[Illustration]
[Illustration: RUSSIAN ART
THE ALEXANDER KOGAN PUBLISHING COMPANY]
COPYRIGHT
BY ALEXANDER KOGAN
PUBLISHING COMPANY, “RUSSIAN ART”,
BERLIN
BAKST
[Illustration]
MCMXXII
THE STORY OF LEON BAKST’S LIFE
[Illustration: I
PORTRAIT OF BAKST BY MODIGLIANI]
TEXT
BY
ANDRÉ LEVINSON
BRENTANO’S, NEW YORK
THE AMERICAN EDITION OF THIS WORK
CONSISTS OF 250 NUMBERED COPIES
Nº. 247
PRINTED IN GERMANY
DR. SELLE & Co. A.G.,
BERLIN
[Illustration: II
“CHASTISING CUPID”
PROJECT OF DECORATIVE PANEL]
PREFACE
[Illustration]
In the book of fame, the name of Leon Bakst is writ large. Many a time
and oft, illustrious critics have heralded his praises. In speaking
today of the contribution made by Bakst, there is really nothing that
one can add or improve upon. The inventory of his achievements has been
completed; the unexampled influence which he never ceased to exercise
has been rightly evaluated. Nevertheless, there remains a task which
must not be neglected. Paris, to be sure, enthusiastically watched the
development of his art; but for us, Russians, has been reserved the
most thrilling experience of all--that of chronicling the unfolding of
his genius. We have here the spectacle of a towering, unusual,
self=revealing personality, and of a style that develops progressively
and that blazes new ways after bitter struggles.
More than that, in order to obtain a composite picture of his work, in
order to arrive at a general estimate of the man, we must try to
reproduce the intimate atmosphere of his artistic development, the
material and intellectual surroundings which shaped his course.
As a compatriot and contemporary of the master, I have, on the whole,
breathed this same atmosphere. I have been an eye=witness of those
earlier creations of his that mark an epoch in the history of Russian
painting and of the Russian theater. This knowledge constitutes my
qualification for attempting this biography. The latter would be
incomplete unless his childhood and adolescence were also to be
recalled. In so far as this period of his life is concerned, I am
reporting Bakst’s own words; with moderation I have supplied a running
comment.
Thus these pages present the first attempt at a story of Bakst’s life.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE YELLOW DRAWING ROOM
It was in a dull and mediocre home of the well=to=do middle class that
our artist who, as the originator of expensive pageants and the
dispenser of unheard=of splendor, was destined some day to modify
profoundly the whole conception of the western stage, spent his early
childhood. Leon Bakst’s family lived at Petrograd, on Sadovaia street.
Now, there is nothing more incongruous than the different sections of
the Russian capital--“the most phantastic in the world,” to use a phrase
of Dostoievski.
The Sadovaia is a rather narrow but very lively street, which cuts
across the market=place and is flanked by the arches of three huge
galleries where countless small tradesmen carry on their business. Here,
in the adjacent streets, in the gutters of the sidewalks which,
depending upon the time of the year, were muddy or dusty, Roskolnikov
lived his life of superhuman anguish; a few steps from here, in a
gloomy red house, during all of a terrible night Rogojin and Prince
Mishkin watched over their murdered love; here, too, one day Nicholas I,
the giant=like autocrat with the countenance of an Apollo, standing at
the entrance to the temple which overhangs Sennaia Square, by a single
imperious word brought the revolting mob, which was exasperated by the
plague and the shedding of blood, to their knees.
Thus to a dreamer who is haunted by memories the very stones of this
district, which has been the silent witness of tragic fates, whether
imaginary or real, seemed to be harbingers of bad luck.
And yet, notwithstanding, there is nothing more noisily commonplace than
the daily routine in broad daylight of this same Sadovaia: large public
houses, but devoid of rustic cheerfulness; mechanics’ shops in which the
songs had died. Dull boredom of an industrious popular life, but how
discolored, deadened, and enervated by the peculiar atmosphere of this
artificial town--this city of officials, of soldiers and of ghosts!
Nevertheless the little soul of the well=behaved child, blocked up
though it was by realities that afforded no way out, possessed its
wondrous sesame, its secret garden. Every Saturday Levoushka would walk
toward the Nevsky Prospect where, but a few steps from General Army
Headquarters with its imposing semi=circular façade of red, from Winter
Palace Square, and from the Admiralty--a veritable fairy=land of lofty
architecture--, his grandfather lived, a noble and vaguely mysterious
being who, without in the least being conscious of it, awakened in the
future artist a reverence for Beauty, a holy fear of the Unknown.
The child thus came into unusual surroundings which constituted the
artificial paradise of his early life. Whatever it was--precocious
influence or atavism--this fascination dominated the life of Bakst and
at least decided his calling. At any rate the master himself, who one
day told me at length about his earliest recollections, seems to think
so.
His grandfather, a peculiar fellow, was a Parisian of the Second Empire,
a man of society who, it may well be, not long ago had been out walking
with the Mornys and the Paivas. An amiable Epicurean he was, a man of
fine discernment in the manner of his time, who had set up a retreat for
himself at Petrograd that was well adapted to his ineffaceable memories.
Everything in this home of dreams appealed to the sensibilities of the
child--the brocaded silks, the graceful and heavily gilded trinkets. But
his greatest delight was the large gilded parlor, with panels of yellow
tapestry, with furniture of rock and shell=work in the style of 1860,
with its white marble, its yellow flower stand, filled at all times with
rare plants, and (this constituted his supreme happiness) its four
gilded cages in which canary birds were chirping. In a corner, on a
stand, a large model of the Temple of Salomon displayed its imaginative
architecture. A large painting had for its subject the lament of the
Jews before the demolished walls of Zion, for the former Parisian “lion”
did not renounce his race; he had not forgotten Jeremiah over Theresa.
The irritable old man at times scared the impulsive and vivacious
urchin; kindhearted old grouch that he was, he often angrily charged the
wretched disorder up to the young lad. Levoushka was therefore not sorry
to see his grandfather leave for his customary Saturday promenade, for
this was indeed the right moment for him to make the large clock, with
its mechanical doll, ring, and to wind up the music boxes of every
description that were to be found in the yellow drawing room.
His own home furnished Leon no such emotions. Besides, the indifference
to matters of art was practically general in the Russian intellectual
classes of that time. The grandfather was therefore the idol of the
child, his sole arbiter of good taste. No sooner had he returned home,
than Levoushka would turn his room upside down and would try to arrange
his modest furniture according to the exquisite æsthetic principles of
the yellow drawing room; and he would try to hide from view the things
that were devoid of beauty.
Yet throughout all this there was never any idea of painting. Later, his
grandfather never got to know that Bakst was sketching. Meanwhile Leon
was about to become ten years old. His entry into school put an end to
his weekly pilgrimages to the Nevsky Prospect. Sesame had closed.
THE UNGRATEFUL AGE
No sooner had Leon become encased in the uniform which distinguishes the
city student from the provincial youngster in gray--viz., a black blouse
with silver buttons--, than he came to know the monotonous and
depressing life of the Russian schoolboy: rising by lamp=light during
the long winter months; returning with his school=bag on his back;
suffering the petty annoyances of an oppressive discipline and the black
boredom of official education.
It was then that he discovered the theater. Not that he had ever been
there. Like everybody else, his family had subscribed to a season ticket
at the Italian Opera which was then at the height of favor and which
eclipsed all efforts of an unappreciated national music to win its way;
but our hero, being too small, was not allowed to go to the family box.
With great difficulty, however, he had gained the privilege of staying
up on Mondays--the days on which his family had the box--until their
return. With delight he would then listen to his brother’s account of
the “Puritans” or the “Favorita” and their tragical and pompous
vicissitudes.
Tired of listening without acting, he constructed his own theater. He
cut out his heroes from the sheets of colored paper soldiers, his
princesses from the engravings in popular fairy tales illustrated at
Epinal, his court ladies from the fashion magazines. Then he would place
his actors on a paste board stage and “brush in” the scenery in water
color with paint plundered from his color=box. The subjects were
plentifully provided by the librettos of Verdi’s operas, augmented by
supplementary murders. As for the audience--it was never lacking, Leon
having always been the appointed and recognized entertainer of his
little sisters.
This play of make=believe did not, however, entirely satisfy his
precocious ardor. The strong desire for disguising and masking is, after
all, quite general among children, who possess a genius for dramatizing
the facts of life. Improvised plays were, therefore, put on. The most
frequently recurring motif was the visit of the doctor. There was much
[Illustration: III
D’ANNUNZIO’S “MARTYRDOM OF ST. SEBASTIAN” (MME. RUBINSTEIN IN THE 5th
ACT).]
[Illustration: IV
JUDITH OF BETHULIA (PANEL)]
illness at Leon’s home! Young Leon, besides being stage manager, would
now play the role of the doctor with black robe, now that of the
druggist, now even, with self=denial, the rather contemptible part of
the patient.
[Illustration: SKETCH OF COVER FOR THE REVIEW “APOLLON”]
One day, as he had concocted a drug by diluting green coloring matter,
he pursued realism to the point of swallowing the concoction. He fell
ill. Only with the greatest effort in the world was it possible to save
him by making him drink a quantity of milk.
Throughout all this, however, we do not yet see the painter come to the
fore. Indeed, our schoolboy was decidedly not a success at drawing,
[Illustration: REMEMBRANCE (“ELYSIUM” CYCLE)]
and with envy he watched how his chums sketched fine battle scenes upon
the margins of their note books. His life’s calling announced itself for
the first time when he was almost twelve years old. His school, known as
“the sixth gymnasium”, was making preparations to celebrate the
[Illustration: ETERNAL WANDERERS (“ELYSIUM” CYCLE)]
centenary of Joukovsky, the celebrated Russian poet. A good portrait was
wanted for the ceremony. Accordingly, a prize competition was organized.
Bakst decided to enter it. He reverently took home the little engraving
which was to serve as model, and four or five days later he brought
back his drawing. The prize was awarded him, and his masterpiece put in
a glass frame and hung in the gymnastic hall. From then on Bakst was
unanimously proclaimed a painter, and he was able to pride himself on
winning many a prize.
Leon’s father was not much pleased over this sort of success, especially
since bad marks were raining thick in the other studies. He conceived
the notion that his son’s predilection for drawing was due to sheer
laziness. He therefore positively forbade him this pastime which, he
argued, interfered with serious studies. Leon therefore continued
drawing in secret, at night=time, by the light of a candle.
On the other hand his accomplishments brought him the friendship of his
drawing and penmanship teacher, who became much attached to the
youngster. Andrei Andreevitch was a diminutive little man with bowlegs;
but this tail=coated freak in blue was fired with a divine enthusiasm.
Striding about the class room he would talk incessantly to the pupils,
now pondering the volutes of an acanthus leaf, now discussing the lives
of great painters, their struggles, their triumphs. So volubly and so
well did he speak that he stirred deeply the imaginative soul of little
Bakst and awakened all the latent passion in him. Subsequently, the
artist’s entire magnificent life was to be animated, as it were, by
these rhythmic fits of intellectual fever, from which he was to emerge
renewed, transformed, his mind’s eye turned toward unexplored horizons.
The profession of painting, therefore, suddenly appeared to Levoushka to
be the highest of all destinies--one bearing the halo of heroism. Filled
with this romantic dream, he was anxious to quit school at once. And he
insisted with such impetuosity that his parents, routed in the argument,
decided by way of setting him right to seek the advice of the sculptor
Marc Antokolsky, a friend of the family and a recognized authority on
all matters pertaining to art. The late Antokolsky was little known in
Paris where he used to live, nor do people care much about him in Russia
today, although his works, which are quite numerous, fill the museums of
Moscow and especially of Petrograd. So deceptive is artistic glory!
For indeed, he had his day of glory. In Russia he was the sculptor of
the century--of that nineteenth century which had lost the plastic
[Illustration: V
“FORSAKEN CHLOE”. PROJECT OF DECORATIVE PANEL. (GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: VI
PORTRAIT OF MR. T. (RED CHALK)]
arts almost completely. The conception of a strict naturalism placed
at the service of humanitarian and social ideals, dominated by the idol
People, a conception that also characterized the notable and prophetic
“<g>Association des expositions ambulantes</g>”, was also his. Moreover,
Stassov, the voluble and prolix critic who composed for the great
Moussorgsky the monstrously confused text of “Khovanshchina”, turned
Antokolsky’s mind toward Russian history.
And thus, through his bronze and marble sculptures, Antokolsky became
the historical illustrator and portraitist of Russia. He wrought Ivan
the Terrible, Nestor the Annalist, Peter the Great, and even Ermak the
Cossack, conqueror of Siberia. With keen psychological sense he also
composed the likenesses of heroes and martyrs of free thought: a dying
Socrates, a Spinoza and a Christ insulted, the latter work being
conceived in the spirit of Strauss and Renan. All these monumental
figures which greatly stirred his contemporaries no longer show any
signs of life.
There remains the personality of Antokolsky, which was in every respect
a pure one. Not without reason did this poor and pertinacious young Jew,
who hardly knew how to write Russian, become the idol and the oracle of
two generations. We see but too clearly today that he travelled the
wrong road. But he had faith. His artistic convictions were unalterable,
unselfish, absolute,--those of a fanatic. More than that--a thing seldom
to be found--, this fanatic was kindness itself.
Antokolsky, then, on being consulted made much of the misfortunes and
bitter disappointments that one embarking upon an artistic career must
expect. But he was not unwilling to look Leon’s drawings over. Pestered
by the youngster, his father sent several sketches to Paris. Lo and
behold! when the reply, so anxiously awaited by the boy, arrived, it was
favorable, decisive, almost intoxicating. The master had found the
drawings quite well done and advised the boy’s going to the Academy of
Fine Arts, on condition, however, that he pursue his general education.
Thus Leon, the intractable and mediocre schoolboy of the day before, was
to become a painter, a chosen and quasi-legendary being. He was then
sixteen years of age.
THE TWO SPHINXES
Leon, then, presented himself for examination but failed. Before being
admitted to another test he had for a year to practice drawing from
models; and only after he had solved the mysteries of this form of
academic discipline, was he admitted. For another year he kept abreast
of both his artistic studies and his general secondary education; soon,
however, he neglected school and, after a few feeble attempts, gave it
up altogether. Let us state the fact without bitterness: Bakst never
received the Bachelor’s degree.
The first day that Bakst, attired in his new green uniform, wended his
way along the granite embankment toward the Academy and, having passed
under the eyes of the two Sphinxes from Thebes with a hundred gates
which guard the sanctuary, decided to enter, his astonishment and his
proud ecstasy knew no bounds. However, despite the grand pretense of a
temple, the Imperial Academy of 1890 was a rather curious institution.
The academic instruction which flourished at the beginning of the
century, maintained its power and authority until the close of Nicholas
I’s reign. But from 1863 on it was badly shaken by the famous secession
of the “Thirteen”, with Kramskoi at the head. These thirteen later
became the first “wanderers”; they were destined to herald the arrival
of a certain humanitarian realism closely related to the teachings of
Proudhon and of Courbet. They professed the haughtiest contempt for
disinterested pictorial beauty, for mere virtuosity, yes, even for sound
craftmanship based upon traditional experience.
Among the “pompiers” classicism had degenerated into hackneyed copying;
teaching became vulgar pedantry. Among the revolutionaries classicism
was the complete and absolute negation of art, admitted only as a
function of social apostleship. But the younger artists had public
opinion behind them, which hailed the catastrophe as a liberation. Yet
for thirty years the Academy, powerful solely because of its official
authority, continued to stick to the past and to live outside the pale
of a throbbing artistic life.
Not until 1893 did the “wanderers”, led by Makovsky and Repine, enter
the citadel in order to establish a bold and frank dilettantism while
still respecting the remnants of the old Academy. At that time Bakst had
already broken with his first masters; we shall soon see why.
Let us first, however, briefly complete the history of the institution
on the Nicholas Embankment. Toward 1910 a reaction set in against the
anarchy of the “wanderers” and in favor of a classic revival, of a
rehabilitation of craftmanship. This movement was of short duration,
however, for the October Revolution abolished the Academy and
established <g>free studios</g> upon its ruins, the management of which was
placed in the hands of artists who supported the Communist regime. On
the day of its death the Russian Imperial Academy was more than 150
years old.
Thus, at the Fine Arts School, Bakst found a training that clung to
unchanged formulæ, but that was decadent, inert, and lifeless. He spent
three months drawing from bas=reliefs and one year sketching models.
Then, after having passed the class in costumes and copied draped
mannequins, he was admitted to the studio class. His teacher,
Tchistiakoff, did not encourage him to continue; he considered Bakst a
promising sculptor, and whenever his pupil tried to talk painting to
him, he would invariably turn the conversation to sculpture.
Tchistiakoff’s colleague, Venig, was more far=sighted and, while
disapproving of a certain vivacity and truculence of colors which netted
young Bakst the ironical title of “Rubens newly ground”, he was not
unfriendly to him. This meant a great deal, for it was impossible to
think of any more intimate relations--any communion of ideas or of
feelings--between the pope=like officials and their pupils who were as
yet unknown quantities.
Far more important were his relations with his fellow students,
especially with the class that was about to leave. At school and at his
paternal home he had been placed in a position of isolation because of
his artistic aspirations; here he found himself surrounded by young
people devoted to that same art that was viewed with such suspicion by
the Russian intellectuals of yesteryear. At the Academy Bakst met
Nesteroff who, following Vasnetzoff and contemporaneous with Vroubel,
was to attempt a revival of the ikon,--a revival which, besides proving
abortive, was more in the nature of sentimental and artificial
imitation. This craze for old national art went hand in hand among
certain students with a strong animosity against the “<g>métèques</g>”;
besides, anti-Semitism was officially encouraged and stimulated, since
it served to side=track the hatred which was more and more undermining
the autocratic power. Bakst, sensitive and meticulous, was grieved at
this. He therefore clung all the more closely to Seroff, several years
his senior, who was finishing his education and who aspired to winning
the Grand Prize for Painting--the gold medal. This future portraitist
was a son of the celebrated musician whose masterpiece, “Judith”, is
known to Parisians only by partial selections. Already he had achieved,
in the eyes of his fellow students, the intellectual and moral prestige
that was due to the uprightness--albeit somewhat morose--of his
character and the tenacity of his effort. Soon, indeed, he came to the
forefront of his generation.
This man, already matured, reserved, and little given to effusive
outbursts, took a fancy to the red haired young lad. The pair would sit
together in the studio; they would spend the evenings chatting in the
modest students’ apartment where Seroff lived and drinking plenty of
tea. Those were the happy days! They lasted for eighteen months. Clouds
were, however, gathering over the head of Bakst who had already given
repeated offense to his superiors by his whims of independence. A free
competition was announced in which “The Madonna Weeping Over Christ” was
to be the subject and the Grand Medal of silver the prize. Bakst joined
the competitors.
He sought inspiration from those artists of his time who had attempted a
revival of religious subjects by displaying a realistic setting--thus
breaking away from the iconographic traditions of the Renaissance--, by
giving care to ethnographic detail, by minutely studying the expression
observed. These artists included Repine and Polienoff in Russia, and
Munkaczy abroad. But, carried away by a youthful enthusiasm, he wished
to go beyond the fastidious and cautious realism of these painters and
make a ten=strike.
He therefore chose a canvas of enormous dimensions--almost seven feet in
length--and plunged into his work. For the characters of the legend he
set down Jewish types that were obviously overdone, and imparted
[Illustration: VII
“MODERN DRESS” (A “FANTAISIE”)]
[Illustration: VIII
“DAPHNIS AND CHLOE PARTING IN THE EVENING”. SKETCH FOR DECORATIVE PANEL
(GOUACHE).]
a movement to them that imitated the gesticulation of Lithuanian
clothing merchants or of elders in the synagogue. As to the Virgin, she
was an old, dishevelled woman, with eyes red from weeping. Our candidate
was, to be sure, vaguely conscious of the fact that he was digging his
own grave; nevertheless he obstinately persisted in his daring attempt.
[Illustration: “SYRENS”. PROJECT OF PANNEAU.]
What anguish he suffered while he awaited the decision of the jury on
the winding staircase that constituted the Bridge of Sighs for the young
daubers of Petrograd!
And justly so, for when his name was called and he appeared before the
tribunal, he saw his canvas crossed out by two furious strokes of
crayon, and he had to listen to an official rebuke by the president.
The next day he quit the Academy under the impassive glances of the two
bearded sphinxes of pink marble, emerging from the gloomy twilight.
[Illustration: A HUT (SAVOY). DRAWING]
A WRONG START
Leon was free now and left alone with his pride in his recent revolt;
but there was also a great void in his soul. A country holiday out at
Pavlovsk, the delightful suburban residence district where Constantine,
the grand duke-poet, lived, afforded him salutary diversion. In the
beautiful English park--the loveliest in all Russia--, where every clump
of trees, every hill, every lawn forms part of a grandly-devised and
complex general plan conceived by an architectural genius; in this park,
in which he walked about carrying the burden of his liberty--a
melancholy figure, he found what he lacked most: a friend. This
new-found friend was a cartoonist by the name of Shpak, a pupil of
Repine, and, though but a mediocre artist, yet one who gave himself to
painting with a passionate and unselfish spirit. He guided Bakst in
looking for <g>motifs</g>, spurred him on to direct observation of Nature, and
awakened in him the proper respect for his profession. But this
influence soon gave way to another.
[Illustration: HUTS IN THE MOUNTAINS (SAVOY). DRAWING]
Luck would have it that Bakst, during that same autumn, chanced to meet
Albert Nikolaievitch Benois, the celebrated water-colorist who had no
rival in Russia. He was a member of that “dynasty” of Benoises who have
played so prominent a part in the artistic development of Russia. Albert
Benois, a handsome, chivalrous and affable man, handled the brush with
remarkable ease. He possessed a technique that was as natural for him as
<g>bel canto</g> singing is to the Neapolitan beggar. But while his
productions, at the same time that they possessed certain qualities of
good taste and true knowledge of his art, nevertheless were rather too
tame, their success in the eyes of the public was complete. This success
of the “master”, who was fêted and flattered by his aristocratic and
feminine <g>entourage</g>, and who was unanimously elected to the presidency of
the society of water-color painters, dazzled young Bakst, blunted for a
while in him the haughty pride of the seeker after new truths, and
stimulated other ambitions in him. The fierce rebel who sneered at the
Academy suddenly craved Success!
He achieved a success that was immediate, brilliant, and disastrous.
Soon he began to neglect landscape painting in favor of the society
portrait. Having tasted the apple, he next painted Eve. And, as he
abandoned himself to these effeminate and futile pursuits with that same
insatiable fervor with which he went into everything, he undertook, he
simply allowed himself to drift. Besides, his good friend Shpak was no
longer there to awaken his sleeping artistic conscience--he had died
quite suddenly. Serov, too, was far away in Moscow and unable to warn
him.
When I questioned him about this period of his life of which there are
few traces left, Bakst spoke about them quite eloquently, yes, even
persistently. He took evident pleasure in this confession; he seemed
even to relish the mortification that it must have cost. Was it that in
this race toward the abyss he tasted something of that spirit of
adventure, of that happy faculty of spending without counting, of giving
oneself body and soul to God or the Devil, which, indeed, was a part of
his nature? Or was he dreaming of those pretty hands of women, slender
but strong, which stroked his curly hair? As far as we are concerned, we
must content ourselves with recounting briefly the outstanding facts in
the early history of our friend and hero.
The most important of these is a long stay abroad. At Paris he made
friends with Albert Edelfeldt, a Finnish painter and a remarkable man,
to whose lot it fell to break the ground for the birth of a national art
in his own country, in that he transmitted to it the enlightened
knowledge of France. It should be noted in passing that all the Norse
revivals which endowed the Scandinavian countries with an intense and
original artistic life had their origin on the banks of the Seine.
Edelfeldt was neither a creative genius nor an artist in the vanguard.
He stuck to the cautious methods of a Bastien=Lepage. But he was a
forceful and able painter. Some of his canvases are to be found in
Paris, among them, if I remember correctly, his portrait of Pasteur.
The habit of working outdoors, the study of daylight and its effect upon
massive subjects which Bakst pursued with his new friend who also in
some respects became his teacher, contributed powerfully toward his
success in performing the enormous task that was soon thrust upon his
youthful energy. The Russian government asked the Prodigal Son
[Illustration: IX
“SHEHERAZADE” BALLET. FIRST EUNUCH. (GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: X
AN INFERIOR DEITY. “NARCISSUS” BALLET. (GOUACHE)]
of the Imperial Academy to paint a canvas that was to have for its
subject the arrival of Admiral Avellan in Paris.
Perhaps the reader remembers that this visit which, unless I am very
much mistaken, took place in 1893, was one of the first formal
ceremonies arranged in connection with the nascent Russo=French
alliance. This canvas, the result of painstaking and honest labor, which
displays a freshness of color and a virtuosity of touch that is by no
means vulgar, is preserved today in the Navy Museum at Petrograd. Was
the young rebel of yesterday to become the Roll or the Mentzel of the
imperial fastes? Today we know that nothing of the sort happened.
One afternoon as Bakst, back from Paris, was lording it over a tea table
surrounded by beautiful ladies, and was basking in the sunshine of his
reputation, with flattering chatter all about him, he noticed a young
man enter whose manners at first offended him. With a monocle in his
eye, with haughty pride writ across his dark=complected face,
round=shouldered, attired in the student’s green blouse with blue
collar, he carried on the conversation with an ease that bordered upon
disdain and insult. Yet in the very arrogance of the young upstart there
was something that fascinated. Bakst took him aside and, when he pressed
him for an expression of opinion as to what he thought of his painting,
the young man replied candidly that, while he had the profoundest
respect for the technical mastery of his questioner, the painting itself
absolutely displeased him, and for good cause.
This young man’s name was Alexander Benois. As for Bakst, little did he
imagine that he had arrived that afternoon at a turning point in his
artistic career.
[Illustration]
THE CLUB
For a number of years a group of students from May College a private
institution, had been in the habit of meeting at the home of their
comrade, Alexander Benois. Among them was Constantine Somoff, a son of
the venerable director of the Hermitage, and the future originator of
“Echoes of Days Past”; Philosophov who later, when he was associated
with Dimitri Merejkovsky, was destined to become one of the revivers of
religious sentiment in Russia; and others besides who afterward
constituted the nucleus of the society named “The Artistic World” and
who still later supplied the staff of the Russian Ballet. Unique,
indeed, was the atmosphere of this house.
I have already had occasion to speak of the Benois family. They were the
descendants of one of those numerous immigrants who for more than a
century, from the accession of Peter the Great till the Moscow Fire,
were called upon to help in the transformation of Russia. All of these
newcomers went through a similar experience: the tremendous
opportunities for initiative, the vast geographical extent and the
artistic impulses of the young empire called forth the highest
development of their abilities. Many a mediocre artist--or at least one
assumed to be mediocre--who had become half suffocated amid the rabble
of the western world, became transfigured in these favorable
surroundings. The originality of the Russian character, the breadth of
view of the <g>grands=seigneurs</g> of Catherine II’s time, the primitive
simplicity of the life of the people--all this stirred their
imagination. And so these men, who transplanted into Russia the artistic
methods of the West, the conceptions of style and the traditions of art
that had matured in Europe, became Russians themselves in heart and
spirit. More than that: it is to these “Russianized” fellow=countrymen
of ours that, in a large measure, we owe the birth of a modern Russian
art.
The Benoises were related to the Cavos family, a veritable progeny of
artists. Alexander’s maternal grandfather had been a noted composer of
music, his uncle a theatrical architect of distinction. The Cavos family
were of Venetian origin and never lost contact with their former
[Illustration: A STREET IN LA VILETTE (PARIS). STAGE DECORATION FOR
“ALAIDIN”]
fatherland; the Benoises had French blood in their veins. All this is of
importance to those who are interested in looking for the origin of
certain aspirations, of certain artistic inclinations and habits of
mind, in atavism or in the call of blood. All of which did not prevent
the Benois brothers, two of whom we already know and the third one of
whom was an architect and later was made rector of the Academy of Fine
Arts, from becoming the eminent Russian artists that in fact they are.
As for Alexander, from earliest childhood he possessed all the qualities
needed for becoming, if not an intellectual leader, at least an
intellectual centre. His general culture, broad indeed and so varied as
to have become eclectic; a certain pedagogic inclination,--a tendency to
instruct, to educate, to make ideas spring forth; added to this, a
liveliness of temperament, an acuteness of perception which made him a
malcontent, a wide=awake dreamer--all these rare qualities determined
his life’s work. His attempts at painting, excepting only his theatrical
creations, never seemed able to free themselves of a certain
amateurishness. But this was a natural complement to the fact that he
was primarily a theoretician or rather a man of artistic tastes who
re=enforces his intuitions and his sensibilities with an exact sense of
logic and with the true talent of a writer.
For many years Alexander Benois has been the most famous critic of
Russia. He is passionate and imaginative. He proceeds either by
invective or by panegyric. He is a thunderbolt. He gets worked up over
some artist, some idea. Oftimes he is mistaken and his candidate for
fame fails. That is due to the fact that Benois, who had really
constructed his hero from his imagination, endowed him with his own
ideas, and magnified his own conceptions in him, would suddenly, some
nice day, leave the poor wretch to his own designs.
When Bakst was admitted to this group, or club, the school boys had
become students and the original circle had widened. Philosophov had
introduced into it a cousin of his, just in from the provinces,--a fat,
chubby lad, exceedingly free in his manners, dictatorial and quite
aggressive, inexhaustible in paradoxes which at times were absurd, but
which he defended to the limit without in the least attempting to be
polite about it. Benois was the soul of this group; the newcomer was to
become its will, its moving power--he was to lead it to its supremest
heights. The name of this fellow from the provinces was Serge
Diaghileff.
Now what was it that transpired during these interminable confabs? The
club had set itself up as a supreme court which was to judge the quick
and the dead. Before doing anything constructive--they didn’t know
themselves what--its members first wanted to wipe out everything
existing. They would agree upon the victime, appoint someone as
prosecutor, and then conduct a trial. The defendant might be a Shishkin
or a Verestchagin--in any case he was one of those celebrities whose
wrongly acquired reputation was debasing the real character of Russian
genius in the eyes of the whole world! But this whole work of tearing
down could not satisfy this enthusiastic group of young people. They
felt the need of giving themselves over to something, of consuming
themselves
[Illustration: XI
STAGE DECORATIONS FOR BALLET “ORIENTALES”. (GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: XII
A NEGRO’S COSTUME (SHEHERAZADE)]
for something. At first their idol was Tchaikovsky, the composer of
the “Sleeping Beauty”. Tchaikovsky had already become famous; there was
therefore no “Battle of Hernani” to fight. It was merely a question with
them of which work of this master should be given preference. They
decided upon the “Queen of Spades” and placed it upon the pinnacle. What
thrilled our friends about this work was the fact that it conjured up
the 18th century in Russia. The action of the opera, the text for which
was taken from a story by Pouchkine, takes place amid a setting that is
an exact reproduction of “Old Petrograd”,--amidst a scenery that is
familiar and famous. The promenade in the summer garden, the little
bridge over the winter canal--this, when displayed on the stage, called
to mind anew the beauty of the venerable capital--a beauty ever present,
but unappreciated and neglected--and rehabilitated its declining fame.
If I have dwelt rather at length upon the feats and exploits of a group
of unknown youths, it is due to the fact that these young men, who after
theater would walk along the quais during the “white night” singing a
duet from the “Queen of Spades”, or would lean pensively over the cold
granite parapet to listen to the clock of the Cathedral of Peter and
Paul pealing forth its crystal melody over the gloomy walls of the
prison fortress,--it is due, I say, to the fact that these young men
were destined to reshape Russian artistic sense from top to bottom.
Later, on the eve of the new century, the “Mir Iskousstva” Society was
founded; with the generous aid of Princess Tenicheff, a magazine was
published; art expositions were arranged. A new epoch was beginning.
Bakst helped to shape it--and we already know that he gave himself to
every task whole heartedly.
At this point I do not propose to narrate the story of “Mir Iskousstva”.
It was a revolution and was outrageously attacked as such. But its
exponents held that it saved Russian art. Today some people contend that
it was a menace to art. A quarter of a century lies between these two
conflicting opinions. It is not for me to judge which is right. But
Bakst’s participation in the work of this society forms a beautiful page
in the life of my friend and therefore, too, of this story of mine. And
my task would be incomplete were I to omit giving a brief description of
this great movement of ideas which for a long time determined the future
of Russian art.
[Illustration: STAGE DECORATION FOR CHOPIN’S “NOCTURNES”]
“MIR ISKOUSSTVA”
The small vanguard took position hastily; impetuously it fell upon the
enemy. Diaghileff, charging at the head of this handful of friends,
sounded the rallying cry. He was successful. Moscow, too, had its
raising of the shield. Serov supported the movement. Levitan, the
landscape painter, contributed his tremendous popularity to the young
cause. During this recruiting fever mistakes were not wanting; for
instance, Vasnetzoff, the insipidly sweet imitator of icons, was singled
out for praise. He had soon to be dropped. But instead Golovine,
Polienov and others joined them who drew upon the real popular sources.
It is further true that they almost succeeded in “reforming” Vroubel,
the great romantic decorator who was haunted by the Demon.
Above everything this group was looking for allies from abroad. These
were to be found at the very gates of Petrograd. A “young Finland” was
rising about Edelfeldt as founder--the Axel Galiens, the Jaernefeldts,
the Enkels; in short, all those who were destined to endow the “country
of a thousand lakes” with a national art. The Finns accordingly took
part in the first exposition in which “Mir Iskousstva” faced Russian
public opinion. At the second there appeared French guests who after
three generations found their way back to Russia.
This proved a decisive feat. An end was thus put to the isolation in
which a waning Russian art found itself. For, at that time the whole
European artistic movement was ignored in Russia. The prize winners of
the Academy would go to Rome to perfect themselves and would there copy
the <g>Stanze</g> of Raphael, or else, perhaps, they would go to study
historical painting under Piloty, the De la Roche of Munich. The moving
spirits of the school--a Kramskoi, or a Repine--would return from their
western travels with nothing but contempt for the “futile” (as they
called them) masterpieces of beautiful painting or else an infatuation
for the virtuosity of the brush of a Fortuny or a Meissonnier.
Diaghileff and Benois flung the doors wide open. A motley crowd enters
pell=mell; even the “decadents” of the Viennese Secession, with Renoir
and Carrière. Mistakes are made; there is as yet no scale of values; the
obscure Belgian, Léon Frederick, is put upon a pedestal while Cézanne is
ignored until 1904. The reason for this is the fact that this group at
first has no positive program. But its negative influence is
inestimable. Repine, one of the most powerful exponents of this
ideologic naturalism which I have mentioned in passing, launched a
counter=attack in the name of the survivers of traditional academic
style. Diaghileff, by his virulent reply, threw the champion of routine
out of the saddle. It is a great period of ringing battles, of hard
contests with the adversary who mangled even Ingres’ very name. These
struggles were the more heroic since the public remained averse to them.
The editorial offices of their magazine were the hot=house in which new
ideas were hatched and the staff headquarters where the big offensives
were planned. Now, the editorial staff itself was divided into two
sections. In the large salon we find Philosophov, handsome and slender
as a thoroughbred courser, who meets the contributors to the literary
section. There is Merejkovsky, who contributes his best works to the
review and who introduces us to the art and the doctrines of Tolstoy and
Dostoievsky; Leon Shestov, the apostle of “eradication” with his
emaciated face of a Jewish Socrates; Rosanov who pried into the very
depths of the sexual problem, a towering spirit who used to bare his
inmost thoughts with candor. Of all these men, who were radiant in their
young fame, Rosanov alone did not profess a supreme philosophical
contempt for the fine arts. The painters, accordingly, would shrink back
from the haughtiness and the affected attitude of the literary folk and
would seek refuge in the office of the secretary=general, the
headquarters of the artistic section.
There they would find Bakst, who was collecting the material that
oftentimes was queer enough, and who in fact worked out the whole
review. No task was too hard for him. He would group the various
component parts and make up the pages. It would happen that Diaghileff,
disconcerted over an engraving that came out badly and that had the
earmarks of a confused work, would come to Bakst who would take up the
work on the plate and give form to an amorphous jumble of touches.
Another one of his steady tasks was that of decorating the book, of
designing the cover, of drawing the ornamented letters, of supplying the
tail=pieces. In this connection it should be recalled that the art of
book decorating was revived at the end of the last century. The English,
with Walter Crane at the head, started the procession. It was an
Englishman, furthermore,--Aubrey Beardsley--who designed arabesques of
extraordinary sharpness and delicacy upon the geometrical quadrangles of
the pages. This new method was also being experimented upon in
Petrograd. A number of artists of the second generation of “Mir
Iskousstva”, such as Narbout and Mitrochin, are exclusively
“vignettistes”. As for this first group, they had to do everything and
accordingly they did everything. Benois, Somov, that other Russianized
Frenchman Lanceray--all were experts at this art. Bakst, too, went
through it. There are magazine covers of his extant
[Illustration: XIII
STAGE DECORATIONS FOR OSCAR WILDE’S “SALOMEA”. (GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: XIV
“PHAEDRA” TRAGEDY. PHÆDRA’S NURSE]
[Illustration: A YOUNG BEOTIAN. (“NARCISSUS” BALLET). WATER COLOUR]
on which statuettes in Directoire style flank a medaillon, or on which
there are artistic frames. At the same time he tried his hands at pure
illustrating; there is, for instance, a water-color of his which
illustrated “The Nose”, a grotesque story by Gogol. Today we look upon
these designs as the first attempts at the masterful costume-pages of
later days. “Bakst has hands of gold”, wrote Benois in his history of
Russian painting, a work of which we shall speak again later. He admired
his manual skill and the elasticity of his spirit and of his
workmanship. But he was unconscious of his powerful personality.
Later on, dissatisfied with pen sketching that was then reproduced by
the mechanical process of engraving, the group tried themselves at
original lithography. Here, again, Bakst was successful: a head of
Levitan brings out in sharp juxtaposition the intense black and white of
the drawing.
Thus, then, we see Bakst working away at his table, which is covered
with waste paper, with photographs and proofs. Around him, people talk
idly, or loll about the couches, or draw caricatures, or debate. Then,
through a cloud of smoke produced by ten cigarettes, Diaghileff comes
rushing in, chasing a new rainbow. He tells of his latest discovery, or
he scoffs at some idol that he adored the day before. His enthusiasm is
as intermittent as it is uncompromising. He is the life of this party of
outspoken, unreserved painters; he cares little for men of letters.
Alexander Benois, on the other hand, forms the connecting link between
the two clans; he arranges and coordinates everything by virtue of his
broad and supple understanding. Soon new initiates--Grabar and
Jaremitch, the artist=writers, and Kouzmin, the poet=musician, and
others--join in the work of strengthening the somewhat difficult union
of these two sections.
Within this community of painters, however, there was little agreement
as to the road that should be followed. They agreed in their hatreds,
but differed as to aims. Diaghileff, always hyper=sensitive to the
sensations of the day and ready to take his ideas out of the clear sky,
would misjudge the value of ephemeral tendencies and therefore
[Illustration: CNOSSOS HARBOUR (CRETE). SKETCH FOR ALBUM]
[Illustration: STAGE DECORATION FOR PROLOGUE IN ORIENTAL STYLE]
at times get himself into an impasse. Thus he allowed himself to be
carried away into enthusing over that atrocious “modern style”, the
architectural vestiges of which today disgrace every large city in the
world. Bakst together with his older friend Serov set himself against
painting in the style of Gustav Klimt and against architecture à la
Olbrich in the name of an honest, direct and robust art.
The weak spot about all this combativeness and intellectual ardor, which
proved fatal and unavoidable amid these divergent points of view, was
the lack of creative ability on the part of the group. This group had
deposed and duly trampled under foot the art of the “wanderers” with its
social tendencies and its worship of the moujik. It had done this to the
greater glory of an art that is unselfish and creative. But almost
immediately its members turned toward literature. Among all those former
members of the Club (I except only Serov and the Moscovites), there was
not a single painter in the real sense of the word. Benois, who never
when working at a canvas could completely overcome his amateurish
clumsiness, Lanceray, later Doboujinsky--they all were first and
foremost illustrators, rather than painters, who were steeped in
precious recollections, who gleaned from every style and who discovered
forgotten beauties.