Golden Fleece literary almanac. "The Golden Fleece

Autumn promised the golden word: “I will make you rich.” And Winter said: “As I want.” And Spring said: “Come on, come on, Winter.” And Spring has come. There's chaos everywhere. The sun is golden. Buttercup is golden. The river is silvery and playful with water. She was born in freedom, flooded the meadows, flooded the field, erased the banks. There,

In we talked about the literary and journalistic “thick magazines” of the 19th century, presented at the exhibition in ours. And today’s post we will devote to such an interesting phenomenon as magazines about art of the early 20th century, which are also stored in the collections of the library named after. Krupskaya.

The beginning of the 20th century is usually called the Silver Age of Russian culture. Residents of the entire vast country, including the Orenburg province, learned about the latest in poetry and prose, painting and graphics, music and theater from numerous magazines. Often, magazines had not only a thematic (musical, poetic, theatrical) but also a stylistic orientation, representing one of the numerous art movements of those years, be it symbolism, acmeism or futurism. Therefore, readers of that time had the opportunity to choose a publication to their liking, or read several at once, in order to create for themselves a complete picture of cultural life.

The magazine “Golden Fleece” attracts attention with its elaborate cover, which reveals its belonging to the symbolist movement. The “Golden Fleece” published works by K. Balmont, F. Sologub, L. Andreev, M. Voloshin and many other poets, who primarily belonged to the Symbolists and viewed creativity as a religious and mystical action.

The predecessor and sometimes opponent of the Golden Fleece was another Symbolist magazine called Libra. Its actual leader was Bryusov, and among the authors we can see the names of A. Blok, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, V. Rozanov.

The magazine "World of Art" consisted of two "departments" - artistic and literary. The art department presented works by the best Russian artists, including I. Repin, V. Vasnetsov, I. Levitan and many others. The literary department of the World of Art was the domain of the Symbolists. The same V. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky, V. Rozanov and other representatives of this direction were published in it.

The monthly illustrated magazine “Art and Art Industry”, published in St. Petersburg from 1898 to 1902, was dedicated to fine art in all its manifestations.

The magazine "Artist", despite its quite unambiguous name, was not only theatrical - it also published stories and articles on the topics of music and fine arts. On this moment it is the magazine “Artist” that is the main source for studying the theatrical art of Russia late XIX century.

From 1892 to 1915, the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters published the “Yearbook,” which was a kind of theatrical reference book in which all art connoisseurs could find out a list of plays performed in the imperial theaters, complete information about the productions and the actors involved in them. Due to the incomparable role that theater art played in the life of society at that time, theater magazines were very popular.

Musical Contemporary, headed by Rimsky-Korsakov, was one of the leading music magazines of the early 20th century. He gave primary importance to the work of domestic composers. Separate issues of the magazine were published entirely dedicated to Scriabin, Taneyev, Mussorgsky and other famous composers.

Of course, at the beginning of the 20th century, not everyone was a sophisticated aesthete and read exclusively poetry, theater and music magazines. There were publications aimed at a wider public. Among such publications, Niva magazine is especially noteworthy.

"Niva" is the most popular magazine of the early 20th century among the bourgeois and bourgeois public. Positioned as a “magazine of literature, politics and contemporary life.” Its circulation reached incredible sizes for that time - up to 275 thousand copies, while until the end of the 19th century, 1000 copies was considered a decent magazine circulation. The key to its popularity was its wide coverage of topics (literature, history, popular science essays, politics) and the abundance of illustrations, which not every magazine could afford in those years. Socio-political materials were presented in a “well-intentioned” spirit, which allowed radical progressives to accuse the magazine of inertia and philistinism. However, at the same time, Niva published such authors as A.K. Tolstoy, L.N. Tolstoy, F.I. Tyutchev, A.P. Chekhov and many other great writers.

Finally, we note that any publication at all times could not live without advertising:

In the next publication you will find the most interesting - Orenburg satirical magazines the beginning of the 20th century, don’t switch :))

Ida Goffman

"Golden Fleece" 1906–1909. At the origins of the Russian avant-garde

In the history of European culture there was short period, when the art magazine became, in its significance and role, more than just a printed publication, but turned into a vibrant cultural phenomenon that defined the era and shaped its artistic consciousness, its aesthetic ideal. Such a period was the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. Beginning in the mid-1890s, similar magazines appeared one after another in Paris, London, Berlin, and Munich. They contributed to the creation of a certain emotional atmosphere of the time. The Munich Jugend even gave its name to the artistic movement in European culture of that time - Jugendstil.

In Russia, such phenomena include the magazines “World of Art” and “Golden Fleece”. The latter was inextricably linked with the history of the community of young Moscow symbolist artists, headed by P. Kuznetsov. The magazine became material base This group, which with its help received complete freedom of action, was a printed organ and ideological center that united and rallied the community and contributed to the establishment of the aesthetic principles of symbolism. It was “Golden Fleece” that in 1907 organized the famous Moscow exhibition “Blue Rose”, which gave its name to Russian symbolism in the fine arts of the 1900s. Through the efforts of the Golden Fleece, “Goluborozovism” turned into an epoch-making artistic phenomenon that set the tone and determined the style of the time.

Following the “Blue Rose”, as a continuation of its activities, the magazine organized joint performances by Russian and French artists of new and contemporary movements - in Moscow in 1908–1909, three unique in scale and composition of participants of the exhibition called “Golden Fleece” took place, playing a fateful role in the history of Russian art of the twentieth century and gave a powerful impetus to the development of the Russian avant-garde movement.

However, “The Golden Fleece” not only did not receive proper appreciation in Soviet art history, but like everything connected with symbolism in general and the “Blue Rose” in particular, it was branded as a harmful phenomenon and alien to the new ideology. The magazine was declared “bourgeois”, decadent, due to which it ended up in the “dustbin of history” and was classified as banned in Soviet years publications

Today, no one has any doubts about the historical regularity of this phenomenon, about the importance and significance of its role in Russian culture of the twentieth century, and, naturally, the need arose for its study and research. In 2007, the first large monograph devoted to this topic was published (see: I. Hoffman. The Golden Fleece. Magazine. Exhibitions 1906–1909. M., 2007).

The exhibition organized by the Tretyakov Gallery in the spring of 2008, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the first joint Russian-French exhibition “The Salon of the Golden Fleece,” presented this phenomenon in its diverse manifestations to a wide audience for the first time.

The magazine “Golden Fleece” began publishing in Moscow in January 1906. Its editor-publisher was Nikolai Ryabushinsky. The new publication was conceived and formed as a continuation of the St. Petersburg “World of Art”, which had already completed its activities in 1904. The need for an art magazine that would take on the role of an ideological center in the struggle between the rapidly emerging new and the inertia that was still firmly defending its positions was especially acute at that moment. Moscow then actively began to emerge as an artistic center of Russian art.

Unlike the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, which by that time had turned into a musty conservative institution, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where Valentin Serov came as the head of the full-scale class in 1897, and after him Isaac Levitan, Konstantin Korovin, Paolo Trubetskoy, was experiencing genuine renewal. The spirit of freedom fostered here contributed to the activation of the creative powers of Moscow artists, their bold innovation while maintaining among Muscovites a heightened sense of “groundedness”, deep intercom with national traditions.

When designing a new magazine, Ryabushinsky was guided by the activities of Sergei Diaghilev and the tasks that he set when organizing the World of Art, formulated by him in a letter of 1897 to A. Benois. Diaghilev wrote: “….I am designing a magazine in which I think to unite our entire artistic life, i.e. put true painting in illustrations, say frankly what I think in articles, then, on behalf of the magazine, organize a series of annual exhibitions...” (Benoit A. The Emergence of “The World of Art”. L., 1928. P.27). The World of Art began publication in 1899. The article “Complex Questions,” which preceded the first two books of the magazine, set out new aesthetic principles. They proclaimed the autonomy of art and freedom of creativity, and affirmed the priority of the personality of the creator. The purpose of artistic criticism was formulated as the “celebration” of any new manifestation of talent. One of the most important tasks of the magazine was the cultivation of broad knowledge.

“The Golden Fleece” entered the arena of the struggle for new aesthetic principles seven years after the release of the first issues of “World of Art”. This was the peak of the Russian revolution. Just before the magazine appeared in Moscow, in December 1905, the authorities brutally suppressed the Moscow armed uprising. The Golden Fleece, unlike the World of Art, set out its principles in the spirit of revolutionary times - in the form of a manifesto printed in gold letters on the pages of the first issue. It said: “In a terrible time, we set out. Renewing life is boiling all around in a mad whirlpool.<…>We sympathize with everyone who works to renew life, we do not deny any of the tasks of our time, but we firmly believe that it is impossible to live without Beauty, together with free institutions, we must win for our descendants free, bright, sunlit creativity<…>And in the name of the same new future life, we, seekers of the golden fleece, unfurl our banner: Art is eternal<…>, Art is one<…>, Art is symbolic<…>, Art - free<…>».

The name of the new magazine was chosen with meaning. Its idea had recently been outlined by the then young poet and symbolist theorist Andrei Bely in his story “The Argonauts,” where the search for freedom of young Russian idealists, vague in the spirit of symbolist imagery, found expression. Bely called on Humanity, “loving freedom,” to leave the Earth, which had become unbearable for free people, and fly “into the blue ether,” towards the Sun. The story even contained a specific departure plan. The main character of the story, “a great writer who went after the Sun like an Argonaut after the fleece,” says: “I will publish the magazine “Golden Fleece.” My collaborators will be the Argonauts, and my banner will be the Sun. With a popular exposition of the fundamentals of sunshine I will set hearts on fire. I will bring gilding to the whole world. Let’s drown in the liquid sun” (Bely A. Argonauts // Bely A. Symphonies. L., 1991. P. 450-455).

The dream of creating such a beacon magazine was tempting and beautiful. But the publisher of the new magazine that actually emerged, Nikolai Ryabushinsky, turned out to be not a “great writer”, but came from a wealthy Moscow merchant class. He was the son of the famous millionaire Pavel Mikhailovich Ryabushinsky, among whose thirteen children there were many bright personalities involved in Russian culture and science. Young Nikolai was considered the most unlucky and reckless among them. Not feeling any inclination towards commercial and industrial business, he, having received his share of the inheritance, plunged headlong into art. Nikolai did not have a systematic artistic or any other education, but he actively and successfully educated himself - he was engaged in drawing and painting, wrote poetry, stories and articles on art, traveled to various exotic countries, and collected works of art. The attitude towards him among Russian intellectuals was very skeptical. His personality did not inspire confidence that he would take up his cause and be able to turn the sublime symbolist dream into reality. This circumstance added urgency and tension to the situation around the Golden Fleece.

The decision of the still very young, then 29-year-old Ryabushinsky to become the editor-publisher of a serious publication that was so necessary for Russian culture at that time was perceived by many as another whim of a rich merchant, a “golden bag”, wasting money, who also wanted Sergei Diaghilev’s laurels. There was a mood of complete distrust around him and his activities in the magazine. The artist I. Ostroukhov reported in January 1906 in a letter to P.M. Tretyakov’s daughter A.P. Botkina in St. Petersburg: “We have a new magazine - “Golden Fleece” - all scraps from the “World of Art”. I think that nothing good will come of it…” (OR Tretyakov Gallery. F. 48/441. L.1ob.).

The appearance of the first issues of The Golden Fleece was accompanied by critical attacks, ironic remarks, teasing, and sometimes rude abuse. Articles of this kind signed “Comrade Herman” were published in the second and fifth issues of “Vesi” for 1906. A truly “stuffy” atmosphere was created around the new magazine, and this was done by people from the closest circle, the participants of the new publication themselves.

Now it’s even difficult to imagine how, despite all this, they managed to create the “Golden Fleece” and make the magazine what it became, according to full program, turning it into a bright phenomenon of Russian culture. This could only be possible by a large personality who had many positive qualities- organizational and diplomatic talent, strong will, understanding of tasks, and, most importantly, knowledge of the matter and confidence in the importance of the undertaking for the fate of national culture.

Ryabushinsky quite consciously took this patriotic step - the results obtained allow us to draw such a conclusion. He was undoubtedly an extraordinary person, perhaps complex, confused, but at the same time marked by God. Even his ill-wishers understood this, who, among the long series of his negative qualities, found something worthy in him and remembered him with a kind word.

Thus, the poet Vladislav Khodasevich, who did not spare unflattering words to characterize Nikolai Ryabushinsky, nevertheless noted that he “was far from stupid” and “attracted people to himself with some kind of natural talent” (Khodasevich V.F. About patrons of the arts // Khodasevich V. .F. Collected works in 4 vols. T. 4. P. 330). And another famous contemporary, Prince Sergei Shcherbatov, confidently stated that Ryabushinsky had “some kind of chaotic, but undoubted talent” (Shcherbatov S. The Artist in Bygone Russia. New York, 1955. P.41).

Apparently, Nikolai was indeed chaotic and not without the habits inherent in the Russian merchants, which so shocked intellectuals. However, fortunately for Russian culture, the energy of the “naughty” Ryabushinsky was directed in the right direction in time. In 1906, he joined a group of innovative youth and became a member of the creative community of Moscow Symbolist artists, headed by Pavel Kuznetsov, a group that by that time had already fully developed creatively and was in dire need of material and ideological support. And she appeared along with Ryabushinsky. If he had not appeared at that moment, probably neither “Blue Rose” nor what followed in Russian art would have happened.

Published in January 1906, the first issue of The Golden Fleece, large, beautiful, shining with gold, as if filled with sunlight, was supposed to amaze, delight, lift the spirit, and instill hope. The birth of the magazine under the flag of the Sun symbolized the Rising of a new Life. The sun rose to dispel the darkness of the Night into which Russia was then plunged. The new publication aimed to unite on its pages the entire artistic life, focusing on the most striking and noteworthy phenomena, and according to the idea of ​​A. Bely, a “popular presentation of the foundations of sunshine,” which meant the idea of ​​symbolism as a new and most advanced trend in the culture of the twentieth century “ignite the hearts” of readers.

The life of the “Golden Fleece” began with the presentation of the founder of Russian artistic symbolism, Mikhail Vrubel. The first January issue of 1906 opened with a display of his works. The artist remained misunderstood by his contemporaries for a long time. But for the young Moscow Symbolists he was an idol, their era, the embodiment of the Symbolist idea itself, a kind of spiritual guide. Vrubel became a kind of tuning fork for the Golden Fleece, the high note to which the magazine set itself. The personality of this celestial artist determined the course taken by the “Golden Fleece” and overshadowed his entire subsequent journey until the very end.

In each issue, the magazine introduced readers to the most significant phenomena in its view of the modern artistic life of the country, often not yet understood and not fully appreciated until then. Thus, the third issue was dedicated to Viktor Borisov-Musatov, another, along with Vrubel, founder of Russian pictorial symbolism, who was for Moscow innovators not only a guiding star, beautiful but distant, like Vrubel, but a living reality - their friend, mentor, Teacher . This publication of “The Golden Fleece” played a crucial role in the formation of a correct historical assessment of the creative personality of Borisov-Musatov and in understanding his role in the history of art of the twentieth century.

The opportunity for personal display on the pages of the “Golden Fleece” was given to many leading masters of the “World of Art” - K. Somov, L. Bakst, A. Benois, E. Lancer. A large number of their works were published here and their portraits and self-portraits specially commissioned by Ryabushinsky for the magazine were placed - this is how the large portrait gallery of the “Golden Fleece” arose. The show was accompanied by articles about the artist or dedications to him. M. Nesterov, N. Roerich, K. Bogaevsky are represented in the “Golden Fleece” with the same dignity and with the same reverence. Of the young Moscow innovators, only P. Kuznetsov was awarded such attention.

At the same time, the magazine sought not only to develop broad knowledge in the reader, but set itself the task of cultivating artistic taste among a wide range of the reading public, and not only Russian - for the first six months, “Golden Fleece” was published in two languages ​​- Russian and French, and was focused to eleven largest cities in Russia, Europe and America. In the new journal, not only what is published becomes important, but also how it is done.

The illustrations in “The Golden Fleece” are for the most part large-format, covering the entire page of a sheet of excellent quality paper, are not interrupted by text and are placed with a certain meaning. Thus, the comparison of Vrubel’s self-portraits with the faces of his “Prophets”, “Seraphims”, “Demons” emphasizes the divine nature of Vrubel’s gift, his chosenness. Sheets depicting works by Borisov-Musatov give rise to a feeling of a gentle lyrical melody. A big role in them is played by light backgrounds, on which the melodious flowing lines of Musatov’s compositions and the gentle intonations of his color harmonies are clearly revealed. In the material about Roerich, on the contrary, white serves to enhance the depth of the gloomy black tones dominant in many of the artist’s works of this time.

The magazine directs readers' attention to the fact that different types fine arts require a different approach to their perception and consideration. For example, two sculptural groups of Somov are presented on the pages of “Rune” in four and six projections, from different sides, on different backgrounds. One can feel the magazine's special interest in the specifics of graphics, which are most organic in nature to a printed publication. The grace and subtlety of the line and the beauty of the black spot of the silhouette Somov graphics are brilliantly shown here; One can appreciate, from the magazine's reproductions, the beauty and rationality of Lanceray's drawings, the classical clarity of Bakst's graphic style, or the charm and freedom of his sketches from nature. The decorative design of the magazine itself is magnificent - numerous headpieces, endings, section title pages, made mainly by the largest masters of the World of Art and Blue Rose.

A new undertaking of the “Golden Fleece” was the organization of a publishing house under the magazine, which published books by authors close to its circle. It appeared in mid-1906. The first sign was Balmont’s poetry collection “Evil Spells,” which was immediately banned by censorship. During its existence, the publishing house “Golden Fleece” published a book of stories by A. Remizov, collections of poems by F. Sologub and A. Blok, a novel by the Polish writer S. Przybyshevsky, a story by the editor-publisher of the magazine called “Confession”. But the most significant and valuable publication of the “Golden Fleece” was the illustrated “Essays on the History of Russian Art” by Professor A. Uspensky. The publishing house undoubtedly contributed to expanding the range of ideological influence of the magazine on the reader. Russian society. Its organization was a well-organized matter, giving a certain weight to the activities of the Golden Fleece.

The new magazine picked up and successfully continued another very important initiative of the World of Art - the popularization of the national artistic heritage. Every year he dedicated a large built room to this. The topic of the first publication of this kind was ancient Russian art. This publication contains about 70 illustrations, the material is grouped into five sections, covering in different aspects different types and forms of ancient Russian art. The titles of the sections are as follows: Icon painting in Russia until the second half of the 17th century; Frescoes of the porch of the Annunciation Cathedral in Moscow; The influence of foreign artists on Russian art in the second half of the 17th century; Painter Vasily Poznansky; Russian genre of the 17th century. Each section is preceded by an article by the largest researcher of ancient Russian art of that time, Professor A.I. Uspensky.

This was the first attempt at scientific popularization of ancient Russian art. The significance of this publication cannot be overestimated. For the first time, an unknown layer of Russian artistic culture, a new world of highly spiritual national creativity, was revealed to the wide reading masses. And, of course, the importance of this action for artistic youth at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is invaluable. The discovery of ancient Russian art as a powerful source of aesthetic and spiritual influence played a huge role in guiding the searches of young Russian artists and the formation of the principles of the Russian avant-garde.

In the next year, 1907, the most significant piece of heritage was the material on the topic “A.G. Venetsianov and his school”, in 1908 - the work of the artist Nikolai Ge as the best representative of the highly moral tradition of the Wanderers. The Golden Fleece celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Ivanov with the remarkable publication of the artist’s drawings and watercolors, which are inaccessible to the general public, accompanied by an article by V. Rozanov.

Over the four years of operation, the magazine has introduced the reader to a wealth of materials on the heritage section. Among them: a collection of antique furniture by Count A.V. Olsufiev, exhibits of Polish art from the Vilna collection of the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow, a collection of miniatures from the Imperial Hermitage; Persian painting of the 16th century; a collection of bone carvings from Kholmogory and Yakut work of the 18th and 19th centuries; materials of the Face Apocalypse of Pomeranian writing of the 18th century, the work of artists Fyodor Tolstoy, Yakov Kapkov, A. Monticelli and others.

But with all the attention to the art of the past, the new magazine was primarily aimed at the future. Considering itself responsible for the fate of Russian culture, the Golden Fleece joined the struggle for its restructuring. On the pages of the magazine, issues of improving art education are hotly discussed, government organization and leadership of art, while the role of the artist in the life of a renewed free society was considered as leading. Referred to by Soviet critics as “apolitical,” the magazine, upon closer examination, turns out to be the living embodiment of its time. This luxurious, shining gold magazine, like no other publication, now allows you to really feel the complexity of that tragic moment in Russian history. On the pages of The Golden Fleece both the emotional social upsurge of these years and the harsh truth of reality were vividly expressed; inspiring utopian hopes and a heavy feeling of hopelessness and complete despair. At the same time, one cannot help but notice the magazine’s frank pro-revolutionary sentiment.

From the second year of publication, continuing to remain literary and critical, expanding the music department, “Golden Fleece” increasingly concentrated attention on the fine arts, defining itself as an art magazine and in every possible way promoting the development of the principles of symbolism in it and the popularization of these principles as the most progressive in the general consciousness .

Art exhibitions have been the focus of the Golden Fleece from the very beginning. Reviews of exhibitions in the magazine always contained an extensive display of exhibits and were usually accompanied by a serious analysis of the processes taking place in contemporary art. Thus, in several issues the World of Art exhibition of 1906, organized by Diaghilev, was subjected to strict discussion, which became epoch-making in its significance. It openly exposed the already emerging and increasingly growing contradictions between the group of Moscow symbolists and the St. Petersburg retrospectivists. After this exhibition there was no longer any doubt that these art groups are by no means fellow travelers in their search for new paths in art. Own exhibition activities have become a necessity for the Golden Fleece. And it began brilliantly with the organization of the Blue Rose exhibition in Moscow in 1907.

Artist Sergei Vinogradov recalled: “The first exhibition of the Blue Rose was a sensation in the Moscow art world. And it was arranged with such exceptional sophistication and beauty that nothing like it had ever been seen before” (Vinogradov S. About the exhibition “Blue Rose”, the talent of N.P. Ryabushinsky and the “Festival of Roses” in his Kuchina // Vinogradov S. Former Moscow. Riga , 2001. P.143).

A special issue of “The Golden Fleece” was dedicated to the presentation of the “Blue Rose” and the analysis of the problems associated with its activities, designed by the participants of the exhibition themselves in a manner characteristic of their style. The magazine convincingly, seriously and with great taste presented the exhibition to readers and, what is especially valuable and important, at the same time, in an article by Sergei Makovsky, was able to give a correct historical assessment of the phenomenon, which from that moment finally acquired its name and status. "Blue Rose" embodied and expressed the aesthetic principles of symbolism in fine art. Freed from the tasks of directly reflecting the surrounding world, art in the work of these masters came to the expression of intangible categories - images of the subconscious: emotions, feelings, sensations - and came closer to the principles of musical creativity. Goluborozov's painting, like music, is based on rhythm, emotional expressiveness of line, and subtle color intonation. But, having become the pinnacle of Russian symbolism of the 1900s, “Blue Rose” also exposed the big problems that this artistic movement faced. There was nowhere to follow this path further; plastic art, material in nature, faced the problem of dissolution, disappearance. It was necessary to find means to return him to his nature, without changing the main aesthetic principles of symbolism. The new tasks facing Russian art in a certain way clarified the new course of the magazine in this regard. The direction of the search for the “Golden Fleece” of 1908–1909 was quite clearly formulated by one of the members of the Goluborozov community, the artist V. Milioti, and published in the magazine.

“And if Russian art wants to become necessary for Russian culture,” said this publication, “it must partake of that great spiritual depth, vigor and faith that the first teachers of the Peredvizhniki left us as a testament, and absorb the conquests of the great picturesque West, seeking new forms for renewed internal experiences" (Milioti V. Forgotten Testaments // Golden Fleece. 1909. No. 4. P. V).

The task of “absorbing the conquests of the great picturesque West” became decisive in the activities of the Golden Fleece over the next two years. The importance of creative contacts between contemporary Russian and European artists was very well understood by Diaghilev. He considered such contact to be the key to the successful development of Russian art. “We need to push with that gigantic power that is so inherent in Russian talent,” he said, “<…>we must become not accidental, but permanent participants in the course of universal art. This solidarity is necessary. It should be expressed both in the form of active participation in the life of Europe, and in the form of attracting this European art to us; We cannot do without it - this is the only guarantee of progress and the only rebuff to the routine that has shackled our painting for so long" (S. Diaghilev. European exhibitions and Russian artists // Sergei Diaghilev and Russian art. In 2 vols. T.1. M., 1982 pp. 56, 57).

Diaghilev’s activities have always been an example for Ryabushinsky, which he followed, trying to implement many of his plans. The idea of ​​Russian-French creative contacts was historically conditioned and logical at that moment, and simply life-saving for Russian art. And if Diaghilev took the first big step in this direction, then Ryabushinsky, remembering that this is “the only guarantee of progress and the only resistance to routine,” brought Diaghilev’s idea itself to its logical conclusion - it was he who “cut through” the desired “window” for Russian fine art to Europe".

The magazine planned to organize a joint performance of Russian and French contemporary artists in Moscow at an exhibition called “The Salon of the Golden Fleece,” the opening of which was supposed to coincide with the anniversary of the “Blue Rose” - March 18, 1908. In theory, the Goluborozovites were supposed to unite with the best Russian artists, primarily with a group of masters from the World of Art, in order to demonstrate, in comparison with the French, the achievements of the new Russian school of painting. The goals and objectives of the plan were outlined in detail in the introductory article to the catalog (but this was the second exhibition of the “Golden Fleece”, since due to organizational troubles they did not have time to do this in time - the catalog of the first exhibition was published without an introductory article).

“In inviting French artists to participate in the exhibition,” the article says, “the Golden Fleece group pursued a dual goal: on the one hand, by comparing Russian and Western quests, to more clearly illuminate the features of the development of young Russian painting and its new tasks; on the other hand, to emphasize the features of development common to Russian and Western art, because Despite all the differences in national psychologies (the French are more sensualists, Russian artists have more spirituality), the new quests of young art have some common psychological foundations. Here - the overcoming of aestheticism and historicism, there - a reaction against neo-academicism, into which impressionism had degenerated. If the founders of this movement in France were Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, then the first impetus in Russia was given by Vrubel and Borisov-Musatov" (Catalog of the exhibition of paintings "The Golden Fleece". M., 1909).

Due to the negative attitude among Russian intellectuals towards Ryabushinsky and his grandiose plans, the exhibition was on the verge of collapse. However, despite all the seemingly insurmountable and, it seems, well-coordinated obstacles, he managed to carry out his plan, although somewhat later than planned and not quite in the form he had initially envisioned. On April 5, 1908, in Moscow, in the Khludov house - on the corner of Rozhdestvenka and Teatralny Proezd - the exhibition “Salon of the Golden Fleece”, unprecedented in its scope and significance in the history of Russian art of the twentieth century, opened.

This was the first such representative display of new French art outside France, which at that time did not yet have wide recognition even in Paris itself, not to mention other European cities. Only two years later an exhibition of French impressionism took place in London. The Salon was supposed to introduce the Russian audience to the entire spectrum of French artistic movements at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Over fifty major French masters were presented at the exhibition in Moscow. About 250 works of painting, sculpture and graphics were demonstrated. Among them are the impressionists - Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, and post-impressionists - Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec; Symbolists of the Nabi group: Denis, Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel. Along with them, works by artists of the newest artistic movements that were just establishing themselves in France, such as Fauvism - Matisse, Derain, Van Dongen, Marche, Rouault, were also selected for display; and even cubism, which was barely emerging at that time, one of the brightest representatives of which was Georges Braque, who sent five of his works to Moscow. All this could not fail to make a stunning impression on the Moscow public. The exhibition had a huge resonance.

The magazine organized a full and comprehensive presentation of the exhibition on its pages, carried out a broad campaign to popularize French art, paying great attention to the analysis of common problems that then faced representatives of both art schools. The extensive visual material was accompanied by three detailed articles on French art: M. Voloshin “Aspirations of new French painting (Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin)”, C. Maurice “New trends in French art” and G. Tasteven “Impressionism and new quests”.

In January 1909, the second exhibition organized by the magazine opened, it was called “Golden Fleece”. This exhibition continued the tradition of common creative meetings with the French, begun by the Salon, and to a large extent restored the prestige of Russian art, as if thereby proving that there are very real grounds for creative cooperation between these two national schools. The second exhibition featured 16 (according to Goluborozov’s tradition) Russian artists and 10 French artists. This time the exhibition and catalog were not divided into national departments. It seems that this point was undoubtedly taken into account. The ratio of exhibits in terms of quantity was also thought out - Russian artists presented 111 works, the French - 44.

The “Golden Fleece” group included eight Goluborozovites - P. Kuznetsov, Utkin, Matveev, V. Milioti, Saryan, Knabe, Ryabushinsky, Fonvizin, as well as N. Goncharova, M. Larionov, N. Ulyanov and K. Petrov-Vodkin. This time the Impressionists were not represented at all among the French masters. Preference was given to artists of the latest trends - J. Braque, A. Derain, C. Van Dongen, A. Marquet, G. Matisse, J. Rouault, M. Vlaminck and others took part in the exhibition.

The exhibition was an even greater success among collectors, art lovers and the general public than the first. In a shorter period - it was on display for only one month, until February 15 - two thousand more people visited it. At the vernissage, as reported in the magazine, about 700 guests were present. 20 works by Russian masters and 3 French works were purchased from the exhibition - two paintings by J. Rouault and one by Van Dongen. This testified to the beginning of the revival of new Russian painting, to the emerging interest in it - direct contacts with the French and the active educational activities of “Rune” in this direction were not in vain.

A double issue of the magazine is devoted to reviewing the exhibition, in which 44 reproductions of paintings by Russian and French artists and five photographs of the exhibition halls are published.

The accompanying article provides an analysis of the state of French and Russian art at that time and puts forward primary tasks, which are formulated as follows: “in the philosophical sphere - overcoming subjectivism through realistic symbolism; in the field of painting - synthetic method<…>"(Empiricist. A few words about the exhibition of the Golden Fleece" // 1909. No. 2-3. P. 1-111).

The last exhibition of the magazine opened at the end of the same 1909 and continued throughout January of the following 1910, when the Golden Fleece officially ended its activities. In this regard, it was not reflected on the pages of the magazine. According to contemporaries, the third exhibition was quite successful and was also of undoubted interest. It was already significantly different from the first two. Only Russian artists participated in it. Perhaps the reason for this was the material side. But by that time the very need for contacts between Russian masters and the French had largely disappeared. The role of the “Golden Fleece” was essentially played out. The basis of the third exhibition, which determined its face, was made up of members of the Golden Fleece group that had been established by that time, which included Goluborozovites - P. Kuznetsov, Utkin, Knabe, Saryan, Ryabushinsky, as well as Larionov and Goncharova. Almost each of them demonstrated 10 or more works; Larionov was especially active - he staged 22 works. Among the exhibitors were also N. Ulyanov, N. Tarkhov, A. Karev. But what is especially important to note is that new young avant-garde artists joined the gold-fleece group at the third exhibition - Ilya Mashkov, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Alexander Kuprin, Robert Falk. Soon - at the end of 1910 - these artists, together with Larionov, Goncharova, Aristarkh Lentulov, Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, acted independently as a new avant-garde association, calling itself “Jack of Diamonds”. This group of Russian painters also experienced beneficial French influences at the Golden Fleece exhibitions. Unlike the Goluborozites, they were more attracted by the powerful “thingness” of Cezanne’s art. Having originated in the bosom of Goluborozov’s innovation, the Russian avant-garde from that time “broke away” from the “Blue Rose” and began its independent, unstoppable movement forward. “Blue Rose” and “Golden Fleece” were his breeding ground, gave him an impulse, a push. But at the same time, “Rose” itself, having seriously reconstructed itself under the influence of the French, chose its own special path of development, which also turned out to be quite modern and artistically convincing in the work of its outstanding masters, taking its rightful place next to the Russian avant-garde movement.

The magazine completed its activities, having honorably completed all the tasks set for itself and becoming a striking phenomenon of its time. He left with dignity. The Editorial Board’s farewell message said: “Now parting with our readers, we do not feel tired at all. Neither the constant struggle that we have been waging for more than three years for the future of art that is dear to us, nor the enormous technical difficulties of printing the art department, nor the systematic confiscation of our issues and publications by the censor, nor the indifference and campaigns of newspaper criticism have shaken our energy. But now we clearly feel that the trends that we defended both in the field of literature and in the field of painting have already become sufficiently strong and expressed to develop independently, and that the “Golden Fleece” in this regard has already fulfilled its mission... Completing our four-year work , we leave with the calm confidence that nothing can drown out and destroy those artistic principles for which the “Golden Fleece” fought (Editor’s note // No. 11-12. P. 107).

The editors left the right to sum up the journal’s activities to us, our descendants, believing “that an objective assessment of what has been achieved and what has not been achieved<…>belongs only to the future” (Ibid.). Indeed, in a hundred-year perspective, everything acquires its true value, cleared of the random and petty, which in the heat of struggle sometimes came to the fore.

The phenomenon, which went down in the history of Russian culture of the twentieth century under the name “Golden Fleece,” played a truly fateful role in it. At a time when Russian art was looking for opportunities to use the powerful forces that were roaming within it and were about to break out, the “Golden Fleece”, becoming the ideological center of Russian art that formed the artistic consciousness of the era, having historically accurately comprehended and assessed what was happening, directed this energy into the right direction and provided active and comprehensive assistance to its free manifestation. A new generation of Russian artists, having gained confidence in their abilities, taking cues from the great French innovators, rushed along this path with such Russian daring and scope that they soon found themselves ahead of those whom they were initially catching up with, and, in turn, took them after them to new, even bolder discoveries. And indeed, nothing could then “muffle and destroy those artistic principles for which the Golden Fleece fought.”

One can only be amazed at the strategies and tactics unmistakably chosen by the magazine, revealing the subtle intuition and sense of deep historicism of its Editorial Board. A hundred years ago, “The Golden Fleece” contributed to the formation in the Russian cultural environment of such artistic thinking and understanding of the historical value of the most important phenomena of European and Russian art of the early twentieth century, which, in essence, has not changed to this day. Time judged in favor of the Golden Fleece.

Having arisen on the basis of the experience of the World of Art, and worthily continuing its cultural and educational mission, the new magazine managed to rise to the next, higher level of artistic vision. Unlike his predecessors, the “retrospective dreamers”, whose interests were directed towards the culture of past eras and who saw the salvation of Russian art from destruction precisely in turning to the past, all the activities of “Rune” were aimed at the Future. Even issues of tradition and heritage, which also occupied a lot of space in The Golden Fleece, were interpreted by him in terms of the importance of this or that artistic phenomenon in the past for the formation of the principles of future art

Naturally, the question arises, who exactly determined the strategy and tactics of the “Golden Fleece”, which so accurately hit the very “bullseye” of the task almost every time? Who directed the activities of the magazine, the rationality of which is now confirmed by history itself? Who made decisions, one more important and riskier than the other, and brought them to a brilliant result?

Attempts to find Ryabushinsky’s main “advisers” have been made repeatedly and are still being made to this day, but all of them are unconvincing and unsuccessful. Of course, the publisher’s plans were widely discussed, and cultural figures associated with Run undoubtedly contributed to the implementation of the magazine’s projects. However, there is no doubt that the activities of the “Golden Fleece” as the leading art magazine at this historical stage in general and its actions in this field in each individual case were determined and carried out by none other than Nikolai Ryabushinsky himself - he took all decisions on myself. Such was his nature, such was the scale of his personality. The facts themselves indicate that it was he who invented, planned, organized, invited participation, traveled everywhere and persuaded; he selected for exhibitions the works of great and little-known, then not yet recognized, but promising, in his opinion, masters; It was he who ordered portraits of those figures whom he considered the most worthy, and, as time has shown, he never made a mistake in choosing a name; and he financed everything, not pursuing any material benefit for himself, but having only expenses that were exorbitant even with his wealth. This was truly his patriotic feat, and it was his victory.

Ryabushinsky, as already noted, built his life on Diaghilev, whose beginnings he successfully and worthily continued. He himself had a strong and bright talent as a creator and organizer. His energy was also indefatigable. He was able to carry out what Diaghilev planned in his vigorous activity. Fortunately, he also had what Diaghilev often lacked to implement his bold plans- Ryabushinsky also had means. And he absolutely selflessly gave everything he owned to his life’s work - Art.

To characterize the personality of Nikolai Ryabushinsky, it is worth recalling another of his grandiose projects. As reported in the “News from Everywhere” section of the first issue of “The Golden Fleece” for 1909, on his initiative, a draft charter for a joint-stock company began to be developed with the goal of constructing a building in Moscow intended for all kinds of exhibitions reflecting contemporary art in Russia. It was noted that “the building will be called the “Palace of Arts”; its total cost will be divided into 500 shares of 1000 rubles each, and N.P. Ryabushinsky has already subscribed to 25 shares. The development of the building project was entrusted to the architect V. Adamovich. At the Palace building a permanent public museum is planned, embracing all branches of pure art” (No. 1. P. 110-111). Unfortunately, the plan was not realized.

Interspersed with creative endeavors - creating paintings, stories, poems, collecting works of art - simultaneously with working on a magazine and organizing epoch-making exhibitions, coming up with plans similar to those described above, Ryabushinsky did not stop “playing pranks” and “playing mischief” - changing women, playing cards, threw mind-blowing feasts and organized fantastic “rose festivals”; made noise, exposed himself as a lightweight reveler who squandered his father’s capital, excited, teased respectable society and outraged sophisticated intellectuals.

But all this was husk. Time has shown that the grain in it was highest degree qualitatively, that he is a real talent, a Russian nugget and a true patriot, a typical product of his complex, confused era full of deep internal contradictions, a true “Muscovite”, a worthy representative of that enlightened merchant class on which Russian culture of the twentieth century grew and received world recognition.

He played his role in history and remained a bright star in it. The contribution of Nikolai Ryabushinsky, and above all this concerns the fate of Russian fine art, is no less, if not more significant, than the contribution of Sergei Diaghilev. Both of these figures deserve to stand side by side in the history of Russian culture of the 20th century, although their fates turned out differently. Ryabushinsky's fortune turned out to be much harsher. He was not understood or accepted by his contemporaries and has not yet been adequately appreciated by his descendants. More precisely, now no one doubts the significance of the historical role of the phenomenon called the “Golden Fleece,” but to this day they do not identify it with the personality of Nikolai Ryabushinsky himself. Meanwhile, the “Golden Fleece” is a worthy monument to his name.

And finally, once again about the magazine itself. In addition to all of the above, “The Golden Fleece” is also a unique monument of graphic art of the early twentieth century, which united around itself all the best forces of Russian graphics of that time. Among its main designers were the masters of the “World of Art” - Lanceray, Dobuzhinsky, Bakst, Somov, Benois, and the “Blue Rose” - Kuznetsov, Utkin, V. Milioti, Krymov, Sapunov, Sudeikin, Arapov, Drittenpreis, Feofilaktov. The pages of the “Golden Fleece” have preserved for us, in excellent reproduction quality, the precious graphic creations of Vrubel, Serov, Borisov-Musatov and Russian masters of the 19th century - A. Ivanov, F. Tolstoy, A. Venetsianov, N. Ge, the most valuable examples of ancient Russian art and masterpieces of avant-garde French painting. The decision to create in the magazine a gallery of graphic portraits of outstanding figures of Russian culture of the early twentieth century, “The Golden Fleece,” contributed to the brilliant flowering of Russian portrait graphics.

“Golden Fleece” formulated the main principles of a “thick” art magazine, based, first of all, on the precise selection of published materials and their high professional level, on the logic and beauty of their placement in the magazine and the rhythmic coherence of the components that make up the issue, on ease of use by the reader. Here a harmonious relationship between text and illustrations is found, the interaction of typographic font and the living touch of artistic drawing is thought out. Headpieces, endings, and drop caps become an organic part of the text, and the text, in turn, turns into a work of graphic art.

The very appearance of the magazine became a form of education of taste, culture of the eye, and a sense of beauty among the broad mass of readers. And this, undoubtedly, played a beneficial role in the popularization of this publication a hundred years ago and in attracting deep interest in the magazine and in that epoch-making phenomenon in general, which is called the “Golden Fleece”, in our days.

Nikolai Pavlovich Ryabushinsky

editor-publisher of the magazine “Golden Fleece”, philanthropist, artist, writer, collector

Key dates of life and work

1877 born in Moscow

He came from the Ryabushinsky trading and merchant dynasty. The fifth son in the family of the largest Russian industrialist Pavel Mikhailovich Ryabushinsky.

He studied at the Moscow Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences and became involved in the study of manufacturing at his father’s weaving factories. However, having no inclination towards commercial and industrial business, he left the “Partnership of Manufactories P.M. Ryabushinsky and his sons”.

He was passionate about art, but did not receive any formal education. He used the professional advice of his friend, the artist S.A. Vinogradov, and often practiced painting with him; worked a lot in the field of magazine graphics; wrote poetry and prose, critical articles on art; was involved in music; paid serious attention to collecting works of art

Late 1890s. Traveled around the world - visited India, New Guinea, the island of Mallorca and other exotic places

1906 Joined the group of young Moscow symbolist artists under the leadership of P. Kuznetsov

1906–1909 He was the editor-publisher of the magazine “Golden Fleece”

1907 Became the organizer of the Blue Rose exhibition, which gave its name to the symbolist movement in Russian art of the 1900s

1908–1909 Organized exhibitions of Russian artists together with modern French masters: “Salon of the Golden Fleece” (1908), “Golden Fleece” (1909)

1909–1910 He organized another exhibition of Russian artists in Moscow called “Golden Fleece”, at which future Russian avant-garde artists performed as a group for the first time. On the initiative of N. Ryabushinsky, a draft charter began to be developed joint stock company with the aim of establishing a “Palace of Arts” in Moscow, where it was planned to demonstrate exhibitions reflecting contemporary art, as well as the creation of a public museum in which “all areas of pure art” would be presented. At the same time, the project initiator himself acquired the majority of the shares. The project was not implemented.

He built the Black Swan villa in Moscow in Petrovsky Park, which amazed his contemporaries with its luxury. It was decorated by P. Kuznetsov. The art collection of N. Ryabushinsky was located here, which included paintings by L. Cranach, P. Bruegel, N. Poussin. But the bulk of his collection consisted of works by Blue Rose artists.

In the fire that happened soon at the villa, many works were lost

1914 Went to Paris, where he opened an antique store

1917–1922 Again he lived in Russia, in St. Petersburg, and worked as a consultant and appraiser of works of fine art. He continued painting and exhibited at the first Soviet exhibitions.

1922 Emigrated to France

1924 Re-established an antique salon in Paris

1926 He organized his personal art exhibition at the Balzac Gallery in Paris, which had a catalog with an introductory article by the famous French artist C. Van Dongen; owned an antique shop in Monte Carlo

1930s He organized an art gallery in Beaulieu-sur-Mer near Nice, calling it “Blue Rose” in memory of the most important achievement in his life

1933 He organized two more of his personal exhibitions in Paris.

He lived a bright, stormy life in exile, in which there were many ups and downs, transitions from a brilliant position in society and wide recognition to complete poverty and oblivion

Member of the Blue Rose creative community and participant in the 1907 exhibition

Participated in exhibitions:

“Salon of the Golden Fleece”, 1908, M.;

“Golden Fleece”, 1909, 1909/10;

Nezavisimykh, 1910, M.;

MTX, 1911, M.;

“Moscow Salon”, 1911–1913, M.; "World of Art", 1912, M.;

1st State, 1919, Pg.;

8th State, 1919, M.

Personal exhibitions:

1926, Paris, Balzac gallery;

1933, Paris, gallery “K. Granoff"; 1933, Paris, Avil gallery

Literary works:

N. Shinsky. Confession (story).

Ed. magazine "Golden Fleece", 1907;

in the magazine "Golden Fleece"

DEAR COLLEAGUES!

We invite you to take part in the fifth issue of the “Golden Fleece” almanac.

The fourth issue of the almanac “Golden Fleece” is published in April. The ceremonial presentation will take place in the Small Hall of the Central House of Writers on May 17 at 18:00. 30 min.

At the same time, we begin collecting materials (prose, poetry, drama, criticism, journalism) for the 5th issue of the almanac.

International literary almanac "Golden Fleece"

The almanac “Golden Fleece” has been published since 2014. During this time, it published works by E. Yevtushenko, E. Rein, L. Anninsky, K. Kovaldzhi, V. Lichutin, A. Gedymin, L. Podolsky and many other authors from many cities and countries: Russia, USA, Israel, Ukraine, Australia, Germany. Our almanac is distributed to the leading libraries of Russia, Ukraine (Odessa, Nikolaev), to the libraries of the faculties of Slavic studies of leading universities in the USA, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton and others, as well as Austria and Germany.

The almanac is published on paper in a circulation of 500 copies. Works accepted for publication will be published in the almanac “Golden Fleece”, as well as on the Internet portal of the same name, which will ensure wide availability of all published materials. In addition, the almanac “Golden Fleece” is presented and available in the “Reading Room”.

The editorial board of the almanac “Golden Fleece” includes: L.A. Anninsky, A.Yu. Gedymin (deputy editor-in-chief), K.V. Kovaldzhi, O.S. Ilnitskaya, V.E. Lebedinsky, L.G. Podolsky (editor-in-chief), E.V. Safronova, D.V. Silkan, L.V. Rybakova, I.B. Chubais.

The almanac is published with the financial participation of the authors. Publication cost: 1 page (prose 1800 characters with spaces; poetry 30 lines): first 6 pages - 1000 rubles. per page; starting from the 7th page - 800 rub. for 1 page. Authors are given 2 copies of the almanac free of charge.

In addition to the main text, please immediately send a photograph of the author and a short literary biography indicating only the main publications and awards.

Please send your text, biography and photograph in separate files. Text is required Word program, font Times New Roman, size 12-14. For ease of communication, please also indicate your phone number.

The volume of prose and poetry is not limited. In addition, the almanac necessarily contains sections of journalism and criticism, as well as satire and humor.

The editors of the almanac reserve the right to edit texts in order to ensure the artistic level of the almanac.

The editors of the almanac do not publish works that unjustifiably contain profanity, as well as calls for violence and ethnic hatred.

Please send all materials to: [email protected] with the note: “in the almanac “Golden Fleece” No. 5.

Inquiries by phone:

Participants in the “Golden Fleece” almanac are given a preferential opportunity to participate in the “Faces of modern literature"(in the "Literary Lounge") and "Free Microphone" (in the "Video Salon") on the Internet portal "Golden Fleece". In addition, participants in the almanac "Golden Fleece" receive preferential access to publications on the portal of the same name. Based on the results of the first five issues of the almanac “Golden Fleece”, it is planned to reward authors for the most significant works published in the almanac and on the portal “Golden Fleece”.

Leonid Podolsky,

editor-in-chief of the almanac and Internet portal “Golden Fleece”.

Let's be like the Sun!
K. Balmont

The organizers of the exhibition, which opened at the Tretyakov Gallery in March 2008, sought to reflect as fully as possible the diverse activities of the Golden Fleece magazine and to reveal its historical meaning. The materials are grouped into three sections: “Exhibitions”, “Magazine” and “Nikolai Ryabushinsky”. The exhibition is based on works of Russian and French art, designed to give an idea of ​​the joint Russian-French performances organized by the magazine in Moscow in 1908-1909, which contributed to the emergence of the art of that time from the crisis and the formation of the concept of the Russian avant-garde of the 20th century. The “Magazine” section presents materials introducing viewers to the activities of the “Golden Fleece” as a printed publication, the task of which was to help artists and the Russian reading public understand the mass of new, sometimes very complex problems that faced art at that time, and also contribute to the development of broad knowledge and interest in national traditions. In the section dedicated to Nikolai Ryabushinsky, visitors will get an idea of ​​the personality of the editor-publisher of “The Golden Fleece” and will become familiar with the facts of his life and work in Russia and abroad, during the period of emigration. Also shown here are reproductions of Ryabushinsky’s paintings, exhibited at the Golden Fleece exhibitions, and his rare original graphic sketches. This section also contains a gallery of hand-drawn portraits of outstanding figures of Russian culture at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, commissioned by Ryabushinsky for the magazine. The exhibits of the exhibition are the issues of the “Golden Fleece” themselves - wonderful examples of Russian magazine art of the Art Nouveau era.

In total, the exhibition displays about 200 works of painting, drawing and sculpture from the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the A.S. Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin, the Russian Museum, the Hermitage, the State Literary Museum, the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the Russian Abroad Library-Foundation, as well as materials from private collections.

The State Tretyakov Gallery expresses gratitude to the general sponsor of the project - the IFD Capital Group.

There was a short period in the history of European culture - the turn of the 19th-20th centuries - when an art magazine became, in its meaning and role, something more than a printed publication; it turned into a vibrant cultural phenomenon that shaped the aesthetic ideal of the era. Beginning in the mid-1890s, similar magazines appeared one after another in Paris, London, Berlin, and Munich. They contributed to the creation of a certain emotional atmosphere of the time. The Munich Jugend even gave its name to the artistic movement in European culture of that time - Jugendstil.

In Russia, such phenomena include the magazines “World of Art” and “Golden Fleece”. The latter was inextricably linked with the history of the community of young Moscow symbolist artists, which was headed by P. Kuznetsov. The magazine was the material base of this group, which with its help received complete freedom of action; a printed organ and ideological center that united and rallied the community and contributed to the establishment of the aesthetic principles of symbolism. It was “Golden Fleece” that in 1907 organized the famous Moscow exhibition “Blue Rose”, which gave its name to Russian symbolism in the fine arts of the 1900s. Through the efforts of the Golden Fleece, “Goluborozovism” turned into an epoch-making artistic movement that set the tone and determined the style of the time.

Following the Blue Rose, as a continuation of its activities, the magazine organized joint performances of Russian and French contemporary advanced artists. In Moscow in 1908-1909, three exhibitions, unique in scale and composition of participants, called “The Golden Fleece”, took place, which played a fateful role in the history of Russian art of the twentieth century and gave a powerful impetus to the development of the Russian avant-garde movement.

However, “The Golden Fleece” not only did not receive proper appreciation in Soviet art history, but, like everything connected with symbolism in general and the “Blue Rose” in particular, it was branded as harmful and alien to the new ideology. The magazine was declared “bourgeois”, decadent, due to which it ended up in the “dustbin of history” and was included in the number of publications banned during the Soviet years.

Today, no one has any doubts about the historical pattern of the emergence of the “Golden Fleece”, about the importance and significance of this phenomenon for Russian culture. Naturally, the need arose to study and research it. In 2007, the first large monograph devoted to this topic was published. Organized by the Tretyakov Gallery in the spring of 2008, the exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the first joint Russian-French exhibition “The Salon of the Golden Fleece” presented to a wide audience for the first time the diverse nature of the magazine’s activities.

The Golden Fleece began publication in Moscow in January 1906. Nikolai Ryabushinsky became its editor-publisher. The new publication was conceived and formed as a continuation of the St. Petersburg “World of Art”, the publication of which was discontinued in 1904. The need for an art magazine that would take on the role of an ideological center in the struggle between the rapidly emerging new and the inertia that was still firmly defending its positions was especially acute at that moment. Moscow then began to actively “rise” as an artistic center of Russian art. Unlike the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, which by that time had turned into a musty conservative institution, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where Valentin Serov was invited as the head of the full-scale class in 1897, and after him came Isaac Levitan, Konstantin Korovin, Paolo Trubetskoy, was experiencing genuine renewal. The spirit of freedom fostered here contributed to the activation of the creative powers of Moscow artists, bold innovation while maintaining a heightened sense of “groundedness”, a deep internal connection with national traditions.

When creating a new magazine, Ryabushinsky was guided by the activities of Sergei Diaghilev and the tasks that he set when organizing the World of Art. In a letter of 1897 to A. Benoit.

Diaghilev reported: “...I am designing<...>a magazine in which I think to unite our entire artistic life, i.e. put true painting in illustrations, say frankly what I think in articles, then organize a series of annual exhibitions on behalf of the magazine.” “The World of Art” began to be published in 1899. The programmatic article “Complex Questions,” which preceded the first two books of the magazine, set out new aesthetic principles on the basis of which young figures of the new St. Petersburg creative community united. It proclaimed the autonomy of art and the freedom of creativity, affirmed the priority of the personality of the creator, and formulated the purpose of artistic criticism as the “celebration” of any new manifestation of talent. One of the most important tasks of the magazine was the cultivation of broad knowledge.

“The Golden Fleece” entered the arena of the struggle for new aesthetic principles seven years after the release of the first issues of “World of Art”. This was the peak of the Russian revolution. Just before the magazine appeared in Moscow in December 1905, the authorities brutally suppressed the Moscow armed uprising. The Golden Fleece, unlike the World of Art, set out its principles in the spirit of revolutionary times - in the form of a manifesto printed in gold letters on the pages of the first issue. It said: “In a terrible time, we set out. All around you see renewed life in a mad whirlpool. We sympathize with everyone who works to renew life, we do not deny any of the tasks of our time, but we firmly believe that it is impossible to live without Beauty, together with free institutions we must win for our descendants free, bright, sunlit creativity... And in the name of the same new future life, we, seekers of the golden fleece, unfurl our banner: Art is eternal. Art is one. Art is symbolic. Art is free."

The name of the new magazine was chosen with meaning. His idea was outlined by the then very young poet and symbolist theorist Andrei Bely in the story “The Argonauts,” where the vague expectations of enthusiastic young Russian idealists found expression in the spirit of symbolist imagery. Bely called on Humanity, “loving freedom,” to leave the Earth, which had become unbearable for free people, and fly “into the blue ether,” towards the Sun. The story even contained a specific departure plan. Main character- “the great writer who set off for the Sun, like an Argonaut after the fleece,” says: “I will publish the magazine “Golden Fleece.” My collaborators will be the Argonauts, and my banner will be the Sun. With a popular exposition of the fundamentals of sunshine I will set hearts on fire. I will bring gilding to the whole world. Let's drown in liquid sun."

Published in January 1906, the first issue of The Golden Fleece - large, beautiful, shining with gold, as if filled with sunlight - was supposed to amaze, delight, uplift the spirit, and instill hope. The birth of the magazine under the flag of the Sun symbolized the Rising of a new Life. The sun rose to dispel the darkness of the Night into which Russia was then plunged. The new publication aimed, in accordance with the idea of ​​​​Andrei Bely, to “ignite the hearts” of readers with a “popular presentation of the foundations of sunshine,” that is, the ideas of symbolism as a new and most advanced trend in the culture of the twentieth century.

The life of the “Golden Fleece” began with the presentation of the founder of Russian artistic symbolism, Mikhail Vrubel. The first, January 1906, issue opened with a display of his works. The artist remained misunderstood by his contemporaries for a long time, but for young Moscow Symbolists he was an idol, the embodiment of the Symbolist idea itself, a kind of spiritual guide. Vrubel became a kind of tuning fork for the Golden Fleece, the high note to which the magazine set itself. The personality of this celestial artist determined the course taken by the “Golden Fleece” and overshadowed his entire subsequent path until the very end.

In each issue, the magazine introduced readers to the most significant phenomena of the modern artistic life of the country, often still misunderstood and unappreciated until then. Thus, the third issue is dedicated to Viktor Borisov-Musatov - the founder of Russian pictorial symbolism, who was for Moscow innovators not only a guiding star, beautiful and distant, like Vrubel, but a living reality - a friend, mentor, Teacher. This publication played a crucial role in the formation of a correct historical assessment of the creative personality of Borisov-Musatov and in understanding his role in the history of art of the twentieth century.

The opportunity for personal display on the pages of the “Golden Fleece” was also given to many leading masters of the “World of Art” - K. Somov, L. Bakst, A. Benois, E. Lanceray. A large number of works by these masters were published here and their portraits and self-portraits, specially commissioned for the magazine by Ryabushinsky, were placed - this is how the extensive portrait gallery of the “Golden Fleece” arose.

M. Nesterov, N. Roerich, K. Bogaevsky are represented with dignity and with the same reverence in “The Golden Fleece”. Of the young Moscow innovators, only P. Kuznetsov received such attention.

The magazine set itself the task of cultivating artistic taste among the reading public, and not only the Russian one: for the first six months, “Golden Fleece” was published in two languages ​​- Russian and French - and was aimed at 11 largest cities in Russia, Europe and America. Along with the fact What published, great importance was attached to the new journal and the fact that How it's being done. The illustrations in The Golden Fleece, mostly large-format, cover the entire page of a sheet of excellent quality paper, are not interrupted by text and are placed with a certain meaning. Thus, the comparison of Vrubel’s self-portraits with the faces of his “Prophets”, “Seraphims”, “Demons” emphasizes the artist’s chosenness, the divine nature of his gift. Sheets depicting works by Borisov-Musatov give rise to a feeling of a gentle lyrical melody. An important role in them is played by light backgrounds, on which the melodious flowing lines of Musatov’s compositions and the gentle intonations of his color harmonies are clearly revealed. In the material about Roerich, on the contrary, white serves to enhance the depth of the gloomy black tones dominant in many of the artist’s works. The magazine draws readers' attention to the fact that each type of fine art requires its own approach to perception. For example, two sculptural groups of Somov are presented on the pages of “Rune” in four and six projections, respectively, on different backgrounds. One can feel the magazine's special interest in the specifics of graphics, which are most organic in nature to a printed publication. The grace and subtlety of the line, the beauty of the black spot of Somov’s silhouette drawings are brilliantly shown here; One can appreciate, from the magazine's reproductions, the beauty and rationality of Lanceray's works, the classical clarity of Bakst's graphic style, and the charm and freedom of his sketches from nature.

The new magazine picked up and successfully continued another very important initiative of the World of Art - the popularization of the national artistic heritage. Every year he dedicated a large built room to this. The topic of the first publication of this kind was ancient Russian art. The material, containing about 70 illustrations, is grouped into five sections covering different types and forms of ancient Russian art. Its importance is difficult to overestimate. For the first time, an unknown layer of artistic culture, a new world of highly spiritual national creativity, was revealed to the wider reading masses. The discovery of ancient Russian art as a powerful source of aesthetic and spiritual influence played a huge role in guiding the searches of young artists and forming the principles of the Russian avant-garde.

The following year, 1907, the most significant material in the heritage section was the material dedicated to A.G. Venetsianov and his school, in 1908 - the work of the artist Nikolai Ge as the best representative of the highly moral tradition of Wandering. The Golden Fleece celebrated the centenary of the birth of Alexander Ivanov with a remarkable publication of the artist’s drawings and watercolors, which are inaccessible to the general public, accompanied by an article by V. Rozanov.

With all the attention to the art of the past, the new edition was primarily aimed at the future. Considering itself responsible for the fate of Russian culture, the “Golden Fleece” joined the struggle for its restructuring. On the pages of the magazine, issues of improving art education, state organization and art management were hotly discussed, while the role of the artist in the life of a renewed free society was considered as a leading one. Called “apolitical” by Soviet critics, The Golden Fleece, upon closer examination, turns out to be a living reflection of its time. This luxurious, shining gold magazine, like no other publication, allows you to really feel the complexity of the tragic moment in Russian history. Its pages capture the emotional social upsurge of those years, and the harsh truth of reality, inspiring utopian hopes and a heavy feeling of hopelessness and complete despair.

Starting from the second year of its existence, “Golden Fleece”, continuing to remain literary and critical, expanding the music department, increasingly concentrated on the visual arts, defining itself as an art magazine and in every possible way promoting the development and popularization of the principles of symbolism as the most progressive. Art exhibitions have always been the subject of his close attention. Reviews of exhibitions in the magazine invariably contained an extensive display of exhibits and were usually accompanied by a serious analysis of the processes taking place in contemporary art. Thus, in several issues the World of Art exhibition of 1906, organized by Diaghilev, was subjected to strict discussion, which became epoch-making in its significance. It openly exposed the already emerging and increasingly growing contradictions between the group of Moscow symbolists and the St. Petersburg retrospectivists. After the exhibition there was no longer any doubt that these artistic groups were by no means fellow travelers in search of new paths in art. There was a growing need for our own exhibition activities"Golden Fleece". It began brilliantly with the organization of the Blue Rose in Moscow in 1907.

Artist Sergei Vinogradov recalled: “The first exhibition of the Blue Rose was a sensation in the Moscow art world. And it was built with such exceptional elegance and beauty that nothing like it had ever been seen.” A special issue of “The Golden Fleece” is dedicated to the presentation of the “Blue Rose” and the analysis of the problems associated with its activities, designed by the participants of the exhibition themselves in their own style. The magazine convincingly, seriously and with great taste presented the exhibition to readers and managed at the same time, in an article by Sergei Makovsky, to give a correct historical assessment of the phenomenon, which from that moment finally acquired its name and status. Having become the pinnacle of symbolism in fine art, “Blue Rose” also exposed the great problems that this artistic movement faced: plastic art, material in nature, found itself in danger of extinction in the work of the Blue Rose artists. It was necessary to find means to return painting to its nature, without changing the main aesthetic principles of symbolism. New tasks facing Russian art in a certain way adjusted the course of the magazine. The direction of the search for the “Golden Fleece” of 1908-1909 was quite clearly formulated by one of the members of Goluborozov’s community, the artist V. Milioti: “And if Russian art wants to become necessary for Russian culture, it must partake of that great spiritual depth, vigor and faith that The first teachers of peredvizhniki left us as a bequest, and to absorb the conquests of the great picturesque West, looking for new forms for renewed inner experiences”5].

This task became decisive in the activities of the Golden Fleece over the next two years. The magazine planned to organize a joint performance of Russian and French contemporary artists in Moscow at an exhibition called “The Salon of the Golden Fleece,” the opening of which was supposed to coincide with the anniversary of the “Blue Rose” - March 18, 1908.

“In inviting French artists to participate in the exhibition,” stated the organizers, “the Golden Fleece group pursued a dual goal: on the one hand, by comparing Russian and Western quests, to more clearly illuminate the features of the development of young Russian painting and its new tasks; on the other hand, to emphasize the developmental features common to Russian and Western art, because Despite all the differences in national psychologies (the French are more sensualists, Russian artists have more spirituality), the new quests of young art have some common psychological foundations. Here is the overcoming of aestheticism and historicism, there is a reaction against neo-academicism, into which impressionism has degenerated. If the founders of this movement in France were Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, then the first impetus in Russia was given by Vrubel and Borisov-Musatov.”

On April 5, 1908, in Moscow, in the Khludov house on the corner of Rozhdestvenka and Teatralny Proezd, the “Salon of the Golden Fleece” exhibition, unprecedented in its scope and significance in the history of Russian art of the twentieth century, opened. This was the first such representative display of new French art outside France, which at that time did not yet have wide recognition even in Paris itself, not to mention other European cities. Only two years later an exhibition of French impressionism took place in London. The Salon introduced the Russian audience to the entire spectrum of French artistic movements at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The magazine organized a full and comprehensive presentation of the exhibition on its pages, carried out a broad campaign to popularize French art, paying great attention to the analysis of common problems that then faced representatives of both art schools. The extensive visual material was accompanied by three detailed articles on French art.

On January 11, 1909, the second exhibition organized by the magazine opened, which continued the tradition of common relations with the French, begun by the Salon. creative meetings. It was attended by 16 Russian artists (according to the Goluborozov tradition), presenting 111 works, and 10 French masters, demonstrating 44 works. Among the French this time, preference was given to artists of the latest trends - J. Braque, A. Derain, C. van Dongen, A. Marquet, A. Matisse, J. Rouault, M. Vlaminck took part in the exhibition.

The last exhibition of the magazine opened at the end of 1909 and continued throughout the following January, 1910, when the Golden Fleece officially ended its activities. Only Russian artists took part in it. Perhaps the reason for this was the material side of the issue, but the very need for contacts between Russian craftsmen and the French had largely disappeared by that time. The role of the “Golden Fleece” was essentially played out. Almost every member of the gold-fleece group showed 10 or more works at the exhibition; M. Larionov distinguished himself with particular activity, exhibiting 22 works.

It is especially important to note that new young avant-garde artists I. Mashkov, P. Konchalovsky, A. Kuprin, R. Falk joined the Golden Fleece group at the third exhibition. At the end of 1910, they, together with M. Larionov, N. Goncharova, A. Lentulov, V. Kandinsky and K. Malevich, acted independently as a new avant-garde association called “Jack of Diamonds”. This group of Russian painters also experienced beneficial French influence at the Golden Fleece exhibitions. Unlike the Goluborozovites, they were attracted by the powerful “thingness” of Cezanne’s art. Having originated in the bosom of Goluborozov’s innovation, the Russian avant-garde from that time “broke away” from the “Blue Rose” and began an independent, unstoppable movement forward. “Blue Rose” and “Golden Fleece” were his breeding ground, gave him an impulse, a push. “Rose” itself, having seriously reconstructed itself under the influence of French art, chose a special path of development, which also turned out to be quite modern and artistically convincing and took its rightful place next to the Russian avant-garde movement.

The magazine left with dignity, having honorably completed all the tasks assigned to it. The Editorial Board’s farewell message said: “Now parting with our readers, we do not feel tired at all. Neither the constant struggle that we have been waging for more than three years for the future of art that is dear to us, nor the enormous technical difficulties of printing the art department, nor the systematic confiscation of our issues and publications by the censor, nor the indifference and campaigns of newspaper criticism have shaken our energy. But now we clearly feel that the trends that we defended both in the field of literature and in the field of painting have already become sufficiently strong and expressed to develop independently and that the “Golden Fleece” in this regard has already fulfilled its mission... Finishing our four-year work, we leave with the calm confidence that nothing can drown out and destroy those artistic principles for which the “Golden Fleece” fought.”

The editors left the right to sum up the journal’s activities to us, our descendants, believing “that an objective assessment of what has been achieved and what has not been achieved<...>belongs only to the future." Indeed, in a hundred-year perspective, everything acquires its true value, cleared of the random and petty, which in the heat of struggle sometimes came to the fore.

The phenomenon that entered the cultural history of the twentieth century under the name “Golden Fleece” played a truly fateful role in it. At a time when Russian art was looking for opportunities to use the powerful forces roaming within it and ready to break through, the “Golden Fleece”, becoming the ideological center of Russian art that determined the artistic consciousness of the era, having historically accurately comprehended and assessed what was happening, directed this energy in the right direction and had an impact active and comprehensive assistance in its free manifestation. The new generation of Russian artists, having gained confidence, taking cues from the great French innovators, rushed along this path with such Russian daring and scope that they soon found themselves ahead of those whom they had initially overtaken and, in turn, drew them along with them to new, even more bolder discoveries. Nothing could drown out and destroy those artistic principles for which the “Golden Fleece” fought.

A hundred years ago, “The Golden Fleece” contributed to the formation in the Russian cultural environment of such artistic thinking and understanding of the historical value of the most important phenomena of European and Russian art of the early twentieth century, which, in essence, has not changed to this day. And there is no doubt that the activities of this art magazine were determined and carried out by none other than the publisher himself - Nikolai Ryabushinsky. Facts indicate that it was he who invented, planned, organized, invited participation, traveled and persuaded, and selected for exhibitions the works of great and little-known, but, in his opinion, promising masters. It was he who ordered portraits of those figures whom he considered the most worthy, and, as time has shown, he never made a mistake in his choice; he financed everything, not pursuing any material gain, but having only expenses that were exorbitant even with his wealth. This was truly his patriotic feat. Nikolai Ryabushinsky played his role in history and remained a bright star in it. His contribution, and above all this concerns the fate of Russian fine art, is no less, if not more significant, than the contribution of Sergei Diaghilev. Both of these figures deserve to stand side by side in the history of Russian culture of the 20th century, although their fates turned out differently. Ryabushinsky's fortune turned out to be much harsher. He was not understood or accepted by his contemporaries and has not yet been adequately appreciated by his descendants.

And in conclusion - once again about the magazine itself. In addition to all of the above, “The Golden Fleece” is also a unique monument of graphic art of the early twentieth century, which united around itself all the best forces of Russian graphics of that time.

Here a harmonious relationship between text and illustrations is found, the interaction of typographic font and the living touch of artistic drawing is thought out. Numerous headpieces, endings, drop caps, section title pages, made by the greatest masters of the World of Art and Blue Rose, become an organic part of the text, and the text, in turn, turns into a work of graphic art.

The very appearance of the magazine became a form of education of taste, a sense of beauty among the broad mass of readers. And this undoubtedly played a beneficial role in the popularization of this publication a hundred years ago and in attracting deep interest in the magazine and that epoch-making phenomenon called the “Golden Fleece” in our days.

1. Goffman I.M. The Golden Fleece. Magazine. Exhibitions 1906-1909. M., 2007.
2. Benoit A. The emergence of the "World of Art". L., 1928. P. 27.
3. Bely A. Argonauts // Bely A. Symphonies. L., 1991.S. 450.
4. Vinogradov S. About the exhibition “Blue Rose”, the talent of N.P. Ryabushinsky and the “Festival of Roses” in his Kuchina” // Vinogradov S. Former Moscow. Riga, 2001.S. 143.
5. Milioti V. Forgotten Testaments // Golden Fleece, 1909, No. 4. S. V.
6. Catalog of the exhibition of paintings “Golden Fleece”. M, 1909.
7. From the Editor // Golden Fleece, 1909, No. 11-12. P.107.
8. Right there.