Carpeted in boreal forests, dotted with lakes, cut by rivers, and
straddling the Arctic Circle, the region surrounding the White Sea,
which is known as the Russian North, is sparsely populated and
immensely isolated. It is also the home to architectural marvels,
as many of the original wooden and brick churches and homes in the
region's ancient villages and towns still stand. Featuring nearly
two hundred full color photographs of these beautiful centuries-old
structures, Architecture at the End of the Earth is the most recent
addition to William Craft Brumfield's ongoing project to
photographically document all aspects of Russian architecture. The
architectural masterpieces Brumfield photographed are diverse: they
range from humble chapels to grand cathedrals, buildings that are
either dilapidated or well cared for, and structures repurposed
during the Soviet era. Included are onion-domed wooden churches
such as the Church of the Dormition, built in 1674 in Varzuga; the
massive walled Transfiguration Monastery on Great Solovetsky
Island, which dates to the mid-1550s; the Ferapontov-Nativity
Monastery's frescoes, painted in 1502 by Dionisy, one of Russia's
greatest medieval painters; nineteenth-century log houses, both
rustic and ornate; and the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Vologda,
which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in the 1560s. The text
that introduces the photographs outlines the region's significance
to Russian history and culture. Brumfield is challenged by the
immense difficulty of accessing the Russian North, and recounts
traversing sketchy roads, crossing silt-clogged rivers on barges
and ferries, improvising travel arrangements, being delayed by
severe snowstorms, and seeing the region from the air aboard the
small planes he needs to reach remote areas. The buildings
Brumfield photographed, some of which lie in near ruin, are at
constant risk due to local indifference and vandalism, a lack of
maintenance funds, clumsy restorations, or changes in local and
national priorities. Brumfield is concerned with their futures and
hopes that the region's beautiful and vulnerable achievements of
master Russian carpenters will be preserved. Architecture at the
End of the Earth is at once an art book, a travel guide, and a
personal document about the discovery of this bleak but beautiful
region of Russia that most readers will see here for the first
time.
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