The Decorative Arts in Russian Architecture: 1900-1907

Author(s): William Brumfield

Source: The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts , Summer, 1987, Vol. 5,
Russian/Soviet Theme Issue (Summer, 1987), pp. 12-27
Published by: Florida International University Board of Trustees on behalf of The
Wolfsonian-FIU

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 The Decorative Arts in Russian
Architecture: 1900-1907
By William Brumfield

William C. Brumfield, born in he revival of the decorative arts in Russia during the latter half
of the nineteenth century played an important role in the devel-
1944, received his Ph.D. from
opment of an innovative architectural movement centered in
the University of California at
Moscow and St. Petersburg at the turn of this century. Known as
the style modeme, or simply the "new style," this protean move-
Berkeley. He has done exten- ment corresponded in the broadest sense to its contemporary, art nouveau, al-
though in specifics it resembled more closely the Secession, and occasionally
sive research in the Soviet
incorporated elements derived from the arts and crafts revival in Great Britain
Union at both Moscow and and Finland. For all of the obvious borrowings that contributed to the style mo-
derne, the major impetus for a renewed appreciation of design-in both archi-
Leningrad State Universities. tecture and the applied arts-originated in local, Russian centers of the arts
and crafts movement, first at Abramtsevo in the 1870s and then at Talashkino in
Currently an Associate
the 1890s. Both colonies continued their work into.the first decade of the twen-

Professor of Slavic Languages tieth century, and thus provided not only an early example of the revival of the
applied arts but also a contemporary source of creative ideas linking traditional
at Tulane University, he is craftsmanship with modern design.1

author of the book Gold in One of the characteristics of the style modeme at its most distinctive lay in the
close relation between architecture and the decorative arts-a concept that
Azure: 1000 Years of Russian
had been evident in the work of the Abramtsevo colony from its inception.
From the modest but seminal example of the estate church at Abramtsevo
Architecture (1983) and many
(1882), designed by the artists Vasilii Polenov and Viktor Vasnetsov and largely
articles on Russian architec- ignored by the architectural profession at the time, to such major structures as
the Hotel Metropole and Vasnetsov's reconstruction of the Tretiakov Gallery
ture and literature.
(both completed by 1906), the application of decorative motifs in ceramic,
brick, stone, plaster, and wood redefined the function of ornament within ar-
chitectural esthetics. And while the ceramic panels designed by Mikhail Vrubel
and Alexander Golovin for the exterior of the Metropole bore no specific rela-
tion to traditional Russian art, both artists had derived much from their close
association with the crafts centers (fig. 1).

1. Both Abramtsevo and Talashkino have been dealt with extensively by Soviet scholars, among whom
one of the most prominent in this area is Grigorii Sternin. Of particular interest is a one-volume
collection of his work under the title Russkaia khudozhestvennaia kultura vtoroipoloviny
XIX-nachala XX veka (Russian artistic culture of the second half of the nineteenth and the begin-
ning of the twentieth century), (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1984). Sternin refers to the revival of the deco-
rative arts at the turn of the century throughout the book. Others who have contributed to the
rather limited field of literature on the modern decorative arts in Russia include Evgeniia
Kirichenko, author of a series of articles in the journal Dekorativnoe iskusstvo (Decorative Art) in
1968,1971 and 1972. The most authoritative survey of Russian interior design from 1907 to 1917 is
VP Vygolov's chapter "The Interior," in a collection edited by A.D. Alexeev et al.: Russkaia khu-
dozhestvennaia kultura kontsa XIX-nachala XX veka (1908-1917), vol. 4, (Moscow: Nauka, 1980),
pp. 365-82.

12 DAPA Summer 1987

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 This dual character of the style moderne-international and native-accounts
in large measure for its extraordinary variety in both architecture and interior
design. At one end of the spectrum there existed an idealized recreation of a
"national" style based on traditional motifs as preserved and interpreted in
the work at Abramtsevo and Talashkino. Certainly the most vivid example of
this modernized approach to tradition is the Pertsov apartment house on

DAPA Summer 1987 13

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 L -- v
i

. r 1:l
V I

_ .. g '; I *

t , f ~i ., , _|i

Fig. 2. Sergei Maliutin, Pertsov Prechistenka Quay in Moscow (1905-07) (fig. 2). As was so often the case in
romantic interpretations of a national Russian style, the building was in fact
apartmbent house, Moscow,
designed by an artist, Sergei Maliutin, one of the central participants in the
1905-07. Photograph from
Talashkino community and designer of the renowned Teremok there (early
1900s). The influence of Talashkino and Maliutin's fascination with the teremok
EOAKh (Chegodi.ik (a word that combines the concepts of a medieval tower and residence cham-
bers), provided the inspiration for his colorful and capricious building design
Obshchestva
(fig. 3). His original drawing proved impractical in structural terms, yet much
arkhitektorov-khudozhnikov of the extravagantly theatrical decoration remained in the final version of the
structure built by the architect N.K. Zhukov.
[Annual of the Society of
The fact that the crafts revival and the use of folk motifs-however stagy or
Architect-Artists]), 1907. exaggerated-figured so prominently in one part of the style moderne shows
a remarkable confluence of purpose among a group of Russian artists, set

14 DAPA Summer 1987

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 ???' ... iC? i'*u?**.5*'i3;;.?; , .?
i. ii
f '
*,*,,L.?LY
i?j?. *I
Ir
, i, r -4'"*:.,n *?l.;i*F;il?g_t?i *'L

designers,
Fig. 3. Sergei Maliutin, and
architects at the turn
original
Golovin, Korovin, Vrubel, Maliutin,
sketch of design for the Pertsov
covered some aspect of an organic c
rative art, influenced by medieval or
aparbteiit building. Photograph
material and structure. The teremok
from EOAKh, union of theater, architecture, and i
1907.
of the Vasnetsov brothers as well as Golovin created sketches and model rooms
based on the teremok concept.

Maliutin's design of the interior of one of the Pertsov apartments was a rare at-
tempt to adapt the teremok to an actual living area, and he made much of the
opportunity with a lavish display of stylized carving, patterned wall designs,
and handcrafted furniture in the traditional crafts style (figs. 4 and 5). Yet the
artist's attempt to recreate the teremok in a modern urban setting proved as im-
practical as his original design for the exterior of the building. Not only were
most of the apartments small and undistinguished in plan, but the one interior
space in which he gave free rein to the imagination appears affected and peri-
lously close to the clutter of furnishings that the new style had supposedly re-
jected.

Contemporary photographs of another example of Maliutin's interior design,

for the house of the artist Vasilii Baksheev (ca. 1908), show a more restrained
and rustic interpretation of the Russian style, that places carved door frames,
wainscotting, and furniture on a background of simple plank walls (fig. 6). This
greater economy of means allowed a clearer perception of the details of the
craftwork, not only in the structure but also in furniture, which occupied a
prominent place in the Abramtsevo and Talashkino workshops (fig. 7). Maliutin
and Apollinarii Vasnetsov continued the application of the crafts tradition in
furniture design that had been established by Elena Polenova at Abramtsevo,
and they were joined by other artists such as Sergei Vashkov, known
particularly for his church furnishings designed through the firm of P.I.
Olovianishnikov & Sons.

DAPA Summer 1987 15

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Fig. 4. Sergei Maliutin, dining

room in the apartment of Z.O.

Pertsova. Photograph from

EOAKh, 1908.

Fig. 5. Sergei Maliutin, interior,

Pertsov aparbilent house. Pho-

tograph from EOAKh, 1908.

16 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 6. Sergei Maliutin and A

Vaslii Baksheev, interior,

Baksheev house, Moscow. .,,

Photograph from EOAKh, 1909.: i

In St. Petersburg, where the influence of traditional Russian

nounced in the new style, the most accomplished example of
movement in contemporary design occurred in the work of
whose house in the fashionable suburb of Kamennyi Ostrov
played a refined balance of rusticity and luxury. Meltser, a di
tect with a reputation beyond Russia, excelled in the design o
ings-for imperial residences as well as for middle-class apart
much of his work as architect and designer belonged firmly t
tional modern style, his own house (dacha) bore a distinct re
exterior of Maliutin's Teremok at Talashkino. The interior, h
a counterpoint between traditional Russian elements (expo
carved details, ceramic stoves) and modern furniture (figs. 8

Meltser could well afford such indulgence in his own house,

demand for a new style in both architecture and interior de
functional approach that had little to do with the specifics of
creation of new concepts for the decorative arts as applied t

DAPA Summer 1987 17

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Fig. 7. Alexander Yakimchenko, design, a knowledge of developments in Europe was essential, and relatively
easy to gain through a reading of Russian and foreign journals. One of the
dining room in the Firsanova
earliest extensive Russian surveys of art nouveau appeared at the end of 1899
in the journal Stroitel (The Builder), and included a number of illustrations of
house, Moscow. Photograph
interiors and buildings by Otto Wagner, Victor Horta, Joseph Olbrich, and
from EOAKh, 1909. Hector Guimard. Guimard's Castel Beranger (1894-98) received particular at-
tention as an example of comprehensive design, from the architectural struc-
ture to the wallpaper and interior furnishings.

Despite the predictable conservative opposition to "decadence," the new

trends in European design rapidly gained the center of attention in the Russian
architectural press: in 1901 the short-lived journal Arkhitekturye motity
(Architectural Motifs) published excellent photographs of work by Paul Hankar,
Olbrich, and various central European architects. (In many cases the illustrative
material and information in Russian journals came directly from publications
such as The Studio, L'Art decoratif, DerArchitekt.) In 1901, the leading Russian
journal Zodchii (Architect) presented Pavel Marseru's detailed report on the ap-
plied arts and art nouveau at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, and the
following year provided a forum for one of the most ardent proponents of the
new style, Pavel Makarov, who published a three-part analysis of contemporary
architecture throughout Europe ("The New Style and Decadence," 1902). Ma-
karov singled out the role of the arts and crafts movement, with reference to

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Figs. 8 and 9. Roman Meltser,

living room of Meltser house,

St Petersburg, 1901-05. Photo-

graph from EOAKh, 1907." . "

William Morris, Henry van de Velde, G

Otto Wagner, whose book Modene Arch
undoubtedly contributed to the Russia

Among Makarov's other articles for Zod

Darmstadt Exhibition gave the first det
Russian press; and shortly thereafter h
Architect and DesignerJosef Hoffmann
Hoffmann's designs for both commerc
impossible in such brief space to give a

DAPA Summer 1987 19

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Fig. 10. Ivan Fomin, dining room commentary on European architecture and design in the Russian press, al-
though at least one other publication- Arkhitekturnyi muzei (Architectural
of gray maple, from the 1902
Museum)-deserves mention for its support of the new style (especially in
Moscow exhibit Architecture Ivan Volodikhin's article "The Aims of Architectural Aesthetics") and its focus
on the decorative arts in Britain. Published only in 1902-03, the journal in-
and Artistic Crafts of the New cluded Zinaida Vengerova's laudatory essay on William Morris ("The Rebirth of
Decorative Art"), as well as articles on the MacDonald sisters in Scotland, the
Style. Photograph from Mir
recent arts and crafts exhibit in London, and a two-part article by Mikhail Syrkin
iskussva, 1903, St. Petersburg, on England's guiding role in the application of decorative arts to architectural
design.
no. 3.
By 1905, Russia's art and architectural journals had discussed, and frequently il-
lustrated, the work of many of the most important names in modern European
design, including Emile Galle, Tiffany, Rene Lalique, Lucien Gaillard, in addi-
tion to architects such as Charles Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Horta,
and Hoffmann, who gave special emphasis to interior design. Although Russian
critics sympathetic to the new style often took a dismissive attitude toward at-
tempts to adapt the innovations ("blind imitation" was their usual complaint),
Makarov and Volodikhin both viewed the style moderme-directed primarily
toward urban Russia's nascent middle class and haute bourgeoisie-as an inev-
itable part of a broad renewal of social and cultural values in Russia.

The most convincing sign of the arrival of the style moderne in Russian culture
occurred in December 1902 with the opening of the Moscow exhibit
Architecture and Artistic Crafts of the New Style. The show lasted through
January 1903, and included the design of rooms and furnishings by Mackintosh,
Olbrich, Fedor Shekhtel, Konstantin Korovin, William Walcot, and Ivan Fomin
(the last two were among the primary organizers of the exhibit). No other
event associated with the new style received such extensive coverage in the
press; and while critical opinion was by no means uniformly favorable, the

20 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. ti. Ivan Fomin, fireplace of .

sandstone with tiles. Frieze by

Vladimir Egorov. Photograph : ..

from Mir iskusstva, 903, no. 3.

prominence given the exhibit in journals such as Zodcbii and Mir iskusstva
(The World of Art) testified to the acceptance of the style and of work by
Russia's own designers.

The exhibit was particularly successful for Fomin, who two years later would
abandon the moderne for the neoclassical revival style in which he did his
greatest work as both designer and architect (figs. 10 and 11). At the Moscow ex-
hibit, however, Fomin demonstrated a thorough mastery of contemporary ideas
in European design, with a debt to the arts and crafts school. In commenting on
the extensive display of furniture by Fomin at the show, Sergei Diaghilev noted
that he had assimilated the modern international style without losing the
characteristics of a Russian artist.2 Diaghilev reinforced his opinions by publish-
ing in a later issue of Mir iskusstva an excellent photographic essay on the
show, with Fomin's work prominently featured, in addition to a room by
Mackintosh and furnishings by Olbrich (fig. 12). Although Diaghilev rightly

2. S. Diaghilev, "Vystavki arkhitekturnaia i '36-ti,"' Mir iskusstva, 1903, no. 1, pp. 8-10.

DAPA Summer 1987 21

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 ..ir?

..+??::
;;j
:rr

Fig. 12.1902 Moscow exhibit considered Olbrich the dominant presence in European design, the juxtaposi-
tion of Fomin's work with that of Mackintosh reveals a common dedication to
Architecture and Artistic Crafts
simple and elegant craftsmanship.
of the New Style. Table by The Moscow exhibit was followed almost immediately by one in St. Petersburg
arranged by a group of artists and designers under the auspices of Mir
Konstantin Korovin and arm-
iskusstva. The show, which opened on 26January 1903, bore the title
chairs by Charles Rennie Contemporary Art and was actually intended as the debut of a design atelier of
the same name, but after a few months of indecisive results, the financial back-
Mackintosh. To the right is a ers withdrew and the enterprise folded in the fall of that year. The show itself
was a qualified success. In the Russian mode there was an elaborately colored
partial view of the sitting room
teremok by Golovin (who had created a similar setting with Konstantin Korovin
designed by Mackintosh. Pho- for the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle). The other displays had little to do
with traditional Russian motifs: Korovin contributed an understated design for
tograph from Mir iskusstva, a tearoom, while Alexandre Benois and his nephew Evgenii Lanceray provided
a dining room that combined wall paintings of idyllic classical scenes with
1903, St. Petersburg, no. 3.
furniture that resembled faintly the work of Mackintosh. Also included were
objects by Lalique.

Diaghilev, in a sympathetic but critical commentary, noted an air of unreality

about the designs (with the possible exception of Korovin's), and suggested
that the show needed a practical, knowledgeable architect who could "trans-
form a fairy-tale castle into a liveable home and a stage set into ordinary life."3

3. "Sovremennoe iskusstvo," Mir iskusstva, 1903, no. 3, pp. 22-24.

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 The mannered approach of the displays revealed that while the revival of the
decorative arts was in theory intended to unite art and architecture in the de-
sign of living space, the results fell short of a comprehensive stylistic approach.
The disjunction between art and architecture remained, and only a few
"artist-architects" were capable of integrating decoration and structure. Fomin
was certainly one. Another-perhaps the greatest-was Fedor Shekhtel.

The extraordinary range of Shekhtel's talents, which provided the basis for
an inclusive architectural esthetic, extended from icon painting and set design
(he was a close friend of Anton Chekhov and reconstructed the building for
the Moscow Art Theater) to the functional commercial buildings for the
Riabushinsky family4 His career as architect began in the late 1880s with the
construction of estate houses in a flamboyant, eclectic style, but he quickly
mastered the ability to incorporate decorative arts into the structural environ-
ment. Although he used the services of Mikhail Vrubel and other artists for the
interior of buildings such as the neo-Gothic mansion of Zinaida Morozova, by
the beginning of the century he assumed total control over interior design and
architecture in the two houses that are his most notable contribution to the
style moderne.

The first of these, the house begun in 1900 for Stepan Riabushinsky, is the most
colorful in its use of decoration-on the exterior as well as the interior (fig.
13). The irises portrayed in a large mosaic frieze on the facade form a counter-
point to the sharp, rectangular projection of the cornice, and immediately re-
veal the hand of an architect who intends to exploit contrasts in texture, color,
and material. The emphasis on craftsmanship is everywhere evident, from the
curved mullions of the great windows (whose effect from the interior is even
more pronounced than from the street) to the wrought iron railing along the
front of the house.

The interior fully justifies expectations of wealth created by the view from the
outside, but in a private, enclosed setting peculiar to this most intimate of
Shekhtel's mansions. Each room forms a discrete space with its individual tone;
yet all are grouped around the central stairwell that forms the core of the struc-
ture, and all are unified by a similar approach to decoration in wood, fabric,
stained glass, plaster, brass, wrought iron, and wall painting. The style is both
modern and in a subtle way related to the Russian crafts tradition as trans-
formed by the modeme. One might note isolated similarities to sources as
diverse as Mackintosh, Hoffman, Olbrich, Gaillard and Louis Majorelle (in the
wood veneer with marquetry), Horta and Tiffany (in stained glass), and Endell.
Shekhtel was obviously well-informed in the contemporary arts, and his bril-
liant design of the Russian pavilions at the 1901 Glasgow International
Exhibition made him one of the earliest Russian architects to gain distinction in
the West. It must be noted that his success at Glasgow was based on an interpre-
tation of Russian traditional wooden architecture, which lent his work a certain
exotic appeal; yet he was no less confident in his understanding of modern de-
sign. In the Riabushinky house, this facility with Russian and western design
reached its culmination, from the contemporary style of the living space to his
adaptation of the teremok for a house chapel (with an icon screen by Shekhtel).

4. The leading Soviet authority on the work of Shekhtel is Evgeniia I. Kirichenko, author of the mono-
graph Fedor Shekhtel (Moscow, 1973) and numerous articles related to the architect. In English the
best study is by Catherine Cooke, "Fedor Osipovich Shekhtel: An Architect and his Clients in
turn-of-century Moscow," ArchitecturalAssociation Files, London, vols. 5-6,1984, pp. 5-31.

DAPA Summer 1987 23

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Fig. 13. Fedor Shekhtel, street The most remarkable area in the Riabushinsky house-one that exploits the
love of theater in Shekhtel's work-is the main stairway (figs. 14-17). Every-
fagade, Stepan P Riabushinsky
thing in the structure ultimately develops from this central space, extending
house. Photograph by the
from the ground floor to a skylight in the roof. Although this core is enclosed
by the rooms that open onto it from all sides, the area is well and dramatically
author. lit, both by natural and electric light. Each source provides its own theatrical ef-'
fect: the natural light comes not only from the skylight, but also from a
two-story stained glass window placed on the diagonal at two intersecting
walls. Behind this marvel there is a passage connecting two rooms, and there-
fore the light must pass through another window placed in the exterior wall.

This elaborate piece of stagecraft is matched by the central electrical source-

and by the balustrade to which it is attached. Words fail to convey the essence
of this balustrade, which is the centerpiece of Shekhtel's design (figs. 14 and
15). The sinuous, plastic mass, which courses from the second-story landing to
a billowy surge at the bottom, is of a material that Russians call "artificial mar-
ble," but is more precisely a gray terrazzo-a type of cast concrete mixed with
marble and granite fragments and polished to a high gloss. (Russian architec-
tural journals of the period contain frequent references to this material under
the trade names of "Scagliola" and "Terrazzo.") Shekhtel tops the extravagance
with a Tiffany-style lamp, whose light bulbs are placed within stalactite tentacles
(fig. 16). The effect here is baroque, as is much of art nouveau decoration; but
there is also a Russian massiveness that is atypical of art nouveau. This is parti-
cularly evident in a comparison of the balustrade with what could be its proto-
type: August Endell's stairway in the vestibule of the Atelier Elvira (Munich,
1897-98; not extant). Endell's balustrade has the same sinuous course,

24 DAPA Summer 1987

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 :::r!: ::
: -:i.

' iS. _
*'. ??-;
:""

*:0t aris- '8p :\ .. . , -i: i s:L

V,:#:...:::

:g

i~f:. " Sl_*- . "l,. *:

'U .(: ..?-:i

':,^ v^ ''t
%.r '^ ?^^~~~~'

: .' ' ?':,. ,'

4A . >F5
N:li
Ato

II1
Fig. 14. Fedor Shekhtel, stained

glass window above stairway,

Stepan R Riabushinsky house,

Moscow, 1900-02. Photograph

by the author.

Fig. 15. Fedor Shekhtel,

stairway, with stained glass

panel of vestibule, Stepan P

Riabushinsky house, Moscow,

1900-02. Photograph by the

author.

culminating in a surging light fixture, but the material-wrought iron in a

delicate tracery-creates an impression that is completely the opposite of
Shekhtel's combination of plasticity and mass.

For all of the ingenuity in the design of the Riabushinsky house (so incom-
pletely described above), Shekhtel had not exhausted his versatile interpreta-
tion of the moderne. In 1901, after the Glasgow Exhibition and during the con-
struction of the Riabushinsky house, Shekhtel designed and built a mansion for
Alexandra Derozhinskaia, heiress to another Moscow fortune. The structure
and the interior design are austere in comparison with the earlier house, and

DAPA Summer 1987 25

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 Fig. 16. Fedor Shekhtel,I e : ..
balustrade lamp, Stepan P

Riabushinsky house, Moscow, f. " :' ;[r

1900-02. (Notice pattern on ib
parquet floor.) Photograph by

the author.
_.~ .'..., ._

Fig. 17. Fedor Shekhtel,

stairway and balustrade of the

Stepan P Riabushinsky house,

Moscow, 1900-02. Photograph

by the author.

there is not a trace of a traditional Russian style (figs. 18 and 19). The most obvi-
ous reference is to the work of Mackintosh, which Shekhtel had ample oppor-
tunity to see during his stay in Glasgow; but the Secession is never completely
out of view, particularly in the decorative elements. The rooms are the most
spacious Shekhtel designed, including a large two-story hall that dominates the
front of the house (on both interior and exterior). Even the private living areas
are open and uncluttered, although done with the usual attention to detail and
craftsmanship, and all under the design of Shekhtel-from the furniture fabric
to the light fixtures. That this elegant, if rather cold, monument should overlap
with the building of the Riabushinsky house is evidence of rare virtuosity.

As the decade passed and style modeme lost its innovative force, the decorative
arts followed other patterns in interior and architectural design, of which the
most productive was the neoclassical revival. To be sure, the stylized use of tra-
ditional Russian decoration persisted; but its main form of creative expression
moved from architecture to the theater, where Diaghilev and a pleiad of artists
applied Russian motifs to ballet and opera design with such brilliant results. o
26 DAPA Summer 1987

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Fig. 18. Fedor Shekhtel, dining

room, Alexandra Derozhinskaia

house, Moscow, 1901.

Fig. 19. Fedor Shekhtel, study,

Alexandra Derozhinskaia

house, Moscow, 1901.

DAPA Summer 1987 27

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