Realismi socialisti. Grande pittura sovietica 1920-1970

Page 1


1920–28


The day after the coup of 25 October 1917 that gave

itive Aesthetic (1903, republished more than once

power in Russia to the Bolsheviks, the long-time rev-

after the Revolution), envisaged the human organism

olutionary and art-theorist Anatoli Lunacharsky was

in terms of bio-mechanics and art which provided a

appointed head of Narkompros, the People’s Com-

“direct positive affect” acting on the body. Lu-

missariat for Enlightenment, the body responsible for

nacharsky imagined an aesthetic of regular forms,

art and education in the new state. Lunacharsky in-

rhythm, symmetry and rousing saturated colours.

herited a parlous situation. In Moscow and Petrograd

He assessed realistic painted images in simplistic

art treasures were being ruined and collections ran-

fashion as something like the equivalent of real-world

sacked in continued fighting; from 1918 until 1921

objects: a still-life, he argued, could provide power-

the Bolsheviks were involved in a full-scale civil war

ful taste and smell sensations. The sight of a healthy

and the opportunities for cultural development and

body, intelligent face or friendly smile was essential-

the production of art were minimal.

ly life-enhancing. Lunacharsky also aimed to dissolve

Lunacharsky appealed to artists to come to the

the opposition of materialism and idealism, as had

assistance of the new government. His call was first

Avenarius. Art was above all integral to the struggle

heeded above all by radical artists, the Russian fu-

for a better world. Artists should depict “the perfect

turists or “left” artists: those described today as mem-

person” or “the person striving for perfection” in an

bers of the Russian avant-garde. David Shterenberg,

art that Lunacharsky dubbed “realistic idealism”.

a “decided modernist” in Lunacharsky’s words, be-

The “realist-idealists” would transform the earth in-

came head of the Narkompros art department, Izo,

to a work of art and help in the education of the

where he surrounded himself with like-minded in-

“perfect person”. Lunacharsky’s ideas were in so

dividuals, including Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Male-

many respects echoed in the theory of Socialist Re-

vich, Vasily Kandinsky and the poet Vladimir

alism when it emerged some thirty years later that they

Mayakovsky. The critic Nikolai Punin edited the Izo

must be considered the prime pre-revolutionary

newspaper, Art of the Commune, where he identified

source.

the practice of his colleagues as the essential art of

One of the organizations sponsored by Narkom-

the new dispensation: “communism, as a theory of

pros was the proletkult (proletarian culture) movement

culture, cannot exist without futurism”. The futur-

headed Lunacharsky’s old friend, Alexander Bog-

ists envisaged Soviet art as a complete rupture with

danov. Like Lunacharsky, Bogdanov had speculated

the past. But even during the period of their ascen-

about art and culture long before the October Rev-

dancy there were polemics between artists of the left

olution. His science-fiction novel Red Star (1907)

and right, between futurists and traditionalists, and

imagined the art of a long-established socialist soci-

in the emergent discourse around art the crucial con-

ety on Mars as shown to a tourist, Lenni (possibly, a

cepts of realism and materialism began to be associ-

reference to Lenin, born Vladimir Ulyanov, the ori-

ated, too, with the work of traditional painters.

gin of whose nickname is shrouded in mystery to this

Lunacharsky’s own aesthetic thinking derived

day). On Mars the main theme of art is “the glorious

from empirio-criticism, a term used to describe the

human body”. Architecture is functional and devoid

work of the nineteenth-century philosophers Ernst

of decoration; the “aesthetic of powerful machines and

Mach and Richard Avenarius. Mach’s outlook was a

their harmonious movement” is pleasant to the Mar-

kind of phenomenalism which recognized only sen-

tians. After 1917 the proletkult movement grew to the

sations as real. Avenarius dreamed of a “bio-mechan-

point that by 1920 it was claimed it united “about a

ics” which would explain the functioning of the hu-

million workers”. The resolutions of the first all-Russ-

man organism in the world. Lunacharsky’s colleague

ian conference of the proletkults in the same year de-

in revolution but earlier rival in polemics, Lenin, ob-

scribed art as organizing cognition, feelings and as-

jected violently to Mach and Avenarius, especially

pirations “by means of living forms” and as “the most

Mach, and wrote a long and detailed tract to de-

powerful weapon for the organization of collective

bunk them entitled Materialism and Empirio-Criticism

forces”. Through the great wedge of such utterances

(1909) (Einstein, meanwhile, recognized Mach’s

the principle of the organizing capacity of art entered

thinking as a forerunner of his General Theory of Rel-

the Soviet cultural consciousness.

ativity). But Lunacharsky built a whole system of

When it came to art, Lenin, who headed the

aesthetics on empirio-criticism. Foundations of a Pos-

Bolshevik Party until his death in 1924, was complete21


1. Boris Kustodiev (Astrakhan 1878 – Leningrad 1927) The Bolshevik, 1920 Oil on canvas, 101 x 141 cm Moscow, The State Tretyakov Gallery

24

2. Pavel Filonov (Moscow 1883 – Leningrad 1941) Formula of the Petrograd Proletariat, 1920–21 Oil on canvas, 154 x 117 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum



26


3. Isaak Brodsky (Sofievka [Ekaterinoslav] 1883 – Leningrad 1939) Ceremonial Opening of the Second Congress of the Third International, 1921–24 Oil on canvas, 320 x 532 cm Moscow, The State Historical Museum 4. Pyotr Shukhmin (Voronezh 1894 – Moscow 1955) The Order to Attack, 1927 Oil on canvas, 239 x 282 cm Moscow, The Central Museum of the Armed Forces

27


28


5. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin (Khvalynsk [Saratov] 1878 – Leningrad 1939) Death of a Commissar, 1928 Oil on canvas, 196 x 248 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum

6. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin (Khvalynsk [Saratov] 1878 – Leningrad 1939) Workers, 1926 Oil on canvas, 96 x 106.5 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum

29


7. Aleksandr Deineka (Kursk 1899 – Moscow 1969) The Defence of Petrograd, 1928 Oil on canvas, 210 x 238 cm Moscow, The Central Museum of the Armed Forces

30

8. Yuri Pimenov (Moscow 1903–77) War Invalids, 1926 Oil on canvas, 265.6 x 177.7 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum



9. Aleksandr Samokhvalov (Bezhetsk [Tver] 1894 – Leningrad 1971) Conductress, 1928 Oil on canvas, 130 x 112 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum

32


33


53a-c. Geli Korzhev (Moscow 1925) Communists, triptych, 1957–60 a. Workers’ Studio (Homer), left panel Oil on canvas, 290 x 140 cm b. Raising the Banner, central panel Oil on canvas, 156 x 290 cm c. International, right panel Oil on canvas, 285 x 128 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum

106


53b. Raising the Banner, central panel, 1960 Oil on canvas, 156 x 290 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum

107


53a. Workers’ Studio (Homer), left panel, 1960 Oil on canvas, 290 x 140 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum


53c. International, right panel, 1957–58 Oil on canvas, 285 x 128 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum


54. Viktor Ivanov (Moscow 1909–68) A Family. Year 1945, 1965 Oil on canvas, 175 x 254 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum

110

55. Mikhail Trufanov (Nizhnie Peny [Kursk] 1921 – Leningrad 1987) Miner, 1959 Oil on canvas, 194 x 151 cm Saint Petersburg, The State Russian Museum



56. Viktor Popkov (Moscow 1932–74) Builders of Bratsk, 1960 Oil on canvas, 183 x 302 cm Moscow, The State Tretyakov Gallery

112


57. Pavel Nikonov (Moscow 1930) Geologists, 1962 Oil on canvas, 185 x 225 cm Moscow, The State Tretyakov Gallery

113



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