Viktor Nikitich Lazarev

Lazarev, Viktor Nikitich 

Born Aug. 22 (Sept. 3), 1897, in Moscow. Soviet art critic; corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1943).

Lazarev studied at Moscow State University with N. I. Romanov (1917–20). During 1924–36 he served as chief curator, gallery director, and deputy director of the scientific department of the Fine Arts Museum in Moscow. He was a professor at Moscow State University (in 1961 becoming head of the subdepart-ment of foreign art). Lazarev’s principal works are on the history of ancient Russian and Byzantine art and the art of the Renaissance. They encompass a wide range of questions, provide a penetrating analysis of the cardinal processes of art history, formulate general principles of the primary causes and the substance of the processes, and contain a masterful classification of artistic movements and schools, as well as convincing attributions. Lazarev received three orders and various medals.

WORKS

Portret v evropeiskom iskusstve XVII veka. Moscow-Leningrad, 1937.

Istoriia vizantiiskoi zhivopisi, vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1947–48. (Expanded edition, Storia della pittura bizantina, Turin [1967].)

Proiskhozhdenie ital’ianskogo Vozrozhdeniia, vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1956—59.

Andrei Rublev i ego shkola. Moscow, 1966.

Russkaia srednevekovaia zhivopis’: Sb. st. Moscow, 1970.

Vizantiiskaia zhivopis’: Sb. st. Moscow, 1971.

Starye ital’ianskie mastera. Moscow, 1972.

REFERENCE

Grashchenkov, V. N. “V. N. Lazarev: K semidesiatiletiiu so dnia rozhdeniia.” In the collection Vizantiiskii vremennik, vol. 29. Moscow, 1969. (List of works by V. N. Lazarev.)