Russian Art at the Time of the Revolution
In the morning we
looked at now the revolutionaries used art to create the Soviet myth. We
discussed how many established artists fled Russia in 1917 so the Bolsheviks
has to choose the avant garde to further their cause and these artists were
inspired by the events. Kandinsky returned to Russia after 16 years in Germany.
We also looked at the use posters to spread propaganda and the idea of
Monumental propaganda with great parades for the anniversaries of the
revolution.
We then looked at
the work of Malevich and Russian Futurism focusing on the work following the
Black Square in 1915 and we explored the possible meanings of this work. We
also talked about how a lot of his work was left in Berlin on a trip he was
allowed to make outside of Russia which meant that he is one of the best know
Russian artists of this period in the West.
In the afternoon
we moved onto Socialist Realism concentrating on Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and his
ideas of spherical perspective which tried to show different times in the same
work. We looked at how his picture of the Petrograd Madonna became a symbol of
the Civil War as it showed bread queues behind a Madonna and Child moved to one
side of the image as if being squeezed out.
Finally we looked
at Constructivism and the idea of art going into production and seeing artists
as workers. We looked at portraits and self-portraits of these artists who
often showed themselves as engineers or factory workers. I was fascinated in
the section which looked at the ceramic and textile designs.
Such an
interesting day and I learned so much about a topic I’ve seen a number of shows
about during the year of the century of the revolution but had not really known
a lot about.
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