(Aleksandrovich) (b Moscow, March 18, 1890; d Moscow, June 6, 1969). Russian art historian. He dedicated most of his writing to a single theme, landscape painting in the context of Russian culture from the 18th century to the early 20th, and was instrumental in the formation and definition of the Marxist-based, social approach to art history that evolved during the Soviet period. He studied at the History and Philology Faculty of Kazan’ University (1919–23) before entering the Moscow Institute of Archaeology and Art Studies to conduct research (1923–8) into Russian art of the industrial capitalist era. Simultaneously he headed the Fine Arts Section of Narkompros’s Glavnauk Art Department, appeared as an art critic for the periodical Pechat’ i revolyutsia and published his ideas concerning dialectical materialism in art in his first book (1925). In 1931 he was put in charge of the New Russian Art department of the Tret’yakov Gallery, a post he held until ...