Boris Nemensky on War and Creative Work, Russia and Its Future
The interview was conducted by SERGEY VOLODIN
The People’s Artist of Russia Boris Nemensky is rightly reckoned as the patriarch of great Russian artists. He was born on 24 December 1922 in Moscow. After school he studied at the Moscow Academic Art College in memory of 1905. After graduating with honours during the Great Patriotic War, he refused military deferment and, after being conscripted, was sent to the Studio of Military Artists named after M.B. Grekov. In the autumn of 1942, he was at the front and reached Berlin.
His famous painting, Mother, was immediately acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery in 1945. Nemensky’s works can be found at the most prestigious museums in the world and in private collections in Germany, Japan, France, the UK, etc. A member of the Russian Academy of Arts and of the Russian Academy of Education, he received many awards for his work, including the State Prize of the Russian Federation, the Order “for Merit to the Fatherland”, and the Order of St Andrew the Iconographer. Educational activities have taken a special place in the artist’s life. For over half a century he has been teaching painting at the Department of Art of the Gerasimov Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK).
Nemensky’s work is a classic of Russian fine art; many of the artist’s paintings are living anthologies. The subjects of his paintings often reflect the impressions of his youth on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, but their content is much broader and addressed to the present. We have talked with Boris Mikhailovich on the segment of the path of Russian art he has been following for so many decades.
– Many memories of people of your generation are associated with the Great Patriotic War. What does that war mean to you personally?
– War is always a tragedy. But at the same time, for me, as for everybody who fought in it and survived, it became a school of life and allowed us to grasp the main values of life better. The years at the front developed me as a person, shaping my understanding of art. That twenty-year-old soldier-artist lives in me to this day. The most important thing is that at that time I discovered in myself many profound common points with our people, with those who were defending our right to continue life as was predetermined by our history, ancestors, and land. Despite all the twists of fate.
Obviously, this is why all my paintings (both about war and life during peace) in one way or another originated there. The theme of the war experience became the basis for my reflections. Good and evil, light and filth, joy and sadness are all the keener and stand out more at the front. Not only are life and death clearly opposed there, but also duty and cowardice, meanness, and honour… Then I realised that I viewed art as a search for humanity. And my memories of the events and people of the war turned into reflections on life.
– Boris Mikhailovich, please recall one or two memorable episodes from the war. Which of the friends and comrades of that time do you particularly remember?
– I went to the front as a soldier and a military artist at the same time. Our army had such a special military unit, set up before the war. It consisted of officers and soldiers who were professional artists. Their task was to depict the war chronicle, to make drawings and sketches directly on the battlefields, at the forefront. We made our own “special reports” from the theatre of military operations. There was not a single significant military operation in which military artists did not participate. Our front-line sketches went on their exhibition journey, working in a combat environment, so, unfortunately, quite many of them have not survived. I always remember my Studio mates: interesting, bright people and wonderful artists. They are alive in my memory forever: Pyotr Krivonogov, Vladimir Gavrilov, Georgy Khrapak, Gennady Prokopinsky and Pavel Globa.
I served at many fronts. First, I was sent to Vyazma and Velikiye Luki, then to the Leningrad front, and next, together with units of our Army, I walked throughout Ukraine, and in April 1945 I entered Berlin.
Initially, I was attracted to the heroic spirit at the front: battles, assaults and victories. It seemed that the brighter and more spectacular, the more significant. Then it dawned on me that it was not so many actions of soldiers that mattered, as they themselves: ordinary people dressed in soldiers’ overcoats who decided the fate of the whole world with their amazing tenacity. This later became the main content of my paintings. I depicted not so much battles as the fates and feelings of people through whose lives the war had passed.
It is hard to single out particular points. But probably the first days of my participation in hostilities and the experiences of Victory days are the most vivid memories. At the front I soon ended up in Velikiye Luki. Fierce fighting was going on there. The town was burned to the ground: not a single living person survived, not a single house remained intact there. Suddenly the soldiers found a little girl who looked like a faded, emaciated old woman. She didn’t speak or ask for anything and didn’t cry anymore, but just stared. The soldiers surrounded her, trying to feed and support that barely glimmering lump of life. And it seemed to me that they were warming up around her. Over the years that painful memory turned into my painting, Soldier-Fathers. All my paintings contain the source of a personal impression; they are reflections and a summary of real experience.
I mean, during the war everyone understood why I was painting. Our sketches, perhaps too cursory, contained the full truth of the feelings of the direct participants in those events. I remember painting a sketch during a battle in Friedrichstrasse, a Berlin street engulfed in flames. There was constant noise, smoke was billowing into the sky in violent eddies, and I had to blow the ashes off the palette all the time. The houses were gradually collapsing. And the soldiers who were running past strove to move me away: «Look out, it’s going to collapse on you!» But at the same time, they would add: «But you paint! Paint how Hitler’s lair is being burned!» On Victory Day I climbed the Brandenburg Gate by scaling ladders, to the very top. There I got onto the triumphal chariot horse’s croup, which had been badly damaged by shelling, and settled down to paint a sketch of a burning street. I was frantically working on a «monument of history”. It is a pity that sketch has not survived.
– After the disappearance of the USSR from the world map, attempts were made (in some cases successful and necessary, and in some cases futile and stupid) to revise Soviet literature and art. How do you assess the achievements in these areas during the Soviet era?
– Very highly! Perhaps no other country has such a rich «self-portrait «, such a level of awareness of its beauty, originality and its problems. At that period wonderful masterpieces were born in music, literature, cinema, theatre, and visual arts. This often happened in spite of officialdom, but not in defiance of people’s real feelings and aspirations. If you erase this art from our lives and the life of the whole world (regardless of the circumstances), culture will become impoverished. Undoubtedly, our art is part of the European and world art, but we have our own unique path, and it became especially evident in the twentieth century. Though it has always been obvious since the age of icon-painting. Russian art in all periods of history has been characterised by the search for spirituality. Russia is a country of complicated yet subtle spiritual culture, a country that has gone through numerous trials and tribulations with dignity. And it is expressed in the work of artists.
The best art of the Soviet era is about life with all its contradictions and various interpretations. This is its deepest essence. This reflects the need to express your joy or pain, doubts and the search for truth in the language of art. Those who strive to paint it in a single black or grey paint belittle not only Russian art, but also its entire history.
– Its history has seen everything, and in different spheres of life. There were sad and tragic pages too. Though I agree with you: the black-and-grey approach is fundamentally flawed.
– Of course, my «sphere» is closer to me. Yes, officialdom and repressions did their dirty work. True, there were a huge number of purely illustrative and bombastic paintings, but they provoked appropriate assessments, and sometimes even disgust, in both artists and viewers. Meanwhile, many artists of the older generation wholeheartedly shared the romance of the revolutionary years and believed in the beauty of everyday life of the common people. Their romantic, tragic and lyrical works expressed the dreams and concerns of those years. True, their dreams sometimes remained unfulfilled, or even deceived, and worries justified.
The style of the age, common to all European artists at that time, was revealed in art in our country and in the West in very different ways. And above all it was because of the difference in our fundamental values. It is very noticeable now how different our moral origins and faith are. In Russia the art of complex thinking flourished, in defiance of officialdom and in parallel with it.
– I think it is time to recall those you worked with, your like-minded people.
– My older friends were wonderful artists: Pavel Korin, who was powerful and able to convey the tragedy of life masterfully; and the inspiring and dreamy Yuri Pimenov. Pavel Mikhailovich liked my paintings to be problematic, metaphorical and filled with drama; while Yuri Ivanovich considered my lyrical paintings to be my stronger side and encouraged it in every possible way. The work of my colleagues and friends in the Artists Trade Union, such different ones as Valentin Sidorov, Viktor Ivanov, Andrei Gorsky, Dmitry Zhilinsky and Takhir Salakhov (to name but a few), meant a lot to me…
On my mind, in the second half of the twentieth century we had a very vibrant and original art. I can’t help but mention my pupils: among them are a wonderful colourist, People’s Artist of Russia Vladimir Yelchaninov and another People’s Artist Vyacheslav Samarin with his involved, deep paintings where every detail is meaningful. Before my eyes is a marvellous painting by Valery Balabanov, also a People’s Artist: a black horse and a white horse rearing up confronting each other. The viewer is sure to find profound meanings in this work. And here is another People’s Artist, Mikhail Abakumov. When he was my first–year student at VGIK, I painted his portrait, «Misha, the Sun and Flowers»: a blond, strapping guy wearing a wreath of yellow dandelions; and a completely different image of a strong, resolute and tensely-thinking artist: I did it five years later, and this painting is now at the Tretyakov Gallery. Or the lyrical landscape painter Viktor Braginsky! There are a whole host of such paintings.
All of them studied and worked during the Soviet era, and later they did not get lost in the modern world, albeit each of them has his own destiny. The artist is a child of his time, his generation, his country, a focus of its feelings, thoughts and attitudes. In this context, he paves his own ways of interpreting reality. I grew up in the traditions of Russian culture, I am a Russian artist, and I am convinced of this.
– We can still hear mocking assessments of the term «Socialist Realism». It is not clear to many. After all, there is no such term as «Capitalist Realism”.
– Realism is an art in which an artist strives to express his personal attitude to the reality of life. I’m a Realist. But I have never understood the concept of Socialist Realism, and it is unlikely that my work agrees with this concept. Despite the circumstances, I have always been a free and sincere artist and have never worked to order. I don’t have any ideological or political works, nor any official portraits. Though now many people say that it is impossible, that Soviet artists had to fulfill State orders. The first time I realised that any expression by an artist has a political content was when my painting Breath of Spring (it is currently at the Russian Museum) was initially not accepted. I was told that a soldier at the front should not think about spring and snowdrops. Yes, I was often criticised, and on several occasions my works were removed from prestigious exhibitions because of their content. Since I wanted to finish the painting Nameless Height, I had to leave the Studio of Military Artists named after M.B. Grekov.
Now many say that everything that happened in those years was either officialdom (let’s call it Socialist Realism) or non-conformism. That is, in both cases it is vividly politicised creative work. But this is how the main line of its development is erased from our art. This is a desire for simplification and aesthetic determination for the sake of politics. And we often see this tendency both in those who pine for the vanished system and those who hate it. The poet Leonid Martynov aptly remarked: «The old and the little ones are moving, as though round museum halls, looking in insane arrogance at the values of modernity golden from maturity, as if they were fossils.»
Ceremonial art is always present in any age and under any Government. This is also one of the functions of creative work. There is art that is sometimes very masterful, but superficial. There is also art that is primarily aimed at fellow artists, because the creative emphasis is on finding new forms of artistic expression. And, lastly, there are works that create a vision of the world, visually reflecting what is not expressed in words, but sensually significant.
– Everything fades into the background when something truly talented breaks through, bringing people discoveries and something inexplicable and fascinating…
– Yes, this is art. Apart from the political system and its demands, apart from the social system, Russian culture has always existed and still exists, and the main issues it raises and the main problems that concern it do not disappear. As an artist, I have always worked in the context of the Russian Realist school, and for it the themes of compassion, mercy and love have always been in first place. And this tradition did not die out in the Soviet era; on the contrary, it flourished. I was very privileged to see its heyday and work with it.
By the way, not only Russian art thrived. At that time Russia managed to transfer its cultural impulse to the artists of its republics and autonomous regions, nurturing very interesting national art schools from the Baltic States to Transcaucasia and Central Asia. They studied in Moscow and Leningrad, and then became brilliant original artists who created a special image of their national art. Artists, not artisans. They studied at our universities, and then developed in our houses of creativity, where a unique dialogue of cultures continued all the time.
And, most importantly: at that time the viewer looked at art as at spiritual food, not as a material value. This formed a totally different creative environment than in the West. And it was the power of our art.
Viewers played a huge role. They were not indifferent; exhibitions were always accompanied by arguments and discussions. And there were heated disputes about my paintings. I keep letters from viewers, articles in newspapers and magazines, and books for feedback. They were arguing not just about paintings, but about the understanding of life.
I am positive that art is the most important tool for self–awareness and self-development of both people and society. For me a painting is not a mere wall decoration, but a reflection aimed at a conversation, a reflection together with the viewer.
The subjects of my paintings are always related to my personal experience. But then I work for a long time, analysing what happened and looking for a means of expression. It does not take me long to do a painting, but I prepare and look for a plastic image for a long time. There is a long way from my first sketch to a completed painting, and I make many plein-air studies. There are usually no images of specific people in my paintings, unless they are portraits. it is always a collective image and, I would say, symbolic in essence. It is present even in my first paintings: Mother, Mashenka, Breath of Spring; and certainly in later ones: in such allegorical reflections as It Is Us, O Lord! The Parable of Dissent; Here Is Your Son… I strive for each fragment on my paintings not to be accidental, but to bear a metaphor. So, my major paintings can be called “Symbolic” Realism (if you want some attribute).
But, of course, I like to paint portraits as well. There is nothing more interesting than a human face! But for me a portrait is not a copy of a model. It’s a model plus you. The purpose of a work is to reveal the understanding vision of the one who is portrayed, the poetic interpretation of his personality.
– I think you must be concerned about what is happening with Russian art today. Please share your observations.
– There is no unequivocal answer to the question about modernity, including art. Unfortunately, nowadays the value of art is often associated with the successful sales of works. Then gallery owners rejoice that works of art are in high demand. What works? Of course, profitable ones. I am upset by the unjustified and senseless loss of genuine spiritual goals, ideals, and great traditions by art. Why are we foolishly revelling in our self–abasement and self-destruction? I have no answer to this question or full understanding of it. I agree with the Russian poet and philosopher Vyacheslav Ivanov: «The entire human culture still remains a protest against death and destruction.» At least it should…
The so–called modern art that is actively being imposed on us is about the opposite. It is the suppression of humanity in yourself and in others. Though, of course, art is both a field of dispute and a search space. We must not lose the complex essence of art.
Each period of our history is dramatic, and today life is complicated and filled with such incredible contradictions that contemporaries sometimes cannot comprehend. But no one else except ourselves can build our lives so that they can bring more joy and kindness.
I love Alexei Tolstoy’s lines: «Friends, row! In vain do the detractors mean to insult us with their pride. We, the victors of the waves, will soon come ashore solemnly with our shrine!» And further: «We will stir up a counter current against the current!» No matter what may happen, I look at the future with hope.
