“The World of Art” and Porcelain Sculptures by Konstantin Somov

The article dwells on plastic peculiarities of ceramic sculpture's language of Russian Fin de siècle (end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century). Porcelain is the third key material of the period besides painting and theatrical scenery because of its special qualities that suited the art nouveau Zeitgeist well. The leading society of the movement, “Mir iskustva” (‘The world of art'), and its representatives such as Konstantin Somov and Eugene Lansere in their small-scale porcelain objects displayed some of the style's archetypal features such as diminutiveness and “toyness”, preciosity and delicacy. This phenomenon hugely influenced the Russian aesthetic myth of the “art for art's sake” which has not passed the test of time (especially in Russia with the great wars and revolution) and evolved to more functional and modernistic yet still figurative art deco.