Mermaid

Konstantin Makovsky, Ilya Repin and Ivan Kramskoy in the 1870-ies he wrote each of their "Mermaids". Brings together paintings not only the plot and the title, but the fact that all these artists had a lot of unflattering words to listen to in his address about "Mermaids." The populist mood of the Wanderers, with whom all three were connected, the other demanded subjects.

Kramskoy Mermaids pale drowned, as if in shrouds that came on shore in the moonlit night. The artist admitted that the plot is inspired by the story of Gogol "may night, or the Drowned maiden". Repin showed his mermaids in Paris the picture "Sadko". It is elegant exotic ladies. Quite different mermaids of Konstantin Makovsky. Nude, beautiful, sensual bodies rolled up a whirlwind, flying up to heaven and hiding in the moonlight. Right on the hill visible Church dome, but the mermaid Nude "bridge" to the other side moving. It seems that not without exercise. However, the spell of the mermaid sound and in Russian folk tales, came under their power, and Pushkin, and Zhukovsky, and many other artists, poets, writers.

Picture this Konstantin Makovsky wrote in the estate from the strange to the modern ear the name of the Pens, located on the border of the Chernigov and Poltava provinces, close to the famous Dikanka. Before us, praised by Gogol beautiful Ukrainian night. The moon is not visible, but it assumes the trees, the sky around it bright. Moonlight slides on breast voluptuous bent mermaid in the foreground. She sits on the thrown over the river a tree trunk. By the way, in Russian folklore, mermaids have no tails. And the "international" is perhaps a trait of mermaids is long hair. Beauty Makovsky is also a long-haired all one.

There's no fear, no didactics – only the enjoyment of poetics of folk tales, admiring the surprisingly harmonious bodies unclean, but what a alluring force.

Author: Alain Esaulova