1. Sister Joanna Reitlinger was born in St Petersburg in 1898 and died in Tashkent in 1988. She left Russia in 1918 via the Crimea, Warsaw and Prague to Paris where she settled in 1925 as a member of the household of the noted theologian Fr Sergei Bulgakov.In Paris, she studied with Maurice Denis (a ‘Nabi' colleague, contemporary and friend of Vuillard).
2. The nun Joanna (who always called herself 'Sister') - in the world, Julia Nikolayevna Reitlinger, - was born in Petersburg in 1898 and died in Tashkent in 1988. She had lived a long life. The fate of the 'first wave' of emigrants, whose cultural and religious achievement is still not fully known to us or understood by us, was reflected in that life, as in a mirror. J.N. Reitlinger was an outstanding master of 20th century icon painting. But whereas the names of other great icon painters of the Russian diaspora, such as her pupil Father Gregory Krug, or Leonid Uspensky, are well known and as respected in the West as they are in Russia, the work of Sister Joanna is known to only a few. Nevertheless, she worked a great deal and fruitfully in France and in England and in Czechoslovakia, especially in the 1930's and 40's. She continued to work when she returned to her native land (if you can call Tashkent her native land), up to the 1970's.
The icons of Sister Joanna, even those painted in her extreme old age, retained the same freedom and depth and complete sincerity. The canon of the iconographic tradition is represented in them rethought through and reworked with a tireless personal religious zeal. As if summing up, she wrote towards the end of her life: 'When I was young, I painted icons very freely...later, more traditionally and now I feel like doing them more freely again, now that all is 'imbibed' ('taken in'/'absorbed'/'digested').' And later, concerning her main aim, and aware of her weakening powers: 'I am always tormented by one thing: there are so many unhappy people even among believers - but I am happy. How can I give them this happiness? I try but I do not succeed...' Doubts in art are always natural. |
Joanna Reitlinger
(Image courtesy of Anastassy Brandon Gallaher, Oxford University http://www.oocities.org/sbulgakovsociety/) |
3. The road to icon-painting was simple and direct.
The childhood of a child of a noble family in the years before the Revolution - with a nanny, a maid, foreign languages and the gymnasium' and before she finished the 8th class to art school, the Society for the Advancement of Artists; during this time, her grandfather, having dropped the proud prefix 'von' from the surname of the barons Reitlinger and the deep piety of her mother visiting the small domestic church by the museum of Alexander III. Then - 'exile': the Crimea, the death of her nearest and dearest, and then Warsaw, Prague, Belgrade, and from 1925 onwards - Paris. In the Crimea in 1918 she made the acquaintance of Fr Sergei Bulgakov which determined the direction and meaning of the whole of the rest of her life. In Paris, Yu. N. Reitlinger settled in the attic of the St Sergius Monastery / institute (church and house) above the rooms of Father Sergei, and was guardian to him and his wife until their deaths in 1944 and 1945. Before her repatriation in 1955, she lived in the circle of the spiritual children of Father Sergei and maintained contact with them afterwards. In her autobiography , Yu. N. Reitlinger remembered: ' It was virtually a monastic way of life, meeting Father Sergei, daily attendance at church - but still the world overflowed into it, seductive temptations knocked one off one's feet. Somehow, I had to strengthen my way. A convent - no, my vocation was to be a free artist. The example of Mother Maria (Kuz'mina-Karavaeva) showed the possibilities: to stay where I was, to take the veil and get on with my painting. Bishop Evlogiy (Metropolitan of the Russian Church Abroad) gave me his blessing. 'But,' he said - 'You are young, mother (the wife of Fr. Sergei) is old. Be a daughter to her - how is she then going to call you 'Matyushka' - that won't do. I will ordain you to the habit, but I'll change your name...' |
4.It was the happiest day of my life.
Thus it was that 'Sister' Joanna made her appearance. And, indeed, her art became her most important spiritual achievement. Evidently, sister Joanna drew from her earliest childhood. At school, she was nicknamed 'Reitlinger - the artist'. Her entry into the school of the Society for the Advancement of Artists was a kind of realisation of that nickname. We do not know whether Yu. N. Reitlinger worked as an artist in the Crimea 1917-21, but drawings and watercolours from her Prague and Belgrade periods (1922-24) have survived. They testify to the taste of a young artist both in the turn of the century aesthetic 'World of Art' movement and the romantic images of the European Middle Ages. The majority of the drawings were done - when she had already become Sister Joanna - and later, in part, in the outskirts of Paris. They as well as the illustrations for children's books in the 1930's and 40's, bear witness to her unceasing love for 'our lesser brethern'. Animals possess a spirituality and appeal, a limited humanity. It is no accident that one of her best loved subjects of later years was 'All that hath breath...' What could Yu. N. Reitlinger see in her childhood and early youth from examples of icon-painting, which thereby had such an influence on her spiritual stirrings ? We do not know whether she was at two major exhibitions in 1911 and 1913 . However, she took certain impressions away with her from Petersburg. In emigration she kept the best publication of those years of old Russian paintngs, the 6th volume of the 'History of Russian Art' by Igor Grabar (1914) with wonderful illustrations by P.P Muratov . The question of a renaissance of the tradition of religious art in pre-revolutionary Russia boiled down to a contrast between the living Old Believer tradition and modern art. We know that the technology of Old Believer icons was closely studied by Yu. N. Reitlinger. However, she ruled out going down the path of the purely automatic practice of tracing ('It wasn't my way'). Attempts at reviving the tradition of Old Russian within the branches of the modern style did not suit her either. Evidence of this is her quite harsh comment on the work of D. S. Stelletski (1875-1977) in her autobiographical remarks. Much was learned by the young artist in the workshop of the religious artist, Maurice Denis (1870-1943). An undoubted legacy of his workshop was exercises on composition which are specially noted in the memoirs of Yu. N. Reitlinger. However, here also she explains: “ I went to Denis, although I myself wanted to work in creative icon art whereas Catholic pictures have nothing in common with that' The panels she painted for the Russian Orthodox church of St Jean Guerrier in Meudon (now sadly no longer in use) were rescued by one of her former pupils and have recently been taken to Moscow |
5. A fundamental breakthrough in her understanding of the path to 'the creative icon' appeared to be her visit to an exhibition of recently discovered icons from the USSR, which toured many European cities in 1929, including in Germany. According to her memoirs, she spent 5 days at the exhibition and it was one of the most decisive (?memorable/impressionable) experiences of her life. Along with (?) scientific copies of Andrei Rublyev's 'Trinity' and the Vladimir Mother of God about which Yu. N. Reitlinger writes, , there were original icons on exhibit including masterpieces from the XII-XV centuries. As a result, her aim became: to return icon painting to the realms of 'fine art'.
It should be noted that Yu. N. Reitlinger was not the only one to be astounded by this encounter with traditional iconography. Fr Sergei Bulgakov was also deeply affected. It is no accident that soon after, he published a small but - for the future of icon painting, fundamentally important book ' The Icon and iconography (icon painting)' (1931) Nor were certain lines in this book accidental, clearly they arose in conversation with Yu N Reitlinger who was then living under the same roof, about the canon and accurate (faithful) copies as per the Byzantine masters as a 'living memorial of the church', her soborny (communal church fellowship) inspiration', of the essential possibility of the re-establishment of 'new icons with new content' (the life of the church is never merely quarried out of the old, it has a present and a future and the ever-present movement of the Holy Spirit. And if spiritual visions and discoveries could be depicted in traditional icons, they could be again now and in the future. Whether or not creative inspiration and boldness are evident in a new icon is simply a question of fact.') So in a combination of liturgical life, theology and 'speculation in paints' was born an understanding of the task of giving birth to contemporary Russian Orthodox art. |
6. From this time onwards, Yu. N. Reitlinger (Sister Joanna from 1934) worked much and fruitfully. The range of her reference points and images is chronologically wide (lit. 'unrestricted') from the decorative primitives of the XIX (so-called 'icon-measles', such as the series 'Pages for Children's Reading' published under the editorship of Protoierei S. Chetverikov) to early Christian mosaics. These found their reflexion in her lively and picturesque style. A typical comment on an exhibition of icons in Prague, where a contingent of Old Believer apprentices predominated ran:'lifelessness, stagnation...if it were not for the icons of Reitlinger'. In the 30's and 40's, she painted many icon commissions in France itself and in England (among them only a few are known to the Russian public, and only 4 of which are displayed in the exhibition).
However, her great dream was 'monumental' art ('I dreamed of murals and frescos all my life). Unfortunately, for purely practical reasons this dream was only destined to be fulfilled to a very limited degree. And even some of what little she carried out has perished. Part of the murals for the chapel of St John the Warrior in Meudon has been preserved, saved after a fire and now restored through the initiative of N.A. Struve. the most vivid and powerful scenes are those of the Last Judgement and the Heavenly Liturgy. In general, the problems of the future, knowledge of the triumph of the world (lit:vek=century)to come is the central pre..(occupation?). For the house of the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius in London, she created a great cycle of the Apocalypse - sharp, expressive, traditional and contemporary (formerly at the Monastery of Christ the Saviour near Oxford (sic) [actually Hove East Sussex BN3 1DE]. As is well known, Russian culture of the 20th century is intimately linked with ('nakorotke'=colloquial familiar to) an apocalyptic consciousness. There is not a single theologian who has not devoted several pages of commentary to the 'Revelations of St John the Divine'. The book about the Apocalypse by Fr. Sergei Bulgakov published in 1948 after his death was one of his best works. The murals of 1947 were a kind of artistic parallel with the theological text. The spiritual link of sister Joanna with her mentor was not broken. |
7. Not long before his death, Fr Sergei told her “Return to your Motherland Julia and take up your Cross. and listen, Julia, carry it with joy !” (recorded by S. Yu. Zavadovskaya). Her return was preceded by a visit to her sister in Prague and years of waiting. She also worked in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia: icons, church murals, copies from reproductions of works by Russian artists. “I was overburdened with work....By the way, I painted successfully from nature because I particularly liked the countryside.” remembered Yu. N. Living in Tashkent where she was directed to stay in 1955 “I made my living painting silk scarves.” After she started to live on a pension, she was able to stay in Moscow more often and for longer. She came back to icon painting through a friend from Paris, E. Yu. Vedernikova (Braslavskaya). Yu. N wrote:'Little by little I am beginning to breathe a forgotten air. the Vedernikovs , books, meetings with wonderful new young people. I return to my Father's House (the Church) , make my Confession and take Communion with Fr. Andrei Sergeenko which I have not done for ages and for 15-20 years I am working on icons more than I have ever done in my life.'
Eventually my meeting with Fr. Alexander Men' was somehow sent to me by Fr. Sergei. That is my whole biography, nothing remarkable except my remarkable mentors. (Father A. Sergeenko 1903-1973) was the incumbent at the church in Meudon, returned to Russia in 1947. Yu. N. could have met Fr A. Men (1935-1990) in the 1960's, but their spiritual meeting took place around 1974. A return to icon painting in the anti-religious 60's and 70's was also an achievement. She painted icons free, sent them by post from Tashkent (often in boxes hidden by sweets) addressed 'by request' and 'as presents'. According to oral reports, her last icon was displayed in the exhibition).
She died in the severest Russian nun's habit (the 'skhima) - deaf and blind, praying ceaselessly, remembering her nearest and dearest.
Eventually my meeting with Fr. Alexander Men' was somehow sent to me by Fr. Sergei. That is my whole biography, nothing remarkable except my remarkable mentors. (Father A. Sergeenko 1903-1973) was the incumbent at the church in Meudon, returned to Russia in 1947. Yu. N. could have met Fr A. Men (1935-1990) in the 1960's, but their spiritual meeting took place around 1974. A return to icon painting in the anti-religious 60's and 70's was also an achievement. She painted icons free, sent them by post from Tashkent (often in boxes hidden by sweets) addressed 'by request' and 'as presents'. According to oral reports, her last icon was displayed in the exhibition).
She died in the severest Russian nun's habit (the 'skhima) - deaf and blind, praying ceaselessly, remembering her nearest and dearest.