Art after the revolution: artist and power. Historical and revolutionary theme in the Soviet fine arts

Self-portrait. 1910. Private collection.

Until recently, the battle painter Ivan Alekseevich Vladimirov (1869-1947) was known as the author of paintings and drawings on historical and revolutionary themes, sustained in the spirit of Soviet officialdom. His work has been reproduced, for example, in the "History civil war", published in the USSR in the 30-40s.

However, not so long ago, a series of watercolors by Vladimirov from American collections appeared on the Internet, which completely turned the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthis artist. In his drawings, dating back to 1918-1923, the revolution appears not in a pathos-heroic, but in a reduced everyday, often frankly grotesque form - drunken Red Guards, vandal soldiers in winter palace, peasants stealing the lord's property, boorish lumpen and other characters well known from memoir literature. At the same time, the pictures of the life of the starving Petrograd are shocking in their deep tragedy.

How did Vladimirov's drawings get to America? This is a separate, fascinating story.

Disturbing news. 1917.

The son of a Russian and an Englishwoman, Ivan Vladimirov was fluent in English. Until 1918, he was an artist-correspondent for two illustrated magazines - the Russian "Niva" and the English "The Graphic". At the same time, he signed his drawings for the English magazine: John Wladimiroff.

The artist spent almost his entire life in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad. All the events that took place in the "cradle of the revolution" took place before his eyes. According to Wikipedia, in 1917-1918. Vladimirov served in the Petrograd militia. But, judging by the drawings, he also visited the provinces, having the opportunity to observe the life of the peasants.

In 1921, the ARA, the American Relief Administration, began to work in starving Petrograd. Vladimirov, as a person who knows English, took an active part in it and became close friends with the Americans, primarily with Frank Golder and Donald Ranshaw. Also among his friends were people who worked in Russia on the YMCA line - Spurgeon Milton Keeny and Ethan Theodore Colton. All four acquired his drawings, which were then taken to America.

Behind detailed information about these personalities I refer readers to the magazine ljwanderer .

Historian Frank Golder, who specialized in the study of Russian-American relations, in 1914 and 1917. came to Russia, where he became an eyewitness of revolutionary events. In 1920, he was attracted to work by Herbert Hoover, who decided to create at his alma mater - Stanford University - a scientific institute dedicated to the study of the First World War and its consequences. On the instructions of Hoover, Golder begins to buy books, periodicals and various archival materials for the institute. In 1921 he goes to Soviet Russia through the ARA, which was also led by Hoover, and becomes an unofficial intermediary between the Bolsheviks and by the American government(there were no diplomatic relations with the United States at that time).

Golder was shocked by the famine in Petrograd and plight Russian educated class. Apparently, this served as an incentive for him to purchase watercolors by Ivan Vladimirov depicting the horrors of war communism. He paid the artist $5 for a drawing from his own funds.

After Golder's departure from Russia in 1923 in connection with the cessation of the work of the ARA, Spurgeon M. Keaney took over the acquisition of Vladimirov's drawings. On July 26, 1923, he writes to Golder that a total of 30 works by the artist have been sent to the Hoover collection and there is an opportunity to purchase ten more. In a letter dated May 21, 1924, Golder authorizes Keaney to spend $100 on commissions for Vladimirov, with the expectation that the drawings will be acquired by the Hoover Institution.

Today, 37 of Vladimirov's works are in the archive, and 10 more are in the collection of the Brown University Library in Rhode Island. They are also in private collections. In 1967, the photo album "Russia in Revolution" was published in the USA, in which Vladimirov's drawings from the collection of Brown University were reproduced.

Some of the watercolors were drawn by the artist specifically for the Americans, with captions in English. One of the drawings bears a dedicatory inscription: "To Mr. Renshaw a souvenir of the hungry years in Petrograd with my sincere regards John Wladimiroff 19 June 1923." (To Mr. Ranshaw in memory of the hungry years in Petrograd. With sincere wishes, Ivan Vladimirov June 19, 1923)

Frank Golder (right) and Donald Ranshaw in Petrograd. 1923

This begs the question - was the artist two-faced? Why for Soviet power he painted one thing, but for the Americans another? When was he sincere?

It should be noted that Vladimirov was never a mourner in the royal order. A staunch democrat, he took part in the street fighting in Petrograd in 1905 and met the fall of the monarchy in February 1917 with enthusiasm. However, what followed the October coup could not but arouse horror and disgust in him.

In the early 1920s, Vladimirov, like many other representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, perceived the crazy communist experiments as a temporary misunderstanding that must end sooner or later. But when it turned out that the Bolsheviks were serious and for a long time, he willy-nilly had to take the path of conformism and start drawing boring Soviet propaganda. At the same time, in some of his later works, the artist did not lose his sharp gaze, attention to expressive everyday details.

Vandalism in the Winter Palace. 1918.

The looting of a liquor store. Petrograd. 1919.

Withdrawal of banknotes and bonds in the Wavelberg bank (25 Nevsky Prospekt). 1919.

The peasants are returning after the destruction of the landowner's estate in the vicinity of Pskov. 1919.

The plot is repeated in the oil painting.

Destruction of the landowner's estate. 1926. Museum modern history Russia

The landowner and the priest are sentenced to death by a revolutionary tribunal. Valdai. 1919.

Clergy on labor service (for cleaning the stables). 1918.

Bourgeoisie on labor service. 1920.

Escort of the arrested

In the cellars of the Cheka. 1919.

General Buturlin's house. 1919.

The family warms themselves by the stove, which is heated with broken parquet boards. But you can’t heat much parquet.

Disassembly wooden house for firewood.

Hungry years in Petrograd. Hot soup from the public canteen. 1919.

A variant of the same plot: a family of "former" people carrying a meager ration, and new masters of life.

On the streets of Petrograd. 1918.

The family of the "former", driven from the apartment. 1918.

Hungry years in Petrograd. Cutting up a dead horse. 1919.

The search for food in the garbage pit. 1919.

On the last journey

General - Prince Vasilchikov in his current position. Sic transit gloria mundi (Thus passes worldly glory).
Petrograd, June 1922

The peasants who plundered the estates of the landlords are now themselves being robbed by the hungry city.

Requisition of livestock in a village near Luga. 1920.

before search and seizure. 1920.

Requisition of food in the vicinity of Pskov. 1922.

Seizure of church property. 1922.

Church valuables were confiscated under the pretext of fighting hunger. But the real help to the starving was provided by international charitable organizations.

Theft of food aid from the Red Cross. 1922.

Do you remember citizen Koreiko, who stole a whole train with food for the starving people of the Volga region?

Food aid from ARA. 1922.

A priest with food aid from the ARA. 1922.

A separate theme of Vladimirov's drawings was the depiction of Soviet everyday life, often quite ironic.
Here, for example, the children of the proletarians "get involved in art" in the Summer Garden.

Sports competitions in the imperial gardens. Petrograd, July 1921

Another kind of "introduction to art": a piano, stolen from a devastated manor, serves as a toy for village children.

At the beginning of the 20th century, three revolutions took place in Russia: Russian, February and October. Of course, artists responded to each of them. About how Russian painters reacted to the tragic events of 1905-1918, who cut Ivan the Terrible and why, and why Vasily Kandinsky needed the end of the world, Boris Sokolov, a professor at the Russian State Humanitarian University, an expert in the art of Russian symbolism and avant-garde, told the MIR 24 correspondent.

1. BORIS KUSTODIEV. "BOLSHEVIK"

Kustodiev is a good mocker. He decided long ago to exaggerate everything for himself. His sunset is lemon, Shrovetide is for the whole world. Singer Chaliapin is the size of a mountain, and everyone around is small.

Kustodiev used irony and the principle of popular print, when exactly what is interesting is exaggerated.

The artist, of course, sympathized with many things in the revolution. When 1917 came, Kustodiev lived in Moscow. He could not walk after the operation, and therefore February Revolution watched from my window.

Kustodiev has a documentary picture - "February 27, 1917" [Day of the election of the Provisional Government - "MIR 24"]. It depicts a meeting of people at the church in Podkolokolny Lane. From there, from this window, Kustodiev saw a different composition, completely fantastic picture- Bolshevik.

Boris Kustodiev. Bolshevik. 1920. Oil on canvas.

The picture shows the recognizable lanes of Moscow, along which crowds, clouds of people are walking. And above them is a Bolshevik, as huge as Chaliapin. He [Bolshevik] - in a curly scarf, with a serious, earnest face, carries a huge red banner. This is also a lubok - an idea about the people and for the people. This is a revolution in its beautiful, truthful and honest, peasant representation.

Kustodiev did not put bitterness from what was happening into his images. What can not be said about his colleague in the "World of Art" - Ivan Bilibin. Bilibin's caricature "On how the Germans released a Bolshevik against Russia", with insidious enemies and an evil dwarf on a mountain, over a bright country, still causes amazement. And this sarcasm is so strong that there is nowhere else to go ...

2. KUZMA PETROV-VODKIN. "PETROGRAD MADONNA"

Petrov-Vodkin contains a very strong alloy of different artistic beginnings and elements of aesthetics. He passionately loves both the icon and Matisse, he understands analytical method Cezanne and at the same time makes each of his paintings unusual and weightless. It is clearly seen that the people in these paintings barely touch the ground with their feet.

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. Death of the Commissioner 1928. Oil on canvas.

Petrov-Vodkin explained his method as follows: he wanted to depict a person at a moment when he is between heaven and earth - both here and in spiritual world simultaneously.

In the era of the World War and the revolution, Petrov-Vodkin painted a number of paintings where people do not fight with weapons in their hands for life and the future, but are about to take off, like the saints on the icons. These are earthly people, but they have fallen on the brink of being, in the conditions of another - mountainous - world. This is how he depicted the attack and death of the commander in the painting "In the Line of Fire" (1916), and in the same way, in weightlessness and among close clouds, "Death of the Commissar" (1928) is shown.

Petrov-Vodkin tries not to show enemies coming face to face (monarchists and revolutionaries, Russians and Germans). He never depicts evil, disharmony and abomination. In 1914-1915 he wrote "Our Lady of Tenderness to Evil Hearts". This is an iconic painting, it expresses the hope for peace and the return of humanity. And after the revolution, Petrov-Vodkin paints a different picture - simple and almost realistic in plot. It is called "In Petrograd in 1918".

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. In Petrograd in 1918. 1920. Oil on canvas.

This picture has long been called the "Petrograd Madonna". Because there, in the picture, against the backdrop of a street with exquisitely colored houses, people also walk weightlessly and discuss revolutionary decrees pasted on the walls. And against this background sits a mother with a baby, which looks like the Virgin and Child. This is a conversation about modern man, that a revolution is taking place, but at the level of spiritual entities.

In 1913, a monstrous incident occurred with Repin's painting "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan". The man who wandered for a long time Tretyakov Gallery, finally attacked this picture with a knife and cut it terribly. At the same time, he shouted: "Enough blood!" As it turned out, the man with the knife was a former icon painter who had been temporarily released from a psychiatric hospital.

3. VALENTIN SEROV. "SOLDIERS, BRAVA KIDS, WHERE IS YOUR GLORY?"

Valentin Serov once wrote to his fiancee that he was tired of everything difficult and problematic in art and life, and that now he wants something gratifying and will write only one thing gratifying. He tried to stick to this choice. But when he saw in 1905 how the troops smashed the barricades and destroyed the rebels in Moscow, Serov wrote a letter of resignation from the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. And he never taught there again.

The reason for the dismissal is that the trustee of this School was Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich [Romanov], who was in charge of the suppression of the uprising. Impressed by what happened, Serov paints a small but very expressive picture - “Soldiers, brave kids, where is your glory?”.

Valentin Serov. "Soldiers, brave children, where is your glory?" 1905. Cardboard, pastel, gouache.

Let me remind you that as revenge for the suppression of the revolution (an action necessary from the point of view of the authorities), the Socialist-Revolutionary Ivan Kalyaev killed the Grand Duke. And dedicated to the memory of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich architectural ensemble Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, which was created by architect Alexei Shchusev and artist Mikhail Nesterov. So everything was closely intertwined in art.

4. MSTISLAV DOBUZHINSKY. "APACIFICATION"

Many symbolist artists in the era of the first Russian revolution become caricaturists. In magazines like the Bogey, which were closed one by one by the censors. An amazing genre of symbolist caricature arises - the form is complex and aesthetic, the content is bitter and angry.

Maybe the most strong work Mstislav Dobuzhinsky created this genre.

The artist, who before these terrible events depicted the oddities and grimaces of the city, now shows an empty street with bloodstains, with glasses and a doll lying on the pavement, and calls it "October idyll". He depicts the Kremlin standing in a sea of ​​shiny liquid (we immediately understand that it is blood!), and calls the scene "Appeasement." Merezhkovsky's book "The Tsar and the Revolution" was published abroad with this caricature on the cover.

Vasily Polenov (he has almost no problematic social pictures) responded in his own way to social problems At the beginning of the century, the artist created a manor where peasant children could get an education and get acquainted with painting. Until now, Christmas trees are held there, to which only children from the "Polenov" villages near the museum-reserve are invited.

5. LEV BAKST. "ANCIENT HORROR"

Very many artists of the word and brush wanted to speak about their era with its upheavals and ripening catastrophes. But they considered it possible to speak only in the language of symbolism - indirect, fantastic and complex.

Aesthete, fashion designer and successful ballet artist Lev Bakst paints a picture where through the haze of a conflagration or splashes of a salty sea wave a picture of a dying ancient city is visible. This immediately brings to mind Atlantis. People are running, ladders are breaking, waves are running, everything is drowning. We see a huge lightning that splits the sky. And in the foreground - a passionless goddess who looks at us from mysterious smile. Bakst called this painting "Terror Antiquus" - "Ancient Horror".

Leon Bakst. Ancient horror. 1908. Oil on canvas.

The poet and philosopher Vyacheslav Ivanov responded to the Ancient Horror. He translated what is happening in the picture into a political plane. Ivanov claimed that Bakst depicted our world - not the ancient city is dying, but we are dying, everything is falling into the abyss. This horror lives in our souls, because what is happening around us is terrible.

From the desire to arrange a bloodless, spiritual revolution, many artists Silver Age- Benois, Grabar, Roerich - become art historians. They paint pictures about a wonderful historical time, and not about a difficult modernity that threatens the death of culture. They want to lead people into the beauty of art of all times and peoples. So did Kandinsky, who created the theory of " sounding world”And tried to give the harmony of these sounds in his paintings for the sake of harmonizing the soul of the viewer.

6. WASSILY KANDINSKY. "ALL SAINTS' DAY II"

Wassily Kandinsky is considered by many to be the inventor of the art of abstract forms. But in fact, his painting is full of concrete content. Kandinsky argued that the "Age of Great Spirituality" requires a new, spiritual art. Therefore, he sought to depict in the picture not the objects themselves, but the essence of these objects, the so-called "sound of things."

When the artist painted a picture, which is conditionally called “Battle” (it depicts gallows and cannons fire), he was asked: did you express a premonition in this picture [First - "MIR 24"] world war? To which Kandinsky replied: no - I foresaw a great world war, but not in the material, but in the spiritual world. And this is his position. Kandinsky believed that development goes through catastrophes, through the death and rebirth of the world - but not in material, but in spiritual terms.

Wassily Kandinsky. Battle. 1913. Oil on canvas.

In many of Kandinsky's paintings, one can see a snake or a monster appearing from below, from the waves. What does it mean? The fact is that the artist - and yet he likened new painting icons of the religion of the future - created his own myth. It depicts the end of the world (picture "All Saints' Day II"), but not in the way the apocalypse is depicted in the New Testament. The end of the world at Kandinsky is combined with a flood. There are figures of people who are drowning, dragons emerge from the rising waters, tentacles stretch. There - in the water - wriggling snakes originate. And above it all rises a hill. On the hill you can see a city that looks like the Russian Kremlin, and it is also collapsing, and under its walls is Kandinsky's favorite hero, the horseman. He either proclaims the future, or is saved from this perishing, obsolete world.

Wassily Kandinsky. All Saints' Day II. 1911.

Kandinsky does not directly explain his stories: he believed that they should be perceived through his own intuition. But at the same time, Kandinsky constantly repeats in his texts: Great War, the death of the world, followed by its rebirth. The plot of Kandinsky, embodied in "Compositions" - it is about the revolution. However, about the revolution experienced in the metaphysical spheres.

After October revolution Kandinsky does not at all seek to leave the country. He organizes the Institute artistic culture in which he wants to bring together scientists and artists, experienced and young. He came up with the idea of ​​creating museums of pictorial culture in the regions, which should educate people by means of new art.

The bitterness of the situation is that he was not accepted by his fellow artists. For them " spiritual art” was a foreign and incomprehensible phrase - after all, each group tried to create its own theory. And Kandinsky, who so wanted to make a revolution of the spirit in his native country, found a place for himself in the revolutionary art of Germany, becoming one of the leading teachers of the Bauhaus.

The place of Kandinsky in the Soviet art of the 1920s was taken by talented, but at the same time aggressive associations - Malevich with the Suprematists, Tatlin with the Constructivists. Their revolutionary spirit was radical, and soon began to diverge from life, from the state policy of uniting the nation. Thus, in the mid-1930s, revolutionary art ended, leaving an echo of great ideas for world design and for the post-war "second avant-garde".

Alexey Sinyakov talked to Professor Boris Sokolov

In 1921, the artist Konstantin Yuon, who had previously been famous for his landscapes and the image of church domes, painted the painting “New Planet”. There, a crowd of tiny men, actively gesticulating, is watching the birth of a giant crimson ball. A little later, the same crimson ball appeared in the composition of Ivan Klyun, an associate of Malevich. He is also in the painting by Kliment Redko “Midnight Sun”, and he is also held in muscular hands by a worker from the painting of the same name by Leonid Chupyatov, a student of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

Konstantin Yuon. New planet. 1921State Tretyakov Gallery

Leonid Chupyatov. Worker. 1928 arteology.ru

The coincidence of the motive in absolutely different artists significant. Everyone feels changes on a planetary scale, but they do not fully understand what the role of the artist will be in this new world. No, this is not a selfish question about finding a place, this is an essential question about a new function of art.

It would seem that everything is the same as before: artists unite, disengage, rumble manifestos, arrange exhibitions, move from group to group. However, after the revolution, a new and very active actor appears in the space familiar to them - the state. He has power, he owns multiple ways of encouraging and punishing: these are purchases, and the arrangement of exhibitions, and various forms of patronage. "Whom I love, I give."

And this is an unusual situation, because before the state was not too interested in artistic undertakings. Tsar Nicholas II once gave money for the publication of the World of Art magazine, but only because he was asked to do so, he hardly read the magazine itself. And now the government is going to rule everywhere. And in a way that suits her.

Therefore, looking ahead, when in 1932 the state closes all artistic associations by decree, this will be a completely logical gesture on its part. It is impossible to control what moves and changes appearance. Blooming complexity is, of course, good, but it sometimes resembles a mass brawl at a tavern; and if you make everything uniform, then the hostility will stop, and it will be easier to control art.

We will talk about enmity later, but now about how this presence of an external force in the person of the state changes the conditions of the game. For example, group manifestos, which were previously addressed to the city and the world and looked quite defiant, now have a specific addressee. And the words that everyone is ready to reflect the new revolutionary themes in their works very quickly take on the form of ritual spells - because the addressee-state invariably demands them. In general, these are not so much manifestos as declarations of intent sent to the authorities. Moreover, the majority of artists are sincerely ready to serve the revolution - but with their artistic means and in the way they understand it.

Speaking of post-revolutionary art associations, let us first try to single out those that are not exactly associations, but rather schools. Some significant artist, teacher, some kind of guru - and his students. Such schools could indeed be purely educational enterprises, such as the Petrov-Vodkin school, which existed from 1910 to 1932, but they could also be designed as artistic communities.

For example, Unovis (“Affirmative of the New Art”) is a community of students of Kazimir Malevich that existed in Vitebsk in 1920-1922. It was really an association - with a manifesto written by Malevich, with exhibitions and other collective events, with rituals and paraphernalia. So, the members of UNOVIS wore armbands with the image of a black square, the seal of the organization also had a black square. The maximum program of the association was that Suprematism should play the role of a world revolution and spread not only in Russia, but throughout the world, becoming a universal language - such artistic Trotskyism. After leaving Vitebsk, members of UNOVIS will find shelter in Petrograd's Ginkhuk, the State Institute of Artistic Culture, a scientific institution.

Members of the Unovis group. 1920 evitebsk.com

Classes in the workshop of Unovis - Kazimir Malevich stands at the blackboard. September 1920 thecharnelhouse.org

The association, although of a strange kind, was also the school of another avant-garde artist, Mikhail Matyushin. In 1923, the Zorved group took shape (the name is derived from the words "vision" and "knowledge") with a manifesto "Not art, but life." It was about expanded vision and training the optic nerve to form a new vision. Matyushin did this all his life, and this was clearly not what the country lived for. Nevertheless, in 1930, Matyushin, with another group of students, organized the "Extended Observation Collective" (KORN) and managed to hold one exhibition. The works of the Matyushints in form most of all resembled a biomorphic abstraction; theory there occupied a more significant place than practice.

Group "Extended Surveillance Collective". 1930s State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg

In 1925, the school of Pavel Filonov also received the status of an association, it was named "Masters of Analytical Art", abbreviated MAI. MAI did not have a special manifesto, but in this capacity there were Filonov's former manifesto texts - “Made Pictures” of 1914 and “Declaration of World Heyday” of 1923. They set out the Filonov method of analytical study of each element of the picture, the result of which should be a formula. Many of Filonov's works are called just that - "Formula of Spring", "Formula of the Petrograd Proletariat". Then Filonov himself would leave MAI, and the school would exist until 1932 without a leader, but according to his precepts.

But all these association schools that gathered around central figures of the old, pre-revolutionary avant-garde, are now completely out of the mainstream. At the same time, the phrase of the critic Abram Efros about the fact that the avant-garde "became the official art new Russia”, accurately captures the state of affairs in the first years of the decade. The avant-garde is indeed influential, but it is a different avant-garde, differently oriented.

The simplest (though not the most precise) way is to say that main plot of the twenties is an active confrontation between avant-garde artists and artists of the anti-avant-garde, which is rapidly gaining strength. But in the early twenties, avant-garde art experienced a crisis on its own, without any outside help. In any case, it is tested by art with high ambitions, which is exclusively occupied with the search for a universal language and the preaching of a new vision. It is not claimed by anyone, except for a narrow circle of its creators, their adherents, friends and enemies from the same field. But now being in demand is important; one laboratory work with students in Inkhuk and Ginkhuk, it is not enough, one must be useful.

In this situation, the concept of production art is born. It partly reproduces the utopia of modernity - to transform the world by creating new forms of everything that a person faces every day, to save a person with the right beauty. Everything should be modern and progressive - from clothes to dishes. And art in this case justifies its existence: it is applied, even useful. Suprematist and constructivist fabrics, porcelain, clothing, typography, books, posters, and photography are all now being done by avant-garde artists. These are Lyubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova, Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Vladimir Tatlin and many others.

Sergei Chekhonin. A dish with the slogan "The kingdom of the workers and peasants will have no end." 1920

Varvara Stepanova in a dress made from a fabric made according to her design. 1924State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin

Nikolay Suetin. A milk jug with a lid from the Baba service. 1930Collections of the Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory / The State Hermitage Museum

At the same time, it is interesting that Suprematist things - for example, dishes created with the participation of Malevich by his students - were not comfortable and did not even strive for this. Malevich thought in terms of universal categories, and in this sense, his dishes - the so-called half-cups - were akin to his skyscraper projects for the people of the future: all this was not for those who live here and now. But constructivist objects found practical mass use, they had reasonable functionality: dishes could be used, clothes could be worn, buildings could be lived and worked.

Kazimir Malevich. Suprematist tea service. Designed in 1918Museum of Fine Arts, Houston / Bridgeman Images / Fotodom

Kazimir Malevich. Architecton layout. 1920sPhoto by Pedro Menéndez / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The ideological substantiation of production art took place in the society "Lef" ("Left Front of the Arts") and in the magazines "Lef" and "New Lef" published by it. It was an association of writers that existed since 1922, Mayakovsky and Osip Brik set the tone there. And it was mainly about literature - in particular, about the literature of fact, about the rejection of essays in favor of documentary, and also about work for the social order and life-building. But Lef was surrounded by constructivist artists and architects, such as the Vesnin brothers and Moses Ginzburg. On the basis of Lef, the Unification arises contemporary architects(OSA group).

Cover of the magazine "Lef", No. 2, 1923 avantgard1030.ru

Cover of the magazine "Lef", No. 3, 1923 thecharnelhouse.org

Cover of the magazine "New Lef", No. 1, 1927 thecharnelhouse.org

Cover of the magazine "New Lef", No. 3, 1927 thecharnelhouse.org

Cover of the magazine "New Lef", No. 6, 1927Auction house "Empire"

Lef is, in its own way, the extreme point on the map of artistic associations of the twenties. At the other extreme - AHRR - the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (later the name is transformed into the Association of Artists of the Revolution and loses one "p"). These are the late residual Wanderers and others. The Association of Traveling Exhibitions, artistically irrelevant for thirty years, has existed all this time, recruiting artists from among the half-educated. Formally, the partnership ceases to exist only in 1923 - and its participants automatically become members of the AHRR.

AHRR says: now we have a new time, there has been a revolution, now socialist construction is underway. And art should simply honestly record this new time - its signs, plots, events. And don't worry about the means of expression at all.

Small digression. At some point, part of the Russian Facebook discovered the Akhrov artist Ivan Vladimirov. In his exceptionally poor performance, there was a chronicle of the first post-revolutionary years. How they rob noble estate. How a dead horse lies and the people tear it apart, because this is 1919 and famine. How they judge the landowner and the priest - and now they will be shot. People began to repost selections of Vladimirov's paintings, commenting on this as follows: it turns out that in the first post-revolutionary years, artists were aware of all this horror. However, this is precisely today's perception, and Vladimirov did not have such an assessment. He, like an akyn or a dispassionate reporter, captured what he saw - and he saw a lot. In addition, Vladimirov worked as a policeman.

Ivan Vladimirov. "Down with the eagle!" 1917 Wikimedia Commons, State Museum political history Russia

It turns out that AHRR painting is the art of fact. Let us recall that Lef defended the literature of fact. At some ideological level, aesthetic opposites converge.

Or there was such an Akhrov artist Efim Cheptsov. He has a painting "Re-training of teachers". A room is depicted, there are people in it, among them there are pre-revolutionary types (there are two of them), there are others. They read brochures, we can see the titles of the brochures - "Third Front", "Red Dawn", "Workers' Education". But the question is - why is this retraining, and not just preparation, an exam? The simple-minded artist tries in the title of the picture to prove the idea that he could not depict with paints - and could not, because the word "retraining" contains the idea of ​​duration. He sort of takes the name "Retraining" from one of these pamphlets, not realizing that it's not a book, but a painting. And this happens very often.

Efim Cheptsov. Retraining of teachers. 1925 museum.clipartmania.ru, State Tretyakov Gallery

The colorless and naive works of the artists of the early AHRR, by the absence of any aesthetic concern, remind of early wandering, very early. When any concept of pictorial beauty was rejected ideologically: what beauty, when the world lies in evil and the task of art is to expose evil? Now the world, on the contrary, is developing in a revolutionary way, but this is happening quickly, and you need to have time to capture all the events - is it up to beauty here? The Red Army is victorious, the village cell is in session, transport is getting better. All this should be portrayed, documentary evidence should be left. The artist, as it were, voluntarily leaves the picture, there is no his individual presence here. And this departure in a paradoxical way brings the Akhrovites closer to mass production art, and to the fundamentally anonymous students of Malevich from UNOVIS, who did not sign their paintings.

Efim Cheptsov. Villager meeting. 1924Photo by RIA Novosti, State Tretyakov Gallery

Mikhail Grekov. Trumpeters of the First Cavalry Army. 1934 Wikimedia Commons

A little later, in the thirties, this program will become the basis of socialist realism, whose credo will be precisely "the depiction of reality in its revolutionary development." But already in the 1920s, what the Akhrovites were doing found a response in many power structures - because it was a simple and understandable art. The main patrons of the AHRR are the military - the Red Army, the Revolutionary Military Council and People's Commissar Voroshilov personally. Artists work according to a social order, and this is spelled out in the program of the association: this is not considered something reprehensible here. We fulfill actual orders, that's why we are contemporary artists. And whoever has state orders has state money.

Members of the AHRR (from left to right) Evgeny Katsman, Isaak Brodsky, Yuri Repin, Alexander Grigoriev and Pavel Radimov. 1926 Wikimedia Commons

Between the indicated poles - AHRR and Lef - the map of associations of the 1920s resembles an artistic nomad camp. People move from group to group, there are a lot of these groups, it's impossible to list them all. Let's name just a few.

Some of them were formed by artists of the conventionally older generation, who had formed before the revolution. For example, the Society of Moscow Artists is mainly former " jacks of diamonds": Konchalovsky, Mashkov and others. In their manifesto, they defend the rights of the ordinary picture, which the production workers deny - so here they are conservatives. But they say that this picture, of course, cannot be the same: it must reflect the realities of today and reflect them without formalism - that is, without excessive focus on artistic techniques going allegedly to the detriment of the content. It is characteristic that the discussion about formalism, which will give rise to repressions against creative professions, is still about ten years away, but the word is already being used with a negative connotation, and it is amazing that former brawlers and troublemakers pronounce it. To fight against formalism is a kind of pedigree: we have the primacy of content, and experiments with form are Western. The Society of Moscow Artists will leave behind the tradition of the so-called Moscow school - thick, heavy writing, and the former "jacks" will ideally suit the court in socialist realism.

Another association of the "former" - those who exhibited both with the "World of Art", and with the "Jacks", and at the symbolist exhibition " Blue Rose is the Four Arts. Here are Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Martiros Saryan, Pavel Kuznetsov, Vladimir Favorsky and many others. Four arts - because, in addition to painters, sculptors and graphic artists, the association also includes architects. Their manifesto does not declare any single program - it is a community of people who value the individual. And in general, this is a very calm manifesto, toothless in its way. There are ritual words about new topic, but the main emphasis is on the fact that plastic culture must be preserved. Many of the participants in the "Four Arts" will turn out to be teachers of the Vkhutemas-Vkhutein and educate students who will create "under-cupboard" art, not associated with triumphant socialist realism.

Let's name two more associations, which are not very noticeable against the general background, but allow us to estimate the breadth of the spectrum. Firstly, this is the KNIFE (New Society of Painters), which existed from 1921 to 1924. This is a young landing in Moscow, Odessans prevailed there - Samuil Adlivankin, Mikhail Perutsky, Alexander Gluskin. They managed to hold only one exhibition, but in their paintings, especially those of Adlivankin, one can feel the primitive style and comic intonation, which will almost never be in Soviet art. Such realism, but with its own special intonation: a completely missed opportunity in the history of Russian art.

Samuil Adlivankin. The first Stalinist route. 1936Photo by Yuri Abramochkin / RIA Novosti

Amshey Nurenberg. Bourgeois bastard. 1929Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0; State Tretyakov Gallery

And secondly, this is Makovets. This association was created around the artist Vasily Chekrygin, who died at the age of 25, leaving amazing graphics. It included a variety of people - Lev Zhegin, closest friend Chekrygin and the artist himself is underestimated; Sergei Romanovich, student and adept of Mikhail Larionov; Sergey Gerasimov, future socialist realist and author of the famous painting "Mother of the Partisan". And the name of the society was invented by the religious philosopher Pavel Florensky, whose sister, Raisa Florenskaya, was also a member of Makovets. Makovets is a hill on which Sergius of Radonezh founded a monastery, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

Group of artists of the society "Makovets". 1922 Photo by Robert Johanson/Wikimedia Commons

The artists of "Makovets" were not alien to the prophetic and planetary pathos of the avant-garde: they dreamed of a conciliar, unifying art, the symbol of which for them was the fresco. But since a fresco is impossible in a hungry, ruined country, then all art must be conceived as some kind of approach to it, as sketches. Sketches for some of the most important text about humanity - hence the remakes of the old masters, an appeal to religious themes. It was very untimely art.

But after all, everything else will soon be marginal. By the second half of the decade, only two main forces remained on the field, opposing each other. But in the future, together they will form the signs of the "Soviet style". This refers to AHRR and OST - the Society of Easel Painters, "the most left-wing group among the right," as they said about it. The most discussed works of those years were exhibited at the OST exhibitions - “Defense of Petrograd” by Alexander Deineka, “The Balloon Flew Away” by Sergei Luchishkin, “Aniska” by David Shterenberg and others. "Defense of Petrograd" is a kind of symbol of the time: a "two-story" composition, where in the upper register the wounded return from the front, and in the lower register they are replaced by a line of Red Army soldiers. The OST also included Alexander Labas, Yuri Pimenov, Solomon Nikritin, Petr Williams; many here came out of the avant-garde. And the face of the association was Deineka, who left the OST a few years before its closure. In Leningrad, a kind of understudy of the OST was the Circle of Artists society. His face was Alexander Samokhvalov, who had been a member of the society for only three years, but who wrote “Girl in a T-shirt” - the most life-affirming type of the era. It is characteristic that in 30 years it will be styled under the Samokhvalov girl main character film about the 30s "Time, forward!" - in everything, down to the striped T-shirt.

Alexander Samokhvalov. Girl in a T-shirt. 1932Photo by A. Sverdlov / RIA Novosti; State Tretyakov Gallery

In the very phrase "society of easel painters" an antilef position is declared. OST - for easel painting, for the painting, and Lef for mass production and design, for dishes and posters. However, by the mid-1920s, AHRR was more influential than Lef: the production utopia had already outlived its active period. And in fact, the main dispute of the OST is with AHRR - a dispute about what should be modern Art. Instead of sluggish nature-likeness and descriptiveness, the OST has sharp angles, montage, and silhouette style of writing. The painting is graphic and resembles a monumental poster. The characters are certainly young and optimistic, they go in for sports, they drive cars and they themselves are likened to well-working machines. City and industrial rhythms are sung here, well-coordinated teamwork, health and strength. Physically perfect man- he is also spiritually perfect; such a new man must become a citizen of the new socialist society.

Of course, this is not typical for all artists of the association, but only for its core. But in this ecstasy of technology and well-coordinated work, the Ostovites, paradoxically, are close to the constructivists from Lef, against whom their program seems to be directed.

And at the turn of the twenties, we see the beginning of some new confrontation. On the one hand, there is the pathos of the OST, which will later turn into socialist realism. It is the joy of how wonderful everything moves - people, trains, cars, airships and planes. How perfect is the technique. How beautiful is collective effort, it leads to victory. On the other hand, completely opposite emotions, themes and expressive means of "Makovets", "Four Arts" and others. This is silence and static: room scenes, chamber plots, picturesque depth. People drink tea or read books, they live as if there is nothing outside the walls of the house - and certainly nothing majestic. They live as if following the words of Mikhail Bulgakov from the White Guard: “Never pull the lampshade off the lamp!”

And this quiet one, with lyrical and dramatic shades, will have to go underground in the 1930s. And the cult of youth and proper control of mechanisms will lead to parades and sports holidays, to a feeling of fusion with the cheering crowd. But this will happen only after the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, by its resolution of 1932 “On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations”, will prohibit all these organizations, and instead create a single Union of Artists. And the next “imperial” period in the history of Soviet art, stretching for more than two decades, will begin. The dominance of socialist realism and the totalitarian ideology that feeds it.

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Art always sharply reacts to the events taking place in society. Masters of the word, dance, brush sought to convey in their works the experiences, hopes and sufferings of their era. What did the artists see one of greatest events XX century - the October Revolution of 1917? The revolution was presented to many of the artists, especially the older generation, as a cosmic, universal cataclysm. It is in the spirit of these sentiments that Kustodiev's Bolshevik » . In this picture, the character was first painted by the artist in a completely atypical manner for him. Please note that Kustodiev has never portrayed unrealistic characters before. In this case, however, there is a grotesque increase in the role of the Bolshevik figure. A huge man in a cap with earflaps and a padded jacket walks through the streets of the capital with a huge waving flag of the country of the Soviets in his hands. The flag is huge, it is a symbol of the fire of the revolution. And everywhere people, people, people... They are armed, they are determined to fight for their interests. the face of the giant is filled with no less determination. He is a simple Russian man, an ordinary worker. He is the same as everyone who took to the streets. He walks confidently, clearly understanding where his path leads.

Before him there is only one barrier - the church. It is she who symbolizes imperial power, its last stronghold. But she will not stop the giant either - he will take a decisive step and cross the church with ease. The movement of revolutionaries is striking in its mass character and strength. The giant, as it were, personifies the leader of the crowd - he shows people the right path, leads them to a new life. The Bolshevik shows them that there are no more barriers and fear, only a bright future awaits the Soviet people. The picture is full of illusory ideas about the very meaning of the revolution and its significance for the people. This is due, first of all, to the misunderstanding of these problems by the author of the picture himself. Kustodiev was sincerely grateful to the Bolsheviks for their help in his work and appreciation of his talent. His gratitude to a greater extent formed the basis of this canvas.

The painting “New Planet” by K. Yuon differs in a similar perception. Illuminated with red light, new planet appears in the sky in a halo of golden rays. Some greet her, others flee in horror from her - this image expressed the mood of the artists themselves of this time, their attitude to revolutionary events.

The picture of K. S. Petrov-Vodkin “1918 in Petrograd” is also symbolic. », or, as it was called later, the “Petrograd Madonna” - In the center of the work simple woman in a snow-white scarf, clutching a baby to her chest. Her face is like an icon-painting face, and wariness and humility are read in her eyes. The baby in her arms is clearly the same age as the turning points of 1917. How many such mothers and children? However, despite the apparent simplicity, the figures of the heroes are read by the viewer as iconic and symbolic. The heroine is perceived as the mother of all children, a silent witness to the terrible events that threw many destinies under the mole of history, giving rise to fears, poverty and deprivation. Incredible work of the painter!

Some critics personify this woman with Russia of that period, there are also those who believe that the image is a harbinger of the more famous idiom - "Motherland". The background of the picture is also very telling. An attentive viewer will notice here leaflets flaunting on the walls - eyewitnesses of those events recalled how at every turn they were greeted with appeals and revolutionary manifestos pasted over the walls. And the crowds look very confused and thoughtful. Gathering in groups, people discussed pressing issues among themselves (for example, where to get bread), shared news and rumors. The streets of the city look too wide and therefore even more deserted, and the houses are strict and gloomy. In some places you can see broken glass, talking about the riot of the crowd. Most likely, people with all the force of their righteous anger smashed the administrative buildings of the interim government.

But not all creators saw the revolution in bright colors. One such example is Ivan Alekseevich Vladimirov. His secret albums, found after his death, with completely different works, in which he depicted what really happened on the streets of Petrograd during the days of the revolution.

Vladimirov, a documentary artist, simply displayed what he saw, and the Bolsheviks in his drawings turned out to be who they were - tyrants who mocked people. "A real artist must be truthful." I believe that Vladimirov was truthful in these drawings and, thanks to his sincerity and artistic courage, we have an exceptional pictorial chronicle of the era.

Thus, we see that the dreams of a new bright era were combined in the perception of artists with an awareness of the horror of destruction and grief that it carried with it. The scale of the events taking place in Russia in 1917 was clearly reflected in pictorial art. It gives us, a generation living 100 years later, food for serious thought.

The revolution of 1917 began a completely new stage in Russian painting, which was expressed both in the development of its new forms and in the comprehension of new, hitherto unseen events in Russia.

It can be confidently noted that the revolutionary events of this landmark year for our country laid the foundation for a unique cultural revolution, which, by the way, had no analogues in the world at that time. The content of this phenomenon also cannot have any unambiguous characteristics.

Since the October Revolution, Russian painting has found itself in a situation where:

• The idea of ​​the partisanship of any art was realized everywhere, i.e. the existing and even partially idealized principle of freedom of creativity was excluded. What eventually came down to the active politicization of the entire cultural sphere especially the arts and literature.
• There was an active "cultural enlightenment" of all, including the illiterate sections of the citizens of the former empire, and their familiarization with the national achievements of art.

Russian Artists and the Revolution - New Organizations, New Tasks

October 1917 basically drastically changed the position and nature of the work of the masters, whose artistic life and manner had already taken shape. It should be noted that the revolution, first of all, appealed to the work of young artists, which is natural. However, the numerous and diverse platforms that arose in its first impulse lasted in general only the next five years. The new artists showed themselves as daring innovators, destroying everything and tearing off experimental paths.

Among the major pre-revolutionary masters, the following representatives found agreement with the revolution:

• Russian impressionism - K. Yuon, A. Rylov
• — M. Dobuzhinsky, E. Lansere
• — A. Lenturov, P. Konchalovsky, I. Mashkov
• Vanguard -,

There are absolutely new directions in Russian painting on a revolutionary upsurge:

• "Unovis" as a representative of the already revolutionary (existed for 1 year) - included M. Chagall, K. Malevich, L. Lissitzky. The task of unification is new forms and new pure art"(Deciphering the abbreviation -" Approvers of the new art ")
• The group of artists "KNIFE" - in terms of tasks and forms, it was close to the ideas of "Jack of Diamonds"
• "Proletkult" - arises as an association on the principle of creation new culture(proletarian), opposed to the entire heritage of the classics

Meanwhile, in the artistic field of Russia, which had changed with the revolution of 1917, continued to exist and artistic groups, held traditional forms and depths of philosophical comprehension are associations:

• "Four Arts" - K.Petrov-Vodkin, N.Tyrsa, A.Kravchenko
• "Makovets" - father P. Florensky, V. Chekrygin

Revolution - new meanings and genres of painting

The leader of the revolutionary events, V. Lenin, saw in painting, as well as in cinema, a huge potential for:

• Education of the population (general), i.e. eradication of illiteracy
• Enlightenment through agitation, i.e. artistic propaganda of new ideas
• Cultural revolution, according to Ilyich, necessary for a "backward country"

This is how whole mass propaganda trends appeared in Russia, combining painting,.

Steamboats and trains painted by artists drove across the country, on which speakers went to the people, theater groups, projectionist, etc. Also, these propaganda trains carried newspapers, posters and other print products, being in essence at that time an analogue of the media. In the difficult five years after October, Russia had almost no other means of information at its disposal.

The walls and hulls of such propaganda ships and trains were semantically decorated with either poster graphics or artistic panels using primitive forms and techniques that could be accessible to an uneducated person.

Such painting was certainly supplemented by a text explaining the content, as well as necessarily motivating the viewer to action.

As the most mobile and optimally informative genre in the then revolutionary Russia, graphics became the most popular, namely, a drawing (newspaper or magazine) and a poster.

The main types of the poster genre born by the revolution along with the new country of the poster genre were:

• Heroic and political type (artist D.S. Moor, V. Mayakovsky)
• Satirical type (art. V.N. Denny, M.M. Cheremnykh)

The propaganda and informative "load" in the poster was given in a simple, but bright, capacious graphics. The slogans for it had artistic expressiveness and quickly perceived and remembered even with a short acquaintance.

Soviet artists who worked in the poster genre brought it to a high level of technology, possessing both their unique manners and personal artistic skill.

In fact, the poster as a type or genre of painting appeared earlier - back in the 19th century, but in a young country that defeated the people's revolution, it was born anew and became a whole independent artistic phenomenon.

Back in the World War, newspaper graphics played significant role, comparable to the action of a direct or psychological weapon that crushed the enemy and raised him to battle.

During the period of construction following the war, the poster continued to implement the same tasks, being an ideological tool. As the entire history of the USSR will show, there will not be a single significant event or phenomenon in it that will remain outside its poster comprehension.

Thus, the main functions of the Soviet poster were:

And for the purposes - it is also aesthetic education.

Gradually, as a genre that flawlessly copes with ideological tasks, the poster is generally displayed as main view painting. The revolution "secures" for him the status of a real " high art", so in the country:

• Thematic poster exhibitions are held
• These works are included in the collections of museums
• Placed in the archives
• Training courses open

To the credit of the artists who worked in this art form, it should certainly be added that, despite all the global politicization of the poster genre, its art has always been embodied at a highly artistic level. This is partly why, in the future, the functions of the Soviet poster were added, in addition to the above, and tasks:

• Communications as connections between people and power
• Image - as forming the image of the power itself
• Educational - as developing moral and social topics

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