This provides the background to more that 500 years of Russian and Soviet art and artists with over 5,000 individual entries. The book also gives access to important information hitherto available mostly in Russian and should be a useful reference for scholars and collectors.

This companion comprises 28 essays by international scholars offering an analytical overview of the development of Russian history from the earliest Slavs through to the present day. Includes essays by both prominent and emerging scholars from Russia, Great Britain, the US, and Canada Analyzes the entire sweep of Russian history from debates over how to identify the earliest Slavs, through the Yeltsin Era, and future prospects for post-Soviet Russia Offers an extensive review of the medieval period, religion, culture, and the experiences of ordinary people Offers a balanced review of both traditional and cutting-edge topics, demonstrating the range and dynamism of the field

Sergei Konenkov was one of this century's most distinguished Russian artists. A celebrated sculptor, he was a leading figure of the young Soviet art establishment in the early 1920s. After spending over twenty years in the United States, he returned to the Soviet Union in 1945 to become a respected member of the Soviet art world. The mentor to an entire generation of Soviet sculptors, he was renowned for his personal charisma and artistic versatility. This collection of essays, interviews, and personal reminiscences is the first appraisal of his work and life published outside of Russia. The contributors view Konenkov's work within a variety of cultural, artistic, and philosophical contexts. With particular attention to his awareness of both indigenous Russian traditions and European innovations, they trace the many stages of his artistic development as he explored and experimented with techniques borrowed from Realism, Symbolism, salon portraiture, African wood carving, Socialist Realism, and Surrealism. The many different historical sources that inspired Konenkov's artistic expression, from Orthodox Christianity and the folklore of the Russian peasantry to the Egyptian pyramids and pre-classical antiquity are also discussed. The contributors also explore the relationship of Konenkov's life and ideology to art, and the effects of expatriation on creativity. Illustrated with dozens of photographs of Konenkov's art, this study of one of the most enigmatic and fascinating artists of the modern period will accompany an exhibition at The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum.

This book examines Russian genre painting in the first three quarters of the nineteenth century. It focuses on five major artists who made significant contributions to Russian intellectual life: Venetsianov, Bryullov, Ivanov, Fedotov, and Perov.

From the 18th century to the 20th, this book gives a panorama of Russian painting not equalled anywhere else. Russian culture developed in contact with the wider European influence, but retained strong native intonations. It is a culture between East and West, and both influences in together. The book begins with Icons, and it is precisely Icon-painting which gave Russian artist their peculiar preoccupation with ethical questions and a certain kind of palette. It goes on the expound the duality of their art, and point out the originality of their contribution to world art. The illustrations cover all genres and styles of painting in astonishing variety. Such figures as Borovokovsky, Rokotov, Levitsky, Brullov, Fedatov, Repin, Shishkin and Levitan and many more are in these pages.

Making Modernism Soviet provides a new understanding of the ideological engagement of Russian modern artists such as Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, and Vera Ermolaeva with the political and social agenda of the Bolsheviks in the chaotic years immediately following the Russian Revolution. Focusing on the relationship between power brokers and cultural institutions under conditions of state patronage, Pamela Kachurin lays to rest the myth of the imposition of control from above upon a victimized artistic community. Drawing on extensive archival research, she shows that Russian modernists used their positions within the expanding Soviet arts bureaucracy to build up networks of like-minded colleagues. Their commitment to one another and to the task of creating a socially transformative visual language for the new Soviet context allowed them to produce some of their most famous works of art. But it also contributed to the "Sovietization" of the art world that eventually sealed their fate.

Martin Buber and friends successfully lobbied the congress for inclusion of cultural Zionism into the official agenda of the Zionist organization, resulting in the establishment of the Bezalel Art Institute in Jerusalem in 1905. In the first book of its kind, Gilya Gerda Schmidt places this art exhibition in the context of political Zionism as well as anti-Semitism. Jews had been denied the opportunity to be creative, and religious Zionists feared that Jewish culture would usurp religion within the Zionist movement. Hermann Struck, an artist and Orthodox Jew, became a founding member of the religious Zionist Party, further supporting Buber's assertion that culture and religion were not at odds. The forty-eight works of art in the exhibition were created by eleven artists, all but two of whom were famous in their lifetime. Until now, their works had been largely forgotten. In the last decade, contributing artists—Ephraim Lilien, Lesser Ury, Jozef Israels, Struck, and Maurycy Gottlieb—have enjoyed a revival of their work.