The Russian Avant Garde began in Russia in about 1915 It was the year that Malevich revealed his Suprematist compositions that reduced painting to total abstraction. and rid the pictures of any reference whatsoever to the visual world. He is credited with being the first artist to do this; that is, forsake the visual world for a world of pure feeling and sensation. This was the first movement originated by Russians and the birth of several other Avant Garde movements. Probably the most popular piece at his 1915 exhibition was “BLACK SQUARE” (real name “suprematist composition”. It’s basically a black square on a slightly larger white square that forms a border around it. It was hung in the exhibition in the way an icon would be hung in a peasant’s home; ie top corner of the room. Malevich saw Suprematism as representing a yearning for space, an impulse to break free from the globe of the earth. It a spirit, a spirituality that went beyond anything before it.

Among Malevich’s students and contemporaries were such names as El Lissitzsky, Alexsandr Rodchenko and Vladimir Tatlin who wer

Art and Revolution. John Berger. 1969. Pantheon Books

Rodchenko was proud of the fact that the leftist artists had been the first to come to work with the Bolshevik comrades. There was a Constructivist manifesto released in 1922,( when Constructivism had reached its Zenith and had started ever so slowly to decline,) stating that the movement as a whole was “trying to build the intellectual material production of Communist culture”. The general mood among the Avant Garde was one of completely embracing the Bolshevik ideal. Perhaps this is why they were given so much freedom. From all accounts, the leftist artists felt very supported by the government. According to a letter written at the time by a friend of several of the artists, all of the young artists, no matter how innovative or experimental were taken seriously. They spoke about being able to realise their dreams, and they were grateful that neither politics nor power intruded into their work. They felt it was the first time most of them had been given the opportunity to do everything they wanted in their own field. A boyish dream, perhaps, but it must have been extremely liberating. They ran with their new ideas for a while and then got down to the work of helping the revolution through art.

By 1921 Constructivism had reached its Zenith and had slowly started a decline that would last another nine years or so until the Stalinist purge of artists began. Their popularity didn’t diminish very much but the punchiness of their art which was vital at the start of the revolution was no longer needed as much. The fist world war was over, the revolutionary government were now the official state line and the emphasis changed from War propaganda and monuments to posters promoting the new economic policy and the bourgeoning soviet cinema industry. Constructivist art turned its attention to the people as humans, not as units for the revolution. They started making functional art for the civil sector. George and Vladimir Sternberg were Constructivists who became widely recognised during this period. They designed economic policy posters similar to Rodchenko and Lissitzky but their real fame came through film poster designs. The Russian film industry was becoming very experimental and radical through such people as Eisenstein and Vertov and the Sternerg brothers naturally followed suite. They were also responsible for a world changing tecnique in graphic art and photography; The extreme close-up.

The slow decline of the Avant Garde art movement kept going until the early thirties. Artists were still creating remarkable Constructivist and Suprematist art, among other styles, But the heady days of revolution and innovation were behind them. The treasury was empty, there was no more money for gigantic monumental public art and architecture and glorious examples of people�

Some topics in this essay:
Avant Garde, Eiffel Tower, Art Lenin, Malevich’s Suprematists, Constructivist Suprematist, Bauhaus October, Bukharin Lunacharsky, Garde Russia, RED WEDGE, Vladimir Tatlin, avant garde, october revolution, constructivism reached zenith, press art, visual world, leftist artists, economic policy, industrial designs, russian avant, russian avant garde, reached zenith, constructivism reached,