Alexander Benua

I feel a certain uneasiness, starting to Testimonial Zenaida Serebrjakovoj. The fact that she is my mother has a niece … But what if Serebriakova really one of the great Russian artists of our time, and if her art from the very beginning fascinated me, and when I got in on it quite hard, devoid of the slightest bias belief that it is a wonderful and beautiful art? The answer is simple: it is necessary to forget that she is my niece, that it is the smallest Zina Lancer, who along with her sisters and brothers grew up in our parents’ house, and the “courage” to speak out publicly about Sina Serebrjakovoj as an outsider.

But here Serebryakov not only to me but to everyone in general it is difficult to accept for an outsider. In her art as a sweet, gentle charm, it is essentially a close, it is so simple and speaks directly to the mind and heart, it’s hard to be completely objective when talking about him. It is too captivating, too captivate. And so many years have passed since that day when she was struck by all of his wonderful self-portrait, which became an ornament of the Tretyakov Gallery, and art Serebrjakovoj still remains as fresh, immediately captivating.

With the same extraordinary skill she continues to transmit a live sparkle in her eyes, just beckoning to her transfer of density, firmness and radiance of the body as naturally beautiful combination of colors it with the same ease fall classic strokes of her brush strokes and pastels. And never before in anything she did not have school routine, never affected slavery ready-made formulas, and it is also now all art Serebrjakovoj remains free, it is also full of some kind, I would say, fun, no doubt reflecting the state excitement, in which the artist resides in their work.

In this trait affects both would be a “disability” Serebrjakovoj, of course, backwardness in quotation marks, for art Serebrjakovoj too real art to be able to make it seriously such epithets. And how gratifying now rest on such art as art Serebrjakovoj on events in a unique and old sweet freedom, in which the artist shares his enthusiasm just by the beauty of nature, and when he does it with perfect skill, with full knowledge of the business.

Skills, skill at Serebrjakovoj – full measure. But the special charm of her skill lies in the fact that it will not go forward, it is absolutely free. It was formed freely, without the mustiness of academic classes, and it and now, in spite of its full maturity, still free from pedantry, and once and for all installed devices. Of course, the pictures Serebrjakovoj can immediately find thousands of other works of art. But this is not based on any manner, and the result is a family resemblance of all works together because each is created in the same institute, with the same enthusiasm and skill that a party throughout the emotional side of the subject. Well, then, as each artist, Serebrjakovoj has his favorite combinations in paints, in weaving lines, composition, and in the choice of the point. But predilektsii based on the characteristics of its taste, and not on a commitment to any regulations and least of all on a desire to please anyone.

The current exhibition at the Charpentier

 confirms what was said. She is perhaps less complete than those that suit the artist in Paris in recent years. I regret that it has less portraits (in children’s and women’s portraits Serebriakova knows no rivals), it was almost no works in oils, it is not exposed and decorative compositions. But the lack of it does not prevent to put up produced an impressive appearance. Serebriakova and this time appears to us in all the splendor of his art, and the exhibition as a whole is striking versatility.

A fascinating series of Moroccan sketches, and just amazed at how these fugitive outline (producing a full impression of completeness) the artist could so accurately and convincingly convey samoyu soul of the East. Equally compelling as all kinds of types and species, which, however, does not have the blazing sun, which is like something mandatory in all Orientalist landscapes, but in which the breath is felt but the vast steppes in the harsh power of the Atlas. But how much truth and unique spices in those pink streets, in these huge markets in these colorful ghetto in the crowds shopping folk, in groups of onlookers and ancient courtesans. All of this together du beau documentaire

 and at the same time de la beaute tout court

. People are so vivid that it seems as if you walk with them in direct contact, just get acquainted with them.

And yet exotic Serebrjakovoj I prefer it to Europe: indeed, I generally prefer sweet, native throughout Europe stranger! How wonderful to know how to convey a European artist, and when it conducts us to the wonderful Florentine garden, and when we had ourselves in a cozy area of ​​the provincial Assisi, and when she introduces us to those donnami Italian great-grandmother whom posed and Raphael Filippo Lippi. Finally, the naked figure Serebrjakovoj (really we did not get rid of the ugly word “nude”?), Amounting to a considerable degree of fame and truly incomparable – is also Europe. In these sketches a nude female body is not living at all sensuality, and something specific, familiar to us from our own literature, from our own music from our personal experiences. This is truly the flesh of our flesh. Here is the grace, the one negative, that kind of intimacy and domesticity of Eros, which is still tempting, thin, and sometimes insidious, more dangerous than the one that I have found Gauguin in Tahiti and searching for what followed Loti went to scour the entire white , yellow and black light blazirovannye, spoiled Europeans at home.

1932

The younger of the daughters … Katie [E. N. Lancer] – Zina was the owner quite exceptional gift. However, it is not I have the right to consider his apprentice. Upon arriving to us in infancy (two years), she grew up with her sisters somehow “away from my office,” where our interview took place and all our venture with Eugene, with Nicky and with my friends. Zina has grown to the same painful and rather unsociable child, what she looked like his father and does not resemble the mother or brothers and sisters, who were all different cheerful and sociable disposition. Yet surely that Zina had nurtured the atmosphere that prevailed at all in our home and real creators of which were our parents – her grandfather and her grandmother. However, the echoes of what happened or what “brewing” at Uncle Shura in the office and where she occasionally peeked had to reach up to her to wake her curiosity. In any case, twenty years later, when the described time Zinaida Serebriakova all of a sudden appeared a finished artist, she was a camp with us, and some areas of taste, and its reckoning to the group “World of Art” happened. To us, the artists “World of Art”, was flattering to get into their ranks another and so captivating talent …

February 11, 1916