Russian Painting Read online

  Author: Peter Leek

  Design:

  Baseline Co Ltd.

  61A-63A Vo Van Tan Street

  Nam Minh Long, 4th Floor

  District 3, Ho Chi Minh City

  Vietnam

  © Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA

  © Parkstone Press International, New York, USA

  Image-Bar www.image-bar.com

  © Alexandre Benois Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Marc Chagall Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Igor Grabar Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Vassili Kandinsky Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Pyotr Konchalovsky Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Vladimir Koslinski Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Nikolai Krimov Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / RAO, Moscow

  © Mikhaïl Larionov Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Arkadij Plastov Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Ivan Puni Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Alexandre Rodtchenko Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Martiros Saryan Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Zinaida Serebriakova Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Nikolai Suetin Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / VG Bildkunst, Bonn

  © Vladimir Tatline Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Boris Yakovlev Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

  © Konstantin Yuon Estate, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / RAO, Moscow

  © Sergei Chekhonin, copyright reserved

  © Alexander Deineka, copyright reserved

  © Alexandra Exter, copyright reserved

  © Konstantin Korovin, copyright reserved

  © Alexander Kuprin, copyright reserved

  © Yevgeny Lanceray, copyright reserved

  © Kasimir Malevich, copyright reserved

  © Mikhail Matiouchine, copyright reserved

  © Kuzma PetrovVodkin, copyright reserved

  © Nicolai Roerich, copyright reserved

  © Konstantin Somov, copyright reserved

  © Sergei Sudeikin, copyright reserved

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the prior permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world.

  Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case we would appreciate notification.

  ISBN: 978-1-78310-750-6

  Peter Leek

  Russian Painting

  Contents

  Introduction

  Icon painting

  Parsunas

  The Academy

  Cross-currents in art

  The Itinerants

  The emergence of Russian Avant-garde

  Religious Painting

  From the Eighteenth Century to the 1860s

  From the 1860s to the 1890s

  Portraiture

  From the Eighteenth Century to the 1860s

  From the 1860s to the 1890s

  From the 1890s to the Post-Revolutionary Period

  Historical Painting

  From the Eigteenth Century to the 1860s

  From the 1860s to the 1890s

  From the 1890s to the Revolutionary Period

  Interiors and Genre Painting

  Interiors in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

  Genre Painting from the Eighteenth Century to the 1860s

  Genre Painting from the 1860s to the 1890s

  The Post-Revolutionary Period: the life of the People

  Landscape

  From the Eighteenth Century to the 1860s

  From the 1860s to the 1890s

  From the 1890s to the Post-Revolutionary Period

  Still Life

  From the Eighteenth Century to the 1860s

  From the 1860s to the 1890s

  From the 1890s to the Post-Revolutionary Period

  Twentieth-century Avant-garde and Revolutioary art

  A New World of Art

  Abstraction

  Symbolism

  Biographies

  ALEXANDER NIKOLAYEVICH BENOIS

  IVAN YAKOVLEVICH BILIBIN

  LEON BAKST

  KONSTANTIN ANDREYEVICH SOMOV

  VALENTIN ALEXANDROVICH SEROV

  ALEXNDER YAKOVLEVICH GOLOVIN

  NICHOLAS ROERICH

  YEVGENY YEVGENYEVICH LANCERAY

  MSTISLAV VALERIANOVICH DOBUZHINSKY

  ANNA PETROVNA OSTROUMOVA-LEBEDEVA

  ZINAIDA YEVGENYEVNA SEREBRIAKOVA

  IGOR EMMANUILOVICH GRABAR

  NIKOLAÏ NIKOLAYEVICH SAPUNOV

  SERGEÏ YURYEVICH SUDEIKIN

  DMITRY ISIDOROVICH MITROKHIN

  GEORGY IVANOVICH NARBUT

  SERGEÏ VASSILYEVICH CHEKHONIN

  Bibliography

  List of Works Classed by Artist

  Index

  1. Anonymous, The Virgin of Vladimir,

  11th - early 12th century. Tempera with eggs

  on lime-panel, 100 x 76 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  Introduction

  The sublime imagery of the great icon painters, the portraiture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the paintings of sea, snow and forest, the scenes of peasant life and the historical works of the Itinerants, the stylishness of the World of Art movement, the bold experimentation of the artists of the early twentieth century… To anyone unfamiliar with Russian painting, its richness and diversity may well come as a surprise or at least an exciting revelation. Indeed, the creative energy of Russian artists over the past two and a half centuries has been such that a book of this size cannot hope to offer a comprehensive overview of their output. Its aim is therefore to provide a representative selection of Russian painting from the eighteenth century to the start of the post-Revolutionary period (plus some glimpses of more recent work), but without attempting to do more than briefly allude to Russia’s rich heritage of icon painting or giving in-depth coverage of Soviet era art.

  Icon painting

  Although icon painting rapidly became an integral part of Russian culture, initially it was an imported art form, brought to Russia from Constantinople. The name “icon” is itself indicative of its Byzantine origin, being a transliteration of the Greek word for a “likeness” or image. In 988, after sending out envoys to report on the various religious options available, Prince Vladimir of Kiev Rus (the first Russian state) adopted Christianity both for himself and his subjects, staging a mass baptism in the River Dnieper. In order to build and embellish Christian places of worship, he invited Byzantine architects and artists to Kiev. As a result, the grand stone churches in Kiev were endowed with magnificent frescoes and mosaics. However, many of the early Kievan churches were built of wood, which made mural decoration impractical. Instead, religious images were painted on wooden panels. And these were often displayed on a screen separating the sanctuary from the body of the church — which eventually evolved into the iconostasis, an elaborate tiered partition adorned with icons.

  2. The Miracle of St George and the Dragon.

  15th century. Egg tempera on panel,

  114 x 79 cm, National Art Museum, Kiev.

  3. The Passion of Christ. 15th century.


  Egg tempera on panel, 192 x 133 cm.

  The most famous of these early icons, The Virgin of Vladimir, (now in the Tretyakov Gallery, in Moscow), is thought to have been painted in Constantinople during the first quarter of the twelfth century. Between then and the time of Simon Ushakov (1626-86), arguably the last icon painter of stature, a great variety of schools and styles of icon painting developed, most notably those of Vladimir Suzdal, Yaroslavi, Pskov, Novgorod and Moscow. The earliest icon painters remain anonymous. However, it is known that they were not all monks, and before long workshops specializing in icons and other forms of church decoration were common in many parts of Russia.

  Of the masters of icon painting, Theophanes the Greek (c. 1340-1405) came from Constantinople to Russia and greatly influenced both the Novgorod and Moscow schools. Other well-known masters include Andreï Rublev whose most famous work, the Old Testament Trinity, is in the Tretyakov Gallery; his friend and collaborator Daniel Cherniy (a monk, as was Rublev); and Dionysius (c. 1440-1508), one of the first laymen to become a leading icon painter.

  At the time when Dionysius and his sons were active, ownership of icons became increasingly common. Previously nobles and merchants had begun the practice of displaying them in a place of honour in their homes, sometimes even in a special room, but now peasant families who could afford it also began to hang icons in a krasny ugol, or “beautiful corner”.

  4. Andreï Roublev, Old Testament Trinity, 1422-1427.

  Tempera with eggs on lime-panel, 142 x 114 cm,

  Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  5. Anonymous, Portrait of Jacob Turgenev, before 1696.

  Oil on canvas, 105 x 97.5 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  Parsunas

  Up to the middle of the sixteenth century, in addition to Christ, the Virgin Mary and saints or angels, icon painters generally restricted their imagery to figures from the Old and New Testaments. Then, in 1551, Ivan the Terrible convened a Stoglav (ecclesiastical council) to settle a variety of issues, including the question of whether the depiction of living people in icons was sacrilegious. The council’s somewhat cryptic ruling was interpreted as sanctioning the inclusion of tsars and historical or legendary figures alongside those culled from the Bible. As a result, icon painting gradually widened its ambit, both in terms of style and content until, during the schism that split the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-seventeenth century, Nikon (the reforming patriarch) and Avvakum (the leader of the conservative Old Believers) vied with one another in their attempts to restore iconic purity. Nikon smashed, burned or poked out the eyes of icons that departed from the Byzantine tradition, especially those that included secular figures while Avvakum railed against innovations and foreign influences in language of a violence scarcely less than Nikon’s.

  But the ruling of Ivan’s Stoglav had unwittingly paved the way for the spread of non-religious art. To escape the attentions of Nikon and Avvakum and their henchmen, painters turned to portraiture and other varieties of artistic endeavour. One result was a vogue for parsunas (from the Latin persona), pictures of living people similar in style to icons, but of a non-religious nature. These were usually painted on wooden panels, rather than on canvas. At first they were extremely stylized, and the emphasis was not so much on capturing character as on conveying the sitter’s place in society. But before long the parsuna gave way to a more realistic type of portraiture. For example, the portrait of Peter the Great’s jester Jacob Turgenev, painted by an unknown artist some time before 1696, has a psychological depth and an irony absent from most parsunas. The quizzical shrewdness of the jester’s expression and the way his powerful figure fills the canvas may have been meant to suggest that wisdom is not exclusive to princes, nor folly to fools.

  6. Ivan Kramskoï, Portrait of Pavel Tretyakov, 1876.

  Oil on canvas, 59 x 49 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  The Academy

  The Academy of Sciences was established in Saint Petersburg by a decree of the governing senate on 28 January (8 February) 1724, following an order of Emperor Peter the Great. Peter the Great’s decision to build a capital that would be “a window on Europe” had considerable significance for Russian painting. First, he lured architects, craftsmen and artists to Russia from various parts of Europe, both to design and decorate the buildings of Saint Petersburg and to train their Russian contemporaries in the skills needed to realise his plans for modernizing the whole country. With similar aims in mind, he paid for Russian artists to study abroad and planned to establish an art department in the newly created Academy of Sciences.

  After Peter’s death, these plans reached fruition with the founding in 1757 of the Imperial Academy of the Arts, which opened in earnest six years later. For more than a hundred years the Academy exerted a powerful influence on Russian art. It was supplemented by a preparatory school, where budding artists were sent when they were between six and ten years old. It was rigidly hierarchical, with titles ranging from “artist without rank” to academician, professor and councillor. Students who had the stamina to do so toiled at their studies for fifteen years. And, until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it was dominated by unquestioning acceptance of classical ideas. Russian artists frequently found the Academy’s regulations and attitudes frustrating, but it did have the merit of making a comprehensive and rigorous artistic education available to those who showed signs of talent.

  Cross-currents in art

  Initially the staff of the Academy included a preponderance of foreign — mainly French and Italian — teachers. As a result, Russian painting during the second half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries owed a great deal to the fashions prevalent in other parts of Europe, which tended to reach Russia with some delay. Given the distance from Saint Petersburg and Moscow to the Western European capitals, this lag is hardly surprising. But Russian painters did have considerable opportunities to familiarize themselves with Russian and non-Russian art, both thanks to the circulation of reproductions (often in the form of engravings and lithographs) and to the art-buying habits of the ruling class. As well as funding the Academy (including travel scholarships for graduates), Catherine the Great bought masterpieces of French, Italian and Dutch art for the Hermitage. During the French Revolution, her agents — and Russian visitors to Paris in general — were able to pick up some handy bargains, as the contents of chateaux were looted and sold off.

  7. Jean-Marc Nattier, Portrait of Peter the Great, 1717.

  Oil on canvas, 142.5 x 110 cm, Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

  8. Victor Vasnetov, Ivan the Tsarevich Riding

  the Grey Wolf, 1889. Oil on canvas,

  249 x 187 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  The Itinerants

  However, although the Academy boasted a diverse and fairly liberal collection of foreign masterpieces, not all of the students were content. In 1863 — the year that the first Salon des Refusés was held in Paris — fourteen high-profile art students (thirteen painters and one sculptor) resigned from the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in protest against its conservative attitudes and restrictive regulations. Their next move was to set up an artists’ cooperative, although it soon became apparent that a more broadly based and better organized association was needed, eventually leading to the formation of the Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions.

  The Society was incorporated in November 1870, and the first of its forty-three exhibitions was held in November 1871 (the last one took place in 1923). The four artists who spearheaded the Society’s founding were Ivan Kramskoï, portrait, historical and genre painter, who taught at the Society for the Encouragement of Artists school of drawing in Saint Petersburg before being given the rank of academician in 1869; Vassily Perov, portrait, historical and genre painter who taught painting at the School of Painting and Architecture in Moscow from 1871 to 1883; Grigory Miasoyedov, portrait, historical and genre painter who lived in Germany, Italy, Spain and France after completing his s
tudies at the Academy in Saint Petersburg and was one of the board members of the Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions, and finally, Nikolaï Gay, religious and historical painter, portraitist and landscape artist, sculptor and engraver who also wrote articles on art. First a student at the university of physics and mathematics in Saint Petersburg, he entered the Academy of Arts as a teacher as of 1863.

  One of their primary concerns, reflected in the name of the Society, was that art should reach out to a wider audience. To further that aim — perhaps inspired by the narodniki (the Populists then travelling around Russia preaching social and political reform) — they undertook to organize “circulating” exhibitions, which would move from one town to another.

  And like the Impressionists in France (who also held their first exhibition in 1874), the peredvizhniki — variously translated as Itinerants, Travellers and Wanderers — embraced a broad spectrum of artists, with differing styles and a great variety of artistic preoccupations. But, initially at least, the Society was a more tightly knit organization, and ideologically its aims were more coherent. Living at the time when the writings of Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy were awakening social consciences, most of the Itinerants were actively concerned with the conditions in which the ordinary people of Russia lived, and strove to stimulate awareness of the appalling injustices and inequalities that existed in contemporary society. The artistic movement that focused on these concerns came to be known as Critical Realism.

  The emergence of Russian Avant-garde

  During the first quarter of the twentieth century, modern Russian painters wished to confer upon art a vaster social resonance. To this end, they had to reconcile the profound attachment of Russians to tradition and the desire for renewal. The latter found expression in a wide variety of movements. Russian avant-garde offers multiple facets, drawing inspiration from foreign sources as well as those of its home country, making Russian art the spearhead of the worldwide artistic process at the beginning of the twentieth century.

  A hundred years or so later, Sergeï Shchukin and the brothers Mikhaïl and Ivan Morozov purchased numerous Impressionist paintings and brought them back to Russia. In 1892 the merchant and industrialist Pavel Tretyakov gave his huge collection of paintings (including more than a thousand by Russian artists) to the city of Moscow. Six years later, the Russian Museum opened in the Mikhaïlovsky Palace in Saint Petersburg. Today it houses more than 300,000 items, including some 14,000 paintings.