Vladimir Weisberg

V.G. Weisberg. Zhivopis', akvarel', risunok, Moscow: Gendalf, 1994, p.129, no.489 listed

Exhibition catalogue Vladimir Weisberg: collection particulière Elfrida Filippi, Moscow, 1997, p.21, no.489 illustrated

In the 1970s Weisberg adopts a new system of painting. If in his pictures from the previous decade the influence of the Russian and Western European avant-garde such as the Jack of Diamonds group is obvious, then from this point onwards his work loses any resemblances with that of his contemporaries as well as his predecessors. He chooses a unique and inimitable artistic language, based on the idea of absolute harmony, which the artist does not try to find in nature, but creates on canvas. The representational qualities of his paintings become secondary. Already in the 1960s he had laid out his stance on figurative painting in the lecture The Classification of the Main Types of Colour Perception: ‘We see the object because our vision is imperfect. With perfect vision we see harmony, and don’t notice the object’ (quoted in E. Khlopina, Vliublennyi v klassicheskoe iskusstvo. Zhivopis’ V.G. Weisberga v traditsii kolorizma, Moscow: SBM-galereya, 2009, p.263).

Harmony in Weisberg’s painting means an ideal form, an ideal composition, the absence of colour contrast, which are built into the motif, the merging of shape and space, and above all the harmony of colours. In this Weisberg is a true artist of the second half of the 20^th century, when painters embarked on the path of abstraction, experimentation and freedom of self-expression. Contrary to his Western contemporaries however, Weisberg does not break with tradition, above all because he stays faithful to plein-air painting. The process of creation is for him not some theoretical game, but a process based on the experience of direct observation of nature, with the aim to build a complex and balanced system of colour relationships. The artist, just like Claude Monet in his late work, paints the air and light, immaterial substances, using subtle gradations and transitions, nuances of colour hardly visible which he built up using the finest glazes. As a result, just like Monet’s late works, when seen up-close Weisberg’s paintings look flat, and when moving away an endless space appears, in which the figures are placed.

Weisberg is often criticized for the lack of variety in the compositions of his nudes and portraits. Indeed, when compared to his portraits of the 1950s and 1960s, the portraits of the 1970s and 1980s appear almost identical. They are not large, somewhere around 60 by 50cm, vertical, without interior, attributes, or details, just a figure in an empty space. The models are positioned along the central axis of the composition, sometimes slightly offset, hands resting on their knees like in Renaissance portraits, their eyes lowered. They are withdrawn, time has stopped, everything is frozen. If in the artist’s early portraits there is interaction with the viewer, then these portraits are detached, wrapped in silence, lost in infinite space.

Weisberg purposefully avoids compositional difference in order not to be distracted from his main goal of absolute harmony. The shortage of variety forces the viewer to immerse himself, to contemplate the atmosphere of these portraits, to experience their emotional distance and at the same time the unlimited perfection of form.

Weisberg would carefully plan the composition of each portrait and each still life, thoughtfully choosing the positioning of the model and the clothes. In this portrait of Liza he paid a lot of attention to the figure of the model, which has both volume as well as a clear structure. The knees in the foreground are reminiscent of a podium in the shape of a cube, like in his still lifes, on which, like on foundations, the composition of the other volumes rest: the smooth, connected outlines of the arms, breasts and shoulders, and finally the ovoid shape of the head, which like the spire of a cathedral assembles all lines of the composition in one spot and dissolves into the endless space of the background.

We are grateful to Dr Elena Khlopina for providing this catalogue note.