Unknown Pages of Pyotr Staronosov and Nikolay Kotov’s Artistic Trip to the Pamir Mountains in 1932

Abstract

The article is dedicated to artistic trips of Soviet painters and graphic artists to Central Asia — a bright and, at present, practically unknown phenomenon of the Soviet Union’s artistic life. The article aims to fill, at least in part, the gap existing in the study of the USSR’s artistic life of the 1930s. It focuses on the trip of Pyotr Staronosov and Nikolay Kotov, as members of the Academy of Science’s expedition to the Pamir Mountains, in 1932. According to previously unpublished archival materials and soviet periodicals, the author reproduces the route of the artists, shows the specifics of creative work in the expedition, describes and analyzes little-known paintings of Pyotr Staronosov and Nikolay Kotov.The article deals with technical and artistic problems faced by Staronosov and Kotov in the Pamirs: from the choice of tools and paints to the problems of spatial perspective construction and color transfer. The artists’ creative experiments were largely due to the specific nature of the Pamirs: the variety of landscapes with plains and rocks changed the perception of space, and the Eastern sun transformed colors, opening a vast field for experiments with the palette. In addition, the appearance of local residents, their way of life, clothing and jewelry were strikingly different from the European realities. In this regard, the painters were looking for a line between the ethnographic approach and the complete denial of the traditional East, often found among artists and writers of that time.The article also focuses on the reporting exhibition “Tajik SSR — the Pamirs”, organized on the basis of the artistic trip. Hundreds of drawings and sketches created by the artists during the trip to the Pamirs provide an opportunity for further in-depth research.