The Silver Age of Russia gave many great poets, as well as no less talented and outstanding sculptors and architects. One of these is Anna Golubkina, one of the best leading masters of this period in the art world. This student of the artist Auguste Rodin was characterized by features of impressionism, but they did not turn out to be self-sufficient, that is, they did not limit the master to a narrow environment of formal plastic tasks. In the works of Anna Semenovna Golubkina, social coloring and deep psychologism, drama, sketchiness, features of symbolism, internal dynamics, an avid interest in the individual and inconsistencies in his inner world are obvious.
Woman sculptor
It was not a miracle that this woman became famous. The miracle lies in the fact that Anna Golubkina managed to become an outstanding sculptor. As you know, in the 19th century it was quite difficult for women to master such a profession.
Remember only the difficult path of the artist of the generationAnna Golubkina - Elizaveta Martynova (who posed for "The Lady in Blue"), who entered the Art Academy in the first year when the fair sex was allowed to do this. There were about a dozen students that year, but the teachers looked at them with skepticism. Anna Golubkina studied at this Academy not as a painter, but as a sculptor, and this was considered far from a woman's occupation.
Family
Besides, the origin also played a big role: the girl's grandfather, an Old Believer, the head of the spiritual Zaraisk community, Polikarp Sidorovich, redeemed himself from serfdom. This man raised Anna Semyonovna Golubkina, whose father died too early. Anna's family was engaged in the cultivation of a garden and a vegetable garden, and also kept an inn, but there was only enough money for the education of Semyon's brother. The rest of the children in the family, including the future sculptor Anna Golubkina, were self-taught.
Career start
After the gardener left her native Zaraysk, she went to conquer Moscow. At that time, Anna was already about 25 years old. The girl planned to seriously study the technique of firing, as well as painting on porcelain, the training of which took place in the special Classes of Fine Art, which had just been equipped by Anatoly Gunst. They didn’t want to take Golubkina, but in one night she fashioned a figurine, which was given the name “Praying Old Woman”. After this sculpture, Anna Golubkina was accepted to school.
First trip to the French capital
Training went well at first. A year later the girltransferred to the Moscow School of Painting, where sculpture and architecture were also studied. Here Anna studied for another three years. Finally, the girl reached the top: she got the opportunity to study art at the St. Petersburg Academy.
However, Anna Golubkina spent only a few months within its walls, after which, in 1895, pursuing new goals, she moved to study in France in Paris. However, in a European city, ladies-artists were also treated rather frivolously: one need only recall how Maria Bashkirtseva described French snobbish teachers in her diary.
Here Golubkina was also offered to do salon art, but this absolutely did not fit her temperament. But this is not the essence of the trouble. Although the woman’s friends and her memoirists are silent about this fact in solidarity, some secrets of Anna Semyonovna Golubkina have recently been unraveled. In France, she became seriously ill. Apparently, unhappy love has affected. There were rumors that Anna met with some French artist in Paris. When Golubkina crossed the 30-year mark in her life, she twice wanted to commit suicide: first, the girl threw herself into the Seine, and then tried to poison herself. One well-known artist, Elizaveta Kruglikova, who also lived in Paris in those years, took the unfortunate woman home. In the Russian capital, Golubkina, upon arrival, goes to the psychiatric clinic of the then famous Korsakov. It was the most unpleasant period in the biography of Anna Golubkina.
Anna's recovery
The professor treated the woman for only a few months. It was clear that the healing of the sculptor Anna Semyonovna Golubkina was not in medicine, but in creative work, or maybe the whole thing was just occupational therapy. The woman returned to her family in the town of Zaraysk, then, together with her sister Alexandra, who had just completed medical assistant courses, Anna leaves for Siberia - it is here that the two of them work hard at the resettlement center.
Second successful trip to Paris
When the woman regained her peace of mind, she returned to the capital of France in 1897. At this time, Anna finds the person from whom she should have studied earlier - Rodin.
Anna Golubkina presented her first sculpture in 1898 at the Paris Salon (one of the most prestigious art competitions of that time). This sculpture was called "Old Age". For this work, Anna Golubkina was posed by the very middle-aged model who is depicted on Rodin's statue “The One Who Was Beautiful Olmière” (1885).
Sculptor Golubkina was able to interpret the teacher in her own way. She did it with great success: the woman was awarded a significant bronze medal for her, and was also actively praised in the press. The following year, Anna returns to Russia, where they have already heard about her. Morozov orders a work for Anna Semyonovna Golubkina - a relief designed to decorate the Moscow Art Theater. Then the woman created portraits of the most brilliant and popular cultural figures of the Silver Age: A. N. Tolstoy, A. Bely, V. Ivanov. But Chaliapinthe woman refused to sculpt because she did not like him as a person.
Unsuccessful revolutionary activity
Anna Golubkina was born in a fire, and she herself said that she had a "fireman" character. The woman was uncompromising and intolerant. The injustice in her life made her very angry. During the revolution of 1905, Anna almost died when she stopped the horse of a Cossack, who dispersed the workers. Thus began her relationship with the revolutionaries. By their order, Golubkina Anna Semenovna creates a sculpture - a bust of Marx, also visits secret apartments in those years, from a house in Zaraysk she makes a turnout for illegal immigrants.
A couple of years later, in 1907, Anna is arrested for distributing proclamations and sentenced to a year in prison. However, due to the mental state of the defendant, her case was closed: the woman was released into the wild under police supervision.
Absence of children and husband
How did the girl feel about the absence of children and her husband: as a victory or as a defeat? Once Anna Golubkina told a girl who wanted to become a writer: if you want something outstanding to come out of your work, you don’t have to get married, you don’t have to start families. As Anna said, art does not like tied hands. One must come to art with free, ready to create hands. Art is a kind of feat, you need to forget everything, and in the family a woman is a prisoner.
However, despite the fact that Golubkina was a free woman and never had children,she loved her nephews very much, and also raised Vera, her brother's daughter. Among the works of Anna Semyonovna Golubkina, the sculpture of Mitya's nephew, who was born sick and died before he even reached the age of one, stands out. Anna considered the relief “Motherhood” to be one of her favorite works. From year to year, she returned to work on this creation.
Golubkina's pockets were always full of various sweets for children, and in the post-revolutionary period - simple food. Because of the children, Golubkina once almost died. She sheltered a group of little homeless children, and these children drugged the woman with sleeping pills, and then robbed.
Moscow exhibition of Golubkina
In 1914, the personal first exhibition of 50-year-old Anna Golubkina officially took place. It was organized within the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts (today the Pushkin Museum). The audience was literally rushing to get to this creative event, the profit from the sold tickets to the exhibition turned out to be huge. Anna Golubkina donated the proceeds from the exhibition to help the wounded (after all, the First World War began in those years).
All domestic and foreign critics were in an unprecedented delight from the works of the famous sculptor. But Igor Grabar, who wants to purchase several sculptures by Anna Golubkina to place them in the Tretyakov Gallery, scolded Golubkina for her excessive pride: the cost for the presented works was too high. As a result, not a single copy was sold from the exhibition.
Survival in timeCivil War
Unfortunately, in 1915, Anna Semyonovna Golubkina again had a nervous breakdown, as a result of which the woman was placed in a clinic for treatment. For several years Golubkina could not create. But in the post-revolutionary months, Anna Semyonovna Golubkina is a member of the Commission for the Protection of Ancient Monuments, as well as the bodies of the Moscow Council, aimed at combating homelessness (again these children!).
In those terrible years, when Moscow was starving and freezing, Anna endured this period absolutely steadfastly. Her friends said that it was easy for her because the woman was simply used to asceticism and did not even notice the hardships. To all of the above, it is worth adding that for the sake of earning money Golubkina was engaged in painting on fabrics in these difficult years, she also gave private lessons to novice artists. After some time, Golubkina's friends brought her a special drill and began to regularly bring old billiard balls: from these balls (from ivory) Anna carved cameos that she sold.
Golubkina's relations with the Soviet government
Despite all the revolutionary past, Anna Semyonovna Golubkina could not work together with the Bolsheviks. This woman was distinguished by the gloominess of her character, impracticality, and also the inability to arrange her own affairs. In 1918, Anna Semyonovna Golubkina refuses to work with the Soviets because of the murder of one of the members of the Provisional Government, Kokoshkin. After some time, perhaps, everything could have improved, but in 1923 at the competition for the best monument to the writerOstrovsky Golubkina did not take the lead, but only the third, which made her very upset.
In the 1920s, Anna Semyonovna Golubkina earned her living by teaching. Her he alth is gradually deteriorating - Anna's stomach ulcer sharply worsened, as a result of which she had to be urgently operated on. The last known works of the outstanding sculptor were "Birch", which is a symbol of youth, as well as a portrait of Leo Tolstoy himself. It is worth paying attention to the fact that Anna Semyonovna Golubkina sculpted Tolstoy from her memory, fundamentally not using the available photographs. Some time before her death, Golubkina returned to her family in the town of Zaraysk. Surrounded by close and dear people, Anna Semyonovna Golubkina dies at the age of 63.
The fate of the workshop
What happened to the famous workshop of the outstanding sculptor of the Silver Age? Relatives of Anna Semyonovna Golubkina handed over this workshop to the state, as indicated in her will. In those years, about two hundred works were stored in this workshop. After some time, the museum named after Anna Semyonovna Golubkina opens in this room. However, in 1952 disaster struck. Quite suddenly, during the struggle with either formalism or something else, it turned out that Anna Semyonovna Golubkina deliberately “distorted” the images of people, including “Soviet” ones. For this reason, the Museum-workshop is closed, and all the works of the famous sculptor located in the workshop were distributed among different funds of museums located inseveral Russian cities, including the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery.
A few words in conclusion
It was only in 1972 that the reputation of the outstanding sculptor Anna Semyonovna Golubkina was completely cleared, and the museum-workshop was decided to be restored again. Due to the fact that Golubkina's workshop became one of the branches of the Tretyakov Gallery, it was quite easy to return many of the master's works to their native walls. However, the rest of the works of Anna Semyonovna Golubkina forever remained in other cities of Russia. However, the main thing is that Golubkina still got her good name back.
