Images at the paintings √ pages of chronicle

Date: 14.05.2005 Source: Magazin "/" Author: Jury Gogolitzyn

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Portraits of talented masters may be equated with the pages of a revived chronicle. The faces of the portrayed can tell much to an attentive viewer. K. Somov, V. Shuhaev, Z. Serebryakov, S. Sorin and B. Shalyapin are the names of the greatest artists of the last century who have added Russian portrait painting to the context of world portrait gallery.

Grigoriev B. Moskvin in the role of Fedor Ioannovich [zoom (102k)]

Konstantin Somov undertook to paint a portrait in a rare case, only if a model was of a great interest to him. That was the situation with Sergey Rahmaninov whom the artist met in 1925. The family of the composer lived in France, in a country place called Corbeville.

Almost simultaneously, Somov painted two portraits of Rahmaninov. One of them was ordered by Steinvein company to reproduce it on posters and programs of Rahmaninov▓s concerts. As for another one, the artist created it in order to get rid of the methods of custom-made work. A.P. Chehov, having visited Rahmaninov▓s concert, said to a young performer, ╚You know, young man, I was all the evening watching you and thounght you'd probably have to become a great person. You have a wonderful, unusual face┘╩. That is how Sergey Vasilievich used to describe the meeting to his relatives. Somov experienced the same feeling that once had been revealed to the writer and managed to reproduce Rahmaninov▓s complicated inner world, his tension, which was concealed behind usually calm appearance of the composer.

Soon the second portrait was acquired by Mikhail Braykevitch, a famous Odessa collector. Afterwards, wherever the immigrant Braykevich went to, he always carried the portrait along with the rest of the collection. Braykevitch spent his last years in London. The collection, which exclusively consisted of works of artist-immigrants, settled down also there, in one of University museums. The fate of the portrait was different. In 1962, Evgeny Mikhailov, the artist▓s nephew, received a letter from England written by Sophia Braykevitch who notified him about the portrait of the Russian composer. She accented that the deceased Somov would want to exhibit his work in the State Russian Museum. In the result of long negotiations, the Ministry of Culture of USSR acquired the rare picture of the brilliant composer.

Grigoriev B. A Portrait of M. Gorky. 1926 [zoom (90k)]

Some portraits painted by V.I. Shuhaev, another Russian artist, also came back to Russia from immigration. Those left in Europe and America are not less important. During his study in the Highest School of Art at St. Petersburg Academy of Art (1906√1912), the master showed himself as a brilliant portraitist but he only managed to completely reveal his talent later, under concentration of circumstances. Living long in Paris, being familiar with S. Dyagilev, I. Stravinsky, S. Prokofiev, F. Shalyapin, Vasiliy Ivanivich Shuhaev could not avoid the influence of such impressive, symbolic images. He met Stravinsky and Prokofiev at the concerts and he painted their portraits in 1932√1933. Admiring the faces of Russian celebrities, the portraitist chose a manner of monumentalist for their reproduction. He literally ╚cut╩ their heads into canvas frames. Absence of the details, dark shadows, laid on forefront, wings of noses, absence of any desire to beautify the images, everything works for the idea of symbolism. In I.F. Stravinsky▓s face, we see purposefulness along with nervousness and emotionality. In S.S. Prokofiev▓s face, the concentration on some inner tasks is evident.

However, there were more considerable works in the portraiture of the artist. One of them we are going to take out of the shadow. In 1925, Shuhayev painted a portrait of his friend and editor Lucien Vogel, a man who ordered him to create illustrations for a wonderful A.S. Pushkin▓s work ╚Lady of Spades╩. Shuhayev represented a Parisian as a man of the world, dressed in tuxedo and top hat. However, he did not try to conceal a shadow of mocking smile on his fat, distinctive face. It expressed his attitude to a process of posing.

Among V.I. Shuhayev▓s favourite models was Salomeya Andronikova-Halpern, a collector of Russian paintings. The beautiful and intelligent woman known in art circles as Salomeya, she appealed to many portraitists but she enjoyed posing for Shuhayev only. In the Guenta City Museum there is ╚A Portrait of Salomeya in Red Stockings╩. Unlike her friends, Ahmatova and Tzvetayeva, St. Petersburg beauty always argued with the masters who undertook to paint her portrait. Poets A. Radlov, O. Mandelstam who devoted a whole poem to her, a brilliant philologists A. Gvozdev, V. Girmunsky, an editor L. Vogel, a woman-collector Ashen Melikova, a paleontologist Michel Brun, a female sculpture Bino Varel, an artist K. Petrov-Vodkin visited Salomeya▓s St. Petersburg saloon. Some of them helped her to compile a collection of art, the others used to paint her, the third ones devoted verses and long literature passages to her.

Marevna. S. Dyagilev, N. Goncharova, M. Larionov [zoom (103k)]

Among considerable talented portraitists of XX century, it is necessary to mention Zinaida Evgenyevna Serebryakova. The fact that her earliest ╚The Author Portrait╩ was acquired by the Tretyakov gallery confirms the power of her talent. Many portraits, created by the artist later, in France, were spread across the world. In immigration (Zinaida Evgeneyvna had to leave Russia in 1924), Serebryakova▓s portrait cycle was replenished and seriously changed. Along with the custom-made works, she paints several portrait-notes, which rendered her contemporaries and simultaneously presented iconographically exact images of the celebrities. Her ╚Portrait of Alexander Nicolaevich Benua╩ rendered a man known in the artistic circles of Russia and Europe, right after his immigration to France.

Thanks to the constant attention of the artist to people, who used to surround her, there are several portraits of Russian collectors who, in the first quarter of XX century, helped many Petersburg and Moscow artists to become established in the world of art. These are portraits of Henrietta Hirshman, Phelix and Irina Usupovy, count and countess Zubovy, Sandra Melikova. Zinaida Evgenyevna painted another refined spiritual portrait-sketch of Efim Shapiro, a historian of art and a collector. This is a man who published in Germany in 1929 his doctoral thesis about the history of ╚Mir Iskusstva╩ and who spent the rest of his life researching, propagandizing and representing art in England, America and Spain. At meetings with Efim Shapiro, an ironical expert on the history of immigration, the author of these lines heard a categorical statement that Z. Serebryakova ╚is the only female painter in Russia╩.

Among the artists-immigrants who intensely cooperated with ╚Mir Iskusstva╩, was Saviely Sorin, a refined portraitist who came to Paris in 1917 from the Crimea. Thanks to his refined completed portraits, he managed to conquer the Western public. In America, Sorin painted ╚A Portrait of A. Pavlova╩, located in the Luxembourg Museum, Paris. Continuing to create a series of images of ballerinas and dancers, which he started in the Russian period, he writes ╚A Portrait of Mikhail Fokin╩ (1928), rendering him in a theatrical posture, similar to the poses of ancient statues and ballet pas, danced by the dancer. For more than two years, he had been working under the portrait of A.N. Benois.

Serebryakova Z. A Portrait of E. Shapiro. 1940 [zoom (79k)]

Without any doubts, among the best works of Sorin-portraitist is ╚A Portrait of F.I. Shalyapin╩, painted easily and naturally as if the model had not been the greatest actor of all times but just a good friend of the artist. Sorin possessed a few of such natural pictures. The artist was presented to the actor by A.M. Gorky, in Nizniy Novgorod. Since the Volzsky meeting, their relations had not broken for a moment.

After S. Sorin▓s death, in 1974, some of his works bequeathed to Russia were shown in the State Russian Museum and in the Tretyakov Gallery and replenished the funds of XX century art. It was supposed that the rest of the heritage, which belonged to the artist▓s widow, would enter Russian museums but misunderstandings during negotiations made the owner left her plans. She bequeathed the gallery of the portraits to Renier, the Duke of Monaco, who provided several halls of his rich palace for it.

Boris Grigoryev with his complicated art is another representative of portraitists. Actors of MHAT (Moscow Art Academic Theatre), having come to Prague, after the October events, had stuck in immigration for several years. B. Grigoryev, as a big fan of drama theatre, frequently visited the performances of the actors. He made acquaintance with the whole cast and painted the actors right behind the curtains. Theatrical portraits of I. Moskvin, M. Chehov may be fairly attributed to a range of memorable images just because they ╚stopped a rare moment╩. Grigoryev▓s works kept on the traditions of A. Golovin and L. Bakst who also used to paint actors in costumes and make-up. Sergey Bertenson who made a description of these meetings, noted that energy of the artist was so catching that some of the actors agreed to posture after the performance if the artist did not manage to complete his work during the play.

Among the youngest generation of artists-immigrants, who joined ╚Mir Iskusstva╩, was Boris Shalyapin who participated in the exhibition of 1921, Paris. This Americanized master of saloon portrait made a lot of custom-made paintings and his academic technique started to tend to surface image. In an unlimited raw of Hollywood beautiful women and gorgeous men, B. Shalyapin created images of Russian actors of the ballet cast of Monte-Carlo √ N. Vershinina, N. Orlova in a costume of drummer. A portrait of D. Rostov, a dancer, in a role of Pagannini, is especially effective. The artist painted it in 1928. But, of course, among the most remarkable works are only those, which are distant from everyday routine, portraits of S.V. Rahmaninov and F.I. Shalyapin, full of pietism.