Elizabeth Boehm - good fairy neoruskogo style

[Жар-птица]

Creativity Merkuryevna Elizabeth Boehm (1847-1914) - famous Russian artist, the late XIX - early XX century, a disciple IN Kramskoy and PP Chistyakov, was recognized both at home and abroad. Works of Elizabeth Boehm acquired the largest Russian collectors PM Tretyakov and IE Tsvetkov. Russian Emperor Alexander III and Nicholas II were big fans of her art. The imperial family is willing to buy copyrights watercolor and glass, painted by an artist.

Over twenty years of active creative activity EM Boehm has created 14 independent silhouette series, designed many books and magazines. In 1895, on the anniversary of her service muse creativity, enormously popular in those years the artist personally congratulated the members of the imperial family, prominent Russian artists: IE Repin, II Shishkin, and LN Tolstoy, and other representatives of the art world. Elizabeth Merkuryevna has created more than 300 subjects for postcards, menus and more than a dozen mostly gift addresses for the Imperial Family and graphs Sheremetevs. Working on Dyatkovo Crystal Factory, she painted a few sets and individual items of glass and enamel, being almost the only professional artist of the XIX-XX centuries, worked in the technology of painting on glass.

Читать дальше... 

Boehm painted wonderful watercolors, illustrated books and was almost the only Russian professional artist the XIX-XX centuries., In charge of painting on glass. Boehm works kept in the best museums in Russia (in the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum, in particular), but can not see them, because nowhere is there a permanent exhibition of her works. But it is ours. And in Europe postcards EM Boehm are extremely popular to this day: in France, for example, they are reissued with enviable regularity, especially for collectors.
   
One feature of the creative artist is noticed immediately, even in the most facile every page: Bohm depicts, as a rule, the Russian countryside and - children. The author does not miss a single opportunity to draw a child, and even where you expect to see adults, Bohm - children, such as a folder of drawings "In memory of the All-Russia exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod in 1896, where there is such a signature: Sold on the ruble, drank half a ruble, probuyanil another, and only the profits that have a headache! "
    Her drawings illustrate the book writers LN Tolstoy, Turgenev, NA Nekrasov. Rosy, round-faced, big-eyed children Bohm were seen and evaluated immediately. But worth it? With an enthusiastic assessment of drawings Böhm we are already familiar. And here is the opinion of art critic E. Kuznetsova, who believes that the artist "sometimes altered sense of proportion, and then love for children turning into mush, and compassion - in a sentimental tearfulness that both meet the tastes of the reading public" ( "Art of the silhouette." - L ., 1970).
Perhaps, for sweetness "baby" pictures Bohm critics are not so wrong, but ... who are so inspired and so many painted children? Lebedev and Pakhomov appear much later, in the XX century, and then, in the XIX-th, there was only Böhm. Of course, it is not an illustrated children's books and drawing cards with charming children muzzles, but only its images are stored permanently and then I learned at first glance.

Since 1893 Bohm became involved manufacturing glassware. It happened after a trip to Orel on Maltsov factories, where the director of the Crystal factory was her brother, Alexander. She made molds for dishes, focusing on old subjects: Bratina, feet, glasses, ladles. Invented designs for enamels. Itself painted dishes and carefully watched, if the painting done by someone else. Some pictures are engraved, and then etched on the glass. And again, the artist tried to do everything herself, noting only that "etching was not a strong vodka, and fluoride acid so toxic that we should wear a mask when etching" (13).
Works of Elizabeth Merkuryevna (since 1868) participated in international exhibitions - in Paris (1900), Munich (1902), Milan (1906) - and everywhere received medals. In Milan, the artist received a gold medal, as well as at an exhibition in Chicago (1893), for the drawings for fans and glass products.
Creativity Bohm highly rated by his contemporaries - not only the readers of her books, but the major artists.
   
In 2003, the Yaroslavl Art Museum hosted an exhibition for the 160 th anniversary of this artist (poster for the exhibition-on photo 5).
    And 5 years later, in winter 2008, during the All-Russia museum of folk art exhibition was held in Moscow «The Russian style of Elizabeth Boehm», timed to publication of a monograph on the life and work of the artist, one of the most prominent representatives of neo-Russian style art of Russia turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. author of the monograph - the well-known scholar of the artist SA Chapkina-Ruga.(in photo 4)
Exhibit, sformirovannyena based collection of the author's monograph, and her family, as well as museum materials allowed for the first time with the fullness of experience the rich artistic legacy of Elizabeth Merkuryevna Bohm (E. Endaurovoy).
    At the exhibitions in museums were represented postcards, books, lithographs, watercolors, and other graphic works, including silhouettes, which brought the most famous painter, and glass products.

In the turbulent years after the revolution, which brought the art of new styles and trends in the next few decades, creative artist was in the shade. And this despite the fact that in the vaults of all major Russian museums are stored works EM Böhm. In recent years, interest in the creativity of talented, original and brilliant artist once again began to grow. Images created EM Bohm, extensive use of its traditions of Russian national culture, the inclusion of folk elements and ornaments in fabric works as professionals interested in art and all art lovers. A very important element in the revival of interest in the creativity of the artist was out of the two catalogs of postcards created on the basis of its syuzhetov.V their images of Russian antiquity Elizabeth Boehm is a completely original and unique in its kind. It is a continuation of neo-Russian Art Nouveau Vasnetsov, Polenova, Nesterova, Tenisheva. Her images - strange creation of a Russian national spirit ... "- so spoke the magazine New Times about the work of Elizabeth Merkuryevna Böhm. According to the magazine, "... they are their novelty and charm give us as much pleasure as likely to have experienced contemporaries of Pushkin's first appearance" Ruslan and Ludmilla ".
    These lines, written in 1895, indicate that contemporaries greatly appreciates the work of the artist. But nowadays, if we leave out the professional art critics, artists and collectors, its name, few people know.
   
Recently, I saw a unique selling vodka bottle green glass with paintings of Elizabeth Boehm, with inscriptions: "Hullo cups, what did, I was waiting for?" Drink, drink - you'll see devils! " and "They drank - a fight! slept - opohmelilis and reconciled.

In photo 6 cup and saucer "Silhouettes of children"
A beautiful example of creativity of the artist from her silhouette series.