КНІГІ ОНЛАЙН
Аўтаматычна згенераваная тэкставая версія, можа быць з памылкамі і не поўная.
Валентина Войцеховская
6 Из 18 графических произведений 10 возвращены из эвакуации в Саратовский художественный музей им. А. Н. Радищева, остальные были возвращены из Германии.
7 Усава Н. М. Малюнкі Л. А. Альпяровіча ў зборах музея И Паведамленні Нацыяналь-нага мастацкага музея Рэспублікі Беларусь. Вып. 2.— Мінск, 1997. — С.138.
г owadays, Leu Alpyarovich is one of the main representatives of the artistic life in Minsk and Belarus at the turn of the 20th century. It has to be said “nowadays” for only a fraction of works have survived to a present day. Mostly names of artists and their works have been preserved in catalogues and newspaper articles about exhibitions. In spite of certain difficulties to define real significance of Alpyarovich in the art of those times, there is no doubt in obvious value of his works which are the fact of art, culture and spiritual life.
In the Belarusian art history of the Soviet times Alpyarovich happened to exist in the Pen-Kruger-Alpyarovich triumvirate because of the academic professionalism of those artists and relatively adequate number of their preserved works. But if Pen and Kruger could be imagined as mirrors of common and mental constants of the epoch who reflected time, Alpyarovich showed time directly through his character and mood of his art. He was destined to express most fully fin de siecle1 in Belarusian art. However, Alpyarovich expressed not only the Silver Age with its aesthetism and refined languor but the time of changes, hopes in crisis and disillusions, readiness for joy and statement of disappointing results.
More than 50 works of Alpyarovich are known nowadays2. Nearly the fifth part of his works has survived, which is the greatest luck for a Belarusian artist
1 Fin de siecle (in French, “the end of a century”) — often refers to the prominent cultural hallmarks of the 1890—1910s in the European history. In Russia, this period is called the Silver Age.
2 Besides the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, Alpyarovichs works are exhibited in the Historical Museum of the Republic of Belarus and Odessa Art Museum.
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of that epoch. Mainly the works have been preserved thanks to a happy coincidence: an exhibition of the three aforenamed artists opened in Vitsebsk in 1941. When the war started it was evacuated to Saratov and later returned. The majority of the preserved works were selected (apparently, by technical characteristics, too) by art historians and artists of that time. The artists family might also participate in the selection, which mainly consisted of small sketches, realistic works and works of democratic and Itinerants-like nature with optimistic character. However, portraits and compositions returned from Germany or found in the post-war Minsk comprise the most prominent works of the present collection of Alpyarovich. These portraits and compositions were kept before and during the war in Minsk museum collections. Nevertheless, we will never know whether this collection of Alpyarovich corresponds to a general nature of his creative work.
Leiba Abramavich Alpyarovich was born on December 4 (December, 16, according to the new style), 1874 into the family of Abram-Rubin Shalomavich and Khaya Uravaya in a small town Kuranets, Vileika district, Vilnya province (now, a village of Vileika district, Minsk region). The family moved to Minsk around 1882. In 1890, the youth travelled to Vilnya, where he entered the Drawing School of academician Ivan Petrovich Trutnev. There he studied for two years and was awarded with a certificate of merit and a silver medal though the future artist lived in poor conditions in an attic at that time.
In 1892—1896, Alpyarovich lived in Odessa and studied at the Drawing School and general education college of the Society of Fine Arts. His teacher there was Nickolay Dmitrievich Kuznetsov. He was the person who greatly influenced the artist and Alpyarovich was grateful to him all his life. His successes were recognized with large and small bronze medals for “painting from nature morte” (still life) and a small silver medal for drawing from life. At that time the artist lived in a basement and earned money by drawing lessons.
Ambition fueled by obvious academic success motivated the gifted young man to go to Saint-Petersburg where he became a student of the Higher Art College under the Imperial Academy of Arts on January 1,1897 after six-month probation. However, that relatively smooth running of life of Alpyarovich
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crashed and turn of objective (an illness and lack of money) and subjective (failure of an exam and confusion at post) events led to his expulsion from college in 1899. Alpyarovich asked Ilya Efimovich Repin to help. The most famous Russian artist appreciated works of the unfortunate young man who might have faced four-year conscription. Thus, Alpyarovich was included into the list of irregular students of the I. E. Repin’s studio in October, 1899. In three years he received title of an artist, X class rank in case of admission to the civil service, the right to wear a silver academic badge and to teach drawing in schools. So, in 1902, Alpyarovich became “a real” artist after going through all stages of the Russian artistic education and visiting during the years of studies wonderful and very different cities of the Empire — Vilnya, Odessa, Saint-Ptersburg and Moscow — where he met remarkable artists and personalities.
Also, in 1902, the artist settled in Minsk and lived there for eleven years only briefly travelling to other places. At that times Minsk was by no means a cultural capital, but gradually exhibition activities began to improve. In February, 1906, Alpyarovich presented an impressive number of works (37 pieces). There were a sketch of a small screen in the style of Louis XIV and a screen among portraits, landscapes and studies. His next known participation in a home exhibition took place in the Museum of Arts and Industry under Minsk Commerce College in April, 1910.
From 1906 and presumably till 1909 the artist lived abroad. According to documents and his works, he was in Berlin. We could only guess how Alpyarovich managed to accomplish such a voyage while being not a very well-to-do person. Probably, wealthy relatives or wives helped him.
The journey to Europe had great impact on the formation of the artist. Introduction of a diverse and avant-garde artistic world prompted his “self-identification” and forming of a mature style. After returning to Minsk Alpyarovich did not gain a more secure and financially beneficial position. In 1911—1913, he participated in three exhibitions in Muinsk and Vilnya. Besides, he worked as a time clerk and at his last year he taught in a private Jewish non-classical school for boys. At the end of 1913, there was published an obituary in The Minskaya Gazeta-Kopeika {The Minsk Penny-Newspaper). The Board of the Ve
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getarian Society of Minsk informed “about the death of its member-contester and independent artist Leu Abramavich Alpyarovich after a short and grave illness on December, 23”. The last known review of Alpyarovich’s works in his lifetime was published in The Minskaya Gazeta-Kopeika, in an article about an artistic and ethnographic exhibition in Minsk: “Alpyarovich makes a nice and warm impression with his “supper”, “portrait of a girl” is created with great love and also “portrait” is not bad. The rest of his works (excluding “drawing”) seems weaker to us and his painting feels tasteless”3, ft is hardly possible to judge by this article exactly what paintings are meant and it is just impossible to imagine that the article mentions the Alpyarovich we know.
20 works of Leu Alpyarovich, including three self-portraits, were shown at I All-Belarusian Exhibition in 1925. Afterwards, he was completely forgotten, what is understandable in the situation of “the construction of a new world”. Nevertheless, in 1939, Yuliyan Zhukhavitsky, a Minsk violin player and the artists friend, presented works of Alpyarovich which had been kept in the family to “the people concerned”. That event appeared at the first pages of newspapers: a forgotten pupil of Repin with 300 paintings! The situation resulted in a personal exhibition of Alpyarovich in June, 1939. Since that time his works have always made part of retrospective exhibitions about Belarusian art and correspondent publications.
Diverse creative works of Alpyarovich, an artist of the fin de siecle epoch, seem to form a border line of artistic trends of the time. The artists legacy consists of works of the late Itinerants relaxed realism (At the Quarry, Washerwoman, Evening with the Family), the Barbizon school and Impressionism (the majority of landscape and genre sketches), Symbolism (Riverbank, By the Sea, Funeral of a Schoolgirl), Romanticism (Berlin in Evening. Above the Spree, Cottage), late portraits and inevitable display of subtle and detached Art-Nouveau as the style of the epoch. A great variety of works are connected by the personality of the author: they are distinguished by lyricism, the strife for sincerity,
3 M. Б-н. Мастацка-этнаграфічная выстава ў Мінску (Мімалётныя ўражанні) Н Мен-ская газэта-капейка.— 1913. — № 282. — 13 мая).
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prevalence of artistic means over pictorial means of expression. In the majority of cases they are devoid of specific dates and only evolution is evident. This evolution took more than a decade: from immature “lifelike” sketches and portraits to independent artistic statements of different genres with visible through external signs vortices of fate deepened by permanent social and political turmoil of the 20th century.
Alpyarovich’s life and creative work are parallel and correlated which is characteristic of many artists. Some of his paintings appeared as an expression of an inner condition; others were created as opposition to the realities of life and aspiration to create or depict something beautiful but sinking in routine and troubles. Joy and hope in life can be found only in this high spiritual component. The artist saw that harmony in the commonest things and events. It is characteristic of his works to illustrate a thin line between ordinary and sublime. Perhaps, that is why creative work of Alpyarovich is full of innuendo and underdevelopment: his lyricism and poetry did not develop into a full individual form as it happened, for instance, with his contemporary Mark Chagall. Possibly, Alpyarovich did not care much about exactness of the artistic language, he strived to express clear and experienced things and form was just an instrument. And “innuendo” stripped an artistic work its conventional finality making it just another link in the stream of art and life.