Chayanov’s sociology of art. [Rew.] Chayanov A.V. Selected Art Heritage. Moscow: Izdatelskiy dom TONCHU publ., 2018

Abstract

A.V. Chayanov was primarily an agrarian economist, but he also possessed encyclopedic interests and knowledge and wrote a series of articles on the history of art, which reflect his peculiar sociology of art. This article is a review of the collection of works which include articles written by this outstanding social thinker. The author considers that Chayanov’s articles on the history of collecting artwork in Moscow and on the history of West-European engraving show the original features of his sociological interdisciplinary analysis. Chayanov studied various aspects of social life — history and economics, art and culture — to identify the historical-social types of collectors of fine artwork, the impact of social crises on the nature of collecting, the problems of elitism and egalitarianism in art, and the directions of people’s cultural development. All of these issues are still relevant to contemporary studies of art.