Haim Sustin biography. The eccentricities of a mad artist: Why Chaim Soutine painted his paintings naked

Already this fall, the Moscow Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, together with the Parisian Orsay and Orangerie museums, will organize a large-scale retrospective exhibition of the famous artist of the “Parisian school” Chaim Soutine in the Russian capital. It is unforgivable to miss it! The same goes for visiting unprepared. In this material we will briefly outline the life and work of Chaim Soutine.

More about the exhibition Chaim Soutine in Moscow we wrote.

Chaim Solomonovich Soutine born on January 13, 1893 in the village of Smilovichi, Minsk province, into a poor Jewish family, where he was the tenth of eleven children. It is known that Chaim loved to draw since childhood, for which, according to legend, he was beaten, because in Judaism it is forbidden to depict living beings. The parents also did not welcome their son’s hobbies, and in 1907 he fled to Minsk. Ya.M. attended the drawing school there. Kruger.

In 1909, young Chaim and his friend and also a future artist of the Parisian school, Mikhail Kikoin, fled to Vilna, where they both enrolled in the school of fine arts, dreaming of Paris.

Four years later, in 1913, a dream Chaim Soutine about Paris came true. The artist settled in the legendary "Beehive" - ​​a cheap haven for poor and talented artists in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. Soutine lived in poverty and even painted naked so as not to stain his clothes. As Soutine’s neighbor, poet Mark Talov, recalled, when the always hungry artist brought food from the shop, he first drew it, and only then ate it. “He became possessed, drooling at the thought of the upcoming “royal dinner,” said Talov.

Chaim Soutine. Still life with fish

But it is in the “Hive” Soutine met , and . With the latter they became close friends. It was Modi who introduced Soutine to the Polish merchant Leopold Zborowski, who bought paintings by the young Soutine and helped him with money.

Classes in the workshop of Fernand Cormon at the School of Fine Arts did not inspire Soutine, and he ran to the Louvre, where he enthusiastically copied the old masters. Rembrandt was his idol.

. "Woman in red on a blue background"

In 1918, he went to the south of France for seven years, where he was nourished by the stunning beauty of nature, and he worked hard. Already in 1922, he brought about two hundred new works to Paris, and they were in great demand among collectors. " Soutine“a greater artist than Van Gogh,” said American collector Albert Barnes and bought 50 paintings.

. "The White house"

Finally Soutine gets out of poverty. This gives him the opportunity to return to Paris and settle in a spacious studio, where he created his famous series of bull carcasses and numerous other still lifes.

The first personal exhibition took place in 1927 Chaim Soutine. In the same year, the artist met the Castaing spouses, who became his patrons. And already in 1935, Soutine’s canvases were exhibited in Chicago.

With the outbreak of World War II, he tried to leave for the United States, but in vain. On August 9, 1943, he died of peritonitis due to unsuccessful surgery on a stomach ulcer. He was buried under a false name in the Montparnasse cemetery.

Material prepared by: Yulia Sidimyantseva

" takes place at the Pushkin Museum named after. Pushkin. This entry contains Soutine's paintings from this exhibition. At the exhibition, the works are grouped by genre, but here, in part, not everything is in approximate chronological order.

Chaim Soutine. Chronicle of life and creativity

1893 (or 1894)

According to some sources, on June 9, according to others, on January 13, Chaim Soutine was born in the Jewish town of Smilovichi, which until 1917 was part of the Russian Empire (now the Republic of Belarus). The tenth of eleven children of Sarah and Zalman Sutin.

1903-1909

Enters the Kruger Academy.

Maria Vorobyova-Stebelskaya, pseudonym - Marevna:

“His passion for drawing was supported by his mother and the wise, kind village rabbi... When Soutine turned sixteen... he, along with Mikhail Kikoin... was sent to study with the real artist Kruger, who promised to make real artists out of them in two months.”

Circa 1919. Child with a toy. Obersteg Foundation (Im Obersteg Foundation), Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland / Chaïm Soutine. L"enfant au jouet, um 1919 /Kind mit Spielzeug /Child with a Toy. Öl auf Leinwand. 81 x 64.5 cm. Inv. Im 1521. Im Obersteg Foundation, Kunstmuseum Basel. . Original (4856 x 6136)

Moves to Vilna and enters a three-year course at the Vilna Drawing School I.P. Trutnev, recognized in 1904 as the best in Russia.

Marevna:

“Soutine did not like copying (he was not good at it), he did not like making sketches and generally drawing according to the generally accepted rules of art schools of that time.”

3.


Circa 1919. Table. Orangerie Museum / Chaïm Soutine. La Table. Vers 1919. Huile sur toile. 91 x 100. RF 1963 82. RMN-Grand Palais (musée de l'Orangerie) / Hervé Lewandowski.

1911-1913

Leaves Vilna and, together with Mikhail Kikoin, goes to Paris. Arrival dates vary. According to the first lifetime monograph on Soutine by Waldemar Georges, the artist arrived in Paris in 1911. The most scrupulous researcher of the master's life, Michel LeBrun-Franzaroli, citing police archives, writes that he ended up there on June 9, 1913. According to the memoirs of Mikhail Kikoin, he and Soutine arrived on July 14, 1912, and their first impulse was to go to the Opera Garnier to listen to Aida "

4.


Chaim Soutine. Monastery of the Capuchin Order in Céret. 1920. Leopold, private collection, sponsored by the Infinitart Foundation, Vienna / The Capuchin Convent at Céret Chaim Soutine circa 1920. via . Framed at Christie's exhibition

Soutine settles in the artists' colony "Beehive". His neighbors became Marc Chagall, who did not like his fellow countryman, as well as Hana Orlova and Jacques Lipchitz, who considered it their duty to help and support the artist.

5.


Chaim Soutine. Plane trees in Sere. 1920. Leopold, private collection, sponsored by the Infinitart Foundation, Vienna / Chaïm Soutine (1893-1943). Les platanes à Céret. Oil on canvas. 53.5 x 72.5 cm. Painted circa 1920. Sotheby's. Estimate 600,000 = 800,000 GBP. Lot Sold. 941,000 GBP (Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium).

Enters the workshop of Fernand Cormon at the School of Fine Arts.

6.

Portrait of Soutine by Amedeo Modigliani. 1917 / Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920). Chaim Soutine. 1917. Oil on canvas. 91.7 × 59.7 cm. Chester Dale Collection. Accession number 1963.10.47. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. , via . Original (2577 x 4000). This work is not at the exhibition

Sculptor Jacques Lipchitz introduces Soutine to Amedeo Modigliani, they become close friends.

7.

Portrait of Soutine by Amedeo Modigliani on the door. 1917. Private collection. The portrait can be seen on the door behind Leopold Zborowski in the photo below / Amadeo Modigliani (1884-1920) Portrait de Chaïm Soutine. 1917. Huile sur panneau. H. 79 L. 54. Collection Marlene et Spencer Hays. Droits réservés. . This work is not at the exhibition

Marevna:

“Thanks to his deep knowledge of Italian art, he [Modigliani] was an excellent guide to the Louvre and introduced Soutine to the Italian primitivists, the quattrocento artists, to Giotto, Botticelli and Tintoretto, all the masterpieces he himself admired. He introduced Soutine to the circle of brilliant young painters Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera, poets Jean Cocteau, Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob.”

8.

Leopold Zborowski against the background of the door on which is painted a portrait of Soutine by Modigliani. Photographer Amedeo Modigliani (if exhibition co-curator Claire Bernardi understands me correctly) / Leopold Zborowski, dealer of Amedeo Modigliani. Image from the apartment placed in Rue Joseph Bara nº3 in Paris, in front of the door with Soutine painted by Modigliani. Circa 1918 (lower part is lost, upper in Private collection). via. There are no photographs at the exhibition

1916-1919

Modigliani introduces Soutine to the Marchands Georges Cheron and Leopold Zborowski. Zborowski yields to Modigliani's persuasion and becomes Soutine's official agent.

9.


Around 1920-1921. Big blue tree. Orangerie Museum / Chaïm Soutine. Le Gros Arbre bleu. Vers 1920-1921. Huile sur toile. 83 x 80. RF 1963-85. RMN-Grand Palais (musée de l'Orangerie) / Thierry Le Mage.

The artist makes short trips to the south of France to Vence and Cagnes-sur-Mer. With the support of Zborovsky, he leaves for Seret and spends almost three years there in hard work, only occasionally traveling to Paris.

Creation of the “Confectioner” series.

10.

Around 1922-1923. Peizvzh. Orangerie Museum / Chaïm Soutine. Paysage. Vers 1922-1923. Huile sur toile. 92 x 65. RF 1963-84. RMN-Grand Palais (musée de l'Orangerie) / Hervé Lewandowski.

On January 24, Soutine's closest friend Amedeo Modigliani dies.

11.

1923-1924. Portrait of sculptor Oscar Meshchaninov. Center Pompidou / Chaïm Soutine (1894-1943). Portrait du sculpteur Oscar Miestchaninoff. 1923-1924. Huile sur toile. 83 x 65 cm. Numéro d'inventaire: AM 1972-30. Le Center Pompidou.

On June 9, Leon Zamaron, police commissioner and one of the first collectors of works by Utrillo, Modigliani, Soutine and other Montparnasse artists, exhibits his collection in Drouot.

This auction marks the first public sale of the artist's paintings.

12.

Chaim Soutine. Big hat. 1923-1924. Canvas, oil. Private collection.

A turning point in Soutine's life.

13.

Around 1923-1924. Woman in red. Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris / Chaïm Soutine. La femme en rouge. Vers 1923-1924. Huile sur toile. 92 x 65 cm. Inv. : AMVP 1135. Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Gallerist and collector Paul Guillaume, a consultant to Albert Barnes, a successful American pharmacist who became rich from one of the products he patented, shows the collector Soutine's works.

14.

1924. Chaim Soutine. Street in Cagnes. Canvas, oil. 55.5 × 46.4 cm. Museum of Avant-Garde Art, Moscow.

Barnes buys 52 works by the artist from Zborovsky.

15.

Around 1923-1924. Turkey and tomatoes. Orangerie Museum / Chaïm Soutine. Dindon et tomates. Vers 1923-1924. Huile sur toile. 81 x 49. RF 1963-89. RMN-Grand Palais (musée de l'Orangerie) / Franck Raux.

In January - February, Paul Guillaume organizes an exhibition of paintings acquired by Barnes in Paris, which also includes paintings by Soutine.

16.


Around 1923-1924. Still life with pheasant. Orangerie Museum / Chaïm Soutine. Nature morte au faisan. Vers 1924. Huile sur toile. 64.5 x 92. RF 1963-83. RMN-Grand Palais (musée de l'Orangerie) / Hervé Lewandowski.

The magazine “Les Arts à Paris” publishes the first article about the painter.

17.

Circa 1924. Woman in a blue dress. Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris / Chaïm Soutine. Femme à la robe bleue. Vers 1924. Huile sur toile. 81 x 60 cm. S.B.DR.: Soutine. Legs du Docteur Maurice Girardin en 1953. Inv. : AMVP 1137. MAM Ville de Paris.

In April, Albert Barnes presents his work at the exhibition "Modern European Sculpture and Painting" at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

18.

Around 1924-1925. Best man. Canvas, oil. Collection of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume. Orangerie Museum, Paris / Chaïm Soutine. Garçon d'honneur. Vers 1924-1925. Huile sur toile. 100 x 81. RF 1960-48. RMN-Grand Palais (musée de l'Orangerie) / Hervé Lewandowski.

Thanks to Barnes, Soutine gained universal recognition and material well-being. He moves to a spacious studio and rents a comfortable apartment separately. Makes his first trip to Amsterdam and visits the Rijksmuseum, where he discovers “The Jewish Bride” (now “Isaac and Rebecca”) by Rembrandt. This painting not only made a huge impression on the artist, but became a standard for him.

““The Jewish Bride” is probably the best painting in existence, with detailed clothes and such beautiful hands,” the antiquarian and collector Rene Jempelle quotes the painter in his famous diary. Soutine, who resisted copying all his life, infuriating and despairing his teachers, this time tries unsuccessfully to reproduce the painting of the Dutch master.

19.

1925. Servant (full length). Center Pompidou / Chaïm Soutine (1894-1943). Le grand enfant de choeur. 1925. Huile sur toile. 100 x 55.9 cm. Numéro d'inventaire: AM 1995-207. Le Center Pompidou.

In June, at the Henri Bing Gallery, on the most prestigious artistic street of Paris at that time, Boesi, where the Paul Rosenberg Gallery (presenting works by Matisse, Braque, Léger, Picasso), the studio of Pablo Picasso himself, one of the most prestigious antique galleries of the Wildensteins and one of the best concert halls of Gaveau, the first monographic exhibition of Soutine opens. A catalog for it was not published, but Soutine biographer Michel LeBrun-Franzarolli believes that about 20 works were presented, including one version of “Calf Carcass” and “Still Life with a Stingray.”
Soutine lives in the town of Blanc, in a house specially rented for him by Zborovsky, and paints a series of famous still lifes with carcasses of turkeys, hares, ducks, roosters, and pheasants.

20.

Circa 1925. Carcass and head of a calf. Orangerie Museum / Chaïm Soutine. Bœuf et tête de veau. Vers 1925 ? Huile sur toile. 92 x 73. RF 1963-86. RMN-Grand Palais (musée de l'Orangerie) / Hervé Lewandowski.

Soutine's works occupy a strong place in the collections of all the main collectors of that time: in addition to Albert Barnes and Paul Guillaume, the owners of paintings are Jonas Netter, Henri Bing, Jacques Doucet, and the Castaing couple.

The artist meets again with the couple of collectors and philanthropists Madeleine and Marcelin Castaing. Their close, long-term friendship begins. At this point, the Castaings own three paintings by Soutine. Madeleine Castaing, whose collection was well known in Paris - it already contained works by Modigliani, Rouault, Picasso, Gris, Léger, truly understands and appreciates Soutine's work immediately after the Barnes exhibition and begins a real hunt for his paintings. The husband shares his wife’s passion, and soon they purchase “Portrait of an Old Woman” for 800 francs. Zborovsky, having learned about the enthusiasm with which collectors are looking for Soutine’s works, offers them the painting “Chorus Boy”. Marchand estimated it at a colossal sum of 30 thousand francs, but Madeleine convinces Marcelin of the need to purchase this canvas.

The publishing house "Triangle" in the series "Jewish Artists" publishes the first monograph on Soutine by the famous art historian Waldemar Georges. The artist goes to London to see Rembrandt's "Bather".

21.

Chaim Soutine. Small town square, Vence. Around 1929. Oil on canvas. 70.8x45.7. Museum of Avant-Garde Art, Moscow

1929-1932

The beginning of the Great Depression. The economic crisis undermines Zborovsky's business and leads him to ruin. He dies after a heart attack. Soon after this, Madeleine Castaing takes over all the care of the artist.

22.

Chaim Soutine. Woman entering the water. Around 1931. Oil on canvas. 114x72. Museum of Avant-Garde Art, Moscow.

None of the strange stories about this artist contradict the other or seem to be an exaggeration, and all together they add up to the legend of a poor eccentric obsessed with painting who achieved world recognition... and did not seem to notice it. Soutine's lifestyle, which reaches the point of grotesquery, seems to be a continuation of his paintings, or perhaps, on the contrary, their beginning.

Chaim Soutine was born in 1893 in the provincial Belarusian town of Smilovichi, into a poor large family. His family could not even imagine that a boy from a devout Jewish family would become an artist and violate the religious ban on depicting “creatures with souls.” Chaim drew with charcoal on the walls, stole dishes from the house to sell them and buy pencils with the proceeds. Neither punishment nor beatings could turn him away from his favorite pastime. A short stay in Minsk, where young Soutine worked as a retoucher in a photo studio, ended dramatically: he painted a portrait of a rabbi, for which he was severely beaten by his son. However, the money received in court as compensation for the beatings allowed the young man to leave for Vilna, where he finally began studying at an art school. In 1913, after two years of study, Soutine went to Paris: in the Russian Empire, the path to large cities was closed to him, since the movement of Jews was limited by the notorious Pale of Settlement.

Flounder and tomatoes

He settled in Montparnasse, in the legendary “Beehive”: that was the name of the former exhibition pavilion, rebuilt into cheap art studios. Many future celebrities, and at that time unknown, poor artists who flocked to Paris from all over the world, brought the “honey” of their creativity to this “Hive.” Among people like Soutine who came from Russia was Marc Chagall. Tormented by lack of money, Soutine was ready for any work: he tried to work as a loader, laborer, model, but he was driven from everywhere - he was simply unable to do anything other than painting.

Let's imagine Soutine from the time of the Hive. A shy provincial who couldn’t really speak either Russian (Soutine’s native language was Yiddish) or, especially, French, he seemed to many to be an illiterate ignoramus. Clumsy, unkempt, with “the eyes of a hunted animal” (Ilya Erenburg), wearing a worn coat over his naked body... “An absolutely wild man,” is how one of his contemporaries described Soutine.

Crazy

He pounded on neighbors' doors at night, demanding that they give him at least a piece of bread. But having obtained a couple of herrings and an onion, he immediately took up the still life and, although his mind was clouded from hunger, did not touch the food until he completed the work. He tried to pay everyone with his paintings: with the people from whom he borrowed money, with the policeman who treated him with understanding at the station (Soutine was taken to the police station when he was found sleeping in a trash bin).

The models, exhausted by hours-long sessions, cried and refused to work with him. Neighbors fled, unable to bear the smell of decomposing meat, which Soutine brought from the slaughterhouse next door to the “Beehive” for still lifes on hot summer days. And he, not noticing the stench, stood naked in front of the easel and gently touched the canvas with his brush, as if it were a living body.

“The Wild Man” read a lot and studied diligently: for a very short time - at the School of Fine Arts and constantly - in museum halls. “When they approached him, he jumped to the side. He looked at the paintings of the masters of the past like a believer at the images of saints,” recalled the French critic Voldemar Georges, who met Soutine at the museum. His idol was Rembrandt. Soutine traveled to Amsterdam three times to see Rembrandt's paintings at the Rijksmuseum and claimed to be talking to the great Dutchman in his sleep.

Still life with fish

Many turned away from Soutine, who shocked even the Parisian bohemia with his extravagance, but he also made friends. Amedeo Modigliani became his closest friend, who recognized the genius in Soutine from the very first minute of their acquaintance. This friendship did not last long (Modigliani died in 1920), but it became fateful for Soutine. Modigliani introduced Soutine to the collector Leopold Zborowski and the sculptor Oscar Meshchaninov. Both surrounded the artist with care: Zborovsky began to exhibit Soutine’s paintings and sent him to work in the south of France, Meshchaninov provided him with his workshop. It was at the Zborovsky painting that the American collector Albert Barnes saw Soutine in 1922 and bought all the works at once. This is how fame and prosperity came to Soutine: successful exhibitions followed in Paris, Chicago, New York, London, a small monograph was published, and an excellent workshop overlooking the Seine appeared. But fame and wealth did not change the artist: he still did not care about everyday life, and was not interested in anything except painting. When he no longer liked his already sold paintings, Soutine tried to buy them back from the owners in order to destroy them.

The Second World War found Soutine in France. He refused to emigrate to the United States, although he had the opportunity. Fleeing from raids on Jews, he lived on false documents in a small town, and twice tried to volunteer for the front. Chaim Soutine died in 1943 from peritonitis: a stomach ulcer worsened - a legacy of the hungry years of the Hive. He died when, hidden in a funeral hearse, he was secretly transported to Paris, where a surgeon was waiting, ready, despite the prohibitions of the authorities, to perform an emergency operation on a patient of Jewish origin. Soutine was buried using the same false documents in the Montparnasse cemetery. Only a few people were not afraid to come to see him off, among whom was Pablo Picasso.

Scenery. Cagnes-sur-Mer

The words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet “time is out of joint” - “the century is dislocated” (translation by A. Radlova) seem to be the best epigraph to Soutine’s work, framed by two world wars. His portraits, still lifes, and landscapes are permeated with a feeling of the inescapable catastrophism of existence. Probably, he really was endowed with some kind of super sensitive “animal” intuition and subconsciously grasped all the tragedy, all the horror of his era, like animals sense the approach of a natural disaster.

Why, while living in the Hive, did he spend hours watching what was happening at the slaughterhouse next door? Why, of all the paintings by Rembrandt that he saw in the Louvre, did Soutine prefer the 1655 painting “The Butchered Bull Carcass”? Why, of all the colors, was it blood red that brought him into a state of almost painful ecstasy and dominated his work? Scarlet clothes and chairs, brick-red walls, red tomatoes, red flowers, the flaming insides of skinned beef carcasses... The answer suggests itself: the artist saw the world as a gigantic slaughterhouse, inevitably dooming all living things to destruction.

Soutine seems to animate matter: kitchen utensils, musical instruments, plants - everything turns under his brush into suffering, vulnerable flesh. A violin with a thin waist and a drooping neck looks like a scolded girl ("Still Life with a Violin", 1922), gladioli resemble bleeding wounds ("Gladioli", 1919), teaspoons lying on the table are like naked large-headed bodies, an onion with roots looks like it has been mercilessly torn out tooth ("Still Life with a Tureen", 1916), hungry forks reach out predatorily and pitifully for food ("Still Life with Herring", 1916). And what did Soutine do with the quiet, idyllic French towns! "In Soutine's landscapes, under the ruthless, who knows no respite , in the hurricane wind the trees writhe and helplessly twirl their disheveled leaves./.../ In his paintings, neat French landscapes lose their usual appearance: houses, land, trees are twisted and torn from their places. This obsessive motif of forced, violent movement is repeated from picture to picture “- writes researcher of the artist’s work Mikhail German.

Groom in red

There is no “dead” nature in Soutine’s still lifes. All these crucified bulls (“The Flayed Bull” 1924, “Carcass”, 1925), birds and rabbits hanging upside down (“Chicken and Tomatoes”, 1924, “Hanging Rabbit”, 1923), gripped by mortal fear of fish on plates (“Still Life” with fish”, 1921, “Fish and tomatoes”, 1927) are killed, but not dead at all. Their eyes, the eyes of the victims, continue to live - they stare in fear, reproaching. And with the same half-crazed, intense eyes, the heroes of Soutine’s portraits look at us - children with the faces of old men, women who look like monkeys, messenger boys, cooks (“The Madwoman”, 1919, “Girl with a Doll”, 1919, “Scullion with a Red Scarf” , 1922, “The Woman in Red”, 1923, “The Bellboy”, 1928). And just like the paws of slaughtered chickens, their hands are twisted; just like the upturned earth and tilted houses in Soutine landscapes, heads, faces, and bodies are deformed.

Soutine would have been the darkest of painters if all this swirling, tactile, dense matter screaming with bright colors had not been so beautiful. That ecstasy, that delight that amazed everyone who saw Soutine work was captured in his canvases.

Still life with an onion

He is a very complete artist. Already in his earliest Parisian works, Soutine acted as an established painter with his own view of the world, and in the future, whether he was poor or prosperous, this view, full of compassion and admiration, did not change. He was not interested in innovation as such, formal searches that fascinated, for example, Picasso. The characteristic deformations of nature, by which Soutine’s works are immediately recognizable, were a natural way of expressing the feeling of universal pain that overwhelmed the artist. Soutine’s work is difficult to attribute to any artistic movement: it does not fit into the history of art of the 20th century, ordered by various “isms,” just as the artist himself did not fit into the orderly flow of life.

Today, Chaim Soutine's paintings are increasingly expensive at auction, running into millions of dollars, and although his name is less known to the general public than the names of Chagall and Modigliani, art critics and collectors place Soutine's works on a par with the works of his great contemporaries.

In the preview: Amedeo Modigliani. Portrait of Chaim Soutine (detail)

Chaim Soutine. 1893-1943
French expressionist artist of Jewish origin.

The personality of Chaim Soutine, one of the best masters of expressionism representing the French school, was surrounded by secrets and mysteries during his lifetime, and still, despite the efforts of art critics and historians, it is not possible to reveal all the pages of his biography.

The future artist was born on the territory of the Russian Empire, in the village of Smilovichi near Minsk. Year of birth, according to some sources, 1893, according to others - 1894. A large Jewish family lived on the verge of poverty, strictly observing religious canons, therefore, when young Chaim showed a craving for drawing, his parents, Orthodox believers, did their best to prevent such “ungodly” lesson, and because he drew a rabbi, the child was severely beaten. According to one legend, the clergyman himself, having learned about this drawing, gave the “victim painter” 25 rubles; With this money, Soutine fled home, settling briefly in Minsk. The Kruger Artist School became his first educational institution, and his livelihood was provided by working as a retoucher.

For creative improvement, in 1910 Soutine, in the company of his friend M. Kikoin, moved to Vilna, where he studied at the School of Fine Arts for three years, while the thoughts of young artists were constantly occupied with Paris.

A sickly young man with awkward movements worked with incredible persistence, and when he painted, it seemed that reason was leaving him, but the main thing was that extremely expressive paintings appeared, filled with color and ambiguity.

The dream of Paris came true in 1913, however, the capital of modern art quickly sobered up Soutine, and the ordeal made him seriously think about returning to his parents, but compatriot O. Zadkine suggested painting in his studio; Having accepted the offer, Soutine remained in this city until the end of his days (a seven-year “break” was taken in 1918, when he moved to the south of France).

In Paris, the artist studied for some time at the Academy of Fine Arts, but, like most extremely subjective artists, he quickly became tired of the traditional teaching style, and the Louvre became a real university.

Landscapes with views of the Pyrenees and Riviera are the first works in which the artist’s individual style became recognizable. Still lifes appeared, as well as portraits of grooms, servants, and choir members, executed in an expressionist manner. This was followed by Woman Entering the Water, his famous work created in imitation of a painting by Rembrandt, a master he especially revered.

It is believed that the paintings of bloody carcasses, the subject that brought Soutine the greatest fame, were the result of his constant observation of slaughterhouses where cattle were butchered; Zadkine's workshop was located next to the place where animals were slaughtered. This is where his style of writing may come from, conveying the color red in such a “bloody” interpretation.

The use of aggressive colors, as well as perspective, which can be described as “skewed”, are one of the main components of Soutine’s painting, which was formed by 1919. From this moment on, autonomy of color appears in the works, and this feature will be repeated in later works. Characteristic in this regard is the “Self-Portrait” created in 1918.

The paintings, created in the south of France, were brought to Paris in 1922, their number was about two hundred, but some of the works were later destroyed by him. The time is coming for his financial stability, and with it, attention to his painting.

In the mid-20s, Soutine painted a series of paintings depicting the bodies of dead animals, which was a consequence of the influence of Rembrandt, without focusing on anatomical accuracy, but creating something akin to an orgy of color; He sees one of the main tasks in creating a type of blood that the viewer would “believe.” The “Slaughtered Bulls” series completes this “bloody” line.

The first personal exhibition took place in 1927, and with it came real fame, which did not affect his indifferent attitude to money and fame.

During this period, Soutine’s work acquired a lyrical tone, expression left his works, and this is associated with the influence of Courbet’s painting.

At the end of the 30s, the style of Soutine's works was again filled with expression. Anti-Semitism is gradually becoming a grim reality, and against this backdrop, the artist in his paintings conveys the terrible state of people who have been subjected to cruel trials. He himself, in 1940, broke up with his German companion Gerda Grot, who was taken to a concentration camp, after which he was forced to hide in the countryside, while still continuing to paint.

The artist died on 08/09/1943 in a Paris hospital, the day after an operation performed due to an acute attack of gastric ulcer.

None of the strange stories about this artist contradict the other or seem to be an exaggeration, and all together they add up to the legend of a poor eccentric obsessed with painting who achieved world recognition... and did not seem to notice it. Soutine's lifestyle, which reaches the point of grotesquery, seems to be a continuation of his paintings, or perhaps, on the contrary, their beginning.

Chaim Soutine was born in 1893 in the provincial Belarusian town of Smilovichi, into a poor large family. His family could not even imagine that a boy from a devout Jewish family would become an artist and violate the religious ban on depicting “creatures with souls.” Chaim drew with charcoal on the walls, stole dishes from the house to sell them and buy pencils with the proceeds. Neither punishment nor beatings could turn him away from his favorite pastime. A short stay in Minsk, where young Soutine worked as a retoucher in a photo studio, ended dramatically: he painted a portrait of a rabbi, for which he was severely beaten by his son. However, the money received in court as compensation for the beatings allowed the young man to leave for Vilna, where he finally began studying at an art school. In 1913, after two years of study, Soutine went to Paris: in the Russian Empire, the path to large cities was closed to him, since the movement of Jews was limited by the notorious Pale of Settlement.

Flounder and tomatoes

He settled in Montparnasse, in the legendary “Beehive”: that was the name of the former exhibition pavilion, rebuilt into cheap art studios. Many future celebrities, and at that time unknown, poor artists who flocked to Paris from all over the world, brought the “honey” of their creativity to this “Hive.” Among people like Soutine who came from Russia was Marc Chagall. Tormented by lack of money, Soutine was ready for any work: he tried to work as a loader, laborer, model, but he was driven from everywhere - he was simply unable to do anything other than painting.

Let's imagine Soutine from the time of the Hive. A shy provincial who couldn’t really speak either Russian (Soutine’s native language was Yiddish) or, especially, French, he seemed to many to be an illiterate ignoramus. Clumsy, unkempt, with “the eyes of a hunted animal” (Ilya Erenburg), wearing a worn coat over his naked body... “An absolutely wild man,” is how one of his contemporaries described Soutine.

Crazy

He pounded on neighbors' doors at night, demanding that they give him at least a piece of bread. But having obtained a couple of herrings and an onion, he immediately took up the still life and, although his mind was clouded from hunger, did not touch the food until he completed the work. He tried to pay everyone with his paintings: with the people from whom he borrowed money, with the policeman who treated him with understanding at the station (Soutine was taken to the police station when he was found sleeping in a trash bin).

The models, exhausted by hours-long sessions, cried and refused to work with him. Neighbors fled, unable to bear the smell of decomposing meat, which Soutine brought from the slaughterhouse next door to the “Beehive” for still lifes on hot summer days. And he, not noticing the stench, stood naked in front of the easel and gently touched the canvas with his brush, as if it were a living body.

“The Wild Man” read a lot and studied diligently: for a very short time - at the School of Fine Arts and constantly - in museum halls. “When they approached him, he jumped to the side. He looked at the paintings of the masters of the past like a believer at the images of saints,” recalled the French critic Voldemar Georges, who met Soutine at the museum. His idol was Rembrandt. Soutine traveled to Amsterdam three times to see Rembrandt's paintings at the Rijksmuseum and claimed to be talking to the great Dutchman in his sleep.

Still life with fish

Many turned away from Soutine, who shocked even the Parisian bohemia with his extravagance, but he also made friends. Amedeo Modigliani became his closest friend, who recognized the genius in Soutine from the very first minute of their acquaintance. This friendship did not last long (Modigliani died in 1920), but it became fateful for Soutine. Modigliani introduced Soutine to the collector Leopold Zborowski and the sculptor Oscar Meshchaninov. Both surrounded the artist with care: Zborovsky began to exhibit Soutine’s paintings and sent him to work in the south of France, Meshchaninov provided him with his workshop. It was at the Zborovsky painting that the American collector Albert Barnes saw Soutine in 1922 and bought all the works at once. This is how fame and prosperity came to Soutine: successful exhibitions followed in Paris, Chicago, New York, London, a small monograph was published, and an excellent workshop overlooking the Seine appeared. But fame and wealth did not change the artist: he still did not care about everyday life, and was not interested in anything except painting. When he no longer liked his already sold paintings, Soutine tried to buy them back from the owners in order to destroy them.

The Second World War found Soutine in France. He refused to emigrate to the United States, although he had the opportunity. Fleeing from raids on Jews, he lived on false documents in a small town, and twice tried to volunteer for the front. Chaim Soutine died in 1943 from peritonitis: a stomach ulcer worsened - a legacy of the hungry years of the Hive. He died when, hidden in a funeral hearse, he was secretly transported to Paris, where a surgeon was waiting, ready, despite the prohibitions of the authorities, to perform an emergency operation on a patient of Jewish origin. Soutine was buried using the same false documents in the Montparnasse cemetery. Only a few people were not afraid to come to see him off, among whom was Pablo Picasso.

Scenery. Cagnes-sur-Mer

The words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet “time is out of joint” - “the century is dislocated” (translation by A. Radlova) seem to be the best epigraph to Soutine’s work, framed by two world wars. His portraits, still lifes, and landscapes are permeated with a feeling of the inescapable catastrophism of existence. Probably, he really was endowed with some kind of super sensitive “animal” intuition and subconsciously grasped all the tragedy, all the horror of his era, like animals sense the approach of a natural disaster.

Why, while living in the Hive, did he spend hours watching what was happening at the slaughterhouse next door? Why, of all the paintings by Rembrandt that he saw in the Louvre, did Soutine prefer the 1655 painting “The Butchered Bull Carcass”? Why, of all the colors, was it blood red that brought him into a state of almost painful ecstasy and dominated his work? Scarlet clothes and chairs, brick-red walls, red tomatoes, red flowers, the flaming insides of skinned beef carcasses... The answer suggests itself: the artist saw the world as a gigantic slaughterhouse, inevitably dooming all living things to destruction.

Soutine seems to animate matter: kitchen utensils, musical instruments, plants - everything turns under his brush into suffering, vulnerable flesh. A violin with a thin waist and a drooping neck looks like a scolded girl ("Still Life with a Violin", 1922), gladioli resemble bleeding wounds ("Gladioli", 1919), teaspoons lying on the table are like naked large-headed bodies, an onion with roots looks like it has been mercilessly torn out tooth ("Still Life with a Tureen", 1916), hungry forks reach out predatorily and pitifully for food ("Still Life with Herring", 1916). And what did Soutine do with the quiet, idyllic French towns! "In Soutine's landscapes, under the ruthless, who knows no respite , in the hurricane wind the trees writhe and helplessly twirl their disheveled leaves./.../ In his paintings, neat French landscapes lose their usual appearance: houses, land, trees are twisted and torn from their places. This obsessive motif of forced, violent movement is repeated from picture to picture “- writes researcher of the artist’s work Mikhail German.

Groom in red

There is no “dead” nature in Soutine’s still lifes. All these crucified bulls (“The Flayed Bull” 1924, “Carcass”, 1925), birds and rabbits hanging upside down (“Chicken and Tomatoes”, 1924, “Hanging Rabbit”, 1923), gripped by mortal fear of fish on plates (“Still Life” with fish”, 1921, “Fish and tomatoes”, 1927) are killed, but not dead at all. Their eyes, the eyes of the victims, continue to live - they stare in fear, reproaching. And with the same half-crazed, intense eyes, the heroes of Soutine’s portraits look at us - children with the faces of old men, women who look like monkeys, messenger boys, cooks (“The Madwoman”, 1919, “Girl with a Doll”, 1919, “Scullion with a Red Scarf” , 1922, “The Woman in Red”, 1923, “The Bellboy”, 1928). And just like the paws of slaughtered chickens, their hands are twisted; just like the upturned earth and tilted houses in Soutine landscapes, heads, faces, and bodies are deformed.

Soutine would have been the darkest of painters if all this swirling, tactile, dense matter screaming with bright colors had not been so beautiful. That ecstasy, that delight that amazed everyone who saw Soutine work was captured in his canvases.

Still life with an onion

He is a very complete artist. Already in his earliest Parisian works, Soutine acted as an established painter with his own view of the world, and in the future, whether he was poor or prosperous, this view, full of compassion and admiration, did not change. He was not interested in innovation as such, formal searches that fascinated, for example, Picasso. The characteristic deformations of nature, by which Soutine’s works are immediately recognizable, were a natural way of expressing the feeling of universal pain that overwhelmed the artist. Soutine’s work is difficult to attribute to any artistic movement: it does not fit into the history of art of the 20th century, ordered by various “isms,” just as the artist himself did not fit into the orderly flow of life.

Today, Chaim Soutine's paintings are increasingly expensive at auction, running into millions of dollars, and although his name is less known to the general public than the names of Chagall and Modigliani, art critics and collectors place Soutine's works on a par with the works of his great contemporaries.

In the preview: Amedeo Modigliani. Portrait of Chaim Soutine (detail)