Page 56 - Studio International - October 1972

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BLASTING AWAY THE OLD SLAVISH REFLEXES
This heroic effort to produce an art which would reach the proletariat and at the
same time stimulate the intelligentsia was only a partial failure on the part of the
'left' artists, although the violence of their art propaganda must have created deep
and not easily forgotten antagonisms. Though their power diminished rapidly
throughout the twenties, how alive their forms still were as late as 1931-2. (The
works illustrated here in the event proved to be the last really ambitious
anniversary manifestation for fifteen years—that is, until the recent revival of
about their formal excellence, the vital part played so successfully by street art is 8
interest in such manifestations.) In retrospect, and quite apart from the arguments

ably summed up by the art historian Ya. A. Tugendhold, who says that 'left' art :
'Not only "painted" the streets, but fulfilled a revolutionary mission - POSTSCRIPT
covering up the revered palaces and monuments and breaking up their
Finally, some space should be given to the enterprise shown in more recent
everyday look with new forms (for example, Altman's Alexander's
street decorations, particularly in Leningrad. Illustrated here are works carried out
Column in Palace Square), blasting away the old Slavish reflexes.
for two major celebrations in the Soviet calendar: the first in 1967, the 50th
The psychological moment called for their iconoclastic work ....'6
anniversary of Soviet rule ; the second, in 1970, the centenary of Lenin's birth.
Clearly larger-than-normal budgets were available for these events, and the
SOURCES OF QUOTATIONS
grandiose scale of earlier years was more than equalled by the vast facade with
1 R egissor Meyerhold, K. Rudnitsky, 'A. V. Lunacharsky on theatre and dramatic art', Ministry of
Culture, Moscow, 1969. the figure of Lenin that appeared-in-Winter Pal-ate Square to 1970. Even in these- -
'Meyerhold, Rudnitsky, op. cit. recent works, carried out by different people and at different and much later
3Ilya Ehrenberg,'First years of revolution 1918-21', Vol.2 MacGibbon & Kee, London. 1962
times, some of the vernacular of the language of Futurism remains, a certain
4Ilya Ehrenberg, op. cit.
5Meyerhold, Rudnitsky, op. cit. panache and imaginative quality more evident here than in other fields of the
6Ya. A. Tugendhold, 'Art of the October epoch', Leningrad, 1930. visual arts. q
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