Society of Art and Literature

a society founded in Moscow in 1888 by K. S. Stanislavsky, the stage director A. F. Fedotov, the opera singer and teacher F. P. Komissarzhevskii, and the artist F. L. Sologub.

Stanislavsky headed the society in the early 1890’s; with its amateur drama circle as a foundation, he created a permanent company. Its members, among them V. F. Komissarzhevskaia, M. P. Lilina, M. F. Andreeva, A. R. Artem, and V. V. Luzh-skii, possessed professional expertise and a thorough understanding of the new tasks of art. The plays Stanislavsky and the company presented were marked by an unprecedented unity of artistic approach and verisimilitude in the staging and the crowd scenes; examples were L. Tolstoy’s The Fruits of Enlightenment and Hauptmann’s The Sunken Bell. In 1898, Stanislavsky and the majority of the company joined the Moscow Art Theater.