Kandinsky said: “Every work of art is the child of its age, and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated.”

The early 20th century witnessed the birth of many avant-garde movements, each with its own manifesto bursting with politics and philosophy, pushing the boundaries of art beyond aesthetics. New techniques, explosions of colour and redefined forms manifested, and each country, even under a movement of the same name, gave birth to an individual branch vested in its own cultural and political background – none more so than Russia.

Transitional Russia, from the Imperial to the Soviet Union, underwent a cultural Renaissance whose influences would send a shockwave across the art world. Russian avant-garde, or sometimes collectively known as the “Great Experiment,” is an umbrella term encompassing the wave of various movements seen in Russia as early as the late 19th century, but whose height was in the tumultuous period between the Russian Revolution of 1917 until 1932, when the Soviet Government terminated the avant-gardes due to idealistic clashes with the state-sponsored Socialist Realism. Various movements were born, from the well known (Cubism) to the obscure (Popular Neo-Primitivism), and Russian modern art came to life with passionate manifestos, theoretical declarations and programmatic exhibitions. Art from the Great Experiment reflected a variety of foreign influences with an authentic Russian personality.

The collections from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza house an impressive selection of Soviet avant-garde art, but normally these paintings are categorised by their art movement and are hung alongside their international siblings, or even put away into storage.  In 2011, Russia was the guest country for the contemporary art fair of Madrid (ARCO), and in celebration, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza gathered their collection of Russian avant-garde art in a temporary display on the ground floor of the gallery. Initially the display was only planned to run in February and March this year, but due to popular demand has been extended until at least the end of the year. The aim of the display is to offer a compact overview of Russian avant-garde art and the various movements involved in the Great Experiment, emulating the provocative manner the artists themselves had constructed their exhibitions.  

Vladimir Burliuk, Ukrainian Peasant Woman, 1910-11
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Located on the ground floor, the display takes up only two rooms in the modern art section of the museum; Cyrillic and Spanish writing mark the clinical white walls, headlining each movement in focus, and the paintings are hung in a non-linear way across the whole wall. The avant-gardes of the Great Experiment are gradually introduced, starting with Popular Neo-Primitivism, a movement of art that merged a variety of international styles and influences, mainly those such as Post-Impressionism and Symbolism, but fused with Primitivism, where the intense colours of Expressionism are combined with simplified forms inspired by Russian cultural traditions and folklore themes. Among the collection presented, the first painting to stand out was the “Ukrainian Peasant Woman,” by Vladimir Burliuk, almost Pointillist in style  – through the patterns on her dress and the wallpaper in the background, even the details on her face is expressed through a series of short, pointed brush strokes – and depicts a woman in traditional Ukrainian dress.

On the opposite wall, hangs “Fishing (Fishers)” by Natalia Goncharova – who was an important leader in the Russian avant-garde movement, and interestingly, one of many women painters from this era. This painting also pursues a theme rooted in Russian folk culture, yet its influences from foreign Post-Impressionist artists, such as Gauguin and Matisse, can be seen in the form of the painting’s stylisation, bright and intense colouring, and the decorative flatness of perspective. The painting portrays a group of fishermen and their nets; the dark green-leaved trees and the brown earth set the tone of the painting, yet the bright whites of the central figures draws our focus into the centre. The dark colours contrast against the light, through the orange and red tree barks, with the outline of each form being framed by a dark blue line.

Alexej von Jawlensky, Red Veil, 1912
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Passing into the main room, in the alcove on the right-hand side, hangs the “Red Veil,” by Alexej Von Jawlensky; this portrait of a Russian woman emulates the Orthodox Russian icons of the past, in the sense of her pose, almost Byzantine in composition, with elongated eyes and melancholy expression. The colours of the painting are two tone and contradictory; with a palette dominated by bright reds and greens adhering more towards Expressionism.

Marc Chagall, The House in Grey, 1917
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Included in the display is a painting by Marc Chagall, called “The House in Grey,” from a series of canvasses painted in his native city of Vitebsk during the First World War. Grey in its colouring, this painting inspires a sad and neglected feeling; it depicts Chagall’s hometown of Vitebsk, where the steeple of the Cathedral of Assumption dominates the skyline, but the main focus is a traditional wooden house in the foreground. The painting blends Cubist techniques, seen in the shifting perspectives and varying planes, with fantastical elements of the curving clouds and the small figure in the bottom left corner, possibly a self-portrait of the artist.

The structure of the display emulates the original exhibitions of the artists, who rejected the conventional classical presentation of painting – where canvases are hung in rigid, horizontal lines – but instead, draw inspiration from the “red corner,” an area in Russian homes devoted to icons, where the paintings were displayed around it. This effect was revolutionary, capturing the philosophy of the Russian spirit, and by combining their culture with the western art techniques, they created an art for life: an art for the people. With the rise of socialism, art became accessible for the average Russian and no longer exclusive to the bourgeoisie. The rooms of the Russian avant-gardes are not an exhibition, but a new display of the collection hung as if it were an exhibition. The construction effectively shows how the Russian artists began, with a creation of new languages in art through Primitivism and Fantasy, and their development towards the abstract.

Wassily Kandinsky, In the Bright Oval, 1925
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Russian painting had evolved into Expressionism and Fantasy, but with artists like Kandinsky at the forefront, art began to move towards abstraction. Wassily Kandinsky developed the concept of an art that can provoke emotions not dissimilar to music: a vision of colour combined with geometrical forms with the intent to incite an emotional reaction in the spectator. Kandinsky removed the barrier between music and painting, isolating pure emotion and sought to express spiritual pleasure, rather than looking for short-lived and superficial sensations that leave the soul unaffected in painting. In the display, Kandinsky’s “In a Bright Oval,” can be seen. A harmonic combination of colour and geometry; an evolution of dark blue into green and then brilliant yellow, in a progression of brightness towards the centre of the form is seen. The oval is intersected with lines of black and red, with circles in strategic positions. The colours and shapes incite a feeling of warmth and harmony, a perfect example of Kandinsky’s ability as a visual musician.

Cubism began to appear in Russian avant-garde art around 1915 in numerous forms: conveying objects from numerous perspectives and dimensions, and often with hard lines. The Great Experiment embraced this style and its variations, such as Cubo-Futurism and Rayonism – forms that combined the styles and principles of Cubism, Futurism (a movement originating in Italy, which glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future) and Expressionism. The Rayonists, such as Mikail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, created a form of art towards abstraction existing outside the conventions of space and time. Named for their use of contrasting colour and representing lines of reflected light, the Rayonists sought to tear down the barrier between the artist and the public. In the display, Natalia Goncharova’s “Rayonist Lanscape,” is an ideal example, where bright lines of light and shadow convey a crystalline forest.

El Lissitzky, Proun 1 C, 1919
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

“Art for Life,” concludes the display, and with the tumultuous politics of the revolution, artists were committed to exploring art for new and appropriate times. Constructivism and Suprematism revolutionised Soviet art through abstraction – eradicating the bourgeois art of old. Suprematism deconstructed art into the minimalist, expressed by a sequence of geometrical forms. Constructivism created ideal structures with a focus on the abstract; simplifying forms behind the philosophy of a new world view, eliminating perspective as a method of representation, but instead looked to geometrical structures to convey a sense of dimension. Many artists synthesised Suprematism and Constructivism, where both movements went on to symbolise a concept based on socialist principles. One of the most prevalent artists was El Lissitzky, whose combination of Constructivist architecture and Suprematist planes can be seen in his “Prouns” displayed in the Thyssen-Bornemisza. These paintings aimed to reflect the transformations in Russian society at the time, with geometrical constructions and a dynamic use of space – and conclude the display at the Thyssen-Bornemisza.  

In the 1930s, Stalin rose to power in the USSR and the era artistic enlightenment of the avant-gardes regressed into obliteration – the Great Experiment was completely destroyed.

I would like to thank Gema Sése for her co-operation and help in organising my visit to the Thyssen-Bornemisza and to Paloma Alarcó for her knowledge and insight into this particular display and her helpful contribution to my research.

References

1. Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911)
2. Paloma Alarcó, Leaflet on the Russian Avant-gardes. New Display of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (2011)
3. http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/home Accessed September 2011
4. Paloma Alarcó, Private Communication (2011)
5. J.J. Junquera & J.L. Morales, Historia Universal de la Pintura: El Siglo XX, Editorial Espasa Calpe S.A. (1996)