The books in this section are usually hardcover and in decent condition, though we'll sometimes offer hard-to-find books in lesser condition at a reduced price. Though we often put images of the book with their original dust jackets, the copies here won't always (or even often) have them. If that is important to you, please call ahead or say so in the order comments!
From the dust jacket:
Here is a clear, concise and magnificently illustrated account of Russian art, in its more characteristic forms, from the introduction of Christianity in the Kiev period until the end of the Russian Empire. Both the similarities and peculiar differences between Russian and European art are distinctly presented in this book, together with detailed information about leading artists and the unique environment in which they worked. Enriched with many specially photographed illustrations, the book can claim to put Russian art before the English-speaking reader in a new light, illuminating unfamiliar but vital traits of national character, often obscured by the one-sided political approach to Russian history.
Richard Hare has made a masterly and sympathetic study of the subject, and filled a gap which must be felt by many people who already love Tchaikovsky's music, the Russian ballet, and the Moscow Art Theatre, but who are not acquainted with the great qualities of Russian visual art. Separate chapters are devoted to those arts which acquired an individual character in Russia, icon painting, silver and jewelry, porcelain, secular paintings, and the more distinctive decorative crafts. Each subject is treated chronologically, while seen in relation to its European and Russian background. The valiant though hardly successful attempt made in late nineteenth-century Russia to resist the degenerate strains, already invading Western art, is skillfully outlined.
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