Assignment Details

Art documentary and notes

2019-20

History Year 12

Date Due

Jan. 31, 2020

Additional Info
Below I have attached the link to the art documentary we watched today, as well as my notes on it (which may or may not be helpful!)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3htrri

NOTES

  • Lenin prioritised art; included artists on list of 'heroes of the revolution'
  • Proletkult period dominated by constructivists such as Alexander Rodchenko; epitomised excitement of 1920s; new world created. Themes of science, mathematics and complete departure from former art. New society, new art.
  • 'The death of painting' leads to abstract forms such as futurism, and more emphasis on graphic language rather than traditional painting techniques.
  • Agitprop starts in early 1920s to politicise art; Vibrant new graphic language to express revolutionary ideas.
  • New society also needed radical new architecture; Tatlin's monument to the Third International (1920); giant revolving tower (never built because Lenin didn't like it)
  • Shukov Tower superb example of Constructivist architecture; radio tower in Moscow (to broadcast propaganda, of course). Intriguing merger between new revolutionary constructivist art and the new form of information: government propaganda.
  • Lenin regarded cinema as THE revolutionary artform; new, modern, accessible to everyone..
  • Sergei Eisenstein 'October' 1927; spreads a new radical creed; Boshevik version of Genesis, the creation story. The authorised version of their revolution. Deeply emotive imagery and editing...
  • Revolutionary energy of artists snuffed out by Stalin; Mayakovsky (Contructivist artist and poet) one of the first victims of this new oppression under Stalin; denounced by everyone, including his lover, and killed himself in 1930. Huge moment in decline of avantgard art of 1920s
  • Under Stalin, individual voice had to be suppressed and everyone had to be super-positive; Socialist Realism.
  • 'Worker and Woman' 1937 (built for World Fair) 20m high. Brilliant example of propaganda through art. Belongs to Stalin's 'Socialist Realism' period and venerates the workers, the new heroes of history. Powerful statement to the rest of the world.
  • Moscow Undergound and Cult of Little Man; statues etc represent new heroes of society; not dukes etc. Metro stations known as 'The People's Palaces'
  • Dissident artists allowed to work during WW2, to inspire patriotism, but quickly controlled by Zhdanov, who said that 'all art must be optimistic'
  • Morning of our Motherland by Shurpin in 1949; fine example of Socialist Realism.
  • The Monument to the Conquerors of Space erected in Moscow in 1964; the defining image of Soviet artistic propaganda of the Khrushchev period; spirit of constructivism returns after Stalin...
  • Ilya Kabakov dissident artist, part of a generation of underground artists of the 1970s