Russian Avant-Garde. Evgueny Kovtun
in painting, but according to what he said, he already had this idea in mind when he arrived in Vitebsk. Studying the succession of directions in the new art, Malevich arrived at the conclusion that a given module or an ‘addition’ inserted in the structure of the established visual system, transforms it into a new artistic organism. This module was called the ‘additional element’. In Vitebsk, Malevich met many young people for whom art was an obsession and whose work reflected the clash of the most diverse influences within the new trends in painting. It was the ideal background for his research.
Malevich continued his research at the Institute of Artistic Culture. In conformity with his ‘additional element’ theory, Malevich asked or ‘prescribed’ still lifes to the beginners to determine the painter’s inclinations for one or another pictorial system. After his ‘diagnosis’, he worked with the young painter in developing his/her individual and unique artistic characteristics. During a discussion about the work of Valentin Kurdov, Malevich once said, ‘We must search in Kurdov for all the elements and correct them, but not make a Cubist or a Suprematist of him. We will try to preserve this unknown element; we will try to allow it to develop in the future, and to free it from foreign elements.’ Analysis of the students’ work was done during Malevich’s visits to the art workshops.
As paradoxical as it may seem, Malevich affirmed that a true painter suffers from ‘colourphobia’. This was the fruit of his assiduous research on the essence of painting, which he divided in three categories:
1) Coloured and graphic painting; coloured drawing, and painting in the style of Holbein.
2) Coloured and pictorial painting, founded on the relationship of pure colour, in the style of Matisse, Petrov-Vodkin, and Malevich himself in his Peasant Cycles.
3) Painting itself. Colour is crushed and mixed as in Rembrandt’s paintings, Kontchalovsky and Falk in their late periods. All three categories, however, are equal regarding their authenticity and quality.
Young painters therefore learned the fundamentals of painting and the laws of visual expressivity. The tact of Malevich helped many painters from Leningrad find their colours and forms, and original artistic solutions. Malevich encouraged young artists to discover the primitive expressive principles of the artistic form and taught them how to use these principles with freedom and conscience.
Pavel Filonov, A Man in the World, 1925–1926.
Oil on paper mounted on cardboard, 107 × 71.5 cm.
The State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.
Mikhail Larionov, A Soldier, Smoking, 1910.
Oil on canvas, 99 × 72 cm.
The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Elena Guro
Mikhail Matiushin was one of the founders of the Institute of Artistic Culture. He was in charge of its Organic Culture department. The issues studied in this department appeared in 1910–1913 within the common creations of Matiushin and Guro. While everyone had a keen interest for geometricisation and Cubo-Futurism, the art of Matiushin and Guro demonstrated an original return to nature, a small, scarcely noticeable stream in 1913 that would flow like a great river in the 1920s. Matiushin and Guro did not override the new views about space that their comrades of the Union of Youth were passionate about; they simply interpreted them in their own way. A new direction in painting appeared in their work – the synthesis of the original views regarding space to the ‘non-object’, and the natural and live sensations. Elena Guro was ‘a poet as much as a painter. She was constantly writing down her observations in words as well as through drawing and painting.’[32] In her work Guro was searching for harmonious correspondence in the subtle movements of the soul and life of nature, in which for her nothing was sluggish, nothing dead. At the moment in poetry when vile passion was being unleashed and in painting Cubist geometricisation was in full swing, Elena Guro, ahead of her time, made a u-turn towards Nature in her work. Like Filonov, although in a totally different way, she opposed ‘mechanics’ for ‘organics’. Her verses and paintings were orientated towards the first element, i.e., the processes of nature. Guro addressed herself to the ‘saviour earth’ and aspired to assimilate the creative process to the rhythms of live nature: ‘Try to breathe, as the pine trees make a noise in the distance, as the wind unfolds and agitates, as the universe breathes. Try to imitate the breathing of the earth and the filament of the clouds.’[33]
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.