David Kakabadze (1889-1952): a Creative Prophet of

Georgias European Future

Dr. Tamar Goguadze (PhD, Durham University)
Independent Scholar

Abstract: This paper intends to introduce and remind the broader western Society a Georgian, that is less known in the west, yet, the importance of
his painting had an immense significance in the formation of the Georgian mentality at the beginning of the 20 th century. Georgia, as a former Soviet
Republic, with the history of its struggle for independence, presents a fascinating case for Western cultural and historical analysts. In many ways, the
story of Georgia through the 20th Century and beyond, represents a search for national and cultural identity. This identity is sought both in terms of
how Georgians see themselves, and in the ways in which they interact with the wider world. While this is a common experience for smaller nations
that have faced long periods of foreign domination, the case of Georgia is of special interest, in part because of its own very distinctive and unique
historical and cultural heritage, and also because of its geographical and political location at the meeting place of East and West.

In the early Soviet period, this search for cultural self-identity and the accompanying search for a meaningful relationship with Western culture,
manifested in significant developments in Georgian artistic expression. David Kakabadze (1889-1952) was among the 5 artists who went to Paris in
1919-1927 to study western painting, and thereby assimilate the western artistic experience into Georgian cultural life, adjusting its elements to
Georgian cultural values and traditions. This was not a mere importation of Western artistic standards. The integrity of Georgian cultural expression
was retained, while allowing Georgian artists to embrace the aesthetic and intellectual wealth of the wider world, and incorporate and adapt such
elements within a distinctly Georgian tradition.

Keywords: David Kakabadze, 20th century, Georgian, Artist, Modernism, Avant-Garde, Paris, Art, Industrial objects, Collages.

Emergence of a Western Oriented Georgian Artist-scientist at the Beginning of the 20th c.

The geographic and political location of Georgia at the crossroads of Europe and Asia often makes the country serve as
a cultural bridge between East and West, adopting in return the cultural and aesthetic values from both. This specific
feature commonly emerges in traditional Georgian folk culture, architecture, painting, design and even daily lifestyle.
The history of Georgian painting is usually associated with beautiful frescoes in ancient Georgian churches, leaving less
room for the secular painting that emerged toward the end of the 19th century. David Kakabadze was the first Georgian
artist to venture into the pure avant-garde.

David Kakabadze Self-Portrait in the Mirror, Oil on Canvas, 1917.

As an artist, he worked in painting, sculpture, photography and cinematography, and left his unique experimental traces
in all these areas. His tendency towards Modernism is obvious as early as his early self-portraits (1917) which he
created during his studies in St Petersburg (1910-1915), where he was trained as a scientist, leaving artistic experience
as a mere hobby.
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Off to Paris

In 1919 the council of the Association of Georgian artists organized a competition for young artists, and David
Kakabadze went to Paris together with a group of his Georgian friends looking forward to seeing Paris the centre of
the arts.1 It should be mentioned that before his trip to Paris, Kakabadze was already well acquainted with the
principles of the European avant-garde which he most probably encountered during his time in St Petersburg. One of his
colleagues, also a great Georgian artist, Lado Gudiashvili, recalls that he and David were not admitted to the art
academy for the reason that they were regarded as already accomplished artists and instead they were offered an
opportunity for the exchange of artistic experiences with French masters.2

Georgian artists in Paris, 1925.

From left to right: E. Akhvlediani, K. Maghalashvili, L. Gudiashvili, D. Kakabadze.

They often visited the art studios in Paris, met the key artists of the time, exhibited their works at different exhibitions in
Paris, Rome, Venice, Amsterdam David made the most of his stay in France, he fulfilled his dreams, which he
formulated later: "The only purpose to my travelling abroad was to get to know about those movements that were then
considered avant-garde. I studied them for seven years. These art forms would have remained foreign to me, had I not
elaborated them in my own practice. I wanted there to be no secrets left for me in contemporary Western European
art.3

1
Parmen Margvelashvili, From the Archive of David Kakabadze, (Tbilisi: Georgian University Press, 1998), 14.
2
Lado Gudiashvili, The Book of Memories, (Tbilisi: Nakaduli Press, 1979), 16.
3
Lado Gudiashvili, The Book of Memories, (Tbilisi: Nakaduli Press, 1979), 17.
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Georgian artists in Paris, 1925. From left to right: K. Maghalashvili, L. Gudiashvili, D. Kakabadze, E.
Akhvlediani.

David Kakabadze easily integrated into the European artistic community. He took part in the annual exhibitions of the
Society of Independent Artists4, of which he was a member. About the exhibition held in 1923, a critic from the
newspaper le Canard Enchaine distinguished "Monsieur Kakabadze, whose name we already know very well, who
deserves our gratitude. This man, whose work allows us to sense his Georgian origins, exhibited canvases on which a
sensation of three-dimensionality is finally present.5 The Polish newspaper Echo Warszawskie published an article
under the title David Kakabadze (Salon des Independents in Paris): "While walking through the labyrinth of the Salon
of the Independents, the viewer unwittingly repeats to himself: Kakabadze. It is not a title, nor a slogan - it is the
surname of a Georgian artist who is showing several works in the genre of mechanical texture." And further on: "And
still, this salon is again and again nothing but the great Kakabadze".6 Kakabadzes views that he published in his book
in Paris concur with the ideas of Vassily Kandinsky, Fernand Leger, Le Corbusier and other intellectuals.
Kakabadze, as a biologist by profession, never hesitated to explore other areas of science in the process of his artistic
search. He became interested in optical laws tests and experiments led him to unusual discoveries in 1922, and he
started working on a goggle-less, stereoscopic, cinematographic camera device. David Kakabadze wrote: "As a plastic
image, film is imperfect. It lacks animating plastic three-dimensionality.7 By the help of a local patron he built a
special factory producing special magnifying optical lenses after having obtained patents from France, Germany,
Hungary, USA, Denmark, Italy, Belgium and Spain. His ultimately failed experiment can still be seen as one of the first
steps made in the discovery of 3D stereoscopic devices.

4
The Society founded in 1884 and headed by Paul Signac.
5
Parmen Margvelashvili, From the Archive of David Kakabadze, (Tbilisi: Georgian University Press, 1998), 24.
6
Parmen Margvelashvili, From the Archive of David Kakabadze, (Tbilisi: Georgian University Press, 1998), 39.
7
Parmen Margvelashvili, From the Archive of David Kakabadze, (Tbilisi: Georgian University Press, 1998), 26.
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David Kakabadze, Still Life, Oil, Cardboard, 1920.

Embracing the Principles of Avant-Garde

Cubism
A few accounts imply to his personal meetings and encounters with Picasso. It is obvious that during this time
Kakabadze was profoundly interested in Cubist painting and produced a series of Cubist compositions. His Cubist
paintings are never entirely deprived of figurative language, and sometimes even refer to Parisian life. A floral fragment
contrasting with crude surfaces of sharp edged pieces bring in sense of liveliness and beauty within an urban
environment and imbue the paintings with a dynamic and lyrical mood.

David Kakabadze, Paris, Charcoal, 1920.

Parisian Sketches

Specifically the theme of France arises in two of the series that he created while living in Paris. One presents the
Parisian sketches in charcoal and pencil, he observes the banks of Seine, bridges, streets, Parisian cafes, Paris boulevard
views.
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David Kakabadze, Paris, Charcoal, 1920.

His fascination with the Parisian lifestyle obviously seeks to express that exquisite atmosphere and mood of the city that
attracts art lovers from all over the world.

David Kakabadze, Bretagne, watercolor on paper, 1921.

The artist spent a period of time in the north west of France admiring the beautiful places of Brittany that he reflected in
the series of his compositions revealing certain tendency towards abstracting the clear figurative elements. The
watercolors of Brittany (Bretagne) present transparent and airy opuses: the sketch-like yet complete, finished
compositions expressing the mood he obtained from the contemplation of the beautiful sights of Bretagne. Yet in these
paintings one can see the tendency towards generalization and abstraction of the real, by transforming a landscape or a
seascape into a minimalist composition, drawing silhouettes and outlines of forms emphasizing their lightness and
transparency.
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David Kakabadze, Bretagne, watercolor on paper, 1921.

The lightweight forms of boats or houses are almost floating in the air. The sense of space and air inspires one with
calm and serenity. It is not a coincidence that Kakabadze was greatly fascinated by Chinese scrolls at this time and
believed that true abstractionism was to be found in the East: European space is realistic while Oriental space is
abstract.8

David kakabadze, Decorative Motif, Oil on Carton, 1927.

Abstracting the Cosmic Imagery

Kakabadzes other series of abstract compositions carry no direct figurative references to Europe or France, yet they
speak of his excitement over the opportunities for artistic experiment offered to artists by the principles of the European
avant-garde. However, his abstract compositions stand out as completely unique, and distinct from any other artistic
style of the painters of the 20th c. The key element in Kakabadzes painting that distinguishes his style from any other
artist is the harmonious unity of his scientific and aesthetic approaches to artistic creation. The abstract paintings called
Decorative Motiffs, which the author created after returning to his country, reveal most the influence that Parisian
period had on his art. These works are not merely decorative pieces but they are drawn from the pictures of tiny

8
Parmen Margvelashvili, From the Archive of David Kakabadze, (Tbilisi: Georgian University Press, 1998), 112.
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biological cells that the author examined under a microscope as a scientist. If we look at the composition N98,9 the first
thing that may come to the mind of a theology scholar, 10 would be a biblical image of the creation of the world in
Genesis 1. Only gradually one can recognize that the apparent chaos of colors, almost accidentally splashed spots and
the impression of lines created by the gaps between the color spots are skillfully organized and balanced in the centre of
the board and ultimately finished by the rectangular frame, which appears in the forefront, leaving a pile of colors and
lines floating in the space beyond. While solving the visual trickery one can even follow how, in spite of the immediate
impression of chaos, the interactivity of corresponding color spots as well as lines responding to one another
rhythmically create a sense of balance and stability. The transparency of colors sprayed on the surface of the board
reveals other colors and frames behind them producing an impression of a 3-dimensional space. The prevalence of
horizontally stretched shapes on the lower part of the composition and having more sense of vertical movements on the
upper part create a certain sense of landscape (in this case meaning an earth as a basis holding things that strive upwards
to the sky). Therefore, Kakabadzes artistic vision discerns within a tiny cell under a microscope an image of the whole
cosmos the creation of the world that we all share. This universal element transcends the boundary of national space
and allows Kakabadzes art embrace the world while employing the experimental artistic methods encouraged and
appreciated by western European Avant-garde.

D. Kakabadze, Constructive-Decorative Composition, Wood, glass, metal, tempera, 1924.

Collages: Searching for Beauty within the Ugliness of Industrialism

The most symptomatic series that proclaim David Kakabadzes European consciousness are his Constructive-
Decorative Compositions (otherwise called collages). The collage compositions are usually arranged on wooden boards
where the shapes made of other substances such as foil, metal, mirror etc are added. Kakabadzes Constructive-
Decorative Compositions are largely inspired by the specific nature of the period in which the artist lived. In his

9
The numbering is taken conventionally from the album David Kakabadze, (Tbilisi, 1983).
10
Georgia, where Kakabadze was from prides itself of having the oldest Christian Church as the guardian of its cultural values the Orthodox
Christian religious background of the artist was unconsciously reflected in his art.
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opinion, old forms did not meet the new requirements of an "era of machines and cinematography".11 These two factors
- the machine and film - are of paramount significance in the formation of 20th century art. The machine, as a product
of science, has essentially changed the existence of the modern world and humankind: electricity, the telegraph,
newspapers, typewriters, elevators, and automated devices - technical innovations influenced the consciousness of the
epoch. Kakabadze anticipated the arrival of a new era, and he welcomed in it the extension of scientific means allowing
a more powerful artistic expression. He saw the new forms of art obliged to meet the new civilization with its speed and
technological development.12
Yet, his excitement with industrial and technical progress can hardly be framed as Futuristic in the light of the highly
aesthetic sensibility expressed in his collages. His Constructive-Decorative Compositions appear strict and even
minimalistic. Lado Gudiashvili thus described the process of Kakabadzes painting: At that time he used real mirrors
in his compositions. He created his (abstract) compositions in series. He would put several canvases on chairs standing
side by side, pick one color or the other and thus work on several compositions at the same time.13 (Gudiashvili 1998,
11). The playful experiments led him towards perfecting the form and expression of his message.
The composition N97 like all other collages, has an especially designed frame, which is an essential part of the
composition itself. Three buttons on each vertical side of the frame, left on top and bottom on the right, serve the
purpose of bonding the composition together. The background of the composition is sprayed with gray paint darkening
at the edges and lightening in the central area. The central element of the composition is the embryo-like form crossed
with a diagonal line from the other left side. The shape of an embryo that starts from the top holding a round piece of
mirror, comes down and splits, then continues again with a flowing line downwards and ends at the bottom with a
diagonally intersecting, sharp and straight line. The round movement fixes the centre. A white bone/tree like shape on
the right rhythmically corresponds to the central movement of the embryo on the right side and increases the sense of
steadiness and stability. The metal button between the two rhythmically developed forms repeats the round form of the
mirror and adds an extra sense of balance in the composition. The white accent of the bone like shape is also balanced
by the artists signature in the left lower corner: the essential component of Kakabadzes artworks.
The embryo is the symbol of life, the beginning of a new life is holding a mirror in which an observer is reflected so,
Kakabadze includes the viewer in the beginning of a new life in his art.14 The mirror here is a meeting point between
the artist and his spectators that trespasses the limits set by time. When the great masters such as Velasquez and Van
Dyck included mirror imagery in their paintings, they had in mind to eternalize their own involvement inside the
picture. Kakabadze, on the other hand, puts a real mirror in his paintings that allows the spectators of all times after him
to be included in his paintings and share in his own creative process. The experience of mirror reflection is sometimes
enhanced and extended by the use of small light bulbs that bring in electric light in his compositions and change their
color, appearance and dynamics.
The collages demonstrate Kakabadzes modernist vision. The highly sophisticated and almost minimalist structure of
his collages, his sense of order and desire for perfection reveal him as a scientist, while the emotions and impressions
brought by his almost scientific-artistic experiments reveal a profound intellect enriched with fine aesthetic sensibility.
All is well measured yet, the sense of infinite freedom is acquired through the visual interchange of space and
movement. His clear and almost engineered compositions are hardly rigid or static. His excitement with new artistic
material playfully explores the potentials of the textures of one or the other substance. He is focused on what the

11
David Kakabadze, Art and Space, (Paris: N.L. Danzig, 1924), 80-118.
12
David Kakabadze, (Paris, Paris: N.L. Danzig, 1924), 11-14.
13
Lado Gudiashvili, A Conversation with Lado Gudiashvili, in Spektri, N1, (Tbilisi: Spektri Publishing, 1998), 11.
14
Tamar Goguadze, The Decorative-Constructive Compositions by David Kakabadze, (Tbilisi: Georgian University Press, 1999), 41.
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material wants and can do. His artistic experiment is based on the interplay between the different textures and the
variety of their capacities as the diversity of the interplay between them. His excitement over the discoveries made by
the industrial revolution allows him to seek beauty everywhere even in what the modern world saw as a threat coming
from the ugliness of industrialization. Kakabadze tries to discard fear and destroy the myth of the death of art by finding
room for the beautiful and sublime and harmonizing the aesthetic and poetic with the most non-aesthetic and non-poetic
realm.
Kakabadze is often put side by side with Futurists and the Dada movement. Yet, while his optimistic and positive
welcome of modernity agrees with Futurist and Dada concepts, at the same time his way of seeing eternal beauty and
poetry even beyond objects as tedious and materialistic as industrial items seemingly deprived of artistic value,
distinguish his artworks. Unlike the Futurists, Kakabadze made industrial objects serve an aesthetic purpose instead of
making art serve the purpose of glorifying the magnificent future of industrialization. The use of frames together with
strictly geometrical order in his compositions allows more room for constructivism yet he also passes beyond the
constructivist norms and imbues his constructive composition with the sense of poetry and lyricism. Instead of either
enthusiastically praising the magnificence of the industrial revolution or condemning the ugliness of industrialization,
Kakabadze chooses to approach the new civilization creatively and detect that permanent value in it that is not a subject
to change or deterioration. After all, Kakabadze never formally belonged to any artistic group or movement but
collected and shared the experience of all in the process of formation of his unique artistic style.
Here the combination of eastern spirituality and western pragmatism played a crucial part in the formation of a unique
aesthetic system that Kakabadze established and developed in his highly organized compositions with trivial objects,
and yet produced a great sense of infinite space, calm and serenity. The collage-ness of his compositions is manifested
through not only the use of different materials, but through the synthesis of different fields of art, such as sculpture,
painting, and even cinematographic effect by the use of mirrors. After coming back to his homeland, Kakabadze
continued his experiments in cinematography and produced painting for a film15 where he used elements borrowed from
his constructive-decorative compositions.

Moving the Composition Boundaries: Embracing the Real Space

Compared to the most recent pieces of installation, there is not much that would surprise the modern art lover while
looking at Kakabadzes works. His collages are still fairly loyal to traditional compositional structure; they are painted
on boards and surrounded by frames keeping the composition strictly centered. In spite of abstract character they still
retain figurative language (such as the form of embryo, or clouds, resemblance to plants, a bone etc ), yet the novelty
that was much more apparent in the beginning of the twentieth century consisted precisely in his experimental approach
to incorporating modern technologies and industrial pieces into an aesthetic system that was still very much traditional.
At the 1926 exhibition of the Salon des Independents only one sculpture by David Kakabadze was displayed. It is now
known as 'Z' or Speared Fish. Katherine Dreier acquired the sculpture directly from the show for an international
exhibition of modern art she was planning to organize in the Brooklyn Museum in New York, in collaboration with the
so-called Socit Anonyme ("Anonymous Society") that she had established. In 1953, the sculpture, together with the
rest of her collection was donated to the Yale.16

15
Film Jim Shvante (The Salt of Svaneti), Director Mikheil Kalatozishvili, 1930.
16
Ketevan Kintsurashvili, David Kakabadze a 20th Century Classic, (St Petersburg: Arbat Publishing House, 2002), 72.
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David Kakabadze, Z (The Speared Fish), Painted wood with metal and glass, 1925, Yale University Art Gallery.

What really catches the eye after having discussed his collages, is the arrow, which corresponds to the diagonal linear
segment that repeatedly appears in his works and the three dimensional sculpture allows him to spread his collage
composition in real space.

Back Home: Challenges and Persecution

David Kakabadze, Imereti Landscape, 1944.

Kakabadze as an avant-garde painter flourished and developed his stylistic experiments precisely during his life in
Paris. The return to his homeland was more complicated than one could anticipate. Oppression by the Soviet
government seemed intolerable. Yet, the need for survival encouraged and increased his experimental and creative urge
even further. Soon Kakabadze found a way of producing government commissions in his own unique style, even though
the labels of a formalist, leftist and decadent were never removed. He was a threat attempting to imort the western
values into the Soviet society. His later realistic landscapes of Imereti (part of western Georgia, where David
Kakabadze was born and raised) are obviously marked by his Cubist style, yet at the same time one could argue that the
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sights of Imereti look fairly similar from the highways while travelling through the area. When looking at another
commissioned painting called Demonstration in Imereti (dedicated to a celebration for Lenin) the most eye-capturing is
the huge cubist landscape of the hills of Imereti while a really minor, lower part is occupied by the actual so called
celebration, with the Lenins portrait being hardly even noticeable.

David Kakabadze, Demonstration in Imereti, 1942.

Kakabadze eagerly used an artistic trickery that challenged the Soviet officials, leaving them in wonder and confusion.
His excitement over industrialism gave him credit in the eyes of the Soviets yet his lack of interest towards Soviet
Social Realism threatened and upset the official government. The same trickery was applied to the painting Svaneti
Ore Mining, the Industrial painting which does not present Kakabadze as explicitly anti-Soviet, yet his message is
obvious.

David Kakabadze, Svaneti - Ore Mining, 1949.

Kakabadzes political incorrectness was mistaken by the Soviets for political rebelliousness while all he sought was the
perfection of his artistic style and expression. On the other hand, his enthusiasm for incorporating industrial elements
challenged the soviet dislike for his art. It was obvious that the scope of his excitement over industrialism was limited to
broadening the opportunities of artistic expression rather than applauding the building the new world heading towards
Communism: He obviously valued industrial and technical progress only as long as it provided more and better means
and tools for artistic experiments rather than contributing to the future development of Marxism and Leninism.
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David Kakabadze, Imereti My Mother, 1918.

Inner Search for National and Cultural Identity

The most symbolic painting of Kakabadzes broad vision of the world is his Imereti - My Mother, which he created in
1918 before he left for Europe. At the first glance it is a realistic painting and all is clear The picture presents a
realistic presentation of his mother knitting sitting in the front of the picture against the background of Imereti in the
back. The image of the mother in the process of making/creating is in the foreground as the symbol of everything
native and indigenously creative, against a background of something that while it is still his own Imereti, yet it is made
visible and presented in a rather Cubist (western) style. Even before his departure Kakabadze revealed his cosmopolitan
vision of his own motherland in semi-European style and at the same time it is a picture of the Western world seen
through the artistic vision of a Georgian person as he sees his homeland in the process of making and creating
something new out of its own native values as a contribution to the bigger world.

Bibliography:

Gudiashvili, Lado. A Conversation with Lado Gudiashvili, in Spektri, N1, Tbilisi: Spektri Publishing, 1998.
Gudiashvili, Lado. The Book of Memories, Tbilisi: Nakaduli Press, 1979.
Goguadze, Tamar. The Decorative-Constructive Compositions by David Kakabadze, Tbilisi: Georgian University
Press, 1999.
Kakabadze, David. Album, with a Foreword by L. Rcheulishvili, Tbilisi, 1983.
Kakabadze, David. Art and Space, Paris: N.L. Danzig, 1924.
Kakabadze, David. Paris, Paris: N.L. Danzig, 1924.
Kintsurashvili, Ketevan. David Kakabadze a 20th Century Classic, St Petersburg: Arbat Publishing House, funded
by The Abashidze Fund, 2002.
Margvelashvili, Parmen. From the Archive of David Kakabadze, Tbilisi: Georgian University Press, 1998.