Tatiana Galina

HERITAGE

Journal number:

MOSCOW - ANNA SEMENOVNA GOLUBKINA'S SECOND HOMETOWN AT THE ATTACHMENT WITH ZARAYSKY, WHERE THE ARTIST WAS BORN ON JANUARY 28, 1864. GOLUBKINA BECAME A MOSCOW IN 1889, FROM THE TIME OF THE BEGINNING OF HIS ART EDUCATION IN THE CLASSES OF FINE ARTS OF ARCHITECT A.O. GUNSTA. THEN FROM 1891 TO 1894 SHE STUDYED AT THE MOSCOW SCHOOL OF PAINTING, SCULPTING AND ARCHITECTURE. THE ARTIST LIVED IN MOSCOW FOR LONG YEARS. DESPITE THE FACT THAT MANY TIMES Golubkin returns in Zaraysk, moved to St. Petersburg to continue his education, to resettle permanently in Europe with the same purpose, SHE always strive settled in Moscow, had here the workshop, participating in art and intellectual life of the city.

At different times, Golubkina had several workshops. The most famous one was located in Bolshoy Levshinsky Lane, where in 1932 the Memorial Museum-Workshop of A.S. Golubkina, now part of the All-Russian Museum Association "State Tretyakov Gallery". Another, not preserved, workshop was located in Krestovozdvizhensky lane, here Golubkina performed her most significant works of the early 20th century. Here in 1901 V.A. Serov, together with S.P. Diaghilev: the artist wanted to show the "Fire" fireplace that struck him. O.L. A.P. Knipper Chekhov - the actress told about the bas-relief for the Moscow Art Theater, which was soon to be installed on the facade of the theater.

In the studio in Krestovozdvizhensky Lane, the artist performed a significant number of sculptural portraits, both from models chosen by herself and commissioned. Large-scale works were also created here: the already mentioned fireplace "Fire" (1900) *, sculpture "Earth" (1904, both works - tinted plaster), "Walking Man" (1904, bronze), relief "Wave" (1903, tinted plaster, installed above the entrance to the Moscow Art Theater). Golubkina worked on decorative and applied products and on projects of architectural decor. In the same years, she completed the project of a city monument to the pioneer printer Ivan Fedorov (1902, tinted gypsum, State Tretyakov Gallery).

The beginning of the 20th century was the time of the artist's first meetings with the domestic audience. Life in Moscow made it possible to participate in exhibitions of the most famous associations. Exhibiting her works from year to year without significant interruptions, the sculptor strove for constant contact with the viewer, for an interested perception of her figurative-plastic statements. In 1899, returning to Moscow from her second trip to Europe, Golubkina demonstrated at the 19th exhibition of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers (MOLH) the sculpture "Old Age" (1899) and the portrait of the French zoologist E.Zh. Balbiani (1898, both works - tinted plaster). These works were awarded at the Paris Salon of 1899 with the medal of the Academy of Art and Literature of Provence and were noted by the French press, testifying to the professional maturity of the master. Subsequently, her collaboration with the MOLKH continued until the outbreak of the First World War.

Anna Golubkina annually took part in exhibitions of the Moscow Association of Artists (MTX), and in 1906 she became one of its members. Usually, the artist provided significant and large-scale works to MTX exhibitions, performed a year between two exhibitions, such as, for example, portraits of A.M. Remizov and A.N. Tolstoy, the composition "Caryatids" (all - 1911), and "Caryatids" in 1911 were shown in plaster, and then a year later, in 1912, in wood. The chamber sculpture, created in the first decade of the XX century, she demonstrated in 1910 at the Exhibition of watercolors and sketches of the Moscow Art Theater, where the audience saw the impressionistic sketches "Luzhitsa", "Flight" (later called "Birds"), "Bushes" (all - 1908, tinted plaster). Golubkina also took part in the famous exhibitions "The World of Art", where she exhibited works close to the new trends of Symbolism and Art Nouveau: the vase "Fog" (1899), a portrait of M.Yu. Lermontov (1900, both works - tinted plaster), the already mentioned "Old Age" and the fireplace "Fire". The culmination of the exhibition activity was the exhibition "In Benefit of the Wounded" at the Museum of Fine Arts in the winter of 1914-1915. Man, History, Artist, Truth, Wisdom - this is how you can designate the coordinates of the semantic field of the exposition, which has become a plastic expression of the main cultural and philosophical ideas of the Silver Age.

The new, increasingly complex language of art at the beginning of the twentieth century presupposed the presence of a viewer capable of interpreting the imagery of works within the framework of their organic poetics. The poet Andrei Bely explained the way of perception built on the principles of symbolism: “A work of art is not limited by time, place and form; and it infinitely expands itself in our depths of the soul ... I take the statue out of its shell in my perception; perception is forever with me; I'm working on it; mobile shoots of the most magnificent images emerge from my work; the motionless statue in them flows, in them grows<...>and it pours outward with a number of statues and colorful sounds, a rain of sonnets; their impression is created again in the souls listening to them ”1. Golubkina's sculpture often remained misunderstood, but over time, more and more connoisseurs of new sculpture appeared, the master's works became the subject of collection. Her creations were kept in the collections of A.A. Lamm, M.P. Ryabushinsky, E.M. Tereshchenko, M.S. Shibaeva. The most significant collection belonged to I.S. Isadzhanov 2. In 1906, the Tretyakov Gallery began purchasing works by the sculptor.

In the creative heritage of Golubkina there are many works associated with Moscow, and first of all, these are portraits of Muscovites created at different times: actresses and translators M.G. Sredina (1903 and 1904), architect A.O. Gunst (1904), artist N. Ya. Simonovich-Efimova (1907), entrepreneur and philanthropist N.A. Shakhov (1910s, all four - tinted plaster), collector and collector G.A. Brokkar (1911), art critic A.V. Nazarevsky (1911, both are tinted wood), the famous doctor G.A. Zakharyin (1910, marble, I.M.Sechenov First Medical Institute, Moscow). One of the first portraits of the painter V.V. Perepletchikov (1899, bronze).

Golubkina knew Vasily Perepletchikov well and was grateful for his help during her stay in Paris. Having settled in Moscow, she often visited his house at parties where art lovers gathered. Golubkina captured Perepletchikov ready to enter into an argument, with a characteristic tilt of the head and a sarcastic, piercing look. Another portrait, made in 1904 in a similar impressionistic manner, retained the appearance of the wife of the painter V.K. Shtember (tinted plaster), the hospitable hostess of another art circle. Both portraits are examples of sculptural impressionism in the traditional sense of the style: whimsical free sculpting, along with seemingly random movements of the head and body, gives the images an ease, which reinforces the impression of the transience of the moment, which the artist was definitely seeking.

Such evening meetings, as in the houses of Perepletchikov and Shtember, were not uncommon in Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century. The artist visited the circle of her friend from Paris T.P. Barteneva, in the family of the director of the Commercial School A.N. Glagolev (Golubkina taught sculpture at the school), in the house of A.A. Khotyintseva, an artist who is a good friend of A.P. Chekhov and a close friend of his sister Maria Chekhova. In 1899 A.A. Khotyintseva and E.M. Zvantsev organized a private studio, where such celebrities as V.A. Serov and K.A. Korovin, as well as Serov's student N.P. Ulyanov. With the latter (Golubkina and Ulyanov studied together at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture), she opened a similar studio and shared a workshop in Krestovozdvizhensky Lane. It was here that the artist performed, commissioned by K.S. Stanislavsky and S.T. Morozov's famous relief for the facade of the new building of the Moscow Art Theater "Plovets" (1903, tinted plaster), as well as a portrait of Morozov himself (1902, tinted plaster). These are examples of a completely different style. In the portrait of the famous philanthropist, impressionistic modeling, depriving the image of certainty, takes it out of the world of everyday life, including into the circle of symbolic interpretation. Morozov is transformed into a kind of pagan deity, the personification of natural elements, which paradoxically combines with the idea of ​​him as a theater-goer, inventor, joker.

The Mkhatovsky relief "The Swimmer" was the first work of Golubkina from her "theatrical series". In 1923, being a sincere admirer of the Maly Theater, she took part in the competition for the installation of the monument to A.N. Ostrovsky and performed a number of sketches in plaster. The image of the playwright created in them is consonant with the poetics of his plays and the traditions of the Maly Theater, while the relief "The Swimmer" is a kind of response to the reform activities of the Moscow Art Theater troupe. The new aesthetics of the Art Theater contained what Golubkina called with the capacious word "truth" and which she did not find in the productions of the brilliant Parisian theaters, about which she wrote in letters from the French capital: "so beautiful and deceitful." The strength and depth of impressions from the productions of the Berlin theater directed by Max Reinhardt, who came to Moscow in 1913 on tour, is captured in reliefs depicting the Italian actor Sandro Moissi (1913, limestone), the performer of the role of King Oedipus. His play shocked the sculptor.

The mirror of Moscow's theatrical predilections for Golubkina was the Zaraisk People's Theater, organized by the youth of the city with her active support. The repertoire included plays by Gogol, Ostrovsky, Hauptmann, Ibsen, Maeterlinck, which the artist had already seen on Moscow stages. Even the actresses of the Moscow Art Theater took part in the performances along with the youth of Zaraya, but Nina Alekseeva, an actress with a deep and passionate soul, invariably remained the prima. The appearance of this "Zaraiskaya Amazon" is captured in one of the first symbolic sculptures by Golubkina "Nina" (1907, tinted marble). After moving to Moscow, Nina studied singing in the studio of the House of Song, which opened in 1908, in the immediate vicinity of the studio in Bolshoy Levshinsky Lane. Her sister Lyudmila entered the Higher Courses for Women in 1907 and at the same time studied at the Moscow dance school of Ellie Ivanovna Rabenek, a follower of Isadora Duncan. A new trend in modern ballet art - "plastic dance" - aroused enthusiastic interest, especially many people of art, artists and musicians have always attended the performances of Elli Rabenek's studio. Among the delighted spectators was Golubkina. It was she who gave Lyudmila Alekseeva a letter of recommendation to Rabenek. In the creative heritage of Golubkina, graphic images of dancers and the relief "Lady" (1912, limestone), a presumable portrait of Alekseeva, have been preserved. Lyudmila danced the main roles in Rabenek's productions, and then she herself took up teaching and directing. One of the plastic sketches was created by her under the impression of Golubkina's composition "Flight (Birds)" (1908). L.N. Alekseeva today are preserved in the Studio of the Artistic Movement of the Central House of Scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and her choreographic miniatures are included in the repertoire of Studio 3.

Living in Moscow, Golubkina had the opportunity to meet representatives of a then new trend - symbolism. The mutual attention and mutual attraction of the creator of plastic images and the symbolist philosophers were stable and constant. The interest in the work of Golubkina, manifested by philosophers and critics, whose works became the theoretical component of Russian symbolism, especially Vyach, is indicative. Ivanov and V.F. Ernom. It was V.F. Ern, a friend of Pavel Florensky (Golubkina knew the latter well), has a significant guess, interpreting the nature of the sculptor's work. It is close to Florensky's theory of the heuristic role of art in the general process of cognition. For Golubkina, making a portrait meant getting to know a person, understanding him in the broadest sense of the word and conveying her knowledge in sculptural forms.

Vasily Rozanov, Maximilian Voloshin, Sergei Bulgakov wrote about the work of Golubkina 4. In an article devoted to the exhibition "In favor of the wounded" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Bulgakov spoke about the drama and depth of the sculptor's images:<.>... And this ecstasy of melancholy is of the highest tension in the sculptures captivating and grabbing the heart: "Prisoners" and "Away, Music and Lights." Because every soul is such a captive, although it does not always know about it, and every living soul hears distant music and sees the lights in the captivating "Dali", the impulse into which is so musically conveyed in the relief of this name ”5.

The sculptor's library, in turn, contained a number of symbolist and close to symbolism periodicals - issues of the magazines "Libra", "Apollo", "Golden Fleece". There were also works by Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Georgy Chulkov, Alexei Remizov. In the period from 1907 to 1914, Golubkina created a kind of "gallery of Symbolists": portraits of the leading theoreticians of Symbolism, poets Andrei Bely (1907) and Viach. Ivanov (1914, both - tinted plaster), as well as the writers A.N. Tolstoy and A.M. Remizov (1911, both are tinted wood), the philosopher V.F. Erna (1914, tinted wood). Images of Viach. Ivanova and M.A. Voloshin was captured by her in cameos (1920s). The portrait images combined in themselves, as an undeniable value, at the same time concrete personal qualities, precisely captured shades of the psychological state and the general spiritual tone of the personality. The brilliant completion of the portrait series of Russian writers and philosophers was the portraits of L.N. Tolstoy (tinted plaster) and V.G. Chertkov (tinted wood, Leo Tolstoy State Museum, Moscow), executed by Golubkina in 1926 by order of the Tolstoy Society. The artist paid tribute to the scale of the personality of the great writer and guessed the tragic conflict in his soul.

Despite all the difficulties of life in the 1920s, Golubkina did not leave Moscow. She taught at VKHUTEMAS and conducted classes in the studio, which she organized in her workshop, continued to study arts and crafts, mastered the art of making cameos and created a unique collection of these small-form pieces. As before, Golubkina strove to participate in the exhibition life of Moscow. In particular, in 1923, at the exhibition of the Moscow Salon, the artist showed her cameos, and in 1926 she took part in the State Art Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture, becoming one of the founders of the Society of Russian Sculptors (ORS). Here she showed two portraits, executed in 1925, by her student T.A. Ivanova and the molder G.I. Savinsky (both - tinted plaster). Until her last days, in her Moscow workshop in Bolshoy Levshinsky Lane, Golubkina continued to work on an idea dear to herself - the sculpture "Birch" (1926, tinted plaster). This work was supposed to be the embodiment of the artist's philosophy of life. The poet Georgy Chulkov, who knew Anna Semyonovna well, dedicated lines to her, inspired by their conversations. He said: Golubkina lived holding in her hands “the keys to the sky” and “listening to the songs of the stars” 6.

* The current storage location for the works of A.S. Golubkina is indicated if they do not belong to the State Tretyakov Gallery.

1. Bely A. Revolution and culture // Bely A. Symbolism as a world view: Sat. articles. M., 1994.S. 298.
2. Polunina N., Frolov A. Collectors of old Moscow. M., 1997.S. 176-179.
3. Alekseeva L. Move and Think. M., 2000; Kulagina I.E. Ludmiliana of immortality (lost and restored). M., 2009.
4. V.V. Rozanov Achievements of our sculpture // World of Art. 1901. No. 1-2. S. 111-113; V.V. Rozanov Works by Golubkina // Among the artists. M., 1914.S. 341-343; Voloshin M.A. A.S. Golubkina // Apollo. 1911. No. 10. S. 5-12; Bulgakov S. Tosca. From articles 1914-1915. M., 1918.S. 53-62.
5. Bulgakov S. Quiet Thoughts. M., 1996.S. 43.
6. A.S. Golubkina Letters. A few words about the sculptor's craft. Memoirs of Contemporaries. M., 1983.S. 295.

Publications of the section Architecture

5 wins and 5 losses of Anna Golubkina

Sofia Bagdasarova talks about the ups and downs of the first woman who became famous in Russia as a sculptor.

Victory # 1: The gardener becomes a sculptor

It was not a miracle that Golubkina became famous. The miracle in general is that she managed to become a sculptor. Indeed, in the 19th century, it was difficult for a woman to master a profession. Let us recall the difficult path of the artist of her generation, Elizaveta Martynova (model of the Somovskaya "Ladies in Blue"), who entered the Academy of Arts in the very first year when women were allowed to do so. There were about a dozen female students, and they were looked at with skepticism. And Golubkina, in addition, studied not to be a painter, but to be a sculptor, that is, she was engaged in physical labor that was not at all female.

And then there is the origin: her grandfather, an Old Believer and the head of the Zaraysk spiritual community, Polykarp Sidorovich, himself ransomed himself from serfdom. He raised Anna, whose father died early. The family was engaged in gardening and kept an inn, but there was only enough money to train brother Semyon. All other children, including Anna, were self-taught.

When the gardener left Zaraysk and went to Moscow, she was already 25 years old. She planned to study the technique of firing and painting on porcelain in the Fine Arts Classes just founded by Anatoly Gunst. They did not want to take Golubkina, but in one night she fashioned a figurine "The Praying Old Woman", and she was accepted.

Defeat # 1: First Trip to Paris

The training went well at first. A year later, she transferred to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where she studied for another three years. Finally, the top: she was taken to study at the St. Petersburg Academy.

Here, Golubkina was also offered to engage in salon art, which did not suit her temperament at all. But that’s not the problem. Although her memoir friends are unanimously silent about this time, something bad happened to Golubkina then in Paris. Apparently, unhappy love, according to rumors - with a certain French artist. The woman who crossed the 30-year-old milestone twice tried to commit suicide: first she threw herself into the Seine, then she tried to poison herself. The artist Elizaveta Kruglikova, who also lived in Paris, took her home. In Moscow, Golubkina went to the psychiatric clinic of the famous Korsakov.

Victory # 2: Recovery

The professor treated her for only a few months: it was obvious that Golubkina's healing was not in medicine, but in creativity, or maybe just in work. Golubkina returned to her family in Zaraysk, then together with her sister Alexandra, who had just finished the medical assistant's courses, she went to Siberia, where the two of them worked hard at the resettlement center.

Victory # 3: Second Trip to Paris

Anna Golubkina in Paris in 1898

Having restored peace of mind, Golubkina returned to Paris in 1897. And finally she found someone from whom she should have learned - Rodin.

In 1898 she presented the sculpture "Old Age" to the Paris Salon (the most prestigious art competition of the time). For this statue, the same middle-aged model posed as for Rodin's "She who was beautiful Olmier" (1885).

Golubkina interpreted the teacher in her own way. And she did it with success: she was awarded a bronze medal and praised in the press. When she returned to Russia the following year, they had already heard of her. Savva Morozov ordered her a relief to decorate the Moscow Art Theater. She created portraits of the most brilliant cultural figures of the Silver Age - A. Bely, A.N. Tolstoy, V. Ivanov. Chaliapin, however, refused to sculpt: she did not like him as a person.

Defeat # 2: Revolutionary Activity

Golubkina was born during a fire and she herself claimed that her character was "firefighter." She was intolerant and uncompromising. The injustice revolted her. During the 1905 revolution, she almost died, stopping the horse of a Cossack who was driving the workers away. Her connections with the RSDLP began: on their order, she creates a bust of Marx, visits safe houses, makes a turnout for illegal immigrants from her house in Zaraysk.

In 1907 she was arrested for distributing proclamations and sentenced to a year in the fortress. However, due to the mental state of Golubkina, the case was dropped: she was released under police supervision.

Defeat # 3: Absence of a husband and children

Anna Golubkina with a group of artists. Paris, 1895

Or maybe this is not a defeat, but also a victory? No wonder Golubkina said to one girl who wanted to become a writer: “If you want something to come out of your writing, don't get married, don't start a family. The art of tied hands does not like. One must come to art with free hands. Art is a feat, and here you need to forget everything, and the woman in the family is a prisoner ".

However, although Golubkina was unmarried and had no children, she dearly loved her nephews and raised her brother's daughter Vera. And among her works, images of Mitya's nephew, who was born sick and died before he was one year old, are especially touching. One of her favorite works was the relief "Motherhood", to work on which she returned from year to year.

Her pockets were always full of sweets for children, and in the post-revolutionary years, just food. Because of the children, she almost died one day: she sheltered a flock of street children, and they gave her sleeping pills and robbed her.

Victory No. 4: Moscow Exhibition

In 1914, the first personal exhibition of 50-year-old Golubkina took place within the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin Museum). The audience was bursting, the profit from the tickets was huge. And Golubkina donated everything for the benefit of the wounded (the First World War had just begun).

Critics were delighted with her work. However, Igor Grabar, who was thinking of buying several sculptures for the Tretyakov Gallery, scolded Golubkina for pride: she was asking for too high prices. Nothing was sold from the exhibition.

Victory # 5: Civil War Survival

Alas, in 1915, Golubkina again had a nervous breakdown, she was admitted to the clinic. For several years she could not create. However, in the post-revolutionary months, she entered the Commission for the Protection of Antiquities and the organs of the Moscow Council for the fight against homelessness (here are the children again!).

When Moscow was freezing and starving, Anna endured it steadfastly. As friends said, because she was so used to asceticism that now she did not notice the hardships. However, for the sake of earning money, she was engaged in painting on fabrics, gave private lessons. Friends brought her a drill and carried around old billiard balls: from them - from ivory - she made cameos, which she sold.

Lev Tolstoy. 1927 year

Despite her revolutionary past, Golubkina did not work well with the Bolsheviks. She was distinguished by a gloomy character, impracticality and inability to organize her affairs. In 1918, she refused to work with the Soviets due to the assassination of a member of the Provisional Government, Kokoshkin. Over time, perhaps, it could have improved - but in the competition for a monument to Ostrovsky in 1923, she took not the first place, but the third, and fell into anger.

In the 1920s, Golubkina earned her living by teaching. Her health was weakening - a stomach ulcer worsened, which had to be operated on. The last works of the master were "Birch" - a symbol of youth and a portrait of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, whom she sculpted from memory, in principle, despite the photographs. Shortly before her death, Golubkina returned to her relatives in Zaraysk, surrounded by whom she died at the age of 63.

Defeat # 5: The Fate of the Workshop

The sculptor's relatives handed over to the state, according to her will, more than one and a half hundred works. The Golubkina Museum was opened in the Moscow workshop. But in 1952 trouble struck. Suddenly, within the framework of the struggle either with formalism, or with something else, it turned out that Golubkina “distorted” the image of a person, including a “Soviet” one. The museum-workshop was closed, and its collection was distributed among the funds of museums in several cities, including the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery.

Only in 1972 was Golubkina's reputation cleared and the museum decided to restore it. Since the workshop became a branch of the Tretyakov Gallery, it was easy to return many works to their native walls. But the rest of the works are forever stuck in other cities. However, the main thing is that Golubkina got her good name back.

Anna Golubkina did not have any - not even primary - education. Unless the sexton taught her to read and write ... She re-read many books as a child, and then she began to sculpt clay figurines. The local art teacher urged her to study seriously. Relatives did not interfere with this, but Annushka herself understood what it meant for a peasant family to lose an employee. Therefore, it took a long time before she decided to leave her native Zaraisk.

Anna was twenty-five years old when she, in a country-style tied with a scarf, in a black pleated skirt, arrived in Moscow and entered the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. “In the workshop, between antique casts, austere and dignified, she looked like a mythical ancient prophetess-Sibyl,” recalled S. T. Konenkov, who studied with her.

“She was a thin, tall, fast-moving girl with a soulful, handsome and stern face,” asserted some contemporaries. “... with an ugly and brilliant face,” the others specified.

The famous Russian philanthropist Maria Tenisheva said:

“Soon after A. N. Benois returned from St. Petersburg ... he began to tell me about some young talented sculptor from peasant women, who was in great need and showing brilliant hopes, he began to persuade me to take her into his care, to give her the means to finish her artistic education..."

Tenisheva did not follow Benoit's ardent persuasions, did not take into her care and did not give any funds ... Which, by the way, later she regretted very much - when Golubkina's name was already widely known.

But the originality and strength of Golubkina's talent really attracted everyone's attention to her during her years of study. Later she moved to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Among her professors was the famous sculptor V. A. Beklemishev, who played a special role in the life of Anna Golubkina. In letters to her family, she called him "a remarkably kind and good person", "a great artist." Behind these general words was a deep, tragic, unrequited love, which Beklemishev himself, married to a wealthy merchant and happy in his family life, never found out.

In 1895, Golubkina left for Paris to continue her education. Her family and the Society of Art Lovers helped her with funds. She entered the academy of F. Colarossi, but very soon realized that there was dominated by the same as in Petersburg, the salon-academic direction, completely alien to her in spirit. This year was very difficult for the young sculptor. Anna Semyonovna was tormented by creative dissatisfaction, doubts about the correctness of the chosen path, an unquenchable feeling for Beklemishev. Some memoirists mention her short unhappy relationship with some French artist and her suicide attempt ... It is no coincidence that Golubkina fell ill with a nervous breakdown.

Best of the day

It was brought to Russia by the artist E. S. Kruglikova. After returning from the hospital to Zaraysk, to her own family, Anna Semyonovna calmed down a little and began to think about how to live on. And in the end she decided to go with her older sister Alexandra, who had finished medical assistant courses, to Siberia. Here she worked at a resettlement center, helping her sister, with whom, like her mother, she always had a trusting relationship. The sculptor's mother, Ekaterina Yakovlevna, died at the end of 1898. Anna Semyonovna could not come to her senses for a long time after this loss and did not undertake any work until she sculpted her bust from memory ...

The second trip to Paris was more successful. The great Rodin himself saw the work of Golubkina and invited her to study under his leadership. Many years later, recalling a year of working with the master, Anna Semyonovna wrote to him: "You told me what I myself felt, and you gave me the opportunity to be free."

Works by Golubkina, exhibited at the Paris Spring Salon in 1899, were a well-deserved success. In 1901, she received an order for the sculptural decoration of the main entrance of the Moscow Art Theater. The high relief “Wave”, made by her - a rebellious spirit fighting against the elements - still adorns the entrance to the old building of the Moscow Art Theater.

She visited Paris again in 1902. She also visited London and Berlin, getting acquainted with the masterpieces of world art. She returned from the trip with huge debts; There was nothing to rent the workshop, and Anna Semyonovna never knew how to get profitable orders.

True, already in the early years of the twentieth century, some of the works brought her decent royalties. Sculptures by Golubkina more and more often appeared at Russian exhibitions, each time meeting with an enthusiastic reception. But Anna Semyonovna gave out everything she earned with amazing generosity to those in need, acquaintances and strangers, donated to a kindergarten, a school, and a folk theater. And even after becoming famous, she still lived in poverty, eating only bread and tea for weeks.

“Her costume,” one friend recalled, “always consisted of a gray skirt, a blouse and an apron made of canvas. On ceremonial occasions, only the apron was removed. "

Her entire ascetically strict life was devoted to art. She told the daughter of her friends, Evgenia Glagoleva: “If you want something to come out of your writing, don't get married, don't start a family. Art does not like the connected. One must come to art with free hands. Art is a feat, and here you need to forget everything, give everything, and the woman in the family is a prisoner ... "And she confessed:" He who does not cry over his thing is not a creator. "

Without her own family, Anna Semyonovna raised her niece Vera, the daughter of her older brother. Often and for a long time she lived with her relatives in Zaraisk, helped her sister with the housework, and worked in the garden on an equal basis with everyone else. And this, oddly enough, did not interfere with her work at all ...

In the pre-revolutionary years, Zaraysk was one of the places of exile. In the house of the Golubkins, "politically unreliable persons", expelled from the capitals, and the local revolutionary-minded intelligentsia constantly gathered. Slowly, but with interest, there were long conversations over the samovar about the future of Russia. Anna Semyonovna could not help but be carried away by the idea of ​​universal brotherhood, justice and happiness. She even distributed illegal literature ... But once, when it came to the inevitability of a revolutionary upheaval, she prophetically said: "It's scary how much, much blood will be shed."

During the events of 1905, she ended up in Moscow. An eyewitness recalls that when the Cossacks scattered people with whips, Anna Semyonovna rushed into the crowd, hung on the horse of one of the riders and shouted in a frenzy: “Murderers! You dare not beat the people! "

Two years later, she was arrested for distributing proclamations. In September 1907, the court sentenced the artist to a year's imprisonment in the fortress, but for health reasons she was released on bail. For a long time, Anna Semyonovna remained under police surveillance. Here is another bitter visionary phrase from her letter:

"In our times, nothing disgusting can happen, because it already exists."

When the First World War began, Golubkina was already fifty. Critics wrote after her solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts: "Never before has Russian sculpture gripped the heart of the viewer so deeply as at this exhibition, held during the days of great trials." Anna Semyonovna donated the entire collection from the exhibition for the wounded.

Golubkina's hot character made her rather quarrelsome, even with close people. One of the stumbling blocks between her and her contemporaries is the purchase of her works.

“There are wonderful things - mostly portraits,” wrote the curator of the Tretyakov Gallery, artist I. Grabar, about Golubkina's exhibition. - I would buy 6-7 things, but she's like Konenkov: there is nothing to eat, but less than 2500-3000 rubles, and do not approach. It's just a misfortune, this trampled pride and “contempt for the bourgeoisie”, which she considers every person who wears not a dirty and not crumpled starch collar ”.

Well - that was the kind of money the gallery paid for the most outstanding works of Russian artists, and private collectors bought them for a much higher price! For Golubkina and Konenkov, their elder contemporary Valentin Serov served as an example, strict and principled when it came to evaluating the work of artists.

Since that very exhibition, not a single sculpture by Golubkina has been sold. From the museum halls they moved to some basement, where they stood unattended for a long time, until the 1920s ... And then, in 1915, Anna Semyonovna again overtook a nervous breakdown. Dr. S.V. Medvedeva-Petrosyan said:

“I saw a tall, middle-aged, sickly-looking woman with almost masculine features and an ugly face. She smiled at me, and what a charming smile it was, with what extraordinary radiance her shining gray eyes shone, what an attractive force emanated from her entire being! I was immediately captivated by her ... The patient was tormented by gloomy melancholy and insomnia, however, even in the worst moments of her illness, her beautiful moral character was not overshadowed by an impatient word or a harsh trick. Everyone loved her very much. "

Golubkina did not allow strangers into her soul, refused to pose for portraits. To all such requests, Mikhail Nesterov exclaimed:

"What do you! Write me! I'll go crazy! Where am I with my face for a portrait! I'm mad". (Remembering Anna Semyonovna years later, the artist said: “It was Maxim Gorky in a skirt, only with a different soul ...”) And, as a master, she advised her students: “Look for a man. If you find a person in a portrait, that's beauty. "

Even Anna Semyonovna was extremely reluctant to take pictures. NN Chulkova, the writer's wife, recalled: “... she said that she did not like her face and did not want her portrait to exist. "I have an actor's face, sharp, I don't like him." And in a rare photograph of her youth - a sweet girl with a fair-haired braid ...

Few people know that the portrait of Golubkina still exists! In the painting by V. Makovsky "Party" (1897), she, still very young, modestly stands at the table. The artist persuaded to pose, albeit for a scene from folk life ...

“The artist (there can be no doubt!) Quite deliberately prevented the collection and publication of materials that would be devoted to her biography,” says A. Kamensky, a researcher of the life and work of the sculptor. - Perhaps nothing appreciated Golubkin so much as the ability to distance himself from himself, to completely dissolve in his business, to become an echo of human experiences ... "

She never wrote down the location of her sold sculptures. The organizers of her museum put a lot of effort into putting together the master's works in 1932 in the premises of her former workshop. Some of the works have not been found so far ...

After the news of the October Revolution, Golubkina said: "Now, real people will be in power." But soon she learned about the execution of two ministers of the Provisional Government, with one of whom she knew (later they wrote that they were shot by anarchists). And when they came to her from the Kremlin, offering a job, Anna Semyonovna, with her usual frankness, answered: “You are killing good people,” and refused.

Despite this, in the first post-revolutionary months, Golubkina entered the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Antiquity and Art and the organs of the Moscow Council for the fight against homelessness. She brought dirty, ragged boys to her workshop, fed her, left them to spend the night - even after they once robbed her and nearly killed her.

Those who knew Golubkina claimed that she endured the hardships of those years easier than others, because she was accustomed to hardships and "did not notice them now." For the sake of earning money, the famous sculptor painted fabrics, cut jewelry out of bone, but there was barely enough money to not die of hunger ... I took private lessons, often free - as a rule, the fee was paid "in kind": for example, one of her students heated the master's workshop.

In 1920-1922, Anna Semyonovna taught at art workshops, but she had to leave because of the unkind atmosphere. She was in her late sixties, and a severe stomach ulcer was added to her old ailments from constant malnutrition and anxiety. Any other harsh word or a rude attack against her could turn into excruciating pains and permanently deprive her of mental equilibrium. Once, some type threw in the face of the sculptor that she had already died for art. The artist replied that she may have died, but she lived, and her evil opponent was always dead. The retired Anna Semyonovna had to undergo surgery ...

Straight to the point, she did not know how to be different in art either. At one time, she refused to sculpt a bust of Chaliapin - she simply could not work on portraits of people to whom, for some reason, she had an ambivalent attitude. In 1907 she created a portrait of Andrei Bely - a perfect profile ... of a horse! She did not tolerate frivolity and unbridled praise. When one day her sculptures were compared with those of antiquity, she sharply answered: "It is in you that ignorance speaks!" Valery Bryusov, when Anna Semyonovna appeared in the literary and artistic circle, addressed her with a "highly saturated speech." Startled, Golubkina turned away, waved her hand at him three times, turned and left.

In 1923, the sculptor took part in a competition for the production of a monument to A.N.Ostrovsky. She presented nine sketches-variants, two of which were awarded prizes. But the first place and the right to make the monument was given to another author - N. Andreev. Anna Semyonovna, deeply offended, arrived at the meeting hall and began to destroy her models: “They compared Ostrovsky with mine! Disgusting, and nothing more. "

Golubkina's last work, Leo Tolstoy, was unexpectedly the indirect cause of her death. In her youth, Anna Semyonovna once met with a "great old man" and, according to an eyewitness, seriously argued with him about something. The impression from this meeting remained so strong that many years later she refused to use his photographs in her work and "made a portrait according to the presentation and from her own memories." The block, glued together from several pieces of wood, was massive and heavy, and Anna Semyonovna could not move it under any circumstances after the operation underwent in 1922. But she forgot about age and illness: when two of her students unsuccessfully fought with a wooden colossus, she pushed them aside with her shoulder and with all her strength moved the stubborn tree. Soon after that I felt unwell and hurried to my sister, to Zaraysk: "She knows how to treat me ... Yes, I'll come in three days ..."

Departure proved to be a fatal mistake. Professor A. Martynov, who had been treating the artist for many years, said that an immediate operation would surely have saved her ...

Golubkina Anna Semyonovna- (1864 1927), Soviet sculptor. She studied in Moscow under S.M. Volnukhin (1889 90), at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1891 94) and the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1894), at the Parisian academy of Colarossi (1895 96). In 1897 98 she worked in her own workshop in Paris, used ... ... Art encyclopedia

Golubkina Anna Semyonovna- A. S. Golubkina. Golubkina Anna Semyonovna (1864, Zaraisk - 1927, ibid.), Sculptor. She studied in Moscow at the Fine Arts Classes of the artist and architect A.O. Gunst in (1889-90), in (1891-94) in S.I. Ivanov, at the St. Petersburg Academy ... ... Moscow (encyclopedia)

Golubkina Anna Semyonovna- (1864 1927), sculptor. Generalized symbolic images of workers ("Iron", 1897), acute psychological portraits ("T. A. Ivanova", 1925). In the work of Golubkina, fluid plasticity of forms in the spirit of impressionism and Art Nouveau style (high relief "The Swimmer", ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Golubkina, Anna Semyonovna- Golubkina, Anna Semyonovna GOLUBKINA Anna Semyonovna (1864 1927), Russian sculptor. Generalized symbolic images of workers ("Iron", 1897), portraits ("T.A. Ivanova", 1925). Many works are characterized by the features of impressionism ("Birch", ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Golubkina- Golubkin surname, female version of Golubkin. Famous carriers: Golubkina, Anna Semyonovna (1864 1927) sculptor. Golubkina, Larisa Ivanovna (1940) actress. Golubkina, Lyudmila Vladimirovna (1933) Russian playwright ... Wikipedia

GOLUBKINA- 1. GOLUBKINA Anna Semyonovna (1864 1927), sculptor. In Golubkina's work, fluid plasticity of forms in the spirit of Impressionism and Art Nouveau (the high relief of the Swimmer, or Wave, on the facade of the Moscow Art Theater, 1901) coexists with the search for constructive clarity of form ... ... Russian history

Golubkina- Anna Semyonovna (1864, Zaraisk - 1927, ibid.), Russian sculptor. Founder member of the World of Art association, member of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, the Moscow Association of Artists. She taught at the Second Free ... ... Art encyclopedia

A.S. Golubkina- GOLUBKINA Anna Semyonovna (1864-1927), sculptor. In the work of G., fluid plasticity of forms in the spirit of impressionism and the Art Nouveau style (high relief Swimmer, or Wave, on the facade of the Moscow Art Theater, 1901) coexists with the search for constructive clarity of form ... ... Biographical Dictionary

The Silver Age gave Russia not only great poets, but also no less outstanding architects and sculptors. Anna Golubkina belongs to the leading masters of this period. This student of Auguste Rodin was characterized by the features of impressionism, but they did not turn out to be self-sufficient - they did not limit her to a narrow circle of formal plastic tasks. In her works, deep psychologism and social coloring, drama, internal dynamics, sketchiness and features of symbolism, a greedy interest in a person and the inconsistency of his inner world are obvious.

Anna Semyonovna Golubkina was born in 1864 in the city of Zaraysk, Ryazan province (now the Moscow region) into a bourgeois family that traded in gardening. Working on weeding, as a girl she sculpted expressive figures from clay. As Golubkina herself said, she was born at night during a fire, so her character is a firefighter. Possessing a powerful artistic temperament and a rebellious soul, at the age of twenty-five she left for Moscow, entered the Fine Arts Classes organized by A.O. Gunst (1889-1890), where her abilities were noticed by the famous sculptor and teacher S.M. Volnukhin. In 1891 she entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and studied there until 1894 under the guidance of SI Ivanov. In the same year she studied for several months at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts under V. A. Beklemishev. At that time, her talent seemed to her mentors too spontaneous and unbridled. Despite the financial difficulties, she went to Paris three times. In 1897 she was lucky: O. Rodin himself agreed to give lessons to the "Russian savage". Even before the revolution, Golubkina's work was classified as one of the largest phenomena of domestic sculpture. The hands of one of the most famous Russian women sculptors have made many works that have become classics of easel sculpture. Works are in major museums and collections (Tretyakov Gallery, Russian Museum and others). After her, a whole gallery of sculptural images of famous contemporaries remained.She taught at the Moscow Commercial School (1904-1906), at the Prechistenskiy working courses (1913-1916) and at the VKHUTEMAS (1918-1922). Author of the book "A few words about the craft of a sculptor."... She died in Zaraisk in 1927, where she was buried in the city cemetery.

A.N. Golubkina rented house 12 on Bolshoy Levshinsky lane for a workshop in 1910, when she was 46 years old. Many of her masterpieces were born in this workshop. House of typical post-fire buildings in Moscow (first quarter of the 19th century). About him is known from the "Notes of the Survivor" S.M. Golitsyn, who in childhood lived here for a short time with his relative, Prince A.M. Golitsyn. "MWe moved to house number 12 on Bolshoy Levshinsky Lane, where we occupied the low rooms of the mezzanine. Thanks to the authority of grandfather Vladimir Mikhailovich, the father was chosen as a vowel, and only a Moscow homeowner could be a vowel. Grandfather Alexander Mikhailovich gave him a notarized power of attorney. Subsequently, after the revolution, my father could not prove in any way that he was not a Moscow homeowner.In the front rooms of the lower floor there were grandparents' bedrooms, a drawing room, and a large hall.The museum in this house was opened in 1932 through the efforts of her older sister Alexandra Semyonovna. And her niece Vera Mikhailovna became the first director of the museum. Such a tolerant attitude of the authorities towards the artist of the Silver Age is explained by the fact thatA.N. Golubkina was the author of the first bust of K. Marx (1905).

The museum worked until 1952, when, on the initiative of E. Vuchetich, it was closed, and the collection was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, etc. I don’t know how the events of those years were drunk, but I cannot condemn it unequivocally. In my opinion, sculptural works, especially of a monumental nature, collected in a limited space, give the impression of crowding and do not reveal their artistic essence. You can see it in this photo. The museum was restored in 1976 as a branch of the Tretyakov Gallery in the same building. However, as I understand it, not all of the exhibits have returned. The returnees are exhibited mainly on the ground floor. The sculpture "Walking" immediately attracts here. Either Adam, or Golem, or a proletarian. ItselfA.N. Golubkina said the only phrase about her formidable creation: "He goes and sweeps away everything in his path."

There is a memorial workshop on the second floor.A.N. Golubkina. Here she meets her inscription: "Well, if a person is carried away by art, he will not fill this thirst forever." Preserved original tools, stands, a rotating full-scale machine, unfinished work on the shelves. Anna Semyonovna worked with different materials - marble, wood, bronze. But my favorite was clay. In the corner of the workshop there is a box with silver-gray Zaraysk clay, which the sculptor appreciated for its delicate texture and noble soft color. The master selected the tools for working on marble and wood with particular care. I brought many of them from foreign trips, such as a dotted typewriter for translating works into solid material.

There is also a small meeting room on the second floor (formerly a classroom for students). Great work on display hereAN Golubkina "The Last Supper" (1911) - visible in the background, and also shown on the first page. The high relief, based on the Gospel story, does not fit into the canonical norms of Christian iconography. it lacks descriptiveness and everyday details. Golubkina gives the event a timeless and extra-dimensional character. Restorers have revived it practically from oblivion: it was split into small pieces. In general, the premises of the museum make a rather depressing impression and clearly require good renovation. As the director, Irina Sedova, told me, the Tretyakov Gallery already has certain plans for its branch. It remains only to wait until they are implemented.

And now a small overview of the exhibits. Let's start with the famous sculptural portrait of L. Tolstoy (1927, bronze), commissioned by the museum named after him. He is in the workshop. This was Golubkina's last completed masterpiece. She met with the writer only once, but her memory tenaciously kept the image, and after 24 years she refused to work on photography. At that time she was already over sixty, and the work required great physical effort. Despite this, five options were made. "Tolstoy is like the sea" - the sculptor started from this formula. The writer's gaze is tense and piercing - "like a hunted wolf," as Golubkina once noted in a conversation.

Very interesting work "Kochka" (1904 bronze). A unique combination of statuary form and high relief. To read the concept, the round statuary form requires the viewer to be circular and change points of view. The models for the composition were Golubkina's little nieces - Alexandra and Vera (the future director of the museum). Their posture and facial expressions were noticed when the babies were washed in the bath and one of them got lather in her eyes.

"Nina" (1907 marble) Nina Alekseeva, the general's daughter, was Golubkina's countrywoman. In 1906 she returned from the Russo-Japanese War, where she left as an 18-year-old sister of mercy. Golubkina looked closely at Nina for a long time, wanted to understand how she lived. This is one of the portraits that the sculptor took. trying on nature. In the wrong face of the girl, there is determination and pressure. But Golubkina wanted to convey in him the "Echo of suffering" that Nina saw during the war. "Revealing the idea of ​​essence by recreating the main thing in its entirety and ignoring the details of real everyday life is the highest realism," wrote Golubkina. She apologized to the model for the relative likeness of the portrait - "It's not just a portrait!" And she was right. Over time, Alekseeva became more and more like a portrait.

"Prisoners" (1908 marble). Prisoners of life - this is what Golubkina put into this symbolic work. The heads of the children seem to be trying to escape from the oppression of the stone block. The sculptor found such an expressive composition that the viewer conjectures the plot. It seems as if the mother wants to close and protect her children. Interesting. that the exhibition in 1944 attracted a particularly large number of spectators.

"Vyacheslav Ivanov" (1914 bronze) is a crafty philosopher. making a myth out of his life. The poet in the portrait is similar to the image he described in the poem "The Trampler", dedicated to Velimir Khlebnikov.

Measure right, weigh right
I want hearts - and into a viscous gaze
I immerse my eyes, slyly
Stele like a seine. talk

Golubkina did not agree to take even very high-value orders. if she could not get carried away with the inner world of the heroes of her portraits. Many of them were created by her own impulse and completely free of charge.

"Andrey Bely" (plaster of paris in 1907). The portrait of the Symbolist poet was also not created by order. This is a bust of a man who "exchanged roots for wings." "A captive spirit that did not find flesh" - this is how contemporaries spoke of him. Golubkina created this image based on the poet's poems. This idea is served by a bold compositional technique: the poet's head appears against the background of a surging wave. He is in the power of the element of creativity, which breaks out of the material flesh.

"Mitya" (1913 marble). An expression of doom lies on this marble statue. Mitya was Golubkina's nephew. he was born sick and died before he was one year old. A special feeling of pity and guilt will pierce everyone who stops in front of this fragile figure. This work is exhibited in the workshop, on a special easel. She embodied the painful feeling of her unfulfilled motherhood. The contours of the mother's hands holding the baby are barely outlined. The feeling of a gentle vibration of light is created. The words of the sculptor become understandable: "The art of tied hands does not like. You have to come to it with free hands ... Art is a feat, and here you have to forget everything, give everything." This is what she did in her life, despite the fact that she dreamed of having children and loved them very much. According to eyewitnesses, Golubkina deliberately delayed the completion of this work. She seemed to be afraid of losing touch with this marble relief.

"Old age" (1898 plaster cast). This work was done by Golubkina in Paris. She invited a model who once posed for Rodin for his sculpture "The one that was beautiful Olmier". If the teacher Golubkina had a ruthless, naturally defiant portrait, then she has a completely different meaning. The pose of the embryo emphasizes the theme of the spontaneous cycle of life and death, and the pedestal, a simple earth, symbolizes a place of temporary respite in this closed unforgiving circle.

"Fire" (1900 plaster cast), female figurine for the fireplace. The composition represents an image of a rough cave, where primitive people are warming themselves at the entrance: a man and a woman. Golubkina boldly deforms figures, thickening the shadows in the eyes of a woman. You catch the feeling of invisible danger in the contracted figure. Shivering is felt. penetrating this primitive creature. Light, along with volume, becomes an active means of expression. This sculpture is so plastically infectious that often viewers try to reproduce the poses of the heroes of "Fire".

"Birch" (1927). The workshop contains a bronze casting from the last unfinished work of Golubkina - the sketch "Birch". This is just a glimpse of a great design: a statue of a girl in full human height, resisting the pressure of the wind. The combination of fragility, resilience and perseverance in confronting the elements convey the meaning of the fate of the humble and great sculptor - the vulnerable and selfless Anna Golubkina.
The review is based on an article by art critic Marina Matskevich "One, but fiery passion."