Christianity and the Arts in Russia

The contributors to this 1992 book examine various aspects of the relationship among Christianity and the visual arts, architecture and music in Russia. Within this broad area the book concentrates on specific topics rather than attempting a broad survey. Nonetheless, the range of material extends from the earliest stages of the introduction of Byzantine art forms in Kievan Russia to the relation between Christian and folk decorative/iconographic motifs to the use of religious imagery in the work of contemporary filmmaker Andrei Tarkovskii. The related interests of the contributors create a concentration of topics in certain periods such as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some of the chapters are academically specialized, others are easily accessible to a general audience; but all are based on thorough and careful scholarship. Christianity and the Arts in Russia is based on, but not limited to, a symposium held at the Library of Congress in 1988 to mark the millennium of Russian Christianity.