Painting Vrubel “Venice”


The corner of the Doge’s Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, the visible perspective of the street are authentic to the details and even written using photographs (Vrubel generally willingly resorted to photographs of the localities, believing that it would be foolish not to utilize such excellent auxiliary material). But when there is a carnival depicted – in the Renaissance or now? – you can not say, and you do not need to ask: the carnival is something timeless, an eternal holiday of riddles and mystifications. The participants intrigue each other – they exchange glances, make secret signs. What they are planning, what they are whispering is a mystery; perhaps, ungainly, perhaps, with the reflection of blood – this reflection is also in the color of the picture. Significantly mysterious group in the foreground – a young patrician with Hamlet’s gloomy face and looking at him sidelong old man in black.

The mood of mystery is strengthened by composition. In the arrangement of the figures there is some kind of deliberate randomness and fragmentation, conveying the crowd of the carnival crowd, although there are only a few figures. Variously directed waves of movements collide and freeze in a quaint tangle. Space seems to be compressed. Between the young men of the foreground and the lady in the second plan there should be, according to the ratio of the sizes, a great distance, but the spatial gap is not sensitive. Despite the outgoing into the depths of the street and voluminous plastic figures, the space does not appear to be stereoscopic: it is projected onto a plane.


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Painting Vrubel “Venice”