sculpture in soviet russia

Sculpture in Soviet RussiaAuthor(s): D. AronovichSource: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 7, No. 21 (Mar., 1929), pp. 687-693Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4202342 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 13:39

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and EastEuropean Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavonic andEast European Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.110 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:39:09 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mhra

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucl

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucl

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4202342?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


SCULPTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA. SCULPTURE in Russia has always been more dependent on Western art than painting. All the modern schools of European sculpture have their reflection in the work of our sculptors of to-day. Impressionism, cubism, archaism, primitivism, constructivism have all had their followers.

Russian sculpture is only just beginning to be emancipated from Western tutelage, under the influence of the ideological independence of our country. The search for a new realism is the expression of the newly acquired spirit of independence. But the new style has not yet been fully achieved. There is still much vacillation, doubt, borrowing from abroad and harking back to the past. The movement, though dominant, has not attained to any unity of stylistic purpose. Only a very few young sculptors have been able to grapple directly with the new form. As for the older generation, they are still torn between the demands of the new themes and their dependence on foreign forms of expression.

Before the Revolution, sculpture in Russia (as in the West) was under the influence of painting-for impressionism is no more than an application of pictorial methods to sculpture. It still survives, continuing to ignore sculpture as an independent art and to substitute pictorial contrast and chiaroscuro for plastic form. In Russia, however, as in the West, impressionism was never a homogeneous movement, and many divergent tendencies may be distinguished under its surface. The generic term " impressionism ' includes such variations as the aesthetico- symbolical, the psychological, the decorative and the dynamico- monumental styles.

The best example of the cesthetico-symbolic tendency is the work of A. S. Golubkina (died I927). Her impressionism mani- fests itself in a deliberate lightness of movement and the graceful transitions from surface to surface; in her hands sculpture is transformed into a super-refined symbolism (as in her plaster Children), verging sometimes on the morbid (as in her bronze Humanity). Golubkina was at the time almost the only Russian sculptor to remain untouched by the all-pervading influence of

687



688 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

S. Konenkov. His influence was not only due to his being one of the major lights of impressionist sculpture. His extraordinary versatility is one of the reasons why the school of modern sculpture founded by him still survives. Whatever style Konenkov took up, he approached it in an extraordinarily " organic " way -he seemed to see all its limitations as well as all its possibilities. His aestheticism was merely a concession to the times; impressionism was not for him, as it was for his contemporaries, the only way of expressing movement. No style was alien to Konen- kov-from styles as remote as Greek archaism (Kora, Archaic Head) and " Russian" primitivism (Bogey-Man, Stribog) to the picturesqueness of pre-war sculpture (Romashkov's Fiddle). Another reason for the survival of Konenkov's influence is his extraordinary sense of the material in which he worked. The sculptors of to-day owe to him their love of wooden sculpture. A. Zlatovratsky and B. Sandomirskaya are two of his most interesting followers.

Psychological impressionism is chiefly associated with portrait sculpture. Many sculptors who are returning to realism are beginning to admit psychological impressionism into their work (B. Korolev and others). V. Domogatsky is almost the only sculptor to use the style in " pure sculpture " (nudes)-as well as in his portraits of the last few years (Portrait of the Artist, Professor Anisimov, Bakunin, Pushkin, Tolstoy, etc.).

Decorative impressionism is represented chiefly by A. Zlato- vratsky and by our animal sculptors. The former has so far failed to free himself from an ultra-individualistic intimateness of an almost "boudoir" character. The cultivation of the decorative style in animal sculpture is easier to understand. We may mention I. Efimov's Passion and Varagin's Bear (I926).

In these powerful works both artists have combined chiaroscuro effects with an independent sense of form and expressive content.

Almost the only sculptor to cultivate the dynamico-monumental impressionism is Stepan Erzya (Victims of War). As monumental sculpture demands clear-cut, powerful and generalised form rather than movements, and is consequently unsuited for dynamic treatment, it is not to be wondered at that the number of artists to adopt the style is small.

Such are the chief aspects of our achievement in the impressionist styles " inherited " from pre-revolutionary days. However great their number or their variety, the present and, still more, the future part of impressionism in Soviet sculpture



SCULPTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA. 689

is extremely limited. And this is not because the work of the impressionist sculptors is bad. A close analysis would seem to prove the contrary. But its quality alone is not enough for any art. The influence of impressionism, which till lately loomed so large in European sculpture, has for several years been on the wane. And if this is true of the West, how much more is it true of us, with our new and altogether independent conditions? For impressionism, with its transparent form and purely superficial dynamics, is a passive formula, devoid of moral concentration -and the Revolution has created the demand for an art that would be active, organised and constructive.

Only a few years ago, in the USSR. as in the West, cubism commanded many loyalties (I. Chaykov, B. Korolev, Klyun and others), and this was perfectly legitimate, for cubism was first and foremost a reaction against impressionism. Form and contour, as primary constructive elements, had been almost lost sight of by the impressionists. This was an abnormal state of affairs. As a reaction against impressionism, cubism was even more legitimate in sculpture than in painting. And yet to-day cubism is almost dead in Russian sculpture, and retains very few followers (Chaykov, I926; Klyun, I927). Cubism lost its hold on the USSR. more quickly than on Europe, because its abstract formalism could not adequately cope with the new themes.

Archaism occupies a somewhat more prominent position. Its chief representatives are I. Razmanov (Bust, I926) and, to a certain extent, S. Bulakovsky. Archaism has this advantage over impressionism that it is constructive. But it is a typically retrospective style, out of touch with life. So that the task of creating clear-cut, constructive forms, which cubism and archaism have failed to fulfil, has devolved on their successors, primitivism and constructivism.

Such are the main tendencies in contemporary Russian sculpture. We will now examine the actual achievement. An active interest in sculpture manifested itself at the very beginning of the Revolution. As early as I9I8 Lenin suggested the idea of " monumental propaganda " by sculpture, which was carried into practice on a vast scale. In a very short time eighty monuments to prominent revolutionaries, scientists and artists were erected in the streets of Moscow and Petrograd alone. Some of them-as the Lassalle statue in Leningrad-are still standing. A monumental construction on this vast scale worthy of Greece or of the Renaissance, demanded great quantities of studies and models. Hence the big output of sculpture in the early Revo-

Yy



69o THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

lutionary period. Scores of works in the most varied styles and on the most varied subjects were accomplished in the course of two or three years. The sculpture of the first revolutionary years may be classified under five main headings. There would first come quite a quantity of naturalistic work, devoid of any marked style. As most of this work consisted of portrait statues, likeness was the one point aimed at. Such are the Marx and Engels group of Mezentsov; the truly French Jaures by Strazh; Hajji-Duvan's bust of Pestel; the impressive, naturalistic Robes- pierre of Sandomirsky; V. Fisher's crude and unlike Dobrolyubov; the psychological Belinsky of A. Chemyshev; S. Bolnukhin's Taras Shevchenko, and many other works. Next would come works executed in the pictorial, impressionistic or romantic manner-the somewhat laboured and excessively " literary " Kalyaev by B. Lavrov, which shows the strong influence of L. Radugin's Rimsky-Korsakov, and Fomin's Kozlovsky, an example of all that is best in our sculpture. A third group would include the work of the " Left" sculptors. Though it was paradoxical, conventional and unintelligible to the public at large, the " left " policy in art that prevailed at that time caused a number of models in a more or less cubist style to be accepted. These included the " Tragic " Beethoven of Smirnov, in which the treatment of the surfaces was rather a success; B. Korolev's " terrible," icon-like Bakunin; 0. Manuilov's Ryleyev, fairly constructive and interesting in its generalised expressiveness. A distinct tendency to generalised realism, better adapted to our heroic times, was already beginning to manifest itself in the work of the early revolutionary period. The styles that prevailed at the time were not favourable for such a realism, but efforts and experiments were made that may be counted as a fourth group -as Syreyshchikov's Koltsov; Skovoroda, by an anonymous artist; and A. Manuilov's somewhat sentimentalised Jean Jacques Rousseau. As the demand for sculpture was great, and so was its stylistic variety, a certain amount of symbolism was inevitable -in spite of the revolutionary directness and simplicity of the times. Work of this kind may be included in a fifth group, of which Strakhovsky's Danton, complete with lyre and lion, and draped in a toga, and the same artist's stiff, but weak, Spartacus, may be taken as specimens.

Some mention must be made of the first experiments in bas- relief-the well-known reliefs in the wall of the Kremlin, in the Red Square and on the building of the Revolutionary War Coun- cil (Revvoensovet) ; and the studies for a memorial plaque to



SCULPTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA. 69r

the heroes that fell in the October Revolution, in the Red Square, by A. Gurdzhan and A. Babichev.

Finally, it should not be forgotten that interesting attempts were made to commemorate the Revolution by architectural monuments-architecture being the most comprehensive art, this seemed the best. But after Tatlin's famous " Tower of the Third International," all other models of such monuments (e.g., A. Efimov's " Model for a Monument of Liberty, in Soviet Square, Moscow ") seemed, and were, insipid.

Unfortunately, this dawn of sculpture did not last long, and its results were comparatively insignificant. One of the reasons for this was that all the work was exceedingly sketchy and unfinished. Secondly, much of it was executed in a style that was inaccessible to the masses, and consequently missed the aims of " Monumental propaganda." Thirdly, the material used (plaster) was ephemeral and went to pieces very quickly. Finally, our sculptors who before the Revolution had been only used to private, " studio " work, did not feel quite at home with their new tasks, and were unable to produce sculpture suitable for streets and squares. The result was that the mass-production of sculpture received a temporary set-back, and the sculptors concentrated their powers on the acquisition of new methods, realising that the old styles had been made obsolete by the new age. This period, which still lasts, has been well illustrated at the art exhibitions, two being specially devoted to sculpture.

The transitional period was followed by a more abstract and analytical phase of study and research. The work of I. Chaykov and B. Korolev is especially radical in this respect. The recent work of the latter, shown at the " Vkhutemas " 1 Exhibition in I928, marks a return to realism; the former was the only sculptor to take part in the " First Controversial Exhibition of Active Revolutionary Art," where, in reply to the demand for greater realism in the treatment of revolutionary themes, the idea was advanced of a new revolutionary art, that would be based on new constructive form. The exhibition was indeed controversial, and many of the exhibits (including Chaykov's) were no more than analytical studies, and its significance for the development of a modern revolutionary art was nevertheless immense. In painting it has already produced tangible results in the form of the OST group which grew out of the Vkhutemas exhibition. Even

1 V (sesoyznaya) Khu (dozhestvenno)-te (khnicheshaya) masterskaya, i.e., Union Workshop for Applied Art, formerly the School of Painting and Sculpture in Moscow.



692 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

in sculpture, where the issues are more complicated, a renovation of form-and not of subject alone-is bound to become apparent before long. How complex the stylistic evolution of sculpture- but also that the evolution was a fact-was shown by the sculpture section of the " Combined Arts Exhibition," the first after an interval of six years. About fifty works were exhibited by the masters of modern sculpture: Domogatsky, Korolev, Shadra, Andreyev, Kerkulov, Rakhmanov, Efimov, Zlatovratsky, Sando- mirskaya, Fri-Hara, Tsaplin and others. Compared to the sculpture of the first years of the Revolution, their exhibits marked a noticeable improvement in quality, including a greater sense of the material (wood, marble) and greater attention given to form and image. The exhibition also revealed several hitherto unknown interesting sculptors, including Fri-Hara, with his primitive and clear-cut Sart, Mask of a Tartar, Lesoskaz, and Tsaplin with his Captive.

Interest in sculpture was stimulated and a year later (I926) the first " Society of Russian Sculptors" was founded and the first exhibition to include nothing but sculpture was held. That this should occur now for the first time in Russian history shows the influence of the Revolution on the increased significance of sculpture as a monumental art; as well as the peculiar aptitude of sculpture to express modern ideas, and to satisfy the artistic demands of our times. No doubt the exhibits were not, for the most part, the matured new art of a definitely revolutionary age. The fact that the exhibition covered the work of nine years could not fail to affect its character. It did not so much open new vistas into the future as sum up the past. Nevertheless, its social significance was immense. The beneficent role played by the First Exhibition became apparent when, in the spring of I927, a Second Exhibition of Sculpture was held. There was this time a great deal of new work, which not only marked the rejection of the diffuse impressionism of the pre-revolutionary period but testified to positive achievements in the direction of a clear-cut and generalised realism. Besides this the exhibitions produced a good deal of first-class museum work. The most outstanding specimen was July, by Muchina, which revives the principle of constructive contour, the treatment of volumes and the logic of forms peculiar to sculpture. In Chaykov's Mother and Child and Walking Woman, too, genuine sculptural form is achieved. A young sculptor, V. Ellonen, has within the last few years produced three powerful works: one of them, a figure in ply-wood (used for lack of more solid material), so successfully overcomes



SCULPTURE IN SOVIET RUSSIA. 693

the ungrateful material by sheer intensity of form that the flimsy boards produce an impression of real solidity; the work obtained a considerable, and deserved, success at the Venice Exhibition (I925). V. Domogatsky has, within the last few years, made two important works, one of which, Pushkin, transcends the limitations of time and epoch. The young Caucasian sculptor Fri-Hara has shown much progress: his masterpiece is the Defeated Pugachev, whose firmly combined forms are constructive in a new way, and the treatment of volume is really new. The artist has not merely given the traditional figure of peasant rebel, but has largely succeeded in conveying the tragic significance of the whole movement. Some of the works of the young sculptor D. Tsaplin-The Navy, The Red Army-form powerfully and tensely expressive transition to monumental realism.

Much sculptural work was produced for the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, as the result of orders made by a special com- mittee of the Council of People's Commissars in I927. The more important were A Peasant Woman, by Muchina; The February Revolution, by Ellonen; Guerillas, by 0. Somova; The October Revolution, by Matveyev; The Propagandist, by Chaykov, and others. Muchina's Peasant Woman is symbolical without any trace of false sentiment and worthy of the new Russian village. In Ellonen's February Revolution, realism is happily combined with a generalised treatment and with attributes of the epoch represented-an eagle as a symbol of the overthrown monarchy, soldiers' coats, etc. In Somova's Guerillas a particularly success- ful combination is achieved of modern characteristics with a generalised treatment.

A certain amount of monumental sculpture continues to be produced. It is not as fine as the studio work, but it is nevertheless not entirely negligible. We may mention Korolev's Revolutionary Fighters at Saratov, and the Lenin monument in front of the Finnish railway-station in Leningrad, the joint work of the architect Shchuko and the sculptor S. Eseyev. The attention given to pedestals is a characteristic feature of modern Russian sculpture. The base of the Saratov memorial is made of gigantic blocks of grey and black granite, piled up in imposing ridges-and the figure of the workman is so generalised as almost to seem part of its architectural base. The base of the Lenin memorial is given similar prominence, a part of an armoured car (turret), which protrudes diagonally from the pedestal, serving to emphasise the movement of the speaking figure.

D. ARONOVICH.



sculpture in soviet russia

Documents