From the middle of the eighteenth century, the move for a strongly national art in Russia became the most exciting influence on both the fine and the decorative arts within the country. The movement gained impetus when the defeat of Napoleon resulted in a surge of national pride, and artists, sculptors and architects began to look to the country"s medieval past for their inspiration. Russia has always had particularly strong traditions in the folk arts and crafts, and throughout the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries devotees of the Russian style added other themes and influences - among them their own, specifically Russian, interpretations of Byzantine and Gothic - producing some of the most striking and least-known art and architecture of the period.
The Russian Style studies the development of the movement and the world of the people who worked within it. It looks at the background to the work of architects such as Ton, Pokrovsky, Shekhtel and Shchusev, and artists and craftsmen from Venetsianov to Roerich and Vrubel, at the work itself, and at its influence on an enormously wide range of subjects and applications, from the products of the Faberge workshops to the "historic" Russian interiors fashionable at the turn of the twentieth century. At a time when interest in Russian art and social history is constantly growing, this extensive, scholarly and beautifully illustrated study should become the definitive work on a period during which the consolidation of a national identity through art and design was uniquely important. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Russian Style (Evgenia Kirichenko)