Origins and the Significance of Russian Constructivism

This essay will analyse the origins and the significance of Russian Constructivism and by doing this we also explore the time it became active, the struggles it encountered, the people that were involved and finally the lasting impact it had on art and design.

Constructivism originated in Russia and became an active movement in 1913; it was an artistic and architectural philosophy. The term “construction art” was used as a term by Kazimir Malevich when he was describing the work of Alexander Rodchenko. Constructivism had its very own unique new approach but at the same time it borrowed ideas from earlier movements such as Cubism, Suprematism and Futurism. Russian Constructivism emerged just after the end of the First World War when Russian futurism was at its height.

Russian Constructivism had a major impact on architecture, industrial and graphic design, film, theatre and even some aspects of certain music. Russian Constructivism being such a effective and socially involved movement had its own way of promoting itself. It had a complete rejection of autonomous art (art for art’s sake). The movement was to have a reason, a higher purpose for social and political change. The movement allowed the people to have a voice and the artists involved were more than happy to express their ideas and political views through their mixed-media art works.

It was in 1917 when Russian art was shouting its communist ideas and revelations to a place that was in political and social turmoil. The October Revolution was the soil for the tree of the roots of Russian constructivism. The October Revoloution was a time in which the Bolsheviks (Russian communist party) successfully over threw the Provisional Government (a unpopular temporary government put in place after the fall of the Tsar).

The Constructivists where able to support the Bolsheviks in their running of Russia. Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov, commonly known as Lenin was the new leader of the Russian SFSR and he supported the artists and was keen to have the current artists commissioned to spread the good word of the new Russia, communist’s Russia, where people would have a say in what happened.

One of the first pieces of architecture Lenin commissioned to be designed and Built was the Shukhov radio tower. Vladimir Grigoryevich Shukhov, a Russian engineer-polymath, scientist and architect designed the radio tower and also supervised the tower being built. He was renowned for his geometric, light-weight hyperboloid towers and breaking the world record with this impressive one of a kind piece of architecture. The Shukhov Tower was built in the period of 1920–1922 and is a lasting piece of Russian avant-garde architecture that was built in a very intense time for Russia. Lenin, the leader of Russia at this time, was driving Russia to forge a new socialist society and he encouraged the use of radial art within architecture. This tower allowed Lenin to spread the good word of the new Russia and stood an astounding 160 meters high. (Image below)

One of the most important avant-garde artists of the Constructivist era was Alexander Rodchenko, his art was a vital help to the political Revoloution. When he first emerged as a practicing artist he was mainly painting but it was after his encounters with the futurist that he decided to turn his back on the traditional methods of painting. He was very much influenced by the works of Vladimir Tatlin and from the beginning of the 20s that Rodchenko was devoted to experimenting within constructivism. His art works where purely experimental and had a complete abstraction about them, each piece of art work distinguished itself from another by the use of lines, colors, shapes, space, colour, surface and texture. Rodchenko 's relation to experimental art was reflected in his thoughts on politics; he believed that the revolutionary transformations happening in Russia at this time should apply to his work so he was pushing for something new and different all the time.

It was in 1921 that Rodchenko abandoned painting completely and committed his art works to his revolutionary values. He began to collaborate with a poet called Vladimir Mayakovsky, where they worked on a series of Russian advertisements. Still through the designs of advertisements, both Rodchenko and Mayakovsky attempted to sell their revolutionary values whilst at the same time promoting the products.
Rodchenko’s Early art work.

Also in the 1920s Rodchenko decided that photography was to be his new medium, a new medium that he thought was more appropriate to working towards his goal of serving the revolution. He saw photography as both preexisting imagery and then he also progressed to taking images himself, keeping a very unique style that was fluent, high contrasting, closely cropped and with strange and wonderful angels.

Rodchenko’s latter work

“In the squares and in the streets we are placing our work convinced that are must nor remain a sanctuary for the idle, a consolation for the weary and a justification for the lazy. Art should attend us everywhere that life flows and acts.” Vladimir Tatlin, http://www.theartstory.org/artist-tatlin-vladimir.htm.

Tatlin 's idea was that art should be put to a more practical use, giving art to the use of the Russian Revolution and at the same time he wanted to express the experience of living in the twentieth century. Tatlin’s approach to his work was distinguished by his desire to bring the lessons he had learned in the artist’s studio and put them to use in the real world, making his art fit for the real world.

Tatlin amongst other artists all did the same thing, they switched to Medias that suited what they wanted to do, what they wanted their art to do and say. Doing this Tatlin turned his focus onto Technology and the machine. He had had major influences from Pablo Picasso’s Cubist reliefs and Russian Futurism.

The one thing he wasn’t successful at but at the same time is mostly remembered for is his design for his Monument to the Third International 1919-20. The Design was made into a model but it never went any further than it being a model. It bought together technology and art something that he had great desire to do. This model was an attempt to bring art into everyday life.

1921, the Soviet Union established the New economic Policy which reintroduced a state capitalism in the soviet economy. Rodchenko and Vladimir Mayakovsky moved forward at this point and referred to themselves as “advertising constructors”. They were producing advertisements for the co-operative’s which were now in competition with the commercial businesses. The typology on the Duos advertisements was meant to create a reaction. The main body of their advertisements where for a store called Mosseprom which was a store based in Moscow. The advertisements were for products like, cooking oil, bread, cigarettes and other house hold goods.

Mayakovsky was a poet and wrote a lot in the constructivists era and whilst working alongside Rodchenko he came up with a catch phrase for the Moscow based store and it went “ nowhere else but Mosseprom” and he claimed that it was one of the best verse’s he had ever made.

A part of the constructivist era that is not mentioned very much is the fashion and clothing part. Few artist tried to work with clothing designs but there is a wide variation in how successful these attempts actually where. One Artist who attempted to design clothing was Varvara Stepanova, another artist who put their easel aside and turned to the mass reproduction only this time it wasn’t propaganda and posters it was clothing.
It was at this point when she went to work at the fabric factory and she was accompanied there by another artist Lubov Popova. They both shared the aim of designing contempory fabric patterns which would end being used in cloth which would be designed by someone else.
Just as all other aspects of art had a higher purpose rather than being for art for art’s sake, it was the same within the clothing industry. The cloths and patterns where reflecting the changing times, the mass production and the peoples communists ideas. There was little thought that went into beauty but concentration on purpose and comfort.
Varvara Stepanova had the idea that if everyone had to work in some way or another then so did their cloths and one style of clothing she worked with was sports clothing, she used her bright blocks of colors along with strong geometric shapes to make her cloths stand out and create a reaction.

Joseph Stalin become the absolute ruler of the Soviet Union in 1928, he was to push his ideas and thoughts onto the people and mute the communists and make them say and do what he thought they should say and do. He had strong and intrusive thoughts and idea and one of his first mistakes to make was his 5 year plan, with a main goal of expanding industrial production. Gosplan, the state planning agency, drew up targets for production for each factory. The first two plans concentrated on improving heavy industry - coal, oil, steel and electricity. Millions of people where press ganged into his factory to meet the factory’s high targets and the workers were forced to live in blocks of communal flats. If the people refused to leave their homes they were shot or they would be made to starve to death, 5 million people died.

This point in history is really import to Russian constructivism because everything was about to change in the art world. Artists were forced to reform to Stalin’s ideas of what art was and what it was meant to say. It was the beginning of Stalin’s Idealised art.

Mayakovsky was one of Stalin’s first victims, Stalin did not approve of Myakovosky 's political views and Stalin tried to mute him on several occasions. Alongside Myakovosky’s own personal problems he could not carry on and he took his own life by shooting himself in the head. He was not the only artist whose voice was being supressed; every artist was being forced to be positive about Stalin’s perfect ideas.

The Second World War hit Russia hard and Stalin could have fell, but it turned out that it was only going to strengthen him and 30 million people were sent to prisoner camps for not fitting into Stalin’s perfect state. At the end of the Second World War Stalin’s suppression on artist was at its all-time highest. Instead of giving people the freedom to create art to express the people he commissioned a body of “dead art” massive paintings in the metro stations of the perfect citizens and the perfect state, forced optimism of the people. Lies.

It was illegal to say anything at all against what Stalin’s “idealised art”. The artists that worked for Stalin where cut off from the western life and they’re art. Stalin’s artists liked the idealology of Stalin’s regime. The lies he told people where “nice” lies, the people wanted to believe that it wasn’t too good to be true, but it was. The lies where attractive but they were never fulfilled. He was commissioning paintings and sculptures of a perfect world but what was happening in the real world was far from perfect.

Despite Stalin’s laws on art, the constructivists still found a way of meeting with each other and exhibiting they’re work. It was the era of the Secret exhibitions. As can be expected Stalin new about these meetings and he had the KGB watching people who he knew were likely to be involved in such meetings. People were arrested for creating their own art and even beaten.

Stalin commissioned artists to paint heroic scenes of “the perfect Russia of the ceilings of the Russian metro stations. The huge painting where accompanied with big bronze statues of soldiers and hero’s, the ideal man and the ideal woman. He filled these spaces with his ideal art and this way people had to see it because it was in a public place.

Stalin Died in 1953 and then the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. The dissolving of the Soviet Union gave birth to a tsunami of art work that was rebelling in anyway it could. People where free to once again express their political and social views. People no longer had to meet in secret to be able to express themselves in a polite and humane manner. They no longer had to work in fear that they would get arrested, sent to a prisoner camp or be beaten up just for creating a painting or other piece of work that Stalin classed at “illegal”.

Russian constructivism has left a lasting effect on modern day art, especially in the graphics industry; the strong and vibrant type is something which is used in modern day advertisements. 1980s there was a revival of the characteristics in company’s logos and some still have signs which relate to the constructivist’s styles and themes today. For example IKEA.

The Strong bold type that the constructivist used for the means of mass production has been used solely for its aesthetic value. It is vibrant, colourful and speaks emotion.

References.

The Art Story Foundation . (February 05, 2013). Constructivism. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http:\\thearthistory.org\movement-constructivism.html

The Art Story Foundation . (February 05, 2013). Alexander Rodchenko. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http:\\thearthistory.org\artist-rodchenko-alexander.html

New World Encyclopedia. (February 05, 2013). Josef Stalin. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Josef_Stalin

The Shukhov Tower Foundation. (February 05, 2013). Tower. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.shukhov.org/tower.html

Royal Academy of Arts. (February 05, 2013). Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/building-the-revolution/

Regine (2011, November 23). Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935 [Web log message] [Web log message]. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from Royal Academy of Arts. (February 05, 2013). Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/building-the-revolution/

BBC - Higher Bitesize History. (February 06, 2013). The causes of the October Revolution. Retrieved February 06, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/russia/october/revision/

References: The Art Story Foundation . (February 05, 2013). Constructivism. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http:\thearthistory.orgmovement-constructivism.html The Art Story Foundation . (February 05, 2013). Alexander Rodchenko. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http:\thearthistory.orgartist-rodchenko-alexander.html New World Encyclopedia. (February 05, 2013). Josef Stalin. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Josef_Stalin The Shukhov Tower Foundation. (February 05, 2013). Tower. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.shukhov.org/tower.html Royal Academy of Arts. (February 05, 2013). Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/building-the-revolution/ Regine (2011, November 23). Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935 [Web log message] [Web log message]. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from Royal Academy of Arts. (February 05, 2013). Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/building-the-revolution/ BBC - Higher Bitesize History. (February 06, 2013). The causes of the October Revolution. Retrieved February 06, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/russia/october/revision/