by Leek, Peter.
160. Martiros Saryan, Lake Sevan, 1936.
Oil on canvas, 73 x 53 cm, Private Collection.
161. Ilya Repin, Apples and Leaves, 1879.
Oil on canvas, 65 x 75.5 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
162. Mikhail Vrubel, Still Life with Plaster
Mask and Sconce, 1885. Watercolor on paper,
18.5 x 11.7 cm, Museum of Russian Art, Kiev.
Still Life
From the Eighteenth Century to the 1860s
In Russia, still life did not emerge as a separate artistic category until the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, until that time there were relatively few Russian painters who devoted their energies primarily to still life. Its most brilliant proponent was Ivan Khrutsky (1810-85), whose decorative pictures of fruit and vegetables were influenced by the Dutch masterpieces displayed in the Hermitage. Dutch and Italian still lifes served as models for most of Khrutsky’s contemporaries — though one or two of them departed from the norm by substituting indigenous vegetables, such as onions, carrots, mushrooms and parsley, in place of the hothouse fruits typically included in the Dutch and Italian compositions.
Some of Venetsianov’s pupils, such as Kapiton Zelentsov (1790-1845) and Alexeï Tyranov (1808-59), painted lively, minutely observed compositions of everyday objects. Still-life elements also figure frequently in portraits and pictures of interiors by these artists — for example, on the desk in the foreground of Soroka’s The Study in a Country House at Ostrovski.
Count Fyodor Tolstoy (1783-1873), a friend and admirer of Venetsianov and relative of the famous novelist, was an exceptionally versatile artist who became known as a sculptor and medallist as well as for his silhouettes. In addition, he produced natural-history studies of birds and flowers, and interior scenes with such titles as At the Window on a Moonlit Night. One of the art forms at which he excelled was the creation of charmingly convincing trompe l’oeil miniatures, in pen-and-ink and gouache, featuring flowers and berries plus butterflies or birds.
From the 1860s to the 1890s
Although there are some pleasing still lifes from the second half of the nineteenth century, it was not until the earlier part of the twentieth century that still-life painting in Russia came into its own. Repin’s Apples and Leaves echoes the Dutch and Italian masterpieces of earlier centuries, which he would have had ample opportunity to study both while abroad and at the Hermitage.
More distinctively, and slightly ahead of its time, the patterned background and vase of Mikhaïl Vrubel’s Dogrose belong to the decorative world of Art Nouveau, in contrast to the simple blocks of colour used in his Still Life with Plaster Mask and Sconce. Vroubel privileged, contrary to most of the landscape artists of the second half of the ninteenth century who lauded realism, a somewhat scenic and decorative beauty of the subject.
Vroubel, who worked a great deal in the area of theatrical, monumental and decorative art, is often considered as one of the masters of Russian Art Nouveau. The range of colours that the painter preferred included all the shades of blue, from light blue to violet; combined with pink or green, these colours create the impression of a shimmering and changing surface. In fact, the subject served as a pretext for his stroke and his palette of colours. Born in Omsk in 1856, he only began painting later in life, in 1880, after having obtained a law degree from the University of Saint Petersburg. At the Academy of the Arts, he was a student of the teacher and graphic artist P. P. Tchistiakov. Just four years later, he was entrusted with the restoration of ancient frescoes in Kiev, in the twelfth century Kirillov Church. Vroubel also accomplished other paintings there, including a mural. In Kiev, Vroubel made sketches as well of the unfinished painting of the cathedral of St Vladimir that was under construction. As of 1890, he lived in Moscow and was a member of the Abramtsevo circle that was composed of the Vasnetsov borthers, Ilya Repin, Vassily and Yelena Polenov, Mark Antokolsky, Ilya Ostroukhov and many others. His painting turned toward epic subjects inspired by the history of his country. Some historical portraits were painted before he launched himself into ceramic work and even invented a new method of baking. In addition, a number of decorations of properties, decors and costumes for Mamontov’s opera… are owed to him. Suffering from depression as of the beginning of the century, he nevertheless continued to create, perhaps to free himself from his stagnation. From 1904 to 1905 his illness was calmer; this was the moment in particular when he gave himself over to still lifes. The impressive painting Lilacs (1900) proves his disposition for this genre, which remained secondary in Russia for a long time.
Like many other of his paintings, including the portrait of Savva Mamontov reproduced in the third part of this book, he left this still-life “unfinished” — whether as a conscious decision, through lack of time or because of the mental turmoil that plagued him periodically throughout his life, is not known. Whatever the case may be, Mikhaïl Vroubel undoubtedly inspired Symbolism in Russia more than anyone else did.
163. Mikhail Vrubel, Dogrose, 1884.
Watercolor on paper, 24.5 x 19.5 cm, Private Collection.
164. Isaac Levitan, Bouquet of Cornflowers, 1894.
Pastel on brown cardboard, 62.3 x 47.7 cm, Private Collection.
165. Sergeï Sudeikin, Still Life with a Tray, 1914.
Oil on canvas, 51 x 64.5 cm, Private collection.
From the 1890s to the Post-Revolutionary Period
During the first few decades of the twentieth century still-life painting in Russia was one of the most inventive art forms, in terms of technique, subject matter and imaginative treatment. One reason was that it was a natural vehicle not only for the decorative and aesthetic philosophy of the World of Art movement but also for the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist experiments with colour and the avant-garde experiments with form. Both Korovin and Igor Grabar produced delightful still lifes in the Impressionist idiom, such as The Uncleared Table and The Blue Tablecloth, while the World of Art painters tended to favour a more sensuous or decorative approach, as in Kustodiev’s Still Life with Pheasants and Golovin’s Still Life with Flowers and China.
Konstantin Korovin was born into a family of shopkeepers. At the early age of 14, he entered the Architecture Department of the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Moscow. He gave drawing lessons at age 15 to help support his family. After two years of studies, he managed to gain admission to the Department of Painting. He took classes with Alexeï Savrasov, who felt that paintings of nature were important. He knew how to spark enthusiasm in his students and, as soon as the weather became better, they left the city and its suburbs to admire flowers, fields, the miraculous rebirth of life after winter. Under his influence, Korovin was attracted very early on to landscape painting — The Village (1878), Early Spring (1870) — and moved from place to place without hesitation to apply the final touch and thereby preserve the impression of nature. In order to finish his education, Korovin entered the Academy of Fine Arts of Saint Petersburg; he left after only three months, disappointed by the teaching methods. Upon his return to Moscow, he took courses with Polenov for his last year of studies. Portrait of a Chorister (1883) was the work that revealed the young artist to the public, thanks to its depiction of nature, of the outdoors. With a brushstroke free of all constraints and its luminous colours, this portrait reminds us of Serov’s style. Polenov introduced Korovin to the Abramtsevo circle. His painting was very soon appreciated within that circle. Korovin’s painting and the refinement of its colours remained marked by northern landscapes, notably during his second trip with Serov.
He was also chosen to design the Russian pavilion for the World Fair held in Paris in 1900. The painter received a gold medal during the Fair for that work. Having thereby gained an international reputation, his work was exhibited worldwide.
Essentially a colourist, colour remained his principal means of expression, no matter which art form he used: decoration, painting or decors for the theatre or opera. “Colour and shape combine to revea
l harmony and beauty,” he wrote. “Colours can be a celebration for the eyes, and your eyes speak to your soul of the joy, the pleasure of relaxation…” His favourite themes were landscapes, cities (particularly Paris), but he was also asked for theatrical decors and he painted still lifes as well. Indeed, he did many paintings such as Roses and Violets (1912), executed with an extremely rich colour palette. In Fish (1916), objects have a very concrete presence, upholding the diversity of colour. The influence of Impressionism, of which Korovin knew many paintings due to his travels, is palpable in his use of colour. Objects are less and less defined but still remain tangible. His colours are less and less precise, gradually becoming touches of light. From 1901 on, Constantin Korovin was a teacher at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he had been a student. He taught his art to an enormous number of students. He died at the beginning of the Second World War.
Among the artists of the Blue Rose group, Nikolaï Sapunov (1880-1912) and Sergeï Sudeikin (1882-1946) are famous for their colourful theatrical decors. Both were enthusiastic admirers of Russian crafts and decorative traditions — hence the “Primitivist” (folk-inspired) colours of their paintings. They often included old objects in their still lifes such as antique figurines, hand-painted trays and old-fashioned toys.
Like Grabar, Sapunov produced flower paintings remarkable for their handling of colour, though in terms of tonal range the two artists could scarcely have been less similar.
In contrast to the flower paintings of Grabar and Sapunov, bolder experimental styles were in evidence at the Knave of Diamonds exhibitions — discernible influences ranging from Matisse and Cézanne to Primitivism, Expressionism and various types of Cubism (analytical, synthetic, etc.). Four of the most active founding members of the group were Alexander Kuprin, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Ilya Mashkov (1881-1944) and Robert Falk. All four produced still lifes that played with colour and form. This creative playfulness resulted in pictures like the ones by Kuprin and Konchalovsky reproduced here. Many of Mashkov’s still lifes feature fruit or loaves — sometimes stylized and sometimes so realistic that they are almost palpable. For a time, Falk was attracted by Impressionism (especially Cezanne) but by the 1920s, when Red Furniture was painted, he had begun to explore what Alan Bird has called “a most private and almost secretive path” of his own.
166. Sergeï Chekhonin, Still Life, 1916.
Oil on canvas, 55 x 68 cm, Museum of History,
Architecture and Art, Pskov.
167. Alexander Golovin,
Still Life with Flowers and China, c. 1912.
Tempera on plywood, 88.5 x 70.5 cm,
Brodsky Memorial Museum, St. Petersburg.
168. Boris Kustodiev, Still Life with Pheasants, 1914.
Oil on canvas, 41 x 40 cm, Kustodiev Picture Gallery, Astrakhan.
169. Igor Grabar, Pears on a Dark Blue Tablecloth, 1915.
Oil on canvas, The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
170. Nikolaï Sapunov, Vase, Flowers and Fruits, 1912.
Tempera on canvas, 142.7 x 115.8 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Quite different from any of these were the still lifes of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, who became an influential theorist and teacher. Petrov-Vodkin began working as a student of Burov. He completed his studies at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Moscow in 1904, where he was guided by Serov. Writing as much as he painted at that time, he hesitated greatly as to which path to follow. He made his choice after a trip to Italy and a long trip to Paris where he studied in many artists’ studios and art schools. His figurative and laconic paintings date in part from the influence of modern European and western painters. First that of Germans and Austrians, the influence then became French, in particular Neoclassic and post-Impressionist.
At the time of the formation of the Blue Rose group he was working in North Africa (which had an impact on his treatment of light and the human figure), but he was able to participate in the Golden Fleece exhibitions. According to Petrov-Vodkin, “the new way of looking at things is markedly an absence of vertical and horizontal lines”. Many of his later paintings are notable for their “spherical perspective”, but in Morning Still Lifè the intriguing tension of the composition derives from his use of “tilted space”.
In 1910, Petro-Vodkin became a member of the artistic World of Art association and he remained a member until its dissolution in 1924, although he belonged to no school. He was incapable of defining his art and admitted himself that he was “a difficult painter”. His evolution proved that he attempted to synthesise the traditions of Eastern and Western painting. At the end of the 1910s, he developed and wrote a new theory on the representation of space. His “spherical perspective” differed from the traditional Italian perspective. The artist created various spaces on his canvas, connected by gravity. Dealing with space in such a way with such specific colours proved the maturity of Petrov-Vodkin’s style.
After the Bolshevic revolution in October 1917, Petrov-Vodkin painted more and more still lifes: Morning Still life (1918), Still life with mirror (1919), Still life with Blue Ashtray (1920). Between the end of the twenties and the beginning of the thirties, as a result of his illness, he ceased painting and devoted himself to writing once again. We owe him two autobiographical compilations, Khvalynsk and Eucild’s Space, in which he expressed his points of view and theories on art. Petrov-Vodkin’s last work, Alarm, came out in 1919 and although it was simply a transcription of the situation at the time, it became a political symbol of the entire period and many referred to it. The work of Petrov-Vodkin did not correspond to Stalinist ideology, it was therefore quickly forgotten.
171. Pyotr Konchalovsky, Tray and Vegetables, 1910.
Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
172. Alexander Kuprin, Large Still Life with
Artificial Flowers, a Red Tray and a Wooden Plate, 1919.
Oil on canvas, 140 x 168 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
173. Alexander Kuprin, Still Life. Cactus and Fruits, 1918.
Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 113 cm.
Different from Vodkin was the style of Larionov whose still lifes went through several phases. Although works such as Fish at Sunset and Flowers (Two Bouquets), which date from 1904, have an Impressionist quality, around that time he began to experiment with more intense colours, resulting in the Fauve-like idiom of Pears. Between 1907 and 1913, Larionov and Goncharova poured out a stream of Primitivist pictures, using elements and styles culled from folk art, especially tradesmen signboards and lubki (the Russian wood-cuts, similar to English chapbooks, that had become immensely popular in the seventeenth century).
Among paintings influenced by signs, Bread sets itself apart. A pyramid of round and oblong loaves of bread takes up the entire surface of this monumental painting. The poet Maximilien Volochine, after having visited the Knave of Diamonds exhibition in late 1910, noted, “Larionov is the most naive and most spontaneous of our ‘Knaves’. His painting Bread is nothing more than bread: good bread, well baked, that would have been the pride of any bakery had it been on its tinplate sign.” While drawing inspiration from signs, Larionov was not content to simply imitate. His approach to the subject is all the contrary: weighty and serious for the sign painter, it becomes ironic and full of humour in Larionov’s work.
174. Pyotr Konchalovsky, Still Life. The Trunk (Heroic), 1919.
Oil on canvas, 143.5 x 174 cm. Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
There followed a period of brilliantly coloured semi-abstract still lifes, such as Larionov’s Rayonist Sausage and Mackerel, typical of the Rayonist period. In 1913, Larionov published a manifesto on Rayonism as well as an article entitled “Rayonist Painting”. But a tract that he distributed during a debate organised by The Target (the group that organised exhibits) is even clearer, as shown in this extract: “Teachings on Radiation. Radiation of reflected colour (coloured thrust). Reflectivity. Realistic rayonism reproducing real shapes. Negation of sha
pes in painting as existing independently of the eye (a priori). Conventional representation of the ray by the use of the line. Disappearance of frontiers under the effect of what is called the plan of the painting and nature. Seeds of rayonism in previous arts. Teachings on the creation of new shapes. Spatial shapes, shapes engendered by the intersection of rays from different objects, brought to light by the painter’s will. Reproduction of the sensation of the infinite and the timeless. Pictorial construction according to the laws of painting (ie. workmanship and colour). Natural decline of all previous art which, thanks to rayonist shapes, transforms, just as life does, solely into the object of the painter’s observation.” (Larionov’s Rayonism in the Orient, the Nation, the Occident, tract at the beginning of the debate held by “The Target”, Moscow, 23 March 1913)