Vs. Dmitriev. Fedotov's Unknown Album

Apollo (HL) No. 8 – 10, 1917

Mark Azadowski. “Artist's Diary”. The Unknown Album of Fedotov ed. Editorial Board of the journal "Russian bibliophile". 1916: From the Old Almanacs. Fedotov's forgotten drawings”. P.1916

The shortcomings of Russian artistic culture in general were especially emphasized by the utter absence of any kind in our country.  scientifically   d and c and n and n and n    in research. We jumped involuntarily.  “At the top”, piling up syllogisms, they destroyed the houses of cards of hypotheses only to create them again, since no one had any.  “Hunting” will be reduced to more tedious and rough, though a hundred times more urgent and valuable, i.e., detailed and painstaking partial investigations; we galloped along the way.  We had no scientific discipline that   No, no, no.   if we were, because  We claim any public attention for works as sober and accurate as possible. The history of Fedotov’s assessments, as we have already had to point out, is the clearest example of this: in what only garments did this happen.  "lone onlooker"  All those who had only hunting and leisure!

Therefore, everyone is especially welcome.    I don't think so.  The approach to our artistic history, and in this respect Fedotov is finally lucky! After the substantive works of N.I. Romanov, we find a new persistent observer of the path of Fedotov’s search in the person of M.K. Azadovsky.

The first work of Mark Azadovsky  "The Artist's Diary"  It was advantageously distinguished by an exhaustive awareness in the sources and a cautious approach to the topic: however, it was possible to reproach the author for some of the above.   No, no, no, no, no.    Aesthetic assessments, too much dependence on our recognized  "authorities", which gave the essay the appearance of a thorough student dissertation rather than scientific research. This dependence in the second essay of the same author - "Out of the old albums" - is much less, but here some assessments, in our opinion, suffer from excessiveness and are not justified by the merits of this or that picture.However, if those new works of Fedotov, which managed to find Mark Azadovsky or in the form of an album bought from a random seller in one of the towns of Eastern Siberia, or in the form of reproductions in forgotten almanacs of the 40s, do not add any especially unexpected and valuable features to the already  We know the image of Fedotov’s art, the very fact of Fedotov’s work in the ranks of our other draftsmen (which we only discussed earlier).   The fact, now documented, is extremely revealing. This is the practical value of the recently published essay by M. Azadovsky.

                              Vs.Dm.