In what ways has art or design responded to the changing social and cultural forces of the Russian Revolution 1917
Russia is a long standing country which has gone through many changes, such as political, social and cultural changes. These changes meant that the people of Russia reacted and modified the country and it’s art. One of the most significant changes that occurred was the art and design between the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. During the time of the Revolution in 1917 there was the end of Tsardom, the beginning of a brand new type of government with new opinions and ideologies, meaning all other aspects of Russian life was about to change. The forces that were put in place affected art and design in many ways, such as the celebration of a more liberal thinking and the art that followed in the 1800‘s to the oppression of art in the communistic rule.
During Alexander II’s reign he was known as the liberator. He reformed many polices while he was in power, such as creating a local governing body called the Zemstva and emancipating the Serfs but one of his biggest reforms was his education reform. His Education minister, Golovin put forward the changes to University curriculum and the School’s own personal power over their University. These reforms were greatly welcomed. It meant that Lecturers were more free with what they could teach, such as philosophy and politics. Special help was given to gifted poor students, and education was reformed in secondary and primary education too. The more liberal lecturers in Universities meant that the students were also becoming more liberal and modern thinking was evolving. This was a problem in a Tsarist world. The whole history of the royal family in Russia was due to religion, because the Tsar is only the Tsar due to divine right. The new teachings of liberal politics and ideas proposed opposition to this religious belief. This meant Alex had to reexamine the reforms, and in the end fire Golovin and repress the education system. ‘Subjects which were stimulated independent thought, like history, science, modern languages and even Russian, were curtailed, and students were encouraged to learn Latin, Greek’ (Kiste, J.V.D., 2003. pg. 99). At the time of Alex’s rule, traditional Russian art was dominated by religious icons. A famous painter, Pavel Korin is a good example of traditional Russian art.(Fig.1) Icons were popular because of the religious beliefs of the country and the lack of westernisation at the time. After Alex noticed that new ideas, more modern thinking was being spread around Russia it threatened his stability at the throne. People began to move away from religion, as they learned more, their personal beliefs changed too. As political standing and social changes occurred, religious icon art diminished and became less popular and relevant.
This was the beginning of the change in art due to social modifications. A major event that occurred in late 1800’s was the foundation of the Mir iskusstva. The Mir iskusstva was a magazine that aimed to show individualism and move Russian art into the future like its western neighbours. One of the five founding members, Alexandre Benois was the most active from the group. He came from a prominent art family with a successful history and worked mainly with stage design. Konstantin Somov met Benois while studying at the Imperial Academy of Arts, he was artist who worked mainly with watercolour and gouache. Another member, Leon Baskt was also a painter. Like Somov, he used watercolours in his portraits and studies. Benois’ nephew, Eugene Lanceray joined the group at the beginnings of it’s founding. Lanceray came from a very successful art family, with his uncle and grandfathers being Benois’ it was obvious he would become involved in the groups movement. Lanceray was very interested in Rococo art, which is highly decorative and traditional to Paris. The whole group were interested and influenced by 18th century French art which can be seen from the covers and pages of the magazine. This was a major movement against the traditional neo-classical style the group had been educated about and practiced. The men in the group in charge of the literature were Sergei Diaghilev and Dmitry Filosofov. They were both well read, educated men from the Imperial Academy of Arts. The artists in the group, individually, were following the trend of French and Russian portraiture, quite typical of the era. Collectively, they educated Russia with the new style of art. They were responsible for making a movement and change to the culture of art at the end of the 1800’s. The group’s art was typical of who the men were. They were upper class, rich, educated men from successful families that were already known. Evidentially, in their art it mainly consists of decorative flourishes, purposeful elements and illustrations, which was very different from the way the past Russian painters covered history. Although the men were from this type of standing in class, it didn’t mean they were out of touch. They were in fact quite revolutionary in influencing European art in the late 1800’s early 1900’s. ‘Mir Iskusstva, published from 1899-1904, became an important medium in the information of a new artistic culture, the inspiration of the later cultural explosion’ (Rosenthal, Bohachevsky-Chomiak, 1990, p.g81). (Fig 2) The Mir Iskusstva paved the way for further revolutionaries to come forward and have confidence they were able to change Russian culture in some form. With this movement it meant the art culture changed, a new style of painting emerged, a different perspective on what was important in art was taken producing exciting new thinkings and teachings.
When the Soviet Union came about after the revolution in 1917, it changed the political standing of the country. This meant that everything culturally changed, especially it’s art. Vladimir Lenin was a revolutionary thinker and leader of the Bolshevik group responsible for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and Tsar regime 1917. His ideology was from the Marxist thinking, of being very aware socially and economically. This was a very different way of governing after the poor attempt from the Provisional Government and the rule by decree of Nicholas II. The new way of thinking throughout the country allowed for the arts to flourish, and develop. This can be shown with the artist ‘Alexander Apsit ... was one of the earliest and most influential political artists of the Civil War’ (Bonnell, 1999, pg. 11). He studied in the late 1890‘s in St Petersburg and came from a working class family. He was trained as an icon painter which was common from the Russian Empire. As the more liberal teachings of Universities came about so did the newer ways of art. Apsit became involved in political magazines of the time and covered the Civil War. Dmitry Moor was also a known and influential artist who changed his style and influence due to the Soviet take over. His style is the iconic style of the Soviet Union. With its bold block colours and prominent angles it has become the style of the Revolution. Although art was being produced in the Soviet Union and it had made some very modern developments during the times of Mir Iskusstva and such revolutionary thinking, under the Socialist style it wasn’t free and liberal as much as it looked. Lenin did restrict and control the designs. Moor’s lack of colours was not a design choice purely from him, it was Lenin’s control. Red was the colours of the revolutionary side of Russia and black was the capitalist side, often the red is used the revolutionary elements of the image, such as a flag or Lenin. The change in artistic style is very apparent in this case. Both artists were trained as religious painters, which by the Russian Empire standards, was the first most important thing to paint after themselves. Although there was unrest within the country, such as the peasant revolts and the lack of industrialisation, this was rarely shown in art. However when students became more liberally aware, that allowed for thinkers like Lenin to come forward. This meant that Lenin was more in favour of propaganda and coverage when he was in power. Although he was more in favour of propaganda he was also very controlling, which repressed the liberalness of the painters behind the work. This at times was good enough to sacrifice when it was involved with the over throw of the Russian Empire and the fight for socialist living.
The Russian Empire was an Empire built on religion. At the time of Nicholas II’s rule Russia was a very backward country. They weren’t industrialised, still heavily peasant based population with massive gaps between the classes. Russia was not a modern country and was in need of a revolution. With a revolution it meant new thinking, which is where the view point on religions in Russia changed. From the 1890’s there was a decline in the religious belief’s of Russia. As harsh repression and policies hit the nation, a lot of people lost touch with the church. Although there was many different types of religion in Russia, the main was Christianity. As educated creative minds came together, they looked in the past to bring art, philosophy, literature, politics and culture into the future. Historians call this period the Russian Religious Renaissance. ‘Old Russian Icon, long neglected by a Western-educated gentry, was transformed from a parochial craftwork into a world masterpiece, from a antiquarian curio into an avant-garde aesthetic model...’(Gatrall, Greenfield, 2010, p.g 31) the Renaissance saw a movement where the educated tried to rediscover their religion. A lot of the work came in the form of essays that went against the idea of atheism and materialism. The art began change a lot earlier, starting to make waves in the 17th century. However, it was subtle changes in religious painting such as the icons. They were painted with more realistic faces rather than the long thin noses and oval faces of icons before. This change kicked off the new thoughts of educated men and worried the Orthodox Church and of course the Tsar.
Under the control of Tsar Alex II Russia was heavily repressed and controlled. Everything in the media, any periodicals, propaganda etc were censored or created to make Russia look good domestically and in the western world. However, the art began to really change under Alex, this was because of his tough ruling. this brought around a lot of criticism and painters used their skill to exhibit this. The change from classic art, to a more western modern realistic style allowed this kind of painting to emerge. Painters wanted to show the terrible lives the peasants lived, how their gruelling manual labour was backward for the time, and how educated gentry were not really affected. Another artist who depicted Russia in it’s realist ways was Vladimir Egorovich Makovsky. This portrait of a peasant girl shows the just what life was like for her, through her clothes, messy hair and tired face it is easy to see what Makovsky was trying to show. ‘The portrait was executed during a period when artists were embracing the vibrancy of Russia’s cultural heritage and it’s people. They were turning away from the Western ideology, seeing instead a focus on the magnificence of Russian culture as found in lives of peasants’.(Strachan, p.g 100) (Fig 3.)1902 was the time of this painting and before the peasant revolt in 1905, under Tsar Nicholas II. Russia began to sought change because of Nicholas’ bad ruling and artists had begun to show this with their art. Social comment is a very powerful thing in art if done well, which in this case is correct. With the growing unrest within the peasantry and the public criticism from art it was a matter of time before a revolution and for Nicholas to be overthrown. When Nicholas II abdicated and after the Provisional Government were over taken by Lenin, the art changed into a whole new style that even with censorship expressed a lot.
Lenin’s government was not religious. He put in force the separation of church and government, he was against the church having power over how the country was ran. Although religion was acceptable to practice personally, it was not when it came to politics and government. Lenin declared within the Bolshevik group his thoughts and intentions on Religion. ‘Religion must be declared a private affair. In these words socialists usually express their attitude towards religion. But the meaning of these words should be accurately defined to prevent any misunderstanding. We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned.’ (Lenin, 1905)This idea of religion being separate from government was typical of the Marxist theory. The separation of religion and government affected religion in art from 1917 onwards especially. This was quickly supported by Lenin’s Commissar of Enlightenment, Anatolli Lunacharsky when he commissioned a statute of the founder of Marxism, Karl Marx. ‘Another admiral monument was the standing figure of Karl Marx made by Matveyev. Unfortunately, it got broken, and in its place ... there is now a bronze head of Marx ... with non of the originality of Matveyev’s plastic interpretation’, (V.I. Lenin, 2008, p.g 237). This shows that even though the sculpture didn’t last the effects of time, the Marxism thinking did. The fact it was still appropriate to renew the statue shows how strong Marxism and Leninism was, and how art and design were affected. The artist was Alexander Matveyev, a internationally known sculptor. A lot of his works had something to say or point out in society, such as October 1927. This was a sculpture of three nudes, a peasant, worker and Red Army solider, the sculpture points out who were responsible for the revolution. It also includes different classes together which was some of the thinking behind Leninism and further on Communism. Possibly one of the most well known designs in the graphic industry was produced by Nikolai Kolli. ‘Nikolai Kolli in his project for a totally abstract monument, the Red Wedge of 1918. In this he used a Red wedge shape to represent the Red Army cutting into a white mass representing the White Army troops... the use of abstract form was powerful precisely because it was based on popularly accepted linguistic usage’, (Cullerne Brandon, Taylor, 1993, p.g 25). The design version was made by El Lissitszky, this piece of design worked so well because it visually showed what was going on the country at the time. (Fig4) A lot of people supported to revolution, so it wasn’t controversial. It was agreeing with the people and the people were agreeing with that. Design works well when people can read it and receive it well, that’s why this style has been repeated every since. Sculpture was changing under Soviet Rule, it was booming more abstract but at the same time considered. Geometrics were being used such as the Red Wedge, where every line is representing something and done for a reason. This kind of deign changed and developed Russia’s graphic design for the better. Russia had developed an identity and style in their design which was widely seen because it was used in Soviet propaganda.Although Lenin did control everything in his rule, especially what went out to the public eye, it still allowed for a new interpretation of art. Albeit the art was propaganda in support of the Bolsheviks and Lenin. This is similar to the Russian Empire where art pieces were more successful if the the Tsar liked them. Although the ideas of art changed considerably within the revolution period, the way people and leaders read and understood them didn’t.
The art and design of Russia changed so vastly and very quickly from the transition of the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union. There are many reasons why it changed so much, such as the change from Tsarist rule to a Leninism rule, the very fast westernisation of Russia, the Enlightenment and new teachings or the separation of religion and politics. The separation in church and government is one of the biggest reasons why the design changed. As artists discovered other topics to depict or the right they had to socially comment on something via their work, allowed for that sort of movement. The change in government was also a huge reason for the art and design to change. Russia was a highly backward country at the end of Alex I’s rule and with that it meant art was restricted to develop as the west. As time went on and the Tsars reformed education and teaching it allowed the art to flourish but not the rate of the Soviet Union. This changes then kickstarted a country wide change that had to affected everything from politics to religion or education to art and design.
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Rosenthal, B.G., Bochochevksky Chomiak M., 1990. A Revoultion of the Spirit:Crisis of Value in Russia 1890-1924. 2nd ed. Fordham University Press
Bonnell, E.V., 1999. Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin. London England: University of California Press Ltd
J.J.A Gatrall., Greenfield D.M., 2010. Alter Icons: The Russian Icon and Modernity. Pennsylvania University Press.
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V.I Lenin., Lenin Collected Works, Socialism and Religion. 1965. Moscow: Progress Publishers
V.I Lenin., Lenin on Literature and Art.,2008. Wildside Press
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