Our Notes & References

First edition of this impressive, monumental album, complete with more than 150 beautiful chromolithograph plates, where Russia’s great art critic and historian seeks the roots of national style in a juxtaposition of Slavic and Oriental decorations and styles.

Stasov’s publication constitute a detailed visual history of manuscript ornamentation from the 4^th to the 19^th century. The first section covers the Eastern and Western Slavs (as well as Moldavians, Romanians, and Bulgarians and other South Slavs). In the second, shorter section, Oriental styles are represented by Byzantine, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Georgian, Arab and Central Asian examples. With only a couple of exceptions, the sources are religious texts.

Each plate depicts from one to three dozen images in vivid colour. There are a great number of illuminated capitals (Cyrillic, Glagolitic, Greek, etc.), as well as headpieces, illuminated borders, and marginal and other manuscript ornaments. Some are abstract; others are zoomorphic or depict crucifixes, church facades and interiors, or scenes from the lives of saints.

Most of the images were copied from the original manuscripts by the author himself, during a period of over two decades of research. Additional drawings were contributed by two dozen artists and scholars working in libraries and monasteries throughout Russia and the rest of Europe.

The rich chromolithographed title is rendered in a lavish amalgam of ornamental styles by the architect Ivan Ropet (sometimes Petrov-Ropet), a master of the eclectic “Russian style” of the post-reform era.

Like his protégé Ropet, the highly influential art and music critic Vladimir Stasov (1824-1906) championed a democratic version of “Russian style” that had been inspired by literary critics such as Belinskii, with his focus on narodnost (the national element). He sought to revive Russian folk styles; and, like Prince Grigorii Gagarin, whose album of ornaments (Sbornik vizantiiskikh i drevne-russkikh ornamentov) came out the same year, Stasov also sought narodnost in the Orthodox heritage of Byzantium. Unlike Gagarin, his Oriental point of comparison expands to include not only Byzantine style, but that of the ancient churches of Africa and the Caucasus – and even the traditions of Arab and Central Asian koranic decoration. Borrowing from the research of Indologists such as Theodor Benfey and Max Müller, Stasov believed that medieval Russian art had been shaped above all by interchange with the ancient cultures of Asia; (McCannon) and he considered the Oriental element to be “the crucial characteristic of the Russian national style.” (Motyl)

As Stasov writes in his preface, the aim of Slavianskii i vostochnyi ornament is to “examine and, as far as possible, resolve the question of the origin not only of Russian ornamentation, but also of Russian architectural style in general, which is so closely linked to it.” By linking ornamental and architectural style to Russia’s folk, Byzantine, and Oriental roots, Stasov hoped to create a truly national style that could match that of contemporary Europe without merely copying the West.

Provenance

‘Printed in Russia’ blue ink stamp to foot of title; purchased by the George S. Pepper Fund (est. 1896) for the Free Library of Philadelphia (institutional bookplate on portfolio pastedown, perforated library stamp to title page, accession number ink-stamped at foot of preface and t.o.c.).

Bibliography

Berezin, № 587 (“rare”); Fekula, 6191, J. S. Smith Catalogue of Books, 774; McCannon, J. Nicholas Roerich: The Artist Who Would Be King. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022; Motyl, A. Encyclopedia of Nationalism, 2000. Vol. 2. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2000. p. 512.