Powerful Paintings Overshadowed by Rhetoric

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's return to Russia last month revived the old question of the role of the artist in Russian society. While many younger Russians might not like it, the artist remains a powerful figure here. The entire nation, to one extent or another, listens when someone like Solzhenitsyn begins to describe how things ought to be. And it trembles when it seems that such a figure is in danger of being co-opted by nationalist politicians with a threateningly narrow vision.The opening of Ilya Glazunov's new exhibition at the Manezh last week, attended by the most prominent leaders of the political opposition, further fanned this discussion, to such an extent that art was overshadowed by rhetoric and some powerful paintings were reduced to mere posters for Russian nationalism.However, Glazunov's artistic vision is far more important than this, even though in recent years he has frequently allowed himself to slip into simplistic dogmatism. Born in Leningrad in 1930, Glazunov has been Russia's most beloved painter since the mid-1960s, holding nearly annual exhibitions throughout the Soviet Union and around the world for the last 30 years. In 1986, the Western art journal Art Revue wrote that Glazunov "is probably the most popular painter alive."The current exhibit, however, is his first in more than four years, an especially long time since very few of his works have yet found their way into the world's museums. It presents a selection of paintings from the artist's student years, as well all the important works and cycles of his entire career, and includes 30 works shown to the public for the first time.Glazunov has always acknowledged the debt his art owes to novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the relationship between these two artists is one of the subjects that the new exhibit brings to the fore. Both artists developed a style that was outside the strictly realistic canon of their times and that relied heavily on traditional national art forms and aesthetics. As a result, both were heavily criticized by the prevailing art establishments, but achieved a popular response that was surprising considering their complex, somber themes.Dostoevsky once wrote that he "was a realist in a higher sense of the word," not trying to reproduce reality, but seeking to create a psychological realism that exposed what humanity really is. Glazunov seeks the same effect with the same startling, but decidedly mixed results. Glazunov's fame began with his portraits, and it is here that the successes and shortcomings of his psychological realism are best revealed. Many of his portraits were simply commissioned by famous people who admired his art but for whom the artist has little sympathy. These works, including portraits of Indira Gandhi, Pope John Paul II, Yury Luzhkov and King Juan Carlos I of Spain, are so stiff and pompous that they strike the viewer as cartoons despite their intense detail.On the other hand, his portraits of simple Russians and of Russian cultural figures whose views he shares are expressive and profoundly affecting. In one 1994 portrait, the filmmaker and conservative Duma member Stanislav Govorukhin stares out at the viewer with a bewildered, helpless look as historic Russia burns behind him. Other equally impressive portraits feature the nationalist writers Vladimir Soloukhin (1984) and Valentin Rasputin (1987). In all of these cases, the more you know about the subject of the portrait, the more appropriate Glazunov's depiction seems.Among Glazunov's most moving portraits are those of his family and his self-portraits. The monumental canvas "My Life" (1994), which lays out the events of Glazunov's life in a series of mini-scenes, deserves special mention. The mini-scenes surround a portrait of Glazunov, sitting pensively with his hand to his forehead as if trying valiantly to understand the sense and purpose of his own existence. This painting is the most moving of Glazunov's new works, and viewers responded to it with sincere sympathy, many even laying flowers before it.Glazunov's best paintings reveal a strange fusion of the past and the present, the organic influence of the past on the future. His portraits of Dostoevsky, for example, are particularly haunting because he places the writer in old parts of St. Petersburg that remain today much as they were when Dostoevsky lived there. Another fascinating painting, "In the Warehouse" (1986), shows a rural church that has been converted by the Communists into a cold storage facility for meat. In "A Hero's Mother. Victory Salute" (1986), an old woman looks sadly at a photograph by the pale light of Victory Day fireworks flashing outside her window.The influence of the past on the present and the future is the subject of Glazunov's greatest achievement, his massive painting "Eternal Russia" (1988), which is prominently displayed at the beginning of the Manezh exhibit. Seeing this work alone is worth the trouble of going to the exhibit and it can justly be considered one of the most intriguing paintings of 20th-century art.This painting, which depicts the thousand-year history of Russia as a religious pageant of hundreds of the country's most prominent historical figures, reflects virtually all of Russia's artistic traditions. Like many of Glazunov's works, it shows the influence of icons and traditional folk art. It also brings to mind Ilya Repin's "Religious Procession near Kursk" (1880-83) and Karl Bryullov's "The Last Day of Pompeii" (1830-33)."Eternal Russia" presents the viewer with literally thousands of puzzling juxtapositions, leaving crowds of art-lovers transfixed before it. Just one of the many things that the painting encourages the viewer to consider is the continuing influence of pre-Christian Russian paganism. In the upper left corner, people struggle vainly to topple a statue of Perun, the old god of thunder. The lines of the statue are repeated several more times in the painting, most prominently in the powerful Soviet rocket that is heading for space in the far right-hand corner. After noticing this, the viewer begins to see the many pagan elements in the other paintings at the exhibit.Glazunov's art, viewed in its complexity, gives much food for thought about Russia and the Russian spirit. In general, however, it evades jingoistic answers, sending the viewer away with more questions than answers, but with a heightened sympathy and love for Russia. The paintings are profoundly religious and make the clear point that, historically, Russia has handled external threats well while making disastrous choices at home. One viewer wrote in the comments book: "Your paintings are a repentance for all of us."It makes one wonder what Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov were thinking about as they attended the opening last Wednesday.The Glazunov exhibit is at the Manezh Exhibition Hall, 1 Manezhnaya Ploshchad. It is open daily except Tuesday from 11 A.M. to 8 P.M. Tickets are 1000 rubles. Tel. 202-9304. Nearest metros: Okhotny Ryad, Biblioteka imeni Lenina.