reviews 543 in the battle against theOld Believers. The arguments against religious sculp tures may seem odd: without even a mention of the Second Commandment, they are condemned for being ugly and improper, liable to have noses and other bits broken off{!), so rendering them alarmingly monstrous, artistically inept, hard to clean and prone to infestation by spiders, nesting birds and mice(!), unattested in other Orthodox lands, having doubdess crept in from Poland(!). The decree certainly stemmed directiy from Peter Fs volition: however complex itsmotivation, it evidently reflects Protestant sympathies. Though it impeded the sculptural tradition, it did not obliterate it,which testifies to the popular stubbornness that filtered, and often modified or rejected, Peter's cherished initiatives. Such a response to these figures is actually backhanded testimony to their expressive power. We can nowadays feel itall themore strongly; the blurry old photographs of them in churches, smothered spookily in clothing and offerings, are astonishingly moving. Yet this quintessentially Russian art is still hardly known or appreciated, slipping down the interstices of art or devotional history: both G. H. Hamilton (on 'high' art) and Alison Hilton (on folk art) give itno more than a nod. This volume isbound to help put the record right. Universityof Sussex R. R. Milner-Gulland Jackson, David. The Wanderers and CriticalRealism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Painting. Critical Perspectives in Art History. Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 2006. xiv + 202 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. ?55.00. The Wanderers (Peredvizhniki) ? initially acclaimed for their strident opposition to academic precepts, but later bedevilled by their posthumous conscription to the Socialist Realist cause ? have long attracted critical attention. Yet recent Russian scholarship has largely concentrated on mono graphic studies of individual artists,and it isnearly thirty years since Elizabeth Valkenier's magisterial Russian Realist Art (New York, 1977) firstappeared. David Jackson's new study is, therefore, a welcome contribution to the litera ture on a movement which dominated the visual arts in Russia for twenty years and achieved genuinely popular appeal, but still suffersfrom critical neglect in the West. Jackson's account is largely thematic. Thus a summary of the pre-history of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibits and the precursors to itsRealist agenda is followed by chapters on the visualization of the peasantry, political imagery, portraiture, history painting and the landscape school. Working largely from published accounts (just two archival sources are cited in the notes), the author analyses with subtlety and erudition some of the keyworks in each genre. Chapter six isparticularly thought-provoking, posing penetrat ing questions about the semiotics of history painting. The book culminates with an interesting chapter on the Slavic Revival and, finally, consideration of artists such as Valentin Serov and Mikhail Vrubel, whose work provides 544 seer, 86, 3, july 2008 a vital transitional step towards the avowedly aesthetic concerns of the avant-garde. Such an approach is far fromnovel, yet thisbook contains significantqual ifications to existing interpretations, and some new insights. Of particular value isJackson's discussion ofworks inprovincial or foreign collections, rath er than those in Moscow and St Petersburg alone. The account of Ilia Repin's iconic painting TheyDid Not ExpectHim {Ne^hdali), for example, mentions the important preliminary sketches in theAteneum, Helsinki, which Jackson has clearly studied at firsthand. More could be made of thismaterial, and it is regrettable that the less familiar images are not illustrated. This is doubtless no fault of the author, but due to the difficulties in securing good images from Russia and the necessary permission to reproduce them, coupled with publish ers' disquiet at the costs ofwell-illustrated books. Certainly any carping about the absence of some images should be tempered by noting that the book includes fortyblack and white illustrations, and eight colour plates. Jackson isparticularly interested in the Peredvizhniki as a 'political entity' (p. 3), and takes pains to consider the socio-political context for theirwork. There is nothing wrong with such an approach (it is thatmost frequently employed to assess the Peredvizhniki's oeuvre). The relatively limited analysis of style or technique, however, calls into question the author's claim to provide 'the first full critical analysis of theWanderers' output from an art historical perspective...
Read full abstract
Oct 1, 2009
Kelene Fercho + 1
Open Access