An Analysis of Social Realism in the 1930S

AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL REALISM IN THE 1930S Summary of Social Realism. The Social Realist political movement and artistic explorations flourished primarily during the s and s. Euston Road School Formed in , this was a left-wing modern realist group of artists who taught at or graduated from the School of Painting and Drawing in Euston Road, London. To what degree was representation itself understood to be a matter of ideological struggle, so that the work of art conveyed not only the truth of everyday life but also the mechanisms of truth telling? It is sure to set the direction for future studies of this kind. Much of this work was produced by talented painters such as Isaac Brodsky, who in the late s and s composed several paintings of Lenin during key phases of the Russian Revolution, such as Vladimir Lenin 1 May Linden, and Jonathan Weinberg The Social and the Real is the first anthology to deal with the painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and photography of the s in a hemispheric context. The decline of Social Realism came with fall of the Soviet Union in This, of course, was another paradox at the heart of Socialist Realism: that the establishment of a collectivist society was seen to require a quasi-religious veneration of the individual. Members of the school included in Italy Giorgio de Chirico eg. The ideology behind Social Realism by depicting the heroism of the working class was to promote and spark revolutionary actions and to spread the image of optimism and the importance of productiveness. Keeping people optimistic meant creating a sense of patriotism , which would prove very important in the struggle to produce a successful socialist nation. The painting typifies the representation of Russian thinkers and writers in Socialist Realism at this time. Lenin had already set the wheels in motion for this change when, following the Revolution of , he laid out a new socially engaged agenda for the arts: "[a]rt belongs to the people. The social dimension of reality and the reality of social conditions are crystallized in the most powerful art of this period. Cynical Realists borrowed imagery from various traditions, including Surrealism and Symbolism, as well as classical figure painting. The artists who founded AKhRR alongside Radimov, such as Sergey Malyutin, were established and talented painters in the Realist tradition, and were shortly joined by other artists associated with the late Peredvizhniki era, such as Abram Arkhipov, as well as younger painters, most notably Isaak Brodsky. Economic campaigns necessitated images which eg celebrated outstanding "Stakhanovite-type" worker-achievements; warned against "wreckers" [see poster, above]; exalted the completion of large-scale projects, like power stations, steel mills, and the like. Socialist Realism outside the Soviet Union Socialist Realism crossing borders: the Polish painter Juliusz Krajewski produced many paintings celebrating the working life of peasants and farm workers, such as Thank You Tractor Operator As Stalin's international policy became increasingly imperialist in the years following the Second World War, Socialist Realism was exported to the satellite states of the Eastern Bloc, new Soviet republics which had sprung up across eastern Europe in the years following the surrender of the Axis forces in Morgan's multimedia approach gives us a much needed panoramic view. Stylistically, the piece is a striking blend of Socialist Realist motifs and Pimenov's early avant-garde influences, typical of the early period of the movement. One of the first nineteenth-century artists to approach modern and postmodern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. At the same time, the work encapsulates many of the thematic norms of Socialist Realism: its nominal subject is the industrial might of the new Soviet state, but its real theme is the glory of collective human labor dedicated to that cause. Note also the widespread popularity of the great realist illustrator Norman Rockwell Avant-garde experiment accompanied a climate of political agitation, peaking in the years preceding and following the Russian Revolution of , when movements such as Rayonism and Cubo-Futurism, Neo-Primitivism, Russian Futurism , Suprematism , and Constructivism were conceived. Many artists who subscribed to Social Realism were painters with socialist but not necessarily Marxist political views. The group were inspired by the lives of the Red Army, urban workers, rural peasants, revolutionary activists, and labor heroes: good Soviet role models, to whom the masses could relate. The glare from the fire occupies a large corner of the canvas, but the men are clearly the subject of the work. A closely related movement to Regionalism, Social Realism was an artistic movement which depicted social and racial injustice and economic hardship through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles..

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