What was it about? What were the goals?
This was another Russian art movement, competing with Malevich’s Suprematism. It was founded by Vladimir Tatlin in 1913. Although there are many explanations written for the art, be warned, none of it makes any sense. Constructivist artists were innovative in terms of industrial materials and making photo collages. They also developed kinetic art – sculptures that move. This movement was very political, celebrating the end of monarchy and the rise of socialism. These artists wanted to put their work in the streets and squares of Russia in order to create a new culture and society. Of course, their patriotism was completely lost on Stalin who banned it around 1930, in favour of his Socialist Realism.
A bit of historical context:
So, this movement began with Tatlin and Rodchenko. Malevich coined the name Constructivism to make fun of it, in 1917. Constructivists rejected the notion of a spiritual quality in art, and even deposed Kandinsky as the director of the Institute of Artistic Culture. Constructivists also argued among each other with Gabo and Pevsner criticizing Tatlin and Rodchenko as well. Tatlin built a large tower in 1920, with search lights added on. Gabo complained, “Either create functional houses and bridges or create pure art, not both.”
The Manifesto:
Naum Gabo
and his brother Antoine Pevsner wrote a manifesto for the group in 1920, for
some reason titled the Realistic
Manifesto. It doesn’t represent the movement as a whole so much as their
own beliefs – they splintered from the rest of the group, and also fled Russia
to continue their work, while Stalin forced the others to conform to his vision
of Socialist Realism. Anyway, here’s the manifesto:
“We proclaim: For us,
space and time are born today. Space and time: the only forms where life
is built, the only forms, therefore, where art should be erected.
States, political and
economic systems, die under the push of the centuries: ideas crumble, but life
is robust; it grows and cannot be ripped up, and time is continuous in life's
true duration. Who will show us more efficient forms? Which great
human will give us more solid foundations? Which genius will conceive for
us a legend more elating than the prosaic story that is called life?
The fulfillment of our
perception of the world under the aspects of space and time: that is the only
goal of our plastic creation.
And we do not measure
our work by the yardstick of beauty, we do not weigh it on the scales of
tenderness and feeling. The plumb line in hand, the look accurate as a
ruler, the mind rigid as a compass, we are building our works as the universe
builds. This is why, when we represent objects, we are tearing up the
labels their owners gave them, everything that is accidental and local, leaving
them with just their essence and their permanence, to bring out the rhythm of
the forces that hide in them.
1. In painting, we
repudiate color as a pictorial element. Color is the idealized and
optical face of the objects. The exterior impression is superficial.
Color is accidental and has nothing in common with the internal content of
bodies.
We proclaim that the
tone of bodies, that is, their material substance absorbing the light, is their
sole pictorial reality.
2. We deny the line its
graphic value. In the real life of the bodies, there is nothing graphic.
The line is only an accidental trace that humans leave on objects. It has
no connection to essential life and to the permanent structure of things. The
line is a merely graphic, illustrative, decorative element.
We acknowledge the line
only as the direction of static forces that are hidden in the objects, and of
their rhythms.
3. We disown volume as
a plastic form of space. One cannot measure a liquid in inches.
Look at our real space: What is it if not a continuous depth?
We proclaim depth as
the unique plastic form of space.
4. We disown, in
sculpture, mass as a sculptural element. Every engineer knows that the
static forces of solids, their material resistance, are not a function of their
mass. Example: the rail, the buttress, the beam . . . But you sculptors
of any trend and any nuance, you always cling to the old prejudice according to
which it is impossible to free volume from mass. Like this: We take four
planes and we make of them the same volume that we would make with a mass of
one hundred pounds.
We thus restore to
sculpture the line as direction, which prejudice had stolen from it. This way,
we affirm in sculpture depth, the unique form of space.
5. We repudiate: the
millennial error inherited from Egyptian art: static rhythms seem as the sole
elements of plastic creation.
We proclaim a new
element in plastic arts: the kinetic rhythms, which are essential forms of our
perception of real time . . .
Art is called upon to
accompany man everywhere where his tireless life takes place and acts: at the
workbench, at the office, at work, at rest, and at leisure; work days and
holidays, at home and on the road, so that the flame of life does not go out in
man.”
Productivism
Gabo’s manifesto led to a series of artistic debates in Europe that led to this new idea, championed in Russia, that art should be industrial, and that the age of easel painting should end. Tatlin agreed and became a designer, designing clothes, furniture, and everyday appliances like stoves. Rodchenko became a graphic designer, creating advertising posters, and collaborating in films.
How was it represented in the other arts –
music, architecture, and literature?
Besides fine art sculptures, industrial and graphic design, Constructivists tried their hands at cinema, creating The Young Lady and the Hooligan (1919), Kino Eye (1924), and the sci-fi film Aelita (1924), among others.
Was it great?
Good question. Like the futurists in Italy, this was a short-lived experimental movement that borrowed heavily from the art movements around it, and didn’t last long enough to really produce much. It seems to have produced more debate than artwork. Having said that, Rodchenko became famous for his posters, and some of Naum Gabo’s sculptures are quite creative. It’s a bit like other modern art movements where the philosophy is nuts, but some of the work is interesting.
Some leading
figures:
Alexander Vesnin (1883-1959)
Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953)
Antoine Pevsner (1886-1962)
Aleksei Gan
(1887-1942)
Lyubov Popova (1889-1924)
Naum Gabo
(1890-1977)
Alexander
Rodchenko (1891-1956)
Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958)
Some of the most famous artworks of the time:
