Academic literature on the topic 'Auguste Baillayre'

The beginning of the 20th century was one of the most contradictory and controversial periods of modern European art, which spread artistic values all the way to peripheries, including Basarabia. To be sure, the new styles and trends were not promoted by some mechanical transfers of ideas and concepts, but rather by specific people. Such a person in Basarabia was Auguste Baillayre, whose work and influence left a mark on the main stages of evolution of the national art between the wars. The artist was born on May 1, 1879 in Besiers, a community in the Pyrenees on the border between France and Spain; he spent his childhood in France (1879–1885), the adolescence in Georgia (1885–1898), went to school in Amsterdam (1899–1902), St. Petersburg (1903-1907) and Grenoble (1913) and became the most outstanding personality of the arts of the time in the Basarabia of 1918–1940. A. Baillayre’s work evolved through three distinct stages, which coincided with his residence in Holland and Russia (1899–1918), in Basarabia (1918–1943) and in Bucharest (from 1943 to his death on December 16, 1961), and reflected his interest in constructivism, impressionism and post-impressionism. The artistic environment in which A. Baillayre evolved is worth noticing – his friends and acquaintances in Russia (brothers V. and D. Burliuk, V. Mayakovsky, M. Larionov, N. Goncharova, M. Chagall, V. Tatlin, A. Lentulov), France (P. Picasso, A. Renoir, H. Matisse). He had remarkable professorial achievements, as he managed to educate a brilliant cluster of artists, such as N. Bragalia, O. Hrşanovschi, E. Barlo, E. Ivanovsky, M. Gamburd and others, who then continued their education in major European centers – Paris, Drezden and Brussels. This article is just a recovery of the remarkable past Bessarabian personalities, such as A. Baillayre, who this year was 140 years from birth and 80 years from the foundation of the future National Art Museum of Moldova.

The beautiful arts of Bessarabia are little known in the cultural environment of the Republic of Molodva. Ignored in the Soviet period and the loss of the works of many Bessarabian plastic artists constituted a void over the creation and existence of these creators. Only through the donations of Auguste Baillayre and his heirs from Bucharest in 1961 and 2006 (over 400 works) can we talk today about the phenomenon of Bessarabian arts in the context of its interference with European art.

The themes and subjects approached by the plastic artists, in a certain period of time, in a certain geographical space, including the names of the works, indirectly reflect the existing tendencies in the respective epoch. These moments are indisputable, regardless of the evolutions of art in various cultural environments, in the centers of international art or on its peripheries, objectively reflecting the styles and priorities of the time. Thus, realism operates with certain terms that define the options of the current, different from those of impressionism, expressionism, etc. The Bessarabian visual arts are no exception in this case. More refractory and more specific, the evolution of local culture was due to the historical situation of the land, ruled by the Tsarist Empire for a century, with the late emergence of professional art and the direct influences of Russian and Ukrainian itinerants’ realism characterized by special themes. But these trends were also marked by the emergence of non-conformist representatives of Russian art, such as Vladimir Falileev, Alexander Shevchenko, Nathan Altman, participants in Bessarabian salons in the early twentieth century. More eloquently, these renewals of local art occur after the internship of Eugenia Maleshevsci in Europe, the sporadic return to the homeland of Pavel Shilingovschi, but also the appearance in Bessarabia of a true representative of the new currents, such as Auguste Baillayre.

Th e history of scenographic art in the Republic of Moldova coincides with the appearance of the National Th eater founded in Chisinau in 1921. Testimonies in this regard are the works of Bessarabian artists that are preserved in the collections of the National Museum of Art of Moldova. An impetus for the emergence of modern Bessarabian scenography was the Russian emigrant Georges Pojedaeff , who appeared in Chisinau in 1920 and befriended. Auguste Baillayre, who organized the personal exhibition of the scenographer at the School of Fine Arts on the borders of 1920-1921. Th anks to Auguste Baillayre, Th eodor Kiriacoff , Boris Nesvedov, Elena Barlo, Maria Starcevschi, Elisabeth Ivanovsky, Natalia Brăgalia and many others asserted themselves in this fi eld in Bessarabia, contributing to the establishment of modern Romanian scenography. Th e works kept in the museum’s collections demonstrate the painters’ attraction through the originality of the treatment and the tendencies of European art, included in the circuit of the well-known Russian Ballet tours organized in Paris by Serj Deagilev between 1905-1912. At the same time, we specify that the numerous works with which the Bessarabian exhibitors participated in the local Bucharest salons were lost during the last World War, being known the fate of the collection of the future Municipal Art Gallery, founded in Chisinau in November 1939.

Th e end of the XIX century intensifi es the theatrical life in Bessarabia, a fact that leads to the improvement of staging methods and plastic and decorative solutions of the stage space. Th is gains even greater revival towards the middle of the XX century, being oft en mentioned by critics in the press of the time, who describe the decorations and the costumes in the staged performances. A new phase in the decorative-theatrical art of Bessarabia begins with the appearance of the great personalities who contributed to the creation and development of the Bessarabian Romanian scenography. Th is phase coincides with the activity of some outstanding personalities of the scene-painting in Bessarabia from the beginning of the XX century, such as Auguste Baillayre, Th eodor Chiriakoff , George Löwendal, Boris Nesvedov, Natalia Bragalia, Elisabeth Ivanovsky, Maria Starcevschi, Natalia Danilcenco, Elena Barlo and others. Th e decorations made by these plastic artists starts to be known to the local public. Th is familiarization takes place mainly through the tours in Bessarabian cities and towns, as well as in cultural centers.