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JOURNEY TO PARIS
| The interpenetration of two cultures - Russian
and French - has a history going back over several centuries.
From the moment when Peter the Great first set foot on the banks
of the Seine, Paris , thanks to the classic beauty of its architecture
and the influence of its thinkers, has never ceased to fascinate
Russian painters and artists. It was, however, at the beginning of the nineteenth century that a radical reorientation took place and that Rome and Italy, which had been the great poles of attraction for the Russia of the great empresses of the previous century, were gradually displaced by Paris, become, thanks to the romanticism of Delacroix and Corot, the centre of the major avant-garde movements. There followed the expressionism of Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, etc., which attracted young Russian talents as much as did the lively life of the boulevards and of the bohemians of the belle e poque. A new wave of "progressive" Russian painters washed over France during the early years of the twentieth century, thanks to the disillusionments of the abortive revolution of 1905 and to the attraction of various post-impressionist movements (cubism, fauvisme, futurism, etc.). Tatlin, for example, kept body and soul together by strumming on the banjo in the streets of various cities, while Mikhail Larionov sold his works for 2 dollars apiece. Marc Chagall preferred the hot sun of southern France , but often came to Paris . Pavel Tchelitchev, on the other hand, installed himself totally in Montparnasse , the wild life of which may have made of him the first great surrealist among Russian painters. With the advent of Serghei Diaghilev's "Russian seasons" one began to feel in France the influence of a veritable "Russian style”. There formed around Diaghilev a whole cluster of Russian painters and artists who made signal contributions to the scenic arts of ballet and theatre productions - with the active cooperation of French painters like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. From 1920 on, as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution, there emerged, among members of the "first wave" of Russian e migr e s, what can be called a "Russian avant-garde in Paris ". Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, there emerged, with the third wave of the emigration, a group of "non-conformists" who created a sensation with a so-called "bulldozer exhibition" staged in particular at the " Gaza " palace in Leningrad : Oskar Rabin, Erik Bulatov, Mikhail Chemiakine. Their representation of life in Paris was confused, for their knowledge of contemporary art was limited and derived above all from what they had found in art journals and reviews. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union many Russian painters have come to Paris and have had their works exhibited in French art galleries or museums. They cannot be regarded as e migr e s, for they kept and still keep commuting between Moscow , Saint Petersburg and Paris . Among them must be mentioned, as particularly talented, Volodia Popov, who held his first exhibition in Paris during the millennial year of 2000. Olga Larionova |