Divine Visions: The Mystical Art of Bella Davydova

E.N. Andreeva-Prigorina
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"THE UNUSUAL ARTIST" BELLA DAVYDOVA

A fundamental characteristic of naïve art is a holistic vision of the world based on the core values of human consciousness. Freedom of individual artistic techniques combines with a gravitational pull toward certain archetypal themes and subjects: homeland (lost paradise), abundance, celebration, hero, warrior-protector, poet-demiurge, space, beginning and end, love, and primal beast. Religious motifs can be directly or indirectly woven into any of these archetypal subjects. These motifs largely depend on the cultural experience of the social group to which the naïve artist belongs.

For many years, the spiritual concepts and values of traditional religions were rejected by Soviet ideology. Nevertheless, Christian images, being the most deeply rooted in Russian culture, appear more frequently than others. In the paintings of naïve artists, Angels, Saints, the Mother of God, and Jesus Christ take visible part in people's lives: they protect from misfortunes, help in labors, appear to a lost traveler or shepherd in the mountains, and come as guests to celebrations. Naïve art reduces the distance between heaven and earth, weaving the sacred into earthly ordinariness, thereby spiritualizing it and restoring its symbolic meaning. Often, naïve creativity is nourished by folk mysticism, with religious motifs intertwining with local pagan images and beliefs. In Soviet naïve art, artists related themselves to one spiritual tradition or another with varying degrees of depth and awareness. In general, the religious element emerges at the boundary between collective memory, dream, and folklore.

In the 1980s-1990s, the cultural paradigm changed quite dramatically. Previous social foundations collapsed, religious freedom opened up, and the information field transformed, carrying streams of previously inaccessible or forbidden information of various kinds. As A. Suvorova notes, one of the paths to self-awareness in the new cultural situation became "retro-identification" – a return to primary sources of identity: religious, ethnic, territorial, national. Alternatively – the construction of subjective religious systems.

The work of the naïve artist B.N. Davydova belongs to this period. The corpus of her works, which entered the Marchand Gallery collection in 2024, is of interest as a multifaceted artistic phenomenon reflecting the specific spiritual situation of the late 20th century.

B.N. Davydova is a new name in Russian naïve art. In spring 2022, designer E. Barinova discovered eighty canvases rolled into scrolls, dumped at the site of demolished garages in the Tushino district. Only some of them were signed and dated: "B. Davydova. 1988." The integrity and expressiveness of the artistic style, a certain range of images, and coloristic boldness left no doubt that all eighty works belonged to the same author. Most of the works are large-format images of Christian saints, as well as mystical landscapes populated with winged creatures, and flower still lifes.

Biographical information about the artist is still very brief. Publications about her were found only in two issues of the socio-political weekly "Golos" from 1991. "Golos" was one of the first uncensored publications of the Union of Journalists, a "tribune of free journalism." The newspaper was distinguished by its interest in unusual and acute social and cultural phenomena. From the publication by journalist M.A. Dmitruk, who visited the "unusual artist" – as he introduces her to the reader – only some details of her biography become clear. Bella Nisimovna Davydova was born in the late 1930s and grew up in Dagestan. She became a medical assistant and worked in Moscow in her adult years. Her work involved contact with severely ill, often incurable patients. Disillusioned with traditional medicine for unknown reasons and feeling a special gift within herself, B. Davydova began to practice healing. According to her, she could diagnose patients who had been given up on by doctors, "performed operations at the astral level," and "healed by laying on hands." The harbingers of her unusual life path were events from her childhood and youth, which she told the journalist about. In early childhood, B. Davydova remained unharmed in a house engulfed by fire because "invisible beings appeared nearby, who told her what to do." In her youth, while walking on the beach with her sister, she decided to swim and suddenly began to drown. An unknown force lifted her, nearly breathless, from the sea bottom to the shore and returned her to life. Stories of supernatural rescue from fire and water are testimonies of being chosen. They can be correlated with initiation rituals – symbolic dying and rebirth in a new essence. Both times her relatives thought she had died, and her return to life caused them not only joy but also horror at the sight of a "resurrected corpse."

A turning point in B. Davydova's life was cancer, complex treatment, and clinical death, but "she was returned to life by messengers from other worlds, who have since guided her development." B. Davydova turned to painting after these experiences in the late 1980s, when she was about fifty years old. The images she transferred to canvas began to appear to her in visions. For some time, B. Davydova combined healing practice and artistic experiments. But soon she "abandoned direct healing and devoted herself entirely to 'spiritual painting'." She was convinced that her paintings and the positive energy embedded in them possessed healing properties, so she gave them to selected "patients" as a means of maintaining health – in some sense, an analog of a "miraculous" image.

B. Davydova's story is amazing but not unique. According to K.G. Bogemskaya, often "the images that naïve artists embody either appear to them, by their claims, in dreams, or on the border between sleep and wakefulness, or someone 'whispers' them. These strange fantasies embody the work of consciousness that is otherwise inaccessible to an outside researcher."

Journalist M.A. Dmitruk was interested not so much in the artistic properties of the paintings (although he noted that many of them were technically imperfect) as in their energetic impact and the fact of an extraordinary creative process. According to B. Davydova, she began to draw after A.S. Pushkin appeared to her in a dream. The poet was leafing through an album with images "similar to ancient icons or children's drawings" and informed her that she would soon learn to paint pictures, although she had never before held brushes and paints in her hands. (Formal portraits of A.S. Pushkin and N.N. Goncharova are also among the works included in the Marchand Gallery collection).

After the meeting with the poet, great Orthodox saints began to appear to her, whose images she painted "from life, their souls posed" for her during the work and charged the paintings with positive healing energy." The artist explains that the energetic characteristics of the painting depended more on the "model" than on herself. She was merely a medium, a conduit for higher powers. At the same time, she was not abandoned by the mysterious "guides from higher worlds," whom she also depicted in her canvases.

The late 1980s – 1990s were marked by a fervent public interest in paranormal phenomena, ufology, extrasensory perception, cosmo- and bioenergetics. If a decade earlier these were topics for friendly "kitchen talks," now they were actively discussed in public space. Magicians A.V. Chumak and A.M. Kashpirovsky gained access to a multi-million audience through TV programs. Wizards of smaller caliber toured the provinces. The leap from the world of dominant matter to the world of the invisible, mysterious abilities, and subtle energies was a bright and not always safe adventure for spiritually inexperienced people of the late Soviet era.

M. Dmitruk, in the spirit of the times, seeks a scientific basis to clarify and organize the mysterious phenomena embodied in the personality and paintings of B. Davydova. He briefly mentions B. Davydova's participation in the experiments of N.N. Sochevanov – "the elder of Russian biolocation," during which "energy flows from paintings and even their photographs" and "northern lights" above the head of the artist-healer were recorded.

B. Davydova's painting possesses a certain artistic expressiveness and great energetic charge. The first impression is a powerful color cascade that literally crashes down on the viewer.

Examining the collection of B. Davydova's works as an artistic phenomenon, one can identify certain genre and subject compositions. A small part consists of distinctive still lifes – large vases with lush bouquets. A vertical format and large size are chosen for them. They resemble one of the most popular motifs of architectural decoration in Islamic art. The vase with flowers has a rich history in it and has transformed over time from the original image - the tree of life.

The second genre group – landscapes – is not realistic but ideal-fantastic in nature. They fit into one of the main archetypes of naïve art - the image of the Garden of Eden. B. Davydova's landscapes are an orderly, harmonious world. Balanced symmetrical composition, bushes and trees standing in a row with bright crowns resembling large flowers, reservoirs with blue transparent water. But intense contrasting colors deprive this beautiful world of serenity and peace, turning it into a field of pulsating energies.

Almost half of the entire body of work consists of images that can be conditionally called icons (this is what M. Dmitruk and B. Davydova's patients call them). Among them are images of the Savior, the Mother of God with the infant Christ, Angels and Archangels, John the Baptist, John the Theologian, Sergius of Radonezh, George the Victorious, and other well-known saints. In most cases, one can determine the source on which the artist was oriented. In the images of the Mother of God, preference is given to iconography characteristic of the Hodegetria Smolenskaya and Tikhvinskaya icons. Variants of the Mother of God on the throne correspond to the composition that is often located in churches in the conch of the altar apse. The image of the Savior reproduces the iconography of Christ Pantocrator, usually found in the dome of the church or in the altar barrier. The images of John the Theologian and John the Baptist follow the tradition characteristic of the Moscow school of icon painting. The full-length image of Sergius of Radonezh brings to mind the sewn shroud from the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius from the Saint's tomb, which served as a prototype for many icons. But despite clear iconographic parallels, the mentioned monuments are merely sources. We are dealing with a rather bold interpretation, not with an attempt to reproduce a certain model as accurately as possible, as is characteristic of naïve artists: "Folk icon painters, however unsophisticated they might be, worked only from a model. The presence of a model guaranteed the canonicity of the result." In this case, the author's style and vision dominate over the original model.

A distinctive framework for all images is a clear flat silhouette. Even where figures and faces are clearly disproportionate and roughened, this graphic style is very bold and expressive. Gradually, faces and bodies become more proportionate and correct. The most harmonious are the images of Angels, to which the artist turns repeatedly. Their slender figures, overshadowed by wings, and elongated faces with huge eyes staring intently at the viewer, possess an almost hypnotic power. With all the freedom in handling color symbolism, in this case, the artist adheres to the traditional color scheme: Archangel Michael appears in red garments, the Guardian Angel in snow-white ones.

The artist possesses a powerful coloristic gift. She boldly clashes intense colors: orange and green, yellow and purple, pink and blue, extracting polyphonic harmony from their combinations. The words of J. Itten are applicable to her creativity: "If you, without knowing the laws of color, are capable of creating masterpieces, then your path lies in this ignorance." One must think the artist transferred the national coloristic code into her painting. B. Davydova's homeland is Dagestan, where Islamic traditions excluding figurative art were very strong even in Soviet times, but local crafts flourished. The major color combinations of Kumyk and Balkhar carpets and Kaitag embroideries resonate in the color scheme of her works.

Expressiveness is added to the images by a slightly convex texture of the multi-layered "dough" of oil paint. On top of the main color mass, fractional spots-strokes of finely selected shades are applied. Thanks to the interaction of warm and cool tones and the vibration of paint layers, the flat static images acquire volume and internal dynamics. The ideal otherworldly world in B. Davydova's images appears dense, weighty, and bright.

The artist's painting style is distinguished by increased decorativeness. To the intense colors of vestments and background, she adds ornaments of circles, rhombuses, vertical stripes. The clothes and halos of Christ and the Mother of God are especially decorated. Colors and forms of decoration are juxtaposed in such a way that they create the impression of shining stones or luminous pearls. If there is a free field left on the canvas, it is covered along the edges with a scalloped border, apparently imitating a basma frame. The tradition of additionally decorating a painted image still exists today in southern regions, particularly in the North Caucasus. The vestments and halos of saints are made of fabrics, lined with bugle beads, beads, and the field of the icon is generously decorated with rhinestones. The desire to convey the radiance of the unearthly world through the brilliance and beauty of material substance is a technique common to professional, folk, and naïve art.

The images of Christ, the Mother of God, and saints on B. Davydova's canvases are somewhat crude but very expressive, imbued with direct and sincere feeling. Fractional color spots applied with brushstrokes are perceived like colorful mosaic tesserae. In their impressive size and generalized monumental manner of execution, the images resemble mosaic panels.

On canvases measuring 100x80 cm or 200x80 cm, as a rule, one character is placed. They are static, frontally facing the viewer, filling almost the entire field, and sometimes not even fitting into it. In depicting the Trinity, the artist managed to pyramidally fit the figures of three Angels into a strongly vertically elongated format, conveying the trinity in a smooth closed composition. The figures of the outer Angels did not fit into the narrow canvas, they are partially cropped at the edges, but this "defect" is not immediately noticeable, so strong is the impression of complete unity.

B. Davydova's painting experiments are not uniform in quality of drawing and degree of completeness, but they show a unified manner of execution: broad, bold, coloristically saturated. Her images possess a strong emotional and energetic impact, which is intensified by the emphasis on the eyes. They are depicted as huge, looking directly and strictly at the viewer. All this creates a special emotional atmosphere filled with mystical inspiration.

The pictorial techniques used by B. Davydova: graphic silhouette, flat form, increased ornamentation, enlarged eyes, were characteristic of the painting of the entire early Christian world. Later they remained on the outskirts, not experiencing the influence of "learned" Byzantine art. In the icons of Christian Ethiopia, the frescoes of the Coptic monasteries of Thebes, Armenian miniatures, the mysteries of divine revelation are embodied with directness and immediacy. Whether B. Davydova was familiar with such examples, or her method of expression and transmission of images spontaneously coincided with "Christian primitives," one can only guess. In the interview, the artist claims that she had never before been interested in art, had never drawn. According to her claims, all the paintings appeared to her in visions of thin sleep, and she merely transferred them to canvas to the best of her ability, which gradually improved.

Along with images that correlate with the Christian spiritual hierarchy, there exists a different cosmos in B. Davydova's work. It is manifested by certain winged entities that appear in different guises. In some cases, these are faces overshadowed by wings, which remotely resemble the "intelligent powers" of cherubim or seraphim, as they are traditionally depicted in the Christian tradition. They can surround the faces of Christ or the Mother of God, or they can freely reside in the air, in water, on land, each time changing somewhat in size and color, depending on the emotional coloring of the landscape. Sometimes they look like flower buds, water lilies on the surface of water, in some compositions they turn into "little cosmonauts in spacesuits" with wings behind their backs, hovering in the air.

Much attention is paid to "helpers from the spirit world," whom B. Davydova calls "absolutes." They are also winged, their bell-shaped bodies lack arms and legs, and their heads with stern faces are surrounded by a radiance. These are the beings that "saved her from death and now communicate with her at her will." Their appearance is not as clear and friendly as that of the "traditional angels" in her "icons," and the coloring does not shine with bright colors, tending toward shades of brown and green.

From photos taken in B. Davydova's apartment, it can be seen that canvases depicting "traditional" angels and "absolutes" hang side by side, descending from the very ceiling. Journalist M. Dmitruk describes the "main iconostasis," which the artist-healer treated "with sacred awe," like a believer to a shrine, not even allowing it to be photographed. When the journalist made an accidental sharp gesture in that direction, she knelt and asked for forgiveness for him.

In the center of the "iconostasis" were images of Christ the Savior and Buddha, whom she, according to her assertion, equally "loves very much." Among the especially revered images, M. Dmitruk notes Saint Nicholas, reporting at the same time that according to B. Davydova's understanding, Saint Nicholas and Sergius of Radonezh are one great soul, manifested in different bodily incarnations. From the above, one can understand that B. Davydova's religious-mystical ideas combined different elements of Christianity, Buddhism, occult concepts, and the belief in the transmigration of souls characteristic of Eastern religions.

The discovery of other, immaterial worlds and the desire to come into contact with them was the main spiritual driver of the time during which B. Davydova's creativity took place. The concept of the spiritual returned to culture, but its boundaries were very wide: traditional religions, New Age transformation of Eastern cults, theosophy, magical practices, and the search for contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations.

The exciting theme of alien visitors also touched B. Davydova. Two conditional landscapes – a kind of diptych, reflect the author's ideas about the connection between earthly and cosmic spheres. Both monumental canvases measuring 200x80 cm have a similar composition, very reminiscent of the iconographic scheme of the Baptism of the Lord in early Byzantine art: a space of earthly firmament strongly stretched vertically is cut in the middle by a blue ribbon of a river that abuts the sky. The diptych describes an event of universal scale, a certain crisis and its resolution. In the first painting, the night darkness is torn by flashes of flying comets and fiery discs, their light snatching a crimson forest from the darkness. In the second, pacification ensues. In the light of the full moon from the cleared sky, glowing aircraft descend, resembling large ocean jellyfish, and transparent winged helpers-"absolutes" hover along the banks of the river. The artist conveys the experience of an event involving all earthly elements and cosmic forces with effective laconicism.

In B. Davydova's mystical world, there are also folkloric-fairy tale motifs. Among the unnamed characters, the monumental figure of a female winged deity stands out. She is tightly wrapped in a cover of dark bird feathers, facing the viewer with a stern face. In size, composition, and thoroughness of execution, the figure of the Bird-Woman is close to the carefully worked full-length image of the Mother of God with the infant Christ. Apparently, in B. Davydova's understanding, these sacred images are quite comparable in spiritual significance. The inscription above the Bird-Woman's head reads: "Things are bad with you." One can assume that this is an assessment of the moral state of earthlings from the mysterious higher powers. Having abandoned the practice of healing, B. Davydova focused on "spiritual painting," but persistently emphasized that her paintings could heal only those who were ready to change internally, "to follow the path of truth, beauty, and goodness." Ideas of moral improvement, which are an important part of most religious systems, were also important to her.

It is interesting to note that in the 1980s, a movement of "spiritual avant-garde" was forming in the professional artistic environment. This art was nourished mainly by Christian themes, with an emphasis on mysticism in many authors, in some – in synthesis with Buddhism and Eastern esotericism. One of the ideologists of the movement, O. Kandaurov, in 1991 saw the components nourishing this aesthetic as follows: "Variations on the theme of ancient Russian art in mutual reflection with the realities of Eastern spiritual culture and non-canonical adjacent structures are receiving an unprecedented embodiment today." The searches of professional artists developed in the context of constructing subjective religious and aesthetic systems, which was reflected at different levels of mass culture.

Introducing the concept of a third culture, V. Prokofiev considered the influence exerted on it by the scholarly-artistic sphere on one hand and the folk-folklore environment on the other.

B. Davydova's works are devoid of any domestic plots or everyday motifs; they are all addressed to "entities of higher worlds," which appear in diverse forms. Christian images are presented as an interpretation of established icon forms. Parallel to them, in her world operate fantastical "absolutes," transforming spirits of water and air, cosmic visitors, as well as fairy tale-folkloric characters: a bird-woman or a solar deity in the form of a fiery disc with a lion's mane.

B. Davydova's artistic creativity absorbed heterogeneous spiritual ideas and practices popular both in the scientific-creative environment and in mass culture at the end of the 20th century. Added to this was the experience of some vivid visionary experience, which she managed to translate into pictorial form. Whatever the origins of her creativity, we have discovered an artist with an extraordinary monumental and coloristic gift, strong energy, and archaic persuasiveness.
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Literature:

1. Bogemskaya K.G. Naïve Art and Artistic Amateur Activities in Russia 1920-1990. History and Problem of Cultural Context. // Scientific report for the degree of Doctor of Art History. As a manuscript. Moscow, 2003

2. Prokofiev V.N. On Three Levels of Artistic Culture of Modern and Contemporary Times (to the problem of the primitive in visual arts) // Collection of articles / Ed. V.N. Prokofiev. Moscow.: Nauka, 1983. pp. 6-28

3. Suvorova A.A. Outsider Art in Russia: Trends, Themes, Images. M.: Publishing House "Gorodets", 2020. p. Dmitruk M.A. Light of Immortality // Golos. 1991 № 3, p13, 16

4. Dmitruk M.A. When the Soul is Pure, the Body Knows No Diseases // Golos. 1991 №19 p.13 Folk Icon: Self-Portrait of the Russian Soul. "Neskuchny Sad" 20.06.2012. Electronic resource https://www.nsad.ru/articles/narodnaya-ikona-avtoportret-russkoj-dushi accessed 26.12.2024
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List of illustrations. All works are in the collection of the Marchand Gallery.

1. B. Davydova. Christ Pantocrator. 1980-1990s. canvas, oil 70x50 cm.

2. B. Davydova. Mother of God on the Throne. 1980-1990s. canvas, oil 200x99 cm.

3. B. Davydova. Archangel Michael. 1980-1990s. canvas, oil 83x83 cm.

4. B. Davydova. Trinity. 1980-1990s. canvas, oil 200x80 cm.

5. B. Davydova. Bird-Woman. 1980-1990s. canvas, oil 200x80 cm.

6. B. Davydova. Absolute. 1980-1990s. canvas, oil 77x51 cm.

7. B. Davydova. Landscape with Flying Saucers. 1980-1990s. canvas, oil 200x80 cm.

8. B. Davydova. Landscape with Lake. 1980-1990s. canvas, oil 99x136 cm.

Andreeva-Prigorina Ekaterina Nikolaevna. Moscow. Member of the Association of Art Critics of Russia. Curator, keeper of the Marchand Gallery collection. Area of interest: Russian art of the second half of the 20th century, naïve art.

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