Georgian Painting – From 1750 Until Today
26 May, 2013
Information about Georgian painting from the second half of the 18th century until the first decade of the 21st century will include over 500 illustrations and 300 painters in one publication as a result of the project “Georgian Painting – a History of its Development”, taking place at the Institute of Art History and Theory. The publication will illustrate previously unknown works and many famous artists, all discussed from a contemporary standpoint. The publication offers information from Georgian portraiture to Georgian artists who are part of a new wave of emigration. The publication covers painting and pictorial art, graphics, as well as theatre and cinema art. The Rustaveli Foundation for Georgian Studies, Humanities and Social Sciences is supporting this three-year project.
From 2010-2012 the project team made significant advances in their work. Project Director, TSU Professor Maia Tsitsishvili, affirms it will be the first comprehensive study of its kind written in Georgian. At the first stage of the project the work will cover 150 painters, and then further sources and art materials will be processed to increase the total to 300 painters. She explained that the work starts from the second half of 18th century, when the first easel art and portraits appeared in Georgia.
“It will be the most voluminous and original uncensored written work on modern and contemporary Georgian painting. This encyclopedic style publication will discuss creative processes that could not be studied or exhibited in Georgia before the 1990s.” Criteria for selecting the painters and works included both a high artistic level and their impact on the development of Georgian painting. We have researched materials in Tbilisi as well as regional museums and have discovered materials that formerly could not be researched by Georgian art historians. Almost all artistic sources existing in Georgia have been studied except for some private collections. The research process yielded unexpected discoveries. For example we found some remarkable pieces of socialist-realist art in the Racha protected archives – these types of art are a rarity in Tbilisi. Two members of our team also work at the Ministry of Culture and Protection of Monuments, which enabled us to access some private collections, take photos and study works that were legally taken out of Georgia.
We are studying periodicals and collecting data about painters at the Rarity Department of the National Library of the Georgian Parliament. In 2011the project team participated in the international symposium of the Chubinishvili National Research Centre for Georgian Art History and Protection of Monuments, and in 2012 we took part in the International Congress of Romualdo Del Bianco and the Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. This gave us an opportunity to meet our European and Russian colleagues, share our views and exchange information. For example, the Russian Museum of Eastern Art stores extensive materials on Georgian art and an official of the museum assured their support for our team to research those materials.”
Tsitsishvili described how Georgian painting evolved. “It is believed that these works were often created imitating European ceremonial art. Basically the members of Royal families are portrayed here and the first works are mostly produced in Russia, where Georgian Kings and their children had immigrated. Portraits were painted by court painters but none are signed, so the names of painters are unknown. Only one painter was identified -- Nikoloz Abkhazi--who painted a five-year-old girl, Bagration-Davitashvili.”
“Ceremonial portraits” in Georgian art history were replaced by the Portrait School of Tiflis at the beginning of the 19th century. This school had a typical style and way of working. Portraits produced by this school were made by various artists from 20-25 nationalities and mostly portray nobility. The portraits were of a smaller format than regular easel paintings and they are of great importance for recording history. ”Double portraits” were very frequent--for example, father-mother, father-son-- who were looking directly at each other. In the 1870s, daguerreotype --and then photography-- began, which caused the Tiflis Portrait School to decline, as it lost its principle function.
According to Tsitsishvili, “The first Georgian painter to receive a professional artistic education in Russia was Grigol Maisuradze, who was Alexander Chavchavadze’s bondman. Later, older generations of Georgian painters also left for Russia and Europe to study. These included Alexander Beridze, Romanoz Gvelesiani, Alexander Mrevlishvili, Davit Guramishvili and others. Others of the same generation--Gigo Gabashvili and Mose Toidze--significantly contributed to the establishment of modern Georgian painting, not only by genre but of a quality corresponding to modern European painting,”
The publication will put a special emphasis on Georgian modernist painting, which the Director believes undoubtedly takes a very important place in the history of Georgian art. Significant developments in almost all branches of arts and sciences took place during those two-and-a-half years in the early 1900s when Georgia was independent, Maia Tsitsishvili says. “A chapter is dedicated to this issue in the publication. Georgian modernism created in the first decades of the 20th century and is a multi-cultural phenomenon. German, Polish, Armenian and other nationalities have contributed very much to the establishment of Georgian modernist art. Local artists and poets were joined by those who arrived from Russia. Their choice was not accidental--besides a better political environment and favorable economic conditions--in Georgia the artistic milieu was intense and intellectually fulfilling. Issues of avant-garde art were discussed in literary salons and art cafes. The walls of these cafes and salons were covered with a wide array of pictures painted by local and non-local artists, including K. Zdanevych, S. Sudeikin, L. Gudiashvili, D. Kakabadze, S. Valishevsky, S. Sorin, I. Zdanevych, M Toidze and others.”
The new publication will show how many previously existing assessments about old Soviet painters have been revised. Separate chapters are dedicated to the painting of the fifties-sixties, the seventies-eighties and the last twenty years.
Tsitsishvili concludes, “This book will be different from others. Voluminous studies on Georgian fine arts have already been published in Russian (for example by V. Beridze and N. Ezerskaya, “Art of Soviet Georgia 1921-1970”, 1975). Much has changed and a lot of new sources and materials have appeared. Today, new art processes and authors should be analyzed and researched from different perspectives. For example, we discovered that Gigo Gabashvili made some paintings in the symbolist style and we found some of his unknown works--about 100 pictorial and graphic works at the National Museum of Georgia. Nothing was known about them and it seems the painter never exhibited them.” Today many Georgian painters work abroad. “We are looking for materials about them so we can acquaint the Georgian public with them and their work,” she says.
A large part of the project has already been completed and will result in two published volumes on the history of the development of Georgian art. The first volume will contain written materials, painters’ biographies, and bibliographic references. The second volume will initially be prepared in an electronic format and made up of visual materials. The first volume and online version of the second volume are planned for March 2013. After that date the team will seek funding to print the second volume.
From 2010-2012 the project team made significant advances in their work. Project Director, TSU Professor Maia Tsitsishvili, affirms it will be the first comprehensive study of its kind written in Georgian. At the first stage of the project the work will cover 150 painters, and then further sources and art materials will be processed to increase the total to 300 painters. She explained that the work starts from the second half of 18th century, when the first easel art and portraits appeared in Georgia.
“It will be the most voluminous and original uncensored written work on modern and contemporary Georgian painting. This encyclopedic style publication will discuss creative processes that could not be studied or exhibited in Georgia before the 1990s.” Criteria for selecting the painters and works included both a high artistic level and their impact on the development of Georgian painting. We have researched materials in Tbilisi as well as regional museums and have discovered materials that formerly could not be researched by Georgian art historians. Almost all artistic sources existing in Georgia have been studied except for some private collections. The research process yielded unexpected discoveries. For example we found some remarkable pieces of socialist-realist art in the Racha protected archives – these types of art are a rarity in Tbilisi. Two members of our team also work at the Ministry of Culture and Protection of Monuments, which enabled us to access some private collections, take photos and study works that were legally taken out of Georgia.
We are studying periodicals and collecting data about painters at the Rarity Department of the National Library of the Georgian Parliament. In 2011the project team participated in the international symposium of the Chubinishvili National Research Centre for Georgian Art History and Protection of Monuments, and in 2012 we took part in the International Congress of Romualdo Del Bianco and the Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. This gave us an opportunity to meet our European and Russian colleagues, share our views and exchange information. For example, the Russian Museum of Eastern Art stores extensive materials on Georgian art and an official of the museum assured their support for our team to research those materials.”
Tsitsishvili described how Georgian painting evolved. “It is believed that these works were often created imitating European ceremonial art. Basically the members of Royal families are portrayed here and the first works are mostly produced in Russia, where Georgian Kings and their children had immigrated. Portraits were painted by court painters but none are signed, so the names of painters are unknown. Only one painter was identified -- Nikoloz Abkhazi--who painted a five-year-old girl, Bagration-Davitashvili.”
“Ceremonial portraits” in Georgian art history were replaced by the Portrait School of Tiflis at the beginning of the 19th century. This school had a typical style and way of working. Portraits produced by this school were made by various artists from 20-25 nationalities and mostly portray nobility. The portraits were of a smaller format than regular easel paintings and they are of great importance for recording history. ”Double portraits” were very frequent--for example, father-mother, father-son-- who were looking directly at each other. In the 1870s, daguerreotype --and then photography-- began, which caused the Tiflis Portrait School to decline, as it lost its principle function.
According to Tsitsishvili, “The first Georgian painter to receive a professional artistic education in Russia was Grigol Maisuradze, who was Alexander Chavchavadze’s bondman. Later, older generations of Georgian painters also left for Russia and Europe to study. These included Alexander Beridze, Romanoz Gvelesiani, Alexander Mrevlishvili, Davit Guramishvili and others. Others of the same generation--Gigo Gabashvili and Mose Toidze--significantly contributed to the establishment of modern Georgian painting, not only by genre but of a quality corresponding to modern European painting,”
The publication will put a special emphasis on Georgian modernist painting, which the Director believes undoubtedly takes a very important place in the history of Georgian art. Significant developments in almost all branches of arts and sciences took place during those two-and-a-half years in the early 1900s when Georgia was independent, Maia Tsitsishvili says. “A chapter is dedicated to this issue in the publication. Georgian modernism created in the first decades of the 20th century and is a multi-cultural phenomenon. German, Polish, Armenian and other nationalities have contributed very much to the establishment of Georgian modernist art. Local artists and poets were joined by those who arrived from Russia. Their choice was not accidental--besides a better political environment and favorable economic conditions--in Georgia the artistic milieu was intense and intellectually fulfilling. Issues of avant-garde art were discussed in literary salons and art cafes. The walls of these cafes and salons were covered with a wide array of pictures painted by local and non-local artists, including K. Zdanevych, S. Sudeikin, L. Gudiashvili, D. Kakabadze, S. Valishevsky, S. Sorin, I. Zdanevych, M Toidze and others.”
The new publication will show how many previously existing assessments about old Soviet painters have been revised. Separate chapters are dedicated to the painting of the fifties-sixties, the seventies-eighties and the last twenty years.
Tsitsishvili concludes, “This book will be different from others. Voluminous studies on Georgian fine arts have already been published in Russian (for example by V. Beridze and N. Ezerskaya, “Art of Soviet Georgia 1921-1970”, 1975). Much has changed and a lot of new sources and materials have appeared. Today, new art processes and authors should be analyzed and researched from different perspectives. For example, we discovered that Gigo Gabashvili made some paintings in the symbolist style and we found some of his unknown works--about 100 pictorial and graphic works at the National Museum of Georgia. Nothing was known about them and it seems the painter never exhibited them.” Today many Georgian painters work abroad. “We are looking for materials about them so we can acquaint the Georgian public with them and their work,” she says.
A large part of the project has already been completed and will result in two published volumes on the history of the development of Georgian art. The first volume will contain written materials, painters’ biographies, and bibliographic references. The second volume will initially be prepared in an electronic format and made up of visual materials. The first volume and online version of the second volume are planned for March 2013. After that date the team will seek funding to print the second volume.