Ivan
Kramskoy

by Margaret Baumgaertner

Ivan Kramskoi, Leader of the Itinerants (cover)

Ivan Ivanovich Kramskoy* was arguably the most important Russian portrait artist in history. A fiery essayist and visionary, he orchestrated the uprising of art students at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and was the leader of the Itinerants. His students included Ilya Repin and Valentin Serov. He created two of the most beloved portraits in Russia, Christ in the Wilderness and Portrait of an Unknown Woman. Ivan Kramskoy was a political animal, brilliant, passionate, and as well known for his essays as his art. Through his paintings, he shepherded the entire nation toward an appreciation for stark realism and Russian nationalism.

Kramskoy was born in 1837, the son of a journalist, and was schooled to the age of 12. At 16 he left his town of Ostrogozhsk in Southern Russia and spent the next three years traveling over half the country as a photography assistant, working as a retoucher and watercolor painter. From the ages of 20 to 25, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg.

Conceived 100 years earlier by Catherine the Great, the Academy had taken on a more stringent tone under the reign of Tsar Nicholas I, who pronounced neoclassicism the official style. The Tsar demanded control of the artists and the images they produced, going so far as to direct the art students, peering over their shoulders as they painted. Things softened a little under Alexander II, but Kramskoy still chaffed under the constraints. In 1863, when the Academy announced that the subject of the annual competition would be the fanciful "Odin's Entrance into Valhalla," he angrily resigned in protest, taking 13 graduating students with him.

"I went in half asleep, feeling my way. Then suddenly I felt a shove and I awoke. . .it was the year 1863, November 9th, when 14 people were rejecting the program. It was the only good day in my life, which I lived to the full and with honesty!" Kramskoy wrote to Ilya Repin in 1874.

With these 13 students, Kramskoy organized the Artists Artel in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Artel was an artists commune, the members accepting any work that came their way and sharing the profit. Astonishingly, the Artel was able to remain a cohesive, functioning entity for almost 10 years! Most evenings they conducted self-education programs organized by Kramskoy. Ilya Repin described the impassioned Kramskoy rushing into the Artel full of new ideas, ". . .His eyes shone with excitement and soon his voice was quivering with passion over a new question that none of (us) had ever heard before."

On Thursday nights, the Artel held a "drawing evening," attracting as many as 40 or 50 people. Not just artists, but writers, poets, composers and intelligentsia might attend. The artists would stack up art supplies on tables and invite guests to join in. During these evenings Kramskoy often painted a three-hour sauce portrait using the other artists, guests or his own family as his models.

Sauce (saw-oose) is a a pastel-like crayon made of Pigment, Chasov Yar Clay, and Carbon. It is much denser and darker than charcoal and completely dissolvable in water. Sauce comes in a

(Left to right) Self Portrait, Ivan Kramskoy, 1867. Kramskoy was the undisputed master of the medium sauce. Sauce, when crushed into a powder, behaves like charcoal when dry, but when mixed with water becomes extremely dark and inky. While leading the Artist Artel in St. Petersburg, Kramskoy used his family, friends and other artists as models for his sauce demonstrations, as in this portrait of his daughter Sophia, 1867. The Woodsman, 1874, is an exquisite example of the elements in Kramskoy's painting that make them so singular. Simplicity of design, conservation of values, a textural feel to skin, hair and clothing, and respect for the subject. "Russian painting is just as different in its essence from that of Europe as is Russian literature" —Letter to A. S. Suvorin, 2/12/1885

compressed stick, but is not readily usable in this form. The strong pigmenting properties of sauce make it nearly impossible to erase or control. However, if the sauce sticks are crushed using a pestle and mortar, the resulting powder can be used in drawing and is extremely potent when mixed with water. Sauce becomes almost inky if mixed in high concentrations, but can be amazingly subtle if mixed sparingly with water. It has a complete value range of one to nine. Powdered Sauce can be used as a dry medium, like charcoal, it can be laid down dry, and brushed over with clear water, or it can be mixed with water and used like watercolor or ink wash. (It was after viewing Kramskoy's sauce drawings that I was moved to begin a study of this unique medium and method.)

After the disbanding of the Artel in 1870, Kramskoy and three members of the St. Petersburg Artel, as well as 11 artists from Moscow, formed the "Association of Traveling Exhibits", or more commonly, "The Itinerants" (or "Wanderers"). The initial group included Kramskoy, Ivan Shishkin and Nikolai Ge, all friends from the Academy.

Ivan Kramskoy chose to paint Russian peasants, such as Mina Mosileyev, Peasant Holding a Bridle, 1882, rather than the Russian aristocracy, and to depict the workers as real people, not as the downtrodden masses or the noble laborer.

The purpose of the Itinerants, as stated in the Constitution of the Association, was to host moving art exhibitions to provide those living in the provinces outside of St. Petersburg or Moscow the opportunity to see and follow Russian art, for the people of Russia to develop a love of Russian art, and to create an opportunity for the artists to sell their work.

The group vehemently insisted on independence from bureaucratic control and official figures, and independence from the Academy of Fine Art. They organized their own shows, controlled what and where they chose to paint, and, with Kramskoy at its helm, the Itinerants painted the Russian countryside, realistically depicted the Russian character, and were a hugely powerful movement behind the burgeoning Russian nationalism. To Kramskoy, the Russian nationalistic movement was much more strongly expressed through art than through language, and he both supported and pressured his fellow artists to not veer from their responsibility to this mission.

In a letter to Ilya Repin in 1873, Kramskoy shows his tenacity in pushing the Traveling Exhibitions. "In the name of the moving exhibitions. . .you say, 'There won't be any time, there is too much work to do—art, technique, expression. . .' What do you mean, 'there won't be any time'? If you have been convinced of something once, there is no need to start from the very beginning again. All the rest of the time remains precisely for the execution and realization of those things. Where else would the time go?"

Ivan Kramskoy's story cannot be told without the introduction of the patron, benefactor and champion of the Russian artists, Paval Tretyakov. The Hermitage was the greatest museum in Russia, but the collection was almost exclusively European art. Tretyakov devoted his time, support, and invested his family fortune in establishing a Russian museum. He purchased almost the entire inventory of the first Itinerant exhibition, and would visit the artist's studios and buy up works slated for the traveling show. With the establishment of a coterie of great Russian painters, the nationalistic movement of the time, and the support of a moneyed patron, the Itinerant movement exploded.

The Itinerants were to become a wildly successful association. The group would include Ilya Repin and Vasily Surikov, grow to over 100 active members and 440 participating artists, and organize 48 Traveling Exhibitions until it's discontinuance in 1923.

"It is very likely that, were there no Kramskoy, there would not have been the ['Rebellion of the Fourteen'] on September 9, 1863, nor would there have been the manifestation of the new directions, nor, perhaps the very style since the talented young artists who were scattered and lacked firm convictions and a program would have dispersed and gone by unnoticed, and would have remained without influence, being constantly pressed and pursued by academism and every form of banality. Kramskoy's intellect and energy merged them all into a whole, giving their intentions a common, definite purpose. . ." —A.N. Benois, 1902.

Kramskoy's place in Russian history would have been secured based solely on his ideological writings, his revolutionary purpose, bravado and tenacity, but his most favored position in history is gloriously assured by his paintings.

". . .and so one day, when I was particularly occupied with this, I suddenly saw a seated figure, deep in thought, I started looking at it in great depth, (I could) walk around it, and throughout the entire duration of my observations it did not move once. . .it did not notice me. His thoughts were so serious and so deep that I would always come across him the same position. . .Here I found that I did not even have to invent anything, I had simply to copy what I had seen. And when I finished, I gave him an audacious name. Was it Christ? I do not know. . .In the morning, with the rising of the sun, the person vanished." From a letter to V.M. Garshin, Feb 16, 1878

At the second Itinerant exhibition in St. Petersburg, the high point was Christ in the Wilderness, painted by Kramskoy in 1872. The figure of Christ appeared to Kramskoy in a vision. He described it almost like a hallucination, and completed the painting without using a model. It has been written that this is the most personal painting he has ever painted. It is about his inner person and understanding, not what he sees with his eyes or his social conscience. In 1873 when Kramskoy learned that the Academy of Fine Arts was going to bestow the Professorship for Christ in the Wilderness, he refused the honor stating that he would remain true to his ". . .youthful commitment of independence from the Academy."

Tretyakov also commissioned portraits of the great Russian writers and scientists. In 1873, Leo Tolstoy was begrudgingly persuaded to have his portrait painted by Kramskoy. Tolstoy commented that he was "scrutinized" by Kramskoy during the many sittings, but Tolstoy was scrutinizing as well, because Kramskoy appears in Tolstoy's book, Anna Karenina, in the guise of the portrait artist Mikhailov.

In 1872-74, Kramskoy painted his peasant series including, The Village Elder, The Mediator and The Woodsman. One of Kramskoy's most outstanding portraits is the magnificent Peasant with Bridle (Mina Moiseyev). Unlike the "drawing room intellectuals," most of the Itinerants came from working class origins and held no false sentimentality about the life of the peasant. Kramskoy painted the old peasants and workers as they really were, neither as noble saints, nor miserable creatures, but as individuals who had their own character and personality.

The most famous painting by Kramskoy, The Unknown Woman, 1883, caused a sensation when she was first shown because she was presumed to be a loose woman. In time, her quiet strength and forthright gaze was embraced by the Russian people as representing their own strength.

Kramskoy painted Portrait of an Unknown Woman in 1883. This is the most intriguing and well-known painting by Kramskoy. It shows a haughty, exquisitely dressed woman riding in her open carriage on the Anichkov bridge in St. Petersburg. Stasov (art critic from that time) said of the painting, "She is a coquette in a carriage." Kramskoy himself said, "Some people have said it is not known who this woman is. Is she decent, or does she sell herself? But within her is an entire epoch". Over time, however, the Unknown Woman has become a symbol of sophistication, beauty and spirituality; the Russian Madonna.

Kramskoy was a fascinating, driven, exquisitely talented man. He acutely and actively reacted to the most important events surrounding him and tried to serve his people with his art. He is meaningful not only as an artist, but as the man who laid the way to the flourishing of Russian art represented by Repin, Serov, Surikov, Vasnetsov and other outstanding Russian masters.

On March 24, 1887, Ivan Kramskoy died at the age of 50.
". . .March 24th, from 11 in the morning to five in the evening, (Kramskoy), in two/three sittings, painted the head of Dr. Carl Raukhfus, incomparable in strokes and likeness. . .and like a soldier with a banner, (Kramskoy) fell dead with the brush in his hands. . .the trace of his brush slanting down like the trace of a falling star on the canvas." —Ivan Nicolai, Moscow "Sovietskaya Rossia" 1988
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My introduction to and fascination with Ivan Kramskoy began at a kiosk in Moscow when I saw Portrait of an Unknown Woman gracing the top of a box of Russian chocolates. In the past 12 years I have been to Russia six times and have been profoundly fortunate to see many of his most exquisite works. In Kiev I saw his Peasant with Bridle (Mina Moiseyev), as well as rooms full of his art in the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Kramskoy's passion, commitment, enthusiasm and altruism are an inspiration for any teacher. As an artist, his conservation of line, mastery of value, and profound sensitivity for his subject are powerful lessons to be studied and emulated.

In 1999, I was given an old Russian book containing his letters and essays and I have had them translated into English. I am in the process of putting together a book (to be published in Russia) of Kramskoy's paintings and drawings accompanied by his own words. Ivan Kramskoy's lessons must not be limited to his lifetime. He has much to teach the artists in the 21st century.

*There is a discrepancy about the spelling of Kramskoy/Kramskoi. It appears in both forms over a wide variety of literature. The Russian translated books tend to use Kramskoi, while the American spelling is usually Kramskoy.
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Margaret Carter (Peggy) Baumgaertner is an internationally respected artist, teacher and writer. Her web site is www.Baumportraits.com, e-mail address is Baumportrait@cs.com

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