Pushkin's Nails

This is a detail from Portrait of Alexander Pushkin (1827) by Orest Kiprensky (1782-1836), o/c, 63cm x 54cm (24 3/4 x 21 1/4), Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Exquisite manicure was a fashion among men in the age of dandies. And even then it was criticised as a mark of shallowness.

Pushkin referred to the criticism in his classic novel in verse Eugene Onegin

A man who’s active and incisive

can yet keep nail-care much in mind: 

why fight what’s known to be decisive? 

custom is despot of mankind.

(in Russian: "быть можно дельным человеком и думать о красе ногтей")

The verse is often quoted to say: don't judge people by their appearance. 

from Eugene Onegin, Chapter 1, XXV.

Translated by Charles Johnston.

At the Feet of Tolstoy

(detail)

This is my favourite portrait of Lev Tolstoy, the great Russian writer.

It is different from others first of all because Tolstoy is barefoot in it. He is standing, in a pensive mood, on a path in the woods, probably at his estate Yasnaya Polyana (which means Clear Glade or Bright Clearing) as though drawing power from Mother Earth.

The portrait was done when Tolstoy was at the peak of his world-wide fame as a writer and thinker. His social philosophy became known as Tolsltoyism or Christian Anarchism. Tolstoy's word had more power in Russia than that of the tsarist government. His theory of non-violent public disobedience influenced such figures of the 20th Century as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

On an official visit to Russia Prime Minister Indira Gandhi went to see Tolstoy's home. As a sign of respect for the man whose ideas helped India gain independence she walked barefoot where Tolstoy stood being sketched for that portrait.

Picture: Tolstoy Barefoot, 1901, by Ilya Repin, o/c, 207 x 73 cm, Russian State Museum, St.Petersburg. Photo file from here.    

Prophet Muhammad in Art

Let's all upload our favourite image of the Prophet.

Pakistan's government ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook on Wednesday amid anger over a page that encourages users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. The page on the social networking site has generated criticism in Pakistan and elsewhere because Islam prohibits any images of the prophet. The government took action after a group of Islamic lawyers won a court order Wednesday requiring officials to block Facebook until May 31. (AP)

Picture: Muhammad Preaching, by the Prince Grigory Gagarin, 1840

See also this post on I Work in Pages

William the Conqueror, Close-Up

I was working on a post for another of my blogs when it suddenly struck me how sophisticated the faces are in the 12th century Bayeux tapesty, a propaganda comics depicting the Norman conquest of England.

I visited the Tapestry museum  many times on my own and with friends and never noticed it. When you walk hurriedly along the 50 metre piece of cloth with multitudes of images the artistic value of each somehow gets lost. Looking at them close-up and separately, you get a very different impression - awesome.

Below is the part of the tapestry with William whose face I have enlarged above.

V.I.Lenin. 140th Anniversary: from Petrov-Vodkin to Andy Warhol

   
Lenin is one of the most widely imaged person of 20th century, from Petrov-Vodkin to Andy Warhol. Today is his 140th anniversary. Above is my favourite image of Lenin, a photo taken in 1920 or 1921 at the end of the Civil War. At one point I had it above my desk, next to Hemingway and Kissinger.

Lenin looks pensive, almost disillusioned. In a few months he would turn around Soviet Russia from 'military communism' with its requisitions, no-money-just-direct-distribution primitivism to a rather sophisticated NEP - new economic policy allowing small and medium sized private enterprise, introducing liberal tax regime and solid financial policy which made the ruble with its gold standard one of the strongest currencies in the world. To Lenin NEP was a 'serious and long term' policy, but Stalin later looked at it it is a 'temporary retreat'.

Lenin by Nathan Altman, drawn from life at a communist conference

Lenin by Petrov-Vodkin

Andy Warhol did a series of Lenin portraits in 1980s. Have a look here - not Merilyn or Campbell's soup, but a pop-icon for sure.

Photo from Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)

Tea Party in Mytishi, Russia. Seen them in Washington?

The Tea Party gathering in Washington on Saturday, reports say, turned nasty. Rightists opposing President Obama's health reform shouted abuse and threatened passing Congressmen.

This well known Russian painting by Vassily Perov (1862), I thought, is a perfect visual expression of  what the Tea Party movement  stands for.

Picture: Having Tea in Mytishi, Near Moscow (Чаепитие в Мытищах, близ Москвы), 1862, oil on canvas, 43.5 x 47.3 cm, Tretyakov Gallery.

And read more on the samovars and the Moscow tea party for Obama here on my Russian blog

Monet's Sunrise. Is it a bird?

I thought I knew this Monet picture well (Impression, soleil levant, 1872). Painted in Le Havre in Normandy, it is sometimes described as the ultimate impressionist statement, it's iconic representation.

Now that I live in Normandy I understand better how much unique Norman light influenced the impressionist vision.

But something started bothering me about this picture. Why there are no birds in it? There is always a bird somewhere in a Norman sky. Then, at the bottom right corner of the painting, I noticed what seems like a bird, flapping frantically in the air.

Is it?

A Cossack Companion

While posting about the 'Cossacks letter to the Sultan' I noticed this dog, listening with a rather irritated expression on his face, to the banter at the table. 

I haven't noticed him before. What is he there for? Is it a symbol, a metaphor, or just a colourful detail? Maybe it's a reference to the terrible Sultan himself?

And what breed is he? Doesn't look like a sheep dog (where is the flock?) or a guard dog (who is there to guard in the middle of the cossack town?).  Could it be their idea of a companion dog?

Nudes and monumental propaganda

In a previous post I showed a beautiful example of nude sculpture in bronze, even though it's used for propaganda purposes. Here is the full view of the monumental group in Flers, Normandy. You can see more on the Normandy photo journal. 

Monumental propaganda was a concept developed in the early days of the Soviet Union by Lenin and other bolsheviks, who suggested knocking down monuments dedicated to tsars and replacing them by sculptures glorifying revolutionary figures and working class heroes. Here is a concise description of this idea.

Russia and Ukraine: Cossacks writing a letter to the Turkish Sultan

'Zaporozhians', the huge painting (2.03 × 3.58 m) by Ilya Repin, first exhibited in 1891, almost instantly became an iconic representation of  Russia and Russians throughout the world, even though the cossacks in the picture are very Ukrainian.

Russians of that period (1676) wore beards and long hair.  But the cossacks in the picture are all cleanly shaven, beards and heads, with just the moustaches and the khokhols, locks of hair on top of their heads. That is what Ukrainians did and it was one striking difference between the two people. And that is why their Russian nickname - khokhly.

It hardly mattered at the time when Repin painted - Russia and Ukraine were one country. It does now.  Even attitudes to khokhol as a nickname vary wildly and are often very emotional.  Russians rarely put any derision in the word, but Ukrainians sometimes feel it is pejorative.

It seems to me that Ukrainians living among Russians or close to Russia are happy with the word (e.g. East Ukrainians, East meaning to the East of the Dnieper river). They happily tell khokhol jokes, whith the хохол cleverly tricking the Russian, but also with a self-mocking attitude. Think Irish jokes. The main character in The Ninth Company, a Soviet army seargeant in Afghanistan, is called Khokhol by his multiethnic unit and is happy wearing the nickname. 
On the other hand, West Ukrainians (zapadnetsy - западнецы) are more sensitive to the term and often do see it as pejorative. 


The difference seems to stem from that the хохол appeared as a Russian exoethnonym for Ukrainians as a reference to their tradition of shaving beards and heads, leaving moustaches and topknots (khokhol, or chub or oseledets), while Russians were wearing beards. Happy co-existence lead to adoption of the exonym for self-identification (East), strife lead to negative attitudes to the term (West). 


It's difficult to understand these subtleties if you are outside the 'soup' where nationalistic emotions brew. Repin was indeed criticised for not being 'historically accurate' and started painting a new version of the picture - where cossacks all have beards! Curiously, the two 'Ukrainian' versions are now in the two top Russian museums - Russky Muzey in Petersburg and Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, but the 'Russian' version is in Kharkov, Ukraine.  

'Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire' (1893, unfinished):

Links: The  story behind the picture and Ilya Repin's bio.

Russian storm coming

I grew up with this picture. I have always looked at it as a symbol of peace, strength, plenty and safety of my Motherland.

I have never - never until very very recently noticed the two little swallows skimming the ground right at the bottom centre of this big painting (3.5 feet by 6 feet). Any Russian would tell you what swallows skimming the ground mean: a storm is coming. It's not just granny's tales — it is a natural phenomenon. Birds can tell weather, and old folk knew how to tell weather by watching birds.

Shishkin, Rye, 1878, o/c, 104 cm x 1887 cm

It doesn't puzzle me why President Putin (or his advisers) chose this picture as a background to a photo of him. Because few people notice the worried little swallows, a little detail in the big picture. Most look at the great pines and the sea of ripe rye, and think - what a beautiful, rich and strong world.

Storm? What storm?

Check this previous article:
Putin's Pines

Bronzed nudes

This is a beautiful example of a patinated bronze nude. Marble is often thought of as the material for nude sculpture. However bronze is often more expressive. Look how the patina diffuses soft winter sunlight giving life to the sculpture.

The French republican 'monumental propaganda' paradoxically employed many compositional features of Christianity. The naked young woman, presumably Marianne, the symbol of France, veneratingly raises her arms towards - who? the God Almighty?

Full picture in next post.

A Perfect Woman

Zinaida Serebryakova, 1909
Self-Portrait (Morning, brushing)

This picture should be on the bed-side table of every feminist...

Serebryakova, a junior member of the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) Russian artistic grouping of the fin de siècle, was the first woman artist to gain world fame and recognition. Never before, and, arguably, never after a painting expressed so forcefully the feminine normality, the joy of being here and the full acceptance and enjoyment of one's own sexuality.

This one picture, first exhibited in 1910 with paintings of other contemporary Russian modernists, killed any remaining influence of decadent generation of the two preceding decades, and established a new healthy life outlook, which even today is not fully comprehended.

Coco Chanel
Somerset Maugham
D H Lawrence

Yes, Prime Minister, and Putin's Pines in the Rye

 

Jim, the Prime Minister, was struggling with his first television address. His advisers told him to use Stravinsky's music and put an abstract painting in the background if he had little to say...

I remembered this when I saw a photo of Russia's President Putin, sitting pensively with a painting dear to every Russian heart, 'The Rye' by Ivan Shishkin behind him on his right, and the Presidential Standard on his left.

It is fascinating to see how an old landscape could still be used as a sophisticated
tool of political propaganda. While the Literary Gazette ("Литературная газета"), a shadow of
what it was in the 60-s and 70-s, provided no text for the photo, placing it alongside an analysis of the results of a presidential election) the message is
transparent.

Shishkin ('The Rye', 1878, oil on canvas, 187 cm x 107 cm) was one of the best landscape artist of the 19th Century. To Russian painters art has been often a means
of expressing their political and ethical views. Shishkin's landscapes shine with powerful patriotism, an unequivocal belief in the strength of the country and the people. And generations of Russians, like myself, grew up associating Shishkin's art with exactly that. The endless sea of golden rye ready for happy harvest and the mighty pine trees standing like sentries guarding it, with a farm track winding through the plentiful fields, leading somewhere, where there is peace and everything is clear and safe, — this is, supposedly, the subtle symbol of Putin's presidency, that his team, his own Sir Humphrey, are trying to
convey.

There is also, I think, a secondary, less obvious, allusion to the military, specifically
the naval might, that the President is trying to associate himself with: the mighty pines in a Northern Russian woodland, in another famous painting by Shishkin, 'The Mast Forest', are shown as the building material for the navy. Over the years the two paintings have blended into one unified image.