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- It's a delicate matter: The Tretyakov Gallery has embarked on a "Journey to the East"
It's a delicate matter: The Tretyakov Gallery has embarked on a "Journey to the East"
Deserts and mirages, minarets and teahouses, scorching streets of southern cities and evacuation alarms. The Tretyakov Gallery's "Path to the East" exhibition tells how Russian artists discovered Central Asia. And how their manner was transformed (or maybe even formed) under the influence of what they saw. First of all, this concerned avant-garde authors, but the stylistic range of the exhibition is much wider: Pavel Kuznetsov and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Alexander Volkov and Sergey Gerasimov meet here. Izvestia found out what the dialogue of cultures and civilizations turns into.
Mirages and reality
Central Asia has always been something alluring and attractive to Russian artists, but at the same time dangerous and mysterious. Some went there as tourists, and, for example, Vladimir Vereshchagin — with the imperial army (the result was the famous Turkestan series). However, the real pilgrimage began only in the 20th century. Having visited the Trans-Volga steppes, Bukhara and Samarkand, Pavel Kuznetsov literally gained a second wind, discovered new creative horizons, and the avant-gardists Beatrice Sandomirskaya and Sergey Kalmykov offered an original interpretation of the ideas of cubism and suprematism on a seemingly completely alien aesthetic ground.
The Way to the East exhibition
The exhibition naturally begins with Kuznetsov, and his painting "Mirage in the Steppe" (1912) turns out to be something of an overture to the entire project. The slightly simplified figures of people and camels next to the yurts look very small and insignificant against the background of a huge sky with diverging light bands. And we can only guess whether the artist really captured a natural phenomenon or whether this is a metaphor for the "magical East."
However, Kuznetsov's things are well known, but Kalmykov's "mathematical painting" will definitely be a discovery for the general public. Sequences of mysterious symbols from several sticks seem to be either child's play, or runes of an ancient civilization, but an attentive viewer will notice very small numbers glowing dark red between the large rows. From afar, however, they are perceived as Arabic script. The Oriental theme suddenly begins to resound here.
Realism versus the avant-garde
In the early 1920s, a branch of the State Free Art Workshops (GSHM), the forge of avant-gardists, was established in Turkestan. At that time, the most "leftist" artists — Kandinsky, Malevich, and others - were at the helm of the artistic process of the young Soviet country. And they set the task of spreading the advanced trends far beyond the borders of the two capitals. The new generations were to be taught at the GSHM, and they were offered to focus on the works sent from Moscow and Petrograd. This is how the Russian avant-garde appeared in many regions of the country, including Central Asia (later it would become the basis of the museum in Nukus). Plus, local art schools and traditions began to take shape.
Alexander Volkov's painting "The Pomegranate Teahouse"
Many artists, having received their education at the Moscow VKhUTEMAS, then moved to Turkestan and stayed there forever. First of all, this is Alexander Volkov, whose works turn out to be perhaps the most striking exhibits of the exhibition. The Pomegranate Teahouse (1924) is an absolute masterpiece. Depicting visitors to a tea house, the painter combines cubism and the traditions of icon painting, turning three men in turbans into almost a Trinity. The "signature" ruby red, the color of a pomegranate, gives special strength to the image. The painting "Listening to Music" (early 1920s) is also impressive, thanks to a specific collage of multicolored elements resembling a mosaic.
By the way, along with Volkov's canvases, the exhibition presents his works on paper. And there are sketches of stained glass windows among them.: there, figurativeness completely gives way to an abstract play of forms, but the same expression of color and festive decorativeness remain.
Pyotr Kotov's painting "Bukhara Masters"
Realists also traveled to Turkestan. Their confrontation with the avant-gardists was becoming ideologically principled. But the words, and in the paintings we see the same diversity, decorativeness, the desire to abandon perspective. Take, for example, Peter Kotov's "Bukhara Masters" (1925), where lush floral patterns on fabrics clearly dominate human figures, or Nikolai Karakhan's "The Triumph of the Leninist-Stalinist National Policy" (1933). For all the politicization of the plot, this is an extremely interesting thing: voting hands and a huge image of Ilyich, probably embroidered on the carpet, rise above the fraternizing "national people".
East of the war
A special topic, which also did not remain behind the scenes, is the work of artists evacuated across the Caspian Sea during the Great Patriotic War. This month and next, many museums are dedicating projects to the 80th anniversary of Victory, and the Tretyakov Gallery will soon open an exhibition entirely focused on the events of 1941-1945, but "Way to the East" touches on this story from a completely unexpected side. Here, for example, we can see the works of Sergei Gerasimov, painted in Samarkand. And this is the purest impressionism — airy, fleeting, full of hot southern air and at the same time physically felt anxiety. Is it possible to expect such a subtle painting from a prominent author of socialist realist works?
A visitor at the exhibition "The Way to the East. Russian artists in Central Asia"
Well, and another evacuated master, already from a different, "avant-garde" camp: Robert Falk. The same Samarkand, the same years (1942-1943), but in a different manner. Although, again, it should be noted how the environment influenced the style. The works he painted in Turkestan are noticeably different from his own works from the Paris and Moscow periods. The comparison between Falk and Gerasimov does not seem at all obvious — all the more interesting.
In general, there are enough big names at the exhibition (besides those mentioned, it's also Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin). But sometimes the works of authors known only to specialists are of no less interest. These are the two—sided Lev Kramarenko levkas: Russian iconography (from it, just the technique) in them meets with the oriental flavor of the characters and the Western academic tradition. These are the sculptures of Isidore Frikhara and Zinaida Bazhenova. Among the completely unexpected genres in the exhibition are dolls by Nikolai Shalimov and Vasily Khvostenko, creepy characters with cubistically distorted faces. It's hard to believe that they were used for revolutionary agitation. The Red Army soldiers took the figures to the Turkestan front and used them in the puppet shows "Hydra of Counterrevolution" and "Crown and Star".
Exhibits of the exhibition "The Way to the East. Russian artists in Central Asia"
By combining art forms (photographs and films can be added to the above), the exhibition connects civilizations and peoples. It shows that for all the gap between them, this union can — and has — produced amazing results. It also resonates in our time, when the country is experiencing a new turn to the East. The only question is whether the future will see the same artistic surge that happened a hundred years ago.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
