Everyone knows this picture. And surely many will not hesitate to name its author - Viktor Vasnetsov. But the name may be mistaken. After all, and asks for the language - "Three heroes". But - no, the picture is simply called "Heroes".
Heroes of epics and fairy tales
Viktor Vasnetsov was born into the family of a priest and, as usual, was originally going to follow in his father's footsteps. He entered the theological seminary, unlearned, but in his last year he suddenly decided to drastically change his life and went to St. Petersburg - to enter the Academy of Arts.
Here the artist was looking for himself for a long time. He painted portraits, created scenery and architectural works, was fond of historical and religious genres, until he finally created his own, epic-historical "Vasnetsov" style.
Vasnetsov is recognizable. His paintings are bright and colorful illustrations for Russian fairy tales and epics. His heroes are heroes, defenders of their native spaces. And how much work is invested in them? After all, the artist wrote his "Heroes", no more, no less - 20 years! Vasnetsov's son Alexei recalled that the painting had traveled with them for so long that it had become a familiar element of everyday life, like a chest or a grandfather clock.
Its first sketch was made in the early 1870s in Paris in the workshop of Vasily Polenov. Then the artist sometimes did not touch the canvas for weeks, then suddenly he took up it again, and each time he created his masterpiece more and more enthusiastically, in the end considering it his duty to finish it. “I worked on“Heroes”, maybe not always with the proper intensity,” the artist admitted, “but they were always relentlessly in front of me, my heart was always drawn to them and my hand was reaching out!”
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Peasants and patrons
Who else served him as a model! Friends, relatives, even just strangers. For example, the face of Dobrynya Nikitich was "taken" from a simple Russian peasant who remained unnamed. The details are "copied" from the artist's relatives. Ilya Muromets is a collective portrait of ordinary people from the street. Only for the image of Alyosha Popovich there was a specific model of his own. This is Andrei Mamontov, the youngest son of the then famous philanthropist Savva Mamontov. By the way, the heroic horses in the picture are also from the Mamontov stables. Every day they were specially brought to the field, where the artist not only worked, but actually lived in the final stages of the painting.
Andrey Mamontov - Alyosha Popovich
Creating his "Heroes" Vasnetsov could not do without a hidden allegory. In the background, the graves of the soldiers killed in the fight against enemies are visible. In the foreground there is a young growth, future defenders of their native land. And the field in which the heroes stand is not just a field, but all of Russia.
Interestingly, from the point of view of historians, the warriors depicted on the canvas existed in reality, and could even meet each other. But the age difference between them is much greater. That is, when Ilya Muromets was at the age at which he is depicted in the picture, Dobrynya Nikitich was already a deep old man, and Alyosha Popovich, on the contrary, was a little boy. But the artist did not claim to be historical. This is not the main thing in the picture.
Igor Nikitin
