Boris Israilovich Anisfeld

Christian Brinton, ``Boris Anisfeld. Fantast,'' Vanity Fair, October 1918, p. 71, illustrated
James Britton, ``Boris Anisfeld's Art,'' American Art News, October 26, 1918, p. 1
Louis Weinberg, ``The Art of Boris Anisfeld,'' The International Studio, November 1918, pp. v and x, illustrated
Henry Tyrrell, ``The Exotic Art of Boris Anisfeld,'' The Christian Science Monitor, undated c. 1918
Guy Pene du Bois, ``Among the Art Galleries,'' The Evening Post Magazine, November 2, 1918
``A Russian Painter and New York Water Colorists,'' The Nation, November 16, 1918, p. 595
``Early Exhibitions of the Season,'' New York Times, October 20, 1918
```I Paint Myself as I Take Myself-Seriously,' says Boris Anisfeld,'' The Brooklyn Eagle, 18, November 1918
``Boris Anisfeld Invades the Realm of Fantasy,'' Current Opinion, December 1918, pp. 390-391, illustrated
William B. Murray, ``Boris Anisfeld Brings His Art to America,'' Vogue, December 1, 1918, pp. 56 and 100, illustrated
A.J. Philpott, ``New Thrill from Anisfeld Pictures,'' The Boston Globe, December 10, 1918
``The Anisfeld Pictures,'' The Evening Transcript, Boston, November 10, 1918
Jean Nutting Oliver, ``Anisfeld Show Art Event of Year,'' The Boston Sun, December 15, 1918
Francois G. de Cisneros, ``La Opulencia Bizantina: Boris Anisfeld,'' Social (Havana), 1918, p. 19, illustrated
Christian Brinton, ``The Boris Anisfeld Exhibition,'' Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, January 1919, p. 18
Marjorie Kinkead, ``Boris Anisfeld: Colorist,'' Asia, February 19, 1919, pp. 170 and 173
Jesse C. Glasier, ``Many Anisfeld Canvases Have Exquisite Charm as well as Crash of Color,'' Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 23, 1919
Norma K. Stahle, ``Anisfeld Draws Crowds,'' Cleveland Topics, March 1, 1919
Albright Art Gallery, 1919, ``Exhibition of Paintings by Boris Anisfeld at the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y,'' Academy Notes, New York, January-March 1919, p. 13, illustrated
Marguerite B. Williams, ``Painted His Pictures as Russ Guns Roared-Boris Anisfeld's Exhibition in Chicago Full of Slav Atmosphere,'' Chicago News, April 5, 1919
Dudley Crafts Watson, ``The Blue Statue Remains Mystery,'' Milwaukee Journal, September 14, 1919
Peyton Boswell, ``Anisfeld Art in Striking Display,'' New York, 1920
Marguerite B. Williams, ``About a Painter without Theories,'' Chicago Daily News, January 8, 1930
Shepherd Gallery, Boris Anisfeld in St. Petersburg: 1901-1917, New York, 1984, no. 22, plate 4, illustrated
``World of Art,'' Apollo, January 1985, p. 62
Roger J. Mesley, Boris Anisfeld, "Fantast-Mystic'': Twelve Russian Paintings from the Collection of Joey and Toby Tanenbaum, no. 6, pp. 40-43, illustrated (exhibition catalogue)

The Blue Statue is one of the most important paintings by Boris Anisfeld ever to be offered at auction. The Blue Statue was painted in 1908, as was Prayer of 1906, (see lot 64), the height of Anisfeld’s Russian period. The Blue Statue is among Anisfeld’s most daring compositions: bold in color, an amalgam of tradition and innovation, figuration and abstraction, nostalgic yet fiercely modern and experimental.  The Blue Statue is among Anisfeld’s most evocative and emotionally resonant compositions, a masterpiece in his oeuvre.

In 1905 Boris Anisfeld was a 25-year-old St. Petersburg Academy student. Artist Igor Grabar then introduced Anisfeld to Sergei Diaghilev, the leader of the avant-garde group Mir Isskustva or World of Art. This loose association of artists embraced “art for art’s sake” and valued intuitive processes such as emotion and imagination rather than the didactic realism dominant in Russia at the time. Like many members of The World of Art group, Anisfeld equated realism with materialism, and World of Art with “the most passionate idealistic impulses of the spirit.”  In his Russian period, Anisfeld emphasized decorative elements, simplified, stylized lines, and explored the expressive potential of form and color.  In 1906, when Diaghilev showcased Anisfeld’s canvases at the Salon d’Automne in Paris, alongside established artists like Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, his career took off.

Anisfeld was motivated by the Symbolist notion that meaning could be communicated through line and color throughout his career: “with me art is a matter of feeling and I paint, as a rule, that which I feel, not that which I see,” Anisfeld often said, “I always see a thing in color. It comes to me as a fairly complete conception and I rarely have to alter an essential character of any of my initial impressions.”   Anisfeld called The Blue Statue, “a color arrangement… I felt the whole subject and painted it as a vision from within.”

Anisfeld also appears to have been influenced by Fauvism when he painted The Blue Statue.  The Fauve movement as represented by the exuberant works of Matisse, Gauguin and Derain emphasized the emotive quality of primary and contrasting color. In The Blue Statue, the striking reds, the blue statue and the figures sheathed in white appear as if in a Fauve painting.  However, The Blue Statue also alludes to myth, beauty, love and death, favorite themes of Symbolist artists.

The Blue Statue created controversy when it was exhibited as part of Anisfeld’s show at the Brooklyn Museum in 1918. One reviewer wrote, “Anisfeld attains a striking and able effect both in scenery and pictures by using a brilliant background with either higher or lower keyed figures in the foreground… The Blue Statue is such a picture with the added interest of a reversed technical problem, the weight of the dark statue against the bright distance on one side, and on the other, the light colored nymphs against the dark foliage.” Another reviewer believed that the ``ancient symbolisms of color are vital living interpretations of their psychological effects upon the human mind…To him blue stands for oblivion-the hereafter-the unknown deathless silence. The interrogation point is obviously suggested in the form.  It is a woman. Anisfeld was swept by emotion in looking at the deathless life and lifeless death of a cold bronze statue silhouetted against the glow of sunset.  White to Anisfeld is the symbol of life.  The fountain as an abstract idea suggests the same-red is the symbol of earthly passion’’ (Watson 1919).  Anisfeld’s interest in varying blue, red and white in the present lot references the late 19<sup>th</sup> century and early 20<sup>th</sup> century preoccupation with Synaethesia, a sensory fusion of color and sound.  Vassily Kandinsky, one of the most mindful color theorists, espoused color as language and believed that sensory impressions communicated directly to the soul. Kandinsky thought the color red, for example, to be ``a color without boundaries,’’ which ``gives the effect of the primary note of an immense force,’’ while white suggests `` a silence pregnant with possibilities.’’