Mikhail Matyushin
Encyclopedia
Michael Vasilyevich Matyuschin ' onMouseout='HidePop("9815")' href="/topics/Nizhny_Novgorod">Nizhny Novgorod
; died 14 October 1934 in Leningrad
) was a Russian painter and composer, leading member of the Russian avant-garde
. In 1910–1913 Matyushin and his wife Elena Guro
(1877–1913) were key members of the Union of the Youth
, an association of Russian Futurists
. Matyushin, a professional musician and amateur painter, studied physiology
of human senses and developed his own concept of the fourth dimension connecting visual and musical arts, a theory that he put to practice in the classrooms of Leningrad Workshop of Vkhutein and INHUK (1918–1934) and summarized in his 1932 Reference of Colour (Cправочник по цвету).
woman. According to his own memoirs, at an early age he studied reading, writing and playing violin himself; at the age of eight he was admitted to the music classes of Nizhny Novgorod Concervatory and in 1875 to Moscow Conservatory
. Matyushin was also inclined to painting, but could not afford college training at the time. After graduation in 1881 Matyushin joined the Court Orchestra in Saint Petersburg
and played with it professionally until 1913. He received formal training in graphic arts with an independent school in Saint Petersburg in 1890s.
movement evolving parallel to Italian Futurism
. Matyushin was the oldest person among the futurists, and Alexander Blok
sarcastically wrote that Matyushin "futuristically seeks to look younger". In 1910 Matyushin and Guro sponsored and co-authored Trap for Judges (Садок судей), the first almanac
by Russian Futurists. The couple did not have children, but in 1912 Guro, suffering from leukemia
, invented "my unforgettable son", a literary mystification that persisted past her death and became a subject of her book Autumnal Dream (Осенний сон, 1912) set to music by Matyshin in 1921. She died in April 1913.
of Russian avant-garde
, Union of the Youth
produced two experimental theatre shows, Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy by Vladimir Mayakovsky
and Victory Over The Sun
, an opera by Velimir Khlebnikov
, Aleksei Kruchenykh
(libretto
), Matyushin (music) and Kazimir Malevich
(stage design). According to Matyushin, the "Sun
of cheap appearances" of this opera was none other than everyday sense of reality that is not infallible anymore; even the Galilean basics of cosmogony
can be changed by humans who one day will become capable of physically capturing the Sun. INHUK was closed and merged to State Institute of Visual Arts (GIII) in December 1925;
, renamed to Free Workshops (SVOMAS
) where Matyushin led his own art class on Colour. In 1921 the state relaunched the Academy and reinstalled neoclassical revivalists
at its helm; despite public protests, Matyushin, Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin
lost their chairs. Matyushin and Malevich retreated into the walls of Leningrad's Institute of Artistic Culture (INHUK) where Matyushin and his disciples continued experiments on colour and perception.
Matyushin, along with Malevich and Pavel Filonov
, was a perceptual millenarianist
, confident that the boundaries of individual human perception are yet unexplored and can be significantly extended in an almost mystic
way. The movement began to fade at around 1915 and gave way to constructivist
ideology
in early 1920s, but Matyushin, Malevich and Filonov remained faithful to millenarianism through 1920s.
Another problem handled by Matyushin was the human inability to see all 360 degrees. In 1923 Matyushin wrote that the solution lies in the artist's personal development to the point where he attains "a physiological change in the previous methode of perception" and introduced the concept of a rear plane, a layer of rearward information previously "outside the human sphere due to inadequacies of experience". Matyushin formed a new study group, Zorved (Зорвед, literally see and know) and claimed that it discovered evidence of perception of events and object located behind the person, and that humans possess visual centers capable of resolving this rearward "vision".
(display=inline°N 59.970912°W) now houses Museum of Avant-Garde in Saint Petersburg, a division of State Museum of History of Saint Petersburg. The house, built in 1840s or 1850s, became property of the Literary Foundation (Литературный фонд) in 1904 and operated as an artists' hotel. Matyushin and Guro moved into flat 12 in 1912. The place also provided shelter for Malevich, Filonov, Mayakovsky and other notable artists of Russian avant-garde and socialist realism
.
Olga Konstantinovna, the third wife and widow of Matyushin, lived there until her death in 1975; during the Siege of Leningrad
her room was taken over by Vsevolod Vishnevsky and a special order preserved the building from being pulled down for firewood
. By 1979, as the last residents moved out or died, Matyushin House became a public museum. However, existing building is a contemporary replica: the real Matyushin House was taken apart and rebuilt from new wood in 1987; after a fire in 1990 and many later setbacks it was rebuilt again and reopened in 2006.
Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg...
; died 14 October 1934 in Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
) was a Russian painter and composer, leading member of the Russian avant-garde
Russian avant-garde
The Russian avant-garde is an umbrella term used to define the large, influential wave of modern art that flourished in Russia approximately 1890 to 1930 - although some place its beginning as early as 1850 and its end as late as 1960...
. In 1910–1913 Matyushin and his wife Elena Guro
Elena Guro
Elena Genrikhovna Guro was a Russian Futurist painter, playwright, poet, and writer of fiction.-Early life:Guro was born in St. Petersburg on January 10, 1877. Her father was Genrikh Stepanovich Guro, an officer in the Imperial Russian Army of French descent. Her mother Anna Mikhailovna...
(1877–1913) were key members of the Union of the Youth
Soyuz Molodyozhi
Soyuz Molodyozhi was an artistic group and an art magazine of Russian avant-garde organized in 1910.There were more than 30 members of the group and most of other Russian avant-garde participated in their exhibitions....
, an association of Russian Futurists
Russian Futurism
Russian Futurism is the term used to denote a group of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"...
. Matyushin, a professional musician and amateur painter, studied physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
of human senses and developed his own concept of the fourth dimension connecting visual and musical arts, a theory that he put to practice in the classrooms of Leningrad Workshop of Vkhutein and INHUK (1918–1934) and summarized in his 1932 Reference of Colour (Cправочник по цвету).
Early career
Matyushin was a bastard son of a landlord and a serfSERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
woman. According to his own memoirs, at an early age he studied reading, writing and playing violin himself; at the age of eight he was admitted to the music classes of Nizhny Novgorod Concervatory and in 1875 to Moscow Conservatory
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...
. Matyushin was also inclined to painting, but could not afford college training at the time. After graduation in 1881 Matyushin joined the Court Orchestra in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
and played with it professionally until 1913. He received formal training in graphic arts with an independent school in Saint Petersburg in 1890s.
Cubo-Futurism
Matyushin met his second wife, writer and painter Yelena Guro, at Ian Tsonglinski art school where both trained in 1903–1905. Guro, sixteen years his younger, dramatically changed Matyushin's view of art and society and the two became a seed for the Russian Cubo-FuturismCubo-Futurism
Cubo-Futurism was the main school of painting and sculpture practiced by the Russian Futurists.When Aristarkh Lentulov returned from Paris in 1913 and exhibited his works in Moscow, the Russian Futurist painters adopted the forms of Cubism and combined them with the Italian Futurists'...
movement evolving parallel to Italian Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
. Matyushin was the oldest person among the futurists, and Alexander Blok
Alexander Blok
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was a Russian lyrical poet.-Life and career:Blok was born in Saint Petersburg, into a sophisticated and intellectual family. Some of his relatives were literary men, his father being a law professor in Warsaw, and his maternal grandfather the rector of Saint Petersburg...
sarcastically wrote that Matyushin "futuristically seeks to look younger". In 1910 Matyushin and Guro sponsored and co-authored Trap for Judges (Садок судей), the first almanac
Almanac
An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...
by Russian Futurists. The couple did not have children, but in 1912 Guro, suffering from leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
, invented "my unforgettable son", a literary mystification that persisted past her death and became a subject of her book Autumnal Dream (Осенний сон, 1912) set to music by Matyshin in 1921. She died in April 1913.
Victory Over The Sun
In the same 1913, the year that became annus mirabilisAnnus mirabilis
Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase meaning "wonderful year" or "year of wonders" . It was used originally to refer to the year 1666, but is today also used to refer to different years with events of major importance...
of Russian avant-garde
Russian avant-garde
The Russian avant-garde is an umbrella term used to define the large, influential wave of modern art that flourished in Russia approximately 1890 to 1930 - although some place its beginning as early as 1850 and its end as late as 1960...
, Union of the Youth
Soyuz Molodyozhi
Soyuz Molodyozhi was an artistic group and an art magazine of Russian avant-garde organized in 1910.There were more than 30 members of the group and most of other Russian avant-garde participated in their exhibitions....
produced two experimental theatre shows, Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
and Victory Over The Sun
Victory over the Sun
Victory over the Sun is a Russian Futurist opera premiered in 1913 at the Luna Park in Saint Petersburg.The libretto written in zaum language was contributed by Aleksei Kruchonykh, the music was written by Mikhail Matyushin, the prologue was added by Velimir Khlebnikov, and the stage designer was...
, an opera by Velimir Khlebnikov
Velimir Khlebnikov
Velimir Khlebnikov , pseudonym of Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov , was a central part of the Russian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it.Khlebnikov belonged to Hylaea,...
, Aleksei Kruchenykh
Aleksei Kruchenykh
Aleksei Eliseevich Kruchenykh or Kruchonykh or Kruchyonykh , a well-known poet of the Russian "Silver Age", was perhaps the most radical poet of Russian Futurism, a movement that included Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk and others. Together with Velimir Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh is considered the...
(libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
), Matyushin (music) and Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian painter and art theoretician, born of ethnic Polish parents. He was a pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement.-Early life:...
(stage design). According to Matyushin, the "Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
of cheap appearances" of this opera was none other than everyday sense of reality that is not infallible anymore; even the Galilean basics of cosmogony
Cosmogony
Cosmogony, or cosmogeny, is any scientific theory concerning the coming into existence or origin of the universe, or about how reality came to be. The word comes from the Greek κοσμογονία , from κόσμος "cosmos, the world", and the root of γίνομαι / γέγονα "to be born, come about"...
can be changed by humans who one day will become capable of physically capturing the Sun. INHUK was closed and merged to State Institute of Visual Arts (GIII) in December 1925;
Art theories
In 1918 avant-garde artists took over the former Imperial Academy of ArtsImperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, completed 25 years later in 1789...
, renamed to Free Workshops (SVOMAS
Svomas
Svomas or SVOMAS , an abbreviation for Svobodnye gosudarstvennye khudozhestvennye masterskiye , was the name of a series of art schools founded in several Russian cities after the October Revolution....
) where Matyushin led his own art class on Colour. In 1921 the state relaunched the Academy and reinstalled neoclassical revivalists
Russian neoclassical revival
Russian neoclassical revival was a trend in Russian culture, mostly pronounced in architecture, that briefly replaced eclecticism and Art Nouveau as the leading architectural style between the Revolution of 1905 and the outbreak of World War I, coexisting with the Silver Age of Russian Poetry...
at its helm; despite public protests, Matyushin, Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement...
lost their chairs. Matyushin and Malevich retreated into the walls of Leningrad's Institute of Artistic Culture (INHUK) where Matyushin and his disciples continued experiments on colour and perception.
Matyushin, along with Malevich and Pavel Filonov
Pavel Filonov
Pavel Nikolayevich Filonov was a Russian avant-garde painter, art theorist, and poet.-Biography:Filonov was born in Moscow on January 8, 1883 or December 27, 1882 . In 1897, he moved to St. Petersburg where he took art lessons...
, was a perceptual millenarianist
Millenarianism
Millenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle. The term is more generically used to refer to any belief centered around 1000 year intervals...
, confident that the boundaries of individual human perception are yet unexplored and can be significantly extended in an almost mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
way. The movement began to fade at around 1915 and gave way to constructivist
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
in early 1920s, but Matyushin, Malevich and Filonov remained faithful to millenarianism through 1920s.
Another problem handled by Matyushin was the human inability to see all 360 degrees. In 1923 Matyushin wrote that the solution lies in the artist's personal development to the point where he attains "a physiological change in the previous methode of perception" and introduced the concept of a rear plane, a layer of rearward information previously "outside the human sphere due to inadequacies of experience". Matyushin formed a new study group, Zorved (Зорвед, literally see and know) and claimed that it discovered evidence of perception of events and object located behind the person, and that humans possess visual centers capable of resolving this rearward "vision".
Legacy
Wooden house of Matyushin and Guro in Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
(display=inline°N 59.970912°W) now houses Museum of Avant-Garde in Saint Petersburg, a division of State Museum of History of Saint Petersburg. The house, built in 1840s or 1850s, became property of the Literary Foundation (Литературный фонд) in 1904 and operated as an artists' hotel. Matyushin and Guro moved into flat 12 in 1912. The place also provided shelter for Malevich, Filonov, Mayakovsky and other notable artists of Russian avant-garde and socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
.
Olga Konstantinovna, the third wife and widow of Matyushin, lived there until her death in 1975; during the Siege of Leningrad
Siege of Leningrad
The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last...
her room was taken over by Vsevolod Vishnevsky and a special order preserved the building from being pulled down for firewood
Firewood
Firewood is any wood-like material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not highly processed and is in some sort of recognizable log or branch form....
. By 1979, as the last residents moved out or died, Matyushin House became a public museum. However, existing building is a contemporary replica: the real Matyushin House was taken apart and rebuilt from new wood in 1987; after a fire in 1990 and many later setbacks it was rebuilt again and reopened in 2006.
Sources
- Grodberg, Kristi A., Elena Guro in: pp. 238–242