REEDER, R. Mijail Vrubel- A Russian Interpretation of Findesiecle Art

7/28/2019 REEDER, R. Mijail Vrubel- A Russian Interpretation of Findesiecle Art

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Mikhail Vrubel': A Russian Interpretation of "fin de sicle" Art

Author(s): Roberta ReederReviewed work(s):Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Jul., 1976), pp. 323-334Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4207296 .

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T H E SLAVONICA N D E A S T EUROPEAN

REVIEWVolume LIV, Number 3-July I976

M ik h a i l V r u b e l ' : A R u s s i a n

Interpretation o f f i n d e s i e c l e A r tROBERTA REEDERIN every age works of art appearwhich indicate there are importantunderlying changes occurring in the cultural sphere. Such are theworks of M. A. Vrubel' which began to appear in Russia in thei880s, works which were both incomprehensibleand mystifyingtoa public more comfortablewith paintings in the Realistic traditionthan with those of such Western European contemporaries asGustave Moreau or Odilon Redon. And yet, although Vrubel' waslargelyunappreciated n his own time, it was he morethan any otherRussian artist of this period who was to have a decisive influence onthe direction art would take in the next generation of Russianartists,a generationwhich includedVasily Kandinsky,Naum Gabo,and Kasimir Malevich. As Louis Reau has pointed out: 'MikhailAleksandrovichVrubel', misunderstoodhis whole life and treatedas a decadent, is perhapsthe greatestgenius of the Russianpaintersat the end of the nineteenth century.'1Vrubel' was born on 5 March I856 0.S. in Omsk. While studyinglaw at the University of Petersburghe took evening classes at theAcademy of Fine Arts. During this period he learned severallanguagesand became acquainted with the majorauthorsof Russiaand Western Europe, many of whom he turned to in his later work.After graduating in law in i88o, he became a full-time student atthe Academyof Fine Arts. In I883 he was recommendedto takepartin the restorationof St Cyril'sin Kiev, an important medieval land-mark in Russian art. He remained in Kiev until I889, making animportant trip to Venice in I884 where he saw the Italo-Byzantinemosaics in the churches there. After moving to Moscow, he joinedthe circleof artistson Savva Mamontov'sestatewho came undertheinfluence of Mamontov's love of Russian folklore and the Russian

Roberta Reeder is a Fellow of Yale University.1 Louis R6au, L'Art usse,2nd edn., Paris, I968, III, p. 322.


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324 MIKHAIL VRUBELImedieval past. There he met a noted opera singer, NadezhdaZadela,whomhe marriedn i 896. However, he hostilereception fhis workcombinedwithhis oversensitive atureand thedeathof hisinfantsonin 1902 resultedin a mentalbreakdown.He spentthe lastyearsof his life in a mentalasylumand diedin i9io, a brokenmanbutstill creatingmemorableworks.In orderto understandVrubel"s ontributiono Russianart,wemust first examinewhichelements n his contemporaryocietyherejectedand which he adopted and transformednto a personalidiom. We will brieflyexplore the cultural climatein which heworked, ndthen, by examining omespecificworks n detail,showhow Vrubel'developeda new visual anguage o communicate isinner world,an importantnnovationwhen mostRussianartistsofthe period were engagedin an objective recordingof everydayreality.In the i88os and I89os in Russia the most popular artists wereIl'ya Repin, ValentinSerov,and IsaacLevitan. n manyways heirworkscontinuedand developed he Realisticphasein Russianartwhichcentredon the Wanderers,who hadproducedheirpaintingsin a periodwhen the predominant hilosophywas Positivism,whichwas basedon the concept hatknowledge houldbe confined o thedata ofobjective xperience.n the 1870S hisgrouprebelledagainstthe Academy'simitation fsubjectmatter ohistorical nd mythicalthemes; instead they painted scenesreflectingthe contemporaryeverydayife of all socialclasses.AlthoughRepinpaintedportraitsof thenobility,hisrangeofsubjectsncludedbargehaulers,politicalprisoners, nd villagepriests.Serovpaintedrealisticportraits f thenobilityand merchant lass,while Levitanreflected ertainaspira-tions of the WesternImpressionistsn his attempt to captureandrecord he effectof light on the Russian andscape.Their selectionand treatment f subjectmatter ssentiallyncorporateshe attitudesof one of the majorrepresentativesf the Realistic tradition nWesternEurope,GustaveCourbet:

I also hold thatpainting s essentiallyoncretertanddoes not consistofanythingbut the representationf realand existing hings .. beauty sreal and visible, t hasin itself ts own artisticexpression.But the artisthas nottherighttoamplify hat expression.2InsteadVrubel"sworkreflects he ideasof thePost-Impressionistswho consciouslydistortedand exaggerated ine and colour if itcontributed o the evocationand communication f moods and

2 Gustave Courbet, TheAestheticTheories f FrenchArtists,Baltimore, Maryland, I966, p.io. In the I88os a series of articles against Positivism appeared in the journal Severnvestnikc. rubel"s interest in Kant may also have influenced his concept of art having theability to convey subtle inner states.


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RUSSIAN INTERPRETATION OF FIN DE SIECLE ART 325ideas. If these artists gave up illusionism, it was because it could notbe reconciled with their new concept of art. This new attitude wasconveyed in the words of Maurice Denis:

We substituted for the idea of 'nature seen through a temperament'[Zola's Naturalist definition of art] the theory of equivalents or thesymbol: we stated that the emotions or states of mind induced by anysight were accompanied in the imagination of the artist by plastic signsor equivalents capable of reproducing these emotions or states of mindwithout any need to produce a copyof what had originally been seen;that to each state of our sensibility there must correspondan objectiveharmonycapable of translatingit.3The objective world becomes the means to convey the subjectiveworld. Images were selected for their capacity for allusion, for theirpower to evoke refined states of mind. These artists did not limitthemselves to images from the everyday world, but borrowed themfrom other works of art as well, from literature, and from myth andlegend.4 The images selected were then combined into a synthesisto produce a separate, different, and self-sufficient reality.5Although the concept of art as a vehicle to convey inner states andideas was shared by certain artists of the period, the pictoriallanguage they chose for this purpose differed among them. Someadopted the cloisonnd style of Gauguin, others the delicate sinuouslines of Beardsley. Vrubel', however, created his own vocabulary,developing techniques he had learned in Pavel Chistyakov's drawingclasses at the Academy. Before drawing a subject, the students wouldbreak it down into its essential planes. They would then soften theedges of the planes until the drawing approached a more traditionalrepresentation of the subject. Vrubel' pushed this first 'rough' stageto an extreme, thereby creating a new visual vocabulary which hadcertain resemblances to Cezanne's style. N. A. Dmitriyeva describesthis technique of building up volumes through interlocking planes:

His individual style is based on 'facetedness,' not only in the humanbody, but also in a bunched-up veil ... snow, petals, the interior ofshells. Vrubel' created these vacillating, flowing surfaces of endlesslysmall facets, and they appeared as an accumulation and combinationof an endless great number of clear-cut delicate formsmade up of crys-tals.63 Cited by Lionello Venturi, ImpressionistsndSymbolists,rans. F. Steegmuller,New York,1950, P-59.4 Redon discusses the right of the artist to borrow literary imagery: 'The old mastershave proved that the artist, once he has established his own idiom, once he has taken fromnature the necessary means of expression, is free ... to borrow his subjects from history,from the poets, from his own imagination.' Cited in John Rewald, Post-Impressionism,ewYork, I962, p. 769.6 See Edward Lucie-Smith, SymbolistArt, New York, 1972, p. 55, for a discussion of theconcept of synthecism during this period.6 N. A. Dmitriyeva, 'M. A. Vrubel", Istoriya usskogoskusstva,X, Moscow, I968, p. 255.


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326 MIKHAIL VRUBEL'Another important influence on Vrubel' during his early develop-ment was Byzantine and medieval Russian art. Other artists to beattracted to Byzantineart were Moreau and Gustav Klimt, who had

also been directly influencedby the mosaicsof the Italian churches.7However, the influence on Vrubel' was perhapsmuch stronger,forhe grew up in a milieu where this art was part of the religious andspiritual heritage. What accounts for this attraction, when otherRussian painters at the same time were producing satirical worksmocking the church?8 Perhaps the answer lies in the words ofKandinsky:Whenthere s, as sometimeshappens,a similarity f inner directionnan entire moral and spiritualmilieu,a similarityof ideals .. a simi-larity of 'inner mood' betweenone period and another, the logicalconsequencewill be a revivalof the external ormswhichserved o ex-press hose nsightsn the earlierage.9

The similarity of 'inner mood' between Vrubel' and the age ofByzantium can be seen if we examine the principles underlyingByzantine art. In his Treatise n Imagesdefending icons during theIconoclast controversy in the eighth century, John of Damascusbaseshis defenceon the notion that things partakingof divinity havealways been made visible through images. He refersto DionysiustheAreopagite who said that man must supply symbolsappealing to thesenses which will then lead us to intellectual and spiritual con-ceptions. The Byzantine artists, wishing to convey a symbolicequivalentof a refinedspiritualreality,created a decorative anguageof great beauty that emphasizedthe distance between this spiritualworld and that of common, everyday reality. Large eyes reflect thepsychical life of the figures represented.10 The richly jewelledsurfacesare arranged n abstract forms of concrete images, becomingsymbols of a spiritualworld and conveying the beauty of the eternalworld they representedto those who beheld them. V. N. Lazarevcalls this mode of art 'mystical materialism':

A gold backgroundsolateseachdepictionon it, removing t fromthereal world. . . the clothes allin dry, linearfolds,treesand plantsweretransformednto abstract,geometricshapes,hills and mountainsbe-comecrystal orms.Unrealisticcolouring trengthened ven more the7 Alessandra Comini, GustavKlimt, New York, 1975, p. i6, notes the strong impressionthe mosaics of the Italian churches made upon Klimt on his trip in I 903. Moreau made atrip to Italy in i856 where he was attracted to the early mosaics, Italian Primitives, andByzantine enamels.B Examples can be seen in K. A. Savitsky's Meeting the Icon (1878), Repini's ReligiousProcessionn KurskProvince1877-83) and TheDeacon 1877).9 Wasily Kandinsky, ConcerningheSpiritualnArt,New York, I947, p. 23.10 Constantine Kalokyris, TheEssenceof Orthodoxconography,rans. Peter Chamberas,Brookline, Massachusetts, I971, p. 5.


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Fiue .Mohrand Chl (dtil I Ke taeMsu)


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Figure 2. Girl in front of a Persian Rug i886 (Kiev State Museum).


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RUSSIAN INTERPRETATION OF FIN DE SIACLE ART 327distanceof the depiction rom the real world ... The emphasiss of atranscendentalnature.11The influence of these concepts on Vrubel' is expressed in hisdesire to create an art that would 'arouse the soul from everydaypettiness by grand forms'.12His first major attempt to accomplishthis was a seriesof studies in 1884 of the Motherand Child (fig. i).The decorative treatment of the drapery and the large, expressiveeyes and full lips, reminiscentof Novgorodicons and Italian mnosaicsindicate the style which Vrubel' developed throughthe course of hiscareer.Having absorbed these influences, Vrubel' introduced a newconcept of portraiture nto Russian art. In his work The Girl nFrontof a PersianRug (i886) (fig. 2) he departs from contemporaryportraiture,whoseaim was to producea faithfulpsychologicalstudy,and instead creates an aesthetic idealizationof the person portrayed.The figure becomesa means for creatinga refinedmood, an elegantatmosphere.Setting and dressare no longer metonymic devices usedin the Realist portrait to reflect the sitter's personality,13but havebeen carefullyselected by the artist to transforman everyday personinto an idealized image. By setting a child who looks both delicateand sensitiveamidst lilac, rose, emerald and sapphire rugs, dressingher in a gown of rose-colouredsatin, hanging pearlsaroundher neckand putting a rose in herjewel-bedeckedhand, Vrubel' has createdan Orientalprincessfromthe simple daughter of a Kiev banker.Hisattraction to Byzantinedecorativedesignis reflected here in the richinterplay of patterns in the rugs, and their interlocking facets ofcolour produce the shimmering effect of the tesserac of Byzantinemosaics. The palette, limited to variationsof blue, purple, rose andpale green, becomestypical of Vrubel"s work in general, and withinit he explores the whole range of nuances of these hues.'4Not only did Vrubel' introduce innovations into contemporaryportraiture,but he also interpretedthe currentpopular themes fromRussianfolkloreand the medieval period in his own personal idiom.Although there had been a general interestin such themes in Russiasince the Romantic period in music and literature, its reflection inart occurred mainly at this time, particularly under the patronageof Princess Tenisheva on her estate at Talashkino and Savva

11 V. N. Lazarev, Vizantiyskayahivopis',Moscow, 1971, p. 33.12 M. Kopshitser, SavvaMamontov,Moscow, 1972, p. 132.13 Typical examples of children's portraits are Repin's Vera and Nadya RePin (I877),where the children, informally posed in their nursery, are surrounded by toys and dressedin simple everyday clothes, and V. Serov's Girlwith Peaches I887), a portrait of Mamon-tov's daughter sitting casually at her dining room table eating peaches.14 Among Vrubel"s important portraits are his portrait of Mamontov, 1897, severalportraits of his wife, N. I. Zabela-Vrubel', his portrait of the famous Russian Symbolistpoet Valery Bryusov, I906, and several self-portraits.


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328 MIKHAIL VRUBELIMamontov, an industrialistwhose interestin native Russian art wasstimulated by his acquaintance with the Pre-Raphaelites and theArts and Crafts Movementon his trips to Europe.'5 On Mamontov'sestate was a circle of artists who built a neo-Muscovite church,participated in workshops producing peasant crafts, and createdscenery for the productionsof operasbased on folk themesput on byMamontov's opera company. The influence this group had onVrubel' can be seen in his enthusiastic etter to his sister n I89I afterhe had come to the Abramtsevoestate: 'I am now again at Abram-tsevo,and again I'm boiling over, no, not boiling over, but I hear thatintimate national note which I so want to captureon the canvasandin ornament.'16He brilliantly caught that 'intimate national note'in his stage designs and costumes he created for Mamontov'sproductionsof Rimsky-Korsakov'soperasbased on folk themes. Hedeveloped a new type of stage design that would be carried on byAlexander Benois and Leon Bakst in their designs for Diaghilev'sBallet Russe. Unlike the illusionistic sets which had existed inRussian theatre until then, which were little more than conventionalbackdrops,Vrubel"s sets became an important means of conveyingmood and interpreting the action. V. Vanslov says Vrubel"s sets'were born in connection with the theatre, but went beyond itslimits. These are complex social-symbolic images representing akind of poem about ideally pure, fantastic beauty.'17Vrubel' created interesting maiolica ceramics and decoratedbalalaikas based on Russian folklore themes both on Mamontov'sand Tenisheva's estates. However, his greatestworks on these themeswere expressed n a group of paintings. One such work is TheKnight(I898). Here Vrubel' portraysa Russianknight so different fromthePre-Raphaelite and Beardsleyan depictions of medieval knightswhich were delicate and overrefined, riding elegant horses anddressedin shining armour. Here instead we have a bogatyrrom theold Russian lays, a heavy, powerful figure with a bushy beard andgnarled hands, riding a horse strongenough to plough fields as well

16 See John Bowlt, 'The Two Russian Maecenases' (Apollo, London, December, 1976,p. 446). Also in the same issue see Boris Lossky, 'The Popular Arts in Russia and theirRevival'.16 M. A. Vrubel', Vospominaniya khudozhnike,Moscow-Leningrad, I963, p. 140. T.Gorin says that never before had there been such a strong self-conscious nationalism inRussia, nor had it taken so many different forms. A. P. Ryabushkin was painting scenesof pre-Petrine Russia, Roerich was painting scenes from pagan Rus' and the life of StSergey, while V. Vasnetsov was painting pictures based on Russia's legendary past.Vasnetsov explains his interest in this aspect of Russian culture: 'We only do our part inpreserving universal art when all our strength is directed toward the development of ourown native art, that is when, with all possibleperfection we portray and express the beauty,power, and significance of our native images-our Russian nature and man, our presentlife, our past, our dreams ... and we will be able in the truly nationalistic to express theeternal, the non-ephemeral', in 'Istoricheskaya zhivopis", Puti razvitiyarusskogoskusstvakontsaXIX-nachalaXX veka,ed. N. I. Sokolova and V. V. Vanslov, Moscow, 1972, p. 29.17 V. Vanslov, 'Teatral'no-dekoratsionnoye iskusstvo', Putirazvitiya . ., p. 92.


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RUSSIAN INTERPRETATION OF FIN DE SI1CLE ART 329as support knights in battle. He resembles the descriptions ofRussia's most popular epic figure, Il'ya of Murom, who conqueredsupernatural monsters,and whose horse could leap higher than thestanding trees and only a little lower than the passing clouds. ThepatternsVrubel' creates in the kaftan, chain mail, and boots recallthe treatment of warriorsaints in old Russian icons, and the orna-mental landscape foreshadows the decorative landscapes of Bakstfor productionssuch as 'The Afternoon of a Faun'. A. Fyodorov-Davydov interpretsthe knight as representativeof a culture whichanthropomorphizednature and felt an intimate part of it:

This is the elementnativeto him,out of which he came. Vrubel'triedto merge theminto a unifiedwhole,to showthe knightas partof theabundantpowerofnaturepoetizednfolkpaganmythology.18Although Vrubel's interest in legendary and mythological figureswas not confined to Russiantradition,his particular nterpretationofthem may be explained throughRussianfolklore.His painting of Panin I899 is another example of the use of a mythological figure toconvey his concept of the organic unity of man and nature.Vrubel"s

Pan resembles not so much the erotic image of eternal youth, ahermaphroditic creature so popular in western paintings of theperiod, but more the leshiy,the Russian forest spirit, with a longbeard, a strongmischievousfigurewhose head reached to the tops ofthe tallest trees;he would oftenlead travellersastray but, being good-natured, would release them again. Panis depicted hereas a powerfulcreature,a patriarchal,wizenedgod of the forest.The twilight settingmarks the awakening of mysterious orces in nature contained in therich vegetation and in its embodiment, the god Pan. Pan becomessymbolicof the wholeness of nature,of a nature alive and abundant,and this is emphasized visually by his body, which appears to begrowingout of a stump, and his curls and fingers resemble the knotsand gnarls of an ancient oak. The gentle light which softly shines onPan and the white birches contribute to the mood of quiet mysterywhich Vrubel' has tried to evoke.A more demonic interpretationof the mysteriousforces in natureand man can be seen in Vrubel"s painting of I900, TowardsNight.Although the figure may have been a centaur borrowedfrom classicalmythology, it can also be interpreted as the polevikof Russian folk-lore, the field spirit who had a body as black as earth, and who oftenplayed mischievoustrickson those wandering through his fields. Theorganic unity between man and nature is based on the primitive,bestial powers which they share. The use of more sensually rich

18 A. Fyodorov-Davydov, 'Priroda i chelovek v iskusstve Vrubelya', in Mikhail Aleksan-drovichVrubel',Moscow, I968, p. 29.


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330 MIKHAIL VRUBEL'colours producesa night settingthat is quite different in mood fromthe gentle, pensive mood in Pan. The blues and violets of the sky arebrightened by the beautiful pattern of deep greens, golds, andochres of the foliage, the brilliant flame-like red-violet of the flowers,and the reddish-brownsof the horses and the figure. The malignantexpressionin the man's eyes and his sensual lips, the gestureof hisbody, which appearsto be stealthily stalking something, the powerreflectedin the muscularbodies of the man and beastsall contributeto this dark,primitivemood. Here Vrubel' has selectedvisualimagesto symbolizethe spiritualbond between the darker sidesof man andnature.

One of Vrubel"s last depictions of a Russian folk figure is TheSwanQueenI900). She had become known to Russian audiencesinTchaikovsky'sballet SwanLake, irstperformed n I877. In the SwanQueen, half woman, half swan, we see another attempt by Vrubel'to depict the metamorphosisof man and nature. At the end of theballet the Princeis forced to make a choice between remainingalivein everyday reality or sacrificinghimself in his love for the SwanQueen,so that hemayshareher love in aspiritualworldmorebeautifulthan the other, a Liebestodimilar, of course, to that of Tristan andIsolde. The delicacy and refinementdisplayed in Vrubel"s portraitof the Swan Queen, with the tinge of rose light playing on her wingsand her elegant pearl and sapphire headdress,convey the promiseof beauty and tragedywhich his Russianaudienceknew was implicitin this tale, which was to become one of Russia's most popularballets.The last set of works to be discussed s based on literary themes.Likefin desiWclertists in the West, Vrubel' was attracted to somefigures in literature for the associationsthey evoked. Although hemade various studies of Westernliterary figuressuch as Hamlet andFaust, the figurethat became most importantto him was the Demonfrom Mikhail Lermontov'slong narrativepoem, TheDemon 184I).This metaphysicalversionof the Byronichero which was so popularin Russian nineteenth-centuryliterature,19was a figure with whomVrubel' could identify, gifted with a sensitivity that only broughtsuffering,and alienated from a universewhichhefoundunacceptable.Vrubel' first mentions the Demon in I875 in a letter to his sister,afterhe had seen Anton Rubinstein'soperabased on the Lermontovpoem. He began to make sketches of the Demon in i 885, and hisconception of him is conveyed by his father in a letter to Vrubel"s

19Albert Camus in The Rebel,New York, 1956, Pp. 48-9, characterizes the Byronichero so popular in nineteenth-century literature: 'The Byronic hero, incapable of love, orcapable only of an impossible love, suffersendlessly. He is solitary, languid, his conditionexhausts him. If he wants to feel alive, it must be in the terrible exaltation of a brief anddestructive action.'


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RUSSIAN INTERPRETATION OF FIN DE SIECLE ART 33Isisterin I886: 'Misha says the Demon-is a spirit uniting in himselfthe male and female form. The spiritis not so much evil as sufferingand insulted, but nevertheless a powerful. . . noble spirit.'20

Vrubel' continued to depict the Demon throughout his life invarious media, and in the course of these depictions,the significanceof the figure changed and became more complex. In I890 he wascommissionedto illustrate ajubilee editionof Lermontov'swork,andhe produced a seriesof famous black and white illustrationsdone inwashes, pencil, and ink. These illustrations provoked much con-troversy among the critics, many of whom did not understandhisdeparture from the Realism they found acceptable. The reactionthat appearedin the journal TheArtist s typical:Mr Vrubel', apparently,does not even feel that his figuresdo notresemble eople,but ragdolls .. In manydrawingst is even mpossibleto make out where the handsandlegsare or the head,and one mustadmireonly the play of several artistic'dabswhich, in Mr Vrubel',replace drawingand plasticityand beauty. ApparentlyMr Vrubel'makesa pretence o mood,but he forgets hat where a neck is longerthan a hand or an armlooksmore ikea leg, it is silly to look for mood,

and withoutdrawinghere s no illustration.2'At the same time he was working on the illustrations, Vrubel'produced one of his important depictions of the Demon, TheSittingDemon(I890). This work is Vrubel"s visual interpretation of theemptiness and despair felt by the Demon at the beginning ofLermontov'spoem. He baseshis portrayalon Lermontov's text:To He 6biJIaHreJIHe6oXKHTeJi,Ee 6oxeCTBeHHbLI xpaHHTeAb:BeHegH3 pagyxHbIX siyqeHe yKpaiiiai ero KyApeH.To He 6biJIaga Ayxy)acHbli4,fIOPOMHImHMyHHHIK o HeT!OH6mJIIOXOxHaBeqepACHMR:HH AeHb, HH HOb, - HH MpaK,HH CBeT!...(Demon,, xvi)22

The evening setting becomes a visual metaphor for the Demon'sfeelings of melancholy and solitude. The facets of colour have abrittle, crystal-likequality here which emphasize the cold lifelessnessand sterility of the Demon, which is reflected in the nature around20 M. A. Vrubel', Perepiska: Vospominaniya khudozhnike,Moscow-Leningrad, I963,p. 140.21 Cited by S. Durylin, 'Vrubel' i Lermontov', in Literaturnoyeasldstvo, Moscow-Leningrad, 1948, p. 580.22 'He was no heaven-dwelling angel/ her guardian divine:/ no crown of radiant beams/adorned his curls./ He was no dread spirit of Hell,/ a tormented sinner-no!/ He was like

the bright evening :/ neither day nor night-neither darkness,nor light! . . .'


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332 MIKHAIL VRUBEL'him. The conflictbetweenthe Demon'spotentialenergyand hislackof desire o act is conveyedvisually hroughan emphasis n theDemon'smuscularbodyand tensely nterlockedingerswhich con-trastwiththefeelingof helplessnessonveyedby the droopingbodyandthe melancholy xpressedn hisface,the samebeautifuldealizedface seenin manyof Vrubel"sotherworks.In I902Vrubel'paintedone of his mostpowerful ortrayalsf theDemon, The FallenDemon,which is a free interpretation f hisliterarymodel. The Demon's ove for Tamara s doomed,and hemust carryon his eternalbattleforfreedomalone. Yet he remainsproudand magnificent, s he hurlshis defiantcurse:

14npoliJuiJI eMOHno6exceHmH,IiMelTmI6e3yMHWIeBOH,14BHOBbocTaJiCxH,HaqMeHH6IH,OAHH,KaK ipe)Ke,BOBCeJIeHHOifBe3 YIIOBaHbAH JIO6BH!...(Demon,II, xvi)23

Vrubel"s own interpretationof this scene is even more devastating.The twilight colours emphasize the desolate quality of the settingwhere the Demon appears, crushed both physically and psycho-logically. The decorative aspect of the picture is enriched by thepatterns created by the rose-coloured crystal mountains and thepeacock-feathered wings, reminiscent of angels' wings in Byzantinemosaics. But as in Vrubel"s paintings in general, the decorativequality is used to convey the spiritual condition of the main figure, toconvey symbolically through visual imagery the feelings and sufferingand alienation which Vrubel' felt in hiis own age.During the last period of his life Vrubel' again turned to a figurefamous in Russian literature, the prophet in Pushkin's poem TheProphet I826), and produced a series of drawings on the subject. Hisaffinity with this figure who pays for his insights and illuminationsthrough pain and suffering is similar to his affinity with Lermontov'sDemon. These studies in suffering embody what Benois expressed inhis eulogistic article on the day of Vrubel"s burial, 3 April I9IO O.S.:

An artist'slife can be-a sonata, a suite .. . another'sis nothing but anetude . . Vrubel"s life, however, is a wonderful, pathetic symphony,and this is the fullest form of human existence ... He himself was ademon, a beautiful fallen angel, for whom the world was an endlessjoyand an endless torture ... He was ready to give us as presents templesand palaces, songs and idols. He asked nothing for it; he begged onlythat he be allowed to reveal himself in order to be freed from the heavy23 'The conquered Demon cursed/ his own mad dreams/ and, proud, was alone once

more in the universe/ without hope and without love! . . .'


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334 MIKHAIL VRUBELIvisual art that the fundamental isualelementsareof decisive mpor-tance n thecreationofa pictorialorplastic mage; and,in thatrespect,his influenceon our visual consciousness as as decisiveas Cezanne's... Even Cubismwasnot entirelya surprise ous.27Pavel Tchelitchev's surrealistworks, many of which are based onthemes of metamorphosisof man and nature such as Hide and Seek

(I940-2), also show a possibleinfluence of Vrubel'. Lincoln Kirsteinnotes Tchelitchev's admiration for Vrubel"s art: 'He adored thepainting of the past; his ideal was the arcane imagery and super-rational compositionof Andrey Rublyov, Pierodella Francesca,andMikhail Vrubel, whom he consideredhis master.'28Thus Vrubel' made an important contribution to his own age inhis attitude toward art as a means of conveying inner experiencethrough a unique visual vocabulary in a period when most otherRussian artists were carrying on an artistic tradition which con-ceived of art as an objectiverecordingof everydayreality. Althoughhis workreflectsmany trendsprevalent in Western art at the end ofthe nineteenth century, he gave these trends an original inter-pretation, using material from Russian folklore, early Russian and

Byzantine art, and the Russian literary tradition. His innovationswere carried furtherby the next generationsof Russian artists wholhavebecome well-knownin the West.27 Naum Gabo, Of DiversArts,London, I962, p. I55.28 Lincoln Kirstein, TheANeworkCityBallet, New York, 1973, p. 19.

Documents

REEDER, R. Mijail Vrubel- A Russian Interpretation of Findesiecle Art