Russian émigré artists and political opposition in fin-de-siècle Munich

Emporia State Research Studies 45(1), 2009 22“Bureaucracy in Russia Under Nicholas I,” in The Structure ofRussian History ed. Michael Cherniavsky, (New York: RandomHouse, 1970), 269-281 as well as S. Frederick Starr, “RussianArt and Society, 1800-1850,” in Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia, ed. Theofanis Stavrou, (Bloomington: IndianaUP, 1982), 87-112. For an example of how the tsarist systemdirectly affected artists, as in the case of Ilya Repin, seeElizabeth Kridl Valkenier, Ilya Repin and the World of RussianArt. (New York: Columbia University, 1990), 24.8. The leading Russian intellectual voicing the populist agenda inart was Nicolai Chernishevsky (1828-1889). In his book “TheAesthetic Relation of Art to Reality” published in 1855,Chernishevsky argued that art should serve the interests of thepeople and not the government. He called for the abandonmentof portraying idealized forms of beauty and a perfect reality infavor of an aesthetic more broadly connected to the interestsand daily lives of real people. For more information onChernyshevsky and his relevance for Russian art, see Valkenier,Russian Realist Art, 10-17; W.J. Leatherbarrow and D.C. Offord,trans. ed. A Documentary History of Russian Thought from theEnlightenment to Marxism, (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1987), 193-202,which includes excerpts of Chernyshevsky’s essay, translatedinto English; Alain Besançon, “The Dissidence of RussianPainting (1860-1922),” in Cherniavsky, Russian History, 381-411 and esp. 382-384. See also Grigorii Sternin’s discussion ofthe 1863 protest in Khudozhestvennaia zhizn Rossii seredinyXIX veka (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1991), 83-126.9. The original secession of 14 students or ‘Artel Khudozhnikov’could not survive economically apart from the Academy overthe long term. By 1869, the Artel was receiving commissions,exhibition opportunities and studio space from the Academy.See Valkenier, Russian Realist Art, 36-37.10. Valkenier, Russian Realist Art 40 as reprinted from “Na svoikhnogakh,” Delo 12 (December 1871): 106-108.11. Valkenier, Russian Realist Art, 132.12. V. V. Stasov, “Khorosha li rozn’ mezhdu khudozhnikami?” inIskusstvo XIX Veka vol. 2 of V. V. Stasov. Izbrannoe, 389-411.13. Valkenier, Russian Realist Art, 134.14. I. Vasilevsky, Russkie vedomosti 66 (8 March 1898) as reprintedin Ibid. See also Grigori Sternin’s account of the Peredvizhnikiafter the reforms in Khuhdozhestvennaia zhizn’ Rossii narubezhe XIX-XX vekov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1970), chap. 2.15. Fritz Baer, “Anzeiger der Genossenschaft” as quoted in MartinFeddersen, Die Entartung der Muenchener Kunst (Munich,1894) ;11.16. Munich’s identity as an international and national center of artand the capitol of Bavaria was vital to its survival as a Germancultural symbol, a role the city had assumed well before Germanunification in 1871. That role was now threatened by Germany’snorthern capitol in Prussia - Berlin, as it sought to assert itsown cultural significance as the center of a unified Germany.For a discussion of this relationship see Maria Makela, TheMunich Secession. Art and Artists in Turn-of-the-CenturyMunich, (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990).17. Karl Benda, “Russischer Naturalismus in Deutschland,” DieFreie Bühne 1 (1890): 376.18. B.E. “St. Petersburger Kunstausstellungen,” Die AllgemeineZeitung 96, 143 (Saturday, 26 May 1894): 2.19. In an article reviewing the Secession exhibition for the Russiannewspaper Novosti dnia, (no. 5922, Friday, 19 November 1899).Kandinsky discusses the rediscovery of old [ie. medieval]tempera painting among avant-garde artists as a technical meansof agitating the hegemony of the official old order. He refers toboth oil painting and its ubiquity as the medium of choice amongthe social and political elite, such as the tsar, althoughcensorship would not have allowed him to state this openly.For an English translation, see “Kandinsky’s ‘Secession’,”Critical Inquiry, 23 (Summer 1997): 729-737.20. Staatliche Russisches Museum and Kunsthalle Krems, Russland- Repin und die Realisten, exh. cat. (np.: Palace Editions, 2002),164.21. Münchener Künstlergenossenschaft and Münchener Secession,Offizieller Katalog der VII. Internationalen Kunstaustellung,2 nd ed. (Munich, June 1897), 83.22. Igor Grabar, ‘Zwei Jahrhunderte Russische Kunst’, Zeitschriftfür bildende Kunst, Neue Folge, Vol. 18/42 (1906-07): 58-78.23. Ibid, 72.24. It had been exhibited in St. Petersburg in two separate showsfrom 1891-1892 followed by the 1893 Columbian Expositionin Chicago, as well as Budapest. The painting receivedsignificant attention in the Russian and foreign pressesthroughout the 1890s. For details and a discussion of its freedomtheme in English, see Fan Parker and Stephen Jan Parker, Russiaon Canvas, Ilya Repin (Pennsylvania State University Press:University Park, 1980), chap.7.25. See letter to his brother dated 8 August 1895 in I. Grabar, Pisma1891-1917 (Moscow: Nauka, 1974), 42.26. Repin’s ten accounts appeared in two journals, Teatral’naiagazeta (Theatre Gazette) and Nedela (Week). The first six ofthese were published as “Pis’ma ob iskusstve,” (“Letters onArt”) in Teatral’naia gazeta (issues dated 31 October 1893, 5November 1893, 7 November 1893, 12 November 1893, 17November 1893 and 19 November 1893). The following four,of which Repin’s description of Munich is the first, werepublished as “Zametki khudozhnika” (“Notes from the Artist”)in Nedela (no. 2, no. 3 and no. 6, 1894). The essays were firstreprinted in Vospominaniia, stat’i i pis’ma iz zagranitsy I.E.Repina, ed. N. B. Severova, (St. Petersburg: Evgenii Tile, 1901),76-159. They are reprinted collectively as “Letters on Art 1893-1894” in Dalekoe blizkoe, 8th ed., ed. K. Chukovsky (Leningrad:Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1982), 412-458. The above-mentionedquote was written between November 5th and 12th 1893 and isreprinted as “Essay Seven” in Dalekoe blizkoe, 432.27. For a similar view see also V. G. “Mezhdunarodnaiakhudozhestvennaia vystavka v Miunkhene,” Khudozhnik no.13 (1 July 1892): 46-47.28. Repin, “Essay Seven” in Dalekoe blizkoe, 432. See also, RobinLenman, “A Community in Transition: Painters in Munich,1886-1924,” Central European History XV, 1 (March 1982):3-33 for a discussion of the city as an artistic center.29. For a discussion of the importance of art’s availability to allGerman citizens through the German government’s design artprogram see John Heskett, German Design 1870-1918 (NewYork: Taplinger Publishing, 1986). A well-known speech givenby Kaiser Wilhelm II on the importance of art in everyone’s lifeis “Die wahre Kunst,” (18 December 1901), as reprinted inDie Reden Kaiser Wilhelm II, vol. 3 (Leipzig: Philipp Reclam,1907), 61-66.30. Grabar, Pisma, especially letters dated 1895 through 1901.