The Imagery of Ivan A. Vladimirov in the Hoover Archives: But is it Art?

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe work of the battle artist I. A. Vladimirov falls under the category of narrative art, a genre with a long history going back to cave paintings. Although painting with a subtext is fairly universal, many art historians have discerned a specifically Russian affinity for story-telling art. Victoria Bonnell sees the template for modern Russian poster art in ancient icons (The Iconography of Art, University of California, 1997), and Valerie Kivelson sees the preeminence of image over text in the sixteenth-century manuscript Litsevoi letopisnyi svod (“Expressive Gestures,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 52, 2018). In modern fine art circles, however, narrative imagery has typically been relegated to second-rate status, as mere illustrations or even kitsch. The unexpectedly expressive empathy in the paintings by I. A. Vladimirov forces viewers to re-evaluate this condescension. He developed his own language of attributes, tropes, and memes that can be decoded with attention to the many small details in his quickly drawn lines. With careful viewing, his artwork conveys the everyday reality of revolutionary Russia with both pity and humor, and with a skill that should not be underestimated.