[Мира]

This morning the answer came from Valentina Borodina.
I asked and got a few hours of her permission to put this text on the forum. Now put the pieces here of two of her letters.


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You ".... I "gave" a sleepless night. I'm like a hunter, who feels a successful hunt for the beast, obsessed with the remainder of the previous day and night, leafing through the albums dedicated to the works by Kuzma Petrov-Vodin. And all day today writing this letter to you.'m pretty sure that it is not students (by the way, from information that is one of his students?), and the hand of the master. shoveled a lot of literature and documents in these hours. What I think about this piece ?

1. Figure, oval face, hands (not in vain gestures, and in prayer, slow) are very similar to the images of the master. I specifically made a compilation of those characters and put it next to the face of your movie that you saw yourself in the way he writes his nose (it brightened the middle part with a small hump), in which he writes frequently tilted his head, as places of paint on the face (as in the old icons afloat gradual lightening - from dark to light - creating volume). Have put you two options for persons with paintings by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin - in color and black and white (second I made in order to not confuse you color inconsistency, because the matter is that I scanned the work of the album, and no pictures of how you, the original, and color in the release is far from original, in addition, a reproduction of landscape does not pass the little texture "noise", which is in the original, and the resolution of the scanned reproductions are small. If I had compared the original paintings , then the effect would be, I assure you even more.

...... So, I think it almost certain that it was the painting "Women in Green", written in Paris in 1924-1925. On this picture, nobody knows but me. The whereabouts of her was still unknown. In any catalog of masters, it is not mentioned, but his notebook, where he tried living in Paris at that time, compile a list of his works over the years. He probably did so at the request of FF Notgafta - collectors who collect pictures of Petrov-Vodkin, helped him with their sale, with the publication of postcards with his work, in addition, it helped Notgaft A. Galushkin - author of the first monograph on the lifetime Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin in 1936 - make directory. He kept lists of the master and it was probably at his request, Petrov-Vodkin, in 1926 and made lists of their major works, written before 1926 (notebook kept by us). They, of course, far incomplete, sometimes it confuses the years of creating some work, but it is only the author's handwritten testimony. The line 1924-1925 in the list is a picture of "Girls on the green," probably refers to the background picture. I think that the painting was sold in Paris, the artist lived there with his family is difficult, judging by the mother's letter, sent by there. In favor of this particular version has a point: Pay attention, there is a girl on the neck rope (probably from a cross, which is hidden behind a cut dress). In Petrov-Vodkin, who was himself a deeply religious man, almost all represented before the revolution (to 1917), women in the paintings are depicted with crosses ("Mother" (1915), "Women on the Volga" (1915), "Morning. Bathers" (1917) and others). In "Morning. Bathers" he will represent the last time a boy and a girl background with crosses on his neck. Then will come other times, where such an image would be impossible - the fight against remnants of the past, the religion of atheism and other delights of the post-1917. You could I argue, because this girl is a cross! Yes! But it was in 1924, he was living in Paris, will make an exception for a woman in the film "Sleeping Child" (1924).
Now this picture is in the museum of Turkmenistan (Ashgabat). Probably, in France, he allowed himself to this "freedom." "Girls on the green" written at the same time, and perhaps self-censorship, and has not touched them. We do not know how many girls have been shown, probably two.
........... So, I put in writing some comparative photos: № 4. Photos from the reproductions in color with their heads in the following order: Your "Our Lady" (1922) from a private collection (detail), "muse" of the portrait of Anna Akhmatova (1922) Russ, "Two" (1917) of the Pskov museum; " Mother "(1926) from a private collection," Two Girls "(1916) watercolor, RM," Still Life. Flowers and a woman's head "(1921) Russ (head in the mirror image provided)," Motherhood "(1925) private collection.
№ 5 The same, but in black and white.
№ 3. Hands of the pictures: Your, "Petrograd Madonna" (1920) TG; "The Virgin of Tenderness of Evil Hearts" (1915) Russ, "Morning. Bathers "(1917) Russ.
№ 6. The texture of your pictures and "Mother" (1925) private collection.
I think that looking at the faces you too will be inclined to favor later dates (not the 1910s, and 1920s).
Even I put in a letter to a photo with the painting "Sleeping Child" (1924), written in Paris, where a woman has a cross on his neck (the only such image in the post-revolutionary period). "