Art association "World of Art" and its role in the development of Russian fine arts. School encyclopedia World of art creative association of artists

World of Art

The world of art (1898-1924) - an artistic association formed in Russia
in the late 1890s. A magazine was published under the same name, published since 1898
group members.

A.N. Benois among the artists. August 1898

World of Art - a monthly illustrated art magazine, published in St. Petersburg
from 1898 to 1904, entirely dedicated to the propaganda of the creativity of Russian Symbolists and
which was the organ of the association of the same name - "World of Art" and Symbolist writers.

The publishers were Princess M. K. Tenisheva and S. I. Mamontov, the editor was S. P. Diaghilev;
in 1902 Diaghilev became the publisher; from No. 10 of 1903, the editor was also
A. N. Benois.

Magazine cover for 1901 Benoit Among Artists. August 1898

The association loudly declared itself by organizing the "Exhibition of Russian and Finnish
artists "in 1898 at the Museum of the Central School of Technical Drawing
Baron A. L. Stieglitz.
The classic period in the life of the association fell on 1900-1904. - at this time for
the group was characterized by a special unity of aesthetic and ideological principles. Artists
organized exhibitions under the auspices of the World of Art magazine.
After 1904, the association expanded and lost its ideological unity. In 1904-1910
most of the members of the World of Art were members of the Union of Russian Artists.

Artists of the Society "World of Art" at the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts.
Petersburg. March 1914

At the constituent assembly on October 19, 1910, the art society "World of Art"
was revived (NK Roerich was elected chairman). After the revolution, many of its leaders
were forced to emigrate. The association actually ceased to exist in 1924.

B. M. Kustodiev. "Group portrait of members of the World of Art" association. 1916-1920.

From left to right: I.E. Grabar, N.K. Roerich, E.E. Lanceray, B.M. Kustodiev, I. Ya. Bilibin,
A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, A.N. Benois, G.I. Narbut, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, N. D. Milioti,
K.A. Somov, M.V. Dobuzhinsky.

After the successful Russian-Finnish exhibition at the end of 1898, an association was created
"World of Art", one of the founders of which was Benoit. Together with S. Diaghilev
he became the editor of the magazine of the same name, which became the herald of neo-romanticism.

Motivating the emergence of the "World of Art", Benoit wrote:

"We were guided not so much by considerations of an" ideological "order as by considerations
practical necessity. A number of young artists had nowhere to go. Their
or not at all accepted to large exhibitions - academic, traveling and watercolors,
or accepted only with rejection of everything in which the artists themselves saw the most
a clear expression of his quest ... And that's why Vrubel was next to
Bakst, and Somov next to Malyavin. The "unrecognized" were joined by those of the "recognized"
who were uncomfortable in the approved groups. Mostly we were approached by Levitan,
Korovin and, to our greatest joy, Serov. Again, ideologically and by the whole culture, they
belonged to a different circle, they were the last offspring of realism, not devoid of
"itinerant coloring". But with us they were bound by hatred of everything musty,
established, dead ".

Magazine cover, 1900

The magazine "World of Art" was published in the fall of 1898, with the imprint of 1899. He
caused even more noise than the exhibition. The installation of the world of art on pure art,
free from ideological predilections, of course, itinerant movement and academicism,
seemed deliberately flawed, which was also found in the paintings of young artists.
Similar phenomena occurred in architecture, poetry, and theater, which
perceived as decadence and that received the definition of Russian modernity.

Harlequinade. Screensaver in the magazine "World of Art", 1902, N ° 7-9. 1902 g.

"World of Art" was published until 1901 - once every 2 weeks, then - monthly.
It was a literary and artistic illustrated magazine of the widest content,
which predetermined his fate. They talk about the popularization of Russian art of the XVIII -
the beginning of the XIX century, on the promotion of samples of folk art and handicrafts
crafts, in which the aesthetics of the world of art and the interests of patrons were manifested

Elephants. Screensaver in the magazine "World of Art", 1902. N ° 7-9. 1902 g.

The magazine widely acquainted the reader with contemporary Russian and foreign art
life (articles and notes by A.N. Benois, I.E. Grabar, S.P. Diaghilev, V.V. Kandinsky,
excerpts from Op. R. Muther and J. Meyer-Graefe, reviews of foreign publications,
reproduction of exhibition expositions, reproductions of modern Russian and
Western European painting and graphics).

This was in line with the main aspirations of friends from the Benois circle - the achievement of development
Russian art in a single channel with European and global art, based on
thoughts about our backwardness, which, however, will reveal something unexpected: the development of Russian
classical literature, music and painting will turn into a revolution in theater in the world
scale and what we now recognize as a Renaissance phenomenon.
In addition, literary critical articles were published on the pages of the "World of Art"
V.Ya.Bryusov and Andrei Bely, in which the aesthetics of Russian symbolism was formulated.
But most of all the place was occupied by the religious and philosophical works of D.S.Merezhkovsky,
Z. N. Gippius, N. M. Minsky, L. Shestov, V. V. Rozanova.

With notebooks of his poems,
Long ago you crumbled to dust,
Like branches flying around lilacs.

You are in a country where there are no ready-made forms,
Where everything is split, mixed, broken,
Where, instead of the sky, there is only a grave mound
And the lunar orbit is motionless.

There in a different, indistinct language
The synclite of soundless insects sings,
There with a small flashlight in hand
The human beetle greets the acquaintances.

Do you have peace of mind, my comrades?
Is it easy for you? Have you forgotten everything?
Now you brothers - roots, ants,
Blades of grass, sighs, columns of dust.

Now your sisters are carnation flowers,
Lilac nipples, wood chips, chickens ...
And I can't remember your language
There's a brother left up there.

He still has no place in those parts
Where you disappeared, light as shadows
In wide hats, long jackets,
With notebooks of his poems.
Nikolay Zabolotsky.

An artistic association created in St. Petersburg in 1898.
The prehistory of the "World of Arts" began with the group "Nevsky Pikvikians", formed in 1887 by the students of the St. Petersburg private school of Karl May - V. Nouvel, D. Filosofov and to study the history of art, primarily painting and music. Subsequently, S. Diaghilev joined the circle and. Diaghilev's knowledge of the visual arts, in which he had always taken an interest, began to expand rapidly through trips abroad. There he made acquaintances with foreign writers and artists and began collecting paintings.
Under the leadership of Diaghilev, who became the main ideologist of the group, the chamber "Nevsky Pickvikians" turned into an expansive "World of Art". The association was joined by the artists of the Moscow school of the mid-1890s (who were part of the Abramtsevo circle), the Vasnetsov brothers, M. Nesterov. It was their paintings that were shown at the beginning of 1898 at the exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists organized by Diaghilev and the Philosopher in St. Petersburg, and then, in the summer of the same year, in Munich, Dusseldorf, Cologne and Berlin.
The movement also published the same name, the first issue of which came out in November 1898, which later took the leading place among the literary and artistic publications of Russia at that time.

Artistic orientation of the "World of Art" was associated with and. In contrast to the ideas of the Wanderers, the artists of the World of Art proclaimed the priority of the aesthetic principle in art. Members of the "World of Art" argued that art is primarily an expression of the artist's personality. In one of the first issues of the magazine, S. Diaghilev wrote: "A work of art is important not in itself, but only as an expression of the personality of the creator." Believing that modern civilization is antagonistic to culture, the "world of art" sought the ideal in the art of the past. Artists and writers, in their paintings and on magazine pages, revealed to Russian society the then little-appreciated beauty of medieval architecture and ancient Russian icon painting, the elegance of classical Petersburg and the palaces surrounding it, made them think about the modern sound of ancient civilizations and re-evaluate their own artistic and literary heritage.

Art exhibitions organized by the World of Art were a resounding success. In 1899, Diaghilev organized a truly international exhibition in St. Petersburg, at which paintings by 42 European artists were exhibited with the works of Russian artists, including Boecklin, Moreau, Whistler, Puvis de Chavanne, Degas and Monet. In 1901, exhibitions were held at the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts and at the Stroganov Institute in Moscow, in which, among others, Diaghilev's closest friends -, and. Exhibitions of the "World of Art" group in St. Petersburg and Moscow were also organized in November 1903.

Gradually, the disagreements that prevailed within the group led to the collapse of both the movement and the magazine, which at the end of 1904 ceased to exist.
S. Diaghilev, two years after the publication of the magazine, on the eve of his departure to Paris, organized another, farewell exhibition "The World of Art", held in St. Petersburg in February-March 1906, presenting the best examples of the art for the flowering of which the past activity of the "World of Art" has created a very favorable climate. The works of all the pillars of the group were exhibited along with selected works by V. Borisov-Musatov, P. Kuznetsov, N. Sapunov, N. Milioti. N. Feofilaktov, M. Saryan and M. Larionov became the new names.
In the 1910s, despite the fact that the ideas of the "world of art" by that time had largely lost their relevance, the World of Art association was revived and its exhibitions continued until the 1920s.

L.S. Bychkova

World of Artists in the world of art*

The artistic association and the magazine "World of Art" are significant phenomena in the Russian culture of the Silver Age, vividly expressing one of the essential aesthetic trends of their time. The Commonwealth of the World of Art began to take shape in St. Petersburg in the 90s. XIX century. around a group of young artists, writers, and art workers striving to renew the cultural and artistic life of Russia. The main initiators were A. N. Benois, S. P. Diaghilev, D. V. Filosofov, K. A. Somov, L. S. Bakst, later M. V. Dobuzhinsky and others. friends connected by the same culture and common taste ”, in 1899 the first of five exhibitions of the magazine was held, the association itself was officially registered in 1900. The magazine existed until the end of 1904, and after the revolution of 1905 the official activity of the association ceased. In addition to the members of the association, many outstanding artists of the turn of the century were involved in the exhibitions, who shared the main spiritual and aesthetic line of the "World of Art". Among them, first of all, one can name the names of K. Korovin, M. Vrubel, V. Serov, N. Roerich, M. Nesterov, I. Grabar, F. Malyavin. Some foreign masters were also invited. Many Russian religious thinkers and writers were also published on the pages of the magazine, who in their own way stood up for the "revival" of spirituality in Russia. This is V. Rozanov,

* The article uses materials from research project No. 05-03-03137a, supported by the Russian Foundation for Humanities.

D. Merezhkovsky, L. Shestov, N. Minsky and others. The journal and the association in their original form did not last long, but the spirit of the World of Art, its publishing, organizational, exhibition and educational activities left a noticeable mark on Russian culture and aesthetics. and the main members of the association - the world of art - have retained this spirit and aesthetic preferences practically throughout their entire life. In 1910-1924. The "World of Art" resumed its activity, but already in a very expanded composition and without a sufficiently clearly oriented first aesthetic (essentially aesthetic) line. Many of the representatives of the association in the 1920s. moved to Paris, but there, too, they remained adherents of the artistic tastes of their youth.

Two main ideas united the participants of the World of Art into an integral community: 1. The desire to return to Russian art the main quality of art artistry, to free art from any tendentiousness (social, religious, political, etc.) and direct it into a purely aesthetic channel. Hence, the slogan l'art pour l'art, popular among them, although old in culture, rejection of the ideology and artistic practice of academism and itinerant movement, a special interest in romantic and symbolist tendencies in art, in the English Pre-Raphaelites, French Nabids, in Puvi's painting de Chavannes, Böcklin's mythology, Jugendstil's aestheticism, Art Nouveau, but also to the fairy-tale fiction of E.T.A. Hoffmann, to the music of R. Wagner, to ballet as a form of pure artistry, etc .; a tendency to include Russian culture and art in a wide European artistic context. 2. On this basis - romanticization, poeticization, aestheticization of the Russian national heritage, especially of the late, 18th - early 19th centuries, oriented towards Western culture, in general, interest in post-Petrine culture and late folk art, for which the main members of the association received the nickname in artistic circles "Retrospective dreamers".

The main trend of the "World of Art" was the principle of innovation in art based on a highly developed aesthetic taste. Hence the artistic and aesthetic predilections, and the creative attitudes of the world of art. In fact, they created a solid Russian version of that aesthetically sharpened movement at the turn of the century, which gravitated towards the poetics of neo-romanticism or symbolism, towards the decorative and aesthetic melodiousness of the line and in different countries had different names (Art Nouveau, Secession, Jugendstil), and in Russia it was called the style " modern ".

The participants in the movement themselves (Benoit, Somov, Dobuzhinsky, Bakst, Lanceray, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Bilibin) were not great artists, did not create artistic masterpieces or outstanding works, but wrote several very beautiful, almost aesthetic pages in the history of Russian art, actually showing the world that Russian art is not alien to the spirit of nationally oriented aestheticism in the best sense of this unfairly belittled term. Typical for the style of most of the world of art were exquisite linearity (graphic quality - they brought Russian graphics to the level of an independent art form), subtle decorativeness, nostalgia for the beauty and luxury of past eras, sometimes neoclassical tendencies and intimacy in easel works. At the same time, many of them gravitated towards the theatrical synthesis of arts - hence the active participation in theatrical performances, Diaghilev projects and "Russian seasons", an increased interest in music, dance, modern theater in general. It is clear that most of the world of art were wary, and as a rule, sharply negatively related to the avant-garde movements of their time. The "World of Art" sought to find its own innovative path in art, an alternative path of the avant-garde artists, firmly connected with the best traditions of art of the past. Today we see that in the twentieth century. the efforts of the World of Artists practically did not receive any development, but in the first third of the century they contributed to the maintenance of a high aesthetic level in domestic and European cultures and left a good memory in the history of art and spiritual culture.

Here I want to dwell on the artistic attitudes and aesthetic tastes of some of the main representatives of the "World of Art" and artists who actively joined the movement in order to reveal the main artistic and aesthetic tendency of the entire movement, in addition to what is well shown by art critics based on the analysis of artistic creation the world of art themselves.

Konstantin Somov (1869-1939) in the "World of Art" was one of the most refined and sophisticated aesthetes, nostalgic for the beauty of classical art of the past, until the very last days of his life, looking for beauty or its traces in contemporary art and, to the best of his ability, tried to create this beauty. In one of his letters, he explains to A. Benois why he cannot in any way participate in the revolutionary movement of 1905, which swept the whole of Russia: “... I am first of all madly in love with beauty and I want to serve her; loneliness with a few and what's in

the soul of a person is eternal and impermanent, I value above all. I am an individualist, the whole world revolves around my “I” and I, in essence, do not care what goes beyond this “I” and its narrowness ”(89). And to the complaints of his correspondent about the upcoming "rudeness" he consoles him with the fact that there is enough of it at all times, but beauty is always preserved next to him - it is enough for any system to "inspire poets and artists" (91).

In beauty Somov saw the main meaning of life and therefore all its manifestations, but especially the sphere of art, he considered through aesthetic glasses, however, of his own, rather subjective production. At the same time, he constantly strived not only to enjoy aesthetic objects, but also to develop his aesthetic taste. Already a forty-year-old famous artist, he does not consider it shameful to attend I. Grabar's lecture on aesthetics, but the main aesthetic experience throughout his life is acquired by him when communicating with art itself. In this, until the last days of his suddenly cut short life, he was tireless. From his letters and diaries, we see that his whole life was spent in art. In addition to creative work, constant, almost daily visits to exhibitions, galleries, museums, workshops of artists, theaters and concert halls. In any city he went to, the first thing he did was to run to museums and theaters. And we find a brief reaction to almost every such visit in his diaries or letters. Here, in January 1910 he was in Moscow. “I get tired for the day, but nevertheless I go to the theater every evening” (106). And the same records until the last years of his life in Paris. Almost every day there are theaters, concerts, exhibitions. At the same time, he visits not only what he knows beforehand that he will receive aesthetic pleasure, but also much that cannot satisfy his aesthetic need. He professionally follows events in artistic life and looks for at least traces of beauty.

And he finds them almost everywhere. He does not forget to mention the beauty of the landscape, which he discovers in France, and in America, and in London, and in Moscow during the Soviet period; about the beauty of Chartres Cathedral or the interiors of houses and palaces that he had to visit in different countries of the world. However, he enjoys the beauty of art with special and constant love. At the same time, with the same passion, he listens to music, opera, watches ballet and theatrical performances, reads fiction, poetry and, of course, does not miss a single opportunity to see painting: both the old masters and his contemporaries. And with every contact with art, he has something to say. Moreover, often his judgments, although rather subjective, turn out to be

accurate and accurate, which is further emphasized by their laconicism. The general impression, a few specific remarks, but even from them we feel well the level of Somov's aesthetic consciousness, and the spirit of the atmosphere of the Silver Age, in which this consciousness took shape.

“In the evening I was at a concert by Koussevitsky. The Bach Mass was going on. A composition of extraordinary beauty and inspiration. The execution was excellent, very harmonious ”(1914) (138). I am completely delighted with the performance of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Toscanini: “I have never heard anything like it in my life” (Paris, 1930) (366). On the performance of the Mass by the papal choir in Notre Dame: “The impression of this choir is unearthly. I have never heard such harmony, purity of voices, their Italian timbre, such delightful treble ”(1931) (183). On the performance by the Basel choir of Mozart's opera "Idomeneo": "She turned out to be absolutely brilliant, unmatched beauty" (Paris, 1933) (409), etc. etc. Already in old age, he spent four evenings in the theater gallery, where the Bayreuth troupe performed Wagner's tetralogy. It was not possible to get other tickets, and each performance was 5-6 hours long. The end of June, in Paris, the heat, "but still great pleasure" (355).

Somov attended ballet with even greater enthusiasm throughout his life. Especially the Russian, whose best forces were after the 1917 revolution in the West. Here there is both aesthetic pleasure and professional interest in the decoration, which was often (especially in the early Diaghilev performances) performed by his friends and colleagues from The World of Art. In ballet, music, theater, and in painting, naturally, Somov is most delighted by the classics or refined aestheticism. However, the first third of the twentieth century did not boil at all with this, especially in Paris. The avant-garde tendencies were gaining more and more strength, all directions of the avant-garde flourished, and Somov all this looks, listens, reads, tries to find traces of beauty in everything, which are not always found, therefore he often has to give sharply negative assessments of what he saw, heard, read.

Everything that gravitates towards the aestheticism of the beginning of the century especially attracts the attention of the Russian artist, and avant-garde innovations are not absorbed by him in any way, although one feels that he is striving to find his own aesthetic key to them. It turns out very rarely. In Paris, he attends all Diaghilev performances, often admires dancers, choreography, is less satisfied with the scenery and costumes, which in the 1920s.

already done often by the Cubists. “I love our old ballet,” he admits in a letter from 1925, “but this does not prevent me from enjoying the new one. Choreography and great dancers, mostly. I can't stomach the scenery by Picasso, Matisse, Derain, I love either illusion or magnificent beauty ”(280). In New York, he walks "to the back rows of the gallery" and enjoys the performance of American actors. I watched many plays and concludes: “I have not seen such a perfect game and such talents for a long time. Our Russian actors are much lower ”(270). But he considers American literature to be second class, which does not prevent, he notes, the Americans themselves from being satisfied with it. I am delighted with individual pieces by A.France and M.Proust.

In contemporary visual arts, Somov most of all likes many things of his friend A. Benois: both graphics and theatrical scenery. He is delighted with Vrubel's paintings and watercolors - “something incredible in terms of brilliance and harmony of colors” (78). He was impressed by Gauguin in the Shchukin collection; somehow praised the colorful (popular) range of colors in one of the theatrical works of N. Goncharova, although later, based on her still lifes, he speaks of her as stupid and even idiotic, “judging by these stupid things of hers” (360); noted in passing that Filonov had "great art, albeit unpleasant" (192). In general, he is stingy with praise for his fellow painters, sometimes he is sarcastic, acrimonious and even rude in reviews of the work of many of them, although he does not praise himself either. Often expresses dissatisfaction with his work. Often he informs his friends and relatives that he tears up and destroys sketches and sketches that he does not like. And he does not like many finished works, especially those already exhibited.

Here are Somov's almost randomly chosen judgments about his works: “I began to paint in the 18th century, a lady in purple on a park bench of an English character. Extremely trite and vulgar. Not capable of a good job ”(192). “I began another vulgar drawing: the marquise (damned!) Is lying on the grass, at a distance, two are fencing. Until 9 pm he painted. Disgusting came out. Tomorrow I will try to paint. My soul felt sickening ”(193). About their works in the Tretyakov Gallery (and the best took there, including the famous "Lady in Blue"): "What I was afraid of, I experienced:" I did not like the Lady in Blue, like everything else of mine ... " (112). And such statements are not uncommon with him and show the special aesthetic exactingness of the master to himself. At the same time, he knows the minutes of happiness from painting and is convinced that "painting, after all, but delights life and sometimes gives happy moments" (80). He is especially strict with his colleagues in the shop and, before

everything, to any elements of avant-garde art. He, like most of the world of art, does not understand and does not accept it. This is the artist's inner position that expresses his aesthetic credo.

Somov's strict aesthetic eye sees flaws in all his contemporaries. It goes to Russians and French alike. Of course, we are not always talking about the work of this or that master as a whole, but about specific works seen at a particular exhibition or in a workshop. For example, he expresses the "merciless truth" to Petrov-Vodkin about his painting "Attack", after which he wanted to "shoot himself or hang himself" (155-156). At one of the exhibitions in 1916: "Korovin's sprinkle"; Mashkov's painting is “beautiful in color, but somehow idiotically stupid”; the works of Sudeikin, Kustodiev, Dobuzhinsky, Grabar are not interesting (155). At the 1918 exhibition: “Grigoriev, remarkably talented, but a bastard, stupid, cheap pornographer. Something I liked ... Petrov-Vodkin is still the same boring, stupid, pretentious fool. The same unbearable combination of unpleasant clean blues, greens, reds and brick tones. Dobuzhinsky is a terrible family portrait and little else ”(185). Throughout his life, he had one attitude to Grigoriev - “talented, but frivolous, stupid and narcissistic” (264). On the first performance of The Stone Guest by Meyerhold and Golovin: “Frivolous, very pretentious, very ignorant, heaped up, stupid” (171). Yakovlev has many wonderful things, but “the main thing he still does not have - mind and soul. Nevertheless, he remained an external artist "(352)," there is always some superficiality and haste in him "(376).

Even more goes from Somov to Western artists, although his approach to everything is purely subjective (like almost any artist in his field of art). So, in Moscow, at the first meeting with some of the masterpieces in the Shchukin collection: “I really liked Gauguin, Matisse is not at all. His art is not art at all! " (111). Cezanne's painting was never recognized for art. In the last year of his life (1939) at the exhibition of Cezanne: “Except for one (and maybe three) beautiful still lifes, almost everything is bad, dull, without valers, stale paints. The figures and his naked "bathing" are downright nasty, mediocre, inept. Ugly portraits "(436). Van Gogh, with the exception of certain things: "not only not brilliant, but also not good" (227). Thus, almost everything that goes beyond the refined world of art aestheticism that underlies this unification is not accepted by Somov and does not give him aesthetic pleasure.

He speaks even more sharply about the avant-garde artists, whom he met in Moscow and then regularly saw in Paris, but the attitude towards them was constant and almost always negative. About the exhibition "0.10", where, as you know, Malevich first exhibited his Suprematist things: "Absolutely insignificant, hopeless. Not art. Terrible tricks to make noise ”(152). At the 1923 exhibition at the Academy of Arts on Vasilievsky: "There are many leftists - and, of course, a terrible abomination, arrogance and stupidity" (216). Today it is clear that at such exhibitions there was a lot of "arrogance and stupidity", but there were also many works that have now entered the classics of the world avant-garde. Somov, like most of the world of art, unfortunately, did not see this. In this sense, he remained a typical adherent of traditional painting, but understood in his own way. He also did not read the Peredvizhniks and academicians. In this, all of the World of Art were united. Dobuzhinsky recalled that they were generally not very interested in the Itinerants, "they treated their generation with disrespect" and never even talked about them in their conversations.

However, not everything in the vanguard of Somov is sharply denied - where he sees at least some traces of beauty, he treats his antagonists with condescension. So, he even liked the cubist sets and costumes of Picasso for Pulcinella, but the curtain of Picasso, where “two huge women with arms like legs and legs like an elephant, with bulging triangular tits, in white chlamyds are dancing some kind of wild dance ", he described succinctly:" Disgusting! " (250). He saw the talent of Filonov, but treated his painting very coldly. Or he highly appreciated S. Dali as an excellent draftsman, but on the whole he was indignant at his art, although he watched everything. About the illustrations of the meter of surrealism for Lautréamont's “Songs of Maldoror” in some small gallery: “All the same, the same ones hanging down an arshin ..., half-rotten legs. Beefsteaks with bones on the human thighs of his wild figures<...>But what a brilliant talent Dali is, how superbly he draws. Is he pretending at all costs to be unique, special, or genuine erotomania and mania? " (419). Although, paradoxically, he himself, which is well known from his work, was no stranger to eroticism, true aesthetic, cutesy, crinoline. Yes, and something pathological often attracted him. In Paris I went to the Musée patologique, where I looked ... wax dolls: diseases, wounds, childbirth, fetus, monsters, miscarriages, etc. I love these museums - I also want to go to musée Grèvin ”(320)

The same goes for literature, theater, music. Everything avant-garde in one way or another repulsed him, offended his aesthetic taste. For some reason he especially disliked Stravinsky. Scolds his music often and on every occasion. In literature, Bely outraged him. “I read Andrei Bely's Petersburg — disgusting! Tasteless, foolish! It is illiterate, lady-like and, most importantly, boring and uninteresting ”(415). By the way, “boring” and “uninteresting” are his most important negative aesthetic assessments. He never said this about Dali or Picasso. In general, he considered all avant-gardeism to be some kind of bad trend of the time. “I think that today's modernists,” he wrote in 1934, “in 40 years will completely perish and no one will collect them” (416). Alas, how dangerous it is to make predictions in art and culture. Today these "modernists" are paid fabulous money, and the most talented of them have become classics of world art.

In the light of the grandiose historical twists and turns in the art of the twentieth century. Many of the sharply negative, sometimes rude, extremely subjective assessments of the work of avant-garde artists by Somov seem to us unfair and seemingly even somehow belittling the image of a talented artist of the Silver Age, a refined singer of poetics, extremely idealized by him, crinoline-gallant XVIII century, nostalgic for the exquisite, aesthetics invented by him. However, in this artificial, sophisticated and surprisingly attractive aestheticism, the reasons for its negative attitude towards avant-garde searches and experiments with form are rooted. Somov especially keenly caught in the avant-garde the beginning of a process directed against the main principle of art - its artistry, although among the masters he criticized at the beginning of the 20th century. he was still felt rather weakly, and painfully experienced it. The refined taste of the esthete reacted nervously and sharply to any deviations from beauty in art, even in his own. In the history of art and aesthetic experience, he was one of the last and consistent adherents of "fine arts" in the truest sense of the concept of classical aesthetics.

And at the end of the conversation about Somov, one of his extremely interesting, almost Freudian and very personal confessions in his diary dated February 1, 1914, revealing the main aspects of his work, his gallant, cutesy, crinoline, mannerist 18th century. and to some extent opening the veil over the deep unconscious, libidinal meaning of aesthetics in general. It turns out that in his paintings, according to the artist himself, his innermost intimate-erotic intentions, his sensually heightened

Ego. “The women in my paintings languish, the expression of love on their faces, sadness or lust are a reflection of myself, my soul<...>And their broken postures, their deliberate ugliness - a mockery of themselves and at the same time of eternal femininity contrary to my nature. It is, of course, difficult to guess me without knowing my nature. This is a protest, a shame that I myself am in many ways like them. Rags, feathers - all this attracts me and attracted me not only as a painter (but there is also self-pity). Art, his works, favorite paintings and statues for me are most often closely related to gender and my sensuality. I like what reminds me of love and its pleasures, even if the plots of art did not speak directly about it at all ”(125-126).

An extremely interesting, bold, frank confession, which explains a lot in the work of Somov himself, and in his artistic and aesthetic predilections, and in the refined aesthetics of the World of Art as a whole. In particular, one can understand his indifference to Rodin (he has no sensuality), or his passion for ballet, endless enthusiasm for outstanding dancers, admiration even for the aging Isadora Duncan and sharp criticism of Ida Rubinstein. However, all this cannot be covered in one article and it is time to move on to other, no less interesting and gifted representatives of the "World of Art", their views on the artistic situation of their time.

Mstislav Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957). Dobuzhinsky's aesthetic preferences, which began to manifest themselves even before he entered the circle of the world of art, well reflect the general spiritual and artistic atmosphere of this association, a partnership of like-minded people in art who sought to "revive", as they believed, artistic life in Russia after the dominance of academics and itinerants on the basis of close attention to the actual artistry of the visual arts. At the same time, all the World of Artists were patriots of St. Petersburg and expressed in their art and in their passions a special St. Petersburg aestheticism, which was significantly different in their view from Moscow.

Dobuzhinsky was a particularly striking figure in this regard. From childhood he loved St. Petersburg and became in fact a refined, refined singer of this unique Russian city with a pronounced Western orientation. Many pages of his "Memoirs" breathe great love for him. On his return from Munich, where he studied in the workshops of A. Azhbe and S. Holloshi (1899-1901) and where he became well acquainted with the art of his future friends and colleagues in the first issues of the magazine "World of Art", Dobuzhinsky with particular poignancy

felt the peculiar aesthetic charm of St. Petersburg, its modest beauty, its amazing graphics, special color atmosphere, its vastness and roof lines, the spirit of Dostoevsky that permeates its spirit, the symbolism and mysticism of its stone labyrinths. In me, he wrote, “a kind of familiar feeling for the monotonous state buildings, amazing Petersburg prospects, which had lived since childhood, was reinforced in a new way, but now I was pricked even more sharply from the inside of the city.<...>These rear walls of houses are brick firewalls with their white stripes of chimneys, a flat line of roofs, as if with fortified battlements - endless pipes - sleeping channels, high black stacks of firewood, dark wells of courtyards, blank fences, wastelands ”(187). This special beauty bewitched Dobuzhinsky, who was under the influence of Munich Art Nouveau (Stuck, Böcklin), and in many ways determined his artistic face in The World of Art, where he was soon introduced by I. Grabar. “I gazed intently at the graphic features of St. Petersburg, peered at the brickwork of the bare, unplastered walls and at their 'carpet' pattern, which of its own accord formed in the unevenness and stains of the plaster” (188). He is captivated by the ligature of the countless gratings of St. Petersburg, antique masks of Empire buildings, contrasts of stone houses and cozy corners with rustic wooden houses, delighted with naive signs, pot-bellied striped barges on the Fontanka and motley people on Nevsky.

He begins to clearly understand that “Petersburg with all its appearance, with all the contrasts of the tragic, curious, majestic and cozy is really the only and most fantastic city in the world” (188). And before that, he already had the opportunity to travel around Europe, see Paris and some cities in Italy and Germany. And in the year of joining the circle of the world of art (1902), he felt that no one had yet expressed this beauty of the city “newly acquired” by him “with its languid and bitter poetry” in art, and directed his creative efforts towards this embodiment. “Of course,” he admits, “like my entire generation, I was seized by the spirit of symbolism, and naturally, I was close to the feeling of mystery, which seemed to be full of Petersburg, as I now saw it” (188). Through the "vulgarity and darkness of St. Petersburg everyday life" he constantly felt "something terribly serious and significant that lurked in the most depressing seamy side" of "his" St. "St. Petersburg nightmares and" petty devils "crawled out of all the cracks" (189). And this poetry of Peter attracted Dobuzhinsky, although it frightened at the same time.

He poetically describes the "terrible wall" that loomed in front of the windows of his apartment: "a deaf, wild-colored wall, also black, the saddest and most tragic one imaginable, with damp spots, peeling and with only one small, half-blind window." She irresistibly drew him to her and oppressed him, awakening memories of the gloomy worlds of Dostoevsky. And he overcame these oppressive impressions of the terrible wall, as he himself says, depicting it with “all its cracks and deprivations, ... already admiring it” - “the artist won in me” (190). Dobuzhinsky considered this pastel to be the first "real creative work", and many of his works, both in graphics and in theatrical and decorative art, are permeated with its spirit. Later he himself wondered why it was from this “seamy” side of Petersburg that he began his great work, although he was attracted from childhood by the ceremonial beauty of the capital city of Peter.

However, if we recall the work of Dobuzhinsky, we will see that it was the romantic (or neo-romantic) spirit of the old cities (especially St. In Vilna, which he fell in love with from adolescence and considered his second hometown along with St. Petersburg, he as an artist was most attracted by the old "ghetto" "with its narrow and crooked streets, crossed by arches, and with multi-colored houses" (195), where he made many sketches, and on them and beautiful, very delicate and highly artistic engravings. Yes, this is understandable if we take a closer look at the aesthetic predilections of the young Dobuzhinsky. This is not the clear and direct light and harmonious beauty of Raphael's "Sistine Madonna" (she did not make an impression on him in Dresden), but the mysterious twilight of Leonard's "Madonna of the Rocks" and "John the Baptist" (169). And then these are the early Italians, Sienese painting, Byzantine mosaics in San Marco and Tintoretto in Venice, Segantini and Zorn, Böcklin and Stuck, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists in Paris, especially Degas (who became for him forever one of the “gods”), Japanese engraving and, finally, the World of Artists, whose first exhibition he saw and carefully studied even before he personally met them in 1898, was delighted with their art. Most of all, as he confesses, he was "captivated" by the art of Somov, who amazed him with its subtlety, with whom, having entered the circle of his idols a few years later, he became friends. The sphere of the young Dobuzhinsky's aesthetic interests clearly testifies to the artistic orientation of his spirit. She, as we clearly see from his "Memories",

completely coincided with the symbolist-romantic and refined-aesthetic orientation of the main world of art, who immediately recognized their own in him.

Dobuzhinsky received basic information about the "World of Art" from Igor Grabar, with whom he became close in Munich during his apprenticeship with German teachers and who was one of the first to see him as a real artist and correctly helped his artistic development, gave clear guidelines in the field of art education ... For example, he drew up a detailed program of what to watch in Paris, before Dobuzhinsky's first short trip there, and later introduced him to the circle of the world of art. Dobuzhinsky carried gratitude to Grabar throughout his life. In general, he was a grateful student and sympathetic, benevolent colleague and friend of many artists close to him. The spirit of skepticism or snobbery characteristic of Somov in relation to his colleagues is completely alien to him.

Dobuzhinsky gave short, benevolent and apt characteristics to almost all the participants in the association, and they, to some extent, make it possible to get an idea of ​​the nature of the artistic and aesthetic atmosphere of this interesting trend in the culture of the Silver Age, and of the aesthetic consciousness of Do-Buzhinsky itself, because ... most of the notes about his friends he made through the prism of his work.

A. Benois "pricked" him back in his student years, when his "romantic" drawings were shown at the first exhibition of the "World of Art", one of which bore a great resemblance to Dobuzhinsky's favorite motifs - the Vilna Baroque. Then Benoit strongly influenced the formation of the graphic style of the young Dobuzhinsky, strengthened him in the correctness of the chosen angle of vision of the urban landscape. Then they were brought together by the love of collecting, especially old prints, and the cult of their ancestors, and the craving for the theater, and the support that Benoit immediately provided to the young artist.

Dobuzhinsky became especially close to Somov, who turned out to be in tune with him with the amazing subtlety of graphics, "sad and poignant poetry", which was far from immediately appreciated by his contemporaries. Dobuzhinsky was in love with his art from the first meeting, it seemed to him precious and greatly influenced the formation of his own work, he admits. “This may seem strange, since his themes have never been my themes, but the amazing observation of his eyes and at the same time the“ diminutiveness ”, and in other cases the freedom and skill of his painting, where there was no

a piece that was not made with feeling - fascinated me. And most importantly, the extraordinary intimacy of his work, the mysteriousness of his images, his sense of sad humor and his then “Hoffman's” romance deeply worried me and revealed a strange world close to my vague moods ”(210). Dobuzhinsky and Somov came together very closely and often showed each other their work at the very initial stage in order to listen to each other's advice and comments. However, Dobuzhinsky, he admits, was often so amazed by Somov's sketches with their "weary poetry" and some inexpressible "aroma" that he could not find words to say anything about them.

He was close and with Leon Bakst, at one time even together with him taught classes at the art school of E.N. Zvantseva, among whose students was then also Marc Chagall. He loved Bakst as a person and appreciated him for his book graphics, but especially for the theatrical art, to which he devoted his whole life. Dobuzhinsky described his graphic works as "strikingly decorative", full of "special mysterious poetry" (296). He attributed great merit to Bakst both in the triumph of Diaghilev's "Russian Seasons", and in general in the development of theatrical and decorative art in the West. "His" Scheherazade "drove Paris crazy, and this is the beginning of Bakst's European and then world fame." Despite the seething artistic life in Paris, it was Bakst, according to Dobuzhinsky, for a long time "remained one of the irreplaceable legislators of" taste. " His performances evoked endless imitation in theaters, his ideas varied indefinitely, brought to the point of absurdity, "his name in Paris" began to sound like the most Parisian of Parisian names "(295). For the world of artists with their cosmopolitanism, this assessment sounded like a special praise.

Against the background of the St. Petersburg “Europeanism” of the main world of art, Ivan Bilibin, who wore a Russian beard à la moujik and limited himself only to Russian themes, expressed by a special exquisite calligraphic technique and subtle stylizations for folk art, stood out with his aesthetic Russophilia along with Roerich. In the circle of the world of art, he was a noticeable and sociable figure. N. Roerich, on the contrary, according to Dobuzhinsky's recollections, although he was a constant participant in the World of Art exhibitions, did not get close to its participants. Perhaps that is why “his great skill and very beautiful brilliance seemed too“ calculating ”, emphatically effective, but very decorative.<...>Roerich was a "mystery" for everyone, many doubted even, sincerely or only far-fetched, his work, and his personal life was hidden from everyone "(205).

Valentin Serov was a Moscow representative in the "World of Art" and was revered by all its participants for outstanding talent, extraordinary diligence, innovation in painting and constant artistic search. If the Wanderers and Academicians were counted among the supporters of historicism, they saw themselves as adherents of the "style." In this regard, Dobuzhinsky saw both those and other tendencies in Serov. Especially close in spirit to the "World of Art" was the late Serov "Peter", "Ida Rubinstein", "Europe", and Dobuzhinsky saw in this the beginning of a new stage, which, alas, "did not have to wait" (203).

Dobuzhinsky made short, purely personal, although often very accurate notes on almost all the world of art and the artists and writers who stood close to them. With good feelings, he recalls Vrubel, Ostroumova, Borisov-Musatov (beautiful, innovative, poetic painting), Kustodiev, Churlionis. In the latter, the world of art was attracted by his ability to "look into the infinity of space, into the depths of centuries", "he was pleased with his rare sincerity, a real dream, deep spiritual content." His works, "which appeared as if by themselves, with their gracefulness and lightness, amazing colors and composition seemed to us some kind of unfamiliar jewels" (303).

Among the writers of Dobuzhinsky, D. Merezhkovsky, V. Rozanov, Vyach. Ivanov (he was a frequent visitor to his famous Tower), F. Sologub, A. Blok, A. Remizov were especially attracted, i.e. authors who collaborated with the "World of Art" or those close to it in spirit, especially the Symbolists. In Rozanov, he was struck by an unusual mind and original writings, full of "the most daring and terrible paradoxes" (204). In Sologub's poetry, Dobuzhinsky admired the "salutary irony", while Remizov seemed to him in some things "a real surrealist even before surrealism" (277). In Ivanov, it was flattered that "he showed a particularly careful respect for the artist as the owner of some of his secrets, whose judgments are valuable and significant" (272).

With a special, almost intimate feeling of love, Dobuzhinsky describes the atmosphere that reigned in the union of the world of art. The soul of everything was Benoit, and the informal center was his cozy house, in which everyone often and regularly gathered. Issues of the magazine were also prepared there. In addition, they often met at Lanceray, Ostroumova, Dobuzhinsky at crowded evening tea parties. Dobuzhinsky emphasizes that the atmosphere in the "World of Art" was family, and not bohemian. In this "exceptional atmosphere of intimate life" and art was "a friendly common cause." Much has been done

together with the constant help and support of each other. Dobuzhinsky proudly writes that their work was extremely disinterested, independent, free from any tendencies or ideas. The only valuable opinion was the opinion of like-minded people, i.e. the members of the community themselves. The most important stimulus for creative activity was the feeling of being "pioneers", discovering new fields and spheres in art. “Now, looking back and remembering the unprecedented creative productivity of that time and everything that was beginning to be created around,” he wrote in adulthood, “we have the right to call this time really our“ Renaissance ”” (216); “It was a renewal of our artistic culture, one might say - its revival” (221).

Innovation and the "revival" of culture and art was understood in the sense of shifting the emphasis in art from everything secondary to its artistic side without rejecting the depiction of visible reality. “We loved the world and the beauty of things too much,” wrote Dobuzhinsky, “and then there was no need to deliberately distort reality. That time was far from any "isms" that came (to us) from Cezanne, Matisse and Van Gogh. We were naive and pure, and maybe this was the dignity of our art ”(317). Today, a century after those most interesting events, we, with some sadness and nostalgia, can kindly envy this highly artistic naivety and purity and regret that all this is far in the past.

And the process of close attention to the aesthetic specifics of art began even among the forerunners of the world of art, some of whom subsequently actively collaborated with the World of Art, feeling that he was continuing the work they had begun. Among such forerunners-participants, it is necessary, first of all, to name the names of the largest Russian artists Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910) and Konstantin Korovin (1861-1939).

They, as well as the direct founders of the "World of Art", abhorred any tendentiousness of art, going to the detriment of purely artistic means, to the detriment of form and beauty. About one of the exhibitions of the Wanderers Vrubel complains that the overwhelming majority of artists care only about the news of the day, about topics that are interesting to the public, and “form, the main content of plastic, is in the pen” (59). In contrast to many professional aesthetics of their time, and modern, leading endless discussions about form and content in art, a real artist living in art feels well that the form is

this is the true content of art, and everything else is not directly related to art itself. This is the main aesthetic principle of art, by the way, and united so, in general, different artists like Vrubel, Korovin, Serov, with the actual world of art.

The true art form is obtained, according to Vrubel, when the artist conducts "love conversations with nature", is in love with the depicted object. Only then does a work emerge that gives a “special pleasure” to the soul, characteristic of the perception of a work of art and distinguishing it from the printed sheet, which describes the same events as in the painting. The main teacher of the art form is the form created by nature. She “stands at the head of beauty” and without any “code of international aesthetics” is dear to us because “she is the bearer of a soul that will open to you alone and tell you yours” (99-100). Nature, showing her soul in the beauty of form, thereby reveals our soul to us. Therefore, Vrubel sees true creativity not only in mastering the technical craft of an artist, but, first of all, in a deep direct feeling of the subject of the image: to feel deeply means “to forget that you are an artist and be glad that you are, first of all, a human being” (99).

However, the ability to “feel deeply” in young artists is often discouraged by the “school”, drilling them on plaster casts and sitters in working out technical details and etching in them all sorts of memories of direct aesthetic perception of the world. Vrubel, on the other hand, is convinced that along with mastering the technique, the artist must retain a “naive, individual view”, for in him is “all the artist's strength and source of pleasure” (64). Vrubel came to this on his own experience. He describes, for example, how dozens of times he altered the same place in his work, “and a week ago, the first living piece came out, which delighted me; I examine its focus and it turns out to be just a naive transfer of the most detailed living impressions of nature ”(65). He repeats almost the same thing and explains with the same words that the first impressionists did in Paris ten years ago, also admiring the direct impression of nature, conveyed on canvas, with whose art Vrubel, it seems, was not yet familiar. At that time he was more interested in Venice and the old Venetians Bellini, Tintoretto, Veronese. His relatives also imagined Byzantine art: “I was in Torcello, my heart moved joyfully - my dear, as it is, Byzantium” (96).

Even this intimate confession about the "native" Byzantine art is worth a lot, testifies to a deep understanding of the essence of real art. For all and throughout his life, his painful search for "pure and stylish beauty in art" (80) Vrubel well understood that this beautiful is an artistic expression of something deep, expressed only by these means. This boiled down to his long search for a form both when writing the famous lilac bush (109), and when working on Christian subjects for Kiev churches - the author's, artistic rethinking of the Byzantine and Old Russian stylistics of temple art, and when working on the eternal theme of the Demon for him, and when painting any picture. And he connected them with a purely Russian specificity of artistic thinking. “Now I’m back in Abramtsevo and again it’s doused me, no, it’s not doused, but I hear that intimate national note that I so want to catch on the canvas and in the ornament. This is the music of a whole person, not dismembered by the distractions of an ordered, differentiated and pale West ”(79).

And the music of this "whole person" can only be conveyed by purely pictorial means, therefore he constantly and painfully seeks "picturesqueness" in each of his work, notices it in nature. Yes, in fact, only such a nature attracts his attention. In 1883, in a letter from Peterhof to his parents, he described in detail the paintings in work and in plans, and all his attention was drawn exclusively to their pictorial side, to pure painting. "Instead of music" in the evenings he goes to look closely at the "very picturesque life" of local fishermen. “I took a liking to one old man between them: a face as dark as a copper penny, with faded gray hair and a tousled beard into felt; a smoky, tarred sweatshirt, white with brown stripes, strangely wrapped around his old waist with protruding shoulder blades, monstrous boots on his feet; his boat, dry inside and above, resembles weathered bone in shades; from the keel, wet, dark, velvety green, awkwardly arched - exactly like the back of some sea fish. A lovely boat - with patches of fresh wood, a silky shine in the sun reminiscent of the surface of Kuchkurov's straws. Add to it the lilac, bluish-blue tints of the evening swell, cut by the whimsical curves of the blue, reddish-green silhouette of the reflection, and this is the picture that I intend to paint ”(92-93).

The "picture" is so richly and picturesquely described that we can almost see it with our own eyes. Close to this he describes some of his other works and new ideas. At the same time, he does not forget to emphasize them.

picturesque character, picturesque nuances such as: “This is a sketch for subtle nuances: silver, plaster, lime, furniture coloring and upholstery, dress (blue) - delicate and delicate scale; then the body transforms with a warm and deep chord to the variegation of colors and everything is covered with the harsh power of the blue velvet of the hat ”(92). Hence, it is clear that at noisy gatherings of modern youth, where questions of the purpose and significance of the plastic arts are discussed and the aesthetic treatises of Proudhon and Lessing are read, Vrubel is the only and consistent defender of the thesis "art for art", while "a mass of defenders of the utilization of art" opposes him ( 90). The same aesthetic position led him to the "World of Art", where he was immediately recognized as an authority and he felt himself a full participant in this movement of defenders of artistry in art. “We, the World of Art,” says Vrubel, not without pride, “want to find real bread for society” (102). And this bread is good realistic art, where, with the help of purely pictorial means, not official documents of visible reality are created, but poetic works expressing the deep states of the soul ("illusion the soul"), awakening it "from the little things of everyday life with stately images" (113) , delivering spiritual pleasure to the viewer.

K. Korovin, who accepted the program of the world of art and actively participated in their exhibitions, studied the aesthetic-romantic view of nature and art from the wonderful landscape painter A.K. Savrasov. He remembered many of the teacher's aesthetic statements and followed them in his life and work. “The main thing,” Korovin wrote down Savrasov’s words to his students, among whom he and Levitan were in the forefront, “is contemplation - a sense of the motive of nature. Art and landscapes are not needed if there is no feeling. " “If there is no love for nature, then you don’t have to be an artist, don’t.<...>I need romance. Motive. Romance is immortal. The mood is necessary. Nature breathes forever. Always sings, and her song is solemn. There is no higher delight in contemplation of nature. After all, the earth is paradise - and life is a mystery, a beautiful mystery. Yes, a secret. Glorify life. An artist is the same poet ”(144, 146).

These and similar words of the teacher were very close to the spirit of Korovin himself, who retained the romantic and aesthetic pathos of Savrasov, but in expressing the beauty of nature he went much further than his teacher along the path of finding the latest artistic techniques and using modern pictorial finds, in particular impressionist ones. In theoretical terms, he does not make any discoveries, but simply, and sometimes even quite primitive

expresses his aesthetic position, akin to the position of the World of Artists and sharply contradicting the "aesthetics of life" of the Itinerants and democratically oriented aesthetics and art critics (like Pisarev, Stasov and others), which both him and Vrubel, and all the World of Artists after the first exhibitions of 1898 were recorded in bulk as decadents.

Korovin writes that from childhood he felt something fantastic, mysterious and beautiful in nature, and throughout his life he never tired of enjoying this mysterious beauty of nature. “How beautiful the evenings, sunsets, how much mood and impressions there are in nature,” he repeats, almost word for word, from Savrasov’s lessons. - This joy is like music, the perception of the soul. What poetic sadness ”(147). And in his art, he strove to express, embody the directly perceived beauty of nature, the impression of the experienced mood. At the same time, he was deeply convinced that "the art of painting has one goal - admiration for beauty" (163). He gave this maxim to Polenov himself when he asked him to speak about his large canvas "Christ and the Sinner." Out of decency, Korovin praised the painting, but remained cold to the subject matter, for he felt the coldness in the master's pictorial means themselves. At the same time, he actually followed the concept of Polenov himself, who, as Korovin once wrote down, was the first to tell his students “about pure painting, how it is written ... about the variety of colors ”(167). This how and became the main thing for Korovin in all his work.

“Feeling the beauty of paint, light - this is how art is expressed a little, but it is truly true to take, enjoy freely, the relationship of tones. Tones, tones are truer and more sober - they are content ”(221). Follow the principles of the impressionists in creativity. Search for a plot for tone, in tones, in color relations - the content of the picture. It is clear that such statements and searches were extremely revolutionary both for Russian academicians of painting and for the Itinerants of the 90s. XIX century. Only young people of the world of art could understand them, although they themselves had not yet reached the courage of Korovin and the Impressionists, but they treated them with reverence. With all this enthusiasm for searches in the field of purely artistic expressiveness, Korovin was well aware of the general aesthetic meaning of art in its historical retrospective. “Only art makes a person out of a person,” - the intuitive insight of the Russian artist, ascending in the heights of German classical aesthetics, to the aesthetics of the most important romantics. And here, too, unexpected for Korovin, a polemic with positivists and materialists: “It is not true, Christianity

did not deprive a person of a sense of aesthetics. Christ commanded to live and not bury talent. The pagan world was full of creativity, under Christianity, maybe twice ”(221).

In fact, Korovin, in his own way, seeks in art the same as all the world of art - artistry, the aesthetic quality of art. If it exists, he accepts any art: pagan, and Christian, and old, and new, the most modern (impressionism, neo-impressionism, cubism). If only it would act on “aesthetic perception”, deliver “spiritual pleasure” (458). Therefore, his special interest in the decorativeness of painting as a purely aesthetic property. He writes extensively about the decorative qualities of theatrical sets, on which he constantly worked. And he saw the main purpose of the scenery in the fact that they organically participate in a single ensemble: dramatic action - music - decoration. In this regard, he wrote with special admiration about the successful production of Tsar Saltan by Rimsky-Korsakov, where the geniuses of Pushkin and the composer merged into a single action based on the scenery of Korovin himself (393).

In general, Korovin strove, as he writes, in his decorations, so that they give the eyes of the audience the same pleasure as music does to the ear. “I wanted the viewer's eye to enjoy aesthetically as well as the ear of the soul - music” (461). Therefore, in the foreground in his work, he always has how which it infers from something artist, not what which should be a consequence how... He writes about this repeatedly in his draft notes and letters. Wherein how is not something far-fetched, artificially tortured by the artist. No, according to Korovin, it is a consequence of his organic search for the "language of beauty", moreover, the search for an unconstrained, organic one - “art forms are only good when they are from love, freedom, from being unconstrained in themselves” (290). And true is any art where such an involuntary, but coupled with sincere searches, expression of beauty in an original form takes place.

Under all these and similar judgments of Korovin, almost every one of the world of art could subscribe. The search for the aesthetic quality of art, the ability to express it in an adequate form was the main task of this community, and almost all of its members managed to solve it in their own way in their work, to create, although not brilliant (with the exception of some outstanding paintings by Vrubel), but unique artistically valuable works of art that have taken their rightful place in the history of art.

Notes (edit)

See at least monographs: Benois A.N. The emergence of the "World of Art". L., 1928; Etkind M. Alexander Nikolaevich Benois. L.-M., 1965; A.P. Gusarova "World of Art". L., 1972; Lapshina N.P. "World of Art". Essays on history and creative practice. M., 1977; Pruzhan I. Konstantin Somov. M., 1972; Zhuravleva E.V. K.A. Somov. M., 1980; S.V. Golynets L.S. Bakst. L., 1981; Pozharskaya M.N. Russian theatrical and decorative art of the late XIX - early XX century. M., 1970, etc.

Artists of the World of Art.

The World of Art is an organization that emerged in St. Petersburg in 1898 and brought together masters of the highest artistic culture, the artistic elite of Russia in those years. The "World of Art" began with evenings at A. Benois's house dedicated to art, literature and music. The people who gathered there were united by a love of beauty and the confidence that it can only be found in art, since reality is ugly. Having also arisen as a reaction to the petty themes of late Wanderers, its edification and illustrativeness, the "World of Art" soon turned into one of the major phenomena of Russian artistic culture. This association was attended by almost all famous artists - Benois, Somov, Bakst, E.E. Lancere, Golovin, Dobuzhinsky, Vrubel, Serov, K. Korovin, Levitan, Nesterov, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Bilibin, Sapunov, Sudeikin, Ryabushkin, Roerich, Kustodiev, Petrov-Vodkin, Malyavin, as well as Larionov and Goncharova. Personality was of great importance for the formation of this association. Diaghilev, patron and organizer of exhibitions, and later - impresario of Russian ballet and opera tours abroad ("Russian Seasons", which introduced Europe to the work of Chaliapin, Pavlova, Karsavina, Fokin, Nijinsky, etc. and showed the world an example of the highest culture of the forms of various arts: music , dance, painting, scenography). At the initial stage of the formation of the World of Art, Diaghilev organized an exhibition of English and German watercolors in St. Petersburg in 1897, then an exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists in 1898. From 1899 to 1904, he edited a magazine under the same name, consisting of two departments: artistic and literary. The editorials of the first issues of the magazine clearly formulated the main provisions of the "world of art» about the autonomy of art, that the problems of modern culture are exclusively problems of the artistic form and that the main task of art is to educate the aesthetic tastes of Russian society, primarily through acquaintance with the works of world art. We must pay tribute to them: thanks to the "world of art", English and German art was really appreciated in a new way, and most importantly, the painting of the Russian 18th century and the architecture of St. Petersburg classicism became a discovery for many. "Miriskusniki" fought for "criticism as art", proclaiming the ideal of a critic-artist with a high professional culture and erudition. The type of such a critic was embodied by one of the founders of the "World of Art" A.N. Benoit.

"Miriskusniki" organized exhibitions. The first was the only international one, which united, in addition to Russians, artists from France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Norway, Finland, etc. Both St. Petersburg and Moscow painters and graphic artists took part in it. But the crack between these two schools - St. Petersburg and Moscow - has been outlined almost from the first day. In March 1903, the last, fifth exhibition of the "World of Art" was closed, in December 1904 the last issue of the magazine "World of Art" was published. Most of the artists moved to the Union of Russian Artists, organized on the basis of the Moscow exhibition “36”. Diaghilev went entirely to ballet and theater. His last significant work in the visual arts was a grandiose historical exhibition of Russian painting from icon painting to modern times in the Paris Autumn Salon 1906, then exhibited in Berlin and Venice (1906-1907). In the section of contemporary painting, the main place was occupied by the "world of art." overall for Western criticism and a real triumph of Russian art

The leading artist of the "World of Art" was Konstantin Andreevich Somov(1869-1939). The son of the chief curator of the Hermitage, who graduated from the Academy of Arts and traveled to Europe, Somov received an excellent education. Creative maturity came to him early, but, as the researcher (V.N.

Somov, as we know him, appeared in the portrait of the artist Martynova ("Lady in Blue", 1897-1900, Tretyakov Gallery), in the painting-portrait "Echo of the Past Tense" (1903, on maps, aqu., Gouache, Tretyakov Gallery ), where he creates a poetic description of the fragile, anemic female beauty of a decadent model, refusing to convey the real everyday signs of modernity. He dresses the models in old costumes, gives their appearance the features of secret suffering, sadness and dreaminess, painful brokenness.

Earlier than anyone else in The World of Art, Somov turned to the themes of the past, to the interpretation of the 18th century. ("Letter", 1896; "Confidentiality", 1897), being the predecessor of the Versailles landscapes of Benoit. He was the first to create an unreal world, woven from the motives of the noble estate and court culture and his own purely subjective artistic sensations, permeated with irony. The historicism of the "World of Artists" was an escape from reality. Not the past, but its dramatization, longing for its irrevocability - this is their main motive. Not true fun, but playing fun with kisses in the alleys - this is Somov.

Other works by Somov are pastoral and gallant festivities (Laughed Kiss, 1908, RM; Walk of the Marquise, 1909, RM), full of caustic irony, spiritual emptiness, even hopelessness. Love scenes from the 18th - early 19th centuries. given always with a touch of eroticism Somov worked a lot as a graphic artist, he designed a monograph by S. Diaghilev about D. Levitsky, a work by A. Benois about Tsarskoe Selo. The book as a single organism with its rhythmic and stylistic unity was raised by him to an extraordinary height. Somov is not an illustrator, he “illustrates not a text, but an era, using a literary device as a springboard,” wrote A.A. Sidorov, and this is very true.

Somov "The Lady in Blue" "At the Skating Rink" Benoit. A. "The King's Walk"

The ideological leader of the "World of Art" was Alexander Nikolaevich Benois(1870-1960) - an unusually versatile talent. A painter, graphic easel painter and illustrator, theater artist, director, author of ballet librettos, theoretician and art historian, musical figure, he was, in the words of A. Bely, the main politician and diplomat of the World of Art. Coming from the upper stratum of the St. Petersburg artistic intelligentsia (composers and conductors, architects and painters), he first studied at the law faculty of St. Petersburg University.

As an artist, he is related to Somov by stylistic tendencies and addiction to the past (“I am intoxicated with Versailles, this is some kind of illness, love, criminal passion ... I have completely moved into the past ...”). Benois's Versailles landscapes merged the historical reconstruction of the 17th century. and contemporary impressions of the artist, his perception of French classicism, French engraving. Hence the clear composition, clear spatiality, grandeur and cold severity of rhythms, contrasting the grandeur of art monuments and the smallness of human figurines, which are only staffage among them (the 1st Versailles series 1896–1898 entitled “The Last Walks of Louis XIV”). In the second Versailles series (1905-1906), the irony, which is also characteristic of the first sheets, is colored with almost tragic notes ("The King's Walk",). Benoit's thinking is the thinking of a theater artist par excellence, who knew and felt the theater perfectly.

Nature is perceived by Benois in an associative connection with history (views of Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo, performed by him in watercolor technique).

In a series of paintings from the Russian past, commissioned by the Moscow publishing house Knebel (illustrations for "The Tsar's Hunt"), in scenes of the noble, landlord life of the 18th century. Benois created an intimate image of this era, albeit a somewhat theatrical "Parade under Paul I". Benois the illustrator (Pushkin, Hoffmann) is a whole page in the history of the book. Unlike Somov, Benoit creates a narrative illustration. The plane of the page is not an end in itself for him. The illustrations for "The Queen of Spades" were more likely complete independent works, not so much "book art", according to A.A. Sidorov, how much "art is in the book." A masterpiece of book illustration was the graphic design of The Bronze Horseman (1903,1905,1916,1921–1922, ink and watercolor imitating color woodcut). In a series of illustrations for the great poem, the main character is the architectural landscape of St. Petersburg, now solemnly pathetic, now peaceful, now ominous, against which the figure of Eugene seems even more insignificant. This is how Benoit expresses the tragic conflict between the fate of the Russian statehood and the personal fate of the little man (“And all night long the poor madman, / Wherever he turned his feet, / 3 the Copper Horseman was everywhere / He rode with a heavy stomp”).

"Bronze Horseman"

"Parade under Paul I"

As a theater artist, Benoit designed the performances of the Russian Seasons, of which the most famous was the ballet Petrushka to the music of Stravinsky, worked extensively at the Moscow Art Theater, and subsequently on almost all major European stages.

The activity of Benois, an art critic and art historian who, together with Grabar, updated the methods, techniques and themes of Russian art history, is a whole stage in the history of art history (see R. Muther's History of Painting of the 19th Century - volume Russian Painting, 1901– 1902; "Russian School of Painting", published in 1904; "Tsarskoe Selo during the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna", 1910; articles in the magazines "World of Art" and "Old Years", "Artistic Treasures of Russia", etc.).

The third in the core of the "World of Art" was Lev Samuilovich Bakst(1866-1924), who became famous as a theater artist and was the first among the "world of art" to gain fame in Europe. He came to the "World of Art" from the Academy of Arts, then professed the Art Nouveau style, adjoined the left trends in European painting. At the first exhibitions of the World of Art, he exhibited a number of pictorial and graphic portraits (Benoit, Bely, Somov, Rozanov, Gippius, Diaghilev), where nature, coming in a stream of living conditions, was transformed into a kind of ideal idea of ​​a contemporary person. Bakst created the brand of the magazine "World of Art", which became the emblem of Diaghilev's "Russian Seasons" in Paris. There are no motives of the 18th century in Bakst's graphics. and manor themes. He gravitates towards antiquity, and towards the Greek archaic, interpreted symbolically. His painting "Ancient Horror" - "Terror antiquus" (tempera, 1908, RM) enjoyed particular success among the Symbolists. A terrible stormy sky, lightning that illuminates the abyss of the sea and the ancient city - and the archaic crust with a mysterious frozen smile dominates over this entire universal catastrophe. Soon Bakst completely went into theatrical and decorative work, and his scenery and costumes for the ballets of Diaghilev's entreprise, performed with extraordinary brilliance, masterly, artistically, brought him world fame. It was designed for performances with Anna Pavlova, Fokine's ballets. The artist made sets and costumes for Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Stravinsky's Firebird (both -1910), Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, and for the ballet Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun (both -1912).

"Ancient Horror" Afternoon of a Faun "Portrait of Gippius

Of the first generation of the "world of art", the younger in age was Evgeny Evgenievich Lanceray (1875-1946), in his work, having touched upon all the main problems of book graphics at the beginning of the XX century. (see his illustrations for the book "Legends of the Ancient Castles of Brittany", for Lermontov, the cover for "Nevsky Prospect" by Bozheryanov, etc.). Lanceray created a number of watercolors and lithographs in St. Petersburg (Kalinkin Bridge, Nikolsky Market, etc.). Architecture occupies a huge place in his historical compositions ("Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in Tsarskoe Selo", 1905, State Tretyakov Gallery). We can say that a new type of historical painting was created in the works of Serov, Benoit, Lanceray - it is devoid of a plot, but at the same time it perfectly recreates the appearance of the era, evokes many historical, literary and aesthetic associations. One of the best creations of Lanceray - 70 drawings and watercolors for the story by L.N. Tolstoy's "Hadji Murad" (1912-1915), which Benoit considered "an independent song that perfectly fits into the mighty music of Tolstoy."

In the graphics of Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky(1875–1957) not so much Petersburg of the Pushkin era or the 18th century is presented, as a modern city, which he was able to convey with almost tragic expressiveness ("The Old House", 1905, watercolor, Tretyakov Gallery), as well as a human inhabitant of such cities (" Man with Glasses, 1905-1906, pastel, State Tretyakov Gallery: lonely, against the background of dull houses, a sad man, whose head resembles a skull). The urbanism of the future inspired Dobuzhinsky with panic. He also worked a lot in illustration, where the most remarkable can be considered his cycle of ink drawings for "White Nights" by Dostoevsky (1922). Dobuzhinsky also worked in the theater, designed for Nemirovich-Danchenko's Nikolai Stavrogin (staging of Dostoevsky's Demons), Turgenev's plays A Month in the Country and Freeloader.

A special place in the "World of Art" is Nicholas Roerich(1874-1947). An expert in the philosophy and ethnography of the East, an archaeologist and scientist, Roerich received an excellent education first at home, then at the Faculty of Law and History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, then at the Academy of Arts, in Kuindzhi's workshop, and in Paris at F. Cormon's studio. He early acquired the authority of a scientist. He was related to the “world of art” by the same love of retrospection, only not of the 17th – 18th centuries, but of pagan Slavic and Scandinavian antiquity, to Ancient Russia; stylistic tendencies, theatrical decorativeness (The Messenger, 1897, State Tretyakov Gallery; The Elders Are Converging, 1898, State Russian Museum; "Sinister", 1901, State Russian Museum). Roerich was most closely associated with the philosophy and aesthetics of Russian symbolism, but his art did not fit into the framework of the existing trends, because, in accordance with the artist's worldview, it appealed, as it were, to all mankind with an appeal for a friendly union of all peoples. Hence the special epic character of his canvases.

"Heavenly battle"

"Overseas guests"

After 1905, the mood of pantheistic mysticism grew in Roerich's work. Historical themes give way to religious legends ("Heavenly Battle", 1912, RM). The Russian icon had a huge influence on Roerich: his decorative panel Cutting at Kerzhenets (1911) was exhibited while performing a fragment of the same title from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia in the Parisian Russian Seasons.

In the second generation of the "World of Art" one of the most gifted artists was Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev(1878-1927), a student of Repin, who helped him in the work on the "State Council". Kustodiev is also characterized by stylization, but this is the stylization of folk popular prints. Hence the bright festive "Fairs", "Maslenitsa", "Balagans", hence his paintings from the bourgeois and merchant life, conveyed with light irony, but not without admiration for these red-cheeked, half-asleep beauties at the samovar and with saucers in plump fingers ("Merchant", 1915, RM; "The merchant's wife at tea", 1918, RM).

A.Ya. Golovin - one of the largest theater artists of the first quarter of the 20th century, I. Ya. Bilibin, A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedev and others.

The World of Art was a major aesthetic movement at the turn of the century, which overestimated the entire modern artistic culture, approved new tastes and problems, and returned to art, at the highest professional level, the lost forms of book graphics and theatrical and decorative painting, which acquired through their efforts all-European recognition, which created new art criticism, promoting Russian art abroad, in fact, even opening some of its stages, like the Russian XVIII century. "Miriskusniki" created a new type of historical painting, portrait, landscape with their own stylistic features (distinct stylistic tendencies, the predominance of graphic techniques.

Art Association "World of Art"

The World of Art (1898-1924) is an artistic association formed in Russia at the end of the 1890s. A magazine was published under the same name, published since 1898 by members of the group. The founders of the "World of Art" were the St. Petersburg artist A. N. Benois and theatrical figure S. P. Diaghilev. It loudly announced itself by organizing the "Exhibition of Russian and Finnish Artists" in 1898 at the Museum of the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron A. L. Stieglitz. The classic period in the life of the association fell on 1900-1904. - at this time, the group was characterized by a special unity of aesthetic and ideological principles. The artists organized exhibitions under the auspices of the World of Art magazine. After 1904, the association expanded and lost its ideological unity. In 1904-1910. most of the members of the World of Art were members of the Union of Russian Artists. After the revolution, many of its leaders were forced to emigrate. The association actually ceased to exist in 1924. Artists of the World of Art considered the aesthetic principle in art a priority and strove for modernity and symbolism, opposing the ideas of the Wanderers. Art, in their opinion, should express the personality of the artist.

The association included artists:

Bakst, Lev Samoilovich

Roerich, Nicholas Konstantinovich

Dobuzhinsky, Mstislav Valerianovich

Lanceray, Evgeny Evgenievich

Mitrokhin, Dmitry Isidorovich

Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Anna Petrovna

Chambers, Vladimir Yakovlevich

Yakovlev, Alexander Evgenievich

Somov, Konstantin Andreevich

Zionglinsky, Yan Frantsevich

Purvit, Wilhelm

Sunnerberg, Konstantin Alexandrovich, critic

"Group portrait of members of the World of Art" association. 1916-1920 B. M. Kustodiev.

portrait - Sergei Petrovich Diaghilev (1872 - 1925)

Sergei Diaghilev was born on March 19 (31), 1872 in Selishchi, Novgorod province, in the family of a military, hereditary nobleman Pavel Pavlovich Diaghilev. His mother died a few months after the birth of Sergei, and he was raised by his stepmother Elena, daughter of V.A.Panaev. As a child, Sergei lived in St. Petersburg, then in Perm, where his father served. Father's brother, Ivan Pavlovich Diaghilev, was a philanthropist and founder of a music circle. In Perm, at the corner of Sibirskaya and Pushkin streets (formerly Bolshaya Yamskaya), the ancestral house of Sergei Diaghilev has survived, where the gymnasium named after him is now located. The mansion in the style of late Russian classicism was built in the 50s of the 19th century by the project of the architect R.O. Karvovsky. For three decades, the house belonged to the large and friendly Diaghilev family. In the house called by contemporaries "Perm Athens", the city intelligentsia gathered on Thursdays. Here they played music, sang, played home performances. After graduating from the Perm gymnasium in 1890, he returned to St. Petersburg and entered the law faculty of the university, while studying music under N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1896 Diaghilev graduated from the university, but instead of studying law, he began his career as an art worker. Several years after receiving his diploma, he founded, together with A. Benois, the association "World of Art", edited the magazine of the same name (from 1898 to 1904) and wrote articles on art history himself. He organized exhibitions that caused a wide resonance: in 1897 - an Exhibition of English and German watercolors, introducing the Russian public to a number of major masters of these countries and modern trends in the visual arts, then an Exhibition of Scandinavian artists in the halls of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, an Exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists in the Stieglitz Museum (1898) the World of Artists themselves considered their first performance (Diaghilev managed to attract other major representatives of young art - Vrubel, Serov, Levitan, etc., in addition to the main group of the initial friendship circle, from which the World of Art association arose) Historical and art exhibition of Russian portraits in St. Petersburg (1905); Exhibition of Russian art at the Autumn Salon in Paris with the participation of works by Benoit, Grabar, Kuznetsov, Malyavin, Repin, Serov, Yavlensky (1906) and others.

Benois Alexander Nikolaevich (1870 - 1960)

Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (April 21 (May 3) 1870 - February 9, 1960) - Russian artist, art historian, art critic, founder and chief ideologist of the World of Art association. Born April 21 (May 3) 1870 in St. Petersburg, in the family of the Russian architect Nikolai Leontievich Benois and Camilla Albertovna Benois (daughter of the architect A.K. Kavos). Graduated from the prestigious 2nd St. Petersburg gymnasium. For some time he studied at the Academy of Arts, also studied the visual arts independently and under the guidance of his older brother Albert. In 1894, he began his career as a theoretician and art historian, writing a chapter on Russian artists for the German collection History of 19th Century Painting. In 1896-1898 and 1905-1907 he worked in France. He became one of the organizers and ideologists of the art association "World of Art", founded the magazine of the same name. In 1916-1918, the artist created illustrations for the poem by Alexander Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman". In 1918 Benoit became the head of the Hermitage Picture Gallery and published its new catalog. He continued to work as a book and theater artist, in particular, he worked on the design of BDT performances. In 1925 he took part in the International Exhibition of Contemporary Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. In 1926, Benoit left the USSR without returning from a business trip abroad. Lived in Paris, worked mainly on sketches of theatrical scenery and costumes. Alexander Benois played a significant role in the productions of S. Diaghilev's ballet company “Ballets Russes”, as an artist and author - stage director. Benoit died on February 9, 1960 in Paris.

Portrait of Benoit

Self-portrait, 1896

- Second Versailles Series (1906), including:

The earliest of Benoit's retrospective works are related to his work at Versailles. A series of small paintings made in watercolors and gouache and united by a common theme - "The last walks of Louis XIV", belongs to the years 1897-1898. Benois's second Versailles series, created in 1905-1906, is much more extensive than The Last Walks of Louis XIV and is more varied in content and technique. It includes sketches from nature, painted in the Versailles park, retrospective historical genre paintings, original "fantasies" on architectural and landscape themes, images of court theater performances in Versailles. The series includes works with oil paints, tempera, gouache and watercolors, sanguine and sepia drawings. These works can only be conditionally called a "series", since they are connected with each other only by a certain unity of mood that developed at the time when Benoit, in his words, was "intoxicated by Versailles" and "completely moved into the past", trying to forget about tragic Russian reality in 1905. The artist seeks here to inform the viewer as much factual information about the era, about the forms of architecture, about costumes, somewhat neglecting the task of figuratively-poetic recreation of the past. However, the same series includes works that are among the most successful works of Benoit, deservedly widely known: "Parade under Paul I" (1907, State Russian Museum;), "Exit of Empress Catherine II in the Tsarskoye Selo Palace" (1909, State Art Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan), "Petersburg Street under Peter I" (1910, private collection in Moscow) and "Peter I Walking in the Summer Garden" (1910, State Russian Museum). In these works, one can notice some change in the very principle of the artist's historical thinking. Finally, it is not the monuments of ancient art, not things and costumes, but people that fall into the center of his interests. The multi-figured historical and everyday scenes, painted by Benoit, recreate the appearance of a past life, seen as if through the eyes of a contemporary.

- "The King's Walk" (Tretyakov Gallery)

48x62

Paper on canvas, watercolor, gouache, bronze paint, silver paint, lead pencil, pen, brush.

State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

In The Walk of the King, Alexandre Benois transports the viewer to the magnificent Versailles park of the time of Louis XIV. Describing the king's walks, the author did not ignore anything: neither park views with garden architecture (they are written from nature), nor theatrical performances, which were very fashionable in ancient times, nor everyday scenes drawn after a thorough study of historical material. The King's Walk is a very effective piece. The viewer meets with Louis XIV, strolling through his brainchild. It's autumn at Versailles: trees and shrubs have dropped their foliage, their bare branches gaze lonely into the gray sky. The water is calm. It seems that nothing can disturb the quiet pond, in the mirror of which the sculptural group of the fountain and the ceremonial procession of the monarch and his entourage are reflected. Against the background of an autumn landscape, the artist depicts the solemn procession of the monarch with his courtiers. Plane modeling of the walking figures as if turns them into ghosts of a bygone era. Among the court retinue, it is difficult to find Louis XIV himself. The Sun King is not important to the artist. Benoit is much more concerned with the atmosphere of the era, the breath of the Versailles park of the times of its crowned owner. This work is included in the second cycle of paintings, resurrecting scenes of the Versailles life of the era of the "sun king". Benois's Versailles is a kind of landscape elegy, a beautiful world that appears to the eyes of a modern person in the form of a desolate scene with dilapidated scenery of a long-performed performance. Formerly magnificent, full of sounds and colors, this world now seems a little ghostly, shaded by cemetery silence. It is no coincidence that in The King's Walk, Benoit depicts a Versailles park in autumn and at the hour of light evening twilight, when the leafless “architecture” of a regular French garden against the background of a light sky turns into a see-through, ephemeral building. The old king, talking with the lady-in-waiting, accompanied by the courtiers walking at precisely specified intervals behind and in front of them, like the figures of an old winding clock, under the light chime of a forgotten minuet, glide along the edge of the reservoir. The theatrical nature of this retrospective fantasy is subtly revealed by the artist himself: he brings to life the figures of the frisky cupids inhabiting the fountain, they comically depict a noisy audience freely sitting at the foot of the stage and gazing at the puppet show performed by people.

- "Bath of the Marquis"

1906 g.

Russian picturesque historical landscape

51x47.5

cardboard, gouache

The painting "Bath of the Marquise" depicts a secluded corner of Versailles Park hidden among dense greenery. The sun's rays penetrate into this shaded refuge, illuminating the surface of the water and the bathing awning. Almost symmetrical in composition, built in accordance with the frontal perspective, the picture gives the impression of impeccable beauty of the pattern and color. The volumes of clear geometric shapes have been carefully worked out (light horizontals - the ground, descents to the water, and verticals - the illuminated walls of the bosquets, the columns of the gazebo). The graceful white marble pavilion illuminated by the sun, which we see in the gap of the trees, is depicted in the upper part of the picture, directly above the head of the awning. Decorative masks, from which light streams of water pour into the bath, break the horizontal of the white wall of the pool. And even the light clothing of the awning, thrown on the bench (almost coinciding with the vanishing point of the lines extending into the depths) is a necessary compositional element in this carefully thought-out drawing. The compositional center is, of course, not a bench with clothes, even though it is located in the geometric center, but the whole complex "quadrangle" complex with a central vertical axis, where a sun-lit gazebo over the awning's head looks like a jewel, like a crown. The awning head organically complements this complex symmetrical pattern of horizontals, verticals and diagonals. In a strictly thought out and planned park, even its inhabitants only complete its perfection with their presence. They are just an element of the composition, emphasizing its beauty and splendor.

Miriskussians are often reproached for the absence of "painting" in their paintings. We can say in response to this that the "Bath of the Marquise" is a triumph of green color with a variety of its shades. The artist simply admires the beauty and riot of fresh greenery. The foreground of the picture is written in a generalized manner. Soft light shining through the foliage illuminates the slopes to the bathing water, dark water painted through blue-gray and deep blue-green colors. The long-range plan has been worked out in more detail: the foliage of the trees is painted carefully and masterly, leaf to leaf, the moire of the foliage on the bosquets consists of the smallest dots, colorful strokes. In the shade, we see both muted and bright cold greens of different shades. Luxurious, sunlit foliage in the center is painted with small, cold bluish and warm green strokes. It is as if the artist bathes greenery in the rays of light, exploring the nature of green. Deep blue shadows, gray-purple earth, a purple dress with a blue pattern, a yellow scarf, a hat with blue flowers around the ribbon, white dots of flowers on a green slope and drops of red on the marquise's hairstyle, on the black woman's head prevent the work from becoming monochrome green. " Bath of the Marquis "- a historical landscape.

- Illustrations to the poem by A.S. Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman" (1904-22.), including:

In the first decades of the twentieth century, drawings by Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870 - 1960) for "The Bronze Horseman" were made - the best that has been created in the entire history of Pushkin's illustration. Benoit began work on The Bronze Horseman in 1903. Over the next 20 years, he created a cycle of drawings, headpieces and endings, as well as a huge number of options and sketches. The first edition of these illustrations, which were being prepared for a pocket edition, was created in 1903 in Rome and St. Petersburg. They were printed in a different format by Diaghilev in the first issue of the magazine "World of Art" for 1904. The first cycle of illustrations consisted of 32 drawings made in ink and watercolors. In 1905, A.N. Benois, while in Versailles, reworked six of his previous illustrations and completed the frontispiece for The Bronze Horseman. In the new drawings for The Bronze Horseman, the theme of the Horseman's pursuit of a little man becomes the main one: the black horseman over the fugitive is not so much Falcone's masterpiece as the personification of cruel force and power. And St. Petersburg is not the one that conquers with its artistic perfection and the scope of construction ideas, but a gloomy city - a cluster of gloomy houses, trading rows, fences. The anxiety and anxiety that gripped the artist during this period turns here into a real cry about the fate of man in Russia. In 1916, 1921–1922, the cycle was revised for the third time and supplemented with new drawings.

- "Chase Scene" (frontispiece)

Sketch of the frontispiece to the poem by Alexander Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman", 1905

Book graphics

23.7 x 17.6

watercolor on paper

All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg

In 1905, A.N. Benois, while in Versailles, reworked six of his previous illustrations and completed the frontispiece (frontispiece is a page with an image that forms a spread with the front page of the title sheet, and this image itself.) For "The Bronze Horseman" ... In the new drawings for The Bronze Horseman, the theme of the Horseman's pursuit of a little man becomes the main one: the black horseman over the fugitive is not so much Falcone's masterpiece as the personification of cruel force and power. And St. Petersburg is not the one that conquers with its artistic perfection and the scope of construction ideas, but a gloomy city - a cluster of gloomy houses, trading rows, fences. The anxiety and anxiety that gripped the artist during this period turns here into a real cry about the fate of man in Russia. On the left in the foreground is the figure of a running Yevgeny, on the right - a rider on horseback overtaking him. In the background is the city landscape. The moon is visible from behind the clouds on the right. A huge shadow from the figure of the rider falls on the pavement. When working on "The Bronze Horseman", she defined the highest rise of Benoit's work of these years.

Somov Konstantin Andreevich (1869 - 1939)

Konstantin Andreevich Somov (November 30, 1869, St. Petersburg - May 6, 1939, Paris) - Russian painter and graphic artist, master of portrait and landscape, illustrator, one of the founders of the "World of Art" society and the magazine of the same name. Konstantin Somov was born into the family of a famous museum figure, curator of the Hermitage, Andrei Ivanovich Somov. While still in the gymnasium, Somov met A. Benois, V. Nouvel, D. Filosofov, with whom he later participated in the creation of the World of Art society. Somov took an active part in the design of the magazine "World of Art", as well as the periodical "Art Treasures of Russia" (1901-1907), edited by A. Benois, created illustrations for "Count Nulin" by A. Pushkin (1899), stories N. Gogol's "The Nose" and "Nevsky Prospect" (1901), painted the covers of K. Balmont's poetry collections "The Firebird. Svirel of the Slav ", V. Ivanov" Cor Ardens ", the title page of the book by A. Blok" Theater "and others. The first personal exhibition of paintings, sketches and drawings (162 works) was held in St. Petersburg in 1903; 95 works were shown in Hamburg and Berlin in the same year. Along with landscape and portrait painting and graphics, Somov worked in the field of small plastic, creating exquisite porcelain compositions "Count Nulin" (1899), "Lovers" (1905), etc. In January 1914 he received the status of a full member of the Academy of Arts. In 1918, the publishing house of Golike and Vilborg (St. Petersburg) published the most famous and complete edition with erotic illustrations by Somov: The Book of the Marquise, where the artist created not only all the design elements of the book, but also selected texts in French. In 1918 he became a professor at the Petrograd state free art educational workshops; worked at the school of E. N. Zvantseva. In 1919, his jubilee personal exhibition took place in the Tretyakov Gallery. In 1923, Somov left Russia for America as an authorized representative of the Russian Exhibition; in January 1924, at an exhibition in New York, Somov was presented with 38 works. He did not return to Russia. From 1925 he lived in France; He died suddenly on May 6, 1939 in Paris.

Portrait of Somov

Self-portrait, 1895

Self-portrait, 1898

46 x 32.6

Watercolor, pencil, pastel, paper on cardboard

Self-portrait, 1909

45.5 x 31

Watercolor, gouache, paper

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

- “Lady in blue. Portrait of the Artist Elizaveta Martynova "(1897-1900, State Tretyakov Gallery)

The artist had long been friends with Elizaveta Mikhailovna Martynova, he studied with her at the Academy of Arts. In 1897 K. Somov began work on the portrait of E.M. Martynova, with a detailed plan. The artist had a very interesting model in front of him, and he was worried about the idea of ​​a portrait-painting in which he could capture a deeply poetic image. A young woman in a lush, strongly low-cut dress, with a volume of poetry in her lowered hand, is depicted standing against a green wall of an overgrown bush. EAT. The artist takes Martynova into the world of the past, clothe her in an old dress, and places the model against the background of a conventional decorative park. The evening sky with light pink clouds, the trees of an old park, the dark surface of the reservoir - all this is exquisite in color, but, like a true "world of art", K. Somov stylizes the landscape. Looking at this lonely, yearning woman, the viewer does not perceive her as a person from another world, past and distant. This is a woman of the late 19th century. Everything about her is characteristic: both painful fragility, and a feeling of aching melancholy, sadness in her large eyes and the dense line of mournfully compressed lips. Against the background of the sky breathing with excitement, the fragile figure of E.M. Martynova is full of special grace and femininity, despite her thin neck, thin sloping shoulders, hidden sadness and pain. Meanwhile, in the life of E.M. Everyone knew Martynova as a cheerful, cheerful young woman. EAT. Martynova dreamed of a great future, wanted to realize herself in real art and despised the bustle of everyday life. And it so happened that at the age of 30, she died of pulmonary tuberculosis, not having time to fulfill anything from her plan. Despite the splendor of the portrait, there is a hidden soulful note in it. And she makes the viewer experience the mood of the heroine, to be imbued with the sympathy for her, which the artist himself was full of. "Lady in Blue" appeared at the exhibition "World of Arts" in 1900 (due to the artist's departure to Paris and the model's illness, this picture was painted for three years) under the title "Portrait", and three years later it was acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery.

- "Evening" (1902, State Tretyakov Gallery)

142.3 x 205.3

Canvas, oil

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The poet Valery Bryusov called Somov “the author of exquisite short stories.” After all, the Somov novels are theatrical through and through. The Som's "reality" appears stylistically completed in the painting "Evening" (1902). Everything here corresponds to a single harmonious and ceremonial rhythm: repetitions of arcades, alternation of bosquet planes receding into the distance, slow, as if ritualistic, movements of the ladies. Even nature here is a work art, bearing the features of the style, inspired by the 18th century. But above all it is the "Somov" world, enchanted, strangely static world of the golden sky and gilded sculptures, where man, nature and art are in harmonious unity. leaves, casts reflexes on people's clothes and faces, softening the sonorous emerald and scarlet colors of clothes etc. It is a pleasure to look at the finely made details of toilets, rings, ribbons, shoes with a red heel. There is no genuine monumentality in the painting "Evening". The Somovsky world carries the ephemerality of the scenery, so the large size of the canvas seems to be accidental. This is an enlarged thumbnail. Somov's chamber, intimate talent always gravitates towards miniaturism. Contemporaries perceived "Evening" as a contrast to reality: "An era that seems to us naive, with weak muscles, without steam locomotives - slow-moving, creeping (compared to ours) - and how it can take possession of nature, seduce nature, almost making it an extension of its costume" ... Somov's retrospectives often have a fantastically fictional tinge, fantasies almost always have a retrospective tinge.

- "The Harlequin and the Lady" (1912, Tretyakov Gallery)

1912 1921

62.2 x 47.5

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Somov's artistic concept acquires a special completeness here. The whole construction of the picture is frankly likened to the theatrical stage. The two main characters are located in the foreground, in the center of the picture, facing the viewer, like the actors of the comedy Marivaux, conducting a dialogue. The figures at the back are like minor characters. The trees, lit by the false light of the fireworks, like theatrical spotlights, the pool, part of which is visible in the foreground, make one think of the orchestra pit. Even the point of view of the characters from the bottom up seems to be the view of the spectator from the theater hall. The artist admires this colorful masquerade, where a curving Harlequin in his attire of red, yellow and blue patches coyly embraces a lady in robron, who has taken off her mask, where red roses are burning brightly, and festive fireworks are scattered in the sky. For Somov, this deceptive world of phantoms with their fleeting existence is more alive than reality itself.

A series of graphic portraits, incl. -

- "Portrait of A. Blok" (1907, Tretyakov Gallery)

"Portrait of Alexander Alexandrovich Blok", 1907

38 x 30

Lead and colored pencils, gouache on paper

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In 1907, Somov creates images of L. A. Blok. In them one can see traces of the closest study of the French pencil portrait (with the use of sanguine) of the late 16th and especially the 17th century, although the portraits of Somov are by no means a direct imitation. The traditions of the French pencil portrait were transformed by Somov beyond recognition. The character of the image is completely different. In the portraits of Blok and Lancer (both in the State Tretyakov Gallery) Somov strives for the utmost brevity. Now in the portrait of Blok there is a shoulder image. All irrelevant details are discarded. Somov sparingly outlines the outline of only the silhouette of the shoulders and those details of the costume that are integral to the image of the depicted one - the turn-down collars that Blok always wore. In contrast to the laconism in the depiction of the figure and costume, the face of the portrait is carefully worked out, and the artist introduces a few color accents into their rendering, which sound especially expressive in Blok's portrait. The artist conveys with colored pencils the cold, "winter" look of Blok's gray-blue eyes, the pinkness of his half-open lips, with whitewash - a vertical fold cutting through a smooth forehead. Blok's face, framed by a cap of thick curly hair, resembles a frozen mask. The portrait struck his contemporaries with its similarity. Many of them also noted the "wax immobility of features" inherent in Blok. Somov, in his portrait, elevated this deadness of features to an absolute and thereby deprived the image of Blok of that versatility, spiritual wealth, which constituted the essence of his personality. Blok himself admitted that, although he liked the portrait, he was "burdened" by it.

Bakst Lev Samoilovich (Leib-Chaim Izrailevich Rosenberg, 1866 - 1924)

To enter the Academy of Arts as a volunteer, L. S. Bakst had to overcome the resistance of his father, a small businessman. He studied for four years (1883-87), but became disillusioned with academic training and left the educational institution. He began painting on his own, studied the technique of watercolors, earning a living by illustrating children's books and magazines. In 1889, the artist exhibited his works for the first time, adopting a pseudonym - the abbreviated surname of his maternal grandmother (Baxter). 1893-99 he spent in Paris, often visiting Petersburg, and worked hard in search of his own style. Having become close with A. N. Benois, K. A. Somov and S. P. Diaghilev, Bakst became one of the initiators of the creation of the association "World of Art" (1898). Bakst became famous for his graphic works for the magazine "World of Art". He continued to study easel art - he performed excellent graphic portraits of I.I. Levitan, F.A.Malyavin (1899), A. Bely (1905) and 3. N. Gippius (1906) and painted portraits of V.V. 1901), S.P.Dyagilev with a nanny (1906). His painting "Dinner" (1902), which became a kind of manifesto of the Art Nouveau style in Russian art, caused fierce controversy among critics. Later, a strong impression on the audience was made by his painting "Ancient Horror" (1906-08), which embodied the symbolist idea of ​​the inevitability of fate. By the end of the 1900s. limited himself to work in the theater, occasionally making exceptions for graphic portraits of people close to him, and went down in history precisely as an outstanding theater artist of the Art Nouveau era. He made his theater debut back in 1902, having designed the pantomime "The Heart of the Marquise". Then the ballet "Fairy of the Dolls" (1903) was staged, which was a success mainly due to its scenery. He designed several more performances, made separate costumes for artists, in particular for A. Pavlova in the famous "Swan" by M. M. Fokin (1907). But the real talent of Bakst unfolded in the ballet performances of "Russian Seasons", and then "The Russian Ballet of S. P. Diaghilev." Cleopatra (1909), Scheherazade and Carnival (1910), Vision of a Rose and Narcissus (1911), Blue God, Daphnis and Chloe and Faun's Afternoon Rest (1912), The Games (1913) amazed the jaded Western audience with decorative imagination, richness and power of color, and the design techniques developed by Bakst marked the beginning of a new era in ballet scenography. The name of Bakst, the leading artist of Russian Seasons, resounded along with the names of the best performers and famous choreographers. He received interesting orders from other theaters. All these years Bakst lived in Europe, only occasionally returning to his homeland. He continued to collaborate with the Diaghilev troupe, but contradictions gradually grew between him and S.P.Diaghilev, and in 1918 Bakst left the troupe. He worked tirelessly, but he was no longer able to create anything fundamentally new. Death from pulmonary edema overtook Bakst at the time of his fame, though beginning to fade, but still brilliant.

Portrait of the artist

Self-portrait, 1893

34 x 21

Oil on cardboard

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

- "Elysium" (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery)

Decorative panel, 1906.

158 x 40

Watercolor, gouache, paper on cardboard

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

- "Ancient (Antique) Horror" (1908, RM)

250 x 270 oil on canvas

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

“Ancient Horror” is a painting by Leon Bakst depicting the death of an ancient civilization (possibly Atlantis) in a natural cataclysm. In the pagan worldview, "ancient horror" is the horror of life in the world under the rule of a dark and inhuman Fate, the horror of the impotence of a person enslaved by it and hopelessly submissive (Fatum); and also the horror of chaos as an abyss of nothingness, immersion into which is disastrous. Under the ancient horror he understood the horror of fate. He wanted to show that not only everything human, but also everything worshiped by the divine was perceived by the ancients as relative and transitory. A large canvas of almost square format is occupied by a panorama of a landscape painted from a high point of view. The landscape is lit by a flash of lightning. The main space of the canvas is occupied by the raging sea, which destroys ships and beats against the walls of fortresses. In the foreground is the figure of an archaic statue in a generational trim. The contrast of the calm smiling face of the statue is especially striking when compared to the riot of the elements behind her. The artist transports the viewer to some kind of invisible height, from which this panoramic perspective is the only possible one, which unfolds somewhere in the depths under our feet. Closest to the viewer is the hill bearing the colossal statue of the archaic Cypriot Aphrodite; but the hill, and the foot, and the very legs of the idol are outside the canvas: as if free from the fate of the earth, the goddess arises, close to us, right in the darkness of the deeply lying sea. The female statue depicted is a type of archaic crust that smiles with an enigmatic archaic smile and holds a blue bird (or a dove, the symbol of Aphrodite) in her hands. Traditionally, it is customary to call the statue depicted by Bakst - Aphrodite, although it has not yet been established which goddesses were depicted by the bark. The prototype of the statue was a statue found during excavations on the Acropolis. Bakst's wife posed for the missing hand. The island landscape unfolding behind the back of the goddess is a view from the Athenian Acropolis. At the foot of the mountains on the right side of the picture in the foreground are the buildings, according to Pruzhan - the Mycenaean Lion Gate and the remains of the palace in Tiryns. These are buildings dating back to the early, Cretan-Mycenaean period of Greek history. On the left is a group of people running in horror among buildings typical of classical Greece - most likely, this is the Acropolis with its propylaea and huge statues. Beyond the Acropolis is a lightning-lighted valley overgrown with silvery olives.

Ballet decoration, incl. -

"Sketch of a Cleopatra costume for Ida Rubinstein for the ballet" Cleopatra "to the music of A.S. Arensky"

1909

28 x 21

Pencil, watercolor

"Scheherazade" (1910, music by Rimsky-Korsakov)

"Sketch of the scenery for the ballet" Scheherazade "to music by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov", 1910

110 x 130

Canvas, oil

Collection of Nikita and Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky, London

"Costume design for the Blue Sultana for the ballet" Scheherazade "

1910

29.5 x 23

Watercolor, pencil

Collection of Nikita and Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky, London

Dobuzhinsky Mstislav Valerianovich (1875 - 1957)

MV Dobuzhinsky was the son of an artillery officer. After the first year of the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, Dobuzhinsky tried to enter the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, but was not accepted and studied in private studios until 1899. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1901, he became close to the World of Art association and became one of the most notable its representatives. Dobuzhinsky made his debut in graphics - drawings in magazines and books, city landscapes, in which he was able to impressively convey his perception of St. Petersburg as a city. The theme of the city immediately became one of the main in his work. Dobuzhinsky was engaged in easel graphics and painting, he taught successfully - in various educational institutions. Soon the Moscow Art Theater invited him to stage the play by Ivan Turgenev "A Month in the Country" (1909). The great success of the scenery he performed laid the foundation for close cooperation between the artist and the renowned theater. The pinnacle of this collaboration was the scenery for the play "Nikolai Stavrogin" (1913) based on the novel "Demons" by FM Dostoevsky. Sharp expressiveness and rare laconicism made this innovative work a phenomenon that anticipated the future discoveries of Russian scenography. A sound perception of the events unfolding in post-revolutionary Russia forced Dobuzhinsky in 1925 to accept Lithuanian citizenship and move to Kaunas. In 1939, Dobuzhinsky left for the USA to work with the actor and director Mikhail Chekhov on the play Demons, but because of the outbreak of World War II he never returned to Lithuania. The last years of his life turned out to be the most difficult for him - he could not and did not want to adapt to the American way of life that was alien to him and to the mores of the American art market. He often experienced financial difficulties, lived alone, communicating only with a narrow circle of Russian emigrants, and tried to use every opportunity to get out to Europe at least for a while.

Portrait of the artist

Self-portrait. 1901

55x42

Canvas, oil

State Russian Museum

The work, executed at the Munich school of Sandor Holloshi, according to the pictorial task is close to the symbolist compositions of Eugene Career, who loved to immerse his characters in a dense, emotionally active environment. The mysterious haze surrounding the model, the vibrating “colored” light on the face and figure, seems to enhance the keenly energetic and mysterious expression of the shaded eyes. This gives the image of an internally independent and coldish young man the features of a kind of demonism.

- "Province of the 1830s" (1907-1909, State Russian Museum)

60 x 83.5

Cardboard, pencil, watercolor, whitewash

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

"The Province of the 1830s" captures the gaze of an artist who is touched by the flow of everyday life in a Russian town more than half a century ago. The "snatching" of the image with the deliberate placement of the pillar almost in the center of the composition contributes to the perception of what is happening as an accidentally seen frame of a film. The absence of the main character and the plotlessness of the picture is a kind of game of the artist with the vain expectations of the viewer. Leaning houses, domes of ancient churches and a policeman sleeping at his post - this is the view of the main square of the city. The bustle of ladies, apparently hurrying to the milliner for new outfits, is almost caricatured by Dobuzhinsky. The work is imbued with the mood of the artist's harmless kindness. The vibrant color of the work makes it look like a postcard so popular at the turn of the century. The painting "Russian province of the 1830s" (watercolor, graph pencil, State Russian Museum) dates back to 1907. It depicts the sleepy square of a provincial town with shopping malls dozing, leaning on his ax, a security guard, a brown pig rubbing against a lamppost, a few passers-by and the inevitable puddle in the middle. Gogol's reminiscences are unquestionable. But Dobuzhinsky's painting is devoid of any sarcasm. The artist's elegant graphics ennoble everything that he touches. Under the pencil and brush of Dobuzhinsky, the beauty of the proportions of the Empire style Gostiny Dvor, the stylish suit of the 1930s with a "basket" hat on a lady with purchases passing the square, the slender silhouette of the bell tower come to the fore. Dobuzhinsky's subtle stylism triumphs over his next victory.

- "House in St. Petersburg" (1905, State Tretyakov Gallery)

37 x 49

Pastel, gouache, paper on cardboard

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

- "Man with glasses" (Portrait of the writer Konstantin Sunnerberg, 1905-1906, State Tretyakov Gallery)

Portrait of art critic and poet Konstantin Sunnerberg

1905

63.3 x 99.6

Charcoal, watercolor, paper on cardboard

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Not being a portrait painter, Dobuzhinsky created one of the most capacious images-symbols, embodying a whole generation of intellectuals-townspeople. The painting "The Man with Glasses" (1905-1906) depicts the poet and art critic KA Sunnerberg, acting under the pseudonym Konst. Erberg. The man is tightly closed in the hard shell of a respectable dress, his eyes, screened from the world by glasses of glasses, are almost invisible. The whole figure, as if deprived of the third dimension, is sprawled, squeezed in an incredibly tight space. A man is, as it were, exposed, placed between two panes - a specimen of the bizarre fauna of a fantastic city - St. Petersburg, visible outside the window, revealing another face to the viewer - a mixture of multi-storey, multi-pipe urbanism and provincial backyards.

Lanceray Evgeny Evgenievich (1875 - 1946)

Russian and Soviet artist. Graduated from the First St. Petersburg Gymnasium. From 1892 he studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, St. Petersburg, where he attended the classes of Ya. F. Tsionglinsky, NS Samokish, EK Lipgart. From 1895 to 1898, Lanceray traveled extensively across Europe and improved his skills in the French academies of F. Calarosi and R. Julien. Since 1899 - a member of the World of Art association. In 1905 he left for the Far East. In 1907-1908 he became one of the founders of the "Ancient Theater" - a short-term, but interesting and noticeable phenomenon in the cultural life of Russia at the beginning of the century. Lanceray continued to work with the theater in 1913-1914. 1912-1915 - artistic director of a porcelain factory and glass engraving workshops in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. 1914-1915 - war artist-correspondent on the Caucasian front during the First World War. He spent 1917-1919 in Dagestan. In 1919, he collaborated as an artist at the Information and Agitation Bureau of A. I. Denikin's Volunteer Army (OSVAG). In 1920 he moved to Rostov-on-Don, then to Nakhichevan-on-Don and Tiflis. Since 1920 - a draftsman at the Museum of Ethnography, went on ethnographic expeditions with the Caucasian Archaeological Institute. Since 1922 - Professor of the Academy of Arts of Georgia, Moscow Architectural Institute. In 1927 he was sent to Paris for six months from the Academy of Arts of Georgia. In 1934 he moved permanently from Tiflis to Moscow. From 1934 to 1938 he taught at the All-Russian Academy of Arts in Leningrad. HER. Lanceray died on 13 September 1946.

Portrait of the artist

- "Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in Tsarskoe Selo" (1905, State Tretyakov Gallery)

43.5 x 62

Gouache, paper on cardboard

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Evgeny Evgenievich Lansere is a versatile artist. The author of monumental murals and panels that adorn the stations of the Moscow metro, the Kazansky railway station, the hotel "Moscow", landscapes, paintings on a theme from Russian history of the 18th century, he was at the same time a wonderful illustrator of classic works of Russian literature ("Dubrovsky" and "Shot" A S. Pushkin, "Hadji Murad" by L. N. Tolstoy), the creator of sharp political cartoons in satirical magazines in 1905, theatrical and decorative artist. The painting reproduced here is one of the artist's most interesting and significant easel works and testifies to the very understanding of historical painting in the art of the early 20th century. So, the atmosphere of the era is revealed here through the images of art embodied in architecture and park ensembles, costumes and hairstyles of people, through the landscape, showing the court life, rituals. The theme of royal processions became especially favorite. Lanceray depicts the solemn exit of the courtyard of Elizabeth Petrovna in her country residence. As if on the stage of the theater, a procession takes place in front of the spectator. A corpulent empress, dressed in woven clothes of amazing beauty, swims with a regal majesty. This is followed by ladies and gentlemen in puffy outfits and powdered wigs. In their faces, poses and gestures, the artist reveals different characters and types. We see now humiliatingly timid, now arrogant and prim courtiers. In the show of Elizabeth and her court, one cannot fail to notice the artist's irony and even some grotesque. Lanceray contrasts the people he depicted with the noble austerity of the white marble statue and the genuine grandeur embodied in the magnificent architecture of the Rastrelli Palace and the beauty of the regular park.

Ostroumova-Lebedeva Anna Petrovna (1871 - 1955)

A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva was the daughter of a prominent official P.I.Ostroumov. While still a high school student, she began attending the elementary school at the CUTR. Then she studied at the school itself, where she was carried away by the technique of engraving, and at the Academy of Arts, where she was engaged in painting in the studio of I.E. Repin. In 1898-99. worked in Paris, improving in painting (with J. Whistler) and engraving. 1900 turned out to be a turning point in her life, the artist made her debut with her engravings at the exhibition "The World of Art" (with which she later firmly connected her work), then received the second prize for engravings at the OPKh competition and graduated from the Academy of Arts with the title of artist, presenting 14 engravings ... Ostroumova-Lebedeva played the main role in the revival in Russia of easel wood engraving as an independent type of art - after a long existence as a reproduction technique; especially great is the artist's contribution to the revival of color engraving. The original techniques of generalizing form and color, worked out by her, were mastered and used by many other artists. The main theme of her engravings was Petersburg, the image of which she devoted several decades of tireless labor. Her color and black-and-white prints - both easel, combined in cycles ("Petersburg", 1908-10; "Pavlovsk", 1922-23, etc.), and executed for V. Ya. Kurbatov's books "Petersburg" ( 1912) and NP Antsiferov's "The Soul of Petersburg" (1920) - are still unsurpassed in the accuracy of the sensation and transmission of the majestic beauty of the city and in the rare laconicism of expressive means. Reproduced many times and but for different reasons, they have long become textbooks and are extremely popular. In their own way, the works created by the artist based on the impressions of frequent trips - both abroad (Italy, France, Spain, Holland) and across the country (Baku, Crimea) were interesting and uncommon. Some of them were performed in engraving, and some in watercolors. A gifted and well-trained painter, Ostroumova-Lebedeva could not work with oil paints, because their smell caused her asthma attacks. But she perfectly mastered the difficult and capricious technique of watercolor painting and was engaged in it all her life, creating excellent landscapes and portraits ("Portrait of the artist I. V. Ershov", 1923; "Portrait of Andrei Bely", 1924; "Portrait of the artist E. S. Kruglikova ", 1925, etc.). She spent the Ostroumova-Lebedeva war in besieged Leningrad, not abandoning her beloved work and completing work on the third volume of Autobiographical Notes. The last years of the artist's life were darkened by the impending blindness, but as long as possible, she continued to work.

A series of prints and drawings "Views of St. Petersburg and its suburbs", incl. -

Throughout her mature creative life, A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva's graphics were dominated by the theme of St. to the fortress at night. " In total, according to her own calculations, she created 85 works dedicated to the great city. The image of Petersburg for Ostroumova-Lebedeva has been forming for almost half a century. However, its main features were found by the artist in the most joyful and calm years - during the first decade of the twentieth century. It was then that a combination of sharp, refined, even harsh lyricism with powerful stability and monumentality, geometric, verified perspective and tartness of emotional freedom, arose in her works,

- "Neva through the columns of the Stock Exchange" (1908)

Like the feet of giants, the corner columns of the Stock Exchange stand on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, and the perspective of the other bank of the Neva, the wing of the Admiralty and the magnificent parabola of the General Staff building on Palace Square go into the distant distance. No less striking is the perspective of the dark and powerful greenery of the park, becoming the edge of the architectural space, converging in the distance to the barely discernible Elagin Palace. A fragment of the grate of the Summer Garden, which descends to the granite garment of the Moika River, entering the Neva, turns out to be inconceivably exquisite. Here, each line is not accidental, both chamber and monumental at the same time, here the genius of the architect was combined with the refined vision of the artist attentive to the beauty. Above the dark Kryukov Canal, the sunset sky burns out, and the silhouette of the Nikolsky Naval Cathedral, famous for its magnificent slenderness, rises from the water.