When perusing over the attached art for our final session, I was really struck by how Russian High Art, and paintings, in particular, have come full circle. At first, this art was reserved for the express purpose of depicting religion but gradually evolved to encapsulate the nobility, and finally, the commoner. <\/p>\n
The move from early to middle-Soviet Socialist Realism to Komar and Melamid\u2019s \u2018Nostalgic Socialist Realism\u2019 was almost relieving. Whereas previous Socialist Realist paintings tried to prop up the status of former leaders like Stalin and Lenin, these two artist\u2019s works do so more blatantly to the point of parody, as mentioned in the background to their paintings. For instance, \u201cThe Origins of Socialist Realism\u201d (1982-83) and \u201cDouble Portrait as Young Pioneers\u201d (1982-83), depict Stalin in such a glorified way that it questions his authority. In the latter of the two paintings, Stalin\u2019s bust is in the top right corner of the frame on an elevated surface while two pioneers are saluting him below. Importantly, these men are lower than him, implying Stalin\u2019s significance, and the only source of light in the painting points radially outward from his face, furthering this point. \u201cThe Origins of Socialist Realism\u201d (1982-83) is substantially more comical in its insanity and something, I believe, would not have gotten passed the censors.<\/p>\n
On a more serious note, an element I noticed in \u201cNostalgic View of the Kremlin from Manhattan\u201d and \u201cLenin Hails a Cab\u201d, and a recurring theme in many works of Soviet emigrants is their longing for the birthland. The conflation of aspects that should belong to either the US or the USSR into one image emphasizes this, and the keyhole through which you can see the Kremlin\u2014as if the two are looking from afar\u2014brings home this message. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When perusing over the attached art for our final session, I was really struck by how Russian High Art, and paintings, in particular, have come full circle. At first, this art was reserved for the express purpose of depicting religion but gradually evolved to encapsulate the nobility, and finally, the commoner. The move from early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1017,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unit-12-perestroika-and-the-new-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1017"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}