Tombstone of V. E. Borisov-Musatov (Russian: Надгробие В. Э. Борисову-Мусатову) is a monument made of brown granular granite, installed at the burial site of the Russian artist Victor Borisov-Musatov, on the high bank of the Oka on the outskirts of the city of Tarusa in June 1911. The sculptor of the tombstone, the modernist Alexander Matveev, was a contemporary and friend of Borisov-Musatov, and created the tombstone the previous year. It depicts a sleeping nude boy; among local residents, in artistic literature and in mass media, it is known as the Sleeping Boy. According to a legend that has spread among Tarusa residents, the tombstone depicts a teenager whom Borisov-Musatov tried to save from the water. The artist himself allegedly caught a cold in the process, which led to his death.
The tombstone has repeatedly become the object of close interest from researchers of Alexander Matveev's work and Victor Borisov-Musatov's biography. In particular, the Soviet art historian Alfred Bassekhes called the monument an "elegiac response" of the sculptor to the "quiet charm" of the artist's paintings and considered it one of the key works of the most significant period of Matveev's creativity, according to the researcher, which fell in the second half of the 1900s – early 1910s.
The monument on the bank of the Oka has found reflection in Russian culture. In particular, the plot of the story by the Soviet writer Konstantin Paustovsky "The Sleeping Boy" is built around it. The image of the "Sleeping Boy" plays a significant role in the novel by Vladimir Zheleznikov "Scarecrow". The tombstone was captured on their canvases by major Soviet and Russian artists. Among them is a member of the Moscow Union of Artists and employee of TASS Windows Lev Aronov and People's Artist of the Russian Federation Vladimir Korbakov.
Image on the tombstone and its location
In the Alexander Matveev's works' catalog, compiled by the Soviet art historian Alfred Bassekhes, the sculptor's work is designated as "Tombstone of V. E. Borisov-Musatov in Tarusa". Bassekhes determined its dimensions: . The pedestal of the sculpture is , and the plinth is . Other data is provided in her monograph by Elena Murina. The size of the sculpture "Tombstone of V. E. Borisov-Musatov", according to her, is . The pedestal and plinth have the same dimensions as indicated by Bassekhes.
Alfred Bassekhes described the tombstone in 1961 as follows: "...on the slab of a low sarcophagus lay the body of a boy. His legs are touchingly pressed together at the knees; his head is powerlessly thrown back—the boy is sleeping, dreaming and turning to stone, birch trees of the rural cemetery sway above him, and behind him the expanses of the landscape shine through". Employee of the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts Vladimir Obukhov in a monograph on the artist's work, published in 2011, and even earlier M. Tikhomirova in an article in the collection "Tarusa Pages" (1961), cited the description of Borisov-Musatov's grave by the Russian and Soviet artist Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, recorded in her diary published only partially on July 23, 1939 (State Public Library named after Saltykov-Shchedrin, Manuscript Department, fund of A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, 1015, file 55, sheets 1–3):The cemetery where he is buried... is located not far from the former Resurrection ChurchThe oldest building in Tarusa. Located on Resurrection Hill, which is separated from the city center by the Igumnov Ravine. The church was built in the mid-17th century. In the 18th–19th centuries, it was repeatedly rebuilt. on the high bank of the Oka, which drops steeply to the river. The grave is in the right corner of the cemetery, almost at the very edge of the cliff... slightly to the left, near it, is a double, spreading birch. On Borisov-Musatov's grave lies a heavy and rather primitively processed pedestal, and on it, also made of granite, is a nude boy. He lies in some helpless pose. It seems that he has just died or is seriously ill. He lies on his back and his legs are slightly bent at the knees and shifted to the side. The head is tilted and also sharply turned to the shoulder. The features are unclear... When you approach the grave, it is framed against the background of the sky, a very open green horizon with forests, greening meadows, and, at the very foot of the hill, the beautiful, briskly flowing Oka. An amazingly good resting place has been chosen for him. I am so drawn there to sit.The artist wondered whether the sculpture was originally executed so "lapidarly", or whether the contours had weathered and lost their outlines over time. On August 12 of the same year, returning from en plein air studies in the vicinity of Tarusa, Ostroumova-Lebedeva decided to say goodbye to the artist's grave before leaving the city. She wrote in her diary: "For the last time I looked at the carved figure of the boy. Not badly executed by Matveev. Behind the monument—the water ripples, and waves, and sparkles of the Oka. A good place. I stood by the grave and thought, thought..." (sheet 37).
The grave with the tombstone is located on the high bank of the Oka River on the outskirts of the city of Tarusa—on the so-called Musatov Hillside—in a place where the artist often came to sit on his favorite bench and which (according to his wife Elena Vladimirovna Aleksandrova-Skovoroda)Life years: 1874–1921. Since 1903, in marriage known as Borisova-Musatova he himself indicated as his favorite during a walk a few months before his death. Art historian Mikhail Nekrasov suggested that the reason for choosing the place for the grave was the desire of his wife, without mentioning the artist's own will. On the impression that the grave on the hillside makes, the Soviet writer Konstantin Paustovsky wrote: "In autumn, from this hillside, an endless Russian distance opens up in the hazy air, so that the heart stops from it. Old birches grow on the cliff. The distance is visible through the net of yellowing and thinning foliage from the wind. In the gaps between the leaves hang pink clouds over "pastures and woodlands".
Several authors associated one of the artist's last painting Autumn Song with this place. For example, poet Yury Mashkov claimed that he heard from the famous Kaluga local historian Ivan Bodrov that it was from the Musatov Hillside that Borisov-Musatov painted this view of the opposite bank of the Oka among the autumn foliage. However, Ivan Bodrov himself wrote in a book on the history of the city of Tarusa that at the beginning of the 20th century the hillside looked completely different compared to the present time. At that time, there was only an old weeping birch on it, near which the grave was placed. Later, the artist's wife planted four small oaks and two young birches here.
The artist's close friend and author of the first monograph on his life and work, published in 1906, Vladimir Stanyukovich, describes the painting "Autumn Song" in detail, but does not associate the image on it with any specific geographical location in Tarusa.After Borisov-Musatov's death, his correspondence, notes, and rough sketches passed to Vladimir Stanyukovich. In 1930, the art historian supplemented and revised his monograph on the artist, but it remained in manuscript until 1961. Stanyukovich's archive, along with Borisov-Musatov's documents, is currently located in the Russian Museum. Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy Mikhail Dunaev wrote about this painting: "If only Autumn Song had survived from everything created by Borisov-Musatov—we would have the right to say: that was a painter by the grace of God".
History and final destination
Death of the artist and growth of interest in his work Victor Borisov-Musatov died in the night from October 25 to 26, 1905 at the dacha of the corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and professor of Moscow University Ivan Tsvetaev "Pesochne" near Tarusa, where he was staying with his wife and daughter at the invitation of the hosts in their absence. About his stay there, the artist wrote: "...Now I am in Tarusa. In the wilderness. On the deserted bank of the Oka. And cut off from the whole world. I live in a world of dreams and fantasies among birch groves that have dozed off in the deep sleep of autumn mists".
By 1910, through the efforts of Borisov-Musatov's friends, the artist's first personal exhibition was held in Moscow on his native soil. In 1906, Sergei Diaghilev presented 62 paintings by Borisov-Musatov at the World of Art exhibition in Saint Petersburg, and 22 at the Russian exhibition in Paris. In 1910, a monograph on Borisov-Musatov by the employee of the Hermitage Museum Nikolai Wrangel appeared. Poet Nikolai Poyarkov published a book of poems"In Memory of Borisov-Musatov. Following this, fame came to the artist, who was little known to the general public during his lifetime.
Alexander Matveev and Victor Borisov-Musatov
By the mid-1900s, Matveev had stopped his studies, refusing to defend his diploma immediately after receiving a silver medal in the figure class. At the initiative of Vasily Polenov, he went on a creative assignment to Paris at the expense of the fund of the artist's younger sister Elena Polenova. At this time, the sculptor actively participated in exhibitions.
The second half of the 1900s – early 1910s —the period to which the creation of the Borisov-Musatov tombstone belongs— the Soviet art historian Alfred Bassekhes in a monograph on the sculptor, published in 1961, called the peak of Alexander Matveev's creativity. At this time, the sculptor had his own workshop at the factory of the famous Russian ceramist Pyotr Vaulin in the village of Kikerino near Saint Petersburg. Matveev's main genres during this period were portrait and study of the nude. The art historian considered the "Sleeping Boy" the most significant work among them.
Borisov-Musatov was a close friend of the sculptor. Even during his student years in 1900, Matveev made a plaster portrait of him ("Portrait of V. E. Borisov-Musatov", State Tretyakov Gallery, height 61 cm, signed and dated—"A. Matveev, 1900", inv.—SK-1861; in 1959 this work was cast in bronze). Portrait of V. E. Borisov-Musatov depicts a half-figure of the artist sitting in an armchair. Alfred Bassekhes characterized it as a completely independent work of a beginning sculptor and noted the depth of penetration into the personality of the model.
Matveev's work on the tombstone Cellist-White émigré Mikhail Bukinnik in the article Story about the artist V. E. Borisov-Musatov wrote that the initiator of the installation of the monument was a group of friends and close associates of the deceased artist ("we still had the task of erecting a monument over Musatov's grave"), who commissioned the monument to Alexander Matveev. From the sculptor's own letter to the art historian and friend of the deceased Vladimir Stanyukovich dated October 31, 1910, the financial terms of the contract with the artist's wife are known, on which Matveev undertook the execution of the order (quoted with preservation of the original punctuation): "Dear Vladimir Konstantinovich! Not so long ago I received a letter from E. V. Musatova regarding the monument, from which I sent her photographs, a letter expressing pleasure, which I am very glad... I would like to receive 200 rubles for the final settlement. — received 700 — remains for transportation and installation 100. Thus it amounts to 1000, as agreed with E. V".