Art of Spain

Of all the Picasso shows held in Russia during at least the last 50 years, the 2010 exhibition is the biggest and most representative. Other features, too, lend to this event a certain "Russian touch": the assortment of pictures on display includes several pieces from the Pushkin Museum; the show also has a whole section devoted to Sergei Diaghilev's "Ballets Russes", and presents archival documents relating to the friendship between Picasso and Ilya Ehrenburg. This article provides only highlights of the long history of the relationship between Picasso and Russia.

There are few places outside Spain itself where people have as deep and thorough an appreciation of Spanish culture, literature, drama, fine arts, cinema, philosophy and aesthetics as in Russia. As for the visual arts, some remarkable scholarly publications by Russian historians, art experts and critics dedicated to the masters of Spanish painting and drawing deserve to be particularly remembered. Among them are Igor Golomshtok's and Nina Dmitrieva's monographs on Picasso, Oleg Prokofiev's works on Goya's prints, Alexander Yakimovich's works on the portraits of Velázquez, as well as the first monograph on Salvador Dali's art published in Russian, "Salvador Dali: Myths and Reality" by Alexander Rozhin - the former King of Spain Juan Carlos honoured that work with a special acknowledgement - and many other equally worthy publications.

Of all the Picasso shows held in Russia during at least the last 50 years, the 2010 exhibition is the biggest and most representative. Other features, too, lend to this event a certain "Russian touch": the assortment of pictures on display includes several pieces from the Pushkin Museum; the show also has a whole section devoted to Sergei Diaghilev's "Ballets Russes", and presents archival documents relating to the friendship between Picasso and Ilya Ehrenburg. This article provides only highlights of the long history of the relationship between Picasso and Russia.

"Golovin visited Spain only three or four times - less than France, Germany or Italy, to which he travelled in the years before World War I almost every year. But Spain became something of a poetic homeland for the artist, and a lasting source of inspiration for him. Golovin studied the Spanish language, knew the country's history, literature, music and art very well... [The works he painted on Spanish themes and his theatrical productions involving Spanish motifs] can only be termed 'genre' works in the loosest sense, rather they are painting-remembrances, painting-fantasies, in which Golovin expressed his painterly view of Spain, and his feeling for the Spanish national character."

The English King Henry VIII, as portrayed by Hans Holbein, lives alongside a Picasso harlequin in the same palace in the centre of Madrid. Canaletto's Venice landscapes mingle with street scenes of Berlin created by Grosz, while self-portraits by Rembrandt and Lucien Freud share the walls. The "Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni" by Ghirlandaio and Lichtenstein's "Woman in Bath" offer different visions of serenity, as Caravaggio's "Santa Catalina" and "Santa Casilda" by Zurbarán try to match one another in holiness. Famous faces by Hopper with El Greco, or Matisse with Cézanne take in the scene.