Bakst exhibition in Pushkin opening hours. Bakst is magnificent

MOSCOW, June 8. /Corr. TASS Svetlana Yankina/. The exhibition "Leon Bakst. Leon Bakst", telling about one of the most famous Russian artists of the 20th century, a member of the "World of Art" association and a star of Diaghilev's "Russian Seasons", opened at the State Museum fine arts them. A. S. Pushkin on the 150th anniversary of the master’s birth.

The exhibition is striking in scale: it is difficult to remember any other project that would occupy two buildings of the Pushkin Museum at once - the main building and the Museum of Personal Collections. In the first one you can see sketches for productions of St. Petersburg theaters and the Russian Seasons in Paris, as well as costumes made based on them and products of fashion houses designed by Bakst. The second showcases Bakst's early work and archival materials - from personal correspondence and invoices for the purchase of glasses to a diploma from an officer of the Legion of Honor.

Immersion in context

Earlier, the Pushkin Museum opened an exhibition of works from the collection of Ilya Zilberstein, which became the basis of the Museum of Personal Collections. Two halls with the Bakst exhibition were, as it were, built into this exhibition, where works of the artist’s contemporaries and friends - the founder of the World of Art - Alexander Benois, Valentin Serov, Boris Anisfeld are presented, which is why immersion in the artistic context turn of XIX-XX it turns out more complete.

In the part dedicated to early creativity Bakst, the large-scale painting “Meeting of Admiral F.K. Avelan in Paris on October 5, 1893” and the small-sized painting “Bathers on the Lido. Venice” stand out. The artist went to Venice after the triumph of the Russian Seasons in Paris and wrote from there: “I’m bathing on the Lido in the company of Isadora Duncan, Nijinsky, Diaghilev. I’m swimming up to my neck in aesthetic impressions.”

The section presented immediately with graphic portraits of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, depicting artists Philip Malyavin, Isaac Levitan, Konstantin Somov and Anna Benois, seems to connect the display of Bakst’s works in the Museum of Personal Collections and the main building.

If I were a sultan

There, in a separate room, are collected the later brilliant portraits of the artist - “Portrait of S. P. Diaghilev with a nanny”, “Portrait of Zinaida Gippius” and “Dinner”, which depicts Alexander Benois’ wife Anna Kidd. One evening in a Parisian cafe she was met by Bakst and Valentin Serov, who worked together on the design of the ballet “Scheherazade” to the music of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov.

A curtain based on Serov's sketches for "Scheherazade" was recently shown at his retrospective at the Tretyakov Gallery. Now at the Pushkin Museum you can see Bakst’s drawings for this performance, as well as a reconstruction of the dances of the star of the production, the performer of the role of Zobeida Tamara Karsavina - a black and white film is shown in the White Hall.

In the center of the exhibition composition is a podium with historical theatrical costumes from museum collections and private collections, including from the collection of fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev. The background is the curtain for "Elysium" of 1906, and on the walls the works are grouped by theme: ancient visions, romantic dreams, oriental fantasies. Here you can see bright colors and incredible plasticity key works artist in sketches for "Orpheus", "Firebird", "Narcissus", "Afternoon of a Faun".

Many of them are well known, they have been exhibited and published, but just by looking at the selection of sketches for the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” to the music of P. I. Tchaikovsky, one can see how many resources had to be used to put together this large-scale exhibition.

Thus, the costume sketch for the “Good Fairy” came from the private collection of Nina Lobanova-Rostovskaya, and the “Rowan Fairy” - from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. What these costumes looked like on the dancers for whom they were created can be seen here in black and white archival photographs.

Undoubtedly, the attention of the audience will be attracted by Vaslav Nijinsky’s costume from the ballet “The Vision of a Rose” with its careful design and preservation of the petals, as well as the fairy-tale panel “The Awakening” based on “The Sleeping Beauty”. It depicts the happy newlyweds James and Dorothy de Rothschild, who commissioned Bakst in 1913 to decorate their London mansion with a series of panels depicting family members, friends, servants and even pets. Until recently, these works, which are now located in the Rothschild estate of Waddesdon Manor, now a museum, were inaccessible even to specialists and are still considered poorly studied.

The exhibition "Leon Bakst. Leon Bakst" will last until September 4, 2016. You can learn more about the artist’s work at a specially organized exhibition at the Pushkin Museum. educational program with lectures and excursions, including for children.

Anniversary exhibition at the Pushkin Museum as part of Open festival arts" Cherry forest"partially inherits the just-closed exhibition at the Russian Museum. Only in the Russian Museum it turned out to be a complete failure: everything we wanted to know about Bakst remained unsaid there. The Pushkin Museum, taking as a basis all the same main easel works of Bakst, attracted to the work of one of the most famous Western specialists in the Russian early twentieth century, John Boult, and with him, albeit partially, the Parisian-American period of the artist’s life, practically unknown in our country. But this is almost 14 years: from 1910 Bakst. in Paris and with the “Russian Seasons” almost constantly, and after 1914 he would not return to Russia at all.

Bakst, in the traditional narrative of Soviet art history, is a stylistic anomaly, a World of Art artist, a “Nevsky Pickwickian,” a passeist-dreamer, a passionate admirer of the Greek archaic, a star of the “Russian Seasons,” who disappeared in the fog of Parisian fashion, large fees and commissioned portraits.

In Diaghilev’s thick bibliography, Bakst is the only artist who worked with Diaghilev and was his former ideal partner. That is, the painter who fully embodied Diaghilev’s ideas about what art should be. Not burdened by excessive intellectual depth (which often hampered Benoit). For too long he remained faithful to the “bad taste” of his provincial youth (which Diaghilev fully shared with him). And Lev Bakst, who never betrayed himself under the onslaught of the avant-garde, made art that was “beautiful” and fashionable. Both concepts were sacred for Diaghilev. Even after sacrificing “beauty” on the altar of fashion and his genius flair (all these games with Picasso and others), Diaghilev was never able to completely abandon it, and the break with Bakst in 1918 was extremely painful.

Bakst, in the history of Russian art that still needs to be written, is a unique artist in logocentric Russian art, whose main instrument was innate taste. He was offended by the ugliness. In his article "About Art today" in 1914 he wrote: "Look what happens: we live in century-old buildings, among antique furniture covered with shabby fabrics, among paintings precious with their “patina” or yellowness, we look in mirrors that are faded, dull, with charming stains and rust , where we can barely see our shameful modern figure, dressed in a dress made from an ancient piece of material. I must admit that I cannot get rid of the thought that everything around me has been fabricated by dead people for dead people and that I, a contemporary, are essentially intru (in truth) in this honorable and beautiful collection of works of the dead." This speaks of an already established trendsetter, a man forcing Paris to pray to himself, putting turbans or caps on all the fashionistas of the Old and New Worlds. His desire for beauty in everything, from high to low, could seem like provincial chic, compensation for the humiliated position of a Jew who managed to overcome the Pale of Settlement, but who was powerful at any moment. receive an order to leave the capital, having experienced poverty and inequality among seemingly equal friends. So be it. But he managed to make out of these his complexes. great art, forced himself to fall in love, and all his life he fed a horde of his relatives.

To be Leiba Rosenberg in Russian Empire it wasn't sweet. To be Levushka Bakst, almost ten years older in the snobbish company of Shura Benois, but to come there as an embarrassed “Jewish artist” is heroic. To overcome all this in oneself and become Leon Bakst with a queue of people wishing to receive portraits by him of “various Goulds, Cornegies and Vanderbilts” and lucrative contracts for sketches of fabrics, dresses, hats and shoes - in his eyes it was almost an accident (“I’m throwing up my hands” ). He created his “beauty” from everything he saw (Greece, Inca patterns, Egyptian ornaments, Japanese and Ashkenazi motifs), he hated what was the norm good manners in his youth (primarily lurid theater, with a combination of colors in one scene capable of driving a modern viewer crazy), he decorated an American villa like the palace of the Minotaur, dressed ballroom crowds in colored wigs, put ladies on buskins, painted the naked parts of the body of fashionistas with patterns, and the heels of their shoes were decorated with diamonds.

He wanted to change the world at least around him. In 1903, getting ready to marry Tretyakov’s daughter Lyubov Pavlovna Gritsenko, he wrote to his bride: “Dress like a flower - you have so much taste! But this is one of the joys of this earth! I swear to you. Wear flowers at your corsage, perfume yourself, wrap yourself in lace - all this is incredibly beautiful. This is all life and its beautiful side.” Life itself, however, turned towards him in completely different directions. Having been hit on the nose by the emperor in 1912 with a ban on living in St. Petersburg, Bakst only shrugged his shoulders absentmindedly and in bewilderment, and his friends fought him off. But the war and revolution separated him from his family. On the other side there remained a wife and son, a beloved sister and her children. My sister will die. Bakst himself will rush between continents, trying to feed his family. “Alas, I am chained here to my earnings (I have fourteen relatives who live entirely at my expense!)", there will be nervous breakdowns, loneliness, serious illnesses, there will be a vile housekeeper who robs a helpless patient like a stick, and relatives who will not even have the money to come and save their uncle-breadwinner from her. American patrons and Bakst’s friends, Harriet, will, of course, save the situation, but not the artist himself. In 1924, in Paris, he will die of pulmonary edema. Dmitry Filosofov saw in him “a sensualist, a man with thin skin.” Life turned out to be stronger than him, but beauty. he left us plenty.

About two hundred and fifty works of painting, original and printed graphics, photographs, archival documents, rare books, as well as stage costumes and designs for fabrics are brought together for the first time at the exhibition "Lev Bakst /Leon Bakst. To the 150th anniversary of his birth."

The exhibition pays tribute to the rich and varied work of one of the most original and vibrant artists of the early twentieth century.

Lev Samoilovich Bakst, known in the West as Leon Bakst, is famous primarily for his impressive projects for S. Diaghilev’s Russian seasons in Paris and London. His unusual and dynamic sets and costumes contributed to the success of such legendary productions as Cleopatra, Scheherazade, The Blue God and The Sleeping Princess, and influenced the overall concept of stage design. Considering ballet, opera and drama as synthetic artistic constructions in which color, sound, word and movement are equal partners, collaborating with such outstanding personalities- impresarios, artists, musicians, dancers and writers - like Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, Igor Stravinsky, Alexandre Benois, Claude Debussy, Ida Rubinstein, Isadora Duncan, Gabriel d'Annunzio and others, Bakst radically changed the way an artist exists on stage, releasing the energy of its movement and creating organic connection between the proscenium and the auditorium.

Bakst became famous not only as a theater artist, but also as a painter, as a portrait painter, as a master of book and magazine illustration, as an interior designer and creator of haute couture in the 1910s, close to the fashion houses of Paquin, Chanel and Poiret. Bakst also designed jewelry, bags, wigs and other fashion accessories, wrote articles on contemporary art, design and dance, gave lectures in Russia, Europe and America about fashion and contemporary art, wrote an autobiographical novel full of intriguing details, was fond of photography and in the end throughout his life he showed great interest in cinema. In love with antiquity and oriental art, Lev Bakst combined the extravagance of Art Nouveau with a sense of proportion and common sense - this rare combination brought him world fame.

The exhibition includes works from public and private Russian and Western collections. Many of them are shown in Russia for the first time. Works presented at the exhibition at the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin, cover a number of the most important topics for the artist: landscapes, portraits, panels, fashionable clothes and fabrics, and, of course, the theater, to which the main part of the exhibition is devoted. Among theatrical works One cannot fail to note the costume designs for Ida Rubinstein in the role of Salome for “The Dance of the Seven Veils” (1908, Tretyakov Gallery) and in the role of Cleopatra for the ballet of the same name (1909, St. Petersburg State Museum of Music and Music; gift of the International charitable foundation"Konstantinovsky" in 2013; from the collection of Nikita and Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky); costume designs for “The Boeotian” (c. 1911, St. Petersburg State Museum of Music and Music) and “The Bacchae” (1911, Center Pompidou, Paris) for the ballet “Narcissus”; costume design for Vaslav Nijinsky in the role of Faun for the ballet " Afternoon rest Faun" (1912, private collection, Paris); costume design for “The Young Man Accompanying Orpheus to the Temple” for the ballet “Orpheus” (1914, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts); costume design for “Columbine” for the ballet “The Sleeping Princess” (1921, Victoria and Albert Museum, London). The exhibition will feature famous easel works: “Portrait of Sergei Diaghilev with his nanny” (1906, Russian Museum), “Self-portrait” (1893, Russian Museum), “Dinner” (1902, Russian Museum), portraits of Dmitry Filosofov (1897, Dagestan Museum of Fine Arts named after P.S. Gamzatova, Makhachkala), Andrei Bely (1906, State Museum of Art, Moscow) and Zinaida Gippius (1906, Tretyakov Gallery), decorative panels “Ancient Horror” (“Terror Antiquus”) (1908, State Russian Museum) and “Elysium” (curtain For Drama Theater V.F. Komissarzhevskaya in St. Petersburg, 1906, State Russian Museum).

A number of costumes created according to Bakst’s sketches will be presented: Museum of the Academy of Russian Ballet named after A.Ya. Vaganova will show the famous costume of Vaslav Nijinsky in the role of the Phantom of the Rose, St. Petersburg state museum theatrical and musical art provided four costumes: a Japanese doll for Vera Trefilova for the ballet “Fairy of Dolls”, costumes for the ballets “Cleopatra”, “Carnival”, “Daphnis and Chloe”. The famous Russian fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev - more than 10 exhibits from his collection: fashionable dresses and theatrical costumes of the 1910s–1920s for the ballets “Tamara”, “Scheherazade”, “The Sleeping Princess”.

The art of Lev Bakst is an organic part of the revival of interest in decorative arts the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia, Europe and America. The innovation and ingenuity of the artist's stage design still influences the modern artistic process.

A scientific illustrated catalog has been prepared for the exhibition, which presents about 400 works by the artist.

Curators of the exhibition:

John E. Boult, director of the Institute of Contemporary Russian Culture at the University of Southern California, USA
Natalia Borisovna Avtonomova, head of the Department of Personal Collections of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin

When art is not only beautiful, but also fashionable. IN Pushkin Museum A large-scale exhibition of works by Lev Bakst opened. It is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of famous artist. Art connoisseurs primarily remember his work for Sergei Diaghilev’s “Russian Seasons,” and fashion designers remember his sketches for fabrics and accessories. How a native of the Belarusian Grodno could turn into a trendsetter in European fashion, learned the correspondent of the MIR 24 TV channel Ekaterina Rogalskaya.

“The French Revolution” is a stable concept. But if coups in the streets were organized local residents, then the revolution in French theater Only the Russians could arrange it. Leon Bakst's bright and provocative costumes for Diaghilev's Russian Seasons turned the heads of the European public. Having attended the performances, fans wanted to get the costumes designed by the artist, and were ready to do anything for this.

“Bakst was the sexiest artist of all, he allowed women not to stand, but to lie on pillows, wear bloomers, translucent tunics, and take off their corsets. The erotic element that is present in his sketches could not help but please women of the Edwardian era, brought up in Victorian puritanism,” says fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev.

Lyovushka Bakst, a native of Belarusian Grodno, began with portraits and landscapes. Then his name was still Leib-Chaim Rosenberg. He took the pseudonym Bakst - a shortened surname of his grandmother Baxter - later, for his first exhibition. Many years will pass before a boy from a poor Jewish family will feel at home in both St. Petersburg and Paris.

“In the West he was at the zenith of his fame, which rarely happens at such artistic field. Bakst is well known in our country, including due to the fact that he was part of the “World of Arts” galaxy. It is no coincidence that at our exhibition we see portraits of Bakst’s friends and associates: Alexandre Benois, Sergei Diaghilev, Victor Nouvel, Zinaida Gippius. All of them are representatives of our " Silver Age“- notes curator of the Exhibition Natalya Avtonomova.

Bright colors, lush fabrics. It seems that you are not in the center of Moscow, but somewhere in the East. Both Bakst, who collected motifs for his works from all over the world, and the exhibition organizers collected his works. For example, “Portrait of Countess Keller” was brought from Zaraysk. It turned out that in small town, where the only attraction is the Kremlin, there is a work by a famous artist. The sketch of Cleopatra's costume, which Bakst made especially for the dancer Ida Rubinstein, was delivered from London.

“Not every exhibition requires such a detailed approach. A lot of different things had to be collected, and then made so that they began to live with each other,” says the director of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkina Marina Loshak.

30 museum and private collections contributed works to this exhibition. But it is in the Pushkin Museum, which unites the East and Ancient Greece, past and modern, each of the paintings seemed to be in its place.

MOSCOW, June 7 - RIA Novosti, Anna Gorbashova. The grand opening of the large-scale retrospective exhibition “Leon Bakst / Léon Bakst. On the 150th anniversary of his birth” on Monday was sold out at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Pushkin Museum) as part of the “Cherry Forest” festival.

The first guests of the exhibition, which will open to visitors on June 8, were the director of the Tretyakov Gallery Zelfira Tregulova, singers Kristina Orbakaite, Alena Sviridova, editor-in-chief of L'Officiel Russia magazine Ksenia Sobchak, actress Marina Zudina, financier Mark Garber, TV presenter Irada Zeynalova and others famous figures culture and show business.

In the “Italian Courtyard,” guests were greeted by models wearing dresses from the capsule collection of the famous Italian fashion designer Antonio Marras, which were created according to Bakst’s sketches especially for the exhibition. Marras himself was also present at the opening.

The world of beauty created by Bakst

“Our exhibition presents all aspects of Bakst’s work - portraits, landscapes, theatrical costumes, beautiful fabrics created according to his sketches. We tried to make this a story about an artist who created a world of beauty around himself. You will see 250 works, including extremely rare from private collections and largest museums world," said Marina Loshak, director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, opening the exhibition.

She noted that the curators had a difficult task and the exhibition was complex.

“I’m horrified that there are so many of us today. We didn’t expect there to be so many people,” Loshak was surprised.

The ideological inspirer of the Chereshnevy Les festival, the head of the Bosco company, Mikhail Kusnirovich, informed those present that they would have to examine the exhibition in groups.

Excursions are available to be conducted by theater artist Pavel Kaplevich, director of the Multimedia Art Museum Olga Sviblova, fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev, who provided costumes for the exhibition created for Parisian fashion houses based on Bakst’s sketches, and other guests - experts in the artist’s work.

“It is symbolic that on Pushkin’s birthday in the Pushkin Museum we are discovering Bakst’s work. We dressed up, forgot about traditional snacks, we came to meet art,” Kusnirovich called for the audience’s attention, since the speakers had to speak on the central staircase without microphone.

One of the curators of the exhibition, British art critic John Boult, joked that he personally believes in cosmic signs, and such a sign was sent to him.

“I believe in cosmic signs. It is known that Pushkin loved women’s legs, but Bakst clearly did not like them; when we were finishing preparations for the exhibition, I broke my leg in celebration,” Boult said.

Diaghilev's seasons and portraits

Painter, portraitist, theater artist, master book illustration, interior designer and creator of 1910s haute couture Lev Bakst, known in the West as Leon Bakst, is best known for his impressive designs for Sergei Diaghilev's Russian Seasons in Paris and London.

Having split into groups, the guests went to inspect the exhibition. Kaplevich immediately led his group to Bakst’s work “The Awakening,” which had never been exhibited in Russia—from the Rothschild family foundation.

“The panel on the theme of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale was commissioned by the Rothschilds for Bakst. Members of the Rothschild family posed for him as models,” said Kaplevich. In total, Bakst made seven fabulous panels for British billionaires.

The famous Russian fashion historian Vasiliev presented at the exhibition more than 20 exhibits from his private collection: fashionable dresses and theatrical costumes of the 1910-1920s for the ballets “Tamara”, “Scheherazade”, “The Sleeping Princess” and others, created according to Bakst’s sketches.

St. Petersburg Museum of the Academy of Russian Ballet named after A.Ya. Vaganova provided Vaslav Nijinsky’s famous costume from the ballet “The Phantom of the Rose” for the exhibition.

“Nezhinsky’s costume is the main eroticism of the world,” said Kaplevich.

Another gem of the exhibition is a costume design for the artist’s favorite ballerina, Ida Rubinstein, for the ballet “Cleopatra.”

The exhibition also includes easel works by the artist: “Portrait of Sergei Diaghilev with his nanny”, a self-portrait of the artist, portraits of poets Andrei Bely and Zinaida Gippius, as well as decorative panels “Ancient Horror” and other works.

The exhibition is stylish and smart

“The result was a very artistic project, a stylish, smart exhibition, which reflected everything that Bakst did - a brilliant section of portraits and huge amount things little known in Russia. Diaghilev’s words, which he once said to Jean Cocteau, can be applied to this project: “Surprise me,” Tregulova shared her impressions with a RIA Novosti correspondent.

In her opinion, the exhibition contains “exactly what needs to be said today about this artist.”

“It seems to me that the exhibition will be a great success, it is intriguing,” summed up the director of the Tretyakov Gallery.

Works for the exhibition were provided by the State Tretyakov Gallery, State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg State Museum of Theater and Musical Art, State Central theater museum named after A.A. Bakhrushin, Central Naval Museum (St. Petersburg), Novgorod State United Museum-Reserve, Paris Pompidou Center, London Victoria and Albert Museum, Rothschild Family Foundation, Museum contemporary art Strasbourg, the Israel Museum, as well as private collectors from Moscow, Paris, London and Strasbourg - a total of 31 participants in the exhibition.