Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences / Style Moderne and the Rediscovery of the Wooden Architecture of the Russian North: the Photographic Connection

Full text (.pdf)
Issue
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2016 9 (10)
Authors
Brumfield, William C.
Contact information
Brumfield, William C.: Tulane University New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; E-mail :
Keywords
Wooden architecture; Abramtsevo; Viktor Hartmann; Ivan Ropet; Vasilii Polenov; Viktor Vasnetsov; Konstantin Korovin; Sergei Maliutin; Talashkino; style moderne; neo-Russian style; Sergei Diagilev; Igor Grabar; Ivan Bilibin; Fedor Shekhtel; international expositions
Abstract

The pre-Petrine “backwardness” of Russia’s wooden architecture would become a point of interest in the nineteenth century, as Russian intellectuals and artists began to search for origins, antecedents and authenticity in the native culture. Engravings of traditional structures began to be widely distributed and published. Among the first artists to define the wooden vernacular as a stylistic inspiration were Viktor Hartmann and Ivan Ropet, both of whom worked at Abramtsevo in the early 1870s. Other Abramtsevo artists ‒ Vasilii Polenov, Viktor Vasnetsov, Konstantin Korovin, and to some extent Aleksandr Golovin ‒ introduced their painterly conception of mass and space into architectonic form. The prominence of the crafts revival and the use of folk motifs demonstrate a confluence of purpose and understanding among a group of artists, set designers, and architects at the turn of the century. The logical bond between material and structure in the medieval or folk traditions of pre-Petrine Russian architecture was given an aesthetic interpretation in the neo-Russian variant of the style moderne, which spread in the early twentieth century throughout Russia. The work of Sergei Maliutin is particularly significant in this area. The article proposes that photography at the turn of the 20th century played a crucial role in presenting forms of traditional wooden architecture to the Russian public and to architects themselves. Of particular importance was the publication of Igor’ Grabar’s multi-volume History of Russian Art, the first part of which was dedicated to pre-Petrine architecture, including the wooden churches of the North in photographs by artists such as Ivan Bilibin. The article concludes with a discussion of the work of Fedor Shekhtel as seen in the context of photographs of traditional wooden architecture

Pages
2383-2397
Paper at repository of SibFU
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/26367

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