Melancholia imaginativa
From 3 March 2026 to 27 February 2027, the Romans Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova Museum (Elizabetes Street 57a, apt. 26, Riga) will host the exhibition “Melancholia imaginativa”, which reveals the distinctive qualities of figures in Alexandra Belcova’s portrait painting.
The theme of melancholy has a long history in European art. Melancholia (from the Greek for “black bile”) was regarded in antiquity not only as a peculiarity typical of one temperament type, but also as an ailment that negatively affected a person’s thoughts and mental state. The Renaissance transformed the attitude of thinkers and artists toward melancholy, which began to be valued as a mark of genius, of the thinker or scientist. The philosopher Marsilio Ficino gave this form of melancholy the name Melancholia imaginativa.
Since antiquity, a tradition of depicting melancholic figures has developed in art. The abandoned Ariadne of Theseus, Penelope awaiting her Odysseus, or the personification of Melancholy in Albrecht Dürer’s famous engraving — all these figures share a specific iconography. It is the so-called “thinker’s pose”: sitting with one’s head supported by a hand, arms crossed over the chest, the head slightly inclined, eyes downcast — all these signs clearly indicated the figure’s association with melancholy.
In Alexandra Belcova’s (1892–1981) portraits, this tradition acquires a personal nuance. The artist’s life circumstances, her long struggle with tuberculosis, and to some extent her inclination toward introversion shaped an interpretation of figures that fits within this typology. In both her self-portraits and portraits of others, Belcova accentuated an atmosphere of gentle sadness. Even the comedy-genre actress Anta Klints is portrayed by the artist in one of the works in a pose characteristic of melancholic states. Later, in the 1950s, Belcova planned to depict Anta Klints at work, yet in the finished composition the actress sits half-reclining on a sofa in a moment of contemplation, her hand with a pencil lowered, her gaze not directed at the papers and texts resting in her lap. Similarly, in old masters’ works, melancholy-stricken philosophers and scientists — or the winged creative spirit in Dürer’s engraving — ignore their tools and, immersed in thought, await inspiration.
In the 1930s, an atmosphere of melancholy pervaded several European metropolises. German philosopher Walter Benjamin and French sociologist Émile Durkheim both noted this when writing about Berlin and Paris. One of the period’s most important novels — Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea — largely embodied the spirit of the age. Tellingly, the author originally intended to title it Melancholia. Rapid industrialisation and the rise of totalitarian regimes across Europe and Russia resulted in the carefree flâneurism typical of the late 19th and early 20th century being replaced, in the 1930s, by a new type of city dweller living under the sway of melancholy.
A discovery in Alexandra Belcova’s private library becomes particularly interesting in relation to the exhibition’s theme. Inside a brochure containing the 1940 Constitution of the Latvian SSR was a loose page with a quotation from French writer François-René de Chateaubriand’s novel The Martyrs. In this typed excerpt, the protagonist bids farewell to the Muse — the symbol of youth and inspiration — and accepts the next stage of his creative life, which henceforth will speak of the bitterness of loss (Part II, Chapter 24). The quotation suggests that Belcova felt an affinity with the Romantic-era notion of melancholy as a distinctive component of the creative personality. At the same time, it hints that the Soviet period brought the artist many hardships and disappointments that undoubtedly shaped the message and tone of her work.
The exhibition offers a concise insight into the history of the concept of melancholy and the iconography of melancholic figures, presenting to visitors both previously unexhibited works by Alexandra Belcova and well-known portraits that, in the context of this theme, obtain new resonance.
Text: Nataļja Jevsejeva