Archive for the ‘Playground of the Autocrats’ Category

RUSSIA THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS opens at the Mooney Center Gallery

Sunday, November 2nd, 2014

Russia Through the Looking Glass: Terror, Humanity, and Geo-Politics through History opened Oct. 26, 2014.  DARLING GODSONNY STALIN, a complex mixed media piece 9′ x 6,’ went on display for the first time.

The exhibit was extended at the Mooney Center Gallery through Nov. 25, 2014.

For closeups of each piece below, please click on its image (for some, scroll down to see larger details).

DARLING GODSONNY STALIN . Acrylic paint and digital images on canvas and board . 2014

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Viewers were very engaged in the art!

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Viewers read wall text for DRESS IT UP IN RESPLENDENT CLOTHES Oct. 26, 2014

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Mooney Gallery Oct. 26, 2014
Visitors to opening of RUSSIA THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

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Viewing HOME SECURITY AT ANY CRAZY PRICE.

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Visitors discuss Ivan IV, the “Terrible.”

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Viewers read explanatory wall text for THE MOST EXPOSED TERRAIN ON EARTH.

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Viewers get up close and personal with Ivan the Terrible.

For more about Ivan the Terrible, click here.

 

DARLING GODSONNY STALIN is now a triptych ….

Sunday, November 2nd, 2014

Darling Godsonny Stalin is now a triptych (on its way to becoming a 5-paneled piece).  Details of the two side panels of this large, detailed artwork are here.  Closeups of the center panel are below, on this page.

Visitors to opening reception for “Russia Through the Looking Glass: Terror, Humanity, and Geo-Politics Through History” view DARLING GODSONNY STALIN

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DARLING GODSONNY STALIN . Currently 9′ x 6” .  Acrylic paint and digital images on canvas and board .

Darling Godsonny Stalin is narrated in song by “fairy godfather” Ivan the Terrible.  Ivan gives his infant “godson” Stalin the blessings of Russia’s past and “advice” on how to handle his 20th century future.

Ivan instructs Stalin to follow the example of Ivan’s own 16th century terror against individual members of powerful clans, portrayed in the central onion-dome of the artwork.  (For more about Ivan’s terror, click here.)

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: entire central panel . 42″ x 75″

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DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: Ivan sings his “advice” to his infant “godson” Stalin.

The left side of the triptych’s large onion-dome portrays Ivan’s Oprichniki (his private army) throwing Novgorod clan members off a bridge, then pushing anyone who surfaced back down under the ice.

Detail of middle onion-dome of Darling Godsonny Stalin – scene of Novgorod massacre described in historical sources.

Historians today all agree that Ivan the Terrible killed thousands of his own people during his terror.  But – due to the skimpy historical record – historians continue to debate exactly how horrific Ivan’s methods were.

The right side of the artwork’s central onion dome portrays the members of powerful clans whose land was expropriated, and who were exiled to live on estates in Ivan’s newly conquered territories around Kazan.  For more on these exiles, click here.

Right side of onion-dome, middle panel of Darling Godsonny Stalin

Stalin’s 20th century purges, remarkably similar in many ways to those of Ivan in the 16th century, peaked in 1937-8.  Stalin executed virtually all of the Bolshevik leaders who had led the revolution (Lenin had died of repeated strokes in the early 1920s).

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: Most top Bolshevik leaders were executed.

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: Trotsky’s assassination.

 

Trotsky – who Stalin viewed as his most threatening rival – was expelled from the USSR.  Trotsky’s sons had both been killed at Stalin’s behest, and Trotsky knew the noose was tightening around him as well.  He was living in Mexico when he was assassinated, by means of a mountaineer’s ice pick,  in 1940.

Other Bolsheviks – whether careerists or dedicated, hardworking idealists – were arrested and transported on trains to slave labor camps in Siberia and other locations across the Soviet Union. Some died of starvation, thirst, or illness while being transported thousands of miles.

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: Prisoner transport to GULAG slave labor camps.

Some prisoners were executed and buried in mass graves.

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: Execution and mass graves.

Political prisoners were put to work building large-scale infrastructure projects: canals, mines, and cities in the far north (such as Norilsk).  Soviet Russia was overwhelmingly non-industrialized, so much of this labor was done by human power with non-mechanized equipment like picks and wheelbarrows.  Inadequately fed and clothed, this was a devastating experience for many who had once been leaders of the new young country.

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: political prisoners excavating a canal and removing the soil with wheelbarrows.

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: prisoners lumbering in Soviet Russia’s far north.

 

The push for rapid industrialization required construction material.  The heavily-forested far north provided an unending source of lumber.  The cold, tens of degrees below zero, was unbearable for prisoners whose ragged clothing couldn’t protect them.

Roads had to be built, and lumber was plentiful, so they were used.

 

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: building a log road in the far north.

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: Prisoners in Magadan, in the far northeast, mined gold and diamonds using wheelbarrows.

 

 

 

The rich gold and diamond fields of the USSR’s far northeast were mined by political prisoners using wheelbarrows and picks.

 

 

Prisoners were housed in freezing barracks.

DETAIL of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN: interior of political prisoners’ barracks.

 

 

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PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS Gallery Addition

Thursday, March 27th, 2014

I’ve just completed Panel 2 of Darling Godsonny Stalin – which will eventually be a very large 5-panel piece, 14 feet wide.  Images, including close-up details of parts of the panel, are below.  For close-up details of Panel 1, please scroll down to previous post or click here.

Check back soon for more information on the content and meaning of Panel 2 (The Bolshevik Clans).  Meantime, you can read about Panel 1 (Ivan the Terrible’s Noble Clans) here and about other polyptychs in my PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS series here.

DETAIL Panel 2 DARLING GODSONNY STALIN

DETAIL Panel 2 Darling Godsonny Stalin – Far Left Side

DETAIL of Bolshevik Clans, DARLING GODSONNY STALIN Panel 2.

DETAIL – Panel 2 Darling Godsonny Stalin – Peasants

DETAIL Shaped wood top of DARLING GODSONNY STALIN, Panel 2.  Map portrays Russia’s Civil War in the years following the 1917 Revolution, including White Armies and invasion routes.

 

Please continue with the following post to see the complete PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS gallery.

Delightful praise from Russian historian Chester Dunning

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

After sending images of my latest Playground of the Autocrats panel, I was delighted to receive the following email (quoted with permission) from Chester Dunning, author of the wonderful Russia’s first Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty:

Wow! Thank you for sending me images of your amazing artwork.  I have been teaching Russian history for over thirty years, and your art really captures the sad, crazy quilt of Russian history and culture.  Congratulations on getting it exactly (insanely) right!

Best wishes,
Chester Dunning
Professor of History and
Murray and Celeste Fasken Chair in Distinguished Teaching
Texas A&M University

 

“Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.P.s:” Artist talk at Blue Door Gallery

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

Recently, I gave an artist talk at Blue Door Gallery in the Artists’ District of Yonkers, NY.  I spoke about the newest painting in my PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS series, which tells stories about Russian history in pictures.  Below are some photographs of the talk.

Bobroff-Hajal painting, sketches of Ivan the Terrible face

Right: Audience teases “When did you shave your beard?” as I show them my sketches for Ivan the Terrible’s face, because I posed for it myself in my bathroom mirror. Left: My final painting of Ivan (Detail of “Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.P.s.”)

Bobroff-Hajal artist talk: Ivan the Terrible

Responding to an audience question about my  process of creating this panel, “Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.Ps.”

Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.P.s is the first panel in what will become a 5-paneled work – a pentaptych – entitled Darling Godsonny Stalin (Ivan the Terrible Advises the Infant Stalin).  The completed pentaptych will playfully tell the tragic story of Russian rulers’ recurring terror against their own people, from Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible) to Stalin, who caused the deaths of upwards of 20 million innocent Russians.

I believe the past is godparent to the present, and that landscape and environment are godparent to all.  One way I visualize this in my art is via my fantasy of Ivan the Terrible as one of Stalin’s godparents.  You can see Ivan singing to the infant Stalin in the top of the panel above.

Your Grasping, Scheming V.I.P.s is about Ivan the Terrible’s relationship to his nobility before he began his terror against them.  (For more, see Ivan the Terrible: Madman or Crazy Like a Fox?)

Detail Bobroff-Hajal: Ivan the Terrible & noble clans

Ivan the Terrible lived within a “spider’s web” of noble clans, whose “aristocratic pretensions could not fail to come into conflict with the autocratic aspirations of the first Russian tsar.”

To become a true autocrat, Ivan had to cut his way free of a “spider’s web” of powerful aristocratic clans.

Russian Nobility under Ivan IV

Russian noble clans sometimes formed marriage alliances and sometimes fought each other as they vied for influence with the tsar.  Detail of my painting “Your Grasping, Scheming VIPs.”

Sweet dreams, baby Stalin….

Bobroff-Hajal painting: Ivan the Terrible & Stalin as infant

Stalin’s godfather, Ivan the Terrible, flies on a broom topped with a severed dog’s head – both Ivan’s symbols of his Terror against his own people.

Playground of the Autocrats in Terrain.org

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

Playground of the Autocrats: The Russian Empire and How Terrain Shapes Society

A wonderful article about my Playground of the Autocrats Russian history triptychs was published in the Fall/Winter 2011 issue of Terrain.org, A Journal of the Built and Natural Environments.  It boasts lots of images and even audio recordings of the original lyrics I wrote to the tune of Kalinka, probably the most popular folksong in Russia.

There are separate hypertext selections about each of my triptychs:

Most Exposed Terrain on Earth: Portraying Human Vulnerability on the Endless Steppes

Home Security At Any Crazy Price: What If We Had a 9/11 Every Year For Centuries?

Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes: Stalin Builds on the Flatlands Past

… and other sections about the vast Russian flatland (steppes), which made the Muscovite state vulnerable to Mongol invasions and the massive trade in Slavic slaves, giving rise to a garrison state:

Landscape Form and Military Defense

The Immense Russian Flatland

Mongol Occupation and the Slav Slave Trade: the “Harvesting of the Steppe”

Terrain.org.While you’re there, please check out all the other great articles in the Fall/Winter 2011 issue of Terrain.org, whose editor-in-chief is Simmons Buntin.  Terrain is, in the words of its wonderful About page,

a twice yearly online journal searching for that interface—the integration—among the built and natural environments that might be called the soul of place.

It is … a celebration of the symbiosis between the built and natural environments where it exists, and an examination and discourse where it does not.

The literary, journalistic, and artistic works contained with Terrain.org are of the highest quality, submitted by a variety of contributors for a diverse audience, including some of the finest material previously appearing in Terra Nova: Nature & Culture. The works may be idealistic, technical, historical, philosophical, and more. Above all, they focus on the environments around us—the built and natural environments—that both affect and are affected by the human species.

Terrain.org strives to be both a resource and a pleasure, a compass and a shelter…

 

 

What If We Had a 9/11 Every Year for Centuries?

Friday, July 15th, 2011

“Home Security At Any Crazy Price” 

Long before 9/11, I had written early drafts of lyrics for what would become one of my mixed media artworks about Russia, Home Security at Any Crazy Price.

At the time I thought my theme was very specific to Russian history, a bit too esoteric for most Americans.  It was about Tsars building their dictatorship by taking advantage of popular fears from centuries of brutal enemy onslaughts.  I planned to paint Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great singing to each other:

Darling Ivan, our Founder (Darling Peter, my Scion),
How fortunate it has been
That the Russian populace is deeply traumatized
‘Cause barbarian onslaughts lay waste their paradise.
Now folks want home security at any crazy price.         (Continued below image)

“Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal . 36″ x 40″ .  Acrylic and digital images on canvas and board . 2009

Then came 9/11.  Many Americans’ response – their sudden willingness to give up personal freedoms if the government could only keep them safe – revealed that a similar dynamic to Russia’s can play out wherever people come under attack and feel profoundly threatened.

All at once, my planned artwork seemed absolutely current and relevant to the US today.                                                                                                                    Continued below image

Detail of center panel of “Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

Americans have relaxed a bit since 2001, having experienced no further attacks on the scale of 9/11.  We’re no longer as ready to trade our civil liberties for a strong government to protect us from seemingly imminent terror.

But what if…

Detail of right panel of “Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Haja

But what if the US had had repeated assaults every year since 2001, in which thousands of Americans were killed?  And if yearly onslaughts continued indefinitely?

What if we lived in a land so vulnerable that we had a 9/11 every year for over five centuries?

Then what kind of government would we be willing to tolerate?  One that abridged our personal freedoms constantly in order to keep us ever-mobilized and battle-ready?  Would we accept our entire society being organized like a military hierarchy, with a single tsar at the top commanding us into position to survive our unending state of emergency?

What can our 9/11 experience help us fathom about Russia?

Few Americans are aware that Russia was born and forged in terror from outside its borders: constant devastation by enemies and the kidnapping into slavery of hundreds of thousands of Russians, from the 13th century till the 18th.

Detail: Right upper panel of “Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

First, ferocious, brilliantly-skilled Mongol raiders pillaged, sacked, brutalized, and occupied Russia for a couple of hundred years.  For centuries after that, the Mongols’ descendants, the Tatars, swept across Russia virtually every summer, abducting 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 or more people each year to sell in the Black Sea slave market, a straight shot across the steppes to the south.

In fact, our word “slave” derives from “Slav.”  No population in the world other than Africans have been enslaved more than Slavs.  (For more on the reasons, see “The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth.”)

In short, Muscovites were traumatized by terror, as were New Yorkers on 9/11.  But  Russians were terrorized again and again for hundreds of years.

Well, haven’t all countries been attacked throughout history?

Every country in history has been repeatedly attacked.  Their people too have had to drop normal life to run inside inside the walls of their local castle for protection.

What was different about Russia was the frequency of assaults.  Slave raids occurred not once in 10 or 25 years – but every year.  Because these raids occurred every year, they earned the moniker “the harvesting of the steppe.”  Every member of the Russian gentry was responsible for military duty at the frontier for one half of every single summer to protect the vast southern border against raids.

Detail of center panel from “Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

The frequency of attacks on Russia was partly due to its lack of natural protective barriers along a longer open border with powerful enemies than anywhere else on earth.

The only geographic area comparable with Russia’s southern frontier might be the American Great Plains frontier (north/south orientation) in early US history.  But next to the US frontier lay the remnants of native tribes nearly wiped out by disease spread from Europe to the New World.  Next to the Russian frontier, in contrast, were large, flourishing, major powers of the day: the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman Empire.

It would be as if the early United States had had the equivalent of both El Qaeda and Akhmedinezhad’s government living along its frontier.

Tsarist autocracy was military rule

The tsarist state was military hierarchy writ large (above).  The entire society could never relax from war preparations and fighting.  Centers of power independent of the tsar couldn’t develop because the military chain of command always had to be in effect society-wide.

Home Security At Any Crazy Price visualizes the impact on civil liberties of the unending threat of attack.                                                                                       Continued below image

Detail of lower left panel of “Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

Why didn’t civil liberties blossom after the slave raid threat ended in the late 18th century?

Institutions which have been forged over a period of five centuries don’t change overnight.  New autocrats make use of earlier institutions – controlled press, secret police, patronage – to maintain and strengthen their power.

Detail of right panel of “Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

Since the fall of Communism, Russia is again becoming more centralized.  Putin has asserted control over the media.  No non-Kremlin newspaper can garner significant circulation.  Journalists who report stories the government doesn’t like are murdered.  Real opposition political parties aren’t allowed to run candidates.

Will Russia ever become a fully pluralistic society?  I don’t know, but I’m interested in watching to see.                                                                                                       Continued below image

Detail of lower right panel, “Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal.

What can Russia and our own experience of 9/11 teach us about ourselves?

The US experience of terrorism on 9/11 can help us better grasp why Russia developed an autocratic state.  A nation of people who experienced almost yearly trauma for centuries adapted to their society’s being permanently organized like a military chain of command with no insubordination from the ranks.

We can also learn from Russia’s experience the terrible consequences of sacrificing civil liberties for security over the long term.  Russian history can serve as a cautionary tale for what could happen to us if we’re too ready to trade personal freedoms for powerful government. ■

Below image are links to more posts about PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS triptychs.

Detail: Top center panel of “Home Security At Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

An introduction to the PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS series is here.  Other posts about these triptychs are:

Portraying the Vast Flatland of the Playground

The Most Exposed Terrain On Earth

Designing the Character of Peter the Great

Catherine the Great: A Satirical Visualization of Russian History and Society

What is Catherine the Great Singing in Her Triptych?

How I Painted and Composited Catherine the Great (and Stalin)

“The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth:” A Satirical Visualization of Russian History

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

How does an artist portray a grand sweep of centuries?

Detail of center panel of “The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

Russian history is full of high drama.  Mongol raiders thundering across the endless steppes toward small Muscovite towns.  Human terror and suffering.  Tsarist defenses and brilliance, ambition and intrigue.  Russian culture’s astonishing splendor and beauty.

It all makes a perfect subject for art.

But how can a painter visualize a grand sweep of centuries?  What recipe can be cooked up to entertainingly portray a millenium of Russian history?

That’s the challenge I set for myself in my series of triptychs collectively entitled PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS.  The first in the series is The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth.

A detail of my “recipe” to convey this triptych’s story is to the right.  I use satire, color, action – and song lyrics (see images below).

But my most important ingredient for each triptych is visualization of a historical process.  The centerpiece of my visualization of The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth is a tsar-type figure (above) lifting his skirts to gather in lots of Russians underneath.

Hmm, the viewer might ask.  Who is this guy labeled “AUTOCRACY,” and why is he grinning with malevolent glee?  And what’s going on with all those frantic people running to hide inside his robe?

Just what historical process am I visualizing here?

“The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth” . 24″ x 48″ . Acrylic and digital images on canvas

The true story behind my triptych

Detail of Mongols in middle panel of “The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

Muscovy – later Russia – arose and was forged in an inferno during the 200 years when ferocious, brilliantly-skilled Mongol warriors pillaged, sacked, brutalized, and dominated it – and the centuries following, when the Mongol’s descendants – the Nogay Horde, the Crimean Khanate and others – continually raided and plundered it.

The Mongols’ war organization, tactics, and composite bows were the great military advances of their day.  “The level of organization of the Mongol army was not seen elsewhere in the Middle Ages and stands in marked contrast to that of the feuding Russian Princes.”

If Russia was to survive, its fractious princes needed to whip themselves into a unified fighting force under a single central command, and fast.

Painting the Mongol peril to Russia

To portray Mongol attacks, I painted a battle scene filled with fierce Mongols terrifying Russian peasants and nobles.                                                   Continued below image.

 

Detail of center panel of “The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

 

For the models I needed to paint from, I collected photos of present-day archers shooting Mongol-style bows from horseback, and drawings of Mongol battle-wear.

I painted Russians of all classes running for their lives, and used color to differentiate between them and the invaders: indigos, purple, blue for the Mongols, and warm oranges, reds, yellows for the Russians.  This make the two combatant sides immediately “readable” by the viewer.

I wanted to convey the tragedy and terror experienced by individual victims, so I conceived a Russian peasant woman (right) and a noblewoman (above) each holding a wounded child.  I balanced color and composition in such a way that the peasant woman stands out from the crowds of people running and shooting.

But what does that red-robed guy labeled “AUTOCRACY” represent?

The necessity for Russians of all classes to unify beneath a single commander presented the tsars with an opportunity to amass vast power and wealth for themselves. Russians of every level of society, desperate for protection against enemies, ceded independent power bases to their defender, the state.

The state leveraged this situation to its own fullest benefit.

Detail of central panel of “The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

So my triptych’s AUTOCRACY character is a satirical visualization of how the tsars as a group took advantage of five centuries of nonstop attacks on the Russian people to secure their absolute rule: autocracy.

But wait a minute…

Europeans, too, sought protection against enemies from their monarchs.  Yet tsarist dictatorships didn’t develop there.  What was different in Russia?

A land wide open to Mongol pillage and Tatar slave raids

Even after the Russians threw off the long Mongol occupation, they were far from safe.  The economy of the neighboring Crimean Khanate and other nearby Hordes was based on the slave trade: abducting and selling Slavs.  So virtually every summer, Tatar raiders rode north across the steppe into Russia, kidnapping thousands of people to sell into slavery in the Black Sea slave market.

These raids occurred not every 10 or 20 years, but essentially every year. Over several centuries, hundreds of thousands of Russians were seized as slaves.

Geographic relationship of Russia to Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire

Our very word “slave” derives from “Slav.”  No population in the world other than Africans have been enslaved more than Slavs.

Why was Russia so vulnerable to these raids?

A glance at a map (right) shows why Russia was so vulnerable to yearly attack.  There was nothing but wide open steppe between Russia and the Crimean Khanate with its slave market (and Ottoman slave-purchasers directly across the Black Sea).  Highly mobile, skilled raiders could pour across the steppes each summer, capture thousands of Russians, and head back to the huge international slave market, Caffa, a straight shot across the unobstructed plain.

Russia is by far the largest wide-open plain on earth.  Glance at the world maps toward the end of this post if you have any doubts.  No mountain barrier protected the Russians.  For their state to survive, they had to build their own human barrier.

Details of left panel of “The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

In short, Russians lived in the most exposed terrain on earth.  They could never stand down from battle-readiness.  Their society had to be permanently organized like – indeed it was – a military chain of command.

Portraying the most exposed terrain on earth

One way I’ve visually conveyed the relationship between landscape and autocracy is through painting the Mongol battle raging on a flat plain. And I painted AUTOCRACY towering in the midst of this wide-open battlefield, skirts held open to receive the terrorized Russian people.

Another way I conveyed the flatness of Russia’s endless steppes is through song lyrics “sung” by characters I designed for Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible.  I wrote these lyrics to the tune of the ubiquitous folksong, Kalinka.  Images of the lyrics are above and below.  (For more about the characters who sing the lyrics and how I designed them, please see here, here, and here.)

Detail of lower left panel of “The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

A last way I conveyed the endless, wide-open flatness of Russia – the largest on earth – was through a border around the center panel of the triptych.  I created this border from digital images of paintings by the great 19th century Russian painters called the Peredvizhniki.  You can find much more detail on my process of building this border here.

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Other posts about PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS triptychs

Posts about other tryipychs in the series are here:

Catherine the Great: A Satirical Visualization of Russian History and Society

What is Catherine the Great Singing in Her Triptych?

How I Painted and Composited Catherine the Great (and Stalin)

What If We Had a 9/11 Every Year for Centuries?  “Home Security At Any Crazy Price”

The Most Exposed Terrain On Earth

Portraying the Vast Flatland of the Playground

Designing the Character of Peter the Great

Playground of the Autocrats

What is Catherine the Great Singing in Her Triptych?

Friday, July 8th, 2011

An introduction to “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes” is here; the artistic process behind it is here.

“Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal. Triptych is 7 feet by 6 feet.

PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS is a series of artworks that – like comic books and graphic novels – tell stories through pictures.  PLAYGROUND’s tales are about modern Russia, “narrated” in song by the likes of Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great.

My whimsical imperial characters sound off through original lyrics I wrote to the tune of the famous Russian folksong, Kalinka. The lyrics are about the “gifts” Stalin received from Tsarist history, the foundation on which he built his country’s most powerful dictatorship ever.

If viewers wish, they can navigate their way through PLAYGROUND’s arias in sequence by following the numbers I’ve painted on each panel.

My most recent PLAYGROUND triptych, Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes (above), is “sung” by Catherine the Great, one of Stalin’s three “fairy godparents.” In Panel 1 below, Catherine gives her blessing from Russia’s past to the delighted, mustached baby Stalin.

Detail: center bottom panel (1) of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

My inspiration for this scene was my childhood memory of a Sleeping Beauty picture book.  The story began with an illustration of Sleeping Beauty as a baby princess, her three fairy godmothers flying in a circle above her cradle.  Each fairy godmother bestowed a personal blessing for some life bounty for the little princess.

This fairy-godmother memory came to me as I was originally pondering how to visualize Russia’s past as godparent to its present. So I imagined that in each PLAYGROUND triptych, my whimsical Russian “godparents” – Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great – would bequeath historical blessings on the infant Stalin.

I’ll let my character Catherine speak for herself through her lyrics in the following images, beginning with Panel 2 in which she sings:

You’ll want to bring back serfdom quick so you can reign non-stop!
But you can’t call it serfdom, Joe, ’cause that would be a flop!
So dress it up in resplendent clothes to hide the hideous facts.
I know about espousing good that veils your nasty acts!

Detail: top center panel (2) of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

Catherine advises Stalin (Panels 3 and 4) that new European ideas championing the lower classes can be used to muddy popular consciousness of what the ruler is really doing (a closeup of the Russian peasants is in this post).

You’ll spout ideas from Europe
About the people’s smarts.
In my day it was Montesquieu,
In yours it will be Marx.

Detail: Left lower panels (3 & 4) of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

Catherine counsels Stalin in panels 5-6 about serfdom, the fundamental economic engine of Russian society – or as Stalin renamed and reinstituted it, “collectivization.”

You’ll dub it collectivization.
You’ll never call peasants serfs.
Just bind them to the land by law
And take all their grain to your turf!

Detail: Left top panel (5) of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

Collectivization was essentially serfdom by another name – with the addition of tractors, as in Panel 6 below.

Detail of upper right panel (6) of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

The last verses:

You’ll promise people’s sovereignty and say that they’ll get rich.
But then you’ll screw the people!  It’s one big Bait and Switch!

Don’t call it tsardom!  Say their boss is the mighty Workers’ State.
That so-called Worker’s State in fact is JOE, our POTENTATE!

Detail of right panels 7 & 8 of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne BobroffHajal

Details of other Playground of the Autocrats triptychs are here and here:

Home Security At Any Crazy Price

The Most Exposed Terrain on Earth

 

How I Painted and Composited Catherine the Great (and Stalin)

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

You can find more about the images and ideas behind “Dress it Up” here.  Closeups of each of its images in sequence are here.

Virtually everyone who sees “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” my new 7-foot  triptych about Catherine the Great, asks me which parts are painted and which are digital.  The answer to this question is as complicated as the finished triptych looks.

Anne Bobroff-Hajal: gallery talk about techniques used to create “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” partially visible in background.

So I’m going to use this post to describe my process, which involves a series of layers:

  1. First I paint the highly-detailed individual panels larger than they’ll be in the final triptych.
  2. Then I photograph what I’d painted and print it (on paper), combined with  digital photos of e. g. the Russian Imperial symbol (the double-headed eagle).
  3. I paint on top of this print, then have it photographed and reprinted, and paint again on the print.  I repeat this process as many times are needed to get the effect I want.
  4. Finally, I composite reduced-size versions of all these components into the final triptych and have it professionally printed on canvas.
  5. On the final triptych, I spend another month or two painting additional images and many adjustments on the canvas to balance the whole composition and get the effects I want.

“Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes” took over a year to complete.

Why did I develop this layered work process?

An experience I had while painting my previous PLAYGROUND OF THE AUTOCRATS triptych moved me toward this process.

Detail of “Home Security at Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

In the detail (left) of that triptych, “Home Security at Any Crazy Price,” notice the row of peasants I painted along the bottom. As my “models” for these serfs, I had collected a lot of old, low resolution black and white photos of Russian peasants.  I was in love with their sheepskin coats and bast sandals – but most of all with their profoundly expressive faces.  I’d been looking forward to painting them.

But as it turned out, I was under time constraints preparing for an exhibit.  And I realized that the tiny size of the peasants (the tallest was under 3 inches high) in this triptych was going to make it impossible to paint them in any detail.

The less-complicated peasants actually work better in “Home Security” than a more detailed version would have.  The triptych was selected by curator Nan Rosenthal for her “Contemporary Confrontations” exhibit at the Katonah Art Museum and singled out in the NY Times review of the show.

Detail of line of peasants from “Home Security at Any Crazy Price,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal. The actual size of the tallest peasant painted is under 3 inches.

This made me wonder whether I should let go of my tendency to paint so precisely.  A freer interpretation is sometimes better.

But then I kept thinking of those faces gazing out of the past.

Haunted by faces from the past

So once the exhibit was over, I decided to paint the same row of peasants again, this time larger so I’d be able to convey their expressions and the textures of their clothing more fully.  I spent the next two months painting them (you can see and scroll over the entire row of peasants in the finished painting here.)

Three images demonstrate the difference size made.  First is the detail above from the the row of peasants as they appear in “Home Security.”

Next is a detail of the same peasants as I painted them roughly twice as large.

Detail of “Still With You,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal. Actual painted size of tallest peasant is 6 inches.

Reduction of detailed peasants to size of those in “Home Security at Any Crazy Price” (small image with red background, above)

 

If I had then chosen to photograph and digitally reduce the larger painting to “Home Security” size, it would have looked like this (right).   As you can see, this way of working generates a lot more detail in small images.  It began to make me feel the possibilities of painting images larger and then reducing them digitally to fit into the final triptych.

Whether “looser” or more precise is better stylistically, I have to accept that as an artist, I’ll always tend to be attracted to finding ways to express more detail.

The influence of animation techniques on my process

Animation is created from hundreds or thousands of carefully-designed drawings passing in front of your eyes so quickly that they give the illusion of movement.  Whether at 24 frames per second or 12, animation requires huge numbers of drawings.

In the days before computer animation (and probably still today to some extent), animation artists cut down on their nearly-impossible drawing work load by using bits and pieces of previous drawings.  If Minnie Mouse’s hands moved from one moment to the next but the rest of her body didn’t, her body drawing could be reused and only the new hand position drawn.  In the next few frames, if her leg moved but not her hands, the old hand drawings would be merged with the new foot drawings.

In addition, backgrounds were reused through many frames, with characters drawn moving in the foreground.

My involvement with and love for animation as an art form brought this influence to bear on “Dress It Up,” as you’ll see below.

Catherine the Great and Stalin speechifying to the Russian people

The left panel of “Dress It Up” portrays Catherine and then Stalin each sucking up lofty ideas from Europe and spouting them out over the Russian people in billows.  For Catherine, the European ideas were from the French Enlightenment; for Stalin they were Marxism (as the lyrics in the image describe).

The two images below are the final realization of what I saw in my imagination as I began working on visualizing this historical repetition.  (For a close-up of all those peasants, scroll down to the last image of this post.)

How did I realize my vision?

Detail of left panel of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal.  Actual panel image is 18″ wide.

Map I created for left panel of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes.”  Actual width: 18″

I began by painting a roughly globe-like map  focusing directly on Russia, with Europe visible around the curve of the earth.  Finding a map like this turned out to be impossible: most maps aren’t centered on Russia.  None have a peripheral Europe around the bend in the background.

So as my model, I ended up using my actual world globe placed in the position I wanted.

After painting it, I had it photographed so I’d have a digital image.

How could I portray a country full of peasants?

I pictured Catherine and Stalin speaking to untold numbers of peasants in Russia.  How could I convey the effect of so many peasants?

First I imported my digitalized painted map into my computer.  Then I began to experiment with various ways of using multiple copies of my paintings of peasants to fill the white “RUSSIA” space.  But I just could not get what I wanted.  I kept periodically coming back to this problem for almost an entire year, without success.

Finally, as I was playing with manipulating multiple, layered copies of another painting I had done of peasants (see below), I made one of those lucky mistakes – and suddenly had what I’d been struggling to find for so long.

Detail of “Serfdom,” upper left (round) panel of “Dress It Up in Resplendent Clothes,” by Anne Bobroff-Hajal. This was my painting which I manipulated digitally to fill “Russia” on the map for the lower left panel.

 

Map with digital images of my painted peasants composited in.

For a close-up look of the peasants in the map, scroll down to the last image of this post.

Why work digitally?  Why not paint everything the old-fashioned way?

Why didn’t I just paint those peasants, you might ask?  Why did I create this look digitally?

There are two reasons.  One is that painting these serfs the first time – finding models for the scythers and other field workers, drawing and arranging them to fit into the composition, working out all those chains (each serf has a chain attached to a specific point at the bottom of the image), and then painting the whole thing – took a couple of months.  Painting them all over again would have been prohibitive time-wise.  If I’d spent time doing that, I couldn’t have created other parts of “Dress It Up.”

The second reason I worked with my painted serfs digitally is that it enabled me to play around limitlessly with layering of copies of my painting, fades, and color changes.  This play is what eventually led me to the multi-layered look in the final triptych.

(Parenthetically, I do almost all the huge amount of planning for my triptychs in the computer.  Integrating all the bits and pieces of my artwork into a coherent whole would probably be impossible without this.)

Next, Catherine and Stalin

Now that I had my map complete, I needed to create Catherine and Stalin as orators speaking words from Europe to the Russian people.

My process here was similar to classic animation procedure: I used a single background twice, with two different characters in the foreground.  Again, the reason was the same as in animation: repainting this very complex background twice would have been prohibitive time-wise.

I had already designed my Catherine the Great character.  Now I needed to create a Catherine who looked the same but airily orating.  And she needed to face the opposite direction, toward Russia on my map and away from Europe.  Both her head and her arms needed to be different.

I created my orating Catherine the same way an animator might.  I began with my painted character.  I had her photographed so I could manipulate her digitally in my computer.  In Photoshop, I flipped her horizontally to make her face toward Russia and away from Europe.  I had this version printed.  Then I painted a new head and new arms on the print.

Upper left: my character design of Catherine the Great (head and wings are digital photos; I painted most of clothing and the serfs). Lower left: close up of character design face, taken from an actual portrait of Catherine the Great. Upper right: my 2nd version of Catherine, orating. Lower right: close up of face I painted, along with new arm.

Stalin as an orating wolf in sheep’s clothing, by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

I created my orating Stalin as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  This design went through a number of iterations along the way as I debated how wolf-like Stalin’s body and posture should be, how he should be clothed, and whether his face would be human or wolf.

A larger image of this design can be seen in this post.

Last, the speech bubbles

The last element needed for my “spout ideas from Europe” panel was speech bubbles.  In fact, the entire composition of map and orators was planned at every step to accommodate speech bubbles that would represent Catherine and Stalin sucking in ideas from Europe and spouting them out again over the Russian populace.  (Catherine’s bubble sucked in from France; Stalin’s from Marx’s Germany.)

Below is one of my many, many planning images.  In this one, I composited my pencil sketch of Stalin into my map and began to play with how I would shape and size the speech bubbles.  I did this to check whether all of Stalin’s parts would fit properly into the map without blocking any crucial bits of it.  I also needed to be sure that legibly phrase-filled bubbles could fit from Europe to Stalin’s mouth.

Planning image for Stalin’s speech bubbles, by Anne Bobroff-Hajal

 

I approached the other panels of “Dress It Up” in the same way.

Completing the final triptych

Once all the images for “Dress It Up” were completed by this process, I reduced their sizes to fit into the 7-foot width of the triptych.  I composited them and had them printed on canvas.  I then spent roughly six weeks doing additional painting on top of the canvas.  For example, I painted the large portrait of Catherine’s face in the center round top panel, replicating her historic portrait.  I painted Stalin as a baby directly on this canvas – that character doesn’t exist anywhere except on the final triptych.