Varvara Kukushkina’s Report at the Seminar «Magic, Astrology, and Science in Russian Modernism»

On September 28, the regular research seminar «Magic, Astrology, and Science in Russian Modernism» took place. Varvara Kukushkina presented a report titled «Art and Physiognomy in the Texts of I. A. Sikorski». 

As a starting point, the speaker has chosen several articles by the Russian psychiatrist Ivan Alekseevich Sikorski, who attempted to revive physiognomy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Considering physiognomic analysis as an «objective» and promising method of psychological research, Sikorski deliberately constructed his own history of physiognomy from Aristotle and Galen to the French neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne, Charles Darwin, and other prominent nineteenth-century scientists. The desire to turn pseudoscience into progressive scientific practice (photography was used as a highly technical instrument) did not prevent the psychiatrist from exploiting the favorite technique of his predecessors, who described works of art in the physiognomic treatises. During the presentation, some visual examples were brought to the participants’ attention. As the speaker showed, thanks to the presence of different illustrations, it is possible to clarify the context in which Sikorsky's scientific and ideological views were formed, as well as to describe with more details the unexplored side of the intellectual history of the 20th century. To clarify the broader context, she considered popular ideas about expressive gestures and «movements of the soul» which people of that time could read about in theatrical manuals or hear from F. P. Landzert, who read several lectures on physiognomy and phrenology in St. Petersburg in 1884.