SUPREMATISM &
CONSTRUCTIVISM
DAN WISEM
AN
SUPREMATISM &
CONSTRUCTIVISM Under Suprematism I understand the primacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist, the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselv es, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth.� -Ka
simir Mavevich-
ORIGINS Kasimir Malevich originated Suprematism as an established painter during the early 20th century. His paintings illustrated a style of basic forms and pure color, which was a new and totally nonobjective. Suprematism reached other art forms as well, including poetry, theatre and architecture as well as a reviving an interest in traditional folk art. Constructivism began as an artistic and architectural philosophy originating in 1919. Invented by sculptors Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo, Constructivism uses industrial, angular and geometric shapes as defining elements of the style that resemble Malevich’s Suprematism. Constructivism has significant influences on architecture, graphic and industrial design, theatre, film, dance and music.
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SOCIAL CONTEXT as a new beginning for mankind. Lissitzky saw Russian Revolution ated a new order where technology Communism and social engineering cre the artist/designer would forge a would provide for society’s needs and constructing a new world of objects unity between art and technology by iety and environment. This Idealism to provide mankind with a richer soc graphic design, as he moved from led him to put increasing emphasis on the mainstream of communal life. private aesthetic experience into facilities enabled Lissitzky’s graphic Access to excellent German printing and range of experimentation with ideas to develop rapidly. His energy design, and painting enabled him to photomontage, printmaking, graphic ich supremacist and constructivist become the main medium through wh ideas flowed into Western Europe.
ryone Must Gustav Klutsis, “Eve , 1913 Vote” Series, Poster
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IGN INFLUENCES ON GRAPHIC DES Constr uctivist ideals heavily influenced the future of graphic design. Artist El Lissitzky, who studied architecture, used mathematical and structural proper ties of architecture to form the basis of his art along with many constr uctivist artists at this time. It is Lissitzky’s political works of art as well as the Bauhaus movement that helped graphic design rise to what it is today. In addition, Lissitzky’s book format for The Isms of Art was an impor tant step toward the creation of a visual program for organizing information. The three-column horizontal grid structure used for the title page and the three-column vertical grid structure utilized for the text.The two-column structure of the contents page became an architectural framework for organizing the forty-eight page pictorially illustrated portfolio. Asymmetrical balance, silhouette halftones and a skillful use of white space are other rs impor tant design considerations. By using large, bold san-serif numbe e to link the pictures to captions, Lissitzky allows these numbers to becom bold and aphy compositional elements. This treatment of san-serif typogr rules is an early expression of the modernist aesthetic.
e Isms of Art
h Lissitzky’s T
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PHOTO-MONTAGE with the development of Beginning of Russian photomontage coincided ry. Common techniques montage in film, and shared some of its vocabula images; using extreme included showing simultaneous action; superimposing ; and rhythmically repeating close –ups and perspective images, often together a series or sequence of an image. The concept of serial painting, which is or an under lying structure, independent wor ks unified by common elements seen in wor ks of Salomon was applied to graphic design by Rodchenko.As mixed into constructivist Telingater, a dash of Dadaist vitality was often designs. were talented brothers Georgii and Vladimir Augustovich Stenberg posters. Mindful of the who collaborated on theatrical designs and film e meticulously realistic reproduction difficulties with photographs, they mad images via projection and drawings for their posters by enlarging film-frame d with flat forms of bright grid methods. These 3D illusions were contraste strong, direct messages. color in dynamic, well-designed posters conveying
vich ugusto . A r i m i ad ted and Vl , Unda Georgy , film posters rg Stenbe
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PROPOGANDA The master of propaganda photomont age was Gustav Klutsis, who referred to the medium as “the art construction for socialism”. Employing monumental and heroic images, Klutsis used the pos ter as a means for praising Soviet accomplishments. His work has often been compared to John Heartfield’s powerful political statements. Klutsis believed that photomontage was the medium of the future and that it had rendered all other forms of artistic realism obsolete. Although most of posters celebrated the achievements of Stalin, Klutsis’s uncompromising ava nt-garde approach eventually caused him to be arrested in 1938 during the Stalinist purges. He perished in the labour camps in 1944. Another Soviet artist associated wit h Tatlin, and the constructivists, who profoundly influenced Russian moder nism was Vladimir Vasilevich Lebedev. He embraced Bolshevism and designe d bold, flat, neoprimitivist agitational propaganda posters for ROSTA, the Soviet telegraph agency. Due to learning to to simplify, to reduce form s to their basic geometric shapes and use only brilliant primary colors and to tell a story visually and in sequence, Lebedev’s work proved to be an excelle nt preparation for designing picture books for boys and girls. He explain ed that, in the twenties, they fought for master y and purity of art. He said that they wanted fine art to be descriptive, not illustrative and that Cub ism gave them discipline of thought, without which there is neither master y nor purity of professional language. With they growth of the Soviet childre n’s book industry under Lenin’s New economic policy, Lebedev became the father of the twentieth- centur y Russian picture book.
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SOURCES Websites esign.blogspot.com/2012/11/ http://havingalookathistor yofgraphicd .html russian-suprematism-and-constructivism Books ctivism in Revolution The Artist as Producer: Russian Constru By Maria Gough
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