David Kakabadze

description

A Georgian artist, graphic artist and master of scenography, as well as an art historian, inventor and teacher. David Kakabadze was an innovator not only in the field of fine arts but also in cinematography, who patented a film apparatus for volumetric shooting. His work is characterized by love for various European modern trends and by both a commitment to national themes and traditions and a distinctive interpretation of avant-garde art movements of the 20th century. The painter left a rich artistic legacy. The largest collection of his paintings belongs to the national museums and galleries of Georgia.

Key ideas:

– Art historians note that the works of Kakabadze distinguished by expressive decorativeness, are characterized by a harmonious combination of clearly limited planes of bright colors, accuracy, and even the rigor of the picture.

– The artist’s work, full of paradoxes (his character was also controversial), has many Georgian landscapes. They are always amazingly woven from highlighted squares surrounded by a dark line – the master used this clear outline like in the still life genre when painting landscapes. The method became an exclusive and unmistakably recognizable manner of his painting in the first Imereti landscapes.

– Returning to the theme of landscapes of Imereti in his mature period, the master noticed and displayed signs of industrialization. The composition of the painting with majestic and motley mountains includes, for example, not the ruins of the fortress, as it was in his early paintings, but the silhouette of a power plant.

– During a long stay in Paris, David Kakabadze was carried away by “subjectless paintings” and experimented a lot on painting technique. He explained his theories in two works – “On a constructive picture” and “Art and space”, which were published in Paris in French and Georgian in 1922 and 1925, respectively.

– Becoming interested in Cubism, Kakabadze polemicized with representatives of this art movement, arguing, in particular, “only a dynamic curved line is able to embody “the spirit of machinism”, characteristic of modernity”. The Georgian artist even gave several lectures in Paris on his techniques and on various aspects of the fine art.

– In his works, both pictorial and graphic, Kakabadze successfully combined art nouveau with more avant-garde techniques, and this became a variant of his style – a kind of bridge-transition from Cubism and Futurism to art called abstract and kinetic. The artist, for example, introduced mirrors, shiny metals and lenses into his own collage work, striving for the effect of the “work” of internal light, which, in his opinion, a painting should emit.

– Designing theatricals for the innovative theater of K. A. Marjanishvili, Kakabadze proved himself to be able to use the stage space in an original way, and the scenery itself was light and simple. They reflected fashionable art movements of the century – Abstractionism and the desire for decorativeness. However, with a change of the situation in the country, the artist had to move to a style close to realism.

– In addition to fine art and numerous works for the theater, the widely educated artist was recognized as one of the “pioneers” of stereo shooting. In 1923, D. Kakabadze constructed a film camera, which gave an illusion of a three-dimensional image and patented it. The artist thus became one of the pioneers of a three-dimensional cinema, which is now called 3D.

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1889

1910 - 1915

1914

1916

1919

1919 - 1927

1923

1927

1930

1940

1952

The artist was born

The artist was born on July 20 into a poor peasant family in the village of Kukhi near the city of Kutaisi. His father sought to ensure that the children received an education, so the family moved to Kutaisi. David and his elder brother Sargiz entered the gymnasium.

He studied at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of St. Petersburg University

With the financial support of philanthropists and charitable societies, he studied at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of St. Petersburg University. In parallel with 1910, he attended classes at the Workshop for Students, where his mentor was Academician L. E. Dmitriev-Kavkazsky, known as a draftsman, etcher, engraver and founding member of the Partnership of Russian Illustrators.

He became the organizer of the small creative group "Intimate workshop of artists and draftsmen"

Together with the artist P. Filonov, he became the organizer of the small creative group “Intimate workshop of artists and draftsmen”. The only surviving evidence of its existence was the “Paintings Made” manifesto of analytical art published in the same year.

He became a member of the newly formed Society of Georgian Artists

Returning to Tiflis, he became a member of the newly formed Society of Georgian Artists, taught drawing at a gymnasium in the capital. His early work was called “the first Imeretian period”, when the artist made epic motives of the Caucasus nature and depicted it in a symbolically generalized style close to modern.

Took part in a show organized by the Society of young artists

Took part in a show organized by the Society of young artists, in which also his peers and colleagues Lado Gudiashvili and Shalva Kikodze participated; David made friends with them. According to the results of the exhibition, which was a great success, the Society of Georgian Artists awarded all three comrades with a grant for an educational trip to Paris. Before departing, the young artist, together with Lado Gudiashvili and Serhei Sudeikin, made murals in the premises of the Tiflis cafe “Chimerioni”, where the metropolitan creative intelligentsia gathered.

He lived in France

He lived in France, having experienced a fascination with Cubism and Abstractionism. He began to introduce moving volumetric objects into paintings with collage elements, thus anticipating the kinetic sculpture that appeared later. He enthusiastically studied Byzantine culture, traveled extensively around France, visiting, in particular, famous Brittany. He wrote and published two brochures on the theory of fine art in French and his native Georgian.

Patented the film camera for shooting stereo images

Patented the film camera for shooting stereo images, which he designed himself. Participated in exhibitions of the Salon of Independent Artists and in joint exhibitions with Georgian colleagues Gudiashvili and Kikodze at galleries in Paris.

He taught as a professor at the Tiflis (later Tbilisi) Academy of Arts

Returning to the USSR, he started painting in a specific decorative manner, a part of which was Cubist technology and Abstract art. He taught as a professor at the Tiflis (later Tbilisi) Academy of Arts for 20 years (until 1948), heading the department of decorative art. Almost immediately, he began a long-term cooperation with the theater and cinema.

He filmed the documentary “Old Monuments of Georgia”

He filmed the documentary “Old Monuments of Georgia”, worked at the drama theater in Kutaisi (later the institution was moved to Tbilisi) with outstanding director K. Marjanishvili, designing dozens of performances. Over time, he was forced to move away from modern European trends of the century and adapt to the required socialist realism.

He was dismissed from the Academy

The “second Imeretian period”, significant in the artist’s creative legacy, started when he introduced signs of modern life realities into familiar Georgian landscapes, painted in an original vivid manner (for example, a demonstration with a portrait of Stalin at the foot of a huge mountain that occupies almost the entire canvas). Nevertheless, “for refusing to adapt his art to the laws of socialist realism”, he was dismissed from the Academy in 1948.