Russia?

The Guggenheim's Russia! exhibit was, on the whole, a disappointment for me. It takes up the entire five floors of spiral exhibit space--and yet I only saw a few works that I really liked.

One of them was the Barge Haulers; as I was speculating to a friend about why the painting seemed familiar, a woman next to us said it was probably because it was 'very famous,' that every Russian knows it.

I can see why; it's not only powerful, but also metaphorical--Russia has always seen way more than its share of suffering, yet somehow it always goes on. Usually at great cost to its stolid people, forced to do things people in other countries would quail at (or have done by machines). And there are always more people, as the boy in the middle seems to represent.

I also liked the almost photo-realistic Quiet Dwelling--just something about the trees, the reflection in the water, and the spires pointing out. Russian civilization among the brutal wilderness, holding out from the successive wave of murderous invaders.

And that was about it. Oddly enough, despite all the press about this exhibit puffing its comprehensiveness and significance, I feel like I've seen better examples of Russian art just by happenstance, mixed in among permanent collections.

Maybe one problem was because the exhibit had to represent historical eras, a lot of the works were included on their merits as good examples of their time period or a particular artistic movement.

Unfortunately, for a lot of their history it seemed like Russian art was behind and just aping continental Europe. Likewise, the icons didn't wow me, perhaps because I've seen the 'originals' from Byzantium.

Ilya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1870–73. Oil on canvas, 131.4 x 280.7 cm. Photo: © State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, via Guggenheim website.

Isaak Levitan, Quiet Dwelling [aka Quiet Abode], 1890. Oil on canvas, 87.5 x 108 cm. Photo: © The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, via Guggenheim website.