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

The Avant garde no longer had a base. A few caved in and became correct thinkers. A few escaped to other countries in Europe. Some stayed in Europe and some ended up in America. They have developed and grown. Along with Gabo and Rothko and Kandinsky and numerous others, they are still having a profound influence on art. There were many parallels between the Russian Avant Garde and the two revolutions in 1915. The big difference between them in 2001, is that the art survives and grows stronger; while the other is seen for what it is, a pathetic pseudo despotism run, for a lot of years by a sociopathic mortophile.

The government saw Constructivism as a tool and all other art as Art. Lenin said he did not know whether all these art forms were the highest manifestation of artistic genius or not; simply because he was unable to understand them. He also said that he received no joy or pleasure from them either. Further, that although complete freedom was the right of every artist this did not mean free reign was to be the order of the day either. Stalin was later to take this to mean extreme and total control of the arts which led to the bloody purges of those who had not died.

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.

The Suprematist and Constructivist schools tried different approaches. Malevich’s Suprematists were trying to create a whole new vision, a new world, breaking all tradition and rejecting the old culture. Tatlin’s school, however, rejected easel painting. They said it was bourgeois and should be discounted completely. They adopted a very mathematical, utilitarian approach to art. They studied engineering and architecture. They sta

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