Critics in the native soil: landscape and conflicting ideals of nationality in imperial Russia

Abstract

Although the native landscape would eventually become an important locus for Russian national sentiment, Russians only came to celebrate the distinct characteristics of their natural environment at a comparatively late date. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that a pointedly native school of landscape painting would gain acceptance with the public and the arts establishment. But within a short span of time after its appearance Russian landscape painting came to generate widespread interest and enjoy great success. One of the best ways to help illuminate both the hesitance to embrace landscape painting and the rapidity of its emergence as a significant genre is to explore the critical response to it. In this paper I argue that Russian art critics were torn by landscape painting because it did not comfortably conform to any of the established formal or political frameworks then available for the evaluation of art in Russia. Its popularity nevertheless increased because it offered a new way to envision Russia as a national community in the era of rapid change surrounding the Great Reforms.