The Judgment Day of Art by Elena Fadeeva

UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS School of Art History Academic year 2014-2015

AH5099: Dissertation for MLitt Programme Word count: 14737

“The Judgment Day of Art”: Orthodox iconography, Messianism and Martyrdom in the art of Pavel Filonov

Elena V. Fadeeva

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude and offer thanks to the following individuals for their assistance in this project: to the staff of the archives of Russian Museum and the Institute of Russian Literature, StPetersburg, who greatly assisted my research; to Dr. Jeremy Howard, whose contribution in stimulating suggestions and support helped me to coordinate this research project; to Prof. Oleg Yawein, Prof. John Bowlt and Andrew Spira for sharing the literature sources for this work, to David G. Coates, for his valuable comments, encouragement and helping me throughout the later stages of my research; and, finally, to my parents, for their understanding, moral support and endless love, through the duration of my studies.

CONTENTS

SYNOPSIS……………………………………………………………………………..5 INTRODUCTION Filonov’s aesthetic ideas and their sources……………………………………………...7 Ethic ideas and the intellectual context of the time……………………………………11 Filonov's ideas reviewed: Analytical art, Universal Flowering and the concept of Madeness……………………………………………………………………………...15 CHAPTER I Saints as Contemporaries: Filonov’s interpretation of the Biblical and iconographic subjects………………………………………………………………………………..21 CHAPTER II Universal Flowering and its heroes: Idealisation of the proletariat and its depiction within the iconographic tradition…………………………………………………………..…35 CONCLUSION Anticipating Universal Flowering……………………………………………………...48 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………….51 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS…………………………………………………………55 DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………….57

fig.1 Fragment from the cover to Chant of the Universal Flowering, Petrograd [1915], Russian State Museum Library

“Russia has no made paintings, no made drawings. But she should have, and they should be such that people would come from all the countries of the world to pray to them. Make paintings and drawings that are equal to the stone churches of Southeast and West Russia in their superhuman tension of will. They will decide our destiny on the Day of Judgment of art, and know this day is nigh.” 1

Pavel Filonov, Made Paintings, 1914; translated in N. Misler, J. Bowlt, A Hero and his Fate, Collected writings on art and revolution 1914-1940, (Austin, Tex: Silvergirl Inc., 1983), 135 1

SYNOPSIS

The above quote is taken from Pavel Filonov’s text Made Paintings, published as a manifesto in 1914. This text was an important step in the formation of the artist’s ideology: this process started from around 1910 with the unpublished essay Kanon i zakon [Canon and Law] (1912) and crystallised into a strict ideology in 1923 with such essays as Declaration of “Universal Flowering” and The Basic Tenets of Analytical Art. Filonov stayed loyal to the principles he originated until his death in 1941. The body of Pavel Filonov’s writings, collected after his death, contains a peculiar combination of practical recommendations for artists with the promotion of his personal ideology. They are a startling compound of the artist’s personal beliefs, his plastic and creative language, and his pedagogic, or rather parsonic, ideas. However, the very wording of the phrase, implying that paintings and drawings “will decide our destiny” sounds rather pompous and unclear, pushing the reader into questioning what the artist meant by “the Day of Judgment of art”. The messianic, prophet-like tone, which can be traced in Filonov’s texts from 19101920s was, in one way or another, common for the art of the beginning of the 20th century. Artists, writers and philosophers standing on the threshold of the revolution were foreseeing the massive changes in the near future. However, in the 1910s most of the Russian avant-garde thinkers were convinced that a revolution in society and art was both a healthier and an inevitable mechanism for progress. Kazimir Malevich, Velimir Khlebnikov, Mikhail Matyushin, David Burlyuk, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexander Blok and Pavel Filonov encountered the importance of the future global shifts of absolutes; they believed that the new quality of society could be achieved only through the collective effort of all the ‘common people’. They realized, however, how chaotic this force was and therefore had seen themselves as ‘conductors’ leading the masses with the universal language of their art. This manner of fin-de-siècle humanism, combining simultaneously the socialist and Christian utopia, intersected with the ideas of Russian cosmists, and in particular of the father-founder of this informal school of thought – Nikolai Fedorov. His main work –

The Philosophy of the Common task – was published posthumously in 1906-1912 and became an object of considerable interest in the intellectual and artistic circles, being discussed by such thinkers as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy and Vladimir Solovyov. The obscure references between the ideas of Fedorov and Filonov, as well as their proximity on the timescale make it very likely that Filonov’s ideas of the ‘Universal Flowering’ with its distorted Christian concepts, were inspired by The Philosophy of the Common task. However, the exceptionality of Pavel Filonov’s figure in comparison to his colleaguepainters from the Russian avant-garde consists in the unprecedented complexity and variety of the references and sources he used. Any art historical approach which attempts to tie Filonov’s art to a single chain of thought will inevitably distort its meaning. In order to avoid such generalizations the following essay will explore the narrow selection of paintings, created mostly in the decade of the 1910s, unified by the presence in them of Biblical references and iconic features (in Chapter I) and the use of these features in order to create an idealized picture of the representatives of the proletariat (in Chapter II). Such analysis, juxtaposed with an overview of Filonov’s biography and his main ideological concepts will help to understand the evolution of his mindset, interpreting his concept of the artist as a messiah at the Judgment Day of Art.

INTRODUCTION

Filonov’s aesthetic ideas and their sources The figure of Pavel Filonov, the ‘sunken ship’ of the Russian avant-garde, overgrown with seaweed and shellfish2, as he was described by Vyacheslav Zalivashin in the article The Fate of a Certain Disgraced Idealist (1983), still remains a magnetic and mysterious object of research for art historians. His maniacal and eccentric personality, his tragic biography, and the wide variety of the sources of inspiration in his work, makes it difficult to categorise him with a single particular stream of European art, or to define some single figure who influenced him exclusively. Evgueny Kovtun was a researcher in the Russian Museum and a specialist in Russian avant-garde and particularly on the art of Pavel Filonov. He pointed out in his introductory article to Filonov’s Diaries, that for all the leaders of the avant-garde movement it is possible to extract the major source of influence on their creativity: Mikhail Larionov was influenced by the primitivists and the group Der Blaue Reiter, akin to him; Kazimir Malevich had his ‘echo’ in Netherlands – Piet Mondrian. However Filonov, as Kovtun puts it, stands alone from any artistic group.3 He formed a strict aesthetic and ideological system of ideas, gathering a group of pupils around his own cult-like personality. Kovtun was not the first researcher to highlight this unique position. Vera N. Anikeeva, the author of the first article for the catalogue of Filonov’s life-time personal exhibition in the Russian Museum4 similarly stressed that: “Filonov's artistic path is one of alienation and lack of recognition in the broad sense of the word”5, emphasizing that the

Vyacheslav Zalivashin, The Fate of a Certain Disgraced Idealist (1983); mentioned as ‘Text to be published’ in John E. Bowlt “Pavel Filonov and Russian Modernism” Pavel Filonov: A Hero and his Fate, Collected writings on art and revolution 1914-1940, ed. John Bowlt, Nicoletta Misler (Austin, Tex: Silvergirl Inc., 1983), 2 3 Evgueny Kovtun, “P.N. Filonov I ego dnevnik” in Dnevnik [Diary], (St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2000), 14 4 This was the first article written for the catalogue for Filonov’s exhibition in the State Russian Museum. Filonov approved Anikeeva’s article, however, due to political reasons the exhibition was never opened, and Anikeeva’s article never published. It was replaced with the article by Sergei Isakov, which was written in a much more critical tone. For more on this topic please see Nicoletta Misler, “Pavel Filonov: Painter of Metamorphosis” in Pavel Filonov: A Hero and his Fate, Collected writings on art and revolution 1914-1940, ed. John Bowlt, Nicoletta Misler (Austin, Tex: Silvergirl Inc., 1983), 39 5 Vera N. Anikeeva, “Filonov” in Pavel Filonov: A Hero and his Fate, Collected writings on art and revolution 19141940, ed. John Bowlt, Nicoletta Misler (Austin, Tex: Silvergirl Inc., 1983), 53 2

principal theoretical (and plastic) elements of his works contrasted with the dominant trends in art in the first half of the 20th century. Boris Groys – an art critic and Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University noted another aspect of Filonov’s art. In his article “Filonov’s Organic Machines” (1992) he underlined the strange contrast between the crystal clarity of the artist’s ideological orientation, as well as the fanatical bigotry with which he held it, with the general impression of derivativeness and eclecticism that Filonov’s art evoked.6 The multitude of analogies and references located by art historians in Filonov’s works is truly astonishing. For example Jan Křiž, the author of the first monograph on Pavel Filonov, published in 19667, emphasised the kinship of Filonov’s interest in anatomy, which he started to show already during his years in the Academy of Arts, to the interest in ugliness and the dead body in the art of Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci. John Bowlt, co-author of the much-quoted work Pavel Filonov: A Hero and his Fate, addressed similar themes in his article “Inside Out: Pavel Filonov and the Anatomy of Fantasy” (2000)8 explaining the presence of ‘monsters’ in Filonov’s paintings by his interest in anatomy, primitivism and the archaic. Nicoletta Misler analysed Filonov’s interest in anatomy from a religious and iconographic perspective, addressing the issues of death and decomposition of the body in her article “The Image Decomposing: Five Stations in the Art of Pavel Filonov”.9 According to Misler, separation of the body and the mind in Filonov’s art culminates with the maximum degree of the decomposition – the dissolution of artistic individuality, the transformation of the object into the pure abstraction, crystallising in the end ‘in the very image of Cosmos.’10

Boris Groys, “Filonov’s organic machines” in Art in America, Vol. 80, Issue 11 (November 1992): 96 Jan Křiž, Pavel Nikolaevič Filonov, (Prague: Nakl. československých výtvarných umělcu, 1966). This monograph was the first book, officially dedicated to Filonov’s art. Jan Křiž was studying artist’s works and biography through the contact with his sister – Evdokia Nikolaevna Glebova. Shortly after publication the book became a bibliographic rarity, however it is mentioned in G. U. Erchov “Metodologicheskie problemy izucheniya tvorchestva Filonova”, Pavel Filonov: Compilation, (St Petersburg: Palace Editions, 2007), 6 8 John Bowlt, “Inside Out: Pavel Filonov and the Anatomy of Fantasy” in European Avant-Garde: New perspectives, ed. Dietrich Scheunemann (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editiona Rodopi B.V., 2000), 183 9 Nicoletta Misler, “The Image Decomposing: Five Stations in the Art of Pavel Filonov”, in Pavel Filonov: Seer of the Invisible, Catalogue of the Exhibition at the Russian Museum of Fine Arts (St Petersburg: Palace Editions, 2006), 33-48 10 Misler, Pavel Filonov: Seer of the Invisible, (2006), 44 6 7

Dmitry Sarabyanov, the widely known specialist on Soviet and Russian avant-garde art, stressed the connection between Pavel Filonov and Mikhail Vrubel11 - both artists, according to Sarabyanov, had a strict academic background, and also shared the general twilight spirit of decadence. Incidentally, this connection was underpinned in Filonov’s lifetime, in the critical review of the second Union of Youth exhibition in 1911. John Bowlt quoted in his article “Pavel Filonov and Russian Modernism” the fragment from the newspaper, describing Filonov’s works exhibited at that show: “Twisted hands stretch out in all directions, stripped of skin…Every joint has been understood with an anatomical precision that, involuntarily, makes you think of Vrubel.”12

As a conclusion, Sarabyanov characterized Filonov’s work as an example of a separate branch of expressionism, which varied significantly from orthodox German expressionism. Vera Anikeeva addressed a similar argument in her article, exploring similarities which German Expressionists and Pavel Filonov share, as well as their fundamental differences. As her main argument, Anikeeva juxtaposed the typical Expressionist slogan “Wenn man’s kann, ist’s keine Kunst mehr” (“There is no art where there is skill”) to Filonov’s ideas on madeness and his admiration of craftsmanship.13 Anikeeva

emphasized,

that

whereas

Expressionism

highlighted

the

external

expressiveness of an object itself, Filonov generated the internal dynamic in his objects through analysis and synthesis. The morbid and repulsive but fascinating effect in Filonov’s paintings was produced by a titanic effort to invent the ‘measure’; a system which can document and evaluate things happening around us. Arkadiy Ippolitov described the spectator’s impression of the internal tension of Filonov’s paintings in his article for Moskovskie novosti, prepared for the exhibition of Pavel Filonov’s works in the Moscow Neglinnaya art centre: “The painful expression of Filonov’s works has almost no analogy in the art world. In comparison with his paintings, written by the Povolzhye famine, the German expressionists George Grosz and Otto Dix, seem just jolly burghers, worried about the devaluation of the Mark.

Dmitriy Sarabyanov, “Udivitelny mir Filonova” in Ogonyok 50 (December 1986): 9, mentionned in G. U. Erchov “Metodologicheskie problemy izucheniya tvorchestva Filonova” (2006) 12 N. Breshko-Breshkovsky, “Vystavka ‘Soiuz molodezhi’” in Birzhevye vedomosti, St. Petersburg (April 1911): 6 quoted in Pavel Filonov: A Hero and his Fate, Collected writings on art and revolution 1914-1940, ed. John Bowlt, Nicoletta Misler (Austin, Tex: Silvergirl Inc., 1983), 4 13 Anikeeva, “Filonov” in Pavel Filonov: A Hero and his Fate, Collected writings on art and revolution 1914-1940, (1983), 54 11

Filonov’s suffering draws in, as in the meat-chopper, all the feelings of the viewer, grinding them in the dreadful mass of human flesh, which is seen by the artist as Humanism.”14

Despite most o Filonov-researchers emphasising the ambiguity of Filonov’s relationships with the Expressionism15 it certainly cannot be considered as the only possible influence on him. It was simultaneously close and dramatically far from the artist’s creative language, as were as other major trends of European art, such as Primitivism, CuboFuturism or Abstractionism. Primitivism, especially its experimental forms such as children’s or psychopathic art, was greatly appreciated by Filonov. He even planned a separate space in his dream-museum of Analytical art for such an exhibition16, and this idea influenced his students considerably. One of them, Yury Hrzhanovsky wrote: "Personally, I consider Primitivism in its wide sense, as one of the best forms of expression at all times, from the Neolith to the lubok <...> from Negro sculpture to the sculpture of Henry Moore, the drawings of Matisse, Leger, and timeless - children's drawings"17

The variety and disorder of the scholarly literature on Filonov, and the lack of consensus in the interpretation of his art, reflected in this brief overview, gives an idea about the scale and complexity of the artist’s heritage. Evidently, it is insufficient to approach Filonov’s art only from the point of view of his aesthetic agenda analysed in juxtaposition with some key trends in European art, as has been the practise hitherto.

Arkadiy Ippolitov, “Muchenik – muchitel’” in Moskovskie novosti (January 2007), 5, author’s translation This aspect of Filonov’s art studies had been mentioned in almost every serious article dedicated to him. In addition to the Sarabyanov’s “Udivitelny mir Filonova” and Anikeeva’s “Filonov”, mentioned earlier in the text it is possible to address Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 32 or Irina Pronina “O Filonove i ekspressionisme” in Russkii avangard I problema ekspressionisma (Moscow: Nauka, 2003), 208 16 Pavel Filonov, Plan reorganizatsii Akademii Khudozhestv [The Plan for reorganization of the Academy of Arts] (1924-26?) in TsGALI, f. 2348, op.1 ed. khr. 14 quoted in Misler “Painter of Metamprphosis”, Pavel Filonov: A Hero and his Fate, Collected writings on art and revolution 1914-1940, (1983), 29 17 Yury Hrzhanovsky, Letter to E. Kovtun, 12th July 1971 quoted in Kovtun, Diary (2000), 56 14 15

Ethic ideas and the intellectual context of the time A full and comprehensive enquiry of Pavel Filonov’s paintings should include a focussed study of his theoretical works in the context of the intellectual ideas, which could have influenced them. One example of such influence is the unofficial18 philosophic school of the Russian cosmists working in the late 19th – early 20th century, and its leader Nikolai Fedorov. Fedorov’s main work The Philosophy of the Common Task [Filosofia Obshego Dela - 1903], influenced a generation of Russian artists. Poets: Sergey Esenin, Alexander Blok and Vladimir Mayakovsky; composers: Alexander Scriabin and Galina Ustvolskaya; and the avant-garde painters: Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky and Pavel Filonov were all exposed to Fedorov’s ideas19 and the aesthetic agenda of the Cosmists, who fused mysticism, technology and science in a unique, startling and fascinating way. Fedorov’s principal idea was that humanity, at this stage of development, is driven by the forces of chaos and death and that nature, which surrounds us, is dangerous and uncontrollable matter. The overall goal, the ‘common task’, of humanity is to combine intellectual and physical effort and to defeat time by eliminating disease, death, and space through the introduction of intergalactic travel. “There is no purposefulness in nature – it is for man to introduce it, and this is his supreme raison d’être. The Creator restores the world through us and brings back to life all that he has perished. That is why nature has been left to its blindness, and mankind to its lusts. Through the labor of resuscitation, man as an independent, self-created, free creature freely responds to the call of divine love. Therefore humanity must not be idle passengers, but the crew of its terrestrial craft propelled by forces the nature of which we do not even know – is it photo-, thermo- or electropowered?” 20

Fedorov does not offer a clear plan of action in his work: according to him, humanity and science have not yet reached a stage of development necessary for an understanding

Russian cosmists never considered themselves as a school of thought, however they were a group of scientists, philosophers and publicists working roughly at the same period of time, addressing similar issues and combining in their theories religious mysticism and occultism with scientific questions. For more about Russian cosmists please see George M. Young, The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and his Followers, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012 or his article “Spaceship Earth: The Visionary Ideas of the Russian Cosmists” in New Dawn Magazine (November, 2014), accessed online http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/spaceship-earth-the-visionary-ideas-of-the-russian-cosmists , 28.07.14 19 Influence has been underlined by various researchers, for example in S.G. Semenova, “Fedorov i russkaya literatura XX veka”, Filosof budushego veka, (Moskva: Pashkov Dom, 2004), 519-53 20 Nikolai Fedorov, What Was Man Created for?: The Philosophy of the Common Task, trans. E. Koutiasoff, M. Minto (London: Honeyglen, 1990), 97 18

of all the processes occurring on Earth and in the Cosmos. However the idea of resurrection is the one of the key points of his work: “A radical solution of the sanitary problem consists in the return of the particles (molecules) of decomposition to the creatures to whom they belonged in the first place. <…> By transforming the unconscious process of eating and procreating into one of conscious resurrection, humanity re-creates generations and discovers in other worlds means of substance.” 21

Thus, according to Fedorov, mankind has three main objectives: the regulation of climate or ‘the atmospheric phenomena’; the search for the new territories ‘to colonise’; and the resurrection of our ancestors through their particles - ‘molecules’ spread in the universe. 22 The Philosophy of the Common Task is a bizarre but yet astonishing compound of religious and secular ideas; Christian and Humanist. The resurrection of the dead, according to Fedorov, should be executed through the achievements of modern science. Despite the fact the Fedorov’s ideas were consonant with Christian doctrine, they had fundamental differences. Perhaps the most important was that, for Fedorov, the resurrection of the dead occurred regardless of the ethical behaviour of the individuals; and the concept of sin, central to the Christian theology, was not of such importance in the Cosmist texts. People, according to Fedorov and Cosmists, were not objects manipulated by the Divine will, but the God-like superhuman, who thus defeated the idea of Death. Such futurist and humanist ideas were components of an increasing interest in experimental science and occultism, which occurred in the intellectual circles of St Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century, and has been noted by Jeremy Howard. 23 The image of the immortal superman possessing weightless body and colossal mind, with the ability to move over long distances and to bring the dead to life, references the image of Budetlyane - men of the future, inhabitants of the forthcoming utopia, mentioned by Vladimir Mayakovsky in his article from 1914:

Ibid, 91 Ibid, 98 23 The full quote: “The retention of a spiritual content in the work of these artists derives from pervasive atmosphere of science spiritualism, and occultism in the intellectual circles of St Petersburg”, Jeremy Howard, The Union of Youth: An Artitsts’ society of the Russian avant-garde (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1992), 5 21 22

“The human basis of Russia had changed. The powerful people of the future had been born. The athletes-budetlyane are emerging.”24

The term itself was coined circa 1910 by the poet Velimir Khlebnikov. He, like Filonov, was also a member of the Union of Youth – an artistic group in St Petersburg, that assembled representatives of different avant-garde art forms, and of which Filonov was a member from 1910 to 1914.25 The term is a neologism, created on the basis of the Russian word ‘to be’ in the future tense – ‘budet’. Anna Lawton in her “Introduction” to Russian Futurism Through its Manifestoes, 1912-1928 emphasised that the term budetlyane, was a calque of the established term futurists, invented to stress the fundamental differences between Russian and Italian Futurism.26 In 1913, after the endorsement of the poet group Hylaea and the Union of Youth, Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh published a joint book, which included their poems, illustrations by Kazimir Malevich and Olga Rozanova and the declaration “The Word as Such”, where the artists outlined the creative and plastic tools of the ‘new art’: “The painters-budetlyane love to use parts of the body, its cross-sections, and the budletyane-wordwrights use chopped-up words, half-words and their odd artful combinations (zaum language)” 27 The term budletyane, was used in relation to Filonov’s painting by his friend – the painter Pavel Mansurov, who helped Filonov to get an apartment in the Literator’s House on the Karpovka river embankment in 1919. In his memoirs he discusses Filonov: “M-lle Duchen acquainted me with Filonov before the Revolution, at that time he lived at the Obvodny Canal in his sister’s flat, and there in the little room of a porter he was sitting on a stool in front of a tiny stand, rather than an easel, drawing with white paint his polar, but rather naked

Original quote: «Изменилась человечья основа России. Родились мощные люди будущего. Вырисовываются силачи будетяне» from Vladimir Mayakovsky, “Budetlyane (The birth of budetlyane)” (1914) in Mayakovsky, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii v 13 tomah (Moskva: Gos. izd. hud. literature, 1955), author's translation 25 For more on Union of Youth please address Jeremy Howard, The Union of Youth: An Artitsts’ society of the Russian avant-garde (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1992) 26 Russian Futurism Through its Manifestoes, 1912-1928, ed. Anna Lawton (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 11 27 Original quote Aleksei Kruchenykh, Velimir Khlebnikov, Slovo kak Takovoe [1913] in Unpublished Khlebnikov vol. 18, (Leningrad, 1933), translated by Anna Lawton in Russian Futurism Through its Manifestoes, 1912-1928, ed. Anna Lawton (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 61; however Lawton uses the word ‘futurian’ instead of original ‘budletyane’ and ‘transrational’ instead of ‘zaumny’, therefore the translation had been slightly modified. 24

and primitive, hunter-like budetlyane. I haven’t seen anything like that before and I liked the meticulous workmanship and the budetlyane themselves.”28

After the Union of Youth collapsed in 1914, the Russian branch of Futurism crystallised in the movement of the Cubo-Futurists. However, as Kovtun noted in his article, sympathy for Cubo-Futurism captured many artists of the early 20th century, but not Filonov.29 As he himself declared it in his article “The Canon and the Law”: “I am often given to understand that Cubo-Futurism and Picasso in some way or another affected my theories. I know very well what Picasso does, although I haven’t seen his works, but I must say that he had an equivalent effect on us that I had on him – and he never once set his eyes upon my work.”30

Filonov’s independent position started to form around the 1910s, at the time of the Union of Youth and after he actively worked on the individualisation of his creative language and its separation from the plastic influences of Cubism and Futurism. Moving away from the Union of Youth in 1914 Filonov gathered around him a group of like-minded artists and published a manifesto: “Made Paintings” [Intimnaya masterskaya zhivopistsev I risovalshikov 'Sdelannie kartiny']. This group ceased its existence with the outbreak of the war, without producing any collective works31, but it can be considered as the first important step in leading Filonov to the creation of his school of Analytical Art – of the idea and the method in which Filonov believed fanatically and to which he would dedicate the remainder of his life.

P.A. Mansurov, The letter to E.F. Kovtun, 14th June 1971, quoted in Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 46. Translation by the author. 29 Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 16 30 The original quote from Pavel Filonov, “The Canon and the Law” [Canon I Zakon, 1912], never published, accessed in the Institute of Russian Literature, Pushkin’s House; mentioned in Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 17. Filonov’s opposition to Cubo-Futurism was criticized by Malevich, who argued that Filonov himself was nurtured by Cubo-Futurism, but was simultaneously and hypocritically criticizing it, for more on that topic please see in Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 25 or K. Malevich, The letter to M. Matyushin, 1915 in the Institute of Russian Literature, Pushkin’s House. 31 The collective is mentioned in Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 25 28

Filonov's ideas reviewed: Analytical art, Universal Flowering and the concept of Madeness The ideas of Madeness, Analytical Art, and Universal Flowering became the key points in Filonov’s ideology. In his paintings he achieved a synthesis of utopian prophecy, analytical research, and craftsmanship, that later became a theoretical system according to which several generation of students would be raised. It is axiomatic that Filonov’s theoretical ideas are essential to understand his work. In order to explain and popularise his ideas Filonov published a body of theoretical texts and gave talks, demonstrating his oratory talent. As N. Misler and J. Bowlt mentioned in the “Preface’ to their book A Hero and His Fate, Filonov’s writings had rather an improvisatory tone, which, according to authors, was due to his intention for them to be read aloud, rather than being printed as scholarly articles.32 K.N. Sergeyev in his article for a book Kultura i Prostranstvo also underlined the literary and rhetorical talents of Filonov, calling him primarily a theoretician of art and not a painter. He maintained that a painting for Filonov was an illustration of his theoretical principles.33 In the footnotes for the article Sergeyev puts the quote from the article of Evdokiya Glebova, Filonov’s sister, recalling that once her brother had told her: “If the paintings would be lost – that would be terrible, but it would be worse if the manuscripts would be missing.”34

During his professional career Pavel Filonov produced a significant amount of the theoretical works and his one and only poem The Chant of the Universal Flowering [Propeven’ o prorosli mirovoi], which he illustrated himself. From the mass of his theoretical texts it is possible to identify some, which can be considered as the most significant, illustrating the evolution of Filonov’s ideas: The Canon and the Law (Unpublished, 1912), the manifesto Made Paintings (1914), The Basic Tenets of Analytical Art (1923?) and Declaration of “Universal Flowering” (1923).

Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), preface K.N. Sergeyev, “Biologicheskoe prostranstvo esteticheskogo objekta: Pavel Filonov i “Biologiya Razvitiya”” in Kultura i Prostranstvo (Moskva: Slavyansky Mir, 2004), 105-121 34 E.N. Glebova, Vospominaniya o brate (St. Peterburg: Neva, 1986), 147-176, quoted in Sergeev, “Biologicheskoe Prostranstvo” (2004), 120 32 33

The idea of madeness, central for Filonov’s Analytical art, as Bowlt specified it,35 began to crystallise circa 1910, while the artist was still a member of the Union of Youth. In 1912, after a series of sketching trips and his tour to Europe, Filonov wrote an article The Canon and the Law, in which he first attempted to express his artistic principles. He juxtaposed the newly-conceived concept of madeness to the prevailing trends of CuboFuturism, simultaneously criticising the latter whilst emphasising the individuality of his aesthetic principles: “This is the essence of Cubo-Futurism: the purely geometricized depiction of the volumes and objects in time, and therefore in space; of the mechanical signs of the object movement, i.e. the mechanical signs of life, not the life organically creating the movement, permeating, modifying and being like that in every moment of motion or rest.”36

In other words, the ideas of madeness, the deep interest in the essence of the dynamic internal processes in an object can be traced in this early essay: “Essentially, the pure form in art, is anything painted in order to reveal the evolutionary process happening in it <…>”37

Two years after the unpublished essay The Canon and the Law, (1912), in March 1914 Filonov published a manifesto with his Intimate Studio of Painters and Draftsmen: Made Paintings. This publication was followed by the publication of The Basic Tenets of Analytical Art in 1923 – the final step in the formation of Filonov’s central concept of madeness, which was later defined by him as “the maximum tension of the inventive force”.38 The term itself confuses by the potential ambiguity of its interpretation. Madeness39, the neologism produced from the verb “being made” can be subconsciously connected with artificiality or craftmanship, as it was seen by John Bowlt, who interpreted madeness as “a technical skill, absolute precision”40 or Nicoletta Misler, who had seen it as “a perfect work <…> physical, working, pictorial process”.41 However, it is an inaccurate understanding of the concept, based on the linguistic ambiguity of the term itself.

John Bowlt mentions this fact in his article, however he does not provide any reference or evidence of it. Bowlt, “Pavel Filonov and Russian Modernism” in A Hero and His Fate (1983), 15 36 Pavel Filonov, The Canon and the Law (1912) in the archive of Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin’s House), F. 656 37 Ibid 38 From Pavel Filonov, The Basic tenets of Analytical Art (1923) translated and quoted in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 153 39 In Russian sdelannost, from ‘sdelat’’ – to make 40 Bowlt, “Pavel Filonov and Russian Modernism” in A Hero and His Fate (1983), 15 41 Misler, “Pavel Filonov, Painter of Metamorphosis” in A Hero and His Fate (1983), 26 35

Madeness, by Filonov, indeed required a substantial effort from the artist, however it was not the skill, or the craftsmanship necessary in the production of an object, but a separate concept of the object being generated, of the artist trying to imitate the natural process of genesis and evolution: “Depict the object not via its outward, visible form, but via the realisation of the inner functions and processes occurring in the object and in their reaction to the sphere over which the object presides.” 42

Analytical Art was therefore a protest against the hypocrisy and dilettantism, in which Filonov blamed Cubo-Futurists and which, according to him, pretended to discover and depict objects without having a clear and coherent analytical system behind their statements.43 Filonov’s Analytical Naturalism was seen by him as the next step in the development of Realist art, which was defective because of its ability to depict only the static form of an object. In his Basic Tenets of Analytical Art Filonov proposed that the Realism be taken to the next stage, driven to its extreme: “The principal tenet of Analytical Realism is the multi-momentary action of the dynamics of the processes operative in the object and the depiction of the processes occurring in the object.” 44

The object of Analytical Art is always dynamic; it is in the process of constant development. This dynamic is a continuous movement that the human intellect perceives unconsciously, but which is impossible to capture with the traditional methods of drawing. The method that Filonov was introducing demanded persistent and sedulous labour in combination with analytical comprehension.45 In one of his lectures Filonov explained the concept of multidimensionality, of the presence of different vantage points on the same canvas46:

Pavel Filonov, The Basic tenets of Analytical Art (1923) translated and quoted in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 147 43 Quote: “<…> we unmask those double-faced people who number themselves among the discovers of the new.” from Pavel Filonov, Made Paintings (1914) translated and quoted in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 135; and “I completely reject as unscientific all dogmas in painting from the extreme rightists to the Suprematists and Constructionists together with all their ideologies. Not one of their leaders can paint, draw, or understand in analytical terms what, how, and why he paints.” from Pavel Filonov, Declaration of “Universal Flowering” (1923) translated and quoted in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 167 44 Pavel Filonov, The Basic tenets of Analytical Art (1923) translated and quoted in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 147 45 Ibid, 145 46 Examples of multidimensionality can be found in several paintings, such as Rebirth of a Man (1914-15), German War (1914-15), Magi (1914), Man and Woman (1912), etc. 42

“This is what Analytical art is,” and he [Filonov] looked round at everyone with a meaningful glance. “All realists paint their paintings like this,” and he drew the corner of the house on the blackboard with the piece of chalk. <…> Imagine that by the corner of the house there is a door leading into a store” – he drew a door – “and a woman’s coming out of the store with her shopping” – he drew a woman. “This woman sees a horse in front of her”. Filonov drew the horse, putting its head in the tail of the horse he had already drawn. <…> “And the fly sitting on the horse’s belly sees it like this,” 47 and he made an explanatory drawing.”48

The concept of multidimensionality was often confused by the art critics and researchers with an intentional desire to create monsters.49 Tragicomically, all Filonov’s attempts to express the Realist character of his method and to declare that Analytical art is the one true proletarian form of art50 remained unnoticed. From the beginning of his career to the 1930-s – the period of popularity of Socialist Realism in art – Filonov’s art was criticized by art critics as decadent and corrupt51, and in the 1930-s he achieved the status of ‘class enemy’.52 The distorted figures, due to which Filonov received much criticism, were not the product of an absence of skill or any mental disorder. Such a specific representation is rather close to byzantine icon-painting, or the tradition of Russian lubok.53 The manner of

The original drawing has not been preserved, however there is a verbal description of it. P.D. Buchkin, O tom chto v pamiati (Leningrad: Khudoznik RSFSR, 1963), p. 53 quoted in Bowlt, “Pavel Filonov and Russian Modernism” in A Hero and His Fate (1983), 17 49 The monstrous, as a quality peculiar to Filonov’s paintings, was mentioned by several critics especially in the late 1920s-1930s, see Kovtun, Diary (2000), 64; Bowlt “Inside Out: Pavel Filonov and the Anatomy of Fantasy” (2000); Ippolitov, “Muchenik – muchitel’” (2007) 50 Quote: “I am an artist of universal flowering and, therefore, I am a proletarian.” from Pavel Filonov, Declaration of “Universal Flowering” (1923) translated and quoted in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 170 51 For example the quote from the review of Filonov’s works on his exhibition from 1927: “<…>it is a hysterical philosophy, a decadent one that contradicts reality. <…> Filonov has no respect to man. It is a pathological mockery of man…Terrifying things. The history of art knows many terrifying works. For example the etchings of Goya… Or take the somber works of the modern German artist Dix who depicts the horrors of the imperialist war. Can they really be compares in one’s mind with the works by Filonov’s school? We must fight against this Filonov stuff…” by N. Gurvich, “Itogi vystavochnogo sezona” in Zhizn iskusstva No148 (1927), 6 quoted in A Hero and His Fate (1983), 36 52 For example in the review of the exhibition of the students of Filonov the art critic V.N. Gross called Filonov a “formalist <…> and a class enemy” having the distorted idea of reality, consciously disfiguring it; in V.N. Gross, “Pochemy ne otkrivayetsa vistavka Filonova?” in Almanakh No 3 (1930), quoted by Kovtun, Diary (2000), 71, also the issues with the critique are reviewed in Misler, “Pavel Filonov: Painter of Metamorphosis” in A Hero and His Fate (1983), 42 53 The reference between Filonov’s paintings and such art forms as the Egyptian art or Russian lubok had been mentioned in K.N. Sergeyev, “Biologicheskoe prostranstvo esteticheskogo objekta: Pavel Filonov i “Biologiya Razvitiya”” pg. 119, 120 in Kultura i Prostranstvo (Moskva: Slavyansky Mir, 2004), 105-121 and in Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florenskij: Scritti sull’arte, (Reggio Calabria: Casa del Libro, 1984). The general reference between the avant-garde, the icon-painting tradition and lubok had been noted by A. Spira in his book The Avant-Garde Icon: Russian Avant-Garde and the Icon Painting Tradition (London: Lund Humphries, 2008). However, the author does not focus specifically on Filonov, analyzing briefly only a few of his paintings. Further recent research, studying the connections between Icon – Lubok – and the Avant-Garde is performed by Oleg Tarasov in his Icon and Devotion: Sacred Spaces in imperial Russia (London; Reaktion 47 48

the distortion in Filonov’s paintings is reminiscent of the discourse on the special characteristics of representation of Russian icons – the topic, which arose in the field of Russian art theory in the beginning of the 20th century, involving the figures of Nikolai Punin and Maximilian Voloshin54, and which possibly influenced Filonov’s mindset. Pavel Florensky, the eminent Russian art theoretician and philosopher, whose works are regarded as an example of Russian Cosmism, emphasized in his essay “Reverse Perspective” that the metaphysical quality of religious art – Egyptian, Chinese or the art of the Russian icon – is produced as a result of conscious pictorial ‘mistakes’, such as a distortion of perspective. The peculiar composition of the icons, a distinctively ‘hard’ distribution of shadows, and the visible contour lines are not the examples of poor craft, but evidence of high spirituality and maturity in art: “It demonstrates the liberation from perspective, or a refusal from the very beginning to acknowledge its power – a power which, as we will see, is characteristic of subjectivism and illusionism – for the sake of religious objectivity and suprapersonal metaphysics.”55

Filonov’s made painting, therefore, does not depict an object in a specific position in a singular moment of time, but the object’s continuous flow and development: all its possible positions at all moments of time. Filonov’s Analytical Art is a graphic attempt to depict the power of the human intellect, with the capacity to understand and encounter things which the human eye cannot see – as is developed in the concepts of the ‘seeing eye’ and ‘knowing eye’, repeatedly mentioned by the artist.56 Despite difficulties in their interpretation, Filonov’s ideas had been revolutionary for avant-garde art. The artist had seen in his ideology the ability not only to perform a revolution in art, but also in people’s minds, to lead them towards the “Universal Flowering”. Books, 2002) in Chapter Six: “Icons and Popular Art”, 365, however, as in the previous publication, the art of Filonov is accorded only superficial treatment. 54 I mean the articles by Nikolai Punin, “Direction in contemporary art and Russian icon-painting” in Apollon No 10 (1913), 52-60; and Maximilian Voloshin “What Do Icons Teach?” in Apollon No 5 (1914), 26-29 55 Pavel Florensky, ‘Reverse Perspective’ [1920] in Misler, Nicoletta, ed. Beyond vision: essays on perception of art / Pavel Florensky, (London: Reaktion Books, 2002), 208, the following quote can be also regarded in connection with Filonov’s ideas “Consequently, the final verdict is proclaimed for painting, as for visual arts in general, to the degree that it claims to provide a likeness of reality: naturalism is once and for all an impossibility.” Ibid, 258 56 For example in the letter to Vera Sholpo (1928) in “Pis’mo P.N. Filonova k Vere Sholpo”, Ezhegodnik rukopisnogo otdela pushkinskogo doma na 1977 god (Leningrad, 1979), 229 or in Pavel Filonov, “Short Explanation of Our Exhibition of Works” (1928) in Misler, Bowlt A Hero and His Fate (1983), 253

The messianism of Filonov’s artistic position is expressed in the mystic quality and religious pathos of his works created in 1910-1920s, selected for the following research. The inner spirituality in them was achieved not only by the distortion, referencing the art of icon-painting, but also by the direct use of the Christian symbolism. The gradual shift in Filonov’s religious and ideological worldview had been reflected in the transition from earlier themes, inspired by the Bible and the traditional stories of both Old and New Testaments, towards utopian realism: the idealisation or even canonisation of the working class, in which the iconographic techniques were used to reflect the inner spirituality of proletarians. This phenomenon will be further analysed in the examples of the two groups of paintings in the two following chapters.

fig.2 Self-Portrait 1909-1910. Ink on paper, 6.8x10.5. Private collection

CHAPTER I

Saints as Contemporaries: Filonov’s interpretation of the Biblical and iconographic subjects The years immediately prior to the Russian Revolution were crucial for the formation of Filonov as artist. In 1902 he concluded his studies at the House of Painting and Decorating Studios in Demidov Lane and shortly after received a diploma of painter and decorator. After failing the entrance exam to the Academy of Arts in 1903 he attended the life drawing class at the Society of Encouragement of Arts under the direction of the painter-orientalist Lev Dmitriev-Kavkazsky, whose method was ‘concentrated on Realism and demanded the precise rendering of nature’.57 Around the years 1905-1912, during his studies, Filonov makes several trips to the cities of Volga and the Caucasus, and performed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem through Constantinople, receiving the Pilgrim passport.58

fig.3 Abraham and the Trinity (Abraham and the Travellers) 1912. Indian ink on paper, 4.1x5.1 (GRM cat. 107) fig.4 Man and Woman (Adam and Eve) 1912-1913. Indian ink, pencil on paper, 4.4x4.8 (GRM cat. 112)

P. Filonov, “Avtobiografii. Dve v otryvkah.” (April 1929-30) in RGALI, f. 2348, op. 1, ed. khr. 22, 1.5. English translation in Misler, Bowlt, “Autobiographies”, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 121. 58 As Misler and Bowlt specify in the notes to V. Anikeeva’s article Filonov (1929) the chronology of Filonov’s trips is not easy to establish. The journeys to Volga happened around the year 1912, and the Jerusalem trip had to happen before the year 1908, because Anikeeva mentions that it was done during the education in the studio of Dmitriev-Kavkazsky. Other evidence provided is the drawing Constantinople (12.5x14.5; 1907), which is very likely to be from the years of Filonov’s pilgrimage. For more on this issue, please address Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 65, n. 24 57

Kovtun mentions this period of Filonov’s life in his “Introduction” to the artist’s Diary. During his trips Filonov made a series of sketches and paintings, depicting the exotic landscapes and the local people.59 His general interest in anthropology and ethnography, cultivated in the studios of Dmitriev-Kavkazsky, was developed further during those trips. However, the spiritual part of the pilgrimage must also have had a major impact on Filonov’s aesthetic of that period. Following ‘a deep interest and an internal need’60, as Kovtun puts it, Filonov also created a series of paintings depicting the scenes from the Old Testament and New Testaments – Abraham and the Trinity (1912) fig.3, Adam and Eve (1912-1913) fig.4, Easter (1912-1913) fig.5, Adoration of the Magi (1913).61

fig.5 Easter 1912-1913. Watercolour on paper. Private collection

Such as: Passengers on the Desk, Peddler on the Beach, A Persian, Pilgrims (all the titles are author’s translation). Paintings are mentioned without the year of their creation or any other reference to them in Kovtun, Diary (2000), 60, however they are part of the collection of the State Russian Museum and are all dated in the catalogue from the year 1913, which is mentioned in E.N. Glebova, Vospominaniya o brate (St. Peterburg: Neva, 1986), 147-176 60 Kovtun, Diary (2000), 60 61 Also mentioned by Misler, analyzing the religious content of his paintings in the 1920s, focusing on the issues of death and rebirth in her article “The Image Decomposing: Five Stations in the Art of Pavel Filonov” in Pavel Filonov: Seer of the Invisible (2006), 33 and Yevgenia Petrova, “Filonov Undiscovered”, Ibid, 12 59

fig.6 Adoration of the Magi, 1913. Tempera on paper, 13.9x17.8, Private collection, Switzerland

Adoration of the Magi (1913) fig.6 executed in tempera is one of the most unusual early works of Filonov. Its technique, and his use of line and colour, stands out significantly from his later aesthetic principles of Analytical Art. The figure of the Virgin Mary in the foreground is created with large surfaces of pure colour, which contrasts with the later Filonov’s signature manner of the ‘units of [painterly] action’62 - the thorough elaboration of every detail. The gesture of Mary – the arms crossed on the chest – is rather unusual for her iconic or Biblical representation, but traditional for the Orthodox Eucharist rite: performed after Confession and before the Blessed Sacrament63 This gesture certainly had spiritual significance for Filonov, as it appears in several important paintings, such as: Three at the Table (1914-1915) fig.7, The Feast of the Kings (1912-1913), and A Man (1917).

fig.7 Three at the Table 1914-1915. Oil on canvas, 40.5x39.7, State Russian Museum (SPb) fig.8 Adoration of the Magi 1912. First reproduction on the catalogue of The Union of Youth (SPb, 1912, No 2)

The painting, as Kovtun noticed in his article, only partly follows the layout traditional for the depiction of this Biblical scene.64 The main characters: Maria and the infant Jesus resemble a peasant mother and a child; they lack the Early Christian iconographical pathos. This impression is created by certain small details: the wildflower bouquet on

Filonov emphasized the importance of high level of detalisation for the made painting, comparing every brushstroke to the ‘unit of action’, to the atom, of which the painted object is generated in Pavel Filonov, “Ideologia Analyticheskogo Iskusstva” in Filonov: Katalog (Leningrad: Gosudarstvenni Russkii Muzei, 1930), 42 63 Misler mentioned this gesture as the reference to the symbology of the Trinity in Nicoletta Misler, “The Image Decomposing: Five Stations in the Art of Pavel Filonov”, in Seer of the Invisible (2006), 34 64 Kovtun, Diary (2000), 60 62

Maria’s lap, her headscarf tied in a Russian folk manner, her tired face, which is much darker than her hands (a distinctive sign of those who labour in the fields). The infant Jesus lies on his mother’s lap, with his feet turned towards the spectator and his eyes closed. His rose cheeks and blond hair serve to remind the audience of a healthy and innocent peasant baby. Already in 1913, Filonov had registered his sympathy for the working classes. This observation is crucially important in the context of Filonov’s idealization of the proletariat, which will be analysed in Chapter II. In the article “Iz istorii russkogo avangarda” Kovtun mentions a rare untitled sketch from 1912,65 similarly depicting the adoration of the Magi fig.8. However the sketch differs significantly from the painting, executed the following year. The composition of the sketch is a spiral, in which a dense mass of faces, figures and animals, compared by Jeremy Howard to the Heads from 1910,66 is twisted around the figure of the Virgin Mary, with the white figure of the infant Jesus, which is the focus point of the whirlpool. The composition in the painting from 1913 is rather a dynamic diagonal, extending from the distant figures of the Magi in the upper left corner to the proportionally distorted figure of the Virgin Mary, depicted from a perspective below normal eye level. In the sketch from 1912 the Magi are kneeling towards the Virgin and a Child, as is traditional, but in the painting from 1913 they are instead depicted as approaching Mary. She had not noticed them yet; her worried eyes are gazing in the space in front of her but above the spectator, transgressing the compositional diagonal off the limits of the canvas. In both paintings Filonov introduces animals, which would become an important symbolic element in his later art. The Magi on the painting from 1913 are riding horses, frozen in a dynamic pose, which indicate two later paintings, speculating on Biblical iconography: Magi from 1914 and Untitled (St George)67 fig.9 from the 1915.

Evgueny Kovtun, “Iz istorii russkogo avangarda”, Ezhegodnik rukopisnogo otdela pushkinskogo doma na 1977 god (Leningrad, 1979), 217 66 Howard, The Union of Youth (1992), 111 67 The painting is reproduced in Pavel Filonov: Compilation, (St Petersburg: Palace Editions, 2007), img. 94, under the title Untitled (St George). It is not specified in the catalogue whether the title St George the Victorious [Georgiy Pobedonosets] was given by Filonov himself and then changed, as happened with the painting Holy Family/Peasant Family, or if it had been given later by the museum. However, the visual analysis as well as the obvious fact of the artist’s interest in religious topics in the pre-revolutionary years (mentioned by Kovtun, Diary (2000), 60; Misler, Seer of the Invisible (2006), 34), etc) allows us to conclude with a certain degree of confidence, that the painting refers the Christian martyr St George. 65

fig.9 Untitled (St George), 1915. Aquarelle, gouache, pencil on paper, 10x11.1, State Russian Museum (SPb)

Untitled (St George), 1915, as well as Adoration of the Magi (1913) is the one of the later documents of the ambivalence and the freedom with which Filonov treated religious subjects. As Kovtun put it, Filonov’s characters never bear any direct iconographic quotes,68 in the sense in which they appear in the paintings of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin or Leonid Chupyatov.69 However, Filonov’s art employs heavy use of Christian symbolism and is incredibly rich with complex Biblical and iconographic references. Even if we disregard the debate about whether the attribution of St George to the painting was performed by Filonov, or by later researchers, the choice of this particular saint by whomever was responsible is worthy of remark. Oleg Tarasov in his book Icon and Devotion suggests that the popularity of St George the Victorious among the masses can be explicated by the fact that his history was in essence a synthesis of Christian hagiography with a fairy tale about a knight saving a Princess from a dragon.70 Nicoletta Misler in her article “The Image Decomposing: Five Stations in the Art of Pavel Filonov” also mentions this duality of both folklore and icon referencing in Untitled (St George). Misler suggests that the white figure in the left part of the painting is the ‘princess weeping on her knees’; and she can be regarded as an example of the appearance of the ‘desexualised feminine ideal’ in the early works of Filonov.71 fig.10 St George, Novgorod XVth century

Speaking of the absence of direct iconographic links in Filonov’s art, it is important to keep in mind the fact (mentioned in his “Autobiographies”, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 121) that during his pilgrimage trips Filonov sometimes made copies of the icons, to raise some money. Filonov’s niece – Nina Podmo-Fokina, mentioned in her letter to John Bowlt, that from one of the trips her brother brought her the icon of St Catherine (Letter from Nina Podmo-Fokina to John E. Bowlt dated 22 February, 1983. Collection of the institute of Modern Russian Culture at Blue Lagoon, Texas; in A Hero and His Fate). The icon, as well as documentary materials, were first reproduced by N. Misler in the catalogue for the exhibition Pavel Filonow and seine Schule (N. Misler, “Von der Ikonenmalerei zum Fotorealismus” in J. Petrova, J. Harten Pavel Filonow and seine Schule catalogue of exhibition at the Kunsthaus, Düsseldorf, (Cologne: Du Mont, 1990), 36-49). However, the position of the author is that the importance of the icon is in the documentation of Filonov’s interest for religion in his early years. However, being a copy, it is of similar interest for the study of Filonov’s artistic development as the few realistic portraits of his family and friends he executed. It shows Filonov’s academic skills, but does not leaves the space for the artistic interpretation and this is why it is omitted from the following research. 69 Kovtun, Diary (2000), 60 70 Oleg Tarasov, Icon and Devotion: sacred spaces in Imperial Russia, tr. by Robin Milner-Gulland (London: Reaktion Books, 2002), 346; also mentioned in V. Propp, “Zmeeborchestvo Georgiia v svete fol’klora” in Fol’klor I etnografia Russkogo Severa (Leningrad, 1973), 190-208 71 Misler, “The Image Decomposing: Five Stations in the Art of Pavel Filonov” in The Seer of the Invisible (2006), 36 68

Untitled (St George), from 1915, is rich in symbolism and reference, and consequently provides the possibility of several different analytic approaches. However, as K. Sergeev noted, Filonov often sacrificed the narrative qualities of the picture, in its visual sense, to the concept of its madeness. The space in Filonov’s paintings, according to Sergeev, was formed by a collection of the hyper-detailed objects and the intuitive links between them, rather than was organized around the particular scene.72 In other words – often in Filonov’s paintings the analysis of individual semantic groups inside the painting is of more academic interest than its interpretation as a whole. This is certainly the case with the Untitled (St George), with its centripetal, symmetrical composition. The centre of the canvas is shared between the figures of the dark-haired man in the shiny armor, carrying a sword and riding a white horse, which is frozen midjump in a similar way to the horses in the Adoration of the Magi (1913). The upper parts of both figures are executed clearly, but the lower parts break up into ‘units of action’ or ‘the atoms or colour’.73 The large planes of colour in the upper part are more similar to Filonov’s works of the early 1910s, and the Adoration of the Magi (1913) is probably the boldest example. The fractional, atomistic texture of the bottom of the painting is more akin to the series of Formulas,74 created in the 1920s. Thus, by playing with the concept of ‘sharpness’, and by using its contrasts, Filonov draws the viewer’s attention to some particular parts of the image which are important for him, whilst achieving complex and dynamic spatial composition. A similar technique had been used by the artist in many of his early paintings, such as Magi (1914), Mother (1916), Conqueror of the City (1914-15), and Man and Woman (1912-18). The two central figures are surrounded by an areola of heterogeneous semantic groups. The right bottom part is filled with strange lubok-like animals: ‘beasts’ as Filonov entitled them in his later works.75 The folk-toy inspired theme continues with the equestrian

Sergeev, “Biologicheskoe Prostranstvo” (2004), 107 Both terms were frequently used by Filonov in his theoretical texts, for example 112, Filonov P.N., “Ideologiya Analiticheskogo Iskusstva”, in Filonov: Katalog (Lenongrad: GRM, 1930) 42 74 As in Formula of the Petrograd Proletariat, 1920-21; Formula of Spring, 1922-23; etc; Filonov himself explained the method of the Formulas: “The formula: a complex or selection of pure active forms, abstract and constructive selection in all these things.” in Pavel Filonov, ‘Declaration of the Universal Flowering’ [1923] from Bowlt, Misler, A Hero and His Fate (1984), 170 75 These types of animals are a distinctive trait of several of Filonov’s paintings, such as People and horses (1913), Magi (1914), Cows (1924-26), Heads of Horses (1922-23), Beast (Animals) (1925-26), People and Animals 72 73

figure in a knight’s helmet in the top right corner, depicted between the countryside houses on its left and the city house with the letters “4 пр” on its right. The left part of the painting is rather more abstract and fragmented than the right. It is almost equally divided between the light and the dark masses on the top and the bottom. The dark mass, consisting of the repetitive appearance of eyes, claws and teeth could be regarded as a reference to a mythological serpent or monster. The decomposed dark structure reveals the unconscious, the dynamic: fear; which cannot be seen or pictured and exists in the mind just as a set of mixed features. Similar effects can be found in Filonov’s later painting Untitled (What a Child Sees and Feels), (1922-28) fig.11 where only the face of the mother and the body of the child could be defined from the cosmic-like space on the canvas. The decomposition of the serpent in Untitled (St George) creates a sense of dynamism for the viewer, as if it would reflect the movement of the monster, all its possible positions in the one image. The upper, light mass is much less decomposed than the lower – the viewer can distinguish a figure covering its face with hands, creating the feeling of a gentle trembling, rather than a constant movement. The above-mentioned objects reference the methods and visual techniques introduced by Filonov, but they are also filled with a deep symbolic meaning. The synthesis of the incompatible elements

and

scenes

provides

immense freedom of interpretation to the researcher. The prince and the Saint are intertwined in Filonov’s painting in the same manner as how, in popular folk consciousness, religious beliefs adjoin mystical superstition. fig.11 Untitled (What a Child Sees and Feels), 1922-1929. Watercolors and graphite on paper, 5.4x4.7 (GRM Cat. 179)

(1930). These animals and their significance for Filonov’s artistic language are mentioned in Bowlt, “The Secret Garden”, Seer of the Invisible (2006), 19

fig.12 The Flight into Egypt (Migrants?), 1918. Oil on canvas, 27.9x35.1, Collection of T.P. Whitney, Connecticut

The third painting in which Filonov addresses semi-Biblical subjects is Flight into Egypt, fig.12 which at the moment is part of Thomas P. Whitney Collection. The manner in which it is executed, the exact date of its creation and even its exact title are intriguing from an art historical point of view. The primitivist style in which the personages and the surrounding landscape are treated, and the peculiar proportions of the colours are reminiscent of the early works of Filonov, such as Abraham and the Trinity (1912) or Man and Woman (Adam and Eve) (19121913). However they are also akin to some of his later paintings such as Workers (191516), Draymen (1915) fig.13 or Oxen (1918) fig.14. Kovtun, in his “Introduction” article for Filonov’s Diary mentions Flight into Egypt together with other works, created in 19121913 during a period of religious interest in the Bible and Biblical subjects.76 At the same time Kovtun did not specify if he meant the black and white drawing, which served as an illustration to Filonov’s book poem Chant of the Universal Flowering, published by M.V. Matyushin in 1915, or the oil painting, which is dated in most of the catalogues with the year 1918.

fig.13 Draymen 1915. Aquarelle, ink on paper, 17.7x20.3, State Russian Museum (SPb) fig.14 Oxen 1918. Oil on canvas, 25.6x31.4, State Russian Museum (SPb)

John Bowlt in his article “Pavel Filonov and Russian Modernism” addresses this dating issue, suggesting that the black and white drawing Migrants fig.1, as well as two other illustrations to the Chant – The Hunter and Rebirth of a Man, were not recreated for a book,

Kovtun, Diary (2000), 60

but rather served as preliminary sketches for the major oil paintings: Flight into Egypt (1918), Beast77 and Rebirth of a Man (Intellect) (1914-1915). The duality of interpretation, which appears due to the absence of Filonov’s own explanation of his works, is definitely the case with The Flight into Egypt. The painting clearly references the biblical story: the personages – Mary and the infant Jesus, Joseph, and even the animals the donkey and the desert lions, are the attributes of the canonical depiction of this Biblical scene. However the strange figure with a spear and the Zulu headdress is rather an unusual personage for the traditional Biblical painting. John Bowlt in his article “Inside Out: Pavel Filonov and the Anatomy of Fantasy” suggested that such an exotic attribute could be regarded as an example of Dmitriev-Kavkazsky studios influence, as well as of the visits on the Ethnographical section in the Zoological museum of Saint Petersburg.78 Ekaterina Serebryakova, Filonov’s wife, in her memoirs, quoted by Yevgenia Petrova in “Pavel Filonov: Through the Eyes of his Wife”, mentions him explaining the proportional distortions in one of his paintings, referring to it as Settlers: “Explaining the distortions in the proportions of the figures in his canvases, Filonov addressed his “Settlers”[Migrants] 79 – The Flight to Egypt (1918). The artist said: “ The legs of this woman correspond to her face, while the arms and legs of the Negro correspond to his face; his spear is not real, but specially designed for his strength, with which he turns everything upside down.””80 Another argument, which proves the hypothesis that the religiously-loaded title The Flight to Egypt, could have been given not by the artist himself but by later researchers, is given by Alexander Mosyakin in his book Strasti po Filonovu, describing the police investigation of cases of the of mystical disappearance of some of Filonov’s works in the late 1970s.

If other two paintings have obvious similarities to the drawings, it is not so clear with the third, as Bowlt does not specify the year of creation. It is possible that he is referring to the painting Animals (Beast) from 1924-25, however it does not have much in common with the drawing from the Chant. 78 John Bowlt, “Inside Out: Pavel Filonov and the Anathomy of Fantasy” in European Avant-Garde: New perspectives, ed. Dietrich Scheunemann (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editiona Rodopi B.V., 2000), 192 79 Original – Переселенцы, could be translated as Settlers or as Migrants without considerably changing its meaning. To avoid confusion the author continues using the title Migrants. 80 Yevgenia Petrova, “Pavel Filonov Through the Eyes of his Wife” in Seer of the Invisible p. 95 quoting E. Serebryakova’s diaries in Russian Museum Manuscript Deaprtment, Fund 156, No 35, 1924, sheet 24 verso. 77

He mentions that the painting called Migrants was sold in 1978 at Sotheby’s New York under the official title The Flight to Egypt.81 The cases with double titles of Filonov’s early paintings such as Untitled (St George) (1915), The Flight into Egypt (Migrants) (1918, 1915?) and the Holy Family (Peasant Family) (1914) are often connected by researchers with self-censorship due to political reasons in the 1930s82 or with his sharp ideological turn to atheism in the 1920s.83 However, the author of this essay suggests that a free interpretation of the Biblical and iconographic scenes and Filonov’s emphasis on the mundane titles of the paintings, which clearly reference religious topics, could be perceived as the conscious and independent position of an artist himself. In the example of the three paintings visually analysed in this chapter, it is possible to claim that Filonov was clearly interested in the Biblical subjects in his works. This interest may root in his religious family background and in the impressions from his pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Athos and Volga monasteries. However, it is possible to presume that later, the social futurist utopia of ‘budetlyanstvo’, which Filonov shared with his colleagues from the Union of Youth, began to replace orthodox religiosity with some synthetic type of humanistic idealism. In his paintings Filonov never treated Biblical subjects with trepidation, nor with open disrespect. He never regarded himself as a ‘lay brother’ icon-painter. On the contrary; he never hesitated to bring his multiple personal interests to the religious scenes.84 Blending biblical personages with his contemporaries, Filonov breaks the pathos which accompanies the idea of religious painting. And this process is the illustration of the dissolution of the border between the Heavenly and the Earthly kingdoms in the artist’s mind. Filonov simplifies the biblical characters and saints, bringing them to the same ground as the peasants and workers, equating them.

Alexander Mosyakin, Strasti po Filonovu: Sokrovishcha spasennie dlya Rossii (Moskva: Amfora, 2014), 67, can be accessed online http://www.litmir.co/br/?b=221606 82 See Kovtun, Diary (2000), 62; Bowlt “The Secret Garden” in Seer of the Invisible (2006), 21 83 See Misler, “The Image Decomposing: Five Stations in the Art of Pavel Filonov” in The Seer of the Invisible (2006), 36; Petrova , “Pavel Filonov Through the Eyes of his Wife”, Ibid, 81 84 This was quite common for the avant-garde artists of his time, who showed considerable interest in religious painting and iconography. See Malevich, Goncharova, Larionov in Andrew Spira, The Avant-Garde Icon: Russian Avant-Garde Art and the Icon Painting Tradition (Aldreshot: Lund Humphries, 2008) 81

The chapter will address the later stages of this process: Filonov swaps the roles and starts to depict the common people, his contemporaries, using the iconographic manner and Christian symbolism, in a revolutionary attempt to canonise the proletariat, which he idealised immensely.

fig.15 Formula of Petrograd Proletariat 1920-1921. Oil on canvas, 46.6x60.6, State Russian Museum (SPb)

CHAPTER II

Universal Flowering and its heroes: Idealisation of the proletariat and its depiction within the iconographic tradition In his texts explaining his method of Analytical Art Filonov always described it as ‘revolutionary’85 and ‘proletarian’: I am an artist of Universal Flowering and, therefore, I am a proletarian.”86

The delicacy of Filonov’s sense of right and wrong, his fondness for social justice mentioned both by his friends87 and relatives88 crystallised eventually in an uncompromising devotion and idealization of the working class.89 N. Misler suggested in her article “Pavel Filonov: Painter of Metamorphosis”, that Filonov’s allegiance for the lower classes could be explained by his own working-class background and by his dissatisfaction of the formal authorities, such as Academy of Arts.90 Filonov’s fondness was expressed not only in his ideas and texts, but also in his paintings: the drayman, the dairymaids, fishermen, workers, street-cleaners, citizens, ‘who had nothing to lose’, and patriarchal villagers91 – they all became heroes in his paintings. The village and its inhabitants was the object of Filonov’s particular sympathy: houses, animals, and people in the countryside painted by Filonov often acquired some cozy, lubok-like toy character (Diary Maid, 1914; Girl with a Flower, 1913 fig.16; Oxen, 1918). By contrast, Filonov’s cityscape often had an intimidating, monstrous tone: the houses on the picture begin to crowd around humans, suppressing them, the animals adopted the senseless and gloomy appearance Untitled (Riders), 1913; Degeneration of an Intellectual

Filonov, Basic Tenets of Analytical Art (1923) in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 150 Filonov, Declaration of “Universal Flowering” (1923) in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 170 87 Quote: “<…> сравнение с Савонаролой, с которым Филонова сближали страстная вера в необходимость социальной справедливости и стремление обращать в нее всех и каждого” in P.D. Buchkin, O tom, chto v pamyati: Zapiski Khudoznika (Leningrad, 1963), 54 88 Filonov’s sister Evdokia, remembered that she had once omitted to invite the illiterate maid to join them at the table, which caused the serious conflict with her brother, E.N. Glebova, Vospominaniya o brate (St. Peterburg: Neva, 1986), 147-176 89 This can be illustrated by the fact that Filonov, who was very sensitive about all his paintings and never sold them, donated two paintings to the proletariat – Formula for the period 1905-20 or the Universal Displacement Via the Russian Revolution into Universal Flowering (1920-22) and Formula of Petrograd Proletariat (1920-21) 90 Misler, “Pavel Filonov: Painter of Metamorphosis” in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 25 91 I am referring to the paintings: Draymen (1915), Dairy Maid (1914), Fishman’s Schooner (1913-14), Workers (1915-16), Street Cleaners (1913-14), Who Has Nothing to Lose (1911-12) and Peasant Family (1914) 85 86

(Degeneration of a Man), 1914-15 fig.17. Filonov’s view on the city-village relationship was consonant to the position of other philosophers and artists in the beginning of the 20th century, such as the emphasis on the spirituality of nature in the work Nikolai Fedorov, described earlier; and the creative interest in the figure of the peasant in Kazimir Malevich’s art or in Sergei Esenin’s poetry.

fig.16 Girl with a flower 1913. Aquarelle, ink on paper, 7.8x7.8, State Russian Museum (SPb) fig.17 Degeneration of an Intellectual 1914-1915. Oil on canvas, 45.8x60.6, State Russian Museum (SPb)

Canonising peasants, Filonov created their portraits using the visual and semantic language of icon painting, filling them with the Christian symbolism. For example his painting Peasant Family / Holy Family from 1914 fig.18 can be surely regarded as possessing a mystical, semi-religious quality. It was a favourite painting of Filonov’s wife – Ekaterina Serebryakova, which is evidenced in her diary entry from 1921, where she wrote that her experience of Peasant Family could be compared to a religious one and that she was astonished by the ‘universal love’ which was accumulated in that picture, comparing to which all ‘our passions’ seemed to be unstable and negligible.92 The origin of the double title Peasant Family / Holy Family had been commented by Kovtun: believing that Filonov was orthodoxly religious in that period, he claimed that the original title for the painting was Holy Family, and that it had been changed by the artist himself later to Peasant Family during the Soviet period.93 However the only evidence for such an assumption is in E. Serebryakova’s diary entry from 1938.94

E. Serebryakova’s diaries in Russian Museum Manuscript Deaprtment, Fund 156, No 35, 1924, quoted in Yevgenia Petrova, “Pavel Filonov Through the Eyes of his Wife” in Seer of the Invisible p. 88 93 Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 62; also in Bowlt, “Secret Garden”, Seer of the invisible (2006), 21 94 Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 62 92

fig.18 Peasant Family/Holy Family 1914. Oil on canvas, 62.5x50.3, State Russian Museum (SPb)

There is an alternative opinion, expressed by N.V. Apchinskaya and shared by the author of this essay,95 suggesting that the initial title of the painting was double - Peasant Family / Holy Family, that it was not the result of external circumstances, but the conscious will of an artist. It is clear96 that immediately after its creation and later in the early 1920s97 the painting was an important work for Filonov, and therefore the duality of the title ought to expresses the idea, which fascinated him so much at that period – the idea of an innate moral immaculacy of the peasants which could elevate them to holy status. Dense and complex, the kaleidoscope-like background embraces in it the group of humans and animals; their figures, frozen in iconic poses, radiate an internal light. The characters in the painting are depicted in a simple peasant dress, but their gestures and poses bear a rather spiritual character. The clothes of the mother, holding the baby echoes Virgin Mary’s red dress in the Adoration of the Magi (1913), but at the same time her long face with big dark eyes and the general colour scheme is also reminiscent of the Dairy Maid, (1914). Filonov’s Maria holds a rosy-cheeked, healthy baby, who raises his arms in a gesture expressing openness and joy.98 The nude figure of the baby is the brightest spot on the painting, the centre of the whole composition. The large male figure in the bottom part of the image, who is repeating the infant’s gesture, is reminiscent of Joseph in The Flight into Egypt (1918?) by the primitivist language, chosen by Filonov, as well as by his constitution, clothing and facial features. The human figures in the centre of the composition in Peasant Family / Holy Family, (1914) are surrounded by the figures of animals. A cock, a wolf-dog and a horse are often

N.V. Apchinskaya, “Pavel Filonov. Khudoznik mirovogo rascveta I mirovogo stradaniya” in Pavel Filonov: Compilation, (2007), 30 96 E. Serebryakova and E. Glebova both mention the painting in several diary entries, for example E. Serebryakova’s diaries in TsGali ed. khr. 43, l. 40 quoted in Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 528; or E.N. Glebova, Vospominaniya o brate (St. Peterburg: Neva, 1986), 157 97 Filonov rarely considered the works which were important for him as completely finished. He often returned to them during his lifetime. It can be regarded as a manifestation of his perfectionism, but he explained it as a necessity for a painting to develop together with an artist (this might also be regarded as one of the reasons for his refusal to sell his works). For further details please address Misler, “Pavel Filonov, Painter of Metamorphosis” in A Hero and His Fate (1986), 27 98 The gesture had been analysed by N.V. Apchinskaya, “Pavel Filonov. Khudoznik mirovogo rascveta I mirovogo stradaniya” in Pavel Filonov: Compilation, (2007), 31 95

interpreted by researchers as traditional Christian symbols,99 they could be often found in Filonov’s early works: the cock and the wolf-dog appear in Untitled (Adoration of the Magi), (1912) and the expressive figure of the horses – in Adoration of the Magi, (1913); Shrovetide and Exit from Winter into Summer, (1913-14) fig.19 and many other paintings of that period. The artist himself did not leave any explanation of the meaning that could possibly help to interpret his symbolic language. However his wife recorded him mentioning the synthetic method, with which Filonov generated his symbols: the mystical figures of the animals, almost as the peasants depicted as Maria and Joseph, had been inspired by the animals he had seen from his window. Filonov had seen the cockerels and hens in the courtyard, while he was working on a painting – but the actual cockerel on the canvas was not reflecting any of them: “But I have drawn what I need for given picture; all cockerels are concentrated in it”.100 The rich background, reminiscent of tapestry, fills all the space on the picture, and is composed of the fragmented, shattered images of flowers, which recall the roses in Gardener, (1912-13) or in Flowers, (1912-13) fig.20, but could also be associated with the later painting - Flowers of the World Blooming, (1915).

fig.19 Shrovetide and Exit from Winter into Summer 1913. Oil on canvas, 31.1x38.9, State Russian Museum fig.20 Flowers 1912-1913. Graphite on paper, 17.8x13.3, State Russian Museum (SPb)

The cock may be regarded as the symbol of resurrection, the dog – as the symbol of fidelity and vigilance, and the horse – as a symbol of courage and nobility. For more on that topic please see N.V. Apchinskaya, “Pavel Filonov. Khudoznik mirovogo rascveta I mirovogo stradaniya” in Pavel Filonov: Compilation, (2007), 32; L.L. Pravoverova, “Pavel Filonov: Don Quixote russkogo avangarda”, Ibid, 49 100 E. Serebryakova’s diaries in Russian Museum Manuscript Department, Fund 156, No 35, 1924, quoted in Yevgenia Petrova, “Pavel Filonov Through the Eyes of his Wife” in Seer of the Invisible p. 93 99

The importance of the flower as a symbol in Filonov’s art could not possibly be disregarded as it was mentioned in one way or another by almost every researcher studying Filonov. J. Bowlt emphasized that even Filonov’s key idea of the ‘Universal Flowering’ included the word ‘flower’.101 L. Pravoverova, agreeing to that argument, suggested that the flower, and particularly the rose was for the artist the emblem of the rebirth of the world.102 K. Sergeev argued that the flower in Filonov’s art was rather not a symbol and did not have any semantic meaning by itself, but was a pure visual fixation, ‘embodiment’ of the pure metamorphosis.103 E. Kovtun described Peasant Family / Holy Family as ‘one of Filonov’s most spiritually profound works’, claiming that the image of a man in it was transmitted through means of iconic spirituality. The very concept of a man – morally pure, integral, and noble, according to Kovtun, connected Filonov’s works with the icon-painting tradition of the Old Rus’.104 In the same entry Kovtun also mentioned two other icon-like paintings of Filonov, in which faces had been ‘illuminated with the iconic/icon zeal’.105 These paintings are: Conqueror of the City, (1914-1915) and Mother, created a year later, in 1916. The icon-inspired paintings mentioned by Kovtun can be considered as the part of an outstanding, separate group in Filonov’s art. If in Migrants/ Flight into Egypt, (1918) or in Peasant Family/Holy Family, (1914) it is still possible to trace the duality, the conscious combination of religious and secular subjects in one image, in either Conqueror of the City, (1914-1915) fig.22, or Mother, (1916) fig.21 the reference to the Biblical topic in the title is not present. The simple people in working class attire, with tired faces, are depicted on those paintings, but their poses, gestures and gazes give them a sort of spiritual, iconographic appearance.

Bowlt, “The Secret Garden” in Seer of the Invisible (2006), 19 Pravoverova, “Pavel Filonov: Don Quixote russkogo avangarda”, Pavel Filonov: Compilation, (2007), 49 103 Sergeev, “Biologicheskoe Prostranstvo” (2004), 114 104 Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 61 105 Ibid 101 102

fig.21 Mother 1916. Watercolour, ink, pencil on paper, 19.9x20.4, State Russian Museum

fig.22 Conqueror of the City 1914-1915. Watercolour, ink, pencil on paper, 20.3x18.5, State Russian Museum

In Mother, (1916) the women with an infant is depicted in the iconographic pose, which recalls a traditional Russian depiction of the Virgin Mary. In the orthodox iconographic tradition there are several types of the depiction of Virgin Mary, which do not have fundamental differences in their appearance, however significantly they vary in their details: the position of infant Jesus in Mary’s hands, their facial expressions and the direction in which they are looking.106 These types often get their name from the place where the first icon was created. If to draw such a parallel, Filonov’s Mother, (1916) is visually close to Pimenovskaya Mother of God Hodegetria fig.23. This type of icon always depicts the infant in the arms of the Virgin Mary, on the right side of her body; both mother and child are looking forward, in the direction of the viewer. However, as in the case with Conqueror of the City, (1914-1915), in which it is also possible to track the iconographic references, such a comparison with an actual iconographic example should be made very carefully, and mainly in terms of the general canvas layout. fig.23 Pimenovskaya Mother of God, XIVth century

The facial proportions of the main personages in Mother, (1916) look rather distorted, mother’s fingers are distinguishable, but look much more like a claw than a human hand. The hairless heads of both mother and child had been seen by A. Baranovsky as Filonov’s reference to the injuries associated with the First World War;107 the angular male face in the Conqueror of the City, (1914-1915), could possibly lead to similar associations. However, in the case with Filonov’s paintings, this sort of proportional distortion (as it may be seen in the results of the analysis of paintings and theoretical texts earlier in this essay) was never a conscious effort to create and multiply the monstrosity. Filonov’s creative language often involved the exploration of alternative points of view that lead to

For more on this topic I recommend: N.P. Kondakov, Ikonografiya Bogomateri (Saint-Petersburg: Elibron Classics, 2003 [1914, 1915]) 107 Which is a questionable assumption, considering that Filonov was sent to the front only in 1916; in Andrey Baranovsky, ‘Pervaya Mirovaya Voina v Russkoi Jivopisi’, PhD Thesis, accessed online http://www.andreybaranovsky.ru/#!fww-in-russian-art/c5in 25.06.2015 106

proportional distortions, which essentially were akin to the perspective distortions in icons, mentioned by Florensky.108 However they had been performed by an artist in order to achieve a hyper-realistic effect, and for the sake of Analytical Art. Therefore it is possible to presume that a hairless head was hardly an attempt to portray the physical defect, and could rather refer to Filonov’s general interest in the phenomenon of human head, mentioned by Serebryakova in her diaries.109 This interest, in part, can be seen as echo of the Academy of Arts pedagogical tradition, in which students, during their initial training are expected to draw mainly écorché and the hairless gypsum heads. Another characteristic feature of those paintings is a complex crystallised matter, which seems to self- repeat and multiply,110 produced by Filonov not only as background in the bottom part of the painting, but also on the mother’s cheek. Misler interpreted that strange facial formation, the ‘atomized tissue’, as some sort of tattoo-symbol, invented by an artist, which symbolized the proximity and the border of animated and inanimate matter.111 The geometricized abstract elements are clearly referring to the aesthetics of Analytical Art, with its concepts of the ‘units of action’ and ‘atoms of colour’ – the ideological postulates which Filonov began to formulate around 1910-1912 and fully presented around 1923. One of the essential objectives of the analytical method, according to Filonov, was to express the thought process, the evolution occurring in painter as well as in the personage of his painting.112 It is possible to assume, that the peculiar geometricized abstract elements in the eyes of the woman and a child in Mother, (1916) and of a man in Conqueror of the City, (1914-1915), had been an attempt to depict that multiplicity of mental and emotional processes apparent to those people.

Mentioned earlier in the essay, please see: Pavel Florensky, ‘Reverse Perspective’ [1920] in Misler, Nicoletta, ed. Beyond vision: essays on perception of art / Pavel Florensky, (London: Reaktion Books, 2002), 197272 109 Filonov’s interest in the object of the human head can be traced in many of his works, such as: Heads, (1910); Bandit, (1925); Heads (Man in the World), (1925-26); Live Head, (1923); Two Heads (Sailors from the Sea of Azov), (1925); Shostakovich’s First Symphony, (1935); etc. This interest had been documented by Serebryakova in her diary, quoted in Petrova , “Pavel Filonov Through the Eyes of his Wife”, The Seer of the Invisible (2006), 89 110 A similar argument has been drawn by Sergeev, “Biologicheskoe Prostranstvo” (2004), 115 analysing the Flowers of Universal Flowering (1916) 111 Misler, “Pavel Filonov, Painter of Metamorphosis”, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 37 112 Original quote: “The result of creativity, i.e. the object being made or made – whatever it might depict – records this thought process, i.e. the evolution occurring in master.” Filonov, “The Basic Tenets of Analytical Art”, translated in A Hero and His Fate (1983), 145 108

The icon-painter, as Florensky explained it, never tried to create a portrait as an image of the face, but its reflection, which passed through the lens of consciousness, the platonic face – the lik (countenance)113 The human faces in Mother, (1916) and Conqueror of the City, (1914-1915), do not look like portraits at all; in the same way as the cockerel in Peasant Family / Holy Family, (1914) is not the depiction of the particular one, but the accumulative image of all the kind. In his paintings Filonov did not try to achieve a portrait likeness or an aesthetic appeal, but neither did he desire to create repulsive images. He was rather interested in performing the experiment, being the pioneer of a new stage of realism in painting, by finding a way to capture the process, the movement.114 In Mother, (1916) this sort of movement can be seen as both an internal continuous evolution, occurring in the personages, and as a movement of an object in space. The outline of the mother’s right shoulder is repeated by Filonov several times, representing the movement in a cartoonlike manner. The mother moves away from the figure of the priest in mitre and with the chalice of the Holy gifts in his hand,115 who raised his hand in a gesture of benediction, towards the city on the right side of the painting, also depicted in a dynamic, geometricized manner. On the left side of the head of Conqueror of the City, (1914-1915), Filonov depicted a peculiar profile with similar facial features. This ‘second head’ can be interpreted as man’s alter ego, in a similar way to Filonov’s earlier painting A Hero and His Fate, (1910) or to his Self-portrait, (1911).116 Alternatively, it can be seen again as the cartoon-like depiction of the movement, of the man turning his head towards the viewer. The icon-painting influences can be also found in the later Filonov’s works, in a more or less obvious form. For example in Worker in a Cap, (mid-1930s) and in Collective Farmer, (1931) fig.26; or in GOELRO (Lenin’s plan for the Electrification of Russia), (1931) and portrait

In Florensky, Iconostas (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary’s Press, 2000), 50-53, 55-57; and Florensky, “The Church Ritual as a Synthesis of the Arts” in Beyond Vision (2002), 108 114 Pavel Filonov, The Basic tenets of Analytical Art (1923) translated and quoted in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 147 115 This figure had seen by Kovtun as a prelate or a saint, in Kovtun, Dnevnik (2000), 61 116 Bowlt addressed a similar issue in Bowlt “Pavel Filonov and Russian Modernism” A Hero and his Fate (1983), 7 113

of N. Glebov-Putilovsky, (1935-1936) fig.24; or in the mysterious lost painting, mentioned by Mosyakin, depicting Karl Marx with a halo.117 The image of the Madonna was also an important topic for Filonov. It appeared throughout his artistic career, from the early works, analysed in this essay: Adoration of the Magi, (1913); Flight into Egypt, (1918); Peasant Family / Holy Family, (1914) and Mother, (1916); to the later works. However, in the 1920s the image of Mother partly lost its spiritual pathos and became rather mundane and simplified as in Mother, (1925-1926); Mother and Child, (1923) fig.25, and Unitiled (What a Child Sees and Feels), (1922-1928). Idealization and even canonization of the proletarians, perception of them as the people of future – the budetlyane – in Filonov’s paintings is inseparably linked with the image of the ‘common people’ being morally innocent and bold in their primal force,118 being able to bring society to the right path, leading to the Universal Flowering.

fig.24 Portrait of N. Glebov-Putilovsky 1935-1936. Watercolour and ink on paper, 23.2x18.1, State Russian Museum fig.25 Mother and Child 1923. Watercolour and ink on paper, 8.6x6.1, State Russian Museum (SPb)

Mosyakin mentions a work “Karl Marx” painted with oil on zinc, which allegedly, had been mentioned by E. Glebova. For more details please address Alexander Mosyakin, Strasti po Filonovu: Sokrovishcha spasennie dlya Rossii (Moskva: Amfora, 2014), 32, can be accessed online http://www.litmir.co/br/?b=221606 118 The idea was shared by many intellectuals in the beginning of the 20th century, such as Alexander Blok and Kazimir Malevich. This issue is analysed in more detail earlier in the Introduction to this essay. 117

fig.26 Collective Farmer 1931. Oil on canvas, 27.1x20.8, State Russian Museum

CONCLUSION

. . . And so they keep a martial pace, Behind them follows the hungry dog, Ahead of them – with bloody banner, Unseen within the blizzard’s swirl, Safe from any bullet’s harm, With gentle step, above the storm, In the scattered, pearl-like snow, Crowned with a wreath of roses white, Ahead of them – goes Jesus Christ119

Anticipating Universal Flowering Revolution: in life, in social relationships, in art, had been seen by Filonov as a crucial and unavoidable step of human evolution: re-evolution,120 capable of bringing society to a new stage of development. As Kovtun put it in his article, Filonov, as the other Russian writers, artists and philosophers of the time, such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Fedorov, Berdyaev, Malevich and Khlebnikov, had seen himself as a messiah in the new, changing world. He was not just creating paintings – he created ‘icons’, illustrations of his system of beliefs leading to the Universal Flowering, which could have been depicted and explained, according to Filonov, through the language of the Analytical Art: “Revolution in art. Proletarianization of art. I know that the ideology of Analytical Art will make a revolution on world art. Art is a terrifying factor in our personal development and the class struggle.”121

Being aware of the importance of the historic moment he was witnessing,122 Filonov made an attempt to picture and legitimize it through his icon-like paintings and the later series of Formulas. However, regardless of his revolutionary enthusiasm, Filonov never expressed any precise political position, believing in his own personal synthesised utopia of the Universal Flowering: “In response to the proposition to join Communist Party (RCPb) he replied that he is a long-time member from a different party, calling it with some strange name, - the party Alexander Blok, Twelve (January, 1918), translated by Maria Carlson, accessed online http://issuu.com/rgwr/docs/twelve/27?e=0 08.08.2015 120 Neologism mentioned in Misler, “Pavel Filonov, Painter of Metamorphosis”, in A Hero and His Fate, (1983), 26 121 Filonov, Basic Tenets of Analytical Art (1923) in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 152 122 Mentioned in Serebryakova’s diary TsGALI 236, ed. khr. 35, l.5, in Kovtun, Diary (2000), 46 119

of the ‘Universal Flowering’ – that he is the only member in this party and that he won’t join Bolsheviks.”123 With an Early Christian recklessness Filonov sacrificed himself for the principles of Analytical Art he had invented. His life, after the declaration of the manifesto Made Paintings in 1914, can be regarded as the indicative action or a heroic deed for the sake of his own ideas. Filonov believed in asceticism - neither old clothes124 nor financial problems nor the lack of food really worried him. Being absolutely confident in his ideas, he gathered around himself a group of student-followers, for which he became some sort of idealized figure. In order to join his Collective of Masters of Analytical Art and seek the secret of madeness, the students had to reject all their previous creative individuality.125 With remarkable stubbornness Filonov refused most of his commercial contracts, never took money from his students and never agreed to sell his paintings. Seeing his ideology of Analytical art as a source of insight he ambitiously dreamed of the museum for his works and the works of his students, which should have included an educational centre for proletarians.126 Idealising the representatives of the working class, Filonov, who usually jealously and eloquently defended his works against any sort of critique, with Christian resignation met the ‘public viewing’, when a group of factory-workers had been selected to decide the destiny of his personal exhibition in the State Russian Museum in 1931.127 Being himself a devoted ascetic, Filonov perceived this behavioral model as the only one, which could be acceptable for the creative activity, expecting the same attitude from his colleagues and severely judging them for their conformism and willingness to start a dialogue with authorities.

N. Egorov, “Bor’ba za sovetskuyu vlast’ na Dunae I Izmail’skii rayon v fevrale – oktyabre 1917 goda”, Krasnaya Bessarabia, 1928, vol. 3, pg. 98, author’s translation 124 Filonov’s asceticism is mentioned in Bowlt, “Pavel Filonov and Russian Modernism” in A Hero and His Fate, (1983), 1 125 For more details on Filonov’s school please address Kovtun, Diary (2000), 51; N.G. Lozovoi, “Vospominaniya o Pavle Nikolaeviche Filonove” Pavel Filonov: Compilation, (St Petersburg: Palace Editions, 2007), 103-116 and A.D. Borovskii “Neskol’ko zamechaniy po povodu shkoli Filonova”, Ibid, 137-144 126 Misler, “Pavel Filonov, Painter of Metamorphosis”, in A Hero and His Fate, (1983), 28; Kovtun, Diary (2000), 45 127 Most of the workers from the commission supported Filonov’s works, however the exhibition never opened. For more details please address: Kovtun, Diary (2000), 34; Misler, “Pavel Filonov, Painter of Metamorphosis”, in A Hero and His Fate, (1983), 39 123

Considering all the ideas expressed by Filonov in his texts and illustrated in his paintings, as well as the intellectual context of the time, it is possible to answer the question posed at the beginning of this essay. An obscure and pretentious phrase, comparing paintings to the “the stone churches of Southeast and West Russia in their superhuman tension of will”128 becomes more evident in the context of the ideas of madeness and Analytical Art. Before the socialist utopia of Universal Flowering, predicted by Filonov, was to come the Judgment Day of Art – a moment of re-evaluation of the entire art heritage from the position of the average man. Filonov's dream, then, was to create a pictorial method, capable of capturing the ‘unseeable’ – to create a ‘visual Esperanto’ understandable by everyone. Until the end of his days Filonov passionately believed in the importance of his discoveries, seeing himself as a prophet or a messiah, anticipating the Universal Flowering.

128

Pavel Filonov, Made Paintings, in in Misler, Bowlt, A Hero and His Fate (1983), 135

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Fragment from the cover to Chant of the Universal Flowering, Petrograd [1915], Russian State Museum Library 2. Self-Portrait, 1909-1910. Ink on paper, 6.8x10.5. Private collection 3. Abraham and the Trinity (Abraham and the Travellers) 1912. Indian ink on paper, 4.1x5.1 (GRM cat. 107) 4. Man and Woman (Adam and Eve), 1912-1913. Indian ink, pencil on paper, 4.4x4.8 (GRM cat. 112) 5. Easter, 1912-1913. Watercolour on paper. Private collection 6. Adoration of the Magi, 1913. Tempera on paper, 13.9x17.8, Private collection, Switzerland 7. Three at the Table, 1914-1915. Oil on canvas, 40.5x39.7, State Russian Museum (SPb) 8. Adoration of the Magi, 1912. First reproduction on the catalogue of The Union of Youth (SPb, 1912, No 2) 9. Untitled (St George), 1915. Aquarelle, gouache, pencil on paper, 10x11.1, State Russian Museum (SPb) 10. St George, Novgorod XVth century 11. Untitled (What a Child Sees and Feels), 1922-1929. Watercolors and graphite on paper, 5.4x4.7 (GRM Cat. 179) 12. The Flight into Egypt (Migrants?), 1918. Oil on canvas, 27.9x35.1, Collection of T.P. Whitney, Connecticut 13. Draymen, 1915. Aquarelle, ink on paper, 17.7x20.3, State Russian Museum (SPb) 14. Oxen, 1918. Oil on canvas, 25.6x31.4, State Russian Museum (SPb) 15. Formula of Petrograd Proletariat, 1920-1921. Oil on canvas, 46.6x60.6, State Russian Museum (SPb) 16. Girl with a flower, 1913. Aquarelle, ink on paper, 7.8x7.8, State Russian Museum (SPb) 17. Degeneration of an Intellectual, 1914-1915. Oil on canvas, 45.8x60.6, State Russian Museum (SPb) 18. Peasant Family/Holy Family, 1914. Oil on canvas, 62.5x50.3, State Russian Museum (SPb) Â

19. Shrovetide and Exit from Winter into Summer, 1913. Oil on canvas, 31.1x38.9, State Russian Museum 20. Flowers, 1912-1913. Graphite on paper, 17.8x13.3, State Russian Museum (SPb) 21. Mother, 1916. Watercolour, ink, pencil on paper, 19.9x20.4, State Russian Museum 22. Conqueror of the City, 1914-1915. Watercolour, ink, pencil on paper, 20.3x18.5, State Russian Museum 23. Pimenovskaya Mother of God, XIVth century 24. Portrait of N. Glebov-Putilovsky, 1935-1936. Watercolour and ink on paper, 23.2x18.1, State Russian Museum 25. Mother and Child, 1923. Watercolour and ink on paper, 8.6x6.1, State Russian Museum (SPb) 26. Collective Farmer, 1931. Oil on canvas, 27.1x20.8, State Russian Museum

I, Elena V. Fadeeva hereby certify that this dissertation, which is 14737 words in length, has been written by me, that it is a record of work carried out by me, and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. 20.08.2015