The Tretyakov Gallery opens an expanded exhibition of 35 works for the anniversary of A. S. Golubkina, the first Russian female sculptor

On the occasion of the anniversary of Anna Semyonovna Golubkina (1864–1927), the first Russian female sculptor, whose work became a symbol of the heyday of Russian plastic art in the first third of the 20th century, the Tretyakov Gallery is opening an expanded exhibition of her works. The master’s works, traditionally presented in the halls on Lavrushinsky Lane and on Krymsky Val, will be supplemented by exhibits from the collections of the Gallery and one of its scientific departments - the Museum-Workshop of A. S. Golubkina.

The exhibition of A. S. Golubkina in Lavrushinsky Lane continues the halls of sculpture and painting of the Silver Age. The master's works are demonstrated in dialogue with the paintings of P. V. Kuznetsov, N. N. Sapunov, M. S. Saryan and V. E. Borisov-Musatov, with whom she was exhibited together several times. This comparison of works emphasizes the closeness of the artistic searches of sculptors and painters of this period.

In her work, Anna Golubkina was guided by the idea of ​​ascetic service to art: “you need to forget everything, give everything away.” Arriving in Moscow from Zaraysk, she began her professional education at the age of 25 in the Fine Arts Classes of the artist-architect A. O. Gunst, continued her studies at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and then at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. But the teaching methods of the academic school did not coincide with Golubkina’s expectations.

The desire to be at the center of European artistic life prompted her to make several trips to Paris. Here she met Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) and visited his workshop in 1896–1897. Communication with the famous sculptor and his advice helped Golubkina realize her own path in art: “You... the best of artists... gave me the opportunity to be free...” The intersections of the works of these masters were examined at the exhibition “Meeting after a century: Rodin. Golubkina. Claudel" at the Tretyakov Gallery in 2004.

From Rodin, Golubkina adopted the principles of constructing an artistic form, learned his characteristic method of active surface development and light and shadow modeling, which led her to impressionism in sculpture. This period of her work is presented in detail in the updated exhibition of the Museum-Workshop of A. S. Golubkina. Interest in symbolism manifested itself in her art through metaphor, attention to unmanifest forms, and appeal to pantheistic motifs. Having gone through a passion for other stylistic directions, Golubkina returned to impressionism in her last major works - “Birch Tree” and “Portrait of Leo Tolstoy” (both 1927, bronze).

The exhibition included about 35 sculptures. The first room greets visitors with one of Golubkina’s most significant works in wood - a fireplace pair of caryatids (1911). By choosing this material, the sculptor moves from an ancient motif to a prehistoric one, changing the semantics of the image.

The idea of ​​internal tension, read in figural compositions, also became the main theme of Golubkina’s portraits. The central hall of the exhibition contains images of philosophers and writers of the Silver Age: V. I. Ivanov, V. F. Ern, A. N. Tolstoy. The works show the author’s interest in depicting individual “proportions of the spirit” and the innermost movements of the soul. The swift, internally mobile nature of the poet A. Bely (1907, plaster) is expressed by an equally dynamic plastic form with an active, expressive surface texture. The portrait of the writer A. M. Remizov (1911, wood) was decided differently: in his features the sculptor conveyed spiritual breakdown and drama. The rounded movement of the folds of wide clothing seems to seek to cover and muffle the internal discord.

The theme of the third hall of the exhibition was the circle of life, the movement of time. Its center is the recently restored sculpture “Old Age” (1898, tinted plaster), first shown at the Spring Salon in Paris in 1899. The gentle image of a child in the work “Girl. Manka" (after 1904, marble, gypsum) arises from an unprocessed block of chopped marble. In the bust “Old” (1908, tinted marble), using the “Egyptian” stylization, Golubkina interprets stone as inert matter, containing not only an old face, but human life itself. In the “Fog” vase, according to Golubkina herself, the theme of four ages is revealed. A comparison of versions in plaster (1899) and marble (circa 1908) allows us to observe how the master works with different materials to achieve his artistic goals.

Golubkina’s art, which, as critics noted during her lifetime, “acquired an almost portrait resemblance to the era,” was highly appreciated already at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1914, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (now the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts), her works comprised the first monographic exhibition of sculpture in the history of Russia. It was with the works of Golubkina that the Tretyakov Gallery began the systematic collection of modern sculpture in the mid-1900s.

An expanded exhibition in the halls of the Gallery on Lavrushinsky Lane will become part of the program celebrating the sculptor’s anniversary. On January 28, Golubkina’s birthday, the grand opening of the exhibition will take place in her House-Museum in Zaraysk, and scientific staff of the Tretyakov Gallery will take part in the ceremony. A new exhibition has been prepared at the Museum-Workshop of A. S. Golubkina on Bolshoy Levshinsky Lane. On February 5, a round table dedicated to Golubkina’s work will be held at the Tretyakov Gallery.

Source: press release from the State Tretyakov Gallery

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The wonderful Russian sculptor Anna Semyonovna Golubkina was born on January 28, 1864 in the city of Zaraysk b. Ryazan province. Her grandfather, a former serf, and her father were engaged in gardening. The family was large, and the childhood and youth of A.S. Golubkina were difficult. Only twenty-five years old was she able to come to Moscow and enroll in the “Fine Arts Classes” with the sculptor S.M. Volnukhin, who appreciated her passionate desire for art and discovered her great original talent.

In 1891 A.S. Golubkina transferred to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under the sculptor S.I. Ivanov, whom she considered her first teacher. Three years later, leaving school, she entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and studied with the sculptor V.A. Beklemisheva. Over the course of a year, the academic routine becomes unbearable, and A.S. To improve her skills with meager funds, Golubkina travels to Paris, where she uses the advice of the famous French sculptor O. Rodin. Returning to Moscow, A.S. Golubkina successfully participates in many art exhibitions.

Works by A.S. Golubkina reflect an entire era and convey the typical features of real Russian reality at the end of the 19th and first quarter of the 20th century. Numerous works of the sculptor, made in marble, wood, stone and bronze, are in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum and many other museums in the country.

A.S. Golubkina was not only the largest Russian sculptor, but also an active revolutionary figure. She directly participated in the fight against tsarism and was repeatedly subjected to searches and arrests, and in 1907 she was put on trial for distributing proclamations of the RSDLP and sentenced to imprisonment and fortress.

In 1923, summarizing his twenty-five years of creative experience and teaching experience at the Prechistensky working courses and at the Higher Art and Technical Workshops, A.S. Golubkina writes and publishes notes “A few words about the craft of a sculptor”, dedicated to her students, where she firmly, clearly and simply formulates her views on the work of a sculptor. This small but insightful book is a significant contribution to the literature on the visual arts.

S. Lukyanov

I dedicate these notes to my students and students. They say that an artist needs to study throughout his life. This is true. But to study not proportions, design and other things that relate to art in the same way as literacy relates to writing, but another, real art, where the main thing is no longer study, but understanding and discoveries, large or small, embodied in images or not - it’s all the same, but artists know them and know their value...

To move on to this real art, you need to thoroughly study its craft part, which is very simple, entirely amenable to knowledge and calculation and can be overcome by attention, mastering the order of work, restraint and discipline. It often happens that gifted people despair of their work, they clearly see that they have done absolutely the wrong thing, they do not know how and when the meaning of the work is lost and how to get back on the road. Sometimes even the teacher will not be able to indicate it, because a million errors are caught on each other, so that there is no point of departure for proofreading. Here the question needs to be raised not about what needs to be done, but what not to do in order to avoid ending up in such impenetrable swamps.

Such confusion must inevitably happen to those who do not understand what is achieved in sculpture, who try to take simple arithmetic solutions with feeling and, conversely, what is taken with feeling is dried by diligent thinking and calculating copying. And through this, such wonderful engines as feeling and mind become fruitlessly tired of work that is not typical for them.

For solid, definite and strong work, it is necessary to work everything that can be counted with the mind, saving the freshness of feeling for that part of the work that cannot be counted and which is the most valuable in art.

A.S. Golubkina. Iron. 1897.

Feeling is always correct and it will always do its job excellently, unless it is tortured by forcing it a thousand times in a thousand ways to guess the size or structure - something that the mind and knowledge decide clearly and definitely with a little attention and restraint. With a reasonable distribution of forces, there is not much room for mistakes. We must always strictly monitor ourselves so as not to do anything that we do not know for sure, not to rush around at random, looking for one thing, losing another, destroying in this turmoil the most valuable thing that gives the artist his gift. One must be restrained, careful and calm as much as possible. The craft of a sculptor, if you approach it simply and seriously, with simple life logic, can be learned easily and quickly. And if you keep yourself strictly accountable for some time, you can soon become stronger in your work and consciously and confidently move forward.

To convey this simple knowledge of the craft and the order of work is the task of my notes. I will try to present sequentially, starting with clay, everything that I consider necessary for beginners. Three types of clay are used for sculpture: gray-green, gray-yellow and gray-white.

I consider the first one the worst for sculpture, because in it it is difficult to see the model and your work, since that cold green color has nothing in common with the body. And the green statue is also unpleasant to see. It is best to avoid such clay: there is too much conventionality in it, it removes vitality and beauty. In addition to the unpleasant color, this clay has another drawback - it is excessive oiliness and viscosity. Gray-yellow clay, on the contrary, is too dry, rough and sandy, although its color closely matches the color of the body. But it somehow vulgarizes the work both with its too material color and the roughness of its consistency.

Gray-white, silvery clay is the best of all, both in its noble silvery color and in its elegantly thin and noble consistency. It has absolutely no disadvantages of yellow and green clay. There is neither excessive fat content and viscosity of green, nor coarse particles of yellow - it is thin, graceful and obedient. Finding and appreciating it is a great acquisition for an artist.

There is also red clay, but its disadvantages are the same as green clay, only perhaps even stronger. Maybe there are clays whose disadvantages and advantages are combined differently, but in Moscow, Leningrad, and Paris I came across clays of precisely these properties. If you have a taste for work and you are not indifferent to the material, then you will choose clay in the same way as painters choose their canvases.

When soaking clay, you should not pour too much water: the clay will be too liquid and will not be ready for work soon, and you will immediately begin to have an unpleasant discord with the material. In addition, excess water makes clay dull and monotonous. The best thing to do is to pour dry clay into a box or tub and pour in enough water so that the clay comes out in islands. After three days the clay is ready for work. During the first work, it is not yet very obedient, but it produces very interesting capricious samples of material (you should leave such an inviolable corner of unworked clay in the box - just in case); then it becomes the most obedient material in the world, you just have to hold it properly.

You should keep the clay in a box so that it does not lie flat, but so that when you take it for work, unequal masses and wells are formed. Then you will have at your disposal clay of every hardness, from the softest to the hardest.

With a real deep attitude to work, your hand itself takes one or another clay, depending on the form you are working on.

To maintain constant living working moisture in the clay, there is no need to water it: the water flows too quickly, barely moistening the top layer, and at the bottom it forms mud, which is also unnecessary. The best thing to do is this: when working, when you wash the clay from your hands, thick water with pieces of clay forms; This water must be thrown out on those places that are beginning to wither. This liquid clay does not go down as easily as water, maintains the top layer in the desired softness, and does not soak the bottom layer unnecessarily. By doing this, you always have the entire live range at hand.

There should be three times more clay than is needed for the work undertaken, so that there is an abundance to choose from. This luxury is easy to afford.

Clay must be treated with respect: do not get it dirty, do not throw it on the floor, do not allow it to become dirty, and after molding, carefully select all the pieces of plaster from it. If there are too many of them, then the best thing is to throw away this clay completely, because these pieces of gypsum interfere with work, appearing in the most critical places.

Besides, mottled, sloppy clay is an unnecessary nuisance. Living working clay is a great beauty; Treating it carelessly is the same as trampling flowers.

Maybe you will think that these are small things. Perhaps they will say that there is no need to attach great importance to such a transitory material as clay, in which not a single thing remains. May be so. But careful handling of clay is very important for learning and gaining confidence in the possibility of achievement. Due to its flexibility, clay gives you absolutely no obstacles, and if you at least once master the form and learn from experience that you can take it, then you will no longer obey any material, be it wood, marble, etc.: you will approach it with your requirements and achieve the vitality that you need, and which you were able to capture in clay. But not everyone and not always have to do monumental things, but for the body and portraits, clay is certainly of great importance. There are little things that annoy you, and there are little things that make you happy, and there is no point in missing out on all the good things that can be found in a sculpture.

The sculptor's work begins with frame. Before starting his work, the sculptor needs to see it on the machine, determine its size, weight, movement and, in accordance with all this, build a frame, which must be so thought out and provided for that it no longer seems to exist during work: neither bend nor oscillate , nor should he perform. Until you make the frame properly, this should be taken as a rule. - it is better not to start work, because an unstructured frame directly interferes with the work. The Sisyphean pile was better, because there the stones fell in one direction, here you often see something terrible: the worker grabs a shaky place, squeezes it, trying to strengthen it with clay, the other part falls, the fifth of all these amendments is damaged, the seventh is corrected in a different size , everything is displaced and slips away from both hands and consciousness...

You can not do it this way. And what is most surprising is that they have been working this way for years and have no idea that it is unacceptable to give power over the work to blind material. About Sarah Bernard, the newspapers once reported with delight that in order to support her work, she stuck scissors into her and something else... It’s downright indecent for a sculptor to listen to such things. The reason I am talking here about this incident with Sarah Bernard is that very often one has to listen to similar stories from beginners, especially from their admirers, as proof of the ardor and originality of the artist. But in fact, this anecdotal originality means simple ignorance and inability and indicates that neither one nor the other has any idea about it. What is work.

For beginners, and not only beginners, but even for those who have worked for several years, but have not taken the craft properly into their own hands, the frame is some kind of living enemy that opposes them. They complain about him: he came out, doesn’t hold, sways, etc., as if the worker himself didn’t arrange all this. Don't complain, but be ashamed of it. And some are so submissive that it happens that a person holds on to his work with one hand so that it does not swing, and with the other he works sadly. And there are many such would-be sculptors. And such a pointless, meaningless, confusing struggle with some piece of iron takes days of the week, years, when it is so easy to put an end to this humiliating trouble once and for all and build the frame firmly and deliberately.

And now one obstacle will be overcome, and the work will immediately become more stable, both literally and figuratively.

In addition to strength, the frame must be made so that it does not protrude from the clay. After all, you are making a living body: is it tolerable for sticks, nails, wires, etc. to come out of it everywhere? All this interferes with the integrity of the impression and accustoms one to convention in work, accustoms one to put up with other shortcomings ( "it's not the same anyway").

You must treat your work as if it were a living thing, and it is unacceptable to tolerate stakes and nails in it (after all, it is living!). Of course, sometimes for some reason it is impossible to hide this or that part of the frame, but then you consciously you allow it to come out, and precisely in the place that you determine for this to be less important. This is a big difference from when the frame comes out where it wants and how it wants. We often see that the frame climbs simultaneously from the head, from the chest, from the back, from the legs... And the person fights with all this, as if in a dream. Why is this necessary? One must dominate the work, not be its slave.

Sometimes a person doesn’t even arrange a machine for himself properly: either it is low, and the worker crouches in every way, or it is so high that the sculptor piles on something, reaching out, barely reaching with his hand. This is unacceptable. In no craft will you find a good craftsman with bad tools, and you only have to look at the tools of the worker to determine what he is worth as a worker. We need to arrange everything for work so that we can only rejoice.

Once you have your frame and clay ready, you should prepare yourself to work. You should never start work thoughtlessly, and therefore on the first day it is better not to work, but to try to think carefully about the model: to feel its movement, character, beauty, discover its advantages, and reconcile its shortcomings in character. In a word - to assimilate nature and gain a passionate interest in it. If you can’t find anything interesting in nature, then you shouldn’t work. This will not be work, but a sluggish exercise, which, not illuminated by lively interest, only tires and extinguishes the artist. It’s better to wait for another model, then you will feel the full weight of such unemployment and, to prevent this from happening, you will again try to deeply understand, consider and think about the creature standing in front of you.

If you look with the desire to understand, then there will always be something interesting in nature, and often something completely unexpected and indicative. They will tell me that the ability to see is innate and does not depend on us. But I probably know that the ability to see can develop to great penetration. We don’t see much only because we don’t demand this ability from ourselves, we don’t force ourselves to examine and understand; perhaps, it would be more accurate to say, we don’t know what we can see.

Having mastered nature, you must consciously determine and keep the size of your work at its intended size and not allow it to grow of its own accord. Having thought and decided all this, you begin, no longer unconsciously, but with some serious decisions, and your dominance over the work has increased, although you have not yet touched it.

The next day, and if you have time, then on the same day - it doesn’t matter, you just need to remember that it’s not profitable to rush - so, the next day you will check your yesterday’s impression and get to work with more confidence. With calculation and caution, you begin to cover your frame with clay and do it so that the frame does not come out anywhere and does not remind you of itself throughout the continuation of work. It is necessary to cover it tightly only around the frame, strengthening it with crosses so that it does not fall off. A light lining makes it possible to press on thin and delicate places, which will never be possible with tightly killed clay, since when pressing on one place, the hand pushes the clay into another, and clay that jumps out unexpectedly can confuse your plan.

It is better to cut off the dried areas and redo them with fresh clay. However, you can work with dense clay, or dry clay, or whatever you want. You should never go against your taste; the main thing is the assimilation and transmission of form and essence.

When applying clay, you need to take it as wide as possible movement. Movement can be most thoroughly comprehended if you yourself take the pose of the model and try to understand and feel it in yourself, then you will clearly feel what bones and muscles form this pose and how, and then, looking at nature, give your work the widest, fullest and most free movement. There is no danger in making the movement too strong, because work in the sense of transmitting movement always suffers from its lack and incompleteness, and not vice versa.

And if you apply (according to the movement, of course) clay a day and take two or three proportions, then you have done very, very much. Your day was not wasted as for the one who made almost the entire figure. He not only gained nothing, but lost a lot, squandered the freshness of the impression of nature, made confusion out of mistakes and will unconsciously search for the same proportions and relationships that he should have established at first and in these searches will destroy the most precious thing - a living impression.

When you install proportions, then do not mark them with a line or a careless touch, but, having decided them so seriously that you vouch for them, mark them for real, in a living way: this is exactly the knee standing like this, or this is the shoulder in such and such a turn . You don’t even need special effort, the hand will do it itself, just don’t deliberately force it to do it poorly and temporarily. I'm not saying that you need to straighten out the shoulder or anything else. Not necessary at all. And you never have to make anything up. It is only necessary that every touch to the clay be real, serious, truthful, and the work will be done by itself. Just don’t irresponsibly tear, scratch, crush or grab. After all, nothing in life is ever done in order to redo it. Approach sculpture with this simple life logic, and you will see that the task becomes simpler, and the work will not be out of your control.

Further: the proportions must be firmly established at the very beginning of the work and set so that then all that remains is to take care of them and not knock them down. Without thoroughly deciding the proportions, you cannot take a step further, because if you solve them carelessly, then you will obviously waste your receptivity, strength and tire your attention. You need to learn to take accurate and correct proportions, firstly, for the sketches that you make, they will no longer be “done” and lead you to bewilderment, but you will do them yourself firmly and consciously; secondly, you develop an eye and the habit of quickly grasping the essentials and understanding the work. And most importantly, having studied proportions, you get out of their power and gain the freedom to take them in the spirit of your task, which is absolutely necessary as soon as school sketches end and independent work begins (whoever is strong enough and understands this can work on school sketches yes, but usually it comes later).

Combinations of proportions have not yet been developed much. The same face, with the same similarity, depending on the proportion, is made large or insignificant, and the figure is small or large, to the point of deception. Pay attention to the proportions of teenagers, people and animals. Compare Michelangelo's David and the children of Laocoon.

As examples of brilliant freedom of proportions and relationships, I will point to “Venus de Milo”, “Tomb of the Medici” by Michelangelo, “Citizens of Calais” by Rodin. I won’t talk about them, I’m just pointing them out, and then let everyone look for themselves and understand this great music. Of course, these are great works, and they are a distant example for us, but we, ordinary artists, need to acquire the courage and freedom to take the proportions we need ourselves, because you can never find a model that would completely correspond to your thoughts. Even the same model will not be the same at different times and in different moods, and one must be skillful and free in order to take from nature entirely what she only has in her capacity. You have probably seen the magnificent figures of talented speakers and lecturers. In a different environment and in a different mood, you won’t recognize them, you won’t believe your eyes whether they are the right people.

It is clear that when working with such a person, you must find other proportions and relationships. These are the proportions of his spirit, and you will find them in him. This requires solid knowledge, which gives you the courage not to submit to the correctness of proportions and relationships that are incorrect in the essence of the spirit. This can never be done by anyone who has not studied them. Even if he wants to break them, he will be attached to them and will never break them in the spirit of work. Hence, all the works of sculptors who are not strong in the sense of school, who want to show freedom in their work, are so powerless and sluggish.

If someone wants to completely get out of the power of proportions, having studied them, he can do this after working for a month or two like this: sketch out a sketch, give it some movement, outline the proportions by eye and then check them by measuring with a compass and break them; then give the nature a different pose, outline again, measure and start a new work again. Having worked in this way for a month or two, you will immediately learn to take the movement and proportions correctly and can already think about their highest correctness.

By the way: never One should not work with a compass, they can only check what is subject to breaking anyway, otherwise independence, caution and determination are weakened.

Now we need to say a little about technology. Everyone really shouldn’t have any technology other than their own. Since everyone has their own hands, eyes, feelings, thoughts, unlike anyone else, then the technique cannot but be individual, unless an outsider, depersonalizing, interferes with it. An example of such pure direct technique is the work of children. They convey material and form in a way that only very great masters can do. For example, they made a goose: a massive crop, wide shots of the belly, fluffy ankles, dry wing feathers were taken to perfection, even the color was conveyed. Such a magnificent technique can only be explained by the inseparability of feeling, thought and hand. And it occurs either at the heights of ignorance or at the heights of knowledge. In the first - Not yet doubts about the correctness, in the second - not anymore his. And the whole middle is drowning in doubts and mistakes.

The unconscious spontaneity of ignorance cannot last long. Even children very soon begin to see their mistakes, and that’s where their spontaneity ends. By the way, it must be said that children do not know at all what they are doing, they do not know what is bad and what is good; If they don't take the work on time, there will be nothing left of it. And despite all their excellent technique, they sometimes make such mistakes that the goose ends up on four legs, and the cat, if it changes its position, dissolves into a cake.

Self-taught people also lose in school in the sense of sincerity and spontaneity and complain about school that it has killed this in them. This is partly true; Before school there was something unique in their work, but then it becomes colorless and formulaic. On this basis, some even deny the school. But this is not true, because all the same, self-taught people eventually develop their own template and, to tell the truth, a very nasty one. The cautious modesty of ignorance turns into the glibness of ignorance, and even with such a flourishing of complacency that there can be no bridge to real art.

You see that there is no way back to unconsciousness and spontaneity, and willy-nilly we will find ourselves in this sad middle, full of mistakes and doubts, from which we must free ourselves and strengthen ourselves, at least enough to say: I This I think it's true So Want.

Whether an artist is big or small - no technique will add or subtract anything from him - it’s all the same. The only thing that matters is the artist’s attitude towards work, towards art. Here he is reflected in his work completely, down to the slightest distant thought, and all deliberateness, lies and pursuit of success reveal themselves to be a failure in his work to the same extent as they are applied. And vice versa, of course. Revealing the idea of ​​essence by recreating the main thing in its entirety and ignoring the details of real everyday life, of course, is not a lie, but the highest realism. Art even accepts a mixture of different natural forms. That's not what we're talking about here. Then you will see all this for yourself.

I continue about technology. Partly the same process of loss of integrity and spontaneity occurs with sculptors.

Everyone knows that in the beginning, that is, when they work directly with feeling, the work is more original, more interesting, more vital. Errors are not yet so noticeable, but a person cannot completely ignore them, because contradictions begin in the work that require reconciliation. A person immediately begins to replace these mistakes with others. Of course, replace them with others, otherwise how could it happen that a person works, for example, on a head for a month, and sometimes three or more, whereas if his every touch on the clay were true, then ten to fifteen minutes would be enough, to touch every place at work. Clay as a material presents no obstacles - where did the artist spend a month or more? It is here, in these thousands of unnecessary touches, that both vital technique and feeling disappear. The fewer of these thoughtless touches, the better the work, and the first condition for this is to never touch the clay without feeling and deciding what and how to do. If you need to remove, then you need to give yourself a full account of what and how to remove, and when removing, you need to be as careful as if under this extra layer there was a living body that cannot be damaged. If you need to add, then feel what size and density you need to take a piece of clay, and carefully place it. restoring shape.

You don’t even have to take special care to take the clay accurately; We have an inherent feeling of size and heaviness, and the hand itself will do this. There is no need to exaggerate the importance of this caution, you just need to be careful - do not tear or grab, irresponsibly reducing it, and do not smear it a hundred times in the same place, increasing the shape. Even if you make a mistake. - it’s better to make a mistake once than a hundred (what a hundred - a million times, probably); I'm not talking about that. what you do right away, but that every touch you make is responsible.

Without trying to decide correctly right away, you agree in advance to these thousands of mistakes. Why is this? If you immediately put a lot or a little, then at least you can see what was taken incorrectly, spreading it a hundred times over the same place, when and where do you stop? It is in this place that the dull unresolvedness of the work is hidden and their monotonous fatigue sets in, which discolors and depreciates everything.

You just need to approach work with simple life logic. Neither a carpenter, nor a mechanic, nor a tailor cuts material without thinking, and no one does anything to redo it right away. And not a single student, even the smallest one, will begin to add or subtract without understanding why and how much he needs to subtract and add. And in life we ​​ourselves never act as strangely in anything as in sculpture. For example, if we need to go somewhere, we can always figure out the shortest path. If we look at the sculptural work of the majority, we get the impression that, wanting to get somewhere, we rush into the first alley we come across; if it does not lead to the goal, then in another, in the tenth, in the thirtieth, etc. This Penelope technique, when the worker removes and applies clay a million times, is possible where there is no real stone sculpture. Apart from clay, which endures everything (after all, clay also suffers), no material can be worked without calculation. If you worked on marble like that, all that would remain was dust. And one must think that where marble is worked, the calculations are kept properly. It's the same with wood. The logic is the same for everything.

From everything that has gone before, I hope they won’t conclude that we need to work quickly. On the contrary, very soon the one who does not think works. Usually he has everything ready in one session, and then endless alterations begin. It doesn’t matter at all how the work goes - quickly or slowly. The only important thing is to keep yourself aware of the matter all the time and not give room to a single touch that is not felt or meaningful. Most beginners, and not only beginners, work almost without taking their hands off the clay. Is this right? How can a person do anything thoroughly if he is always unconsciously crumpling his work? To decide something, you need to consider, compare, think about it, and not only cannot you work without taking your hands off, but you even need to step away from work; and only when you clearly see and you undoubtedly want to correct this particular part one way and not another, then you should only work with your hands.

When solving one part, one should take into account the general and other parts. In most cases, beginners work like this: they make one side, turn the model and calmly start working on the other, without connection with the rest, as if the piece that the person is working on is the only one in his task. And the further such work goes, the greater the discord between the parts worked separately. The worker tries to reconcile them. Here new and new parts come forward with their demands. There is no plan, there is no sure point of support; how to correct the work? The worker no longer knows or feels clearly; it only seems to him. You should never let yourself fall into this “seems”. You always need to know and feel what needs to be done, or wait for this feeling to appear, otherwise you will indifferently knit a stocking that you will call sculpture.

Although even with an unaccountable way of working, in the end it is still a skill. But skill is the grave of art; painters have known this for a long time, but we haven’t yet.

Technology should also include the ability to find and preserve the good in one’s work. This is just as important as the ability to see your mistakes. Maybe this is good and not so good, but for this time it is the best, and this should be preserved as a stepping stone for further movement. And there is no need to be ashamed. the fact that you admire and appreciate well-chosen passages in your work. This develops your taste and reveals your inherent technique as an artist. If you treat everything that you do the same way, then there will be nothing to rely on; Indifferent correctness alone will not give good progress. There is nothing to be afraid of stopping complacency, because what is good now may be no good in a month. So you've outgrown it. It seems to me that indifferent, dry correctness is more likely to lead to limited complacency. After all, if you rejoice in your good, your bad will seem even worse to you, of which there is never a shortage. You just have to remember that you have to endure this bad thing until you clearly understand what and how to replace it. It will also show you what needs to be done.

Perhaps it is appropriate to talk about sculptor's vision. It consists in the fact that a person en face determines the depth of the depressions and the height of the convexities and, almost unable to cope with the profile, probes the shapes with the eye. Every sculptor must consciously develop such a view. The habit of drawing and painting makes it difficult for beginners to work on a plane for a long time. Sooner or later, the eye still gets used to measuring depth and convexity and understanding the play of surfaces; but if you don’t pay attention, this will be very slow and stupid. When working with a figure, this defect is not as noticeable as when working with a head, when it makes itself felt by flat wooden plans. Sometimes this goes on for years. We must realize and deepen this feeling of the surface.

Now regarding tools: the best tool when working with clay is your hand. Just don’t work with just one part of your hand, but rather remove all the tools from it; there are a lot of them in there. You can have two or three stacks for correcting unfinished shapes or for inanimate material - like clothing - and that's enough.

The revered old professor Sergei Ivanovich Ivanov said: “Feel this place.” The best artists in France know and appreciate this feeling. The great artist Rodin demanded a sense of material. The statues of the Greeks and Romans are full of this feeling. You will not find a single good statue without this feeling of living, spiritualized matter, and the less of this feeling, the worse the work. This is so obvious that you can build theories, reason, prove endlessly and still not escape this simple truth.

All these values ​​of feeling cannot be preserved without treating your work with care. They do not come to understand this soon, and some never do. Of course, you can work with whatever you want, you just don’t need to mechanize the work. We must thoughtfully and carefully discover life in clay: if you find it in clay, you will find it in any material.

Workshop A.S. Golubkina

Techniques include workshop mood. In France, workshops are solemnly quiet during work. And if you really go deep into your work, you will appreciate the meaning of this silence. Where they work with concentration and seriousness, nothing should disturb the mood. Knocking, talking, the willfulness of models, the arrival of outside visitors, etc. absolutely unacceptable. If you want to work, but you don’t know exactly what needs to be done and how, then it is better to hold off on work until it becomes absolutely clear what needs to be done. Otherwise, an unconscious touch will confuse the work, and it will be more difficult to figure it out. In general, the less manual work, the better. If you feel lethargic and there is no good desire to work, then go and look at the work of your comrades and carefully analyze them. We learn a lot from our comrades, both from their strengths and mistakes. By pondering the work of your comrades, you increase your experience and it is as if you are conducting several studies at once instead of just one. This is very developing. If you have a complete reluctance to think or work, the best thing to do is to go home, because this is already overwork, which there is no need to increase. Wanting to overcome overwork, you support it, and it can take hold of you for a long time and is even intensified by the fact that work in such a state is depressing. It is precisely at times like this that people fall into despair. Yes, such a mood is harmful for comrades.

Particularly harmful to the mood of the workshop is hasty, businesslike running in “for a minute.” The best thing to do is to avoid this. We must all cherish the working spirit of camaraderie.

Study follows proportions designs, the lack of which affects the general disorder of the structure of the figure: the muscles are conveyed in meaningless lumps and out of place, the bones are dislocated or broken. The worker somehow sorts it all out by appearance, without understanding what he is doing, and such work as a sketch is completely useless: the worker did not learn anything and did not say anything firmly and confidently.

To stand on the solid ground of knowledge of construction, it is necessary to rely on anatomy, which artists are not very willing to do. And this is because in the study of art we approach any given nature exclusively from the side of form, life, material, and anatomy presents nature to us in a form in which we cannot accept it. Drawings and books on anatomy remain in the memory as mere ballast; you cannot connect them with nature, and this is not necessary. Plaster anatomical studies also give nothing; These are rough pieces in a distorted pose, what do they have in common with nature? But if you work with a child or a woman, you won’t find anything similar at all.

Not everyone can work on corpses. It is difficult, difficult, and yet these terrible, flabby muscles are alien to that living, beautiful human body that breathes, moves and is constantly changing. All this is difficult to connect with what we are accustomed to looking for when studying the human body by nature. But there is one way to assimilate the anatomical knowledge we need, in which it does not affect our aesthetic sense, even vice versa. This is to approach anatomy only from the side of mechanism and movement, discarding everything else, and then all this, which seemed dead and unnecessary, begins to come to life in front of you with all the great wisdom and beauty of the structure of the human body.

To understand any machine, it is not enough to sketch and copy it; it must be disassembled and reassembled, understanding each part, because there is neither a screw nor a recess without a special purpose. If you approach the structure of the human body in the same way, you will see such amazing wisdom and beauty of its structure that you will only regret that you did not know this before. From this side, the anatomy is simply captivating, and in order to see it all, you need to make an anatomical sketch yourself. Working with books, drawings and other things disassembles a person, but a sketch puts him back together, and when you start working on this sketch, you will see with your own eyes, you will, so to speak, touch all this splendor of wisdom, where a tubercle on some bone is arranged with the most amazing grace laconicism, so that a muscle begins from it, having its specific purpose, and on the other bone there is a specially constructed place to receive this muscle in a corresponding way. All this is so beautiful, elegant, and expedient that you no longer memorize, but are surprised and happy. For example: the spring structure of the foot, the block of the arm, the sensitively mobile system of the neck, the massive columns of the dorsal muscles, the thin and broad abdominal muscles, smoothly attached to the bowl of the pelvic bone, which glimmers under the skin, or the lower leg and its slender bones with a base at the bottom and a capital at the top. .. Everything is so elegant, beautiful, generous. You'll see for yourself.

And if you work, you will never forget, and any violation of the design will no longer be logical for you. It will not be taken low or high, but you will see that it is a torn muscle or a broken bone, which should be in a certain place and fulfill its purpose.

In order to study the structure of the human body in this way, you need to do this: take wax or plasticine (preferably wax) of two colors and from wax of the same color, reading the anatomy and carefully examining the drawings (if possible, then bones are better, but you can also use the drawings) , sculpt a small skeleton, about half an arshin in size, without even being particularly careful, just carefully following the joints and places of muscle attachment. Then you take wax of a different color and cover this skeleton first with the muscles of the third layer, which, although rarely visible, participate in the formation of shape and movement. Then apply a second layer, all the time attaching the muscles after careful reference in the book and drawings, and finally the last. It’s strange, working like this without thinking at all about the artistic side of the matter, but trying to fulfill only, so to speak, the mechanics of the device, as a result you get a very strong and beautiful sketch. This points to the role of knowledge in art.

Many are afraid to be out of date by studying anatomy and, as they put it, “butchering muscles.” But, firstly, they are separated only by those who do not know them well, and, secondly, cowardice is always cowardice, whether in the face of old traditions or in the face of new demands. Such a person will be forever driven by fears. A real artist must be free: he wants to cut it, he wants not to cut it, this is his complete will. And not being able to be a coward is no fun.

However, all fears come from ignorance. If a person sharply outlines muscles and bones, then we can probably say that he does not know anatomy properly. Otherwise, he would have known that muscles smoothly turn into tendons and that bones cannot come out so roughly, but are tied into a system and hidden by ligaments and muscles. I repeat, from anatomy we need to take only the device, leaving everything else aside, and then in nature you will no longer see anatomy, but nature’s own design. When we were studying, the professors said: learn anatomy and forget it. This means - know anatomy so that it only affects confidence and freedom in work, and so that there is no trace of anatomy itself. In general, anatomy is remembered precisely where there is no knowledge of it.

So, to work constructively means to work so that everything is stable, connected, strong, in place - this is the whole task of the structure. By the way, if you do an anatomical study, it is better to do it with movement, then you will understand better and see more.

Relationship. Under this name, the work is required to observe the relationship and correspondence of the parts and the whole. This concept comes very close to proportions and is often confused with them. In France, this concept is defined by the word valeurs- cost and includes, in addition to compliance, the requirement of the character, value and vital gravity of the parts and the whole. Arms and legs usually work only as appendages, and this requirement calls them to independent life in connection with the whole. Without this condition, the work will be unsaid, and sometimes it is the limbs that most characterize the figure. Above there are deeper concepts and combinations in this sense, but this is the work of the artist, and not the educational part. School requirements consist in the fullest possible correspondence between the measure of gravity and the nature of the parts in connection with the whole.

About movement. Some of the notes on the frame and proportions mentioned movement, but they talked about its, so to speak, formal side: walking, sitting, turning, regardless of the method of manifestation. Now we have to talk about movement in its very essence.

A.S. Golubkina. Walking man. 1903.

Often, out of ten to fifteen sketches in the studio, not one is a hundred And t, although they are made absolutely correctly, there is no real foundation in them, gravitating towards the earth and resting with all its weight on it. I remind you once again: in order to well understand the movement of a standing person, you need to feel this movement in yourself as clearly as possible, bring your bones into complete balance so that as little muscle power is expended in this position as possible, you need to separate by feeling the muscles that support the movement and loosen into a state of complete rest, those who do not participate in the movement, and thoroughly feel in yourself, in the model and in the work, this four-five-pound weight, pressing firmly on the ground. If you understand this, then the sketch will stand.

You need to be even more thoughtful about the movement of the lying figure and feel more strongly the heaviness of the muscles that have surrendered to rest, otherwise the figure will never lie down, but will look as if you worked it standing up and then laid it down.

A.S. Golubkina. Old age. 1898

Regardless of the posture, you can distinguish between a sick person, a resting person, and a sleeping person. From this it is clear that muscles, weak, tired, lazy, have a different situation and therefore give a different form to the same movement. This difference in the movement of a sick, sleeping, lazy and tired person is seen and known by all people. Here you don’t even need any particularly subtle observation, but ordinary, universal, everyday observation, to which you need to raise your own. It’s even better to say - not to elevate, but to attract to work as the most precious. Movement, like a structure, must be felt inside: the Assyrians and Egyptians conveyed rapid movement with motionless clothing. And the heads, knocked off from the statues of the Greeks, preserve the movement of the whole. And so, in order to take at least some of this internal movement, you must want to do it - not repeat the movement of the model, but rather want, feel, search, respectfully and vigilantly observing life. And the deeper you dig, the more miracles you will see.

There is one more requirement that the student must make of himself; this requirement is to take a model in character: take its massiveness, flexibility, strength, etc. In addition to these main features, you need to learn to guess in a model its individual character - style. It is rare to find models that are contradictory, so to speak; for the most part the body is very solid, as expressive as the face, and connected with it in character. Taking a character from nature is a mandatory school requirement, and don’t think about taking a character by simply copying: here you need to understand the essence of the model. The ability to distinguish and take character will make you more knowledgeable, experienced, expand your horizons and serve for further work outside of school; then you can do every thing you have in mind in the style you want. Not in the style of this or that era, but in the style you need. Don't think this requirement is very difficult. Just think about it, and you will immediately see some kind of plus in the work, and that it is already taking on a different character, more reliable.

General. This part should be placed at the beginning, but since it is not enough to do the general only at the beginning, but you need to save it and carry it through the entire work from beginning to end, then anyway, after reading, you will attribute it to all moments of the work.

The concept of general includes a lot for an artist, and for school work it sets a requirement: to understand and work from nature as one piece, inextricably linked - a monolith. Whatever you work on, you should not lose sight of the general and reduce everything to it. Next, we need to consider the facets of this general thing, its plans or planes, as they say differently, first the main ones, and then the secondary ones. If you work directly with planes, then the work will come out conditional, schematic: it is necessary that they be only inside, as a basis.

A.S. Golubkina. Slave (Fragment). 1909.

Consider, for example, a face. You will see that it all consists of fourteen main planes: one - the middle of the forehead with the frontal tubercles, two planes from the frontal tubercles to the temporal bones, two - from the edge of the temporal to the zygomatic, two - from the zygomatic to the edge of the lower jaw, two - orbital, two - from the orbital to the nose and corner of the mouth, two - from the mouth to the zygomatic bone and masseter muscle, and one - from the nose to the end of the chin. And all human faces are always contained in these fourteen planes; Only the shape of the plans changes, but not the border or the number. You don’t need to be tied to these plans (the work will be sketchy), you just need your modeling to be within their limits (without losing sight of the general), and the more often you take these plans of each given person, the more thorough the work will be. When working on marble, these plans are divided into secondary and tertiary ones, but in clay this is taken more broadly - by modeling.

Each body can be disassembled in the same way. Such analysis helps the development of the sculptor's vision, and in addition, working from solid material requires mandatory decomposition on the plane.

Body parts. When you work on a sketch, no matter how much time you have to work, you still don’t have enough time for the limbs. Until you start working the parts separately, you will never know them. And, meanwhile, you need to know them; arms and legs are as expressive as the face; Until you work with them, it doesn’t even occur to you how interesting they are in themselves and how important it is to be able to finish a figure with them. To bring your knowledge into order in this regard, you need to make several dozen separate sketches of the limbs.

Sculpting studies of arms and legs should be of different sizes, in different turns and movements; You shouldn’t get carried away with details, you just need to take into account the character and movement. Once you've done a few of these studies of arms and legs, you'll feel like you've nailed it. Requirement material this is already a matter of a higher order, although, as you saw in the chapter on technology, feelings of material and life are almost always present at the very beginning of work, but all this is unconscious and incomplete and, in concern for correctness, is destroyed without a trace (often forever).

Now we must consciously make this demand of ourselves. This cannot be taught, but everyone must find, love and cherish those places in their work where nature is reflected with greater strength and vitality, and achieve this.

The artist cannot relate to in kind indifferent: you always either like her or not. And you need to ask yourself what you like about nature and what you don’t. With this question you will disassemble it, and if you disassemble many models in this way, you will develop a good understanding of forms and beauty. There is also beauty in evasion, but this is a different matter - not school stuff.

And the more models you work with, the richer you become in terms of artistic experience. This is one of the reasons why I do not advise you to work with the same model for a long time; Another reason is that with the current three- to four-year course, working on the same model for two or three months, you risk leaving school with fifteen to twenty sketches. What kind of experience will you bring into life? But you will have Russian sculpture in your hands. Changing the model weekly (as is done in France), you get about one hundred and twenty, and with such intensive work the desire to work usually increases, and a person is not satisfied with one session, but takes two or three, and this will be about four hundred in four years. The difference in experience will be considerable.

Calculate how many studies you will leave the school with, and, according to this calculation, determine the time each model should take from you. When studying, it is necessary to consistently take strongly contrasting models, for example, after a man - a woman, after an old man - a child, after a stocky one - a flexible one. This greatly contributes to the development of understanding. As for the head, I will only note that you should never take picture models, i.e. those that have been treated as types dozens of times. There is frivolity and loss of dignity as an artist in this.

If you want to do sketch, then you should never put it off: it will go away and go out; on the contrary, the more you do them, the more your imagination and desire to do them awakens. They develop the ability to think in images, taste, composition. There is no sketch that would not serve both for the future and as a sketch, even more than a sketch. And the main thing is that you won’t do them later: everyday work and practical considerations will drag on. If you don’t really want to do it, then you have to force yourself. Sketches are definitely needed.

Bas-relief somewhat reminiscent of a drawing: it’s as if you are drawing with clay, and the main task when working in bas-relief is to maintain the same size of cuts and perspective everywhere. Without this, the result will be simple flattening, sometimes so strange that if the bas-relief figure is restored as round, then the head will turn out to be wider than the shoulders, and the width of the nose will be wider than the mouth. A good bas-relief requires very expressive modeling and strictly maintained gradation of cuts, i.e. you take each place just as much higher on the terrain as it is closer to you, and vice versa, that’s all. what is further from you, do below.

Every sculptor needs to be able to mold, firstly, in order to, as a last resort, be able to cast your own thing, and, secondly, if you know this matter, you can monitor the casting and guide workers who often do not do what is needed, you helplessly waiting to see what will come of it. And that's what comes out. that often your work is deformed, or even completely lost. This matter is very easy for a sculptor to understand. It’s enough to watch how it’s done once and form several things (of course, small ones at first).

Another piece of advice: do not allow molders to lubricate the mold with so-called “grease” (a mixture of stearin and kerosene): it terribly spoils the work, but it is better to lubricate it with soap, i.e. soap suds that remain on the brush when you rub soap with it.

Neither for marble, nor for other materials a separate science is needed. As much as you can work in clay, you can do the same in marble, wood, and bronze. Just watch how they work on marble, and you can already work. Out of habit, you won’t always hit the tool with a hammer for two or three weeks, but then you’ll get used to it. The rest will come with practice.

It is much more difficult to obtain and select marble. Marble with large grains is too rough, with small grains it can be somewhat dull and there is little light in it. You need to choose a medium, good warm color.

Large pieces should not be knocked down; they should be sawed off to be used later. In completely solid marble, sometimes a so-called wormhole suddenly appears. It begins with a small point - barely a needle can pass! - and gradually expands to a cave the size of a nut or more. Usually, hoping to clean it off, they begin to deepen this place, but then it gets even worse. The best thing is, if you encounter such a wormhole, do not dig further, but melt borax in a teaspoon and fill the hole with putty - and it will be completely unnoticeable.

Other stones that could be worked with add almost nothing to the plaster other than heaviness. That is why, probably, stone sculptures are never seen at exhibitions. Sandstone still gives something, but very little. Beginners are seduced by alabaster by its softness and vibrant color, but in its processing it is so vulgar that after much effort and labor it is always thrown away.

WITH bronze the situation is like this: before casting it in bronze, the foundry casts our thing in wax. When cast from wax, everything softens too much, the eyelids become puffy and thick, the eyes softly blur, and the mouth too. In general, everything thin and sharp disappears, and we have to restore it with wax. For a good foundry worker, the work doesn’t change much, but you still have to review and work on it.

We also have to choose bronze and take part in the patina. That's all we have to do.

The best for a sculptor tree- birch, ash, linden. We, who live among large forests and trees, look for a tree and try to fit our thing there. This is not done abroad; they have long been gluing together bars of the same color and structure, approximately an inch and a quarter thick, and it comes out very well, because the wood is dried and matched exactly as a whole.

Big trees always crack; Of course, you can insert a strip, but on the figure it’s still nothing, but on the face it’s very annoying. S.T. Konenkov always works from a whole tree, but he has become so close to the tree that it seems that he does not work, but only frees what is contained in the tree. Beginners must be careful not to subordinate themselves to the tree. This sometimes turns out very ugly. Yes, finally, a thing can be conceived independently of the wood that comes to hand, and there is no point in squeezing it into a stump at any cost; It’s better to resort to gluing than to mutilate the work. Gluing is easier than finding a suitable tree, and you don’t have to glue everything together from the bars, but simply glue the missing piece - that’s all.

All of the above is not at all necessary for you, and you should not blindly obey the notes. But if, while working, you see confirmation of what I said, then take this into your artistic experience. When someone tells you the way to somewhere, it often happens that all these paths, stations, etc. get mixed up in your memory; It's scary how complicated it is. In fact, it's all simpler. Go yourself, and when you go, you will see the signs indicated to you along the road and in this you will see confirmation of the correctness of your path. Maybe you can shorten this path somewhere, maybe make an interesting detour. Good morning! We need to take these demands more calmly - they are not the most important thing. Everything will come in due time. Work with more admiration than caring. The main thing and the best are ahead, studying is only in order to master one’s own abilities, and much of this will have to be thrown away, just as textbooks are thrown away.

I repeat once again: take this whole study easier, it is not the main thing, and if you have a strong conviction to do something differently, in your own way, do it: you are right. But you will be right only if you really sincerely think and feel so. Only then will it be the real truth, which is most precious and which will be reflected in the work in a new and living word.

Publications in the Architecture section

5 wins and 5 losses of Anna Golubkina

Sofia Bagdasarova talks about the ups and downs of the first woman to become famous in Russia as a sculptor..

Victory No. 1: Gardener becomes sculptor

The miracle was not that Golubkina became famous. The miracle is that she managed to become a sculptor. After all, in the 19th century it was difficult for a woman to master a profession. Let us remember the difficult path of an artist of her generation, Elizaveta Martynova (model of Somov’s “Lady in Blue”), who entered the Academy of Arts in the first year when women were allowed to do so. There were about a dozen female students, and they were looked at with skepticism. And Golubkina, in addition, studied not to be a painter, but to be a sculptor, that is, she was not engaged in physical labor at all.

And then there’s her origin: her grandfather, an Old Believer and the head of the Zaraisk spiritual community, Polikarp Sidorovich, himself bought himself out of serfdom. He raised Anna, whose father died early. The family grew a vegetable garden and ran an inn, but they only had enough money to educate their brother Semyon. All the other children, including Anna, were self-taught.

When the gardener left Zaraysk and went to Moscow, she was already 25 years old. She planned to study firing techniques and porcelain painting in the Fine Arts Classes that had just been founded by Anatoly Gunst. They didn’t want to take Golubkina, but in one night she sculpted the “Praying Old Woman” figurine, and she was accepted.

Loss No. 1: First trip to Paris

The training went well at first. A year later she moved to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where she studied for another three years. Finally, the top: she was taken to study at the St. Petersburg Academy.

Here Golubkina was also offered to engage in salon art, which did not suit her temperament at all. But that's not the problem. Although her memoirist friends are unanimously silent about this time, something bad happened to Golubkina in Paris then. Apparently, unhappy love, according to rumors - with a certain French artist. A woman who had crossed the 30-year mark tried to commit suicide twice: first she threw herself into the Seine, then she tried to poison herself. The artist Elizaveta Kruglikova, who also lived in Paris, took her home. In Moscow, Golubkina went to the psychiatric clinic of the famous Korsakov.

Victory #2: Recovery

The professor treated her for only a few months: it was obvious that Golubkina’s healing was not in medicine, but in creativity, or maybe just in work. Golubkina returned to her family in Zaraysk, then, together with her sister Alexandra, who had just completed paramedic courses, she went to Siberia, where the two of them worked hard at a resettlement point.

Victory No. 3: Second trip to Paris

Anna Golubkina in Paris in 1898

Having regained peace of mind, Golubkina returned to Paris in 1897. And finally she found the one she should have studied with - Rodin.

In 1898, she presented the sculpture “Old Age” to the Paris Salon (the most prestigious art competition of that time). The same middle-aged model posed for this statue as for Rodin’s She Who Was the Beautiful Olmier (1885).

Golubkina interpreted the teacher in her own way. And she did it successfully: she was awarded a bronze medal and praised in the press. When she returned to Russia the next year, people had already heard about her. Savva Morozov ordered her a relief to decorate the Moscow Art Theater. She created portraits of the most brilliant cultural figures of the Silver Age - A. Bely, A.N. Tolstoy, V. Ivanov. Chaliapin, however, refused to sculpt: she did not like him as a person.

Defeat #2: Revolutionary Activities

Golubkina was born during the fire and she herself claimed that she had a “firefighter” character. She was intolerant and uncompromising. The injustice outraged her. During the revolution of 1905, she almost died while stopping the horse of a Cossack who was scattering workers. Her connections with the RSDLP began: on their order, she created a bust of Marx, visited safe houses, and made a safehouse for illegal immigrants from her house in Zaraysk.

In 1907, she was arrested for distributing proclamations and sentenced to a year in the fortress. However, due to Golubkina’s mental state, the case was dropped: she was released under police supervision.

Defeat No. 3: Lack of husband and children

Anna Golubkina with a group of artists. Paris, 1895

Or maybe this is not a defeat, but also a victory? No wonder Golubkina told one girl who wanted to become a writer: “If you want anything to come of your writing, don’t get married, don’t start a family. The art of tied hands does not like. One must approach art with free hands. Art is a feat, and here you need to forget everything, and a woman in a family is a captive.”.

However, although Golubkina was unmarried and had no children, she dearly loved her nephews and raised her brother’s daughter Vera. And among her works, the images of her nephew Mitya, who was born sick and died before he was a year old, are especially touching. One of her favorite works was the relief “Motherhood,” which she returned to work on year after year.

Her pockets were always filled with sweets for children, and in the post-revolutionary years - just food. Because of her children, she once almost died: she sheltered a flock of street children, and they drugged her with sleeping pills and robbed her.

Victory No. 4: Moscow exhibition

In 1914, the first personal exhibition of 50-year-old Golubkina took place within the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin Museum). The audience was in full swing, and the profit from tickets was huge. And Golubkina donated everything for the benefit of the wounded (the First World War had just begun).

Critics were delighted with her work. However, Igor Grabar, who was thinking of buying several sculptures for the Tretyakov Gallery, scolded Golubkina for her pride: she asked for too high prices. Nothing was sold from the exhibition.

Victory No. 5: Surviving the Civil War

Alas, in 1915, Golubkina again had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to a clinic. For several years she could not create. However, in the post-revolutionary months, she joined the Commission for the Protection of Ancient Monuments and the Moscow Council bodies for combating homelessness (here are the children again!).

When Moscow was freezing and starving, Anna endured it steadfastly. As friends said, because she was so accustomed to asceticism that now she did not notice the deprivations. However, for the sake of earning money, she painted on fabrics and gave private lessons. Friends brought her a drill and carried old billiard balls: from them - from ivory - she turned cameos, which she sold.

Lev Tolstoy. 1927

Despite her revolutionary past, Golubkina did not get along with the Bolsheviks. She was distinguished by her gloomy character, impracticality and inability to manage her affairs. In 1918, she refused to work with the Soviets due to the murder of Provisional Government member Kokoshkin. Over time, perhaps, it could have improved - but in the competition for the monument to Ostrovsky in 1923, she took not first place, but third, and fell into anger.

In the 1920s, Golubkina made money by teaching. Her health was weakening - a stomach ulcer worsened, which had to be operated on. The master’s last works were “Birch Tree” - a symbol of youth and a portrait of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, whom she sculpted from memory, in principle despite photographs. Shortly before her death, Golubkina returned to her family in Zaraysk, surrounded by whom she died at the age of 63.

Defeat #5: The Fate of the Workshop

The sculptor's relatives donated to the state, according to her will, more than one and a half hundred works. The Golubkina Museum opened in the Moscow workshop. But in 1952, disaster struck. Suddenly, as part of the struggle either with formalism, or with something else, it turned out that Golubkina “distorted” the image of a person, including the “Soviet” one. The museum-workshop was closed, and its collection was distributed among museums in several cities, including the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery.

Only in 1972 was Golubkina’s reputation cleared and they decided to restore the museum. Since the workshop became a branch of the Tretyakov Gallery, it was easy to return many of the works to their native walls. But the rest of the works were forever stuck in other cities. However, the main thing is that Golubkina’s good name was restored.

Life story
Her grandfather was a serf in his youth, but eventually managed to buy his way free and settled in Zaraysk, taking up gardening. Her father died early, and she spent her entire childhood and youth working in the family garden with her mother and brothers and sisters. Throughout her life she retained respect for physical labor, vivid and imaginative folk speech, and a sense of self-esteem.
Anna Golubkina did not have any – not even primary – education. Unless the sexton taught her to read and write... She read many books in childhood, and then she began to sculpt clay figurines. A local art teacher urged her to study seriously. Relatives did not interfere with this, but Annushka herself understood what it meant for a peasant family to lose a worker. Therefore, a lot of time passed before she decided to leave her native Zaraysk.
Anna was twenty-five years old when she, dressed in a rustic shawl and wearing a black pleated skirt, arrived in Moscow and entered the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. “In the workshop, among the ancient casts, strict and stately, she looked like a mythical ancient prophetess-Sibyl,” recalled S. T. Konenkov, who studied with her.
“She was a thin, tall, quick-moving girl with a spiritual, beautiful and stern face,” some contemporaries claimed. “...with an ugly and brilliant face,” others specified.
The famous Russian philanthropist Maria Tenisheva said:
“Soon after the return of A. N. Benois from St. Petersburg... he began to tell me about some young talented sculptor from among the peasant women, who was in great need and showing brilliant promise, began to persuade me to take her into my care, to give her the means to complete her artistic career. education..."
Tenisheva did not follow Benoit’s hot entreaties, did not take her into her care and did not give any funds... Which, by the way, she later very much regretted - when Golubkina’s name was already widely known.
But the originality and strength of Golubkina’s talent really attracted everyone’s attention to her even during her student years. Later she moved to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Among her professors was the famous sculptor V. A. Beklemishev, who played a special role in the life of Anna Golubkina. In letters to her family, she called him “a remarkably kind and good person,” “a great artist.” Behind these general words hid a deep, tragic, unrequited love, which Beklemishev himself, married to a rich merchant’s wife and happy in his family life, never knew about.
In 1895, Golubkina left for Paris to continue her education. Her family and the Society of Art Lovers helped her with funds. She entered the F. Colarossi Academy, but very soon realized that the same salon-academic direction, completely alien to her in spirit, was dominant there as in St. Petersburg. This year turned out to be very difficult for the young sculptor. Anna Semyonovna was tormented by creative dissatisfaction, doubts about the correctness of her chosen path, and an unquenchable feeling for Beklemishev. Some memoirists mention her short, unhappy relationship with some French artist and a suicide attempt... It is not at all by chance that Golubkina fell ill with a nervous disorder.
It was brought to Russia by the artist E. S. Kruglikova. Having returned from the hospital to Zaraysk, to her family, Anna Semyonovna calmed down a little and began to think about how to live further. And in the end I decided to go with my older sister Alexandra, who had completed paramedic courses, to Siberia. Here she worked at a resettlement point, helping her sister, with whom, like with her mother, she always had a trusting relationship. The sculptor's mother, Ekaterina Yakovlevna, died at the end of 1898. Anna Semyonovna could not come to her senses for a long time after this loss and did not take on any work until she sculpted her bust from memory...
The second trip to Paris turned out to be more successful. The great Rodin himself saw Golubkina’s work and invited her to study under his guidance. Many years later, recalling a year of working with the master, Anna Semyonovna wrote to him: “You told me what I myself felt, and you gave me the opportunity to be free.”
Golubkina’s works, exhibited at the Paris Spring Salon in 1899, were a well-deserved success. In 1901, she received an order for the sculptural decoration of the front entrance of the Moscow Art Theater. The high relief “Wave” she made – a rebellious spirit fighting the elements – still adorns the entrance to the old Moscow Art Theater building.
She visited Paris again in 1902. She also visited London and Berlin, getting acquainted with the masterpieces of world art. She returned from the trip with huge debts; There was no money to rent a workshop, and Anna Semyonovna never knew how to get profitable orders.
True, already in the first years of the twentieth century, some of her works brought her considerable fees. Golubkina’s sculptures increasingly appeared at Russian exhibitions, each time meeting with an enthusiastic reception. But with amazing generosity, Anna Semyonovna distributed everything she earned to people in need, acquaintances and strangers, and donated it to a kindergarten, school, and national theater. And even after becoming famous, she still lived in poverty, eating only bread and tea for weeks.
“Her costume,” recalled one friend, “always consisted of a gray skirt, blouse and a canvas apron. On ceremonial occasions, only the apron was removed.”
Her entire ascetically strict life was devoted to art. She told her friends’ daughter, Evgenia Glagoleva: “If you want something to come out of your writing, don’t get married, don’t start a family. Doesn't like art related. One must approach art with free hands. Art is a feat, and here you need to forget everything, give everything away, and the woman in the family is a captive...” And she admitted: “Whoever does not cry over his thing is not a creator.”
Having no family of her own, Anna Semyonovna raised her niece Vera, the daughter of her older brother. She often lived for a long time with her relatives in Zaraysk, helped her sister with housework, and worked in the garden like everyone else. And this, oddly enough, did not interfere with her creativity at all...
In the pre-revolutionary years, Zaraysk was one of the places of exile. “Politically unreliable persons” expelled from the capitals and the local revolutionary-minded intelligentsia constantly gathered in the Golubkins’ house. Slowly but with interest, long conversations were held over the samovar about the future of Russia. Anna Semyonovna could not help but be carried away by the idea of ​​universal brotherhood, justice and happiness. She even distributed illegal literature... But one day, when it came to the inevitability of a revolutionary coup, she prophetically said: “It’s scary how much, much blood will be shed.”
During the events of 1905, she ended up in Moscow. An eyewitness recalls that when the Cossacks were scattering people with whips, Anna Semyonovna rushed into the crowd, hung on the bridle of the horse of one of the riders and shouted in a frenzy: “Murderers! You don’t dare beat people!”
Two years later she was arrested for distributing proclamations. In September 1907, the court sentenced the artist to a year's imprisonment in the fortress, but due to health reasons she was released on bail. For a long time Anna Semyonovna remained under police surveillance. Here is another bitterly prophetic phrase from her letter:
“In our times, nothing nasty can happen, because it already exists.”
When World War I began, Golubkina was already fifty. Critics wrote after her personal exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts: “Never before has Russian sculpture grabbed the viewer’s heart so deeply as at this exhibition, organized in the days of great trials.” Anna Semyonovna donated the entire collection from the exhibition to the wounded.
Golubkina's hot character made her rather difficult to get along with even close people. One of the stumbling blocks between her and her contemporaries is the purchase of her works.
“There are wonderful things - mainly portraits,” wrote the trustee of the Tretyakov Gallery, artist I. Grabar, about Golubkina’s exhibition. – I would buy 6-7 things, but she’s like Konenkov: there’s nothing to eat, but less than 2500-3000 rubles and don’t go near it. It’s just a misfortune, this tramp pride and “contempt for the bourgeoisie,” which she considers every person who wears a not dirty and not wrinkled starched collar.”
Well, that’s exactly the kind of money the gallery paid for the most outstanding works of Russian artists, and private collectors bought them for a much higher price! For Golubkina and Konenkov, their example was their senior contemporary Valentin Serov, strict and principled when it came to evaluating the work of artists.
Since that very exhibition, not a single sculpture by Golubkina has been sold. From the museum halls they migrated to some kind of basement, where they stood unattended for a long time, until the 1920s... And then, in 1915, Anna Semyonovna was again overtaken by a nervous breakdown. Doctor S.V. Medvedeva-Petrosyan said:
“I saw a tall, middle-aged, sickly-looking woman with almost masculine features and an ugly face. She smiled at me, and what a charming smile it was, what an extraordinary radiance her shining gray eyes shone, what an attractive power emanated from her entire being! I was immediately captivated by her... The patient was tormented by gloomy melancholy and insomnia, however, even in the worst moments of her illness, her beautiful moral character was not overshadowed by an impatient word or a sharp outburst. Everyone loved her very much."
Golubkina did not allow strangers into her soul and refused to pose for portraits. To all such requests from Mikhail Nesterov she exclaimed:
"What do you! Write me! I'll go crazy! Where can I get a portrait with my mug! I am crazy". (Remembering Anna Semyonovna years later, the artist said: “It was Maxim Gorky in a skirt, only with a different soul...”) And as a master she advised her students: “Look for a person. If you find a person in a portrait, that’s beauty.”
Anna Semyonovna was even extremely reluctant to be photographed. N.N. Chulkova, the wife of the writer, recalled: “... she said that she did not like her face and did not want her portrait to exist. “I have an actor’s face, sharp, I don’t like it.” And in a rare photograph of her youth there is a sweet girl with a brown braid...
Few people know that Golubkina’s portrait still exists! In V. Makovsky’s painting “Party” (1897) she, still very young, stands modestly at the table. The artist finally persuaded him to pose, albeit for a scene from folk life...
“The artist (there can be no doubt!) quite deliberately prevented the collection and publication of materials that would be devoted to her biography,” says A. Kamensky, a researcher of the sculptor’s life and work. “Perhaps, Golubkina valued nothing more than her ability to distance herself from herself, to completely dissolve in her work, to become an echo of people’s experiences...”
She never wrote down the location of her sold sculptures. The organizers of her museum put a lot of effort when, in 1932, they collected the master’s works together in the premises of her former workshop. Some of the works have not yet been found...
...After the news of the October Revolution, Golubkina said: “Now, real people will be in power.” But she soon learned about the execution of two ministers of the Provisional Government, one of whom she was familiar with (later they wrote that they were shot by anarchists). And when they came to her from the Kremlin, offering her a job, Anna Semyonovna, with her characteristic directness, answered: “You are killing good people,” and refused.
Despite this, in the first post-revolutionary months, Golubkina joined the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Antiquity and Art and the Moscow Council bodies for combating homelessness. She brought dirty, ragged boys to her workshop, fed them, and let them spend the night - even after they once robbed her and almost killed her.
Those who knew Golubkina argued that she endured the hardships of those years more easily than others, because she was accustomed to hardships and “didn’t notice them now.” To earn money, the famous sculptor painted fabrics, carved decorations from bone, but the money was barely enough not to starve... She took on private lessons, often free of charge - as a rule, the fee was paid in kind: for example, one of her students heated the master's workshop.
In 1920-1922, Anna Semyonovna taught in art workshops, but she had to leave because of the unkind atmosphere. She was approaching sixty, and a severe stomach ulcer was added to her old ailments from constant malnutrition and anxiety. Another harsh word or rude attack against her could result in excruciating pain and deprive her of mental balance for a long time. One day, some guy threw it in the sculptor’s face that she was already dead to art. The artist replied that she may have died, but she lived, and her evil opponent was always dead. Anna Semyonovna, who quit her job, had to undergo surgery...
Direct to the point of harshness, she did not know how to be different in art. At one time she refused to sculpt a bust of Chaliapin - she simply could not work on portraits of people towards whom for some reason she had an ambivalent attitude. In 1907, she created a portrait of Andrei Bely - a perfect profile... of a horse! She did not tolerate fuss and unbridled praise. When her sculptures were once compared to ancient ones, she sharply replied: “It’s your ignorance speaking!” Valery Bryusov, when Anna Semyonovna appeared in the literary and artistic circle, addressed her with a “highly pompous speech.” Startled, Golubkina turned away, waved her hand at him three times, turned and left.
In 1923, the sculptor took part in a competition to create a monument to A. N. Ostrovsky. She presented nine sketches, two of which were awarded prizes. But the first place and the right to make the monument was given to another author - N. Andreev. Anna Semyonovna, deeply offended, came to the meeting room and began to destroy her models: “They compared his Ostrovsky with mine! It’s disgusting, and nothing more.”
Golubkina’s last work, Leo Tolstoy, unexpectedly became an indirect cause of her death. In her youth, Anna Semyonovna once met with the “great old man” and, according to an eyewitness, had a serious argument with him about something. The impression from this meeting remained so strong that many years later she refused to use his photographs in her work and “made the portrait based on his idea and her own memories.” The block, glued together from several pieces of wood, was massive and heavy, and Anna Semyonovna could not move it under any circumstances after the operation she underwent in 1922. But she forgot about age and illness: when two of her students fought unsuccessfully with a wooden colossus, she pushed them aside with her shoulder and moved the stubborn tree with all her strength. Soon after that, she felt bad and hurried to her sister in Zaraysk: “She knows how to treat me... Yes, I’ll arrive in three days...”
Leaving turned out to be a fatal mistake. Professor A. Martynov, who treated the artist for many years, said that an immediate operation would certainly have saved her...
Anna Golubkina died on September 7, 1927 in her native Zaraysk.

Anna Semyonovna Golubkina

Anna Semyonovna Golubkina was born in the district town of Zaraysk in the former Ryazan province on January 16 (28), 1864. When the girl was two years old, her father died. There were no funds for the education of seven children. Golubkina said later: “I was the only one who learned how to read and write from the sexton.”

Anna loved to draw and sculpt people and animals from clay and was very upset when her brother Semyon, who had a lively and mischievous character, broke her “figurines.”

Semyon showed his sister’s drawings to his teacher at a real school, and he liked them. He began to give Anna advice on how to draw, but systematic lessons were out of the question due to lack of money.

In 1883, the girl completed her first sculptures: “Sitting Old Man”, “Blind Zakhar” and “Blind Man”. And two years later she performed a bust of her grandfather Polikarp Sidorovich from memory. The skill and completeness of the characteristics of the old peasant are striking, and yet Golubkina has never studied anywhere.

One traveler from Moscow, stopping at an inn, saw Golubkina’s drawings and advised her to go to study in Moscow. At twenty-five, Anna goes to Moscow to receive an art education. She had a very modest desire: to learn how to paint pottery and porcelain.

In 1889, she entered the Fine Arts Classes of the architect A. O. Gunst, where she studied for about a year, and then entered the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a free student. Her teachers were famous sculptors S. Ivanov and S. Volnukhin. They helped Golubkina develop her enormous talent.

Golubkina’s works attracted attention; students from other departments came to see them, and were also reproduced in exhibition catalogs. Anna received three monetary awards from the school for her sculptures: “In the Baths,” “Shearing of Rams,” and “The Forest King.”

Having completed the school program in three years instead of the required four, Golubkina entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. However, the dry, academic teaching methods adopted there seemed uninteresting to her, so after a year she dropped out of school and went to Paris.

Despite extremely limited funds, Golubkina lived in Paris for several months, entering the private academy of Fernando Colarossi. She discovered a lot of new things for herself, became acquainted with the works of famous sculpture masters, but life in Paris required a lot of money. Constant malnutrition led to the fact that she was at risk of nervous exhaustion.

At the insistence of friends, Golubkina was forced to return to Russia. Together with her sister, she left for one of the Siberian cities, where she began working on the committee for settling migrants. Anna lived there for two years, and when, having improved her health, she returned to Moscow, she brought with her her first large sculpture - “Iron”. This work by Golubkina became the first sculptural image of a proletarian worker in Russian art.

At the end of 1897, Golubkina again went to Paris. Funds for her trip abroad were given to her by the Moscow Society of Art Lovers and private individuals. She then paid off these debts over the course of several years.

In Paris, she was lucky enough to meet the greatest sculptor Auguste Rodin. Contacts with the French maestro were a kind of “graduate study” for her. The main thing she studied was the internal movement of form, corresponding to the movement of thought and feeling.

Golubkina did not become his student, but she repeatedly used his advice. They became friends, and Rodin allowed her to work with his model - an old Italian woman, whose image Golubkina captured in a small figurine “Old Age”.

“The woman sits, bashfully tucking her knees to her chest,” writes S. I. Lukyanov. - Her whole figure breathes chastity and simplicity and evokes sympathy for her loneliness and helpless decrepitude.

Golubkina emphasized her understanding of old age: old age is not so much destruction as a natural, logical outcome of all human life.”

Golubkina's friends and comrades persuaded her to exhibit her works at the Paris Autumn Salon exhibition. “Old Age” and a portrait of zoologist professor E. J. Balbiani were accepted for the exhibition and were a success.

After spending almost two years in Paris, Golubkina returned to Moscow full of energy, creative strength and a thirst for work. But soon her mother dies. Having a hard time experiencing this loss, Anna goes to her family in Zaraysk.

Her brothers made a workshop in the courtyard near the house. Here, in 1900–1901, Golubkina made a bust of M. Yu. Lermontov, sculptures “Worker”, “Elephant”, “Fire” (fireplace). The artist V. A. Serov wrote in 1901: “Golubkina made a magnificent fireplace - seriously, I got it for the exhibition.” For the project “Fire” Golubkina received second prize at the Liszt competition in 1900.

Thus began another line in her work: Golubkina tried to revive traditional household objects. The side supports of the fireplace were made in the form of figures of sitting people. The play of the flame seemed to bring them to life, creating the illusion of movement. The fireplace was sold to one of the rich houses, and with the proceeds Golubkina was able to make her third trip to Paris.

Here she masters the technique of working in marble and wood. She understands that without the ability to work in hard material, she is not destined to fulfill her creative plans.

Returning to Moscow, she began teaching sculpture and drawing at the Prechistensky working courses, opened at the expense of the merchant Morozova. At the same time, she works on sculptural portraits. Golubkina proposed a completely new sculpting technique: it seemed that she was applying clay not with heavy traditional layers, but with light, impetuous strokes. Her sculptural portraits amaze with their naturalness. The master preserves in them all the spontaneity of nature, which seems to still continue to move.

In 1903, Golubkina created an image of a Russian woman from marble and called the sculpture “Marya”. This work was soon chosen by the Tretyakov Gallery. Golubkina received a thousand rubles, which she gave “for the revolution,” despite the fact that she herself was in great need.

The philosopher V.F. Ern, whom she sculpted, writes:

“I am happy that I will be able to watch her in the process of her creativity. She is tall, thin, athletically strong, rude in words, straightforward, from a peasant environment and sometimes lives from hand to mouth and gives out 500 rubles, terribly kind, with an ugly and brilliant face... Sometimes she looks so seriously and deeply that it makes you feel terrified, and sometimes smiles a beautiful childish smile.”

In 1903, Golubkina created a statue larger than life - “Walking Man”, where the rhythm of the forward movement of a powerful figure is completely conveyed. This rhythm ultimately creates a feeling of increasing movement and physical strength of a person rising to real life. The hands, rough and heavy, are beautifully sculpted; they seem to be filled with new strength - the power of struggle, anger and indomitable determination of action.

In 1905, Golubkina completed a bust of Karl Marx. Anna said that in the portrait of Marx she “wanted to give not a struggling, but an affirming beginning of his ideas, which represent a new era in the life of mankind.”

Communication with workers led to Golubkina becoming an active participant in the Russian revolutionary movement. She was arrested in March 1907, and on September 12 of the same year the trial took place. Golubkina was sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress. However, the situation was saved by a lawyer who told the court that his ward was sick. Convinced of the truthfulness of the lawyer’s words, Golubkina is released.

After that she lived mainly in Zaraysk. Only in 1910 Golubkina managed to rent a good workshop and two small rooms in Moscow on Bolshoy Levshinsky Lane, where she lived with her older sister and niece, V.N. Golubkina. Here Anna Semyonovna worked until her death.

In 1906–1912, the sculptor created a whole group of works: “Child” (1906), “Prisoners” (1908), “Music and Lights in the Distance” (1910), “Two” (1910), “Dal” (1912), “ Sleeping" (1912), in which the landscape environment is symbolically abstracted.

In 1912, Golubkina created a sculpture that she called “Sitting Man,” which symbolically depicts three generations.

As Lukyanov writes:

“In the center - an elderly woman sleeps in a tired, heavy sleep, as Russia slept for many years, on the right - a young woman sleeps in an anxious, light sleep, ready to wake up, and on the left - a child, raising his head, joyfully looks forward, as if he sees the dawn of a new, bright life."

Golubkina loved working with wood. The first experiences of her work in this material date back to the nine hundred years. But the master’s most significant works date back to 1909–1914: “Slave” (1909), “Man” (1910), “Caryatids” (1911), portraits of A. Remizov and A. Tolstoy (both 1911), V. Ern (1914), “Oh, yes...” (1913).

According to the observation of A.V. Bakushinsky:

“...The tree helps Golubkina find a new sculptural language - simple, expressive and strong. The consequences of the turn to authentic material are especially convincing when comparing Golubkin’s sketches and studies in clay with works completed in wood. This is a decisive leap towards new quality. Impressionistic amorphousness, understatement, sometimes overly emphasized emotionality - all this is replaced by clarity, plastic completeness of form, realism, objectivity of form. Such, for example, are Golubkin’s portraits of writers A. Remizov and A. Tolstoy.”

In the bust of A. N. Tolstoy, one of her best portraits, Golubkina recreates the image of the writer, who was still relatively young in those years. In the slightly raised head of Alexei Tolstoy, the great inner intelligence of the writer is conveyed and at the same time such features as sensuality and even some arrogance are noticed, visible in the features of a full, sleek face with heavy, half-lowered eyelids.

In 1914, the First World War began. Golubkina, wanting to help the wounded, opens an exhibition of her works in Moscow, at the Museum of Fine Arts, to raise funds for the employment of war invalids.

The success of the exhibition was undoubted. Even before the exhibition closed, the sculptor wrote to her student Kondratiev in the active army that there were “11 thousand” visitors and this would generate about 5 thousand rubles in collections. The exhibition was extremely favorably received by art critics of those years.

In mid-1914, Golubkina became seriously ill and went to the hospital. From 1915 to 1921, Anna Semyonovna did not work due to a serious illness, but inactivity tormented her, and she decided to start working on small sculpture.

She turned to the instructor of art technical workshops S. F. Bobrova with a request to teach her the technique of working with cameos. And here she achieved great skill: her ivory and seashell cameos are real works of art.

Sculptor S. R. Nadolsky writes about Golubkina’s cameos:

“The miniatures presented to “Russian Gem” also amazed me... These were figures of only five centimeters in size, which struck me especially with their felt overall proportionality and life... It should be noted that the theme for these miniature compositions was the new way of life of Soviet youth. All the figures were full of joy and life and made of some soft material..."

From 1918 to 1920, Golubkina taught classes to students at the Free State Workshops, and from 1920 to 1922, at the Moscow Higher State Art and Technical Workshops.

In October 1922, Golubkina moved to the art studio of the sculptor Shor. Her illness worsened again, and she had to undergo surgery.

In 1923, Golubkina participated in the competition for the monument to A. N. Ostrovsky, where she received third prize. In 1925, Anna Semyonovna made a bas-relief “Motherhood” in marble, and in 1926, at the request of the Leo Tolstoy Museum, she began work on a bust of V. G. Chertkov.

At the beginning of 1927, she creates a poetic image of a young girl, personifying Russian nature and the youth of her homeland, and calls this figure “Beryozka”. In the same year, the Tolstoy Museum turned to the sculptor with a request to create a portrait of Lev Nikolayevich.

“Golubkina visited Tolstoy in 1903 and talked with him,” writes Lukyanov. - With usual frankness, she expressed her disagreement with his views. They argued, and she spoke sharply to him, and when she came to him for the second time, Sofya Andreevna said that Lev Nikolaevich was sick.

Now, twenty-four years after this meeting, she begins to create a portrait of Tolstoy. I decided to create a portrait much larger than life, and this required great physical strength. Golubkina was already sixty-three years old at that time, and she was ill. She makes four options, but they do not satisfy her. She wanted to give Tolstoy - a brilliant artist, a writer of powerful talent, and she succeeded. She stops at the fifth option, which has been preserved.

In Tolstoy she conveyed the power of the Russian genius. Tolstoy’s figure is large and powerful, and his eyes seem to pierce with acute intensity what he sees in front of him.”

Golubkina said: “Thick as the sea... but his eyes are like those of a hunted wolf.” The portrait of Tolstoy is an outstanding work; it is one of his best portraits.

On September 7, 1927, in the city of Zaraysk, Anna Semyonovna Golubkina died. She was buried at the Zaraisk city cemetery.