Welcome to the brand new Arthive! Discover a full list of new features here.

Moscow Food. Loaves of Bread

Ilya Mashkov • Painting, 1924, 145×129 cm
Comments
0
About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Still life
Technique: Oil
Materials: Canvas
Date of creation: 1924
Size: 145×129 cm
Artwork in collection: Smart and Beautiful Natalya Kandaurova
Artwork in selections: 13 selections

Description of the artwork «Moscow Food. Loaves of Bread»

It is forbidden to look at Moscow Food. Loaves of Bread being hungry — such a warning should precede the first glance at the picture. On an oval dark red table, there is an abundance of various bakery products, provoking the desire to immediately reach out and take a huge pretzel from the top shelf, break off a soft bun below with the other hand, touch the bagels with the third one, reach for the muffin sprinkled with powdered sugar with the fourth one... In general, it is highly desirable to have a lot of hands. Here we can see dark hearth bread, and ruddy challah, and crackers, and cakes, and rum babas, and a loaf, many loaves. It is difficult not to feel the aromas of freshly baked bread when looking at the Moscow Loaves.

Mashkov has repeatedly addressed the theme of bread. The first bread still life dates back to 1912. This was a period of passion for neo-primitivism, the picture emanates the feeling of unbridledness and joy because of the infinity of strength, a challenge to academicism. All these rolls and loaves are hypertrophied, they are best described by the word “very”, the artist does not know the limits yet. One of the critics of that time wrote: “One can feel the joy of a savage who sees this surprise for the first time — these Loaves of Bread, these forms of fruit.

The following bread still life dates back to 1915 and it clearly demonstrates that the artist developed, changed, made his headway. Here we can see the comparison of different textures and colours: brown bread, calm shades of vegetables, bright and juicy pears, matte and transparent bottles.

In 1925, at the Revolution, Everyday Life and Work exhibition of the AKhRR (Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia), Mashkov presented his Moscow Food triptych. Along with the mentioned Loaves of Bread, it included "Meat, poultry"and Fruit still life with grapes.

Mashkov described his Loaves of Bread as follows: “I wanted to prove [...[ that our Soviet art should feel in tune with our time and remain understandable, convincing, intelligible to every working person. The Loaves of Bread still life is our ordinary Moscow bakery of the time... and the composition is kind of disorderly, awkward, but ours, Moscow, local, and not Parisian.”

Mashkov sincerely believed in revolutionary ideals. However, his paintings turned out to be something more than the artist himself imagined. Let's recall the historical context: the country just took rest after the iron grip of war communism, the unstable era of NEP began, which called to develop and grow rich (although there were no resources for it) on the one hand, and threatened dispossession at any moment on the other... At this time Mashkov painted the Moscow Food. The Soviet life? Oh, this was a Gargantua’s meal, not the Soviet Union!Mashkov wrote about these "Loaves": "I wanted to prove ( ... ) that our Soviet pictorial art should be in tune with our sense of time and clearly, cogently, lucidly every working man. Still life "Bread" is our ordinary bakery of its time... and the song like careless, clumsy, but nashenskie, Moscow, tutoshnie, not Paris".

Painting food when it’s just food, and painting bread when you already know that it may lack are completely different cases. Here is the second case. In these generous, rich, abundant still lifes, in this celebration of life, one can feel a certain deliberation, exaggeration, despair of a carnival that is about to end. It has ended, as we already know. Did Mashkov know it? We can’t say for sure. He wanted to “keep pace” with the revolution, but he unwittingly stepped further.

By the way, he painted his last “still life with bread” in 1936. The era of the Great Purge began... The “Soviet loaves” were baked by the Moscow bakery based on sketches by the artist. They made loaves in the form of the coat of arms of the USSR, baked wheat wreaths, and an abundance of rolls, pretzels, buns... The Stalin’s Empire style! The attributes of the Soviet regime were... edible! Did the artist envision the second bottom, which would become apparent much later to us, but not to his contemporaries? This is a question without an answer.

Author: Aliona Esaulova


Comments