In 1900, a significant event took place in Kharkiv that shaped the entire future cultural life of our city.
On January 15, 1900, an exhibition of paintings by local artists opened at the City Museum of Fine Arts. Works by such artists as Vyezhev, Voloshinov, Trakal, Uvarov, Karpov, Solomakha, Shabelsky, and others were on display. During the entire run of the exhibition, from January 6 to February 2, it was visited by about 2,000 people. However, only eight paintings were sold.
As for the press, here’s what they wrote about it:
All in all, the exhibition has been a success, and one can only hope that this first experience will inspire the organizers to hold similar exhibitions in the future.
This event is considered a milestone in the history of exhibitions featuring works by Kharkiv artists. Prior to that time (that is, before January 1900), exhibitions organized by the “Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions” were held in our city almost every year. At these exhibitions, visitors could not only admire the works of Vasnetsov, Bodarevsky, Arkhipov, Volkov, Dubovsky, Kasatkin, Lebedev, Levitan, Klodt, Makovsky, Myasoedov, Stepanov, Serov, Shishkin, Schilder, Yaroshenko, Korin, Orlov, and Pimonenko, but also to purchase them. The number of visitors to the exhibitions varied. In 1894, there were about 2,500 people, while in 1898, for example, there were 5,530.
Exhibitions featuring individual famous artists were also popular among Kharkiv residents. For example, in the spring of 1896, 15,800 people came to see the paintings of the renowned battle painter Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin. The artist donated 10% of the proceeds to the Kharkiv School of Art.
In contrast, only 4,000 people came to see the paintings of the outstanding marine artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky in 1898. At the master’s request, all proceeds from the exhibition were donated to the poor of Kharkiv.
I’m not sure whether 1900 should be considered the exact year when the first exhibitions by local artists appeared in our city. Undoubtedly, the credit for organizing them belongs to the “Kharkiv Artists’ Society”—a group of renowned, professional, and experienced individuals. However, as early as 1869, Kharkiv was home to the first private art school in the Russian Empire—Maria Raevskaya-Ivanova’s School of Drawing and Painting. In May 1894, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, a free exhibition of her students’ works was held at M. Raevskaya’s School of Drawing and Painting. For our city, where such outstanding artists as Semeradsky, Repin, Kramskoy, Vasilkovsky, Schroeder, Pervukhin, Brailovsky, and many others lived and worked, this was a momentous event.
“What a vast and magnificent arena for young talents to practice and develop! What a wealth and variety of artistic genres!” exclaims a Kharkiv journalist who visited the exhibition. At the same time, he honestly notes that the pencil drawings by the young artists are uncertain and lack strength. The paintings are also weak. On the other hand, the works on porcelain and earthenware are quite successful and deserve praise. “I hasten to mention the arabesques and ornaments, as well as the parquet designs (stone mosaics), rendered in watercolor with a harmonious selection of colors and tones. These works deserve full approval and promise a bright future. I also feel it is my duty to mention the pencil drawings created by the students after they worked from life and from a model. These works speak highly of the school and its teacher.”
The next exhibition of works by students of the Raevskaya School was successfully held on May 28, 1895. In November 1897, with the approval of the Kharkiv City Duma, works by students of the Kharkiv School of Drawing and Painting were exhibited for the first time in our beloved city. And on February 12, 1899, an exhibition by the city school of drawing and painting was officially opened at the city museum. Although it was, in fact, an annual report on the school’s activities, according to reporters, “people interested in Kharkiv’s artistic life awaited it with particular interest, since, in addition to providing an insight into the school’s teaching methods and the students’ abilities, its regularity allows one to observe their artistic growth.”
Despite the experts’ ruthless criticism of the school’s students’ work, their homework received high praise, as it was “so much better, so much more artistic, and so much closer to the true path that one cannot help but exclaim:
Good Lord, why do you even go to class? Just work from home—and work exactly the way you do! What diversity!… Each one has something unique pulsing within them; each strives to express their own relationship with nature, and although they don’t always succeed, they don’t give up or settle for a template. You get the sense that, through this quest, they’ll find nature itself without losing any of their artistic individuality—and for an artist, that’s everything. The works by Linitskaya, Evenbach, and Agafonov are exquisite here. The latter exhibited plaster heads and an extensive section of landscape sketches, magnificent in their tone…
In January 1900, another exhibition of students’ work opened at the Decorative Painting School of the Kharkiv Society for the Promotion of Literacy. Despite its short existence (the school had opened in 1899), its students had achieved excellent results. By that time, 17 children aged 12 to 17 were studying at the painting school. There were, however, only two teachers. The full course of study at the school lasted four years. The young artists began with the “basics” (that is, drawing straight lines), then progressed to painting with watercolors and oil paints. During the summer, the young painters had practical training: classes in interior decoration, painting furniture, and so on.
Among the works exhibited in January, the two large panels painted in oils by students Popov and Skvarkovsky, as well as an artistic screen by the latter, received the most attention and praise. It is worth noting that contemporaries gave the exhibition very favorable reviews:
Everyone knows that in the provinces, art does not have a broad path, and it is destined to follow narrow, thorny trails; therefore, we cannot help but thank the school for making this path easier for the poor. And even if the school itself does not take such a broad view of its mission—focusing solely on training artisans with refined taste—we must still thank it for this noble endeavor. Perhaps we will see the day when fresco and painting cease to be synonymous with bad taste in our eyes, when we have fewer houses painted crudely and absurdly, and fewer mansions, lavishly adorned not with sculptural but rather with confectionery-like decorations. The results achieved by the school to date—that is, in its very first year of existence—clearly indicate that the institution is on a solid footing and is in the hands of experienced leaders.
Currently, the building next to the Raevskaya School at Chernyshevska Street, 4 also houses the Aza Nizi Maza children’s art school. Like their distant ancestors who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the students there paint pictures that can be seen today at exhibitions. Looking at them, it’s sometimes hard to believe that they were created by a child’s hand.
Unfortunately, I do not have any photographs of the works from the exhibitions of 1894, 1895, 1897, and 1899, but I am sincerely convinced that age is by no means an indicator of a true artist’s skill. So, as we can see, even before the first exhibition of paintings organized in 1900 by the “Kharkiv Artists’ Society,” there were still exhibitions in our city. It’s just that the creators of those paintings were the young artists of our beloved city.
