CoP Seminar 2//Revolutionary Design In Russia

Petrograd, November 1917: Lenin & the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace to overthrow the dictatorship state led by the Tsaar. This was the birth of the Soviet Union - the worlds first Communist State.

B. Kustodiev 'The Bolsehevik' 1920

Propaganda painting - 80% of the population were illiterate so the Communist message was spread through representative imagery that all could understand. The red in the painting is symbolic of the Communist red - the blood spilt in the revolution. The everyday worker is leading the revolution.

Out of Communism grew a progressive design aesthetic which was modernist and pioneering in its style. The language of the design was largely inspired by industrialisation and the factory aesthetic, drawing on the experience of the worker, and always incorporating symbolism and usually the colour red. Many of the designs used experimental layout and typography, as well as abstract imagery.

El Lissitsky 'Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge' 1919

After Malevich's abstract and political Suprematist paintings the Constructivist movement was born. El Lissitzky's revolutionary painting 'Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge' became an iconic symbol of Communism. The white circle represented the elite capitalist state, which was penetrated by the revolutionary red triangle - the pointed and hard shape driving through and leading the way. It also hailed back to the storming of the Winter Palace and held a clear and apparent message for the general public.

After this design was expected to have a revolutionary & social purpose - Rodchenko's Library poster encouraging people to read books also used Lissitzky's imagery. As well as this Rodchenko worked in a new photomontage technique, and the use of a female in the poster emphasised the new role of the everyday woman in the left movement. This new style of design was aesthetically experimental with a social purpose, and was part of a wider Constructivist aim to build the new world "achieving the communistic expression of material structures". There was a lot of progression in this time and, surprisingly for such an impoverished country, an advancement over the West. There was a freedom ambition which allowed artists such as Tatlin to produce almost ridiculous works in an aspirational style.

'Books Poster - Books are for all fields of knowledge' A. Rodchenko, 1924

In 1924 Lenin died and was replaced by the totalitarian dictator Stalin. He banned revolutionary art and design and there was a return to a classic, non-progressive style. All the avant-garde groups were exiled and the Vkhutemas Progressive Art School was also shut. The idea of the happy peasant returned and a social realist approach was encouraged. It wasn't until 1962 that creativity truly returned - no creatives were left in the state and so it was decreed that a new art school be opened. However due to paranoia about Western society even this had constraints; the art school was to be an institute '...about industrial equipment and consumer goods quality improvement by artistic engineering methodology implementation'.

Summary

• The revolution was a new opportunity for art to progress
• The Constructivists produced useful art and design which had a purpose within the new state, to help construct the new society
• There was a use of new techniques such as photomontage and constructions, made with an abstract aesthetic
• By the end of the 1920s artistic freedom was curtailed - and by 1934 and the height of Stalin only Social Realism was allowed.