The world of art is the theme of the history of the 18th century. Creative art association "world of art

Russian Art Association. Formed in the late 1890s. (officially in 1900) on the basis of a circle of young artists and art lovers, headed by A. N. Benois and S. P. Diaghilev. As an exhibition union under the auspices of Mir magazine ... ... Art Encyclopedia

Association (1898 1924) of artists, created in St. Petersburg by A.N. Benois and S.P. Diaghilev. Representatives of the World of Art rejected both the academicism and the tendentiousness of the Wanderers; relying on the poetics of symbolism, they often went into the world of the past ... Modern Encyclopedia

"World of Art"- "WORLD OF ART", an association (1898 1924) of artists, created in St. Petersburg by A.N. Benois and S.P. Diaghilev. Representatives of the "World of Art" rejected both the academicism and the tendentiousness of the Wanderers; relying on the poetics of symbolism, they often ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

E. E. Lansere. Ships of the time of Peter I. Tempera. 1911. Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow. "World of Art", Russian art association. Formed in the late 1890s. (officially in 1900) on the basis of a circle of young artists and art lovers ... Art Encyclopedia

- (1898–1904; 1910–1924), an association of St. Petersburg artists and cultural figures (A. N. Benois, K. A. Somov, L. S. Bakst, M. V. Dobuzhinsky, E. E. Lansere, A. Ya. Golovin, I. Ya. Bilibin, Z. E. Serebryakova, B. M. Kustodiev, N. K. Roerich, ... ... Art Encyclopedia

- "World of Art", Russian art association. Formed in the late 1890s. (officially in 1900) in St. Petersburg on the basis of a circle of young artists and art lovers, headed by A. N. Benois and S. P. Diaghilev. As an exhibition union under ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

"World of Art"- "World of Art", art association. Formed in the late 1890s. (the statute was approved in 1900) on the basis of a circle of young artists, art historians and art lovers (“self-education society”), headed by A. N. Benois and ... ... Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg"

An association of Russian artists who opposed the tendentiousness, partisanship and anti-aestheticism of their contemporary "leaders of public opinion", the dictates of the taste of academism and itinerantism. It took shape in the late 1890s in St. Petersburg on the basis of a circle ... ... Russian history

1) artistic association. Formed in the late 1890s. (the statute was approved in 1900) on the basis of a circle of young artists, art historians and art lovers (the “self-education society”), headed by A. N. Benois and S. P. Diaghilev. How … St. Petersburg (encyclopedia)

"World of Art"- WORLD OF ART art. during the Silver Age. It existed from 1898 to 1927 intermittently, taking different organizations. forms: magazine, exhibition, about artists. The 1st period of M.I. Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary

Books

• World of Art. 1898-1927, G. B. Romanov, This publication is dedicated to the 30-year period in the history of the association "World of Art". The publication contains portraits, biographies and works of artists. In preparing this encyclopedia for… Category: History of Russian art Publisher: Global View, St. Petersburg Orchestra,
• World of Art. Art Association of the early twentieth century, Vsevolod Petrov, `World of Art`, Russian art association. Formed in the late 1890s. (officially in 1900) in St. Petersburg on the basis of a circle of young artists and art lovers, headed by A. N. ... Category: History and theory of arts Publisher:

The artistic association "World of Art" announced itself by issuing a magazine of the same name at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The publication of the first issue of the journal "World of Art" in St. Petersburg at the end of 1898 was the result of ten years of communication between a group of painters and graphic artists headed by Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960).

The main idea of ​​the association was expressed in the article of the outstanding philanthropist and connoisseur of art Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (1872 - 1929) “Complex questions. Our imaginary decline. The main goal of artistic creativity was declared to be beauty, and beauty in the subjective understanding of each master. Such an attitude to the tasks of art gave the artist absolute freedom in choosing themes, images and means of expression, which was quite new and unusual for Russia.

The World of Art opened for the Russian public many interesting and previously unknown phenomena of Western culture, in particular Finnish and Scandinavian painting, English Pre-Raphaelite artists and graphic artist Aubrey Beardsley. Of great importance for the masters who united around Benois and Diaghilev was cooperation with symbolist writers. In the twelfth issue of the magazine for 1902, the poet Andrei Bely published an article "Forms of Art", and since then the largest symbolist poets have been regularly published on its pages. However, the artists of the "World of Art" did not close within the framework of symbolism. They strove not only for stylistic unity, but also for the formation of a unique, free creative personality.

As an integral literary and artistic association, the World of Art did not last long. Disagreements between artists and writers led in 1904 to the fact that the magazine was closed. The resumption in 1910 of the group's activities could no longer return its former role. But in the history of Russian culture, this association left the deepest imprint. It was this that switched the attention of the masters from questions of content to the problems of form and pictorial language.

A distinctive feature of the artists of the "World of Art" was the versatility. They were engaged in painting, and the design of theatrical productions, and arts and crafts. However, the most important place in their heritage belongs to graphics.

The best graphic works of Benois; among them, the illustrations for A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman" (1903-1922) are especially interesting. Petersburg became the main “hero” of the whole cycle: its streets, canals, architectural masterpieces appear either in the cold severity of thin lines, or in the dramatic contrast of bright and dark spots. At the climax of the tragedy, when Eugene is running from the formidable giant, a monument to Peter, galloping after him, the master paints the city with dark, gloomy colors.

The romantic idea of ​​opposing a lonely suffering hero and the world, indifferent to him and thus killing him, is close to Benois's work.

The design of theatrical performances is the brightest page in the work of Lev Samuilovich Bakst (real name Rosenberg; 1866-1924). His most interesting works are associated with opera and ballet productions of the Russian Seasons in Paris 1907-1914. - a kind of festival of Russian art, organized by Diaghilev. Bakst made sketches of scenery and costumes for the opera "Salome" by R. Strauss, the suite "Scheherazade" by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, the ballet "Afternoon of a Faun" to the music of C. Debussy and other performances. Especially remarkable are the sketches of costumes, which have become independent graphic works. The artist modeled the costume, focusing on the system of movements of the dancer, through lines and color, he sought to reveal the pattern of the dance and the nature of the music. In his sketches, the sharpness of vision of the image, a deep understanding of the nature of ballet movements and amazing grace are striking.

One of the main themes for many masters of the "World of Art" was the appeal to the past, longing for the lost ideal world. Favorite era was the XVIII century, and above all the Rococo period. The artists not only tried to resurrect this time in their work - they drew public attention to the true art of the 18th century, actually rediscovering the work of the French painters Antoine Watteau and Honore Fragonard and their compatriots Fyodor Rokotov and Dmitry Levitsky.

The images of the “gallant age” are associated with the works of Benois, in which the palaces and parks of Versailles are presented as a beautiful and harmonious world, but abandoned by people. Yevgeny Evgenievich Lanceray (1875-1946) preferred to depict pictures of Russian life in the 18th century.

With particular expressiveness, rococo motifs appeared in the works of Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869-1939). He early joined the history of art (father

artist was the curator of the Hermitage collections). After graduating from the Academy of Arts, the young master became a great connoisseur of old painting. Somov brilliantly imitated her technique in his paintings. The main genre of his work could be called variations on the theme of the "gallant scene". Indeed, on the canvases of the artist, the characters of Watteau seem to come to life again - ladies in magnificent dresses and wigs, actors of the comedy of masks. They flirt, flirt, sing serenades in the alleys of the park, surrounded by the caressing glow of the sunset light.

However, all the means of Somov's painting are aimed at showing the "gallant scene" as a fantastic vision that flared up for a moment and immediately disappeared. All that's left is a memory that hurts. It is no coincidence that among the light gallant play the image of death appears, as in the watercolor "Harlequin and Death" (1907). The composition is clearly divided into two planes. In the distance, the traditional “set of stamps” of Rococo: a starry sky, couples in love, etc. And in the foreground, there are also traditional mask characters: Harlequin in a colorful suit and Death - a skeleton in a black cloak. The silhouettes of both figures are outlined by sharp broken lines. In a bright palette, in a certain deliberate desire for a template, a gloomy grotesque is felt. Refined elegance and the horror of death turn out to be two sides of the same coin, and the painter seems to be trying to treat both with equal ease.

Somov managed to express his nostalgic admiration for the past especially subtly through female images. The famous work "The Lady in Blue" (1897-1900) is a portrait of the contemporary master artist E. M. Martynova. She is dressed in old fashion and is depicted against the backdrop of a poetic landscape park. The manner of painting brilliantly imitates the Biedermeier style. But the obvious morbidity of the heroine's appearance (Martynova soon died of tuberculosis) evokes a feeling of acute longing, and the idyllic softness of the landscape seems unreal, existing only in the artist's imagination.

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957) focused his attention mainly on the urban landscape. His St. Petersburg, unlike Benois' St. Petersburg, is devoid of a romantic halo. The artist chooses the most unattractive, "gray" views, showing the city as a huge mechanism that kills a person's soul.

The composition of the painting “The Man with Glasses” (“Portrait of K. A. Syunnerberg”, 1905-1906) is based on the opposition of the hero and the city, which is visible through a wide window. At first glance, the motley row of houses and the figure of a man with a face immersed in shadow seem isolated from each other. But there is a deep inner connection between the two planes. Behind the brightness of colors is the "mechanical" dullness of city houses. The hero is detached, immersed in himself, in his face there is nothing but fatigue and emptiness.

WORLD OF ART

"World of Art. To the 115th anniversary of the unification”. Painting, Kazan, Sandetsky Manor

Lobasheva Irina Faekovna - Candidate of Art History, Associate Professor of the branch of the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov in Kazan

“Our circle had no direction,
… instead of direction, we had taste”
A. N. Benois

"WORLD OF ARTS" (1898 - 1924) - an association of Russian artists, created in St. Petersburg at the end of the 19th century, declared itself a literary and art magazine of the same name (1899 -1904) and exhibitions (the last one took place in Paris in 1927). The Society of Artists "World of Art" arose and existed in St. Petersburg from 1898 to 1904, and was revived again in 1910.

Its founders are the artist, theoretician and art historian, museum specialist A.N. In addition to the main core, which included L. S. Bakst, M. V. Dobuzhinsky, E. E. Lansere, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, K. A. Somov, the World of Art included many St. Petersburg and Moscow painters and graphic artists (I. Ya. Bilibin, K. F. Bogaevsky, Ap. M. and V. M. Vasnetsov, A. Ya. Golovin, I. E. Grabar, K. A. Korovin, B. M. Kustodiev, N. K. Roerich, V. A. Serov and others). M. A. Vrubel, I. I. Levitan, M. V. Nesterov, as well as some foreign artists participated in the exhibitions of the society.

B. Kustodiev. "World of Art"

Sketch of an unrealized painting. Depicted (from left to right): I.E. Grabar, N.K. Roerich, E.E. Lansere, I.Ya. Bilibin, A.N. Benois, G.I. Narbut, N.D. Milioti, K.A. Somov, M.V. Dobuzhinsky, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, B.M. Kustodiev.
Year of creation -1916, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

The "World of Art" in different years included many artists of various beliefs and views, different creative methods and styles (by 1917, the membership of the society consisted of the maximum number of artists - more than 50 full members). All of them were united by the protest against the official academic art, which leveled the creative individuality, and the rejection of naturalism in art in the person of the late "Wanderers". In the history of Russian art, such a phenomenon as the "World of Art" became a turn towards the ideals of freedom of creativity, towards the establishment of aesthetic criteria and priorities for the artistic individuality of the creator's personality. Bearers of a high intellectual culture, the artists of the "World of Art" in their work turned both to the past (idealizing it and making fun of it), and to a wide range of areas of contemporary art (interior, theater, printmaking, books, etc.).

One of the main achievements of the association was the famous St. Petersburg graphic school of that time, which arose as a result of the creation of a special aesthetic environment by the World of Art, where the highest admiration for graphics as an art form was cultivated. This priority of graphics in many ways influenced the development of painting by typical representatives of this association, it acquired graphic features, became emphatically linear.

"WORLD OF ART"... Reflections on the famous largest association that arose in St. Petersburg at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, like a fancy stained-glass window, give rise to a voluminous, multidimensional and at the same time extremely aristocratic, ephemeral image of an amazing, deeply symbolic art world, which was created by the masters of this associations.

Alexandre Benois - "King's Walk" 1906

It is intricately, ornamentally in the spirit of Art Nouveau, various creative ideas of a large group of artists are intertwined. Their embodiment is surprising in variety: the magazines "World of Art", filled with refined aesthetics of modernity, which have become the most valuable rarity among specialists and collectors, paintings, where stylization and retrospective go hand in hand, theatrical scenery of the famous Russian seasons with innovative plastic and color solutions, original ballet and opera costumes.

The turning point of the era at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, the time of major socio-political upheavals, was reflected in all spheres of life in Russia, including the Russian culture of that time, which revealed itself in all its diversity and individuality. During these years, Russian artists are especially active in traveling abroad, getting acquainted with the latest trends in Western art, carefully studying everything new that is declared in such styles as German Art Nouveau, French Impressionism, Post-Impressionism. In the work of the most famous masters of that time: Serov, Vrubel, Bakst, it is impossible to single out any one “pure” line of the direction taken once and for all, intertwining intricately and closely, they demonstrate an intense search for a new creative method that meets the aspirations of the time. As the well-known art critic G. Yu. Sternin wrote, “the larger the artist was, the more difficult it was to determine his belonging to one or another style.”

One of the largest societies of this period was the World of Art group of artists (1898-1924), who opposed themselves to academism and itinerantism, promoting the aesthetic ideas of the synthesis of arts underlying the Art Nouveau style, and a special kind of retrospectivism based on a careful study of antiquity, in features of the heritage of the "golden" XVIII century. They drew inspiration from the history of Russia in the time of Peter the Great or France of the era of Louis XIV (A. N. Benois, E. E. Lansere, K. A. Somov), or they touched on even earlier Eastern, ancient or domestic pre-Christian cultures (L. S. Bakst, V. A. Serov, N. K. Roerich). At the same time, without touching on big historical topics, the masters focused their attention on the private aspects of the life of imperial persons, episodes of the court life of the 18th century or the life of pagan Rus', giving a peculiar artistic interpretation of these events, their own stylization from the angle of their contemporary vision, endowing the created images with a certain symbolic theatrical solution, play of associations.

On the example of the pictorial collection of domestic art of the Pushkin Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, demonstrated for the first time as part of the 115th anniversary of the "World of Art" so completely and deployed from the angle of the evolution of this society, all the complexity and versatility of its development becomes apparent. The peculiarity of the museum collection is that most of the masters and their paintings included in this exhibition are better known in the history of Russian art in connection with other artistic movements and associations. Meanwhile, many of them, not being typical representatives of the World of Art, participated in its activities to varying degrees, and therefore it is very interesting to trace the development of certain stylistic trends in the work of various masters, to discover their explicit and hidden relationships. The pictorial exposition of the exhibition, revealing the diversity and relationships of the leading trends of that time in the history of this association, presents about 50 works. Many of them are either shown for the first time, or have not participated in museum exhibitions for a long time, so for museum visitors, getting to know them will be a kind of discovery of new creative facets of a particular painter.

The main group of artists of the "World of Art" formed around the magazine of the same name in 1898-1903, when, in parallel with the release of this publication, which covered various aspects of art, literature, philosophy of that time and was distinguished by exquisite graphic design, S. P. Diaghilev and A. N. Benois organized large art exhibitions. The collection of the Pushkin Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan includes the leaders of the association - the ideologist and theorist of the group A. N. Benois, its members K. A. Somov, A. Ya. Their works, regardless of genre, are marked by a penchant for theatricalization, filled with the aesthetics of the Art Nouveau style, which arose on the platform of European neo-romanticism and, as mentioned above, gave rise to various types of stylization in Russian painting.

A. Ya. Golovin "The Woman in White" (the second name is "Marquise")

Made in the technique of pastels “Oranienbaum” (1901) by A. N. Benois, “Woman in White” (the second name is “Marquise”) by A. Ya. harmony the world of past centuries, the world of the XVIII century. Of course, such an appeal to the past demonstrated a kind of denial, rejection of the real surrounding world and became the main motive for the works of the association of that time. In many ways, the technique of performance contributed to the creation of such abstract, symbolic, refined images. Pastel, which was very much loved by the world of art, its special boundary between painting and graphics gave the desired effect when the painting acquired both a clear graphic quality and a fluid, fluid softness of presentation characteristic of modernity. Close to this style are the oil paintings “Bosquet” (1901) by K. A. Somov, used by the artist when working on his famous painting “The Mocked Kiss” (1908), stored in the State Tretyakov Gallery, as well as the landscape of P. I. Lvov “Gray Day” .

P. I. Lvov “Landscape. Gray day"

The search for harmony, an ideal world was at the heart of the creations of V. E. Borisov-Musatov. And although in most of the artist's works, behind all the understatement, the language of allegories and comparisons, the same time of the 18th - early 19th centuries is read, he himself did not tie his works to a specific time, he said that "this is just a beautiful era." Almost always the artist's beautiful world is a fading, "sunset", disappearing world. We find a direct embodiment of this in V. E. Borisov-Musatov’s painting “Harmony” (1897), a sketch version of the painting of the same name from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery. The artist was not formally a member of the association - the World of Arts themselves at first "did not see" him, later recognizing the originality of the master's creative aesthetics. However, he was always close to their aspirations.

V. E. Borisov-Musatov "Harmony" (1897)

F. E. Rushchits "Stream"

Landscape "Oranienbaum" (1901) by A. N. Benois, very typical for the master's work, which, despite the easel solution, may well be considered as a sketch of a theatrical scenery, participated in the exhibition "World of Art" in 1902. At the same exhibition, the landscape “Stream” by the Baltic and Polish artist F. E. Ruschits, who gravitated towards modernist trends, was a member of the society of Polish artists of modernist orientation “Shtuka” (“Art”) was presented. This finds expression in the landscape under consideration, written, of course, in a realistic key, but served with the deepest nostalgic emotional sound, so characteristic of the World of Art, giving rise to a sad melody of the irrevocably leaving past. A similar combination of realistic traditions and modern techniques can be found in the large pictorial vertical portrait of A. E. Wiesel-Strauss (early 1900s) by the artist E. O. Wiesel.

One of the main figures in the artistic life of Russia at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries was the personality of V. A. Serov, an unsurpassed master of Russian portraiture, who actively participated in the activities of the "World of Art" at the stage of the formation of society. In the early period of his work, a work was written on a theme from ancient mythology "Iphigenia in Taurida", created in the early 1890s, long before the artist's famous trip to Greece with his friend L. S. Bakst. It, like the examples just considered, can fully serve as an illustration of the problem of the “stylistic situation” raised above, since it also combines various stylistic phenomena.

V.A. Serov "Iphigenia in Tauris" 1893

It is known that many masters of the "Union of Russian Artists" (1903-1923), one of the largest, along with the "World of Art", art associations at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, which arose with the lively participation of the latter, were also included in the circle of the World of Art. Naturally, they did not escape the influence of the creative principles of their older counterpart in St. Petersburg, especially at the beginning of the Union's activities, when the artists of both groups were exhibited at general exhibitions of this newly formed association. The process of such mutual influence can be clearly traced in the analysis of the paintings of such major representatives of the "Union" as K. A. Korovin, B. M. Kustodiev, S. Yu. Zhukovsky, I. I. Brodsky, S. V. Malyutin, I. E. Grabar, who were in the "World of Art" or participated in its exhibitions. In turn, the leaders of the World of Art, despite all the disagreements with the artists of the Union, absorbed the new artistic ideas they brought.

"K.A. Korovin "Roses" (1916)

K. A. Korovin, a wonderful colorist, a brilliant master of easel and theatrical and decorative painting, is presented in the exposition with a still life “Roses” (1916), painted temperamentally and juicy, with a wide pasty brushstroke. One of the main members of the "Union of Russian Artists", he was the central figure of Russian impressionism. It is impossible not to note the emphasized theatricality in the staging of the museum still life, close to the style of still life paintings by A. Ya. miriskusniki.

Another significant artist of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, Osip Braz, also a member of the World of Art and the Union of Russian Artists, is represented by the magnificent canvas Lady in Yellow. The use of an unusual angle and the magnificence of the coloristic gradation of yellow are especially attractive in the portrait. The feeling of pouring warmth, soft sunlight around the figure and in a mirror reflection, enhanced by the contrast of color combinations, betray the artist’s clear predilection for warm colors and tones.

Another original female portrait at the exhibition is a peculiar example of the early painting of B. M. Kustodiev, who joined the World of Art association at the second stage of its existence. Portrait of a lady in blue. P. M. Sudkovskaya (1906) is unusual in the artist’s creative practice: in this work, the master created, first of all, an excellent “portrait of a dress”, setting the main goal of plasticity and coloring of the picturesque solution of the outfit. This large full-length portrait was undoubtedly painted by Kustodiev under the impression of the famous work of K. A. Somov “Lady in Blue” - a portrait of a contemporary of the master artist E. M. Martynova, in which Somov managed to especially subtly express nostalgic admiration for the past, this image acquired truly symbolic.

B.M. Kustodiev "Lilac" (1906)

There are several more paintings by Kustodiev in the collection of the Pushkin Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, and all of them are stylistically different. The theme of the theater was one of the leading ones in the work of the World of Arts. The small canvas “In the Theater” (1907 (?)) by Kustodiev attracts with its unusual angle - a look from the depths of the box of the theater behind the audience standing in strict tailcoats and top hats. The master uses an original way of backlighting, which, on the one hand, gives the silhouette of the building, the line of the light contour, and on the other hand, fills the canvas with special emotions, familiar to many theater lovers, the excitement of a viewer late for a performance, in a hurry to join the enduring bright theatrical celebration. A sketch for the painting of the same name "Lilac" (1906) - another quite often demanded plot (remember the famous "Lilac" by Vrubel) - also demonstrates stylistic interpenetration in the synthesis of semantic elegiac sounding with free pictorial presentation.

Zalevsky (?) "Portrait of an unknown"

A series of magnificent female images at the exhibition surprises with its magnificence and diversity. Softness, warmth, a special intimate feeling are shrouded in a portrait of his daughter, painted in pastel by S. V. Malyutin. The finest stylistic combinations, the aesthetic taste of the artist are well read in it. Another female portrait by the Polish artist Zalewski was also made in the pastel technique. The image of a lady of high society was created by the master with a special tactful accent, allowing us to see in it a certain perfect symbol, the female ideal of the Silver Age. Ephemerality, refined intellectuality, noble aristocracy - these are the qualities that together gave a penetrating image full of deep spirituality.

S. V. Malyutin - "Portrait of a daughter" 1912

The common ideological feature of the "Union of Russian Artists" was the assertion of Russian national identity in the landscape, historical painting, graphic art. Working in the open air, from nature, the painters of this direction created emotionally rich works that were based on the techniques of impressionism. Landscape and interior were the predominant genres of the masters of this association, especially Moscow painters, and acted as a creative laboratory where they searched for the most advanced pictorial approaches, scooped up new solutions.

One of the typical representatives of the "Union" was an artist of Polish origin S. Yu. Zhukovsky. The appeal to the era of past centuries, present in the painting "The Interior of the Library of a Landowner's House" (1916 (?)), brings the artist closer to the World of Art, in his work one can generally note the predominance of retrospective themes - types of old estates, terraces, interiors, in which there is always a light nostalgic note. The same motif is also present in "Winter Landscape" (1901(?)) by S. Yu. Zhukovsky, written in a sketchy manner. The transitional state of the fading winter evening is conveyed with brilliant plasticity, the mass of well-thought-out tonal gradations demonstrates how sensitively and carefully the artist seeks to convey the subtle beauty of such a simple and unpretentious landscape.

S. Yu. Zhukovsky. "The interior of the library of the landowner's house" (1916)

Love for such a "gray" Russian landscape was characteristic of artists of different "beliefs" in art, and each of them embodied it in his own way. Two spring landscapes by the artist S. F. Kolesnikov, who also participated in the World of Art exhibitions, are imbued with the same special subtle understanding of the state of nature. Such mood landscapes can be called harbingers of symbolism; in them, the authors focused precisely on the internal state of nature. We find the same attentive attitude to the state of nature in A.F. Gausha’s “Winter Landscape”, which attracts with its absolute softness of presentation, that special winter state when “everything around is covered with snow”, and is a vivid example of the master’s passion for impressionistic solutions.

I. E. Grabar "Morning tea" (1917)

I. E. Grabar is presented at the exhibition with two canvases of the museum collection “Morning Tea” (1917) and “Sunset” (1907), clearly demonstrating his predilections in painting in the field of impressionism and pointillism, which were directly opposite to the stylistic essence of Art Nouveau. Meanwhile, being artistically alien to this style, Grabar's educational initiatives invariably intersected with those of the World of Art. That is why, along with Roerich, Kustodiev, Bilibin, Dobuzhinsky, he was one of the most active participants in the "World of Art" in the second period, from 1910.

Pointillist artists (or, as they were also called, neo-impressionists), who brought the expressiveness of the painterly stroke to the point purity of paint, certainly came as close as possible to the symbolic expressiveness of their images. Such are the fabulous winter landscapes of N. V. Meshcherin in the museum collection, of which his “Frosty Night” (1908) is especially consonant with the aesthetics of modernity. This nocturnal winter fantasy, where each stroke is thought out, verified, like pieces of colored mosaic smalt, is created by all shades of blue and blue, resulting in a fragile crystal ringing image of a frosty winter fairy tale.

SYMBOLISM was extremely close to the philosophy of modernity, therefore, considering the works of the World of Art, we invariably analyze the manifestations of symbolic elements in them. In turn, reminiscences of the art of antiquity, the Orient, the Renaissance, Gothic culture, the heritage of the art of Ancient Rus' and the art of the 18th century, which had an original embodiment in the activities of the World of Art, were peculiarly manifested in this new artistic direction of the beginning of the 20th century, which was formed somewhat later.

N. K. Roerich and K. F. Bogaevsky, students of A. I. Kuindzhi, following the principles of their innovative teacher in the field of pictorial effects in the landscape genre, expressed symbolic ideas in their own way in the themes and plots they found, their original interpretation was deep character, contained ancient prototypes in its philosophical basis. These artists had points of contact with the "World of Art" and left a deep imprint on the activities of the association. For example, the role of Roerich in the revival of society at the second stage of its existence is widely known, when he headed the newly formed "World of Art", becoming its chairman, and played a significant organizational role in its further development. In general, at this stage of the society's activity it is difficult to single out any leading stylistic direction, modern has lost the role of a unifying style system, there were few true heirs of this system. The composition of the "World of Art" of the early 1910s included masters of various trends, primarily of a symbolic nature, due to which the society's exhibitions acquired the variegation and heterogeneity characteristic of that time.

N.K. Roerich "Mekheski - the moon people" (1915)

The history and mythology of different peoples of the Earth were the main inspiring beginning of the work of N. K. Roerich. Original in conception and execution, the paintings “The Varangian Sea” (1909) and “Mekheski - the Lunar People” (1915) are dedicated to the life of ancient civilizations. In compositions built on bold contrasting combinations of generalized large spots of color, where images of people are outlined laconically, but expressively, the artist brings his idea of ​​the relationship between the earthly and the cosmic to a powerful three-dimensional symbol. Museum canvases “Desert country. Theodosius (1903) and Mount St. George (1911) by the artist K.F. Bogaevsky, who was a member of the well-known Cimmerian school of painting, are also examples of symbolism. They are devoted to the theme that has become a favorite for the artist throughout his work. They show the native places of the master, painted as images of the old land, where the fantastic ideas of the painter are intertwined with the ancient pre-cultural history of the Crimea, giving rise to original images of the fabulous land of Feodosia.

K.F. Bogaevsky "Desert country. Feodosia" 1903

Examples of works of the symbolist direction are works from the museum collection of members of the Blue Rose art group (1907), which included N. P. Krymov, P. V. Kuznetsov, P. S. Utkin, N. N. Sapunov, M. S. Saryan, S. Yu. Sudeikin, N. D. Milioti, presented in this exposition. In the paintings of the artists of this group, conventionality, allegorism, decorativeness, and flatness were harmoniously combined. Striving for stylization, symbolism, sometimes for primitivization of the image in the spirit of lubok, children's creativity is a characteristic feature of the group's creativity. The general trend in the development of the artists of the group was the transition from impressionism to post-impressionism. V. I. Denisov adjoined them, the artist V. A. Galvich was very close to their creative aspirations, whose works are also shown at the exhibition.

It is significant that all of them - both World of Arts and Symbolists - were fascinated by the theater: the theater is present in easel works, the theater becomes a place of embodiment of professional ambitions. Many easel compositions of the Goluborozovites in the museum collection can be read as backdrops or sketches of theatrical scenes, images of the performance (works by N. P. Krymov, P. S. Utkin, N. N. Sapunov, S. Yu. Sudeikin, N. D. Milioti ). At the late stage of the existence of the association "World of Art", in 1917 and later, almost all of these masters were part of it or took part in exhibitions along with avant-garde artists.

Initially, V. E. Borisov-Musatov and M. A. Vrubel participated in the activities of the Blue Bears, whose art, both before and after, stood apart from this group, but developed on the same aesthetic platform of symbolism. Their art became the starting point for the Russian Symbolists in creating their own vision of the artistic process, and therefore it can be regarded as a kind of bridge between the traditional aesthetic attitudes of the World of Art modernity and the symbolism that was developed among the Blue Bearers.

M.A. Vrubel "Flight of Faust and Mephistopheles" (1896)

The monumental painting by M. A. Vrubel "The Flight of Faust and Mephistopheles" (1896) is the pride of the museum collection of Russian art. This large four-meter decorative panel is a sketch version of the famous panel of the same name for the Gothic office of the mansion of the merchants Vikula Alekseevich and Alexei Vikulovich Morozov in Vvedensky Lane in Moscow, built in 1878–1879 according to the project of the outstanding architects D. N. Chichagov and F. O. Shekhtel. The artist worked with large isolated spots of color, having a kind of linear edging akin to the stained glass technique. This found manner of writing, a special ornamental principle set the rhythm of the movement of spots and lines on the surface of the canvas, naturally linking Vrubel's images with Art Nouveau and, at the same time, giving them a special conditional and symbolic sound. Thus, Vrubel and the world of art were united by an understanding of the essence of artistic aesthetics, it is no coincidence that the master found himself among the consistent members of society, participating in the first exhibitions of the society.

V.G. Purvit "Old Tower" (until 1920)

In line with symbolism, the evolution of the work of artists of the World of Art, very different in their creative expression, proceeded. This can be clearly seen in the works of the future cubist and suprematist N. I. Altman presented at this exhibition, the representative and organizer of the exhibitions of the World of Art K. V. Kondaurov, the artist of the school of K. S. Petrov-Vodkin M. M. Nakhman. Next to these works, the exposition also demonstrates graphic works by well-known World of Arts artists B.I. » (grey cardboard, tempera)).
Meanwhile, The World of Art's long and complex history has been filled with events and turning points. In particular, through the prism of the last decade in the evolution of the World of Art, one can partly consider the artistic names of the museum collection, well known in the formation of other trends in Russian art, often not at all coinciding, and sometimes directly opposite, to the creative dominant of the association. An interesting example of this is the participation in the expositions of the association of some avant-garde artists even before the formation of their innovative creative aspirations. For example, the well-known primitivist, the author of the theory of Rayonism, M.F. Larionov, at the exhibition of the World of Art in 1906, presented the landscape Garden in Spring, clearly demonstrating the artist’s appeal to impressionism at an early stage of his work. Later, in the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary years, these masters, mostly representatives of the "Jack of Diamonds", performed at the exhibitions of the World of Arts with their characteristic avant-garde examples of creativity.

I.I. Mashkov "Flowers in a Vase", late 1900s

Only in one of these works, in the early still life of I. I. Mashkov “Flowers in a Vase” of the late 1900s, we are surprised to note the rarest combination of sophisticated arabesque stylizations of modernity with innovative form-building searches.

Most of the works presented at the exhibition were transferred to the Kazan City Museum in the 1920s - 1930s from the State Museum Fund and the capital's art museums (the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum), when sections of domestic pre-revolutionary art and local art were intensively formed in the museum. the edges. One of the largest receipts for all the years of the museum's existence occurred in 1920, when the Kazan City Museum turned twenty-five years old, and in honor of this anniversary date, the State Museum Fund sent to Kazan one hundred and thirty-two paintings by artists of different trends and styles at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries . The works of the associations "World of Art", "Union of Russian Artists", "Blue Rose" and others joined the museum collection. In subsequent years, the formation of the Russian collection of this period continued, and the museum developed a first-class collection of works from the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries.

MODERN (fr. moderne, from Latin modernus - new, modern) - a style in European and American art of the late XIX - early XX centuries. (other names are Art Nouveau (Art Nouveau in France and England), Jugendstil (Jugendstil in Germany), Liberty (Liberty in Italy)).

A. N. Benois - "Oranienbaum" 1901

The ideological and philosophical ground on which the "new art" of modernity grew was neo-romanticism, which at a new stage revived the romantic ideas of conflict between the individual and society. The original aesthetics of Art Nouveau was based on the idea of ​​a synthesis of the arts, which was based on architecture, uniting all types of art - from painting and theater to clothing models. One of the key principles of modern aesthetics was the principle of likening a man-made form to a natural one and vice versa. This was reflected in the architectural form, in the details of buildings, in the ornament, which received extraordinary development in modernity in all types of art and had the most diverse artistic expression. The prototype of forms and ornaments in the Art Nouveau system was both natural forms and features of the styles of the past, which underwent a radical rethinking due to stylization (based on special reference materials).

A. N. Benois - Screensaver of the magazine "World of Art"

Art Association
"World of Art"

Direct-Media, Moscow, 2016

ARTOTEKA, no. 36

The artistic association "World of Art" grew out of a gymnasium, and then a student circle, grouped in the late 1880s - early 1890s around the youngest son of the famous St. Petersburg architect N. Benois - Alexander, in the future an artist, book illustrator, stage designer, art historian, art critic.

Create a union

The artistic association "World of Art" grew out of a gymnasium, and then a student circle, grouped in the late 1880s - early 1890s around the youngest son of the famous St. Petersburg architect N. Benois - Alexander, in the future an artist, book illustrator, stage designer, art historian, art critic. Initially, it was a friendly circle, which the participants themselves called the "society of self-education." Even then, a feature typical of the "World of Art" in the future appeared - the desire for a synthetic coverage of the phenomena of art, culture as a whole. The interests of young people were extensive: painting, literature, music, history, they were especially passionate about the theater.

Many future employees of the magazine "World of Art" entered the circle: V. Nouvel, D. Filosofov, L. Rosenberg (later known as L. Bakst). The appearance of this edition was preceded by a great deal of preparatory work, connected primarily with the organization of exhibitions of foreign art in Russia. S. Diaghilev (1872−1929), later a major artistic figure and critic, who at some point began to play a prominent role in the friendly association, came to grips with it. It was he who set himself the goal of rallying outstanding Russian artists and making their work known in the West.

In February 1897, on the initiative of Diaghilev, an exhibition of watercolors from England and France opened in St. Petersburg. It exhibited the works of major masters from these two countries, there were especially many watercolors by Menzel, who influenced the chamber solution of historical themes by A. Benois and other artists of the World of Art.

But more significant were the exhibition of Scandinavian artists, which opened in the fall of the same year in the halls of the Academy of Arts, and the exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists at the Stieglitz Museum in January 1898. Thanks to his organizational talent, Diaghilev was able to attract not only the main members of the friendly circle, but also the largest Russian painters - M. Vrubel, I. Levitan, V. Serov, K. Korovin, M. Nesterov, A. Ryabushkin. Finnish masters led by A. Gallen and A. Edelfelt also presented their works. These expositions, in fact, turned out to be among the first exhibitions of foreign art in Russia and took place against the backdrop of overcoming established conservative views both among the artists themselves and in society as a whole. Diaghilev and his like-minded people had a passionate desire to more actively involve Russian art in the process of struggle against the stagnation of academism, which the northern countries had already experienced, and considered joint exhibitions with foreign masters as one of the most effective ways to renew art. The joint exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists was subsequently regarded by the World of Arts as "the first performance of the World of Art, but not yet under this name." A. Benois said that it was after her that he and his friends united in one group, called the "World of Art".

As already noted, it was the holding of exhibitions of foreign art that contributed to the emergence of the World of Art magazine. One of its virtues was that it turned out to be a free platform for discussions both in the field of painting and in the field of religion, philosophy, and literature. The most urgent problems of the intellectual life of Russia and the West were discussed on the pages of the publication. From the very beginning, the magazine took a firm place in the artistic life of Russia and gained a large number of fans. Its editor was S. Diaghilev, but A. Benois also played an active role, determining the artistic policy of the World of Art and outlining a whole aesthetic program: firstly, the recognition of the classics, thirdly, orientation to the idea of ​​the art industry of W. Morris with its principle of expediency. A. Benois suggested calling the journal "Renaissance" and called for "announcing persecution and death to decadence<…>which threatens to destroy the whole culture.

In the first issue of the magazine, published in 1899, S. Diaghilev's article "Difficult Questions" was published, in which the aesthetics of the "World of Art" association were formulated. From the very beginning, Diaghilev set as his goal "the analysis of all ideas in the field of aesthetics." In his opinion, aesthetic concepts and principles in modern painting have diverged from artistic practice: “This amalgamous history of the artistic life of the century had its main source in the terrible precariousness of the aesthetic concepts and requirements of the era. They were not for a moment firmly established, did not develop logically or freely. Artistic issues were entangled in the general mess of social upheavals ... ". He further notes that the utilitarian attitude towards art was dominant throughout the 19th century, although there were artistic and aesthetic trends that opposed the subordination of art to any external goals.

Diaghilev contrasted the principle of utilitarianism with the principle of aestheticism as the recognition of beauty as the highest and independent value; the author of the article argued that art is valuable in itself, that its goal is itself. A. Benois shared his comrade's conviction that beauty should be the highest criterion in the sphere of artistic appreciation.

Aestheticism is the recognition of the special, exclusive rights of aesthetics, the assertion of the self-sufficient role of beauty, its independence from morality, religion and politics. The concept of aestheticism was first widely reflected in the work of English Pre-Raphaelite artists. In the magazine "World of Art" publications about English art and the Pre-Raphaelites were constant. The editors declared their primary task to be the development of a new concept of culture, in which the central place was given to "Nietzschean" values: creativity, beauty, aesthetic feeling. The magazine was published from 1899 to 1904 under the editorship of S. Diaghilev and with the participation of the St. Petersburg group of artists, since 1901 I. Grabar joined it, who soon became one of the most influential critics in Russian art. Art exhibitions called "The World of Art" were held annually and brought together Russian and Western European masters.

Thus, the activity of the St. Petersburg association marked the beginning of a new era in the cultural life of the late 19th century.

The main core of the exhibitions of the "World of Art" were the works of the masters of the Diaghilev group (actually the World of Art) - A. Benois, K. Somov and their closest associates, who teamed up with Moscow painters - M. Vrubel, I. Levitan, V. Serov, K. Korovin , M. Nesterov, A. Ryabushkin. Miriskusniki involved major Russian masters in their activities, whose work developed independently of the ideological guidelines of the St. Petersburg group, and was also distinguished by its pictorial language.

A preferred interest in history and historical styles, nostalgia for bygone eras, the cult of beauty, romantic irony - these are the ideological features of the World of Art people. They influenced the establishment of their favorite circle of plots and motifs in their work.

The creative heritage of Alexander Nikolayevich Benois (1870−1960), the founder and historiographer of the World of Art, is rich and versatile. The result of Benoit's passion for books that tell about the life and customs of the court of the "Sun King", as well as the study of French art, was a series of wonderful watercolors. They depict the palace, the park, the walks of the king and courtiers, the bathing marquises. The first such cycle is called "The Last Walks of Louis XIV" and was created in 1897-1898, the second - "Versailles Series" 1905-1906. In the works "King's Walk" (1897, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), "Feeding the Fish" (1897, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), "Ceres Pool" (1897, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), “The King walks in any weather” (1898, collection of I. Zilberstein), as in other sheets from the “Versailles series”, although united by a single character - Louis XIV, the link is the image of the man-made nature of the royal residence. The Versailles sketches are dominated by the theme of the “ancient park”, in which the past comes to life. All works are connected by the object of the image and the unity of mood. In The King's Walk (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), nature is turned into a theatrical scenery, graceful green backstage opens up a small stage area. With lightness and clarity of silhouettes, the figures resemble toys inscribed in a picturesque landscape. The park lets the theatrical performance into its spaces, as into one of the halls of the palace.

Evgeny Evgenievich Lanceray (1875−1946) turned in his work to the Petrine era. His favorite topics were the construction of St. Petersburg and the new Russian fleet. The artist did not “restore” the historical setting, but created the image of the cold and windy brainchild of Peter I. One of the first was the expressive and dynamic painting “Petersburg at the Beginning of the 18th Century. Building of the Twelve Collegia” (1902, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), which depicts a rainy, windy day when the waters of the restless Neva beat against the pier of Vasilyevsky Island. A boat is docked at the pier. There are several human figures on the stairs, among which one can recognize Peter I, who came to inspect the newly erected building of the Twelve Collegia. The author recreates the atmosphere of the construction of St. Petersburg, architecture and nature are given in an inseparable unity. The landscapes “Boat of Peter I” (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) and “Ships under Peter I” (1911, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) are filled with wind, a sense of spaciousness, and the splashing of waves. Lansere turned to subsequent eras. So, he has the composition "Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in Tsarskoye Selo" (1905, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), in which the action takes place against the backdrop of the Tsarskoye Selo park and the Grand Palace, decorated with magnificent sculpture. Lansere humorously depicts the majestic procession of the Empress, accompanied by ladies-in-waiting. The unity of architecture and costumes reveals and emphasizes the exquisite elegance and coquettishness of both of these elements. By the will of the artist, the regular park became a living character, a witness to the ongoing action. The artist was able to convey the combination of frivolity and ceremonial formality, sensuality and rationalism inherent in the 18th century.

Valentin Alexandrovich Serov (1865−1911) was one of the main representatives of the artistic association "World of Art", not only a constant participant, but also the organizer of exhibitions of the "World of Art" along with A. Benois and S. Diaghilev.

The opinion of V. Serov was highly valued, he was considered as an indisputable authority. It was he who, at a critical time for the World of Art, in 1902, asked Emperor Nicholas II (at that time the artist was painting his portrait) for a monetary subsidy for the World of Art, thanks to which the magazine existed for another two years. Serov, remaining a master realist, implemented the artistic principles of unification in his work, and was fascinated by the Russian 18th century. An example of this is the painting "Peter II and Tsesarevna Elizabeth on a dog hunt" (1900, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), "Catherine II on a falconry", "Peter I on a dog hunt" (both - 1902, State Russian Museum, Petersburg), "Peter I" (1907, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). In the latter, the desire for theatricalization of the action, inherent in the works of A. Benois, is obvious. Conventionality, the sharpness of the image, the growth of decorativeness, the spectacular theatricalization of the image are characteristic of the works of the master, created in 1910 - "Portrait of Ida Rubinstein" (State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) and "The Rape of Europe" (options in different collections).

Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869−1939) was one of the central figures in the World of Art. His work with particular clarity expressed the basic principles of World of Art aesthetics: the master turned to historical retrospection, was inclined to an exquisite style, sophisticated sensuality, most of his works are theatrical. Fantasy landscapes of the artist appeared simultaneously with periods of work from nature. Retrospective visions, as his art developed, acquired more and more new aspects. The leitmotif of Somov's work was love scenes in the interior and in the bosom of nature. Somov chose the heroes of the Italian comedy of masks, beloved by the art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the heroes of the Fireworks series: the clever and successful Harlequin, the pale, weak-willed loser Piero, the frivolous Colombina. The love comedy that they play is a hint at the immutability and repetition of human passions. "Fireworks" (1904, private collection, Moscow) - a work from that series, made in gouache. The silhouettes of a lady and a gentleman in the foreground with their outfits and headdresses are reminiscent of the 18th century. Most of the picture is occupied by the sky with a bright sheaf of fireworks shooting up, scattering golden lights. The depicted is perceived as a beautiful vision.

Somov's retrospective portraits have become a new phenomenon in Russian art. The famous painting "Lady in Blue" (1897−1900, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) is an image of a close friend of the artist, fellow student at the Academy of Arts E. Martynova. This work in 1900 appeared at the exhibition "World of Art" and became the first acquired from the master of the Tretyakov Gallery. By the will of the author, the model is transferred to the past, to an old park, devoid of historical concreteness. The whole figure of Martynova is written truthfully to the point of tangibility. The background is sustained in a conditional range, the bush is completely decorative, the characters in the background are also conditional. The landscape seems to be a memory of a harmonious past, rather than a real environment. The contradiction between the image of the heroine and the background is perceived as a fine line between the real and the ideal, dreams and reality.

Maria Vasilievna Yakunchikova (1870−1902) became a participant in the World of Art exhibitions more than once, and was engaged in the design of the magazine of the same name. The park of Versailles, so beloved by A. Benois, appeared in her works in the 1890s. But Yakunchikova perceived Versailles not like the rest of the World of Art - through the prism of historical memories or memoirs - but tried to convey the direct impression of the motive that struck her imagination. She does not dwell on the past. The conventionality of forms and colors, the principle of decorativeness are consonant with the works of the masters of the World of Art, although Yakunchikova undoubtedly used the discoveries of the French Impressionists in her paintings. In the landscape "Versailles" (1891, museum-estate of V. D. Polenov, Tula region), a huge green bush of trimmed greenery, located in the foreground, is illuminated by the rays of the setting sun. Sunlight and shadows convey the feeling of the evening and are reminiscent of the works of the Impressionists. Light and shadow for Yakunchikova are the spokesmen for polar psychological states. In her Versailles landscapes there is no irony and theatricality of A. Benois and K. Somov. Formal techniques - enlargement, generalization of volumes, fragmentation - enhance the elegiac mood, the viewer becomes a silent witness of the past in a real natural environment.

Yakunchikova painted not only landscapes. She, like the rest of the "World of Art", paid attention to ancient interiors. Many such paintings could be seen at World of Art exhibitions.

Such works bore the stamp of the era, and the depicted rooms of bygone times became not so much “portraits” of the old way of life, but an echo of the worldview of the people who created them (“portraits”), nostalgic for the lost beauty. They contrasted the world outside the window and the world inside the house with the quiet life of things and their involvement in human existence. We can also recall the exhibition "Modern Art" in 1903, in the organization of which the World of Art people took a direct part: they were the authors of the general concept of interiors, sketches of decoration details, decorative paintings and saw their task in creating "demonstrative interiors with all the furnishings, where the artists of the "World of Art" could put their taste for elegance and sense of style - all that was completely lost in the life of St. Petersburg"5.

Yakunchikova sought to convey to the viewer the beauty of the outgoing world of the estate in such works as Covers, Stairway to the Old House (1899, collection of A. S. Weber, Evian), From the Window of the Old House. Vvedenskoye” (1897, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). These motifs will become widespread in Russian art. The works are filled with additional meanings, the viewer has a feeling of tragedy. In the painting “Stairway to the Old House”, the author chooses the point of view, which would be a person who is about to climb the stairs. The cut composition is reminiscent of the work of A. Benois. The artist carefully examines the stairs, thoughtfully looks from one detail to another; notes with pity the traces of destruction left by time.

From the mid-1890s, Lev Nikolaevich Bakst (1866−1924), who later became one of the initiators of the creation of the World of Art, joined the circle of writers and artists who united around S. Diaghilev and A. Benois. He had versatile creative interests: he was engaged in portrait, landscape, book graphics, painted decorative panels. The true vocation of the master was theatrical and decorative painting, in which his talent manifested itself most clearly. Passion for old St. Petersburg, its life, costumes is evident in the illustrations for Gogol's "Nose" (1904, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), watercolors "Gostiny Dvor in the 1850s" (1905, private collection, St. Petersburg), gouaches "Shower "(1906, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). The last named work clearly expresses the features typical of the artistic practice of the World of Art - illustrativeness, retrospective stylization, ironic attitude to the past.

The panel "Vase (Self-portrait)" (1906, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) bears a noticeable reflection of Benois' Versailles landscapes and Somov's gallant scenes. In this work, there is no reference to past eras, which is typical for the artists of the "World of Art", the ambiguity of meaning is born in it as a result of the master's play with the plans of the picture and a single theme - a garden motif.

In Bakst's decorative panel "Ancient Horror" (1908, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), symbolist aesthetics, partly characteristic of the World of Art, found expression. A panorama of a landscape seen from a bird's eye view, illuminated by flashes of giant lightning, is presented. An archaic statue of the goddess Aphrodite rises above the ancient rocky land, flooded with a violent water element, with a frozen smile on her lips. Turning away from the dying world, the goddess remains calm and imperturbable. Some higher wisdom separates her from the surrounding insane chaos. In her hand, pressed to her chest, she holds a blue bird - a symbol of dreams and happiness. An ancient civilization perishes, only the beauty reigning over the world remains.

In 1902, an article by A. Benois "Picturesque Petersburg"6 appeared on the pages of the World of Art magazine, accompanied by many photographs of ancient buildings and drawings by E. Lansere, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, L. Bakst. The following year, the World of Art organized an exhibition The Jubilee Exhibition of Tsarskoye Selo (1910), the Historical Exhibition of Architecture (1911) and the exhibition Lomonosov and the Elizabethan Time (1912) were also of great importance in revealing the appearance of old Petersburg and in promoting its artistic values. Arts” sought to depict a city freed from everyday scenes, when architecture takes on the main role in creating its artistic image: in St. Petersburg, the resurrected past is intertwined with the features of the present.

In 1902, Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875−1946) became a member of the World of Art. Particularly impressive are his sheets depicting St. Petersburg in an emphatically unceremonial form, unusual in form and in their intense inner sound. These include urban landscapes - "Corner of St. Petersburg" (1904, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), "City" (1904, Kirov Regional Art Museum), "Old House" (1905, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). The city he saw is devoid of romantic flair. Dobuzhinsky depicts numerous apartment buildings with narrow windows and cramped courtyards, blank walls with ventilation grilles, similar to prison ones. The desertedness of his works is a special artistic technique that enhances the impression of loneliness and hopelessness.

The role of the urban landscape is significant in Dobuzhinsky's easel painting "The Man with Glasses" (1905−1906, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). This is a portrait of K. Syunnerberg, a poet and art critic close to the circle of the World of Art. Dobuzhinsky painted a friend in his apartment, from the window of which the city landscape was opened. The image of the window turned out to be dominant here. It allows you to combine the portrait of Sunnerberg and the urban landscape, consisting of vegetable gardens with piles of firewood, monotonous houses piled one on top of the other and factory chimneys that cover the horizon.

The name of Anna Petrovna Ostroumova-Lebedeva (1871−1955) is invariably associated with the majestic images of the urban ensembles of the city on the Neva. Both in engraving and in watercolor, the main theme in the artist's work was the urban landscape. She surprisingly accurately managed to guess the character of the city in the subtle rhythm of architectural forms, in a certain color inherent only to him. Each cycle has a unique color scheme. Undoubtedly, work in engraving left its mark on the style and character of Ostroumova-Lebedeva's watercolor painting. The brevity of expression, laconicism, the clarity of lines, characteristic of wood engraving, also manifested itself in a watercolor manner.

In 1901, for the magazine "World of Art", the artist completed the first series of engravings dedicated to St. Petersburg; one of the most famous sheets is “Petersburg. New Holland". In this work, as in many works, the artist depicted a winter city.

Dark planes created the silhouette of the arch in the neoclassical style of the famous monument, the feeling of snowy whiteness is conveyed by the whiteness of the paper itself. The monumentality of engraving is achieved by the selection and generalization of details. The techniques found - the calm precision of the form, the rhythmic balance of the composition - were developed by the artist in subsequent works. The Spit of Vasilevsky Island, the Rostral Columns, the Stock Exchange building, the Admiralty are her favorite pictorial motifs in her work.

Young artists who joined the main core of the "World of Art", reworking the creative concept of the association, became the successors of the work begun by Diaghilev.

As an exhibition organization, the "World of Art" managed to exist from 1899 to 1903. Moscow painters who took part in the exhibitions of the St. Petersburg association created their own group called "36 Artists". And in February 1903, during the fifth exhibition of the "World of Art" in St. Petersburg, it was decided to create a new society - the Union of Russian Artists. Many masters of the brush, who were part of the St. Petersburg group, became members of the Union of Russian Artists.

In 1904, the magazine "World of Art" also ceased to exist, for the publication of which A. Benois and S. Diaghilev no longer had enough money.

But S. Diaghilev continued his organizational activities. In 1905, he arranged an exhibition of Russian portraits in the Tauride Palace, and in 1906 - an exhibition of modern painting under the former name "World of Art", which included in the exposition the works of M. Vrubel, K. Korovin, M. Larionov, N. Sapunov, P. Kuznetsov and the already deceased Viktor Elpidiforovich Borisov-Musatov (1870−1905). The latter was especially close to the "World of Art" in terms of the images and techniques of his work, but during his lifetime he was not invited to the association's expositions. When the attitude to the work of Borisov-Musatov changed, he had already died. In 1902, the painting "Tapestry" (1901, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) was presented to the public, and then Diaghilev in his review called its author "an interesting artist", "curious and significant." But only four years later, in 1906, more than fifty works by Borisov Musatov were included in the last exhibition of the St. Petersburg association.

Since the second half of the 1900s, the World of Art did not officially exist, but the members of the World of Art maintained group cohesion, entering the Union of Russian Artists. After its split in October 1910, it was they who revived the association. Since 1910, the "World of Art" was also an exhibition organization, which consisted of artists of various directions. Such masters as N. Roerich, G. Narbut, S. Chekhonin, D. Mitrokhin, Z. Serebryakova, B. Kustodiev continued to develop the artistic principles of the senior World of Art artists. K. Petrov-Vodkin, M. Saryan, P. Kuznetsov, N. Altman, I. Mashkov are artists who turned out to be receptive to new phenomena and retained complete independence from the creative concepts that developed at the origins of the World of Art.

The position of chairman was held by Nicholas Roerich (1874−1947). From 1903 he was a regular participant in the exhibitions of the World of Art. Roerich was worried about Slavic pagan antiquity, the Scandinavian epic, and the religious legends of medieval Rus'.

Of interest are his Idols (State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) and Overseas Guests (1901, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), created in 1901, during the artist's stay in France. Features of stylization, the predominance of graphic techniques over pictorial ones, a decorative understanding of color make these works related to the works of the World of Art. In "Idols" the basis of the artistic solution is made up of decorative and graphic techniques characteristic of the Art Nouveau style, a ring composition, contour lines and local color spots play a decisive role. An ancient pagan temple is depicted - a place for prayers and sacrifices to the gods. In the middle of the temple rises the largest idol, around - smaller ones. The idols are decorated with bright ornaments and carvings. There are no figures of people, the landscape motif dominates. In the theatrical landscape scene, the majestic tranquility of nature and the beauty of the temple merge together. Roerich was attracted by the ability of people of the distant past to dissolve in nature, putting their own experiences and feelings into it.

Interest in Slavic antiquity is also evident in the work Overseas Guests. Elegant painted boats with colorful sails float along the river; the bow ends with the heads of dragons. The patterned adornments of the Varangian seafaring boat, colored shields, bright red sails are perfectly combined with the deep blue water and the lush greenery of the hills. The rhythm of the work is set by the diagonal composition and the use of ornament - linear and color. The motifs of the soaring wings of birds, the running wave formed the basis of the rhythm of "Overseas guests". The same pattern of soaring wings is repeated in the contours of the shores, and it seems that the earth is “flying” towards the ships. There is much in common between the “Guests from Overseas” and “Slavs on the Dnieper” (1905, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) both in composition and in coloring. The expressiveness of a drawing is based on its simplification and generalization; an important role is played in the paintings by the rhythmic beginning, bright color spots. Roerich chooses a high point of view on the landscape, when the outlines of the forests, the winding, bizarre coastline, indented by the bays, appear especially decorative and at the same time “fabulously” unusual (the artist also worked in the field of theatrical and decorative painting). The theme of the works, alien to modernity, demonstrates Roerich's attention to the ancient Russian artistic tradition and an underlined interest in the images and themes of Russian history.

Peasant antiquity, philistine-merchant Rus' are the main themes in the work of Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878−1927). He was known as a portrait painter, but in genre works he adhered to World of Art principles. In the paintings depicting numerous fairs, Shrovetide and festivities, the artist sang the beauty of Russian nature, folk customs and the breadth of the Russian people. Winter landscapes, against which cheerful Maslenitsa festivities take place, are sometimes enchanting in combinations of green-pink skies and dazzling blue snow. Among this brilliance of nature, costumes and flushed faces are especially festively bright. Kustodiev sets up many plots, reveals the relationship of the characters and at the same time shows the fair as a magnificent spectacle, which he admires together with the audience.

In 1910, the artist began working on a group portrait of members of the World of Art society for the Tretyakov Gallery, but never finished it. The master made only a sketch (1916−1920, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). Depicted (from left to right): I. Grabar, N. Roerich, E. Lansere, I. Bilibin, A. Benois, G. Narbut, N. Milioti, K. Somov, M. Dobuzhinsky, K. Petrov-Vodkin, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, B. Kustodiev.

Several preparatory sketches have also been preserved.

In 1911 Sergei Yurievich Sudeikin (1882−1946) became a member of the World of Art association. He had a close friendship with K. Somov. In many ways, Sudeikin repelled from the Somovskiy “marquis” in his works, which also reproduced the pastoral scenes of the gallant era: these are “Walking” (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), “Harlequin Garden” (1915−1916, Saratov State Art Museum named after A. . N. Radishcheva). The romantic plot often received from him a naive, primitive popular interpretation, contained elements of parody, grotesque, theatricality. Still lifes, such as "Flowers and Porcelain" (early 1910s, private collection, Moscow), also resemble a theatrical performance, a stage. The theme of the theater appeared more than once in Sudeikin's painting: he depicted ballet and puppet theater, Italian comedy and Russian Maslenitsa festivities. Theatrical and decorative art became the main business of the artist. S. Mamontov was the first to attract him to the design of opera performances in the Moscow Hermitage Theater. In 1911, the artist worked on ballet performances at the Maly Drama Theater in St. Petersburg, and in 1912, together with A. Tairov, at the St. Petersburg Russian Drama Theater. In 1913, Sudeikin participated in the Russian Seasons in Paris, completing the scenery and costumes for the ballets The Red Mask by N. Tcherepnin and The Tragedy of Salome by F. Schmidt.

Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova (1884−1967), who became a member of the World of Art association in 1911, chose folk themes, her paintings are distinguished by harmony, powerful plasticity, generalization of pictorial solutions. The artist owns a number of genre works dedicated to the work and life of peasants - Harvest (1915, Odessa State Art Museum), Whitening the Canvas (1917, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). Serebryakova's favorite technique is the choice for the composition of the high horizon, which makes the figures especially monumental and majestic.

In 1914, A. Benois was entrusted with the design of the Kazansky railway station in Moscow (not carried out), 3. Serebryakova was also involved in the work, along with E. Lansere, B. Kustodiev, M. Dobuzhinsky.

A deeply personal, feminine element also developed in the artist’s work, which was especially pronounced in her work on self-portraits: in them, the girl’s naive coquetry was replaced by an expression of a feeling of maternal joy, or by gentle poetic sadness. Such, for example, are the paintings “Behind the toilet. Self-Portrait (1909, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) and Self-Portrait with Daughters (1921, Rybinsk State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve).

Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin (1878−1939), who became a member of the association in 1911, met future like-minded people - P. Kuznetsov, P. Utkin, M. Saryan - at MUZhViZe. Petrov-Vodkin is an example of an artist who was looking for a synthesis of the modern artistic language with the cultural heritage of past eras. In 1912 he created the painting Bathing a Red Horse (State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). The canvas was first shown at the World of Art exhibition in 1912. In the work, an appeal to the images of ancient Russian art is obvious: the red horse refers to the motif of the Russian icon - the horse of St. George the Victorious. The central image, according to the plan, is not a rider, but a flaming red animal. The composition is balanced and static. Fascinate decorative, monumental nature of the canvas. A powerful, fire-like horse, full of restrained strength, enters the water, on it is a fragile boy with thin arms, a detached face, he clings to the animal, but does not restrain him - there was something disturbing, prophetic in this composition. The picture is not only about youth, beautiful nature or the joy of life, but also, perhaps, about the fate of Russia.

Pavel Varfolomeevich Kuznetsov (1878−1968) is an artist for whom the picturesque discoveries of Borisov-Musatov acquired special significance. The flesh of the visible world melts in his canvases, the picturesque visions are almost surreal, woven from images-shadows, denoting the subtle movements of the soul. Kuznetsov's favorite motif is the fountain, varying the theme of the eternal cycle of life, the Blue Fountain (1905, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). Kuznetsov preferred tempera, but used its decorative possibilities in a very peculiar way, as if with an eye on the techniques of impressionism, whitening the shades of color. Many works are designed in cold colors - gray-blue, pale lilac - the outlines of objects are vague, the image of space gravitates towards decorative conventions, for example, Mirage in the Steppe (1912, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), Evening in the Steppe (1912 , State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). A peculiar synthesis of still life and landscape is the painting "Morning" (1916, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). The artist was not yet thirty when his works were included in the exhibition of Russian art arranged by S. Diaghilev in Paris in 1906.

The early works of Nikolai Nikolaevich Sapunov (1880−1912), who came to the association from the Blue Rose symbolist group, were close to the aesthetic principles of the World of Art. In the spirit of the gallant festivities of the 18th century, the painting “Night Feast. Masquerade” (1907, Museum of Russian Art, collection of A. Ya. Abrahamyan, Yerevan). From the work of the masters of the "World of Art" Sapunov's works differ in their pictorial qualities and themes that are not associated with specific historical events. A large place in the artist's work was occupied by images of flowers, in their transfer he achieved real virtuosity, revealing his coloristic talent to the full. An example of this is the work Blue Hydrangeas (1907, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), Vases, Flowers and Fruits (1910, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). N. Sapunov's favorite motives were folk festivities and festivities with their traditional attributes, as in the canvases "Carousel" (1908, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), "Spring. Masquerade” (1912, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg).

Alexander Yakovlevich Golovin (1863−1930) from 1899 participated in exhibitions of the World of Art, from 1902 - a member of the association, collaborated in the magazine of the same name. In the late 1890s, he worked in Abramtsev's pottery workshop together with M. Vrubel, at whose suggestion he participated in the design of the facade of the Metropol Hotel. He designed the performances of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, in 1901 he moved to St. Petersburg, from 1902 he served as chief decorator of the Imperial Theaters and consultant to the directorate on artistic issues. Golovin collaborated with the Alexandrinsky and Mariinsky theaters, created portraits of artists, actors in roles, ceremonial portraits, landscapes. In portrait painting, he sharpened the techniques of theatricalization of the image. Often the artist transferred his heroes to the theater setting and illuminated them with the light of the footlight, for example, in the “Portrait of the Artist D. Smirnov as the Cavalier de Grieux in J. Massenet’s opera “Manon” (1909, State Theater Museum named after A. Bakhrushin, Moscow) or in "Portrait of F. Chaliapin in the role of Boris Godunov in M. Mussorgsky's opera "Boris Godunov" (1912, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). Decorativeness, colorfulness, sophistication of the graphic solution are typical for the works of the master. Favorite in the work of Golovin were ornamental plant motifs, which are found in abundance on ceramic products according to his sketches, picturesque panels, theater scenery and even portraits.

Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar (1871−1960) from 1901 - a member of the association, from 1902 - a participant in the exhibitions "World of Art". He was one of those who left the Union of Russian Artists in 1910 and participated in the organization of an exhibition association called "The World of Art" in the same year. Even during his studies, Grabar wrote articles and reviews on art for the famous magazines Niva, Dragonfly, World of Art. The nature of central Russia and the Moscow region was one of the main themes of his pictorial work. All Grabar's works are filled with harmony, poetry, cheerful mood. Spectacular, bright, textured painting is combined with the invariable beauty of the composition and color. Grabar sought to capture the elusive variability of the "seasons". He was especially fond of winter landscapes: "February Blue" (1904, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), "March Snow" (1904, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). In search of ways to convey the light and color power of nature, he used the achievements of French impressionist artists, but he was never a direct follower of their direction. In addition to landscape works, Igor Emmanuilovich created many still lifes. He also wrote monographs on the work of V. Serov and I. Repin, the autobiographical book “My Life”, which tells about the artistic life of Europe and Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For twelve years - from 1913 to 1925 - Grabar was the director of the Tretyakov Gallery. Over the years, a lot of work has been done to inventory the gallery, replenish its funds, hold exhibitions, and publish the first scientific catalog. Interest in Russian history, monuments of the past, icon painting connected him with A. Benois, M. Dobuzhinsky, E. Lansere, B. Kustodiev, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva and N. Roerich. Grabar is the author of a number of monographs on Russian artists. He set himself the task of restoring the sequence of development of the Russian national school, presenting the work of major Russian artists.

In 1924, the last exhibition of the association "World of Art" took place, at which works by Benois, Somov, Dobuzhinsky, Golovin, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Kustodiev, Serebryakova were hung nearby.

In Paris in 1927, a group of Russian émigrés tried to gather compatriot artists at an exhibition called The World of Art, which was attended by former members of the association, headed by M. Dobuzhinsky. The idea of ​​recreating the association, which arose among the Committee of Russian Emigration, did not find support even from A. Benois, who refused to participate in this exhibition. In the early 1930s, members of the World of Art of all generations who had emigrated from Russia maintained friendly ties with each other and performed together at exhibitions of Russian art in Paris, Belgrade, and Brussels. But in modern Russian artistic life, the World of Art, unfortunately, no longer existed.

Book graphics of the World of Art

The most complete and vivid embodiment of the creative aspirations of the masters of the St. Petersburg association was found in the artistic design of books and theatrical (opera and ballet) stages.

Through the efforts of the artists of the "World of Art" the artistic design of the book was brought to a high level, they approved a new understanding of its beauty and artistry. The magazine "World of Art" is a large-format publication, all elements of the cover and page decoration of which were coordinated in the unity of style. The elegant calligraphy of the titles, the elegance of the vignettes, the matte yellowish laid paper, and the color printing made it a luxury item. In August 1898, M. Yakunchikova, at the request of S. Diaghilev, began to collaborate with the World of Art. She made the cover for the edition: the combination of the patterned landscape and the expression of the silhouette of a swan emphasized the flatness of the cover and harmonized perfectly with the stylized type. And although the first issue was designed by K. Korovin, later the editors nevertheless returned to the drawing by M. Yakunchikova.

All the printed publications, in the artistic design of which the World of Art specialists participated, were distinguished by a refined taste.

Petersburg, its history, its reflection in poetry, literature, architecture became the main theme in the book graphics of A. Benois. He made numerous illustrations for Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman (1916, 1921−1922, State Russian Museum St. Petersburg; All-Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin, Moscow; State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, Moscow; private collections in Moscow and St. Petersburg)7. Benois' graphics created an organic unity with Pushkin's text. The illustrations of the introduction were connected with the motives of the art of Pushkin's time, since the image of a classically clear city with its architectonic clarity of lines was recreated in the verses. In subsequent illustrations, the compositions acquire dynamics, the graceful harmony, the chased logic of the urban landscape disappear. Eugene's duel with the rider ends with a dramatic ending: formidable waves rising to the sky, slanting rain and the triumphant silhouette of the monument.

The image of the city becomes the leitmotif of the graphic interpretation of the poem. Granite embankments, the bulk of palaces, the scope of the squares - on everything lies Benois's loving attitude towards the creation of Peter. But the image is born not only of the beautiful capital, but of the city of tragic hopelessness, formidable and ruthless.

M. Dobuzhinsky spoke more than once about how he was excited by the works of Dostoevsky. In his illustrations for "White Nights" (1923), Petersburg becomes the main character, in accordance with the text of the work. Small figures, almost dissolved in the dusk of the streets, emphasized the general lyrical mood inherent in this work. Although the black-and-white sheets were distinguished by strict graphics, Dobuzhinsky conveyed the ghostly atmosphere of the white night. He avoided ornamentality, but the whiteness of the paper contrasted with the heavy ink stains, thus creating a decorative effect of the drawings. The city seems deadly empty, a witness to the spiritual drama of a person, personifies the spiritual world of the heroes. The artist revealed the emotional structure of Dostoevsky's story with the help of images of his own creativity - urban landscapes.

Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (1876−1942) - a representative of the World of Art, who completely turned to book graphics. Despite the fact that Bilibin's work outwardly opposes the Westernizing orientation of most of the artists of the World of Art, the influence of English graphics, French Art Nouveau and Japanese engraving on his work is very noticeable. The artist's works are distinguished by the beauty of the patterned pattern, the exquisite decorativeness of color combinations, the subtle visual embodiment of the world, the combination of bright fabulousness with a sense of folk humor. He emphasized the plane of the book page with a contour line, lack of lighting, coloristic unity, a conditional division of space into plans and a combination of different points of view in the composition. The master designed Russian folk tales, epics. The illustrations for Pushkin's The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1905, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) are significant; this tale provided rich food for Bilibino's imagination. With amazing skill and great knowledge, the artist depicted ancient costumes and utensils in multicolored paintings of ancient Russian life. It should be noted that in 1902-1904, on the instructions of the ethnographic department of the Russian Museum, Bilibin traveled around the Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Olonets and Tver provinces, collecting works of folk art and photographing monuments of wooden architecture. With his works, the master brought monuments of ancient Russian art and peasant artistic craft into the sphere of world art interests.

In 1901, Georgy Ivanovich Narbut (1886−1920) moved to St. Petersburg and met Bilibin; he took him under his protection, introducing him into the circle of the World of Art. Narbut made his debut in 1907 with illustrations for children's books, which immediately brought him fame: great success was "Dance, Matvey, do not spare bast shoes" (1910) and two books with the same name "Toys" (1911); in all three he masterfully used stylized images of Russian folk toys. In these illustrations, the careful outline drawing, subtly colored with watercolors, still bore traces of Bilibin's influence. In the design of fairy tales and fables, Narbut often used a silhouette drawing in combination with color.

Dmitry Isidorovich Mitrokhin (1883−1973) illustrated several children's books, including "Little Flour" by V. Gauf (1912), "Roland the Squire" by V. Zhukovsky (1913). Each of them was exemplary in terms of the impeccability of the graphic style and the unity of drawings, inscriptions and ornaments.

The artists of the World of Art, having renewed traditions, revived illustrative drawing and design graphics in Russia, created a consistent system of book design. With their work, the masters contributed to the improvement of the culture of book design and influenced the development of Russian graphics in the first quarter of the 20th century.

Art Association "World of Art"

World of Art (18981924) an artistic association formed in Russia in the late 1890s. Under the same name, a magazine was published, published since 1898 by members of the group. The founders of the "World of Art" were the St. Petersburg artist A. N. Benois and the theater figure S. P. Diaghilev. It loudly declared itself by organizing the "Exhibition of Russian and Finnish Artists" in 1898 at the Museum of the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron A. L. Stieglitz. The classical period in the life of the association fell on 19001904. at that time, the group was characterized by a special unity of aesthetic and ideological principles. Artists organized exhibitions under the auspices of the World of Art magazine. After 1904, the association expanded and lost its ideological unity. In 19041910. most of the members of the "World of Art" were part of the Union of Russian Artists. After the revolution, many of its leaders were forced to emigrate. The association actually ceased to exist in 1924. The artists of the World of Art considered the aesthetic principle in art to be a priority and strove for modernity and symbolism, opposing the ideas of the Wanderers. Art, in their opinion, should express the personality of the artist.

Artists included in the association:

Bakst, Lev Samoilovich

Roerich, Nicholas Konstantinovich

Dobuzhinsky, Mstislav Valerianovich

Lansere, Evgeny Evgenievich

Mitrokhin, Dmitry Isidorovich

Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Anna Petrovna

Chambers, Vladimir Yakovlevich

Yakovlev, Alexander Evgenievich

Somov, Konstantin Andreevich

Zionglinsky, Jan Frantsevich

Purwit, Wilhelm

Syunnerberg, Konstantin Alexandrovich, critic

"Group portrait of the members of the association "World of Art"". 19161920.B. M. Kustodiev.

portrait - Diaghilev Sergei Petrovich (1872 1925)

Sergei Diaghilev was born on March 19 (31), 1872 in Selishchi, Novgorod province, in the family of a military, hereditary nobleman Pavel Pavlovich Diaghilev. His mother died a few months after the birth of Sergei, and he was raised by his stepmother Elena, daughter of V. A. Panaev. As a child, Sergei lived in St. Petersburg, then in Perm, where his father served. Father's brother, Ivan Pavlovich Diaghilev, was a philanthropist and founder of a musical circle. In Perm, at the corner of Sibirskaya and Pushkin (former Bolshaya Yamskaya) streets, the ancestral home of Sergei Diaghilev has been preserved, where the gymnasium named after him is now located. The mansion in the style of late Russian classicism was built in the 50s of the XIX century according to the project of the architect R. O. Karvovsky. For three decades, the house belonged to a large and friendly Diaghilev family. In the house, called by contemporaries "Perm Athens", the city intelligentsia gathered on Thursdays. Here they played music, sang, played home performances. After graduating from the Perm gymnasium in 1890, he returned to St. Petersburg and entered the law faculty of the university, while studying music with N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1896, Diaghilev graduated from the university, but instead of practicing law, he began a career as an artist. A few years after receiving his diploma, together with A. N. Benois, he created the World of Art association, edited the magazine of the same name (from 1898 to 1904) and wrote art criticism articles himself. He organized exhibitions that caused a wide response: in 1897, the Exhibition of English and German watercolors, introducing the Russian public to a number of major masters of these countries and modern trends in the fine arts, then the Exhibition of Scandinavian artists in the halls of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, the Exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists in the Stieglitz Museum (1898) the World of Art themselves considered their first performance (Dyagilev managed to attract to participate in the exhibition, in addition to the main group of the initial friendly circle from which the World of Art association arose, other major representatives of young art Vrubel, Serov, Levitan, etc.), Historical and art exhibition of Russian portraits in St. Petersburg (1905); Exhibition of Russian art at the Autumn Salon in Paris with the participation of works by Benois, Grabar, Kuznetsov, Malyavin, Repin, Serov, Yavlensky (1906) and others.

Benois Alexander Nikolaevich (1870 1960)

Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (April 21 (May 3), 1870 February 9, 1960) Russian artist, art historian, art critic, founder and main ideologist of the World of Art association. Born April 21 (May 3), 1870 in St. Petersburg, in the family of Russian architect Nikolai Leontyevich Benois and Camilla Albertovna Benois (daughter of architect A.K. Kavos). He graduated from the prestigious 2nd St. Petersburg Gymnasium. For some time he studied at the Academy of Arts, also studied fine art on his own and under the guidance of his older brother Albert. In 1894, he began his career as a theorist and art historian, writing a chapter on Russian artists for the German collection History of Painting of the 19th Century. In 18961898 and 19051907 he worked in France. He became one of the organizers and ideologists of the artistic association "World of Art", founded the magazine of the same name. In 1916-1918, the artist created illustrations for A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman". In 1918, Benois headed the Art Gallery of the Hermitage and published its new catalogue. He continued to work as a book and theater artist, in particular, he worked on the design of BDT performances. In 1925 he took part in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. In 1926, Benois left the USSR without returning from a business trip abroad. He lived in Paris, worked mainly on sketches of theatrical scenery and costumes. Alexander Benois played a significant role in the productions of S. Diaghilev's ballet enterprise "Ballets Russes", as an artist and author director of performances. Benois died on February 9, 1960 in Paris.

Portrait of Benois

"Self-portrait", 1896

- Second Versailles series (1906), including:

The earliest of Benoit's retrospective works are related to his work at Versailles. By 1897-1898 there is a series of small paintings made in watercolor and gouache and united by a common theme - "The last walks of Louis XIV". The second Versailles series by Benois, created in 1905-1906, is much more extensive than the "Last Walks of Louis XIV" and is more diverse in content and technique. It includes sketches from nature painted in the Versailles park, retrospective historical and genre paintings, original "fantasies" on architectural and landscape themes, images of court theatrical performances in Versailles. The series includes works in oils, tempera, gouache and watercolor, drawings in sanguine and sepia. These works can only conditionally be called a "series", since they are connected with each other only by a certain unity of mood that prevailed at the time when Benoit, in his words, was "drunk with Versailles" and "completely moved into the past", trying to forget about tragic Russian reality in 1905. Here the artist seeks to provide the viewer with as much factual information as possible about the era, about the forms of architecture, about the costumes, somewhat neglecting the task of figuratively and poetically recreating the past. However, the same series includes works that are among the most successful works of Benois, deservedly enjoying wide popularity: "Parade under Paul I" (1907, State Russian Museum); Art Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan), "Petersburg Street under Peter I" (1910, private collection in Moscow) and "Peter I on a walk in the Summer Garden" (1910, State Russian Museum). In these works one can notice some change in the very principle of the artist's historical thinking. Finally, not monuments of ancient art, not things and costumes, but people, fall into the center of his interests. The multi-figure historical and everyday scenes painted by Benois recreate the appearance of a past life, seen as if through the eyes of a contemporary.

- "King's Walk" (TG)

48x62

Paper on canvas, watercolor, gouache, bronze paint, silver paint, graphite pencil, pen, brush.

State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

In the painting Walk of the King, Alexandre Benois takes the viewer to the brilliant park of Versailles from the time of Louis XIV. Describing the king's walks, the author ignored nothing: neither park views with garden architecture (they were painted from life), nor theatrical performances, very fashionable in ancient times, nor everyday scenes drawn after a thorough study of historical material. King's Walk is a very effective work. The viewer meets with Louis XIV, walking around his brainchild. It is autumn in Versailles: the trees and shrubs have shed their leaves, their bare branches look lonely into the gray sky. The water is calm. It seems that nothing can disturb the quiet pond, in the mirror of which both the sculptural group of the fountain and the decorous procession of the monarch and his entourage are reflected. Against the backdrop of an autumn landscape, the artist depicts a solemn procession of the monarch with his courtiers. Plane modeling of marching figures seems to turn them into ghosts of a bygone era. Among the court retinue, it is difficult to find Louis XIV himself. The Sun King is not important to the artist. Benois is much more concerned about the atmosphere of the era, the breath of the Versailles park from the time of its crowned owner. This work is included in the second cycle of paintings resurrecting scenes of Versailles life of the "Sun King" era. "Versailles" by Benois is a kind of landscape elegy, a beautiful world, presented to the eye of a modern person in the form of a desert stage with dilapidated scenery of a long-played performance. Previously magnificent, full of sounds and colors, this world now seems a little ghostly, shrouded in graveyard silence. It is no coincidence that Benois depicts the Versailles park in the autumn and at the hour of bright evening twilight in The King's Walk, when the leafless "architecture" of a regular French garden against the background of a bright sky turns into a transparent, ephemeral building. The old king, talking to the lady-in-waiting, accompanied by the courtiers marching at precisely specified intervals behind and in front of them, like the figures of an old clockwork clock to the light chime of a forgotten minuet, slide along the edge of the reservoir. The theatrical nature of this retrospective fantasy is subtly revealed by the artist himself: he revives the figurines of frisky cupids inhabiting the fountain, they comically depict a noisy audience, freely located at the foot of the stage and staring at the puppet show played by people.

- "Marquise's Bath"

1906

Russian picturesque historical landscape

51x47.5

cardboard, gouache

The painting "Marquise's Bath" depicts a secluded corner of the Versailles park hidden among dense greenery. The rays of the sun, penetrating this shaded shelter, illuminate the surface of the water and the bathing awning. Almost symmetrical in composition, built in accordance with the frontal perspective, the picture gives the impression of irreproachable beauty of drawing and color. The volumes of clear geometric shapes are carefully worked out (light horizontals - the ground, slopes to the water, and verticals - the illuminated walls of the bosquets, the columns of the gazebo). The elegant white marble pavilion illuminated by the sun, which we see in the gap of the trees, is depicted in the upper part of the picture, directly above the head of the marquise. Decorative masks, from which light jets of water pour into the bath, break the horizontal of the white wall of the pool. And even the light clothing of the marchioness, thrown on the bench (almost coinciding with the vanishing point of the lines going into the depths) is a necessary compositional element in this carefully thought-out drawing. The compositional center is, of course, not a bench with clothes, although it is located in the geometric center, but the whole complex complex of a “quadrangle” with a central vertical axis, where the sunlit gazebo above the head of the marquise looks like a precious decoration, like a crown. The head of the awning organically complements this complex symmetrical pattern of horizontals, verticals and diagonals. In a strictly thought-out and planned park, even its inhabitants only complete its perfection with their presence. They are just an element of the composition, emphasizing its beauty and magnificence.

Miriskussniki are often reproached for the lack of "painting" in their paintings. We can say in response to this that the Marquise's Bath is a triumph of green with a variety of its shades. The artist simply admires the beauty and riot of fresh greenery. The foreground of the picture is written in a generalized way. Soft light, breaking through the foliage, illuminated the descents to the water baths, dark water, written through blue-gray and rich blue-green colors. The distant plan is worked out in more detail: the foliage of the trees is carefully and masterfully written, leaf to leaf, the moire of foliage on the bosquets consists of the smallest dots, colorful strokes. In the shade, we see both muted and bright cold greens of different shades. Luxurious, sunlit foliage in the center is written in small, cold bluish and warm green strokes. The artist seems to be bathing the greenery in rays of light, exploring the nature of the green color. Deep blue shadows, gray-violet earth, a purple dress with a blue pattern, a yellow scarf, a hat with blue flowers around the ribbon, white dots of flowers on the green slope and drops of red on the marquise's hairstyle, on the head of a black woman do not allow the work to become monochrome green. Marquise bath" - a historical landscape.

- Illustrations for the poem by A.S. Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman" (1904-22.), including:

In the first decades of the twentieth century, drawings by Alexander Nikolayevich Benois (1870 1960) for The Bronze Horseman were made - the best that has been created in the entire history of Pushkin's illustration. Benoist began working on The Bronze Horseman in 1903. Over the next 20 years, he created a cycle of drawings, intros and endings, as well as a huge number of options and sketches. The first edition of these illustrations, which were prepared for a pocket edition, was created in 1903 in Rome and St. Petersburg. Diaghilev printed them in a different format in the first issue of the magazine "World of Art" for 1904. The first cycle of illustrations consisted of 32 drawings made in ink and watercolor. In 1905, A.N. Benois, while in Versailles, reworked six of his previous illustrations and completed the frontispiece for The Bronze Horseman. In the new drawings for The Bronze Horseman, the theme of the Horseman's persecution of the little man becomes the main one: the black horseman over the fugitive is not so much Falcone's masterpiece, but the personification of brutal force, power. And St. Petersburg is not the one that captivates with its artistic perfection and scope of building ideas, but a gloomy city - a cluster of gloomy houses, shopping arcades, fences. The anxiety and anxiety that gripped the artist during this period turn here into a real cry about the fate of a person in Russia. In 1916, 1921-1922, the cycle was revised for the third time and supplemented with new drawings.

- Chase Scene (frontispiece)

Frontispiece sketch for A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman", 1905

book graphics

23.7 x 17.6

paper, watercolor

All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg

In 1905, A.N. Benois, while in Versailles, reworked six of his previous illustrations and completed the frontispiece (frontispiece a page with an image that forms a spread with the front page of the title page, and this image itself.) to The Bronze Horseman . In the new drawings for The Bronze Horseman, the theme of the Horseman's persecution of the little man becomes the main one: the black horseman over the fugitive is not so much Falcone's masterpiece, but the personification of brutal force, power. And St. Petersburg is not the one that captivates with its artistic perfection and scope of building ideas, but a gloomy city - a cluster of gloomy houses, shopping arcades, fences. The anxiety and anxiety that gripped the artist during this period turn here into a real cry about the fate of a person in Russia. On the left in the foreground is the figure of the running Yevgeny, on the right is the horseman chasing him. In the background is a city landscape. The moon is visible through the clouds to the right. A huge shadow from the figure of a rider falls on the pavement. When working on The Bronze Horseman, she determined the highest rise of Benois's work of these years.

Somov Konstantin Andreevich (1869 1939)

Konstantin Andreevich Somov (November 30, 1869, St. Petersburg May 6, 1939, Paris) Russian painter and graphic artist, master of portrait and landscape, illustrator, one of the founders of the World of Art society and the magazine of the same name. Konstantin Somov was born into the family of Andrei Ivanovich Somov, a well-known museum figure and curator of the Hermitage. While still at the gymnasium, Somov met A. Benois, V. Nouvel, D. Filosofov, with whom he later participated in the creation of the World of Art society. Somov took an active part in the design of the magazine "World of Art", as well as the periodical "Art Treasures of Russia" (19011907), published under the editorship of A. Benois, created illustrations for "Count Nulin" by A. Pushkin (1899), novels N. Gogol's "The Nose" and "Nevsky Prospekt" (1901), painted the covers of K. Balmont's poetry collections "The Firebird. Slavic flute”, V. Ivanov “Cor Ardens”, the title page of A. Blok’s book “Theater”, etc. The first personal exhibition of paintings, sketches and drawings (162 works) was held in St. Petersburg in 1903; 95 works were shown in Hamburg and Berlin in the same year. Along with landscape and portrait painting and graphics, Somov worked in the field of small plastic arts, creating exquisite porcelain compositions "Count Nulin" (1899), "Lovers" (1905), etc. In January 1914 he received the status of a full member of the Academy of Arts. In 1918, the publishing house of Golike and Vilborg (St. Petersburg) published the most famous and complete edition with Somov’s erotic drawings and illustrations: “The Marquise’s Book”, where the artist created not only all the elements of the book’s design, but also selected texts in French. In 1918 he became a professor at the Petrograd State Free Art Educational Workshops; worked at the school of E. N. Zvantseva. In 1919, his anniversary solo exhibition took place at the Tretyakov Gallery. In 1923, Somov left Russia for America as a representative of the "Russian Exhibition"; in January 1924, at an exhibition in New York, Somov was presented with 38 works. He did not return to Russia. From 1925 he lived in France; He died suddenly on May 6, 1939 in Paris.

Portrait of Somov

"Self-portrait", 1895

"Self-portrait", 1898

46 x 32.6

Watercolor, pencil, pastel, paper on cardboard

"Self-portrait", 1909

45.5 x 31

Watercolor, gouache, paper

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

- The lady in blue. Portrait of the artist Elizaveta Martynova (1897-1900, State Tretyakov Gallery)

The artist has long been friends with Elizaveta Mikhailovna Martynova, he studied with her at the Academy of Arts. In 1897, K. Somov began work on the portrait of E.M. Martynova, with a detailed plan. The artist had a very interesting model in front of him, and he was worried about the idea of ​​a portrait-picture in which he could capture a deeply poetic image. A young woman in a puffy, heavily decollete dress, with a volume of poetry in her lowered hand, is depicted standing against a green wall of overgrown shrubs. EAT. The artist transfers Martynova to the world of the past, dresses her in an old dress, places the model against the background of a conditional decorative park. The evening sky with light pink clouds, the trees of an old park, the dark expanse of a pond - all this is exquisite in color, but, like a true "World of Art", K. Somov stylizes the landscape. Looking at this lonely, yearning woman, the viewer does not perceive her as a person from another world, past and distant. This is a woman of the late 19th century. Everything in her is characteristic: both painful fragility, and a feeling of aching melancholy, sadness in her large eyes and a dense line of mournfully compressed lips. Against the background of the sky breathing excitement, the fragile figure of E.M. Martynova is full of special grace and femininity, despite her thin neck, thin sloping shoulders, hidden sadness and pain. Meanwhile, in the life of E.M. Everyone knew Martynova as a cheerful, cheerful young woman. EAT. Martynova dreamed of a great future, wanted to realize herself in real art and despised the vanity of life. And it so happened that at the age of 30, she died of pulmonary tuberculosis, without having time to fulfill anything she had planned. Despite the splendor of the portrait, a hidden soulful note sounds in it. And she makes the viewer feel the mood of the heroine, imbued with that sympathy for her, which the artist himself was full of. "Lady in Blue" appeared at the exhibition "World of Arts" in 1900 (due to the departure of the artist to Paris and the illness of the model, this picture was painted for three years) under the name "Portrait", and three years later it was acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery.

- "Evening" (1902, State Tretyakov Gallery)

142.3 x 205.3

Canvas, oil

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The poet Valery Bryusov called Somov “the author of exquisite short stories.” After all, Somov’s short stories are theatrical through and through. In “Evening,” a scene invented by Somov from the garden life of the 18th century is revived. posing ladies. Somov's "reality" appears stylistically complete in the painting "Evening" (1902). Everything here corresponds to a single harmonious and ceremonial rhythm: repetitions of arcades, alternation of planes of bosquets going into the distance, slow, as if ritual, movements of ladies. Even nature here is a work art, bearing the features of a style inspired by the 18th century. But above all, it is the "Somovsky" world, an enchanted, strangely static world of a golden sky and gilded sculptures, where man, nature and art are in harmonious unity. leaves, casts reflexes on the clothes and faces of people, softening the sonorous emerald and scarlet colors of clothes. It is a pleasure to look at the delicate details of toilets, rings, ribbons, shoes with red heels. In the painting "Evening" there is no true monumentality. The Somovsky world carries the ephemeral nature of the scenery, so the large size of the canvas seems to be accidental. This is an enlarged miniature. Somov's chamber, intimate talent always gravitates towards miniaturism. Contemporaries perceived "Evening" as an opposition to reality: "An era that seems to us naive, with weak muscles, without steam locomotives slow, creeping (compared to ours), but how can she master nature, seduce nature, almost making it a continuation of her costume" . Somov's retrospectives often have a fantastically fictional connotation; fantasies almost always have a retrospective connotation.

- "Harlequin and the Lady" (1912, State Tretyakov Gallery)

1912 1921

62.2 x 47.5

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The artistic concept of Somov acquires a special completeness here. The whole construction of the picture is frankly likened to a theatrical stage. The two main characters are located in the foreground, in the center of the picture, facing the viewer, like the actors of the comedy Marivaux, leading the dialogue. The figures in depth are like secondary characters. The trees, illuminated by the false light of fireworks, like theatrical spotlights, the pool, part of which is visible in the foreground, make one recall the orchestra pit. Even the point of view of the characters from the bottom up seems to be the view of the viewer from the theater hall. The artist admires this motley masquerade, where the curving Harlequin in his outfit of red, yellow and blue patches coyly hugs a lady in robron, who has removed her mask, where red roses burn brightly, and festive fireworks scatter in the sky with stars. For Somov, this deceptive world of phantoms with their fleeting existence is more alive than reality itself.

A series of graphic portraits, incl. ¶

- "Portrait of A. Blok" (1907, State Tretyakov Gallery.)

"Portrait of Alexander Alexandrovich Blok", 1907

38x30

Paper, graphite and colored pencils, gouache

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In 1907, Somov creates images of L. A. Blok. In them one can see traces of the closest study of the French pencil portrait (with the use of sanguine) of the late 16th and especially the 17th centuries, although Somov's portraits are by no means direct imitation. The traditions of the French pencil portrait are translated by Somov beyond recognition. The nature of the image is completely different. In the portraits of Blok and Lansere (both in the State Tretyakov Gallery), Somov strives for the utmost conciseness. There is now a shoulder-length image in Blok's portrait. All irrelevant details are discarded. Somov sparingly outlines only the silhouette of the shoulders and those details of the costume that are inseparable from the appearance of the depicted, turn-down collars that Blok always wore. In contrast to the laconism in the depiction of the figure and costume, the face of the person being portrayed is carefully worked out, and the artist introduces a few color accents into their rendering, which sound especially expressive in Blok's portrait. The artist conveys with colored pencils the cold, "winter" look of Blok's gray-blue eyes, the pinkness of half-open lips, with whitewash - a vertical fold that cuts through a smooth forehead. Blok's face, framed by a cap of thick curly hair, resembles a frozen mask. The portrait struck contemporaries with its resemblance. Many of them also noted in life the "wax immobility of features" inherent in Blok. Somov, in his portrait, elevated this deadness of features to an absolute and thus deprived the image of Blok of that versatility, spiritual wealth that made up the essence of his personality. Blok himself admitted that, although he liked the portrait, it "burdened" him.

Bakst Lev Samoilovich (Leib-Khaim Izrailevich Rosenberg, 1866 1924)

In order to enter the Academy of Arts as a volunteer, L. S. Bakst had to overcome the resistance of his father, a small businessman. He studied for four years (1883-87), but became disillusioned with academic preparation and left the school. He began to paint on his own, studied the technique of watercolor, earning a living by illustrating children's books and magazines. In 1889, the artist exhibited his works for the first time, adopting a pseudonym - the abbreviated name of his maternal grandmother (Baxter). 1893-99 he spent in Paris, often visiting St. Petersburg, and worked hard in search of his own style. Having become close to A. N. Benois, K. A. Somov and S. P. Diaghilev, Bakst became one of the initiators of the creation of the association "World of Art" (1898). Bakst's fame was brought by his graphic works for the magazine "World of Art". He continued to engage in easel art - he performed excellent graphic portraits of I. I. Levitan, F. A. Malyavin (1899), A. Bely (1905) and Z. N. Gippius (1906) and picturesque portraits of V. V. Rozanov ( 1901), S. P. Diaghilev with a nanny (1906). His painting "Dinner" (1902), which became a kind of manifesto of Art Nouveau in Russian art, provoked fierce disputes among critics. Later, a strong impression on the audience was made by his painting "Ancient Horror" (1906-08), which embodies the symbolist idea of ​​the inevitability of fate. By the end of the 1900s. limited himself to work in the theater, occasionally making exceptions for graphic portraits of people close to him, and went down in history precisely as an outstanding theater artist of the modern era. He made his debut in the theater back in 1902, having designed the pantomime "The Heart of the Marquise". Then the ballet "The Doll Fairy" (1903) was staged, which was a success mainly due to its scenery. He designed several more performances, made separate costumes for artists, in particular for A.P. Pavlova in the famous "Swan" by M. M. Fokin (1907). But the real talent of Bakst unfolded in the ballet performances of the Russian Seasons, and then the Russian Ballet of S. P. Diaghilev. "Cleopatra" (1909), "Scheherazade" and "Carnival" (1910), "Vision of the Rose" and "Narcissus" (1911), "Blue God", "Daphnis and Chloe" and "Afternoon of a Faun" (1912), "Games" (1913) amazed the jaded Western audience with decorative fantasy, richness and power of color, and the design techniques developed by Bakst marked the beginning of a new era in ballet scenography. The name of Bakst, the leading artist of the "Russian Seasons", thundered along with the names of the best performers and famous choreographers. Interesting orders from other theaters also rained down on him. All these years Bakst lived in Europe, only occasionally returning to his homeland. He continued to collaborate with the Diaghilev troupe, but contradictions gradually grew between him and S. P. Diaghilev, and in 1918 Bakst left the troupe. He worked tirelessly, but no longer managed to create anything fundamentally new. Death from pulmonary edema overtook Bakst at the time of his fame, though beginning to fade, but still brilliant.

Portrait of an artist

"Self-portrait", 1893

34x21

Oil on cardboard

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

- "Elysium" (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery)

Decorative panel, 1906.

158 x 40

Watercolor, gouache, paper on cardboard

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

- "Ancient (Antique) Horror" (1908, Russian Museum)

250 x 270 oil on canvas

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

"Ancient Horror" a painting by Leon Bakst depicting the death of an ancient civilization (possibly Atlantis) in a natural disaster. In the pagan worldview, the “ancient horror” is the horror of life in the world under the rule of a gloomy and inhuman Fate, the horror of the impotence of a person enslaved by it and hopelessly submissive (Fatum); as well as the horror of chaos as an abyss of non-existence, immersion in which is disastrous. By ancient horror he meant the horror of fate. He wanted to show that not only everything human, but also everything revered by the divine, was perceived by the ancients as relative and transient. A large canvas of almost square format is occupied by a panorama of the landscape, written from a high point of view. The landscape is illuminated by a flash of lightning. The main space of the canvas is occupied by the raging sea, which destroys ships and beats against the walls of fortresses. In the foreground there is a figure of an archaic statue in a generation cut. The contrast of the calm smiling face of the statue is especially striking in comparison with the violence of the elements behind her back. The artist takes the viewer to some invisible height from which this panoramic perspective is only possible, unfolding somewhere in the depths under our feet. Closest to the viewer is a hill bearing a colossal statue of the archaic Cypriot Aphrodite; but the hill, and the foot, and the very feet of the idol are outside the canvas: as if free from the fate of the earth, the goddess arises, close to us, right on the darkness of the deep-lying sea. The depicted female statue is a type of archaic kore, smiling with an enigmatic archaic smile and holding a blue bird (or a dove, the symbol of Aphrodite) in her hands. Traditionally, it is customary to call the statue depicted by Bakst Aphrodite, although it has not yet been established which goddesses were depicted by the bark. The prototype of the statue was a statue found during excavations on the Acropolis. Bakst's wife posed for the unpreserved hand. The island landscape unfolding behind the back of the goddess is the view from the Athenian Acropolis. At the foot of the mountains on the right side of the picture, in the foreground, there are buildings, according to Pruzhan, the Mycenaean Lion Gate and the remains of the palace in Tiryns. These are buildings belonging to the early, Crete-Mycenaean period of Greek history. On the left, a group of people fleeing in terror among the buildings typical of classical Greece most likely, this is the Acropolis with its propylaea and huge statues. Behind the Acropolis is a valley lit by lightning, overgrown with silvery olives.

Decoration of ballets, incl. ¶

"Sketch of Cleopatra's costume for Ida Rubinstein for the ballet "Cleopatra" to the music of A.S. Arensky"

1909

28 x 21

Pencil, watercolor

"Scheherazade" (1910, music by Rimsky-Korsakov)

"Design of the scenery for the ballet "Scheherazade" to the music of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov", 1910

110 x 130

Canvas, oil

Collection of Nikita and Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky, London

"Costume design for the Blue Sultana for the ballet "Scheherazade""

1910

29.5 x 23

Watercolor, pencil

Collection of Nikita and Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky, London

Dobuzhinsky Mstislav Valerianovich (1875 1957)

M. V. Dobuzhinsky was the son of an artillery officer. After the first year of the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, Dobuzhinsky tried to enter the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, but was not accepted and studied in private studios until 1899. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1901, he became close to the World of Art association and became one of the most prominent its representatives. Dobuzhinsky made his debut in graphics - drawings in magazines and books, urban landscapes, in which he managed to impressively convey his perception of St. Petersburg as a city. The theme of the city immediately became one of the main ones in his work. Dobuzhinsky was engaged in both easel graphics and painting, he successfully taught - in various educational institutions. Soon the Moscow Art Theater invited him to stage a play by I. S. Turgenev "A Month in the Country" (1909). The great success of the scenery performed by him marked the beginning of the artist's close cooperation with the famous theater. The pinnacle of this collaboration was the scenery for the play "Nikolai Stavrogin" (1913) based on the novel "Demons" by F. M. Dostoevsky. Acute expressiveness and rare laconicism made this innovative work a phenomenon that anticipated future discoveries of domestic scenography. A sound perception of the events unfolding in post-revolutionary Russia forced Dobuzhinsky to accept Lithuanian citizenship in 1925 and move to Kaunas. In 1939, Dobuzhinsky went to the USA to work with the actor and director M. A. Chekhov on the play "Demons", but because of the outbreak of World War II, he never returned to Lithuania. The last years of his life turned out to be the most difficult for him - he could not and did not want to adapt to the American way of life alien to him and to the mores of the American art market. He often experienced financial difficulties, lived alone, communicating only with a narrow circle of Russian emigrants, and tried to use every opportunity to get out to Europe at least for a while.

Portrait of an artist

Self-portrait. 1901

55x42

Canvas, oil

State Russian Museum

The work, made in the Munich school of Sandor Hollossy, is closely related to the symbolist compositions of Eugène Carrière, who liked to immerse his characters in a dense, emotionally active environment. The mysterious haze surrounding the model, the vibrating "colored" light on the face and figure, seems to enhance the sharply energetic and enigmatic expression of the shadowed eyes. This gives the image of an internally independent and coldish young man the features of some kind of demonism.

- "Province of the 1830s" (1907-1909, Russian Museum)

60 x 83.5

Cardboard, pencil, watercolor, whitewash

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

"Province of the 1830s" captures the artist's gaze, touched by the flow of everyday life in a Russian town more than half a century ago. The “snatching” of the image with the deliberate placement of the pillar almost in the center of the composition contributes to the perception of what is happening as an accidentally seen frame of the film. The absence of the protagonist and the plotlessness of the picture is a kind of game of the artist with the vain expectations of the viewer. Crooked houses, domes of ancient churches and a policeman sleeping at his post - such is the view of the main square of the city. The vanity of the ladies, apparently hurrying to the milliner for new clothes, is written out by Dobuzhinsky almost caricatured. The work is permeated with the mood of harmless kindness of the artist. The bright coloring of the work makes it look like a postcard so popular at the turn of the century. By 1907, the painting “Russian Province of the 1830s” dates back (watercolor, graphic pencil, State Russian Museum). It depicts a sleepy square of a provincial town with a shopping arcade, a watchman dozing, leaning on his axe, a brown pig rubbing against a lamppost, a few passers-by and an inevitable puddle in the middle. Gogol's reminiscences are undeniable. But Dobuzhinsky's painting is devoid of any sarcasm whatsoever. The artist's elegant graphics here ennoble everything he touches. Under the pencil and brush of Dobuzhinsky, the beauty of the proportions of the Empire-style Gostiny Dvor, the stylish suit of the 30s with a “basket” hat on a shopping lady crossing the square, the slender silhouette of the bell tower come to the fore. The subtle stylism of Dobuzhinsky triumphs over another victory.

- "House in St. Petersburg" (1905, State Tretyakov Gallery)

37 x 49

Pastel, gouache, paper on cardboard

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

- "Man with glasses" (Portrait of the writer Konstantin Syunnerberg, 1905-1906, State Tretyakov Gallery)

Portrait of art critic and poet Konstantin Sunnerberg

1905

63.3 x 99.6

Charcoal, watercolor, paper on cardboard

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Not being a portrait painter, Dobuzhinsky created one of the most capacious images-symbols embodying a whole generation of urban intellectuals. The painting "The Man with Glasses" (19051906) depicts the poet and art critic K. A. Syunnerberg, who performed under the pseudonym Konst. Erberg. The man is tightly closed in the rigid shell of a respectable dress, his eyes, shielded from the world by glasses, are almost invisible. The whole figure, as if devoid of a third dimension, is flattened, squeezed in an unthinkably cramped space. The person is, as it were, exposed, placed between two glasses - a kind of bizarre fauna of a fantastic city - St. Petersburg, visible outside the window, revealing to the viewer another face of its own - a mixture of multi-storey, multi-chimney urbanism and provincial backyards.

Lanceray Evgeny Evgenievich (1875 1946)

Russian and Soviet artist. Graduate of the First St. Petersburg Gymnasium. From 1892 he studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, St. Petersburg, where he attended the classes of Ya. F. Zionglinsky, N. S. Samokish, E. K. Lipgart. From 1895 to 1898 Lansere traveled extensively in Europe and improved his skills in the French academies of F. Calarossi and R. Julien. Since 1899 he has been a member of the World of Art association. In 1905 he left for the Far East. In 19071908 he became one of the founders of the "Ancient Theater" - a short-term, but interesting and noticeable phenomenon in the cultural life of Russia at the beginning of the century. Lansere continued to work with the theater in 19131914. 19121915 artistic director of a porcelain factory and glass engraving workshops in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. 19141915 military correspondent on the Caucasian front during the First World War. Spent 19171919 in Dagestan. In 1919, he collaborated as an artist in the Information and Propaganda Bureau of the Volunteer Army of A. I. Denikin (OSVAG). In 1920 he moved to Rostov-on-Don, then to Nakhichevan-on-Don and Tiflis. Since 1920, he was a draftsman at the Museum of Ethnography, went on ethnographic expeditions with the Caucasian Archaeological Institute. Since 1922 - Professor of the Academy of Arts of Georgia, Moscow Architectural Institute. In 1927 he was sent to Paris for six months from the Academy of Arts of Georgia. In 1934 he moved permanently from Tiflis to Moscow. From 1934 to 1938 he taught at the All-Russian Academy of Arts in Leningrad. HER. Lansere died on September 13, 1946.

Portrait of an artist

- "Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in Tsarskoye Selo" (1905, State Tretyakov Gallery)

43.5 x 62

Gouache, paper on cardboard

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Evgeny Evgenyevich Lansere is a versatile artist. The author of monumental paintings and panels decorating the Moscow metro stations, the Kazansky railway station, the Moskva hotel, landscapes, paintings on the theme of Russian history of the 18th century, he was also a wonderful illustrator of classic works of Russian literature (“Dubrovsky” and “Shot” A S. Pushkin, “Hadji Murad” by L. N. Tolstoy), the creator of sharp political cartoons in satirical magazines in 1905, theatrical and decorative artist. The picture reproduced here is one of the most interesting and significant easel works of the artist. The picture testifies to the very understanding of historical painting in the art of the early 20th century. Thus, the atmosphere of the era is revealed here through the images of art embodied in architecture and park ensembles, costumes and hairstyles of people, through the landscape, showing court life, rituals. The theme of royal processions became especially favorite. Lansere depicts the solemn exit of the court of Elizabeth Petrovna in her country residence. As if on the stage of the theater, a procession passes in front of the viewer. A stout empress swims regally majestically, dressed in woven clothes of amazing beauty. This is followed by ladies and gentlemen in magnificent dresses and powdered wigs. In their faces, poses and gestures, the artist reveals different characters and types. We see now humiliated and timid, then haughty and stiff courtiers. In the display of Elizabeth and her court, one cannot fail to notice the irony of the artist and even some grotesque. Lansere contrasts the people depicted by him with the noble austerity of the white marble statue and the true greatness embodied in the magnificent architecture of the Rastrelli palace and the beauty of the regular park.

Ostroumova-Lebedeva Anna Petrovna (1871 1955)

A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva was the daughter of a prominent official P.I. Ostroumov. While still a high school student, she began to attend elementary school at the CUTR. Then she studied at the school itself, where she became interested in the technique of engraving, and at the Academy of Arts, where she studied painting in the workshop of I. E. Repin. In 1898-99. worked in Paris, improving in painting (with J. Whistler) and engraving. The year 1900 turned out to be a turning point in her fate, the artist made her debut with her engravings at the World of Art exhibition (with which she later firmly connected her work), then she received the second prize for engravings at the OPH competition and graduated from the Academy of Arts with the title of artist, presenting 14 engravings . Ostroumova-Lebedeva played the main role in the revival of easel woodcuts in Russia as an independent form of creativity - after a long existence as a reproduction technique; the merit of the artist in the revival of color engraving is especially great. The original methods of generalization of form and color developed by her were adopted and used by many other artists. The main theme of her engravings was Petersburg, the image of which she devoted several decades of tireless work. Her color and black-and-white engravings - both easel, combined into cycles ("Petersburg", 1908-10; "Pavlovsk", 1922-23, etc.), and executed for the books of V. Ya. Kurbatov "Petersburg" ( 1912); Reproduced many times and for different reasons, they have long become textbooks and enjoy exceptional popularity. In their own way, the works created by the artist based on the impressions of frequent trips - both abroad (Italy, France, Spain, Holland) and around the country (Baku, Crimea) were interesting and outstanding. Some of them were executed in engraving, and some - in watercolor. A gifted and well-trained painter, Ostroumova-Lebedeva could not work with oil paints because their smell caused her asthma attacks. But she perfectly mastered the difficult and capricious technique of painting with watercolors and was engaged in it all her life, creating excellent landscapes and portraits ("Portrait of the Artist I.V. Ershov", 1923; "Portrait of Andrei Bely", 1924; "Portrait of the Artist E.S. Kruglikova", 1925, etc.). She spent the Ostroumov-Lebedeva war in besieged Leningrad, not leaving her favorite work and completing work on the third volume of Autobiographical Notes. The last years of the artist's life were overshadowed by impending blindness, but as long as it was possible, she continued to work.

A series of engravings and drawings "Views of St. Petersburg and its suburbs", incl. ¶

Throughout her mature creative life, A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva’s graphics were dominated by the theme of St. Petersburg, starting with the views of Pavlovsk in the 1900s until the mid-1940s, when, already seriously ill, she completed a series of her St. to the fortress at night. In total, according to her own calculations, she created 85 works dedicated to the great city. The image of St. Petersburg in Ostroumova-Lebedeva was formed over almost half a century. However, its main features were found by the artist in the most joyful and calm years during the first decade of the twentieth century. It was then that a combination of sharp, polished, even harsh lyricism with powerful stability and monumentality, geometric, verified perspective and astringency of emotional freedom arose in her works,

- "Neva through the columns of the Stock Exchange" (1908)

Like the legs of giants, the corner columns of the Stock Exchange stand on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, and the prospect of the other bank of the Neva, the Admiralty wing and the magnificent parabola of the General Staff Building on Palace Square go far into the distance. No less striking is the prospect of the dark and powerful greenery of the park, becoming the edge of the architectural space, converging in the distance to the barely distinguishable Yelagin Palace. Unthinkably exquisite is a fragment of the lattice of the Summer Garden, descending to the granite attire of the Moika, which enters the Neva. Here, each line is not accidental, both chamber and monumental at the same time, here the genius of the architect is combined with the exquisite vision of an artist attentive to beauty. Above the dark Kryukov Canal, the sunset sky burns out, and the silhouette of the bell tower of St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral, famous for its magnificent harmony, rises from the water.