Physical and Metaphysical Visualities: Vasily Rozanov and Historical Artefacts

Abstract

In Russian modernism, the work of writer Vasily Rozanov (1856–1919) presents an understudied case of constructing a worldview based on the study of the parallel history of human physicality and artefacts, which he articulated within the framework of the physical and metaphysical. I argue that Rozanov widened the domain of what was viewed as “compelling visuality” at his time, in line with the subjective synthesising principles of his worldview. He looked in art for the manifestations of that which he considered to be eternal and trans-historical: the mystery of the metaphysical roots of human sexuality.