V. M
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin worked at the turn of two centuries, became famous as an artist, illustrator, and an excellent master of theatrical scenery. He created his own style in graphics, which was very fond of the viewer and found many imitators. The fate of this amazing master and his exquisite heritage in art always remain in the center of attention of the modern cultured person.
The beginning of the way
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin was born on 4 (16) August 1876 in the village of Tarkhovka, near St. Petersburg. The artist's ancestors are famous Kaluga merchants, famous for their patronage and a keen interest in the fate of the fatherland. The artist's father, Yakov Ivanovich Bilibin, was a naval doctor, then the head of a hospital and a medical inspector of the imperial fleet, participated in the Russian-Turkish war. Father dreamed of seeing his son as a lawyer, and young Ivan Bilibin, after graduating from high school, entered the St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Law.
The young man studied in good faith, attended a full course of lectures, defended his thesis. But next to this quite practical and promising a bright legal future, another dream has always lived. He drew with passion since childhood. Simultaneously with his studies at the university, Bilibin comprehended the science of painting and graphics at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. For a month and a half, he took lessons at the private art school of the Austro-Hungarian artist Anton Azhbe in Munich. It was here that the study of drawing was given special importance and the students developed the ability to find an individual artistic style. At home, Bilibin studied diligently in the painting workshop under the guidance of Ilya Repin.
Favorite topic
At the time of Bilibin's studies at the Higher Art School of the Academy of Arts, where the young man arranged for Repin, there was an exhibition of Viktor Vasnetsov, who wrote in a unique romantic manner on themes of Russian myths and fairy tales. The spectators of the exhibition were many of our artists who became famous in the future. Bilibin Ivan Yakovlevich was among them. Vasnetsov's works struck the student in the very heart, he later admitted that he saw here what he unconsciously yearned for and for which his soul yearned.
In 1899-1902, the Russian Expedition for Procurement of State Papers published a series of books with excellent illustrations for folk tales. There were graphic pictures for the fairy tales "Vasilisa the Beautiful", "The White Duck", "Ivan Tsarevich and the Firebird" and many others. The author of the drawings was Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin.
Illustrations for folk tales
His understanding of the national spirit and poetry, which Russian folklore breathes, was formed not only under the influence of a vague attraction to folk art. The artist passionately wanted to know and studied the spiritual component of his people, its poetics and everyday life. In 1899, Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin visited the village of Egny in the Tver province, in 1902 he studied the culture and ethnography of the Vologda province, a year later the artist visited the Olonets and Arkhangelsk provinces. From his trips, Bilibin brought a collection of works by folk artists, photographs of wooden architecture.
His impressions resulted in publicistic works and scientific reports on folk art, architecture and national costume. An even more fruitful result of these travels was Bilibin's original works, which revealed the master's passion for graphics and a very special style. Two outstanding talents lived in Bilibin - a researcher and an artist, and one gift nourished the other. Ivan Yakovlevich worked with great care on the details, not allowing himself to be faked in a single line.
Specificity of style
What is so different in his style from other artists Bilibin Ivan Yakovlevich? Photos of his wonderful and joyful work help to understand this. On a piece of paper, we see a clear patterned graphic outline, executed with extreme detail and colored with a whimsical watercolor range of the most cheerful shades. His illustrations for epics and fairy tales are surprisingly detailed, lively, poetic and not devoid of humor.
Taking care of the historical accuracy of the image, which manifested itself in the drawings in the details of costume, architecture, utensils, the master was able to create an atmosphere of magic and mysterious beauty. In this, Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin is very close in spirit to the creative association "World of Art", whose biography is closely connected with this group of artists. They were all related by their interest in the culture of the past, in the enticing charms of antiquity.
World perception in drawings
From 1907 to 1911, Bilibin created a number of unsurpassed illustrations for epics and for the fabulous poetic works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Here are delightful and exquisite pictures for "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel" and "The Tale of Tsar Saltan". The illustrations became not just an addition, but a kind of continuation of these literary works, which, no doubt, the master Bilibin read with his soul.
Ivan Tsarevich and the frog who turned into a princess, and Yaga, Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber, Elena the Beautiful, Churila Plenkovich, Svyatogor - how many heroes did Ivan Yakovlevich feel with his heart and "revive" on a piece of paper!
Folk art also presented the master with some techniques: ornamental and popular print methods of decorating the artistic space, which Bilibin brought to perfection in his creations.
Activities in print media
Ivan Bilibin worked as an artist and in magazines of that time. He created masterpieces of printing, which greatly contributed to the growth of this industry and its introduction into popular culture. Publications "People's Reading Room", "Golden Fleece", "Artistic Treasures of Russia" and others could not do without graceful and meaningful vignettes, headpieces, covers and posters of Bilibin.
World fame
The works of the Russian graphic artist became known abroad. They were shown at exhibitions in Prague and Paris, Venice and Berlin, Vienna, Brussels and Leipzig. They were reprinted by foreign magazines, and foreign theaters ordered Bilibin sketches for the design of performances.
Satirical drawings
For the decade between 1920-1930, Ivan Yakovlevich fruitfully and successfully worked on the design of theatrical performances: he made drawings for opera seasons at the Champs Elysees Theater, worked in the Russian Opera in Paris enterprise, created outlandish sketches for Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird.
Return
Life in exile was rich and free, but the artist was not abandoned by the growing longing for Russia. During his voluntary exile, he never accepted foreign citizenship, and in 1935 he took Soviet citizenship. At the same time he created a monumental panel "Mikula Selyaninovich" for the building of the Soviet embassy in the capital of France. A year later, the artist returned to his homeland with his family. Bilibin was warmly greeted by the new government and became a professor at the graphic workshop of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. He did not leave work in the field of book graphics.
He died of starvation in besieged Leningrad in 1942 and was buried in a common professorial grave at the Smolensk cemetery.
The trace that the amazing Russian artist Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin left in the history of world art is clear and bright. Paintings, frescoes, graphics and other examples of his inspiring creativity are now kept in public and private collections. They decorate the halls of the "Russian Museum" in St. Petersburg, are exhibited in the Theater Museum. Bakhrushin in Moscow, in the Kiev Museum of Russian Art, in the London Victoria and Albert Museum, in the Paris National Gallery, in the Oxford Ashmolean Museum and many others.
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin - famous Russian artist, illustrator... Born on August 4, 1876 in the village of Tarkhovka, St. Petersburg province - died on February 7, 1942 in Leningrad. The main genre in which Ivan Bilibin worked is book graphics. In addition, he created various murals, panels and made scenery for theatrical performances, was engaged in the creation of theatrical costumes.Still, most of the admirers of the talent of this remarkable Russian Slavic artist know him by his merits in the visual arts. I must say that Ivan Bilibin had a good school to study the art of painting and graphics. It all started with the drawing school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. Then there was the studio of the artist A. Ashbe in Munich; at the school-workshop of Princess Maria Tenisheva, he studied painting under the guidance of Ilya Repin himself, then, under his guidance, there was the Higher Art School of the Academy of Arts. IY Bilibin lived most of his life in St. Petersburg. He was a member of the World of Art association. He began to show interest in the ethnographic style of painting after he saw at one of the exhibitions a painting by the great artist Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov "Bogatyrs". For the first time, he created several illustrations in his recognizable "Bilibino" style after he accidentally ended up in the village of Egny in the Tver province. The Russian hinterland with its dense untouched forests, wooden houses, similar to the very fairy tales of Pushkin and paintings by Viktor Vasnetsov, inspired him so much with its originality that he, without hesitation, began to create drawings. It was these drawings that became illustrations for the book "The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf". We can say that it was here, in the heart of Russia, in its distant settlements lost in the forests, that all the talent of this wonderful artist manifested itself. After that, he began to actively visit other regions of our country and write more and more illustrations for fairy tales and epics. It was in the villages that the image of ancient Russia was still preserved. People continued to wear ancient Russian costumes, held traditional holidays, decorated houses with intricate carvings, etc. All this was captured in his illustrations by Ivan Bilibin, making them head and shoulders above the illustrations of other artists thanks to their realism and precisely noted details. His work is the traditions of ancient Russian folk art in a modern way, in accordance with all the laws of book graphics. What he did is an example of how modernity and the culture of the past of our great country can coexist. Being, in fact, an illustrator of children's books, he attracted the attention of a much larger public with his art, viewers, critics and connoisseurs of beauty. In particular, thanks to people like this artist, many of our compatriots began to take an interest in the past, to deal with the problems of history and the restoration of traditions and customs of their ancestors. Ivan Bilibin illustrated such tales as: “The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf "(1899)," The Tale of Tsar Saltan "(1905)," Volga "(1905)," The Golden Cockerel "(1909)," The Tale of the Golden Cockerel "(1910) and others. In addition, he designed the covers of various magazines, including: "World of Art", "Golden Fleece", publications "Rosehip" and "Moscow Book Publishing House". Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin is famous not only for his illustrations in the traditional Russian style. After the February Revolution, he drew a two-headed eagle, which at first was the coat of arms of the Provisional Government, and from 1992 to this day has been decorating the coins of the Bank of Russia. The great Russian artist died in Leningrad, during the blockade on February 7, 1942 in a hospital. The last work was an illustration for the epic "Duke Stepanovich". He was buried in the mass grave of professors of the Academy of Arts near the Smolensk cemetery. The ingenious words of Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin: "Only quite recently, as if America, was discovered the old artistic Russia, crippled by Vandals, covered with dust and mold. But even under the dust it was beautiful, so beautiful that the first momentary impulse of those who opened it is quite understandable: return! return! ".
Fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful" 1899
There are many illustrators of children's books. One of the outstanding illustrators is Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin. It was his illustrations that helped to create an elegant and accessible children's book.
Focusing on the traditions of ancient Russian and folk art, Bilibin developed a logically consistent system of graphic techniques, which remained in the basis throughout his entire work. This graphic system, as well as Bilibin's peculiar interpretation of epic and fairy-tale images, made it possible to talk about a special Bilibin style.
Fragment of a portrait of Ivan Bilibin by Boris Kustodiev 1901
It all began with an exhibition of Moscow artists in 1899 in St. Petersburg, where I. Bilibin saw V. Vasnetsov's painting "Heroes". Brought up in a St. Petersburg environment, far from hobbies for the national past, the artist unexpectedly showed interest in Russian antiquity, fairy tales, folk art. In the summer of the same year, Bilibin left for the village of Yegny, Tver province, to see for himself the dense forests, transparent rivers, wooden huts, and hear fairy tales and songs. Pictures from the exhibition of Viktor Vasnetsov come to life in the imagination. Artist Ivan Bilibin begins to illustrate Russian folk tales from Afanasyev's collection. And in the fall of the same year, the Expedition for Procurement of State Papers (Goznak) began to publish a series of fairy tales with Bilibino drawings. For 4 years Bilibin illustrated seven fairy tales: "Sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka", "White duck", "Princess-frog", "Marya Morevna", "The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf" , "The Feather of Finist Jasna-Sokol", "Vasilisa the Beautiful". Editions of fairy tales belong to the type of small-sized large-format notebooks. From the very beginning, Bilibin's books were distinguished by the pattern of drawing, bright decorativeness. The artist did not create individual illustrations, he strove for the ensemble: he drew the cover, illustrations, ornamental decorations, typeface - he stylized everything like an old manuscript.
The names of the tales are executed in Slavic script. To read it, you have to look closely at the intricate drawing of the letters. Like many graphic artists, Bilibin worked on a decorative typeface. He knew well the fonts of different eras, especially the Old Russian charter and semi-ustav. Bilibin draws the same cover for all six books, on which he has Russian fairy-tale characters: three heroes, the bird Sirin, the Serpent-Gorynych, the hut of Baba-Yaga. All page illustrations are surrounded by ornamental frames, like rustic windows with carved architraves. They are not only decorative, but also have content that continues the main illustration. In the fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful", the illustration with the Red Horseman (the sun) is surrounded by flowers, and the Black Horseman (night) is surrounded by mythical birds with human heads. The illustration of Baba Yaga's hut is surrounded by a frame with toadstools (what else could be next to Baba Yaga?). But the most important thing for Bilibin was the atmosphere of Russian antiquity, an epic, a fairy tale. From genuine ornaments and details, he created a semi-real, semi-fantastic world. The ornament was a favorite motif of ancient Russian masters and the main feature of the art of that time. These are embroidery of tablecloths, towels, painted wooden and earthenware, houses with carved platbands and quilts. In the illustrations, Bilibin used sketches of peasant buildings, utensils, and clothes made in the village of Yegny.
Fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful" 1900
Fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful" Black Horseman 1900
Bilibin proved himself to be an artist of the book, he did not limit himself to performing individual illustrations, but strove for integrity. Feeling the specificity of book graphics, he emphasizes the plane with a contour line and monochromatic watercolor painting. Systematic drawing lessons under the guidance of Ilya Repin and acquaintance with the magazine and society "World of Art" contributed to the growth of Bilibin's skill and general culture. An expedition to the Vologda and Arkhangelsk provinces on the instructions of the ethnographic department of the World of Art society was of decisive importance for the artist. Bilibin got acquainted with the folk art of the North, saw with his own eyes ancient churches, huts, utensils in the house, old clothes, embroidery. Contact with the primary source of artistic national culture forced the artist to practically overestimate his early works. From now on, he will be extremely accurate in depicting architecture, costume, and everyday life. From a trip to the North, Bilibin brought many drawings, photographs, a collection of samples of folk art. The documentary substantiation of each detail becomes an unchanging creative principle of the artist. Bilibin's passion for ancient Russian art was reflected in illustrations for Pushkin's fairy tales, which he created after a trip to the North in 1905–1908. The work on the tales was preceded by the creation of sets and costumes for the operas by Rimsky-Korsakov "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel" and "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" by A.S. Pushkin.
Fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful" Red Horseman 1902
Bilibin achieves special brilliance and invention in his illustrations for the fairy tales of A.S. Pushkin. The luxurious royal chambers are completely covered with patterns, paintings, ornaments. Here, the ornament so abundantly covers the floor, ceiling, walls, clothes of the tsar and boyars that everything turns into a kind of unsteady vision that exists in a special illusory world and is about to disappear. "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel" was the most successful of the artist. Bilibin combined the satirical content of the tale with the Russian popular print into a single whole. Beautiful four illustrations and a spread completely tell us the content of the tale. Let's remember a splint, which had a whole story in a picture. Pushkin's fairy tales were a huge success. The Russian Museum of Alexander III bought illustrations for "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", and the entire illustrated cycle "Tales of the Golden Cockerel" was acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery. The storyteller Bilibin should be thanked for the fact that the two-headed eagle depicted on the coat of arms of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, on ruble coins and paper bills does not look like an ominous imperial bird, but like a fabulous, magical creature. And in the picture gallery of paper money of modern Russia on the ten-ruble "Krasnoyarsk" banknote, the Bilibin tradition is clearly traced: a vertical patterned path with forest ornament - such frames edged Bilibin's drawings on the themes of Russian folk tales. By the way, cooperating with the financial authorities of tsarist Russia, Bilibin transferred the copyright for many of his graphic designs to the Gosznak factory.
"The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf" 1899
Epic "Volga" Volga with a retinue 1903
In 1921 I. Ya. Bilibin left Russia, lived in Egypt, where he actively worked in Alexandria, traveled to the Middle East, studying the artistic heritage of ancient civilizations and the Christian Byzantine Empire. In 1925 he settled in France: his works during these years were the design of the Firebird magazine, Readers on the History of Russian Literature, books by Ivan Bunin, Sasha Cherny, as well as the painting of a Russian church in Prague, scenery and costumes for Russian operas Fairy Tale about Tsar Saltan "(1929)," The Tsar's Bride "(1930)," The Legend of the City of Kitezh "(1934) N.А. Rimsky-Korsakov, "Prince Igor" by A.P. Borodin (1930), "Boris Godunov" by M.P. Mussorgsky (1931), to the ballet "The Firebird" by I.F. Stravinsky (1931).
Golynets G.V. I.Ya.Bilibin. M., Fine Arts. 1972.S. 5
"The Tale of Tsar Saltan" 1904
Fairy tale "Marya Morevna" 1901
Fairy tale "Sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka" 1901
The fairy tale "The Feather of Finist Jasna-Sokol" 1900
Fairy tale "The Frog Princess" 1901
Ending to "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish"
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For those who are engaged in the revival of native traditions, I strongly recommend that you read the article to the end.
In the previous article, about the fashion for Russian patterns in clothes in the period of the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, it was a question of some "trompe l'oeil" that appear at a time when interest in Russian culture is growing.
We will reveal this topic in more detail using the example of the work of the well-known artist Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (1876 - 1942).
Most of those who were born in the USSR began comprehending this world with Russian fairy tales "Vasilisa the Beautiful", "Sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka", "Marya Morevna", "Feather Finista-Yasna Sokol", "White Duck", "Princess frog". Almost every child also knew the tales of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin - "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel".
Fairy tales were read by parents and grandparents from children's books with pictures. And we knew every fairy tale by heart and every picture in our favorite book. Pictures from books with fairy tales were one of our first images that we absorbed naturally like a child. Just as in these pictures, we then imagined Vasilisa the Beautiful.
And most of these pictures belonged to the brush of Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin. Can you imagine what influence this artist had on our worldview, our perception of Russian myths, epics and fairy tales? Who is he?
Ivan Bilibin was born on August 4 (August 16), 1876, in Tarkhovka, near St. Petersburg.
The Bilibins clan is a separate topic for consideration, let's just say that this clan is from merchants, merchants, and subsequently, owners of factories. That's enough for now.
Next, we look at where Ivan Yakovlevich studied. Studied at the studio of Anton Azhbe in Munich (1898), as well as at the school-workshop of Princess Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva with Ilya Efimovich Repin (1898-1900). Systematic drawing lessons under the guidance of Ilya Repin and acquaintance with the magazine and society "World of Art" (!) Contributed to the development of Bilibin's mastery and general culture. The work of Bilibin was greatly influenced by Japanese (!) Woodcut (woodcut).
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin - is considered a Russian artist, graphic artist, theater artist, author of illustrations for Russian epics and fairy tales in a decorative and graphic ornamental manner based on the stylization of motives of Russian folk and medieval art, one of the greatest masters of the "national-romantic" direction in the Russian version Art Nouveau style (!).
But Bilibin himself ranked himself among the "nationalist artists."
Art Nouveau, at that time, strove to become a single synthetic style, in which all elements from the human environment were made in one key. Art Nouveau artists drew inspiration from the art of Ancient Egypt (!) And other ancient civilizations. A noticeable influence on the Art Nouveau style was exerted by the art of Japan, which became more accessible in the West with the beginning of the Meiji era. A feature of Art Nouveau was the rejection of right angles and lines in favor of smoother, curved lines. Art Nouveau artists often took ornaments from the flora as the basis of their drawings. The "calling card" of this style was the embroidery of Herman Obrist "The Strike of the Scourge".
Further - more interesting.
Bilibin, living in St. Petersburg, was an active member of the World of Art association.
The founders of the "World of Art" (1898-1924) were the St. Petersburg artist Alexander Nikolaevich Benois and the "theater figure-patron" Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev
Reader, take the time to find information on the Internet about what kind of people they were. You will immediately understand the essence of the association that you were or were close to:
Bakst Lev Samoilovich
Zionglinsky Yan Frantsevich
Dobuzhinsky Mstislav Valerianovich
Roerich Nicholas Konstantinovich
Purvit Wilhelm
Vereisky Georgy Semyonovich
Lansere Evgeny Evgenievich
Chambers Vladimir Yakovlevich
Mitrokhin Dmitry Isidorovich
Ostroumova-Lebedeva Anna Petrovna
Levitan Isaac Ilyich
Yakovlev Alexander Evgenievich
Somov Konstantin Andreevich
Golovin Alexander Yakovlevich
Grabar Igor Emmanuilovich
Korovin Konstantin Alekseevich
Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev
Serov Valentin Alexandrovich
Vrubel Mikhail Alexandrovich
Sketch for a group portrait of the artists of the World of Art. From left to right: I.E. Grabar, N.K. Roerich, E.E. Lanceray, B.M. Kustodiev, I. Ya. Bilibin, A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, A.N. Benois, G.I. Narbut, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, N.D. Milioti, K.A. Somov, M.V. Dobuzhinsky.
Here is such an amusing environment!
Now do you understand why the Bilibino "gingerbread kingdoms" are frankly surreal, permeated with sly irony?
Now do you understand why Bilibin had an anti-monarchist-LIBERAL worldview?
That is why the artist took part in the satirical magazines "Bogey" and "Adskaya Pochta", which appeared during the First Russian Revolution of 1905. His political grotesques stand out for their evil sarcasm, merciless to the existing order. Such, in particular, is the caricature of Nicholas II ("Donkey in 1/20 of life size", 1906), for which he was even subjected to a short administrative arrest!
Yes, Bilibin was on an expedition to the Russian North (1905–1908).
Yes, I was interested in the “pre-Petrine” era.
Yes, everything unique in his work began with an exhibition of Moscow artists in 1899, at which Bilibin saw Vasnetsov's painting "Heroes".
That is why, brought up in a St. Petersburg environment, far from hobbies for the national past, the artist unexpectedly showed interest in Russian antiquity, fairy tales, folk art!
Yes, Bilibin was interested in the atmosphere of Russian antiquity, epos, fairy tales. And he had a rich expedition material, photographs of embroidery of tablecloths, towels, peasant buildings, utensils, clothes. There were sketches made in the village of Yegny. These are painted wooden and earthenware, houses with carved platbands and quilts.
But Bilibin, despite the thoroughness of the technique of performing his works, did not seek to convey the primacy of the patterns, ornaments and decorations of our ancestors!
But it was precisely Russian patterns and ornaments that were the favorite motif of ancient Russian masters and carried a deep semantic load.
But out of genuine ornaments and details, Bilibin created a semi-real, semi-fantastic image! All page illustrations are surrounded by ornamental frames, just like country windows with carved architraves. But these ornamental frames do not carry primacy and tradition, but reflect only Bilibin's view and have only a decorative function!
In the fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful", for some reason, flowers surround the illustration with the Red Horseman (the sun).
And the Black Rider (night) - mythical birds with human heads.
The illustration of Baba Yaga's hut is surrounded by a frame with toadstools (what else can be next to Baba Yaga? Yes?).
And Baba Yaga herself is terrible and terrible!
Bilibin, having the opportunity to revive the art of the pre-Petrine era, created modern, "remake", that is, "fake" - "blende". Very carefully executed, with elaboration of fonts, stylized as an old manuscript, distinguished by the pattern of the drawing and bright decorativeness "DECEPTION"!
Perhaps that is why the artist was the most successful in "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel"? Bilibin achieves special brilliance and invention in his illustrations. The luxurious royal chambers are completely covered with patterns, paintings, ornaments. Here, the ornament so abundantly covers the floor, ceiling, walls, clothes of the tsar and boyars that everything turns into a kind of unsteady vision that exists in a special illusory world and is about to disappear.
The same as in "The Tale of Tsar Saltan"
When the Bolsheviks came to power, Ivan Bilibin participated in the propaganda of the Denikin government, and in 1920 he was evacuated with the White Army from Novorossiysk, lived in Cairo and Alexandria, where he actively worked in Alexandria, traveled around the Middle East, studying the artistic heritage of ancient civilizations and the Christian Byzantine Empire.
Then, in 1925, he moved to Paris, In 1925 he settled in France: the work of these years - the design of the magazine "Firebird", "Reader on the history of Russian literature", books by Ivan Bunin, Sasha Cherny, as well as the painting of a Russian church in Prague, scenery and costumes for Russian operas "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" (1929), "The Tsar's Bride" (1930), "The Legend of the City of Kitezh" (1934) N.А. Rimsky-Korsakov, "Prince Igor" by A.P. Borodin (1930), "Boris Godunov" by M.P. Mussorgsky (1931), to the ballet "The Firebird" by I.F. Stravinsky (1931).
Bilibin created many colorful panels to decorate private houses and restaurants. His decorative manner - patterned, exotic catchy - has become a kind of standard of the "russ style", that is, the "Russian style" abroad, nourishing nostalgic memories. He also designed a number of Orthodox churches in Egypt and Czechoslovakia.
The "national-Bolshevik" turn in politics, the spread of the ideas of "Soviet patriotism" that were characteristic of the Stalin era, contributed, oddly enough, to Bilibin's return to his homeland. After decorating the Soviet embassy in Paris with a monumental patriotic (1935-1936), he again settled in Leningrad.
The storyteller Bilibin should be thanked for the two-headed eagle, which is depicted on the coat of arms of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, on ruble coins and paper bills. It is interesting that this eagle was originally located on the seal of the provisional government.
In the picture gallery of paper money of modern Russia, the ten-ruble "Krasnoyarsk" banknote clearly shows the Bilibin tradition: a vertical patterned path with forest ornament - such frames edged Bilibin's drawings on the themes of Russian folk tales. By the way, cooperating with the financial authorities of tsarist Russia, Bilibin transferred the copyright for many of his graphic designs to the Gosznak factory.
In the last decade of his life, Bilibin taught at the All-Russian Academy of Arts, still acting in the role of a book and theater artist: he redesigned The Tale of Tsar Saltan (as an opera by Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov at the State Theater of Opera and Ballet named after Sergei Mironovich Kirov, 1936-1937, and as a book by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, published in the same years in Goslit).
Sergei Eisenstein decided to involve Ivan Yakovlevich as an artist in the work on the film "Ivan the Terrible", but the death of Bilibin did not allow this idea to come true.
Ivan Bilibin died on February 7, 1942, in besieged Leningrad. Why did he choose this outcome? Maybe because, in spite of his worldview, he sometimes felt love for the Motherland?
This can be evidenced by the words of Bilibin: “Only quite recently, like America, was discovered the old artistic Russia, crippled by Vandals, covered with dust and mold. But even under the dust it was beautiful, so beautiful that the first momentary impulse of those who discovered it is quite understandable: to return it! return!"
Everyone who believes in the revival of native traditions, who contributes to this, must reject attempts to falsify and distort traditional, primordial images.
Yes, pictures in books with fairy tales attract the attention of a child and arouse interest. But we must take into account what these pictures are and whether they really reflect the wisdom that our ancestors passed on to us. It is best not to lure with pictures, but simply read fairy tales to the child and give him the opportunity to imagine and create images himself.
To help him develop these images and draw on his own.
The result will be amazing!