ABSTRACT
This essay, never before translated from Russian, is without question one of the most original analyses ever penned of African sculpture as three-dimensional medium. The question of authorship is complex. Markov made a tantalising passing reference to ‘weightiness’ in his notes on medieval manuscripts (see Chapter 3, n. 30). In 1912, he announced his plans to write on the principle of ‘Weightiness’ in a future text (Chapter 7). In Iskusstvo Negrov (Chapter 9), he stated that he intended to write a second, more fully developed analysis of African art within the study he was preparing of the ‘The Principles of Plastic Art’. He believed that African sculpture offered a strong expression of what was a universal principle in art-making, germane also for the study of two-dimensional images. However, his untimely death in May 1914 cut short his career, and this final article was for all intents and purposes composed ‘soon after his death’ by Varvara Bubnova, his companion and fellow artist, drawing on his notebooks and ‘under the fresh impressions of our joint work and conversations’ (Matvey 1966,148). Bubnova had travelled with Markov in 1913 and assisted him with the photography for Iskusstvo Negrov (Figure 10.1).
