Page 58 - Studio International - February 1973

still survives here: two-storey wooden buildings, of Russian reality, but interprets it. among the nationalities of the Soviet Union.
open strips between them, folk patterns cut in Rukhin's painting is a reaction to this same The old academic art of the nineteenth century,
wood around the windows and doors; in fact reality. His half-ironic, half-tragic which the official painters of the Stalinist era
they are enlarged city versions of country monumentalization of the cheap, battered sought to dazzle the public with, has vanished
cottages. Their structures are giving way with things that are part of our daily life would here, as have the historical themes. The clear
age, and the buildings are acquiring a picturesque somehow seem to be linked with the courageous favourite in the exhibition is decorative painting,
irregularity. The age of the buildings shelters an experimentation of Roginsky. But of course with flat drawing and bold colours, and next to
old way of life : in the centre of the quarter I pass Roginsky divorced 'painting' from 'action', and this a kind of neo-classicism which reminds one
by a small church where evening mass is just this perhaps deterred him from continuing in the of the paintings of Petrov-Vodkin from the
ending and the old women are hastily making direction he was then moving in — his artistic twenties. Since so-called avant-garde painting
the sign of the Greek cross over and over again audacity did match his thematic audacity, and succumbed to academicism it has not been
before the holy ikons, bowing down deeply to his paintings at the time displayed a rather weak, sufficient to characterize this kind of art as
them and kissing them. I think suddenly of the conventional technique. Rukhin is consistent, academic; and since 'abstraction' and 'realism'
Zagorsk Monastery with its wild peals of bells, and, unlike Roginsky seven years ago, he has the also ceased to be value judgements, it has no
the rapid songs of the high sopranos returning advantage of being aware of the new longer really been possible to criticize its
over and over again, and all that frantic devotion developments in world art. Perhaps his present consistent figurative quality. Nevertheless it is a
which Western Europe has long since forgotten. paintings would not have been created had he mistake to try and draw a parallel between this
Russia did not experience the Renaissance or the not known the paintings of Jasper Johns, but Socialist Realism and today's photorealism : the
Baroque — indeed, not even the Gothic : the they are certainly painted in a manner that fits similarity is only superficial and very slight, and
Russian people have their roots in Byzantine in with his own aim. the intent of these two movements is radically
culture. This folk Russia, ancient and expiring, This aim clearly links him with the painters of different. Photorealism is really an expression
both attracts and depresses. Is there some way the `Sretensky Boulevard School'. Theirs is an of dread in the face of the emptiness of the
out to the rational and technological world of the art that is sometimes humorous, at other times optical appearance of things, whereas Socialist
twentieth century ? I think Kalinin's paintings severe, often tragic, but always supremely alert Realism is not even supposed to present a
are in very close harmony with this world. and active. Here in the midst of this old, picture of reality as we see it : `photographism'
dilapidated quarter I am struck by how in it was in fact often criticized. It is supposed to
Tuesday, June 23rd completely it belongs to the new Russia. encourage people to value their daily life and
But an artist is waiting for me who lives in work and simple pleasures, and so try and create
quite a different artistic world: Mikhail an intelligent and noble life. It should lead to the
The contrast between Kalinin and Rukhin can Schwartzman. He is older than the others, born civic virtues : that is why the artist should be the
be seen in both their appearance and their in 1926. When I was last at his place some years `engineer of the human spirit'.
painting. Kalinin is thirty-three, a man who ago, I saw figurative paintings marked by a And here lies the crux of the problem. Its
would melt into the throng of Muscovites in the simple and forceful surface stylization. Their aesthetic depends on the traditional artistic
street so completely that you wouldn't even great decorative form often seemed superficial, forms, for it believes in their well-tested
notice him. Yevgeny Rukhin is extremely tall, but there were also small paintings and drawings effectiveness. But these traditional forms can no
with a stylish, Western-looking mane of hair: he which pointed beyond this. Schwartzman's longer come to grips with the modern world;
comes from Leningrad, and is not yet thirty. strength lies in his ability to concentrate : his they are losing contact with it and are therefore
Rukhin was born into the Leningrad things emerge slowly over a long period of time ceasing to develop. The greatest danger to this
intelligentsia, and has an intense interest in and when finished display an extraordinary art, which tries so hard to have a moral
Western European and American. art. He intensity. Schwartzman is a traditionalist, but of significance, is conventional aestheticism.
corresponds with Rosenquist, who made a trip a special kind. His exclusive subject is heads: a On the other hand there is the new art here,
to Leningrad and met him at the time of his linear system, skilfully adapted from Byzantine which is trying in its own ways to deal with its
visit to Scandinavia. But Kalinin is also in models, is worked up into primal forms changed situation in the modern world. Around
contact with the world outside: he has exhibited reminiscent of Australian rock carvings or 196o it began a lively development, but the
in Scandinavia along with Zverev, Kandaurov, African masks, and from this schema there attempt to exhibit this art ended with
Kozlov, Kropivnitsky and Kropivnitskaya, emanate colour processes somewhat resembling Khrushchev's notorious intervention in 1963. Of
Nyemukhin, Plavinsky, Rabin and Kharitonov, the meditative art of Klee. The painter groups course this step was taken mainly in the personal
as well as in other countries. Talochkin showed his works close to one another : they form a kind interests of academicians who are not even alive
me photographs of his portraits of foreign of ikonostasis. He does not even want to speak today, and since that time there have been a
diplomats set against the background of this old, about art, feeling his work should be considered number of attempts to open up the situation.
decaying Russia — it seems that for some as `hierographic signs', as a religious act not Between 1961 and 1966 there were small
diplomats they are the favourite souvenir of their unlike that of the old ikon-painters. Evening is exhibitions in the Vladimir Mayakovsky
stay in the Soviet Union. coming on, and in the courtyard beneath the Museum of Matyushin, Filonov, Chekrygin,
`I want to uncover the seamy side of the windows of the tenement where he lives and Guro, Larionov, Goncharova, Khlebnikov, and
human soul', says Kalinin, 'to give expression to paints, a nightingale bursts into song. Kruchonych; the Moscow branch of the Union
what people don't want to reveal. I am of Artists organized, at least for its own
fascinated by the faces of the people who lived in Wednesday, June 24th members, private exhibitions (along with
old Moscow as I remember them from my discussions) of such artists as Yankilevsky and
childhood. Nowadays that life is hidden away the members of the Group of Seven; the
back in the courtyards of the houses, the reverse A few steps from Khardzhiyev's modest home, hackneyed pseudo-political rhetoric began
side of the life flowing by in the streets. I don't in one of those noblemen's palaces, the giving way to more forward-looking statements
want either to judge or defend that old world', Academy of Art has its headquarters and its from officials of the Union of Artists attacking
he explains. But is the artist ever merely a exhibition rooms. At the moment they are intolerance and calling for a variety of opinions
passive mirror reflecting the world as it is ? holding an exhibition of the work of young as a necessary condition for development; after
Roginsky said, 'Not to paint, but to act'. But — painters. All of them received scholarships and a break of many years, exhibitions of young
painting is always action. Kalinin's passivity is have pictures in which they portray, for the most artists began to be held once again, and even
also action. He does not present a literal picture part, contemporary life in the various regions and artists who had been refused membership in the