The large Chekhov family is big by today's standards. The usual average family of the late 19th century is five sons and one daughter. Nikolai Chekhov - one of five sons, genre painter, brother of the very same - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, the famous writer.
A family
Father - Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov (1825-1898) - a merchant of the third and then the second guild., In 1854 he married Evgenia Yakovlevna Morozova
Mother - Evgenia Yakovlevna Chekhova (Morozova, 1830-1919) - ran a household and raised children - five sons and a daughter
Brother - Alexander Pavlovich Chekhov - writer, linguist (1855 - 1913)
Brother - Mikhail Pavlovich Chekhov - writer, lawyer (1868 - 1936);
Brother - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - writer, playwright, classic of Russian literature (1860 - 1904);
Brother - Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov - teacher (famous Moscow teacher) (1861 - 1922);
Sister - Maria Pavlovna Chekhova - landscape painter (1863 - 1957)
All the children of the Chekhovs were exceptionally gifted, highly educated people.
Biography
Nikolai Chekhov, second son, was born on May 18, 1858. He was unusually talented, and this, of course, was the merit of his parents. The Chekhovs' father, Pavel Yegorovich, was a worthless businessman, although he conscientiously tried to feed his large family with this. But he was, apparently, a creatively gifted person. He self-taught small paintings for the family and for sale and played the violin and piano. In the evenings, it was customary for the family to sing Russian songs and church psalms in chorus. He also demanded to teach music to the only daughter in the family, Masha. And with Nikolai Pavel Yegorovich played violin duets. But music was not the main thing in which Nikolai Chekhov was strong. Since childhood, he painted a lot and successfully. And this is despite the vision problems - strabismus.
Nikolai's character in childhood was unusually calm and phlegmatic, with some philosophical disregard for the opinions of others. The mischievous and mischievous younger brother Anton teased Nikolai with "Kosym" and "Mordokrivenko" - Nikolai's face was unusually asymmetrical. And Nikolai took it completely coolly. He very patiently endured Anton's more cruel pranks.
The youngest of the Chekhov brothers, Mikhail, in his memoirs tells the following story: somehow the Chekhovs took the whole family a long journey to their grandfather Egor Mikhailovich, who lived 70 miles from Taganrog. The trip is long, under the scorching sun, and the brothers have stocked up on hats in advance. Moreover, Nikolai got hold of a folding cylinder somewhere, the so-called "Gibus".
This little beanie haunted Anton, he endlessly teased and bullied his brother and, finally, knocked the hat off his head, right under the feet of the horses. The hat was thoroughly soiled and crumpled, springs jumped out of it, with the help of which it was folded, but this did not upset Nikolai. He calmly put on his hat with protruding springs and rode in it all the way.
And one more amusing incident is recalled by Mikhail Chekhov. And also about this amazing patience with which Nikolai accepted the vicissitudes of fate.
Among the Chekhov brothers, Anton was a "white-handed", for a long time he was not interested in manual labor, although this was very welcomed in the family. The elder brother, Alexander, was fond of technology and made some kind of physical devices. Nikolai painted, Ivan bound books. And Anton composed sketches and whole plays and staged funny home performances with his brothers.
But one day he found himself a craft to his taste. In 1874, free craft classes appeared at the Taganrog School: tailoring and shoemaking. And Anton suddenly became interested in tailoring. Having learned something, he undertook to sew trousers for Nikolai for the gymnasium uniform - his brother grew out of the old ones. At the same time, Nikolai recklessly asked Anton to tailor it narrower, more fashionable. It is difficult to say whether out of mischief or excessive zeal, but Anton sewed trousers so narrow that Nikolai's legs could hardly crawl through them. And so, despite the fact that his trousers were literally bursting, Nikolai immediately went out in them for a walk.
Education
In 1875, the eldest son of the Chekhovs, Alexander, graduated from the gymnasium with a silver medal and left for Moscow to enter the University of Physics and Mathematics. Nikolai also left with him, without completing his gymnasium course. He entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His class was taught by the famous Russian genre painter Vasily Perov.
Together with Nikolai Chekhov, they studied such classics of Russian painting as Isaac Levitan, Konstantin Korovin, Fyodor Shekhtel.
A year later (1876) his father, Pavel Yegorovich, also came to Moscow - he literally fled from Taganrog from the debt hole. Another financial adventure brought him complete ruin. A little later, his wife arrived with her younger children, leaving only Anton in Taganrog. Their house was taken for debts.
Nikolai Chekhov left the School as a talented and original artist: a subtle landscape painter, a deep genre painter and portrait painter and a witty caricaturist. The family, literally falling into poverty, had to be supported, and the brothers took on any work. Nikolai Chekhov painted the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and drew cartoons for humorous magazines.
It was Nikolai's connections with Moscow journalism that helped Anton Chekhov, who finally got out of Taganrog, to attach his first stories, written from the memories of those funny home performances of his childhood.
Creation
In 1881, a friend of the Chekhov brothers, Vsevolod Davydov, began publishing the humorous magazine "Spectator" - in essence, the author's magazine of the Chekhov brothers. And the name - "Spectator" is characteristic. In fact, the magazine was not readable. The stories of Alexander Chekhov, quite interesting, and of Anton Chekhov, still an aspiring humorist, were clumsy, rude, sometimes vulgar, aroused little interest. But the brilliant cartoons and sketches of Nikolai Chekhov were very popular. Among the works of A. Chekhov, published only in the complete collected works, there is "Wedding season". This is not a story, but Anton Chekhov's signatures to Nikolai Chekhov's drawings. What is now called "comics". In a few years, Anton Chekhov will use this material to create his humorous masterpiece "The Wedding with the General".
But Nikolai Chekhov was not destined to get to the Olympus of Russian fine art and contribute to the development of painting in Tsarist Russia. Completely indifferent to his living conditions and other benefits of civilization, he loves only his art, the process of his birth.
Personal life
Nikolai Chekhov did not manage to create a full-fledged family. Nikolai's common-law wife, A. A. Ipatiev-Golden, could hardly endure his carelessness and inability to make money. Endless quarrels pissed off both of them. For Nikolai, this ended in alcoholism and deep depression.
By 1889, Nikolai Chekhov developed acute tuberculosis, the so-called "fleeting consumption", and Anton Chekhov, already a serious practicing doctor, understood that there was no salvation.
And at the end of June 1889, in the village of Luka near Sumy (Ukraine), where Nikolai was taken to somehow support his life, he died.
