Saratov anomaly – Weekend – Kommersant
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The Museum of Russian Impressionism opens an exhibition of Alexander Savinov (1881-1942): the art of the artist, known mainly to specialists, is presented in the context of the Saratov school. It is hardly possible to call this an application for a decolonial rethinking of the history of Russian art, but using the example of Savinov and other Saratov residents, it is easy to show that the all-Russian polyphony was made up of many regional voices.
The Saratovians were the first who managed to make a hole in the monolithic construction of the “Russian school”, which, if it recognized some regional differences, only between the two capitals, and then the World of Art people were needed, who undertook to cultivate their special, exceptional “Petersburgness”. Victor Borisov-Musatov, Pavel Kuznetsov, Pyotr Utkin, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Alexander Matveev, Alexey Karev, Alexander Savinov – the founders of the Saratov school did not leave any program declarations and manifestos of “Saratovism”, but it is quite obvious that they are going to some kind of mysterious, tightly knit community. It seems that Borisov-Musatov falls out in age – a generational gap passes between him and the rest, he is eight to ten years older than the others, but by and large they are the same age, born in the last decade of the reign of Alexander II. Children of the era of the Tsar-Liberator: among them, the new cultural elite of the noble city of Saratov, there was no one from the nobility, all – either from peasants, recent serfs, or from merchants and small employees. It seems that – as a sculptor in the community of painters – Matveev will fall out. But in the sculpture of Matveev, paradoxically, all the advantages of Saratov painting are revealed – landscapes, parks, the transparent silence of ponds and alleys, behind which one sees both the characteristic blue-green gamut and tapestry, whatever that may mean in plastic.
Yes, you can recognize the citizens of Saratov by their form — by their emerald and amethyst colours, by their special relationship with plane and perspective, by their huge decorative talent, ready to be realized in monumental and theatrical art, that is, a talent consonant with the era of symbolism and modernity. There is a temptation to explain this commonality from the positions of the essentialists – some kind of Saratov natural and geographical anomaly, since the literary gifted Petrov-Vodkin made a lot of efforts to ensure that we are convinced of the non-Euclidean nature of the Khvalynsky hills. Judging by the recollections of his students, Savinov also believed that the phenomenon of the Saratov school was connected with the spirit of the place, and he was also fascinated by the relief of the Saratov ravines. A much more prosaic explanation lies in the institutional plane: a stormy theatrical life, the Radishevsky Museum, the Saratov Society of Fine Arts Lovers, the Bogolyubov Drawing School. However, schools arose in the same years both in Penza and in Kazan, but the Kazan gang of Feshinsky students, direct and imaginary, would declare themselves much later. Of course, maybe Vasily Konovalov and Hector Salvini-Baracchi, teachers of the Saratov galaxy, were teachers from God. But the Radishevsky Museum is more to blame – even Igor Grabar noted: “… where there is a good local museum, an artistic circle somehow imperceptibly develops, sometimes putting forward artists of first-class all-Russian significance.” Not just “good” – a museum created by the artist, Alexei Bogolyubov, whose love for the battle genre coexisted peacefully with a love for Paris and great aestheticism.
Savinov was called “pacified Vrubel” – for his penchant for decorative panels-milleflers, images of the Gardens of Eden, inhabited by pretty angels of the Musatov type – without demons and demonic passions. Musatov and Vrubel, two yet unrecognized geniuses, local and cosmopolitan, one on the verge of death, the other on the verge of insanity, became the idols of Saratov symbolism, which blossomed early with the “Scarlet Rose” – surprisingly, the first exhibition-manifesto of Russian symbolists was not in Moscow or Petersburg, but in Saratov. More recently, Vrubel was made fun of in Nizhny Novgorod, except for the most radical part of artistic circles, he was treated with restraint in the capitals – in Saratov he was already idolized. Many of the Saratov residents in their youth, following the example of Vrubel, will begin to paint churches – Savinov single-handedly painted the Shchusev Church of the Most Merciful Savior in Natalevka, the estate of the Kharkov sugar factory, philanthropist and collector Pavel Kharitonenko, for four years (Severin Malevich, father of artist). And, like Vrubel, the citizens of Saratov will start cultivating pan-Europeanism in themselves, which is impossible without a grand tour: they will aspire to Europe by hook or by crook. Petrov-Vodkin, the son of a shoemaker, will go on his European tour by bicycle; Savinov, a merchant’s son, will depart for his first trip abroad in a more comfortable way, but in less comfortable circumstances. In the winter of 1905, he would be among the instigators of student unrest at the school at the Imperial Academy – the academic authorities would not expel Savinov, but would advise him to get out of St. Petersburg for the time being. The diploma “Horse Bathing on the Volga”, where Saratov men and women turn into Mediterranean tritons and naiads, shows that in Paris, Bonnard and “nabids” have been added to his Saratov pantheon.
It may seem to the visitor of the exhibition that Savinov’s work itself is not as interesting as the literary trace he left: the artist’s nephew was Boris Pilnyak, who vividly described the everyday life of their family Saratov home, his neighbor in the Leningrad communal apartment was Nikolai Tikhonov, who dedicated a gentle essay to the artist, moreover Savinov became the founder of an entire artistic dynasty, and his son Gleb turned out to be a talented memoirist. Savinov really cannot be called the first brush of Saratov: his pre-revolutionary painting – decorative panels and portraits, striving to become decorative panels – quickly gets bored; his post-revolutionary painting – work on three large compositions, “Adoption of the Decree on the Creation of the Workers ‘and Peasants’ Red Army”, “Life in the Saratov ravines on the eve of the October Revolution” and “In the park of culture” – is a series of unsuccessful attempts to offer his own version of the plot-thematic paintings. This is partly due to the fact that Savinov devoted most of his time and his creative energy to teaching – and here is another characteristic feature of Saratov.
Saratov residents, some from their student years, taught – probably, this artistic and pedagogical talent was also nurtured at the Bogolyubov School. At the end of Bogolyubovsky, everyone left Saratov to continue their studies, the majority chose liberal Moscow, Karev – Penza and Konstantin Savitsky, Savinov – Petersburg and an academic school. After the revolution, they will again be drawn to their homeland to equip a new life of art, but the famine in the Volga region will put an end to this short regional flourishing, in the early 1920s the great Saratovites will leave Saratov forever. Kuznetsov will settle in Moscow, the rest – Petrov-Vodkin, Matveev, Utkin, Karev, Savinov – will meet in Leningrad and begin teaching at the endlessly reformed academy, enjoying the greatest success with students. This fact somehow has not yet had time to comprehend the domestic art history: Saratov, in fact, brought up all the best in painting and sculpture in Leningrad, in the “Circle of Artists” and around it. In a word, the expression “Saratov school” acquires another meaning. There were exhibitions about students of Matveev and Petrov-Vodkin, but, unfortunately, there were no exhibitions about Savinov’s school.
In 1937, Isaac Brodsky, who headed the academy, survived Savinov from it – the favorite of students was fired for formalism and “joylessness” (explaining Savinov’s exile, Brodsky noted that in the dark years of tsarism he painted cheerful canvases, and now, when life has become better and more cheerfully, fell into some kind of malicious gloominess). To the delight of colleagues and students, he would return to a professorship only in 1940, after the death of Brodsky. He will not have time to evacuate together with the academy from besieged Leningrad – he will literally be late for the plane. He will prepare the masterpieces of the Hermitage for evacuation to Sverdlovsk: they recall that because of the haste, the canvases were ordered to be cut off the stretchers – Savinov did not raise his hand to Rembrandt, he took out every carnation. Savinov died of exhaustion in February 1942 – three weeks earlier Karev had died of starvation. Utkin and Petrov-Vodkin died back in the 1930s. In 1948, Kuznetsov and Matveev, who moved to Moscow after the war, were expelled from the Surikov Institute – for pedagogical “shamanism”. This is where the story of the first generation of the Saratov school – in every sense of the word “school” – ended.
“Alexander Savinov. Mirages», Mirages. Saratov School”. Museum of Russian Impressionism, until January 22
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