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Anatoly Bakushinsky’s projects in art studies and knowledge production at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences

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Abstract

The Anatoly Bakushinsky’s Seminarium (1917–1926) at the Tsvetkov gallery in Moscow became one of the first experimental and most influential venues to develop approaches to the perception of art in Soviet Russia. In it, Bakushinsky, an art critic and the head of the Physical-Psychological Department of the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN), incorporated the practice of formal art history into a methodology based on materialism, psychology, and experimental aesthetics widely practiced at the GAKhN. Today, this combination of approaches is perceived as an isolated historical example of an outmoded eclecticism. I argue, however, that Bakushinsky’s methodology should be studied in the context of the complex institutional structure of the Academy that was designed to ensure multidisciplinary work in art studies and its almost immediate implementation into art practice. This institutional and material nexus of the GAKhN’s history opens up a new direction in studying the intellectual legacy of Soviet humanities of the 1920s, which is otherwise often reduced to biographical narratives.

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Notes

  1. Iskusstovedenie and iskusstvoznanie had been used interchangeably in the 1920s; here I use iskusstovedenie, when possible.

  2. The cited edition is a two-volume collection of published archival documents on the GAKhN, prefaced by analytical introductions by contemporary scholars. It is exclusively for the sake of space that I cite the entire volume rather than single documents or articles. Exception is given to Sidorov (2017) because it is one of the core texts I used for the article.

  3. One Seminarium was held in 1917, 5 in 1918, and 11 in 1919: “Tsvetkovskaia galereia,” Khudozhestvennaia zhizn', no. 1 (December 1919): 16. On the work of guided tour sections. The Museum Department of the Narkompros. [O rabote ekskursionnykh otdelov. Muzeiny otdel]. 1917–1922. GARF, f. A2307, op. 3, ed. khr.53, l. 14; Otchyot ob istoriko-bytovom otdele [Report on the historical and everyday-life department]. State Russian Museum 1924–1925. OPI GIM, f. 54, ed. khr. 763, l. 47ob.

  4. Lichtwark’s talk at the “Museums as Places of Popular Culture” (Museen als Volksbildungsstätten) conference held in Mannheim, Germany, in 1903: Proceedings Die Museen als Volksbildungsstätten: Ergebnisse der 12. Konferenz der Centralstelle für Arbeiter-Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen (Berlin, 1904), 6–12, was translated into Russian: A. Likhtvark, “Muzei kak obrazovatel’nye i vospitatel’nye uchrezhdeniia,” in Obrazovatelnyye i vospitatelnyye zadachi sovremennogo muzeia, ed. L.G. Orshanskii (Saint Petersburg, 1914).

  5. I thank Yulia Yakimenko who shared the content of the talk in her unpublished manuscript: Y. Yakimenko, Terminologicheskiii slovar' GAKhN (Moscow).

  6. On the liaison of formalism and psychophysics: Chubarov (2005, pp. 192–198; 2017, p. 74).

  7. Documents of the Commission for the Study of Primitive Art of the Physical-Psychological Department of the GAKhN. 1929–1930. OR GTG, f. 15, d. 449, l. 2-2ob, 6-7; 18-18ob. See also publications on the former Commission members: Oushakine (2019). On the practice of children’s art education: Pestel (2017); on museum guided tours for children: Sakulina (1966, pp. 94–95).

  8. Documents of the Commission for the Study of Primitive Art of the Physical-Psychological Department of the GAKhN. 19291930. OR GTG, f. 15, d. 449, l.1.

  9. Anatoly Bakushinsky. Materials on the Seminarium. 25 January 1925. OR GTG, f. 15, ed. khr. 480, l. 44.

  10. Anatoly Bakushinsky. Materials on the Seminarium. 15 February 1925. OR GTG, f. 15, ed. khr. 480, l. 8. Translated by Ben McGarr.

  11. It is not clear whether Bakushinsky led his guided tours also in other galleries, as the painting was kept at the Tretyakov Gallery at that time.

  12. Anatoly Bakushinsky. Materials on the Seminarium. 25 January 1925. OR GTG, f. 15, ed. khr. 480, l. 44.

  13. Anatoly Bakushinsky. Materials on the Seminarium. 15 February 1925. OR GTG, f. 15, ed. khr. 480, l. 49.

  14. Documents of the Commission for the Study of Primitive Art of the Physical-Psychological Department of the GAKhN. 1929–1930. OR GTG, f. 15, d. 449, l. 28.

  15. In 1934, Galina Labunskaia, who worked with Bakushinsky at the Cabinet, went on to initiate a research museum named the Museum of Children’s Drawing as a subordinated unit at the Central House of the Aesthetic Education of Children (1934). There, she came to include the original collection of the GAKhN Cabinet (Fomina 2016, pp. 90–92).

  16. Fyodor Lekht, Report on the 1931 carrying out of a Cultural Plan inspection of the Tretyakov Gallery. 25 June 1931. GARF, f A2307, op. 16, ed. khr. 28, l. 98ob.

  17. [A. V.] Bakushinsky. Preniia po dokladu. A discussion of the talk by Ivan Matsa, “Right-wing tendencies in art theory” [Pravyye techeniia v iskusstvoznanii], 12 February 1929. OR GTG, f. 15, d. 24, l. 14.

  18. Transcript. Meeting of the representatives of the Tretyakov Gallery… OR GTG, f. 990, op. 2, ed. khr. 13, l.15ob.

  19. S. N. Druzhinin, “Some issues of methods for the scientific popularization of art,” December 1952. Transcript. Conference panel on scientific popularization of art in the State Tretyakov Gallery. RGALI, f. 962, op. 11, ed. khr. 311, l.9. Translated by Ben McGarr.Translated by Ben McGarr.

  20. S. N. Druzhinin, “Some issues of methods of scientific popularization of art…” RGALI, f. 962, op. 11, ed. khr. 311, l.12. Translated by Ben McGarr.Translated by Ben McGarr.

  21. S. N. Druzhinin, “Some issues of methods of scientific popularization of art…” RGALI, f. 962, op. 11, ed. khr. 311, l.10.

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  1. Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada

    Maria Silina

  2. Research Institute for Theory and History of Visual Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow, Russia

    Maria Silina

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The article is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—Nr. 386757512. I thank anonymous reviewers for their comments and advice.

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Silina, M. Anatoly Bakushinsky’s projects in art studies and knowledge production at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences. Stud East Eur Thought 75, 303–321 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-021-09439-w

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