Alexandre Roubtzoff ( художник Александр Рубцов ) {1884 - 1949} - 19th century art orientalist artist The unique fate and versatile work of Alexander Alexandrovich Rubtsov, a painter, graphic artist and publicist who worked in Tunisia since 1914 and became a French citizen in 1924 , practically unknown to Russian art lovers and even art critics!
The future artist, who was born on January 24, 1884 in St. Petersburg, was the illegitimate son of Evgenia Rubtsova, the daughter of a hereditary honorary citizen Alexander Ivanovich Rubtsov. Only in 1897, by the highest order, the boy was allowed to take his mother's surname and patronymic Aleksandrovich. From 1898 to 1904 Rubtsov studied at the 8th St. Petersburg gymnasium, from which he graduated with a silver medal. His high school diploma highlighted his success in Russian literature. His godmother, the artist Ekaterina Karlovna Vakhter, and her husband, professor of the Academy of Arts Yan Frantsevich Tsionglinsky, took a large part in the upbringing of Alexander. A brilliant academic teacher, Zionglinsky was also known as one of the first Russian impressionists, an avid traveler, and a lover of exotic countries.
For the first time, the future orientalist artist felt the charm of the East at the age of 16, when he spent a month in the Crimea. Probably, it was Tsionglinsky that Rubtsov owes his choice of a creative profession and serious technical training, which determined his brilliant results when entering the Academy of Arts (Rubtsov was the first on the list of those enrolled in 1904). At the Academy, the future artist studied under the guidance of the same Tsionglinsky. He also had a chance to study drawing with one of the pillars of academic drawing - P.P. Chistyakov, who taught several generations of Russian artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1906, Rubtsov was assigned to the workshop of Professor D.N.Kardovsky, where he studied together with the later famous Russian artists Vasily Shukhaev and Alexander Yakovlev. In those years, the Academy was no longer the same: students were given great freedom, which they used to perceive the new French painting and the experiments of the Russian avant-garde artists. Like many young artists, Rubtsov is fond of art, which is very far from academism, he is a member of the Triangle group and participates in the Impressionists exhibitions organized by it. The artists who united around Nikolai Kulbin and called themselves Impressionists focused more on the art of French post-impressionism and symbolism. However, unlike, for example, his classmate Pavel Filonov, the future founder of analytical painting, Rubtsov is not going to break with the Academy - probably because of his family closeness to it and certain career plans that have begun to be successfully implemented. used by them to perceive new French painting and the experiments of Russian avant-garde artists. Like many young artists, Rubtsov is fond of art, which is very far from academism, he is a member of the Triangle group and participates in the Impressionists exhibitions organized by it. The artists who united around Nikolai Kulbin and called themselves Impressionists focused more on the art of French post-impressionism and symbolism. However, unlike, for example, his classmate Pavel Filonov, the future founder of analytical painting, Rubtsov is not going to break with the Academy - probably because of his family closeness to it and certain career plans that have begun to be successfully implemented. used by them to perceive new French painting and the experiments of Russian avant-garde artists. Like many young artists, Rubtsov is fond of art, which is very far from academism, he is a member of the Triangle group and participates in the Impressionists exhibitions organized by it. The artists who united around Nikolai Kulbin and called themselves Impressionists focused more on the art of French post-impressionism and symbolism. However, unlike, for example, his classmate Pavel Filonov, the future founder of analytical painting, Rubtsov is not going to break with the Academy - probably because of his family closeness to it and certain career plans that have begun to be successfully implemented. very far from academicism, he belongs to the group "Triangle" and participates in the exhibitions organized by her "Impressionists". The artists who united around Nikolai Kulbin and called themselves Impressionists focused more on the art of French post-impressionism and symbolism. However, unlike, for example, his classmate Pavel Filonov, the future founder of analytical painting, Rubtsov is not going to break with the Academy - probably because of his family closeness to it and certain career plans that have begun to be successfully implemented. very far from academicism, he belongs to the group "Triangle" and participates in the exhibitions organized by her "Impressionists". The artists who united around Nikolai Kulbin and called themselves Impressionists focused more on the art of French post-impressionism and symbolism. However, unlike, for example, his classmate Pavel Filonov, the future founder of analytical painting, Rubtsov is not going to break with the Academy - probably because of his family closeness to it and certain career plans that have begun to be successfully implemented. focused more on the art of French post-impressionism and symbolism. However, unlike, for example, his classmate Pavel Filonov, the future founder of analytical painting, Rubtsov is not going to break with the Academy - probably because of his family closeness to it and certain career plans that have begun to be successfully implemented. focused more on the art of French post-impressionism and symbolism. However, unlike, for example, his classmate Pavel Filonov, the future founder of analytical painting, Rubtsov is not going to break with the Academy - probably because of his family closeness to it and certain career plans that have begun to be successfully implemented.
After brilliantly completing his studies at the Academy of Arts in 1912, Rubtsov received the right to a four-year retirement trip abroad. He goes on a trip to Europe. In 1913 he visited England, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland. At the same time, his first meeting with Africa took place. “From Spain - from Сadiz I moved by boat to Africa - to Morocco, to Tanger. There I came across such a quantity of pictorial material that a few days later I left without writing almost anything, ”the artist says in his retirement report. There was a war in Morocco, and it was impossible to penetrate deep into the country. But the artist had the idea to come to Africa later for a longer period. He returns to Europe, but is soon forced to interrupt the journey due to the death of his stepfather and teacher. Having returned to St. Petersburg for a short time in December 1913, Rubtsov organizes his posthumous exhibition and publishes the book "Testaments of Zionglinsky". The book consists of 200 aphorisms reflecting the worldview of a creative personality of the Van Gogh type, disinterested and completely devoted to art. Such ideals became Rubtsov's own credo.
Tunis, 1914. The rue du Persan
At the beginning of 1914, the artist left St. Petersburg, not yet suspecting that he was leaving forever, and on April 1 he arrived in Tunisia, which suddenly became his second homeland. “I came to Tunisia for only a few months and will stay here for life. Man assumes, God disposes, ”Rubtsov admitted. In Tunisia, Rubtsov finds a source of inspiration and finds the main subjects of his work - local landscapes, types, architecture. The perception of an exotic land as a spiritual homeland was characteristic of the great French masters of the late 19th century, suffice it to recall Gauguin, who left for Polynesia, or Van Gogh, who saw his Japan in the south of France. And quite a few representatives of Russian culture, for example, Petrov-Vodkin and Gumilev, were looking for the India Spirit in North Africa. But in addition to this psychological reason, there was also an objective one that prevented Rubtsov from returning to Russia: World War I. In 1915, the artist settled in Tunis, on the border of the Arab and European parts of the capital. A studio apartment on Al-Jazeera Street became his only permanent address. Up to and including 1917, he is still in correspondence with the Academy of Arts, sending reports and photographs of his works there.
The revolutionary events in Russia had a heavy effect on the artist's consciousness, he refuses the Russian language, stops signing his paintings in Russian and does not communicate with Russian emigrants who have arrived in Tunisia (sailors of the Black Sea squadron). Since 1924, when Rubtsov was granted French citizenship, he calls himself "a Frenchman who was born in St. Petersburg." By the will of fate, finding himself in external emigration, he preferred to emigrate internally from the problems of the revolution, finding salvation in that which was his only concern - art.
In 1920, Rubtsov first participated in the Tunisian Salon - the annual forum of Tunisian artists, presenting 122 works that occupied an entire hall. In the same year, he was awarded the Order of the Tunisian Bey Nisham el Iftikhar and held his first solo exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in London. In 1923, the artist participates in the creation of the Center for the Arts in Tunis. In 1924 he was awarded the Order of the French Academy of Arts. In the 1920s-40s, Rubtsov annually exhibits his works in numerous French and Tunisian Salons, organizes several personal exhibitions in Paris and Tunisia. The artist also travels a lot in Tunisia, other countries of the Maghreb, Europe and Asia Minor. In 1937 he takes part in the World Exhibition in Paris and in the Exhibition of graduates of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in Belgrade.
In 1947, President of France Vincent Auriol came to the last personal exhibition of Rubtsov in the Parisian gallery La Boètie, expressing admiration for his painting "The Arab Woman". But fame could not turn the head of this artist, whom his contemporaries remember as a quiet, modest person, with calm gestures, shying away from secular society, but not disdaining to play trick-track with his neighbors. He, a refined intellectual who called himself “a Frenchman from St. Petersburg,” was nicknamed “White Russian” in Tunisia - probably for his blond hair, but not for his political affiliation. Arriving in Africa from the far north, Rubtsov never wore a coat, even in the coldest, by Tunisian standards, weather, and swam almost all year round, except for the hottest time when the water seemed too warm to him. He occasionally appeared at receptions of the intellectual elite, but few crossed the threshold of his home. Among his guests is the world famous dancer Isadora Duncan, who visited the artist's studio in 1919.
He worked a lot, being very critical of his work, but did not like to sell his paintings and tried to avoid it whenever possible. He was outraged by the prevailing perception of art as a commodity in the modern world: “There are many artists who work only for the sake of money ... But was Velasquez, creating his incredibly sophisticated shades, was at the mercy of thoughts about money? Did Dante belittle his Divine Comedy to a banal commercial plan? Did Beethoven and Debussy weigh their sounds on the scales of a rough merchant? ... ”Nothing material, except canvases and paints, interested the artist. “I have nothing but my painting, my drawings, my crocs, my sketches. Due to the theft last April, I lost my last clothes, so I have nothing. Perhaps for this reason I lead such a happy life. "
Alexander Rubtsov died of tuberculosis in 1949 and was buried in the Borjel cemetery in Tunis.
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