Vs. Dmitriev. Muscovites

Apollo No. 1, 1917

"Moscovici"

                                              Vsevolod Dmitriev

Names such as the Wanderers, the Allies, the world-skillers are very convenient; they free us from tedious explanations, help us to focus on more general phenomena, allow us to outline in the movements of today the lines of future “history”. But here's the flip side of the coin: we get used to dividing contemporary artists into groups according to their   and   Affinity and the same method are transferred to history. However, is it always  Does “unanimity” mean the unity of the school of painting? We often substitute the history of painting for the history of ideological currents in painting, and that is why, for example, “movementism” is interpreted both as an ideological camp and as a picturesque school; we understand “world-skill” not only as a “party”, but almost as a whole period of Russian artistic life.And as a result of the application to the history of painting of the same methods and grounds as in the history of literature, it turns out that from the field of our sight more interesting and deep, and therefore occurring without any "words" movements of artistic life, while insignificant in their insignificance.  The performances, which are remarkable from a literary point of view, can be received with exaggerated attention.

Okay. The first performance of the future Wanderers was understood as a whole picturesque revolution; for example, we follow with approximate care the bizarre "manifestoes" of our and foreign Futurists. And on the other hand, take at least one of the most curious Russian landscapes.   We have not yet heard of Aivazovsky and Kuindzhi.

Moreover, we will try to compare Roerich with Zarubin, to show in both masters the rehashing of the precepts of their common teacher Kuindzhi, or else to bring Krymov closer to Volkov, to find in them the identity of the picturesque schools. I am convinced that many such attempts will seem curious or even amateurish.

D. Burliuk in words a mortal enemy of Alexander Benoit; this is enough for the viewer to perceive the picturesque experiments of Burliuk, First of all, as a decisive opposition to Benoit, and meanwhile in other works of Burliuk we find contact not only with Benoit, but also with Kryzhitsky or Dubovsky. Still more curious in this respect is the work of one of the most prolific representatives of our "irreconcilables" - Mrs. Khodasevich; she had in some merry whims Yakovlev and Tatlin, Cezanne with Serebryakova and even (say?) - with Bogdanov-Belsky...

Indeed, if the spectator and the critic, for the sake of their convenience, fenced off some artists from others with ghostly walls, on the basis of signs of a purely literary order, do the artists themselves believe in such divisions? On the contrary, by artists, and especially by artists of today, these partitions are being mercilessly and minutely destroyed. Is it time for everyone to follow their example? Is it not time for us to throw away these walls as vain fabrications?

Perhaps the only quick and direct way out of all the confusion that has been created in Russian "art history" is through an excessive emphasis on biographical facts, on all literary considerations, on all sorts of literary considerations.   elbow    the artists themselves, and at the same time, because of the lack of   In the very works of the masters being studied, this is the rejection of any preliminary references.  in biographies and similar materials, for the sake of studying the history of Russian painting exclusively in paintings and through paintings, by comparing their skill, their life tasks and mutual influences. What unexpected and important conclusions would we come to as a result of this very difficult and responsible work?

Maybe then Kramskoy would no longer be considered the main representative.   There is no such thing as a “Wanderering.” Then, probably, we would see that the repin is incomparably closer to its picturesque landscape.   eh   to K. Makovsky than  I think that's what we think right now. Ryabushkin, I suppose, will then take his worthy place. This is an excellent opportunity to show the inaccuracy of modern divisions of Russian artistic life!Indeed, the master of “Tea Party”, “Go” – paintings that had a very definite impact on domestic painting – does not fit any of our “schools” and, perhaps, mainly because the artist extremely disliked the verbal “believe” and avoided the ideological strife of his time.

However, it is already possible to guess at which school Ryabushkin will take an honorable place:   I'm in and out. Where is the first origin of this school? Probably among those whom we now call the Wanderers, but it is quite possible that they arose earlier, that the ideological movement – the Wandering – was only one of the first cloaks that hid from the superficial eye the nascent school. It is impossible for us to determine now, as it is impossible to accurately determine the origins and main inspirers of the Moscow school.

Perhaps it is Ryabushkin and Surikov; at any rate, these masters are sufficient to enable us to understand the basic principles of the art.  e   and    r    Moscow school.So, if Ryabushkin gives us the type of “Muscovite”, cunningly watching all the “modes”, carefully trying to adopt them and adjust to their cherished gravitations, denying the “West” as if in order to use all his latest achievements more discreetly and deftly, Surikov shows us another person, the face of the “Muscovite”, who has passed the Petrograd “study”, but only to soon forget about it, to emphasize the absurd and wild color, artless and majestic.its full form  c c c c c c c c c   The kind of skill that gradually accumulated in the Moscow school.

If one should speak of the ideology of this school, it is only to show that it is impossible to set the limits of the school by reference to the ideals of its representatives. In fact, let us assume that Surikov is a “Wandererer,” but who then is Konchalovsky? Futurist or Wanderer is this faithful guardian of the Surikov covenants? Let us suppose that Yaroshenko, Vasnetsov, Pryanishnikov are the Wanderers, but who then are Arkhipov, Malyutin, Yuon – are not the faithful successors of these supposedly   If you're not.   Wanderers? Who's Korovin? Who is Mashkov or Goncharova? Is it not all that we care if we study in art not the history of the ideological groupings of its figures, but the very history of art?               Oh and oh and oh   and the history of painting.

We will agree, perhaps, that the "moving party" recruited most of its  members among the Moscow school, but then, however, some members of the Moscow school experienced a strong fascination with the ideals of "world-artificialism", then the same school reflected symbolism and decadence in the form of "Blue Rose" and "Golden Fleece", with Feofilaktov, Milioti, Pavel Kuznetsov, and now turned to an intensified processing of French "isms".

Without prematurely noticing the facets of this school, without rushing to evaluate it, we would only like to note the characteristic feature of its growth. First of all, it felt like a hindrance, like an annoying   No, no, no, no.   The school was an appendage to the Petrograd school, but further the Moscow school by imperceptible, completely unreflected in artistic criticism, reached an exceptional role. Now it is a school whose every word is picked up and sung in countless echoes by the rest of artistic Russia, whose achievements always seem something.  We have a solid foundation, a solid foundation. Next to the sharpened, highly cultured, heterogeneous and uneven movements of Petrograd, this school always seemed to be a straggler, as if settled on the ground and, like the earth, heavy and gray.And yet we can name a number of artists imbued with Petrograd culture, sometimes passing through foreign art, but still in the end loved the “earthly” and wild paint of the “Muscovites”, their naive and simple “truth”, their exceptional (“provincial”?) perception; such is at least Yuon, passing from Bogaevsky to Yaroshenko, from Pryanishnikov to Serov.

But in my opinion, one of the most significant and fraught consequences of the Moscow school is its outstanding attractive power.

Indeed, Pasternak – who spent all his youth outside Moscow – with his strongest Munich leaven, now seems to be a “Muscovite”, with all the advantages and disadvantages typical of this school. But an even more striking example of this idea is Kustodiev.

One can positively consider the whole picturesque path of this master as a sign of the times – with a gradual, more and more introduction into the spirit and hand of the Moscow school, with a constant deviation from fractional and incorrect, sharp and spicy trends.  Petrograd masters... In   m s s s s and s s s   It was as if he had found a rich ore, an inexhaustible supply of interesting topics, perhaps.  Those who have never been touched, but from a completely different angle, the Wanderers, have found a form that tolerates any impurities.

Kustodiev did not lose any of the advantages given to him by Petrograd study. He remembers the best achievements of Somov, Dobuzhinsky, Lancer, and Golovin, curiously reflected by Roerich, Petrov-Vodkin, and Sudeikin, but all this is perceived in doses that allowed them to be inserted into one merry mosaic with Vasnetsov, Ryabushkin, Rylov, Borisov-Musatov ...

Truly, Kustodiev’s work sounds like a kind of clear and brisk chaptushka, where Surikov’s viscous and powerful song was once heard. Well, every time has its own song. We just wanted to point out with this note that, according to our hunch, the most vital and joyful songs of today’s art are composed for some reason in Moscow and around Moscow, and that if we study our art in a real way, we will be able to do it in the future.  In the first place, we will probably have to focus on  m s s s s and s s s s   The most remarkable of those that have arisen since the middle of the X1X century.