Page 42 - Studio International - July August 1973

in Novosibirsk of which the catalogue (two far from supporting Boris Kushner's assertion was reminiscent of Kandinsky and even
editions) is an invaluable, although very rare, that 'a work of art is no more than an object, a of the surrealists with their perverse
document, and since then several thing'17 or Aleksei Gan's call for 'Death to interpretation of Surrealism as mere
sympathetic descriptions of the master and Art',18 witnessed an intense renewal of interest `experimental scientific data.'26 As a
his work have appeared in diverse printed in art as an individualistic and 'lyrical' process — member of the Petersburg INKh Filonov was
sources.12 Nevertheless, the bulk of Filonov's so stimulating the appearance of a plethora of in close communication with the rational
copious writings remains unpublished while, manifestoes and aesthetic trends in the fields of attitudes to art favoured by Punin and,
paradoxically, his pictures, which he painted easel painting, especially after 1922. In this undoubtedly, was acquainted with the
for the populace, remain accessible only to the respect, Filonov's Theory, which received physico-psychological programme of research
privileged few.13 recognition particularly during the mid-1920s, which Kandinsky had drawn up for the
Filonov's letter to Vera Sholpo, although was one of several which, paradoxically, tended Moscow INKhUK and then for the Academy
written as late as 1929, provides a synopsis both to stress the importance of the artist's of Artistic Sciences. But even without these
of his celebrated Theory of Analytical Art and individualism, thereby encouraging the theoretical affinities Filonov and Kandinsky
Principle of Madeness and, on a broader level, expressionist and surrealist directions in shared common features in their paintings :
of his general intellectual and psychological Russian painting in the 1920s. Significantly, we both had used an equestrian and apocalyptic
attitudes to art and life. The fact that the letter find as early as 1920, a date to which Gan symbology (in 1911 Filonov had even entitled
is addressed to one of Filonov's pupils, who had relegated the emergence of Constructivism,19 one picture Riders) and the nebulous masses of
worked with him in Leningrad but who, by some artists were, conversely, beckoning their Filonov's paintings of 191o/1912 bore a striking
1929, had moved to Baku, points immediately colleagues towards the 'transverse point resemblance to some of Kandinsky's parallel
to the propagational and pedagogical value with between the physical and the astral.'20 Filonov's Compositions and Improvisations. Their
which Filonov imbued his artistic theory and Theory, therefore, although formulated as respective attitudes to colour, however, were
practice. Despite his physical and spiritual early as 1914/1915, was acting by 1929 as a quite different and, furthermore, it is debatable
aloofness, Filonov had student interest very synthesis of two extreme tendencies — towards whether Filonov ever reached a totally abstract
much at heart and took an active and practical the 'object' on the one hand and the 'subject' on conception, despite his several apparently
part in the work of the students and auditors the other, to which such apparent non-representational works executed during the
connected with his School, as survivors such contradictions as 'analytical intuition' and 192os and early 193os. However, Filonov's
as Yuliya Arapova are quick to emphasize. `constructive or colorific' testify so clearly. But specific observations on form and perspective
Hence, despite the unique and highly one hastens to add that although Filonov are curiously similar to the general ideas of
individual quality of his canvases, Filonov employed the word `madeness' with its obvious non-Euclidian space which were particularly
found it in order to participate in, or at least constructivist overtones and saw it as a work's popular in Russia during the 1920s. For
inspire, group projects such as the decorations ideological as well as professional criterion — so example, Matyushin at one time had headed a
done for the Leningrad Press House in 1927 or very much in keeping with the rational, studio called 'Extended Viewing' where he had
the remarkable illustrations to the Kalevala. tectonic attitude of the constructivists — he urged his students to paint not only what was
Filonov's School, the so-called filonovtsy or remained, both in theory and in practice, a in front of them but also what was behind, to
filonidy, therefore attracted a large and diverse highly subjective and synthetic artist. the side, above and below.27 David Shterenberg,
number of names, far more than the thirty-one Filonov's recourse to intuition had a long known as the administrative head of IZO
represented at the one and only Exhibition of history in modernist Russian art and was a Narkompros (Department of Visual Arts
Masters of Analytical Art of 1927 : it is known, concept which had been especially popular just within the People's Commissariat for
for example, that the celebrated poet, Nikolai before the Great War, specifically within the Enlightenment) but who was a painter in his
Zabolotsky and the surrealistic writer, Deniel framework of the Union of Youth. Markov own right, was also preoccupied throughout
Kharms, both members of OBERIU (Union (Matveis), for example, had written of the this period with the destruction of the
of Real Art),14 took lessons from Filonov and `Principle of Free Creation' and the 'beauty of conventional conception of surface by
that their support of Filonov was expressed in chance' in 1912,21 Rozanova had referred to the minimizing causal and sequential connection
their public declaration of January, 1928 : `Intuitive Principle' of creation in 191322 and and 'unfolding the object on the plane'.28 Of
`We cannot understand why the Filonov Malevich had identified 'Intuitive Reason' as particular relevance to Filonov was the theory
School has been forced out of the Academy, the stimulus to suprematist forms in 1915.23 In of 'spherical perspective' formulated by the
why Malevich cannot develop his architectural turn, of course, the Russian avant-garde's very gifted painter, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, who
work in the USSR and why Terentev's concern with the intuitive and alogical reflexes sought to link the particular with the universal
Revizor was booed so stupidly.'15 Indicative of of the creative process owed much to such by depositing a given object or scene on a
Filonov's attention to his students' artistic specific philosophical forces as Bergson and curved, planetary surface. Indeed, Petrov-
endeavours was the fact that, contrary to Steiner, especially as their teachings had been Vodkin's ideas that 'form conditions colour'
general opinion, he was liberal in verbal and refracted through numerous symbolist and that 'symptoms of growth are visible in
written advice and that many of his theoretical interpretations and deductions in the 1900s. object-phenomena'29 coincided with Filonov's
tenets concerned the teaching of art: and, Perhaps, therefore, we might argue that Filonov own evolutionary and biological interpretations
therefore, it was both because of his originality was the last link in an individualistic and of reality — although in his case the medical
and because of his universality that Filonov idealistic evolution and precisely for this could references in Dr Kulbin's earlier art theories
was followed by a 'group of pupils blindly be condemned in the 193os as being 'alien to the were, probably, of decisive and formative
believing him and accepting his every word as a proletariat's world-view.'24 importance." In this context we must remember
revelation.'16 The tension between the concepts of analysis the very close relations between the disciplines
The attraction of Filonov's analytical system and intuition to be found in Filonov's Theory maintained in Russia both before and after the
lay precisely in its consistence (to use a Filonov is nowhere more evident than in his frequent Revolution, so that in the 192os the radical
term), for despite its emphasis on analysis, the recourse to scientific terminology, paralleled in ideas of such pioneering physicists and
Theory, especially as it developed in the 1920s, pictorial terms by his application of concrete biologists as Orest Khvolson and Vladimir
was a composite one and its essential ideas owed titles to highly subjective and abstracted themes. Vernadsky were discussed amongst artists and
much to various tendencies in pre- and post- This juxtaposition of realia with realiora, litterati as widely as the latest verse by Anna
Revolutionary Russian art. It should be occurring on a plane where Physiognomical Akhamatova or the latest work of Malevich. It
25
remembered, in fact, that the period 1917-1934, analysis changed to physiological analysis', was precisely within such a composite
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