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Friday, March 10, 2023
Zhilinsky
Here we have an example of the Soviet era genre of Socialist Realism.
It is a study for The Builders of a Bridge by Dmitri Zhilinsky.
I plan to post the complete and final version in a future series.
I have heard it said that Socialist Realism was in the main a reaction to what was going on in the arts in the West, with the inanities of Dadaism and more than somewhat sinister stuff coming out of Vienna. Never mind that it was "safe". Kim Philby, Surveyor of the King's Pictures (Royal Collection), one of the Cambridge Five, who spied as a Comintern plant in both London and Washington and ended his days in Moscow, once wrote that art had no function outside a social purpose. And yet, there is charm, movement, vibrancy and colour in the above image. I'd take it any day over a bracken strewn hunting print.
For me, this is the best of the genre. Instead of an attractive, yet stolid, factory workers and tractors, we get men cutting loose and having fun. Of course the bridge reminds us of the socialist struggle, but it's mostly about the men.
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I have heard it said that Socialist Realism was in the main a reaction to what was going on in the arts in the West, with the inanities of Dadaism and more than somewhat sinister stuff coming out of Vienna. Never mind that it was "safe". Kim Philby, Surveyor of the King's Pictures (Royal Collection), one of the Cambridge Five, who spied as a Comintern plant in both London and Washington and ended his days in Moscow, once wrote that art had no function outside a social purpose. And yet, there is charm, movement, vibrancy and colour in the above image. I'd take it any day over a bracken strewn hunting print.
ReplyDeleteFor me, this is the best of the genre. Instead of an attractive, yet stolid, factory workers and tractors, we get men cutting loose and having fun. Of course the bridge reminds us of the socialist struggle, but it's mostly about the men.
DeleteI really like that you can see some of these men spent more time in the sun than others. It's a nice detail.
ReplyDeleteQuite true! Plus, some of them have tan lines while some don't.
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