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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2017
The article presents a biographical reconstruction of the life of the painter Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii (1884–1939) through the lens of his painting “Vladimir Lenin in Smolnyi” (1930). Brodskii (and his work) are shown against the background of the terror of the 1930s, an ideological rupture in his artistic vision and his attainment of personal success. The diaries of Pavel N. Filonov help us to see Brodskii from an unusual angle. The impulse to write articles was an exhibition of “old art” (“Ars Nobilis”), which was held in the exhibition halls of Volkswagen in Berlin from October 18–27, 2002. Two portraits of Lenin by Brodksii were displayed there: “Vladimir Lenin in Smolnyi” and “Lenin reading Pravda” (1930) from the private collection of Otto von Mitzlaff.
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2. Pushkin, Aleksandr, “Eugene Onegin”: A Novel in Verse, trans. Nabokov, Vladimir (Princeton, 1964), 95Google Scholar. This quote from Aleksandr Pushkin was chosen by Iosif Brodskii (1904–1980) for the inscription on the copy of his book about his uncle Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii (January 6, 1884–August 14, 1939) that he presented to Professor Boris V. Pavlovskii, the founder of the Department of Art Studies at the Ural State University in Ekaterinburg.
3. Isaak I. Brodskii was a painter and graphic artist. He was born into a merchant family in the village of Sofievka, Tauride province. He studied at the Odessa Art School (1895–1902), attending courses of L. D. Iorini, K. K. Kostandi, and G. A. Ladyzhenskii. Later, he attended the Art School of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg under the tutelage of Jan Ciągliński (1902–08) and Il΄ia E. Repin (from 1903). He was a member of the Union of Russian Painters, the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia from 1922–1932 (in 1928 it was renamed as the Association of Artists of the Revolution), and from 1932 a member of the Union of Soviet Painters. Between 1934 and 1939, he was the Director of the Russian Academy of Arts. In the later stages of his career, he held the awards and titles of honored artist of the RSFSR and professor (1932), honored painter of the RSFSR (1938), and doctor of art studies (1939).
4. I. I. Brodskii, Self-Portrait, 1904, carton, oil, 35 × 52 сm., in Zhivopis΄, grafika, skul΄ptura XVII-XX vv., I. N. Barsheva ed., (Leningrad, 1989), 77; Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1634, oil on wood, 62.5 × 54 cm., Galleria delgi Uffizi, Florence.
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12. Ibid., 46; Vavilov, S. I., ed., “Brodskii, Isaak Izrailovich,” Bol΄shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1951), 6:125Google Scholar.
13. See Bonnell, Victoria E., Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Berkeley, 1999)Google Scholar; Kämpfer, Frank, Propaganda: Politische Bilder im 20. Jahrhundert, bildkundliche Essays (Hamburg, 1997)Google Scholar; Plaggenborg, Stefan, Revolutionskultur: Menschenbilder und kulturelle Praxis in Sowjetrussland zwischen Oktoberrevolution und Stalinismus (Cologne, 1996)Google Scholar; Bialik, Isaak Brodskii, 46.
14. For the authority of Repin, the Stalin cult and the meaning of patronage in art, see: Jackson, David, The Russian Vision: The Art of Ilya Repin (Schoten, 2006)Google Scholar; Plamper, Jan, The Stalin Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power (New Haven, 2012)Google Scholar.
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16. Kittsteiner, “Iconic turn,” 157. Christina Kiaer's work deserves some attention, as she has put a work of art at the center of her studies, using it as an historical artefact to interpret not only Deineka's life experience, but also the social history behind the creation of the masterpiece: Kiaer, Christina, “Collective Body: Christina Kiaer on the Art of Aleksandr Deineka,” in Artforum International 51, no. 3 (November 2012): 243–249 Google Scholar.
17. Manin, Vitalii Serafimovich, Iskusstvo i vlast΄: Bor΄ba techenii v sovetskom izobrazitel΄nom iskusstve 1917–1941 godov (St. Petersburg, 2008), 317–36Google Scholar.
18. Filonov, Pavel Nikolaevich, Dnevnik, ed. Marushina, G., introduction by Kovtun, E.F. (St. Petersburg, 2000), 351Google Scholar.
19. Filonov, Dnevnik, 347.
20. Filonov, Dnevnik, 418.
21. In relation to Brodskii's letter of November 25, 1930 to the newspaper Krasnaya gazeta: “Shady affairs in the Russian Museum. Bureaucrats and officers hide the painter from workers.” Brodskii wrote about Filonov that “his creative works—in terms of the paintings, the approach to his work, and the depth of his thought—will undoubtedly leave their mark on the world of art, and our country should be deservedly proud of him.” Filonov, Dnevnik, 93, 471.
22. The Itinerants (peredvizhniki) were a group of Russian realist artists who worked between 1870 and 1923. The last (48th) exhibition of the Society of the Itinerants was held in 1923. Il΄ia Repin called Isaak Brodskii “a huge talent.” See: Petrova, Antonina Georgievna, ed., Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii, forward by Iosif Anatol΄evich Brodskii (Leningrad, 1988), 41Google Scholar; Gomberg-Verzhbinskaia, Eleonora Petrovna, Peredvizhniki, 2nd ed. (Leningrad, 1970 [1961])Google Scholar; Sternin, Grigorii Iur΄evich, Russkaia khudozhestvennaia kul΄tura vtoroi poloviny XIX-nachala XX veka (Moscow, 1984)Google Scholar.
23. Filonov called them “anonymous letters.” Self-published books have a long history in Russia. The poetry of Pushkin, some of which was prohibited, was disseminated in thousands of hand-written copies. The conflict between art movements continued until the mid-1930s: prior to this point, the notion of “socialist realism” had not yet been firmly established and was only hazily defined.
24. See to: I. I. Brodskii, Tale (variation), 1911, oil on canvas, 103 × 178 cm., Collection of the Regional State Foundation of Generations of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District, in Romanovskii, Аndrei, Akademizm v russkoi zhivopisi (Moscow, 2005), 374Google Scholar; I.I. Brodskii, Self-Portrait with His Daughter, 1911, oil, canvas, 72 × 99 cm., The Museum-Apartment of I. I. Brodskii, St. Petersburg, in Romanovskii, Akademizm v russkoi zhivopisi, 377; I.I. Brodskii, Italy, 1911, oil oncanvas, 208 × 250 cm., in The State Tret΄iakov Gallery, Moscow, in Romanovskii, Akademizm v russkoi zhivopisi, 375. “. . . The painter depicted the zest of life, the love for living, children and sun in his bright compositions. . . . he was painting his colorful poems about flowers and children to create a fairy tale and make the world around more beautiful,” Brodskii, Iosif Anatol΄evich, Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii (Moscow, 1956), 55Google Scholar. See the cycle of his paintings in Italy, France and Spain, his self-portrait with his daughter of 1911, his landscape paintings and self-portraits created before the Revolution: “. . . One floor was occupied by traditional pictorial art—portraits, landscape and genre paintings—that resembled the painter's style before the Revolution . . . while the second floor was occupied by his works devoted to new trends, his paintings covering social and revolutionary topics . . . ,” Bialik, Isaak Brodskii, 42. Even in Brodskii's early landscape works, Bialik noted the “softness, lyricism, melodiousness, and openness of the paintings.” See the comparison with the “simple grey-brown coloring” of the painting Ceremonial Opening of the II Congress of the Communist International, which reflected “. . . history as it was: indifferent and cruel,” Bialik, 40.
25. Bialik, Isaak Brodskii, 41.
26. “Khudozhnik Brodskii,” video, 25:58, from the program Kul΄turnyi sloi televised by Piatyi kanal, posted on March 10, 2010, at www.5-tv.ru/video/503107/ (last accessed February 10, 2017).
27. Brodskii, Moi tvorcheskii put΄, 90.
28. See: Baberowski, Jörg, Der rote Terror: Geschichte des Stalinismus (Munich, 2003)Google Scholar; Baberowski, Verbrannte Erde: Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt (Munich, 2012); Baberowski, “Wandel und Terror: Die Sowjetunion unter Stalin 1928–1941,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 43, no. 1 (1995): 97–129; Cohen, Stephen F., “Stalin's Terror as Social History,” Russian Review 45, no. 4 (October 1986): 375–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Conquest, Robert, Der große Terror: Sowjetunion 1934–1938 (Munich, 1992)Google Scholar; Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (Oxford, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hildermeier, M., “Stalinismus und Terror,” Osteuropa 50, no. 6 (June 2000): 593–605 Google Scholar; Stefan Plaggenborg, Revolutionskultur; Plaggenborg, “Die wichtigsten Herangehensweisen an den Stalinismus in der westlichen Forschung,” in Stefan Plaggenborg, ed., Stalinismus: Neue Forschungen und Konzepte (Berlin, 1998), 13–33.
29. Heller, Leonid, “A World of Prettiness: Socialist Realism and Its Aesthetic Categories,” in Lahusen, Thomas and Dobrenko, Evgenii Aleksandrovich, eds., Socialist Realism without Shores, (Durham, 1997): 51–75 Google Scholar.
30. See I.A. Brodskii, Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii. In 1932, he was awarded the title of Honored Artist: between 1932 and 1939, he was a professor (and from 1934, the director) at the Russian Academy of Arts. In 1934, he was awarded the Order of Lenin on the 30th anniversary of his artistic début. In 1939, Brodskii was awarded the title “Doctor of Art Studies.”
31. Kul΄turnyi sloi, “Khudozhnik Brodskii.”
32. During the first years after the Revolution, he managed to gain the support of the new and the old elites: Maksim Gor΄kii, Anatolii Lunacharskii, Kliment Voroshilov, Sergei Kirov, and Iosif Stalin. These artist-patron relationships became the main protection for the painter: Brodskii, Moi tvorcheskii put΄, 120–27.
33. Ibid., 75.
34. I.A. Brodskii, Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii (Moscow, 1973), 222.
35. Filonov, Dnevnik, 112–13.
36. Ibid., 220.
37. Perel'man, V. N., “Borets za realisticheskoe iskusstvo,” in Brodskii, I.A. and Sokol΄nikov, M.P., eds., Pamiati I. I. Brodskogo: Vospominaniia, dokumenty, pis΄ma: K 75-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia, 1884–1959 (Leningrad, 1959), 105Google Scholar.
38. I.A. Brodskii, Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii (Moscow, 1973), 306.
39. Romanovskii, Akademizm, 377.
40. Kul΄turnyi sloi, “Khudozhnik Brodskii.”
41. “Naturalism with its slavish copying was alien to Brodskii's nature,” see Brodskii, Moi tvorcheskii put΄, 15.
42. Bialik, Isaak Brodskii, 42, 44; See Filonov, Dnevnik, 350.
43. See I. I. Brodskii, Krasnye pokhorony (1906), 122х219 cm, Memorial Apartment-Museum of I. I. Brodskii, St. Petersburg.
44. Andrei Sergeevich Epishin, “Tri portreta Aleksandra Kerenskogo,” in Istoricheskie, filosofskie, politicheskie i iuridicheskie nauki, kul΄turologiia i iskusstvovedenie. Voprosy teorii i praktiki, 2011, no. 7 (13), pt. 1: 31–34. Brodskii finished the portrait of Kerenskii in 1918. The cycle of paintings picturing the “progressive-minded people of Russia” was planned by the art patron and entrepreneur Pavel M. Tret΄iakov and implemented by Il΄ia Repin and Brodskii. Epishin wrote about the portrait painted by the latter: “In contrast to his earlier pre-revolutionary works, Brodskii completely rejects his rich decorative palette. The portrait is absolutely graphic . . . Brodskii's style can be characterized as a perfect and dispassionate reproduction of reality, which verges on a scrupulous naturalism that does not reflect the painter's attitude towards his model. On the other hand, Brodskii pictured Kerenskii in the way his contemporaries saw him . . . Kerenskii was playing the role of a strong personality, a leader. . . . This psychological game was pictured by Isaak Brodskii,” Epishin, Kul΄turologiia i iskusstvovedenie, 34.
45. See: Abolina, Raisa Iakovlevna, Obraz V. I. Lenina v izobrazitel΄nom iskusstve (Moscow, 1969)Google Scholar; Shefov, A. N., Obraz V. I. Lenina v sovetskom izobrazitel΄nom iskusstve (Leningrad, 1980)Google Scholar; Voronina, N., ed., V. I. Lenin v proizvedeniiakh sovetskikh khudozhnikov, 4th ed. (Moscow, 1962 [1960])Google Scholar.
46. Brodskii, Moi tvorcheskii put΄, 146.
47. Soviet photorealism.
48. I.A. Brodskii, Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii, 316.
49. Brodskii, Moi tvorcheskii put΄, 15; Abolina, Obraz V. I. Lenina v izobrazitel΄nom iskusstve, 22.
50. A. I. Laktionov, At Night. Portret I. I. Brodskogo, 1939, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; P. P. Belousov, Memory Teacher, 1939, Memorial Apartment-Museum of I. I. Brodskii, St. Petersburg. The painting depicts Isaak Brodskii as sick; the painter is Alexander Laktionov.
51. On the psychology of the portrait, see: Kobbert, Kunstpsychologie; Schindler, Zwischen Empfinden und denken; Schurian, Kunstpsychologie heute.
52. Art experts also draw attention to the socket located at the top of the painting as a symbol of the GOERLO (State Commission for Electrification of Russia) plan for electrifying Russia.
53. In the Soviet period, a method book for schoolteachers ordered them to explain to pupils that there was a piece of bread underneath the newspaper.
54. It is interesting to note that the tragic association of the red color with blood and numerous victims of the “Great Terror” has become prevalent in post-Soviet interpretations of Soviet art from the 1930s. See, for example: Romanovskii, Akademizm, 376.
55. Matthew 10:34. In the Christian tradition, these words of Jesus Christ are interpreted as the method by which the Saviour separated truth from falseness, wisdom from stupidity, good from bad, etc.
56. See the letter from Lenin to Dzerzhinskii from May 19, 1922, in which he urges the head of the Cheka to keep all the print media and published books under strict control. In particular, Lenin pointed to the newspaper Novaia Rossiia and the magazine The Economist, asking Dzerzhinskii to check the content and staff members of these media and, if needed, expel them. Lenin, V. I., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 55 vols. (Мoscow, 1975), 54:265–66Google Scholar.
57. V.Z. Nizamov, Lenin v Smol΄nom, 2007, 44 × 33 cm., primed cardboard, oil, in Internet-zhurnal Sergieva Posada, at www.sergiev.ru/node/3096 (last accessed February 15, 2017).
58. Müller, Jürgen, “‘Wie Rembrandt zum Erzieher wurde.’ Der Künstler als Objekt bürgerlicher Rezeptions- und Sammlungsansprüche,” in Marx, Barbara, ed., Sammeln als Institution: von der fürstlichen Wunderkammer zum Mäzenatentum des Staates (Munich, 2006), 231–38Google Scholar; Simmel, Georg, Rembrandt: ein kunstphilosophischer Versuch (Schutterwald, 1999)Google Scholar.
59. Brodskii, I.A., ed., Zamechatel΄nye polotna. Kniga dlia chteniia po istorii russkoi sovetskoi zhivopisi (Leningrad, 1964)Google Scholar, available online at painting.artyx.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000010/st018.shtml (last accessed February 15, 2017).
60. Bialik, Isaak Brodskii, 41.
61. See Volkov, Nikolai Nikolaevich, Tsvet v zhivopisi, 2nd ed. (Мoscow, 1984 [1965])Google Scholar.
62. Comparisons of the painting to pictures of the evangelists have appeared in the post-Soviet epoch: Romanovskii, Akademizm, 378.
63. The postures of Mark and Luke are identical to that of Lenin, see for example: Mark the Evangelist, a fragment of the King's Gate, the first third of the 16 th century, tempera on wood, in Vakhrina, Vera Ivanovna, Ikony Rostova Velikogo, 2nd ed. (Мoscow, 2006 [2003]), 120Google Scholar; Luke the Evangelist, a fragment of the Holy Doors, the third quarter of the 16 th century, tempera on wood, in Evseeva, Lilia Mikhailovna, ed., Icons of 13 th -16 th Centuries in the Collection of the Museum of Andrei Rublev (Мoscow, 2007), 502Google Scholar.
64. Dickerman, Leah, “Camera Obscura: Socialist Realism in the Shadow of Photography,” October, no. 93 (Summer 2000): 138–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, particularly 144, 146; Romanovskii, Akademizm v russkoi zhivopisi, 373.
65. Perel'man, “Borets za realisticheskoe iskusstvo,” 106. Perel΄man was an important figure in Moscow art society in the second half of the 1930s.
66. Manin, Iskusstvo i vlast΄, 329.
67. Ibid., 336–69.
68. I.A. Brodskii, Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii, 314–15.
69. See, for example, the portraits of Semen M. Budennyi (1929), Mikhail V. Frunze (1929), Kliment E. Voroshilov (1929, 1937), V. R. Menzhinskii (1932), Viacheslav M. Molotov (1933), Sergei M. Kirov (1934), Valerian V. Kuibyshev (1935), Andrei A. Zhdanov (1935), Lazar΄ M. Kaganovich (1935), Grigorii K. Ordzhonikidze (1936), and Iosif V. Stalin (1937).
70. Due to great popularity of Brodskii's paintings, a lot of copyists worked in his studio; this allowed the painter to become a wealthy man. In the 1930s, he financed the construction of a power plant in his native Sofievka in Crimea that cost more than 80,000 rubles. Filonov, Dnevnik, 344; Brodskii, Moi tvorcheskii put΄, 137.
71. For the student movement between 1899 and 1905, see: Morrissey, Susan K., Heralds of Revolution: Russian Students and the Mythologies of Radicalism (Oxford, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Konecny, Peter, Builders and Deserters: Students, State, and Community in Leningrad, 1917–1941 (Montreal, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Charles Clark writes in a review of the book: “. . . university students acted [state] as agents on their own behalf . . . the university witnessed the same kind of denunciation and reprisals as did other areas of society.” Students were “. . . ‘shock workers’ and denouncers of their comrades and professors.” Clark, Charles E., review of Konecny, Peter, Builders and Deserters: Students, State, and Community in Leningrad, 1917–1941 , Slavic Review 60, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 183 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
72. “Brodskii avoided taking part in disputes and debates related to art . . . and was looking for ways to resolve controversial issues in his studio in front of the easel.” Brodskii, Moi tvorcheskii put΄, 12; I. M. Solomin, “Na ‘chetvergakh’ u Brodskogo,” in Brodskii and Sokol΄nikov, eds., Pamiati I. I. Brodskogo, 71.
73. Perel΄man, “Borets za realisticheskoe iskusstvo,” 103. Perel΄man remembered: “The Formalists in Leningrad were very active and assertive. The struggle between the Leningrad Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia and the “leftists” was complicated by the position of some representatives of the youth, who were influenced by Filonov, Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin and Arvatov. Things even came to such a pitch that there were fights. The A. I. Kuindzhi Society headed by Brodskii was subject to especially severe and defamatory attacks. Punin, the well-known art expert and husband of Anna Akhmatova, was arrested on October 24, 1935 on “terrorism” charges, but he was released after Anna Akhmatova wrote a letter to Stalin. Despite this, he worked under the authority of Brodskii from 1933 to 1937 as academic secretary, and later, as head of painting, sculpture and graphics of the Russian Academy of Arts.” In I.A. Brodskii and M.P. Sokol΄nikov, eds., Pamiati I. I. Brodskogo, 103.
74. Pickhan, Gertrud, “‘Aufstand der Vierzehn’: 1863 als Schlüsseljahr für die bildende Kunst in Russland,” in Stadelmann, Matthias and Antipow, Lilia, eds., Schlüsseljahre: Zentrale Konstellationen der mittel - und osteuropäischen Geschichte: Festschrift für Helmut Altrichter zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 2011), 171–84Google Scholar.
75. Filonov, Dnevnik, 416.
76. Ibid., 418; see О. Leibovich, L., “Ispovedi, propovedi i razoblacheniia na partiinykh sobraniiakh 1936–1938 godov,” Vestnik Permskogo universiteta: Istoria, no. 3 (2015): 160–69Google Scholar, especially 161; Goldman, Vendi (Wendy) Z., Terror i demokratiia v epokhu Stalina: Sotsial΄naia dinamika repressii, trans. Sidikovaia, L.E. (Moscow, 2010), 314Google Scholar.
77. See Plamper, The Stalin Cult.
78. Brodskii, I.A., Isaak Izrailevich Brodskii (Moscow, 1956), 308Google Scholar.
79. I.N. Barsheva, Zhivopis΄, grafika, skul΄ptura, 8–9; Lev Lurye expressed the opinion that Brodski had left all his antiques to the state to avoid being prosecuted for purchasing them: see Kul΄turnyi sloi “Khudozhnik Brodskii.”
80. Bialik, Isaak Brodskii, 46.
81. Sadiraka, Eduard, “Lenin schreibt, Lenin spricht, Lenin hört zu: Die Darstellungen des Revolutionsführers wurden streng kontrolliert,” in Tabor, Jan, ed., Kunst und Diktatur, Architektur, Bildhauerei und Malerei in Österreich, Deutschland, Italien und der Sowjetunion, 1922–1956, 2vols. (Baden, 1994), 2:785Google Scholar. Brodskii's other portraits of the leader are: Lenin i manifestatsiia (1919); V. I. Lenin na fone demonstratsii (1924); V. I. Lenin na fone Kremlia (1924); Lenin na fone Smol΄nogo (1925); V. I. Lenin na fone Volkhovstroia (1926); V. I. Lenin na tribune (1927); V. I. Lenin na fone demonstratsii (1927); Vystuplenie V. I. Lenina na mitinge rabochikh Putilovskogo zavoda v mae 1917 g. (1929); Vystuplenie V. I. Lenina na provodakh chastei Krasnoi armii na Zapadnyi front 5.5.1920 (1933); V. I. Lenin na pervomaiskoi demonstratsii (1933). See: Kul΄turnyi sloi, “Khudozhnik Brodskii.”
82. Kul΄turnyi sloi, “Khudozhnik Brodskii.”
83. I am aware of this inevitably fragmentary nature of the present study, which is just in its initial stages. Of course, to build a complete picture it is necessary to employ additional sources: minutes of the meetings of the presidium of the USSR Academy of Arts, the epistolary heritage of I. I. Brodskii (see, for example, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), fond (f) 2020: Brodskii Isaak Izrailevich (1883–1939)—painter, opis’ (op.) 1, 2, 3; f. 2368, op. 1, delo (d.) 137; f. 2820, op. 1, d. 273: “Letters to I. I. Brodskii: L.P. Beriia (1935), to E.G. Neradovskaya [1930-е]”; materials in the biography (1924–1930) and others, available online at guides.rusarchives.ru/browse/guidebook.html?bid=144&sid=11572 (last accessed February 17, 2017).
84. Bialik, Isaak Brodskii, 41.
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