Kapustnitsa () is a painting by Russian, Soviet and American artist Nicolai Fechin (219 x 344 cm).Ключевская Е. П. и Цой В. А. (1992). Каталог [Николай Иванович Фешин] (in Russian). Казань: Государственный музей изобразительных искусств Республики Татарстан, Татарское газетно-журнальное издательство. p. 34. The canvas depicts a scene from everyday life in a Russian village and small provincial towns at the beginning of the 20th century. It displays the tradition of kapustnitsa ("cabbage works"), a communal work to salt cabbage for the winter.
In 1909, it became his diploma work at the graduation course of the Higher Art School at the Imperial Academy of Arts. The artist received a gold medal for it Candidate of Art History Galina Tuluzakova called this picture "the most significant and harmonious" multifigure composition of the artist. Kapustnitsa is one of only four large genre works by Nicolai Fechin. It is currently part of the collection and is presented in the permanent exposition of the of the Russian Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
The painting Kapustnitsa was presented at two major pre-revolutionary exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Venice, where it was noticed by art critics and the public. There is an extensive scientific and popular literature on this painting by Nicolai Fechin, written by both Soviet and Russian art historians. The artist's work on the canvas is well documented and described in the memoirs of numerous contemporaries.
Cabbage salting in Russian peasants' life
Russian peasants had a concept toloka (the art historian and museum curator (1879–1956) called this custom podmoga (), "helping"). Toloka was helping fellow villagers with work they could not do on their own. Such help was common in harvesting and haymaking, as well as in preparing vegetables for winter. The toloka also served as a means of entertainment for young peasants. The tolokas which peasant girls took part in were kapustki (or kapustnitsa) and supryadki (yarn spinning). Kapustnitsa — helping to prepare cabbage for winter— was organized not only in the countryside, but also in small provincial towns. It was organized every year on the occasion of the Feast of the Cross (September 14 ). The work usually lasted more than two weeks and was finished only on (October 1 ), when the marriage season usually began in the village. Usually 10 to 15 girls were invited (this number depended on the harvest and, accordingly, the expected amount of work) to be given away. After finishing work in one house, the girls would often move to another. They dressed smartly for work, expecting to attract the attention of their peers, and brought cleavers for cutting cabbage.
When the workers arrived, the owners would set up a separate table for snacks. The boys would come without invitations, usually bringing sweets. They not only watched the girls work, but also helped them: they closed the barrels filled with cabbage and took them to the cellar. They were also responsible for entertaining the girls with jokes and compliments. In the evenings, after work, people used to organize circle dances, traditionally called khorovod.
Image on the canvas
The subject of the painting was an episode from the life of a Russian village. The whole village gathers to salt cabbage for the winter. The painting combines the festive joy and the gloom of monotonous physical labor, health and misery, beauty and ugliness. The events of the painting take place in a peasant's yard. The peasants are already dressed quite warmly. Above the wooden houses there is a narrow strip of bright and clear sky. Neighbors have gathered to shred cabbage in the traditional way. A woman and a boy are cutting stalks from the cabbage. Behind the boy's back is a tall wooden trough for chopping cabbage. The hosts have already begun to treat the workers.
The artist arranged the figures in a semicircle, "the clearest expression of the unity of the action". Peasant women peel and chop cabbage, a girl passes around a carafe of vodka, children take advantage of the commotion to eat stalks, men and teenagers are "tied to a trough of chopped cabbage, which a little boy pulls at with all his might". The painting is filled with noise, laughter, and conversation. The faces of the figures are grotesque, sometimes distorted to the point of ugliness, deliberately emphasized by the artist. Galina Tuluzakova noted, however, that Fechin's grotesqueness does not look like caricature, but affirms the unity of the beautiful and the ugly. There are also humorous details in the painting. For example, the trough of cabbage stands on a box labeled "Kazan," and the viewer can only see the colorful skirt of the bent peasant woman on the left edge of the canvas, so they will not immediately understand what is depicted in this fragment. The baby's face next to the basin makes the public smile.
Peter Dulsky emphasized two main plans on the canvas: in the foreground on the left, a well-fed peasant woman stands with a cabbage and a knife. Cabbage is scattered on the ground in front of her. Dulsky noticed that the type of woman in the picture is repeated in the images of several figures, and suggested that Fechin may have used the same model for several female figures. Directly opposite the peasant woman is a boy cutting cabbage leaves. Behind the first plan, with a shift to the center of the canvas, is a scene of refreshment — a girl with a tray containing shot glasses of vodka is offering a drink to the workers and their assistants. Further to the right, Fechin painted a scene of cabbage chopping.
History of painting's creation
Nicolai Fechin in 1909 The painting was created by the artist in 1909 as a final work in his fifth year of study at the Higher Art School of the Imperial Academy of Arts.Могильникова Г., ed. (1975). Диплом Николая Фешина. Санкт-Петербург 16 дня 1909 г. / Список поощрения Н. И. Фешина за время его обучения в Высшем художественном училище. Николай Иванович Фешин. Документы, письма, воспоминания о художнике: сб. (in Russian). Л.: Художник РСФСР. p. 22.Ключевская, Е. П. (1992). Николай Иванович Фешин // Каталог произведений Н. И. Фешина до 1923 г. (in Russian). Казань: Государственный музей изобразительных искусств Республики Татарстан, Татарское газетно-журнальное издательство. p. 20.
Galina Tuluzakova wrote that Nicolai Fechin finally formed as an artist at the Academy after Ilya Repin left in 1907 (Fechin had been his student since 1902). From Repin, he took an interest in genre painting and psychological portraiture, brushstrokes, and got close to Impressionism. From the Academy and Repin he learned the moral principles that would guide his work for many years: sympathy for ordinary people, humanism, and a belief in the transformative power of art. Another source of Fechin's inspiration at that time was the artistic atmosphere of St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century: the paintings of the artists of Mir iskusstva, Union of Russian Artists and the first experiments of the future avant-garde artists also influenced the formation of the world view of the author of Kapustnitsa.
The artist Nikita Sverchkov —Fechin's student at the Kazan Art School in 1909— described him as a slender young man with blond hair who walked with a light and quick gait. Fechin wore a kosovorotka shirt and jacket without a tie (or a blouse with patch pockets) and dark trousers. Sverchkov noted Fechin's proud look, energy, and will. He looked like a simple worker, but in his eyes "the fire of creative inspiration burned". A contemporary claimed that Fechin was not handsome (he was even called "walnut cake" for his earthy complexion), but his charming smile made people like him.
Preparing Kapustnitsa's creation Art and local historian Peter Dulsky wrote that Nicolai Fechin had the idea of painting Kapustnitsa in 1907. The creation of the painting was preceded by a long period of work by the artist, collecting materials from the field, determining the color and composition. It is believed that the artist collected materials in Pushkarka near Arzamas in preparation for the future final work.Ключевская, Е. П. (1992). Выставки // Каталог произведений Н. И. Фешина до 1923 г. (in Russian). Казань: Государственный музей изобразительных искусств Республики Татарстан, Татарское газетно-журнальное издательство. p. 10. Dmitry Seryakov, a student of art history, claimed that the artist came to Pushkarka to make sketches and that it was here that he had the idea for the canvas. Nicolai Fechin made numerous pencil sketches, studies and sketches of compositions in the technique of oil painting. To date, only two drawings are known to experts — Peasant Woman (Young Woman with a Tray) (1909, paper, charcoal, 22 × 16 inches) and Peasant Woman in a Jacket (1909, paper, charcoal, 23 × 14 inches). Both were for a long time in the private collection of , the artist's daughter, in Taos, New Mexico in the United States. There is also a known pastel sketch (1909, paper, pastel, 64 × 43 cm, Samara Regional Art Museum, Zh-902, the sketch came in 1956 from the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR)Ключевская Е. П. и Цой В. А. (1992). Каталог [Николай Иванович Фешин] (in Russian). Казань: Государственный музей изобразительных искусств Республики Татарстан, Татарское газетно-журнальное издательство. p. 35. and three or four gouache sketches (State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan) Kapustnitsa (1909, paper, ink, gouache, sheet size — 23.5 × 33.2 cm, drawing size — 14.2 × 23.9 cm, inv. g-1844), Kapustnitaa (1909, paper, cardboard, ink, gouache, 22.9 × 34 cm, 15.5 × 27 cm, inv. g-1834), Kapustnitsa (1909, paper, cardboard, ink, gouache, 22.9×34 cm, 15.5 × 27 cm, inv. g-1834), Kapustnitsa (1909, paper, gouache, sheet size — 23.5 × 33.4 cm, the size of the figure — 15 × 27 cm, g-1848).Ключевская Е. П. и Цой В. А. (1992). Каталог [Николай Иванович Фешин] (in Russian). Казань: Государственный музей изобразительных искусств Республики Татарстан, Татарское газетно-журнальное издательство. p. 43.The book Research Museum of the Academy of Arts of the USSR lists only three sketches, although Galina Tuluzakova wrote about four in her doctoral thesis. All of them come from the collection of N.P. Grechkin (and before that from the collection of S.P. Belkovich) and were acquired by the Kazan Museum in 1978. These sketches were presented at an exhibition in the capital of Tatarstan in 1991.Каталог выставки // Николай Фешин. Каталог выставки произведений Н. И. Фешина в Государственном музее изобразительных искусств Республики Татарстан 22 November 2006 — 20 January 2007, Живопись. Графика. Скульптура. Декоративно-прикладное искусство, Казань: Заман, 2006, p. 100.
The Russian Soviet "peasant poet" and artist, the last chairman of the Peredvizhniki Society and the first chairman of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia —Pavel Radimov— recalled that in the early years of his acquaintance with Nicolai Fechin, the latter showed him a set of sketches of twelve of his works. Among them were sketches for Kapustnitsa. Radimov wrote that the artist later created his canvases on the basis of these sketches.
In 2017, after the restoration at the All-Russian Center of Art Research and Restoration named of I. E. Grabar, the sketches for Kapustnitsa were presented at a temporary exhibition of this institution, along with other works by Nicolai Fechin.Николай Фешин: живопись и графика русского периода. Культобзор (17 February 2017). Дата обращения: 23 October 2020. Archive: 26 October 2020. At the exhibition of 2006-2007 they were presented even before the beginning of the restoration.