The Blind Icon: Skin - Face - Eye in Russian Modernism

This book explores the inner facial feeling as a defining phenomenon for the poetics and theory of Russian painting. From the icon to Suprematism and the facelessness of the Gulag concentration camps, the study traces the face, departing from its inner tactile sensitivity. The face (with its blind skin and its skinless eyes) occupies a liminal space at the intersection of the optic and the tactile senses. We build identity on the imagination of our faces seen on distance by others. At the s...