Beschrijving

The Poetry of Water in Russian Art is an art-historical volume that explores the role and symbolism of water in Russian visual culture, drawing on works included in a major exhibition originally shown at venues such as Palais Lumière in Évian. The book brings together paintings, drawings, prints and other works by Russian artists that depict water in its many forms — rivers, seas, lakes, reflections, storms — and examines how this elemental theme has inspired creative responses across time and style. Through a combination of high-quality images and scholarly commentary, the publication reveals water not merely as a subject, but as a poetic and evocative force in Russian art.

In the core sections, the book looks at how both landscape and narrative artists engaged with water as a metaphor for emotion, identity, nature and history. It presents works by painters who rendered rivers and seas with dramatic realism or lyrical subtlety, showing how the shifting surfaces and moods of water reflect broader cultural and philosophical currents in Russian artistic life. Water becomes a connective motif across different artistic movements and periods, illustrating both continuity and change in aesthetic approaches.

Beyond visual documentation, The Poetry of Water in Russian Art situates these works within the wider context of Russian cultural heritage, including the symbolic and emotional dimensions that water holds in literature, folklore and national imagination. The book thus functions not only as an exhibition catalogue, but also as an interpretive study of how an elemental theme has influenced and shaped artistic expression in Russia, making it valuable to both general readers and specialists in art history.