The aesthetic realism of Mikhail Lifshits

art, history and the communist ideal

Andrey Maidansky

pp. 255-270

in: Andrey Maidansky, Vesa Oittinen (eds), Mikhail Lifshits, Studies in East European Thought 68 (4), 2016.

Abstract

The aesthetics of Mikhail Lifshits may be characterised as a quest for pravda (truth/justice) in art. The article discusses his assessment of the fate of art in the communist revolution and his view on revolution through the prism of classical art. Pondering the metaphysical foundations of his realist aesthetics, Lifshits offered a naturalistic version of the theory of reflection based on the contradistinction of "big" and "small" being.