VASILY POLENOV. Impressions of Paris

Vasily Polenov was a tireless traveller, for whom France - and its capital city in particular - would prove the destination closest to his heart: he wrote in a letter of the attractions of “dear jolly Paris and the merry French”.[1] He visited Paris for the first time as a young man in 1867, while his final stay there was in 1911, by which time he had long earned acclaim as an artist. He lived in Paris for three years from 1872 to 1876, as the recipient of a scholarship from the Academy of Fine Arts, and returned there for particular artistic events, such as the 1889 World Fair and the Salon exhibitions of 1895.[2]

Polenov inherited his passion for travel and discovering new artists, galleries and museums from his maternal great-grandfather Nikolai Alexandrovich Lvov (1751-1803), who was called a “Russian Leonardo" by his contemporaries. Lvov was a dedicated traveller who visited many European cities, including Hamburg, London, Paris, Vienna, Madrid, Pisa, Florence, Venice and Bologna, and recorded his experiences in his diary.[3]

Like his great-grandfather, Polenov shared his impressions in his letters, which present a fascinating tapestry of French cultural life between the 1870s and the early 20th century: they are noteworthy for the freshness of their perspective and impressions, and if the opinions expressed in them sometimes seem unconventional, that only makes them more valuable. Po- lenov's tastes in contemporary painting were far from radical, however - he paid little attention to figures such as £douard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne or Vincent Van Gogh, who are today the most famous artists of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Instead, Polenov favoured painters who enjoyed success at the Salons and the World Fairs, who earned considerable fame in their lifetime but whose names would fade into near-total oblivion after their deaths. (Some of them, such as Anders Zorn, Frits Thaulow, Domenico Morelli and Mariano Fortuny, have been the subject of major museum shows over the last decade in France, Italy and Spain, which has drawn renewed attention to them, encouraging reappraisal of their work.)[4]

Polenov's first journey abroad took place in the summer of 1867, when he was still a law student at St. Petersburg University as well as a non-matriculated student at the Academy of Arts; he visited the Paris World Fair, and was welcomed by the new “Haussmannian" Paris, which had been transformed in the era of the Second Empire under the rule of Napoleon III. For the first time the nations participating in the Exposition Universelle were afforded the chance to build their own pavilions, in national styles, on its site of some 70 hectares on the Champ de Mars. The Russian Pavilion, which included a log cabin that had been assembled without the use of a single metal nail by carpenters from Vladimir, was awarded the silver medal.

The writer and critic Dmitry Grigorovich was among the Russian visitors to the World Fair, and the article that he wrote after his return home, “Artistic Education as Applied to Industry at the World Fair in Paris, 1867" suggested that more prominence should be given to the applied arts. It was a theme echoed in the subject that Polenov chose for the dissertation that he defended in July 1871, “On the Meaning of Art in Its Relation to Crafts, and On Measures Taken by Certain States to Raise the Status of Crafts Introducing Into It Artistic Elements", and it is possible that his visit to the Paris exhibition gave rise to Polenov's interest in this subject.

In the visual arts, France was represented at the Exposition Universelle by the contemporary French school, including masterpieces by Jean-François Millet, Camille Corot and Theodore Rousseau, and other landscapists of the Barbizon school. Gustave Courbet, whose “Pavilion of Realism" had caused a furore at a previous World Fair in Paris in 1855, exhibited 137 compositions there in 1867, principally landscapes and large-scale hunting scenes. However, it was not pieces by artists such as these that caught the attention of the young Polenov.

Early in 1874, in a report that he made to the secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts, Pyotr Iseev, about his journey in Europe, Polenov noted how, on his 1867 visit to Paris, he had been most impressed by the Italian painter Domenico Morelli (1826-1901): “This painter [Morelli] truly fascinated me in 1867... his paintings, even amidst the most prominent works produced in other parts of Europe, shone like precious stones."[5]

Morelli exhibited three paintings at the 1867 World Fair: “Count Lara" (after Byron's poem “Lara, A Tale"; 1861, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna Rome), “The Baths of Pompeii" (1861, the Balzan Foundation, Badia Polesine), and “Torquato Tasso Reading Jerusalem Delivered to Eleonora d'Este" (1865, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome). The Italian artist's engaging stories and skilfully crafted “set design", his refined colour combinations, chiaroscuro contrasts and attention to detail, as well as the exquisite eroticism to be found in “The Baths of Pompeii",[6] held a strong appeal for the young Polenov, who was interested in history and appreciated above all the effect of colouring in painting. He would make Morelli's acquaintance in Naples in the summer of 1873, early in his European travels, when Morelli helped Polenov and Ilya Repin to visit the gallery of Giovanni Vonwiller, the Zurich banker and patron of the arts whose rich collection of contemporary Italian art was kept in Naples:[7] it included Morelli's first religious works, notably his “Christ Walking on the Water" (1865, private collection) and “The Embalming of Christ" (1871, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome). Polenov's exposure to these new, more naturalistic interpretations of the biblical narratives, with their focus on ethnographic details and use of landscapes as background, would gradually prepare him for his own magnum opus “Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery" (referring to the episode from John's Gospel, 7:53-8:11, the painting is also known as “Christ and the Sinner"). Polenov retained his interest in Morelli's art throughout his life: a folder with photographs of pictures by the Italian artist survives today in the library of the Vasily Polenov Museum-Reserve.[8]

Domenico MORELLI. The Baths of Pompeii. 1861
Oil on canvas. 134 × 102.5 cm
© Balzan Collection, Badia Polesine (Italy). Photograph: Mauro Ranzani. Milan

When Polenov returned to Paris at the end of November 1873, he was the recipient of a travel stipend from the Academy of Arts. He rented a studio at 72 Rue Blanche, and while renovations to this future lodging and studio were being completed, Polenov stayed with Repin and his family at 31 Rue Véron.[9] “Now I'm living in Montmartre, high up beneath the roof," he wrote to his family in December 1873. “It is a lodging typical for workers and artist - all Paris at your feet."[10]

Polenov liked Paris much more this second time than on his first visit in 1867. The city had changed considerably over the previous six years, having endured the tribulations of the Franco-Prussian War, the time of the Paris Commune, and the fire of May 1871 that followed its suppression. “The French Republic was still very young," Repin would remember in his memoir “Far Away, Close By", “there were obvious reminders of the Communards' actions: the Vendome Column still lay as a mass of ruins all across the Place Vendome, the Tuileries Palace was destroyed, too, and the City Hall, once an equally magnificent building, was a spectacular and picturesque ruin as well..."[11] A construction boom was going on, the prevailing atmosphere one of cheerful excitement, and the Salon and other art shows were opened once again.

The beginning of Polenov's and Repin's stay in Paris coincided with the first exhibition of the Impressionists, which opened in April 1874. Although Polenov did not mention this event in his letters, he had undoubtedly heard about the Impressionists and Manet: in May 1875 Repin would write to the artist Ivan Kramskoi about “the depraved freedom of the Emprissionalists (Manet, Monet and others)" and their “childish truth".[12] In one of his letters from Paris in the summer of 1874, Polenov himself
mentioned the artist Marie-François Firmin-Girard (18381921), who was close to the Impressionists.[13]

In the 1860s Firmin-Girard and his friends from the studio of Charles Gleyre, including some of the future Impressionists, were discovering plein air painting in Paris suburbs such as Barbizon and Marlotte. His paintings from that period, such as “Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe’’, are distinguished by their dynamic brushwork and the vague and blurred contours of the objects depicted. Later Firmin-Girard would break with such youthful experimentation and developed a painting manner that was much smoother: his genre scenes from the 1870s, such as “The Flower Seller on the Pont Royal with the Louvre Beyond, Paris" and “Le Quai aux fleurs’’, retain the light colouring of his earlier works but are distinguished by their almost photographic realism, with an emphatic focus on detail and accuracy in conveying architectural forms, an element that would surely have made an impression on Pol- enov with his keenness for “architectural settings".

In the 1870s Firmin-Girard's studio was situated on Boulevard de Clichy, close to those of Polenov and Repin, and it is possible that the artists could have known one another personally. In addition, in 1876 Firmin-Girard had his first taste of success at the Salon, displaying his painting “Le Quai aux fleurs" where Polenov must have seen it.[14] Firmin-Girard was also certainly a subject of discussion at Pauline Viardot's salon on Rue de Douai, which Polenov visited. It can be guessed that when Polenov was creating his composition “Dragonfly (‘A playful prankish Dragonfly/The whole Summer hath sung out...')" (1875-1876, Tretyakov Gallery), he may have had Firmin-Girard's work in mind: “Dragonfly" is close to the genre scenes of that “Paris master" both in terms of its narrative, the image of a Parisienne engaged in petits metiers (handicraft), and in terms of technique, with the young woman's figure standing out in contrast on a light-coloured background.

Early on in their Paris period, Polenov and Repin were strongly influenced by the letters of Henri Regnault (1843-1871), the French artist who had died a hero's death at the Battle of Buzenval on January 19 1871.[15] The Russian painters were captivated not only by Regnault's art but also, and more profoundly, by the personality and fascinating exuberance of this desperately courageous man. Among the events that he witnessed, and in which he took part, were the eruption of Vesuvius in January 1868; the “Glorious Revolution", the coup d’état that took place in Spain in September 1868; and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. The triumphant entry of General Juan Prim into Madrid had inspired Regnault's monumental composition “Juan Prim, 8 Octobre 1868" (1860, Musee d'Orsay, Paris), which Polenov might have seen at the 1873 World Fair in Vienna. Regnault's passion for travel and thirst for novelty took him to Spain, where he created several colourful images of local peasants and mountain shepherds. Andalusia's Islamic past inspired the artist for his “Summary Execution under the Moorish Kings of Grenada" (1870, Musee d'Orsay, Paris), a painting with a bold composition and contrasting colours which delighted critics. Regnault visited Morocco in 1870 and brought back from there brightly coloured sketches that were full of light.

In his letters Regnault mentioned Manet and the Catalan artist Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838-1874): “I spent the entire day before yesterday at Fortuny's... What a wonderful person! These amazing pictures in his studio! He's a teacher to all of us."[16] When Polenov saw Fortuny's artwork at his posthumous exhibition in 1875, he likewise became an admirer[17] - Fortuny's images literally enthralled him with their amazing “sense of colour" and shining “silvery-pearly" palette. “Next to him, everything seems dull and lacklustre," Polenov wrote about French artist to Pavel Chistyakov.[18] Artists and collectors of the time appreciated his consummate craftsmanship, his bright, shining colour schemes and exotic narratives - like Regnault, Fortuny travelled extensively in Italy, Spain and North Africa (he was even taken hostage in Morocco in 1860). Theophile Gautier went so far as to compare Fortuny's etchings with the graphic work of Goya and Rembrandt.[19] When it was exhibited at Galerie Goupil & Cie on Avenue de l'Opera in Paris, Fortuny's “The Spanish Wedding" (1870, Mu- seu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona) earned the acclaim of Jean-Léon Gérôme and Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier in Paris, and later that of John Everett Millais in London.

Polenov especially liked Fortuny's landscapes, in particular his “Beach at Portici" (Meadows Museum, Dallas), of which he made a copy. Polenov demonstrated in his small landscape an outstanding talent for colour combination: his palette of light colours - pale blue and a mosaic of white, rosy, lilaceous, red spots in the foreground - appear especially elegant.

Polenov's and Repin's fascination with artists such as Fortuny, Regnault and Morelli is evident in the “Orientalist" compositions that they created in Paris in 18741876, including Repin's “Portrait of a Negress" (1876, Russian Museum) and Polenov's “Odalisque" (1875, National Art Museum of Belarus, Minsk) and “Egyptian Girl" (1876, private collection).[20] “Odalisque" and “Egyptian Girl" reveal the influence of opulent compositions such as Regnault's “Salomé" (1870, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Fortuny's “Odalisque" (1861, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona) and “Potiphar's Wife" (Certosa di San Martino, Naples), as well as Morel- li's “Donna velata (Odalisca)" (1873, Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, Milan). At that time Polenov was also contemplating the creation of another “Egyptian" composition, “Feast of the Prodigal Son" which tells about festivity at the Alexandrian palace, with brightly painted columns in its background.[21] The colouristic design with its combination of golden, azure and white, as well as its opulence of décor, ornamentation and light recalls the work of Fortuny, Regnault and Morelli and at the same time demonstrates Polenov's decorative talent.

Another memorable experience for Polenov during his stay in Paris came when he saw compositions by his teacher and friend Alexei Bogolyubov (1824-1896). In December 1873, Repin invited Polenov to the Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Church on Rue Daru, which had been built in 1859-1861 in Neo-Byzantine style to a design by the architect Roman Kuzmin, who was also a friend of Polenov's father. The interior of the church was painted by various recipients of the Academy of Fine Arts' travel stipends in the 1850s, including the brothers Pavel and Yevgraf Sorokin, Fyodor Bronnikov, and Alexander Beideman. But Polenov's attention was drawn not by the icons and murals but rather by Bogolyubov's pictures “Christ Preaching at the Sea of Galilee" and “Christ Walking on the Water", which the artist had donated to the parish in 1872. “It is original and beautiful when the church has big landscapes. You're carried away into a natural setting, Gospel stories and legends," Polenov wrote to his family.[22] Despite the romantic portrayal of Christ in “Christ Walking on the Water", Bogolyubov's images are fairly realistic - his compositions represent a real landscape and real people, illuminated and transformed by Christ's presence. There can be no doubt that these pieces by Bogolyubov inspired Polenov to create his series of small sketches, titled “Scenes from the Life of Christ", that represent Jesus and other characters from the Gospel “living" in harmony with landscapes around them.

It was on Bogolyubov's advice that in the summer of 1874 Polenov visited Veules-les-Roses in Normandy, where he would first experience the joy of painting en plein air. It was a discovery that would awaken the artist's interest in depicting nature in its different states, which was the main result of the time that he spent in France in 1873-1876.

Vasily POLENOV. An Old Gate. Veules, Normandy. 1874
Oil on canvas. 24 × 30 cm
© Vasily Polenov Museum-Reserve

When Polenov returned to Paris in the spring of 1895 to visit the Salons,[23] he experienced the same kind of memorable moments as he had in the 1870s: the city's atmosphere - “packed with people, boisterous, democratic" - fascinated the 50-year-old artist. He “greatly enjoyed art", reminiscing about his very first visit to France in 1867.

At the time Polenov was working on his Gospel series and was interested in issues such as how to convey sunlight, the transparency of air, and ripples on water. At the Salons his attention was attracted principally by prominent landscapists such as Scotland's George Harcourt (1869-1949), the American Alexander Harrison (1853-1930), and two artists from Scandinavia, Frits Thaulow (1847-1906) from Norway and Anders Zorn (1860-1920) from Sweden. Although in his art Polenov preferred combinations of delicate, soft colours, his attention at the Paris shows was caught by compositions that were more spectacular, often with strong colour contrasts. What attracted him in Harrison's landscape “Marine, Clair de lune" (“Moonlight at the Seaside", 1892-1893, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper) was perhaps the mysterious atmosphere of the nocturnal seaside lit by the moon. Harcourt's “Bathing Woman" stunned Polenov with its “effect of a setting sun".[24] Polenov also took notice of Zorn's “scenes from Parisian life". Titling his composition, which was exhibited at the Salon, “Night Effect" (1895, Gothenburg Museum of Art), Zorn displayed an element of humour; its title may evoke the landscapes of the Impressionists and their emulators, but the piece features “a night butterfly" in a bright red manteau with a fur wrap represented at a bold, unusual angle.

Before he left France, Polenov visited the large Corot exhibition that was being held at the Palais Galliera. “There is a Corot show on here at the moment, many of the works are monotonously similar, but among them you can come across truly wonderful delights," he wrote to his wife on June 1.25 The show featured over 140 works by Corot, including his poetic images of Ville-d'Avray (c. 1865, Musée de Tesse, Le Mans, France).

All these experiences expanded Polenov's artistic vision - the years he spent living in Paris, his visits to art shows and the Salons, his work in partnership with Repin and Bogolyubov, and the discovery of new talents and names among the Russian artists in Paris and French artists alike: it sharpened his senses and influenced his own artistic evolution. Polenov experienced many rapturous moments enjoying the masterpieces of the Old Masters, such as Veronese, Rembrandt and Velazquez. But what he learned from his contemporaries was no less significant, whether it came from the German realist Karl von Piloty (1826-1886), who was the first to advise Polenov “to paint from nature", or the Swiss symbolist Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901), with his projections of emotional moods onto landscapes; from Morelli's “precious palette" and distinctive, deeply personal interpretation of biblical narratives, or Fortuny's bright luminosity; from the scenes of Parisian life caught by Anders Zorn, or Frits Thaulow's and Alexander Harrison's moonlit landscapes.

1. Polenov, Vasily. “Letters. Diaries. Memoirs”. Moscow-Leningrad, 1950. P. 183. Hereinafter - Letters.
2. For more detailed information about Polenov’s travels in Europe, see: Mojenok-Ninin, Tatyana. “The World of Vasily Polenov. Europe” // “The World of Vasily Polenov. Russia, Europe, the East”. Moscow, 2019.
3. Lvov, N.A. ‘N.A. Lvov’s Notes on His Travel in Italy in 1781: Selected fragments as recounted by V. Vereshchagin’ // “Starye gody” (Old Years). 1909. No. 5. Pp. 276-282. About N.A. Lvov’s Italian tour see: Lappo-Danilevsky, K.Yu. ‘N.A. Lvov’s Italian Itinerary in 1781’ // “The 18th Century: Collection of Articles”. No. 19. St. Petersburg, 1995. Pp. 102-113.
4. “Anders Zorn. Le mattre de la peinture suedoise”, Paris-Musees, 2017; “Fritz Thaulow, paysagiste par nature”, Caen, Snoeck Publishers, 2016 ; “Domenico Morelli e il suo tempo. Dal Romanticismo al Simbolismo, 1823-1901”, Luisa Martorelli curatore, Napoli, Electa, 2005 ; “Fortuny (1838-1874)”, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 2017.
5. Polenov repeated this in his letter to Ivan Kramskoi on April 1/12 1876: “There were two other occasions when I was as strongly impressed [as by Fortuny in Paris in 1875] - in [1867] by Morelli and in 1873, in Munich, by Bocklin” // Letters. Pp. 40, 89, 463.
6. Striving for accuracy as he worked on “The Baths of Pompei”, Morelli used drawings by Giacinto Gigante, the only artist officially authorized in 1855-1858 to work on the excavation site. See: “Domenico Morelli e il suo tempo”. Р. 59.
7. Morelli was curator of the Gallery. The Vonwiller Gallery’s collection was sold at auction in Paris in 1901. See: “Catalogue de la Galerie Vonwiller, Tableaux, marbres, bronzes”. Napoli, 1901.
8. The Vasily Polenov Museum-Reserve (Vasily Polenov Memorial Art and History Museum and Nature Preserve).
9. In October 2018, on the initiative of the Polenov Association, Paris a memorial plaque honouring the painter was unveiled at 31 Rue Veron.
10. Sakharova, Ye.V. “Vasily Polenov. Yelena Polenov. An Artists’ Family Chronicle” Moscow, 1964. P. 105.
11. Repin, Ilya. “Far Away, Close By”. Leningrad, 1986. P. 276.
12. Repin, Ilya. “Letters. 1867-1892”. In two vols. Moscow, 1969. Vol. 1. P. 154.
13. Sakharova, Ye.V. “Vasily Polenov. Yelena Polenov. An Artists’ Family Chronicle”. P. 137. About Frangois-Marie Firmin (1838-1921), known as Firmin-Girard, see https:// firmingirard.com (last accessed, December 20 2018). The artist’s Catalogue raisonne is currently being created. Firmin-Girard is featured among the 43 artists represented in a group studio portrait of the students of Charles Gleyre: the piece is now held at the Petit Palais, Paris.
14. “Le Quai aux fleurs” is Firmin-Gir- ard’s magnum opus, commissioned from him by an American collector through the dealer Goupil & Cie. The latter suggested the artist should include his self-portrait in the composition: Firmin-Girard depicted himself, together with the profile of his spouse with her head inclined towards their daughter, and their newborn son in the hands of a wet-nurse.
15. “Correspondance de Henri Regnault, annotee et recueillie par Arthur Duparc”. Paris, 1872.
16. Ibid. P. 158, 255.
17. “Atelier de Fortuny: reuvre posthume, objets d’art et de curiosite, armes, faiences: hispano-moresques, etoffes et broderies, bronzes orientaux, coffrets d’ivoire, etc...” Paris, Hotel Drouot, 1875. See also: Bon Davill- ier. “Fortuny, sa vie, son oeuvre, sa correspondance”. Paris, 1875.
18. Letters. Pp. 88-89, 91.
19. “Atelier de Fortuny: reuvre posthume”. Р. 4-5.
20. Polenov’s “Egyptian Girl” was featured at a Sotheby’s auction in 2008, see: Russian Art Evening, catalogue, Sotheby’s, London, November 24 2008. No 7. Pp. 26-28.
21. Polenov referred to “Feast of the Prodigal Son” in such a way in his letter to Yelena Polenova, see: Sakharova, Ye.V. “Vasily Polenov. Yelena Polenov. An Artists’ Family Chronicle”. P. 196.
22. Ibid. Pp. 106-107.
23. Letters. Pp. 291-294. From 1890 onwards, the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts began organizing its own Salons on the Champ de Mars (Salon du Champs-de-Mars, or Salon Meissonier). These exhibitions usually opened two weeks after the Salon des Champs-Elysees, organized by the Societe des Artistes Frangais (the association of French painters and sculptors).
24. In the Salon’s catalogue the piece is listed as “Psyche”, see: “Catalogue illustre de peinture et sculpture”, Salon de 1895, No. 919.
25. Letters. P. 294. The catalogue of the Corot exhibition: “Palais Galliera. Exposition organisee au profit du monument du centenaire de Corot, catalogue des chefs- d’oeuvre pretes par les Musees de l’Etat et les grandes collections de France et de l’etranger”. Paris, 1895.