Russian Avant-Garde

There are three main movements, belonging all of them to the same period of time: Constructivism, Suprematism and Rayonism. The three of them had connection with other movements of the time as Cubism, Neo-Plasticism and Bauhaus. Other of their common characteristics is the depiction of abstract form or figurative but with a great influence of Cubism.

Constructivism
Constructivism was first created in 1913 when the sculptor Tatlin discovered the works of Braque and Picasso in Paris. Back in Russia he began producing assemblages but abandoning any precise subject of themes. The Constructivist art refers to the optimistic, non-representational relief construction, sculpture, kinetics and painting. The artists did not believe in abstract ideas, rather they tried to link art with concrete and tangible ideas. Their depicted art was mostly three dimensional, and they also portrayed art that could be connected to their proletarian believes. Artists belonging to this movement are: Rodchenko, Tatlin, Gabo, Pevsner, El Lissitzky, Malevich.

Suprematism
Suprematism is considered the first systematic school of purely abstract pictorial composition in the modern movement, based on geometric figures and was the expression of the supremacy of pure sensation in creative art. The movement was founded by Malevich in Moscow, parallel to Constructivism. The project was above all the brainchild of the painter and theoretician. According to him, to liberate art from the ballast of the representational world. The work of the painter no longer involved representing and creating chromatic harmonies or formal compositions, but rather attaining the limits of painting. It consisted of geometrical shapes flatly painted on the pure canvas surface. The pictorial space had to be emptied of all symbolic content and all content signifying form. It had to be decongested and cleared so as to show a new reality where thought was of prime importance.

Rayonism
Rayonism represents one of the first steps toward the development of abstract art in Russia and was founded by Larionov and Goncharova. The style was a synthesis of Cubism, Futurism and Orphism and it is also known as Cubo-Futurism. They turned their back on all manner of technical formulation and all kinds of erudite cultural references. They produced works made up of diagonal beams of colour. Blocky Cubist shapes are closely packed in a dynamic Futurist rhythm across a surface also marked by a series of sharp diagonals. Some paintings featured one predominant colour. Next, these compositions were worked out in an autonomous way: only the rhythms and harmonies then guided the painter in his attept to make the dynamic radiation of the colours perceptible.

Neo-Plasticism

This avant-garde movement founded by Theo van Doesburg in the Netherlands was essentially a painting and sculpture movement, even when it had some architectonical examples too. The basic aim of the movement was to try to produce pure form and colour, completely devoid of realism and the artist’s emotion.

Neo-plastic style is characterized by a reversion to the basic fundamentals of art: colour, form, level, and line. Artists used mostly straight horizontal and vertical lines and black, white, grey and primary colours.

The Neo-Plasticism ended in 1919 when van Doesburg founded a new alliance called `Abstraction-Creation´. The Neo-Plasticism was very influential in the development of the Bauhaus and the International Style. The most famous artist of the movement was Piet Mondrian.

The tenets of Neo-Plasticism are the following:
· Coloration must be in the primary colours of red, blue and yellow or the no colours of black, grey and white.
· Surfaces must rectangular planes or prisms
· Aesthetic balance must be achieved and this is done through the use of opposition
· Compositional elements must be straight line or rectangular areas
· Symmetry is to be avoided
· Balance and rhythm are enhanced by relationships of proportion and location.

Mondrian began his career as a figurative painter but in 1911 he met the Cubists in Paris and changed his mind about the construction of the work of art. After that he developed his poetry of the primary values or structural of the vision: line, plan, colour. He travelled to London and to New York where his style was marked by the fraction and the visual animation in the plan of his pictorial space.

In Mondrian’s opinion Cubism is rational but not enough because it did not reach to the last consequences. He thought that nothing can be known without feeling it but to know the real essence of things it is needed to make a deep thinking in which the mind works alone. Given that the human mind is equal for every person, the mental process should begin in some common notions, this is, on the elements of the line, the plane and the basic colours.

All his paintings between 1920 and 1940 are similar: a net of coordinates that forms squares of different dimension and contains the basic colour with a dominance of the white (light) and the almost present black (lack of light). Each of them depends on a different perceptive sensation (and consequently sensitive and emotive). Any experience of reality, does matter how different it will be, must lead to reveal the constant structure of the consciousness.

His painting can be included in a perfect urbanism: the city aims at having a living space for a society whose acts should be rational, ethical and aesthetic. His work had a great influence on architecture, not only in the architectonical shapes but in the value of vital functionality of the spaces, the plans and anything that defines and distributes it, and the project in itself. This is why although his painting may appear to be cold Mondrian was, after Cezanne, the highest, most conscious and most civical conscience of modern art.

Futurism

The Italian Futurism is the first art movement that can be considered an avant-garde movement. They introduced with their art an ideological interest that affected deeply culture and even social costumes, when denies all the past, substituting it by stylistic and technical experimentation. It officially began with Marinetti’s manifesto in 1909 and was signed too by Balla, Carra, Boccioni, Russolo and Soffici.

The avant-garde movements are a phenomenon typical of non well developed countries in which the movement appears as a rebellion in front of the official culture, normally moderate, and they align in the side of progressive political movements. Even being intentionally revolutionary, their effort is more polemic. In the futurist manifest they mention the destruction of historical city and museums and they appeared in favour of the new city, imagined as a machine in movement. Their revolution is the industrial or technological revolution, this is, a bourgeois revolution. In the new civilization the machines, the intellectual-artists represent the genius.

The futurists define themselves as anti-romantic, and they want to follow their own moods so works are highly emotive. They exalt science and technique but they want them to be poetic and lyric. They assure they are socialist, but they are not interested in working class fights and they consider the intellectuals of avant-garde as the aristocracy of the future. When they have to choose in politics they prefer the nationalism. The movement lasted until the end of WW1 but it was dissolved after it.

The characteristics of the movement were their interest in an art forged out of the beauty of speed and a glorification of war. The physical movement, as long as speed is concerned, is the cohesive factor that allows the fusion of object and space and, finally, the elimination of the basic dualism of the traditional culture. The unit of the real should not be produce in the thoughts but in sensations, in an emotive way. The artist must underline dynamism to make it more emotive.

Cubism

1907 is taken as the date in which Cubism was born, when Picasso and Braque met each other. `Les Demoiselles d’Avignon´ is the painting considered to be the precursor of the movement. After that, Picasso forgot any kind of artistic depiction different from the cubism. The name was given to the movement after the words of the critic Louis Vauxcelles who said that the forms were `strange cubic forms´.

Cubism is not something theoretical, but a discovery. Its characteristics are the following:
-Plans are independent and autonomous: smaller ones break big volumes. Lines around break the images and when the lines themselves are broken the image remains a kaleidoscope.
-Perspective is multiple: each plan is autonomous. The angles multiply and in this way we can see the object from different points of view, all together.
-Light and shade disappear: this is a consequence of the dissolution of the volume.
-Local colour: Colour is not important. It is applied through small brushstrokes and it is valid for any object.

-Geometrization: Compositions are full of geometrical shapes. Any natural depiction is represented through cylinder, cone, sphere, or cubes. Cezanne had pioneered this idea.
-Philosophical basis: the work of some philosophers as Bergson is essential to understand this movement. He said that a person has in his brain a lot of information about an object and the experience is the basis for intellectuality. Cubist painters apply this concept: they do not want to represent reality, but the ideas they have about that reality.
The main representatives of the movement are: Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris. In a different level Robert and Sonia Delaunay and Leger did Cubist works too.

There are three different periods in Cubism: analytic, hermetic and synthetic, that developed in that order.

-Analytic Cubism: Artists investigated nature to distort and deform it. All the works are a collection of different plans completely impossible to understand.

-Hermetic Cubism: Artists aimed at making their works easier to be understood, so that they included some elements that would be identified such as musical instruments. During this period some realist elements appeared too, as printing characters, numbers, newspaper pieces, or labels. They wanted to transmit the idea of a combination of different materials by imitating wood or marble.

-Synthetic Cubism: Collages are included in the works as a sculptural antecedent. They do not imitate things, but they glue them to the canvas. These works are known with the name `papier collé´. Braque was the first using this technique through which he aimed at linking art and life. It offers the possibility of having a real reference. Painting is revised and new ways are opened for the artists. Now they are not limited to painting but they built in some way. This technique paved the way for the third dimension and for the sculpture.

These collages would be influential on the Dadaist work, where the `ready-made´ produced by Duchamp are the heirs of them. Cubism influenced in some other movements and artists too. Leger produced works in which colour had a bigger importance while Sonia and Robert Delaunay produced works with simple shapes of harmonic colours, developing an style known as orphism, full of curve forms and lyrism.

Expressionism

In general the name Expressionism is used to refer to the German art of the early 20th century, but this is a European phenomenon. The France based group developed the Fauvism while the German branch paved the way for Der Blaue Reiter.

The name tends to reflect their opposition to the Impressionism. The Expressionism is a movement from the inside to the outside. Its attitude can be even aggressive. Anyway, the movement has something in common with the Impressionism: both movements are realistic and ask for the full compromise of the artists in the matter of the reality. The expressionist are involved in their society, they do not escape from it.

The first German Expressionism was born in 1905 with the movement known as Die Brüke that is related to the national figurative tradition. The artists understood the world as a deep existential condition of the human being: the desire of having the reality and the anguish of being possessed by the reality.

Die Brücke is a solid artists’ community with a written programme. Members of the group are Kirchner, Nolde, Schiele, Klimt, Kokoschka. The German situation of the time was obscure, with different artistic influences. Die Brücke proposed the union of the revolutionary element to fight against the Impressionism. The characteristics of the movement are: it is a realism that creates reality; they begin from nothing, just from the artist ideas; the matter influences on the artist; the subjects reflect daily life (streets, people in the cafes); the works are a bit rude.

In their opinion technique is not something that can be invented, it is just work. It is important the dominance of graphics, especially xylography, in which the carving can be violent and the result is sometimes irregular. In the same way, the painting is dense, full of colour, with stains and lack of hues; it is more important the process than the result. The artist works directly on the image and chooses the colours depending on their mood. Deformations are common and they are sometimes aggressive. They find their inspiration in the work of primitive cultures. They do not have a concept of beauty, for them it changes to be ugliness, deformity: it is the poetry of the awful.

Expressionist artists renounce to be bourgeois and criticise this social group. In their opinion, existence is self-creation and they oppose to the industrial work that creates a dehumanized society. They are obsessed with the subject of sex because the relation of men and women is the basis of the society and society deforms, is perverse, is negative, alienates.

Die Brücke was dissolved in 1913 when the group Der Blaue Reiter started its investigation with a less compromised attitude. Members of this group are Beckmann, Dix, Grosz, Marc, Macke, Kandinsky, Klee. They do not have a defined programme. And their orientation is more spiritual. Their objective is to coordinate international exhibitions to foster their polemic writings.

The ideas of the artists of this group are not revolutionary but it is anti-classicist. They are influenced by Matisse, oriental art and even music. Symbols are limited to common objects while the aesthetic communication is dominant. Characteristics of the movement are: importance of the colour and its significance; primitivism; improvisation; inclusion of different lines and shapes: curves, zigzags, stain; art is understood as communication.

Fauvism

The group of the fauves is not homogeneous and lacks of a defined programme, but for their opposition to the Art Nouveau decoration and the formal consistence of the Symbolism. Members of this group are Matisse, Marquet, Dufy, Derain, Braque, and Vlaminck. They were nor afraid of their lack of popularity or the scandal, they did not follow a political flag and their social polemic was implicit in their poetry.

Even if they conceived the art as a vital impulse, they started depicting some subjects in a critic way. Far from Cezanne’s synthesis there was just one possibility: to solve the dualism between the feeling –the colour –and the construction –the plastic form, the volume, the space –putting special strength on the colour.

Their main objective is the pursue of colour with a plastic-constructive aim, as a structural element of the vision. Some of them dissolved the image, following Van Gogh or Signac tend to make evident the additive process, the structure of the image and they use spare brushstrokes, evident, distributed with a certain order and rhythm that give sense to the mater, the colour and the material construction of the image.

The group appeared in France between 1903 and 1907. Their style is vigorous, far from any academic principal. Their characteristics are: lyric and expressive character expressed through the colour; attempt to conciliate real and interior world; they look for the essential and simple; among the subjects there are landscapes, fluvial scenes and lyric scenes with an important weight of imagination; they represent reality in a subjective way; they emphasize the colour with pure colours, saturated, mainly flat, underlined by the line of the contours and without any reference to the subject or the image; formal synthesis; elimination of spatial perspective; suppression of the definition of forms based on the chiaroscuro; references to exotic and primitive cultures; they created pictorial spaces based on decorative motives taken from wall papers or crafts’ pieces.

Their influences come from different movements: the impressionist theory of colour, chromatic joy, daily life subjects, landscapes, interiors, portraits and still-lives. From the Post-impressionism they took the division in zones, the plenitude of colour, Gauguin’s decorative sense, Van Gogh’s vivid nature. From the German Expressionism they assumed the pure and vigorous colour, the lack of modelling, the strong and direct line, the dynamic sensuality and the subjective interpretation of the artist. From exotic cultures they took the richness of colour and formal references.

Organicism and architecture in the 50s

We know as organic architecture all the architectonical manifestations that aim at adequate and ally to the nitre. This idea can be found long ago in History but the master in the formulation of its principles was Frank Lloyd Wright.

Organicist architecture is defined by the sense of the interior as a reality; the free plan as flexible and a way of allowing the continuity of atmospheres; the unity between interior and exterior; the use of natural materials; the house as a place for shelter.

With Wright the Rationalism begins to be forgotten and new ways for architecture are opened. This American born architect travelled to Tokyo where he was fascinated by the Japanese architecture. Other of the influences that can be noticed in his work is that of Maya temples of Yucatan. Due to these varied influenced we can say that Wright had a cosmopolitan formation.

His beginnings are associated to the Chicago School but soon he started developing his own style, in which we can distinguish different periods. One of these is that of Prairie Houses, a first attempt to put into practice his idea of Organic architecture. These simple structures consist of functional spaces, light and integrated with nature, at the same time that they are isolated enough as to guarantee the intimacy of their inhabitants. The houses are frequently built in different levels, and always a bit separated from the floor, as in Japanese architecture. One of the most famous houses is the Robbie House.

He continued developing public and private buildings where he continued applying his building philosophy. One of the most representative of his works is the Falling Water House, in Pennsylvania. With this house Wright managed to integrate completely nature and architecture. The different terraces offer the possibility of building in different levels and glass dissolve the walls so interior and exterior and in permanent relation. He used different kind of materials, with an important role of stone that combine with glass and concrete.

In other project Wright experimented with curve forms, as in the New York Guggenheim Museum. He wanted the museum to have well lighted spaces with controlled light that was not reflected in the surfaces. At the same time, he designed the building to offer a possibility of walking up on a ramp in a continuous way, without any braking element for the exhibition of the works of art.


After Wright the word that can define architecture is diversity. One of the most representative architects of the 50s is the Finnish Alvar Aalto. His works are imbued by rationalist spirit but he mixed it with popular tradition and local materials, mainly wood, so common in his native region. His buildings are warm and thought to be appropriate for human beings and the dimension of human body, something in which Wright influence can be noticed. Aalto’s mature work embodies a unique functionalist/expressionist and human style, successfully applied to libraries, civic centres, churches, and housing.

Although Aalto borrowed from the International Style, he utilized texture, colour and structure in creative new ways. He refined the generic examples of modern architecture that existed in most of Europe. His designs were particularly significant because of their response to site, material and form.