Monumental sculpture by V.I. Early works by Vera Mukhina. Different facets of talent: a peasant woman and a ballerina
Dzhandzhugazova E.A.
... Unconditional sincerity and maximum perfection
Vera Mukhina is the only woman sculptor in the history of Russian monumental art, an outstanding master who possesses an ideal sense of harmony, refined skill and a surprisingly delicate sense of space. Mukhina's talent is truly multifaceted, almost all genres of plastic art have obeyed her, from the grandiose monumental sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" to miniature decorative statues and sculptural groups, sketches for theatrical performances and art glass.
"The first lady of Soviet sculpture" combined in her work, it would seem, not connectable - "male" and "female" principles! Dizzying scale, power, expression, pressure and extraordinary plasticity of figures, combined with the precision of silhouettes, emphasized by the soft flexibility of lines, giving unusually expressive statics and dynamics of sculptural compositions.
Vera Mukhina's talent grew and matured in the difficult and contradictory years of the twentieth century. Her work is sincere and therefore perfect, the main work of her life - the monument "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" challenged the Nazi ideology of racism and hatred, becoming a real symbol of Russian-Soviet art, which always personified the ideas of peace and good. As a sculptor, Mukhina chose the most difficult path of a monumentalist, working alongside the venerable male masters I. Shadr, M. Manizer, B. Iofan, V. Andreev, she never changed the vector of her creative development under the influence of recognized authorities.
The civic spirit of the art that stretches the bridge from ideal to life, uniting truth and beauty, became a conscious program of all her thoughts until the very end of her life. The creative success and exceptional achievements of this wonderful woman were largely determined by her personal destiny, in which, perhaps, everything was ...
And great love, family happiness and family tragedy, the joy of creativity and hard exhausting work, triumphant victories and a long period of half-oblivion ...
Pages of life
Vera Ignatievna Mukhina was born in Latvia into a Russian merchant family on July 1, 1889. The Mukhins' family was distinguished not only by a merchant's acumen, but also by a love of art. Throwing in a lot of money, they hardly talked about them, but they fiercely argued about theater, music, painting and sculpture. Young talents were patronized and generously encouraged. So Ignatiy Kuzmich Mukhin - the father of Vera, himself already almost ruined, bought a seascape from the artist Alisov, dying of consumption. In general, he did a lot of good and quietly, like his father, Vera's grandfather, Kuzma Ignatievich, who really wanted to be like Cosimo Medici.
Unfortunately, Vera Mukhina's parents died early and she, along with her older sister, remained in the care of wealthy relatives. So, since 1903, the Mukhina sisters began to live with their uncle in Kursk and Moscow. Vera studied well, played the piano, painted, wrote poetry, traveled around Europe, was a great fashionista and loved balls. But somewhere deep in her mind, the persistent idea of sculpture had already arisen, and studying abroad became her dream. However, the relatives did not even want to hear about this. This is not a woman's business, practical merchants reasoned, to study a young girl far from her family from some Bourdelle.
However, fate decreed otherwise ... while spending the Christmas holidays with relatives in the Smolensk estate, Vera, while rolling down a hill, received a severe facial injury. Pain, fear, dozens of operations in an instant turned the cheerful young lady into a twitching and grief-stricken creature. And only then did the relatives decide to send Vera to Paris for treatment and rest. French surgeons performed several operations and really restored the girl's face, but it became completely different. The new face of Vera Mukhina was manly big, rude and very strong-willed, which was reflected in her character and hobbies. Vera decided to forget about balls, flirting and marriage. Who will love this one? And the question of choosing an occupation between painting and sculpting was decided in favor of the latter. Vera began to study in the workshop of Bourdelle, working as a convict, she very quickly overtook everyone, becoming the best. The tragic turn of fate forever determined her life path and her entire creative program. It is difficult to say that a spoiled merchant's daughter could have turned out to be an extraordinary woman - a great master of monumental sculpture, even if the word "sculptor" is meant only in the masculine gender.
However, the twentieth century was ahead - the century of amazing speeds and the industrial revolution, an era heroic and cruel, which put a woman next to a man everywhere: at the helm of an airplane, on the captain's bridge of a ship, in the cabin of a high-rise crane or tractor. Having become equal, but not the same, man and woman in the twentieth century continued their painful search for harmony in the new industrial reality. And it was this ideal of searching for the harmony of the “male” and “female” principles that Vera Mukhina created in her work. Her male face gave her creativity extraordinary strength, courage and power, and her female heart gave soft plasticity, filigree precision and selfless love.
In love and motherhood, Vera Ignatievna, in spite of everything, was very happy and, despite the serious illness of her son and the difficult fate of her husband, the famous Moscow doctor Alexei Zamkov, her female fate was stormy and full like a big river.
Different facets of talent: a peasant woman and a ballerina
Like any talented person, Vera Mukhina has always looked for and found various means of self-expression. New forms and their dynamic acuteness occupied her creative imagination. How to depict the volume, its different dynamic forms, how to bring imaginary lines closer to a specific nature, this is what Mukhina thought about when creating her first famous sculpture of a peasant woman. In it, Mukhina first showed the beauty and power of the female body. Her heroine is not an airy statue, but the image of a woman-worker, but this is not an ugly loose lump, but an elastic, whole and harmonious figure, not devoid of living female grace.
“My Baba,” said Mukhina, “stands firmly on the ground, unshakably, as if driven into it. I did it without nature, out of my head. Working all summer, from morning to evening. "
"Peasant" Mukhina immediately attracted the closest attention, but opinions were divided. Some were delighted, and some shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment, but the results of the exhibition of Soviet sculpture, timed to coincide with the first tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, showed the absolute success of this extraordinary work - "The Peasant Woman" was taken to the Tretyakov Gallery.
Later in 1934, "Peasant Woman" was exhibited at the XIX International Exhibition in Venice and its first bronze ebb became the property of the Vatican Museum in Rome. Upon learning of this, Vera Ignatievna was very surprised that her rude and seems to have been hewn with an ax, but full of dignity and calmness, a Russian woman took a place in the famous museum.
It should be noted that at this time the individual artistic manner of Mukhina was developing, the distinctive features of which were the monumentality of forms, the accentuated architectonics of sculpture and the power of the plastic artistic image. At the end of the twenties, this signature Mukhinsky style promoted her to the avant-garde group of monumental artists who were developing the design of Soviet exhibitions in various European countries.
Sculpture "Peasant Woman" by Mukhina V.I. (low tide, bronze, 1927)
Sketches for "Peasant Woman" by V.I.Mukhina (low tide, bronze, 1927)
Working on the sculpture, Vera Mukhina came to the conclusion that generalization is important for her in each image. The tightly knit, somewhat weighted "Peasant" was what the artistic ideal of those years was. Later, having visited Europe under the influence of the exquisite work of glass blowers from Murano, Mukhina creates a new female image - a ballerina sitting in a musical pose. Mukhina sculpted this image with her familiar actress. She first transforms the sculpture into marble, then faience, and then only in 1947 into glass. Different artistic images and different materials contributed to the change of the sculptor's aesthetic ideals, making her work versatile.
In the 1940s, Mukhina was enthusiastically engaged in design, worked as a theater artist, and invented faceted glasses that had become iconic. She is especially attracted by highly talented and creative people, among them the famous ballerinas - Galina Ulanova and Marina Semenova - occupy a special place. Her passion for ballet reveals new facets in Mukhina's work, with the same power of expressiveness she reveals the plastic images of such different Russian women - a simple peasant woman and a famous ballerina - the star of Russian ballet Galina Ulanova.
Creative inspiration captured in bronze
The most romantic and inspirational among all the works of Vera Mukhina was the monument to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, standing in the courtyard of the Moscow Conservatory on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street. The sculptural composition is located at the main facade of the conservatory and is the dominant feature of the entire architectural complex.
This work is distinguished by originality, the great musician is depicted at the moment of creative inspiration, although the brothers in the workshop criticized Mukhina for the tense pose of Tchaikovsky and some overload of details, but on the whole, the compositional solution of the monument, like the place itself, was chosen very well. It seems that Pyotr Ilyich listens to the music pouring from the conservatory windows and involuntarily conducts to the beat.
The monument to the composer at the walls of the Moscow Conservatory is one of the most popular sights of the capital. He gained particular popularity among the students of the conservatory who literally took it apart. Before restoration in 2007, 50 note signs were missing in its openwork lattice, according to legend, possessing a note will bring good luck in musical creativity. Even the bronze pencil has disappeared from the composer's hands, but so far no equal figure has appeared in the musical world.
Triumph
But the real apogee of Mukhina's creativity was the work on the design of the Soviet pavilion at the world exhibition in Paris. The sculptural composition "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" shocked Europe and was called a masterpiece of 20th century art. Not every creator manages to gain universal recognition and experience such a tremendous success, but the main thing is to convey to the viewer the idea of the work so that he understands it. Vera Ignatievna was able to make sure that not only the decorative appeal excited people, they keenly felt the very ideological content of the sculpture, which reflected the dynamism of the great industrial era. “The impression made by this work in Paris gave me everything an artist could want” - these words were written by Vera Mukhina, summing up the happiest year of her work.
Mukhina's talent is huge and multifaceted, unfortunately, was not fully in demand. She did not manage to realize many ideas. It is symbolic that the most beloved of all the unrealized works was the Icarus monument, which was made for the pantheon of dead pilots. In 1944, its trial version was exhibited at the so-called exhibition of six, where it was tragically lost. But, despite the unfulfilled hopes, creativity of Vera Mukhina so strong, impetuous and unusually integral raised the world monumental art to great heights like the ancient "Icarus" who for the first time knew the joy of conquering the sky.
Literature
- Voronova O.P. Vera Ignatievna Mukhina. M., "Art", 1976.
- Suzdalev P.K. Vera Ignatievna Mukhina. M., "Art", 1981.
- Bashinskaya I.A. Vera Ignatievna Mukhina (19989-1953). Leningrad. "Artist of the RSFSR", 1987.
- http://progulkipomoskve.ru/publ/monument/pamjatnik_chajkovskomu_u_moskovskoj_konservatorii_na_bolshoj_nikitskoj_ulice/43-1-0-1182
- http://rus.ruvr.ru/2012_10_17/Neizvestnaja-Vera-Muhina/ http://smartnews.ru/articles/11699.html#ixzz2kExJvlwA
1 Florentine politician, merchant and banker, owner of the largest fortune in Europe.
2 Antoine Bourdelle is a famous French sculptor.
Vera Ignatievna Mukhina - Soviet sculptor, People's Artist of the USSR (1943). Author of works: "Flame of the Revolution" (1922-1923), "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" (1937), "Bread" (1939); monuments to Gorky (1938-1939), Tchaikovsky (1954).
Our heroine was incredibly lucky with her grandfather, Kuzma Ignatievich Mukhin. He was an excellent merchant and left his relatives a huge fortune, which made it possible to brighten up the not too happy childhood of Vera's granddaughter. The girl lost her parents early, and only the wealth of her grandfather and the decency of her uncles allowed Vera and her older sister Maria not to recognize the material hardships of orphanhood.
Vera Mukhina grew meek, well-behaved, sat quietly in class, studied at the gymnasium approximately. She did not show any special talents, well, maybe, she just sang well, occasionally composed poetry, and drew with pleasure. And which of the lovely provincial (Vera grew up in Kursk) young ladies with the right upbringing did not show such talents before marriage.
The sisters decided to move to Moscow. In Moscow, the maturation of the personality and talent of the future sculptor began. It was wrong to think that, without having received the proper upbringing and education, Vera changed as if by magic. Our heroine has always been distinguished by amazing self-discipline, ability to work, diligence and passion for reading, and for the most part she chose books that are serious, not girlish. This previously deeply hidden desire for self-improvement gradually began to manifest itself in the girl in Moscow. She is looking for a decent art studio, preoccupied with the creative impulses of Surikov or Polenov, who were still actively working at that time.
Vera entered the studio of Konstantin Yuon, a famous landscape painter and a serious teacher, easily: there was no need to take exams - pay and study - but it was just not easy to study. Her amateur, children's drawings in the studio of a real painter did not stand up to any criticism, and ambition drove Mukhina, the desire to excel chained her to a sheet of paper every day. She literally worked like a hard labor. Here, in Yuon's studio, Vera acquired her first artistic skills, but, most importantly, she had the first glimpses of her own creative individuality and first passions.
She was not attracted to work on color, almost all the time she gave to drawing, graphics of lines and proportions, trying to bring out the almost primitive beauty of the human body. In her student works, the theme of admiration for strength, health, youth, simple clarity of mental health sounded more and more vividly. For the beginning of the 20th century, such an artist's thinking, against the background of the experiments of the surrealists, cubists, seemed too primitive.
Once the master set a composition on the theme of "sleep". Mukhina drew a janitor who fell asleep at the gate. Yuon frowned in displeasure: "There is no fantasy of a dream." Perhaps the restrained Vera's imagination was not enough, but she had an abundance of youthful enthusiasm, admiration for strength and courage, a desire to unravel the mystery of the plasticity of a living body.
Without leaving her studies with Yuon, Mukhina began working in the studio of the sculptor Sinitsyna. Vera felt almost childish delight when she touched the clay, which made it possible to fully experience the mobility of human joints, the magnificent flight of movement, and the harmony of volume.
Sinitsyna got away from teaching, and sometimes the understanding of the truths had to be comprehended at the cost of great effort. Even the tools were taken at random. Mukhina felt professionally helpless: "Something huge has been conceived, but my hands cannot do it." In such cases, the Russian artist of the beginning of the century went to Paris. Mukhina was no exception. However, her guardians were afraid to let the girl go abroad alone.
Everything happened as in a banal Russian proverb: "There would be no happiness, but misfortune helped."
In early 1912, during the merry Christmas holidays, while riding in a sleigh, Vera seriously injured her face. She underwent nine plastic surgeries, and when six months later she saw herself in the mirror, she fell into despair. I wanted to run, hide from people. Mukhina changed her apartment, and only great inner courage helped the girl to say to herself: we must live, live worse. But the guardians felt that fate was cruelly offended by Vera and, wishing to make up for the injustice of fate, they let the girl go to Paris.
In the studio of Bourdelle, Mukhina learned the secrets of sculpture. In huge, hotly heated halls, the master passed from bench to bench, ruthlessly criticizing the students. Faith got the most, the teacher did not spare anyone, including women's, pride. Once Bourdelle, seeing the Mukhino sketch, remarked sarcastically that the Russians sculpt "illusory rather than constructively." The girl broke the sketch in despair. How many times will she have to destroy her own work, numb from her own failure.
During her stay in Paris, Vera lived in a boarding house on Rue Raspail, which was dominated by Russians. In the colony of fellow countrymen, Mukhina also met her first love - Alexander Vertepov, a man of an unusual, romantic fate. The terrorist who killed one of the generals, he was forced to flee Russia. In Bourdelle's workshop, this young man, who never took a pencil in his life, became the most talented student. The relationship between Vera and Vertepov was probably friendly and warm, but the aged Mukhina never dared to admit that she had more than friendly sympathy for Vertepov, although all her life she never parted with his letters, often remembered him and never spoke to such hidden sadness, as a friend of his Parisian youth. Alexander Vertepov died in the First World War.
The last chord of Mukhina's studies abroad was a trip to the cities of Italy. Together with their friends, they crossed this fertile country, neglecting comfort, but how much happiness Neapolitan songs brought them, the flickering of a stone of classical sculpture.
Mukhina V. I. "Bread". Bronze. 1939.
The return to Russia was overshadowed by the outbreak of the war. Vera, having mastered the qualifications of a nurse, went to work in an evacuation hospital. Unaccustomed, it seemed not just difficult - unbearable. “The wounded arrived there directly from the front. You tear off the dirty, dried bandages - blood, pus. You wash it with peroxide. Lice, ”and many years later she recalled with horror. In a regular hospital, where she soon asked, it was much easier. But despite the new profession, which, by the way, she was engaged in for free (fortunately, her grandfather's millions gave her this opportunity), Mukhina continued to devote her free time to sculpture.
There is even a legend that a young soldier was once buried in the cemetery next to the hospital. And every morning near the tombstone, made by a village craftsman, the mother of the murdered man appeared, grieving for her son. One evening, after an artillery bombardment, they saw that the statue was smashed. They said that Mukhina had listened to this message in silence, sadly. And the next morning a new monument appeared on the grave, more beautiful than the previous one, and Vera Ignatievna's hands were bruised. Of course, this is only a legend, but how much mercy, how much kindness is invested in the image of our heroine.
S. A. Zamkov. Marble. 1935.
In the hospital, Mukhina also met her betrothed with a ridiculous surname Zamkov. Subsequently, when Vera Ignatievna was asked what attracted her to her future husband, she answered in detail: “He has a very strong creativity. Internal monumentality. And at the same time a lot from the man. Internal rudeness with great mental subtlety. Besides, he was very handsome. "
Alexey Andreevich Zamkov was indeed a very talented doctor, he treated in an unconventional way, tried folk methods. Unlike his wife Vera Ignatievna, he was a sociable, cheerful, sociable person, but at the same time very responsible, with an increased sense of duty. They say about such husbands: "With him she is like behind a stone wall."Vera Ignatievna was lucky in this sense. Alexey Andreevich invariably took part in all of Mukhina's problems.
Flame roarolutions
The flowering of creativity of our heroine fell on the 1920s-1930s. The works "The Flame of the Revolution", "Julia", "The Peasant Woman" brought glory to Vera Ignatievna not only in her homeland, but also in Europe.
One can argue about the degree of Mukhina's artistic talent, but it cannot be denied that she became a real “muse” of an entire era. Usually they lament about this or that artist: they say, he was born at the wrong time, but in our case it remains only to wonder how the creative aspirations of Vera Ignatievna successfully coincided withthe needs and tastes of her contemporaries. The cult of physical strength and health in the Mukhino sculptures reproduced as well as possible, and contributed a lot to the creation of the mythology of Stalin's "falcons", "girls beauties", "Stakhanovites" and "Pasha Angelinoops ".
Mukhina said about her famous "Peasant Woman" that it was "a goddessI am fertility, Russian Pomona. " Indeed, - the legs of the column, above them heavy and at the same time easily, freely, the firmly knit torso rises freely.
“Such one will give birth while standing and will not grunt,” said one of the spectators. Mighty shoulders adequately complete the lump of the back, and above everything - unexpectedly small, graceful for thisth powerful body - the head. Why not the ideal builder of socialism - a resigned, but full of health slavenya?
Europe in the 1920s was already infected with the bacillus of fascism, the bacilluslloy of mass cult hysteria, therefore, the images of Mukhina were also examined there with interest and understanding. After the XIX International Exhibition in Venice "Peasant" was bought by the Museum of Trieste.
Peasant woman
But even more fame brought Vera Ignatievna famousI am a composition that has become a symbol of the USSR - "Worker and Collective Farm Woman". And it was also created in a symbolic year - 1937 - for the pavilion of the Soviet Union at an exhibition in Paris. The architect Iofan developed a project where the building was supposed to resemble a rushing ship, the nose of which, according to the classical custom, was supposed to be crowned with a statue. Rather, a sculptural group.
Our heroine won the competition for the best design of the monument, in which four famous masters took part. The sketches of the drawings show how painfully the idea itself was born. Here is a running nude figure (originally Mukhina sculpted a man naked - a mighty ancient god walked next to a modern woman - but by order from above, “goda "had to dress up), in her hands something like an Olympic torch. Then another appears next to her, the movement slows down, it becomes calmer ... The third option - a man and a woman hold hands: they themselves, and the sickle and youngt solemnly calm. Finally, the artist stopped at the impulse movement, reinforced by a rhythmic and precise gesture.
Mukhina's decision to let most of the sculptural volumes fly horizontally through the air was unprecedented in world sculpture. With such a scale, Vera Ignatievna had to reconcile every bend of the scarf for a long time, calculating every fold. It was decided to make the sculpture of steel, a material that before Mukhina was used only once in world practice by Eiffel, who made the Statue of Liberty in America. But the Statue of Liberty hast very simple outlinesme: this is a female figure in a wide toga, the folds of which lie on a pedestal. Mukhina, however, had to create the most complex, hitherto unprecedented structure.
They worked, as was customary under socialism, with a rush job, storming, seven days a week, in record time. Mukhina later said that one of the engineers fell asleep at the drawing table because of overwork, and in a dream he threw his hand over the steam heating and got burned, but the poor fellow never woke up. When the welders fell off their feet, Mukhina and her two assistants began to cook themselves.
Finally, the sculpture was assembled. And they immediately began to disassemble. 28 carriages of Rabochy andcollective farmers ”, the composition was cut into 65 pieces. Eleven days later, in the Soviet pavilion at the International Exhibition, a giant sculptural group towered over the Seine with a hammer and sickle. Could this colossus have been overlooked? There was a lot of noise in the press. In an instant, the image created by Mukhina became a symbol of the socialist myth of the 20th century.
Mukhina was given only three weeks to mold three-meter clay models.
- These are not plywood figures for the holiday! You just don't understand what this is about. Is a mockery! - shouted Mukhina. She banged her fist on the table and, sobbing, ran out into the corridor. But, having burst into tears, the woman came back and said that the order would be completed on time.
Romain Rolland wrote: "On the banks of the Seine, two young Soviet giants in an indomitable impulse are raising a hammer and sickle, and we hear a heroic hymn pouring from their chest, which calls the peoples to freedom, to unity and lead them to victory."
The graphic artist Frans Maserel spoke from the rostrum: “Your sculpture hit us, French artists, like a butt on the head. We sometimes talk about her in whole evenings. "
French newspapers wrote with admiration that the Eiffel Tower finally had a worthy competitor. Local workers, passing by the monument, saluted him. The Parisians even collected several thousand signatures asking them to leave a proletarian monument in France.
But, of course, the request was not satisfied, and the statue returned to its homeland to later become one of the main monuments of the era.
http://www.pansion-mil.ru/library/women/veramuhina/
Fall up
Sculptor Vera Mukhina
The "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" monument, created by the world's most famous female sculptor, has long become a visiting card not only of the city, but also, possibly, of the country in which Vera Ignatievna Mukhina worked.
Mukhina lived for only 64 years. Over the years, I have come up with many projects, but only three have been implemented: "A Worker and a Collective Farm Woman", a monument to Tchaikovsky near the Moscow Conservatory and a monument to Gorky, which until recently stood in front of the Belorussky railway station ...
Like all children who grew up in wealthy merchant families, Vera Mukhina received a good education at home. Only with music, the relationship did not work out. It seemed to her that her father did not like the way she played. But, on the contrary, he encouraged his daughter's drawing activities.
The parent died when Mukhina was 14 years old. Mother had died long before that in Nice, Vera was then a little over a year old. Therefore, the upbringing of the girl was taken up by the guardians - the Kursk uncles.
The Mukhina sisters - Vera was the youngest - became real secular lionesses of provincial Kursk. Once a year we went to Moscow to “get some air and buy clothes”. In the company of the teacher, they often traveled abroad: Berlin, Salzburg, Tyrol. When they decided to move to Moscow, one of the local newspapers wrote: "The Kursk light has lost a lot with the departure of the young ladies of the Mukhins."
In Moscow, settling on Prechistensky Boulevard, Vera continued her drawing lessons. And she entered the school to Konstantin Yuon and Ilya Mashkov. I wanted to study seriously, asked the guardians to let her go to study abroad. But they did not want to hear about anything like that. Until the misfortune happened.
“At the end of 1911, I went to my uncle’s estate in the Smolensk province for Christmas,” Mukhina herself recalled of this “fall that enriched her life”. - Many young people, cousins and sisters gathered there. It was fun. Once we rolled down the mountain. I was reclining in the sleigh, my face lifted. The sleigh hit a tree, and I hit my face against that tree. The blow fell directly on the forehead. My eyes were filled with blood, but there was no pain and I did not lose consciousness. It seemed to me that the skull was cracked. I ran my hand over my forehead and face. The hand did not find the nose. The nose was torn off.
I was very pretty then. The first feeling was: you can't live. We must run away from people. We rushed to the doctor. He put in nine stitches, put in a drain. From the blow, the upper lip was pinched between the teeth.
When the girl was finally brought home, the servants were strictly forbidden to give her a mirror. They were afraid that, seeing her disfigured face, she would commit suicide. But the resourceful Vera looked like a pair of scissors. At first she was horrified and seriously thought to go to a monastery, and then she calmed down.
And asked permission to go to Paris. The guardians, who believed that the girl was already offended by fate, agreed. In November 1912 Vera Mukhina left for the capital of France.
In Paris, she spent only two winters, studying at the art academy with the sculptor Bourdelle, a student of Rodin. Later, Mukhina admitted that these classes became her education. “As a matter of fact I am self-taught,” Vera Ignatievna said.
Upon returning home, there was no time for art - in 1914 the war broke out, and Mukhina became a nurse in the hospital. The war with the Germans smoothly spilled over into the Civil War. Vera cared for the white, then the red.
A new fall - now on a universal scale - again enriched her life. In 1917, she met Alexei Zamkov, her future husband.
Zamkov was a talented doctor. And also, according to Mukhina, he had a stage appearance. Stanislavsky himself suggested to him: “Give up this medicine! I'll make an actor out of you. " But Zamkov was faithful all his life to his two muses: Mukhina and medicine. For his wife, he was a favorite model (with him she sculpted Brutus for the Red Stadium) and an au pair, and in medicine he managed to make a revolution.
Dr. Zamkov came up with a new medicine, Gravidan, with amazing results. It was said that the bedridden after the injection of gravidan began to walk, and the mind returned to the madmen.
But an article appeared in Izvestia in which Zamkov was called a "charlatan." The doctor could not stand the bullying and decided to flee abroad. Of course, Mukhina went with him.
“We got some kind of passports and went as if to the south. They wanted to get across the Persian border, she recalled. - In Kharkov we were arrested and taken back to Moscow. They brought me to the GPU. They interrogated me first. The husband was suspected of wanting to sell the secret of his invention abroad. I said that everything was printed, openly and not hidden from anyone.
I was released, and the suffering of my wife, whose husband was arrested, began. This went on for three months. Finally, an investigator came to my house and said that we were being deported for three years with confiscation of property. I started crying. "
From Voronezh, which was designated as a place of exile, Maxim Gorky helped them to get out. The proletarian writer, together with Vasily Kuibyshev and Klara Zetkin, was one of the patients of Dr. Zamkov and was able to convince the Politburo that a talented doctor needed not only freedom, but also his own institute. The decision was taken. True, the equipment for the institute, including the only electron microscope at that time, was purchased with funds received from the rent for the Latvian estate of Vera Mukhina.
Surprisingly, despite numerous hints-persuasions-demands, she managed to keep her property in Riga. When, after the collapse of the USSR, a law on restitution was passed in Latvia, the sculptor's son was even paid a certain amount. But all this will come later.
And in the 30s, the scientific prosperity of Dr. Zamkov did not last long. After the death of Gorky, there was no one to intercede for him, and the persecution began again. The institute was destroyed, the electron microscope was thrown out of the second floor window. They did not dare to arrest Zamkov himself. Saved the name of his wife, already thundering in all cities and towns of the immense Union.
Vera Ignatievna's grandfather in 1812, together with Napoleon, reached Moscow. The granddaughter in 1937 was destined to conquer Paris. More precisely, it was ordered. The statue crowning the Soviet pavilion at the World's Fair was supposed to outshine the German pavilion.
Mukhina complied with the order. Her 75-meter "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman" soared over Paris, eclipsing not only the pavilion of the Third Reich, but also the Eiffel Tower.
According to the original plan of Mukhina, the figures were supposed to be naked. "Can't you put them on?" - recommended the management. The sculptor did not just dress her characters in a sundress and overalls, she came up with a scarf, as if flying over the statue. Molotov asked to remove the scarf, but Mukhina stood her ground - he emphasized the movement. Then Voroshilov, bypassing the model of the future statue, asked to remove "the girl's bags under her eyes."
Shortly before the work of the state commission was handed over, the party's Central Committee received a denunciation that Trotsky's profile was seen in the folds of the scarf. Stalin personally came to the site and, having examined the structure, did not notice any profile. Mukhina's project was approved.
28 sealed special wagons went to France. A photograph of the Mukhino statue appeared in the Parisian "L'Humanite" with the signature that the Eiffel Tower had finally found its completion. The Parisians even collected signatures so that Mukhina's work remained in France. French women especially tried - they wanted to have a symbol of the power of a woman in Paris.
Vera Ignatievna herself did not mind. But it was already decided to install the statue near the Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow. Several times Mukhina wrote letters of protest, explaining that on the "hemp" (as she called the low - three times smaller than the Parisian - pedestal, on which the 24-meter statue was installed) her work does not look. She offered to install "The Worker and the Collective Farm Woman" either on the spit of the Moskva River (where Peter the Great, the work of Tsereteli, stands today), or on the observation deck of Moscow State University. But they did not listen to her.
Mukhina believed that the attitude of "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" at VDNKh was her personal and perhaps the most serious defeat. She generally had a rather peculiar attitude to her works. “I am in misfortune,” she said. - While doing things, I love them. And then at least they weren't ... "
Mukhina's character was not easy. Chekist A. Prokofiev, head of the construction of the Palace of Soviets, noticed that he was afraid in his life of only two people - Felix Dzerzhinsky and Vera Mukhina. “When she looked at me with her bright eyes, I had the feeling that she knew all my innermost thoughts and feelings,” the man admitted.
Vera Ignatievna preferred not to argue with the authorities. The only time she tried to convince the Kremlin to change its mind concerned the demolition of the Kazan Cathedral, which stood near the Historical Museum on Red Square. Lazar Kaganovich listened attentively to Mukhina, and then led him to the office window overlooking the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, and said: "If you make noise, we will remove this chicken coop."
Mukhina did not make any noise anymore. “She was neutral about the regime,” the sculptor's great-grandson Alexei Veselovsky told me. - It seems to me that she was generally out of this process. Although after the Voronezh exile I understood what was happening in the country. According to a family legend, when she was persuaded to sculpt Stalin, she said to her family: "I cannot sculpt a man with such a narrow forehead." When the persuasion became more persistent, she called Molotov: “I cannot sculpt without nature. Let Joseph Vissarionovich appoint me a time, I'm ready. " Molotov phoned the Moscow City Party Committee and said: "Don't waste time from busy people." As a result, the monument was made by someone else.
The sculptor's son Vsevolod Zamkov wrote in his memoirs: “It is significant that she did not create a single lifetime portrait of members of the Politburo and other members of the party leadership. The only exception is the portrait of People's Commissar of Health Kaminsky, who was arrested shortly thereafter and shot for refusing to sign a false medical report on Ordzhonikidze's death. Naturally, she could not avoid participating in competitions for monuments to Lenin. In both cases, her proposals were rejected by the selection committee, which noted the artistic qualities of the models. It is interesting to note that the portrait of 1924 was considered "cruel and even vicious", and in the 1950 model (Lenin with a worker holding a rifle and a book in his hands), attention was drawn to the fact that the main character is the worker, not Lenin. "
By the way, posing for Mukhina was considered a good sign. Everyone she sculpted was sure to get a promotion. When Vera Ignatievna was making a bust of Marshal of Artillery Voronov, he came to the last session with a box of champagne. In response to Vera Ignatievna's bewildered look, he said that rumors were circulating among the generals that everyone whom she blinded received a promotion: new rank of chief marshal of artillery, and I got it! "
The family's name was Vera Ignatievna Muney. With loved ones, she was a completely different person - gentle, caring, gentle. “In summer cottage photographs,” says Aleksey Veselovsky, “she is such a cozy grandmother-grandmother.”
Vera Ignatievna outlived her husband for eleven years. Until the last day, a bouquet of fresh flowers stood on her bedside table near the portrait of Alexei Andreyevich ...
Mukhina herself died in September 1953. She undermined her health at work on the monument to Gorky, at the opening of which in November 1952 she was no longer present.
According to her great-grandson, "she died of angina pectoris - a disease of masons."
At the Novodevichy cemetery, there are two marble slabs on the grave of Alexei Zamkov and Vera Mukhina. "I did everything I could for people" - the doctor's words are engraved on one of them. "Me too" - can be read on the tombstone of his wife.
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Vera Mukhina is a famous sculptor of the Soviet era, whose works are remembered to this day. She has greatly influenced Russian culture. Her most famous work is the "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" monument, she also became famous for the creation of a faceted glass.
Personal life
Vera Ignatievna Mukhina was born in 1889 in Riga. Her family belonged to a well-known merchant family. Father, Ignatius Mukhin, was a major merchant and patron of sciences and arts. The parental home of an outstanding art worker can be seen today.
In 1891, at the age of two, the girl loses her mother - the woman dies of tuberculosis. The father begins to worry about his daughter and her health, so he transports her to Feodosia, where they live together until 1904 - this year her father dies. After that, Vera and her sister moved to Kursk to live with their relatives.
Already in childhood, Vera Mukhina begins to engage in drawing with enthusiasm and understands that art inspires her. She enters the gymnasium and graduates with honors. After Vera moved to Moscow. The girl gives all the time to her hobby: she becomes a student of such famous sculptors as Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon, Ivan Osipovich Dudin and Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov.
Since 1912, Vera has been actively studying painting, studying in France and Italy. Most of all she is interested in the direction of the Renaissance. The girl goes through schools such as the Colarossi studio, the Grand Chaumierre Academy.
Vera returns home two years later, and Moscow does not welcome her at all: the First World War begins. The girl is not afraid of difficult times, quickly masters the profession of a nurse and works in a military hospital. It was at this tragic time in Vera's life that a happy event occurs - she meets her future husband Alexei Zamkov, a military doctor. By the way, it was he who became for Bulgakov the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky in the story "Heart of a Dog". After that, a son, Vsevolod, will appear in the family, who will become a famous physicist.
Later, until her death, Vera Ignatievna was engaged in sculpture and the disclosure of young talents. On October 6, 1953, Vera Mukhina died of angina pectoris, which is most often the result of hard physical work and great emotional stress. There were a lot of both the first and the second in the life of the sculptor. This is a brief biography of a famous Soviet woman.
Creativity and work
At the same time, Vera Ignatievna Mukhina creates sketches for the following monuments:
- Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky (revolutionary).
- Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (politician and statesman).
- Monument "Liberated Labor".
- Monument "Revolution".
In 1923 Vera Mukhina and Alexandra Alexandrovna Ekster were invited to decorate the hall for the Izvestia newspaper at the Agricultural Exhibition. Women make a splash with their work: they amaze the audience with their creativity and rich imagination.
Since 1926, the sculptor Vera Mukhina begins to contribute not only to the development of art, but also to education, working as a teacher. The woman taught at the Art College and the Higher Artistic and Technical Institute. Vera Mukhina gave impetus to the creative destiny of many Russian sculptors.
In 1927, the world famous sculpture "Peasant Woman" was created. After receiving the first place in the exhibition dedicated to October, the monument begins its journey around the world: first, the sculpture goes to the Museum of Trieste, and after the Second World War it “moves” to the Vatican.
Probably, we can say that this time was the heyday of the sculptor's creativity. Many people have a direct association: “Vera Mukhina -“ Worker and Collective Farm Woman ”- and this is no coincidence. This is the most famous monument not only to Mukhina, but also in principle in Russia. The French wrote that he is the greatest work of world sculpture of the 20th century.
In 1945 Vera Mukhina rescues the Freedom Monument in Riga from demolition - her opinion was one of the decisive experts in the commission. In the postwar years, Vera is fond of creating portraits from clay and stone. She creates a whole gallery, which includes sculptures of the military, scientists, doctors, writers, ballerinas and composers. From 1947 until the end of her life, Vera Mukhina was a member of the presidium and academician of the USSR Academy of Arts. Author: Ekaterina Lipatova
She modeled feminine dresses and sculpted brutal sculptures, worked as a nurse and conquered Paris, was inspired by her husband's "short thick muscles" and received Stalin Prizes for their bronze incarnations.
Vera Mukhina at work. Photo: liveinternet.ru
Vera Mukhina. Photo: vokrugsveta.ru
Vera Mukhina at work. Photo: russkije.lv
1. Dress-bud and coat from soldier's cloth... For some time Vera Mukhina was a fashion designer. She created the first sketches of theatrical costumes in 1915-1916. Seven years later, for the first Soviet fashion magazine "Atelier", she drew a model of an elegant and airy dress with a skirt in the shape of a bud. But the Soviet realities brought their own edits into fashion: soon fashion designers Nadezhda Lamanova and Vera Mukhina released the album Art in Everyday Life. It contained patterns of simple and practical clothes - a universal dress that "with a slight movement of the hand" turned into an evening dress; caftan "from two Vladimir towels"; coat from a soldier's cloth. In 1925, at the World Exhibition in Paris, Nadezhda Lamanova presented a collection in a la russe style, sketches for which were also created by Vera Mukhina.
Vera Mukhina. Damayanti. Costume design for an unrealized production of the ballet "Nal and Damayanti" at the Moscow Chamber Theater. 1915-1916. Photo: artinvestment.ru
Kaftan made of two Vladimir towels. Drawing by Vera Mukhina based on models by Nadezhda Lamanova. Photo: livejournal.com
Vera Mukhina. Model of a dress with a bud-shaped skirt. Photo: liveinternet.ru
2. Nurse... During the First World War, Vera Mukhina graduated from nursing courses and worked in a hospital, where she met her future husband Alexei Zamkov. When her son Vsevolod was four years old, he fell unsuccessfully, after which he fell ill with bone tuberculosis. The doctors refused to operate on the boy. And then the parents did the operation - at home, on the dinner table. Vera Mukhina assisted her husband. Vsevolod took a long time to recover, but recovered.
3. Favorite model of Vera Mukhina... Alexey Zamkov constantly posed for his wife. In 1918 she created a sculptural portrait of him. Later, she sculpted Brutus from him, killing Caesar. The sculpture was supposed to decorate the Red Stadium, which was planned to be built on the Lenin Hills (the project was not implemented). Even the hands of the "Krestyanka" were the hands of Alexei Zamkov with "short thick muscles," as Mukhina said. She wrote about her husband: “He was very handsome. Internal monumentality. At the same time, there is a lot of peasant in him. External rudeness with great mental subtlety. "
4. "Baba" in the Vatican Museum... Vera Mukhina cast a figure of a peasant woman from bronze for the 1927 art exhibition dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. The sculpture won first place at the exhibition, and then went to the exposition of the Tretyakov Gallery. Vera Mukhina said: "My" Baba "stands firmly on the ground, unshakably, as if driven into it." In 1934, the "Peasant" was exhibited at the XIX International Exhibition in Venice, after which it was transferred to the Vatican Museum.
Sketches for the sculpture "Peasant Woman" by Vera Mukhina (low tide, bronze, 1927). Photo: futureruss.ru
Vera Mukhina at work on "Krestyanka". Photo: vokrugsveta.ru
Sculpture "Peasant Woman" by Vera Mukhina (low tide, bronze, 1927). Photo: futureruss.ru
5. A relative of the Russian Orpheus... Vera Mukhina was a distant relative of the opera singer Leonid Sobinov. After the success of The Peasant Woman, he wrote her a humorous quatrain as a gift:
The exhibition with male art is weak.
Where to run from female dominance?
Mukhinskaya woman conquered everyone
By power alone and without effort.Leonid Sobinov
After the death of Leonid Sobinov, Vera Mukhina sculpted a tombstone - a dying swan, which was installed on the singer's grave. The tenor performed the aria Farewell to the Swan in the opera Lohengrin.
6. 28 carriages of "Worker and Collective Farm Woman"... Vera Mukhina created her legendary sculpture for the 1937 World Exhibition. "The ideal and symbol of the Soviet era" was sent to Paris in parts - fragments of the statue occupied 28 carriages. The monument was called a model of sculpture of the twentieth century, in France a series of souvenirs with the image of "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" was issued. Later Vera Mukhina recalled: "The impression made by this work in Paris gave me everything an artist could wish for." In 1947 the sculpture became the emblem of Mosfilm.
"Worker and Kolkhoz Woman" at the World Exhibition in Paris, 1937. Photo: liveinternet
"Worker and Kolkhoz Woman". Photo: liveinternet.ru
Museum and Exhibition Center "Worker and Collective Farm Woman"
7. "Hands are itching to write it"... When the artist Mikhail Nesterov met Vera Mukhina, he immediately decided to paint her portrait: “She is interesting, intelligent. Outwardly, it has "its own face", completely finished, Russian ... Hands are itching to write it ... "The sculptor posed for him more than 30 times. Nesterov could work with enthusiasm for four to five hours, and during the breaks Vera Mukhina treated him to coffee. The artist painted it while working on the statue of Boreus, the northern god of the wind: “So he attacks the clay: there he will hit, here he will pinch, here he will beat. The face is on fire - do not get under the arm, it will hurt. This is how I need you! " The portrait of Vera Mukhina is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery.
8. Faceted glass and beer mug... The sculptor is credited with inventing the faceted glass, but this is not entirely true. She only improved his form. The first batch of glasses according to her drawings was released in 1943. Glass containers became more durable and were ideal for the Soviet dishwasher invented shortly before. But Vera Mukhina really invented the shape of the Soviet beer mug herself.
