Ivan Khrutsky: Art in the Dialogue of Cultures

[SergeiSK]

In the Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinskiy lane in the Year of Culture of Belarus in the Russian Federation, opened the exhibition "John Khrutsky: Art in the dialogue of cultures", timed to 200 anniversary of a virtuoso painter of still lifes. In the first retrospective Khrutsky presented about thirty paintings from the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery and the National Art Museum of Belarus.

As long as we do celebrate the year of Russia-France, as a quietly came to an end coincided with the year of Russia-Belarus. It could go completely unnoticed and, if not an exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery: the role of ambassador of the Belarusian culture suddenly appeared Ivan Fomich Khrutsky (1810-1885), who was in Russia on account of Great Russian chauvinism is considered to be representative of the Russian school of painting.

The fact, however, there are some reasons: born in Vitebsk, and a Pole by birth, Khrutsky studied in St. Petersburg, initially believed to have the brilliant George Doe, who came to Russia to paint portraits for the Gallery of the Winter Palace and then at the Imperial Academy of Arts. About the successes in education at the exhibition show earned him academic medals and the title of "Flowers and fruits," "The old woman, knitting stockings," and "Portrait of an unknown with flowers and fruits." On many days spent in the Imperial Hermitage for copying, - "Cupids with garlands," a fantasy on the theme of Rubens "Statue of Ceres." All of these "flowers and fruits," "flowers and fruits," "fruits and melon," "battered game, vegetables and mushrooms, all of these wonderful" unknown "and handsome" old ladies with stockings, "he supplied to the market in commercial quantities. And in St. Petersburg, and after, when in mid-1840 returned home, bought an estate near Zaharnichi Polotsk and lived landowner. In the Tretyakov is a nice interior - the kind Zaharnichey, painted Khrutsky in 1855-m. Comfortable room, carpet, sofa with cushions, door open, and behind it can see a bright suite in one corner - a table with a samovar, at another - the son of a guitar beside - the daughter of curls on the walls - a violin and painting, copies of Bryullova , Bruni and Moller brushes himself master. Chichikov's dream - a triumph of Biedermeier. Khrutsky, as the exhibition was not faithful to one genre and, in still lifes, doing portraits, interiors and landscapes - all with a smooth, confident masterovitostyu. So that the eye touches each berry, spike, the wrinkle on the face and folds on a satin gown.

What is remembered in the name of "dialogue of cultures", are difficult to understand. If talking about the Polish-Belarusian roots Khrutsky, he, the son of the Uniate priest, received a Catholic upbringing in Polotsk top public-relations (ie the Order PR) College, made a number of really unusual for Russian school subjects. For example, a very expressive portraits of Greek-Catholic priests - the last metropolitan Unitarian Church of Jehoshaphat Bulgak, opposes forced conversions to Orthodoxy Uniates and priesthood Vikentiya Lisowski, confessor Metropolitan Lithuanian Joseph Semashko - that played a leading role in joining Unitarian Church to the Orthodox. Commissioned by Semashko Khrutsky painted landscapes Vilna Calvary (in the Catholic tradition - a pilgrimage route, the Cross): one of them, called "the holy place," was recently included in the Tretyakov Gallery. However, find out which religious and political views held artist sympathized with, say, Polish uprisings or, conversely, condemned those Uniates, who opposed the policies of Nicholas pravoslavizatsii, on retrospect, did not succeed.

If, however, refers to art school, the "dialogue of cultures" is here now and then strays from French to Nizhny Novgorod. Yes, the portrait of an unknown dandy with a checkered tie in 1842 Khrutsky suddenly rises to the heights of English Romanticism, forcing the recall of the Military Gallery of Doe. But in the other portraits he no more than a provincial master tropininskogo wing, and "Girl in a Blue Dress" mid-1840 and does look deeply archaic, as the opus of a nugget derbishirskogo beginning of the XVIII century, the London-style silyaschegosya master Van Dyck. Indeed, of all the wealth of the Imperial Hermitage Museum, which allowed him to copy, convinced archaist Khrutsky preferred Flemings. How clean and transparent in his grapes and currants, as fresh rose petals as the trembling glare in the glasses with a decanter, as the ham in rhyme begs to cabbages, as appetizing as much salivating flow, this gastronomic abundance shows that teacher, he chose Snyders. But the baroque edification here is no trace: if too gourmet Khrutsky stabbed a lemon, so not in order to remind of the impermanence of the world, but in order to put his slice in a glass of lemonade. And you think that such a connoisseur of home comfort, beautiful knick-knacks (of the same gray jug with relief dogs on the body and handle in the form of a fox, a repeating of the still life in Still Life) and good food could not sympathize with anything anti-government, much less the Polish uprisings.

That's because, apparently, he was an ideal figure for the Russian-Belarusian cultural diplomacy. French for the past year have shown us all the most avant-garde and progressive, from Picasso to "Fluxus", the Belarusians have exposed the artist deeply provincial and conservative. A contemporary of Courbet, he was not a stranger to the Western artistic values, only 200 years ago. And from today's achievements, according to still lifes and interiors, most of all appreciated what we now call the culture of consumption. He sat himself in Zaharnichah quietly, not stuck out. They say that in the era of Nicholas I, too, was a "conservative modernization." Khrutsky - her character.
Anna Tolstova
The newspaper Kommersant »№ 223 (4523) on 02.12.2010

[Wladzislaw]

Сообщение от SergeiSK

and a Pole by birth, Khrutsky

Folly, of course.
He was the ethnic Belarusian gentry origin, a significant portion of Representatives of the genus have traditionally been the Greek Catholic (Uniate) clergy.