Steps, Ladders, Stairs in Art. Volume 1 - страница 4

Chaim Soutine, The Red Staircase at Cagnes, 1923–1924, oil on canvas, 28.5 × 21.25 ins

In Mihail Chemiakin’s work “The Ladder” (V1: 253) a border between two planes is clearly marked. The passage here represents not the transition between worlds, but rather the choice of a moral path. The change in color from red to white can be seen to symbolize the choice between spiritual purity (white) or bodily passions (red), if we consider red and white to be symbols of the diabolical and the divine. The dichotomy of red and white, present in European culture since the early Middle Ages, today is most often associated with the Russian Revolution.

Red and white tones predominate in Chaim Soutine’s paintings, notably in his “Red Staircase at Cagnes” – a profoundly tragic image that reflects the artist’s dramatic life and its constant psychological stress. This landscape from the artist’s early period is an attempt to comprehend the meaning of color. Soutine was very interested in red as the color of both life and death. His red staircase, reminiscent of the backbone of the split carcasses so often depicted by the artist, runs along a crooked street, conveying the finiteness of the flesh and the “fluidity” of being. Here once again we find the heavenly staircase, uniting the carnal and the sublime, the inaccessible but possible.

Leningrad nonconformist Gennady Ustyugov’s 1993 painting ”Whither Leads the Ladder?” (V1: 159) can be seen as a reference to Russian Orthodox Marian iconography. Ustyugov places the ladder, in dialogue with a female figure, against the background of an unreal landscape. The bent position of her translucent body reminds the viewer of the angels in Andrei Rublev’s “Trinity” icon, and her head is tilted toward a ladder, suggesting it is a way to the mountaintop. The female figure is imbued with the mood of estrangement from the earthly and the readiness to make a journey; the presence of a ladder as a transcendental sign gives hope for salvation, hope that the soul will gain strength and recover after suffering. The painting largely becomes a mirror of the internal state of the artist himself, who has defined his primary question in the work’s title: does the ladder represent atonement or punishment?

Stairs as a symbol of Christ’s suffering appear in the Catholic tradition as early as the 9^>thcentury and is found in icons, crucifixes and retablo. And although the presence of a ladder in “Ascension to the Cross” and “Descent from the Cross” is not mentioned by any Gospel – ladders first appeared in illustrations and images – ladders are often mentioned in theological manuscripts from the Middle Ages. One can even speak about the formation of established medieval iconography in the image of Christ climbing a ladder to the crucifix, an example of which we see in the illustration by Pacino di Buonaguida to the c. 1320 manuscript “Vita Christi” (V1: 102). In Fra Angelico’s “Nailing of Christ to the Cross” (1442) (V1: 106), both executioners and Christ are depicted on ladders leading to the cross. Thenceforth the ladder is frequently an attribute of execution. For example, Jan Luyken’s 1685 etching, “Anneken Hendriks, tied to a ladder and burned in Amsterdam in 1571” (V1: 119), depicts the execution of a woman condemned for heresy. Here the ladder itself, in an analogy to the cross, is the instrument of execution.