- Date: Thursday 20 October 2016
- Categories: Legacies of War Seminar Series
Seminar Room B.22 (Basement), Parkinson Building, Woodhouse Lane, University of Leeds
Free to attend and all welcome.
Russian art of the 1910s tended to absorb and echo the events of the decade through ‘peaceful’ works that represented a symptomatic escape (intentional or unintentional) from war-related topics. Contemporaries embarked on a tragic search for answers in classic and modern narratives that were not related to the theme of war at first glance.
One of the contemporaries was Aleksandr Golovin, a leading Russian artist of the early 20th century and co-author of Diaghilev’s productions. Golovin was chief stage designer of the Imperial Theatres (1902-1917) where he met stage director Vsevolod Meyerhold. Their collaborative work resulted in such theatre performances as “Mid-Channel” (1914), “The Storm” (1916), “Masquerade” (1917) and others.
The paper analyses Golovin’s works in Alexandrinsky Theatre in 1914-1917 and his collaboration with Meyerhold, presenting Golovin not only as a masterful painter and decorator, but also as an architect of theatre space. It shows how the manner and aesthetics of the artist, which combined modernism and symbolism, visually and emotionally reflected a dramatic decade and, in particular, the complicated years of World War I and the Russian Revolution.
Vera Pavlova is Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. She holds a PhD from the Russian University of Theatre Arts-GITIS. Apart from working as a lecturer of theatre, she was an academic registrar and curator at the Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum (2004-2008), Deputy Head of the International Exhibitions and Overseas Relations Department at the State Tretyakov Gallery (2010-2013) and Head of Exhibitions and Curator of Manege Museum and Exhibitions Association (2013 to 2015).