"Bullfinches of the North": children's portraits of V.A. Igoshev from the funds of the state museums of Ugra

Galyamov Artur Amirovich Scientific Associate, Ob-Ugric Institute of Applied Research and Development 628001, Russia, Khmao-Yugry avtonomnyi okrug, g. Khanty-Mansiisk, ul. Mira, 14A galyamov-artur@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The children's theme in the creative heritage of the People's Artist of the USSR Vladimir Alexandrovich Igoshev was designated as an independent and full-sounding inside the portrait gallery of the "northern cycle". It would not be an exaggeration to say that the artistic development of the distant and previously little-known periphery began with the first graphic works and individual sketches in March 1954, dedicated to the little inhabitants of the harsh earth ("In the Cradle", "Girl with a Dog", "Toycha", "Mansi Children", etc.), and ended with heartfelt masterpieces created in the last years of the life of the "singer of the Mansi people", when all the strength was taken away by illness ("The Snow Maiden", 1998; "The Girl in the Peach Shawl", 2002; "The Girl from Shchekurya", 2004, etc.). It should be added that the first creative success, noted by both critics and the public, was a work also related to a children's theme ("On Vacation", 1954) [see note 1]. For V.A. Igoshev, the world of childhood always remained exciting, was "filled with such spiritual purity, naive charm" that he could not but admire the master ^{[1, p. 217]}. If we talk about immediate creative tasks, then he "always passionately wanted to penetrate into this most subtle child psychology, not yet tainted by the conventions of adulthood, to look at everything around us with wide-open eyes of boys and girls, to learn from them the unfeigned art of being surprised" ^{[1, pp. 217-218]}.

A genuine interest in the images of childhood was noticed by many authors who at different times wrote about the work of V.A. Igoshev. So, as for the judgments of Soviet researchers, the Sverdlovsk art critic Ya.Ya. Shapovalov considered the sketches depicting the children of the North charming ^{[2, p. 18]}, and N.N. Golovanov noted the artist's true vocation for their image ^{[3, p. 23]}. M. Sokolnikov wrote about the "captivating cordiality" of children's images and youth in his article ^{[4, p. 34]}. It is necessary to take into account, but with some reservation, the opinion of B.V. Pavlovsky that "Igoshev can be rightfully called a singer of a happy childhood" ^[5], excluding negative connotations associated with the ideological coloring and the duality of the above expression. As if realizing this, the authoritative art critic added: "He has a very fine sense of child psychology and loves a childish world full of spiritual purity and naive charm" ^[5].

The modern author, L. Shiryaeva, draws an "aristocratic line" of children's portraits of Velasquez and Valentin Serov, to which the images of V.A. Igoshev adjoin, because "the artist transforms his models with all the plastic structure of the paintings: northern commoners turn into princesses on his canvases" ^{[6, p. 17]}. Concluding a brief review of the literature, it should be added that earlier the children's theme was designated by us in the context of genre and stylistic features of V.A. Igoshev's northern works of the 1950s and 1960s ^[7].

The purpose of this article is to identify, on the basis of an art criticism analysis of V.A. Igoshev's works of art from the funds of the state museums of Ugra (State Art Museum, Museum of Nature and Man), the figurative and stylistic originality of the children's theme in the context of the "northern cycle", thereby shedding light on the general evolution of the portrait creativity of the painter in question.

To date, there are 158 paintings and graphic works by V.A. Igoshev in the collections of the state museums of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra (the Museum of Nature and Man – 49 units; the State Art Museum – 109 units) [see note 2]. The beginning of the Yugra collection, the chronological framework of which covers the years 1948-2002 ^{[8, p. 7]}, was the transfer by the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR to the funds of the Khanty-Mansiysk District Museum of Local Lore (now MPICH) of 34 works by the master (end of 1990) ^{[9, p. 9]}. The real pride and enduring value of the two state museums are rightfully the works dedicated to the images of childhood from the common portrait gallery of the "northern cycle".

The earliest work of V.A. Igoshev from the collection of the state museums of Ugra, dedicated to the world of childhood, is a small genre portrait "A Boy with a deer" (MPICH, 1956) (Fig. 1.), probably an author's repetition of the sketch. The motif found by the artist – later poetically characterized by him as an image of "the unique fusion of man and nature" ^{[1, pp. 295-296]}, was used as one of the constituent elements in the 1955 genre work "At the Camp". Unlike the last work, which inherited compositional stamps and "life-affirming" plots of the everyday genre of the 1930s and 1940s, "The Boy with the Deer", due to its chamber nature, impresses with its naturalness, and, despite the preserved academic setting and dryness of writing, it is distinguished by a successful layout and clarity of design, thanks to the implementation of which further searches and aesthetic the artist's installations. Nevertheless, the passionate desire for an objective and detailed fixation of what he saw, expressed in a focus on details and an academic interpretation of subject forms, as if devoid of internal pulsation and gorenje, noticeably limits, as A. Plastov would put it, the "saving truth of the hint" of nature ^{[10, p. 202]}.

Fig. 1. V.A. Igoshev. A boy with a deer. 1956.

X, m. 65x50. MPICH

However, where V.A. Igoshev caught the hidden voice of nature with his being, did not cut it off in mid-sentence and with a sensitive brush shifted it with the help of a "dialogue of color spots" ^{[11, p. 14]} into a wonderful melody, in this case picturesque successes were achieved. The chamber portrait "Morning" (MPICH, 1958), harmonious in its coloristic solution (Fig. 2), continues the line of children's images that began with "Mischievous Girl" (1956) – the pearl of the artist's creativity ^[12]. The seemingly mundane everyday motif taken by him is suddenly transformed and gets a poetic coloring thanks to the preserved and transmitted freshness of the sketch, the free and bizarre play of multicolored strokes from which the little heroine's dress is woven. The color, which once followed the "directives" of strict academic drawing, finally liberates and saturates the canvas with energy. The major intonation is enhanced by individual color accents (bright red bows combined with emerald shades), as well as the luminous flux of reflexes, especially active on the soft fabric in the girl's hands. The background of the portrait is generalized and formed in the left part of the painting by a color masonry resembling a mosaic, and in the right – by a chiaroscuro veil. However, the pictorial maestro described by us could not have fully sounded without the spiritual face of the heroine, without her open gaze turned to the viewer and a sincere smile.

Fig. 2. V.A. Igoshev. Morning. 1958.

K, M. 64x46. MPICH

Returning to the genre works of V.A. Igoshev of the 1950s and 1960s, it is necessary to name the sketch "On a festive day" (MPICH, 1958) and the sketch for the work "In the club of a distant village" (GCM, 1962), where children also meet. If in the sketch they are assigned the role of complementing with their direct presence and involved action the noisy and cheerful atmosphere of the holiday, as if spilled over the entire surrounding space of the northern village, then in the interior sketch, on the contrary, the unfinished figure of the child is transmitted at the moment of concentrated contemplation of the performance invisible to the audience [see note 3].

In addition to the etude portraits collected for thematic "capital works" ^{[13, p. 11]}, many of which later became independent works (and often preserving the original etude solution, its freshness and naturalness), there are also such numerous etudes in the creative heritage of V.A. Igoshev, entirely intended for plastic experiments with form. Earlier examples of how the master solved mainly coloristic and textural problems include the full-scale studies "The Girl from Trom-Agan" (GCM, 1962), "The Girl Zyryanka" (GCM, 1969).

Atypical for the northern works of the artist devoted to the children's theme is the chamber portrait "Severyanochka" (MPICH, 1965). Unlike previous works, the presented model is depicted not in a traditional outfit – a fur coat or a national dress, but in a plaid light jacket and with such an attribute of winter fun as lacquered white skates. In general, the portrait series of the first half of the 1960s is characterized by V.A. Igoshev's choice of laconic visual means (neutral white-gray background, careful selection of "talking" details, muted color, tonal development and rejection of forced color), full concentration on the external appearance of the model, on its internal state in moments of relaxed peace and lyrical mood.

Despite the growing elegiac and sometimes disturbing notes in the portrait works of the "northern cycle" by V.A. Igoshev of the 1970s [see note. 4], the lyric-idyllic trend in the children's theme remains predominant. Instead of the former verbosity and direct "retelling" of nature, there is a significant plastic speech in the whole structure of the paintings. In addition to individual sketches in which the "singer of the Mansi people" hones his skills and searches for new forms of comprehension of the changing reality ("Portrait of a Boy", 1970s; "Sonya Mamleeva", 1973 - both GCMS; "Thought", 1970 – MPICH), there are portraits in the collection of Ugra museums that have incorporated the most striking and unique features of the individual manner of the master of the 1970s show themselves. In the chamber portraits of "Toycha" (GCM, 1973), "Pelikova Lisa" (GCM, 1976), "Batagova Katya" (GCM, 1978), the integral unity of the minted plastic form, which is literally felt by our eye, and the enchanting richness of color nuances, as if mesmerizing the viewer with their the game and virtuoso combinations. Here the artist is like a sculptor who artistically sculpts a form with his brush, in all its material weight and visibility. Thanks to the harmonious color, a picturesque transformation of the material world takes place. So, in the work "Katya Batagova" (Fig. 3), the heroine's fur coat, conveyed in all textural details, acquires a resemblance to the royal attire, along with gold inserts on the sleeves-bracelets and a lemon-yellow scarf-diadem. The exquisite scarlet fabric in the hands of the model, echoing with the red dress peeking out of the fur coat, completes this beautiful children's image. As A. Shatskikh rightly noted, V.A. Igoshev's canvases "are evidence that he became a "court painter" of a kind of royal family, with his charming black-eyed "infantes" in malitsy, with majestic aristocrats from ancient families dressed in incredibly skillful and colorful clothes" ^{[14, p. 92]}.

Fig. 2. V.A. Igoshev. Katya Batagova. 1978.

K, m. 70x50. HHM

The tendency of retrospectivism noted by modern authors in children's portraits of the second half of the 1960s - early 1980s, when fragile images–symbols, isolated from the adult world, could serve as a way for the artist to leave for other worlds, as well as "a means of transferring high matters into the gray Soviet everyday life" ^{[15, p. 143]}, completely does not correspond to the children's line in the creative heritage of V.A. Igoshev. On the contrary, in the master's genuine and sincere admiration of his models, their spiritual world, sometimes in his sublime perception, in the plot-thematic approach and in the system of selected plastic techniques, one feels the affirmation of the earthly ideal of life – hic et nunc, even despite the fact that he inevitably "may go irrevocably", but which nevertheless it is necessary to "preserve in human memory – at least on canvas, <...> in a real palette of colors" ^{[16, p. 13]}. Like other "traditionalist" artists, V.A. Igoshev identifies "layers of folk life, national character, trying to establish them as a valuable heritage of culture, ethics, spiritual makeup, aesthetics" ^{[17, p. 67]}. The image of the children of the far North is precisely the sensually concrete and close to the artist's heart embodiment of a beautiful ideal that has visible features in reality itself.

Children's portraits of the 1980s and 1990s, associated with the late creative period of V.A. Igoshev and stored in the funds of the state museums of Ugra, differ from his previous works by even greater pictorial and plastic diversity and boldness of figurative interpretations. The voiced features quite fit into one of the trends of late Soviet art, characterized, according to V.A. Lenyashin, by the desire of "modern painters to liberate the portrait form, to make it the subject of coloristic, compositional and textural searches" ^{[18, pp. 214-215]}. V.A. Igoshev even more than before turns to spiritual and formalistic searches the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, to the interrupted tradition of the Silver Age [see note. 5], using the broad visual possibilities of late Russian Impressionism and Art Nouveau style. However, we are not talking about deliberate and thoughtless stylization, or banal imitation of great figures and trends of the past, reaching epigonism, namely, rethinking, creative continuation of the aforementioned realistic traditions, saturating them with relevant themes and life-giving motives.

The principles of shaping the late work of V.A. Igoshev are determined by panaesthetism, deeply embedded in the basis of the artist's personal picture of the world – the cult and triumph of the beautiful, the emanation of beauty, as if permeating reality, every element of it. Thanks to this, an organic synthesis of impressionistic mobility of world perception is possible, with its compositional dynamism and the vibrating element of brushstrokes, on the one hand, and the style–forming elements of modernity – increased decorative sound, special rhythmics and large color zones, the dominant role of the plane, the interweaving of natural and conventional, on the other. Naturally, at the same time, there is an increasing importance of the hedonistic function and a noticeable departure from the natural vision towards greater conventionality. It is also true that decorative imagery accompanying idyllic art often led to the predominance of "autonomous plastic expressiveness over the significance of a full-scale real motif" ^{[17, p. 95]}. It is only necessary to make a significant reservation that in the portrait work of V.A. Igoshev, despite the masterly recreated pictorial element, when an image was born from a conditional, sometimes semi–abstract colorful environment on the canvas plane, a person did not lose his former plastic self-worth and concreteness of individual characteristics, although the type of figure-background relationship was steadily changing.

The lyrical and idyllic intonation of V.A. Igoshev's children's images, which we defined earlier, is continued in such single-figure compositions as "I was Dreaming" (HMMM, 1990), "Severyanochka" (HMMM, 1990), "Toycha Jr." (HMMM, 1990). In these works, the changed role of light attracts attention: as if with all the force of the flow, he came into contact with the form for a moment, "voiced" it, leaving a characteristic golden trace on the entire surface of the canvas. Light contributes to the birth of a complex decorative effect of the vibrating texture of fur, its wonderful iridescences and colorful shimmers, thanks to which the tectonicity of the composition is endowed with dynamics, without, however, going beyond the boundaries of the object forms indicated by the contour. It should be noted that with all the unrestrained colorism, lush decorativeness and some spontaneity of writing, the master prescribes the face of the portrayed in detail, with a fused brushstroke, striving for emotional and meaningful capacity.

In the ensemble of elements of the artistic image, the importance of carefully selected details by V.A. Igoshev increases, meeting both cognitive (about the world of the model) and aesthetic tasks: a bright yellow handkerchief decorated with patterns ("I was dreaming"), a bow marked with individual spots, shading the swarthiness of a cute face ("Severyanochka"), richly decorated with ornaments and coins, a bag for sewing accessories mansi ("Toycha Jr.").

The most remarkable of the entire Ugra collection is the children's portrait of the master "Girl with a red scarf" (GCM, 1989) (Fig. 4). In it, the artistic task of the organic community of light and form was conceptualized and solved in a new way. We find a story about many circumstances of writing this picture in the memoirs of V.A. Igoshev himself: "I wrote "The girl with the red scarf" quickly, in one or two sessions... A girl of ten years old posed for me in the hall at home or in some closet, where there was very interesting lighting. A stream of light coming through a window or door, penetrating everything by itself, created a single shining environment" ^{[11, p. 14.]}. The artist refuses a specific image of objects in the background, thereby achieving, thanks to the free play of light reflexes, the desired and desired "integrity of the color of the picture". Such a detail of the work that attracts the viewer's attention as a red scarf is not just an accessory of the little heroine, but a structure–forming element that significantly expands the possibilities of imaginative interpretation of what she saw: "The girl had a red ribbon on her fur coat, and I turned it into a scarf, thus increasing the red spot. Remove it and the color scheme will become boring" ^{[11, p. 14]}. With the help of light dissolved in space and, thereby, the sound of individual color spots forming wonderful patterns, the "kaleidoscopic" image is achieved ^{[6, p. 19-20]}.

Fig. 4. V.A. Igoshev. A girl with a red scarf. 1989.

K, m. 50x40. HHM

There are examples when the model dissolves in a light environment ("Snow Maiden", 1997; "Taezhnitsa, 1998 – both GCMS). It's as if a transparent golden veil is thrown over her, through which familiar features barely appear. In this case, we can talk about a new ratio of decorative plastics and full-scale motif, decided in favor of the first, and a significant departure from the second. The aesthetic significance of the canvas plane increases, its formative role, while the depth of the picture space is leveled, and the once modeled volume is reduced to a structurally developed spot. It seems that the artist here is more obsessed with the idea of becoming, in all its fragility and variability, than he is looking for ways of the former affirmation of being within its stable limits.

Let's also name sketch portraits, in which either certain plastic tasks were set (sketch studies), or solutions inherent in the painting were pursued, but in medium and small formats, preserving the original vivid impression of nature: "Little Mansi" (MPICH, 1986), "The Future Reindeer Herder" (MPICH, 1988), "The Girl in the Red scarf" (GCM, 1989), "The Girl from Sosva" (GCM, 1991).

Finally, a separate group consists of paintings by V.A. Igoshev, in which another important and defining stylistic feature of Impressionism manifested itself, namely, impressionistic mixing of genres. In the works of the 1980s and 1990s devoted to the children's theme - "Bullfinches. (Sketch for the painting "Bullfinches – children of the North")" (1982, HMM), "The Tasmanov Family" (1985, HMM), "An Interesting Book" (1990, HMM), "Dreamers" (1991-1993, HMM), taking into account the synthesis of a group portrait (as well as two-, or three–figure compositions), genre, landscape and, in some cases, still life - nevertheless, the dominant position of the model remains.

In these works, depending on the set figurative and plastic tasks, the value of the pole of picturesqueness increases or decreases, the tendency to unlimited decorativeness and conventionality, due to the changing balance between the sketching and pictorial principles. If "The Tasmanov Family" is a "large compositional picture" written "on the basis of old sketches" accumulated during his work in the North ^{[11, p. 6]}, then in a two-figure medium-format work "An Interesting Book" (Fig. 5), the impulsiveness and freshness of the sketch is cultivated, the artfully played spontaneity of the artistic method and general sketchiness of execution. Also, in the "Interesting Book", which is a pictorial interpretation of the 1959 work of the same name, the master used a "non-finito" plastic technique, in which individual details (the handles of two little heroines, the barely guessed texture of the book, the object world) remained "unfinished", had "the appearance of the initial stage of elaboration" ^{[19, p. 28]}.

Fig. 5. V.A. Igoshev. An interesting book. 1990.

X, m. 60x80. HHM

In the painting "The Tasmanov Family", in order to create a monumental image – a living picture of the eternal existence of the Ob Ugrians, in the center of the composition, along with the static figure of the keeper of the genus, the artist placed an active group of children, thereby outlining the philosophical theme of continuity. In the other works already mentioned by us – the study "Bullfinches" and "Dreamers" – the main compositional and semantic load falls on the images of children.

In the study "Bullfinches" by V.A. Igoshev, a cheerful motif is captured and transmitted: small children, amusingly huddled in a flock, look at the viewer with direct and sincere curiosity. This motif can be found in a small drawing of 1969 "Bullfinches" and its subsequent pictorial variations: "They came to draw" (1973), "Boys from Saranpaul" (1982), "Mansi children" (1984), etc. Thus, the metaphor found by the master is the result of natural impressions taken from life itself. V.A. Igoshev himself liked to recall his works in which the "bullfinches of the North" had a special role: "They are very inquisitive, watched my work with interest, posed with pleasure. In Nyaksimvol, I lived in a cooperative farm, in an office, they fenced off a small space for me there, where I slept and worked. I'll go out into the yard early in the morning, and the children are already there. “Why have you come?” – I ask. They answer: “To show off...”. While I am writing one, others are sitting patiently waiting" ^{[11, p. 14]}.

But the real magnum opus, embodying the artist's aesthetic program and relating to the world of childhood, can be considered a "composite picture" – "Dreamers" (Fig. 6). Firstly, it traces the harmonious harmony of genre modes, their impressionistic mixing: a group portrait of children of the North; genre idyllic "orchestration"; opening for figures are the snowy and boundless expanse of the tundra (landscape motif); luxuriously rendered texture of fur on sleds (still–life motif) and peacefully resting friends of little northerners - deer (animalistic motif). Secondly, the idea of the "unique unity of man and nature", once captured by V.A. Igoshev, as well as the poetized motif of the "bullfinches of the North" were consistently transferred by him into the space of the painting. The genre-thematic complex also determined the choice of plastic techniques and principles that had been "tested" earlier: the rhythmic organization of the composition, the allocation of colorful "signal" zones, an ash-silver, almost monochrome gamma, enlivened by color spots-accents, a noticeable contrast between the fused interpretation of children's faces and pastichly rendered texture of object forms. Thus, the logic of the transformation of plein-air painting led to a decorativeness close to the Art Nouveau style. However, applying the subtle remark of V.A. Filippov, we can say that the impressionistic outlook of the artist "made modernity inoculate with unusual cheerfulness, conviviality, major moods" ^{[20, p. 316]}. It is worth noting the following observation. "Dreamers" is an example of how the basis of an easel work, due to the unlimited dominance of the hedonistic function, is inevitably transformed into a decorative panel. The colorful plane of the canvas acquires aesthetic significance, while the planar principle of organization makes adjustments to the overall process of shaping.

Fig. 6. V.A. Igoshev. Dreamers. 1991–1993.

X, m. 100x125. HHM

The conducted art criticism analysis of V.A. Igoshev's portraits of children from the collections of the state museums of Ugra allowed us to identify figurative and plastic features, reflecting, in turn, the evolution of his portrait work as a whole. If in the early works of the "northern cycle" of the 1950s an important role was played by a full-scale vision, empirical fixation and representation of previously unknown culture based on outdated patterns of socialist realism, then in the future, as artistic tasks become more complicated, due to deep immersion in the world of the Ob Ugrians (and, in particular, the world of the "bullfinches of the North"), the figurative structure was enriched with new plastic techniques, absorbing and distinctively developing the interrupted realistic traditions of the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. Touching on the latter, it is late Russian Impressionism, tending to the decorative Art Nouveau ("decorative impressionism"), but on a developed and modern natural basis.    

Notes:

1.       The work of V.A. Igoshev "On vacation" together with individual sketches following the results of the exhibition of artists of the RSFSR in 1954 was awarded a diploma of the first degree (Order of the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR No. 178. Moscow. March 24 , 1955 About the results of the art exhibition of the RSFSR in 1954).

2. Information about the works of V.A. Igoshev from the funds of the State Museums of Ugra is available on the portal "State Catalog of the Museum Fund of the Russian Federation". URL: https://goskatalog.ru/portal /#/ (accessed 03.09.2023). Further in the text abbreviated names of the state museums of Ugra: MPICH, GCM.

3.       The second title of the painting "In the club of a distant village" is "Before the concert". At the stage of preparation of the work – from 1960 to 1964 – there were other working titles: "In the Mansi club", "Before the performance" (Sverdlovsk branch of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR. Minutes of the Board meetings of the department for 1964. GASO. F.2022r. Op. 1. d. 96. l. 21, 95).

4.       According to V.A. Igoshev: "One day a journalist asked me why some kind of anxiety, anxiety is caught in my canvases, what can I say in response?" ^{[1, p. 211]}.

Russian Russian 5. "Vladimir Alexandrovich was committed to the spirit of the Silver Age of Russian art, all his life he collected objects of the modern era, paintings by artists of the circle of the Union of Russian Artists" (Goryaev S.V. The subject world of the artist V.A. Igoshev // "Living Museum: strategy and practice": scientific and practical conference dedicated to the 10th anniversary of its formation The House-museum of the People's Artist of the USSR V.A. Igoshev and the 90th anniversary of the master. – Khanty-Mansiysk: Print-Class, 2012. pp. 40-41).