In memory of Wrangel

     Apollo                                                                      August - September 1915   №№  6 – 7

Editorial

                                                                 Memory  wrangel

The Time Separating Us from the Death of Baron N.N. Wrangel  (June 15th) is not a quarter of the  years  incomparably large... So diverse and complex are the days we experience! But this same power of days over us played a different role for Wrangel’s memory: it did not allow him to realize the loss.  We continue to feel it as close and unexpected as on the day of death, for even now the questions posed in the first obituaries (for example, V. Vereshchagin)  "In Memory of Wrangel", "Old Years", June 1915, or A. Benois  "In Memory of Wrangel", "Speech", July 2, remain unanswered.  Alexander Benoit rightly points out that  "the loss of Wrangel is now simply unaccountable. The consequences will only affect the course of time when all   eh    bw    oh No way.    I don't know.    I'm not sure.  (The author's italics) will be fully provided only by him.  "Pupils" (this young figure had a myriad of pupils)  and  his assistants.  We're not ex-  "pupils."  Wrangel and generally standing apart from those themes and those ideals that were developed and confessed in a group of artists who rallied around the magazine.  "Old Years,"  hard to evaluate  side of Wrangel's activities. And all  You ask yourself with concern:  Who will pass on his precious legacy?  Who will hold and hold all these pale  visions of the past, faded as  Old pearls in the grip of golden frames:  distant, native shadows, diamond princes and daisies, dandies  into  lush hairstyles, patrons and Piates, eccentrics and quirks, rattling sounds of ancient harpsichords in the halls of Catherine  house Who will replace him?  Forever, the image of Wrangel in our memory will be woven with years of wigs, minuets, with a cult.   "oldies."  Forever for us the best embodiment of his love, his mind, his strength will be  "Wreath to the Dead."

     However, the least we tend to limit Wrangel's importance to the role of  To close his path, untimely cut off by death, into a narrow and too temporary circle. Otherwise, we would not have to regret the loss of this figure of Russian art, we, I repeat, standing apart from the circle.  themes  "Old Years."

     Taking Wrangel’s significance beyond this circle, we will call him one of the most tireless workers in the difficult situation in Russia.  In the conquest of the right of Russian art to be a self-sufficient scientific discipline, and one of the first to give us examples of artistic and scientific work. The confluence of everyday conditions and the epoch itself were not conducive to the development of Wrangel’s critical gift. He did not succeed in his youthful years.  consistent and precise foundations for their artistic instincts; inevitably, the path of its development is marked by inconsistencies and contradictions. “My generation and Wrangel’s generation,” says Benois.  (loc.  cit. . . are all self-taught, self-existing, often very naive in their "discovery of America," often even ridiculous and ridiculous. A lot of them stayed.  amongst us the ridiculous amateurs  on  A strong taste of provincialism.  However, it was Wrangel who overcame these preparatory stages, and now for years.  five or six, as I admired in him that rigour of knowledge, that hue  Aesthetic wisdom, which are the real signs of mature artistic consciousness.

     We've had to tell you before. (In Review of The Wreath of the Dead, Apollo, 1913)  №  6)  on one of the most remarkable features of the historical and artistic researches of Wrangel; it is  His exceptional directness, exceptional fearlessness, with which he exposed all the contradictions he felt, even if they led even to the destruction of his favorite constructions. (The impetuous sincerity of his aspirations was reflected only recently, at the beginning of the war, when he decisively rejected the pen of a researcher for work in the Red Cross.)  For example, a few lines from the same  All retrospective literature and art, showing some remarkable talents, testify to the exceptional poverty of modern Russia. For only he who has no personal life can speak of the lives of others. Putting wreaths on the graves of the dead is very good, but you can’t do just that. ?loc.  cit.., p. 6).  Isn't it already planned?  Here is an ideological fracture, which then forced Wrangel to try and completely abandon his favorite business, from the cause to which he  He was called and served throughout his short life. It is true that one of the causes of such instability, whimsical variability of tastes, some even confusion.  haste  into  from one subject to another, from one work to the next,  We must consider a certain shade of amateurism, which Benois considers unavoidable, "because until recent years we had no artistic and, in particular, artistic and scientific culture." (In memory of Wrangel)

     The themes for the emerging Russian science of art seemed so many, so saturated with "discoveries" and  aesthetic joys, which, of course, is about the planned  And the consistent elaboration of urgent issues could not be thought of. Turn over.  Apollo over the years.  1910-1912, when  N.N. Wrangel was co-editor of S.K. Makovsky. Over the course of two years, Wrangel has touched.  There are many amazingly different tasks:  "Historical Exhibition of Architecture at the Academy of Arts" and  Venetianov in private collections, o  "French paintings in the Kushelev Gallery" and  The Age of Elizabeth, of Vermeer of Delft, and  "M.V. Dobuzhinsky" Besides,   In the same years or a little earlier he wrote about the miniatures of the Hermitage and the history of Russian sculpture. And everywhere we see sharpness, masterful compression.  the evidence of hard work on primary sources and, together,  Astonishment is the astonishment of a traveler who has entered an unknown and even more charming country. Anyway,  it  "astonishment"  It is not a feature inherent in Wrangel, it is a common feature for Russian historical and artistic art.  Criticism and, perhaps, preserved to the last days. In Russia.  The art was not so much studied as  "astonished"  We were amazed at the fact that we had and still have art. Our entire artistic society was only astonished and used to look at Russian creativity; it was all in its entirety.  (with respect to)  art-understanding  He was a beginner and an amateur, and  It is clear that the same shade fell on even our best works of art.

     Uneven attention, too strong shines of light thrown at something  one-time  inconsistently, even by accident (from lack of knowledge), hence too deep a movement into the shadow is often so  Those are the sins of love. Its fruit is a distortion in general.  (Although luck and truth in particular)  historical perspective. However, how to talk about the historical perspective, when it is not yet in Russian art, and can not be, because we do not have the first stones, not clarified the main milestones on the path of Russian art! But they need to be clarified, it is urgent for  We need to be consistent with future penalties, and so does our national dignity. Thus,  "astonishment,"  eagerness  Only valuable to us. Because it's complicated by something else.  It's hard and hard to study.

     Wrangel's enthusiasm was highly complicated. Most of his work has been done before.  All the result of painstaking and masterfully executed analysis of primary sources. But this is not enough; one more feature of Wrangel’s work, in our opinion, is the most important.  It was already indicated by A. Rostislavov.   (Baron Nikolai Nikolayevich Wrangel, Russian Thought, August 1915):  It is difficult now to determine the meaning and character of the work of Nikolai Nikolayevich, but they are undoubtedly the most valuable – with serious research.  - a personal artistic relationship to the material.”  Strictly scientific  The research did not prevent Wrangel from preserving originality.  personality, did not stifle the instincts of the innate and strengthened in numerous works of taste; on the contrary, Wrangel was able to  Science and taste, so often separated, merge. That's what made it so high.  Interested in his latest work. This also forces us to rank him among the best, in general, so few among us, figures of Russian artistic and scientific culture, as to combine personal and scientific knowledge.  soulful  The perception of art with the accuracy and impartiality of science seems to us a desirable way for our, barely begun.  art history. Wrangel, especially in his latest  labor,  whole  He stood on this right path, and his death must be experienced as a heavy blow to Russian art, a blow. which, of course, should still have a special impact in the future, when the artistic life of the  re-enter  your rights.