A.Turchin. Pavel Petrovich Leonov

Pavel Petrovich leonov was born in 1920 in Orel, a provincial centre south of Moscow, not far from the Ukrainian border. In the artist's autobiographic cycle there are no images of his childhood except the painting ' 1927. Father is whipping the artist with a belt'. One can see both a typical Freudian conflict and a characteristic for those times situation in a relationship between father and son modeled on Pavlik Morozov. A similar situation emerges in Leonov's life in 1 937 when the artist worked in a village library ('reading house'), and his father held a high position in the kolkhoz. In Leonov's story the situation of Pavlik Morozov inverts to show the father as a fiend, as a supporter of the existing regime whereas Pavel Petrovich plays the role of an offended and proud creature struggling for freedom. The outline of the conflict is that the father refuses to issue Leonov a certificate needed to obtain a passport, and accuses him of stealing a pair of galoshes which he has probably stolen himself. When Leonov, finally, gets the certificate, his father claims it is a fake. Three times Levonov's arrogance has brought him to penitentiary camps. The camp in the town of Poti, Georgia with the unforgettable timber-works, where Leonov turned up in 1942, most contributed to his work. Leonov wants to do military service, to fight for Motherland, but not as a simple soldier. As a result, until 1 945 he studies to be a section commander. It is not before March 1945 that he arrives at the front in Hungary. His war stories tell us about hardship and injustice he suffered at the hand of his officers and even his subordinates rather than about heroic deeds and victories. After the war Leonov is again sent to a camp. In 1955 he emerges free in Kamchatka and paints in oil for the first time.

Pavel Petrovich has loved painting since childhood. He even tried to teach himself using a manual for self-tuition. During the war he mainly painted portraits of his comrades. No work from this time survived. From his stories it is difficult to understand how similar his early and modern work are. According to Leonov, as early as in 1 955 he contacted a postal tuition art school in Moscow. He says that he needed to have an official document certifying that he was an artist, which would allow him to be employed as such. At the school his tutor was Roginsky, a prominent artist of the 60's whose work was totally unknown to Leonov. Leonov is convinced that Roginsky has never done any painting.

Leonov refers to his system in art as 'construction' or 'architecture', opposing it to 'naturalism', which, according to Leonov, is so typical of other artists, and which was apparently propagated at the art school. Leonov's construction implies depicting the world not in the way it really is, but in the way it should be. Thus, the painting is structured not as a single visual space but as a hierarchy of horizontal and vertical segments resembling architecture of a building, different segments being associated with different spaces which Leonov calls 'rooms' or 'television sets'.

The 'constructivness' of Leonov's painting derives from his interest in engineering. As a young man Leonov invented an automatic knife, a machine-gun, and a 'perpetuum mobile' device, although he did not have any regular knowledge in mechanics. It is the absence of regular knowledge in art, or rather the incapacity of perceiving such knowledge, make Leonov a naive artist, which, however, he does not believe he is. The fact that Leonov has not received proper education does not matter much. What matters is that his consciousness forms an exclusive system in which all outside events and phenomena appear as quaint, fantastical images, just as it happens in dreams. That is why Leonov's creativity is hermetic and asocial. Always persecuted by society, Leonov even now fails to command respect from his fellow villagers who laugh at him and do not believe a single word of his stories.

Depicting the timber-works in his paintings on no account does Leonov imply that if looked this way in reality. He paints the works such as it should have been, thus creating a picture of his ideal past.

In 1 968 Leonov meets Zina, 20 years younger than him. Zina the sportswoman on horseback is one of Leonov's most favorite subjects, although Leonov has never seen her so young and sportive. This is another projection of the ideal world on the real world. Leonov rarely paints Zina in other subjects. In the 80s he hardly did any painting. A new burst of his creativity comes at the beginning of the 90's. His style has been constantly changing. It is the time of 'alter stile'. From small and subdivided compositions Leonov comes to large lapidary forms. Full height portraits and bathers become, indeed, monumental.

Besides the ideal past Leonov is concerned with the ideal future, or even the present as it should be. In the picture 'Mekhovitzi' one can see everything that should be in a village: a merry-go-round, a theatre, dancing and singing animals, flying birds, and helicopters.

Leonov has always felt that he was 'short of space', and in the course of his life kept evolving towards larger and larger formats. It seems that he wants to embrace the whole world with his paintings, and thus establish equality between dream and reality.

A.Turchin, translated by S.Stoliarchuk