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Lot Essay
Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné (1888-1944) embodied the spirit of invention and creativity, deserving the title 'un genie multiple' given to him by J. C. Marcadé.
Born in the village of Bolshaia Lepatikha in Southern Russia, Baranov-Rossiné attended the Odessa Academy of Art (1903-1908) before studying alongside such seminal Russian artists as Larionov, Goncharova and Burliuk at the St. Petersburg Academy (1908-9). In the same emigratory 'wave' as Nathan Altman and Ivan Pougni, Baranov-Rossiné left for Paris in 1910, discarding his Ukrainian birth-name of Shulim Wolf Baranov in favour of the pseudonym Daniel Rossiné. This self-transformation was later completed thorough the amalgamation of both his French and provincial Russian backgrounds when he adopted the surname Baranov-Rossiné. This merge of identities was not restricted to name alone; the fusion of East with West, Russian with European, left a distinctive imprint on his oeuvre.
Although he was mainly trained in Russia, Baranov-Rossiné, like his contemporaries Kandinsky and Chagall, is stylistically considered a European rather than a Russian artist; as such he is well represented in a number of the world's most important public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. It was in the period 1910-15 that Baranov-Rossiné worked most closely with the école de Paris, notably Chagall, Delaunay, Archipenko and Zadkine. His works encompass artistic tendencies that range from French and German Schools to those of Russian decorative art. In this sense, the fluidity of Baranov-Rossiné's work, including painting, pictorial reliefs and sculpture, makes him difficult to define. As Gleb Pospelov observed, '[Baranov-Rossiné] was able to familiarize himself not only with newly emerging styles, but also with the individual approaches of various artists, from Cézanne and Léger through to Delaunay and Picasso.' (Exhibition catalogue; Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné,
Trefoil, Moscow, 2002, p. 8).
The present still life shares many stylistic features with other works from Bara nov-Rossiné's first French period (1910-14), a prolific formative phase in the artist's development. A similar still life from 1911 was sold at auction last year in New York ($1,184,000). The chair is a traditional motif in modern art, the most obvious point of reference in this case being Van Gogh's 'Gauguin's Chair' (1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) (fig. 1). Empty chairs are often seen as the personification of the people who own them, and in Van Gogh's work the French novels and candle appear to symbolise the spirit and intellect of the absent sitter, the artist Paul Gauguin. By contrast, Baranov-Rossiné depicts his chair with a single candle as if emphasising that the creativity of the artist is paramount and above all academic learning. The chromatism and stylisation of Baranov-Rossiné's still life is also highly individual; the graduated colour of each fanned arc gives depth to the surface pattern and contrasts with the linear representation of the chair. The result is a vibrant composition which anticipates Baranov-Rossiné's later progression towards finding a synthesis of colour, movement and music. Probably the most important component of this synthesis was colour, the mastery of which Baranov-Rossiné believed was the key to creating a dynamic composition as he explained in 1916, '...Any colour, being it white, black or red can, nevertheless, be transformed by its relationship with the neighbouring colour. If you know paints, you have to predict their alteration. As you can see, I have divided my palette into various colour sections - green, blue lilac, red, orange, black, brown and white. By this means, I am able to obtain what I want.' (J. C. Marcadé, 'Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné - Inventor', Baranov-Rossiné, Tretyakov Gallery, 2002, p. 6).
Born in the village of Bolshaia Lepatikha in Southern Russia, Baranov-Rossiné attended the Odessa Academy of Art (1903-1908) before studying alongside such seminal Russian artists as Larionov, Goncharova and Burliuk at the St. Petersburg Academy (1908-9). In the same emigratory 'wave' as Nathan Altman and Ivan Pougni, Baranov-Rossiné left for Paris in 1910, discarding his Ukrainian birth-name of Shulim Wolf Baranov in favour of the pseudonym Daniel Rossiné. This self-transformation was later completed thorough the amalgamation of both his French and provincial Russian backgrounds when he adopted the surname Baranov-Rossiné. This merge of identities was not restricted to name alone; the fusion of East with West, Russian with European, left a distinctive imprint on his oeuvre.
Although he was mainly trained in Russia, Baranov-Rossiné, like his contemporaries Kandinsky and Chagall, is stylistically considered a European rather than a Russian artist; as such he is well represented in a number of the world's most important public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. It was in the period 1910-15 that Baranov-Rossiné worked most closely with the école de Paris, notably Chagall, Delaunay, Archipenko and Zadkine. His works encompass artistic tendencies that range from French and German Schools to those of Russian decorative art. In this sense, the fluidity of Baranov-Rossiné's work, including painting, pictorial reliefs and sculpture, makes him difficult to define. As Gleb Pospelov observed, '[Baranov-Rossiné] was able to familiarize himself not only with newly emerging styles, but also with the individual approaches of various artists, from Cézanne and Léger through to Delaunay and Picasso.' (Exhibition catalogue; Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné,
Trefoil, Moscow, 2002, p. 8).
The present still life shares many stylistic features with other works from Bara nov-Rossiné's first French period (1910-14), a prolific formative phase in the artist's development. A similar still life from 1911 was sold at auction last year in New York ($1,184,000). The chair is a traditional motif in modern art, the most obvious point of reference in this case being Van Gogh's 'Gauguin's Chair' (1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) (fig. 1). Empty chairs are often seen as the personification of the people who own them, and in Van Gogh's work the French novels and candle appear to symbolise the spirit and intellect of the absent sitter, the artist Paul Gauguin. By contrast, Baranov-Rossiné depicts his chair with a single candle as if emphasising that the creativity of the artist is paramount and above all academic learning. The chromatism and stylisation of Baranov-Rossiné's still life is also highly individual; the graduated colour of each fanned arc gives depth to the surface pattern and contrasts with the linear representation of the chair. The result is a vibrant composition which anticipates Baranov-Rossiné's later progression towards finding a synthesis of colour, movement and music. Probably the most important component of this synthesis was colour, the mastery of which Baranov-Rossiné believed was the key to creating a dynamic composition as he explained in 1916, '...Any colour, being it white, black or red can, nevertheless, be transformed by its relationship with the neighbouring colour. If you know paints, you have to predict their alteration. As you can see, I have divided my palette into various colour sections - green, blue lilac, red, orange, black, brown and white. By this means, I am able to obtain what I want.' (J. C. Marcadé, 'Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné - Inventor', Baranov-Rossiné, Tretyakov Gallery, 2002, p. 6).