sign in sign up
<<
Home , Emily Shanks, En plein air, Isaac Levitan, Ivan Kramskoi, Ivan Shishkin, Konstantin Makovsky

International scholarly conference THE ASSOCIATION OF ART EXHIBITIONS. ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION

ABSTRACTS

19th May, Wednesday, morning session

Tatyana YUDENKOVA State ; Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts,

Peredvizhniki: Between Creative Freedom and Commercial Benefit

The fate of Russian art in the second half of the was inevitably associated with an outstanding artistic phenomenon that went down in the history of under the name of Peredvizhniki movement. As the movement took shape and matured, the Peredvizhniki became undisputed leaders in the development of art. They quickly gained the public’s affection and took an important place in ’s cultural life. Russian art is deeply indebted to the Peredvizhniki for discovering new themes and subjects, developing critical genre , and for their achievements in psychological portrait painting. The Peredvizhniki changed people’s attitude to Russian national landscape, and made them take a fresh look at the course of Russian history. Their critical insight in contemporary events acquired a completely new quality. Touching on painful and challenging top-of-the agenda issues, they did not forget about eternal values, guessing the existential meaning behind everyday details, and seeing archetypal importance in current-day matters. Their best made up the national art school and in many ways contributed to shaping the national identity. The Peredvizhniki stood at the origins of the processes that later determined the paths of Russian art development, including the , , and . What were the ideas that inspired the Peredvizhniki during the period when their association was created? Did these ideas change over the course of two decades, during the period of their most intense activity, when the Peredvizhniki movement reached maturity? What problems and difficulties did the artists face in the process of organizing traveling exhibitions? And most importantly, what was the main idea of their association? What plans did they make and what did they dream about? This paper analyzes the Peredvizhniki’s vision of their further development in the first two decades of the association’s existence. From the first years of its existence, the Peredvizhniki movement, which became the first professional association of artists in Russia, insisted on independence from officials and art- promoting societies, and did not admit any members other than artists. The talks about including art patrons willing to provide financial support were perceived by many artists as an encroachment on their creative freedom. This issue caused the first important contradiction between the members of Peredvizhniki movement. The charter of Peredvizhniki association as a new type of corporate institution spelled out its goals, the rights of its members, and discussed management and financial matters in detail, as the technical side of the association’s activity. Within the Association, its goals and objectives of were understood differently, which naturally caused a lot of disagreements and discussions that are evident in the letters and minutes of the Association’s meetings.

1

Sergey KRIVONDENCHENKOV State Russian ,

On the Issue of Dialectical Development of Realistic Tendency in Russian Painting

The is one of the most complex and significant concepts in the . It is often associated with the creative method characteristic of the masters of the second half of the 19th century, though it is used both in descriptions of the oldest prehistoric paintings and of modern hyperrealism. Works of realistic art define the mainstream tendencies of the entire world culture, and the meaningful and original current of Russian realism as its integral part. From the first years of the existence of the , students were required to master the small forms of painting, starting with the simplest animal and flower painting. While creation of superior painting works required composition, a simpler painting meant copying from an object. Later, professional interest in figurative painting intensified as positivist principles of world cognition developed. In the middle of the 19th century, naturalism and academicism converged in order to copy the nature in a scientific manner, creating important premises for artists’ professional growth. In literature and art of that period, critics developed a theory of realism, proclaiming a new aesthetic norm: the truth of life is beautiful. There was a growing interest of artists and viewers for , which began to cover themes that were previously considered as not worthy of being depicted. In the 1880s and 1890s, an almost documentary descriptiveness persisted in Russian , but the paintings’ message did not include artists’ straightforward assessment of the conveyed reality. The contradictory and experimental nature of artistic events at the beginning of the 20th century greatly influenced the development of Russian fine arts. However, their deep realistic traditions remained the mainstay of meaningful figurative painting for many decades. Uncertainty and romantic ideas about freedom of creativity that prevailed in the first years of the Soviet regime soon gave way to the ideologically determined plan of Soviet culture development. In the 1920s, there were about fifteen artists’ associations in Moscow and Petrograd-Leningrad. The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia organized in 1922 was the most numerous and influential among them. It was created to express “artistic experiences” mainly “in monumental forms of heroic realism style” and determined the professional requirements for paintings by Soviet artists, for many years. The Great Patriotic War, which tragically affected the fate of every Soviet family, deepened everyone’s fondness for pictures of a peaceful life. The period of the “Thaw” provided some conditions for creative emancipation of Soviet artists who strove for a variety of realistic perceptions of the world. In 1956, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party condemned the cult of Joseph Stalin. In another ten years, translated book “Realism without shores” by French literary critic Roger Garaudy was published in the and contributed to establishment of new artistic techniques in visual arts. The changes that matured within the of the 1970s and 1980s predetermined a new understanding of the main Soviet creative method as a dialectically developing open system. The innovative and bold creations of so-called Soc-art (from the names Socialist Realism and ) aimed at a critical and ironic perception of negative Soviet realities. The interest in depicting tangible objects did not wane in the 1990s. Moreover, everyday difficulties in the period of total shortage of goods gave the artistic imagination an additional impetus for depicting objects in a monumental style. In post-Soviet period, some trends in Russian fine art converged with modern trends in European culture. In the 21st century, faithful representation of realistic forms, generally interpreted as hyperrealism, still holds an important place among the variety of artistic techniques.

2

Dmitry SEVERYUKHIN Saint Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design, Saint Petersburg

Group Exhibition as an Incarnate Idea

At the turn of the 1850 and 1860s, important internal political changes became imminent in Russia, which greatly influenced the cultural situation. The abolition of serfdom gave rise to rapid development of a capitalist system and led to a breakdown of the centuries-old way of life, for all social groups. The Russia of landlords was turning into a Russia of merchants, the aristocracy gradually giving way to enterprising and educated people from unprivileged estates. Intellectuals of humble origin became the leading force in cultural life. The Church and the Palace, two centers of attention that had attracted artists for many years, were gradually giving way to a free art market, in which new professional self-determination of the artist’s personality took shape. Important changes took place as to ideas about the artist’s status and place in the social hierarchy. An impetus was given to the process of professionalization of culture, which was clearly expressed both in literature and in the visual arts. In this context, the dependence of art on social conditions was increasingly manifest. Russian art was gradually discovering contemporary reality, trying to take its rightful place in the cultural space of the time. Public interest in art grew, and the number of viewers who hoped to see the reflection of new moral and aesthetic ideals in paintings steadily increased. At the same time, the circle of enlightened and wealthy connoisseurs, who purposefully collected the works of Russian artists expanded, and the term Russian school first appeared in art criticism. In the artistic life of Saint-Petersburg, the imminent changes were expressed, among other things, in artists’ repeated attempts to create a professional association independent of both the Imperial Academy of Arts and the semi-official Society for the Encouragement of Artists. On this path, they had to face opposition from the authorities, who took the founding of this association for a threat to public peace and feared that such an association could always take a direction that is not in keeping with the views and intentions of the Government. In the 1860s the first intense and sometimes dramatic attempts by professional artists to unite in a creative association led to the founding of the Saint-Petersburg Artel of Artists, which was a fairly secluded guild-type organization with an emphasis on manufacturing and business, and the Saint-Petersburg Assembly of Artists, a club and a charitable association open to an unlimited number of members. Both of these institutions served as illustrative examples of artists’ collective self- organization, and contributed to the establishment of the artist’s social status as an independent creative individual. At the same time, these associations had little influence on creative processes, and the shows that they organized from time to time were disparate and did not leave a noticeable trace in art. A new page in the history of Russian art was opened in 1870, with the establishment of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions. This association was built on fundamentally different principles than any artist groups created earlier. Its founders were not engaged in petty pursuit of commissions, many of which had little to do with art. Neither was it an idyll of communal life or a club pastime. The Peredvizhniki program was initially based on the vision of a group exhibition as a socially significant performance; they were possessed by the idea of cultural expansion, covering both capitals, but also the province. It was in this goal that they saw the guarantee of commercial success, which promised financial and creative independence from the Academy of Arts. The public perceived the Association exhibitions as the embodiment of a new aesthetic program, which was based on deep psychological understanding, rigorous means of expression, striving for a true-to-life depiction of reality, and ideologically charged narrative, revealing social implications in genre works. They were distinguished by the absence of mythological or Old Testament scenes (with rare exceptions), scenes from ancient Roman history that were popular at the time, or beautiful female portraits or nudes. Genre artists, who constituted the largest group within the Association, held a dominant place at these exhibitions. The best paintings show a wide range of 3 social, psychological, moral and philosophical problems, an interest in generalized scenes of folk life and history, in everyday life, folklore and Russian nature. Gospel themes got a new interpretation in works by Ge, Kramskoy, or Polenov. The exhibits included many portraits of prominent contemporaries, most often depicted without their decorations or uniforms. The Peredvizhniki’s activities found consistent support from V.V. Stasov, who believed that they could direct the development of Russian painting to the right path of truly national art. However, their exhibitions were constantly criticized by representatives of the conservative camp, who criticised the Peredvizhniki for their mundanity and tendency to social condemnation. From its first steps, the Association achieved the status of a strong and independent artistic organization, considerably shaking the monopoly of the Academy. Their major achievement was a stable financial support of artists, not only through direct sale of their works without intermediaries, but also through dividends received from exhibitions as commercial events. The history confirmed the soundness of the exhibition strategy chosen by the founding Peredvizhniki: the Association remained active for over fifty years, experienced its ups and downs, and stopped only after the 48th exhibition, held in Moscow in 1923. It is also important that a strong public resonance and impressive business successes served as a convincing example for the Russian art community, so the years following the creation of the Peredvizhniki group can rightfully be considered as the era of artistic associations.

Olga KALUGINA Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow

Vladimir Stasov and the Peredvizhniki. Myth and Reality

In Soviet historiography, was always regarded as a promoter of new trends in Russian art, including painting. For instance, even the notorious “revolt of fourteen” in 1863 was to be interpreted as largely driven by the ideas of renewal of national fine arts promoted by Stasov in the 1860s. When describing the emergence of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions, some scholars, following Stasov’s footsteps, concluded that the very idea of establishing such an association had originated from experiences of the St. Petersburg-based “artel” (cooperative association) of artists, despite the fact that the creator of that artel, Ivan Kramskoy, did not adhere to that point of view at all. Later, Vladimir Stasov took a solid foothold in the history of Russian art criticism as one of the main inspirers and historians of the Peredvizhniki. Indeed, the critic reacted to the first traveling art exhibition by writing a keynote article; in its text, one can single out the main trends in the analysis of the works of the Association’s members and exhibitors. One characteristic feature of Stasov’s approach to covering the Association’s exhibitions was a clear emphasis on the motif of every analyzed work. Generally, this was preceded by a passionate discourse describing the general situation in Russian fine arts from Stasov’s standpoint. The texts of this type belong to the genre of artistic interludes, when the motif and the role features of what is depicted are the main subject of the critic’s attention. Another characteristic feature of Vladimir Stasov’s publications is the desire to persistently point out to the artists what exactly, in his opinion, was done incorrectly and unconvincingly, in terms of the main motif and the behavior of the characters. His very first article clearly shows that the author would not forgo such recommendations in the future. At the same time, it is extremely rare for Stasov’s characterization to touch upon coloristic choices, and if they are mentioned at all, the appraisal boils down to whether the critic likes them or not. It is also very uncommon for Stasov to touch upon issues of the compositional structure of paintings and, as a result, of the image of space presented by the artist, which for Russian painting from the 1870s onward became a particularly important matter not only in landscape, but also in genre painting. The concept of the exposition did not attract Stasov’s attention either. He had never paid any serious attention to that subject until 4 fundamentally new exhibition solutions emerged in Russia — for example, at the World of Art exhibitions. The latter caused a flurry of negative reviews from the critic. The emphasis on the motif was undoubtedly linked to Vladimir Stasov’s theory propounding division of the history of Russian art of the Modern Age into three periods. The last of them, that, according to him, started in the 1850s, was defined as “national”, and, quite naturally, in the most straightforward manner, it was to be focused on “folk” themes and “folk” characters. In particular, Stasov’s stance on the matter was clearly outlined in his correspondence with , who did not share many of the critic’s attitudes. At the same time, Stasov regarded all issues related to the withdrawal of a number of outstanding artists and organizers of the Association from the group only as a manifestation of the fact that “even powerful forces can be reduced to weakness, and even big intellects are capable of starting to think falsely, shoddily and contemptibly.” The very idea that the form of existence of any association demands evolution, that artists of the new generation might have an ever-increasing need to express themselves in updated forms of profoundly individual art, was alien to him. This is clearly expressed in the following statement: “I do not understand how one can desire isolation. It is very possible to go through one’s life without joining any movement, without keeping pace with anyone, but only because you either have not met an associate, or there are still no sufficiently defined goals.” The program proposed by Stasov for the “development” of Russian art and his harsh criticisms of any digression from that program inevitably caused disagreements between the critic and some members of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions. One vivid manifestation of accumulated misunderstandings was a letter of Grigory Myasoedov to Stasov, the content of which the latter retold in an outraged manner in a message to Pavel Tretyakov. In fact, surprisingly for the critic, his relationship with the Association appeared in a completely unexpected light.

Elena STEPANYAN Moscow State Institute of Culture, Moscow

Realism in the Highest Sense of the Word. The Peredvizhniki in F.M. Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer

1. The famous statement by Dostoevsky (They call me a psychologist. It is not true. I am only a realist in the highest sense of the word) encourages researchers to decide for themselves what he meant by realism in the highest sense. Obviously, this approach to reality is the opposite of the strategy of Natural school writers. Dostoevsky's method does not imply a photographic accuracy in conveying all aspects of everyday life. It is important for a writer to discover the general law behind random incidents of existence. 2. The realism in the highest sense of the word implies a spiritual dimension in life. This dimension and the above mentioned general law are the most important features in Dostoevsky’s work. It is not the environment that shapes the personality; it is a person’s spiritual state and openness that affect the environment. 3. Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer, as well as his other works give a prominent place to the typical Russian’s universal personality, and the desire for brotherhood of all people as ’ important spiritual characteristic. That is why, Dostoevsky believed that a Russian genius (Pushkin) or a Russian wanderer (many of Dostoevsky's characters belong to this literary type) perceive the innermost ideas and feelings that inspire Europe. Europe is spiritual homeland for Russian people. These ideas reflected the Dostoevsky’s national . 4. However, it seems that Dostoevsky suggested the opposite, with the characteristics given to the art of Peredvizhniki (such as Repin, Makovsky, and Perov) in his Diary of a Writer (published from 1873 on). The quality most appreciated by Dostoevsky in contemporary artists was a specific, authentic, and recognizable national artistic style that may be incomprehensible to a foreign viewer.

5

This is the essence of characteristics given to Peredvizhniki by Dostoevsky in his diary essay on the exhibition of paintings that were intended to be sent to Vienna (1873). 5. The only fault found by Dostoevsky in his favorite artists was their fear of the ideal, and their exaggerated social criticism, which was present in smallest homely details. This means that Dostoevsky considered realism in the highest sense of the word as authentic art that is not overloaded with excessive details, that is nationally significant and yet open to universal human values.

19th May, Wednesday, evening session

Ilia DORONCHENKOV Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; European University at St. Petersburg

The Peredvizhnik and French Temptations. Alexander Kiselev as Reviewer of the 1891 and Industry Exhibition

The comprehensive French art and industrial exhibition was held in Moscow from April till October 1891. It reproduced, on a smaller scale, the French show at the 1889 World Exhibition. Like other monarchies, the avoided presenting its show in , since the Third Republic dedicated the exhibition to the centenary of the fall of Bastille. The Moscow exhibit, however, became an important symbol of the beginning of military and political rapprochement between France and Russia. On the Khodynskoye Field, the pavilions left after the 1882 All-Russian Exhibition housed the display representing the French industry, agriculture, military science, urban planning, medicine, etc. About seven hundred works of art, comprising almost 650 paintings and several dozen representing various artistic movements in France, were displayed in sixteen rooms that were large, but poorly adapted for showing art works. The exhibits included works by V. Bouguereau, L. Bonne, J.L. Gerome, J.P. Laurent, A. Falguier, A. Magnant, A. Gervais, A. Béraud, P. Dagnan-Bouvray, just to name a few. The Impressionists were absent, but the display featured some works by A. Rolle, A. Aubelet, G. Latouche and other artists who adapted the discoveries of Monet and his comrades for their own purposes. This unprecedented exhibition gained the enthusiastic public response and was widely covered by the press. Particular attention was attracted to the art show, which presented French art on such a large scale for the first time in Russia. It aroused natural curiosity, while challenging the Russian artistic consciousness. Domestic artists and art critics had to compare, analyze and thus rethink their identity. Characteristically, a number of critics headed by Stasov came to the conclusion on superiority of Russian art with its realism and ideological bias. On the other hand, Russian right- wing conservative journalism (F. Dukhovetsky, then later V. Gringmut) warned the compatriots against the pernicious influence of new trends, and first of all, of the impressionism. The most significant response to the exhibition, summarizing a number of fundamental features of Russian artistic consciousness, while vividly representing its stereotypes, was a lengthy article by a landscape painter A. Kiselev, member of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions. It was published in four issues of Russia’s main art magazine Artist (October 1891 to January 1892, signed: A. Ki-lev). Basing on the artist's diary (kept at the Manuscripts Department of the Tretyakov Gallery), it can be safely assumed that Kiselev studied the exhibition in great detail (at least thirteen visits were noted) and conceived his article so as to express not as much his own views as the position of the supporters of Peredvizhniki’s realism as a whole (his reading its various parts to S. Goloushev (Glagol), K. Savitsky, G. Myasoedov, just to name a few, was recorded.) It is symptomatic that during the weeks of working on the text, Kiselev mentioned his reading of Zola's new novel “Money” (1891) and his receipt of Chernyshevsky's article “On Aesthetics”. Kiselev based his assessment of contemporary French art, as it appeared at the Moscow exhibition, on the decisive impact of several factors, including the artists’ national character with its inherent emotionality, ambition, and superficiality; the public demand combined with pressure of the market and plutocracy, and the accomplished artistic technique, acquired by a well-organized 6 vocational education (in his opinion, the latter favorably distinguished even young French artists from mature Russian masters). He pointed out that there were less than two hundred so-called ideological paintings in the exhibition, and even in them, hedonistic and aesthetic attitude to reality and art prevailed: ...all sympathies of a French artist lean towards pure figurative and lighting impressions of life, ... [he] is much more attracted to phenomena that are visible, so to speak, with naked eye and palpable with hands instead of those that must be perceived by the mind and felt by internal organs of the soul (cf. analysis of the painting by Dagnan-Bouvray Blessing of the Newlyweds). In this respect, Kiselev viewed the French art as an integral entity because these features were inherent in all its currents, from academism to impressionism and newer trends (that he did not name). All Russian art critics were shocked with dozens of paintings depicting female nudes, presented in different modes, from quasi-antique to genre paintings. Russian exhibitions had never showed anything of the kind. Kiselev proceeded to consider the problem after a detailed discussion of the genre painting by H.L. Doucet After the Ball (Courtship). In its sensual atmosphere, he sees the epitome of immorality in modern French art, striving to please the vices of the consumer, and made a general conclusion that... any nude painting that only serves the purpose of showing us a real modern naked woman ... is inappropriate in an art exhibition. The critic found one positive example of solving the problem, the A Casting from Life painting by E. Dantan. The rhetoric of these lengthy reflections on the problem of nudity obviously demonstrates the limits that Russian critics and viewers who professed realistic principles were unable to transgress. However, Kiselev considered the exhibition as a useful lesson for Russian art, objectively overcoming the limitations of the Peredvizhniki’s view: French artists have a way of interpreting their subjects that is extremely interesting and instructive for us. It is simplicity of the composition, clarity of the story and absence of excessive emphasis, ideological basis, or caricature. Only this attitude of the artist to working on an idea, combined with technical virtuosity in drawing and painting, can produce a pure, whole, and unadorned illusion of life and a truly beautiful work of art. In general, it should be admitted that Kiselev's review lays the foundation for a number of critical texts of the 1890s, in which impressions produced by contemporary foreign art provide occasions for reflecting on the fate of Russian art in a crucial decade for its development.

Andrey SHABANOV European University at St. Petersburg

“Is Disagreement among Artists a Good Thing?”: The Peredvizhniki and the Decline of Salon- Type Exhibitions in Russia and Western Europe

Originating in France and spreading across Europe since the mid-18th century, the official academic salon-type exhibition was a centrally controlled institution that represented the process with its genre and stylistic diversity in European capitals for almost a century and a half. It was only in the last decade of the 19th century, and again with France initiating the trend, that the monopoly of that type of exhibition saw its first challengers throughout Europe. In his 1894 article “Is disagreement among artists a good thing?,” art critic Vladimir Stasov promptly reacted to those developments, as he enthusiastically compared the Peredvizhniki case with two recent momentous splits at Europe’s key official exhibitions: at the Paris Salon in 1891 and at the exhibition at the Glaspalast (Glass Palace) in 1893. Most importantly, he assigned the Peredvizhniki a pioneering role in the process that now labels as the “Secessionist movement.” Scholars rejected Stasov’s argument categorically. For instance, traditionally and with good reason in many respects, ’s World of is regarded as Russia’s local version of European . And the Wanderers, in turn, were perceived for a long time exclusively as an altruistic and critically-minded realistic art movement.

7

Latest research allows us to take a fresh look at Stasov’s forgotten claim, and, in particular, to argue that the institutional role of the Peredvizhniki in the Russian artistic process was similar to that played by the European “secessionist” movements, no matter how aesthetically different they actually were. “Secessionist” splits across Europe culminated a long process in which management and control of official exhibitions were shifting gradually from the State/Academy to the artists. In Paris, the government stopped being involved in arranging art salons in 1880, delegating this task to the Society of French Artists. But the main threat to the Salon’s integrity came from even larger official World Fairs. Awards and privileges bestowed on artists at those expositions were a contentious issue that ultimately led to a conflict within the Salon. In 1891, it split irrevocably into two still representative official art shows: the original Salon on the Champs Elysees and the new Salon on the Champ de Mars. Neither of them, however, could claim a monopoly and the topmost status anymore. Two years later, that unprecedented rift within the most influential exhibition in the Western world caused a similar split in Munich. The financial and critical success of the Paris split and Munich Secession inspired further schisms within main official exhibitions in the capitals of Western and Central Europe. Against this backdrop, drawing parallels between the World of Art and the secessionist movements in Paris, Munich or Vienna would be problematic in terms of the origin of those institutions. The World of Art emerged as Sergei Diaghilev’s personal initiative, rather than through conflict between artists, on the one hand, and an official exhibition, on the other. Members of the World of Art movement had neither capabilities nor the intention to challenge the monopoly of the official academic exhibition. However, almost three decades before the World of Art first appeared, this process had been launched with success by the Peredvizhniki Association. As most recent academic studies show, the main mission of the Peredvizhniki was to set up an independent and durable exhibition association in an authoritarian country. To be economically viable, the Peredvizhniki organized diverse exhibitions in terms of their styles, themes and genres. At some point, the critical and realistic art agenda came to be associated with the exhibitions arranged by the Association, but it existed within the group’s more pragmatic, commercial approach to art shows. It is important to note that the Association held its first four successful shows at the Academy exhibition halls. To a large extent, this fact contextualized their perception by critics and the general public, implicitly emphasizing their aesthetic compatibility and relevance within the walls of the Academy. It was only at the fifth exhibition of the Association (1876), the first outside of the Academy, that critics finally recognized the group’s independence. As it forced the Peredvizhniki to leave its walls, the Academy eventually acknowledged the conflict and the rise of an alternative exhibition. Critics were stunned by the sudden and unprecedented “split” in the Russian “art family” and the emergence of two competing exhibitions. The institutional nature and significance of that “split” in St. Petersburg in 1876 suggest a parallel with similar processes in Europe. As a key characteristic common to secessionist art movements, researchers today highlight the fact that those splits actually put an end to the centuries- old monopoly of the main salon-type official exhibition. The Secession exhibition was able to achieve that only because it shared with the official exhibition its respectability and common aesthetic and institutional features, improving them in a certain respect (stricter selection principles, a better design, famous names and new aesthetics), but within expected standards. If there was radicalism, it was largely associated with the artists’ claims to greater autonomy from official institutions, with the desire to decide independently what, where and on what scale to show, and to control sales of their works. Further parallels between the Peredvizhniki and European secessionist movements are quite problematic. Those groups arose and developed in very different aesthetic and socio-political environments, and they are separated by almost two decades. By the early 1890s, art shows of the Association, having reached the scale of an academic exhibition and sharing its conservative approach, had begun to oppose new art trends that the nascent European secessionist movements were 8 largely associated with. But, with all these differences, both played a similar role in tectonic decentralization of the exhibition system, that allowed artistic differences to lead, with increased frequency, to emergence of new exhibition communities. The Association’s success not only accelerated decline of the academic exhibition but also produced an emancipatory effect on artists: they began to perceive the exhibition as an affordable and effective tool of self-presentation, legitimation and market positioning, which was of vital importance under the underdeveloped dealer/critic system in late imperial Russia.

Anna VOLOSHKO State , Saint Petersburg

The Plan didn’t Pan Out (About I.N. Kramskoy and A.P. Bogolyubov’s Unfulfilled Plans of Convening a Congress of Artists in 1882)

The relationship between A.P. Bogolyubov, I.N. Kramskoy and the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions was repeatedly discussed in Russian art history. Researchers who wrote about Bogolyubov emphasized his disaccord with the Peredvizhniki’s priorities in art1. How serious was the role of this relationship in the field of painting? This question requires special consideration. However, the study of two artists’ epistolary heritage shows that they found common ground in the field of social activities. Kramskoy’s initial cautious attitude towards Bogolyubov, who joined2 the Peredvizhniki, gave place, over time, to perfect trust in him and awareness of his value as a person needed for communicating with privileged circles of Russian society and for organizing joint projects. The paper will focus on one of these projects, namely the congress of Russian artists. In this regard, both the context in which it was discussed and the issue of the influence of this project on further processes of self-organization in the artistic life of Russia are of special interest. Kramskoy’s surviving letters to Bogolyubov have been published3. By the efforts of N.V. Ogareva, some fragments from Bogolyubov’s letters to Kramskoy from the collection of Manuscripts Department of the State Russian Museum were published in fragments4, with valuable information about the preparations for the congress of artists provided in the commentaries. S.N. Goldstein also discussed the congress in her work5. The idea of a general meeting of painters, sculptors, engravers, and art lovers was probably discussed by Bogolyubov and Kramskoy in private conversations even before it was first mentioned in writing in late May or in June 18826, when it became the focus of the two artists’ correspondence. At the time, the discussion involved P.M. Tretyakov, S.M. Tretyakov, N.V. Isakov (member of the State Council, one of the founders of the Rumyantsev Museum, who was approved by Alexander III as a potential chairman of the congress at a personal audience accorded to Bogolyubov),

1 G.I. Kozhevnikov, A.P. Bogolyubov. 1824 - 1896. Moscow-Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1949 – 40 p.; Andronikova M.I., Bogolyubov. M.: Iskusstvo, 1962 – 54 p.; Ilyina I.A., Devyataykina N.I.: A.P. Bogolyubov and the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions: Peculiarities of Interactions and Their Importance for Development of Russian School of Landscape // Cultural Life of the South of Russia 2019. № 1 (72). – p. 11-18 2 From I.N. Kramskoy’s letter to F.A. Vasiliev dated 6.12.1871 // Kramskoy I.N. Correspondence with Artists. Vol. 2 / Editing and commentary. E.G. Levenfish, O.A. Lyaskovskaya et al. – Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1954 – p. 13 3 Kramskoy I.N. Correspondence with Artists. Vol.2 / Editing and commentary. E.G. Levenfish, O.A. Lyaskovskaya et al. – Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1954 – 668 p. 4 Ogareva N.V. From A.P. Bogolyubov’s letters to I.N. Kramskoy // A.N. Radishchev State . Articles and publications. Issue 2-3. Saratov: Privolzhskoe book publishing house, 1974 – p. 5-39 5 Goldstein S.N. Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy. Life and Art. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965 – 439 p. 6 The first known letter about this project was written by A.P. Bogolyubov to I.N. Kramskoy on May 30, 1882: Manuscripts department of the State Russian Museum, fund 15, file 6 sheets 3-4 (partially published by N.V. Ogareva: see Ogareva N.V. From A.P. Bogolyubov’s letters to I.N. Kramskoy // A.N. Radishchev Saratov State Art Museum. Articles and publications. Issue 2-3. Saratov: Privolzhskoe book publishing house, 1974 – p. 11-13) 9

M.M. Stasyulevich (who edited the draft of the program), A.V. Olsufiev, I.I. Vorontsov-Dashkov, Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, and D.P. Botkin. The latter, as chairman of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, was supposed to promote active participation of this organization, which was neutral towards both the Imperial Academy of Arts and the Association of the Peredvizhniki. The event was to be held as part of the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition in Moscow in the autumn of 1882. Its art department provided the most complete picture of the current state of Russian painting. The department was visited and approved by Alexander III. N.V. Balagurov7 believes that this event was one of the phases in creating a museum of national art. In this context, the idea of a congress seemed logical and timely. According to Kramskoy and Bogolyubov’s initial plan, the congress had a primary goal of sorting out the disagreements between the Academy and the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions and considering their unification. The first and rather radical program manifesto of the congress, the so-called Memorandum was written.8 It was discussed in May and June 1882. However, N.V. Isakov urged the organizers to exclude from the program any issues of disagreements between the Academy and the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibition9, which worried Kramskoy most of all10. Though the artist described quite clearly the original plan in his letter to P.M. Tretyakov,11 the program attached to the letter was much more practical. It described the main idea of the congress as sparking the Society’s interest for the future of Russian art12, and discussing the problems of art education in the provinces and issues of founding public , which completely coincided with the goals of Bogolyubov, who promoted the creation of the Saratov Radishchev Art Museum and the drawing school affiliated to it in Saratov in the early 1880s. Kramskoy’s words reminded Tretyakov of similar trade and factory events that seemed very boring to him, and he expressed doubts about the practical importance of the congress 13. Kramskoy objected: «I do not expect from the art congress any practical benefits, which would have manifested themselves in some obvious results, <...> still, benefits will be as follows. <...> when the resolution of the congress is drawn up, when its debates are taken down in shorthand, and when, finally, the congress makes a decision, although its decisions are not obligatory for anyone, then it will no longer be possible to consider it obscure and without influence. The decision will have to be recognized as the voice of the public, and not an individual opinion. One more weapon will be removed from the enemy – that’s all the benefit...»14.

7 Balagurov N.V. Alexander III and Art Department of All-Russian Exhibition of 1882 in Moscow: On the Way to Museum of National Art // Scientific Works. Questions of theory of culture. Issue 35, 2015 – p. 175-191 8 Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy: His Life, Correspondence and Critical Articles on Art, 1837-1887 / Published by A. Suvorin; ed. V.V. Stasov – Saint-Petersburg, 1888 – p. 731-733 (original marked with The plan did not pan out - RGALI, f. 705, sheet 1, d. 90) 9 See, for example, a letter from P.M. Tretyakov to I.N. Kramskoy, mid-June 1882 // Kramskoy I.N. Correspondence with Artists. Vol.2 / Preparation for publishing and notes by S.N. Goldstein. – Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1953 – p. 286 10 It should be noted that in the same 1882 he wrote the third part of the article “Future of Russian Art”, raising the same issues and even adding, in a commentary to its first publication in 1888, that it was presented “in the form of a Report to an official” - Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy: His Life, Correspondence and Critical Articles on Art, 1837-1887 / Published by A. Suvorin; ed. V.V. Stasov – Saint-Petersburg, 1888 – p. 632-639 11 Letter from I.N. Kramskoy to P.M. Tretyakov dated 06/09/1882 // Kramskoy I.N. Correspondence with Artists. Vol.2 / Editing and notes by S.N. Goldstein. – Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1953 – p. 283-286 12 Kramskoy I.N. Correspondence with Artists. Vol. 2 / Editing and notes by S.N. Goldstein. – Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1953 – p. 285 13 Letter from P.M. Tretyakov to I.N. Kramskoy, mid-June 1882// Kramskoy I.N. Correspondence with Artists. Vol. 2 / Editing and notes by S.N. Goldstein. – Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1953 – p. 286-287 14 Letter from I.N. Kramskoy to P.M. Tretyakov dated June 27, 1882// Kramskoy I.N. Correspondence with Artists. Vol. 2 / Editing and notes by S.N. Goldstein. – Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1953 – p. 286–287 10

The plan that was formulated by Bogolyubov and Kramskoy in 1882 remained unfulfilled. D.P. Botkin suggested postponing the congress15, and later, talks about it came to naught altogether. During the next 4 years, two artists planned to organize a show of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions abroad, but this plan was not implemented either. As to the congress, Kramskoy, who probably expected more enthusiasm from fellow artists and art lovers, did not mention it in his letters anymore. Despite the fact that the Imperial Academy later resolved some of the problems raised in the Memorandum by adopting a new charter in 1893, Russian masters of the art did not meet at the negotiating table until 10 years later. The first congress of Russian artists took place in Moscow only in April 1894. It was convened on the occasion of Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov’s gift of their Gallery to the city of Moscow. As planned in the early 1880s, the Moscow Society of the Art Lovers played the main role in this congress. None of the participants in the 1882 discussion took part in organizing the new congress. The event was widely reported in the press. The presented reports were later published in a special edition16. However, the role of Kramskoy was only briefly indicated in the introduction (according to V.M. Mikheev17, it was pointed out by V.V. Stasov at the first meetings of the Commission), and Bogolyubov was mentioned only as the creator of the Radishchev Museum in Saratov. It should be emphasized that the general direction of activity adopted by the Congress in 1894 was in fact a continuation of the plan introduced in 1882. Indeed, the main provisions of the program of this congress did not really touch on ideological issues. These provisions were even more practical than the list of topics for discussion attached by Kramskoy to his letter to Tretyakov dated June 9, 1882. In addition to general issues of art education and activities of provincial museums, several topics were discussed, including specific methods of teaching anatomy in drawing schools, the role of amateurs in art, problems of the preservation of paintings, etc. Thus, the project of I.N. Kramskoy and A.P. Bogolyubov that failed to be implemented, played a certain role in the history of self-organization of Russian artistic circles.

Svetlana USACHEVA State Tretyakov Gallery; Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow

A.P. Bogolyubov and the Peredvizhniki Association

The paper focuses on the role of A.P. Bogolyubov in the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions during the 1870s and 1880s. Bogolyubov joined the Association in 1872 as a recognized seascape and landscape painter and professor of painting, recently elected to the Council of the Imperial Academy of Art. The artist maintained a close contact with governmental and bureaucratic structures, including academic ones, while being constantly in the midst of European artistic life. He supported progressive trends, advocating the creation of innovative and independent creative communities. Having failed in organizing a Society of Artists for permanent exhibitions on European examples, Bogolyubov joined the Association, while maintaining his connection with the Academy of Arts. This paper addresses various aspects of Bogolyubov’s activities as a member of the Peredvizhniki, including his participation in exhibitions, details of his relations with individual

15 Letter from A.P. Bogolyubov to I.N. Kramskoy, June 14, 1882 // Ogareva N.V. From A.P. Bogolyubov’s letters to I.N. Kramskoy // A.N. Radishchev Saratov State Art Museum. Articles and publications. Issue 2-3. –Saratov: Privolzhskoe book publishing house, 1974 – p. 16 16 Proceedings of the First Congress of Russian Artists and Art Lovers [1894] Convened on Occasion of the Gift of P. and S. Tretyakov Gallery to city of Moscow. Moscow, 1900 – 275 p. 17 Proceedings of the First Congress of Russian Artists and Art Lovers [1894] Convened on Occasion of the Gift of P. and S. Tretyakov Gallery to city of Moscow. Moscow, 1900. – p.VIII 11 members of the association and its head I.N. Kramskoy, the artist’s mediation between the Academy and the Association, whose interests he defended, and Bogolyubov’s activities as a representative of the academic establishment who was on close terms with Russian imperial family. Almost at the same time when Bogolyubov joined the Association, he was appointed inspector of Russian grant-holders in Paris, where he was also a commission agent and artistic consultant for members of the royal family. Thanks to his participation in the organization of World Exhibitions and his many contacts with European artistic circles in the 1880s, Bogolyubov pursued an active protectionist policy, promoting Russian painters abroad. The Society of Russian Artists, founded by Bogolyubov in Paris, was of particular importance in this process. Bogolyubov certainly influenced the personal artistic development of Russian grant-holders who became members of the Peredvizhniki during the heyday of the association. In conclusion, Bogolyubov’s practical activity in the Association makes it possible to address the subject area of the functioning of a Russian creative group in European context, as well as the issues of interaction between the Association and the Imperial Academy of Arts, which largely determined the direction of Russian art development in the last third of the 19th century.

Veronika PRIKLONSKAYA Radishchev State Art Museum in Saratov

Snapshots from Paintings. To the History of the Album of Drawings from the Illustrated Catalogue for 12th Exhibition of the Partnership of Traveling Art Exhibitions from the collection of Radischev State Art Museum in Saratov

In this study, the author turns to the history of illustrated catalogues of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions, which are a key source of information about the association’s activities and the creative legacy of its individual artists. The collection of the A.N. Radischev Saratov State Art Museum includes original drawings that reproduce the paintings presented at the 12th Peredvizhniki exhibition in 1884, and they were a valuable support for our study. Although reproduction was not the main aspect in the artistic life in the second half of the 19th century, artists often created graphic replicas of their paintings and it was a characteristic feature of this period. The Peredvizhniki actively collaborated with periodicals. They were very sensitive to the artistic value of graphic works, including graphic replicas from paintings, and strove for their wider distribution. The “Album of Drawings from the Illustrated Catalogue of the 12th Traveling Exhibition of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions” was donated by the Association for the opening of the Radishchev Museum in 1885. It includes 37 drawings created by A.K. Beggrov, A.P. Bogolyubov, E.E. Volkov, M.P. Klodt, I.K. Kramskoy, K.V. Lemokh, V.M. Maksimov, G.G. Myasoedov, N.V. Nevrev, V.D. Polenov, I.E. Repin, K.A. Savitsky, N.N. Khokhryakov and N.A. Yaroshenko. Until now, these drawings have not been studied as a whole. The author has reconstructed the album, restored the historical names of the drawings and their pictorial originals, and supplemented the history of their provenance. Some of them are the only evidence of what the original paintings looked like, as the originals were lost over time. The album drawings date back to a turning point in the complex history of illustrated catalogue publication, when the printing industry was moving from engraved illustrations to photolithographic reproduction. The present study was also focused on establishing the materials and technique of creating images on primed paper, as the issue of their originality and, accordingly, of their classification remains relevant. The presentation of a large corpus of reproductive drawings by the Peredvizhniki, created for a single edition and preserved intact thanks to the initiative of A.P. Bogolyubov, the founder of the Radishchev Museum and a member of the Peredvizhniki Association, will improve our understanding of this little-studied activity of the association and provide insight in the history of creation of the first full-fledged illustrated catalogue. 12

Angelina STUPINA Radishchev State Art Museum in Saratov

Exhibitions of the Peredvizhniki in Saratov in Late 19th and Early 20th Century

The Peredvizhniki exhibitions that were regularly held in various cities of Russia from 1871 on brought about a revival in the art life of Saratov. The Peredvizhniki exhibitions visited Saratov six times. The 3rd, 7th and 17th regular exhibitions took place in 1874, 1879, 1889; in 1886 and 1892, parallel exhibitions were set up, and then, the city was visited by so-called People’s exhibition of the Peredvizhniki in 1904. The Saratov public first got acquainted with the Peredvizhniki’s works in 1874. This was the third exhibition of the Association, which arrived in Saratov after it was shown in Saint-Petersburg, Moscow and . It was open in the building of the Commercial Club from 4 to 22 October. The greatest interest of viewers and critics was attracted by two historical paintings by N.N. Ge, Catherine at the grave of Elizabeth and Peter interrogates Tsarevich Alexei. According to local press, a week after the opening the crowd filled the hall to such an extent that it was not possible to take a good look at the paintings18. In total, 619 people visited the exhibit during this short period of time. The Peredvizhniki’s 7th exhibition was shown in Saratov in the house of the governor V.A. Shcherbatov in December 1879. In the governor’s house, viewers could see Birch Grove by A.I. Kuindzhi, Preference by V.M. Vasnetsov, Condemned by V.E. Makovsky, and Portrait of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin by I. N. Kramskoy. Local critics gave prominence to Repin’s Princess Sophia. Newspapers emphatically urged local people to take a break from their daily toil and visit the exhibition: It is a sin and a hundred times sinful not to appreciate our national art and think only of popular prints of oleographies and photographs19. The founding of a public art museum in Saratov in 1885 contributed significantly to awakening the city dwellers’ interest in fine arts. Problems of finding suitable premises for subsequent shows were resolved. From then on, many exhibitions took place within the museum walls. In autumn 1886 (October 5 to November 4), the first parallel exhibition of the Peredvizhniki Association took place in the museum. It showed works that remained unsold after previous exhibitions. It is known from press reports that the exhibition consisted of 60 paintings, including the famous painting Unexpected Return by I.E. Repin20. The Peredvizhniki’s 17th exhibition was open on the second floor of the Radishchev Museum, from June 11 to June 28, 1889. The majority of exhibited works were by N.A. Yaroshenko and the great, inimitable genre painter V.Ye. Makovsky. The public and the press also turned their attention to works by N.V. Nevrev and V.M. Maximov, landscapes by I.I. Shishkin and N.N. Dubovsky, and portraits by I.E. Repin. The painting by V.D. Polenov Christ and the Sinner became a center of attraction. However, compared to other favorite pastimes of Saratov residents, especially theater, there was not yet a great demand for visiting art exhibitions. The first curator of the Radishchev Museum, Ananiy Lvovich Kushch, remarked on this occasion: Bitter experience has shown that itinerant art exhibitions, like other ones, are not very popular in this part of the world. The public in Saratov would willingly visit musical comedy, go to see trained elephants, or even performing fleas, but not exhibitions of paintings!21 In 1892, Radishchev Museum accommodated a Peredvizhniki exhibition for the last time, showing works by N.N. Ge, G.G. Myasoedov, K.V. Lebedev and V.I. Surikov. Nevertheless, in the last third of the 19th century, interest in painting was gradually gaining momentum in Saratov. Four years after the opening of the Radishchev Museum, the Society of Fine Arts Lovers was created in Saratov. The Bogolyubov Drawing School was founded in 1897, which

18 Saratov Bulletin. 1874, Oct. 19. 19 Saratov Daily. 1879, Dec. 19 20 Saratov Daily. 1886, Oct. 7. 21 A. Kushch. 17th Peredvizhniki exhibition of paintings in Saratov // Saratovsky Listok. 1889, June 15. 13 organized regular exhibitions of its students and attracted artists from other cities (Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan). It became a prominent art center and a driver of local artists’ creative energy. Therefore, Saratov showed great interest in the so-called People’s Exhibition of the Peredvizhniki Association in 1904. It showed replicas of the Peredvizhniki’s old paintings for popularization purposes. All the replicas had the same size and were somewhat embellished to be more accessible to people, as the artists believed. The People’s Exhibition was housed in the main hall of the People’s Auditorium building, located in the city center on Teatralnaya Square. The show consisted of only 30 works, mostly genre paintings and several landscapes. The exhibit presented authors’ replicas of famous paintings by K.V. Lebedev and V.E. Makovsky. It was actively attended by the local public. Over 6,000 people visited the show during 20 days. The public’s particular attention was attracted by the paintings Interrogation of the Wife and Rivals by N.А. Kasatkin, News from Motherland by K.A. Savitsky, Acquitted and Drunk Man by V.E. Makovsky, Beggar Boy at the School Door and The Orphan by N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky, and At School by N.K. Grandkovsky. Despite the fact that the exhibited paintings included many works already familiar to the public from reproductions and photographs that were published in illustrated reviews, this time the public was apparently satisfied with the exhibition, a columnist wrote for Saratov Daily22. Saratov residents were enthusiastically purchasing photographic reproductions of paintings. The Peredvizhniki exhibitions played a significant role in the city’s cultural life. They aroused interest in the fine arts, introduced residents of Saratov to the best works by masters of the Peredvizhniki Association, and stimulated the development of local exhibition activities. Their eminent educational role in shaping artistic tastes in Saratov and aesthetically educating the public is also undoubted.

20th May, Thursday, morning session

Rosalind Polly BLAKESLEY University of Cambridge, UK

Emily Shanks, a Peredvizhnik Pioneer

In 1894, the British painter (1857-1936) became the first woman to be elected a member of the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions, succeeding where Elena Polenova had failed two years previously. Such was the support for Shanks’s candidacy that she was elected with one more vote than , who also joined the Association that year (Emily won fifteen votes to Serov’s fourteen). Yet Shanks’s work has been largely forgotten despite this landmark achievement, noted only as a passing comment or footnote in histories of the Peredvizhniki. Drawing on archival documents, including the minutes of formal meetings of the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions, this paper seeks to recuperate the career of this remarkable artist, and contextualise her output within contemporary social, political and artistic debate. The second daughter of the nine children of James Shanks, proprietor of a high-end Moscow department store, Emily grew up in a cultured and supportive home. Her older sister Louise married the noted intellectual Aylmer Maude and together with him translated the works of Lev Tolstoy into English, while a younger sister, Mary, also trained as an artist and exhibited with the Peredvizhniki. Emily herself studied at the Moscow School of Painting, and Architecture, primarily under , and exhibited at no fewer than twenty of the twenty-five Peredvizhnik exhibitions that were held from 1891 to 1915.

22 Saratov Daily. 1904, Sept. 10. 14

By the time of Shanks’s last appearance with the Peredvizhniki she had fled Russia at the outbreak of World War I and lived the rest of her life in , participating in the Royal Academy’s annual summer exhibitions of 1916 and 1918 but largely receding from public activity. Recent work has nonetheless identified over twenty-five extant paintings in the collections of family members and public museums and galleries in Russia, Britain and the Czech Republic, as well as visual and documentary records of over fifty other works. These will be considered alongside exhibition reviews, epistolary records and other textual sources to establish the singular nature of Shanks’s oeuvre, and illuminate ways in which it challenges assumptions about the Peredvizhniki in the closing decades of imperial rule.

Ludmila PITERS-HOFMANN Jacobs University Bremen,

Home is Where the (He)Art is: The Peredvizhniki and their National Identity Abroad

During the long nineteenth century travelling abroad was the conventional means to broaden the artists’ view and study the old masters’ original art works while simultaneously getting to know the approaches of other contemporaries, and getting acquainted with new trends. As one of the main artistic centers of this time, Paris was where artists from all over Europe came together and immersed themselves in the city’s creative atmosphere. However, while experiencing the varieties of the international art scene, some of the foreign artists found their own national identity rather than the French joie de vivre. In the second half of the 1870s Paris was also home of several Russian artists associated with the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions, the so-called Peredvizhniki [the Wanderers] who supported each other in various ways during their stays in this foreign capital. Based on a case study of ’s stay in Paris (March 1876 – May 1877), I will demonstrate how being abroad among other compatriots resulted in a deeper understanding of one’s own national heritage and the creation of art which was perceived as national. Comparing Vasnetsov’s experience to those of Ilia Repin and Vasilii Polenov I will show how different artistic approaches led to the artists’ re- evaluation of their own work and the shaping of “Russianness” in the late nineteenth-century Russian painting. Providing evidence that leaving their own cultural sphere enabled the artists to grow aware of their national background, other important aspects such as exhibitions, world fairs, and the reception of Russian art abroad will show the broader context of the artistic environment experienced by the artists. Vasnetsov left for Paris to visit his fellow artist and friend Repin who was already staying there since November 1873 as a pensioner of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Even though neither Vasnetsov nor Repin were members of the Peredvizhniki at this time, they were in close contact with , one of the initiators of the “Revolt of the Fourteen” of 1863 and a driving force during the formation of the Peredvizhniki. In his letters from Paris and Meudon, a little village close to the capital where he stayed for a few months in the summer of 1876, Vasnetsov reflects on the artworks in the French museums and his own situation, like most of the artists abroad. Despite the language barrier, Russian artists were engaged in the international artistic community and were able to show their works at the Parisian Salons. Among these artists was Vasilii Polenov, another pensioner of the Academy who stayed in Paris almost at the same time as Repin. During his time abroad he experienced the freedom of trying other genres of art than and found his passion for working and the depiction of landscapes. The patronage of paved his way to the French intelligentsia and opened him various possibilities to broaden his view and enrich his own art. Irrespective of their different experiences, Vasnetsov, Repin, and Polenov were drawn to national topics and sharpened their national awareness after their time abroad. They all became Peredvizhniki at the end of the 1870s and are all praised for their Russian art until today. 15

Olga DAVYDOVA Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow

Passive Geniuses of , or Realists in Search of Subjectivity

The paper focuses on identification and analysis of the romantic principle in figurative structure of works by the masters belonging to the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions. Its characteristic features include, first of all, a poetic emphasis on the value of subjective experience. It is subtle, instead of being declarative, and it passively attracted some leading representatives of the Peredvizhniki movement (for example, I.N. Kramskoy) and influenced the lyrical aspects of their iconography that mainly took shape in the context of culminating affirmation of the objective principles of realism. The interest in hidden processes of mental life and gravitating towards idealistic aspects of world perception muffled by the influence of ideological and aesthetic tendencies of the 1860s provided the artists of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions with new opportunities for self-expression that enhanced the elegiac mood in depicting the visual themes or contemplative treatment of landscape imagery. These poetic and sensual nuances of the Peredvizhniki’s iconographic palette, which were for a long time overshadowed with social agenda of critical realism, signal an internal continuity between the previous period in development of Russian art and the next era, demonstrating the organic development of national artistic mentality. From a certain point of view, realism of the Peredvizhniki can be considered as the most important romantic (albeit nihilistic) idea of the middle of the 19th century, no less radical at the time than the turn to associative, symbolistб and abstract poetics in the art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Anna POZNANSKAYA Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow

From Pleinairism to Symbolism: Transformation of Christian Images in Russian and European Fine Arts of the Late 19th Century

Christian subjects underwent metamorphoses throughout the 19th century, commensurate to the upheavals that art in general was experiencing. The crisis of the Christian Church that began early in that century, swept Europe over the course of several decades, and finally reached Russia, had an impact primarily on the evolution of historical painting as a genre. Against that background, new studies striving to emphasize specifically the worldly essence of the God-Man became especially relevant. The second half of the 19th century was accompanied by a new wave of interest in religious themes in painting of different countries, such as Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia. After a decline that had lasted for a few decades, artists again turned to Christian subjects, often on their own initiative, rather than being commissioned by the church. Among others, the process affected the Peredvizhniki in Russia, prompting some of them to turn to new topics and others to completely rethink their careers. New trends only exacerbated the general crisis of academic painting, which definitively became evident in the second third of the 19th century. In the same period, historical painting was also undergoing serious transformation, turning into the so-called costume genre, or everyday scenes in the spirit of , where special attention was paid to naturalistic conveyance of images and archaeological accuracy. Another mission, which was first formulated by the Pre-Raphaelites in their concept of 1848, was to depict modern images. This was quite significant, because while in France authenticity was defined, since the time of Jacques-Louis David, as accurate conveyance of historical elements, the British emphasised the general force of conviction, understandable and “down to earth” human feelings and emotions bringing characters of antiquity closer to the worldview of the modern viewer.

16

In the case of Christian subjects, that concept, reinforced by books on the earthly journey of , popular in that period, turned out to be quite viable. An attempt to abandon classical iconographic solutions in favor of subjective experience of Christian stories and the author’s understanding of the theme of the divine and human essence of Christ contributed to the emergence of a number of works in which the Gospel narrative unfolded in everyday settings: this is how the early Pre-Raphaelite art looks like, as do the works of French adepts of naturalism, the oeuvre of Vasily Polenov, as well as individual works of the leading Peredvizhniki — Ivan Kramskoy and . To a large extent, the development of this trend was spearheaded by ’s book The Life of Jesus, published in 1863. Over time, against the backdrop of an ever-increasing interest in pleinairism and a desire to record rhythms of modern life, art in the last third of the 19th century was seeing a new trend of turning to “eternal themes,” prompting artists who already had experience of working en plein air to use that method in the creation of works of religious and philosophical character. Experiments in that vein were undertaken by artists who were associated with the Peredvizhniki movement one way or another — Isaak Levitan, ; and European masters — Edward Burne-Jones, William Hunt, Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, and others. Artists of that generation often abandoned excessive drama peculiar to religious paintings of the mid-19th century in favor of more idyllic, allegorical images. It is noteworthy that in that period the image of Jesus no longer dominated Christian-related subjects. Finally, special attention should be paid to decorative designs of church interiors, created in a style that was completely new for that format, be it the Church of St. Genevieve in Paris, churches in Oxford and Birmingham, murals for a church in Abastumani or St. Vladimir’s Cathedral in . Of no less interest are the religious motifs chosen by artists for the decoration of secular premises, such as the building of the Oxford Union Society Library, painted by the artists of the Rossetti circle, or the work of Puvis de Chavannes at the Palais des Arts (Palace of Fine Arts) in Lyon. Unfortunately, in Russia, public buildings were decorated on a much more modest scale in that period.

Isabel Stokholm ROMANOVA University of Cambridge, UK

Rehanging the Works of the Peredvizhniki: the Legacy of the Peredvizhniki in the Tretyakov Gallery, 1913-1917

For more than three decades, from the moment when Tretyakov Gallery opened to the public, the works by the Peredvizhniki were presented in the museum as Pavel Tretyakov himself had planned. The changes took place in 1913, when , the Gallery’s elected trustee began large- scale reforms, including the repositioning of almost all the paintings. The Peredvizhniki works, previously housed on two floors among thousands of other exhibits, were collected in a suite of five rooms dedicated exclusively to the Peredvizhniki, with three additional rooms presenting the work of individual members of the group. Reorganizing the vast collection of Tretyakov Gallery in a scientific and chronological arrangement based on the latest European practices, Grabar presented the works by Peredvizhniki as part of the historical process, starting with medieval and ending with controversial works of contemporary Russian and European art. What would seem to be a perfectly rational and inevitable reform today, raised a huge scandal at the time, causing a reaction from all the main artistic trends in Russia. Some of the feedback was given by Peredvizhniki themselves. This paper focuses on the new order in which the works by the Peredvizhniki were exhibited from 1913 to 1916. As a reflection of artistic and historical developments, Grabar’s curatorial decisions tell us a lot about the heritage of Peredvizhniki movement and of its perception on the eve of the revolution, when the Association ceased to be widely popular. They also illustrate the changes in the relations between the Peredvizhniki and the Tretyakov Gallery, changes that took place 17 gradually during the evolution of the gallery from a private collection (built by a man who was closely acquainted with many Peredvizhniki) to a modern national museum, run by elected administration and an art critic of ’s generation.

Nikita YEROFEYEV State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The Peredvizhniki and the Experience of Marxist Exhibits in the Tretyakov Gallery

In the mid-1920s, Soviet museums began to restructure their activities to fit the new ideology. The artistic tradition, the experience of creative and academic heritage had to recede into the background. The museum was to demonstrate the rectitude of the Marxist concept of fine arts development. This paper focuses on the short period in the Tretyakov Gallery history, when the basis of the museum’s collection, namely, the paintings by the Peredvizhniki, was deposed from its leading role in the exhibit. These radical changes were initiated by A.A. Fedorov-Davydov, who served as deputy director for research work from 1930 to 1934. In these years, the Gallery presented any exhibit as a document of its era: works of art were used for new interpretation of history. Thanks to preserved photographs of the museum’s rooms, it was possible to partially reconstruct these experiments. Works by the Russian Peredvizhniki artists, in particular genre paintings, fit into this concept perfectly, as they helped to illustrate social class relationships in tsarist Russia. For example, at the Anti-Religious Exhibition in 1930, the Before Confession painting by I.E. Repin was surrounded by icons, cartoons and photographs and bore the annotation: The clergy, in alliance with the police, helps the bourgeoisie to stifle the revolutionary movement of working people. Another illustrative example is the display of the Tsarevna Sofía Alekseevna a year after her imprisonment in Novodevichy Convent painting by I.E. Repin and the sculpture by M.M. Antokolsky in the 1932’s permanent exhibition that was accompanied by the explanation: Narodnaya volya’s cult of personality and moral problems led to a bourgeois historical drama. For Marxist curators, the artistic value of an individual work of art did not matter; they strove to map museum exhibits onto their theory. One of the main goals of experimental Marxist exhibitions was to reveal the economic and class background of various phenomena in visual arts. In this context, the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions was considered as a purely commercial association for the sale of its products. In 1929, Fedorov-Davydov the published “Russian Art of Industrial Capitalism” book, in which he described in detail the capitalist nature of this organization, challenging the assertion, according to which the Peredvizhniki movement was an ideological trend. Speaking about the artists – members of the Association, the author introduces the word comrades, but uses it only in quotation marks: The very idea of itinerant exhibitions targeted the expanded small-commodity provincial market. This concept provided an ideological basis for showing the Peredvizhniki’s works in the Gallery. This innovative approach quickly lost its political relevance, and the museum soon returned to traditional ways of displaying works of art. After harsh criticism in the press and accusations of digressing from Marxism, Fedorov-Davydov was forced to stop his work. After his departure, vulgar Marxism was rejected and the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions, whose activities were no longer considered only from the economic point of view, was rehabilitated.

18

20 May, Thursday, evening session

Galina MARDILOVICH Independent Scholar, USA

French Origin, Russian Adaptation: the Society of Russian Etchers and Early Independent Artistic Organizations in Russia

In 1871, only a year after the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions was founded, art historian Andrei Somov formed the Society of Russian Etchers. This became the first professional organization in Russia dedicated to the art of printmaking. In part following recent fashions for establishing independent artistic organizations in imperial Russia, Somov was also guided by aWestern European example, namely the French Société des Aquafortistes – a group that has been creditedfor propelling the development of modernprintmakingin European art. Comprising primarily young painters, including and Ivan Kramskoi, and several academic printmakers such as FedorIordan, the Society of Russian Etchers aimed to popularize the medium of etching, which was not widely practiced in Russia at the time. Despite its ambitions, Somov’s initiative did not last long: the organization dissolved in late 1875, having publishedlittlemore than 30 prints and two albums in collaboration with the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions. Thispaper considers thefoundation of and motivation behind the Society. What prompted Russian paintersto turn to printmaking in the 1870sand experiment in etching? What role, if any, did the Western European example have on the establishment of the Russian organization? Was the foreign model simply transplanted to Russian soil, or was it adapted to the local context? And lastly, what is the place of the Society of Russian Etcherswithin the framework of similar groups in France, England, and the US? In answering these questions, the paper will examinethe Society’s importancein the development of independent artistic organizations in Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Society of Russian Etchersin fact serves as an instructive linkbetween the Saint Petersburg Artists’ Cooperative(founded in 1863 and commonly known as Artel’), where Russian painters were first introduced to etching, and the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions. The prints and albums produced by the Society, as well as their collaboration with the Association, reveal the creative ways in which Russian artists began to actively cultivate an audience for their work within a still nascent art market. The nature of the printed medium is multifaceted and involves numerous actors such as a designer, a printmaker, a printer, a publisher and a distributor. The prints produced by the Society thenexpose the complicated circumstances and specific set of conditions of artistic production in Russia at this time. Analyzing the founding, published output, anddissolution of the Society, thispaper will explorehow Russian artists began to assert themselves within the changing cultural landscape. It will also demonstratewhy printmaking offered a unique opportunity for them to foster a professional status within the fraught context of the third quarter of the nineteenth century, a period laden with reverberating changesfor the Russian art world.

Stephen Michael NORRIS University of Miami, USA

Retroffing the Past: Victor Vasnetsov and the Russian Historical Painting in the 1880s

My presentation will examine the quest for a “real Russian historical painting,” one lamented by critics such as Vladimir Stasov and a challenge taken up in the 1880s by painters such as VasilySurikov and Viktor Vasnetsov. In particular, I will focus on Viktor Vasnetsov’s retrofitting of the ancient past. His Battle of the Slavs and , which debuted at the 1881 peredvizhniki exhibition, immersed the viewer in the ancient past while also suggesting Slavs 19 had civilized before the nomadic Scythians who ruled the steppes. The Slavic tribes had mostly migrated to the steppe lands after the Scythians had died out, meaning that Vasnetsov was retrofitting the past to respond in part to European beliefs that Russians were still Asiatic, barbaric Scythians. His canvas for 1881 followed two other paintings of the deep past: 1878’s A Knight at the Crossroads, his first work to feature a , or medieval knight; and 1880’s After ’s Battle with the Polovtsy, a historic retelling of the 1185 campaigns waged by Prince against the nomadic peoples living in the Don River region. Collectively, these three works all reworked Russian history: in them, Vasnetsov identified the messy, deep past, one where nomadic tribes and other groups fought over the steppes, as part of “Russia’s” history. Viewers of the paintings often noted that they could immerse themselves into these pasts, imbibing the sights, sounds, and smells the canvases seemed to give off and identity the subjects as familiar ones: Pavel Chistiakov, the painter, declared he could “smell old Rus’”23 when he stood before Vasnetsov’s work. My presentation will therefore delve into Vasnetsov’s paintings of old Rus’, how they helped to popularize further the idea that Russia’s deep past was connected to Kiev and the civilization that developed around that city from the 9th to the 13th centuries, and how they fueled the craze for Russian historical paintings among peredvizhniki artists in the 1880s.

Molly BRUNSON Yale University, USA

Peredvizhniki and the Picturing of Modern Industry

Traditional accounts of the Peredvizhniki have often described the members of the partnership as united by a concern with populist themes and the idealization of the peasantry. In this talk, Molly Brunson will look beyond the well-known paintings of laboring peasants and idyllic pastoral landscapes to consider how the Peredvizhniki represented modern industry and the culture of work in imperial Russia. Focusing on the industrial scenes and portraits of Nikolai Kasatkin, Brunson will argue that by the end of the nineteenth century, the Peredvizhniki were interested in more than heroic barge haulers and philosophical peasants. Instead, they were focused on the historical implications of a modern workforce and an industrial society, putting them in sustained conversation with the industrial painters of western Europe and establishing their continuity with the nascent socialist realism of the 1920s.

Allison LEIGH University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Masculinity and Partnership: the Artel of Artists, the Peredvizhniki and Fraternal Values. 1863-1885

Recent scholarship24has reassessed the factors that led to the formation of the Peredvizhniki group as well as its overarching values and ideological underpinnings. In many ways, the Peredvizhniki can be seen as a remarkable experiment in artistic collectivism, but what has so far not been thoroughly evaluated is the unique sense of fraternal values and masculine solidarity which characterized the group from its inception. Building off the recent work of Andrey Shabanov, this talk explores the notion of tovarishchestvo or “partnership” and examines why this conception was so central to the group’s identity that it became the first word in the group’s name when its charter

23 Chistyakov P.P. Letters, notebooks, memories. 1832-1919.Moscow, 1953.P. 102. 24 Evgeny Steiner’s “Pursuing Independence: Kramskoi and the Peredvizhniki vs. the Academy of Arts” from 2011, Rosalind Blakesley’s The Russian Canvas: Painting in Imperial Russia, 1757-1881 from 2016, and Andrey Shabanov’s Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia: The Peredvizhniki, a Partnership of Artists from 2019 20 was registered in November of 1870. By returning the group to its original social and exhibitionary context, it becomes clear that the partnership reflected larger values surrounding the importance of male bonds in the second half of the century. While the group did eventually elect the British painter Emily Shanks into its ranks in 1894, for nearly the first two and a half decades of its existence, the partnership was an exclusively male undertaking and the artists within the group developed their image as one based on masculine solidarity. In subtle, but significant ways, Peredvizhniki paintings, promotional materials, and group photographs reflected the fraternal values that characterized Russia as a patriarchal society. In addition, a close examination of letters between original members of the partnership also provides a unique opportunity to explore the differences between collective ideals for artistic practice in Eastern versus Western Europe. In France, the fascination with artistic collectivity was seen to emerge from the post-revolutionary democratic principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, but in reality, association remained an embattled principle in French artistic culture. This talk thus examines both the ideals of collectivism that came to grip Russia beginning in the 1860s and the problems that arose from such relational dynamics.Artworks envisioning an egalitarian brotherhood by Kramskoi andRepinare compared to the group portraits of the French painter Henri Fantin-Latour to assess the tension which arose from ideals of masculine collectivism in this moment.Ironically, French painters did seek to carve out a space for depicting artists as members of a group in the 1870s, but the paintings they produced were largely fictional renderings of factions that did not exist in reality. In Russia, the Peredvizhnikihad greater success, for they werebuoyed by the success of the commercial cooperative they had envisioned and by what Kramskoi called the “mutual support”that arose in the wake of Tsar Alexander II’s modernizing reforms.25

Margaret SAMU Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA

The Female Nude in the Work of Grigorii Miasoedov и Vasilii Perov

The nude,an artistic genre that reflects the beauty and aesthetics of the human form, most frequently, the femaleform,was widespread in 19th-century art. Nudes in art could appear in mythological contexts (such as Venus, Nymphs, and Bacchantes), or inscenes of everyday life (such as BathersandModels). The female nude is typically associated with academic and Salon art of the late 19thcentury. Members of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions usually chose serious social themes for their works; such a seemingly frivolous genre would appear unlikely to interest them. However, as this paper demonstrates, the centuries-old tradition of depicting the female form attracted the founders of the Association, G.G. Miasoedov and V.G. Perov. The paper focuses on three paintings by Miasoedov, Plowing Round (1876, State Russian Museum), By the Brook (1879, unlocated), and The Bridal Viewing (1870s, State Russian Museum), as well asSpringtimeby Perov (1880, Samara Regional Art Museum). At first glance, these paintings not only differfrom Miasoedov’s and Perov’s best known works, but also contradict accepted ideas about the Peredvizhniki’screative output. This paper aims to analyze these works and understand the motivations that guided each artist’s creative process. It examinesMiasoedov’s and Perov’s paintings both in the context of each artist’s oeuvre, and in the broader context of the period’s artistic culture. Despite the extensive literature about Miasoedov and Perov, no detailed study of these works has yet appeared. Miasoedov’sPlowing Roundis discussed only in a monograph on the artist by I.N. Shuvalova (1971). His painting By the Brook remains unmentioned in scholarship onthe artist, and is known only from reviews of the 1879 PeredvizhnikExhibitions.The Bridal Viewingappeared in a 2005 exhibition about peasants in Russian art, but has not been examined alongside his other nudes.

25 I. N. Kramskoi, Pis’ma (Leningrad and Moscow: Izogiz, 1937), 2:231. Quoted in Irina Punina, Peterburgskaia Artel’ khudozhnikov (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1966), 32. 21

Virtually the only information onPerov’sSpringtimecan be found in the catalogues of his posthumous exhibition. The most significant references on the nude in Russia remain T.L. Karpova’s and E.V. Nesterova’s scholarship on academic and salon art. Embodying ideals of beauty from the period in which they were created, the female form had been a favorite theme of painters and sculptors for centuries. When depicting the nude, artists sought to measure themselves against artists of antiquity, the , and the .In Russia of the 1860s, liberal critics considered the female nude a frivolous subject,unrelated to current social issues and in opposition to realist art. And yet the nude played a major role in artists’training. Working from the live model allowed artists of various aesthetic tendenciesto hone their skills and address important aesthetic issues. Miasoedov had depicted the female nude as early as in 1863 while a stipendiary in , where he first had the opportunity to work fromundraped female models. The three paintings discussed in this paper belong to a laterperiod,when he was studying peasant customs and traditions, portraying them with almost ethnographic accuracy. However, apart from the image ofriver bathing, the peasant ritualsthat Miasoedov depicted did not require nudity. By including these figures in his paintings, the artist sought to navigate between the demands of realism and current expectations for depicting the female form. Perov turned to painting nudes only at the end of his life, when he began experimenting with new subjects. His late 1870s sketches for paintings that remained unrealized(such asPlunderers ofthe Volga Region) indicate that idealized female figures began to interest him in this period. Whilehis Springtime looks like a typical Salon work at first glance, comparing it with hisYaroslavna’s Lamentof the same year suggests thatthe artist began to pursue new, more uplifting images of femininity (by comparison with suchworks as hisDrowned Woman). At the end of the nineteenthcentury, the female nude was becoming increasingly visible beyond the rarified circles of the art world. Nudesregularly appeared in public exhibitions, and popular magazines of the period such as Niva and World Illustrationpublished them in reproduction, making them available to a wider audience. All this testifies to the fact that the female nude was not a rare or scandalousphenomenon in Russia, but rather,was a significant part of Russian artistic culture. As this study demonstrates, and the work of the Peredvizhnikiare more closely related than it is usually thought. It shows that Miasoedov’s and Perov’s art is complex andmultifaceted, not only because of their different creative approaches, but also because these artists moved beyond the socially conscious themes that were characteristic of their best-known work.

Elena GUREEVA State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions and the Development of Railway Transport in Russian Empire

The Peredvizhniki Association was the first independent association for art exhibitions in the Russian Empire. During the Soviet period, art historians tightly intertwined mythological and realhistorical aspects into an idealistic image of the Peredvizhniki. Even today, the traditionally formed image focuses exclusively on the Peredvizhniki’sart, whereas even the name of the movement witnesses of the association’s exhibition activity. The Association had the goal of arranging exhibitions, which required a lot of effort in the context of post-reform Russia. At different times, art historians made attempts to reconstruct the Association’s exhibition activities. Their research mostly focused on identifying the facts of exhibiting certain works. Much less attention was paid to the development of the movement, which would makeit possible to analyzethe association’s activity in social and economic context. The established regular rail service in the European part and in the South of the Russian Empire played an important role in implementing the principle of “providing people in provinces 22 with the opportunity to get acquainted with Russian art and observe its successful development.”In the 1860s, the Russian Empire experienced a boom in railways construction, the so-called railwayfever. Thus, by the time when the Association was created in 1870, the empire had a relatively well developed railway network, which made it possible to transport paintings from one city to another quickly and inexpensively. This paper makes an attempt to consider the algorithm for drawing up the exhibitions’ travel routes. It is known that in the initial period, railways were built to connect the capital with large industrial and university cities of the Russian Empire. To what extent did the Peredvizhniki follow the path suggested by technological progress? Did the exhibitions change their composition depending on the route? Based on the example of several exhibitions, the full cycle of organizing the transportation of art works was considered. The specific features of organizing exhibitions in provinces were identified based on the Peredvizhniki’s reporting documents, personal and official correspondence, as well as documents of railway companies. The analysis includedsome of the Peredvizhniki’s experience of participation in world art and industrial exhibitions. The insurance system for paintings during the period of Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions was considered in detail. The Peredvizhniki Association used P.M. Tretyakov’s experience in transportation and insurance of art works. Detailed information about the exhibitions in provincial cities of the Russian Empire makes it possible to see how these events were perceived by the public and to assess their social and cultural significance.

Galina CHURAK State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The Peredvizhniki. Fifty Years Ago (about the 1971–1972 Project for the 100th Anniversary of Founding the Partnership of Traveling Art Exhibitions)

The paper focuses on the 1971 exhibition that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions. It is good to remember the time when we were making our first beginners’ steps for an itinerant exhibition. These timid yet resolute steps were the first steps of the artistic journey, of which we may well be proud. The idea, organization, meaning, purpose and aspirations of the Association gave it an honorable place, and even a central place in Russian art.26 This letter was written by I.I. Shishkin in 1896 and addressed to V.M. Vasnetsov, when the Peredvizhniki were preparing to celebrate the 25th Anniversary exhibition of the Association, but when its heroic times had already passed. At the very beginning of the journey, just after the opening of the First Peredvizhniki exhibition, young Fyodor Vasiliev wrote to Kramskoy: This exhibition brought me a lot of joy, but a lot of grief, too. I felt joy because the endeavor in which I had been involved came to be, and I felt sorrow because I could not pursue it with you...27 Between these letters lay a quarter of a century of successes, quests, joyous victories and grievous mistakes, and the incipient extinction of the most active and successful artistic movement of the 19th century. The preparation of the 100th anniversary exhibition took place in the years when the artistic and scientific community, as well as art critics, felt a certain decline of interest in the Peredvizhniki, this important stratum in Russian art. The reasons for this change in perception are briefly discussed in the present paper. One of the objectives of the 1971 exhibit was to breathe new life into the concept of the Peredvizhniki and to rethink this crucial phenomenon of Russian culture, to attract a renewed

26 Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin. Correspondence. Diary. Contemporaries about the artist. Leningrad. 1978. P. 215. 27 Kramskoy. Correspondence with artists. P.15-16. Letter from F.A. Vasiliev to I.N. Kramskoy. December 27, 1871. 23 professional attention of researchers and the interest of the viewers. The Tretyakov Gallery approached the 100th anniversary of AIAE, understanding that it was necessary and inevitable to turn again to this hackneyed and threadbare subject. Who else if not me? thought the Gallery workers when they envisaged resuscitating this great and meaningful 50-year period in classical history of Russian art. In those years, it was still generally believed that the Maly Theater was home to Ostrovsky, and the Tretyakov Gallery was home to the Peredvizhniki. First of all, the Anniversary Committee was faced with the task to comprehend what the Peredvizhniki exhibition could and should be like. The Charter of the Association itself suggested that the exhibition should not be held in just one place or one city. It should become itinerant, thus embodying the purpose of this artistic Association. The anniversary was celebrated at the national level. The Anniversary Committee included the ministries of culture of the USSR and of the individual Soviet Union republics, the Academy of Arts of the USSR, the Union of Artists, the Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Kiev Museum of the Russian Art, and the National Art Museum of Belarus. The Tretyakov Gallery, and more specifically its department of painting of the second half of 19th century, was the think tank that developed the concept. S.N. Goldstein was the life and soul of this arduous work, which also involved N.Yu. Zograf, young L.I. Iovleva, Ya.V. Bruk who had just joined the department, and the conservators T.S. Segal and G.S. Churak The four cities that were to participate in this project on equal terms were Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Minsk. The members of the organizing committee were to select the most important from many various sources of this eventful era, but they were faced with the fact that the most important ones were also the most widely known. They faced the issue of presenting works that were repeatedly preached up by propaganda as the highest achievement of Russian realism, up until the point that the very names of artists and this most important cultural phenomenon were setting the viewers’ teeth on edge. The subject matter and structure of the exhibition project were prepared, including the following independent, standalone thematic exhibitions:

The Peredvizhniki in the Tretyakov Gallery - State Tretyakov Gallery Portrait Painting of the Peredvizhniki - State Tretyakov Gallery Genre Painting of the Peredvizhniki - State Russian Museum of the Peredvizhniki - Kiev Drawing and Watercolor of the Peredvizhniki - Academy of Arts, Moscow The logistics of the exhibition movement were clearly worked out. The first exhibition, The Peredvizhniki in the Tretyakov Gallery, opened in Moscow.

As it included all the main works that were to be shown in each of the themed exhibitions, it was only after its closing that the museums of Leningrad, Kiev, and Minsk started to prepare their exhibits. After the end of an exhibition in each museum, they started to move from one of these four cities to another, illustrating the most important educational idea of the Association. Just after the main exhibit, The Peredvizhniki in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Gallery opened the show of Portrait Painting of the Peredvizhniki. At the same time, in Leningrad, the State Russian Museum opened the Genre painting of the Peredvizhniki, while the Landscape painting of the Peredvizhniki show opened in Kiev. The exhibitions started moving around the country. On November 16, 1971, the State Tretyakov Gallery solemnly opened the exhibit The Peredvizhniki in the Tretyakov Gallery. This extensive show included two important sections that gave it a special meaning. The composition, structure, and content of the independent sections created within the exhibition The Peredvizhniki in the Tretyakov Gallery are analyzed in the paper. The exhibit on P.M. Tretyakov and the Reconstruction of the 1st Peredvizhniki Exhibition are considered, as well as works included in the main part of the exhibit, which occupied the entire suite of rooms on the second floor. 24

The principles that guided the selection of works for this part of the exhibition are also studied. The catalogue includes 203 works. In our opinion, the selection of works was not perfect, but it was made from the perspective of the 1960s and 1970s generation. The central event of this broad scale Peredvizhniki project was the exhibit Portrait Painting of the Peredvizhniki. It included works from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery and opened after The Peredvizhniki in the Tretyakov Gallery. This exhibit and its composition demonstrated the significant role of the portrait genre in Peredvizhniki exhibitions, and the role of the portrait in shaping humanistic and moral values in the second half of the 19th century. Among the themed exhibits, the Portrait show was the most extensive, with 219 works from many Russian museums, not only from the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum. It also included some graphic works, in contrast to other anniversary exhibits of the Peredvizhniki. It should be noted that it was the exhibit of Portraits by the Peredvizhniki that stimulated the interest of the next generation of researchers in this genre of their work. The whole project also proved inspiring. It should be noted that in the year of the Peredvizhniki Anniversary show, before its opening, an exhibition of N.N. Ge, who was one of the founders of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions and authors of its Charter, took place (in late 1970 to early 1971). This exhibit became an amazingly powerful preamble to the Peredvizhniki project. After a long suppression of this artist’s work, viewers could discover all the power of his philosophical and moral ideas. The Ge exhibition was an independent but inseparable part of the subsequent Peredvizhniki exhibitions. It also took place in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Minsk, fulfilling its educational function. On completing the tour in 1971 to 1972, the Peredvizhniki exhibitions confirmed the profound significance and humanity of the Peredvizhniki art. No matter how much time passes, or how our passions, scientific interests and tastes change, the era of the Peredvizhniki movement will always stay in our memory and stir up our conscience, awaken our awareness, and demonstrate that the next generation of painters following the Peredvizhniki movement came into being thanks to their heroic creative quest. Savrasov’s students included Levitan, Korovin, and Svetoslavsky, Nesterov studied with Perov, Repin taught Serov, and we could add many other artists to this list. After their apprenticeship, each of them continued their own way, making great discoveries in art.

21 May, Friday, morning session

Maria CHUKCHEYEVA European University at St. Petersburg; RANEPA STEPS, Moscow

Catherine II at the Grave of Empress Elizabeth Petrovnaby N.N. Ge and the Russian 18th Century in Historical Genre Works of the First Half of the 1870s

In 1874,Catherine II at the grave of Empress Elizabeth Petrovnaby N.N. Gewas shownat the 3rdPeredvizhniki exhibition. After the enormous success of Peter I interrogating Tsarevich Alexei in Peterhof at the 1stPeredvizhniki exhibition in 1871, Ge’s new historical painting, did not arouse so much enthusiasm,although it attracted the public’s attention. Nevertheless, Catherine II by Ge caused a new discussion in the press about the nature of historical painting and how artists should depict the past, since the content and message of the painting were obscure to a number of critics. Since the 1860s, a new type of historical painting emerged in Russian art. It was the historical genre, which originated in France in the 1820s and spread throughout Europe during the 1830s. In the 1870s, historical genreactively developed in Russia; in many historical paintings, prominent figures of the past were shown as ordinary people, not as demigods like artists used to depict them before. Ge was one of the pioneers of the historical genre; his contemporaries perceived Peter I interrogating Tsarevich Alexei in Peterhof as an innovation in Russian historical painting. The shaping and development of the historical genre coincided with a critical rethinking of the Russian past and the publication of archive materials, including records of the 18th century 25 history. Several artists, such as Ge and V.I. Jacobi, turned to the representation of the previous century’scritical and controversial episodes (on which so-called secret historiography was sometimes based), and their paintings caused a wide public response. In my paper, I will try to show how the historical genre developed in Russia in the first half of the 1870s, what role the Peredvizhnikiplayed in this process, and how Russian artists interpreted subjects from the 18thcentury. I will try to show why Ge’s paintingCatherine II at the grave of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was perceived less enthusiastically than Peter I interrogating Tsarevich Alexei in Peterhof and Jesters at the court of Empress Anna Ioannovna (1872-1873) by V.I. Jacobi.

Nikita BALAGUROV University of Helsinki, Finland

From the Emperor’s Order to Stalin’s Toast. Alexander III Receiving Rural District Elders in the Yard of Petrovsky Palace in Moscow by

This paper, based on newly discovered documentary and visual sources, reconstructsthe peculiarities of ordering, creating and perception of the Alexander III receiving rural district elders in the yard of Petrovsky Palace in Moscowpainting by Ilya Repin. The Ministry of Imperial Court initially approached with a proposal to paint a composition on this subject, but the master’s intransigence caused them to transfer the order to Repin. On learning this new fact from the history of the painting, we can deduce what was the royal client’s idea of depicting one of the key scenes of the coronation celebrations, and ultimately, what tasks were assigned to Repin. The official view of the event is also reconstructed on the basis of the popular description by Vissarion Komarov In memory of the Sacred coronation of Sovereign Emperor Alexander III and Sovereign Empress Maria Feodorovna. The context of the painting is complemented with several visual sources that became accessible for scientific consideration only recently. The most important ones include thechromolithography based on a drawing by Nikolai Karazindepicting the same scene in the courtyard of Petrovsky Palace and the album with photographic portraits of rural district elders who participated in the celebrations of 1883. Thechromolithography is a valuable source for comparing and understanding some features of Repin’scomposition as a whole (while it has not been establishedyet, albeit it is highly probablethat Repin was familiar with that picture). The newly discovered photographs are obviously among the materials that the artist directly used in his work on the painting. It is also quite possible that the heraldic compositions on the album’s endpapers served as a source of inspiration for the unknown author of the unique frame of the painting. Some explanations of the process of creating the painting are also offeredon the basis of previously unrecorded andscantily studied preparatory works by Repin: drawings and sketches from private collections, as well as the sketch for the painting from the Museum of Art in Lodz. This sketch is closest to the final scheme of the composition. To explain some of the features of the latter, it is assumed that the artist turned to the Christ Preachingengraving by . Repinrepeatedly resorted to worksby this Dutch master in search of compositional solutions. This hypothesis takes into account the painting’s Christological subtext revealed by Igor Grabar, on which, according to this Soviet art critic, the imperial court insisted. At this point, Repin’s letter to Stasov, on the basis of which Grabar made his assumption,is quoted. Thus, the paper assesses the balance of artistic, documentary and ideological aspects in Repin’s painting; the originality of its genre is considered in the context of the circumstances of the commission and the visual culture of the time.Special attention is paid to the perception of the painting in the imperial and Soviet times.Based on press publications, some features of exhibiting the painting atthe 14thPeredvizhniki Exhibition in Saint-Petersburg and its subsequent existence in the Grand Kremlin Palace are reconstructed. Contrary to popular belief that the canvas was rolled upafter the 1917 revolution and never shown in Soviet times, the paper provides evidence that the painting hung 26 in the front hall of the palacein the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Moreover, Repin’stsarist painting played a certain role in shaping ideological and artistic foundations of Stalin’s personality cult, appearing in one of the episodes of The Oathfilm by Mikhail Chiaureli. The analysis of the episode from itfocuses on the issue of continuity between Repin’s realism and the art of socialist realism.

Elena NESTEROVA Repin St.Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, Saint Petersburg

Makovsky Family at the Exhibitions of the Peredvizhniki Association

Four representatives of the Makovsky family were members of the Association at different times: these are the brothers Konstantin, Nikolai, Vladimir, and Vladimir’s son Alexander. Their older sister Alexandra EgorovnaMakovskayaalso exhibited her works at Peredvizhniki shows. Each member of this talented family played their own individual role in the Association, influencing the history of this fellowship in one way or another. The brothers Konstantin and Vladimir Makovskyrepresented two facets of a typical artist of their time. The images of an itinerant artist and a talented salon painter, embodied by V.E. Makovsky and K.E. Makovsky, were equally characteristic of Russian professional painting. Their works, catering for the tastes of different viewers, were to be seen together at Peredvizhniki shows, testifying to the popularity of the association and the flexibility of its exhibition policy. ’s painting The Condemned, this episode of everyday drama, was shown at the 7thPeredvizhnik Exhibition, together with Konstantin Makovsky’s fantasy canvas Mermaids, based on mythological motives. The very choice of subject matter vividly illustrated the contrast between the two artists’ ambitions. It is difficult to imagine anything more diametrically opposed in design and targeting of these works, in which poetry and prose, sweet dreams and tragic reality are put in contrast. We also witness the contrast of Konstantin Makovsky’s special status in the group, exemplified by his avowed disinterest in groupings, and Vladimir’s place within it, as he joined this large fellowship from the very outset of his career and managed not to get lost among his peers; on the contrary, together with Ilya Repin, he became the “face” of the Association in the 1880-1890s. The paper will highlight portrait paintings by K. Makovskyfeatured at the exhibitions of the Association, and describe the evolution of ceremonial portrait, the choice of models, types and characters. The paper will attribute two female portraits by K. Makovsky. These portraits were shown at traveling exhibitions, but have lost their historical names during their existence and were kept in museums as portraits of unknown women. In the nature of his work as well as in his age, Nikolai Makovsky occupied a middle position between Konstantin, who gravitated towards the salon style and held a place apart from other members of the Association, and Vladimir, who became a typical representative of the Peredvizhniki movement and one of its classical artists. Nikolai’s works, with their characteristicrealistic style,aloof and unemotional,anda neutral attitude to the subjects, offset and revealed the pictorial expressiveness and artistic in works by the other two Makovsky brothers, demonstrated at the same Peredvizhniki exhibitions. The orientaliststyle wasrepresented in the Association by Konstantin and Nikolai Makovsky. Their sister Alexandra Makovskaya was one of the few women who exhibited their works within the Association (there was not a single woman among its full members), which confirmsthe special role of Alexandra Makovskaya in the history of the Association. Alexander Vladimirovich Makovsky belonged to a new generation of the Peredvizhniki whobecame active in the early twentieth century, when the era changed and the Association lost many of its members, who had contributed to its first successes. Alexander adhered to the Association’s ideals and moral principles to the end. Members of the Makovsky family were members of the Association for half a century, from the first to the last days of its existence. They stood at its origins and saw it off on its last journey. 27

Without their contribution to the common cause, the Association’s biography would be creatively poorer and less eventful. The Makovsky artists fostered creative diversity and maintained a high artistic standard ofPeredvizhniki exhibitions.

Irina AFANASEVA State Tretyakov Gallery; National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow

Vladimir Makovsky and the Partnership of Traveling Art Exhibitions

Vladimir YegorovichMakovsky (1846-1920) took an active part in the life of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions, devoting all his creative and social life to it. In November 1872, he was unanimously accepted as a member of the Association, and in January 1874, as a member of its Board. This paper based on materials from periodicals and memoirs of contemporaries discussesV. Makovsky’s creative evolution as a Peredvizhnik artist and the collected information about his activities in the Association. How did Makovsky position himself? Who purchased his works? How did his contemporaries perceive his art? What attracted them to the master’s works? The first articles about paintings byV.Ye. Makovsky appeared in the late 1870s, and the appreciation of his art and general interest in the artist gradually increased up to the 1890s. At the time, Makovsky’s work was at the peak of popularity. The contemporaries esteemedV.Ye. Makovsky as one of the most prominent representatives of Russian genre painting and an exponent of the Russian artistic philosophy. V.V. Stasovlaid the foundation of the formal, stylistic,historical,and cultural analysis of V.Ye. Makovsky’s works. More than 50 of the master’s works are mentioned in his articles.The opposition of aesthetic ideas that unfolded at the turn of the 19th and 20thcenturies changed art critics’ opinion on V.Ye. Makovsky’s works for the worse.While actively opposing the academic salon art and then the art of theMirIskusstvaassociation, the artist defended the Peredvizhniki’sprinciples and fiercely attacked the formalistic trends of early 20thcentury. V.Ye. Makovsky identified even the slightest stylization with . In early 20th century, futurism was interpreted broadly: this word meant everything new in art, and V.Ye. Makovsky continued to follow the tradition. V.Ye. Makovskywas not shy about the conservatism of his artistic preferences. Out of devotion to the Peredvizhniki Association, Makovskyexcludedsomeworks by young and innovative artistsfrom the traveling exhibitions. At each Peredvizhnikiexhibition, new works by Makovsky, which had not been published or exhibited anywhere before,were shown. In 46 years of creative activity (from 1872 to 1918) as a permanent exhibitor at Peredvizhniki exhibitions,V.Ye. Makovsky presented over 550 works (paintings, studies, etchings). The artist’s productivity and hard work amazed his contemporaries. It is no coincidence that the artist was called the Knaus of Peredvizhniki, by the name of a popular Austrian artist. At the annual exhibitions of the Peredvizhniki Association, the artist usually showed several large works and from five to forty-five small studies. These works, created for viewing at close range, often touched upon important, topical issues of the times, so they were always comprehensible and clear to a wide range of viewers. At first, the artist's works were bought by intelligentsia of various origins, officials, and merchants. In the 1880s, wealthy high-ranking officials, notables, and imperial family membersbegan to visit Peredvizhniki exhibitions. In 1890, while visiting the 18thtraveling exhibition, Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna purchased seven paintingsby V.Ye. Makovskyworth 9230 rubles, including the Hunters at a Halt. Forty-two paintings and six graphic works were bought by collector P.M. Tretyakovduring the artist's life. The artist's paintings were also included in the collections of S.I. Mamontov, M.P. Ryabushinsky, M.P. Botkin, P.I. Kharitonenko, S.N. Golyashkin, I.E. Tsvetkov, and K.T. Soldatenkov.

28

In periodicals, the contemporaries described V.Ye. Makovsky as one of the leading Peredvizhnikiartists, the successor of V.G. Perov, the second luminary of genre painting28after I.E. Repin, Russian Meissonier. At the same time, the critics pointed out that the master often repeated himself. Among his technical shortcomings, the contemporaries noted inconsistency, negligence, as well asdesire to hastily release a work that was not completely finished from his studio.

Nadezhda MUSYANKOVA State Tretyakov Gallery; State Institute for Art Studies, Moscow

The Idea of People in the Works by Late Peredvizhniki

Building the image of the Russian people was one of the most important tasks for the Peredvizhniki. Russia was an agrarian country, and the concept of people was associated primarily with peasants in the period from 1900s to 1910s. Artists of the younger generation, the so-called late Peredvizhniki, sought to bring a new understanding to depicting folk types. Many of them, including A.V. Moravov, N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky, and A.E. Arkhipov took inspiration in the ideas of L.N. Tolstoy. The famous writer repeatedly spoke about the influence of art on the life of the people. He highly valued V.N. Orlov, to whose album of paintings Russian Peasants (1909) he wrote a preface. The works by late Peredvizhniki V.N. Baksheev, N.A. Kasatkin, V.N. Meshkov, S.V. Malyutin, S.A. Vinogradov, A.L. Rzhevskaya are based on the narratives reflecting the characteristic difficulties and modest joys of rural life. However, after the proletarian revolution took place in October 1917, the notion of People gradually underwent significant changes. In fact, this concept was replaced with a new one, and the shaping of a new community called the Soviet people began. In visual arts, images of workers and Red Army men, as pillars of the new government, were brought to the fore, while peasants were given a less significant role. The destruction of Russian countryside began, hunger was impending due to forced requisitioning of agricultural products, the best representatives of peasantry were persecuted and imprisoned, and masses of dispossessed villagers were leaving their homes for the cities. The reforms implemented in the field of art and the transformation of art educational institutions pushed the Peredvizhniki with their rusty realism into the background. Some of them left Russia forever. In early 1920s, changes in aesthetic trends marked a turn towards realism. Young functionaries E.A. Katsman and A.V. Grigoriev, together with the last chairman of Peredvizhniki Association P.A. Radimov, decided to use the work of the late Peredvizhniki as a foundation for creating a new style, which was later named Socialist realism. However, the “old-timers” were advised to “immerse themselves in the thick of the people’s life,” working in factories and construction sites or painting portraits of party leaders and military commanders. In 1923, N.A. Kasatkin was the first to be awarded the title of the People’s Artist of the RSFSR. A.E. Arkhipov got the same title in 1927. Works by A.V. Moravov and S.V. Malyutin became “classics” of the Soviet art. In the paintings created by the former Peredvizhniki who had been brought up on Tolstoy’s ideals, the idea of People underwent significant changes in the 1920s and 1930s being transformed according to the new canons.

21 May, Friday, evening session

Maria GURENOVICH State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg

Peredvizhniki: a View from the Side. Through the Pages of Diary by Ferdynand Ruszczyc

28А.С. [thepseudonymwasnotdisclosed] Petersburg exhibitions // Art news. March 18, 1883 No. 6. Volume I. p. 200. 29

The “Diary” (Dziennik) is a book of memoirs by artist and teacher Ferdynand Ruszczyc (1870-1936) published in in 1994-1996 in Polish. In the Russian art history literature, his name is often mentioned in works on the history of the A.I. Kuindzhi landscape workshop at the Higher Art School of the Imperial Art Academy. Despite the fact that these memories have already attracted the attention of art critics, such as Kira Mytareva, Larisa Tananaeva, and Vitaly Manin (and, recently, also Polish author Professor Jerzy Malinowski, director of the Polish Institute for Art Studies, and Belarusian author Vladimir Prokoptsov, Director General of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus), the “Diary” is still difficult to access and has not yet been translated into Russian. Nevertheless, this work is of particular interest to Russian researchers, since Ruszczyc’s memoirs not only describe his personal experiences, but also provide curious information about his contemporaries, academic education, temporary exhibitions, art criticism and cultural life of Saint- Petersburg in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Ruszczyc’s years of study at the Academy of Arts coincided with the transformations in its educational system and the emergence of modernist trends. He studied at the Academy from autumn of 1891 to autumn of 1897, briefly attending I.I. Shishkin’s landscape class in 1894. Then he moved to A.I. Kuindzhi’s workshop in 1895 and became one of his best students. Ruszczyc was one of the founders of the World of Art Association and was elected to the Jury Committee of its Spring Exhibitions more than once. Detailed description and evaluation of various exhibitions and relationships within the art groups hold a prominent place in his Diary. Ruszczyc minutely described not only his own thoughts, but also the contemporary artists’ judgments of his work (such as opinions expressed about his paintings by his teachers Shishkin and Kuindzhi, as well as I.E. Repin, N.D. Kuznetsov, I.I. Tvorozhnikov, A.A. Kiselev, V.M. Maksimov, E.E. Volkov, and other representatives of the old guard). It is noteworthy that one of the first strong impressions was produced by reading recently published letters by F.A. Vasilyev to I.N. Kramskoy in 1894, that touched Ruszczyc very much (this refers to the collection of letters and articles by Kramskoy published by V.V. Stasov and A. Suvorin in Saint-Petersburg in 1888). After a trip to Moscow and a visit to the Tretyakov Gallery, Ruszczyc noted some works that stood out in his memory, including The Morning of Streltsy Execution and Menshikov in Berezovo paintings by , as well as works by Fyodor Vasilyev, , Ivan Kramskoy, Vasily Polenov, and . After each show of the Peredvizhniki Association of Art Exhibitions that he visited, he singled out the works he liked. For example, at one of the exhibitions he was deeply impressed by the Elegy painting by Apollinarius Vasnetsov and highly appreciated a work by at another one. Ruszczyc’s memoirs make it possible to retrace the shaping of new artistic thinking in the conditions that existed in the second half of the 1890s, a period marked with intense quests in painting, literature, and theater. Educated within the academic system and having absorbed the advice of the Peredvizhniki professors, Ruszczyc strove to live up to their artistic standards with his usual seriousness and responsibility. However, this situation failed to satisfy his growing need for development and he turned his gaze towards new and fresh ideas. He aspired to join the Western European artistic process and methodically recorded his impressions in his diary. After graduating from the Academy in 1898, Ruszczyc settled in his family estate of Bogdanov near Vilna. However, he maintained contact with Saint-Petersburg artists. In his diary, he repeatedly recalled his years of study at the Saint-Petersburg Academy of Arts. In Bogdanov, he received letters from Mikhail Nesterov and reflected on possible ways to introduce Russian artists including Isaac Levitan, Mikhail Nesterov, Valentin Serov, and Konstantin Somov to the public of Warsaw. When he joined the faculty as a professor at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts (from February 1904), he introduced his students to the art of Levitan, Somov, and Scandinavian artists.

30

Olga MENTYUKOVA State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

N.Kasatkin: from the Partnership of Traveling Art Exhibitions to the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia

The paperfocuses on the artistic journey of Nikolai Alekseyevich Kasatkin from his joining the PeredvizhnikiAssociation of Art Exhibitions in 1891 until his death in 1930. It addresses the theme of labor in the artist’s work, his portrayal of working people in the 1890s and in the 1920s, and his selection of artistic media and techniques in different periods of his creative journey. Based onthearchival materials (letters, texts of speeches, notes, and photographs), the researcher follows the changes in the artist’s attitude to the theme of labor (in the 1890s, Kasatkin was called by E.D. Polenova one of fanatical patriots of the Peredvizhnikimovement), new aspects that he planned to introduce into artistic education after the revolution, as well as artistic principles and social beliefs that brought N.A. Kasatkin to the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. On the example of Kasatkin’s artistic biography, the researcher will consider how later Peredvizhniki chose realism as a starting point for founding theAssociation of Artists of Revolutionary Russia.

31