Petre Otskheli - Eternally Modern

The world was a different place when Otskheli was starting out in the beginning of the last millennium. It was the first major cultural break of the twentieth century and creativity and experimentation were in the air not only abroad but in Georgia too. Despite the fact that he never made it to the art centres of Europe, times were good for the young man of twenty burning with the obsession to paint and draw. Counter-culture in the world of art meant a reappraisal of traditional forms of expression and, on a larger scale, of reality itself.

These creative impulses were so powerful that it took years for the totalitarian Soviet ideology to suffocate them and they thrived until the late 1930s. For some reasons, film and theatre retained this drive longer than the other arts. The same is true in case of stage and costume design for theatre. Such luminaries of the Georgian artistic word as Irakli Gamrekeli, Soliko Virsaladze, Joseph Sumbatashvili, David Kakabadze, Elene Akhvlediani and others all channelled their considerable talents into theatre work.

Some of the most compelling works of art were created not only in Paris, Munich, Moscow, Dresden or Saint Petersburg, but regionally in Tbilisi and Kutaisi as well. Otskheli, like most of his contemporaries, was influenced by the artistic currents brought to Georgia via Europe in the first decade of the century.

In 1926, he went on to the Academy of Fine Arts in Tbilisi where he studied under Professor Charlemagne. Although it is hardly possible to tell anything about Iveane Cheishvili’s teaching methods, there is no doubt that Professor Charlemagne’s class was enormously important and mind-opening for the nineteen-year-old Otshkeli. The Academy of Fine Arts in Tbilisi had been regarded as the best art school in the region throughout the 20th century and its faculty boasted many big names capable of expanding the students' artistic awareness.

The famous director was so impressed that he immediately invited Otskheli to join his company, thus beginning the perfect partnership between the aged maestro and the talented novice which lasted for years.

A TANDEM OF TWO GENIUSES

Otskheli owed a lot to Marjanisvili and his company. The director played a crucial role in forming and establishing Otskheli as one of Georgia’s most remarkable stage designers. Both men had similar views on theatre aesthetics, both shared an interest in the ever-changing Russian art scene and both took poetry, emotion and spirituality extremely seriously.

Especially interesting is the way they incorporated highly eclectic Modernist means and Constructivist ideas into their stage work, adapting them with ease and harmony to the Georgian temperament and pathos, present in Otskheli’s evolution before and after Marjanishvili.

Marjanishvili’s production of “Hurriel Acosta” is a good example of how Otskheli’s ability to invade scenic space by means of abstract-Constructivist forms and to create a symbolic-metaphysical atmosphere on stage helps the characters to take hold on their personal styles of action, gesture and speech. His drawings of costumes and set determine the style of all the productions he designed.

Admittedly neither K. Gutskov, the author of the play "Hurriel Acosta", nor Kote Marjanishvili himself suspected that the production was going to turn into what it did until they saw Otskheli’s drawings.

It should be underlined that he was only 22 when he designed “Hurriel Acosta”, which is why he was called a “wunderkind”.

This does not deprive Petre's set and costume drawings for “The Fire Starters” of their magic touch. Quite the contrary, they have a special charge and the marvel of it lies in the rhythmically organized and plastically expressive clear lines of the silhouettes.

The same can be said about his work for “Othello”, “The Master Builder”, “Dumb Speak Up”, “Beatrice Cenci”, “Spartacus”, “Rigoletto” and others.

It is often said that Otskheli transformed the approach to set and costume design.

He worked to peel away the characters’ layers to reveal the fundamental essentials. No matter what technical devices he employed, his art was deeply personal, completely individual and certainly could not have been done by anyone else. In short, his drawings did all the talking.

Individuality was never at the top of the priority list of the totalitarian and materialistic Bolshevik regime. Free thinking, individualism and abstract aesthetics belonged to the world of their ideological enemies.

A REAL ARTIST NEVER DIES

In 1939, Petre was no longer alive when his sketches were put on display at the stage design exhibition in London and his artworks earned a gold medal.

Another exhibition of his works was held in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) in 1973.