“In this eloquent text, Maria Taroutina makes a wholly persuasive case for counting Mikhail Vrubel among the great artists of the nineteenth century. His idiosyncratic, compelling works in multiple media bear the unmistakable imprint of originality, foreshadowing the visionary modernism of Kandinsky and Malevich. Offering new readings of individual works while sketching the largest of contexts, this richly rewarding book fills a significant lacuna in the English-language history of art.”

Tim Barringer, Yale University

“In a tour de force of expansive scholarship and close reading, Maria Taroutina has written the book that an artist as protean, cosmopolitan and creatively unbound as Vrubel deserves. Sharing her subject’s insatiable intellectual curiosity, she unearths stimuli ranging from Byzantine mosaics and Persian carpets to contemporary opera and the tessellated forms of Cézanne. Vrubel’s restive response to these myriad cultural encounters establishes him as much a powerhouse of transnational modernism as he was a cornerstone of the Russian avant-garde.”

Rosalind P. Blakesley, University of Cambridge