Japanologist S. Eliseev's unpublished works about Far Eastern art

This article provides an overview of the scientific and pedagogical activities of the outstanding Japanologist Serge Eliseev in Petrograd in 1915-1920. One of the most important competencies in his scientific life was the study of Far Eastern art, as he became the first among young Russian professional Japanologists to study it. Even famous European Japanologists like B. H. Chamberlain, W. J. Aston and K. Florenz did not conduct specifically separate studies or research on this topic. The well-known book “Japan: a Short Cultural History” written by G. B. Sansom which for many years was considered the best publication of its kind, was the first popularized material to touch on the subject, published only in 1931. Professor S. Eliseev conducted a series of lectures about the history of Chinese and Japanese paintings and Japanese sculptures at the Institute of the History of Arts. He also lectured on the esthetics of the Far Eastern painting at the Petrograd University and at the Artist Encouragement Society. He was also a collaborator of the Asiatic Museum where one of his responsibilities was seeking out private collections of Far Eastern art in Petrograd to study. Several of S. Eliseev's articles and lectures about Chinese and Japanese art that were never published are kept in the archives of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in St. Petersburg. This article looks at just two of them. The first one is called “The idealistic landscape in Japan and Sesshu” which was written by the scholar between 1919-1920. In this fundamental work the author describes important changes of the role of a landscape in the development of Chinese paintings between the Tang and Song (Sung) dynasties. S. Eliseev connects the creative manner of Sesshu with the monochrome ink paintings concept borrowed from China. He gives special attention to the compositional peculiarities of Sesshu' paintings and his technique, and emphasizes. that simplicity and serenity were the main traits of the landscapes of Sesshu. S. Eliseev appreciates the suggestive creative manner of the famous Japanese painter with the help of which Sesshu succeeded in transmitting his meditative ideas. The second work is his lecture “The peculiarities of the Far Eastern sculpture” delivered in the summer of 1920 at the Academy of the History of Material Culture. This became the scholar's pioneering contribution to European historiography, as the study of Far Eastern sculptures appears to be even more complicated than that of the paintings. S. Eliseev explains this by the fact that the Europeans did not have the opportunity to see a lot of the Far Eastern sculpture and they can understand it neither speculatively nor esthetically due to their different mentality and mind. He tracks changes in the Japanese sculpture during different historic and cultural periods. Eliseev declares that while European sculptures concentrated on the human body, the Japanese treated it as a demonstration of the spiritual essence only. Though these works were never published, the scientific method of study of the Far Eastern art (especially sculptures) created by S. Eliseev was used in his later treatises published abroad that brought him much deserved fame.