The Artist Svyatoslav Voinov: Christian Art in the Era of Modernism

Abstract

This paper explores the life and art of Svyatoslav Voinov (1890–1920), a modernist painter and a drawing artist from St. Petersburg, barely remembered today but nevertheless a remarkable example of both art and spirituality of his time. Both paintings and drawings of Voinov lay bare a distinctive character of the period when symbolism and modernism crossed ways. His art offers a glimpse on a unique creative atmosphere of the period of the Russian Revolution and the Civil War (1917–1922), the time when his most significant work was done. Voinov’s art is typical for religious currents in the Russian art of early 20^th century. It is closely linked to their preceding formative period but was also influenced by the modernist discovery of the aesthetic value of Russian icons. Voinov’s art is rooted in a complex synthesis of traditional icon-painting and symbolism grafted with newer expressionistic and futuristic trends, such a synthesis being typical for quite a few Russian artists of the period. What makes Voinov and his art unique is that he aspired to cross the boundaries of purely secular spirituality and offered an original and effective example of how modern visuality can work together with ancient tradition of icon painting. Voinov transcends the contours of narrative formulas of religious themes and boldly moves towards the theology in paint. The drawings and compositional sketches of Svyatoslav Voinov were examined by the author in the collections of the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia). Some of the drawings are published here for the first time.