Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia: The Peredvizhniki, a Partnership of Artists 9781501335525, 9781501335556, 9781501335549

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Conventions
Introduction
Part One The Peredvizhniki Represent Themselves
1 Commercial Institutionalization, 1870–71
2 Selling the Exhibition, 1871–97
3 Self-Fashioning in Group Photographs, 1886–97
4 Revealing the Art Manifesto, 1888
Part Two The Peredvizhniki in the Eyes of the Critics
5 Inaugural Success: The First Show, 1871
6 Split with the Academy: The Fifth Exhibition, 1876
7 Critical Point: The Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Shows, 1883–85
8 Self-Defence: The Partnership’s Anniversary Reports, 1888, 1897
Conclusion: The Peredvizhniki in a Broader European Context
Appendix
1. Charter of the Partnership for Touring Art Exhibitions, 1870
2. The Partnership’s Fifteenth Anniversary Report, 1888
3. The Partnership’s Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, 1897
4. A List of the Touring Art Exhibitions and Statistics
Selected Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia The Peredvizhniki, a Partnership of Artists Andrey Shabanov

BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America 2019 Copyright © Andrey Shabanov, 2019 For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Irene Martinez Costa Front cover image © Andrei Denier, the Partnership’s group photograph, St Petersburg, 1888, version 2. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. Back cover image: Visual collage of the production of the travelling exhibition, published in Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, 1892 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: ePDF: eBook:

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Contents List of Figuresvi Acknowledgementsxi Conventionsxiii Introduction1 Part One  The Peredvizhniki Represent Themselves

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1 2 3 4

13

Commercial Institutionalization, 1870–71 Selling the Exhibition, 1871–97 Self-Fashioning in Group Photographs, 1886–97 Revealing the Art Manifesto, 1888

33 85 107

Part Two  The Peredvizhniki in the Eyes of the Critics

119

5 6 7 8

121

Inaugural Success: The First Show, 1871 Split with the Academy: The Fifth Exhibition, 1876 Critical Point: The Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Shows, 1883–85 Self-Defence: The Partnership’s Anniversary Reports, 1888, 1897

Conclusion: The Peredvizhniki in a Broader European Context

147 167 203 217

Appendix 1. Charter of the Partnership for Touring Art Exhibitions, 1870223 2. The Partnership’s Fifteenth Anniversary Report, 1888227 3. The Partnership’s Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, 1897235 4. A List of the Touring Art Exhibitions and Statistics249 Selected Bibliography256 Index263

Figures 1 2

3

4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

The title page of the Partnership Charter registered in 1870 Complete map of the Russian railways and telegraphs (in use, under construction and planned), as at 1 March 1866. Courtesy National Library of Russia Map of the railways of the European part of the Russian Empire (in use, under construction and planned), as at 1870. Courtesy National Library of Russia Visual collage of the making of the touring exhibition, from World Illustration, 1892 The Imperial Academy of Arts, St Petersburg, 1869. Courtesy National Library of Russia Bolshaia Morskaia Street, St Petersburg, c. 1890s. On the far right: The Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. Courtesy of National Library of Russia An advert of the first exhibition in St Petersburg, from the Saint Petersburg Bulletin, 1871 An advert of the seventh exhibition in St Petersburg, from the Saint Petersburg Bulletin, 1879 A view of the second touring exhibition at the Academy, from World Illustration, 1873 A view of the fourteenth exhibition at the Academy of Sciences, from Virgin, 1886 The first page of the first exhibition guide, 1871 The first page of the catalogue of the twenty-fifth exhibition, 1897 The first page of the illustrated catalogue of the second exhibition. Etching, aquatint, 1873. Courtesy National Library of Russia The first page of the illustrated catalogue of the third exhibition. Etching, aquatint, 1874. Courtesy National Library of Russia Sample plate from the illustrated catalogue of the third exhibition. Nikolai Ge, sketches after his paintings Ekaterina Next to the Coffin of Elisabeth (top) and portrait of Mikhail Reitern. Etching, aquatint. Caption: Nikolai Ge. 1874 21st January. Courtesy National Library of Russia

14

24

25 33 36

39

47 48 53 53 56 59 62 63

64

Figures

16 Sample plate from the illustrated catalogue of the second exhibition. Ivan Kramskoi, sketches after his two etudes of peasants and Vasilii Perov’s four portraits. Etching. From top left clockwise: Etude (peasant), Fedor Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Vladimir Dal (lexicographer), Mikhail Pogodin (historian), Etude (peasant). Courtesy National Library of Russia 17 Sample plate from the illustrated catalogue of the second exhibition. Aleksei Bogoliubov, sketches after his paintings. Etching. Caption: Aleksei Bogoliubov. Courtesy National Library of Russia 18 Sample plate from the illustrated catalogue of the third exhibition. Konstantin Savitskii, sketches after Arkhip Kuindzhi’s painting Forgotten Village (top) and Illarion Prianishnikov’s painting Episode from 1812 War. Etching, aquatint. Caption: Kuindzhi Forgotten Village; Prianishnikov 1812. Courtesy National Library of Russia 19 The cover page of the illustrated catalogue of the sixteenth touring exhibition, 1888 20 Sample page of the illustrated catalogue of the sixteenth touring exhibition, 1888 21 The cover page of the illustrated catalogue of the eighteenth touring exhibition, 1890 22 The title page of the illustrated catalogue of the seventeenth touring exhibition, 1891 23 The Partnership’s report for the eighteenth exhibition (attachment to the catalogue of the nineteenth exhibition), 1891 24 Mikhail Panov, the Partnership’s group photograph, Moscow, 1885, version 1. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. Standing from left to right – Grigorii Miasoedov, Konstantin Savitskii, Vasilii Polenov, Efim E. Volkov, Vasilii Surikov, Ivan Shishkin, Nikolai Iaroshenko, Pavel Briullov, Aleksandr Beggrov; seated – Sergey Ammosov, Aleksandr Kiselev, Nikolai Nevrev, Vladimir Makovskii, Aleksandr Litovchenko, Illarion Prianishnikov, Karl Lemokh, Ivan Kramskoi, Ilya Repin, Pavel Ivachev, Nikolai Makovskii 25 Mikhail Panov, the Partnership’s group photograph, Moscow, 1885, version 2. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery 26 Mikhail Panov, the Partnership’s group photograph, Moscow, 1885, version 3. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery

vii

65

66

67 70 71 75 76 79

86 86 87

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Figures

27 Andrei Denier, the Partnership’s group photograph, St Petersburg, 1888, version 1. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. Standing from left to right – Aleksandr Litovchenko, Leonid Pozen, Pavel Briullov, Arkhip Kuindzhi, Nikolai Nevrev, Nikolai Dubovskoi; seated – 1st row: Nikolai Kuznetsov, Vladimir Makovskii, Efim Volkov, Konstantin Savitskii, Vasilii Maksimov, Apollinarii Vasnetsov, Ivan Shishkin, Karl Lemokh; 2nd row: Grigorii Miasoedov, Ilya Repin, Aleksandr Beggrov, Nikolai Bodarevskii, Alexander Kiselev, Mikhail Klodt, Nikolai Iaroshenko, Illarion Prianishnikov 87 28 Andrei Denier, the Partnership’s group photograph, St Petersburg, 1888, version 2. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery 88 29 Denier’s Studio. Group photograph of members and exponents of the Partnership, St Petersburg, 1897, version 4 of 4. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery 88 30 Extract from magazine Family, 1893 91 31 Extract from newspaper New Time, 1897 92 32 Extract from the magazine World Illustration, 1897 93 33 Peredvizhniki during the installation or the balloting process at the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, St Petersburg, 1894. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery 102 34 Peredvizhniki at the exhibition at the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, St Petersburg, 1894, version 1 of 3. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery 103 35 Peredvizhniki at the restaurant Cubat or Donon, St Petersburg, 1892. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery 104 36 Table of the reports of the Partnership for the fifteen exhibitions (attachment to the catalogue of the sixteenth exhibition), 1888 108 37 Caricature ‘Types of artists’, from World Illustration, 1871 126 38 Nikolai Ge, Peter the Great Interrogating Tsarevich Aleksei at Peterhof, 1871. Oil on canvas, 136 × 173 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery 130 39 Vasilii Perov, Hunters at Rest, 1871. Oil on canvas, 119 × 183 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery 133 40 The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the Partnership’s first show, 1871. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Aleksei Savrasov, The Rooks Have Returned, 1871, 62 × 48 cm; Mikhail Klodt, Midday, 1869, 71 × 108 cm. Courtesy State Russian Museum; Nikolai Ge,

Figures

41 42 43

44 45

46 47

Peter the Great Interrogating Tsarevich Aleksei at Peterhof, 1871, 136 × 173 cm; Vasilii Perov, Hunters at Rest, 1871, 119 × 183 cm; Illarion Prianishnikov, Empty Sledges, 1872, 50 × 72 cm; Ivan Kramskoi, Count Fedor Litke, 1871, 114 × 52 cm. Courtesy Pushkinskii Dom; Vasilii Perov, Aleksandr Ostrovskii, 1871, 103 × 81 cm. Fedor Bronnikov, Artists in the Antechamber of a Rich Man, 1876. Oil on canvas, 70 × 100 cm. Location unknown Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ukrainian Night, 1876. Oil on canvas, 79 × 162 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the fifth touring exhibition, 1876. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Mikhail Klodt, Forest Distance at Midday, 1876, 93 × 157 cm; Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ukrainian Night, 1876, 79 × 162 cm; Vasilii Maksimov, Family Separation, 1876, 106 × 148 cm; Fedor Bronnikov, Artists in the Antechamber of a Rich Man, 1876, 70 × 100 cm. Location unknown; Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of Grigorovich, 1876, 86 × 68 cm; Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of His Imperial Highness the Heir Tsesarevich, 1875, 249 × 182 cm. Location unknown Ilya Repin, Religious Procession in the Province of Kursk, 1880–83. Oil on canvas, 175 × 280 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the eleventh touring exhibition, 1883. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Ivan Shishkin, Amongst Even Valleys, 1883, 136 × 203 cm. Courtesy Kiev National Museum of Russian Art; Vasilii Surikov, Menshikov in Berezov, 1883, 169 × 204 cm; Ilya Repin, Religious Procession in the Province of Kursk, 1880–1883, 175 × 280 cm; Konstantin Savitskii, Fugitive, 1883, 72 × 144 cm; Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of Botkin, 1882, 71 × 57 cm; Ivan Kramskoi, Unknown Woman, 1883, 75 × 99 cm Ilya Repin, They Did Not Expect Him, 1884–88. Oil on canvas, 160 × 170 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the twelfth touring exhibition, 1884. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Ivan Shishkin, Forest Distance, 1884, 113 × 164 cm; Viktor Vasnetsov, Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom, 1884, 164 × 297 cm. Courtesy Kiev

ix

134 157 158

160 170

172 181

x

48 49

50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Figures

National Museum of Russian Art; Ivan Kramskoi, Inconsolable Grief, 1884, 228 × 141 cm; Ilya Repin, They Did Not Expect Him, 1884–1888, 160 × 170 cm; Ilya Repin, Portrait of Pavel Tretyakov, 1883, 101 × 77 cm. Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581, 1885. Oil on canvas, 200 × 254 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the thirteenth touring exhibition, 1885. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Ivan Shishkin, Foggy Morning, 1885, 108 × 146 cm. Courtesy Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum; Sergei Miloradovich, Black Convocation, 1885, 135 × 189 cm; Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581, 1885, 200 × 254 cm; Sergei Korovin, Before Punishment in the Volost’ Administration, 1884, 63 × 86 cm. Courtesy Museum of Contemporary History of Russia Visual reportage from the thirteenth touring exhibition at the Iusupov House, from Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, 1885. Caption: St Petersburg, The thirteenth touring exhibition. In front of Ilya Repin’s painting Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581 Cover page of Aleksei Novitskii’s monograph Peredvizhniki and Their Influence on Russian Art, 1897 Visual digest of the fourteenth touring exhibition, from World Illustration, 1886 Visual digest of the twenty-first touring exhibition, from World Illustration, 1893 Visual digest of the twenty-third touring exhibition, from World Illustration, 1895 Title page of the album for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Partnership, 1900 Table of the reports of the Partnership for the twenty-five exhibitions (attachment to the twenty-fifth anniversary album), 1900 A sample from the twenty-fifth anniversary album, page 113 A circle graph of the Partnership’s average exhibition: the proportion of painting genres A circle graph of the twenty-fifth anniversary album: the proportion of painting genres

182 187

188

190 191 195 195 196 204 207 208 210 211

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the many people who made this publication possible. This book is a result of the long-term research project which I started at my master’s degree level at the European University at St Petersburg and then fully developed while studying for a PhD at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Therefore, I would like to express my sincere gratitude firstly to members of the Art History Department of the European University at St Petersburg, and foremost to Kira Dolinina, Professor Roman Grigoryev, Professor Daniil Aleksandrov and, especially, Professor Ilya Doronchenkov, for their recommendations and enthusiastic support of my efforts to elevate the project to an international academic standard at The Courtauld. The text of this monograph is a heavily revised version of my PhD thesis, carried out under the supervision of the social art historian Professor David Solkin between 2008 and 2013. It is thanks to Professor Solkin’s knowledgeable and flexible methodological vision that this monograph is able to present new arguments about, employ modern research approaches to, and hopefully provide a better understanding of the supposedly over-studied Peredvizhniki movement. It was an intellectual pleasure and privilege to work with him, and I am indebted to him for his generous and attentive guardianship of my research, which far exceeded my expectations. I am also grateful to Professor John Milner, Dr Polly Blakesley and Professor Susan Morrissey for their thorough reading of the text and the invaluable comments and suggestions they made at different stages of the research, all of which helped me to improve the clarity of my arguments. No less important was the help of colleagues at the National Library of Finland (special thanks to Irina Lukka), the Russian National Library (special thanks to Alla Laipidus) and the Library of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. My special gratitude goes to Virginia Rounding for providing the most longstanding and highly professional writing and proofreading assistance. My research project would not have been possible without considerable and enlightened financial support. I am endlessly thankful to the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (and personally to Oksana Oracheva, the former head of the former Moscow office) for the crucial funding of the

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Acknowledgements

first three years of my research; to the ‘V-A-C Foundation – the Art of being Contemporary: The Olga Lopukhova Scholarship’ for kindly covering my last research year; and, finally, to Le Centre franco-russe en sciences humaines et sociales de Moscou for covering my research trip to Paris in summer 2013. There are many excellent people who have backed, elaborated and pushed forward this publication with Bloomsbury Academic. I am very grateful to Jeremy Howard and John Bowlt for their recommendations and to Margaret Michniewicz for her enthusiastic response and careful supervision of the whole project, and to Katherine De Chant and Erin Duffy for their knowledgeable, responsive and professional assistance during the production process. I would like to thank both anonymous external reviewers for their positive responses and the very detailed and thoughtful comments about how to improve the final manuscript of the book. And my sincere gratitude goes to Bloomsbury Academic’s production team: Katherine Bosiacki, Lauren Crisp and Rebecca Willford. The kind support of Zelfira Tregulova, the director of the State Tretyakov Gallery, was important in obtaining the reproductions and is highly appreciated. Finally, many thanks to my sister, friends and colleagues who were around and made many things possible and easy: Anne-Catherine Jekel, Aleksandr Altshuler and Arsenii Reikher, Alexei Gorin and Jonathan Etzold, Anna Tolstova, Darya Agapova and Mikhail Kopotev, Mike Welsh, Natasha Kopelianskaya, April and Nicholas de Mesquita, Polina Ermakova, Vadim Bass, Iulia and Antuan Cattin, Mariia Baturina, Evgeniia Golant, Galina Mardilovich, Maria Revzina, Anna Tsvetkova and the many other people I was fortunate to meet during my work on this project. St Petersburg, May 2018

Conventions For clarity and readability, this monograph employs a few modifications to the Library of Congress system of transliteration, which it uses in the main. In particular, I omit diacritical marks, and hard and soft signs from proper nouns. I also use established English versions of names of places (e.g. Moscow, Kazan), rulers (e.g. Alexander II, Nicholas II) and well-known Russians (e.g. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Diaghilev, Tretyakov or Tchaikovsky). I mention a person’s patronymic (middle name derived from the father’s first name) only when this is necessary to distinguish between two people with the same first and family names. The names of some places are different or vary in modern Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Poland or the Baltic states. I here use the (transliterated) Russian versions which were commonly used during the period covered by this book. As a translation for the Russian Tovarishchestvo, I use the English word ‘Partnership’, instead of the word commonly used in English scholarship – ‘Association’. It is true that a partnership is a form of association, but the latter is a more generic term and could equally be applied to a non-commercial type of professional consolidation of people (e.g. in science), the sort of connotation I would like to avoid, for the clarity of my argument. The term ‘partnership’ most closely renders the nuances, including the juridical, of the Russian original, and assumes a primarily business-oriented purpose and character which, as my book will demonstrate, is appropriate in this case. I am aware that my use of the term ‘bourgeoisie’ may appear to some at best anachronistic and at worst entirely inappropriate to describe a class of individuals in late nineteenth-century Russia, which saw the long-established merchant estate undergo a transformation into industrial, commercial and financial interests. Whether or not these interests (in whole or in part) constituted a ‘bourgeoisie’ in the sense normally associated with the European social class of the same name during the period is a matter for debate, but not one with which this work attempts to engage. As will be shown in the book, the artists wished to identify themselves with the emergence of a new group of buyers. I have decided to treat this new social constituency under the heading of a ‘bourgeoisie’, rather

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than of an old ‘merchant’ class, in order to register this sense of difference, and in the absence of any obviously better alternative. Unless ‘Academy of Sciences’ is specified, the word ‘Academy’ always refers to the Academy of Arts. Unless specified otherwise, all translations are mine.

Introduction

Peredvizhniki, also known in English as the ‘Wanderers’, is the label that art critics and the general public alike attached to a group of artists from Moscow and St Petersburg in the 1870s. This neologism was derived from peredvizhnaia vystavka (touring exhibition), and referred to the artists’ practice of mounting touring exhibitions in the Russian provinces. The group was established in 1870 and operated until 1923, organizing a total of forty-eight shows.1 This places the final stage of what has come to be considered the Peredvizhniki realist movement alongside the Russian avant-garde and early Soviet Modernism. This monograph, however, will focus on the period between the group’s foundation and the publication of their twenty-fifth anniversary album in 1897.2 For it was during this time that the Peredvizhniki gained an identity that would eventually dominate modern art-historical accounts; this book aims to question that identity. Although contemporary perceptions of the group were far from uniform, one line of argument eventually became dominant. This is best exemplified by the art criticism of Vladimir Stasov (1824–1906), who identified the Peredvizhniki with a coherent ideological and artistic programme, coupled with a strong altruistic and enlightened commitment to public service. In particular, he argued that the group had emerged with the slogan ‘Nationality and Realism’ to oppose the Academy’s routine, cosmopolitan approach and classical, idealist aesthetics.3 Stasov’s influence is evident in the works of the first bibliographer of the group, Nikolai Sobko, and in the earliest monograph published on the occasion of the Peredvizhniki’s twenty-fifth anniversary in 1897.4 Later, in the first major scholarly survey of nineteenth-century Russian art, the prominent art historian Alexandre Benois not so much objected to this point of view as identified the Peredvizhniki movement in a more narrow manner with the genre painting of contemporary subjects presented in the form of stories, typically told in a didactic or critical manner (hence, ‘critical realism’).5 Stalinist art historians went further in only

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Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

one respect: they politicized the group by labelling them populists (narodniki) faithfully carrying out the precepts of Russian revolutionary democrats of the 1860s and bringing their didactic art to the people in authoritarian Tsarist Russia. Much of what we know today about the first independent art group to emerge in late imperial Russia is still considerably coloured by this Soviet view,6 despite the fact that virtually the entire Partnership’s business archive was published (yet has hardly been analysed) as early as 1987, and which suggests a far more complex story of the group.7 Although outside Russia the Peredvizhniki have attracted noticeably less scholarly attention (unlike the early twentieth-century Russian avant-garde movements), two landmark works in English represent a significant challenge to the Soviet orthodoxy. The earliest scholarly de-politicization of the Stalinist reading of the Peredvizhniki was advanced by the American historian Elizabeth Valkenier, in her seminal work Russian Realist Art. The State and Society: The Peredvizhniki and Their Tradition (1977).8 Demonstrating first how the group actually evolved from dissidents to academic painters of the cultural establishment, she then goes on to present an exhaustive historiographic investigation of the politically motivated Stalinist falsification of the facts surrounding the movement, showing exactly how Stalin-era scholars shaped the history of the Peredvizhniki to fashion them into the forefathers of Socialist Realism. British art historian David Jackson’s most recent and in many respects revisionist monograph The Wanderers and Critical Realism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Painting (2006) overcomes the major Soviet cliché in regard to the visual legacy of the Peredvizhniki.9 While taking the two scholars’ findings further, this monograph questions their still rather conventional understanding – and accordingly overall narrative – of the Peredvizhniki as a realist art movement. Originating from the art critic Stasov and firmly cemented during the Soviet period, this prevailing scholarly understanding of the Peredvizhniki neither conforms to the manner in which the artists chose to represent themselves and their exhibitions publicly nor satisfactorily explains the extraordinary fact that the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions, which began in 1870, continued through the liberal period of Alexander II’s rule, into the more conservative and repressive government of Alexander III, and persisted through the politically most turbulent reign of Nicholas II.10 How is it possible that an independent, civic-minded, politically vocal realist art group could demonstrate such unprecedented longevity and stable public success, considering that it existed in such an unstable and essentially authoritarian political climate?

Introduction

3

The actual history of the Peredvizhniki is far less romantic, but no less exciting. Returning the group to its original social and exhibition context, this book argues that, throughout the entire period of their existence, the Peredvizhniki comprised a commercial exhibition enterprise – the Partnership for touring art exhibitions; that, at least until the mid-1880s, they did not constitute an art movement in the eyes of the critics (i.e. a movement committed to the promotion of a definable aesthetic agenda) nor was it their primary intention to constitute such a movement, for aesthetic commitment and altruism were far less important to the group than the creation of a sustainable business in an unstable and authoritarian political environment; and that the group, for pragmatic reasons, not only consistently represented itself as business-like, aesthetically open and public-spirited, but also produced stylistically and thematically heterogeneous, inclusive displays, promoting equally history painting, contemporary subjects, landscape and portraiture. Commercially, it would have been unwise and unviable to promote a narrow artistic agenda, for the annual alternative to the Academy’s exhibition platform had to be thematically newsworthy and diverse in order to attract audiences over an extended period. This argument is in line with the still marginal socio-economic understanding of the Peredvizhniki, which first originated with the Marxist art-historical tradition. Its boldest expression is to be found in the seminal The Russian Art of Industrial Capitalism (1929) by Aleksei Fedorov-Davydov, who was the first to dismiss ideological motivations behind the group in favour of economic ones.11 He claimed that the political radicalism of their forerunners, the artists of the 1850s to 1860s, has been unjustifiably projected on to the Peredvizhniki of the 1870s to 1880s, and emphasized the telling fact that the initial intellectual leader of the Peredvizhniki, Ivan Kramskoi, never created any paintings with ‘civicminded’ (grazhdanskikh) topics. Also central to this work was the statement that: Even in its heyday in the 1870s–1880s the Peredvizhniki did not represent a coherent whole [edinoe tseloe]. It is not by chance that the majority of the first artist-proponents of the new style belonged to the Peredvizhniki. A new style could arise within the Peredvizhniki precisely because, despite all its verbal ideology, they constituted only a group of individuals [gruppirovkoi lits] and not a stylistic movement.12

Instead, the artists represented a commercial and inclusive exhibition enterprise. The only problem with Fedorov-Davydov’s claims is that he did not really support or develop them any further. Perhaps this may help to explain why his work has been unduly neglected, alongside the obvious fact that his reading was

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Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

not ideologically useful from the 1930s onwards. To be sure, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian scholarly approaches to the Peredvizhniki have gradually begun to change, and certain recent accounts have acknowledged that commercial motives underlay this collective artistic enterprise.13 Such acknowledgements have gone hand in hand with an increasing willingness to question several key assumptions about the group, such as their ostensible antagonism towards the Academy and their supposed domination by ‘social critics’ who used art to denounce Russia’s repressive political and social order.14 Yet all these instances have a rather discrete and sporadic character, while contemporary Russian art history has remained largely unexposed to the scholarly trend of the social history of art, which has significantly recalibrated the art-historical tradition in the English-speaking West since the 1970s. Hence, it is still the Marxist Fedorov-Davydov who provides a point of departure for the present work: for he at least attempted to meaningfully connect commerce and art, arguing that the essentially pragmatic, commercial foundation of the Peredvizhniki’s enterprise shaped the inclusive and aesthetically open character of their shows. A socio-economic interpretation of the Peredvizhniki movement, however, inevitably raises the second key question – which is also something of a counterquestion – of this work: why, despite the group’s manifestly business-like and aesthetically open self-representation and the inclusive and heterogeneous character of its displays, did the contemporary critics eventually come to define the group as a critically minded realist movement? The monograph will likewise demonstrate how this significant transformation came about. Adjusting two distinct views of the Peredvizhniki, this work thus shows that there are elements of truth in both the existing scholarly interpretations, and elucidates how the durable pragmatic aspect of the Partnership enabled its critical and civic-minded agenda. The well-deserved status of the first independent, viable and highly influential exhibition enterprise in Tsarist Russia had many cultural and social outcomes, which make the Peredvizhniki an important case for scholars across the disciplines. The extent to which this group of artists and their exhibitions participated in developing the definition of realism, and the character of their relation to a more advanced Russian literary tradition and to the European realist tradition in general, are still subjects for considerable debate.15 And this monograph adds a novel angle to this ongoing discussion: that the group’s agenda seems to have been not so much realism as the aesthetically much

Introduction

5

broader  concept of Russianness (which also made perfect commercial sense). Hence, the Peredvizhniki’s activity resonated with broader cultural mechanisms involved in the construction of national identity during the period, and placed them along similar institutional developments, such as the Russian national pavilions at the flourishing international exhibitions or the national museums of Russian art, of which their art became an essential part towards the end of the century.16 One may also argue that this group of artists, representing a type of voluntary association, based on egalitarian principles and promoting meritocratic values, also became an important agent in developing civil society in Russia, on a par with similar professional associations of scientists, lawyers or doctors.17 What strengthens this view is the fact that the regular, independent and nationwide character of the group’s exhibitions lent some new contours and manifestations to the notion of public space in Russia. Yet it is in regard to the institutional development within the world of art that the Partnership undoubtedly constituted the watershed moment in the history of nineteenthcentury Russian art.18 This group of painters alone initiated or catalysed the modernization of art institutions and practices and the valorization of their profession on the market, as well as affecting the reviewing habits of their critics, all of which facilitated subsequent modernist developments in the arts. For the Peredvizhniki’s effective privatization of the exhibition practice became a stimulus, as much as the paradigmatic case, for the subsequent self-organizations and groupings of Russian artists. A short way to describe this work is as an example of institutional art history, for the main research objective is to examine a specific, historically located, professional art institution comprising a partnership of artists who organized collective art exhibitions, rather than a single artist or a group of (isolated) paintings.19 In considering the Partnership, its exhibitions and their critical perception as the product of and a response to a specific set of cultural, social and political circumstances, this work is also informed by the scholarly traditions of the sociology of art20 and the social history of art, in particular.21 In developing the proposed arguments, this narrative is choreographed around two major conceptual parts, which traverse much of the same chronological territory: the first part addressing how the Peredvizhniki represented themselves, and the second how the group and its exhibitions were perceived by their contemporaries. While both parts focus on and analyse only the facts, documents and paintings which circulated in the public domain, such structuring allows us, on the one hand, to trace all the consistencies in

6

Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

and notable deviations from the usual manner in which the Peredvizhniki represented themselves over a certain period of time and the significance of that employed strategy for the Partnership’s endurance (Part One). And on the other, it helps us to gradually observe the evolving character of the Partnership’s shows and their critical perception, and in so doing to expose mechanisms of mythologization of the Peredvizhniki within the world of art and the role of artists and critics in this essentially collective process (Part Two). Thus, the first four chapters of the monograph examine how from the outset the Peredvizhniki set about attempting to represent and control their public image, and the various factors that helped to shape the tactics they deployed. An initial aim (in Chapter 1) is to provide an analysis of the social conditions out of which the group emerged and of the specific manner in which they constituted themselves as a partnership of artists. This is followed by an examination of the artists’ promotional materials for their exhibitions during all the stages of their production (Chapter 2); of their group photographs (Chapter 3); and, finally, of their fifteenth anniversary report, in which the artists retrospectively evaluated their business experience of running an exhibition enterprise, and in such a context for the first time publicly and unexpectedly presented an artistic manifesto (Chapter 4). But the Peredvizhniki’s self-presentational aesthetic programme was nowhere better defined than in the group’s exhibitions. Like other social histories that have been written about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European art, this study makes extensive use of contemporary criticism as a means of gauging how the group’s endeavours were regarded at the time they took place. It is only through an analysis of the criticism that we can gain a clear understanding of how the Peredvizhniki evolved in the public eye into a realist art movement and how they, as well as their reviewers, participated in this development. Case studies of the group’s inaugural exhibition of 1871 (Chapter 5), the fifth show (1876; Chapter 6) and the sequence of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth shows (1883–85; Chapter 7) trace the shift in critical perceptions of the Peredvizhniki as a realist art movement, despite their commercially savvy, inclusive and heterogeneous displays. The final case study deals mainly with the group’s twenty-fifth anniversary illustrated album (Chapter 8) which, in many respects, summarizes and personifies the complex identity that the group eventually embraced, and which this work strives to recover. Based on these new findings, the Conclusion relates the supposedly unique phenomenon of the Peredvizhniki in art history to similar late nineteenthcentury institutional developments in Europe.

Introduction

7

Notes   1 See the earliest comprehensive bibliography concerning the various aspects of the group in Genrietta Burova, Olga Gaponova and Vera Rumiantseva, eds, Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok, 2 vols. (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1952–9); and the full list of catalogues in Gennadii Romanov, ed., Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. Entsyklopediia, 1871–1923 (St Petersburg: Sankt Peterburg Orkestr, 2003).   2 Al’bom dvadtsatipiatiletiia tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok, 1872–1897 (Moscow: K. A. Fisher, 1897).   3 Vladimir Stasov, ‘Dvadtsat’ piat’ let russkogo iskusstva. Stat’ia vtoroia. Okonchanie’, Vestnik Evropy, no. 12, December 1882, 637–8.   4 Aleksei Novitskii, Peredvizhniki i ikh vliianie na russkoe iskusstvo (Moscow: Grosman and Knebel, 1897).   5 Alexandre Benois, Istoriia russkoi zhivopisi v XIX veke (St Petersburg: Znanie, 1901–02); Alexandre Benois, Russkaia shkola zhivopisi (St Petersburg: R. Golike and A. Vilborg, 1904).   6 See the latest and most comprehensive Soviet monograph on the group: Frida Roginskaia, Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1989).   7 Sof ’ia Goldshtein, ed., Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok: Pis’ma, dokumenty, 2 vols (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987). Some important archival sources related to the Partnership have been translated into English: Experiment: A Journal of Russian Culture 14, no. 1 (2008).   8 Elizabeth Valkenier, Russian Realist Art. The State and Society: The Peredvizhniki and Their Tradition (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1977).   9 David Jackson, The Wanderers and Critical Realism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Painting (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006). See also: David Jackson and Per Hedstrom, eds, The Peredvizhniki: Pioneers of Russian Painting (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 2011). 10 See the most recent scholarship on this period of the Russian political history: Vladimir Lapin, Aleksandr II. Tragediia reformatora: liudi v sud’bakh reform, reformy v sud’bakh liudei (St Petersburg: EUSP Press, 2012); Iulia Safronova, Russkoe obchshestvo v zerkale revolutsionnogo terrora, 1879–1881 (Moscow: NLO, 2014); David Saunders, Russia in the Age of Reaction and Reform 1801–1881 (London: Longman, 1992); Aleksandr Polunov, Russia in the Nineteenth Century: Autocracy, Reform, and Social Change, 1814–1914 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2005); Thomas Pearson, Russian Officialdom in Crisis: Autocracy and Local Self-Government, 1861–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989);

8

11 12 13

14

15

16

Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia Dmitrii Burlaka, ed., Aleksandr III: pro et contra: lichnost’ i deianiia imperatora Aleksandra III v otsenkakh otechestvennykh myslitelei i issledovatelei (St Petersburg: Tsentr sodeistviia obrazovaniiu, 2013); Valentina Chernukha, Aleksandr III: vospominaniia, dnevniki, pis’ma (St Petersburg: Pushk. fond, 2001); Hans Rogger, Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution 1881–1917 (London: Longman, 1983); Valentina Chernukha, Pravitel’stvennaia politika v otnoshenii pechati, 60–70-e gody XIX veka (Leningrad: Nauka, 1989); Petr Zaionchkovskii, The Russian Autocracy under Alexander III (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1976). Aleksei Fedorov-Davydov, Russkoe iskusstvo promyshlennogo kapitalisma (Moscow: G.AKh.N., 1929), 175. Ibid., 193. See foremost: Dmitri Severiukhin, Staryi khudozhestvennyi Peterburg: rynok i samoorganizatsiia khudozhnikov ot nachala XVIII veka do 1932 goda (St Petersburg: Mir, 2008); Evgeny Steiner, ‘A Battle for the “People’s Cause” or for the Market Case: Kramskoi and the Itinerants’, Cahiers du Monde Russe 50, no. 4 (2009): 627–46; Evgeny Steiner, ‘Pursuing Independence: Kramskoi and the Peredvizhniki vs. the Academy of Arts’, The Russian Review 70, no. 2 (2011): 252–71; Grigorii Sternin, Khudozhestvennaia zhizn’ Rossii vtoroi poloviny XIX veka, 70–80 gody (Мoscow: Nauka, 1997); Aleksei Bobrikov, Drugaia istoriia russkogo iskusstva (Moscow: NLO, 2012); Semen Ekshtut, Shaika peredvizhnikov. Istoria odnogo tvorcheskogo soiuza (Moscow: Drofa, 2008); Dmitrii Sarab’ianov, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Peredvizhniki’, Experiment 14, no. 1 (2008): 1–17. See Elena Nesterova, Pozdnii akademism i salon (St Petersburg: Zoloi Vek, 2004); Richard Pipes, ‘Russia’s Itinerant Painters’, Russian History 38, no. 3 (2011): 315–427. See the most recent contribution to this debate: Molly Brunson, Russian Realisms: Literature and Painting, 1840–1890 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2016); Carol Adlam, ‘Realist Aesthetics in Nineteenth-Century Russian Art Writing’, The Slavonic and East European Review 83, no. 4 (2005): 638–63. See also: Gabriel Weisberg, ed., The European Realist Tradition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982); Linda Nochlin, Courbet (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007); Linda Nochlin, Realism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971); Linda Nochlin, The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991); Aleksei Fedorov-Davydov, Realism v russkoi zhivopisi XIX veka (Moscow: Izogiz, 1933). See the most recent account on this topic: Katia Dianina, When Art Makes News: Writing Culture and Identity in Imperial Russia, 1851–1900 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012).

Introduction

9

17 See Joseph Bradley, Voluntary Associations in Tsarist Russia: Science, Patriotism, and Civil Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009); Edith Clowes, Samuel Kassow and James West, eds, Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). 18 See, for instance, the two major recent accounts on the period that preceded the foundation of the Peredvizhniki group: Richard Stites, Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The Pleasure and the Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006); Rosalind P. Blakesley, The Russian Canvas: Painting in Imperial Russia, 1757–1881 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016). 19 See, for instance: Harrison White and Cynthia White, Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Patricia Mainardi, The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Charles S. Moffett, ed., The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886 (Oxford: Phaidon, 1986); David Solkin, ed., Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–1836 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002). 20 See foremost: Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993); Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996); Howard Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Janet Wolff, Social Production of Art (London: Macmillan, 1981). 21 See foremost: T. J. Clark, Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973); T. J. Clark, Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985); Thomas Crow, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth Century Paris (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985); David Solkin, Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993). See also Stephen Eisenman, Thomas Crow, Brian Lukacher, Linda Nochlin, David Llewellyn Phillips and Frances K. Pohl, eds, Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History, 4th edn (London: Thames and Hudson, 2011).

Part One

The Peredvizhniki Represent Themselves

1

Commercial Institutionalization, 1870–71

Be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves. Grigorii Miasoedov quoting Matthew 10.16 The Peredvizhniki’s foundation was anything but a spontaneous and unmistakably aesthetic decision. In the first – and for a long time the only – public document which declared the aims and methods of the newly founded group, the artists made it clear that they were creating a commercial exhibition enterprise. On 23 November 1870, an official charter registered the group under the compound name Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok or the Partnership for touring art exhibitions (Figure 1; see also Appendix 1). The first paragraph of the charter stated that the Partnership had been formed with the aim of organizing regular commercial touring exhibitions of Russian art. The following paragraphs describe the organizational and economic mechanisms for achieving this aim. In particular, from the ‘Membership’ section it can be inferred that the Partnership was to be open to all practising artists, who could join it to exhibit and sell their works independently and directly. The management of the Partnership was to be shared between two bodies: the annual General Meeting of all members and the Executive Board, whose members were to be appointed annually and who would undertake the dayto-day administration of each touring exhibition. The section entitled ‘Funds’ implies that the Partnership planned to finance the touring exhibitions through the sale of tickets and publications and through a 5 per cent commission from works sold; this commission would, nevertheless, remain the property of the individual artists, comprising their share in the Partnership Fund. This section also explains the two major sources of income for the members: the sale of their individual works, and dividends from the annual net profit of the exhibitions. Finally, we also learn from this section that the Partnership was to hire a special person to accompany the provincial part of the tour – that is, right from the start it was an exhibition, not a group of artists, that was intended to travel. In

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Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

Figure 1  The title page of the Partnership Charter registered in 1870.

Commercial Institutionalization, 1870–71

15

short, in the charter the artists set out in considerable detail the organizational aspects and anticipated economic benefits from the new exhibition enterprise. The only specific evidence as to a possible artistic motive behind the launching of the Partnership is provided by the words ‘Russian art’ in the description of the type of exhibitions the artists were intending to organize. This description, however, seems to be all-purpose and aesthetically open in the entirely business context of the charter. And the fact that the founding members mention their official professional titles and designations, bestowed by the Imperial Academy of Arts’ ranking system, only served to reinforce the impression of legitimacy.1 Among the fifteen artists who signed the charter were three professors (the highest title): Nikolai Ge (St Petersburg), Mikhail K. Klodt (St Petersburg) and Konstantin E. Makovskii (St Petersburg); eight academicians: Vasilii Perov (Moscow), Lev Kamenev (Moscow), Aleksei Savrasov (Moscow), Ivan Kramskoi (St Petersburg), Mikhail P. Klodt (St Petersburg), Ivan Shishkin (St Petersburg), Aleksei Korzukhin (St Petersburg) and Valerii Iakobi (St Petersburg); three ‘Master artists’: Karl Lemokh (St Petersburg), Grigorii Miasoedov (Moscow) and Illarion Prianishnikov (Moscow); and one ‘Artist’: Nikolai E. Makovskii (St Petersburg).2 At the first General Meeting on 16 December 1870, this group of largely established artists gave itself another year to prepare for the inaugural exhibition. Employing dry, precise and bureaucratic language, the charter was apparently all the artists openly said or wished to say about themselves in the beginning. Why is it that the Peredvizhniki proffered themselves as a commercial and aesthetically open undertaking, at the expense of any reference to their interest in promoting a specific artistic agenda (e.g. realism) which conventional art history would have us believe was their motivation? To understand the artists’ behaviour and self-presentation, one first needs to realize that the new group, while taking advantage of a growing social mobility in the country, had to register its existence with the Ministry of the Interior, and thus had to act within the constraints imposed by the contradictory political culture of the time. On the one hand, the Partnership emerged and took shape at a particularly opportune historical moment – only a decade after Alexander II’s major liberal reforms had modernized Russia’s social structure, stimulating mobility. In simple terms, one of the major after-effects of the reforms was the transformation of an estate (soslovnoe) society (judicially fixed nobility, clergy, urban residents and rural inhabitants) into a class society, the most distinguishing marks of which

16

Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

were and still are occupation, income and social capital. It was a shift towards a modern society where ‘the facts of education and individual initiative played a larger role in determining one’s prospects’.3 Historians agree that most reformers of the 1860s aspired to a transition from paternalistic control to the development of private and associative initiatives. As Gregory Freeze has remarked: ‘Aware that the state lacked the capability or even financial means to modernize, the reformers endeavoured to liberate society’s own vital forces and to create structures […] where local initiative could sponsor development.’4 This shift also had a direct effect on the arts: it was at this time that the ideology of ‘mutual assistance’ among art professionals and art lovers attracted a large following, which resulted in the formation of several of the societies and enterprises to be described here. On the other hand, Joseph Bradley argues that ‘the legal status and political environment of Russian associations were precarious and to a great degree determined by an autocratic state’. As they were voluntary, any such professional associations – whether in science or, as in our case, in the arts – demonstrated the potential for the self-organization of society. For their normal activities included public speaking, the compiling and publicizing of reports, conducting meetings and the electing and rotating of its governing bodies, all of which exposed association members to ‘constitutional structures and parliamentary procedures’. Such private collective initiatives in a public space inevitably constituted a critical element in the effort to gradually emancipate society from the arbitrary rule of autocracy.5 In consequence, the Russian government’s overall regulating policy, as defined by the authoritarian state, remained the same. According to the law, which was emphasized and clarified in 1867, it was ‘forbidden to all and everyone to organize and introduce a society, partnership, brotherhood or any such gathering of people in a city without informing or receiving the approval of the government’.6 Even if the artists had no direct knowledge of this unambiguous article of the Charter on Anticipation and Prevention of Crime, the state’s attitudes to organized associations would have been wholly familiar to them. In registering a new society, therefore, the artists had to formulate a charter which specified the aims and means of the organization while simultaneously respecting the conditions imposed by the state. But this was not the only overlap between the fields of power and art.7 All printed materials were subject to censorship. With very few exceptions, ‘any work of print, when printed, before its public dissemination’ had to be submitted to the local censor, according to the Charter on Censorship and Print. Among the exceptions were exhibition

Commercial Institutionalization, 1870–71

17

advertisements, the approval ‘of any posters and small announcements’ being ‘delegated to local police authorities’ instead. Those aspects of the censorship rules that would have had a direct effect on the publishing activity of the Peredvizhniki remained the same throughout the entire period in question.8 The phrase ‘approved by the censor’ was applied to – and can be observed on – all printed materials, from the charter, to the catalogues and public reports of the Partnership. While their awareness of censorship does not entirely explain the artists’ reticence, it may offer a first insight into their approach: to provide only what was expected by the terms of registration. The three surviving private letters of the artists reveal more of the earliest thinking behind the foundation of the Partnership within such an uneasy sociopolitical context. The first letter contains an outline of a charter along with a commentary. It was sent in November 1869 by six Moscow artists, including Miasoedov and Vasilii Perov, to the St Petersburg Artel of Artists, a form of artists’ cooperative. The second and third letters are from Miasoedov to Ivan Kramskoi – two leaders of the project in Moscow and St Petersburg respectively. The second letter, from February 1870, sets out some of the doubts and expectations of the artists, while the third, from September 1870, implies that the artists might use some of their personal contacts in the government to move the registration of the new organization forward. The fact that the registered version of the charter does not differ significantly from the draft version suggests that the artists spent the entire year discussing not so much its content as the possible consequences of its registration. Evidence for this can be found in the first two letters, which primarily concentrate on two issues: the necessity for a private and commercially independent exhibition enterprise – the first of its kind – and the political or, more precisely, the professional risks entailed in realizing such an initiative.9 The initiative of the ‘privatization’ of exhibition practice in an authoritarian country could be easily politicized, and the surviving correspondence demonstrates that Petersburg and Moscow artists were apparently divided over the evaluation of that kind of risk. Specifically, the Moscow-based artists felt enthusiastic about the new project, while it was those from the St Petersburg Artel who were rather apprehensive about any new undertaking.10 The Muscovite Miasoedov argued in the letter to Kramskoi in February 1870: ‘It is probably because we are ground down and full of timidity that the business seems more threatening than it actually is.’11 The artists of the two cities obviously shared common knowledge of recent developments in the field of art but clearly had different first-hand experiences. Seven years earlier, a controversial event had

18

Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

taken place in St Petersburg – the so-called Revolt of the Fourteen, led by Kramskoi – which evidently still traumatized some of the Petersburg painters, while being a source of rather pragmatic inspiration for their Moscow counterparts. Briefly, on 9 November 1863 fourteen students from the St Petersburg Academy had refused to participate in the Gold Medal competition because their request to be allowed to select their own subject had been ignored. The contestants withdrew from the Academy.12 It is almost certain that there was a ban on supporting the ‘revolt’ in the press, while police agents were instructed ‘to watch covertly the acts of these young men and the direction of the society they have launched [the St Petersburg Artel of Artists]’.13 The government, however, eventually legalized this enterprise comprising the former dissenters, perhaps because the protesters clearly wanted to avoid any politicization of their action.14 (Elizabeth Valkenier has argued with some justification that, unlike their contemporaries at the University of St Petersburg, students at the Academy of Arts were politically rather inexperienced and unengaged, due to their inferior education and social standing.15) The Moscow artists appear to have derived a positive lesson from this story. In the same letter, Miasoedov continued, expounding the benefits brought about by the ‘revolt’: ‘why would you, who protested so sharply, and had practical knowledge that your protest would not lead to anything bad (you are now decorated with titles, and supplied with commissions), not encourage the shy ones’ to take part in the Partnership. Ultimately, the arguments of the Muscovites won out, though Kramskoi and Karl Lemokh were the only former Artel members to join the new Partnership. In short, the recent historical developments in the art world apparently reinforced the sense of the Moscow artists that the risks in questioning the existing official monopoly on exhibitions were not too great, provided the artists do everything ‘according to the law’ and ‘without any fuss, but energetically’; with ‘no compromises and without beating a drum’ – in other words, to ‘be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves’.16 The founding members clearly wished to avoid any questions and complications during the process of government registration, and therefore their charter merely followed the generic requirements of an official government document. Further evidence suggests, however, that such a pragmatic scheme of action also reflects the fact that the artists were pursuing primarily business objectives. Against the background of highly detailed debate about the economic aspects of the future Partnership, the lack of any discussions concerning art in the three surviving letters is striking. One might argue that the common (unspoken) agenda, intended to bring the artists together, was apparent from the outset

Commercial Institutionalization, 1870–71

19

to those who were invited to participate. Thanks to Vladimir Stasov, one of the cornerstones in the mythologization of the Peredvizhniki has been the belief that the Partnership ‘inherited’ from the Artel – launched largely by the participants in the Revolt and its major ideological asset – a rebellious spirit and an aesthetic antagonism towards the Academy. However, everything suggests that the Partnership’s founding members were acting in an entirely new context, in which pragmatic considerations outweighed any possible artistic connections between the two institutions. Undoubtedly, the Moscow artists were approaching a familiar circle of like-minded artists, of a similar social standing to their own, but one needs to bear in mind that the Artel’s membership body had changed over time. That it was the only known private artist-run initiative in the capital also implies that the Moscow founding members’ choice was limited and circumstantial. Another fact not to ignore is that by 1869 the Artel had not organized any regular public exhibitions, published any journals or even produced a substantial body of art works. (And this seems to suggest that there was no urgent or consistent aesthetic agenda behind the Revolt, on which the Artel could build.17) In its less than ten-year existence, the Artel continued to be a commercial cooperative. It became important for many artists mainly because of its quasi-bohemian communal gatherings, which featured a fluctuating number and character of participants.18 In artistic terms, the Partnership did not seem to have much to inherit from the Artel, even had it wished to do so. In fact, as I demonstrate throughout this chapter, the Moscow founding members approached the Artel and its supposedly rebellious legacy somewhat pragmatically: while recruiting artists from it, they showed no desire to be linked with it, insisting on establishing an entirely new enterprise with a different name. There was not even a strong personal connection between the two institutions, as only two former Artel members eventually joined the new Partnership. Last but not least, the fact that the Partnership opened the inaugural and following four shows at the Academy’s premises, albeit with a separate box office, provides further evidence that the foundation of the Partnership was far from a radical artistic protest against that institution. Hence, rather than declaring any specific agenda and or setting out a process for selecting members, the invitation letter to the Artel emphasizes the founding members’ open and inclusive artistic policy. In other words, everyone within the given circles of artists was welcome to participate in the establishment of the Partnership, as if the aim were to gather together as many artists as possible. The draft version of the charter stated: ‘every artist, of any repute, at least in the art world, is permitted to enter the Partnership,

20

Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

if he so desires’.19 The only explicit statement of the ‘invitation’ that can claim to be a founding principle was therefore: ‘We think that it is absolutely necessary for the Partnership to be completely independent from all other societies for the encouragement of the arts.’20 This reference to ‘other societies’ indicates that the organizers’ sole intention was to add something new to the range of existing official institutional structures available to artists. A further inspection of each key term of the officially registered name – that is, TOVARISHCHESTVO – PEREDVIZHNYKH – KHUDOZHESTVENNYKH VYSTAVOK – will broaden our evidence of the largely practical reasoning behind the foundation of the group.

TOVARISHCHESTVO (PARTNERSHIP FOR) When the artists decided to form a legal association, requiring official registration, there were several choices available. In other words, they had to decide which type of group they aspired to become. By 1870 there was a limited number of arts organizations in Russia that could provide artists with workable role models. On the one hand, there were societies in the traditional sense – the Society of Lovers of the Arts (the Moscow Society), the Moscow Art Society, the St Petersburg-based Society for the Encouragement of Artists (the St Petersburg Society)21 and the St Petersburg Assembly of Artists. On the other, the abovementioned St Petersburg Artel of Artists had set a precedent as the first private artist-run commercial cooperative in the art world. If the voluntary societies were already well established as a benevolent mechanism for improving the common good, the Artel was a relatively new concept, borrowed from the economic field. There was already a notable contrast between the aims of the two types of organization, as declared in their charters: whereas the societies stressed their public and ‘noble’ aims – ‘assistance in promoting and encouraging the arts’ (the Moscow Society), ‘educating artists’ and ‘spreading knowledge and cultivating a taste for the fine arts’ (the Moscow Art Society), ‘assisting in the success of the fine arts in Russia’ and stimulating and encouraging ‘the talents of Russian artists’ (the St Petersburg Society) – the Artel pragmatically stated its ambition as ‘to join forces to consolidate and improve [artists’] living standards and to provide an opportunity to sell works to the public’.22 Predictably, the societies and the Artel had entirely different memberships. In the societies, art lovers – wealthy patrons, from the aristocracy

Commercial Institutionalization, 1870–71

21

and bourgeoisie – provided the initiative and finance in a spirit of public service, whereas the Artel consisted of and was operated solely by artists. And these members – all emerging artists – were thinking of their survival rather than about entertaining and fundraising. The entirely commercial character of the advertised products and services illustrates this point.23 The future Peredvizhniki adopted the Artel’s type of business organization, as it was most relevant to their aims, needs and social standing. They preferred, however, a modern version of this business model, which was a tovarishchestvo. For instance, Konstantin Pobedonostsev’s Course of Civil Law, the authoritative legal textbook of the period, considered an artel – as a traditional institution reflecting the participants’ shared way of life (such as a family or commune) – to be an informal, ‘archaic’ type of tovarishchestvo.24 In the eyes of some democratically minded contemporaries, ‘artel’ could also have been associated with the type of cooperative described in Nikolai Chernyshevskii’s politically controversial novel What Is To Be Done? (1863). In short, the artists, in choosing tovarishchestvo instead of artel, may have been aiming both to avoid any possible confusion with the Artel and to appear and function in as modern, efficient and politically neutral a way as possible. What is significant is that, while launching an undoubtedly business enterprise, the artists still wanted to retain some similarity with the publicspirited societies. The Code of Civil Laws of the period defined tovarishchestvo as a group of people ‘joined as one body and acting under one name’, while its object could be ‘anything useful and not offensive to the commonwealth enterprises in trade, insurance, transportation and, in general, in any branch of industry’.25 Furthermore, in 1872 a provincial magistrate gave some insight into the legal difference between society and tovarishchestvo: ‘The aim of a tovarishchestvo certainly has to concern trade or industry. Our legislation does not recognize the existence of a tovarishchestvo when there is no such aim. If several people are joined by a different aim, for instance, charitable, then what occurs is an obshchestvo (society), not a tovarishchestvo (partnership).’26 In this context the Partnership’s charter appears to be a hybrid. It combined the public service intentions – ‘(a) making it possible for provincial residents to become familiar with Russian art and to follow its achievements; (b) developing a love of art in society’ – with an entirely commercial one – ‘(c) facilitating artists to market their works’.27 These had never gone together before. The ranking of ‘public service’ in first place and the relegating of ‘commerce’ to second can be observed in all official Partnership documents, beginning with the charter.

22

Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia

How did the artists themselves consider the relation between those two distinct founding aspects in practice? By chance, we have two versions – draft and final – of a letter of 1874 from the Partnership to the Academy. The draft letter states: ‘The Partnership […] has taken it as its work to make art, the breeding ground for which is the Academy of Arts, understandable and accessible not only to residents of the capitals […] Desiring to achieve by this, first, better marketing for their works of art, and secondly, to enlarge the circle of its devotees.’ There is one change in the edited official version of this letter: ‘Desiring to achieve by this, first, to enlarge the circle of its devotees, secondly, better marketing for the works of art.’28 Perov’s controversial letter of April 1877, in which he explained to Kramskoi his motives for leaving the Partnership, provides the most crucial insight into the elaborate reasoning behind the artists’ prioritization of commerce over public service. According to Perov, the artists’ economic interests (which the Partnership had been established to defend) had been replaced by ideological aims that he was unwilling to promote. In Perov’s words: The Academy quite undeservedly received great profits from the works of the artists … Referring to this fact, among other things, Miasoedov quite justifiably said: ‘Why do the artists themselves not collect revenue from their works?’ This was the foundation of the society. Many liked his idea, and there appeared the Partnership. There were no humane illusions and patriotic sentiments at the beginning at all: they would arise by default from the simple operation of the Partnership … It had been decided also sometimes to send pictures to the provinces, only if it was profitable. The standing of an artist in Russia is unenviable; therefore, the main aim … was at least to improve it. This is how we thought at the beginning.29

There are many significant points in this letter to be addressed later. Of particular relevance now is how the artists linked commercial and public interests: the common good ‘would arise by default from the simple operation of the Partnership’. Thus, one should be aware of the specific meaning of the word ‘partnership’ (tovarishchestvo) in Russia at the time of the group’s foundation. That is, we are dealing with an entirely corporate entity defined by law and obliged to conduct its affairs in a highly regulated manner. Yet unusually for such a type of commercial enterprise, the group of artists took or claimed to take upon itself certain obligations to art and the general public.

Commercial Institutionalization, 1870–71

23

PEREDVIZHNYKH (TOURING) The Partnership was a pioneering and for a long time unique provider of art displays in the Russian provinces, where there were no permanent museums, galleries, art schools or exhibitions. The artists probably intended to remedy this situation and educate the provinces, but this was certainly not their primary concern in the years around 1870, as Perov’s letter quoted above makes unambiguously clear. The very idea of a touring show may have originated from outside Russia. In the late 1860s, two of the principal founding members – Miasoedov and Ge – had returned from extended periods of study in Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Italy. Recalling his foreign trip, in a speech delivered more than twenty-five years later, in 1893, Ge says: ‘I remember that information came to us about the touring exhibitions that were organized in England because of the failure of English exhibits at the Paris exhibition in terms of taste. With these exhibitions the English planned to improve the taste for their works as a whole.’30 Ge is referring here to the Paris Universal Exhibition, which was held between April and October 1867. At the very least, the artist’s correspondence demonstrates that he was in France and then in Italy, where he stayed in Florence and where he discussed this matter with Miasoedov.31 However, it was actually in regard to the design of its industrial exhibits and not on account of its works of art that the British pavilion in Paris had reputedly made a ‘poor showing’.32 The Russian artists appear to have been similarly misinformed about the regular touring exhibitions in England.33 The latter was not a usual part of the foreign educational trip of Russian artists, and it is the touring shows organized by the Kunstvereins (art associations) in various German cities that could have been a more likely source of inspiration. Whether the final destination of Russian artists was France, Italy or Switzerland, their educational route commonly lay through German states. Even if such gossip, albeit unfounded, did indeed inspire the artists to run touring exhibitions, this was surely only because the technical possibility of doing so in Russia had emerged by the end of the 1860s. The most crucial factor for the group’s nurturing of the concept of an exhibition moving around in the provinces was the recent technological improvement in the country – specifically, the completed railway connection between the capital and the south of the empire. The capacity to transport dozens and even hundreds of paintings

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reasonably quickly, within a predictable timeframe, and cheaply all year round was an essential precondition for any such concept to be thought of. This became possible due to the introduction of regular railway connections between the major cities and towns of the European part of the empire by the end of the 1860s (Figure 3). For instance, a map of 1866 (Figure 2) shows that there were still no links to the south anywhere from Moscow: the railway lines, which led to Kiev, Odessa or Kharkov – the main touring exhibition destinations – were still under construction or being planned. Thus, the major innovative business idea behind the foundation of the Partnership was to take advantage of the newly built railways and telegraph as a concrete means of discovering and expanding a new provincial public and, in consequence, a market. One may wonder whether this was a justified entrepreneurial risk, given the artists’ apparently limited knowledge of the provincial public and market. Most likely, the artists’ approach to the provinces changed over time and in the light of experience. But, clearly, both constrained and facilitated by technological modernization, the Peredvizhniki were following in the beginning the same

Figure 2  Complete map of the Russian railways and telegraphs (in use, under construction and planned), as at 1 March 1866. Courtesy National Library of Russia.

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rational, commercial logic that was driving that modernization. Not surprisingly, railway development first took place to connect the highly populated, wealthy manufacturing cities of the European part of the country, and this dictated the exhibitions’ route and their actual target group. The claim that the Partnership

Figure 3  Map of the railways of the European part of the Russian Empire (in use, under construction and planned), as at 1870. Courtesy National Library of Russia.

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‘brought art to the people’, therefore, can be qualified more accurately in economic terms than the charter’s relatively vague phraseology – ‘inhabitants of the provinces’, ‘all who wish’, ‘Russian society’. Valkenier justifiably argues: Its [the Partnership’s] exhibits were neither intended for nor ever reached the Russian peasantry and the working class. Unlike the populists of the 1870s, the Peredvizhniki did not go to the rural areas where 80 percent of the population lived in poverty and squalor; they never ‘soiled their hands’ in actual contact with the rural masses. But they did introduce art to the provinces – to the educated provincial elite, to be more exact.34

Furthermore, as has been mentioned earlier, the artists did not themselves intend to travel with the exhibitions at all; instead, they hired someone to manage each provincial tour on their behalf. Hence, it is not only the common English translation of the Peredvizhniki as ‘Wanderers’ that is misleading, because of the word’s romanticized connotation with the aimless, adventurous and uncalculated character of wandering,35 but so is the Russian original. The foundation of the Partnership was thus an entrepreneurial response to a specific technological innovation rather than to any pressing artistic agenda. Yet, the artists had every right to promote themselves as a public-spirited endeavour, with a reasonable expectation that the common good would indeed be served by the group’s commercial activity in the culturally barren provinces.

KHUDOZHESTVENNYKH VYSTAVOK (ART EXHIBITIONS) The way in which the exhibition scene was organized and functioned around 1870 in Russia offers an insight into the artists’ initial desire for independence from ‘all other societies for the encouragement of art’. The main feature of the Academy’s new charter of 1859 was the narrowing of that institution’s responsibility towards its students to nothing more than a finite educational process.36 As a contemporary observed, ‘Where the role of the Academy finished, the role of the [St Petersburg] Society began.’37 In practice, this meant that in the 1860s the intermediary role of both the St Petersburg and Moscow societies increased in scope and importance: they awarded pensions, and regularly ran exhibitions, auctions and lotteries ‘on behalf ’ of the artists. We can learn this from the annual reports of the Moscow and St Petersburg societies commencing from the mid1860s. This is not to say that the Academy ceased to be the most prestigious

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exhibition venue. (Quite the opposite – as we shall see in the next chapter, the group predictably preferred the Academy’s premises to those of the St Petersburg Society.) But with the advent of the societies, there were by 1870 three different venues that shaped the notion of what constituted an art exhibition, promoted the latest tendencies in art and, most importantly, controlled the sales and considered the interests of the artists.38 In organizational terms, the Academy shows and that of the St Petersburg Society differed only in their regularity and size: while the former usually ran one large annual spring display with hundreds of works of art, the latter arranged smaller-scale exhibitions in a non-stop manner throughout the year. Like the Academy, both societies benefited from imperial patronage not only in the form of financial support, but also with members of the imperial family on their boards. As a result, their exhibition policies were as conventional as those of the Academy. Yet, the other significant membership sector of the societies – the bourgeoisie, especially in Moscow – made an important difference: for whereas the Academy being ‘the chief art institution’ was obliged to patronize the most prestigious category in the hierarchy of genres, historical painting,39 the societies were more inclined to support Russian genre and landscape. For instance, from the mid-1860s the St Petersburg and Moscow societies organized annual competitions for Russian genre and landscape painting, in which many of the future Peredvizhniki regularly participated and received awards.40 Consequently, Miasoedov, Perov, Shishkin and other future founding members of the Partnership became increasingly involved with and dependent on the activities of the societies, rather than on those of the Academy. All this gives us a picture of what especially mattered to the artists. The Academy and, more especially, the societies were run on behalf of artists, but not by them. The artists had only a limited say in deciding what to display, and they had to pay commission for every work sold. In Europe the increasing demands on the part of artists to be more effectively and directly represented in the market, and beyond the official institutions (the Salon and the like), were being met by a network of private art dealers and galleries, the best known of which was Paul Durand-Ruel’s gallery and his nurturing of the Impressionists.41 In the case of Russia, one needs to realize that, apart from the semi-official and patronage-oriented societies in St Petersburg and Moscow, there was a total lack of any private institutional mediators for the benefit of artists. Therefore, it should be perfectly clear why the founding members came up with such a pioneering hybrid business scheme of action, which merged together exhibition and dealership practices. In launching a partnership, the future Peredvizhniki

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created the institutional conditions that allowed them to both publicly exhibit and sell whatever, wherever and in whatever quantity they wished – something they could not do within the existing exhibition infrastructure of the art world. Everything about the group’s name, founding documents and calculated scheme of action suggests that the artists had something to sell, but nothing specific to declare. Private correspondence concerning the foundation of the Partnership, the chosen business form, and such factors as technological innovations and the absence of independent dealers and galleries, all make clear the pragmatic reasoning above everything else. Right from the beginning, the establishment of the Partnership was primarily about a deliberate objective of the artists to become autonomous and independent from the official exhibition infrastructure. The hostile political climate evidently shaped the artists’ restrained, business-like manner of self-presentation. Yet, the initial aesthetically open agenda of the group also reflects the simple fact that the artists did not have any pressing motives to launch the group, apart from the commercial. Compared with artists’ former reliance on patronage, this was a highly unconventional initiative on the part of Russian artists.42 And the only way for them to succeed was to be economically viable. What is now taken for granted (the discovery of the provinces) was, apparently, consuming of both time and energy, full of non-artistic routine, and requiring enormous human resources and calculation at the outset. Whether the specific artistic agenda could have emerged through the commercial operation of the Partnership will be a focus of my examination in the following chapters. For the very act of running an independent organization at this time in Tsarist Russia, and on the part of a group of artists from the middle to lower classes, might in itself constitute an ideological statement.

Notes   1 See details of the Academy’s ranking system of the period in Ustav Imperatorskoi Akademii Khudozhestv (St Petersburg, 1859).   2 Ustav Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1870), 1.   3 Boris Mironov and Ben Eklof, The Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917, vol. 1 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000), 197–285.   4 Gregory Freeze, ‘Reform and Counter Reform: 1855–1890’, in Russia: A History, ed. Gregory Freeze (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 180.

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  5 Bradley, Voluntary Associations in Tsarist Russia, 1, 17, 258. However, any further comparison with other professional voluntary associations of the period (especially scientific ones), or the examination of the broader social and political implications of the Partnership’s private and long-term successful operation in regard to the formation of civil society in Russia would take me far beyond the argument of this book.   6 Ustav o preduprezhdenii i presechenii prestuplenii (St Petersburg, 1890), 21.   7 I am using this term in the Pierre Bourdieu sense.   8 Ustav o Tsenzure i pechati (St Petersburg, 1886) 7, 21. I am deeply grateful to Natalia Patrusheva (of the Russian National Library) for her valuable comments and insight into this issue. See also Natalia Patrusheva, ‘Tsenzura v Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XIX veka – nachale XX v.: zakony i praktika’, in Tsenzura v Rossii v kontse XIX – nachale XX veka. Sbornik vospominanii, ed. Natalia Patrusheva (St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2003), 8–42.   9 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 51–5. 10 Nikolai Sobko, ‘Perov, ego zhizn’ i proizvedeniia’, Vestnik iziashchnykh iskusstv 1 (1883): 168. 11 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 54. 12 See Ivan N. Kramskoi, Pis’ma, stat’i, vol. 1 (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965–6), 9–10, 480–1. See a good account of this event in Jackson, The Wanderers, 24–7. See also documents translated into English relating to the Revolt of the Fourteen in Experiment 14, no. 1 (2008): 58–63. 13 Vladimir Stasov, ‘Dvadtsat’ piat’ let russkogo iskusstva’, in Sobranie sochinenii V.V. Stasova, vol. 1 (St Petersburg, 1894), 538; Kramskoi, Pis’ma, vol. 1, 10, 483. 14 See, for instance, Kramskoi’s private letter of 1863 entitled ‘The event at the Academy of Arts’ in Pis’ma, stat’i, vol. 2, ed. Ivan N. Kramskoi (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965–6), 273–5. 15 Valkenier, Russian Realist Art, 21. 16 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 53–4. 17 See also Steiner, ‘Pursuing Independence’, 252–71, for a recent interpretation of the Revolt as the result of personal intrigue of its leader Kramskoi. 18 See Irina Punina, Peterburgskaia artel’ khudozhnikov (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1966). 19 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 51. 20 Ibid., 53. 21 Commencing 1882 – the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. 22 Respectively, Ustav sostoiashego pod avgusteishim pokrovitel’stvom gosudaryni tsesarevny i velikoi kniagini Marii Fedorovny obshchestva liubitelei khudozhestv (Moscow, 1868), 3; Ustav moskovskogo khudozhestvennogo obshchestva (Moscow,

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1866), 3; Ustav obshchestva pooshchreniia khudozhnikov (St Petersburg, 1869), 3; Ustav Sankt Petersburgskoi arteli khudozhnikov (St Petersburg, 1866), 1. 23 See the Artel’s regular advertisement in a newspaper in Punina, Peterburgskaia artel’ khudozhnikov, 73–4. 24 Konstantin P. Pobedonostsev, Kurs grazhdanskogo prava. Chast’ 3. Dogovora i obiazatel’stva (St Petersburg, 1880), 520, 524–6. 25 Svod zakonov grazhdanskikh, vol. 10 (St Petersburg, 1876), 446. 26 Zakony o grazhdanskikh dogovorakh i obiazatel’stvakh (Vyatka, 1872), 231, my italics. 27 Ustav Tovarishchestva, 1–2. 28 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 97, 106. 29 Ibid., 141–2. Perov’s split with the Partnership was partially covered for the first time in Sobko’s obituary of Perov in 1883 (Sobko, ‘Perov, ego zhizn’ i proizvedeniia’, 175). However, Sobko quoted the whole of the artist’s scandalous letter to Kramskoi of 1877 only two decades later, in his article on Perov for the Encyclopaedia of Russian artists. Nikolai Sobko, ed., Slovar’ russkikh khudozhnikov, vaiateley, zhivopistsev, zodchikh, risoval’shchikov, graverov, litografov, medal’erov, mozaichistov, ikonopistsev, liteishchikov, chekanshchikov, skanshchikov i prochikh, s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei, XI–XIX vv., vol. 3, 1st edn (St Petersburg, 1899), 129–32. 30 Nikolai Ge, Pis’ma. Stat’i. Kritika. Vospominaniia sovremennikov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1978), 220. 31 Grigorii Miasoedov, Pis’ma. Dokumenty. Vospominaniia (Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1972), 28–49. 32 Elizabeth Bonython and Anthony Burton, The Great Exhibitor: The Life and Work of Henry Cole (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 233. 33 See also Andrey Shabanov, ‘Peredvizhnye vystavki: angliiskii koren’, frantsuzskii aktsent i russkoe znachenie’, in And/&: sbornik trudov fakul’teta istorii iskusstv Evropeiskogo universiteta v Sankt-Peterburge, ed. Sergei Daniel (St Petersburg: EUSP Press, 2007), 250–65. 34 See Valkenier, Russian Realist Art, 45. 35 Ibid., хi. 36 Imperatorskaia Akademiia khudozhestv. Istoriia ee ustava i upravleniia (St Petersburg, 1891), 31. 37 Nikolai Sobko, Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk imperatorskogo obshchestva pooshchreniia khudozhestv. 1820–1890 (St Petersburg, 1890), 3. 38 See Severiukhin, Staryi khudozhestvennyi Peterburg, 121–2, 158–72. 39 Sbornik postanovlenii soveta imperatorskoi Akademii khudozhestv po khudozhestvennoi i uchebnoi chasti. S 1859 po 1890 god (St Petersburg, 1890), 42. 40 See Otchet o deistviiakh obshchestva pooshchreniia khudozhnikov za 1865 god (St Petersburg, 1866); Otchet o deistviiakh obshchestva pooshchreniia khudozhnikov za

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1866–67 gody (St. Petersburg, 1868); Otchet o deistviiakh obshchestva pooshchreniia khudozhnikov za 1869 god (St Petersburg, 1870); Otchet o deistviiakh obshchestva pooshchreniia khudozhnikov za 1870 god (St Petersburg, 1871); Piatyi otchet Komiteta obshchestva liubitelei khudozhestv za 1865 (Moscow, 1865). 41 See for instance White and White, Canvases and Careers; Mainardi, The End of the Salon. 42 See a good account of the previous period in S. Frederick Starr, ‘Russian Art and Society, 1800–1850’, in Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia, ed. Theofanis G. Stavrou (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 87–112; Stites, Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia; Blakesley, The Russian Canvas.

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Selling the Exhibition, 1871–97

The Peredvizhniki’s long-term collective exhibition endeavour is only available to us in the form of surviving visual or written representations. A substantial portion of these documents – advertisements, posters, catalogues, public letters and reports – was created by the Partnership’s members. (The critical response to the exhibitions constitutes the remaining part.) On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, one contemporary journalist visually represented the Partnership’s touring exhibition as a sequence of several technological and social events in time and space (Figure 4). Each touring exhibition started with the negotiation of host cities and venues, followed by the wide advertising campaign and culminated

Figure 4  Visual collage of the making of the touring exhibition, from World Illustration, 1892.

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in preparation of catalogues and hanging pictures on walls. However, it is the annual business reports that appeared to be the Peredvizhniki’s concluding form of representation of their exhibitions for the public.

Choosing between old and new capitals Practically speaking, the only sensible choice of the starting point for the tour was between St Petersburg and Moscow. That the former was already an evident candidate can be seen in the Muscovite artists’ letter containing the draft of the charter. The Petersburg artists, on the other hand, appear to have suggested Moscow. Miasoedov’s letter of 1870 to Kramskoi implies that the main motive behind the Petersburg artists’ proposal was anxiety and, accordingly, a desire to stay away from the capital and thus avoid getting into the spotlight.1 In the same letter, Miasoedov, who was acting on behalf of the Moscow artists, supports the argument in favour of Petersburg in a more frank and direct way: The success of an exhibition will undoubtedly be dependent on its first debut. Petersburg is for Russia what Paris is for France. Splendid success in Petersburg guarantees success both in Moscow and the provinces. You must agree it would hardly make sense to send the majority of works from Petersburg to Moscow, only to send them back to Petersburg, and then back again by the same [railway] road, risking the money that’s been collected by spending it on transportation to Moscow without any guarantee of success. Although Moscow is a big herd (stado) and is capable of bringing in a big profit, it needs ready-made opinion, because it does not have its own. The same could be said of the provinces.2

So there were logistical considerations, starting with the fact that two-thirds of the founding members were based in St Petersburg. The key argument in favour of the northern capital, however, was the incomparable level of publicity it promised. Most of the empire’s major periodicals were published in St Petersburg. For instance, in 1870 there were seventeen daily newspapers published in St Petersburg but only four in Moscow.3 And almost all the leading art critics lived in the capital, which had a more developed art scene.4 Given all these advantages, St Petersburg was the clear favourite – Moscow simply did not have enough media resources to match the artists’ publicity ambitions. An equally important reason for launching each show in St Petersburg was a financial one. Being the capital of the Russian Empire, its population was larger than that of Moscow.5 Because of this, St Petersburg could provide the highest attendance in absolute

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terms, which meant it would secure the most income, vital for funding the rest of the exhibition’s travels. It was actually the capital’s visitors who ‘paid’ for most of the exhibition tour in the provinces. As was the case with the founding of the Partnership, the bold practical arguments of Moscow overtaking the fears connected with St Petersburg. And neither side ever articulated any nationalist, patriotic sentiments, with which the two capitals, in different ways, were associated in the ‘Slavophil vs. Westernizers’ discourse of the period.6 Thus, although the idea of touring exhibitions was born in patriarchal merchant Moscow, it was the Westernized Russian capital that was chosen to inaugurate each Peredvizhniki show, and it remained this way for several decades. Having chosen St Petersburg, the artists staked their claim for maximum publicity and income; driven by pragmatic considerations above everything else, they declared the exhibition a serious, long-term venture, worthy of the capital’s rank.

Venue-hunting St Petersburg The first Partnership statement in a newspaper declared the exhibition was to open in the halls of the Academy, as had been ‘kindly suggested by the Academy’ itself.7 From an 1871 Kramskoi’s letter we learn that the Peredvizhniki had the choice of at least two established exhibition venues: the Academy and the St Petersburg Society.8 The former was unquestionably the most authoritative, yet conservative, exhibition space in the country. On the other hand, the St Petersburg Society enjoyed a fair amount of independence and was more open to new movements in Russian art, as has been shown in the first chapter. In terms of location, the Society’s venue could perfectly match, if not beat, the Academy, as it was situated at that time in the best section of the main city street, Nevskii Prospect 20. One might expect the artists to have preferred the relative autonomy and more contemporary agenda of the St Petersburg Society; one can do no more than speculate as to why they decided instead in favour of the Academy (Figure 5). What is undeniable is that the prestigious, official, government-sponsored institutional status of the latter would almost automatically communicate a legitimate character to the Partnership and its inaugural show. Indeed, this was exactly how the capital’s press approached the event, as we shall see in Chapter 5.

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Figure 5  The Imperial Academy of Arts, St Petersburg, 1869. Courtesy National Library of Russia.

At the same time, the cooperation between the Academy and the Partnership turned out to be short-lived. Of particular importance here is the nature of the conflict, on account of which the Partnership could not reckon on beginning the fifth show in 1876 on the Academy’s premises. The correspondence between the two institutions demonstrates that the reason was the growing conflict over the artistic and economic interests for which each side appeared to stand. The Academy formulated the problem as followings: The Academy of Arts aims with its exhibitions to report on the achievements of Russian art. The Partnership’s exhibitions, which consist of the best part of this art, involuntarily detract from the Academy’s shows. While sympathizing with the Partnership’s aims, His Imperial Highness, Fellow President of the Academy has charged its General Meeting with discussing this issue and finding a way of reconciling the aims of the Academy’s exhibitions with those of the Partnership, without damaging the rights and interests of the latter.9

The increasing tension stemmed from the fact that the evident success of the Partnership’s first shows occurred at the expense of the Academy’s annual exhibitions and, remarkably enough, on the Academy’s own territory. What especially irritated the Academy was one of the Partnership’s rules that

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participating ‘paintings must not have been previously exhibited in public’, which helped to sustain the originality of its shows. As a solution, the Academy suggested combining the two exhibitions under its own banner – at least in St Petersburg. The Partnership, however, wanted a securely separate boxoffice, as the income from their exhibition made it possible to travel around the provinces. But that condition clearly implied the physical separation of the Peredvizhniki exhibition from that of the Academy, and this was apparently the artists’ intention too. Of relevance, in order to secure the venue, the Partnership was prepared to establish a closer collaboration with the Academy. The artists’ official proposal to the Academy administration stated that, in order to avoid any rumours of discord (rozni) between the two institutions, they were willing to run their exhibition simultaneously with the Academy’s (albeit in separate halls and with separate box-offices and catalogues) and that they would also provide an exemplar of their report to be published as part of the Academy’s annual report. These concessions obviously could not resolve the essence of the conflict, but they do reveal the Peredvizhniki’ readiness to deliver their exhibition within an official, Academy framework. Predictably, the final result of this process of negotiation, which lasted over a year, was nothing other than the Academy informing the Partnership (in the middle of the fourth show) that it should not consider using its premises in future.10 The Peredvizhniki appear to have valued the bright and spacious nature of the venue as well as their association with the Academy’s social and professional prestige, but for economic reasons they wished to keep their shows physically separate. Having failed to secure the Academy’s agreement to their demands, the Partnership sought out venues with similar advantages. After the loss of the Academy premises, the Partnership regularly experienced accommodation problems in St Petersburg. Some critics continually, and facetiously, remarked that the Partnership was travelling within the city as much as around the provinces. The unpredictability in securing a suitable venue was apparently so serious that the Partnership made several unsuccessful attempts to commission its own permanent exhibition pavilion in St Petersburg. The artists’ regular employment of official public spaces suggests, however, that these problems were hardly connected with the ‘dissident’ character reputedly possessed by their exhibitions. Rather, the artists needed to balance the affordability of venues with their suitability for the display of art works. One of the most obvious solutions appeared to be public, government-linked buildings.

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The Peredvizhniki’s fifth show, like nearly half of all their subsequent shows, was hosted by the Imperial Academy of Sciences. This grand Palladian-style building was located on the same embankment as the Academy, just a few blocks away. It shares with the Academy of Arts the same firm, time-honoured classicalstyle vocabulary and principles – a portico and columns, rigid proportions and symmetry, grandness and austerity. Erected between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century by prominent foreign and Russian architects, this kind of classical building embodied the imperial strength and magnificence of a European capital. Such an historical and powerful visual legacy would inevitably have contextualized and assimilated the shows hosted there into the realm of the official by means of the past and tradition. However, while the status of the Academy of Sciences made it appropriate for members of the imperial family to visit shows there, the artists did not think that it was well-suited – in terms of lighting, spatial characteristics, heating – for the display of art. Even when the Partnership occupied this building for free, it still sought other options.11 Two examples of the Peredvizhniki renting privately owned venues similarly illustrate how the artists constantly tried to strike a balance between affordability on the one hand and suitability on the other. The refined neo-classical Iusupov (Bernardaki) House, which was located on the main city street (Nevskii prospekt) and accommodated the ninth, twelfth and thirteenth exhibitions, appears to have been the most fashionable venue the Peredvizhniki could afford to hire in St Petersburg. In the 1870s the house was known in high-society circles thanks to the English club housed there. The other private venue, the Botkina house, which hosted the fifteenth and seventeenth exhibitions, attracted considerable criticism for its inconvenient, non-central location of the Sergievskaia street (now Chaikovskaia) and lack of practical comfort. Yet it still may fit somewhere between the two opposing poles that characterize the buildings the Peredvizhniki selected to host their shows in the capital. They were either rather affordable, often government-associated, but unsuited to the exhibition of paintings, or they were private, fairly expensive, but beneficial for displaying art. After losing the right to use the Academy, it was only when the renovated Society halls became available that these contradictory features would come into balance and produce the ideal venue, one that matched the Partnership’s social and professional ambitions. Indeed, the halls of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts appeared to be the only modern purpose-built building to accommodate the later Peredvizhniki shows in the capital. From 1878, the Society maintained a permanent residence on one of the most fashionable streets of the city, Bolshaia

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Figure 6  Bolshaia Morskaia Street, St Petersburg, c. 1890s. On the far right: The Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. Courtesy of National Library of Russia.

Morskaia. A tourist guidebook advises that this is the best shopping street for luxury goods.12 The street also featured banks, insurance companies, hotels and restaurants (Figure 6). A series of renovations in the late 1870s and early 1890s implemented the latest architectural trends, including an asymmetrical structure, emphasized functionality and stylistic eclecticism of the façade. This allowed the Peredvizhniki exhibitions to take place in the most technologically advanced exhibition space in the city. Having the lower and upper galleries, it was the first to use a glass roof and electricity (Figures 33 and 34). This venue clearly advocated modernity, and for the first time the Partnership shows were presented in a fresh and contemporary architectural context that echoed the modernizing social drive of the group.

Moscow After St Petersburg, the next stop for the Peredvizhniki shows was Moscow, where the artists enjoyed the most secure residence. In the old Russian capital, the Partnership always presented their exhibitions in the same place – the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Given that the venue was one of

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the city’s few exhibition spaces and was reasonably cheap to rent (15 per cent of the entrance income for the right to use the premises and maintenance staff),13 it is not surprising that there is no evidence of the Peredvizhniki ever considering any other location in the city. Yet, against the background of the Partnership’s conflict with the Academy in St Petersburg, such an untroubled coexistence between the two institutions in Moscow seems remarkable. From a formal point of view, the Moscow School, known for its more liberal and experimental approach to teaching the arts, was an administrative branch of the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. To demonstrate and preserve this ultimate subordination effectively, the Academy monopolized not only the academic graduation system but also the running of the annual show designed to represent the latest and highest achievements in Russian art.14 Consequently, neither the School nor Moscow ever saw or regularly hosted exhibitions similar to the Academy’s annual blockbuster in St Petersburg. The School venue occasionally accommodated student shows, which initially accompanied the Partnership exhibitions (albeit in separate halls). Yet despite their physical proximity, these student shows never matched the scale and authority of the Peredvizhniki displays, which consisted of works by ‘academicians and professors’. Occasionally the School hosted one-man shows, including celebrated names from the Academy, but apparently this did not make any difference either. That is to say, in Moscow the Partnership exhibitions neither coincided nor conflicted with any officially linked art exhibitions. Such an uncompetitive environment left no grounds for a conflict of interest or for the Peredvizhniki exhibitions to be considered in any sense alternative to the official ones, let alone ‘dissident’. This becomes particularly evident as soon as we leave Moscow.

The provinces The Peredvizhniki organized the first-ever exhibitions of art in the Russian provinces, where they remained without competition for at least a decade and half – a situation the Partnership exploited to great effect. Since there was the predictable lack of any purpose-built exhibition spaces, even in the larger industrial and university cities, the Partnership’s provincial premises happened to be mainly public buildings linked with the local political, cultural and business elites as well as the nobility. For instance, the Peredvizhniki regularly held shows in such venues as the City Council (Kharkov), the City Duma (Kishinev, Kiev), the District Council (Poltava), the City Clerks’ Club (Poltava), English Club (Odessa), City Museum (Kharkov), Exchange Hall (Odessa,

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Kharkov), Commercial Club (Saratov), University (Kiev, Kharkov), Gymnasium (Kishinev) and frequently at the Assembly of Nobles (in many cities).15 For a long period, the rent-free condition was not only a show of good will on the part of the local authorities, but it was also what the Partnership generally expected when negotiating the venues in the provinces. ‘Using the city public halls, halls of nobility and of the Ministry of Popular Education,’ Miasoedov writes in the fifteenth anniversary report, ‘we are in debt to the enlightened attitude to art of the people and institutions that administer these premises.’16 The initiative to host the exhibition often came from the local elite. Miasoedov’s phrasing also implies that, in order to secure the best possible premises, the Partnership utilized personal contacts at all levels of the empire’s government from local councils to ministries. Significantly, when approaching these authorities, the artists typically represented their exhibitions as an endeavour of enlightenment and benevolence, to satisfy the desperate thirst for art in the provinces. Consider, for instance, the documented example of the Partnership asking for backing from the Ministry of Popular Education in the official letter dated November 1874. First, the Partnership stated that it aimed to familiarize the provinces with Russian art and that it had been staging exhibitions in university cities and other significant urban centres. ‘Understanding the enlightening significance of art’ – the letter continues – ‘the Partnership is trying to make its exhibitions accessible to all and especially to pupils, reducing the entry price by half and sometimes making it free.’ Then, referring to the difficulties in finding premises, the Partnership requested permission to occupy facilities administered by the Ministry of Education around the provinces.17 The Minister supported this appeal, and even quoted fragments of the text while giving the necessary instructions to the level below.18 As a result, the premises that the Peredvizhniki occupied in the provinces were often those used for educational purposes. This was especially the case in the two principal university cities of the provincial tour, Kiev and Kharkov: sixteen out of twenty-five exhibitions were held at Kiev University, while Kharkov University held seven shows during the first decade. It is safe to assume that the Partnership employed a similar tactic when dealing with the local authorities and nobility. After securing a venue in either the capital or the provinces, the Partnership then had to provide signage for the exhibition’s street entrance in order to attract and direct their visitors. This was more than a routine concern as the exhibitions changed venues from year to year; in addition, most of these venues were neither specifically designed for, nor generally associated with, these types of event. In

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St Petersburg, this became vital as soon as the artists could no longer hold the exhibitions in the Academy, while in the provinces this was important right from the start. The 1878 instruction for an exhibition attendant, the authorized representative of the Partnership during the tour, as well as several critical reviews, imply that the Partnership utilized signboards and flags to promote its exhibitions at street level, and that this was standard practice in both capitals and the provinces throughout the period.19 The signboards clearly stated the exhibition’s name; none of the sources suggests anything specific about the flags. Still, the first thing a visitor would see when approaching a Peredvizhniki exhibition venue were the flags which, in addition to their navigational function, lent a festive atmosphere to the event. The prominent locations, official or public character, and imposing architectural language of most of the Partnership’s exhibition venues should have further effectively contextualized and legitimized its shows for visitors and critics.

Advertising campaign Once the venue for the show had been secured and the opening date fixed, the Partnership was ready to advertise. (With exception of the early years, the Partnership tended to inaugurate the shows at the beginning of Lent, so they could reach Moscow by Easter and the south of Russia by summer.) There were two reasonably inexpensive ways to reach the public in both the capital cities and the provinces – announcements (free, but usually only one per exhibition) and advertisements, either in the newspapers or in the form of posters in interior and exterior public spaces. Predictably, the newspaper announcements and advertisements have a better rate of survival, being part of a newspaper, than the Peredvizhniki posters, with only a few surviving examples. Before addressing these materials, it is worthwhile considering the unique early instance of how the Peredvizhniki artistically imagined its public, for it provides some general insight into the group’s advertising campaign in the press and on the streets.

The two notions of the public of the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions The artists’ only attempts to visualize their exhibition in connection with its potential public could be found on the cover pages of the ‘illustrated catalogues’

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of the second and third exhibitions. I will now focus on the covers themselves and address the content of these catalogues later in this chapter. They feature original prints, which occupy only one-third of the available space, most probably as a result of printing considerations. Employing a combination of both the etching and aquatint techniques, these prints were made by the Partnership’s members Ivan Kramskoi (for the second exhibition) and Konstantin Savitskii (for the third exhibition).20 As might be expected of cover images, both include text, but less predictable is their central emphasis on the common theme of an exhibition scene with visitors. While both supposedly deal with the same exhibition space – that of the Academy – each representation communicates almost opposite notions of a visitor. In the first, vertically oriented, cover image, the display, while crowded with works, is almost deserted with only few, albeit involved, visitors (Figure 13). The left side of the hall is mostly filled with paintings, while the right side makes way for the bright daylight which illuminates the entire scene. Six figures can be seen in this setting – three men in the fore- and middle grounds, and one woman and at least two more indistinct individuals in the background. The nearest three male visitors are alone and more involved with the paintings than with one another, as if to suggest they are self-motivated in the search for aesthetic experience (as either connoisseurs or amateurs). Technically, in this softly rendered scene the major dark tonal accent rests on these figures, while the illuminated paintings tend to be fairly schematic and anonymous (with arguably only one exception to be discussed shortly). To a greater extent than the paintings, these figures are individualized – through considering their apparel and posture, one may even speculate on their social standing. In any case, the main focus is not on the displayed paintings but on the few dedicated visitors viewing them. The art exhibition is visually presented as a place for cultured individual contemplation. Moreover, the central compositional principle of this scene further advances the idea that the enjoyment of works of art is an accessible and leisurely form of free exploration, no different from wandering along a city street. Framed on the right and left by a fragment of a wrapped support structure, the exposition scene is entirely open for a viewer to ‘enter’. This welcoming effect is further reinforced by the emphatic use of perspective, which draws the eye along an avenue of space terminating in the large painting which is surely Kramskoi’s Christ in the Desert, displayed at the second show. Interestingly, because of its vague outline this large painting could easily be interpreted as a windowor street-level view on to a dome-like building in the distance. Indeed, the

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perspective view, the generous daylight, the rhythm of the reducing shadows on the ground as well as the visitors’ outerwear dress all contribute to creating the impression of an outdoor, open-air urban environment. The phrase ‘the second travelling exhibition’ visually occupies virtually the same amount of space as the exposition scene, but the former neither interrupts nor dominates the latter. A realistically depicted branch (burdock, perhaps?) linked with the word ‘Second’ may suggest the idea of a modest celebration. In sum, the image promotes the art exhibition as an exploratory aesthetic experience, open for everyone. A somewhat contrasting idea can be observed in the cover image for the third illustrated catalogue (Figure 14). Virtually the same size as the previous cover but the image is now in a horizontal format. The exposition scene has assumed enormous – almost infinite – visual depth on the right side, from which a large and elegantly dressed crowd emerges and disappears. Sitting, standing or walking around the spacious hall, ladies (white silhouettes), gentlemen (black silhouettes) and their children populate this event. There is nothing left of the substantiality of the figures of the first image. We do not see individuals viewing paintings but a rather undifferentiated, respectably dressed, wandering crowd whose members are depicted using minimum strokes in the sketchy manner of a caricature. It is only the fragments of two framed paintings on the far left that suggest a possible reason for this social gathering, yet these framed objects could equally be interpreted as mirrors. That is to say, this representation avoids any documentation of the actual exhibition scene, and instead promotes the exhibition as a fashionable society event for the enjoyment of the public against a background of works of art. In this sense, the important feature here is that while the exposition scene can be seen, it cannot be ‘entered’ – the entire scene is elegantly blocked by the curtain and text, as if to reinforce the special character of this social gathering. The playful and somewhat flashy words and vignettes only strengthen this somewhat glamorous, entertaining impression of the cover image. The image has significantly more textual information, featuring the very detailed title ‘Illustrated catalogue of the third travelling exhibition 1874’ and listing the twenty-five artists’ names on a roll of a paper that spreads from the left bottom to the right top corner of the page. Each word is differentiated in terms of type and tonality; in some cases, the words use shadow effects to appear three-dimensional, while others are furnished with heavy, conspicuous ornament. They are responsible for the forceful advertising character of the image, which could easily be interpreted as a poster for a society event designed for and attended by well-to-do members of the public.

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Thus, the Peredvizhniki acknowledged two complementary social functions of their exhibition in regard to the public. It could be a place for individual cultured contemplation, where the basic components are a curious viewer and works of art. But the exhibition could also be about the enjoyment of collective gathering, a form of socializing and public entertainment. While covering quite different segments of audience of the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions, these notions avoid casting judgement or indicating preferences. In an artistic manner, the Peredvizhniki revealed the open and pragmatic approach to a target group of their advertising campaign.

The campaign in newspapers The context of the first exhibition announcement, published on the eve of the opening, elevates the event to the status of notable news. The announcement appeared on the front page of the Saint Petersburg Bulletin (Sankt-Petersburgskie vedomosti), one of the capital’s most established newspapers. As part of the miscellaneous Chronicle, the announcement appeared among other noteworthy news of the country and the city – it was preceded by news on the revision of the housing standards in the army and followed by the literary gossip concerning the new Turgenev novel. The full text reads: The Partnership for travelling art exhibitions is opening an exhibition of paintings at the halls of the Imperial Academy of Arts, commencing 29 November [1871], Monday, with entrance charge of 1 rouble on Monday, and 20 kopeks on all other days. The exhibition consists of works by the following artists: V. I. Ammon, G. Amosov, A. P. Bogoliubov, N. N. Ge, K. F. Gun, L. L. Kamenev, F. F. Kamenskii, M. K. Klodt, I. N. Kramskoi, V. M. Maksimov, G. G. Miasoedov, V. G. Perov, L. M. Prianishnikov, A. K. Savrasov, I. I. Shishkin.21

Published in the free Chronicle section, this announcement lacks any editorial introduction or comments. The question of why it was noteworthy event was left to the newspaper’s readers to answer. The first part of the text makes it clear that the exhibition was organized by the Partnership and only hosted by the Academy, and that admission would be charged. However, at this date the name of the Partnership, unlike that of the Academy, held hardly any meaning for the general public. The only publicly

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distributed information about the Partnership was its statement in the same newspaper a week beforehand, which featured the first three paragraphs of the charter, stating that they were aiming to show art in the provinces and to sell it, and that the group consisted only of artists. Three artists signed this public letter and indicated their professional status: Professor Nikolai N. Ge, Professor Mikhail K. Klodt and Academician Ivan N. Kramskoi.22 The term partnership itself possessed only trade and business connotations, as demonstrated in the first chapter. Therefore, the full registered name ‘Partnership for travelling art exhibitions’ would have sounded fairly unusual, suggesting more about the organization of the show than anything specific about its character. It is only the mention of the Academy of Arts that contextualized the Peredvizhniki’s first exhibition announcement, in a rather conventional manner. The listing of the show’s participants was perhaps the only fresh aspect of this announcement, at least for art lovers and professionals. The extended list of fifteen names put in alphabetical order indicated that this was almost certainly the complete list of participants. Despite the varying degree of professional recognition the participating artists had received, they were all listed as equals. Considered in the context of the Academy shows, which involved dozens of artists and for that reason never listed names in its announcements, this Partnership announcement may have implied that this group exhibition had a rather selective character. It featured a number of fairly new names (Savrasov, Shishkin, Kramskoi, Miasoedov) and well-known artists (Perov, Ge, Prianishnikov, Bogoliubov, Klodt), who had never exclusively shown together before. And many of these artists were more commonly associated with the Moscow and St Petersburg society exhibitions. This unusual selection of both emerging and reputable names in genre, history, portraiture and landscape painting constituted the major feature of the announcement. For the subsequent exhibitions, the artists continued this practice of sending letters – sort of press releases – with an announcement of the forthcoming exhibition to local periodicals. We could learn this from the editorial’s acknowledgements, such as ‘we have received a letter’ or ‘we are informed that’. For a long time, the newspaper editors considered the Peredvizhniki exhibitions noteworthy enough to appear in the free of charge news section. However, as early as the mid-1870s, the newspapers started to augment the Partnership’s texts with what was not always favourable editorial comments. From this point, the Peredvizhniki could only control the content of their commercial advertisements.

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Figure 7  An advert of the first exhibition in St Petersburg, from the Saint Petersburg Bulletin, 1871.

These advertisements, in turn, placed the Peredvizhniki shows in an entirely commercial, and sometimes rather curious, context. For example, one of the advertisements for the Partnership’s first exhibition of paintings was featured next to one for dental services (Figure 7). Sometimes editors grouped advertisements for various exhibitions or cultural events together, so that one can sense the growth of the competition within the art scene just by looking at a newspaper page. Yet, more usually, in the sea of the miscellaneous advertisements – from food and furniture to lessons and subscriptions – the Peredvizhniki exhibition loses any high-brow connotations, becoming to the public simply another of the many commercial products and services on the market. These commercial advertisements give us an idea as to when an exhibition became the exhibition – that is, when the touring exhibition became firmly associated with a specific group of artists. The earlier advertisements demonstrate that the first Partnership exhibitions struggled to find a shorthand form of selfexpression, a trademark that would represent their identity in print. The full official name was too weighty to be effective. Because of this, the advertisements for the first six shows graphically emphasized ‘An Exhibition of Paintings’ above everything else, and/or continued to list all the participating artists. It is only from the seventh exhibition (1879) onwards that the title ‘Travelling Exhibition of Paintings’ became the dominant graphic element (Figure 8). From this date, the title definitively referred to a particular exhibition and group of artists – all subsequent advertisements, in both St Petersburg and Moscow, ceased to list the participants.

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Figure 8  An advert of the seventh exhibition in St Petersburg, from the Saint Petersburg Bulletin, 1879.

Once the Partnership had established a recognizable business name, the entrance fee became the most suggestive item of information in the advertisement. After the title, the advertisements supplied only practical information such as details concerning the exhibition’s opening. The entrance fee was always a visible part of this information and clearly indicated the commercial character of the show. It started from around twenty kopeks in the 1870s, raised to thirty kopeks in the 1880s and to forty kopeks in 1890s. Compared to other commercial shows in the capitals, the Partnership’s price was average (the cost of a basic lunch). The Peredvizhniki consistently and deliberately emphasized that this was an affordable aesthetic experience, and many critics were eager to agree. Furthermore, from the 1880s the Partnership occasionally advertised free entrance to different audiences for different reasons in both St Petersburg and Moscow. Thus, at different times the Partnership advertised free entrance: for all students during the last day of the show (seventh show) and for art students during morning hours of working days (eighteenth show). By the middle of the 1890s the advertisements began to spell out that schoolchildren and students (uchashchiesia) paid half price. The Peredvizhniki’s provincial newspaper advertisements are distinctive in one respect: the school and student reductions were a standard feature right from the beginning, proving that the exhibition was presented in the provinces as an accessible educational device. A typical text would thus read: ‘Young people in student uniform pay half price, free entry for children under eight accompanied by adults.’ This short and dry information implies that the Peredvizhniki promoted their exhibitions as appropriate,

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conforming to the common social and aesthetic norms and, in such a way, as suitable for children, young people and families. Finally, the social standing of the newspapers in which the artists advertised their shows provides an insight into principle target groups of the Partnership’s campaign. As a rule, the artists used the same advertisement for all the newspapers they selected. But, the readership of these newspapers was significantly different in terms of social standing and political and cultural preferences. For its first exhibition announcement in the capital the Partnership chose the Saint Petersburg Bulletin, which was renowned both for its oppositional character and for its art critic, Vladimir Stasov. The oldest semi-official press organ in the country, it had acquired a reputation as one of the leading free-thinking newspapers of the period. This had to do with the editorship of the prominent journalist Evgenii Korsh, who ran the newspaper from 1863 to 1874, when he was finally dismissed because of repeated clashes with censors.23 Its editorials featured several prominent, democratically minded authors who campaigned for reform, openly opposing conservative tendencies in the country. However, this newspaper had a much more influential and widely read liberal competitor, the Voice (Golos), which emerged on the wave of the liberal reforms of the 1860s and was backed by liberal ministers in the government.24 The most likely reason for the artists’ choice of the Saint Petersburg Bulletin was its famous critic Vladimir Stasov, well-known for his uncompromising enthusiasm for the new, Russian school of art. He was one of the few contemporary critics who kept up correspondence with the artists, particularly Kramskoi and Ilya Repin. Hence, Stasov’s reviews demonstrate his awareness about the group’s founding and current situation, though it did not always save him from making unfounded claims on behalf of the group. In the long run, Stasov’s support was so invariable and generous that some of his colleagues considered the critic’s way of writing mere ‘advertising’. This is how another established contemporary critic Vladimir Chuiko evaluated Stasov’s review of the 1888 show: In ten newspaper lines, that is, 350 letters, there are seven epithets in the most superlative degree, – absolutely extraordinarily, utterly amazing, staggering, extremely deep, extremely incomparable and … absolutely meaningless! We read Mr Stasov and cannot believe our eyes. How did it happen that this respected writer, who gained sound fame from ‘ancient’ times as the only critic in Russia, – how did it happen that this respected writer was all his life writing advertisement, not even trying to mask it! Such a critical approach could not be named as anything other than advertisement.25

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While privately the Peredvizhniki may have had some reservations about the analytical depth and polemical tone of the critic’s writings, they would have been aware of the benefits of such costless publicity and passionate support right from the start. The choice of the Saint Petersburg Bulletin also indicates the artists’ willingness to promote their exhibition to the audience of this progressivelyminded newspaper. In the main, however, the Partnership’s advertising campaign was more pragmatically than ideologically determined. Kramskoi’s letter to Tretyakov of 1879, describing the promotion of the seventh exhibition in St Petersburg, illustrates the seriousness and breadth of the group’s approach: Announcements [here in a commercial sense] were placed in all the newspapers (8 in Russian and 2 in French and German) during all three days prior to the opening and even on the front page, then the Partnership twice released the announcement in all the newspapers in the Chronicle section; after the opening, the Partnership again sent new announcements in advance for up to a month to all the newspapers.26

The announcements were placed in the leading periodicals from the so-called ‘grand press’ (bolshaia pressa), implying that they were serious, influential and well-connected. Among them were liberal the Bourse Bulletin (the main press organ of the bourgeoisie) and the Rumour (Molva), the semi-official liberal Voice, the liberal-minded News and Bourse Gazette (Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta), the conservative New Times (Novoe Vremia; the most widely read semi-official newspaper in the country, with a strong conservative stance in the 1880s), the liberal-turned-conservative Saint Petersburg Bulletin, and two government foreign language publications, Le Journal de St Pétersbourg (the official organ of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and Sankt-Petersburger Deutsche Zeitung (the official organ of the Ministry of Popular Education). However, Kramskoi also referred to the ‘minor press’ (malaia pressa), and the Partnership also regularly advertised in two of the best-known tabloid newspapers in the city: the Petersburg Newspaper (Peterburgskaia gazeta) and the Petersburg Sheet (Peterburgskii listok). A similar situation can be seen in Moscow, where the major newspapers that featured Peredvizhniki advertisements included the Moscow Bulletin (Moskovskie vedomosti; one of the oldest and most influential conservative newspapers in the country), the Russian Bulletin (Russkie vedomosti; one of the leading opposition periodicals in the 1880s and 1890s), the moderately conservative the Contemporary News (Sovremennye izvestiia), the business newspapers News of the Day (Novosti Dnia) and the Russian Courier

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(Russkii kur’er), and the tabloid Moscow Sheet (Moskovskii listok).27 There is no reason to expect a radically different approach to the press in the provinces, especially given that there the Partnership had significantly less, if any, choice.28 All of this demonstrates that the Partnership projected its exhibitions as suitable for a broad spectrum of society, with a special focus on the liberally minded and tabloid audience as well as moderately conservative readers. If one compares the artists’ distribution of advertisements among the newspapers with reviews of the exhibition in them, it soon becomes apparent that the Partnership’s pragmatic approach was paramount. The artists, in a business-savvy manner, attached greater significance to the newspapers’ circulation than to the contents of reviews.

Posters The Partnership’s posters functioned as an extension of the commercial newspaper advertisements. The few surviving posters provide only practical information – name, venue, opening times and admission charges. The minimal typographical elements are employed in the same manner as in the newspaper advertisements and pursue the same aim of graphically emphasizing certain aspects of the exhibition announcement – the only difference is larger text occupying more space. That is to say, the Partnership did not make use of any of the possible extra advantages of the medium and continued to differentiate the audience, targeting first and foremost the educated residents of the capitals and provinces. The posters were mainly designed to reach a broader segment of the public than those who read newspapers. For instance, there is evidence that in Moscow the artists wanted their posters to be displayed in ‘all major, and even secondary, taverns (traktiry)’.29 With the same view to expanding the audience, while travelling around the European part of the empire the Partnership took into consideration the prevalent language. This was especially the case in the German-speaking Baltic cities and in Warsaw, where all announcements were delivered in two languages – Russian, the official language of the empire, and the local one.30 Considerable information about the production and dissemination of the posters in the provinces can be drawn from the memorandum (pamiatnyi listok) compiled by the former exhibition attendant, Konstantinovich, in which he summarizes and shares his experience with a new exhibition attendant,

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Khruslov.31 It is certain that the Partnership used posters to announce the opening, duration and closing of the exhibitions. Depending on the locale, the number of posters could vary from 200 to 2,500 copies per city, and their main destinations were ‘shops, telegraph poles and buildings’. One can get an impression of how this may have actually looked from the following comment of one critic in Warsaw: ‘Posters, pasted on the corners of streets, indicating the existence of the exhibition, are small and printed on pale yellow paper. They are almost invisible among the advertisements for balls, masquerades and other entertainments.’32 At street level the Peredvizhniki found themselves in a similarly competitive market to that represented by the commercial products and services advertised in newspapers. Finally, the posters demonstrate consistency in that at least during the earlier years the Peredvizhniki emphasized the didactic aspect of their exhibitions only when addressing provincial audiences. While the extant posters promote the second exhibition at the Academy as a purely commercial form of entertainment, the two surviving provincial posters specify that the exhibition is also suitable for children, who are to pay less, thereby presenting the show as respectable, educational and family-friendly.33

Displays Very few surviving documents give some insight into the manner in which the Peredvizhniki displayed their works. Several prints, drawings and, most tellingly, photographs (Figures 9 and 10) depict a section of the exhibition scene, either populated or deserted. Taken at different points in time and at different Partnership shows around the capital, these images are as revealing of contemporary exhibiting methods as they are indicative of some of the specific hanging principles of the Peredvizhniki. As a rule, all the paintings are framed and displayed on partitions wrapped in dark-coloured drapery. These structures tended to be present throughout the hall, visually punctuating the exhibition space. In some images, these partitions are shown arranged in a zigzag manner, as if the intention was to allow each painting to have its own viewing angle. In comparing the Partnership’s displays with, for example, the Academy shows, one can sense that in many respects the artists followed common exhibiting conventions. The press reviews add very little to this picture. Most of the critics’ comments on the Partnership’s exhibition arrangements are inspired

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Figure 9  A view of the second touring exhibition at the Academy, from World Illustration, 1873.

Figure 10  A view of the fourteenth exhibition at the Academy of Sciences, from Virgin, 1886.

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by complaints over the quite predictable shortcomings of the venues (lack of space, poor lighting and so on). This, above all, implies that the Peredvizhniki did not invent anything radically new in regard to displaying works of art. However, in one respect the Peredvizhniki shows were different: their hang tends to develop only horizontally. Virtually all the paintings are displayed at the same eye level (that of an adult) and, as a result, they all receive equal emphasis. Unlike the Academy shows, there is no vertical growth that might create a sense of hierarchy, even when the venue could have accommodated such an arrangement. Obviously, such practical factors as the smaller size of their shows were responsible for shaping this aspect of the Peredvizhniki’s hanging scheme, but the idea of promoting all the artists as equals corresponds with the egalitarian principles already observed, for instance, in the announcement of the first show and which would recur in other forms of the Partnership’s representations. That is to say, it is quite possible that this ‘levelling’ effect was deliberate. With regard to the provincial exhibitions, the key feature of all the Peredvizhniki’s shows (as well as one of the Partnership’s main headaches) was that the further an exhibition travelled away from the capital, the less the Partnership could exercise control over how it was delivered to the public. As has been mentioned, the Partnership members did not travel with the touring show but instead delegated this responsibility to a designated person – the exhibition attendant. During the period in question, there were several of these individuals and all of them either had artistic backgrounds or were themselves amateur artists; presumably, they were expected to be competent enough to choose appropriate venues and arrange each hang.

Catalogues The Peredvizhniki compiled text-only catalogues to accompany all their shows. During the earlier exhibitions, the artists called these guides (ukazateli), but from the sixth exhibition they began to call them, in the French way, catalogues, without any evident reason for the change. It may perhaps have had to do with an effort to present the show in a more modern and fashionable way. (The Academy, for instance, continued to employ the term ukazatel’.) Although there were several attempts to produce illustrated catalogues right from the beginning, it is only from the sixteenth exhibition in 1888 that the Partnership regularly made illustrated catalogues available to the public. As the artists aimed to

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convert the entire visual event into words and images on paper, these text-only and illustrated catalogues are perhaps the most immediate representations of the exhibitions.

Text-only catalogues From topographic guide to scholarly reference Up to the seventh exhibition in 1879, the St Petersburg text-only catalogues adhered to the following scheme: the works along with the authors’ names are simply listed one after the other, in no specific order and without respect to genre (Figure 11). That is, the same artist may appear in multiple places, as many times as his works appear in the show. The best explanation for this would be that the catalogues followed the physical order of the actual hang of the exhibition. There are several factors in support of this theory. First, this was the conventional scheme of the Academy of Arts guides, which even indicate the names of the different rooms. Secondly, these catalogues were published after the exhibitions’ openings – that is, after the exposition was in large part installed. (I judge the catalogues’ chronology either by the censorship mark or by the number of works featured or by both, on the basis that later editions always feature more works.) Thirdly, these catalogues were often the only devices explaining the paintings on display, which frequently had only sequence numbers. And, given that these exhibition guides do not contain any other information besides number, title and author, they had to have a very pragmatic function – to direct the viewers around the exposition. Finally, some critics’ reviews may also support this theory, even though they are not always consistent and are too fragmentary to be reliable. If these assumptions are correct, the earlier catalogues invoke at least approximately the topography of the actual expositions, and in such a capacity they functioned as an instructive device for a meaningful interaction between the viewers and the paintings. However, beginning with the eighth and up to the fifteenth exhibitions, the Peredvizhniki’s text-only catalogues demonstrate two virtually opposing approaches to recreating the exhibition on paper.34 The novel feature of the first edition of the catalogue of the eighth show is that it is organized according to each individual artist’s contributions. That is, next to an artist’s name is listed all his displayed works. Starting from the eleventh show, these catalogues largely follow the alphabetical order of the artists’ surnames. Given that the catalogues had to pass the time-consuming censorship procedure, the idea of composing

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Figure 11  The first page of the first exhibition guide, 1871.

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them in this novel way may be explained by practical considerations – this was the only way the artists could have the exhibition catalogue ready before the opening of the show, implying that the Partnership knew in advance what each artist would contribute but did not yet know the order in which the works would hang. This first edition of the catalogue, which did not follow the hang of the exhibition, may have been confusing for the viewers; indeed, it was at this point (the early 1880s) that the critics began to notice that the catalogue numbers did not correspond to the actual hang on the walls. This is probably why the artists soon after also produced the second edition of the catalogue for this same exhibition, which did follow the exhibition hang and included multiple entries for the artists. That is, between the eighth and fifteenth shows there were two parallel means of relaying the exhibition on paper: alphabetical and topographical. It was the inauguration of an illustrated catalogue beginning with the sixteenth show in 1888 that most likely shaped the artists’ decision to organize their text-only version according to only one scheme. In order to synchronize the numbering and achieve successful cross-referencing between their text-only and illustrated catalogues, the artists had to be absolutely consistent. Hence, the sixteenth show text-only catalogue has only one edition; it is composed according to the exhibition hang, and its numbering of the works corresponds with the illustrated catalogue of the same exhibition. Commencing with the seventeenth show, the Partnership’s text-only catalogues moved to an alphabetical listing of the individual artists’ contributions. This made life much easier for the publisher, since this scheme allowed for the production of both types of catalogue well in advance of the opening and made it a simple matter to synchronize their content. For instance, the publisher simply marked with an asterisk in the textonly catalogue those works which were reproduced in the illustrated catalogue. Thus, the introduction of the illustrated catalogue in conjunction with the textonly one compelled the artists to compose them according to a single scheme, which became alphabetical and had nothing to do with the actual exhibition hang. This change signalled a new representational function of the catalogue: the alphabetical list of the artists’ contributions aimed mainly to record the participation of the individual artists and their works in the show – for easy (scholarly) reference, including after the event. This modification was most probably in response not only to the practical considerations described above but also to the institutional weight and professional prestige which eventually came to be attached to the Partnership’s shows.

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From egalitarianism to hierarchy The early catalogues of the Partnership present each exhibition as a small and non- commercial undertaking by a group of artists of equal merit. Unlike the Academy’s guides to its annual shows of the 1870s, the Partnership’s catalogue entries do not feature prices or indicate that works are for sale. (The Academy catalogues stated the prices of the works up to the 1870s, but later ceased to do so.) Furthermore, the Partnership catalogues do not make a distinction between the professional ranks of the various contributors – a long-standing, common system within the Academy guides. As a result, the Peredvizhniki catalogues were devoid of any secondary value-based information regarding the works on display that might imply a sense of hierarchy among the artists or their works. What is more, in the first decade, the Partnership combined the works of members and of so-called ‘external exhibitors’ (eksponenty), that is, non-members, in all their catalogues, tending to indicate the external exhibitors’ status in brackets. This significantly smoothes any difference between the two, implying that, even though some contributors were not members of the group, they were treated as equal participants in the group show. From the eleventh exhibition onwards, the Partnership’s text-only catalogues separated the contributors into members (listed first) and external exhibitors, and from the eighteenth show each group was listed in alphabetical order (Figure 12). This is especially surprising given that the two different types of participant were not separated on the actual exhibition walls. Contemporary critics immediately noticed and quite reasonably described such a cataloguing method as suggesting a hierarchy-based pecking order: The old (stolpy) Peredvizhniki […] have decided at least in the catalogue to distinguish themselves from the crowd under a special rubric, with the title ‘members of the partnership’, while the rabble (chern’) with the lesser-sounding title ‘external exhibitors’ have been relegated to the tail-end (v khvoste). We will follow this table of ranks.35

Such a representation of the group and exhibition on paper immediately made visible the fact that the external exhibitors comprised almost half of the display at this period. This was especially the case with the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first shows, after which many of the former external exhibitors obtained the status of members. That is, these late textonly catalogues deliberately presented shows as co-productions between the Peredvizhniki group and a considerable number of outside, largely young

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Figure 12  The first page of the catalogue of the twenty-fifth exhibition, 1897.

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artists. Within this supposedly more open, inclusive exhibition platform, however, one group of artists had more significance and privileges than the others. This may suggest that the Partnership’s exhibitions had inevitably become a bureaucratic machine as much as a prestigious institutional brand, so much so that young artists still wanted to participate in them, even if they were openly and somewhat derogatorily separated from the group in the catalogues. One can also sense that the alphabetical scheme that was eventually adopted appeared perfectly compatible with the idea of segregating the members from the external exhibitors, which would have been difficult to implement had the artists continued to organize their catalogues according to the exhibition hang.

Provincial catalogues The text-only catalogues serve as the main evidence that the touring exhibition was often delivered in a significantly abridged or modified form in the provinces. The Partnership had to put together the text-only catalogue for each provincial city it visited. The main reason for this must have been that the content of the show differed from city to city, and the exhibition attendant had to reflect correctly these changes in the text-only catalogue. For a long time this was apparently not an issue, although very few early provincial catalogues have survived for us to be sure of this. But the introduction of the illustrated catalogues in 1888 posed one practical consideration (as much as challenge) for the artists – to synchronize the numbering between the text-only catalogues, which differed in each city, and the illustrated catalogues, which was the same St Petersburg edition whichever the city. In putting together its provincial text-only catalogues, the Partnership predictably departed from the final editions of the St Petersburg version, omitting the entries which were not travelling to the provinces; but the artists kept the same numbering for the rest of the entries. For instance, in the Kiev text-only catalogue of the sixteenth show, after the entry numbered ‘26’ we jump directly to the entry numbered ‘31’, after entry ‘32’ we jump straight to entry ‘38’, and so on. It takes a while to realize that the missing numbers are in fact missing paintings. Further confusion arose from the fact that the artists added new works to the touring exhibition and catalogue. Provincial critics were quick to point out the misleading character of such representations of the show. One commentator expressed his frustration in the review of the seventeenth show in Moscow in 1889:

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Comparing the illustrated catalogue with the text-only catalogue of the Moscow exhibition, the visitor to the travelling exhibition in Moscow is pleased to note that the Moscow text-only catalogue features 199 works, while the illustrated catalogue has only 186. [The visitor may say] that the exhibition has definitely been enriched with new works in Moscow; but, in fact, the opposite has happened.36

After some brief and simple calculations, the critic was disappointed to have to state that 58 paintings had ‘disappeared’ when the show moved from St Petersburg to Moscow, and that the actual number of paintings on display was only 128 out of the original 186, with the addition of 13 new ones. The Partnership’s provincial catalogues, therefore, constitute our primary evidence of the impoverishment of the travelling exhibitions in the provinces. Yet the paintings regularly missing from the provincial catalogues also unmistakably signified that this was, above all, a commercial show, and that many of the works on display were for sale, and that the new owners, usually based in the capitals, were not always prepared to wait until the end of the year-long tour to collect the works they had purchased. The missing works were apparently the ‘price’ paid by the provinces for the opportunity to see the rest of the show. In this sense, the only small consolation for the provincial public was offered by the illustrated catalogues, which featured reproductions of some of the missing paintings.

Illustrated catalogues Collectable ‘albums of prints’ Right from the beginning, the Partnership was keen to incorporate an illustrative element in their catalogues. The earliest attempts to illustrate the catalogue were made on the occasions of the second (Figure 13) and third (Figure 14) touring exhibitions in 1873 and 1874, a move that contemporaries later recognized as innovative, and one of the first of its kind in Russia.37 Producing their first illustrated catalogues, the Peredvizhniki, however, followed the conventional idea of a collectable portfolio of artists’ prints. These consisted of several unbound sheets with largely reproductive etchings that depicted some works from the second and third exhibitions, gathered into folders. In their correspondence, the artists tended to refer to these two collections of prints as ‘albums’, although one of the cover pages directly states that we are dealing with an ‘illustrated catalogue’.38 The artists’ very choice of the etching – a more expensive and time-consuming technique at that time

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than the widespread lithograph – signalled that they desired an artistic form of publication. Executed in etching, the album obtained the status and flavour of a limited edition, a handmade work direct from the artists. In most cases, the

Figure 13  The first page of the illustrated catalogue of the second exhibition. Etching, aquatint, 1873. Courtesy National Library of Russia.

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prints were made by the artists themselves and after their original paintings. Consider, for instance, the print with Ge’s works which is signed and dated in the manner of a painting (Figure 15), or the print with the six portraits that looks

Figure 14  The first page of the illustrated catalogue of the third exhibition. Etching, aquatint, 1874. Courtesy National Library of Russia.

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Figure 15  Sample plate from the illustrated catalogue of the third exhibition. Nikolai Ge, sketches after his paintings Ekaterina Next to the Coffin of Elisabeth (top) and portrait of Mikhail Reitern. Etching, aquatint. Caption: Nikolai Ge. 1874 21st January. Courtesy National Library of Russia.

as though it has been taken from an artist’s sketchbook (Figure 16). It is as if the artists were targeting a close circle of art lovers, very familiar with the group and its art – hence, they did not bother with captions while featuring around half of all the displayed paintings at both shows.

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Figure 16  Sample plate from the illustrated catalogue of the second exhibition. Ivan Kramskoi, sketches after his two etudes of peasants and Vasilii Perov’s four portraits. Etching. From top left clockwise: Etude (peasant), Fedor Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Vladimir Dal (lexicographer), Mikhail Pogodin (historian), Etude (peasant). Courtesy National Library of Russia.

It is the novel manner of featuring several reproductions within the space of one print that indicates an original attempt to produce a collection of art prints (convention) and an illustrated representation of the exhibition (innovation). Almost every print in both ‘catalogues’ contains more than one reproduction of different works of art. This was evidently partly a way of saving money and of simplifying the printing process, but it also served to classify and register the participating exhibits. In some cases, all the works belong to one artist. See, for instance, prints with reproductions of works by Bogoliubov (Figure 17), Miasoedov and Ge. In other cases, works by different artists and different genres coexist. For instance, in one print Kuindzhi’s landscape is a neighbour to Prianishnikov’s history painting (Figure 18). Thus, while claiming an aesthetic status in their own right, as original works of art, these albums were also a fair record of the exhibitions. In practice, however, this hybrid of collectable album and exhibition catalogue did not find a market. An attendant’s report from the second show in

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Figure 17  Sample plate from the illustrated catalogue of the second exhibition. Aleksei Bogoliubov, sketches after his paintings. Etching. Caption: Aleksei Bogoliubov. Courtesy National Library of Russia.

Riga informed the group: ‘The album of the exhibition is selling with difficulty, other etchings do not sell at all.’39 Although the total number of albums produced would hardly have exceeded eighty-something copies (that is, each etching’s

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Figure 18  Sample plate from the illustrated catalogue of the third exhibition. Konstantin Savitskii, sketches after Arkhip Kuindzhi’s painting Forgotten Village (top) and Illarion Prianishnikov’s painting Episode from 1812 War. Etching, aquatint. Caption: Kuindzhi Forgotten Village; Prianishnikov 1812. Courtesy National Library of Russia.

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impressions), the artists were still unable to sell them all in the capital, and so they were also offered in the provinces. There were apparently two reasons for their lack of popularity. The critic from the News of the Day frankly expresses one of them: In such a form, as the Peredvizhniki have told me themselves, the catalogue did not achieve success. I am not surprised! Leaving aside that the portfoliolike approach is highly unfavourable for editions in a small format, many of the drawings are crudely printed and almost all of them even lack captions.40

Another explanation may be that during the exhibition the album of etchings had to compete with photographic reproductions of the same works. For instance, from one of the exhibition attendant’s reports we understand that over a short period of time thirty-six photographs were sold but only four albums. From the same report, we learn that the average cost of one large photographic reproduction was one rouble, while for the same price the visitor could purchase the entire album of around thirty original etchings by the artists!41 It would appear that their ‘hand-made’ character lacked the appeal of new reproductive technologies, at least in the eyes of most exhibition visitors. As printing technologies advanced, the artists made several further attempts to illustrate catalogues throughout the period, but all of them failed and none of them survived.42 It was not until a decade and a half after the first handmade illustrated catalogues that the artists could start to regularly illustrate their catalogues in the modern fashion.

The first mechanically produced illustrated catalogue On the occasion of the sixteenth show in 1888, the Partnership collaborated with a commercial publisher to make its first mechanically produced illustrated catalogue. The cover and title page read ‘Illustrated catalogue of the XVI travelling art exhibition’, accompanied by details of the publisher, place, year and price – that is, everything that made the catalogue look like a professional, finished product, designed for a large audience. This had become possible thanks to the independent, well-known St Petersburg publisher Herman Goppe, who took on both the printing and financial responsibilities (in other words, the risks) and produced the catalogue as a business venture. The increased social standing and familiarity of the Peredvizhniki exhibitions apparently justified the appearance of such a publication on the market. In contrast to the Peredvizhniki’s earlier handmade portfolios, the sixteenth illustrated catalogue is entirely and

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unmistakably a typographical product, resembling a book with a clear and unified structure – and, even more significantly – with high-quality photomechanical reproductions (Figure 20). Each reproduction is supplied with a proper caption – author, title, size and medium, when not oil. The end product embodies two aspirations: that the Peredvizhniki wished to represent their exhibitions in print in the best and most modern way possible; and that Goppe anticipated recouping his investment by selling such an illustrated publication on the open market. The publisher was not an entirely free agent, however – since the cover and title pages inform us that the catalogue was composed by ‘the artist A[leksandr]. K. Beggrov’, one of the Partnership members. While delegating the printing and financial responsibility to the external publisher, the Peredvizhniki retained control over how their exhibition was represented in the catalogue. The cover page suggests that its author was aware of the late nineteenthcentury pan-European interest in Japanese art, often referred to as Japonisme (Figure 19). The decorative stripes with floral and geometric ornamentation, the character of which resembles embroidery and kimono patterns, frame a central vertical rectangle, where the most specific verbal information is concentrated. A branch of blossoming cherry flowers occupies the top of this area; a different kind of flower seems to be growing up from the bottom area, where we can see a fish – a koi or goldfish surrounded and partially obscured by curving parallel lines indicating water. All these rather specific elements here, including a reference to the Ukiyo-e woodblock prints genre, would have been potentially recognizable to anyone familiar with Japanese art, which had become a growing source of inspiration for the many early modernist painters in France and the rest of Western Europe in the late 1880s.43 Yet, among the few figurative images that the Partnership’s printed products ever featured, this cover page is perhaps unanticipated on account of its visual language and subject matter, considering that the Japonisme fashion played virtually no significant role in the Peredvizhniki’s art. In its following of a European modern art fashion, the cover might simply demonstrate a neutral stance. The image went virtually unnoticed among the critics, while one simply commented: ‘The catalogue is decorated with a fine vignette by an unknown artist. The figure of the fish symbolizes peredvizhenie (moving).’44 One will find more direct evidence of French influence in the illustrated section of the catalogue. In particular, its compiler Beggrov mentioned that the reproductions for the catalogue were to be produced ‘like the catalogue of the Paris

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Figure 19  The cover page of the illustrated catalogue of the sixteenth touring exhibition, 1888.

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Figure 20  Sample page of the illustrated catalogue of the sixteenth touring exhibition, 1888.

Salon’.45 Some contemporary critics acknowledged the Peredvizhniki catalogue’s copying of the famous Salons illustrés, published by François Guillaume Dumas in Paris since 1879.46 The Partnership’s illustrated catalogue and Dumas’s Salon catalogues of the 1880s do indeed share the same size and format, the dense arrangement of the reproductions and their bilingual captions – though the Peredvizhniki catalogue captions are in Russian and French, while the Dumas editions predictably use French and English. But there is more to learn about the Peredvizhniki’s choice, given that Dumas was not then the sole publisher of the Paris Salon catalogues. For instance, luxury folio-like Salon catalogues issued by Boussod & Valadon appeared on the market in the mid-1880s. More than twice the size of Dumas’s catalogues, Boussod & Valadon’s editions featured significantly fewer illustrations, but were of superb reprographic quality, and each reproduction enjoyed a separate page. Each edition also included extensive

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commentary on the show and works in the catalogue. Clearly, this publication was very expensive and targeted at a narrow segment of demanding and prosperous Salon visitors. (Tellingly, it is this posh edition that most likely served as a model for the albums of the Academy shows, which art historian Fedor Bulgakov started to publish in 1887.) Comparison with Boussod & Valadon’s catalogues reveals that the Dumas editions were designed, in terms of quality and price, for a mass audience. That is to say, the Peredvizhniki did not simply borrow some useful formal elements from the Dumas catalogue model; they also adopted its relatively ‘democratic’ approach to marketing. The very desire of the artists to translate captions into the lingua franca of European culture at the time is indicative of the Peredvizhniki’s growing desire for a domestic and international reputation. The illustrated catalogue’s reasonable quality and price (one rouble) imply that it was meant to be attractive and affordable to the general public. Yet, it is worth remembering that the upper classes in Russia were expected to be fluent in French (as well as in their native tongue) – and no doubt the Peredvizhniki recognized the prestige that would attach to their use of a bilingual catalogue, even to an audience that did not read French. (The catalogue’s French was far from accurate, though – some critics enthusiastically pointed out mistakes in spelling and grammar.) There may also have been an expectation of developing a foreign market, given the Peredvizhniki’s constant aspiration to exhibit in Western Europe; such exhibitions, however, were never realized. The arrangement of the reproductions appeared to be another distinctive feature of the illustrated catalogue for the sixteenth show. It was entirely up to each artist to decide which of his exhibited works would go into the publication, on the condition that they provided all the necessary drawings and/or photographs required for the copying process. The final result – 76 reproductions of 132 displayed works – is a combination of what each artist proposed and of how well they managed to meet the technical requirements and the strict deadline.47 The ordering of these reproductions in the catalogue was based on the hang at the show in St Petersburg. This, arguably, best available method of transferring at least a small degree of the exhibition’s physical character on to paper would entirely vanish from all the subsequent Peredvizhniki catalogues. Nevertheless, the Partnership’s successful launching of the typographic illustrated catalogue was a significant breakthrough in marketing terms. For this was perhaps the only form of documentation of the exhibitions with independent

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commercial potential. The text- only catalogues had value only for those who could visit the show, but they lost much of their (mostly commercial) relevance as soon as the event was over. This is probably why the artists made a considerable effort to produce illustrated catalogues right from the beginning. The modern photomechanical illustrations enhanced the commercial appeal of the catalogues, which could now stand on their own as visual representations of the exhibitions and function as an affordable substitute for them – that is, as independent publications in their own right in Russia and abroad. So, the choice of a reputable publisher was essential from both representational and marketing points of view.

Sobko’s illustrated scholarly editions The subsequent illustrated catalogues demonstrate that the Partnership’s alignment with the most modern European standards was a deliberate and consistent move, one which assumed an increasingly emphatic form with the employment of first-rate publishers. Beginning with the seventeenth show, the Partnership delegated the entire process of the production of the illustrated catalogues to an independent, commercial, yet committed academic publisher – St Petersburg-based bibliographer and art historian, Nikolai Sobko. Eager to bring everything new in European illustrated printing technology to Russia, he was credited with producing the first typographically illustrated catalogue which met all the modern professional standards. This was for the Fine Arts Section of the All-Russian Exhibition in 1882, and the publication largely followed the Dumas catalogue’s model.48 Knowledgeable and a great enthusiast of the Russian school, Sobko was also the first to publish illustrated monographs on two prominent members of the Partnership, Perov and Kramskoi.49 This recognized expert collated and published the Partnership’s illustrated catalogues from the seventeenth through to the twenty-fourth shows. ‘Always and everywhere my chief aim’ – Sobko claims in the introduction to the illustrated catalogue of the seventeenth exhibition – ‘has been the accessibility of my publications and the satisfactory level of their production’.50 Here one can observe how the Peredvizhniki resorted to outsourcing – by delegating their representation to one of the best professionals in their area; specifically, to a technologically perfectionist and professional bibliographer. This decision would soon produce remarkable results. Not only did Sobko significantly improve the technical and visual aspect of the catalogues – in terms of paper, quality of reproduction and standardized style – but he also widened their circulation. The publisher continued to use

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the Dumas model, but was constantly improving the reproduction of the works of art; this included the employment of largely autotype technologies and the gradual increase in the number of phototype reproductions in the catalogue, both of which required better paper. While normally this would have affected the cost of the catalogue, the cover page explains that the publisher has managed to maintain the affordable price of one rouble and ten kopeks – something the critics widely acknowledged. One of the ways this was achieved was through increased national distribution. The cover page states that the catalogue could be purchased at the exhibitions (where it would be cheaper) as well as from booksellers. The Peredvizhniki’s exhibition catalogues had become a recognizable and reputable commodity, one that could profitably be sold outside the exhibitions themselves. That all the essential information – cover, title pages and captions – was now bilingual, in Russian and French, indicated a further move to appeal to a fashionable audience, including the Russian upper classes. Additionally, these publications were now entirely comprehensible to the international reader. In the same vein, to decorate the covers in immediately recognizable Russian ornament might also have been part of the publisher’s marketing approach. The Peredvizhniki apparently approved Sobko’s design, given that it was used on six subsequent covers, whose abstract and colourful, when not gilded, national patterns changed every year (Figure 21). Being a part of a catalogue partly written in French and based on the French model, these souvenir-like covers appeared to be an elegant commercial response to the official fashion for Russianness during the reign of Alexander III, including among the upper classes. And the covers’ appealing, somewhat exotic, Russian style also made perfect sense in terms of international distribution. Yet the most ambitious novelty of Sobko’s catalogue was to represent the Peredvizhniki exhibitions as historically significant events. The headings of the title pages of the catalogues inform the reader that this is ‘Russian Art of the XIX century’ (Figure 22). In addition, each title page states that the publication includes a specific supplement relating to the bibliography of different aspects or periods of the Partnership’s history. For instance, the first supplement reprints the text-only catalogues of the first fifteen exhibitions, while the second presents a bibliography of the press reviews for the same period, and so on. These supplements avoid any value-based selection, judgements or other commentary. As for the entries, Sobko arranged them in the alphabetical order of the artists, so as to make referencing as easy as possible. Thus, thanks to the intervention of the professional publisher-bibliographer, the Peredvizhniki’s late illustrated

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Figure 21  The cover page of the illustrated catalogue of the eighteenth touring exhibition, 1890.

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Figure 22  The title page of the illustrated catalogue of the seventeenth touring exhibition, 1891.

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catalogues record the exhibition as an established and recognized phenomenon of Russian art, worthy of scholarly consideration. However, the scandal provoked by Sobko’s initiative to give a voice to the major supporter of the group, the critic Stasov, on the pages of the Partnership’s catalogues reveals that there was a line which the enthusiastic publisher was not allowed to cross in his effort to promote the Peredvizhniki’s public image. The story began when, instead of the usual bibliographical materials, Sobko decided to supplement the twenty-fourth illustrated catalogue with two reprinted articles by the critic. In these articles – ‘Twenty years of the Peredvizhniki’ (1892) and ‘Is disagreement between artists a good thing?’ (1894) – Stasov maintained his usual polemical stance, celebrating ‘truth to life’ in art, artistic freedom, the new Russian school and its antagonism towards Academies, Salons and the like. The fact that the artists only found out about the publisher’s plans after the supplement and some other parts of the catalogue had already been printed perfectly demonstrates Sobko’s considerable autonomy as a publisher. In this instance, however, his partly realized initiative caused a clash inside the Partnership. The issue was not whether to allow Stasov’s texts to be part of the Partnership’s official catalogue supplement but, rather, how to reject them so as not to offend the critic, both of which the artists eventually did. Their argument can be summarized as follows: the Partnership, being responsible for the contents of the catalogue, did not want to take responsibility for any outside opinions and views.51 The result was that Sobko had to remove the critic’s texts from the catalogue. It seems that he did not delete the already published supplement but instead released it as a separate edition, comprising the two Stasov articles.52 The Peredvizhniki tried to insist that Sobko delete both references to their official catalogue in this separate publication, but they did not succeed.53 (This publication, therefore, features on its cover page the note ‘Supplement to the Illustrated Catalogue of XXIV exhibition’ and includes Sobko’s afterword.) The unambiguous and unanimous rejection may appear striking, given the solid evidence for Stasov being closely associated with the group in the eyes of their contemporaries. Yet it is perfectly consistent with the business-savvy and aesthetically open character which the Partnership had maintained since the group’s foundation. Having split with Sobko, the Peredvizhniki began to cooperate with another prominent specialist, the Muscovite Karl Fischer. By the mid-1890s, Fischer had already become the leading publisher of illustrated catalogues for art exhibitions and museum collections. Commencing with the twenty-fifth show, Fisher produced the official Peredvizhniki catalogues; and he was also in charge of the Partnership’s anniversary album.

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Annual public reports The Partnership published a summary report on each touring exhibition once it had finished travelling. It seems to have been a voluntary initiative on the part of the group to produce these annual reports, and to do so in such a public and rather bureaucratic form. Right from the first shows, these reports entered the public domain either in the form of separate publications, letters to the newspapers, attachments to the catalogues of the next exhibition, or a combination of these. The earliest reports were highly detailed and included a range of facts: the dates and route of the exhibition tour, participating artists and paintings, venues, statistics of attendance, sales of tickets and paintings, other costs involved, and the exhibition’s final balance.54 By the end of the 1870s the reports had shortened and focused solely on the financial results and attendance statistics around the country (Figure 23). As the annual final public statement about each completed exhibition, its representation in numerical form seems to have convinced the public of the Peredvizhniki’s viability. Yet, more importantly, detailed attendance statistics, especially in the provinces, effectively demonstrated the Partnership’s proven contribution to a common good. It was the educational argument that had provided access to the provincial premises – through the group’s continuous cooperation with government bodies at all levels of the empire, while never seeking any financial support from them. The common good indeed came about from the simple commercial operation of the Partnership in culturally deserted provinces. It is safe to assume, however, that the Peredvizhniki consistently publicized its positive social impact not only to facilitate cooperation with government bodies but also to acquire the credibility and respect of the public, which seemed to be vital assets for surviving in an essentially authoritarian political environment, as we shall see in Chapter 7. In this sense, it is significant that, unlike the exhibitions themselves, the artists’ final reports usually pleased all the critics, regardless of their social or aesthetic standing. The Partnership thus retained the business-savvy and aesthetically open character of the touring exhibition at every important stage of its production. Each tour started in the capital, St Petersburg, which provided the most publicity and attendance, and ended in the form of a published financial report. In order to attract visitors, the Partnership consistently marketed their exhibitions as a genuine form of cultural, respectable and affordable entertainment suitable for a wide audience, from tabloid readers to the most refined members of the upper

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Figure 23  The Partnership’s report for the eighteenth exhibition (attachment to the catalogue of the nineteenth exhibition), 1891.

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classes. Towards the end of its second decade, the Partnership’s small private commercial shows became a recognizable national brand, promotion of which was cleverly allied with the contemporary fashion for Russianness. It is perhaps the group’s long-term and ambivalent association with Stasov that seems to complicate the Partnership’s business-savvy, respectable and aesthetically open marketing approach. Self-appointed yet well known to the artists, the main advocate of the Peredvizhniki was an influential source of their misrepresentation in favour of their ‘romanticization’. How far the Peredvizhniki’s group photographs, art manifesto and, especially, exhibitions could support the critic’s viewpoint we shall see in the following chapters. But by this stage of the narrative one may already sense that Stasov was entirely ignoring the economic raison d’être and enduring business agenda of the group, its modernizing drive, the Salon layout and the French ‘language’ of their illustrated catalogues. Instead, he exaggerated the group’s altruism, rebelliousness, realist agenda, genuine nationalism and close ties to the Revolt of the Fourteen. Many Russian, Soviet and Western scholars have taken the critic’s argument on behalf of the group for granted, when in reality the group did not wish officially to authorize Stasov’s interpretation of its history. Still, having recognized that, we should go back to the point when the future Peredvizhniki made their first public appearance in the Saint Petersburg Bulletin, for in doing so they were clearly hoping for support and promotion from that newspaper’s well-known art critic. Crucial in commercial terms, the free publicity garnered through Stasov inescapably came with the wider ideological package associated with this critic.

Notes   1 Miasoedov to Kramskoi, 2 February 1870, in Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 52–4.   2 Ibid., 53.   3 See: Nikolai Lisovskii, Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’. 1703–1900 (Petrograd: G. A. Shumakher and B. D. Bruker, 1915); Matvei Cherepakhov, Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’ (1895–1917): Spravochnik (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1957); Aleksandr Dement’ev, ed., Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’ (1702–1894): Spravochnik (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1959).   4 For the history of art criticism in Russia of the period see: Ivan Masanov, Slovar’ psevdonimov russkikh pisatelei, uchenykh i obschestvennykh deiatelei, 4 vols (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Vsesoiuznoi knizhnoi palaty, 1956–60); Viktor Vanslov, ed.,

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Russkaia progressivnaia khudozhestvennaia kritika vtoroi poloviny XIX – nachala XX veka: Khrestomatiia (Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1977); Natal’ia Bespalova and Alla Vereshchagina, Russkaia progressivnaia khudozhestvennaia kritika vtoroi poloviny XIX veka: Ocherki (Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1979); Rafail Kaufman, Ocherki istorii russskoi khudozhestvennoi kritiki XIX veka: Ot Batiushkova do Aleksandra Benois (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1990); Aleksandr Bobrikov, ‘Russkaia “reaktsionnaia” khudozhestvennaia kritika 1880-kh godov’ (Kandidatskaia diss., The Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St Petersburg, 2001); Carol Adlam and Juliet Simpson, eds, Critical Exchange: Art Criticism of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries in Russia and Western Europe (Bern: P. Lang, 2008).   5 In 1871, there were around 700,000 residents in St Petersburg and around 600,000 residents in Moscow. Respectively: Fridrikh-Arnold Brokgauz, Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, vol. 18 (St Petersburg: F. A. Brokgauz, I. A. Efron, 1900), 313; Konstantin Arsen’ev, ed., Novyi Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, vol. 27 (Petrograd: F. A. Brokgauz, I. A. Efron, 1916), 299.   6 See, for instance: Sidney Monas, ‘St Petersburg and Moscow as Cultural Symbols’, in Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia, ed. Theofanis Stavrou (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 26–39; Konstantin Isupov, ‘Dialog stolits v istoricheskom dvizhenii’, Politiia, no. 3 (2002): 29–67; Marina Kuz’mina, ‘Slavianofil’stvo’, in Tri veka Sankt-Peterburga. Entsiklopediia v 3 t. T. 2, Deviatnadtsatyi vek. Kn. 6: S–T, ed. P. E. Bukharkin (St Petersburg: Fakul’tet filologii i iskusstv SPbGU, 2008), 356–60.   7 Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, 23 November 1871, 1.   8 Kramskoi to Fedor Vasiliev, 8 November 1871, in Ivan Kramskoi, Pis’ma, stat’i v dvukh tomakh, vol. 1 (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965), 100.   9 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 95. 10 See the history of the negotiation process in: ibid., 95–9, 106–7, 111, 127, 135–6, 546–9. 11 Ibid., 176. 12 Putevoditel’ po Peterburgu (St Petersburg, 1886), 28. 13 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 67, 127–8. 14 See Nina Dmitrieva, Moskovskoe uchilishche zhivopisi, vaianiia i zodchestva (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1951); Svetlana Stepanova, Moskovskoe uchilishche zhivopisi, vaianiia i zodchestva: gody stanovleniia (St Petersburg: Iskusstvo, 2005); Rosalind P. Blakesley, ‘Academic Foot Soldier or Nationalist Warhorse? The Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture, 1843–1861’, in From Realism to the Silver Age: New Studies in Russian Artistic Culture, ed. Rosalind P. Blakesley and Margaret Samu (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014), 13–26. 15 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 628–30.

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16 Ibid., 336. 17 Ibid., 114. 18 Ibid., 116, 551. See, for instance, the exhibition attendant’s request in ibid., 214; and the official response of the University Rector in Ibid., 572. 19 Ibid., 167. 20 See attribution of the prints: Dmitrii Rovinskii, Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh graverov XVI–XIX vv., vol. 2 (St Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi akademii nauk, 1895), 385, 573. Hereafter I am deeply grateful to Professor Roman Grigor’ev, the Head of the Print Department of the State Hermitage Museum, and Galina Mardilovich, the author of the first assessment of the Society of Russian Etchers, for their knowledgeable consultations on the questions of printmaking techniques and their historical context. See: Galina Mardilovich, ‘Russkie Akvafortisty: The Society of Russian Etchers and Early Artistic Organisation in the Russian Art World, 1871–1875’, Art History 39, no. 5 (2016): 926–51. 21 Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, 28 November 1871, 1. 22 Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, 23 November 1871, 1. 23 Dement’ev, Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’, 19–20; M. V. Ivanov, ‘SanktPeterburgskie vedomosti’, in Tri veka Sankt-Peterburga. Entsiklopediia v 3 t. T. 2, Deviatnadtsatyi vek. Kn. 6: S–T (St Petersburg: Fakul’tet filologii i iskusstv SPbGU, 2008), 97–100. 24 Dement’ev, Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’, 436–7; Andrei Lunochkin, ‘Russkii “Times”’, in Peterburg gazetnyi: 1711–1917, ed. Elena Sonina (Tiumen: Mandra i Ka, 2009), 63–80. 25 Vladimir Chuiko, ‘Russkaia zhivopis’ v 1888 godu’, Nabliudatel’, no. 4, April 1888, 278. 26 Kramskoi to Tretyakov, 1 March 1879, in Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 185–6. 27 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 565. For a history of the periodical press in late imperial Russia see: Cherepakhov, Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’ (1895–1917); Dement’ev, Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’; Boris Esin, Russkaia zhurnalistika 70–80-kh godov XIX veka (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1963); Chernukha, Pravitel’stvennaia politika v otnoshenii pechati, 60–70-e gody XIX veka; Daniel Balmuth, The Russian Bulletin, 1863–1917: A Liberal Voice in Tsarist Russia (New York: Peter Lang, 2000); Elena Sonina, Peterburgskaia universal’naia gazeta kontsa XIX veka (St Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta, 2004); Elena Sonina, ed., Peterburg gazetnyi: 1711–1917 (Tiumen: Mandra i Ka, 2009); Elena Sonina, ed., Peterburg gazetnyi: 1711–1917. Vyp. II (St Petersburg: Svoe izdatel’stvo, 2016). 28 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 600–1. 29 Ibid., 190.

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30 Ibid., 84. 31 Ibid., 252, 600. 32 Varshavskii dnevnik, 26 January 1883, quoted in Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 581. 33 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 73, 84, 116, 173. 34 Hereafter, I am relying on three sources, which record these text-only catalogues: the surviving copies of catalogues I have located in libraries, the catalogues featured in Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, and the compilation of the fifteen exhibition catalogues compiled by the publisher Nikolai Sobko as an appendix to the illustrated catalogue for the seventeenth show – Nikolai Sobko, ed., Illiustrirovannyi katalog XVII peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1889), 15–17. 35 ‘Zametki’, Nedelia, no. 7, 18 February 1890, 228. 36 *** [S. V. Flerov], ‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, Moskovskie vedomosti, 19 April 1889, 3. 37 Nikolai Sobko, ed., Illiustrirovannyi katalog Khudozhestvennogo otdela Vserossiiskoi vystavki v Moskve (St Petersburg, 1882), iii–iv. 38 The second and third illustrated catalogues can now be found in several collections, including the Prints Department of the National Russian Library. See the full attribution of the catalogues’ prints in: Rovinskii, Podrobnyi slovar’ russkikh graverov XVI–XIX vv.; Petr Kornilov, Ofort v Rossii XVII–XX vekov: Kratkii ocherk (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Khudozhestv SSSR, 1953), 142–3. 39 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 84. 40 Niks [N. P. Kicheev], ‘XVI khudozhestvennaia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Novosti dnia, no. 1735, 7 May 1888, 2. 41 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 85–6. 42 Sobko, Illiustrirovannyi katalog XVII peredvizhnoi vystavki, iv; Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 199–200, 210, 570–1. 43 See, for instance: Siegfried Wichmann, Japonisme: The Japanese Influence on Western Art since 1858 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981). 44 Niks [N. P. Kicheev], ‘XVI khudozhestvennaia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, 2. 45 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 332. 46 Niks [N. P. Kicheev], ‘XVI khudozhestvennaia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, 2. 47 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 332, 593. 48 Sobko, Illiustrirovannyi katalog Khudozhestvennogo otdela, vii–viii. 49 Sobko, Illiustrirovannyi katalog XVII peredvizhnoi vystavki, iii. 50 Ibid. 51 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 493–4, 618–9. 52 V. V. Stasov, Dve stat’i V.V. Stasova iz poslednego vremeni, kasaiushchiesia Peredvizhnykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1896).

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53 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 495. 54 Otchet Pravleniia Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1875); Otchet Pravleniia Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok za 3-iu vystavku (St Petersburg, 1876).

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The groups in question consist of completely autonomous individuals who associated themselves with a corporation solely for a specific, shared, practical, and public-spirited purpose, but who otherwise wished to maintain their independence […] Another way of referring to it might be ‘corporate’ portraiture. Alois Riegl, The Group Portraiture of Holland The Peredvizhniki extensively and effectively employed photography in the production and promotion of their art, business and group identity. Many of the members of the group used photography as an aide-memoire during the creation of their paintings. It also helped them reproduce and disseminate knowledge of their works through publications and photographs sold at their exhibitions. At the same time, members of the group exploited photography as a means of self-presentation. Individual artists used cabinet cards – the late nineteenthcentury analogue of the carte de visite – for the purposes of self-promotion. The Peredvizhniki also commissioned several photographs of themselves as a group. Taken on various occasions, at least seventeen images of this kind have survived (Figures 24–29).1 Such a number of corporate group photographs of artists is unprecedented in nineteenth-century art history.2 Their originality can be attributed to the social conditions within which the group developed. As has been shown, this group of painters created a legal partnership to promote their works independently in both the capital cities and the provinces on a commercial basis. The members of the Partnership met together only a few times a year. The symbolic purpose of these gatherings was to reunite and revitalize the group – the Partnership – which otherwise existed only on paper. ‘The congress lasted three days,’ wrote the Moscow art patron Pavel Tretyakov, an observer of one such General Meeting

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Figure 24  Mikhail Panov, the Partnership’s group photograph, Moscow, 1885, version 1. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. Standing from left to right – Grigorii Miasoedov, Konstantin Savitskii, Vasilii Polenov, Efim E. Volkov, Vasilii Surikov, Ivan Shishkin, Nikolai Iaroshenko, Pavel Briullov, Aleksandr Beggrov; seated – Sergey Ammosov, Aleksandr Kiselev, Nikolai Nevrev, Vladimir Makovskii, Aleksandr Litovchenko, Illarion Prianishnikov, Karl Lemokh, Ivan Kramskoi, Ilya Repin, Pavel Ivachev, Nikolai Makovskii.

Figure 25  Mikhail Panov, the Partnership’s group photograph, Moscow, 1885, version 2. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

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Figure 26  Mikhail Panov, the Partnership’s group photograph, Moscow, 1885, version 3. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

Figure 27  Andrei Denier, the Partnership’s group photograph, St Petersburg, 1888, version 1. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. Standing from left to right – Aleksandr Litovchenko, Leonid Pozen, Pavel Briullov, Arkhip Kuindzhi, Nikolai Nevrev, Nikolai Dubovskoi; seated – 1st row: Nikolai Kuznetsov, Vladimir Makovskii, Efim Volkov, Konstantin Savitskii, Vasilii Maksimov, Apollinarii Vasnetsov, Ivan Shishkin, Karl Lemokh; 2nd row: Grigorii Miasoedov, Ilya Repin, Aleksandr Beggrov, Nikolai Bodarevskii, Alexander Kiselev, Mikhail Klodt, Nikolai Iaroshenko, Illarion Prianishnikov.

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Figure 28  Andrei Denier, the Partnership’s group photograph, St Petersburg, 1888, version 2. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

Figure 29  Denier’s Studio. Group photograph of members and exponents of the Partnership, St Petersburg, 1897, version 4 of 4. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

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in 1885, ‘and has apparently served to cement friendship, not change it; it is necessary at least once every few years to gather in person: all misunderstandings are smoothed over and union restored’.3 In this way a photograph, as Bourdieu would say, supplied the means of commemorating the climactic moment of the social event in which the Partnership solemnly reaffirmed its unity4 – or at least pretended that such unity existed. It took one and half decades for the first proper corporate group photograph of the Peredvizhniki to be taken. The earliest known photographic group portrait appeared in 1878, but it featured only five out of the twenty-odd members of the Partnership by that time.5 It is only in 1885 that the majority of the Partnership members gathered together in a photographic studio for a group portrait. The technical complexity of taking such a portrait, as well as the costs and logistical obstacles, may have contributed to this delay. It was also a solid ‘anniversary’ date – fifteen years since the government had registered the Partnership – that apparently made the artists realize the importance of being depicted as a group and remembered as such. Thereafter such photo sessions became a regular practice, providing several representations of the later stage of the Peredvizhniki group in various contexts. A number of factors, however, indicate that from almost two dozen images only the studio-based series were designed to build a public identity of the group or could have been intended for public use, while the rest were deemed inadequate in terms of an accurate or desired representation. The well-known authors of some of these images provide the first insight into the character of the portrait commissions. The Partnership commissioned its studio group portraits from Mikhail Panov in Moscow in 1885 and from Andrei Denier in St Petersburg in 1888 and 1897. These choices were based on social contacts. For example, Panov was a friend of Kramskoi, and they shared another common friend in the photographer Tulinov; all three were graduates of the Academy. Panov and Tulinov had both worked as retouchers in photographic ateliers in the 1860s. One of these ateliers belonged to Denier, another Academy graduate. And so on. What is more important is that the names of Panov and Denier have survived for a reason. Although Denier was arguably the most established and renowned photographer to capture the Peredvizhniki group, Panov was also a highly regarded and prize-winning portrait specialist, and both had a clientèle which included prominent actors, writers, publishers, public figures, cultural institutions and members of the imperial family.6 Commissioning them for the Peredvizhniki group photographs helped to enhance the reputation

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of the artists as distinguished people. One may also observe that, as was the case with Sobko’s illustrated catalogues, the artists delegated control over their portrayal to highly acknowledged professionals who were familiar to them. In the case of all the other group images, the lack of any information about the photographers’ identities casts doubt on their professional status. That is to say, the artists’ representational intentions were more carefully considered in the case of the studio photographs, and less so in the others. Furthermore, the images taken by Panov and Denier are studio-based photographs, representing the group of artists per se. The other photographs depict the group’s participation in a specific event, particularly in the exhibition openings. In the case of the site-specific photographs, one contour of involvement7 – posing for a photograph – is subordinated to another: the opening of the exhibition. In other words, on these occasions, it was the opening of an exhibition, or the celebration of it at a restaurant, that motivated the taking of a photograph, and not vice versa. In the studio photographs, on the other hand, the group’s posing in front of the camera was the sole purpose of the sitters’ gathering. That is, the studio-based photographs were products of the group’s slightly different context and more purposeful self-presentation, when compared with the photographs taken at specific events. The very fact that the artists combined their efforts in terms of money, time, logistics and representational expectations signals that the intended viewers of Panov’s and Denier’s studio photographs of the group extended further than the circle of the artists’ close friends and colleagues. These photographs inevitably embraced certain publicity potential. This idea of an extended viewership can be further supported by the level of circulation of these photographs. There are more copies of the studio group photographs in the artists’ archives than of those taken at specific events. For instance, the 1888 Denier image of the group (Figure 28) appears to have been the most popular image among the artists, while only a few original copies of the two photographs from the opening that same year have been located. The same pattern can be seen with the other group photographs: the artists evidently valued and widely copied their studio photographs more than the other images. There is no evidence that the Peredvizhniki deliberately promoted their group photographs themselves, but the images nevertheless reached the public thanks to the press. A major portion of them was published around the group’s twentieth (1892) and twenty-fifth anniversaries (1897; Figure 31), that is, in some cases well after the photographs had been taken. For instance, the most popular of Denier’s

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Figure 30  Extract from magazine Family, 1893.

images was reproduced in the magazine Family (Sem’ia) some five years after it was taken (Figure 30). Only the photograph by Denier’s studio was published soon after it was staged in February 1897, suggesting that this one was intended for the press at the time of its production (Figure 32). Whether they were published immediately or some time later, the telling fact is that the periodicals of the period dealt only with the studio photographs, while none of the sitespecific group photographs reached the public. The studio-based sessions thus provide us with the most significant evidence of how the Peredvizhniki sought to publicly project their identity as a group through the medium of photography.

Panov’s egalitarian notion of the Peredvizhniki The three surviving photographs by Panov, taken in 1885, illustrate the first known attempt by the majority of the Peredvizhniki group to pose together in front of the camera (Figures 24, 25 and 26). The fact that there are three photographs of the same group of artists but that each is quite different in regard to composition, suggests that the sitters and/or the photographer may have had

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Figure 31  Extract from newspaper New Time, 1897.

some doubts as to which scheme would best express the artists’ ideas about their group identity. Whatever may have been the actual sequence of these images, one may observe here both quite conventional and highly innovative compositional developments, as well as a combination of the two.

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Figure 32  Extract from the magazine World Illustration, 1897.

Despite the very traditional arrangement of the sitters, the first of the three group portraits looks rather animated (Figure 24). It follows an amphitheatrical scheme: a balanced crescent-shaped organization of the whole group in several rows of varying height faces the viewer. On each side, figures or groups of figures in profile turn towards the main group, thus acting as frames. Additional devices such as chairs, couches and cushions facilitate and strengthen this arrangement, while the carpet marks the spatial borders for this social interaction. The animated impression conveyed by the photograph is achieved by no pose being repeated among the twenty sitters. Each sitter is distinct in the position of his face (full-face, half-face or profile), body posture (fully open, half-turned, seated, standing, stooped, recumbent) and the way he positions his hands and legs. Another compositional feature contributing to this animated impression is an overlap of the two modes of posing. Some of the sitters look directly at the viewer and these are mainly concentrated in the right half of the group. The alternative to this overt mode of posing (as if for a cabinet card) can be called a ‘fiction of absorption’, or posing-as-if-not-posing (to borrow a concept from Harry Berger8). The sitters are posing as if absorbed in a conversation and completely unaware of the camera. This alternative posing structure involves almost all the sitters on the left and the two seated figures on the far right. As a result, the overall composition seems to be both well balanced and irregular.

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There is a significant reorganization of the group in the second image, which aims to create the impression that the sitters have been captured as if by chance (Figure 25). This would not have been technically possible, however, at the time the photograph was taken. Whatever the pose, the exposure would have taken at least half a second and up to one second, which means that all of the sitters’ postures and gestures needed to be pre-arranged in all three photographs.9 Therefore, the whole scene was carefully composed and calculated. Also, there are a few artists – possibly Repin on the right and Volkov in the centre and certainly Ivachev on the left – who may be looking at the viewer. This signals that the sitters are aware of being photographed – of being looked at. Yet the fact that this cannot be said of most of the sitters may indicate that on this occasion their intention was to hold the pose of posing-as-if-not-posing, and what we observe is the sitters’ fulfilment of their individual versions of the scenario. By comparison with Figure 24, they all collectively and effectively build what Alois Riegl called the ‘internal coherence’ (innere Einheit) of the posing group.10 To do this, the photographer and sitters reorganized the entire setting as well as the viewer’s position. They abandoned the conventional row-based system of group arrangement and almost all of the furniture props. The majority of the sitters – with the exception of two – are now standing, while the group is divided into three main subgroups. Of all the subgroups, the most attention is attracted by the group with the piece of paper. There are two more conversations on the right – a group of three on the far right and a group of three in between. And there is one more articulated conversation of four persons on the left. In compositional terms, the main result of this dynamic rearrangement is that the photograph now has more than one narrative focal point. The third photograph (Figure 26) combines the first photograph’s idea of an integrated group with the more narrative dimension of the second. The group returns to the initial row-based arrangement and again employs furniture as a prop to facilitate this combination. Among four narrative focal points here, one – with the standing figure of Litovchenko (fifth from the left) – attracts the lion’s share of sitters. As in the first photograph, Panov avoids any repetition of pose and arranges most of the figures into companionable pairs and contrapuntal groupings, breathing new life into the conventional scheme. Yet only two sitters – the second (Beggrov) and the fourth (Ivachev) from the left in the standing row – appear to be aware of the viewer. The rest all collectively and effectively build internal coherence – the sitters’ gazes remain within the domain of the gathering. It almost appears as if the photograph does not need a viewer to complete it. Thus, there is clear, continuous and significant experimentation in Panov’s three photographs. It is striking that the photographer and the sitters made such

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a great effort, rather than simply posing to make a collection of straightforward individual portraits, as in the average group photograph of the period. What is novel and reiterated in all three images is that, while arranging the group differently, Panov firmly employed the narrative dimension and the idea of multiple focal points in the composition. It is well known that photography at its inception imitated oil painting, but in the case of the photographer Panov this was a biographical fact – an Academy graduate, he even signed three photographs under the title ‘photographer-artist’. Given that there are no specific signifiers (apart from the possible drawing in the second and third image) to characterize the sitters as artists (they are all dressed in formal suits), the inventive integration of issues native to multi-figured (historical) oil paintings may have been designed to suggest an implicit link between the sitters and their professional identity. While the intention to communicate artistic identity through composition is hard to prove any further, one may sense with greater confidence that the photographer’s use of multiple focal points and of a narrative dimension facilitates the egalitarian idea of the Partnership. The photographer and sitters faced the same dilemma of ‘competition and cooperation’ with photography as with any group portrait in oil: to balance compositionally the individual attention of each sitter with the corporate character of the gathering.11 Everything suggests that Panov and the artists preferred to accentuate cooperation, often at the cost of the individual portraits. The achieved conversational, ‘polyphonic’ character of the composition obliterates any sense of hierarchy within the group. Rather, it consists of like-minded autonomous members in a whole that communicates the self-governing, free-will nature of the corporation. There are no strict rows and there is a constant rotation of central positions in all three images. Hence, none of the images features an evident leader figure. Within their unrestrained conversations the sitters are coordinated rather than subordinated to anyone. In short, Panov’s photographs imply the free spirit of partnership and sense of equality of these like-minded individuals, regardless of title, rank, income and achievement – as long as they are members of the Partnership.

Denier’s metaphorical notion of the Peredvizhniki The two known photographs by Denier were taken less than three years after Panov’s session in Moscow with largely the same sitters. This may have encouraged the photographer and the artists to communicate something new about the group, although Denier was just as limited as Panov by the technical

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considerations regarding exposure time. These photographs too must have been very carefully composed. Staged in the same setting and with almost the same body of sitters, the two images employ contrasting compositional principles. In one the group is divided into two and given more lateral space (Figure 28), whereas in the other the group is more compressed, considering the free space available (Figure 27). While Figure 27 principally resembles one of the arrangements employed by Panov (Figure 24), it is Figure 28 that seems to add an evidently new dimension to the Muscovite’s representation of the group. Figure 28 contains something of a puzzle, which can be resolved upon examining the composition. The sitters are divided into two groups, in such a way as to imply that they are taking sides in some dialogue. Yet the sitters’ similarity in dress, age and social standing does not provide any obvious clues as to why they have been separated. Most of the sitters’ postures share the same frontal view, with only their faces in profile and turned towards the other group. A few figures are entirely in profile; they are found only at the ends of the whole gathering, facing inside the group (Beggrov on the left, Miasoedov and Vladimir Makovskii on the right). This means that the two groups actually share a single compositional frame, with the figures in full profile acting as its borders. What is more, both groups extensively employ various kinds of furniture props, and in each half there is a loose row-based scheme of sitter arrangement. Therefore, it is possible to join these two ‘halves’ of the whole group together – their postures and arrangement are in fact absolutely compatible. Moreover, neither group could stand on its own, as each would lack compositional autonomy – two divided parts of a sofa would not be able to stand alone on one pair of legs. The compositional emphasis of the gap between the two groups in conversation implies that the scene requires a metaphorical explanation. Further evidence that this scene needs to be understood metaphorically lies in the fact that the composition does not give any preference to one side of the dialogue, although one side clearly has more adherents. The right part of the group outweighs the left in quantitative terms – it features twice as many sitters. Compositionally speaking, however, this imbalance is levelled out. The first spot in the photograph that immediately seizes attention is the third figure (Shishkin) from the left in the standing row. Acting alone on behalf of the left group, this tall figure with striking physiognomy and hair (rather like an Old Testament prophet) drastically counteracts the larger size of the right group of sitters; the stove on the far left also helps to balance the composition. At the same time, the photograph insists on an internal coherence and on the fiction of the sitters’

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absorption in their conversation. Of the twenty-one sitters, eighteen are posing as if unaware of the viewer. These sitters are not only posing-as-if-not-posing, they are also building a narrative network which bridges the two separate groups as well as ties the sitters together within each group. Unlike Panov, however, Denier has utilized the narrative dimension as material for a conceptually new statement. All the sitters are visible and recognizable. Examining what is common to each group of members constituting the two gatherings, it becomes apparent that the group on the left consists solely of acclaimed landscape painters, while the group on the right is a mix of those who preferred genre (the majority of figures), history (Nevrev) and portraiture, or who created both portraits and genre paintings (Repin, Kuznetsov, Iaroshenko). This is thus the first Peredvizhniki group photograph which is defined by, and communicates, specific artistic information. There was nothing particularly original about the idea of distinguishing between different sorts of painting; in fact, this echoed the Academy’s teaching system and the Russian critics’ method of writing exhibition reviews. Nevertheless, this was an issue the artists wished to emphasize as the most representative of the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions. It is as if they wanted both to acknowledge the increasing role of landscape art in their shows and to suggest that the Partnership’s artistic agenda was rather broad and inclusive, in the sense that it could accommodate every subject between the natural world and social reality. The caption to the reproduction of Denier’s photograph elucidated this notion of the group in the public domain (Figure 30). Having identified all the sitters, most of whom were recognized artists by the time of publication, the Family magazine editorial seems to follow the very conception of the photograph’s split-group composition. Below the reproduction appear two graphically separated words: ‘peizazhisty’ (landscape painters) on the left and ‘zhanristy’ (genre painters) on the right. As has been established earlier, the term zhanristy does not completely cover the professional specialization of the painters on the right. Yet due to the fact that the majority of them were indeed famous for their contemporary subjects, the magazine seems to have taken the liberty of either oversimplifying the representation or of strengthening the main point at the expense of some factual details. In addition, the caption also employed the word ‘Peredvizhniki’ as a term to describe the group as a whole. In this way, the reproduction not only fixed the professional identity of the captured sitters in an explicit manner, but also linked the divided landscape and genre painters to a specific movement in the recent history of Russian art.

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Denier Studio’s corporate notion of the Peredvizhniki While Panov and Denier contrasted and experimented with the entire arrangement schemes from picture to picture, the four anniversary photographs of 1897 follow the most common conventions of large group portraits of the period. Here the sitters are arranged in several rows in front of a plain wall partially covered by a curtain (Figure 29). The most obvious explanation for such a dramatic shift from the conversational concept to a more conventional scheme is the significantly expanded size of the group, which made the production of internal coherence much harder to achieve together with a satisfactory composition. The Panov and Denier photographs show variations of practically the same group of twenty or so artists, while the photographs of 1897 feature around forty sitters, spanning several generations. There is a clear movement of the sitters within the two seated rows and the one standing row from image to image. Yet the key changes were connected with only the last standing row and, importantly, with the reduction of the narrative dimension. Even if there were some attempts to introduce a narrative dimension in the manner of Panov and Denier at the beginning of the session, this seems to have become of less and less importance as the series progressed. The fourth and final photograph reduces, on the one hand, all the interactions between the sitters and, on the other, completely levels the standing row, and by moving Shishkin – the only man with a great head of grey hair and beard – one row down, makes him not only part of the central axis but also a central figure of the group (Figure 29). As a result, from the four photographs of 1897, this is the only one which has the effect of a regular structure, thanks to the last levelled row and the fully frontal postures of most of the sitters, and where all the faces are clearly visible and make direct eye contact with the viewer. This may explain why, with at least three other options to choose from, this photograph was the one reproduced in a contemporary periodical (Figure 32). As in the previous studio group photographs, all the figures are dressed in formal day wear of the period (morning suits or jackets, waistcoats, white shirts, starched collar, trousers and black shoes). Perhaps it is only because of the sitters’ apparel and slightly irregular arrangement in the two seated rows that they would not be identified as military men, sportsmen or members of similarly disciplined professions. However, they could just as easily be journalists, actors, photographers or clerks.12 The caption to the publication of this photograph, however, informed the reader that the sitters are artists and equally emphasized the corporate character of their gathering. The magazine specifies the recent and exclusive character of

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the image and provides the full official name of the group: ‘On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Partnership for touring art exhibitions.’ The caption also explains that the represented group featured ‘members and exponents’ of the Partnership, though without identifying the sitters (perhaps because there were too many of them). Like the group’s latest catalogues, the caption seems to signify that acknowledging bureaucratic formalities is as important for the Partnership as the open character of its exhibitions. Finally, whatever their compositional differences, all three studio series consistently and effectively reiterated the same air of professionalism, egalitarianism and social sophistication, which was strongly embodied in and conveyed through the adopted common European male fashion of the sitters. The only possible alteration in their dress was in meeting the requirements appropriate to the time of day and occasion: frock coat (seen mostly in the photographs of the 1870s to 1880s), morning coat or jacket (seen mostly in the 1890s), dinner jacket or tailcoat (a distinctive form of evening dress for men), waistcoats, shirts, ties, trousers and black shoes.13 Broadly speaking, this was the apparel of the urban class, including its most well-to-do and influential stratum – the financial, trade and industrial bourgeoisie. ‘Almost anonymous as a uniform’, as Berger argued, the suit ‘was the first ruling class costume to idealise purely sedentary power. The power of the administrator and conference table. Essentially the suit was made for the gestures of talking and calculating abstractly.’14 The process of the mass adoption of the suit and its historical connotations became as much the case in Russia as in the rest of Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, the period being one of rapid industrialization and urbanization. (The introduction of the sewing machine into Russia in the 1860s made ready-to-wear, prefabricated, clothing widely available in the country from the 1880s.15) When deliberately staging their group photographs, the artists were dressed in the same way as clerks, civil servants, merchants and all other professional city residents. The sitters’ standardized suits gloss over their different social backgrounds and experiences, and these attributes of respectability and fashion do not expose their artistic individuality.16 For example, a brief observation of oil portraits of the Peredvizhniki, displayed at the shows, demonstrates a more varied pool of their artistic personalities in the public domain. It is true that the projection of social respectability appears to have been conventional and one of the dominant self-representational ideas among the Partnership’s members. The most conspicuous case is that of Kramskoi, one of the leaders of the group. In the 1882 oil portrait by Repin, displayed at the twelfth show, Kramskoi is depicted in three-quarter-length to accentuate his

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elegant posture, well-tailored and expensive suit, and relaxed hands; his beard and hair are well-groomed. A similar notion of a professional urban resident can be seen in Vladimir Makovskii’s 1883 portrait of Prianishnikov and Repin’s 1886 portrait of Miasoedov, displayed at the eleventh and fourteenth shows respectively. Yet such artists as Shishkin, Vasnetsov and Ge presented a clear alternative to this character of fashionable respectability, clearly exposing their artistic identity. For instance, in Kramskoi’s 1873 portrait of Shishkin, exhibited at the third show, the sitter poses with an easel bag in a field with a forest behind him, which seems to signify his interest in landscape art; while Miasoedov’s 1891 portrait depicts Shishkin in a studio, examining a print. A Partnership member, Vasnetsov, is captured in Nikolai Kuznetsov’s portrait of 1891 in the middle of the creative process: he is standing in front of an enormous canvas in paint-soiled working dress, with a palette in his left hand and a brush in his right. Iaroshenko’s 1890 portrayal of Ge surrounded by the works in his studio is another alternative to those who prioritized their social status. (The last three portraits were part of the nineteenth show.) However, when it came to the group photographs, the Peredvizhniki effectively suppressed this variety of identities in favour of an image of a collective of male professionals either involved in conversations or merely posing against a neutral studio background. As a result, while all of the studio pictures suggest that the sitters most probably have some common business interests, none of them explicitly demonstrates that those interests have anything to do with the art world, let alone with a specific aesthetic agenda. It has been argued that the use of the compositional principles native to multi-figured painting – the building of internal coherence, the narrative dimension, the use of multiple focal points and metaphors – distinguishes Panov’s and Denier’s works from most other photographic group portraits of the period, and that this is what is innovative about them. One could say that the sophisticated link between the sitters and their professional activity has been creatively incorporated into these photographs. But, even if this is so, the inventive compositional principles, in the end, did nothing more than emphasize the egalitarian and open character of this group of artists.

Alternative representational possibilities Every time the group wished to represent themselves together, the artists chose photography over oil. One may speculate as to which of the artists could have

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approached such a titanic and pioneering challenge: by this time, with perhaps the single exception of Repin’s Slavic Composers of 1872, Russian art had no tradition of corporate group portraits or conversation pieces. But the flavour of modernity and the practical arguments in favour of photography, such as reasonable costs, speed and reproducibility, meant that an oil painting of the group was most probably out of the question. Yet, even within the medium of photography, there was a range of representational possibilities available to the Peredvizhniki. We may learn about some of these from the significant number of the Peredvizhniki’s group photographs that remained outside the public domain. These photographs captured some moments of the communal life of the Partnership, rather than just exclusively representing the group. What do they tell us that the published images do not? The vernissage photographs, for instance, indicate that the artists had all the technical means to employ or pose in the presence of their works of art. The group’s several snapshots against the background of Savitskii’s painting To the War during the opening of the sixteenth exhibition demonstrates that the earliest such photographs were taken around the same time that the Peredvizhniki were posing in Denier’s studio in 1888. The four other photographs documented a more deliberate effort of the group to pose in the context of its twenty-second exhibition at the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts in 1894. In the image staged during the installation process, the artists, evenly dispersed about the room, are posing as if walking and making notes on their papers while looking at or voting on the paintings around them (Figure 33). In the other three images, taken most probably a week or so later, the group is posing against the background of the installed show (Figure 34). Landscape paintings and two sculptures form the artistic setting for this gathering. The room was entirely devoid of visitors, critics, collectors or other strangers at the time of the staging. It would have been reasonable for only the authors of the displayed works to pose as a group in such a context. These three images from the seventeen Peredvizhniki group photographs are the only ones that openly link the sitters to their professional occupation. The Peredvizhniki’s banquet photograph of 1892 generates the conventional iconographic idea of the artists as bohemians. The image captured the group in the middle of a somewhat bacchanalian atmosphere in this obviously private dining room of a fashionable restaurant (Figure 35). The high ceiling, richly stuccoed walls, enormous mirror, sconces with candles, and chandelier all

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Figure 33  Peredvizhniki during the installation or the balloting process at the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, St Petersburg, 1894. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

indicate the grandeur of the venue. This bright and spacious interior, which occupies the top half of the photograph, contrasts with the tightly packed crowd in the bottom half of the image. The small table, clearly not designed to accommodate such a large group, is covered with a random assortment of alcohol, tableware and candelabra. The attention is drawn towards a singular gap in the very tight group of sitters around the table. Apparently designed for the camera, this gap unmistakably reveals to us the drink-related purpose of this gathering as much as the rather unconventional behaviour of the sitters. On the left are two people seated on the floor next to a dining table, one of them holding a bottle in his left hand. In the centre, a basin and candle can be seen on the floor. The basin is in fact attached to the wooden wine barrel (located higher up on the right, behind the seated figure), in order to prevent liquid accidentally spilling on to the floor. Just behind the barrel is a man playing a guitar and singing (Vladimir Makovskii). This turns out to be the area in which the respectability and splendour of the restaurant and the sitters’ apparel vanish into alcohol-charged cordiality, impropriety and informality. This banquet

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Figure 34  Peredvizhniki at the exhibition at the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, St Petersburg, 1894, version 1 of 3. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

photograph appears to be the only visual representation of the Peredvizhniki in which the most common elements of an eccentric bohemian lifestyle are present and intersect: a group of artists (not family members) consume large amounts of alcohol (but no food) while wasting time, money and life in music, conversation and unrestrained socializing. They live and act with no regard for conventional rules of behaviour. Here there is nothing left of the staged rationality, professional air and sobriety of the Panov and Denier images. It is worth noting that the fashionable St Petersburg restaurant captured here was indeed popular among writers, actors, artists and journalists: that is, all those creatures who inhabit the popular literary myth of la vie bohème.17 Finally, clothing provided another opportunity to present the group and its possible ideology in a specific manner (as noted in the earlier discussion on the suit). The Peredvizhniki’s consistent following of the European dress code in all their photographic group portraits is an unmissable statement in the light of the fact that, in Russia, dress was a significant weapon in the arsenal of social

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Figure 35  Peredvizhniki at the restaurant Cubat or Donon, St Petersburg, 1892. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

protest during this period. Difficult for the government to control, it proved to be a powerful instrument deployed across highly differentiated social protest movements. Slavophiles, nihilists and narodniks (populists), having quite different objectives, expressed in their alternative apparel their anti-Western attitude, anarchist ideas or social fraternity with Russian peasants, respectively. A closer example to the Peredvizhniki group was the art critic Stasov. The chief advocate of the group, enthusiastically promoting the Peredvizhniki’s art for its narodnost’ (national character), Stasov was consistent in this respect in his public self-presentation. Photographs and oil portraits of the critic (see Repin’s portrait of Stasov of 1889) show him wearing or posing in Russian national dress or incorporating Russian folk elements into European designs.18 The fact is that none of the group photographs demonstrate the Peredvizhniki (promoted by some critics and publishers as adherents of narodnost’ in art) participating in this movement or finding it particularly appealing in terms of dress. There are no elements of the ‘Russian style’ in their apparel, nor any other elements in their dress which would characterize them as any sort of radicals. On the contrary, in their clothing the artists were as conventional, professional and modern well-to-

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do members of society as they had been in print when launching and promoting their business in the public domain. Everything suggests that the Peredvizhniki preferred to foster the idea of a group of like-minded business partners at the expense of the idea of a group of like-minded artists in the public domain. They commissioned photographic group portraits on different occasions, but only the studio-based sessions ever reached the contemporary public domain and thereby constructed their egalitarian and business-like identity. The Peredvizhniki had several options, with the help of either their paintings or their clothes, to articulate that identity differently, should the artists have wished to do so. However, there is no evidence of such efforts having taken place. And those photographs which did explicitly demonstrate the sitters’ affiliation with the art world or show them as participants in art exhibitions – or even as quasi-bohemians – were kept out of public sight. In turn, all the studio photographs of the group effectively communicate – thanks to a strong amount of coherence in the sitters’ apparel, gestures and manners, and the egalitarian, free-spirited and corporate character of their gatherings – that it was a common exhibition enterprise that bound and encouraged the group to come together. In staging their major group photographs, the artists simply acted in accordance with this state of affairs, without any attempt to pretend it was something more.

Notes   1 See the full set of the surviving photographs and my identification of each, including the date and author, in Andrey Shabanov, ‘Re-Presenting the Peredvizhniki: A Partnership of Artists in Late Nineteenth-Century Russia’ (PhD diss., The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2013), 84–92; Andrey Shabanov, Peredvizhniki: mezhdu kommercheskim tovarishchestvom i khudozhestvennym dvizheniem (St Petersburg: EUSP Press, 2015), 111–21.   2 Perhaps the only similar instance, albeit in oil, would be Henri Fantin-Latour’s series of group portraits of Parisian artists and writers, painted between 1864 and 1885. See Bridget Alsdorf, Fellow Men: Fantin-Latour and the Problem of the Group in Nineteenth-Century French Painting (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012).   3 Tretyakov to Viktor Vasnetsov, 24 October 1885, in Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 588.   4 Pierre Bourdieu, Photography: A Middle-Brow Art (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 20–1.   5 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 9.

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  6 See David Elliott, ed., Photography in Russia, 1840–1940 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992); Elena Barkhatova, Russkaia svetopis’: pervyi vek fotoiskusstva, 1839–1914 (St Petersburg: Al’ians Liki Rossii, 2009); Tat’iana Shipova, Fotografy Moskvy – na pamiat’ budushchemu, 1839–1930: Al’bom-spravochnik (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ob”edineniia Mosgorarkhiv, 2001).   7 I am borrowing a term from Erving Goffman. See Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963); Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Penguin, 1959).   8 Harry Berger Jr., Fictions of the Pose: Rembrandt against the Italian Renaissance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000); Harry Berger Jr., Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief: Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ and Other Dutch Group Portraits (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007).   9 I am thankful for comments on the technical aspect of these photographs to John Falconer, Head of Visual Materials, Curator of Photographs at The British Library, an expert in nineteenth-century photography. 10 Alois Riegl, The Group Portraiture of Holland (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999). 11 Berger, Fictions of the Pose, 325–6; Berger, Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief, 48–51. 12 See examples of photographic portraits of other professional groups in Russia during this period in Tat’iana Saburova, Portret v russkoi fotografii: izbrannye proizvedeniia 1850–1910 godov iz sobraniia Gosudarstvennogo istoricheskogo museia (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii musei, 2006). 13 See, for instance, Penelope Byrde, Nineteenth-Century Fashion (London: Batsford, 1992). 14 John Berger, ‘The Suit and the Photograph’, in John Berger: Selected Essays, ed. Geoff Dyer (London: Bloomsbury, 2001), 277. 15 Christine Ruane, The Empire’s New Clothes: A History of the Russian Fashion Industry, 1700–1917 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 58–61, 67–73. 16 Graham Clarke, ‘Public Faces, Private Lives: August Sander and the Social Typology of the Portrait Photograph’, in The Portrait in Photography, ed. Graham Clarke (London: Reaktion Books, 1992), 71–93. 17 According to Kiselev, the banquet was in either the Donon or Cubat restaurant. See I. A. Bogdanov, ‘Donon’, in Sankt-Peterburg: entsiklopediia, ed. B. Iu. Ivanov (St Petersburg: ROSSPEN, 2004), 257; I. A. Bogdanov, ‘Cubat’, in Sankt-Peterburg: entsiklopediia, ed. B. Iu. Ivanov (St Petersburg: ROSSPEN, 2004), 434; E. V. Abramova, ‘Restoran’, in Tri veka Sankt-Peterburga. Entsiklopediia v 3 t. Tom 2, Deviatnadtsatyi vek. Kniga 5: P–R, ed. P. E. Bukharkin (St Petersburg: SPbGU, 2006), 922–3. 18 Ruane, The Empire’s New Clothes, 151–8.

4

Revealing the Art Manifesto, 1888

The idea of composing the anniversary report emerged around the same time that the artists began to commission their group photographs, and most likely for a similar reason: to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the exhibitions and the foundation of the Partnership. And like most of the studio group photographs, the anniversary report was not initially intended for publication but, nevertheless, possessed all of the characteristics required to eventually become part of the public domain. As has been shown, the Partnership compiled an annual report which, from the fourth exhibition onwards, consisted solely of the respective tour’s financial and statistical results. The fifteenth anniversary report for the first time brought this information together in the form of a single table (Figure 36). The report also includes a fairly extensive text written exclusively for this occasion (see Appendix 2) and an additional table, which registers the artists’ status as members or exponents within the Partnership over the course of the fifteen shows. Most significantly, while the group’s primary intention was to review its business results over a long period, it did so against the background of the related social and artistic developments in the country.

Authorship Somewhat predictably, it was Miasoedov who, out of more than twenty members, took the initiative and made a remarkable effort to compose the report. He delivered the anniversary report at the General Meeting on 21 February 1888, which decided to publish it as an attachment to the catalogues for the Partnership’s sixteenth show. The text is not signed but, given that it is written in the first person, one may safely assume that Miasoedov read out his own text. This artist was behind the idea of touring exhibitions and remained their key driving force. Two other important co-founders of the Partnership, Perov and Kramskoi, had passed away in 1882 and

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Figure 36  Table of the reports of the Partnership for the fifteen exhibitions (attachment to the catalogue of the sixteenth exhibition), 1888.

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1887 respectively, while another major figure, Ge, rejoined the group only in the early 1890s. Miasoedov, then, remained the only active founding member in the Partnership during the late 1880s. Furthermore, the name most frequently seen in the Partnership’s business papers of the period is that of Miasoedov. The documents reveal that he was regularly involved in the Partnership’s daily routines even when he did not occupy any official position. According to correspondence and minutes, Miasoedov, to the exclusion of almost everyone else, was constantly suggesting administrative improvements or ways of calculating dividends, interest rates and loans.1 The minutes also make it clear that it was Miasoedov who, from the 1880s, acted as the virtually permanent chairman of the General Meetings. Ultimately, this more than just regular member status of the artist was also acknowledged by other members of the group. In one of his letters Perov wrote to Kramskoi: ‘Chirkin, the exhibition attendant, although not our member, possesses an eagerness for our interest and love for art that is second to none among us, except, perhaps, Grigorii Grigoryevich [Miasoedov].’2 That the author of the anniversary report was the Partnership’s long-term and most vigorous ‘manager’ must have contributed to the gravity and accuracy of the narrative.

Structure of the anniversary report The primary intention of the report was to examine how well the Partnership had achieved the aims stated in its charter (see a1, hereafter Appendix 2). However, Miasoedov also used the report as an opportunity to comment on recent developments in the Russian art world in connection with the Partnership’s activity (a2.2). As a result, the report consists of two virtually independent parts, both taking the year 1870 as their starting point. While the ‘business’ section suggests in many ways a familiar and predictable retrospective overview of the Partnership’s commercial achievements (c1–g), it is the ‘aesthetic’ part of the report that demonstrates a groundbreaking quality, justifying the group’s existence in a remarkably new way (b1–11).

The business statement The financial data of the report implies that the Partnership’s touring exhibitions had been a viable and steadily growing enterprise. The summary table for the

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fifteen exhibitions provides perhaps the most direct and convincing evidence of this (Figure 36). In particular, it illustrates that the number of works displayed had almost doubled over one and a half decades, from an average of seventy paintings per show in the 1870s to just under a hundred and fifty in the 1880s; as a rule, the artists sold almost half of them. It also demonstrates that the Partnership’s exhibition tour was able to generate profit at a steady rate throughout the entire period. The profit comprised income from the sale of entrance tickets and catalogues after the deduction of exhibition arrangements and travel expenses. The sum of all the capital and provincial cities’ profits constituted the income of the whole touring exhibition, which was determined at the end of the year upon the exhibition’s return. This means that the income from the sale of tickets and catalogues became the only and sufficient financial support for the touring exhibitions. (In other words, it can be posited that the touring exhibition would have been a profitable enterprise even if no paintings had been sold. In this respect, the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions cannot be accused of relying on a relatively small circle of collectors and patrons.3) The table also supports Miasoedov’s prediction that St Petersburg, despite showing the lowest attendance per thousand residents, would generate the largest income and fuel the rest of the tour. While the financial figures spoke for themselves, Miasoedov wished to emphasize less obvious aspects. One of them was that the Partnership had been serving as a self-generating mechanism of mutual assistance for its members (c1.3, c2). To illustrate this, Miasoedov carefully set out the dual function of the Partnership’s capital fund (the last entry in the summary table). It was designed to insure the touring works against damage, a rule which exposed the artists as professional agents in the market. But the Partnership had also agreed to utilize the fund to support its members in time of need, as they inevitably demonstrated very different and fluctuating levels of success in the market. In support of this claim, the author quoted the precise amount of help provided to the members. The report thereby reveals how the Partnership’s business activity served to secure, if not improve, the artists’ standards of living and independence. Miasoedov also used the table’s statistics to support his case for the growing institutional significance of the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions and their longterm implications for Russian society. The number of tickets sold provided an immediate source of economic data which the artists both considered in planning the next exhibition tour and utilized in the annual reports to prove statistically that the Partnership had regular and direct contact with the provincial population.

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Miasoedov directly linked the emergence, sophistication and professionalization of the provincial art scene with the touring exhibitions (c9.3). This seemed to imply that the Partnership activity had a civilizing effect, and had been fulfilling some of the state’s traditional functions. Miasoedov’s strongest argument in this respect was to highlight that the Academy had undertaken its own touring exhibitions. (The first such touring exhibition visited Odessa, Kharkov and possibly Yekaterinburg in 1886/87. While the second exhibition in 1888/89 covered an even broader range, including Odessa, Riga, Kiev, Kazan, Kharkov, Samara and Simbirsk, there are no records of the Academy running its own touring shows in the provinces after that.4) The apparent financial and administrative failure of the Academy’s touring exhibitions, at which Miasoedov delicately hinted, underlined the effectiveness of a self-governing initiative in the arts (c10); that a private exhibition enterprise could successfully compete with the government-backed Academy exhibitions in the capital and in the provinces; and that this enterprise could be commercially viable while still effectively contributing to the common good. In a word, Miasoedov was speaking on behalf of an influential ‘corporation’ with even more ambitious plans. He revealed that the Partnership’s long-term and institutional goals extended as far as the construction of its own permanent exhibition space in the capital, the foundation of a school, the rebirth of the Etching Society, and the improvement of the artists’ working conditions (e1–2). Paradoxically, this sense of a solid corporate body was expressed most clearly in the obituary section of the report (f1), which includes the observation that ‘people come and go, but business (delo) remains’ (f2). Miasoedov approached the Partnership as a ‘place’ of work, an ‘organization’ in which the members were interchangeable but the growing corporate body and its delo remained constant. The table of ‘all the participants’ attached to the report has visualized this process: in a highly formalized, bureaucratic manner it records the flow of the artists and their status within the Partnership over the course of the fifteen exhibitions. Up to this point, the anniversary report perfectly conformed to the Partnership’s business-like and aesthetically open strategy of public self-representation described in the previous chapters. But the report also demonstrated one paradigmatic shift in that strategy – namely, the first ever public articulation of an aesthetic identity on behalf of the group. More precisely, Miasoedov began to argue that a specific artistic agenda was a primary driving force behind the Partnership’s foundation. This new ‘aesthetic’ argument precedes the business section of the report and, because of this, assigns only a supporting role to the Partnership’s entire business.

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The artistic manifesto The rhetorical way in which Miasoedov structured the aesthetic part of the report implied that the Partnership had emerged in opposition to the Academy. The section begins with a caricature of the Academy’s annual shows as an embodiment of the century-old conservative exhibition culture, illustrating the dominance of classical historical painting, the ‘cosmopolitan’ character of the exhibitions, the festive yet passive audience and the aristocratic connoisseurial patronage system in the arts (b1–4). Only then does the narrative introduce the Partnership (b5–6), which embodied everything new in the arts. Miasoedov concluded the aesthetic part by describing how realist art had gained a foothold in the Academy’s shows, and how the Partnership had served as a catalyst for the liberalization of the most conservative exhibition venue in the country (b7). It is noteworthy that what is suggestively absent in this sequence of events is the Revolt of the Fourteen at the Academy in 1863. As has been demonstrated earlier, the significance of this event for the emergence and rebellious identity of the Partnership has been dramatically exaggerated. According to Miasoedov, however, even if the Partnership did have some tensions with the Academy, the Revolt had no role in that story. Instead, the artist argued that the Partnership was itself an inevitable product of certain social developments in Russia. There are only two instances in the ‘aesthetic’ part of the report where Miasoedov speaks from the standpoint of ‘we’ (b5.1) and ‘the Partnership’ (b6), and in both cases the words are accompanied by two other expressions, ‘new social conditions’ (b5.2) and ‘a period of change’ (b6). Clearly, the author was referring to the ongoing structural changes which had been set in motion by Alexander II’s liberal reforms of the late 1850s and early 1860s, which had dramatically affected all major aspects of Russian society. Miasoedov then went on to suggest a ‘sociological’ interpretation of the emergence of the realist trend in art (b5). He mentioned, on the one hand, the emergence of a new generation of artists interested in contemporary Russian subject matter (b5.1). On the other, he recognized the bourgeoisie, a new social/ economic class with its own aesthetic demands, as another significant driving force (b5.2). According to Miasoedov, it was the favourable conjunction of these two developments, artistic and social, that had enabled the new trend in Russian art, the major principles of which were commitment to the Russian life, sincerity and truthfulness as opposed to idealization and academic routine (b5.3–4). Significantly, in representing the emergence of the Partnership as the outcome of

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an objective course of events, he downplayed any sense of personal responsibility, let alone audacity, on the part of the artists. Miasoedov used the more formal term ‘Partnership’ rather than the artistic term ‘Peredvizhniki’, widely employed by 1888 to refer to the group, including by the artists themselves. He also avoided mentioning any artists by name and tended to make use of passive grammatical constructions. Such impersonal, sociological insight seemed to acknowledge that the Partnership was established about a decade after the emergence of the realist trend in Russian art, and that this exhibition enterprise was a pragmatic response to the increasing demand for this new art in the market. Yet, at least in one instance, Miasoedov claimed that the Partnership did have a unifying aesthetic agenda in addition to the commercial one (b6). Specifically, he stated that ‘the Partnership united almost everyone who wanted to be sincere and truthful’, and that the purpose of this association had become the selfimposed commitment to acquaint Russia with Russian art. It is at this point in the aesthetic section that one may conclude that the term ‘Russian school’ and its supposed attributes – familiar, sincere, truthful, realist (real’nyi), national and contemporary – can be considered as synonymous with the Partnership. This was a groundbreaking claim on behalf of the group in the light of what has previously been established: for almost two decades none of the Peredvizhniki’s texts or visual self-representations had ever articulated an aesthetic agenda. Being part of the official catalogue of the sixteenth show, it is perhaps not surprising that some critics interpreted this claim as the group’s artistic manifesto or profession de foi.5 One does not need to look too far to find contradictions between the main claims of the artistic manifesto and the different aspects of the Partnership’s self-representations examined in the previous chapters. To begin with, the first four Peredvizhniki exhibitions had taken place at the Academy, something that Miasoedov mentioned in brief in the business part of the report (c3.1). This implies that the nature of the conflict was neither entirely aesthetic nor uncompromising, nor even physically observable, around the time of the Partnership’s foundation. Miasoedov insists on the evolution of the undifferentiated public (b2) into a demanding audience (b7.2) and states an obvious preference for the latter. However, in the beginning the artists were equally happy to depict both types of public on the cover pages of their official illustrated catalogues without passing any explicit judgement. That this was a lasting and deliberate strategy can also be seen in the analysis of the exhibition promotion in the press over the entire period. The artists placed the same advertisement text in liberal, democratic

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and moderately conservative newspapers as well as in the tabloids. Certainly, business interests pushed the artists to define their audience in broader and more pragmatic ways than Miasoedov’s text seems to suggest. As soon as Miasoedov publicly linked the concept of Russianness (in opposition to everything foreign) with the Partnership’s agenda, contradictions with other representations of the group become evident. For instance, the fifteenth anniversary report which criticized all manner of foreign imitations was published in an illustrated catalogue featuring a Japanese-style cover, while the bilingual principle and entire design of this particular catalogue had been borrowed from the Paris Salon model, which became the template for all future Peredvizhniki illustrated catalogues. Nor did the artists demonstrate any nationalist sentiments in their choice of ‘Western’ St Petersburg as the main residency or when they unanimously and continuously followed European fashion while staging group portraits throughout two decades. It would seem that the reality suggested a more complex picture of where the Peredvizhniki’s antagonism towards the Academy and sense of nationalism ended and their pragmatism and desire to be modern began. Nevertheless, the truly novel feature of the anniversary report remains the fact that the Peredvizhniki claimed, albeit somewhat circuitously, that they were against the Academy, and that they identified themselves as nationalists and realists. This alone could overshadow the contradictions outlined above, while also suggesting a significantly new dimension to the Partnership’s public image which aimed to justify the group’s existence in a new, artistic, way. One possible indication as to why it took almost twenty years for the artists to make this point publicly can be found in the abrupt conclusion of the aesthetic section. Despite the declared triumph of the realist aesthetic, including at the official Academy shows, Miasoedov lamented the recent introduction of the censorship of exhibitions (b10). The artists had been dealing with the censor when publishing every single document right from the beginning, but from April 1885 the situation had worsened and they now also had to pass a censorship preview for each show in every city. By 1888, Miasoedov had enough evidence to complain that this ruling had considerably complicated the Partnership’s business (b10). Yet, as we shall see later, what Miasoedov failed to make clear is that it was a series of scandals at the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions that had largely caused this undesirable turn of events. Perhaps the only echo of those events in the anniversary report is the group’s unprecedented attack on their critics. This attack can be found in the

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business section of the report (d1–3), though it is consonant with Miasoedov’s illumination of the Peredvizhniki’s aesthetics in the first part (b5.5). In short, in a forthright and highly polemical manner, Miasoedov pointedly condemned the capital’s critics for their lack of support and understanding of the artists’ works and contemporary art objectives. (It is quite possible that Miasoedov’s was inspired by an analogous, albeit far more comprehensive, attack on the ‘ignorance’ of Russian critics undertaken by one of their own – Stasov’s series of articles ‘Brakes on the New Russian art’, published in the Messenger of Europe in 1885.) Predictably, this attack on the press provoked a journalistic furore. Most commentators responded by dismissing the Peredvizhniki’s accusations as at best unnecessary, and at worst tactless and ill-mannered.6 ‘It is a bad sign,’ claimed a columnist for Russian Wealth (Russkoe bogatstvo), ‘when artists, instead of works done with palette and brush, insist on presenting to the public their literary-polemical-advocatory experiments: speak to us about your merits with brush and chisel, and not by using a quill’.7 The role of the ‘ignorant’ press in promoting the far-reaching scandals surrounding the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions, as well as all other aspects of this complex story, will be explored in depth in subsequent chapters and in connection with particular exhibitions or paintings. But it is already possible to sense how the introduction of censorship may have affected the Partnership’s decision to define its artistic principles in order to retake control over their public image and/or defend their business. In what seems to have been anticipation of a negative critical reaction, Miasoedov used the report’s concluding paragraph to acknowledge, in hyperbolic terms, the members of the imperial family for their generous interest in the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions (g). Such a manifestation of loyalty and gratitude to the monarchy is fairly consistent with much of the Peredvizhniki’s behaviour prior to and after the anniversary report. As we shall see later, the Peredvizhniki’s shows often featured full-length portraits of members of the imperial family. In the same vein, five years prior to this anniversary report many Peredvizhniki members had participated in the official coronation ceremony of Alexander III in Moscow, visualizing the event for the official coronation album or decorating venues for the festivities.8 In the context of the anniversary report, it is as if the Partnership was reassuring the public that, while it did have some disagreements with the Academy and especially with the critics, there were none with the actual government. From the 1890s up to the present day, the Peredvizhniki have been almost universally regarded as an altruistic, public-spirited art movement dedicated

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to the promotion of a critical realist aesthetic. This view has only once been meaningfully challenged, and this was by the Marxist Fedorov-Davydov who, in the late 1920s, argued that the Peredvizhniki had been more of an inclusive and commercially dependent exhibition enterprise than an art movement worthy of the name. Many of his claims have been substantiated in the first four chapters of this book. One cannot ignore, however, the Partnership’s 1888 business-report-turnedartistic- manifesto and the circumstances that led to its emergence. Almost two decades after its foundation, the Partnership suddenly found it important to justify its existence on a different level. The fifteenth anniversary report brought into play, alongside the business character of the Peredvizhniki, a new, artistic, identity of the group. In the second part of the book I will demonstrate that one possible, and novel, way to explain the apparent contradiction is to undertake case studies of the Partnership’s key exhibitions and their critical perception. For the reason behind and definition of this new identity involved not only the artists but also the critics and the public, and bore a direct relation to the evolving character of the Partnership’s shows. These key exhibitions include the group’s inaugural show (1871); the fifth exhibition and the first to be held outside the Academy’s premises (1876); and the sequence of the eleventh (1883), twelfth (1884) and thirteenth (1885) shows, which were both the most scandalous and the decisive ones for the building of the dominating notion of the group as a realist art movement.

Notes   1 See for instance: Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 196–200, 295–7.   2 Perov to Kramskoi, 23 March 1873, in ibid., 83.   3 See more: Andrey Shabanov, ‘Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. K istorii art- menedzhmenta v Rossii’ (MA diss., The European University at St Petersburg, 2004).   4 The initiative was first formulated in 1884 in the document entitled ‘On the arrangement of the Academy’s touring exhibitions in major cities of the Empire’ (RGIA, fond 789, op. 11 1884, d. 224). See more: Otchet Imperatorskoi Akademii khudozhestv s 4 noiabria 1885 po 4 noiabria 1886 (St Petersburg, 1887), 6–8; see also the discussion of this Academy initiative among the Peredvizhniki in Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 303–4, 311–18, 589–90.

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  5 Chuiko, ‘Russkaia zhivopis’ v 1888 godu’, 268.   6 See, for instance, ibid., 262–9; S. A., ‘Stolichnaia pechat’ i Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh vystavok’, Novoe Vremia, no. 4315, 3 March 1888, 1; ‘O chem govoriat’, Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta, no. 61, 1 March 1888, 1; *** [S. V. Flerov], ‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Moskovskie vedomosti, no. 118, 30 April 1888, 3; Sozertsatel’ [L. Obolenskii], ‘XVI peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Russkoe bogatstvo, no. 3, March 1888, 187–90.   7 Ibid., 187–8.   8 See Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. 2: From Alexander II to the Abdication of Nicholas II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 214–25.

Part Two

The Peredvizhniki in the Eyes of the Critics

5

Inaugural Success: The First Show, 1871

Foreword on the Partnership’s membership policy The founding charter implies that the Partnership’s shows were to be composed solely of the members’ paintings (see §§3, 4 and 5 in Appendix 1). In practice, however, this principle was slightly adjusted. From the first show, the members did indeed contribute the majority of the exhibits, but there was always a small percentage of contributions from the external exhibitors – that is, participants who were not actually members. It can be inferred from the minutes of the General Meetings that displaying as an external exhibitor, with a work produced specifically for the show, was a necessary precondition for membership.1 Hence, during the first decade, when the Partnership had been steadily increasing its membership, the distinction between members and external exhibitors was not particularly evident or meaningful. The distinction only became noticeable when the Partnership virtually stopped accepting new members, beginning in 1881. Each case study will commence, therefore, with a brief observation of all these major changes in the Peredvizhniki’s membership body, for they were directly reflected in the character of their exhibitions. In this foreword I will summarize the major benefits of being a member, which were constant throughout the entire period, in order to be aware of all the motives that could drive artists to join the Partnership. In addition to artistic motives, there were significant commercial reasons for an artist to become a member; in fact, in most cases it is virtually impossible to separate the two. In terms of artistic freedom, member status allowed each artist to display and communicate what he wanted or felt necessary – the only real limitations were common sense and professional self-censorship. As for economic benefits, the member could display as many works as he wished, and he could sell these works at prices he had set and without paying any commission to an outside body. (Upon the sale of a member’s work, the Partnership took 5 per

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cent commission which went into the Partnership’s statutory fund; this money remained the property of the members, as a share in the fund, and if an artist left the Partnership he could reclaim it.) Moreover, once the entire tour had ended, the members whose paintings were included in the exhibition could also expect a so-called ‘dividend’, which was drawn from the show’s net profit. The calculation principle of the dividend was changed several times in an attempt to incorporate nuances such as the artistic significance of an individual artist’s contribution to the show, whether his work(s) had been sold, in which cities it had been shown, and so on. Additionally, membership itself was free; the Partnership covered the costs of transporting members’ works to the opening in St Petersburg, while the travel arrangements of the exhibition itself were fully covered by the sale of tickets and publications. Clearly, both established and emerging artists could not have expected better exhibiting conditions in terms of artistic independence, marketing possibilities and publicity, especially when there were no comparable alternatives, as demonstrated in Chapter 1. Predictably, all these exceptional opportunities, fixed in the founding charter, were not so obvious or foreseeable for artists at the beginning, and only began to be fully appreciated by them as the Partnership’s shows gained increasing artistic and institutional influence. The identity of the fifteen artists who signed the founding charter provides us with the principal insight into the character of the Partnership’s membership body at the time of the inaugural show in 1871/2. The best represented category was genre painting, which featured six artists: the prominent figures Vasilii Perov, Illarion Prianishnikov, Aleksei Korzukhin and Mikhail P. Klodt being alongside the relatively new names of Karl Lemokh and Grigorii Miasoedov. Landscape artists were the second best represented group, comprising the five founding members Mikhail K. Klodt, Lev Kamenev, Aleksei Savrasov, Ivan Shishkin and Nikolai Makovskii. There were also two well-known history painters, Nikolai Ge and Valerii Iakobi, and two artists best known for their portraits – Ivan Kramskoi and Konstantin Makovskii. As the founding charter makes clear, there were eight academicians as well as three professors – the highest available distinction in the professional hierarchy – among these founding members. The established status of most of the artists and their diverse specializations suggest that, from the beginning, the Partnership planned to represent all major genres in contemporary Russian painting. The first exhibition soon demonstrated that membership of the Partnership was as easy to lose as it was to acquire. Opened only a year after the charter’s registration, the inaugural show featured only ten founding members among

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the sixteen participants. The other five founding members – Korzukhin, Iakobi, Lemokh, and Nikolai and Konstantin Makovskii – were soon excluded from the Partnership simply because they had not contributed any paintings, although the last three artists later rejoined the Partnership. In turn, the six artists who participated as external exhibitors at the first show in 1872 were all unanimously granted membership later that year. These were the landscape artists Aleksei Bogoliubov, Sergei Ammosov and Vladimir Ammon, and the genre painters Vasilii Maksimov, Karl Gun and Vladimir Makovskii.2 Of these only Gun and, in particular, Bogoliubov were established painters, living mainly in France. The latter was not only another founding member to hold an official teaching position at the Academy, but he was also the most well-connected artist of the period, having personal contacts with members of the imperial family.3 Given that one-third of the Partnership’s initial membership body had changed within the space of two years, one can sense that the group’s identity remained very fluid and unstable, while the eventual list of contributors to the first show was to a certain extent accidental.

‘An exhibition at the Academy of Arts’ It was the St Petersburg inauguration of the show that held major importance for the Partnership. As has previously been discussed, the capital provided the most press coverage, and it was only here that a well-established competitive artistic scene, defined and dominated by the annual Academy shows, was truly in existence. Although in this particular winter season of 1871/2 the Partnership’s exhibition did not coincide with the Academy’s annual survey, the capital’s scene nevertheless provided critics with a context for distinguishing the conventional and novel aspects of the group’s inaugural exhibition. The first show was open during the worst time of year with regard to weather and light, but the artists still did very well.4 Between 29 November 1871 and 23 January 1872, the exhibition managed to attract 11,515 visitors and generate an income of 2,303 roubles from the sales of tickets, catalogues and photographs.5 In addition to announcements or mentions, it received thirteen proper reviews, which were either in the form of a separate article or, more often, part of a feuilleton. Publications in which reviews appeared included the liberal and most widely read semi-official newspaper Voice, the liberal magazine Fatherland Notes (Otechestvennye zapiski), the by then democratic St Petersburg Bulletin,

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the oppositional The Matter (Delo), the tabloid Petersburg Sheet, the business newspaper Bourse Bulletin, the only magazine on arts and culture the World Illustration (Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia), the conservative magazine the Russian Messenger (Russkii vestnik), and magazines for family reading such as Field (Niva) and Radiance (Siianie). It is relevant that, despite the highly diverse ideological character of these periodicals, the critics all responded positively to the Partnership’s first exhibition, although some considered it in greater detail than others. How should one interpret the unanimous success of the inaugural show – with its supposedly novel, not to mention rebellious, artistic agenda – among such ideologically diverse periodicals? To start with, the critics had several compelling reasons for perceiving the Partnership’s show as a private initiative within the domain of the Academy. Perhaps the most crucial of these reasons was the exhibition’s residency at the Academy building. The newspapers called the show ‘an exhibition at the Academy’, ‘a so-called “peredvizhnaia”’, or ‘a peredvizhnaia exhibition at the Academy’. In such a way, the critics directly approached, linked and compared the Partnership’s show with the previous and forthcoming regular Academy exhibitions. The first review of the show in the Voice began with the statement: ‘A touring exhibition of pictures in the Academy of Arts, replacing the traditional annual exhibition, postponed to the spring, is rather small, but in terms of the quality of the works leaves previous shows behind.’6 Later on, prominent exhibition critic, Apollon Matushinskii, went even further and largely eliminated any meaningful distinction between the peredvizhnaia and the other two Academy shows in his overview, while simultaneously highlighting the achievements of the current season.7 The fact that the show was organized by ‘professors’ and ‘academicians’ could only have strengthened its institutional affiliation with the Academy. The display featured established names which were familiar to the critics. Some of those critics, it is true, did imply a difference when they stated that the Partnership exhibition had been assembled by a ‘young’ generation of artists, whilst also featuring ‘established’, ‘prominent’ names. Yet, notably, many commentators labelled the artists according to the official titles awarded to them by the Academy – most often ‘professors’ and ‘academicians’ – despite the fact that the egalitarian-minded artists had deliberately excluded any hierarchical professional distinctions during the advertisement campaign of the show or in catalogues. (The artists publicly indicated their professional titles only in the charter.) Thus the show being composed ‘solely by professors and academicians’

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appeared to be one of its main distinctive qualities; this also meant that the exhibition was entirely devoid of student works. The fact that the leading contributors (Ge, Perov, Kramskoi, Prianishnikov, Bogoliubov, Savrasov and M. K. Klodt) were familiar, if not celebrated, names in the art world, some having been known to the public for almost a decade, also meant that the critics often compared the artists’ works with their previous contributions to the shows held by the Academy and the St Petersburg Society. In addition, some critics expressed regret that not all of the ‘honourable’ Russian artists had participated in the show, or wondered what the Academy would exhibit in the spring.8 Prompted in great part by the narrow nature of the Russian art scene,9 these remarks also betray an assumption that the range of artists was limited and interchangeable, and that the artists featured at the Partnership’s show could as easily be, and were, seen at the regular Academy or St Petersburg Society shows. Last but not least, the Partnership’s show featured ‘the strongest representatives of almost all branches of painting’, demonstrating a broad, inclusive principle.10 Indeed, the Peredvizhniki’s and the Academy’s shows maintained a similarity in their efforts equally to represent history paintings, genre, landscape and portraiture, and to include a full range of major media including oil painting, drawings, watercolours and prints, as well as sculpture. The Partnership’s conventional effort garnered a no less conventional response from the critics. In their reviews, they loosely yet clearly followed the accepted hierarchy of genres, prioritizing the different categories of painting represented at the exhibition, always beginning with history works, then moving to genre and, finally, to portraiture and landscape. Defined by the Academy’s age-old aesthetic and training system, how conventional such public perception of the hierarchy still was can be surmised from the contemporary caricature of the types of artists (Figure 37). Several critics also complained of a conspicuous under-representation of sculpture, a compulsory element of each Academy show. Stasov went even further, pointing out that no mention was made of architecture, another regular element of the annual Academy survey.11 That is to say, the conventional promotion of the major branches of painting presented the inaugural show in recognizable terms for the critics, who accepted the implicit invitation to compare what they saw with what they were used to encountering at the Academy. Even those few critics who grasped that the Partnership was constituted of a new group of artists separate from the Academy considered it entirely compatible with its institutional host. Stasov not only accorded the artists

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Figure 37  Caricature ‘Types of artists’, from World Illustration, 1871.

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their professional titles but also praised the Academy for accommodating the show. Likewise, another well-informed author of the oppositional The Matter saw no contradiction in the fact that the artists who had made ‘the first step to free themselves from serf-like academic dependence’ were displaying their works under the Academy’s own roof. The critics perceived the Academy as a possible associate and model for the Partnership’s inaugural show. After all, both publicly shared and pursued the same public-spirited objective: namely, to promote Russian art, and in such a way as to enlighten, cultivate and civilize the population.12 While the obvious overlaps between the Partnership’s show and the Academy’s exhibitions can hardly account for its unanimous success, what can immediately be registered is that the critics largely perceived the exhibition as conventional in form and adhering to the expected norms, and as being fairly acceptable within this most prestigious and conservative venue. The critics equally recognized, however, that they were dealing with something novel, which departed from the usual Academy exhibitions in several significant respects.

Only ‘forty-six works and, at the same time, what riches, what diversity!’ One novel component that seems to have been responsible for the show’s critical success is easily traceable in most of the reviews: the commentators were struck by the fact that it featured an unusually small number of exhibits, all of which were of an ‘excellent or good or, at the worst, satisfactory’ quality.13 The artists had given themselves a year from the Partnership’s registration to develop their individual contributions for the inaugural show. The final display consisted of forty-six objects produced by sixteen artists largely during this oneyear timeframe. Such a number was in great contrast to the 300 to 400 works exhibited at an average Academy exhibition.14 What is more, the artists’ stringent selection encouraged critics to acknowledge the merits of all the exhibits, another beneficial distinction from the annual Academy exhibitions. The following excerpt perfectly illustrates this point: There are only forty-six works in the touring exhibition, but their selection is so rigorous; the eyes are so astonished by the lack of artistic ballast, of curious pupils’ works, that the exhibition makes a pleasant and coherent impression. Instead of an academic storeroom, which is littered with […] diverse and

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hideous pranks of the artistic brush, the visitor is provided with rather a select private picture gallery of an amateur in the arts who has chosen works with sense and knowledge, and who even among mediocre objects has been capable of making the best choice.15

Thus, the common aspect of most of the works on display, whatever their subject matter, was their high level of execution and finish. The critics celebrated a ‘mark of completeness’ in all of the paintings, which demonstrated ‘traces of conscientious labour and study’ by mature artists.16 One may argue that such complimentary comments and comparisons with a private picture gallery were broadly in line with the pan-European taste of the bourgeoisie and with the value it placed on respectability, knowledge and tradition, as well as diversity and individuality, all of which the artists’ selection of works apparently communicated. Significantly, while the Partnership’s presentation of a small but high-quality display offered an obvious contrast with the typical Academy show, the critics praised the Partnership’s paintings for those artistic qualities which the academic training system was designed to promote. This further helps to explain why none of the critics ever questioned the appropriateness of staging the Partnership’s show in the Academy premises. Happy with a generally excellent execution, the commentators, however, undertook a conventional, discrete analysis of individual exhibits, with only three attempting to assess their cumulative effect towards creating a novel or distinctive character for the entire show. Stasov, the most informed among them, provided exhaustive insight into the Partnership’s foundation and social objectives in the St Petersburg Bulletin.17 However, when it came to an analysis of the exhibition, there is only one phrase in his two-part review that lists some common points: ‘Novelty of the tasks, strength, deep nationality (narodnost’), astonishing vitality, complete absence of the lie of former times, flourishing talent.’18 Yet it remains unclear from the review whether these qualities were Stasov’s direct impressions from the show, or whether they were instead the critic’s projection of his familiarity with, preconceptions of, and/or expectations from the artists on to the exhibition. By contrast, Saltykov-Shchedrin, who was not a professional art critic but a writer, registered a more immediate impression of the show in the Fatherland Notes. He directly linked his perception of its novel artistic effect with a particular collection of exhibits, arguing that: ‘the Partnership pursues the idea of sobriety, simplicity and naturalness’ (trezvost’, prostota, estestvennost’) in art.19 The only other important observation is to be found in the tabloid Petersburg Sheet. Its anonymous critic claimed that

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contemporary artists had recently been heavily criticized for their ‘predilection for idealist subjects’ and their ‘alienation from contemporary life’. But during the past year Russian artists ‘have suddenly, as if with the wave of a magic wand, shaken their wings and declared, in a splendid way, a full energy and an abrupt, eye-catching, transition towards a more realist movement (real’noe napravlenie)’.20 In contrast to Saltykov-Shchedrin, this anonymous commentator considered the ‘realist’ effect of the show to be a long-awaited and yet inevitable product of current developments in Russian art, and used the Partnership’s show to support his opinion. It is now time to examine closely the character of the show, and, in particular, the exhibits most preferred by the critics, to see what it was that inspired such distinctive critical evaluations and why there were so few of them. Perhaps the first telling detail about the character of the inaugural show was its rather traditional promotion of history painting, the most elevated genre in the academic hierarchy. It is true that at least one critic welcomed the fact that the exhibition, created by ‘professors and academicians’, lacked what was conventionally considered the apex of the artistic hierarchy: namely, classical history paintings on antique or religious topics.21 But the first exhibition still featured two works dealing with subjects from Russian history, which were among the largest paintings in the display (Figure 40). None of the critics of the show suggested that this was unprecedented, most probably because the Academy shows had previously included history paintings on Russian subjects and not always featured classical ones. What is more significant is the fact that both history paintings dealt with subjects taken from the reign of Peter the Great: Ge’s Peter the Great Interrogating Tsarevich Aleksei at Peterhof (Figure 38) and Miasoedov’s Grandfather of the Russian Navy. To understand this shared choice of subject, one needs to recall that the entire country was preparing for the forthcoming official celebration of the bicentennial of Peter the Great’s birth in May 1872. Therefore, the Partnership’s contribution stood alongside numerous events marking the official anniversary year. Throughout the year and across the entire Russian Empire, many monuments, public lectures, exhibitions, publications and musical pieces, as well as competitions in Academy-operated educational institutions (for instance, at the Moscow School) were launched, delivered or commissioned to celebrate the historical figure officially acknowledged as the great Westernizer of Russia. And this was the perception of some of the show’s commentators.22 That is to say, even if one assumes that the artists’ intention to promote an exclusively Russian history at

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the expense of classical subjects was deliberate, the choice of the legacy of Peter the Great could hardly have presented the inaugural show in a highly original or specific light at this particular historical moment. On the contrary, Ge and Miasoedov – and therefore the Partnership’s show as a whole – were being quite predictable and simply falling in line with broader artistic and social trends. Not only was the history painting represented in a fairly traditional fashion, but it also received the largest share of attention from the critics. The most discussed and acclaimed picture in the show was Ge’s Peter the Great, for it supplied Russian history painting with a controversial subject and a new formal language. This can be inferred from the critics’ response, and so can the understanding that Miasoedov’s history painting, displayed at the same exhibition, embodied everything that was conventional about the genre. To start with, Miasoedov’s Grandfather and Ge’s Peter the Great provided remarkably different representations of the Tsar, while respectively addressing early and late historical points in Peter I’s reign. In his cheerful and complimentary contribution, Miasoedov celebrated the young man’s curiosity that would

Figure 38  Nikolai Ge, Peter the Great Interrogating Tsarevich Aleksei at Peterhof, 1871. Oil on canvas, 136 × 173 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

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eventually lead to the foundation of the Russian Navy. Ge chose a later and more controversial moment in Peter’s biography. The ruler’s successful Westernization of Russia is already a visual presence in the painting: the scene is rendered in a solidly European interior, featuring figures wearing European dress. Within this refined and cultured setting, Peter is shown interrogating his son, Aleksei, who would be convicted for attempting to usurp his father’s power and soon afterwards sentenced to death. Hence, the mathematical and semantic centre of the picture is a gap between the two figures, which is reinforced by the corner of the table covered with ornamented drapery and with papers and letters on top of it – documentary evidence of Tsarevich Aleksei’s guilt. There was, however, a consensus among historians that the mentally ill Tsarevich Aleksei, despite his Slavophile inclinations, could never have posed any serious threat to his mighty father. This had raised the question of how far Aleksei’s murder, sanctioned by the Tsar, was justified and necessary. No less than its controversial subject, the formal language of Ge’s work – above all, the stark simplicity of the composition – provoked a major response, making Miasoedov’s crowded narrative serve as a poor ‘contrast’, with its theatricality, conventionality and other shortcomings.23 For instance, this is how one critic described his expectations of Ge’s history painting and how taken aback he had been in front of the work itself: I had in advance imagined for myself a large painting, richly furnished with historical figures, but to my surprise I have encountered before me a moderately large work, depicting only two figures. The poverty and emptiness of the painting strike one unpleasantly at first.24

When they were not puzzled, critics were impressed with Ge’s idea of interpreting a dark historical episode as a large-scale, close-up, intimate scene involving only two figures in a psychologically suspenseful encounter. The critics acknowledged a novel, psychological, rendering of the subject and described Ge’s restrained scene with its ‘archaeological accuracy of detail’, as ‘simple’, ‘truthful’ and ‘realistic’. The following quote suggests the major point of Ge’s achievement as much as of Russian art: [the painting] brilliantly refutes the opinion of respected judges of history painting, who continue to claim that the depiction of historical figures is impossible without idealization and long-established, polished forms.25

In short, Ge’s combination of a controversial subject with a novel, ‘realist’, ‘psychological’ interpretation garnered maximum attention from the press and thereby fuelled the success of the entire inaugural exhibition. Most of the

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reviews began with, and at times mainly consisted of, an extensive and serious discussion of this one work. From the critics’ response, one can also sense that it was his Peter the Great that prompted them to claim that the show promoted ‘sobriety, simplicity and naturalness’ and marked ‘the transition towards a realist movement’ in art. The painter’s reformist reputation, however, was already well established and familiar to the critics, on account of his participation in the earlier Academy shows. (In particular, Ge had gained his status as a ‘reformer’ for the realistic treatment of the Last Supper in 1863, which he rendered as a genre scene; several critics referred to this when they congratulated the artist on his decision to employ his ‘contemporary’ approach in history painting, instead of religious subjects.) With his Peter the Great the artist was employing a new formal language. That is, it was new for him – since several critics justifiably argued that he was following the example of Paul Delaroche, a celebrated history painter of the Paris Salons of the 1830s to 1850s.26 Thus the Voice argued that the new painting by Ge was distinctive for its ‘strictest realism’ and ‘recalls in this respect’ Delaroche’s Cromwell and Charles I of 1831.27 Stasov pushed the same comparison even further, arguing that Ge’s contribution was equal to the best history painting of modern Western art: ‘Cromwell, or Elizabeth of England or Jane Grey by Delaroche are not superior.’28 In essence, Ge’s major innovation was to use the well-established manner of French juste milieu history painting for the depiction of a Russian historical event. As a result, the most vaunted picture was praised for revitalizing the most conservative genre with the help of a famous French artist, and for a style which by the 1870s was already common in the Paris Salons. In the context of the inaugural show, nothing could have more clearly reinforced the recurrent perception of the Russian painterly tradition as backward and derivative. By contrast, the first show’s genre paintings, diverse in their subject matter, were altogether less ambitious. The most celebrated scene on a contemporary subject ended up being the major entertainment at the show. Here I refer to the Muscovite Perov’s Hunters at Rest, which was the third largest picture on display (Figures 39 and 40). Although comparable in size to Ge’s Peter the Great, in other respects the two works could hardly have been more different, as even the most oppositional, civic-minded newspaper was eager to state: ‘If Ge’s Peter arouses some talk and incomprehension, everything is clear and wonderfully understandable in Perov’s painting.’29 Other critics were equally complimentary about this narrative ‘chef d’oeuvre’ for being ‘peaceful and amusing, and inspiring joy in the viewer’s heart’.30 Responding to the popularity of the work, World

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Illustration reproduced it with extensive comment. Indeed, Perov seemed to preclude any readings of the painting other than a humorous one. Not only did he choose hunters as a subject and set them in a deserted rural scene, but he depicted them during their moment of leisure following the hunt – the results of which, along with expensive hunting implements, can be found nearby in the form of still lifes. The central figure wears much humbler clothing than the costly apparel in which the other two men are garbed, and is not involved in their conversation. It seems that, in order to achieve a better effect, Perov is contrasting the sitters on all possible levels – their age, dress, posture and, finally, their role in the conversation. Critics identified the central sitter as a guide, possibly a peasant, as well as agreeing that both hunters were a type of landlord (barin or pomeshchik). This means that at least one of them was a property owner, who possessed the acreage upon which the hunt had taken place and where they are now shown relaxing. The generational difference between the two hunters may imply the traditional character of this form of rural pastime. They are clearly absorbed in their storytelling, while the man sitting between them smiles to indicate the comical nature of the exchange. Thus, the show’s leading genre painting promoted in a comic and sympathetic manner a patriarchal countryside scene with two socializing noblemen and an amused peasant. Another of Perov’s

Figure 39  Vasilii Perov, Hunters at Rest, 1871. Oil on canvas, 119 × 183 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

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Figure 40  The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the Partnership’s first show, 1871. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Aleksei Savrasov, The Rooks Have Returned, 1871, 62 × 48 cm; Mikhail Klodt, Midday, 1869, 71 × 108 cm. Courtesy State Russian Museum; Nikolai Ge, Peter the Great Interrogating Tsarevich Aleksei at Peterhof, 1871, 136 × 173 cm; Vasilii Perov, H ­ unters at Rest, 1871, 119 × 183 cm; Illarion Prianishnikov, Empty Sledges, 1872, 50 × 72 cm; Ivan Kramskoi, Count Fedor Litke, 1871, 114 × 52 cm. Courtesy Pushkinskii Dom; Vasilii Perov, Aleksandr Ostrovskii, 1871, 103 × 81 cm.

exhibits at the show, called simply Fisherman, extends or modifies the hunting theme. In so doing, Perov suggested a self-identification as a painter of the rural sports of the leisured classes, celebrating the country’s patriarchal culture. In the context of the Partnership’s first exhibition, it may be worth observing that these pictures came from the most prominent representative of 1860s’ critical realism.31 Since then, Perov had evidently changed his approach, and was now promoting a far less critical, more entertaining, artistic agenda. Notably, the critics’ assessment of Perov’s works and his artistic career went no further than celebrating another of his hunting subjects, Birdcatcher, which had been displayed at the previous show at the Academy. If Perov preferred the comical to the critical, another ‘rebellious’ artist, Ivan Kramskoi, promoted himself as a poetic artist at the show. The former leader of ‘the Revolt of the Fourteen’ displayed two narrative paintings. One of them was a small portrait-turned-hunting-scene which was either predictably coupled with Perov’s works on the same subject or simply ignored by the capital’s critics – this in contrast to the attention they paid to Kramskoi’s larger piece entitled May Night. After Gogol. Taking his subject from Nikolai Gogol’s well-known short story May Night, or the Drowned Maiden (1831), Kramskoi took the opportunity to demonstrate his skills at rendering the effects of moonlight in a

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landscape filled with a host of figures. Many critics found it difficult to classify this work; suggestions ranged from genre – albeit ‘poetic’ – through ‘fantasist’ to landscape, and they remained largely unconvinced by the achieved result.32 Yet none questioned the choice of subject, presumably because it fell within the range of Kramskoi’s prior artistic practice or possibly because it came from the more established and familiar literary tradition. Significantly, the prominent conservative critic Matushinskii was one of the few to celebrate this ‘refined choice’ as a desirable model for the ‘ever-expanding area’ of contemporary genre painting: The very choice of such a fantasist subject, full of magical poetry, represents a great tribute to the taste and artistic vision of Mr Kramskoi. We are so little spoilt by such subjects; during recent times our eyes have become so tired of scenes transported directly from unpleasant realities on to canvas; we are so fed up with all these dull muzhiki, clumsy village women, drunken civil servants and their broken wives that the surfacing of works like May Night must produce a most fine and refreshing impression on the public. Where, if not in works of art, should a person’s soul find relaxation after the difficulties and inconveniencies of everyday life? Where, if not in them, are poetry and beauty to be found?33

This critic was happy to contrast Kramskoi’s ‘refined’, ‘poetic’ choice from Russian fiction with the realist trend among genre painters of the 1860s (such as Perov) who addressed typical social issues in urban and rural life. At the Partnership’s first exhibition, this critical ethos was represented solely by the works of Illarion Prianishnikov. This Muscovite painter contributed two oils: Homeless Victims of a Fire and Empty Sledges (Porozhniaki), of which critics unquestionably preferred the latter. This painting depicts a group of six

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unladen sledges moving along a deserted, snow-covered rural wintry road. The apparel of the lonely male figure in the foreground – definitely urban and clearly inappropriate for such severe weather – seems to imply that he is too poor to be able to afford a more comfortable means of travel, or clothing better suited to the chilly conditions. The young man’s outerwear, his relative youth, and the stack of bound books next to him allowed the critics to identify this figure as a student (seminarist). Dealing in ‘such a simple, truthful and substantial’ way with a contemporary scene ‘familiar to everyone’ of implied social inequality and an individual’s struggle for survival, Empty Sledges was the only genre painting in the show that arguably embraced the essence of critical realism.34 At the same time, either because of their small scale (Figure 40), or lack of formal and thematic novelty, or both, Prianishnikov’s exhibits failed to make a powerful impression on the viewer: to muffle the ‘Russian humour’ of Perov’s works or to outshine the ‘Bengal lights’ of Kramskoi’s May Night.35 In short, the genre paintings in the inaugural display portrayed a diverse range of subjects, all of which could easily be accommodated within what artists and critics of the time understood as ‘contemporary life’; equally acceptable was the formal language of the exhibited genre scenes, none of which seemed especially innovatory. While there were differences in theme and style, everything conformed to the expected norms observable at the other shows, including those at the Academy. In this sense, the only distinctive feature of the genre paintings in the Partnership’s first show proved to be their light-hearted, anecdotal character, and the extent to which the critical realism of the 1860s had been relegated to the margins. The major genre painters’ efforts to entertain their audience appear to have been another key reason for the unanimous success of the inaugural show. At the same time, this less then serious role was entirely consistent with Academy doctrines, which defined the imagery of everyday life as a low, entertaining art. The artists who produced the key history and genre works for the Partnership’s first show were also the sole contributors of portraits. Kramskoi’s input of five portraits was the most substantial, followed by three each from Ge and Perov. By displaying portraits as well as history and genre paintings, all three artists may have been using the show as an opportunity to promote their artistic practice in a more diversified form, perhaps with a view to stimulating more commissions. After all, portraiture was one of the main sources of income for many Russian genre and historical artists. An implicit understanding of this could be one of many possible reasons why the portraits, forming nearly one-quarter of the

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entire exhibition, received disproportionately little and sporadic attention from the critics. Nevertheless, the assortment of sitters on display and critics’ preferences can provide some insight into the contribution of portraiture to the overall character of the exhibition. A feature common to most of the displayed portraits is the dominance of profession libérale or intelligentsia-type sitters at the expense of the upper echelons of society and the aristocracy. That is, the show promoted a specific social category of sitters, that of experts in free individual practice – such as law, medicine, architecture, science and literature – pursued according to an ideal of public service. This is true for Ge’s portrait of a physiologist, Moritz Schiff, which received a moderate amount of praise from the critics. Members of the intelligentsia represented also included public literary figures such as the dramatist Aleksandr Ostrovskii and the influential novelist Ivan Turgenev. Even Kramskoi’s likeness of the prominent scientist and social modernizer Count Fedor Litke – not only the largest portrait on view (Figure 40) but also the only example featuring a high-profile sitter with an official status – falls solidly into this category. This conventional half-length portrait depicted the current President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, whose military apparel also identifies him as an official representative of the Russian state. (The catalogue entry states that ‘the members of the Imperial Academy of Sciences have commissioned’ this portrait.36) The artists also exploited the opportunity afforded by the exhibition to promote their own images. Three of Kramskoi’s portraits depicted his colleagues and friends: the landscape painters Baron Mikhail Klodt and Fedor Vasilev, and the sculptor Mark Antokolskii. Similarly, Perov exhibited a portrait of his Moscow colleague, the painter Petr Stepanov. The artists wished to make their professional associations visible in the public domain, and to promote themselves as members of the Russian intelligentsia. David Jackson has observed with reason that the Peredvizhniki’s output in portraiture was ‘certainly characterised by a paucity of aristocratic, noble or establishment sitters, replaced instead by an assortment of exemplars of national and creative aspiration’.37 For sure, it was indicative of the social circles to which the artists and their patrons belonged. Yet such a proliferation of portraits of the intelligentsia at the Partnership’s shows was also the result of a timely coincidence: since 1869, in an effort to assemble a national portrait gallery of ‘Russian writers, composers and, in general, people in the arts and science’, the prominent Moscow collector Pavel Tretyakov had been commissioning intelligentsia portraits from artists, many of whom were or became members of the Partnership.38 In any event, as far as the first show

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is concerned, the critics actually failed to register this common feature of the sitters – an emphasis on their merit over their birth – despite it being even more apparent in comparison with the portraits on view at Academy shows, where many of the sitters came from the aristocracy or high officialdom.39 Among these images of members of the intelligentsia, it was Perov’s plain depiction of the playwright Ostrovskii that attracted the most comment. Recognizing the high technical level of the work, reviewers also appreciated its conceptual simplicity. By the early 1870s, Ostrovskii was at the height of his writing career. Widely celebrated and officially acknowledged, he had played a crucial role in the professionalization of the Moscow theatre scene. Yet in Perov’s representation there are no specific signifiers of either the sitter’s professional occupation or his social standing. Ostrovskii’s sheepskin outdoor apparel (tulupchik) is one of few immediate clues to his personality: it certainly identifies him as a Russian, most probably a well-to-do resident of Moscow, but first and foremost as a private person, behind the scenes, so to speak. While one progressive critic celebrated the portrait for lacking ‘affectation and polish’, a conservative commentator criticized it for being no more than ‘like a good photograph’.40 In any case, it can be seen that the most celebrated portrait in the display exemplified in the eyes of certain critics the characteristics attributed by Saltykov-Shchedrin to the entire show – ‘sobriety, simplicity and naturalness’. Another widely discussed portrait was of a representative of the lowest ranks of Russian society. Kramskoi’s small oil, vaguely titled ‘étude from nature’, depicts an anonymous peasant.41 From the black-and-white reproduction (the only one available) one can observe the bust of a muzhik with highly individualized facial features and typical rustic attire, posed against a blank background. This small ‘étude from nature’ proved to be the show’s only attempt to confront an urban audience with a close-up, unpolished representation of a rural native. In this respect, the piece had a deeply condescending title. The sitter was not named, and the title seems to suggest that this figure was not a person in the same way as the other worthy sitters in the show; rather, he is a part of nature like a tree or a bush. More to the point, Kramskoi did not present it as a proper portrait – it is freely painted and intentionally displayed unfinished. In this way, it must have contrasted strongly with the solidity and high finish of the other oils in the show. This may help to explain why, despite its very small size and undemanding format, the sitter’s ‘typicality’ in Kramskoi’s Etude was not only noticed but also praised by critics of differing ideologies.42 This is not to say that the Partnership’s inaugural exhibition was the first to promote a peasant,43 but it was the evident

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under-representation of the highest level of Russian society that underlined the presence of the very lowest. Landscape paintings formed the second-largest portion of the show – twentytwo out of the forty-six exhibits in oil and other media – but they generated the least critical discussion. One civic-minded commentator made it entirely clear that he considered the landscape genre, when not a background for something else, to be an absolutely ‘pointless’ painting practice.44 While this frank comment may explain the brevity of some critics in regard to works depicting nature, other possible reasons could be that landscape conventionally occupied the lowest place in the artistic hierarchy and that it was the genre through which the Partnership’s show most overlapped with other exhibitions around the city.45 In this context, the most suggestive feature of the landscape segment of the inaugural show may be the critics’ equal celebration of the most conventional and rather experimental works. Periodicals as diverse as the progressive The Matter and the conservative Russian Messenger, which provided the only extensive review of the landscapes on display, highlighted the same two pieces.46 The largest one on view, Mikhail K. Klodt’s Midday, presented an unpopulated, sunny and idyllic pastoral scene, with no particular national reference, its decidedly staged, open panorama unmistakably gravitating toward an academic convention of landscape. The critic Matushinskii reminded the reader that the work was an almost identical copy of the landscape displayed in the Academy show of 1870. While generally appreciating the exhibit, he regretted that Klodt’s manner was ‘too meticulous’ for the landscape genre. The Rooks Have Returned, contributed by Savrasov, challenged many of the conventions of Midday, on both a representational and a technical level. The artist employed the least picturesque combination of scenery and a transitional moment in nature, while also preferring the unconventional vertical format as well as suggesting a more close-up, fragmentary perspective. The unmistakably Russian medievalstyle bell tower (an Orthodox onion cupola), birches, rooks, and the dull and monotonous panorama all signify a distinctly national rural ambience. It is worth noting that the same conservative critic who celebrated Klodt’s work declared that, although Savrasov’s painting was ‘less successful in technical terms’, being ‘a collection of white, grey and black spots’, it was remarkable ‘for its truthful rendering of the impression of early spring’.47 Though not fully approving Savrasov’s more experimental approach, the critic nevertheless liked the result. That is, he and other commentators, while appreciating the individual qualities of the landscapes, considered their differences within an expected visual

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idiom. For most of the exhibited landscapes still had much in common, such as a studio-based approach, good draughtsmanship, meticulous attention to detail, a centrality of the composition and completeness, to name the major aspects.48 Such desirable diversity within the norm of the most celebrated landscapes could only contribute further to the success of the show. The unanimous approval of the Partnership’s inaugural show in the capital can thus be primarily attributed to its overall character being both familiar and different. It was familiar to the extent that a number of commentators clearly perceived the exhibition as a long-awaited private initiative within the Academy system. They had demonstrable reasons for such an interpretation: the exhibition was located at the Academy’s premises and the contributors comprised recognizable ‘professors and academicians’, representing the major branches of painting, including history, genre, portraiture and landscape, just as did the Academy’s annual surveys. Within this context, the major obvious improvement that the critics unanimously registered was the show’s highly selective representation, in terms of both quantity and quality, of contemporary art. As regards the different, specific aesthetic of the Partnership’s inaugural exhibition, this was apparently so subtle, nuanced and always to some extent compromised that it could easily be perceived in a range of ways. It was mostly the history paintings and portraits that contributed to the novel effect of the exhibition; the show did this if only because certain things were absent. The portraits demonstrate a certain consistency with the history paintings, in that not only did they avoid representing the most senior, affluent and prosperous members of society (paralleled by the way in which the history paintings omitted their most ostentatious form – the depiction of classical subjects), but also that in both cases the works which received the most critical acclaim promoted a simple, realistic representational approach to their subjects. Yet in the light of the fact that both historical accounts represented an overt response to the country’s commemorative celebrations of Peter the Great, the omission of classical subjects could simply be interpreted as a predictable feature of the particular exhibition season of 1871/2, and not as a deliberate, distinctive statement on the part of the show. Similarly, the presence of Kramskoi’s official portrait of Count Litke in military apparel could be one of the reasons for the critics failing to appreciate the meritocratic character of many other portraits on view. One may further observe this combination of familiarity and difference in the aesthetic assortment of the exhibits. Ge’s Peter the Great, rendered in a novel, realistic

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manner, was displayed in the same exhibition space as the highly predictable and theatrical Miasoedov’s Grandfather, while Perov’s original, down-to-earth Ostrovskii appeared alongside Kramskoi’s highly conventional, officious Count Litke. That is, the show rather gave the impression of a pool of equal aesthetic alternatives from which the viewer could choose. If one adds to this that the most acclaimed genre painters did not demonstrate any ambition other than to exploit the entertainment, comic or fictional potential of everyday life, and that the landscape segment of the show gave equal prominence to examples of the academic canon (Klodt’s Midday) and of a more experimental approach (Savrasov’s Rooks), it should not perhaps be surprising that, while recognizing that the Partnership’s exhibits were fewer and of a superior artistic quality than were to be found in the Academy’s shows, the critics failed on the whole to recognize the existence of a distinctive aesthetic agenda. Only two made an effort in this direction, by suggesting that the show exemplified a general ‘transition towards a realist movement’ and that it promoted ‘sobriety, simplicity and naturalness’ in art. The majority of the critics instead celebrated the ‘wealth’ and ‘diversity’ of the display, and perceived no overarching or dominant programme. This familiar yet different character of the group’s inaugural show contradicts the rebellious claims of the Peredvizhniki’s manifesto of 1888, but it does conform to the Partnership’s priority of producing a successful show. The artists’ primary intention was to please the public, and this they managed to achieve, securing a solidly favourable critical consensus. It is noteworthy that the success of the first exhibition was also measured by its financial results. After the exhibition closed in St Petersburg, Stasov was the first to announce and celebrate it as a commercial success. He informed the public that the show’s catalogues had been reprinted three times, implying significant demand; he also noted that virtually all of the works had been sold and that some buyers had even commissioned copies. He then listed the major works and their new owners: next to Tretyakov and some other regular collectors, the names of members of the imperial family are especially notable.49 Many of the capital’s other newspapers copied or referenced Stasov’s article. This indicates that the critics also acknowledged and celebrated, even if unintentionally, the commercial dimension of the show. Only one reviewer reflected further upon the potential conflict between the novel artistic and ‘organizational’ aspects of the newly born Partnership. More specifically, the writer Saltykov-Shchedrin wondered: ‘Will [the Partnership] be able in the future to act with the same aesthetic restraint (sderzhannost’iu) which has

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been demonstrated in its first experience?’ He doubted it, explaining that he did not see what the Partnership’s organizational structure (‘general meeting’, ‘committee’, ‘balloting’) had to do with its apparently educational aims. Pointing to the charter’s article allowing every ‘practising artist’ to become a member, the satirist’s major concern was that such a deliberately open structure and policy – something that I have demonstrated at the beginning of this chapter – would be unable to prevent the Partnership’s membership and, by association, the aesthetic restraint of its shows, being contaminated by an ‘ill-assorted element’ (raznosherstnyi element). Claiming that the show promoted ‘sobriety, simplicity and naturalness’ in art, the writer clearly also considered that the possibility of fostering this aesthetic agenda further had already been compromised and threatened.50 The problem with this argument is that Saltykov-Shchedrin evidently desired to see nothing but a group of altruistic, like-minded artists behind the show, whereas the immediate reality suggested something more complex – a Partnership consisting of like-minded partners who had created an inclusive show of reasonably varied exhibits. The writer demonstrated a clear awareness of the Partnership’s charter, but his awareness was selective, not to say naive. Thus he recognized the Partnership’s educational aims (the first and second of the charter’s articles), while ignoring the fact that the artists could hardly promote their educational aims without first considering their business ones (the third of the charter’s articles). Hence he approached the egalitarian principles of the Partnership’s operation, defined by the business, as a mere bureaucratic routine and as such completely pointless. There is, however, one fundamental and farreaching insight in the writer’s reservations which still remains valid and relevant for the following case studies: how could the open, inclusive business character of the Partnership lend itself to the promotion of a particular artistic agenda, even if the latter had no more specific definition for the moment than ‘sobriety, simplicity and naturalness’?

Notes   1 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 67–8.   2 Ibid., 68–9.   3 See Rosalind P. Blakesley, ‘Promoting a Pan-European Art: Aleksei Bogoliubov as Artistic Mediator between East and West’, in Russian Art and the West: A Century of Dialogue in Painting, Architecture and Decorative Arts, ed. Rosalind P. Blakesley and Susan Reid (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007), 21–44.

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  4 Ukazatel’ pervoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1871).   5 See the Partnership’s summary table for the fifteen exhibitions in Katalog XVI peredvizhnoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki, 28–9.   6 ‘Peterburgskaia khronika’, Golos, no. 332, 1 December 1871, 2.   7 Apollon Matushinskii, ‘Poslednie khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, Russkii vestnik, June 1872, 769–826.   8 I. Bogdanov, ‘Nashe khudozhestvennoe delo’, Peterburgskii listok, no. 3, 5 January 1872, 3–4.   9 For instance, Matushinskii calculated that all the major exhibitions of the 1871/2 St Petersburg season would together represent only around one tenth of the exhibits of a single Paris Salon in 1870, which alone featured 5,500 works. Matushinskii, ‘Poslednie khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, 771. 10 ‘Khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, Sovremennye izvestiia, no. 111, 25 April 1872, 2. 11 V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 338, 8 December 1871, 1. 12 Respectively, V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 333, 3 December 1871, 1; Khudozhnik-liubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, Delo, no. 12, December 1871, 108. 13 V. A., ‘Obshchestvennaia zhizn’ nashikh stolits. Peterburg’, Siianie, no. 1, January 1872, 11; V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 338, 1. 14 See Ukazatel’ vystavki khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii v Imperatorskoi Akademii khudozhestv v 1870 godu (St Petersburg, 1870); Ukazatel’ vystavki khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii v Imperatorskoi Akademii khudozhestv v 1872 godu (St Petersburg, 1872). 15 Khudozhnik-liubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, 109. 16 V. A., ‘Obshchestvennaia zhizn’ nashikh stolits. Peterburg’, 11. 17 V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 333, 1. 18 V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 338, 1. 19 M. M. [Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin], ‘Pervaia russkaia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, Otechestvennye zapiski, no. 12, December 1871, 271. 20 Bogdanov, ‘Nashe khudozhestvennoe delo’, 3. 21 M. M. [Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin], ‘Pervaia russkaia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, 271. 22 ‘Podvizhnaia vystavka v Akademii Khudozhetsv’, Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, no. 154, 11 December 1871, 378; Matushinskii, ‘Poslednie khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, 783–4; B. Iakov, ‘Obshchestvennaia zhizn’ nashikh stolits. Moskva’, Siianie, no. 21, May 1872, 352. 23 ‘Peterburgskaia khronika’, 2; ‘Podvizhnaia vystavka v Akademii Khudozhetsv’, 378; Matushinskii, ‘Poslednie khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, 783–4.

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24 Staryi Znakomyi, ‘Peterburgskii listok’, Birzhevye vedomosti, no. 333, 5 December 1871, 2. 25 Tolokonnikov, ‘Vystaka v Uchilishche khudozhestvennogo obshchestva’, Sovremennye izvestiia, no. 153, 6 June 1872, 1. 26 The French painter was widely hailed after his Salon triumph in 1831 and Cromwell was one of Delaroche’s contributions to that show. His reputation continued up to the mid-nineteenth century, when Paris held a Delaroche major retrospective in 1857. See Norman Ziff, Paul Delaroche: A Study in Nineteenth-Century French History Painting (New York: Garland Publisher, 1974), 105–16; Albert Boime, A Social History of Modern Art, vol. 3: Art in an Age of Counterrevolution, 1815–1848 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 337–47; Stephen Bann, Paul Delaroche: History Painted (London: Reaktion, 1997). 27 ‘Peterburgskaia khronika’, 2. 28 V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 333, 2. 29 Khudozhnik-liubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, 112. 30 Znakomyi, ‘Peterburgskii listok’, 2. 31 See Rosalind P. Blakesley, Russian Genre Painting in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 155–77. 32 ‘Peterburgskaia khronika’, 2; ‘Beglyi obzor peredvizhnoi vystavki’, Niva, no. 51, 20 December 1871, 819; V. A., ‘Obshchestvennaia zhizn’ nashikh stolits. Peterburg’, 12; Znakomyi, ‘Peterburgskii listok’, 2; Khudozhnik-liubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, 115–16. 33 Matushinskii, ‘Poslednie khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, 798. 34 Tolokonnikov, ‘Vystavka v Uchilishche khudozhestvennogo obshchestva’, 2; M. M. [Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin], ‘Pervaia russkaia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, 275–6. 35 This is how some critics described Perov’s Hunters and, not without sarcasm, Kramskoi’s attempt to render moonlight in his nocturnal scene. See Khudozhnikliubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, 112; and ‘Peterburgskaia khronika’, 2, respectively. 36 Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok, Ukazatel’ pervoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki Tovarishchestva, 4. 37 Jackson, The Wanderers, 79–80. 38 Tat’iana Iudenkova, Brat’ia Pavel Mikhailovich i Sergei Mikhailovich Tretyakovy: mirovozrencheskie aspekty kollektsionirovaniia vo vtoroi polovine XIX veka (Moscow: BuksMArt, 2015), 109–23; see also Rosalind P. Blakesley, ed., Russia and the Arts: The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky (London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2016). 39 See Ukazatel’ vystavki khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii v Imperatorskoi Akademii v 1870 godu; Ukazatel’ vystavki khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii v Imperatorskoi Akademii v 1872 godu.

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40 Respectively, Khudozhnik-liubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, 114; Matushinskii, ‘Poslednie khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, 810. 41 Ukazatel’ pervoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki Tovarishchestva, 3. 42 See reviews by progressive and conservative critics respectively: Khudozhnikliubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, 114; and Matushinskii, ‘Poslednie khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, 813. 43 Representations of peasant life often appeared at the contemporary Academy exhibitions, and featured frequently in both the fictional and journalistic literature of the time. See Cathy Frierson, Peasant Icons: Representations of Rural People in Late Nineteenth-Century Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 44 Khudozhnik-liubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, 117. 45 For instance, one may come across the names of Bogoliubov and Shishkin in the Academy catalogues of the period. Ukazatel’ vystavki khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii v Imperatorskoi Akademii v 1872 godu. 46 Khudozhnik-liubitel’, ‘Na svoikh nogakh’, 117–18. 47 Matushinskii, ‘Poslednie khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, 820–1. 48 See more on the Russian landscape of the period in Christopher Ely, This Meager Nature: Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009); David Jackson and Patty Wageman, eds, Russian Landscape (Groningen: Groninger Museum; London: National Gallery, 2003); Olga Liaskovskaia, Plener v russkoi zhivopisi XIX veka (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1966); Faina Mal’tseva, Mastera russkogo peizazha: vtoraia polovina XIX veka, 4 vols (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 2001). 49 V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], [Mesiats tomu nazad … ], Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 12, 12 January 1872, 2. 50 M. M. [Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin], ‘Pervaia russkaia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’.

6

Split with the Academy: The Fifth Exhibition, 1876

Opening in March 1876, the Partnership’s fifth show was the first to be held outside the Academy’s premises. As has been shown in Chapter 2, this was the result of a year-long, and ultimately unsuccessful, negotiation between the two institutions. In order to secure a separate box office, the Partnership declined the Academy’s offer to run a joint exhibition at least in the capital and, therefore, had to find another residency. Because the negotiations between the two institutions had remained entirely outside the public arena, the majority of critics were completely taken aback by what they regarded as the sudden, overt ‘split’ (raskol) in the ‘artistic family’.1 Many complained about the show’s relocation from the city’s most prestigious exhibition space to the barely suitable venue of the Academy of Sciences. Such a move must have been especially striking for the group’s contemporaries, given the evident success of the Partnership’s earlier shows at the Academy. How did this physical separation and abrupt dissolution of a previously close association with the Academy alter the critics’ perceptions of the group? Did the pictures exhibited in 1876, individually or collectively, signal a shift in the Partnership’s artistic agenda and, if so, did this shift invite contemporary viewers to see the group as different from, or even opposed to, the doctrines of the Academy? As before, I will primarily focus on the St Petersburg version of the fifth show, due to the incomparable amount of press coverage it received in the capital and its close proximity to the Academy. The most immediate consequence of the physical relocation of the show was that the capital’s press finally recognized the independent character of the group. The comment from Voice provides a telling example of how contemporaries viewed this forced migration: The public has become used to visiting spring exhibitions at the Academy. One exhibition, among others, opened in 1871. Visitors attended it in large numbers and with enthusiasm, but only a few knew that it was not like previous Academy

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exhibitions, that its aims and organization were different. In the eyes of the public the touring exhibitions were simply Academy exhibitions. They opened in the Academy halls and consisted of works by artists, the majority of whom already possessed Academy grades. This close connection between the touring exhibitions and the Academy has been broken: the fifth exhibition is displayed at the Academy of Sciences. The Partnership is now beginning a fairly independent existence; it is becoming a specific organism.2

Predictably, this radical and surprising change of location moved this critic to focus on the self-supporting business mechanism that made the autonomy of this ‘specific organism’ possible. The author provided extensive coverage of the Partnership’s charter and business achievements in the successful pursuit of ‘decentralizing art’. The Partnership’s publication of the third show’s financial results in the catalogue for the fifth show could only make this job easier for him and other commentators.3 It was in this context that the neologism peredvizhniki was first used by a critic in an attempt to describe the artists responsible for the fifth exhibition. Before this, the commentators merely employed ‘touring exhibition’ to refer to the Partnership’s shows. The St Petersburg Bulletin introduced the term to distinguish the Peredvizhniki from a group of artists behind the newly established Society for Art Exhibitions, nicknamed Obshchestvenniki (a derivative to describe the members of the Obshchestvo or Society).4 This supposedly private and artist-run exhibition society was in fact an entirely Academy-affiliated undertaking in terms of finances and participants. In all other respects the Obshchestvenniki show principally remained the regular annual Academy show. (To avoid unnecessary confusion, I will therefore subsequently refer to the Obshchestvenniki’s show simply as the Academy show.) What is of symbolic importance is that the brand name ‘Peredvizhniki’ emerged as soon as the group stopped exhibiting at the Academy and critics realized its full administrative and economic independence. Since its first show in 1871, the Partnership had accepted seven new members, bringing the total to twenty-three. The newcomers consisted of the four landscape artists Pavel Briullov (joined 1874), Arkhip Kuindzhi (1875), Aleksandr Beggrov and Aleksandr Kiselev (both 1876), the two genre painters Konstantin Savitskii (1874) and Nikolai Iaroshenko (1876), and the history painter Fedor Bronnikov (1875). The minutes of the General Meetings contain no record of the Partnership ever refusing membership to any artist who requested it. Therefore, the only meaningful insight into the balloting process was that so far only two artists had not been elected unanimously: while

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Kuindzhi had gathered thirteen out of eighteen possible votes, Bronnikov had secured only eleven, implying that one-third of the active members did not want him as a fellow member.5 Unlike the young Kuindzhi, Bronnikov was an established academic history painter, living permanently in Rome and highly acknowledged for his ‘Pythagoreans, Achilleses, Greek women and Romans, and insufferable medieval scenes’, as Stasov put it.6 Given that classical history painting had generally been excluded from the Partnership’s shows right from the start, it is worth noting that Bronnikov still managed to obtain enough votes to secure membership. So, by the time of the fifth show the Peredvizhniki group had begun to feature prominent artists not only formally associated with the Academy (such as Ge, Perov, Bogoliubov and Savrasov) but also one who overtly personified the height of Academy aesthetics (Bronnikov). The Peredvizhniki’s fifth show was mounted at the same time and on the same embankment as that of the Academy; predictably, this encouraged direct comparisons between the two. Strikingly, the increase in membership of the Partnership did not affect the number of contributions: seventeen out of twentythree active members contributed only forty-two works for this fifth show, approximately the same number as had comprised the first.7 Meanwhile, in order to boost its competitive potential, the Academy attempted to ‘upgrade’ its annual spring shows, by delegating their organization to the above-mentioned ‘Society for Art Exhibitions’, newly launched in 1876. However, the only substantive ‘improvement’ the Society introduced was to exclude student works – a change that significantly reduced the size of the exposition to 244 exhibits, while also making the two separately located shows more comparable as regards the professional status of the participants.8 There were at least twenty-one references to the Peredvizhniki exhibition in the capital’s periodicals, of which eleven were proper reviews. The question of where one’s sympathies lay, with the Peredvizhniki’s or the Academy’s show, became one of the greatest points of contention engendered by the Partnership in the six years of its existence. One commentator observed, albeit with some exaggeration: It [the question] inspires […] passions to become hot arguments, causes quarrels between friends and reconciles former enemies, and, in general, raises huge fuss and noise in our small artistic anthill. Depending on your answer, you will be reckoned among ours or as strangers, people will pay you respect or express anger. And all this merely because God was pleased to split our small cluster of painters and sculptors […] into two parties, which do not pursue specific artistic principles, but fight with one another over interests that have nothing to do with art.9

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It is significant that, despite the supposed public polarization between the two parties described in the quotation above – pro-Peredvizhniki and pro-Academy – there is no evidence of much critical disagreement about the respective merits of the two shows. The reviewers concluded that, its unfavourable new premises notwithstanding, the Peredvizhniki’s effort proved successful and, more importantly, continued to be superior to that of the Academy. One typical observation reads as follows: ‘There are 42 paintings here [in the Partnership’s show]; that is, almost five times fewer than in the show at the Academy [244]. Yet they are almost to the same extent more substantial and valuable.’10 Another reviewer claimed that the Peredvizhniki’s exhibition had been composed ‘rigorously, with a great selection that generally creates the impression of a select society’.11 The commentators thus celebrated the Partnership’s show in the same manner and for the same merits as in previous years. Thinking that the Peredvizhniki’s exhibits were better than those of the Academy seemed to imply that the critics continued to consider them as being within the expected norms and compatible with the Academy’s aesthetics and venue. Struggling to see any particular artistic reasons for the eviction of the Peredvizhniki show from the Academy, some critics asked ‘Why did the Academy refuse the premises to the Partnership this year?’12 and no one speculated as to whether it was actually the Peredvizhniki who had decided to leave. Stasov alone welcomed the ‘antagonism’, declaring that any monopoly is bad and that as long as the two institutions had differing ‘directions and aims’, they should also have separate shows.13 Although Stasov did not explicitly substantiate his claim, the dominant critical perception of the overt split is somewhat surprising, for even a brief comparison of the Partnership’s fifth show with the Academy’s provides some basis for Stasov’s suggestion of differing ‘directions and aims’. In 1876, the exhibition not only contrasted with that of the nearby Academy, but it also departed from the group’s own inaugural show in some important respects. One of the most distinctive features of the St Petersburg premier of the fifth show was the total absence of what was considered the height of Academy artistic achievement: history painting. This absence was made all the more apparent by another significant fact: that the member of the Partnership most closely affiliated with the Academy aesthetics, the painter Fedor Bronnikov, had contributed a scene of everyday life to the show. Some critics enthusiastically welcomed this unexpected and miraculous transformation of an established antique historian into a painter of contemporary subjects.14 Meanwhile, the

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nearby Academy show traditionally featured several oil and sculptural works on themes from Russian and European history and classical culture, including a work by Bronnikov.15 It is also worth noting that the Moscow version of the Partnership’s fifth show featured Alexander Litovchenko’s gigantic Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasures to Jerome Horsey. The only reason for the largest painting of the fifth show in Moscow not being displayed in the Petersburg version was almost certainly that it had been on display at the Academy a year earlier.16 (According to the Partnership’s rules, works submitted for the show must not have been previously displayed anywhere in the host city.) Whatever the reasons for Bronnikov or Litovchenko either contributing scenes from everyday life or altogether ignoring the fifth show in the capital, the absence of historical subjects in the Petersburg version offered a unique opportunity for the critics to interpret the Peredvizhniki’s show as primarily cultivating an interest in contemporary life and issues. Indeed, although both exhibitions of 1876 featured genre scenes, they assumed a far more prominent role at the Partnership than at the Academy. As many critics noted, the fifth show was rich in both painters and paintings of contemporary subjects; seven genre painters contributed twelve out of the forty-two works. At the Academy show, by contrast, the 244 exhibits included barely a dozen genre scenes, the most widely discussed of which belonged to a single artist, Firs Zhuravlev. If this artist’s works represented the everyday life of the prosperous merchant class (his Merchant’s Funeral Repast being the most celebrated genre painting of the show),17 the majority of the Peredvizhniki’s genre paintings dealt with the everyday life of the poor. Thus, next to the depictions of peasant life in the countryside, the fifth exhibition also included various images of the lower strata of contemporary urban society, ranging from impoverished retired civil servants and soldiers to homeless people and the urban proletariat. Most importantly, a noticeable cluster of these works referenced disturbing social issues and shared a more critically minded approach in depicting them. Such a concentration of deliberately disturbing subjects contrasted not only with the nearby Academy’s display, but also with the dominant entertaining mood of the pictures of everyday life from the Partnership’s first show. Social injustice, a marginal feature in those early days, had become one of the central aspects of the group’s show in 1876. As with the inaugural exhibition, the Peredvizhniki’s fifth show also demonstrated a distinctive and consistent lack of a common agenda with the Academy in regard to portraiture. While nearly 40 per cent of the Academy’s

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exhibits fell into this category, portraits constituted less than a quarter of the works at the Peredvizhniki’s show, accounting for nine (eight oils and one drawing) of the total of forty-two. This focused collection of exclusively male sitters, all but one of whom were members of the intelligentsia, differed significantly from the Academy’s show, where a far greater diversity of portraits was dominated by images of both male and female aristocrats and high-ranking officials.18 Arguably, it is only the landscapes of the fifth show which showed hardly any departure both from the nearby Academy’s and the Partnership’s inaugural exhibition, with images of nature taking up nearly half of the exposition. In short, one may observe a major coming together of these signs of difference in the fifth show which marked the Peredvizhniki’s split from the Academy in 1876. They included the total absence of history painting, the prominence of contemporary subjects, and the predominance of the intelligentsia-type among sitters in portraits. What is striking is that, if the physical separation of the fifth show from the Academy invited contemporary critics finally to recognize and interpret these signs of difference, then, with the sole exception of Stasov, they signally failed to do so. In most instances, when the reviewers compared the two exhibitions, they went no further than to repeat the same self-evident point they had been making since 1871: that the Partnership presented a considerably smaller and more rigorously selected collection of works. In other words, something prevented the critics from recognizing, or at least speculating, that the conspicuous migration of the Peredvizhniki’s fifth show from the Academy might have been caused by reasons other than commercial. I would argue that two factors were primarily responsible here: the behaviour of the critics themselves and the overall character of the exhibition they were reviewing. Concerning the critics, it is perhaps hardly to be expected that the fifth show alone could have provoked a significant change in their conventional reviewing habits of a lifetime. It is worth recalling that Russian artists, critics and the general public had assumed for decades that a major annual show had a single purpose: to display and sell a wide variety of art works made during that year. Tending towards inclusivity rather than exclusivity, and explicitly eschewing a uniform artistic agenda, such collective exhibitions – of which the Academy shows were paradigmatic – incorporated a great multiplicity of genres, themes, representational approaches, styles and so forth. Predictably, this a priori eclectic, accidental and incoherent type of collection defined the principal critical reviewing pattern: reviews would invariably begin by categorizing works by medium, then each major branch of painting would be considered

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individually according to the conventional hierarchy (history, genre, portraiture, landscapes and so on) and finally the exhibits would be discussed individually, in almost complete isolation from one another. Apart from occasional, very general comments on the current state of Russian art, reviewers would have nothing to say about the overall ensemble or collective character of the shows. Mere force of habit, therefore, goes some way towards explaining why reviewers saw nothing distinctive about the Peredvizhniki’s fifth show. But before describing this as a failure on the part of the critics, we need to remind ourselves that some of the responsibility lay with the artists. Even had the critics been less bound by the conventions of their profession, any effort to characterize the Peredvizhniki as a group with a distinctive artistic agenda would have been further complicated by the overall incoherent and heterogeneous character of the fifth exposition. Due to the total absence of history painting, the genre painting had been catapulted to the highest position at the fifth exhibition, at least according to the conventional hierarchy of genres. In addition, the show offered a visible cluster of works that advocated seriousness and social topicality in art. Maksimov’s Family Separation – the largest genre painting on display – attracted the most notice among these (Figure 43). In this interior scene in a peasant izba, two brothers and their families are shown dividing their ‘unpretentious’ possessions before setting up separate households. Several critics appreciated the attempt of the work to address a ‘serious’, ‘contemporary’ subject, to familiarize ‘visitors with the regrettable fact that often happens in peasant life in recent times, and which is one of the reasons for the impoverishment of this estate’.19 The artist and subsequently the commentators were clearly referring to certain impacts of the transformation of the dominant patriarchal way of life on the peasant estate, as a result of the social reforms of the 1860s. Before that, economic constraints had forced several generations of peasant families in certain regions to live in one household for extended periods of time in so-called ‘complex families’ (composed of two or more married couples). The reforms, including the abolition of serfdom, made such a communal way of living outdated as it no longer corresponded to the new, capitalist, economic realities and motivated, if not forced, the increasing dissolution of complex peasant families around the country.20 Maksimov’s painting represents an example of this development. The only exponent (as opposed to member) at the fifth show, Viktor Vasnetsov, reinforced the claim for seriousness in art by depicting in his From One Flat to the Other a type of misfortune more familiar to the urban audience. He

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contributed the image of an impoverished elderly couple, with a dog and hardly any possessions, searching for a place to live in the middle of a chilly, desolate and darkening urban scene. The artist’s specificity with regard to the topography of their poverty is significant: the couple is depicted against the background of St Petersburg’s most renowned landmark, the Peter and Paul Fortress, recognizable by the silhouette of the spire of its cathedral. Presenting a problematic and socially unstable side of life in the capital, the image possessed a certain documentary value for the contemporary viewer: it was the same urban winter landscape in which he or she was attending the exhibition and viewing the painting in the nearby Academy of Sciences. Finally, Iaroshenko’s Twilight reminded the public about the hard and insecure labour conditions of the contemporary proletariat. The Russian Bulletin (Russkie vedomosti) provided the most detailed ekphrasis of this now vanished work: ‘There is a freshly dug pit in the painting’s foreground, there is a muzhik in that pit; on the surface of the pit another muzhik stands and crosses himself; there are more muzhiks with spades in the distance, apparently moving away from the pit.’21 This exhibit further expanded the number of critically minded genre paintings in the show. To distinguish the works according to their artistic quality was another habit of the critics. Significantly, none of these three disturbing contemporary scenes secured a particularly favourable critical assessment as to their artistic merits. Thus even those critics who appreciated the serious ambition of Maksimov’s Family Separation felt it necessary to acknowledge its various shortcomings and monotonous, colourless tonality.22 Vasnetsov’s From One Flat to the Other garnered similar disapproval. While one commentator agreed that the couple deserved empathy, he was less merciful when it came to the painter, declaring that, despite the obvious attempt to trade on the viewer’s sympathies, the artist had achieved exactly the opposite effect: the ‘comic vein’ of his drawing and his ‘talent as a caricaturist’ could provoke an involuntary smile on a viewer’s face.23 The critical consensus achieved its peak in the case of Iaroshenko’s Twilight – the painting was virtually ignored by the capital’s periodicals. And only from the Russian Bulletin’s review of the Moscow version of the show may one infer the reason – the painter had failed to deliver his ‘tendentious message’ effectively in artistic terms.24 It has to be said that a painting’s subject matter did not necessarily have to be disturbing to reap harsh criticism of its technical shortcomings, most of the negative responses – or jokes, to be more precise – being directed at Miasoedov’s genre scene Ploughing Rite. This second-largest genre painting in the show depicted a ritual with a group of peasants, including naked women,

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gathered around a bonfire in a rural area. By and large, critics acknowledged the interesting subject of the painting, but argued, when not laughing, that Miasoedov had taken on a task that was hardly fit for his shoulders.25 Importantly, the same show contained more critically successful alternatives to this cluster of disturbing or curious subjects. One of these was Vladimir Makovskii’s Collecting the Pension, which suggested a somewhat anecdotal and cheerful representational approach to contemporary reality. In late nineteenth-century Russia only state civil servants and military personnel or their relatives were eligible to claim a state pension, and such a right was granted upon retirement for ‘immaculate service during the period defined by the law’. (During the period, the pensions of civil servants were regulated by the General Charter on Pensions and One-time Allowances for Civic Departments.) Hence, Collecting the Pension portrays a category of people with long years of loyal service to the Russian state. According to the reviewers, the figures depicted came from the lowest ranks of the state bureaucracy and army: ‘the small world of the oppressed, but of a noble poverty’.26 Although now united by old age and lifelong dependence on a miserly government, Makovskii’s characters personified a discernibly different range of social types (‘one could read their biographies’) shown in various postures and at different points in the narrative. The contemporary critics praised the artist for having injected an element of humour into a gathering of wretched people in a particularly depressing place, by transforming it into an occasion for enjoyable social interaction.27 Significantly, the critics were happier to an equal degree with Makovskii’s artistic treatment of the work, an impression certainly reinforced in the context of the genres discussed above. The Bee (Pchela), for instance, made a special effort to argue how inferior Maksimov’s work looked in comparison with Makovskii’s.28 However, it was Gun and, especially, Bronnikov who offered perhaps the most crucial contrast in the eyes of the critics to all the genre scenes discussed above. Of the two, Gun, a French resident, was the older Partnership member. His sentimental works, painted in what the reviewers called the ‘French’ manner, were described as the sweet course (konfetki) after the Russian ‘main courses’.29 For the fifth show Gun presented two ‘idyllic’ peasant scenes from the ‘happy land of Normandy’. The critically acclaimed Happy Mother depicts a woman playing with her children in a humble kitchen, suggesting that the life of a large and poor peasant family could still be ‘heaven on earth’, happy and fulfilling.30 The second work, Get Caught, features an anecdotal scene of children and their parents in the backyard of a peasant house on a sunny day. Several prominent commentators criticized Gun for the deliberate insignificance of his subjects, arguing that it

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seemed as though for the painter ‘it does not matter what to paint; it is all just a demonstration of a certainly dexterous and refined technique’.31 Importantly, at the fifth show the critics tended to consider his works in company with the more prominent debut of Bronnikov. His Artists in the Antechamber of a Rich Man (Figure 41) was nominated as the most significant genre work of the show by several leading and ideologically opposed critics. These included the democratic Stasov (New Time), the liberal Andrei Somov (St Petersburg Bulletin) and the conservative Matushinskii (Voice). The painting depicts two artists, one young and one elderly, waiting for an audience with the owner of an ‘aristocratic’ home somewhere in Italy, as some commentators presumed. The luxurious setting, featuring paintings and sculpture, prompted critics to describe the rich man as a Maecenas, whose patronage the two artists are seeking to attract. That is to say, the painting promotes the notion of poor artists constantly subordinated to the whims of a Maecenas’s enlightened patronage – remarkably, the kind of notion that the very foundation of the Partnership effectively questioned! The work’s superficial subject confused even the painting’s strongest enthusiasts,32 let alone those critics for whom the lack of a serious theme was a crucial shortcoming.33 Yet most were eager to acknowledge the irreproachable, ‘virtuosic’, ‘dandyish’ manner in which Bronnikov’s Artists, as well as Gun’s works, were painted. It is relevant that one critic did not merely celebrate the superior skills of the two ‘foreign’ artists, but also explicitly contrasted Bronnikov and Gun’s works with the other genre scenes in the show to argue that the latter were ‘roughly and sloppily’ painted.34 Gun and Bronnikov ‘leave their colleagues behind’ and could therefore be ‘a stimulus’ for the Russian artists to develop their painterly skills, affirmed another critic.35 It seems that the participation and critical success of these two artists alone served to nullify the chances of the exhibited genre scenes achieving any overall thematic and stylistic coherence, and made this heterogeneous collection loosely resemble its inclusive Academy counterpart. A similar situation can be observed with regard to the portraits exhibited in the fifth show, to which there were only two main contributors, Kramskoi and Ge. Among the very few substantial critical responses to this segment of the display was a piece in the Bee, which contained several perceptive observations. The commentator acknowledged a certain commonality in the type of sitters in the portraits: ‘all these names would inevitably attract any educated Russian’, whatever the artistic merits of the portraits.36 Indeed, the images included such well-known public figures as writer and secretary of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Dmitrii Grigorovich; poet and writer Iakov

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Figure 41  Fedor Bronnikov, Artists in the Antechamber of a Rich Man, 1876. Oil on canvas, 70 × 100 cm. Location unknown.

Polonskii; writer Andrei Pecherskii; journalist, publisher and critic Aleksei Suvorin; director of the St Petersburg Drawing school Mikhail Diakonov; critic and literary historian Viktor Gaevskii; and novelist and dramatist Aleksei Potekhin. Their recognized meritocratic character also helped to account for a consistency in the representational approach of these portraits. According to the Bee, they were the fruits of a serious effort ‘to represent a moral physiognomy of man’ instead of ‘fireworks of flowers, satin, velvet, wall papers, and the like’.37 A typical example, and the one most praised by reviewers, was Kramskoi’s portrait of Grigorovich, in which the casually dressed sitter is placed against a neutral background, with minimal props and no specific signifiers of his status. However, next to the depictions of writers and other public figures, Kramskoi displayed the Portrait of His Imperial Highness the Heir Tsesarevich. From the sitter’s status and its officious representational scheme, to the fact that this was the only full-length portrait as well as one of the largest works in the exhibition (Figure 43), everything about this painting served as a contrast to the coherence of the other portraits on display. Here the future Alexander III is represented as

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a hard-working and enlightened prince in the classical European tradition: he poses in military dress next to a desk in a working office, where he is surrounded by documents and artworks, the most recognizable of which is a cast of the Dying Gaul. The critics were quick to mention this official portrait of the Tsesarevich and to celebrate it as a capo d’opera of a master.38 Only one critic was brave enough to imply that the artistic quality of the image fell short of perfection, and that because of the ‘difficulty of the task’ the portrait ‘had turned out to be somewhat uneven’.39 Nevertheless, the presence of an image of one of the highest members of the imperial family helped lend a stamp of official approval to the Peredvizhniki’s collective enterprise. Kramskoi’s Tsesarevich sent out a reassuring political message: that while dedicated to promoting a meritocratic society, the artists, who had just overtly split with the Academy, remained loyal subjects of the Tsar and the state. If in conveying this point the Partnership entirely contaminated the ideological and representational coherence of the portraits on view, this may have been a price they were happy to pay. Having registered the failure of the fifth show to achieve consistency even in those areas where the Peredvizhniki demonstrated the most signs of difference – genre paintings and portraits – it is surprising to note how a greater threat to the overall coherence of the fifth show was actually produced by a landscape painting. Here I refer to the unprecedented triumph of Kuindzhi’s Ukrainian Night (Figure 42), which not only disrupted the stylistic uniformity of the Peredvizhniki’s other landscapes but more generally questioned the prevailing visual idiom of all

Figure 42  Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ukrainian Night, 1876. Oil on canvas, 79 × 162 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

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the other exhibits. To put it simply, Kuindzhi constructed Ukrainian Night with broad unmodulated blocks of light and colour, creating unorthodox, dramatic contrasts of bold primary colours in overt opposition to the conventional technique of a detailed linear underdrawing and tonal gradations and nuances expected of realistic representations of the outside world. Kuindzhi’s experimental manner employed the enlargement, simplification and generalization of forms at the expense of perspective and spatial depth, producing a flat, abstract effect. This novel formal language challenged certain patterns of perception. This was one of the contemporary reactions: ‘At first glance, all of the objects located beyond the moon’s illumination somehow blend into one mass, but on closer inspection they become distinct, outlines take on a more precise shape, and the eye, as if getting used to the darkness, distinguishes even small details of nature.’40 It is no wonder, then, that another critic felt that the artist’s approach was ‘too audacious’,41 while many other commentators celebrated Ukrainian Night as something more than just the best work of the Peredvizhniki’s fifth show. As befitted one of the largest paintings on display, this work received extensive coverage in periodicals. The Voice, the Bee, the World Illustration and the tabloid Petersburg Sheet all argued that Kuindzhi had become a star overnight, and Ukrainian Night was commended as ‘a one-of-a-kind work’, ‘the greatest success’, ‘the brightest star’ and ‘the best decoration’ of the show. Although such major art critics as Somov and Stasov were more reserved in their evaluation of the piece, others went into raptures over its originality: ‘we have never seen anything similar to this in our exhibitions’, ‘such power of rendering moonlight we could not recall in any work of our landscape artists’, and ‘could anyone demonstrate anything better than this night from the last hundred years of Russian art?’42 None of the other works on display could match its poetic depth and energy of form, or its strength of artistic language.43 This type of praise rose in volume and enthusiasm from review to review and from city to city. Supplying the reader with several anecdotes and rumours on the painting’s success, the Russian Bulletin asserted that there was always a crowd in front of it in St Petersburg and Moscow; that many art lovers returned to the show to see it again; that many copies had been ordered – in short, ‘no one talks about anything else’.44 The presence and critical acclaim of Kuindzhi’s work made all the other landscapes look hackneyed and inferior by comparison. According to one commentator, Kuindzhi’s ‘powerful’, ‘original’ formal language ‘kills all the other landscapes in the show, even though there are pretty good works by well-known landscape painters M. K. Klodt and I. Shishkin among them’.45 The reviewers

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Figure 43  The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the fifth t­ ouring exhibition, 1876. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Mikhail Klodt, Forest Distance at Midday, 1876, 93 × 157 cm; Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ukrainian Night, 1876, 79 × 162 cm; Vasilii ­Maksimov, Family Separation, 1876, 106 × 148 cm; Fedor Bronnikov, Artists in the Antechamber of a Rich Man, 1876, 70 × 100 cm. Location unknown; Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of ­Grigorovich, 1876, 86 × 68 cm; Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of His Imperial Highness the Heir Tsesarevich, 1875, 249 × 182 cm. Location unknown.

clearly preferred the novel artistic language of Ukrainian Night to the too familiar and conventional drawing-defined colour schemes of Shishkin and Klodt. For example, Klodt’s Forest Distance at Midday, similar to Kuindzhi’s work in size, was celebrated for its skilful drawing, but its general tonality was described as ‘colourless and monotonous’. Shishkin’s large The Dark Wood and Apiary received even more criticism for, ‘as is known’, this superb master of drawing steadily ‘fails to deal with colour’.46 While some critics described Kuindzhi’s drawing as ‘too careless’, others argued that in the case of Ukrainian Night ‘it is ridiculous to talk about accuracy of drawing’, implying that the artist’s primary tools were light and colour.47 The contraposition of Kuindzhi and Shishkin’s approaches has since become commonplace in art-historical scholarship. The point is that such an assessment first took place within the context of the Peredvizhniki’s fifth show. It is true that the success of Ukrainian Night was the achievement of a single painter and a single painting out of twenty other landscapes, and on

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account of its isolation it could clearly not be taken as the most representative of the Peredvizhniki’s landscapes. (The fact that Kuindzhi was the only artist apart from Bronnikov to have had problems acquiring membership status is of particular significance here.) But, as far as the critics were concerned, Kuindzhi’s radical, abstract language effectively disrupted the broad consistency of the other landscapes with their more naturalistic rendering of the natural world. In the context of the fifth show in its entirety, Kuindzhi’s bold and inventive formal language remained far outside not only the mainstream visual idiom of the landscape genre but also that of all the other paintings on display. Yet he successfully competed for the viewers’ attention with the best of the genre paintings – so that the most critically successful work of the fifth show of the Peredvizhniki, separated from the Academy, turned out to be the landscape which promoted a more experimental approach in art, a shift away from the conventional representation of the outside world. While intensifying and increasing the diversity, freshness and attractiveness of the display, Kuindzhi’s contribution robbed the fifth show in equal measure of any kind of visible coherence which might have built up a distinctive artistic identity in the eyes of contemporary viewers. The sudden split and migration of the successful Peredvizhniki shows from the Academy premises offered the critics an exceptional opportunity to identify or speculate about the possible artistic reasons for antagonism between the

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two institutions. However, this conflict failed to give the Peredvizhniki show a distinct artistic identity, let alone an alternative or rebellious one, in the eyes of contemporary critics, to enable them to interpret the sudden split in terms other than business-related. And this did not happen even though the St Petersburg version of the fifth show had several features which contrasted with that of the nearby Academy: first and foremost, a complete absence of history painting and the prominence of genre paintings, including an obvious cluster with a critically minded approach to contemporary reality; and, secondly, the considerable presence of male members of the Russian intelligentsia as subjects of the exhibited portraits. It would perhaps have been too much to expect journalistic reviewers to depart from the habits of a lifetime because a particular group of artists had moved their exhibition from one space to another; but what made an incisive, insightful and original journalistic response even more unlikely – and may even have prevented it – was the overall heterogeneous character of the Peredvizhniki’s fifth show. While there was a certain consistency of approach perceptible in its genre scenes, and even more so in most of its portraits, various other, no less visible and often critically more successful exhibits – Bronnikov’s Artists, Kramskoi’s Tsesarevich and especially Kuindzhi’s Ukrainian Night, to name the key examples – simply contaminated and nullified any possible overall coherence in terms of the subject matter, representational intentions and stylistic approaches. In the end, the final collection of the exhibits was too varied to support or convey an articulated aesthetic programme or ideology. Nor is there any evidence that the members of the Partnership – at least by this date – had any such clear aspirations in mind. Nothing suggests that the Peredvizhniki wanted to do something different. Indeed the evidence suggests that they merely wanted their exhibition to succeed (that is, to bring in paying customers in sufficient numbers) and that they appreciated that success depended, at least in part, on providing the viewing public with a range of different sorts of painting to enjoy. Although the policy of inclusivity they had adopted may have been based on that of the Academy, the same openness to all comers (provided they met certain standards of competence) also made good commercial sense. Such a result after five years is especially striking against the background of the critical perception of the inaugural show. Both shows featured approximately the same number of works. Yet while the first show inspired at least a couple of critics to perceive it as promoting a particular aesthetic agenda, no such thing was said about the fifth show, even in the light of its departure from the inaugural

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show in general character (absence of history paintings and prominence of the critically minded genre scenes) and the overt split from the Academy. And, of particular significance, it was largely the success of a single artist, Kuindzhi, that undermined any attempt to perceive a possible coherence in the group at the time of its fifth show. In the next chapter, we shall observe, however, the reverse tension between individual and collective identity: specifically, how only a few years later another prominent individual became the key factor in the consolidation of the Peredvizhniki identity in the eyes of the critics, despite the continuously inclusive and aesthetically open character of the Partnership’s displays.

Notes   1 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, Pchela, no. 10, 22 April 1876, 6.   2 ‘Khronika’, Golos, no. 74, 14 March 1876, 2.   3 Ukazatel’ 5-oi peredvizhnoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki (St Petersburg, 1876), 7–8.   4 A. S. [Andrei Somov], ‘Khudozhestvennaia vystavka v Akademii khudozhestv’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 71, 12 March 1876, 1.   5 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 96, 125–6, 130.   6 V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki’, Novoe vremia, no. 17, 16 March 1876, 3.   7 Ukazatel’ 5-oi peredvizhnoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki.   8 Ukazatel’ pervoi godichnoi vystavki ‘Obshchestva vystavok khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii’ v Imperatorskoi Akademii khudozhestv v 1876 godu (St Petersburg, 1876).   9 A. S. [Andrei Somov], ‘Khudozhestvennaia vystavka v Akademii khudozhestv’, no. 71, 1. 10 Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Peterburgskie zametki’, Syn Otechestva, no. 78, 8 April 1876, 2. 11 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, no. 10, 6. 12 ‘Khronika’, Golos, no. 74, 2. 13 V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki’, no. 17, 1. 14 Ibid., 3; A. S. [Andrei Somov], ‘Piataia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 103, 15 April 1876, 1; Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Peterburgskie zametki’, no. 78, 2. 15 Bronnikov contributed a recent papal history scene – Pope Pius IX with Cardinal Antonelli and others in St Peter’s Basilica – to the Academy show. See Ukazatel’ pervoi godichnoi vystavki, 19.

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16 Ukazatel’ vystavki khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii v Imperatorskoi Akademii khudozhestv (St Petersburg, 1875), 11. 17 See Stasov’s review of the Academy show in V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki’, no. 17, 1–2. 18 See Ukazatel’ pervoi godichnoy vystavki and reviews of the Academy show in ibid. and A. S. [Andrei Somov], ‘Khudozhestvennaia vystavka v Akademii khudozhestv’, no. 71, 3. 19 A. S. [Andrei Somov], ‘Piataia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, no. 103, 1. 20 Mironov and Eklof, The Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917, 123–96. 21 N. Aleksandrov, ‘Khudozhestvennye novosti’, Russkie vedomosti, no. 83, 6 April 1877, 2. 22 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, no. 10, 6; V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki’, Novoe vremia, no. 17, 3. 23 Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Khudozhestvennaia khronika’, Golos, no. 113, 24 April 1876, 3. 24 Aleksandrov, ‘Khudozhestvennye novosti’, no. 83, 2 25 A. V., ‘Vystavka kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh vystavok’, Peterburgskii listok, no. 51 (13 March 1876): 2. 26 Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Peterburgskie zametki’, no. 78, 2. 27 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, Pchela, no. 11, 30 April 1876, 6–7; A. S. [Andrei Somov], ‘Piataia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 103, 1; V. S. [Vladimir Stasov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki’, no. 17, 3. 28 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, no. 11, 7. 29 ‘Piataia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, no. 378, 27 March 1876, 255. 30 A. V., ‘Vystavka kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh vystavok’, no. 51, 2. 31 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, no. 11, 7. 32 Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Khudozhestvennaia khronika’, no. 113, 3. 33 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, no. 11, 7. 34 Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Khudozhestvennaia khronika’, no. 113, 3. 35 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, no. 11, 7. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 ‘Piataia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 378, 255. 39 A. S. [Andrei Somov], ‘Piataia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, no. 103, 2. 40 A. V., ‘Vystavka kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh vystavok’, no. 51, 2. 41 Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Peterburgskie zametki’, no. 78, 2.

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42 Respectively: A. V., ‘Vystavka kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh vystavok’, no. 51, 2; Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Khudozhestvennaia khronika’, no. 113, 2; N. Aleksandrov, ‘Khudozhestvennye novosti’, Russkie vedomosti, no. 74, 23 March 1877, 1. 43 Profan [Adrian Prakhov], ‘Khudozhestvennye vystavki v Peterburge’, no. 10, 6. 44 Aleksandrov, ‘Khudozhestvennye novosti’, no. 74, 1. 45 Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Khudozhestvennaia khronika’, no. 113, 2. 46 A. S. [Andrei Somov], ‘Piataia peredvizhnaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka’, no. 103, 2; Em [Apollon Matushinskii], ‘Khudozhestvennaia khronika’, no. 113, 2–3. 47 Aleksandrov, ‘Khudozhestvennye novosti’, no. 74, 1.

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Critical Point: The Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Shows, 1883–85

The presence of the socially critical genre paintings from the first to the fifth shows suggests that there was always a risk, albeit so far marginal, of a tension between business and art/politics in the Partnership. The critically minded trend can also be observed in the group’s sixth show in 1878, which again featured several genre paintings with controversial subjects within a thematically and stylistically broad display. They included anticlerical works such as Savitskii’s Meeting of the Icon and Ilya Repin’s debut Archdeacon as well as Iaroshenko’s A Prisoner, and some portrayals of ‘social types’ such as Iaroshenko’s A Stoker. At what point then did the majority of critics begin to perceive this socially critical realist trend as the Peredvizhniki’s defining artistic agenda, despite the otherwise commercially savvy and aesthetically open character of their exhibitions? And what provoked this radical change in the perception? The Peredvizhniki’s sudden publication of an artistic manifesto in 1888, which featured above all the artists’ attack on the critics, serves as an important time marker. I will argue that the Peredvizhniki’s critical realist reputation was eventually fixed during the course of the eleventh (1883), twelfth (1884) and thirteenth (1885) exhibitions, and that the single most important factor resided in the three controversial paintings that Ilya Repin exhibited at these shows. I will again focus on the St Petersburg version of the shows. This will reflect the fact that the previous shows started to play as important a role in the critical assessment of every new Peredvizhniki show as that of the Academy exhibition run at the same time. At the same time, the Moscow newspapers had their role in the story. This is not simply because they started to review the capital’s shows, but also because the controversy provoked by the Peredvizhniki’s exhibits went far beyond the supposedly aesthetic antagonism between the group and the Academy in St Petersburg. In terms of broader historical context, the two significant developments took place between the fifth show in 1876 and the eleventh show six years later. The

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first change had to do with the de-liberalization of the political climate in which the Partnership had to operate. On 1 March 1881 the Emperor Alexander II fell victim to a terrorist assassination plot in St Petersburg. This unprecedented event led to a series of far-reaching counter-reforms and political repression under the murdered Tsar’s successor, Alexander III. As we shall see, once these political themes found their way into the Partnership exhibitions, the consequences were to be extremely significant in more ways than one. Secondly, by the time of the eleventh show the Partnership had finally fixed its membership body. As before, the Peredvizhniki had continued to accept artists working in all major branches of painting. Among the twelve new members accepted since the fifth show in 1876 there were three history painters, consisting of the established Litovchenko (joined in 1878) and two fresh Academy graduates, Nikolai Nevrev and Vasilii Surikov (1881); three genre painters, Viktor Vasnetsov, Ilya Repin and Karl Lemokh (1878); and three landscape artists, the former founding member Nikolai Makovskii, Vasilii Polenov (both 1878) and Efim Volkov (1879). Three other new members specialized in portraiture – former founding member Konstantin Makovskii (1879) and two French residents Iurii Leman and Aleksandr Kharlamov (both 1881). No further insight into the balloting concerning these new members is available, while among them were such ideologically diverse artists as the author of Boat Haulers on the Volga (Repin) and the most celebrated portraitist of highsociety women (Konstantin Makovskii). In total only five artists left the group during the same first decade. Unhappy with its policy, Perov quit the Partnership in 1877. Gun and Amosov died in 1877 and 1879 respectively. The professional conflict between such artistically diverse landscape painters as Konstantin Klodt and Kuindzhi resulted in both quitting the Partnership in 1880. From 1879 onwards the Partnership significantly complicated the procedure for gaining membership.1 As a result, 1881 was to be the last year that the Partnership accepted a significant number of new members. For the next decade its membership, comprising three dozen artists, stayed virtually unchanged – only one genre painter Nikolai Kuznetsov (1883) and three landscape artists, Nikolai Bodarevskii (1884), Nikolai Dubovskoi (1886) and Apollinarii Vasnetsov (1888) became part of the group. Perov’s notorious split with the Partnership in 1877 provides a possible insight into why the Partnership’s membership body ceased to grow. In his letter to Kramskoi, discussed in Chapter 1, the artist complained, among other things, that increasing the size of the group was not in the interests of its current

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members because it reduced the amount of the dividend each exhibitor could expect. There are no particular reasons to reject this explanation, especially given that Perov’s argument that the Partnership’s initial motivation was pragmatic in nature has been supported by solid evidence in the previous chapters. What also supports this argument is that during the winter of 1880 there was extensive discussion of the new dividend policy.2 In addition, the explanation corresponds well with another important development: that, while the Partnership ceased to accept new members, it nevertheless welcomed external exhibitors into its shows; their presence becoming more and more noticeable, but they were excluded from receiving the dividends. The stabilization of the membership had some noticeable consequences. For instance, this may explain the change in the way the Partnership represented its exhibitions to the general public: commencing with the eleventh show in 1883, the Peredvizhniki’s catalogues now separated members and external exhibitors, as has been established earlier. This belated consolidation of its membership may also elucidate why the earliest group photographs of the Peredvizhniki appeared only in the mid-1880s. Finally, no matter how heterogeneous the character of the membership eventually turned out to be, the shift from a highly fluid artistic body to an unchanging group opened up possibilities for establishing a fixed identity for the Peredvizhniki in the eyes of their contemporaries.

The eleventh show, 1883 The Peredvizhniki’s eleventh show was not only more inclusive, but also much larger, than the fifth. There were around twenty-six major responses to the show, of which two-thirds were proper reviews. At 17,803 visitors, the attendance of the event in St Petersburg was more than one-third higher than that of the previous year.3 Initially featuring 100 exhibits (this figure grew as the show went on), the display was close in size to the 160 or so works in different media at the Academy’s annual survey in the same year.4 Alongside oil paintings, the Partnership’s show now included a number of small-scale, easily transportable wax sculptures. As far as the paintings are concerned, the most significant change was the increased presence of portraiture. With around thirty finished pieces and études, images of the Russian people now constituted the second-largest segment in the whole composition of the show, yielding only to landscape which, as usual, accounted at around forty works for almost half of all the exhibits on display. In turn, genre

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painting, consisting of around twenty exhibits, secured its traditional quarter of the show and was followed by several history subjects. While not always content with the show’s growth in size, the typical critical evaluation of the overall display was that it was ‘rich in portraits, plentiful in genre works, poor for history subjects and offers a weak collection of landscapes’.5 Everything suggests that the first major scandal in the history of the Partnership was concerned not so much with the eleventh show as a whole, as with the presence in the display of a genre painting – Religious Procession in the Province of Kursk by Ilya Repin (Figures 44 and 45). The best way to demonstrate this will be to consider this controversial exhibit at the end of this case study. The portraits at the eleventh show not only increased the visibility of the genre, but also demonstrated an unprecedented diversity as regards the social status of the sitters. To a certain degree, the eleventh show continued to promote a social range of male members of the intelligentsia. For instance, Kramskoi’s portrait of Dr Sergei Botkin was displayed along with an image of historian Nikolai Kostomarov by Konstantin Makovskii and Vladimir Makovskii’s portrait of the artist Prianishnikov, among others. However, in comparison with the previously considered shows, the major change was the significant presence of female sitters. Arguably, among them only Iaroshenko’s Girl Student, who represented a social type of progressive young woman emancipated through education,

Figure 44  Ilya Repin, Religious Procession in the Province of Kursk, 1880–83. Oil on canvas, 175 × 280 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

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somehow conformed to the values and ideals of meritocratic society behind the Peredvizhniki’s promotion of the intelligentsia. (Remarkably enough, when it came to the point of granting membership status to the female participants of the Partnership’s shows, the artists failed to be that progressive until 1898, when the first woman was accepted.) A much greater number of aristocratic and high-society female representatives in the same exhibition eliminated any possible consistency in the social character of the sitters. Thus Konstantin Makovskii, along with a portrait of his wife and children, also contributed a fullsize portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksandrovich, the president of the Academy of Arts, with her children. Yet the most celebrated work turned out to be Kramskoi’s society portrait of Madam Vogau, while his Unknown Woman was viewed by many commentators as the image of a courtesan. One of them explained why they thought so: ‘Judging by the scenery, worn carriage, necessary loneliness and defiant look, as well as the painting’s title – Unknown Woman – it seems that the public are not mistaken in thinking that here is a portrait of an expensive [Lady of the] Camellias.’6 Leman’s Parisian female types extended further the geographic range of female society portraits. If one adds to this assortment Kramskoi’s Etude of a Russian peasant and Kharlamov’s heads of Italian girls, one gets a fairly accurate picture of the highly diverse and inclusive character of the sitters on offer, in terms of sex, occupation, nationality and social hierarchy. The social diversity of the sitters was matched by the variety of representational approaches and styles the show now accommodated. In the eyes of many critics, the most explicit contrast was between the works by Konstantin Makovskii and Kramskoi. Commentators did not have any problem in describing the ‘confectionery-sweet’, ‘chic’ manner of the former: this artist utilized the sitter as ‘material’, an opportunity to demonstrate his virtuoso technique in depicting various accessories; hence, his well-known interest in ‘beautiful young faces, bright and diverse fabrics, gold, jewels, flowers, plumes’. In the critics’ eyes, Makovskii’s portraits would make ‘a lovely addition to a luxury living room or salon’.7 As for Kramskoi’s Madam Vogau and Unknown Woman, commentators apparently experienced difficulties when trying to capture their originality in words. One of them suggested that, in contrast to Makovskii’s ‘idealist’ manner, these images were ‘realistic-idealistic’ (real’noidealnyi), while a more conservative reviewer was happy to register their significant departure from the ‘tendentious realism of Stasov’ towards a more ‘refined’ manner.8 Iaroshenko’s ‘poor handling’ of Girl Student as well as the ‘foreign’ manner of Kharlamov’s or

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Figure 45  The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the eleventh t­ ouring exhibition, 1883. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Ivan Shishkin, Amongst Even Valleys, 1883, 136 × 203 cm. Courtesy Kiev National Museum of Russian Art; Vasilii Surikov, Menshikov in Berezov, 1883, 169 × 204 cm; Ilya Repin, Religious Procession in the Province of Kursk, 1880–1883, 175 × 280 cm; K ­ onstantin Savitskii, Fugitive, 1883, 72 × 144 cm; Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of Botkin, 1882, 71 × 57 cm; Ivan Kramskoi, Unknown Woman, 1883, 75 × 99 cm.

Leman’s female portraits additionally enriched this stylistic and representational cocktail. It appears that what was the dominant trend – the restrained, minimalist representation of male members of the Russian intelligentsia – had now become only one possible option, among many, for portraits in the eleventh show. Unlike the portraits, the overall character of genre scenes in the fifth show remained largely unchanged by the eleventh. Despite the increased number of works and contributors, they suggested more or less the same assortment of socially critical and cheerful themes from the lives of the rural and urban lower social strata. In this sense, the only ‘novelty’ was that, next to traditional Russian peasant scenes such as Maksimov’s Borrowing of Bread, Lemokh’s Beggar-children and Prianishnikov’s Boys on a Fence, the show now expressed a noticeable ethnographic interest in the peasant life of Little Russia (Ukraine). The latter inspired several artists and works in different media: Prianishnikov’s Return from the Fair, Nikolai Makovskii’s Bazar and Pozen’s small-scale wax sculptures, among others. As for the lower end of urban society, Vladimir Makovskii continued to lead here, confidently securing his reputation as the main humorist: alongside his overly familiar anecdotal Reproof, Dressing-Room in a Bathhouse and Doorkeeper, emotive Meeting was the only exception. Given that even newcomers such as Kuznetsov contributed anecdotal hunting scenes such as On

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Holiday, it is perhaps not surprising that, in the eyes of some commentators, most of the range of genre artists and works had become too predictable in the context of the previous Partnership’s exhibitions.9 Only a handful of pictures, such as Savitskii’s controversially ambiguous Fugitive, offered anything strikingly new in the way of contemporary issues. This frieze-like scene depicts a group of peasants waiting to hand over a captured man to the police (note the horsemen on the far right) somewhere in an open field outside a village on a sunny day. The supposed identity of the unfortunate man varied in the reviews, from a military deserter to a political prisoner. But such works were too few in number to dissuade the critics from asserting that they had seen it all before. Although the eleventh show featured history paintings, they proved insignificant in the eyes of the critics. The only two pictures representing Russia’s past dealt with the theme of exile. Marina Mniszech and her Father under Arrest by Mikhail Klodt depicted an event during the Time of Troubles at the turn of the seventeenth century, while Surikov’s Menshikov in Berezov illustrated the dramatic political disgrace of Prince Menshikov, an influential favourite of Peter the Great and Catherine I, who was eventually deprived of his titles and enormous wealth and expelled, along with his family, to a village in Siberia. While most critics preferred Surikov’s dramatic approach to the hackneyed archaeological and anecdotal method of the more established Klodt, several felt that the younger artist’s work exposed his lack of proper Academy training. It is only from a few contemporary comments such as ‘Menshikov is represented as a lion in a cage’ that one can infer that some critics appreciated the fact that the powerful statesman squeezed into a peasant izba was a deliberate artistic exaggeration on the part of the painter.10 Menshikov was one of the largest

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exhibits on display, but the perceived shortcomings of the work underscored a larger problem in the eyes of several critics: the marginalization of history painting. They believed, however, that in this respect the Peredvizhniki’s case merely reflected a general tendency – the lack of complex, multi-figure grande peinture – in Russian contemporary art.11 Dissatisfied with these meagre historical offerings, commentators devoted more time and space to literary images such as Konstantin Makovskii’s Ophelia and especially Repin’s Poprishchin, depicting a character from Nikolai Gogol’s novel Diary of a Madman. Finally, the landscape segment of the show demonstrated two important changes in comparison with the fifth show. In the absence of works by Kuindzhi and Klodt, Shishkin’s monumental panoramas, including Amongst Even Valleys, secured unquestionable prominence among the numerous rural and urban views and seascapes. More significant still, the eleventh show revealed another tendency, striking for many reviewers: a growing number of established genre painters had started to contribute landscapes in addition to, or sometimes instead of, their traditional contemporary scenes. Iaroshenko alone contributed around nineteen études from his recent trip to the Caucasus, while Maksimov, Miasoedov and Bronnikov also exhibited various images of nature alongside their scenes of everyday life. New Time dedicated a separate article speculating on the reasons for such a surprising diversification. According to this newspaper, these artists may have turned their hands to depicting the outside world as a break from their usually more difficult work, or they may have seen here a greater potential for artistic freedom. Another suggestion was that they wanted to escape from so many pressing social problems into the calm and grandiose scenery of Russian mountains, rivers, steppes and forests.12 It is safe to assume that commercial considerations would also have impacted upon these artists’ choices. In any case, all these possible motivations now contributed to the overall character of the eleventh show and the way it was perceived by the critics, who often wrote of landscapes as the area where the most ‘unnecessary’ artistic ‘ballast’ of the show was to be found. At this point one may sense that the eleventh show preserved its fairly heterogeneous character and in some respects – such as the miscellaneous character of the portraits, the presence of historical and fictional subjects, the ethnographical trend in genre painting, and the forays into landscape by prominent genre artists – even to an unprecedented degree. Against this background it should now be clearer why a single painting – Repin’s Religious Procession in the Province of Kursk – provoked a major scandal around the entire show.

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Repin’s work addressed one of the most common and popular Orthodox religious practices in Russia. The ‘cross procession’ was, and remains, a customary name for the majority of annual religious processions on occasions such as Easter, and has for centuries been carried out in all major regions of the country under Orthodox authority. One critic explained the meaning of this type of procession: ‘a miracle-working icon’, on the day of its celebration, is carried out ‘from a place where it first [miraculously] appeared (possibly somewhere in a forest) to a monastery or church where it is usually stored’.13 The painting’s title specifically mentions the locality of the event: the province of the city of Kursk, which was then located in a far remote western corner of provincial Russia, around 500 kilometres south of Moscow and more than 1,000 kilometres from the capital, St Petersburg. The reviewers acknowledged the contemporary character of the depicted event. In particular, Art (Iskusstvo) informed its readers that Repin’s original idea had been to produce two paintings on the same subject, which would represent the cross procession before and after the social reforms of the 1860s, especially the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.14 For whatever reason, however, Repin contributed only the portrayal of post-reform provincial Russia. In the eyes of the critics, the major signifiers of present-day reality were novel social types: zemstvo administrators, Cossack sergeants (uriadniki), village police, representatives of the local school and wealthy peasants (kulaki) among others. In addition, the stumps of a felled forest on a hill in the background could perhaps be read as a sign of Russia’s entrance into capitalism and industrialization. The very choice of depicting the most heavily attended provincial social gathering certainly gave the artist the rare opportunity of representing, on a single canvas, an encounter between provincial government officials and members of all other social classes, including the recently liberated peasants, during an entirely voluntary and religious, not political, occasion. At first glance, Religious Procession looks like nothing more than an image of a festive crowd moving towards the viewer along a dusty road in the sun. On closer inspection, however, one can see that Repin has produced a carefully observed representation of an exclusive, strictly hierarchical and forcefully policed provincial social gathering. The symbolic centre of the procession is the miracleworking icon, which is carried by a plump middle-aged woman in a distinctively expensive yellow dress, whom the critics described as a representative of the local aristocratic or merchant nobility. She is in the company of other representatives of the local elite and high-ranking clergy dressed in gold vestments and violet kamilavkas (Orthodox priests’ headgear), and this overt alliance is accompanied

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and protected by a Cossack guard. This group occupies what is ostensibly the compositional centre of the painting – this is where the only vacant space in the foreground of this otherwise overcrowded and multifocal composition eventually leads the viewer’s gaze. To reach that spot, however, the viewer has first to acknowledge a number of closer figures: on the left, a hunchbacked and crippled peasant followed by an army of pilgrims or beggars, all of whom appear to have been forcefully excluded from the main procession by church stewards and mounted police; and on the right, the main procession, which progresses from the group of peasants carrying a gigantic platform with a heavily decorated lantern, to the largely European-looking local intelligentsia, the administrative and religious elite, leaving behind the endless mass of other attendees. Some critics recognized that ‘there are many characteristic types of rural inhabitants, starting from the lowest social rungs and ending with the local intelligentsia’.15 The two symmetrically staged lines of mounted policemen to the right and left of the main procession, the only figures high above the crowd, ensure that this social ordering is closely scrutinized, patrolled and enforced with the help of batons and whips.16 There was little disagreement about how Repin had exaggerated, or even caricatured, the wealthy nobility’s privileged access to the sacred object, or the excessive brutality of the policing forces – but even in the eyes of some liberal critics, he may have gone a bit too far.17 Importantly, the painting, however, is no less critical in its portrayal of the lower-class crowd, as several reviewers were quick to point out. ‘Do not search their faces and figures for deep religious sentiment,’ remarked one liberal commentator, ‘for you will find only vanity, only a predilection for ceremonial rites’.18 Conservative critics were even more troubled by the representation of the crowd. One of them wrote: ‘one cannot find any fine-looking and intelligent physiognomy. Instead of the reverential religious feeling characteristic of the Orthodox commoner, they all demonstrate bluntness, stupidity and wild fanaticism in their faces.’19 Another reacted in a similar way: ‘You feel some sort of spiteful, contemptuous attitude to this whole act of a religious procession, to all the “stupidity” of this “superstition”, to the entire senselessness of this crowd.’20 But Repin went beyond merely juxtaposing the repressive official representatives with the ignorance of the crowd, and depicted a thought-provoking example of their physical encounter. In the eyes of the critics, the most alarming point of the entire painting was the Cossack sergeant (uriadnik) in white uniform on a horse – he is not only riding his horse right in the middle of the human mob but is also shown in the act of assaulting a woman with his whip (note a single

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hand in a pink sleeve raised in a gesture of self-defence). The scene occurs in the area where members of the local intelligentsia can be observed, directly in front of the local elite and the main section of the procession. The conservative critics approached this scene with unanimous anger at what they considered to be the work’s greatest untruth, while other critics instead focused their attention on the behaviour of the crowd. Stasov merely noted that a member of the crowd is being assaulted without evident reason or necessity, ‘just for the sake of diligence’, while nearby members of the public ignore this unprovoked attack.21 The reviewer writing for New Time observed unhappily that these participants had been depicted as if they were ‘Papuans’, for none of them seemed to realize ‘how far they are rough and wild, by permitting such bestial arbitrariness’.22 But it was the reviewer for World Illustration that made perhaps the most perceptive observation: that, despite the clear signs of assault, ‘one finds no expression of discontent over this offence from […] the members of the public’, which ‘makes the impression created by the scene even more striking to every thoughtful person’.23 What all this tells us is that the critics regarded Religious Procession as something more than a picture that prompted a straightforward attack on autocracy, in order to elicit sympathy for the ill-fated muzhik. Conservative commentators viewed the work as an attack on all the major classes and estates of Russian society: ‘It is as if Repin took on the task of exposing the ignorance and fanaticism of the commoner, the contemporary shortcomings of government administrative power in the faces of the village constable and district police officer, and in general, to ridicule and represent in a dirty manner everybody and everything.’24 Those who were ideologically more liberal demonstrated their appreciation of a more complex message conveyed by the painting: that the extent to which the abuse of power could be practised was directly related to the overall passivity of society and the lack of civic solidarity among its members. This was certainly an unsettling reminder in a country that had achieved its long-awaited ‘personal freedom’, but where the abuse of power and the inertness of the population (some critics emphasized the voluntary character of the event) nevertheless remained as common and widespread as cross processions. Finally, to appreciate the impact Religious Procession had on the critical perception of the eleventh show, one needs to realize that this was the first contemporary genre painting of its kind to be experienced in the context of a Peredvizhniki exhibition. By the time Repin joined the Partnership in 1878, he had already established his reputation with Boat Haulers on the Volga. (The painting depicts a group of ten ragged haulers of various ages moving towards

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the viewer along a sandy river bank, pulling a huge boat on a burning-hot summer’s day. The vanishing point or semantic perspective for these two major elements of the composition is a steam boat in the far distance, which eventually communicates the idea that age-old labour continued to be practised under inhumane conditions at a time of observable industrial progress in Russia.) Hence, critics compared the two works, noting that they share similar open-air subject matter, a frieze-like compositional arrangement and the use of diagonal movement of the group towards the viewer.25 Later, scholars came to view this work as the manifesto of the Peredvizhniki critical realist movement – see, for instance, the cover page of Novitskii’s first ever monograph on the Peredvizhniki (Figure 51). However, Boat Haulers had never in fact been displayed with the Partnership. Commissioned by Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksandrovich in 1870, at that time the vice-president of the Academy of Arts, the preliminary version of Boat Haulers was displayed at the St Petersburg Society in March 1871. The final version had been exhibited at the Academy show in March and April 1873 – that is, well after the closure of the Partnership’s second show in the capital in the first weeks of February. This means that, prior to Repin’s contribution of the Religious Procession for the eleventh show, there were no Peredvizhniki exhibits that came anywhere near to matching one of the principal novelties of Boat Haulers – the representation of a controversial contemporary subject on the large-scale canvas traditionally reserved for classical history painting. Indeed, every second commentator noticed the exceptional size of the work, one even going so far as to claim that the work was ‘four times bigger than Boat Haulers’.26 This was an obvious, but telling, exaggeration: Repin’s work is only forty centimetres larger in height. What is more, Religious Procession arguably went further than Boat Haulers in highlighting the shortcomings of contemporary Russian society, by representing the worrying nature of the relationship between the government and its subjects in a more direct and satirical manner. The large scale of the canvas amplified this commentary to unprecedentedly epic proportions. Finally, although in 1883 conservative reviewers saw it as the most tendentious exhibit, deliberately intended to incite a public scandal, Repin’s contribution nevertheless broke what had become a common critical pattern, according to which the more disturbing the subject of a painting, the more faults were found with its qualities as a work of art. (This is, for instance, what one can observe in conservative critics’ approach to Iaroshenko’s Girl Student at the show.) In the case of Religious Procession, even the most hostile commentators had to admit that the work was a significant artistic achievement for the Russian school, in terms of skilful drawing,

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compositional ideas, diversity of the characters depicted, and the painterly skill required to render so complex a multi-figured, open-air subject. Certainly, such a gigantic ‘tendentious’ yet artistic ‘masterpiece’ was impossible to ignore. Even though the conservative critics found some relief in the works of Shishkin, the Makovskii brothers, and Kramskoi,27 the presence of Repin’s Religious Procession alone upset the previously maintained balance between the heterogeneous character of each Peredvizhniki show and what the critics called its ‘tendentious’ component. It was mainly in connection with Repin’s painting that conservative critics started to exaggerate the disturbing character of certain other exhibits (such as Savitskii’s Fugitive) at the cost of overlooking the otherwise customarily heterogeneous and aesthetically open nature of the eleventh show. They started to speak of ‘full, uncompromising realism’28 and argued, either in delight or anger, that Religious Procession gave colour to the whole segment of genre paintings.29 In the words of the conservative Moscow Bulletin (Moskovskie vedomosti) critic, this time ‘the exhibition has gone too far (peresolila)’.30 Suddenly the show became ‘ideological’ (ideinaia), it now had some thought (mysl’),31 it was not ‘art for art’s sake’; rather, ‘it provokes you to think rather than be entertained’.32 Furthermore, the impact of Repin’s painting coincided with two other important developments: not only had the Partnership fixed its membership body, but the eleventh show marked the group’s entrance into its second decade of existence. Many critics acknowledged the formation of the fixed core of the Peredvizhniki group (kruzhok), which, most importantly, now had an evident leader in Repin.33 In the course of their evaluation of the Partnership’s social and artistic significance, certain commentators retrospectively mythologized, as can now be judged by the findings set out in this book, the group’s history and identity: namely, the Peredvizhniki’s association with the St Petersburg Artel and its rebellion against the Academy, and the notion that these artists had consistently exhibited a realist approach even in their most fantastical and fairytale subjects.34 Importantly, this significant shift in the critical evaluation of the Partnership gained even more strength during its next, twelfth show.

They did not expect him at the twelfth show, 1884 Although the twelfth exhibition retained its heterogeneous and aesthetically open character, it was also the occasion when some critics first began to reflect on the problem of ascribing a specific realist agenda to its participants. The

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show opened in St Petersburg with 116 works, and increased by a further 46 as it went on. In regard to oil paintings, the twelfth show was again close in size to the concurrent Academy annual survey: 162 and 207 works respectively.35 One response to the display ran as follows: apart from few exceptions, ‘there are no history paintings […] It is all landscapes and landscapes (they are the majority); there is also a huge mass of portraits, and there are plenty of completely strange works, to the point that one does not understand why they are and for whom they have been painted […] and no more than seven or eight thought-provoking works.’36 Observing this physically and artistically capacious display, another art critic, Vladimir Chuiko, justifiably argued that, although the Peredvizhniki had undeniably taken a step away from the aesthetics of the Academy, their shows simultaneously demonstrated a ‘strange impartiality’: they accommodated virtually every current distinguishable artistic trend and experimental approach. Such impartiality could hardly be a banner (znamia) of a supposedly realist art movement, while the lack of such a banner ‘seriously damages the integral impression of the Peredvizhniki shows’. The critic supported his argument with examples from the display: For instance, next to the irreconcilable realist Repin you come across Iaroshenko – a tendentious genre painter who chases after contemporary ideas and facts; next to Shishkin – pure-blooded naturalism in landscape art – one may find the romanticized landscape painter Volkov; next to Kramskoi, who brings his technique to depersonalization, one may see Kharlamov, whose manner is partly old-Spanish, partly contemporary French, and who is striking for his subjectivity. In short, the Peredvizhniki exhibition society familiarizes us with the different directions and currents [in contemporary Russian art], which have in part been bred on Russian soil, in part imported from Europe.37

Yet the very fact that Chuiko brought this problem to the surface at this particular moment may indicate that his was an early response to the ongoing shift in the critical reassessment of the Peredvizhniki’s artistic identity, despite the customarily inclusive and stylistically heterogeneous character of their show. Indeed, in comparison with the previous year, the Peredvizhniki’s twelfth exhibition provoked far more polemics in the press as well as novel statements from critics about the group. There were around twenty-four responses to the show in St Petersburg, of which the major part were proper reviews, often covering the exhibition in several parts. The attendance exceeded that of the eleventh by more than a thousand, with a total of 19,164 visitors.38 All the evidence suggests that the increased degree of critical polarization

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had been catalysed by the politically sensitive character of what became the show’s key exhibit – Repin’s contemporary scene They Did Not Expect Him (Figures 46 and 47). Over a metre and a half high and almost perfectly square, the large format of this painting accommodates an intimate interior scene, in which contemporary Russian political reality combines with a family drama in a highly ‘ambiguous’ and ‘puzzling’ way. The work depicts the moment of a young man’s entrance into the lounge of a summerhouse to the surprise, as the title suggests, of his family members whose surroundings identify them as members of the intelligentsia. In 1884 critics came to varying conclusions as to the character of the relationship between the unexpected guest, the adult woman and the three children of various ages.39 But it was above all the social identity of the

Figure 46  Ilya Repin, They Did Not Expect Him, 1884–88. Oil on canvas, 160 × 170 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

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Figure 47  The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the twelfth t­ ouring exhibition, 1884. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Ivan Shishkin, Forest Distance, 1884, 113 × 164 cm; Viktor Vasnetsov, Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom, 1884, 164 × 297 cm. Courtesy Kiev National Museum of Russian Art; Ivan Kramskoi, Inconsolable Grief, 1884, 228 × 141 cm; Ilya Repin, They Did Not Expect Him, 1884–1888, 160 × 170 cm; Ilya Repin, Portrait of Pavel Tretyakov, 1883, 101 × 77 cm.

guest that preoccupied and infuriated conservative critics, who interpreted several clues as evidence that the man returning to his home was a political exile. On the rear wall, photographic portraits of the civic-minded writer and artist Taras Shevchenko (1814–61) and liberal publisher and poet of peasant Russia Nikolai Nekrasov (1821–78) provided some of the strongest hints, which were referenced in many reviews. However, the most crucial visual clue was a small but well-known image of the deceased monarch Alexander II from 1881, hung on the right-hand wall next to a large map of the Russian Empire (partially cropped by the edge of the canvas), which unmistakably indicated the contemporary character of the scene. Some critics even argued that the intruder had been released as a result of the political amnesty marking Alexander III’s coronation in 1883, two years after the terrorist assassination of the Tsar ‘Liberator’.40 (Despite some discussions and proposals, both on the part of the liberal members of the government and in society, there was never any actual official political amnesty.) In any case, the presence of images of progressive

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writers and the assassinated Tsar in the same room was both revealing, with regards to the previous whereabouts of the intruder – a political prisoner – and confusing, as far as the family’s political allegiance was concerned. The mixed feelings expressed by the different members of the household, only a small boy demonstrating a spontaneously joyful response, prompted all the critics to wonder to what extent the unexpected guest was welcome. One may argue that the main source of the painting’s ambiguity stems from Repin’s decision to depict the supposed political exile’s return in an unconventional – in terms of the public perception of his social activity – family scene. This allowed the scene to be read equally as ‘a condemnation of political oppression’, as Jackson has argued, or as ‘a sermon on the inadvisability of revolutionary activism’, meaning that ‘political activists do not live in isolation, but that their acts have severe domestic repercussions’.41 The point is that contemporary commentators were not as explicit in their interpretations as subsequent scholars – and this despite the fact that the ambiguous family scene depicted in They Did Not Expect Him generated more overt polemics than the artist’s far more explicitly satirical and political Religious Procession had done the year before, splitting the press into liberal and conservative camps.42 Liberal-minded commentators tended to interpret the scene as a sort of happy ending to a family reunion, a moment of ‘reconciliation in the present’ despite difficulties of the past, emphasizing the purely psychological

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aspect of the event and the importance of empathy.43 One conservative critic, in his turn, accused the work of being connected to ‘pseudo-liberal denunciations and protests’,44 while another expressed perhaps the main problem with the public assessment of the work, asking whether the return of a political exile was a permitted or a forbidden subject to paint.45 One may sense that, while visual ambiguity in communicating certain political sentiments could still be achieved on canvas, censorship was likely to affect any politically ambiguous, let alone explicit or bold, interpretations of the work in print. Once again, in order to understand the overall impact of They Did Not Expect Him at the twelfth show, one needs to take into account its undeniable artistic merits in the eyes of the critics. Even the most hostile could not simply dismiss or ridicule the work, as they largely did, for instance, with Iaroshenko’s Reasons Unknown.46 Notwithstanding Repin’s irritating ambiguity, they could still appreciate the artistic freshness of the painting, its original compositional arrangement, and the ‘powerful, splendid’ interior illumination with soft, diffused sunlight entering through the French windows. It became a frequent critics’ compliment to say that Repin’s painterly skills were superb and that only he could bring ‘so much air and sun into a canvas’47 and that the artist ‘has trained us to expect from him [the things] that the other [artists] failed to do’.48 The public resonance of Repin’s work once again encouraged critics to grasp, and sometimes exaggerate, distinctive features of the entire twelfth show. There is now evidence of commentators starting to adjust their reviewing habits to the changes in exhibition practice, thus demonstrating a more nuanced and syncretic approach in their reviews. (Here is a good example of a growing professional self-consciousness: Chuiko argued that ‘it is not the description of paintings that constitutes the task of art criticism, but those general, logical conclusions which can be made on the basis of the whole totality of works produced during a certain period of time’.49) Observing the twelfth display as a whole, some commentators lamented: ‘O, God! How many ill, dying and already dead!’ and then provided the full list of examples.50 Others emphasized the noticeably ‘chaste’ character of the display, pointing out the absence of portraits of fashionable ladies, let alone nudes: ‘There is no single painting with any inclination toward a pornographic subject, no single bathing nymph, there are no portraits of beauties with seductive décolletage […] It is a very clean and proper exhibition, at least, far more proper than actual life.’51 Some were unhappy that the viewer had been given ‘naked realism’ instead.52 In the eyes of the critics, the twelfth show generally confirmed the tendency pronounced a year earlier that it provoked one to think, rather

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than setting out to entertain. This was the point where the difference between the Peredvizhniki show and the concurrent Academy survey began for some critics.53 But in 1884 these observations went a step further, by advancing the suggestion that the Peredvizhniki were promoting ideas of social progress. The liberal Russian Courier (Russkii kur’er) insisted that the group’s exhibitions had always attracted the attention of that part of educated society which was curious about achievements in art, culture, literature and science. Representing major aspects of Russian contemporary life, the pictures ‘besides their specific artistic significance’ merited ‘serious public interest for cultivating self- consciousness in society, and an aspiration for ideals of a better future’.54 Such critical evaluation completely ignored the stylistically heterogeneous character of the twelfth show, about which Chuiko complained. Instead, the ‘naked realism’ of some of its exhibits was eventually linked in the critics’ perception with the meritocratic and civic-minded ethos of the intelligentsia portraits – the sort of mixture which would, by default, garner oppositional flavour in an autocratic Russian society. The only novel counter-argument on the part of conservative commentators was to claim that the Peredvizhniki’s exhibitions could simply not afford to be any more tendentious or narrowly focused, as any such show would soon face financial bankruptcy.55 Significantly, while the display was starting to feature politically sensitive exhibits, several reviewers identified another tendency: the overt commercialization of the show. ‘The exhibition is striking for its somewhat general loose, flat, accidental range of subjects […] as if it were all designed for sale.’ This author, in particular, complained about the mass of landscapes and portraits – the items most in demand on the market.56 Another, similarly irritated, commentator reminded his readers that: ‘One cannot equate a public exhibition of works of art with an exhibition of objects which pursued commercial aims.’57 So, was there indeed a moment when the continuous presence of politically sensitive key exhibits, and the increasingly socially critical character of the entire exhibition in the eyes of the commentators which resulted from that presence, began to pose a threat to the Partnership’s longterm priority of running commercially viable, attractive and acceptable shows in respectable locations? (It is relevant to recall here that the Peredvizhniki’s twelfth show, which promoted ideas of social progress and displayed politically sensitive works, occupied a luxurious private mansion, the Bernadaki House, in the very heart of the capital on Nevskii prospekt.) To what extent was it possible to question the existing social order and remain a successful alternative

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exhibiting platform in the Russian political environment, which since the terrorist assassination of Alexander II had become even more repressive? The enormous scandal over Repin’s contribution to the Peredvizhniki’s next, thirteenth, show would ultimately provide an answer to this and many other questions.

Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan at the thirteenth show, 1885 The thirteenth show was the largest thus far, but that did not excite the critics. Starting with around 240 items, the exhibition had grown to a total of 280 by the time it closed, matching in scale the Academy’s contemporaneous display with 262 oil works.58 In the eyes of the critics, however, the growth in size had been at the expense of quality, for over half of the works on display consisted of études. One reviewer went so far as to claim that if one were to remove the dozens of études from the display, the show could not have taken place.59 Vladimir Makovskii alone contributed around forty exhibits, the majority being ethnographic studies and landscapes from his trip to Ukraine. Yet it was Vasilii Polenov who set the record, displaying some eighty études from his travels through Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Palestine and Syria. According to one commentator, if the latter were at least of ‘significant historical and geographical interest’, Makovskii’s contribution was simply ‘deadly monotonous’.60 The common feeling that both series ‘could constitute two separate shows on their own’ reflected a general sense of the exhibition’s lack of balance.61 When faced with such an unprecedented flood of études and landscapes, many commentators regretted the evident decline of genre scenes: if one does not count ethnographic studies, ‘the exhibits demonstrate almost no interest in contemporary life, with only a few exceptions’.62 One such major ‘exception’ was a genre scene Before Punishment in the Volost’ Administration by external exhibitor Sergei Korovin; the painting depicts an interior scene with a robust, middle-aged male peasant taking off his clothes in preparation for physical punishment with birch rods, to be carried out by a local police official. At the same time, several renowned genre painters of the Partnership were either absent or only contributed landscapes. As a result, periodical writers described the overall character of the exhibition as at best ‘tranquil, somewhat elegiac’,63 and at worst ‘boring’, ‘colourless’ and ‘mediocre’, declaring it proved that ‘13’ was an unlucky number.64 The excess

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of études and landscapes as well as the predictability of the exhibits largely contributed to the critical impression that ‘everyone was participating in the show with the sole purpose of making a sale’ and ‘obviously, the more diverse the assortment, the more choice the client will have, and the sooner the artist may expect to sell’.65 The steadily increasing number of studies and sketches in the Partnership’s exhibitions had indeed made more works available and affordable for purchase, but this general trend also pointed towards a novel (modernist) aesthetic with its looser and more forceful style, to the regret of many critics. One of them frankly complained that this development negatively impacted the shows’ aesthetic appearance as it decreased the number of properly finished works, promoting both a flippant manner of execution and a frivolous attitude to composition.66 Clearly, an exhibition flooded with études, whose character was on the whole sketchy, ‘tranquil, somewhat elegiac’, ‘mediocre’ and unashamedly commercial could hardly have been responsible for the anomalously high level of public interest that the thirteenth show actually produced. Moreover, featuring an even

Figure 48  Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581, 1885. Oil on canvas, 200 × 254 cm. Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery.

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Figure 49  The comparative scale of some of the key exhibits at the thirteenth touring exhibition, 1885. Unless specified otherwise, images – Courtesy State Tretyakov Gallery. From left to right: Ivan Shishkin, Foggy Morning, 1885, 108 × 146 cm. Courtesy Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum; Sergei Miloradovich, Black Convocation, 1885, 135 × 189 cm; Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581, 1885, 200 × 254 cm; Sergei Korovin, Before Punishment in the Volost’ Administration, 1884, 63 × 86 cm. Courtesy Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.

smaller number of contemporary subjects, the show turned out to be the most scandalous exhibition in the history of the Peredvizhniki, as well as the one accused of promoting realist principles in the most extreme manner. It generated an unprecedented amount of press attention: almost double the number of reviews and coverage in more periodicals than had previously reviewed the group’s shows. There were around fifty responses to the St Petersburg show, of which around two-thirds were proper reviews. And, as we know that ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’, even more impressive is the increase in attendance: about 45,000 visitors attended the event, whereas during the two previous and controversial shows the figures had not exceeded 20,000.67 The reason for this jump in 1885 is not hard to find: the thirteenth display exhibited a scandalous painting, Ilya Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581 (Figures 48 and 49).

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This subject from Russia’s pre-Petrine history was the single stand-out phenomenon that entirely overshadowed the rest of the show.68 It certainly did so in the critics’ reviews, sometimes taking up entire articles. The massive press coverage responded to and fuelled the exceptional curiosity felt by the public; every other critic remarked that it was the only exhibit in front of which one could observe a permanent crowd. So great was the public’s fascination with Ivan the Terrible that it even became the subject of a special illustration in the widely read World Illustration magazine (Figure 50). This engraving depicts well-dressed, affluent male and female members of the public, as well as a young girl, in front of the painting, which was the only work that had to be cordoned off from the visiting crowds. As numerous commentators attested, the exhibition/painting was ‘literally stormed’ by ‘all layers of Russian society’, including those who otherwise would have stayed away from the problems of art.69 At the same time, sensationalist headlines such as ‘Murder in the halls of the 13th touring exhibition’,70 as well as such widely employed critical epithets as utterly ‘shocking’, ‘disgusting’, ‘horrifying’, yet incontestably a ‘chef d’oeuvre’, indicate that the unparalleled public attention was due to the scandalous nature of Ivan the Terrible’s success. Once again, the epic scale of the painting and its ‘outstanding’ artistic merits strengthened the work’s importance in the eyes of

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Figure 50  Visual reportage from the thirteenth touring exhibition at the Iusupov House, from Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, 1885. Caption: St Petersburg, The thirteenth touring exhibition. In front of Ilya Repin’s painting Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581.

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Figure 51  Cover page of Aleksei Novitskii’s monograph Peredvizhniki and Their Influence on Russian Art, 1897.

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contemporary viewers. One established commentator summarized the critics’ reviews of the work: ‘In regard to mastery of execution and amazing technique, there is no disagreement: both defenders of the painting and its detractors have ranked Repin’s work extraordinarily highly in this respect.’71 So notorious did Repin’s picture become that it engendered direct interference on the part of the state authorities. Not only was the painting removed from the provincial tour and any further reproductions forbidden, it was the last straw that led to the introduction of censorship of exhibitions throughout the whole of the empire. What was it about the painting that provoked the large-scale scandal which brought the show exceptional (commercial) success in the short term, but which soon afterwards led to a situation that undid all of the Partnership’s efforts (going back to the time of its foundation) to avoid rousing the ire of the government? Repin had presented an intimate interpretation of a notorious, quintessential moment in the personal life of arguably the bloodiest and cruellest ruler in Russia’s past. Compared to other historical subjects – Sergei Miloradovich’s Black Convocation in the same display, for example – this scene looked strangely unpopulated and minimally composed. The gigantic canvas accommodates only two figures in a semi-dark Asiatic interior: on his knees, an aged Ivan the Terrible embraces his dying son Ivan, whom he has fatally wounded. Red dominates the colourful carpets and cushions, visually intensifying one of the central focal points of the canvas – the bleeding head of Ivan the son, his father trying in vain to staunch the flow. The instrument of death, a pointed staff, can be found in the bottom right-hand corner of the painting. The title is specific as to the date of the tragedy, 16 November 1581, but denies any further insight into the scene. There are several slightly differing historical versions of what preceded the murder, but they all share the fact that there was an argument between the two, which resulted in provoked homicide. (Many critics believed that the main source for the artist was the History of the Russian State by prominent Russian historian Nikolai Karamzin.72) Thus, the painting focuses on what some critics called the ‘psychical’ moment following the deadly attack, representing Ivan the Terrible in a state of horror and regret, contemplative in the intensity with which he embraces his dying son. Hence, for several reviewers, the tyrant had appeared as a victim of his own violence, for the first time expressing human emotion.73 For sure, the scandal had to a certain extent to do with the fact that Repin’s painting transgressed the perceived aesthetic threshold of the average contemporary viewer’s sensibilities. Virtually all the commentators explicitly

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condemned the depiction as excessively naturalistic and unnecessarily visceral in its details, to the point where no one could experience ‘aesthetic feeling in front of this work, so terrible in its realism, but only horror and disgust […] one could not go any further except to an anatomical theatre or slaughterhouse’.74 There were claims that several female visitors had literally fainted in front of the work. Commentators insisted that ‘realism in art has its limitations’, which one should not transgress;75 in the same vein, one of them criticized the painting with reference to Gotthold Lessing’s famous Laocoon essay on the limits in the arts of painting and poetry.76 Several others also referred to Ge’s Peter the Great Interrogating Tsarevich Aleksei at Peterhof, displayed at the first show, as a successful example of representing similar themes in a more aesthetically acceptable way (Figure 38).77 Considering that Repin was acknowledged as the foremost painter of contemporary life, it is striking that, while being shocked by its extreme interpretation, none of the critics questioned his choice of subject. This is especially surprising considering the artist’s explicitly contemporary and scandalous works in the preceding Peredvizhniki shows. A possible explanation may be found in critics’ other major perception of the painting: several of them argued, independently of one another, that the depiction of ‘human emotions at their peak’ and its ‘staggering realism’ brought the drama too close to its audience to allow Ivan the Terrible to function as a history painting; on this occasion, according to the St Petersburg Bulletin, ‘the drama is too live’ and one simply forgets that this is a historical subject.78 In a similar manner, a professional historian argued that the ‘psychical moment’ depicted by Repin could happen anywhere at any time, so his painting could hardly be considered a representation of a past event.79 That is, there is a possibility that contemporary viewers, or at least some of them, could have read the picture in the light of present-day political realities. Indeed, although there were no blood-ties between Ivan the Terrible and the ruling Romanov family,80 the representation of the ruler as a victim of his own violence – where father and son could easily stand for autocrat and subjects – had more than a passing relevance to the country’s recent political turmoil. Foremost in the public’s mind would have been the assassination of Alexander II three years before by militant members of the People’s Will movement, and the subsequent persecution and execution under Alexander III of many of those connected to the murderous plot, despite appeals for forgiveness to stop the spiral of violence by such prominent members of the public as writer Leo Tolstoy81 and philosopher Vladimir Solovyev. In short, it is conceivable that in

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the eyes of the critics Repin’s choice of historical subject may have been seen as tactical – that is to say, as a means of commenting on Russia’s current rulers without appearing to do so, by implicitly drawing disturbing parallels between the present and the past.82 Notwithstanding the broadly heterogeneous and ‘elegiac’ character of the Peredvizhniki’s thirteenth show, one may now better understand why it spurred the government to take action. Catalyzed by the display of a single history canvas, the decision to subject art to censorship was justified in the following terms: Repeatedly occurring instances of the display at private art exhibitions of more or less tendentious works or works with the clear intention of representing the governmental system or certain high-ranking officials in an unfavourable light indicate […] the necessity for the introduction of strict censorship.83

This passage does not specify precisely which works of art or exhibitions were at issue. Here the word ‘tendentious’, therefore, offers the first major clue, for the government’s instruction employed this epithet which the critics, especially the conservative ones, used to describe critically minded realist subjects. Furthermore, of all the art exhibitions which might have been classified as ‘private’, those organized by the Peredvizhniki were by far the best known, as well as the only ones to be held on a regular basis. The official circular cited above also invites us to infer that the government was unhappy with certain individual exhibits, rather than with the shows in their entirety. It is a telling fact that only now did the government become unhappy. For this private exhibition had always tended to include a certain tendentious element, as represented by the works of Savitskii, Iaroshenko and the like. Yet along with that element as the Peredvizhniki’s shows grew in size, they increased even more in their inclusive, heterogeneous and overtly commercial character. The critical, civic-minded, meritocratic, tendentious and/or realist agenda was, therefore, always only one of a variety of options on offer, as is also evident from Chuiko’s remarks about the twelfth show. But the presence of Repin’s contributions – exceptionally large, politically sensitive and artistically superior in the eyes of the critics – suddenly transformed this possibility into a defining agenda for the Partnership as a whole. That these pictures helped catalyse the imposition of censorship is signalled by the circular’s reference to ‘the intention of representing the governmental system or high-ranking officials in an unfavourable light’ – for this closely echoes the typical conservative critical responses to Repin’s

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Figure 52  Visual digest of the fourteenth touring exhibition, from World Illustration, 1886.

Figure 53  Visual digest of the twenty-first touring exhibition, from World Illustration, 1893.

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Figure 54  Visual digest of the twenty-third touring exhibition, from World Illustration, 1895.

unflattering representations of Church and government in Religious Procession, and the politically sensitive character of They Did Not Expect Him, and even more so to his historical account Ivan the Terrible, displayed at the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth shows respectively. The words ‘repeatedly occurring instances’ also clearly acknowledge the cumulative effect and achievement of a certain critical mass, which resulted from the sequence of scandalous works/ shows, setting a trend that characterized the Peredvizhniki more and more as a realist art movement, despite the group’s consistent effort to present an ideologically varied and aesthetically open display. The tension reached a climax at the moment of the thirteenth exhibition, when it was recognized not only by art critics but also by the government. As has been established, the artists had been dealing with censorship from the very beginning, when registering the founding charter, and thereafter every time they had to publish catalogues, reports or any other printed documents, or to disseminate posters. But now the situation had worsened; starting with the provincial tour of the thirteenth show in 1885, they also

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had to pass a censorship preview for each show in every city. What made the situation even more unfavourable for the artists is that the censorship of works of art, ‘whatever their artistic merits’, was a competence of the government’s representatives, and not of the Academy’s or other art professionals.84 The new ruling significantly complicated the Partnership’s business, as Miasoedov openly complained in the fifteenth anniversary report. In short, one can define 1885 as the point when the business interests of the Partnership came into open conflict with the artistic aims that were ascribed to the Peredvizhniki as a movement, because those artistic aims had become political. However, this conflict proved quite easy to resolve, initially by the simple expedient of removing the most controversial exhibit from view, and then by the censors’ prevention of the appearance of similar works at the group’s subsequent shows, which continued to retain an inclusive and heterogeneous character, and were increasingly seen as respectable cultural events, worthy of extensive coverage (Figures 52–54). The period of the most risky tension between business and art/politics, therefore, was only short-lived. Yet the same cannot be said of the Peredvizhniki’s reputation for critical realism, despite at least two public efforts on the part of the artists to alter that, as we shall see in the next and final chapter.

Notes   1 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 189.   2 Ibid., 196–200.   3 See the table in Katalog XVI peredvizhnoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki, 28–9. In 1883, there were 873,000 residents in St Petersburg. Brokgauz, Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, 313.   4 Respectively, Katalog XI-oi vystavki kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1883) and Katalog khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii 7-oi vystavki Obshchestva khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii (St Petersburg, 1883).   5 K., ‘XI vystavka kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok’, Russkie vedomosti, no. 66, 8 March 1883, 2.   6 M. F-v, ‘Na peredvizhnoi vystavke kartin’, Russkie vedomosti, no. 145, 29 May 1883, 2.   7 I. B-v [I. Bozherianov], ‘XI peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, Minuta, no. 61, 7 March 1883, 1; A. S. [A. I. Somov], ‘Peterburgskie vystavki’, Khudozhestvennye novosti, no. 6, 15 March 1883, 204–5.

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  8 Respectively, I. B-v [I. Bozherianov], ‘XI peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, no. 61, 1; and A. Led-v [A. Z. Ledakov], ‘Iskusstva i kritika’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 244, 11 September 1883, 1.   9 ‘Letopis’ iskusstv, teatra i muzyki’, Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, no. 739, 12 March 1883, 227. 10 V. Si-v [V. I. Sizov], ‘XI peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin v Moskve’, Russkie vedomosti, no. 121, 4 May 1883, 2. 11 A. S. [A. I. Somov], ‘Peterburgskie vystavki’, no. 6, 202; A., ‘Razgovory ob iskusstve’, Grazhdanin, no. 34, 21 August 1883, 7–8. 12 N. Vagner, ‘Odinnadtsataia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Novoe vremia, no. 2528, 13 March 1883, 2. 13 V. Stasov, ‘Zametki o peredvizhnoi vystavke’, Khudozhestvennye novosti, no. 7, 1 April 1883, 242. 14 ‘Khronika’, Iskusstvo, no. 9, 27 February 1883, 100. 15 A. V., ‘Panorama Peterburga’, Peterburgskii listok, no. 52, 6 March 1883, 2. 16 See more on the painting in David Jackson, The Russian Vision: The Art of Ilya Repin (Schoten: BAI, 2006), 128–35. 17 A. S. [A. I. Somov], ‘Peterburgskie vystavki’, no. 6, 199. 18 Ibid., 198. 19 A. Led-v [A. Z. Ledakov], ‘Iskusstva i kritika’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 235, 2 September 1883, 1. 20 ‘Raznye vesti i tolki’, Grazhdanin, no. 11, 13 March 1883, 10. 21 Stasov, ‘Zametki o peredvizhnoi vystavke’, no. 7, 242–3. 22 D. Stakheev, ‘Dva slova o kartine Repina “Krestnyi khod”’, Novoe vremia, no. 2551, 5 April 1883, 2. 23 ‘Letopis’ iskusstv, teatra i muzyki’, no. 739, 227. 24 A. Led-v [A. Z. Ledakov], ‘Iskusstva i kritika’, no. 235, 1. 25 Stasov, ‘Zametki o peredvizhnoi vystavke’, no. 7, 241–2; K., ‘XI vystavka kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok’, no. 66, 2. 26 Ibid. 27 ‘Raznye vesti i tolki’, no. 11, 10. 28 A. S. [A. I. Somov], ‘Peterburgskie vystavki’, no. 6, 198. 29 P. Bobrykin, ‘Kramskoi i Repin’, Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta, no. 79, 24 March 1883, 1. 30 W., ‘Peterburgskie pis’ma’, Moskovskie vedomosti, no. 86, 27 March 1883, 3. 31 ‘Raznye vesti i tolki’, no. 11, 10. 32 Zh-o, ‘Na peredvizhnoi vystavke’, Peterburgskaia gazeta, no. 62, 5 March 1883, 1. 33 Malen’kii khudozhnik [P. N. Polevoi], ‘XI peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Zhivopisnoe obozrenie, no. 13, 26 March 1883, 206.

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34 Bobrykin, ‘Kramskoi i Repin’, no. 79, 1; N. Vagner, ‘Odinnadtsataia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Novoe vremia, no. 2521, 6 March 1883, 3. 35 See Katalog XII-oi peredvizhnoi vystavki kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1884) and Ukazatel’ vystavki Imperatorskoi Akademii Khudozhestv v 1884 godu (St Petersburg, 1884). One reviewer also compared the statistics of both shows: I. Bozherianov, ‘Rezul’taty nashikh khudozhestvennykh vystavok’, Istoricheskii vestnik, July 1884, 471–2. 36 Viktor Ostrogorskii, ‘Godovye itogi russkoi zhivopisi’, Delo, no. 4, April 1884, 85. 37 V. Ch. [Vladimir Chuiko], ‘Po povodu 12-i peredvizhnoi vystavki kartin’, Rossiia, no. 12, 22 March 1884, 12. 38 See the table in Katalog XVI peredvizhnoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki, 28–9. 39 An. [M. N. Remezov], ‘XII peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, Russkaia mysl’, no. 5, May 1884, 80. 40 Neznakomets [A. S. Suvorin], ‘Pis’ma k drugu’, Novoe vremia, no. 2879, 4 March 1884, 2. 41 Jackson, The Russian Vision, 155; Jackson, The Wanderers, 69. 42 See first of all the polemics between Vladimir Stasov (Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta, nos 71 and 78, 1884) and Fedor Bulgakov (Novoe vremia, nos 2892 and 2895, 1884). Russkii kur’er (no. 76, 1884), Russkie vedomosti (no. 107, 1884) and Russkaia mysl’ (no. 5, 1884) extensively reviewed or summarized critics’ polemics as well as contributing further to the public discussion of the painting. 43 An. [M. N. Remezov], ‘XII peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, no. 5, 80; F., ‘XII peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, Russkie vedomosti, no. 107, 19 April 1884, 1–2; ‘Dvenadtsataia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Vestnik Evropy, no. 4, April 1884, 880–2. 44 Rectus [P. P. Gnedich], ‘Dvenadtsataia peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, SanktPeterburgskie vedomosti, no. 63, 4 March 1884, 2. 45 S. Vasilyev [S. Flerov], ‘Khudozhestvennye zametki’, Moskovskie vedomosti, no. 128, 10 May 1884, 5. 46 An. [M. N. Remezov], ‘XII peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, no. 5, 80–1. 47 X., ‘XII-ia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Khudozhestvennye novosti, no. 6, 15 March 1884, 135. 48 Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, no. 790, 3 March 1884, 207. 49 V. Ch. [Vladimir Chuiko], ‘Po povodu 12-i peredvizhnoi vystavki kartin’, no. 12, 12. 50 Kha. [S. N. Khudiakov], ‘XII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Peterburgskaia gazeta, no. 57, 28 February 1884, 1. 51 Ostrogorskii, ‘Godovye itogi russkoi zhivopisi’, no. 4, 85. 52 S. Vasilyev [S. Flerov], ‘Khudozhestvennye zametki’, no. 128, 5. 53 See, for instance, Ostrogorskii, ‘Godovye itogi russkoi zhivopisi’, Delo, no. 5, May 1884, 83.

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‘Peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, Russkii kur’er, no. 104, 17 April 1884, 3. S. Vasilyev [S. Flerov], ‘Khudozhestvennye zametki’, no. 128, 5. Ostrogorskii, ‘Godovye itogi russkoi zhivopisi’, no. 4, 84–5. X., ‘XII-ia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 6, 141. Katalog XIII-oi peredvizhnoi vystavki kartin Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1885). See catalogue of the Academy’s show reproduced in Fedor Bulgakov, Illiustrirovannyi obzor khudozhestvennykh vystavok akademicheskoi i peredvizhnoi (St Petersburg, 1885), 23–31. 59 Storonnii zritel [N. Aleksandrov], ‘Riad vystavok. Trinadtsataia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal, February 1885, 126. 60 M. Solovyev, ‘Peterburgskie khudozhestvennye novosti’, Moskovskie vedomosti, no. 47 (17 February 1885): 4. 61 Malen’kii khudozhnik [P. N. Polevoi], ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Zhivopisnoe obozrenie, no. 11, 11 March 1885, 174. 62 V. Voskresenskii, ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, Khudozhestvennye novosti, no. 5, 1 March 1885, 121. 63 Ibid. 64 Bukva [I. F. Vasilevskii], ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Russkie vedomosti, no. 53, 24 February 1885, 1; Storonnii zritel’ [N. Aleksandrov], ‘Riad vystavok. Trinadtsataia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal, February 1885, 126. 65 Ibid.; Storonnii zritel’ [N. Aleksandrov], ‘Riad vystavok. Trinadtsataia peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Khudozhestvenny zhurnal, April 1885, 255. 66 Solovyev, ‘Peterburgskie khudozhestvennye novosti’, no. 47, 4. 67 See table in Katalog XVI peredvizhnoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki, 28–9. 68 Malen’kii khudozhnik [P. N. Polevoi], ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 11, 174. 69 Bukva [I. F. Vasilevskii], ‘Peterburgskie nabroski’, no. 53, 1; Rectus [P. P. Gnedich], ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 46, 16 February 1885, 1; Arlekin, ‘O tom, o sem’, Vseobshchaia gazeta, no. 9, 2 March 1885, 212. 70 N. M., ‘Peterburgskii sezon’, Nedelia, no. 7, 17 February 1885, 280. 71 F. B. [Fedor Bulgakov], ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Nov’, no. 9, 1 March 1885, 506. 72 Karamzin (1766–1826) described the filicide scene in Chapter 5 of Volume IX of Istoriia gosudarstva Rossiiskogo. 73 Malen’kii khudozhnik [P. N. Polevoi], ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 11, 174; ‘Letopis’ Iskusstva, teatra i musyki’, Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, no. 840, 16 February 1885, 158; I. G., ‘Vystavka kartin’, Vseobshchaia gazeta, no. 7, 16 February 1885, 166. See also Jackson, The Russian Vision, 85–91; Jackson, The Wanderers, 105–9. 74 V. O. Mikhnevich, ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta, no. 45, 15 February 1885, 1. 75 ‘V oblasti nauki i iskusstva’, Ezhenedel’noe obozrenie, no. 63, 24 February 1885, 255. 54 55 56 57 58

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76 Viktor Ostrogorskii, ‘Novye puti russkoi zhivopisi’, Delo, no. 6, 1885, 94–6. 77 V. Voskresenskii, ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka kartin’, Khudozhestvennye novosti, no. 5, 1 March 1885, 125; Ostrogorskii, ‘Novye puti russkoi zhivopisi’, no. 6, 97. 78 Rectus [P. P. Gnedich], ‘XIII peredvizhnaia vystavka’, no. 46, 1. 79 A. G-sskii, ‘Zametki ob istoricheskikh kartinakh XIII peredvizhnoi vystavki’, Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 5, May 1885, 497. 80 Ivan the Terrible was the penultimate representative of the ruling Rurik dynasty, which ceased with the death of his other son Fedor I in 1598. The Romanov dynasty came to power in 1613, after the Time of Troubles. 81 See Tolstoy’s letter to Alexander III in Vladimir Chertkov, ed., Lev Tolstoy i russkie tsari (Moscow: Svoboda i Edinenie, 1918), 6–14. 82 Repin acknowledged in a private letter that the assassination and subsequent executions moved him to paint this historical subject. See Olga Liaskovskaia, Ilya Efimovich Repin: Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1982), 256–8; See also: Elizabeth Valkenier, Ilya Repin and the World of Russian Art (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 120–2; Jackson, The Russian Vision, 85–91; Jackson, The Wanderers, 105–9. 83 Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksandrovich, the president of the Academy of Arts, to the Ministry of the Interior Affairs, 4 March 1885. Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 587. See the entire text of the exhibition censorship rules in ibid. 84 Ibid.

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Self-Defence: The Partnership’s Anniversary Reports, 1888, 1897

The analysis undertaken of the Partnership’s key exhibitions allows us to see in a new light the manner in which the Peredvizhniki incorporated the realist reputation, while retaking control over their public image from the critics. The group first did so by means of the artistic manifesto, published as part of the fifteenth anniversary business report. As has been argued, presented as it was soon after the series of the most scandalous exhibitions and the introduction of censorship, it is more than likely that one of the manifesto’s central aims was to reassure the public, and possibly the government, that, although the artists may have preferred contemporary topics, they were not radical, let alone political. Although they were against idealization, higher aspirations and routine in art, all of which they saw as embodied within the Academy, in 1888 the only explicit ‘commitment’ the Partnership wished to take upon itself was the one it had already pronounced in its founding charter almost two decades earlier, ‘to acquaint Russia with Russian art’ – an ambition to which no one could find reason to object. Yet, to have been any more specific than this might not only have courted trouble with the authorities, but would have failed to respect the essentially inclusive and heterogeneous character of the Partnership’s displays, as has been demonstrated. The artists may have raised the nationalist flag in order to make their realism less problematic, but all of the evidence – the promotional materials and the character of the exhibitions – suggests that Russianness, like the Partnership itself, was capable of accommodating a broad range of aesthetic ideologies, of which realism was only one. Significantly, on their twenty-fifth anniversary, the Peredvizhniki effectively reinforced this public identity through a visual medium – the illustrated album. The business part of the twenty-fifth anniversary publication introduced its major artistic statement, the album (Figure 55). Once again, Miasoedov composed the essay on behalf of the group. With Ge’s recent death, he had become the only

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Figure 55  Title page of the album for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Partnership, 1900.

living founding member, and was as energetic as ever in the Partnership’s daily activities.1 The author delivered his text, entitled ‘Proposal for an essay on the life and activities of the Partnership over 25 years’, at the General Meeting on 26

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February 1897, and it was clearly intended for publication. The artists’ letter to the publisher, which precedes the essay, explains how it had actually been compiled from three different sources: Miasoedov’s report for the fifteenth anniversary (a–g, hereafter Appendix 3); a fragment of his obituary for Ge, already published three years previously (b2–5); and a fresh account covering the last decade of the Partnership, from 1888 to 1897 (h1–p). Miasoedov’s additions doubled the size of the new report and exposed his and several other artists’ important role in the early history of the group (b2–4, b6). Relying on the impressive bilingual (Russian and French) table of the financial reports of the Partnership for the twenty-five exhibitions (Figure 56), the author demonstrates that despite the emergence of alternative exhibition enterprises, the Partnership’s continued to be the most recognizable and influential exhibitions in the country. Evidence for this included the increase in attendance in the traditional touring cities (k.1–3); a significant widening in geographical coverage, thanks to the so-called ‘parallel exhibitions’ which were mounted of unsold works to travel in the less prosperous Central and Southeast Russia (k.5); the Partnership’s independent participation in important national shows (l); and several independent attempts to represent contemporary Russian art abroad (m.1–2). Hence, providing an incomparable social boost for emerging artists, the Partnership’s membership body had doubled over the past decade (i2.1), while their exhibitions featured a constant number of external exhibitors (i.2.2). The government’s institutional and artistic recognition of the Partnership had eventually become so considerable that its leading members had participated in the recent reforms of the Academy (n2–3). The most controversial element of the fifteenth anniversary report – its attack on the critics (d2–3) – did not reappear, while the republished artistic manifesto had not only lost its polemical context, as well as any impact arising from its novelty value, but was also effectively swamped by a sea of figures and examples communicating the group’s institutional success. The main task of visually fixing and possibly adding something new to the Peredvizhniki’s artistic identity now fell to the illustrated section of the anniversary album. The planning had begun as early as 1892,2 and had generated hotly contested debates that predictably rose to a climax in 1896.3 In producing the edition, the Partnership collaborated with the most highly regarded Moscow photographer and publisher of the period, Karl Fisher. He was capable of guaranteeing the best possible quality, and also took on all the financial risks, assuming that the product would be in considerable demand. The print run of the album was intended to be between one thousand and six thousand copies,

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depending on sales.4 The newspaper subscription advertised the plans to publish for art lovers a limited edition on separate plates with a ‘luxury folder with gold embossing’ for thirty roubles (as opposed to the nine to twelve roubles for the regular copy).5 In other words, there is a telling symbolic development from the hand-made albums of etchings visually representing the second and third shows, which never found a market, to the refined, typographically illustrated album celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Partnership. The published album included 270 phototype reproductions ‘of the most significant works displayed at the exhibitions’ on 180 sheets, the first volume (of six) of which appeared during the twenty-fifth show in the second half of 1897. The 270 reproductions amount to less than a tenth of the total works exhibited over the course of the twentyfive exhibitions – 3,504 – and was equal in size to just one of the Peredvizhniki’s later shows (Figure 56). Making such a selection cannot have been a simple task, given that by 1896 the total number of the Partnership’s members had grown to sixty-two, of whom forty-eight were still alive and active, and the anniversary publication was designed to represent them all. In contrast to the business report, for which Miasoedov had been solely responsible, the contents of the album were determined by an extended, formalized and transparent process in which all living members were involved. However, according to the minutes, the selection process was administered by the four artists who formed the Partnership’s Executive Board that year: Ilia Ostroukhov, Savitskii and Nikolai Kasatkin in Moscow, and Iaroshenko in St Petersburg.6 Significantly, the last three were established genre painters, strongly associated with socially critical or ‘tendentious’ subjects. On 23 November 1896, the Committee sent each member the preliminary list of selected works, composed by Ostroukhov, and asked them to approve or revise the choice of their own contributions. This list was accompanied by a covering letter, informing members of the two selection principles: first, that ‘the maximum number of reproductions for history and genre artists is eight and for landscape artists six’; and, secondly, that ‘the members who joined the Partnership recently are, naturally, to be represented by fewer works as compared with the older fellows’.7 Everything suggests that these principles were the sole initiative of the Committee, which was evidently trying to find a balance between the Partnership’s egalitarian principles and the desire to construct its artistic identity in a specific manner. Thus, in a private letter to Savitskii on 27 April 1896, Iaroshenko opposed the idea of simply giving each member the same number of entries: ‘if we do this,’ he asserted, ‘equality will be achieved, but the aim of

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Figure 56  Table of the reports of the Partnership for the twenty-five exhibitions (attachment to the twenty-fifth anniversary album), 1900.

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Figure 57  A sample from the twenty-fifth anniversary album, page 113.

the publication – to give a picture of the Partnership’s activity – will be lost, for everybody understands that in creating this picture, not all members have contributed equally’.8 That is to say, while every member was invited and granted the right to the final decision regarding the choice of images that would best represent him, the group of four members, including three socially critical genre

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painters, had already made a number of key decisions, designed to highlight certain aspects of the Partnership’s activity at the expense of others. Given that throughout their history the Partnership’s shows had always featured examples of all the main pictorial genres, one should hardly be surprised to discover that its members composed their anniversary album along fundamentally similar lines. Moreover, the arrangement of the pictures in alphabetical order by artist makes it virtually impossible to discern trends within genres, let alone any more all-encompassing preoccupations or developments. What sense can be made, if any, of an album that begins with two of Ammosov’s landscapes, and ends with Iaroshenko’s contemporary scene Life is Everywhere? Yet, notwithstanding the album’s seeming inclusivity, its representation of the Partnership is nonetheless a selective one. As a point of reference for the analysis of the 270 selected illustrations, two graphs have been produced: a circle graph of an average exhibition, which illustrates the proportion of each of four genres represented in the 3,504 total paintings displayed over the course of the Partnership’s twenty-five touring exhibitions (Figure 58) and a circle graph of the album which shows the proportion of its major pictorial genres (Figure 59).9 Comparing these two graphs demonstrates that the album radically departs from the average Partnership show in two striking respects. From a simple statistical analysis of its illustrations, one can see that the compilation emphasizes the Peredvizhniki’s concern with contemporary Russian life. Genre paintings constitute more than 100 reproductions (at least 102) out of the 270, or 38 per cent, thus comprising its single largest segment (Figure 59). This was a disproportionately high amount as far as the average Partnership show was concerned. Yet, before leaping to any simplistic conclusions about the prominence deliberately assigned to contemporary subjects in the album, I need to point out another feature that removes it further still from the exhibitions which it ostensibly set out to record. Given that there had never been more than a dozen history, mythological or religious subjects in any given Peredvizhniki display, and that these amounted to only 4 per cent of the total exhibited pictures (Figure 58), the final selection of around forty-eight examples (18 per cent) cannot help but strike us as even more disproportionate (Figure 59). The fact that the selection criteria set the same quota for history and genre paintings suggests that the four members responsible for orchestrating the album project had this weighting in mind from the outset. To explain the bias in favour of contemporary subjects, one can argue that the most prominent space was allocated to that pictorial genre which was the most crucial for the development

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Figure 58  A circle graph of the Partnership’s average exhibition: the proportion of painting genres.

of the socially critical reputation of the Peredvizhniki group. The album shows a marked preference (roughly on a ratio of 7 to 3) for rural over urban everyday scenes; though, irrespective of which of these two categories they fall into, most focus on the lives of the Russian lower classes – as expected, given that genre painters had for centuries concentrated primarily on the poor. Still, the album also features a sizeable number of exceptions to this rule – scenes of ethnographic interest, for example, as well as several depictions of the leisure activities of the nobility, and a few images of foreign subjects – thus suggesting a more miscellaneous picture of contemporary life. Yet given the greater prominence of history paintings not only in the album but also in the conventional academic hierarchy, as well as the higher degree of their

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Figure 59  A circle graph of the twenty-fifth anniversary album: the proportion of painting genres.

thematic and stylistic heterogeneity in comparison with genre paintings, their presence can just as easily be read not as a sign of the Peredvizhniki’s commitment to a novel and particular aesthetic programme, but as an indication of precisely the opposite – that is to say, of their respect for the values of the Academy, and of their openness to a wide range of artistic idioms. While more than half of the illustrated histories depict subjects from Russia’s past or from its literature or folklore, the album contains over a dozen biblical, religious and mythological images, some of which might have served, quite unproblematically, as examples of the aesthetics of academicians (e.g. Konstantin Makovskii’s Rusalki). This arguably undue emphasis given to history paintings in the album, whether national or classical, realist or idealist, indicates the Peredvizhniki’s enduring

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respect for and adherence to certain pan-European academic conventions and traditions. The prominence assigned to history and genre paintings was achieved at the expense of landscapes, despite the fact that images of nature had dominated almost every one of the Partnership’s exhibitions. Yet with some eighty reproductions, or 30 per cent of all the pictures, landscapes still comprise the album’s second-largest component (Figure 59). Apart from a few harbour scenes and the odd picturesque view of Moscow, the vast majority of these depict the remote and largely uninhabited corners of the Russian Empire, with its forests, steppes, mountains, rivers and seas. While most of these landscapes contribute to the album’s nationalistic self-identification, they do so in noticeably varied artistic manners, spanning fairly conventional academician examples (M. K. Klodt), more naturalistic depictions (Shishkin), and overtly experimental shifts towards abstraction (Kuindzhi), as well as a new generation of landscape painters interested in an en plein air approach. Finally, given that no specific quotas were prescribed for the representation of portraiture, it may have been more by accident than design that around forty portraits and images of social types, heads and études, or 14 per cent of all the illustrations, provide the most accurate picture of their presence at an average Partnership show (Figures 58 and 59). The same can also be said about the social spectrum of the sitters. There is a clear emphasis in these pictures on the male Russian intelligentsia, as more than half of the portraits depict well-known writers, composers, actors, scholars and philosophers, as well as the artists of the Partnership, and on a simple representational scheme. Alongside these, however, one finds several likenesses of fashionable women from Russian and French high society, as well as a number of pictures of social or ethnic types (including children), which could be seen as straddling the boundaries between portraiture and genre, and realist and idealist, representations. Consequently, as we have seen with the album’s other pictorial genres, its landscapes and portraits include a high proportion of works which appear to cohere to the same realist social and aesthetic agenda, but only as part of a larger and decidedly more miscellaneous whole. An examination of the album entries of some of the leading members may help to pinpoint the root of such a pattern. In particular, it suggests that many of the artists – no doubt with a view to advertising the full range of their talents – were more interested in publicizing different aspects of their own practice than in promoting any collective identity for the Partnership. Consider Repin, for example, whose three paintings had catalysed the Peredvizhniki’s transformation

Self-Defence: The Partnership’s Anniversary Reports, 1888, 1897

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into a realist movement in the eyes of contemporary observers. Of the two groundbreaking contemporary subjects responsible for this development, the artist chose for the album only They Did Not Expect Him, leaving his equally important Religious Procession to be represented only by the étude of a hunchback. He used two of his other four entries to present himself as a history painter, with Ivan the Terrible providing one of the examples. Given that a decade earlier this work had been banned from any form of public display or reproduction, one can safely assume that by the end of the 1890s Ivan had lost whatever disturbing political relevance it had originally possessed. By now, too, Repin wanted to be seen as a painter of female society portraits as much as of disturbing social types. Similarly, Kramskoi’s eight entries present him as a society portraitist, as well as a painter of religious, historical and literary subjects. The album is full of such contrasts: for instance, between Miasoedov’s critical image of social inequality, The Zemstvo at Dinner, and his picture of an affluent couple in a romantic setting in Twilight (Figure 57), featured on a single sheet, or between Viktor Vasnetsov’s Russian fairy-tale-inspired images and his disturbing scenes of contemporary urban poverty. Much the same can be said of the contributions of other prominent members such as Briullov, Bronnikov, Ge, Gun, Perov, Polenov and Iaroshenko. But the publication also represents certain Peredvizhniki in a more thematically homogenous and consistent light – such as Lemokh, the painter of peasant children, or Vladimir Makovskii, the enthusiastic observer of lower-class urban life. That is to say, the artists demonstrated their range and artistic evolution if they had a range and evolution they wished to demonstrate, or stuck to their specialism if that was all they had or if they felt that this was the strongest card they could play. It seems that the Partnership’s egalitarian membership policy and commercially aware inclusiveness of its exhibitions over a long period of time downplayed any possible tension between the narratives of the individual artists and that of the group, in favour of the former. Had it not been for Repin’s bold aesthetic statements of 1883 to 1885, which effectively lent his philosophy to the entire group, that tension might never have become visible or meaningful. As the album demonstrates, by the 1890s, the Partnership had expanded to a size and degree of variety that made it virtually impossible for its members to act as anything beyond a loose association of artists bound together only by a common interest in exhibiting and selling their works. Although the group of four artists in charge of the compilation of the anniversary album evidently succeeded in modifying the artistic identity of the Peredvizhniki from what viewers would see at an average touring exhibition,

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their efforts were nonetheless constrained by the inclusive commercial matrix of the Partnership’s shows. This resulted in the album conveying a strikingly ambiguous identity. On the one hand, there is enough evidence to support the argument that the Peredvizhniki was an art movement with a realist agenda, at least in the broad sense in which the term ‘realism’ was employed at the time. The selection principles could hardly have better emphasized the artists’ common interest in Russia’s past, nature or people. But they would also have helped foster the impression that the group’s major concern was with the life of the most downtrodden members of contemporary Russian society, and that the Partnership’s commitment to realism extended into all the main pictorial genres. This thus supports the album’s (and thereby the group’s) objective to reject the Academy’s classical, idealist aesthetic in favour of a realist, yet scarcely critical, approach. Yet at the same time, the album tells us in no uncertain terms that the Partnership had always been more than a simple vehicle for a realist, civic-minded artistic agenda. A significant proportion of the illustrated works simply does not fit into this category, and on the whole the compilation remains too varied to permit the group’s identification with a uniform aesthetic approach. Like the anniversary album, this monograph does not seek to deny that there was a realist component to the Peredvizhniki project. But I hope to have shown that the critical, realist part of the Partnership’s agenda should not be confused with its commercial, heterogeneous whole, which seems to have been aesthetically a much broader and inclusive concept of Russianness. Above all, this strategy of theirs helps to explain how the Peredvizhniki managed to persist both economically and politically in authoritarian Tsarist Russia for such a long period. Yet this monograph has also demonstrated why, despite all the efforts of the artists to project and control a more factual, balanced and inclusive image of themselves, the perception of the Peredvizhniki as a critical realist art movement came to predominate. The role of the dedicated (and less dedicated) critics, controversial and yet exceptional art works, scandals, timing and coincidences, bad publicity, chance-events, and the innate mechanisms of mythologization in the world of art, turned out in the end to be as decisive in this remarkable story as any deliberate strategy. As a result, 1897 witnessed the publication of two remarkably different accounts of the same group: the Peredvizhniki’s twenty-fifth anniversary report and Aleksei Novitskii’s first major monograph on the group, The Peredvizhniki and Their Influence on Russian Art.10

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Notes   1 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 501–2, 513–14.   2 See Spisok izbrannykh kartin byvshikh na peredvizhnykh vystavkakh dlia proektiruemogo izdaniia 25-letiia tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok (St Petersburg, 1892).   3 See Spisok izbrannykh kartin i skulptur chlenov Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh vystavok za 24 goda deiatel’nosti tov-va (Moscow, 1896). See also Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 496–503.   4 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 501–2.   5 Russkoe slovo, no. 67, 11 March 1897, 1.   6 Goldshtein, Tovarishchestvo, 482–3.   7 Ibid., 501–2.   8 From Iaroshenko to Savitskii, 27 April 1896, in ibid., 497.   9 See my detailed comment on the reconstruction method of the graphs in: Shabanov, ‘Re-Presenting the Peredvizhniki: A Partnership of Artists in Late Nineteenth-Century Russia’, 214; Shabanov, Peredvizhniki, 265–6. 10 Novitskii, Peredvizhniki i ikh vliianie na russkoe iskusstvo.

Conclusion: The Peredvizhniki in a Broader European Context

The defining social emancipation of Russian artists in the late nineteenth century was achieved through the privatization of the exhibition practice. This change was effectively realized by the Peredvizhniki group. In the light of the findings of this monograph, it is now possible to relate this supposedly unique phenomenon in Russian art history to similar late nineteenth-century European developments. In contrast to the scholarly attention given to the individual artists’ connections with the Western art world,1 there was only one attempt to find an institutional analogue for the Peredvizhniki exhibition project in a broader European context. In 1894 the critic Stasov published an article entitled ‘Is disagreement between artists a good thing?’2 His answer was ‘yes’, as long as the schism is dictated and driven by aesthetic considerations. But of particular relevance here is that the author supported his statement by referring to the two recent momentous splits within the major official exhibitions in Europe – the Paris Salon in 1891 and the Münchner Glaspalast in 1893. In a very extensive and well-informed account, he presented the two cases as a significant victory for progressive realist artists over the old, classical Academy system. Yet, the critic’s ultimate point was more ambitious and somewhat patriotic in intent: in the concluding section, he assigned to the Peredvizhniki the pioneering role in what would later be called the early secessionist movements in Western and Central Europe. Just as this monograph has questioned Stasov’s insistence on the uncompromising antagonism between the Peredvizhniki and the Academy system, so the existing scholarship suggests that the critic also slightly misrepresented the nature of the schism and the driving forces behind the events in Paris and Munich. Nonetheless, in comparing in 1894 the Peredvizhniki project with the early secessionist movements in Europe, the critic seems to have been pointing in the right direction. And in the rest of this conclusion I will outline what these two developments did indeed have in common at that particular historical moment.

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To put it briefly, in 1890 in Paris a large group of established and acknowledged artists, headed by Ernest Meissonier, broke away from the Société des Artistes Français, which was responsible for running the official Salon de Champs-Élysées in the Palais de l’Industrie. The newly registered Société Nationale des BeauxArts launched their own annual concurrent public show in the Palais des BeauxArts in the Champ de Mars. The show was quickly labelled the Salon du Champ de Mars in order to distinguish it from the original Salon.3 This unprecedented and successful schism within the most influential exhibition in the Western world provoked a similar schism in Munich two years later. Here, more than a hundred prominent artists led by Fritz von Uhde resigned from the Munich chapter of the Allgemeine Deutsche Künstler-Genossenschaft to form a new association, the Verein Bildender Künstler Münchens, in order to organize annual shows independent of the official exhibition at the Münchner Glaspalast.4 The commentators labelled the new show the Münchner Secession. The Peredvizhniki’s critically acknowledged schism with the Academy occurred under slightly different circumstances but with a similar result to that of Paris and Munich. To recap, the independent group of artists staged its first shows at the Academy premises and this significantly contextualized their critical perception. And it was only with the Partnership’s fifth show in 1876 – the first to be held outside the Academy premises – that there came a moment of revelation: the critics finally recognized its independent character and were completely taken aback by what they regarded as the sudden, overt split (raskol) in the ‘artistic family’ and the emergence of the two annual concurrent shows and the two societies behind them. There are several parallels that should not be ignored between the raskol in St Petersburg and what the American scholar Peter Paret has summarized as the characteristic features of the earliest European secessionist movements.5 The most obvious of these is that, similarly to the Peredvizhniki, the artists behind the Paris Split and the Munich Secession successfully launched an annual, alternative exhibition to the main official show. More precisely, in all three instances the new show was meant to be ‘an independent alternative, but no less prestigious, to the identity of academician’.6 (Stasov accurately mentioned in his article that the Salon had witnessed several previous breakaways – the Salon des Refusés in 1863 being, perhaps, the most famous of them; but these were all episodic and did not lead to any annual, successful alternative.) In addition, the artists behind the three schisms were largely established, professionally recognized names in all major pictorial genres. Thus, of the fifteen founder members who signed the

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Partnership charter, eight were academicians and three were professors. Among the founder members of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, which ran the Salon du Champ de Mars, were the painters Meissonier, Besnard, Carolus Duran, Dagnan-Bouveret, Gervex, Puvis de Chavannes and Roll, and the sculptors Dalou and Rodin.7 Similarly, the memorandum of the Munich Secession listed dozens of names of ‘royal professors’ and ‘honorary members of the Royal Academy of Arts’, such as Gotthard Kuehl, Albert Keller and Franz von Uhde, along with – less honoured then, but more familiar now – Max Liebermann, Louis Corinth and Franz Stuck.8 No less important, these new exhibition societies, with their open and extensive membership bodies, pursued egalitarian principles in an effort to overcome professional hierarchy and the conventional jury- and awardsystems. It is true that these early secessions (especially that of Munich) attracted the representatives of the newest trends and tendencies in art, but they seem to have been only part of a more diverse and heterogeneous whole. That is to say, the Peredvizhniki, and the artists behind the Paris Split and the Munich Secession were questioning the commercial and bureaucratic monopoly of the official show rather than its aesthetics, while staging smaller and more carefully selected displays. Whereas the majority of the artists pursued administrative, economic and artistic independence, only a few were seriously concerned with politics and advocated social or political change. Instead, these artists in the West, as much as in Russia, were attempting to shape themselves as ‘a professional class, as legitimate members of an expanding middle class culture, alongside other residents of professionalism such as doctors, lawyers, and university professors’.9 However, as Paret has argued, when the fine arts had for such a long period been dependent on the government and affiliated with it in so many ways, even membership of an association devoted to the exhibition and sale of apolitical art could become politicized. Indeed, the artists’ eager desire to be emancipated from the paternalistic system and the commercial and bureaucratic monopoly of the state, to cultivate a more knowledgeable art public of their own, to foster private patronage and demand for their works, and to change the attitudes and policies of the official art establishment could easily be interpreted in political terms.10 Yet, despite all these possibilities, soon after their ‘radical’ inception, the separatists became the new establishment. There was also a crucial economic dimension, in which the Peredvizhniki and early secessionist movements shared much in common with all the other emerging private exhibitions (for example, those of the Impressionists) in the last decades of the nineteenth century. These developments were all linked to

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changing patterns of patronage, to the significant increase and diversification of urban society and, accordingly, of the art market. The artists, in turn, wanted better and direct control over the showing and selling of their works. To quote the Munich secessionists’ first public announcement: ‘We, the artists, want to be masters in our own house! No longer do we wish to be controlled by painting lawyers and parliamentarians!’11 Compare this with Miasoedov’s founding question: ‘Why do artists themselves not collect revenue from their works?’ However, the Peredvizhniki exhibition project and the European early secessionist movements evolved in radically different ways, both institutionally and aesthetically. In particular, the exceptionally long lifetime of the Peredvizhniki group (almost half a century) seems contrary to the traditional understanding of secessionist groups elsewhere. By the end of the century, the Partnership had become a respectable yet increasingly conservative exhibition platform, continuing to operate alongside new centres of artistic gravity, such as Diaghilev’s ‘World of Art’ (1898) and many other exhibition-based art groups emerging soon afterwards. As for the Paris Split and the Munich Secession, they came to an end only a decade after their foundation, splitting up into something else. Yet their financial and critical success provoked or helped to bring about further splits in Western and Central European countries, most famously with the Wiener Secession (1897). The latter’s coherent and unmistakably modernist aesthetics, manifested in its exhibitions, graphics, design and architecture, seems to have coloured and still dominates the perception of the entire secessionist movement, despite recent major attempts to revise it.12 But, however the Peredvizhniki exhibition project, on the one hand, and the Paris Split and Munich Secession, on the other, evolved over time, by 1894 they all nonetheless had one accomplishment in common: these artists had effectively ended the long-standing practice of the main (official) exhibition, originating with the Academy, and its claim to be the supreme source of artistic legitimacy. This accomplishment may not have looked so bold and exclusive in Munich and, especially, in Paris, which regularly hosted even larger international fine arts expositions, but it certainly looked this way in St Petersburg. In the light of this tectonic shift, the private exhibition increasingly became a principal instrument of artistic self-legitimization. In this respect, the Partnership’s foundation may suggest a novel vanishing point for the institutional conditions of the modernist art movements in Russia. For it was the Peredvizhniki’s pioneering and successful example of emancipation that inspired younger artists to launch their own exhibition societies, enabling them to promote their particular aesthetic agenda as well as market their work.13

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Notes   1 See the most recent account: Rosalind Polly Blakesley, ‘“There is something there … ”: The Peredvizhniki and West European Art’, Experiment 14 (2008): 18–50.   2 Vladimir Stasov, ‘Khorosha-li rozn’ mezhdu khudozhnikami?’ Severnyi vestnik, no. 1, January 1894, 123–50; see also Stasov, Dve stat’i V.V. Stasova iz poslednego vremeni, 21–48.   3 See more on the subject: Olivia Tolède, ‘Une sécession française: la Société nationale des beaux-arts, 1889–1903’ (PhD diss., Université de Genève, 2008); Pierre Vaisse, La Troisième République et les peintres (Paris: Flammarion, 1995); Mainardi, The End of the Salon.   4 See more on the subject: Maria Makela, The Munich Secession: Art and Artists in Turn-of-the-Century Munich (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991); Markus Harzenetter, Zur Münchner Secession: Genese, Ursachen und Zielsetzungen dieser intentionell neuartigen Münchner Künstlervereinigung (Munich: Kommissionsverlag UNI-Druck, 1992).   5 Peter Paret, German Encounters with Modernism, 1840–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 66–71; Peter Paret, The Berlin Secession: Modernism and Its Enemies in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 29–36.   6 Robert Jensen, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 7.   7 Constance Cain Hungerford, ‘Meissonier and the Founding of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts’, Art Journal 48, no. 1 (1989): 71–7.   8 Makela, The Munich Secession, 151–3.   9 Jensen, Marketing Modernism, 167. 10 Paret, German Encounters with Modernism, 70. 11 Makela, The Munich Secession, 143. 12 Jensen, Marketing Modernism, 167–200. 13 Dmitrii Severiukhin and Oleg Leikind, eds, Zolotoi vek khudozhestvennykh ob’edinenii v Rossii i SSSR (1820–1932). Spavochnik (St Petersburg: Chernyshev, 1992). See also my forthcoming essay on this subject, Andrey Shabanov, ‘“Is Disagreement Among Artists a Good Thing?”: The End of Salon-type Exhibitions in Russia and Western Europe’, in New Narratives of Russian and East European Art: Between Traditions and Revolutions, ed. Galina Mardilovich and Maria Taroutina (New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2019).

App e ndix 1

Charter of the Partnership for Touring Art Exhibitions, 1870*

GOAL OF THE PARTNERSHIP §1.  The aim of the Partnership is to establish touring art exhibitions, with appropriate permission, in all cities of the Empire, for: a) making it possible for provincial residents to become familiar with Russian art and to follow its achievements; b) developing a love of art in society; and c) facilitating artists to market their works; §2.  With this stated goal, the Partnership can arrange exhibitions and sale of works of art as well as art publications and photographs there.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE PARTNERSHIP §3.  Only practising artists can be members of the Partnership. §4.  Candidates for membership in the Partnership are chosen by ballot at the General Meeting. §5.  Members of the Partnership pledge to submit their paintings for exhibition by a date determined by the Executive Board. The paintings must not have been previously exhibited in public. Note: A work shown at any previous exhibition may be accepted by the Partnership only in exceptional cases; that is when such a work has the potential to enhance significantly the status of the exhibition and to increase profit.

* This translation is based on the only existing English translation of the text (see Experiment 14, no. 1 (1870): 82–5), but I have made changes with regards to the spelling of the names and certain terminology accepted in this monograph.

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ADMINISTRATION OF THE PARTNERSHIP §6. The General Meeting of the members and the Executive Board are in charge of administrative matters of the Partnership. §7. The General Meeting convenes once a year at a time set by the Executive Board. In addition, a General Meeting is convened whenever one third of the Partnership’s members present requests it. §8. The General Meeting a) reviews the annual report submitted by the Executive Board; b) designates the number of members to constitute the Executive Board and their election; c) determines the time and place of exhibitions; d) appoints a person to accompany the exhibition and sets his salary; e) examines the Partnership’s account books; f) reviews the budget; and g) in general, reviews all actions of the Executive Board. §9. All questions at the General Assembly are decided by majority vote through ballot. §10. Members of the Executive Board are elected from among the Partnership’s members for a term of one year. The Executive Board is composed of two, St Petersburg and Moscow, Branches. The location of the Executive Board is chosen from between the two capitals, depending on where the majority of its members reside. When their number is equal, the Executive Board’s location is determined by the General Meeting. §11. An Executive Board member residing in a different city and unable to attend a Meeting personally may vote in writing or may designate a Partnership member to represent him, informing the Executive Board of this in advance. §12. The Executive Board is required to: determine the itinerary of the exhibition; find an appropriate premises for it; provide instructions to the individuals accompanying the exhibition; estimate the paintings to establish a basis for calculating income among the exhibiting artists; acquire various items necessary to the exhibition; determine the entrance fee to the exhibition; determine and distribute grants to the Partnership members; keep the accounts; safeguard the cash; and, in general, manage the production and transportation of the exhibition. §13. At the opening of an exhibition the Executive Board decides which of the exhibited works may be released to buyers immediately and which only upon return of the exhibition to a starting city.

§14. The Executive Board may offer subsidies to the Partnership members on the recommendation of one of its Branches [St Petersburg or Moscow]. §15. Each Branch has the right to accept works of art for an exhibition independent of the other branch. §16. All questions arising in the Executive Board, as well as in its Branches, are decided by majority vote through ballot.

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FUNDS OF THE PARTNERSHIP §17. The Partnership Fund is made up of a) entrance fee for exhibitions, and b) a 5 per cent from works of art and publications sold at an exhibition. §18. The Partnership chooses from among its members a treasurer for safekeeping of its finances and allocating subsides, approved by the Executive Board. §19. After an exhibition is closed, its net income – if such there is after expenses have been paid for arranging and transporting the exhibition, and the 5 per cent deducted from works sold – is divided among the exhibiting artists according to the value assigned to their works by the Executive Board. The sum gathered as the designated 5 per cent is set aside for subsidies to Partnership members who, due to lack of sufficient funds, were unable to complete their works in time. §20. During the transportation of the exhibition all works of art must be insured at the value specified by the artists. §21. In the course of its transportation the exhibition is accompanied by an individual chosen at the General Meeting and at the expense of the Partnership. If necessary, an assistant of his choice is provided. Both of these individuals must be fully responsible for the safety of the finances and works of art, and are obliged to abide fully by the instructions issued to them. §22. The selling price of a work accepted for the exhibition is determined by the artist. §23. If experience indicates the need for any changes or additions to this charter, after approval by the General Meeting, they will be suggested for authorization [by the Government] according to the appropriate procedures. §24. In the case of a liquidation of the Partnership assets, its funds, following the satisfaction of all claims against the Partnership, will be divided among the present and former Partnership members in accordance with their contribution to the 5 per cent fund. Founding members of the Partnership, signatories to the original draft of the Charter: V. G. Perov, Academician; G. G. Miasoedov, Master Artist; L. L. Kamenev, Academician; A. K. Savrasov, Academician; I. M. Prianishnikov, Master Artist; N. N. Ge, Professor; I. N. Kramskoi, Academician; M. K. Klodt, Professor; M. P. Klodt, Professor; I. I. Shishkin, Academician; K. E. Makovskii, Professor; N. E. Makovskii, Artist; V. I. Iakobi, Academician; A. I. Korzukhin, Academician; K. V. Lemokh, Master Artist. Printing is approved [by the censorship]. 23 November 1870.

App e ndix 2

The Partnership’s Fifteenth Anniversary Report, 1888

Report read by G. G. Miasoedov* [The report was approved for publication by the censors on 26 February 1888.] [Partnership’s foreword] This report was delivered to the Partnership by its member G. G. Miasoedov at the Partnership General Meeting, 21st February 1888. Considering that some of its information may be of general interest, the Partnership General Meeting has decided to attach it to the catalogues. Dear Gentlemen (Milostivye Gosudari), Having heard a report which the Committee suggested to the General Meeting on the course of business (delo) at the end of each year, we enjoy the knowledge that our business (delo) on the whole goes rather well. This reassurance has thus far prevented us from analysing the state of our business (delo) for the entire period of the Partnership’s operation, and to what extent it has achieved the aims stated in the Charter.

a1

Assuming that such an address of the past can be useful in any case, I want to bring to your attention a compilation of some information gathered from the Partnership documents. During the fifteen years of wandering, they have been somewhat thinned out due to different accidents, and therefore there are some significant gaps which we just need to accept. But before starting with the figures, I need to address the time of the Partnership’s foundation in order to recall those circumstances and conditions in which we manoeuvred,

a2 1

2

* The original text is published in Katalog XVI peredvizhnoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki (St Petersburg, 1888), 15–29. This translation is based on the only existing English translation of the text (see Experiment 14, no. 1 (2008): 95–101), but I have made changes with regard to the spelling of the names and certain terminology used in this monograph. I have also added all fragments missing in that English translation. For the purpose of analysis, I have marked each paragraph (following the exact structure of Miasoedov’s original) with English letters of the alphabet, indicating by figures where there are multiple points in a paragraph.

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so we can comprehend the difference between what was then and what has changed during these times in the sphere of art. Officially, the Partnership came into existence on November 2, 1870 – the day the Minister of Internal Affairs ratified its Charter. At that time Russian art had its home mainly in Petersburg. The public would notice its existence on the days when the Academy of Arts exhibitions opened, the content and character of which you, of course, remember well. They consisted of works by pupils in the Academy’s programme, and on rare occasions were adorned with works by professors and academicians and, augmented by works by foreign artists, represented a vague, bland collection of paintings, from which one could often hardly guess the time and place in which they were produced. Such, at least, was the predominant tone.

b1 1

The public was quite sympathetic to these exhibitions (especially those without an entrance fee); it attended them as though they were cheap entertainment, in a mood of frivolity and habitual curiosity. To satisfy their curiosity the visitors found information on each painting in the form of a label giving the title and accomplishments of the artist and, having had their fill of strolling, would leave, forgetting about art until the next year.

b2

In most instances art and its representatives also cared little about the public. The Russian school was still under the shadow of the period of its birth, which came about with the help of patrons who sent their serfs to be instructed by hired masters. This period bequeathed a love for approved forms, a preference for everything foreign and a squeamish indifference for everything Russian, and a condescending attitude toward art as an occupation with no significance other than to amuse and satisfy those who had developed a fancy to give themselves the status of patron.

b3

Our great names, our luminaries from the period of imitation, were so free of the conventions of time and place that their works could be attributed to any epoch and school, except the one to which they actually belonged. [I believe that to a censurable extent their success and fame depended on the satisfaction of that time’s widespread demand for the beautiful, the sublime, and the classical, the achievement of which was considered possible through the observance of precepts and prescriptions laid down long ago in foreign lands.] Occasionally Russian paintings were tolerated as a sort of amusement, albeit of a very lowly sort. Nor did landscape escape the influence of this prejudice, and Russian nature rarely attracted the eye of the artist and the art lover.

b4 1

At the time we decided to embark on our path, there was already no shortage of people who had made a certain name for themselves with independent- minded work, and they were followed by young springs yearning towards

b5 1

2

2 3

Appendix 2 the light and truth. New social conditions, which simultaneously had pushed patronage into the background, opened up a place that fortunately did not remain empty. The patron was replaced by the art lover — not the Platonic art lover and connoisseur, who was always ready to bestow enlightened advice upon the artist, but a lover-buyer, a lover-collector, who was sympathetic toward everything that was national and completely free of the cult of form or style, primarily valuing the living roots of art. His demands found a response in everything that was not able or desired to be contained in approved forms. And thus in Russian school a small, independent current was formed, a current to which those who love to write about arts then assigned the name of new art, without explaining what that name was supposed to mean. I believe that the newness of that art mainly consists in its sincerity; it resolved to speak about what was close and familiar to it, what had surrounded it at birth and childhood; it resolved to be truthful or, as is commonly said, real (real’nym), and not to allow fakes and imitations, as it did not want to appear to be more than it was by using foreign pedestals. In the name of this inclination toward sincerity the new art attracted many reproaches and reprimands – reproaches for extreme realism, the absence of higher aspirations, an aversion to everything beautiful and ideal, and so forth. These reproaches reflected a much older view of art, whereby art was assigned the role of comforter in the sorrows stemming from an excess of worldly goods, the role of amusement for the idle, the best decoration, after furniture, for manor-house walls, and the like.

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4

5

The Partnership, formed in a period of change, united almost everyone who b6 wanted to be sincere and truthful whatever their strength and talent. This development came about of itself, by virtue of the commitment that it [Partnership] had taken upon itself to acquaint Russia with Russian art, and not with the imitations that, no matter how skilful they were, would leave nothing of value for Russian school. This real trend (real’noe napravlenie) gradually permeated almost everywhere, not only in the consciousness of artists, but also in the consciousness of the public, which began to regard art with less frivolity and to make more serious demands of it. The rise of national feeling in Russia created a new base of support and gave the new art access to all exhibitions, including those at the Academy of Arts. The latter, in turn, underwent a marked change, replacing the bureaucratic system in which artists played a passive role and, after going through several metamorphoses, these exhibitions acquired to some extent a public character that made it possible for the artists themselves to participate in their organisation and regulation.

b7 1 2 3 4

230

Appendix 2

We should not fail to mention the direction that landscape painting took. By turning its focus completely on the homeland, it also became more truthful, seeking to convey not only the surface of nature, but its life and mood as well.

b8

Classical engraving gave way to the lighter and more lively etching.

b9

In conclusion, in recent years, prior to their opening exhibitions of paintings have been subject to the control of censorship, which in the provinces has not reflected especially well on us. Paintings that have been allowed in one town have proven unacceptable in another. Owing to the personal opinion of someone in charge of the censorship, we have often experienced costly delays.

b10

These are the major changes which have happened in art during the last two decades. I briefly mention these changes as a background for a business (delo) dear and important to us, to which I am passing on.

b11

In 1870, when our Charter was ratified, our concerns were quite clearly defined. We needed paintings and we needed money. The Partnership, launched without a cent to its name, had a few of the former and none at all of the latter. Each participant had to pay the initial expenses out of his pocket, each according to his means. Everyone was sympathetic to the cause and believed in it, and we did not fail. At the first exhibition, which opened in 1871 in the halls of the Imperial Academy of Arts, Saint Petersburg brought in 2303 r., which immediately secured the possibility of our movement into the provinces. On that first occasion we visited only Kiev and Kharkov, in addition to Petersburg and Moscow. As a result we grossed 6328 r. 82k. and sold paintings in the amount of 22901 r. The 5 per cent we took from the price of sold works formed the basis of the capital belonging to members of the Partnership that remains at the disposal of the society, in the event that the cost of a painting is returned to the owner if it is damaged, and also to help members of the Partnership in times of need. We have not yet had reason to resort to the Partnership’s fund to meet needs of the former sort. Needs of the second sort have come up and have been met at various times in various amounts – over the course of the Partnership’s existence it has loaned to its members a sum of 10812 r. 81 k. This capital, with its dual functions, had grown annually at the following rate:  1st year 1871 – 1032 r. 05k.; 2) 1180 r. 22 k.; 3) 1046 r. 25 k.; 4) entry lost; 5) entry lost; 6) 7080 r. 32k. (for the six years); 7) 1345 r.; 8) 1574 r. 29k.; 9) 2143 r. 40k.; 10) 1405 r. 70k.; 11) 1417 r. 75k.; 12) 1019 r. 75k.; 13) 1342 r. 50k.; 14) 2791 r. 50k.

c1 1

It was then decided to limit the capital belonging to members in shares proportional to the sum of paintings each had sold to 1000 r. per member, and

c2

2

3

4

Appendix 2

231

once that amount was reached to stop and take a percentage. But when death began to breach the Partnership’s membership, leaving behind families who sometimes had no means of support at all, the decision was made to double the Partnership’s capital, with the goal of offering aid if the need arose again. During the first years of our operation as the Partnership, our exhibitions were located in the halls of Academy of Arts. But from 1876 we had to look for a new venue, as the Academy Council decided not to let its halls to exhibitions of private societies, about which the Academy Secretary informed the Partnership. Since then our exhibitions have been arranged in different places around Petersburg, in premises barely designed for such purposes.

c3 1

In the provinces the question of premises is more easily solved: we get them for free almost everywhere. Using City public halls, halls of Nobility, and of the Ministry of Popular Education, we are in debt to the enlightened attitude towards art of those people and institutes that provide these premises and delighted that the interests of Russian art are not alien to them.

c4

We may say with some certainty that the indigenous population in the north and south of Russia regards our exhibitions with greater affection than the mixed population of the borderlands. The following figures serve as evidence of that.

c5

Number of visitors per 1000 head of population: Petersburg – 18 persons; Moscow – 19; Tula – 30; Yaroslavl – 55; Tambov – 50; Kursk – 27; Kharkov – 34; Elisavetgrad – 34; Kiev – 47; Poltava – 40; Saratov – 32; Vilnus – 13; Kazan – 14; Odessa – 22; Warsaw – 9.

c6

The figures can be considered quite accurate for those cities which our exhibitions visit on a regular basis, including Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov, Kiev, and Odessa, and for which the calculation reflects the experience of many years. There is evidence to think that other, less frequently visited cities would give even more fruitful results should we make more effort. After all, the total amount of visitors everywhere has grown with time. We may come to such a conclusion from the following figures of exhibition attendance:

c7

2

Petersburg – 11555, 6322, 10863, 8772, 27302, 15191, 20349, 12132, 17803, c8 19164, 44689, 16982, 28666. Moscow – 10440, 8805, 7605, 16673, 7649, 9824, 13860, 16794, 9845, 27599. Kharkov – 4717, 2960, 2256, 4706, 1998, 2967, 3828, 3694, 5485, 5679, 6260, 9780, 4806, 6029. Kiev – 2831, 5139, 4288, 4144, 4065, 2536, 3348, 3068, 7356, 11105, 7395, 5074, 6594. Odessa – 6474, 4170, 3135, 2903, 2056, 8300, 9705, 4668, 6569.

232

Appendix 2

In general, we can observe the strong, increasing flow of the public (especially during recent years), the fluctuation of which most likely depends on the merit of the exhibition as well as the season during which it is shown, which is often unfavourable. It is worth mentioning the comforting fact that some cities invited our exhibition, guaranteeing that they would cover any possible deficit. Satisfying such requests, we had no need to make use of such guarantees. We may conclude that there is growing interest in art from the fact that many cities have begun to launch their own local exhibitions, which, in turn, have prompted provincial newspapers to run regular columns dedicated to art.

c9 1

2 3

The abundance of aesthetic impressions is evidently capable of arousing an even greater demand for this, and we cannot but rejoice that the Academy of Arts, finding our purpose and our efforts worthy of imitation, have for their part organised touring exhibitions in the towns that we visited, and that these have been very successful. By some unlucky twist of fate these exhibitions occur at the same time as ours and in the same towns. This most regrettable happenstance creates an antagonistic situation that we have strenuously avoided for the past fifteen years, and provides the press and society with an excuse for making comparisons that we do not need and that add nothing to the dignity of the Academy of Arts.

c10

I believe that our art, as it comes into close proximity with the population of provincial towns less confused by the contradictory theories that dominate the Petersburg press and society, will bring some measure of usefulness and edification.

d1

The press in the capitals and the provinces has had a rather different influence on our undertaking [delo], with the provincial press almost always taking a sympathetic tack. Our exhibitions have sometimes provoked articles that were too long to fit in a newspaper and were printed in separate brochures that create the very best impression as to the language and attitude toward art, quite free of alien expressions. The attitude of the capital press has been very different. The serious literary heavyweights, respecting themselves and the word, unfortunately rarely make forays into the world of aesthetic criticism, and we cannot but regret this, since a calm and reasoned approach to our art would be in any event useful to art and society alike, obliged as it is to make do with the unhealthy food the press dishes out. The cruel manners that hold sway there are reflected in the articles with which the newspapers annually greet the opening of the exhibitions. Thanks to the cruelty of these articles, their careless attitude and dearth of love and knowledge, the result is something far removed from what is generally called aesthetic criticism. It is often hard to explain the necessity that would justify these articles appearing in public, since the few wounded or inflated egos that result will hardly help society and artists elucidate the goals of art.

d2 1

2

Appendix 2

233

Leaving the press to make use of the breadth of freedom allowed it according to its ability, let us turn to other sobering questions with which life confronts us.

d3

One is the question of a permanent facility in Petersburg, which has been raised many times in the Partnership’s midst, but which the latter has been unable to resolve in spite of all its efforts. You will recall, of course, the hopes and plans connected with the possibility of having a nest of our own. Apart from holding annual exhibitions in this future location, it was proposed to organise open studios with painting classes, and something in the nature of a permanent exhibition of working artists. This is where we thought to revive the Society of Russian Etchers, which had perished of asphyxiation.

e1

The effort to obtain pigments free from unhealthy admixtures, about which we also have been talking and hearing, has failed because it was impossible to run the grinder process under the constant supervision of the artists themselves. The lack of our own space negatively affects many of our hopes and desires. The City Council has found our proposal and plans to obtain a piece of land within the city underdeveloped, so the money was eventually spent to no purpose. The Solianoi District has also rejected the same plans and proposals, so the question of own premises is still unresolved.

e2

It is possible to reconcile with these chagrins. Unfortunately, we had to face a sorrow of another nature. I am talking about those irreparable losses, which our small circle (kruzhok) has suffered, losing many of our colleagues in such a short period. In 1877 Gun died, in 1882 Perov, and then there followed Ammon, Kamenev, and Ammosov. We have yet not reconciled with these losses, as fate has willed to take N.E. Makovskii, and then I.N. Kramskoi on 25 March 1887. Despite the different degree of talent and significance they had in art and in our community, all of them were devoted to our undertaking (delo) and made feasible contribution to it, which obliges us to keep a living memory of them as good fellows, who regrettably left us too early. Bowing down before inevitability, we remain to serve to our undertaking (delo), as they were, as long as we have strength, believing that people come and go but business (delo) remains. And that modest cause (delo) which we serve will inevitably leave its trace and help Russian art to come back to its native soil, to develop its own language, manner, and vision, without which any aspiration for sublime, the ideal, and so forth, will remain merely an exercise in paintings, devoid of serious significance.

f 1

To efface involuntary sorrow, brought on by the recalling of our losses, permit me to remind you, Dear Gentlemen, that in the life of the Partnership there have been sunny days when the sun shone down on us, its rays giving vitality to our undertaking [delo] and hope for its future development. Without

g

2

234

Appendix 2

enumerating all of the sunny days of former years, it is enough to recall that the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth of our exhibitions were smiled upon by a visit from his Imperial Majesty the Emperor and members of His August Family. The gracious attention with which it pleased His Majesty to grace our feeble efforts obliges the Partnership to cast all hesitations aside and continue to serve Russian art to the utmost of its strength, abilities, and understanding.

App e ndix 3

The Partnership’s Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, 1897*

[The artists’ letter to the publisher of the twenty-fifth anniversary album of the Partnership.] Dear Sir, Karl Andreevich [Fisher]. You have asked us not to be late with the text for Your publication of the Album for the 25th anniversary of the Partnership for touring art exhibitions, which according to Your suggestion, should include an essay on the history of the Partnership’s activity. At the last General Meeting of the Partnership, Grigorii Miasoedov delivered the report for the last ten years; along with the figures, it has some information on what has happened in the sphere of art during this period in connection with the Partnership’s activity. The report was never intended to be public, it may have something that is of no interest to the general public, but as material in the hand of an experienced person this report can be developed and polished to the condition required for publication. By combining this report for the ten years with the report published in the illustrated catalogue of the 15th exhibition [16th], as well as considering Miasoedov’s essay on Nikolai Ge, You will get the essential material for an essay on the existence of the Partnership during the past twentyfive years. We wish you any success. G. Miasoedov, A. Arkhipov, A. Vasnetsov. The publisher’s note: Having found nothing unnecessary, I publish this information given to me without changes, although with small abridgements.

* The original text is published in Al’bom dvadtsatipiatiletiia tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok, 1872–1897 (Moscow, 1897), 4–12. This translation is based on the only existing English translation of the text (see Experiment 14, no.1 (2008): 104–10), but I have made changes with regard to the spelling of the names and certain terminology used in this monograph. I  have also added all fragments missing in that English translation. For the purpose of analysis, I have marked each paragraph (following the exact structure of Miasoedov’s original) with English letters of the alphabet, indicating by figures where there are multiple points in a paragraph. As the twenty-fifth anniversary report includes a major part of the previous report for the fifteenth anniversary, I have crossed out omitted fragments to make the similarities and differences explicit.

236

Appendix 3

Dear Gentlemen [Milostivie Gosudari], Having heard a report which the Committee suggested to the General Meeting on the course of business [dela] at the end of each year, we enjoy the knowledge that our business [dela] on the whole goes rather well. This reassurance has thus far prevented us from analysing the state of our business [dela] for the entire period of the Partnership’s operation, and to what extent it has achieved the aims stated in the Charter.

a1

Assuming that such an address of the past can be useful in any case, I want to bring to your attention a compilation of some information gathered from the Partnership documents. During the fifteen years of wandering, they have been somewhat thinned out due to different accidents, and therefore there are some significant gaps which we just need to accept. But before starting with the figures, I need to address the time of the Partnership’s foundation in order to recall those circumstances and conditions in which we manoeuvred, so we can comprehend the difference between what was then and what has changed during these times in the sphere of art.

a2

Officially, the Partnership came into existence on November 2, 1870 – the day the Minister of Internal Affairs ratified its Charter.

b1

When I settled in Moscow, Vasilii Perov was among the more notable and influential of Moscow artists, around whom artists would gather. Thanks to Perov’s influence, I was able to secure signatures for a draft I had written of a charter for the Partnership for the touring art exhibitions, which was sent to Petersburg with an invitation to all interested in joining to sign it. This charter reached an Artel of artists, who seemed rather coolly disposed to it despite the efforts of Kramskoi, who was sympathetic towards it. The business [delo] went nowhere. The Artel was a practical enterprise; to join it, one had to pay dues equal to the amount paid by existing members. Engaged in painting icons and portraits from photographs, the Artel had lost its strongest members, who had brought to it an artistic element, and was about to fall apart. One can understand that under such conditions it had no time for other people’s interests, and the charter for the Partnership made no headway.

b2 1

2

When I moved from Moscow to Petersburg, I found Nikolai Ge there, somewhat b3 older but as lively as before, impressionable and enthusiastic. The idea of bringing 1 art to the provinces, making it Russian, expanding the number of viewers, opening doors and windows onto Russian art, and letting in some fresh and free air was dear to Nikolai Nikolaevich’s heart. He took it up enthusiastically and got Kramskoi interested, who at that time had great respect for Ge. The Partnership project became active again; signatures were gathered, among them those of Gun,

Appendix 3

237

M. K. Klodt, Prianishnikov, Perov, K. Makovskii, Korzukhin, V. Iakobi, and others. The latter [Korzukhin and Iakobi], although they signed the charter, did not participate in the enterprise [delo]. Of all the Artel members, only K. V. Lemokh joined the Partnership, representing the only direct connection between the Artel and the Partnership.

2

This new enterprise [delo] of exhibitions touring across Russia bound us together into a group which, though small, was close-knit. Ge, Kramskoi, and I were the Committee members; that is, we managed the whole enterprise [delo]. Ge was, in addition, the treasurer [kassir], bringing to the task his usual capacity for getting easily carried away; he invented his own book-keeping methods and his own ways of keeping accounts.

b4

The success of his painting Peter and Aleksei in St Petersburg and the provinces gave him renewed confidence; he had never been so lively, and perhaps so happy.

b5

In the beginning, travel throughout Russia was accomplished without outside assistance. The members themselves accompanied the exhibitions, performing the duties of workman, cashier, etc. That was a heroic period for the Partnership. The public received the exhibitions of paintings with great interest, as a novelty. Local authorities were sometimes puzzled: in Kharkov, for example, Prince Kropotkin did not want to issue a permit for an exhibition. I had to send a telegraph to Ge, who went immediately to the Minister of the Interior (Timashev). The next day permission was granted. When I received it, I approached a  trustee to ask for a hall at the university, but the trustee could not make up his mind to grant permission for an exhibition on his premises, because it had never happened before. I telegraphed Ge again and approval was issued by the Minister of Public Education for an exhibition to be held at the university. Thus, thanks to Ge and Kramskoi, who stayed behind in St Petersburg, the troubles we encountered were smoothed out. All these misunderstandings were quite natural. We need only recall that, at the time, Russian art resided mainly in St Petersburg. The public would notice its existence on the days when the Academy of Arts exhibitions opened, the content and character of which you, of course, remember well. They consisted of works by pupils in the Academy’s programme, and on rare occasions were adorned with works by professors and academicians and, augmented by works by foreign artists, represented a vague, bland collection of paintings, from which one could often hardly guess the time and place in which they were produced. Such, at least, was the predominant tone.

b6

The public was quite sympathetic to these exhibitions (especially those without an entrance fee); it attended them as though they were cheap entertainment, in a mood of frivolity and habitual curiosity. To satisfy their

b7

3

1 2

3

4

238

Appendix 3

curiosity the visitors found information on each painting in the form of a label giving the title and accomplishments of the artist and, having had their fill of strolling, would leave, forgetting about art until the next year. In most instances art and its representatives also cared little about the public. The Russian school was still under the shadow of the period of its birth, which came about with the help of patrons who sent their serfs to be instructed by hired masters. This period bequeathed a love for approved forms, a preference for everything foreign and a squeamish indifference for everything Russian, and a condescending attitude toward art as an occupation with no significance other than to amuse and satisfy those who had developed a fancy to give themselves the status of patron.

b8

Our great names, our luminaries from the period of imitation, were so free of the conventions of time and place that their works could be attributed to any epoch and school, except the one to which they actually belonged. I believe that to a censurable extent their success and fame depended on the satisfaction of that time’s widespread demand for the beautiful, the sublime, and the classical, the achievement of which was considered possible through the observance of precepts and prescriptions laid down long ago in foreign lands. Occasionally Russian paintings were tolerated as a sort of amusement, albeit of a very lowly sort. Nor did landscape escape the influence of this prejudice, and Russian nature rarely attracted the eye of the artist and the art lover.

b9

At the time we decided to embark on our path, there was already no shortage of  b10 people who had made a certain name for themselves with independent-minded work, and they were followed by young springs yearning towards the light and truth. New social conditions, which simultaneously had pushed patronage into the background, opened up a place that fortunately did not remain empty. The patron was replaced by the art lover – not the Platonic art lover and connoisseur, who was always ready to bestow enlightened advice upon the artist, but a loverbuyer, a lover-collector, who was sympathetic toward everything that was national and completely free of the cult of form or style, primarily valuing the living roots of art. His demands found a response in everything that was not able or desired to be contained in approved forms. And thus in the Russian school a small, independent current was formed, a current to which those who love to write about arts then assigned the name of new art, without explaining what that name was supposed to mean. I believe that the newness of that art mainly consists in its sincerity; it resolved to speak about what was close and familiar to it, what had surrounded it at birth and childhood; it resolved to be truthful or, as is commonly said, real [real’nym], and not to allow fakes and imitations, as it did not want to appear to be more than it was by using foreign pedestals.

Appendix 3

239

In the name of this inclination toward sincerity the new art attracted many reproaches and reprimands – reproaches for extreme realism, the absence of higher aspirations, an aversion to everything beautiful and ideal, and so forth. These reproaches reflected a much older view of art, whereby art was assigned the role of comforter in the sorrows stemming from an excess of worldly goods, the role of amusement for the idle, the best decoration, after furniture, for manor-house walls, and the like. The Partnership, formed in a period of change, united almost everyone who wanted to be sincere and truthful whatever their strength and talent. This development came about of itself, by virtue of the commitment that it had taken upon itself to acquaint Russia with Russian art, and not with the imitations that, no matter how skilful they were, would leave nothing of value for the Russian school.

b11

This real trend [real’noe napravlenie] gradually permeated almost everywhere, not only in the consciousness of artists, but also in the consciousness of the public, which began to regard art with less frivolity and to make more serious demands of it. The rise of national feeling in Russia created a new base of support and gave the new art access to all exhibitions, including those at the Academy of Arts. The latter, in turn, underwent a marked change, replacing the bureaucratic system in which artists played a passive role and, after going through several metamorphoses, these exhibitions acquired to some extent a public character that made it possible for the artists themselves to participate in their organisation and regulation.

b12

We should not fail to mention the direction that landscape painting took. By turning its focus completely on the homeland, it also became more truthful, seeking to convey not only the surface of nature, but its life and mood as well.

b13

Classical engraving gave way to the lighter and more lively etching.

b14

In conclusion, in recent years, prior to their opening exhibitions of paintings have been subject to the control of censorship, which in the provinces has not reflected especially well on us. Paintings that have been allowed in one town have proven unacceptable in another. Owing to the personal opinion of someone in charge of the censorship, we have often experienced costly delays.

b15

These are the major changes which have happened in art during the last two decades. I briefly mention these changes as a background for a business [delo] dear and important to us, to which I am passing on.

b16

In 1870, when our Charter was ratified, our concerns were quite clearly defined. We needed paintings and we needed money. The Partnership, launched without a cent to its name, had a few of the former and none at all of the latter. Each participant had to pay the initial expenses out of his pocket, each according to

c1

240

Appendix 3

his means. Everyone was sympathetic to the cause and believed in it, and we did not fail. At the first exhibition, which opened in 1871 in the halls of the Imperial Academy of Arts, St Petersburg brought in 2303 r., which immediately secured the possibility of our movement into the provinces. On that first occasion we visited only Kiev and Kharkov, in addition to Petersburg and Moscow. As a result we grossed 6328 r. 82k. and sold paintings in the amount of 22901 r. The five per cent we took from the price of sold works formed the basis of the capital belonging to members of the Partnership that remains at the disposal of the society, in the event that the cost of a painting is returned to the owner if it is damaged, and also to help members of the Partnership in times of need. We have not yet had reason to resort to the Partnership’s fund to meet needs of the former sort. Needs of the second sort have come up and have been met at various times in various amounts – over the course of the Partnership’s existence it has loaned to its members a sum of 10812 r. 81 k. This capital, with it dual functions, had grown annually at the following rate: 1st year 1871 – 1032 r. 05k.; 2) 1180 r. 22 k.; 3) 1046 r. 25 k.; 4) entry lost; 5) entry lost; 6) 7080 r. 32k. (for the six years); 7) 1345 r.; 8) 1574 r. 29k.; 9) 2143 r. 40k.; 10) 1405 r. 70k.; 11) 1417 r. 75k.; 12) 1019 r. 75k.; 13) 1342 r. 50k.; 14) 2791 r. 50k.; 15). It was then decided to limit the capital belonging to members in shares proportional to thesum of paintings each had sold to 1000 r. per member, and once that amount was reached to stop and take a percentage. But when death began to breach the Partnership’s membership, leaving behind families who sometimes had no means of support at all, the decision was made to double the Partnership’s capital, with the goal of offering aid if the need arose again.

c2

During the first years of our operation as the Partnership, our exhibitions were located in the halls of Academy of Arts. But from 1876 we had to look for a new venue, as the Academy Council decided not to let its halls to exhibitions of private societies, about which the Academy Secretary informed the Partnership. Since then our exhibitions have been arranged in different places around Petersburg, in premises barely designed for such purposes.

c3

In the provinces the question of premises is more easily solved: we get them for free almost everywhere. Using City public halls, halls of Nobility, and of the Ministry of Popular Education, we are in debt to the enlightened attitude towards art of those people and institutes that provide these premises and delighted that the interests of Russian art are not alien to them.

c4

We may say with some certainty that the indigenous population in the north c5 and south of Russia regards our exhibitions with greater affection than the mixed population of the borderlands. The following figures serve as evidence of that.

Appendix 3

241

Number of visitors per 1000 head of population: Petersburg – 18 persons; Moscow – 19; Tula – 30; Yaroslavl – 55; Tambov – 50; Kursk – 27; Kharkov – 34; Elisavetgrad – 34; Kiev – 47; Poltava – 40; Saratov – 32; Vilnus – 13; Kazan – 14; Odessa – 22; Warsaw – 9.

c6

The figures can be considered quite accurate for those cities which our exhibitions visit on a regular basis, including Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov, Kiev, and Odessa, and for which the calculation reflects the experience of many years. There is evidence to think that other, less frequently visited cities would give even more fruitful results should we make more effort. After all, the total amount of visitors everywhere has grown with time. We may come to such a conclusion from the following figures of exhibition attendance:

c7

Petersburg – 11555, 6322, 10863, 8772, 27302, 15191, 20349, 12132, 17803, 19164, 44689, 16982, 28666. Moscow – 10440, 8805, 7605, 16673, 7649, 9824, 13860, 16794, 9845, 27599. Kharkov – 4717, 2960, 2256, 4706, 1998, 2967, 3828, 3694, 5485, 5679, 6260, 9780, 4806, 6029. Kiev – 2831, 5139, 4288, 4144, 4065, 2536, 3348, 3068, 7356, 11105, 7395, 5074, 6594. Odessa – 6474, 4170, 3135, 2903, 2056, 8300, 9705, 4668, 6569.

c8

In general, we can observe the strong, increasing flow of the public (especially during recent years), the fluctuation of which most likely depends on the merit of the exhibition as well as the season during which it is shown, which is often unfavourable. It is worth mentioning the comforting fact that some cities invited our exhibition, guaranteeing that they would cover the possible deficit. Satisfying such requests, we had no need to make use of such guarantees. We may conclude that there is growing interest in art from the fact that many cities begin to launch their own local exhibitions, which, in turn, prompts provincial newspapers to permanently run columns dedicated to art.

c9

The abundance of aesthetic impressions is evidently capable of arousing an  c10 even greater demand for this, and we cannot but rejoice that the Academy of Arts, finding our purpose and our efforts worthy of imitation, have for their  1 part organised touring exhibitions in the towns that we visited, and that these have been very successful. By some unlucky twist of fate these exhibitions occur  2 at the same time as ours and in the same towns. This most regrettable happenstance creates an antagonistic situation that we have strenuously avoided for the past fifteen years, and provides the press and society with an excuse for making comparisons that we do not need and that add nothing to the dignity of the Academy of Arts. I believe that our art, as it comes into close proximity with the population of provincial towns less confused by the contradictory theories that dominate

d1

242

Appendix 3

the Petersburg press and society, will bring some measure of usefulness and edification. The press in the capitals and the provinces has had a rather different influence d2 on our undertaking [delo], with the provincial press almost always taking a sympathetic tack. Our exhibitions have sometimes provoked articles that were too long to fit in a newspaper and were printed in separate brochures that create the very best impression as to the language and attitude toward art, quite free of alien expressions. The attitude of the capital press has been very different. The serious literary heavyweights, respecting themselves and the word, unfortunately rarely make forays into the world of aesthetic criticism, and we cannot but regret this, since a calm and reasoned approach to our art would be in any event useful to art and society alike, obliged as it is to make do with the unhealthy food the press dishes out. The cruel manners that hold sway there are reflected in the articles with which the newspapers annually greet the opening of the exhibitions. Thanks to the cruelty of these articles, their careless attitude and dearth of love and knowledge, the result is something far removed from what is generally called aesthetic criticism. It is often hard to explain the necessity that would justify these articles appearing in public, since the few wounded or inflated egos that result will hardly help society and artists elucidate the goals of art. Leaving the press to make use of the breadth of freedom allowed it according to its ability, let us turn to other sobering questions with which life confronts us.

d3

One is the question of a permanent facility in Petersburg, which has been raised many times in the Partnership’s midst, but which the latter has been unable to resolve in spite of all its efforts. You will recall, of course, the hopes and plans connected with the possibility of having a nest of our own. Apart from holding annual exhibitions in this future location, it was proposed to organise open studios with painting classes, and something in the nature of a permanent exhibition of working artists. This is where we thought to revive the Society of Russian Etchers, which had perished of asphyxiation.

e1

The effort to obtain pigments free from unhealthy admixtures, about which we also have been talking and hearing, has failed because it was impossible to run the grinder process [kraskoterni] under the constant supervision of the artists themselves. The lack of our own space negatively affects many of our hopes and desires. The City Council has found our proposal and plans to obtain a piece of land within the city underdeveloped, so the money was eventually spent to no purpose. The Solianoi District has also rejected the same plans and proposals, so the question of own premises is still unresolved.

e2

It is possible to reconcile with these chagrins. Unfortunately, we had to face a sorrow of another nature. I am talking about those irreparable losses, which

f 1

Appendix 3 our small circle [kruzhok] has suffered, losing many of our colleagues in such a short period. In 1877 Gun died, in 1882 Perov, and then there followed Ammon, Kamenev, and Ammosov. We have yet not reconciled ourselves with these losses, as fate has willed to take N.E. Makovskii, and then I.N. Kramskoi on 25 March 1887. Despite the different degree of talent and significance they had in art and in our community, all of them were devoted to the undertaking [delo] and feasibly contributed to it, which obliges us to keep a living memory of them as good fellows, who regrettably left us too early. Bowing down before inevitability, we remain to serve to our undertaking [delo], like they were, as long as we have strength, believing that people come and go but work [dela] remains. And that modest cause [delo] to which we serve will inevitably leave its trace and help Russian art to come back to its native soil, to develop its own language, manner, and vision, without which any aspiration for sublime, the ideal, and so forth, will remain merely an exercise in paintings, devoid of serious significance. [this strikethrough fragment has been moved to the end of the combined text]

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2

To efface involuntary sorrow, brought on by the recalling of our losses, permit me to remind you, Dear Gentlemen [milostivye gosudari], that in the life of the Partnership there have been sunny days when the sun shone down on us, its rays giving vitality to our undertaking [delo] and hope for its future development. Without enumerating all of the sunny days of former years, it is enough to recall that the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth of our exhibitions were smiled upon by a visit from his Imperial Majesty the Emperor and members of His August Family. The gracious attention with which it pleased His Majesty to grace our feeble efforts obliges the Partnership to cast all hesitations aside and continue to serve Russian art to the utmost of its strength,abilities, and understanding.

g

Since the time the report on the first fifteen years of the Partnership’s existence was read, on February 21, 1888, another decade has passed. In this report, I would now like to draw your attention to these years, commenting on what, in one way or another, influenced the course of artistic life and thus the undertaking of the touring exhibitions.

h1

I find it particularly significant that our enterprise [delo], being launched in 1870, is entering its 26th year of official operation. We have worked for a quarter of a century toward a single direction, feeling neither tired nor disillusioned, and understanding the usefulness [poleznost’] of our undertaking [delo]. When we began, we inherited neither experience nor proven methods, none of the knowledge required for keeping books and incredibly complicated financial reports. Besides this, great attention and prudence to personal qualities was required, as they were often at odds with the general interests [of the Partnership].

h2 1

2 3

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If we realise that all of these practical activities, which continued throughout the whole year, were handled by chosen individuals who received no compensation, and often at a sacrifice to their personal interests, then I think I am not being too bold when I say that what drives us is a knowledge that our enterprise is useful [polezno], given that this trivial, internal work, which makes no claims to go beyond our everyday environment, will not bring us any external kudos.

4

Of course, there is for us a beneficial [poleznyi] aspect to the touring exhibition. Just how significant this element is, just how capable it is of keeping us together, we can see best from the numbers which I will cite below. These numbers come from calculations that I was able to make from annual reports that, although not always complete, are fairly close to the truth; the conclusions drawn from them will be relatively accurate.

h3

The artists became members of the Partnership in the following order:  Miasoedov, Perov, Kamenev, Savrasov, Amosov, Ammon, Ge, Kramskoi, M. P. Klodt, M. K. Klodt, Prianishnikov, Shishkin, Bogoliubov, Gun, V. E. Makovskii, Maksimov, Briullov, Savitskii, Kuindzhi, Bronnikov, Beggrov, Kiselev, Iaroshenko, V. M. Vasnetsov, Litovchenko, Lemokh, N. E. Makovskii, Repin, Polenov, Volkov, K. E. Makovskii, Leman, Surikov, Nevrev, Kharlamov, Kuznetsov, Bodarevskii, Dubovskoi, A. M. Vasnetsov, Svetoslavskii, Shilder, Arkhipov, Levitan, Ostroukhov, Zagorskii, Lebedev, Stepanov, Pozen, Kasatkin, Miloradovich, Shanks, Serov, Bogdanov- Belskii, I. P. Bogdanov, Korin, Endogurov, Nesterov, Baksheev, Orlov, Kostandi.

i1

During the last decade twenty-three [artists] became members of the Partnership. Today, it comprises forty-two members and a constantly fluctuating number of exponents. The latter, who do not share in the expenses, nor in any risks or administrative duties of the Partnership, do not contribute to the fund from the pictures sold at the Partnership’s exhibitions, they do not take part in the dividend, and are not subject to the conditions that are mandatory for regular members. The exponents remain with the Partnership as long as things seem propitious, and depart when it seems otherwise. We invite the more regular exponents to become members, if they express an interest in joining and demonstrate their ability to take part in the overall activity.

i2 1

To calculate the annual income of each member, it is best to look at the Fund. (The fund has a specific function – namely, in case of the loss of or damage to one or several paintings, it enables the Partnership to compensate the owner for the cost of the damage.) Funds are accumulated from five per cent of the sum received for a painting sold by a member at a Partnership exhibition. I begin with numbers that pertain to the whole quarter century.

j1 1

2

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245

Over these twenty-five years, the Partnership members painted 3,504 paintings, their value reaching 2,000,000 r. Sales amounted to 1,135,635 r. This left in our possession paintings valued at 754,180 r. From the sale of paintings at the Partnership exhibitions we received about 61,000 r every year. If this sum was divided in equal parts, each member would have earned 1,500-2,000 r. annually. But since not every artist sells out his paintings each year, many are left without an income. Something of a corrective to this kind of uncomfortable situation could come from a dividend, which artists would receive from the distribution of what is left at the end of a tour circle. The amount of the dividend is calculated as a percentage from the [declared] cost of each painting [shown at the exhibition]. The result of this procedure is the difference between the largest and smallest dividends in twenty-eight times.

2

Thus, in the 16th exhibition the largest dividend was 691 r. and the smallest dividend was 81 r.; 17th – 980 and 62; 18th – 795 and 22; 19th – 750 and 30; 20th – 530 and 21; 21st – 520 and 7; 22nd – 395 and 26; 23rd – 444 and 31; 24th – 427 and 13.

j2

The increase of enterprise [delo], and accordingly the increase of costs, including rent and refurbishing of the premises in the provinces and all other indirect costs, as well as the general growth of prices, leads to an annual decrease of the dividend. Even in old times the latter did not play a significant role in life of each member, and we may assume that the dividend will lose its importance in the future, even if it is shared equally between members as many members have suggested.

j3

It is not possible to say that our aim – cultivating and promoting an understanding of art – is being entirely achieved; if we only consider the increasing or decreasing flow of visitors, we can still come to a rather more positive than negative conclusion. For instance, during the first fifteen years Petersburg gave us 239,000 visitors, while during the last ten years we had 185,000 visitors. So during the last fifteen years we had an average of 15,000 visitors each year, whereas during the last ten years it was 18,500; and this despite the fact that there was a significant increase in both exhibitions and exhibition societies. In Moscow the exhibitions annually produced up to 9,000 visitors during the first fifteen years; in the last ten years they gave 11,500. Kiev also demonstrates a slight increase in visitors. However, the amount of visitors in Kharkov and Odessa, on the contrary, has decreased in the last ten years: instead of 4,500 in the first years, Kharkov now produces no more than 4,000; Odessa, instead of 3,300, gives no more than 2,500. It is difficult to make even approximate calculations for all of the other cities which our exhibitions visit irregularly. With regard to all cities, we have around 40,000 visitors annually, with the exception of 1889, which gave 63,000, and 1891 – 58,000. Since we raised the entrance fee from 30 to 40 kopeks, the amount of visitors has dropped to 31,000 and has never exceeded 41,000.

k 1

3

2

3

4

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In addition to the annual exhibitions, which the Partnership assembled from paintings produced during a recent year, it has been decided to arrange exhibitions from the unsold paintings and send them, as soon as there is a sufficient amount of them, to the cities which the annual exhibitions could not reach due to the shortage of time. Thus the first Parallel exhibition [parallel’naia] visited Nizhnii Novgorod and, most likely because of the fair season, had a deficit of 150 r. After Nizhnii the exhibition visited Kazan, Samara, Penza, Tambov, Kozlov, Voronezh, Novocherkassk, Rostov, Taganrog, Ekaterinoslavl’, and Kursk. The overall income of this trip was 6890 r., expenditures – 4586 r., net profit 2320 r., four paintings were sold for 1600 r. The second Parallel exhibition again visited Kazan, Samara, Penza, Tambov, Kozlov, and Voronezh. As a result, net profit was 816 r. and two paintings were sold for 775 r. Because of the illness of exhibition’s attendant the third Parallel exhibition brought significant deficit, which is still being covered from our main exhibition income. Our participation in the [All-Russian] Nizhegorodskii exhibition of 1896, the Fine Arts Section of which consisted of paintings of private societies and individuals, did not bring us anything except the need to pay for the insurance of the paintings as well as to exclude Poltava, Odessa, and Warsaw from our regular route due to the shortage of time. I believe it would be good to remind ourselves of our efforts to arrange exhibitions abroad. The idea of organising an exhibition of Russian paintings in London belonged to the chairman of the Anglo-Russian Society, Mr. Cazalet, who addressed the Partnership in writing, promising the Society’s cooperation. The premises Mr. Cazalet found for it turned out to be cramped and expensive, and the Partnership’s appeal to [Lord] Leighton had no result. The Academy halls were occupied by their own exhibition, and on the Academy premises an exhibition can only be organised by submitting to a selection process and having paintings accepted by the local admissions committee. Our attempt at exhibiting a Russian art Section at the 1889 Paris World Exhibition was no more successful, since our government did not officially take part in organising the Russian Section and left it to private initiative. The Partnership thought it might be possible to take charge of organising the art section, assembling everything that characterised the Russian school as an independent. Such a selection would not be possible without the paintings from the Tret’iakov Gallery. The gallery promised to lend its paintings on the condition that the section would be comprehensive and the paintings protected. Considering these demands entirely justified, the Partnership shouldered the responsibility, compiled a list of the paintings it had selected, and made an estimate of costs. The time came to act. Andreev was in charge of the Russian Section, in collaboration with businessmen and several artists who lived in Paris. The Partnership’s estimate seemed too high

5

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to them; there ensued an interminable correspondence, from which it became clear that the section headed by Andreev lacked the necessary funds and expected to have them only at a future date, and thus was unable to take care of the immediate expenses. He engaged in endless disputes with the Partnership. The time needed to assemble the paintings, make the crates, and ship them passed. Seeing that haste was unlikely to ensure the completeness of the selection and the safety of the works, P. M. Tret’iakov refused to release his paintings. Through this experience we learned about the obstacles facing private initiatives. As fate would have it, we lived up to our name of Peredvizhniki: we had no permanent shelter for our exhibitions. It has become especially hard to secure premises in the provinces. The premises which in earlier years had been always available and offered for free were always being used in more recent years. It turned out that they were needed for assemblies, commissions, elections, and other such events. We often need to rent space, some of which we have to refurbish; we have to make do with locations on the cities’ outskirts; and at times we have to face a deficit. The most expensive premises are in St Petersburg. The re-organised Academy of Arts offered us its halls in 1894. Seeing in this an end to the ostracism we had experienced for many years, we took advantage of the Academy premises. The following year, the Academy Council decided that its halls were needed for the Academy spring exhibitions. Again we went in search of space in the city.

n1 1

The reform of the Academy was an event not to be ignored by the Partnership. The causes that led to it were years in the making. On the one hand, the Academy had developed a view of art as a matter not of spiritual necessity or of raising the moral level of the Academy’s artists, but of responding practically to one’s worldly needs. On the other hand, the fact that art was growing and developing outside of the Academy’s budget and regulations became conspicuous and spoke sufficiently clearly on its own behalf. The Academy was given a new, temporary statute and a new staff. The new charter contained principles whose need had long ago been felt. The Academy was divided into two parts: the Academy Council and the School. The Academy became responsible for the development of art in Russia, opening new schools, supporting schools that were already open or were reopening, and providing supplies, paintings, teachers, plaster casts, and so on.

n2 1

The function of the high School is to teach art at the point where it intersects with creativity, while at the same time respecting the right of the young and gifted to follow their inner feelings; that is, the right to approach art honestly as a matter of the soul. Such a direction was reflected in the Partnership by the fact that several Partnership members who appreciated the attractive sides of the reform came forward to help push through the reform: they believed that

n3

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the development of good basic principles will not be held back by a welling up of old instincts. In the last years we lost three more members: Ge, Prianishnikov, and Zagorskii. Ge died suddenly at his estate in Chernigovskaia province. The impossibility of displaying his works at the exhibitions in the last years painfully affected him. Always cheerful, energetic, and witty, Prianishnikov, because of consumption, had become a shadow of the former man full of life. Zagorskii caught the flu and died within a couple days. [In 1898 Shishkin, Iaroshenko and Endogurov also died.] Of different strengths and directions, they all brought their share into in the whole amount of work, not leaving art up to the last minute. Joining those who have already left us, they have left upon themselves a good and irreproachable memory.

o

Bowing down before inevitability, we remain to serve to our undertaking [delo], like they were, as long as we have strength, believing that people come and go but work [dela] remains. And that modest cause/business [delo] to which we serve will inevitably leave its trace and help Russian art to come back to its native soil, to develop its own language, manner, and vision, without which any aspiration for sublime, the ideal, and so forth, will remain merely an exercise in paintings, devoid of serious significance.

p

App e ndix 4

A List of the Touring Art Exhibitions and Statistics

Between 1870 and 1923, the Partnership organized forty-eight touring exhibitions, at least four ‘Parallel Shows’, which comprised unsold works and which travelled to less prosperous cities of European Russia, and four ‘Etudes, Drawings and Sketches’ exhibitions. The Partnership usually commemorated its deceased members with posthumous shows, as an extension to regular expositions.

A list of the touring art exhibitions The First Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Arts, 1871– 1872; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1872; Kiev, 1872; Kharkov, 1872. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 82; were sold – no data. The Second Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Arts, 1872– 1873; Riga, 1873; Vilna, 1873; Orel, 1873; Kharkov, 1873; Odessa, 1873; Kishinev, 1873, Kiev, 1873–1874. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 62; were sold – no data. The Third Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Arts, 1874; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1874; Kazan, 1874; Saratov, 1874; Voronezh, 1874; Kharkov, 1874–1875; Odessa, 1875; Kiev, 1875; Riga, 1875. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 82; were sold – no data. The Fourth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Arts, 1875; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1875; Kharkov, 1875–1876; Odessa, 1876; Kiev, 1876; Yaroslavl, 1876. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 83; were sold – no data. The Fifth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1876; Odessa, 1876; Elisavetgrad, 1876; Kharkov, 1876; Kursk, 1876, Kiev, 1877, Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1877. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 42; were sold – no data. The Sixth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, 1878; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1878;

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Riga, 1878; Vilna, 1878–1879; Kiev, 1879; Odessa, 1879; Kharkov, 1879. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 103; were sold – no data. The Seventh Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1879; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1879; Odessa, 1879; Kiev, 1879; Kharkov, 1879; Saratov, 1879; Tambov, 1880. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 63; were sold – no data. The Eighth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1880; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1880; Kharkov, 1880; Odessa, 1880; Kiev, 1880. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 77; were sold – no data. The Ninth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, Iusupov House, 1881; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1881; Odessa, 1881; Kiev, 1881; Kharkov, 1881–1882. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 117; were sold – no data. The Tenth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1882; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1882; Kharkov, 1882, Elisavetgrad, 1882; Odessa, 1882; Kiev, 1882–1883; Warsaw, 1883. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 137; were sold – no data. The Eleventh Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1883; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1883; Kharkov, 1883; Elisavetgrad, 1883; Odessa, 1883; Kiev, 1883; Warsaw, 1883– 1884. Statistics: total paintings on display – 128; sold – no data. The Twelfth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, Iusupov House, 1884; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1884; Warsaw, 1884; Odessa, 1884; Elisavetgrad, 1884; Kiev, 1884; Kharkov, 1884–1885. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 176; were sold – no data. The Thirteenth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, Iusupov House, 1885; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1885; Kharkov, 1885; Kiev, 1885– 1886; Odessa, 1886. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 272; were sold – no data. The Fourteenth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1886; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1886; Kharkov, 1886; Odessa, 1886; Elisavetgrad, 1886; Kiev, 1886–1887; Novocherkassk, 1887. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 125; were sold – no data. The Fifteenth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, Botkina House, 1887; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1887; Kharkov, 1887; Odessa, 1887; Elisavetgrad, 1887; Kiev, 1887–1888. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 118; were sold – no data.

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The Sixteenth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1888; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1888; Kharkov, 1888; Poltava, 1888; Odessa, 1888; Kiev, 1888–1889; Warsaw, 1889. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 132; were sold – 48. The Seventeenth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, Botkina House, 1889; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1889; Astrakhan, 1889; Saratov, 1889; Kharkov, 1889; Poltava, 1889; Odessa, 1889; Kiev, 1889–1890. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 187; were sold – 123. The Eighteenth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1890; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1890; Kharkov, 1890; Poltava, 1890; Elisavetgrad, 1890; Kishinev, 1890; Odessa, 1890–1891; Kiev, 1891; Kursk, 1891; Tula, 1891. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 119; were sold – 51. The Nineteenth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1891; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1891; Kharkov, 1891; Poltava, 1891; Elisavetgrad, 1891; Kishinev, 1891; Odessa, 1891–1892; Kiev, 1892. Statistics: total paintings on display – 170; sold – 61. The Twentieth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1892; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1892; Kharkov, 1892; Poltava, 1892; Elisavetgrad, 1892; Odessa, 1892; Kishinev, 1892–1893; Kiev, 1893. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 145; were sold – 70. The Twenty-first Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1893; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1893; Kharkov, 1893; Poltava, 1893; Elisavetgrad, 1893; Odessa, 1893–1894; Kishinev, 1894; Kiev, 1894. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 144; were sold – 75. The Twenty-second Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1894; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1894; Kharkov, 1894; Poltava, 1894; Elisavetgrad, 1894; Odessa, 1894– 1895; Kishinev, 1895; Kiev, 1895. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 180; were sold – 80. The Twenty-third Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1895; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1895; Kharkov, 1895; Poltava, 1895; Elisavetgrad, 1895; Odessa, 1895–1896; Kishinev, 1896; Kiev, 1896. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 294; were sold – 89. The Twenty-fourth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1896; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1896; Nizhnii Novgorod, 1896; Kharkov, 1896; Kiev, 1896–1897; Tula, 1897. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 193; were sold – no data.

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The Twenty-fifth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1897; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1897; Kharkov, 1897; Poltava, 1897; Odessa, 1897; Kiev, 1897–1898. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 273; were sold – 78. The Twenty-sixth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1898; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1898; Penza, 1898; Kharkov, 1898; Ekaterinoslav, 1898; Poltava, 1898; Kiev, 1898–1899; Smolensk, 1899; Kaluga, 1899. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 184; were sold – 90. The Twenty-seventh Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1899; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1899; Kharkov, 1899; Ekaterinoslav, 1899; Elisavetgrad, 1899; Odessa, 1899; Kiev, 1899–1900; Warsaw, 1900; Riga, 1900; Kaluga, 1900. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 250; were sold – 106. The Twenty-eighth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1900; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1900; Kharkov, 1900; Ekaterinoslav, 1900; Elisavetgrad, 1900; Odessa, 1900; Kiev, 1900–1901; Kaluga, 1901. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 214; were sold – 49. The Twenty-ninth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1901; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1901; Penza, 1901; Kharkov, 1901; Poltava, 1901; Elisavetgrad, 1901; Odessa, 1901; Kiev, 1901–1902; Kaluga, 1902. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 227; were sold – 85. The Thirtieth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1902; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1902; Orel, 1902; Kharkov, 1902; Elisavetgrad, 1902; Odessa, 1902; Kiev, 1902–1903; Kaluga, 1903. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 224; were sold – 87. The Thirty-first Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1903; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1903; Orel, 1903; Kharkov, 1903; Ekaterinoslav, 1903; Odessa, 1903; Kiev, 1903–1904; Kaluga, 1904. Statistics all of the paintings on display – 375; were sold – 203. The Thirty-second Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1904; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1904; Orel, 1904; Kharkov, 1904; Ekaterinoslav, 1904; Odessa, 1904; Kiev, 1904–1905; Kaluga, 1905. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 312; were sold – 74.

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The Thirty-third Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1905; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1905; Kharkov, 1905; Ekaterinoslav, 1905; Odessa, 1905. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 177; were sold – 64. The Thirty-fourth Touring Art Exhibition. St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1906; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1906. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 300; were sold – no data. The Thirty-fifth Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, the Historical Museum, 1906–1907; St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1907; Kharkov, 1907; possibly other cities. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 296; were sold – no data. The Thirty-sixth Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, the Historical Museum, 1907–1908; St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1908. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 256; were sold – no data. The Thirty-seventh Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, the Historical Museum, 1908–1909; St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1909; Kharkov, 1909; Odessa, 1909; Kiev, 1910; possibly other cities. Statistics: all of the works  on display – c. 268; sold – no data. The Thirty-eighth Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, the Historical Museum, 1909–1910; St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1910; Kharkov, 1910; Odessa, 1910; possibly other cities. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 299; were sold – no data. The Thirty-ninth Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, the Historical Museum, 1910–1911; St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1911. Kharkov, 1911; possibly other cities. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 313; were sold – no data. The Fortieth Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, the Historical Museum, 1911–1912; St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1912. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 444; sold – no data. The Forty-first Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, the Historical Museum, 1912–1913; St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1913. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 237; were sold – no data. The Forty-second Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, 1913–1914; St Petersburg, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1914. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 260; were sold – no data. The Forty-third Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, 1914–1915; Petrograd, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1915. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 264; were sold – no data.

254

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The Forty-fourth Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, 1915–1916; Petrograd, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1916. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 313; were sold – no data. The Forty-fifth Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, 1916–1917; Petrograd, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1917. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 439; were sold – no data. The Forty-sixth Touring Art Exhibition. Petrograd, the All-Russian Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1917; Moscow, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1918. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 272; were sold – no data. The Forty-seventh Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, The House of Workers of Enlightenment and the Arts (Dom Rabotnikov Prosvesheniia i Iskusstv), 1922. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 396; were sold – no data. The Forty-eighth Touring Art Exhibition. Moscow, 1923. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 364; were sold – no data. A list of the ‘Parallel Exhibitions’ The First Parallel Exhibition. Nizhnii Novgorod, 1886; Kazan, 1886; Saratov, 1886; Tambov, 1886; Voronezh, 1886–1887, Novocherkassk, 1887; Rostov-on-Don, 1887; Taganrog, 1887; Ekaterinoslav, 1887; Poltava, 1887; Kremenchug, 1887; Nikolaev, 1887; Kherson, Kishinev, 1887–1888; Vilna, 1888; Vitebsk, 1888. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 60; were sold – no data. The Second Parallel Exhibition. Kazan, 1889; Samara, 1889; Penza, 1889; Tambov, 1889; Kozlov, 1889; Voronezh, 1889–1890; Novocherkassk, 1890; Rostov-on-Don, 1890; Taganrog, 1890; Ekaterinoslav, 1890; Kursk, 1890. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 31; were sold – 2. The Third Parallel Exhibition. Kazan, 1892; Samara, 1892; Penza, 1892. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – no data; were sold – no data. The Fourth Parallel Exhibition. Yaroslavl, 1899; Tula, 1899; Kursk, 1899; Voronezh, 1899; Chernigov, 1899; Minsk, 1899–1900. Statistics: all of the paintings on display – 49; were sold – no data. A list of the exhibitions of ‘Etudes, Drawings and Sketches’ The First Exhibition of Etudes, Drawings and Sketches, etc. St Petersburg, the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1903. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 602; were sold – no data.

Appendix 4

255

The Exhibition of Etudes, Drawings and Sketches. Moscow, 1913. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 370; were sold – no data. The Exhibition of Etudes, Drawings and Sketches, etc. Petrograd, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1914–1915. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 473; were sold – no data. The Exhibition of Etudes, Drawings and Sketches. Petrograd, the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, 1916. Statistics: all of the works on display – c. 412; were sold – no data.

Selected Bibliography Primary sources Al’bom dvadtsatipiatiletiia tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok, 1872–1897. Moscow: K. A. Fisher, 1897; 2nd edn, 1899. Arsen’ev, Konstantin, ed. Novyi Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, vol. 27. Petrograd: F. A. Brokgauz, I. A. Efron, 1916. Beggrov, Aleksandr, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XVI peredvizhnoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki. St Petersburg, 1888. Brokgauz, Fridrikh-Arnold. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, vol. 18. St Petersburg: F. A. Brokgauz, I. A. Efron, 1900. Burova, Genrietta, Olga Gaponova and Vera Rumiantseva, eds. Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok, 2 vols. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1952–9. Cherepakhov, Matvei, ed. Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’ (1895–1917): Spravochnik. Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1957. Dement’ev, Aleksandr, ed. Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’ (1702–1894): Spravochnik. Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1959. Experiment: A Journal of Russian Culture 14, no.1 [Russian Realist Painting. The Peredvizhniki: An Anthology] (2008). Ge, Nikolai. Pis’ma. Stat’i. Kritika. Vospominaniia sovremennikov. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1978. Goldshtein, Sof ’ia, ed. Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok: Pis’ma, dokumenty, 2 vols. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987. Illiustrirovannyi katalog 3-ei peredvizhnoi vystavki [album of prints]. St Petersburg, 1874. Illiustrirovannyi katalog. Vtoraia peredvizhnaia vystavka [album of prints]. St Petersburg, 1873. Imperatorskaia Akademiia khudozhestv. Istoriia ee ustava i upravleniia. St Petersburg, 1891. Kramskoi, Ivan. Pis’ma, stat’i, 2 vols. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965–6. Lisovskii, Nikolai. Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’. 1703–1900. Petrograd, 1915. Masanov, Ivan. Slovar’ psevdonimov russkikh pisatelei, uchenykh i obschestvennykh deiatelei, 4 vols. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Vsesoiuznoi knizhnoi palaty, 1956–60. Miasoedov, Grigorii. Pis’ma. Dokumenty. Vospominaniia. Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1972.

Selected Bibliography

257

Otchet Pravleniia Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1875. Otchet Pravleniia Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok za 3-iu vystavku. St Petersburg, 1876. Romanov, Gennadii, ed. Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. Entsyklopediia, 1871–1923. St Petersburg: Sankt Peterburg Orkestr, 2003. Sbornik postanovlenii soveta imperatorskoi Akademii khudozhestv po khudozhestvennoi i uchebnoi chasti. S 1859 po 1890 god. St Petersburg, 1890. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XIX peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1891. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XVII peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1889. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XVIII peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1890. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XX peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1892. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XXI peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhetsvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1893. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XXII peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1894. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XXIII peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1895. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Illiustrirovannyi katalog XXIV peredvizhnoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1896. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk imperatorskogo obshchestva pooshchreniia khudozhestv. 1820–1890. St Petersburg, 1890. Sobko, Nikolai, ed. Slovar’ russkikh khudozhnikov, vaiatelei, zhivopistsev, zodchikh, risoval’shchikov, graverov, litografov, medal’erov, mozaichistov, ikonopistsev, liteishchikov, chekanshchikov, skanshchikov i prochikh, s drevneishykh vremen do nashikh dnei (XI–XIX vv.), 3 vols. St Petersburg, 1893–9. Sobko, Nikolai. Vasilii Grigor’evich Perov. Ego zhizn i proizvedeniia. St Petersburg, 1892. Spisok izbrannykh kartin byvshikh na peredvizhnykh vystavkakh dlia proektiruiemogo izdaniia 25-letiia tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1892. Spisok izbrannykh kartin i skulptur chlenov Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh vystavok za 24 goda deiatelnosti tov- va. Moscow, 1896. Stasova, V. V. Dve stat’i V.V. Stasova iz poslednego vremeni, kasaiushchiesia Peredvizhnykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1896. Stasov, Vladimir. Sobranie sochinenii V.V. Stasova, 1847–1886, 4 vols. St Petersburg, 1894. Ukazatel’ pervoi khudozhestvennoi vystavki Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1871.

258

Selected Bibliography

Ustav Imperatorskoi Akademii Khudozhestv. St Petersburg, 1859. Ustav Tovarishchestva peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. St Petersburg, 1870.

Secondary sources Adlam, Carol. ‘Realist Aesthetics in Nineteenth-Century Russian Art Writing’. The Slavonic and East European Review 83, no. 4 (2005): 638–63. Adlam, Carol and Juliet Simpson, eds. Critical Exchange: Art Criticism of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries in Russia and Western Europe. Bern: Peter Lang, 2008. Barkhatova, Elena. Russkaia svetopis’: pervyi vek fotoiskusstva, 1839–1914. St Petersburg: Al’ians Liki Rossii, 2009. Becker, Howard. Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Benois, Alexandre. Istoriia russkoi zhivopisi v XIX veke. St Petersburg: Znanie, 1901–02. Benois, Alexandre. Russkaia shkola zhivopisi. St Petersburg: R. Golike and A. Vilborg, 1904. Bespalova, Natal’ia and Alla Vereshchagina, Russkaia progressivnaia khudozhestvennaia kritika vtoroi poloviny XIX veka: Ocherki. Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1979. Blakesley, Rosalind Polly. ‘“There is something there … ”: The Peredvizhniki and West European Art’. Experiment 14, no. 1 (2008): 18–50. Blakesley, Rosalind Polly. The Russian Canvas: Painting in Imperial Russia, 1757–1881. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016. Blakesley, Rosalind Polly, ed. Russia and the Arts: The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky. London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2016. Blakesley, Rosalind Polly and Susan Reid, eds. Russian Art and the West: A Century of Dialogue in Painting, Architecture and Decorative Arts. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007. Blakesley, Rosalind Polly and Margaret Samu, eds. From Realism to the Silver Age: New Studies in Russian Artistic Culture. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014. Bobrikov, Aleksei. ‘Russkaia “reaktsionnaia” khudozhestvennaia kritika 1880-kh godov’. Kandidatskaia diss., The Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St Petersburg, 2001. Bobrikov, Aleksei. Drugaia istoriia russkogo iskusstva. Moscow: NLO, 2012. Boime, Albert. A Social History of Modern Art, vol. 3: Art in an Age of Counterrevolution, 1815–1848. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993. Bourdieu, Pierre. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. Bradley, Joseph. Voluntary Associations in Tsarist Russia: Science, Patriotism and Civil Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

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Brunson, Molly. Russian Realisms: Literature and Painting, 1840–1890. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2016. Burlaka, Dmitrii, ed. Aleksandr III: pro et contra: lichnost’ i deianiia imperatora Aleksandra III v otsenkakh otechestvennykh myslitelei i issledovatelei. St Petersburg: Tsentr sodeistviia obrazovaniiu, 2013. Byrde, Penelope. Nineteenth-Century Fashion. London: Batsford, 1992. Chernukha, Valentina. Pravitel’stvennaia politika v otnoshenii pechati, 60–70-e gody XIX veka. Leningrad: Nauka, 1989. Clark, T. J. Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973. Clark, T. J. Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985. Clowes, Edith, Samuel Kassow and James West, eds. Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Crow, Thomas. Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth Century Paris. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Dianina, Katia. When Art Makes News: Writing Culture and Identity in Imperial Russia, 1851–1900. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012. Dmitrieva, Nina. Moskovskoe uchilishche zhivopisi, vaianiia i zodchestva. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1951. Eisenman, Stephen, Thomas Crow, Brian Lukacher, Linda Nochlin, David Llewellyn Phillips and Frances K. Pohl, eds. Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History, 4th edn. London: Thames and Hudson, 2011. Ekshtut, Semen. Shaika peredvizhnikov. Istoria odnogo tvorcheskogo soiuza. Moscow: Drofa, 2008. Elliott, David, ed. Photography in Russia, 1840–1940. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992. Ely, Christopher. This Meager Nature: Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009. Esin, Boris. Russkaia zhurnalistika 70–80-kh godov XIX veka. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1963. Fedorov-Davydov, Aleksei. Russkoe iskusstvo promyshlennogo kapitalisma. Moscow: G.A.Kh.N., 1929. Fedorov-Davydov, Aleksei. Realism v russkoi zhivopisi XIX veka. Moscow: Izogiz, 1933. Freeze, Gregory, ed. Russia: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Frierson, Cathy. Peasant Icons: Representations of Rural People in Late NineteenthCentury Russia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Iudenkova, Tat’iana. Brat’ia Pavel Mikhailovich i Sergei Mikhailovich Tretyakovy: mirovozrencheskie aspekty kollektsionirovaniia vo vtoroi polovine XIX veka. Moscow: BuksMArt, 2015.

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Jackson, David. The Russian Vision: The Art of Ilya Repin. Schoten: BAI, 2006. Jackson, David. The Wanderers and Critical Realism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Painting. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006. Jackson, David and Per Hedstrom, eds. The Peredvizhniki: Pioneers of Russian Painting. Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 2011. Jackson, David and Patty Wageman, eds. Russian Landscape. Groningen: Groninger Museum; London: National Gallery, 2003. Jensen, Robert. Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Kaufman, Rafail. Ocherki istorii russskoi khudozhestvennoi kritiki XIX veka: Ot Batiushkova do AleksandraBenois. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1990. Lapin, Vladimir. Aleksandr II. Tragediia reformatora: liudi v sud’bakh reform, reformy v sud’bakh liudei. St Petersburg: EUSP Press, 2012. Liaskovskaia, Olga. Plener v russkoi zhivopisi XIX veka. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1966. Liaskovskaia, Olga. Ilya Efimovich Repin: Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1982. Mainardi, Patricia. The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Makela, Maria. The Munich Secession: Art and Artists in Turn-of-the-Century Munich. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Mal’tseva, Faina. Mastera russkogo peizazha: vtoraia polovina XIX veka, 4 vols. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 2001. Mironov, Boris and Ben Eklof. The Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917, 2 vols. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. Moffett, Charles, ed. The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886. Oxford: Phaidon, 1986. Nesterova, Elena. Pozdnii akademism i salon. St Petersburg: Zoloi Vek, 2004. Nochlin, Linda. Realism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. Nochlin, Linda. The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. Nochlin, Linda. Courbet. London: Thames and Hudson, 2007. Novitskii, Aleksei. Peredvizhniki i ikh vliianie na russkoe iskusstvo. Moscow, 1897. Paret, Peter. The Berlin Secession: Modernism and Its Enemies in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980. Paret, Peter. German Encounters with Modernism, 1840–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Patrusheva, Natalia. Tsenzura v Rossii v kontse XIX – nachale XX veka. Sbornik vospominanii. St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2003. Pearson, Thomas. Russian Officialdom in Crisis: Autocracy and Local Self-Government, 1861–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pipes, Richard. ‘Russia’s Itinerant Painters’. Russian History 38, no. 3 (2011): 315–427.

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Polunov, Aleksandr. Russia in the Nineteenth Century: Autocracy, Reform, and Social Change, 1814–1914. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2005. Rogger, Hans. Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution 1881–1917. London: Longman, 1983. Roginskaia, Frida. Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1989. Ruane, Christine. The Empire’s New Clothes: A History of the Russian Fashion Industry, 1700–1917. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009. Saburova, Tat’iana. Portret v russkoi fotografii: izbrannye proizvedeniia 1850–1910 godov iz sobraniia Gosudarstvennogo istoricheskogo museia. Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii musei, 2006. Safronova, Iulia. Russkoe obchshestvo v zerkale revolutsionnogo terrora, 1879–1881. Moscow: NLO, 2014. Sarab’ianov, Dmitrii. ‘The Rise and Fall of the Peredvizhniki’. Experiment 14, no. 1 (2008): 1–17. Saunders, David. Russia in the Age of Reaction and Reform 1801–1881. London: Longman, 1992. Severiukhin, Dmitri. Staryi khudozhestvennyi Peterburg: rynok i samoorganizatsiia khudozhnikov ot nachala XVIII veka do 1932 goda. St Petersburg: Mir, 2008. Severiukhin, Dmitrii and Oleg Leikind, eds. Zolotoi vek khudozhestvennykh ob’edinenii v Rossii i SSSR (1820–1932). Spavochnik. St Petersburg: Chernyshev, 1992. Shabanov, Andrey. ‘Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok. K istorii art-menedzhmenta v Rossii’. MA diss., The European University at St Petersburg, 2004. Shabanov, Andrey. ‘Peredvizhnye vystavki: angliiskii koren’, frantsuzskii aktsent i russkoe znachenie’. In And/&: sbornik trudov fakul’teta istorii iskusstv Evropeiskogo universiteta v Sankt-Peterburge, edited by Sergei Daniel, 250–65. St Petersburg: EUSP Press, 2007. Shabanov, Andrey. ‘Re-Presenting the Peredvizhniki: A Partnership of Artists in Late Nineteenth-Century Russia’. PhD diss., The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2013. Shabanov, Andrey. Peredvizhniki: mezhdu kommercheskim tovarishchestvom i khudozhestvennym dvizheniem. St Petersburg: EUSP Press, 2015. Solkin, David. Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in EighteenthCentury England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. Solkin, David, ed. Art on the Line: the Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–1836. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. Sonina, Elena. Peterburgskaia universal’naia gazeta kontsa XIX veka. St Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta, 2004. Sonina, Elena, ed. Peterburg gazetnyi: 1711–1917. Tiumen: Mandra i Ka, 2009.

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Sonina, Elena, ed. Peterburg gazetnyi. 1711–1917. Vyp. II. St Petersburg: Svoe izdatel’stvo, 2016. Stavrou, Theofanis, ed. Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983. Steiner, Evgeny. ‘A Battle for the “People’s Cause” or for the Market Case: Kramskoi and the Itinerants’. Cahiers du Monde Russe 50, no. 4 (2009): 627–46. Steiner, Evgeny. ‘Pursuing Independence: Kramskoi and the Peredvizhniki vs. the Academy of Arts’. The Russian Review 70, no. 2 (2011): 252–71. Stepanova, Svetlana. Moskovskoe uchilishche zhivopisi, vaianiia i zodchestva: gody stanovleniia. St Petersburg: Iskusstvo, 2005. Sternin, Grigorii. Khudozhestvennaia zhizn’ Rossii vtoroi poloviny XIX veka, 70–80 gody. Мoscow: Nauka, 1997. Stites, Richard. Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The Pleasure and the Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Tolède, Olivia. ‘Une sécession française: la Société nationale des beaux-arts, 1889–1903’. PhD diss., Université de Genève, 2008. Tri veka Sankt-Peterburga. Entsiklopediia, vol. 2: Deviatnadtsatyi vek. St Petersburg: Fakul’tet filologii i iskusstv SPbGU, 2008. Valkenier, Elizabeth. Russian Realist Art. The State and Society: The Peredvizhniki and Their Tradition. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1977. Valkenier, Elizabeth. Ilya Repin and the World of Russian Art. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Vanslov, Viktor, ed. Russkaia progressivnaia khudozhestvennaia kritika vtoroi poloviny XIX – nachala XX veka: Khrestomatiia. Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1977. Weisberg, Gabriel, ed. The European Realist Tradition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. White, Harrison, and Cynthia White. Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Wolff, Janet. Social Production of Art. London: Macmillan, 1981. Wortman, Richard. Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. 2: From Alexander II to the Abdication of Nicholas II. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. Zaionchkovskii, Petr. The Russian Autocracy under Alexander III. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1976.

Index advertisement, exhibition 17, 33, 42, 44–52, 113, 124 album, anniversary 6, 77, 203–14 Aleksandr Ostrovskii 134, 137–8, 141 Alexander II 2, 15, 112, 168, 182, 186, 193 Alexander III 2, 74, 115, 157, 168, 182, 193 annual report 26, 78, 107, 110 Artel of Artists, St Petersburg 17–21, 179 Artists in the Antechamber of a Rich Man 156–7, 160, 162 Beggrov, Aleksandr 69, 86–7, 94, 96, 148 Benois, Alexandre 1 Boat Haulers on the Volga 168, 177–8 Bogoliubov, Aleksei 45–6, 65–6, 123, 125, 149 Bronnikov, Fedor 148–51, 155–7, 160–2, 174, 213 Bulgakov, Fedor 72, 199 case study, exhibition 6, 121, 170 catalogues, exhibition illustrated 42, 44, 54–5, 57, 60–77, 80, 90, 113–14 text-only 54–5, 57–61, 74 censorship 16–17, 55, 114–5, 184, 192, 194, 196–7, 201, 203 charter, partnership 13–21, 26, 34, 46, 109, 121–2, 124, 142, 148, 196, 203, 219 Chernyshevskii, Nikolai 21 Chuiko, Vladimir 49, 180, 184–5, 194 Collecting the Pension 155 Count Fedor Litke 134, 137, 140–1 critical realism 1, 2, 134, 136, 197 dealer 27–8 Denier, Andrei 87, 88–91, 95, 97–8, 100–1, 103 Diaghilev, Sergei 220 Empty Sledges 134–6 egalitarianism 5, 54, 58, 91, 95, 99, 100, 105, 124, 142, 206, 213, 219

Family Separation 153–4, 160 Fedorov-Davydov, Aleksei 3, 4, 116 fifteenth anniversary 6, 41, 107, 114, 116, 197, 203, 205 Fischer, Karl 77, 205 From One Flat to the Other 153–4 Ge, Nikolai 15, 23, 45–6, 63–5, 100, 109, 122, 125, 129–32, 134, 136–7, 140, 149, 156, 193, 203, 205, 213 grand press (bolshaia pressa) 50 group photograph 6, 80, 85–105, 107, 169 Gun, Karl 45, 123, 155–6, 168, 213 hanging, exhibition 52, 54 Hunters at Rest 132–4 Iaroshenko, Nikolai 86–7, 97, 100, 148, 154, 167, 170–1, 174, 178, 180, 184, 194, 206, 209, 213 Imperial Academy of Arts 1, 3, 4, 15, 18, 19, 22, 26–7, 35–8, 40, 42–3, 45–6, 52–5, 58, 72, 89, 95, 97, 111–16, 123–5, 127–9, 132, 134, 136, 138–41, 147–52, 156, 158, 161–3, 167–9, 171, 178–80, 185–6, 203, 205, 211, 217–18 Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581 186–90, 192–3, 196, 213 Jackson, David 2, 137, 183 Kharkov 24, 40, 111 Kiev 24, 40–1, 60, 111 Kramskoi, Ivan 3, 15, 17, 18, 22, 34–5, 43, 45–6, 49, 50, 65, 73, 86, 89–100, 107, 109, 122, 125, 134–8, 140–1, 156–8, 160, 162, 168, 170–2, 179–80, 182, 213 Kuindzhi, Arkhip 65, 67, 87, 148–9, 158–63, 168, 174, 212

264

Index

Lemokh, Karl 15, 18, 86–7, 122–3, 168, 172, 213 Makovskii, Konstantin 15, 122, 123, 168, 170–1, 174, 211 Makovskii, Vladimir 86–7, 96, 100, 102, 123, 155, 170, 172, 186, 213 Maksimov, Vasilii 45, 87, 123, 153–5, 160, 172, 174 manifesto, artistic 6, 80, 107, 112–13, 116, 141, 167, 203, 205 Marxist 3, 4, 116 Matushinskii, Apollon 124, 135, 139, 156 Miasoedov, Grigorii 13, 15, 17, 18, 22–3, 27, 34, 41, 45–6, 65, 86–7, 96, 100, 107, 109–15, 122, 129–31, 141, 154–5, 174, 197, 203, 205–6, 213, 220 minor press (malaia pressa) 50 Moscow 1, 15, 17–20, 24, 26–7, 34–5, 39–40, 42, 46–8, 50–1, 60–1, 85–7, 89, 95, 115, 129, 137–8, 151, 154, 159, 167, 175, 179, 205–6, 212 Moscow Art Society 20 Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture 39–40, 129 Munich Secession 218–20 mythologization 6, 19, 179, 214 Nicholas II 2 Novitskii, Aleksei 178, 191, 214 Odessa 24, 40, 111 Panov, Mikhail 86–7, 89–91, 94–8, 100, 103 Perov, Vasilii 15, 17, 22–3, 27, 45–6, 65, 73, 107, 109, 122, 125, 132–8, 141, 149, 168–9, 213 Peter the Great Interrogating Tsarevich Aleksei at Peterhof 129–30, 132, 134, 193 Pobedonostsev, Konstantin 21 Polenov, Vasilii 86, 168, 186, 213 poster, exhibition 33, 42, 51–2, 196 Prianishnikov, Illarion 45–6, 65, 67, 86–7, 100, 122, 125, 134–6, 170, 172

railways 24, 25 realist movement 1, 2, 4, 6, 116, 129, 132, 141, 178, 180, 196, 213 Religious Procession in the Province of Kursk 170, 172, 174–5, 177–9, 183, 196, 213 Repin, Ilya 49, 86–7, 94, 97, 99–101, 104, 167–8, 170, 172, 174–84, 186–88, 190, 192–4, 212–13 Revolt of the Fourteen 18–19, 80, 112, 134 Riga 66, 111 Russianness 5, 74, 80, 114, 203, 214 Saint Petersburg Bulletin (SanktPetersburgskie vedomosti) 45, 47–50, 80 Salon 27, 71–2, 77, 80, 114, 132, 217–19 Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail 128–9, 138, 141–2 Savitskii, Konstantin 43, 67, 86–7, 101, 148, 167, 172–3, 179, 194, 206 Savrasov, Aleksei 15, 45–6, 122, 125, 134, 139, 141, 149 scandal 77, 114–16, 170, 174, 178, 186, 188–9, 192–3, 196, 203, 214 secessionist movement 217–20 Shishkin, Ivan 15, 27, 45, 46, 86–7, 96, 98, 100, 122, 159–60, 172, 174, 179–80, 182, 188, 212 Slavophiles 35, 104, 131 Sobko, Nikolai 1, 73–4, 77, 90 Society for Art Exhibitions 148–9 Society for the Encouragement of Artists/ Arts 20, 26, 38–9, 101–3, 156 Society of Lovers of the Arts, Moscow 20 Somov, Andrei 156, 159 Stasov, Vladimir 1, 2, 19, 49, 77, 80, 104, 115, 125, 128, 132, 141, 149, 150, 152, 156, 159, 171, 177, 217–18 Surikov, Vasilii 86, 168, 172–3 The Rooks Have Returned 134, 139, 141 They Did Not Expect Him 179, 181–4, 196, 213

Index

265

Tretyakov, Pavel 50, 85, 137, 141 twenty-fifth anniversary 6, 203–4, 206–8, 211, 214

venue, exhibition 27, 33, 35, 37–43, 51, 54, 78, 102, 112, 127, 147, 150 Voice (Golos) 49, 50

Ukrainian Night 158–60, 162 Unknown Woman 171–2

Wanderers 1, 2, 26 Warsaw 51–2 Westernizer 35, 129

Valkenier, Elizabeth 2, 18, 26 Vasnetsov, Viktor 100, 153–4, 168, 182, 213