Mikhail Vasilievich Matyushin. Matyushin M.V.

Color Guide. Pattern of changeability of color combinations / M. V. Matyushin; Introductory article by L. A. Zhadova. - Moscow: Publisher D. Aronov, 2007. - 72 p., ill. - ISBN 978-5-94056-016-4

The publisher thanks E. K. Simonova-Gudzenko for providing materials from the archive of L. A. Zhadova for publication.

The text by M. V. Matyushin is published according to the publication:

M. V. Matyushin. The pattern of change in color combinations. Moscow, 1932.

The book by the classic Russian avant-garde artist M.V. Matyushin was written on the basis of his many years of research into the perception of color and form. The identified patterns are proposed for use in artistic practice. The book is conceived by the author as a practical guide for artists, designers and architects. Color tables illustrate the principles of harmonious color selection.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin (1861-1934) entered the history of Russian culture as an artist, musician, teacher, art and music critic, experimental researcher in the field of psychophysiology of art perception.

The son of a peasant woman, in the full sense the one who is called a nugget, he managed to advance and received both an artistic and musical education. In 1880 he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, studied painting at the Society for the Encouragement of Artists (1886-1889) and at the Academy of Arts (1891-1897). His artistic worldview developed in his circle of friends with the Burliuk brothers, V. Kamensky, V. Khlebnikov, K. Malevich, A. Kruchenykh. In 1910, Matyushin, together with his wife, artist Elena Guro, initiated the creation of the creative association “Youth Union”. Their apartment became a meeting place for St. Petersburg and Moscow futurists. Matyushin organizes a publishing house that publishes books by Khlebnikov, Filonov, and Malevich. In 1913 he wrote music for the famous futuristic opera “Victory over the Sun”.

In his artistic practice, Matyushin, trying to expand the boundaries of visual possibilities, developed a new pictorial system. It was based on the method of “expanded viewing”, associated with the activation of lateral vision.

Matyushin developed his system of “new vision” in his teaching activities, heading the workshop of spatial realism at the Vkhugein State Museum of Art and Culture in 1918. From among his students, a group of artists “Zorved” is organized around him.

In 1924-1926, Matyushin, simultaneously with Malevich, led research work at the GINKHUK (Institute of Artistic Culture). Together with his students, he conducted experiments on the perception of color and sound under various conditions. The goal of these studies was to determine in a laboratory way the patterns of interaction between the means of plastic language - shape, color, sound.

“Handbook of Color”, published in 1932, became the first publication of materials from the Department of Organic Culture of the State Institute of Economy, Headed by M. Matyushin. The publication was conceived as a practical guide for artists, designers, and architects. Due to the fact that the color tables were made by hand, the book's circulation was extremely small - only 400 copies. The “Handbook” soon became a bibliographic rarity. To date, the book has never been republished.

M. Matyushin color system

The laws of color were neither analyzed nor taught in our art schools, for in France it is considered unnecessary to study the laws of color, in accordance with the saying: “A draftsman can be trained, but a painter must be born.”

The secret of color theory? Why call secrets laws that should be known to every artist and which we should all learn?

Delacroix

In 1932, the State Publishing House of Fine Arts in Leningrad published the “Handbook of Color”. It consisted of four notebooks-tables - colorful harmonies-tricolors and a large article “The pattern of changeability of color combinations”. The author of the proposed color system and the color harmonizer created on its basis is the oldest Leningrad artist and teacher M. Matyushin 1. The color tables were made by hand using a stencil by a group of young artists - students of Matyushin 2. Hence the mini-circulation: 400 copies. But what specimens! The color intensity, brightness and luminosity of these man-made tables is still amazing, even with all the mastery of our eyes with the most technically advanced methods of color reproduction.

The editor of this publication, which was not only complex for that time, was the then young artist I. Titov.

“The Handbook,” as the text says, “is designed for use in working on color in production: interior and exterior design of architecture, textiles, porcelain, wallpaper, printing and other industries.” At the same time, the compilers of the reference book warned against its prescription use:

“It would be completely wrong to treat the proposed tables as norms-recipes for recommended color combinations and to consider them as generally beautiful and generally correct. Using the proposed material, we must learn to take into account the pattern of color variability.” The author considered color three-sound tables as a support for the artist’s intuition, for training his eyes, and “food” for stimulating creative imagination.

Matyushin’s color science is based on establishing the direct dependence of the aesthetic qualities of color harmonies on the psychophysiological factors of perception, which, as is known, are closely related to the psychology of creativity. The object of research and experimentation of the Leningrad artist was not only color itself, but also the processes of human “color” vision in various conditions.

The “Harmonizer” of color arose as one of the conclusions in the process of synthesizing certain aspects of science and art in Matyushin’s work, as a methodological and practical guide that can be used in creating color compositions and selecting color schemes. [...]

In the context of growing interest in the problems of color theory and its practical application, Matyushin’s “Handbook”, despite all the specificity of this work, also acquires a general educational character; its content opens up for us new aspects that expand the scope of possible application, based on practical conclusions, color theory, created by the artist.

It seems that the main quality of Matyushin’s “science of color,” in contrast, for example, to the popular color system of the German optical physicist W. Ostwald 3 , is that it was created by a painter, artistically in origin, in meaning, and in everything to its meaning. Ostwald's color aesthetics is based on his general systematization of colors, which was a great achievement of physical and optical science that contributed to the streamlining of ideas about color, including in artistic activity. However, in essence, Ostwald's color harmonies have a distant connection with aesthetics, since they represent mechanically obtained color combinations mathematically calculated on the color wheel.

One can understand the still wide prevalence of Ostwald’s principles of color harmonization, easily accessible to any practitioner, including non-artists, both here and in the West 4 . But one can also understand how this system, soon after its appearance, aroused a sharply critical attitude, primarily from painters who themselves tried to develop the science of the art of color. Our first among them was Matyushin.

In the full sense, the one who is called a nugget, Matyushin was the son of a serf peasant woman. However, he managed to advance and received both artistic and musical education 5.

Even a cursory acquaintance with Matyushin’s paintings and the color tables of the reference book testifies to their organic relationship.

A student of L. Bakst and Y. Tsionglinsky, Matyushin already in the late 1900s - early 1910s emerged as a kind of “purple” impressionist.

While professing and developing impressionism in his own way, Matyushin was at the same time keenly interested in new analytical trends in art 6 . Reflecting on their experience, he came to the conclusion about the intrinsic aesthetic significance of color. “Independent life and the movement of color...” 7 - most of all occupied the artist.

However, as it will become obvious, the idea that foresaw the future of polychromy - a new area of artistic activity dedicated to the color design of architecture and the entire subject-spatial environment, took shape in a new color science later, in the stream of discoveries “turned to the surface ... by the explosion of the Russian revolution, which gave freedom and life for everything truly living and seeking” 8.

This idea, which had not yet fully formed, influenced the artist’s multifaceted activities in the field of his development of the theory of organic culture, the romantic concept of the formation of a comprehensively developed “ideal” person through the education and development of all his “perceptive abilities” for color - painting, for sound - music, to touch - sculpture, etc. 9

It was not by chance that Matyushin turned to the idea of organic culture; the need for its theoretical and practical development was brought to life by the breadth of his creative interests, serious studies in painting, music, poetry, and his teaching activities in the first years of the revolution as a musician and artist 10.

Matyushin’s entire practical pedagogy was built on the basis of these ideas. If we talk about its origins, the theory of organic culture, inspired by the spirit of antiquity and the Renaissance, is deeply modern in attempts to scientifically objectify it on the basis of the psychophysiology of perception.

In 1918-1922, Matyushin led a workshop in the Leningrad Gosvomas (former Academy), where he rallied a friendly team of students around him. Among them, talented painters especially stood out - brother and sister Maria and Boris Ender, the first “organic shoots”, who later became Soviet artists, pioneers of a new profession - polychromists.

The theoretical work, begun in parallel with painting by Matyushin and his students in the State Free Workshops, was continued by them from the end of 1922 in a special laboratory of the Museum of Artistic Culture, which was later reorganized into the Department of Organic Culture in the State Institute of Artistic Culture created on the basis of the museum (1923-1926) . The department continued to work actively within the framework of the State Institute of Art History (1926-1929).

Matyushin, who for many years specially dealt with the problems of artistic “vision” of the world, came to the conclusion that the value of vision lies in the ability to see not only details and details, but also to embrace everything observed at once, in its entirety, that a person in this regard does not sufficiently use the capabilities of his own organs of perception. He called for cultivating the ability to “expand the angle of vision”, to teach “to see everything at once, fully, all around oneself” 11 . It is not for nothing that, when publishing a declaration of his creative group in 1923, Matyushin called its members “zorved”, that is, those in charge of the zor, that is, the gaze - vision (“zor” is a word invented by Khlebnikov). The desire for the integrity of the visual image distinguishes Matyushin’s school from the impressionists with their “fragmentary”, “fluent” perception.

This is not the place to analyze Matyushin’s spatial theories. They developed in line with attempts common to many Russian and European artists to artistically comprehend new scientific ideas about space and time, but at the same time they were so original that they deserve special analysis. Let us only note that these views played an important role in the formation of his color system, since it is with the “expansion” of the angle of view, with shifts in points of view, that many patterns of color perception fully manifest themselves.

Features of color perception in space, in the environment, in movement, in time; the formative qualities of color, the relationship and interaction of color and sound - these areas of research carried out by Matyushin and his students, which were implemented in numerous experimental color tables, were of fundamental importance 12. For Matyushin, color is a complex, moving phenomenon, dependent on neighboring colors, on the strength of lighting, on the scale of color fields, that is, on the color-light-spatial environment in which he is located and which determines the conditions and features of his perception.

The color tables of Matyushin’s “Handbook” with their expressiveness of the actual color tones and combinations, with their contrast, as if designed for the spatial movement of color, for transitions from one to another, for diverse compositional connections with their inherent color melody in tonal solutions - sometimes bright, sonorous, then extinguished, low - as if embodying the laws of color plasticity, directly related to the new spatial concept of the synthesis of arts.

The starting point in Matyushin’s “artistic” science of color is the law of complementary colors. It is well known that if you look at a red square for several minutes and then close your eyes, the image will remain, but in the form of a green square. And vice versa - if you look at the green square, then the residual will be red. This experiment can be repeated with any color and will always leave an additional color as a residual eye. This phenomenon is called sequential contrast of complementary colors. It is obvious that vision itself strives with its help towards balance and a feeling of complete satisfaction.

Goethe drew attention to the fundamental importance of this law for aesthetics: “When the eye contemplates a color, it immediately comes into an active state and, by its nature, inevitably and unconsciously immediately creates another color, which, in combination with a given color, contains the entire color circle. A particular color, through its particular perception, induces the eye to strive for universality. Then, in order to realize this universality, the eye, for the purpose of self-satisfaction, searches next to each color for some colorless space in which it could produce the missing color. This is the basic rule of color harmony” 13.

Matyushin and his students showed great interest in the work of the French chemist M. Chevreuil, director of the Parisian Gobelin factory, who published in 1839 the book “On the Law of Simultaneous Contrast and the Selection of Painted Objects,” which may have served as the theoretical basis for impressionistic and neo-impressionistic painting.

The three-color harmonies proposed by Matyushin were created primarily on the basis of understanding the color effects of sequential and simultaneous (simultaneous) contrasts through an experimental study of the interaction of color and environment on models of eight colors (red, orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, blue, indigo, violet ). The innovation of Matyushin’s technique was the observation of the effects of color contrasts not only in conditions of point-by-point, but also, above all, extended viewing, by shifting the eye from the color model to the neutral field of the environment. It can be assumed that this is due to the inherent spatial dynamism of the color combinations of the tables. Under the experimental conditions, the eye shift became, as it were, a protomodel of dynamic color perception in the real space of a polychromed environment.

Three-color combinations of tables are arranged as ratios: a) the main active color, b) the color of the environment dependent on it, and c) the middle color connecting them. The study of color has shown that colors necessarily appear around the “acting color” in a neutral environment, which are combined with it as the color of the environment and as the middle color - the cohesive one.

Observation of the behavior of emerging additional colors in time and space led to the establishment of the following patterns in the variability of the resulting color chords:

“I period: the neutral field is painted in an additional color, not clearly expressed;

Period II: the observed color is surrounded by a sharp clear rim of an additional color, a third color appears in the environment;

III period: a change occurs - the extinction of the color itself under the influence of the imposition of an additional color reflex on it; new changes are occurring in the environment” 14.

The contrast effect of complementary colors is conceptualized by Matyushin as a dynamic contrast, where one color generates another, and two new ones generate a third; as color dialectical continuity - an integral composition, where some combinations mutually “brighten”, while others, on the contrary, are extinguished. His tricolors are not the sum of three individual colors, but integral colorful images that are completely disrupted by a change in at least one component. Only bringing all three components into a new ratio creates a new coloristic whole.

The proposed color combinations are harmonized in accordance with the objectively established laws of the dependence of some colors on others during perception and can serve as a general guide to color composition. For example, it is necessary to take into account that if another color of the environment is taken to one of the main colors on the tables, the entire combination as a whole will certainly change in the direction of the proposed one. Even the dim green color of the environment in relation to violet looks fresh and colorful, but if instead of green you take a color of the environment close to violet, for example, even pure lilac, it will certainly fade and turn gray, since the green that is shown in the book will inevitably be superimposed on it ( notebook I).

The constructive and organizing role of cohesive color was experimentally established. “Through the cohesive, the spatial relationships of colors can be established; through the cohesive, brightness and purity can be restored; on the contrary, it is possible to unite and equalize vaguely detonating colors, etc.” For example, on the last table (notebook IV), the orange link contrastingly brightens the green-blue color of the environment, the blue link makes this environment more transparent and deep, and the violet link mutually balances both colors 15.

In the introductory article, Matyushin draws attention to the large role that the influence of color on form plays in the color design of architecture and various objects. Research work in this area has shown "that cool colors tend to have straight edges and form corners, even if sharp shapes painted in warm colors lose their sharp edges."

Matyushin's color harmonizer, in modern terms, is an open system. It seems to imply the co-creation of the artist using it.

For publications of this kind, which are a kind of coupling, a “bridge” between science and practice, it is extremely important to maintain the golden mean between the conceptual breadth of the general approach and the specific clarity of a specific target application. It seems that it was the desire for the latter that forced the authors of the “Handbook” to bring the fourth notebook of color combinations as close as possible to those low-saturated tones that could be obtained using a limited number of cheap dyes that were used at that time in our country for painting architecture.

Matyushin’s research on color was carried out in line with the creation of modern artistic color science, carried out by artists of the 20th century, primarily on the basis of the achievements of painting. At the origins of this process are Matyushin, Itten, Leger...

Matyushin's color science has not been brought to such a clear and comprehensively developed system as the color science of the Swiss artist Itten, who worked at the Bauhaus in the early 20s 18 . His book The Art of Color, the culmination of forty years of work, explores not only the contrasts of complementary colors, but also almost all other color contrasts possible in modern artistic practice: “The effects of contrasts and their classification represent the most suitable starting point for the study of the aesthetics of color " 19 . In recent years, a number of publications devoted to various aspects of polychrome and color science have appeared in different countries 20 . However, even in comparison with them, Matyushin’s discoveries in the field of color harmony do not lose their originality.

And if Matyushin himself noted as a gap in the Handbook that “it does not include gray, so-called achromatic tones in various combinations with chromatic or color tones” 21, then the reason for this was not fundamental regulatory restrictions. The author intended to fill the gap in the second edition.

It seems that Itten, on the contrary, somewhat absolutizes the importance of achromatic and, above all, gray tones for positive artistic color perceptions. The fact that gray itself is “mute”, that is, neutral, indifferent (medium gray color creates a state of complete static equilibrium in the eyes - it does not cause any residual color reflex) is immediately excited under the influence of any color and gives a magnificent effect of an additional color tone, It is so emphasized that some creators of modern color harmonizers, as a rule, use color combinations of only achromatic and chromatic colors. This limitation and a certain normativity (already on the basis of the aesthetics of color, and not its physics, as in Ostwald) is inherent, for example, in the ingeniously designed and beautifully executed color harmonizers of the French artist Fiassier 22 . This is hardly favorable, for example, for the polychromy of the modern urban environment, which historically has an overabundance of gray.

Matyushin’s color aesthetics are inseparable from his concept of organic culture. It is distinguished by a special, healthy full-blooded sensation of color as an organic element of the living environment, as a component of human feelings that form the spiritual fullness of personality development.

In the last years of his life, Matyushin, on the basis of the theory of organic culture, came to the idea of synthetic artistic creativity.

“We are already on the threshold of a powerful asset that combines all our capabilities. An architect, a musician, a writer, an engineer will act together in the new society and create the creativity of people organized by the new social environment, completely unknown to bourgeois society” 23. He dedicated the book “The Creative Path of an Artist” that he wrote to the future team of synthetic art artists. He dreamed that, under these conditions, color would become a universally harmonizing means of shaping. At the same time, for an artist who takes part in the design and design of individual components of the living environment, color would become an organic means of creative thinking: “Color should not be random. Color must be equal to the form in the conditions of creativity and, as it were, penetrating the form wherever it appears... [...] An architect, an engineer, an artist must, through preliminary training, learn to create in his imagination every volume under construction already colored.” 24.

Matyushin's color studies are a remarkable page in the history of Soviet artistic culture, deserving much attention and in-depth study. Moreover, the Color Guide is still far from outdated and would deserve a reprint.

Matyushin’s article consisted of two parts. The first outlined the methodological foundations of the proposed color system; the second explained the principles of compiling the “Directory” - a color harmonizer.
There was also a preface. It was written by M. Ender, a student and employee of Matyushin, who put a lot of work into this publication.
This team included artists: I. Walter, O. Vaulina, S. Vasyuk, V. Delacroa; D. Sysoeva, E. Khmelevskaya. The "Directory" was conceived in 1929-1930. Its model was exhibited at an exhibition of a group of artists led by Matyushin at the Central House of Artists in Leningrad in April 1930. In 1931, in connection with the preparation of the “Handbook” for publication, it was redesigned again together with a team of artists who completed all its tables by hand.
V. Ostwald. Flower science. M.-L., 1926.
In the popularization of Ostwald’s color science in our artistic practice, the activity of S. Krakov, a teacher at Vkhutemas-Vkhutein, who together with N. Fedorov taught the course “The Teaching of Colors,” played a large role. Krakow was the author of the preface and editor of Ostwald's book "Color Science" in Russian. See also his review of this book in the journal. "Soviet Architecture", 1929, No. 2.
Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin was born in 1861 in Nizhny Novgorod, died in 1934 in Leningrad. Graduated from the Moscow Conservatory (1875-1880). He studied painting at the Society for the Encouragement of Artists (1886-1889) and at the Academy of Arts (1891-1897).
Matyushin was the editor of one of the two Russian translations of Gleizes and Metzinger’s book “On Cubism” (St. Petersburg, 1913).
Diary of M.V. Matyushin, 1915-1916, p. 5 - TsGALI [ now RGALI. - Ed.], f. 134, op. 2, units hr. 24.
The French color artist F. Léger, in parallel, although somewhat later, came to essentially the same idea: “So, the walls need to be dressed. And this should be done simply by color design, since color itself is already a plastic reality...”
This article was first published in 1938. However, Léger had been practicing the ideas expressed in it for many years in his creative practice. Having colorfully designed Le Corbusier’s “Esprit Nouveau Pavilion” at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Industry in Paris in 1925, Léger was one of the first in the world to debut in the field of the new profession of polychrome artist.
E. Leger. Conleur dans le monde. Fonctions de la Peinture. Paris, 1965, b. 88, 89.
M. Matyushin. Not art, but life. - Life of Art, 1923, No. 20, p. 15.
M. Matyushin. The artist's creative path - manuscript from the early 30s, pp. 224-225. Private archive in Leningrad. The first part (pre-October period) of this work was written in collaboration with N. Khardzhiev; the second part (post-October period) - in collaboration with M. Ender, p. 159.
See the memoirs of O. Matyushina “Calling” in the journal. "Star", 1973, No. 3, 4.
M. Matyushin. Experience of an artist of a new measure, 1926, TsGALI, f. 134, op. 2, units hr. 21. An article devoted to the problems of a new spatial vision, “expanded viewing” was first published in Ukrainian in the magazine “New Generation”, 1930, No. 5.
Numerous color tables have been preserved in state collections in Leningrad and in private archives in Leningrad and Moscow.
Quote based on the book: J. Itten. The art of Color. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1961, p. 22.
M. Matyushin. Color Guide.
Since the tables give light intensity, that is, a kind of tonal variations of essentially the same color combinations, melodies, in cases where not three, but six, nine or twelve colors are needed, several pages of tables can be used horizontally at once, vertically and even diagonally.
The original text of Matyushin’s article for the “Reference Book” has been preserved (TsGALI, f. 1334, op. 2, item 324). There we can read the following: “When... using color in color design, for example, architecture, it is very important to take into account not only the walls, ceiling and floor, but also all architectural details and all the equipment of the room. At the same time, it is necessary to abandon the usual, necessarily white ceiling and brown floor. It is advisable to create an overall, solid color impression of the room, as it will be in life... It is necessary to take into account such an obligatory color environment as the sky or greenery when decorating the building's exterior... You can connect the house with the sky, even if its facade is cold in color, through a cornice or roof, which must be of a warm shade... When coloring a highway, you have to count not only on bright daylight, but also on twilight lighting. It should be borne in mind that warm colors lose their lightness and brightness earlier than cool colors. The color red, which is ten times lighter than blue during the day, turns out to be 16 times darker than the same blue at dusk...”
N. Punin. State exhibition. - Life of Art, 1924, No. 31, p. 5.
I. Itten(1888-1967) - Swiss painter, teacher, experimenter and theorist in the field of color. In 1919-1923 worked at the Bauhaus, where he became the founder of a propaedeutic course. Then he was engaged in teaching work in a number of art schools in Switzerland.
J. Itten, The art of color, p. 17.
For example, the book by Frieling G., Auer K. “Man - color - space. Applied color psychology". Per. from German. Edited and author's foreword by M. Konik. M., 1973.
M. Matyushin. What to add to the Color Guide. - TsGALI, f. 1334, op. 2, units hr. 324, l. 2.
For example, L "Harmonisateur, n 1, n 2, Atelier J. Filacier edité par "Harmonik" 16 avenu Paul-Doumer, Paris, 8.
Cm: M. Matyushin. What to add to the “Color Guide”, l. 3.

Painter, graphic artist, sculptor, art theorist, composer, musician

Illegitimate son of N. A. Saburov. He received his primary education at the school of the Russian Musical Society in Nizhny Novgorod. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory (1876–1881) in violin class. During those same years, he independently studied painting and graphics.

Lived in St. Petersburg. In 1881–1913 he was first violin of the Imperial Orchestra in St. Petersburg. At the same time, he studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts (1894–1898), the studio of Y. V. Tsionglinsky (1903–1905), and the private studio of E. N. Zvantseva (1906–1908). In Tsionglinsky's studio he met E. G. Guro, and in 1906 he married her. At the end of the 1910s, he became close to N. I. Kulbin, the Burliuk brothers, V. V. Khlebnikov, K. S. Malevich, A. E. Kruchenykh and other representatives of the artistic and literary avant-garde.

He was one of the initiators of the creation of the Youth Union society (1910). Together with Guro, he founded the publishing house "Crane", in which, until 1917, he published twenty futuristic books, illustrated by leading figures of the Russian avant-garde - O. V. Rozanova, N. S. Goncharova, N. I. Kulbin. Published a Russian translation of the book “On Cubism” by A. Gleizes and J. Metzinger; published collections, “Zadok 1” (1910), “Zadok 2” (1913), “Three” (1913), “Chant about the world germination” by P. N. Filonov (1915), “From Cubism to Suprematism. New pictorial realism" (1915) by K. S. Malevich. In 1913, together with Malevich and Kruchenykh, he held the “First All-Russian Congress of Futurists” in the town of Uusikirkko near St. Petersburg. In December of the same year, he was among the founders of the futuristic theater "Budetlyanin". He created music for the “stage” avant-garde play “Victory over the Sun” (libretto by Kruchenykh, set design by Malevich; 1913).

He painted portraits, landscapes, and abstract compositions. He went through a passion for impressionism (1900s), cubism (first half of the 1910s). He was engaged in the development of the theory of “expanded vision”, which was formed under the influence of the books of the theosophical mathematician P. D. Uspensky; set as its goal the study of space and the principles of interaction between color and environment, color and sound, color and form.

In 1908 he made his debut as an artist at the exhibition “Modern Currents” in St. Petersburg. Participated in the St. Petersburg exhibitions “Impressionists” (1909), “Salon” by V. A. Izdebsky (1909–1911), “Triangle” (1910); exhibited at the Salon of Independents in Paris (1912). After the October Revolution, he exhibited works at the 1st State Free Exhibition of Works of Art (1919), an exhibition of Petrograd artists of all directions (1923) in Petrograd, the XIV International Art Exhibition in Venice (1924), and an exhibition of artistic and decorative arts in Paris (1925).

He taught at the Petrograd State Free Art Workshops - Vkhutemas - Vkhutein (1918–1926), where he organized a “workshop of spatial realism”. He worked at the Museum of Pictorial Culture (1922), the Institute of Artistic Culture (Inkhuk, 1920s), where he headed the department of organic culture. Author of articles, lectures, reports on art.

He had a large number of students and followers who united in the creative group “Zorved” (B.V., G.V. and K.V. Ender, V.A. Delacroa, N.I. Kostrov, E.S. Khmelevskaya, E. M. Magaril, I. V. Walter and others). Together with his followers, he published the work “The Pattern of Changeability of Color Combinations. Handbook of Color" (1932), intended for practical use in the field of decorative art and design.

Author of the music of the piano suite “Don Quixote” (1915), the theoretical work “Guide to the study of quarter tones for the violin” (1915). In 1917–1918 he was involved in the development of a simplified type of violin. In the 1920s, together with his students, he created a series of musical theater productions based on Gouraud’s works “Heavenly Camels” and “Autumn Dream”.

Matyushin's works are in major museum collections, among them the State Russian Museum and the State Tretyakov Gallery.

In St. Petersburg, in the house of Matyushin and Guro, the Museum of the St. Petersburg Avant-Garde was opened (at the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg).

M.-L., “Fine Arts”, 1932. 4 folding notebooks with 30 tables in a publishing folder. With a foreword by M. Ender, which was somewhat politicized, proving the need for this Handbook. Circulation 400 copies. 12.8x17.8 cm. Folding notebooks: from 12.5x143 cm to 12.4x107 cm. Extremely rare!

Bibliographical sources:

1. Matyushin M.V. “The pattern of change in color combinations.” Color Guide. With a foreword by L. Zhadova. M. 2007.

2. The Russian avant-garde book/1910-1934 (Judith Rothschild foundation, No. 997), p. 156-157;

3. Borovkov A. Notes on the Russian avant-garde. Books, postcards, graphics. M., 2007, pp. 143-144;

The initial ideas that later formed the basis of color theory were suggested by M.V. Matyushin (1861-1936) by his wife Elena Guro (1887-1913), who died early. After her death, Matyushin decided to devote himself entirely to color research. We must not forget that Mikhail Vasilyevich was an outstanding musician (first violin of the Imperial Symphony Orchestra for 22 years), a good painter, a painting theorist, an extraordinary and multidisciplinary researcher. Together with his wife, artist Elena Guro, they create the Zhuravl publishing house, which publishes theoretical works on the role of color and form in painting. Matyushin created the theory of “expanded viewing,” which was based on the study of perceived space and the principles of interaction between color and environment, color and shape, color and sound, and temporary changes in shape. The experiments and observations of his “school” were carried out in the direction of the interaction of touch, hearing, vision and thought. In 1926, he attempted to create a “Primer on Color” as a practical guide to the harmonious combination of shades, which was based on the three-component theory of color vision. In 1923 M.V. Matyushin presented at the exhibition “Petrograd Artists in All Directions” a series of his paintings called “ZORVED” (Vigilant Vedas). Matyushin uses these theoretical principles in his subsequent paintings.

“Handbook of Color,” published in 1932 by Mikhail Matyushin and his associates, became practically the last striking publication of the Russian avant-garde. But, of course, this is not a reference book in the literal sense of the word, but the result of many years of research on special scientific methods in color theory. In April 1932, the famous resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations” was issued, putting an end to all manifestations of informal art. By the early 1930s, the GINKHUK Institute was disbanded, and such research was declared formalism. In his artistic practice, Matyushin, trying to expand the boundaries of visual possibilities, developed a new pictorial system. It was based on the method of “expanded viewing”, associated with the activation of lateral vision.

Matyushin developed his system of “new vision” in his teaching activities, heading the workshop of spatial realism at the State Museum of Art and Culture of Vkhutein in 1918. From among his students, a group of artists “Zorved” (vision + knowledge) is organized around him. In 1924–1926, Matyushin, simultaneously with Malevich, led research work at the GINKHUK (Institute of Artistic Culture). Together with his students, he conducted experiments on the perception of color and sound under various conditions. The goal of these studies was to determine in a laboratory way the patterns of interaction between the means of plastic language - shape, color, sound. The idea was that the patterns of color perception he identified would be applied in practice. In particular, when working with the then ubiquitous “dirty” paints. Research has shown that two colors give rise to a third, which occurs between the color environment and the primary color. Matyushin and his comrades gave it the name “color-cohesion”, through which other colors shade and enrich each other. So, in the tables Matyushin shows the principles of selecting a third color (cohesive) to two data (environment and object).

4 folding notebooks, clearly showing this effect, were made BY HAND WITH COLOR GOUACHA. M. Matyushin's directory was the result of many years of research by the artist and, published in 1932, became the first publication of materials from the Department of Organic Culture of the State Institute of National Economy and Culture, headed by M. Matyushin. The publication was conceived as a practical guide for artists, designers, and architects. Due to the fact that the color tables were made by hand, the book's circulation was extremely small - only 400 copies, but did this "factory" come out completely? This folder is extremely rare to find in its entirety. The 4th notebook is especially rare. The “Handbook” soon turned into an extreme bibliographic rarity. N. Khardzhiev at one time proposed to reissue it in order to make it an accessible reference guide for artists, designers, architects and art historians and thereby remove it from the category of bibliophile “super rarities”. But the cost of reprinting - more than 90 color tones used in the tables - each time turned out to be an extremely complex task and inaccessible to printers of that time (color rendering technologies for a large number of color tones were too expensive). The future cost of the reference book did not fit into the ideology of Soviet pricing at all.

In 1932, the State Publishing House of Fine Arts in Leningrad published the “Handbook of Color”. It consisted of four notebooks-tables - colorful harmonies-tricolors and a large article "The pattern of variability of color combinations." The author of the proposed color system and the color harmonizer created on its basis is the oldest Leningrad artist and teacher M. Matyushin. Matyushin’s article consisted of two parts. The first outlined the methodological foundations of the proposed color system: the second explained the principles of compiling the “Handbook” - a color harmonizer. There was also a preface. It was written by M. Ender, a student and employee of Matyushin, who put a lot of work into this publication. The color tables were made by hand using a stencil by a group of young artists - students of Matyushin. Matyushin and his students (and together KORN “Extended Observation Collective”) have been researching color for more than ten years - its perception, influence on shape, changes in movement. The results of these studies, by the way, were used in the painting of buildings in Leningrad. Artists went to this brigade: I. Walter. O. Baylina. S. Vasok. V. Delacroa, D. Sysoeva. E. Khmelevskaya. The directory was conceived in 1929-1930.

KORN Group. 1930. M.V. Matyushin and students.

Its model was exhibited at an exhibition of a group of artists led by Matyushin at the Central House of Artists in Leningrad in April 1930. In 1931, in connection with the preparation of the “Handbook” for publication, it was redesigned again together with a team of artists who completed all its tables by hand. Hence the mini-circulation: 400 copies. But what specimens! The color intensity, brightness and luminosity of these man-made tables is still amazing, even with all the mastery of our eyes with the most technically advanced methods of color reproduction. The editor of this publication, which was not only complex for that time, was the then young artist I. Titov. “The Handbook,” as the text says, “is designed for use in working on color in production: interior and exterior design of architecture, textiles, porcelain, wallpaper, printing and other industries.” At the same time, the compilers of the reference book warned against its prescription use:

The author considered color triads-tables as a support for the artist’s intuition, for training his eyes, “food for stimulating creative imagination. Matyushin’s color science is based on establishing the direct dependence of the aesthetic qualities of color harmonies on the psychophysiological factors of perception, which, as is known, are closely related to the psychology of creativity. The object of research and experimentation of the Leningrad artist was not only color itself, but also the processes of human “color” vision in various conditions. The “Harmonizer” of color arose as one of the conclusions in the process of synthesizing certain aspects of science and art in Matyushin’s work, as a methodological and practical guide that can be used in creating color compositions and selecting color schemes. In the context of growing interest in the problems of color theory and its practical application, Matyushin’s “Handbook”, despite all the specificity of this work, also acquires a general educational character; its content opens up for us new aspects that expand the scope of possible application, based on practical conclusions, color theory, created by the artist. It seems that the main quality of Matyushin’s “science of color”, in contrast, for example, to the popular color system of the German optical physicist W. Ostwald, is that it was created by a painter, artistically, both in origin, and in meaning, and in its entirety meaning. Ostwald's color aesthetics is based on his general systematization of colors, which was a great achievement of physical and optical science that contributed to the streamlining of ideas about color, including in artistic activity. However, in essence, Ostwald's color harmonies have a distant connection with aesthetics, since they represent mechanically obtained color combinations mathematically calculated on the color wheel. One can understand the still wide prevalence of Ostwald’s principles of color harmonization, easily accessible to any practitioner, including non-artists, both here and in the world. But one can also understand how this system, soon after its appearance, aroused a sharply critical attitude, primarily from painters who themselves tried to develop the science of the art of color. Our first among them was Matyushin. Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin (1861-1934) entered the history of Russian culture as an artist. musician, teacher, art and music critic, experimental researcher in the field of psychophysiology of art perception. In the full sense, the one who is called a nugget, Matyushin was the son of a serf peasant woman. However, he managed to advance and received both artistic and musical education. Even a cursory acquaintance with Matyushin’s paintings and the color tables of the reference book testifies to their organic relationship. A student of L. Bakst and Y. Tsionglinsky, Matyushin already in the late 1900s - early 1910s emerged as a kind of “purple” impressionist. Professing and developing impressionism in his own way, Matyushin was at the same time keenly interested in new analytical trends in art. Reflecting on their experience, he came to the conclusion about the intrinsic aesthetic significance of color. “Independent life and the movement of color occupied the artist most of all. However, as it will become obvious, the idea that foresaw the future of polychromy - a new area of artistic activity dedicated to the color design of architecture and the entire objective-spatial environment, took shape in a new color science later, in a stream of discoveries, “turned to the surface... by the explosion of the Russian revolution, which gave freedom and life to everything that is truly living and seeking.” This idea, not yet fully formed, influenced the artist’s multifaceted activities in the field of his development of the theory of organic culture, the romantic concept of the formation of a comprehensively developed “ideal” person through the education and development of all his “perceptive abilities” for color - painting, for sound - music, to the sense of touch - sculpture, etc. It was not by chance that Matyushin turned to the idea of organic culture; the need for its theoretical and practical development was brought to life by the breadth of his creative interests, serious studies in painting, music, poetry, his pedagogical activities in the first years of revolution as a musician and artist. Matyushin’s entire practical pedagogy was built on the basis of these ideas. If we talk about its origins, the theory of organic culture, inspired by the spirit of antiquity and the Renaissance, is deeply modern in attempts to scientifically objectify it on the basis of the psychophysiology of perception. In 1918-1922, Matyushin led a workshop in the Leningrad Gosvomas (former Academy), where he rallied a friendly team of students around him. Among them, talented painters especially stood out - brother and sister Maria and Boris Ender, the first “organic shoots”, who later became Soviet artists, pioneers of a new profession - polychromists. The theoretical work, begun in parallel with painting by Matyushin and his students in the State Free Workshops, was continued by them from the end of 1922 in a special laboratory of the Museum of Artistic Culture, which was later reorganized into the Department of Organic Culture in the State Institute of Artistic Culture created on the basis of the museum (1923-1926) . The department continued to work actively within the framework of the State Institute of Art History (1926-1929). Matyushin, who for many years specially dealt with the problems of artistic “vision” of the world, came to the conclusion that the value of vision lies in the ability to see not only details and details, but also to embrace everything observed at once, in its entirety, that a person in this regard does not sufficiently use the capabilities of his own organs of perception. He called for cultivating the ability to “expand the angle of vision”, to teach “to see everything at once, fully, all around you at once.” It is not for nothing that, when publishing a declaration of his creative group in 1923, Matyushin called its members “zorved”, that is, those in charge of the zor, that is, the gaze - vision (“zor” is a word invented by Khlebnikov). The desire for the integrity of the visual image distinguishes Matyushin’s school from the impressionists with their “fragmentary”, “fluent” perception. This is not the place to analyze Matyushin’s spatial theories. They developed in line with attempts common to many Russian and European artists to artistically comprehend new scientific ideas about space and time, but at the same time they were so original that they deserve special analysis. Let us only note that these views played an important role in the formation of his color system, since it is with the “expansion” of the angle of view, with shifts in points of view, that many patterns of color perception fully manifest themselves. Features of color perception in space, in the environment, in movement, in time; the formative qualities of color, the relationship and interaction of color and sound - these areas of research carried out by Matyushin and his students, which were implemented in numerous experimental color tables, were of fundamental importance. For Matyushin, color is a complex, moving phenomenon, dependent on neighboring colors, on the strength of lighting, on the scale of color fields, that is, on the color-light-spatial environment in which he is located and which determines the conditions and features of his perception.

Color chart. Matyushin school.

The table shows the results of observations

changes in color and shape depending on the viewing angle.

Shows the perception of color forms when viewing

central vision, extended and peripheral.

Probably, a fascinating art historical task would be to trace the connections between Matyushin’s landscapes, these kind of models of internal universal artistic constructions, and three-color harmonies - models of differentiated colorful constructions, with the help of which painting can, as it were, be translated into its other existence, in architectural and subject-matter. spatial composition. The color tables of Matyushin’s “Handbook” with their expressiveness of the actual color tones and combinations, with their contrast, as if designed for the spatial movement of color, for transitions from one to another, for diverse compositional connections with their inherent color melody in tonal solutions - sometimes bright, sonorous, then extinguished, low - as if embodying the laws of color plasticity, directly related to the new spatial concept of the synthesis of arts. The starting point in Matyushin’s “artistic” science of color is the law of complementary colors. It is well known that if you look at a red square for several minutes and then close your eyes, the image will remain, but in the form of a green square. And vice versa - if you look at the green square, then the residual will be red. This experiment can be repeated with any color and will always leave an additional color as a residual eye. This phenomenon is called sequential contrast of complementary colors. It is obvious that vision itself strives with its help towards balance and a feeling of complete satisfaction. Goethe drew attention to the fundamental significance of this law for aesthetics: “When the eye contemplates a color, it immediately comes into an active state and, by its nature, inevitably and unconsciously immediately creates another color, which, when combined with the given color, contains the entire color circle.

Color tables. Matyushin school.

[The tables record the results of observations

behind changes in color and shape when viewed with expanded vision

for two color forms at the same time.

On a black background, visual images appearing in closed eyes are shown.

immediately after observation and some time later].

A particular color, through its particular perception, induces the eye to strive for universality. Then, in order to realize this universality, the eye, for the purpose of self-satisfaction, searches next to each color for some colorless space in which it could produce the missing color. This is the basic rule of color harmony.” Matyushin and his students showed great interest in the work of the French chemist M. Chevreuil, director of the Parisian Gobelin factory, who published in 1839 the book “On the Law of Simultaneous Contrast and the Selection of Painted Objects,” which may have served as the theoretical basis for impressionistic and neo-impressionistic painting. The three-color harmonies proposed by Matyushin were created primarily on the basis of understanding the color effects of sequential and simultaneous (simultaneous) contrasts through an experimental study of the interaction of color and environment on models of eight colors (red, orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, blue, indigo, violet ). The innovation of Matyushin’s technique was the observation of the effects of color contrasts not only in conditions of point-by-point, but also, above all, extended viewing, by shifting the eye from the color model to the neutral field of the environment. It can be assumed that this is due to the inherent spatial dynamism of the color combinations of the tables. Under the experimental conditions, the eye shift became, as it were, a protomodel of dynamic color perception in the real space of a polychromed environment. Three-color combinations of tables are arranged as ratios: a) the main active color, b) the color of the environment dependent on it, and c) the middle color connecting them. The study of color has shown that colors necessarily appear around the “acting color” in a neutral environment, which are combined with it as the color of the environment and as the middle color - the cohesive one. Observation of the behavior of emerging additional colors in time and space led to the establishment of the following patterns in the variability of the resulting color chords:

“I period: the neutral field is painted in an additional color, not clearly expressed;

Period II: the observed color is surrounded by a sharp clear rim of an additional color, a third color appears in the environment;

III period: a change occurs - the extinction of the color itself under the influence of the imposition of an additional color reflex on it; new changes are taking place in the environment.”

Hence the very principle of composition of the proposed three-color harmonies, as if fixing and visually consolidating the internal dynamics of color perception, hence the name of the reference book “The Pattern of Changeability of Color Combinations.” The effect of contrast of additional colors is conceptualized by Matyushin as dynamic contrast, where one color gives rise to another, and two new ones give rise to a third; as color dialectical continuity - an integral composition, where some combinations mutually “brighten”, while others, on the contrary, are extinguished. His tricolors are not the sum of three individual colors, but integral colorful images that are completely disrupted by a change in at least one component. Only bringing all three components into a new ratio creates a new coloristic whole. The proposed color combinations are harmonized in accordance with the objectively established laws of the dependence of some colors on others during perception and can serve as a general guide to color composition. For example, it is necessary to take into account that if another color of the environment is taken to one of the main colors on the tables, the entire combination as a whole will certainly change in the direction of the proposed one. Even the dim green color of the environment in relation to violet looks fresh and colorful, but if instead of green you take a color of the environment close to violet, for example, even pure lilac, it will certainly fade and turn gray, since the green that is shown in the book will inevitably be superimposed on it ( notebook I). The constructive and organizing role of cohesive color was experimentally established.

“Through the cohesive, the spatial relationships of colors can be established; through the cohesive, brightness and purity can be restored; on the contrary, it is possible to unite and equalize vaguely detonating colors, etc.” For example, on the last table (notebook IV), the orange link contrastingly brightens the green-blue color of the environment, the blue link makes this environment more transparent and deep, and the violet link mutually balances both colors. Since the tables give light intensity, that is, a kind of tonal variations of essentially the same color combinations, melodies, in cases where not three, but six, nine or twelve colors are needed, several pages of tables can be used horizontally at once, vertically and even diagonally. In the introductory article, Matyushin draws attention to the large role that the influence of color on form plays in the color design of architecture and various objects. Research work in this area has shown "that cool colors tend to have straight edges and form corners, even if sharp shapes painted in warm colors lose their sharp edges."

Matyushin paid much attention to research into the interaction of color and sound, as a result of which it was found that in human perception, warm colors reduce sound, and cold colors increase it. These developments made it possible to create a kind of color schemes that made it possible to capture the most subtle shades of colors, “between colors.” Matyushin's color harmonizer, in modern terms, is an open system. It seems to imply the co-creation of the artist using it. For publications of this kind, which are a kind of coupling, a “bridge” between science and practice, it is extremely important to maintain the golden mean between the conceptual breadth of the general approach and the specific clarity of a specific target application. It seems that it was the desire for the latter that forced the authors of the “Handbook” to bring the fourth notebook of color combinations as close as possible to those low-saturated tones that could be obtained using a limited number of cheap dyes that were used at that time in our country for painting architecture. The original text of Matyushin’s article for the “Reference Book” has been preserved (TsGALI, f. 1334, op. 2. item 324). There we can read the following:

“When... using color in color design, for example, architecture, it is very important to take into account not only the walls, ceiling and floor, but also all the architectural details and all the equipment of the room. At the same time, it is necessary to abandon the usual, necessarily white ceiling and brown floor. It is advisable to create an overall, solid color impression of the room, as it will be in life... It is necessary to take into account such an obligatory color environment as the sky or greenery when decorating the building's exterior... You can connect the house with the sky, even if its facade is cold in color, through a cornice or roof, which must be of a warm shade... When coloring a highway, you have to count not only on bright daylight, but also on twilight lighting. It should be borne in mind that warm colors lose their lightness and brightness earlier than cool colors. The color red, which is ten times lighter than blue during the day, turns out to be 16 times darker than the same blue at dusk...”

As can be seen, for fear of a utilitarian-pragmatic attitude towards the “Handbook”, on the other hand, several specific descriptions of the color design of the living environment were deleted from the texts of explanations to it. It should also be noted that Matyushin’s article is overly scientific, overloaded with descriptions of the physiological processes of vision. The author himself admitted this overload. N. Punin, already in the 20s, reproached Matyushin for his excessive passion for physiology and scientific and experimental methods in research on art, which, from his point of view, gave Matyushin’s theories a schematic and rationalistic quality. However, it seems that the noted science obsession, expressed more in the style of presentation of Matyushin’s theoretical and laboratory-experimental works than in their content, was a reaction to aesthetic arbitrariness in artistic activity. In the sphere of color, this science embodied the desire to remove the concept of color harmony from the area of subjective feelings and transfer it to the area of objective laws. In the case of a reissue of the Handbook, the author thought of rewriting the entire text, making it more accessible. Matyushin’s research on color was carried out in line with the creation of modern artistic color science, carried out by artists of the 20th century, primarily on the basis of the achievements of painting. At the origins of this process are Matyushin, Itten, Léger... Matyushin’s color science has not been brought to such a clear and comprehensively developed system as the color science of the Swiss artist Itten, who worked at the Bauhaus in the early 20s. His book The Art of Color, the culmination of forty years of work, explores not only the contrasts of complementary colors, but also almost all other color contrasts possible in modern artistic practice: “The effects of contrasts and their classification represent the most suitable starting point for the study of the aesthetics of color " In recent years, a number of publications devoted to various aspects of polychromy and color science have appeared in different countries. However, even in comparison with them, Matyushin’s discoveries in the field of color harmony do not lose their originality. And if Matyushin himself noted as a gap in the Handbook that “it does not include gray, so-called achromatic tones in various combinations with chromatic or color tones,” then the reason for this was not fundamental regulatory restrictions. The author intended to fill the gap in the second edition. It seems that Itten, on the contrary, somewhat absolutizes the importance of achromatic and, above all, gray tones for positive artistic color perceptions. The fact that gray itself is “mute”, that is, neutral, indifferent (medium gray color creates a state of complete static equilibrium in the eyes - it does not cause any residual color reflex) is immediately excited under the influence of any color and gives a magnificent effect of an additional color tone, It is so emphasized that some creators of modern color harmonizers, as a rule, use color combinations of only achromatic and chromatic colors. This limitation and a certain normativity (already based on the aesthetics of color, and not on its physics, as in Ostwald) is inherent, for example, in the ingeniously designed and beautifully executed color harmonizers of the French artist Fiassier. This is hardly favorable, for example, for the polychromy of the modern urban environment, which historically has an overabundance of gray. Matyushin’s color aesthetics are inseparable from his concept of organic culture. It is distinguished by a special, healthy full-blooded sensation of color as an organic element of the living environment, as a component of human feelings that form the spiritual fullness of personality development. In the last years of his life, Matyushin, on the basis of the theory of organic culture, came to the idea of synthetic artistic creativity.

He dedicated the book “The Creative Path of an Artist” that he wrote to the future team of synthetic art artists. He dreamed that, under these conditions, color would become a universally harmonizing means of shaping. At the same time, for an artist who takes part in the design and design of individual components of the living environment, color would become an organic means of creative thinking:

“Color should not be random. Color must be equal to the form in creative conditions and, as it were, penetrating the form wherever it appears... An architect, an engineer, an artist must, through preliminary training, learn to create in his imagination every volume under construction already colored.”

- (1861 1934) Russian artist, composer and art theorist. Formed as a master in the mainstream of futurism, he was (with his wife E. G. Guro) one of the organizers of the Youth Union. Later he actively participated in the work of Inkhuk. At the end of the 1910s and the beginning... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Matyushin Mikhail Vasilievich- (1861 1934), artist, composer, art theorist. One of the leaders of the early Russian avant-garde, organizer of the Union of Youth association (1910). In the field of painting, he experimented with the dynamics of color fields (“Movement in Space”, 1917... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Matyushin, Mikhail Vasilievich- Genus. 1861, d. 1934. Futurist artist, composer. One of the founders of the Youth Union, founder of the Zorved society (1919 1932). Developed the concept of "expanded viewing". Author of music for a futuristic opera... ... Large biographical encyclopedia

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Matyushin M. V.- MATYUSHIN Mikhail Vasilievich (1861-1934), artist, composer, art theorist. One of the leaders of early Russian. avant-garde, organizer of the Youth Union (1910). In the field of painting, he experimented with the dynamics of color fields (Movement in ... Biographical Dictionary

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Books

Mikhail Matyushin 1861-1934, Yu. V. Mezerin. “In everything I want to get to the very essence,” wrote B. L. Pasternak. Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin, artist, poet, musician, teacher, art theorist, could say this about himself. All his life he...

Musician, composer, artist, theorist, teacher, art researcher. Born in Nizhny Novgorod.
He was the illegitimate son of N.A. Saburov and a former serf. Got my mother's last name.
At the age of six, he learned by ear to accompany and play the songs that sounded around him; at the age of nine, he made a violin himself, tuning it correctly. Misha’s virtuoso playing on the “bumblebee” violin was heard by his brother’s friend, who took him to Villuan, the director of the conservatory that had opened in Nizhny Novgorod. The boy was immediately accepted into the conservatory, and he began studying here under the guidance of assistant director Lapin. The latter took Matyushin in full board, but paid little attention to him. As Matyushin himself recalled, he received the largest school as a choir member and teacher of singers, which he became at the age of eight (!).

At the age of seven he learned to write and count on his own. He also studied painting on his own, using book graphics, popular prints, and icons in church.
Matyushin was brought to Moscow by his older brother, a tailor. And from 1875 to 1880 he studied at the Moscow Conservatory. Matyushin also continued his independent studies - he painted from life, copied old masters. He was offered to enter the Stroganov School, but the family did not have the means for this: Matyushin had to earn extra money by teaching music lessons and tuning pianos. The main Moscow school for him was his acquaintance with musical classics at concerts and especially at rehearsals, where he first felt and tried to formulate for himself the problem of the synthesis of “sound and color.”

Trying to avoid military service and find a suitable job, Matyushin competed for a position as a violinist in the Court Orchestra in St. Petersburg. The young orchestra had an extensive repertoire, which included works of classical music and all the latest “new products” of Western European and Russian musical art, and, without a doubt, the musician received a high-class school here. And from the late 1890s, when the Panaevsky Theater was built, he began to play in Italian opera.
Having married a Frenchwoman, Matyushin entered the circle of St. Petersburg bohemia. Through his wife, he met the artist Krachkovsky and, on his advice, entered the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, where he started from the basics. He made many acquaintances among painters. He studied there from 1894 to 1898.
In 1900, Matyushin visited the World Exhibition in Paris. The artist continued his study of painting collections, begun in Russian museums, in the Louvre in Paris and in Luxembourg; He was especially admired by the paintings of F. Millet and E. Manet.
Matyushin also studied in the private studio of Y. Tsionglinsky (from 1903 to 1905). His second wife was Elena Guro, whom he met in the studio, and who had a huge influence on all of Matyushin’s work.
At the beginning of the century, many artists were concerned about the question of new spatial points of view in painting - this was called the search for the “fourth dimension”. Matyushin, who worked in the field of vision physiology, found himself at the center of technical and aesthetic innovations. Gradually, a circle of creative youth is emerging around him and Guro, moving in this direction. Little was known about Italian futurism, and the more significant were the achievements of the Russian avant-garde, which independently discovered the formula of Time.

In 1909, having joined N. Kulbin’s “Impressionists” group, Matyushin met the brothers D. and N. Burliuk, poets V. Kamensky and V. Khlebnikov. In 1910, Kulbin’s group broke up, and Matyushin and Guro initiated the creation of a circle of like-minded people to hold reports, exhibitions, and publish books - the “Youth Union”. Matyushin organized his own publishing house, “Crane,” in which he published books by futurists.
In 1912, Matyushin met K. Malevich, V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh. The Youth Union group produced the famous “Judges’ Tank” (1st and 2nd) and held a number of exhibitions.
1913 was the peak of the cubo-futurist activity of the Russian avant-garde.
In the same year, Matyushin composed music for the production of “Victory over the Sun” - a futuristic opera, the libretto for which was written by A. Kruchenykh, the prologue by V. Khlebnikov, the scenery and costumes were created by K. Malevich. The sound of this work relied heavily on all sorts of effects: in particular, it contained the roar of cannon fire, the noise of a running engine, etc.

Matyushin also acted as a writer, art critic, and publicist. In 1913, a Russian translation of A. Gleizes and J. Metzinger’s book “Cubism” was published under his editorship.
“Victory over the Sun” is not Matyushin’s only composing experience: in 1914 he will write music for “The Defeated War” by A. Kruchenykh, and in 1920-1922, together with his students, he will create a series of musical theater productions based on the works of E. Guro “ Heavenly Camels" and "Autumn Dream". In addition to composing music, Matyushin also dealt with problems of acoustics and the technical capabilities of the instrument. Destroying the tempered system, the researcher invented sound “microstructures” (1/4 tone, 1/3 tone), establishing ultrachromatics. In 1916-1918 he was working on creating a new type of violin.

The October Revolution was greeted by Matyushin as a long-awaited liberation.
From 1918 to 1926, Matyushin was a teacher at the Petrograd State Art Museum of VKHUTEIN, heading the workshop of spatial realism there. The main research problem he dealt with was the spatial-color environment in painting. The search in this direction was continued in the Petrograd Museum of Picturesque Culture (1922), and then in GINKHUK. Here he headed the Department of Organic Culture, studying the relationships between color, shape, visual, tactile and auditory stimuli in perception.
Matyushin’s group was called “Zorved” (from “to see vigilantly”). The artist published the theoretical principles of “Zorveda” in the magazine “Life of Art” (1923, No. 20). The result of the work was the “Handbook of Color” (M.-L., 1932).

Exhibitions:

Modern trends. St. Petersburg, 1908
Impressionists. St. Petersburg, 1909
Salons of V. Izdebsky. Odessa, Kyiv, St. Petersburg, Riga, 1909-1910
Triangle. St. Petersburg, 1910
Salon of Independents. Paris, 1912
1st State free exhibition of works of art. Petrograd, 1919
XIVth International Art Exhibition. Venice, 1924
International exhibition of artistic and decorative arts. Paris, 1925

Articles by M. Matyushin:

About the book by Metzinger-Gleizes “On Cubism” // Youth Union. No. 3, St. Petersburg, 1913
Futurism in St. Petersburg // First magazine of Russian futurists. No. 1-2. Moscow, 1914
A guide to learning the fourth tone for violin. Petrograd, 1915
About the exhibition of the latest futurists. // Spring almanac "Enchanted Wanderer". Petrograd, 1916
Patterns of change in color relationships. // Color guide. Moscow-Leningrad, 1932

* * *

Guro, Elena Genrikhovna (May 18, 1877 - April 23, 1913)
poetess, prose writer and artist - second wife.

She died at her Finnish dacha Uusikirkko (Polyany) from leukemia and was buried there. In the obituary they wrote about the loss Russian literature suffered with Guro’s passing. But Mikhail Matyushin felt this loss more strongly than the readers, who for the most part did not particularly favor the futurists who were “terribly far from the people.” His archive contains two notes written in August 1913, that is, shortly after Gouraud’s death. It is clear from them that even after his wife’s death he continued to feel her presence and have conversations with her. These notes, not intended for prying eyes, are so sincere and heartfelt that I would like to quote them in full:
Today is 26 Aug. Lena said that we are inseparable from her because our life together (as well as our meeting) created a great love for one. Those. that heterogeneous living appearances, movements, vibrations were penetrated by the rays of our meeting, by joy, having found a common expression for it. That's why she and I will be working together more and more. (Connection in One). What a joy!"

“My first movement of the soul towards Lena was so wonderful! She painted the Genius from plaster and I saw such a face and such an incarnation in connection with Her creating face without the slightest human feature. It was the gold of my life. My sweet dream, my united dreams of all my life. And I didn’t know it even then! This lovely dream was replaced by a sensual one.”

He often visited her grave and spent a lot of time. There, on the bench, he placed a box with her books. He wrote on the box - “Here lies Elena Guro, whoever wants to get acquainted with her books, take them and read them, and only then return them” - and according to Maya’s assurance, they returned everything, they could not help but return, not return to this grave.

On this canvas Matyushin depicted the grave of Elena Guro.