Boyardo, Matteo Maria, and his “Roland in Love”
Matteo Maria Boyardo (1434 or 1441-1494) was descended from a noble surname, who zealously served the Este family (who owned Ferrara and Modena) and received from him in 1423 fief…

Continue reading →

strip tease
Gogol "Wii"
When analyzing the novel “Viy”, it immediately catches the eye that it is a work in which, like in Gogol’s other early stories, romanticism is inextricably mixed with realism: genre…

Continue reading →

ART BOOKS
The art book is a stumbling block in the perennial issue of "execution can not be pardoned." Only in our case - “buy cannot be downloaded”. Yes, they are often…

Continue reading →

longer respect

Leo Tolstoy “Confession”

The first of the works of Leo Tolstoy, in which he preached the moral-religious teaching (Tolstoyanism) that appeared in his mature age, was Confession (started in 1879 and completed in 1882). At one time she was not missed by Russian censorship. Printed in Geneva and in Russia distributed in lists. Confession is above all that he wrote afterwards; in purely literary terms, this is a masterpiece that is on a par with such things as the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Confession of Blazh. Augustine. It is one of the greatest and forever living expressions of the human soul in the face of the eternal mystery of life and death. Continue reading

BORIS GROYS “POLITICS OF POETICS”

Today, the philosopher, theorist of art and curator Boris Groys is one of the most respected critics in the world art community. His recent book, The Politics of Poetics, is a collection of essays from two English-language books, Art Power and Going Public, as well as articles published in American and European journals. Some texts of the book are published in Russian for the first time. Groys is important to read to those who want to familiarize themselves with the contemporary philosophical discourse of modern art: at the same time it turns out that it is relatively easy to write about the complex. One of the main themes of the collection is the relationship of art to the art market and to the sphere of political ideologies. Continue reading

Books about the art market

Several years ago I bought almost all books on the art market almost in a row and gradually created my own library of this literature. I have it all in English, because, firstly, I see no reason to read translations of what can be read in the original language (I have this snobbery in relation to both Steinbeck and Financial Times), and secondly, I don’t I heard that someone from compatriots wrote some impressive folio on the topic, like in Russia they built and built (yes they never built) the art market.

So let’s get started. Continue reading

Gogol "Wii"
When analyzing the novel “Viy”, it immediately catches the eye that it is a work in which, like in Gogol’s other early stories, romanticism is inextricably mixed with realism: genre…

...

Bulgakov "Crimson Island"
But - yet, how much more I read in the house of E.S. [Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova]. At first I reached for the “Crimson Island” (1927) - a brilliant satire, to…

...