Andrei Rublev by Robert Bird (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 721 obvious contender for that title.) Nevertheless, Jackson's determination to give the aesthetic pretensions ofRepin's paintings due weight is admirable. As he righdy points out, Repin's work is ill-served by photographic reproductions, which convey an impression ofpolished naturalism which isoften at odds with the visceral touch of the artist's brush. Jackson counteracts this with some subtle descriptions of the physical construction of an impressive range of works. More could be made of the excellent holdings inprovincial museums inRussia, but of particular merit is the introduction of little-knownpaintings byRepin which have appeared in themajor Western auction houses in recent years. Indeed, the author and his publishers are to be commended for the courageous decision to put the enigmatic Portrait ofLidiya Kuznetsova (1901, private collection) on the dust jacket, rather than seeking refuge behind one of Repin's more famous works. On occasion the author is rather dogmatic in his interpretations, as in his detection of 'hypocriticalmeekness' in the portrait of Pobedonostsev (p. 170). Such statements deny the plurality of possible readings and, with them, the very complexity of Repin's work. There are occasional errors: the Imperial Academy ofArts in St Petersburg was founded in 1757,not 1764; it is odd to dismiss Ivan Shishkin's stay in Europe from 1863-65 as 'brief; and is the 'Durrand-Reul' gallery that of the important French art dealer Paul Durand Ruel? There are also areas which could usefully be expanded: the seminal artistic colony which Sawa Mamontov nurtured at his estate of Abramtsevo, for example, isnever discussed in any detail, despite the lengthyand produc tiveperiods of timewhich Repin spent there. Such quibbles aside, Jackson has produced a beautifully illustrated account which, by focusing on what he terms the 'creative dissonance' between form and content in Repin's painting, provides a welcome corrective to the overly political and ideological tenor of Soviet accounts, and will certainly contribute to the consolidation of Repin's growing reputation in the West. PembrokeCollege,Cambridge Rosalind P. Blakesley Bird, Robert. AndreiRublev. BFI Film Classics. British Film Institute,London, 2005. 88 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Film credits. Bibliography. ?8.99 (paperback). Robert Bird's AndreiRublev is a useful and interesting companion to a film which, despite its fame, continues to be been seen as 'uncompromisingly difficult' (p. 10).Although the compact format of the British Film Institute's Film Classics guides does not lend itselfto comprehensive coverage of a film of this complexity, Bird does an excellent job on opening up AndreiRublev both for the specialist reader and viewers new to Tarkovskii and Russian cinema. The eighty-odd pages of the guide include a clear account of themaking of the film as well as good coverage of its historical and cultural contexts. Throughout, Bird maintains a balance between a useful and clear collation of thewealth of background information on the film,previously to be gleaned from various sources, and thought-provoking new readings of scenes, as well 722 SEER, 86, 4, OCTOBER 2008 as new contextual detail. He makes particularly good use of stills, reproduc tions of icons and paintings and other illustrativematerials, which provide some unexpected new insights into the film,even for thosewho know itwell. An example is the strikingeffectof his juxtaposition of paintings by Aleksandr Ivanov, Ivan Kramskoi and Mikhail Nesterov and visual compositions from AndreiRublev. In his contextualization of thehistorical subjectmatter ofTarkovskii's film, Bird also provides a good account of the newer history ofRublev as artist and cultural icon. Charting the process of his rediscovery in the early twentieth century and subsequent appropriation 'forpatriotic purposes' in the 1950s as 'the outstanding Russian artist, thinker and humanist of the so-called "Russian Renaissance'", Bird shows convincingly that Tarkovskii's film must indeed be seen as part of a 'broad cultural dialogue about Rublev's art' during this period which inspired a whole range of 'reinterpretations' ofRublev in painting and literature (p. 18).Tarkovskii's film both drew on these reinter pretations (an intriguing example being his borrowings from what Bird describes as Vladmir Pribytkov's 'rabidly anti-clerical "biography" ofRublev') and conducted a subde polemic with them (p. 18). In the introduction to his book, Bird makes the point...