Who actually invented the faceted glass, and why "Granchak" was a favorite subject in Petrov-Vodkin's still lifes

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

For many years we were assured that the faceted glass was invented by the sculptor Vera Mukhina during the Great Patriotic War. That is how it is, but, delving into history, we find out what else Peter the Great experienced on the "Granchak" fortress. And in painting, since 1918, a faceted glass was the main object of many still lifes Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

The history of the faceted glass

The predecessors of the usual granchaks were made on the territory of Russia at the beginning of the 17th century, the exhibits in the Hermitage are proof of this. In addition, there is a legend about how the well-known glassblower from Vladimir Efim Smolin presented a thick-walled granchak to Peter I as a gift, assuring the tsar that he would never break. The Tsar-Father, having drunk the poured wine from it, without hesitation, slammed the glass with all his might on the floor in order to verify the words of the master.

At the same time, Peter exclaimed: "There will be a glass!" … And take it and break it. They say that since that time it has become a custom in Russia to break dishes for good luck. Despite the incident, the Granchak quickly came into use, especially in the Russian fleet, since when rolling, overturning, he did not roll down on the table to the floor. And the sovereign himself, a connoisseur of everything new and progressive, changed the habit of drinking drinks from wooden mugs and switched to newfangled glasses.

However, looking at the painting "Breakfast" by D. Velazquez, painted long before the reign of Peter the Great, the conclusion suggests itself that the assumption that Russia is the homeland of faceted glasses is erroneous. Although the depicted glass vessel differs in its facets from the vertical ones we are accustomed to. There is another indisputable fact that the technologies that began to be used during the Soviet Union were first used by the Americans back in the 1820s. And this technique came to Russia only at the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, we can say with complete confidence that a faceted glass is by its nature a "foreigner".

Faceted glasses in the painting of European artists

The amazing world of glasses by Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin (1878-1939)

Petrov-Vodkin, naturally, was not the first master of the glass genre in the history of art. And as you can see, long before him, artists also depicted various glass vessels in their still lifes, including faceted glasses.

During the revolution, faceted glasses and stacks became a proletarian object. Back in 1918, Petrov-Vodkin painted his first 12-sided glass of tea on the Morning Still Life. And he will write many of them during his creative career - both faceted and ordinary smooth. Moreover, these still lifes will create a whole series of canvases dedicated to the glass vessel and included in the annals of world art.

Analyzing the work of Petrov-Vodkin, art critics came to the conclusion that the artist, in the turbulent revolutionary years, turned to the genre of still life out of despair.

Apparently the slogan: under which Kuzma Sergeevich lived all his life and played a key role here.

With each still life, the artist's skill grew stronger, and he became one of the outstanding masters of this genre in the entire history of Russian painting. Each work traces how the painter skillfully refracts the surrounding objects in glass edges, and this is best seen on the example of spoons. And also the artist surprisingly created the illusion of three-dimensionality and fullness of the vessel.

Kuzma Sergeevich's still lifes with glasses are something evoking a number of associations with the artist's ambiguous surname, inherited from his drunken grandfather, who managed to get the prefix "Vodkin" for the surname "Petrov". The imprint of this not too honorable surname, the artist had to bear all his life. And this is on the one hand. On the other hand, there is the extraordinary "versatility" of Petrov-Vodkin's talent: an artist and a writer, a self-taught and a theorist, an icon painter and a modernist.

And if in the image of apples he came close to the skill of Cézanne, then in faceted glasses Petrov-Vodkin is the undisputed master number 1 in the world.

And again about Vera Mukhina

And here is the Granchak, who is familiar to many who were born and lived in the country of the Soviets. It was these glasses that were used in public catering, on the railway, in water vending machines.

And in the statement that the famous sculptor Vera Mukhina is the designer of the faceted glass, there is still some truth. It was she who gave him a "second" life, having come up with a smooth rim going around the edge, which distinguished the Mukhinsky glass from the traditional granchak.

Well, that's not all … Some researchers argue that she borrowed this idea while being evacuated in the Urals from a local engineer Nikolai Slavyanov. In his diaries, sketches of glasses with 10, 20 and 30 sides have been preserved, although he suggested making such a glass out of metal. What can be one hundred percent sure is that Vera Mukhina is the author of the design of a classic beer mug - a glass. And this is already an indisputable fact!

But be that as it may, today the granchak is a rarity. He has faithfully served the Soviet public catering for decades. And in the kitchen of every zealous hostess, a glass and a 100-gram glass were necessarily hidden as a measuring vessel. And some of them keep these rare glasses to this day …

Now this "exotic" in the glass production is made only to order.

You can learn a fascinating story about the life and adventures of the brilliant painter, prophet, writer Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin in review