"A collection of essays by eleven scholars of Russian history, art, literature, cinema, philosophy, and theology that track key shifts in the production, circulation, and consumption of the Russian icon from Peter the Great's Enlightenment to the post-Soviet revival of the Orthodox Church"--Provided by publisher.

In The Icon and the Square, Maria Taroutina examines how the traditional interests of institutions such as the crown, the church, and the Imperial Academy of Arts temporarily aligned with the radical, leftist, and revolutionary avant-garde at the turn of the twentieth century through a shared interest in the Byzantine past, offering a counternarrative to prevailing notions of Russian modernism. Focusing on the works of four different artists—Mikhail Vrubel, Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Vladimir Tatlin—Taroutina shows how engagement with medieval pictorial traditions drove each artist to transform his own practice, pushing beyond the established boundaries of his respective artistic and intellectual milieu. She also contextualizes and complements her study of the work of these artists with an examination of the activities of a number of important cultural associations and institutions over the course of several decades. As a result, The Icon and the Square gives a more complete picture of Russian modernism: one that attends to the dialogue between generations of artists, curators, collectors, critics, and theorists. The Icon and the Square retrieves a neglected but vital history that was deliberately suppressed by the atheist Soviet regime and subsequently ignored in favor of the secular formalism of mainstream modernist criticism. Taroutina’s timely study, which coincides with the centennial reassessments of Russian and Soviet modernism, is sure to invigorate conversation among scholars of art history, modernism, and Russian culture.

Icon and Devotion offers the first extensive presentation in English of the making and meaning of Russian icons. The craft of icon-making is set into the context of forms of worship that emerged in the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-seventeenth century. Oleg Tarasov shows how icons have held a special place in Russian consciousness because they represented idealized images of Holy Russia. He also looks closely at how and why icons were made. Wonder-working saints and the leaders of such religious schisms as the Old Believers appear in these pages, which are illustrated in halftones with miniature paintings, lithographs and engravings never before published in the English-speaking world. By tracing the artistic vocabulary, techniques and working methods of icon painters, Tarasov shows how icons have been integral to the history of Russian art, influenced by folk and mainstream currents alike. As well as articulating the specifically Russian piety they invoke, he analyzes the significance of icons in the cultural life of modern Russia in the context of popular prints and poster design.

"This volume provides the history of Russian icon painting from its origins to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Viktor Lazarev deliberately followed these chronological limits, since the "Golden Age" of icon painting in Russia was the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after which followed a rapid decline." "In a clear and intelligible form, using extensive scholarly material, Lazarev describes the birth of the Russian national painting on wood plate, the technique and aesthetics of Russian icons, the main schools of icon painting, and discusses the work of significant artists."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Is there a relationship between Russian icons and Russian avant-garde art? Andrew Soira tackles this question and comes to some surprising conclusions. He demonstrates how icons underpin the development of 19th- and 20-th century Russian art.

"A sweeping, intricate description of Russian cultural history, spanning the pre-Romanov era through six centuries to the reign of Joseph Stalin. Flowing with ease through time and topic — from art to music, literature, philosophy, mythology and more — the book provides readers with an alluring portrayal of Russia’s proud heritage. Its impressive scope and lasting insights have made it a foundational text in Russian studies. In fact, it was this book, more than any other, that captured my imagination and propelled me toward the study of Russia and the Soviet Union." --Condoleezza Rice, The New York Times "A rich and readable introduction to the whole sweep of Russian cultural and intellectual history from Kievan times to the post-Khruschev era." - Library Journal Includes Illustrations, references, index.