Victor Borisov-Musatov
Encyclopedia
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, prominent for his unique Post-Impressionistic
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
style that mixed Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
, pure decorative style and realism
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
. Together with Mikhail Vrubel
Mikhail Vrubel
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel is usually regarded amongst the Russian painters of the Symbolist movement. In reality, he deliberately stood aloof from contemporary art trends, so that the origin of his unusual manner should be sought in Late Byzantine and Early Renaissance painting.-Early...
he is often referred as the creator of Russian Symbolism style.
Biography
Victor Musatov was born in SaratovSaratov
-Modern Saratov:The Saratov region is highly industrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia...
, Russia (he added the last name Borisov later). His father was a minor railway official who had been born as a serf
SERF
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...
. In his childhood he suffered a spinal injury, which made him humpbacked
Kyphosis
Kyphosis , also called roundback or Kelso's hunchback, is a condition of over-curvature of the thoracic vertebrae...
for the rest of his life. In 1884 he entered Saratov real school, where his talents as an artist were discovered by his teachers Fedor Vasiliev and Konovalov.
He was enrolled in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was one of the largest educational institutions in Russia. The school was formed by the 1865 merger of a private art college, established in Moscow in 1832, and the Palace School of Architecture, established in 1749 by Dmitry Ukhtomsky. By...
in 1890, transferring the next year to the Imperial Academy of Arts
Imperial 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...
in Saint-Petersburg, where he was a pupil of Pavel Chistyakov
Pavel Chistyakov
Pavel Petrovich Chistiakov was a Russian painter and teacher of art.He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts under Petr Basin. He was a pensioner of the Academy of Arts in Paris and in Rome...
. The damp climate of Saint-Petersburg was not good for Victor's health and in 1893 he was forced to return to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and re-enroll to the Moscow School of painting, sculpturing and architecture. His earlier works like May flowers, 1894 were labelled decadent by the school administration, who sharply criticised him for making no distinction between the girls and the apple trees in his quest for a decorative effect. The same works however were praised by his peers, who considered him to be the leader of the new art movement.
Fernand Cormon
Fernand Cormon was a French painter born in Paris. He became a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel, Eugène Fromentin, and Jean-François Portaels, and one of the leading historical painters of modern France....
's school in 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...
. He studied there for three years, returning in summer months to Saratov. He was fascinated by the art of his French contemporaries, and especially by the paintings of "the father of French Symbolism" Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was a French painter, who became the president and co-founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and whose work influenced many other artists.-Life:...
and by the work of Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.In 1864, she exhibited for the first...
.
In 1898 Borisov-Musatov returned to Russia and almost immediately fell into what it is called "fin de siècle nostalgia". He complained about "the cruel, the truly iron age", "dirt and boredom", "devil's bog", and he had acute money problems that were somewhat alleviated only in the last years of his life when collectors started to buy his paintings. Musatov's response was creating a half-illusory world of the 19th century nobility, their parks and country-seats. This world was partially based on the estate of princes Prozorvky-Galitzine
Galitzine
For Orthodox clergyman and theologian, see Alexander Golitzin.The Galitzines are one of the largest and noblest princely houses of Russia. Since the extinction of the Korecki family in the 17th century, the Golitsyns have claimed dynastic seniority in the House of Gediminas...
s Zubrilovka and partially just on Musatov's imagination.
Borisov-Musatov also abandoned oil-paintings for the mixed tempera
Tempera
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
and watercolor and pastel
Pastel
Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation....
techniques that he found more suitable for the subtle visual effects he was trying to create.
Borisov-Musatov was a member of the Union of Russian Artists and one of the founders and the leader of the Moscow Association of Artists, a progressive artistic organization that brought together Pavel Kuznetsov
Pavel Kuznetsov
Pavel Varfolomevich Kusnetsov was a Russian painter and graphic artist.He studied at Saratov at Bogolyubov Art School , then Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and for a year in Paris . His early paintings were exhibited by the Mir Iskusstva group, and he was closely associated...
, Peter Utkin, Alexander Matveyev, Martiros Saryan
Martiros Saryan
Martiros Saryan was an Armenian painter.He was born into an Armenian family in Nor Nakhijevan . In 1895, aged 15, he completed the Nakhichevan school and from 1897 to 1904 studied at the Moscow School of Arts, including in the workshops of Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin...
, Nikolai Sapunov
Nikolai Sapunov
Nikolai Nikolaevich Sapunov was a Russian painter. He was born in Moscow and studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Isaac Levitan , and at the Academy of Arts under Kiseliov....
, and Sergei Sudeikin.
The most famous painting of that time is The Pool, 1902. The painting depicts two most important women in his life: his sister, Yelena Musatova and his bride (later wife), artist Yelena Alexandrova. The people are woven into the landscape of an old park with a pond.
Another famous painting is The Phantoms. 1903 depicting ghosts on the steps of an old country manor. The painting was praised by the contemporary Symbolist poets Valery Bryusov
Valery Bryusov
Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was a Russian poet, prose writer, dramatist, translator, critic and historian. He was one of the principal members of the Russian Symbolist movement.-Biography:...
and Andrey Bely.
In 1904 Borisov-Musatov had a very successful solo exhibition in a number of cities in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and in the spring of 1905 he exhibited with Salon de la Société des Artistes Français and became a member of this society.
The last finished painting of Borisov-Musatov was Requiem. Devoted to the memory of Nadezhda Staniukovich, a close friend of the artist, the painting may indicate Borisov-Musatov's evolution towards the Neo-classical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
style.
Borisov-Musatov died on October 26, O.S. 1905 of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
and is buried on a bank of Oka River
Oka River
Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds...
near Tarusa
Tarusa
Tarusa is a town and the administrative center of Tarussky District of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the left bank of the Oka River, south of Serpukhov, northeast of Kaluga, and about south of Moscow. Population:...
. On his tomb there is a sculpture of a sleeping boy by Musatov's follower Alexander Matveyev.