in a hundred and two hundred years ...
Both Poprishchin and Fedotov's "cavalier" are kindred, close natures for us. One manic passion owns their souls: "Maybe I'm not a titular adviser at all?"
It was said about Fedotov that for some time now he began to live as a recluse. He rented some kind of kennel on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, damp, children are walking from the master's half, children are crying behind the wall - and he works in such a way that it is scary to look: in the evening and at night - by lamps, during the day - in sunlight.
When one of the old acquaintances expressed his surprise, Fedotov began to talk with fervor about the advantages of his present life. He did not notice the inconveniences, they simply did not exist for him. But here, on the 21st line of Vasilyevsky Island, his natural inclination to observation finds constant food, there is more than enough material for creativity - his heroes live around.
It is now that he is determined to start working in oils, to put his first canvases to the public. Of course, these will be pictures of morals, scenes that he has seen in life: one called “The Consequences of a Revel”, the second “The Humpbacked Groom” (as the paintings “The Fresh Cavalier” and “The Picky Bride” were originally called).
In the short hours of rest, Fedotov suffered from pain in his eyes. He put a wet towel to his head and thought about his heroes, first of all about the “cavalier”. The life of officials was familiar to him from childhood, from his parental home in Moscow.
Here, in St. Petersburg, there is a different spirit - the metropolitan one. New acquaintances of the artist from those who served in different departments, as if they were born officials. How they sit down at a party, take a chair, how they talk to the janitor, how they pay off the cab driver - by all the manners, by the gesture one could guess their rank and possible promotion. On their faces, when they trot to the department in the morning, wrapped in shabby overcoats, one official care, fear of reprimand, and at the same time some kind of self-satisfaction is reflected. Precisely contentment... The desire for all sorts of abstract goods, of course, they regard as stupidity.
And among them there are funny, at least his "cavalier".
Description of the main character of the picture
Fedotov arranged the picture in such a way, saturating it with details so that it could be read as a narrative about the life of this person, a detailed narrative and, as it were, leading the viewer into the depths of the picture, so that the viewer was imbued with the very atmosphere of what was happening, so that he felt like an eyewitness - as if inadvertently the door to He opened it to a neighbor - and that's what his eyes saw. It is tempting and at the same time instructive. Yes, the scene presented to the eyes should teach. The artist believed that he could correct morals, influence human souls.
When one day friends gathered at Fedotov's, and among them the writer A. Druzhinin, the artist began to explain, interpret the meaning of the paintings, as he himself understood them: "uncalculating life." Yes, and in "The Consequences of the Revel" and in "The Hunchbacked Bridegroom" every spectator should see the harm from a careless life.
Until the gray hair, the bride went through the suitors and now she has to opt for a hunchbacked celadon. And the official! Here he is standing in the pose of a Roman emperor, moreover, barefoot and wearing hairpins. The cook has such power over him that she laughs in his face and almost pokes him in the nose with a holey boot. Under the table, a sleeping companion is a policeman. On the floor are the remains of a feast and a rare guest in the house - a book. Of course, this is Bulgarin's Ivan Vyzhigin. “Where a bad connection has started, there is dirt on a holiday,” Fedotov finished ...
Despite all the difficult circumstances of life, he believed in the initially good nature of people, in the possibility of the degeneration of the most evil and vicious of them; moral filth, vulgarity, he believed, is a consequence of disrespect for oneself.
With his art, he dreamed of returning man to man.
Friends liked the picture of the official to the extreme with its vitality, naturalness. Speaking details that did not obscure the whole, humor and this feature - to captivate, lure into the depths of the picture, make you feel the atmosphere of the event. It seemed to them that the moralizing, edifying interpretation of Fedotov did not reveal the full meaning of the canvas. And time has confirmed this.
Fedotov exhibited the paintings to the public in 1847. The success of "Pirushka" was so great that it was decided to remove the lithograph from the canvas. This made Fedotov extraordinarily happy, because everyone can buy a lithograph, which means that the picture will be able to have an impact on many - this is what he aspired to.
Nothing happened. The censorship demanded that the order be removed from the official's dressing gown, the attitude towards which was considered disrespectful. The artist tries to make a sketch and realizes that the meaning, the whole essence of the picture, is lost. He gave up lithography.
This story became known outside of artistic circles, and when Fedotov exhibited the canvas for the second time in 1849 - and at that time the public's mindset was warmed up by the events of the French Revolution - they saw in the picture a kind of challenge to the bureaucratic apparatus of tsarist Russia, a denunciation of the social evil of modern life.
Critic V.V. Stasov wrote: “Before you is a smart, stiff nature, a corrupt bribe taker, a soulless slave of his boss, who no longer thinks about anything, except that he will give him money and a cross in his buttonhole. He is fierce and ruthless, he will drown anyone and whatever you want - and not a single wrinkle on his face made of rhinoceros skin will not flinch. Anger, swagger, callousness, idolization of the order as the highest and peremptory argument, completely vulgarized life - all this is present on this face, in this pose and figure of an inveterate official.
...Today we understand the depth of generalization given by the image of the "cavalier", we understand that the genius of Fedotov undoubtedly came into contact with the genius of Gogol. We are pierced by compassion and the “poverty of a poor man”, for whom happiness in the form of a new overcoat turns out to be an unbearable burden, and we understand that on the basis of the same spiritual poverty, or rather, complete lack of spirituality, oppression of an unfree person, mania grows.
“Why am I a titular councillor, and why am I a titular councilor?..” Oh, how terrible this face is, with what an unnatural grimace it is distorted!
Gogolevsky Poprishchin, who cut his new uniform into a mantle, is removed by society, isolated. Fedotov’s hero, on the other hand, will probably prosper, rent a brighter apartment for himself, get another cook, and, of course, no one, even in their hearts, will throw to him: “Crazy!” Meanwhile - take a look - the same dehumanized face of a maniac.
Passion for distinction, for rank, for power, lurking latently and growing more and more into a poor, miserable life, eats up, destroys a person.
We peer into "Fresh Cavalier" Fedotov, a whole layer of life is exposed. With plastic clarity, the physiognomy of past centuries is outlined, and in all the depth of generalization, we are faced with a miserable type of complacency,
