Storied Figures

At Hillwood Estate, Porcelain Creations Offer A Revealing Glimpse of Russians' March Through Time

It's odd about the Russians. They're mighty at the Stradivarius, and at the chessboard and the writing desk, but at art you're meant to look at, they've never been that great. · You can't see the arpeggios of Heifetz, the dialogues of Chekhov or a seven-move branched endgame; they're invisible. They all belong to greatness, but not one of them transpires in the visual domain where the Russians are not strong. · Painting's not their thing. They're better at knickknacks. · The Russian knickknacks in "Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain and the Fine Art of Propaganda" are of a middling sort. Lower than the hinged, jeweled and enameled Easter eggs of Fabergé, and higher than those wooden dolls with dolls in them, these little porcelain people are somewhere in between.

Most are six or seven inches high. Scores are now in Northwest Washington -- in the Hillwood Estate's dacha above Rock Creek Park, where they gesticulate expressively. These figures know their place. They aren't, and don't pretend to be, imposing works of art. And they recognize their duty, which, like that of the wood stove, felt slipper and samovar, is to bring warmth to the parlor of some not-very-wealthy crowded Russian house.

There were paintings in those parlors, too, hung high in the corner, but those were holy icons imbued with the divine. These figurines are different. They don't aim for some higher realm. They seem content with this one, its offices, its theaters, its farmyards and its streets. Here's a peasant with a wheelbarrow delivering the firewood. And a peddler on his rounds, going house to house, selling ladies' shoes. Nearby is a caring mom clad in a babushka, tending to her daughter's hair, combing out the lice. These are common folk, salt of the earth. They aren't abstracted saints. They're oddly timeless nonetheless.

A century goes by as you proceed among them, but these small Russian people hardly seem to notice. Fashions shift, of course, and politics do too, but in fundamental ways -- in their scale, their ambition, their techniques of manufacture -- these figurines of porcelain scarcely change at all.

The first we meet are mostly peasants who, loyally, reliably, go about their chores. Then, in 1861, Czar Alexander II frees the serfs from bondage, and what do they do in gratitude? Why, they pour into the towns intent on getting high. "Home From the Tavern" depicts a bearded man -- he's squandered his kopecks, and lost a boot as well. Just think of his poor family! Now he's collapsed in the gutter, vodka-soaked, dead drunk.

Other figurines are considerably classier, which shouldn't be surprising. Classiness and porcelain had long been related. Until the early 1700s, nobody in Europe knew how one might make that glassy, hard, translucent stuff, which had filtered in from China, and which only the rich could afford. Finally, one ceramicist (an alchemist employed by Augustus the Strong of Saxony) came up with the formula. Augustus's Meissen works were founded in 1712, and soon the secret was out. The Lomonosov Porcelain Factory in St. Petersburg opened in 1744.

When Russians put on airs, the airs were often French. One early piece on view shows a beautiful young couple a-courting in the woods, a fete galante. Another shows Joan of Arc.

By the later 19th century, many Europeans (in London they read Dickens, in Paris they read Balzac) began paying new attention to society's injustices, and some Russians did the same. The bureaucrat encountered in "The Court of the Royal Constable" (1870s-1890s) is fat, unsympathetic and not nice at all.

When the Revolution comes, it storms through the show.

The porcelain factories, like so much else in Russia, were very quickly nationalized. Once they had produced cute kids and timeless rustics. Now they issued good comrades instead.

Here's a bold Red Army soldier off to fight the Whites. There's a woman worker wholeheartedly delivering a rousing Marxist-Leninist speech. These moralizing tchotchkes once chided gutter-drunks. They now choose other targets. Here's a "Bourgeoise Selling Her Things at the Market." She is not a good person, you can tell. Her clothes are much too stylish. And, of course, she's hopelessly frivolous: Check out her teddy bear.

Here, in striking contrast, and you're supposed to note the contrast, are two heroic women employed on a collective farm: Both are wearing aprons, and both are carrying guns. Nearby is a soldier standing sentry at his post, and a sharp-eyed border guard. Their poses, too, are noble, and their weapons up to date.

And, of course, we now see Joseph Stalin. At first the dictator appears to be a man of normal scale, but not for long. Stalin soon becomes a giant, towering high above the lesser folk he rules. In one big statuette -- by Aleksei Sotnikov (1904-1989) -- he strides across the land like a streamlined, smooth, implacable greatcoat-clad colossus. (Stalin, actually, was 5 feet 6 inches tall.)

Free Americans, we like to think, have never been subjected to such pounding propaganda. But remember Rosie the Riveter? Well, here is Ludmilla the Welder. There's a lot those women share.

All the pieces shown have been drawn from the collection of Yuri Traisman of Connecticut. He was quite right to collect them. There is much they have to say about Russia and its past.

After World War II, the porcelains get bigger and bigger. The largest are urns. Some are touched with gold. Those in praise of Stalin reach Ali Baba size.

But then the show is over. Now you're in the garden. The sky is huge, the birds are chirping. You take a deep breath of fresh air.

Fragile Persuasion: Russian Porcelain and the Fine Art of Propaganda is on display at Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, 4155 Linnean Ave. NW, through Dec. 31. The estate is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Suggested donation: $5 to $12. For information, call 202-686-5807 or see http://Hillwoodmuseum.org.