Focus on this artwork and analyze the History.
Faina Shevchenko, age 21, an actress of the Moscow Art Theatre, was the model for the painting. Kustodiev generally preferred stout women for his paintings, and once remarked that "skinny women do not inspire." Therefore he obviously viewed The Beauty as a chef-d'œuvre of his style and absolute pinnacle of his career, later creating three paintings stylistically similar to The Beauty with minor alterations in set and pose. The painting conveys a hyperbolical archetype of a mother goddess according to Kustodiev's personal ideal. He first noticed Shevchenko at a play in the theatre, for which he served as a set decorator. It took Kustodiev a time and an effort to talk Shevchenko into the creation, for initially she refused: "Oh! I, the actress, be sitting in the nude! Thousands of people will see, what a disgrace!" After a while she agreed only "for the sake of the art." Initial sketches show the woman holding a strip of fabric covering tips of her breasts and specifically the nipples. After the rumours of Shevchenko posing for the painting in the nude reached her chief, Konstantin Stanislavski, he called her a "harlot", though later Stanislavski pardoned Shevchenko and gave her major roles in plays staged at the theatre. Shevchenko herself, after viewing the painting at its premiere, reportedly said "Very fat!" Kustodiev replied "As is" and kissed her hand. Russian Orthodox Church Metropolitan, who visited the premiere, said that "the Devil steered the painter's reckless hand while he was creating". Upon viewing The Beauty at its Berlin premiere at the Unter Den Linden gallery, George Loukomski, an art critic, labelled the painting "The Yaroslavlian Danaë". Reproductions of the painting by the artist, he presented to Maxim Gorky and Feodor Chaliapin. The original was kept by the family of the artist and was eventually confiscated by the communist authorities during the Stalin's purges in 1937–38, and since then is stored at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Unter Den Linden nude Russian Orthodox Church Tretyakov Gallery Moscow set decorator harlot Faina Shevchenko George Loukomski Konstantin Stanislavski Yaroslavl Moscow Art Theatre Feodor Chaliapin chef-d'œuvre mother goddess Metropolitan Stalin's purges Danaë Maxim Gorky