The option of frontispis for poem A. WITH. Pushkin “Medy Horseman”, Alexander Nikolaevich Benoit 
- Posted by Alexander Nikolaevich Benoit
- Museum: All-Russian Museum A.WITH. Pushkin
- Year: 1905
Overview of the painting :
The option of frontispis for poem A. WITH. Pushkin “Medy Horseman” – Alexander Nikolaevich Benoit. Watercolor, paper. 23.7 x 17.6
To the passionately beloved poetry of A. WITH. Pushkin, in particular to the “Little Horseman”, Alexander Nikolaevich Benoit returned several times, and all the work with illustrations to the poem lasted almost 20 years!
Finally, in 1923, a book with drawings by Benoit was published. They met her ambiguously, but time put everything in its place and today the illustrations of Alexander Benoit have become a classic as well as the work itself.
It is not surprising that it was the picture of the chase of the copper rider that was placed in the book as a frontispis, as the whole leitmotif of the work of Pushkin was the fantastic run of the Copper Horseman behind the main character Eugene.
Due to the fact that the work was performed by Alexander Nikolaevich with ink and graphite pencils, shades and color scheme are presented very poorly and meagerly. But it is precisely this approach of the author that creates an alarming atmosphere that is in the gray and cold northern capital, as well as the sore state of an already half-crazy, sick hero.
The picture produces a stunning effect, so simple, but brilliantly depicted Benoit itself as a chase scene. Against the background of the wrong St. Petersburg, the ceremonial and festive, but the night, gloomy and gloomy city, this unreal sight opens before the audience.
The dark, heavy, huge block of the Copper Horseman hangs over a running person. Unwritten horror swept his little figure. And there is no salvation for him, the stone city indifferently looks blindly at the insignificant man with blind windows of houses.
The artist emphasizes all this madness, anxiety, extreme tension with empty streets, black clouds, dead light from the ghostly moon in the dark sky.
Pushkin’s works are illustrated by many, but perhaps no one could convey the imagery of the poem as Alexander Nikolaevich Benoit, interest the audience with novelty of impressions, the desire to reread and comprehend the plot differently from the point of view of the artist who conveyed his feelings to the observer.