Russian Painting. Peter Leek
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Название: Russian Painting

Автор: Peter Leek

Издательство: Parkstone International Publishing

Жанр: Иностранные языки

Серия: Temporis

isbn: 978-1-78310-750-6, 978-1-78042-975-5

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СКАЧАТЬ the new statutes which limited the rights of young artists admitted to the Society. He became a member once again in 1897, the year in which he was named rector for a year of the Ecole Supérieur des Arts. Four years later he received the Order of the Legion of Honor. That same year, he painted several portraits of Tolstoy, whose spiritual authority he revered. He went as far as to immortalise Tolstoy as a ploughman. He was honoured in Helsinki in 1920, when he had been living in Finland for some time already. He worked on St. Thomas’ Doubt, The Prophet Elijah carried to Heaven, Jesus Christ and Mary Magdelena and, a year later, in 1923, a personal exhibition was consecrated to him in Prague. Next it would be Moscow and, in 1925, in the Russian Museum in Leningrad. The same year, he exhibited Golgotha in Oslo. He died in 1930 and was buried in the park of the “Penates”. Repin attained immense stature in Russia and outside of its national frontiers.

      Polenov’s enormous Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery is so packed with worldly detail that it seems more like a secular painting than a religious work. During the later part of his life, Polenov produced a series of paintings inspired by Ernest Renan’s Life of Jesus (1863), a book that had a huge impact on artists and writers both in Russia and elsewhere. Indeed, David Frédérich Strauss and Ernest Renan who both wrote books entitled The Life of Jesus, brought to light the positive side of Christ’s life. This positivism had immense success throughout Russia, an even greater success than in the Occident, thanks especially to these two books. Renan’s book in particular emphasized another point that influenced many Russian artists, including Tolstoy, Nikolaï Gay, Kramskoï and, of course, Polenov. According to Renan, Jesus deserved to be called on by God, not because he possessed within himself something divine, but rather because he taught men to elevate themselves toward an ideal. Polenov was among those who were impacted by Renan. He therefore attempted to portray Christ as he was in reality. Thanks to trips he made to Syria, Egypt and Palestine, he was able to reproduce with an impressive number of historical details Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery. But his work cannot be limited to simple ethnographic, historic or geographical details. It raises the question of humanity. Christ is of the “best of men” and portraying him in this way was the objective of the painter and the historian. This work was displayed in the fifteenth itinerant exhibition.

      Among the Itinerants, the evangelical theme played a very important role. Many paintings testify to Christian morals: giving of oneself, love of others, Christ’s suffering for his people… All of these scenes encourage the viewer to rise toward the ideal that he has set for himself. In addition, the theme of salvation particularly attracted Russian artists who, here again, found a way to better man and the human condition. It was more the idea of morals that had a value in and of themselves. Occidental art, to date, had never managed to raise itself to such a level of pathos.

      20. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, The Mother of God of Tenderness Towards Evil Hearts, 1914–1915. Oil on canvas, 100 × 110 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

      Portraiture

      21. Ivan Argounov, Portrait of an unknown Girl in Russian Dress, 1784. Oil on canvas, 67 × 53.6 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

      22. Ivan Nikitin, Portrait of a Leader, 1720. Oil on canvas, 76 × 60 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

      From the Eighteenth Century to the 1860s

      In Russia, the eighteenth century was the century of the portrait. Other than icon painting, the patronage of the tsars, wealthy nobles or merchants was virtually the only source of income available to Russian painters. Perfecting their skills as portraitists was therefore high on the agenda of the five painters sent to study abroad, in 1716, by Peter the Great.

      One of the five was Ivan Nikitin. The son of a priest, he began his artistic career by studying drawing and arithmetic at an artillery college. Noticed by the tsar, he was dispatched to Italy, together with his brother Roman, an able though more conventional painter. In the portrait of Peter the Great that Ivan painted in 1721, the emperor is shown without attributes of power and with a degree of intimacy rarely encountered in royal portraits. Four years later, he painted an emotionally charged portrait of the tsar on his deathbed. Ivan’s last years were overshadowed by tragedy. After the death of Peter the Great, he opposed the regime of Anna Ivanovna and in 1736 was deported to Siberia, together with his brother. By the time they were pardoned, Ivan was critically ill, and he died on the way back from Siberia.

      Another of the artists sponsored by Peter the Great was Andreï Matveyev, who was sent to study in Holland. Obliged to paint battle scenes, ceilings and panels for the palaces of the tsars, he lacked freedom to fully develop the talent for portraiture evident in works such as The Allegory of Painting (1725) and the portrait that he painted of himself and his wife in 1729. Matveyev was a fine colourist, and his works are full of pleasing nuances. They also hint at his desire to break new ground, to bring a more psychological approach to portraiture.

      The 1730s saw appreciable changes in Russian society. Intent on strengthening their position vis-a-vis the State, the aristocracy strove to show their standing by displaying the superiority and sophistication of their tastes and lifestyle, especially through the embellishment of the interiors of their homes. Portraits offered a means of self-aggrandisement and of conveying status. By the 1760s they were in evidence everywhere – not only at the court in Saint Petersburg, but in remote parts of Russia too.

      Some of the most accomplished portraits from the mid-eighteenth century were produced by Ivan Vishnyakov (1699–1761). Continuing Matveyev’s tendency towards lyricism, they possess the decorative qualities typical of the Rococo style then prevalent in Russia, without the frivolity generally associated with it. Instead, their static poses and facial expressions have an air of seriousness, focusing attention on the subject’s face. Vishnyakov was at his most sensitive when portraying children; their elaborate clothes and frozen poses underline the innocence and vulnerability of these diminutive lords and ladies. Despite the formality of his portraits, relatively few of them were commissioned by the Imperial court.

      23. Fyodor Rokotov, Portrait of Alexei Bobrinsky in Childhood, c. 1763. Oil on canvas, 59.5 × 47 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

      24. Alexeï Antropov, Portrait of Maria Rurnyantseva, 1764. Oil on canvas, 62.5 × 48 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

      25. Dmitri Levitsky, Portrait of Maria Diakova, 1778. Oil on canvas, 72 × 57 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

      26. Vladimir Borovikovsky, Portrait of Maria Lopoukhina, 1797. Oil on canvas, 72 × 53.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

      27. Vassily Tropinin, Lacemaker, 1823. Oil on canvas, 74.7 × 59.3 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

      This adoration of portraiture continued during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, when Russia enjoyed a blossoming of the arts and sciences and an expansion of education – thanks largely to the influence of Mikhaïl Lomonosov (1711–65), a man of immense learning and wide cultural interests who became a professor of chemistry at the Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg in 1745. Russian sculpture in particular benefited from these stimuli – and so did portraiture, which developed in two ways. Although there was a greater demand for elaborate formal portraits, there was also an increased realism in the way people were portrayed.

      This development in portraiture was clearly demonstrated in the work of Alexeï Antropov who first studied СКАЧАТЬ