24.06.1816 – 22.01.1897

June 24, 1816 was born the famous Russian artist-illustrator Pyotr Mikhailovich Boklevsky. He was born in the village of Elshin, Pronsky district, Ryazan province in the family of a former officer, participant of the Patriotic War of 1812. As a boy, he showed exceptional ability to paint, but still decided to get a legal education. For several years Boklevsky lived in the Ryazan province, occasionally driving to St. Petersburg, where he studied with the professor of the Academy of Arts A.E. Egorov, the illustrious draftsman who taught KP in his time. Bryullov. In 1845, Boklevsky entered the Academy of Arts as an auditor in the studio of K.P. Bryullov. However, soon his protests against the routine of academic canons, caustic caricatures of professors of the Academy led the artist to a conflict with Briullov himself. Boklevsky was forced to leave the Academy. Only in 1852 the Council of the Academy approved Boklevsky in the title of an artist in watercolor painting.

In the middle of the XIX century, literary illustration becomes a special kind of art – deeply meaningful, socially directed, highly artistic. To illustrate the requirements are presented, not less than the easel painting. Among the greatest artists-illustrators of the XIX century belongs and Peter Boklevsky. Widespread fame he brought illustrations to the “Inspector” NV Gogol. The artist was famous for his sharp caricatures, and this satirical look at the model, the ability to notice the severely sharply negative features of the character and, of course, the skill of the draftsman led him to great success with his contemporaries. The best work of Boklevsky – the album “The Bureaucratic Catechism”, (1863) – was conceived as a denunciation of bureaucracy and bureaucrats. In this album, the artist, based on the text of Gogol’s “Inspector”, in five scenes with great social acuity, topicality, sharp criticism of the surrounding reality, depicted the life principles of bureaucrats, their “Philosophy”, “Religion”, “Politics”, “Poetry”, ” Public relations”.

Wide popularity was won by Boklevsky’s drawings to “Dead Souls”, over which he worked for many years. The first series of drawings to the “Dead Souls” was completed in 1866. This is a series of completed psychological portraits that emphasize and ridicule the character of Gogol’s characters. These illustrations are known and popular to this day, in many publications to this day using sharp and characteristic images created by Boklevsky.