Russian Art and the West: A Century of Dialogue in Painting, Architecture, and the Decorative Arts.(Book review)

Russian Art and the West: A Century of Dialogue in Painting, Architecture, and the Decorative Arts, edited by Rosalind P. Blakesley and Susan E. Reid. Dekalb, Illinois, Northern Illinois University Press, 2007. ix, 246 pp. $42.00 US (cloth).

Russian Art and the West explores the way in which Russian artists' conception of and response to the West shaped the development of Russian art. Although the title employs the term dialogue, Russian Art and the West neither explores the reception of Russian art in the West, nor focuses on exchanges between Russian and western artists (although some essays do shed light on both matters). Rather, this collection could be called a study of "productive reifications"--that is, of the way in which the definition and understanding of "Russianness" emerged alongside and in response to the concept of "the West." It examines the very fluidity and mutuality of these two concepts as well as their impact on Russian aesthetics. In fact, as the term dialogue indicates, the collection examines sites of engagement--that is, the areas and moments in which "the West" as a geopolitical and cultural construct produced a dynamic, …