Tag Archives: Ilya Repin

karl marx: conspiracy weary

…Karl Marx’s irritability was undoubtedly exasperated by persistent ill health. When writing “Capital” he was severely troubled with hemorrhoids. As he wrote plaintively to Engels, “to finish I must at least be able to sit down,” adding grimly, “I hope … Continue reading

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tergenev: high tide for the serf

The great emancipator: Ivan Turgenev and his collection of stories A Sportsman’s Sketch. He helped bring freedom to the serf by the devastating method of showing them what their lives were like through fiction… …Even in those stories where the … Continue reading

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sail away: make fiends and influence sheeple

Count your blessings. But in disguise. Arkansas Republicans washing and pressing their white hoodies jest’ in case. They have a DVD copy of Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, and are dusting off the salad day photos of the John Birch … Continue reading

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main street: direct appeal to the senses

Period pieces. Toby Tyler, circa 1890 and chockablock with tried and tested cliches which work pretty well, even by today’s standards. Toby Tyler, an orphan, and Disney is really the patron saint of orphans, who lives with a crosspatch uncle … Continue reading

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picasso comet

The effect of the rise of esteem in the earlier periods of Picasso automatically put a grip on the reception of the later ones as they came off the easel. Since the end of WWII every freshly painted Picasso was … Continue reading

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excess: wild steppes forward

Russians have always discussed the state of their souls as earnestly as the state of the economy of the vagaries of Russian politics. Always a strange blend of grandiose schemes, despair and optimism, futility and petty bickerings. The luxury of … Continue reading

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putin: land of toska and dousha

Russians have always had a thread of excess, showing itself strong and clear against the somber texture of their existence. Extreme activity. Extreme laziness. Extreme appetite. The extremely excessive. The extravagant Slav temperament seems to be traced to all classes … Continue reading

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too much is not enough

Fatalism as part of the Rusian DNA, an absurd romanticism stretched to the extreme, grounded in a byzantine hierarchy of social order that defined the nobility, fenced them off from the world at large, and which ultimately this insulation contributed … Continue reading

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correctional devices

Truth at the margins. Playing with trauma and variations on holding the traumatic moment. There is an uneasy relationship with popular culture, kitsch, and an underlying current of fascism. As Adorno said, “The encouragement of kitsch is merely another of … Continue reading

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kitsch of genius: the old campaigners

Hard to believe people are willing to invest so deeply in art that is almost bereft of any importance. Strictly a commodity with exchange value? Perhaps. Clement Greenberg was likely too harsh on Repin, although he was correct in questioning … Continue reading

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