Festive Procession with a Song. Kolyada (Russian: Праздничное шествие с песней. Коляда; usually called Kolyada) is a painting by Russian and Soviet artist Efim Chestnyakov. It is one of the artist's most significant and famous works, and some art historians date it to the period immediately after the October Revolution of 1917. It shows an ancient Slavic custom called koledari. Some researchers think that the painting is connected to Chestnyakov's work with teenagers. This was part of a programme called Universal Culture that he created. The artist was involved in many different ways in the theatre, including writing the script, directing, composing music and performing. The audience, who were villagers, also took part in the show. These researchers suggested that the painting does not show the ritual itself, but a play based on it, created, set up and designed by Chestnyakov.
The painting is in the Kostroma State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve. Nowadays, it forms a part of the Romanov Museum on the My Forgotten, Native Past... exhibition, which is all about the work of Efim Vasilievich Chestnyakov. The painting is called Festive Procession with a Song. The painting was in a really bad state when it arrived at the museum, but the staff at the fixed it up.
Soviet journalist Larisa Golushkina wrote about local history and art. She described the painting Festive Procession with a Song. Kolyada as the most poetic in the artist's work. The painting was shown at many exhibitions in Russia and other countries.
History
Date and title
The painting Kolyada is not signed or dated by the artist, which is typical for most of Efim Chestniakov's works.Rare exceptions include the early 1894 Portrait of a Girl in a Pink Dress and The Grouse King, which the artist titled himself. The 1983 exhibition of paintings and graphics by Efim Chestnyakov in Riga carefully noted which works were by the artist, including Holiday Procession with a Song. Kolyada. It is thought that Kolyada was probably painted in the 1910s-1930s. Most people think that by the late 1930s, Chestnyakov had stopped painting and started working with children and writing books instead.
In his book about the artist's work, the director of the Kostroma State Art Museum, Victor Ignatiev, said that the painting Kolyada was made just after the October Revolution of 1917. The cultural life of Kologriv was very active at this time. In 1918, the Museum of the Palace of Proletarian Culture opened, and he worked in an art studio. He also gave lectures on the history of art and published the first issue of the magazine Zhizn Iskusstva. At this time, Chestnyakov was an active participant in public and artistic life: from 1918 to 1920, he was a member of the Kostroma Scientific Society for the study of the local region; from November 1919, he began to participate in the work of the Palace of Proletkult; he taught in his art studio and organised a theatre studio; in Shablovo, he created the Children's Garden, where children were engaged in artistic creativity; he worked in it as director, teacher and educator; and he became the people's assessor of the volost court and performed his duties until 1925. At the same time, Victor Ignatyev said that the most important painting of the artist was the City of Universal Welfare, and that the small paintings Two at the hut, Girl playing svirel, Young man and girl at the stream, Date, Peasant children and White seamstress. According to Ignatiev, there are some common features for the paintings of this period. These include the reflection of life based on the principles of folk art, using the method of "idealizing typification of reality". This combines innovation and realism. It is particularly important that the paintings have a logical way of arranging the space, stable shapes, a very good way of showing light, repetition as a way of making the work, and an attempt to show the internal regularity and organisation of the world.
Final destination After the painting was created, it was at the artist's home in the village of Shablovo (since 1930, he no longer exhibited or sold his paintings), where he had a whole series of small paintings, which Chestnyakov called Kolyadki. In 2015, a teacher from the Kologriva secondary school told the staff of the Kostroma Museum-Reserve about these very works when she visited Chestnyakov:"Well, here are the paintings. There's a passageway further in, into another room. There were some small pictures on the wall. This is about a quarter of the size of the tablecloth (it's on the table). That's about the size of the tablecloth. All the paintings are close together. The artist said to me: "This is Kolyadki! Have you ever heard of them?" I've heard of kolyadki, but I don't know what they represent (whispering). I said: "I've heard that there are koledari! But I've never seen one!" "Well, look!" — shows me".The image of the kolyadki ritual is also present in one of the artist's literary works, in the story A Stream.
After Efim Chestnyakov died in 1961, the local arts council refused to accept his paintings, sculptures and manuscripts for storage in the museum. They thought his paintings and sculptures were too simple and not important enough to be put in a museum. They stayed in the artist's empty house in Shablov for some time. The paintings and sculptures were taken away by village children and then by their parents. Some villagers thought Efim Chestnyakov was a saint and a visionary, and that his things could heal people from illnesses. Some villagers had his paintings on display in the corner next to their icons, while others kept them in the attic.
The restorer Sergei Golushkin later wrote about the condition of the painting Festive Procession with a Song. Kolyada after it was bought by the museum: He said that the thin canvas had been torn because of the thick paint layer. E. Chestnyakov sewed them back together with strong threads along the edge, following the painting's design, and to hide the seams, he painted over them. He also glued pieces of cloth and oilcloth to the back of the painting.On the illustration published in the book Efim Chestnyakov. New discoveries of Soviet restorers. Compiled by. Yamshchikov S. В. Moscow: Soviet Artist, 1985. pp. 7-9. The restorers had to make a new canvas to copy the old one, and then stretch it on a stretcher. During the restoration of Kolyada, natural materials like fish glue and wax-caniniferous mastic were used to treat the front and back sides of the painting. Galushkin noted that the restoration made the staff of the Grabar All-Russian Art Research and Restoration Center happy, both in terms of their work and how it looked.
When asked about how complicated the restoration was, Golushkin said that Festive Procession with Song was the hardest. Kolyada was the most difficult one. It was painted on the thinnest type of canvas, which, surprisingly, needs to be thicker. The painting had no stretcher, so the canvas shrank and formed creases. These creases got into the paint layer, making it stiff and difficult to see. These processes started while the artist was still alive and had already got quite far by the time the restoration work began. There were also general problems with the artist's paintings: he often transported them, there were losses of the author's paint layer, soot and dust had penetrated into the paint, and the peasants who became owners of the artist's paintings after his death unsuccessfully tried to renew them.
Preparatory works for the painting's exhibition at the Romanov Museum There is a festive procession with a song. Kolyada is an oil painting on canvas. It measures 96 by 213 cm. The painting is part of the Kostroma State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve collection (inventory number KMZ KP-2719). You can see it now in the Romanov Museum on the My Forgotten, Native... exhibition, which is all about the paintings of Efim Vasilievich Chestnyakov. The painting has been shown at many exhibitions in Russia and other countries. For example, it was listed under number 39 in the catalogue of the artist's personal exhibition in 1977 in Moscow (Exhibition Hall in ) and Kostroma (Museum of Fine Arts). It is also mentioned in the catalogue of Chestnyakov's personal exhibition, published in 1983 in Riga. In November 2005 to January 2006, it was shown at an exhibition in Kazan (State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan).Искусство земли костромской. Творчество Ефима Честнякова. Красносельский ювелирный промысел. Музеи России (November 2005).
In his dissertation, Igor Shavarinsky, a candidate in cultural studies, mentions a sketch for the painting Kolyada. This painting is also in the Kostroma Museum-Reserve collection (KMZ / KHM KP-6377). It shows the image of the Grouse King, which is not in the final version of the painting Kolyada, but it became the main image in another painting by the artist — The Grouse King (oil painting on canvas, 71.5 × 85.5 cm, restorer E. Malyagina, KMZ KP without number). Catalogs of exhibitions of the artist in 1977 and 1983 mention two more sketches for the painting Kolyada, which were shown at their exhibition: Guests (paper, watercolour, 36 × 55 cm, KMZ KP-502) and Glorying (paper, watercolour, 36 × 45 cm, KMZ KP-501). Sergei Golushkin said that, unlike many artists who make changes in the final version of the image on the canvas, overlaying one colorful layer on another, Chestnyakov made a large number of preliminary studies and sketches and only then began work on the painting.
Ignatyev and Trofimov said that the artist's notebooks often have sketches of the painting Kolyada. The authors of that book say that this shows that "Chestnyakov always had the main and important idea in his mind, which he wanted to express as accurately as possible in his art".
Representation and artistic characteristics The story of the picture is set on 18 August, the day of the martyrs Florus and Laurus. On this day in the Russian village, people sang koledari. The people taking part in the ritual dressed up as a goat, a horse, a cow, and a bear. They went around the village singing songs and wishing their fellow villagers good harvests, wealth and children. They also asked for people to follow the traditions. The villagers gave them gifts in exchange for the songs.