Impressions of a Russian Van Gogh

Aron Buch is a prominent Russian artist. He is also of Jewish heritage. But you would not know it. In fact, one is hard-pressed to extract from him any perspectives on the life of Jewish artists in Russia. All he wants to discuss is his art, his landscapes and his verses. And a little bit of his history. He, and his wife Maya, did all of this one recent afternoon with Russian Life  Executive Editor, Mikhail Ivanov.

Aron Buch is certainly not what you would call a wily marketeer. His ‘brochures’ for his work are a bunch of color photos, stained by his painted fingertips. And yet, his paintings long ago became part of private collections in the West, and have been exhibited by Washington’s Oscar Gallery, Paris’ Les Oreades and Spain’s Galeria Fontanar.

Certainly, one is not surprised to find that an artist does not have a knack for business. But what is surprising about this prominent Jewish Artist is how little he stresses his Jewishness.

Buch said he recalls very little from his Jewish past and life. And he is exceedingly terse in recounting what he does remember.

Russian Life: “Tell me about your childhood, where you came from?”

Aron Buch: “Born in Berdichev in 1923, I soon moved to Moscow with my family. People were fleeing at that time from Berdichev’s numerous gangs. It’s like the old line: ‘The Whites would come and rob us, and so would the Reds.’

“In such an environment, there was very little I could learn from my family about myself – so my knowledge about my roots is minimal. I heard very little about pogroms. When all my relatives moved on to Moscow, they went into commerce and the spirit which  reigned in the family was what I call ‘criminal.’

“My relatives all became real spekulanty, profferers and torgashy [perjorative Russian term for merchants – Ed.]. I despised them all. They were alien people to me, those torgashy.Their general level [of spiritual development] was low. I was so different from them. I was a born artist, so I didn’t have many contacts with my relatives.

“I loved only my father. He sang great Jewish songs, accompanying himself on the mandolin. He was a good-hearted man, witty and talented. When we would hold a party at our house, he would kindle us with his spirituality, which later gave me impetus as an artist. I am sure I inherited my artistic nature from him.”

RL: “What about your mother?”

A.B.: “My mother [Rozal Markovna] was an iron lady with a tough character. She convinced my father to go into business. Shortly before my parents died, I painted their portrait – it tells the whole story of their marked differences in character.”

Buch’s filing system turned out to be no better than his marketing system: the portraits were nowhere to be found.

RL: “Tell me about your Jewish faith and traditions, and how they influenced you.”

A.B.: “I can recall very little from my childhood. My [maternal] grandfather, Mottle, was a devout Jew who would pray every morning in the traditional attire. He lived near Moscow’s Belorussky railway station and I would see him every morning praying in his basement.”

RL: “Did you follow these traditions?”

A.B.: “Well, I have been so Russified since my childhood, so integrated in the Russian environment and its culture, that I was really beyond all that...”

RL: “What about anti-Semitism? How have your Jewish origins had an impact on your career?”

A.B.: “I am not sure we should be really focusing on this. The main thing is that I broke free [of my past] and became an artist.”

RL: “There were no persecutions or obstacles that made you aware of your roots?”

A.B.: “I was above that, really”.

Maya Buch: “But they didn’t take you at that school for artists, the one located right in front of Tretyakovka?!”

A.B.: “Well, that was probably one of the reasons I was turned down, and it was always there, but I was always above that. I never thought about it, but at all the stages of my artistic career there was some kind of an obstacle.

“But my acceptance in the Union of Artists in 1959 went very smoothly. My artistic level by that time was so high, I submitted my best essays and paintings.”

However, it was only in 1985, after he held his first big exhibition under the auspices of the Moscow Union of Artists and received the diploma for the year’s best works that he was given a workshop (and a shabby one at that).

What really hurt him was in 1985, when the Moscow Union didn’t accept his 100 works on the grounds that they had no where to hang them. Buch said he “understood this as a reference to my Jewish roots. I mean, how could a Jew raise himself up to such high levels of culture? I am sure that this was one of the factors in my rejection.“ In anger, he burnt all the mentioned works.

RL: “How long have you been painting?”

A.B.: “My aunt told me I’ve been drawing ever since I was three. I am 73 now, so you may say I have been drawing for the last 70 years.

“To be more precise, I really started drawing in 1937 when I joined the Moscow House of Arts, attending classes taught by Ilya Issakovich Tyomkin.”

RL: “It is amazing your family came through those severe years unscathed.”

A.B.: “Well, there were a few scares. In third or fourth grade, me and two of my school friends set fire to our Pioneer ties. At first I was jubilant that I had been accepted into the Pioneers. But then, instinctively, I felt there was something false about it. It weighed on me. I’ve always had an independent mind and never could stand to have someone in authority above me. And in the Pioneer organization they would issue orders to you.

“They even asked me to bring my mom to school because of that.”

M.B.: “Your dad could have gone to jail!”

RL: “Your colleague and friend, the artist Pavel Nikonov [among the artists admonished by Khrushchev at the famous Manezh exhibition in 1963 – Ed.] said: ‘Buch has always remained himself, it is true.’”

A.B.: ”Well, almost. Once, in 1955, I painted a boy and girl sitting on a sofa with books [Children]. They [the State Commission on Art – Ed.] loved it, but the critics made me draw a plane above the boy’s head, because every Soviet kid back then was supposed to dream about aviation.

“Oh, you can’t imagine what a patriot I was... and still am by the way. When I was in fifth grade, I wrote a poem which was printed in the school newspaper:

See you soon, Red capital!

‘Bon voyage’ – Moscow would say in return

The steel bird flew high in the sky

And nothing will hinder it

The courageous lady-aviators

Were breaking through the fog in triumph

Having decided to accomplish their

country’s assignment with dignity

They would keep their word

Having completed their record flight

The country, its people and Stalin the wise

Are shaking their hands for their courage

”I have always been a very enthusiastic guy, an easily impassioned guy. That poem was dedicated to three Soviet female aviators: Grizodubova, Raskova and Osipenko.

“Of course, it was only many years later that we learned of the criminal essence of communism. Of its ideologist, Lenin, the monster. Of course I believed in socialism and only now do I realize the real price.”

RL: “How do you see your art now, looking back?”

A.B.: I wrote a poem about the day of my birth [March 31] that answers that, in part:

I was born on the day of luminescence, of the earth revival

Everything was radiant and jubilating and was saying to me – come in

The golden sky, the sound of paint, the blue around me

Everything was playing and resounding, opening my eyes

It was on that day that I swore to the sky:

As long as I am alive – I will splash out my soul in colors

Always going for the utmost

“I don’t like to be ‘classified’ within a certain artistic movement. But I am the only impressionist in Russia.

[The Russian Jewish Encyclopedia says that, in his artistic manner, Buch is close to the ‘Moscow School of painting’ namely, its impressionist genre. When one looks at Buch’s radiant, multicolored fountain of artistry, a hymn to light and colors, one cannot but recall the jovial paintings of Van Gogh, Buch’s idol.]

“But I didn’t fall in love with impressionism until after the war. Before that, I studied classical artists such as Rembrandt, from whom I learned the art of light. Later, I studied the paintings of [the famous Russian-Jewish landscape artist] Isaak Levitan, as well as Korovin. There was also a period when I was in love with romantics like Delacroix, whose work inspired my self-portrait. My initial work was with portraits and genre scenes, now I mainly focus on nature.”

RL: “You are now a well-known artist in Russia and abroad...”

A.B.: “But, to be sure, I have barely made both ends meet. I have been a pensioner since I was 60, receiving 120 rubles like all other Soviet citizens until the market economy came to life. Now I get some R300,000 [$60 a month]. In the late eighties and early nineties, some of my art became more familiar in the West, and my financial situation slightly improved. I sometimes receive visitors from Japan and the US, and am invited to Spain regularly for exhibits.”

RL: “And what do you sell them your paintings for?”

A.B.: ”Well, I never haggle. Whatever they offer is fine with me.”

An artist for sure, but a businessman?...