The Iconography of F. I. Tyutchev

The morning freshness comes a-wafting
Through my dishevelled locks of hair... - F. I. Tyutchev "Like a bird in the Early dawn" (1836)


...or wandering along the pavement lost in thought, in his creased hat, the sleeve of his shabby fur coat trailing along the ground, one saw in him the muses' chosen one, proclaiming through Lermontov's lips:


I talk now not to you but to my heart...” - Mikhail Lermontov (1841)

In Russia there has always been a huge amount of interest in the creative output of the great Russian poet, philosopher, diplomat and statesman, Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev. It is hard to overstate Tyutchev's influence on social thought in Russia. Many of the axioms he came up with in the salons of high society, in Munich or St Petersburg, immediately caught on and began to be repeated all over Russia and Europe. In Tyutchev's physiognomy itself, indeed, there was something inexpressibly attractive, something almost other-worldly and cosmic – and the same was true of his poetry.
Typical of the things said about him are the thoughts of one of Tyutchev's most intelligent contemporaries, Yuri Fyodorovich Samarin. After the poet's death, Samarin wrote to another outstanding figure in Russian culture, the ideologue and apologist for Slavophilia, Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov:

“I've had another read of his collected poems and found it very difficult to tear myself away from the picture of him inside the book. What an abundance and diversity of gifts could be perceived in that dear face.”

All of the above helps to explain why the poet's contemporaries showed such interest in pictures of him. It is worth noting that he had his photograph taken by some of the most outstanding photo artists of the twentieth century, and the portraits themselves became known as outstanding examples of light painting, a newly emerging form of art.
Muranovo houses a collection of materials featuring images of the great Russian poet and diplomat; the collection is extremely complete and therefore very rare.

The earliest photographic image of Tyutchev is a portrait taken by K. Dautende in 1850 or 1851 using the so-called Talbot method (named after William Henry Fox Talbot, who invented the negative-positive process, which made it possible to develop an unlimited number of prints on paper).

Using Talbot's invention, Dautende's photographic studio began to reproduce artistic canvases and retouch or add colour to photographic images. One of the images to come out of these coloured-in photographs, in which the photographer's art was combined with that of the painter, was this remarkable portrait. It recorded not only the poet's outward appearance but also his romantic inner nature.
It was with good reason that the Severnaya pchela (Northern Bee) newspaper wrote of Dautende's works: “In a matter of minutes he takes portraits which are as true to life as nature itself.”

The album, which will contain 14 cards, will be priced at 15 roubles, or just over 10 kopecks for each card, even though each card will be of interest on not one but two levels: both as an image of a remarkable individual and as an example of a work of art – an authentic photographic study.”

The second edition of Denier's publication contained a photograph of Tyutchev with the epigraph: “A gentleman-in-waiting of the Court of Her Imp. Majesty.” It is possible to put a fairly precise date on this photographic study “with hands folded across his chest”. In a letter to her stepdaughter Daria dated 12th May 1868, the poet's wife recalled this portrait of her husband, for which he had sat “4 years ago, before we travelled abroad.” Ernestina Fyodorovna and her daughter Maria set off on their foreign travels on 10th May 1864. In 1868 Ivan Sergeyevich Aksakov, who had become the poet's brother-in-law in 1866, and Ivan Fyodorovich Tyutchev published the second edition of Tyutchev's poems to be printed during his lifetime. Fifty copies of the anthology were adorned by this particular photograph.

1865 Levitsky worked in France. His photography salon became one of the best in Paris. Almost all the Russian nobles who travelled to Paris visited his studio. When taking photos, Levitsky used a painted background with a romantic architectural landscape. Tyutchev was in Paris from the 18th until the 29th of March 1865. It was then that this portrait was made, which may well be the most unusual portrait in all the iconography of the poet: “in a top-hat, with an umbrella and a throw”, with the same landscape in the background.

The strangeness of Tyutchev's physiognomy in this portrait can be attributed, first and foremost, to the pain he was suffering at the time, having suffered a fateful loss, the death of Y. A. Denisieva.
At that time, in Paris, he often met up with Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, who told an interesting tale which was recorded by the poet Afanasy Fet: “When Tyutchev returned from Nice, where he had written his famous poem: ‘O the south, O this Nice!..’ – we popped into a café on the boulevard to discuss something, and, asking a waiter to bring us some ice cream, sat down under a trellis covered with ivy. I was silent the whole time, but Tyutchev was talking in a pained voice, and as he neared the end of his story the breast of his shirt was wet through because of the tears that had fallen onto it.”