The concept of life in Soviet art history and paintings of the 1920s

Abstract

The article explores the concept of life in Soviet art history of the 1920s, as well as in the Soviet expressionism in painting. The notion of life was examined both by the art historians of the State Academy of Art Science (GAkHN) who adhered the classical art tradition, and the formalists (literary and art theorists of the left front) focused on the reduction of aesthetic values in line with their utopian social program. The two groups understood life differently: as a motion par excellence, in the first case, and as a simplified form (primitivism), in the second. However, elements of both perspectives were implicitly present in modern artistic practice, which manifested in the phenomena of Soviet expressionism. The painters combined fluid pictorial substance, motion in compositions, and dramatic conflicts in the plot, on the one hand, and simplified ("primitive") forms on the other. Although paintings of Drevin, Gluskin, Golopolosov and other artists associated with this movement did not receive support from either the traditionalist art critics or the formalist group, all of them were immersed in the semiosphere of the time, equally nourished by its creativity. While they rejected modern expressionism, the art theorists paradoxically professed its principles.