Author
Petrov-Vodkin, Kuz’ma Sergeevich (1878-1939)
Title
Poezdka v Afriku, “Na rassvete”, 1910, I
A Trip to Africa
Keywords
Summary
In this piece, which is divided into fourteen short sections, Petrov-Vodkin provides the reader with brief sketches of his travels in North Africa in 1907. A dreamlike quality permeates the entire work, which opens with the author’s disillusionment with Paris and his realisation that he needs a soul-searching journey. Africa is presented as a spiritual place where Islamic doctrine coexists with paganism and where Westerners can lose or find themselves.
Bio
Kuz’ma Petrov-Vodkin, one of the most renowned Russian and Soviet painters, travelled to North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) in 1907. This trip had a profound spiritual and artistic impact on the painter, who recounted his experiences in numerous letters to his mother and in this short, poetic travelogue. Inspired by the African setting and colours, he realised several studies and paintings with an African subject, among which The Nomad’s Family (1907), The City of Constantine (1907), The Kiss (1907), The Odalisque’s Dance (1907). Paintings from the “African cycle” were exhibited in Paris (1908) and Saint Petersburg (1909).
Sources
K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, Pis’ma. Stat’i. Vystupleniia. Dokumenty, ed. by E. Selizarova, Moskva 1991;
G. Bobilewicz, Vizual’naia reprezentatsiia Afriki v evropeiskom i russkom izobrazitel’nom iskusstve nachala XX veka, “Slavic Almanac”, 2011, 17 (2), p. 127-146;
Afrika v russkom iskusstve. Katalog vystavki (Russkii muzei, 2023), Sankt-Peterburg 2023.
A.F.