The game was brought: the exhibition on Fauvism shows the dialogue of cultures and epochs

The Museum of Russian Impressionism decided to compare the provocations of our and French artists, cage paintings like dangerous predators, and make an artistic "remix" of Matisse. The exhibition "Russian Wild" is formally dedicated to Fauvism, but in fact goes far beyond this trend and shows how modernism has matured in the bosom of post-impressionism. After examining the exhibition, Izvestia was convinced that the viewer of the 21st century is much more difficult to shock than the beginning of the 20th century.

Paris and Nizhny Novgorod

The project at the Museum of Russian Impressionism opens to the public the day after the Tretyakov Gallery retrospective of Ilya Mashkov, one of those "wild ones". The neighborhood is obviously accidental, but extremely successful: the viewer can first see the context of the era, and then immerse himself in the work of one of the brightest representatives of this trend. Or vice versa. However, this is the only point where the two exhibitions intersect. In general, "Russian Wild" offers a completely different view of artistic processes and vividly shows their international features.

The name refers to the Russian translation of the word les fauves (wild), which gave rise to the term "fauvism". However, the heroes of the exhibition include not only those associated with this trend — Henri Matisse, Andre Derain — but also the worldly artists and figures of the Russian avant-garde, whom we usually talk about in the context of completely different styles. Olga Rozanova, Pavel Kuznetsov, Boris Anisfeld, Marc Chagall ... They are united, perhaps, by the fact that, remaining in the mainstream of figurative art, they came to self-sufficiency of color and form. And most importantly, they abandoned the desire for "prettiness."

This is in contrast to the Impressionists, who, firstly, still wanted to convey reality, albeit with an emphasis on the light and air environment, and secondly, created an elegant, sophisticated, pleasing to the eye painting. Against this background, Fauvism became a real revolution: even female nude painters of the new generation could paint deliberately repulsive and unrealistic — emphasizing that they were not painting a woman, but a painting. In addition, they abandon rich color nuances and shades in favor of a straightforward, catchy color. In this regard, Matisse talks about returning to "the primary elements that excite our feelings to the very depths."

But the implementation of these ideas could be completely different. For example, Joseph Shkolnik, who was called "St. Petersburg Matisse," depicts the urban landscape ("Street") in an extremely simplified way, as if it were a child's drawing, Mikhail Larionov paints water in bright crimson rather than blue in the painting "Sea," and Pavel Kuznetsov discovers the same return to the simplicity of color in oriental subjects. in a sense, following in the footsteps of Gauguin, who went to Tahiti and saw new artistic perspectives in isolation from Western civilization.

It's wildly beautiful

Gauguin, like Cezanne and Van Gogh, are not at the exhibition, although Fauvism has its roots in their finds. But perhaps if the curators had included their predecessors in this story, it would have turned out to be an immense, inevitably fragmentary narrative. As it is, the exhibition is quite diverse and eclectic (despite the fact that most of the works presented were created in just a few years, in the second half of the 1900s and early 1910s). But for the "wild" this is not a minus, on the contrary. The exhibition is good because it shows how different and contrasting the manifestations of Fauvism were.

It is also valuable that we can look at many artists with different eyes. For example, Aristarchus Lentulov, who is associated with mosaic city panoramas, as if assembled from fragments. There are also images of ladies relaxing by reservoirs; and only remembering "St. Basil the Blessed", "The Bell", "The Monastery", it will be possible to see in the colorful separate strokes and the conventions of the figures a harbinger of a future stylistic turn. Boris Anisfeld's "By the Sea" also turns out to be a surprise. The participant of the "World of Art", known for the most delicate symbolist theatrical sketches, thickens the colors in this work — literally. The water in his landscape turns deep blue and green. And the figures of the bathing boys are designed in flaming red tones.

Is it beautiful? Yes, it's wildly beautiful, a modern viewer will exclaim. Indeed, it is very difficult for us today to understand why the Paris critics were so outraged at the 1905 Autumn Salon, why they compared artists to wild animals. By the way, this definition has been wittily played out at the new exhibition: in the center of the hall we see a kind of cage in which hang the works of the same authors who exhibited 120 years ago at the Grand Palais. But there are no doors, you can get close to things. For the public of the 21st century, these "beasts" pose no danger.

Union of Museums and Times

In fact, the most "wild" work in the Museum of Russian Impressionism turns out to be a painting that has nothing to do with Fauvism, as well as with Russia and France.: This is an unnamed, more than two-meter-long 1984 painting by Americans Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, which came from the Russian Museum. The aesthetics of street art plus the signature motifs of both authors, if you think about it, still seem to the mass audience to be audacity, provocation and hooliganism. Although for the exhibition regulars it is a pure classic, moreover, it has been seen many times.

Alas, there is no other work by Basquiat in our country. Besides, it's always interesting to look at a masterpiece in a new context. So we can only thank the Russian Museum for once again delivering the painting to Moscow. As well as the Hermitage — for the paintings of the French. Well, the Pushkin Museum, being a co-organizer, was generous with five canvases from the permanent exhibition. An infrequent occurrence: the exhibition featured items from all four major Russian art museums (yes, the Tretyakov Gallery was also not forgotten). They also involved three dozen regional treasuries, ranging from Krasnodar to Surgut and Khabarovsk, plus many private collections.

All of the above would be quite enough to make an exhibition hit. But the organizers also made a significant "postscript" to the exhibition, allocating a large hall on the third floor for variations (musically called "remix") of our contemporaries on the theme of Matisse. The walls here are painted based on the art of the great Frenchman, the tapestry hanging of canvases developing his motifs hints at the interiors of the Shchukin and Morozov mansions, ceramic products painted a la Matisse are adjacent to the interactive zone. Tired viewers can immediately make their own applications from the presented templates, or they can simply relax in the bag chairs. After all, the contemplation of the cheerful, almost childish Matisse patterns that are everywhere here these days does not anger at all, but only calms down.