Visual Materials in the Journal Dom iskusstv

Abstract

This essay describes the vin'etki[vignettes] placed at the beginnings and ends of texts throughout the two journal issues of Dom iskusstv[House of Arts]. The images, often created specifically to reflect the written word, mark the journal as a post-revolutionary continuation of Mir iskusstva[World of Art]'s legacy and aesthetics, and represent significant stylistic and thematic elements of some of the era's best known graphic artists. Also addressed is the documentary significance of the only photograph reproduced in the journal: it depicts an exhibition of Boris Kustodiev's work hosted at the House of Arts in 1921.

Keywords:

• vin'etka [vignettes]
• Dom iskusstv [House of Arts]
• Mir iskusstva [World of Art]
• Mstislav Dobuzhinskii
• Dmitrii Mitrokhin
• Sergei Chekhonin
• Boris Kustodiev
• Iurii Annenkov
• Georgii Vereiskii
• Vladimir Milashevskii

Notes

The only regional copy of the journal Dom iskusstv [House of Arts] is retained by the Pennsylvania State University.

The author's book on Petrograd's House of Arts is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

1. Only artists' life dates and patronymics are given when the artist is first mentioned in the text. When describing the vin'etki, the artist's full name is used again for emphasis and clarity.

2. A very scarce journal, the House of Arts is held in its complete run (two issues) by only ten libraries in the United States. Even the Library of Congress does not own a copy.

3. Those three were Griadushchee: proletarskii literaturno-khudozhestvennyi zhurnal [Future: a proletarian literary-artistic journal], affiliated with Proletkul't, circulation 10,000–15,000; Zhizn' iskusstva [Life of art], affiliated with Narkompros, circulation 4000; and Iunyi proletarii [Young proletarian], affiliated with a shifting array of various party committees and organs, circulation 3,000–15,000. Source: Kseniia Dmitrievna Muratova, ed., Periodika po literature i iskusstvu za gody revoliutsii 1917–1932 [Literary and art periodicals in the years after the revolution, 1917–1932] (Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1933; repr., Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1972), passim.

4. Muratova, Periodika po literature i iskusstvu, passim.

5. Muratova, Periodika po literature i iskusstvu, passim.

6. Vestnik literatury [Literary herald] was published by Obshchestvo vzaimopomoshchi literatorov i uchenykh [Writers and Scholars' Society for Mutual Assistance]; Letopis' Doma literatorov [Chronicle of the House of Writers], initially published as a section in Vestnik literatury and then briefly as a separate journal, was produced by Dom literatorov [House of Writers]; and Vestnik teatra i iskusstva [Theater and art herald] was associated with the Petrogradskii otdel Soiuza rabotnikov iskusstv [Petrograd section of the Union of Art Workers]. Source: Muratova, Periodika po literature i iskusstvu, passim.

7. The others were: Biulleteni Petrogradskogo otdela Vserossiiskogo soiuza rabotnikov iskusstv [Bulletins of the Petrograd section of the Russian Union of Art Workers], which also ceased publication in 1921; Zapiski mechtatelei [Dreamers' notes], which produced only six issues, the last in 1922; and Nachala: zhurnal istorii literatury i istorii obshchestvennosti [Beginnings: a journal of the history of literature and the history of society], which ceased publication after only two issues. Source: Muratova, Periodika po literature i iskusstvu, passim.

8. Maksim Gor'kii and Kornei Ivanovich Chukovskii, “Perepiska M. Gor'kogo s K. I. Chukovskim,” in Neizvestnyi Gor'kii: k 125-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia [The unknown Gor'kii: on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of his birth], ed. E. Ts. Chukovskii and N. N. Primochkina (Moscow: Nasledie, 1994), 108. Chukovskii was exaggerating somewhat, because a few other journals for the intelligentsia did exist at the time, but he could certainly make the case that the needs of this potential readership were not being adequately met.

9. Sovremennik [The contemporary], founded by Aleksandr Pushkin in 1836, was one of the most widely read literary journals in nineteenth-century Russia, and under Nekrasov's editorship, it was the country's leading literary journal from 1846 to 1866, notable for publishing many of the country's best-known writers and for its sympathies with the radical intelligentsia. Source: Victor Terras, A History of Russian Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 173–174.

10. M. Gor'kii and K. I. Chukovskii, “Perepiska M. Gor'kogo s K. I. Chukovskim,” in Neizvestnyi Gor'kii, 108.

11. Kornei Chukovskii, Chukokkala (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1979), 178.

12. Chukokkala was the title given to Chukovskii's rukopisnyi al'manakh [handwritten, or manuscript, almanac], which included decades' worth of entries from many of Russia's best known writers, artists, scholars, and cultural figures, both before and after the revolution. The title combined Chukovskii's surname with the name of Kuokkala, a village in Finland (and later annexed by the Soviet Union) where Chukovskii and several other writers and artists spent their summers and holidays.

13. Chukovskii, 287.

14. Kornei Chukovskii, Dnevnik, 1901–1929 [Diary, 1901–1929] (Moscow: Sovremennyi pisatel', 1997), 160–61.

15. Anatolii Lunacharskii, “Zhurnal Doma iskusstv” [Journal of the House of Arts], Pechat' i revoliutsiia [Print and revolution], August–October 1921, 225–227.

16. Aleksandr Voronskii, “Ob otshel'nikakh, bezumtsakh, buntariakh” [About hermits, madmen, and rebels], Krasnaia nov' [Red virgin soil], 1921, no. 1:292–294.

17. In issue no. 1, reproductions of art works in the House of Arts journal include (in order of their appearance): M. V. Dobuzhinskii, Ten' [Shadow] (from the Sny [Dreams] cycle); G. S. Vereiskii, V parke [In the park]; M. V. Dobuzhinskii, Moskva: vyveski [Moscow: signboards]; Z. E. Serebriakova, Belenie kholsta [Bleaching of the linen]; B. M. Kustodiev, Portret [Portrait]; S. V. Chekhonin, M. Gor'kii; Z. E. Serebriakova, Portret syna [Portrait of my son]; V. D. Zamirailo, Eskiz dekoratsii k Demonu, Ispanskii tanets (graviura na linoleume) [Sketch of scenery for The Demon, Spanish dance (engraving on linoleum)]. In issue no. 2, the offerings were more limited: M. V. Dobuzhinskii, Dvor Doma iskusstv [The courtyard of the House of Arts ] (two different views of the same subject, reproduced on successive pages); M. V. Dobuzhinskii, Sfinksy [Sphinxes]; and five pages (two images per page) of images from contemporary posters without attribution.

18. John Bowlt, The Silver Age: Russian Art of the Early Twentieth Century and the “World of Art” Group (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1979), 65–67.

19. Bowlt, Silver Age, 128.

20. Bowlt, Silver Age, 110.

21. Bowlt, Silver Age, 125.

22. John E. Bowlt, Moscow & St. Petersburg 1900–1920: Art, Life & Culture (New York: Vendome Press, 2008), 170.

23. Entsiklopediia russkoi zhivopisi [Encyclopedia of Russian painting], s.v. “Mitrokhin, Dmitrii Isidorovich,” http://www.artsait.ru/.

24. Alla Gusarova, Mstislav Dobuzhinskii: zhivopis', grafika, teatr [Mstislav Dobuzhinskii: painting, graphic art, theater] (Moscow: Izobrazitel'noe iskusstvo, 1982), 7–48, passim.

25. Kornei Chukovskii, “Akhmatova i Maiakovskii” [Akhmatov and Maiakovskii] in Dom iskusstv [House of Arts], no. 1, Petrograd, 1921, 42.

26. Entsiklopediia russkoi zhivopisi, s.v. “Chekhonin, Sergei Vasil'evich,” http://www.artsait.ru/.

27. The image of child and dog is echoed in Mitrokhin's 1928 lithograph Ploshchadka [Street garden], in which there is a child crouching down, turned away from the viewer, his attention occupied with something near the ground; next to the child, facing in the opposite direction, is a goat. See “[Figure] 62, Street Garden, from the series Six Lithographs Coloured by the Author,” in Dmitrii Mitrokhin, Dmitry Mitrokhin (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1977), 87.

28. Mitrokhin, Dmitry Mitrokhin, 44.

29. Entsiklopediia russkoi zhivopisi, s.v. “Annenkov, Iurii Pavlovich,” http://www.artsait.ru/.

30. Evgenii Zamiatin, “Lovets chekovekov” [Fisher of men] in Dom iskusstv [House of Arts], no. 2, Petrograd, 1921, 3.

31. Bol'shaia biograficheskaia entsiklopediia [Great biographical encyclopedia], s.v. “Vereiskii, Georgii Semenovich,” http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enc_biography/; Entsiklopediia russkoi zhivopisi, s.v. “Vereiskii, Georgii Semenovich,” http://www.artsait.ru/.

32. Melnitsa is reproduced in Georgii Vereiskii, Georgii Vereiskii: akvareli, risunki [Georgii Vereiskii: watercolors, drawings], ed. Liudmila Bogino (Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1973). The pages of the book are unnumbered, but the image appears near the end of Bogino's introductory text and before the section of sequentially numbered illiustratsii [illustrations].

33. Vladimir Milashevskii, Vchera, pozavchera: vospominaniia khudozhnika [Yesterday, the day before yesterday: memoirs of an artist] (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1972), passim.

34. Katerina Clark, Petersburg: Crucible of Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 150.

35. Iurii Bocharov and I. Ippolit, “Zhurnaly russkie” [Russian journals], Literaturnaia entsiklopediia [Literary encyclopedia], vol. 4 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Kommunisticheskaia akademiia, 1929–1939), http://feb-web.ru/feb/litenc/encyclop/le4/le4-2172.htm. The other journals singled out for particular censure were Vestnik literatury [Literary herald], Letopis' Doma literatorov [Chronicle of the House of Writers] (and its successor, Literaturnye zapiski [Literary notes]), Knizhnyi ugol [Book corner], and Zapiski mechtatelei [Dreamers' notes].

36. A. Uss, “Sotsialnoe litso ‘Mira iskusstva’ i ego otrashenie [sic] v sovremennom iskusstve” [The social face of World of Art and its reflection in contemporary art], in Literatura i iskusstvo [Literature and art], 1931, no. 7–8:84, cited in Bowlt, Silver Age, 132.