MYROSLAVA M. MUDRAK (Austin, Tex., U.S.A.)

The Development of Constructivist Stage Design In Soviet

The early twentieth century was an extremely fertile period in the visual arts in the Soviet Union. Along with the development of an artistic avant-garde, the craft of artistic decor for modern theatrical productions also bourgeoned. The translation of two-dimensional easel painting into three-dimensional form for the stage, how- ever, was not a new problem for Soviet artists, for from the 1880s onward, in Russia in particular, with the success of Mamontov's private opera and other the- aters established at this time, an entire generation of artists was already experiment- ing with this problem. There is no need to discuss such "World of Art" members as A. N. Benois, M. V. Dobuzhinskii, L. S. Bakst, and I. Iu. Bilibin, whose designs for S. P. Diaghilev's and other operatic and theatrical productions gained them much ac- claim in the West as well as in Russia. For most of these artists, their designs for the stage and the actor served to create an illusion of time and place. With the painter's concentration on "art for art's sake," they diminished the importance of the actor within the elaborate fantasies of their designs and backdrops. As a result, "the effect was one of illusion, but not of theater, since the decoration choked the actor, and from the leading position of an active person on stage, he was turned into an accessory of the painting."i . At the outset of the Revolution, a new phase in the history of Soviet theater and stage design was opened. It was at this time that the diverse, contrasting, and com- plicated trends 'in easel painting were translated in unique ways onto the stage. A prime mover in translating these varied expressions of the artistic avant-garde into the theater was Alexandra Exter (1882-1949). It is in the talent of Exter that a pure conception of design for theater made its final break from easel painting, and in so doing, she laid the foundation for a new and vibrant artistic "ism" and applied it to the theater. It was almost a decade after she commenced working in the realm of stage design that in the theatre found it grandest flowering. Exter was born in the Ukraine and completed her intial art studies at the Kiev School of Fine Arts by 1906.2 In 1908, she made her first visit to , where she sper.t wuch th1iC Obsc¡-olingthe of Picasso. her home became the headquarters for the young intelligentsia of the time, including Benedikt Livshits, David and N. Burliuk, and others. Between 1909 and 1914, she divided her life between Kiev, Saint Petersburg, , Moscow, and Paris. In essence, she served as a mediator between France and Kiev, transmitting French cubism to her homeland, where, spiced with the tendencies of , it became translated into

1. N. Giliarovskaia,Teatral'no-dekoratsinnoe iskusstvo za 5 let (Kazan': 1924), p. 11. 2. Andrei B. Nakov, Alexandra Exter (Paris: Galerie Jean Chauvelin[May-June] 1972), pp. 62-63. Unless otherwise stipulated, all biographical data on Alexandra Exter will be taken from this exhibition catalogue. 254

a unique form. She helped to disseminate Western ideas by bringing back photo- graphs of the latest works of Picasso to the Burliuk brothers in Kiev, as well as to her other colleagues who were incorporating Cubist principles within their own work.3 Exter was an'artist of diverse talents and had a profound influence on her peers. She had an inexhaustible perseverance in seeking out new forms and applied the inventions of the day into her own work. She participated in Futurist activities in Moscow and Rome and reconfirmed her acceptance of futurism after visiting Milan, Venice, Naples, and Taormina. It was her friend, Ardegno Soffici, who acquainted her with Marinetti when she was in Paris. In Exter's easel paintings between 1914 and 1916, there was a decisive influence of both cubism and futurism. The paintings executed in her Parisian style included a series of "cityscapes," cubistically fractured views of Venice, Florence, and other cities. Upon close examination of these paintings, one could decipher a basic for- mula. The canvas was filled with overlapping geometric forms, visibly the fragmen- tation of architectural structures with an occasional collage of letters signalling the name of the city depicted. One sensed a vibrancy within this enclosed cellular mass of reverberating geometric forms, and a dynamism emanating forth. From these mi- crocosmic cityscapes depicted on two-dimensional surfaces developed the three- dimensional structural compositions for the theater. Her constructions for the stage, with their geometric angles extending in various directions, generated a move- ment congruent with the dynamism of her canvases. Her experimentation with lead- ing artistic trends brought her a strong following of artists and she is purported to have established a studio or school in Kiev where many artists, both Russian and Ukrainian, came under her influence. Her disciples included Nivinskii, Rabinovitch, Tyshler, Shifrin, Pavel Tchelitchew, and the famed Ukrainian artist, Anatol Petrits'kyj. She presaged contructivism in the theater through her own creations of just before and immediately after the Revolution, and her followers effected its final and total flowering on the Soviet stage toward the end of the 1920s. It was not unusual that artists trained in the discipline of easel art should have turned to designing for the stage. At the outset of the Revolution, a new phase in the history of Soviet theater and stage design was opened. By the early 1920s the avant-garde artists were experimenting with art forms which were diversified and quite apart from their usual media (painting, sculpture). At the Higher Technical Art Studios (Vkhutemas) and other centers of teaching and research, an art of the proletariat was being produced: practical, utilitarian fabrica- tions to be used by the working classes. Furniture, kitchenware, domestic utensils, and the like were being produced by painters such as Tatlin, Rodchenko, and Malevich; the easel artists Stepanova, Popova, and Exter were creating fabric designs and fashions for the proletarian woman. Architecture also took on a new dimen- sion, a utilitarianism in terms of the concept of living quarters designed for the

3. For a discussion of the interchange among these artists, see Benedict Livshits,Polutora- glazii strelets (Leningrad: Izd-vo pisatelei, 1933), soon to be published in its English translation by John E. Bowlt, The-One-and-a-Half-EyedArcher ' (Philadelphia: Oriental Research Partners, 1977).