To wrap up, I want to tell you about the painting that brought Archip Ivanovich Kuindzhi true fame: "Moonlit Night on the Dnieper" (1880)
This is a night landscape where, under the magical light of the moon, familiar houses, fields, plants, and the river take on a completely fantastical appearance. It feels less like a painting and more like a window into another, more luminous world.
But the real genius wasn't just in the painting itself—it was in how he presented it. Kuindzhi staged an exhibition of a single painting. The hall was plunged into almost total darkness, and the canvas, illuminated by a focused beam of light, appeared to float, mesmerizing everyone who saw it.
The event was a grand success and a total sensation. Skeptical viewers accused the artist of trickery: they suspected he had cut a hole in the canvas and placed an electric lamp behind it—how else could one explain that unearthly, glowing light?
Another popular theory was a secret formula for the paints, supposedly suggested to Kuindzhi by his friend, the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev.
However, the fate of the original was unenviable. At the exhibition, a man asked the author about the price of the painting. The artist was not prepared for this question and simply replied: "Very much." The man asked to specify the amount, and then the artist named the first sum that came to his mind — 5,000 rubles — a huge amount of money at the time! "Leave this painting for me," the man asked. It turned out to be Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov. This is how the artist's painting ended up in the emperor's family.
Konstantin Romanov loved this work so much that he almost never parted with it—he even took it on long sea voyages, which had a disastrous effect on the canvas. The constant changes in humidity and temperature caused the paints to crack and darken. We will never see it in its original, dazzling glory. But one thing was certain: no one remained indifferent. "Moonlit Night on the Dnieper" brought Kuindzhi unprecedented fame and success. It's no wonder it became one of the artist's own favorite works. He made several author's copies of it, which you can now find in various museums across Russia and which give us an idea of its initial magic. The original is now housed in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. If you ever find yourself in St. Petersburg, be sure to compare the original at the Russian Museum with the author's copy at the Tretyakov Gallery! This is a unique case in the history of art.
That's all about Kuindzhi for now. But this isn't all about art. Hehe. There's plenty more interesting stuff to come!
With love,
Poppy
