February Azure

February Azure (Russian: Февральская лазурь, romanized: Fevral'skaya lazur') is a landscape painting by Russian post-impressionist painter Igor Grabar, created in 1904. It is owned by the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Russia. The painting was presented to the public at the second exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists, which opened on 31 December 1904 in Saint Petersburg and then moved to Moscow in February 1905. In 1905, February Azure was purchased from Grabar by the Tretyakov Gallery after a unanimous decision of the museum's board of directors.

February Azure
Russian: Февральская лазурь
ArtistIgor Grabar
Year1904
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions142.6 cm × 84.8 cm (56.1 in × 33.4 in)
LocationTretyakov Gallery, Moscow
OwnerTretyakov Gallery

Grabar wrote that, although March Snow (Мартовский снег) seemed more popular among other artists than any other work he produced during the period, he felt that February Azure was more significant and integral—because it was a sum of lengthy observations and, in a sense, a synthesis of them[1]—and that February Azure opened up a new path Russian art had not explored.[2]

Studies and methods

At the first exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists in 1903, Grabar became acquainted with one of the participating artists, Nikolai Meshcherin.[3] Meshcherin invited Grabar to stay at his family estate on the bank of the Pakhra river in Moscow.[3] Grabar, being eager to paint snow and winter, accepted the invitation—he liked winter landscapes because he considered snow an ideal basis for experimenting with different lighting effects.[4] The Meshcherin family owned the Danilovskaya factory and were wealthy and hospitable.[3] Grabar felt home at their place and they provided him a sleigh with a carriage to travel around the area for his studies.[3] During one of his usual wanderings near the estate in February 1904, he encountered "something extraordinary going on in nature. [...] a feast of azure skies, pearl birches, coral twigs, and sapphire shadows on the lilac snow", which impressed him deeply enough that he decided to embody it in a painting.[5]

Winter, preparatory study, oil on canvas, 75 cm × 54.5 cm (30 in × 21.5 in)
February Azure, preparatory study, oil on canvas, 90 cm × 72 cm (35 in × 28 in)

Grabar painted a study on a small canvas first, then took a larger canvas and worked on another study for the next three days on almost the same spot. Both studies survived: the first one, titled Winter, is stored in the collection of the State Russian Museum under the inventory number Ж-2219 in Saint Petersburg,[6] and the second, titled February Azure, is kept in the National Art Museum of Belarus in Minsk.[4]

Afterward he dug a trench more than one-metre (3.3 ft) deep in the snow, in which he settled down with an easel and a canvas mounted on it so he could get an impression of "a low horizon and the celestial zenith, with all the gradations of blue from light-green below to ultramarine at the top".[7] He had prepared the canvas beforehand in the studio, covering it with a dense layer of lead white in varying tones.[7] The work lasted for two weeks; he worked under an umbrella, and with the front side of the canvas turned toward the sky so that the sunlight reflected on the snow did not fall on the painting.[8]

Descriptions
February Azure at the 2022–2023 exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery

The title February Azure describes the essence of the composition—the painting depicts the piercing, pure blue shades of the sky on a cold February day.[9] Most of the painting's foreground is occupied by a birch tree with branches that are, according to art historian Olga Podobedova, "rhythmically arranged (ритмически расположенными)" and shining either white or golden against the sky background.[10] The top of the tree cannot be seen as it is cut off by the upper edge of the canvas. Behind are other, thinner birches and, on the horizon, a birch forest streaked with light in some distance. The snow in the foreground shows the shadows of the trees behind the viewer.[10]

Art historian Natalia Mamontova observed that the red crowns of the trees are genuinely impressionistic, while the painting's vertical format accentuates the plasticity of the birch and emphasizes "the infinity of the azure space (бесконечность лазурного пространства)".[3]

See also

References
  1. Grabar, Igor Emmanuilovich. "Автомонография Игоря Грабаря стр.6" [Igor Grabar's Automonograph p.6]. igor-grabar.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 15 August 2022. Retrieved 18 May 2023. "Мартовский снег" понравился, помнится, художникам больше всех других моих тогдашних вещей, (...) Мне тогда казалось, что "Февральская лазурь" значительнее и цельнее этой вещи, (...) а суммой длительных и неповерхностных наблюдений, и в известном смысле их синтезом.
  2. Grabar, Igor Emmanuilovich. "Автомонография Игоря Грабаря стр.6" [Igor Grabar's Automonograph p.6]. igor-grabar.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 15 August 2022. Retrieved 18 May 2023. "Белая зима" стояла еще всецело на художественной платформе "Сентябрьского снега", но "Февральская лазурь" открывала новый путь, в тогдашнем русском искусстве еще неизведанный.
  3. Mamontova, Natalia (2001). Игорь Грабарь [Igor Grabar] (in Russian). Moscow: Белый город. pp. 18–21. ISBN 5-7793-0359-2. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
  4. "февральская лазурь: Грабарь, Игорь Эммануилович" [February Azure: Grabar, Igor Emmanuilovich] (in Russian). National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus. Archived from the original on 29 March 2023. Retrieved 17 May 2023. Грабарь более всего любил писать зимние пейзажи, поскольку считал снег идеальной основой для многочисленных световых эффектов.
  5. Grabar, Igor Emmanuilovich (1937). Моя жизнь: автомонография [My Life: An Automonograph] (in Russian). Moscow: Искусство. p. 201. Archived from the original on 15 February 2023. Retrieved 17 May 2023 – via Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library. Утром, как всегда, я вышел побродить вокруг усадьбы и понаблюдать. В природе творилось нечто необычайное, казалось, (...) праздник лазореного неба, жемчужных берез, коралловых веток и сапфировых теней на сиреневом снегу.
  6. Serebryakova, N. Y. (2007). "О несостоявшемся даре музею русского искусства" [On the Failed Donation to the Museum of Russian Art]. Международная научнопрактическая конференция «Рериховское наследие»: Том III: Восток – Запад на берегах Невы [International Research and Practice Conference "Roerich's Heritage": Volume III: East-West on the Banks of the Neva] (PDF) (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg State University. p. 73. ISBN 9785810803072. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 May 2023. Retrieved 18 May 2023.
  7. Grabar, Igor Emmanuilovich (1937). Моя жизнь: автомонография [My Life: An Automonograph] (in Russian). Moscow: Искусство. p. 201. Archived from the original on 15 February 2023. Retrieved 17 May 2023 – via Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library. После этого я прорыя в глубоком снегу, свыше метра толщиной, траншею, в которой и поместился с мольбертом и большим холстом для того, чтобы получить впечатление низкого горизонта и небесного зенита, со всей градацией голубых-от светло-зеленого внизу до ультрамаринового наверху. (...) покрыв его по меловой, впитывающей масло поверхности густым слоем плотных свинцовых белил различных тональностей.
  8. Podobedova, Olga Ilyinichna (1964). Игорь Эммануилович Грабарь [Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar] (in Russian). Советский художник. p. 95. Retrieved 17 May 2023 – via Google Books. Писал художник с зонтиком, окрашенным в голубой цвет, и холст поставил не только без обычного наклона вперед, (...) но повернув его лицевой стороной к синеве неба. отчего на него не падали рефлексы от горячего под солнцем снега. и он оставался в холодной тени.
  9. Tkach, Mikhail Ivanovich (2002). Энциклопедия пейзажа [Encyclopedia of Landscapes] (in Russian). Олма-Пресс Образование. p. 112. ISBN 9785948491363. Retrieved 18 May 2023 – via Google Books. Поэтичное название полотна отражало сущность композиции художник показал пронзительную чистоту синего февальского неба, прозрачность холодного дня.
  10. Podobedova, Olga Ilyinichna (1964). Игорь Эммануилович Грабарь [Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar] (in Russian). Советский художник. p. 95. Retrieved 17 May 2023 – via Google Books. (...) сияющих то белизной, то золотом на фоне весеннего неба берез. Главная героиня картины - береза с ритмически расположенными ветвями как бы закрывает от зрителя расположенные купами по две. (...) где на горизонте виднеется прозрачный. свободный от листвы и пронизанный светом березовый лес.
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