The Bane of Russian Intellectuals. Part III

You couldn’t fail to notice the painting of a rally in 1905 by Ilya Repin on the previous page (the one with Sigourney Weaver at the bottom). Just as everyone else, Brodsky was caught up in the turbulence of what Russian historians call the first Revolution, and what independent observers in 1905 branded as a riot of drunk workers led astray by Jewish intellectuals and Russian unpatriotic liberals. Brodsky could easily be a model for at least two or three characters in that painting.

He was expelled from the Academy’s school for his activism in 1905. He then tried to re-apply to the school again and even passed all the entry exams, but was nonetheless rejected as a “politically unreliable element”.

It was Repin who saved the day and had Brodsky reinstated. The great artist pulled some thick ropes of his connections in the upper layers of the society’s puff pastry. He also personally vouched for the young Jew who promised to never again play the revolutionary. I guess Repin felt guilty for being a tacit advocate of the noble causes behind the revolutionary movement: Brodsky’s mistake was to add action on top of the intellectual call in Repin’s “Barge Haulers” (that’s when you need to step back to Part II if you missed it).

I do not have many works of Brodsky during his final years at the School. But what I have shows him to be an exceptional talent.

This may seem a pretty simple landscape (done in 1907):

Indeed it uses a very limited range of colours, and a composition that can hardly be called complicated.

I took a picture of a similar landscape just a few days ago:

This photograph shows a beautiful chaos of nature. Brodsky’s painting is about music an artist can find in it. Think of a piece of music about the transformation of night into day. Darkness lingers until sun is not out. Some light sounds appear but they are subdued, almost quenched by deep and melancholic notes. Then more light filters in, and the melancholic notes become less dominant. We listen to a chaos of buoyant sounds mixed with sad chords. And then we get in the clearing of a cheerful tune, filled with the light of a rising sun.

Now, this is exactly what this landscape is doing, it is showing that the ideas of the Polish professor can be implemented in the colour conflicts of Lodyzhensky, Brodsky’s teacher from Odessa.

In three years (in 1908), Brodsky graduated with two paintings that won him a Gold Medal and an allowance to go to Europe for half a year.

One of his “graduation” painting instantly became the subject of conversations in bohemian “salons” of St.Petersburg. It was the portrait of Brodsky’s young wife.

It is time to recall the peasant girl from Kostandi’s painting. The same air of expectation can be seen in this portrait, but the expectation is of a different kind. The girl is looking out towards the village at the other side of the river. The lion and the bench signal she is a resident of a house that belongs to the other, rich side, of society. Colours used for the “rich” part and the village (which is of the natural colours, being “one with nature”) create a conflict between the high society lifestyle (rather emphasised by the lifelike but “dead” lion looking in the same direction as the girl) and the log-housed Russia. The girl expects something, but she doesn’t know what to expect. There is no obvious light shining in her face to symbolise “great expectations” for the future, but there’s some light of rather unknown origin. The girl is shown in a very decadent fashion through the conflict of her dark attire and the deathly pale lion.

This portrait was a very good representation of intellectuals in between the two Russian Revolutions (those of 1905 and 1917). They felt the old order of life was dying out; the new order was unknown and scary; the future was seen as something deadly bleak, often without any trace of hope.

What is there in the painting that shows this is a portrait of a woman who is adored?

Her feet are not touching the ground. For the artist, she is an angel in the flesh.

Soon after the portrait was exhibited, Brodsky left Russia for a tour of Europe.

European experiences change Russians. Not completely, certainly, but many of them stop pushing grandiose ideas to others 24/7 and learn to enjoy life.

The gallery below is built around Brodsky’s European and Post-European works. Note the change in colours; the conflict of ideas is replaced by conflicts of shapes, lines, forms, etc. – it is a kind of art that is easy to understand and appreciate, it is a celebration of life in colour.

Brodsky fused together symbolism, art nouveau, and the lessons of most of his tutors in a very decorative style. I’ve written some comments to each of the paintings, but decided against going full-throttle in their analysis.

Brodsky loved to be liked. He was merging everything popular at the time in a unique style that would captivate the general public, intellectuals, artists, and the nobility. People, exhausted by wars, real and ideological, wanted something pretty. Brodsky could give it to them, adding just that bit of psychological depth (and it was Repin who nourished this skill in him) which was making his paintings not simply decorative pieces, but good art.

It reminds me of Ciaglinsky’s portraits of women. Brodsky added the scarf that is filled with the colours of life and it wraps the shoulders of Brodsky’s wife – all contrasted against the bleak natural background. You look at this painting, and you know where life is in it.

If you remember Levitan’s Golden autumn from my “Complicated Simplicity” post, you’d understand the difference between a dramatically staged landscape (Levitan) and a falsely theatrical representation (this one)

You may want to check out Leonid Feshin, a Russian artist who emigrated to the US and develop this kind of style into something great.

Fairytales have always sold well.

Remember Lodyzhensky colours (Brodsky’s teacher from Odessa)?

Simply a small great piece with clearly defined intentions of the dog and the owner. Repin’s influece.

Another fine piece, which gives you a lot of sound of huge blocks of ice clashing against each other

Winter, 1913

Sometimes, though, Brodsky’s desire to be instantly appreciated backfired.  He was working on a portrait of Repin in 1912. He wanted to create an image of Repin that the most important painter in Russia would love. This earning for love took Brodsky so far away from the truth, that Repin got furious and almost fell out with his former student. Repin insisted that the portrait be washed off with turpentine, and reworked.

And then came the revolution of 1917.

Click on Page 4 to see Brodsky after the revolution.