PETROV-VODKIN, Kuzma, Featured Paintings in Detail

PETROV-VODKIN, Kuzma
Featured Paintings in Detail
Music by Alexander Borodin
Performed by Natasha Morozova, Fly Away On The Wings Of The Wind

Bathing of the Red Horse
1912
Oil on canvas.160 x 186 cm.
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Bathing of the Red Horse (detail)
1912
Oil on canvas.160 x 186 cm.

The Dream
1910
Oil on canvas. 161 x 187 cm
The Russian Museum, St.
Petersburg

The Dream (detail)
1910
Petersburg

The Mother of God of Tenderness
toward Evil Hearts 1914-1915
Oil on canvas, 100.2 x 110 cm
The State Russian Museum, Saint
Petersburg

The Mother of God of Tenderness
toward Evil Hearts (detail)
1914-1915
Oil on canvas, 100.2 x 110 cm
Petersburg

Mother
1915
Oil on canvas. 65 x 104 cm.
Petersburg

Mother (detail)
1915
Petersburg

The Death of a Commissar
1928

The Death of a Commissar (detail)
1928

Violin
1918
Petersburg

Violin (detail)
1918
Petersburg

1918 in Petrograd
1920

1918 in Petrograd (detail)
1920

Bacchante
1912
Oil on canvas
Petersburg

Bacchante (detail)
1912
Oil on canvas
Petersburg

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Bacchante
Even during his college years, Petrov-Vodkin managed to enter into conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church, which discarded his work on a chapel in Samara and
ultimately destroyed it as unacceptable. A number of his early works were deemed too erotic.
The main defender of the painting was Alexandre Benois; his main detractor was Ilya Repin (hence, Petrov-Vodkin was discussed by two of the major Russian painters of the
time). Other major works of that time include Boys at play, and, notably, Bathing of a Red Horse and Bacchante.
During this stage in his artistic development, Petrov-Vodkin extensively used an aesthetic of Orthodox icon together with brighter colours and unusual compositions. His
works were often deemed blasphemous and erotic.

Bathing of the Red Horse
Bathing of a Red Horse caused Petrov-Vodkin to catapult into fame and the public sphere, causing much artistic discussion about his paintings.
Art connoisseurs, who were already at this time used to the striking color palettes and expressiveness of the futurists, were surprised at the artist’s different composition
and the feeling of overt tension.
This painting soon became his most iconic work, and was a trademark style of the artist. It also represents his attempt to synthesize Eastern and Western art, with elements
of traditional Russian icons, Italian frescoes, and neoclassical trends.

The Dream
The Dream was Petrov-Vodkin’s first famous work. Upon its exhibition, it immediately sparked a debate among other prominent Russian artists, including Alexandre Benois
and Ilya Repin. Benois, and other proponents of the painting, saw it as a new expression of neo-classical art. The detractors, on the other hand, headed by Ilya Repin, saw
Petrov-Vodkin as a decadent artist, unable to develop his work. It was in part this heated discussion by two of Russia’s most famous painters, over one of Petrov-Vodkin’s
works, that he was catapulted to fame so quickly when he debuted his Bathing of a Red Horse two years later.

The Mother of God of Tenderness toward Evil Hearts
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin spent a lot of time between 1913 and 1915 working on murals in the cathedrals of Kronstadt and Sumy. This may have been what inspired the appearance of
such a remarcable easel work as The Mother of God of Tenderness Towards Evil Hearts.
This was the author’s title, in Orthodox iconography the image is known as The Mother of God of Softening of Evil Hearts. Created at the start of the First World War, Petrov-
Vodkin’s picture acquired a special significance as the artist’s spiritual response to the tragic events of the war. Despite the small size, a canvas is a major monumental work,
burning with the fire of a sublime spiritual force. The painter himself said that the face was “the highest possible form of expression”.
This instilling and lofty icon of the Virgin Mary is one of the most powerful images in the oeuvre of Petrov-Vodkin.

1918 in Petrograd
In the works of Petrov-Vodkin always combined the principles of classical art and innovative search. His art is the period of the 1920s is associated with the direction of
neo-classicism. Along with many artists Petrov-Vodkin took the revolution as a great event which will enable the "common people" feel like "humanity". It expressed the
mood of the artist in the film "1918 in Petrograd," Go get a second name: "Petrograd Madonna".
The master builds a composition based on a combination of different meanings. Young worker standing with a baby in her arms on the balcony, but it does not look at the
street, filled with bursts in the year of famine; her figure is deployed on the viewer. The first and second opposed plans to maximize spatial resolution. The artist paints the
figure of a woman thinking about the iconic image of Our Lady of the Madonna and Child in the European painting, transforming the young worker in a symbolic image of
motherhood. The combination of the specific signs of the times with a symbolic interpretation of the protagonist takes home aspect of the topic

Violin
In 1918-1919, the artist created a series of still lives, such as “Morning Still Life,” “Herring,” “A Glass and a Lemon,” “Violin,” “A Branch of an Apple Tree” and many more.
According to Petrov-Vodkin, a still life is “a conversation between an artist and his subject” in which “the plot does not distract from the definition of the subject in the space.
What this subject is like, where it is and where I am, perceiving this subject - that is a main meaning of still life.”

The Death of a Commissar
Petrov-Vodkin supported the October Revolution of 1917, as he believed in the triumph of the “simple and kind.” He understood the Revolution as an historical
phenomenon that opens to people a path to perfection. It was a turning point in the history of Russia, which, according to Petrov-Vodkin, had to be perceived as a “cosmic
and universal” interpretation of reality.
This is reflected in his works "Year 1918 in Petrograd" (1920) and "Death of the Commissar" (1928), which became Soviet era art classics.

Mother
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin was particularly interested in national roots, ideals and traditions in the mid-1910s, at the start of the First World War. Mother is based on a life
motif, transformed by the master’s own personal vision. The outer appearance of the young peasant woman breast-feeding her baby grows into an image of the Madonna
and Child, full of divine grace. The monumental figurative structure of the painting is intensified by the sonorous tones and dominant reds, the favourite colour of the
Russian people.

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin was a Russian, later Soviet, painter and writer.
Already Petrov-Vodkin’s early works are symbolic (e.g. Elegy, 1906; Bank, 1908; Dream 1910), all of them are influenced by Mikhail Vrubel,
Victor Borisov-Musatov, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and by the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck.
The canvas ‘Dream’ stirred heated discussion and brought fame to the young artist; the negatively minded critics were headed by the famous
Ilya Repin and their opponents were headed by Alexander Benois. The first group saw in Petrov-Vodkin the newest decadent, unable to
develop the art, the second - the expressionist of neo-classical tendencies. The painter himself could not characterize his works so definitely,
he said that he was ‘a difficult painter’. His evolution proved that he did not show off. Playing Boys, 1911, Bathing of Red Horse, 1912 are a
new stage in his work, his attempt to synthesize Eastern and Western painting traditions.
In the 1910s the creative search of Petrov-Vodkin was very wide. Beside the monumental-decorative works, such as ‘Girls on Volga’, 1915,
there are works devoted to the First World War, e.g. ‘On the Line of Fire’ 1916 and works devoted to motherhood, Mother 1913, Mother 1915;
Morning. Bathers 1917.
In the late 1910s he developed and wrote about a new theory concerning the depiction of space. His so-called ‘spherical perspective’ differs
from the traditional ‘Italian’ perspective. The artist creates different spaces on the canvas, connected by gravity; bent axes of bodies make up
a ‘fan’, which is opening from within the picture. Paintings with such compositional structure should be viewed by a moving spectator from
different points, e.g. Midday. Summer 1917; Sleeping Child. 1924; First Steps 1925; Death of Commissar 1928; Spring 1935 and others. Such
treatment of space and very specific coloring (based on primary colors – red, yellow and blue) determine the mature style of Petrov-Vodkin.
After the Bolshevik Revolution (November 1917) Petrov-Vodkin painted still-lifes more and more often: Morning Still-Life. 1918; Still-Life with
Mirror. 1919; Still-Life with Blue Ashtray 1920, though the new themes are also present in his art, e.g. The Year 1918 in Petrograd (1920), and
Workers (1926).
In the late 1920s-early 1930s he had to abandon painting for a time because of illness; he returned to writing. He wrote two autobiographical
novels ‘Khvalynsk’ and ‘Euclid’s Space’, in which he expressed his views and theories on nature and possibilities of fine arts. The latest of
Petrov-Vodkin’s works 1919. Alarm, 1934, though it was about the actual situation of 1919, became the political symbol of the whole epoch
and the viewers of the 1930s referred it to their own time.
The work of Petrov-Vodkin did not correspond to the Soviet ideology of the Stalin's period and after his death in 1939 the painter was quickly
‘forgotten’, happily not for long.

Александр Бородин Князь Игорь. Половецкие пляски. Наталья Морозова - Улетай на крыльях ветра
Улетай на крыльях ветра
Ты в край родной, родная песня наша,
Туда, где мы тебя свободно пели,
Где было так привольно нам с тобою.
Там, под знойным небом,
Негой воздух полон,
Там под говор моря
Дремлют горы в облаках;
Там так ярко солнце светит,
Родные горы светом заливая,
В долинах пышно розы расцветают
И соловьи поют в лесах зеленых
Там, под знойным небом,
Негой воздух полон,
Там под говор моря
Дремлют горы в облаках;

Alexander Borodin, Prince Igor, Polovtsian Dances. Natalia Morozova - Fly Away On The Wings Of The Wind
Fly away on wings of wind
To native lands, our native song,
To there, where we sang you freely,
Where we were so carefree with you.
There, under the hot sky,
With bliss the air is full,
There, to the murmur of the sea,
Mountains doze in the clouds.
There, the sun shines so brightly,
Bathing our native mountains in light.
In the meadows, roses bloom luxuriously,
And nightingales sing in the green forests.
There, the sun shines so brightly,
Bathing our native mountains in light.
In the meadows, roses bloom luxuriously,
And nightingales sing in the green forests.

PETROV-VODKIN, Kuzma, Featured Paintings in Detail

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