Larionov (Great Painters) - Hardcover

Although both of these volumes are included in a series that the Russian publisher calls "Great Painters," Saryan and Larionov are less well known than such Western painters in the series as Picasso and Monet. Saryan, the more obscure of the two, was a 20th-century regionalist who painted vivid watercolors and thinly brushed oils of exotic and sentimental scenes from Armenia and the Caucasus Mountains. Larionov, a much more important figure in Russian art, was in the forefront of the tremendous revolution in Russian painting during the first three decades of this century. Along with Malevitch, Tatlin, Popova, and others of the Constructivist avant-garde, he contributed to the remaking of Russian society coincident with the Bolshevik Revolution. Although both books contain many well-printed color plates, an overimaginative book designer has produced the effect of a bizarre prose poem by alternating right- and left-justified paragraphs in the Larionov volume and has introduced strange-shaped text blocks flowing around cryptic cutout images in the Saryan volume. Neither effect contributes to ease of use. Larionov will be of interest in larger public and academic collections; Saryan is more appropriate for specialized art libraries.?David McClelland, Philadelphia
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