#1 2023 (78)
Dear readers, the Tretyakov Gallery magazine is celebrating its 20th anniversary! The first issue of the magazine carried a statement of its objectives and mission: reviving glorious Russian traditions, providing spiritual and aesthetic guidance, educating, popularising our illustrious cultural heritage and cultivating in young people a sense of pride in the history of our homeland and our great Russian culture. All this is one of the essential goals of the multifaceted activities of the publishers of the magazine, which approaches art as a universal value of our civilisation, which is not confined to particular ethnicities or territories. We hope that the memory of the magazine will be kept alive in our readers’ minds and the history of the Russian press alike and that it will be remembered as one of the more noteworthy - or even one of the best - periodicals about art published in Russian and English.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
This year marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of the Russian Tsar Peter the Great (1672-1725). Among the many events commemorating this significant date, the State Hermitage Museum prepared a monographic exhibition called “Exotic and Lavish China. Knowledge of the Orient” (which ran from April 19 to June 12, 2022). For the first time, the unique exhibits preserved by the State Hermitage and directly related to Peter I and his associates were presented in such a configuration. Accompanying the exhibition is an edition that reflects the history of the Chinese collections in the Hermitage at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, as well as the development of Oriental studies and museum work in the Russian Empire. Many documentary exhibits are published for the first time, and their history has only been recently studied.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
Anyone who has compiled catalogues of museum collections knows that in order to study individual works one has to be familiar with the artist’s entire creative output. Only such a monographic overview of the author’s work allows us to accurately date a painting, sculpture or drawing, to correctly name the piece, establish its history, and understand and evaluate its significance.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
The exhibition “Natalia Goncharova. East and West” at the Tretyakov Gallery casts light on many aspects of Goncharova’s artistic development, including the influence of Paul Gaugin on her early works. The 1989 exhibition “Gauguin. A View from Russia” at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts had already afforded an opportunity to explore the impact of the French master’s paintings on the Russian artist, but the new show offers a wider perspective on the subject.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
The 120th anniversary of the birth of Vasily Chekrygin (1897-1922), the painter and graphic artist whose work many influential critics have called unique in the visual arts of the 1910s-1920s, fell on January 19 2017 Timed to coincide with that anniversary and organized as part of the project “The Tretyakov Gallery Opens Its Reserve Collections”, the show introduced the public to the Tretyakov’s collection of Chekrygin’s graphic works.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
“Bathing the Horses” is one of the most important works that Arkady Plastov (1893-1972) accomplished in the decade of the 1930s. Created for the 1938 “Exhibition on the 20th Anniversary of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army”, it was effectively a commissioned work, but nevertheless remains one of the most genuine and honest paintings of its period. Like the artist’s “Harvest Feast”, it reflects Plastov’s almost instantaneous evolution into a master of painting in oil. The story of the painting, along with its creator’s quest to capture its artistic quintessence, is particularly relevant for understanding the foundation and development of Plastov’s artistic vocabulary in the late 1930s.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
I have known Nikolai Andronov for as long as I have remembered myself as a professional art critic. When I was graduating from college, in December 1962, the famed show at the Manezh was taking place, with Andronov’s “Rafters” one of those works that especially impressed us at the huge exhibition marking the 30th anniversary of the Moscow branch of the Artists’ Union. It was not that you understood or liked everything in the picture, but it left an indelible stamp on the memory.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
We spent a long time searching for a background. We wandered around the yellow Summer Garden and other no less summery gardens, all with freshly cut green lawns and little white dogs lying on them. We walked around Moscow, around other cities, among men and women who looked preoccupied even in their leisure hours. We walked by the sea, by the bright sea, along the bright sand, and the people were in bright clothing, and all was tranquilly tense. From time to time, birds appeared, not entirely unthreatening. Their wings entangled, but they did not fall, though they were heavier than air. Angels, though lighter than air, did crash down, threatening the lives of those they should protect. Numberless eyes spied over our unintelligent lives, and our transparent silhouettes were lit by leaden clouds, hanging uneasily in the atmosphere, while figures in uncomfortable poses hovered above the land. Above the lands, for various were the places of our sojourns, desires, joys, suffering and play.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
In his “War Memories,” Charles de Gaulle wrote: “With every step I take through the world’s most remarkable places, I feel that the glory of the past… reconnects to that of the present… It feels like history is smiling back at us today through its stones and city squares.” For 2,000 years, the city of Paris has undergone a continuous evolution from Roman settlement to modern world capital and, throughout its history, the city has remained loyal to its principles. Rejecting lack of talent at every stage, it accumulates the most significant and exciting new features, giving preference to perfect order and brilliance. The new monument by Zurab Tsereteli near Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is further proof of such a tradition that has turned the city into the artistic capital of the world. What is particularly striking is the perfect way the new sculpture fits within the famous architectural ensemble and its surroundings.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
The relatively new art of doll making has developed in a short space of time into a scintillating new form, combining aesthetic elements adopted from a range of older artistic genres with decorative attributes drawn from a wide perspective of history. This young form has reached a concentration of perfection in the work of Alexandra Khudyakova, an artist who creates a cornucopia of visual riches, one which can be as elaborate in its detail as it remains tantalizing and allusive in meaning.
20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE
Running at Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi until the end of January 2013, the exhibition “The Thirties. The Arts in Italy Beyond Fascism” features artists who came to public notice after exhibiting at the Venice Biennales during Italy’s Fascist era. It provides an opportunity to cast a fresh look at the artistic culture of this tragic historical period of European civilisation in the 20th century – one with regard to which there has been little variance of opinion to date among its interpreters and judges.