Russian Symbolism in Search of Transcendental Liquescence: Iconizing Emotion by Blending Time, Media, and the Senses [Hardcover]

The book examines Russian symbolist texts and turns the focus from their traditional historic-cultural interpretations to analyze the symbolist cognitive aestheticsaesthetics that govern links between poetry, art, and cinema and the sensory-emotional imagery they evoke. This aesthetics inextricably map mystical transcendence to a spiritual worlda realibus ad realiorathrough fluid transmutation. Anastasia Kostetskaya presents an innovative cross-disciplinary analysis of iconicitya relationship of resemblance between the artistic form and its meaning, the possibilities of which symbolist artists explored to create sublime emotional experiences for the reader or viewer. She challenges the strictly dualistic and hierarchical terms of traditional symbolist concepts. This study demonstrates that this counterdualistic tendency cognitively extends from liquescencea perception of fluid continuity between people and water. This analysis of interconnected symbolist media shows how symbolists rely on blending in their attempts to engender emotional flux through the pliable form. Fusing cognitivist and historic-cultural approaches in fluidly connected art modes, this book represents chronological, conceptual, and aesthetic continuity from poetry by Konstantin Bal'mont (18671942), paintings by Viktor Borisov-Musatov (18701905), and cinematography by Evgenii Bauer (18651917).Anastasia Kostetskaya is assistant professor of Russian at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

In this innovative study of Russian Symbolism, Anastasia Kostetskaya blends cognitive psychology with literary analysis to offer a new framework for analyzing aesthetic links across a range of artistic media. As a pioneering attempt to meld distinctive theoretical approaches and artistic genres, it will be of interest to scholars of Russian literature, art and film, as well as analysts of the broader cultural-intellectual history of the Silver Age. The Russian Review

A breath of fresh air il“Ï