Art and Revolution

Another strand of modernism.

• Russian October Revolution 1917
• led by Lenin
• OCTOBER (Ten Days That Shook The World)
• 1927 Director: Sergei Eisenstein
• 1917 – 1921 Russian civil war

 from this movement  there was a massive acceleration of visual movement

1917 – mid 1920s:  Intense artistic experimentation

Over 80% of population of Russia at this time was illiterate. The only way to spread the communist revolution message was visually.
before this there was only oil paintings, usually portraits of the wealthy/monarchy.

Red becomes a really important colour representing the spilled blood of the revolution )passion, injustice) inversely white was associated with the Saarist counter revolution - visual shorthand's to communicate political messages.
Visual language starts to emerge though we can see in the variety of pieces produced in Russia at this time that they were struggling to find their own visual persona.

Late 1920's onward 
- Lenin died.
- Lenin was replaced by Stalin whom changed Russian into a totalitarian government. Stalin decreed all experimental art should be stopped and that the only art that was allowed was socialist realism.
 -Directly after the revolution Russian artists and designers were encouraged to experiment with modernism in the west to come up with authentic Russian vocabulary in art. Some kind of experimentation was going on in design, architecture and graphic design (new, mass produce-able) and photography

There was no art market in communism, artists were employed by the state and work had to be applied in socialist forms. So artists experiments with what the nature of art actually was - art became known as constructions as they wanted to separate away from western art.

1920 saw the opening of the VKhUTEMAS – A progressive art school established by Lenin, to teach the new ideas created by the constructivists following the Revolution

This image to the right is the cover for VKhUTEMAS produced by El lissitzky

In Russia- women were seen as equals - in contrast in the west they were still being executed from professions


‘voile and prints have not just become artistically acceptable, they have reached the level of real art, and have brought the rich colours and intense ornamentation of contemporary art to the cities of our immense Republic’ Aranovich, D 1929

‘It is time to move from designing clothing to designing the structure of the fabric.  This will allow the textile industry to jettison its present excessive variety, and help it standardize and improve, at long last, the quality of its production.’ Stepanova




Sumary:

•  Revolution = new opportunity for art to progress
• Constructivists desire to make art useful 
• Aim that art should help ‘construct’ new society
• Use of new techniques and abstract aesthetic
• By end of 1920s artistic freedom curtailed
• 1934 Stalin decrees ‘Socialist Realism’ only