Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2212-05-38
Title The Problem of Easelism in Russian Lacquer Crafts of the Soviet Period
Author email agitlak@mail.ru
About author Lavrov, Dmitrii E. — Ph. D., head lecturer. Saint Petersburg State University, Universitetskaia nab., 7/9, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russian Federation. ORCID: 0000-0002-2607-7220
In the section International Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries DOI10.18688/aa2212-05-38
Year 2022 Volume 12 Pages 503514
Type of article RAR Index UDK 7.036.1. Index BBK 85.12
Abstract

The article considers the problem of easelism, one of the key ones for the Soviet art studies of Russian lacquer crafts of the 20th century. The debate about the possibilities of developing the art of Palekh, Mstiora, Kholui, and Fedoskino along the path of imitating the easel picture, which started in the early 1930s as a response to the already established practice of miniature painters, turned out to be extremely long and fierce, surviving to the very end of the Soviet period. The article gives the arguments of the Soviet art historians “for” and “against” easelism in Russian lacquer miniature, analyzes the attitude of the miniature painters themselves to such a manual, and considers their works made in a similar “easel” style. In conclusion, the article discusses the practical outcome of the development of Russian lacquered miniature, which manifested itself as a response to such discussions during Soviet and Post-perestroika periods. The author concludes that the trends of easelism in Russian lacquer crafts, being an objective result of the relationship between miniature artists and “urban” culture, despite the declarative rejection proclaimed in the 1950s, persist until the end of the Soviet period, having a heyday already in the modern post-perestroika period.

Keywords
Reference Lavrov, Dmitrii E. The Problem of Easelism in Russian Lacquer Crafts of the Soviet Period. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 12. Eds A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Univ. Press, 2022, pp. 503–514. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2212-05-38
Publication Article language russian
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