Music in the life and work of Maria Bashkirtseva (on the diary pages)

Abstract

Relevance of the study is conditioned by the importance of Maria Bashkirtseva’s work; it is largely inscribed within the cultural and scientific worldly context. Her “Diary”, published in almost all European languages, which Simone de Beauvoir labeled “a sample of the genre”, more than 150 paintings, 200 drawings, a few sculptures, that decorate famous museums in France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Serbia, Algeria, Ukraine, Russia among others, proclaim the unique phenomenon of her short life (26 years). Main objectives of the study . This project is the first attempt to initiate the study of her heritage in national and international musicology. Its goal is to expose the role of music in the life and work of Maria Bashkirtseva, the ample image of musicality in her life and her literary and artistic work. Methodology . The main approach employed was analysis, applied to the first French publication of the “Diary” (16 tomes). Results/findings and conclusions . The study of the text of the “Diary” enabled the project to reveal the synthesis of the poetic, literary, artistic and musical worlds, which translated into among others the processes of synesthesia. Significance . The article has discovered the role of music as significant element in the inner world and the colorful liveliness of Maria Bashkirtseva’s talent and its reflection in the “Diary”. Music and painting, two wings of her inspiration have pursued a constant dialogue in her life as well as her works. An imprescriptible part of her internal world, music in its various manifestations (Maria was a virtuoso at singing, the piano, the harp, the mandolin, the guitar) accompanied her in day-today life and her dreams of a future artistic career, awoke her artistic literary and imaginary fantasy, strengthened the emotional richness of her literary and artistic expression. An artistic perception of life favored the creation of connections of her person, her friends, her private life’s events and her love passions with the operatic heroes. A special case is that of Mignon, the eponymous heroin of Ambroise Thomas’s opera, with whom she identified in her life as well as the pages of the “Diary”. Her appreciations on the operas which she constantly watched witness not only to her deep knowledge of the specific operatic music but also of her aesthetic opinions, her search for verity in art, sincerity of emotion. During her life’s Paris period, music is translated to her paintings through the representation of musical events and instruments but first and foremost by color shades and the melody of lines. From this viewpoint, one concentrates on two late works, “Autumn” and “Spring”