Danila Vassilieff
Vassilieff: Journey to Mildura
22 November – 13 April 2014
Mildura Arts Centre Regional Gallery
Guest curator Felicity St John Moore Danila Vassilieff: A New Art History
21 April – 7 October 2012 Heide Museum of Modern Art
Curators Felicity St John Moore and Kendrah Morgan
Danila Vassilieff
Soap Box Derby 1938
oil on plywood 39.3 x 49.9 cm © Courtesy of Mimi Fry, Melbourne
This educaJon resource has been produced by Heide Museum of Modern Art for Mildura Arts Centre. ReproducJon and communicaJon is permiLed for educaJonal purposes only. No part of this educaJon resource may be stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmiLed in any form or by any means. ©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 1 of 24
This educaHon kit comprises informaHon and tasks which introduce students to the work of arHst Danila Vassilieff. You may have seen this exhibiHon at Heide Museum of Modern Art or more recently at Mildura Arts Centre Regional Gallery. Different artworks were shown at each of the galleries which is why some works in this educaHon kit may not be seen at the gallery you visited. Most important learning aims
This resource aims to develop students’ knowledge, understanding and skills to develop:
• confidence, curiosity, imaginaHon and enjoyment to develop a personal voice through engagement with visual arts-­‐making and ways of communicaHng visually
• visual arts knowledge, understanding, skills, inquiry processes and criHcal and creaHve thinking to shape ideas and apply visual arts techniques, languages, materials, processes and technologies
• understanding of visual arts in human experience, applying skills of criHcal analysis, evaluaHon and aestheHc understanding
• respect for and knowledge of the diverse roles, tradiHons, histories and cultures of visual arts and arHsts, and visual arts as a field of pracHce and understanding, as they become criHcal and innovaHve arHsts and audiences.
General capabiliBes addressed in resources
•Literacy: Students understand and use the language of the different art forms to describe, appraise and document their own artworks and those of their peers, and to respond to works. They use their literacy skills to access knowledge; make meaning; express thoughts, emoHons and ideas; interact with others and parHcipate in a range of communicaHon acHviHes.
•CriBcal and creaBve thinking: Students generate and analyse art forms, consider possibiliHes and processes, and make choices that assist them to express their ideas, thoughts and feelings creaHvely. In responding to art, students learn to analyse and idenHfy possible meanings and connecHons with self and community, and offer and receive effecHve feedback.
•Personal and social capability: When working with others, students develop and pracHse social skills that assist them to communicate effecHvely, work collaboraHvely and make considered group decisions.
•Ethical behaviour: Students acHvely engage in ethical decision making when reflecHng on their own and others’ artworks. Links to other learning area: English
• Language for social interacBons: How language is used for different formal and informal social interacHons is influenced
• EvaluaBve language: How language is used to express opinions, and make evaluaHve judgments about people, places, things and texts
• Listening and speaking interacBons: The purposes and contexts through which students engage in listening and speaking interacHons
• Listening and speaking interacBons: The skills students use when engaging in listening and speaking interacHons
• Oral presentaBons: The formal oral presentaHons that students engage in including presenHng recounts and informaHon, and presenHng and arguing a point of view
• HandwriBng: Developing a fluent, legible handwriHng style, beginning with unjoined le]ers and moving to joined handwriHng
SuggesBons for assessment and reflecBon
The following acHviHes provide suggesHons that can be developed into assessment and reflecHon tasks for formaHve and summaHve assessments.
•FormaHve assessment tasks (during a project) include responses to key quesHons in the Student AcHvity Sheets, art work in progress, and parHcipaHon in discussion.
•SummaHve assessment tasks (end of project) include producHon and display of one-­‐word concrete poem, self-­‐evaluaHon, and peer evaluaHon.
•ReflecHon methods (individual or group) include parHcipaHon in small group or class discussion, viewing and responding to key quesHons at the end of each acHvity, responding to their own and others’ artwork.
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Danilla Vassilieff: The exhibiBons
Russian émigré arHst Danila Ivanovich Vassilieff (1897-­‐1958), was one of the most dynamic figures in the development of figuraHve expressionism in Australian art. His direct approach and earthy humanism influenced a generaHon of rebellious young Melbourne painters in the late 1930s and 1940s who became known collecHvely as the Angry Penguins and were major players in the rise of local modernism
—Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and John Perceval. Yet for many years ager Vassilieff’s death in 1958, writers, curators and collectors ogen overlooked his work, and his role as a ‘father’ figure for this group remained under-­‐acknowledged. These exhibiHons seek to redress the balance and offer an opportunity for a re-­‐evaluaHon of the work and impact of this fascinaHng arHst. They present the finest of Vassilieff’s achievements, spanning the period immediately preceding his arrival in Australia in 1935 through to the 1950s. Comprising key painHngs from the mid-­‐1930s to mid-­‐1940s, a major representation of sculpture and a selection of works on paper, they demonstrate the calibre of Vassilieff’s work to a new generation of viewers and students. The Mildura exhibition focuses on Vassilieff’s time in the Sunraysia and Swan Hill districts, including his time teaching art at Mildura High School. Both displays are supported by substantial archival material from a recent important donation to the Heide Museum of Modern Art Archive. The centrepiece of the Heide exhibiHon was the remarkable Expulsion from Paradise screen (1940, NGA collecHon). Shown with a study for Sidney Nolan’s Kelly series painting Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly (1946), the screen helps to elucidate Felicity St John Moore’s thesis that Vassilieff’s work was a crucial trigger for Nolan’s Kelly suite. The screen and other works also highlight Vassilieff’s role in redirecHng modern Australian art toward the expressive figuraHve tradiHon of Russian folk art and the arHsHc accomplishments of designers for the Ballets Russes. Danilla Vassilieff: A life well lived
The story of how Vassilieff came to make his career in Australia reads like a script for an epic feature film. Set across several conHnents and featuring a changing cast of colourful characters, it is interwoven with grand themes: war, survival, adventure, love, betrayal, loss and above all, an innate drive to create. The tale begins in Kagalnitskaya, a small village in South Russia, where Vassilieff was born to a Cossack father and Ukrainian mother. He demonstrated enough potenHal as a young man for his parents to send him to a military academy in St Petersburg, where he trained as an engineer. Caught up in the Russian revoluHon of 1917 and ensuing civil war, he joined the Cossack cavalry and served on the Eastern Front, a]aining the rank of lieutenant colonel before being caught by the Reds at Baku, on the Caspian Sea. Ager a daring escape, he slowly made his way to China, living for a Hme with Tartar horsemen in Armenia, learning English in the employ of an Anglo-­‐Persian oil company, and travelling by train through India and Burma.
Arriving in Shanghai in 1923 he married a fellow refugee, Anisia Nicolaevna and the couple made their way to Australia where they bought a sugar cane farm in Queensland. Later, while working on the railway extension in the Northern Territory, Vassilieff began to paint, using a child’s painHng kit.
In 1929, ager the marriage ended, Vassilieff leg Australia to study art in Paris. Finding the City of Light in the throes of depression, he went on to Rio de Janeiro, where he received a formal academic grounding from Russian arHst Dimitri Ismailovitch, a specialist in copies of ByzanHne frescoes and mosaics. Eventually however, Vassilieff rejected the tradiHonal approach, seeking to painHng ‘living life … people in acHon and movement’ rather than inanimate objects. He leg Brazil and several peripateHc years followed in which he travelled through the West Indies, England, Spain and Portugal, painHng street scenes, landscapes and seascapes in a lively post-­‐impressionist manner and exhibiHng at every opportunity.
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In London he befriended Moscow-­‐born Vladimir Polunin, a former scene painter for Sergei Diaghiliev’s Ballets Russes, and a Professor of Scene PainHng at the Slade School of Fine Art. Through this important contact Vassilieff moved in White Russian circles in London and became familiar with Ballets Russes’ producHons, gaining an appreciaHon of his own culture’s decoraHve art tradiHon that was likely enhanced by the ExhibiHon of Russian Art presented in Belgrave Square in 1935. He experimented with synthesising aspects of the Russian icon and folk tradiHons with the simplified forms and vibrant colour of modern art. This conflaHon of tradiHons, which similarly informed the work of early Russian modern art neo-­‐primiHvists such as Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, underpinned Vassilieff’s style henceforth. Danila Vassilieff in Bristol at the age of thirty-­‐four
Photographer unknown
Despite a posiHve recepHon for his work in Europe sales were few, and with his homeland closed to him due to the increasingly repressive Stalinist regime, Vassilieff resolved to return to Australia. His first years back in the AnHpodes marked the peak of his criHcal acclaim. During a period in Sydney he produced an early masterpiece: Street in Surry Hills (Self Portrait in Cathedral Street) (1937), in which he portrays himself wearing his trademark arHst’s beret and gazing confidently out at the viewer. He states his painter’s credenHals through references to the dramaHc mannerist figures and composiHonal devices of old master El Greco, whose expressive images Vassilieff had admired in Toledo, Spain. His applicaHon across the surface of opaque white highlights, derived from El Greco via from the VeneHan Renaissance masters, lend the image a shimmering effect.
Moving to Melbourne in mid-­‐1937 at the height of the debate between the academicians and the ‘moderns’, Vassilieff was welcomed by the younger arHsts as a direct transmi]er of the tenets of European modernism. He lived with his lover Helen Macdonald in the inner, working class suburb of Fitzroy, and the neighbourhood’s vibrant street life provided rich subject ma]er. Sepng his easel up in the streets, he ogen a]racted the a]enHon of the local children, whose anHcs feature in many composiHons, such as Soap Box Derby (1938), Children Playing in Collingwood School (1939) and Street Scene with GraffiF (1938), which also reflect the arHst’s irreverent sense of humour.
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These summarily executed works in many ways exemplify Vassilieff’s credo that the message of an artwork is more important than its aestheHc. He eschewed laborious convenHonal techniques such as preparatory drawing and building layers of paint in favour of a spontaneous approach, freedom of expression and economy of means that emphasised emoHonal response. In some instances the rawness of the images keenly conveys the stark reality of the lives of those depicted, while in others the quickly applied, vibrant brushwork suggests the hecHc energy of urban acHvity. Stonygrad in Warrandyte c. 1941
Photograph by Albert Tucker
On the occasion of his first Melbourne exhibiHon at Riddell’s Gallery Vassilieff met John and Sunday Reed, who became his friends, staunch supporters and collectors of his work. Other early supporters were the progressive educators Clive and Janet Nield, who in 1939, during World War II, opened the Koornong Experimental School in Warrandyte, then in Melbourne’s outer reaches. The Nields employed Vassilieff as the foundaHon art teacher and Helen to teach music. With the prospect of a se]led life at last, Vassilieff decided to build a house across the creek from the school. He quarried the hillside for stone and constructed the dwelling with his own hands. Stonygrad, as it became known, was a focal point for the young arHsts associated with the Reeds and Heide, where they absorbed Vassilieff’s ideas on recording subjecHve experience and loosening their techniques.
In 1944 Vassilieff’s relaHonship with Helen ended, leaving him devastated. Koornong closed in 1946 and he decided to sell Stonygrad and use the proceeds to leave Australia and follow friends to South Africa. By a twist of fate he fell in love with the woman who purchased his house, Elizabeth Hamill, and with her encouragement took a new direcHon, turning his hand to sculpture. Inspired by his knowledge of Russian folk carving and familiarity with the work of European modern masters such as Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-­‐Brzeska, known to him from London, he began to carve in local Lilydale marble. He quarried the limestone himself, basing his selecHon on colour and texture, and uHlised his engineering skills and experHse with hand and power tools to create some of the most remarkable pieces in the history of Australia sculpture. Semi-­‐abstracted figures, these works, like his painHngs, ogen have a saHrical or playful edge. The apex of his achievement in the discipline is represented by Stenka Razin (1953), a portrayal of the seventeenth-­‐century Cossack folk hero who, not unlike Ned Kelly in Australia, led a peasant rebellion and was executed, but not before famously tossing his princess into the Volga River. Vassilieff’s double-­‐sided portrait of Razin embodies the contradictory aspects—leader and liberHne—of his character.
Vassilieff became estranged from Elizabeth and spent his last years teaching at high schools in Mildura, Swan Hill and Eltham, and fishing on the Murray River. The disparate and restless imagery of his late work reflects the fragmentaHon of his semi-­‐iHnerant lifestyle and his wi]y, someHmes scathing, observaHons of provincial society. He never returned to Russia. In March 1958, on a visit to Heide, he died of heart failure in John Reed’s arms. ©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 5 of 24
And Vassilieff the man? He was a rich and sombre presence who carried with him the odour of ByzanJum and Caucasian Steppes. In his life he expressed the full pathos and loneliness, the violence and tragedy of our human condiJon… he was an ikon in the bush, a giX, a mystery that informed us all.
From Albert Tucker, A Tribute to Danila Vassilieff, 1959
Kendrah Morgan
Curator, Heide Museum of Modern Art
The painBngs Danila Vassilieff
Truth Woolloomooloo 1936
oil on canvas on board
56 x 50cm
Courtesy Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
In this painHng the Truth newspaper lies in the gu]er as an obvious clue to the meaning of the Htle. Vassilieff always insisted that the message ma]ered more than the aestheHc. The noHon of ‘truth’, or ‘reality’, is reiterated in the direct and summary manner of the picture’s execuHon: raw strokes of colour quickly applied. Vassilieff would set up his easel on the pavement, no doubt a]racHng the curiosity of the children and dogs whose presence here adds to the convincing impression of real life on the streets. The exact locaHon has been idenHfied as the intersecHon of Li]le Riley and Reservoir Streets, Woolloomooloo. •
TASK
•
•
©Heide MoMA 2014 Give a short explanaHon of the following terms in relaHon to Truth Woolloomooloo: art elements, historical context, aestheHc qualiHes, subject ma]er, and style. Explain the ways in which Vassilieff has used materials and processes to make Truth Woolloomooloo.
Discuss how aestheHc qualiHes contribute to the style of the painHng. EducaHonal use only Page 6 of 24
Danila Vassilieff
Street in Surry Hills (Self-­‐Portrait in Cathedral Street) 1937
oil on hessian on composiHon board
118 x 88cm
Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales Purchased 1982
Vassilieff marked his arrival in Sydney with this emblemaHc self-­‐portrait in arHst uniform beret—a kind of manifesto. The symbolic locaHon of the image in Cathedral Street (not far from his studio in Bourke Street, Woolloomooloo), reflects his view of art as a means of spiritual regeneraHon. Vassilieff had assimilated the Russian expressionist aestheHc, whereby the arHst strives to transcend the commonplace through the intensity of his own expression. The figure grouping, which includes a mother and child on the arHst’s right and a turning youth on his leg, invokes the intersecHon between the eternal and the real. The figures are borrowed from El Greco—the old master who blended the ByzanHne icon tradiHon with a new freedom of execuHon—whose art Vassilieff had admired in Toledo, Spain, in 1934.
TASK
Making art
Make a quick storyboard with 5 postcard size images of a significant or interesHng event in your life.
Select the most interesHng image to develop into a larger painHng. Think about the colour pale]e used by Vassilieff and choose colours that best represent the mood and your memories of the event. Create a larger painHng on good quality water colour paper. Use lots of large gestural brushstrokes. Work quickly and don’t overwork anything. Allow to dry and display your finished painHng. ©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 7 of 24
Danila Vassilieff
Valerie and BeNy 1937
oil on plywood
45 x 53.6cm
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Purchased from John and Sunday Reed 1980
Vassilieff had a natural affinity with children. The animated outlines and awkward figures of these girls link them to their surroundings, as do the earthy tones used for their clothing. Hands tucked behind their backs, shoes cropped by the bo]om edge and their long legs growing out of short skirts, they present themselves up close to the arHst, eager to be painted. Through his economy of means—
exposing the white ground below the rapid-­‐fire brushstrokes—Vassilieff evokes the insecurity and deprivaHon of inner-­‐Melbourne’s working class.
Studio producBon and professional art pracBces •
•
TASK
•
•
How do the artworks reflect the interpretaHon of subject ma]er?
What are the ideas evident in the work and how have they been communicated through materials and techniques?
Discuss the aestheHc qualiHes of Valerie and BeNy and Street in Surry Hills (Self-­‐
Portrait in Cathedral Street).
How do visual art elements such as line, colour and texture alongside principles of contrast and focal point interplay with materials and techniques to communicate meaning?
Personal reflecBon to support the individual design process
• Throughout your design process, how have you explored materials, developed and refined techniques to effecHvely communicate individual ideas within your individual design process?
• How have you developed the subject ma]er you have selected to explore?
• What are the conceptual ideas that are evolving in your design process and how can they be developed aestheHcally to support meaning idenHfied in your exploraHon proposal?
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Danila Vassilieff
Street Scene with GraffiF 1938
oil on plywood
45.5 x 61.1cm Private collecHon, Melbourne
Vassilieff enjoyed the spontaneity of graffiH in the streets and laneways of Fitzroy, regarding it as part of the everyday life of the locale. Here the crude humour of the scrawled text and imagery is accentuated by its actual physical locaHon on the back walls of neighbourhood dunnies. Vassilieff’s expressionist aestheHc reflected the humanist, popular neo-­‐primiHvism of leading Russian arHsts such as Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova.
Danila Vassilieff
You Yang Mountains 1938
oil on canvas
49 x 54.5cm
Dame Elisabeth Murdoch
The ancient contours of the You Yang Mountains reminded Vassilieff of the post-­‐impressionist landscapes of French master Paul Cézanne. Here the pyramidal form rises, as in Cézanne’s celebrated depicHons of Mont Sainte-­‐Victoire, above the sparsely wooded foothills and organic shapes of the rocky outcrops. Yet the quick brushstrokes and energeHc swirls lend a fleeHng and fugiHve quality to the scene, and the presence of Vassilieff’s friends, their A-­‐model Ford and the occasional animal or bird, accentuates the temporary rather than the Hmeless. The You Yangs landscapes were exhibited in Geelong when the arHst was staying with teachers Clive and Janet Nield at Geelong Grammar School in 1938. TASK
Ideas and styles in artworks • Compare and contrast ways art and design elements have been used to produce aestheHc qualiHes and communicate ideas in artworks by Danila Vassilieff and Paul Cézanne. • Evaluate how art elements have been used to create a disHncHve style or aestheHc quality to communicate ideas. What does Cézanne’s painHngs of Mont Sainte-­‐
Victoire have in common or is different to Vassilieff’s You Yang Mountains?
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Danila Vassilieff
Peter Macdonald 1938
oil and pencil on canvas
56.6 x 50cm
NaHonal Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gig of Helen Klausner 1985
TASK
RelaBonships between the arBst and their subject
Consider the angle or posiHon we are viewing the subject of this artwork from. How has the arHst decided to present the figure? • Look at the objects around the figure. What do these clues in the painHng tell us about the subject? • Speculate a guess as to the nature of the relaHonship between the figure in the painHng and the arHst. The si]er for this portrait was the brother of Helen Macdonald, the arHst’s de facto wife. Peter introduced his musician sister to Vassilieff when the two men were working together as engineers on the Woronora Dam, south of Sydney in 1936. Peter later lent Helen the money to buy the land at Warrandyte on which Vassilieff would build their stone house. In this tenderly rendered image, Peter is seen as a centre of life, nurture and stability. TASK
CharacterisHcs of Vassilieff’s art works include:
• Spontaneity
• Vibrant colours
• Expressive, vigorous brushstrokes
• Figures distorted features
• Denial of tradiHonal illusionism – one point perspecHve
• Feeling of uncertainty and anxiety
• Sense of instability and imaginaHon
Can you idenHfy these qualiHes in the painHngs and sculptures? Choose two Vassilieff artworks that make the use of these characterisHcs. Briefly describe how these characterisHcs apply. ©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 10 of 24
Danila Vassilieff
The Expulsion from Paradise 1940
tempera on co]on four panels screen
(approx.) 167 x 321.4cm
NaHonal Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1984
This decoraHve screen was commissioned by Warrandyte art collector Connie Smith and her husband Alec. Vassilieff painted it when the Russian Ballet toured Australia in 1940, and its imagery conflates the biblical story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden with the ballet tale of Petrouschka, a puppet clown that comes to life. The expelling archangel with the flaming torch in the third panel is modelled on the decoraHve figure of the Blackamoor, complete with Turkish slippers, in Alexandre Benois’ set design for the Moor’s Room in the Ballets Russes’ producHon of Petrouschka. The stage-­‐
costumed figure of God the Father, enthroned in the right panel, doubles as the charlatan Showman, whose magic controls the puppet.
Vassilieff’s crude and mildly irreverent approach to religious themes had a profound impact on younger arHsts who admired him. It liberated the ferHle imaginaHons of, for example, Arthur Boyd and John Perceval, who went on to draw and paint their own idiosyncraHc versions of biblical subjects
For Sidney Nolan, Vassilieff’s work was parHcularly important. In late 1946 Nolan stayed at Stonygrad for several weeks and had access to further, decoraHve ballet scenes on the back of the Expulsion screen that Vassilieff had added later, which is upside down. It has only been in recent years that the compelling link between these composiHons and Nolan’s famous Kelly series has become evident. TASK
How does one arHst influence the work of another? Look at painHngs made by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan very carefully. For example Boyd’s The expulsion (1947-­‐48) and Nolan’s Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly (1946). Describe the similariHes between them. Refer to the elements; colour, line, tone, texture, space, value, Hme, and the principles; repeHHon, direcHon, rhythm, contrast, variety, emphasis, proporHon, balance, harmony, movement, unity, proporHon, perspecHve and juxtaposiHon. Compare the differences that make each arHst unique in their own right. Can you think of any contemporary arHsts working today whose work is also similar? Describe the visual similariHes you see. Is the subject ma]er also similar?
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Danila Vassilieff
Koornong Donkey 1941
oil on plywood
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Bequest of Marjorie Chamberlain 2002
TASK
Colour vocabulary
Think about your overall impression of the colours used in this painHng; how they look and make you feel? How the colours work together (or not)? How they fit with the subject of the painHng? How the arHst has mixed these (or not)? Are there any specific colours you can idenHfy? List them in your visual journal. Consider the words below to use in describing how you would talk about the use of colour in Koornong Donkey. Write a brief paragraph to describe how Vassilieff has used colour.
• Natural, clear, compaHble, disHncHve, interesHng, lively, sHmulaHng, subtle, sympatheHc, arHficial, clashing, depressing, discordant, garish, gaudy, jarring, unfriendly, violent, bright, brilliant, deep, earthy, harmonious, intense, rich, saturated, strong, vibrant, vivid, dull, flat, insipid, pale, mellow, muted, subdued, quiet, weak, cool, cold, warm, hot, light, dark, blended, broken, mixed, muddled, muddied, pure, complementary, contrasHng, harmonious.
Danila Vassilieff Schoolroom at Koornong 1942
oil on plywood panel
Private collecHon, Melbourne In 1939 Vassilieff was invited to be the foundaHonal art teacher at the experimental Koornong school in Warrandyte. Although he lacked formal training, his laissez-­‐faire approach suited the school’s emphasis on educaHon through experience well. Naturally, the transiHon from an urban to a bush landscape had a direct influence on both the subjects and handling of his work.
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TASK
NoBce and record your emoHonal experience or how you feel as you view Vassilieff’s artworks. Make notes as feelings and responses come to mind, for example, bright, fluid, cheery, mean, organic.
• What specific visual elements of each individual artwork contribute to your experience and understanding of the artwork?
• How does the installaHon of the collecHve works impact on the aestheHc qualiHes of Vassilieff’s artwork?
Reflect and Analyse: What are the aestheHc qualiHes that Vassilieff created with his artworks? Refer to your notes to assist your idenHficaHon, drawing upon the materials and specific art elements such as colour, texture and form and principles of contrast to support your discussion.
Danila Vassilieff Interior with Figures 1942
Oil on canvas
45.6 x 39.5cm
Private collecHon, Melbourne
The sepng of this vital and organic interior composiHon is the large drawing room of George Bell’s house in Toorak, Melbourne. George Bell was a modern art teacher and the art criHc for the Sun newspaper, and regarded Vassilieff as a ‘natural’. Vassilieff responded perhaps to Bell’s respect for painHng’s formal values and subjects from contemporary reality in this work, which is also mindful of MaHsse—with the figures carefully arranged in a ‘conversaHon’ of colours, contours and pa]erns. The trio of women includes Helen Macdonald (at the piano), with Bell’s wife and his daughter, Toine]e, holding her anHcipated child. Vassilieff’s inclusion of the child is a play on Bell’s doctrine that the arHst’s task is to go beyond surface effects and look for ‘significant form’.
TASK
Look at how the elements in Interior with Figures are arranged, the underlying structure (shapes) and relaHonships between the different parts. Think about how your eye moves around the composiHon. • Draw the movement of your eyes on a small piece of paper, the same size. • Compare your line drawing with your classmates. Is it the same or different? Consider how and why the arHst has directed our gaze to certain elements within the painHng. ©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 13 of 24
Danila Vassilieff
Mildura Wedding 1954
oil on composiHon board
91 x 122 cm
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Purchased from John and Sunday Reed 1980
An ambiHous allegory of the eternal ba]le between the sexes, Mildura Wedding was intended to make a splash at the annual exhibiHon of the revived Contemporary Art Society in 1953. In the foreground, the arHficial culture of Mildura is almost jammed against the picture plane. The figures of the bride and groom have mismatched features and resemble a pair of poker machines, with lever-­‐like arms and rows of bu]ons or openings that reveal their respecHve choices: women and gambling for him; parHes and a future child for her. In the lower leg, the line of red bu]ons suggests trouble ahead; while on the right, the picture-­‐book sepng of the Murray River is idenHfied by the presence of the local paddle-­‐steamer, Avoca. The Hny image that flanks the central figure—of a male dropping a female figure into the river under a night sky—is a key to memory and legend. It connects the piraHcal figure of a Mildura husband to Vassilieff’s greatest sculpture Stenka Razin (1953), of the Russian bandit and Cossack hero who famously tossed his princess into the Volga River. In this feisty allegory, Vassilieff goes beyond his immediate exile to link myth and reality, painHng and sculpture, the Volga that he misses and the Murray he loves.
TASK
When you are evaluaHng an artwork there are a number of things to consider. Looking at Mildura Wedding (1954) and Valerie and BeNy (1937) write a paragraph on each painHng. Take into account the following things: • Size: Look at the painHng on display in the gallery. (Or get out a tape measure to see to mark out the size to get a sense of how large or small it is. Imagine what it would be like to stand before the work in a gallery.) Describe the size of it in relaHon to you. Does this impact on the viewing experience? • Shape: What shape is the canvas? Is it oriented as a portrait or landscape? Does that bear any relaHonship with the subject ma]er? • Artwork Btle: What is the artwork called? Does this assist you to understand or know what the painHng is about? Might you interpret it differently if it was called something else? For example, ‘UnHtled’.
• Subject ma]er: What is the painHng of? Is it unusual, unexpected, controversial or intriguing? Does it lend itself to comparison to another work by a famous painter? Does the arHst use symbolism to represent other things in the painHng? Do you understand the symbolism in this painHng?
• EmoBonal response: What is the overall mood of the painHng? • Elements and principles: How have the elements and principles of art been applied in this painHng? Describe how the arHst has done so. • Skill: What level of technical skill does the arHst possess? ©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 14 of 24
Danila Vassilieff
At the Swan Hill Show 1956
watercolour and gouache on paper
30.3 x 40.4cm
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne Gig of the Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art and Design of Australia, to the NaHonal Gallery of Victoria 1981. Transferred to Heide Museum of Modern Art by the Council of Trustees of the NaHonal Gallery of Victoria 2005
TASK
RelaBonships between the arBst and their subject
Consider the angle or posiHon we are viewing the subjects of this artwork from. How has the arHst decided to present the figures? How does the painHng technique or style impact on our reading of the painHng? • Look at the objects around the figures. Do these provide the viewer with clues in the painHng that tell us something about the subject? • Speculate a guess as to the nature of the relaHonship between the figures in the painHng and the arHst. Drawing on what you see in the painHng, provide reasons why you think this. The earthy humanism of Vassilieff’s art entered a more anguished and strident phase in his later years. Having leg Stonygrad, which was his creaHon but no longer his property, he taught art at high schools in Mildura and Swan Hill, in northwest Victoria. Facing a society largely insensiHve to arHsHc endeavour, he expressed his scorn for his uncomprehending audience, using wilful distorHon, mutated facial features and blinkered or vacant eyes. He wrote to his estranged wife Elizabeth in 1954 that the school inspectors were not convinced of his effecHveness as a teacher, while he was more concerned about his own aptude: ‘My report was not a happy one, it said that [my] control [is] not good—I don’t know how long I will be kept if I cannot control one or two forms of devils.’ This delighwul arrangement of hats, eyes and nostrils is one of Vassilieff’s more playful observaHons of life in a country town. TASK
Applying paint
ArHsts make many choices when creaHng a painHng. SomeHmes you may not be able to see any details of the brushwork or mark making if if the brush marks have been carefully eliminated by the arHst. You may have noHced that Vassilieff’s painHngs demonstrate different painHng styles, but we are always aware of the textures and marks made by the paintbrush. Look at the following list of words and consider which words best describe Vassilieff’s painHng technique and style. • Visible, impasto. blended, smooth, thick, thin., bold, Hmid, heavy, light, edgy, smooth, glazes, washes, scumbling, dry brush, sHppling, hatching, spla]ered, layered, flat, precise, refined, regular, straight, systemaHc, quick, sketchy, uneven, irregular, vigorous, regularity and pa]erned. In a brief paragraph, describe Vassilieff’s painHng technique. ©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 15 of 24
Danila Vassilieff Cocky and Darling Scene 1957
Gouache on newsprint
30.1 x 40.3cm
Mildura Arts Centre CollecHon
Cocky and Darling Scene and ReflecFon in the Darling are from Vassilieff’s Mildura years. Their mood is more sombre and restless than in earlier painHngs, in keeping with the arHst’s declining health, advancing years and increasing sense of exile from his homeland. Nonetheless they project a sense of freshness due to the fact that they were painted directly onto wet butcher’s paper, with only one chance to get it right. These watercolours are associated directly with Vassilieff’s teaching at Mildura High School where he taught students to paint out of their own experience. He set them to work with large brushes on wet newsprint and also encouraged them to paint with their fingers. He told them that it was be]er to make use of everything they knew and felt, than to simply copy from nature. This humanist approach made for an art that was personal, vital and therefore free, a kind of spontaneous expression that transcended the everyday.
The riverbank watercolours were painted in the last months of Vassilieff’s life when he was living, for the most part alone, in Colin Wilson’s shack at Buronga. The days were spent fishing in the Murray, seeking ‘the big cod’ that had eluded him for years. These nights he spent brushing his thoughts and feelings onto paper by the light of a kerosene lamp on paper from the Sunraysia Daily. He put down the simple events of the day: a white cockatoo returning to the nest under a lowering sky; an eagle a]acking a cockatoo; a cod evading shag; but each event is so felt and understood that it seems to imply a more general truth about the rhythms of life, of creatures and their environment.
TASK
Personal reflecBon to support the individual design process
• How have you explored materials, developed and refined techniques to effecHvely communicate personal ideas within your own design process?
• How might you use found objects or recycled materials to support the communicaHon of your ideas?
• What are the conceptual ideas that are evolving or have evolved in your design process and how can they be developed aestheHcally to support the meanings you want to create?
©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 16 of 24
Danila Vassilieff ReflecFon in the Darling 1958
Gouache on newsprint
29.9 x 40.3cm
Mildura Arts Centre CollecHon
TASK
TASK
Take a long look at the works in the exhibiHon (or this resource). • What emoHonal response does the work evoke in you? What thoughts, ideas and feelings come to mind when you view this work? • How do the materials and techniques employed in this work reinforce any themes raised?
• How does the scale of the work engage you in the subject ma]er?
ExhibiBon reflecBon You may have seen this exhibiHon at Heide Museum of Modern Art or Mildura Arts Centre Regional Gallery. Different artworks were shown at each of the galleries which is why some works in this educaHon kit may not be seen at the gallery you visited. The exhibiHon in Mildura was Htled ‘Vassilieff: Journey to Mildura’ and Heide’s exhibiHon ‘Danila Vassilieff: A New Art History’. • What is the role or purpose of Heide Museum of Modern Art and Mildura Arts Centre? Describe the differences between the two galleries? • How do the exhibiHon Htles at each gallery support the themes and ideas of the artworks represented in the exhibiHon?
• For the exhibiHon you saw, how have the artworks been grouped and presented, and how does this configuraHon support the themes and ideas of the arHst? • How did the organisaHon of the artworks, posiHoning of walls and wall colour, installaHons and display boxes support your navigaHon through the exhibiHon?
• Did the lighHng affect the mood of the viewer, and has this had an impact on how you read and understand the themes in the exhibiHon?
• How have didacHc panels helped you to understand more about the artworks? The arHst? The issues presented by the arHst in the exhibiHon?
• Has your experience of visiHng the exhibiHon impacted your thinking about the themes, issues and ideas presented in the artworks?
©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 17 of 24
The sculptures
In the late 1940s Vassilieff transferred his energies to sculpture, perhaps as a release for the energy previously spent on building Stonygrad. He visited the Thomas Mitchell quarry in Lilydale to obtain blocks of limestone, basing his selecHon on colour, the pictorial potenHal of the form, and durability. His experHse with tools enabled him to carve directly into the limestone without preliminary drawings and he soon progressed to power tools, which were faster and allowed him to respond to the grain of the material. Over a decade Vassilieff produced approximately thirty major sculptures. Variously whimsical, asserHve and saHrical, these expressive carvings are reminiscent of the lively characters and types of folk art. But their tacHlity is unique—a product of their domesHc scale; their relaHonship to the hand; and their smoothly polished surfaces that reveal the depth and intricacy of the mo]led limestone, a marine deposit. An important influence was the raw vitality and simplified forms of the work of French sculptor Henri Gaudier-­‐Brzeska (1891-­‐1915), which Vassilieff had come to know during his years in London. Danila Vassilieff
Boy 1950
Lilydale marble, cream, grey
47.5 x 34 x 23.4cm
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Bequest of John and Sunday Reed
The distorHons and simplified forms of Vassilieff’s sculptures have an affinity with examples of children’s art chosen by psychologists to represent ‘hapHc’ tendencies, where the most emoHonally significant part of the subject is physically exaggerated. This work also exemplifies the rich textural and tonal possibiliHes inherent in the Lilydale limestone, which the arHst polished to reveal the intricate configuraHons of the mo]le and create a sense of movement throughout the figure. Drawing on the folk art tradiHons of his homeland, his structural comprehension as a trained engineer, and his knowledge of modern art antecedents, Vassilieff created sculpture that defies the convenHonal categorisaHon. These pieces reference high and low art sources while reflecHng Vassilieff’s unique vision of the world around him.
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Danila Vassilieff
Mechanical Man 1953
Carved and waxed Lilydale marble
48 x 20 x 24.5cm
NaHonal Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1973
The compressed energy and precision of this carving, Mechanical Man, with its interlocked mechanical and organic forms, suggest that Vassilieff has translated a folk object into the language of modern European art. His stone carvings have affiniHes with the work of the VorHcists, Henri Gaudier-­‐Brzseka and Jacob Epstein, and also with the Russian sculptor Ossip Zadkine, a friend of Vladimir Polunin, set designer for the Russian Ballet. The brilliant finish, essenHal to revealing the pa]ern of the marble, increases the aestheHc appeal of the work.
TASK
InterpretaBon of ideas and use of materials • What is the subject ma]er explored in Boy (1950) and Stenka Razin (1953)?
• How has Danila Vassilieff used materials and techniques to support the communicaHon of these ideas?
• Reflect on Danila Vassilieff’s pracHce and describe how it is reflected in these artworks.
• What is the significance of the materials Vassilieff has used for these sculptures? • How are they different to or an extension of his pracHce as a painter? • Describe the historical influences on Vassilieff in these sculptures. Are the same influences evident in the painHngs? Personal reflecBon on developing Ideas and materials and techniques How have you uHlised the expressive qualiHes of materials and techniques to convey individual ideas in your own artmaking exploraHons?
• Has Danila Vassilieff‘s work inspired any thinking or ideas that you could invesHgate through exploring materials and techniques?
©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 19 of 24
Danila Vassilieff
Stenka Razin 1953
carved and waxed Lilydale limestone 57 x 40 x 13.5cm NaHonal Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1973
TASK
TASK
Back in the classroom the teacher may facilitate a discussion. Students refer to the notes they have taken when viewing the exhibiHon. It is valuable for the group to share their experiences and observaHons as individual student interpretaHons may offer interesHng viewpoints to promote a deeper inquiry. Use the following to begin discussions;
• How have the techniques of sculpture been applied to create parHcular aestheHc qualiHes of Vassilieff’s artworks? • How have Vassilieff’s life experiences influenced the technical aspects of these works? Developing language
• Record a list of words that come to mind as you view the work. For example; bright, sunny, funny, gestural, fleeFng, happy, organic, natural spontaneous. Back in the classroom, teachers may uHlise the students’ recorded lists to support a group discussion that provides a rich resource for individual wri]en task development. Students are invited to remember their experience of the work triggered by the recorded words. Use the words to link to an invesHgaHon. As a group or individually, lists of descripHve words can be developed and organised collecHvely under the following headings. • Materials and techniques
• Ideas and themes
• Techniques and processes
• AestheHc qualiHes. Some words may fall under mulHple categories. This supports students’ understanding that concepts and experiences can be intertwined in the analysis of the work.
InterpretaJve texts about each artwork in this educaJon kit are based upon the exhibiJon labels and wriLen by Felicity St John Moore and Kendrah Morgan. ©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 20 of 24
What makes you Think, Puzzle and Explore! What do you think you Is there a parBcular artwork What quesBons or puzzles know or what have you or aspect of the arBst that do you have about the discovered about the arBst you want to explore or arBst and his artwork?
and about his artwork?
know more about?
Step 1: Work with classmates and find someone who knows an answer to any of the quesBons you have idenBfied. Write the answer in your own words and have your partner sign the sheet in the appropriate space. Offer your fellow student an answer you know to one of their quesHons.
Step 2: Join another pair and swap partners to share new informaHon, perspecHves and viewpoints that answer any of the quesHons on your sheet.
©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 21 of 24
15 card sentences
Teachers: This acFvity enables students to demonstrate their conceptual understanding of Danila Vassilieff’s work and it aims to provide a structure for showing the relaFonship among key concepts evident in this exhibiFon. Cut out the cards below. The student then shuffles the cards and deals them out randomly in three rows of three. The student is then asked to think about, write out or speak a single statement connecHng each group of three words across, down and diagonally, resulHng in eight separate statements demonstraHng the relaHonships between these concepts or terms.
city
children
materials home
nature
experience
war
adventure
sculpture
painBng
love
life
truth
journey
Australia
Students may work in pairs to develop statements, once developed they can then share their statements in groups and collecHvely build paragraphs that address the key knowledge areas;
• discuss ways the artworks reflect subject ma]er
• discuss Danilla Vassilieff’s influences and how they may have affected his communicaHon of ideas and meanings
• analyse the use of materials, techniques and processes
©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 22 of 24
Further reading about Danila Vassilieff
Felicity St John Moore, Vassilieff and his Art, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2012.
This expanded and updated second ediHon of Vassilieff and His Art (first published 1982) contains addiHonal chapters and reproducHons that confirm the essenHal place of Cossack émigré arHst Danila Vassilieff in the development of modern Australian art. Richly illustrated, and with a new preface by Dr Margaret Plant, the book sets the record straight on Vassilieff’s significance not just for the next generaHon, but for art lovers everywhere. Felicity St John Moore outlines for the first Hme connecHons between Vassilieff’s work and set designs for the Ballets Russes companies that toured Australia between 1936 and 1940. She examines his role in re-­‐direcHng Australian arHsts towards the expressive neo-­‐primiHvism pioneered by the Russian moderns and provides compelling new visual evidence that highlights a vital link between the art of Vassilieff and the invenHon of Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series.
Available for purchase at heide.com.au
Haese, Richard, Rebels and Precursors: the revoluFonary years of Australian art, Allen Lane, Melbourne, 1981.
Harding, Lesley and Kendrah Morgan, Sunday’s Garden: Growing Heide, Heide Museum of Modern Art, State Library of Victoria and the Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2012.
Moore, Felicity St John, Vassilieff and his art, Oxford University Press, London, 1982. Moore, Felicity St John, Vassilieff: A retrospecFve exhibiFon of painFngs, sculptures and watercolours, exh. cat., Heide Park & Art Gallery, 1985. Moore, Felicity St John, Vassilieff and his art, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2012 Morgan, Kendrah, ‘Danila Vassilieff, A New Art History’, The Melbourne Review, May 2012, h]p://
www.melbournereview.com.au/read/404/ .
Palmer, Maudie (ed.), Heide Park and Art Gallery, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Melbourne, 1981. (see Richard Haese’s essay in this publicaHon)
Reid, Barre] and Nancy Underhill (eds), LeNers of John Reed: Defining Australian Cultural Life 1920–
1981, Viking, Melbourne, 2001.
©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 23 of 24
Heide EducaBon
Heide’s offers a range of educaHon programs that draw on its unique mix of exhibiHons, architecture and landscape to provide a rich learning experience that goes beyond the classroom. A visit to Heide:
• provides a sHmulaHng environment which helps to put learning into context, and promotes an understanding and appreciaHon of our rich, cultural heritage • encourages moHvaHon, by sHrring curiosity and developing an intrinsic fascinaHon for art that can only be saHsfied by firsthand experience
• nurtures creaHvity and enables social learning
• is a cultural experience that all pupils can enjoy Looking at original works of art with a suitably trained educator also encourages the development of the following skills:
• literacy: by encouraging discussion and extending vocabulary
• observaBon: by focusing concentraHon on detail
• criBcal thinking: by demanding quesHons and informed conclusions
• reflecBon: by considering raHonales behind thinking processes
Programs for teachers
Heide offers a range of professional development programs for teachers of all year levels, including lectures, guided tours and workshops. Programs are designed to meet the VIT Standards of Professional PracHce and Principles for EffecHve Professional Learning. Further informaHon about Heide’s educaHon programs is available at Heide.com.au/educaHon
Bookings
Bookings are essenHal for all programs. For more informaHon or a booking form visit Heide.com.au/
educaHon or contact Heide EducaHon: (03) 9850 1500 [email protected]
•
•
Teachers are encouraged to visit Heide prior to a booked school visit (complimentary Hcket available) to familiarise themselves with the exhibiHons and faciliHes. Heide is commi]ed to ensuring its programs and acHviHes are accessible to all. Schools recognised as having a low overall socio-­‐economic profile on the Government School Performance Summary are eligible to apply for a reduced fee. Please contact Heide EducaHon for more informaHon. Keep up to date with the latest Heide EducaHon news and special offers by subscribing to the Heide EducaHon e-­‐bulleHn at heide.com.au/subscribe
Heide Museum of Modern Art
7 Templestowe Road
Bulleen VIC 3105
T 03 9850 1500 heide.com.au
Open daily 10am–5pm
Closed Mondays (except public holidays)
©Heide MoMA 2014 EducaHonal use only Page 24 of 24