The paintings and theories of Matyushin and the

Russian Avant Garde Movement.

By: Mark Craster-Chambers.

2022.

Cover Image: Matyushin: Son (1910)

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Acknowledgements

To all those who love the Russian Avant-Garde scene, I salute you!

Enjoy!

I also acknowledge the support of my wonderful son Harry Craster-Chambers

and of my family.
When times are dark, just remember to turn on the light.

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Contents Page

Acknowledgements 3
Contents Page 4
Introduction 5
0.1 Introduction 5
0.2 The Problematic. 6
0.3 The Literature. 7
8
0.4 Methodology 12
Chapter One: Matyushin 14
1:1 Introduction/Context. 14
1.2 A life of Matyushin up to the Revolution of 1917. 15
1.3 Conclusion 23
Chapter Two: Zor-ved 24
2.1: Introduction 24
2.1.1 Post revolution Russia & reconstructing art education. 24
2.2 Zor-Ved 26
2.3 The Features of Matyushin’s Theories & School. 27
2.3.1 Colour Theory. 32
2.3 Malevich’s School 34
2.4 Conclusion 37
Chapter Three 37
Appendix of Art Referred to directly in the Paper. 37

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Introduction

0.1 Introduction

This study endeavors to demonstrate Mikhail Matyushin’s (1861–

1934) significant role as a leading avant-garde artist and theorist, a role that has
just recently started to be revealed1. The paper will be interpretative and
problematic, aiming to carry out a fundamental analysis of theoretical views of
nature, vision and color. Most importantly, having contextually set Matyushin in
the latter period of Nicholas II, to link the art to practical applications of the
studies in works of Matyushin and his students, produced within the existence
of Zor-ved group, predominantly between 1923 and 1932. Whereas this chapter
will briefly contextually consider the later Tsarist period, the following chapter
will present the reconstruction of art education in post-revolution Russia before
considering the details of the Zor-ved organisation. Whilst analyzing the
paintings the teaching methods of both the Matyushin and Malevich schools will
be considered. Principally this chapter will introduce the central texts that allow
the study to take place, and which helped form the dissertation.

In the latter years of Tsarist government there was an identifiable change in the
art consciousness of the Russian public, the 1890’s had witnessed “a decline in
Russian Realist art, and also the emergence of a private art market that relied
more on wealthy merchant patrons – therefore being less dependent upon the
state and aristocracy for patronage2.” The accompanying emergence of a new
semi literate urban class meant that correspondingly during this period there
was a growth of collectors such as Pavel Tretyakov whose gallery created in
Moscow began to “mold the public and private taste of the Russian and Soviet

1 This can be witnessed by the fact that the Oxford Companion to Art, edited by
H. Osborne, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970) makes no mention of
Matyushin
2 J.O. Norman, Pavel Tretiakov and Merchant Art Patronage, 1850-1900, in:
Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in
Late Imperial Russia, Ed. E.W Clowes & S.D Kassow & J.L West, (Princetown,
Princetown University Press, 1991), 93.
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middle class3.” “Buying Russian” became a marker for the emergent middle
urban classes, one in which certain works of art began to be regarded as
“quintessentially Russian.4” Out of this new awareness of Russian art came the
avant-garde movement, and names such as Malevich, Goncharova, Kandinsky
and Tatlin all provided a liberation from the social and aesthetic constraints of
the past, thus creating the new art of the abstract5.

0.2 The Problematic.

“Consider this, you who are engaged in investigation: If you choose to seek truth,
cast aside: passion, accepted thought, and the inclination toward what you used to
esteem, and you shall not be led into error 6.”
This study is important due to the recent increase in interest in the work of
Mikhail Matyushin, and the lack of previous research into his work7. In taking the
paintings themselves as the heart of the paper (paintings themselves that were
often neglected in major exhibitions on the Russian avant-garde 8), this research
will look to analyze the paintings in line with the theories of Matyushin and

3 S.F Starr, Introduction, in: Russian Avant-Garde Art: The George Tostakis
Collection (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981), 23.
4 J.O. Norman, Pavel Tretiakov and Merchant Art Patronage, 1850-1900, 93.
5 E. Kovtun, Russian Avant-Garde, (New York: Parkstone International, 2012).
6 A Hirsch & Y. Y. Reinman, One People, Two Worlds: An Orthodox Rabbi and a
Reform Rabbi explore the issues that divide them, (Schocken Books, 2002), citing
Moses Maimonides (12th Century) viii.
7 As recently as 2007 a catalogue to the exhibition held at Estorick, exhibited to
the public two music-related works of Matyushin from The G. Costakis Collection,
both dated 1918. However in the catalogue to the exhibition the artist is not
represented as an independent figure of the avant-garde, nor mentioned his own
way of artistic development, instead he is only listed within the futurist
tendencies in Russia and his experiments in music (J. Milner, A Slap in the Face!
Futurists in Russia (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2007) .
8 In a catalogue to one of the first pioneering exhibitions on Russian Avant-Garde
held in USA the catalogue’s essays barely mention Matyushin, only within a
connection to Malevich and work on Victory over the Sun (excerpts from the
experimental opera ‘Victory over the Sun’ can be heard at:
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/568509152940714025/) . In the section of the
catalogue, devoted to Vkhutemas’ and Inkhuk experimental workshops,
Matyushin and his activity within those institutions are not discussed, which is
obviously an omission, considering his leading role as a teacher and an
innovator. However, he is listed the artists’ biography section of the catalogue (S.
Barron & M. Tuchman, The Avant-garde in Russia 1910-1930. (Los Angeles: Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, 1980).
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consider the actual impact of his work on the cultural scene of Russia around the
time of the revolution.

In the following section for this chapter the study by Swedish Art historian
Margareta Tillberg will be considered. This important source, which concerned
Matyushin’s scientific approach, placed his theories within their cultural and
political context. Where there is a ‘gap’ in her research is that the paintings
themselves are examined in far less detail. Previous to Tillberg much of the study
had been on the paintings, without connecting to the theoretical background. In
consequence this study will place the link between the paintings and the use of
colour to the fore, looking into the vision experiments that were undertaken
whilst the Zor-ved Group, working within the Institute of Artistic Culture, was
active.

0.3 The Literature.

This review presents an overview of the different strands for the study, looking
at the literature available to support the paper and the different angles the study
can take, introducing some of the leading artists of the Russian avant-garde
scene at the time of the revolution and the differences in their work.

It is within the literature on constructivism that an early understanding of

Matyushin begins to be established. The early constructivists – Matyushin,
Miturich and Tatlin developed the abstract movement of sculptural art founded
by Antoine Pevsner and Naum Pevsner as they returned to Russia in 1917 (this
marking the time of the revolution as a time of flux in the art movement). “The
theoretical basis of the movement was put forward in their Realist Manifesto
(1920) which on the sociological plane challenged the then doctrine
(championed by Vladamir Tatlin) that art must serve a socially useful
purpose…9” An essential primary source for this break in art tradition is
Kandinsky’s: ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’ (1912). In this work Kandinsky
considers that the colours on the palate are capable of creating ‘spiritual

9 H Osborne (Ed) The Oxford Companion to Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1970), 277.
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vibrations’ and his aim in the work was to present his art as preparation for an
“epoch of great spirituality10.” Kandinsky wrote that the “stimmung11 of a picture
can deepen or purify that of the spectator 12,” and for one modern art historian his
work can be viewed as having an essentially “religious motivation 13.” This
motivation is not necessarily the case for all constructivists, but the desire to
establish form relationships that connect nature and the human body is clear.
This relationship is closely demonstrated in Matyushin’s 1913 sculpture: Tree
and Root (Figure 1).

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1 Tree and

Root (1913) By Matyushin: source – Source
Taylor 2011
Figure one demonstrates the close
relationship between form and nature of the constructivist; it resonates of the
roots and branches of trees; the cellular growth and the struggle of nature (a
desire to delicate the patterns of cellular growth14), and Matyushin was an artist
who held a pioneering interest in driftwood forms.15 In this case even the name
of the piece suggests truncation, a world literally uprooted and with no soil it
suggests nothing less than profound aboulia. The very nature of the line became

10 N. Spivey, How Art Made the World (London: BBC Books, 2005), 252.
11 Translator of Kandinsky’s ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’ - Michel Sadler-
notes the word stimmung is virtually untranslatable, but roughly it would
connect to the ‘essential spirit’ of nature.
12 W. Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Translated by M. Sadler (New
York: Dover Publications, 1977), 2.
13 N.Spivey, How Art Made the World, 252.
14 B. Taylor, After Constructivism, Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art,
(University of Oxford, 2011) 152.
15 V. Marko, Russian Futurism: A History, (L.A. University of California Press,
1968) 22.
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of great import to the constructivists, and there were splits within the group and
their theories. For Kandinsky there was:
no essential difference between a line one calls “abstract” and a fish … [they] are
living beings with forces peculiar to them … they are forces of expression for these
beings, and of impression on human beings…16

A starting point for this paper was the pioneering work of Margareta Tillberg in
her study of Matyushin and his experiments within his workshop. Tillberg
extensively researched into the Russian archives and connected the art to the
cultural and political context, concluding that the colour theory of Matyushin
(which will be explored in a later chapter) was not given due consideration post
publication in 193217. Tillberg takes the theory of Matyushin that the body has
dormant optical reflexes and wished to open the view to a full 360 degrees (very
different from the cubists who circled around an object), so incorporating the
occipital part of the brain as an active visual centre. 18

The literature establishes the connection in theory between Matyushin and

changes in colour and form, observed by him at the State Institute of Artistic
Culture in the post revolution period,19 changes which (for Matyushin) were by
no means perceptual, but were real. These theories have not, as previously
indicated, been widely studied. However, in 1991, Jennifer Cahn completed an
MA thesis on the Artistic Simultaneity in the Natural World, concentrating upon
Matyushin20. Cahn considers Matyushin has been neglected through a Western
literature concentration on the theoretical position of Malevich, but although the
two both had teaching responsibilities through laboratory in the State Institute,
16 W. Kandinsky, ‘Line and Fish,’ Axis, no 2, 1935, 6; reprinted in K.C.Lindsay and
P.Vergo (eds), Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art, Vol. 2, (London: Faber &
Faber, 1982) 774-5.
17 M. Tillberg, Coloured Universe and the Russian Avant-Garde. Matiushin on
Colour Vision in Stalin’s Russia 1932. (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2003).
18 M. Tillberg, Coloured Universe and the Russian Avant-Garde, 157.
19 N. Baschmakoff, ‘From the Transparent Stone Age to the Space of the Chalice
Cupola: Perceptual Utopias in the Russian Avant Garde, in: Utopia: The Avant-
Garde, Modernism and the Impossible Life,’ Edited by D. Ayers, et al (Amsterdam:
Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 209.
20 J. Cahn, Artistic Simultaneity in the Natural World, (University of Southern
California, Thesis Online, 1991), Made available through ProQuest.
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they had their own departments. For Cahn, the popularity of Malevich in the
west, with his vocabulary of sharp edged geometry and motionless objects in
space has obscured the complex theory of Matyushin21. Matyushin has been even
more eclipsed by Kandinsky, but Kandinsky (influenced by many of the same
sources as Matyushin) left Russia in 1921 and was not a part of the Russian
scene after this period22, presenting a split in the Avant-Garde scene – but both
artists experiment with ideas of body and soul23.

On reading the literature, a clear common connection arises between Matyushin

and Lamarckian evolution (the concept that in the distant future humans would
be seeing from the back of the head as well as the front). This concept was a
source as well for Marinetti and connects art to the early century thinking on
eugenics and Darwinism (that also influenced Nazi race policy in the Third
Reich24). We can also begin to present a gap in thinking between the Russian
avant-garde exiles and those remaining post revolution in Russia. Whilst in exile,
Kandinsky shifted away from the stance of those remaining in Russia, and away
from Lamarckian evolution, he “adapted his own teaching to the Bauhaus
program of a synthesis of science, technology and art 25.” The literature begins to
present a clear gap between those abstract artists, such as Kandinsky, who left
soon after the revolution and those whom remained. The teaching became
different. Kandinsky himself wrote:

21 J. Cahn, Artistic Simultaneity in the Natural World, 7.

22 Around three million Russians fled abroad after the revolution – including
poets such as Tsvetaeva, painters: Kandinsky and Chagall and writers such as
Nabokov and Brunin as well as the composers Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and
Stravinsky “they became haunted by the knowledge that they could neither live
in their native land nor without it (M. Sixsmith, Russia, London: BBC Books, 2011,
290)
23 C. Douglas, ‘Colours without objects: Russian Colour Theories (1908-1932)
The Structuralist, no 15/16 (1975/1976) 41.
24 J. Bergman, Hitler & the Nazi, Darwinian World View (New York: Joshua Press,
2012).
25 O.A.I Botar, Prolegomena to the study of Biomorphic modernism: Biocentrism,
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s “New Vision” and Erno Kallai’s Bioromantik, (Doctorate
Thesis, University of Toronto), 339.
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"only by a process of microscopic analysis will the science of art lead to an all-
embracing synthesis, which will ultimately extend far beyond the boundaries of art,
into the realm of 'union of the 'human and the 'divine…26”
Within the Bauhaus culture, Kandinsky became immersed in ideas such as
‘Naturphilosophisch’ and the ideas of Goethe regarding plant metamorphosis 27;
the experience of the exile therefore was now different (post revolution) to those
like Matyushin who stayed, meaning a division within the concept of Russian
Avant Garde, more pronounced post 1918. The exiles (see footnote 18) believed
the true Russia had ceased to exist after October 1917, they regarded themselves
as “custodians of real Russia” and believed they must keep “the flame alive until
the barbarians were driven out28.” In doing so they created a “society and culture
in exile29.” However, in focussing on Matyushin, this paper concentrates on how
the avant-garde movement developed post Revolution from within the new
Soviet State.

Within the new Soviet State (before the era of Stalin and the purges), there was a
real desire (initially) to invest in science and connect the scientific institutes to
artistic culture. For those who remained within Russia,
“Artists had a chance to upgrade their social status by associating their search for
new forms in art with the latest academic initiatives30.”
This meant that although Matyushin (and his partner the poet Elena Guro) were
interested in mysticism and theosophy, they wished to test their ideas through
science. Chapter Three of this paper will explore the experiments on colour
undertaken by Matyushin and his students that eventually led to the publication
in 1932 of his work: “The Laws Governing the Variability of Colour Combinations:
A Reference Book on Colour.”

26 O.A.I Botar, Prolegomena to the study of Biomorphic modernism, citing

Kandinsky, 340.
27 O.A.I Botar, Prolegomena to the study of Biomorphic modernism, 340.
28 M. Sixsmith, Russia, (London: BBC Books, 2011) 290.
29 M. Sixsmith, Russia, 290.
30 I. Sirotkina, Book Review: MARGARETA TILLBERG, Tsvetnaia vselennaia:
Mikhail Matiushin ob iskusstve i zrenii. Transl. from English by D. Dukhavina and
M. Iarosh. Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2008 , Book Reviews 209-210.
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The avant-garde scene in Russia that remained after the revolution saw Kasimir
Malevich dominate the thinking alongside Matyushin at the Institute. After the
great era of icon painting, Russian Art had consequently suffered a long period of
monotonous ‘academic art and Easter Eggs31.’ Malevich, with his Suprematist
manifesto, limited his paintings to geometric shapes and a narrow range of
colours (see ‘Dynamic Suprematism,’ 1916, in the Appendix, image 1), in his
‘white on white’ series he considered he had achieved the denial of objective
representation, the extreme of rejection:
“The object itself is meaningless…the idea of the conscious mind are worthless.32”
Malevich, who had been initially influenced by cubism and primitive art, stripped
this away, and as seen in Appendix 1, his painting totally abstracted the
geometric patterns presented on the canvas; the objects themselves have iconic
power and show the total abstraction of the line.

0.4 Methodology

“As linguistic creatures, so-called, can we as viewers of paintings ever do other than
read them, turning them into words and attributing to them a verbal source? 33”

As the paintings remain at the heart of the work of the artist, each remaining art
piece opens up a discourse with us as the viewer. Approaching the art means in
the above quote being connected to a title: ‘A Cloud,’ ‘A Gate’ or ‘Tree and Root,’
which can take something away from the freedom of thought in the abstract.
When analysing the art, and connecting that art into the teaching methods and
theories of Matyushin, it is important to note that the discourse needs to be with
the painting and not with the title. In example, looking first at Tree and Root
(1913) a feeling for ouroboros connected me to the piece, the entwined images

31 C.L Carter & J. Scarborough & T.V. Kudriavtseva & P. Heggarty & B. Heggarty,
Russian Art of the Nineteenth Century: Icons and Easter Eggs – A Postmodern
Perspective,’ (Heggarty Museum of Art, Marquette University, 1996)
32 Sister W. Beckett, The Story of Painting (London: DK, 1994) 339 citing
Malevich.
33 H. Adams, ‘Titles, Titling, and Entitlement to’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism, Vol. 46: 1 (Autumn 1987), 15.
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seemingly of head and tail. Then the title took me back to a narrower
interpretation that Adams in the opening quote raises.

The methodology for this study will be an interpretive one, interpreting the art
as products both of their time and the theoretical position of Matyushin
regarding art – to be explored in later chapters. As Pollock stated: “art is
inevitably shaped by the society that produces it,34” therefore this paper
concentrates upon contextualising the art and theory wherever possible.

The paper will be approached through differing methodologies, but is in the form
of an extended, analytical, literature review – connecting the literature toward
the art. Where possible primary source material in the form of writing from the
artists is used, secondary sources from journals and books will also form the
study.

Chapter One: Matyushin

34 G. Pollock, ‘Art and Ideology: Questions for Feminist Art Historians’, Women’s
Art Journal, 4:1 (1983), 42.

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1:1 Introduction/Context.

The years of the early twentieth century were extremely significant ones of
upheaval in Russian history, with the Revolution of March 1917 a landmark
event for European history in the decades to come. Artistically, the decades
devoted to the renewal of French pictorial art were compressed in Russia into a
decade, pre-revolution; when by around March 2014 the scales had tipped from
France toward the Russian avant-garde.35 Pavel Filonov in 1914 stated that the
centre of the gravity of art had moved to Russia, criticising Picasso and the
French school of Cubo-Futurism – stating it led to an ‘impasse from its
principles36.’

Within this context therefore, the beginning of the twentieth century saw
Russian art develop toward a previously unknown level of seeing and
understanding of the world and the universe. As noted in the literature review,
the era saw a development of suprematism, the way (for example) Malevich
would see the world, one of a “spiritual universe37.” The era saw a shift of styles
and tastes, fundamentally interrupting everything ‘traditional.’ The very radical
transformation of the social and political climate of the country saw a new
comprehension of the role of the artist – one escaping the regular line of creating
art for the sake of art, but moving to sublime aspirations of the reorganisation
and the enhancement of the world and a humankind through spiritual art.

This chapter will consider the life of Matyushin up to 1917, looking at the
influences upon him and focussing upon a couple of his paintings created during
these formative years of the Russian avant-garde.

1.2 A life of Matyushin up to the Revolution of 1917.

35 E.Kovtun, Russian Avant-Garde, 7.

36 E. Kovtun, Russian Avant-Garde, 7.
37 E.Kovtun, Russian Avant-Garde, 8.
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Mikhail Matyushin was born in 1861 in Nizhny Novgorod, where he first

finished music school, then completed his musical education in the Moscow
Conservatory. Mikhail’s gift of understanding music intuitively and proficient
mastering of various instruments served as a basis for his future research on
synthesis of color and sound, but also helped him to move to St. Petersburg in
1881, a cradle of incipient revolutionary movements.38 Here for more than thirty
years he was a leading violinist in the Imperial Orchestra, and he connected his
writing, poetry, music, science and art in a unique fashion. He:
“experimented with quarter-tone soundings; designed and made a violin; played on
a stage; put forward a scientific concept of "organic culture"; studied the fourth
dimension of space and its display in art; and investigated problems of
harmonization of colours, colours and forms, and colours and sounds…39”
His activity in the orchestra, in Matyushin’s own words: ‘introduced him to
everything new and innovative, composed either in Russia or the West.’ 40 In
dissolving the ‘partial dislocation’ that Matyushin observed was common place
between artists of differing disciplines he hoped that in his words he would
utilize the:
“simultaneous reading of the wide range of sensations during perception (which)
expands and enriches any observation . . and a creative image in art… 41
Everything existing, according to Matyushin, comes from a single principle, and
that vibrations of sound and color, synthetized as a unit, allow expression on the

38 St. Petersburg, though less radical than Moscow’s artistic environment, still
connected to post-Symbolist esthetics, was a principal venue for such
experimentalists as members of ‘Union of Youth’, founded in 1910; St.
Petersburg’s art is not as technologically driven as Moscow’s, however it is more
based on the concept of Naturalism and Organic Culture. For intellectual
background of St. Petersburg’s prerevolutionary avant-garde see
N. Khardzhiev, The Russian Avant-Garde, published in 1976.
39 B. Galayev, Mikhail Matyushin's Contribution to Synthetic Art, The MIT Press,
Leonardo, Vol 38:2, (2005) pp.151-154. Accessed Online August 2016.
https://monoskop.org/images/8/81/Galeyev,_Bulat_(2005)_-
_Mikhail_Matyushin's_Contribution_to_Synthetic_Art.pdf
40 Mikhail Matyushin, An Artist’s Creative Path. Autobiography (Михаил
Матюшин. Творческий путь художника. Автобиография), ed. A. Povelikhina
(Kolomna: Museum of Organic Culture, 2011), 55.

41 M.V. Matyushin, "Memoirs of the Futurist," Volga, Nos. 9-10 (1994, 115) pp.
72-123.
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canvas a true reality. But to achieve an expanded vision of the whole system of
Universe is only possible with a higher consciousness by training senses and
meditation.42

A move to St. Petersburg turned out to be crucial for Matyushin’s formation, not
only as an artist, but also as a leading figure of Russian avant-garde. As
previously noted, Matyushin did not leave his musical career until 1913, the
same year he collaborated with Aleksei Kruchenykh (who wrote a libretto on the
famous zaum language), Vladimir Khlebnikov (who wrote a prologue) and
Kazimir Malevich (who designed a stage decoration) on composing first futurist
opera ‘Victory over the Sun’. Perhaps it was one of the first times when Matyushin
revealed himself as a brilliant teacher and a ‘popularizer’ of ideas, the difficulties
of which he presented with clear and understandable language, for example,
explaining to other members of the event the meaning of incomprehensible
words of libretto and thereby infecting others with his enthusiasm. This
collaboration was not the first time Matyushin interacted with futurists. With his
wife, the poet Elena Guro, he was one of the driven forces of ‘Union of Youth’
(1909-1914). Furthermore, in the same 1913 year Matyushin published his own
translation of Albert Gleizes’ and Jean Metzinger’s Du Cubisme and even
interpreted it with caution of Petr Ouspensky’s43 philosophy on fourth
dimension. By that time Mikhail Matyushin was not just an amateur painter –
since his move to St. Petersburg he attended an art school, where Mstislav
Dobuzhinsky and Lev Bakst taught, who inculcated their students with both
eclectic and academic styles, none of which took root in his art, but gave him a
strong base as an artist. Jan Tsioglinsky’s impressionistic studio, where he
studied from 1898 to 1906, is crucial for Matyushin’s development as an artist

42 To justify his worldview Matyushin refers to the ideas of the French

philosopher Henri Bergson, which were popular at the time in Russia. Their
ideas show obvious similarities in terms of the constant interaction between
Mind and Nature [Bergson also a crucial figure for Gleizes and Metzinger and the
Italian Futurists].
43 Petr Demianovich Ouspensky was a renowned Russian mathematician and
philosopher, whose ideas on fourth dimension (were a great influence on a
number of Russian artists, particularly on Kazimir Malevich. See, for example,
Petr D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Dimension: The Experience of the Examination of
the Realm in the Immeasurable (St. Petersburg: Noviy Chelovek, 1909)
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and theorist of colour. His works of that period are freely executed and filled
with light. Indeed, in his memoirs the artist mentions, “only at that time I found
glimpses of truth of light,”44that ‘in Tsioglinsky’s school were conceived new
principles of form and colour.’45 It would be noteworthy to add that in 1900
Matyushin went to Paris, to Exposition Universelle, where he was particularly
fascinated with Claude Monet’s, Edgar Degas’ and, interestingly, Giovanni
Segantini’s paintings, whose painterly techniques he admired.

The prerevolutionary years are filled with significant events: between 1908 and
1910 Mikhail with his wife Guro were members of ‘Triangle group’, founded by
Nikolai Kulbin46. In 1908 Matyushin led his own ‘Wreath’ group; in 1909 with
Guro he established a futurist journal The Crane, the title of which is ‘an allusion
to Karelian art, which Elena Guro adored.47’48 Between 1910 and 1914 they are
key members of ‘Union of Youth.’ From 1910 their house on Pesochnaya Street
(now a Museum of Petersburg Avant-Garde) became a meeting point for the
artistic public, particularly cubo-futurists, formed around personalities of David
Burliuk and Hlebnikov, where important discussions and debates were
conducted even after Guro’s death in 1913.

We can see the cubist influences within Matyushin as well, they are very clear in
his 1919 piece, ‘geometrizatsiya prostranstva (appendix 2). In this piece,
resonating with opaque geometric shapes, Matyushin plays with reflection and
light emitting from behind. The shapes move from small at the top to large at the
centre and the colours move from light at the edge to black at the centre.
Matyushin chooses the coldness of blue and white, starkly presenting the feeling
44 Matyushin, An Artist’s Creative Path. 56.
45 Matyushin, An Artist’s Creative Path, 65.
46 A.D Sarabianov, Mikhail Matyushin, (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014) Accessed
August 2016 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mikhail-Vasilyevich-
Matyushin
47 Karelian Art comes from the then Soviet state of the Karelian Republic,
bordering the Finnish Border, who were to suffered hugely in the Stalinist
purges. An example of the notable art from the period would be Karelian
landscape (1919) by Nicholas Roerich.
48 Russian Avant-Garde. The Khardzhiev Collection. Stedelijk Museum, edited by
Geurt Imanse and Frank van Lamoen (Rotterdam : nai010 publishers, 2013),
410.
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of the Russian winter. Whereas a work such as tree and root shows dissonance,
this piece (following cubist thought) is more harmonious and mathematical –
pure rules are followed and each shape reflects correctly. Unlike the Russia of
1919 in social and political turmoil, this exists only to show colour, light and the
purity of rules. In every sense Matyushin presents us with a picture that exists
emotionally on the mechanical level, where it works on both the horizontal plane
and the z axis. It begins to show the 360 degree viewing that Matyushin wished
the viewer to experience, one in which there is a real illusion of depth.

‘Geometrizatsiya prostranstva (appendix 2)’ shows the way that Matyushin

created the emotional force in shape and colour. It also, as noted, connects him to
cubist thinking and the work certainly has influences of artists such as Juan Gris,
but the cubist movement drawn in around Paris and influential collectors such as
Gertrude Stein was nevertheless some distance from revolutionary Russia. The
third chapter of this study will concentrate upon metaphysical comprehension
and observation by nature by members of the workshop, the employed
principles of ‘expanded viewing’ adopted by Matyushin and on the formation of
colour and vision. In doing so this third chapter will situate Matyushin firmly
within the context of cubism and futurism, especially as he had translated Gleizes
and Metzinger, and was concerned with theories of viewing- which were also
very prominent topics for futurists and cubists. In doing so comparisons with
Western European ideas of colour and vision in art will be worked upon.

The connection of experimentation, science and funding for the avant-garde in

the New Soviet Union was not a lengthy time period. ‘Socialist Realism’ was soon
to become the only proscribed art form in the Soviet Union, first used as a term
around 1932 (but effectively in practice from the mid 1920’s onward); this
effectively stilted the experimentation in form connected with Malevich and
Matyushin49 – the Stalinist regime banned the work of Malevich considering his
art to be ‘bourgeois – incapable of showing social reality and he was forbidden

49 A. Ellis, Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970. (Skira Editore S.p.A.,

2012), 21.
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from creating more work of this type50. After 1921 both Malevich and Matyushin
continued teaching and experimenting within the Institute of Artistic Culture.
The literature for this period is now increasingly available and helps with
forming this study.

Crucial for Matyushin’s development as an artist and theorist of color was Jan
Tsioglinsky’s impressionistic studio, where he studied from 1898 to 1906. His
works of that period are freely executed and filled with light. Before looking at an
example of Matyushin’s work from this period it is notable that in 1912 Vladimir
Markov in The Principles of New Art noted two diametrically opposed platforms
for art existing together – one is constructiveness and the other non-
constructiveness, the former being exhibited in the Greek style and the latter in
the East51. For Markov: wherever Europe penetrates with its rigid doctrines, its
orthodox realism, it corrodes national art, evens it out, paralyzes its development.
When that brief period of Russian avant-garde was at its most creative the rigid
doctrines were thrown out for a new way of using colour and seeing.

Looking at his 1906 oil on Canvas, ‘The Gate’ (Appendix picture 3) the work
retains form and structure based around the series of horizontal lines that
stretch the canvas splitting it into a triptych, but this traditional religious
representation is off set and skewed. The diagonal bar of the gate completes the
scene, and we glimpse through the bars into an uncertain world behind. The lack
of absolute symmetry allows a feeling of unsettling discomfort and the reds and
blacks behind the bar increasingly fade (or run) to white lower down, which
again represents an inversion of the norm - the darks and lights behind are
opposite and inverted, the same patterns showing from behind the bars.
50 A.S. Shatskikh, & M. Schwartz, Black Square: Malevich and the Origin of
Suprematism, (New York, Yale University Press, 2012).

51 V. Markov: The Principles of New Art, 1912, in: J. Bowlt, (editor and
translator) Russian Art of the Avant-Garde Theory and Criticism 1902-1934 (New
York: Viking Press, 1976) 27 (pp.23-41) accessed online August 2016
https://monoskop.org/images/8/86/Bowlt_John_E_ed_-
_Russian_Art_of_the_Avant-Garde_Theory_and_Criticism_1902-1934.pdf
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Malevich, who saw the conventional artist as ‘”the slave of nature” wrote that the
modern artist must create their “own nature like forms.52” In ‘A Gate’ we begin to
see the expansion of vision, vision taking us beyond the closed gate. Professor
Wunsche sees Matyushin as essentially a monist, someone who focuses upon the
unity of mind and matter, and acknowledging the unified laws behind nature 53.

Matyushin was influenced by Elena Guro, who as a pantheist, observed the

universe as a living presence; one that would only reveal itself to the careful
observer54. Certainly in ‘A Gate’ the careful observer has to look carefully through
the gate to begin to get any feeling for the nature that lies behind.

Eleno Guro was perhaps the greatest influence on Matyushin’s artistic

development. Some scholars as, for example, Evgeny Kovtun consider that the
‘third path of non-objectivity…traced its beginnings to the work, ideas, and
person of the poet and artist Elena Guro’.55 Matyushin first met Guro in
Tsioglinsky’s studio – he wrote in his diary ‘Guro and me were driven then not by
an irrelative beauty of tones and colors, but by life and by movement…Guro and me,
we were thinking how to render in the painting a concealed life, inner forces, that
construct a visible, in connection to fulfilling movement.’ 56
She was a figure in the Russian futurist art scene herself, and her work ‘Sprouts –
composition with flowers and plants (1905-6) (see appendix 11) is naturally
organic, with a rich use of brown shades and colour tinting. It closely resonates
of the ‘tree and root’ work by Matyushin. The influence of Guro should not be
underestimated; her critique of urbanization was a key factor in how the Russian
futurists distinguished themselves from the Italian futurists and their worship of
the machine57. She helped move the Russian futurist movement toward folk

52 Prof. I. Wunsche, The Organic School of the Russian Avant Garde (London,
Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2015) 27.
53 Prof. I. Wunsche, The Organic School of the Russian Avant Garde, 27.
54 Prof. I. Wunsche, The Organic School of the Russian Avant Garde, 27.
55 The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932, an article
by Evgeny Kovtun ‘The Third Path of Non-Objectivity’ (New York: S. Guggenheim
Museum, 1992), 325.
56 Matyushin, An Artist’s Creative Path, 65.
57 1111 Eleven Eleven: A Journal of Literature & Art, Elena Guro, (California
Institute of Arts, 2104, translated from Russian by Alex Segale)
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customs and a new naïve art form. This could be closely noted in ‘Olenenok-
‘Little Deer’ (circa 1809) (appendix 12) which connects to the organic style,
celebrating nature and the sense of the awakening.

Their collaboration signified perhaps most productive artistic years of Guro and
the formative years of Matyushin’s development, they both are considered to be
leaders and initiators of the Organic movement in Russia58 - the main idea of
which considered art, poetry and return to the nature as a way of finding a lost
humanity.59 Elena insisted that nature requires careful observations and Mikhail
did observe it in that way. He described his first experience of truly seeing the
environment, described how he suddenly noticed ‘cold tones of grass under the
sun and beneath it warm, almost burning colors’, noticed that ‘upper light on
wider leaves- is a light-blue reflection of the blue sky, and lower light, yellowish
and greenish, is an almost translucent reflection of the sun’, and added ‘strong
rays of light, sliding across the surface of leaves is just a reflection, and shadows
at the bottom are violet or purplish’60. However, even though Matyushin and
Guro shared similar worldview, they differed fundamentally in their approach.
Mikhail, unlike Elena, who was deeply grounded by emotions and Romantic
thought, had always taken into account careful analysis of the observed and was
highly inspired and influenced by latest scientific discoveries, 61 ‘his insights were
developed through a synthesis of sensory perception and intellectual
reasoning’62. Such wise, since that time, we could confidently conclude that
Matyushin’s in his artistic means proceeded from just seeing to seeing and
http://elevenelevenjournal.com/2015/01/02/elena-guro/ [access August 2016]
58 For artistic influences and roots of Organic Culture see I. Wü hsche, The
Organic School of the Russian Avant-Garde. Nature Creative Principles (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2015)
59 John Bowlt in his article ‘Organic Culture and the Legacy of Symbolism’,
published in Organica. The Non-Objective World of Nature in The Russian Avant-
Garde of the 20th Century, edited by A.Povelikhina (Moscow: Ra, 2000), argues
that the tendency of M. Matyushin (alongside with W. Kandinsky, K. Malevich and
I. Kliun) to approach spirituality and pantheism was the result of the influence of
Modern and Symbolism in particular.
60 Matyushin, An Artist’s Creative Path, 65.
61 Matyushin's enthusiasm for science and explanation of essence of his
scientific experiments will be examined in Chapter 3.
62 Prof. I. Wü hsche, The Organic School of the Russian Avant-Garde. Nature
Creative Principles (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 89.
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knowing (in Russian zrenie and vedanie) – a new way of thinking and a new
movement (or a school). He can be seen as connecting each colour to a certain
shape, and each colour looks to creating “sensory modality63.”

This sensory modality can be witnessed within the 1915 oil on canvas Non
Objectivity Crystallization in Space, 1915, seen as Appendix 4. The colour
represents a material crystalizing in the expanse of time and space; it shows the
artists growing interest in spatial relationships. The painting connects to the
monist worldview, one that states the vestiges of the universe are based on those
fundamental building blocks of atom and cell, subject to the same structural
principles – the piece demonstrates the increasing interest in the architectural
structure of space and moves to the development of spatial realism. 64 The
dynamic use of colour and line in Non Objectivity Crystallization in Space shows
an interest in the positive creative centre of the universe. Where the earlier tree
and root art, noted in the literature review, saw the root/tree striving for the
light, the desire to survive, we now see a single universal space.

Light is a real body of the universe, but we still look at it as if it is hollow

(unfilled) and being indifferent to its outstanding qualities. Look at trees, which
are primary material, when you see branches in the sky, do not they remind you
a nerve or respiratory systems of the organism? It seems that all planets of the
Universe are feeding with its flora a body of Light, and every organic movement
of a lively body in the whole Universe is a nerve system of the Light’ 65- wrote
Matyushin in his diary. His famous work ‘Movement in Space,’ 1917 (appendix. 5)
it is nothing but an intense stream of light, moving in the space as if through the
crystal66, and transforms into ‘colorful harmonic stream, in which whether
concave or convex forms create vibration, and the diagonal composition

63 B. Galayev, Mikhail Matyushin's Contribution to Synthetic Art, The MIT Press,

Leonardo, Vol 38:2, (2005) pp.151-154. Accessed Online August 2016.
https://monoskop.org/images/8/81/Galeyev,_Bulat_(2005)_-
_Mikhail_Matyushin's_Contribution_to_Synthetic_Art.pdf 152.
64 Prof. I. Wü hsche, The Organic School of the Russian Avant-Garde. Nature
Creative Principles (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 98.
65 Prof. I. Wü hsche, The Organic School of the Russian Avant-Garde, 133.
66 Matyushin was interested in crystals and crystallization right up to 1920
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strengthen the movement’67. Such comprehension of light and space led the artist
to the thought that Universe is a unified vibrating organism, impelled him to
depict the image of the invisible, a true world of ‘further dimensions’ by means of
artistic expression.

1.3 Conclusion

‘Movement in Space’ takes the work of Matyushin up to the point of the 1917
revolution. This was a time of great artistic development and creativity from
Matyushin on many fronts – certainly in regard to both music and art. Up to 1913
he also combined with his wife Elena Guro, who sadly died from leukemia at an
early age. Her early 1900’s painting of Matyushin (appendix 13) shows
Matyushin domestically relaxed and reading a book, at peace with the world,
before the tragedy in both his domestic life and the political upheavals in his
country were to manifest themselves.

Chapter Two: Zor-ved

2.1: Introduction

This chapter will consider the reconstruction of art education in the post
revolution climate of Russia. Next the details of the Zor-ved organisation will be
considered, as well as focusing upon the teaching activity from SVOMAS to
INHUK. The teaching and workshop practices in modernist Russia will then be
turned to, marking out the specific features of Matyushin’s school in regard to his

67 A. Povelikhina, ‘Organic Movement in the Russian Avant-Garde’ in Professor

Mikhail Matyushin and His Students 1922–1926, ed. N. Nesmelov (Saint Petersburg:
Russian Academy of Arts, 2007), 13.
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artistic theory with comparison to the theories of Malevich – looking at how they
both utilised colour charts.

2.1.1 Post revolution Russia & reconstructing art education.

In 1918, within those first few months of great turmoil after the fall of the Tsar,
avant-garde artists entered the former Imperial Academy of Arts, which name
changed to Free Workshops (SVOMAS). Here both where Matyushin and Malevich
were to lead their own classes, Matyushin focussing upon his ideas of viewing
and Colour. The period of interest at SVOMAS is the very narrow time span from
1918-1921 as in 1921 the new Soviet State re-launched the Academy and
removed the avant-garde artists such as Tatlin, Matyushin and Malevich (who all
lost their chairs)68. Post 1921 both Malevich and Matyushin were to be found
within the Institute of Artistic Culture (INHUK) in Leningrad (St Petersburg). At
INHUK the experiments in colour and perception continued with Matyushin
collecting a number of disciples for his ideas around him 69.

Placing Matyushin within the theories being delivered at SVOMAS and INHUK, he
is often placed with Malevich and Filonov as a perceptual millenarianist 70. In this
regard these artists sought exploration of human perception – millenarianism
connects closely to major events, and the First World War along with the 1917
Revolution were of course major events of change within Russia, a major
transformation of society had occurred. As society transforms, so does artistic
vision, and the way that we perceive art, it is extended almost mystically. Once
the Soviet State began to control art after 1921, constructivism became the state
position in regard to art teaching:
“Constructiveness asserted that new consciousness can be attained not through
individual breakthroughs but through rebuilding of living environment 71.”

68 K. Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, (Boston: Harvard

University Press, 1998) 151.
69 K. Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 148.
70 K. Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 50-51
71 K. Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 51.
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As noted, Matyushin remained true to his early avant-garde principles, not

shifting his position in regard to colour and vision.

The People’s Commissar of Education, Lunacharsky, changed the focus on artistic

teaching within the Arts Academy, ensuring (for a time) that all artistic
movements had a place in the school – all artists were allowed the right to
nominate themselves on the election as head of a workshop, every student could
choose a particular artistic movement or teacher. Thus the central change post
revolution in the organisation of the arts was a greater (albeit temporary) move
to a greater self-governance72.

These key first few years after the revolution were times of great change in the
art world as much as the political, where teaching styles sought to break the
older academic traditions of the Tsarist era. This was a period where there were
on-going searches for new methods of teaching and for the ‘struggle for
proletarisation of the student body73.’ During this time Kandinsky returned to
Russia (until 1921) and helped organise the Institute of Artistic Culture in
Moscow. Painting only a limited amount during this time, Kandinsky also
devoted himself to teaching – with a program based on colour analysis and form.
However, unsettled in the new regime he left for the Bauhaus in post-war
Weimar Germany, passing the mantle to Malevich and Matyushin in his
homeland.

2.2 Zor-Ved

Malevich, appointed professor of the workshop on December 1 st 1918 collected a

range of students eager to study under him, many of whom had previously been
learning at the home of Matyushin. Based at the time in Moscow, Malevich asked

72 N. Nesmelov, Matyushin, (Saint Petersburg, 17 University, Universitetskaya,

Written for the International Exhibition, 2007) 26.
73 N. Nesmelov, Matyushin, 26.
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Matyushin to lead his workshop in Petrograd, so in the spring of 1919 the

Malevich workshop changed into the Matyushin workshop of Spatial Realism 74.

The study group/workshop run by Matyushin: Zor-ved, has a meaning of ‘see

and know,’ and it sought evidence of perception of both events and objects that
were placed behind the person – so to see them you would require a form of
extra sensory perception – or literally eyes in the back of your head. The claim
from the Zor-ved group was that this facility existed and that we, as humans, did
indeed have visual centres that were capable of rear vision75.

A range of students came to study under Matyushin, among them Nicholas

Grinberg and Ksenia, Maria, George and Boris Ender (Appendix 13 Picture).
Within the Zor-ved group the artists with Matyushin would ‘grapple with
resources on a plane equally removed from the art academy and the bohemian
atelier….(in the words of Matyushin) artists are the ones who study what could be
called the ‘biology of appearance of the objective world, conceived of in space and
vanishing into it…76”
For the students of Matyushin therefore, the purpose of art was to reinvigorate
the senses and ask questions of the viewer – to open up a discourse into the
fourth dimension and to consider the very function of the colour on the canvas.
This is clearly exhibited in Maria Ender’s study (appendix 15) – the colours
opening up the discourse and resonating of the colour experimentation that will
be focused upon later in this chapter.

2.3 The Features of Matyushin’s Theories & School.

74 N. Nesmelov ,Matyushin, 26.

75 K. Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 44 citing Matyushin.
76 J. Rasula, History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism, 213 citing
Matyushin.
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Turning to the theories and pedagogical practice of Matyushin from around

1918-1926, a clear continuity in teaching methods has been identified 77.
Essentially his teaching spans two distinct periods:
1918-1922: This was the period of the individual workshop of spatial realism.
The core behind pedagogical practice at this time originated from DP Sternberg.
In 1918 Sternberg was Head of IZO Narkompros, and he had been formulated
with developing the new teaching system. He stated “the main task of art
education is the full development of the eyesight along with it development of
observation78…
This is a perspective Matyushin also adhered to and it formed his teaching
methodology over the coming years, connecting into the senses in a unique
fashion to deliver the teaching aims fundamental for ‘the development of
observation’ through the senses79. The four parts (footnote 79 below) were at the
forefront of his teaching between 1918-1922.

1922-1926: There had been a reorganization of the workshops and Matyushin

became a professor of drawing and painting of the Academy Inter University
Program (PSFAEW)80. In this period Matyushin moved away more from the four
senses and moved more into experiments on reality perception. In the second
period of teaching (1922-1926), Matyushin especially worked with Boris and

77 N. Nesmelov, Matyushin 27.

78 N. Nesmelov, Matyushin, 27 citing DP Sternberg.
79 Touch - the first stage of sensual understanding of space. The basis of the
work method are various forms of tactile sensations in connection with
visual impressions.
2. Hearing - the second stage of space comprehension. Various forms of
sound sensations in connection with visual impressions.
3. Sight - the third stage of space comprehension. Various light impressions
in connection with the tactile and auditory senses as basis of a scenic
work. The study of light and volume through observation of color and
shape ... for an extended view ... Perception and transmission of a full
circle of 360 degrees in the workshop and on the air.
4. Thought. Creative work of thought, which covers and connects the entire
mass of impressions into a whole understanding of the world.
These were the senses, a key to the organic, sensory methodology in the
teaching methods of Matyushin.
80 N. Nesmelov, Matyushin. 27.
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Maria Ender, and he developed his ideas of special realism from the earlier time.
In this period the ‘organic culture concept’ came much more to prominence, one
Matyushin saw as:
“giving the student the opportunity to learn the culture of all art from antiquity
to the very limits of the new…81”
As there was a change in conditions, changes in the teaching of students did
occur, however the actual ideological orientation of Matyushin, the core from his
theories (to be explored in this section) did not change 82. The only noticeable
difference would have been the inclusion of more art history, and Matyushin
would see this as differing from the older academic style of art history taking it
from left to right. Matyushin was very interested in preparing students for art of
the future.

What we know of the pedagogy of Matyushin, and the content of his lessons,
comes from the memories of his students, recorded many years after the events
themselves (close to our era). A cautionary note is therefore given that memories
do cloud in time and where the description is of studying ‘colour music’ it seems
a rather modern term to cover events of long ago83. Nevertheless certain key
features remain that can be identified as central to his teaching and theories.

The features of Matyushin’s school centre around theories of sight and colour,
and his teaching on the human inability to see the complete 360 degrees. This
work by Matyushin, and his students, culminated in his writing in 1923 that the
artist would develop toward a point where there would be “a physiological
change in the previous method of perception84.” This was made possible through
the ‘rear plane,’ which was previously unobtainable information, “outside the
human sphere due to inadequacies of experience85.”

81 N. Nesmelov, Matyushin, 30, citing: MV Matyushin. Plan and methods of work

of the Special research workshop. July 1992
82 N. Nesmelov, Matyushin 27.
83 B. Galayev, Mikhail Matyushin’s Contribution to Synthetic Art, Leonardo, Vol
38:2, 2005, 152
84 K. Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 44 citing Matyushin.
85 K. Clark, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution, 44 citing Matyushin.
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“Learn to see with the lower back of the head, the parietal bone, the temple and
even the soles of the feet, just as the Indian yogis learn to breath not only with the
lungs, but with all parts of the body86.”
This reference to the yogis by Matyushin connects his theory to P.D Ouspensky,
who was a close friend and someone connected to the more mystical thinking
regarding art that attracted many in the Russian avant-garde artists in the years
preceding the revolution. Ouspensky wrote:
“The artist must be a clairvoyant; he must see that which others do not see; he must
be a magician…87”
Ouspensky was an esotericist and a mathematician who helped to connect
Matyushin into the work of the Greek surrealist Nicolas Caras, and even into the
later dreamlike magic realism of Spanish artist Alfonso Ponce de Leon (a figure
within the Madrid avant-garde scene in the 1920’s)88.

By 1924, when he completed Landscape from Different Point of View (Appendix

6), Matyushin has moved away from the pre revolution avant-garde pieces such
as ‘A Gate’ or ‘Tree and Root’ and instead has sought a new perspective, truly
presenting the wheat based landscape and roof’s in a different plane of being.
There is a sense of the magic in this work and shows the connection between the
teaching he was delivering in the classroom and the development of his own
painting. In the classroom, the notion of ‘social realism’ – new, visible and spatial
interconnection of phenomena was fully explored and Matyushin said:
‘our teacher is nature. We shall never be able to stop observing nature. So as to
express her creative essence in more forceful terms, we must observe freely… 89’
In essence there should be an effort to look beyond the normal planes of seeing.

86 J.Rasula, History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism (Oxford,

Oxford University Press, 2016) 213 citing Matyushin.
87 J. Rasula, History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism, 213 citing
Ouspensky.
88 Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Guide to the Collection, (Madrid,
Reina Sofia Gallery, 1997) 56.
89 Bornstein, E, The Structuralist, Volumes 15-20, 65.
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The teaching being undertaken on ‘expanded looking’ by Matyushin also drew

upon the creative evolution of Henri Bergson, Hinton’s fourth dimension: 90

Figure 2 This is the frontispiece to Charles Howard Hinton's 1904 book: The Fourth Dimension

The above illustration from Hinton is an illustration of what Hinton referred to

as the tesseract – the four-dimensional analog of the cube. This was important
thinking on dimensions, utilized and explored by Matyushin whilst at INHUK.
Hinton, a British mathematician and scientist appealed to Matyushin in his
experiments on dimension, a process he was looking to further; it is possible he
was introduced to Hinton’s ideas through his friend Ouspensky, as in Tertium
Organum Ouspensky frequently mentions Hinton and his experiments. Analysing
Hinton allows a greater understanding of the teaching of Matyushin, and
considering Hinton it is noted that:
Hinton argues that gaining an intuitive perception of higher space required that
we rid ourselves of the ideas of right and left, up and down, that inheres in our
position as observers in a three-dimensional world. Hinton calls the process
"casting out the self…91”

‘The vibratory continuum of the fourth dimension92” is naturally hidden to the

senses, but in his classes with the Zor-ved group Matyushin was determined to
access this dimension through the means of artistic expression 93 -

90 J. Crabb, "Notes on the Fourth Dimension" The Public Domain Review.

(October, 28, 2015) 5:20
91 Anne de Witt, Moral Authority, Men of Science and the Victorian Novel,
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013) 173.
92 J. Rasula, History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism, 213
93 J. Rasula, History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism, 213.
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“We must shorten the length of movement to the stroke of lightening…(to)

understand and reveal the un-interruptability of growth, crystal, bacteria, animal
and man…94”
It is noted that :
“As a theorist Matyushin was interested in the hierarchy and interrelations be-
tween different sensory modalities….intra-modal syntheses…95”
The experiments into colour and sound as well as colour and shape continued
throughout both teaching periods.

This teaching is directly witnessed in his 1917 self-portrait (appendix 7) in

which the face has been deliberately constructed on angular lines like a crystal;
thus breaking down the differentiation between mineral and flesh. The
construction for this work can be seen on Appendix 7b where the clarity of the
crystal line providing the skeleton for the flesh is clearly displayed. Jed Rasula in
his consideration of the teaching of Matyushin during his time with the Zor-ved
group places his ideas much closer to the constructivists’ policy of art into life. 96

2.3.1 Colour Theory.

In March 2008, The Russian Academy of Arts presented an exhibition called

Professor Matyushin and his disciples 1922-1926 97. The exhibition made much of
the interaction of colour with a colour, colour with form and colour with sound,

94 J. Rasula, History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism, 213 citing

Matyushin.
95 B. Galayev, Mikhail Matyushin’s Contribution to Synthetic Art, Leonardo, Vol
38:2, 2005, 153
96 J. Rasula, History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism
97 The Russian Academy of Arts, ‘Professor Michael Matyushin and his disciples
1922-1926,
http://en.rah.ru/academy/main_functions_of_the_russian_academy_of_arts/
exhibition/detail.php?ID=24883 [access September 2016]
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as well as colour with speed and motion; acknowledging the work of the Zor-ved
group. In work on colour the Zor-ved group is seen as distinctive from Kandinsky
and his ideas in the way that texts from Kandinsky rely heavily upon semantics
of symbolism, but Matyushin is concerned far more with the laws connecting to
psychophysiological perception98. However Kandinsky had also researched
associations between colour and shape in Moscow (circa 1919) before he left for
Germany99. Matyushin’s experiments took him further than Kandinsky and he
concluded:
“Experiments brought him to the conclusion that curved, smooth shapes are
associated with warm colors, and pointed, cut shapes with cold ones… 100”
This can be seen in his picture of the dunes (appendix 16) in which the sand
dues, so smooth in shape, give off their own natural heat, with the blend of
yellows – shape and colour matching like a glove.

The colour charts and colour experimentation were a major part of the work of
the Zor-ved group, and complimented the experiments on space and vision.
These scientific experiments were conducted over a number of years, involving
students such as Maria and Boris Ender, the resulting ‘Handbook of Colour’ has
been described as:
- ‘the fruit of a unique intellectual work, experimental mental work and artistic
intuition, which in compressed form…described and illustrated on the basis of the
main table patterns of colour combinations in their dynamics…101”
The colour handbook of Matyushin had within it thirty colour charts, and each
one had a combination of three different colours – in this fashion in the work the
interconnections between the colours were all primary, there was no perception

98 N. Zlydneva, Margareta Tilberg, Color Universe: Michael Matyushin about art

and vision. Moscow: New Literary Review, (2008) 170. Translated from Russian
by the writer of this paper
99 B. Galayev, Mikhail Matyushin’s Contribution to Synthetic Art, Leonardo, Vol
38:2, 2005, 153
100 B. Galayev, Mikhail Matyushin’s Contribution to Synthetic Art, Leonardo, Vol
38:2, 2005, 153.
101 N. Zlydneva, Margareta Tilberg, Color Universe: Michael Matyushin about art
and vision. Moscow: New Literary Review, (2008) 166. Translated from Russian
by the writer of this paper.
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of colour in isolation102. These were the theories that underpinned the teaching
of Matyushin and made him so highly respected amongst his peers, principal
amongst them Malevich – who in his 1913 painting of Matyushin (appendix 8)
created a vision of Matyushin in cubo-futurist idiom.

Figure 3Matyushin - Colour Plates of Reference Book on Colour, Moscow, 1932

The above plate is taken directly from the Reference Book on Colour and it shows
that Matyushin, along with Boris, Maria and Xenia Ender, solved the complicated
special relationships between colours, it provides balance on the painting
surface; a volume and expression that allows a ‘radiance and colour perception
of nature103.’

The result of these experiments and teaching can be seen in the work of Maria
Ender (appendix 14), the balance of tone and colour resonating of the school of
Matyushin and the desire to explore the organic in art.

2.3 Malevich’s School

“For the artist reason is a form of imprisonment104.”

102 R.B. Elder, Harmony and Dissent: Film and Avant Garde Movements in the
Early Twentieth Century (Toronto, Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2008) 424.
103 A Povelikhina, ‘Matyushin,’ wortemot – art Journal Online,
http://wortemot.livejournal.com/48161.html?thread=172065 [access
September 2016]
104 G. Souter, Malevich (New York, Parkstone International, 2012) 107.
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For Malevich there was a fascination in the historicity of vision, seeing vision not
simply as a product of biology – but also of culture 105 Malevich, post revolution,
first taught at Vitebsk Practical Art School in Belarus from 1919-1922, and then
at INHUK from 1922-1927. His school of thought centred on Suprematist
theories, outlined in his book: ‘The World as Non-Objectivity,’ published in 1926.
For the pedagogy of Malevich you turn to the thirteen articles published in the
Ukraine during 1928-1930 by the Kharkiv avant-garde journal Nova Generatsiia
(New Generation)106. These works constitute the body of his pedagogy, and
within his department the department divided into two categories: production
and pedagogy107. This division, especially in regard to the ‘production’ element of
the department has been thought to remove – if only in appearance – the
subjectiveness in practical teaching, the authority of the instructor was
transferred to an outer individual plane108. Malevich intended to orient his
department very much toward production (contrasting to the heavily theoretical
and experimental Matyushin classes), and he sought to work within textiles and
production109. The Appendix 17 picture of his 1919 Textile pattern shows the
growing interest Malevich had in textiles, the repeating patterns and use of
colour pre-empting the developments in textile art in coming decades.

There were clear connections between Malevich and Matyushin, and much
mutual respect between the two, seen by Malevich’s 1913 painting of Matyushin,
previously noted. Suprematism, much more attached to Malevich than
Matyushin, connected closely to the ideas of the time in regard to abstract art.

105 R.B Elder, Harmony and Dissent, 424.

106 I.R Makaryk & V. Tkacz, Modernism in Kiev, (Toronto: University of Toronto,
2010) 195.
107 C. Douglas & C. Lodder, Rethinking Malevich: proceedings of a conference in
celebration of the 125th anniversary of Kazimir Malevich’s Birth, (London, Pindar
Press, 2007).
108 E.N. Petrova & E.V. Basner, In Malevich’s Circle: confederates, Students &
Followers in Russia 1920’s-1950’s, (Palace Editions, 2000).
109 C. Douglas & C. Lodder, Rethinking Malevich: proceedings of a conference in
celebration of the 125th anniversary of Kazimir Malevich’s Birth, (London, Pindar
Press, 2007)
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Malevich was interested in the fourth dimension, but much more interested in
the power of icons and folk art110.

The pedagogy of Malevich was concerned with the experimentation of language

in abstract form – seeking to ‘isolate art’s barest essentials 111.’ Therefore the
school of Malevich sought to produce the most austere abstractions, bordering
on the mystical. Perhaps more than any of his work, this is most seen in ‘Black
Square’ (appendix 9), the first time (probably) that someone made a painting
that wasn’t of anything at all112. Malevich himself in “the World of Non-
Objectivity” wrote:
‘In the year 1913, trying desperately to free art from the dead weight of the real
world, I took refuge in the form of the square113.’
Malevich told his class that the painting came when he watched from the window
and saw a black knapsack on a boy who was walking past in the blinding white
snow, and from this came ‘black square114.’
The painting is very significant115 and connects Malevich with Matyushin (in his
capacity as musician) and the poet Aleksei Kruchenykh. As noted in the previous
chapter, the three collaborated together in order to bring out a manifesto
rejecting rational thought and along with Khlebnikov they all staged the opera
Victory over the Sun116. This significant combination of thought from some of the
leading abstract thinkers of the day used a new language of sound from
110 E.N. Petrova & E.V. Basner, In Malevich’s Circle: confederates, Students &
Followers in Russia 1920’s-1950’s, (Palace Editions, 2000).
111 The Art Story: Modern Art Insight: Suprematism,
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-constructivism.htm [accessed
September 2016]
112 S. Holtham & F. Moran, Five Ways to Look at Malevich’s Black Square, The
Tate Online (28th August 2014),
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/five-ways-look-Malevich-
Black-Square [accessed September 2016]
113 S. Holtham & F. Moran, Five Ways to Look at Malevich’s Black Square, citing
Malevich 1926.
114 K.Malevich, ‘Painting and the Problem of Architecture’, Nova Generatsiya, no
2, 1928; in T.Andersen (ed), K.Malevich: Esays on Art 1915- 1933, vol 2, pp 7-8.
115 S Holtham and F Moran consider that the painting was actually completed in
1915, but dated 1913 by Malevich in order to create his legacy as the father of
abstraction.
116 Written in the Summer of 1913 whilst all three were at Matyushin’s Summer
residence in Finland.
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Kruchenykh called ‘zaum’ in which the sound was unrelated to the meaning. In
consequence:
“Malevich, infused with the spirit of his friends linguistic experiments, invented at
breath taking speed a new painterly language made up solely from shapes and
colours117.”

It is this new language that was called suprematism. Given that ‘Black Square’
was created at a time of real turmoil in the world, the simple image seemingly
runs opposite to the collapse the rest of the world was suffering.

Within the teaching circle of Malevich there was also the use of colour charts.
These charts looked to ‘structure colour into a special chart establishing laws of
tinting, brightness, colourness and extinction118.” In the school of Malevich the
tinting of colours were a key; Matyushin (as noted previously) was more
involved with the exclusivity of a colour, in which all were primary.

In ‘An Englishman in Moscow (2014) (Appendix 10) ‘ is a collage of identifiable

items, all there for the discourse of the viewer, who is led almost as if through a
map to the items. Malevich used cubism and futurism to create a true abstract
form, and in combination with Matyushin, both artists and teachers created
round them a group of followers to work with them in their experiments.

2.4 Conclusion

117 S. Holtham & F. Moran, Five Ways to Look at Malevich’s Black Square, citing
Achim Borchardt-Hume.
118 E. Petrova & E.Basner, In Malevich’s Circle: Confederates, Students &
Followers in Russia 1920’s-1950’s, (London, Palace Editions, 2000) 116.
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Chapter Three

The third chapter will concentrate on metaphysical comprehension and observation of

nature by members of the workshop, on employed principles of  ‘Expanded Viewing’
adopted by Matyushin and, most importantly, on formation of color and vision ideas.
COMPARISONS WITH ANOTHER IMPORTANT EUROPEAN COLOR AND VISION
IDEAS IN ART, OR AT LEAST LINKS TO THEM. THIS IS REAAAAALLY IMPORTANT. 

situate Matyushin more firmly in the context of cubism and futurism,

especially as he had translated Gleizes and Metzinger, and was
concerned with theories of viewing, which were also prominent topics for
futurists and cubists. It was important to retain the differences between
Matyushin and these other theories, so this is not a call to turn him into a
cubist or a futurist, but rather to position him in relation to them».

Appendix of Art Referred to directly in the Paper.

1) Kazimir Malevich, Dynamic Suprematism No 57, 1916. Museum Ludwig,

Cologne. Photo Britta Schlier, Source RBA
http://www.design-is-fine.org/post/131832405017/kazimir-malevich-
dynamic-suprematism-no-57-1916

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2) Matyushin, ‘geometrizatsiya prostranstva’ (1919)

Source: Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/124904589641280085/

3) M. Matyushin, A Gate, 1906, oil on canvas, 44x32 cm, private coll.

(Source: Mikhail Matyushin, An Artist’s Creative Path. Autobiography)

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4) M. Matyushin, Non Objectivity Crystallization in Space. 1915, (Source:

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/209628557631954083/ )

5) M. Matyushin, Movement in Space, 1917, (Sourse: Russian Gallery,

http://russianartgallery.org/famous/matyushin_movement.htm )

6) Mikhail Matyushin, Landscape from Different Point of View. Siverskaya. 1924.

Oil on canvas. Private Collection.

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7) Mikhail Matyushin, 1917, Self Portrait, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam,

Khardzhiev Foundation.

7b) M. Matyushin, A Sketch to Self Portrait: Crystal, 1914-1919, chalk on paper,

State Russian Museum
M. Matyushin, to Self Portrait: Crystal, 1914-1919, oil on canvas, private coll.
(Source: Mikhail Matyushin, An Artist’s Creative Path. Autobiography)

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8) K. Malevich, Portrait of Matyushin, 1913. Pinterest,

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/540643130243947979/

9) K. Malevich, Black Square, 1913.

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

10) K. Malevich, An Englishman in Moscow, 1914,

Stedelijik Museum, Amsterdam

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11) Elena Guro, Sprouts (Composition with Flowers and Plants), 1905-06, oil on
canvas,
71.5 x 142 cm, State Museum for the History of St. Petersburg
(Source: I. Wü nsche, The Organic School of the Russian Avant-Garde)

12) Elena Guro.

Olenenok (Little Deer), between circa 1908 and circa 1909
Source 1111 Journal, Online.

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13) B.Ender, N.Grinberg, K.Malevich, P.Mansurov, O.Matiushina,

M.Ender, M.Matiushin, K.Ender. 1918.

14) Marie Ender (unnamed) circa 1929.

http://wortemot.livejournal.com/48161.html?thread=172065

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15) A study by Maria Ender, (circa 1930-1931)

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/376754325059219023/

16). Matyushin, Dunes: The Baltic Coast, c. 1910, oil on canvas on wood,
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
(Source: I. Wü nsche, The Organic School of the Russian Avant-Garde)

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17) Kazimir Malevich. Textile Pattern. 1919. Watercolor on paper. 35.8 x 27.1 cm.

The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

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