Distant Collaborations: Konstantin Somov’s Encounters with German Modernism

• In Event: New Research in Russian Visual Culture

Abstract

Although Somov’s connection with the German graphic art scene in the 1900s is well known, his book designs are usually viewed within the national contexts of Russian Art Nouveau or the Russian reception of the style of Aubrey Beardsley. Despite evident reasons for these identifications, Somov’s international ties with the German Art Nouveau movement were perhaps more substantial than merely completing isolated guest commissions, and could have had a reciprocal impact on both the artist and his German colleagues. For example, the striking similarities between Somov's book designs and those of the Swiss artist Karl Walser whom Igor Grabar once called Somov’s imitator, have never been examined in the literature about Somov. My research, which is a work in progress, focuses on Somov’s contacts with the circle of critics and artists associated with both the Berlin and Munich Secessions, including critics Oskar Bie, Franz Blei, and Hans Rosenhagen, artist Karl Walser, and publishers Bruno Cassirer, Hans von Weber, and Julius Bard, among others. I try to uncover a historical context that unifies a range of isolated instances of Somov’s encounters with the German modernist scene, ranging from critical analyses of his works to book design commissions, to publications of his work in a range of periodicals, such as Blei’s almanac Opal published by von Weber’s Hyperion Verlag, Bruno Cassirer’s magazine Kunst und Künstler, as well as in the magazines Die Kunst für alle and Jugend. In particular, I aim to demonstrate how the sequence of contacts and collaborations between Somov and his German colleagues resulted in establishing a stylistic affinity between book designs by the Russian artist and Karl Walser.

Author

• Djamilia Nazyrova, U of Pennsylvania