Alexander Evgenievich Yakovlev

In 1929, Alexander Yakovlev was once again invited to join his friend Georges-Marie Haardt on an overland journey across the Asian continent with the Citroën expedition, La Croisière Jaune. Four years earlier, Yakovlev served as one of the members of the Citroën journey across Africa, documenting the historical expedition. The artist’s undertaking resulted in over a hundred paintings and sketches depicting the natives and exotic landscapes discovered during that voyage. Beyond their artistic importance, the works possess great value as anthropological studies of African tribes and their people. Citroën's Central Asia Expedition was the astounding subsequent adventure that took place over a period of seven months in 1931. Thirty-nine men tried to establish a link between the Mediterranean and the China Sea, following Marco Polo’s footsteps over the ``Silk Road.''

For Yakovlev, the expedition began in Peking; it was here that the artist had produced his testament to the dramatic art of the Chinese Theatre. Peking would be the first place where Yakovlev exhibited the extent of his oeuvre completed during the Citroën expedition. Reviews from the period attested to Yakovlev’s amazing talents, and proclaimed him the first European artist to depict the Chinese people with a devoted and inquisitive sensibility rarely exhibited by Westerners. It is at this time, that Yakovlev began to sign his work with an engraved seal, which represented the Chinese phonetic transcription of his name ``Ya-Ko-Lo-Fu.'' He would later explain, ``It was in Peking, whose countless walls one after the other reveal the phantoms and ancient mysteries of the autocratic East, where the profane hands of the traveler may touch the abandoned throne of the Celestials, that I entered into contact with modernized China and that I attempted to understand and comprehend the charm of her thousand-year-old culture.'' (Tchou-Kia-Kien, Le Théatre Chinois. Peintures, Sanguines et Croquis d’Alexandre Jacovleff, London: John Lane, 1922, p. 5).

Chinese theatre is an ancient art form that emphasizes tradition and the simplicity of human expression. Though its origin is impossible to determine, old texts trace its roots to the T’ang Dynasty, approximately 700 BC. Yakovlev studied a popular type of play called the king-diau, or songs of Peking, developed during the reign of Manchous (1644-1912). Upon seeing an example of this ancient art form, the artist recounted the spectacle: ``The scarlet beams of the monumental porch, a sort of miniature triumphal arch, the gay and brilliant mosaic of posters, the lanterns ornamented by letters with living forms, the crowd, the tumult of ceaseless coming and going, all form a varied symphony of sound and color… Roundabout me are amber-colored heads whose tense expression reflects the action on the stage. I do not know what it is all about, nor do I know what the play signifies. I see movement and color. I feel their surprising and perfect connection with the precise and complicated rhythm of those instruments which exasperate me… The painted mask reminds me of one of those seen on ancient pictures and popular engravings. It is a real mask in which only the eyes live with an exaggerated life. But they squint and dance rather then mimic… But even without the beard the ornamentation of the painted mask is so precise and conventional that the mouth takes no part in the play of expression. That is why the Chinese theatre— although actual masks are very rarely used— is the theatre of masks and of characters created and defined by ancient traditions… It is art which thus serves to express the moral traits of a people.'' (Tchou-Kia-Kien, Le Théatre Chinois. Peintures, Sanguines et Croquis d’Alexandre Jacovleff, London: John Lane, 1922, p. 6).

The present work depicts a military scene from the traditional play The Retreat of Kiai-Ting, based on the famous Chinese novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In a war between the Shu and Wei states, Emperor Zhuge Liang was desperate to protect the town of Kiai-Ting, so he assigned the mission to general Ma-Soo who pledged his own life in the event of failure. In an attempt to outsmart the enemy, Ma-Soo disobeyed the order of Zhuge Liang and compromised the army’s position, losing the passage of Kiai-Ting to the enemy. During Ma-Soo’s execution, the Emperor recalled his father’s perception of the general whose words surpassed his abilities. In the painting The Retreat of Kiai-Ting, we are presented with the defeated figure of General Ma-Soo, who is dressed in traditional robes of a horseback warrior, embroidered with dragons, and a battle helmet decorated with metal discs. As Yakovlev describes in the L’Illustration article on the sensation of the Chinese theatre, the theatrical costumes are ``very complex, of vibrant colors, generally made out of silk embroidered with gold and encrusted with small mirrors and glass. They imitate the ancient symbolism through exaggeration in order to obtain more decorative effects. Fixed flags in the backs of the costumes are the prerogatives of a chiefdom; hairstyles correspond to the costumes and are ornamented with pompoms, mirrors and sometimes long pheasant feathers… All the makeup corresponds strictly to each role, it is a painted brazen door into each characters’ titles of nobility, defining its virtues and its vices.'' (Alexandre Yakovlev, “Impact of the Chinese Theatre, Citroën Central-Asia Expedition.” L’Illustration, 1932).

Color plays a very important part in the identification of the individual characters: the black in the facial striations symbolize severity of character, red elements draw on the dignity of the figure, while white is an indication of deep mourning. The stage has minimal decorations and the musicians are present during the entirety of the spectacle. Yakovlev passionately recounts his experience of the spectacle in the present scene, ``the tam-tam beats its crazy measure. The sound of the trumpets, gongs, and drums transports you to the field of battle. Here comes the warrior. A Shining, golden insect, resplendent with bright colors, brutal in their harmony, but always logical. He comes on with the tiger’s step, a traditional motion, proud and aggressive. On reaching the front of the stage the movement becomes wilder and recalls the image of the peacock displaying the glory of its plumes. One feels that the actor has the desire to regulate his movements in harmony with all his surroundings. His gestures and the composition of his attitudes produce pure and voluntary arabesques. He is guided by a geometric formula. The principal lines of the square are very distinct, the horizontals and verticals are opposed to the diagonals. There is nothing confused or hesitating. Combats and rapid movements are under absolute control. Suddenly everything is transformed into a statuesque vision.'' (Tchou-Kia-Kien, Le Théatre Chinois. Peintures, Sanguines et Croquis d’Alexandre Jacovleff, London: John Lane, 1922, p. 7).