Kirjahaku

Featuring an eight-page gallery of full-color illustrations, here is a major new biography of Serge Diaghilev, founder and impresario of the Ballets Russes, who revolutionized ballet by bringing together composers such as Stravinsky and Prokofiev, dancers and choreographers such as Nijinsky and Karsavina, Fokine and Balanchine, and artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Bakst, and Goncharova.An accomplished, flamboyant impresario of all the arts, Diaghilev became a legendary figure. Growing up in a minor noble family in remote Perm, he would become a central figure in the artistic worlds of Paris, London, Berlin, and Madrid during the golden age of modern art. He lived through bankruptcy, war, revolution, and exile. Furthermore he lived openly as a homosexual and his liaisons, most famously with Nijinsky, and his turbulent friendships with Stravinsky, Coco Chanel, Prokofiev, and Jean Cocteau gave his life an exceptionally dramatic quality. Scheijen's magnificent biography, based on extensive research in little known archives, especially in Russia, brings fully to life a complex and powerful personality with boundless creative energy. A New York Times Editor's Choice

A fascinating, narrative biography of the art movement that transformed the modern world, tracing the lives and activities of the key protagonists as they set about a revolution in art. October 1917. The Russian Revolution wipes the old tsarist empire off the map. Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Lyubov Popova, Alexander Rodchenko, Olga Rozanova, Vladimir Tatlin and other avant-garde artists participate in the revolutionary struggle, transforming inner cities with their progressive murals, posters, installations and performances. The new political leaders soon want nothing to do with these radical artists. While their reputation is growing in Europe, they experience increasing pressure in the Soviet Union. Against a background of violent social and political change, author Sjeng Scheijen describes with compassion and humour events that shaped the artistic revolution in this, the first illustrated biography to relate the rise and fall of the leading figures of the Russian avant-garde. From philosophical and political subversion, involvement with the Bolshevik administration and links with Europe, to violent repression, incarcerations and torture in the 1930s under Stalin, events are narrated through artists’ personal memories drawn from existing and important new archival findings. Excerpts from diaries and correspondence reveal the extent of the avant-garde’s energy and determination to survive a totalitarian regime, civil war, hunger and terror. Scheijen’s vivid, dynamic style, authoritative command of his source material and extensive original research provides exceptional insight into the lives of these avant-gardists, whose art left a lasting legacy that transformed modern art.

This magnificent new biography of the extraordinary impresario of the arts and creator of the Ballets Russes 100 years ago draws on important new research, notably from Russia. 'Scheijen masterfully recounts the phenomenal way in which Diaghilev contrived, under virtually impossible circumstances, to nurture a sequence of works ... he triumphs in making clear the degree to which, despite the cosmopolitanism of so much of the work, Russia was at the core of Diaghilev' Simon Callow, Guardian 'It's a fabulous, complicated, very sexy story and Sjeng Scheijen takes us through it with a steadying calm that fudges none of the outrage on or off stage' Duncan Fallowell, Daily Express 'Magnificent ... filled with extraordinary glamour' Rupert Christiansen, Daily Mail

Kniga gollandskogo istorika Shenga Skhejena - samaja polnaja na segodnjashnij den biografija Sergeja Djagileva (1872-1929). Djagilev mechtal stat pevtsom, kompozitorom, khudozhestvennym kritikom, no vzjalsja sochinjat kuda bolee tainstvennoe i globalnoe proizvedenie - obraz buduschego iskusstva. Umenie ulovit i vyvesti na svet novoe, nebyvaloe - samaja sut ego genija. Djagilevskie "Russkie sezony" na sto let vpered opredelili reputatsiju iskusstva Rossii kak samogo peredovogo, ekstraordinarnogo i zakhvatyvajuschego baletnogo javlenija. Providets i tiran, lovets dush i neispravimyj odinochka, vizioner i provokator, on slyshal muzyku ranshe sochinivshego ee kompozitora i videl tanets prezhde pervogo pa. Kniga Skhejena unikalna i interesna ne tolko glavnym geroem, no velikim mnozhestvom zhiznennykh podrobnostej russkogo i evropejskogo modernizma, dramaturgiej vzaimootnoshenij glavnykh imen muzyki, teatra i zhivopisi KHKh veka. Ved za svoju nedolguju zhizn Djagilev obschalsja i sotrudnichal s Chekhovym, Rimskim-Korsakovym, Bakstom, Benua, Rodenom, Debjussi, Matissom, Pikasso, Stravinskim, Prokofevym, Majakovskim, Balanchinym, Koko Shanel i dr. Biografija Djagileva pokhozha na ekstravagantnyj avantjurnyj roman, khotja vse v nej - pravda. V knige publikujutsja redkie fotografii, dokumenty, eskizy kostjumov i dekoratsij - bestsennye svidetelstva iskusstva, zhivuschego vne vsjakikh granits.Perevodchiki: Voznenko Nadezhda, Knjazkova Svetlana

"Avangard - eto ne napravlenie i ne stil v iskusstve i, na moj vzgljad, ne teorija. Avangard - eto mentalitet, obraz zhizni, vyrazhavshijsja ne tolko v tvorchestve khudozhnikov, no i v kazhdoj fibre ikh dushi, v ikh ubezhdenijakh i povedenii. Avangard nosil radikalnyj kharakter, v tom smysle chto otvergal suschestvujuschij porjadok, zagnavshij iskusstvo v ugnetajuschee prokrustovo lozhe akademicheskikh kanonov. Tolko v kachestve metodov borby s etim gnetom khudozhniki ispolzovali ne kamni, ruzhja ili bomby, no provokatsionnye aktsii, performans i epatazh, a takzhe vysmeivali "obschestvennyj vkus". (Sheng Skhejen)