Modern? No Thank You --- Day 14/157 & 157

Walk: SFMOMA, Hood

Distance: 5 miles, 3 gloomy SF summer miles

Konstantin Makovsky, The Russian Bride's Attire, 1889 Oil on canvas, 9.16 ' x 12.25'

So, a small group of San Francisco visitors requested a tour of SFMOMA, our modern art museum, and Ciwt was hired for the occasion.  Yesterday was the day, and perhaps you can imagine her surprise when she learned a few minutes into the tour that not one of them knew the first thing about modern art. She changed her presentation and we had fun, but it reminded her that modern is absolutely not for everybody.  

Certainly not 19th century painter Konstantin Makovsky (1839-1913).  Makovsky was the star student at both Russian Imperial academies he attended, but dropped out without a diploma when he was forced to paint styles and subject matter that didn't feature the historical greatness of Russia.  Instead he founded the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions that was exclusively dedicated to  and preceisely rendered Russian subject matter.

The enormous The Russian Bride's Attire at the Legion of Honor here is a marvelous example of his work from then on.  On any given day you can count on a number of visitors standing before it  transfixed by its cornucopia of rich visual sensatons. 

It's the third in a series of  partly historical, partly imaginative recreations of a well-known incident from the early Romanov dynasty: the taking of a bride by Czar Alexis I.  In short, when it was time for 18 year old Alexis to marry he was given six beautiful girls to choose from and chose Eufemia, someone other than the bride in this painting. Almost immediately his first choice displayed symptoms that raised fears of epilepsy which would have made her an unsuitable czarina, and she and her father were banished to Siberia. Alexis was then persuaded to marry Maria, the bride in this painting . The 'persuader' was one of Alexis's advisors who was 1. having an affair with Maria’s sister, 2. the enemy of Eufemia’s father and 3. is suspected of possibly poisoning her. (Hmmm!) 

In this life-size painting we see young Maria whose future has been chosen for her, dressed in white and looking pale with a girl, probably her sister at her feet. The richly colorful outfits, elaborately carved boxes and furniture, grand carpet give a warm, festive first impression.  But, spending more time with the paining, the moods portrayed become enigmatic, ranging from shyness, reluctance, sadness, glumness or even depression. Makovsky tended to be vague in all his paintings of facial expressions, but happiness, merriment, excitement are certainly absent here.

So how did Makovsky's refusal to 'go modern' work out for him?  Well, he turned out to be richly rewarded for his single-minded dedication to the very French academic tradition Parisian art students were finding increasingly stifling. He became one of the most avidly collected and highly paid Russian artists of his time. This until his death when- ironically - his traditionally horse-drawn carriage was hit by a modern electric tram.