Peter Liashkov

ELAN VITAL

The Sensuous Expression of Élan vital: Peter Liashkov’s Erotic Series
by David S. Rubin

In his 1907 book Creative Evolution, the French philosopher Henri Bergson introduced the term ‘élan vital’ to refer to our instinctual creative impulses. In a series of erotic paintings created in 2005, Peter Liashkov applies this concept to sexuality, depicting penises and vaginas as energetic instruments and vibrant personifications of élan vital. Rather than delineate the imagery with the precise realism of pornographic representations, Liashkov prefers an expressive approach, which he previously employed in his headless glass torsos and standing figures in the 1980s. With the glass medium metaphorically suggesting human frailty and vulnerability in these earlier works, the artist explored themes of aging and mortality—subjects that would culminate in his examination of death and its aftermath in his SIDELIFE series, which he began in 2007. Liashkov’s interest in depicting genitalia emerged when he was in his early seventies, a time in life when an aging man might seek some form of sexual reinvigoration. Appropriate to such a goal, the temperament of the erotic paintings contrasts with the somber tone of much of his oeuvre, as they are quite joyful in their embrace of sexuality as something worth celebrating.
In keeping with his usual practice for figurative painting, Liashkov worked from consenting live adult models and painted directly on synskin, a durable transparent material that is suitable for layering or painting on both sides. For the images of male genitalia, he painted new compositions over old or unfinished ones that lay around the studio, using acrylics mixed with powdered pigments or actual soil to yield a visceral, gritty effect that aesthetically embodies his concept of masculinity. The vagina imagery, by contrast, was painted on clear synskin and rendered mostly in simple outline to achieve a softer, more delicate mode of expression aligned with his view of femininity.
Because it changes shape demonstrably when becoming sexually charged, the male organ lends itself to a variety of compositions. In Liashkov’s erotic series, the penis is represented in its many manifestations, from flaccid to semi-erect to erect, as well as circumcised and uncircumcised. Some are based on black models and others on white. In one example, Liashkov presents a double image where the penis is diagrammatically shown moving from flaccid to erect. In all of these works, the depicted phalli appear to be interacting with the space around them. They are bathed in a glow of warm golden or rose-colored hues that suggest atmospheres filled with orgone energy, a sex-related spiritual life force that was first hypothesized in the 1930s by the psychologist Wilhelm Reich, who believed in such energy’s power to heal.
Whereas the penis is an external organ, the vagina is an internal one. Accordingly, Liashkov’s focus in the vagina paintings is on the cavernous and mysterious qualities of female genitalia. Aware of art historical precedent, Liashkov based one of his compositions on Gustave Courbet’s well known painting The Origin of the World (1866), which shows just the body of a reclining nude woman, partially draped in a white sheet with one breast and her pubic and vaginal regions fully exposed and viewed from a slight angle. In his other vagina compositions, Liashkov employs variations on the Courbet derived pose, with some almost symmetrical. By sexualizing his vaginal imagery Liashkov also updates Courbet. Although both artists depict legs spread wide open, Liashkov moves in closer to reveal details such as the clitoris, urethra, and labia, painted in lush reds and pinks. He also allows thin washes to spread or splatter across several of the compositions, with the saturated areas suggesting female fluids.
In short, Liashkov’s erotic paintings celebrate the most basic human instinct that can provide pleasure as well as generate life. In this respect Liashkov brings new meaning to the ‘joie de vivre’ moniker that is usually associated with the paintings of Henri Matisse. While Matisse alluded to female sex appeal by omitting details and focusing on sensuously curving outlines, Liashkov goes directly to the locations of sexual pleasure. Being of a generation that lived through the sexual revolution and other sociopolitical developments that shaped our present day cultural norms, Liashkov presents imagery that is not only sex-positive but, in its representation of both male and female sexuality, is also non-sexist. At the same time, he continues his practice of using materials, brushwork, textures, and colors expressively to refer to the spiritual dimension that he sees in everything.