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Home , Camilla Gray, Russian symbolism, Vkhutemas

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Survey Course on Russian/Soviet Art and Architecture, Part II (From the time of Peter the Great to the Present)

Spring 2017

01:082:251 Prof. Alla Rosenfeld, Ph.D. MW5—2:50-4:10pm Zimmerli Art Museum’s education room Email:[email protected] 646-552-2426 cell phone Office hours MW, 4:30-5:30 pm or by appointment

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites with regard to previous courses pertaining to Russia. No knowledge of Russian is required

Course requirements and evaluation (all must be fulfilled to receive course credit):

Your grades will be based on your attendance, your participation in class discussion, and on the midterm exam and final exam or paper. You are expected to read all the required readings by the date assigned. Readings provide historical information not always covered in class; the texts do not duplicate lectures.

Students will be expected to explore the Riabov Collection of Russian art and the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the ; some classes may be taught in the galleries of the Zimmerli Art Museum.

Midterm exam:

This exam tests knowledge of facts, vocabulary and works of art as well as understanding of cultural and artistic issues. The exam covers material from lectures and readings in the period prior to exam; it includes identification of works of art (10 slides), important terms and concepts.

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Final take-home exam or research paper:

You will be required to choose between a take-home final exam (3 questions, essay format) or a final term paper (15 pages, typed and double- spaced). The term paper will be a chance to do sustained research on an artist, image, theme, or problem which arouses your curiosity.

Attendance 10% Participation in class discussions 20% Midterm exam 30% Take-home final exam or final paper 40 %

Course learning goals:

Students will acquire an understanding of Russian/Soviet art in its historical and aesthetic contexts. They will develop critical thinking through assessment of controversial viewpoints and primary source material. They will also develop their writing skills, including analysis, argumentation, and synthesizing information from multiple sources.

Learning objectives:

Students will become familiar with the most important artistic and cultural trends in Russia from the 18 th century to the present. Throughout the course, students will study art in its historical and cultural framework, and investigate the ways in which artistic forms, subjects, and styles communicate ideas

Required reading:

Brumfield, William Craft. A History of . Cambridge University Press, 1997

Gray, Camilla. The Russian Experiment in Art, 1863–1922. New York/ London: Thames and Hudson, 1986 3

Hamilton, George Heard. The Art and Architecture of Russia .(The Pelican History of Art). London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1990

Sarabianov, Dmitri V. Russian Art: From Neoclassicism to the Avant-Garde, 1800–1917. New York: Harry H. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 1990

All other readings are available on the course’s sakai site.

Survey Course on Russian/Soviet Art and Architecture Part II

Course description

This course will illustrate the development of Russian art and architecture from the time of Peter the Great (1672-1725) to the present. It will treat Russian contributions within the context of international art history, as well as genres and forms specific to Russia such as parsuna and folk prints known as lubki. The first part of the course focuses on the development of Russian painting, sculpture, and architecture in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. It also examines cultural and historical links between Russian and European art. The focus in the second part of the course is on Russian and Soviet , from the art of the Russian avant-garde movement of the 1910s and 1920s to nonconformist art of the 1960s-80s. Attention will therefore be paid to the practice and theory of artists such as , , , , Liubov Popova, and Aleksander Rodchenko within the cultural and political context of Russia just before and immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Although the Russian avant-garde will be treated as a consistent historical development, every attempt will be made to emphasize the diversity and plurality of its many aesthetic and philosophical systems, focusing on the fundamental relationship between artists of the Russian avant-garde and the traditional artistic heritage of Russia. Several lectures will be devoted to official Soviet art—. The course will conclude with an extended analysis of Soviet Nonconformist art during the Cold War period between 1956 and 1986—from Khrushchev’s cultural “thaw” to Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika . Some major issues and developments in contemporary post-Soviet art will be also discussed. 4

Survey Course on Russian/Soviet Art and Architecture, Part II

SYLLABUS

Week 1

Lecture 1: Introduction to Russian Art: Historical and Cultural background Readings: George Hamilton,15-20.

Lecture 2: Russia before Peter the Great. Icon Painting: Iconography and Technique. Development of parsuna Readings: George Hamilton,97-118;141-151 .

Week 2

Gallery talk: The George Riabov Collection of Russian Art

Lecture 3: “A Window into Europe”: Founding of St. . Peter the Great’s Architectural Reforms. “Baroque” Style of Peter the Great, 1703-41.

Readings: George Hamilton,258-275 William C. Brumfield,201-227

Week 3:

Lecture 4: Assimilating Western European Aesthetics: 18th century Russian Painting and sculpture Readings: George Hamilton,343-358

Lecture 5: 18 th century Russian Genre painting. 18 th century Russian landscape painting Readings: George Hamilton, 276-288.

Week 4:

Lecture 6: Elizabeth’s Rococo: 1741-62 Readings: William C. Brumfield, 228-260

Lecture 7: The Neoclassicism of Catherine II: 1762-96. 5

The Alexandrian Empire Architecture: 1796-1850 18 th century Romantic architecture

Readings: George Hamilton,289-313;314-333;334-341 Dmitri Sarabianov,11-20. William C. Brumfield, 261-302; 303-347;348-382

Week 5:

Lecture 8: Russian Painting of the first half of the 19 th century. Romanticism in Russian Art

Lecture 9: 19 th century Russian Sculpture Readings: George Hamilton, 359-373 Dmitri Sarabianov,21-26;27-46;47-85

Week 6:

Lecture 10: Critical Realism Readings: George Hamilton,374-387; Dmitri Sarabianov,86- 93;102-110.

Midterm slide exam

Week 7:

Lecture 11: The Making of a National School: The Challenge to the Academy and formation of the Association of the Itinerant Art Exhibitions (“The Wanderers”). The Itinerants Themes

Lecture 12: The Landscape Painting and The Itinerants: Styles and Ideologies Readings: George Hamilton, 376-387 Dmitri Sarabianov,111-132;160-181

Spring Recess

Week 8: Lecture 13 :Genre Painting and Ilya Repin

Lecture 14: History Painting and Vasilii Surikov Readings: Dmitri Sarabianov,133-159

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Week 9: Lecture 15: 19th century Historicism and Eclecticism in Russian Architecture. Readings: William C. Brumfield, 393-418

Lecture 16: and Style Moderne (Russian ). The Early Twentieth-Century Slavic Cultural Revival and the Russian Theater. Savva Mamontov and His Private .

Week 10: Lecture 17: The World of Art Group. Serge Diaghilev as Creator of the Ballets Russes. Leon Bakst and .

Readings: Hamilton, 388-415; articles on Sakai William C. Brumfield, 419-422; Camilla Gray, The Russian Experiment in Art , 9-130; Dmitri Sarabianov, 201-212;222- 268;269-292; John Bowlt, “The Blue Rose Movement and Russian Symbolism,” in Russian Art, 1875-1975 :63-93;

Week 11: Lecture 18: Neo-, 1909-1911.The Blue Rose Group, the Knave of Diamonds Group, and the Donkey’s Tail Group.

Lecture 19: Cubo-; : Unovis, Kazimir Malevich, .

Readings: John Bowlt, “Neo-Primitivism and Russian Painting,” in Russian Art, 1875-1975 :94-111. Jane Sharp, “Primitivism, Rural Russia, and the Politics of Representation” in Russian Modernism Between East and West : 40-62; Aleksandra Shatskikh, “Unovis: Epicenter of a New World,” in The Great Utopia , 53-64; articles on SAKAI

Week 12: Lecture 20: Lenin’s Plan for Monumental Propaganda. From the Artist’s Studio into the Street: Revolutionary Mass Festivals.

Lecture 21: Monument to Revolution: Tatlin’s Tower to the Third International. : Vladimir Tatlin, Aleksandr Rodchenko, , Lubov Popova 7

Readings: Natalia Adaskina, “The Place of Vkhutemas in the Russian Avant-Garde,” in The Great Utopia , 283-293; Christina Lodder, “The Transition to Constructivism,” in The Great Utopia , 267-281; Christina Lodder, “Constructivism and Productivism in the 1920s,” Art Into Life: Russian Constructivism, 1914-1932 (Seattle: The Henry Art Gallery, Univ.of Washington, 1990),99-117, articles/book chapters on Sakai

Week 13:

Lecture 22: Constructivism and Film. Viewing: excerpts from Russian Avant-Garde films

Week 14:

Lecture 23: Constructivist Architecture Lecture 24:The Debate around Easel Painting: 1922-24. The founding of AkhRR. Socialist Realist Art and Architecture

Readings :Charlotte Douglas, “Terms of Transition: The First Discussional Exhibition and the Society of Easel Painters,”in The Great Utopia ,450-465; articles/book chapters on Sakai.

Week 15:

Lecture 25: Nonconformist Art in the Soviet Union, late 1950s to perestroika.

Tour of the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection at the Zimmerli Art Museum

Readings :Margarita Tupitsyn. Margins of Soviet Art: Socialist Realism to the Present (Milan:Giancarlo Politi Editore, 1989); Alla Rosenfeld and Norton T. Dodge,eds. Nonconformist Art: The Soviet Experience, 1956-1986(New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995):36-61; Rosenfeld, Alla, Ed. Conceptualism in Context . Munich, London, and New York: Prestel,2011 (book chapters on Sakai)

Week 16: 8

Lecture 26: Contemporary Russian Art, 1980s to the present. Art and Protest in Putin’s Russia; Art versus Religion

Paper or final exam is due

COURSE POLICIES

Online course materials

Please note that our course has its own website on https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal. You can log on using your Net ID and password. If the course does not appear as one of your tabs, please search and add it or contact me and I will grant you access. Much of the reading will be available via Sakai.

Attendance It is essential that you attend all lectures, since to a considerable degree they will provide the contextual framework and continuity for understanding the course readings. There is no textbook as such which adequately surveys the culture of the whole period. If you expect to miss one or two classes, please use the University absence reporting website : https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/ to indicate the date and reason for your absence. An email is automatically sent to me. Those who miss more than two class sessions without a compelling excuse should expect a one-point reduction in their course grade for every two absences. Three late arrivals count as one absence. It is the responsibility of students who have been absent (for any reason) to find out what they have missed and obtain materials that may have been handed out. You are also expected to read all required readings by the date assigned; the texts do not duplicate lectures.

Cell Phones

Cell phones and all other technological devices (beepers, iPods, MP3players…) must be turned off during class and stored away from your desk, out of respect for the instructor and fellow students.

Academic Integrity

Violations of academic integrity are an extremely serious matter, and can lead to a student’s failing the course and being referred to the University’s Office of Student Conduct for disciplinary action. When referring to ideas other than your own, always acknowledge your sources clearly and completely, whether you are quoting or paraphrasing. Please see the University’s policies on academic integrity: http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/academic-integrity-policy/ 9

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION The Rutgers University Student Assembly urges that descriptions of and links to Student- Wellness Services be included at the end of every syllabus: Just In Case Web App Access helpful mental health information and resources for yourself or a friend in a mental health crisis on your smartphone or tablet and easily contact CAPS or RUPD. Counseling, ADAP & Psychiatric Services (CAPS) (848) 932-7884 / 17 Senior Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901/ www.rhscaps.rutgers.edu/ CAPS is a University mental health support service that includes counseling, alcohol and other drug assistance, and psychiatric services staffed by a team of professional within Rutgers Health services to support students’ efforts to succeed at Rutgers University. CAPS offers a variety of services that include: individual therapy, group therapy and workshops, crisis intervention, referral to specialists in the community and consultation and collaboration with campus partners. Violence Prevention & Victim Assistance (VPVA) (848) 932-1181 / 3 Bartlett Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 / www.vpva.rutgers.edu/ The Office for Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance provides confidential crisis intervention, counseling and advocacy for victims of sexual and relationship violence and stalking to students, staff and faculty. To reach staff during office hours when the university is open or to reach an advocate after hours,call 848-932-1181. Disability Services (848) 445-6800 / Lucy Stone Hall, Suite A145, Livingston Campus, 54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854 http://disabilityservices.rutgers.edu Rutgers University welcomes students with disabilities into all of the University’s educational programs. In order to receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, a student with a disability must contact the appropriate disability services office at the campus where you are officially enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide documentation: https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/documentation-guidelines. If the documentation supports your request for reasonable accommodations, your campus’s disability services office will provide you with a Letter of Accommodations. Please share this letter with your instructors and discuss the accommodations with them as early in your courses as possible. To begin this process, please complete the 10

Registration form on the ODS web site at: https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/registration- form.

Scarlet Listeners (732) 247-5555 / www.scarletlisteners.com/ Free and confidential peer counseling and referral hotline, providing a comforting and supportive safe space.

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Survey Course on Russian /Soviet Art and Architecture, Part II

Recommended reading (depending on your interest and final paper topic):

General books on Russian art and culture

Bellington, James H. The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of . New York: Vintage Books, 1970

Bird, Alan. A History of Russian Painting . Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1987

Blakesley, Rosalind P. and Susan Reid, Eds. Russian Art and the West: A Century of Dialogue in Painting, Architecture, and the Decorative Arts . DeKalb,Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007

Blakesley, Rosalind P. Russian Genre Painting in the Nineteenth century . Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000

Bonnel, Victoria E. Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1997

Bowlt, John E. Russian Art, 1875–1975: A Collection of Essays . New York: MSS Information Corporation, 1976

Bown, Matthew Cullerne. Art under Stalin . New York: Holmes and Meier, 1991

Bown, Matthew Cullerne and Brandon Taylor, Eds. Art of the Soviets: Painting, sculpture and architecture in a one-party state, 1917-1992 . Manchester and New York; Manchester University Press, 1993.

Brumfield, William C., and Milos M. Velmirovic, eds. Christianity and the Arts in Russia . England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991

Clark, Katerina. Petersburg: Crucible of Cultural Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusets and London: Harvard University Press, 1995 . ______. Moscow, the Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931-1941 . Cambridge, Massachusets and London: Harvard University Press, 2011

Cracraft, James and Daniel Rowland, Eds. Architectures of Russian Identity: 1500 to the Present . Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003

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Cracraft, James. The Petrine Revolution in Russian Culture . Cambridge, MA, 2004

______. The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery . Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997. ______. The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture . Chicago, 1988

Dobrenko, Evgeny and Eric Naiman, Eds. The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space . Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2003.

Ely, Christopher. This Meager Nature: Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia . DeKalb,Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002

Gray, Rosalind. Western Influence on Russian Genre Painting, 1820-1870 . University of Oxford, 1997

Groys, Boris. The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship. and Beyond . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992

Jackson, David. The Wanderers and critical realism in nineteenth-century Russian painting. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2006

Kean, Beverly Whitney. All the Empty Palaces: The Merchant Patrons of Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Russia. New York: Universe Books, 1983

Lahusen, Thomas and Evgeny Dobrenko, Eds. Socialist Realism Without Shores . Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997

Papernyy, Vladimir. Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two . Cambridge University Press, 2002

Rzhevsy, Nicholas, Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture. Cambridge University Press, 1998

Stavrou, Theofanis George. Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia . Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1983.

Shvidkovsky, Dmitry. Russian Architecture and the West . New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007

Taylor, Brandon. Art and Literature under the Bolsheviks , V.I: The Crisis of Renewal 1917–24, London/Concord, MA: Pluto Press, 1991

Valkenier, Elizabeth. Russian Realist Art. The State and Society: The and their Tradition . New York: Columbia University Press, 1989

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Van Norman Baer, Nancy, Ed. The Art of Enchantment: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, 1909-1929 . San Francisco: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1988

White, Stephen. The Bolshevik Poster . New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988

Books on the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910s–1920s

Art Into Life: Russian Constructivism, 1914–1932 , Seattle: The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 1990.

Bowlt, John E., ed. Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and Criticism . New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988

Gurianova, Nina. The Aesthetics of Anarchy: Art and Ideology in the Early Russian Avant-Garde. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2012

Ioffe, Dennis G. and Frederick H. White, Eds. The Russian Avant-Garde and Radical Modernism: An Introductory Reade r. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2012

Kovtun, Evgeny. Avant-Garde Art in Russia, 1920–1930 . Bournemouth, England/St. Petersburg, Russia: Parkstone Publishers/Aurora Art Publishers, 1996

Lawton, Anna, and Herbert Eagle, Eds. through its Manifestos, 1912-1928 . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Lodder, Christina, Russian Constructivism , New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.

Sharp, Jane Ashton. Russian Modernism between East and West: Natal’ia Goncharova and the Moscow Avant-Garde . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006

The Great Utopia . New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1992

Tupitsyn, Margarita. The Soviet Photograph, 1924-1937 . New Haven and Londoon: Yale University Press, 1996

Yablonskaiya, M.N. Women Artists of Russia's New Age, 1900–1935. New York: Rizzoli, 1990

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Books on Post-War and contemporary Russian Art

Bown, Matthew Cullerne. Contemporary Russian Art . Somerset, Great Britain: Phaidon Press Limited, 1989

Dyogot, Ekaterina. Contemporary Painting in Russia. Australia: Crafsman House, 1995

Jackson, Matthew Jesse. The Experimental Group: Ilya Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet Avant -Gardes . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010

Tupitsyn, Margarita. Margins of Soviet Art: Socialist Realism to the Present. Milan: Giancarlo Politi Editore, 1989

Rosenfeld, Alla and Norton T Dodge, Eds. Nonconformist Art: The Soviet Experience 1956–1986. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995

Rosenfeld, Alla. Ed. Moscow Conceptualism in Context . Munich, London, and New York: Prestel, 2011