From Introduction: The Artist was denied any role in Plato's Republic because of his ability to impair reason by imitating reality through his works. Aristotle, however, welcomed the artist because of his ability to express ideas about society through artistic form. Ernst Fischer agrees with the latter view, "Art enables man to comprehend reality, and not only helps him to bear it but increases his determination to make it more human and more worthy of mankind. Art is itself a social reality, society needs the artist ... and it has a right to demand of him that he should be conscious of his social function" (Fischer: 1963:46). Fischer adds to Aristotle's view by stating that society has a right to demand a social function from the artist. This issue has been the subject of controversial debate throughout the history of art. In a society based on class, the classes try to recruit art to serve their particular purposes. Art is seen by some as a powerful weapon - a means by which people can be swayed towards certain ideals. At the time of the Counter Reformation Italian artists were given strict instructions by the Jesuits on how to persuade and educate the people with their paintings. Napoleon urged his men of letters, painters and architects to refer to the classical ideals of ancient Greece and Rome to shape the emergent French Republic. The French philosopher, Dennis Diderot, stressed the futility of art unless it expressed great prinCiples or lessons for the spectator. Ideals of justice, courage and patriotism were embodied in the Neo-Classical movement. The didactic paintings of Jacques Louis David portray the above ideals. History records several attempts by those in power to coerce artists into conforming to their idea of society, indicating that authoritative manipulation of the arts is not purely a twentieth century phenomenon. This thesis intends to examine aspects of Russian art since 1917. Because Soviet art was dominated by policies which enabled authorities to determine its content, its history raises ideological issues which are relevant to the study of art. The theories of Suprematism, Constructivism and Socialist Realism will be discussed and conclusions will be drawn as to whether these theories succeeded as art movements which were ostensibly designed for the improvement of mankind. Present attitudes toward the visual arts in Russia will also be examined. However, in order to examine the above it is necessary to place the development of art into historical perspective.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-86). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

This dissertation analyses the convergence of primitivism and nationalism in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century French and Russian art. The discourse of primitivism has yielded a number of critical studies focusing on the artistic appropriation of aesthetics derived from "tribal" arts, Asian arts, medieval icons, outsider art, and peasant arts and crafts. Within that scholarship, modern European art that appropriates the aesthetics of folk arts and themes of the peasantry is frequently considered to be representative of national identity and myth. The artistic elucidation of the peasantry as emblematic of national identity combined with their incorporation into primitivism produces a tension that complicates the conventional, binary structure of the discourse. It is therefore necessary to examine artistic expressions of national myth and the peasantry's absorption into the primitivist discourse, as this indicates a critical point at which issues of nationalism and primitivism converge. In the cultural realm, that juncture is located in the artistic idealisation of peasant cultures, which is indicative of a mythical state of being from which national identity could be rearticulated. / The myth of the peasantry as developed in nineteenth century European thought centres around the premise that rural populations were an unchanging element of society whose traditional customs, religious beliefs, and modes of production contrasted sharply with the accelerated changes in urban culture. A critical examination of selected paintings by the French artist Paul Gauguin (1848--1903), the Russian Neoprimitivist Natalia Goncharova (1881--1962), and the French Fauve painter Othon Friesz (1879--1949) within their specific, social contexts reveals the ways in which the modern, artistic maintenance of the rural myth elucidates current political and social issues of nationalism. This underscores the peasantry's symbolism within the nation as representative of a national, collective consciousness and ancestry. The peasantry's incorporation into the primitivist discourse and the cultural articulation of the rural myth are revealed in the paintings The Vision After the Sermon (1888), Yellow Christ (1889), Fruit Harvest (1909), and Autumn Work (1908). The paintings and their respective social contexts situate the peasantry both as constructions within the primitivist discourse and symbols of national identity, thereby disrupting the structure of alterity upon which primitivism is predicated.

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Orientador: Nelson Alfredo Aguilar / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T10:48:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Nucci_Angela_M.pdf: 7815232 bytes, checksum: 25b80efe49c9c1047077c0c6b988ee38 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / RESUMO: A obra de Kazímir Sievierínovitch Maliévitch (1878-1935) compõe um dos relatos mais significativos que se relacionam tanto ao declínio das concepções tradicionais da arte e a eclosão das vanguardas modernistas quanto ao confronto entre as diversas tendências ideológicas que marcaram a Rússia nas primeiras décadas do séc. XX. Nesse sentido, a importância de sua obra não está encerrada em um nível estritamente artístico, mas que se estende a um quadro coerente aos ideais revolucionários do período, os quais garantiam aos artistas um papel de destaque na construção da nova sociedade soviética. Quase como uma regra, após a Revolução de 1917, os artistas da vanguarda russa buscaram criar no interior das instituições de arte parâmetros científicos de pesquisa, fruição e análise das formas artísticas, ou em outras palavras, a sistematização do conhecimento artístico. A Teoria do elemento adicional em pintura criada por Maliévitch foi o eixo de seu método pedagógico. Com base em uma consistente produção teórica e prática realizada ao longo de sua vida, Maliévitch elaborou um modelo capaz de analisar diferentes culturas pictóricas do início do século XX, propondo a desmistificação do processo criativo em resposta ao suposto caráter inacessível da arte moderna, produção relevante até os dias de hoje, de interesse tanto no âmbito da história da arte como da educação estética. / ABSTRACT: The work of Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (1878-1935) makes up one of the most significatives accounts that relate not only to the fall of the traditional concepts of art and modernist vanguards birth, but also to the confrontation amongst the ideological strains which marked Russia in the first decades of the XX century. In this sense, the importance of his work is not restrained to an estrictly artistic sense, but it extends to a consistent to the period revolutionary ideals one, which vouched the artists a prominent role in the construction of the new soviet society. Almost as a rule, after the 1917 Revolution, the Russian vanguard artists pursued the creation of scientific research parameters within the art institutions, or, in short, the artistic knowledge systematization. The Theory of additional element in painting created by Malevich was the core of his pedagogical method. Based in a sound theoretical and practical production made on the course of his life, Malevich engendered a model capable of analyze different pictorical cultures of the XX century beginning, proposing the creative process desmistification in respond to the assumed unattainable form of the modern art, a production pertinent to this day, of concern not just in the art history realm, but in aesthetical education also. / Mestrado / Historia da Arte / Mestre em História

Orientador: Nelson Alfredo Aguilar / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T02:08:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dunaeva_CristinaAntonioevna_M.pdf: 563718 bytes, checksum: 9e1ff31ec246ac81abb6304ae37d9f1b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: De Sistemas Novos na Arte (O nóvikh sistiémakh v isskûstvie), 1919, é o primeiro tratado teórico de Kazímir Sievierínovitch Maliévitch (1878, Kíiev ¿ 1935, Leningrado), um dos principais artistas da vanguarda russa, criador do suprematismo, teórico da arte, filósofo e pedagogo. No tratado Maliévitch apresenta e analisa os sistemas novos da arte: o impressionismo, o cubismo, o futurismo, a obra pictórica de Cézanne, Van Gogh e Gauguin, assim como a crítica da arte dita primitiva, a arte da Grécia clássica e a romana, o primitivismo moderno e o academismo. A crítica da arte está ligada à reflexão filosófica sobre o contexto histórico e cultural do surgimento da arte moderna e do suprematismo. O tratado está relacionado às atividades pedagógicas desenvolvidas por Maliévitch. Em 1918 ele é o professor dos Ateliês Artísticos Livres do Estado (SVOMAS ¿ Svobódnyie Khudójestviennyie Mastierskíie), em Petrogrado, e em 1919 ¿ o Mestre-Chefe dos I e II Ateliês Artísticos Livres do Estado em Moscou. Em Vítiebsk cria o grupo UNOVIS (Afirmadores da Arte Nova ¿ Utvierdítieli Nóvogo Isskûstva) e embasa o ensinamento na análise dos sistemas pictóricos. O pintor afirmava que o livro editado em Vítiebsk fora a transcrição de uma das palestras supostamente dadas em Moscou1 / Abstract: ¿On The New Systems of Art¿, 1919, it¿s a first theoretical work of Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. This Russian artist of avant-garde, philosopher and pedagogue was the creator of the suprematism. In this work Malevich introduce the new systems of modern art, such as the impressionism, the cubism, the futurism, the painting of Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gaugain; and also represent the critics on the primeval art, the classic art of Greece and Rome, the modern primitivism and academic art. This critic is connected to philosophical reflection about the historical and cultural context of the birth of modern art and suprematism. In this period of time (1919) Malevich was a professor of the State Free Artistic Workshops (SVOMAS) in Petrograd and master of the I and II State Free Artistic Workshops in Moscow. In Vitebsk he created the Affirmers of the New Art (UNOVIS) group and instructed the pupils on the new systems of the art / Mestrado / Historia da Arte / Mestre em História

This thesis examines the interaction of Georgian painting and national politics in the first two decades of Soviet power in Georgia, 1921-1939, focussing in particular on the period following the consolidation of Stalin's power at the helm of the Communist Party in 1926-7. In the Stalin era, Georgians enjoyed special status among Soviet nations thanks to Georgia's prestige as the place of Stalin's birth. However, Georgians' advanced sense of their national sovereignty and initial hostility towards Bolshevik control following Georgia's Sovietisation in 1921 also resulted in Georgia's uniquely fraught relationship with Soviet power in Moscow in the decades that followed. In light of these circumstances, this thesis explores how and why the experience and activities of Georgian painters between 1926 and 1939 differed from those of other Soviet artists. One of its central arguments is that the experiences of Georgian artists and critics in this period not only differed significantly from those of artists and critics of other republics, but that the uniqueness of their experience was precipitated by a complex network of factors resulting from the interaction of various political imperatives and practical circumstances, including those relating to Soviet national politics. Chapter one of this thesis introduces the key institutions and individuals involved in producing, evaluating and setting the direction of Georgian painting in the 1920s and early 1930s. Chapters two and three show that artists and critics in Georgia as well as commentators in Moscow in the 1920s and 30s were actively engaged in efforts to interpret the Party's demand for 'national form' in Soviet culture and to suggest what that form might entail as regards Georgian painting. However, contradictions inherent in Soviet nationalities policy, which both demanded the active cultivation of cultural difference between Soviet nationalities and eagerly anticipated a time when national distinctions in all spheres would naturally disappear, made it impossible for an appropriate interpretation of 'national form' to be identified. Chapter three, moreover, demonstrates how frequent shifts in Soviet cultural and nationalities policies presented Moscow institutions with a range of practical challenges which ultimately prevented them from reflecting in their exhibitions and publications the contemporary artistic activity taking place in the republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. A key finding of chapters four and five concerns the uniquely significant role that Lavrenty Beria, Stalin's ruthless deputy and the head of the Georgian and Transcaucasian Party organisations, played in differentiating Georgian painters' experiences from those of Soviet artists of other nationalities. Beginning in 1934, Beria employed Georgian painters to produce an exhibition of monumental paintings, opening at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in 1937, depicting episodes from his own falsified history of Stalin's role in the revolutionary movement in Transcaucasia. As this thesis shows, the production of the exhibition introduced an unprecedented degree of direct Party supervision over Georgian painting as Beria personally critiqued works by Georgian painters produced on prescribed narrative subjects in a centralised collective studio. As well as representing a major contribution to Stalin's personality cult, the exhibition, which conferred on Georgian painters special responsibility for representing Stalin and his activities, was also a public statement of the special status that the Georgians were now to enjoy, second only to that of the Russians. However, this special status involved both special privileges and special responsibilities. Georgians would enjoy special access to opportunities in Moscow and a special degree of autonomy in local governance, but in return they were required to lead the way in declaring allegiance to the Stalin regime. Chapter six returns to the debate about 'national form' in Georgian painting by examining how the pre-Revolutionary self-taught Georgian painter, Niko Pirosmani, was discussed by cultural commentators in Georgia and Moscow in the 1920s and 30s as a source informing a Soviet or Soviet Georgian canon of painting. It shows that, in addition to presenting views on the suitability of Pirosmani's painting either in terms of its formal or class content, commentators perpetuated and developed a cult of Pirosmani steeped in stereotypes of a Georgian 'national character.' Further, the establishment of this cult during the late 1920s and early 1930s seems to have been a primary reason for the painter's subsequent canonisation in the second half of the 1930s as a 'Great Tradition' of Soviet Georgian culture. It helped to articulate a version of Georgian national identity that was at once familiar and gratifying for Georgians and useful for the Soviet regime. The combined impression of cultural sovereignty embodied in this and other 'Great Traditions' of Soviet Georgian culture and the special status articulated through the 1937 exhibition allowed Georgian nationalism to be aligned, for a time, with support for Stalin and the Soviet regime.