Easel sculpture with a dove and fire. Moscow pages of creativity of A.S.

The Silver Age gave Russia not only great poets, but also no less outstanding architects and sculptors. Anna Golubkina is one of the leading masters of this period. This student of Auguste Rodin was characterized by the features of impressionism, but they did not turn out to be self-sufficient - they did not limit her to a narrow circle of formal plastic tasks. In her works, deep psychologism and social overtones, drama, internal dynamics, sketchiness and features of symbolism, greedy interest in man and the contradictions of his inner world are obvious.

Anna Semyonovna Golubkina was born in 1894 in the city of Zaraysk, Ryazan province (now the Moscow region) into a bourgeois family that made a living in gardening. While working in weeding, while still a girl she sculpted expressive figures from clay. As Golubkina herself said, she was born at night during a fire, so her character is that of a firefighter. Possessing a powerful artistic temperament and a rebellious soul, at twenty-five she left for Moscow and entered the Fine Arts Classes organized by A. O. Gunst (1889-1890), where her abilities were noticed by the famous sculptor and teacher S. M. Volnukhin. In 1891 she entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and studied there until 1894 under the guidance of S.I. Ivanov. In the same year, she studied for several months at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts with V. A. Beklemishev. At that time, her talent seemed too spontaneous and unbridled to her mentors. Despite financial difficulties, she went to Paris three times. In 1897, she was lucky: O. Rodin himself agreed to give lessons to the “Russian savage.” Even before the revolution, Golubkina’s work was classified as one of the largest phenomena of Russian sculpture. The hands of one of the most famous Russian female sculptors created many works that have become classics of easel sculpture. The works are in major museums and collections (Tretyakov Gallery, Russian Museum and others). She left behind a whole gallery of sculptural images of famous contemporaries.She taught at the Moscow Commercial School (1904-1906), at the Prechistensky workers' courses (1913-1916) and at VKHUTEMAS (1918-1922). Author of the book “A few words about the craft of a sculptor.”. She died in Zaraysk in 1927, where she was buried in the city cemetery.

A.N. Golubkina rented house 12 on Bolshoi Levshinsky Lane as a workshop in 1910, when she was 46 years old. Many of her masterpieces were born in this workshop. A house typical of post-fire buildings in Moscow (first quarter of the 19th century). It is known about him from the “Notes of a Survivor” by S.M. Golitsyn, who as a child lived here for a short time with his relative Prince A.M. Golitsyn. " MWe moved to house No. 12 on Bolshoy Levshinsky Lane, where we occupied low mezzanine rooms. Thanks to the authority of grandfather Vladimir Mikhailovich, my father was chosen as a vowel, and only a Moscow homeowner could be a vowel. Grandfather Alexander Mikhailovich gave him a notarized power of attorney for himself. Subsequently, after the revolution, my father could not prove in any way that he was not a Moscow homeowner.In the front rooms of the lower floor there was a grandfather and grandmother's bedroom, a living room, and a large hall.The museum in this house was opened in 1932 through the efforts of her older sister Alexandra Semyonovna. And niece Vera Mikhailovna became the first director of the museum. Such a tolerant attitude of the authorities towards the artist of the Silver Age is explained by the fact thatA.N. Golubkina was the author of the first bust of K. Marx (1905).

The museum operated until 1952, when, on the initiative of E. Vuchetich, it was closed, and the collection moved to the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, etc. I don’t know the events of those years, but I can’t unequivocally blame it. In my opinion, sculptural works, especially those of a monumental nature, collected in a limited space, give the impression of crowding and do not reveal their artistic essence. You can see it in this photo. The museum was restored in 1976 as a branch of the Tretyakov Gallery in the same building. However, as I understand, not all of the exhibits were returned. Those who returned are exhibited mainly on the ground floor. Here the sculpture “Walking” immediately attracts attention. Either Adam, or a Golem, or a proletarian. HerselfA.N. Golubkina said a single phrase about her formidable creation: “He goes and sweeps away everything in his path.”

There is a memorial workshop on the second floorA.N. Golubkina. Here we meet her inscription: “If a person becomes interested in art, he will never be able to satisfy this thirst.” Authentic tools, stands, a rotating full-scale machine, and unfinished works on the shelves have been preserved. Anna Semyonovna worked with different materials - marble, wood, bronze. But my favorite was clay. In the corner of the studio there is a box with silver-gray Zaraisk clay, which the sculptor valued for its fine consistency and noble soft color. The master selected the tools for working on marble and wood especially carefully. She brought many of them from trips abroad, such as a dotted machine for transferring work into solid material.

On the second floor there is also a small hall for events (formerly a room for classes with students). There is a lot of work on display here.A.N. Golubkina “The Last Supper” (1911) is visible in the background and is also shown on the first page. The high relief, made based on a gospel story, does not fit into the canonical norms of Christian iconography. it is devoid of descriptiveness and everyday details. Golubkina gives the event a timeless and spaceless character. Restorers revived it practically from oblivion: it was split into small pieces. In general, the museum premises make a rather depressing impression and clearly require a good renovation. As the director, Irina Sedova, told me, the Tretyakov Gallery already has certain plans for its branch. All that remains is to wait for them to be implemented.

And now a short overview of the exhibits. Let's start with the famous sculptural portrait of L. Tolstoy (1927 bronze), commissioned by the museum named after him. He is in the workshop. This was Golubkina's last completed masterpiece. She met the writer only once, but her memory tenaciously preserved the image and 24 years later she refused to work from photographs. At that time she was already over sixty, and her work required great physical effort. Despite this, five options were made. “Thick as the sea” - the sculptor started from this formula. The writer’s gaze is intense and piercing - “like that of a hunted wolf,” as Golubkina once noted in a conversation.

A very interesting work "Hummock" (1904 bronze). A unique combination of statuary form and high relief. To read the design, the round statuette form requires the viewer to turn around and change points of view. The models for the composition were Golubkina’s little nieces - Alexandra and Vera (future director of the museum). Their posture and facial expressions were noticed when the little ones were being washed in a bathhouse and one of them got soap suds in her eyes.

“Nina” (1907 marble) Nina Alekseeva, the general’s daughter, was a fellow countrywoman of Golubkina. In 1906, she returned from the Russo-Japanese War, where she went as an 18-year-old nurse. Golubkina looked closely at Nina for a long time, wanted to understand how she lived. This is one of the portraits that the sculptor made. trying on nature. The girl’s irregular face shows determination and drive. But Golubkina wanted to convey in it the “Echo of Suffering” that Nina saw during the war. “Identifying the idea of ​​essence by recreating the main thing in its entirety and ignoring the details of real everyday life is the highest realism,” wrote Golubkina. She apologized to the model for the relative portrait resemblance - “This is not just a portrait!” And she turned out to be right. Over time, Alekseeva became more and more like a portrait.

"Prisoners" (1908 marble). Prisoners of life - that’s the meaning Golubkina put into this symbolic work. The children's heads seem to be trying to escape from under the yoke of a stone block. The sculptor has found such an expressive composition that the viewer can imagine the plot. It seems as if the mother wants to close and protect her children. Interesting. that this work attracted a particularly large number of spectators at the exhibition in 1944.

"Vyacheslav Ivanov" (1914 bronze) - a crafty philosopher. creating a myth out of his life. The poet in the portrait is similar to the image that he described in the poem “The Waylayman,” dedicated to Velimir Khlebnikov.

Measure right, weigh right
I want a heart - and in a viscous gaze
I look slyly
Stele like a net. talk

Golubkina did not agree to take even very good orders. if she couldn’t get carried away by the inner world of the heroes of her portraits. Many of them were created on her own impulse and completely free of charge.

"Andrey Bely" (1907 plaster). The portrait of the symbolist poet was also not created to order. This is a bust of a man who “traded his roots for wings.” “A captive spirit that has not found flesh” - this is how his contemporaries spoke of him. Golubkina created this image based on the poet’s poems. This idea is served by a bold compositional technique: the poet’s head appears against the background of a tossing wave. He is at the mercy of the element of creativity, breaking out beyond the limits of material flesh.

"Mitya" (1913 marble). An expression of doom lies on this marble statue. Mitya was Golubkina's nephew. he was born sick and died before he was a year old. A special feeling of pity and guilt will pierce everyone who stops in front of this fragile figure. This work is exhibited in the studio, on a special easel. She embodied the painful feeling of her unfulfilled motherhood. The contours of the mother's hands holding the baby are barely outlined. A feeling of gentle vibration of light is created. The words of the sculptor become clear: “Art does not like tied hands. You must come to it with free hands... Art is a feat, and here you need to forget everything, give everything up.” This is what she did in her life, despite the fact that she dreamed of having children and loved them very much. According to eyewitnesses, Golubkina deliberately delayed the completion of this work. It was as if she was afraid of losing tactile contact with this marble relief.

"Old Age" (1898 plaster). This work was done by Golubkina in Paris. She invited the model who once posed for Rodin for his sculpture “She Who Was the Beautiful Olmier.” If Golubkina’s teacher had a ruthless, naturalistically challenging portrait, then hers has a completely different meaning. The fetal pose emphasizes the theme of the spontaneous cycle of life and death, and the pedestal, simple earth, symbolizes the place of temporary respite in this closed, inexorable circle.

"Fire" (1900, plaster), female figurine for the fireplace. The composition represents an image of a rough cave, where primitive people, a man and a woman, are warming themselves at the entrance. Golubkina boldly deforms the figures, deepening the shadows in the woman’s eyes. You sense a sense of invisible danger in the compressed figure. Trembling is felt. permeating this primeval being. Light, along with volume, becomes an active means of expression. This sculpture is so plastically infectious that viewers often try to reproduce the poses of the characters in “Fire.”

"Birch" (1927). The workshop houses a bronze casting from Golubkina's last unfinished work - the study "Birch Tree". This is just a glimpse of the grand design: a statue of a girl in full human height, resisting the pressure of the wind. The combination of fragility, resilience and perseverance in confronting the elements conveys the meaning of the fate of a modest and great sculptor - the vulnerable and selfless Anna Golubkina.
The review is based on an article by art critic Marina Matskevich "One, but fiery passion."

Her grandfather was a serf in his youth, but eventually managed to buy his way free and settled in Zaraysk, taking up gardening. Her father died early, and she spent her entire childhood and youth working in the family garden with her mother and brothers and sisters. Throughout her life she retained respect for physical labor, vivid and figurative folk speech, and a sense of self-esteem.

Anna Golubkina did not have any - not even primary - education. Unless the sexton taught her to read and write... She read many books in childhood, and then she began to sculpt clay figurines. A local art teacher urged her to study seriously. Relatives did not interfere with this, but Annushka herself understood what it meant for a peasant family to lose a worker. Therefore, a lot of time passed before she decided to leave her native Zaraysk.

Golubkina's house in Zaraysk

Anna was twenty-five years old when she, dressed in a rustic shawl and wearing a black pleated skirt, arrived in Moscow and entered the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. “In the workshop, among the ancient casts, strict and stately, she looked like a mythical ancient prophetess-Sibyl,” recalled S. T. Konenkov, who studied with her.

“She was a thin, tall, quick-moving girl with a spiritual, beautiful and stern face,” some contemporaries claimed. “...with an ugly and brilliant face,” others specified.

The famous Russian philanthropist Maria Tenisheva said: “Soon after the return of A. N. Benois from St. Petersburg... he began to tell me about some young talented sculptor from among the peasant women, who was in great need and showing brilliant hopes, he began to persuade me to take her into his care, to give her she has the means to complete her art education..."

Tenisheva did not follow Benoit’s hot entreaties, did not take her into her care and did not give any funds... Which, by the way, she later very much regretted - when Golubkina’s name was already widely known.

But the originality and strength of Golubkina’s talent really attracted everyone’s attention to her even during her student years. Later she moved to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Among her professors was the famous sculptor V. A. Beklemishev, who played a special role in the life of Anna Golubkina. In letters to her family, she called him “a remarkably kind and good person,” “a great artist.” Behind these general words hid a deep, tragic, unrequited love, which Beklemishev himself, married to a rich merchant’s wife and happy in his family life, never knew about.

In 1895, Golubkina went to Paris to continue her education. Her family and the Society of Art Lovers helped her with funds. She entered the F. Colarossi Academy, but very soon realized that the same salon-academic direction, completely alien to her in spirit, was dominant there as in St. Petersburg. This year turned out to be very difficult for the young sculptor. Anna Semyonovna was tormented by creative dissatisfaction, doubts about the correctness of her chosen path, and an unquenchable feeling for Beklemishev. Some memoirists mention her short, unhappy relationship with some French artist and a suicide attempt... It is not at all by chance that Golubkina fell ill with a nervous disorder.

It was brought to Russia by the artist E. S. Kruglikova. Having returned from the hospital to Zaraysk, to her family, Anna Semyonovna calmed down a little and began to think about how to live further. And in the end I decided to go with my older sister Alexandra, who had completed paramedic courses, to Siberia. Here she worked at a resettlement point, helping her sister, with whom, like with her mother, she always had a trusting relationship. The sculptor's mother, Ekaterina Yakovlevna, died at the end of 1898. Anna Semyonovna could not come to her senses for a long time after this loss and did not take on any work until she sculpted her bust from memory...

The second trip to Paris turned out to be more successful. The great Rodin himself saw Golubkina’s work and invited her to study under his guidance. Many years later, recalling a year of working with the master, Anna Semyonovna wrote to him: “You told me what I myself felt, and you gave me the opportunity to be free.”

Golubkina’s works, exhibited at the Paris Spring Salon in 1899, were a well-deserved success. In 1901, she received an order for the sculptural decoration of the front entrance of the Moscow Art Theater. The high relief “Wave” she made - a rebellious spirit fighting the elements - still adorns the entrance to the old Moscow Art Theater building.

She visited Paris again in 1902. She also visited London and Berlin, getting acquainted with the masterpieces of world art. She returned from the trip with huge debts; There was no money to rent a workshop, and Anna Semyonovna never knew how to get profitable orders.

True, already in the first years of the twentieth century, some of her works brought her considerable fees. Golubkina’s sculptures increasingly appeared at Russian exhibitions, each time meeting with an enthusiastic reception. But with amazing generosity, Anna Semyonovna distributed everything she earned to people in need, acquaintances and strangers, and donated it to a kindergarten, school, and national theater. And even after becoming famous, she still lived in poverty, eating only bread and tea for weeks.

“Her costume,” recalled one friend, “always consisted of a gray skirt, blouse and a canvas apron. On ceremonial occasions, only the apron was removed.”

Her entire ascetically strict life was devoted to art. She told her friends’ daughter, Evgenia Glagoleva: “If you want something to come out of your writing, don’t get married, don’t start a family. Doesn't like art related. One must approach art with free hands. Art is a feat, and here you need to forget everything, give everything away, and the woman in the family is a captive...” And she admitted: “Whoever does not cry over his thing is not a creator.”

Having no family of her own, Anna Semyonovna raised her niece Vera, the daughter of her older brother. She often lived for a long time with her relatives in Zaraysk, helped her sister with housework, and worked in the garden like everyone else. And this, oddly enough, did not interfere with her creativity at all...

In the pre-revolutionary years, Zaraysk was one of the places of exile. “Politically unreliable persons” expelled from the capitals and the local revolutionary-minded intelligentsia constantly gathered in the Golubkins’ house. Slowly but with interest, long conversations were held over the samovar about the future of Russia. Anna Semyonovna could not help but be carried away by the idea of ​​universal brotherhood, justice and happiness. She even distributed illegal literature... But one day, when it came to the inevitability of a revolutionary coup, she prophetically said: “It’s scary how much, much blood will be shed.”

During the events of 1905, she ended up in Moscow. An eyewitness recalls that when the Cossacks were scattering people with whips, Anna Semyonovna rushed into the crowd, hung on the bridle of the horse of one of the riders and shouted in a frenzy: “Murderers! You don’t dare beat people!”

Two years later she was arrested for distributing proclamations. In September 1907, the court sentenced the artist to a year's imprisonment in the fortress, but due to health reasons she was released on bail. For a long time Anna Semyonovna remained under police surveillance. Here is another bitterly prophetic phrase from her letter: “In our times, nothing nasty can happen, because it already exists.”

When World War I began, Golubkina was already fifty. Critics wrote after her personal exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts: “Never before has Russian sculpture grabbed the viewer’s heart so deeply as at this exhibition, organized in the days of great trials.” Anna Semyonovna donated the entire collection from the exhibition to the wounded.

Golubkina's hot character made her rather difficult to get along with even close people. One of the stumbling blocks between her and her contemporaries is the purchase of her works.

“There are wonderful things - mainly portraits,” wrote the trustee of the Tretyakov Gallery, artist I. Grabar, about Golubkina’s exhibition. - I would buy 6-7 things, but she’s like Konenkov: there’s nothing to eat, but less than 2500-3000 rubles and don’t approach. It’s just a misfortune, this tramp pride and “contempt for the bourgeoisie,” which she considers every person who wears a not dirty and wrinkled starched collar.”

Well - this is exactly the money the gallery paid for the most outstanding works of Russian artists, and private collectors bought them for a much higher price! For Golubkina and Konenkov, their example was their senior contemporary Valentin Serov, strict and principled when it came to evaluating the work of artists.

Since that very exhibition, not a single sculpture by Golubkina has been sold. From the museum halls they migrated to some kind of basement, where they stood unattended for a long time, until the 1920s... And then, in 1915, Anna Semyonovna again suffered from a nervous breakdown. Doctor S.V. Medvedeva-Petrosyan said: “I saw a tall, middle-aged, sickly-looking woman with almost masculine features and an ugly face. She smiled at me, and what a charming smile it was, what an extraordinary radiance her shining gray eyes shone, what an attractive power emanated from her entire being! I was immediately captivated by her... The patient was tormented by gloomy melancholy and insomnia, however, even in the worst moments of her illness, her beautiful moral character was not overshadowed by an impatient word or a sharp outburst. Everyone loved her very much."

Golubkina did not allow strangers into her soul and refused to pose for portraits. To all such requests from Mikhail Nesterov, she exclaimed: “What are you talking about! Write me! I'll go crazy! Where can I get a portrait with my mug! I am crazy". (Remembering Anna Semyonovna years later, the artist said: “It was Maxim Gorky in a skirt, only with a different soul...”) And as a master she advised her students: “Look for a person. If you find a person in a portrait, that’s beauty.”

Anna Semyonovna was even extremely reluctant to be photographed. N.N. Chulkova, the wife of the writer, recalled: “... she said that she did not like her face and did not want her portrait to exist. “I have an actor’s face, sharp, I don’t like it.” And in a rare photograph of her youth there is a sweet girl with a brown braid...

Party

Vladimir Egorovich Makovsky

Few people know that Golubkina’s portrait still exists! In V. Makovsky’s painting “Party” (1897) she, still very young, stands modestly at the table. The artist finally persuaded him to pose, albeit for a scene from folk life...

“The artist (there can be no doubt!) quite deliberately prevented the collection and publication of materials that would be devoted to her biography,” says A. Kamensky, a researcher of the sculptor’s life and work. “Perhaps, Golubkina valued nothing more than her ability to distance herself from herself, completely dissolve in her work, and become an echo of people’s experiences...”

She never wrote down the location of her sold sculptures. The organizers of her museum put a lot of effort when, in 1932, they collected the master’s works together in the premises of her former workshop. Some of the works have not yet been found...

...After the news of the October Revolution, Golubkina said: “Now, real people will be in power.” But she soon learned about the execution of two ministers of the Provisional Government, one of whom she was familiar with (later they wrote that they were shot by anarchists). And when they came to her from the Kremlin, offering her a job, Anna Semyonovna, with her characteristic directness, answered: “You are killing good people,” and refused.

Despite this, in the first post-revolutionary months, Golubkina joined the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Antiquity and Art and the Moscow Council bodies for combating homelessness. She brought dirty, ragged boys to her workshop, fed them, and let them spend the night - even after they once robbed her and almost killed her.

Kamensky

Those who knew Golubkina argued that she endured the hardships of those years more easily than others, because she was accustomed to hardships and “didn’t notice them now.” To earn money, the famous sculptor painted fabrics, carved decorations from bone, but the money was barely enough not to die of hunger... She took on private lessons, often free - as a rule, the fee was paid in kind: for example, one of her students heated the workshop masters

In 1920-1922, Anna Semyonovna taught in art workshops, but she had to leave because of the unkind atmosphere. She was approaching sixty, and a severe stomach ulcer was added to her old ailments from constant malnutrition and anxiety. Another harsh word or rude attack against her could result in excruciating pain and deprive her of mental balance for a long time. One day, some guy threw it in the sculptor’s face that she was already dead to art. The artist replied that she may have died, but she lived, and her evil opponent was always dead. Anna Semyonovna, who quit her job, had to undergo surgery...

Direct to the point of harshness, she did not know how to be different in art. At one time she refused to sculpt a bust of Chaliapin - she simply could not work on portraits of people towards whom for some reason she had an ambivalent attitude. In 1907, she created a portrait of Andrei Bely - a perfect profile... of a horse! She did not tolerate fuss and unbridled praise. When her sculptures were once compared to ancient ones, she sharply replied: “It’s your ignorance speaking!” Valery Bryusov, when Anna Semyonovna appeared in the literary and artistic circle, addressed her with a “highly pompous speech.” Startled, Golubkina turned away, waved her hand at him three times, turned and left.

In 1923, the sculptor took part in a competition to create a monument to A. N. Ostrovsky. She presented nine sketches, two of which were awarded prizes. But the first place and the right to make the monument was given to another author - N. Andreev. Anna Semyonovna, deeply offended, came to the meeting room and began to destroy her models: “They compared his Ostrovsky with mine! It’s disgusting, and nothing more.”

Golubkina's last work, Leo Tolstoy, unexpectedly became an indirect cause of her death. In her youth, Anna Semyonovna once met with the “great old man” and, according to an eyewitness, had a serious argument with him about something. The impression from this meeting remained so strong that many years later she refused to use his photographs in her work and “made the portrait based on his idea and her own memories.” The block, glued together from several pieces of wood, was massive and heavy, and Anna Semyonovna could not move it under any circumstances after the operation she underwent in 1922. But she forgot about age and illness: when two of her students fought unsuccessfully with a wooden colossus, she pushed them aside with her shoulder and moved the stubborn tree with all her strength. Soon after that, she felt bad and hurried to her sister in Zaraysk: “She knows how to treat me... Yes, I’ll arrive in three days...”

Leaving turned out to be a fatal mistake. Professor A. Martynov, who treated the artist for many years, said that an immediate operation would certainly have saved her...

Text by E. N. Oboymina and O. V. Tatkova

Magnificent photographs from Golubkina’s museum-workshop are taken from the “Golubkina” album on Yandex photos:

Golubkina Anna Semyonovna- (1864 1927), Soviet sculptor. She studied in Moscow with S. M. Volnukhin (1889 90), at the Moscow Academy of Painting and Art (1891 94) and the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1894), at the Paris Colarossi Academy (1895 96). In 1897 98 she worked in her own workshop in Paris, using... ... Art encyclopedia

Golubkina Anna Semyonovna- A. S. Golubkina. Golubkina Anna Semyonovna (1864, Zaraysk 1927, ibid.), sculptor. She studied in Moscow in the Fine Arts Classes of the artist and architect A.O. Gunst in (188990), in (189194) in S.I. Ivanov, at the St. Petersburg Academy... ... Moscow (encyclopedia)

Golubkina Anna Semyonovna- (1864 1927), sculptor. Generalized symbolic images of workers (“Iron”, 1897), acute psychological portraits (“T. A. Ivanova”, 1925). In Golubkina’s work there is a fluid plasticity of forms in the spirit of impressionism and Art Nouveau style (high relief “Swimmer”,... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Golubkina, Anna Semyonovna- Golubkina, Anna Semenovna GOLUBKINA Anna Semenovna (1864 1927), Russian sculptor. Generalized symbolic images of workers (“Iron”, 1897), portraits (“T.A. Ivanova”, 1925). Many works are characterized by features of impressionism (“Birch”, ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Golubkina- Golubkin is a surname, female version of Golubkin. Famous bearers: Golubkina, Anna Semyonovna (1864 1927) sculptor. Golubkina, Larisa Ivanovna (1940) actress. Golubkina, Lyudmila Vladimirovna (1933) Russian playwright ... Wikipedia

GOLUBKINA- 1. GOLUBKINA Anna Semyonovna (1864 1927), sculptor. In Golubkina’s work, the fluid plasticity of forms in the spirit of impressionism and Art Nouveau style (the high relief Swimmer, or Wave, on the facade of the Moscow Art Theater, 1901) coexists with the search for constructive clarity of form... ... Russian history

Golubkina- Anna Semyonovna (1864, Zaraysk - 1927, ibid.), Russian sculptor. Founding member of the World of Art association, participant of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, Moscow Association of Artists. She taught in the Second Free... ... Art encyclopedia

Golubkina A. S.- GOLUBKINA Anna Semyonovna (1864-1927), sculptor. In G.’s work, the fluid plasticity of forms in the spirit of impressionism and Art Nouveau style (the high relief Swimmer, or Wave, on the facade of the Moscow Art Theater, 1901) coexists with the search for constructive clarity of form... ... Biographical Dictionary

Prisoners (fragment). 1908 MMG

Regarding the anniversary exhibition of the sculptor at the Tretyakov Gallery

It’s hard to imagine how many incredible events a woman’s short life can accommodate. Grandfather was a serf, and she studied with Rodin. In 1989 she reaped laurels at the Paris Salon, and in 1907 she received a sentence for revolutionary propaganda. She was a recognized star of Russian Art Nouveau and commissioned the RSDLP to make the first portrait of Marx in Russia in 1905. She delighted Rozanov and surprised Voloshin, who revered her as a national treasure, like Dostoevsky. And it was Lenin who called her. Somehow it all doesn’t fit. She accepted the revolution, “the power of real people” and immediately abandoned it because “good people are being killed.” Constant success did not cancel her depression, just as sincere interest in people did not cancel loneliness...

The life of the wonderful sculptor Anna Semyonovna Golubkina (1864-1927) cannot be called easy, but it was a very colorful life.

Childhood in a large family of Old Believers in Zaraysk taught them to work. Golubkina's father died when she was two years old. Besides her, the family had six children, a great-grandmother, a grandmother, the same grandfather who bought himself out of serfdom, and there was always a lot of work - they were peasants. “I was the only one who learned how to read and write from the sexton,” Golubkina recalled. At the age of fifteen, Anna met the Glagolev family of teachers, who helped her receive at least an unsystematic education at home. I read a lot.

Child. 1909 Tinted marble. Tretyakov Gallery

From early childhood, Anna drew and sculpted clay figures. Her brother, who was sent to study at a real school, showed her drawings to the teacher, who approved and gave advice. One day, one of the passing Muscovites saw these drawings and advised me to definitely go to Moscow. At the age of twenty-five, Anna was able to come there to enroll in the Fine Arts Classes of the architect Gunst. She soon left there and went as a free student to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (MUZHVZ). Teachers and students remembered Golubkina as an independent to the point of stubbornness, a beautiful and strict student with delicate facial features and a “probing gaze.” She thought originally and spoke amazingly. Anna was accustomed to any difficulties, easily denied herself everything and worked very hard. For some reason, she considered herself ugly and flatly refused to be photographed. Her portrait of that time can only be seen in the painting “Party” by the famous artist Vladimir Makovsky, who taught at MUZHVZ - an inspired girl in a black dress with sparkling eyes stands in the corner of the room. However, those who denied her beauty admitted that her face was unforgettable and “brilliant.”

Vladimir Makovsky. Party. 1875-1896 Moscow. Tretyakov Gallery

Then there was the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, dissatisfaction with salon-academic teaching and a tragic love for the sculptor Beklemishev, who was happily married and unaware of this secret love.

Anna told one of her friends her grandfather’s legend about a man who somehow subjugated the devils to himself, and then suffered terribly because the devils demanded that they be given more and more work. Otherwise they threatened to tear me to pieces. At the end of this story, Golubkina added: “But this seems to be said about artists.” And indeed, the devils she tamed did not give her peace all her life - Anna Golubkina did not know how to stop and rest. She was extremely demanding of herself and quarrelsome with others. It’s difficult believe, but painful doubts about the right choice of profession overcame her even in the year of her death, when she was finishing her, perhaps, most famous work, “Birch Tree.”

Birch (not completed). 1927 Bronze. Tretyakov Gallery

During her years of study in Paris (1895-1898), Anna regularly wrote to her mother. From these letters it is known that, having arrived in Paris, she worked twelve hours a day, eating bread, strong tea and two hams brought from Russia. Soon she developed a nervous breakdown from overexertion, and an artist friend took her to Moscow, where Anna was treated in a clinic. After her mother's death in 1898, she again went to Paris. Rodin's approval and Parisian success temporarily quieted doubts about the right path, but not for long.

In 1901, she received an order for the high relief “Wave (Swimmer),” which still adorns the entrance to the Moscow Art Theater in Kamergersky. This allowed me to travel to Paris, London, Berlin and accumulate a lot of debt. Anna, neither then nor later, at a time of large fees, did not know how to handle money. I had to return to Zaraysk, to the vegetable gardens.

The year 1905 found her in Moscow, where she organized a safe house and a hospital for the wounded. There are eyewitness memories of how Golubkina rushed into a crowd of Cossacks with whips dispersing the demonstration, and hung on the horse’s bridle, frantically shouting: “Murderers! You don’t dare beat people!” Two years later, she was arrested for distributing proclamations and sentenced to be kept in a fortress for a year. Due to health reasons, she was released on bail and transferred to police supervision. At that time, she wrote gloomily in one of her letters: “In our times, nothing nasty can happen, because it already exists.”

Old age. 1898-99 Tinted plaster. MMG

When World War I began, Golubkina turned fifty. Her 1914 anniversary exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts was a huge success. One of the critics wrote: “Never before has Russian sculpture grabbed the viewer’s heart so deeply as at this exhibition, organized in the days of great trials.” Anna Semyonovna did not come to the opening day, and donated the entire proceeds from the exhibition to the wounded. However, she did not sell a single work. After the exhibition, all one hundred and fifty sculptures gathered dust in oblivion in the basements, some disappeared forever. Igor Grabar, then a trustee of the Tretyakov Gallery, wanted to buy seven portraits, which he considered wonderful. Did not work out. “She’s like Konenkov: there’s nothing to eat, but less than 2500-3000 rubles and don’t approach. It’s just a misfortune, this tramp pride and “contempt for the bourgeoisie,” he wrote.

Immediately after the revolution, Golubkina joined the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Antiquity and Art, as well as the Moscow Council Committee to Combat Homelessness. She boldly took the homeless children to her workshop, fed them and left them to spend the night. One day they beat her and robbed her, but she was stubborn and continued to do it.

To earn money, the famous sculptor painted fabrics and carved decorations from bone (her beautiful cameos are a separate topic), but the money was barely enough not to die of hunger. Her portrait of Marx had already been banned for being too avant-garde by that time. She took private lessons. In those years, as a rule, they were paid “in kind” (one of the students heated the workshop, and it was an excellent fee). Teaching at Vkhutemas in the early twenties also did not last long - constant mutual rejection in communication with colleagues regularly caused depression in Golubkina and an exacerbation of the ulcer. Plus, her harshness and directness did not help soften the atmosphere within the team. It has always been this way. When one day her sculptures were complimentarily compared with ancient ones, she sharply replied: “It’s your ignorance speaking!” And when Valery Bryusov, upon her appearance, addressed her with an admiring and “highly pompous speech,” Golubkina sharply waved her hands and immediately left.

Portrait of Andrei Bely. Tinted plaster. 1907 Tretyakov Gallery

It’s not that she’s a stranger, she’s never belonged anywhere...

Maybe that’s why her 150th anniversary is marked by the Museum-Workshop closed for renovation, a modest exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery, in Lavrushinsky (until March 30) and the conviction of some visitors that they are showing their children the same aunt who made the worker and the collective farmer.

However, it is difficult to confuse Golubkin with anyone. In the manner that became common practice among Moscow sculptors of her time as “sculpting à la Trubetskoy” (quickly, cheerfully and expressively), she is much more serious, decisive and reckless than Trubetskoy. Her beautiful female heads are extremely rare, but the naked old woman and gloomy children’s faces constantly make us remember “looking into the night” (as the poet and artist Maximilian Voloshin called her sculpture). Mitya, Anna Semyonovna’s nephew, a boy who did not live to be a year old and immortalized by her, causes a shudder.

Mitya. 1913 Marble. MMG

It is not surprising that the professor she portrayed, V.F. Ern, insisted that for Golubkina, modeling was a way of intimate and deep knowledge of the “model.” The result was often completely unexpected. This is the portrait of the writer Alexei Remizov, after which you really don’t want to see his photographs. These are the portraits of Andrei Bely, who looks like a horse, and Alexei Tolstoy, who gorged himself on oysters, according to Golubkina herself.

Portrait of A.M. Remizova. 1911 Tree. Tretyakov Gallery

And she, for example, sharply refused to sculpt a portrait of Chaliapin - something prevented her from experiencing “ardent interest” in this model.

Golubkina sculpted her last portrait, the portrait of Leo Tolstoy, from memory, ignoring photographs, although their communication was very short-lived. Lev Nikolayevich, who did not like disputants, quickly said “what a strange woman” and did not order to be allowed in. Around the same time, he willingly posed for the famous vegetarian Paolo Trubetskoy, who entertained him with a story about how he immediately falls asleep while trying to read something from Tolstoy.

Golubkina’s portrait of Tolstoy is striking in its excessiveness. But that's what he was.

Portrait of L.N. Tolstoy. 1927 Bronze. Tretyakov Gallery

It somehow occurred to me how differently a female sculptor and a male sculptor understand their work. Michelangelo's heroic recipe is known: “I take a stone, and then simply cut off all that is unnecessary.” The formulation of Vera Mukhina is exactly the opposite. In an early article, “The Artistic Life of Paris,” she wrote: “One must construct the form from within and call it out.” There is maternal experience and an almost obstetric approach here.

Anna Golubkina, in her only book, “A few words about the craft of a sculptor,” addressed to her students, unexpectedly advises “to arrange everything for work so that you can only rejoice,” and certainly “to prepare yourself for work,” so that later “you can feel the movement of the model, the character, beauty, to discover its merits, and to reconcile its shortcomings in character." In a word - "to assimilate nature and gain a passionate interest in it." This is so similar to the desire for responsible mutual feelings, to the readiness for active and joyful love for another.

Alas, this readiness and this desire had no place in the life of Anna Semyonovna Golubkina. But there are many of them in her works.

All sorts of legends and myths about Golubkina

And, of course, it’s worth watching the documentary Contemplation of the Night. 40 minutes. 2002. Directed by Denis Chuvaev.

The Tretyakov Gallery opens an expanded exhibition of 35 works for the anniversary of A. S. Golubkina, the first Russian female sculptor

On the occasion of the anniversary of Anna Semyonovna Golubkina (1864–1927), the first Russian female sculptor, whose work became a symbol of the heyday of Russian plastic art in the first third of the 20th century, the Tretyakov Gallery is opening an expanded exhibition of her works. The master’s works, traditionally presented in the halls on Lavrushinsky Lane and on Krymsky Val, will be supplemented by exhibits from the collections of the Gallery and one of its scientific departments - the Museum-Workshop of A. S. Golubkina.

The exhibition of A. S. Golubkina in Lavrushinsky Lane continues the halls of sculpture and painting of the Silver Age. The master's works are demonstrated in dialogue with the paintings of P. V. Kuznetsov, N. N. Sapunov, M. S. Saryan and V. E. Borisov-Musatov, with whom she was exhibited together several times. This comparison of works emphasizes the closeness of the artistic searches of sculptors and painters of this period.

In her work, Anna Golubkina was guided by the idea of ​​ascetic service to art: “you need to forget everything, give everything away.” Arriving in Moscow from Zaraysk, she began her professional education at the age of 25 in the Fine Arts Classes of the artist-architect A. O. Gunst, continued her studies at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and then at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. But the teaching methods of the academic school did not coincide with Golubkina’s expectations.

The desire to be at the center of European artistic life prompted her to make several trips to Paris. Here she met Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) and visited his workshop in 1896–1897. Communication with the famous sculptor and his advice helped Golubkina realize her own path in art: “You... the best of artists... gave me the opportunity to be free...” The intersections of the works of these masters were examined at the exhibition “Meeting after a century: Rodin. Golubkina. Claudel" at the Tretyakov Gallery in 2004.

From Rodin, Golubkina adopted the principles of constructing an artistic form, learned his characteristic method of active surface development and light and shadow modeling, which led her to impressionism in sculpture. This period of her work is presented in detail in the updated exhibition of the Museum-Workshop of A. S. Golubkina. Interest in symbolism manifested itself in her art through metaphor, attention to unmanifest forms, and appeal to pantheistic motifs. Having gone through a passion for other stylistic directions, Golubkina returned to impressionism in her last major works - “Birch Tree” and “Portrait of Leo Tolstoy” (both 1927, bronze).

The exhibition included about 35 sculptures. The first room greets visitors with one of Golubkina’s most significant works in wood - a fireplace pair of caryatids (1911). By choosing this material, the sculptor moves from an ancient motif to a prehistoric one, changing the semantics of the image.

The idea of ​​internal tension, read in figural compositions, also became the main theme of Golubkina’s portraits. The central hall of the exhibition contains images of philosophers and writers of the Silver Age: V. I. Ivanov, V. F. Ern, A. N. Tolstoy. The works show the author’s interest in depicting individual “proportions of the spirit” and the innermost movements of the soul. The swift, internally mobile nature of the poet A. Bely (1907, plaster) is expressed by an equally dynamic plastic form with an active, expressive surface texture. The portrait of the writer A. M. Remizov (1911, wood) was decided differently: in his features the sculptor conveyed emotional breakdown and drama. The rounded movement of the folds of wide clothing seems to seek to cover and muffle the internal discord.

The theme of the third hall of the exhibition was the circle of life, the movement of time. Its center is the recently restored sculpture “Old Age” (1898, tinted plaster), first shown at the Spring Salon in Paris in 1899. The gentle image of a child in the work “Girl. Manka" (after 1904, marble, gypsum) arises from an unprocessed block of chopped marble. In the bust “Old” (1908, tinted marble), using the “Egyptian” stylization, Golubkina interprets stone as inert matter, containing not only an old face, but human life itself. In the “Fog” vase, according to Golubkina herself, the theme of four ages is revealed. A comparison of versions in plaster (1899) and marble (circa 1908) allows us to observe how the master works with different materials to achieve his artistic goals.

Golubkina’s art, which, as critics noted during her lifetime, “acquired an almost portrait resemblance to the era,” was highly appreciated already at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1914, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (now the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts), her works comprised the first monographic exhibition of sculpture in the history of Russia. It was with the works of Golubkina that the Tretyakov Gallery began the systematic collection of modern sculpture in the mid-1900s.

An expanded exhibition in the halls of the Gallery on Lavrushinsky Lane will become part of the program celebrating the sculptor’s anniversary. On January 28, Golubkina’s birthday, the grand opening of the exhibition will take place in her House-Museum in Zaraysk, and scientific staff of the Tretyakov Gallery will take part in the ceremony. A new exhibition has been prepared at the Museum-Workshop of A. S. Golubkina on Bolshoy Levshinsky Lane. On February 5, a round table dedicated to Golubkina’s work will be held at the Tretyakov Gallery.

Source: press release from the State Tretyakov Gallery

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