Spring (painting by Plastov)

According to the stories of his daughter-in-law, the artist Elena Kholodilina, Arkady Plastov treated the spring with great trepidation. In winter he lived in Moscow , and in the spring he came to his small homeland in Prislonikha and he himself necessarily took out the second frames in the house and opened the windows. This action was reminiscent of a ritual ^[10] . The idea of ​​the painting “Spring” dates back to 1944, and the artist’s work on it began in January 1945 (most of the war Plastov lived in his native Prislonikha ^[1] ). On January 5, Arkady Alexandrovich wrote to his wife from Moscow: “4 days ago I made a watercolor sketch of the picture for which I’ve been going to do sketches for you for the whole year — this is a nude woman dressing in a child’s dressing room, this will be necessary in the summer” ^[2] . The author managed to complete the work on the painting only in 1954 ^[11] . It is known that the artist in the work on the canvas helped his son, Nikolai Arkadyevich ^[1] .

In the early 50s, Plast reached creative maturity. The style of his work has changed - he has moved away from the socially designated plot. After the expressiveness and fury of the paintings characteristic of the 1930s, saturated with “passion and fury”, after the dramatic “ Haymaking ” and “Harvest” created in the 40s, Plastov proceeded to create paintings imbued with the harmony of man with the world. His paintings of the 50s and 60s were, according to the art critic, "an intimate, passionate whisper of the artist’s soul" ^[12] . The artist’s everyday genre at that time, while maintaining a narrative-everyday basis, acquired a new quality and moved to another level, which was associated with the metaphorical poetic embodiment ^[5] .

The subject of a naked female body has long been poorly represented in Soviet painting. Full of crude sensuality or sophisticated eroticism , nude paintings presented in pre-revolutionary salons did not meet the goal set for the art of the new era - to be the bearer of advanced ideas of our time. One of the first Plasts returned the image of a naked female body to Soviet painting ^[13] . His early experiments in this genre were the pictures “Saturday” and “Tractor-drivers”. They were created during the war (1942-1943). One of the tasks of the nude genre is the search for the ideal of bodily and spiritual beauty. In realizing this task, Plastov followed an anti- academic tradition (it is represented by such paintings as “ Olympia ” by Eduard Manet and “ Ida Rubinstein ” by Valentin Serov ) - he contrasted the generally accepted ideal with his own idea of ​​it. The artist refused to follow the ideal of Antiquity or Renaissance , he portrayed a real person - his contemporary. The object of admiration is not the appearance of the heroine, but harmony in the relationship between a woman and a child, the joy of their existence and meeting ^[6] .

Models for the canvas "Spring"

The painting depicts the artist’s own bathhouse, located near the Uren River. It was built in 1944 (covered with a hedge , but the dressing room was left open ^[2] ). Nina Sharymova became a little model. For this, the artist gave her a piece of elegant silk on the dress. While the girl was running home with a gift, she lost the fabric and returned to the artist in tears, he promised to give her the same cut later ^[14] . Plast was well acquainted with the family of his young model. Maria Nikolaevna Sharymova, the girl’s mother, was the niece of Plastov’s nanny, Ekaterina Vasilyevna Sharymova, often visited the artist’s family, and sometimes posed for him for many hours in a row (including for her paintings “ Gurtovitsa Manya Sharymova” and “Mama” ^[15] ). Later, Nina Sharymova worked as a seller in Yazykovo and Ulyanovsk , then she moved to Togliatti in the Samara region , worked there as a bank employee ^[16] . The biographer of the artist A. M. Avdonin-Biryuchevsky believed that the image of a young woman who dresses a girl is collective ^[17] . Researcher at the Tretyakov Gallery, E. A. Polishchuk, insisted (without giving a name) that this character also had a specific prototype - a fifteen-year-old girl from Prislonikha who, from an early age, repeatedly posed for Plastova. The artist later captured her in the painting "Young", where she and her husband are walking along a rural street ^[1] . Arkady Plastov made snow flakes depicted in the picture from cotton wool , he distributed them on the canvas so that they did not fall on the naked body of a woman ^[1] .

Painting at the Tretyakov Gallery and at exhibitions

The painting "Spring" was completed in 1954. Her size is 210 × 123 cm . It is made in the technique of oil painting on canvas ^[11] . For the first time she was presented to a wide audience at an exhibition at the USSR Academy of Arts . With exhibitions, the picture traveled to many countries of the world. The State Tretyakov Gallery acquired the canvas in the 1960s ^[1] . The inventory number of the painting in the gallery's collection is ZhS-763 ^[18] . The picture was repeatedly shown at the beginning of the XXI century at exhibitions. In particular, she entered the exhibition in the Marble Palace of the Russian Museum , timed to coincide with the summit of the " Big Seven " in 2006 ^[3] .

“Spring” was presented at some first exhibitions under other names - “Old Village”, “In the Old Village”, “Spring in the Old Village”, “In the Bathhouse”, “Spring. In the bath ”, however, at present they are not used ^{[19] [17]} . Critics demanded the renaming of the painting, arguing that in the modern Soviet village there are no chicken huts, smoked walls and a straw lined floor. Arkady Plastov even thought about changing the name, because he was afraid that the picture would close the road to the viewer ^[7] , but settled on his supplement, which is also not currently in use: “Spring. The old village ” ^[1] . Another version in his book was presented by Honored Artist of the RSFSR Igor Dolgopolov. He claimed from the words of the artist’s son, Nikolai Plastov, that this name was given without the knowledge of the author by the staff of the Tretyakov Gallery. During a visit to the gallery Arkady Plastov saw a sign “Spring. Old Village ”, in indignation, he tore off the inscription“ Old Village ”from it, leaving only“ Spring ” ^[20] .

Irina Emelyanova and Evelina Polishchuk noted that visitors to the Tretyakov Gallery called the painting "Northern Venus " ^[21] . Currently, the picture opens a section of art of the second half of the twentieth century in the hall number 28 of the permanent exhibition of the New Tretyakov Gallery ^[6] .

Plastov chose a story where nudity seems natural to the viewer: a young woman in an open dressing room of a “chicken” village bath, heated “black”, dresses a girl. The naked body (“pink -mother-of-pearl tones”) of a young woman with brownish reddish hair is compared by the artist with the gray log walls darkened with time, the bath door blackened from soot and with the warm tone of golden straw on the floor of the dressing room. The heroine's face breathes revitalization, the movements of her body and hands are harmonious ^[22] . Snowflakes with white stars are woven into the golden hair of a woman dressing a girl, melt on her hot pearl pink naked body ^[23] . The main heroine of the picture is the embodiment of all the beautiful that carries youth in itself, it combines inner wealth and outer charm. Taking a simple everyday motive, the artist created an image of youth, full of femininity and purity ^[22] . The girl dressed by the woman “pursed her lips and lifted her nose with pleasure” ^[16] . Some biographers, including Avdonin-Biryuchevsky, who knew the artist closely, called the characters in the painting mother and daughter ^[24] , Evelina Polishchuk perceived them as sisters ^[1] .

The plot in the picture is a means of expressing thoughts, and not an end in itself. The young woman in the picture becomes the personification of the Russian spring ^[19] . The literal “text” of the picture (a naked girl dresses a girl after a bath) is blocked by “subtext” (the beauty of youth, its energy, life-affirming pathos ). The Russian nature gives the picture an allegorical character ^[25] . The landscape in the picture is poetic: a gray veil of clouds has dragged on the sky, large snowflakes are falling, the earth is being cleared of snow cover. The things depicted in the picture are emphasized material: cold heavy water in a bucket, brightly polished copper basin ^[26] . Moving the scene to the interior would turn the canvas into a purely genre picture , which does not give rise to broad generalizations and associations ^[25] .

The artist and art critic V.I. Kostin, in a book published in 1956, wrote that the painting at the very first exhibitions raised many questions for the author, disputes and conflicting assessments. It was noted that the painting was supposedly “life-justified” and was caused by the author’s desire to convey the purely pictorial effect of a naked body against a dark background. Defenders of Plastov noted that a naked female body is a traditional theme in painting, but thanks to prudes and bureaucrats, it did not appear for many years in works exhibited at exhibitions in the Soviet Union. This topic, although secondary to Soviet art, should still receive an artistic reflection that meets the ethical and aesthetic ideas of Soviet people. The painting "Spring", from this point of view, was one of the first attempts to solve this artistic problem. It is the motive of the bath that makes this attempt vitally justified. The artist did not seek to convey outstanding beauty, to create the perfect image, he wanted to paint the most ordinary woman in a simple natural pose. Its charm is in youth, simplicity, chastity, health ^[8] . V.I. Kostin noted as a merit of the canvas that Plastov showed hardening of a Russian person - a naked woman easily tolerates the cold and, not afraid of a cold, is not in a hurry, busy wrapping up a girl already washed in the bath ^[27] . Galina Shubina clarified that nudity in Soviet art was interpreted as “the“ clothing form ”of athletes and workers, but in Plastov’s picture she was justified only by a hint of the special status of the heroine, which allegorically represents early spring ^[28] . The poverty of peasant life in the picture (the bath is heated in black, there is no electricity, a minimum of amenities) was of secondary importance to the author, but her image in the 1950s was also perceived disapprovingly ^[6] .

Filmmaker Sergei Gerasimov believed that the picture "The Old Village" undeservedly received a negative rating. Objecting to critics, he said:

Nationality implies a deep, meaningful idea, liveliness and imagery of its embodiment, national temperament and, very importantly, warmth as a result of the artist’s love for his material, for life itself ... Plastov loves his heroes and subtly understands their nature. What did he see in this woman? Is it only the beautiful nudity of her healthy energetic body? .. This incidental beauty of the work. His real charm in the whole intonation of the thing, the intonation of fresh, young motherhood, in that beautiful village and such national business spirit that fulfills the image of a young mother ...

- Alexander Avdonin-Biryuchevsky. Arkady Aleksandrovich Plastov ^[24]

According to art critic Galina Leontyeva , there is a “roll of moods” between Arkady Plastov’s paintings “ First Snow ” (1946, Tver Regional Art Gallery , oil on canvas, 146 × 113 cm , inventory number - w-1304 ^[29] ) and “Spring” : “... one such one flashes in a stream of bright sunny spring days - quiet, illuminated by a faded even light, full of autumn reverie. Spring seems to recall autumn. ” “First Snow” depicts the arrival of winter. The painting "Spring" captures the day when winter is already leaving. In one picture, the first snow pours from the sky, in another - large fluffy flakes of the last snow fall on the ground ^[30] .

The writer Alexandra Piskunova talked about her impressions of the picture:

... I entered the hall and, not yet clearly understanding what was in front of me, rushed to the canvas. It hung against the windows. Gray winter light from the street fell on the picture, on the pink body of a naked young woman, squatting in a dressing room without a roof, to put on a washed daughter. Above it was heavy and rare spring snow, and the time of day in the picture was the same, twilight, and it all came together - life and art, and it was surprisingly light and light in my soul.

- Alexander Avdonin-Biryuchevsky. Arkady Alexandrovich Plastov ^[17]

According to philologist and art critic Tatyana Plastova, in the painting "Spring" the artist managed to embody the ideal of bodily and spiritual beauty that lives in the heart of every person and, as a rule, does not find embodiment in real life. The coldness, some detachment, the touching image of the child, the simplicity and naturalness of the plot put this work on a pedestal of pure delight and chaste love, inaccessible to sensory perception, and the author’s title “Spring” (and not “In the Old Bath”, for example) emphasizes its metaphor ^{[31 ]} .

Researcher at the Tretyakov Gallery Evgenia Yarkova notes that the modesty of the life of the heroes of the picture is "interrupted" by a stream of golden light. He highlights the naked figure of a woman on the canvas. The source of illumination to the viewer is unknown. According to the art historian, this detail correlates "Spring" with the myth of Danai , which is a classic for the "nude" genre. In paintings depicting this scene, the light is sometimes presented in the form of rain from coins. Plastov’s light is not a plot element, as in the paintings depicting Danai (under the guise of golden rain, Zeus penetrated his beloved), but a compositional device. The interaction of light and air in the space of the picture gives the effect of momentary. The color of falling snow changes from dull to bright as it approaches the body of a woman, which Yarkova perceives as an allegory of spring. Brown hair, golden ears of corn, pinkish tones of a woman’s skin are contrasted by the artist’s bathhouse door, water in a bucket, landscape . The feeling of warmth is created by the steam coming out of the bathhouse, and the cold is covered by snow covered ground. A significant detail that complements the effect of randomness in the composition is the green mitten on the straw that is highlighted in color, which plays the role of a hot tuning fork in the overall tonal structure of the work ^[6] .

Candidate of art criticism I. I. Filippova, in his dissertation on the late period of the artist’s work, notes that unlike other works by Plastov, where the characters exist independently of each other, are at the mercy of their own thoughts, in the film “Spring” the drama is based on interaction heroes - mother and child. In such paintings, where the characters are in direct communication with each other, the artist rarely managed to achieve credibility and choose the appropriate intonation. In “Spring”: “the figurative-semantic line is built on subtle emotional directions that connect the action into a single whole that cannot be divided or interrupted. In a genre scene, in a domestic situation, the artist presents such a wealth of feelings and emotions that the works of this genre rarely claim to be ” ^[4] .

• Allenova E.M . ; Volodina T .; Krasilin M .; Borisovskaya N.A .; Gordon E. Arkady Aleksandrovich Plastov // Russian artists from “A” to “Z”. - M .: Slovo, 2000 .-- 216 p. - ISBN 5-8505-0231-9 .
• Avdonin-Biryuchevsky A.M. Arkady Alexandrovich Plastov. - Ulyanovsk: Corporation of Promotion Technologies, 2006. - 55 p. - 1000 copies.
• Dedyukhin V. A. Snezhinki // Prislonikhi paints (About the artist A. Plastov). - Saratov: Volga Book Publishing House, 1970. - 104 p. - 15,000 copies.
• Dolgopolov I.V. Arkady Plastov // Masters and Masterpieces. - M: Art, 1988. - T. III. - S. 283-314. - 784 p. - 100,000 copies.
• Emelyanova I.D. Arkady Plastov. - M .: Fine Arts, 1971. - 56 p. - 30,000 copies.
• Жукова А. С. Под русским солнцем // С веком наравне. Рассказы о картинах. Comp. В. И. Порудоминский. — М. : Молодая гвардия, 1969. — Т. 2. — С. 431—437. — 464 с. - 100,000 copies.
• Козлов Ю. В. , Авдонин А. М. Жизнь и судьба Аркадия Пластова. — Ульяновск: Корпорация технологий продвижения, 2013. — 2000 экз. — ISBN 978-5-946-55237-0 .
• Костин В. И. Аркадий Александрович Пластов. — М. : Советский художник, 1956. — 5000 экз.
• Леонтьева Г. К. Аркадий Александрович Пластов. — Л. : Художник РСФСР, 1965. — (Народная библиотечка по искусству). - 20,000 copies.
• Пластова Т. Ю. Весна и лето // Пластов. — М. : Директ-Медиа, Комсомольская правда, 2011. — 48 с. — (Великие художники). - 3000 copies. — ISBN 978-5-7475-0082-2 .
• Ситнина М. К. Времена года: русская пейзажная живопись. — М. : Искусство, 1966. — 35 с.
• Сысоев В. П. Аркадий Пластов. — М. : Белый город, 2001. — 3000 экз.
• Филиппова И. И. Дети и детство в живописи А. А. Пластова // Русский мир : Журнал. — 2014. — 14 ( № 1 ).
• Филиппова И. И. Живопись Аркадия Пластова 1930—1960-х годов. Творческий метод и образно-смысловые структуры. Диссертация на соискание ученой степени кандидата искусствоведения . - SPb. : Санкт-Петербургский государственный академический институт живописи, скульптуры и архитектуры имени И. Е. Репина при Российской академии художеств, 2018. — 182 с.
• Шубина Г. Аркадий Пластов (1893—1972) // Епихин С., Рассказова А., Светляков К., Сидорова Н., Терехова С., Шклярская Я., Шубина Г. Государственная Третьяковская галерея на Крымском Валу. Искусство XX века. Guide. — М. : Paulsen, 2014. — С. 166—167. - 291 p. — ISBN 987-5-98797-080-5.