Dynamics of nostalgic images: the case of Pavel Leonov

Volodina Alexandra Vladimirovna Researcher; Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences 12 Goncharnaya str., building 1, room 507, Moscow, 109240, Russia sasha.volodina@gmail.com Other publications by this author

The stylistic diversity of works of naive art is often difficult for researchers – both for those who seek to identify the specifics of the artistic naive as such and to comprehend it as an integral phenomenon, and for those who analyze the individual strategies of individual artists in order to determine their place in the history of art of the XX–XXI centuries. In modern Russian scientific usage, the concept of "naive art" is used in relation to the work of non-professional, but original and independent artists. This term, well—established in its current understanding in French art criticism of the late XIX - early XX century, began to be actively used by Soviet researchers in the 1980s ^{[3, p. 11]}, largely inheriting the earlier discourse about amateur artists ^[20] and the artistic primitive ^[14]. The heterogeneous field of artistic practices of self-taught authors is united by two formal characteristics: the lack of formal art education and stylistic immediacy (that is, partial disregard for the laws of perspective reduction and composition, academic techniques for transmitting light and air media and other rules and conventions adopted in a particular tradition of fine art). However, in the exposition and stock practice of Russian museums, which pay special attention to naive art, as well as in research work, art historians and curators often encounter the fact that these two characteristics can be expressed in extremely different ways by different artists, which makes it difficult to isolate naive art as a specific stylistic phenomenon or direction. At the same time, it is undoubtedly present as a historical and cultural fact, which is also institutionalized (thanks to the long-term history of large expositions from all-Union exhibitions of amateur artists to festivals of naive art in the 2000s and 2010s, as well as thanks to several large museum collections formed in the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve, Museum-Reserve Tsaritsyno, the Museum of Russian Lubok and Naive Art, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, etc.). Over the past decades, the issue of stylistic and formal specifics of naive art has been regularly discussed in expert discussions, however, the diversity and polemic of opinions [see, for example: 4, 6, 10, 15] suggests that naiv manifests itself in the art sphere as a discursive phenomenon, not a stylistic one, and is not an integral artistic direction.

The history of the construction of the discourse of naive art is an extensive plot that should be the subject of a separate study. Here, in order to strengthen our line of thought, it is only important for us to note the value and ideological burden of the concept of "naive" in theory, philosophy and history of art, from which it is impossible to abstract and consider it as a term that performs purely applied art criticism and curatorial tasks. Indeed, we often find this already in the 1910s in the news and notes in French newspapers (Le Temps and others), in accompanying texts for exhibitions and collections (in one of the pamphlets of 1914 we read about the "romantic and naive masterpiece" ^{[25, p. 16]} by Henri Rousseau, one of the most famous naives). In "Aesthetic Reflections" Guillaume Apollinaire calls Rousseau a "poor old angel" ^[23] (thanks to his works, not the innocence of his character), and a little later, in 1923, Vladimir Mayakovsky writes in the wake of his trip to France that Parisian artists have a "passionate love" for the naive canvases of Rousseau and He explains this with a craving for holy simplicity: "All the walls are hung with it. Obviously, the eye of a sophisticated Frenchman is looking for rest on these absolutely artless, absolutely simple things" ^{[11, p. 245]}. Harmony, purity, simplicity and naturalness, the lack of which was so often lamented in the European society of the twentieth century, were found in the works of these "artless" artists. The same discourse and the same aspirations are later found in the vast majority of texts about naive art; for example, one of the most characteristic and striking examples of the dominant discourse can be found in an article by art critic and curator Vitaly Patsyukov, where he defines the naive consciousness of the artist as "a natural state capable of discovering beauty in any layer of reality and time to manifest spiritual freedom" ^{[13, p. 36]}.

It is safe to assume that, along with many other aesthetic ideas, such value coloring of naive art was inherited by us (as well as by Wilhelm Ude and many others) from the aesthetics of romanticism. Conceptualization of naive poetry and, more broadly, the naive in art and culture is found in M. Mendelssohn's work "On the Sublime and Naive in the Fine Arts", in F. von Schiller's "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry", in F.W.J. Schelling's "Philosophy of Art". Schiller defines the naive poet of antiquity as having "naturalness, individuality and lively sensuality" ^{[18, p. 431]}, one who is able to perceive "naturally; we [also] perceive the natural" [Ibid., p. 403]. He notes the distance in relation to the perceived, which is inherent in the modern creator no less than in the modern reader. The value of authenticity and spontaneity of the naive in the modern era, therefore, is due to a shortage, longing for the "golden age" and for the purity of perception, which today no longer seems achievable. Naive art acts as the only available guide to this purity. The public inevitably perceives naiv reflexively, being more or less aware of this lack and need for authenticity, while the naive author himself hangs in this borderline state of a conductor, or medium, keeping in touch with the "natural", but at the same time addressing us, modern readers and viewers. Such an intermediate, borderline state is an unstable and complex subjective position. Schelling, reflecting on this, notes that "the [naive] poet does not seem to be aware of his subject" ^{[17, p. 174]} (in fact, otherwise he would immediately lose his spontaneity). However, is it possible to detect this kind of authorship in the art space of the XX–XXI centuries? Turning to specific works of art and specific artists, we understand that this construct of the "naive" always turns out to be mediated by the modern institutional reality of the art system. On the one hand, a naive, "artless" work of art is indeed perceived by us as distancing, referring to the romantic ideas of the naive outlined above, and at the same time today we meet with the naive in the gallery or museum space of modern art, which sets its critical frame-distance (since the modes of showing modern art in in a globalized world, they are theoretical and (auto)reflexive and are accompanied by text comments and localization of works in a particular context). Therefore, the public inevitably finds itself face to face with the manifested author's subjectivity (which Schelling associated with sentimentality, contrasting the sentimental and the naive). Thus, the naiv in the modern viewer's perception, included in the sphere of modern art, turns out to be partially "disenchanted", tending from naivety to sentimentality. In the institutional reality of the 80s of the XX century, during the construction of this art historical phenomenon in the Soviet scientific and exhibition discourse, the problematic nature of such a borderline position of the "naive", apparently, was not so obvious, which suggests that artistic naiv as a phenomenon is a historical fact, which is a way of describing and the display of works of art, value-colored and conditioned by the historical and cultural context of the Soviet and post-Soviet times. Consideration of the specifics of the naive as a whole already sets a well-defined discursive framework when considering the work of individual artists, quite possibly overlooking the diversity of their individual artistic characteristics and strategies. The works of art and practices themselves can be directly related to different social fields, different socio-cultural issues and different discourses, while meeting the very broad formal criterion of the lack of professional education of their author, which we will try to show further on the example of Pavel Leonov, one of the most notable naive artists of the late Soviet period. Within the framework of this article, I would like to try to explore the specifics of a particular author not as naive, but as considered naive, and leave the actual problems of the "naive" out of brackets, focusing on his artistic strategy as a kind of symptom of the historical and cultural context.

Due to the fact that Pavel Leonov is today one of the most famous and notable naive artists of the Soviet and post-Soviet era, researchers have the opportunity to analyze not only the unique features of his artistic language, but also the specifics of the perception of his works by modern viewers, journalists and critics. In this article, I would like to draw attention to the perception of Leonov's painting in the context of nostalgia, a feeling that is extremely relevant to today's culture. Nostalgic discourse has now taken the shape of a stable cultural form: following the philologist and anthropologist Svetlana Boym, one can record a "global epidemic of nostalgia, the desire for emotional community with collective memory" ^{[24, p. xiv]}, which serves as the basis for the self-identification of the subject. By nostalgia we usually mean "homesickness", often for a metaphorical home that no longer exists or perhaps never existed, and therefore nostalgia is associated with a sense of "loss and displacement" [Ibid., p. xiii].

Researchers note different structures and ways of functioning of nostalgic images and sensations in different socio-cultural processes (retromania in music, visual art, fashion, DIY practices, and so on). Due to attraction, "infection" with artifacts and ideas of the past, outdated practices are revived and bricolages are collected, sometimes having a great affective charge: the connection with the past is always shared by one or another collective or community (after all, this is a common past – with common, familiar artifacts and images) and requires clear expression, manifestation and pronouncing. Many works and practices of contemporary art are read as nostalgically charged, sometimes in accordance with the intention of the author, sometimes independently of him.

Returning to Leonov's painting, we note that in the oral reviews of visitors to exhibitions, in press releases and media reports, as well as in art criticism, one can often find statements in a nostalgic way, noting the experience of meeting with positive, ideal/idealized, utopian Soviet imagery - the beautiful unfulfilled horizon of the Soviet future. Leonov's painting is characterized as "a sign of the era of the decline of the Soviet myth" ^[5] and "paradise", where "the eternal national aspiration of an essentially different world is concentrated" ^[7], and Leonov himself as the author of "A Soviet Folk tale about a cheerful and brave Artist, his faithful Girlfriend and their little Son, about animals, flowers, mountains and valleys of Our Great Vast Homeland" ^[22].

Leonov's work can be read in a nostalgic way, primarily due to the plots of his works. His paintings -"encyclopedias" of a happy, fruitful, orderly life often contain obvious markers of the Soviet project: a combine harvester crosses a luxurious golden field, clear blue sky above collective farm houses, elegant Komsomol girls and Komsomol members go to school, and fountains are beating in the squares. This solemn utopian picture of the world is supported by the author's explanatory texts and letters, which in recent years have been actively included in exhibition projects dedicated to Leonov. Thanks to them, the possibilities of nostalgic reverence expand, which we will explain below. In letters to the naivete researcher O.V. Dyakonitsyna, Leonov calls himself a "busy artist" and an "inventor" ^{[9, p. 89]}. Commenting on his paintings, he often uses vocabulary related to the direct, active transformation of the material world: "making" a picture, "dressing" a character, "building", "framing" space. This literalism is supported by artistic solutions (fragmented compositions assembled from separate blocks), as well as the author's desire for systematic design, to create as complete and detailed a story as possible about happy Soviet life. Such a story is certainly not realistic: before us are images not of the Soviet past as it was, but of what it could have been. This is conducive to capturing imagery that does not capture facts, but captures desires and aspirations that permeate the collective memory of the past. The collectivity and "separability" of these artistic solutions seems essential, since today viewers easily recognize these plots and images and can recognize them as nostalgic.

However, it seems that the retrospective utopia that the viewer's eye discovers in Leonov's canvases is connected not only with the plots and themes, but also with the way they are artistically organized. Our thesis is that not only the plot and actual signs of the "Soviet" in Leonov's paintings, but also his artistic approach itself, based on the idea of invention and construction, is part of the nostalgic feeling born in the viewer. The happy Soviet life order can only be constructed – it does not exist by itself, it must be constantly invented ("in science and in work," as Leonov himself put it – including in the work of the artist). "... in nature, it is impossible to draw such a picture, it is necessary to design such a picture and apply details to the canvas" ^[8] (author's punctuation. – A.V.), Leonov writes about his painting "Interior", probably meaning here not only a compositional solution (friezes and blocks, of which it seems "composed" the works of his mature period), but also the course of creative thought, combining and collecting in solemn processions the most valuable and significant components of the picture of the world, without fear of repetition, but on the contrary, actively using them to consolidate the proper, correct order of things.

This method of constructing utopia turns out to be the second dimension of nostalgic reading, complementing the first (story-themed) one. In support of the thesis about the "constructiveness" of Soviet life well-being, let's say a few words about the Soviet do–it-yourself culture (which today would be called DIY, "do it yourself" culture) - widespread practices of creating objects or devices through alteration, sewing, assembly from improvised materials, repair and so on. These practices were often associated with joint activities in circles, communities, cooperatives and served as a way not only to solve the problem of commodity scarcity, but also to materialize one's identity and one's social relations, to define one's personal space and time [for more information, see: 25]. Combining craft traditions and technical innovations, do-it-yourself practices were born out of everyday necessity, but often obviously surpassed these pragmatic tasks by borrowing the discourse of invention and design activities, and these discursive features have been preserved in our current nostalgic vision of the Soviet era.

Vocabulary related to construction, design and invention was actively used in the thaw and late Soviet times in the large–circulation press - in the periodicals "Science and Life", "Inventor and Innovator", "Young Technician". We find confirmation of this, for example, when analyzing the issues of the journal "Science and Life" in the late 1960s, when it was published with a circulation of more than 3 million copies. Texts on such subjects were widely distributed and were often emotionally and value-tinged, which could be due not only to the enthusiasm of the Soviet scientific and technological progress of the 1960s, but also to echoes of the experimentalist and inventive spirit of the 1920s. The idea of joint action and co-creation, to which the cultural practices of the 1920s were so close, in many ways still remained an impossible horizon, however, having transformed, it remained in the later period of Soviet culture. A characteristic illustration of this is an article about one of the ideologists of the Proletariat, A.K. Gastev, who worked in the "extraordinary time of the twenties and thirties": "Alexey Kapitonovich created, so to speak, the Commandments of the inventor. "...To be an inventor requires: unyielding energy, subtle observation, analysis, memory, imagination, fantasy.” And then the author warns: “To copy, to lick, to copy – these are trifles of business, but to adapt to a new business – here it is necessary to invent.” In those years, I could only design receivers, and suddenly I met an extremely interesting and multifaceted designer, the witty inventor A. Gastev" ^[12].

On the pages of Science and Life, inventive and design pathos permeates all areas of activity: from chess problems ^[16] to medicine ^[19], from large-scale projects in the field of technical aesthetics, fundamental science and rocket design to everyday trifles. The Soviet man not only invents all kinds of devices, machines and devices, but also knows how to "construct sentences" in an oral lecture and "invent" cottage cheese. In one of the articles in the section "Philosophical problems of NTR" in the journal "Inventor and Rationalizer", it was suggested that as a result of the scientific and technical revolution (NTR), there was a shift in "the traditional relationship between science and art in current culture as polar opposable cultural phenomena united only by the category of "creativity""^[21]; The author of the article spoke from the position of a scientist, reflecting on the prospect of synthetic enrichment of scientific methodology, but it can be assumed that in everyday discourse creativity and invention also brought science, technology and art together in a common field.

Returning to Leonov's work and somewhat radicalizing the ideology of "do it yourself", we can assume that the very process of invention, construction is happiness and well-being. In this case, paintings act as a kind of device or machine for the production of a utopian homeland. In interpreting the concept of homeland in this case, it is appropriate to rely on the works of the philosopher and sociologist E. Bloch: his concept of Heimat, "homeland" is a House, desired and hidden in the present, which must be invented, discovered, invented. This is not just a paradise as the end point of a spiritual or life path, but an endless space that people "can keep in mind in front of themselves, exploring and creating" ^{[2, p. 335]} (in Leonov's case, a space stretching in front of a solemn procession of people, animals, birds and cars). The happy and correct order of life thus constantly unfolds forward, it requires reassembly and repetition, which creates a special temporality of these paintings, expressed in the multidirectional movements of individual plots, blocks and characters. Thus, the internal dynamics created by artistic means also serves as one of the components of the nostalgic feeling in perception.

Leonov's painting, in our opinion, is not the only example in the field of visual art associated with this kind of multi–layered nostalgic feeling. It is possible to continue this series of paintings, multimedia and installation projects in the field of contemporary art, in which the nostalgic impression functions in a similar dynamic way: not only due to the theme and content of the images, but also due to the artistic method itself. One of the most famous cases of this kind is the project "Forced Things" by Vladimir Arkhipov ^[1]: a collection of objects of material culture, "homemade" that people have made or transformed for household use. By introducing these objects into the art sphere, the collector and curator enhances their nostalgic "charge": he appropriates and reinterprets objects that have already been appropriated and reinterpreted, thereby emphasizing their difference from modern multi-circulation items reproduced industrially. The pragmatics of the everyday use of these "homemade products" thus fades into the background, and only a naked sign of nostalgia remains in front of the viewer.

The second example close to the method of artistic influence is the legacy of the artist Pyotr Belenk, which we read today through the visual code of the Soviet futuristic project, the pathos of NTR and science fiction, the plots of which unfold in outer space. The collage principle of creating the works adds nostalgic sadness: the human figures cut out and thrown into this desolate space look doubly tragic for the modern viewer, who knows that the Soviet space utopia from science fiction novels never came true.

And in conclusion, we will mention the youngest project – the digital opera "SHHD: WINTER" by poet and musician Ilya Mazo. The opera includes several media (a book, a short film, a music album, etc.), but I would like to pay special attention to a computer game, which has been aptly dubbed the "simulator of Russian longing." The structure of the game implies a constant repetition of the actions of the character the user is playing for: circling in the late or post-Soviet space of "Khrushchev" and courtyards, in the space of the past that has ended (for the peers of the creator of the game, this is the chronotope of their childhood and youth). Thanks to the repetition of actions and settings, the game dynamics recreates the claustrophobic atmosphere of the ended era, additionally affecting the nostalgic feeling.