Fun Hour: Boris Kustodiev's exhibition shows Russian fun
Carnival festivities, fairground festivities and, of course, portly merchants sipping tea from saucers, admiring themselves in the mirror or bathing naked. Boris Kustodiev's main plots are well known to all art lovers. But they have never been presented so fully and in such a broad context as at the artist's new retrospective at the Tretyakov Gallery. The exposition occupied two floors of the Engineering Building, and this scale suits it very well. Izvestia appreciated the new application for a museum hit.
Popular theme
More recently, the same halls were occupied by the exhibition "Adepts of Red. Philip Malyavin and Abram Arkhipov". Two painters of the first third of the 20th century, two singers of peasant beauty, they are in many ways close to Kustodiev — and it's not even that they were all contemporaries and, despite the storms of public life, loved most of all to paint buxom, healthy provincial young ladies. The most important thing is the fullness, conviviality and deep "Russianness" of their art.
So Kustodiev's retrospective can be considered, in a sense, a continuation of the topic started earlier. But the new exhibition certainly has more chances to become truly popular. After all, "Adherents of red" are for aesthetes. Even Malyavinsky's "Whirlwind" is a famous thing, however, for all its splendor, it does not reach the "Merchant's Wife at tea" (the one with the cat) in terms of "meme". Kustodiev has a number of such textbook images, which are divided into quotations and parodies.
By the way, the masterpiece from the Russian Museum is on display, of course, and, moreover, it is located in the most prominent place, in the center of the main hall. There is also a famous portrait of Chaliapin. However, it's worth coming here not only and not so much for their sake. The whole project turns out to be a kind of nostalgia for that hospitable, cheerful mother Russia, which probably never existed in reality. More precisely, there were folk festivals, sleigh rides in winter, fairground fun and cozy tea parties on the verandas, too. But there were many other things. What Vasily Perov showed in his paintings and Fyodor Dostoevsky in his books. The one that led to the revolutions of 1905 and then 1917. And later, to the troubles of the Soviet era.
A journey through the Custodia
And doesn't Kustodiev himself have this tragedy? For example, in "Bolshevik," where a frightening giant with a red banner (and in early sketches, simply Death in the form of a skeleton) walks through the streets of a city filled with people. But the famous canvas is not represented in the Tretyakov retrospective. As well as other works of the painter on the Soviet theme. It's as if the curators don't want to overshadow the public's travels through the fictional country of the Custodian. The author of this expression is the writer Evgeny Zamyatin, a close friend of Boris Mikhailovich and the creator of the great dystopia "We". And at the exhibition, it is played out repeatedly, including in interactive computer add-ons (where without them in a massive modern project!).
An illustrative detail: in the text about "Russian Venus", one of Kustodiev's last masterpieces, not a word is said about the fact that the artist painted this piquant, life-loving nude, being seriously ill and confined to a wheelchair. In a sense, the curators are following their hero, who in 1923, in a country that had just experienced a Civil War, painted the painting "Merchant's Wife drinking tea": looking at the well-fed appearance of a chubby lady, sweet rolls and juicy watermelons lying in front of her, you would never think that in reality this time famine and devastation.
The exhibition could be built on contrasts — between the joie de vivre of creativity and the physical suffering of Kustodiev himself; between the idealized image of pre-revolutionary Russia and the real life of that era ... Once the Tretyakov Gallery did something similar in the project for the 100th anniversary of the revolution "Someone 1917", showing that in a fateful year for the country, when blood flowed With gunfire constantly ringing in the streets, the artists chose not to notice what was happening and continued to paint landscapes, still lifes, and portraits of wealthy clients. The works themselves in this context "sounded" in a new way and became, for all their seeming isolation from reality, a collective testimony of the era.
But now there are other times in the yard: not 2017, but 2025. And other exhibitions are needed: not soul-stirring and suggestive of difficult reflections on the fate of the Fatherland, but pacifying. The Boris Kustodiev exposition in the Engineering Building is exactly like that. It has a therapeutic effect. And pleases the eye with endless beauty and carefree.
Catching a "Flea"
At the same time, the matter is not limited to mass celebrations, bills of sale and the like "gentleman's set". A separate large section is devoted to Kustodiev's portraits, and here you can admire, for example, his wonderful large-format pastels: images of ladies made in this technique acquire a special softness and tenderness. I remember Borisov-Musatov, an artist of a completely different type, a quiet, lyrical, melancholic master (by the way, the Tretyakov Gallery is preparing his retrospective for the end of the year). You wouldn't expect that from Kustodiev, but here it is.
It is also interesting to see Boris Mikhailovich's graphics. If in painting he has a certain conventionality, generalization of the image, then in flawlessly worked-out graphic portraits the artist demonstrates academic training, the skill of a draughtsman.
The works for the theater stand apart. For the first time, Kustodiev's sketches for "The Flea", Alexei Diky's experimental "farce" production of Evgeny Zamyatin's play based on a story by Nikolai Leskov, are shown so fully at the exhibition. In Moscow, the play was shown in 1924 on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater 2, and in St. Petersburg - two years later at the BDT. The success was undeniable, and Kustodiev's contribution to it was very great. Here, the artist is in his element: depicting almost caricatured characters, including generals, a merchant's daughter, an ataman, a Cossack and, in fact, the flea itself, Kustodiev develops the traditions of Russian lubka and creates a fervent buffoonery.
The triumph of flesh and spirit
In general, it turned out to be an exhibition about the triumph of the flesh and the spirit. For example, the "Procession of the Cross" from the Chuvash Art Museum is responsible for the spirit. As if arguing with Repin's critical view, Kustodiev creates an idealized image of worshippers and crowns them with a rainbow in the whole sky.
But there is really a lot of flesh in the paintings, including naked ones. The corresponding compartment is marked with a large inscription 16+, although, really, what's the big deal? Buxom Rubens (kustodievsky!) bathers can hardly be perceived in a sexual context today. Rather, it's about unity with nature. About the primordial harmony with the world and oneself.
Of course, the context is also important here. After all, Kustodiev painted these portly beauties when the mysteriously emaciated nymphs of the Silver Age were in fashion, and then the militant strong revolutionaries with boyish figures. Yes, in many of his ways, Kustodiev was blatantly out of date. But it is precisely this old-fashioned nature that attracts us so much today. And the desire of both the artist and the Tretyakov Gallery to preserve the lost paradise for us looks so relevant. At least in art.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
