Ivan Dmitrievich Zakharov - a Russian non-class artist since 1849 and a writer , author of " Traveling Notes of a Russian Artist ", published in 3 volumes in 1854-1860. The first painter in the history of St. Petersburg to organize his own solo exhibition (before this exhibition, only the Imperial Academy of Arts arranged).
| Ivan Dmitrievich Zakharov | |
|---|---|
| A country | |
| Genre | portraitist |
| Study | IAH |
| Ranks | non-class artist |
Biography
Pupil of the Imperial Academy of Arts . In these β Traveling Notes of a Russian Artist β, the artist describes how, without possessing the necessary funds, he accidentally came to Constantinople in 1849 with the warship β Grozny β and here he decides to paint a portrait from the Sultan; in his book he tells how he did it:
β Many foreign artists have achieved this honor several times, but always without success ... in short, it was impossible to get to the Sultan. I think badly, and ambition still hurts for the living, and hope does not leave me. The Sultan, as the governor of the prophet, is obliged to pray every Friday at a mosque and his departure in this case is always solemn. I noticed this and began with the fact that I did not miss a single Friday, watched the ceremony, strained my imagination to memorize the features of his face. What did not have time to look out once, then supplemented in another. This newly invented operation lasted about a month, and my portrait safely approached the end. Took me to meditation. I painted a portrait, but what's the point? Still, it is written more in memory than from nature ... ".
But, in spite of such βreflectionβ, the artist with this portrait went to the great vizier and, having achieved a meeting, received permission to attend some special show, where the son of the Sultan paid attention to him and demanded a portrait from him. The sultan liked the portrait so much that the latter gave the Russian artist an audience and ordered him to paint a portrait and his children. By writing these portraits, partly in miniature, partly in oil paints, Zakharov obtained permission to arrange an exhibition in the Sultanβs palace not only of these portraits, but also of other paintings and sketches made by him in Constantinople. The exhibition was public, numerous reviews were given about it in the foreign press of the time, as about the first art exhibition in Constantinople. For his work, Zakharov received from the Sultan 25 thousand piastres and went with this money to travel to Greece and Italy [1] .
In 1850 he returned to Petrograd and in the halls of the newly rebuilt Passage opened an exhibition of his paintings and sketches. This was the first exhibition of an individual artist in Petrograd: so far, exhibitions have been arranged only by the Academy of Arts. The exhibition aroused great interest. A certain art lover placed a large open letter to the artist in the St. Petersburg Gazette asking him to reduce the entrance fee, which was set at 1 ruble in silver, the collection went to charity. The art lover found this payment prohibitively high and suggested that the artist, generously awarded the Sultan, had forgotten the price of money [1] .
Inspired by such successes, I.D. Zakharov turned to the Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1852 with two petitions: in the first, he asked for his designation at the Academy a workshop for painting a picture depicting a β parade β, for, being in Constantinople at the audience of the Turkish Sultan, promised, upon arrival in Petrograd, to paint this picture; at the same time, he applied for the granting of allowances to him for the performance of this painting from the amounts assigned to encourage artists; the second petition, accompanied by a watercolor portrait painted by Zakharov, included a list of works performed both in Russia and abroad and a request βto award him the title of academician β. But if fortune smiled at Zakharov in Constantinople, then she turned away from him in Petrograd. The Council of the Academy of Arts determined:
β Declare to Mr. Artist Zakharov that he must ask for the program in order to receive the title of academician; as for the workshop to be given to the Academy for production of a painting, the Academy has neither a free workshop for assignment to him, nor an amount for assistance in such cases . β
Offended by the refusal, the artist did not want to ask for a program for the title of academician, remaining a non-class artist , and turned to literature [1] .
First, several of his feuilleton devoted to foreign memoirs appeared in the St. Petersburg Vedomosti , and then, in 1854, he published a whole book, which quickly spread. The success of this first book inspired the artist to continue his literary work, and he released two more parts in 1855 and in 1860. To the books he applied illustrations-lithographs from his album, for example, a portrait of the daughter of the Sultan. According to a number of critics, the artistβs βTraveling Notesβ were written somewhat β naively β, but the description of how the artist achieved an audience with the Sultan, and then a number of details of Turkish life, episodes from the life of Greek artists, etc. are noteworthy [1] .
After 1860, information about Ivan Dmitrievich Zakharov breaks off [1] .
Notes
- β 1 2 3 4 5 Stolpiansky P.N. Zakharov, Ivan Dmitrievich // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.
Literature
- Petrov , βMaterials for the History of the Academy of Artsβ, vol. II, p. 169 and words
- The Northern Bee , 1849, No. 533; 1850, Art. 886,915; 1853, No. 24; 1854, p. 929.
- St. Petersburg Gazette , 1850, pp. 775, 915; 1853, No. 140, 171, 181.