vrubel muse 1896 Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910)

Painting "The Muse" by Mikhail Vrubel

Mikhail Vrubel is a striking representative of Russian decorative art nouveau, his works are still perceived ambiguously, but leave no one indifferent. The manner of deliberate decoration, filling the canvas not just with large strokes, but with multicolored, sometimes incongruous crystals of color, which was particularly influenced by a long emotionally-loaded work for theatrical performances, with its special pictorial plasticity, often consciously or accidentally devoted to paintings a sense of incompleteness - all this excites the imagination and feelings of viewers, creates in each of them an extraordinary idea about the author’s intention, about the origin of each image.

A special place in Vrubel’s work belongs to female images, transferred to the canvases from literary works or imagination of the author. His muse was always his beloved Nina Zabel, and Vrubel’s creations inherited her irregular elongated oval face, big eyes and thin sensual hands.

As mysterious and strange appears before the viewer "Muse", written in 1896. Emeralds of huge eyes, a red storm of curly hair, going beyond the edge of the canvas, simultaneously fascinate and make you wary, as if this unearthly creature knows some important secret. But the detailed drawing of her beautiful dress, her nervous long fingers and the armrest of an old chair reveal her vulnerable earthly origin, and the pale surroundings of the waning autumn nature emphasize the torturous search of a true artist, the transience of existence and the unconquerable eternity of beauty and art.