The Tilsit Treaty and Rhythms of Kaliningrad

19 October 2019

The former Königsberg Stock Exchange, aka the Khudozhestvennaya Galereya, is home to a permanent exhibition, the title of which is The Shadow of Königsberg. It also holds temporary exhibitions on a regular basis. Two exhibitions attracted us recently, Alexander I and Napoleon Meeting on the Neman and Rhythms of Kaliningrad.

The Königsberg Stock Exchange (now the Khudozhestvennaya Galereya) is an impressive two-storey Neo-Renaissance-style building, which stands on the southern side of the Pregel River.

The grand building, which opened in 1875, was the work of architect Heinrich Muller and Emil Hundrieser, the latter to which is owed the external decoration, including the allegorical figures at roof-top level and the two lions on either side of the entrance steps.

As with most of Königsberg’s municipal buildings, the Stock Exchange suffered extensive damage when bombed by the RAF in 1944 and again during the Siege of Königsberg in 1945. It is believed that it narrowly escaped the systematic demolition programme of what remained of Königsberg after the war, as the new owners and powers that were ~ the Soviets ~ identified Russian Neo-Classical features in its construction (pphhhewww!). Since the building was reprieved, reinstated and reconstructed in 1967, it has passed through various transitions and is today one of Kaliningrad’s most important, and unequivocally, one of its most regal cultural centres [see the Tripadvisor website for photographs of this magnificent building].

Khudozhestvennaya Galereya

Stock Exchange Konigsberg — Napoleonic exhibition

The Khudozhestvennaya Galereya stages changing exhibitions on a regular basis. The building can accommodate two or three exhibitions at any one time, depending, of course, on the size, using dedicated and versatile screening facilities. To the right of the entrance hall and on the second floor, space is reserved for a permanent exhibition, The Shadow of Königsberg, which traces the history of this unique city and region through the turbulent transitions of its 20^th century history. Whether you are a professional historian, amateur historian, budding history scholar or are simply fascinated by the changing fortunes and character of Königsberg-Kaliningrad, The Shadow of Königsberg provides a pictorial timeline of indelible significance through drawings, sketches, paintings and photographs, supported by detailed models and electronic simulation. Its depiction of pre-war Königsberg in contrast with its post-war ruins and subsequent Soviet inheritance and legacy, that of life lived for three decades among weed-strewn, crumbling buildings, a hollowed out shell of a once noble city, has a pathos seldom encountered in the modern world we inhabit today.

Mick Hart Konigsberg Stock Exchange at Tilsit Exhibition — I really would like this poster …

Alexander I and Napoleon Meeting on the Neman

The exhibition, Alexander I and Napoleon Meeting on the Neman [River], opened in the former Königsberg Stock Exchange building, now a cultural centre, on 19 October 2019 and runs until 15 December 2019. The exhibition is dedicated to one of the two Tilsit* Treaties, that which took place on 7 July 1807 following Napoleon’s victory in Friedland. The treaty, which was well-satirised in the British press of the time, examples of which are included in the exhibition, is unforgettable not least because it took place on a purpose-built raft anchored in the middle of the Neman River. But its real importance was the ensuing impact it had on regional and world geo-politics. The principal loser of the treaty was Prussia, which was forced to surrender almost 50 percent of its territory. Russia and France achieved a peaceful settlement, a settlement which not all Russian’s were agreeable to, but the peace only lasted five years: in 1812 Napoleon returned to the Neman River, crossing it this time with invasion in mind. Be this as it may, the treaty inspired numerous artistic representations, both in Europe and Russia. And this is what this exhibition is dedicated to.

The exhibition contains about 60 exhibits from the collection of The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, including paintings, drawings and sculptures, as well as original uniforms of Russian and French soldiers and is complemented by works contributed by the Kaliningrad Museum of Fine Arts and Private Collections.

*Tilsit was renamed Sovetsk when the East Prussian region changed hands at the close of World War II. It is located in the Kaliningrad Oblast.

Rhythms of Kaliningrad

The Rhythms of Kaliningrad exhibition comprised an eclectic selection of art ~ paintings, sketches, drawings, sculptures ~ and even elaborate contributions from the Kaliningrad region’s world-renowned amber industry, examples of which included handmade jewellery of the most imaginative and exquisite calibre, highly detailed icons and an urn of Classical and Baroque form lavishly adorned. Designer clothing, handmade and avant-garde, added an unpredictable dimension to what was already an exotic and exhilarating showcase of regional artistic talent.

Taken as a collection, the thematic denominator subsumes the randomness of each subject into a distillation, and the compendium of impressions is a lyrical exposition that neither aggrandises nor underestimates the unique heritage, urban environment and natural images by which it is informed but rather acknowledges them and celebrates them as a compound expression of an esoteric experience. Sunsets across water, abstracts, natural landscapes, urban landscapes, pseudo-incarnations of Königsberg’s nobility ~ the castle and the city’s monuments ~ (none of which ever existed in the modern artist’s memory), Expressionism, Impressionism, Surrealism, Realism, Painterly and the rest, a gamut of artistic subjects and the styles through which they are brought into being vying to define, striving to encapsulate what it is about this place, this city and its territory, that draws you inexorably into its soul.

A personal reflection

Sherbak-Pyankova artist Konigsberg villa at Rhythms of Kaliningrad Exhibition. — Haunting painting of Konigsberg by Sherbak-Pyankova

In delivering the essence of the exhibition’s title, Rhythms of Kaliningrad, no one artwork should be singled out for being lesser or greater than the others in its company, but spectators and critics alike are fickle, prone, as we all are, to the common human failing for putting personal preference before impartiality, and thus although I would shy away from the impossible task of deciding which work of art was the best, whatever the given criteria, there was, inevitably, one among the paintings which resonated resoundingly with my not altogether impartial predilection for the sublime and metaphysical.

This painting was by the artist Sherbak-Pyankova. It was the study of a Königsberg house, a villa, set back in its own grounds, surrounded by its own garden, demarcated by iron railings with a wrought iron gate of unusual splendour.

Naturally, reliant on the theme of the exhibition, the subject matter in and of itself was not by any means a surprising leap into incongruity, but to narrow down the appeal criteria not to what had been painted but the way in which it had been painted ~ no, more, much more than this ~ the manner of its composition, its inherent composition and the intrinsic affect it had upon me, is how I would like to proceed.

In this respect I have no inclination to classify the artist’s technique within a particular school or style, because by doing so I would by default promote taught technique above inspirational teaching and, ultimately, individual creativity. My attraction to this piece of work was at once instantaneous ~ an impulse, a reaction ~ the rationalisation that ensued, if indeed you can call it this, being a process of thought, of mind.

When I first examined the painting I was, as is the norm, standing relatively close to it.

The outlines of the house were distinct enough but the details, although present, impressed me with the notion that they were fading before my eyes. It was as though my view was partially obscured or obfuscated by a thin veil, or a light film, as though the building was slipping away from me. Suspecting the fault lay in my eyesight, I stepped back a few paces and took another look. From my new, more removed, position, unless I was mistaken, the subject on which I now gazed had developed a clarity hitherto unseen. Encouraged by this promising shift in perspective, I removed myself still further, at which greater distance the details became so clear that I could well have been standing outside the house itself, next to the ornate gate, not viewing it on canvas.

So now I began walking slowly back towards the picture and, as I did, I was relieved to discover that the suspicions about my eyesight were unfounded. With each step that I took the mist that had so impeded my vision from the moment I looked upon the picture was, by stealth and with steady degrees, returning.

I repeated the exercise, just to make certain.

I was of the understanding that the further I removed myself from the Königsberg house the closer I came to it, or it to me; conversely, the closer I came to the house, the further away it became, until almost evaporating.

This inversion of physics bemused as much as the metaphysics eluded, but then, with a Eureka moment, Romanticism kicked in and the haze before the house, being the haze behind my eyes, lifted in the subjective sunlight.

Of course, the visibility of the house was so much better delineated from a distance. The distance between myself and the house was not the insoluble distance of time that I had first believed it to be, but in fact quite the reverse. The further I walked away from the house the closer I came to Königsberg. Walking back was walking back in time towards the point of origin. But when I approach the house, in an attempt to go backwards, I walk back into the present, Königsberg slips from my grasp and all that I am left with is the hazy, phantasmagorical image of something I aspire to see, to experience in the physical world.

Sherbak-Pyankova artist: Konigsberg street , shown at Rhythms of Kaliningrad Exhibition — Konisberg street by *Sherbak-Pyankova*

This painting, and a second painting of a street in Königsberg-Kaliningrad by the same artist, got both my vote and my wife’s Olga’s before we knew anything about either the artist or her mentor. However, given the profound effect that her work had on us, it should not have surprised us to learn that the artist she had studied under, and had an enduring respect for, was a mutual friend ~ Victor Rybinin.

Victor had taught art for many years at the Kaliningrad Art School. He had, as he said, ‘grown up among the ruins of Königsberg’ and was ‘the product of two cultures’; he invested his entire life in the philosophical, artistic and historic exploration of the Königsberg-Kaliningrad continuum. As our artist and historian friend Stanislav Konovalov said, who had himself been taught by Victor, Victor’s artistic representations came from the heart, they are each and every one imbued with a symbolic mysticism, a profundity, a deep soulfulness which emanates from his appreciation of and unwavering love for Königsberg-Kaliningrad, always described by Victor, with characteristic understatement, as ‘this unique place’.

That none of Victor Rybinin’s art saw inclusion in the Rhythms of Kaliningrad exhibition is a sorrowful oversight, particularly since those who knew him and who know his art share the conviction that he was and will remain a principal figure in the city’s and its region’s cultural history ~ history being the final judge.

Romanticist attribution or irony of fate? Either way it is an uncanny coincidence that we should choose as favourite the painting which we chose today …