Translated material
Another Bryullov
Alexander Panov
Moscow Arts Center. Moscow
Moscow Arts Center. Moscow
The curators of the Moscow Art Center call their new conceptual project an exhibition-commentary. They “comment” on the large anniversary exhibition of Karl Bryullov, which opened at the Tretyakov Gallery at the end of June and is still drawing crowds in front of the entrance. Which gave the press a reason to joke on the eve of the current opening day: “A visit to the exhibition can console those who are scared off by long lines at the Tretyakov Gallery.” They really won’t be standing at the MCI - the exposition turned out to be too specific.
The academic commentary is not a coherent preface and afterword, but copious but scattered footnotes at the end of the volume. So a large (70 works) exhibition literally crumbles into several very fluently written plots. And the name, flirting with the viewer, is too ambiguous.
“Another Bryullov” is, firstly, Karl Pavlovich himself, only relatively young and unsugared both due to his age and due to the chosen genre of travel sketches in the album. Half of the exhibition is occupied by Bryullov’s “Leaves from an Italian Album” (full-scale sketches of Italian folk types), which the artist gave to the family of Count Wittgenstein in 1832. About seven years ago, the purchase with funds from the SBS-AGRO bank of these drawings, sepia and watercolors, accidentally discovered in England, became a real sensation, so they are well known to connoisseurs. But the bank burst, the collection passed into private hands, and now the former curator of the collection, Marina Loshak (current director of the MCI, also founded by SBS), retrieved the album as if from oblivion. To be honest, now it reminds not so much of Bryullov, light and airy (unlike Tretyakov’s pompous one), but rather of the crazy times of the triumph of corporate collections.
The huge “Portrait of K. Bryullov against the background of Vesuvius” (this is the second “another Bryullov”), created in the middle of the 19th century by some inspired anonymous person (pictured), should remind you of Bryullov’s lifetime triumph. Moreover, paintings of Bryullov’s now forgotten followers taken from the Tver Museum. The third subject of the exhibition is two smaller brother-artists of the great Russian painter, Bryullov Alexander Pavlovich (among other things, two graceful portraits of daughters, that is, Karl’s nieces, riding a dog) and Bryullov Ivan Pavlovich (represented by one small faded drawing “Dancing Girl” from life peasants, seen with lordly tenderness). The wonderful portrait painter Pyotr Sokolov is also here - since he was married to Bryullov’s sister. But in this family corner, the exhibition loses any remaining logic.
Here it also loses its meaning, since chamber portraits-miniatures of Russian and foreign artists tumbled out of museum and private caches (the fourth, last part of the project) although they convey the “aura” of Bryullov’s time, neither Vladimir Gau, nor Ivan Eggink, nor Jean-Baptiste Izabe (who has never been to Russia at all) - despite all his merits or thanks to them - is in no way suitable for being “another Bryullov.”
Perhaps the current exhibition is the only absolute failure in our memory of the witty and diligent Moscow Arts Center. Still, he is not yet able to compete with the Tretyakov Gallery (or even simply “comment on its” exhibitions...