May 2012 - Los Cuadernos de Julia

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Turns 100

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Google celebrates the centenary of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts with a delicate Doodle

The impressive building of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Volkhonka St., across the road from the restored Christ the Saviour Cathedral, was solemnly opened on May 31 (June 13), 1912. The video below from the Museum’s collection shows the Emperor Nicholas II visiting the museum and being greeted by Ivan Tsvetaev, the founder of the Museum and the father of the famous Russian poet, Marina Tsvetaeva.

The initial collection was based on the copies of antique sculptures from the Moscow State University, which are now exhibited in the halls of the Ancient Art Department. As for paintings, especially the invaluable pieces by Gaugin, Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, etc, these had been transferred from St. Petersburg museums. Still more works had either been bought or donated by private collectors, which tradition continues to this day. Only recently two private collectors donated to the Pushkin Museum a painting by Dirk Hals, The Merry Company (which apparently is a version of an earlier eponymous work by his elder brother, Frank), and the only surviving work of a little-known German artist, Adam Elias Borni who painted a trompe-l’oeil artwork featuring his colleague, another German painter Dietrich. The latter work was bought in Austria, and art historians may now be able to identify other works by Borni.

I don’t remember the first ever time I visited the Pushkin Museum, although I told you how once I spent nearly 6 hours in the cold February weather to attend an exhibition by Claude Monet. The space is the biggest problem the museum will have to address in the next 6 years. There is a special 2018 Agenda that seeks to add more buildings around the original edifice. I bet many citizens and visitors would give a lot not stop queueing outside the building for hours on end.

I do, however, remember all exhibitions that I attended, which should be a good illustration to the painstaking effort of the museum and its long-term director Prof. Irina Antonova to foster partnership between the Pushkin Museum and other world art depositories. Apart from Claude Monet in 2002, I visited (in no particular order):

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Pablo Picasso, A Girl on the Ball (PMFA, Moscow)

– Moscow-Berlin, photographs and paintings (1996; a review in Kommersant in Russian)
– Paul Cezanne (1999)
– USSR and USA in photographs (~1999)
– World Museums, the partners of the Pushkin Museum (1998; the exhibit included paintings by Dali and Chagall);
– an exhibition of artwork, mainly sculpture, by the wonderful Italian actress and beautiful woman, Gina Lollobrigida (?)

Speaking of different items in the collection, there is a full-size copy of Michelangelo’s statue of David, and a small hall containing quite a few paintings by Picasso, mainly from his Blue and Pink periods. I secretly took a photo of A Girl on the Ball in 2001 – it was a film camera, not digital, printed on Kodak, so it’s great it actually survived to this day.

In March this year I did a small video of the Pushkin Museum in late evening, so you can see a kind of Gothic close-up of an impressive Classicist building erected after the design by R. Klein and V. Shukhov. And bearing in mind that even Google joined the celebrations by adding a special Google Doodle, we wish the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts many happy returns (and maybe another couple of Turners in the collection)!

Matrioshka Fashion: The Haute Couture Take On Russian Symbol

One of the hallmarks of Moscow Design Week 2011 was Jacopo Foggini’s Matrioska installation. Fashion designers do, from time to time, pay homage to one of Russia’s most recognisable symbols. All that pales (arguably) in comparison to what designers did for Russian Vogue’s 10th anniversary in 2008. The then editor-in-chief, Alyona Doletskaya gave a creative brief to top couturiers to design a matrioshka, marrying the fashion brand’s “identity” with the peculiar form of a Russian doll. The result is a range of contemporary artworks by the likes of Marni, Prada, Jitrois, and others. This remains a great example of using an old form to produce a brand-new look, feel, and even the purpose.

OccupyBulat: Citizen Journalism In Old Arbat

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Bulat Okudzhava clad in white

Moscow “Occupy” protests move from one spot to another, sometimes escaping the police, sometimes not. And while the government gives gentle, if persistent, hints that it has the power to deal with the opposition, the critics nurture their own hopes.

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I took the photo at the top last week as I was walking down Old Arbat for my own business. Earlier I saw a couple of police vans, and then I came across a group of some 50 people who gathered around and in front of the statue commemorating Bulat Okudzhava, the famous Russian/Georgian poet, singer, and actor who used to live in 41, Old Arbat. I walked past 5 people in civil dress who discussed the sad state of today’s education and culture. (I do wonder if we discuss this a bit too often, perhaps?) Then I noticed a woman planting toys, flowers, and some papers under Okudzhava’s arm. The following was quite natural: I wanted to take a photo of the Bard, but it made sense to take a photo of another snapper, too. There were quite a few people with photo- and video cameras.

Okudzhava died in 1997; 2012 is the 35th anniversary. He is buried in Vagankovo Cemetery, and a large rock marks the grave. Although he joined the Communist Party in 1956, in 1990 he stopped being the member. Here in Arbat he is the only solely standing figure, subject to any sort of demonstrations. I have no doubt that he would be honest with himself, first and foremost, and denounce any crime and theft. The question is: whom would he commend?

Poems and songs by Bulat Okudzhava, translated into English by Alec Vagapov.

Moscow Sunset in Spanish Colours

You might remember me saying that one thing I terribly missed while in England were the sunsets I could watch from my window in Moscow. “Much ado about sunsets! They’re beautiful anywhere!” some may exclaim. Surely they are, but you only realise how important they are for you when you have to look at the rooftops of two-storey houses, only imagining how beautiful this celestial spectacle could be…

I’ve never been to Spain, but thanks to El Greco and Goya and the sounds of flamenco the colours I associate with Spain are dark-red, golden, and a tint of black. I think of Carmen, Cervantes, auto-da-fé, the Spanish Civil War, Guernica, the films by Bunuel and Almodovar, Polanski’s Ninth Gate, and Tempranillo Gran Reserva. And if I wanted to let my imagination run wild, I’d think that I was watching the sun setting down on the doomed Albigensian castles of Languedoc.

It is this everyday occurence that provokes a trace of analogies and ultimately brings inspiration that I missed.

Moscow Sunset from the balcony, medieval style

Much Ado About Russian: A Fight At the Ukrainian Rada

Multiculturalism entails multilingualism, and different countries react to the issue differently. Most people in the UK whom I came across were more positive than not about the fact that they could hear all sorts of accents and languages in the street. Bengali, Indian, Polish, Russian – anything went, it seems, as long as it was not the Queen’s English.

In Russia, and certainly in Moscow, the situation is different. I live in the same apartment block where I was born and grew up; many Russian (=white) neighbours know me well. But we have other neighbours, too, who arrived in the last 5 years from the former Soviet republics or Russian subject territories. They speak Russian to a different degree, and between themselves they naturally speak their native language. My Russian neighbours attitude is not enthusiastic, to say the least. On several occasions, when I got into a lift together with such Russian (=white) neighbour they would remark, as if I was a guest: “Oh, how good it is to see a Russian face!” A variation is “How good it is to hear the Russian speech“. Nationalism is overt here, and those Caucasian and Uzbek “newcomers” are often called “black”, as opposed to pale-skinned Russians.

However, for years since the demise of the Soviet Union the survival of Russian citizens in the former Soviet republics was also a sensitive, if not altogether painful, issue. The case of the Baltic States may be better known, and now Ukraine, a country that historically, culturally and politically has for centuries had strong ties with Russia, follows the same nationalistic course. Probably being close to Russia for such a long time explains, why the Verkhovna Rada deputees couldn’t stop half-way in defending their point of view.

Basically, on his coming to power, the current president Victor Yanukovich promised to raise the status of the Russian language in the country. Russians constitute the largest ethnic minority in Ukraine, so Yanukovich’s plan paid due respect to this fact. The Ukranian nationalists are against this, arguably for fear of threatening the status of the Ukrainian language. So when the bill was about to be discussed at the Rada this week, opposition’s garni khloptsi (Ukrainian for “handsome guys”) were adamant to have their way. To avoid discussing the bill they burst into the Rada praesidium, and a fight ensued. The photos were made by the RIA Novosti correspondent.

The nationalists believe that this Russian issue hammers a wedge in the Ukrainian society and is best to not be discussed. And they are ready to kick the air – literally.

A Bicycle Stand At the Moscow State University

The scene I saw today at the Moscow State University brings to mind Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, if only in a very generic sense, though. When I was a student graduating 10 years ago we didn’t have bicycle stands or shelters; the actual culture of cycling to the classes was practically non-existent. Today’s different, as the scene I captured today well illustrates. I first shot it in colour and then changed to monochrome, as it felt more natural that way.

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Julie Delvaux – A Bicycle Stand At the Moscow State University

Pedro Saenz – La Tumba del Poeta

Pedro Saenz, The Poet’s Tomb

Pain of the Matador (photo by Greg Wesson)

The painting by Pedro Saenz La Tumba del Poeta reminds me of two things. One, is Pain of the Matador monument in Madrid; another is a poem by Nikolai Zabolotsky written shortly before his death when he and Alexander Tvardovsky visited Italy and stopped in Ravenna by Dante’s tomb. I translated this poem but I’m still slightly unhappy with two stanzas, so I’ll omit them.

To Florence-mother always a stepson,
I chose Ravenna as my final home.
Stranger, accuse me not; let Death alone
Torment the soul of the cheating one.

I didn’t take my broken lyre with me.
It rests in peace among my native people.
Why then you, Tuscany, for whom I’ve longed so deeply,
Now on my orphaned mouth are kissing me?

Go on, almight bellman, ring your bells!
The world is still awash with blood-red foam!
I chose Ravenna as my final home
But even here I found no rest.

Ed Miliband For Social Mobility; What About Postcode Poverty?

I’ve just read an article on Yahoo! News reporting how Ed Miliband went all against the Beecroft Report that suggests changes in labour laws that would facilitate employers to lay off the employees. The coalition Government, in his words, isn’t doing anything to attack social inequality; quite on the contrary, they uphold it by denying “bright youngsters from poor backgrounds to succeed“. He wants to make it easier for disadvantaged teenagers to go to the University and to enter the elite professions. And above all, he wants to build culture based on long-termism, investment, and training.

Since I have two native countries, I take to heart what is happening in Britain, especially in the social and education spheres. Now, the Government may be about to seal inequality and to pervert labour laws, but in doing so it is merely following in the footsteps of its predecessors. When I watched a 2005 programme on BBC about postcode poverty I was shocked and upset. In Moscow I have a neighbouring district that is separated from mine by a railway – to take that as a comparison, on my side we were middle-class with promising future; on their side, they were poor working class, forever dealing with money and drug problems.

Obviously, this cynical nonsense – to offer prospects based on one’s postcode – wasn’t the Labour creation; but as one understands, Labour did nothing to change the state of things. Quite possibly because within the party itself some people didn’t want to mix with someone whose parents were drug-abusing paupers.

It’s great that Mr Miliband voices the problem; it’s bad that voicing isn’t a solution. To solve the problem, people’s mindset has to be changed. I’m glad to have lived in a very typical working-class area to the north of Greater Manchester, for I have no illusions about the so-called “disadvantaged people”. Many of them enforce this condition on themselves and their children. But I also know about snobbery that accompanied a rather patronising mercy towards the poor – quite like in one Victorian story. An upper class girl decided to help a hungry street beggar, also female. She brought her home, gave her biscuits and sandwiches, and was convinced to keep her in – because it was so good to help common people! Unfortunately, the poor girl appeared a bit too pretty, and so she was sent away into a London night with 3 pounds in her pocket.

Is this what the Government, no matter of what political background, also doing?

Gavin Ewart – Shakespearean Sonnets

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Michelle Puelo, Shakespeare In His Study

Back in 1976 and 1977, a celebrated British poet Gavin Ewart composed two sonnets in free verse, mentioning and contemplating William Shakespeare. In case you are unfamiliar with this name, here is what the 1989 edition of the International Authors and Writers Who’s Who tells us. Gavin Buchanan Ewart was born in on February 4, 1916 in London and received his BA and MA in Classics and English from the University of Cambridge. For a number of years he was the Chairman of the Poetry Society, and in 1984 became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He died on October 26, 1995.

Tidying Up (1976) is distinct for its choice of words: the lyrical hero tells us that some thoughts just lay, reposed, in his mind, “awaiting collection”, for they are not of a kind to be uttered (and he explains what he means). Shakespeare, Ewart claims, “owes his power to them”. These thought may well be the product of the author’s psyche, but they should also ideally be informed by the author’s travels and perambulations. If, contrary to the advice in Shakespeare’s Universality (1977), the author fails to get out and about, he “gets stuck in his own psyche” and thus “bores everyone – and that includes himself”.

The illustration is somewhat Baconian Shakespeare In His Study by an American artist Michelle Buelo.

Tidying Up (1976)

Left lying about in my mind, awaitingn collection,
are the thoughts and phrases that are quite unsuitable
and often shocking to all Right-thinking people –
penetrated by a purple penis for example
(almost a line?); and how it’s almost certain,
for Swift’s hints, that the big sexy ladies of Brobdingnag
used Gulliver as an instrument of masturbation.
Hence a tongue-twister: Glumdalclitch’s clitoris.

Though not always decorous, there’s a lot of force in phrases.
A good many poems stem from them; they start something.
More than anything Shakespeare owes his power to them
(his secret, black and midnight hags and hundreds more),
they almost consoled him – though life is pretty bloody
(the multitudinous seas incarnadine).

Shakespeare’s Universality (1977)

In one sense Shakespeare’s ‘universality’ was accidental –
due to the fact that he wrote plays. When you have so many characters
you’re bound to have so many views of human life.
Nobody can say ‘Why are all your poems about moles?’
or tell you you’re very limited in your subject matter.
A playwright’s material (unless it is outrageously slanted)
usually deals with a group of opinions; people can never say
‘Of course this play is entirely autobiographical’.

It’s interesting that Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which are
(I think we can’t doubt) completely based on his life,
are by a long way his least satisfactory verse.
It’s better for a writer, in most cases, to go out and about.
If he gets stuck in his own psyche for too long
he bores everyone – and that includes himself.

Russian Government May Stop Tobacco Products Sales

When I returned to Moscow after living in England where smoking in public places has been prohibited for a number of years I found it hard at first to cope with smokers in cafes. Granted already in 2010 some cafes did have non-smoking areas, but it was still a long shot from an express taboo.

Come 2012, and here is the news that the Russian Government plans to discuss the pill vetoing smoking in public places and tobacco products sales in kiosks and small shops. No-smoking areas are to include the open-air markets, transport stops, long-distance trains, and even staircases in apartments (the long-term favourite of all home smokers).

We’ll have to wait and see what comes of it. The bill also suggests to cut down on tobacco products advertising, especially if an advert for kids features smoking or cigarettes; and to avoid showing the same products in the shopwindows.

I’m totally for it, even though Moscow cafes have now a clearly designated no-smoking space. Until you get a taste of it you don’t realise how wonderful it is to come back home after a night out and not have to head to the shower because your hair smells this hideous mix of different cigarettes. Nevermind the fact that smoking in cinema has long become a cliche, it would be nice to gradually erase this cliche from real life as well. Would do more good to our culture.

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