Vladimir Favorsky [antikvár]

Editor's PrefaceThis book is about Vladimir Favorsky.Favorsky is one of the greatest names in Soviet art. Sculptor, stage designer, author of compositions for mosaics and frescoes, painter and master of drawing, theoretician and teacher, Favorsky is nevertheless best known as a master of engraving. He infused new life into the art of the woodcut which, thanks to him, has regained the status of a creative art form in our contemporary culture. His innovations and experiments attracted talented disciples and founded a distinct Soviet school of graphic art.Favorsky, however, is not only a master engraver. He is one of the most distinguished modern book illustrators. His works include engravings on subjects from Dante, Shakespeare, Burns, Mérimée, Pushkin, Anatole France, Tolstoi and various modern authors. It was for his illustrations to the medieval epic poem The Lay of the Host of Igor and to Pushkin's Boris Godunov and Little Tragedies that, in 1962, he was awarded a Lenin Prize. Books illustrated by Favorsky are to be ranked among the modern world's most exquisite bibliographical achievements.Favorsky is known far beyond the borders of his own country. There are prints by him in the British Museum and in the Dresden Cabinet of Graphic Art. As long ago as 1925 he was awarded the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris. His works have been shown at various exhibitions outside the Soviet Union and have never failed to excite interest and admiration.In compiling this book about Vladimir Favorsky, we have endeavoured to offer our reader the fullest possible opportunity of improving his acquaintance with the work and personality of this fine artist. It has also been our aim to present him to the reader from the most various angles.This is why our book includes contributions from as many as fifteen different authors. These include: the art historians Mikhail Alpatov, Abram Efros, Alexei Sidorov, Andrei Chegodayev, representatives of the "School of Favorsky", the established artist Andrei Goncharov and one of the master's last pupils Illarion Golitsyn, the writers Konstantin Fedin and Victor Shklovsky, the actress and producer Sophia Giatsintova, and several young art critics. There is also a wide variety of genre: between the covers of this book you will find a friendly letter from an admirer following hard upon a detailed analytic article, reminiscences of meetings with the artist rubbing shoulders with considerations on the distinguishing features of his style.In compiling the materials for this book we have singled out everything which appeared to us to bé most interesting from all that has, to our knowledge, ever been written about Favorsky, beginning from the very first articles about him written at the dawning of his fame. Naturally, therefore, our authors do not invariably agree among themselves. Some early prognostications have been proved wrong by Favorsky's subsequent development. On one point, though, the critics show a monolithic unanimity: all of them look upon Favorsky as an important phenomenon in the art of our time.A special section has been devoted to studies of separate works and we have also brought the book up to date by including some of the latest articles about Favorsky written over the last few years - years of wide recognition and immense popularity.In the second half of the book we have given the floor to Favorsky himself.Here the reader will find extracts from his recently published book Tales of an Artist-Engraver (Moscow, 1965), his thoughts on art in general, on monumental painting, on the printed book and the art of illustration, on children's drawings, etc. The artist's leisurely and exceptionally cogent way of expressing himself makes it possible for us to follow the process of his thought from the conception to the completion of the work in hand and acquaints us with his own, highly individual views of art and gives us an insight into his profound faith in Art as a real force in man's life and into his sense of dedication to its service.Of course, this volume cannot pretend to offer the reader anything like an exhaustive picture of Favorsky, whether in the selections which it gives from the critical literature which has grown up around his name and from his own theoretical works or, even, through the illustrations. To make a book of manageable size, much has had to be left out, but we hope that what has been retained is enough to give our reader an adequate introduction into the world of one of the most distinguished and attractive artists of our time.