Paintings from the Russian Museum about the mother. “The most beautiful word on earth is mother”: a gallery of paintings by Russian artists. The image of abandoned parents in Russian literature

04.07.2020

Even in oral poetry, the image of a mother acquired the captivating features of a keeper of the hearth, a capable and faithful wife, a protector of her own children and an invariable caretaker for all the disadvantaged, insulted and offended. These defining qualities of the mother's soul are reflected and sung in Russian folk tales and folk songs. The people always honored the Mother! It is no coincidence that people also have many good, affectionate words about their mother. We don’t know who said them for the first time, but they are very often repeated in life and passed on from generation to generation. These are tales and epics about how women-mothers saved their children and their relatives. One such example is Avdotya Ryazanochka from a folk tale about the courage of a simple woman-mother. This epic is remarkable in that it was not a man-warrior, but a woman-mother, who “won the battle with the horde.” She stood up to defend her relatives, and thanks to her courage and intelligence, Ryazan did not “go to ruin.” Here it is - the immortality of true poetry, here it is - the enviable length of its existence in time!

Numerous proverbs and sayings about mother describe the most sincere, deepest feelings for a loved one.

Wherever the mother goes, so goes the child.

The mother feeds her children like the earth does people.

Mother’s anger is like spring snow: a lot of it falls, but it will soon melt.

A person has one natural mother, and he has one Motherland.

The native land is the mother, the foreign side is the stepmother.

The bird is happy about spring, and the baby is happy about its mother.

There is no sweeter friend than your own mother.

He who has a uterus has a smooth head.

It's warm in the sun, good in mother's presence.

The mother's prayer from the day of the sea takes out (takes out).

He who honors his mother and father will never perish.

A mother's blessing does not sink in water and does not burn in fire.

Without a father, you are half an orphan, and without a mother, you are an entire orphan.

You can find bird's milk even in a fairy tale, but you won't find another father or mother in a fairy tale.

A blind puppy crawls towards its mother.

The mother's word is not spoken past.

There are many relatives, but my mother is dearest of all.

Living with your mother means neither sorrow nor boredom.

God rules by the mother's word.

Not the father-mother who gave birth, but the one who gave him water, fed him and taught him goodness.

A mother beats as if she were stroking, and a stranger strokes as if she were beating.

Without mother, the dear one and the flowers bloom colorlessly.

My dear mother is an unquenchable candle.

Warm, warm, but not summer; good, good, but not my own mother.

A mother's heart warms better than the sun.

And how much has been written about mother, how many poems, songs, wonderful thoughts and sayings!

The child recognizes his mother by her smile.

Lev Tolstoy

Mom is the most beautiful word spoken by a person.

Kyle Gibran

Everything beautiful in a person comes from the rays of the sun and from the Mother's milk...

Maksim Gorky

I do not know a brighter image than a mother, and a heart more capacious for love than a mother’s heart.

Maksim Gorky

This is the great purpose of a woman - to be a mother, a homemaker.

V. Belov

There is nothing more sacred and selfless than the love of a Mother; every attachment, every love, every passion is either weak or self-interested in comparison with it.

V. Belinsky.

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

Peter de Vries

There is no such flower in the world, nor in any field, nor in the sea, such a pearl as a child on its mother’s lap.

O. Wild

The Lord cannot keep up everywhere at the same time, and that is why he created mothers.

Mario Pioso

There is a holy word - Mother.

Omar Khayyam

A person who was his mother's undisputed favorite carries through his entire life a feeling of victory and confidence in luck, which often lead to real success.

Z. Freud

There is nothing that a mother's love cannot withstand.

Paddock

The future of the nation is in the hands of mothers.

O. Balzac

A mother's heart is an abyss, in the depths of which forgiveness will always be found.

O. Balzac

Give us better mothers and we will be better people.

J.-P. Richter

For some reason, many women think that having a child and becoming a mother are the same thing. One could just as well say that having a piano and being a pianist are one and the same thing.

S. Harris

A great feeling, we keep it alive in our souls until the end. / We love our sister and wife and father, / But in agony we remember our mother.

ON THE. Nekrasov

We will forever glorify that woman whose name is Mother.

M. Jalil

Motherhood ennobles a woman when she gives up everything, renounces, sacrifices everything for the sake of the child.

J. Korczak

A real woman-mother is gentle, like the petal of a newly blossoming flower, and firm, courageous, unbending to evil and merciless, like a just sword.

V. Sukhomlinsky

Motherhood is both a great joy and a great knowledge of life. Giving back, but also retribution. There is probably no more sacred meaning of existence in the world than raising a worthy loved one next to you.

Ch. Aitmatov

The most beautiful word on earth is mother. This is the first word that a person utters, and it sounds equally gentle in all languages. Mom has the kindest and most affectionate hands, they can do everything. Mom has the most loyal and sensitive heart - love never fades in it, it does not remain indifferent to anything. And no matter how old you are, you always need your mother, her affection, her gaze. And the greater your love for your mother. The more joyful and brighter life is.

Z. Voskresenskaya

Mother... The dearest and closest person. She gave life, gave a happy childhood. A mother's heart, like the sun, shines always and everywhere, warming us with its warmth. She is your best friend, a wise adviser. Mother is a guardian angel. It is no coincidence that many writers and poets, when creating their works, drew inspiration from memories of childhood, home, and mother.

Surprisingly, all his life he kept as a gift the lullaby that his mother sang to him in early childhood, the Russian poet M.Yu. Lermontov. This was reflected in his poem “An Angel Flew Across the Midnight Sky” and in “Cossack Lullaby”. In it, the power of maternal love blesses and guides a small child, conveying to him folk ideals as a revelation in the simplest and most uncomplicated words. Lermontov deeply felt the wisdom, the power of maternal feeling, which guides a person from the first minutes of his life. It is no coincidence that the loss of his mother in early childhood had such a painful impact on the poet’s mind.

The theme of the mother was truly profound in the poetry of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. Closed and reserved by nature, Nekrasov literally could not find enough vivid words and strong expressions to appreciate the role of his mother in his life. Both young and old, Nekrasov always spoke about his mother with love and admiration. Such an attitude towards her, in addition to the usual sons of affection, undoubtedly stemmed from the consciousness of what he owed her:

And if I easily shake off the years
There are noxious traces from my soul,
Having trampled everything reasonable with her feet,
Proud of the ignorance of the environment,
And if I filled my life with struggle
For the ideal of goodness and beauty,
And carries the song composed by me,
Living love has deep features -
Oh, my mother, I am moved by you!
You saved the living soul in me!
(From the poem "Mother")

In the poem “Mother,” Nekrasov recalls that as a child, thanks to his mother, he became acquainted with the images of Dante and Shakespeare. She taught him love and compassion for those “whose ideal is diminished grief,” that is, for the serfs. The image of a woman-mother is also vividly presented by Nekrasov in his other works “In full swing of the village suffering”, “Orina, the soldier’s mother”.

Listening to the horrors of war,

With every new casualty of the battle

I feel sorry for not my friend, not my wife,

I'm sorry not for the hero himself...

Alas! the wife will be comforted,

And the best friend will forget his friend.

But somewhere there is one soul -

She will remember it to the grave!

Among our hypocritical deeds

And all sorts of vulgarity and prose

I've spied the only ones in the world

Holy, sincere tears -

Those are the tears of poor mothers!

They will not forget their children,

Those who died in the bloody field,

How not to pick up a weeping willow

Its drooping branches...

“Who will protect you?” - the poet addresses in one of his poems. He understands that, besides him, there is no one else to say a word about the sufferer of the Russian land, whose feat is invisible, but great!

Nekrasov traditions in the depiction of the bright image of a peasant mother in the lyrics of Sergei Yesenin. The bright image of the poet’s mother runs through Yesenin’s work. Endowed with individual traits, it grows into a generalized image of a Russian woman, appearing even in the poet’s youthful poems, as a fairy-tale image of one who not only gave the whole world, but also made her happy with the gift of song. This image also takes on the concrete earthly appearance of a peasant woman busy with everyday affairs: “The mother can’t cope with the grips, she bends low...”. Loyalty, constancy of feeling, heartfelt devotion, inexhaustible patience are generalized and poeticized by Yesenin in the image of his mother. "Oh, my patient mother!" - this exclamation escaped him not by chance: a son brings a lot of excitement, but the mother’s heart forgives everything. This is how Yesenin’s frequent motive of his son’s guilt arises. On his trips, he constantly remembers his native village: it is dear to the memory of his youth, but most of all he is drawn there by his mother, who yearns for her son. The “sweet, kind, old, gentle” mother is seen by the poet “at the parental dinner.” The mother is worried - her son has not been home for a long time. How is he there, in the distance? The son tries to reassure her in letters: “The time will come, dear, dear!” In the meantime, “evening untold light” flows over the mother’s hut. The son, “still just as gentle,” “dreams only about returning to our low house as soon as possible out of rebellious melancholy.” In “Letter to a Mother,” filial feelings are expressed with piercing artistic force: “You alone are my help and joy, you alone are my unspeakable light.”

Yesenin was 19 years old when, with amazing insight, he sang in the poem “Rus” the sadness of maternal expectation - “waiting for gray-haired mothers.” The sons became soldiers, the tsarist service took them to the bloody fields of the world war. Rarely, rarely do they come from “doodles, drawn with such difficulty,” but everyone is waiting for them in “frail huts,” warmed by a mother’s heart. Yesenin can be placed next to Nekrasov, who sang “the tears of poor mothers.”

They will not forget their children,
Those who died in the bloody field,
How not to pick up a weeping willow
Of its drooping branches.

These lines from the distant 19th century remind us of the bitter cry of the mother, which we hear in Anna Andreevna Akhmatova’s poem “Requiem”. Akhmatova spent 17 months in prison lines in connection with the arrest of her son, Lev Gumilyov: he was arrested three times: in 1935, 1938 and 1949.

I've been screaming for seventeen months,
I'm calling you home...
Everything's messed up forever
And I can't make it out
Now, who is the beast, who is the man,
And how long will it be to wait for execution?

The suffering of the mother is associated with the state of the Virgin Mary; the suffering of a son is with the torment of Christ crucified on the cross.

Magdalene fought and cried,
The beloved student turned to stone,
And where Mother stood silently,
So no one dared to look.

The mother's grief is boundless and inexpressible, her loss is irreplaceable, because this is her only son.

The image of the mother occupies a special place in the work of Marina Tsvetaeva. Not only poetry, but also prose is dedicated to her: “Mother and Music”, “Mother’s Tale”. In Tsvetaeva’s autobiographical essays and letters one can find many references to Maria Alexandrovna. The poem “To Mom” (collection “Evening Album”) is also dedicated to her memory. It is very important for the author to emphasize the spiritual influence of a mother on her daughters. A subtle and deep nature, artistically gifted, she introduced them to the world of beauty. From her earliest years, music for Tsvetaeva was identical to her mother’s voice: “In the old Straussian waltz for the first time / We heard your quiet call.” “Mother is the lyrical element itself,” writes Tsvetaeva.

“Passion for poetry comes from my mother.” Thanks to her, art has become a kind of second reality for children, sometimes more desirable. The soul, Maria Alexandrovna was convinced, must be able to resist everything ugly and bad. Tirelessly leaning towards children's dreams (Without you, I only looked at them for a month!), You led your little ones past the Bitter life of thoughts and deeds. The mother taught the children to feel pain - their own and that of others, and managed to turn them away from the lies and falsehood of external manifestations, giving them early wisdom: “From an early age, those who are sad are close to us, / Laughter is boring...”. Such a moral attitude gave rise to inner restlessness, the inability to be satisfied with everyday well-being: “Our ship does not set sail at a good moment / And sails at the will of all the winds!” The Mother Muse was tragic. In 1914, Tsvetaeva wrote to V.V. Rozanov: “Her tormented soul lives in us - only we reveal what she hid. Her rebellion, her madness, her thirst reached us to the point of screaming.” The load taken on the shoulders was heavy, but it also constituted the main wealth of the young soul. The spiritual inheritance bequeathed by the mother meant depth of experience, brightness and acuteness of feelings and, of course, nobility of heart. As Tsvetaeva admitted, she owes all the best in herself to her mother.

In the autobiographical novel “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” S.T. Aksakov wrote: “The constant presence of my mother merges with my every memory. Her image is inextricably linked with my existence, and therefore it does not stand out much in the fragmentary pictures of the first time of my childhood, although it constantly participates in them.”

I remember the bedroom and the lamp,
Toys, warm bed

……………………………….

You will cross, kiss,

I remember, I remember your voice!

Lamp in the dark corner
And the shadows from the chains of the lamp...
Were you not an angel?

Appeal to the mother, tenderness, gratitude to her, later repentance, admiration for her courage, patience - the main theme of the lyrics, which always remains relevant, regardless of the century in which the true poet works.

The image of the mother becomes central in Tvardovsky’s poetic world and rises from the private - dedications to one’s own mother - to the universal and highest aspect of motherhood in Russian poetry - the image of the Motherland. The most important for the poet motives of memory, native places (small homeland), filial duty and filial gratitude are combined precisely in the image of the mother, and this connection is a separate theme in his work. Tvardovsky described the real fate of his mother in the 1935 poem “You came with one beauty to my husband's house..." The story of one fate takes place against the background of history in general, the plot of private life against the background of the general life of the country. It was not for nothing that Tvardovsky called himself a prose writer: in this poem he consistently tells the story of his mother’s life, without comparisons, metaphors, or bright rhymes. In this vein, poems about the mothers of new Soviet heroes arise (“Sailor”, “Flight”, “Son”, “Mother and son”, “You timidly lift him up...”). The best thing in this series of poems from the 30s is “You timidly lift him up...”, where a genuine image of the hero’s mother is created. During the war years, the image of the mother becomes more significant in Tvardovsky’s work, but now the image of the mother is equated with the image of the universal Motherland, the country, being correlated with the images of ordinary peasant women. The complete movement of the image of the mother into the area of memory occurs in the cycle “In Memory of the Mother,” written in 1965 year. There is no mother image here as such; here the mother lives only in the memory of her son, and therefore his feelings are revealed more than the image of the mother, who has become disembodied. This poem is the last where the image of the mother appears, it completes the maternal line in Tvardovsky’s poetry, and itself becomes the song that “in memory alive,” in which the image of the mother, and the poet’s own mother, and the generalized image of motherhood: peasant women, workers, women with a difficult fate, are forever alive.

The image of the mother has always carried the features of drama. And he began to look even more tragic against the backdrop of the terrible in its brutality of the Great Patriotic War. Who has suffered more than a mother at this time? There are many books about this. Of these, the books of mothers E. Kosheva “The Tale of a Son”, Kosmodemyanskaya “The Tale of Zoya and Shura”...

Can you really tell me about this?
What years did you live in?
What an immeasurable burden
It fell on women's shoulders!
(M, Isakovsky).

Vasily Grossman's mother died in 1942 at the hands of fascist executioners. In 1961, 19 years after his mother's death, his son wrote her a letter. It was preserved in the archives of the writer’s widow. “When I die, you will live in the book that I dedicated to you and whose fate is similar to yours.” And that hot tear shed by the writer for his old mother burns our hearts and leaves a scar of memory on them.

War is the main theme of some of Ch. Aitmatov’s works, as in the story “Mother’s Field”. In it, Aitmatov’s image of his mother is multi-valued. Firstly, this is the mother who gave birth to the child (the heroine of the story Tolgonai sent her three sons to the war and lost all three). Secondly, the people’s mother: remembering her children, Tolgonai is proud and understands that “maternal happiness comes from the people’s happiness.”A red thread runs through the thought of the power of maternal love, as capable of uniting, making relatives, and resurrecting: “I swallowed the bread with tears and thought: “Bread of immortality, do you hear, my son Kasim! And life is immortal, and work is immortal!”

Ivan Bunin writes very reverently and tenderly about his mother in his works. He compares her bright appearance to a heavenly angel:

I remember the bedroom and the lamp,
Toys, warm bed
And your sweet, meek voice:
“Guardian angel above you!”
……………………………….

You will cross, kiss,
Remind me that he is with me,
And with faith in happiness you will charm...
I remember, I remember your voice!

I remember the night, the warmth of the crib,
Lamp in the dark corner
And the shadows from the chains of the lamp...
Were you not an angel?

8 May 2015, 15:32

In different parts of the former Soviet Union, a few monuments have been erected to mothers who did not receive their sons from the front.

In the village of Alekseevka, Kinelsky district, Samara region, on May 7, 1995, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, a grand opening took place memorial to the Volodichkin family. The mother of warriors, Praskovya Eremeevna Volodichkina, stands surrounded by nine cranes, as a symbol of expectation and faith. Nine cranes are nine sons who gave their lives in the name of Victory. Praskovya Eremeevna Volodichkina escorted her nine sons to the front. The woman was left alone - her husband died back in 1935. Before the war, the mother did not even have time to say goodbye to the youngest - Nikolai. Having finished his service in Transbaikalia, he was supposed to return home, but he still drove past his native place, only throwing a note rolled up from the window of the car: “Mom, dear mother. Don't worry, don't worry. Don't worry. We're going to the front. Let's defeat the fascists and everyone will return to you. Wait. Yours Kolka.” He never returned. As did his other five brothers. After the sixth funeral in January 1945, the mother’s heart could not stand the loss. Three of her sons returned from the front seriously wounded. From a huge family in which, if not for the war, there were many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, there was no one left.

Anastasia Akatievna Larionova, a resident of the village of Mikhailovka, Sargat district, Omsk region, saw off her seven sons to the front: Gregory, Panteleius, Procopius, Peter, Fedor, Mikhail, Nikolai. All of them died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. For her maternal feat, on June 22, 2002, in the regional center of Sargatskoye, she was erected a concrete monument, which was dedicated to all Russian mothers who lost their sons during the war. The monument represents the figure of a woman who is depicted standing at the gate in simple formal clothes. The mournful face is framed by a scarf, grief is imprinted in the wrinkles of the forehead. The eyes are directed into the distance in the hope of seeing the native silhouettes of the children. The left hand is pressed tightly to the heart to contain its pain. On May 9, 2010, on the day of the 65th anniversary of the Victory, the concrete monument was replaced by its exact copy, but made of bronze.

In November 2010, on the initiative of employees of the rural library of the Sokolovsky rural settlement of the Gulkevichsky district of the Krasnodar Territory, a monument to a mother of many children was erected at the burial site Efrosinya Babenko, all four of whose sons died on the battlefields during the Great Patriotic War. The woman herself died 15 years after the end of the war; she had no relatives or friends left.

In 1975, in Zhodino (Republic of Belarus) near the Brest-Moscow road, a monument to the Patriot Mother was unveiled, the prototype of which was Anastasia Fominichna Kursevich (Kuprianova), who lost five sons during the Great Patriotic War. The sculptural composition represents the moment of farewell to a mother and her sons, who are leaving along a symbolic path to protect the Motherland, free their home from the enemy, and return peace and happiness to all mothers on Earth. The youngest son Petya, his mother’s favorite, looked back in her direction for the last time...

Monument to mother Tatyana Nikolaevna Nikolaeva, who lost six of her eight sons in the war. The village of Izederkino, Morgaushsky district, Chuvashia. Tatyana Nikolaevna gave birth to and raised 8 sons. Grigory, Alexander, Rodion, Frol, Mikhail, Egor, Ivan, Pavel took part in the Great Patriotic War. Grigory, Egor, Ivan, Pavel died in battle. Frol and Rodion died soon after the war from their wounds. In May 1984, a monument to the glorious Chuvash mother T.N. Nikolaeva was unveiled in her native village. She was included in the Honorary Book of Labor Glory and Heroism of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1978.

Monument Kalista Pavlovna Soboleva in the distant Arkhangelsk village of Shakhanovka, Shenkursky district. In 2004, an article was published in the newspaper Pravda Severa: “In our region, in the Shenkursky district, in the village of Shakhanovka, there lived a woman whose name you should also know well. This is Kalista Pavlovna Soboleva, whose sons did not return from the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War. Kalista Pavlovna did not receive a single blood of her own - from 1905 to 1925. Having learned about the Victory, she put seven photographs on the table, filled seven glasses with bitters, invited her fellow villagers to remember her sons - Kuzma, Ivan, Andrey, Nikita, Pavel, Stepan, Joseph... Kalista Pavlovna lived poorly, walked in bast shoes. She worked on a collective farm and was awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945." Like all collective farmers, she did not receive a pension for a long time, only in Khrushchev’s time they began to pay her six rubles a month, then 12, and then 18. Her fellow countrymen sympathized with her, helped her plant and dig potatoes. She died in the mid-sixties. "

In 2004, a monument was erected on the central square in the Omsk region in the village of Krutinki Akulina Semyonovna Shmarina, mother of five sons who died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War.

In Zadonsk - a monument to the mother Maria Matveevna Frolova. Diagonally from the monastery, in a public garden, near the monastery hotel, there is a sculptural group - the Sorrowful Mother and a number of obelisks with the names of her sons. Mikhail, Dmitry, Konstantin, Tikhon, Vasily, Leonid, Nikolai, Peter... This Russian woman-mother, who raised and raised 12 children, had eight sons taken away by the war.

A monument was erected in the village of Bub, Perm Territory Yakovleva Matryona Ivanovna. During the war, she sold everything she had: house, livestock, things. She came to the village council with a bag of money (100 thousand rubles) with the words: “Buy an airplane with this money. My sons are fighting, we need to help.” We bought the plane. The sons did not return from the war, not one. And for the rest of her life, Matryona Ivanovna lived in the houses of fellow villagers in turn; everyone was honored that she would live in their house. The monument to Matryona Ivanovna was erected by fellow villagers.

The personification of all mother-heroines was the Kuban peasant woman Epistinia Stepanova, who placed on the altar of Victory the most precious thing she had - the lives of her nine sons: Alexander, Nikolai, Vasily, Philip, Fyodor, Ivan, Ilya, Pavel and Alexander.

Marshal of the Soviet Union A. A. Grechko and Army General A. A. Epishev wrote to her in 1966:

“You raised and educated nine sons, blessed nine of the people dearest to you to perform feats of arms in the name of the Soviet Fatherland. With their military deeds, they brought the day of our Great Victory over our enemies closer and glorified their names. ...You, the soldier's mother, are called by the soldiers their mother. They send you the filial warmth of their hearts; they bow their knees before you, a simple Russian woman.”

In Kuban, in the village of Dneprovskaya, a museum has been opened. It bears the name of the Stepanov brothers. People also call it the Museum of the Russian Mother. After the war, the mother gathered all her sons here. The things that are stored in it can hardly be called the museum word “exhibits”. Each item speaks of maternal love and filial tenderness. Everything that the mother took care of is collected here: Vasily’s violin, a notebook with Ivan’s poems, a handful of earth from Sasha’s grave... Addresses to the mother are full of filial love and care: “I think about you a lot, I live mentally with you, dear mother. I often remember my home, my family.”

In recent years, Epistinia Fedorovna, a personal pensioner of union importance, lived in Rostov-on-Don, in the family of her only daughter, teacher Valentina Mikhailovna Korzhova. She died there on February 7, 1969. The soldier’s mother was buried in the village of Dneprovskaya, Timashevsky district, Krasnodar Territory, with full military honors, where her sons were also “placed” in a symbolic mass grave. Soon a whole memorial dedicated to the Stepanovs appeared there. Equating her maternal feat to a military one, the Motherland awarded Epistinia Fedorovna Stepanova the Military Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

In the big arms of a tired mother
Her last son was dying.
The field winds quietly stroked
His silver flax is gray.
Tunic with the collar open
There are stains on it.
From severe wounds
In wet plowing
His blood fell like fire.
- Didn’t I cherish you, son?
Didn’t I take care of you, dear?..
The eyes are clear
These white curls
Gave me heroic strength.
I thought that holidays would come together in life...
You were my last joy!
And now your eyes are closed,
White light in eyelashes
Became not nice. -
Seeing her sad tear,
Surrounded the mother among the fields
Nine troubles that broke the Russian heart,
Nine sons killed in battle.
Tanks froze, torn apart by thunder,
The rein horses took over.
...A mother stood up in the village on the main square
And petrified forever.
(Ivan Varabbas)

A huge number of books, musical works have been written on the topic of the Great Patriotic War, and many films have been shot.
This topic is truly inexhaustible, because it has turned the lives of several tens of millions of people upside down and divided it into “before” and “after”.

Unfortunately, not all mothers, wives and daughters waited for their sons, husbands, fathers from the front, from the battlefields.
I believe that paintings or other artistic means can convey only a small part of the pain and suffering that people had to endure in those years.

One of these destinies formed the basis of V. Igoshev’s painting “She’s Still Waiting for Her Son.”
It shows an elderly woman standing at the open gate of her old house.
Her eyes are full of longing, sadness, expectation, suffering.
I think she's been in this position for a long time.
Every day a woman goes to this place in the hope that her beloved son will return, safe and sound.
She invariably looks into the distance, but, unfortunately, the miracle does not happen.
Perhaps she herself understands that there is no point in suffering and waiting, but she can’t help herself.
The whole meaning of her post-war life boils down to this.

Behind the grandmother's back is a house with a clean, open window.
There are flowers on the windowsill, and the frames are painted blue.
The woman tries as best she can to keep it in good condition, but every year it becomes more and more difficult for her to do this.
Next to the window, the author painted thin white birch trees, as if reminding us that we need to live on, no matter what.

Despite the tragedy of the picture, the woman is shown in a white blouse and scarf, and a black skirt.
From under the scarf we see the heroine’s gray hair.
Her face is wrinkled and her eyes are narrowed.
We can only guess what thoughts are visiting her gray-haired head at this moment.
Maybe she remembers how her son went to the front, how he grew up... In any case, her thoughts are only about one thing - about her own, only child, whom she will never see again.

Religious themes are quite popular among Raphael's contemporaries. However, the main difference between this picture and similar ones is its fullness of lively emotions combined with a rather simple plot.

Composition

The focus is on the female figure of Madonna, who is holding her little son in her arms. The girl’s face is full of a certain sadness, as if she knows in advance what awaits her son in the future, but the baby, on the contrary, shows bright, positive emotions.

The Virgin with the newborn Savior in her arms walks not on the floor, but on the clouds, which symbolizes her ascension. After all, it was she who brought Blessing to the land of sinners! The face of a mother with a child in her arms is bright and thought out to the smallest detail, and if you look closely at the baby’s face, you will notice an adult expression, despite his very young age.

By depicting the Divine child and his mother as human and simple as possible, but at the same time walking on clouds, the author emphasized the fact that regardless of whether it is a divine son or a human one, we are all born the same way. Thus, the artist conveyed the idea that only with righteous thoughts and goals is it possible to find a suitable place for oneself in Heaven.

Technique, execution, techniques

A world-class masterpiece, this painting contains completely incompatible things, like the human mortal body and the sacredness of the spirit. The contrast is complemented by bright colors and clean lines of detail. There are no unnecessary elements, the background is pale and contains images of other light spirits or singing angels behind the Madonna.

Next to the woman and baby are saints who bow before the Savior and his mother - the high priest and Saint Barbara. But they seem to emphasize the equality of all the characters in the picture, despite the kneeling pose.

Below are two funny angels, which have become a real symbol not only of this picture, but of the author’s entire work. They are small, and with thoughtful faces from the very bottom of the picture they observe what is happening in the life of the Madonna, her extraordinary son and people.

The picture still causes a lot of controversy among experts. For example, the fact that there is no consensus on how many fingers are on the pontiff’s hand is considered very interesting. Some people see not five, but six fingers in the picture. It is also interesting that, according to legend, the artist drew Madonna from his mistress Margherita Luti. But it is unknown who the baby was based on, but there is a possibility that the author based the child’s face on an adult.

Vladimir Egorovich Makovsky (1846-1920) was born into a family with rich cultural traditions. His father, E.I. Makovsky, was one of the founders of the famous School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow, from which many outstanding masters of art emerged.

People who were already famous for their contributions to art often gathered in their parents' house - composer M. I. Glinka, writer N. V. Gogol, actor M. S. Shchepkin, artists K. P. Bryullov, V. A. Tropinin and others . Vladimir Yegorovich’s mother played music and sang. So it is not surprising that children who grew up

in an atmosphere of art - besides Vladimir, the family had two more sons and two daughters - they also eventually became creative people. All three brothers became artists, and their younger sister Maria became a singer. Vladimir Yegorovich himself also had a beautiful voice, inherited from his mother, and played the guitar and violin. The boy became interested in drawing early, and this interest later grew into his life's work.

The first drawing lessons to Vladimir Makovsky were taught by the famous artist V. A. Tropinin. Makovsky studied with him later, becoming a student at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. The young man graduated from this educational institution with a silver medal.

In his work, Makovsky devoted a significant place to ordinary people. The artist most often took subjects for his paintings from life, choosing moments when the characters and relationships of people were most clearly revealed. When in 1873 Makovsky received the title of academician for the painting “Solovyov Lovers”, and the painting was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Vienna, the writer F. M. Dostoevsky described it as follows: “... in these small pictures, in my opinion, there is even love to humanity, not only to Russians in particular, but even in general.”

Makovsky was an active participant and was even elected as a member of the board of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, which were organized to make art accessible to the general public. He taught at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow, then at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, and later became its rector. Created several sketches for the painting of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Among the students of V. E. Makovsky are the artists A. E. Arkhipov, V. N. Baksheev, E. M. Cheptsov.

Like most of Makovsky’s works, the painting “Adoptive and Dear Mother” was written based on real events. The painting was purchased by the Samara merchant Shikhobalov, philanthropist and friend of Makovsky. For some time the canvas was in Shikhobalov’s collection, and after the 1917 revolution this collection entered the Samara City Museum. Now this is the Samara Art Museum, the painting is still there.

The author of the painting himself told Shikhobalov that the event depicted in the painting took place in the family of his friend the artist. This family once adopted a boy, the son of a simple peasant woman, and raised him as their own son. But one day the child’s natural mother appeared and laid claim to her son.

The painting emotionally captures the moment when this woman appears. The family was just sitting at the table. The table setting, the interior of the room, and the clothing of family members clearly indicate material wealth. The table is covered with a white tablecloth and expensive dishes are placed on it. The windows have light white curtains and heavy draperies from ceiling to floor. One of the walls, behind the arriving peasant woman, is hung with paintings. The boy's adoptive parents are smartly dressed: the father is in a dark suit, the mother is in a white dress with a large collar trimmed with a lush frill. In addition to the adoptive parents, the boy and his natural mother, in the back of the room there is also an elderly woman in a white cap and a light dress, over which a large black shawl is draped - probably this is the child’s nanny.

The artist vividly depicted the shock experienced by the adoptive mother and nanny, and by the child himself. The nanny clasped her hands, the foster mother frantically clutched the child to herself. And the boy himself, judging by the way he clings to his adoptive mother and looks distrustfully and fearfully at his own mother, is clearly not eager to leave the house that he is accustomed to consider his own. And this is not just a matter of wealth, although it is obvious, of course, that the boy is well fed and clothed. There is a wicker chair with a napkin at the table - apparently, this is usually the boy’s place at the table. He probably has his own room and toys, the likes of which peasant children have never even seen. But the main thing is that the boy is loved here, he has become family to these people who care about him. And he got used to them and loved them, considered them his parents. It is unknown whether he remembers his birth mother; judging by the way he clung to his adoptive mother, it is unlikely that this woman who suddenly appeared in the house is just a strange aunt for him; it is unclear why she wants to pick him up and take him to God knows where.

The peasant woman, the child’s own mother, does not seem to feel much embarrassment because she broke into someone else’s house, once left her son, and now, in fact, is invading his happy life, rudely breaking it. It is unknown what prompted her to come for the child. Her face does not express any feelings for her son - only pressure and confidence that she has the right to take him.

Counterbalancing the confusion of the adoptive mother and the child himself is the steadfastness of the father. He smokes a cigar, calmly looking at the woman who burst into his house. He's not going to give in to her. He probably intends to offer her money so she won't bother his family anymore. She also came for the boy, perhaps in the hope that now that he had grown up, he would begin to work for her.

The boy's mother is dressed sparsely. She is wearing dark outerwear, from under which you can see the hem of a brown skirt and a colorful striped long apron, such as peasant women wore. A red scarf is tied on his head. In one hand the woman holds a small bag with things, in the other - paper, apparently a document confirming her right to a child.

We can guess how events will unfold next. The child will remain in the family, the peasant woman who left him will take the money offered by the adoptive father and leave. But the peace and tranquility of the people living in this house is still destroyed. The woman who raised the child is accustomed to considering him her own; she is scared at the thought that he will be taken away from her. The child may not even have suspected that his father and mother were not his relatives. How long will it take before the mental storm caused by the appearance of someone else's aunt, who calls herself his mother, subsides?

It is impossible not to admit that the artist masterfully showed the deep experiences of the people whom he captured at a dramatic moment for them.