The creator of Perry Bible Fellowship advocates that every artist “cherish your misery ” books have been written about the relationship between altered states of consciousness and the creative impulse. It’s important that any serious artist learns to traipse that line between madness and genius. Posted by Zoetica Ebb on September 23rd, 2008įiled under Art, Fairy Tales, Madness, Poetry, Russia, Ye Olde 18 Responses to “Mikhail Vrubel and The Demon” Excellent rare Vrubel gallery and print shop.In-depth thoughts on The Demon theme and variations.Our set of Vrubel’s Demon work on Flickr.Lermontov’s The Demon poem, in Russian and English.If you visit Moscow’s Tretyakov gallery, be certain to complete the tour – at end, after halls upon halls of classic Russian art, in Vrubel’s room he waits. He purposely made himself sick by standing in cold spring air earlier that year, the Demon, surely, at his side. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel, one of the greatest Russian painters, met his end in the clutches of pneumonia at the age of 54. This was the final blow to his health and spirit. Several years passed until the first signs of every artist’s worst nightmare showed themselves: Vrubel was losing his sight. I’m particularly fond of this drawing – the concerned visage of the artist’s psychiatrist. He also continued to work, finally abandoning the demon that caused so much agony and returning to portraits and fantasy. With grief aggravating an already fragile mind, Vrubel continued his slow decline. Just a year later Savva, Mikhail’s beloved son, died.

Home from the hospital, his health was improving, but recovery was short-lived. The Demon had had left him powerless against reality and he was beginning to crumble. In 1902 Vrubel was briefly hospitalized due to failing emotional and physical health. Burning through the viewer, this is Vrubel’s best work, stunning, unhinging and unforgettable.ĭetails of Demon In Flight and Demon, Downcast So much paint has been compulsively applied and re-applied that many details of these paintings are nearly indistinguishable, but the Demon’s large, restless eyes and dark features stand out, thoroughly spellbinding. Or was it The Demon‘s contempt for the Church that struck a chord? Vrubel’s obsession grew, taking over his body of work and eventually producing a dozen paintings and sculptures dedicated to The Demon. Despite his success and marriage, was there a sense of ultimate loneliness permeating Vrubel’s reality? Did the poem reveal a world as he secretly saw it, confirming his latent misery? Was he never genuinely happy, resenting his family life and fame? Perhaps, instead, there was an overwhelming fear of losing what he treasured most, triggered by the loss of his siblings as a child and fermenting inside ever since. The poem’s nihilistic themes seem to have struck the very heart of the artist. Painting thick layers upon layers in an attempt to convey the demon’s pure despair drove Mikhail further away from life, deeper inside himself and his work. Slowly he began reworking the brooding features, even after the work had been exhibited. Nevertheless, Vrubel was compelled to return to the enormous portrait of the Demon. His new paintings were glowing, as well, due in part to the subject matter and in part to iridescent bronze powder Vrubel mixed into the paint. His life was the epitome of creative and family bliss. Mikhail was working in the theater alongside his wife, painting and designing costumes for her operas, immortalizing the beautiful singer as each of her fairy tale characters. The illustrations to Lermontov’s poem The Demon that launched Vrubel’s career receded into the past. His massive works in oil, based mostly on Russian folklore, had earned the prolific painter a fair degree of fame and success. When we left off some months ago, Vrubel was living in Moscow with his beloved wife and son. We’re looking at the madness of prolific Russian painter Mikhail Vrubel. Currently I’m fueled by days of non-stop drawing, surviving on coffee and deviled eggs alone. Long ago I promised to return to one of my favorite subjects: madness.

The demon downcast