Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives - cover image

Copyright

Louise Hardiman; Nicola Kozicharow; Copyright of each chapter is maintained by the author.

Published On

2017-11-13

ISBN

Paperback978-1-78374-338-4
Hardback978-1-78374-339-1
PDF978-1-78374-340-7
HTML978-1-80064-534-9
XML978-1-78374-451-0
EPUB978-1-78374-341-4
MOBI978-1-78374-342-1

Language

  • English

Print Length

318 pages (vi + 312)

Dimensions

Paperback178 x 22 x 254 mm(7" x 0.87" x 10")
Hardback178 x 25 x 254 mm(7" x 1" x 10")

Weight

Paperback1654g (58.34oz)
Hardback2134g (75.27oz)

Media

Illustrations89

Funding

  • Scouloudi Foundation, Institute of Historical Research

OCLC Number

1167735778

LCCN

2019452593

BIC

  • ABA
  • AFC
  • AG

BISAC

  • ART049000
  • ART035000

LCC

  • N6987

Keywords

  • Russia
  • art
  • religion
  • modernism
  • spirituality
  • history of art

Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art

New Perspectives

In 1911 Vasily Kandinsky published the first edition of ‘On the Spiritual in Art’, a landmark modernist treatise in which he sought to reframe the meaning of art and the true role of the artist. For many artists of late Imperial Russia – a culture deeply influenced by the regime’s adoption of Byzantine Orthodoxy centuries before – questions of religion and spirituality were of paramount importance. As artists and the wider art community experimented with new ideas and interpretations at the dawn of the twentieth century, their relationship with ‘the spiritual’ – broadly defined – was inextricably linked to their roles as pioneers of modernism.

This diverse collection of essays introduces new and stimulating approaches to the ongoing debate as to how Russian artistic modernism engaged with questions of spirituality in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Ten chapters from emerging and established voices offer new perspectives on Kandinsky and other familiar names, such as Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov, and Natalia Goncharova, and introduce less well-known figures, such as the Georgian artists Ucha Japaridze and Lado Gudiashvili, and the craftswoman and art promoter Aleksandra Pogosskaia.

Prefaced by a lively and informative introduction by Louise Hardiman and Nicola Kozicharow that sets these perspectives in their historical and critical context, Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives enriches our understanding of the modernist period and breaks new ground in its re-examination of the role of religion and spirituality in the visual arts in late Imperial Russia. Of interest to historians and enthusiasts of Russian art, culture, and religion, and those of international modernism and the avant-garde, it offers innovative readings of a history only partially explored, revealing uncharted corners and challenging long-held assumptions.

Reviews

From the very outset of this volume, Louise Hardiman and Nicola Kozicharow claim that their goal as its editors was to ‘energise debate […] on the diverse ways in which themes of religion and spirituality were central to the work of artists and critics during the rise of Russian modernism’ (p. 10). Over the course of the eleven essays which comprise the text, this objective is definitively met. […] This variety is the true strength of the volume as a whole; it is the range of artists, historians and collectors under discussion which truly show how vital the intersection between art and spirituality was under the condition of modernity.

Allison Leigh

"Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives by Hardiman, Louise, Kozicharow, Nicola". Slavonic & East European Review (0037-6795), vol. 98, no. 1, 2020. doi:10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.98.1.0169

Full Review

Contributors

Nicola Kozicharow

(editor)
Schulman Research Fellow at Trinity Hall at University of Cambridge