Розы

early 1880s

Friendship with Valentin Serov

At the Academy Vrubel became close to Valentin Serov: despite the ten-year age gap, a great deal bound them together, down to the deepest level. His years with Chistyakov changed Vrubel himself as well: decorative dandyism gave way to asceticism, as he proudly wrote to his sister.

1884

Arrival in Kiev

Vrubel staged his arrival in Kiev in his own style: L. Kovalsky, a student at the drawing school, remembered a fair-haired young man in a black velvet suit, stockings and short breeches — “a young Venetian from a painting by Tintoretto or Titian”. Over the summer he earned 650 roubles, including in St Sophia’s Cathedral, where he painted three angels in the drum of the dome, and gave up all thought of finishing the Academy.

spring 1884

In love with Emilia Prakhova

The 27-year-old artist fell passionately in love with his patron’s wife, Emilia Prakhova, and gave her face to the Virgin in the icon “Virgin and Child”. A romance was out of the question, and once Vrubel moved into the Prakhovs’ dacha his romantic cult began to irritate both husband and wife.

1884–1885

Sent to Venice

The way out of an awkward situation was a mission to Ravenna and Venice to study late Roman and Byzantine art; Vrubel’s companion, the painter Samuil Gaiduk, waited two days for him in Venice while he went on a spree in Vienna. In wintry Venice the two shared a studio on Via San Maurizio, and Vrubel was captivated by the mosaics of San Marco and Torcello and by the early Renaissance masters — Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano, Bellini.

1884–1885

Meeting Mendeleev

In Venice Vrubel met Dmitri Mendeleev by chance — Mendeleev was married to one of Chistyakov’s students — and they discussed preserving paintings in a humid climate and argued over the merits of painting in oil on zinc. But the paint would not hold on the zinc panels sent from Kiev for the icons, and by April all Vrubel wanted was to go back to Russia.

summer 1885

Odessa: first tells Serov about the “Demon”

At the end of June Vrubel left for Odessa to stay with the sculptor Boris Edwards, with whom he had once attended art school: Edwards, together with Kyriak Kostandi, was trying to reform the Odessa Art School, put Vrubel up in his house and urged him to stay for good. When Valentin Serov arrived that summer, Vrubel told him for the first time of his plan to paint the “Demon”, and in letters home he already spoke of a whole tetralogy.