Draft:Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya

Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya
Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya
Artist	Nicolai Fechin
Year	1914
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	135 cm × 145 cm (53 in × 57 in)
Location	State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan

Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya (in Russian: Портрет Вари Адоратской) is a painting created by Nicolai Fechin in the spring of 1914 in Kazan, in the studio of the artist's student Nadezhda Sapozhnikova[3]. The painting belongs to the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan in Kazan[4] and is displayed in the permanent exhibition of the Nikolai Feshin Hall in the National Art Gallery Khazine.[5] Art historian A. E. Kuznetsov, in an article about the painting's exhibition at the Moscow gallery Art-Divage, called the canvas one of the most brilliant children's portraits in the history of not only of Russian, but also of the world art[6].

The painting belongs to the most significant period of the artist's work—1914 to 1918—according to G. P. Tuluzakova, a candidate of art history. During this time, Feshin, choosing the form of interior portraiture, sought to create a generalized, multifaceted image that would synthesize the model's psychological characteristics with her momentary mood or state[7]. Tuluzakova calls Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya "the most complete and perfect form of the image of childhood in Feshin's work." She considers the painting one of the artist's most harmonious creations, clear in thought and construction, and a hallmark of his Russian period[8][9].

Children in Nicolai Fechin's work

Among Nikolai Feshin's most valued and often invited sitters were children. In her book on Feshin's work, Galina Tuluzakova contrasts the artist's genre compositions—where he depicted the complexity and contradictions of human nature, far from the ideal qualities inherent in people by nature—with his portraits of children, which, in her words, manifest "his romantic, sublime faith in humanity." In his portraits, Feshin does not distinguish between children from "simple" and "intelligent" families; both groups, in his paintings, epitomize the bright image of childhood. In the works Portrait of a Girl (Vyatka Art Museum named after V. M. and A. M. Vasnetsov), Girl in a Pink Scarf (which was for a long time in the private collection of surgeon-oncologist Academician N. N. Blokhin), Peasant Girl (private collection, USA), Girl (Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, USA), and Katenka (State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan), the viewer can easily determine that the characters belong to the lower social classes[10]. In the painting Kisa and the portraits of Nina Belkovich and Misha Bardukov, the children are from a different social group, but the artist's attitude toward his subjects does not change[11].

In his interpretation of the image of children, Feshin emphasizes their openness to the world, vulnerability, and inner purity. At the same time, the artist approaches childhood seriously — there is no sense of pity in his depictions. Feshin presents children in his paintings according to their age characteristics, capturing the plasticity of their movements, the tenderness of not-yet-fully-formed facial features, their liveliness, restlessness, and occasional spoiling[11]. His portraits are often marked by a contrast in brushstrokes —delicate touches for the face and thicker, more textured strokes for clothing and backgrounds— which is especially noticeable in his portraits of children[12].

The painting's description

Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya is an oil painting on canvas. The canvas size is 135 × 145 cm (although the exhibition catalog from the Moscow gallery "Art-Divage" lists other dimensions—138 × 147.2 cm[2]). At the bottom left are the artist's signature and the date of the painting: "N. Feshin 1914"[2]. The painting is part of the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan in Kazan[4]. The inventory number of the canvas in the collection is Zh-938[1]. Since 2005, Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya has been exhibited in the Nikolai Feshin Hall on the third floor of the permanent exhibition at the National Art Gallery "Khazine"[5].

The portrait depicts a ten-year-old girl sitting on a table among toys and sweets scattered in a picturesque mess. Art historians at the State Russian Museum noted that she "would look like a toy come to life, if it were not for the serious look of a teenager growing up in a non-childish world." The painting continues the tradition of children's imagery, part of which includes Lewis Carroll's Alice (1865) and Vera Mamontova in Valentin Serov's The Girl with Peaches (1887), both of which convey "the happy, carefree nature of childhood"[13].

The girl's face is depicted in the same color tone as the background but stands out with the more vibrant colors of her hair and eyes. Her gaze is directed at the viewer, with the artist placing the main emphasis on the "inquisitive eyes of the child". Feshin portrayed two distinct levels of still life in the painting: fruit on the table and flowers by the window. The background is a gray, monochromatic wall, creating a contrast between flatness and volume. Tuluzakova noted the unity between the figure and the surrounding "accessories" in the painting[8].

Varvara Adoratskaya: the model

Varvara Vladimirovna Adoratskaya was born in Kazan in 1904. A year later, her father was arrested for revolutionary activities and was first imprisoned, then exiled from the Russian Empire (though the Adoratsky family returned to their homeland briefly in 1907, when a family photo was taken in S. Felzer's studio in Kazan[13]). Varvara and her mother followed her father into exile. The family lived in Switzerland and later in Germany. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Varvara and her parents were interned[14]. In 1918, following an exchange proposed by Lenin, the Adoratskys returned to Russia. The family settled in Moscow, where V. V. Adoratsky began working in the Central State Archive[13], and Varvara studied at Vkhutemas from 1923 to 1925[15]. The Adoratsky family lived in an apartment in the Government House (also known as the "House on the Embankment"). Varvara's mother was disabled from a young age, having lost her hearing and eyesight, and was barely able to move, so her daughter had to devote herself to caring for her. In her youth, Varvara herself suffered from tuberculosis and Graves' disease, which presumably prevented her from completing her university studies[14].

Varvara was fluent in several languages and worked as a translator at the Marx and Engels Institute. She assisted her father with his scientific work, translating for him, typing on a typewriter, and working under his supervision on translations for the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (which was renamed the Marx and Engels Institute after its merger with the Lenin Institute), where her father served as director from 1931 to 1939. After his death, she continued to work at the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute under contract[13]. Years later, Adoratskaya sought to learn about the fate of Nikolai Feshin, who had emigrated to the United States, through the intermediary of her friends (see V. V. Adoratskaya's letter to N. N. Livanova dated October 20, 1955, in the personal archive of N. M. Valeev)[16]. Varvara Adoratskaya died in 1963[14].

The Portrait's Creation History

From 1912, Feshin participated in exhibitions of the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions. Along with realistic portraits by Ilya Repin, Feshin himself, and Sergei Malyutin, salon works were also presented at this time. Feshin passionately painted portraits en plein air. Usually, they were small portraits of the étude type, created in bright sunlight, often against the light. This lighting created a barely noticeable shimmering glow around the subject’s head. Even then, Repin had a high opinion of the work of his former pupil. Later, in 1926, in a conversation with Soviet artists, Repin named Nikolai Feshin among the most interesting contemporary portraitists[12].

When choosing models, Feshin favored a narrow circle of relatives and close friends. This allowed him to achieve in the portrait “penetrating depth and rare psychological expressiveness." Feshin's works possessed "not only external resemblance to the sitter, but also unsurpassed personal characteristics of the people to whom he felt special feelings and affection.” Such is the Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya, the daughter of friends of the artist's family[17].

The father of the young model, artist V. V. Adoratsky—an active participant in the revolutionary movement, a member of the RSDLP since 1904, and later a Marxist philosopher and historian—highly appreciated Feshin's paintings and ranked him "no lower than V. Serov." However, Adoratsky did not approve of the fact that the artist often depicted sitters in "contrived poses"[18]. According to the memories of V. V. Adoratskaya, the portrait was painted in the Kazan studio of N. V. Sapozhnikova, M. Sapozhnikova —her aunt[13]— in the spring of 1916[19]. Feshin not only frequently visited the studio but also actively participated in its decoration in the Russian style[7]. N. M. Sapozhnikova played an important role in Feshin's life. As his student and having significant material resources from her wealthy family, she acted as a patron of the arts in relation to the artist. Her studio was one of the artistic centers of Kazan. G. P. Tuluzakova noted in Sapozhnikova’s personality the "contrast inherent in a woman's ability to subtly understand and feel the beautiful and at the same time [possess] a male mind and energetic character"[7].

In Sapozhnikova's studio (which was attached to the Trade House of M. F. Sapozhnikov, located on Kremlin Street, a building later used as the Main Post Office[20]), artists often gathered. They not only drew but also discussed art—painters, color, primers, and thinners. According to the memories of K. K. Chebotaryov, Feshin did not like to talk much at such meetings but listened attentively to the participants, occasionally inserting short remarks that "aptly and clearly defined his attitude to the subject of the conversation." One of the discussions was about the so-called "flat" background in portraiture. Sapozhnikova, a student of both Feshin and Kees van Dongen, often applied van Dongen’s techniques in her works. During the conversation, Feshin expressed doubts about the appropriateness of these techniques, finding van Dongen's manner conventional. Later, when creating the Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya, he himself used a flat, "painted" gray wall, but in this case, it appeared "not conventional, but realistically justified"[21].

Many years later, the artist's young model said that the story of the painting began in March–April 1914 in Kazan. Varya Adoratskaya was very close to her aunt, Nadezhda, and often visited her studio. Sapozhnikova offered the girl the chance to become a model for Nikolai Feshin[13]. Adoratskaya recounted (with the style and orthography of the original retained): (18)

"...At that time, Feshin conceived the idea of painting a table covered with a white tablecloth, and near the table, a girl in a shirt who has just gotten out of bed and feeds a doll from a spoon. ...My aunt suggested that Nikolai Ivanovich paint me. I was nine years old then, and I was quite shy and wild. When Aunt Nadia told me that I would have to pose in just a shirt, I categorically refused and said that I never feed a doll from a spoon, because: 'she can't eat.' We compromised on the fact that I would wear a white cambric dress, and the doll would lie next to me. These negotiations took place, of course, without Nikolai Ivanovich. At first, he put me in a wicker chair near the table, but then he decided to place me on the table. I didn't like it very much because it was very uncomfortable and even painful to sit there; my legs were constantly numb. But it was impossible to argue with N. I., and I had to submit. At first, I wore a wide belt with blue, yellow, and red spots. But N. I. didn't like it, and he found a piece of matte silk cloth in paler colors and repainted what he had originally done. He did the same with the dress of the Japanese doll that lay beside me. She was wearing a brightly colored dress with red, yellow, and blue flowers. At N. I.'s request, she wore another one, a bluish one, and he remodeled it in the painting".

Adoratskaya recalled that Feshin first made a sketch of the entire composition on the canvas in charcoal, then painted the face, and only outlined the other elements of the composition. Later, after finishing the work on the face, the artist gradually completed the whole picture. Varvara Adoratskaya recalled: "He would put a stroke and run away to look from afar, then again take paint on the brush and return to the canvas. His movements were impetuous; he worked with great temperament and enthusiasm". The young sitter attended sessions for more than a month, three times a week. Feshin continued to work on the still life part of the portrait without the girl.18]

The painting is in the museum's collection

Feshin offered the girl's portrait to Varya's father, Vladimir Adoratsky, but he refused to buy it. It was therefore acquired by N. M. Sapozhnikova. She bequeathed the portrait to her niece, Varya Adoratskaya, who served as the model for the portrait. The portrait was transferred to the State Museum of Fine Arts in 1964 by Sergei Nikolayevich Razumov[13][2]. In Moscow, Razumov, a close friend of V. V. Adoratskaya, inherited Nikolai Feshin's collection of paintings after her death in 1963 and possessed a large collection of the artist's works. Along with Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya, it included many other significant pieces, such as portraits of S. M. Adoratskaya (1910), the portrait of Misha Bardukov (1914), portraits of N. M. Sapozhnikova (two études from 1915 and two large-format portraits from 1916), and the portrait of E. M. Konurina (1917)[22].

The preparation for Nikolai Feshin's personal exhibition in Kazan in 1963 required active research and search efforts. A circle of people who might have kept his works was identified. The staff of the Kazan museum arrived in Moscow in early 1963 and met Varvara Adoratskaya. Knowing about her terminal illness, she agreed to sell the collection to the Kazan museum, but she wanted to see her own portrait in the Tretyakov Gallery, not in the Kazan museum. After Adoratskaya's death and the transfer of her collection to S. N. Razumov, negotiations had to begin anew. In the end, he agreed to the proposal to sell Feshin's works to the Kazan Museum. This applied to all works in the collection, except for the Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya, which he intended to transfer to the State Tretyakov Gallery in accordance with the wishes of the deceased. However, under the influence of persistent persuasion from the Kazan Museum, he ultimately agreed to transfer the painting to this institution[23]. The transfer of the painting took place in 1964[22].

The painting has repeatedly represented Feshin's work at major national and international exhibitions. Among them were the 43rd exhibition of the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions in 1915, as well as the exposition From Kazan to Taos, held from November 2011 to February 2012 at the National Art Gallery of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan. As part of the 2011–2012 exposition, the exhibition Feshin, Varya, and I, prepared by the family studio of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the RT, was held. For this exhibition, a group of children created their own version of the painting Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya. Under the guidance of M. S. Obshivalkina, head of the museum pedagogy section, the children also conducted a photo session based on the painting by Nikolai Feshin, and the pictures from this session became part of the exhibition[13]. In addition, the painting was presented at an exhibition dedicated to the work of Nikolai Feshin, first held in Kazan in 1963 and then in Moscow in 1964, as well as at an exhibition in 1992, in 2004 at the Art-Divage Gallery (Moscow), and in Kazan at an exhibition in 2006–2007[1], and at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in 2021. The canvas was restored in 1973 at the I. E. Grabar All-Russian Art Research and Restoration Center[2].

Nikolai Feshin's painting is a large-format compositional portrait painting[11]. Portrait painting, in Tuluzakova's understanding, is a work originally conceived by Feshin as a kind of generalization. Such a portrait synthesizes the individual characteristics of the model while also aiming to create a typical and, at the same time, ideal image of the man of his time[7].

Critics and public's views and opinions

Contemporaries about the painting

The painting was first presented to a wide audience in the year of its creation at a periodic exhibition of the Kazan Art School. Art historian P. E. Kornilov recalled that his acquaintance with the work of N. I. Feshin took place at this very exhibition, held in the building of the art school. Kornilov's attention was drawn to Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya, although the exhibition featured other significant works by the artist, including Bondarka and Portrait of His Wife. In the portrait of V. Adoratskaya, he liked the simplicity and clarity of the composition, the very “image of a pretty girl”, the still life on the table, and the noble grayish-perlamutrovaya gamma dominating the picture. The painting evoked in Kornilov's memory the works of Valentin Serov. Journalist Vl. Denkov, in an article in 1915, even claimed: “...for the portrait of Varya Adoratskaya undoubtedly served as a model Serov's same V. Mamontova (Girl with Peaches) — fruit on the tablecloth, swarthy face, gray wall, and a piece of window”.

60 years later, A. A. Lyubimov, a painter and teacher, a disciple of Nikolai Feshin, who visited the same exhibition, remembered:26

“I remember in 1914, at the periodical exhibition of the school, a very strong impression was made on me by a portrait of the Adoratskaya girl sitting on a table amidst a still life. What freshness, what power, and at the same time, what delicate restraint and what a high general culture of portrait painting! It is impossible to forget, to pass by this masterpiece of Feshin's painting. The were a lot of people crowded, everyone wanted to take a closer look at the cuisine of painting and the technique of execution of this marvelous portrait".

In the first monograph on the work of Nikolai Feshin, which was published in 1921 in Kazan, art historian Peter Dulsky wrote about the painting Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya:27

“This very beautiful piece, almost the best of all executed by N. Feshin, depicts a full-length portrait of a girl, composed on the left side of the picture. The model is depicted in a rather calm pose, seated on the corner of the table. The smooth, gray tone of the background serves as a beautiful frame for the portrait, colorful still life, depicting a metal coffee pot[Note 1], a vase with oranges and grapes, and a blue porcelain cup, all executed with great taste and skill; the portrait itself is surprisingly soft, with pleasant tones, well in harmony with the whole environment, as a whole giving a slender artistic impression".

Soviet art historians' opinions

Art historian Vladimir Voronov wrote about the “purest pearlescent painting, completed realistic form” of the painting. By “soft, exquisite harmony,” he put the portrait of Varya Adoratskaya on a par with Ilya Repin's Dragonfly and Valentin Serov's Girl with Peaches.28

Art historian who specialized in painting of the Silver Age, S. G. Kaplanova noted the seriousness and soulful softness of the image of the girl, which the artist painted “as if suddenly”. The girl's eyes are thoughtful, attentive and clear, golden-blonde hair is arranged in pigtails, peculiar fit flexible figure. Kaplanova described the color scheme of the canvas as gentle, joyful and at the same time refined. She emphasized the artist's skill in depicting a white tablecloth, a white cambric dress and a bluish-green bow. Kaplanova called the still life in the painting “beautifully painted,” and it includes a teapot on a spork, oranges, pomegranates, nuts, a vase of fruit, and a doll in a blue dress[19]. In an earlier essay on Nikolai Feshin's work, dating from 1964, Kaplanova noted the bright and joyful atmosphere of Varya Adoratskaya's portrait. She wrote about the feeling of bewilderment that arises upon acquaintance with the painting. It is caused by the unusual composition and unexpected location of the model. In her opinion, the portrait is interesting not only because of the interpretation of the girl's image, but also because of the color solution. The portrait evoked in the Soviet art historian's mind the best children's portraits of Russian painting of the second half of the 19th century. She noted the brown thoughtful, attentive and clear eyes of the child, a peculiar fit of the flexible figure of the girl “with a wonderful, soft on the lines, neck”.[29]

Dr. Ida Hoffman, a doctor of art history, compared the painting Girl with Porcelain (1916) by Alexander Golovin and Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya by Nikolai Feshin. The common elements, she noted, were decorativeness and subject — children and a colorful still life on a table. At the same time, each artist, in her opinion, approached this subject in his own way. Feshin depicts a conventional, invented situation: a girl sitting on the table amidst a picturesque mess of untidy dishes and scattered fruit. She is the main object of the artist's attention. Things, flowers, books, and pictures on the walls — these bright spots are arranged around her figure in a light-colored dress, creating a peculiar atmosphere of the child's world. Varya's face does not show cloudless happiness; it is not childishly serious and anxious. This image, from the art historian's point of view, is close to Frosa in Golovin's painting.30

Given the similarity of interpretation for his canvas, Golovin chose, from an artistic point of view, the following solution. The girl in the artist's painting is included in the overall color composition of the canvas as one of its components. The little figure of a five-year-old girl is placed not on the table, as in Feshin, but at the table, on which rises a large mass of expensive flowers and collectible porcelain. Frosya's face, by the will of the artist, appears at the level of the still life. The artist turns the portrait into a performance, where flowers and things become actors along with the girl. The artist carefully selected the objects and thought over the composition (the objects are arranged according to their size, shape, and color). By placing a mirror at the back, the artist doubled the number of objects on the table, simultaneously increasing the impression of this mass of beautiful things.30

Art historian A. B. Feinberg noted in his book Artists of Tatarstan, published in 1983, the talent of Feshin as a colorist, as applied to the painting. The artist, in his opinion, managed to create a subtle range of colors, dominated by gray-pearl tones, enlivened by bright bursts of blue, yellow, and red spots. The image of Varya itself is “spiritualized by the artist's careful attitude to the model". 31

Russian 1990s art historians about the painting

Russian 2000s art historians about the painting

Eya with Cantelope as a paraphrase of Varya Adoratskaya's portrait

The painting Eya with Cantaloupe (1923; for a long time, the painting was in the collection and exhibited at the Forrest Fenn Gallery, Santa Fe, USA) is, according to Tuluzakova, a paraphrase of Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya. It develops the line of plein air and interior compositional portraits of Feshin and is related to the portraits from the Russian period of his work. The artist's daughter (later known as the American ballerina, art therapist, and art critic Eya Feshina) is sitting at a table. In her hands, she holds a cut muscat cantaloupe. Next to the girl, the artist has placed a still life with apples, pears, plums, a pineapple, and bunches of flowers. The fruits are painted in a brown range from black to yellow and are the first to attract the viewer's attention. The background features drapery. The figure of the girl, as in Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya, is shifted to the side, her face half-turned and her eyes downcast. The girl corresponds to a different color scheme, formed by the grayish-white background, tablecloth, dress, golden hair, and delicate skin of Eya. The contrast of color schemes reveals, according to Tuluzakova, her fragility and “almost immateriality.” At the same time, she believes that Eya's portrait is not perceived as a generalized image of childhood or the embodiment of the hope of the era, as is the case with the portrait of Varya Adoratskaya, although its pictorial tasks are more complex[43][44].

Notes

References

Bibliography

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