page_title: Mikhail Vrubel
section_title: Personality
hierarchical_section_title: Mikhail Vrubel / Personality
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Михаил Александрович Врубель (1856 — 1910) — русский художник.
context_page_description: Mikhail Vrubel – a 19th–20th century Russian painter who worked in all genres of art, including painting, graphics, decorative sculpture, and theatrical art. In 1896, Vrubel married the famous singer Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel whom he regularly painted.
  Soviet historian Nina Dmitrieva compared Vrubel's artistic biography to a three-act drama with prologue and epilogue, while the transition between acts was rapid and unexpected. The "Prologue" refers to his earlier years of studying and choosing a career path. The "first act" peaked in the 1880s when Vrubel was studying at the Imperial Academy of Arts and then moved to Kiev to study Byzantine and Christian art. The "second act" corresponded to the so-called "Moscow period" that started in 1890 with the painting "The Demon Seated" and ended in 1902 with "The Demon Downcast" and the subsequent hospitalization of the artist. The "third act" lasted from 1903 to 1906 when Vrubel was suffering from his mental illness that gradually undermined his physical and intellectual capabilities. For the last four years of his life, already being blind, Vrubel lived only physically.
context_section_description: Everyone who knew Vrubel noted the specificities of his personality; however, his inherent character traits were so peculiar that were later rethought through the prism of his mental illness. According to Dmitrieva, the best portrait of Vrubel was made by his friend and colleague Konstantin Korovin who accurately captured even the smallest character features of the painter. This is how Korovin remembered Vrubel:
  He appreciated Dmitry Levitzky, Vladimir Borovikovsky, Vasily Tropinin, Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, Karl Bryullov, and all elder academicians… Once my friend Pavel Tuchkov asked him about serfdom in Russia. 
  – Yes, the misunderstandings took place everywhere, including the West. What, droit du seigneur is better? And before that – the Inquisition? This, it seems, was not really present in Russia. But it is a pity that people left their beauty creators without understanding. After all, we don't know about Pushkin, and if they read him, it's such a small amount of people. It's a pity…
  Once somebody told in front of Vrubel that drunkenness is widespread in Russia.
  – Not true – answered Vrubel – people drink abroad much more. But they do not pay attention to it, and the police take drunk ones right away. 
  Once summer, Vrubel, who lived with me at the studio on Dolgorukovskaya Street, was running out of money. Hence he borrowed 25 rubles from me and left. He came back soon, took a large basin and a bucket of water, and poured some cologne from a beautiful bottle from François Coty into the water. He undressed and stood in a basin, pouring himself out of a bucket. Then he lighted the iron stove and put four eggs inside, and later ate them with a loaf of baked bread. He paid 20 rubles for a bottle of perfume …
  – Ah, great, – I told him – What are you doing, Misha...
  
  He did not understand. As if it was essential. Once he sold a wonderful drawing of Don Juan from "The Stoned Guest" for three rubles. Just to somebody. And bought for himself white kid gloves. After putting them on once, he threw it with words: "How vulgar".
caption: Vrubel in 1898 by K. Korovin
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