Yanova, Vera Pavlovna

Vera Pavlovna Yanova was born on September 21, 1907 in Wloclawek, Warsaw Province , where her father, P.N. Yanov, a travel engineer, worked on the construction of a railway bridge. The Yanova brothers are the famous TASS photo correspondent N.P. Yanov (1903-1982) ^[1] , and the artist K.P. Yanov (1905-1996). ^[2] The family returned to Petrograd in 1915.

V.P. Yanova studied at the Alexander Gymnasium (11th labor school; currently school number 211 ); then at the Faculty of Architecture at the Institute of Civil Engineers ; one of her teachers was N. A. Tyrsa .

In 1927, she married the artist George Nikolayevich Traugot (1903-1961), who played a prominent role in the military and post-war artistic life of Leningrad. After graduating from the Academy of Arts, G. N. Traugot worked as a painter and as a graphic artist, and was a member of the Circle of Artists art society. Throughout their lives, G. N. Traugot and V. P. Yanova supported a creative community with the “Krugovites” - A. I. Rusakov , G. M. Nemenova , T. I. Kupervasser, N. D. Emelyanov ^[3] . In the prewar years, Traugot and Yanova maintained friendly relations with the artist Vladimir Lebedev , with the poet Daniil Kharms ^[4] .

Since the late 1920s V.P. Yanova begins to constantly work as a painter. Together with G. N. Traugot, she goes on sketches and on creative business trips. Her work of the thirties is quite close to the work of G.N. Traugot. Confident accurate drawing, attention to motive, restrained dry color distinguish her works of this time, in the majority - landscapes, she also writes a number of works on collective farm topics. ^[5]

During the siege of Leningrad, Yanova remained in Leningrad ^[6] . Pre-war address of Yanova: P.S., Bolshaya Pushkarskaya St. , d. 3, apt. 6. ^[7] V.P. Yanova was on duty in a brigade that extinguished high-explosive bombs. ^[8] During the blockade, she became close friends with two other artists - T. N. Glebova and A. V. Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya . ^[9]

The blockade cycle of Yanova, graphic and picturesque, includes city landscapes, self-portraits, portraits. In the blockade cycle, the main colors in her gamut are gray, black and red, but the coloristic talent of Yanova, his amazing strength and originality are fully revealed in them. ^[10]

Immediately after the war, the artist, an active and strong-willed person, precisely determines her path: she never joins the Union of Artists, and refuses to participate in exhibitions. Her choice is unusual for a complete rejection of public recognition. The artist refused, at the same time, both the compromise that was inevitable when she entered the painting section of the party LOSKh and any involvement in the underground existing in opposition to the regime. Creativity Yanova from the late 1920s. It represented only to the court a circle of familiar artists who began work at the same time as she.

The path in art, consciously chosen by the artist, enabled its 21st century viewers to see what Russian art of this time could have been, deprived of the pressure of socialist realism, requiring the artist to “reflect reality from a party point of view.” It was suggested that Yanova’s painting does not have analogues in Russian art of the 1940-1950s, and the first exhibition by Yanova in the Russian Museum “could rewrite the history of XX century art - both local, Leningrad, and large, Soviet.” ^[11]

In the forties and fifties, Yanova’s work was an important part of the life of the circle of creative intelligentsia, which retained ties with the art of pre-war Leningrad: they were artists N. M. Suetin , A. A. Leporskaya , V. V. Sterligov , T. N. Glebova, P I. Basmanov , M. P. Basmanova , P. M. Kondratiev , R. R. O`Connell-Mikhailovskaya, ^[12] G. D. Epifanov , as well as astrophysicist N. A. Kozyrev , poet V. D. Koshelev ^[13] , poet and musician L.N. Glebova ^[14] , musician M. S. Druskin. Discussions about art that took place in this circle and were important for the Leningrad post-war culture are described in the diaries and notes of G. and A. Traugot, V. Sterligov, M. V. Wojciechowski, and the philosopher Ya. S. Druskin ^[15] . The taste of this circle was reflected in the recordings of discussions and conversations recorded by their participants: this is, first of all, the music of I. S. Bach ; poetry of A. I. Vvedensky , poetry of A. S. Pushkin and his contemporaries, including elders; Old Russian art; painting by P. Picasso and A. Matisse.

For decades, until the beginning of the 21st century, Yanova was part of a kind of family art group. ^[16]

Almost all of their work, these artists considered coordinated, joint. After the war, the sons of Yanova finish their studies at the secondary school and begin to work with their parents. Since 1948, the sculptor Mikhail Wojciechowski ^{[17] has been} in the circle of this outstanding family of artists, who wittily called it the “Order of the Parasites” or “Order of the Pauper Painters” (by analogy with the “Order of the Pauper Knights” founded in Jerusalem in 1118, better known as Order of the Templars or Templars); living together only by art alone. ^[18] .

The artists said about their work: “We truly believe in such collective creativity. Not in the sense that everyone needs to work together on each drawing, but that we are a certain group with the ability to understand each other and can work together in art ... Our work is not limited to the two of us. We are only part of the fraternity. We work individually and jointly. We think together. And we feel together. This is our art ... " ^[19]

Vera Yanova worked until the very last years of her life, changing only the technique of her work - they mainly became gouache and watercolors.

Vera Pavlovna Yanova died in St. Petersburg on September 13, 2004, she was buried at the Serafimovsky cemetery , in the same grave with G.N. Traugot.

The evolution of the artist’s creativity during the second half of the 20th century did not undergo drastic changes. Her chosen topics of work remain the same, the predominant number of them are city landscapes, views of the Neva, Bolshaya and Malaya Nevka, Buckles, Fontanka, Karpovka, Yekaterin and Kryukov Canals, the Black River, the Moika; Biron Palace, Pushkin House, Konyushennaya Square. Many of Yanova’s works now look like a chronicle of a vanishing city: they depict the now demolished quarters of the Krestovsky island and the Petrograd side, houses on Mytninskaya embankment.

In different periods, the artist's color scheme changes, evolving from more deaf and dense to more light, transparent. The picturesqueness of her work grows and develops. Her works on religious topics are changing: the anxiety of almost Byzantine iconic “Faces” (first half of the 1950s) is replaced by the even calm of later works, such as the large-scale, almost fresco painting “Christmas”.

The painting by Vera Yanova is factual, the artist always rubs the colors on the palette, mixing them, getting a tone. Sometimes she, therefore, applies the purely “ Cezanne ” method of flowing one color through the entire canvas. She mixes the paints so thickly that they lie in deep relief on the surface of the canvas ^[20] .

Her painting is completely freed from the naturalistic reproduction of color: she paints any color with any color. “The expression 'instinct of painting” - when colors pour into each other with a picturesque array, is applicable to the gift ... of Vera Janova. ” ^[21]

Gamma Yanova saturated, extremely bright, without any restrictions, with significant use of red.

V.V. Sterligov, an artist and painting theorist, highly appreciating the work of Yanova, put him on some grounds on a par with the works of such "organic Russian painters" as Mikhail Larionov and Vladimir Tatlin:

She is an artist of the 1920s, lingering in time. There are trained artists: ... Lentulov , Altman , etc. There are organic artists: Larionov , Tatlin . For them there is no labor of training. V.P. Yanova is an organic phenomenon ... Processing of Western culture (France) has V.P. Yanova's organic assimilation. This is the value: natural breathing ... V.P. Yanova is not a writer. Costume stories cannot be obtained ... Organic phenomena are very rare here.

- Vladimir Sterligov ^[22]

Big and small canvases are stretched before his eyes - portraits, landscapes ... Yanova has her own attitude to the city, her own special urbanism; the modern face of the city is inseparable from history. In her works, the city is represented not only in the architectural space. The city lives for it also in the fourth dimension: its past, present and future. She inhabits her own city with many, unexpected things.

- Kudryavtseva Lidia Stepanovna , art critic, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation ^[23]

• City landscape: picturesque and graphic cycles of the 1940-1990s. “Winter Canal”, “Cathedral Street”, “Konyushennaya Square” (all - 1950-60s), “White House”, “Iron House on the Fontanka” (1940s), “Karpovka” (1940 е.), “Two pipes on Karpovka”, “Boat” (1940s) “Crosses”, “Sink. Tug. ”(1940s),“ Port ”,“ Yellow Sun ”,“ Black Night on Grebetskaya Street ”,“ Winter Evening ”,“ Round Houses. Syezhinskaya street ”(early 1960s),“ Birzhevoy bridge with a spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral ”(late 1940s),“ The bell tower of St. Catherine’s Cathedral ”(1950s),“ Mytninskaya Embankment ”(1950 f.), “Tuchkov Lane” (1970s), “Staro-Kalinkin Bridge” (1960-1970s)
• Religious subjects (cycles, 1941-2004): “Christmas” (1950s) ^[24] , “The Annunciation”, “George the Victorious”, “Golgotha”, “Virgin and Child”, “Flight to Egypt” (1950- f.), “Wives - Myrrh-bearing women at the Holy Sepulcher”, “Saint Sebastian”, “George the Victorious”, “Kiss of Judah”, “Adam and Eve”. The Faces Series (1950s)
• Still lifes: "Still Life with Chinese Porcelain" (1950s), cycles "Flowers" (1950-80s). Watercolor suites: “Tulips” ^[25] , “Cyclamens against the sky”, “Lilies”, “Yellow irises” and other works.
• Portraits: “G. N. Traugot with his sons ”(late 1940s),“ Portrait of a nanny, Avdotya Vasilievna Suchilina ”(1950s),“ Self-portrait with sons ”(late 1950s),“ Portrait of M. V Wojciechowski "(1960s)," G. N. Traugot at the easel. Family portrait. ”(1950s),“ Portrait of a husband ”(1940s),“ Lerik with a cat ”(late 1950s),“ Self-portrait in a red hat ”(1950s. ), "Family portrait. At the table "(1950s)," V. V. Sterligov, T. N. and L. N. Glebova against the background of the painting by Yanova ”(early 1980s),“ Portrait of V. D. Koshelev ”(1950s), portrait of M. V. Wojciechowski (1950s), “Portrait of A. V. Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya” (mid-1950s), portraits of V. V. Sterligov (1940s, 1953, ^[26] , 1965 ^[27] ), A. V. Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya, Ya. S. Druskin, KP Yanova, T. N. Glebova (1966) ^[26] and dozens of portraits of non-personalized individuals.

The artist often made sketches of completely unknown to her by accidentally seen people, and later painted based on these sketches. The portraits painted by Yanova are written by Ya. S. Druskin: they are characterized by “psychologism and emotionalism, Western modern philosophy and world outlook in general”, the artist “sees human nudity ... sees feelings”. ^[28]

From the 1950s to the end of the 1990s, she showed her works, mainly at apartment exhibitions ^[29] . The publication of her works in professional publications began in the 2000s ^[30] .

The artist's works are in private collections in France, Italy, Russia. ^[31] .

The painting of Vera Yanova, by the artists' own admission ^{[32] [33]} , had an impact on the work of painters and graphic artists V. G. and A. G. Traugotov, and other artists in their circle, especially A. D. Arefiev ^{[34] [35] [36]} .

The first solo exhibition of V.P. Yanova, representing her work to a wide audience, was held in the Russian Museum in August-October 2012.

• Spitsyna E. Vera Yanova // Sixteen Fridays: The second wave of the Leningrad avant-garde. In 2 hours // Experiment / Experiment: Journal of Russian culture. No. 16. - LA , 2010. - Part 2. - P. 39-43 .; Part 1. - S. 267-269.
• Sterligov V. About the Exalted. Vera Yanova. // Ibid. - See S. 270-273. See also S. by decree.
• Traugot V. Vera Pavlovna Yanova // Ibid. - See p. 134.
• Druskin, Y. S. Diaries / Comp., Prep. text, note. L. S. Druskin. - SPb. : Academic project, 1999. S. by decree.
• Kudryavtseva L., Fomin D. Line, color and mystery G. A. V. Traugot. - SPb. : Vita Nova, 2011
• Kudryavtseva L. In the workshop of the Traugot family. // "Children's Literature", 1968. - No. 4. - S. 53.
• Sterligov V.V. “And after the square I set the bowl ...” Catalog. Articles. Letters. Comp. T. Mikhienko. - M .: Elysium, 2010.S.
• Koshelev V. Wind outside the window. - SPb. : Agat, 2003 .-- pp. 116-117.
• Traugot A. G. Apartment No. 6 // Nothing is forgotten: 320 days of the siege of Leningrad 1941-1944. Ed. D.Kolpakova. SPb. : DETGIZ-Lyceum, 2005.S. 108-117; photo "April 1942. A family of artists V.P. Yanova and G.N. Traugot (p. 117).
• Rusakov A.I. - M .: Scorpio, 2008 .-- S. 30–41.
• Vladimir Sterligov. Painting. Graphic arts. 1960-1973. Comp. A.V. Povelikhin. - SPb. : OOO PRP., 2009. - S. 258-265.
• Kovalev N. In continuation of love. - Murmansk, 2009 .-- S. 161-162.
• Family Traugot / Almanac. SPB: Palace Editions, 2012.
• Tolstova A. Family Traugot. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2031756
• Eliseev N. Brush strokes. http://expert.ru/northwest/2012/36/udaryi-kistyu/

• https://web.archive.org/web/20130102134056/http://rusmuseum.ru/exhib/lenta/exhibition2012/sem_ya_traugot
• https://web.archive.org/web/20120830211354/http://www.tv100.ru/news/v-mramornom-dvorce-otkrylas-vystavka-semya-traugot-61184/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg0toMRW4Ok
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QPz0XHnprI
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp98UNHfVKc
• http://obtaz.com/the_traugot_family_01.htm