Franz Alekseevich Roubaud

Franz Alekseevich Roubaud the forgotten singer of the military glory of Russian soldiers

Franz Alekseevich Roubaud (born June 5, 1856 died March 13, 1928) Russian and German artist of the late XIX early XX centuries, the creator of three famous panoramas. The work of Franz Alekseevich Roubaud is a vivid example of artistic comprehension of the military history of Russia. His dramatic biography has been little studied, and many famous paintings have been irretrievably lost.

Franz Alekseevich Roubaud, despite his French origin, for many remains a Russian painter, organizer of a battle workshop at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Having immortalized the dramatic battles of the Russian army Sevastopol, Borodino, Caucasian wars he inscribed his name among the most famous world figures of art.

Biography

Franz Alekseevich Roubaud is considered a Russian-German painter, although his parents emigrated to Odessa not from Germany, but from the French port city of Marseille. Father sold books, mother fashionable dresses. Another child, Franz, saw the light of day on June 5, 1856, replenishing an already large family.

The boy developed a tendency to depict the world around him on paper early. He was sent to study drawing at the Odessa Art School. Franz Roubaud’s abilities allowed him to successfully complete his studies and, at the age of 21, enter the prestigious Academy of Arts in the German city of Munich. The twenty-one-year-old young man fell into the skillful hands of the masters of the historical direction of painting. Especially Jozef Stanislaw Adam Brandt, a specialist in battle scenes, gave him a lot.

Having settled in Munich, the young master did not forget about Russia, traveled to Central Asia, visited the Caucasus many times. German education did not prevent Franz Alekseevich from falling in love with the picturesque mountain nature, the history of this harsh land. Therefore, in 1886, it was he who was ordered to paint nineteen images of the bloody wars that took place in these places. The customers decorated the Tiflis “Temple of Glory” with them.

The first large-scale work of the author is considered “The assault of the aul of Akhulgo on August 22, 1839”.

The War Ministry bought the painting, for which the author received the title of professor at the Bavarian Academy. Unfortunately, only fragments have come down to modern connoisseurs.

The idea to immortalize the dramatic moments of Russian military history came to the artist in Germany. The Russians liked the initiative and was offered to create a panorama dedicated to Sevastopol. He went to Crimea, studied the documents in detail, listened to the stories of the participants in the battle, made many sketches of the area.

To implement the grandiose plan, a huge canvas 14 meters wide and 115 meters long was needed. It was made by Belgian weavers. By 1905, the work was completed and delivered to the Crimea, where a separate building was erected for it.

The significant event of Franz Roubaud’s beloved country was approaching the centenary of the Patriotic War of 1812. By this time, the artist took on another large-scale project: to reproduce the Battle of Borodino. Now a modest sign is installed on the field, indicating the height from which Roubaud made sketches.

“Battle of Borodino” was the last work of the master of the battle genre, created on the territory of Russia.

In 1914, the First World War began, forcing Franz Alekseevich to finally settle in Munich. The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War made his return impossible.

World cataclysms affected the life of Franz Roubaud tragically. He stopped receiving orders and gradually became poorer. They began to forget about the man who devoted all his creative inspiration to Russian history. The Bolsheviks, having come to power, destroyed the museum in Tiflis. Most of the paintings are missing.

Franz Roubaud died on March 13, 1928. According to his will, he was buried next to the grave of his daughter, who died 16 years earlier.

The most famous paintings by Franz Alekseevich Roubaud

Due to the military and revolutionary events at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, many of the artist’s works were irretrievably lost during his lifetime. But the most famous ones have been preserved for posterity. The best paintings by Franz Roubaud:

1. Panorama “Storming Akhulgo on August 22, 1839” (1889-1891) created by order of the Russian Emperor Alexander III. She was badly hit by the floods of 1924 and the students who cut her to pieces for educational work. In the 1990s, the middle part was restored.
2. “Caucasian Intelligence” (1901) to give dynamics to the work, the author placed the action directly in front of the viewer, and the rest of the space is hidden behind the trees without elaborating on small details.
3. “Defense of Sevastopol” (1904-1905) reflects one of the key moments of the city’s defense during the war of 1854-1855 the battle on the Malakhov Kurgan.
4. “Battle of Borodino” (1911-1912) at first it was housed in a pavilion on Chistye Prudy in Moscow. Then it was taken apart and stored in different places. The panorama was restored for the 150th anniversary of the battle.
5. “Who will win?” (1905) a Caucasian scene known to many connoisseurs: three horsemen, a deadly duel between a Cossack and a Chechen. Critics recognize the scene as full of drama and movement.
6. “Champion” (date of creation unknown) is a masterful depiction of a horse of the American standard-bred breed, because of which, at the beginning of the 20th century, the confrontation between fans of Americanization and loyal fans of the Orlov trotter began.

Paintings