Rebel Poets and Harem Inhabitants: How the poet Khodasevich's niece became a key artist of the revolutionary theater

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

A portrait with the signature "V. Khodasevich" may cause confusion - was the poet Vladislav Khodasevich also fond of avant-garde painting? But no - vivid portraits of Russian bohemia of the early 20th century with a touch of Cezanneism and Cubism belong to the brush of his relative, Valentina Khodasevich.

Valentina Khodasevich was born in 1894 in the family of the lawyer Mikhail Khodasevich. She was a niece to the famous poet Vladislav Khodasevich, but she was only eight years younger than him, which allowed her to enter the circle of her uncle's close friends.

Valentina studied painting in the Sunday classes of the legendary Stroganov School, then went to Munich and Paris, where modernist artists raged at that time.

And her homeland greeted her with a surge of avant-garde art. Endless "isms" grew and multiplied, creative associations put forward their revolutionary and nihilist manifestos, calling to throw the former art "from the ship of modernity." One exhibition after another opened, demonstrating the latest artistic trends, sometimes shocking an unprepared audience.

Valentina met E. V. Tatlin. Tatlin's studio became a springboard for her creative experiments. Since 1912, Valentina has repeatedly participated in exhibitions of the "World of Art", "Union of Youth" and "Jack of Diamonds", whose ideas were especially close to her.

In 1913, Valentina Khodasevich married the artist Andrei Diederichs, who was also close to the "left", radical direction in art.

Together they left for Petrograd. There Valentina worked as a portraitist until 1918. She has portraits of all famous creative personalities of that time - bright, energetic, created at the intersection of Cubism, Fauvism, Cezanneism and Russian avant-garde movements. Valentina also wrote to Maxim Gorky, who became a close friend of their family with Andrei - Diederichs became an active participant in the commune in Gorky's apartment. However, the calls of revolutionary artists seeking to bring art out of stuffy museums to the streets could not fail to resonate in Valentina's soul. Together with several other masters, she painted in the Pittoresk cafe, and after the October Revolution, together with her husband, she took an active part in creating the festive decoration of Petrograd.

In 1919, Valentina found a new vocation - theater.

She came to the theater as a well-known artist, a creative personality, and now her art was to find flesh on the stage. Many artists in those years turned to the theater - the number of orders for portraits decreased, collectors lost their capital, and the theatrical sphere, like the entire sphere of public events, on the contrary, expanded and developed. The theater was a means both to improve their financial situation and to throw themselves a new creative challenge. Not all the artists who came to work at the theater stayed there for a long time, but for Valentina Khodasevich the theater became a real home.

It all started with "The Tree of Transformations" based on the play by Gumilyov, and then Valentina firmly established herself in the Theater of the National Comedy, becoming there, in fact, the main artist. The People's Comedy was a rather unusual, experimental theater with a fundamentally new repertoire and invited circus artists - Valentina, when creating sketches of a costume, had to take into account the demands of the public as well,who wanted to see something bright, pleasing to the eye, and the difficult work of actors performing more difficult stunts. Here Valentina's belonging to the number of Russian avant-garde artists played a role - she had an excellent command of color, form and composition, was able to find sources of inspiration in archaic and exotic art, reworking borrowed motifs in her own manner.

Valentina also created decorations, giving preference to large monochromatic planes - the sky, the sea, the desert, supplementing them with thin lines of ship gear or a symbolic image of buildings - training from the constructivist Tatlin was not in vain. Khodasevich never tried to create scenery that imitates reality, strived for lightness, even dryness, minimalism, which made it possible to focus the viewer's attention on the acting, and not on the rich decoration of the stage.

Khodasevich's style was energetic, ironic, filled with optimism - this corresponded perfectly to the "renewed" art of post-revolutionary Russia. She loved collage, used photomontage, introduced constructivist elements … And the workers of the theatrical sewing workshops did not cherish her soul because it was easy and convenient to work with her sketches.

Valentina Khodasevich has worked on innovative performances, and on eccentric operettas, and on classical works - "Rigoletto", "Othello", "Bakhchisarai Fountain". In 1922, Gorky invited her to visit - Valentina lived for six months near Berlin, creating a graphic cycle "Berlin at Night", filled with expressive tango movements and the sparkle of champagne glasses. After a long journey through Europe, she again stayed with Gorky - this time in Sorrento. She also illustrated several of his books.

During the Great Patriotic War, Valentina Khodasevich and Andrei Diderikhs went to evacuate to Tashkent, where Andrei died. His health at that time was undermined by two arrests and imprisonment - a short one thanks to the intervention of influential friends, but … Valentina returned to Leningrad in 1945. In 1953 she moved to Moscow, where she lived until her last days. In 1956, Valentina stopped her theater activities - it was time for her memoirs. She described her numerous acquaintances in the book "Portraits in Words".

Valentina Khodasevich died in 1970, having survived two wars, a revolution - and almost everyone she knew and loved. She has designed more than one and a half hundred performances. Her theatrical influence is undeniable and her legacy immense. One of the last witnesses of the birth of a new art, she followed the principles of the avant-garde all her life, and the main one is the artist's service to the people.