Saint Petersburg

Meeting The Master, with Odd Nerdrum.

The writer Torgrim Eggen interviews Odd Nerdrum at the cultural heart of Russia, visiting the Hermitage Museum, the State Russian Museum, St. Isaac's cathedral and the Repin Academy.

I toured the same museum and sights in Russia last August. In this video, Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum is paying hommage to Rembrandt, in the same manner that I paid hommage to Matisse when I went to St Petersburg. Read I Ascended Alone, where I recount my own life-changing trip.

Brunette

The Expressionist. 2014. The Russian Brunette. 

8" x 10.75" 

Pastel, Oil, Charcoal & Graphite. 

Casey Klahn 

Note: soft pastels and oil paint mixed media, rather than oil pastel - another medium altogether! La Carte Card.

I Ascended Alone

  

Henri Matisse, 1930. Silver gelatin

by Edward Steichen.

Dance, 1910. o/c. 8.5 feet x 12.75 feet. Henri Matisse.

Music, 1910. o/c. 8.5 feet x 12.75 feet. Henri Matisse.

   

    

  Would they be there? The two great canvases, Dance, and Music, are twin titans that Matisse painted for his patron, Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin, in 1910. This August, I went to see these works at the State Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. But, I had reason to worry about their whereabouts.


  After a day of touring the great museum with Olga, our Russian guide, I was told the Matisse works had been moved to an outer building of the sprawling complex. Russians didn't prefer the Modernists, anyway, and so they were possibly on exhibit at the General Staff building. I had traveled halfway around the world to see the definitive works by the master Henri Matisse, whose influence on me has grown over the past many years. Would both of the canvases be accessible, or perhaps only one of them?

  Olga had taken our small group on a whirlwind run through the main museum building, the Winter Palace. Look! There's Michelangelo! Da Vinci and Raphael, puff, p-puff! Huh, wheeze. Now look at Rembrandt - there he goes! It was an atrocious art crime; speeding past masterworks by the greatest artists of world history but never actually looking at them! The idea was to say that you had seen Leonardo; you were in his presence. What did the painting look like? Hell if I know! It was too crowded and I was only afforded a second's audience with the great canvas.

Ascending the grand staircase of the General Staff Building of The State Hermitage Museum.

     Had I come all the way to Russia for nothing?

  I ascended alone the wide, white marble stairway inside the General Staff Building of The Hermitage. After some trouble with language and directions, I had found the place where I hoped to view the great man's art. Up a central line of emerald green glass and through glorious four-story doors, there waited a nearly private exhibit of paintings and sculptures by Henri Matisse. Yes, they were all there.


  It seem to me that there was something providential happening. Not only did I see both of the big 1910 canvases by Matisse, but I also enjoyed a rare exhibit of about 30 works by the master, including important paintings such as Harmony in Red and Portrait of The Artist's Wife. In this exhibit, I saw his color, his passion, and his carefree attitude in painting. 

"(I paint) to translate my emotions...through color and drawing, which neither the most perfect camera, even in color, nor the cinema, can do." Henri Matisse. 1942 Radio Interview.

Detail: Seville Still Life. Insane Red Color.

  This was a life event for me: a long private conversation (art is communication, isn't it?) with the 20th century French Colorist Henri Matisse. Seeing the works in their context, in close proximity to one another, and in regal situation, was an irreplaceable experience. What more can be said with color in new paintings? I can't wait to see.

Russian Busker Without Her Hat

The Russian Photo Busker Who Wore No Hat. 2014. @11" x 9." Graphite, tinted with Compressed White Charcoal, Conté, and Pastel, on Blue Saint Armand Old Master Drawing Paper. Casey Klahn.

With Love

I'll write more about my Finland and Russia trip as soon as I get my land legs back. For now some rest, but always sweet memories of Lapland, Helsinki, The Baltic Sea and Matisse.

Getting on the Airplane

Please allow me these moments of glee as I get ready to board the plane for Europe. The brief is that I will be teaching a workshop above the Arctic Circle, in Lapland. I'm afraid I couldn't find any hip Beatles songs about that experience, but since I will be adding a side trip to Russia, Back will do just fine.

Stay tuned here for photos and updates about the workshop in Kemijärvi , Finland, and I'll be creating and posting some pastels as well. I have an affinity for places in the north, and am really looking forward to seeing this delightful and remote corner of Europe. 

Back in the, er.., Russia, I just clued-in that St. Petersburg is known as the Venice of the North. I want to see the big Matisse paintings held there, and maybe I'll get to play Sargent as best I'm able, and paint some canal scenes, too. 

For the more playful, here is the Beatles illustrated trip to Russia. Couldn't help myself.