Page 17 - Studio International - April 1972

wanted to become a painter, for 'architecture a practical worker Rodchenko designed the Tatlin in 1919-the year of the founding of the
alone is useful, and not art'.5 -equipment for a workers' club, which was Communist International-started work on a
Being a trained architect, but a graphic shown at the international exhibition of project for 'The Comintern Tower', and built a
artist, painter, and typographer in practice, industrial art in Paris in 1925. He was awarded model of a monument to the third International
Lissitsky gradually overcame the influence of the exhibition's silver medal. Apart from his which he exhibited in 1921. This was the
Chagall and the Suprematism of Malevich. At work in graphics and photomontage, design for a building intended for Comintern
the beginning of the twenties Lissitsky went his Rodchenko's teaching in the Moscow Vhutemas congresses. Tatlin envisaged the construction
own way. And so not only did his 'PROUNS' occupied an extremely important place in his of a building consisting of revolving rooms.
come into existence, but also his sensational versatile creative work. From the very He planned to use steel, concrete and glass as the
successes in graphic art. The children's fairy beginning a faculty of industrial productivist basic materials, which in those years was a
story 'A Tale of Two Squares', which also art was established at Vhutemas, along with the utopian dream. There is no need to stress the
appeared in 1922 was quite characteristic in faculties of graphics, painting, sculpture and propagandist and cultural significance which
this respect. In the story, the geometric planes architecture. It consisted of four departments : this plan had at the time. It was, of course, a
of Suprematism 'are activated', and symbolically metalwork, woodwork, ceramics, and textiles. plan, with blueprints and a model, which was
assume an ideological significance. In the course V. Favorsky, T. Tatlin, Al. Vesnin. El Lissitsky technically well-conceived and aesthetically
of ten pages a battle between a red square and (till 1922 and from the end of 1925), effective, and based upon the principle of
a black one is depicted. In the struggle, the red A. Rozanova, V. Stepanova and others constructionism.
square of revolution vanquishes the black supervised the work of the students. Having followed this path, Tatlin in 1922
square of counter-revolution. Admittedly, the Rodchenko was head of the metal and rejected his counter-reliefs (as Lissitsky had
tale was only one episode in Lissitsky's work. woodwork departments (`DERMET'). rejected his PROUNS'), in order to develop
During those years he continued his search Unfortunately, nothing has been preserved the principles of constructionism. According
for the new, using 'PROUNS' as a platform. from the work done in `DERMET', apart to the minutes of the meeting of the INKHUK
The problems of the dynamic correlations of from the exhibits at the Paris exhibition and a Soviet of 23 March 1922, with Brik in the chair
spatial elements were 'solved' experimentally few photographs of stage-sets. It is known, and the secretary Tarabukin recording the
on a picture surface. Lissitsky planned to however, that because of the lack of essential proceedings, `Tatlin with reference to his
transcend the limitations of painting and technical equipment in those difficult years the counter-reliefs stated that they were utterly
engineering, creating, as he had already work of art construction could not develop to useless objects which he would no longer
explained in 1920, spatial models. Lissitsky was the same extent as it did in the Bauhaus. But the make.... They decided to take this information
interested not in the illusory depiction of space, fact that such great initiative was directed into consideration'.
but in the actual order of real objects in 'that towards laying the initial foundations for In addition to his paintings and stage-sets,
many-sided but unified picture of nature' with supplying the working population of the Tatlin continued with his technical-constructive
which architecture was concerned. In 1925 peasant-workers' republic with and aesthetic experiments, of which his flying
Lissitsky wrote: 'I see that I was right to aesthetically-pleasing objects for everyday machine `Letatlin' was the most important.
concentrate my attention on architecture.6 He use, gives us a right to assign a leading role to Two variants, two frameworks without any
contributed to the designs for the interiors of a the art construction work of our own country. covering and two models of the apparatus were
buffet and a reading room for the Second exhibited at GMII in Moscow in 1932. In the
Comintern Congress of 1921, and began to In his programme of creative experiments, autumn of 1933 the apparatus was tested on a
devote more time to designing the interiors of Tatlin followed in principle the same path as the hill in Sal'kovo, a village near Zvenigorod.
exhibition halls. Thus in his practical work other adherents of Constructivism, whose choice A small catalogue was published in time for
Lissitsky realized the aim and meaning of his of such a path was based upon an awareness of the exhibition. Tatlin himself wrote the
research. He himself used the following words : the significance of the scientific-technological foreword, in which he expounded Ins
`The plane surface of a picture became too development of the time. After contributing to conception of Constructivism and
narrow for me, the circle of admirers-experts the exhibitions 'The Jack of Knaves', 'The pseudo-constructivism.
in colour harmony-became narrow, and I Golden Fleece', 'The World of Art' and 'The `Existing forms', Tatlin wrote, 'when used
created my "PROUNS" as a transitional point Donkey's Tail' (1910-12), Tatlin between 1913 in constructional art (in architecture, technology
between painting and architecture.'? From the and 1915 put on his first personal exhibitions and, especially, aviation), exhibit a certain
`non-objective' art of Suprematism, he went in Moscow and Petrograd. At these he schematic quality which has become
over to the concrete realities of Constructivism. exhibited, apart from pictures, his angular established. Usually this is the conjunction of
Lissitsky's path was complicated and 'counter-reliefs'. In an abstract form he straight line forms with the simplest of curved
contradictory, but his experiments produced `solved' the problems of the combination of forms ... The constructivists in inverted
results which were of vital importance for a essentially different materials on the same commas used the same materials to solve formal
re-examination of the principles of the spatial surface. His experiments were received in the problems, but in an abstract way, mechanically
organization of interiors. light of the problem of pictorial textures, adding technology to their art. The
which some French Cubists were also working constructivists in inverted commas did not
Alexander Rodchenko was another important on. But Tatlin who, incidentally, had been consider the organic connection of the material
representative of Constructivism. It is not his brought up in the family of a mechanical with its application and function... an
theoretical pronouncements which are of engineer, did not stop at this. What interested indispensable form is not simply born as a
interest to us -indeed he himself was not and excited him most was the problem of the result of the dynamics of these
greatly interested in them-but rather his nature and the physical properties of materials, inter-relationships. It is not surprising that the
practical work. A painter and a graphic artist, and the limitations of their possible use in the constructivists in inverted commas turned into
Rodchenko stated when he and Tatlin went creation of forms. decorators, or worked in graphics.
over to the constructivists that he did not From the very beginning of Soviet Power, `Work in this field, which includes work on
accept 'Constructivism' in the spirit of 'art for Tatlin took an active part in both artistic and furniture and objects of everyday use, is only
art's sake', and so he became one of the public life. As a member of the IZO just beginning. Institutes of Everyday Culture
instigators of 'the artistic process of Narkompris board, a teacher at art colleges in will be established, in which the working
construction', which was then called Moscow, Petrograd and Kiev, and one of the masses will live, think and develop their gifts
Proziskusstvo' -the art of the productivists. As organizers of the art institute INKHUK, and demand from the artist not only objects of
143
143