Art and Commerce in Late Imperial Russia - by Andrey Shabanov (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Andrey Shabanov's seminal reinterpretation of the Peredvizhniki is a comprehensive study that examines in-depth for the first time the organizational structure, self-representation, exhibitions, and critical reception of this 19th-century artistic partnership. Shabanov advances a more pragmatic reading of the Peredvizhniki, artists seeking professional and creative freedom in authoritarian Tsarist Russia. He likewise demonstrates and challenges how and why the group eventually came to be defined as a critically-minded Realist art movement. Unprecedentedly rich in new primary visual and textual sources, the book also connects afresh the Russian and Western art worlds of the period. A must-read for anyone interested in Russian art and culture, 19th-century European art, and also the history of art exhibitions, art movements, and the art market.

Review Quotes

"[Where] Shabanov has most succeeded is to demonstrate the diversity of works in the Peredvizhniki exhibitions. This diversity includes such aspects as the types of paintings exhibited as well as the social breadth of models represented in portraiture." --H-Shera

"This groundbreaking work greatly advances our understanding of Russian realist painting, the professionalization of artists, and wider processes of cultural identity formation in the nineteenth century. In recovering the original ethos and agenda of the Peredvizhniki, Shabanov provides a vital revisionist account which uncovers the pragmatic and commercial nature of this well-known but long misunderstood artistic group." --Rosalind P. Blakesley, Professor of Russian and European Art, University of Cambridge, UK

"In his masterful investigation Andrey Shabanov offers an alternative history of Russian Realist art. Confronting and undermining the stereotypes which have long afflicted studies of the peredvizhniki (owing in small degree to the highly tendentious social interpretations by Soviet scholars), Shabanov places artists such as Kramskoi, Perov, and Repin in the practical context of the "art market" of photographic reproduction, advertising, incorporation, and mass distribution. By providing new and often archival information on the pragmatic, promotional, and commercial aspects of the peredvizhniki, Shabanov furnishes us with a luminous and lucid account of one of Russia's primary artistic attainments." --John Bowlt, Professor Emeritus, Slavic Languages and Literatures, the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, USA

About the Author

Andrey Shabanov is Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Department of Art History at the European University at Saint Petersburg, Russia.