The Art of Russia - Andrew Graham-Dixon (2010)

I've spent the past three nights watching a BBC series on Russian Art. It was mind-blowing. I've become obsessed Russia and its art, so badly I want to go there even more than I wanted to go before. 


The series starts with the question about how to get to know Russia and its people and the answer being, through their art. So from early pagan representations it moves to the conversion to Christianism and its meaning in the idea of being Russian, to how the tsars used Art and how they spent money in it. The same art that help the nation together also started the revolutions. 

I've heard of Russian religious icons and Andrej Rublev but I haven't heard of The Wanderers Wow. 

One of the best thing about the series is how he explains art both passionately and thoroughly yet in a very simple and non-pretentious way.  He doesn't just take into account the technique or the beauty of it but the social context in which it was produced and what it means for its time. That's how Art shows should be made!

When he gets to the Revolution he also talks about films and the role of Art for the Party. And Eisenstein, of course. I'm a little disappointed he doesn't mention Dziga Vertov, just because of how creative, comitted and bold he was with his experiments.Shame he also talks very little about Kandinski.

The Constructivists' work was so interesting to discover and still so modern! He goes into a museum, well a back room inside an office where they keep some original material from Rodchenko-Maiakovski and he very excitedly says something that is true, how they were pioneers in advertising. The best works aren't online (because they are in those drawers).

Finally. How beautiful is Moscow's Metro! (and how unfair are the pictures on the internet) The money Stalin invested in making them revolutionary propaganda surely turned them into museums!

How do you end such an impressive series? Well he manages to take us to contemporary Russian art: confused, disenchanted, bleak... he really captures the spirit. So many centuries in only three hours are quite difficult to take in, so you can imagine living with such a heritage must be even more difficult.