Искусство РСФСР

a tendency towards pomposity, the use of hackneyed forms, towards a naturalism that was definitely detrimental to the general development of art, but was unable to halt it. After the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU socialist democracy and state organization reached a higher stage of development, thus opening up great possibilities for creative endeavour, for bold questing. Over the last few decades the thematic boundaries of all kinds of art have been broadened considerably, and art has been invaded by life in every one of its aspects. The “geography” of the subject has broadened, which was mainly due to a marked flourishing of art in the regions and autonomous republics of the RSFSR: Tataria, Bashkiria, Yakutia, Buryatia, North Ossetia, Karelia, etc. Strong creative groups of local artists have emerged, bringing their own specific features to the portrayal of life.

An important exhibition of works by artists from the autonomous republics of the RSFSR was held in Moscow in 1971. It gave the general public an opportunity to see the firm and fruitful ties of Soviet art and Russian artistic culture, the pictorial, graphic, and plastic traditions of the art schools of Moscow and Leningrad. These ties are very real, for many artists received their training at the art schools in Moscow and Leningrad. The atmosphere of creative questing characteristic of Russian Soviet painting and graphic art of the last decade has been of great importance for the development of art in the autonomous republics of the RSFSR. The artists in the republics freely transform the rich impressions derived from the life around them into works of art. Creative handling of the material, a wealth of emotional tones, imaginative solutions, and specific colour and plastic features are typical of their work. That is why there are grounds now for speaking not only of the good professional standards attained in the work of many artists, but, in a number of cases, also of the emergence of local national schools. The original, striking paintings of such talented and well-known Bashkir artists as A.Lutfullin, B.Domashnikov, A.Burziantsev and A.Sitdikov should be mentioned alongside the graphic works from Yakutia, represented by various series done by V. Vasilyev, A.Munkhalov, E.Sivtsev and L.Neofitov. Karelia has produced a strong team of artists: there are numerous sculptural portraits by L.Lankinen, thematic paintings by F.Nieminen, landscapes by S.Yuntunen and B.Pomortsev, all of a mature professional standard, with a precise, heightened feeling of our time and the character of our contemporaries. These features testify to the maturity of the creative collective of artists in the autonomous republics of the RSFSR, to its strong ties with the whole of Soviet culture and national tradition. The events of our day, of the history of the people, particular traits of human characters, specific features of daily life, of the countryside, are demonstrated in every painting, always with different poetic insight. Artists of the autonomous republics always aim at conveying the ideals of socialist society.

The broadening of thematic scope in the work of Russian artists is accompanied by a constant striving for enrichment of artistic form, by a search for expressive plasticity. An important factor in this process is that artists draw on the traditions of Russian, Soviet and world art, on early Russian painting, on the art of the early twentieth century with its questing for pictorial and constructive form, on the art of profound content and grandeur of form, on the art of the Renaissance masters. The younger generation of artists is attracted to the work of famous Soviet masters, above all, perhaps, to the work of Petrov-Vodkin. They also display a pronounced interest towards folk art, and towards the traditional, brightly coloured popular print or lubok in particular. The perfection of professional skill is becoming one of the most important tasks confronting Russian artists, who intensively search for an art form that will help establish great aesthetic values in art and facilitate the true-to-life portrayal of the very essence of the past and of the present. The striving of the artist for broad philosophical generalization, his speculations on his time and his contemporaries, on history and on the place and role of man in the world around him leads to the creation of works significant in content and form. That is why the dominant position is occupied by the thematic painting and in graphic art by the thematic series, i. e. the genres which allow the artist to show the life on a very broad scale.

The emergence of outstanding artists over the last few decades shows most convincingly what wide possibilities are inherent in the method of socialist realism, which is not bound by narrow dogmas but presupposes great variety in stylistic aspiration and creative manner. The end of the fifties and the sixties saw a renewed flourishing of the art of A.Deyneka, S. Gerasimov, A. Plastov and P. Korin. In the same period a whole galaxy of artists attained fame, whose work bore the imprint of the artist’s personal responsibility to his time, his social conscience. They turned to significant themes from the past and present, they tackled important social, moral and aesthetic problems. One of them, G.Korzhev, has created the monumental triptych Communists, and the suite Scorched by the Fire of War. Korzhev’s main aim is to show people strong in character at some tense, dramatic or tragic moments in the history. There is no idealization in his canvases, they present the stem truth, which ennobles the heart of man.

In the late 50s and early 60s the Russian school of painting was distinguished by a tendency towards austere romanticism. Many young painters, sculptors and graphic artists were drawn to the great construction projects in Siberia, to the toil of spidermen, geologists, the fishermen of the North and the geological prospectors of the Arctic. In the paintings of P. Nikonov, V. Popkov, A. and P.Smolin, and P.Ossovsky, and in graphic series we see the romanticism of daily work. The creations of these artists have some points in common — monumentality of pictorial and compositional manner and austerity of colour range.

Many canvases devoted to history, to the early years of the revolutionary movement in Russia and to the Civil War also have an atmosphere of romanticism. In E.Moiseenko’s paintings, original and complex, one feels the breath of the stormy events of the past.

Genre pictures which reveal the people’s conceptions of beauty, the dignity of human personality and the value of life have lately acquired importance. Among Soviet genre painters are V. Ivanov, V. Popkov, D.Zhilinsky, A. and S.Tkachiov and Yu.Kugach, each of whom has his own specific approach.

All the artists of the Russian Federation show an unfading interest in traditional lyrical landscape. Sergey Gerasimov whose works in this particular genre have invariably attracted attention thanks to their lucid lyricism, their love of nature, their ability to convey precisely and delicately the unique quality of those parts of Russia which are near and dear to him, has been responsible for the development of an entire galaxy of landscape painters. Daring colour solutions and heightened emotional expressiveness are to be found in the landscapes of V.Stozharov, I. Sorokin, and A.Tutunov. The landscapes of B.Domashnikov, V.Yukin and S.Yuntunen are always pleasing to the eye.

Work on the portrayal of Lenin has always occupied a place of its own in Soviet art, and the artists of the RSFSR have made a considerable contribution to Soviet Leniniana. Today artists are seeking solutions in which the great leader is seen with the people, with his comrades of the revolution, in the thick of events. The common tasks and aspirations do not rule out a variety of creative solutions. On the one hand, there are the works of V. Serov, who chose to treat his subject as genre scenes (for example, his Peasant Delegates with Lenin), on the other, the monumental canvas 1918 by G.Mosin and M.Brusilovsky; poles apart in pictorial and compositional characteristics and emotional impact is the expressive and dynamic series of linocuts of D.Bisti for V.Mayakovsky’s poem V.I.Lenin; or the compositionally complex, lively etchings done by V. Petrova and L. Petrov, striking in their graphic effects and profound as portrayals of individual characters — from the series of illustrations for John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World to the 1917 series. A.Mylnikov has created a large-scale panel-curtain with a portrait of Lenin for the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.

The centenary of Lenin’s birth inspired many sculptors to create a number of monuments to the leader of the proletariat — monuments that have been erected in the Soviet Union and abroad (among them one in Leningrad, designed by M. Anikushin, and the other in Berlin, designed by N.Tomsky).

The large-scale plastic art has attained extraordinarily wide scope lately. Memorials and monumental sculptures have appeared in many cities in Russia and abroad, devoted to outstanding statesmen, scientists and artists, to heroes of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, to victims of nazism and the events of the Civil War.The solution of the problem of the large-scale complex, of a synthesis of fine arts in monumental ensembles is of great importance.

A number of monumental sculptures have been created by N.Tomsky, Ye. Vuchetich, V.Tsigal, L.Kerbel, A.Faydysh, V. Isayeva, L.Golovnitsky, etc. Studio sculpture continues to develop. Some of the finest examples in this field have been executed by M. Anikushin, L.Lankinen, Yu. Alexandrov, T.Sokolova and V.Tsigal. The sculptures of L.Kremneva, Yu.Chernov and the typically lyrical compositions of Ye. Belashova, A.Pologova and O.Komov are devoted to the working people.

A breadth of conception and a striving for a poetic vision of life distinguish the genre of easel graphic works. In 1961 V.Favorsky created the propaganda engraving We Must Secure Disarmament, and shortly before that Birds in Flight, one of the most poetic pieces in Russian graphic art. This approach to life, to the problems of our time symbolizes the many-faceted view of the world, of the tasks of art, which is characteristic of the Russian graphic school.

At the end of the fifties and the sixties prints gained great popularity. The flourishing of this genre is above all connected with the work of the pupils and followers of Favorsky, among them the Moscow artists: I. Golitsyn, G. Zakharov, A. Borodin, and K. Nazarov; the Leningraders A. Ushin and V. Vetrogonsky; and artists from the autonomous republics, including A.Sakharovskaya and D.Briukhanov. Their works show certain common stylistic features: an abundance of sharply outlined silhouettes, of dramatic contrasts of black and white and striking compositional schemes. The thematic series of these artists are not merely examples of graphic skill, they are portrayals of life, always seen from an individual point of view, with the stress on the depth, profundity and richness of life. They depict landscapes of the Far North and such regions as Buryatia, Yakutia and the Chuckchee peninsula, and also the life of Moscow, the life of intelligentsia, the life of peasants and workers.