Painting graphics poster in the service of the new government. Constructivism in a Soviet political poster
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The revolution of 1917 began a completely new stage in Russian painting, which was expressed both in the development of its new forms and in the comprehension of new, previously unseen events in Russia.
We can confidently note that the revolutionary events of this milestone year for our country laid the foundation for a unique cultural revolution, by the way, which had no world analogues at that time. The content of this phenomenon also cannot have any unambiguous characteristics.
Since the October Revolution, Russian painting has found itself in a situation where:
- The idea of the partisanship of any art was realized everywhere. excluded the existing and even partly idealized in the principle of freedom of creativity. As a result, it boiled down to active politicization of the entire cultural sphere, especially art and literature.
- There was an active "cultural enlightenment" of all, including the illiterate strata of citizens of the former empire, and their introduction to the national achievements of art.
Russian Artists and the Revolution - New Organizations, New Tasks
October 1917 basically abruptly changed the position and nature of the work of the masters, whose artistic life and manner had already taken shape. It should be noted that the revolution, first of all, appealed to the work of young artists, which is natural. However, the numerous and diverse platforms that arose in its first impulse existed as a whole only for the next five years. The new artists showed themselves as daring innovators, crushing everything and cutting off experimental paths.
Among the large pre-revolutionary masters, representatives of the following found agreement with the revolution:
- Russian impressionism - K. Yuon, A. Rylov
- - M. Dobuzhinsky, E. Lansere
- - A. Lenturov, P. Konchalovsky, I. Mashkov
- Vanguard -,
Absolutely new directions emerge in Russian painting on a revolutionary upsurge:
- "Unovis" as a representative of the already revolutionary (existed for 1 year) - included M. Shagal, K. Malevich, L. Lisitsky. The task of unification is new forms and new "pure art"
- A group of artists "KNIFE" - in terms of tasks and forms, it was close to the ideas of "Jack of Diamonds"
- "Proletkult" - arises as a union based on the principle of creating a new culture (proletarian), opposed to the entire heritage of the classics
Meanwhile, in the artistic field of Russia, which has changed with the revolution of 1917, artistic groups continued to exist, adhering to the traditional forms and depths of philosophical understanding - these are associations:
- "Four Arts" - K. Petrov-Vodkin, N. Tyrsa, A. Kravchenko
- "Makovetsa" - Father P. Florensky, V. Chekrygin
Revolution - new meanings and genres of painting
The leader of the revolutionary events V. Lenin saw in painting, as well as in cinema, a huge potential for:
- Education of the population (general), i.e. eliminating his illiteracy
- Enlightenment through agitation, i.e. artistic propaganda of new ideas
- Cultural revolution, according to Ilyich, necessary for a "backward country"
This is how whole mass propaganda trends appeared in Russia, combining painting,.
Steamships and trains painted by artists drove across the country, on which orators, theater groups, projectionists, etc. went to the people. Also, these agitation trains carried newspapers, posters and other print products with them, being in essence at that time an analogue of the media. In the difficult five years after October, Russia had almost no other means of information.
The walls and hulls of such propaganda ships and trains were meaningfully decorated with either poster graphics or art panels using primitive forms and techniques that could be accessible to an uneducated person.
Such painting was certainly complemented by text that explains the content, and also necessarily motivates the viewer to action.
As the most mobile and optimal informative genre in the then revolutionary Russia, graphics became the most popular, namely, drawing (newspaper or magazine) and a poster.
The main types, born of the revolution together with the new country of the poster genre, were: 
- Heroic and political type (artists D.S.Moor, V.Mayakovsky)
- Satirical type (artists V.N.Denny, M.M. Cheremnykh)
The propaganda and informative "load" in the poster was presented in simple, but bright, capacious graphics. The slogans for her had artistic expressiveness and were quickly perceived and remembered even with a short acquaintance.
Soviet artists working in the poster genre brought it to a high level of technology, possessing both their own unique manners and personal artistic skill.
In fact, the poster, as a type or genre of painting, appeared earlier - back in the 19th century, but in a young country that defeated the people's revolution, it was reborn and became a whole independent artistic phenomenon.
The tasks and functions of Soviet poster art
Even in the World War, newspaper graphics played a significant role, comparable to the action of direct or psychological weapons, crushing the enemy and raising them to battle.
During the construction that followed the war, the poster continued to fulfill the same tasks, being an ideological tool. As the entire history of the USSR will show, there will not be a single significant event or phenomenon that will remain outside of its poster comprehension.
Thus, the main functions of the Soviet poster were:
And for the purposes - it is also aesthetic education.
Gradually, as a genre that flawlessly copes with ideological tasks, the poster is displayed as a whole as the main type of painting. The revolution "consolidates" the status of a real "high art" for him, so in the country:
- Themed poster exhibitions are held
- These works are included in the funds of museums
- Are placed in archives
- Training courses open
To the credit of the artists who worked in this form of art, one should certainly add that, despite all the global politicization of the poster genre, his art has always been embodied at a highly artistic level. This is partly why in the future, in addition to the above, tasks were added to the functions of the Soviet poster:
- Communications - as connections between the people and the authorities
- Image - as forming the image of the power itself
- Educational - as developing moral and social themes
The style of popular prints had a great influence on what the first Russian political posters were, which appeared just during the First World War (1914-1918) and the revolutionary events of 1917. Vera Panfilova, head of the fine arts department of the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, told the BBC about the posters of 1917.
sovrhistory.ru
After February 1917, representatives of almost all political movements, with the exception of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks-internationalists, declared the need to continue the war until victory and loyalty to Russia's allied obligations. In order to continue this war, the government needed monetary contributions from the population. In 1916, the so-called State 5.5% loan appeared. After February 1917, it became the Freedom Loan. The Kustodievsky soldier has become a symbol: against the background of the red banners, he asks for money to continue the war. In the future, the soldier will be on almost all posters of 1917 - from February to October. Material by Alexandra Semyonova, BBC Russian Service.
sovrhistory.ru
Another style. Event poster. It's kind of a picture from the TV. The poster shows Voskresenskaya Square and the building of the Moscow City Duma (later the Lenin Museum, and now the Historical Museum). Everything was in full swing here in March 1917. This is an event picture. Capture an event, an impulse. Because the revolution was expected and accepted with enthusiasm. The population perceived the revolution as the beginning of a new era in the history of the country. The broadest masses supported February. And all this took place against the backdrop of the ongoing war. And hence the demand and development of graphics.
sovrhistory.ru
This is not really a poster. This is an illustrated flyer. Why is that? Because in Russia, power is personified. Power goes according to the leaders, according to the leaders. Proceeding from the personification and the need to popularize the leaders of the new Russia, such illustrated leaflets were published. Here are the members of the Provisional Government, headed by the Chairman of the Duma Mikhail Rodzianko. In the bottom row, third from left, is the first socialist in the government, Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky was printed in separate sheets, he was one of the most popular. The leftist movement actively promoted its own people. His rating was very high. Here on the poster, on the leaflet - the Tauride Palace, flags, slogans. There are bawlers in the back. With a bugle flag. A revolutionary car. There are many men with weapons in their hands. Left. And the slogans of the left. And the slogans of the Socialist-Revolutionaries "Land and Freedom" and "In the struggle you will acquire your right." So far, there are no Bolsheviks here.
sovrhistory.ru
This is a poster of the Parus publishing house, a left-wing publishing house. It was known even before the revolution. Maxim Gorky stood at the origins of this publishing house. The publishing house published not only magazines, but also books, including Lenin's published works. For the left-wing posters, they attracted such famous poets and artists as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Alexei Radakov. This poster is a tradition of multi-composition popular prints and at the same time a kind of forerunner of comics. This is a story in a picture. First, who did the soldier defend before? They are bourgeois. And the soldier is forced to defend the system that has rotted to the end.
sovrhistory.ru
In March 1917, Nicholas abdicated the throne and at the same time the Provisional Government was created. And on this poster - "Memo to the People's Victory". Here are the same revolutionary forces: an armed soldier, an armed worker. The removed ermine mantle. Kneeling Nicholas hands over the crown. Trampled scepter and orb. And in the background is the Tauride Palace, where the State Duma deputies sat. And the sun rises above him as a symbol of freedom. This symbol will then be repeated in posters. The revolution in this short period (until October) was presented as something bright, kind, sunny, but then, after October, with the outbreak of the Civil War, the revolution ceased to be a young lady in white clothes.
Sovrhistory.ru
Poster by Alexei Radakov, Mayakovsky's colleague in the Parus publishing house. This is the so-called social pyramid. Plots of social pyramids have been surprisingly popular since the beginning of the 20th century. The first social pyramid of the artist Lokhov was published in Geneva in 1891. And then redrawings and based on - many options were created. Here, too, is an appeal to the traditions of popular print with a clear meaning for the broad masses. Above, everything is covered with an ermine mantle. Remember what Nicholas II wrote about his profession during the All-Russian census of 1897? He wrote: "The owner of the Russian land." The most popular satirical stories until the summer of 1917 were anticlerical and antimonarchist, directed specifically at Emperor Nicholas II and his wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
sovrhistory.ru
In the fall of 1917, the first-ever general election campaign began in Russia. And she was furious and uncompromising. Several dozen parties and associations, both political and national, took part in the elections. Among those who took part in the elections, the most numerous was the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
sovrhistory.ru
"Democracy will triumph over anarchy." This is the Cadet Party. An essential detail of the poster is a combination of animalism and mythological images - a lizard (anarchy) and a knight on a white horse (democracy). Overloading with text reduced the effectiveness of influencing the viewer, which later, to some extent, influenced the election results.
sovrhistory.ru
Compare the previous poster with this one. Socialist-Revolutionaries. We carried out the election campaign competently. The victory of the Socialist-Revolutionaries was predetermined by such a well-organized agitation. Everything is as it should be on the poster. Addressed to workers and peasants. Clear and precise slogans - "Land and Freedom". "Let's break the chains and the whole globe will be free." Two streams, workers and peasants, according to the author's plan, uniting, will certainly come to the polling station.
sovrhistory.ru
As for the Bolsheviks, the RSDLP, they did not consider it necessary to pay attention to artistic propaganda - that is, to a poster. But they knew how to draw conclusions from mistakes. And when the Civil War broke out, all the forces of the "red" were thrown into political artistic agitation. The same Radakov, Mayakovsky, others participated in the creation of the famous "ROST Windows", which became the Soviet "brand" and classics of world poster art. And White lost from the point of view of visual agitation - there are still a lot of unnecessary details and a lot of text. No one will read Denikin's well-written multi-column program on a poster.
The culture of the Soviet and post-Soviet period is a bright large-scale turn of the Russian heritage. The events of 1917 became a reference point in the development of a new way of life, the formation of new thinking. The mood of society at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. poured into the October Revolution, a turning point in the history of the country. Now a new future awaited her with its own ideals and goals. Art, which in a sense is a mirror of the era, has also become a tool for the implementation of the dogmas of the new regime. Unlike other types of artistic creation, painting, which forms and shapes human thought, most accurately and directly penetrated the minds of people. On the other hand, pictorial art was least of all subordinated to the propaganda function and reflected the feelings of the people, their dreams and, above all, the spirit of the times.
Russian avant-garde
The new art did not completely avoid the old traditions. Painting, in the first post-revolutionary years, absorbed the influence of the futurists and the avant-garde in general. The avant-garde, with its contempt for the traditions of the past, which was so close to the destructive ideas of the revolution, found adherents in the person of young artists. In parallel with these trends, realistic tendencies developed in the visual arts, which were given life by the critical realism of the 19th century. This bipolarity, which matured at the time of the change of eras, made the life of the artist of that time especially tense. The two paths that were outlined in post-revolutionary painting, although they were opposites, nevertheless, we can observe the influence of the avant-garde on the work of artists of the realistic direction. Realism itself in those years was diverse. The works of this style have a symbolic, propaganda and even romantic appearance. The work of B.M. Kustodieva - "Bolshevik" and, filled with pathetic tragedy and irrepressible glee "New Planet" by K.F. Yuona.
P.N. Filonov, with his special creative method - “analytical realism” - is a fusion of two contrasting artistic trends, which we can see in the cycle with the agitational name and meaning “Entering the world flourishing”.
P.N. Filonov Ships from the cycle Entering the world flourishing. 1919 Tretyakov Gallery
The unquestioning nature of universal human values, unshakable even in such troubled times, expresses the image of the beautiful “Petrograd Madonna” (the official name is “1918 in Petrograd”) K.S. Petrova-Vodkina.
A positive attitude towards revolutionary events infects the light and filled with a sunny, airy atmosphere the creativity of the landscape painter A. Rylova. The landscape "Sunset", in which the artist expressed a premonition of the fire of the revolution, which will flare up from the growing flame of the doomsday over a bygone era, is one of the inspiring symbols of this time.
Along with the symbolic images that organized the rise of the people's spirit and carried away with them, like an obsession, there was also a direction in realistic painting, with a craving for a concrete transfer of reality.
To this day, the works of this period keep a spark of rebellion that can assert itself within each of us. Many works that were not endowed with such qualities or contradicted them were destroyed or forgotten, and will never be presented to our eyes.
The avant-garde will forever leave its imprint on realistic painting, but a period of intensive development of the direction of realism begins.
The time of artistic associations
1920s - the time of the creation of a new world on the ruins left by the Civil War. For art, this is a period in which various creative associations developed their activities in full force. Their principles were shaped in part by early art groupings. The Association of Artists of the Revolution (1922 - AHRR, 1928 - AHR), personally carried out orders from the state. Under the slogan of "heroic realism," the artists who were part of it documented in their works the life and everyday life of a person - the brainchild of the revolution, in various genres of painting. The main representatives of the AHRR were I.I. Brodsky, who absorbed the realistic influences of I.E. Repin, who worked in the historical-revolutionary genre and created a whole series of works depicting V.I. Lenin, E.M. Cheptsov is a master of the genre of genre, M.B. Grekov, who painted battle scenes in a rather impressionistic madder. All of these masters were the founders of the genres in which they performed most of their work. Among them, the canvas "Lenin in Smolny" stands out, in which I.I. Brodsky conveyed the image of the leader in the most direct and sincere form.
In the painting "Meeting of the member cell" E.I. Cheptsov very reliably, without far-fetchedness, depicts the events that took place in the life of the people.
M.B. Greeks in the composition "Trumpeters of the First Cavalry Army".
The idea of a new person, a new image of a person is expressed by the trends emerging in the portrait genre, the brightest masters of which were S.V. Malyutin and G.G. Ryazhsky. In the portrait of the writer-soldier Dmitry Furmanov S.V. Malyutin shows a man of the old world who managed to fit into the new world. A new trend, which originated in the work of N.A. Kasatkina and developed to the highest degree in female images by G.G. Ryazhsky - "Delegate", "Chairwoman", in which the personal principle is erased and the type of person created by the new world is established.
An absolutely accurate impression is formed about the development of the landscape genre at the sight of the work of the leading landscape painter B.N. Yakovleva - "Transport is getting better".
B.N. Yakovlev Transport is getting better. 1923
This genre depicts a renewing country, the normalization of all spheres of life. During these years, the industrial landscape comes to the fore, the images of which become symbols of creation.
The Society of Easel Painters (1925) was the next artistic association in this period. Here the artist strove to convey the spirit of modernity, the type of a new person, resorting to a more detached transmission of images due to the minimum number of expressive means. In the works of "Ostovtsev" the theme of sport is often demonstrated. Their painting is filled with dynamics and expression, which can be seen in the works of A.A. Deineki "Defense of Petrograd", Yu.P. Pimenov "Football" and others.
As the basis of their artistic creativity, members of another well-known association - "Four Arts" - chose the expressiveness of the image, due to the laconic and constructive form, as well as a special attitude to its color saturation. The most memorable representative of the association is K.S. Petrov-Vodkin and one of his most outstanding works of this period - "The Death of the Commissar", which through a special pictorial language reveals a deep symbolic image, a symbol of the struggle for a better life.
P.V. Kuznetsov, works dedicated to the East.
The last major artistic association of this period is the Society of Moscow Artists (1928), which differs from the others in the manner of energetic sculpting of volumes, attention to chiaroscuro and plastic expressiveness of form. Almost all representatives were members of the "Volta of Diamonds" - adherents of futurism - which greatly affected their work. The works of P.P. Konchalovsky, who worked in different genres. For example, portraits of his wife O.V. Konchalovskaya convey the specifics of not only the author's hand, but also the painting of the entire association.
By the decree "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations" on April 23, 1932, all artistic associations were dissolved and the Union of Artists of the USSR was created. Creativity fell into the sinister shackles of rigid ideologization. The artist's freedom of expression, the basis of the creative process, has been violated. Despite such a breakdown, the artists previously united into communities continued their activities, but new figures took the leading role in the pictorial environment.
B.V. Ioganson was influenced by I.E. Repin and V.I. Surikov, in his canvases one can see compositional search and interesting possibilities in the coloristic solution, but the author's paintings are marked by an excessive satirical attitude, inappropriate in such a naturalistic manner that we can observe the example of the painting "At the Old Ural Factory".
A.A. Deineka does not stay away from the "official" line of art. He is still true to his artistic principles. Now he continues to work in genre subjects, in addition, he paints portraits and landscapes. The painting "Future Pilots" well shows his painting during this period: romantic, light.
The artist creates a large number of works on a sports theme. From this period, his watercolors, painted after 1935, remained.
Painting of the 1930s represents a fictional world, the illusion of a bright and festive life. It was easiest for the artist to remain sincere in the landscape genre. The genre of still life is developing.
The portrait is also subject to intensive development. P.P. Konchalovsky writes a series of cultural figures ("V. Sofronitsky at the piano"). The works of M.V. Nesterov, who absorbed the influence of painting by V.A. Serov, show a person as a creator, the essence of whose life is a creative search. This is how we see the portraits of the sculptor I.D. Shadr and surgeon S.S. Yudin.
P.D. Corinne continues the portrait tradition of the previous artist, but his painting style consists in conveying the rigidity of form, a sharper, more expressive silhouette and austere color. In general, the theme of the creative intelligentsia plays a great role in the portrait.
Artist at war
With the advent of the Great Patriotic War, artists begin to take an active part in hostilities. Due to the direct unity with events, in the early years, works appear, the essence of which is the fixation of what is happening, "a picturesque sketch". Often such paintings lacked depth, but their transmission expressed a completely sincere attitude of the artist, the height of moral pathos. The portrait genre is coming to a relative prosperity. Artists, seeing and experiencing the destructive influence of war, admire its heroes - people from the people, persistent and noble spirit, who displayed the highest humanistic qualities. Such tendencies resulted in ceremonial portraits: “Portrait of Marshal G.K. Zhukov ”by P.D. Korina, cheerful faces from the paintings of P.P. Konchalovsky. The portraits of the intelligentsia of M.S. Saryan, created during the war - this is the image of the academician “I.A. Orbeli ", the writer" M.S. Shahinyan "and others.
From 1940 to 1945, landscape and genre also developed, which A.A. Layers. "Fascist Flew" conveys the tragedy of the life of this period.
The psychologism of the landscape here fills the work even more with the sadness and silence of the human soul, only the howl of a devoted friend cuts through the wind of confusion. Ultimately, the meaning of the landscape is rethought and begins to personify the harsh image of wartime.
Subject pictures stand out separately, for example, "Mother of the Partisan" by S.V. Gerasimova, which is characterized by a refusal to glorify the image.
Historical painting timely creates images of national heroes of the past. One of such unshakable and confidence-inspiring images is "Alexander Nevsky" by P.D. Korina, personifying the unconquered proud spirit of the people. In this genre, towards the end of the war, there is a tendency for simulated drama.
War theme in painting
In the painting of the post-war period, ser. 1940 - end. In the 1950s, the theme of war as a moral and physical test, from which Soviet people emerged victorious, occupies a leading position in painting. Historical-revolutionary, historical genres are developing. The main theme of the everyday genre is peaceful labor, which was dreamed of during the long war years. The canvases of this genre are permeated with cheerfulness and happiness. The artistic language of the everyday genre becomes narrative and tends to be lifelike. In the last years of this period, the landscape also underwent changes. The life of the region is being revived in it, the connection between man and nature is being strengthened again, an atmosphere of tranquility appears. Love for nature is also praised in still life. An interesting development is received by the portrait in the work of various artists, which is characterized by the transfer of the individual. Some of the outstanding works of this period were: "A Letter from the Front" by A.I. Laktionova, a work like a window into a radiant world;
composition "Rest after the battle", in which Yu.M. Neprintsev achieves the same vitality of the image as A.I. Laktionov;
the work of A.A. Mylnikova "On Peaceful Fields", joyfully rejoicing at the end of the war and the reunification of man and labor;
the original landscape image of G.G. Nyssa - "Above the Snows" and others.
Harsh style to replace socialist realism
Art 1960-1980s is a new stage. A new "harsh style" is being developed, the task of which was to recreate reality without everything that deprives the work of depth and expressiveness and has a detrimental effect on creative manifestations. He was characterized by laconicism and generalization of the artistic image. The artists of this style glorified the heroic beginning of the harsh working days, which was created by the special emotional structure of the picture. The "harsh style" was a definite step towards the democratization of society. The main genre for which the adherents of the style worked was the portrait, and the group portrait, the genre of genre, the historical and historical-revolutionary genre was also developing. The prominent representatives of this period in the context of the development of the “severe style” were V. Popkov, who painted many self-portraits-paintings, V.I. Ivanov is a supporter of the group portrait, G.M. Korzhev, who created historical paintings. Revealing the essence of the "severe style" can be seen in the painting "Geologists" by P.F. Nikonov, "Polar explorers" A.A. and P.A. Smolinins, "Father's Overcoat" by V.E. Popkov. In the landscape genre, an interest in northern nature appears.
The symbolism of the era of stagnation
In the 1970s-1980s. a new generation of artists is being formed, whose art has influenced to some extent the art of today. They are characterized by symbolic language, theatrical entertainment. Their painting is quite artistic and virtuoso. The main representatives of this generation are T.G. Nazarenko ("Pugachev"),
a favorite theme of which was a holiday and a masquerade, A.G. Sitnikov, who uses metaphor and parable as a form of plastic language, N.I. Nesterova, creator of controversial paintings ("The Last Supper"), I.L. Lubennikov, N.N. Smirnov.
The Last Supper. N.I. Nesterova. 1989
Thus, this time appears in its diversity and diversity as the final, formative link of today's fine arts.
Our era has discovered a huge wealth of the picturesque heritage of previous generations. The contemporary artist is practically not limited by any framework that was defining, and sometimes even hostile to the development of the fine arts. Some of the contemporary artists try to adhere to the principles of the Soviet realistic school, someone finds themselves in other styles and directions. The tendencies of conceptual art, ambiguously perceived by society, are very popular. The breadth of artistic and expressive means and ideals that the past provided us must be rethought and serve as the basis for new creative ways and the creation of a new image.
Our art history workshops
Our Gallery of Contemporary Art not only offers a large selection of Soviet art and post-Soviet painting, but also conducts regular lectures and master classes on the history of contemporary art.
You can sign up for a master class, leave your wishes for the master class you would like to attend by filling out the form below. We will definitely read for you an interesting lecture on your chosen topic.
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After the Civil War, the Soviet poster suddenly began to change its appearance. In 1922, one of the ideologues of the "left art" B. Kushner proclaimed that "the embryos of renewal" were rooted in the "flesh mugs of posters", which are necessary for new forms of art, coming from the "culture of industrialism, from the culture of production." On the pages of many magazines of the 1920s. This idea was widely promoted, explaining the reason for the close professional interest in the poster by innovative artists such as El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Alexei Gan, Anton Lavinsky, Gustav Klutsis, Dmitry Bulanov, Viktor Koretsky, Sergei Senkin and Vasily Elkin. After all, "His Majesty the Poster" not only informed, educated and agitated, but also "revolutionized" the consciousness of Russian citizens by artistic means, free from the excesses of traditional descriptiveness and illustrativeness. The language of such a poster was akin to the language of architectural and book experiments, literary and theatrical innovations, cinematic editing of those years. In the 1920s-1930s (the era of the "golden period" of Soviet graphic design) in Soviet Russia, the poster clearly declared itself in three main directions. And this:
1.policy, both internal and external (this also includes culture, the fight against illiteracy and homelessness, as well as industrialization with collectivization);
3. cinema.
Anton Lavinsky. Dobrolet. Sketch for the poster.
Gouache on paper. 1927.73x92.5 cm.
The origins of the Soviet constructivist political poster go back to the 1918s-20s, when the famous Russian revolutionary poster and the incomparable "ROST Windows" were created. It is believed that the painting style of the artist Vladimir Lebedev was the closest to constructivism in the poster:
Vladimir Lebedev. We have to work with a rifle nearby.
Petersburg "ROSTA".
Vladimir Lebedev. You will work, there will be flour`;
You just sit back, there will be no torment, but torment!
Petersburg "ROSTA".
Petrograd, 1920-21. 70x60 cm.
Vladimir Lebedev. Long live
vanguard of the revolution
Red Navy!
Pg, 1920.67x48.2 cm.
Vladimir Lebedev. RSFSR.
Pg., 1920.66x48.5 cm.
Vladimir Lebedev. Who goes with them
he follows in the footsteps of Judas.
Petersburg, 1920.51.7x69.5 cm.
The famous "revolutionary impulse" was felt in the work of many, many artists of the era of the Russian revolutionary poster:
Ivan Malyutin. To rebuild working life
go to repel the Panovo invasion!
Moscow, GROWTH, 1920.
65x45 cm.
Mikhail Cheremnykh. If you don’t want
return to the past-
rifle in hand! To the Polish front!
Moscow, GROWTH, 1920.
D. Melnikov. Down with capital, long live
dictatorship of the proletariat!
For saving mode.
Moscow, 1920.71x107 cm.
What did the October revolution give
worker and peasant woman.
Moscow, 1920.109.5x72.5 cm.
As always, in the field of constructivism, students of VKHUTEMAS, the "smithy" of such personnel, were among the first to note:
Red Moscow heart of the proletarian
world revolution. Completed
Printing and Graphic Department of VKHUTEMAS.
Moscow, VKHUTEMAS, 1919.
More serious artists were also noted:
Lazar Lissitzky. Hit the whites with a red wedge! Unovis.
Vitebsk, Litizdat of the Political Administration of the Zapfront, 1920.
52x62 cm.
The first experience of the dynamic figurative embodiment of the idea of revolutionary struggle was demonstrated by the posters "Red Moscow" of the graphic faculty of VKHUTEMAS and Lazar Lissitzky "Hit the Whites with a Red Wedge!", Printed in Vitebsk in 1920. But the influences of Cubism and Suprematism are still strong here.
Alexander Samokhvalov.
Tips and Electrification
is the foundation of the new world.
Leningrad, 1924.86x67 cm.
A. Strakhov. KIM is our banner!
1925.91x68 cm.
A. Strakhov. History of the Komsomol. 1917-1929.
1929.107.5x71.5 cm.
All for the elections of the BakSovet!
Poster.
Baku, 1924.
Design by S. Telingater.
Julius Shass. Lenin and Electrification.
Leningrad, 1925.93x62 cm.
The years 1924-1925 can rightfully be considered the time of birth of the constructivist political poster. Photomontage made it possible to convey a picture of real life, to compare the past and present of the country, to show its success in the development of industry, culture and social sphere. The death of Lenin put forward the need to create "Leninist exhibitions" and "corners" in workers' and rural clubs, educational institutions and military units.
R. Makarychev Every cook must learn
run the state! (Lenin).
Moscow, 1925.108x72 cm.
Long live international day
Leningrad, 1926.92x52 cm.
Jacob Guminer. THE USSR.
Leningrad, 1926.83.6x81 cm.
You are helping to eradicate illiteracy.
All to the society "Down with illiteracy"!
Leningrad, 1925.104x73 cm.
Working people, build your own air fleet!
Leningrad, 1924.72x45, 6 cm.
Radio.
Let's create a single will out of the will of millions!
Leningrad, 1924.72x45.5 cm.
The propaganda posters, combining documentary photographs with text "inserts", illustrated the pages of the leader's biography and his behests, as on the sheet "Lenin and Electrification" by Yu. Shass and V. Kobelev (1925). G. Klutsis, S. Senkin and V. Elkin created a series of photomontage political posters ("Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement" G. Klutsis; "The role of a progressive fighter can only be played by a party led by an advanced theory" S. Senkin. Both 1927 ). The photomontage poster finally established itself as the main means of mobilizing the masses during the first five-year plan (1928 / 29-1932). He demonstrated the power of a developing power, the support of which was the unity of the people.
Vera Gitsevich. To the socialist forge of health!
For the proletarian park of culture and rest!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1932.103x69.5 cm.
Ignatovich E. On a campaign for cleanliness!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1932.71.5x54.5 cm.
Victor Koretsky. Defense of the Fatherland is
the sacred duty of every citizen of the USSR.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1941.68x106 cm.
We will create an Avtodorovo fund for motorization of border units,
let's give the motor to the red border guard. (c. 1930). 103x74 cm.
The poster of G. Klutsis "Let's fulfill the plan of great works" (1930) became a model of photomontage. The “street” format in two printed sheets gave it a special sound. Documentary photographs of hands were introduced into his works by John Hartfield. The image-symbol - the hand - appeared in the early works of Klutsis: in the illustrations for the book by Y. Libedinsky "Tomorrow" (1924), in the projects of the posters "Lenin's Call" (1924).
Photo of the hand of G.G. Klutsis.
Working element of installation.
1930.
Klutsis G. Workers and female workers all for the elections to the Soviets!
The most famous poster of G. Klutsis in the world. 1930.120x85.7 cm.
Made in the technique of lithography and offset lithography.
Consists of two panels.
The price on the world market reaches 1.0 million rubles.
And as an option:
Klutsis G. Let's fulfill the plan of great works!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1930.120.5x86 cm.
Valentina Kulagina-Klutsis.
Shock workers of factories and state farms,
join the ranks of the CPSU (b)!
Moscow-Leningrad, 1932.94x62 cm.
The raised hand of the worker on the poster of Valentina Kulagina-Klutsis symbolized the call for the female shock workers of the five-year plan to join the ranks of the Communist Party (1932). The talented artist has made some very interesting posters during these years. The years of total terror have not yet come, and in the manner of execution of a great master of a political poster, there is a certain shade of non-objectiveness, which later will become impossible in principle - due to accusations of formalism:
Valentina Kulagina-Klutsis. We will be ready
to repel a military attack on the USSR.
International Workers Day -
fighting day of the proletariat!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1931.100.7x69 cm.
Valentina Kulagina-Klutsis. For the defense of the USSR.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1930.91x66 cm.
Valentina Kulagina-Klutsis.
International Workers Day -
day of the review of socialist competition.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1930.106x71 cm.
Valentina Kulagina. Shock workers,
reinforce shock brigades,
master the technique,
increase staff
proletarian specialists.
Moscow - Leningrad. 1931.
Valentina Kulagina-Klutsis. Comrades miners!
Moscow, 1933.103.5x72 cm.
Her husband Gustav Klutsis also found a compositional solution for posters with a photograph of Stalin.
Gustav Klutsis. The reality of our program is -
living people, this is you and me. (Stalin).
Moscow - Leningrad, 1931.
The figure of the leader in the unchanging gray overcoat with quotes from his statements against the background of collective farm work or the construction of factories and mines convinced everyone of the correct choice of the path along which the country was going (For the Socialist Reorganization of the Village ..., 1932). In the work of Klutsis, photomontage is increasingly being strengthened as an original means of decorating books, leaflets, newspapers and other printed publications. An innovative approach to illustrating the party press at this time was supported in the speeches of a number of critics, art historians and public figures. I. Matza, for example, speaking at the discussion of Klutsis's report on photomontage, said that one American artist (Hugo Gellert) set in his creative plan the task of illustrating Marx's Capital.
“This issue,” Matza said, “really requires a lot of attention. We sometimes illustrate completely empty books, and leave political ones without illustrations. In this regard, photomontage can help us. "
Portraits of prominent figures of the communist movement and the socialist state, documents of history, images of political events were introduced by Klutsis into artistic illustration. Klutsis turned photomontage into high art, elevated the reliability of fact into a high style.
G. Klutsis, J. Hartfield, F. Bogorodsky,
V. Elkin, S. Senkin, M. Alpert.
Batumi, 1931.
The pinnacle of creativity of Gustav Klutsis, a photomontage artist, was his work in the field of Soviet political posters, where he took the honorable first place. Therefore, his numerous works require special attention.
Gustav Klutsis. The victory of socialism
provided in our country,
the foundation of the socialist economy is complete!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1932.
More directly than other types of fine art, the poster responds to the most important events in the life of the Soviet people. A political poster was raised to the level of high art in the very first years of Soviet power. The ROSTA Windows, created by Mayakovsky and a group of artists who worked with him - M. Cheremnykh, I. A. Malyutin, A. Nurenberg, A. Levin and others - became a bright take-off in the history of this type of martial art of agitation. The remarkable works of the masters of the Soviet printed poster D. Moor, V. Denis, M. Cheremnykh, N. Kochergin and others also belong to the same years. The political orientation and ideological clarity of the content of the posters of these artists were combined with the expressiveness of graphic means.
Gustav Klutsis. "Cadres are everything!" I. Stalin.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1935.198x73 cm.
In the second half of the 1920s, the established school of Soviet posters was going through a period of decline. In an article on the poster, J. Tugendhold wrote:
“True, the streets of our capital are full of posters and advertisements, at their crossroads there are stalls decorated with the muse of Mayakovsky, Iso of Vkhutemas, and even higher above the streets there are bright inscriptions-ribbons, and in some places sparkling electrical advertisements. And yet our art of street exposure is at a turning point. "
The country was entering a new period of history. Art faced new tasks - to reveal more deeply the inner world of a person, his spiritual wealth and the pathos of everyday work. There is a need to update and expressive means of the poster. Photomontage possessed new, not yet used in this field, means of active influence. New methods of building images opened up rich opportunities for artists. With the onset of the first five-year plan, the activities of D. Moor, V. Denis, M. Cheremnykh intensified. The poster also attracted new creative powers.
Gustav Klutsis. All of Moscow is building the metro.
Let's give to the 17th anniversary of the October Revolution
the first line of the world's best metro!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1934.140.5x95.5 cm.
A. Deineka, B. Efimov, Kukryniksy, K. Rotov, Y. Ganf, N. Dolgorukov, A. Kanevsky, K. Urbetis, V. Govorkov, P. Karachentsov and other young artists began to work successfully in this genre. Photomontage began to occupy a prominent place in the process of revitalizing the art of Soviet posters. A group of young artists-photomontagists united around G. Klutsis: V, Elkin, A. Gutnov, Spirov, V. Kulagina, N. Pinus, F. Tagirov. Cooperation between Klutsis and S. Senkin continued. Back in 1924-1928, along with work on photo-slogan montages, illustrations in books, design of periodicals, Klutsis designs and creates a number of propaganda photomontage posters about Lenin's call to the party, international labor assistance, sports, etc.
We stand for peace and we stand up for the cause of peace.
But we are not afraid of threats and are ready to respond
blow to blow the warmongers.
I. Stalin.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1932.
However, these posters, in their form, according to the principles of construction, developed the photomontages of the Leninist series previously made by Klutsis and for the VI Congress of Trade Unions. These works did not yet show all the qualities necessary for a political propaganda poster. The impetus for Klutsis's choice of the intended path was the fulfillment by him, together with S. Senkin, of the task of the Agitprop MK VKP (b) to create two large propaganda posters “Active, learn. Go for advice to the cell "and" Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. "
Poster by G. Klutsis. 1933.130x89.8 cm.
Consists of two panels.
Legendary poster of G. Klutsis. 1931.144x103.8 cm.
Made in the technique of lithography
and offset lithography.
Consists of two panels.
The price on the world market reaches 0.5 million rubles.
Legendary poster of G. Klutsis. 1930.120x85.7 cm.
Made in the technique of lithography and
offset lithography.
Consists of two panels.
The price on the world market reaches 0.5 million rubles.
Poster by G. Klutsis. 1933.79.6x170.5 cm.
Made in the technique of lithography and offset lithography.
Consists of three panels.
The price on the world market reaches 0.5 million rubles.
“I took it this way, - Klutsis wrote to his wife about the circumstances of work on the first of them, - he had a lot of books, papers, photos, etc. In my practice, nothing like this has happened. "
The poster consisted of twelve editing pieces, and the themes and problems were complex and difficult.
"Today, - the artist writes in a letter dated June 2, - at 12 o'clock they were supposed to present and at 12 sharp they presented. Almost completely finished. The only thing left to do is to fix it technically. To go to press (circulation 5,000). But I've never been so tired before. "
The success inspired the artists. A month later, Klutsis reported with pride that he personally monitors the progress of the high-quality execution of the second "large cub - the poster", which "came out very, very badly, or, as Serezha and I say: Ooh!"
Two posters Gustav Klutsis,
dedicated to I. Stalin:
Long live the Stalinist tribe
heroes of the Stakhanovites!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1935.
Long live the USSR,
the prototype of the brotherhood of workers
of all nationalities of the world!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1935.
Unusual outwardly, saturated with meaningful political information, the posters were presented in the fall of the same year at the All-Union Printing Exhibition that opened in Moscow in the Park of Culture and Leisure. A premonition of a creative upsurge, a feeling that the main and significant, like a prophecy, has entered into life, sounded in the artist's letter dated July 13, 1927:
“You, Willit, cannot imagine what a strong desire I have to work, and it has never been so easy to work. And the results are good. When I see now in front of me two of my posters, one of them is a huge colossus, and the other, which you know, then a strong desire appears in me to make a whole hundred of the best and most original posters, if only there are certain orders. "
The customer was the era - the era of industrialization of the country and collectivization of agriculture, the era of building socialism. The era gave birth to fighters of the labor front, worthy of becoming heroes of the art created for them. The epoch gave birth to its worthy artists. In addition, other circumstances determined the activities of Klutsis the poster artist. First, he turned to the poster in his mature period. In the art of poster, Klutsis found his calling. Secondly, the subjective evolution of his work coincided with the objectively experienced stage of a turning point in the development of Soviet posters. And finally, thirdly, his work was accompanied by an incessant struggle for the approval of photomontage, for its promotion to the forefront of the fine arts. The wish expressed by Klutsis in his own address will be fulfilled. For ten years of work in the poster, he will create more than a hundred political posters on the most pressing topics of the struggle of the Soviet people for the construction of socialism. The best of them will mark a milestone in the development of Soviet posters.
Gustav Klutsis. Long live our happy
socialist homeland,
long live our
beloved great Stalin!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1935.104.5x76 cm.
However, at that time, art criticism, represented by such serious authors as J. Tugendhold, questioned the creative nature of photomontage.
“It can also be the first step towards creating an amateur poster for the club. But it is only the first step, for it is clear that the systematic substitution of mechanical stickers for living creativity is a systematic killing of creative abilities. This is an extremely limited field of application for a photomontage poster. " wrote by J. Tugendhold.
Describing the crisis state of the genre at the end of the 1920s, J. Tugendhold refuses to see the possibility of a poster revival by means of photomontage. He sees in it the main danger for the development of artistic tastes and culture:
"There is no need that it is dry and callous, gray and colorless, it confuses the viewer with different scales, that it gives a controversial combination of volumes with a flat pattern, gray photography with color - we have declared it almost the ideal of a proletarian poster."
The sharp-sighted eye of the critic correctly noticed some of the specific features of a photomontage poster - a different scale in the image, a combination of volumes and planar drawing, monochrome photography and color. However, Tugendhold's article criticized the very methods and means of the method, the merits of which are determined not by themselves, but by the artist's skill and ability to apply them. In his speeches, Klutsis defended the opportunities that open up to the artist working in the field of photomontage. He defended the method of photomontage from the attacks of adherents of traditional forms and means in the poster and from artisans who discredited the positive properties of the new type of poster, who used photomontage techniques without penetrating the figurative meaning of the poster.
Gustav Klutsis. Long live the USSR
fatherland of working people all over the world!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1931.
Klutsis himself claimed:
"Photomontage, like any art, resolves the issue figuratively."
He saw in the expressive means of photography a further development of the language of artistic truth. With increasing persistence in 1928-1929, Klutsis devoted himself to work in the field of posters, achieving more and more realistic expressiveness and imagery in them. The heyday of his activities began in 1930-1931. At the exhibition of the Oktyabr association held in 1930 in the Park of Culture and Leisure, more than a dozen posters of Klutsis were presented, among them such outstanding works as “Let's fulfill the plan of great works”, “Let's return our coal debt to the country”, “To storm the third year five-year plan "," May 1 - Day of international proletarian solidarity "," Long live the XIII anniversary of the October Revolution "and others. The exhibition aroused wide public interest and positive press responses. On March 31, 1931, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution "On poster literature", which noted serious shortcomings in the organization of the publication and in the production of picture and poster products. In order to eliminate the shortcomings and improve the picture and poster business, the decree provided for a number of measures to improve the ideological and artistic quality of publications, and to attract the wide Soviet public to the picture and poster business. The publication of posters was concentrated in Izogiz, a workers' council was created under it, discussions of publishing plans, sketches of posters, traveling exhibitions of finished products were organized. With the formation of the poster edition, Izogiz Klutsis becomes its active employee, and during the vacation of the chairman of the Association of Revolutionary Poster Workers D. Moora, he takes over the deputy leadership of the ORRP. As a response to the call of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), one after another during 1931, his posters came out: “Shock workers, into battle for the five-year plan, for the Bolshevik pace, for the defense of the USSR, for world October” (by May 1, 1931), “ The USSR is the shock brigade of the proletariat of the whole world "," Labor in the USSR is a matter of honor, a matter of glory, a matter of valor and heroism "and others. Klutsis introduces figures into the composition of the posters - the indicators of the five-year plans, under the heading "The country must know its heroes" the names of the workers - the leaders of production are printed in the posters and their portraits are reproduced. Klutsis's posters are published in 10-20 thousand copies, published and reproduced in art magazines, in periodicals, in articles and collections devoted to the problems of graphic propaganda. The pathos of heroic everyday life is united by the posters of the "Struggle for the Five-Year Plan" series. V. Mayakovsky.
Gustav Klutsis. Under the banner of Lenin
socialist construction.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1930.94.4x69.4 cm.
In the powerful rhythms of the labor march of the heroes of the photomontage posters of Klutsis, the image of the five-year plan is embodied in the language of pictorial means. The artist found images of his heroes, Soviet people, in life: portraits of workers were filmed in the workshop, near the open-hearth furnace, in the coal mine. For the sake of a valuable frame, Klutsis was ready to go anywhere, sacrifice sleep and rest. He filmed tirelessly, collecting material for future work. New impressions and great material were brought to him by a creative trip to the southern regions of the country together with Senkin in the summer of 1931. Klutsis saw many cities (Rostov, Novorossiysk, Kerch, Baku, Sukhumi, Batumi, Tiflis, Tashkent, Gorlovka) for the first time. The industrial regions of the country and, first of all, Donbass, to which the attention of the whole country was riveted in those years, aroused interest.
Gustav Klutsis. Long live the workers' and peasants
Red Army -
faithful guardian of the Soviet borders!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1933.145x98 cm.
The letters to his wife reflected vivid impressions, which were subsequently melted into artistic images:
“Yesterday we arrived at the All-Union stoker. Gorlovka is the end of all semblance of poetry. These are everyday life, hard and big work, dust and dirt. Last night at 10 o'clock Senkin and I went down to the mine together with a shift of workers. Only now I understand the seriousness and hard work of a miner, a miner. There is still no real literature about this. The best thing is baths and showers at every mine. Each shift after work enters the clean half and puts on their clean suits, often in the latest fashion. I think to stay here a little. Very interesting types and varied in form and content. A lot of work".
The ability to choose types, or more correctly, to type a single, was even recognized in Klutsis's posters by critics who underestimated the artistic significance of montage. On the poster "Fight for Fuel, for Metal" (1933), Klutsis himself appears in the clothes of a miner, with a jackhammer on his shoulder, with a confident gait, handsome and strong. What is the point of such inclusion of a self-portrait? Klutsis, an indefatigable propagandist and participant in the country's industrialization, felt himself to be an ordinary five-year planner. Klutsis is credited with creating the image of the Soviet worker in his documentary originality and monumental spirituality. Klutsis paved the way for the heroic line of a realistic photomontage poster. There is one more aspect in the depiction of people of labor, characteristic of the genre of the montage poster, developed by Klutsis.
Gustav Klutsis. Communism is Soviet power
plus electrification.
Moscow-Leningrad, 1930.
This is an image in a poster of the masses of the people, of millions of working people in the world. The Red Army soldier or worker in "Windows ROSTA" symbolized the image of the people in a single, typical. A close-up documentary portrait of a worker or Red Army soldier in the poster fulfilled the same role. At the same time, side by side, the equal hero of Klutsis's posters is the people, the working people of our country and all mankind. Mass rallies, demonstrations, scenes of battles and battles, festive processions are part of the artistic solution of many of Klutsis's posters. The inspirational source of Klutsis's creativity was October in his progressive triumphant march. Naturally, the theme of the people turned out to be inseparable for him from the theme of revolution. Painstakingly, with careful research, Klutsis found ways to translate the revolutionary movement of the masses in art. The most complex editing - a gradual transition from close-up to small and minute, juxtaposition of the singular and the general - these are the techniques with which Klutsis was able to convey the scope and scale of the events depicted. In his posters, the truth of the document is combined with artistic exaggeration and generalization, the concreteness of the fact is combined with the conventionality of its artistic interpretation. Remarkable in this sense is the poster "The goal of the union is to overthrow the bourgeoisie ..." (1933). The figure of Marx is located in the center of the sheet and is thus interpreted as the focal point of the composition. Behind him are scenes of past uprisings, the glow of conflagrations, the barricades of the Paris Commune.
Gustav Klutsis. On the assault on the 3rd year of the five-year plan.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1930.
Before him is the globe and the masses of working people, engulfed in a united impulse of the struggle for freedom. In the figurative language of photomontage, the artist reveals the greatness of Marx's ideas, his call for unification in order to overthrow the bourgeois system in the name of creating a new, classless society. The theme of international proletarian solidarity found a multifaceted reflection in the work of Klutsis, and often in his presentation it is associated with the image of the globe. For Klutsis, the globe is an allegory of peace, unification of workers, a symbol of the communist future, a pictorial equivalent of the slogan: "Workers of all countries, unite!" The image of the planet Earth in Klutsis's posters is refracted in different ways - either in the form of a volume conventionally outlined by a circle, covered with a network of meridians and latitudes, or in the form of a flat circle - a collage of red glossy paper, or in a drawing with a volumetric shadow elaboration with strokes and elements of photomontage.
Gustav Klutsis. Labor in the USSR is a matter of honor,
glory, valor and heroism.
The country must know its heroes.
M.-L., 1931.
Gustav Klutsis. Drummers into battle!
L.-M., 1931.
Klutsis stepped far from the elements of imagery found in the "Dynamic City" to diverse realistic solutions, but the theme of the future of the Earth, the space industrial age continued to remain one of the cherished problems that worried the artist. The posters of the 30s embodied the best creative achievements of the artist of previous years. Mature talent absorbed what was revealed to him in spatial compositions and in printing, used the experience of modern pictorial culture and developed the inherent properties of the poster as a powerful means of political visual agitation. Like any real art, photomontage brought to life its own laws of construction and thereby renewed the usual ideas about the poster form. Klutsis's political posters meet the general requirements for this genre, they are catchy, accurate, convincing, witty, inventive. The artist understood the "soul" of the poster, introduced new and used the old methods, preserving the specificity of poster expressiveness.
Gustav Klutsis. Let's give millions
skilled workers
personnel for 518 new factories and plants.
M.-L., 1931.
Gustav Klutsis. Through the efforts of millions of workers
involved in socialist competition
Let's turn the five-year plan into a four-year plan.
M.-L., 1930.
Gustav Klutsis. No heavy industry
we cannot build
no industry.
M.-L., 1930.
The techniques for creating an image in Klutsis's posters are varied, but those in which he develops expressive means that are specific to the photomontage method are of particular interest. These techniques include comparisons of "natural" shooting with conventional images, rhythmic repetition of frames, the influx of one image onto another, the combination of one or several elements of the photographic image. Klutsis is not afraid to repeat a well-known technique, but each time he gives an independent solution that is no less perfect in skill and technique.
Gustav Klutsis. Into the battle for the five-year plan,
for the Bolshevik pace,
for the defense of the USSR, for the world October.
M.-L., 1931.
workers' solidarity.
M.-L., 1930.
These are several versions of the poster, which depict two combined heads of a young worker and a worker, recalling the photomontage design by Lissitzky of the Soviet pavilion at the international exhibition "Hygiene" (Dresden, 1928), in which the heads of a young man and a girl merged into a single image symbolized the theme of the exhibition - youth and health. A photographic portrait, cut out from the silhouette and glued to a painted surface, plays a different role than against its organic background. He was transferred to a different spatial environment, and this very fact pushes the visual space apart. Various options for combining volumetric (three-dimensional) photography with planar techniques for transferring space open really endless possibilities.
Gustav Klutsis. To live culturally, work productively.
Moscow-Leningrad, 1932.144x100.5 cm.
Klutsis deliberately went to the installation of volumetric and planar. The innovative character of the most significant posters of Klutsis is determined by this specific way of depicting, which the artist himself called "the technique of expanded space," a technique so close to popular perception, which, on the basis of new principles, was continued and developed by artists of the 20th century. Varying, trying, experimenting, Klutsis achieved new visual impressions. The principle of "expanded space" made it possible to change the real scale in the image of people and events, to bring the distant closer and move the near away. Klutsis was the first to use the principle of three- and four-fold parallel exposure of the same poster. Publishing in this form the poster "Let's return the coal debt to the country" (1930) in the "Bulletin of the Arts Sector of the People's Commissariat for Education", Klutsis pointed out that "the very construction of the poster is designed for this principle" of its exposure and perception.
Gustav Klutsis. Long live the multimillion
Leninist Komsomol!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1932.154x109 cm.
Thus, the artist sought to increase the strength of the influence of the poster on the viewer. The pinnacle of the expressive, specifically poster design was the world-famous poster "Let's Fulfill the Plan of Great Works" (1930). In the archives of museums and in the artist's family, photographic reproductions of the original sketches of this outstanding work of Klutsis have been preserved at various stages of the implementation of the idea. It became possible to trace the long path that the artist went through before he achieved the desired result. The accented image of the hand as an image-symbol is typical for the work of many artists.
Gustav Klutsis. Komsomol members for shock sowing!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1931.104.5x73.5 cm.
In the drawings and prints of Kete Kollwitz, the hands of the heroes often bear no less, if not more, artistic load than the face. Close attention to the human hand can be traced throughout the artist's work. From such early etchings as "At the Church Wall" (1893), "Need" (from the cycle "The Rise of the Weavers", 1893-1898), to such works as "After the Battle" (1907), where a woman bending over a murdered woman only one hand is illuminated, and the other holds a flashlight, or in the "Sheets in Memory of Karl Liebknecht" (1919 - lithography, etching, engraving) and in the lithograph "Help Russia" (1921) - hands are everywhere: labor, mourners, protesters, pass as a leitmotif artistic thought of the author. "Hands of builders" - F. Leger called one of his poems. This is one of the leading themes of the French artist's work. Documentary photographs of hands were introduced into his works by John Hartfield. The image-symbol - the hand - appeared in the early works of Klutsis: in the illustrations for the book by Y. Libedinsky "Tomorrow" (1924), in the projects of the posters "Lenin's Call" (1924). Working on the poster "Workers and female workers - all for the re-election of the Soviets" (1930), in the subsequent version of which the slogan was replaced by a more laconic "Let's execute the plan of great works", - Klutsis also turned to the image of the hand. In one of the first versions of the poster, all the future elements of the plot are present - a slogan, a photograph of a hand, a voting person, but there is still no internal connection between them, there is no integrity of the image, and the artist creates several more options one after the other until he reaches the maximum power of poster expressiveness with avaricious , but with capacious means. The constructiveness of composite montage is the formula of the Klutsis method. This feature becomes clearer when compared with the work of Hartfield, an outstanding master of photomontage. The work of Hartfield was often compared and contrasted with the work of Klutsis. If you compare the poster “The hand has five fingers, you will grab the enemy by the throat with your five fingers. Vote for the Communist Five ”(1928) by Hartfield with the poster“ Let's Fulfill the Plan of Great Works ”(1930) by Klutsis, you can feel the difference between the figurative thinking of these artists. Conventionally, we can say that in a concept composed of two words - photo and montage, Hartfield emphasizes the first word. Klutsis is on the second.
Gustav Klutsis.
(Lenin).
Moscow - Leningrad, 1930.103x72 cm.
Almost simultaneously, becoming great masters of the art of editing, they were prominent representatives of its various directions: Klutsis - constructive installation, Hartfield - allegorical. Hartfield montage - allegory, symbol, feuilleton. Hartfield worked during a difficult political situation in Germany, and after 1932, in difficult conditions of anti-fascist emigration. His weapon is allegory. With deadly sarcasm, he commented on political events in the country. In his posters “His Majesty Adolf: I am Leading You Towards Magnificent Bankruptcy” (Berlin, 1932), “With His Phrases, He Wants to Poison the World” (Prague, 1933), Hartfield deforms or modifies the photographic image to give it a different meaning. "A painter paints pictures with paints, I - photographs," he said. Hartfield either literally depicts what lies behind the meaning of a word, or, conversely, raises its figurative meaning into a symbol. "The old adage to the new empire -" Blood and Iron "(1934) - called a poster on which a black fascist swastika is made up of four bloody axes. “Through the light to the dark,” Hartfield paraphrased a famous expression in a montage directed against the burning of books in Berlin and many other German universities on May 10, 1933. Hartfield creates new imagery through montage.
“At the same time, the faces, facts, events used in the composition are always real in themselves, but their montage comparison is“ unrealistic, ”but deeply realistic in spirit,”- writes about Hartfield's montages by I. Matz.
In 1931, Hartfield visited the Soviet Union, an exhibition of his works was opened in Moscow. A meeting and acquaintance of two communist artists took place. The sacramental question about the "inventor" of photomontage arose again, to which Hartfield replied:
"The inventor of photomontage is the social shift that has taken place over the past 10-15 years."
Hartfield's expression:
“It’s not the tool that matters, it’s important who uses it”- was picked up by artists and critics.
Gustav Klutsis.
"From NEP Russia will be socialist Russia"
(Lenin).
Moscow - Leningrad, 1930.87.5x63.2 cm. Cm.
The law of the genre, the common ideological platform determined the commonality of many techniques. Hartfield's famous montage "Soviet Union Today" (1931) recalls Klutsis's posters "Communism is Soviet Power Plus Electrification" (1929), "From NEP Russia Will Be Socialist Russia" (1930) or "Let's Fulfill Lenin's Behests" (1932). On the same principle - a portrait of a worker against the background of an industrial landscape - Hartfield's poster "New Man" (1931) and posters by Klutsis: "Long live the 13th anniversary of the October Revolution" (1930), "To live culturally - work productively" (1932) and others. Still, the style and handwriting of these two masters are different. Each of them followed a path dictated by the nature of their inner vision. The means of compositional montage of Klutsis were plot versatility, specific methods of rendering space, associativity of comparisons, thanks to which the documentary image was raised to the degree of the broadest generalization. Klutsis does not hide "seams", connects assembly units. The art of Klutsis did not remain closed in the circle of developed techniques. Among his works there are samples in which the constructive nature of installation and a special vision of space are essentially preserved, but the image is created by a synthesis of montage and pictorial-plastic embodiment.
Gustav Klutsis. Youth - on the planes!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1934.144x98 cm.
This is the poster "Youth, on the planes!" (1934). Parallel, at a new stage, the appeal to painting had an impact on the artist's work in all areas of his work, including the poster. The light-air environment, unusual for the old things, creates the integrity of the space. Something new was born, akin to a poster with a picture "painted" with photographs, and significantly different from the usual idea of a picture. Klutsis removed the "seams" and painted the picture in a Hartfield style. But internally - in the structure of thoughts and a sense of form - he remained himself. Chronologically and thematically, this poster recalls the canvases of A. Deineka on sports themes: "Running" (1930), "Skiers" (1931), "Cross" (1931), "Ball Game" (1932), "Running" ( 1934). The significant difference in genres does not remove the common features inherent to a certain extent in the art of Klutsis and Deineka. In the work of each of them, the features of the fine arts of the mid-30s were clearly and peculiarly manifested: romantic elation in the interpretation of reality and the monumentality of images, the predominance of bright, cheerful colors, dynamism, intense expressiveness of the action. Noting the characteristic features of the creativity of the young A. Deineka, R. Kaufman wrote:
“In the people depicted by him - workers, athletes, children - the viewer easily catches the well-known features of our era. And yet the characters of his paintings sometimes lack something unique and individual, they are too standard. "
Gustav Klutsis. Anti-imperialist exhibition.
Poster poster. 1931.
The same cannot be said about the heroes of Klutsis's posters. In his interpretation, the image of a contemporary retains a character that is unique in its individuality. We can safely say that to the later canvases of A. Deineka, such as "The First Five-Year Plan" (sketch for a painting, 1937) or "Left March" (1941), straight threads stretch from photomontage posters of the early 30s. Klutsis considered himself and really was a convinced revolutionary in art. Art criticism in the person of I. Matz, V. Herzenberg, P. Aristova, I. Weisfeld, A. Mikhailov invariably singled out Klutsis's posters in their assessments as the most successful, but noted that they constituted "a completely random phenomenon", "only a drop in sea of manufactured products ”(I. Matsa). In 1931, Klutsis took part in the discussion "The tasks of art in connection with the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) on poster literature." Discussion materials were widely covered in the press, published in the magazine "Literature and Art", came out as a separate collection "For the Bolshevik poster." The publication of Klutsis's report "Photomontage as a new problem of agitational art" in this collection was accompanied by a remark from the editorial board, in which it was noted that the section of spatial arts of the Institute of Literature, Art and Language, where the report was read, "does not agree with a number of provisions of Comrade Klutsis, which show that Comrade Klutsis could not completely overcome the mistakes associated with the October group, in which he was a member. "
Gustav Klutsis.
"The purpose of the union is: the overthrow of the bourgeoisie,
the rule of the proletariat, the destruction of the old,
resting on class opposites
bourgeois society, and the creation of a new society
without classes and private property. "K. Marx.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1932.151.5x102 cm.
This meant the opposition of photomontage as an art based on industrial technology to other types of visual culture. Klutsis's statements and enthusiasm for his subject gave rise to such conclusions, but the pathos of the report and the specific content about the sources of origin and specific methods of editing were dictated by the desire to defend a new type of propaganda art and prove that it occupies leading positions in the visual culture of our time.
“The proletarian industrial culture, which puts forward expressive means of influencing millions of masses,” wrote Klutsis, “uses the method of photomontage as the most militant and effective means of struggle. Photomontage has created a new type of Soviet political poster, which is currently the leading one. Photomontage was the first to introduce new social elements into the composition - a mass, a new person building a socialist state, workers of new types of production and agriculture, socialist cities, the proletariat of the whole world, not distorted aesthetic appendages, but living people. He created new methods of organizing a flat sheet, the features of which are in the complexization (organization) of a number of politically relevant elements:
1. Political slogan.
2. Socially relevant photo (including documentary) as a pictorial form, color as an element of activation, and graphic forms linked by a single target setting, which achieves the maximum expressiveness, political acuteness and power of influence. "
Klutsis substantiated a special type of creativity, equal in its artistic capabilities to other types of fine art and special in specific ways of influence.
Gustav Klutsis. Hello to the person who started work
to the world giant Dneprostroy.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1932.
Gustav Klutsis. Let's return our coal debt to the country!
Moscow - Leningrad, 1930.104х74.5 cm.
Summing up the discussion, I. Matza rightly said:
“All the comrades who spoke unanimously recognized the need to fight against underestimation of photomontage. It must, however, be remembered that this struggle should not turn into an overestimation. "
D. Moore, the greatest master of Soviet posters, who did so much for its development, rightly recognized the leading role of the new trend on the poster front:
"Photomontage during the years of the first five-year plan has become one of the most important areas of the newly flourishing military political poster",- he wrote in a joint article with R. Kaufman "Soviet political poster 1917-1933".
Gustav Klutsis. Struggle for
Bolshevik harvest -
the struggle for socialism.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1931.
Gustav Klutsis. Drummers of the fields
into the battle for socialist reconstruction
Agriculture! (I. Stalin).
Moscow - Leningrad, 1932.144x104.5 cm.
World fame came to the works of Klutsis. Along with the most significant Soviet artists, Klutsis represented the art of revolutionary Russia at international exhibitions in Europe, America, Canada, and Japan. A significant place was occupied by his works at exhibitions in the Stadelik Museum (Holland), "Film and Photo" (Berlin, Stuttgart) and "Photomontage" (Berlin). The preface to the catalog of the Berlin exhibition "Photomontage" was written by Klutsis. In a review of the exhibition, Geynus Ludeke wrote:
“The discovery of Klutsis, the creator of the era of photomontage, makes this kind of art propaganda: this idea is especially vividly emphasized after the film“ Turksib ”, also made on the principle of photomontage. Inherent in the works of both authors - Gustav Klutsis and Dziga Vertov - a huge propaganda impact puts their art in the revolutionary service of the proletariat. "
Danish art critic Gundel, when analyzing the "collection of works" received from the Soviet Union (meaning the exhibits of the exhibition "Photomontage"), especially notes the posters of Klutsis. D. Reitenberg, who visited England on business in 1931, informed Klutsis: "In the last yearbook of" Poster and Advertising "(London, 1931) your works were published with good reviews."
Gustav Klutsis. Transport development
one of the most important tasks
on the implementation of the five-year plan.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1929.72.5x50.7 cm.
On the pages of the magazine "Art", the Soviet art critic M. Ioffe, in an article about the poster, nominated Klutsis "to the ranks of the leading masters of the party-political poster." However, the complex processes in the development of Soviet art in the second half of the 30s could not but affect the fate of the poster. “Like a mortal sin, a poster is afraid of a stamp,” Tarabukin said. In the conditions of an uncreative approach to its specifics, the standard became the main danger for the artist. The general decline in the artistic level of posters was reflected in the work of Klutsis. The unambiguousness of the subject matter, the schematic nature of the decisions have a negative effect on the skill. The posters lose their shine of novelty, the live expression disappears from the faces of Klutsis's heroes. The artist is acutely dissatisfied with himself. Already in 1934, the number of posters he created was decreasing and almost stopped in 1935-1936.
Asset learn.
Poster of Agitprop MK VKP (b).
Gustav Klutsis and Sergey Senkin.
Moscow, 1927.71x52.5 cm.
Many notes appear in Klutsis's workbooks, behind the external restraint of which spiritual bitterness is felt. On the basis of fragmentary theses, one can judge the content of his speeches: “I almost stopped working. Izogiz does not need my work. And I love the poster business. While working on the poster, I am closely with the party both ideologically and organizationally. The vanguard role is Mayakovsky. " The decline in the artistic level was reflected not only in the photomontage poster. Moore expressed general concern for his fate in his 1935 article "Attention to the poster" and in a number of other speeches and statements:
“We have forgotten about the specifics of the poster, having substituted naturalism for depiction”; "And then there was a poster and the poster disappeared."
A critical reassessment of the achievements of the photomontage poster began. Only at the end of the 1950s, the work of Klutsis again began to attract the attention of researchers (I. Birzgalis, A. Eglit, N. Khardzhiev, N. Shantyko).
“Klutsis's talent and ardent interest in the work helped to create many politically sharp and artistically eloquent photomontage posters. The artist arranged the material in an original way, was able to creatively use large-scale contrasts of individual images, and most importantly, to successfully select photographs according to the type of heroes ",- wrote in 1965 N. Shantyko.
Gustav Klutsis. No revolutionary theory
there can be no revolutionary movement.
Moscow - Leningrad, 1927.71x52.5 cm.
Today, the passed borders and the peaks taken are more visible. Much that seemed insignificant, atypical, turns out to be significant and important. Of the artists who worked in the poster, Klutsis, more daringly than others, changed its usual appearance. Not immediately from the times of the "poster fever" history has highlighted the hand-crafted "ROSTA Windows". Photomontage was not immediately understood either. By the temperament of the fighter, by the consonance of the figurative language of the era, by the monumentality of the image of a contemporary he created, Klutsis stands next to those who opened new pages in the history of the poster, while showing an extraordinary talent.
Gustav Klutsis. Glory to the great Russian
to the poet Pushkin! 1936.
If we talk about the prices for the posters of G. Klutsis at world auctions, then they are quite solid: large and well-known glued "sheets" cost from 20 to 30 thousand US dollars. Lesser known: from 7 thousand to 15 thousand. For this, collectors and dealers simply adore Gustav Gustavovich. Poster "Glory to the great Russianpoet Pushkin! "is inexpensive - not that proletarian and collective farm" impulse "...
The culture of the Soviet and post-Soviet period is a bright large-scale turn of the Russian heritage. The events of 1917 became a reference point in the development of a new way of life, the formation of new thinking. The mood of society at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. poured into the October Revolution, a turning point in the history of the country. Now a new future awaited her with its own ideals and goals. Art, which in a sense is a mirror of the era, has also become a tool for the implementation of the dogmas of the new regime. Unlike other types of artistic creation, painting, which forms and shapes human thought, most accurately and directly penetrated the minds of people. On the other hand, pictorial art was least of all subordinated to the propaganda function and reflected the feelings of the people, their dreams and, above all, the spirit of the times.
Russian avant-garde
The new art did not completely avoid the old traditions. Painting, in the first post-revolutionary years, absorbed the influence of the futurists and the avant-garde in general. The avant-garde, with its contempt for the traditions of the past, which was so close to the destructive ideas of the revolution, found adherents in the person of young artists. In parallel with these trends, realistic tendencies developed in the visual arts, which were given life by the critical realism of the 19th century. This bipolarity, which matured at the time of the change of eras, made the life of the artist of that time especially tense. The two paths that were outlined in post-revolutionary painting, although they were opposites, nevertheless, we can observe the influence of the avant-garde on the work of artists of the realistic direction. Realism itself in those years was diverse. The works of this style have a symbolic, propaganda and even romantic appearance. The work of B.M. Kustodieva - "Bolshevik" and, filled with pathetic tragedy and irrepressible glee "New Planet" by K.F. Yuona.
P.N. Filonov, with his special creative method - “analytical realism” - is a fusion of two contrasting artistic trends, which we can see in the cycle with the agitational name and meaning “Entering the world flourishing”.
P.N. Filonov Ships from the cycle Entering the world flourishing. 1919 Tretyakov Gallery
The unquestioning nature of universal human values, unshakable even in such troubled times, expresses the image of the beautiful “Petrograd Madonna” (the official name is “1918 in Petrograd”) K.S. Petrova-Vodkina.
A positive attitude towards revolutionary events infects the light and filled with a sunny, airy atmosphere the creativity of the landscape painter A. Rylova. The landscape "Sunset", in which the artist expressed a premonition of the fire of the revolution, which will flare up from the growing flame of the doomsday over a bygone era, is one of the inspiring symbols of this time.
Along with the symbolic images that organized the rise of the people's spirit and carried away with them, like an obsession, there was also a direction in realistic painting, with a craving for a concrete transfer of reality.
To this day, the works of this period keep a spark of rebellion that can assert itself within each of us. Many works that were not endowed with such qualities or contradicted them were destroyed or forgotten, and will never be presented to our eyes.
The avant-garde will forever leave its imprint on realistic painting, but a period of intensive development of the direction of realism begins.
The time of artistic associations
1920s - the time of the creation of a new world on the ruins left by the Civil War. For art, this is a period in which various creative associations developed their activities in full force. Their principles were shaped in part by early art groupings. The Association of Artists of the Revolution (1922 - AHRR, 1928 - AHR), personally carried out orders from the state. Under the slogan of "heroic realism," the artists who were part of it documented in their works the life and everyday life of a person - the brainchild of the revolution, in various genres of painting. The main representatives of the AHRR were I.I. Brodsky, who absorbed the realistic influences of I.E. Repin, who worked in the historical-revolutionary genre and created a whole series of works depicting V.I. Lenin, E.M. Cheptsov is a master of the genre of genre, M.B. Grekov, who painted battle scenes in a rather impressionistic madder. All of these masters were the founders of the genres in which they performed most of their work. Among them, the canvas "Lenin in Smolny" stands out, in which I.I. Brodsky conveyed the image of the leader in the most direct and sincere form.
In the painting "Meeting of the member cell" E.I. Cheptsov very reliably, without far-fetchedness, depicts the events that took place in the life of the people.
M.B. Greeks in the composition "Trumpeters of the First Cavalry Army".
The idea of a new person, a new image of a person is expressed by the trends emerging in the portrait genre, the brightest masters of which were S.V. Malyutin and G.G. Ryazhsky. In the portrait of the writer-soldier Dmitry Furmanov S.V. Malyutin shows a man of the old world who managed to fit into the new world. A new trend, which originated in the work of N.A. Kasatkina and developed to the highest degree in female images by G.G. Ryazhsky - "Delegate", "Chairwoman", in which the personal principle is erased and the type of person created by the new world is established.
An absolutely accurate impression is formed about the development of the landscape genre at the sight of the work of the leading landscape painter B.N. Yakovleva - "Transport is getting better".
B.N. Yakovlev Transport is getting better. 1923
This genre depicts a renewing country, the normalization of all spheres of life. During these years, the industrial landscape comes to the fore, the images of which become symbols of creation.
The Society of Easel Painters (1925) was the next artistic association in this period. Here the artist strove to convey the spirit of modernity, the type of a new person, resorting to a more detached transmission of images due to the minimum number of expressive means. In the works of "Ostovtsev" the theme of sport is often demonstrated. Their painting is filled with dynamics and expression, which can be seen in the works of A.A. Deineki "Defense of Petrograd", Yu.P. Pimenov "Football" and others.
As the basis of their artistic creativity, members of another well-known association - "Four Arts" - chose the expressiveness of the image, due to the laconic and constructive form, as well as a special attitude to its color saturation. The most memorable representative of the association is K.S. Petrov-Vodkin and one of his most outstanding works of this period - "The Death of the Commissar", which through a special pictorial language reveals a deep symbolic image, a symbol of the struggle for a better life.
P.V. Kuznetsov, works dedicated to the East.
The last major artistic association of this period is the Society of Moscow Artists (1928), which differs from the others in the manner of energetic sculpting of volumes, attention to chiaroscuro and plastic expressiveness of form. Almost all representatives were members of the "Volta of Diamonds" - adherents of futurism - which greatly affected their work. The works of P.P. Konchalovsky, who worked in different genres. For example, portraits of his wife O.V. Konchalovskaya convey the specifics of not only the author's hand, but also the painting of the entire association.
By the decree "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations" on April 23, 1932, all artistic associations were dissolved and the Union of Artists of the USSR was created. Creativity fell into the sinister shackles of rigid ideologization. The artist's freedom of expression, the basis of the creative process, has been violated. Despite such a breakdown, the artists previously united into communities continued their activities, but new figures took the leading role in the pictorial environment.
B.V. Ioganson was influenced by I.E. Repin and V.I. Surikov, in his canvases one can see compositional search and interesting possibilities in the coloristic solution, but the author's paintings are marked by an excessive satirical attitude, inappropriate in such a naturalistic manner that we can observe the example of the painting "At the Old Ural Factory".
A.A. Deineka does not stay away from the "official" line of art. He is still true to his artistic principles. Now he continues to work in genre subjects, in addition, he paints portraits and landscapes. The painting "Future Pilots" well shows his painting during this period: romantic, light.
The artist creates a large number of works on a sports theme. From this period, his watercolors, painted after 1935, remained.
Painting of the 1930s represents a fictional world, the illusion of a bright and festive life. It was easiest for the artist to remain sincere in the landscape genre. The genre of still life is developing.
The portrait is also subject to intensive development. P.P. Konchalovsky writes a series of cultural figures ("V. Sofronitsky at the piano"). The works of M.V. Nesterov, who absorbed the influence of painting by V.A. Serov, show a person as a creator, the essence of whose life is a creative search. This is how we see the portraits of the sculptor I.D. Shadr and surgeon S.S. Yudin.
P.D. Corinne continues the portrait tradition of the previous artist, but his painting style consists in conveying the rigidity of form, a sharper, more expressive silhouette and austere color. In general, the theme of the creative intelligentsia plays a great role in the portrait.
Artist at war
With the advent of the Great Patriotic War, artists begin to take an active part in hostilities. Due to the direct unity with events, in the early years, works appear, the essence of which is the fixation of what is happening, "a picturesque sketch". Often such paintings lacked depth, but their transmission expressed a completely sincere attitude of the artist, the height of moral pathos. The portrait genre is coming to a relative prosperity. Artists, seeing and experiencing the destructive influence of war, admire its heroes - people from the people, persistent and noble spirit, who displayed the highest humanistic qualities. Such tendencies resulted in ceremonial portraits: “Portrait of Marshal G.K. Zhukov ”by P.D. Korina, cheerful faces from the paintings of P.P. Konchalovsky. The portraits of the intelligentsia of M.S. Saryan, created during the war - this is the image of the academician “I.A. Orbeli ", the writer" M.S. Shahinyan "and others.
From 1940 to 1945, landscape and genre also developed, which A.A. Layers. "Fascist Flew" conveys the tragedy of the life of this period.
The psychologism of the landscape here fills the work even more with the sadness and silence of the human soul, only the howl of a devoted friend cuts through the wind of confusion. Ultimately, the meaning of the landscape is rethought and begins to personify the harsh image of wartime.
Subject pictures stand out separately, for example, "Mother of the Partisan" by S.V. Gerasimova, which is characterized by a refusal to glorify the image.
Historical painting timely creates images of national heroes of the past. One of such unshakable and confidence-inspiring images is "Alexander Nevsky" by P.D. Korina, personifying the unconquered proud spirit of the people. In this genre, towards the end of the war, there is a tendency for simulated drama.
War theme in painting
In the painting of the post-war period, ser. 1940 - end. In the 1950s, the theme of war as a moral and physical test, from which Soviet people emerged victorious, occupies a leading position in painting. Historical-revolutionary, historical genres are developing. The main theme of the everyday genre is peaceful labor, which was dreamed of during the long war years. The canvases of this genre are permeated with cheerfulness and happiness. The artistic language of the everyday genre becomes narrative and tends to be lifelike. In the last years of this period, the landscape also underwent changes. The life of the region is being revived in it, the connection between man and nature is being strengthened again, an atmosphere of tranquility appears. Love for nature is also praised in still life. An interesting development is received by the portrait in the work of various artists, which is characterized by the transfer of the individual. Some of the outstanding works of this period were: "A Letter from the Front" by A.I. Laktionova, a work like a window into a radiant world;
composition "Rest after the battle", in which Yu.M. Neprintsev achieves the same vitality of the image as A.I. Laktionov;
the work of A.A. Mylnikova "On Peaceful Fields", joyfully rejoicing at the end of the war and the reunification of man and labor;
the original landscape image of G.G. Nyssa - "Above the Snows" and others.
Harsh style to replace socialist realism
Art 1960-1980s is a new stage. A new "harsh style" is being developed, the task of which was to recreate reality without everything that deprives the work of depth and expressiveness and has a detrimental effect on creative manifestations. He was characterized by laconicism and generalization of the artistic image. The artists of this style glorified the heroic beginning of the harsh working days, which was created by the special emotional structure of the picture. The "harsh style" was a definite step towards the democratization of society. The main genre for which the adherents of the style worked was the portrait, and the group portrait, the genre of genre, the historical and historical-revolutionary genre was also developing. The prominent representatives of this period in the context of the development of the “severe style” were V. Popkov, who painted many self-portraits-paintings, V.I. Ivanov is a supporter of the group portrait, G.M. Korzhev, who created historical paintings. Revealing the essence of the "severe style" can be seen in the painting "Geologists" by P.F. Nikonov, "Polar explorers" A.A. and P.A. Smolinins, "Father's Overcoat" by V.E. Popkov. In the landscape genre, an interest in northern nature appears.
The symbolism of the era of stagnation
In the 1970s-1980s. a new generation of artists is being formed, whose art has influenced to some extent the art of today. They are characterized by symbolic language, theatrical entertainment. Their painting is quite artistic and virtuoso. The main representatives of this generation are T.G. Nazarenko ("Pugachev"),
a favorite theme of which was a holiday and a masquerade, A.G. Sitnikov, who uses metaphor and parable as a form of plastic language, N.I. Nesterova, creator of controversial paintings ("The Last Supper"), I.L. Lubennikov, N.N. Smirnov.
The Last Supper. N.I. Nesterova. 1989
Thus, this time appears in its diversity and diversity as the final, formative link of today's fine arts.
Our era has discovered a huge wealth of the picturesque heritage of previous generations. The contemporary artist is practically not limited by any framework that was defining, and sometimes even hostile to the development of the fine arts. Some of the contemporary artists try to adhere to the principles of the Soviet realistic school, someone finds themselves in other styles and directions. The tendencies of conceptual art, ambiguously perceived by society, are very popular. The breadth of artistic and expressive means and ideals that the past provided us must be rethought and serve as the basis for new creative ways and the creation of a new image.
Our art history workshops
Our Gallery of Contemporary Art not only offers a large selection of Soviet art and post-Soviet painting, but also conducts regular lectures and master classes on the history of contemporary art.
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