For a child he wanted to draw the animal accurately. To do so, he "carefully sketch illustrations of zoological textbooks. His mother was a teacher of high school and seeing such a passion for his son, brought home zoological tables and atlases with images of animals, and figures to the multi-volume edition of the burden has become "ideal" future artist.
He carefully drew - in part as best I could "- stuffed animals, and with the age of fifteen went to engage in the studio watercolor painter NA Martynov. "The most important in my training was that the first time from Martynova I heard about the need to draw from the living nature. Martynov helped Vatagin get paint in the Moscow Zoo, where the amateur painter began to spend all his spare time.
Despite such obvious passion for drawing, at the end of the school young man entered the department of natural sciences of physics and mathematics faculty of Moscow University (1902-1907). As he recalled, because "that in the circle, where I grew up, it was considered necessary for higher university education for all kinds of activities." In addition, Vasily "was not sure of his artistic power" and never dreamed that he could become a professional artist. However, the urge to draw was so great that, by learning a second year student of the University, began to attend Vatagin (1904-1906) the artist's studio KF Juon. There he learned to draw "human figure", he studied different techniques of drawing, theory of drawing and painting.
It was in these years before Vasily Alekseevich, the question arose, the decision which he devoted his whole life. "I already own drawing colored composition of birds in life-size (vultures) on the landscape as an illustration for zoological work of Professor MA Menzbir. I tried to paint them as best as possible and believed that the figure reached in the impression of live poultry. Huon generally praised my freedom of drawing and especially the composition. But when I showed him his zoological drawings, he asked: "Where is art?". This question - how to draw animal biologically accurate and at the same time to create an artistic image - sooner or later confronts every animal artist. Everyone is looking their way, your way to reconcile these sometimes contradictory things, because if in an art book of drawings can be expressive, emotional, the scientific publication - on the contrary, animals must be drawn very accurately and without much emotion. Vasily was between two fires. "It was difficult to draw a scientific illustration and create an artistic image, fulfilling these very different tasks of the same hand, checking the same eyes. Involuntarily one direction affects the other. When I crossed the border of what is permitted in the illustration, a professor Mensbir said: "Why are you here to me Art Theater smeared? .." And when I participated with their paintings in the exhibitions, the artists said: "Vatagin again with their visual aids appeared. At my work was the oppression of Zoology.
Vatagin painfully seeking his way, a way to resolve this contradiction: the artist struggled in him with a biologist and as a result, gradually formed an individual's handwriting wizard animalistic illustrations, which - and as an artist and as a biologist - admitted in an animal "fellow man" and admired the natural world with his "powerful manifestation of beauty."
In those years, and the entire life Vatagin has traveled the world, Western Europe (1903-1913), traveled to India and Ceylon, was in northern Russia, the Far East, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Everywhere it has always accompanied the album with paints and crayons. He studied and painted animals and birds in zoos and in the wild. He wrote numerous studies, and in the museums of the world carefully sketched works of art depicting animals, learning from the masters, who lived in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece. Of these trips, he brought hundreds of drawings, sketches, and - no less valuable for an artist - new experiences, refreshing the soul. " "So, - the artist wrote, - the spring sun freshens stale air of winter. With what enthusiasm, heightened attention, enthusiasm catch fleeting images! The eye, noting the surroundings, sees everything interesting and beautiful, hand tries to Save this impression on the paper with a special sense of responsibility and enthusiasm. That's why so fresh and direct, filled with joy perception of beauty travel sketches and studies.
Sometimes the drawings, impressions from his travels Vatagin create separate albums. Thus, based on his travels to India, he issued the album autolithography (1922).
Lithography Vasily studied in Berlin in the studio Kapshteyna K. (1910). In those years the possession of lithography was essential skill - most of the color illustrations in the books made it in this technique. "I liked him - to recognize an artist - the process of drawing on the stone, its pleasant, warm color, the maximum hardness of its surface with a touch of rough" root ", which easily falls greasy lithographic pencil. I prefer to paint directly on the stone, avoiding the transfer papers (kornpapir) ... <...> find out to sketch the track, I'm doing on the rock (often on the asphalt), the main contours and patches of light and shade, which keeps track. Using the impression from the main stone, other stones I make the necessary additions - strengthened, where necessary, drawing lithographic pencil or enter the fill color lithographic gouache. Usually I confine myself to three stones with one color or four, five stones in color lithography.
All this vast reserve of experience and observation was needed for the artist to work on book illustrations.
Before the revolution Vatagin worked primarily with the scientific publications. One of the most striking works of that period were the illustrations for "zoogeographical Atlas Professor MA Menzbir (Moscow: Izd M. and S. Sabashnikovyh, 1912). For this great album, printed on good, thick paper, the artist executed 30 "tables, drawings, illustrating the various climatic zones of the Earth with the animals inhabiting them. All of these "very complex compositions" artist painted on canvases at once, without preliminary sketches, using numerous sketches of travel and relying only on visual memory. Vain indignant professor Menzbir, cursing the "anointed Art Theater. Academic Timiryazev, reviewed the atlas, wrote: "The main success of the artist depends, of course, on the mobility of his pieces: they all live, run, creep, flit, and next to it where you want, do not missed the most careful detail their infinite variety of clothes ... ". Looking at these "table-figures, immersed in an extraordinary world, which can be viewed and interpreted: in a green, damp gloom of the forest sits on the southern branch of luxurious peacock; far, the sunlit meadow grazing elephants, but if we look carefully we can see the creeping in the dense undergrowth the tiger ... And here is another world: against the backdrop of a blue-pink stone polar bear catches a fish, and around the noisy, restless sea birds ... Or an entirely different picture: the sunny, golden-green Ethiopian savannah where grazing antelopes, hippos and resting pacing important marabou ... Drawings Vatagin surprisingly convey not only the animals, but also color, the mood of a particular locality.
"Worth seeing an animal in its native element, - wrote Vatagin, - an ostrich or antelope, traveling in the wilderness, parrots or monkeys in the tropical forest, sea birds on the coastal cliffs, a camel in the desert, a wolf or an elk in our forests, fish in the clear water among algae - in front of us there is a magnificent synthesis, when the animal, plant, soil, water and sky merge together and manifested a wonderful, united wildlife.
In 1920 Vatagin turned to children's book. To illustrate, he chose the works of nature, of animals. The designer stories E.Setona-Thompson "Kuteneysky sheep" (1923), "Johnny Bear" (1926), "Springfield Fox (1927), works of Ivan Turgenev (1926), Dzh.Londona (1926), A . Tolstoy (1933, 1940), V. Bianchi. But if Eugene Charushina it was important to convey emotion, mood of a particular animal, then Vatagin created more generalized image of the animal, isolating and amplifying its most characteristic features. For it was important not sentimental image of the viewer a nice "little beasts", and the physical image of the beast, its color, structure, form, not hidden behind the spectacular strokes or fluffy.
As Alexei Komarov, Vatagin collaborated with the publishing GF Mirimanova, produces a large number of books on animal cognition. Working in publishing, the artists 'shared' fauna: Komarov more fond of drawing Russian animals Vatagin - exotic. "Animals beautiful" (1929), "Animals and birds of the most bizarre" (1928), "Beasts greatest" (1927), "Beasts smallest" (1927), "Monkeys" (1927), "The Birds" (1927) - this is not a complete list of books illustrated by the artist. According to the memoirs Komarova, publisher paid them little, but in those lean years the artists agreed to work even for little money. "Vatagin, of course, agreed to the most miserable pay. I have heard from artists that there were occasions when he refused a good fee, said it was too expensive and it can work for a modest fee "- recalled the unhappy situation Komarov. But perhaps this sort of altruism Vatagin was caused by a simple desire to work, to draw children's books, to convey to the child all the wealth of experience, all those bright, unusual experiences and images, which he owned.
In 1924, Vasily published picture books "Who carries us." For the story about how, on what animals people moving around the world, Vatagin chosen format, which stretches horizontally. Thus the book turns into a long road, which moved the animals and their owners: slow zebu pulling a cart, succulent purple shadows lie beneath their feet on the ground ... on the red fiery-red African desert rapidly galloping Arabs in the Arabian camel through the scorching heat ... going Indian astride a mythical elephant, iridescent violet, pink tinge, covered with a luxurious carpet of scarlet with yellow fringe ... against the backdrop of a golden sky with a silhouette of the mosque is going to Uzbek donkey with his family ... Color creates space, and the contrast between colors - light and dark, warm and cold - builds things, sets the rhythm of movement of animals.
In 1926, Vatagin makes "ABC in pictures" by placing it in the bright, sharp images of animals, corresponding to different letters of the alphabet. Memories of India, raised in a coloring book "The Elephant Vambo" (1927), and numerous sketches of the Moscow Zoo underpin books "Moscow Zoo" (1927) and "My Zoo" (1936). "Even 12 years ago - wrote in 1977, B. Captain, - among the fluffy green funny attics, pavilions Moscow Zoo can be found narrow-eyed old man in a colorful skullcap - artist Vasily Alekseevich Vatagin. He is a quietly watched the inhabitants of cells, or as calmly painted, built a comfortable position. It would seem that all these animals Vatagin learned long ago, but he is constantly searching for something new, previously unnoticed: "Continuing in the present drawings in a Moscow zoo - he wrote - I am constantly finding new, unfamiliar features, new expressions of the nature and individual animal.
For most of his books addressed to young readers, Vasily chose bright colors, picking pattern is not a separate, isolated strokes, and a dense mass of color, such as in the book "Wild Animals" (1928). He actively been building, sculpted shape of objects with light and shadow. Such an approach to the image as a sculptural, three-dimensional shape is not accidental. Even in 1909, carried away Vatagin sculpture, reliefs created the "Condor", "monkey", "Bison", where there was a noticeable influence of ancient Egyptian art. But the more the artist learned the art of sculpture, the original and became more expressive of his work. When the biological accuracy of his sculptures Vatagin created a bright, vivid image of the beast. He skillfully mastered different materials: cut stone (marble sculpture "boa constrictor, 1911," tapir ", 1912), tree (" Seated Monkey ", 1912;" Eagle ", 1913," Lynx ", 1918;" Kangaroo ", 1921; "Panther," 1923; "Cheetah", 1963), worked with metal ( "Hog", 1921, "Family hippos", 1954, "The ongoing bison, 1955), ceramics (" Gyrfalcon ", 1936; Panda , 1964). But whatever technique may be implemented by its sculpture, they are always expressive and flexible. His wooden "Walruses" (1909), "Penguin with young ones" (1960) and the Bronze Tiger (1925-26) are in the Tretyakov Gallery, and a ceramic "Cat-manul" (1957) - in the Russian Museum.
Engaged Vasily and sculpture park. In 1931-1932 gg. He designed the entrance to the new territory of the Moscow Zoo. In 1935, modeled (12 days) in the three figures of lions for one of the Crimean sanatoriums.
The most famous children's book is Vatagin is "Mowgli" from "Jungle Book" Rudyard Kipling. With this book, the artist got carried away as a child, dreaming of someday illustrate it. During a trip to India, the artist hoped to get there "relevant experience" needed to create illustrations. In 1914 the book was going to release publishing Knebel, but prevented World War II. Only in 1922 the first version of the illustrations was published in the State Publishing House.
Already for the first version of the book Vatagin made about two hundred sketches of tracks the key scenes. Draw from nature, not only animals but also children. "I made sketches from life, using the services of children of different ages, in positions corresponding to the sketches. I met a boy with a Hindu character of the person and surprisingly rich facial expressions. It is easy to accept any, relevant to my request expressions - anger or rage, joy or sorrow, tenderness and affection ... ".
For thirty years, the artist turned to the "Mowgli" six times. If Russia in the first edition included about a hundred drawings made in the technique autolithographies, for the Ukrainian edition artist made new drawings, and a little later drew a pen illustrations for the reduced library books. During the evacuation (1941-1944) he created another series of drawings, improving and modifying the old songs, looking for a new solution (the book was published in 1947). But the work did not let him. In 1950 the artist once again remade drawings. If in his first illustrations were almost no background, now the heroes of the book to operate among wildlife. Figures of animals and Mowgli were more elaborate and detailed than before (the book with these drawings came out in 1955, with a slightly different - in 1956 in Ukraine).
Besides working on children's books, Vatagin entire life engaged in scientific illustration. He designed the books, guides to the zoo, zoological tables. Created more than four pictorial panels and nearly one hundred sculptures groups to Darwin and the Zoological Museum. Taught in the Higher Art (1921), the Moscow Higher School of Industrial Art (1963-69).
"With a deep sense of wonder, respect and love I look at the world of animals" - wrote Vatagin. His knowledge and experience in working on animalistic illustration and sculpture, the artist summed up in his autobiography "The image of the animal: Notes of a painter of animals" (1957). In it, he admitted: "Now, looking at the path, I see myself always in work: a pattern, over sculpture, a painting. I belong to those artists who reach for something in the arts through the persistent, constant stress.
The artistic heritage of Basil Vatagin enormous, and not by chance, many animal artist is to believe their teacher.
http://www.bibliogid.ru/authors/hud/...ud/hud-vatagin
Daria Gerasimova
06.09.2008, 08:10
Vatagin VA (1883-1969)
Линейный вид
