Art History Today

The Age of Tolstoy: Representing the Russian Landscape & its Peoples. (1)

Ethnicity and Art in Russian History.

During the nineteenth-century artists like Repin and Surikov successfully rode the wave of nationalism and liberalism prevalent in Russian society. This is why the exploits and events of historical figures like Ivan the Terrible, Rurik (above) and Ermak appear in the history painting of the mid to late nineteenth-century. New modern realist artists also began to represent the people themselves who had been virtually ignored during the long history of Russia. In order to understand how a sense of Russian identity influenced the realist school of the nineteenth-century, it is necessary to appreciate the relationship between ethnicity and geography in the evolution of Russia. As Alexander Etkind explains in his cultural history of Russia, Internal Colonization, Russia was pre-occupied with the story of its origins, and in the case of this country the foundation narrative was multi-ethnic.[1] As explained at the start of this course, the original settlers in Rus were invaded by warriors from the North; this resulted in the first Russian dynasty which preceded the Romanovs. In addition to images of the “founders,” many paintings appeared of the earlier expansion or colonization of the territory and its natural and zoological resources, not to mention other ethnic groups who were eliminated early in Russia’s early period. The origin narrative of Russia became heavily racialized which affected the cultural reproduction of images, especially that of the people compared to the ruling hierarchy. Compared to the Europeanization of Russia which began with Rurik, some believed that the Slavic commune had preceded the Norman conquest of Russia; if true, it had survived it.[2] The Slavs with their long beards, enthusiasm for the Russian Orthodox Church symbolised anti-modern values; they condemned foreign influences and finally found their identity through the invention of the commune, the opposite of private property and public corruption. Tolstoy and Lenin were surely taking notes.

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[1] Alexander Etkind, Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience (Polity Press, 2011).

[2] Ibid, 140-141.

A Tale of Two Misattributions: Van Gogh & F. Lippi.

Will it ever stop?

Art Watch tells you why not.

The Rise of the Russian Art Academies & Collecting in Nineteenth-Century Russia. Slides

1) Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe and Alexander Kokorinov, Imperial Academy of Arts Vasilyevsky Island, Saint Petersburg. Built in 1764-1789.

2) Valery Jacobi, Inauguration of Imperial Academy of Arts, 1889, oil on canvas, Imperial Academy of Arts, St Petersburg.

3) Academy sphinxes on the embankment.

4) Maksim Vorobyov, Sphinxes lining a quay in front of St Petersburg Academy of Arts, 1835, oil on canvas, St Petersburg Academy of Arts.

5) Leonid Pasternak, Meeting of the Council of Art Teachers of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture & Architecture, 1902, pastel on paper, 65 x 87 cm, Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

6) Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, day and night.

7) Ilya Repin, Portrait of Pavel Tretyakov, 1901, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

8) Edward Petrovitch Hau, The Room of the Russian School in the New Hermitage, 1855, watercolour on paper, 308 x 370 mm, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

9) View of the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

10) M. A. Vrubel, Portrait of S. I. Mamontov, 1897, oil on canvas, 187 x 142.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

11) Abramtsevo Church, Abramtsevo Colony, Moscow-Oblast.

12) Ilya Repin, Self-Portrait, 1878, oil on canvas, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

13) Ilya Repin, “They Did Not Expect Him,” 1884-88, oil on canvas, 160.5 x 167.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

14) Ilya Repin, Religious Procession in Kursk Province, 1880-83, oil on canvas, 175 x 280 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

15) Ilya Repin, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire, 1891, oil on canvas, 203 cm × 358 cm, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

16) Ivan Kramskoi, Self-Portrait, 1867, o/c, 52.7 cm × 44 cm, Tretyakov Gall, Moscow.

17) Ivan Kramskoi, Christ in the Desert, 1872, oil on canvas, 180 cm × 210 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

18) Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of the Painter Ivan Shiskin, 1873, oil on canvas, 78 x 110.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

19) Ivan Shiskin, Morning in a Pine Forest, 1889, oil on canvas, 139 cm × 213 cm, Tretyakov gallery, Moscow.

20) Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of an Unknown Woman, 1883, oil on canvas, 75.5 x 99 cm, Tretyakov Gallery.

21) Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of a woman reading, 1881, oil on canvas, Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts.

22) Vasily Surikov, The Bronze Horseman, oil on canvas, 1870, The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

23) Vasily Surikov, Menshikov in Berezovo, 1883, oil on canvas, 169 x 204 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

24) Valentin Serov, The Girl with Peaches, Portrait of V.S.Mamontova, 1887, oil on canvas, 91 x 85 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

25) Valentin Serov, Portrait of the Actress Ermolova, 1905, oil on canvas, 224 x 120 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

26) Viktor Vasnetsov, Bogyars, 1898, oil on canvas, 1898, oil on canvas, 295.3 x 446 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

27) Anon, Russian,The Picture Seller, oil on canvas, 25.8 x 31.7 cm, St. Russ Mus, St Petersburg.

28) Leon Bakst, Portrait of Alexander Benois, 1898, oil on canvas, location unknown.

29) Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna and Child (“The Benois Madonna”), 1478, oil on canvas, 49.5 cm × 33 cm, (Prev Leon Benois).

30) Photograph of Leon Benois, before 1917.

31) Hans Memlinc, Last Judgment, 1460s, oil on panel, 241 x180.8 cm, wings 2 x 242 x 90 cm, National Museum, Gdansk.

32) Rembrandt van Rhyn, Russian courtiers, c. 1637, brown ink and wash, 144 x 201 mm, The Morgan Library and Museum, New York.

33) Rembrandt van Rhyn, The Holy Family, 1645, oil on canvas, 117x91 cm, (Prev Crozat Coll., 1772).

34) Rembrandt van Rhyn, Danaë, 1636, oil on canvas, 185 x 202.2 cm, (Prev. Crozat Coll., 1772).

35) Rembrandt van Rhyn, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, 1635, oil on canvas, 193x132 cm, (Prev. Walpole Coll., 1779).

36) Rembrandt van Rhyn, The Flight into Egypt, etching, 12.6x11 cm, 1897, (beq of D.A. Rovinsky, 1897).

37) Vasilyevsky Island, St Petersburg.

38) Benjamin Paterssen, Embankment of Vasilyevsky Island near the Academy of Arts, 1799, 64 x 100 cm, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

39) Botkin’s House, Vasilyevsky Island, St Petersburg.

40) Attic showing pictures in Botkin’s collection.

41) Pieter Lastman, Abraham on the Road to Canaan, 1614, oil on canvas, 72 x 122 cm, (Leningrad State Purchasing Commission, 1938).

42) Corridor in the House of Semenov, early 20^th century, Russian Geographical Society.

43) Valentin Serov, Portrait of Pyotr Semenov, 1905, yellowish chalk, black and red chalk and pastel on card, 63.5 x 48.3 cm, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

44) Tian Shan, (Mountain of Heaven), Central Asia.

45) Pieter Lastman, The Annunciation, 1618, 56 x 39 cm, (Prev. Semenov Coll., 1915).

46) Roelant Savery, Tyrolean Landscape (The Flight into Egypt), 1606, oil on copper, 54 x 72 cm, (Prev. Semenov Coll., 1915).

47) Gerald Seghers, The Denial of St Peter, 1620s, oil on canvas, 122.5x160.5 cm, (Prev. Semenov Coll., 1915).

48) Matthias Stom, Esau and Jacob, 1640s, oil on canvas, 118x164 cm, (Prev. Semenov Coll., 1915).

49) Matthias Stom, Old Woman with a Candle, 1640s, oil on canvas, 85x70.5 cm, (Prev. Semenov Coll., 1915).

50) Govert Flinck, Bathsheba with King David's Letter, 1659, oil on canvas, 115 x 87 cm, (Prev. Semenov Coll., 1915).

51) Pieter Aertsen, Trader in Game, 1561, oil on panel, 137x195 cm, (Prev. Semenov Coll., 1915).

52) Vasily Perov, Village Procession at Easter, 1861, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Ivan Kramskoi, Old Man with a Crutch, 1872, oil on canvas, 76.5 × 57.5 cm, Art Museum of Estonia.

The Rise of the Russian Art Academies & Collecting in Nineteenth-Century Russia. (11)

Collections on Vasilyevsky Island.

Vasilyevsky Island will be known to readers of Russian novelists like Dostoevsky (actually a friend of Semenov) but it was also home to important organisations and collections. Standing on this detached land mass, one could see over the Neva to the Admiralty and Winter Palace; and the house of the Vice-President of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Mikhail Petrovich Botkin who amassed Italian renaissance art by Pinturicchio, Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna and others. Then there was Stephan Fyodorovich Solovyov, a collector who owned gold mines, and whose paintings were auctioned in 1887 including a painting by Rembrandt’s mater Pieter Lastman- Abraham on the Road to Canaan. Semenov also owned Lastmans (two) and specialised not in Rembrandts, but the many artists inspired by him, not to mention having one of the most comprehensive collections of Dutch art ever assembled. In her indispensable overview of Semenov and his world, Solokova takes us round the collectors gallery on Vasilyevsky Island where we learn that visiting connoisseurs noted “the presence of works by little- known artists” in the collection. Based on Solokova’s survey of Semenov’s collection, it might be broken down into several groups: landscapes (Flemish, native and influenced by Italian mannerism, e.g. Savery); Caravaggisti painters, (e.g., Seghers, Stom (above)); Dutch Italianises (e.g. Poelenberg); pre-Rembrandists (e.g., Lastman); Rembrandt’s contemporaries (e.g. Flinck, van Hoogstraten); Flemish genre pictures (e.g., Aertsen). This is only just a few groups, but the overall picture that is gained from studying the list of Semonov’s collection is an extremely focused connoisseur seeking to acquire rare Dutch and Flemish Old Masters with love rather than lucre in mind. And he perhaps always had the intention of getting the pictures into the Hermitage as he had spent much time there honing his connoisseurial skills. He would eventually get his wish- though fate would take a hand and cause problems.

The Rise of the Russian Art Academies & Collecting in Nineteenth-Century Russia. (10)

A Modest Russian Collector: Pyotr Semenov

At first glance the geographer Pyotr Semenov (above) does not seem an ideal candidate for a collector of Dutch Old Masters. More notable for his exploring, particularly being the first European to set foot on Tian Shan (“Mountains of Heaven”) in Central Asia, Semenov was a passionate entomologist, botanist, and natural scientist who resonates not only in the biographical/scientific material written about him, but (according to Solokova) also in the writings of the modern Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov whose The Gift features an explorer character fascinated by the wonders of nature. How then did this shy geographer make the transition from nature to art? It started in the 1860s when Semenov married his second wife Elizaveta and set up home in a huge house on Vasilyevsky Island in St Petersburg. Semenov married into a very cultural family, though his decision to collect Old Master paintings took many by surprise; over the next fifty years this modest man would compile a collection of over seven hundred paintings by masters of that century, mostly Dutch with some Flemish. Semenov would eventually rise to become manager of the Russian Geographical Society, something for which he was extremely well qualified and experienced with his exploration of the Tian Shan in 1856 where he disproved the supposed volcanic origins of the range.[1]

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[1] Tian Shan is north and west of the Taklamakan Desert and directly north of the Tarim Basin in the border region of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and northwest China. In the south it links up with the Pamir Mountains and to north and east it meets the Altai Mountains of Mongolia.

The Rise of the Russian Art Academies & Collecting in Nineteenth-Century Russia. (9)

Rembrandt & the Russians.

As Solokov notes, the shift in taste is reflected in the Academy’s attitude towards Rembrandt: though respectful of the great Dutch master, the Academy shunned his techniques because in their eyes they violated the canons and doctrine of classical decorum.[1] Nevertheless, Rembrandts slowly and surely made their way into the Hermitage starting with Peter the Great (who bought the David and Jonathan) and continued during the Empress Catherine’s tenure with her acquisition of the Holy Family (Crozat Coll), Abraham and Isaac (Walpole Coll), and others. Also, Rembrandt’s art was in tune with the ideals and attitudes of the Romantic movement; painters such as Delacroix mused on wether Rembrandt was a better painter than Raphael. As if to underline Rembrandt’s growing importance, his nude Danaë (above) hidden away by a shocked Paul I who considered it “immodest, “went back on display in the middle of the nineteenth-century provoking intriguing responses from Russian luminaries like Ivan Turgenev who wrote to the singer Pauline Viardot that he was going to the Hermitage to see the picture which to him held a “diabolique de force,” though unlike the enthusiastic novelist, Russian art historians continued to criticise the drawing in the picture into the 1860s and beyond.[2] But perhaps the most important effect of this Rembrandt revival, and by extension the Dutch school generally, was its influence on Russian collectors like the lawyer Dimitry Rovinsky and the geographer Pyotr Semenov; the second homed in on the works of Rembrandt’s contemporaries; the first sought out his etchings.

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[1] Solkova, The Russian Passion for Dutch Painting of the Golden Age, 103.

[2] Ibid.

The Rise of the Russian Art Academies & Collecting in Nineteenth-Century Russia. (8)

Going Dutch in St Petersburg.

It is hardly surprising that the great champion of icon painting Tretyakov started by collecting Dutch art since next to French painting, this was the most popular type of Old Master sought by collectors in Russia, though there were enthusiasts of Italian renaissance art like Botkin and the Benois Family. The interest in Dutch and Flemish art can be traced back to Peter the Great’s time when the Tsar sought to obtain pictures like Memling’s Last Judgment (1470) on a visit to Gdansk (now Danzig) to no avail as the city fathers refused the request.[1] Moreover, Peter had acquired a Rembrandt, the first of many to enter the museum. There is another important point: the increase in Dutch and Flemish collecting should be seen as breaking the stranglehold of Italian art which “had been the foundation of the Academy’s credo.”[2] Despite this, more and more Dutch art appeared at auction, though the St Petersburg art market has remained largely neglected since unlike the Moscow market of the 1860s chronicled by such famous Muscovites as Pyotr Shchukin, it has no commentator.[3] As one art historian wrote: “Russian collecting emerged as a social phenomenon in the 1860s and had dried up by the 1910s.”[4] Old master art could appear anywhere in St Petersburg: if a mansion was put up for sale it would attract crowds; antique shops were frequented; there was a network of second-hand dealers (above); and there were noted emporiums like the Alexandrovsky market and its dealers. The glut of Dutch and Flemish paintings would last until the end of the century, but by that time its glory had passed.

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[1] Cracraft, The Petrine Revolution, 195.

[2] Solkova, The Russian Passion for Dutch Painting of the Golden Age, 101.

[3] Ibid, 73.

[4] Abram Efros, cited in Solokov, The Russian Passion for Dutch Painting of the Golden Age, 73.

The Rise of the Russian Art Academies & Collecting in Nineteenth-Century Russia. (7)

Some Artists in the Wanderers Colony.

For westerners, the most famous name in the group must surely be Ilya Repin (1844-1930) who came from the Ukraine and successfully captured the life and soul of Russia in his large canvases and in his studies. Repin’s They Did Not Expect Him is perhaps is his best known work; it was executed at Abramtsevo and shows a scene which could have come out of any number of nineteenth-century Russian novels like Tolstoy who would have been his equivalent in literature in this century. Other notable works are his Religious Procession in Kursk Province of the 1880s. Repin’s friend Ivan Kramskoi (1837-87) studied at the hated St Petersburg Academy but organised the “revolt of fourteen” resulting in their expulsion from the institution. Kramskoi’s Christ in the Desert (1872) continues Ivanov’s interest in religious themes while his Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1883) (above) shows him as one of Russia’s greatest portrait painters, an attempt to branch off from the more ideologically loaded subjects. A native of St Petersburg, Vasily Serov (1865-1911) was a noted portraitist influenced by Repin. Serov’s painting The Girl with Peaches (1887) is arguably the first example of “Russian impressionism.” Of the two provincial Vanetsov brothers, Viktor is the most famous; he came to St Petersburg 1867, but joined the Peredvizhniki rebellion against the Academy joined Repin in Paris. Vanetsov specialised in mythological and history paintings, especially of Russian history like his Bogyars (1898) which show three Russian mythical knights. This is one of his most famous paintings, and perhaps his Ivan the Terrible shown earlier in the course.

The Rise of the Russian Art Academies & Collecting in Nineteenth-Century Russia. (6)

Enter Tretyakov.

One of Russia’s greatest patrons of the arts was not a Tsar, but a humble businessman and philanthropist. It was Pavel Tretyakov (1832-98) who bought paintings from the Wanderers for over thirty years, eventually donating his whole collection to the city of Moscow in 1892. The most important point about the gallery named after him- the Tretyakov- is that it was the first museum in the country to be devoted totally to Russian works of art. Tretyakov began collecting art at the age of 22 in 1854, ironically ten canvases by Dutch masters. But with his involvement with “Mamontov’s Circle” Tretyakov began to acquire art from V.G. Perov, I. N. Kramskoi, Ilya Repin, Vasily Surikov, LL Levitan, and Valentin Serov, as well as traditional art with the objective of creating a “Pantheon” of Russian art of olden times and the 18^th and 19^th centuries. As his collection grew, Tretyakov moved it to a building co-designed by the architect Kaminski, and by 1885 his gallery was attracting as many as 30,000 people in Moscow. Tretyakov’s collection was about two thousand works (1,362 paintings, 526 drawings, and 9 sculptures) all presented to the Russian nation. The façade of the gallery building was designed by the painter Viktor Vasnetsov in a peculiar Russian fairy-tale style. It was built in 1902–04 to the south from the Moscow Kremlin. During the 20th century, the gallery expanded to several neighbouring buildings, including the 17th-century church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi. Today the number of exhibits amounts to 130,000 ranging from Russian icons to abstract art by Kandinsky and Malevich.

The Rise of the Russian Art Academies & Collecting in Nineteenth-Century Russia. (5)

The Mamontovs, Their Artists & the Medieval Revival in Russia.

Savva Mamontovs possessed great wealth because he created the railroads running from Archangel to Murmansk, and from the north to the south of Russia. Intensely artistic, he was a singer, sculptor, stage director, and dramatist who founded the first Russian private opera company well before Diaghilev. Strangely, it was in Rome where he and his wife Elizabeth first met with Russian artists. His wife Elizabeth was deeply devout, an adherent to the Russian Orthodox Church and it was her who suggested building a little church (above) on their estates at Abramtsevo, a building that symbolised the “practical revival of Russian medieval art and architecture.” When the Mamontels returned from Rome in 1874 they were accompanied by some of their artist friends like the painter Polenov; they also stopped off in Paris en route where they met Repin, a friend of Polenov, and persuaded him to move to Moscow. Also living in Paris was the painter Serov who was also invited to come and live at Abramtsevo. With all these artists in attendance, the foundations of the first truly modern school of painting were laid. The foundation-members were joined in 1879 by the Vasnetsov painter- brothers, Victor and Apollinarius. The main reason for the building of the Abramtsevo Church was the need for a substitute for the church that had been flooded out on the estate. After much consultation between artists, architects and patron, it was decided to have the building in the style of a medieval Novgorod church according to the designs of Apollinarius Vanetsov. Much archaeological study of both medieval churches and icon paintings played a role in the creation of this symbol of the Russian traditional past.