Description of the artwork «Portrait of Pyotr Kapitsa and Nikolay Semyonov»
Once Fedor Chaliapin
posing Kustodievsaw in his Studio double portrait. Two rosy-cheeked young men dressed conservatively and at the same time elusive dapper. And tie tubes (one Smoking, the other x-ray). In the eyes – inquisitive mind and a quiet confidence. The face of one of them seemed familiar to Chaliapin: "like I saw somewhere, and God knows".
Heroes of the portrait at the door said that they are not yet famous, but will certainly become so. They wanted Kustodiev – one of the most outstanding portraitists of Russia – I wrote to them here and now.
"And they are brovastom, red-faced (hunger uneasy), are cocky and funny was that I had to agree, – told the Kustodiev house. –
They brought the x-ray tube, which worked in his Institute, and it went. Then the fee is brought in, you know what? A rooster and a bag of millet. Just earned then somewhere near St. Petersburg, after making some proprietor of the mill".
Young people are not deceived Kustodiev: years later, the two became Nobel laureates. One – Pyotr Kapitsa (on the left with a Smoking pipe) in physics. The other – Nikolai Semenov – chemistry. Science does not know the answer to the question, what in this story are more obvious or incredible. Whether young scientists was so confident that he decided to get a bit of glory in advance. Whether easy kustodievskie brush became a blessing to them and brought good luck.
By the way, Kapitsa and Semenov are on the old pals – appeared in another Kustodiev painting:
"A celebration in honor of the II Congress of Comintern on the Uritsky square". Here they are, in the center of the composition, see national jubilation with purely scientific interest. And I think you see where this is going, even without the x-ray tube.
Author: Andrew Zimoglyadov