Pdf / English / 1990 / 320 pages / 60.8 MB

If, as Winston Churchill put it, Russia "is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," the wraps are coming off now. And among the most exhilarating discoveries for the world outside are little-known aspects of Russian art. As the eminent art historian Dmitri Sarabianov tells us in this lively book, Russia first turned its face to Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Peter the Great started the momentous process of "catching up" with the West. By the start of the nineteenth century, European ideas had been assimilated into the rich substratum of Russian culture and a unique amalgam began to emerge. Professor Sarabianov traces the passage of Classicism, the last vestige of the eighteenth century, as it gives way to Realism, and the accompanying triumphs of Russian portraiture. Other indigenous subjects— peasant life, religious ritual, historical confrontations, landscapes with the ubiquitous birches, urban boulevards— became the focus of Russian art. In architecture there was a parallel stylistic development: elegant classical facades gave way to reconstructions of medieval Russian buildings