In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CAN MAN LIVE WITHOUT WONDER? byVarvaraStepanova. "Sphera" Publishing House of the RussianTheosophical Society, Moscow, Russia,1994.304 pp., illus. ISBN: 5-87212-021-4. (In Russian) Reviewed by Yury Nazarov, Union ofDesigners ofRussia, Arbatskaya Sq. 1/2, Moscow 121019, Russia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this book, compiled of texts by the Russian Avant-Garde artist Varvara Stepanova, could easily become one of the best books about this period published during the last 5 years. The secret is very simple: the book happens not to be one of those rather bulky volumes with numerous essays, commentaries and highly theoretical articles that we are used to in the field of art history. The book isjust a very concentrated life story. The desire to experience the life of the main hero-Varvara Stepanova, the wife of the famous Avant-Garde artist Alexander Rodchenko-holds the readers ' attention throughout ~ll304pages of the book. Sometimes it is even easy to forget that this is a book of documents of the Russian Avant-Garde, one becomes so deeply involved in the fate of the people described here. Such well-known artists as Malevich, Kandinsky, Tatlin and many others suddenly become living persons, not abstract figures ofthe past, as we start to realize their motives. Especially thrilling are the two diaries by Stepanova-one from 1919-1920 and the other from 1927-1928. The story reads like a scenario from a film, or like fiction. And yet all the events are real-the last futuristic exhibition, the declaration of the concept of the nonobjective art, attempts to formulate the objective basis of art creation and of art perception. And the conclusion to which Stepanova comes-that, despite all the mathematics in art, "a man cannot live without wonder" because no one has yet discovered the source of artistic creation. Likewise are real events described in the second diary-concerning the fate of Constructivism, concerning the dissipation of the Left Front ofArt group, concerning the dreams of artists and critics for a well-organized, technically perfect new social order. The book itself is very well designed, in both content and design. It consists of four chapters: "The Fate," "In the Epicentre of the Avant-Garde," "Constructivism" and "Business and People." Each of the chapters starts with a short introduction by Alexander Lavrentiev, giving the background of Stepanova's life during the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s and later years. Each of the chapters contains different sorts of material: letters, articles, diaries, even verses by Stepanova. Varvara Rodchenko, the daughter of the artist, carefully sorted all the texts, finding the best sequence. And, finally, Oleg Melnikov from the "Sphere" publishing house of the Russian Theosophic Society did the editing, design and layout. In fact almost the entire book is dedicated to issues of design: interior design and furniture, clothes and textiles, graphic design, and advertising. Rodchenko and Stepanova were versatile artists, and the reader gets this impression from the text. The book breaks several stereotypes that became somewhat common in understanding of Russian art of the twentieth century. First ofall, it shows that there was absolutely no unity in what is called "The Avant-Garde Movement." There were individuals, competing with each other, joining from time to time for mutual projects. Second, the AvantGarde artists did not have so much power in reality as was previously considered . They come across as having all the same difficulties in organizing their exhibitions as did artists in later periods -for instance the 1960s or 1980s. And third, there were not only objective reasons that forced them to work and explore. A feeling of the wonder of life runs through the entire book even in the most dramatic years ofWorld War II or during the 1950s, when Rodchenko was expelled from the Union of Artists. Life does not go smoothly, and artists live through it with the spirit of invention and the blessing of wonder. MATERIALS RECEIVED Multimedia Products Image Lab: Colorize, Transform, Animate, Zoom, and Morph Images on Your PC Tim Wegner.The Waite Group, Corte Madera, CA,U.S.A., 1995.530 pp., illus., plus CD-ROM. Paper, $39.95. ISBN:1878739 -89-1. The Processing ofPerception NancyPatterson...

pdf

Share