18/7/07

The Tretyakov not as you remembered it (but then, why should it be?), and what you found there you still probably see too completely through Berger's account of it - that is, of an art that concerned itself wholly with subject matter, rather than with form or means - which is probably a simplification, or at least an approximation, of the reality. And certainly there are other terms in which it could be understood. What comes across most forcefully is an unrelieved tradition of academic easel painting which, even in its 'non-conformist' form, conforms wholly to the academic canon, including, or perhaps especially, in its strict division into genres: portraits, history paintings, landscapes, religious (= Biblical historical) works, genre painting (which is essentially what the Wanderers' works can be classified as, perhaps by default). The result are a series of works, or painters, reminiscent of the 'official' works of other European countries: Ivanov as a Russian Pre-Raphaelite, Bruillov as a cod history painter, Vereschagin as the tradition's Orientalist - and chronicler of the Russian empire's conquest of Central Asia - Vasnetsov as representing official art, Repin as the figurehead of the semi-official loyal opposition, with his looser brushwork and 'socially committed' themes, Serov and his rather charming soft-focus pieces as a gentle gesture of Impressionism, followed by some truly dreadful limp-wristed Art Nouveau, and concluded finally by Serebriakova, whose self-portrait before her mirror is extremely likeable, but the rest of whose work is of no account. But the rule is a more or less overt sentimentalism, which when it is effective is so with a rather direct, artless charm that sometimes demands a certain suspension of critical faculties. Subtlety, allusiveness, compositional inventiveness, conscious experimentation are all largely absent. This, it must be said, seems to include psychological complexity: Repin's Ivan Grozny and his Son amounts to the most ludicrous historical ham acting (and compare his expression with that of the German soldier in the Stalingrad diorama: this tradition evidently had its consequences and repercussions). There are other examples, all of which turn around the reduction of personality to 'types' (as in Repin's Boyara Morozova), or the use of the most crude and hackneyed symbolism or visual motifs (as in Young Oaks). Indeed it may well be the case that Vereschagin is the most interesting of the lot, with his imperialist Orientalism, which insists on rendering every feature of 'barbaric' Islamic architecture, and his obsession with decapitated Russian soldiers (a fear of castration in the face of the Asiatic 'other'?). That, and his effective rendering of the fierce southern light in these countries.
Rublev, as before, left little or no effect upon you, though you still are not sure whether you saw more than a fraction of his work at the museum.

Later conversations with V.T. and A. Sh. were painful (though each for different reasons) and revealed yourself to yourself in ways you did not like: the conversation with T because you involved yourself in an unnecessary lie (meaning that at some point you fully accept 'his' logic (or rather, the logic you ascribe him) and want to be accepted on 'his' terms) - namely that you had forgotten the name of the road your hotel is in. With Sh. because it became evident in the course of the conversation that he was pretty crudely trying to 'sell' you his art - with forced friendliness, with empty conversational padding; and you, of course, were happy to play along with this, out of, supposedly, 'politeness'. It was only later when you took your time to look carefully, or fairly carefully, at his catalogue that you realised the extent of your mistake: behind the wittiness of some of the work is something unpleasantly ingratiating in its idiocy, even slightly ugly: the 'themes' reveal this most. You need to remember how things get lost in translation in both directions, and signs and symbols that have one meaning here will have another in the west, even though they appear to be identical. There are also some unintentional effects that become less interesting by virtue of being revealed as unintentional. Perhaps Zizek was only too right, and the appeal to human 'warmth', human 'feeling' is to be identified as the most ideological of moves. Contrast this with R. and M., who wait to see what you have to offer rather than expecting or trying to elicit anything from you. Perhaps what defines, or ought to define, the Left is that they are in some sense those who want precisely nothing from you. There may be a parallel to be drawn here with Proust's account of the allegorical figures in Giotto's fresco: the virtues, including Charity, are stern-faced and unsmiling: it is their symbols, what they represent, and not what they themselves are, that determine their meaning. Proust is almost certainly right to identify this as a quality of those virtues, which require a certain self-sufficiency, a certain strength.
But try to remember exactly what it is Sh. said. Note that he at no point really criticised Tsereteli: he relayed other people's criticisms of him. And perhaps he sees himself as having something in common with him as an outsider. But all my questions about the influence exercised by any 'context' Tsereteli has created were answered in the negative, in so far as they were answered at all: he did not find them interesting. What he had to say about Guelman and political consulting was interesting, but only in so far as it told you something you did not already know, and revealed unexpected links between contemporary art and politics.