If you are just starting to get to know Belarusian art and want to understand how valuable Belarusian artists are, then you can first look at the authors of the School of Paris. During those times, Belarusian artists received total freedom of creativity and thanks to it, they became significant and world-famous authors. We start our new project about Belarusian art with an article about them. On the birthday of Marc Chagall, one of the representatives of the School of Paris, we are launching the project called "Belarusian Art: from maljavanka to NFT". We’ll talk about our past and present to better understand what had happened, and to see more clearly what surrounds us now.

Why is the School of Paris important and how did Belarusian artists get there?

At the beginning of the 20th century, Paris attracted a huge number of artists of different nationalities. They were all united by the aspiration of progressive art, unusual creative searches and violation of the rules of traditional academic and realistic painting. Artists had been coming to Paris, where they were creating various trends and styles: cubism, expressionism, post-expressionism and abstractionism. United by one territory, they didn’t prevent each other from developing in different directions and didn’t create a confrontation of styles, like the one Marc Chagall and Kazimir Malevich had in Viciebsk. On the contrary, they created a unique phenomenon on one site - the Beehive (fr. "La Ruche"). 

Photograph of the “Beehive" (early 20th century), which was located on the southwestern outskirts of Paris, in the Danzig dead end. It had 140 atelier-studios for artists and writers, which Alfred Boucher rented out for a nominal fee. 

Artists of Belarusian origin were also coming to Paris. It was facilitated by the situation that has developed on the territory of Belarus: at that time, the Jewish Pale of Settlement existed, which stripped the Jewish population of the right to move freely outside its borders. Moreover, only three percent of people were able to get a higher education in art, which again blocked that paths for many people. And at the moments of revolutionary changes, time finally shows that one should emigrate to a place, where there are opportunities and freedom of expression. Paris has become such a city. We now know many names of artists coming from the School of Paris who were born in Belarus. Many of those were talented young people who didn’t leave forever, but only to study, so they’ll be able to earn money in their homeland. But the war and the revolution changed their fate in a way that most of them remained in Paris, never again coming to their native cities.

Belarusian artists of the Paris School. In the slides: Ossip Zadkine, Osip Lubitsch and Chaim Soutine, Yakov Balgley, Marc Chagall and Faibish-Schraga Tsarfin and Pinkhus Kremen.

For us, the Belarusians living in the current times, it is a very important period in the history of art, because just then many artists, who went abroad, laid the foundations of the styles, which have become significant stages in the history of contemporary art or even design. These are absolutely self-sufficient directions that form the modern visual culture.

Belarusians of the School of Paris in Belarus

One can search for pieces of artists all over the country. The most famous of them have their own spaces in their hometowns. Some may even have several of those telling about their life path.

So, for example, in Vitebsk there are two spaces dedicated to the outstanding master of avant-garde art of the twentieth century, Marc Chagall — a house-museum and an art center. Yet, there is nother place associated with the artist — the Museum of the History of the Vitebsk Folk Art School. Of these three places, the Marc Chagall Museum, has a significant collection, where his graphic works are stored.

Marc Chagall Art-center in Viciebsk.

Belarusian representatives of the Paris School can also be found in Minsk, in the Art-Belarus gallery. Here you will look not only at the life of each artist separately. On the one hand, you will see very diverse, dissimilar works, and on the other hand, thanks to this, you will plunge into the environment that shows the originality of the phenomenon of the School of Paris. 

The gallery exhibits the corporate collection of Belgazprombank and includes works by nine Belarusian authors of the School of Paris. Among those who formed the core of the collected collection are: Ossip Zadkine, Mikhail Kikoin, Osip Lyubich, Yakov Balgley, Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Léon Indenbaum, Pinchus Kremegne and Faibish-Shraga Tsarfin. All of them are Belarusians, whose works have been returned to their homeland. They are bright representatives of their styles, which are appreciated all over the world.

School of Paris and 2020

During the presidential campaign in 2020, paintings from the collection of Belgazprombank became unexpected victims of repression. After searches in the bank, which was previously headed by one of the potential presidential candidates Viktar Babaryka, one state television channel reported that 150 paintings were included in the criminal case on money laundering and tax evasion. Back then TV channels showed a story in which “Eva” by Chaïm Soutine, “A clock in the flaming sky" and “The green landscape" by Marc Chagall were clearly visible. State media claimed that the paintings were “being prepared for urgent move from the country." Later, an exposition with empty frames and QR-codes was created in the Art-Belarus gallery, on the places where the paintings had previously been exhibited. Each QR-code led to a page with the history of the paintings and their authors.

Photo 1: "Art-Belarus" gallery during the exposition with QR-codes; Photo 2: After the opening of the exhibition with QR-codes, on July 1, 2020, the gallery hosted a performance by the Belarusian artist Nadezhda Sayapina called "Heritage".

The most expensive artwork bought during the existence of modern, independent Belarus was Chaïm Soutine's "Eva". It was purchased at a Sotheby's auction for $1,805,000 back in 2013. In 2020, a highly-valuable for Belarus painting with the image of a steadfast girl has become important for contemporary artists. Cultural figures began to remake and interpret the image of the girl in Soutine's painting differently. Thus, more and more illustrations, video art, installations and even actions were happening in Belarus.

Various interpretations of "Eve" by Chaim Soutine; Action of Belarusian Free Theater in support of political prisoners in London.

At the end of June 2021, the collection returned to the gallery. Now the works continue to be exhibited in the Minsk Palace of Art and to acquire their new history.

How does the past resonate with the present?

There is a certain way of resemblance between the artists of the past and the present, and it’s not always obvious. Our contemporary artists work in the same styles as the representatives of the School of Paris once did: abstractionism, fauvism, cubism, post-impressionism, and sometimes their combination in one artwork. At the present times, there is no radical transition to performance and action art in contemporary Belarusian art. We remain within the framework of academic art developing, which branches into various style directions created back in the 20th century.

The dialogue between the past and the present can be seen on the example of the artists represented in Art-Belarus at the exhibition “Portrait of time” (the exhibition will last until the end of August). The main visual points of similarity with the authors of the School of Paris are the works of Yakov Balglei and Vladimir Savich, Khaim Soutine and Yevgeny Shadko, Léon Indenbaum and Andrey Vorobyov, Ossip Zadkine and Maxim Borodich, Chaïm Soutine and Viktoria Savenkova.

Yakov Balgley "Self-portrait", Vladimir Savich "Holy Face of Light"

Chaïm Soutine and Evgeny Shadko 

The example of Yevgeny Shadko and Chaïm Soutine shows how the present and the past can intertwine in a completely non-obvious way. The style of Shadko's abstract portrait is absolutely modern, modern and, it seems, should not intersect with the past in any way. But at the same time, his female portrait "Untitled" is symbolically intertwined with Soutine's figurative approach in the work "A seeping reader, Madeleine Castaing".

Chaïm Soutine "A seeping reader, Madeleine Castaing", Evgeny Shadko "Untitled"

Léon Indenbaum and Andrey Vorobyov

An almost direct dialogue at the exhibition takes place at the sculptures of Léon Indenbaum and Andrey Vorobyov. The first one, an artist of the School of Paris, depicts a portrait of Chaïm Soutine in the manner of expressive modelling, which creates not just an image of the person being portrayed, but a real image of a person using Soutine's own stylistic techniques. Vorobyov, on the other hand, creates himself with the effects of torn modelling and the ironic title - "Self-portrait with signs of aging." And this is also sort of a classical, in fact, academic sculpture, but it has a similar emotional effect, a psychological portrait.

Léon Indenbaum "Portrait of Chaïm Soutine", Andrey Vorobyov "Self-portrait with signs of aging".

Ossip Zadkine and Maxim Borodich 

The principles of cubism in sculpture and painting are seen in the examples of Ossip Zadkine and Maxim Borodich. Here, stylistically similar cubist portraits seem to move from a plane image to a three-dimensional one. It turns out a good interaction of the actual, somewhat monumental, static image of Borodich and the musical, mobile, dynamic Zadkine within the framework of the exposition.

Ossip Zadkine "Polluks", Maxim Borodich "Pavel"

Chaïm Soutine and Viktoria Savenkova 

A pair of Soutine and Savenkova came out of paintings of women. Two canvases depict young women — equally tense, in closed poses, but with their own strong emotion.  

Speaking of Soutine’s "Eva", until 2020 she didn’t have such a bright history as it has now. However, her image was still different from what we usually see on the canvases of the representative of the School of Paris. In the artwork of Viktoria Savenkova, we see a girl painted in a hyper-realistic manner. Through the detailing of the image, the artist shows the psychological state of the person in the portrait — a closed image that directly turns away from the frontal space. Here one can notice this game, where there is no need to show a person's face to show their emotional state.

Chaim Soutine “Eva”, Viktoria Savenkova "Planet"

In addition to the visual forms one can find interesting the unique resemblance between Belarusian contemporary artists and the authors of the School of Paris in the wave of emigration. The outflow of art figures from Belarus continues and, it seems to be gaining momentum. In many ways it will be interesting to look at the future of Belarusian art. Will a new artistic Mecca be created for our artists, as Paris once was, and will our experience serve to further development of trends in art.