The Legacy of an Artist: In Memory of Vasilisa Gubareva

People don't die when you can still share thoughts with them and carry on an internal dialogue even after their physical end.

Once, during one of our difficult moments, Vasena and I read an excerpt from Petrov-Vodkin's "Euclidean Space." There is a beautiful passage there — a memory of Borisov-Musatov. About how Borisov-Musatov was elegant in his unique physical constitution, how he cared about the life of Saratov, about some foul pit that needed to be removed, how he cursed the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in strong terms for teaching students to draw physiological burps, how passing by the lyrical ponds in Khvalynsk, he said that the radicals had sent all the mermaids to houses of tolerance, how he professionally examined Petrov-Vodkin's works, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses.

In this excerpt, both Petrov-Vodkin and Borisov-Musatov are remarkable — in that civic and spiritual dedication characteristic of everything genuine.

When a person passes away, it's as if the scaffolding falls away, and they stand at full height — with all their weaknesses and virtues. And today we see that Vasena's art is courageous.

I see her working — long arms, a special sensitivity in her fingertips, beautiful working hands. Strong in their grip, they could be kind and gentle. When Vasena worked, they seemed to reason on paper about what she saw. Vasena didn't enter the object she was creating. She transformed private impressions into images of life's general flow.

I first saw Vasena in the Donskoy Monastery. She sat on some monument and was drawing — resembling either a little mouse or some bird. A gray-haired woman with a quick, bouncing gait, pushing off from the ground with her heels, approached this little girl. It was Vasena's mother, Alexandra Georgievna. She worked at the Architecture Museum. Having lived a difficult life, Alexandra Georgievna was as spontaneous as a child and could laugh loudly with a smoker's cough until tears came over some nonsense.

Art school. On some difficult day, when I was having my usual troubles, during the bustle of a break, Vasena came up to me and started comforting me in a friendly way.

Then I came to the house on Nikolo-Shchepovsky. In two small rooms, everything was somehow summer-house light. Of the substantial things, I remember only a large dark-brown wardrobe. Alexandra Georgievna's friends were also propertyless, free and light in their attitude towards life. Vasena's aunt, Ekaterina Georgievna Krusser, would visit from Novocherkassk. She had studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Prokofiev, had listened to Rachmaninoff. She was a phenomenon in herself. Her face with large, massive features possessed extraordinary beauty and significance. Snow-white hair and young black eyes. She was majestically calm. Once she told me: "Yura, it's more reliable to do good for people than to expect love from them." These words held no bitterness towards people, rather the simplicity of loving Wisdom.

Ekaterina Georgievna had a great influence on Vasena both as a person and as an artist.

I remember the platform of Kazan Station — meeting her. From somewhere in the Moscow region came her student Zhenya Materi, a gray-haired fifty-year-old "youth." In all seasons, he wore the same canvas shoes. Also laughing uncontrollably with his toothless mouth.

He died recently, leaving nothing except an enormous library.

And then there was a feast — modest but sweet, layered pastries that only Alexandra Georgievna knew how to make. And lots of laughter. Vasena laughed just like her mother — with complete abandon. I see her eyes — little slits pushed up by her cheekbones, it was pleasant to look at.

Alexandra Georgievna feared for her daughter's fate and instilled in her respect for life's regulations. I remember many teachers being invited for Vasyurochka to help her enter the art institute. Alexandra Georgievna couldn't understand that not everything was in order at that institute. This was the beginning of the 1950s. Vasena never got in.

Alesha appeared. I remember Alexandra Georgievna, her jealousy and fear for her daughter's fate. And Vasena, who suddenly became a woman with the egoism of happiness and understanding of what was happening in her mother's soul.

Vasena was a very resilient person with great life energy, and alongside her romanticism, there was nothing sentimental about her. She knew how to build her life. And this was not an easy thing. Back then, they were very different. Alesha loved movement, travel. Vasena loved to sit. To draw, and she had no urge for travel. And although she confirmed this at her evening on Kuznetsky, this isn't the complete truth. And if we see today what Vasena accomplished as an artist, she owes much to both Alesha and travel.

With Alesha, Vasena's world expanded, became full of air and space. It's good to choose and withdraw when you've seen a lot. There's something to choose from.

Now it's hard to imagine Vasena without Alesha. Vasena loved and respected him both as a person and as an artist. Kindness and sincerity emanated from Alesha. Often he's silent. And in art, the conversation is vitally important, often disharmonious. Some find his creativity harsh, outside the mainstream of painting traditions. But Vasena valued Alesha's independence — to be anything, as long as it was a living dialogue of understanding the world. This was a fellowship of two people who, while maintaining their identity, needed creative communication. What else was important and remarkable — complete truth in their relationship, sometimes cruel. This was a chivalric code, taken from the very beginning as the foundation of their life together, something on which you can build anything permanent. And the main thing in this — love for what's beyond the personal. As the wise saying goes: love is when two people look in the same direction.

Lena was born. Recently, Alesha read his and Vasena's observations of their little daughter.

In them — human and artistic interest in new growing life, alongside maternal care for the child.

Life went on — complex life. I often came to visit Vasena. It's good when, without being distracted by the interlocutor, by their uniqueness, but knowing each other thoroughly, to have a conversation about what's essential. And it's infinitely hard that this is gone. Losing friends, you seem to lose part of yourself.

Summer of 1970. I called her. Vasena was delighted, said she had just returned from Vladivostok. Then somehow I stopped by — Vasena told me that Argi was gone — a very cute puppy who amusingly kissed Alesha, that Alesha had cried.

In November, I learned that she had been hospitalized. At first, I didn't take it very seriously. I come to the Sklifosovsky Hospital — I see Alesha, pale, saying that Vasena's situation is very bad, doctors suspect something terrible. They started calling somewhere, summoning someone.

Then I saw her, stretched out in bed — so small, helpless, but with Vasena's intelligent, evaluating gaze. She made a movement with her eyes and lips — well, you understand, what a thing. I started comforting her, but she asked about my affairs. Then she said she was tired. And in this helpless Vasena was still the same organizing calmness, which so often deceived those around her and didn't let them understand how much will this person needed to overcome her health weakness.

Agonizing days of struggle began, when we hoped that Vasena would recover. I offered to bring her Pushkin, whom she loved. I hoped for the unshakeable firmness of Vasena's character. Alesha told me that the exhausted Vasena asked him if it was worth fighting. This was all Vasena with her wise calmness, view of herself as part of this world.

And at the same time, she very much wanted to live. She listened trustingly as I said that it was within her power to overcome the illness.

And then — the end.

In one of his letters, Van Gogh says: the only thing people need now is to love what they love. In our very complex and fussy time, we often easily and casually betray our love, seeking oblivion in bustle, afraid to remain alone with truth.

Vasena loved what she loved.

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Published by E. N. Andreeva-Prigorina.

From the artist's family archive.

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