Short History of Russian art (XI through XX centuries)
Course duration: February – April 2015; check the schedule for precise dates & times.
Locations: the Netherlands Institute; State Russian Museum:
(4 Inzhenernaya Street – Ploshad’ Iskusstv), Underground Stations: Gostiny Dvor; Nevsky Prospect.
Academic instructor: Dr Alexei Alexeyevich Kurbanovsky (axkurban@mail.ru)
After completion of this course students will be able to comprehend the millennium-long history of
Russian visual arts. Students will gain knowledge of important artifacts and of distinguished Russian
masters collected in the State Russian Museum, as well as relevant problems in contemporary art.
Introductory lecture (in class at the Museum). Course information & Exam information.
Power-Point presentation: Human vision as a cultural-historical construct; painting as a sign-system
depending on changing social and cultural conventions of representation — Russian art: icon and
painting, sacred and profane. — Russia between East and West; periods in Russian art. — Chosen
examples with interpretations.
Medieval Russian art (practical seminar in the Russian Museum)
The technique of icon painting. — Earliest icons, XII-XIII centuries: Byzantine style, its adaption by
Russian artists. Main tendency: from ancient Greek naturalism to the formalization of face and figure; problem of the background. Byzantine iconography and Russian national saints. — XIII-XIV
centuries: period of feudal wars and external invasions (Mongols & Tatars, Germans, Poles, etc.).
Art in Novgorod and Pskov: Western Gothic influence. Examples from the Russian Museum collection. — Moscow as national center; St. Sergius of Radonezh (1319/22-1392), preacher of Russian
unity. Moscow school and Andrey Rublev (1360/80-1435?): social and aesthetic significance. Rublev’s “Old Testament Trinity” (about 1425-27), single most important Russian icon; dogma and
artistic perfection. — Dionisy (or Dionisius, c. 1440-1506): frescoes and icons from the Nativity of
the Virgin Church (Ferapontovo, 1502). — Complicated iconography: the Psalms and Parables in
icon painting. — Late icons: Simon Ushakov (1626-1686): attempts to integrate Western European
discoveries. Late ‘Mannerist’ icons in the Russian Museum: Semyon Spiridonov Kholmogorets
(1650s-1680s), and others. The Stroganov school. — Early portraiture (the parsuna).
Visit to the Restoration Laboratory (optional)
Russian Art of the Petrine times (practical seminar in the Russian Museum)
Renaissance humanism: the ‘Discovery of Man’ in Russian art. Predominance of portraiture; anonymous parsunas of “Jesters’ Council”. — Peter the Great and his travels in Europe. Russian artists
abroad and foreign artists in Russia: the question of Baroque/ Rococo. — Major Russian painters:
Ivan Nikitin (1680?-1742) and his Italian studies; Anrey Matveev (1701?-1739) and his Dutch experience. Foreign masters of the Petrine times: Johannes Tannauer (German; 1680-1737); Louis Caravacque (French; 1684-1754). — Minor artists: Ivan Vishnyakov (1699-1761), Ivan Argunov (17291802), Alexei Antropov (1716-1795): art to entertain the eye and to instruct the soul.
Russian Art of the Enlightenment (practical seminar in the Russian Museum)
Second half of the XVIII century: Enlightenment and Rationalism. Times of Catherine II (17621796). Fedor Rokotov (1735?-1808) and his ‘intimate’ portraits. Rokotov’s paintings at the Russian
Museum. Dmitry Levitsky (1735-1822): man as the master of his destiny. Levitsky’s images of the
Empress and her Court in the Russian Museum. The notion of man develops: ‘Sentimental’ portraits
by Vladimir Borovikovsky (1757-1825); Berovikovsky’s portraits in the Russian Museum. Images
of Russian rulers in the sculpture of Carlo Bartholomeo Rastrelli (Italian; 1670?-1744); EtienneMaurice Fatconet (1716-1791) and Marie-Anne Collot (1748-1821). — Sculptor Fedot Shubin
(1740-1805), his statues and busts. —Academic history painting represented by Anton Losenko
(1737-1773) and Peter Sokolov (1753-1791): the ‘Russian’ and the ‘Antique’.
Russian art of the early XIX century (practical seminar in the Russian Museum)
The Romantic epoch; historical background: Napoleonic wars and European revolutions. Romanticism and Academicism in Russian painting: art in the ‘Grand Style’. — Troubled personality in the
portraiture of Orest Kiprensy (1782-1836); his works in the Russian Museum: “Portrait of the Hussar Officer Davydov” as a patriotic manifesto. — Karl Briullov (1799-1852) amd the “Briullov’s
Hall”, history paintings (“The Last Day of Pompeii”, 1830-33) and portraiture. — Fedor/ Fidelio
Bruni (1801-1875), Briullov’s successful rival and major representative of Academicism. Bruni’s
painting “The Brazen Serpent” (1840s) the image of Biblical catastrophe; cold, masterful execution.
— Alexander Ivanov (1806-1858), his quest for the ultimate religious and aesthetic ideal; Christ as
the Apollo Belvedere; sketches and studies for the painter’s major work: “Christ’s First Appearance
to the People” (1830-50s); nudes in the plain air: quasi-Impressionist techniques. — Romantic seascape artist: Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900): man and natural element.
Russian art of the mid- XIX century (practical seminar in the Russian Museum)
Early Naturalism (the notion of Russian Biedermeier; 1820s -1850s). The official theory of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality” as the basis of ‘Russian identity’. Images of peasants as ‘Oriental
exotics’ — Alexei Venetianov (1780-1847), peasant scenes and portraits. Venetsianov’s school. —
Pavlov Fedotov (1815-1853): his development from ‘military scenes’ to Romantic anguish. Fedotov’s influence: commonplace imagery, sympathy for the ‘little man’. — Biedermeier portraiture:
Vassily Tropinin (1776-1857), Sergey Zaryanko (1818-1870): painters successfully compete with
the Daguerreotype.
Development of Naturalism: Vassily Perov (1834-1882) and his social satire. Problems of representation: art, early photography, and ethnographic exhibitions (life-size mannequins in real clothing).
— Naturalist portraiture: Ivan Kramskoy (1837-1887), portraits of intelligentsia and peasants.
Kramskoy’s religious quest. —History painting: Nikolai Ghe (1831-1849), conflicts of the Russian
past and late Naturalist “Crucifixions”.
Russian art of the National School (later XIX century; seminar in the Museum)
Art of the ‘Late Academy’: Flavitsky’s pseudo-Briullov pathetic; the “Troubadour style” in Karl
Goun (1830-1877).— Henryk Semiradsky (1843-1902) and his Antique festivities; Vassily Smirnov
(1858-1890) and ‘pictures of shock’. — Konstantin Makovsky (1839-1915): Orientalist exotics and
Salon portraits. — The demand for contemporaneity: populist ideology of the “Wanderers”; images
of the artist’s times in Konstantin Savitsky (1844-1905), Grigory Myasoedov (1834-1911),Vladimir
Makovsky (1846-1920), and others. Public exhibitions in the Russian province and the ‘threat’ of
mass culture. — Ilya Repin (1844-1930) and his major pictures in the Russian Museum: “The Volga
Barge Haulers” (1871-73); “The Cossacks of Zaporozhye writing a Letter to the Sultan” (1880-90s);
“The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council of Russia”(1901-03) — Vassily Polenov (18481927) in the Russian Museum: landscapes and Biblical paintings (the life of Christ as ‘Positivist archaeology’). —Vassily Vereshchagin (1842-1904): Orientalism in his Turkestan series (1860s), humanistic treatment of the Russo-Turkish war scenes (1877-78). — Vassily Surikov (1846-1916):
figures of history with ‘strictly national’ appeal. Surikov’s paintings in the Russian Museum: “Ermak Conquering Siberia” (1895); “Suvorov Crossing the Alps” (1899); “Stepan Razin” (1905-07)/
Viktor Vasnetzov (1848-1926) in the Russian Museum: question of Russian national origins. Naturalist landscape: Fedor Vassil’ev (1850-1873) and his innovatory techniques; Ivan Shishkin (18321898) and ‘the pencil of nature’ in art and photography. Light effects in Arkhip Quindzi (1842?1910); emotional range and painterly experiments in Isaac Levitan (1860/61-1900).
Russian art of the Silver Age (practical seminar in the Russian Museum)
Arrival of new technical discoveries and theoretical concepts: the notion of speed (automobile, airplane, cinema); “the Death of God” (Nietzsche), psychoanalysis (Freud), élan vital (Bergson). Symbolism: “all objects are not what they seem to be”. — Struggle with the conservatives and the necessity to form artists’ groups. The World of Art (Petersburg; 1898-1904): Alexander Benois (18701960): designs, illustrations, criticism; Leon Baxt (1866-1924): portraits and theatre designs; Konstantin Somov (1869-1939): “gallant festivities”; Nikolai Roerich (1874-1947): medieval Slavs. —
The Blue Rose (Saratov, 1905-1907): Viktor Borisov-Musatov (1870-1905): from Impressionism to
Symbolism; Pavel Kuznetsov (1878-1968): Kirghiz people as ‘noble savages’. — Mikhael Vrubel
(1856-1910) in the Russian Museum: “murals”, a Demon and a Seraph. — Valentin Serov (18651911), transformation of the gala portrait ‘formula’ in the “Yussupov series”; Art Nouveau stylization. — Boris Kustodiev (1878-1927): from Impressionism to Russian province and folk art.
Russian art of the early XX century (practical seminar in theRussian Museum)
Avant-Gardeist attitude: painterly practice claims the artist wholesale, his body must be his own major artifact. The ‘Knave of Diamonds’ group (Moscow, 1910-1917): Petr Konchalovsky (18761956), Ilya Mashkov (1881-1944), Aristarkh Lentulov (1882-1943), and others. Russian reception of
Cézanne’s style; interest in folk/non-professional art. — Primitivism, Futurism and abstraction in
Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) and Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964), their original style of nonrepresentational paining: Rayonism (1913-14). — Theosophical critique of Naturalism by Vassily
Kandinsky (1866-1944): discovery of “independent aesthetic creation”, his book “Concerning the
Spiritual in Art”. — Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935): from Cubism to Suprematism. Designs for the
opera “Victory over the Sun” (1913); “The Black Square” (1915) and geometrical abstraction; postrevolutionary works and return to human figure. — Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953): paintings and
“corner reliefs”; the “Monument to the Third International” (1919-20). Constructivism/ Productivism as the revolutionary Utopian project. — Analytical art of Pavel Filonov (1887-1941): “painting
the organic growth”, experiments to create a Superman. — Conclusion: art as ‘reflection of what the
eye sees’ is replaced by the ‘post-visual’ (political?) and various Utopian projects.
Russian Soviet art (practical seminar in the Russian Museum)
(depending on the exhibited artifacts)
Soviet art: Communist propaganda or the image of the New World? — Major artists of 1930s: Alexander Samokhvalov (1894-1971), Alexander Deineka (1899-1969), and others, in the Russian
Museum. — Art of the Second World War: mobilizing the people (Deineks’s “The Defense of Sebastopol” 1942) — and referring to humanist values (paintings by Arkady Plastov (1893-1972),
“The Fascist Has Flown”,1943). — Post-war paintings: slow transformation of the ‘permissible’ in
art. — The ‘Severe style’ of the 1960s in the works by Viktor Popkov (1932-1974), Andrey Mylnikov (b. 1919), Yevsey Moiseyenko (1916-1988), and others. — Art in 1970s activated the cultural
heritage, the so-called “Art of Memory”; major figures: Dmitry Zhilinsky (b. 1927), Tatyana Nazarenko (b. 1944), Olga Bulgakova (b. 1951). Official and Non-official trends in Soviet Art (1960s1980s). experimental art and the “struggle to exhibit”: the ‘Bulldozer exhibition’ (1974). Dissident
painters: Oscar Rabin (b. 1928), Mikhail Schwarzman (1926-1998). Moscow Conceptualism: Ilya
Kabakov (b. 1933), Eric Bulatov (b. 1933). — Underground art in Leningrad: Michail Chemiakine
(b. 1943), and others/— Conclusion: art reflects “the unseen”: the official ideology crumbles, and
Russian painters seek for new expressive forms.
Post-Soviet Russian art, 1980s - 2000s (lecture at the Netherlands Institute)
Post-Modernist art in Moscow & St Petersburg: new movements on the Post-Soviet art scene. Conceptualism: language games in Kabakov, Alexander Kosolapov (b. 1943), Edward Gorokhovsky (b.
1929). The “Sots-Art” as deconstruction of the Soviet heritage: Vitaly Komar (b. 1943) & Alexander Melamid (b. 1945). — St.-Petersburg’s “New Academy of Fine Arts”: Timur Novikov (19582002), Ol’ga Tobrelutz (Komarova; b. 1970). The question of art heritage for Vladimir Dukhovlinov
(b. 1950) and Kerim Ragimov (b. 1970). Contemporary feminist projects; performances and rolegames. — The Art Group “War”: their Innovation Prize-winning action of 2010. — Most recent, or
‘Actual’ Russian art and current international process; the Documenta and various Biennale exhibitions (Russian contributions).
Final Evaluation
Student’s own oral presentation (can be accompanied by PP presentation) about a particular Russian
artist, or an artistic/cultural problem (students are supposed to examine some sources in libraries).
The academic instructor provides all kinds of advice, supplies books/ articles in English (or in Russian — for readers of Russian); consultations must be arranged individually. To check your visual
memory, some images (reproductions) could be shown to you in class; you are expected to identify
them: artist’s name, period, style/ movement, what the work is about, etc.
Important notices:
1. All visits to the Russian Museum will be “double lectures” (one hour and a half; coffee-break is
possible but should be agreed upon); paintings from the Museum might figure at the exam.
2. As the Russian Museum constantly arranges exhibitions, some pictures may be ‘out’ for a current
show elsewhere. Due to unavailability of important paintings, visits to the Museum rooms can be
replaced on short notice by Power-Point presentations in class. If so happens, proper announcement
will be made at a previous lecture/ seminar; please listen carefully or ask your colleagues where the
next meeting will be held.
3. Visits to the Restoration Laboratories are arranged with the kind permission of the Museum administration. If for some important reason these cannot take place, the Russian Museum (and the
academic instructor) is not to blame, for these events are optional.
4. Visits to exhibitions of contemporary Russian art in the Russian Museum or in some other St Petersburg galleries can be arranged and later discussed (optional).
5. Students are strongly urged to read the suggested books and articles, to consult the academic instructor about specific aspects of Russian culture — as well as about their own topics.
SUGGESTED BOOKS ON THIS COURSE
Required Reading (in the library of the Netherlands Institute):
George H. Hamilton. The Art and Architecture of Russia;
James H. Billington. The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture;
Camilla Gray. The Russian Experiment in Art, 1863-1922.
Recommended Readings:
W. Bruce Lincoln. Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of 1000 years of Artistic Life in Russia;
Richard S. Wortman. Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy;
John Milner. Kazimir Malevich and the Art of Geometry;
Norbert Lynton. Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution;
Susan Buck-Morss. Dreamworld and Catastrophe: the Passing of Mass Utopia in East & West.
Recommended Readings on Some Aspects of Russian Art and Culture:
*Barrell J. The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt: The Body of the Public;
*Katerina Clark. Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution;
*Wassily Kandinsky. Concerning the Spiritual in Art;
*Nicoletta Misler & John E. Bowlt. Pavel Filonov: a Hero and his Fate;
*Alexei Kurbanovsky. Malevich’s Mystic Signs: from Iconoclasm to New Theology;
*Alexei Kurbanovsky. Freud, Tatlin and the Tower: How Soviet Psychoanalysts Might Have Interpreted the
Monument to the Third International;
*Boris Groys. The Total Art of Stalinism;
*Victoria E. Bonnell. Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin & Stalin;
*Matthew Cullerne Bown &Brandon Taylor, eds. Art of the Soviets: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
in a One-Party State, 1917-1992;
*Margarita Tupitsyn. Margins of Soviet Art: Socialist Realism to the Present;
*Igor Golomshtok & Alexander Glezer. Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union;
*Edward Lucie-Smith. Movements in Art since 1945.
*— relevant pages are copied and available in the Netherlands Institute.