Mir Iskusstva Research Articles

The Art and Architecture of Russia

Part 1 Kievan Russia: the past of Kiev the architecture of Kiev - 990-1240 the archiecture of Novgorod and Pskov 990-1500 the architecture of Vladimir-Suzdal 1110-1240 mosaics and frescoes in Kiev the first Russian sculpture frescoes in Vladimir and Novgorod. Part 2 Icon-painting: icon-painting - criticism, iconography and technique the earliest icons 990-1250 provincial schools of the 13th and 14th centuries 15th century painting - 15th century painting - Novgorod painting in in the later 15th and 16th centuries. Part 3 The art of Muscovy: wooden church architecture architecture in - 1400-1600 17th century architecture - the Moscow Baroque secular architecture the beginning of modern painting - Moscow, 1550-1700. Part 4 St Petersburg: Peter's baroque - 1703-41 Elizabeth's rococo - 1741-62 the classicism of Catherine II - 1762-96 the Alexandrian empire - 1796-1850 the medieval revival - 18th century romantic architecture. Part 5 Modern Russian art: 18th-century painting and sculpture romanticism ideological realism the Slavic revival and Mir Iskusstva.

The Russian Theatre and its Artists since the Revolution

In 1924 and 1925 the political, economic and cultural blockades of Russia were lifted. When our art productions reappeared in the West after ten years of war and revolution they were received with great amazement. Western Europe had prepared to resume relationships with us in art on the basis of our status in 1915. The intervening years were considered as a blank. Our culture was assumed to have sunk into a deep sleep the very moment that Western Europe decided to turn her back upon us; and with the “kiss of recognition” we were supposed to have been awakened, to find ourselves just where we were remembered to have been ten years before. Western Europe spoke of Russian art in terms of Diagilev's Russian ballet, of the successes of the Mir Iskusstva decorators. But the Soviet Republic sent out across the cordon of the reopened border something entirely new.