St Petersburg полностью

Matiushin wrote music to Kruchenykh’s libretto. They called the opera Victory Over the Sun, because in it two Strongmen-futurists knocked the sun, the embodiment of the traditional concept of “beauty,” out of the sky. Matiushin recalled that the first rehearsals of the opera greatly inspired Zheverzheyev; and Alexander Fokine, the manager of the Troitsky Theater, shouted happily, “I like these fellows!’”

Only fragments of Matiushin’s music survive. It resembled the neoprimitivist works of the French composer Erik Satie and the Russian composers of The Stray Dog circle. In some parts of the opera, Matiushin experimented with “ultrachromaticism,” using quarter tone intervals. But the music did not make an impression on audiences. Its performers had not rehearsed sufficiently, the vocalists were third-rate, and to make matters worse, they sang to the accompaniment of an untuned upright piano.

The center of attention became the scenery and costumes by Casimir Malevich. He had been presented to Petersburg audiences more than two years earlier, also under the aegis of the Union of Youth. Afterward, Zheverzheyev organized a performance by Malevich at the Troitsky Theater of Miniatures. Shklovsky recalled that Malevich wanted to explain his painting: black-and-white women in the form of truncated cones against a red background. In the course of the explanation, he referred to the recently deceased artist Valentin Serov, who had been universally beloved and respected, as a “mediocre dauber.” People were upset. Malevich calmly continued: “I’m not teasing, this is what I think.” But he was not allowed to finish: a commotion ensued and an intermission had to be announced.

In his work on Victory Over the Sun Malevich, who had moved from postimpressionism to cubism in just a few years, came face to face with abstract art. Kruchenykh’s libretto was constructed out of zaum (“non-sense” language). Malevich strove for the same effect in his costumes and scenery. The characters resembled animated cubist paintings. Matiushin recalled how Malevich dressed the Strongmen: “He gave them shoulders on the level of their mouths and made heads in the shape of a cardboard helmet—it created the impression of two gigantic human figures.”

Malevich used lighting in a bold, new way: colored theater lights captured individual parts of brightly colored cardboard figures otherwise hidden in darkness—first hands, then heads, then legs. This underscored their geometric, abstract character. Part of the audience applauded, but the majority laughed and booed. Petersburg critics were outraged both by the play and the audience: “Shame on a society that reacts with laughter to mockery and that allows itself to be spat upon!”

The critics apparently had forgotten that in the theatrical city of Petersburg, the spectacle was all: it didn’t matter how incongruous and outrageous a performance was, as long as it was unusual and amusing. Petersburg’s cynicism and avowed curiosity for the new went hand-in-hand here. As a proud observer of his city, an artist, snob, and high-society denizen noted, “To admire an amusing bit of rubbish is not something given to everyone!”55

The Russian modernists fought desperately for success in the capital and power over the soul of skeptical Petersburg. With the opening of the Artistic Bureau of N. Dobychina in the fall of 1912, selling works of art became a real business in Russia. Nadezhda Dobychina (née Fishman) became the first professional dealer in the country; she not only organized exhibits for artists and sold their paintings but also directed their work. It was considered inappropriate for a woman, and a Jewish one at that, to interfere so unceremoniously in the capital’s artistic life, and so Petersburg men spoke of Dobychina with grudging respect, appreciating her power: “Yes, that woman was a hidden lever in the life changes of many artists…. She was very ugly, and perhaps that fueled her energy, life force, ambition, and desire to triumph.”56

In December 1915, Dobychina gave the “Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10 (Zero-Ten)” at her Artistic Bureau. Malevich dominated the show, with close to forty works, next to which he hung a sign Suprematism of Painting. These were geometric abstract works of the greatest intensity and rigor. High in a corner, in a place Russians traditionally reserve for icons, reigned Malevich’s painting Black Square. Achieving notoriety, it became the icon of abstract art in Russia and, with it, Malevich proclaimed the leadership of the Russian avant-garde in world art. This painting transmuted the deceptively elementary form of the black square into a symbol of the new sensation of limitless space and universality of existence. Black Square was fortified by Malevich’s idea that abstract art would open the way for the spiritual cleansing of the masses, hence the challenging unity of form and color in his seminal work.