|
This article, published in The Golden Fleece (1906, no. 2), reveals Benois' ideas about the relationship between artistic developments and historical events. For him, the most worrying phenomenon of the present condition of both art and society was the rejection of tradition and the forced implantation of "liberty". He focuses his criticism on the dominance of individualism in contemporary art. Extreme individualism seems to him to be equally as detrimental to art as had been both the academic imitation of models and the social tendentiousness of the recent past. Benois does not mention any names of artists; however, in other articles written during that period he criticises works by Matisse, Rousseau, Derain, Redon and Van Gogh. (See Mark Etkind. Aleksandr Nikolaevich Benua. 1870-1960. Leningrad-Moskva: Iskusstvo, 1965, p.63; A. Benua. 'Salon nezavisimykh.' Slovo, 29 March 1906.) Benois argues that participation in any political movement is a mundane social activity unworthy of an artist and distracts him from the sacred mission of the quest for beauty. Indeed, in contrast to many of his friends and colleagues from the World of Art group, Benois avoided any involvement in the political events of the Russian revolution of 1905-6 and stayed in France from February 1905 until spring 1907. While such artists as Serov, Lansere, Dobuzhinskii, and Bilibin contributed caricatures and drawings to anti-governmental satirical journals, Benois continued to draw inspiration from the culture of the past. For instance, he produced illustrations for Pushkin's Bronze Horseman and Queen of Spades, and a series of works devoted to eighteenth-century Versailles. Benois' publication provoked a debate on artistic individualism in The Golden Fleece, which lasted through 1906 and 1907 and included articles by Shirvashidze, Filosofov, Voloshin, Tasteven, and Muratov. (See William Richardson. Zolotoe Runo and Russian Modernism: 1905-1910. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1986, pp.59-63.)
|
Project Homepage
acknowledgements