Russian Literature, Modernism and the Visual Arts

An account of the interplay between literary and visual culture in the Russian modernist era.

In the Russian modernist era, literature threw itself open to influences from other art forms, most particularly the visual arts. Collaborations between writers, artists, designers, and theatre and cinema directors took place more intensively and productively than ever before or since. Equally striking was the incursion of spatial and visual motifs and structures into verbal texts. Verbal and visual principles of creation joined forces in an attempt to transform and surpass life through art. Yet willed transcendence of the boundaries between art forms gave rise to confrontation and creative tension as well as to harmonious co-operation. This collection of essays by leading British, American and Russian scholars, first published in 2000, draws on a rich variety of material - from Dostoevskii to Siniavskii, from writers' doodles to cabarets, from well-known modernists such as Akhmatova, Malevich, Platonov and Olesha to less well-known figures - to demonstrate the creative power and dynamism of Russian culture 'on the boundaries'.

Introduction: boundaries of the spectacular Catriona Kelly and Stephen Lovell; Part I. The Arts Reflected in Literature: 1. Defining the face: observations on Dostoevskii's creative processes Konstantin Barsht; 2. Painting and autobiography: Anna Prismatova's Pesok and Anna Akhmatova's Epicheskie motivy; 3. Picture windows: the art of Andrei Siniavskii Jane Grayson; 4. Mikhail Zoshchenko's shadow operas Alexander Zholkovsky; Part II. Adaptations, Collaborations, Disputes and Rapprochements: Russian Literature, Visual Arts, and Performance: 5. 'Theatricality' as a concept in the Russian modernist movement; 6. Design on drama: Chekhov and Simov Cynthia Marsh; Khlebnikov eye Robin Milner-Gulland; 8. Cinematic literature and literary cinema: Olesha, Room and the search for a new art form Milena Michalski; 9. Meaningful voids: facelessness in Platov and Malevich Andrew Wachtel; 10. Painted mirrors: landscape and self-representation in women's verbal and visual art Pamela Chester; Bibliography.

In the Russian modernist era, literature threw itself open to influences from other art forms, particularly the visual arts. This collection of essays by leading British, American and Russian scholars, first published in 2000, draws on a rich variety of material to demonstrate the creative power of Russian culture 'on the boundaries' between genres.