Dr Wendy Salmond, Professor of Art History, was a keynote speaker at the conference “The Spiritual in Russian Art” held at Pembroke College, Cambridge University in September 2012. Inspired by the centenary of Vasilii Kandinskii’s seminal text, Über das Geistige in der Kunst (On the Spiritual in Art, 1910-12), the conference brought together scholars from England, Russia, and the United States to explore the intersection between spirituality and Russian art.  Dr. Salmond discussed the role translations play in shaping the way unfamiliar art is interpreted and received in new cultural contexts. Her case study was Nikodim Kondakov’s The Russian Icon (1927), the first book to introduce Russian icons to an English-speaking public, and the role played by its translator, Sir Ellis H. Minns, in mediating between the author’s intentions and the public’s perception of them.

The conference was organized by the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre (CCRAC), a joint initiative of the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge and The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.