Socialist realism
Social realism as a way of perceiving reality and work in an embellished form appeared in the USSR in the 1930s and was intended to replace the “bourgeois” art, which then included everything that does not glorify the “man of action”. Being ridiculed by Mikhail Bulgakov in “the Master and Margarita”, this approach prescribed the artist to treat his art “on workdays”: how many benefits he received, so much text must pass. Just as in the Union of writers (fictional Bulgakov Massolit), “if a ticket for a week, then the writer must pass a story, for two weeks – a story, and only for three weeks in the “Swallow’s nest” in the Crimea – and the whole novel can be”. Continue reading
Graphics by Alexander Deineka of the 1920s and 40s
Alexander Deineka entered the history of Russian art primarily as the author of mosaic panels and large thematic paintings, as an enthusiastic fan of all equipment, terrestrial and celestial, as well as as an admirer and connoisseur of various types of physical education and sports. Deynek put his outstanding artistic gift and remarkable energy at the service of the victorious Communist ideology, which he sincerely believed to be the only correct one. Continue reading
Avant-garde and social realism
Avant-gardism, developed in literature by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Velimir Khlebnikov, has also spread powerfully in Russian painting since the 1910s. As early as the 1910s, Kazimir Malevich (who created the style of Suprematism), Vasily Kandinsky, and Vladimir Tatlin were interested in avant-gardism in Russia. The Russian avant-garde flourished in 1914-1922. What was the avant-garde? Combining abstractionism, constructivism, cubism, Suprematism, and other postmodern movements in painting, he rejected realism, while maintaining an emphasis on the form of objects as such. Thus, Malevich’s Suprematism appeared in the 1910s as a style of writing in the form of combinations of multi-colored planes and simple geometric outlines. Continue reading
Soviet painting-the history of modern art
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 reporting point in the development of a new way of life, the formation of new thinking. The mood of society in the late XIX-early XX centuries resulted in the October revolution, a turning point in the history of the country. Now she had a new future with her own ideals and goals. Art, which in a sense is a mirror of the era, has also become a tool for implementing the tenets of the new regime. In contrast to other types of artistic creativity, painting, forming and shaping the thought of a person, most accurately and directly penetrated into the minds of people. On the other hand, pictorial art was least subject to the propaganda function and reflected the experiences of the people, their dreams and, above all, the spirit of the time. Continue reading
About the World of art movement of the beginning of the XX century
The art Association Mir iskusstva, which was formed at the beginning of the XX century in Russia and went partly to emigrate after the Revolution, United such artists as artists L. S. Bakst, A. N. Benois, Somov K. A., Dobuzhinsky M. V., Roerich N. K., V. M. and A. M. Vasnetsov, V. D. Polenov, V. A. Serov, M. V. Nesterov, I. I. Levitan, I. A. Korovin, poets A. Bely, D. Merezhkovsky and Z. Gippius, Yu. F.Sologub, V. Bryusov, K. D. Balmont, ballet master S. p. Diaghilev and many others. The joint publication of Mir iskusstva magazine attached special importance to this trend of creative personalities, and the passion for the modern style – a bright art criticism dominant. Continue reading