The mystery of one painting from the National Art Museum in Minsk

Thin landscape painter or court propagandist? What became the favorite disciple of Repin?

Who is the author of the fantasy picture with motifs of art nouveau, which meets us at the beginning of the inspection at the National Art Museum? Probably, a landscape painter, whose brush belongs to a lot of such airbrushes? And what if he is the puncher of the portraits of the leaders?

Isaak Brodsky, "The Tale"

The court portraitist of the Soviet government, the artistic servant of the propaganda of the new ideology Isaak Izrailevich Brodsky (1833 - 1939) went through an interesting creative path - which is now not so easily traced. The obstacle to revealing the truth is the very reason why the prefix "socialist" was added to the definition of the artistic style of "realism". "The Soviets have their own pride," and the truth, respectively, is its own.

Officially approved "canonical" paintings by Brodsky - "Shooting of twenty-six Baku commissars", "Inauguration of the Second Congress of the Comintern", portraits of Stalin and Voroshilov - great artistic value do not differ. But the life and career achievements of the artist are radically different from the fate of his colleagues and compatriots. A huge apartment on Mikhailovskaya Square in Leningrad, a post of professor, and afterwards - director of the All-Russian Art Academy; a street named after him ...

Isaak Brodsky, a portrait of Stalin

Compare this portrait of Stalin with "Fairy Tale"

He began as a landscape painter, a favorite disciple of Repin; Brodsky is credited with imitating Repin's techniques, however, when searching for his style Brodsky can see elements of both Impressionism and Art Nouveau. And suddenly - flat poster images of Stalin, photographic accuracy of scenes of political gatherings ... Among the portraits of the Bolshevik leaders, Kerensky's portrait, when he headed the Provisional Government, was understood to mean that the artist was ready to paint portraits, read - to serve at court - any authorities.

Isaak Brodsky, a portrait of Kerensky

So what: the servant of the Soviet power was the trickster Brodsky, and the artist Brodsky passed between his fingers and died?
But a series of excellent Leninist portraits, written at different times, suggests that Brodsky had a personal attitude toward Soviet power (and to Lenin in particular). What kind? Love, admiration, respect, fear, hatred, disgust? It's easier to understand poets than artists: Mayakovsky first got out of wide trousers, and then "did not finish and was tired" (we know further). And in the case of artists, it remains only to peer into the mute guise of the characters of their canvases.

The expression "Lenin on the background of the Smolny" (1925) is defiant. A high horizon line cuts his neck and does not allow foresights to look at the viewer from the height of the rostrum. But he has no need for artificial reinforcement of his strength. On a rainy autumn day, the leader of the world proletariat, with his hands in his pockets (the red cuffs stick out), takes us to Smolny. His trademark squint is not at all kind, and his lips are not smiling in a smile. All the prospective lines converge to the point behind Lenin's back. Dedicated domes of the monastery go beyond the borders of the canvas. People in the background have stopped and are watching because of Lenin's back, what will end the confrontation. They can be calm: we will not go to Smolny. The new master demonstrates an unshakable strength; and his hands, hidden in his pockets, seem to be clenched into fists.

Isaak Brodsky, a portrait of Lenin in Smolny

And now "Lenin and the manifestation" (1919). A noticeably aged man with a limp-open hand, laying down his quill, looks at the viewer wearily; what a strange "manifestation"? How does Lenin lead it? He sits in a theater box; and below, as if on a distant stage, the crowd is seething, but not in a single revolutionary impulse, but as if torn up; some of the people raised their faces (illegibly written in broad strokes) to this theatrical box in an address to the leader; but Lenin is not visible to the crowd: densely curtained with a crimson curtain, he looks at the opposite side of the manifestation.

Isaak Brodsky, "Lenin and the Manifestation"

I have no sentimental intentions to reveal the hidden opposition of a person who in the thirties collected in his luxurious apartment a collection of paintings and earned sales copies from the "Shooting commissars ..." while hundreds and hundreds of thousands of his compatriots at best felled the forest - but some pictures of Brodsky in me cause at least mixed feelings. For example, this self-portrait with a daughter (1911), written, probably, on a visit to Gorky in Capri: the sunny child is enjoying the generous gifts of nature, and before her - only flowers and warm colors; but the father, on whose knees she is so comfortable and firmly placed, is in the shade, and behind him is a shadow, and he looks - in a shallow and without a smile; and in the solar part of the picture, lying around, legs, a doll with a doll.

Isaak Brodsky, self-portrait with a daughter