ILYA IVANOVICH MASHKOV
It is well known that the struggle carried on between the Jack of Diamonds and its various opponents did not in fact unite the members of the group. Harmonious as their first public appearance seemed to be, it was quickly followed by a number of internal disagreements, which eventually led to the society's dissolution in 1917. The first signs of Mashkov's divergence from the group date from 1911, the year of his initial rapprochement with the World of Art. In 1916 both Mashkov and Konchalovsky simultaneously went over to this latter association.
By the beginning of the First World War Mashkov was already an acknowledged artist. This was the time of his greatest popularity.During the years of the Revolution Mashkov was engaged in strenuous social, organizational and pedagogic activity. There was scarcely any time for his own creative work. He was a professor at the Free Studios (the name of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture since the autumn of 1918). Attached to his studio were A. Goncharov, A. Deyneka and other subsequently famous Soviet artists. It was only in 1922, when art exhibitions began again, that the painter's creative activity regained its former scope. He took part in the exhibitions organized by the revived World of Art group and the Society of Moscow Artists (the former Jack of Diamonds).
On his own admission, the years 1923 and 1924 mark a perceptible turning-point in his views on the aims and purposes of art. This coincided with the general impetus of Soviet artists towards realism. In 1922 a new artistic group, the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (the AARR), had already made its appearance, and this society was to play a positive role in the formation of realistic art. At the end of 1924 Mashkov, along with his pupils, went over to this organization where he set up art classes. Although he continued to participate in exhibitions held by the Society of Moscow Artists, his creative output in the second half of the twenties is mainly associated with the AARR. He took part in exhibitions of the AARR and was a member of its Board. He left the association in the spring of 1930, when its historical role had already been accomplished. In 1928, for his services in the realm of representational art, the Soviet government awarded Mashkov the title of Merited Artist of the RSFSR. In 1930 he left for his home in the village of Mikhaylovskaya where he lived almost continuously until 1938. He completed his last works in 1943, one year before his death.
Despite the vividness of his style, it is no easy task to define the individual quality of Mashkov's art in so far as it was the product of a whole movement, many features of which were characteristic of their age and common to a fairly wide circle of Russian painters.
Mashkov differed from those close to him in creative disposition by the extreme spontaneity of his artistic talent and by his fervent attachment to the world of objects. These are not, however, the only factors which determined the painter's style. Reflecting the personal element in his creative work. his style is clearly perceived through the plastic features of his pictures. Yet while emphasizing the strong side' of his talent, it is essential not to neglect the painter's weaker aspects, which are-of no small importance where Mashkov is concerned.
In the works completed before 1909, there is as yet no evidence of completely independent talent. Nevertheless, his Model (end of 1907—beginning of 1908), painted! in Serov's class, is well above the average for an apprentice's work.
The still life Apples and Pears on a White Background (1908) was the first won I to be completed after his journey abroad and is close to the principles of late Impressionism. Indeed, it suggests some knowledge of Cezanne's artistic conception. A work dating from the same time, Two Models against a Drapery (1908, Leningrad, private collection), seems to be a compromise between the principles of Impressionism and an impulse towards two-dimensionality and generalized decorativeness.
Mashkov first achieves an individual style in the works of 1909 and 1910. These were portraits, still lifes and landscapes, some of which were shown in Moscow during 1910 and 1911 at an exhibition of the Jack of Diamonds group, while other-were displayed in Paris at the Autumn Salon in 1910. In the paintings of this time-he proclaims a new and unusual conception of beauty. The exaggerated quality of their expression, the careless sweep of their contours, often painted in black, their polychromatic intensity—all this testifies to his denial of the artistic principles of an older generation. The striking starkness of method, the deliberate simplification of technique, reveal an attempt to invest the art of painting with pristine energy, to overcome the refined aestheticism of the fin-de-siecle, with its wavering forms and its faded colours, in short, to restore art to both youth and health. Inspired in his work by the products of folk art, Mashkov was guided largely by the formal expressiveness of the lubokThe Portrait of a Boy in a Patterned Shirt was painted in March, 1909. It is one. of the works which mark the beginning of Mashkov's creative career. As well as demonstrating Mashkov's habit of heaping his early canvases with contrasting colours. this painting already displays a disregard of psychological realism very close to the polemical spirit which would later characterize the works of the Jack of Diamonds group. The artist makes no use of local colour. The pinkish hue of the boy's face is reinforced by the gold of the forehead and the greenish tint of the eye-socket. The hands are painted in contrasting reds, pinks and greens, while a cold shade of pink is also introduced into the dark-green leaves which form a pattern in the background.
Refusing to treat the problem of perspective in a traditional manner, Mashkov reduces the elements of modelling to a bare minimum, as if stretching the image out over the canvas and thereby achieving some intense combinations of colour, largely independent of the representation of light and shade.
In other portraits of this early period—for example, those of V. Vinogradova (1909). E. Kirkaldi (1910), Rubanovich (Portrait of a Lady with Pheasants, about 1910), Mashkov is not only searching for expressiveness of colour, but is also concerned to organize his canvas on two-dimensional lines. In these portraits perspective is almost ousted by surface design. In his Model Seated executed in 1909, for example, the two-dimensional effect disappears under the accumulation of contrasting colours, the artist deliberately avoids exaggerated ornamentality, the picture's thematic and spatial elements remain dominant, the vital connection between model and still life is preserved.
Inspired by the principles of folk art, Mashkov sought to express the immutable essence of thing's through form, dimension and colour. The medium he most consistently used for these endeavours, as well as for his attempts to discover new principles of composition, was the still life. He did not aim at thematic variety; portrayals of fruit and berries on a round dish or plate are frequently encountered in his work. In some instances the artist would strictly adhere to such motifs, as in Still Life with a Pineapple or Still Life. Fruit on a Dish (both about 1910). Sometimes the motif becomes a detail in the total composition, as in Still Life. Berries with a Red Tray in the Background (about 1910), Still Life with Begonias (before 1911), Still Life with Grapes (early 1910s), etc.
The emphatically naive, "primitive" method of portrayal revealed in Still Life with a Pineapple, the bright intensity of its colours, and their use in simplified combinations, bear witness to Mashkov's attempt to view the world through the eyes of the masters of folk art. In his yearning to penetrate the essence of things, to reveal their fixed, "eternal" qualities, he acted decisively, sacrificing subtlety of design and colour and achieving considerable decorative expressiveness. He moved on to various experimental techniques, combining the representative functions of painting with certain qualities inherent in the applied arts. The "fortuitousness" of impressionistic composition was opposed by a blunt emphasis on "structuring". Everything was subordinated to the principles of symmetry and rhythmic alternation. The oval shape of the frame is often repeated both in the disposition of objects and in the outlines of some of them. A plate with a pineapple surrounded by apples, is placed in the centre of the canvas and enclosed by a number of large, multicoloured fruits. The point of view chosen by the painter looking down on his subject from above, allows him to gain an effect of "spatial compression", while the individual objects are portrayed three-dimensionally. The black outlines emphasize the depth of objects and create an impression of stability, subduing the illusion of perspective.