The burning of the houses of Parliament. 1835

W. Turner

Early in the evening of October 16, 1834, the Houses of Parliament caught fire. The conflagration attracted such immense crowds that the army had to be called out to help the police keep control and, according to a correspondent of "The Gentleman's Magazine", when at half past nine the roof of the House of Lords fell in, "so struck were the bystanders with the grandeur of the sight at this moment that they involuntarily (and from no bad feeling) clapped their hands as though they had been present at the closing scene of some dramatic spectacle."

Several artists witnessed the scene among them Constable who made a rough sketch from Westminster bridge, Turner filled nine pages of a sketch book with water-colour sketches of the fire made from the South bank of the Thames (British Museum). This is one of the infrequent occasions that Turner made use- of water-colour to record his impressions direct from nature rather than making pencil sketches and colouring them later; the particular circumstances ruled out any other medium. The nine sketches were made with such haste that the wet water-colour stained the blank pages opposite.

In 1835 Turner exhibited two paintings of the fire; at the British Institution (New Philadelphia Museum of Art) in February, and the other, the one now in the Cleveland Museum, at the Royal Academy in May.

We have a detailed account by a contemporary painter of Turner's work on the first version of the picture on the varnishing day before the opening of the exhibition at the British Institution. The picture, when it was sent in was "a mere dab of several colours and without form, and void like chaos before creation". Turner worked incessantly for several hours, to the fascinated amusement of his fellow artists. He worked almost entirely with his palette knife, and at one point he was observed "rolling and spreading a lump of half-transparent stuff, the size of a finger in length and thickness, over the picture". Unfortunately, nobody had the nerve to ask him what it was. When he was finished Turner closed up his paint box and left, without looking again at his picture or speaking a word to anybody. Another of Turner's contemporaries -also mentioned Turner's performance in a letter: "I am told it was good fun to see the great man whacking away with about fifty stupid apes standing around him, and I understand he was cursedly annoyed—the fools kept peeping into his colour box and examining all his brushes and colours."

Whereas the view in the Cleveland picture is from downriver and shows the fire at considerable distance, that in the Philadelphia picture is from directly across the Thames, and flames fill the left half of the picture. The" size of the Westminster bridge, which reflects the light of the fire, is grossly exaggerated, adding to the compositional 'drama. The crowds in the foreground correspond to those described in the accounts of the fire, but the figures on the right seem to be looking not at the fire but out at us and resemble the densely packed mobs in several other late works of the painter. They seem to embody human insignificance before the uncontrollable destructive force of the fire. Some art critics propose that Turner's two paintings may have had symbolic meaning, the burning of the centre of government reflecting the malaise and conflict consuming the country as a result of agitation for the Reform Bill. However, there is no real evidence to substantiate this interpretation, and as the disaster was so obviously suited to Turner's abilities and inclinations, it is certainly not necessary to postulate a symbolic message to explain his painting it.

The destruction of the Houses of Parliament also had vast significance for the evolution of English painting in general, as most of the major new developments of the 1840s were connected with the program of decorating the new building designed by Sir Charles Barry.

BASIC TEXT 3.

Society of Traveling Exhibitions (1870-1923)

Despite the rapid changes in Western art in the nineteenth century, the Russian Academy of Arts was far behind and still taught and promoted the neo-classical technique and subjects of painting. The professors of the Academy directed their students attention to great examples of Italian art, claiming that it contained all the elements which characterize the highest achievements of the so-called historical painting. They considered all other kinds of art, including genre painting, much less appropriate for an artist, and they barely tolerated such works in the walls of the Academy. The statutes of the school obligated all the students, after they finished their courses in drawing and painting from nature, to paint mythological, historical, biblical or evangelical topics assigned by the Academy as the subject of the gold medal competition.

However, the conservative character of the Academy and its outdated and inflexible rules were bound to change. Following the rare early attempts of eighteenth-century artists, Shibanov and Argunov, to depict peasants, in the 1820s, Alexei Venetsianov created slightly idealized scenes of village life. He also trained a number of serf painters, like Grigorii Soroka, who by the virtue of their birth were interested in peasant topics. Even though, according to the director of the Academy, Olenin, this kind of idealized painting, which showed peasants engaged in real activities, but seemingly unaffected by heavy physical labor, was just "tolerated," it was an important step towards liberalization of Russian painting. Another step was made in the late 1840s by Fedotov, whose mildly satirical and humorous studies from real life, for instance, The Major's Marriage Proposal, The Fastidious Bride or The Widow, were received with great enthusiasm and wholeheartedly approved by audiences in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Facing these new developments, the Academy made concessions and even began to award silver and gold medals for genre painting. Moreover, several students, including K. Makovskii, were allowed to switch from a historical to a genre track. After 1861, the influential critic, V. Stasov, became a supporter of those new trends, even though many conservative voices kept decrying the decline of Russian painting. Stasov not only approved of genre painting, but sharply criticized the classical trend in the Academy and demanded that historical paintings become national and popular in content.

The changes at the Academy can be blamed, at least indirectly, for the famous rebellion of the thirteen artists. In 1863, I.N. Kramskoi, B.B. Venig, N.D. Dmitriev-Orenburgskii, A.D. Litovchenko, A.I. Korzhukhin, N.S. Shustov, A.I. Morozov, K.E. Makovskii, F.S. Zhuravlev, K.V. Lemokh, A. Grigor'ev, M. Peskov, and N.V. Petrov were scheduled to participate in the annual gold medal competition. Every year, the winning works were purchased and their authors received an all-expenses-paid three year scholarship to work and study abroad. In the same year, several months before the competition, the Academy's Council announced new rules for the competition. According to the new rules, the Academy was not going to assign specific topics, as it was done before, but instead, general themes (for example, anger, joy, love for one's country, etc.). Each student was to pick a theme, either from history or from contemporary life, according to his preferences, but all students were to compete for one gold medal. Realizing that the Academy was slowly adjusting to the new trends in Russian painting and to new realities of Russian life, the thirteen decided to strike while the iron was hot, and asked for even more freedom -- namely, to be allowed to pick any topic, without any restrictions. They believed that the single general theme could not give an equal chance to all participants. This petition was not only rejected, but the angered Academy Council decided that, instead of a general theme, it would assign a specific topic, as in the past. The assigned topic was to be "Odin's Feast in Valhalla." Disappointed and upset, the 13 artists refused to participate in the competition and resigned from the Academy, forfeiting their chances to sell the paintings and receive an art scholarship.

Instead, the protesters formed an independent organization called the Association of Free Artists (Artel' svobodnykh khudozhnikov). Their protest was not just an act of anarchic insubordination; it stemmed from the artists' belief that the time had come for each of them to paint according to his own artistic preferences and tastes rather than someone else's directives. The Association established its own statutes and began accepting orders. Profitable commissions and financial success brought new artists to the Association. Soon, however, the members of the Association lost their initial unity and common purpose; in 1870, after an argument with one of the artists, Kramskoi left the Association. The same year, at the initiative of G.G. Miasoedov, who came up with the idea as early as in 1868, the Society of Traveling Exhibitions of the Works of Russian Artists (Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh vystavok proizvedenii russkikh khudozhnikov) was founded. The Society invited the members of the defunct Association of Free Artists to join the new organization. Initially, the Association members' response was hesitant and lukewarm. But in the next 28 years, the Society attracted all the major Russian painters, including the following (listed in the order of joining): Miasoedov, Perov, Kamenev, Savrasov, Amosov, Ammon, Ge (Gay, Ghe), Kramskoi, M.P. Klodt, M.K. Klodt, Prianishnikov, Shishkin, Bogoliubov, Gun (Huns), V.E. Makovskii, Maksimov, Briullov, Savitskii, Kuindzhi, Bronnikov, V.M. Vasnetsov, Litovchenko, Lemokh, N.E. Makovskii, Repin, Polenov, Volkov, K.E. Makovskii, Leman, Surikov, Nevrev, Kharlamov, Kuznetsov, Bodarevskii, Dubovskoi, A.M. Vasnetsov, Svetoslavskii, Shil'der, Arkhipov, Levitan, Ostroukhov, Zagorskii, Lebedev, Stepanov, Pozen, Kasatkin, Miloradovich, Shanks, Serov, Bogdanov-Bel'skii, I.P. Bogdanov, A. Korin, Endogurov, Nesterov, Baksheev, Orlov, and Kostandi.

The first exhibition of the Society took place in 1871 (in the exhibition halls of the Academy) and consisted of 46 works, including paintings of non-members approved by the members' committee. Nikolai Ge's Peter I Interrogating the Tsarevich Alexis and Savrasov's The Rooks Have Returned were among the works exhibited. The response of the public was extremely positive; even M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, who rarely commented on artistic events, applauded the establishment of the Society as "an important event in Russian art," and particularly appreciated that exhibitions were scheduled to travel not only to Moscow and St. Petersburg, but to other Russian cities. For the first time, the Russian public would get a chance to see the masterpieces in all their glory instead of being restricted to reproductions in art journals or exhibition catalogues. The first exhibition was also a considerable financial success -- many paintings were acquired by collectors and the Imperial family. P. M. Tretiakov played a particularly important role in the success of the Society; his frequent purchases allowed the painters to worry less about their income and concentrate on the creative process. Encouraged by the success of the first exhibition, the Society staged the second in 1872 and by 1897 could boast of 25 exhibitions, many of which traveled to Kiev, Kharkov, Nizhnii Novgorod, Kazan', Samara, Penza, Tambov, Kozlov, Voronezh, Novocherkassk, Rostov, Taganrog, Ekaterinoslav, and Kursk. In the first 25 years of its existence, the Society's members created 3504 works seen by about a million viewers. All in all, the Society organized 48 exhibitions and survived until 1923, when it was incorporated into the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR).

Undeniably, the Wanderers played an extremely important role in the development of Russian art, especially before the end of the nineteenth century. They contributed greatly to the victory of realist painting over the stilted neo-classicism and expanded dramatically the boundaries of painting -- abandoning formal portraiture and mythological subjects and focusing attention on genre painting, landscape, and historical compositions based on events from Russia's history. Since almost every important painter of the late 19th century was, at least for some time, a member of the Society, disregarding its importance would be unjustified. The Wanderers also affected the Academy of Art -- with their accomplishments and popularity came teaching positions and professorships at the Academy. Many members of the Society joined the organization because they firmly believed that all Russia, not only the elite, needed their art; that their paintings would be a weapon in the battle against social and economic injustices. Thus, initially, the Society was a progressive phenomenon. However, the truly great artists could not subscribe to the ideas of the Society for long; they continued to search for new means of expression, new style, and new ideas. When the Wanderers' ideology, officially adopted by the Academy, began to stifle originality and ostracize the innovators and experimentators, the inevitable reaction occurred. The arrival of modernism in Russia at the end of the 19th century led to a profound shift from the ideological and critical realism of the Wanderers to the decorativeness, richness, and symbolism of the World of Art and, very soon afterwards, to the non-objective experiments of the Russian avant-garde. Not surprisingly, the Wanderer ideology and style found their greatest defenders and admirers in the Soviet authorities and their uninspired continuation in the works of socialist realists. [A.B.]

Questions:

1. What technique and subjects of painting were promoted by the Russian Academy of Arts in the 19^th c.?

2. Why was genre painting positioned as inferior to the so-called historical painting?

3. In what way can the character of the Academy be described?

4. Enumerate the most important steps towards liberalization of Russian painting.

5. What made the Academy begin to award silver and gold medals for genre painting?

6. What caused the famous rebellion of the 13 artists?

7. Was the artists’ protest an act of anarchic insubordination?

8. Dwell upon the activity of the Association of Free Artists and the Society of Travelling Exhibitions of the Works of Russian Artists.

9. Why did M. Saltykov-Shchedrin call the 1^st exhibition of the Society “an important event in Russian Art”?

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