The history of sawing: who cut the “walk” of Mikhail Larionov in two

Unexpected masterpieces with a dramatic fate were shown at the exhibition at the Tropinin Museum

The name of the project, with which the Tropinin Museum opens the autumn season, contains the first line of the poem “Do not compare: the living cannot be compared…” by Osip Mandelstam. The poet wrote it in exile in Voronezh in 1937 – at the very time when he was composing an ode to Stalin, which, however, did not save him from re-arrest and the camp where he died in 1938. Unlike the “Ode”, the said poem is full of sincerity, yearning romance with a touch of the nineteenth century: in its metaphors, half-hidden, perhaps unconscious paraphrases of Pushkin’s lyrics are considered. Presenting the masterpieces of the first half of the 20th century for the first time, the museum named after one of the main portrait painters of the “Golden Age” decided to show the connection between the two eras without comparing them. The exposition contains many unexpected masterpieces with implicit overtones and difficult fate. Among them is the “Walk” by Mikhail Larionov, which was cut in two in Soviet times.

“Look closer and you will see the seam,” collector Valery Dudakov tells me.

– Where is he from? I ask, looking at the even green furrow in the center of the picture, on which ladies in hats and long dresses walk. The fate of the “Walk” strangely echoes the composition of the painting: on Mikhail Larionov’s canvas, the face of one of the ladies is cut off, as if it didn’t fit into the frame, and round black eyes of a man peep out from under the lower right edge, everything below them is also cut off. Sharp drawing, rhythm, unexpected “cut” figures – all this speaks of the influence of Gauguin and the French impressionists on the Russian artist, but the innovation that Larionov will come to later is already read in the manner. This trend will be called neo-primitivism and will become one of the defining trends in the art of the second half of the 20th century. Many authors will follow his path – simplification, a childish view of the world, primitive sincerity.

“In the 1970s, I met Varvara Zonova, the widow of artist Lev Zhegin, son of architect Fyodor Shekhtel,” says the collector. – This is a very interesting artist – he was close friends with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov and Mikhail Larionov. The artist’s widow invited me to visit – she lived in cramped conditions in a communal apartment. There I saw this work, cut in two: one part hung on one wall, the second on the other. But I immediately realized that this is a single picture. In 1976, Zonova agreed to sell me the right side – for 2,000 rubles, which at that time was a lot of money. And 35 years later, her granddaughter sold me the left one – for 50 thousand dollars, which is also a lot. The restorers put the pieces together again.

– Who and why “cut” the picture?

– I think that it was difficult for the Zhagins to store the collection in a small room and it was divided due to domestic circumstances. Although the author himself could do this: Larionov was very demanding of himself. But the first version seems more plausible to me.

In addition to the Walk, the exhibition also features several unique items from the Dudakov collection, the rest from the collection of the Tropinin Museum, and many of the works have not been shown before. The exposition is very diverse. Works of different styles and directions coexist here, but all this polyphony of the 20th century is united by one thing – a connection with the past. The art revolution of the twentieth century did not occur out of the blue – it was a reaction to the path taken before. Here we can see this paradox clearly.

“We would not like to compare this material with the previous one, but tried to understand by what right it is in this museum,” says Svetlana Volkova, curator of the exhibition, to MK. – The fundamental collection of the Tropinin Museum – and this is the first half of the 19th century – dictates its own laws. In this exhibition, we show the synchronic polyphony, characteristic of the art of the early twentieth century, which reflects the creative intensity of different, deeply dissimilar, voices of the past. We are trying to capture the continuity of generations.

The basis of the collection of the Tropinin Museum is the collection of Felix Vishnevsky (1903-1978), an art connoisseur and founder of the museum. One of the works of his collection depicts the owner of the mansion Nikolai Petukhov in Shchetininsky Lane, in which the Tropinin Museum was opened through the efforts of Vishnevsky in 1971. A symbolic portrait by the architect Nikolai Koshelev, an associate of Ivan Kramskoy, depicts him against the backdrop of the Solovetsky Monastery, as if he were behind the back of a merchant and collector from a dream. The work dates back to 1900 – and this milestone is felt in technique and composition.

Echoes of the past can be counted in each exhibit. Whether it is a still life with lilacs by Pyotr Konchalovsky, which occupies a central place in the exhibition (it has an obvious connection with French impressionism), or a strange grotesque canvas by Modest Durnov, on which a Chinese idol turns out to be more lively and believable than real people. Be it the musical “Evening on the Volga” by Boris Kustodiev, written with amazing cheerfulness for a person chained to a wheelchair, or a symbolic etching with a rainbow by Maria Yakunchikova, created by the artist after parting with her beloved, a few years before her death from tuberculosis. Both of these works testify to a transitional stage in art – from precise scrupulous drawing to simplicity and conciseness of forms. Each of these stories must be peered closely to discover the subtle combination of tradition and innovation.