The Pushkin Museum spoke about longing and dreams for Spain

The Pushkin Museum built a bridge between the “extreme points of the great European diagonal”

In the Art Galleries of European and American Countries of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin opened the exhibition “Images of Spain. Russian art of the 19th–21st centuries”, where you can take an imaginary journey to the land of bullfighting and flamenco. The project (like the Armenian one in the main building – “Kingdom of Urartu”) is not only nostalgic, but also diplomatic: culture tries to maintain at least some bridges when ties collapse. However, in this case the bridge was thrown only in one direction; feedback was not expected. The idea of ​​the exhibition is precisely that you can find yourself in Spain, no matter where you are, as did the poet Pushkin, who had never been to Europe at all because of his “restricted to travel” status, or the artist Shukhaev, who dreamed of the land of the sun in hard labor .

The exhibition opens with a portrait of diplomat Nikolai Yusupov in a maho (dandy) costume by the German artist Heinrich Friedrich Füger, who became the only foreign author at the exhibition. All the rest are our compatriots. Yusupov was one of the first Russians to visit Spain and told everything in detail to Pushkin, who then wrote a Spanish cycle. The poet could only imagine Spain, like other countries, since after the publication of the ode “Liberty” he became restricted from traveling abroad. Most of the authors presented at the exhibition, like Pushkin, wrote their stories while away from the homeland of Garcia Lorca and Cervantes.

It is no coincidence that the preface to the project reads: “Russia and Spain are border cultures, “two extreme points of the great European diagonal” (José Ortega y Gasset), and their mutual attraction is a way of self-knowledge.” However, many who visited “Spain” found that the characters of the inhabitants of the “extreme points” were similar, as were the landscapes. Among such travelers are Konstantin Korovin, Mikhail Glinka and Maximilian Voloshin.

Russians began visiting Spain in the 19th century, and before that they sometimes imagined the country in incredible fantasies. At the end of the Age of Enlightenment, for example, Pyotr Chuvaev draws a comic popular print in the form of a newspaper, which reports on the “miracles” that were caught in “Gishpania”: one with cat ears, a human face, completely covered with fur, the other with tails, long claws and growth on the top of the head. However, this joke is rather an exception; the Russians romanticized Spain more. Dressing in a Spanish costume for a portrait, like Yusupov, the Russian wanted to appear as an adventurer, open to acute impressions. This is Vasily Perovsky in a portrait by Orest Kiprensky and Alexander Golovin, captured by Elena Polenova.

Of course, there are also sketches from nature in the exhibition. The first section is dedicated to them, which reminds that Ilya Repin, Lev Bakst, Vasily Surikov, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Mikhail Larionov and Natalya Goncharova saw Spain with their own eyes and brought back their impressions from there, making it even more attractive and more real. Sergei Diaghilev and his seasons left a special mark there, which at the same time set the Spanish trend in Russia and Europe. However, the real Spain is rather shown between the lines here; most of the exhibition, consisting of seven halls, is devoted to fantasies.

The most poignant phantom dedications are made by artists who find themselves on the brink of life and death, in places where there is a great shortage of bright colors and emotions. Thus, Vasily Shukhaev created sketches for the play “The Spanish Priest” by the English playwright John Fletcher, while at hard labor in Kolyma and Magadan, where he was sent after returning from France to the USSR. It was his way of confronting the surrounding reality. Vera Ermolaeva also saved herself in prison by dreams of Spain: she was arrested in 1934, sentenced to death in 1937, and while waiting for the end, she worked on illustrations for Cervantes. The same thing happened with Mikhail Sokolov, who wrote his Don Quixote while in Siberian penal servitude.

However, in Soviet times, volunteers unofficially participated in the Spanish Civil War, correspondents covered the events, debunking the myth of the “blessed land” and emphasizing the courage and thirst for freedom of the Spaniards, and the artist Georgy Petrov wrote the “Spanish Diary”, which conveys the feeling “of the hot air, imbued with anxiety.” And yet, even when Spain ceased to be distant, it still remained a myth – about passion, sincerity and directness. Russians never tire of drawing this myth to this day, which is confirmed by the works of contemporary artists. Such as Leonid Tishkov, the author of the lunar series, addressed to the poetry of Garcia Lorca. Or Francisco Infante, who saw the homeland of his ancestors already in his mature years. In a word, this exhibition is a kind of antidepressant that can be used to dilute the November grayness and chthony in the absence of the opportunity to make a real trip to the homeland of Velazquez, Picasso and Dali. Everyone can find their own Spain here and at the same time discover the Spaniard in themselves.