Why the masterpieces of the naive artist ended up in the barn and how "heavenly carpets" found their place in museums: Alena Kish

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Nowadays, the name of Alena Kish is well known to researchers of naive art. She is called an outstanding artist of her time, exhibitions, scientific articles and research are devoted to her, fashion accessories are created based on her works … However, during her lifetime, Alena Kish suffered from the inability to reveal her talent, from poverty and ridicule, and her masterpieces were only pleasing to the cows - after all her painted "heavenly" carpets lined the floors in the barn …

Little information about the artist has survived. There is not even her lifetime images, except for one, unclear and faded passport photograph. She was born in the village of Romanovo, Slutsk district in the last years of the 19th century, in a large peasant family. It cannot be said that Alena stood out a lot among her relatives - everyone in the family loved to draw and were reputed to be good artisans. Alena's elder brother, for example, was a famous carpenter and was engaged in the restoration of the murals of the Varvara Church. And Alena's father was always ready to pamper his beloved daughter with a beautiful new dress, even if this meant that he would have to work many times harder and harder - after all, there should be a place for joy and beauty in life … However, Alena did not just have fun with drawing and did not just love beautiful things … She had a talent, a vocation, a gift - not understood and not accepted by those around her. The artist was a pure and kind person, she loved to sing, knew many folk songs, loved animals, but she was famous as a "holy fool".

After the death of their parents, the brothers and sisters Kish lived in Slutsk, after the war they ended up in the village of Grozovo. Alena was openly disliked by her fellow villagers - how can she, in such a difficult time, when the family is starving, indulge in some kind of drawings! There would be no work until the seventh sweat. However, Alena's work on the collective farm was not to her liking, and she was already openly called a freeloader … So Kish began to wander around the villages in search of food - in exchange for her painted carpets, which in Belarus were called "malyavankas". Painted carpets were popular in those years. They brightened up the harsh peasant life in the difficult years of collectivization, decorated the walls and protected from the cold. And the artist knocked on some doors, then on others in search of customers. She never took money. A little bread or potatoes, a roof over your head - at least for one night. The night for which you can create a masterpiece.

Alena was, apparently, one of the few, if not the only woman who painted carpets in those years. She painted on linen, often sewn from separate pieces. She sprinkled water on the canvas, sketched with a pencil and began to write. She painted, apparently, with cheap aniline paints, which eventually dried out and crumbled. Therefore, the owners and "exiled" her carpets somewhere far away. At first, they, bright and joyful, were hung over the beds - this custom is still widespread in the villages of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Tropical forests, people relaxing on the waters, girls writing letters to their beloved among exotic flowers and trees, unprecedented animals and birds … Images of folk art mixed with the fantastic ones generated by the artist's imagination. Alena's carpets fascinated with the promise of a wonderful future, albeit a posthumous one - the most beloved subject for both her and her customers was paradise. Some even believed that these carpets bring happiness to the house, especially for young unmarried girls.

However, not only problems with dyes darkened Alena's career. First of all, they stopped ordering carpets for her because tapestries of industrial production began to be imported into the villages. They were bright and variegated, did not fade, did not crumble. New, "fashionable", they became a source of pride, a welcome gift, a valuable acquisition. "Paradise Carpets" were sent to attics and sheds. Alena Kish passed away in 1949. They said that she just slipped while walking along the river bank and could not get out. But no one believed it, not even the speakers themselves. A terrible truth was hidden behind a timid explanation: the artist drowned herself, threw herself into the river out of longing, lack of demand, poverty …

But the story doesn't end there. In the 70s, the Minsk artist Vladimir Basalyga and his wife Valentina began to collect painted carpets of Alena Kish all over Belarus, as well as information about her. He begged the first carpets in his collection from aunts as a wedding present. Although the aunts found it strange, they brought several copies to their beloved nephew. From early childhood, Basalyga was in love with Alena's works, and having received an art education, he was able to appreciate her talent. Vladimir and Valentina tried to restore them to the best of their ability. This turned out to be a difficult task - it was necessary to scrape off the manure from the carpets, they more often served for the benefit of cows and pigs than caressed the human eye. And people were in no hurry to share memories of their compatriot …

Be that as it may, in 1978 Basalyga was able to demonstrate the works of Alena Kish at the First Republican Exhibition of folk painted carpets in the halls of the Minsk Palace of Arts. During these years, throughout the USSR, researchers and artists turned their eyes to the work of folk craftsmen and craftswomen, and the Kish painted carpets attracted the attention of many people. In the future, her work was accepted by the Zaslavsky Museum - Basalyga flatly refused to sell carpets to private collectors who offered huge amounts of money. Kish's legacy was to remain in Belarus, in her homeland.

The second wave of the surge in Kish's popularity began in the 2000s thanks to sociologist and feminist Elena Gapova, when the YSU Center for Gender Studies published a calendar about twelve Belarusian artists. Alena Kish's name was included in the World Encyclopedia of Naive Art. The growth of so-called "women's studies" (studying the role of women in art and culture), the popularity of naive art and the art of outsiders - all this allowed the public to finally realize the value of Alena Kish's "heavenly carpets" many years after her tragic departure.