Russian Painting

by Leek, Peter.

  DMITRY ISIDOROVICH MITROKHIN

  Dmitry Isidorovich Mitrokhin was born on 15 May (27 N.S.) 1883 in Yeisk on the Sea of Azov. In 1902 he entered the College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow, where he studied under Appolinary Vasnetsov and Alexeï Stepanov. In 1904 he transferred to the Stroganov College where his teachers were Stanislav Noakovsky and Sergeï Yaguzhinsky.

  In 1904-05 he worked with the Murava group of artistic potters. In 1905-06 he lived in Paris for ten months attending evening classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Théophile Steinlen and Eugène Grasset and studying classical European and Japanese engravings, drawings by the Old Masters, and contemporary graphic art. He took part in exhibitions as from 1906 and began to exhibit with the World of Art in 1911, of which he became a member in 1916.

  In 1908 he moved to Saint Petersburg, where from 1918 to 1923 he was a curator and head of the Department of Engraving and Drawings at the Russian Museum. From 1919 to 1923 he was Professor of the Art Faculty at the Higher Institute of Photography and Photo-technology, from 1924 to 1930 professor of the Polygraphic Faculty at the Higher Art-Technical Institute, lecturing on book graphic art.

  At the age of 58, during World War II he joined the popular militia as a volunteer. In October 1942 he left besieged Leningrad for Alma-Ata. In 1944, after the evacuation, he moved to Moscow. He worked in all fields of graphic art, producing illustrations for books and journals, applied graphic works, engravings, lithographs, drawings, and watercolours.

  In 1904 he created his first vignettes for the journals The Balance and Pravda (Truth). Between 1905 and 1910 he drew covers, head- and tailpieces, initials and illustrations for the journals The Viewer, Yunost (Youth), Satiricon, Novy Satiricon, Apollon, Lukomorye, Vershiny (Summits), etc. In the 1920s he designed some elements for various journals (Dom iskusstv [The House of Arts], Krasnaya Panorama [The Red Panorama], Vesntik profsoyuzov [The Trade Union Herald], and Drezina [The Hand Car]). As a graphic artist he designed either only covers or entire books. He created his first cover in 1907 and the last in 1962. The best examples of the whole publications designed by him are children’s books in the series issued by the Knoebel Publishing Company: Hauff’s Little Muck and The Ghost Ship, V. Zhukovsky’s Goblet and Orlando the Sword-Bearer (1911-1914), Poe’s Gold Bug (1922), Hugo’s Les Misérables (1923), books for the Academia Publishing House (1930-34), Aristophanes’ Comedies, Heliodorus’ Ethiopica, K. Immermann’s Münchhausen, Turgenev’s Prose Poems and French Folk Tales (1958).

  He produced about 50 bookplates, designed a decorative typescript (an alphabet on subjects from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1910; An October Revolution Alphabet, 1927) and drew dozens of colophons, trademarks, emblems and labels. In the field of engraving, after a short fascination with coloured lithography, he worked in the techniques of xylography, linocut, metal engraving (burin and dry-point); quite often he tinted his prints in watercolour or printed a picture from two or three blocks. His works are mainly street scenes and views of the Petrogradskaya Side in Saint Petersburg, and depictions of Yeisk fishermen. He used the medium of metal engraving to produce the Central Park of Culture and Leisure series, still lifes, and flowers.

  He was constantly drawing from life, making sketches in the streets and parks of Leningrad, in Alma-Ata, and during his travels to Yeisk, Abkhazia, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, the Northern Dvina and the seashore by Riga. During the last thirty-five years of his life he mostly produced drawings as works in their own right. His output amounts to many hundred of small-scale landscapes, interiors, and still lifes depicting fruit, flowers, fish, pharmacy vessels, etc. He died on 7 November 1973 in Moscow.

  GEORGY IVANOVICH NARBUT

  Georgy Ivanovich Narbut was born on 26 February (10 March N.S.) 1886 in the Ukraine (village of Narbutovka, Glukhov District, Chernigov Province, now Sumy Region). In 1906, on graduation from the school in Glukhov, he entered the Oriental Faculty of Saint Petersburg University, but immediately transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology and left the university in November 1907. He practiced drawing in the students’ circle which was advised by World of Art members. A pupil of Ivan Bilibin, he lived in his apartment from 1906 to 1912. In the winter of 1907-08 he studied in Yelizaveta Zvantseva’s studio under Leon Bakst and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. In the autumn of 1909 he went to Munich where he spent about half a year, briefly attending Hollósy’s studio. During World War I he was an official of the Trophy Commission; in 1915 he worked as an artist of the heraldry department, where about 60 coat-of-arms were designed under his direction. In March 1917 he was an active member of the Committee for Artistic Matters attached to the Provisional Goverment. Later he moved to Kiev and took part in the establishment of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts. After it opened in September 1917, he was made Professor of Graphic Art, before becoming rector in February 1918. He was a member of the board and chairman of the Art Industry Department of the All-Ukrainian Committee for the Fine Arts, a member of the committee for the creation of a new emblem for the Ukraine, and led the commission for the organization of a museum based on the B. and V. Khanenko collection. He began to exhibit with the World of Art in 1904 and became a member of the association in 1913. He worked almost entirely in graphic art, especially in designing books and journals and producing illustrations for them. He contributed to the journals Satiricon, Apollon, Argus, Lukomorye, Gerboved (The Heraldic Scholar), Otechestvo (Fatherland), etc. In Kiev he designed and illustrated the journals Nashe minule (Our Past), Narodnoye khoziaystvo Ukrainy (The Popular Economy of the Ukraine), Zori (The Dawns), Solntse truda (The Sun of Labor), Mistetstvo (Art). His first illustrations and elements of book designs dated from his school period (The Song of Roland, 1903; the tales The Brave George, 1904; The Snow Maiden and Gorshenia, both 1906). Later he designed and illustrated many fairy tales and fables (often using a silhouette drawing, black or white, in combination with colours): The Crane and the Heron, The Bear (1907); The Terem, Mizgir (1909); Dance, Matthew: Don’t Spare Your Shoe (1910); B. Dix’s Toys (1911), The Year 1812 in Krylov’s Fables (1912), Russia Saved, after Krylov’s Fables (1913), The Nightingale (1912) and other Andersen’s fairy tales, S. Repnin’s Tale of the Love of the Beautiful Queen and the Faithful Prince (1916). He designed many book covers: Fiodor Sologub’s Book of Partings (1908), Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s Gogol: Creative Work, Life and Religion, V. and G. Lukomsky’s Vyshnevetsky Castle (1912), A. Sacchetti’s A History of the Music of All Times and Peoples (1913), The Russian Red Cross: 1867-1917 (1917). He designed and illustrated the books G. Lukomsky’s Old Architecture of Galicia (1915) and Old Landed Estates in Kharkov Province (1917), S. Troinitsky’s Coats of Arms of the Hetmans of Small Russia and The Coats of Arms of the Commander and Officers of the Brig Mercury (1915), T. Shchepkina-Kupernik’s Songs of Brussels Lace-Makers (1915), V. Narbut’s Hallelujah (1919). He produced an illustration for I. Kotliarevsky’s Aeneid (1919). He worked on The Ukrainian ABC in 1917 and 1919 (neither version was completed). He also produced bookplates, posters, designs for stamps, banknotes, textiles, wallpaper and flyleaf papers. His easel works were compositions in watercolour or gouache: the Cornet cycle of 1910 (A Cornet, Landscape with a Cornet, Organ, etc.); allegorical war scenes (Allegory of the War with Turkey, The Battle of Heligoland, The Destruction of Rheims Cathedral), etc. 1914-16); Roses in a Goblet (1915); architectural fantasies on the theme of old estates (Moonlit Night, 1916; Architectural Motif, 1917; Ruins and Mills on a Moonlit Night, 1919, etc.). He executed portraits (half-length, full-length, and group portraits) of his relatives, friends, and his family (1913-19), and created his Self-Portrait. He took part in the decoration of the large-scale exhibition Lomonosov and the Age of Empress Elizabeth (the painted decor of the Small Russia [Ukraine] Room, 1912) and executed wall paintings on S. Troinitsky’s estate. He died in Kiev on 23 May 1920.

  SERGEÏ VASSILYEVICH CHEKHONIN

  Sergeï Vassilyevich Chekhonin was born in 1878 at Lykoshino Station in Novgorod Province (now Tver Re
gion). From 1893 to 1896 he served at the Nikolayevskaya Railroad Station, often visiting Saint Petersburg and attending the Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing. From 1896 to 1897 he studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts under Jan Tsionglinsky and trained in ceramic art under V. Schreiber. Between 1897 and 1900 he studied at Princess Tenisheva’s Private School and under the guidance of Ilya Repin. From 1902 to 1907 he worked under Piotr Vaulin at Savva Mamontov’s Artistic Pottery Works in Moscow, from 1907 to 1915 in the “Goldwein and Vaulin workshop” near Saint Petersburg and in the workshop on Princess Tenisheva’s estate at Talashkino near Smolensk. In 1906 he traveled to Paris to organize an exhibition of Russian folk art and in 1913 to Berlin to prepare an exhibition of Russian handicrafts. In 1913 he took part in the organization of the second All-Russian Handicraft Exhibition in Saint Petersburg and after it was invited to work as an artistic adviser to the handicraft department of the Ministry of Agriculture. Between 1913 and 1917 he was in charge of the enamel painting workshops at Rostov in Yaroslavl Province and at Torzhok in Tver Province, the workshop of artistic furniture at Yefremov, Tula Province, and the gold embroidery and stitching workshop at Torzhok. In 1917 he entered a commission for handicrafts and in 1918 an art board attached to the People’s Commissariat for Education. From 1918 to 1923 and 1925 to 1927 he was the chief artist at the State Porcelain Factory in Petrograd/Leningrad; from 1923 to 1925 he headed the artistic section of the Novgorod Porcelain Works (formerly the Kuznetsov Factory). He took part in the World of Art exhibitions and was a member from 1913. His first drawings appeared in the political satirical journals The Viewer (1905-06) and Maski (Masks, 1906) of which he was an editor, he also produced two sheets for The Calendar of the Russian Revolution (1906). In the 1910s and 1920s he contributed to the journals Apollon, Satiricon, New Satiricon, Flame, October, Red Panorama, The Worker and the Theatre, etc. He designed dozens of books including K. Balmont’s Cali of Antiquity, Sasha Chorny’s Satires (1911-12), G. Lukomsky’s Monuments of Old Architecture in Russia (1913), S. Makovsky and N. Radlov’s Modern Russian Graphics (1914-17), A. Pushkin’s Mozart and Salieri (1914), A. Lunacharsky’s Faust and the City (1919), J. Read’s Ten Days That Shook the World (1923), The October Revolution in Art (1926). He also designed collections of works by Fiodor Dostoyevsky, Lope de Vega, Victor Hugo, Mikhaïl Lermontov, Nikolaï Nekrasov and children’s books (K. Chukovsky’s Cockroach, 1923; Ye. Polonskaya’s Guests, 1924; S. Marshak’s Book about Books, 1924, etc.). More than other World of Art members he devoted himself to the creation of fonts: he created The Fairy Tale ABC (1912, each letter representing some character), The Theatrical Font (1920s) and others; he designed printers’ typefaces and in 1912 won first prize in the competition of new fonts for I. Leman’s publishing house. He worked in the other spheres of graphic art too: he designed posters, slogans, colophons, as well as the first examples of Soviet emblems, seals, banknotes, trade-union emblems, postage stamps, etc. His easel paintings and graphic works include landscapes (Landscape, 1912; Ostankino, 1927; View of the Park of the Russian Museum, 1928); still lifes, mainly flowers (Roses, 1913; Still Life, 1916; Poppies in a Glass, 1925); numerous portraits (S. Andronnikova, 1916; Vladimir Kachalov, 1918; Maxim Gorky, 1921; Larisa Reisner, 1922; a series of Russian composers; several portraits of Lenin). He revived the art of the portrait miniature (depictions of Lydia Vychegzhanina, 1915; Zinaida Lukomskaya, 1916; Georgy Narbut, 1917 and others). He took part in the designing of the interiors and façade of the Hotel Metropole in Moscow (1902-07), decorated interiors in some private mansions, in the Yusupov Palace from 1912 to 1915; he produced designs of majolica panels for the church of the Life-Guards of the Moscow Regiment in Saint Petersburg (1906), the School House (1907), and the church built to mark 300 years of the House of Romanov (1914) in Moscow, and other buildings. He took part in the decoration of Petrograd for the first anniversary of the October Revolution (1918) and the first rest home for workers on Kamenny Island in Petrograd, and in planning the mass spectacle The Siege of Russia in honor of its inauguration (1920). He decorated articles with flowers, fruit, and figures; produced the first examples of propaganda porcelain (plates and dishes “Blessed be free labor!”, The Red Baltic Fleet, “The reign of workers and peasants will never end”, The Hammer and Sickle, The RSFSR, etc.); invented new shapes for vessels (the Narkompros [People’s Committee for Education], Plenipotentiary, Sheaves, Jubilee, and other services, etc.), and statuettes (Maternity, Street Vendor, Negro Woman). His first venture in theatrical art was connected with the satirical theatre called The Crooked Mirror. He designed costumes and sets for Rostand’s La Princesse lointaine for K. Nezlobin’s theatre in Moscow (1916), sets for Andreï Bely’s Petersburg at the Arts Theatre in Moscow and produced the sets for N. Vekstern’s play In 1825 (1925). In 1928 he went to Paris, accompanying an exhibition of modern Russian porcelain, and did not return. While abroad, he painted landscapes, still lifes, portrait miniatures, produced a number of decorative panels, engaged in porcelain decoration, jewelry, advertising and restoration; invented a new process of many-coloured printing from the same cylinder. He worked particularly in the theatre, for V. Nemchinova’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, N. Balieff’s cabaret-theatre La Chauve-Souris, and other companies. He died on 23 February 1936 in the town of Lörrach near Basel, Switzerland.

  Bibliography

  AUTY, ROBERT AND OBOLENSKY, DIMITRI,

  An Introduction to Russian Art and Architecture, Cambridge University Press, 1980

  BIRD, ALAN,

  A History of Russian Painting, Phaidon, 1987

  BOWLT, JOHN,

  From the Classical to the Romantic: Russian Art of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (essay originally published in The Art of Russia 1800-1850, University of Minnesota, 1978), reprinted in Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia, edited by Theofanis George Stavrou, Indiana University Press, 1983

  FEODOROV-DAVYDOV, ALEXEÏ,

  Isaac Levitan, Parkstone/Aurora, 1995

  GRAY CAMILLA,

  The Great Experiment. Russian Art 1863-1922, Thames & Hudson, 1962 (revised and enlarged by Marian Burleigh-Motley, Thames & Hudson, 1986)

  GUERMAN, MIKHAÏL,

  Mikhaïl Vrubel, Parkstone/Aurora, 1996

  GUERMAN, MIKHAÏL,

  Russian Impressionists and Postimpressionists, Parkstone Press, 1998

  GUERIVIAN, MIKHAÏL,

  Vassily Kandinsky, Parkstone Press, 1998

  GUERMAN, MIKHAÏL AND FORESTIER, SYLVIE,

  Marc Chagall, Parkstone/Aurora, 1995

  HAMILTON, GEORGE HEARD,

  The Art and Architecture of Russia, in the Pelican History of Art series, Penguin Books, 1954

  HARE, RICHARD,

  The Art and Artists of Russia, Methuen, 1965

  KEMENOV, VLADIMIR,

  Vassily Surikov, Parkstone Press, 1997