Vsevolod Dmitriev. Key to Boris Grigoriev
Key to Boris Grigoryev in the collection "Intimites", St. Petersburg, 1919
B G RI G RI B E
I N T I M I T E’
TEXTS
ALL-WOOD DMITRIEV
THE ALL-WARNER
Ed. V.M. Yasnogo
I don't know.
1918
WO DNY
The study of the artist, who completed his life path, is clothed with calm. The coffin lid is slammed. You're serenely versed in legacy. No matter what you invented, no matter how you distort the image of the artist, bizarre and deliberately, you are calm; the master will not protest, will not create anything, you will not laugh at evil at your clever constructions. It is different when you have before you a living creation, which is all in awe and movement, which all flows and, God knows where else flows. It's all darkness and pits and risk and puzzle.So, should we run for these puzzles? In scientific practice, engaging in such problems is considered almost reprehensible, but the Pulkovo Observatory, not specially engaged in predictions of tomorrow's weather, still does not refuse to explain the meteorological malices of the day, even sometimes from their predictions, as far as the data of observations will allow. I think we should do the same, in my opinion.Modern creativity is as worthy an object for scientific analysis as the creation of art, pushed back into the past for several centuries. The whole question is only in the degree of riskiness: in the work on a contemporary, the result will almost certainly be In the work on the ancestor - with due diligence and caution - the desired result is provided.
A contemporary is a charade drawing, which we will have to thoroughly rotate both so and so, while we guess what he depicts, since the ancestor is often already a signature drawing, which you can only interpret. The difference is almost the same as in the work of a surgeon on a living twitching body and a corpse; and the difference in the degrees of capture and excitement is not the same?And to tell the truth, fussing with such a living puzzle a hundred times more will give the sharpness of the eye and experience to the mind than the painstaking languish in the heaps of book scholasticism - however, here it is a matter of taste.
TRUE
In the preceding paragraph, we defended the claim to work on a modern master. “Serious”; now we have to find out something else, but directly following from the previous one, and necessary, as an important condition for a real life. "seriousness" work. Is the object we have successfully chosen for analysis; in other words, is the artist worth our observations? The historical analysis performed on a contemporary is not devoid of significance and meaning only when it is historically necessary, otherwise the game is not worth the candle. In fact, what is the value of our work, albeit successfully and clearly executed, but on a “business” that is minute and empty?A completely different result will be when our choice fell quite right, when the hammer struck precisely in the gold mine, and not in the garbage.
Perhaps this is the very essence of the risk of working on a contemporary; probably this is why most professional art historians are alien to such work – it is really damn ungrateful. You can be extremely skilled, you can destroy whole blocks with your hammer and not find a gold grain, while next to you a lucky fool and self-taught person will find handfuls of expensive metal.Thus, an extremely important moment - fatal for the outcome of the whole case - in the work on a contemporary is I don't know. its historical relevance. The pen of criticism is neither a whip nor a laurel branch, but a scalpel in a calm hand, which must strengthen and facilitate the maturation of that which still has to give color, and hasten the death of that which must perish. Mistakes in such a high responsibility are intolerable; all the art and work of the operator go to waste, turn into mockery of himself, if he carves out a living thing instead of the patient. So what is it? Oh, yeah?
Is he bound by his very essence, and No, no, no, no. In essence, with the movement of modern Russian art? Is he a wise heir to his grandfather’s riches and covenants or a mot? Looking for a key to his skill, do we probably know that there is something to unlock? These issues must be resolved as carefully as possible, otherwise we will not solve anything at all.
"Grigorievskaya"
The path of Grigoriev's creativity is very characteristic, I would even say n for our time. Her milestones are the same milestones that all our young art has passed. The difference between Grigoriev and many others is that from some time he not only walked along the already laid milestones, but began to lay them himself, and now many others have gone along their planned path. And this is one of the reasons for the need to take a closer look at Grigoriev. Its development, like that of all of us, people of the same generation, began with the extreme "fucks." Kink, tear, pretentious and a seemingly hopeless entanglement in narcissism. However, in Grigoriev one bend was revealed, one remarkable feature, which is firmly-strong. He became a prisoner and eternal lover. This feature, like a magical thread, led him through the confused labyrinth of modern artistic searches; I am not saying that she saved Grigoriev from many pits and troubles, no, working for ten, Grigoriev and confused for ten. - His list of sins is long. The magic is that in the end all his mistakes turned out to be the most necessary material, only turned out to be firewood, from which a beautiful fire formed. Now this fire is burning, we would gladly throw new arms into it, we would gladly help Grigoriev. No, no, no. Absolutely. Yes, there will be that little thing that timidly and vaguely loomed in the youthful work of Grigoriev, henceforth. A powerful and basic rod!
Grigoriev is now burning out, he is all on the breaking point - and this is his great luck, he must confess. To arrange an autodafe on time is much better than wasting time on the persuasion of sinners! Let them turn to ashes, let the last traces of shame be scattered on all four sides. This eternal cry, this tumbling on the parquet, which should depict a dance over the depths of the symbol – let it perish! May there be no trace of all these blue roses, black swans, colombines and bazaars – many will perish with them. But not Grigoriev - this one was born in a shirt - he will be saved by a happy girl. What's the matter? - his passion, or rather his pointless love, I would even say his incessant fermentation of the flesh, which, like excellent yeast, strains his vision and excites his brain all the time. These excellent yeasts laid in Grigoriev excite not only him ... It is not without reason that now, when the artist is still only a shift and the beginning, everything is in fermentation, many people already flinch to Grigoriev, like flies to molasses, already around Grigoriev. "School", which, however, he must beware as treachery; his uninvited students are waiting for his every victory, to overwhelm it with thousands of echoes, to confuse us with annoying echoes, to make us ask: “Where is the true voice, perhaps, we have already had time to get tired of some echoes.” That's the way it is. "school" This is also an indicator that Grigoriev managed to take n for something very much needed, that he holds in his hands the key to some treasure, but of course, this key on d o o o o o o o m; In vain imitators dare to steal from Grigoriev "Grigorievsky", imitating every press of his pencil, every cramp of his hand - all this is only framing, but not with "Grigorievsky"; the same "Grigorievskoe", the most hops and molasses of Grigoriev's skill lies in the happy No, no, no. In the ceaseless fermentation of the flesh, is it sold out?
Grigoriev - as an inheritor
Perhaps this paragraph, more than others, is a tribute to my personal taste. From every modern master I strive to draw some threads into the past. Contemporary creativity is most dear to me in those ways where it is consistently intertwined with masters who have already died.A national succession, perhaps bloodier and more continuous – as far as it is possible in the modern way of life – is what I dream of and seek – and those artists in whom I do not find the desired connection are empty space for me. I tried to approach Grigoriev with such a yard, but it was really difficult to find the Russian ancestors of this Russian master among a number of Western teachers, mainly, if not exclusively French.Staying in Paris imposed an imperious seal on the spiritual appearance of the artist, and since, sitting at home, Russian artists of the last generations in incomparably large doses and more easily absorbed the reflections of Western artistic culture than they learned about their own, then – we must admit, the line of succession outlined in Grigoriev is extremely thin.Rather, looking at the thick cords, draw a lead pencil, rubbed in the shadows with gentle growth, we recall Rodin's crocs; peering at some of them. "devils" stories, nod at Raps, and watching the favorite turns of the artist naked female body, we will touch on the incessantly sang the same theme inspired Fragonard, but also, and especially, we want to mention the glorious virtuoso of lithographic pencil Gavarni and then ... to make a jump to the Russian artist - because in this place our jump, It would seem less like a stretch to Fedotov.
Grigoriev as the realization of some part of Fedotov’s cherished thoughts – thoughts that he did not dare, could not and did not even know to express in his widows, institutes, sketches of fashions and intimate scenes.And if, on the one hand, Grigoriev stands before Fedotov incomparably better armed, possessing a language incomparably more complete and flexible than Fedotov even dared to think – this is the eternal easy victory of subsequent generations over previous ones – on the other hand, Fedotov can also become an important example as a master who dipped his brush not only in oil or water, but also in his own blood.
Though the name of Fedotov Gogol painting is decidedly incorrect, but it is characteristic as a sign. Indeed, Gogol stands before descendants as an ideal. the picturesque truth to which Russian art for many paths and a number of generations only persistently breaks through that mysterious “Powerful Truth,” which should not be confused with E and E, but constantly confused...
Realism - Really?
In one of his critical notes, Dostoevsky lamented misunderstanding and searching. I'm sorry. In Russian art, he explained the truth, now perhaps becoming almost alphabetical, about the difference between similarity in the sense of approximation to nature and truth in the sense of higher pictorial synthesis. But unfortunately, in those days, these understandable words sounded not only strange, but rather as a prophesy of the far future. But now we have the right to interpret this future as our present. Now the cruel operation on the viewer’s eye has been performed more or less definitively, for which we must thank mainly the so-called “futurism”.The public, looking at the portraits – fragments of pieces of a human face, scraps of hats and collars, cubes and tins – accepts, as quite natural and even necessary, distortions and refractions in the works of at least Grigoriev. The audience has already understood the difference between credibility and creativity. “Truth,” and now the artist should consolidate this important moment, should use the fracture of today in order to pour warm and sweet blood into the disembodied abstraction of yesterday’s art. Oh, and... On this path, Grigoriev clearly stands... He does not have echoes of tiresome copies of nature, he has everything in distortions and refractions, everything in approximations to nature. "truth," but far from likeness; except that it is now extremely In his works there is a lot of warm human blood, he is not afraid. He is not afraid to appear ridiculous and to show pain or excitement to this or that topic - the hand of the artist is constantly driven by the human brain. Let his strength grow stronger, let his stories be born in him, more and more sublime and powerful! We understood the difference – we felt it to the point in the eyes at futuristic exhibitions between the truth of art and everyday reality; so give us this. I don't know. It's not just humiliation and destruction.
LITERARY PARALLEL
The task to be performed by the future masters is grandiose, and at the same time extremely clear and simple - to merge art with life again; picturesque art is a great task. I mean, it's so different now. The mirror of life, perhaps, will need to be distracted, sharpened even more, so that it becomes a mirror of life. p.m. The same life, but incomparably bright, convincing and impressive to the eerie. Simple, isn't it? Especially since we have a good example of this in the literature. fl - Gogol. This master brought his pretentious, full of hyperbole and fiction style to such brilliance and sharpness that naive readers mistook him for the first time. If you're not, I'm not. The nightmarish embodiment of the ghosts and shadows of his agitated brain was mistaken for a true chronicle of pre-Reform Russia! True, in recent years this amusing error has been convincingly explained by such critics as Merezhkovsky, Shambinago, Bryusov, Rozanov, but this historical example of the magical power of artistic skill has become all the more prominent. But how did that happen?How Gogol learned this wonderful skill, what forces or examples led him to this special path, and how he could charm everyone with a ghostly game of imagination, make them recognize these ghosts as portraits, true to the eerie, of his contemporaries!
In Gogol it happened like this: next to vague and flabby, meaningless rehashes, as "Hans Küchelgarten", he suddenly had sheets of high tension, like “Viy”; and in these very special sheets, the highest points were lines of autobiographical meaning – lyrical and sensual impulses; in them Gogol showed an unusually sharpened voluptuousness, an unusually sophisticated sense of flesh – a feeling that penetrated in him absolutely everything – from a cloth of female costume to trees and the sky itself. “What sparks fly through the veins when a white dress shines in the darkness! I say in the midst of darkness, because then everything seems to be darkness. All the senses are then transferred into the smell that rushes from him, and into the barely audible but musical noise that he makes. This is the highest and most voluptuous voluptuousness! ? From the passage "The Scary Hand." Or another example: “How agonizingly hot are those hours when noon shines in silence and the hot and blue, immeasurable ocean, bent over the earth with a voluptuous dome, seems to have fallen asleep, all drowned in it, embracing and clutching the beautiful in its air embrace!” (Beginning) Sorochinsky Fair.
On such descriptions, Gogol’s hand was strengthened, his brain was saturated with such memories, and in such observations his eye was sharpened; sensuality was for him an experience of deadly force and unbearable, like too hot steel, and a woman appeared in his agitated mind like a pillar of fire that would incinerate him, only he would touch.Listen to how Gogol describes the voluptuous leap of a witch on a poor philosopher: “Homa Brutus galloped with an incomprehensible rider on his back. He felt some languishing, unpleasant and at the same time sweet feeling coming to his heart. He saw a sun shining there instead of a month. He saw a mermaid float out from behind a sedge, his back and leg flashing, convex, elastic, all created of shine and awe.She turned to him, and there her face, with eyes bright, sparkling, sharp, with a stump invading the soul, was already approaching him, was already on the surface, and, trembled with sparkling laughter, departed, and now she overturned on her back - and her cloudy Persians, matte like porcelain, naked with glaze, shone before the sun ... But what is it? Wind or music? It rings, rings and curls, and comes, and plunges into the soul with some unbearable trill...He felt a demonic-sweet feeling, he felt some penetrating, some languishingly terrible pleasure. He often felt as if he had no heart at all, and he grasped at it with fear. (Viy) Of course, maturity has cooled. The excessive pressure of the flesh, the agonizing and terrible feeling that permeated the whole composition, was no longer there, and the incisor, whose steel was extremely strong and acutely hardened by voluptuousness, was ready in the hands of the artist. Now he has found the strength to laugh at what had previously been tormenting him with horror, now he has learned, without staggering or burning the soles, to stand on lava, managed to drive the very heat inside him and tease us only with rainbow ashes - the ashes of satire, abuse and humiliation. "truth" creepily But has Gogol deceived anyone, at least is he cheating now? Do we not realize clearly that only the crushed flesh, that only the monstrous fermentation of the flesh, gave the rainbow, the devilish deception and magic to the images created by Gogol, set them up as terrible doubles of our earthly life, while these images were only the pressure of unsatisfied flesh and the ravings of a lonely brain?
The Key to Grigoriev
In Grigoriev it happened as follows: in his numerous youthful works, still incorrect and vague, where he merges now with Sudeikin and Pavel Kuznetsov, then with Anisfeld or Sapunov, he suddenly accidentally gave out a special and highly "truthful." Of course, this happened where the eye of the artist was especially tense and excited, where his inner appearance, his impulse and passion uncontrollably passed through, where lust, like a life-giving ray, permeated everything. And Grigoriev. h p. It permeates everything, receives a special and unusual aggravation. Look at his trees, marked by the same lines of lead pencil, on the spices, tender and together stubborn, branches of his trunk! After all, here – in these peaceful landscapes – the seal of the same hypersensitivity, the same excitement and unusual expressiveness as in those passionate and convulsive zigzags with which Grigoriev sketches the broken line of the female belly or the fold of lacy pantalons.
The feeling of the flesh is that. c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c Whoa. Grigoriev’s spirit, which, like a compass, guided the artist’s work; poured into this work More and more warm and tart blood, and with more and more insistence convinced us that – “Yes, this is the naked trunk of a tree, this is how the girl’s body sees through the folds of underwear.” Grigoriev thinks that he penetrates deeply into the secret life of the flesh or, as in the highest and perfect embodiment of it, into the intimate world of a girl and a woman.
Of course, he is wrong, and as cruelly as Gogol was wrong, who imagined that he read in the hearts and thoughts of people. No, it's us sneaking into the protected world of Grigoriev's essence, peering at the zigzags of his pencil and the strokes of his brush. In «INTIMITE”» We will not seek the knowledge of a woman, or we will fall into the same misery as unsuccessful interpreters. “Dead souls”; no, there were only truly dead souls and obsessions, from which Gogol thought to escape, describing them as being saved from the devil by the sign of the cross. Grigoriev draws us a girl in the convulsions of sensuality, draws features unexpected and even more crashing into some kind of weaving of wonderful hieroglyphs, some kind of web, with a single tenacious and hot center - I'm sorry. But no, of course, this is an obsession, we will not meet such girls in life - they do not exist and will not be - it is only the shadows and confusion of the artist's excited memory - it is only a deception and a trick - it is only flesh and lust, with intense force thrown on canvas or paper by the artist.
With such obstinacy and faith that we unwittingly become infected, we unwittingly perceive these fantastic images as When it's only true, it's precious. "real" p.a.a. The “truth” of the master, which we have already discussed above.
The key to Grigoriev is in our hands. We now understand how and by what he deceives us. He nods to us at the women, at the trees, at the grasses – here, they say, their naked essence, here they are.intimiteThere. p in d, fixed by the sharp and powerful hand of the artist. But we'll smile and nod at him: Intimite/ Grigorieva, you want to understand the trick of his pencil and brush, So look carefully, as he conveys the movement of the female body and the temptation of the skin, as he captures the silk gloss of stockings, the crumpled shadows of lace of linen, how languishingly tender and submissive his tree trunks, and tense and stubborn bend of a bitch. And most importantly, remember: all his skills and charms are And that's what Grigoriev describes. Fuck me. It is an extraordinary thing that makes it different from others. h I don't know.
However, having mastered the key, did we steal his wealth from Grigoriev? Alas, there is an eternal mockery of imitators and thieves. The deeper we penetrate into the artist, the more naked he became to us. intimiteThe more irrevocably we realize that "patent" It has already been taken that in order to really, truly rob Grigoriev, one must be one, not otherwise.
Divination on the basis of the key
I dare to afford this luxury, it is the most curious thing in the ungrateful business of artistic criticism, though perhaps it is not. The most useless thing is to talk about the future of Grigoriev. We see the inner core of his work; it is not determined by thought or logic, but by a special feeling. n I don't know. The thrill and play of this feeling is conditioned by the whole The power of Grigoriev's works. Hence the first and deepest It is a matter of years of indifference, callousness and coldness. But let us think that it will not happen; it will only happen, or it is already happening. The precious feeling, together with maturity, will penetrate further into the depths of the Grigoriev brain, in order thereby to give its eye even greater sophistication and excitement. Then Grigoriev’s next task will be to fuse all the scraps and shreds of tender experience he has obtained into something more grandiose, sublime and beautiful. Let us not be afraid to say these words, which are still so derided and ridiculed! However, it is not yet clear to us how sharply already embodied “Grigoriev’s” sense of flesh, one masterful inclination and growth of a pencil, in the sketch of the leafless branch, then the folds of the hem, the artist manages to transfer to a large canvas. But (e) happen. Grigoriev must stand firmly on both legs, if he does not want to fall at all (we remember the example of the same). "sensible" Gogol, how unstable and hot the soil under them), and not drag one numb foot behind him, as he dragged it behind him until now; in Grigoriev's oil works there are still many nests “Old”, murky and half-hearted, which is especially evident next to the clear and sophisticated power of his pencil.
Somehow in a special way, without coloring, without imposing large colorful plans, but in separate layers, one inclination and a sharp throw of the brush transmitting light and color, so, we think, the oil technique of the future Grigoriev should be outlined, but, however, I am beginning to imagine too much detail ...
One danger, or rather a disease, must be overcome by Grigoriev – I will call it. "artistic world." This disease in the artist is now passing - it is a kind of sweetness of the brush, a kind of sweet fading, like echoes of the disgraceful commandment that the temptation
It is a joy and an adornment of life. No, art is passion and blood and terror; these are signs that we have painted on the walls to frighten the night ghouls with them.
Grigoriev is one of the most "narrative" This makes us especially happy for modern masters; he is one of the first to work on the most urgent path, in our opinion, on the path to the merging of the formal conquests of modernity with its ideological fermentation and essence; he can only not lose what he so successfully found. That's it. And he will not lose pace when what now seems to be only a part of his work, which Grigoriev himself now allocates under the rubric. «intimiteIt will be possible to make him a single lever for all creative activity, when exceptional The “feeling of the flesh” will fill his entire field of vision, for only then will we, the spectator, be completely captured by him, only then will we begin to exclaim in delight or fear: “Yes, this is the mirror of life, this is the real one.” Wh-wh-wh-wh! And to give a mirror, to do this. This is the cherished goal of the coming day of Russian painting.
Vsevolod Dmitriev
September 1918.
