Pavel Filonov

Conspicuously there is not much art by Russians in the Hermitage, this is primarily due to the creation of the Russian Museum in 1898 which exclusively houses work by artists born and bred there. The permanent collection is primarily 19^th Century heroic paintings about the manifest destiny of Mother Russia and early Modernist paintings by the “avant-garde” (see Kazemir Malevich and Nicholai Roerich). Russian ex-patriots are little represented (Kandinsky) or entirely absent (Chagall). There was also a big temporary exhibit of late Socialist Realism (1960s through the 1980s.)

Wandering around this museum, I stumbled into a totally black exhibition hall with a great density of paintings each of which hanging under a warm spotlight. In the background was an eerie music that added to the dramatic effect as much as it mildly distracted ones ability to take in the whole exhibition. This was from a wacky “music machine” which was essentially a pre WWI Futurist robot that, with a painting in it, generated sounds appropriate to the picture.

I was dumbfounded, and shortly there after began running back and forth through the exhibit trying to figure out who these paintings were by, there being no name on the placards. This was an exhibit of the majority of works by Pavel Filonov of which the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg holds almost all of due to a donation by the artist. I find these paintings stunning in visual impact and complexity.

He was primarily a teacher at the art academy and never received much recognition internationally due to a rather ascetic nature which led to him denying any attempt by foreign collectors to purchase his paintings (he lived on a meagre state pension most of his life) and a clamping down of the censors in the times of Stalin which marginalized his work as it was difficult to categorize in the emerging state definition of art. Throughout his life he pursued a somewhat singular project and artistic philosophy termed “Analytical Art” which seems to take some of its roots from analytical cubism but has the intensity turned up to an extreme and is much more encompassing and complex. The result is works primarily of oil on paper (that have since been relined on Whatman) with a lot of colour, minutely detailed compositions and spaces, filled with a fusion of entirely abstract forms with sometimes disturbing figures and heads. The overall effect is hypnotic and I found the work challenging by contemporary standards of painting, while he was cranking these out starting around 1910. Pavel Filonov died in 1941 of starvation during the Siege of Leningrad.

Other than a retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1989 it appears that Filonov is largely unknown and shut out of “The Official Art History Canon(tm)” which I think is regrettable. What is available in images and text in cyberspace is rather poor, but I highly suggest at least a casual glance at this artist if the opportunity arises.

Note: The only decent biography I was able to find on the internet (at the above link) appears to be experiencing technical difficulties. Here is a site with more images ( a little bit washed out), but atrocious translation and writing.
Link.