Richard Davies (9) (1949–)

Haunting and beautiful pre-Revolution COLOR photographs circa 1910 to 1914 by Russian Expressionist writer Leonid Andreyev. Subjects are anything from family to nature. This book is a unique peek at what pre-revolutionary Russia looked like. The rusticity is what impressed me.

However, Andreyev also had an eye for the color photograph like no other. He takes advantage of the inherent graininess of the early color photographic medium as well as light and dark and the seeming effortless pose show more to make each photographs look like a living Renoir or Seurat. At first scan you will swear these are all oil paintings.

I literally cannot convey how beautiful this book is. The other thing you will find yourself saying is: "these cannot possibly be this old." They just do not look like photographs from the turn of the century.

There is a forward that gives some detail about how the photographs were found in 1978. The rest of the text parallels Andreyev's life in the context of the photographs.

Andreyev died in 1919 at the age of 48, just a few years after these photographs were taken. show less