Landscape

The Call of the Future

Tatiana Plastova

Article: 
ARTISTIC DYNASTY
Magazine issue: 
#4 2012 (37)

For nearly 50 years the Chernyshev-Gorsky family has played a vital role in the Russian visual arts. In 1969 Dmitry Zhilinsky, a student and associate of Nikolai Chernyshev, painted "The Artist's Family. The Chernyshevs" (Russian Museum), and a year later "The Chernyshev Family" (Tretyakov Gallery), thus completing the family's image. He wrote of the works: "I imagined all the Chernyshevs walking in an autumnal forest. Nikolai Mikhailovich, in profile, against Antonina Alexandrovna, full-face; further on, young oak trees, branching out, and between them the trio: daughters Katerina and Natasha, and son-in-law Andrei Gorsky. To the left, grandson Kolenka hopping around like a grasshopper, daughter Polina to the right, behind the trees. The composition and the colour seem to have been decided. A golden autumnal background. Chernyshev in a light-coloured raincoat, nearly weightless. Behind him, Antonina Alexandrovna, serious and close to the earth, stands quietly, holding a bunch of autumnal flowers. He is narrow and light-coloured — an incarnation of spirit; she is wide, quiet, beautiful — his support." Many years later, in the picture "Paths of Childhood" by Nikolai Chernyshev's grandson Nikolai Gorsky-Chernyshev, this chain of times would be looped back: the boy (Kolenka from the Zhilinsky painting) running along the road to a church and Nikolai and Antonina, supporting each other as they walk behind him, embody that continuous, endless road of spiritual quest which the members of this admirable Russian family have been treading for a century.

The Call of the Future

Try not to live as a pretender,
But so to manage your affairs
That you are loved by wide expanses,
And hear the call of future years.

Boris Pasternak

The Formation of a Great Collection

Oleg Antonov

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#4 2012 (37)

The Tretyakov Gallery show "Drawings and Watercolours by Russian Artists of the Second Half of the 19th-beginning of the 20th Centuries" constitutes a small part of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts's extensive collection of Russian graphics, which totals 150,000 sheets in all. This part of the collection, especially drawings dating back to the second half of the 19th century, has never been carefully studied or exhibited, so is not well known by either the general public or art experts. It does, however, stand on its own, including some unique works and offering certain important details that complement our overall understanding of that period in the development of Russian art.

The Formation of a Great Collection

The Tretyakov Gallery show "Drawings and Watercolours by Russian Artists of the Second Half of the 19th-beginning of the 20th Centuries" constitutes a small part of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts's extensive collection of Russian graphics, which totals 150,000 sheets in all. This part of the collection, especially drawings dating back to the second half of the 19th century, has never been carefully studied or exhibited, so is not well known by either the general public or art experts.

Ferdinand Hodler - a symbolist vision

Article: 
INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA
Magazine issue: 
Special issue. SWITZERLAND–RUSSIA: ON THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES

An unparalleled overview of Ferdinand Hodler's work opened on April 9 2008 in the old building of the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, in rooms specially designed for the exhibition. This show is one of the most important and comprehensive of Hodler's exhibitions, with over 150 major works from all periods; it will remain there until August 10 2008. The exhibition was arranged in collaboration with the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, and offers a unique overview of Hodler's work, clearly establishing the international significance of this Swiss painter. His large symbolist figure paintings are shown alongside his best landscapes. The exhibition is rounded out with his unique group of works dealing with the sick and dying Valentine Gode-Darel, his mistress, and with a selection of self-portraits.

Ferdinand Hodler -a symbolist vision

An unparalleled overview of Ferdinand Hodler's work opened on April 9 2008 in the old building of the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, in rooms specially designed for the exhibition. This show is one of the most important and comprehensive of Hodler's exhibitions, with over 150 major works from all periods; it will remain there until August 10 2008. The exhibition was arranged in collaboration with the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, and offers a unique overview of Hodler's work, clearly establishing the international significance of this Swiss painter.

The Levitan Memorial Museum in Plyos - Historical Highlights

Olga Nasedkina

Article: 
MUSEUMS OF RUSSIA
Magazine issue: 
Special issue. ISAAC LEVITAN

In June 2010 the town of Plyos marked its 600th anniversary. 50 years ago, in 1960, the day for the festivities was set on August 30, which coincided with the centenary of the birth of Isaac Levitan, the illustrious landscape artist. Many artists from Moscow and the city of Ivanovo responded to the artist Boris Prorokov's call to donate their paintings to Plyos. The new picture gallery, an establishment operated on pro bono basis, was opened in 1961; initially it was accommodated at a Plyos agricultural college, on Sobornaya Hill, in a building which before the revolution was occupied by a governmental agency. Later, in 1962, the gallery moved to the Voskresensky church near Torgovaya Square, not far from a boat quay.

The Levitan Memorial Museum in Plyos - Historical Highlights

In June 2010 the town of Plyos marked its 600th anniversary. 50 years ago, in 1960, the day for the festivities was set on August 30, which coincided with the centenary of the birth of Isaac Levitan, the illustrious landscape artist. Many artists from Moscow and the city of Ivanovo responded to the artist Boris Prorokov's call to donate their paintings to Plyos.

Isaac Levitan: A Master of Pastel Art

Lydia Torstensen

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
Special issue. ISAAC LEVITAN

Levitan started using pastel sticks very early on. His youthful pieces such as the images of the little girls Nadya Yakovleva (1880, Russian Museum) and Lena Nenarokova (1880, Tretyakov Gallery) already have delicate pastel inclusions. However, it was not before the 1890s that Levitan's pastel explorations truly reached their creative peak. Among the pastels currently known and dated by the artist himself, "Storm" (1890, private collection, Moscow) is the earliest. From 1890 on Levitan created a number of remarkable pieces which established him as one of the premier masters of pastel art of the late 19th century.

Isaac Levitan: A Master of Pastel Art

Levitan started using pastel sticks very early on. His youthful pieces such as the images of the little girls Nadya Yakovleva (1880, Russian Museum) and Lena Nenarokova (1880, Tretyakov Gallery) already have delicate pastel inclusions. However, it was not before the 1890s that Levitan's pastel explorations truly reached their creative peak. Among the pastels currently known and dated by the artist himself, "Storm" (1890, private collection, Moscow) is the earliest.

Crossed Destinies - Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan

Galina Churak

Article: 
EXCLUSIVE PUBLICATIONS
Magazine issue: 
Special issue. ISAAC LEVITAN

When Yulia Sergeievna, the heroine of Anton Chekhov's 1895 story "Three Years", and her husband visited an art show in Easter week, making a tour of the rooms, she "stopped before a small landscape... In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark grass; a copse on the right; near it a camp fire - no doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow of the evening sunset. Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then along the little path further and further, while all round was stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something unearthly, eternal."

Crossed Destinies - Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan

When Yulia Sergeievna, the heroine of Anton Chekhov's 1895 story "Three Years", and her husband visited an art show in Easter week, making a tour of the rooms, she "stopped before a small landscape... In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark grass; a copse on the right; near it a camp fire - no doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow of the evening sunset.

On Levitan's Landscapes and the Levitan Exhibition

Lydia Iovleva

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
Special issue. ISAAC LEVITAN

"Levitan's landscape" is a term firmly ingrained both in art scholarship and in the minds of many art lovers. A "Levitan landscape" is different from an "Ivan Shishkin landscape" or even landscapes by Alexei Savrasov or Vasily Polenov, although it is very close to the last ones. Usually, a "Levitan landscape" is a simple image of an almost always deserted natural environment - a creek, a narrow pathway, groves rolling on into the depth of the picture in a somewhat diagonal direction, or copses. It is set in different seasons, except (largely) winter -Levitan's pieces almost never feature images of snowy winter -and usually depicts a transitional season or summer; there are blue horizons and a high limitless sky with a distinct life of its own, beyond the mental grasp of human beings.

On Levitan's Landscapes and the Levitan Exhibition

"A landscape serves no purpose if beauty is all it has.
should contain the life of a soul.
It should be a sound responsive to the stirrings of the heart –
it is hard to put it in words, it is so much like music"
1

Konstantin Korovin

Isaac Levitan's Summer. Day Rediscovered

Galina Churak

Article: 
EXCLUSIVE PUBLICATIONS
Magazine issue: 
#1 2014 (42)

EVERY WORK BY THE EMINENT LANDSCAPE ARTIST ISAAC LEVITAN, WHETHER HIS LARGE FINISHED COMPOSITIONS OR SKETCHES FROM NATURE, HIS DRAWINGS OR Refined pASTEL pIEcES, IS A "SwEET Melody" ABOuT RuSSIAN NATuRE – A MELODY WHICH SOUNDS SOMETIMES CLEARLY AND CHEERFULLY, SOMETIMES TENSELY AND ANXIOUSLY, BUT ALWAYS EARNESTLY AND EMOTIONALLY. LEVITAN'S APPRECIATION OF RUSSIAN CULTURE, IN WHICH HE WAS RAISED BOTH AS AN ARTIST AND AS AN INDIVIDUAL, AND WHICH HE KNEW AND LOVED, MADE HIM ONE OF THE MOST SENSITIVE LANDSCAPE ARTISTS WHO EXPRESSED THE NATIONAL ESSENCE AND THE INNERMOST MYSTERY OF THE COUNTRY'S NATURE. AS ALEXANDRE BENOIS CHARACTERISED HIM: "A SENSITIVE AND GREAT ARTIST."

Isaac Levitan's Summer. Day Rediscovered

Previously assumed lost, the artist's "Summer Day", painted during his stay in the Vladimir region in the summer of 1892, is on display at the Tretyakov Gallery.

More Than Romanticism

Lyudmila Markina

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Magazine issue: 
#1 2014 (42)

THE EXHIBITION "MORE THAN ROMANTICISM" WAS HELD FROM NOVEMBER 2013 TO JANUARY 2014 IN THE ENGINEERING WING OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY AS PART OF THE "EXCHANGE" YEAR OF CULTURAL COOPERATION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND HOLLAND. FOR THE FIRST TIME THE MOSCOW PUBLIC COULD SEE WORKS FROM THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY ALONGSIDE PAINTINGS FROM THE TEYLERS MUSEUM IN HAARLEM AND THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF JEF RADEMAKERS FROM BRASSCHAAT, A PROVINCE OF ANTWERP. BEARING IN MIND THE UNIQUE FEATURES OF THE TWO COLLECTIONS, THE CURATORS TRIED TO HIGHLIGHT BOTH THEIR SHARED FEATURES AND THEIR DIFFERENCES, AS WELL AS THE EUROPEAN AND THE NATIONAL ELEMENTS OF RUSSIAN AND DUTCH FINE ART. THE NAMES OF GREAT PAINTERS SUCH AS REMBRANDT VAN RIJN AND FRANS HALS, WHOSE MASTERPIECES ARE IN THE HERMITAGE'S COLLECTION OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF DUTCH ART, ARE WELL KNOWN TO THE RUSSIAN PUBLIC. THANKS TO THE FAMOUS FILM, THE YOUNGER GENERATION IS FAMILIAR WITH JOHANNES VERMEER'S PAINTING "GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING" (1665). THE ART OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS OF THE 1800-1850S, HOWEVER, IS ONLY KNOWN TO A SMALL CIRCLE OF ART EXPERTS. MEANWHILE, THE PAINTING TRADITIONS OF THE GREAT AND "LESSER" DUTCH MASTERS WERE CARRIED ON INTO A NEW HISTORICAL ERA, THAT OF ROMANTICISM.

More Than Romanticism

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An Artist's Journey

Galina Churak

Article: 
CURRENT EXHIBITION
Magazine issue: 
#1 2013 (38)

"THE MOST PRECIOUS PART OF ART IS THE GOD-GIVEN TALENT, AND IT SHOULD SERVE THE EXPRES¬SION OF KIND AND BEAUTIFUL FEELINGS, WHETHER BY MEANS OF PAINTING, MUSIC, OR ALL-EM¬BRACING POETRY."1 NESTEROV, WHO WROTE THESE WORDS IN 1898, REFERRED TO THEM AS HIS "CONFESSION", THE DECLARATION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ATTRIBUTE OF HIS ART - HIS DEEP DE¬SIRE TO AWAKEN THE BEST AND LOFTIEST FEELINGS IN PEOPLE. THROUGHOUT HIS LONG LIFE IN ART, HE SHARED HIS "GOD-GIVEN TALENT", WHICH NATURE BESTOWED ON HIM SO GENEROUSLY, WITH RUSSIAN ART, RUSSIA, AND THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE.

An Artist's Journey

"THE MOST PRECIOUS PART OF ART IS THE GOD-GIVEN TALENT, AND IT SHOULD SERVE THE EXPRESSION OF KIND AND BEAUTIFUL FEELINGS, WHETHER BY MEANS OF PAINTING, MUSIC, OR ALL-EMBRACING POETRY."1 NESTEROV, WHO WROTE THESE WORDS IN 1898, REFERRED TO THEM AS HIS "CONFESSION", THE DECLARATION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ATTRIBUTE OF HIS ART - HIS DEEP DESIRE TO AWAKEN THE BEST AND LOFTIEST FEELINGS IN PEOPLE.

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