Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Images are beautiful bright and vivid. Very very slight tan to page edges. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Russia’s rapid industrial growth in the late nineteenth century resulted in a breathtaking proliferation of commercial art and design little of which is known in the West. Now for the first time Russian Graphic Design: 1880-1917 acquaints the reader with the spectacular graphic art of this period. The majority of more than 300 works reproduced here in full colour were stored for decades in the archives of the Lenin Library in Moscow and have never been seen in the West before. Elena Chernevich a Soviet specialist in the theory and history of graphic design begins her lively and informative text with an introduction to the artistic climate of the period and then devotes five chapters to different styles and aspects of graphic design in pre-revolutionary Russia. The first chapter discusses the development of an indigenous style russe or Russian Style which drew on traditional folk art and icon painting. The second focuses on moderne the Russian version of art nouveau and presents examples ranging from soap wrappers to theatre posters. The third features the work of the renowned artists grouped around Serge Diaghilev’s influential journal. World of Art including L?on Bakst Konstantin Somov and Alexandre Benois. The final two chapters deal respectively with commercial and political graphics. Advertisements and labels for products as diverse as sugar and agricultural machinery exhibit a refreshing exuberance and innovation. With the declaration of war political graphics attained a new strength and bite. Borrowing from the traditional lubok or popular print style poets and artists such as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Kazimir Malevich teamed up to produce words and images of equally powerful impact. (MP)