Article

Name: The Artist’s Diary as a Portrait of Time: About the Diaries of M. Matyushin and K. Somov

Authors: K. V. Lvov

International Memorial Society, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section A Plot in the 20 Century Artistic Culture

Abstract: The essay discusses the diaries of Russian artists of the first third of the 20 th century as a source for a study of their lives and opinions. The diaries of Mikhail Matyushin (1911–1934) and Konstantin Somov (1917–1927) were selected as examples. The author shows different techniques of keeping a diary. Matyushin’s diary is a creative laboratory of an artist and mentor. Somov’s almost daily entries represent a chronicle of his life. His experience is also related to his emigration to Paris. Both diaries were not to be published. Therefore, one can interpret them in terms of a “sincere and frank reports.” Overall, these autobiographical writings allow understand their creative impulses and their idea of artistic creativity as such. They also uncover the circles of their relationships, their preferences and dislikes.

Keywords: diary of an artist, Mikhail Kuzmin, Zorved, abstract art, stylization, Mikhail Matyushin, Konstantin Somov, Petrograd (Leningrad), World of Art

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