Giovanni Bragolin, "The Weeping Boy" painting: story, description and photo

Do you love mysticism? Scary stories, which makes you shiver? You look with caution when you hear stories about terrible crimes, strange things, voices, sounds, and other devilry from where do they come from? Are you uncomfortable in a dark room, especially if there is no one around? Then, rather, take someone's household by the hand or, at the very least, call your four-footed puppy - dog, cat or hamster - and read, read, read!

Mystic artist

Mikhail Bulgakov is called one of the most mystical writers of Russian literature of the past century. But the Italian painter of Spanish origin Bruno Amadio - a dramatic and sinister artist of the 20 th century. His name is surrounded by rumors and legends, and the most famous picture - "The Weeping Boy" - still evokes a lot of arguments, arguments among specialists and lay people. The creative pseudonym of Amadio is Giovanni Bragolin. He lived a long enough human and creative life, leaving a number of interesting paintings on which the children are imprinted. The picture "Weeping Boy" refers to the same series. More than 20 portraits, from which look at the viewer full of tears, anger, despair, anguish and pain in the eyes of small children, amaze with their insecurity, touchingness and absolutely not childish doom. What did the artist want to tell them? He himself was repeatedly called the devil's painter - for eccentricity of works.

Children's cycle

In the press, there was no interview with him, and there are practically no art works on creativity. We know that he was a participant of the Second World War, then he worked in Venice, was a painter-restorer. The picture "Weeping Boy", like the rest of the "Gypsy cycle", was written by the author for tourists. The very idea of the painting series came to the author's mind under the impressions of those scenes of childhood suffering that he saw. The name of the cycle by critics was given, most likely, because the little models are completely untidy: their faces are dirty, hair is disheveled, clothes are poor, tattered, untidy. Although nothing gypsy - no external national signs - in the children is not noticeable. Strangely enough, but the work of Amadi was very popular. For example, the picture "Weeping Boy" in reproductions was bought up in the 70s-80s in large numbers, especially among the middle and poor layers of the population. The dates of life of Giovanni Bragolin - 1911-1981.

The riddle the first

As already mentioned, the attitude to the canvas, which is discussed in the article, is rather ambiguous. What, besides the plot, is the unusual picture of "Weeping Boy"? The history of its creation deserves special attention and research. The first riddle lies here, for there are several versions of how the portrait was painted. I agree with one, Bruno Amadio had a little son. And the picture "Weeping Boy", the history asserts, conveys exactly its external appearance. The child was nervous enough, shy. And especially he was afraid of fire - the flames in the stove, the lit candle and even the matches. Bragolin worked in a realistic genre and tried to follow the truth of life as accurately as possible. Psychological detailing was also very important for him. Therefore, as the legends say, when the painting "The Weeping Boy" by Giovanni Bragolina was being written, the artist deliberately set fire to matches in front of his son and brought them close to his face in order to naturally express horror in children's eyes, indignation and anger, and cause natural, truthful tears. No matter how unnatural the rumors sound, it is easy to believe in them. Remember the father of the great Amadeus Mozart! He also forced his son to 14-16 hours a day to play music. Yes, you know little about the despots-parents! So it may very well be that the picture of the Spanish artist "Crying Boy" is really a portrait of his unhappy son, the victim of a cruel father.

Mystery with continuation

However, the legend has a continuation. Rumors say that in the end, driven to despair, the kid wished his father to burn with matches that scared him. Soon the child died of severe pneumonia. And a little later in the artist's studio a terrible fire broke out. Burned all the work there. And only the ill-fated portrait remained untouched. It was even said that a charred corpse of Amadio himself was found in the room. However, this is an obvious exaggeration: it is known that in fact the artist died of cancer of the esophagus. But here's the picture of "Weeping Boy", the photo of which you see, and the truth is not particularly affected. Then, for the first time, a rumor arose that an angry child's soul had settled in the canvas, and he began to take revenge on the offenders.

Riddle the second

The second version of the version of how Amadio drew his "Boy", this: in 1973, on one of the Venetian streets, he saw a small ragamuffin, an inhabitant of an orphanage (or a homeless child). The appearance of the latter was so colorful that Bruno persuaded him to pose for the picture. Very soon after the end of work the boy was killed under the wheels of the car (according to other sources - the children's shelter burned with his unfortunate inhabitants). What happened next - you already, of course, guessed. All the same fire in the painter's studio, the fire devours everything, except the fateful portrait. That's how the legend about the painting "Weeping Boy" was "gaining momentum". Reproductions from her and other works by Giovanni Bragolin under the general title "Crying Children" gladly hosted various picture galleries of the world.

Mysticism or Reality

In the mid 80-ies of the last century, England was panic-stricken. A series of fires of very different properties swept through the country. In some apartments there was a gas explosion, in others - short circuits in the power grid, in the third - still some violations of safety precautions, the operation of household appliances. But the public would not pay attention to these tragedies (because every time there were human casualties), if not for one "but". In all the burned-out rooms hung reproductions of works by Amadio. Especially often met already known to you damn picture "Crying boy". The townsfolk firmly decided: an offended and pissed off for the whole world kid takes revenge on this soulless, cruel society. After all, in every ashes, among the general collapse and ravings, only this picture remained unharmed. Moreover, when, for the purposes of the experiment, the journalists of one of the London newspapers (the publication drew readers' attention to the oddity of incidents in order to increase the circulation), several copies of reproductions were burned-the paper did not burn, and nobody could explain this phenomenon. The only remark that the quality of the paper is high, therefore does not burn, criticism could not stand it. What is even more interesting: the victims were mainly poor families - for some reason the "Weeping Boy" and other works of the series were particularly popular with such a contingent.

Eyes to eyes

We have already devoted a lot of time to the history of painting. We have understood why it is "damned" and what mystical halo surrounds the canvas. It's time to study the masterpiece. It should be noted, however, that the original is not found and to this day. So, in the foreground of the canvas by artist Giovanni Bragolin, we see a half-length portrait of a child aged 4-5. The first thing that the viewer immediately pays attention to is the boy's eyes, wide open, staring straight at you, literally peering into the soul. Their color is difficult to define - either gray or greenish. However, the shade is not important, but their expression. Usually, when babies cry, they screw up their eyes. Here, on the contrary, large, like peas, tears rolling from the open eyes, looking somewhat from under the eye. The kid seems to understand: getting rid of what upset him, hurt, hurt, nothing to expect. And he cries of despair. More precisely, the sobbing has already passed. In the picture, we see the end of a spiritual storm. And, contemplating the unhappy face of the boy, we understand what his emotional experiences were originally.

Further description of the painting

But we will continue. The boy's face is rounded, with light eyebrows, puffy cheeks and lips, a dim dimple on his chin. Now it is smothered, swollen, but we understand how pleasant, cute the child is in moments of good spirits. Alas, the baby they are quite rare. And wet grooves on the cheeks, clearly visible drops of tears cause in us sincere compassion, a desire to help, comfort, hide the poor man from all worldly storms, to caress, to cheer. And not his one. Sympathy for all children awakens this canvas! And the famous phrase of Dostoevsky comes to mind that it is criminal that the world order, which is built on at least one teardrop child.

Overall Impression

Despite the unhappy expression on his face, the hero of the painting is very cute. He has thick fluffy blond hair with a slight rusty hue. About these people say: "They were kissed by the sun". The baby's head is tangled. It can be seen that her comb or comb has not been touched for a long time. And the adult's good hand, too. On the child of brownish tones of a sweater, the neck is wrapped in a gray-blue scarf. The boy is depicted almost to the waist, but, apparently, he has black trousers - we can see only the potholes with light buttons. The face and figure of the child are lightly illuminated - the left side is in the semi-darkness. In the background, a dark background - as you can see, to give the picture a grim, tragic color. There really is something diabolical, ominous in it.