Pavel Filonov. The most mysterious artist of the Russian avant-garde

Pavel Nikolaevich Filonov is one of the outstanding representatives of the Russian avant-garde in the fine arts of the early 20th century. He entered Russian art on the eve of the First World War and immediately occupied a special place in it. Since the mid-1910s, his name was already on a par with such names as Malevich and Kandinsky.

Name Pavel Filonov many are already familiar with it from their youth. Filonov is an outstanding artist, a self-denying and ascetic person. Some value expressiveness and his “analytical method” in Filonov’s work, others say that this is only the visual side of Filonov’s work. Being a theorist and founder of analytical art, a completely new direction of painting in the first half of the 20th century, which influenced the worldviews and sentiments of subsequent generations of writers and artists, Filonov remained for a long time in the shadow of his fame, without claiming world fame. Only in recent years has his painting gained worldwide recognition and understanding of the intellectual principles expressed in his works. It is noteworthy that painting Filonova- these are truly isolated works of the Russian avant-garde, strikingly different from the intellectual and philosophical paintings of Malevich and Kandinsky.

The classic of the Russian avant-garde was born in Moscow in 1883 into a family of immigrants from Ryazan who belonged to the bourgeois class. The family lived poorly, living from pennie to penny. My father served as a coachman, and then for a short time as a cab driver. He died on the eve of 1888, leaving a seven-month pregnant wife and five children, the youngest of whom, Pavel, was not even five years old at that time. Two months later, little Dunyashka was born, who did not know her father at all. The mother had to earn money washing clothes, the eldest son Petya got a job in a factory, and in the evenings he danced in the corps de ballet of Moscow theaters. Just like his sisters - seven-year-old Maria, nine-year-old Sasha and twelve-year-old Katya, he additionally earned extra money by cross-stitching on towels, tablecloths and napkins, which he later sold. This is probably why a meticulous technique is visible in his drawing and painting.

Four years later, after the death of his father, Pavel Nikolaevich’s mother fell ill with consumption, and life became completely unbearable. The way out and salvation from poverty and death was the love affair between sixteen-year-old sister Sasha and forty-year-old Belgian engineer Alexandre Guet. Gue owned a German company that was building a power plant in St. Petersburg. The romance between the lovers developed rapidly, and the wealthy entrepreneur very soon took Sashenka from Moscow to St. Petersburg, who at that time had already become pregnant by him. Two years later, the mother died, and Sasha’s sisters moved to St. Petersburg, and then Peter.

Since the artist began to draw early, from the age of three, in St. Petersburg there were incomparably more opportunities for professional drawing training than in Moscow. In St. Petersburg, in 1901, Filonov Finishes painting and painting workshops. The received certificate for the professional title of painter-cleaner gave the opportunity to practice with a 9-11 hour working day. The artist received a modest fee, and what was important, as he himself believed, was that this practice was the most promising school, from tarring the hatches of garbage pits, painting latrines... to painting the apartment of the Sipyagin Ministry... and washing the dove in the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

In parallel with this practice, starting from the second winter of training, Filonov attends evening drawing classes in the “Encouragement of Artists” society, where he reached the figure class.

During the period of study and after, for five years the artist worked in molar painting workshops, where he developed his knowledge and skills as an artist. In 1903, he made his first attempt to enter the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, but failed the entrance exams. According to the commission - “ due to poor knowledge of anatomy" Therefore, he was forced to enter the private art studio of Lev Evgrafovich Dmitriev-Kavkazsky, where he continued to study painting until 1908, again trying three times to enter the Academy of Arts.

In 1908, the artist managed to enter the Academy as a volunteer, already with the wording: “ solely for knowledge of anatomy" In two years Filonov expelled from the academy, then reinstated, but in the end, not finding understanding from its professors, he was forced to leave it, because from the very first day of training, the artist, who tried to paint “in his own way,” was perceived by the teachers as a “black sheep.” According to his own recollections, “from the very first days the academic professors boycotted me.”

In the winter of 1910 - 1911, Filonov painted his first abstract painting, “”, where research initiative is coupled with maximum professional skill. Almost at the same time Filonov creates another “epic” large-format painting - the painting “” (1912 - 1913), and a little earlier - the rarely mentioned, but significant for this topic, graphic work “” (1911 - 1912), in which he depicts two people soaring in the air, as if dancing , female figures and two horsemen: one of them is the horseman - the king, the other is the horseman sitting on a fallen or lying horse.

The figures of the women, in comparison with the small and completely helpless figures of the horsemen, seem titanically huge. This effect is enhanced by an anatomical sketch located behind the female figures, without any speculative connection with the overall composition, with a horizontally deployed torso and head, drawn with thin and precise pencil lines, reminiscent of the intricacies of veins and arteries. The left arm of the torso extends to the horseman-king depicted in the opposite corner of the sheet. The perplexed, fearful horseman - the king - is trying to wave away this hand. The rider on a lying horse looks even more pitiful: powerless and helpless, he threatens the women with his small fist. Women at this time only dance their strange dance.

In Filonov's painting, the figures of asexual people - puppets, seem to be suspended on invisible threads by an unknown puppeteer. The lower part shows the procession of humanity that has lost its purpose. Here, as in Bosch’s painting, all layers of society are represented. Both the jester and his other side, the king, ride on the carts. But the charioteers have no reins in their hands! Powerlessness in the face of fatal historical events is expressed in the state of the young man in the painting “” by K. Petrov-Vodkin.

Filonov tried to embody the inexpressible: the center of the composition is a spatial ball created by the gestures of people’s palms facing each other. " Energy Sphere Filonov", connecting male and female energy, can be considered as a kind of analogue of the eastern circle of existence of taiji, in which two opposite principles are always fighting and complementing each other.

Nude elongated figures in the composition “” perform a grotesque oriental dance. The scene and background is a city in which there are ancient temples and dungeons. Favorites appear in uppercase Filonovsky the characters are kings on thrones. Kings are always uncertain, mysterious and ambiguous. If you don't mention the king by name, he becomes an iconic overarching character. It was these “nameless” kings that most attracted the artist.

Here a strange metamorphosis occurs with the kings. The two kings in the upper right and left corners of the picture are dark-faced, clearly of Eastern origin. Probably the Nubian kings, who for some time took the throne of the Egyptian pharaohs. They sit on luxurious thrones, but their feet are bare. These kings are beggars. Between them, on a red throne, sits a grotesque thin woman with a masculine face. Perhaps this is an image of the Babylonian harlot, and then the city itself can be regarded as a cursed by God and doomed Babylon. The dancing woman is associated with Salome, the kings on the thrones - with Herod. None of the characters are named in the plot, but they all have mythological masks and are associated with gospel prototypes. This is a carnival of characters - signs and characters - trompe l'oeil, put into action, rearranged and replaced at the will of the author. The essence of carnival is the intersection and synthesis of associative series. The multiplicity of interpretations and interpretations is precisely the essence of the hidden plot.

Paper duplicated on whatman paper and oil on canvas.

Paper, brown ink, pen,

brush, graphite pencil. 18.1 × 10.8

While creating his pictorial Bible in 1910, he was constantly looking for the formulas of kings. Moreover, the folklore register was combined with the apocalyptic one. He was inspired by the diversity and bouquet complementarity of the Byzantine, African, European, Asian kings he himself invented. The pretext for uniting kings of all times and peoples was a feast. In two compositions from 1912 and 1913 with the common title "" he presented the meal of different but equal rulers. Both feasts are abundant in the number of participants, costumes, and dishes. The feast is decorated with religious objects: bowls of wine, dishes with grapes and fish. But the most important thing is that the kings in the pictorial and graphic canvas of 1912, as in all compositions with the Magi, themselves are likened to “gifts”. Exotic clothes and extravagant headdresses partially transform them into anthropomorphic precious caskets.

Feasts are mystical, unite East and West, life and death, and are distantly associated with both the Last Supper and the throne of the kings of the Apocalypse. It seems that Filonov is opening a gateway between two event streams: the one in which the experience of centuries is captured and the one that he sees with his own eyes, reads in the faces, grimaces, voices, gestures and actions of the human mass surrounding him. In the community of kings, equals, initiates, there are also grotesque characters - beggars - wretched, supplicants, rejected. These characters illustrate the parable of Christ addressed to the Pharisees. The king invites the poor, the lame, and also the pagans to the feast. Feast Filonova is eternal and ritualistic, can last until the Day of Judgment, and feasting kings do not seem to need food. All this can be perceived as the antithesis of carnival and festive scenes in the paintings of symbolist artists.

In 1912, in order to get acquainted with the works of leading masters of painting, he traveled through France and Italy. According to his testimony, he walked all over Europe on foot - “there was no money - he earned money along the way as a laborer.”

Filonov looked at world art and its classics without respect. He admired Leonardo da Vinci for his strength and picturesque inventiveness of forms; he did not recognize Raphael’s work for being, in his opinion, excessively soft and refined. But at the same time, Filonov adhered to the same laws in his paintings as Raphael, taking into account the ratio of light and dark, achieving brightness using many shades of colors, that is, the greatest expression of the properties of paints.

In 1912, when cubism, as a new artistic movement, was marching victoriously across Europe, Filonov wrote an article “ Canon and law", in which he speaks out in extremely harsh terms against Pablo Picasso and the Cubo-Futurists. In addition to "Canon and Law" Filonov writes a number of theoretical and manifesto works - “ Paintings made"(1914), and the main document published is " Declaration of World Prosperity"(1923), in which he sets out the concept of his analytical method.

The connection with nature among the Cubists seems superficial and insufficient to the artist, since, in his opinion, the geometrization of Cubism, even to a small extent, does not realize those properties and processes of nature that can and should be expressed in a picture. In this regard, even “ Picasso with violin"seems to him to be a realist.

In the manifesto " Declaration of World Prosperity” in the main document of analytical art, the artist clearly and clearly states his positions and states that contemporary artists, both cubists and realists, interact with nature rather one-sidedly, while any phenomenon has an innumerable number of properties.

Filonov has paintings that are painted in a classical, traditional manner. This " Portrait of Evdokia Glebova" (1915) and "" (1915). From the memoirs of the artist’s sister Evdokia Glebova, Pavel Filonov painted twelve portraits of his sisters, “including one family portrait.”

In the portrait of singer Evdokia Nikolaevna Glebova, the model is depicted in a three-quarter turn, sitting in a chair, with her hands folded on her knees. Her pose is static, her gaze is directed forward in a direction diagonal to the viewer. The hands here are the compositional and partly semantic center of the picture. Folded crosswise, they play the role of, figuratively speaking, a “keystone” that simultaneously collects and holds the entire composition. At the symbolic level, hands are the main tool for Filonov, the master who affirmed the principle of “madeness” of a painting.

In its own way, Glebova’s portrait belongs to the type of ceremonial “artistic” portrait, in which artists of the beginning of the century worked a lot, depicting representatives of the artistic environment, people of art. But if the heroines of these portraits, as a rule, felt themselves in the role of a bohemian woman, as if posing in front of the viewer, then Glebova is removed from the viewer and shown as a person deep in internal work on herself.

IN " Portrait of A. Aziber with his son"The attribute is a rose. There is a carpet on the floor and on the left side of the wall. Moreover, in the foreground, at the very bottom, the image of the geometric ornament is specified by the artist, then it is interpreted arbitrarily.

The same “carpet-likeness” in form and color will appear in the artist’s abstract compositions. For example, the faces - masks of the characters in the composition "" (1925) are fragmented, as is the end-to-end space in which they exist. Filonov saw in the carpet the same infinity of spatial situation as Vrubel.

Filonov was mobilized in the fall of 1916 and sent to the Romanian Front, where he served as a private in the second naval regiment of the Baltic naval division until 1918. In 1918, the front was liquidated and Filonov, returning to Petrograd, again plunged into creativity.

Works Filonova before and after the war is characterized by extreme inconsistency, both in the themes he chooses and in their overall aesthetics. They are united by a premonition of a common tragedy and the experience of an internal ideological conflict. Images of death, destruction, and suffering fill Filonov’s works, giving them apocalyptic features. He finishes the watercolor “,” which is like a “bridge” between Filonov’s pre- and post-revolutionary work, a work that clearly shows everything new that he brought into his work after the revolution and war and that he borrowed and further developed from his early artistic heritage.

Basically, all the paintings associated with the images of the First World War were created by the artist on the eve of his departure to the front. Some of the most striking: the abstract painting "" (1914), the graphic works "" (1915), "" (1916), the ominous "" (1913), called by many researchers a picture of prophecy.

Paper, brush, gouache, ink, pen, watercolor. 25.4 x 28.3

1915. Oil on canvas. 176 x 156.3

Watercolor, ink, pen, brush, pencil on paper. 50.7 x 52

Upon returning from the front, the theme of the First World War no longer occupies Filonov, but the artistic image of the world and man in his paintings increasingly resembles a disfigured post-apocalyptic universe: organic forms are replaced by the artist with geometric ones, images of people are instrumental in nature, their faces are mostly monstrous, everything More often they are replaced by animal faces.

In the compositions of the 1920s Filonov paints Formula of the Universe in the form of signs representing geometric circles and spirals.

Paper on cardboard, watercolor.. 35.6 x 22.2

1925. Paper on cardboard, watercolor. 73 x 84.3

Paper on cardboard, watercolor.

Filonov’s portraiture remains interesting “ Portrait of Ekaterina Alexandrovna Serebryakova"(1922) - the wife of Pavel Nikolaevich. The motive of the model’s detachment is visible, and the self-absorption is felt even more strongly. " Portrait of Ekaterina Serebryakova"has a compositional structure similar to the portrait of Glebova. Despite the time gap, Filonov uses the same iconographic scheme. However, the portraits of Glebova and Serebryakova differ both in texture and in general artistic design.

The restrained coloring, monolithic figure, and compositional composure only enhance the social orientation of the model. The absence of any details in the environment provokes the viewer's eye to scrupulously study the depicted nature.

The watercolor painting "" (1924) depicts a family gathered for the Passover meal. The portrait in its typology goes back to the group, in its subject - to the theme of a feast, a meal. Recognizable figures of N.N. Glebov - Putilovsky, his wife, sister Evdokia Glebova, sitting on the right hand of her husband. Their gazes and those of two other characters - a woman and a boy sitting at the end of the table - are directed at the woman and child on the right. Thus, the figure of a mother with a child becomes the compositional and semantic center of the picture.

They are depicted in a static pose, their views are detached and have no specific direction. The paired composition evokes analogies with the image of the Virgin Mary with the Child in her arms, who in this case are, as it were, symbolic participants in the sacred meal. The religious connotation of the plot is enhanced by the round bowl standing in front of the baby, as an iconographic attribute of a meal on icons depicting the Holy Trinity.

But Filonov, following his principle of not refusing to teach anyone his analytical method, outlined its fundamentals to everyone who asked him about it. Filonov believed that his “construction of absolute vision” was universal. On the confidence in the discovery of the only correct idea of space in 1925, his “School of Analytical Art” was based, consisting of a group of students, which later received the name “group of masters of analytical art”, which had four exhibitions of its works and was recognized as the highest in skill of all that existed in that time of artistic groups and schools.

In the 1930s, Filonov was called “an inadequate enemy of the working class.” Official criticism accuses the artist of hating the city. The artist paints several realistic paintings: “ Record-breaking workers at the Krasnaya Zarya factory"(1931), "

However, the artist is not cleared of charges of formalism; he is practically left without income and at night he is forced to earn money by painting in St. Isaac's Cathedral. Immediately before the ban in 1930 in St. Petersburg, his art exhibition, the artist was deprived of his pension, practically doomed to starvation. Repressive measures also affected many students of the Filonov school of “masters of analytical art.”

Filonov did not create his paintings for sales. He carefully and lovingly kept them, being convinced that he was creating unsurpassed and unique creative masterpieces. He intended to give all his works to the state so that a museum of analytical art could be opened on their basis.

When you look at the pictures Filonova, for example, in such works as “” (1916) or “” (1928 - 1929), at first you see chaos, complete confusion. First, they affect the viewer with a sharp colorful accent, and then he begins to recognize in them the contours of life reality. Someone will spit and move on, someone will not even look, and someone will remain motionless in thought.

The artist’s life and work were not cut short by the war. The artist died on December 3, 1941, from exhaustion, in the first months of the blockade and was buried at the Serafimovskoye cemetery of the city, sharing the fate of one and a half million of his fellow citizens. The master's body lay on a table in a cold apartment for several days, covered with his most mysterious work - "". The Artists' Union found several boards for the artist's coffin. At the request of his students and with the help of the Union of Artists, he was buried in a separate grave to the left of the entrance to the Church of St. Seraphim.

Pavel Nikolaevich Filonov (January 8, 1883, Moscow - December 3, 1941, Leningrad) - Russian, Soviet artist (artist?researcher, as he officially called himself), poet, one of the leaders of the Russian avant-garde; founder, theorist, practitioner and teacher of analytical art - a unique reforming direction of painting and graphics of the first half of the 20th century, which had and is having a significant influence on the creative mindset of many artists and writers of modern times.

Pavel Nikolaevich was born in Moscow on December 27, 1882 according to Art. style, that is, January 8, 1883 - in a new way, but Filonov’s parents, as he himself writes, are “philistines of Ryazan”; all numerous family members were listed in the tax books and family lists of the Ryazan petty bourgeois council until 1917.

After moving to St. Petersburg in 1897, Filonov entered painting and painting workshops and upon graduation worked “in the painting and painting business.” In parallel, from 1898 he attended evening drawing classes of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and from 1903 he studied in the private workshop of academician L. E. Dmitriev-Kavkazsky (1849-1916).

In 1905-1907 Filonov traveled along the Volga, Caucasus, and visited Jerusalem.

After completing his studies in a private workshop, Filonov tried three times to enter the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts; in 1908 he was admitted as a volunteer to the school at the Academy of Arts, from which he “voluntarily left” in 1910.

In 1912, Filonov wrote the article “Canon and Law,” where the principles of analytical art were already clearly formulated: anti-Cubism, the principle of the “organic” - from the particular to the general. Filonov does not break away from nature, like the Cubists, but strives to comprehend it, analyzing the elements of form in their continuous development.

The artist travels around Italy, France and in 1913 painted the scenery for the production of V. Mayakovsky’s tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky” at the St. Petersburg Luna Park Theater.

In the early 1910s, a rapprochement between Pavel Filonov and Velimir Khlebnikov took place. Filonov painted a portrait of the poet (1913; not preserved) and illustrated his “Izbornik” (1914), and in 1915 he published his poem “Chant about the Sprout of the World” with his own illustrations.

In the works of Pavel Filonov and Velimir Khlebnikov, there is a clear spiritual kinship and mutual influence: both in the visual principles of Pavel Filonov - and the graphic experiments of Velimir Khlebnikov, and in the poetic structure, metrics of the latter - and the peculiarities of sound, construction of the literary language of the former.

In March 1914, P. Filonov, A. Kirillova, D. N. Kakabadze, E. Lasson-Spirova (participant of the Youth Union exhibition) and E. Pskovitinov released the manifesto “Intimate workshop of painters and draftsmen “Made Pictures”” (note : “Ed. “World Bloom””, on the cover there is a reproduction of Filonov’s “Feast of Kings”). This first printed declaration of analytical art is the only evidence of the existence of a society where the rehabilitation of painting is proclaimed (as opposed to the concept and method of K. Malevich, the “pictorial anecdote” of V. Tatlin) - “made paintings and made drawings.”

Each touch on the canvas, according to Filonov, is a “unit of action,” an atom, which always acts in form and color simultaneously. Subsequently (in the “Report” of 1923, and subsequently) P. Filonov develops the theses of the manifesto: “Draw every atom persistently and accurately. Persistently and accurately introduce the identified color into each atom, so that it is absorbed there, like heat into the body, or organically connected with the form, like the fiber of a flower with color in nature.” Filonov is interested in the methods by which nature operates, not its forms. The artist points out that for him there is no fundamental difference between the form with which they create - “the extreme right realist and the left non-objective, and all the existing varieties of all movements and masters in all and in any method and type of use of material both in art and in production - everyone works with the same and only one realistic form, there is no other form and there cannot be ... "

In 1915, Filonov wrote “Flowers of World Bloom” (canvas, oil, 154.5 × 117 cm), which will be included in the series “Introduction to World Bloom.”

In the fall of 1916, he was mobilized for war and sent to the Romanian Front as a private in the 2nd Regiment of the Baltic Naval Division. Pavel Filonov takes an active part in the revolution and holds the positions of chairman of the Executive Military Revolutionary Committee of the Danube region in Izmail, chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Separate Baltic Naval Division, etc.

In 1918 he returned to Petrograd and took part in the First Free Exhibition of works by artists of all directions - a grandiose exhibition in the Winter Palace. Viktor Shklovsky greets the artist, noting “the enormous scope and pathos of the great master.” The exhibition featured works from the series “Entering World Heyday.” Two works: “Mother”, 1916 and “Winner of the City”, 1914-1915. (both mixed media on cardboard or paper) were donated by Filonov to the state.

In 1922 he donated two works to the Russian Museum (including “The Formula of the Petrograd Proletariat”, 1920-1921 - oil on canvas, 154 x 117 cm).

Filonov's attempt to reorganize the painting and sculpture departments of the Academy of Arts in Petrograd dates back to 1922 - unsuccessful; Filonov's ideas do not find official support. But Filonov gave a series of lectures on the theory and “ideology” of analytical art. The end result was the Declaration of World Flourishing, the most important document of analytical art. Filonov insists there that, in addition to form and color, there is a whole world of invisible phenomena that the “seeing eye” does not see, but is comprehended by the “knowing eye”, with its intuition and knowledge. The artist represents these phenomena in an “invented form,” that is, without an object.

In the 1920s, Filonov created and subsequently supported with all his might his own art school - a team of “masters of analytical art” - MAI. In 1927, MAI decorated the interiors of the Printing House, held an exhibition there and participated in the production of Gogol’s “The Inspector General” directed by I. Terentyev.

Filonov’s works, such as two versions of the “Formula of Spring”, 1927-1929, date back to this period. (second monumental canvas - 250 × 285 cm), “Living Head”, 1923, 85 ? 78 cm; dynamic - “Untitled”, 1923, 79 ? 99 cm and “Composition”, 1928-1929, 71 ? 83 cm.

In 1932, the MAI group under the artistic direction of P. N. Filonov illustrated the Finnish epic “Kalevala” by the Academia publishing house. The work was carried out strictly according to the principle of the analytical method of P. N. Filonov. The following people worked on the design of the book: T. Glebova, A. Poret, E. Bortsova, K. Vakhrameev, S. Zaklikovskaya, Pavel Zaltsman, N. Ivanova, E. Lesov, M. Makarov, N. Soboleva, L. Tagrina, M. Tsybasov.

In the 1930s Filonov does not perform custom work and teaches for free; he occasionally receives a pension as a “3rd category scientific worker” (or “artist-researcher,” according to Filonov). The master goes hungry, saves on tea and potatoes, eating flatbread, but not forgetting a pinch of makhorka... He often paints with oil paints on paper or cardboard (many masterpieces, like “The Formula of Imperialism”, 1925, 69.2 × 38.2 cm ; “Narva Gate”, 1929, 88 x 62 cm; “Animals”, 1930, 67.5 x 91 cm; one of Filonov’s last works - “Faces”, 1940, 64 x 56 cm) .

The artist’s attempt to visually recreate a picture of the world parallel to nature looked in the eyes of the Soviet public as a desire to escape from reality into something invented, abstract, and formal. Despite Filonov's devotion to the Communist Party and sincere revolutionary proletarian position, his marginal position comes into sharp conflict with the doctrine of socialist realism and becomes a dangerous social utopia. Gradually, a wall of isolation and rejection is erected around the artist. Filonov's accusations of formalism took on the character of outright persecution, even to the point of calls for the physical destruction of the “class enemy.” Until the end of the artist’s life, his activities in art were considered “Filonovism” hostile to the Soviet system. Until the end of the 1980s, Filonov’s creative heritage was under an unofficial ban in the USSR.

On December 3, 1941, the artist died in besieged Leningrad. The artist T. N. Glebova describes farewell to her teacher: “December 8. I visited P.N. Filonov. His electricity is on, the room looks the same as always. The works are beautiful, like pearls shining from the walls, and as always there is such a force of life in them that they seem to be moving. He himself lies on the table, covered in white, thin as a mummy. On December 4, 1941, at a meeting at the LOSSH, it was proposed to honor the memory of deceased comrades, among whom was Filonov. This is how his death was announced.”

P. N. Filonov is buried at the Seraphimovsky cemetery, in plot 16, directly next to the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov. His sister E.N. Glebova (Filonova) was buried in the same grave in 1980.

He was called a genius and a charlatan, a rebel and a prophet, a hypnotist and a madman. He lived in poverty all his life and died of hunger, knowing that his paintings were worth a lot of money. His work influenced the development of domestic and world art and was hidden for many years.

Son of a coachman and washerwoman

Pavel Filonov born in 1883 into a peasant family that moved to Moscow three years earlier. Very little is known about the artist’s parents: father, Nikolay Ivanov, a peasant from the village of Renevka in the Tula province, was “without a surname” until August 1880, and he received the surname Filonov upon arrival in the capital, where he worked as a coachman. The artist later remembered only about his mother that she would take someone else’s linen to wash at home for a pittance.

Filonov was reluctant to talk about his childhood. After the death of his father, little Pasha helped his mother earn bread as best he could: he embroidered tablecloths and towels with a cross and sold them on Sukharevskaya Square. In 1897, the artist's mother died of tuberculosis. In the same year, Filonov moved to St. Petersburg, where he entered painting and painting workshops and worked “in painting and painting”, studied at drawing classes of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and from 1903 - in a private workshop Academician L. E. Dmitriev-Kavkazsky.

Three times he tried to enter the Academy of Arts, but in the end he was accepted only as a free student “for his excellent knowledge of anatomy.” At the academy, Filonov behaved strangely. He sat down at the very feet of the model and, trying not to look at her, began sketching from the feet. Surprisingly, when the drawing was completed, all the proportions of the model were perfectly observed.

However, he never managed to complete the full course. During one of the classes, the teacher put the sitter in the pose of Apollo Belvedere and exclaimed: “Look at the color of the skin! Any woman would envy him!” After several sessions, Filonov covered the canvas with greenery and painted a network of blue veins over the painted body. “Yes, he rips the skin off the sitter! - the professor cried. “Are you crazy, what are you doing?” Filonov, without raising his voice, said, looking into the professor’s eyes: “Fool.” Then he took the canvas and left the class.

Pavel Filonov. Feast of Kings. 1913. Photo: Public Domain

Every atom

Having sold one of his most successful paintings, “Heads,” in 1913, Filonov set off on a trip to Italy and France, where he wandered, studying European and ancient art. Soon he forms the theoretical basis of his work. “We need to go not from the general to the particular, but from the particular to the general,” he proclaims. He says that everything in the world is built precisely according to this rule - from ice crystals to trees, animals and people. He believed that paintings needed to be “made” and valued things that were well made more than those that weren’t. Later, he told his students: “Persistently and accurately introduce the identified color into each atom, so that it is absorbed there, like heat into the body, or organically connected with the form, like the fiber of a flower with color in nature.”

Pavel Filonov. Peasant family (Holy Family). 1914. Photo: Public Domain

In 1916, he was mobilized and fought on the fronts of the First World War. To my friend, the poetVelimir Khlebnikov,he said: “I am fighting not for space, but for time. I’m sitting in a trench and taking a piece of time from the past.” After the revolution, Filonov was entrusted with a responsible position by the new government. He had a chance to make a career: he had excellent business qualities, talent, he was respected by many, and his background was ideal for that time. But he refused. After some time, Filonov returned to St. Petersburg to become, as he liked to say, “a laborer from art.”

After long wanderings in 1919, he managed to get a small room in the house of writers, on the outskirts of Leningrad, in which the only furniture was a table, a bed and a couple of chairs. According to the recollections of contemporaries, most of the space in the room was occupied by paintings: they hung on the walls and stood in the corners. Filonov lived here until his death.

First and last exhibition

In 1929, the Russian Museum was going to hold a personal exhibition of the artist. After the paintings were hung, a booklet was printed with a complimentary article explaining the analytical method, and just before the opening, a lock appeared on the doors of the exhibition hall. The circulation of the booklet was destroyed, and in its place a much more expensive edition appeared with reproductions of Filonov’s paintings and an ideologically “correct” article, which clearly explained why such art was alien to the young Land of the Soviets. Several closed viewings were held, one of which was attended by representatives of workers' organizations.

Pavel Filonov. German war. 1915. Photo: Public Domain

It was assumed that simple, poorly educated people, not understanding anything about Filonov’s art, would speak out categorically against the opening of the exhibition. However, the opposite happens. All workers are in favor of opening the exhibition. They say: “You need to approach Filonov’s paintings and try to understand them. Anyone who was in the German war will understand the picture “German War.”

Nevertheless, the exhibition was never opened, and Filonov remained “underground” until the end of his days. He was known only in a narrow circle of people professionally involved in art, and his work was presented to the general public only during perestroika.

Daughter

One day there was a knock on Filonov’s door. The woman’s husband died in the next room, and she asked to paint his posthumous portrait. He agreed without taking any money for the work. Three years later Ekaterina Serebryakova became his wife. At the time of the wedding she was 58 years old. Filonov was 20 years younger.

Pavel Filonov with his wife. Photo: Frame youtube.com

Serebryakova’s late husband was a famous revolutionary, and she received a fairly large pension for those times, and tried to help Filonov, who was constantly starving. However, he refused her money, and if he borrowed it, he always paid it back, writing down every penny in his diary.

He called his wife “daughter” and wrote her piercing letters, suffering from the fact that he could not give expensive things. Once Filonov spent a whole month painting a scarf for her, which turned out amazingly beautiful and bright. The neighbors said that wearing such a scarf was a crime, because it was the only one in the world, but she wore it with pride.

Despite the fact that Filonov did not have a single exhibition in the USSR, he was one of the key figures in the artistic process of the 20s and 30s. Artists from all over the USSR and from other countries often came to him, but he never took money for his lessons. When asked to sell at least one of his many paintings abroad, he said: “My paintings belong to the people. I will show everything I have only as a representative of my country or not at all.”

After the beginning of the siege of Leningrad, Filonov was on duty in the attic, dropping incendiary bombs from the roof: he was very afraid that the paintings would perish in the fire - this was all that he had created in his entire life. According to eyewitnesses, Filonov, wrapped in rags, stood for hours in a windswept attic and peered into the snow flying in the square window. He said: “As long as I stand here, the house and paintings will remain intact. But I'm not wasting my time. I have so many ideas in my head."

Death

Filonov died of exhaustion at the very beginning of the siege. This was one of the first deaths in the besieged city, which, in general, is not surprising: he was malnourished before the start of the war, and therefore hunger took him first.

Pavel Filonov. Portrait of Stalin. 1936. Photo: Public Domain

Sister of the artist E. N. Glebova (Filonova) This is how she recalled it: “...he was lying in a jacket, a warm hat, on his left hand there was a white woolen mitten, on his right there was no mitten, it was clenched in a fist. He seemed unconscious, his eyes were half-closed, and did not react to anything. His face, changed beyond recognition, was calm. Near his brother was his wife Ekaterina Alexandrovna and her daughter-in-law M. N. Serebryakova. It’s hard for me to explain why, but this right hand with a mitten clutched in it struck me so much that I can still see it now, more than thirty years later.<…>The hand was thrown slightly to the side and up, this mitten seemed not to be a mitten... No, it’s indescribable. The hand of the great master, which had never known rest during his lifetime, now calmed down. His breathing could not be heard. Whether we cried or not, I don’t remember, it seems we remained sitting in some kind of stupor, unable to comprehend what had happened, that he was gone! That everything he created remains - his easel stands, his palette lies, his paints lie, his paintings hang on the walls, his clock hangs, but he’s not there.”

For a long time, it was not possible to obtain boards for the coffin in the besieged city. For several days, Filonov’s body lay in his room, covered with the painting “The Feast of Kings.” It was even more difficult to agree on digging a grave: there were severe frosts and the ground was frozen. “When I came to the Serafimovskoye cemetery, I found a man who agreed to prepare the place for bread and a certain amount of money,” recalled the artist’s sister. - What inhuman work it was! It was severely frosty, the ground was like stone.<…>. And, as I remember, and it is impossible to forget, he spent more time chopping roots with an ax than working with a shovel. Finally, I couldn’t stand it and said that I would help him, but after about five minutes he took the shovel from me and said: “You can’t do it.” How afraid I was that he would quit work or, while continuing to work, would begin to swear! But he only said: “During this time I would dig three graves.” I couldn’t add anything to the amount we agreed on; I only had with me what I had to give him for the work, and I told him: “If you only knew what kind of person you’re working for!” » And to his question: “Who is he?” - told him about his brother’s life, how he worked for others, taught people, receiving nothing for his very great work. As he continued to work, he listened to me very carefully.”

Pavel Filonov. Faces. 1940. Photo: Public Domain

Feminine feat

All of Filonov's paintings, which today are worth millions of dollars, remained in his room, under the supervision of his widow. After five months of the blockade, she realized that she might soon die, and moved with them to the artist’s sisters. Filonova recalled: “Hunger made itself felt more and more. We could not leave Leningrad, having all the paintings, all our brother’s manuscripts and not having the strength to give them away for safekeeping.<…>Suddenly, Viktor Vasilyevich, the husband of our niece, arrived from the front. His family had already been evacuated, and he came to find out if we were alive. Seeing us, he immediately asked: “Why didn’t you leave, why are you still in Leningrad?” We said that we couldn’t leave because we had my brother’s paintings and manuscripts in our hands. When, from further conversation, he learned that we did not have the strength to bring the paintings to the museum and there was no one who would help us, and that was the whole question, he said that he could help us. He came from the front on a business trip, and this must be done immediately. The works were packaged like this: one package with 379 works and manuscripts and the second - a roller with 21 canvases rolled on it. When we realized that this could be taken to a museum and now, to our happiness, our joy knew no bounds. He took the shaft and carried it, and I, it turns out, carried a package containing 379 works! I found out that I was carrying the package twenty-five years later. And during these years I was sure that someone was carrying the package, and I was just walking with them.

...To this day I cannot imagine myself from that time, bearing this burden... What happened? Is it really the joy that everything that was done will be saved, will be in the museum, and we can finally evacuate, since my sister was getting worse, gave me strength, but took away my memory?..”

Pavel Filonov's first exhibition in Russia took place in 1988.

Self-portrait

The art of Pavel Filonov (1883-1941) was one of the brightest pages in Russian fine art of the first third of the twentieth century. It contained a largely new philosophical sense of reality, as well as an original artistic method, not fully appreciated by either contemporaries or art historians of subsequent decades. The figure of Filonov in all its magnitude became natural for its era. The master's dramatic creative concept took shape on the eve of the First World War, and his main artistic techniques arose and were developed in polemics with the masters of the European avant-garde of the early twentieth century, especially cubism and futurism.

Father - Nikolai Ivanov, a peasant in the village of Renevka, Efremovsky district, Tula province, until August 1880 - “without a family”; Presumably, the surname “Filonov” was assigned to him when his family moved to Moscow. P. Filonov indicates that his father worked as a coachman and cab driver. About his mother, Lyubov Nikolaevna, he only reports that she took the laundry to wash. It has not been established where the Filonovs lived in Moscow - whether in the city house of the Golovins, or whether they served with them, or whether they had their own business...

1894−1897 - student of the city (“Karetnoryadnaya”) parish school (Moscow), which he graduated with honors; a year before, his mother died of consumption.

Landscape.Wind 1907

Mages (sages)

Icon of St. Catherine 1908-10

Flight to Egypt 1918

In 1908-1910, Filonov tried to complete his professional training as a volunteer student at the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts (among his teachers were G. Myasoedov and Y. Tsionglinsky). But a fundamental difference with the academic professors in understanding the tasks and method of creativity prompted him to leave the school and begin an independent path as an artist.

Heads 1910

Maslenitsa 1912-1914
The pre-revolutionary period of Filonov's work was very fruitful: from the end of 1910, the young artist became one of the leading figures in the Youth Union association, which included representatives of the artistic avant-garde of St. Petersburg and Moscow. In 1913, the Gileya group of writers - poets - joined the Union. futurists V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh, V. Kamensky, D. and N. Burliuk and others. Filonov participated in the work on the scenery for the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky” (1913), created drawings for the poems of V. Khlebnikov (1914) and wrote the poem “Sermon on the Sprouting of the World” (1915) with his own illustrations. In the pre-revolutionary period, the main intonation of Filonov’s art was determined, reflecting his rejection of the grimaces of civilization, and a premonition of negative social cataclysms.

Those who have nothing to lose

Milkmaids 1914

Ships 1915

During these same years, Filonov created such program films as “The Feast of Kings”, “Man and Woman”, “West and East” (all 1912-1913), “Peasant Family” (1914), “German War” (1915) .

West and East 1911,12-13.

Feast of Kings 1913
The painting “The Feast of Kings” was created a year before the start of the First World War, and contemporaries perceived it as a kind of prophecy, a vision of the Apocalypse.
The corpses of the rulers of the modern world sitting at the table are a metaphor for the end, decay, and dying of the old world. The poet Velimir Khlebnikov immediately caught the disturbing sound of the picture and expressed it in the lines: “a feast of corpses, a feast of revenge.” The dead ate vegetables majestically and importantly, illuminated like the ray of the moon by the frenzy of grief.”
Researchers of Filonov’s work often made comparisons with “Herod’s Feast,” and one of the artist’s students called “The Feast of Kings” a demonic reworking of “The Last Supper.”
The images created by Filonov’s brush are emphatically grotesque. Permeated with a red-blue stained-glass glow of colors, with the crooked figure of a seated slave reminiscent of the chimera of a Gothic cathedral, this work most clearly reflects Filonov's fascination with the French Middle Ages.

Man and woman 1912

Peasant family 1914
or from another angle

Holy Family 1914

Three people at a table 1914

Cabbies 1915

War with Germany 1915

St. George the Winner 1915

In the fall of 1916, he was mobilized for war and sent to the Romanian Front as a private in the 2nd Regiment of the Baltic Naval Division. Pavel Filonov takes an active part in the revolution and holds the position of chairman of the Executive Military Revolutionary Committee of the Danube region in Izmail, etc.

Mother 1916

City Winner 1903

Workers 1916

Officers 1916-17

They were preceded by a theoretical article “Canon and Law” (1912), in which Filonov outlined the principles of his analytical art. In a dispute with P. Picasso and the Cubo-Futurists, Filonov put forward the idea of the “atomic structure of the Universe,” felt in all its aspects, particulars, external and internal processes. “I know, analyze, see, intuit that in any object there are not two predicates, form and color, but a whole world of visible or invisible phenomena, their emanations, reactions, inclusions, genesis, being,” he wrote. This main conclusion was followed by the rest: the artist should imitate not the forms of nature, but the methods; with the help of which the latter “acts,” to convey its inner life “in an inventive form,” that is, without object, to contrast the eye that simply sees with the “knowing eye,” the true one. In these theses, Filonov opposed not only Picasso, but also his compatriots - V. Tatlin, K. Malevich, Z. Lissitzky.

Rebirth of Man 1918

Bulls. Scene from rural life 1918

In the first half of the 1920s, Filonov once again formulated his views on art in the “Declaration of World Prosperity” (1923) and confirmed them in a number of programmatic paintings: “The Formula of the Petrograd Proletariat” (1921), “The Living Head” (1923), “ Animals" (1925-1926). “Think persistently and precisely about every atom of the thing you are doing,” he wrote in “The Ideology of Analytical Art.” “...Persistently and accurately introduce the color being worked on into each atom, so that it is absorbed there, like heat into the body, or organically connected with the form, like the fiber of a flower with color in nature.”

Revolution formula 1920

Last supper 1920

Formula of the Petrograd proletariat 1921

In 1922 he donated two works to the Russian Museum (including “The Formula of the Petrograd Proletariat”, 1920-1921 - oil on canvas, 154 × 117 cm).
Filonov's attempt to reorganize the painting and sculpture departments of the Academy of Arts in Petrograd dates back to 1922 - unsuccessful; Filonov's ideas do not find official support. But Filonov gave a series of lectures on the theory and “ideology” of analytical art. The end result was the Declaration of World Flourishing, the most important document of analytical art. Filonov insists there that, in addition to form and color, there is a whole world of invisible phenomena that the “seeing eye” does not see, but is comprehended by the “knowing eye”, with its intuition and knowledge. The artist represents these phenomena in an “invented form,” that is, without an object.

Living head 1923

With this approach, the categories of space and time in the master’s paintings received an unusually complex interpretation. One of Filonov’s best paintings, “Formula of Spring” (1929), resulted in a kind of symphony of polished, “made” touches and “sounds”, into a chorale of cosmogonic sound seething with the boiling of life.

Spring formula

White painting from the series "Worldwide Bloom"

Formula of the Universe

Since the mid-1920s, Filonov again turned out to be a tragic seer - of Soviet reality at the end of the 1920-1930s. In these aspects, his art could be correlated with expressionism (S. Munch, M. Backman); in Russian culture, M. Vrubel, V. Ciurlionis, A. Scriabin, A. Bely, V. Khlebnikov remained close to Filonov.

Pedagogy 1923

Heads 1924
The artist’s attempt to visually recreate a world parallel to nature, that is, to escape from reality into something invented, abstract, despite Filonov’s revolutionary proletarian phraseology, becomes a dangerous utopia. Gradually, a wall of isolation and rejection is erected around the artist. Filonov tries to hold on by creating a group of “masters of analytical art” - MAI in 1925, which sought to establish his method in painting.

Filonov with students

Famine 1925

February Revolution 1926

Shostakovich Symphony 1926

In 1927, Filonov's students exhibited at the Leningrad Press House and staged a production of N. Gogol's The Inspector General.

The figure of Filonov already in the 1920s turned out to be odious in the minds of those who, heading cultural departments, were sensitive, first of all, to the intonation of the artist’s self-expression, as well as to the violation of the laws of the “creed of modern realism” (Filonov’s expression). In his “Autobiography” of 1929, Filonov described himself in the third person: “Since 23, being completely cut off from the opportunity to teach and speak in print, under the systematic campaign of slander carried out against him in print and orally, Filonov has been conducting research work in development of earlier the position given to them...” The persecution of the artist in the official press was accompanied by repressive measures: in 1930, the already prepared large exhibition of Filonov at the Russian Museum in Leningrad was banned, before that he was deprived of his pension, doomed to starvation.

Drummers 1930

Collective farmer 1931

Record-breaking workers at the Krasnaya Zarya factory, 1931

Tractor workshop 1931

GOELRO 1931

Portrait of Joseph Stalin 1936

11 goals 1938

Faces 1940

Pavel Filonov died on December 3, 1941 in Leningrad, bequeathing all his works “to be donated to the Soviet state.

The volcano of lost treasures is quartered,
great artist,
eyewitness of the invisible,
canvas troublemaker
... There were a thousand paintings in his studio,
but the bloody-brown reckless drivers drove a steep road
- and now only the posthumous wind whistles there. - the poet A. Kruchenykh responded to his death.

P. N. Filonov is buried at the Seraphimovsky cemetery, in plot 16, directly next to the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov. His sister E.N. Glebova (Filonova) was buried in the same grave in 1980.

Filonov's works were inherited by his sisters, Maria and Evdokia Filonov; in the 1970s, E. N. Glebova (Filonova) (1888-1980) donated her collection to the State Russian Museum.

***

Portrait of Evdokia Glebova - the artist's sister

Portrait of Arman Frantsevich with his son 1915

Family portrait 1924

I’ll say right away that writing about Filonov (1883-1941) is not easy. It would be better, of course, not to write about him at all, but there is no way to silently get around this block - there will be too big a hole in the history of avant-gardeism. Even against the backdrop of the extremely diverse and powerful Russian avant-garde, Filonov managed to stand out and occupy a completely special place. Why do we need holes? So there's nowhere to go.

We will start, however, with simple things - born, raised, died, a Schmomer. Filonov's parents were peasants, but at the time of his birth they lived in Moscow. His mother worked as a laundress, his father as a cab driver. Filonov received his professional education in St. Petersburg, where the family moved. At first these were painting and painting workshops, then - the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and even later - the private school of academician graphic artist Dmitriev-Kavkazsky.

Then Filonov tried three times to enter the Academy, but was accepted only as a volunteer into its school. He studied there for two years and was actually expelled - by that time he had become friends with the St. Petersburg avant-garde artists who hung out in the Youth Union group, and his style of writing began to resemble less and less academic. Once, right in class, Filonov painted a blue-green Apollo on sketches and, in general, according to the rector of the school Beklemishev, “he corrupted his comrades with his works.” In general, Filonov left school and began exhibiting with his “allies,” which he did until World War I.

At that time, Filonov wrote the following things:

Feast of Kings

Holy family

Already here, in these initial works, it is clear that Filonov is very far from the general line along which the development of the early Russian avant-garde took place - after all, he was more oriented towards French avant-garde - Cubism with Fauvism - and, to a lesser extent, towards Italian futurism. Filonov is close to German expressionism, and to its original, one might say, classic version of the “Bridge” group, which was uncharacteristic for those times among artists living in Russia. This closeness, in addition to purely formal things, is visible in the fact that Filonov is closely within the framework of the empirically comprehensible, and in the fact that he is concerned about the fundamental themes of life and death, and in the gloomy energy and ponderous symbolism of “Kings”. In “The Holy Family” - it is later - the future, famous Filonov is already visible - in an abundance of the smallest, carefully worked out details, including in the background, behind the main characters. By the time of writing this work, Filonov had already formulated the basic principles of his analytical method: the picture develops like a living organism - from the particular to the general, as if growing through the division of cells, each of which has its own complex organization. “Draw each atom persistently and precisely. Persistently and accurately introduce the color being worked on into each atom, so that it is absorbed there, like heat into the body, or organically connected with the form, like the fiber of a flower with color in nature,” he wrote. Filonov had his own terminology, so what I more commonly called a cell, he defined as an atom.

Flowers of the world blossom

Virgin and Child (Mother)

Then the war began, and Filonov took part in it as a private. Returning to Petrograd after the revolutions, in which he showed himself to be an activist, Filonov forgot about everything except his art. He stubbornly developed his method and did not participate in any way in the struggle of avant-garde groups, which was fashionable until the Soviet government dispersed them all in 1932. He took a unique position in the Russian avant-garde. He became a prophet, messiah, ascetic, teacher, outcast and martyr all rolled into one.

Of course, there were enough messiahs, prophets, ascetics, and martyrs in the Russian avant-garde - just remember Malevich, Tatlin, Khlebnikov, El Lissitzky, Kandinsky. But for various reasons they ceased to be such at most by the second half of the 20s. Everyone who by the beginning of the 30s had not reformed and changed their principles in favor of socialist realism became outcasts. But there were practically no teachers, because... there were no students. Instead, there were followers who, quickly gaining independence, invented their own concepts and acquired followers themselves. Filonov had real students who looked into his mouth and selflessly followed him, and his “workshop of analytical art (MAI)” generally resembled a sect. In addition, practically none of the prominent Russian avant-garde artists were able to combine all these roles in one person, at least for a long time. But Filonov could, and in their most extreme manifestations.

But, in addition to all this, Filonov was also a heresiarch, if we continue to use the appropriate terminology. He created his own, completely special version of avant-garde, which was much further from all its other variants than they were from each other. Filonov, for example, dared to violate one of the most important avant-garde principles - he never denied classical art and did not fight with it. In his works, even in his last ones, one can find traces of this art - both chronologically close, like Art Nouveau and Symbolism, and much earlier, like Bosch.

Philonov's project can be described as visionary, universalist, natural-philosophical and religious with an emphasis on eschatology.

Spring formula

His works are an amazing combination of animal and plant, organic and inorganic, human and non-human, dead and living. For him, all these categories do not exist, the Universe is one, and the processes occurring in it equally combine all these oppositions, since they do not exist in it. Therefore, the elements of his works are simultaneously biomorphic and crystalline, growing and decaying.

He depicts not the surface of phenomena, but their essence, their laws, structure and processes - that which is inaccessible to the eye of an ordinary artist, but accessible to the “knowing”, as he said, the eye of an analytical artist. For Filonov, this approach was scientific; he depicted the processes that take place, for example, under human skin - blood flow, pulsation of veins, brain function. For this scientific character, Filonov re-read a bunch of literature, from Linnaeus and Darwin to Marx and Tsiolkovsky.

Heads

Living head*

Filonov’s scale is the entire Universe, from atom to infinity, from past to future. Therefore, his works are not classical compositions with different elements included in the picture format, but fragments of something larger. His works suggest that infinity continues beyond them, and they are only a part of it.

Formula of the Petrograd proletariat

Filonov himself, as a pantheistic God, embraces this entire Universe with his gaze and, at the same time, is present in every smallest particle of it. This feeling is born, on the one hand, because of the global nature of the concept - after all, it derives generalizing formulas - and because of the scrupulous elaboration of every square millimeter of the canvas. Filonov seems to be simultaneously looking at the world through both a telescope and a microscope. He takes the world literally down to quarks, and then puts it back together from them. Roughly speaking, he is actively engaged in both analysis and synthesis on a particularly small/large scale.

Formula of the Universe

For Filonov, the history of mankind is only a small part of the history of the world. The history of space, planets, life on them, geochemical and all other processes. And, again, like God, he is everywhere at the same time - in the past, future and, naturally, in the present.

Of course, all this fit poorly into the Stalinist - no less large-scale - project. I will write more about this project. Therefore, from the beginning of the 30s, when the Soviet government, by a willful decision, stopped the life of all creative groups and associations and gathered all artistic forces into the Union of Artists, things went very badly for Filonov. His personal exhibition at the Russian Museum had already been canceled before, in 29 - he really didn’t fit in anywhere. And then even the rare participation in collections and the very rare state purchases of his works stopped, for pennies, however. And Filonov was ready to sell only to his, as he believed, his native communist state - he called himself a communist. Several times he communicated with Western collectors who offered him money unheard of for him, and he refused them. Everything he created was supposed to live only in the USSR**.

At the same time, Filonov was terribly poor. In the 1930s, he continued to teach his followers semi-legally - essentially free of charge. His MAI was, perhaps, the last unofficial artistic association in the USSR under Stalin. He couldn’t get some kind of meager salary, like a trade union one, because he had to get a bunch of papers, and he, as he said, didn’t have time for this - he worked fanatically all the time. When the lack of money reached some completely hopeless limits, such as there was nothing to treat his wife, he remembered his first education - painting and art, and took up any work with a brush. Like creating a list of residents for a housing association. Or he took government orders issued for his stepson like these:

Portrait of I.V. Stalin

Tractor workshop

But even these not compromises, but, from Filonov’s point of view, direct betrayals of his path did not bring money. This was all too different from what the state was ready to buy. Stalin is somehow not divine, the workshop is not inspiring to work. In general, Filonov continued for months to eat soup from a kilogram of onions, cut in half, with carrots and potatoes (a real recipe described by his wife), develop his analytical method and secretly teach fans who came to him from all over the country.

When the war began, Filonov's main concern was the preservation of his works, which were stored in the attic studio. He was constantly on duty at night on the roof. Leningrad was bombed, including with incendiary bombs. This concern for his legacy was nothing like the artist’s usual concern for the safety of his pictures. It was, rather, a desire to save a certain body of knowledge necessary for humanity, some important evidence about something else. Filonov never had artistic ambitions in the traditional avant-garde form, like - I was the first to come up with and do it. Rather, in his eyes, he was a scientist who discovered objective laws and described an unknown reality***. In short, there, on the roof, he caught a cold. A few days later he died of pneumonia. The blockade was in full swing, everyone was weak.

Bonuses.

Liki

One of the latest works.

Flight to Egypt

He also wrote these strange pictures. The Egyptian is good. And the fact that a donkey is no different from a person is not at all strange.

* “The difference between this man’s work and the work of other artists is that while others try to depict people as they look on the outside, he has the courage to depict them as they are on the inside.” This is what the Spanish monk José de Siguenza said about Bosch. But how does he approach Filonov, with all his differences from Bosch?
** Filonov bequeathed all his works to the Russian Museum. The museum accepted the work just in case, although it kept them in storage throughout the Soviet years. In any case, thanks to Filonov’s concept of the existence of his works, we have a unique situation for our avant-garde - almost all of the work of the artist persecuted by the communists has been preserved.
*** Within the framework of this concept, he believed that his “things are the most interesting moment in all world art.” And he also said that he was making art that “all peoples of humanity would come to worship.”