No title. Without title Fragments from diaries of different years

May 19, 1903 is the birthday of Nikolai Mikhailovich Romadin.
People's Artist of the USSR. Full member of the USSR Academy of Arts. Winner of the Stalin Prize for the series of landscapes “Volga - Russian River” (1946). Winner of the Lenin Prize (1980).

Self-portrait of N. M. Romadin. 1943 Uffizi Gallery. Florence.
The birthplace of Nikolai Mikhailovich Romadin on the Volga, Samara. As noted by K.S. Petrov-Vodkin: “Being born on the Volga already indicates something. First of all, it immediately, from childhood, sets the human eye on natural beauty, on the beauty of a wide expanse of water, hills... It’s not for nothing that the Volga has given us many artists of a more or less similar order.” .Romadin, initially the author of portraits and paintings of the everyday genre, in the 1930s found himself in a lyrical landscape, where it was possible to “hide" from the pathos of socialist realism, alien to the artist. His works are akin to high poetry, when a person tenderly loves nature. “You are the only one.” my beautiful land,” wrote Romadin, and these words today are perceived as an epigraph to his work.

N.M. Romadina "Willows in the flood"
The brightest period of Romadin’s art was the 1940-1950s, when his paintings were perceived as the development of the landscape line of the largest masters of this genre of the first half of the century - M.V. Nesterov, I.E. Grabar, N.P. Krymov. Once upon a time Isaac Levitan gave Mikhail Nesterov a photograph with his signature and asked him to give it to the young worthy landscape painter. He kept it for many years, and then, seeing Romadin’s work, gave it to him. Nesterov visited Romadin's first solo exhibition in 1940, supported him, and a friendship began - despite the more than forty-year age difference. Until Nesterov’s death, they communicated and corresponded. Nesterov introduced Romadin to his circle of friends, among whom were Pavel Korin, Ivan Efimov, Pyotr Konchalovsky, singer Ksenia Derzhinskaya, famous doctor Vladimir Filatov, pianist Svyatoslav Richter, famous writers, scientists, philosophers.


N.M. Romadin. Elegant winter. 1947
During the Great Patriotic War, N. Romadin worked on the famous cycle "Volga - Russian River", consisting of 12 canvases, 11 of which are presented in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery.


Village Khmelevka 1944 From the series "Volga - Russian River"
The painting “Kerzhenets”, painted in 1946, became a milestone in the artist’s work. The most characteristic of him, the most romantic and mysterious. The artist so masterfully managed to convey the state of nature during the spring flood that the everyday motif of a sailing boat with two fishermen is transformed into a poetic revelation.


Romadin N.M. Kerzhenets. 1946
“Kerzhenets” contains its mystical charm.
Nikolai Romadin’s son, Mikhail, recalls that his father once turned to him: “You know, I had a vision. ... The painting “Kerzhenets” stood on an easel in the studio. I return to the studio from home, open the door and see. .. - the father switched to a whisper, - a man sits on a chair in front of the easel, with a brush in his hand, and writes my “Kerzhenets”. The man turned and looked at me, and a moment later melted into the air. It was Him! " "Who is he?" - I asked. My father brought his lips close to my ear and said in a loud whisper: “Nesterov!”
In the early 1950s, N. Romadin created a wonderful series “The Seasons” influenced by the music of P. I. Tchaikovsky and the paintings of Claude Laurent.


N.M. Romadin. Spring (landscape with goats), 1949.


View of the Rembrandt Hall in the Hermitage, 1955.
Other works by Romadin are also significant in their emotional impact - “Kudinskoe Lake”, “Yarensky Forest”, “White Night”, “Winter in Ostrovsky”, “Senezh. Pink Winter”, “Elegant Winter”, “Fog. Eye”. Romadin's worldview and poetic feeling for the life of nature are close to Yesenin's poetry.


Kudinskoye Lake. 1974-1978


N. Romadin. White Night. 1947
"White Night", amazing in its emotional impact, in its subtle figurative magic.


N.M. Romadin. Winter


N.M. Romadin. Senezh. Pink winter


In the painter’s landscapes, the pale dawns of the northern white nights are burning, crimson sunsets are blazing in the mighty pine forests and the scarlet fires of shepherds are blazing, cold stars are flickering in the bottomless sky, the irrepressible floods of mighty rivers are seething.
Rus'... primordial, pure, proud. Romadin’s worldview, poetic feeling of the life of nature are close to Yesenin’s poetry. The cycle of paintings inspired by the poetry of the lyric poet is of particular interest and delights with the amazing closeness and consonance of Yesenin’s poetry.


N.M. Romadin. In the native places of Sergei Yesenin. 1957


N.M. Romadin. Yesenin evening.
It is filled with some special, resounding silence, in which there is both hidden sadness and quiet joy of waiting for something unknown, desired... All the complexity and versatility of the metaphorical poetic structure is hidden in this monologue landscape. The artist’s lyrical voice penetrates the viewer’s heart , making the innermost strings of his soul sound. In 1970, he was awarded the Repin State Prize for such landscapes as “Golden River”, “At the Village Council”, “Yeseninsky Evening”, “At the Forest Mound”.


N.M. Romadin. Golden River, 1970
The artist conceived his masterpiece, “Golden River,” in the 1950s, and completed it in the 1970s; it took almost two decades to create a picture that captured incredible light, which, refracted in clear water, turned pebbles at the bottom of the river into gold nuggets .


N.M. Romadin. At the village council in 1957.


Romadin Nikolai Mikhailovich. An unfreezing river. 1969
His works were painted, as a rule, without a preliminary drawing, lined up with colors, due to which unique variations of palette and texture were created. Their image was determined primarily by the expressiveness of the motif. In this sense, Romadin became one of the creators of the national landscape in the twentieth century. The famous writer K. Paustovsky dedicated an essay to the artist, which contains the lines: “Romadin’s work is not only the work of a painter, but also a true patriot. His canvases are a poem about Russia.” Once you see his work - a gentle pink dawn over the river or a mysterious twilight , - you will never be able to forget them, because this is the true poetry of painting. Most of the works of People's Artist of the USSR Nikolai Romadin are in the Tretyakov Art Gallery, and there is a good collection in the Russian Museum.


N.M. Romadin. Spring rain 1967


Nikolai Mikhailovich Romadin. “On the Shores of Karelia” (1964).


N.M. Romadin.Forest Lake".
The gray paws of the fir trees stretched over the dark glass of water. The dense green lace of the dense forest beckons you to wander through the thicket and listen to the whispers of the Berendeyev Forest. Many great Russian painters painted boron. Victor and Apollinary Vasnetsov, Nesterov, Shishkin. Each in their own way. And Romadin has his own special language.


N.M. Romadin. Ate in the flood


N.M. Romadin.Evening spruce. 1951
FRAGMENTS FROM DIARIES OF DIFFERENT YEARS
Art does not depict the visible, but makes it visible.
I want nothing from life except a feeling of joy and a sense of justice, the purposefulness of life and the love with which I am filled with everything: Russia, women, children, human sorrow.
I have a duty to Russia, to my country, to the best Russian people. I separate the best, kind, loving Russian people. The best are those who have been given the Gift of love. I myself never tire of thanking life for this Gift. My love for nature, for all these twigs, fir trees, deep forest, quiet water, the stormy spring chirping of sparrows, the croaking of crows, the cry of a magpie and the ever-eternal murmur of a stream fills my heart with the meaning of existence. I live on my trips uncomfortably, without any comfort, but joyfully. It seems to me that I am honestly fulfilling my duty, overcoming the capricious desire for peace and everyday well-being. I've always tried to avoid this. Happiness and unhappiness are not always distinguishable; often one follows from the other. With this view of life, I am almost constantly happy. God gave me the happiness of loving the beauty of nature, its pure, unsullied soul, absorbing and transmitting my feelings for it. You are the only one, my beautiful Earth - there is hardly a more beautiful living planet. Apparently, religion and ancient thinkers who considered the Earth to be the center of the universe are more right than all the latest discoveries, assumptions and scientific hypotheses. It will be such a pity to part with you, with the happiness that you give, with that indescribable joy of life, with its great instincts - love, kindness, preservation of life and prolongation of the family. What lies ahead? I know that I did not live, worry, think in vain - as if preparing for a new activity. Now the earth is sleeping. It is a beautiful autumn in its eternal uniqueness. The fallen snow created a marvelous ornament on the trees, branches, bushes, and created a fragile shape on the delicate branches. And the secret...
The landscape opens up a complete opportunity to freely express your feelings.
The landscapes of Pushkin, Tyutchev, Turgenev, Yesenin, Levitan and others are surprisingly consonant with man and will constantly resound in our hearts.
For more details see:

It is infinitely difficult to say a new word in art, to find your own language in painting. This is especially difficult to do in a landscape. Nikolai Romadin’s canvases, at first glance, are traditional. But the longer you look at the artist’s paintings, the more you comprehend the special Romadin style.

One day, the writer Alexei Tolstoy came to the workshop of Nikolai Mikhailovich Romadin. He really liked the small landscape, he took it off the wall, looked at it for a long time and then said only one word: “Witchcraft!”

The future artist was born in Samara, into the family of a railway worker. His father was no stranger to painting; in moments of rest, he took out paints and brushes - he painted pictures about the sea, which he had never seen. But he really didn’t want his son to become an artist - this profession, in his opinion, was not serious for a man. However, when his father was away, Kolya took his paints and brushes - then he could not be torn away from them. My father didn’t like this, and a conflict was brewing in the family. In 1922, Nikolai collected his simple belongings and left for Moscow to enter Vkhutemas.

It is unlikely that the angry father imagined that his son would become a famous artist, which would make his modest painting experiences a world heritage - in 1997, in the Spanish city of Seville, an unusual exhibition “Three Generations of Russian Artists Romadin” was held, at which his, Mikhail Andreevich’s, paintings were exhibited , his son Nikolai and grandson Mikhail. The exhibition was a great success.

Nikolai Romadin, being a passionate, temperamental and enthusiastic person, rushed from one extreme to another in painting, tried everything in it - both thematic canvases on “current” topics, and portraits, in which he achieved great recognition. His Self-Portrait, executed in 1948, is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. A huge honor!

At the end of the 1930s, Romadin unexpectedly abandoned everything he had already created, which he could well be proud of, and went into a pure landscape. With an easel, canvases, paints and brushes, and a small backpack, he disappeared for months in the northern, central Russian and other distances and villages.

Exhibited at his first personal exhibition in 1940, his work gave a new, original name to Russian painting. A big event was the visit to the exhibition by Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov. The meeting was very important for the artist.

An unexpected and, perhaps, highest award was Levitan’s photograph; Mikhail Vasilyevich handed it to Romadin with the words: “Levitan gave me a photograph as a continuer of the traditions of Russian landscape. Keep it, and then, when you see fit, pass it on to the young artist, who with honor can continue this line!

During the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Romadin created a large series of paintings “Volga - Russian River”. Almost all of it is now in the Tretyakov Gallery. Just like another significant painting series, “The Season,” created under the influence of the music of Tchaikovsky and the paintings of Claude Lorrain.

The painting “Kerzhenets”, painted in 1946, became a milestone in the artist’s work. The most characteristic of him, the most romantic and mysterious. Its plot, at first glance, is very simple. It's time for the spring flood, a dense forest, as if growing out of dark, gloomy water and frozen in some kind of languid expectation. And even a fragile boat with two human silhouettes does not disturb this magical, “Berendey” kingdom.

And “Kerzhenets”, and other most significant works - “Kudinskoye Lake”, “Yarensky Forest”, “White Night”, “Winter in Ostrovsky”, “Senezh. Pink Winter”, “Elegant Winter”, “Fog. Eye”, “ Yesenin's Ryazan Places" are amazing in their emotional impact, in their subtle figurative magic.

Evgraf KONCHIN (from the article "The Witch Lake of Nikolai Romadin")

One day, the writer Alexei Tolstoy came to the workshop of Nikolai Mikhailovich Romadin. He really liked the small landscape, he took it off the wall, looked at it for a long time and then said only one word: “Witchcraft!”

The future artist was born in Samara, into the family of a railway worker. His father was no stranger to painting; in moments of rest, he took out paints and brushes - he painted pictures about the sea, which he had never seen. But he really didn’t want his son to become an artist - this profession, in his opinion, was not serious for a man. However, when his father was away, Kolya took his paints and brushes - then he could not be torn away from them. My father didn’t like this, and a conflict was brewing in the family. In 1922, Nikolai collected his simple belongings and left for Moscow to enter Vkhutemas.

It is unlikely that the angry father imagined that his son would become a famous artist, which would make his modest painting experiences a world heritage - in 1997, in the Spanish city of Seville, an unusual exhibition “Three Generations of Russian Artists Romadin” was held, at which his, Mikhail Andreevich’s, paintings were exhibited , his son Nikolai and grandson Mikhail. The exhibition was a great success.

Nikolai Romadin, being a passionate, temperamental and enthusiastic person, rushed from one extreme to another in painting, tried everything in it - both thematic canvases on “current” topics, and portraits, in which he achieved great recognition. His Self-Portrait, executed in 1948, is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. A huge honor!

At the end of the 1930s, Romadin unexpectedly abandoned everything he had already created, which he could well be proud of, and went into a pure landscape. With an easel, canvases, paints and brushes, and a small backpack, he disappeared for months in the northern, central Russian and other distances and villages.

Exhibited at his first personal exhibition in 1940, his work gave a new, original name to Russian painting. A big event was the visit to the exhibition by Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov. The meeting was very important for the artist.

An unexpected and, perhaps, highest award was Levitan’s photograph; Mikhail Vasilyevich handed it to Romadin with the words: “Levitan gave me a photograph as a continuer of the traditions of Russian landscape. Keep it, and then, when you see fit, pass it on to the young artist, who with honor can continue this line!

During the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Romadin created a large series of paintings “Volga - Russian River”. Almost all of it is now in the Tretyakov Gallery. Just like another significant painting series, “The Season,” created under the influence of the music of Tchaikovsky and the paintings of Claude Lorrain.

The painting “Kerzhenets”, painted in 1946, became a milestone in the artist’s work. The most characteristic of him, the most romantic and mysterious. Its plot, at first glance, is very simple. It's time for the spring flood, a dense forest, as if growing out of dark, gloomy water and frozen in some kind of languid expectation. And even a fragile boat with two human silhouettes does not disturb this magical, “Berendey” kingdom.

And “Kerzhenets”, and other most significant works - “Kudinskoye Lake”, “Yarensky Forest”, “White Night”, “Winter in Ostrovsky”, “Senezh. Pink Winter”, “Elegant Winter”, “Fog. Eye”, “ Yesenin's Ryazan Places" are amazing in their emotional impact, in their subtle figurative magic.

Evgraf KONCHIN (from the article "The Witch Lake of Nikolai Romadin")

Another Russian artist whose name was unknown to me.
Romadina N.M. called an outstanding Russian artist, a master of the lyrical Russian landscape.

NIKOLAY ROMADIN

Not like you, nature:

Not a cast, not a soulless face -

It has pusha, it has

There's love in it, there's love in it

F. Tyutchev

Russian landscape...

He established himself in the history of our art with the spring cry of the Savrasov rooks.

How many wonderful artists contributed to the picturesque song about the Motherland!

“We certainly need to move towards light, colors and air,” Kramskoy wrote in 1874, “but... how to do so as not to lose along the way the most precious quality of an artist - the heart!”

And the best Russian landscape painters combined brilliant skill with high spirituality.

Truly Russian song paintings by Savrasov. Lyrical poems by Levitan. Pure, delicate colors of Ancient Rus' by Nesterov. Life-loving, full-blooded canvases by Yuon, Rylov, Grabar, Konchalovsky, Sergei Gerasimov... Strict rhythms, silhouettes of the new in the landscapes of Deineka, Nissky, Pimenov, Chuikov.

It is infinitely difficult to say a new word in art, to find your own language in painting.

This is especially difficult to do in a landscape.

Among our contemporaries there is a master who said a new word in Russian landscape.

Nikolai Romadin.

His paintings, at first glance, are traditional. They are executed in the spirit of the best traditions of the Moscow school of painting. But the longer you look at the artist’s paintings, the more you comprehend the special Romadin style. You become imbued with the feeling of a unique, unique, most subtly found state of nature.

The painter with his canvases solves the problem posed by Alexey Savrasov:

“One must be able to determine even the hour of the day from the landscape, only then can the landscape be considered real!”

In Romadin we no longer see a canvas, not an invented plot, but we comprehend life in all its subtlety and strength.

We trust the artist. We painfully remember the pages of our lives. We grieve and rejoice together with the painter.

The bright dawns of youth, pictures of a fruitful autumn rise in our memory, we feel chilly from the cold winter nights... We leave the Romadin exhibition as if we had experienced a journey through Russia, deeply feeling our involvement in the Fatherland.

A great artist is capable of making a sluggish city dweller instantly transport himself to the harsh shores of the White Sea, wander through sleepless white nights in Zao-Nezhie, listen to the sound of pine trees in the ancient forest of Kerzhenets, breathe in the aroma of early spring on Udomlya, admire the quiet beauty of the Tsarevna River...

Make the dormant lyrical strings of the heart tremble.

Awaken the poetry that lies hidden in almost every heart.

This is the strength of Romadin’s landscapes. For the very soul of the painter sounds in it - sensitive, reverent, complex.

Paustovsky said:

“His canvases are a poem about Russia. Romadin has a lot in common with Yesenin, and, like Yesenin, he can rightfully say: “I will sing with all my poet’s being the sixth part of the earth with the short name “Rus”.”

High. Eleventh floor.

In a large workshop, the noise of the city is almost inaudible. Smooth, soft light.

Short, stocky. Very fast. There is a special lightness in his gait that comes after many, many hundreds of miles traveled.

His high cheekbones and dark face are open. Under the steep forehead are sharp, light eyes, wary and attentive.

They are crippling, crippling nature. The forests are burning,” the artist says bitterly, and his gaze becomes angry and tenacious.

And suddenly he smiled.

A clear, sunny smile. Only eyes with drooping eyelids remain stern.

There is something in him about a forester, an experienced, seasoned man, and therefore kind and warm-hearted, although not without causticity. He is one of those people who cannot be fooled by chaff.

I've seen and experienced everything.

He knows what a pound is worth.

His strong, grasping hands are always busy with something: either pouring fish food into the aquarium, or cleaning the handle of a long kolinsky brush, or rearranging large monographs - Van Gogh, Delacroix, Renoir, Gauguin, Alexander Ivanov.

I have the first edition of Pushkin and the first edition of Gogol. Like this... - And again, with a quick gait, he runs across the workshop and sits down on a narrow ottoman.

Romadin is stingy with words. It's hard to get him to talk. He is still waiting for something, and you feel his sharp gaze on you.

Born in the outback, in Samara, in 1903. Almost seventy. Father is a railway worker. As a child we traveled a lot. Maybe that’s why I especially love our lands - gentle rivers, green meadows, forests.

Suddenly he fell silent, his eyes went dark for a moment.

Thought about it.

Quiet. Cold light slides along the walls. Countless sketches - landscapes. Cabinets with books.

“Bacchus” Konenkova smiles mysteriously in the corner.

Vrubel’s “Kupava” sparkles nearby. Bronze group by Paolo Trubetskoy. Originals.

My father painted in oils. Self-taught. All sorts of landscapes from myself and copies. The rooms smelled deliciously of oil and varnish. I usually stood behind, and he seemed to me like a heavenly being. And he suddenly takes it and, without looking back, smears the brush right on my nose. And he will instantly lower me to the ground.

Romadin laughs silently, and the wrinkles smooth out on his forehead and gather around his eyes.

I was like all the boys. I spent days in the summer on the Volga. We went fishing. We swam. When I got a little older, I ran with the guys to Mount Athos. There they went wall to wall. He came home with “lanterns.”

Suddenly everything changed.

My father met with a catastrophe, and we immediately became poor.

Winter day.

At the age of eleven he began selling newspapers. 1914 War. There was something to shout out.

There were enough events.

Suddenly Nikolai Mikhailovich jumps up and removes large cardboards from the quilted leather antique sofa. This large brown sofa seems incredibly familiar to me.

Do you recognize? - says Romadin, smiling slyly. - This is a sofa from the Van Gogh hall - the Museum of New Western Art, which we closed at the same time.

It's a thing of the past, but in vain.

And then I remembered how Volodya Pereyaslavets and I, young and always hungry as hell students, sat for hours and admired Van Gogh.

That was a long time ago.

I bought it on consignment shortly after the museum closed.

He takes me by the elbow with his small, energetic hand and leads me to the sofa.

Who am I not? - Romadin continues. - A newspaperman, a baker, a bookbinder, and then in 1919 he volunteered to fight.

I had two cousins ​​- Shurka and Vanya. They then went to Chapaev.

Vanya was killed by the whites. He was a good guy. He taught me to play the harmonica.

Romadin jumps up springily and a moment later plays something sad on the harmonica. Samara busts.

The harmonica sighs.

Yes, I feel sorry for Vanyusha. And how many of them were cut down then?

It is quite noteworthy that Romadin, having, like many of his peers, gone through the Vkhutemas school, after graduation found it necessary to engage in a serious study of the work of Alexander Ivanov, copying his works.

Thus, the artist first became familiar with high painting.

By the way, these copies attracted attention and greatly endeared the young master Pavel Dmitrievich Korin, who has since become his senior friend and adviser.

It is Korin who will introduce Romadin to the great Nesterov - one of the last Mohicans of Russian classics.

This is how Romadin recalls his first meeting with Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov:

Volga. Fragment.

I had a personal exhibition open in 1940 on Kuznetsky Most. Korin, in great secrecy, announced that today Nesterov, who very rarely appears in public, will visit her.

But... somehow many people found out the secret, and when Corin, who looked like a novice, all in black, wearing boots, appeared in the hall to warn me about the arrival of Mikhail Vasilyevich, the hall was full of people.

I saw Nesterov.

Dry and fit, he took off the muffler with a sharp gesture and gave it to the doorman.

The pince-nez flashed and I saw the hard face of an ascetic and sage.

He walked around the exhibition with Korin, carefully examining each work. I walked aside, listening.

But Nesterov was silent. Then suddenly he said:

“Pavel Dmitrievich, let’s go through again.”

He got to know me better and invited me to his place.

With trepidation, I entered the small apartment on Sivtsev Vrazhek, which also served as his workshop. More than modestly furnished, only two small rooms.

I will never forget his words spoken at this meeting:

“Start from nature, your work will be more valuable, your faith will be stronger, and your painting will be better…”

Now I know that after meeting me he said to the art critic Durylin:

“There is talent, if only there is enough character...”

Romadin thinks, painfully remembering something... Finally, he quickly gets up and disappears.

Just as suddenly he appeared.

He holds several postcards in his hands - old, yellowed, covered in clear, firm handwriting.

I was dumbfounded...

In my hands I have ordinary penny postcards.

The handwriting is extremely clear and firm.

I see the date is 1942, the year of Nesterov’s death, when he was already eighty years old...

Herd. Fragment.

Will and unbending character shone in this handwriting.

These are the letters:

Dear Nikolai Mikhailovich!

I received your letter dated May 9 the other day... Your energy in your work makes me happy. As for participating in exhibitions, I never particularly liked them and did not take part in them unless absolutely necessary.

But this is a matter of taste, and I will not advise you anything here.

The main thing is not to sit idly by, work with all your might and be completely honest with yourself...

We are healthy, we continue to remain in the same unclear position, I lie down more and soon get tired.

In a word, my 80 years are no joy to me now.

The anniversary celebrations were over, there was a lot of noise, and all this tired me out pretty much.

Exhibitions alternate here now, but since I don’t leave the house now and don’t see them, it’s not worth talking about them.

Pyotr Petrovich (Konchalovsky - I.D.) “makes noise”, he is a talented person, he loves art!

I wish you good health and prosperity.

Mich. Nesterov."

“Dear Nikolai Mikhailovich!

Thank you very much for your congratulations and wishes. The past few days have been noisy. I am still lying in bed, it is difficult to write, and you will excuse me for the brevity of the letter - I am tired.

Please convey our greetings to Nina Gerasimovna.

I shake your hand.

Mich. Nesterov.

“Dear Nikolai Mikhailovich!

Thank you, Nina Gerasimovna, Ksenia Georgievna and Kirill Derzhinsky for the good memory, for the “toast”... for the love... thank you for everything.

I am glad that you are living a “wow” life there in your “gazebo” (it has already been mentioned more than once in letters).

Korzhenets. Fragment.

We live in the old way, with hopes for a quick improvement in our affairs, but for now I lie down, praise and nothing more.

Whether you work?

Please work tirelessly: this is our “everything”... our salvation.

Be healthy and prosperous.

My friends all send their greetings to you.

I shake your hand.

Mich. Nesterov.

I read these precious lines.

A noble, firm, slightly stern image of a teacher emerges. Unyielding, straight to the end. After all, the last postcard was written three months before his death.

Nesterov was everything to me,” said Romadin, “both father and teacher.”

His words were the law, his life an example of service to art. I will forever remember the parting words he said late in the evening before my departure from Moscow. This was the last meeting with Nesterov. The apartment is not heated. The teacher sat wrapped in a blanket...

“Talent is not pleasure,” he told me. - Talent is a difficult responsibility. You are responsible to Russia for the talent given to you.”

… Kyiv. End of July 1970. Today, an exhibition of paintings by Romadin opens at the Russian Museum on Repin Street.

The hours before the opening day... The amber parquet floor shimmers.

Deserted.

They brought huge bouquets of roses - white, fawn, scarlet. They are placed in vases throughout the halls. Roses are reflected in the parquet mirror.

He himself finally left. I’m tired... I’ve been running and running all day, but it’s not been twenty years,” says a museum employee.

There are dozens of landscapes on the walls.

The quiet music of nature clearly reaches my ears - the sound of the forest, the singing of the wind, the chirping of birds...

The glare of the sun dances in the glass of the open windows.

The green branches of the rowan tree glow with thousands of red stars.

Summer Kyiv is rejoicing and noisy.

The minutes fly by. The halls are deserted.

The village of Khmelevka.

Romadin appears. The face is dark and tired. The gaze is intent, anxiously once again feeling each canvas. In the hands of a simple pencil. He quickly approaches the canvas and instantly closes up a visible point for him alone - the paint has flown off.

Corrects the chipped label.

He takes my arm and quickly leads me to a small canvas:

- “The village of Khmelevka.” Here they baked bread, grew hops, brewed mash, and prepared all sorts of food for Stenka Razin and his gang. There, over the hill, in the Volga channel, the ataman placed his plows away from the eyes of the king's servants. The dense forest on the banks sheltered the riotous brethren.

The sun bloomed the Volga expanses.

The village clings to the bank of the great river. The village is like a village. But how this simple landscape spoke in a new way in the rays of an old legend!

The Russian land conceals many, many legends. And they sound in the names of lakes, villages and rivers.

"River Princess".

High water. The artist's favorite theme. Green floodplain. Lilac, pink clouds and fluffy clumps of flowering willows float in the quiet waters. The landscape is painted as if from a bird's eye view.

The impression is that we are soaring over an enchanted land.

Peter the Great once sailed here. I was looking for a suitable northern route for the fleet.

And it was here that he was overtaken by the news of the birth of his daughter.

To celebrate, the king ordered to name the river Tsarevna.

So says the legend.

It’s as if we are flying over a floodplain intricately indented with islands. Below is a lone fisherman. The smoke of the fire reaches towards the sky. The aspen branches barely tremble. Spring.

Our steps echo through the empty halls.

"Pink Evening"

Winter. The sleigh runners creak. Shaggy horses snore.

Purple shadows run across the pink shining snow.

There is a ruddy moon in the pale green sunset sky. It's getting dark.

But how does pink burn? - asks Romadin. And suddenly he takes out a white piece of paper.

In Yesenin's native places. Fragment.

Folds it in four. One corner breaks. Then, smiling mysteriously, he unfolds the piece of paper.

In the middle of the sheet there is an even circle, the size of a fingernail. The artist, still smiling, brings it to the canvas and leans it against the flaming pink snow.

And... oh, miracle! In the white window there is rough oil paint of a bluish, almost gray color.

So how? - Romadin squints.

I'm silent. I have heard a lot about the experiments of the artist Krymov, a great master of tone.

He loved to show students the aperture ratio in his paintings. He lit a match and brought it to the canvas, comparing the light intensity of the fire and the light intensity of the painting. But it was...

And now I saw a new, purely Romadin object lesson - how complex true color is in easel painting. How deep the tone is sometimes even in seemingly bright and light places. How elusively complex color is.

I emphasize easel painting as opposed to decorative or monumental painting. Easel painting requires special skill...

The color of such a painting has nothing to do with local exposed paint.

The coloring of the easel paintings is symphonic. It is the fruit of constant labor and observation.

Opening day is approaching. Romadin is worried...

“Artist P.A. Fedotov."

The ominous curved crescent of the month peers into the dark semicircle of the window. Fedotov sits bent over a small easel. In front of him is a begun canvas.

Long after midnight, the candle burns out, and he, having forgotten about everything, writes, writes...

A huge shadow on the wall repeats the movements of the master’s hand. The flickering, smoky light snatched from the darkness a wretched bed, dusty plaster antiques, and simple utensils.

Furious Fedotov writes. The snoring of faithful Korshunov can be heard from the hallway. In this poverty, chaos and darkness, a new picture is born.

Despite the need, hunger, the coming darkness...

True, the artist will be broken, madness and death await him... But his creations will live forever. This is how we see him in Romadin’s painting.

Artist P. A. Fedotov.

Easel painting.

Alexander Ivanov, Fedotov, Surikov, Serov, Levitan. What superhuman efforts it sometimes demands from the artist! Give completely, without reserve, without compromise.

But what true happiness, what complete satisfaction it gives to the creator!

"Umba River".

Lead, blue, evil. White foam. She's angry for good reason. It is difficult to overcome the rapids on the way to the White Sea. And the sea is nearby. The river roars, huge boulders move, stones rattle. The wind bends the spruce, tears off shreds of foam from the crests of the waves. On the shore is the village of Umba. On a high steep mountain there is a pine forest.

Wild places,” says Romadin, who approaches. - There are plenty of bears, but no wolves.

"Forest Lake".

The gray paws of the fir trees stretched over the dark glass of water. The dense green lace of the dense forest beckons you to wander through the thicket and listen to the whispers of the Berendeyev Forest.

What kind of animals are there here! Of these, the lynx is the most dangerous. Not counting Toptygin... And look at how different they ate. How the mountain ash burns. In the undergrowth there is sticky alder. When I was writing the sketch, a squirrel kept hovering over me. Teased, tsked.

... Many great Russian painters painted boron. Victor and Apollinary Vasnetsov, Nesterov, Shishkin. Each in their own way.

And Romadin has his own special language.

No one, like him, can, while maintaining a lyrical state, with an excellent sense of the picturesque environment, so brilliantly write intimate details that are so characteristic of the nature of Russia.

Look at the golden rain of leaves, at the lights of the rowan bush, at the prickly needles of the spruce trees.

We continue our way through the halls.

"At the village council."

Night. The ashen moonlight dissolved the blue darkness. There are two sledges near the snow-covered hut of the village council.

The dejected horses were frozen.

It’s high time for them to be in a warm stall. But the owners are sitting. Apparently they have urgent matters to attend to.

Pale yellow windows are burning. The snow creaks under the horses' hooves...

The stars shimmer and twinkle in the night sky.

Forest Lake.

You see, the star has fallen. This is Eternity... - said Romadin. - There are different states in humans and in nature too. Here is one of my favorite paintings...

His face, immensely tired, becomes kind, the small wrinkles on his forehead suddenly smooth out.

"Spring Air"

Kerzhenets. High water. The forest was flooded. Near the small island there is a bee-tree made from aspen.

The artist sailed on it.

Here he is sitting under a huge umbrella and diligently writing. The picture is filled with indescribable grace. The humid air trembles in the rays of the spring sun.

What a joy it is to wander around Russia and see the beautiful world. Work, write and try to convey this beauty to people... True, not everyone accepts this.

Just the other day one figure told me:

“You have no topic, Comrade Romadin.”

Well, what can you do?

The master's eyes became sad. Deep wrinkles gathered at the bridge of the nose. This was not the first time he had heard such speeches.

Romadin is an easel painter.

This quality, which was quite ordinary in the recent past, is now acquiring a new significant meaning.

The fact is that today some artists have lost their taste for easel painting.

They prefer decorative, generally monumental painting to it.

There is no doubt that this art form can be beautiful.

But why suddenly there was talk again about the extinction of easel painting, about its supposed lack of modernity?

Small paintings by Romadin. The manner of his writing, subtle, valuable, inherent only in easel painting, is revered not only by sophisticated art connoisseurs, but also by the mass audience.

“Have mercy! - a strict critic may exclaim. -What are you calling for? Romadin is an easel painter. Well, God bless him! Such were Savrasov and Kuindzhi. His landscape motifs were found in Shishkin and Rylov. Where is the new one?

However, despite the “old-fashioned” nature of Romadin, I would like to emphasize the modernity and civic spirit of his lyre.

At the village council.

Because it is today that art that glorifies nature, instills in people a love for beauty, for the Motherland, for its fields and groves, lakes and forests, is especially dear and necessary.

In soil science (forgive me for my frank prosaism) there is the concept of erosion - weathering.

This is not only a natural phenomenon.

The phenomenon of erosion, that is, weathering, is also very typical of the processes occurring in modern art and culture of the West, where the erosion of beauty has become the scourge of time, the curse of the 20th century.

Destruction, weathering of beauty, the cult of ugliness, cruelty, and cynicism lead to the loss of love for beauty, for life, for nature, for the Motherland.

This is how the most terrible of erosions occurs - the erosion of the spirit.

This is an epidemic phenomenon...

It's time to get back to painting.

Fortunately, the roots of realistic traditions in our art are quite strong and there is every reason to assume a new rise in easel realistic painting. This is guaranteed by the work of talented craftsmen at exhibitions.

In the world of art, as indeed throughout the vast world, there is a fierce struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, beauty and ugliness.

And that is why such, at first glance, peaceful and, it seemed, almost old-fashioned landscapes of Romadin turned out to be very modern, military means of waging a great battle for Man, for the Beautiful, against decay and cynicism.

This is the calling of true art.

Such is the heavy duty of talent!

Nikolai Romadin is infinitely strong in his “knot”, in his ardent, sublime love for the Motherland, for its beautiful, majestic nature.

In the painter’s landscapes, the pale dawns of the northern white nights burn, crimson sunsets blaze in mighty pine forests, scarlet bonfires of shepherds blaze, cold stars flicker in the bottomless sky, and the irrepressible floods of mighty rivers seethe.

Rus'... original, pure, proud.

The transparent eyes of the Princess River, cornflower blue dawns, golden afternoons, the dull clatter of horses in the night, the lacy ligature of young birch groves, the charm of glowing ripe rowan bushes.

A special, Romadin-like charm, a magical, secret found by him alone, emanates from all his canvases.

And the secret of the charm of Romadin’s muse is not in the special intricacy of the motives.

The painter's lyre is simple-minded and melodious, but it contains the entire abyss of poetry, sincere love and the delight of knowledge that cannot be expressed in words. Nikolai Romadin, impetuous, irrepressible, proudly walks across his father’s land as a faithful son, searching, earnestly collecting and capturing the precious signs of the face of his mother Motherland, the owner of his favorite places...

Take a look at the canvases of the artist Romadin.

Take a closer look, and a sea of ​​poetry will open before you... The Milky Way sparkles and shimmers with precious stones of stars. It lies across the entire sky, and myriads of luminaries flicker, illuminating the path of the poet, the artist - the eternal wanderer...

Then we see the lead breakers of our heroic rivers, in which there is rage and kindness, strength and tenderness; Then we look, as if into an enchanted mirror, into the quiet backwaters of forest lakes, framed by a thin web of fragile branches with flashes of rare inflorescences.

... The pillows are crumpled, the blanket is thrown off, the lamp is burning out, the ashen, cold dawn looks out the window. “Insomnia”... This canvas contains piercing sadness, loneliness and thoughts of the poet-painter.

... The crimson beauty of a spring evening, pink, crimson rays of dawn glide through an openwork tangle of thin branches, cold blue, lilac shadows run across the melted snow, somewhere high in the golden pre-sunset sky a crimson cloud melts...

"Yeseninsky evening".

It is filled with some special, resonating silence, in which there is both hidden sadness and quiet joy of expectation of something unknown, desired... All the complexity and versatility of the metaphorical poetic structure is hidden in this landscape-monologue.

Yesenin evening.

The great ability to listen and remember the music of the landscape and embody it in plastically perfect images is an amazing property of Romadin’s talent. Take a closer look at the snow-white expanse of his winter canvases, and you will hear all the polyphony, all the unique music of the frosty vast expanses, where there is the singing of the mischievous wind, and the creaking of runners, and the ringing of the bells of the dashing troika. Rus…

A country that has no equal in the vastness of its freedom, in the height of the turquoise ringing sky, in the gigantic power of slowly floating white-sailed clouds, and all this magical movement is contained in Romadin’s canvas poems. Looking at them, you begin to understand his personal interpretation of Gogol’s lyrics, incomprehensible in their subtlety and power, and Gogol’s sense of the Motherland.

Sometimes, in front of Romadin’s landscapes, I cannot leave the feeling of flying, soaring over the expanses of Russia - so amazing is the magical crystal of the master’s imagination, forcing us for a moment to become a bird and see the world differently, to soar with the painter and take in all the incomprehensible beauty of our land, even more sharply feel an ardent commitment to the Fatherland.

Romadin's song is truly boundless.

It contains the untouched, virgin greenery of the May first blossom, and the enchanting warm lights of December evenings, when the purple silence suddenly acquires a human sound of habitability and soulfulness.

The sensations of Romadin’s interiors are incredible in their penetration and complexity - sometimes fiery and thick with deep shadows, sometimes silvery-light and melodious, inviting us to daydream, to read in a new way the lines of Tyutchev, Fet, Pushkin himself...

The desire to understand poetry, to read the poetry of our great poets, is achieved by Romadin not by plot similarity, not by an attempt to write an outwardly similar genre.

The coloring, the picturesque series of paintings by the master of association, metaphors - this is the artist’s element, calls us to this lyrical state, and we involuntarily fall into captivity of his talent, powerful and subtle, wise and childishly enthusiastic.

No illustration!

Only the world of high poetics - these are the facets of Romadin’s talent, so unlike anyone else.

The painter Romadin returns to us, city dwellers, the pristine beauty of nature.

And we get a rare pleasure admiring the landscapes of Romadin, feel the rustle of spring foliage, inhale the bitter smell of the smoke of autumn fires, admire the multicolored spicy fragrant meadows and the fluffy frost that decorates the white-trunked birch trees with lace.

Looking at the artist’s canvases, we involuntarily become familiar with the poetry of the Russian landscape, we remember the immortal lines of Pushkin, Tyutchev, Yesenin, Turgenev, Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, we hear the beautiful music of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, in a word, we touch the primordial roots of our ancient Russian culture .

But Romadin is a child of his century.

It would be wrong to imagine the painter as a monk wandering through the forest wilderness and not seeing the rapid changes in the appearance of our land, buzzing with construction, the roar of steel tracks, not noticing the new quarters of old cities.

Nikolai Mikhailovich is a peer and contemporary of Deineka, Pimenov, Nyssa, masters who showed the transformed face of the country in their paintings.

Romadin chose a noble and difficult path - to glorify the eternal beauty of our Motherland, and today we feel with particular acuteness the need to preserve protected nature, which gives a person health, spiritual freshness and strength, life itself...

We really need true paintings, landmark paintings that artistically comprehend the grandiose changes in our country, but this in no way denies instilling in our multi-million-strong viewer a high sense of beauty, love and respect for our national wealth - forests, fields, lakes, rivers - expressed in small easel canvases with such an intimate and spiritually close name to every heart - landscapes of the Fatherland.

NIKOLAI EZHOV On March 10, 1939, the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) opened in Moscow. The so-called excesses during the “purges” in the party were sharply criticized, and the question was raised “about violations of socialist legality in law enforcement agencies.” With a report on this

NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH GE (1831–1894) “A picture is not a word,” said Ge. “She gives one minute, and in this minute everything should be, but if not, there is no picture.” Ge’s work is imbued with a passionate protest against oppression and suppression of the human personality. The image of a suffering person