From Blue Rose to Blue Brick: Symbolism’s Long Shadow

• In Event: New Research in Russian Visual Culture

Abstract

Like his early mentor, Dmitrii Sarabianov, John E. Bowlt was an astute observer of the Russian avant-garde’s Symbolist legacies - from its urge towards abstraction to its fascination with transcendence per realia ad realiora. Almost a half century after his first articles on Symbolism’s place in Russian modernity appeared, my paper looks back on our field’s evolving understanding of the Silver Age and its kinship with the iconoclastic generation that followed it. Do the pioneering ideas of Sarabianov and Bowlt remain unchallenged, or have new readings emerged?

Author

• Wendy R. Salmond, Chapman U