Filipp Malyavin
Encyclopedia
Filipp Andreevich Malyavin (October 22, 1869, Kazanki
(Julian calendar
: October 10) – December 23, 1940, Nice
, France
) was a Russia
n painter and draftsman
. Trained in icon-painting as well as having studied under the great Russian realist painter Ilya Repin, Malyavin is unusual among the Russian artists of the time for having a peasant background. It is possibly due to this that his paintings often depict peasant life, and his most famous work, Whirlwind, shows peasant women dancing.
The village was visited by traveling monks, who would bring with them icons from Mount Athos
, in Greece
. Fascinated by the icons, Malyavin convinced his parents to allow him to go to Athos to study icon-painting. At the age of sixteen, he traveled to Greece with a monk from Athos, his journey financed by the villagers themselves.
Although the monasteries at Athos were famed for their vast collections of Greek manuscripts and books, the art of icon painting was not actually practiced there. Malyavin was disappointed to learn that they only made copies of Russian icons. Having used up his money and thus unable to return to Russia, Malyavin entered the monastery as a novice, and was charged with painting icons and murals.
This continued until 1891, when Malyavin met Vladimir Beklemishev, a Russian sculptor and professor at the Petersburg Academy of Arts who was on a visit to Athos. Beklemishev was greatly impressed by Malyavin's work and invited him to Petersburg.
In March 1892, Malyavin arrived in St. Petersburg and, with Beklemishev's help, was enrolled in the Academy of Arts. Due to the Academy reforms of 1894, Malyavin was able to choose his own teacher after completing the Academy curriculum. His options included such great artists as Vladimir Makovsky
and Arkhip Kuindzhi
. However, Malyavin applied for, and was accepted into, the studio of Russian realist Ilya Repin, who among others, also taught Igor Grabar
, Konstantin Somov
, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, and Boris Kustodiev
.
It was here, in Repin's studio, that Malyavin began creating some of his most famous early works, including Peasant Girl Knitting a Stocking (1895), which is the first of his paintings in which he introduces his favorite color, red. Three of these early works, all depicting peasant women, were exhibited at the Moscow Art Lovers' Society Salon. Two of these were bought by Pavel Tretyakov
for the Tretyakov Gallery
.
Malyavin also began to perfect his style of portraiture, creating another series of paintings depicting his fellow-artists from Repin's studio. Among the best of these is that of Konstantin Somov
, who would later found the World of Art
group. Malyavin's fame spread quickly, and it was not long before society grandees such as Baroness Wolf and Mme. Popova began coming to him to have their portraits painted.
From 1895 to 1899, Malyavin painted frenetically. In 1897, he was awarded the status of Artist, but only after much debate, and for his series of portraits rather than his competition painting, Laughter, which depicted Russian women in red dresses in a green meadow. His work was too different, too bright, and it had no plot - it did not fit the contemporary art scene at the time.
Thus, in 1900, Malyavin traveled to Paris
, and took France by storm. French newspapers hailed him as "a credit to Russian painting," and Laughter was awarded a gold medal and bought by the Museo d'arte moderno in Venice
. His work was suddenly in demand, with the Luxembourg Museum in Paris buying Three Women.
On returning to Russia, Malyavin married Natalia Novaak-Sarich, the daughter of a rich industrialist from Odessa and a private student at the Higher Art School. They settled in a village near Ryazan
, and Malyavin devoted himself entirely to his art. His work began appearing in the salons of the World of Art
group, and the Union of Russian Artists.
Malyavin reached his peak between 1905 and 1907, during Russia's revolutionary crisis. Unlike other painters, at this time he focused on his "peasant" canvases. These paintings are unusual in terms of their use of bright colors and their large scales, which mark them more than their usually generic titles.
In 1906, Malyavin painted Whirlwind, this greatest painting, and the Assembly of the Academy of Arts awarded him the rank of "Academician," "in consideration of his fame in the field of art."
Between 1908 and 1910, Malyavin did not display any work, and the official art critics began attacking him more and more frequently. He traveled to Paris, and on his return, painted a large family portrait, which he exhibited in January 1911, at the salon of the Union of Russian Artists. The painting was a failure, and between 1911 and 1915, Malyavin exhibited only the works of the earlier period.
In 1918, Malyavin moved with his family to Ryazan
, where he participated in the Ryazan Commissariat for Education's propaganda of art and taught. In 1920, he went to Moscow, where he was admitted to the Kremlin and made drawings for Lenin's portrait. He also painted a portrait of Anatoly Lunacharsky, and his works were displayed in Moscow exhibitions.
In fall of 1922, Malyavin traveled abroad with his family yet again, to organize a traveling exhibition of his works. The family settled in Paris, where he painted portraits on commission and where his work was exhibited in 1924. In 1933, he toured Yugoslavia
, Czechoslovakia
, England
, and Sweden
, exhibiting his work, and in 1935 and 1937, he exhibited his work in London
, Stockholm
, and Nice
.
Malyavin died on December 23, 1940, in Nice
. He is noted for changing the portrayal of peasants in Russian painting and for his brilliant use of color.
Kazanki
Kazanki is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Izbica Kujawska, within Włocławek County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. It lies approximately south-east of Izbica Kujawska, south-west of Włocławek, and south of Toruń.-References:...
(Julian calendar
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...
: October 10) – December 23, 1940, Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
) was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n painter and draftsman
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
. Trained in icon-painting as well as having studied under the great Russian realist painter Ilya Repin, Malyavin is unusual among the Russian artists of the time for having a peasant background. It is possibly due to this that his paintings often depict peasant life, and his most famous work, Whirlwind, shows peasant women dancing.
Biography
Filipp Malyavin was born in the large village of Kazanki (Samara Province, now the Totsk District, Orenburg Region), into a poor peasant family with many children. Even as a child, he was drawn towards art, drawing and creating clay figurines of birds and animals from the age of five.The village was visited by traveling monks, who would bring with them icons from Mount Athos
Mount Athos
Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the...
, in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. Fascinated by the icons, Malyavin convinced his parents to allow him to go to Athos to study icon-painting. At the age of sixteen, he traveled to Greece with a monk from Athos, his journey financed by the villagers themselves.
Although the monasteries at Athos were famed for their vast collections of Greek manuscripts and books, the art of icon painting was not actually practiced there. Malyavin was disappointed to learn that they only made copies of Russian icons. Having used up his money and thus unable to return to Russia, Malyavin entered the monastery as a novice, and was charged with painting icons and murals.
This continued until 1891, when Malyavin met Vladimir Beklemishev, a Russian sculptor and professor at the Petersburg Academy of Arts who was on a visit to Athos. Beklemishev was greatly impressed by Malyavin's work and invited him to Petersburg.
In March 1892, Malyavin arrived in St. Petersburg and, with Beklemishev's help, was enrolled in the Academy of Arts. Due to the Academy reforms of 1894, Malyavin was able to choose his own teacher after completing the Academy curriculum. His options included such great artists as Vladimir Makovsky
Vladimir Makovsky
Vladimir Yegorovich Makovsky 1846, Moscow - 21 February 1920, Petrograd) was a Russian painter, art collector, and teacher.Makovsky was the son of collector, Yegor Ivanovich Makovsky, who was one of the founders of the Moscow Art School. Vladimir had two brothers, Nikolai Makovsky and Konstantin...
and Arkhip Kuindzhi
Arkhip Kuindzhi
Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was a Russian landscape painter.Arkhip Kuindzhi was born in January 1841 in Mariupol , but he spent his youth in the city of Taganrog. He grew up in a poor family, and his father was a Greek shoemaker Ivan Khristoforovich Kuindzhi...
. However, Malyavin applied for, and was accepted into, the studio of Russian realist Ilya Repin, who among others, also taught Igor Grabar
Igor Grabar
Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar was a Russian post-impressionist painter, publisher, restorer and historian of art. Grabar, descendant of a wealthy Rusyn family, was trained as a painter by Ilya Repin in Saint Petersburg and by Anton Ažbe in Munich...
, Konstantin Somov
Konstantin Somov
Konstantin Andreyevich Somov was a Russian artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. Born into a family of a major art historian and Hermitage Museum curator, he became interested in the 18th century art and music at an early age.Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin from...
, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, and Boris Kustodiev
Boris Kustodiev
Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev was a Russian painter and stage designer.-Early life:Boris Kustodiev was born in Astrakhan into the family of a professor of philosophy, history of literature, and logic at the local theological seminary. His father died young, and all financial and material burdens...
.
It was here, in Repin's studio, that Malyavin began creating some of his most famous early works, including Peasant Girl Knitting a Stocking (1895), which is the first of his paintings in which he introduces his favorite color, red. Three of these early works, all depicting peasant women, were exhibited at the Moscow Art Lovers' Society Salon. Two of these were bought by Pavel Tretyakov
Pavel Tretyakov
Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Gallery and Tretyakov Drive in Moscow. His brother S.M. Tretyakov was also a famous patron of art and a philanthropist....
for the Tretyakov Gallery
Tretyakov Gallery
The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection,...
.
Malyavin also began to perfect his style of portraiture, creating another series of paintings depicting his fellow-artists from Repin's studio. Among the best of these is that of Konstantin Somov
Konstantin Somov
Konstantin Andreyevich Somov was a Russian artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. Born into a family of a major art historian and Hermitage Museum curator, he became interested in the 18th century art and music at an early age.Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin from...
, who would later found the World of Art
World of Art
World of Art is a long established series of art books from the publisher Thames & Hudson, now comprising over 150 titles.Perhaps the most classic book in the series is A Concise History of Painting: From Giotto to Cézanne by Michael Levey , originally published in 1962...
group. Malyavin's fame spread quickly, and it was not long before society grandees such as Baroness Wolf and Mme. Popova began coming to him to have their portraits painted.
From 1895 to 1899, Malyavin painted frenetically. In 1897, he was awarded the status of Artist, but only after much debate, and for his series of portraits rather than his competition painting, Laughter, which depicted Russian women in red dresses in a green meadow. His work was too different, too bright, and it had no plot - it did not fit the contemporary art scene at the time.
Thus, in 1900, Malyavin traveled to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and took France by storm. French newspapers hailed him as "a credit to Russian painting," and Laughter was awarded a gold medal and bought by the Museo d'arte moderno in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. His work was suddenly in demand, with the Luxembourg Museum in Paris buying Three Women.
On returning to Russia, Malyavin married Natalia Novaak-Sarich, the daughter of a rich industrialist from Odessa and a private student at the Higher Art School. They settled in a village near Ryazan
Ryazan
Ryazan is a city and the administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Oka River southeast of Moscow. Population: The strategic bomber base Dyagilevo is just west of the city, and the air base of Alexandrovo is to the southeast as is the Ryazan Turlatovo Airport...
, and Malyavin devoted himself entirely to his art. His work began appearing in the salons of the World of Art
World of Art
World of Art is a long established series of art books from the publisher Thames & Hudson, now comprising over 150 titles.Perhaps the most classic book in the series is A Concise History of Painting: From Giotto to Cézanne by Michael Levey , originally published in 1962...
group, and the Union of Russian Artists.
Malyavin reached his peak between 1905 and 1907, during Russia's revolutionary crisis. Unlike other painters, at this time he focused on his "peasant" canvases. These paintings are unusual in terms of their use of bright colors and their large scales, which mark them more than their usually generic titles.
In 1906, Malyavin painted Whirlwind, this greatest painting, and the Assembly of the Academy of Arts awarded him the rank of "Academician," "in consideration of his fame in the field of art."
Between 1908 and 1910, Malyavin did not display any work, and the official art critics began attacking him more and more frequently. He traveled to Paris, and on his return, painted a large family portrait, which he exhibited in January 1911, at the salon of the Union of Russian Artists. The painting was a failure, and between 1911 and 1915, Malyavin exhibited only the works of the earlier period.
In 1918, Malyavin moved with his family to Ryazan
Ryazan
Ryazan is a city and the administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Oka River southeast of Moscow. Population: The strategic bomber base Dyagilevo is just west of the city, and the air base of Alexandrovo is to the southeast as is the Ryazan Turlatovo Airport...
, where he participated in the Ryazan Commissariat for Education's propaganda of art and taught. In 1920, he went to Moscow, where he was admitted to the Kremlin and made drawings for Lenin's portrait. He also painted a portrait of Anatoly Lunacharsky, and his works were displayed in Moscow exhibitions.
In fall of 1922, Malyavin traveled abroad with his family yet again, to organize a traveling exhibition of his works. The family settled in Paris, where he painted portraits on commission and where his work was exhibited in 1924. In 1933, he toured Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, exhibiting his work, and in 1935 and 1937, he exhibited his work in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, and Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
.
Malyavin died on December 23, 1940, in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
. He is noted for changing the portrayal of peasants in Russian painting and for his brilliant use of color.