The influence of Russian culture on the artistic self-identification of Walter Spies in the period of emigration in Germany (1919-1923)

Walter Spies (1895-1942) was an artist and musician whose artistic path was related to Russia, Germany and Indonesia. The universal and diverse artistic heritage of Spies represents a unique phenomenon expanding the view on the problem of transformation of the national identification of an artist bereft of his original motherland. It is efficient to artistic identity of this master to regard in the context of international cooperation. However, in the foreign research, as a rule, his creative work is seen exclusively in the light of German and Indonesian influences, almost excluding his Russian roots of an artist: starting from the first biography in letters edited by H. Rodius "Walter Spies: beauty and wealth of life" (H. Rhodius "Schonheit und Reichtum dеLebens, Walter Spies", 1964), finishing with publications of modern researchers - M. Hitchcock, S. Wesner, M. Soejima, J. Stowell. At the same time, artistic self-identification of Spies, was in many respects connected with the Russian stage of his life - education, traditions, social contacts. The artist was born in Moscow, in the family of a large German manufacturer Leon Spies, whose ancestors lived in Russia for more than one generation. His original creative path was also largely defined by artistic and cultural environment during his life in Moscow and after it the Ural region one (1915-1918). After his emigration to Germany (19191923), Spies worked with musical and artistic material, brought from Bashkiria. This activity was reflected in his fine art. Famous art historian F. Roh was the first to connect painting of Spies with the direction of "magical realism". The development of Spies' artistic style and his world perception in Germany can be observed in the following 5 paintings with an explicit autobiographical implication, made in the Berlin period: "Farewell" (1921), "Carrousel" (1922), "Figure-skaters" (1922), "The Bashkir Shepherd" (1923) and "The Thuringian Forest" (1923). The analysis of these works outlines the consequence of significant changes in the world perception of the artist, who experienced the encouragement of Bashkir culture and felt an acute opposition between the sense of real freedom discovered in the Ural and values of modern European reality. In 1923 Spies went to Indonesia was hoping to gain his "new Ural paradise" from where he did not return to Europe. In this way, his Russian period of life and creative activity has determined not only the subjects and scale of psychological saturation of Spies' paintings, but first and foremost - the development of his sense of artistic world perception through his reverential attitude towards creative freedom.

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