“Amazons of the Russian avant-garde”: Artists who deserve more. Russian avant-garde

In March 1915, collector Sergei Shchukin, according to rumors, bought from the exhibition “Tram B” a work by Vladimir Tatlin, knocked together from wooden blocks. Some researchers doubt the fact of the purchase, but Shchukin did not refute it, despite the wide publicity of the event. The public was surprised and indignant, a malicious letter was published in the newspaper about the acquisition for a lot of money - quote - “three old, dirty boards.” But this meant that the collector with an unerring sense of smell sensed something in that new art, which was not at all within the scope of his interests.

The term “avant-garde” is completely familiar to us, but in the 1910s it was not in use. Back then, words were more often used that emphasized either the oppositional nature of art - “left-wing artists”, or the novelty of art, its time vector - “futureists”, “budetlyans”, “futurists”. The word “futurists” was the main one because it is international: there were, for example, Italian futurists, their leader Marinetti came to Russia. And after the revolution, the term “futurism” began to apply to all left-wing artists, and, for example, the critic Abram Efros wrote: “Futurism has become the official art of the new Russia,” meaning the entire avant-garde.

It is approximately clear when the avant-garde appears and declares itself - in the 1910s; Its main names are also known. But it is quite difficult to formulate this clearly in a few words. For example, in avant-garde painting there are many non-objective versions, from the expressive abstraction of Kandinsky to the Suprematism of Malevich. But it cannot be entirely reduced to abstraction. For example, Larionov, Goncharova, Filonov, and not only them, almost or not at all deviated from the image of the objective world. As for artistic convention, its measure cannot be easily calculated - so as to say that from this point on it is already avant-garde, but not before. Avant-garde is a variety of languages ​​and concepts: both individual and collective. Someone’s individual style very often becomes a group style; major figures have adherents and students. And all together this is the environment. And it is precisely through the environment, through the norms of behavior accepted within it, that one can try to characterize the avant-garde.

Natalya Goncharova. Parrots. 1910

Pavel Filonov. Man and woman. 1912–1913Wikimedia Commons, State Russian Museum

This is absolutely new type behavior - defiant, deliberately rude. A kind of poetics of rudeness, “Mayakovsky” intonation - bared “you” and “here.” Of course, first of all, it is customary to shock the bourgeois, whose taste, whose attitude to art and life principles in general deserve only a slap in the face. For example, in the “Stray Dog” cafe, visitors with money from which the establishment exists are disparagingly called “pharmacists” and treated in every possible way. But they don’t stand on ceremony with “their own people.” The head of the Italian futurists, Marinetti, said that the artist needs an enemy - the manifestos of Italian futurism are written in terms of war. The history of the Russian avant-garde can also be represented as a history of quarrels and mutual suspicions. Vladimir Tatlin even during the day tightly curtains the windows of his studio, because it seems to him that Malevich is peeking and stealing ideas. Paranoia, of course, but typical. Olga Rozanova accuses Malevich of plagiarism; she writes: “All Suprematism is entirely my stickers, a combination of planes, lines, disks (especially disks) and absolutely no real objects attached, and after that all this bastard hides my name.” Mikhail Larionov comes up with the name “Jack of Diamonds,” but in association with this name there will no longer be either him or his wife Goncharova: what happened, as they wrote in the newspapers, was “a quarrel between tails and jacks.” In the early 20s, Kandinsky initiated the creation of Inkhuk - the Moscow Institute artistic culture, and very soon a group of constructivists led by Alexander Rodchenko expels him from there. The same thing happened in Vitebsk: Marc Chagall invites El Lissitzky there, he invites Malevich, after which Chagall has to leave Vitebsk. The situation of conflict has never looked so total before.

But before, the history of art did not proceed at such speed. The currents in it somehow smoothly replaced each other, and if not smoothly, then with a clear trajectory - and now she rushed off at a gallop. Something that just seemed new is abruptly declared backward: after all, to be a vanguard, you need a rear guard. As Mayakovsky wrote, “our god is running.” The movement occurs in a mode of constant discovery, and therefore it is important to declare your primacy - “this is mine, I came up with this” - so that the innovation is not appropriated by competitors. State in a manifest manner.

The avant-garde is the time of manifestos and declarations. Artists write them in an attempt to explain their art and justify their dominance and, ultimately, their power. The word is a fighting weapon, sometimes a mace, sometimes a sledgehammer. But at the same time, it is a rare artist who knows how to write clearly. Often this is, to use Khlebnikov’s expression, a “word of its own”: shamanistic, sometimes reaching the point of complete glossolalia  Glossolalia- speech consisting of meaningless sound combinations; Glossolalia is often spoken of in connection with religious ecstasy.. And since the texts of the manifestos are mysterious, like spells, their meaning largely depends on the interpretation of those who read them.

This also ties in with the general state of affairs in the world: after all, all life is losing certainty, stability, and rationality. The laws of classical mechanics, where action is equal to reaction, no longer work in it. Now the parallel lines inexplicably converge. Now you can expect everything from a person, since the unconscious hidden in his spiritual abyss can drown out the voice of consciousness. The books of Sigmund Freud, “The Interpretation of Dreams” and “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life,” published at the beginning of the 20th century, even in a cloudless childhood made a repressed sexual nightmare come to light, and the first World War, confirming this new knowledge about man, finally devalued the key concepts of traditional humanism. In 1915, Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity, which began the era of total relativism; now nothing is definitively certain or unconditionally true. And the artist no longer even says “I see it this way” - he gains the right to say “I want it this way.”

Painting itself, which was previously satisfied traditional concept about the painting as a window into the world, now he cannot limit himself to it. Because nothing stable can be found in this window - there are voids, gaps and black holes, a fluid world of incomprehensible energies. Things have fallen out of place, fallen into pieces, and there is a temptation to put them back together in a completely different way. New art is trying to master this world directly, violating the concept of boundaries. The surface of the painting swells, collage stickers appear on it, real objects invade the painting—in fact, life invades. Later they will call it “assemblage”, but for now they call it “pictorial sculpture”. And such attempts to connect art with reality have a great future; they will last through the entire 20th century. One of the most radical are readymades, ready-made objects exhibited as works of art, like the urinal “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp. But this will not happen on Russian soil. Perhaps because planetary ambitions prevent just such a step. The national avant-garde has a strong metaphysical flavor - and it’s not about things.

Despite the diversity of concepts, two main vectors can be distinguished in the avant-garde, which do not so much deny as complement each other. For example, Malevich’s vector is world-building: we're talking about no longer about the transformation of art, but about the transformation of the world through form and color. Malevich is an unconditional charismatic and a great strategist; he approaches his activities as a man of demiurgic will - with the intention of changing everything. And there are nearby different shapes organic avant-garde - non-violent, calling not to change nature, but to listen to it: in Matyushin, Filonov, and partly in Tatlin. Tatlin, considered the founder of Russian constructivism, listens to the voice of the material and values ​​it. His counter-reliefs - three-dimensional compositions of wooden, metal and even glass parts attached to a board - are extremely radical in parting with the traditional picture plane, and at the same time they also have the quality of almost Taoist-Buddhist humility in front of the natural givenness of life. roar or iron. There is a legend about how Tatlin knocked out the chair on which Malevich was sitting, inviting him to sit on the abstract categories of shape and color.

The first avant-garde discoveries were made not in Russia, but in the West. For example, the French Fauvism of Henri Matisse, Andre Derain and others and the early Cubism of Picasso and Braque entered the arena almost simultaneously - in 1905-1906; At the same time, the first association of German expressionists, the “Bridge” group, took shape. Larionov, Goncharova and Malevich would later have a Fauvist period, although in general Fauvism did not have a very strong impact on Russian art. Cubism, on the contrary, influenced very significantly - and on many, but was combined with the influence of Italian futurism, which took shape by 1909 - when Marinetti's first futurist manifesto was published. Cubofuturism - Russian word and the Russian phenomenon. And expressionism, whose style can sometimes be seen in Larionov and David Burliuk, is important for Russia, because Wassily Kandinsky, an artist as much Russian as German, played a significant role in its formation. It was he who, together with Franz Marc, organized the expressionist group “Blue Rider” in Munich in 1911.

It’s worth mentioning separately about Kandinsky. He is a pioneer of pointlessness: the first abstract painting considered to be his “Painting with a Circle” from 1911. He divides his abstractions into impressions, improvisations and compositions; The first ones are inspired by impressions of reality, the second ones spill out the unconscious, and the compositions are thoughtful, choreographed things. Kandinsky’s work has a strong symbolist basis - both in his paintings and in his treatise “On the Spiritual in Art,” where he tries to describe the effect of certain colors on consciousness. “Color,” he writes, “is the key; eye - hammer; the soul is a multi-string piano. The artist is a hand which, by means of one or another key, expediently vibrates human soul" Mikhail Matyushin explored the nature of color in approximately the same direction.

Wassily Kandinsky. Arabs (Cemetery). 1909Wikimedia Commons / Hamburger Kunsthalle

Wassily Kandinsky. Bedroom on Antmillerstrasse. 1909Wikimedia Commons / Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau

Wassily Kandinsky. Houses in Munich. 1908Wikimedia Commons/Von der Heydt-Museum

In fact, the Russian avant-garde begins with Matyushin. It was he who organized the St. Petersburg “Youth Union”, registered in February 1910 (the famous exhibition “Jack of Diamonds” will open only in December of the same year). Matyushin is much older than all his comrades, but he and his early deceased wife Elena Guro are important figures in this movement. Matyushin is considered more of a theorist and organizer than a practitioner, so he remains aloof from jealous squabbles over supremacy. Malevich, for example, is friendly with him, and the mystical overtones of Matyushin’s quest are accepted quite sympathetically by him. And there is a lot of mysticism there: Matyushin’s organic concept is associated with the belief that art can become a way to enter the fourth dimension. To do this, you need to acquire expanded viewing skills—learn to see not only with your eyes, but with your whole body. So, his students paint, for example, a pond near Sestroretsk - with their backs to it: this is the implementation of the metaphor about “eyes in the back of the head.” Matyushin explores the nature of vision simultaneously as a symbolist and as a systematic biologist. The result of these studies will be the “Handbook of Color”, which will be published in 1932 - at a completely inopportune time for this.

Mikhail Matyushin. Portrait of Elena Guro. 1910 avangardism.ru

Mikhail Matyushin. Stack. Lakhta. 1921

Matyushin initiated another important avant-garde enterprise - the production of the opera “Victory over the Sun”, carried out in 1913. He himself, a musician by primary education, wrote the music, the futurist poet Alexei Kruchenykh wrote the libretto in an abstruse language, and Malevich created the scenery where the black square motif first appeared. According to the plot, the people conquer the Sun - and it is precisely with a black square that it turns out to be defeated. Later, in 1920, Malevich’s follower El Lissitzky tried to stage the opera in Vitebsk. In his production main plot The opera about the victory of the machine over the natural will be presented quite directly: instead of actors, there will be mechanisms in action - the so-called figurines, driven by electricity.

Kazimir Malevich. Set design sketch for the opera “Victory over the Sun” by Mikhail Matyushin and Alexey Kruchenykh. 1913St. Petersburg State Museum of Theater and Musical Art

Cover of the program for the opera “Victory over the Sun.” Artists Kazimir Malevich and David Burliuk. 1913 Wikimedia Commons

As already mentioned, the “Youth Union”, organized by Matyushin, is the first avant-garde association, albeit with rolling stock. But at this time, specific exhibitions are more important than associations: an exhibition is an effective manifesto that is seen and talked about. The first such exhibition was “Jack of Diamonds” in 1910. The name, invented by Mikhail Larionov, referred to a whole set of grassroots associations: both card cheating and criminal emblems. The “Valets” - Ilya Mashkov, Aristarkh Lentulov, Pyotr Konchalovsky and others - were quite happy with this: they wanted to shock the audience.

Absolutely shocking and provocative was the huge painting by Mashkov presented at the exhibition, where he depicted himself and his friend Konchalovsky in the form of half-naked wrestlers or weightlifters. But these athletes are no strangers to beauty: in the picture there is a violin, a piano, sheet music - this is now the image of the artist, he has everything. Popular prints on the wall is an important sign of the Jack of Diamonds’ orientation towards urban folklore and folk aesthetics: on signs, painted trays, fairground tantamaresques. And the Cezanne album on the shelf is another sign: the “jacks” worship Cezanne. At the same time, Cézanneism is understood by them as a simplified geometrization of the world - and through the already well-known experience of French Cubism. In general, simplifying the form is good, right: not to get bogged down in details, but to see things as a whole and freshly, as if for the first time. It's exciting, there's a game to it.

Game is also an important word for this collective program. The atmosphere is a cheerful booth - and the artists enthusiastically try on carnival disguises. Mashkov paints a self-portrait in the role of a factory owner in a luxurious fur coat against the backdrop of a steamboat, the artist Georgy Yakulov in a portrait by Konchalovsky turns out to be an oriental man, and Lentulov paints himself in the role of a red-faced trade fair barker. The same Lentulov writes a cubo-futuristic Moscow: cathedrals break out of their seats and literally start dancing. Lentulov was the first to use collage: he glued silver and colored foil, candy wrappers, even bark onto canvases; includes inscriptions in the image - both drawn and in the form of scraps of posters and newspapers. That is, the picture itself is already going beyond its limits - either into relief or into non-objectivity.

Pyotr Konchalovsky. Portrait of Georges Yakulov. 1910

Aristarkh Lentulov. Self-portrait "Le Grand Peintre". 1915State Tretyakov Gallery

Aristarkh Lentulov. Basil the Blessed. 1913Wikimedia Commons / State Tretyakov Gallery

The Jack of Diamonds outrageousness argues with the art of the past, which seems to them not to be art, but to be literature or philosophy. And for them, art should be itself, a game and joy from the flow of paint. Now it does not refer to anything beyond its borders, and besides it, it seems, there is nothing in the world. This attitude will remain in the Russian avant-garde.

If the “Jacks” continue to work in their own style even after the first performance, then Mikhail Larionov, who gave them their name, on the contrary, changes the style from exhibition to exhibition.

The next exhibition after “Jacks” is “Donkey’s Tail” in 1912; The title refers to the recent scandal in Paris, when a group of outrageous artists exhibited a painting allegedly painted with a donkey's tail. At his exhibition, Larionov presented a program of neo-primitivism. Neo-primitivism is a system turned to the archaic, to ancient and impersonal art. In fact, artists have already turned to such layers: for example, Pavel Kuznetsov, one of the main people in the Blue Rose association, in the 1910s wrote his “Kyrgyz Suite” - the life of the steppe people, not disturbed by civilization and not changing from century to century. But there this immutability was poeticized, and in Larionov and other artists experiencing their primitivist period, it was seen as something chthonic and, perhaps, eerie. And at “Donkey’s Tail” there are exhibited things from Larionov’s own soldier and Turkish cycles, Goncharova’s “Evangelists” series, which was removed by censorship, her own “peasant” works, paintings from Malevich’s peasant cycle and much more. And at the next exhibition, “Target”, Larionov will present paintings on oilcloth by the newly opened Niko Pirosmani.

Mikhail Larionov. Soldiers. 1909Photo by A. Sverdlov / RIA Novosti

Kazimir Malevich. Harvesting. 1911

Natalya Goncharova. Peasants picking apples. 1911

Natalya Goncharova. Evangelists. 1911Photo by Mikhail Kuleshov / RIA Novosti; State Russian Museum

Pavel Kuznetsov. Sleeping in a shed. 1911Photo by A. Sverdlov / RIA Novosti; State Tretyakov Gallery

The 1913 “Target” exhibition is accompanied by the manifesto “Radiants and Future People.” Rayonism is Larionov’s version of non-objective art - and a first for Russia, since Kandinsky invented his non-objective art in Germany. And here, unexpectedly, Larionov turns out to be close to Matyushin in mystical and biological discussions about the nature of vision. A man looks at an object, and certain rays go from the object to his eye; It is these rays, and not the object itself, that should be written. In this case, the subject may turn out to be someone else’s painting - and from here follows another thesis of the manifesto: allness. All art styles are suitable for contemporary artist, all can be assigned to them and reformatted. An artist is obliged to change, because the world itself is changing at tremendous speed - and one must respond to these changes. The exhibition "Target" presents everything at once - both radiant abstractions, in which the subject motif is still slightly discernible (for example, bird heads in the painting "Rooster and Hen"), and primitivist works - and among them the most radical In this style, the “Seasons” series, inspired both by popular print and children’s drawings. Following the concept of allness, Larionov not only combines primitivist works with radiant ones, but also turns out to be the inventor of new practices. For example, futuristic makeup, as well as futuristic cuisine and futuristic fashion. True, of all this, only makeup was realized - abstract face painting, inspired by rayonism.

Mikhail Larionov. Rooster. 1912Photo by Pavel Balabanov / RIA Novosti; State Tretyakov Gallery

Mikhail Larionov. Radiant landscape. 1913Getty Images / State Russian Museum

Malevich's path to Suprematism is a rather intense alternation of stages. Malevich begins with impressionism - like Larionov and partly Kandinsky; then he turns to neo-primitivism, and after it begins cubo-futurism and alogism. In the illogical painting “An Englishman in Moscow,” a green guest of the capital in a top hat is surrounded by a saber, a candle, a herring, a ladder, as well as the phrases “partial eclipse” and “racing society.” This is the poetics of the absurd, pictorial abstruseness, a collage combination of incompatible objects and texts in a picture. Malevich gets rid of the cause-and-effect order - and this makes his illogical paintings, albeit incomplete, but still an analogue of what will happen in Western art, but not in Russian - Dadaism.

For Malevich, alogisms are only a stage before the final phase - Suprematism. The style emerged in 1915 and was presented in December at the “0.10” exhibition. In the title of the exhibition, zero is the end of art, declared by Suprematism “zero forms”, the symbol of which was the “Black Square”, and ten is the number of supposed participants, in fact there were more of them.

Nevertheless, from the very beginning Suprematism is offered for mastery and is actually mastered by other artists - in contrast, for example, to the expressive abstractions of Kandinsky, which will not become the object of anyone’s further reflection. In 1920, in Vitebsk, Malevich created the Unovis society, where all adherents paint in the same way as their gurus, and at their exhibitions there are no names under Suprematist paintings - it is assumed that this creativity is anonymous and collective. There is no place for individual artistic expression, there is only the affirmation of a system that claims to be universal, to be the final recount of everything in the world and the last word about it. Because “Supremus” means “supreme”. This is the last word and, one might say, the highest measure.

At the same time, this universal language is suitable for projects of the future. Both Malevich and his students - Chashnik, Suetin, Khidekel - came up with architecture based on Suprematist forms. They make architectons from plaster and draw planets - models of dwellings for earthlings, people of the future space. The architects are pointless, devoid of window and door openings, their internal space is not worked out at all; Malevich was not interested in function, but in pure form—the utopian module of a new order system. And his dishes, created in the early twenties, during his collaboration with the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory, are also not conducive to being used - it is difficult to pour tea from a Suprematist teapot, and it is inconvenient to drink from a half-cup. It is the manifestation of form, and form is self-sufficient.

Kazimir Malevich. Architects layout. 1920sPedro Menéndez / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Nikolai Suetin, Kazimir Malevich, Ilya Chashnik. Petrograd. 1923 Wikimedia Commons

Kazimir Malevich. Suprematist tea service. Developed in 1918Museum of Fine Arts, Houston / Bridgeman Images / Fotodom

In general, the idea of ​​production, industrial art in the 20s would become a justification for avant-garde form-creation - and we will talk about it soon. But just among the main artists of the pre-revolutionary avant-garde, things were quite complicated with her. Even those who were sincerely ready to devote themselves entirely to making functional things “for life.” Let's say Tatlin. Everything was fine with dishes and so-called normal clothes, but “great projects” remained a utopia. The incredible flywheel "Letat-lin" did not fly. The tower, a monument to the Third International, was never built; and it was difficult to imagine that this grandiose plan for a multi-story rotating structure could be realized. Tatlin did not like the word “constructivism”, he generally tried to stay away from any “isms”, but he was considered the father of this movement, because he was the first not to depict objects, but to make them. In a photograph by Georg Grosz and John Heartfield, two German avant-garde artists hold a banner with the inscription “Art is dead - long live Tatlin’s machine art.” But in fact, the ideas of “correct” machine constructivism were declared and practically implemented by other people. For example, Alexander Rodchenko.

Vladimir Tatlin (right) at the monument to the Third Communist International. 1919 Getty Images

Vladimir Tatlin. "Letatlin" is a non-motorized individual aircraft. 1929–1932Photo by Vitaly Karpov / RIA Novosti; Central Museum Air Force of the Russian Federation

Rodchenko is one of the most productive avant-garde artists of the second generation and one of the most consistent “productionists.” The heyday of his activities occurred in the post-revolutionary years. And at first he seems to want to take the next step on the field mastered by his elders - a step towards greater laconicism and, therefore, greater radicalism. For example, Malevich has geometric forms, dense, and Rodchenko has light lines (he calls this lineism; he even wrote a manifesto about the possibilities of line). In Tatlin the counter-relief is connected to the wall, while in Rodchenko the mobiles hang freely in the air. His experiments are not burdened with anything metaphysical, so everything found will easily later become the ABC of the design of various utilitarian things. Rodchenko will work with equal success in book graphics, poster and scenography, decorate interiors, make furniture, engage in photography - and here his photomontages and especially the techniques of perspective shooting will become a visual sign of the times. And it is no coincidence that it was he who would be the initiator of the expulsion of Kandinsky from Inkhuk: it was a clash of the new materialistic approach to art with the old, abstract one.

The Moscow Inkhuk, like the Leningrad Ginkhuk, institutes of artistic culture, were called upon to develop universal methods handling forms. In the post-revolutionary years, it was customary to look for the universal, and in general, after the revolution, avant-garde artists actively participated in the work of educational institutions, of which there were many. They introduced their faith, so to speak. Kandinsky's faith is a synthesis of the arts based on biology, physicality, and synesthesia. Three arts, according to his plan, should provide this synthesis - painting, music and dance; This is what is proposed for study. But for young artists, led by Rodchenko, all this is just superfluous, not corresponding to the historical moment. What kind of dance is there when the production of what is necessary is not established - this is what the artist’s task should be. Naturally, Rodchenko's group wins this dispute. But this victory will not last long: very soon the necessary things will be produced in a completely different way from the constructivist spirit. Who will defeat the constructivists will be discussed in the next lecture.

Russian avant-garde is a general term for a significant artistic phenomenon that flourished in Russia from 1890 to 1930, although some early manifestations date back to the 1850s and later ones to the 1960s. The phenomenon of 20th century art, defined by the term “Russian avant-garde,” does not correlate with any specific art program or style. This term is finally assigned to the radical innovative movements that emerged in Russian art in the pre-war years - 1907-1914, coming to the fore during the years of the revolution and reaching maturity in the first post-revolutionary decade. The various movements of the artistic avant-garde are united by a decisive break not only with academic traditions and the eclectic aesthetics of the 19th century, but also with the new art of the Art Nouveau style - dominant at that time everywhere and in all types of art from architecture and painting to theater and design. What the Russian avant-garde had in common was a radical rejection of cultural heritage, a complete denial of continuity in artistic creativity and a combination of destructive and creative principles: the spirit of nihilism and revolutionary aggression with creative energy aimed at creating something fundamentally new in art and in other areas of life.

The concept of “avant-garde” conventionally unites a variety of art movements of the 20th century. (constructivism, cubism, orphism, op art, pop art, purism, surrealism, fauvism).

The main representatives of this movement in Russia are V. Malevich, V. Kandinsky, M. Larionov, M. Matyushin, V. Tatlin, P. Kuznetsov, G. Yakulov, A. Exter, B. Ender and others.

All movements of avant-garde art are indeed characterized by substitution spiritual content pragmatism, emotionality - sober calculation, artistic imagery - simple harmonization, aesthetics of forms, composition - design, big ideas - utilitarianism. Traditional Russian maximalism, clearly manifested in the movement of the Itinerants and “sixties” of the 19th century, was only strengthened by the Russian revolution and led to the fact that throughout the world Soviet Russia is considered the birthplace of avant-garde art.

New art captivates with its unbridled freedom, captivates and captivates, but at the same time it testifies to degradation, the destruction of the integrity of content and form. The atmosphere of irony, play, carnival, and masquerade inherent in some movements of avant-garde art does not so much mask as reveal deep internal discord in the artist’s soul. The ideology of avant-gardeism carries within itself a destructive force. In the 1910s, according to N. Berdyaev, a “hooligan generation” was growing up in Russia. History of Russian and Soviet art - M.: Higher School, 1989. P. 53..

The avant-garde was aimed at a radical transformation of human consciousness through the means of art, at an aesthetic revolution that would destroy the spiritual inertia of the existing society, while its artistic-utopian strategy and tactics were much more decisive, anarchic and rebellious. Not content with creating exquisite “foci” of beauty and mystery, opposing the base materiality of existence, the avant-garde introduced into its images the rough matter of life, the “poetics of the street,” the chaotic rhythm of the modern city, nature, endowed with powerful creative and destructive force. He more than once declaratively emphasized the principle of “anti-art” in his works, thereby rejecting not only previous, more traditional styles, but also the established concept of art in general.

The range of avant-garde trends is large. Transformations covered all types of creativity, but fine art constantly initiated new movements. The masters of post-impressionism predetermined the most important trends of the avant-garde; Its early front was marked by group performances of representatives of Fauvism and Cubism. Futurism strengthened the international contacts of the avant-garde and introduced new principles of interaction between the arts (fine art, literature, music, theater, photography and cinema). In the 1900s-10s, new directions were born one after another. Expressionism, Dadaism, surrealism with their sensitivity to the unconscious in human psyche outlined the irrational line of the avant-garde; in constructivism, on the contrary, its rational, constructive will was manifested. Not all trends of the European avant-garde were reflected in the Russian avant-garde. Movements such as Dadaism, surrealism, Fauvism and some others were characteristic only of Europe.

During the period of wars and revolutions of the 1910s, the political and artistic avant-gardes actively interacted. Left forces in politics tried to use the avant-garde for their own propaganda purposes; later, totalitarian regimes (primarily in Germany and the USSR) sought to suppress it through strict censorship, driving the avant-garde underground.

In the conditions of political liberalism, since the 1920s, the avant-garde has lost its former pathos of confrontation, entered into an alliance with modernity, established contact with popular culture. The crisis of the avant-garde, which by the mid-20th century had largely squandered its former “revolutionary” energy, was an incentive for the formation of postmodernism as its main alternative.

1917 changed everything. This did not become obvious immediately. The first 5 years - the heroic five years of 1917-1922 - still left room for hope. But soon the illusions dissipated. The drama of the destruction of the grandiose bastion of modernist art, created in Russia by genius and labor, manifestos and heated discussions around the world, began. famous masters. By the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, non-realistic movements were completely prohibited; some artists left for other countries; others were repressed or, succumbing to cruel inevitability, abandoned avant-garde quests. In 1932, numerous artistic associations; The authorities created a single Union of Artists.

It can be concluded that the Russian avant-garde is in fact a phenomenon of the 20th century, since no art style before it dared to make such a challenge traditional art. The emergence of Russian avant-garde movements was directly related to the history of Russia and the political situation of that time. The Revolution of 1905-1907 had a huge influence on the development of the Russian avant-garde.

Nowhere and never again was avant-gardeism as radical, passionate, diverse and reckless as in Russia in 1910-20

No, whatever you want, I’m proud of my country. Not everything here is bad and disgusting. Not all of us have “Zhiguli”, roofing felt, “Lyubitelskie” dumplings and Stas Mikhailov. Still, a mighty people, who tore from their mysterious depths a man capable of drawing a simple geometric figure of one color, which throughout our round world has become a generally recognized symbol of the great Nothing. And one of the most radical works talking about the death of art.

Kazimir Malevich. Black square

Powerful are the people who see this symbol in the grave with all its universal recognition and radicality and, instead of being proud of it, consider it a cheap quasi-intellectual trick for meanings that do not exist. And this is also radical in our opinion.

Still, why did such a powerful phenomenon, now known as the “Russian avant-garde”, suddenly explode in our rather patriarchal penates? Because of this patriarchy, in particular. Avant-garde - it does not position itself as another way of making art, like Baroque or the Hudson River School. It positions itself as a way to change brains and change life in general. But there was something to change. Moreover, this did not concern Russia’s eternal backwardness from developed countries - this is too utilitarian and a petty task, but the world as a whole. The Russian avant-garde was extremely utopian and extremely planetary - like a beggar dreams not of a modest rent, but immediately of a place in Forbes list, so as not to waste time in the intermediate stages. This is our way – to make the whole world happy, immediately and quickly. And heavy thoughts in this direction in Russia overwhelmed not only the leaders of the avant-garde. Suffice it to recall Tsiolkovsky with his fantasies about the dusty paths of distant planets or Nikolai Fedorov with the idea of ​​​​resurrecting all people who have ever lived. And this gap, let’s say, between dreams and reality, the scale of utopia and the circumstances in which it is created* is again very much ours.

The belief that art can change life was strong. She was born in romanticism, then migrated to modernism. But there this idea was local in nature - it was assumed that wonderful people would grow up in a beautiful, artistically transformed environment. Avant-gardeism likened life art project, and put the artist in the place of the demiurge, whose creative will is enough to change even the Universe. Avant-garde thus took the same position as religion, and there were avant-garde messiahs, avant-garde apostles, avant-garde heretics, prophets, fanatics, etc. And his utopian projects were painfully reminiscent of the quite familiar Christian eschatology. And even the central work of the Russian avant-garde - “Black Square” - was called an icon of new art. By the way, it is structurally and looks like an icon: black is the ark, white is the fields.

Those. The Russian avant-garde, for the most part, unlike Western avant-gardeism, resolved issues not of art, but of life-building. That is why we did not have, say, a Duchampian urinal - it is still more addressed to the internal problems of art. No, of course, our avant-garde artists also solved similar problems, but the main thing for them was utopia.

The largest utopians were abstractionists and, above all, Suprematists led by Malevich. They built unknown Universes that were supposed to replace this already boring one of ours. For Malevich it is a different cosmos, for Kandinsky it is a different spiritual space; there were many systems, I will write more individual texts about our avant-garde artists. Here I will only show how different they all were, even in appearance. In the West, for example, from the large systems of non-objective art of 10-20. one can recall Delaunay, Mondrian and the Dada-surrealists. That's all. And it was in different countries Oh. We have:

Wassily Kandinsky. Composition VIII

"spiritual" abstraction;

Mikhail Larionov. Luchist composition

a variant of “cosmic” abstraction;

Olga Rozanova. Green stripe

another “space” option;

Mikhail Matyushin. flower of man

biomorphic abstraction;

Alexander Rodchenko. Victorious red

constructivist abstraction;

El Lissitzky. Proun 5a

Suprematism. All this diversity comes from the desire to embrace everything, from the so-understood universalism. Larionov and Zdanevich even came up with such a direction - “allness” - which assumed that the artist cannot be confined to one thing, but must be open to any direction, to the whole culture. One is tempted to say a banality about the universal responsiveness of the Russian soul. Here, he said.

The thirst for utopia and the passion with which it was built gave rise to another characteristic quality of the Russian avant-garde - its radicalism and desire to reach the last logical point. However, like all the other listed qualities, this is also national, and not just avant-garde. They put bold dots - like Malevich’s “Square” - “I killed painting.” In fact, if we are building utopias, what does art have to do with it? And if it doesn’t belong to utopia, then we should end it altogether - it’s just distracting with its effects. And our avant-garde killed art. Art in the traditional sense, of course. What he created in return was not art for him - these were drawings, sketches of utopias. Or, after the revolution, these were completely applied things - design, architecture. Well, there, after the revolution, it was clear that the time had come not to draw, but to build a utopia, while still on Earth. In this sense, the path of El Lissitzky is characteristic.

El Lissitzky. Propaganda poster

So he transferred the formal principles of Suprematism into propaganda.

El Lissitzky. Skyscrapers in the area of ​​Nikitskaya Square. Project

And so I tried to transfer them to the urban environment. The entire boulevard ring should have been lined with such houses. In general, if all the projects of the avant-garde artists had been implemented, we would now have a different city. He would look a bit wild. Some specialists in the history of architecture would visit Red Square, while others would not be able to stand it there.

Vladimir Tatlin. Maholet "Letatlin"

Or here’s another thing – also a way out of art into utilitarianism.

Of course, all these qualities: utopianism, radicalism, religiosity, etc. Western avant-gardeism also had them. The degree of their fervor is important here. After all, Western life was more structured - this is what philosophy does, this is politics, this is religion. Therefore, in the West, avant-gardeism always remembered that it appeared in a niche where art lived, and dealt with all these related things in moderation. One of the tasks he constantly solved was to determine the boundaries of this niche and go beyond them. In our country, structure somehow still doesn’t exist. With us, a poet is more than a poet, a philosopher is more than a philosopher. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the artist became more than an artist. He resolved philosophical, political, religious, aesthetic, ethical issues, etc. Continuing, in general, the tradition of the 19th century, when Russian literature dealt with all this. Well, the Peredvizhniki are still in art, to some extent.

Let us continue the sad comparison for Western avant-gardeism with our avant-garde. We had a much more diverse avant-garde. Let's say France is Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism. Germany - expressionism. Holland - one of the variants of abstract art - neoplasticism (Mondrian with the De Stijl group), Italy - futurism. We had it all, except Dadaism and surrealism**.

Marc Chagall. Me and the village

Our domestic futurism.

Pavel Filonov. Spring formula

Our domestic synthetic expressionism.***

Naturally, such an intense creation of utopias with almost religious passion quickly gave rise to dogmatism, orthodoxy and wild hostility with competitors in the world of the avant-garde, which became especially acute after the revolution. The new government was also building a utopia, and each avant-garde group, roughly speaking, offered it its own project. At the same time, speaking poorly about colleagues in the shop and their projects. Even our avant-gardeists, engaged in active intraspecific struggle, began to attract the same power as the supreme arbiter, i.e. simply - to snitch on each other. Like, it’s only us who are truly proletarian art, and everyone else is bourgeois artists. It all ended sadly - in 1932 the authorities abolished and banned any groups and herded everyone into the union of artists, where from now on there had to be one creative method– socialist realism. The authorities didn’t do this because they were tired of the struggle between factions and their slander - they didn’t give a damn about it. But because she turned out to be cooler than the coolest avant-garde artists and built the coolest utopia.

Necessary addition. This text should in no way be perceived as patriotic. Yes, if I were an older black man and even lived in Africa, I would write the same thing.

*Tsiolkovsky worked as a school teacher in Kaluga. Fedorov worked as a librarian, although in the capitals. Both lived rather wretchedly, sometimes quite wretchedly. One can also recall Khlebnikov with his planetary ideas of a fair arrangement of life and the search for numerical patterns of the course of history - he looked for them in order to predict a correctly organized life on their basis. At the same time, he kept the manuscripts in a pillowcase, and carried them in it to read. Sometimes I also took a saucepan with semolina porridge with me - there was nothing to eat when visiting, there was a revolution going on.

** Dadaism did not have time to take shape as a movement in our country, but many of its practices were in the arsenal of the Cubo-Futurists, mainly poets. Yellow sweaters, pink jackets, painted spoons or bunches of radishes in buttonholes, scandalous poetry evenings, shocking as art, poems like the immortal -
Dyr bul schyl ubeshshur
skum you and boo
r l ez – (Alexey Kruchenyx) –
all this would be very organic in the Voltaire cabaret. After the revolution, one of our proto-Dadaists, Ilya Zdanevich, went to Paris and felt good among the Dadaists. Surrealism appeared there in the early 20s and was no longer suitable for us purely ideologically - it did not help us build a proletarian utopia.

*** The increased degree of radicalism of our avant-garde has produced one unique effect – a feminist one. We had a lot of avant-garde artists. Nadezhda Udaltsova, Lyubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Natalya Goncharova, Alexandra Ekster, Varvara Stepanova - they were not in the first positions, Malevich, Kandinsky, Tatlin, Chagall, Larionov reigned there. But they confidently existed at the second stage. There was nothing even close to this in Europe.

And the architectural avant-garde arose in the first half of the 20th century, when young architects decided to abandon old, outdated traditions. They were looking for new spatial solutions and forms, a different aesthetic expressiveness, using the latest materials (reinforced concrete) and achievements of engineering science. New social needs people gave birth to new types of buildings: communal houses, kitchen factories, labor palaces, workers' clubs.

However, this was a difficult post-revolutionary time, when, due to a lack of funds, and often simply due to a lack of materials and skilled workers, it was not easy to implement the ideas of architects. And innovative experiments sometimes boiled down to numerous “paper architecture” projects that were ahead of the technical capabilities of their time, but were never implemented.

Let's look at 10 architectural projects of the Soviet avant-garde of the 1920s and 30s - both implemented and those remaining only in plans.

Shabolovskaya television tower

In 1920, Vladimir Shukhov began building the famous radio tower on Shabolovka. The height of the tower is 150 meters - there are six tiers of 25 meters each. The design was very simple: straight steel rods intersecting to form a grid. The grid was supported on the ring bases of the tower. All parts were connected with rivets, which gave them mobility.

The result was a light, rigid and very durable structure that could withstand not only strong gusts of wind, but also sharp impacts. In 1939, a small single-engine plane got caught on a cable and crashed. The tower survived and did not even require repairs.

House-workshop of Konstantin Melnikov in Krivoarbatsky Lane

The work of Konstantin Melnikov does not fit into the framework of any particular style. His projects were innovative and bold, each time the architect created original structures. His own home also became a platform for experiments.

The shape of the building is two cylinders of different heights, one embedded into the other. The architect experimented a lot with lighting: the facade of the house is glazed and consists of a huge window. The remaining 38 hexagonal windows provide diffused light into the rooms. The structures of the walls and ceilings are not only original - the technical inventions of Konstantin Melnikov were used during construction, which he subsequently patented.

Club named after Ivan Rusakov

Konstantin Melnikov made a great contribution to the creation of workers' clubs. The main feature of his buildings was the ability to transform the space from the inside. In the Rusakov club, several rooms could be turned into one large auditorium with the help of moving partitions.

Melnikov managed to increase the area of ​​the building: here, for the first time in the world, the interior spaces were moved outside. The balconies of the auditorium are located in three “teeth-protrusions”, which create the original appearance of the facade, and the building looks like a gear.

Club of the shoe factory "Burevestnik"

The club was built in 1929–1930. On the second floor there was an auditorium that could accommodate 700 people, adjacent to it gym. Melnikov used his favorite transformation technique - he designed a movable wall, which made it possible to combine these rooms.

The architect planned the building so that the ground floor foyer could turn into a swimming pool. The spectator seats in the stalls were to be lowered into the lower rooms, instead of them there would be a pool bowl, and the side seats would become stands. But this plan was not realized. For practical reasons, during the construction of the club, the architect's ideas had to be simplified.

Club of the Trade Union of Communal Workers named after Sergei Zuev

The club's project was submitted to a competition in 1926 by architect Ilya Golosov. Unlike Konstantin Melnikov, Golosov created a compact composition based on regular geometric bodies.

According to Golosov’s design, the club for workers was supposed to resemble an industrial building. The façade is devoid of any decor, but the combination of different geometric shapes attracts the eye. The corner of the square building is designed as a glass cylinder (it houses the main spiral staircase). At its base there are rectangular windows, and at the level of the third floor there is a “belt”, reminiscent of a factory passage-gallery.

Palace of Culture of the Ivan Likhachev Automobile Plant

The ZIL Palace of Culture was built on the territory of the Simonov Monastery according to the design of the Vesnin brothers in 1930–1937, which involved the creation of not just a separate structure, but a large-scale complex of buildings: a theater hall, a sports building, a lecture hall, a cinema hall, a laboratory, offices, a library, a winter garden, observatory.

The project was influenced by the style of constructivism: both in the functionality of the interior spaces and in the exterior design.

The 1930s plan resonates with general trends in construction. At this time, monumental and majestic buildings of Stalinist architecture began to appear, but the forms and compositional solutions still remained with constructivism.

Planetarium

The Moscow Planetarium became the 13th in the world and the first in the country. This building was supposed to become a scientific and educational institution. The Planetarium projection apparatus with which the building was equipped was in the 20s the latest invention. Despite the lack of budget funds, the Moscow Council allocated 250 thousand rubles for this project. The authors of the building project were Mikhail Barshch and Mikhail Sinyavsky.

The basis of the unusual architectural composition was a reinforced concrete dome. When designing it, the architects took the natural shape of an egg as a model. The round hall under the dome has a diameter of 25 meters and seats 500 people.

Palace of Labor (unrealized project)

In 1922–1923, a competition was announced to create a public and cultural center- Palace of Labor. Many architects took part in the competition, but the Vesnin brothers’ project won. It served as the first example of a new architectural movement - constructivism. There was a huge hall for 8,000 people, several smaller halls, premises for a university, a museum, a radio station, an observatory, a library, sports sections and a club. The architects planned to use a new material - reinforced concrete structures. The scale of the project was completely incomparable with the realities of that time, so the palace was never built.

Project of the Moscow branch of the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda"

In 1924, a competition was held to design a building for the Moscow branch of the editorial office of the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper made of “iron, glass and reinforced concrete.” Architects the Vesnin brothers create a laconic building design, clearly demonstrating the aesthetic possibilities new architecture. The frame of the pavilion was reinforced concrete, the walls and elevator cabins were glass. On the façade there was an information board reminiscent of modern advertising screens. The six-story building was supposed to be built on a tiny plot of land 6 × 6 meters, it housed a newsstand, reading room, office premises and newspaper editorial office.

“Flying City” by Georgy Krutikov

“Flying City” by Georgy Krutikov was his graduation project at the Higher Art and Technical Institute. According to the architect, he spent 15 years creating it. Of course, the project was criticized for being a fantastic idea, far from reality, and “separation of training from practice.”

Georgy Krutikov developed his project based on the theory of mobile architecture: it is more expedient to raise residential buildings to a height and use the land for recreation, tourism and work. Communication with the residential area was to be carried out using a universal cabin that could fly, drive on land and swim underwater.

The architect and his teachers believed that such a city project could eventually be carried out when allowed technical progress and science.

"To your diploma work Krutikov approached in a unique way - he looked ahead more than is usually customary in matters of city planning. The problems of the connection between architecture and living life, which Krutikov set himself consciously and clearly, must be recognized as resolved by him with talent.”

Ivan Rylsky, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture

The classical Russian avant-garde is a phenomenal phenomenon of the beginning of the last century, covering all areas of art: from painting and architecture to design and printing. And where do modern masters around the world now draw inspiration from, if not from the Russian avant-garde?

Wassily Kandinsky

Was it only the impressionistic “Haystack” by Claude Monet that made the lawyer Wassily Kandinsky take up painting professionally? Probably, the Vologda expedition, during which he was amazed to find himself inside a peasant hut-picture, and the discovery made by world science about the division of the atom, suggesting the “disassembly” of the world into intangible particles, and Wagner’s opera “Lohengrin”, during which Kandinsky clearly saw the colors of sounds. Whatever the reasons, the ex-lawyer went down in the history of world art as a theorist of Russian abstract art, despite the fact that he died a citizen of France.

Kazimir Malevich

A different metaphysics of color, a rejection of the literal perception of reality, a transition to “pure” planes - Malevich’s theory of Suprematism initially did not find understanding among his fellow Cubists, but this did not prevent it from becoming a world concept of avant-garde creativity. The “black square” has become the “zero of forms”, allowing one to escape “from the circle of things”. In addition to fundamental works on the theory of Suprematism and recognized world masterpieces, Malevich’s authorship belongs, for example, to the design of a mug with a square handle - very uncomfortable, but very original.

Vladimir Tatlin

The founder of Russian constructivism was a passionate opponent of Malevich. According to one of the tales, he allegedly knocked the chair out from under the Suprematism theorist and suggested that he sit on color and geometry. Tatlin advocated the connection between art and life, and the German Dadaists were inspired by his revolutionary ideas. The Tatlin Tower, although it remained only a project, is still considered today one of the symbols of the world avant-garde. The design of the iron monument, which includes seven buildings of various shapes rotating in spirals, was conceived as a symbol of the unification of people who ceased to understand each other during the construction of the Tower of Babel. The monument to the Third International also had a practical purpose - members of the Comintern were supposed to work in it.

Pavel Filonov

In an attempt to counter Malevich’s method and Tatlin’s “pictorial anecdote,” in 1914 Filonov and his comrades published “Made Pictures” - a manifesto of analytical art with the main idea of ​​“persistent drawing of each atom.” In 1936, the leader of the Russian avant-garde was accused of “formalism.” At that time, “Filonovism” appeared - a symbol of non-proletarian art. Filonov’s works adorn only the walls of his modest home, and he himself is starving, irregularly receiving the pension of a “third-class researcher.” Pavel Nikolaevich died in the first days of the Leningrad siege on the roof of a house during his regular duty during German air raids. His theories would have a significant influence on subsequent generations of artists and writers.

El Lissitzky

The man who created the new kind creativity in the Land of Soviets – design –
and together with Malevich he developed the foundations of Suprematism and went down in the history of world architecture as the author of horizontal skyscrapers. When Lazar Mordukhovich (real name El Lisitsky) presented his first project in the USSR, it was rejected: it was impossible to build such a thing. The buildings themselves are based on three solid supports with elevator shafts. Later, similar designs were implemented by architects in the Netherlands, Germany, China, and Ecuador. The designers of the Moscow school of management Skolkovo also took advantage of Lisitsky’s ideas.

Varvara Stepanova

Varvara Fedorovna was not only a co-author of many works by her husband Alexander Rodchenko, but also worked independently, exhibiting avant-garde paintings under the pseudonym Varst. Her revolutionary work in the field of textile design for the First Calico Printing Factory is widely known. Sharing the basic ideas of constructivism and considering fashion a bourgeois phenomenon, she designed overalls - new uniform for workers, which should be functional, simple, ergonomic. Together with Lyubov Popova, she developed new prints for fabrics. Geometric abstractions replaced petal flowers. In Soviet stores, textiles a la Stepanova were torn off with your hands.

Alexandra Exter

One of the key figures of today’s popular art deco, Alexandra Ekster, also worked together with Popova and Stepanova. She became the author of numerous works for the theater. Her costumes for the 1924 science fiction film Aelita were enthusiastically received in Venice and Paris and allowed her to receive an order for a series of puppets, the ideological embodiment of which was inspired by American pop art of the 50s and 60s. It is interesting that Exter was part of a group of fashion designers who developed the uniform for the Red Army - the gray overcoat and the famous Budenovka.

Vladimir Shukhov

More than two hundred towers around the world were built according to the designs of the outstanding Russian engineer and architect Vladimir Shukhov, including the famous television and radio broadcasting tower on Shabolovka. He developed construction technologies for the oil industry, pipelines, and bridge construction. The academician's ideas formed the basis of avant-garde architecture. In particular, he was the first in the world to use hyperboloid shapes and steel mesh shells as the load-bearing structure of a building. Shukhov's solutions are actively used by modern high-tech architects Fuller and Foster.

Vesnin brothers

The most famous project of the Soviet constructivist architects Alexander, Victor and Leonid Vesnin is considered to be the project of the Moscow ZIL Palace of Culture. For the 1930s, the solutions proposed by the architects were distinguished by their boldness and undoubted innovation. On 23 thousand square meters there are auditoriums, spacious halls, library, winter Garden, and on the roof there is an observatory. It’s interesting that for individual scenes of “Sorcerers,” which was stylish for its time, it didn’t take long to look for a filming location - the avant-garde interiors created by the Vesnins were ideal. In addition, the brothers designed a large number of original buildings that were built throughout Russia.

ASNOVA

Printing house of the magazine "Ogonyok", 1930-1932

In 1923, in opposition to the constructivists and classical architectural societies, the rationalists created the Association of New Architects (ASNOVA). Representatives of the rational direction of the Russian avant-garde designed functional and laconic buildings of strict forms, paying great attention to the psychological perception of the object. Nikolai Ladovsky became the creative leader of the association. In particular, he proposed building up Moscow along a parabolic pattern. According to his project, the central axis of the Russian capital would coincide with Tverskaya Street, and the city itself, growing to the northwest, would eventually connect with St. Petersburg. In 1928, one of Ladovsky’s students, Georgy Krutikov, presented a sensational project for a floating city-commune. It was not implemented, unlike the project of the Northern River Station in Moscow by Vladimir Krinsky, Ladovsky’s closest associate.

Konstantin Melnikov

Back in the 30s, Konstantin Melnikov received global recognition as a classic of the Russian avant-garde. Melnikov's house in Krivoarbatsky Lane has become a cult object of world architecture. In Moscow, a dozen buildings designed by the architect have survived, all of which compete with each other in originality. The Rusakov House of Culture for employees of the tram depot is crowned with a giant gear protruding from the facade; The central facade of the Svoboda factory club on Vyatskaya is made in the form of a parallelepiped. The main entrance to Gorky Park was also designed by Melnikov. It is interesting that his project for Lenin’s sarcophagus in the form of a crystal was recognized as the best by a commission headed by Dzerzhinsky.

Natalia Goncharova

One of the “Amazons of the avant-garde,” Natalya Goncharova, stood at the origins of Russian primitivism. The very first works she exhibited, depicting nude models, were called pornographic, and late paintings were removed from exhibitions for religious reasons. Goncharova’s images are accessible and understandable. Throughout her life, she urged “not to follow tradition, but to live in it,” drawing inspiration from Russian lubok and other types folk art. In the age of the flourishing of individualism, she propagated its rejection. Tsvetaeva, who was friends with Goncharova, wrote that she works “without disasters”: “always, everywhere and everything.”

Mikhail Larionov

The name of Natalia Goncharova is inextricably linked in the history of the Russian avant-garde with her husband Mikhail Larionov. He starts out as an impressionist, but eventually comes to primitivism. The emergence of Russian abstract art is usually associated with Larionov’s canvas “Glass”. By 1912 he becomes ideological inspirer and a theorist of a new direction of non-objective creativity - Rayonism. For almost 10 years, he and his wife would work on sets and costumes for productions of Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons in Paris.

Aristarkh Lentulov

The talent of the classic Russian avant-garde was called cheerful, his temperament was exuberant, and his love of life was captivating. For the unusual coloring of his paintings, his friends jokingly called Aristarkh Vasilyevich Yarila, and his colleagues highly valued his bold, sometimes desperate experiments. Lentulov preferred art to the rank of priest - daring, sunny, overthrowing any authorities and cliches. In an effort to demonstrate the superiority of Russian talent, the master liked to repeat: “We are rebels, and therefore our avant-garde will be cooler!”