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To Infinity and Beyond
Aug. 10th, 2020 07:20 pmBook Review: Russian Landscape, edited by David Jackson and Patty Wageman
In recent months it's been the done thing for TV and radio to revisit classics in various genres - sporting events, the Proms, and so on. In this spirit, and in view of the fact an exhibition catalogue is something one would not lug on a daily commute, I decided to revisit the Russian Landscapes exhibition of 2004. The reflections I made at the time broadly stand; it saddens me to think that relations between Russia and the West were perhaps already on the decline. The perennial tension between insular and outward-looking Russia is, of course, one of the themes present in the text, though in nineteenth-century Europe, nationalism was everywhere. The text varies between accessible and more obscure. The sensation is that of the incomparably vast landscape of nothing but nature, in a way that one would never see in England (in the highlands of Scotland, perhaps). Oddly, my favourites, though sometimes intense, seem to be mostly on a more human scale. Midday in the Countryside seems busy enough to me to hint at Breughels; Birch Grove has a modernist colour and structure reminiscent of Paul Nash. But it's the dark forest interiors of Shishkin and the unreproducible lighting of Moonlit Night on the Dniepr that seem to speak most of the infinity of the soul of the Russian landscape.
In recent months it's been the done thing for TV and radio to revisit classics in various genres - sporting events, the Proms, and so on. In this spirit, and in view of the fact an exhibition catalogue is something one would not lug on a daily commute, I decided to revisit the Russian Landscapes exhibition of 2004. The reflections I made at the time broadly stand; it saddens me to think that relations between Russia and the West were perhaps already on the decline. The perennial tension between insular and outward-looking Russia is, of course, one of the themes present in the text, though in nineteenth-century Europe, nationalism was everywhere. The text varies between accessible and more obscure. The sensation is that of the incomparably vast landscape of nothing but nature, in a way that one would never see in England (in the highlands of Scotland, perhaps). Oddly, my favourites, though sometimes intense, seem to be mostly on a more human scale. Midday in the Countryside seems busy enough to me to hint at Breughels; Birch Grove has a modernist colour and structure reminiscent of Paul Nash. But it's the dark forest interiors of Shishkin and the unreproducible lighting of Moonlit Night on the Dniepr that seem to speak most of the infinity of the soul of the Russian landscape.
Midday in the Countryside (Petr Sukhodolsky)
Birch Grove (Arkhip Kuindzhi)
Quiet Haven (Isaak Levitan)
Forest Reserve. Pine Grove (Ivan Shishkin)
Mast Tree Grove (Ivan Shishkin)
Moonlit Night on the Dniepr (Arkhip Kuindzhi)