Russian Painting

by Peter. Leek

  When Mir iskusstva ceased publication, many artists who had belonged to the World of Art society transferred their allegiance to the Union of Russian Artists, which had been founded the previous year (1903) by disgruntled members from within the World of Art group. That it was based in Moscow was in itself significant. Founded in 1832, the Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture had for a long time offered a more flexible and progressive alternative to Saint Petersburg’s Imperial Academy of the Arts. Several of the most influential Itinerants had studied or taught in Moscow, and Moscow painters such as Korovin, Arkhipov, Maliavin, Nesterov, Riabushkin, Yuon and Grabar, all of whom were to a greater or lesser extent influenced by Impressionism, emerged as a distinct group.

  The World of Art and the Union of Russian Artists were in effect the forerunners of the most innovative period of Russian art, which spawned a bewildering array of artistic groups and movements, often with bizarre names, among them the Link, the Triangle, the Wreath and the Union of Youth. One of the most seminal was the Blue Rose group, which launched a highly influential monthly magazine, The Golden Fleece. Reviewing their first exhibition, held in March 1907, the Symbolist poet Sergeï Makovsky declared that the group was “in love with the music of colour and line” and described them as the “heralds of the new Primitivism”. Prominent exhibitors included Larionov and Goncharova (his lifelong companion and collaborator), Kuznetsov, the Miliuti brothers, Sapunov, Saryan and Sudeikin. Among the painters who influenced the group were Vrubel and Victor Borisov-Musatov (1870-1905), whose Symbolist paintings made a huge impression when Diaghilev organized a retrospective exhibition of his work in 1907. The Golden Fleece exhibitions held in 1908 and 1909 were notable for the participation of major French artists, among them Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, Fauves and Nabis.

  184. Mikhaïl Larionov, The Autumn

  (from the Cycle of Seasons), 1912. Oil on canvas,

  136.5 x 115 cm, Musée National d’Art Moderne,

  Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

  185. Vassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913.

  Oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  186. Kuzma PetrovVodkin, Bathing of a Red Horse, 1912.

  Oil on canvas, 160 x 186 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  Although Mikhaïl Larionov and Natalia Goncharova had joined the Blue Rose group and been active participators in the Golden Fleece exhibitions, their ideas were constantly evolving. Moreover, Larionov was an organizer of immense energy, and in 1909 the two of them, together with David Burliuk, set up the Knave of Diamonds group (sometimes translated as the Jack of Diamonds), which held its first exhibition in 1910. But before long Larionov and Goncharova felt the need to move on, and organized further exhibitions, as well as artistic debates and other events, including the Donkey’s Tail (1912), Target (1913) and No. 4 — Futurists, Rayonists, Primitives (1914). Most of the Russian avant-garde painters participated in the exhibitions of one or other of these groups — among them Burliuk, Chagall, Exter, Falk, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Konchalovsky, Kuprin, Lentulov, Lissitzky, Malevich, Mashkov and Tatlin.

  An offshoot of the Knave of Diamonds was a group known as the Moscow Painters (1924-26), which in turn was succeeded by the Society of Moscow Artists (1927-32). The latter, in particular, was dominated by “Cézannists” and had a noticeable preference for landscape and still life. Falk, Grabar, Krymov, Kuprin and Mashkov were members of both organizations, as was Aristarkh Lentulov (1882-1943), an idiosyncratic innovator who was also an energetic organizer and propagandist. A more eclectic association was the Union of Youth (1910-14), based in Saint Petersburg, which embraced Cézannists, Cubists, Futurists and Non-objectivists. Its literary section, called Hylaea (founded in 1913), formed an important link between writers and artists.

  Abstraction

  The second decade of the twentieth century marked the start of an accelerating move towards abstraction. In 1913 Larionov published a manifesto explaining the principles of his latest artistic credo — called Rayonism, because its basis was “the crossing of reflected rays from various objects”. Rayonist works ranged from semi-abstract pictures such as Larionov’s Cock and Hen and Goncharova’s The Green and Yellow Forest (1912), to the totally abstract Blue Rayonism, also painted by Larionov in 1912.

  Around the same time, Vassily Kandinsky evolved from the style of works such as Boat Trip (see below) to the more fully abstract style of his Improvisations and Compositions, which he painted between 1910 and 1912, in which he tried to free himself almost completely from the weight of space. Then his compositions became increasingly pure, as in Black Spot and Non-Objective. These first non-objective figurations of Kandinsky’s were not appreciated by the public until, little by little, the public finally asked itself how it had managed to live deprived of such art. Effectively, the non-objective paintings gave art a new environment in which to exist, virgin terrain that seemed worth discovering. As of that moment, abstract art became a serious alternative to figurative art.

  Like many other pioneers of avant-garde painting, Kandinsky evolved a system of theoretical principles, which played an important role in the development of his work. After the Revolution, he became head of the Painting Department of Inkhuk (the Institute of Artistic Culture) in Moscow, but resigned when his “Symbolist philosophy” failed to be adopted as the basis of the Institute’s teaching program. Kandinsky’s intellectual orientation was above all philosophical; he did not comment on his work but on his ideas. His ideas can be appreciated independently of his paintings, as he managed to build into them reasoning which is as philosophical as it is aesthetic. He then returned to Germany, where he had lived between 1896 and 1914, and was able to put his theoretical ideas into practice when he accepted a teaching post at the Bauhaus in 1922.

  187. Alexandra Exter, Still Life, 1917.

  Oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm.

  188. Alex Rodtchenko, Red and Yellow, 1918.

  Oil on canvas, 90 x 62 cm.

  189. Kasimir Malevich, Aviator, 1913-1914.

  Oil on canvas, 124 x 64 cm,

  Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  He began work on Small Worlds, where he was confronted with the grandeur of the small and the littleness of the great. He explains this paradox very well in the following declaration: “The whole can be concentrated in a single atom, in its particles, because consciousness is neither big nor small and it is only within consciousness that worlds exist.” For years, Kandinsky’s fame went together with that of the Bauhaus. The spirit of that school corresponded on all points to what the artist had constantly sought: uncompromising professionalism, intellectual finesse as well as Romantic rationalism. He had to leave Germany to escape from the Nazi regime and settled in France. Already at that time, his success was worldwide.

  Kasimir Malevich took a different route to abstraction. For a time he worked closely with Larionov and Goncharova, producing delightful Primitivist gouaches with peasant themes. Next came his “tubular” Cubo-Futurist phase, notable for masterpieces such as Haymaking and Taking in the Harvest (1911), which progressively led him towards a less figurative and more “mechanistic” style. Eventually, probably in 1913, he arrived at a system of abstract painting, which he called Suprematism, based on geometric forms. Among the thirty-five abstract works that Malevich made public in 1915 was Black Square, one of the most famous of his Suprematist works. “The keys of Suprematism”, he wrote, “led me to the discovery of something as yet uncomprehended… there is in man’s consciousness a yearning for space and a ‘desire to break away from the earthly globe’.” Malevich worked on his White on White series — arguably the ultimate in Suprematism — from 1917 to 1918. Principle of Painting a Wall: Vitebsk dates from 1919.

  Kandinsky’s “Symbolist philosophy” and Malevich’s Suprematism found a rival in Constructivism, the brainchild of Vladimir Tatlin. Indeed, the rivalry between Malevich and Tatlin was such that on several occasions they came to blows. According to Cami
lla Gray, Tatlin “disliked his stepmother only a little more intensely than his father”. Not surprisingly perhaps, to escape the torment of their relationship, at the age of eighteen he enrolled as a sailor. While in the merchant marine, he learned to paint and produced such memorable pictures as Fishmonger (1911) and Sailor as well as some slightly Picassoesque nudes such as Nude. For a time Tatlin was influenced by Larionov and Goncharova, and worked with them closely. But in 1913 their collaboration came to an end. Deeply impressed by Picasso’s “constructions”, he began that winter to create “painting reliefs” and “relief constructions”, incorporating materials such as wood, metal, glass and plaster, until the distinction between painting and sculpture was effectively submerged. After the Revolution, he played a leading role in the organization of Soviet art, became increasingly interested in technical design, and for the last nineteen years of his life spent much of his time designing a glider, based on his observation of the organic structure of flying insects and the mechanics of insect flight.

  In Russia, the 1920s and 1930s were decades of infinite experiment. The array of artists who made major contributions to the development of abstract painting during that period included Nadezhda Udaltsova, Alexandra Exter, El Lissitzky (who produced abstract pictures called “prouns”), Olga Rozanova, Mikhaïl Menkov, Ivan Kliun and Alexander Rodchenko. Constructivism, in particular, had an impact on other art forms — especially sculpture, architecture and interior design.

  190. Mikhaïl Larionov, Cock and Hen, 1912.

  Oil on canvas, 69 x 65 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  191. Ivan Pouni, Draft of decoration of the Liteïny prospect, 1918.

  Indian ink and watercolour on paper. 38.3 x 34.4 cm.

  192. Kasimir Malevich,

  Principle of Painting a Wall: Vitebsk, 1919.

  Watercolor, gouache and India ink on paper, 34 x 24.8 cm.

  193. Ivan Puni, Still Life, Red Violin, 1915.

  Oil on canvas, 145 x 115 cm.

  194. Mikhaïl Matiouchine, Movement in space, 1922.

  Oil on canvas, 124 x 168 cm.

  195. Vladimir Kozlinski, The Red Commander, 1920-1921.

  Outline Voilà poster, citizens, a striking example,

  Gouache and watercolour on paper, 109,7 x 72,3 cm.

  196. Ilia Tchachnik, Draft of the Soviet poster screen n°4.

  Year 1920. Black and red Indian ink on paper, 98 x 66 cm.

  Symbolism

  Symbolism — which Kandinsky regarded as the core of his artistic credo — played a prominent part in the development of Russian painting during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Originally a literary movement, it had begun to make its presence felt in the visual arts during the late 1880s. Symbolist artists sought to “resolve the conflict between the material and the spiritual world”. As the French poet Jean Moréas put it in his Symbolist Manifesto, published in Le Figaro in September 1886, their great aim was “to clothe the idea in sensuous form”.

  In Russia, one of the first Symbolist painters, and one of the most intriguing, was Mikhaïl Vrubel. Many of his paintings have a surreal, dreamlike quality. Some of the most remarkable — such as The Bogatyr (1898), Pan (1899) and The Swan Princess (1900) — are of mythological figures. And many of them feature either the elaborate patterns characteristic of Art Nouveau or mosaic-like patches of colour akin to those found in the paintings of Gustav Klimt. In 1890 Vrubel was commissioned to illustrate a special edition of the works of Mikhaïl Lermontov, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the poet’s death.

  Even as a child Vrubel had been fascinated by Lermontov’s poem The Demon, a subject that he would return to, both in painting and sculpture, practically until the end of his life. The Seated Demon and The Demon Cast Down (1902) are two of the most powerful works of Russian Symbolism. A demon, Vrubel frequently had to explain, is not the same as a devil. In Greek mythology, a daimon was a spirit that guided the actions of mankind. Tormented by mental illness, Vrubel spent most of the last nine years of his life in hospital, where he continued to work until, in 1906, he lost his sight. Like many of the Russian Symbolists (among them Borisov-Musatov and PetrovVodkin), Mikhaïl Nesterov was influenced by Puvis de Chavannes, who had painted the murals of the life of Saint Genevieve in the Pantheon in Paris. During the period when he painted Taking the Veil and The Youth of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, Nesterov was “under the spell of a deep religious faith, periodically withdrawing to monasteries and making pilgrimages to remote shrines”. After the Revolution his art underwent a dramatic transformation, and he became well-known for portraits with a contemporary flavour and scenes from Soviet life. A religious nature also exists in some of the pictures painted by Kuzma PetrovVodkin, such as his Madonna of Compassion Who Moves Evil Hearts. Others — such as Mother or Petrograd (1918) — have a spiritual aura, although their subject or setting is ostensibly secular. In the words of John Milner, “His excitement at the work of Matisse and Cubist artists gave way to his admiration for the traditions of icon painting… The result was iconic paintings of precision and boldness with a strong narrative aspect.” PetrovVodkin’s most overtly Symbolist works, such as Bathing of a Red Horse (1912) and Girls on the Volga (1915), have a metaphorical quality, but are devoid of religious overtones. Although often more complex in terms of content and symbolic meaning, many of the paintings by Marc Chagall — such as I and the Village and The Wedding — also have a mystical or dreamlike aura, heightened by the feeling that the figures within them hover between the material and the spiritual world.

  197. Alexander Deineka, Building New Factories, 1926.

  Oil on canvas, 209 x 200 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  198. Alexander Deineka, Female Textile Workers, 1927.

  Oil on canvas, 171 x 195 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  199. Kazimir Malevitch, The Peasant, 1928-1932.

  Oil on fabric, 129 x 98,5 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersbourg.

  At an early age, Chagall tore himself from the cocoon of his very religious Jewish family, for whom all figurative representation was strictly forbidden, in order to follow his calling. But academic teaching was not for him. Rebelling against all teaching, his first audaciousness put distance between him and that of his teacher, of a highly classical style, Mr. Pen. The doors of the famous Zvantseva school in Saint Petersburg, where new teaching was given, were then opened to him. This teaching brought the technical means of contemporary expression to students, means that were cruelly lacking in classic teaching. Chagall elaborated his own language little by little in working with his professor Leon Baskt who had already achieved international renown at that time. Chagall made his own Baskt’s theory that was “the art of juxtaposing contrasted colours while balancing their reciprocal influences”. (Y.L. Obolenskaïa, At the Zvantseva school directed by L. Baskt and Modoujinski, 1906-1910. Manuscript kept in the manuscripts section of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (in Russian)). In his Self-Portrait of 1909, Chagall’s artistic bias is already foreshadowed. Effectively, the character already has the appearance of flying, as if liberated from gravity, an impression that the different tones of blue certainly help to create. Melancholy, a characteristic of a good number of Chagall’s works, is present as well. Pain is often hidden behind the luminous colours.

  But Paris truly revealed Chagall. There, he made friends with Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars and Max Jacob; he often went to the Palette and Grande Chaumière studios. He first exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, in 1912. He acquired in the capital the “free-light” through which he became an accomplished painter. Paris it was that influenced his pictorial palette, bringing to it a quickness as well as a perfect clarity of its lines. He owes the geometrical shapes of his paintings to the Cubists and colour exacerbated to the extreme to the Fauves. However, his work remained extremely personal. The Wedding for example, although it expresses a dream, has an underlying evocation of religion (which is present in many works) but also of nostalgia for the homeland and the pain
of exile. Vitebsk, place of his childhood, remained forever emblematic and symbolic of his native land, as shown in his paintings. Next, a confirmed Symbolist principle is given expression in a whole series of paintings, in which the system of shapes is perfectly defined. His aspirations were often openly poetic and philosophical. The artist often used metaphor. His fundamental concepts were time and space. When war was declared, he returned to his native country, where his wife Bella was waiting for him. The Revolution only served to increase the artist’s beliefs: art became for Chagall the requirement for a person’s development as well as a means to climb the social ladder. He organised in Russia structures for teaching, museums, studios… In 1919 Malevitch violently opposed Chagall’s work, that he equated to Naturalism. Chagall understood neither Malevitch’s work nor his aesthetic choice. He therefore was obliged to leave Vitebsk, cast out by the avant-garde in the name of a concept more radical than art itself. The images that feature in the paintings of Pavel Filonov (1883-1941), who was closely associated with the Russian Futurist movement, are even more surreal and invariably pregnant with symbolic meaning. Filonov’s imagery has been succinctly summarized by the Russian art historian Dmitri Sarabianov: “His fish always signify Christ, his trees are the trees of life, his boats are Noah’s Ark, his men and women are the naked Adam and Eve standing before the world and all history, past and future.” Filonov developed a method of painting, not unlike that of Paul Klee that emphasized the value of “organism” as opposed to “mechanism”. His artistic credo, known as Analytic Art, “attracted young artists like a magnet” so that by the mid-1920s he was one of the most popular leaders of the avant-garde. Nevertheless, he refused to sell his paintings, “having decided to hand (them) over to the State to be made into a Museum of Analytical Art.”