Self-portrait. 1893
Bakst's paradox is that, due to political reasons (Jew and émigré), he is known far more abroad than at home: his personal exhibitions were held in Europe and the USA as early as the 1910s, while in Russia they began to show him only at the end of his life. XX century. Therefore, the exhibition “Lev Bakst. 1866-1924”, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth, is a truly outstanding event: the curators managed to highlight all the facets of the artist’s work, collecting 160 works from 10 museums and private collections.
In 4 exhibition halls, landscapes, portraits, drawings, plot paintings, sketches of textile patterns and fabrics recreated from them, costumes from ballets designed by Bakst and the star of the theatrical section of the exhibition - the curtain of the Komissarzhevskaya Theater are shown.
The exhibition will be open until May 2016.
Upon entering, the first thing you see is the famous "Ancient Horror", which, alas, remains relevant even 100 years later - the world still strives to collapse, people flee in panic, and the gods watch the chaos from above, smiling ironically. The picture was painted in 1907. impressed by Bakst's trip to Greece, and later the poet Vyacheslav Ivanov will devote part of his book "According to the Stars" to the philosophical interpretation of this canvas.
"Ancient Horror", 1908
Having recovered from a powerful emotional blow, you meet the artist's gaze on his self-portrait, recharge with his calmness and set off to view the exhibition.
Lev Bakst was born in Grodno in 1866. The father of the future celebrity dreamed that his son would continue his career as a businessman, but the boy saw himself only as a draftsman. Reluctantly, the parent agreed to show his work to Mark Antokolsky, who unexpectedly spoke very well of them. The praise of the master softened his father, and Leo was sent as a volunteer to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, however, for 4 years, the hot young man got bored with technical exercises, and he dropped out of school, becoming an illustrator in magazines and books.
He managed to participate in the exhibition for the first time in 1889, at the same time he came up with his pseudonym, shortening his grandmother's surname - Baxter, because his real name, Rosenberg Leib-Chaim Izrailevich (poor child!), did not suit the artist in any way.
In 1891 Bakst traveled around Europe, staying in Paris, which was then the center of bohemian and artistic life. He returned to Paris several times, and died there in 1924. This city became the site of his triumph when he created costumes and scenery for the ballets of Diaghilev's Russian Seasons, becoming a trendsetter for French women who caught every novelty of the scene and immediately brought it to life.
But all this is yet to come, but for now, Leo meets Academician Albert Benois, from whom he learns the technique of watercolor, soon participating in watercolor exhibitions, and with his younger brother, Alexander, who introduced him to the circle of writers and artists created by the energetic Diaghilev. On the basis of this circle, it arose in 1898. the most famous magazine "World of Art", whose main designer was Lev Bakst, who invented the cover. His unique handwriting, which combined modern trends, oriental drawings and bright colors, quickly made him a fashionable and recognizable illustrator.
In addition to magazines, Bakst also designed books, for example, collections of Blok and Voloshin, and the style he developed together with Benois and Somov took root in book publishing for many, many years.
Antique Vision, 1906
There are more acacias and olive trees than birches in his landscapes, but they are tender and painted with love:
"Olive Grove in Menton", 1903
His "Sunflowers" are not inferior to Van Gogh:
"Sunflowers", 1906
For dessert, I'll show you another landscape - no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn't find the image, I had to borrow someone's photo from the network. IMHO, he's great! These luminous colors beckon to fall into the picture, as in Narnia ...
Mountain lake, 1899
Rotating at the epicenter of the creative life of his time, Bakst was familiar with many iconic people of the Silver Age, leaving a whole series of their portraits. Alexander Benois, Andrey Bely, Zinaida Gippius, Tamara Karsavina, Leo Tolstoy, Diaghilev - it is difficult to list everyone he painted.
Portrait of A. Bely, 1905
Portrait of Z. Gippius, 1906
Portrait of A. Benois, 1898
Strict pencil and charcoal, saturated oil, delicate watercolor and pastel - all materials obeyed the master, giving the subjects an emotional aura. The pencil portrait of Princess Orlova is not at all like a sketch of the head of a young Dahomean, but both express the character of the characters.
Portrait of O.K. Orlova, 1909
Young Dahomean, 1895
Since 1898 Bakst is a permanent participant of the exhibitions "World of Art", "Secession" (Munich), "Union of Russian Artists", as well as various art exhibitions in Prague, Venice, Rome, Brussels, Berlin.
One of his most beautiful paintings, which was called the "manifesto of Russian modernity" - a gentle thin lady in an elegant black dress and bright red oranges on a minimalist background. Nothing superfluous, contours and color, and that's what makes her beautiful.
"Dinner (Lady with Oranges)"
Another paradox: his application for a residence permit in St. Petersburg (Jews could not live in the city without special permission - territorial qualification) was rejected by the emperor in February 1914, and in May of the same year he was already elected a member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Arts . However, the artist did not return to St. Petersburg.
The dominant feature of the second hall is the painting "Admiral Avelan's Arrival in Paris". It was written by order of the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich. Not only she herself became an event, even preparatory sketches for her were exhibited in the salon of the Figaro newspaper.
"Arrival of Admiral Avelan in Paris", 1900
The third hall is dedicated to sketches of fabrics. The artist impressed the audience with bold colors, exquisite eroticism, luxury and fantasy. Fashionistas imitated him, fashion houses ordered the development of patterns for fabrics from him ... The first batch of silk, painted according to his work for the "silk king of America" Arthur Selig, scattered in the blink of an eye. The drawings included Indian, Russian, ancient Greek and Indian motifs.
Fabrics recreated by contemporary designers based on sketches by Bakst
The next hall is dedicated to the theatrical side of Bakst's work, who in the 1900s finally found himself as a theater artist, becoming a decorator and costume designer for many ballets: Cleopatra, Scheherazade, Carnival, Narcissus, Daphnis and Chloe, etc. The stars of the Russian ballet of those years, Anna Pavlova, Ida Rubinstein, performed in his costumes ... Critic Yakov Tugenhold wrote then: "Paris was enchanted by Bakst's spicy, voluptuous, bright, like fabrics of the East and semi-precious stones, scented with the aromas of the East, Bakst's work."
Odalisque. Costume design for the ballet "Scheherazade", 1910
Cleopatra. Costume design for the ballet Cleopatra, 1910
Recreated costumes
In the same hall, a huge curtain of the Komissarzhevskaya theater is hung out, it is so huge that it seems that it has always hung on this wall and has become part of it. And from the opposite side of the entrance, Sergei Diaghilev is looking at the brainchild of his irrepressible energy.
Portrait of S.P. Diaghilev with his nanny, 1906
This is where the exhibition ends, but I will still briefly tell you what happened next.
Time passed, the Art Nouveau era was replaced by the Art Deco era, and Diaghilev, sensitively capturing the requirements of the viewer, increasingly ordered costumes not from Bakst, but from Pablo Picasso. In 1918 the paths of the organizer of the "Russian Seasons" and the artist parted completely. For several years, Lev worked for Parisian theaters (Fémina and the Grand Opera), creating the ballets Artemis Confused and Magic Night, as well as the mime-drama Meanness and the vaudeville Old Moscow. However, in 1921 Diaghilev again invites Bakst to design his production of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.
Bakst continues to paint portraits of his great contemporaries: Nijinsky, Debussy, Anna Pavlova, Bunin, Jean Cocteau, and none other than Rothschild himself, invites him to decorate his London mansion with decorative panels on the theme of the same Sleeping Beauty.
He exhibits in Paris, London, Berlin, Stockholm, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Baltimore, lectures on contemporary art and costume in Europe and the USA, and is published in the Parisian newspaper Comoedia Illustré.
Such hard work undermined his health, and on December 27, 1924, Bakst died in Paris from pulmonary edema.
Thanks for the invitation
Lev (Leon) Bakst (1866-1924) is a world-famous painter and graphic artist who made an invaluable contribution to Russian theatrical and decorative art of its heyday. It was the costumes and scenery, executed according to the sketches of Lev Bakst, that determined the unparalleled success of the legendary "Diaghilev seasons" - ballet and opera productions in Russia, France and other countries. The exhibition, timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the outstanding master, shows about 100 paintings, graphic and theatrical and decorative works from the collections of the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery and other museum collections.
Since the mid-1890s, Lev Bakst has been a member of the circle of writers and artists who have united around Sergei Diaghilev and Alexander Benois, and later becomes one of the initiators of the creation of the World of Art society, one of the most striking phenomena in Russian culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. . In the works of the 1890-1900s - picturesque portraits and landscapes, examples of book and magazine graphics and compositions related to the image of the ancient world, the traditions of realistic art, the clarity of the plastic language of neoclassicism, the sophistication of the line and the bright decorativeness of the Art Nouveau style organically combined.
A close interest in the heritage of antiquity, the Ancient and Medieval East, was most fully revealed in the stage works of Bakst of the late 1900-1910s, associated with the "Diaghilev seasons" (design of the ballet productions "Cleopatra", "Scheherazade", "Carnival", "Narcissus" , "Daphnis and Chloe" and others). Sketches of costumes and scenery, marked by the highest craftsmanship, had a tremendous impact on the development of theater art throughout the world, becoming a unique example of a combination of bold innovation and close interest in the artistic traditions of the distant past.
General sponsor of the exhibition - VTB Bank (PJSC)
From February 24 to May 2016 in the four halls of the Benois building you can see the largest exhibition of works by Lev Bakst.
2016 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Lev Samoilovich Bakst, who worked for the glory of Russian art for more than three decades at home and abroad. Many studies and memoirs are devoted to his life and work. in different languages of the world.
Meanwhile, the legacy of this most famous member of the World of Art community in the world has not yet been thoroughly studied: there is no complete catalog of his works, most of the commissioned portraits, decorative panels and residential interiors on which he worked during France, England and the USA in the 1910s-1920s.
In the 1930s-1960s in the USSR, Bakst shared the fate of his colleagues in the World of Art: his work was either hushed up or subjected to sociological criticism. When “Essays on the history of Russian portraiture in the late 19th - early 20th century” were published in 1964, there was still no place for the works of this famous portraitist in them. In the late 1960s, an objective assessment of the heritage of the World of Art and Bakst triumphed, first in general works on the art of the turn of the 19th–20th centuries and its individual types, and from the mid-1970s in monographs, albums and articles dedicated to the master that began to be published. In 2012, thanks to the publication of the book "My soul is open", the Russians learned another facet of Bakst's talent - a writer and thinker. Arranged in the Moscow gallery "Our Artists" exhibition "Lev Bakst. The Discovery of Matter” (2013) gave an idea of the artist’s sphere of creativity, previously hidden from Russian art lovers – about sketches of fabric drawings that he worked on in the last years of his life.
Like his World of Art colleagues, Bakst was multi-talented. Well-read, sincerely passionate about art, kind, able to make friends, he organically entered the circle of "Neva Pickwickians", whose members were destined to become the core of the "World of Art" association.
Lev (Leon) Bakst (1866-1924) - world-famous painter and graphic artist, who made an invaluable contribution to the Russian theatrical and decorative art of the era of its heyday. It was the costumes and scenery, made according to the sketches of Lev Bakst, that determined the unparalleled success of the legendary "Diaghilev's seasons"– ballet and opera productions in Russia, France and other countries. The exhibition, timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the outstanding master, shows about 100 paintings, graphic and theatrical and decorative works from the collections of the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery and other museum collections.
Since the mid-1890s, Lev Bakst has been a member of the circle of writers and artists united around Sergei Diaghilev and Alexander Benois, and later becomes one of the initiators of the creation of the World of Art society - one of the most striking phenomena in Russian culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the works of 1890– 1900s – in picturesque portraits and landscapes, examples of book and magazine graphics and compositions associated with the image of the ancient world, the traditions of realistic art, the clarity of the plastic language of neoclassicism, the refinement of the line and the bright decorativeness of the modern style organically combined.
A close interest in the heritage of antiquity, the Ancient and Medieval East, was most fully revealed in the stage works of Bakst of the late 1900-1910s, associated with the "Diaghilev seasons" (design of the ballet productions "Cleopatra", "Scheherazade", "Carnival", "Narcissus" , "Daphnis and Chloe" and others). Sketches of costumes and scenery, marked by the highest craftsmanship, had a tremendous impact on the development of theater art throughout the world, becoming a unique example of a combination of bold innovation and close interest in the artistic traditions of the distant past.
The general sponsor of the exhibition is PJSC VTB Bank
Self-portrait. 1893
Bakst's paradox is that, due to political reasons (Jew and émigré), he is known far more abroad than at home: his personal exhibitions were held in Europe and the USA as early as the 1910s, while in Russia they began to show him only at the end of his life. XX century. Therefore, the exhibition “Lev Bakst. 1866-1924”, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth, is a truly outstanding event: the curators managed to highlight all the facets of the artist’s work, collecting 160 works from 10 museums and private collections.
In 4 exhibition halls, landscapes, portraits, drawings, plot paintings, sketches of textile patterns and fabrics recreated from them, costumes from ballets designed by Bakst and the star of the theatrical section of the exhibition - the curtain of the Komissarzhevskaya Theater are shown.
The exhibition will be open until May 2016.
Upon entering, the first thing you see is the famous "Ancient Horror", which, alas, remains relevant even 100 years later - the world still strives to collapse, people flee in panic, and the gods watch the chaos from above, smiling ironically. The picture was painted in 1907. impressed by Bakst's trip to Greece, and later the poet Vyacheslav Ivanov will devote part of his book "According to the Stars" to the philosophical interpretation of this canvas.
"Ancient Horror", 1908
Having recovered from a powerful emotional blow, you meet the artist's gaze on his self-portrait, recharge with his calmness and set off to view the exhibition.
Lev Bakst was born in Grodno in 1866. The father of the future celebrity dreamed that his son would continue his career as a businessman, but the boy saw himself only as a draftsman. Reluctantly, the parent agreed to show his work to Mark Antokolsky, who unexpectedly spoke very well of them. The praise of the master softened his father, and Leo was sent as a volunteer to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, however, for 4 years, the hot young man got bored with technical exercises, and he dropped out of school, becoming an illustrator in magazines and books.
He managed to participate in the exhibition for the first time in 1889, at the same time he came up with his pseudonym, shortening his grandmother's surname - Baxter, because his real name, Rosenberg Leib-Chaim Izrailevich (poor child!), did not suit the artist in any way.
In 1891 Bakst traveled around Europe, staying in Paris, which was then the center of bohemian and artistic life. He returned to Paris several times, and died there in 1924. This city became the site of his triumph when he created costumes and scenery for the ballets of Diaghilev's Russian Seasons, becoming a trendsetter for French women who caught every novelty of the scene and immediately brought it to life.
But all this is yet to come, but for now, Leo meets Academician Albert Benois, from whom he learns the technique of watercolor, soon participating in watercolor exhibitions, and with his younger brother, Alexander, who introduced him to the circle of writers and artists created by the energetic Diaghilev. On the basis of this circle, it arose in 1898. the most famous magazine "World of Art", whose main designer was Lev Bakst, who invented the cover. His unique handwriting, which combined modern trends, oriental drawings and bright colors, quickly made him a fashionable and recognizable illustrator.
In addition to magazines, Bakst also designed books, for example, collections of Blok and Voloshin, and the style he developed together with Benois and Somov took root in book publishing for many, many years.
Antique Vision, 1906
There are more acacias and olive trees than birches in his landscapes, but they are tender and painted with love:
"Olive Grove in Menton", 1903
His "Sunflowers" are not inferior to Van Gogh:
"Sunflowers", 1906
For dessert, I'll show you another landscape - no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn't find the image, I had to borrow someone's photo from the network. IMHO, he's great! These luminous colors beckon to fall into the picture, as in Narnia ...
Mountain lake, 1899
Rotating at the epicenter of the creative life of his time, Bakst was familiar with many iconic people of the Silver Age, leaving a whole series of their portraits. Alexander Benois, Andrey Bely, Zinaida Gippius, Tamara Karsavina, Leo Tolstoy, Diaghilev - it is difficult to list everyone he painted.
Portrait of A. Bely, 1905
Portrait of Z. Gippius, 1906
Portrait of A. Benois, 1898
Strict pencil and charcoal, saturated oil, delicate watercolor and pastel - all materials obeyed the master, giving the subjects an emotional aura. The pencil portrait of Princess Orlova is not at all like a sketch of the head of a young Dahomean, but both express the character of the characters.
Portrait of O.K. Orlova, 1909
Young Dahomean, 1895
Since 1898 Bakst is a permanent participant of the exhibitions "World of Art", "Secession" (Munich), "Union of Russian Artists", as well as various art exhibitions in Prague, Venice, Rome, Brussels, Berlin.
One of his most beautiful paintings, which was called the "manifesto of Russian modernity" - a gentle thin lady in an elegant black dress and bright red oranges on a minimalist background. Nothing superfluous, contours and color, and that's what makes her beautiful.
"Dinner (Lady with Oranges)"
Another paradox: his application for a residence permit in St. Petersburg (Jews could not live in the city without special permission - territorial qualification) was rejected by the emperor in February 1914, and in May of the same year he was already elected a member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Arts . However, the artist did not return to St. Petersburg.
The dominant feature of the second hall is the painting "Admiral Avelan's Arrival in Paris". It was written by order of the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich. Not only she herself became an event, even preparatory sketches for her were exhibited in the salon of the Figaro newspaper.
"Arrival of Admiral Avelan in Paris", 1900
The third hall is dedicated to sketches of fabrics. The artist impressed the audience with bold colors, exquisite eroticism, luxury and fantasy. Fashionistas imitated him, fashion houses ordered the development of patterns for fabrics from him ... The first batch of silk, painted according to his work for the "silk king of America" Arthur Selig, scattered in the blink of an eye. The drawings included Indian, Russian, ancient Greek and Indian motifs.
Fabrics recreated by contemporary designers based on sketches by Bakst
The next hall is dedicated to the theatrical side of Bakst's work, who in the 1900s finally found himself as a theater artist, becoming a decorator and costume designer for many ballets: Cleopatra, Scheherazade, Carnival, Narcissus, Daphnis and Chloe, etc. The stars of the Russian ballet of those years, Anna Pavlova, Ida Rubinstein, performed in his costumes ... Critic Yakov Tugenhold wrote then: "Paris was enchanted by Bakst's spicy, voluptuous, bright, like fabrics of the East and semi-precious stones, scented with the aromas of the East, Bakst's work."
Odalisque. Costume design for the ballet "Scheherazade", 1910
Cleopatra. Costume design for the ballet Cleopatra, 1910
Recreated costumes
In the same hall, a huge curtain of the Komissarzhevskaya theater is hung out, it is so huge that it seems that it has always hung on this wall and has become part of it. And from the opposite side of the entrance, Sergei Diaghilev is looking at the brainchild of his irrepressible energy.
Portrait of S.P. Diaghilev with his nanny, 1906
This is where the exhibition ends, but I will still briefly tell you what happened next.
Time passed, the Art Nouveau era was replaced by the Art Deco era, and Diaghilev, sensitively capturing the requirements of the viewer, increasingly ordered costumes not from Bakst, but from Pablo Picasso. In 1918 the paths of the organizer of the "Russian Seasons" and the artist parted completely. For several years, Lev worked for Parisian theaters (Fémina and the Grand Opera), creating the ballets Artemis Confused and Magic Night, as well as the mime-drama Meanness and the vaudeville Old Moscow. However, in 1921 Diaghilev again invites Bakst to design his production of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.
Bakst continues to paint portraits of his great contemporaries: Nijinsky, Debussy, Anna Pavlova, Bunin, Jean Cocteau, and none other than Rothschild himself, invites him to decorate his London mansion with decorative panels on the theme of the same Sleeping Beauty.
He exhibits in Paris, London, Berlin, Stockholm, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Baltimore, lectures on contemporary art and costume in Europe and the USA, and is published in the Parisian newspaper Comoedia Illustré.
Such hard work undermined his health, and on December 27, 1924, Bakst died in Paris from pulmonary edema.
Thanks for the invitation
From February 24 to May 2016 in the four halls of the Benois building you can see the largest exhibition of works by Lev Bakst.
2016 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Lev Samoilovich Bakst, who worked for the glory of Russian art for more than three decades at home and abroad. Many studies and memoirs in different languages of the world are devoted to his life and work.
Meanwhile, the legacy of this most famous member of the World of Art community in the world has not yet been thoroughly studied: there is no complete catalog of his works, most of the commissioned portraits, decorative panels and residential interiors on which he worked during France, England and the USA in the 1910s-1920s.
In the 1930s-1960s in the USSR, Bakst shared the fate of his colleagues in the World of Art: his work was either hushed up or subjected to sociological criticism. When “Essays on the history of Russian portraiture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries” were published in 1964, they still did not find a place for the works of this famous portrait painter. In the late 1960s, an objective assessment of the heritage of The World of Art and Bakst triumphed, first in general works on the art of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries and its individual types, and from the mid-1970s, in monographs, albums and articles dedicated to the master that began to be published. In 2012, thanks to the publication of the book My Soul Is Open, Russians learned another facet of Bakst's talent as a writer and thinker. Arranged in the Moscow gallery "Our Artists" exhibition "Lev Bakst. The Discovery of Matter” (2013) gave an idea of the artist’s sphere of creativity, previously hidden from Russian art lovers – about the sketches of fabric drawings that he worked on in the last years of his life.
Like his World of Art colleagues, Bakst was multi-talented. Well-read, sincerely passionate about art, kind, able to make friends, he organically entered the circle of "Neva Pickwickians", whose members were destined to become the core of the "World of Art" association.
Lev (Leon) Bakst (1866-1924) is a world-famous painter and graphic artist who made an invaluable contribution to Russian theatrical and decorative art of its heyday. It was the costumes and scenery, executed according to the sketches of Lev Bakst, that determined the unparalleled success of the legendary "Diaghilev seasons" - ballet and opera productions in Russia, France and other countries. The exhibition, timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the outstanding master, shows about 100 paintings, graphic and theatrical and decorative works from the collections of the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery and other museum collections.
Since the mid-1890s, Lev Bakst has been a member of the circle of writers and artists who have united around Sergei Diaghilev and Alexander Benois, and later becomes one of the initiators of the creation of the World of Art society, one of the most striking phenomena in Russian culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. . In the works of the 1890-1900s - in picturesque portraits and landscapes, examples of book and magazine graphics and compositions related to the image of the ancient world, the traditions of realistic art, the clarity of the plastic language of neoclassicism, the sophistication of the line and the bright decorativeness of the Art Nouveau style were organically combined.
A close interest in the heritage of antiquity, the Ancient and Medieval East, was most fully revealed in the stage works of Bakst of the late 1900-1910s, associated with the "Diaghilev seasons" (design of the ballet productions "Cleopatra", "Scheherazade", "Carnival", "Narcissus" , "Daphnis and Chloe" and others). Sketches of costumes and scenery, marked by the highest craftsmanship, had a tremendous impact on the development of theater art throughout the world, becoming a unique example of a combination of bold innovation and close interest in the artistic traditions of the distant past.
