Russian Painting

by Peter. Leek

  164. Isaac Levitan, Bouquet of Cornflowers, 1894.

  Pastel on brown cardboard, 62.3 x 47.7 cm, Private Collection.

  165. Sergeï Sudeikin, Still Life with a Tray, 1914.

  Oil on canvas, 51 x 64.5 cm, Private collection.

  From the 1890s to the Post-Revolutionary Period

  During the first few decades of the twentieth century still-life painting in Russia was one of the most inventive art forms, in terms of technique, subject matter and imaginative treatment. One reason was that it was a natural vehicle not only for the decorative and aesthetic philosophy of the World of Art movement but also for the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist experiments with colour and the avant-garde experiments with form. Both Korovin and Igor Grabar produced delightful still lifes in the Impressionist idiom, such as The Uncleared Table and The Blue Tablecloth, while the World of Art painters tended to favour a more sensuous or decorative approach, as in Kustodiev’s Still Life with Pheasants and Golovin’s Still Life with Flowers and China.

  Konstantin Korovin was born into a family of shopkeepers. At the early age of 14, he entered the Architecture Department of the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Moscow. He gave drawing lessons at age 15 to help support his family. After two years of studies, he managed to gain admission to the Department of Painting. He took classes with Alexeï Savrasov, who felt that paintings of nature were important. He knew how to spark enthusiasm in his students and, as soon as the weather became better, they left the city and its suburbs to admire flowers, fields, the miraculous rebirth of life after winter. Under his influence, Korovin was attracted very early on to landscape painting — The Village (1878), Early Spring (1870) — and moved from place to place without hesitation to apply the final touch and thereby preserve the impression of nature. In order to finish his education, Korovin entered the Academy of Fine Arts of Saint Petersburg; he left after only three months, disappointed by the teaching methods. Upon his return to Moscow, he took courses with Polenov for his last year of studies. Portrait of a Chorister (1883) was the work that revealed the young artist to the public, thanks to its depiction of nature, of the outdoors. With a brushstroke free of all constraints and its luminous colours, this portrait reminds us of Serov’s style. Polenov introduced Korovin to the Abramtsevo circle. His painting was very soon appreciated within that circle. Korovin’s painting and the refinement of its colours remained marked by northern landscapes, notably during his second trip with Serov.

  He was also chosen to design the Russian pavilion for the World Fair held in Paris in 1900. The painter received a gold medal during the Fair for that work. Having thereby gained an international reputation, his work was exhibited worldwide.

  Essentially a colourist, colour remained his principal means of expression, no matter which art form he used: decoration, painting or decors for the theatre or opera. “Colour and shape combine to reveal harmony and beauty,” he wrote. “Colours can be a celebration for the eyes, and your eyes speak to your soul of the joy, the pleasure of relaxation…” His favourite themes were landscapes, cities (particularly Paris), but he was also asked for theatrical decors and he painted still lifes as well. Indeed, he did many paintings such as Roses and Violets (1912), executed with an extremely rich colour palette. In Fish (1916), objects have a very concrete presence, upholding the diversity of colour. The influence of Impressionism, of which Korovin knew many paintings due to his travels, is palpable in his use of colour. Objects are less and less defined but still remain tangible. His colours are less and less precise, gradually becoming touches of light. From 1901 on, Constantin Korovin was a teacher at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he had been a student. He taught his art to an enormous number of students. He died at the beginning of the Second World War.

  Among the artists of the Blue Rose group, Nikolaï Sapunov (1880-1912) and Sergeï Sudeikin (1882-1946) are famous for their colourful theatrical decors. Both were enthusiastic admirers of Russian crafts and decorative traditions — hence the “Primitivist” (folk-inspired) colours of their paintings. They often included old objects in their still lifes such as antique figurines, hand-painted trays and old-fashioned toys.

  Like Grabar, Sapunov produced flower paintings remarkable for their handling of colour, though in terms of tonal range the two artists could scarcely have been less similar.

  In contrast to the flower paintings of Grabar and Sapunov, bolder experimental styles were in evidence at the Knave of Diamonds exhibitions — discernible influences ranging from Matisse and Cézanne to Primitivism, Expressionism and various types of Cubism (analytical, synthetic, etc.). Four of the most active founding members of the group were Alexander Kuprin, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Ilya Mashkov (1881-1944) and Robert Falk. All four produced still lifes that played with colour and form. This creative playfulness resulted in pictures like the ones by Kuprin and Konchalovsky reproduced here. Many of Mashkov’s still lifes feature fruit or loaves — sometimes stylized and sometimes so realistic that they are almost palpable. For a time, Falk was attracted by Impressionism (especially Cezanne) but by the 1920s, when Red Furniture was painted, he had begun to explore what Alan Bird has called “a most private and almost secretive path” of his own.

  166. Sergeï Chekhonin, Still Life, 1916.

  Oil on canvas, 55 x 68 cm, Museum of History,

  Architecture and Art, Pskov.

  167. Alexander Golovin,

  Still Life with Flowers and China, c. 1912.

  Tempera on plywood, 88.5 x 70.5 cm,

  Brodsky Memorial Museum, St. Petersburg.

  168. Boris Kustodiev, Still Life with Pheasants, 1914.

  Oil on canvas, 41 x 40 cm, Kustodiev Picture Gallery, Astrakhan.

  169. Igor Grabar, Pears on a Dark Blue Tablecloth, 1915.

  Oil on canvas, The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  170. Nikolaï Sapunov, Vase, Flowers and Fruits, 1912.

  Tempera on canvas, 142.7 x 115.8 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  Quite different from any of these were the still lifes of Kuzma PetrovVodkin, who became an influential theorist and teacher. PetrovVodkin began working as a student of Burov. He completed his studies at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Moscow in 1904, where he was guided by Serov. Writing as much as he painted at that time, he hesitated greatly as to which path to follow. He made his choice after a trip to Italy and a long trip to Paris where he studied in many artists’ studios and art schools. His figurative and laconic paintings date in part from the influence of modern European and western painters. First that of Germans and Austrians, the influence then became French, in particular Neoclassic and post-Impressionist.

  At the time of the formation of the Blue Rose group he was working in North Africa (which had an impact on his treatment of light and the human figure), but he was able to participate in the Golden Fleece exhibitions. According to PetrovVodkin, “the new way of looking at things is markedly an absence of vertical and horizontal lines”. Many of his later paintings are notable for their “spherical perspective”, but in Morning Still Lifè the intriguing tension of the composition derives from his use of “tilted space”.

  In 1910, Petro-Vodkin became a member of the artistic World of Art association and he remained a member until its dissolution in 1924, although he belonged to no school. He was incapable of defining his art and admitted himself that he was “a difficult painter”. His evolution proved that he attempted to synthesise the traditions of Eastern and Western painting. At the end of the 1910s, he developed and wrote a new theory on the representation of space. His “spherical perspective” differed from the traditional Italian perspective. The artist created various spaces on his canvas, connected by gravity. Dealing with space in such a way with such specific colours proved the maturity of PetrovVodkin’s style.

  After the Bolshevic revolution in October 1917, PetrovVodkin painted more and more still lifes: Morning Still life (1918), Still life with mirror (1919), Still
life with Blue Ashtray (1920). Between the end of the twenties and the beginning of the thirties, as a result of his illness, he ceased painting and devoted himself to writing once again. We owe him two autobiographical compilations, Khvalynsk and Eucild’s Space, in which he expressed his points of view and theories on art. PetrovVodkin’s last work, Alarm, came out in 1919 and although it was simply a transcription of the situation at the time, it became a political symbol of the entire period and many referred to it. The work of PetrovVodkin did not correspond to Stalinist ideology, it was therefore quickly forgotten.

  171. Pyotr Konchalovsky, Tray and Vegetables, 1910.

  Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  172. Alexander Kuprin, Large Still Life with

  Artificial Flowers, a Red Tray and a Wooden Plate, 1919.

  Oil on canvas, 140 x 168 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  173. Alexander Kuprin, Still Life. Cactus and Fruits, 1918.

  Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 113 cm.

  Different from Vodkin was the style of Larionov whose still lifes went through several phases. Although works such as Fish at Sunset and Flowers (Two Bouquets), which date from 1904, have an Impressionist quality, around that time he began to experiment with more intense colours, resulting in the Fauve-like idiom of Pears. Between 1907 and 1913, Larionov and Goncharova poured out a stream of Primitivist pictures, using elements and styles culled from folk art, especially tradesmen signboards and lubki (the Russian wood-cuts, similar to English chapbooks, that had become immensely popular in the seventeenth century).

  Among paintings influenced by signs, Bread sets itself apart. A pyramid of round and oblong loaves of bread takes up the entire surface of this monumental painting. The poet Maximilien Volochine, after having visited the Knave of Diamonds exhibition in late 1910, noted, “Larionov is the most naive and most spontaneous of our ‘Knaves’. His painting Bread is nothing more than bread: good bread, well baked, that would have been the pride of any bakery had it been on its tinplate sign.” While drawing inspiration from signs, Larionov was not content to simply imitate. His approach to the subject is all the contrary: weighty and serious for the sign painter, it becomes ironic and full of humour in Larionov’s work.

  174. Pyotr Konchalovsky, Still Life. The Trunk (Heroic), 1919.

  Oil on canvas, 143.5 x 174 cm. Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  There followed a period of brilliantly coloured semi-abstract still lifes, such as Larionov’s Rayonist Sausage and Mackerel, typical of the Rayonist period. In 1913, Larionov published a manifesto on Rayonism as well as an article entitled “Rayonist Painting”. But a tract that he distributed during a debate organised by The Target (the group that organised exhibits) is even clearer, as shown in this extract: “Teachings on Radiation. Radiation of reflected colour (coloured thrust). Reflectivity. Realistic rayonism reproducing real shapes. Negation of shapes in painting as existing independently of the eye (a priori). Conventional representation of the ray by the use of the line. Disappearance of frontiers under the effect of what is called the plan of the painting and nature. Seeds of rayonism in previous arts. Teachings on the creation of new shapes. Spatial shapes, shapes engendered by the intersection of rays from different objects, brought to light by the painter’s will. Reproduction of the sensation of the infinite and the timeless. Pictorial construction according to the laws of painting (ie. workmanship and colour). Natural decline of all previous art which, thanks to rayonist shapes, transforms, just as life does, solely into the object of the painter’s observation.” (Larionov’s Rayonism in the Orient, the Nation, the Occident, tract at the beginning of the debate held by “The Target”, Moscow, 23 March 1913)

  Thus, Larionov makes a distinction between real, objective rayonism and non-objective, non-figurative rayonism, where external links with the visible world no longer exist. Larionov’s rayonism thereby pulled painting, little by little, out of the grip of the object, transforming it into an autonomous self-sufficient pictorial art.

  175. Martiros Saryan, Large Oriental Still Life, 1915.

  Tempera on canvas, 105 x 231 cm, Saryan Museum, Erevan.

  176. Mikhaïl Larionov, Breads, c. 1910.

  Oil on canvas, 100 x 84 cm, Private Collection.

  177. Mikhail Larionov, Fish at Sunset, 1904.

  Oil on canvas, 100 x 95 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  Finally, after Larionov suffered a concussion in 1914, he and Gontcharova moved to Paris, where they worked as designers for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes but also of Prokofiev, Stravinsky and numerous other artists. He participated as well in the illustration of anthologies and poems, such as The Twelve.

  Like Larionov, the Armenian painter Martiros Saryan studied under Korovin and Serov at the Moscow College of Painting and Sculpture, where he became friendly with Sudeikin, Kuznetsov and PetrovVodkin — all brilliant colourists. His still lifes, like his portraits and landscapes, have a remarkable zest. Many of them feature fruit, vegetables or flowers painted in vibrant, sun-drenched colours. A few include Eastern elements, as in Buddhist Still Life. A warm light emanates from the juxtaposition of colours. Though a landscape artist, he painted flowers all through his life, regardless of the circumstances. Only one bouquet stands apart from the others. On 9 May 1945, people had come to congratulate him on the victory. The artist’s studio was filled with flowers. According to his son, Saryan, although he was still in the army, conceived of his still life Flowers, which he dedicated and brought to “the Armenian soldiers that served the Great Patriotic War”.

  178. Martiros Saryan, Still Life. Grapes, 1911.

  Tempera on cardboard, 43.5 x 64 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  179. Kasimir Malevich, Haymaking, 1909-1910.

  Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  180. Mikhaïl Larionov, Smoking Soldier, 1910.

  Oil on canvas, 99 x 72 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  Twentieth-century Avant-garde and Revolutioary art

  A New World of Art

  By the 1890s the Society for Itinerant Exhibitions had become so well established that three of its members (Repin, Polenov and Bogoliubov) were invited to draw up a new constitution for the Academy. Then Repin, Shishkin, Kuindzhi and Makovsky were appointed professors. But at the very moment when the Itinerants had succeeded in storming the heights of academia, the Society began to fall apart. Although it continued to hold exhibitions until the 1920s, there was internal bickering about who should be allowed to join or participate in exhibitions, and up-and-coming artists began to regard the Society as backward-looking and no longer a dynamic force. Moreover, new ideas about art were in the air. Realism and populism were out of vogue, replaced by a preoccupation with “art for art’s sake”. This manifested itself in numerous forms, ranging from Impressionism and Russian Art Nouveau to the abstract art of the 1920s and 1930s. As happened elsewhere (for example in France and Germany), the various movements gave rise to a plethora of groups, associations, exhibitions and magazines. Among the most influential of these affiliations was the one known as the World of Art. The World of Art (Mir iskusstva) was founded by a group of young artists, writers and musicians in Saint Petersburg and included Alexander Benois, Konstantin Somov, Leon Bakst, Yevgeny Lanceray, the writer Dmitri Filosov and the future impresario Sergeï Diaghilev, who was intent on “exalting Russian art in the eyes of the West”.

  Diaghilev soon proved to be a promoter and motivator with an unusual ability to recognize artistic potential. In 1898, at the age of twenty-six, he staged an exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists, persuading a number of well-known Muscovite painters to participate — among them Korovin, Levitan, Nesterov, Riabushkin, Serov and Vrubel. The following year he launched a monthly magazine, also called Mir iskusstva, notable for the calibre of its principal contributors, which included Benois, Bakst and Igor Grabar. The magazine was only published for six years (until 1904), but partly because of its enthusiasm for the style moderne (as Art Nouveau was called in Ru
ssia), it had an immense influence not only on painting but on a variety of art forms.

  When the World of Art society was reborn in 1910 (after the period of turmoil that followed the Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905), it attracted a new wave of supporters, including Konchalovsky, Kuznetsov, Roerich, Sapunov, Serebriakova, Saryan and Kustodiev. The latter sketched one of their meetings as a preparatory study for a large-scale composition that was going to be “both decorative and realistic, monumental and true to life”. Despite these lofty intentions, it failed to materialize. Artists as diverse as Dobuzhinsky, Maliavin, Tatlin and Chagall took part in the exhibitions that the society organized, the last of which was held in 1924. But the World of Art movement had further ramifications. Diaghilev commissioned a great many members of the group to produce stage and costume designs for his opera and ballet productions, giving them an opportunity to work on a grand scale and to explore analogies between the rhythms of painting, dance and music. And because Diaghilev’s productions toured Europe, it helped them to become known internationally.

  181. Vladimir Tatlin, Nude, 1910-1914.

  Oil on canvas, 104.5 x 130.5 cm,

  Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  182. Vladimir Tatlin, Sailor, 1911.

  Tempera on canvas, 71.5 x 71.5 cm,

  Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  183. Leon Bakst, The Blue God, 1912.

  Watercolor on paper, National Library,

  Museum of the Opera, Paris.

  The artists associated with the World of Art were also fortunate in having an imaginative patron, the millionaire merchant Savva Mamontov — memorably portrayed by Vrubel and Serov — who was endlessly hospitable, encouraging them to stay at Abramtsevo, his country estate near Moscow, where he provided a creative environment for them to work. As well as establishing craft workshops, he invited well-known artists to participate in building and decorating a new village church, urged them to decorate pottery and other artefacts produced in the Abramtsevo workshops, and got them to design and paint scenery for his private opera company. Another generous patron was Princess Maria Tenisheva, who set up craft studios on her estate at Talashkino, near Smolensk, and also helped to finance Diaghilev’s magazine. Unfortunately a rift with the Princess, Diaghilev’s high-handedness, plus internal dissensions, contributed to the magazine’s demise.