Russian Modernism between East and West
Natal'ia Goncharova and the Moscow Avant-Garde

Natal'ia Goncharova and Muscovite colleagues reclaimed Russia's “Eastern” cultural heritage through their avant-garde art activities.

Jane Ashton Sharp (Author)

9780521831628, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 June 2005

360 pages, 174 b/w illus. 14 colour illus.
28.6 x 22.2 x 2.5 cm, 1.453 kg

"Sharp's achievement-illuminating fascinating aspects of both Goncharova's work and russian Modernism-is truly collosal."
- Alina Orlov, Independent Scholar

This book reconstructs the efforts of avant-garde artists, primarily Natal'ia Goncharova and her Muscovite colleagues, to reclaim Russia's 'Eastern' cultural heritage. Before the First World War, art addressed a crisis in self-representation that was a consequence of Russia's dual cultural legacies, Asian and European. This text represents Goncharova's leading role in this project, both as a spokesperson and a painter. The animated and often polarizing debates concerning the cultural identity of contemporary art were often preceded by Goncharova's practices that react to a critical tradition that, for at least a decade, had accused the radical 'left' Muscovite artists of failing to create a national tradition.

1. Orientalisms
2. A westernizing avant-garde
3. Art into life
4. Nationality on display: official versions, avant-garde interventions
5. Orientalism in reverse
6. Anti-artist: the year 1913–1914
7. Vsechestvo: Russia's other modernism.

Subject Areas: History of art & design styles: from c 1900 - [ACX]