Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
Exhibition “Pushkin at Tropinin’s”in the V.A. Tropinin Museum and Moscow artists of his time is dedicated to the 225th anniversary of the poet’s birth, which is widely celebrated this year. The exhibition is the result of cooperation between three cultural institutions; the All-Russian A.S. Pushkin Museum in St. Petersburg (its president, Doctor of Cultural Studies Sergei Nekrasov, became one of the curators) and the Moscow Art Theatre Museum also took part in the preparation. Tatyana Prokhorova, curator, PhD in Art History, and head of the exhibition department of the V.A. Tropinin Museum, told mos.ru how to view the exhibition.
History of the creation of the work
The exhibition is about the most important event for Russian culture in the second quarter of the 19th century – the creation of one of the two most successful portraits of Alexander Pushkin. This one, known as the negligee one, was painted by the best Moscow portraitist of that time, Vasily Tropinin.
In the first hall, visitors get acquainted with the history of the work – almost a detective story. Its first owner was Alexander Pushkin’s friend Sergei Sobolevsky. The fact is that Sobolevsky did not like any of the previously painted portraits of the poet, which is not surprising – many of his contemporaries held a similar opinion. Firstly, Pushkin did not like to pose, and secondly, his appearance was very complex and textured: characteristic facial features, a mobile look, incredibly lively facial expressions. In all earlier portraits, the dynamic image of the poet seemed frozen – smoothed out, as Sobolevsky said. Therefore, according to one version, he decided to order a portrait from Tropinin. According to another version, the portrait was ordered by Pushkin himself: he wanted to thank his friend, with whom he stayed during a memorable visit to Moscow in the winter season of 1826-1827, and went to pose in the artist’s studio on Volkhonka.
Walking tour “Tropinin places”
“Then Pushkin presented the portrait to Sobolevsky – “with various farces”, as the addressee describes. Pushkin took the empty frame and sat down so that he himself would be in it, and ordered a servant to hold the finished portrait. When Sobolevsky entered, Pushkin began to grimace in his characteristic manner, make pompous grimaces, puff out his lips and roll his eyes. Sobolevsky laughed – he really liked the presentation. He liked the portrait itself: in it, he saw his friend as he was in life. Probably, only the best Moscow portraitist could capture this liveliness,” says Tatyana Prokhorova.
Then the detective part of the story begins. Leaving for Europe, Sobolevsky ordered a copy of the portrait from the amateur artist Avdotya Elagina, and left the original in her house for safekeeping. When he returned, he found only a poorly made copy in the frame, and the portrait itself was missing, and Sobolevsky was inconsolable.
About 20 years passed, and the portrait was accidentally discovered in a junk shop by Mikhail Obolensky. He was the grandnephew of Irakli Morkov, a landowner and former owner of Vasily Tropinin: until the age of 40, the artist was a serf, but he painted Pushkin’s portrait after becoming a free man. Upon seeing the portrait, Obolensky immediately recognized it, because he himself had posed for Tropinin since childhood, took it and brought it to the studio. It was an exciting moment for the artist, he almost did not believe that his work would be found after so many years, but he recognized the portrait. Tropinin in no way agreed to renew it, as Obolensky asked, he only cleaned it and varnished it for the new owner.
The first hall features a childhood portrait of Mikhail Obolensky, as well as a self-portrait of Vasily Tropinin himself: in it, he depicted himself at the age when Pushkin posed for him. This is the author’s repetition of the 1824 painting, made in 1855.
An exhibition about a portrait… without the portrait itself
The exhibition, says Tatyana Prokhorova, is conceptual in that it tells about the famous portrait without showing it: the portrait is the core of the permanent exhibition of the All-Russian A.S. Pushkin Museum on the Moika River Embankment (building 12), and it cannot be traveled.
“But our colleagues kindly provided us with two preparatory works for the portrait – a pencil sketch and a painting study. We can see how Tropinin was looking for the image of Pushkin. In the small study (Tropinin made such before almost every large portrait) he tries to capture the liveliness of the poet’s nature. When the work was finished, the Moscow Telegraph wrote that the resemblance to the hero was striking. And in the pencil drawing, the artist looks for the general image – the pose, works out the details of the robe. Both are reflected in the large portrait,” explains Tatyana Prokhorova.
In the famous portrait, Pushkin is depicted in a dressing gown, and here it is not just home clothes, but an important symbol of freedom. In the literature of that time, this had already become commonplace: the philosopher Denis Diderot wrote that a dressing gown is the clothing of a free man. Pushkin’s friend Pyotr Vyazemsky dedicated several poems to the dressing gown: he wrote about it as a symbol of free creativity, contrasting it with the official livery and uniform, usually buttoned up to the top.
As for freedom, Pushkin and Tropinin could easily have found a common language: by that time they both had experienced unfreedom (although, of course, it is difficult to compare). The unfreedom of the aristocrat Pushkin was connected with freethinking and censorship and was limited only to his stay in exile, and his arrival in Moscow and readings of the innovative Boris Godunov here marked its end. If we draw parallels with Tropinin, then three years before meeting Pushkin, he received his freedom – and immediately presented to the public his main programmatic work, The Lacemaker, also innovative in its genre. The audience was struck by the beauty of the serf girl, the liveliness and love with which Tropinin depicts her. The artist received the title of appointed academician, during the three years spent in Moscow, he became the founder of the genre of portrait-type and the best portraitist of the city, receiving many orders.
Tropinin had done robe portraits before, but, as literary sources say, after he painted Pushkin, they became fashionable, and the artist became a master in this genre. When he was commissioned to paint male portraits, they would always add: “Please, in a robe.” The exhibition features two more robe portraits by Tropinin – the composer Alexander Alyabyev and the Moscow nobleman Vladimir Raevsky.
Visit to Moscow and circle of friends
The second hall of the exhibition is dedicated to the poet’s visit to Moscow in the autumn of 1826, when the portrait was painted. After the sudden death of Alexander I, Nicholas I ascended the throne, and Pushkin wrote to the new emperor a petition for clemency. He summoned the poet to an audience at the Chudov Monastery – Nicholas I was in Moscow for the coronation festivities. Pushkin, who was in permanent exile in Mikhailovskoye, prepared very seriously for the meeting and expected a difficult conversation: the Decembrist uprising on Senate Square had already taken place, and it essentially marked the beginning of Nicholas I’s reign.
The poet and the emperor talked for two hours. The fateful meeting, which changed a lot in Pushkin’s life, ended with Nicholas releasing him from exile and promising to become his personal censor. That same evening, the emperor was at a reception with the French ambassador, where he said that “today I spoke with the smartest man in Russia.” The crowd began to whisper Pushkin’s name, Moscow opened its hospitable arms to the poet. In homes and salons, he read his newly written drama “Boris Godunov”, which was greeted with applause. The euphoria of freedom (its illusion, as it turned out a little later) made the poet’s head spin.
On one of the walls of the second hall is a map of Moscow of that time, with the key addresses that Pushkin visited during this visit. Next to it is a display case – a unique installation that presents the world of objects from Pushkin’s era: here are inkwells, smoking pipes, candlesticks, champagne glasses and much more, which allows you to better feel the atmosphere and spirit of old Moscow.
Slept in the theater, lost at cards, argued with his mother-in-law: what else did Pushkin do in Moscow
On another wall are watercolor and graphic portraits of the poet’s Moscow friends and acquaintances with references to addresses on the map. Of course, this is not everyone with whom Pushkin communicated, but people who were very important to him. For example, in the late 1820s, the magazine Moskovsky Vestnik began to be published, the editor-in-chief of which was Mikhail Pogodin, a historian and archivist. Pushkin’s closest literary circle – Vasily Zhukovsky, Anton Delvig, Pyotr Vyazemsky – did not sympathize with the magazine, but Pushkin was close enough to Pogodin and found his platform in this magazine.
You can see a portrait of Ekaterina Semenova. The former serf actress was already Princess Gagarina at that time, moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow, led a social life and only occasionally participated in amateur performances. Pushkin was her ardent admirer and claimed that when it comes to Russian tragedy, one can only talk about Semenova. They met in Moscow, and later, when Boris Godunov was first published, at the turn of 1831-1832, Pushkin gave her the book and signed it: “To the actress from the author, to Semenova from Pushkin.” The first edition of the book is presented in a display case – Pushkin signed the same one to Semenova.
Pushkin also dedicated enthusiastic lines to Zinaida Volkonskaya, calling her the queen of muses and beauty. During his visit to Moscow in 1826, he often visited her salon, where Alexander Sergeyevich was greeted with honor: Volkonskaya, a beautiful singer, came out to the poet, performing a romance based on his verses “The daylight went out.”
Pushkin’s brother Lev Sergeevich was his literary secretary, had a phenomenal memory and knew literally all of his works by heart. When Lev Pushkin died, they said that part of Alexander Sergeevich’s poetry went with him, because many things were not written down, drafts were not preserved, but his memory kept everything.
“Boris Godunov”
Pushkin had to interrupt his 1826 visit to Moscow – at that time he went to Mikhailovskoye on business, and was also forced to explain there to the head of the third section of His Imperial Majesty’s Chancellery, Alexander Benckendorff, about the readings of Boris Godunov. The illusion of freedom and the absence of censorship collapsed. Nicholas I, having received the manuscript of the drama through Benckendorff, wrote a review: he recommended reworking the work in the manner of a historical novel in the spirit of Walter Scott. To this Pushkin replied that he was not in the habit of rewriting what had already been written.
From Mikhailovskoye Pushkin returned to Moscow, where he was again met in the salon of Zinaida Volkonskaya. A historic event took place there: they were seeing off Maria, the wife of the Decembrist Sergei Volkonsky, to Siberia. Pushkin wrote the famous “In the Depths of Siberian Mines” then, and arrived the next morning with a finished poem, but Volkonskaya had already left. It was sent to Siberia later, with another Decembrist’s wife, Alexandra Muravyova.
The readings of Boris Godunov continued. The drama was an absolute innovation, in it Pushkin departed from the chanting declamatory versification accepted in the French tradition and wrote very beautifully and poetically, as they say, in simple Russian. It was astonishing. Mikhail Pogodin described what the listeners felt when Pushkin read Boris Godunov to them:
“We heard a simple, clear, distinct and at the same time poetic, fascinating speech. We listened to the first events quietly and calmly, or, better to say, in some bewilderment. …we all seemed to have lost consciousness. Some were flushed, others shivered. Hair stood on end. There was no longer any strength to restrain ourselves. One would suddenly jump up from his seat, another would scream. Some had tears in their eyes, some had a smile on their lips. The reading ended. We looked at each other for a long time and then rushed to Pushkin. Embraces began, a noise arose, laughter rang out, tears flowed, congratulations. “Here, here, give me the cups!” Champagne appeared, and Pushkin was inspired, seeing such an effect on his chosen youth.”
The exhibition’s scientific consultant, literary and art historian Elena Arkhipova, is also convinced that Pushkin should not only be read, but also listened to. That’s why the creators made a special installation in the second hall.
“In it, Boris Godunov can be seen: Pushkin’s manuscripts, his handwriting are in front of the viewer. The drama can be heard: the Moscow Art Theatre Museum provided us with a radio play, and we used directional speakers so that you could immerse yourself in the poetry. We hope that our viewers will feel the same as Pogodin describes. So, after almost 200 years, we can say: Pushkin is back with Tropinin,” says Tatyana Prokhorova.
The exhibition at the V.A. Tropinin Museum and Moscow artists of his time is open until December 22.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
http://vvv.mos.ru/nevs/item/145618073/