How Cezanne Inspired Leningrad Nonconformism: The Art of Vladimir Shagin

Abstract

This article looks at the life and career of the Leningrad Non-Conformist artist, Vladimir Shagin, and examines the way in which the underlying conceptions, compositions, and pictorial devices that he developed in his works paid homage to, and derived inspiration from, the creative practice of Paul Cezanne. The author argues also that Shagin’s art, as read through Cezanne’s work, reveals Neoclassicism as a source for the intellectual and formal independence of the Leningrad nonconformists.