Nikolai Kulbin
Nikolai Ivanovich Kulbin (Николай Иванович Кульбин; 1868, Helsinki - 1917, Petrograd) was a Russian military doctor, painter, graphic artist, art theorist, music theorist and patron of Russian Futurism.
He was running a salon in St. Petersburg, a kind of informal association (in Russia this kind of establishment was called kruzhok, which was a very popular form of informal association, most typical for artists, poets and musicians all around the country) that included most Russian avant-garde artists, composers, poets, scholars and so forth, which permitted him to spread his ideas among the artistic community. (in Andrey Smirnov, Sound in Z, 2012, p 24)
While Wassily Kandinsky was living abroad, he relied on friends back home to keep him apprised of cultural developments in Russia. When Arnold Schoenberg set off for St. Petersburg in 1912, Kandinsky arranged for his friend, Kulbin to meet him at the train station. “Kulbin knows everything, that is, he knows all the artists of importance,” Kandinsky wrote in a letter to Schoenberg. Kulbin wrote an article for The Blue Rider Almanac entitled “Free Music” (first published in Russian in 1909 and 1910), in which he advocates, amazingly for the time, quarter and eighth-tone music. [1]
Although he died on 6 March 1917 just after the February revolution, his influence on the young generation of revolutionary artists and scholars was significant. Among his direct or indirect followers were Arseny Avraamov, Leonid Sabaneev, Arthur Lourie and many others. (in Andrey Smirnov, Sound in Z, 2012, p 24)
- Writings
- Svobodnaya muzyka. Primeneniye novoy teorii khudozhestvennogo tvorchestva k muzyke [Свободная музыка. Применение новой теории художественного творчества к музыке], St. Petersburg, 1909, 7 pp. (in Russian) [2]
- "Slobodnaya muzika", in Studiia impressionistov, ed. Nikolai Kulbin, St. Petersburg: Butovskoi, 1910, pp 15-26. (in Russian) [3]
- External links
