Pavel Kuznetsov: His Life and Art (Cambridge Studies in the History of Art) Book

In the period 1890-1925, Russian art went through dramatic changes similar to those in Western Europe over the same period. However, in two respects Russian artists developed more spectacularly than their Western colleagues: in the spheres of intuitive symbolism and of constructivism. Pavel Kuznetsov (1878-1968), the leading figure in the development of intuitivism, made a considerable impact on the Russian art world and had a profound influence on his colleagues. Kuznetsov lived in the last years of the Russian Empire, through the revolution of 1917, the turbulent 1920s, the Stalin era, and into the Brezhnev years. Thus as a politically committed painter his story illuminates the difficulties for a lyrical intuitivist artist during the post-revolutionary period. There are few of his paintings in the West and so he is comparatively unknown. This study will make Kuznetsov's work more familiar to Western art historians and collectors, and should also engage the interest of readers more generally interested in Russia and the Soviet Union.Read More