Where Are You Leaving Me, My Heart?

Leonid Tishkov’s one-man exhibition has been held at Moscow’s Velta Gallery in the Central Army Club. The characters represented at it – Dabloids, Chocks and Stomachs – amount to a queer, invented world, half-caricatures and half-children’s drawings with deliberately naive captions like “Where Are You Leaving Me, My Heart? ” (the picture depicts a heart marching over the mountains) or “That’s What I Am, a Merry Chock” (simply a chock with legs)... Yuri Nechiporenko tried to take a glimpse of the artist’s inner world:

Q.: Why don’t you paint like a normal artist, but invent some odd personages?

A.: The whole of art has been invented. It’s impossible to open up your soul in a simple way. There may be a simple instrument – a drum – there may also be an intricate one – a hundred-string guitar. The sound will be complicated, which doesn’t mean it’s insincere.

Q.: Does your mission consist in cleaning the inmost recesses of the soul, while remaining ciphered?

A.: Moreover, I would like to keep self-irony intact. I show the different storeys of my soul – for instance, the Dabloids are somewhat philosophical. They are a replica of our complexes, delusions and guideposts.

Q.: You ascribe a whole number of meanings to these creatures, don’t you?

A.: Yes, I do. A Dabloid is a leg with a head, it’s the hieroglyph Tao, that is, Way. If you read Tao in Chinese it will be a head and a leg – Way. But the Stomach – man’s mucuous membrane – stands for physiological perceptions.

Q.: You are turning your physiology into an object of art, aren’t you?

A.: Many philosophers of antiquity did that. They believed that the soul was in the liver. And how does jaundice influence the way we feel? You are a biologist by education, and I am a physician, and we both know how important it is whether or not a person is in sound health.

Q.: Previously it was believed that artists were thinking of something noble, whereas diseases only hindered this. For instance, Bunin often suffered from jaundice. And he could not write. And your works – are they jaundice on paper? Aren’t you littering the sphere of art?

A.: Wrong. Man is the focus of all things. And Turning to himself, he may find a whole world inside him. I keep returning all the time to my birthplace, to the beginning of my inner world, to my Motherland, to my Urals. I call it the “deep-water Urals”. This is also a return from chaos to harmony because, after all, I emigrated from the Urals to Moscow, I am feeling the loss of place, of a cozy little world created by my ancestors.

Every person is looking for his Home – spelled with a capital letter. People use to say about me – Lyonya, you have taken after your grandfather, you are round-shouldered as he was. But actually, I am the reincarnation of my grandfather who was born and always lived over there, in the middle reaches of the Urals, amidst cosmos, mountains and land. I thought I had reached some novelty having moved to the centre of life, but in actual fact the centre is where I am and where my ancestors were born.

Q.: Where have you come to feel yourself alive?

A.: Indeed, I keep painting the same landscape all the time. Previously I thought I had seen it on the sea, during my vacations, and memorized it, but it has turned out that this is the landscape of the Ural Mountains. The memory of your ancestors, the whole of the human tree, is inside you. For an artist this is very important, because then he starts working not merely at the level of external images, but is trying to penetrate to a greater depth and to make topographic sections of the subconsciousness.

Q.: Yes, but why should the endless self-scrutinization of one be of interest to all?

A.: Leonardo da Vinci was vivisecting one dead man, but studying the structure of the human species. So am I – by means of self-autopsy, I am laying bare my fears and emotions and modelling every human being.

Q.: Doesn’t it seem to you that the ordinary person is infinitely far from all this?

A.: Why far? Take children: it’s interesting for them to play together. The artist is continuing this play: he is playing with God, but is also carrying along others whom you, for some reason, call ordinary people. No man is ordinary. And I’m like the pioneer. Just like in childhood one says – let’s climb up a tree – and everybody runs after him.

Q.: Are you such a merrymaker?

A.: In the village, a jester is in one family and an accordion player in another – they are invited to village feasts. It so happens that all members of my family are very serious people. My elder brother is a minister (former, it is true), my second brother is a physician – he is saving people. Well, and I happened to be the third brother, like in a fairy tale. This kind of a Fool.

I. Answer the questions.

1) What can be an object of art in your opinion?

2) Try to state the genre of L.Tishkov’s works.

3) What can be the aim of painting?

4) Is it possible to “clean the inmost recesses of the soul” by means of art? Give your reasons.

5) Do you think diseases influence an artist’s work? In what way?

6) Is an artist able to carry along other people? Give your arguments.

II. Agree or disagree with the following statements. Comment them.

1) The whole of art has been invented.

2) Physiology can be turned into an object of art.

3) Man is the focus of all things.

4) Every person is looking for his Home – spelled with a capital letter.

5) An artist is trying to make topographic sections of the subconsciousness.

6) By means of self-autopsy an artist is laying bare his fears and emotions and modelling every human being.

7) It is always very easy to understand the intentions of an artist and the ideals conveyed by his pictures, even if we know nothing about the painter’s life and work.

8) People who cannot paint themselves never take a delight in fine arts.

9) It is certainly better to see paintings on one’s own than to join a group of visitors led by the guide.

III. Try to formulate L.Tishkov’s views on art. Do you share them?

Read and translate Text III. It is the conversation between two members of the selection committee at the Royal Academy (Stencil and Woodstock) and a painter (Glynn).

S. – Do you like this painting, Mr. Glynn?

G. – Very much.

S. – You don’t find it obscure and unintelligible?

G. – Not at all.

S. – Then be so glad as to tell me what these innumerable black tongue-lickings in the lower part of the picture represent.

G. – Those are people walking about.

S. – Do I look like that when I walk along Piccadilly?

G. – Perhaps not. These people are younger than you.

S. – Thank you for reminding me of my antiquity. Then what is this conveyance in the left foreground?

G. – That obviously is a coster’s donkey and barrow.

W. – Impossible. Never saw such an animal. Its pasterns are all wrong.

G. – It is certainly not a coloured photograph, if that is your taste. But it conveys its meaning absolutely, and with great feeling.

W. – By out-of-line drawing?

G. – Executed deliberately and with infinite skill. Isn’t that better that the servile rendering of nature which so many of us repeat year after year?

S. – I will not be persuaded to renounce the grammar of design which has been accepted since Giotto.

G. – Surely that is a reactionary view. When someone gets away from the common place you condemn him.

S. – I certainly condemn this. There is not one simple, honest presentation of the natural human form in it. This is not a picture, it is a mere spattering of colours.

G. – Nevertheless, it is art.

S. – I don’t know anything about art. But I know what I like. Blood and thunder, we are not here to be made a mock of or to allow some artistic adventurer to throw a pot of paint in the public’s face. No normal Britisher would be attracted to this picture.

(After A.J.Cronin, Crusader’s Tomb)

IV. Judging from the dialogue given above state the style of the picture and the artistic sympathies of both the adversaries.

V. Find in the text the arguments by which Stencil condemns the picture under discussion. Find the counter-arguments by which Glynn defends it. Choose the arguments with which you agree and disagree.

VI. Make up your own dialogues discussing a picture (if it is possible use a reproduction).

VII. Consider the following arguments in favour of both old and modern paintings and use them as theses in your discussion.

VIII. Role playing.

Suggested characters and situations.

1) The scene is set at an exhibition of modern art. Mr. George Drummond, an elderly art critic, conservative in his views and apt to condemn anything new or original, and Dick Moray, a young artist, enthusiastic about modern art, are discussing the pictures in a rather heated manner.

2) Miss Stella Carmichael, a guide in a picture gallery, comments on paintings of old masters. Mrs. Smith, a middle-aged woman, one of the group of tourists listening to Stella’s explanations, keeps interrupting her with rather pointless questions and inept remarks. Stella reacts with professional tact and calm.

3) The characters suggested in situation 1: G.Drummond and Dick Moray; Dick’s fan who enthusiastically supports all he says trying to fend off the attacks of the old critic and a sceptically minded visitor who is sure that no young artist can create anything of value.

IX. Memorize these sayings, quotations and set expressions and tell in what situations you might use them.

1) to paint smth in bright colours – представлять что-л. в розовом свете

2) to paint smth in dark colours – представлять что-л. в мрачном свете

3) to paint smth in true colours – представлять что-л. правдиво

4) to lay on the colours too thickly – сгущать краски, сильно преувеличивать

5) to paint smb black – стараться очернить кого-либо

6) to paint smb red – подать в яркой, сенсационной форме

7) The devil is not so black as it is painted.

8) Pictures must not be too picturesque. (R.W.Emerson)

9) All art is but imitation of nature. (L.Seneca)

10) A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great. (Joshua Reynolds)

11) Art is long, and Time is fleeting. (Longfellow)

MUSIC

Topical Words and Phrases (to be learnt):

1) musical Instruments:

grand piano – рояль

violin [7vawc¢ lwn] (fiddle-coll.) – скрипка

violoncello [7vawclcn¢ ±clou] – виолончель

contrabass [¢ k]ntrcbews] – контрабас

harp [ha: p] – арфа

bow [bou] – смычок

clarinet [7klæ rw¢ net] – кларнет

flute [flu: t] – флейта

oboe [¢ oubou] – гобой

bassoon [bc¢ zu: n; bc¢ su: n] – фагот

saxophone [¢ sæ kscfoun] – саксофон

tuba [¢ tjubc] – туба, большая басовая труба

trumpet – труба

French horn – валторна

English horn – английский рожок

organ – орган

mouth-organ (Am.-harmonica) – губная гармошка

kettle drum – литавра

pulsatile [¢ pÙ lsctawl] instruments – ударные инструменты

2) Concert, Orchestra, Ensemble:

concert [¢ k]nsc: t] – a musical performance of some length by several voices or instruments or both

recital [rw¢ sawtl] – a programme of music, vocal or instrumental, presented by one person; also a musical performance of the works of one composer

variety orchestra – эстрадный оркестр

symphony orchestra – симфонический оркестр

orchestra of folk instruments – оркестр народных инструментов

string band (orchestra) – струнный оркестр

brass band – духовой оркестр

choir [¢ kwawc] – хор, вокальный ансамбль

chorus [¢ k]: rcs] – хор (в музыкальном произведении)

Amateur Art Activities – художественная самодеятельность

to conduct / direct the orchestra – дирижировать оркестром

to play under the baton of – играть под управлением

to play some music on the piano

to accompany someone on the piano

to sing to the accompaniment of

to dance to the radio

to have a sing-song – to sing songs for which little or no preparation has been made

3) Compositions:

movement – one of the principle divisions in a long musical work /часть музыкального произведения;

concerto [kcn¢ ±c: tou] – a musical composition for one or more solo instruments and an orchestra / концерт;

cantata [kæ n¢ ta: tc] – a piece of music to be sung by soloists and a chorus / кантата;

oratorio [7]rc¢ t]: rwou] – a musical composition for solo voices, chorus and orchestra, dramatic in form / оратория;

sonata [sc¢ na: tc] – a musical composition for one instrument or two, usually with three or four movements / соната;

aria [¢ a: rwc] – an operatic song for one voice / ария;

overture (to...) [¢ ouvctjuc] – an orchestral composition forming a prelude to an opera or ballet, etc. / увертюра;

suite [sww: t] – a set of musical pieces or extracts / сюита;

score [sk]: ] – a copy of musical composition showing the notes on sets of staves / партитура.

4) Music makers:

composer – a writer of music;

conductor – one who directs an orchestra, chorus, etc.;

musician – a person who is skilled at music;

accompanist – one who plays a musical accompaniment

Read and translate Text I.