Petrov-Vodkin [antikvár]

Two men were returning from an exhibition, - a teacher and his pupil. Valentin Serov, a recognized artist, who died one year later, and Kuzma Pet-rov-Vodkin, whose name had become known in the artistic circles of Russia only one year before the exhibition. "You are a lucky artist," said Serov. "Isn't it because of the scandal that arose throughout Russia concerning A Dream?" Petrov-Vodkin answered ironically. (His picture A Dream, shown at the exhibition, had aroused a hot controversy among the representatives of different artistic camps, - between the supporters of Repin and the supporters of Benois.) In reply to the ironic question of the pupil, Serov said: "That's not the point! You are lucky in that you have a good eye for things and the ability to make good use of them. You take a thing from nature and out of it you create a painting " "Well, now, and what about you?" "Me?" Serov paused. "I have only a photographic ability. My eye is rotten. That's the trouble with me." "But look here, perhaps this is simply a special kind of honesty on your part?" "No, my dear artist, this is what I consider a special kind of honest swindling. Honest, because I am not to blame for not having a good eye for things " It is apparent that these words of Serov expressed the mercilessness of criticism in regard to his own productions which only a great artist may allow himself. It also goes without saying that Serov was severe and unjust to himself. But what is important is the trend of his ideas - the spiritual suffering of one of the most outstanding representatives of nineteenth-century realism and the forerunner of twentieth-century realism. The new century brought to the forefront the crisis in empirical knowledge, the banner of which had been raised in the epoch of the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci considered real only that which could be seen. He put painting on a footing with science; but the level of science, in our times, has gone far beyond purely empirical criteria. The relativity theory, the atomic theory, etc. have proved that it is impossible to rely on the visual. These fundamental scientific discoveries came just at the time when life itself was pregnant with immense social upheavals. Seemingly, these discoveries had no immediate effect on the outward aspects of life. Just as the first motor-cars still looked like carriages, the beginning of the twentieth century very much resembled the nineteenth. But the development of mechanical methods of transmitting visual information, - the technique of photography and of cinematography, - gradually undermined the theory of the visual in painting. The visible became illusory as never before Photography competed with painting and deprived it of one position after another. These changes, affecting life in general, were accepted by various artists in different ways. Some of them completely denied the principle of representation, claiming that it was merely a passive imitation of nature (K. Malevitch, V. Kandinsky). Others realized the necessity of a transition to a new type of representation. To this latter group belonged Petrov-Vodkin.