Winter twilight. Snowstorm. Two boys and a girl harnessed to a sleigh and are struggling to pull a huge icy barrel of water along a city street. The children were exhausted. A harsh wind blows through their tattered clothes. Some good person helps them to drag the sled up the hillock.

Perov called the painting "Troika". How much pain and bitterness there is in this title! We are accustomed to songs about a dashing troika, about a frisky troika, and here - a triplet of exhausted children. To the title of the painting - "Troika" - Perov added: "The disciples of the artisans are bringing water."

At that time, thousands of children worked in factories, workshops, shops and shops. They were called "disciples". One person who started working life as a student boy, later recalled his convict childhood: “We were forced to carry boxes weighing three or four pounds from the basement to the third floor. We carried boxes on our backs with rope straps. Climbing the spiral staircase, we often fell and broke. the owner also ran up to the fallen man, grabbed by the hair and banged his head on the cast-iron staircase. All of us, thirteen boys, lived in one room with thick iron bars on the windows. We slept on bunks. There was no bed except a mattress stuffed with straw. After work, there was no bed. we took off our dress and boots, put on dirty robes, which we belted with a rope, and we put on props on our feet. tea and vodka, to carry snow from the pavement. On holidays we were also sent to sing in the church choir. In the morning and in the evening we went with a huge tub to the pool for water and brought ten tubs each time ... "

This is how the children depicted in Perov's painting lived.

The painting had already begun, and Perov could not find an average boy for her. And a lot depended on him: he immediately attracts the attention of the audience. In the spring, on a fine sunny day, the artist, as usual, wandered near the outpost, looking closely at the passers-by. Suddenly he noticed a woman with a boy. Came up. The boy is exactly what he has been looking for for a long time. We started talking. New acquaintances went from the Ryazan village to the monastery, got to Moscow, and nowhere to spend the night. Perov took them to the studio, showed them the painting he had begun, and asked permission to paint a portrait of the boy. The woman agreed.

While Perov worked, the woman told him about her life. The woman's name was Aunt Mary. Fate did not spoil her. Aunt Marya experienced hunger and poverty, buried her husband and children. Now she has only one consolation - her twelve-year-old son Vassenka. The artist listened to the sad story, and with every movement of the brush, the face of the boy Vasya was shown more and more clearly on the canvas. Harnessed to a heavy, stubborn sled, Vasya will now remind viewers of the difficult lot of many children around ...

It took about four years. The painting "Troika" has long been hanging in Tretyakov Gallery... One early morning, an unexpected guest came to Perov - an old village woman in a sheepskin coat and large muddy bast shoes. She handed the artist a poor gift — a small bundle of testicles — and began to cry. Perov hardly recognized Aunt Marya. She said that her only son last year fell ill and died, and she sold all her belongings, worked the winter, saved up some money, and now she came to buy a painting where Vassenka is painted. Perov explained to the guest that it was impossible to buy a painting, but to see it. He took Aunt Marya to Tretyakov.

You are my dear! Here is your knocked out tooth! - cried Aunt Marya and knelt down in front of the picture.

Perov left her alone. A few hours later, he returned to the hall. Aunt Marya was still kneeling and ... praying. She prayed not for an icon, but for a picture. The artist managed to present it to his son with his art eternal life... Perov promised Aunt Marya to paint a portrait of Vasya for her. He fulfilled his promise and sent her a portrait in a gilded frame to the village.

"Troika"

Description of the painting "Troika" V. Perov

What in the domestic understanding is associated with the "troika"? Most likely, folk songs about three fast horses, epics about three heroes or a dashing three good fellows. Painting "Troika" V. Perova overturns all conceivable and inconceivable stereotypes of this word. “Apprentices-artisans are bringing water” - this is the artist's parsimonious remark, which makes every person shudder at the thought that someone might use child labor. And then, in the days of Perov, boys and girls harnessed to a sled, dragging a huge ice barrel, were the same norm as children of their age, nowadays playing in the sandbox.

1866 was a difficult and tragic year for Russia. Six years have passed since the abolition of serfdom, and this fact gave people freedom only formally. In fact, they were only free on paper, not in reality. Many thought about how to feed their families and just survive in widespread poverty. Art workers, meanwhile, did their best to convey the theme of people's suffering to those who were not indifferent to the fate of others. The most important was the idea of ​​exploitation of minors, because, according to the statistics of that time, infant mortality was simply prohibitive.

Perov loved the theme of childhood, and he did not write the offspring of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, but the children of the poor classes, who at that time worked as "students". Brutal treatment, convict childhood - this is what the artist tried to show.

The frosty morning has just come, the city is still sleeping in a gray fog, and three children are being taken along a snow-covered street, even dragging a huge barrel. They were not too lazy to pick them up and send them for water. Exhausted, tired faces, clothes that have long turned into rags, reflect even more the injustice of life at that time. The chilly wind puffs up the children’s shabby clothes, and the boy on the left seems to be about to fall from his gusts. The water that is poured out of the barrel turns into icicles and falls on the "students". This is where the most common cause of death among children - consumption - from cold, moisture and frost comes from.

There is also justice in the Troika's world - some person helps them by pushing a barrel, and a dog running alongside, as if he wants to support them.

Look at the color palette of the canvas - there is not a single bright shade, only gloomy gray-brown shadows, even mouse-colored snow, and a deserted street covered with ice only aggravates the situation. The life of children is the same - gray and hopeless. What could be worse than that when is the work of a child equated with the service of horses? Perhaps, only infant mortality as a result of such work, because at that time there was no question of any "Conventions on the Rights of the Child" or social services. The generation, which must go into the future, was left only with the hopelessness of being and the pity of others.

Such doom is quite real not only for reflection in the picture, but also for its history. The artist did not find children sitters until chance brought him together with the boy Vasya, depicted in the middle of the group. He died a few years after the painting was painted. His mother sold everything and went to Perov to ask for a canvas to "look at Vassenka." At that time, it had already become the property of Tretyakov, but the artist drew a child from memory and presented the picture to a grief-stricken woman.

Referring to the figures of the "Troika", it should be said that Vasya has the most important semantic load, the rest of the children only complement it. He is not only the oldest, but also a leader who does not give himself a reason to show that he is tired. For the younger comrades, he should be an example, so overcoming the pain and cold, the boy drags the barrel. He raised his head and directed her into the distance - a typical gesture of a person who bears an unbearable weight. The look of this child is striking - it strangely combines hopelessness and faith in the best, which, in fact, cannot exist together.

The only girl in the team involuntarily makes you think about her future. Will this "draft force" be able to live life in the future and become a beloved wife and mother? And can this little girl in an open sheepskin coat and a washed skirt even become a mother, performing inhuman work? Her eyes are half-closed, but they express so much pain and anguish that she seems fragile and weightless. Heavy boots, rough and masculine, prevent the baby from falling under the gusts of the wind.

Most youngest child Is the boy on the far left. He no longer has the strength, he threw back his head with a thin pale neck and rolled his eyes. This child is no longer alive, although he is trying to drag the cart.

These guys never had a childhood, they don't even know what it is. Their eyes have already lost the ability to look at the world with surprise and joy, and their clothes, several sizes larger, make it clear that they will remain among those millions of children who will never be able to get out of poverty.

The landscape surrounding the "troika" can hardly be called dull - it is simply hopeless. A deserted street with a monastery wall, a man wrapped in a fur coat who helps children are depicted in fuzzy and hazy brushstrokes. It seems to emphasize the consciousness of children, where only a barrel is entrenched, which needs to be dragged, and at the cost of its own life.

The dog that runs next to them is not just a companion or playmate. He grins on a twilight morning, cold and slippery snow, as if trying to protect children from all hardships and difficulties. It is as if the dog is protecting the Troika from universal evil, but it is practically beyond his powers.

The darkest, most inexpressive colors of the canvas only accentuate the flying black birds in the background. For some reason, they resemble crows and do not evoke the best associations.

Scattered branches, icy sleighs, dirty snow, tortured children - these are just some of the details that make the picture doomed and hopeless. V. Perov's Troika can hardly be called a work of art worthy of the Tretyakov Gallery. It, like a document of that time, tells about the exploitation of children by those who must protect them: it evokes fear of how many lost and trampled destinies remained after the abolition of serfdom.

The painting "Troika" is one of the most significant works of the artist V.G. Perov. It depicts the children of the poor, carrying a barrel of water along an icy road. Many years have passed since its writing. Both the contemporaries of the painting and today's viewers, the master's work evokes tears in their eyes and a high sense of compassion for people. The author of the painting "Troika" tried to recreate the atmosphere of gloomy doom that reigned in the world of the poor and disadvantaged with the help. Currently, this work of art is in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

A few words about the author of the canvas

The painting "Troika" is perhaps one of the most emotional and famous works artist Vasily Grigorievich Perov. He was born in the city of Tobolsk. When his parents moved to the future Great master entered the Arzamas district school to study. There he studied intermittently in art school, with which Vasily did not succeed. But later future artist was educated at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. During his life, the master wrote many wonderful pictures... Among them are such works as "The Arrival of the Stanovoy", "The Boy-Workman", "Lament of Yaroslavna" and many others.

Painting "Three": description

This work was written by the author in 1866. It was a difficult time for Russia. Serfdom already canceled, but this did not correct the plight of the Russian peasantry. His life was still poor and destitute. At that time, many masters of art were worried about the lack of rights and the poor peasants, the compulsion to pay with a "teardrop of a child" for certain benefits of life.

This is reflected in his. In the center of it are depicted three children (apprentices of artisans), carrying a huge ice-covered barrel of water. These are two boys and a girl. It is winter outside, it is getting dark, the road is covered with ice. The harsh cold wind blows up their inferior clothes. The water pouring out of the barrel immediately turns into icicles. How cold it must be for the children, in such a frost! .. It can be seen that they are completely exhausted. Someone helps them drag the barrel up the hillock. The carriage is accompanied by a dog that runs slightly to the right in front of the children. The painting is painted in dark gray-brown tones. Even the snow around is dark. Thus, the master wanted to show the viewer all the dullness, hopelessness and horror of the situation when young children are forced to do such a dirty job. The atmosphere is also intensified by the icy deserted street. What is the audience associated with the heroes of the picture? Its name itself suggests that the work of these children can be compared with the work of horses. In the public, the work in question evokes acute pity for the poor children, who have had such a difficult fate.

Main idea

The author of the painting "Troika" here refers to the theme of child labor in Russia in those years. Now it is difficult for us to imagine a situation when it was completely legal and absolutely normal, from the point of view of the then system, a phenomenon. How much bitterness and pain there is in the title of the work! It is more customary for us to call a group of frisky horses galloping at high speed over the wide endless expanses of Russia as troikas. And then there are poor and exhausted children, forced to carry an unbearable burden on a frosty day. Many city artisans then loaded their students with such hard work. Children in such hellish conditions often got sick and died. Looking at the picture, one can vividly imagine the hopelessness of the situation. This is what the artist wanted to draw the attention of society to. The work will not leave anyone indifferent, make you be kinder to people and will not allow you to pass by and not see deprivation and poverty next to you.

Sitters

The author of the work was looking for models for his work for a long time. For the figures of the girl and the extreme left boy, he found them. But for the image the central character the artist could not "look after" suitable child... More than half of the painting "Troika" had already been painted when Perov once met a peasant woman and her son on the street, who were walking from the Ryazan village to the monastery. When he saw the boy, he immediately realized that this was exactly the central figure that was missing on the canvas. After talking with the woman, the master learned that her name was Aunt Marya, and her son's name was Vasya. Her fate is not easy. She buried all her children and her husband who died of disease and want. Twelve-year-old Vasya is her only hope and consolation. After hearing the bitter story, Perov invited the woman to draw her son. She agreed. So a new character appeared in the picture.

The fate of the protagonist

This story has a continuation. Once, four years after painting the picture, an old woman in a sheepskin coat and dirty bast shoes came to Perov. In her, the master hardly recognized the very same Aunt Marya. She handed him a small bundle of testicles. “As a gift,” the woman explained. With tears in her eyes, the peasant woman told the artist that her Vassenka had died last year after being seriously ill. Left completely alone, the woman sold all her belongings, worked all winter, and, having saved up a little money, she came to Perov to buy from him a painting depicting her beloved son with her simple savings. The master explained to the poor mother that the painting "Troika" was in the gallery, that it was impossible to acquire it. But you can see her. When the woman was in front of the picture, she fell to her knees and, crying bitterly, began to pray for her. Moved by this scene, the artist promised his mother to paint a portrait of her son. He fulfilled his obligation and sent his work in a gilded frame to a woman in the village.

This article describes the painting "Troika" by Perov, as well as tells about the author and the facts related to its creation. We hope the information will be interesting a wide range of readers.

Many times this picture at school saved me from despair. The reproduction hung on the wall next to my desk. For several years the guy in the middle of the troika was my friend.

“Did the teacher humiliate you? It's okay, look at us.
Will there be a teachers' meeting now, and will you be kicked out of school for the third time? It's okay, look at us.
The three most gangster faces of the school are waiting for you on the porch to force you to obey them? It's not scary, take a look at us "
And I watched. And I was not afraid. Thank you, my friends from the past. Thanks to the one who hung the picture right next to my desk. After all, my life could have taken a different path ...

It was only much later that I learned that Perov's painting was called not just Troika, but Troika. Apprentices artisans carry water ”(1866).
“Who among us does not know Perov’s Troika,” wrote V.V. Stasov, “these Moscow children, who were forced by the owner to drag a huge vat of water on the ice on a sled. All these kids, probably, are from the countryside and have just been driven to Moscow for fishing. But how much they have suffered on this "trade"! Expressions of desperate suffering, traces of eternal beatings are painted on their tired, pale faces; whole life told in their rags, postures, in the heavy turn of their heads, in their tortured eyes ... "

Perov was not given the image of a center boy, everything was not right. But one day he met a woman with a child who were walking from the Ryazan village to the monastery to worship. Her name was Aunt Marya, and her son was Vassenka.

Perov with difficulty persuaded the old woman to let him write to her son: for a long time she could not understand anything, she was afraid of everything and said that it was a great sin. After much persuasion, she finally agreed, and Perov took them to his studio, showed the unfinished picture and explained what he needed. The boy sat quietly; Perov wrote hotly, quickly, and the old woman, who, upon closer examination, turned out to be much younger, quietly talked about how she buried her husband and children and only her son Vassenka remained with her - her only joy.

And the picture turned out! So much so that it was bought by Tretyakov, and Perov was given the title of Academician ... The painting “broke hearts,” as contemporaries said. And it gave me strength!

Four years passed, and Aunt Marya again appeared to Perov. The bundle contained money, which she rescued by selling everything: a house, livestock, belongings ... She wanted to buy this painting. Her son Vassenka died.

Perov took her to Tretyakov.

You are my dear! Here is your knocked out tooth! - cried Aunt Marya and knelt down in front of the picture.

Perov promised Aunt Marya to paint a portrait of Vasya for her. He fulfilled his promise and sent her a portrait in a gilded frame to the village.

Perov himself recalls:
“Arriving in the room where the picture was hanging, which the old woman so convincingly asked to sell, I left her to find this picture herself,” wrote Perov in his story “Aunt Mary.” , and will not find traits dear to her at all; the more it could be assumed that there were a lot of paintings in this room. But I was wrong. She looked around the room with her meek gaze and quickly walked to the picture where her dear Vasya was really depicted. Approaching the picture, she stopped, looked at it and, clasping her hands, somehow unnaturally cried out: “You are my father! You are my dear, here is your knocked out tooth! " - and with these words, like the grass cut by a wave of the mower fell to the floor. "
Mother spent a lot of time at the picture, no one disturbed her, and only the attendant, who stood at the door, looked at her with tearful eyes. "

Indifferently listening to curses
In the battle with the lives of dying people,
Because of them, do you hear, brothers,
Quiet crying and children's complaints?
Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov. 1860

In Russia they sang: "The mother cries like the river flows, the sister cries like the stream flows, the wife cries like the dew falls. The sun will rise and dry the dew."

Apprentices artisans carry water ", which went down in history as one of the most poignant works of art on the topic of "humiliated and insulted."

On the twentieth of January 1866, Vasily Perov painted the picture “Troika. In the West, this picture is considered a vivid embodiment of the theme of the harsh exploitation of child labor.

Returning in 1864 after studying in Germany and Paris, Perov settled in Moscow and decided to move away from the satirical genre, in which he achieved success and where he was promised a great future. But the artist, imbued with the ideas of compassion for the poor powerless people who captured in those years Russian society, undertook to paint pictures depicting the hard life of ordinary people. In particular, he succeeded in a series of paintings, the heroes of which were children. Even before Troika, Perov painted Orphans (1864), Craftsman Boy (1864), Another at the Pool (1865) and Seeing the Dead (1865).

But it was Troika that caused a special resonance in Moscow intellectual circles, quickly gaining fame in St. Petersburg. A picture full of emotions and screaming about plight children who were forced to engage in hard physical labor, being in hunger and in the cold, immediately found themselves in demand in a society that had already read and discussed "The Humiliated and the Offended" with might and main. And literally in the same days when Perov wrote this canvas, Dostoevsky began to publish in the journal Crime and Punishment.

Perov's painting depicts three children who are carrying a huge barrel of water in winter, harnessed to a sleigh, like a horse troika. The faces of the children are emaciated, the severity is clearly beyond their strength. From behind the barrel is pushed by an adult male artisan, and even he has to exert all his strength. It takes place in the cold, and Perov managed to show this by depicting icicles on a barrel, into which water splashing over the edges turns. At the same time, the children are clearly not dressed for the weather, but this is their only clothing. And the fact that this is the daily activity of the artisans' pupils is said by the dog, which runs with a bark next to the children, giving the scene an ordinary, familiar, purely everyday character.

The painting was immediately bought by Pavel Tretyakov, exhibited for public viewing and subsequently became one of the most important exhibits in his collection.

An interesting story is confirmed by several sources, including Tretyakov himself. According to the stories of Perov's friends, the artist easily found models for two characters in the painting - a boy and a girl at the edges of the troika, but for a long time he could not decide how the central figure should look. But one day he met a peasant woman with her son on the street, and immediately realized that it was this boy who should become a model. The artist persuaded the woman to help and while he was painting a sketch portrait, he learned that the boy's name was Vasya, and that he was one of the woman's three sons, not dead, so his mother had all hope for him. The painter and the young sitter immediately got along in character and even decided that they were not accidentally namesakes. Perov invited the woman and her son to invite them to Moscow when the painting was ready.

But the peasant woman appeared only a few years later, aged beyond recognition and completely broken. She said that Vasya died last year and began begging the artist for a painting, for which she was ready to give all her savings and the rest of her property. Perov said that he had sold the painting to Tretyakov, and that all of Moscow was already looking at the portrait of her son. He took the unfortunate mother to the gallery, where she fell on her knees in front of the painting and began to pray. After that, the artist specially painted a portrait of Vassenka (according to other sources, he added a sketch made from life) and presented it to a peasant woman.

After "Troika" Perov developed the same theme in the paintings "The Drowned Woman" (1867), "The Last Tavern at the Outpost" (1867), "Sleeping Children" (1870), "Old Parents at the Grave of their Son" (1874) and his other works. Today, EA Culture publishes a gallery of paintings by Vasily Perov on the theme of "humiliated and insulted".