Epigraph:
“Before all what Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel and his ilk open up to humanity once in a century, I can only tremble. We don’t see those worlds which they saw ...” A.A. Block. From the speech at the funeral of M.A. Vrubel April 16, 1910.
Once I went to the Russian Museum to an exhibition of icons. After seeing the exhibition, I decided to go through other halls of the museum. Having walked around the museum, I headed for the exit. In the penultimate halls were exhibited the paintings of Mikhail Vrubel. I quickly looked at his small paintings and went to the last room. I was in a hurry and did not want to look for a long time, and only caught a glimpse of a small fragment of the bottom left corner of some big picture.
And this fragment stopped me.
It made such a strong impression on me that I turned around and began to carefully examine the whole picture. On this fragment, rocks and flowers were depicted, but the whole picture was made in such a technique of Vrubel - as if with strokes- “cubes”.
The picture tightened, pulled in, plunged into itself.
He is monumental, this picture of him is all over the wall, and it is completely incomprehensible how to create such a whole unit with strokes and create such an impression with the whole picture and each fragment.
I began to look around at other pictures of Vrubel - and it seemed to me that inside each of them Misha stood and called to me.
I had an unusual feeling that I love every brushstroke, every combination of colors. I wanted to run up to the picture and kiss it, every centimeter. I was scared, because the attraction was very strong. Moreover, inside me there was a strange feeling that in the picture - it is I, that picture, these colors in general and in each fragment are me.
But who am I? who is it? and what is the name of the picture?
I looked down and looked at the name: "Demon".
I sat in this room for a long time, and then went home, overflowed with new emotions.
After that I began to read a lot about Vrubel. Although information about him is not so much. I read all the books about him from the local library.
He painted giant paintings very quickly and as if impromptu. He has a very unusual technique, so no one else paints like he did.
All his paintings seemed to be "stuck" to me. The head of the Demon - this sculpture is in the Museum - was also seen nearby when I was at home. Her face, facial expressions, hair - it seems all the time in motion, it is not static, like all sculptures.
When I looked at the reproductions - flashes of light appeared in my head.
I became interested in this effect of painting and read in particular that in one year they made an emblem for the Olympics and people began to have epilepsy seizures. Subsequently, the emblem was replaced.
I read that Vrubel's wife had epilepsy.
It still seemed to me that I was flying somewhere in the worlds of his paintings - that some air currents and huge rocks and wings and gigantic creatures took me and carry me. The descriptions are similar to some of Daniel Andreev's "Rose of the World". The world of his paintings is unearthly, and as a living, iridescent, prevailing, taking away.
It was a very intrusive, terrible and strong impression. Terrible and enjoyment at the same time. I have never had such an experience.
At first it seemed to me interesting, new, tempting, but when it had been going on for 2 weeks, and I realized that I could not get rid of it myself, and this developed into some kind of obsession, then I became scared. Pictures as if surrounded me and carried me to my world, combined with myself, and I could not throw off this “feeling”.
On Sunday I went to the Shrine of St. John of Kronstadt on Karpovka river. And I asked Dear Father: "Excuse me, please explain who Mikhail Vrubel is and what it is for me, and if it is not useful, then relieve this impression."
And when I came out of the Shrine into the street - the two streetblocks while I was walking - I could not remember who Mikhail Vrubel was. That is, all impression and even memory was erased to the root of information about it.
Then, of course, I remembered everything as a purely precipitate of information, but this instantaneous difference was enormous.
They did not explain to me who Mikhail Vrubel was. Maybe because I have not grown for that and can not accommodate?
But one thing I can say for sure: the strongest impression from the paintings of Vrubel was completely removed after the prayer to John of Kronstadt.
Vrubel is monumental, colossal, and he gave me the brightest impressions that only I had from painting. And no artist ever made such a powerful, long, exciting impression on me. I did not say any picture: "I love" or "it's me." These strokes are me.
But John of Kronstadt is able to "nullify" all this and he is stronger ...