During the years of the Communist regime one of the criteria for judging an artist was his work depicting historical-revolutionary topics. Whether a painter or a sculptor, without glorifying Lenin and other revolutionary leaders he could not hope to receive official sanctioning and the ability to exhibit his works or become a member of the Artist’s Union. Ilya Glazunov turned out to be a rare exception to this rule. Yet his incisive works exploring such themes; for example, “Mystery of the Twentieth Century,” elicited the anger of critics and a slew of political denunciations.
The work “October Fires” presents the images of three leading revolutionaries, the main organizers of the genocide of the Russian peoples. On the left, prominent in scale, Lenin is portrayed with a frozen look that seems to reflect the flames of the inferno that he unleashed. His famous words come to mind: “let nine-tenths of the Russian population die, just as long as one-tenth see a new world, built on Marxian principles.”
The person who carried out his Satanic will in implementing the genocide of the Russian people was Dzerzhinsky, who the artist has portrayed with psychological mastery. In the center of the canvas is the tsar’s assassin, Yakov Sverdlov. It was at his directive that the general extermination of the Cossacks was undertaken. The suffering and harm he inflicted upon Russia will forever go down in our history. Here Glazunov’s talents as a brilliant draftsman and his mastery of color and composition combine to create a stunning work of great expressiveness. As if through a dark shroud, illuminated by the glow of an infernal fire, we see the faces of those who exterminated millions of our fellow countrymen in the name of the unattainable specter of Communism.
The work entitled “The Third Rooster” is somewhat unusual for the artist, yet at the same time very straightforward in its composition and meaning. The rooster, as if enveloped by the flames of its red feathers, appears to be trying to awaken sleepers in the night. The distant horizon hints of sunrise. The rooster is warning us that the sunrise is soon approaching. In the vague light of dawn we discern a demolished church and some grave sites, along with a row of rooftops. The rooster is a well known symbol in ancient superstitions; its third crow heralded the dawn, the start of a new day following the long darkness of night.
“The Elevator Operator” is a portrait of an era, of a generation. The operator, an old woman with a baleful, guarded expression, sits in an empire-style armchair beside worn, mesh elevator doors that are almost prison-like in appearance. Glazunov managed to acquire this very armchair from a government residence building in the 1970’s. It had been given away to an actual elevator operator, as if a reminder of the fact that at one time members of the Bolshevik government had rented for one ruble per year any piece of estate furniture that struck their fancy. Behind the old woman the artist has boldly depicted the neat, brightly painted mail boxes of the building’s residents, each one stuffed with a copy of the Soviet newspaper “Pravda.”
Moscow’s Red Square holds many memories: from the execution of the “Streltsy” and the tsars’ ceremonial processions to the May Day demonstrations, when a row of Politburo members led by Iosif Dzhugashvili (Stalin) assembled atop the Mausoleum, high above the banners. The right side of the painting “Red Square” shows with startling realism the foreigners that have come to pay homage to the mummified leader of the world proletariat. To the left, fenced off as if inside a livestock enclosure, is a seething crowd of Soviet workers of various nationalities – also guests of Moscow. Frost emanates from a glowing red Moscow sky. The two lines of people are separated by the figure of a lone guard who appears frozen from the cold. The artist provides a perceptive social and political study of each person in the Soviet “corral” – from the old woman from the countryside who has come to the capital to buy oranges to the red-cheeked soldier who cheerfully eats ice cream in the bitter cold. The restrained smile of the pastor clutching a bouquet of roses to his chest sets him apart from the crowd of foreign visitors.
In years past, Soviet critics would ask Glazunov how he perceived his role in the building of Communism. Today, in these times of impassioned democracy and Russophobia, critics attempt to label him a Russian chauvinist or, as is now fashionable, accuse him and all those who love Russia of fascist beliefs. Glazunov has always been saved and will continue to be saved by the endless lines to his exhibitions, both domestic and international.
Let us consider his well known painting “To Your Health,” which was removed at one time from his exhibitions and is presently in storage at the Tretyakovsky Gallery in Moscow. At first glance, it would appear to be nothing out of the ordinary: a Russian collective farm worker with the strikingly good-natured smile of the so-called “God-bearing” people sits in a quilted jacket of the type worn in concentration camps and raises his glass while looking us directly in the eye. Beside him lies a newspaper with a piece of bread and a pickle: “To your Health!” The large painting conveys both the artist’s penetrating psychological insight and powerful use of composition. The Badge of Glory is pinned to the quilted jacket, which has long since replaced Russian national dress, and the banners on the wall of what appears to be a collective farm club evoke melancholy thoughts about the fate of the brave veteran. Especially prominent is a glaring red banner with the hammer and sickle of the Soviet passport, forever denied to once free Russian peasants who were locked away in the “paradise of the collective economy.” It is obvious why this painting was banned by the Soviet exhibition committees, without whose permission no exhibition opened in the USSR.
The painting “The Crossing Bar” (“For Humanitarian Aid”) laments the tragic fate of the Russian peasant who was ruthlessly oppressed and crushed. Many artists have lovingly turned to the depiction of the Russian peasant. We need look no further than the realist painters known as the “Peredvizhniks,” such as Kramsky, Surikov, and Nesterov. In Soviet times the subject of the peasant’s hard fate was replaced by the ostentatious celebration of collective farm holidays and portraits of the representatives of “joyous collective farm life.” Glazunov’s painting moves the viewer with its deep psychological insight and truthfulness. We see as if through the windows of a speeding train compartment the shadowy expanse of an achingly familiar Russian landscape. In the snowy distance stand a few solitary houses and the destroyed church of a once prosperous village. In the foreground, in the eerie red light of the crossing post stands an elderly woman swathed in a ragged wool scarf. Beside her stands her husband, a former front-line soldier, dressed in a similar quilted jacket, with a bottle of vodka in his pocket. The viewer is struck by the expression in the eyes of the young girl, swathed in the same sort of threadbare scarf as her grandmother, as she stares out with an empty gaze towards the clattering wheels of a long distance train. Where is the humanitarian aid for those who once fed not only the great Russian empire, but the entire world?
The painting “On the Bridge” is remarkably modern. One can sense the anguish of the artist, who shows the civil injustice and poverty endured by the Russian people, contrasted with the smirking grins of “persons of Caucasian descent” passing by in a car. Two figures sit tragically alone on a deserted bridge and beg for alms. The painting’s composition and deep meaning are underscored by an endless line of trains transporting hundreds of thousands of people into the city. One can almost hear the whistles of the electric locomotives, while a gray freezing rain falls on the enormous city.
It is notable that no other artist besides Ilya Glazunov has addressed the terrible period when Russia was again on the brink of civil war. In October of 1993, the entire world anxiously watched the events unfold which began with shots fired upon Moscow’s “White House.” This work is the valuable testimony of our contemporary, who has portrayed images of the old and the new Russia with unflinching honesty.