Monumental propaganda. Part 3
Monumental propaganda and popularization of Bolshevik and communist ideas through other types of art in the USSR became not only a social order, but also an educational moment for the anal-visual and skin-visual creative intelligentsia, attracted to cooperation with the Soviet government.
Part 1 - Part 2
Monumental propaganda and popularization of Bolshevik and communist ideas through other types of art in the USSR became not only a social order, but also an educational moment for the anal-visual and skin-visual creative intelligentsia, attracted to cooperation with the Soviet government.
The overriding task assigned to the sculptors and foundry workers was the creation of monuments to "revolutionary laboring Russia and the organization of a base for their implementation in metal." So, in 1922, the Gubpolitprosvet of Petrograd created the first bronze art casting workshop, and in 1939 it became the Monumentskulpura plant. At this plant, monuments were cast according to the models of the most famous sculptors of the Soviet Union: A. M. Opekushin, M. M. Antokolsky, V. A. Beklemishev, N. Andreeva. The enterprise did not get tired of replicating sculptural portraits of the leaders of the revolution. Fulfilling state orders for all large cities of the Soviet republics, the foundry workers worked tirelessly.
Not only professionals, but also self-taught people responded to the decree on perpetuating the memory of V. I. Lenin in 1924. The image of the leader of the October Revolution was painted, molded and hewn from stone. Lenin's popularity among the people and the demand for his images contributed to the emergence of special orders, increasing the propaganda effect. "Monuments sculpture" made monuments to Lenin for more than 20 cities of the country, cast 30 monuments to Kirov for various cities and republics.
The leadership in the USSR understood Lenin's phrase well for itself: "We will not spare hundreds of thousands for agitation." And they were not spared. For anal-visual artists, architects and designers, sculptors-monumentalists, the art fund allocated premises for workshops for their work, setting them the task of monumental propaganda of the heroism of the Soviet people, propaganda of creation and propaganda of enlightenment.
The most significant and world-famous works of the Monument Sculptures foundry workers are the newly recreated sculptural composition Samson tearing the lion's mouth in Petrodvorets, badly damaged during the German occupation of the city, and the monument to the Liberator Soldier in Treptower Park in Berlin.
The films "Volga-Volga", "The Light Path" appear on the screens as film propaganda, where the heroine is presented as an example of "material and spiritual emancipation of a woman" who received the right to work, study and independence from the Soviet regime.
The Soviet government sets a pedagogical goal - the upbringing of children with collectivist adaptation in kindergartens and nurseries. By freeing women from household chores, it helps open the door to the kingdom of socialism "for the most backward and obscure worker, and then the peasant woman."
The film "Pig and Shepherd" brings to the fore all the same muscle - a villager who welcomes people of any other nationality, and therefore strengthens friendship between the Soviet peoples. The symbol of these national relations throughout the entire existence of the USSR has become the famous Friendship of Peoples fountain located at VDNKh in Moscow.
The 30s were marked by all sorts of cultural events. One of the most significant was the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris. Either the organizers of the exhibition tried to push the two opponents head-on, hinting at their future confrontation, or out of sly mischief, the French planned out plots of land for the construction of exhibition pavilions so that the pavilions of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany turned out to be one against the other.
Architects see a similarity in the architectural styles of both buildings, and this is not surprising. In the concept of the project, the Soviet architect Boris Iofan used the techniques of Suprematism, distinguished by the simplicity and asymmetry of geometric outlines, echoing the compositional motives of Kazimir Malevich. Suprematism, having become one of the main directions of the Russian avant-garde, quickly gained popularity in the West, having a strong influence on the artistic and architectural elite of Europe.
The main core of art, which belonged to the people, was based on the method of socialist realism and its opposition to bourgeois art. In addition, the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris revealed the brewing conflict between two ideologies: socialist and fascist, making it obvious to everyone.
Albert Speer, the court architect of Hitler, who suffered from gigantomania, built palaces and stadiums in the antique style for the Third Reich. All the sketches presented for the future exhibition pavilion in Paris did not suit the Fuhrer, as they were unable to openly demonstrate his idea of "the national identity of the Germans." The desperate Speer unexpectedly "during one of his visits to Paris, wandered into the room where the secret project of the Soviet pavilion was exhibited." Vera Mukhina's ten-meter sculptural group "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" was triumphantly approaching it from a high basement. Speer quickly “sketched a monumental cube dismembered by heavy columns, which seemed to block their path and against which, it seemed, the enemy impulse was to break,and from the cornice … of the tower an eagle with a swastika in its talons looked down at the Russian couple."
Albert Speer was mistaken when he wrote about the "enemy impulse". The USSR did not strive for attack or aggression, its inhabitants were engaged in peaceful creative work. This was characterized by the very main sculpture of Vera Mukhina "Worker and Collective Farm Woman", and all the rest of the small decorative and sculptural plastics that adorned the building of the Russian pavilion from the outside and from the inside. Soviet monumental art, through the glorification of the muscle, declared to the whole world its attitude towards the man of labor, his peacefulness, progressive attitude and, in his person, the well-being of all Soviet people and their confidence in the future of their country. The pavilion of the USSR "in a vivid way expresses the idea of purposefulness, powerful growth, and the invincible movement of the Soviet Union on the path of conquests and victories."
The German sculptor Josef Torak, who adorned the exhibition pavilion of Germany near the Eiffel Tower, imitating the great masters of Antiquity and the Renaissance, for persuasiveness chose the same muscular men as the prototype of his sculptures, only in a state of "war".
The idea of a "blond beast" - the true standard of "Aryan" beauty - was formulated by Friedrich Nietzsche, and then deliberately misinterpreted and successfully resold to the Nazis by his sister, who took over all of her brother's legacy after his death. The idea of educating a superman - a representative of a superior race - pleased the propagandists of the Third Reich.
The cult of health, strength, well-built muscular bodies was popularized and implanted in the youth organizations "Jungfolk" and "Hitler Youth", physically and psychologically molding future Wehrmacht soldiers. The deification of brute physical force was naturally reflected in the monumental propaganda of Germany.
Any political events will inevitably have an impact on all art and especially monumental ones.
The monument to the Liberator Soldier, erected in 1947-1949 in Treptower Park in Berlin, has its own true history. In April 1945, soldier Nikolai Masalov risked his life to save a three-year-old German girl. This sculpture by Yevgeny Vuchetich, the most grandiose of all Soviet monuments located outside the country, as well as the entire memorial, has the eternal status of the monument, "and the German authorities are obliged to finance its maintenance, ensure its integrity and safety."
The rethinking of the military theme, before which everything personal and individual fades, gave a new impetus to the creative search for ideas to be embodied in the monumental art of socialist realism. The theme of the biblical plowman in the sculpture "We Will Beat Swords into Plowshares", donated to the UN by the Soviet Union in 1959, and the warrior-defender, who seemed to have grown into his native land with all his muscular body, in "Stand to Death!" sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich again brings to mind the famous phrase of the musclemen: “We came from the earth, we will leave the earth”.
In the 60s and 70s, the symbol of the Motherland replaced the images of the revolution, heroes in budenovkas, “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”, the famous “Girl with an Oar”. Once in power, the urethral Leonid Brezhnev directed all art, including monumental art, to consolidate the people's memory of the feat of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. He declared May 9 a holiday, a day off. The theme of the war and the Great Victory does not leave the pages of print, cinema screens and televisions.
The urethral leader was also distinguished by gigantomania, only with Brezhnev it was justified. He very accurately grasped the meaning and role of the muscular man in the history of the USSR and the events of the last war, exalting him in Victory parades and on huge memorial complexes from the Baltic to Vladivostok.
Leonid Ilyich brought the image of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov out of the shadow of oblivion, reminding everyone to whom the people owe their liberation. Had Brezhnev been healthier and did not undergo perestroika, it would not have kept itself waiting for the erection of monuments to the urethralists: Victory Marshal Georgy Zhukov and the heroes of space, including sculptures to Yuri Gagarin in Moscow and Lyubertsy.
At one time, US President Richard Nixon called propaganda the cheapest way to ensure state security, because one dollar invested in propaganda and information can save $ 10 invested in weapons. It remains to be seen where and how the weapon will work, while the information is running hourly and everywhere.
Each era has its own heroes and its own internal political events. The gigantism of the urethral Brezhnev, the socialist realism of Stalin, the ideologization of culture and art, and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle in the destroyed Soviet Union were replaced by the mercantile values of the skin phase of development. The architect of perestroika, having safely destroyed the country, released a leather gin from the bottle, samples of which modern sculptors are trying to recreate in their pathetic street creations.
Well, what is the era - so is monumental art. Each time has its own regular features of movement and development.
