Pavel Fedotov

Virtually everyone in Russia knows Pavel Fedotov’s paintings. All you have to do is mention The Major’s Courtship, Newly Decorated, or The Aristocrat’s Breakfast to elicit the appropriate chuckles and knowing nods, as if you’ve just told an amusing story that everyone knows but never tires of. And it really is as if Fedotov is as much a storyteller as a painter.

The Major’s Courtship, for instance, tells the story of an officer who has squandered his fortune and decided to marry a merchant’s daughter. The marriage will be a good deal for all concerned: it will put an aristocratic sheen on the merchant’s money, which, judging by the opulent décor of his parlor, appears to be in no short supply. The fiancée, naturally, makes a show of maidenly bashfulness and a desire to flee the scene, but she does not actually go anywhere. The major tries to cut a dashing figure, leaning against the doorway while casually twisting his whiskers, as if to say “I’ll soon show you what a fine fellow I am.” Of course, the impression is somewhat undercut by the fact that a stool right in front of him appears to be mimicking his stance.

In Newly Decorated (the Russian name, Свежий кавалер, translates literally as “Fresh Cavalier”) we see a young man in government service who has just been awarded his first order and obviously spent the previous night in drunken celebration. Now that morning has come, he evidently rolled out of bed wrapped in his bedclothes, which hang on him like a Roman toga. He proudly shows his pregnant (by whom?) servant girl his cross-shaped medal, which is pinned to his toga-bedding. She hardly seems impressed.

The Aristocrat’s Breakfast depicts a young man dressed in shining silk pantaloons who is trying to conceal his meager breakfast – a black-bread sandwich – from unexpected visitors. He was just about to gobble it down without benefit of tea or coffee when his fashionably clipped poodle begins to bark at the arrival of guests. The aristocrat quickly hides his humble meal – a shameful sign of poverty.

These pictures, familiar and dear from childhood – and constantly reproduced in such varied media as magazines, literature textbooks, posters, and wallpaper – are truly worth a thousand words, all the more so as the artist himself, whenever his paintings were shown, liked to stand by them and read simple poems he wrote himself that fill out the picture’s story for the viewer. Here we have what goes through the major’s head as he anticipates his marital future:

Any girl should clearly see
That she wants a man like me:
Rank and standing without doubt,
And a figure grand and stout.
Surely any merchant lass
Would find me hard to surpass.
By the way, I have heard tell
That the lumber trade does well,
And that bearded one Kulkov
Is amazingly well-off.
He’s a man who lives in style
And has set a million dowry
(This is really what intrigues me)
On his daughter, quite worthwhile!
Quite an appetizing dish!
I would love to catch that fish!
But I’d better not delay,
Best not let her get away,
Send the matchmaker to call,
Then dress so as to enthrall.
Now I’ll have to get my hands on
New attire, fine and handsome.
From those adjutants, so vain,
I will get a watch and chain,
A shining medal and pomade.
As I’m chatting with the girl,
I will show of what I’m made
When I give my watch a twirl.
When she hears my jangling spurs,
Sees my prideful chest inflated,
Epaulettes! – That heart of hers
Will be smitten, quite elated…
Surely then the bearded one
Will conclude the deal is done.
Pedigree is what they’re needing,
For the price, I’ll give them breeding!

Всё, что надобно жене
Ждать от мужа, есть во мне:
Чин высокоблагородный,
И притом собой дородный.
Что ж еще? Уж для купчих -
Это сущий клад для них.
Кстати ж, слышал, у Кулькова,
У подрядчика лесного,
У купца-бородача,
Старовера, богача,
Хлебосола записного,
Уж назначен миллион
Дочери. Когда бы он
Отдал мне ее... Не худо!
Аппетитненькое блюдо!
Право, нечего зевать,
Надо сваху засылать,
А потом принарядиться
Поновей, понадушиться,
Можно и духов достать
И помады хоть у франтов,
У бригадных адъютантов,
Взять у них же орденок,
Да батистовый платок,
Да часы на случай, с дочкой
Коль придется говорить,
Пальцем баловать с цепочкой
И носочком такту бить;
Шарф надеть, позвонче шпоры,
Да, поднявши плечи, грудь,
Эполетами тряхнуть,
Да погромче в разговоры...
Посмотрю я, как тогда
Мне откажет борода!
С бородой, в сибирках, тести -
Деньги есть, так ищут чести.

Fedotov’s is not the standard biography of an artistic genius and it led him to be viewed by some with a certain condescension, as a somewhat simpleminded, self-taught amateur who created “naïve” paintings of rather ordinary subjects. The son of a poor clerk, Fedotov attended military school, where he proved himself to be exceptionally hardworking and capable. He graduated at the top of his class and earned the rank of officer.

After entering military service, he began attending evening classes in drawing. Soon, his simple drawings of subjects that “real” artists would never dream of touching attracted the attention of his superiors. Up and down the ranks, his fellow military men were enthralled by Fedotov’s straightforward depictions of the life of his regiment. In particular, works like The Return of the Grand Duke (depicting Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich’s return from abroad after medical treatment) and The Blessing of the Banners In the Winter Palace, Renovated after a Fire earned him the permission of the tsar himself to set his military duties aside and devote himself fully to his art.

This permission was a great honor and source of joy for Fedotov, who was now able to pursue his passion day and night, but from a financial standpoint it was calamitous. It was almost impossible to stretch his extremely modest pension to cover his studies, the purchase of canvases, paints, and brushes, as well as his living expenses. The retired officer who had started out depicting the life of his brother officers had to now make a career of being an artist.

Fedotov turned to painting “simple” scenes from ordinary life. But the amusing stories implicit in the moments he captured on canvas hint at the same sorts of everyday tragedies that permeate the works of Gogol and Dostoyevsky – Gogolian “laughter through tears.” An undercurrent of inexpressible melancholy can be felt in the major’s reluctant bride and the proud, newly decorated bureaucrat. His stories lament the solitary nature of human existence.

With the passage of time, the tragic element in Fedotov’s work became increasingly pronounced. In his attempt to find the most suitable setting for his Young Widow, he produced several versions of the work, and in the end she wound up shrouded in a strange, greenish light, as if she was forever trapped at the bottom of the sea. The black humor that Fedotov injected into this scene – the portrait of the late husband that stands behind the broken-hearted young woman is his own self-portrait – seems quite fitting.

One of his last paintings, Encore, Encore! shows a master commanding his dog to perform a trick over and over. The man reclines as he needlessly forces the dog to jump over a stick again, and again, and again. Here, one of the most important features of Fedotov’s work is on full display. This self-taught simpleton, this unsophisticated retired officer, was one of the most masterful Russian painters when it came to the use of color. We see this in earlier paintings as well – in the stunning beauty of the merchant daughter’s dress, in the shimmering of the breakfasting aristocrat’s pantaloons – but few paintings compare with the green aura enveloping the young widow or the infernal reddish light shining on the performing dog. The little house of Encore, Encore! is illuminated by a strange red lamp that casts a sinister light over this perfectly ordinary scene. The house is made to look exaggeratedly cramped. It is clear that the man cannot stand up without hitting his head on the ceiling. But he is not standing: he is lying down, as if buried alive. Through the window we see another little house, also illuminated by a reddish light. There too, a man is probably senselessly training a dog, and so it goes, ad infinitum.

It is as if for Fedotov, the greatest consolation he could give himself and others was to depict life’s miseries in exquisite form, to capture the ordinary and simultaneously reveal its humor, its horror, and its beauty, all with the stroke of a brush. Where the hardworking officer found the ability to do this is a mystery.