Russian Avant-Garde was born at the start of the 20th century out of intellectual and cultural turmoil. Through the analysis of artworks by Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky this essay attempts to explore the freedom experienced by artists after the Russian Revolution in 1917. This avant-garde movement was among the boldest and most advanced in Europe. It signified for many artists an end to the past academic conventions as they began to experiment with the notions of space, following the basic elements of colour, shape and line. They strove for a utopian existence for all benefited by and inspired through the art they created. They worked with, for and alongside the politics of the time. The equality for all that they sought would …show more content…
Rodchenko overlaps planes of colour, form and texture in an architectural way. His design includes a large clock signifying the importance the Revolution placed on precision and efficiency, as well as a speaker’s rostrum, a huge billboard and a space to sell books and newspapers. Rodchenko became an indisputable supporter of the Bolsheviks after the revolution and held roles within the newly formed Fine Art Department of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment. El Lissitzky was a Suprematist and therefore his goal was to create work that embodied utopian ideals and values. His work was more transcendental and he sort to manipulate space and perspective to shape the new world. El Lissitzky developed Prouns (an abbreviation of Russian words meaning ‘project for the establishment of new art’). These images were meant to move and inspire the masses. El Lissitzky described the ‘Proun’s power is to create aims, this is the artists’ freedom, denied to the scientist’ (Margolin 1997, p. 33). He aimed to create works that would be clear to everyone in an attempt to build a classless society. Despite the isolation of Russia from the rest of the world as a result of the Revolution, El Lissitzky still believed in a utopian world. He chose to recreate form and space from scratch. The Proun brought together architecture and painting. Proun 1 E, The Town (see figure 2), closely models a town plan. There is volume to the shapes he uses which indicate the form of
George Dasch, was a German saboteur during WWII, and the leader of a four man group dropped by a U-boat off the coast of Long Island in June 1942. A second team was also dropped off the Florida coast. The saboteur's were recruited and trained in Germany in the use off explosives and sabotage. The intended long term objective was to cripple American infrastructure in areas of war time production. Upon landing and burying their explosives for use in a two year operation, Dasch's group was compromised by a Coast Guard patrol officer who immediately alerted his superiors. Still, Dasch and his colleagues safely made their way off the beach to Manhattan, New York. It was Dasch who defected and alerted FBI authorities as to his team's whereabouts,
The book I chose to do my book report on is "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". The book is about the most forceful indictments of political oppression in the Stalin era Soviet Union. It is a captiving story about the life in a Siberian labor camp, related to the point of view of Ivan Denisovich, a prisoner. It takes place in a span of one day, "from dawn till dusk" (pg. 111) . This book also describes his struggles and emotional stress that he must going through.
Francisco Goya’s The Executions of May 3, 1808, is a remarkably interesting piece of art. This piece represents a protest against the Napoleon Occupational Army in Madrid. There are various visual elements and design principles in the art, which will be covered. The beginning of this ILO will contain the visual elements first, followed by the design principles, and what they mean in the artwork.
The essay will make use of the works of photographic artists who engage in one of the two schools of photography, Pictorialism and Modernism. The artists that will be used for this essay are Paul Strand who has been selected for the Modernist development together with a Russian artistic photographer Alexander Rodchenko and As White remained rooted to Pictorialism, his stance on his methodology and set up in the 1920s and 1930s led to occurrence of the stirring up of quite a number of understudies to handle his visualization style which was fresh and innovative (White, Clarence H., Jr. and Peter C. Bunnell 1965). In the process of talking about the two schools of photography, Pictorialism and Modernism rather than focus on the clash and disagreements that occurred from Pictorialism and Modernism it is more suitable to examine the merits in both the method and styles used in the two schools of
The engulfing size of the painting (250.5 x 159.5 cm) drives the audiences mind into a hypnotic frenzy as they are overwhelmed by bright and sensual colours, which, have the ability to evoke deep emotions and realisations. Kandinsky has portrayed this through the disorientation of his own personal visions of society during the industrial revolution. The rough yet expressive outline of buildings, a rainbow and the sun gives reference to realism as it allows viewers to connect and understand underlying motifs and shapes yet is painted abstractly to move away from the oppressive and consumerist society. Thus, Kandinsky breaks boundaries through his innovative approach to his art-making practise concluded from his personal belief of ‘art for arts sake’. He believed that art should mainly convey the artist’s personal views and self-expressionism that translated a constant individuality throughout his work from an inner intentional emotive drive. This broke traditional boundaries as art in the renaissance period was meant to be a ‘narration’ or an artwork where an audience could learn and benefit from. This is evidently shown in Composition IV as it exemplifies Kandinsky’s inner feelings towards the industrialised society
Solzhenitsyn’s book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, is a well written piece of literature that describes in stunning detail the life that may await a “Zek” in the Gulag System. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is not spread over an extended period of time, but about a single day from reveille to when Ivan Denisovich’s eyes close that night. This allows for a more critical and unshrouded view of what Denisovich is thinking while performing menial tasks such as eating, walking to the work site, and observing those around him. Denisovich tells the reader about the people around him and his thoughts on their character. For example, “Senka was a quiet, luckless fellow.
It was not until after World War I that Russia began to undergo a series of changes. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the former Russian empire that had existed from 1721 up until then collapsed, and the Soviet Union was introduced. The geographic renaming of Russia from the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union also brought about many gradual changes. There were also changes in religion, as the new government replaced the role of the Orthodox Church. There was an increase in nationalism because of the conflicts that had existed between the Reds and the Whites. What used to be the czarist regime was replaced by a provisional government and then eventually by communist leaders Lenin and Stalin. There were also shifts in the economy,
The National Center for Toxicological Research recommends Igor Pogribny, M.D., Ph.D., Research Biologist of the Division of Biochemical Toxicology, for appointment in the Senior Biomedical Research Service (SBRS) under Biomedical Research category.
Although the characters find themselves constrained by language and space in Solzhenitsyn’s novel, there is a much more oppressive and restrictive force at play: time. Time is a driving force in the narrative from the very beginning, evident in Solzhenitsyn’s choice to feature only one day of Ivan Denisovich’s life. This single-day plot stresses that Shukhov’s days no longer belong to himself, but rather they belong to the Soviet government. One day to someone who is free is considered a singular unit of time in the regular ebb and flow of everyday life, but one day for Shukhov carries tremendous weight as a small part of his lengthy sentence. “There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch.” (Solzhenitsyn, 167) Each day was not planned out according to Shukhov’s wishes and impulses but
The Russian Revolution is a widely studied and seemingly well understood time in modern, European history, boasting a vast wealth of texts and information from those of the likes of Robert Service, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Allan Bullock, Robert Conquest and Jonathan Reed, to name a few, but none is so widely sourced and so heavily relied upon than that of the account of Leon Trotsky, his book “History of the Russian Revolution” a somewhat firsthand account of the events leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that Trotsky’s book, among others, has played a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the events of The Revolution; but have his personal predilections altered how he portrayed such paramount
The novel One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich was published in 1963, and was written by Alexander Solzhenistyn. It follows one day in the life of a Soviet man, and the events that transpire while he is inside Stalin’s labour camps. The lifestyle which people endured in the Soviet labour camps is shown through Solzhenistyn’s writing. This paper will use the novel to demonstrate the survival tactics of various prisoners, and how these strategies helped them survive their day to day lives. It will show how the camp’s operations played a role in shaping the attitudes which the prisoners expressed towards themselves and those around them. It will finalize by equating Ivan Denisovich’s struggles in the novel and his life inside labour camps, with the
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is the author of six symphonies and the finest and most popular operas in the Russian repertory. Tchaikovsky was also one of the founders of the school of Russian music. He was a brilliant composer with a creative imagination that helped his career throughout many years. He was completely attached to his art. His life and art were inseparably woven together. "I literally cannot live without working," Tchaikovsky once wrote, "for as soon as one piece of work is finished and one would wish to relax, I desire to tackle some new work without delay." The purpose of this paper is to give you a background concerning Tchaikovsky's biography, as well as to discuss his various works of
Growing up in the Eastern Catholic Church, a faith heavily influenced by slavic cultures and traditions, I have been surrounded by Russian forms of art my entire life. It is in the music I sing at Divine Liturgy, in the architecture of the church and the icons that decorate it, but the most prominent Russian art form I have been exposed to throughout my life is literature. First it was the stories I learned in Sunday school about the Russian saints. My favorite was St. Seraphim, the Russian monk who lived in a hut in the woods and when he prayed, all the animals, from rabbits to bears, would sit beside him and listen. Then when I was first learning to read, a lady in my parish had given me an illustrated book of Russian fairy tales. I loved to try and copy the pictures from it, especially the bright orange and red firebird that was depicted on the cover. Despite these early introductions to Russian literature, I think the first thing that really
Kazimir Malevich’s “The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings” (1915) and El Lissitzky’s “Proun” series (1923) are perfect examples of suprematism movement formed in Russia in the beginning of the 20th century. Suprematism is a branch of modernism; it is being referred to as “pure”, i.e. self-defining, mainly for its close to absolute flatness, clarity, and preserved quality and integrity (Greenberg, 1-2). Whereas Malevich’s work is predominantly flat and doesn’t go beyond canvas; Lissitzky is using the concept of space by filling it with geometric shapes, solids and axonometric projections, his work is closer to being an installation rather than just paintings. Both artists use vivid colors to create a sense of three-dimensionality without
When we hear the term Russian culture many Americans tend to have negative thoughts like the cold war, their government ruling with an iron hand, and the Red Scare. These thoughts do not do the justice to the Russian people or to their long history as a people dating back to INSERT DATE. One of the major themes throughout Russian history and this course is the idea that the Russian people value intangible things more than the tangible. The Russian people have a long rich heritage, they are deep in there Christian faith, and they pride themselves on hospitality and value there community, families, and fellow Russian people. They have learned how to sacrifice from the constant invasions and being forced farther and