You can't spoil an oil painting: the diversity of Repin and the bifurcation of Serov
The book by art critic Galina Yelshevskaya, compiled from six lectures delivered as part of the Arzamas educational project, forms a curious double portrait of Ilya Repin and Valentin Serov, who were connected not only by teacher-student relations, but also by human sympathy and professional respect. Critic Lidia Maslova presents the book of the week, especially for Izvestia.
Galina Yelshevskaya
"The real Repin. Serov's Paradoxes"
Moscow : Alpina non-fiction, 2026. 160 p.
Yelshevskaya's attention is evenly distributed (three lectures for one character, three for the other), but it seems that Repin spoke about his pupil in much more detail and emotionally than Serov about him. The fact is that Serov did not really like to speak out at all: the author of the book speaks about his reputation as a "closed taciturn man" in the first lecture of the Serov cycle, "The Split Personality of Valentin Serov."
This lecture is preceded by a brief summary in a half-joking form, designed to whet the reader's interest.: "Why did this tough man like to rejoice so much, was it possible to corrupt Serov, and why was he called Anton if he wasn't Anton." The step-by-step transformation of the name is explained here: little Valentosha Serov turns first into Tosha, and then gradually grows into Anton (the male name "Valentin", given to the child in honor of his mother, sounded "somewhat pretentious" at that time and its owner, apparently, did not really like it). As for the possibility of "corrupting" Serov, the lecture cites an episode from Repin's memoirs "The Far Near": Ilya Efimovich stops his friends telling frivolous jokes in the presence of a very young boy Serov ("Gentlemen, don't you see this young witness! After all, you're corrupting him!"), but the staunch Valentosha loudly objects: "I'm not corrupt."
The chapter about Serov and his family from Repin's book "The Far Near" (which serves as one of the important sources for Yelshevskaya) is generally striking with the warmth with which Repin treated Serov all his life, seeing him for the first time as a four-year-old child, "fresh, pink, with very blond curls." It is unlikely to find a symmetrical response from the restrained Serov in memoirs and correspondence. It is known that Serov spoke with a touch of disapproval about Repin's tendency to easily change his mind, however, many contemporaries blamed Ilya Yefimovich for inconsistency in his assessments. This mobility of nature, which Yelshevskaya calls impulsivity, which left its mark not only on his everyday behavior, but also on his work, was recognized by Repin himself in one of his letters.: "In the Art Magazine, I was described as an artisan of painting, who absolutely does not care what he writes, as long as he writes...> There is no sequence, no specific purpose of the activity; everything is random and, of course, superficial... <...> What to do, maybe the judges are right, but you can't get away from yourself. I love variety."
Serov's kind words about Repin are also found at the very end of the book, where 11 stories from memoirs and letters are attached, shedding light on the relationship between the two artists. There are many extremely complimentary and even enthusiastic reviews of Repin in this dossier, and there are only two Serov "testimonies". One is from the memoirs of Konstantin Korovin, who tells how once at the Abramtsevo estate of Savva Morozov, who welcomed the best painters, Vrubel reproached Repin for his inability to draw, and Serov stood up for the teacher, albeit in his usual terse, laconic manner. Serov looks much more frank and direct in a letter to his fiancee Olga Trubnikova.: "Yes, imagine: Repin is not telling me, of course, that at this time, in Russia or in the whole world, I don't know, there are only two talents — I (of course) and Manya Shpak. How can I not like Repin after that?" Here, indeed, the preamble is absolutely justified, assuring that Serov, a tough man, still knew how to rejoice (especially at the praise of a respected teacher) and even make fun of himself.
The relationship between human details and purely artistic analysis in Yelshevskaya is quite harmonious, preventing it from slipping into either tabloid yellowness or dry academicism, and the artistic manifestations of each of the characters often appear as a natural continuation of Repin's or Serov's nature. For example, Repin's already mentioned "glorified impulsivity" sets him apart from the peredvizhniki, in collaboration with whom he became famous — this is discussed in the book's opening lecture "Truth and Intuition by Ilya Repin" (with the announcement "Why the author of "Boatmen on the Volga" is not one hundred percent Peredvizhnik"). According to Yelshevskaya, Repin's inherent personal romanticism did not allow him to be content with only "everyday" plots: "... the everyday genre, which was the main thing for the Peredvizhniki, for the Peredvizhniki program, never attracted him. He has practically no direct everyday pictures <...> He was not drawn to everyday life at all — he was drawn to events and even to affects..." Speaking about the fact that Repin mastered all genres except everyday (portrait, historical composition, inter-genre folk series, religious painting, landscapes), Yelshevskaya explains this "omnivorousness": "He always had a global vision, in the best sense a totally illegible sense of being. That is, when you see everything, when you see more than you can comprehend, than you are ready to put into a formula..."
In contrast to Repin's broad nature, the restrained Serov, on the contrary, looks very picky, even scrupulous (due to Serov's rigid public position, their relationship with Repin was even interrupted at some point). Some severity can also be seen in Serov's painting, as Yelshevskaya notes: "... at first glance, Serov is not at all one of those artists whom everyone loves, because in his art there is neither conventional beauty nor sentimental shades." Reflecting on Serov's evolution, including his relationship with the Art Nouveau style and the World of Art association, Yelshevskaya states that both as a person and as an artist, he looked a little different from any background and in any context. But not a black sheep at all, because the status of a white crow presupposes some kind of challenge, and there was no challenge here. <...> In general, a very separate artist who does not fit into the preset cells."
And once again, a separate, closed and mysterious sphinx-Serov opens up in a letter to his beloved bride Lela Trubnikova, revealing his credo to her at the beginning of his creative career: "In this century, they write everything hard and nothing gratifying. I want the good things, and I will write only the good things." Otradnoe means chamber, lyrical, harmoniously integrated into the world, as Yelshevskaya explains, citing as examples the landscapes of those places where Serov was happy, as well as portraits of girls from the Simonovich, Dervizov and Mamontov families friendly and related to the artist, including the famous "Girl with Peaches."
The portrait genre becomes the point of convergence at which Repin and Serov maximally converge professionally. The main element of continuity between them can be seen in the fact that Serov had to revive the genre of commissioned secular portrait. He lost popularity at some point, and many artists were simply embarrassed by him, but an uncompromising painter is able to impose his will on even the highest customer. Two lectures by Galina Yelshevskaya on the portrait painters Repin and Serov (one is described almost as a sorcerer whose portraits can kill, the other as evil and mocking) become an important semantic axis of her book, create a pleasant symmetry between the two painters, before whom their status clients trembled, and recall the popular joke that "an artist can offend anyone."
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
