A separate hall in the Khlebnikov House Museum is dedicated to Pyotr Vasilyevich Miturich, a graphic artist, a friend of the poet and the husband of his younger sister Vera. Some of his works are kept there, including “Spatial Graphics” (1919–1920), “Silhouettes” (1930), the series “Astrakhan Port” (1946), “Portrait of Velimir Khlebnikov” (1955), as well as personal belongings.
During the formation of the exhibition, the mementos made by Miturich greatly facilitated the identification of photographs and family heirlooms.
Pyotr Vasilyevich Miturich (1887–1956) became close to Velimir Khlebnikov in the early 1920s, but he had already developed an interest in his work. Back in 1918–1922, during his military service (he participated in both World War I and the Russian Civil War), the artist worked on graphic sheets and works dedicated to the poetry of Velimir. The series was conventionally called “Spatial Graphics and Painting”.
Contemplating and subtly feeling nature, sensing the growth of the earth in time, Velimir Khlebnikov learned the secrets of words. For him, the word was not an ordinary sign, a means of expressing scientific thought or artistic impression, but a living, developing organism. A long time ago the inner meaning of the word was lost, and Khlebnikov was engaged in “arranging” time in order to restore it, to return its deep, universal essence. To this end, he wrote without relying on the lexical meanings of words, instead putting at the forefront their sound. He “cultivated” poems from words with a single root, differing in prefixes and endings.
Trying to get to the origins of the word, Khlebnikov determined the universal meanings of consonant sounds and compiled his “Alphabet of the Language of the Stars”.
Pyotr Miturich developed his idea in visual art. He brought the drawing out of its flat state and “weighed” it in space. His series of three-sided cubes is nothing but a spatial embodiment of the poet’s ideas about the “arrangement” of time.
At the end of his life, Velimir Khlebnikov came to stay with his friend in the village of Santalovo, Novgorod Governorate, where he died on June 28, 1922, appointing Pyotr Miturich as his executor.
In Pyotr Miturich’s legacy, his “Santalovo cycle” is rather noteworthy. It includes portraits of Velimir, landscapes and graphic compositions inspired by Khlebnikov’s work. These works were included in the golden fund of Russian graphics.
