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Файл:Culturology. Educational manual
.pdf
71
During the reign of Catherine II, ballet was so popular that even Russian
aristocrats learned to dance it. Before becoming emperor, Paul the I also danced
ballet at imperial court events.
The Russian ballet system absorbed the developments of folk dances. A real
revolution in music was made by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was he, together with
Petipa, who participated in the creation of the world-famous performance “Swan
Lake”. They worked together on two more popular productions, namely, “Sleeping
Beauty” and “The Nutcracker.” Another performance, recognized as one of the five
best in the world, was created on the basis of musical works by Russian composer
Sergei Prokofiev. It is the ballet “Romeo and Juliet” based on an immortal love story
that remains famous all over the world.
Toward the beginning of the 20th century Russian ballet reached its peak, and
here's why: since the theater was financed by the imperial court, no money was
spared for its development as a separate art form.
When, in 1908, Sergei Diaghilev, having received a state subsidy, brought the
“Russian Seasons” to Paris, on the basis of which Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet was
created, the spectacular performance not only caused a sensation throughout Europe,
but also gave rise to a fashion for everything Russian. Even the bride of the English
King George VI got married in a dress that echoed Russian folklore traditions. The
20th century is considered truly “golden” for Russian ballet, which has become a
universally accepted world classic and set new standards in this area.
The study of the art of ballet according to the Vaganova system has been in
demand everywhere for many years. The most famous Russian ballet dancers are
Maya Plisetskaya, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova,
Tamara Karsavina, Galina Ulanova, as well as Vatslav Nijinsky. The most prominent
representatives, widely known abroad, are Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and
Natalya Makarova. So, Rudolf Nureyev was the creative director of the Grand Opera
for several years, Mikhail Baryshnikov was the creative director of the American
Ballet Theatre. The ballet troupe of the St. Petersburg theater, as well-known critics
from various countries speak of it, remains the most revered in the world.
There are special clothes that dancers wear. One of them is the ballet women's
skirt. It has gone through many changes, initially it was much longer and only over
time acquired the modern shape looks like cloud. At the moment, the average radius
of the classic ballet skirt does not exceed 50 centimeters. On April 20, 2022, the
ballet skirt turned exactly 190 years old.
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Questions
Elementary level:
1. What types of plots were used for ballet performances?
2. What means was used to emphasize the contrast between dance and reality?
3. Name three of five the most famous ballets that were created by Russian
composers.
Intermediate level:
1. Cultural traditions of which countries have influenced Russian ballet?
2. How old was ballet when it appeared in Russia?
3. How old was Saint Petersburg when the ballet school was founded there?
4. What were the unique features of Russian ballet in comparison to
European one?
5. What factors influenced the splendid development of ballet in Russia?
6. Ballet traditions of what countries were influenced by experience of Russian
ballet and its representators?
Advanced level:
1. Describe the connection between ethnic and national cultures on the example
of Russian ballet.
2. Art can be a very effective means for establishing good relationship between
different countries. You can see it on the example of “Russian seasons.” Can you
give your own examples similar to it?
3. How do you think, why is folklore attractive for people even in nowadays?
Cultural heritage of Russia: Avant-guard
Russian avant-garde: concept and periodization
Avant-garde is not only a direction in art (painting,
literature, music, cinema, theater, architecture), but also
a special attitude, when past achievements were declared
the ballast of modernity. There is a famous line by
Vladimir Mayakovsky's from the manifesto “A Slap in
the Face of Public Taste” (1912): “The past is crowded.
The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible
than hieroglyphs. Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy
and so on, and so on from the Steamboat of Modernity.
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The past is not just the past. It has become obsolete. Avant-gardists are characterized
by a break with the old tradition and the creation of a new one”.
V. Mayakovskij37
As demiurges, they created a new world of art, in which the author gained
complete freedom. This creative impulse was so powerful that at the beginning of the
XXI century exhibitions of avant-garde artists are very popular, the world's richest
people are fighting among themselves in the fields of Christie's and Sotheby's for
their creations, designers are inspired by his aesthetic, and workers still wear orange
overalls designed for them by Casimir Malevich.
In Russian art of the twentieth century. two waves of avant-garde can be
distinguished:
- the first wave — 1900s–1930s.
- the second wave — 1960s–1970s.
Russian avant-garde: the first wave
Historical context
The art of the Russian avant-garde is born in a country that was in constant
social upheaval from the very beginning of the XX century. The revolution in art
echoed the political revolution in the country. The idea of a communist society in
which everyone is equal was echoed by the idea of avant-garde art “for everyone”.
However, their historical fate turned out to be different. Attempts to build communism
led to the Cold War with the West and the collapse of the USSR, and the Russian
avant-garde gave impetus to modern design, architecture, theater, painting, etc.
In the world of art, the avant-garde was preceded by modernity. Art Nouveau
introduced a culture of manual labor and the author's identity, was focused on
wealthy consumers. If we draw parallels in politics, then we can say that Art
Nouveau was a “right” trend in art while the avant-garde was “left”.
Avant-guard literature
“The self-valuable word” is the main goal in poetry for Velimir Khlebnikov,
Alexei Kruchenykh, Ilya Zdanevich and other avant-garde poets. Calling themselves
37
The source of the photo: Владимир Маяковский // Bigbookname.com: сайт. URL: https://bigbook
name.com/user/vladimir-mayakovskiy-394436788.
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Futurists, they sought to create new forms of language, both phonetic and descriptive.
The Oberiuts declared the rejection of traditional forms of art, the need to update the
methods of depicting reality, cultivated the grotesque, alogism, and the poetics of the
absurd.In the experiments of the avant-gardists we can find features of the philosophy
of language, deep reflections on its nature. The world is given to human in language.
By changing the language, we can change, if not the world itself, then at least its
perception.
The poems had a special acoustic image. Salon poetry was replaced by the
reading of poetry in public, for which they began to conduct a tour of poets in Russia.
It is no coincidence that the idea of the audio book format familiar to us today
belonged to the futurist Ilya Zdanevich.
The word sought to merge with the image. The publications of the “41°” group
were not just books with illustrations, but fundamentally new verbal-visual objects in
which verbal and artistic images were closely intertwined. The artistic image could be
built from the poetic text itself. One such example is the “reinforced concrete poems”
by Vasily Kamensky, which he called “poem pictures”.
Painting
The common leitmotif of all trends in art was the rejection of the heritage of
the past. In painting, as in literature, the desire for novelty was clearly manifested.
Not only the norms of art were revised, but also the place of the artist himself in
society. One of the ideologists of the new world, Boris Arvatov, wrote: “The task of
the proletariat is to destroy the line between artists, monopolists of some kind of
“beauty”, and society as a whole to make the methods of artistic education methods
of general education of a socially harmonious personality.” The educators of the
younger generations and the designers of the new world were to become artists.
Painting in this direction was extremely diverse. It is difficult to single out any
common features in it, since it was formed under the influence of French cubism and
fauvism, Italian futurism and German expressionism. Over time, having become an
independent phenomenon of world culture, the Russian avant-garde influenced
Western modernism and the avant-garde. Just as poetry created its own “self-made
word”, painting developed its own new expressive languages. Abstract art,
Suprematism, Constructivism, Cosmism, Cubism, Primitivism and other “-isms”
began to appear in Russian art.
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The most famous Russian avant-garde artists are Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir
Malevich, Marc Chagall, Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Pavel Filonov,
Vladimir Tatlin and many others.
Wassily Kandinsky
Here are some works by the Russian artist V. Kandinsky
38
.
Composotion VI
Composition VIII
Composition IX
Composition X
At the age of thirty, a young professor of law at Moscow University, Wassily
Kandinsky, quits lecturing and leaves for Munich to study painting. He quickly
mastered the technique of the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Fauvists, after
which he began to create his own painting language, which had not yet existed
before. He was fascinated by the music of Wagner. The artist sought to turn colors
into notes, and the color scheme into musical tonality, to visualize the sound
landscape. This is how the abstractionism of Kandinsky was born.
Kandinsky left a figurative description of the fate of art and the innovative
artist: “Through suffering, evil and torment the reasons for the need to rush forward
and upward are hidden in the darkness. After one stage has passed and some
obstacles have been removed from the path, some unknown evil hand throws new
stones onto the road, which sometimes, it would seem, completely fill up the road,
making it unrecognizable.
38
The source of the photos: Василий Васильевич Кандинский // Онлайн-музей Gallerix: сайт. URL:
https://gallerix.ru/storeroom/1193097145/.
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Then inevitably comes one of us — people; he is similar to us in everything,
but carries in himself the power of “vision” mysteriously embedded in him. He sees
and points. Sometimes he would like to get rid of this highest gift, which is often a
heavy cross for him. But he cannot do this. Accompanied by mockery and hatred, he
always pulls forward and upwards the wagon of humanity stuck in the stones”.
Thanks to the “mysterious power of 'vision'” in him, his works were the most
expensive at European auctions until the late 1970s, they are in the collections of the
best museums in the world (Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, Solomon
Guggenheim Museum in New York, in Tretyakov Gallery, etc.). He was not only a
talented artist, but also a talented teacher; his pedagogical system became the basis
for reforming art education at the Bauhaus Higher School. However, in his country,
the new Soviet government did not appreciate him because his work was devoid of
concreteness.
Tasks:
1. Read the following text and answer the questions.
Wassily Kandinsky wrote: “Every work of art is a child of its time, often it is
also the mother of our feelings. So, each cultural period creates its own art, which
cannot be repeated. The desire to breathe life into the artistic principles of the past
can, at best, produce works of art like a stillborn child. We can neither feel like the
ancient Greeks nor live their inner life. Thus, for example, efforts to apply Greek
principles in plastic art can only create forms similar to Greek ones, but the work
itself will remain soulless for all time. Such imitation is similar to the imitation of
monkeys” (“On the Spiritual in Art”, 1910).
Do you agree with his statement? Is it really impossible to return to the artistic
principles of the past? Why?
2. Write an essay on the topic “The music that I hear in the painting by
Wassily Kandinsky.” Use any of his painting for the essay.
Kazimir Malevich
From the point of view of Kazimir Malevich, it was in his work that humanity
reached the highest and final point in the development of culture. And this point was
Suprematism. There is no descriptiveness in Suprematism. These are just flat figures
on a white background (circle, square, cross). Malevich wanted the viewer to be able
to enjoy “the experience of impartiality… the supremacy of the highest feeling”.
77
There are some works of the Russian artist K. Malevich39.
Sportsmen 1928–1930
#23079
Suprematism 1916–1917
Portrait of M.V. Matyushin
The story of Kazimir Malevich's rise to fame as an artist begins with the
creation of scenery for the opera “Victory over the Sun”. At the end of the
performance, among the stage decorations, an image of a black square appeared,
which was not originally conceived as an independent work. Over time, Malevich
wrote: “What was done unconsciously now gives extraordinary results”. Since then,
art historians and ordinary viewers have been arguing about the painting “Black
Square”. It delights someone, it causes harsh criticism from someone, but few remain
indifferent to this picture. At first Malevich had to defend the right of his art to exist
for many years. The critic Alexandre Benois saw in him “the abomination of
desolation”. Malevich, on the other hand, compared the events that took place at that
time in Russian art (including his contribution to it) with what happened in Europe at
the beginning of our era, when it turned from pagan to Christian. The artist pointed
not to the modernization of the principles of the art world, but to a radical
restructuring of this entire world.
An interesting fact:
There are four variants of the work “Black Square.” One of them is the so-
called “Samara Square”. This is a work that was kept by relatives of Kazimir
39
The source of the photos: Казимир Северинович Малевич // Онлайн-музей Gallerix: сайт. URL:
https://gallerix.ru/storeroom/334728896/.
78
Malevich, who lived in the 1990s in Samara. Today the Samara Square is kept in the
Hermitage, but in November 2020 it was brought to Samara for an exhibition. The
exposition concept repeated the one that was invented by the artist himself for the
1915 exhibition: the painting hung in the corner of the exhibition hall above eye
level. This arrangement symbolized that the “Black Square” is a new icon, and
modern painting is a new religion.
The source of the photos — информационный портал 63.ru40
Question:
Kazimir Malevich freed art from the subject. This means that the viewer can
now see whatever they want there. Can we now say that the viewer becomes a coauthor of the work? What do you see in “Black Square”?
Task: imagine that Malevich or Kandinsky could paint your portrait. Which
artist would you choose? Write an essay on the topic “My portrait by ________
(chosen artist)”. In the essay, explain why this particular artist is most accurately able
to portray you as a person? What are the features of his artistic language? How does
his style and artistic techniques resonate with your inner world? With what means of
expression would you like to be depicted? What would your portrait look like?
Architecture
Сoncrete and steel are new materials that determined the aesthetics of the
avant-garde style in architecture, namely, constructivism. The tower of the Komintern
radio station (1920–1922) by Vladimir Shukhov is considered the first work of the
Soviet architectural avant-garde, completely devoid of the eclectic or neoclassical
40
The source of the photos: URL: https://63.ru/text/culture/2020/11/26/69580138/.
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decor traditionally used at that time. The aesthetics of constructivism was formed
under the influence of Malevich's Suprematism and Tatlin's counter-reliefs.
The ideologists of the new architecture (Moses Ginzburg, the Vesnin brothers,
Ilya Golosov, Konstantin Melnikov) formulated the fundamental principles for
creating projects:
- functionality of the architectural organism;
- the truthfulness of the form of the architectural shell (all functional processes
are separated into articulated volumes, which can be read both in the interior and in
the exterior);
- the veracity of the design and materials (do not hide or decorate).
Architecture claimed to organize people's lives. Moses Ginzburg, looking into
the future of Soviet society, wrote: “an architects feel … not a decorators of life, but
its organizers”. The change in the type of building was also significant — from a
private mansion, which was developed in modernist style, constructivism is moving
to public buildings. Its consumer is not an individual, but the masses, some
generalized social groups (schoolchildren, students, workers, employees, etc.).
Samara is rich in architectural monuments of constructivism of the 1920
s
–
1930s. At that time, in our city, as well as throughout the country, Soviet power
established itself not only politically, but also symbolically. The place of bourgeois
modernity was occupied by functional constructivism. There are some examples41.
Factory-kitchen
Novo-Sadovaya, 149
Dzerzhinsky House of Culture
Stepana Razina, 46 / Pionerskaya, 21
Block of flats
Leningradskaya, 54 / Chapaevskaya, 104
Sinema «Zvezda»
Novo-Sadovaya, 106 g
41
The source of the photos: Конструктивизм // Интернет-портал «Другой город». URL: https://drugoigorod.ru/
10_konstructivizm/.
80
The decline of the first wave of the avant-garde
The first wave of the avant-garde in its various fields ends in the mid — 1930s,
when the Soviet power, established in a revolutionary way, strengthened its positions
and took control of the spiritual and cultural life of society. For example, in the early
thirties, the famous idea of I.V. Stalin that architecture should be national in form and
socialist in content, and constructivism, not associated with the national cultural
heritage, left the architectural scene. The Soviet government needed art that would
become a weapon of propaganda and would have an ideological impact on the
masses. It was difficult to achieve this with the help of “zaumi”, “self-made word”,
pure geometric shapes. The avant-garde in Soviet Russia is being replaced by
socialist realism, understandable to every worker and peasant.
Russian avant-garde: the second wave
Historical context
Years between 1956 and 1962 are the so-called period of “Khrushchev's thaw”
gave a lot for the further development of Russian art. Sociorealism, which was
thoroughly saturated with ideology, has grown together with the totalitarian regime,
and is beginning to lose its position among artists, although the authorities continued
to support and finance him. But advanced artists already saw mediocrity in him and
tried to dissociate themselves from him.
In 1956, Moscow hosted an exhibition of works by the cubist Pablo Picasso, in
1959 by the abstract impressionists Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de
Kooning and the surrealist Yves Tanguy, and in 1961 by the innovative French artist
Yves Klein.
The specifics of the environment in which the second wave of the Russian
avant-garde existed was the totalitarian political system in Russia, which, after the
death of I.V. Stalin weakened, but was not going to give up, and sociorealism, in the
artistic language of which Soviet viewers were brought up. But, in society a demand
for novelty was already felt. And not only in Russian. Both in Russia and in the West,
the 1950s–1960s were marked by a desire to break with tradition, not only in the
world of art, but also in everyday life. This is the time of counterculture in European
civilization — beatniks, hippies, the movement for the rights of blacks, for the rights
of women and sexual minorities, the movement of pacifists, “greens”, etc.
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