State Russian Museum Exhibits ~ the "Circle of Artists"

Written by Max Hysmith Saturday, 29 January 2011 23:41

St. Petersburg, Russia - On June, 28 the State Russian Museum opened the “Circle of Artists” exhibition in the Benois Wing of the Mikhailovsky Palace. The Circle of Artists society is one of the bright, peculiar and, at the same time, utterly typical phenomena of the epoch. The Circle of Artists did not take the leading stand among numerous artistic unions of the 1920s, though the acute character and results of creative quests of its members aroused intense interest. The history of the society can be called an “optimistic tragedy”, this is a typically Leningrad history. During the Siege of Leningrad many members of the Circle of Artists perished together with their works. The exhibition will be on display till October, 15, 2007.

Being a purely Leningrad union, the Circle of Artists combined adherence to traditions of the Leningrad school and aspiration for the new “style of the epoch”, proclaimed in their declarations. The Circle of Artists stands out against a background of other Leningrad artistic unions due to the presence of a creative agenda and rather peculiar organizational principles. Their creative and social activities did not have analogies in Leningrad. It rather complied with storms of life in the capital city. It is no coincidence that first and foremost it is compared with the Moscow Society of Easel Artists, 1925-32.

The Circle of Artists, as well as the Society of Easel Artists, was a single creative group and a sum of individualities united by common goals and collaboration over 4-5 years. The society issued declarations and created works of art, including those by later famous masters – Vyacheslav Pakulin, Alexei Pakhomov, Alexander Samokhvalov, Alexander Rusakov, Alexander Vedernikov, David Zagoskin, Georgy Traugot, Vladimir Malagis, Boris Kaplyansky and others.

Today we can only imagine the creative portrait of T. Gernet, G. Lagzdyn, G. Kortikov, B. Inozemtsev, A. Yefimova (only applied art works), L. Karateyev, and M. Regel. Quite often an artist was represented only by one or two works, e.g. M. Verbov, Y. Zabrovsky, I. Orekhov, E. Petrova-Trotskaya, V. Maximov (Max), N. Ivanova-Leningradskaya, M. Noskov, Y. Gaskevich, F. Zaryanov, N. Svinenko. Miraculously, all works by prominent artists D. Zagoskin and P. Osolodkov were not lost during the Siege. Their friends-members of the Circle of Artists saved them. Fortunately, not all works by N. Yemelyanov and G. Ivanov, subjected to repression in the 1930s, were destroyed. In the 1960s, after the death of V. Pakulin, the archives of the Circle of Artists vanished without leaving a trace; nevertheless, it did not diminish significance of this phenomenon in the history of art.

1926 – year of the foundation of the Circle of Artists. Mid 1920s brought in the agitation for the “new socialistic art”, that echoed in creative environment, especially among young people. One of the most popular slogans was: “Our goal is future!” The “religion of the future” was strengthening, and religion does not need evidence. The Utopian merged with the real life. Declarations of artistic unions of those days are full of pathos of newspaper slogans and “narcotic romanticism”. Official critics agitated the artists for creation of a topical painting, meeting the “call of the epoch”. For the jubilee exhibition in 1927 K. Petrov-Vodkin created the Death of the Commissar, A. Matveyev – the October group, V. Favorsky – the October and the Civil War engravings, a little later K. Malevich painted the Red Cavalry…

The “Art to the masses” slogan, which was gaining the living space, did not agree with experiments and futurological discernments of innovators. In the early 1920s many of those who had unconditionally accepted the Revolution understood that there could be only official art or no art at all in Soviet Russia. The “high point” of avant-garde had passed, but the next generation of the 1920s artists considered it to be “the classics” and their school. Together with avant-garde the 1920s generation entered the phantom world of communist mythology, thus representing the ambiguity and illusory features of the period of transition.

Founded in March 1926 by graduates of VKhUTEIN (Higher Art and Technical Institute), the Circle of Artists society united mostly fellow-students. In the broadcasting declaration the young artists defined the goal of their creative efforts: “creation of the style of the epoch”, “Collectivism” and “community of views” seem to be sure guarantees for the future success. There was another, no less important, argument for the foundation of this society: “impossibility of participation in other artistic societies in Leningrad”. “We are former leftists…” – members of the Circle of Artist could repeat these words after the Moscow artists of NOZh (New Society of Painters). The main body of the future society was formed as early as in 1922-23, and then it was obvious that it consisted of young artists, who were influenced by “leftists” and avant-garde school.

The society did not have permanent premises. Some time after its foundation the Print House (Fontanka, 21) “sheltered” it. Among members of the Circle of Artists there were students of P. Filonov – A. Poret and V. Kuptsov. The Circle of Artists also gathered in the House of Arts, but more often in the room in students’ dormitory on the Volodarsky Prospect (Liteiny Prospect 15-35), where Pakulin and Pakhomov used to live at that time. Sometimes meetings were organized on the Petrogradskaya Side in A. Rusakov’s apartment on the Bolshoi Prospect. The Circle of Artists formulated its negative attitude to creative activities of a whole range of artistic unions, including the association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. The Circle of Artists also emphasized “…coordination with the Soviet community and participation in everyday work on common cultural buildings”.

In early 1929, according to the spirit of the times, there appeared the Bureau of Ideology Control in the Circle of Artists. Administration of the society distributed directive letters to all its members. Such situation divided them. Some could not fulfill their personal creative tasks. In 1929, right before the third exhibition, a group of artists left the society. Samokhvalov, Britanishsky, Noskov, Chugunov, Shangin and Schechtman entered October in 1930; later Verbov and Zagoskin entered the Union of Youth of the Association of Artists of Russia. It was the beginning of the fourth year of the existence of the society.

By late 1929 almost a half of the society had changed. Until 1932 a lot of young people entered the Circle of Artists. However, there were no more those organic bonds, which existed among its members in its early period. Gradually, creative activities of the youth artistic union joined the common flow of cultural building. The last collective presence of the Circle of Artists society happened in 1932 at the Artists of the RSFSR Over Fifteen Years exhibition in the Russian Museum. In 1930, protecting themselves from accusations in formalism, members of the Circle of Artists declared: “Our epoch has to possess its own style”. They thought themselves “blend in with Revolution”, and their sincere faith helped them to create works, which became an epoch in the history of Russian art, the epoch of “Soviet Romanticism”.

The Russian Museum collection contains circa 400.000 exhibits. The main complex of museum buildings - the Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing - houses the permanent exhibition of the Russian Museum, tracing the entire history of Russian art from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. The museum collection embraces all forms, genres, schools and movements of art.

Visit The State Russian Museum at : http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/museum/