July 1 marks the 128th anniversary of the birth of Vera Mukhina, the author of The Worker and the Collective Farm Girl, the stone orator of the Stalin era, as her contemporaries called her.
Workshop of Vera Mukhina in Prechistensky Lane
Vera Mukhina was born in Riga in 1889 into a wealthy merchant family. She lost her mother early, who died of tuberculosis. The father, fearing for the health of his daughter, moved her to a favorable climate in Feodosia. There, Vera graduated from high school, and later moved to Moscow, where she studied in the studios of famous landscape painters. Konstantin Yuon And Ilya Mashkov.
Mukhina's decision to become a sculptor, among other things, was influenced by a tragic incident: while riding a sleigh, the girl received a serious facial injury. Plastic surgeons literally had to "sew" 22-year-old Vera's nose. This incident became symbolic, opening Mukhina the exact application of her artistic talent.
At one time, Vera Ignatievna lived in Paris and Italy, studying the art of the Renaissance period. In the USSR, Mukhina became one of the most prominent architects. General fame came to her after her monument "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937.
It was with the sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Woman", which became a symbol Mosfilm, as well as with a simple, at first glance, invention - a faceted glass - the name of Vera Mukhina is associated in the minds of the majority.
But Moscow is also decorated with other sculptures by the famous master, many of which were installed after her death.
Monument to Tchaikovsky
Bolshaya Nikitskaya 13/6
In the mid-50s on Bolshaya Nikitskaya, in front of the building Moscow State Conservatory erected a monument Pyotr Tchaikovsky, on which the sculptor worked for 25 years. In 1929, at the request of Nikolai Zhegin, director of the Tchaikovsky house-museum in Klin, a bust of the composer was made by Mukhina. After 16 years, she received a personal order to create a monument to Tchaikovsky in Moscow.
The original version of the sculpture depicted the composer conducting while standing. But such a monument required a large space, and it was abandoned. The second sketch depicted Pyotr Ilyich sitting in an armchair in front of a music stand, on which lies an open music book. The composition was complemented by a figure of a shepherdess, which speaks of the composer's interest in folk art. Due to some ambiguity, the shepherd was replaced with the figure of a peasant, and then he was also removed.
The project of the monument was not approved for a long time, and the already seriously ill Mukhina wrote Vyacheslav Molotov: “Put my Tchaikovsky in Moscow. I guarantee you that this work of mine is worthy of Moscow…”. But the monument was erected after the death of Mukhina, in 1954.
Monument to Tchaikovsky in front of the Moscow Conservatory
Monument to Maxim Gorky
Muzeon Park (Krymsky Val, property 2)
The project of the monument was developed by the sculptor Ivan Shadr in 1939. Before his death, Shadr made a promise with Mukhina to complete his project. Vera Ignatievna fulfilled her promise, but during her lifetime the sculpture was never installed. Monument Gorky on the square Belorussky railway station appeared in 1951. In 2005, the monument was dismantled in order to clear a place for the construction of a transport interchange on the square of the Belorussky railway station. Then he was laid, in the truest sense of the word, in the park Museon where he remained in this position for two years. In 2007, Gorky was restored and put on his feet. Currently, the Moscow authorities promise to return the sculpture to its original place. The monument to Maxim Gorky by Mukhina can also be seen in the park near the building Institute of World Literature named after A.M. Gorky.
The city authorities promise to return the monument to Gorky to the Belorussky railway station
Sculpture "Bread"
"Park of Friendship" (Flotskaya st., 1A)
One of the famous works of Mukhina in the 30s was the sculpture "Bread", made for the exhibition "Food Industry" in 1939. Initially, at the request of the architect Alexey Shchusev, the sculptor was preparing four sketches of compositions for the Moskvoretsky Bridge, but the work was interrupted. The sculpture "Bread" was the only one, the sketches of which the author returned to and brought the idea to life. Mukhina depicted the figures of two girls passing a sheaf of wheat to each other. According to art historians, the music of labor “sounds” in the composition, but labor is free and harmonious.
Sculpture "Fertility" in the park "Friendship"
"Worker and Collective Farm Woman"
VDNH (pr-t Mira, 123 B)
The most famous monument to Vera Mukhina was created for the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. The ideological concept of the sculpture and the first layout belonged to the architect Boris Iofan, the author of the exhibition pavilion. A competition was announced for the creation of the sculpture, in which Mukhina's project was recognized as the best. Shortly before this, Vera's husband, a famous doctor Alexey Zamkov, thanks to the intercession of a high party official, returned from Voronezh exile. The family of Vera Mukhina was "on the note." And who knows, they would have been repressed by the side, if not for the victory in the competition and the triumph at the exhibition in Paris.
Work on the statue took two months, it was made at the pilot plant of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. According to the author's idea, the worker and the collective farm woman were supposed to be naked, but the country's leadership rejected this option. Then Mukhina dressed the Soviet heroes in overalls and a sundress.
During the dismantling of the monument in Paris and its transportation to Moscow, the left hand of the collective farmer and the right hand of the worker were injured, and when assembling the composition in 1939, the damaged elements were replaced with a deviation from the original project.
After the Paris exhibition, the sculpture was transported back to Moscow and installed in front of the entrance to the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy. For many years, the sculpture stood on a low pedestal, which Mukhina bitterly called "stump". Only in 2009, after several years of restoration, the “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” was set to a 33-meter height.
The works of the sculptor Vera Ignatievna Mukhina are considered the embodiment of Soviet officialdom. She died at the age of 64 in 1953, the same year as Stalin. The era is gone, and so is its singer.
It is hard to imagine a person of art who captures the general line of the Communist Party better than the famous sculptor Vera Mukhina. But not everything is so primitive: it's just that her talent came at the right time. Yes, she is not one of those unfortunate creators who were ahead of their time and who were appreciated only by descendants. Her talent was to the taste of the leaders of the Soviet state. But the fate of Vera Ignatievna is rather the story of a miraculous survivor. Almost a fairy tale about a happy escape from Stalin's clutches. The horror of that time only slightly touched the wing of her family. But in the biography of the sculptor there were a number of such points, for each of which she could pay with her head. And they lost their lives for less! But Mukhina, as they say, carried away. Vera Ignatievna took his death hard. But even after being widowed, she continued to sing of "the most just society in the world" in her creations. Was this in line with her true beliefs? She didn't talk about them. Her speeches are endless talk about citizenship and Soviet patriotism. For the sculptor, the main thing was creativity, and in creativity - monumentalism. The Soviet government gave her complete freedom in this area.
Merchant's daughter
The social origin of Vera Ignatievna, by Stalin's standards, left much to be desired. Her father, an extremely wealthy merchant, traded in bread and hemp. Ignatius Mukhin, however, could hardly be compared with the world-eating merchants from the works of Ostrovsky. He was a completely enlightened man, in his tastes and passions gravitating more towards the nobility than towards his class. His wife died early from consumption. The youngest daughter, Vera, was not even two years old then. The father adored his girls - her and the elder Maria - and indulged their every whim. Somehow, however, he dared to say: they say, Masha is a lover of balls and entertainment, and Verochka is of a firm disposition, she can be delegated to business. But what's the matter ... My daughter never let go of the pencil from her hands - her father began to encourage her to draw ...
Shortly after Vera graduated from high school, the girls were orphaned. With the guardianship of the orphans, the matter did not become: from their native Riga, they moved to Moscow, to very wealthy uncles - their father's brothers. Relatives did not like Verino's passion for art. She studied in the workshop of Konstantin Yuon and dreamed of continuing her education in Paris. But relatives did not allow.
As they say, there was no happiness, but misfortune helped: somehow Vera fell from the sleigh and badly injured her face, breaking her nose.
The uncles decided to send the unfortunate niece to Paris for plastic surgery treatment in Russia, things were not in the best way. And there let the unfortunate orphan do whatever he wants.
In the capital, Mukhina steadfastly endured several plastic surgeries - her face was restored. It was there that the main turning point in her life took place: she chose sculpture. The monumental nature of Mukhina was disgusted by small touches, the selection of shades of color that are required from a draftsman and painter. She was attracted by large forms, the image of movement and impulses. Soon Vera became a student in the studio of Bourdelle, a student of the great sculptor Rodin. I must say, he was not particularly enthusiastic about her ...
Two unreliable
A visit to Russia to visit her relatives ended with Vera staying in her homeland forever: the 1914 war began. Mukhina resolutely abandoned the sculpture and enrolled in nursing courses. She spent the next four years in hospitals, helping the sick and wounded. In 1914, she met Dr. Alexei Zamkov. It was a gift of fate, which one could only dream of. A handsome, intelligent, talented doctor from God became the husband of Vera Ignatievna.
Both were of those who will soon be talked about - "walk on the blade." Zamkov participated in the Petrograd rebellion of 1917, and was also very interested in various non-traditional methods of treatment. Mukhina was a merchant, her sister married a foreigner and went to live in Europe. It was hard to imagine a more unreliable, from the point of view of the Soviet government, couple.
However, when Vera Ignatievna was asked why she fell in love with her husband, she answered: she was impressed by his "monumentality". This word will become a key word in her creative biography. The monumentality that she saw in many things and many around her will save the life of her and her husband.
Others - not his wife - noted Zamkov's extraordinary medical talent, his amazing medical intuition, his intelligence. Alexey Andreevich became one of the prototypes of Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky, the hero of Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog".
Time passed. In 1920, the only son of Mukhina and Zamkov, Vsevolod, was born ...
Vera Ignatievna left nursing and returned to sculpture. She passionately responded to the call of the Soviet authorities to replace the monuments to the tsars and their henchmen with monuments to the heroes of the new era.
The sculptor has won competitions more than once: her chisel, for example, owns the monumental figures of Sverdlov and Gorky. The list of her most significant works speaks of Mukhina's loyalty to the ideals of communism: “Hymn to the International”, “Flame of the Revolution”, “Bread”, “Fertility”, “Peasant Woman”, “Worker and Collective Farm Girl”.
Meanwhile, Stalinism was growing, and the clouds over the family began to thicken.
Envious people, disguised as patriots of the Soviet state, accused Zamkov of "quackery" and charlatanism. The family tried to flee abroad, but in Kharkiv they were taken off the train. They got off extremely lightly: they were exiled to Voronezh for three years. A couple of years later, they were rescued from there by Maxim Gorky ...
In Moscow, Zamkov was allowed to return to work, and Vera Ignatievna became downright a locomotive for the family. The terrible year of 1937 became a triumphant one for her. After him, she became inviolable.
Stalin's favorite sculptor
Mukhina's sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" stood at VDNKh for a long time. Non-capital residents know it more as the emblem of the Mosfilm film studio. Vera Mukhina sculpted it in 1937 as a gigantic monument that was supposed to crown the Soviet pavilion at the world exhibition in Paris.
The installation of the multi-ton statue was, like many things in Stalin's time, in an emergency mode. Cooking steel "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" was difficult. But a special problem arose with the fluttering scarf of the collective farmer. Vera Ignatievna explained: a scarf is an important supporting detail of a sculpture. In addition, it gives it dynamism. Opponents argued: collective farmers do not wear scarves, this is too frivolous and inappropriate detail for such a "cloth". Mukhina did not want to deprive the Soviet peasant woman of such an ornament!
The case ended with the fact that the director of the factory where the statue was cast wrote a denunciation against Mukhina. He accused her that the contour of the scarf repeats the profile of Trotsky. Klyauznik hoped that the NKVD would remember her merchant background, her sister abroad, and her dubious husband.
On one of the working nights, Stalin himself arrived at the plant. He examined the scarf and did not see in it signs of the main enemy of the people. The sculptor was saved...
Parisian newspapers, in general, gave a low rating to the Soviet art presented at the exhibition. The French were impressed only by the work of Mukhina, above which was only the fascist eagle with a swastika that crowned the German pavilion.
The director of the Soviet pavilion was shot upon arrival at home. But Stalin did not touch Mukhina. He considered her art extremely realistic, thoroughly Soviet, and also important for the Soviet people. The poorly educated leader would have known how strongly the cubists and the French sculptor Aristide Maillol influenced Vera Ignatievna's work ...
Today they would say that Stalin was a "fanate" of Mukhina: from 1941 to 1952 she received five (!) Stalin Prizes. The head of state, however, was not a fan of her husband. Zamkov was hounded all the time, his merits were not recognized. He would have been arrested long ago if not for his successful wife. In 1942, Alexei Andreevich, unable to bear such a life, died.
Vera Ignatievna took his death hard. But even after being widowed, she continued to sing of "the most just society in the world" in her creations. Was this in line with her true beliefs? She didn't talk about them. Her speeches are endless talk about citizenship and Soviet patriotism. For the sculptor, the main thing was creativity, and in creativity - monumentalism. The Soviet government gave her complete freedom in this area.
"Creativity is the love of life!" - with these words, Vera Ignatievna Mukhina expressed her ethical and creative principles.
She was born in Riga in 1889 into a wealthy merchant family, her mother was French. And Vera inherited her love for art from her father, who was considered a good amateur artist. Childhood years were spent in Feodosia, where the family moved due to a serious illness of the mother. She died when Vera was three years old. After this sad event, Vera's relatives often changed their place of residence: they settled either in Germany, then again in Feodosia, then in Kursk, where Vera graduated from high school. By this time, she had already firmly decided that she would do art. Having entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, she studied in the class of the famous artist K. Yuon, then at the same time she became interested in sculpture.
In 1911, on Christmas Day, she had an accident. Riding down the mountain, Vera crashed into a tree and disfigured her face. After the hospital, the girl settled in her uncle's family, where caring relatives hid all the mirrors. Subsequently, in almost all the photos, and even in the portrait of Nesterov, she is depicted half-turned.
By this time, Vera had already lost her father, and the guardians decided to send the girl to Paris for postoperative treatment. There she not only carried out medical prescriptions, but also studied under the guidance of the French sculptor A. Bourdelle at the Academy de Grande Chaumières. Alexander Vertepov, a young emigrant from Russia, worked at his school. Their romance did not last long. Vertepov went to war as a volunteer and was killed almost in the first battle.
Two years later, together with two artist friends, Vera made a trip to Italy. It was the last carefree summer in her life: the world war began. Returning home, Mukhina created her first significant work - the sculptural group "Pieta" (Lamentation of the Mother of God over the body of Christ), conceived as a variation on the themes of the Renaissance and at the same time a kind of requiem for the dead. The Mother of God at Mukhina - a young woman in a scarf of a sister of mercy - what millions of soldiers around them saw in the midst of the First World War.
After graduating from medical courses, Vera began working in the hospital as a nurse. She worked here for free throughout the war, because she believed: since she came here for the sake of an idea, then it is indecent to take money. In the hospital, she met her future husband, military doctor Alexei Andreevich Zamkov.
After the revolution, Mukhina successfully participated in various competitions. The most famous work was The Peasant Woman (1927, bronze), which brought the author wide popularity and was awarded the first prize at the exhibition of 1927-1928. The original of this work, by the way, was bought for the museum by the Italian government.
"Peasant Woman"
In the late 1920s, Alexey Zamkov worked at the Institute of Experimental Biology, where he invented a new medical preparation - gravidan, which rejuvenates the body. But intrigues began at the institute, Zamkov was dubbed a charlatan and a "healer". The persecution of the scientist in the press began. Together with his family, he decided to go abroad. Through a good friend, we managed to get passports, but the same friend also denounced those who were leaving. They were arrested right on the train and taken to the Lubyanka. Vera Mukhina and her ten-year-old son were soon released, and Zamkov had to spend several months in Butyrka prison. After that, he was sent to Voronezh. Vera Ignatievna, leaving her son in the care of a friend, went after her husband. She spent four years there and returned with him to Moscow only after the intervention of Maxim Gorky. At his request, the sculptor began work on a sketch of the monument to the writer's son, Peshkov.
Doctor Zamkov was still not allowed to work, his institute was liquidated, and Alexei Andreevich soon died.
The pinnacle of her work was the world famous 21-meter stainless steel sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Girl", created for the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris. Upon their return to Moscow, almost all the exhibitors were arrested. Today it became known: some attentive scammer saw in the folds of the skirt of the Collective Farm Girl "a kind of bearded face" - a hint of Leon Trotsky. And the unique sculpture could not find a place in the capital for a long time, until it was erected at VDNKh.
"Worker and Collective Farm Girl"
According to K. Stolyarov, Mukhina sculpted the figure of a worker from his father Sergei Stolyarov, a popular film actor of the 1930s and 40s, who created on the screen a number of fabulously epic images of Russian heroes and goodies, building socialism with a song. A young man and a girl in rapid motion lift up the emblem of the Soviet state - the hammer and sickle.
In a village near Tula, Anna Ivanovna Bogoyavlenskaya lives her life, with whom they sculpted a collective farmer with a sickle. According to the old woman, she saw Vera Ignatyevna herself in the workshop twice. A certain V. Andreev, obviously, an assistant to the famous Mukhina, sculpted the collective farmer.
At the end of 1940, the well-known artist M.V. Nesterov decided to paint a portrait of Mukhina.
“... I can’t stand it when they see how I work. I never let myself be photographed in the studio, - Vera Ignatievna later recalled. - But Mikhail Vasilievich certainly wanted to paint me at work. I couldn't resist giving in to his urgent desire. I worked continuously while he wrote. Of all the works that were in my workshop, he himself chose the statue of Boreas, the god of the north wind, made for the monument to the Chelyuskinites ...
I fortified it with black coffee. During the sessions, there were lively conversations about art ... "
This time was the most calm for Mukhina. She was elected a member of the Academy of Arts, awarded the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR. She was repeatedly awarded the Stalin Prize. However, despite her high social position, she remained a withdrawn and spiritually lonely person. The last sculpture destroyed by the author - "Return" - the figure of a powerful, beautiful legless young man, in despair hiding his face in women's laps - mother, wife, lover ...
“Even with the title of laureate and academician, Mukhina remained a proud, blunt and internally free personality, which is so difficult both in her and in our times,” confirms E. Korotkaya.
The sculptor in every way avoided sculpting people who were unpleasant to her, did not make a single portrait of the leaders of the party and government, almost always chose models herself and left a whole gallery of portraits of representatives of the Russian intelligentsia: scientists, doctors, musicians and artists.
Until the end of her life (she died at the age of 64 in 1953, just six months after the death of I.V. Stalin), Mukhina was never able to come to terms with the fact that her sculptures were seen not as works of art, but as means of visual agitation.
Discussing the place of ballet in culture and the connection of ballet with time, Pavel Gershenzon, in his acrimonious interview on OpenSpace, stated that in The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman, a landmark Soviet sculpture, both figures actually stand in the ballet pose of the first arabesque. Indeed, in classical ballet such a turn of the body is called just that; sharp thought. I do not think, however, that Mukhina herself had this in mind; however, something else is interesting: even if in this case Mukhina did not think about ballet, then in general she did think about it throughout her life - and more than once.
The retrospective exhibition of the artist's works held at the Russian Museum gives reason to believe so. Let's go through it.
For example, "Seated Woman", a small plaster sculpture of 1914, one of the first independent works of Mukhina the sculptor. A small woman with a strong, young body, realistically sculpted, sits on the floor, bent over and bowing her neatly combed head low. This is hardly a dancer: the body is not trained, the legs are bent at the knees, the back is also not very flexible, but the arms! They are stretched forward so that both hands gently and plastically lie on the foot, also stretched forward, and it is this gesture that determines the figurativeness of the sculpture. The association is instantaneous and unambiguous: of course, Fokine's "The Dying Swan", the final pose. It is significant that in 1947, while experimenting at the Art Glass Factory, Mukhina returns to this very early work of hers and repeats it in a new material - in frosted glass: the figure becomes delicate and airy, and what was shaded in deaf and dense plaster, - association with ballet - is finally determined.
In another case, it is known that a dancer posed for Mukhina. In 1925, Mukhina made a sculpture from it, which she named after the model: “Julia” (a year later the sculpture was transferred to wood). However, here just nothing says that the model was a ballerina - this is how the forms of her body, which served as Mukhina's only starting point, are rethought. In "Julia" two tendencies are combined. The first is a cubist understanding of form, which lies in line with the artist’s searches of the 1910s and early 1920s: back in 1912, while studying in Paris with Bourdelle, Mukhina attended the La Palette cubist academy with her friends; these girlfriends were the avant-garde artists Lyubov Popova and Nadezhda Udaltsova, who were already on the threshold of their glory. "Julia" is the fruit of Mukhina's cubist reflections in sculpture (there was more cubism in the drawings). She does not go beyond the real forms of the body, but comprehends them like a cubist: not so much the anatomy as the geometry of anatomy has been worked out. The shoulder blade is a triangle, the buttocks are two hemispheres, the knee is a small cube protruding at an angle, the stretched tendon under the knee behind is a bar; geometry has a life of its own here.
And the second trend is the one that two years later will be embodied in the famous "Peasant Woman": the heaviness, weight, power of human flesh. Mukhina pours this weight, this “cast iron” into all the members of her model, changing them beyond recognition: in sculpture, nothing reminds of the silhouette of a dancer; it's just that the architectonics of the human body, which interested Mukhina, was probably best seen in the muscular ballerina figure.
And Mukhina has her own theatrical work.
In 1916, Alexandra Ekster, also a close friend and also an avant-garde artist, one of the three whom Benedict Lifshitz called "the Amazons of the avant-garde", brought her to the Chamber Theater to Tairov. "Famira-kifared" was staged, Exter made scenery and costumes, Mukhina was invited to perform the sculptural part of the set design, namely the stucco portal of the "cubo-baroque style" (A. Efros). At the same time, she was assigned to make a sketch of the missing costume of Pierrette for Alisa Koonen in Tairov’s restored pantomime “Pierette’s Veil”: A. Arapov’s set design from the previous three-year-old production was mostly preserved, but not all. A. Efros wrote then about the “correction of strength and courage”, which the costumes of the “young cubist” bring to the performance. Indeed, the cubistically designed teeth of a wide skirt, similar to a giant plaited collar, look powerful and, by the way, quite sculptural. And Pierrette herself looks dancing in the sketch: Pierrette is a ballerina with ballet “reversible” legs, in a dynamic and unbalanced pose, and, perhaps, even standing on her toes.
After that, Mukhina "fell ill" with the theater in earnest: over the course of a year, sketches were made for several more performances, including Sam Benelli's Dinner of Jokes and Blok's Rose and Cross (here was her area of interest in those years: in the field of form - cubism, in the field of worldview - neo-romanticism and the latest appeal to the images of the Middle Ages). The costumes are quite in the spirit of Exter: the figures are dynamically inscribed on the sheet, geometric and planar - the sculptor is almost not felt here, but the painting is there; The “Knight in a Golden Cloak” is especially good, solved in such a way that the figure literally turns into a Suprematist composition that complements it in the sheet (or is it a separately drawn Suprematist shield?). And the golden cloak itself is a tough cubist elaboration of forms and a subtle coloristic elaboration of color - yellow. But these plans were not realized: N. Foregger did the set design for The Dinner of Jokes, and Blok transferred the play The Rose and the Cross to the Art Theater; however, it seems that Mukhina composed her sketches "for herself" - regardless of the actual plans of the theater, simply by inspiration that captured her.
There was another theatrical fantasy, drawn in detail by Mukhina in 1916-1917 (both scenery and costumes), and it was a ballet: “Nal and Damayanti” (a plot from the Mahabharata, known to Russian readers as “Indian story” by V. A. Zhukovsky, translated from German, of course, and not from Sanskrit). The sculptor's biographer tells how Mukhina got carried away and how she even invented dances: three gods - the suitors of Damayanti - were supposed to appear tied up with one scarf and dance like one multi-armed creature (Indian sculpture in Paris made a strong impression on Mukhina), and then each received his own own dance and plasticity.
Three unrealized productions in a year, work without any pragmatism - it already looks like a passion!
But Mukhina did not become a theater artist, and after a quarter of a century she returned to the theatrical - ballet theme in a different way: in 1941 she made portraits of the great ballerinas Galina Ulanova and Marina Semenova.
Created almost simultaneously and depicting the two main dancers of the Soviet ballet, which were perceived as two facets, two poles of this art, these portraits, however, are in no way paired, they are so different both in approach and in artistic method.
Bronze Ulanova - only a head, even without shoulders, and a chiseled neck; meanwhile, here, anyway, the feeling of flight, separation from the earth is conveyed here. The face of the ballerina is directed forward and upward; it is illuminated by an inner emotion, but far from everyday: Ulanova is seized by a sublime, completely unearthly impulse. She seems to be answering a call; it would be the face of creative ecstasy, if she were not so detached. Her eyes are slightly slanted, and although the corneas are slightly outlined, there is almost no look. Previously, Mukhina had such portraits without a look - quite realistic, with a specific resemblance, but with eyes turned inward in a Modigliani style; and here, in the midst of socialist realism, the same Modigliani secret of the eyes suddenly emerges again, and also a barely read half-hint of archaic faces, also familiar to us from Mukhina's earlier works.
However, the feeling of flight is achieved not only by facial expressions, but also by purely sculptural, formal (from the word “form”, not “formality”, of course!) Methods. The sculpture is fixed only on one side, on the right, and on the left the bottom of the neck does not reach the stand, it is cut off, like a wing outstretched in the air. The sculpture, as it were, soars - without any visible effort - into the air, breaks away from the base on which it should stand; this is how pointe shoes in dance touch the stage. Without depicting the body, Mukhina creates a visible image of the dance. And in the portrait, which depicted only the ballerina's head, the image of the Ulanov arabesque is hidden.
A completely different portrait of Marina Semenova.
On the one hand, he easily fits into a number of Soviet official portraits, not only sculptural, but also pictorial - the aesthetic vector seems to be the same. And yet, if you look more closely, it does not fully fit into the framework of socialist realism.
It is slightly larger than the classic belt, - to the bottom of the pack; non-standard "format" is dictated by the ballerina costume. However, despite the stage costume, there is no image of the dance here, the task is different: this is a portrait of Semyonova the woman. The portrait is psychological: before us is an outstanding woman - brilliant, bright, knowing her own worth, full of inner dignity and strength; maybe a little funny. One can see her refinement, and even more intelligence; the face is full of peace and at the same time betrays the passion of nature. The same combination of peace and passion expresses the body: calmly folded soft hands - and full of life, "breathing" back, unusually sensual - here are not eyes, not an open face, but precisely this reverse side of the round sculpture, it is this erotic back that reveals the secret of the model .
But besides the mystery of the model, there is a certain secret of the portrait itself, the work itself. It is in a completely special character of authenticity, which turns out to be significant from yet another, unexpected side.
Studying the history of ballet, the author of these lines often faced the problem of using works of art as a source. The fact is that for all their clarity, in the images there is always a certain gap between how the depicted was perceived by contemporaries and how it could actually look (or, more precisely, how it would be perceived by us). First of all, this concerns, of course, what is done by artists; but photographs are sometimes confusing, not making it clear where is reality and where is the imprint of the era.
This is directly related to Semenova - her photographs, as well as other ballet photographs of that time, carry a certain discrepancy: the dancers look too heavy on them, almost fat, and Marina Semenova is almost the thickest of all. And everything you read about this brilliant ballerina (or hear from those who saw her on stage) comes into treacherous contradiction with her photographs, in which we see a plump, monumental matron in a ballet costume. By the way, she looks plump, full, and on the airy watercolor portrait of Fonvizin.
The secret of Mukhin's portrait is that it returns reality to us. Semyonova stands before us as if alive, and the more you look, the more this feeling intensifies. Here, of course, one can speak of naturalism - however, this naturalism is of a different nature than, say, in portraits of the 18th or 19th centuries, which carefully imitate the dullness of the skin, and the sheen of satin, and the foam of lace. Semenov is sculpted by Mukhina with that degree of absolutely tangible, non-idealized concreteness that, say, the terracotta sculptural portraits of the Renaissance possessed. And just like there, you suddenly have the opportunity to see a completely real, tangible person next to you - not only through the image, but completely directly.
Sculpted in life size, the portrait suddenly shows us for sure what Semenova was like; standing next to him, walking around him, we almost touch the real Semyonova, we see her real body in its real ratio of harmony and density, airy and carnal. It turns out the effect is close to that, as if we, knowing the ballerina only from the stage, suddenly saw her live, very close: so that's what she is! About the Mukhinskaya sculpture, doubts leave us: in fact, there was no monumentality, there was becoming, there was female beauty - what a thin figure, what gentle lines! And by the way, we also see what the ballet costume was like, how it fitted the chest, how it opened the back and how it was made - that too.
A heavy plaster pack, partly conveying the texture of a tarlatan, does not create a feeling of airiness; meanwhile, the impression exactly corresponds to what we see in ballet photographs of the era: Soviet starch tutus of the middle of the century are not so much airy as sculptural. Designer, as we would say now, or constructive, as they would say in the 20s, the idea of whipped lace is embodied in them with all certainty; however, in the thirties and fifties they didn’t say anything like that, they just sewed and starched like that.
There is no dance in Semenova's portrait; however, Semenova herself is; and such that it costs nothing for us to imagine her dancing. That is, Mukhin's portrait still says something about the dance. And as a visual source on the history of ballet, it works quite well.
And in conclusion, one more, completely unexpected plot: a ballet motif where we least expected to meet it.
In 1940, Mukhina participated in a competition for the design of a monument to Dzerzhinsky. Biographer Mukhina O. I. Voronova, describing the idea, speaks of a huge sword clutched in the hand of the “iron Felix”, which rested not even on the pedestal, but on the ground and became the main element of the monument, drawing all attention to itself. But in the sculpture-sketch there is no sword, although, perhaps, it was meant that it would be inserted into the hand. But something else is clearly visible. Dzerzhinsky stands firmly and rigidly, as if clinging to the pedestal with his slightly spaced long legs in high boots. His face is also hard; the eyes are narrowed into slits, the mouth between the mustache and the narrow beard is, as it were, slightly bared. The lean body is plastic and slender, almost like a ballet; the body is deployed on the effacee; the right hand is slightly turned back, and the left with a tensely clenched fist is slightly thrown forward. Perhaps she was just supposed to be squeezing the sword (but why the left one?) - it seems that with this hand they are leaning on something with force.
We know such a gesture. It is in the dictionary of classical ballet pantomime. He is in the parts of the sorceress Madge from La Sylphide, the Great Brahmin from La Bayadère and other ballet villains. Precisely in this way, as if with force pressing down something with a fist from top to bottom, they mimic the words of a secret verdict, a secret criminal plan: "I will destroy him (them)." And this gesture ends exactly like this, exactly like this: with the proud and rigid pose of the Mukhinsky Dzerzhinsky.
I went, Vera Ignatievna Mukhina went to ballets.
She modeled feminine dresses and sculpted brutal sculptures, worked as a nurse and conquered Paris, was inspired by her husband's "short fat muscles" and received Stalin Prizes for their bronze incarnations..
Vera Mukhina at work. Photo: liveinternet.ru
Vera Mukhina. Photo: vokrugsveta.ru
Vera Mukhina at work. Photo: russkije.lv
1. Dress-bud and a coat of soldier's cloth. For some time, Vera Mukhina was a fashion designer. She created the first sketches of theatrical costumes in 1915–1916. Seven years later, for the first Soviet fashion magazine Atelier, she drew a model of an elegant and airy dress with a bud-shaped skirt. But Soviet realities made their own changes to fashion: soon fashion designers Nadezhda Lamanova and Vera Mukhina released the album Art in Everyday Life. It contained patterns of simple and practical clothes - a universal dress, which "with a slight movement of the hand" turned into an evening dress; caftan "from two Vladimir towels"; soldier's coat. In 1925, at the World Exhibition in Paris, Nadezhda Lamanova presented a collection in the a la russe style, sketches for which were also created by Vera Mukhina.
Vera Mukhina. Damayanti. Costume design for the unrealized production of the ballet Nal and Damayanti at the Moscow Chamber Theatre. 1915–1916 Photo: artinvestment.ru
Kaftan from two Vladimir towels. Drawing by Vera Mukhina based on models by Nadezhda Lamanova. Photo: livejournal.com
Vera Mukhina. Dress model with a bud-shaped skirt. Photo: liveinternet.ru
2. Nurse. During the First World War, Vera Mukhina graduated from nursing courses and worked in a hospital, where she met her future husband Alexei Zamkov. When her son Vsevolod was four years old, he fell unsuccessfully, after which he fell ill with bone tuberculosis. The doctors refused to operate on the boy. And then the operation was done by the parents - at home, on the dining table. Vera Mukhina assisted her husband. Vsevolod recovered for a long time, but recovered.
3. Favorite model of Vera Mukhina. Alexei Zamkov constantly posed for his wife. In 1918, she created a sculptural portrait of him. Later, from him, she sculpted Brutus, who kills Caesar. The sculpture was supposed to decorate the Red Stadium, which was planned to be built on the Lenin Hills (the project was not implemented). Even the hands of the "Peasant Woman" were the hands of Alexei Zamkov with "short thick muscles", as Mukhina said. She wrote about her husband: “He was very handsome. Internal monumentality. However, it has a lot of the man. Outward rudeness with great spiritual subtlety.
4. "Baba" in the Vatican Museum. Vera Mukhina cast a bronze figure of a peasant woman for the 1927 art exhibition dedicated to the tenth anniversary of October. At the exhibition, the sculpture won first place, and then went to the exposition of the Tretyakov Gallery. Vera Mukhina said: “My “Baba” stands firmly on the ground, unshakable, as if hammered into it.” In 1934, The Peasant Woman was exhibited at the XIX International Exhibition in Venice, after which it was transferred to the Vatican Museum.
Sketches of the sculpture by Vera Mukhina "Peasant Woman" (low tide, bronze, 1927). Photo: futureruss.ru
Vera Mukhina at work on The Peasant Woman. Photo: vokrugsveta.ru
Sculpture "Peasant Woman" by Vera Mukhina (low tide, bronze, 1927). Photo: futureruss.ru
5. Relative of the Russian Orpheus. Vera Mukhina was a distant relative of the opera singer Leonid Sobinov. After the success of The Peasant Woman, he wrote her a playful quatrain as a gift:
At the exhibition with male art is weak.
Where to run from female dominance?
Mukhinskaya woman conquered everyone
Power alone and without effort.Leonid Sobinov
After the death of Leonid Sobinov, Vera Mukhina sculpted a tombstone - a dying swan, which was installed on the grave of the singer. The tenor performed the aria "Farewell to the Swan" in the opera "Lohengrin".
6. 28 wagons of "Worker and Collective Farm Woman". Vera Mukhina created her legendary sculpture for the 1937 World Exhibition. "The ideal and symbol of the Soviet era" was sent to Paris in parts - fragments of the statue occupied 28 wagons. The monument was called a model of sculpture of the twentieth century, in France they released a series of souvenirs with the image of "Worker and Collective Farm Girl". Vera Mukhina later recalled: "The impression made by this work in Paris gave me everything an artist could wish for." In 1947, the sculpture became the emblem of Mosfilm.
"Worker and Collective Farm Woman" at the World Exhibition in Paris, 1937. Photo: liveinternet
"Worker and Collective Farm Woman". Photo: liveinternet.ru
Museum and Exhibition Center "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman"
7. "Hands itching to write it". When the artist Mikhail Nesterov met Vera Mukhina, he immediately decided to paint her portrait: “She is interesting, smart. Outwardly, it has “its own face”, completely finished, Russian ... Hands itch to paint it ... ”The sculptor posed for him more than 30 times. Nesterov could work enthusiastically for four or five hours, and during breaks Vera Mukhina treated him to coffee. The artist painted it while working on the statue of Boreas, the northern god of the wind: “So he attacks the clay: he hits there, pinches here, beats here. The face is on fire - do not fall under the arm, it will hurt. That's the kind of you I need!" The portrait of Vera Mukhina is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery.
8. Faceted glass and beer mug. The sculptor is credited with the invention of faceted glass, but this is not entirely true. She only improved his form. The first batch of glasses according to her drawings was released in 1943. Glass vessels became more durable and ideally suited for the Soviet dishwasher, invented not long before. But Vera Mukhina really came up with the shape of the Soviet beer mug herself.
