Andrey Bely as an Artist vis-à-vis Aleksandr Golovin: How the Cover of the Journal Dreamers Was Created

Abstract

Samuil Alyanski, the owner and founder of the Alkonost publishing house (1918–1923), as early as 1918 had decided to issue a journal called Dreamers’ Notes, meant to bring together the Symbolist writers remaining in Russia after the October Revolution, primarily Aleksandr Blok, Vyacheslav Ivanov, and Andrei Bely. Despite the generally accepted view based on the memoirs of Alyanski, Andrei Bely played a leading role in the creation of the journal including the design of the cover commissioned by Alyanski from the famous Modernist artist Aleksandr Golovin. This article analyzes the sketches that Andrei Bely proposed as an idea for the journal cover as well as establishing their connection with the writer’s visionary drawings from the period of life when he was close to Rudolf Steiner and with book graphics from the period of his collaboration with the publishing house Alkonost. At first cursory glance, there is little in common between the cover of Dreamers’ Notes drawn by Golovin in the Modernist style and the sketches of Andrei Bely who was trying to make the journal а platform for Anthroposophy. However, as demonstrated in the article, all of Bely’s ideas were utilized by Golovin in creating his own artistic masterpiece.