ABSTRACT
Introduction: moving bodies Dubbed the ‘Painter of Dancers,’ Edgar Degas (1834-1917) reportedly explained his renowned partiality to ballet subjects as merely “a pretext for depicting movement”3-a declaration substantiated by his Young Spartans Exercising (1860), The Start of the Hunt (1863-5), and countless paintings of horse-races and women busy at their toilette.4 A kindred fascination with movement held the Soviet ‘Painter of Athletes,’ Aleksandr Deineka (1899-1969), in thrall to motion throughout his life, irrespective of the zigzags in his professional fortunes and the country’s political climate.5 His contemporary, Rafael Kaufman, quickly registered as much: “The leading theme in Deineka is the person in action, in movement” (Kaufman 1936: 88). Deineka’s lifelong infatuation with the dynamism of sundry forms started in childhood, when “his predilection for action and his desire to depict motion” materialized in sketches of “marching soldiers, . . . galloping horses, running and jumping dogs or wild animals, birds in flight, and moving carriages” (Sysoyev 1982: 5). During his studies in VkhUTEMAS,6 where he enrolled in 1921, Deineka focused on the rules advocated by the rigorous graphic artist Vladimir Favorskii (1886-1964) for depicting movement, and in 1923 he produced a series of engravings and etchings addressing principles of dynamic composition: Acrobats, Foxtrot, Tennis, Football, and Boxing (Sysoyev 1982: 6). Tellingly, the universally admired canvas automatically associated with his name, The Defense of Petrograd [Oborona Petrograda 1928], depicts armed
Soviet citizens on the march,7 while his most characteristic paintings render young Soviets engaged in sundry athletics and sports, from sprinting to skiing and football.8 Deineka himself acknowledged, “I like seeing people running and jumping. Static situations are by no means the best in a lot of cases. Sometimes the composition of a picture absolutely demands strong dynamism.”9
