Andrey Krasulin
Liudmila Ulitskaya
I have a reason
keeping me from writing about Andrey Krasulin: he is my husband, so there is
always fear of ... well, violating privacy, making public the thoughts and
feelings that developed in the space of intimacy. But then this is also what
urges me to speak, because thirty years of our interaction—of our intense
and stormy, deep and meaningful marriage—have so profoundly changed both of
us that we often find ourselves reacting to things in a similar way. Which
is why it is so hard to distinguish between “yours” and “mine.” Sometimes we
don’t even care which one of us was the first to come up with a certain
idea, formulate a certain reaction, or took notice of some detail, minor but
significant for two people sharing a life in the present. Not that this
happens every hour or day, but when it does, we derive from such an accord
great delight and satisfaction. It is irrelevant what particular subject
brought about this meeting of minds. It could be anything. But with age,
this meeting of minds tends to occur in the area that is closer to the
nature of—the world, the sphere of—that spontaneous activity that is known
as artistic creation.
Creation is the key word here. The nature of
artistic creativity is similar to radiation: it is a charge that emits
energy. Like many others, I, too, found myself in Andrey Krasulin’s energy
field.
The charge of creativity may be powerful, or
it may be tiny and embryonic—but it's there in every one of us. It is, in
fact, a distinctive feature of the human species. It has nothing to do
either with the power of intellect or moral qualities, and sometimes, not
even with talent.
In Russian, there isn’t even a word for
creativity, so we must use the English term, which is a bit too rational and
analytical in its connotation. Andrey brims with the energy of creativity—it
is his most basic trait. For him every act is an act of creativity—whether
he is cooking or eating, drinking, looking out of the window, washing a
shirt, or playing with a child. He is fully rooted in the present moment,
and this levels out the difference between everyday life and professional
activity. There is a great urgency to finish this painting—as great an
urgency as carving with his knife another spoon for tonight’s dinner because
of an extra guest. The urgent is only that which is absolutely necessary;
the rest is discarded as dross. Hence his revulsion before routine
activities, and all forms of hustling. This attitude is not worn on a
sleeve. It is his second nature. He has avoided participating in exhibition.
Apparently, even this gesture, so natural in an artist, felt to him as
superfluous showmanship. It is not that he had many opportunities to
exhibit. Between 1960 to 1990, he was allowed to show his work only once—in
1979 at the Kuznetskii Most Hall of the Moscow Artists Union—and even then
only as part of a group of artists.
Years of our relationship have revealed to
me some important things, ones that somehow go unnoticed even though you
know them since you were born . It is through my relationship with Andrey
that I have discovered for myself a certain frame of reference, a cultural
alphabet of sorts, without which no artistic creativity can exist. These
discoveries forced me to define myself. It was in Andrey’s studio that I was
gradually becoming a writer...
Andrey has his favorite themes and he
returns to them again and again: the circle, the square, and the cross.
These are the fundamental signs of the cosmos. They are accompanied by are
organic motifs: the tree, growth, spiraling outward, sprouting.
Why am I speaking about these signs—the
circle, the square, and the cross? After all I am not an art expert. The
answer is that Andrey took me by the hand and introduced me into this
world—the world beyond painting and sculpture—and I realized that art and
science are not different and may be used as tools for experiencing life.
What a lot of unnecessary clever books I
have read in my youth, how many lectures I have listened to, what kitchens I
have not visited in order to taste exotic spices—until it finally dawned on
me to put everything aside and for awhile just to sit quietly... Perhaps,
one beautiful day each one us came to this realization on one’s own ...
Still, this must have happened not without a certain, if ineffable,
coordination; and a feeling of gratitude for this realization is there
always between us.
And so, there we are one day: the two if us
just sitting and doing nothing. I began to realize gradually that “doing
nothing” for Andrey is a serious and meaningful business. At first glance,
it is useless, it does not produce results, if by results one understands
something material and visible. All of us, to a greater or lesser extent ,
are infected with this disease of materialism—we must be able to touch a
thing with own hands. But the result of “doing nothing” is ineffable and
cyou cannot hold it in your hand. Then aim is to achieve a certain level of
peace and sensitivity to the world around you. This has nothing to do with
ecstasy, euphoria, or edification. In short, it is ineffable. But you sense
a wave of some energy emanating from Andrey. And I try to flow with it and
to learn from him this art of “doing nothing.” And a great art it is. At the
very least, it is an art of not doing anything that is superfluous.
Perhaps, I think about him more than he
thinks about me. But then I know him better. And I remember his father well,
Nikolai Petrovich. A veteran of the World War I, the Civil War, and the
World War II (he lost his leg at Sebastopol), Nikolai Petrovich was a
biologist, a forest specialist; he died at the age of ninety-five. For me he
was a model of dignity, a man of beauty and physical strength, very precise,
well-organized, with something Western, perhaps even German, about him.
From his father Andrey inherited beauty and
strength, and from his grandfather, an Orthodox priest and a drunkard, this
Russian expansiveness, uncontrollable nature, and passionate recklessness
bordering on self-destruction—the qualities making up the notorious “holy
illness of the Russian soul.” But who knows, perhaps, this passionate
recklessness had something to do with the selfless abandon of the artist’s
creativity?
There is something exciting about the cold
monochromatic space of Andrey's works of recent years, something that
totally defies definition and plunges one into the atmosphere of
contemplation, peace and silence, something we so much long for in our
suffocating, busy metropolis where everyone seems on the verge of collapse
and perdition. I am searching for words ... what is this something?
It is heaven inside out? Is it the beyond? Is it the death of organized
space?
There is no use trying. No word, no name can
describe it. Opus number such and such, perhaps? For a moment or two you
find yourself somewhere where the outlines of the beautiful Muses begin to
blur; music, word, color, and volume begin to blend with the seamlessness
one knows from dreams. But you can at any time turn away from all this, and
Andrey would brew some tea and serve dried apricots and nuts, and turn on
some music. At home, I am boss; he reigns is at his studio. Now comes is a
pause. We are both, it seems, doing nothing…
Andrey's first studio, back in the early
sixties, was in Timiryazevka, close to where I lived at the time; we did not
now each other even though we walked on the same street. The second studio,
on Maslovka Street, was a semi-basement. It had ground-level windows, a beer
stall next door, bell-ringing trams outside—flashes of happiness and gusts
of grief. That studio was the center of my life for years and seemed to me
the best place on earth imaginable. Today, Andrey has a studio in Sokolniki,
a refuge I escape to when feeling weak, exhausted, or just blue. I come in,
sit down and look around; my eyes scan the walls and the shelves, and
gradually the system of coordinates begins to reestablish itself, the
relative scale of things is restored. What is important stays. Small things,
garbage dissolve away.
Andrey casts a big shadow—I feel good being
in it.
Lyudmila Ulitskaia