Discussions by Four Soviet Monumentalists of their Mosaics, Wall-Paintings and Bas-Reliefs

Leonardo, Vol. IS, No. I, pp. 59-64, 1982 Printed in Great Britain 0024-094X/821010059-06$03.00/0 Pergamon Press Ltd. DISCUSSIONS BY FOUR SOVIET MONUMENTALISTS OF THEIR MOSAICS, WALL-PAINTINGS AND BAS-RELIEFS Kirill Sokolov* I. INTRODUCTION The published discussions by four Soviet artists that I have chosen to have translated from the Russian span three generations of artists who link the present to the past: to frescoes and mosaics of the 11th century Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev, to the painted walls and pillars of 14th to 17th-century churches in Moscow. In the 18th and 19th centuries such artworks gradually fell into abeyance but were revived by private and ecclesiastic patrons in what is called the Russian Silver Age in the period between about 1890 and 1917. The enthusiasm of these patrons and their artists paralleled that of the English pre-Raphaelite school of painting. After World War I, the tradition was revitalized by the very considerable injection of funds allotted for 'monumentalist ' propaganda in 1917 by the Soviet Government headed by Lenin. Monumental pictorial and sculptural art in the U.S.S.R. being dependent on public patronage, periods of its expansion and decline are closely associated with the fluctuations of 'consumer demand' determined by governmental decisions. In the 1920s, when the constructivist style was combined with decorative asceticism, monumental pictorial art was almost entirely limited to ephemeral applications such as street decorations on occasions of the anniversaries of the October Revolution and of other State special days. In the 1930s, with what some have called the 'Stalin Empire' style, monumentalists were, on the contrary, much in demand for other purposes. Typical examples of ample State patronage are the decorations for the Moscow Metro (subway or underground railway) and those for several pavilions at the permanent Agricultural Exhibition opened in 1956, and now known as the Exhibition of the Achievements of the People's Economy. The works of this period tended towards a heavy, often very ornate 'official' style, but there also appeared the first murals by austere artists such as Vladimir Favorsky (Fig. 1). During the years of World War II and of post-war recovery, virtually no monumental art was produced, although some work continued on the decorations of the Moscow Metro. It was not till the mid-1950s, when construction of large housing estates began, that demand 'Soviet artist, c/o Leonardo. Pergamon Press Ltd., Headington Hill Hall, Oxford OX3 OBW, England. Translated from the texts in Russian by Avril Pyman. (Received 17 Feb. 1981) 59 Fig 1. Vladimir A. Favorsky. Sketch for frescoes in the U.S.S.R. Museum of Care for Motherhood. watercotour and gouache, 61 x 36cm, 1933. for monumental art resumed importance, and since this time artists have been developing such art vigorously. The demand was conditioned by the mass-produced buildings of 'new districts' on the outskirts of old cities in many parts of the Soviet Union. Contemporary large housing estates with high-rise blocks of flats or apartments need to be given an individuality in quite a different 60 Kirill Sokolov way than do religious edifices and palaces, with their incorporated decorative art, or than architecturally varied city-scapes that developed in many instances over periods of hundreds of years. And so, in response to this new demand, various schools of monumental art have come into being in the U.S.S.R. during the past 20-25 years. The artists whose work we have selected here may be categorized as belonging to the Favorsky School. In the words of these artists there is a striking continuity with past ideas and practices of monumental pictorial art by the artists who responded to the propaganda program of the Soviet government. Perhaps this is best demonstrated by the juxtaposition of illustrations of works and of published discussions of the subject by the artists we have chosen. Although we have no text by Georgiy Nikiforovich Teblyashkin (1918- ), we include two illustrations of his works (Fig. 2, see colour plate, and Fig. 3). He provides a link between the Favorsky School and the work today of younger artists. Having finished his training in 1939, he studied briefly...