Slavonic and East European Review

548 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 a bibliographywhich gives, where appropriate,the Russian titles followed by their Germanversions;and indexes of names and works. Although based mainly on previouslypublishedRussianmaterials,some of considerableantiquity,this is a timely and most welcome book. If the present reviewer may be allowed to make a practical suggestion to those not yet acquainted with the work of Aleksandr Lokshin, the Seventh Symphony (1972), incorporating settings of thirteenth-century Japanese poetry, is a characteristicand very rewardingexample of his music. Thanksare due to ErnstKuhn foranotherhighlyworthwhileinitiative,and congratulationsto both the editorsfor a fascinatingcompilation. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropeani Studies ARNOLD MCMILLIN UTniversity College London Caffiero, Gianni and Samarine, Ivan. Seas,CitiesandDreams. 7hePaintings of IvanAivazovsky. Alexandria Press, London, in association with Laurence King, 2000. 323 pp. Illustrations.SelectedBibliography.Notes. Appendices . Index. ?6o.oo. IN I833, the sixteen-year-oldartistIvan Aivazovskiitravelledfrom his native Crimea to St Petersburg to begin a six-year scholarship at the Imperial Academy of Arts.Just two years later, Nicholas I paid a thousand rubles for one of Aivazovskii'spaintings and ordered the young artistto accompany his son, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, on naval exerciseswith the Baltic fleet.This imperialorderprovedseminal,launchingAivazovskiias a maritime painter xvhowould win commissions from Turkishsultansas well as Russian tsars. Seas,CitiesandDreamsis the first account in English of his remarkable career,tracingAivazovskii'sascent fromhis rootsin Theodosia to his position as a painter of international renown who himself hosted receptions for the familyof the tsar. Today, paintings by Aivazovskiiare subject to highly competitive bidding in WVestern auction houses, and Seas,CitiesandDreamsis clearly written with collectors' and dealers' interests in mind. It is a beautifullyproduced book, with over two hundred colour plates, many of them taking up a whole page. The text in comparison is relatively short and is divided into two parts, the firstof which focuses on Aivazovskii'slife, while the second consists of brief paragraphs under titles such as 'Shipwreck' and 'Blue Pictures' which introduceorganizationalcategoriesfor the plateswhich follow. The biographical section includes no detailed readings of the nature or impact of Aivazovskii'sart. Instead, possible influences on the artistand his method of working are discussedin two short chapters (five and seven pages respectively)on 'Originsof Aivazovsky'sArt'and 'Aivazovsky's Technique'. A short section on Aivazovskii'spatrons and the nature of his appeal is also set apartfromthe main body of the text, appearingin Appendix i. This structure gives the book a fragmented feel and involves a certain amount of repetitionl. Nor does it allow for detailed discussion of artistic concepts fundamental to an understanding of Aivazovskii's work, such as the picturesque and the sublime, or of the Orientalist debates surrounding Aivazovskii's rare paintings of genire REVIEWS 549 scenes in Constantinople, beautifullyreproduced on pages I84-85. There is, however, a brief but interesting section in Appendix i on 'Fakes' -a notorious problem surrounding Aivazovskii's work- which will engage collectorsand connoisseurs. The book's main strength is its inclusion of excerpts from the memoirs of Aivazovskii'sgrandson,'Fromthe FarDistant Past'.This primarysource,now in the hands of Aivazovskii'sgreat-great-grandsonin London, has never been published and is quoted from at length. It is particularly informative on Aivazovskii's final years in Theodosia, where his philanthropy and civic involvement played a major part in the development of the town. Such was his influence that, 'He was much feared in the town and when his coach with its pair of greysappeared in the street,a murmurwent around "Aivazovskyis coming", and everybodypulled themselvestogether' (p. 74). The manuscript came to London afterthe Revolution and has been inaccessibleto Soviet and Russian scholars, so its introduction here offers a vital new first-hand perspectiveon Aivazovskii'scareer. Sadly there is little mention of other key sources the extensive commentaries on Aivazovskiiin nineteenth-centuryperiodicals, for example, or the documents pertainingto his time at the ImperialAcademy of Arts.His remarkablecollaboration with the great Russian Realist Il'ia Repin on the painting Pushkin BidsFarewell totheBlackSeapasseswithout comment. There is also a notable absence of paintings from provincial Russian galleries, despite the inclusion in an appendix of Nikolai Barsamov's list of paintings by Aivazovskii in Soviet museums, first published in I962. While Barsamov's list includes 437 dated paintingsalone in dozens of Soviet museumsand galleries, the...