Wednesday 4 December 2013

Russian Futurism

The Russians felt the same about the past and adopted Marinetti's manifesto. The idea did not develop in an identical way to in Italy, but nonetheless the idea was based on the rejection of past tradition. They considered Cezanne the only painter worth following. The movement largely revolves around the Jack of Diamonds group formed in 1910 in Moscow. It is was the Salon des Independants of Russia if ya like. David Burliuk, Alexander Kruchenykh, Vladmir Mayakovsky, and Victor Khlebnikov wrote in their Futurist Manifesto of 1912:


We alone was the face of our Time. Through us the horn of time blows in the art of the world.
The past is too tight. The Academy and Pushkin are less intelligible than hieroglyphics.
Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. overboard from the Ship of Modernity.
He who does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.
Who, trustingly, would turn his last love toward Balmont’s perfumed lechery? Is this the reflection of today’s virile soul?
Who, faint-heartedly, would fear tearing from warrior Bryusov’s black tuxedo the paper armor-plate? Or does the dawn of unknown beauties shine from it?
Wash your hands which have touched the filthy slime of the books written by the countless Leonid Andreyevs.
All those Maxim Gorkys, Krupins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remizovs, Averchenkos, Chornys, Kuzmins, Bunins, etc. need only a dacha on the river. Such is the reward fate gives tailors.
From the heights of skyscrapers we gaze at their insignificance!...


A few examples of Russian futurists:

Lyubov Popova,
Man, Air Space, 1912

Natalia Goncharova, 
The Cyclist, 1913


Linen, 1913


Vladimir Burliuk,
Portrait of Khlebnikov, 1913


David Burliuk, 
Revolution, 1917
Considering the nature of the futurists they were very happy when the Tsars were finally thrown out and replaced with the Bolsheviks in the 1917 Russian Revolution that began as a march to commemorate Woman's Day!


Robert Falk
Bottle, 1912
 As I said the style was not uniform. This man decided that he'd layer his paintings so much that they'd look like sculpture.


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