Avant-garde is a collective name for a set of trends in world, primarily European, art that arose at the border of the 19th and 20th centuries. As a revision of classical traditions in favor of new unconventional principles, literary avant-gardeism rejects the previous canons of the realistic image of a work and brings new means of expressing its traditional structure.

Avant-garde as a historical phenomenon

Avant-gardeism as a historical phenomenon is a large and difficult product of the crisis of bourgeois culture at the beginning of the twentieth century; it stems from a subjectivist, anarchic worldview.

Avant-garde movements are based on a sharp, radical attitude towards artistic creativity, not limited by aspects of classical aesthetics, using non-standard, new ways of presentation, rich in the symbolism of creative images.

The meaning of the avant-garde is inorganic in its essence: it combines schools and art movements, sometimes representing completely different ideologies. Such a contradiction in the tendencies of avant-gardeism, due to the different creative destinies of the authors, their aesthetic and social positions, led to its aesthetic duality and artistic eclecticism. A common feature of avant-garde movements is the manifesto - an open and adamant protest against social norms and foundations.

Representatives of avant-gardeism believe that in order to transform the world through the means of art, the formation of a new consciousness of humanity, its unlimited freedom from outdated conventions is necessary; they, first of all, turn to instinct as the original natural feeling, not overshadowed by social prohibitions. Avant-garde artists skillfully curtail the perception of the conscious and develop the unconscious principle in the creative and receptive processes.

Intensive period of development of avant-garde art

Intensive period of development of avant-gardeism 1905-1930 is closely connected with modernism, its features were reflected in such major modernist movements as: impressionism, expressionism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, abstract art, dadaism, surrealism, since, despite the widespread prevalence of avant-garde concepts, not a single movement or school designated affiliation to the avant-garde in its name. Creative groups began to be called avant-garde after their collapse.

Due to the dangerous political situation in Europe at the end of the 1930s, the rebellious nature of the avant-garde’s creativity was replaced by military-political content, which led to the disappearance of extreme literature.

Avant-garde was revived in European literature of the post-war period of 1950-1960, its extreme ideas were embodied in the new “neo-avant-garde” movement, which laid the foundation for such movements as conceptualism and hyperrealism. But neo-avant-garde tendencies, unlike the avant-garde of the early twentieth century, oppose not the concepts of bourgeois society, but the art and culture of socialist times.

The difference between avant-garde and modernism

Modernism. Henri Matisse: “Dance”

Modernism, which emerged at the end of the 19th century, is an early period of avant-gardeism, the main period of development of which occurred in the first third of the 20th century. Modernism and avant-gardeism are connected by a common utopian goal of non-acceptance of realism, the transformation of consciousness through art. But avant-garde artists have more radical ideas for restructuring not only consciousness, but also society with the help of art.

Modernism was aimed at an artistic revolution, changes within creative traditions, without denying them, while avant-gardeism radically opposed all previous customs.

Unlike modernism, avant-gardeism is not a clearly defined and formed system of philosophical and artistic conditions; the main qualities that guide it are: instability of boundaries, eclecticism of theories, lack of conservatism.

Diverse schools of avant-gardeism did not exist for long, which was due to their confrontation with each other in competition for primacy and the uniqueness of their ideology.

However, innovative original ideas embody a common feature of avant-garde art as a whole, which makes it possible to define it as a single movement, rich in its artistic forms throughout the twentieth century. The emergence of this movement is due to both the destruction of the foundations of the world order, which proclaimed liberality and humanism as guarantees of social progress, and is inextricably linked with the lack of corresponding forms of art, inspired by new priorities.

First of all, the aesthetic aspects of the art of classical realism were refuted, which turned out to be outdated and not suitable for the revolutionary period of the twentieth century. Avant-gardists believed that reality had destroyed the philosophical and moral concepts that were extremely necessary for the art of this time. For example, avant-gardeism interferes with the analogy between the concepts of imagery and expressiveness, giving preference to the latter. In comparison with realism, which preferred to fully and comprehensively depict the world in all its facets conveyed by the artist, avant-gardeism adhered to the opposite principles, considering such an organic and multifaceted image unacceptable in circumstances in which the world order has been destroyed, the modern life of mankind is engulfed in chaos, disorder, and difficult revolutionary events. The art of avant-gardeism refuses representation - the reproduction of reality in familiar and accurate forms. It is being replaced by the idea of ​​artistic deformation of reality, which will pave the way for the creation of such important stylistic devices as hyperbole, alogism, and grotesque, in some of its forms encouraging the rejection of the classical creative act in favor of a figurative gesture that serves as despair in front of a cruel world, disagreement with its foundations .

Feeling the time as a period of a radical change in the order of life, the fall of persistent, indestructible beliefs, avant-garde artists are clearly aligned with the radical left ideological forces, which connects its schools (futurism, expressionism) with communist concepts, as well as the work of the masters of words Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, Bertolt Brecht , Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard. The theories of communism contradicted the irreplaceable avant-garde goal of complete freedom and independence of art, which was incompatible with the canons. Equally unacceptable was the disagreement between the theory of the subordination of art to the politics of communism and the avant-garde non-conservatism that accompanies the continuous creative process.

Revolutionary art - avant-garde

Recognizing itself as revolutionary art, avant-gardeism, while maintaining its nature, was perceived in the territory of communist countries as an anti-popular and formalist movement; in Germany it was called “degenerate art.”

However, avant-gardeism, in truth, to some extent helped strengthen the totalitarian authorities; its ideological inconsistency with totalitarianism was an obvious phenomenon, which led to the destruction of avant-garde culture, its schools, arrests and murders of prominent artists. The victims of the brutal massacre were: a prominent representative of the theatrical grotesque Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold, writer, poet Daniil Ivanovich Kharms, writer, poet, screenwriter Nikolai Makarovich Oleinikov, actor, director Alexander Yakovlevich Tairov and others.

Distinctive features of avant-gardeism

Avant-garde is a bold innovative movement that has no fear of big experiments, following the truth.. In search of truth, he penetrates into the subconscious and pre-reflective, into a mystical state similar to a dream (surrealism, using allusions and paradoxes), reveals forms of psychological (irrational Dadaism), social art (futurism, neo-avant-garde), travesties standard concepts that turn out to be absurd (absurdism ), uses artistic solutions with the help of emphatically geometric conventional forms (cubism).

Despite the wealth of unusual aesthetic techniques, the saturation of artistic techniques, avant-gardeism is not deprived of the principle of debunking mythical reality - demythologization, the discovery of its natural components, which are veiled by a system of artistic principles; in the extreme, there is a complete rejection of the aesthetic effect for the sake of spontaneity, “free speech”, “art” direct impact" (Edward Estlin Cummings, Ernst Toller).

Instead of the theory of a work characteristic of realism and modernism as a complete, integral system in which aesthetic meaning is logically expressed, avant-gardeism introduces the idea of ​​free text, intended for interpretation and improvisation, the participation of the reader in the creation of a plot that is not fully cognized (the separation of the concepts of “work” and “ text”, recommended in the 1950s by Roland Barthes, was initially based on avant-gardeism).

The concept of “vague meaning” prevails in neo-avant-garde literature, which contradicts the modernist “concentrated meaning” belonging to the author of the work.
Unlike classical modernism, avant-gardeism is considered as a non-elite and open art, however, some of its schools used hidden theories of creating aesthetic space, the concepts of “pure poetry”, the theory of “disinterested creativity”, which does not recognize the connection of art with history.

The word avant-garde comes from French avantgarde, which means forward detachment.

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The art of the Russian avant-garde. The avant-garde itself originated in France in the mid-19th century. In Russia it developed in the pre-war years 1907-1914, and is assigned to certain innovative movements of Russian artists. In Russia, as in France, the avant-garde implies the negation of academic painting and the eclectic aesthetics that had developed in art before and took the form of stagnation in painting. Denial of cultural heritage several centuries, the denial of continuity and adoption of artistic values, the intricacy of destruction and creation - all this is the revolution of the new avant-garde style in Russian art. At various stages of development, this innovative movement in Russian art was classified by the definitions “modernism”, “avant-garde”, “fresh art”, “futurism”, “left art”, etc.

Avant-gardism in painting

Avant-garde is a common designation for various artistic movements of the 20th century. Avant-gardeism is characterized by the search for new trends, unknown artistic forms and styles, often these were piece goods, censure of classical forms of painting and support for innovation. Revolutionary sentiments and support for everything new are always present in the vanguard. This style is also characterized by the destruction of boundaries between styles, types and genres, the unification of all styles into one style - innovative art, constantly updated. Thanks to avant-gardeism, many artists, writers, sculptors and others overcame many of the boundaries of certain genres that constrained them (futurism, constructivism, etc.) and enriched the history of art with completely unexpected works and artistic values.

Self-portrait

Self-portrait is a portrait that the artist painted from himself, usually with the help of one or more mirrors. In a self-portrait, the painter tries to express his own personality, to paint himself as he sees himself, or in order to get to know himself even more. By studying his own face, the artist understands his self and tries to show it to other people, to confess to himself and society. Self-portraiture was very common in ancient art, in the Middle Ages, as a genre that was formed by the 16th century. Quite often, the artist paints himself in his working environment - in the studio, or with his family.

Wassily Kandinsky. Picture with a circle. 1911 National Museum of Georgia

One of the main directions of the avant-garde. Unlike traditional art, it does not imitate reality and does not reproduce its elements. The object of abstract art is the artist's tools: color, line and form. The first abstract works were created by Wassily Kandinsky in the late 1900s - early 1910s; His first abstract work is considered to be his “Painting with a Circle” (1911). In 1912-1915, abstract painting systems of Rayonism (Larionov, 1912) and Suprematism (Malevich, 1915) appeared.

Vanguard

At first the term was used in military affairs and in relation to political events - until in 1885 the French critic Théodore Duret used it in art criticism. However, the word did not take root in this meaning. Only in the 1950s did it return to art criticism thanks to the French critic Michel Sefort, who was the first to call Russian art of the early 20th century avant-garde.

Allness

The term was coined in the spring of 1913 by Ilya Zdanevich, an artist, writer, publisher and journalist. The basis for everything was the artistic and aesthetic ideas of Mikhail Larionov and artists of his circle: in the catalog for the “Target” exhibition, he recognized all existing styles - cubism, futurism, orpheism and others. On November 5 of the same year, Zdanevich publicly presented his concept in Moscow at the closing of Natalia Goncharova’s exhibition. The lecture was called “Natalia Goncharova and My Majesty.” After this, Zdanevich went to St. Petersburg to propagate the ideas of allness at lectures and debates there. These performances had the shocking character characteristic of the avant-garde. So, at the end of the “Face Painting” performance on April 9, 1914, Zdanevich painted his face with black paint, and on April 17 of the same year, at the “Worship of the Shoe” event, he denied everything that was considered beautiful and sang the beauty of the shoe, “beautiful, like cars and engines "

Fence painting

Appeal to the subjects and style of inscriptions on fences is one of the most characteristic features of the avant-garde and neo-primitivism. This trend is especially noticeable in the works of Larionov of the neo-primitivist period.

Constructivism

El Lissitzky. Skyscraper project at Nikitsky Gate, view from Tverskoy Boulevard charnelhouse.org

From the Latin constructio - “construction”. The main features of constructivism are rigor, laconism and geometric forms. The style was officially designated in 1922 in the book of the same name by the artist and art theorist Alexei Gan. Among the most famous constructivists are Vladimir Tatlin, Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, architects Moses Ginzburg, Konstantin Melnikov, and the Vesnin brothers. Constructivism has spread in a variety of areas of artistic creativity: theatrical scenery and costumes, book design, architecture, etc.

Cosmism

Lazar Khidekel. Cities of the future. Overground city. 1927 newsfeed.kosmograd.com

A philosophical concept that originated in the 1870s and refers to philosophers and scientists who speculated about extraterrestrial space and outer space. The development of cosmism was facilitated by non-objective, or abstract, art, and Malevich’s students - the artist Ivan Kudryashov and the architect Lazar Khidekel - developed the cosmic aspect of geometric non-objectivity and the idea of ​​cosmism.

Cubism

Georges Braque. Violin and candlestick. 1910 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Cubism took shape in France in the fall of 1908 in the works of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. It penetrates into Russia in different ways. Thus, the artist Alexandra Ekster regularly brings from Paris various information about the new fashionable style, and in 1908, the collector Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin opens his mansion in Bolshoy Znamensky Lane to everyone. The collection includes, among other things, works by cubists, and future Knave of Diamonds regularly comes to the gallery. In 1912, the artist and poet David Burliuk’s article “Cubism” was published in the collection “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.” Cubism, he writes, implies a flat understanding of the world or a canon of shifted construction, and its most important technique is the depiction of an object from several points of view. Three years later, in the manifesto “From Cubism to Suprematism,” Kazimir Malevich defines the essence of the movement as “dissonance” that occurs as a result of “the meeting of two forms”: “In the principle of cubism there is still a very valuable task, not to convey objects, but to make a picture.<...>In our era of cubism, the artist destroyed the thing as such with its meaning, essence and purpose.”

Cubofuturism

Natalia Goncharova. Factory. 1912 State Russian Museum

This concept was first used by the French critic Marcel Boulanger in 1912, and the following year the term became widespread in Russian culture. The poetic and artistic group “Gileya”, as well as artists from the “Youth Union” circle, consider themselves to be Cubo-Futurists. In cubo-futuristic works the world appears fragmented into fragments or disassembled into elements. In November 1913, Malevich called his works cubo-futuristic in the catalog of the Youth Union exhibition. In 1912-1913, the cubo-futuristic painting of Natalia Goncharova (“Factory”) appeared.

Left art

Alexander Rodchenko. Magazine cover option
"Lef"  "Lef"- “Left Front”, a magazine published in Moscow in 1923-1925, editor-in-chief - Vladimir Mayakovsky. Several rooms are designed by Alexander Rodchenko.(cartoon of O. Brik). 1924 State Museum of Fine Arts named after. A. S. Pushkina

In the spring of 1915, after the Exhibition of paintings of leftist movements in Petrograd, the term “leftist art”, along with the concept of “futurism,” began to be used in relation to innovative art. Three federations were created in 1917; one of them was called “left” and united the majority of avant-garde artists. By 1919, the term changed its meaning: now it is the name given to non-objective and proletarian artists. In the early 1920s, the latter formed a group around the Lef magazine.

Lineism

Alexander Rodchenko. Linear design No. 108. 1920 monoskop.org

In 1919, the term was invented by Alexander Rodchenko, denoting one of the trends in non-objective art. “He introduced and declared the line as an element of construction and as an independent form of painting,” he wrote in the Manifesto of Early Constructivism.

Rayonism

Mikhail Larionov. Rooster (Radiant Study). 1912

One of the first systems of non-objective painting, developed by Mikhail Larionov. Rayonism, Larionov believed, should connect the visible material world and the spiritual world in a single harmony. The artist created his first rayon works in 1912, and at the same time they were shown at World of Art exhibitions. In 1913 and 1914, Larionov’s rayonist paintings were exhibited at the “Target” and “Number 4” exhibitions. Realistic rayonism is characterized by animalistic subjects. For the next stage of rayism - pneumorayism - the use of other techniques (for example, papier-mâché inserts, signs such as notes, crosses, etc.).

Orientalism

An important part of the program of early avant-garde artists. The influence of Eastern art was mainly reflected in theory and manifestos and attracted avant-garde artists more with plots and themes than with techniques. What was important was the immersion in the atmosphere of the East, and not the study of the features of art. The theoretical basis of Orientalism was developed by Mikhail Larionov and Ilya Zdanevich. And it was precisely this love for the East that became the reason for Larionov’s break with the “Jack of Diamonds” - the artist accused its members of imitative Westernism. However, by the mid-1910s, the theme of the East was forgotten, and Orientalism had exhausted itself.

Primitivism

Mikhail Larionov. Spring. Seasons (New primitive). 1912 State Tretyakov Gallery

The direction of the early Russian avant-garde (late 1900s - early 1910s). Among the features of primitivism are infantile, childish forms and proportions of figures, awkward plasticity, imitation of amateur drawing, and naive fabulousness. A fundamental role here was played by reliance on national tradition, on examples of ancient and folk art, primarily icons, popular prints, and archaic sculptural art. The word was first used by the poet and critic Sergei Makovsky in an article about the exhibition “Blue Rose”: “They are the heralds of the primitivism to which modern painting has come, seeking revival at the very springs - in direct creativity, not weakened by the weight of historical experience.<...>Modern conscious primitivism, understood as the main task, is the last victory of artistic liberation.” In the summer of 1907, the term was also used in the announcement of the Burliuk exhibition in Kherson.

Suprematism

Kazimir Malevich. Untitled. Circa 1916 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

This is how in December 1915 Malevich described his works shown at the “Last Futurist Exhibition “0.10”. His “Black Square” opened a new field of experiments - a purely geometric, non-objective form. At the beginning of 1920, Malevich left to teach in Vitebsk, and there Suprematism became the basis of the new pedagogy of Unovis - “Approvers of a new art.”

Futurism

Giacomo Balla. Speed ​​+ sound. 1913-1914 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1976

From the Italian futuro - “future”. Futurism arose in Italy in 1909 thanks to Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and spread to all areas of artistic creativity. The basis of futurism is a new language of art that corresponds to the changed world. According to David Burliuk, Russian artists and writers began to use the term in 1911. The futurists themselves, however, then called themselves futurists or budutlyans. The closest to futurism were the Donkey Tail and Youth Union groups. Futurism was especially popular in Russian painting before 1914. 

Chagall, Malevich, Kandinsky, Filonov, Serebryakova, Goncharova, Larionov, Grigoriev, Petrov-Vodkin, Ekster, Altman, Tatlin, Lissitzky, Rodchenko... Not just “star” names and iconic works, but also a brilliant representation of a phenomenal phenomenon in world culture .

Mark Zakharovich Chagall. To my bride

One of the main museums in Vienna, periodically featured on the pages of all art critics around the world, the Albertina Art Gallery is once again in the spotlight. This time the occasion was an exhibition with a loud, pretentious title “Russian avant-gardes: from Chagall to Malevich.” Let’s ignore the political moment of the ethnic origin of Marc Chagall and Kazimir Malevich and go enjoy art, because if anything today can be opposed to the games of the authorities and the wars of peoples, then this is precisely art. Especially if it has stood the test of time and is exhibited in Vienna.


Nathan Altman. Anna Akhmatova

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. Aviator. 1914

Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov. Officer's hairdresser. 1909, 89×117 cm.

Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev. Portrait of Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold. 1916, 247×163 cm.

The exhibition includes 130 masterpieces. Its scale and level can be judged by the fact that even Malevich’s “Black Square” was brought from the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg) to Vienna.

Work by Boris Grigoriev, photo from the exhibition - Arthive

Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin. Anxiety

Of course, the genre of “Russian avant-gardes” itself (the plural is used here deliberately, with the desire to emphasize the diversity of styles that emerged simultaneously) is inextricably linked with the political component of the early 20th century - it’s not just that in different halls we see monitors showing compilations from newsreels of those times : we will see gradually emerging revolutionary sentiments, serving as a natural popular response to the senseless participation in the First World War, and even, towards the end of the exhibition, an eerie film about the creation of the personality cult of Joseph Stalin.

Depicted almost always in the same way, Lenin also became an avant-garde symbol in an artistic sense, if only thanks to the countless repetitions that act as a counterweight to any urban individuality.

Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon. Komsomol members. Young animals from Moscow region. 1926

Initially, a militaristic term, avant-garde (French avant-garde) or literally “advanced detachment” meant the reaction of the artist (in the broad sense of the word, as the English artist) and creative groups to what was happening in the world around him. Futurism (one of the main avant-garde movements - primarily, however, in literature) with Mayakovsky’s poems very accurately outlined the superiority of the political component over personal glory:

I do not care
a lot of work on bronze,
I do not care
to marble slime...
let us
will be a common monument
built
in battles
socialism.

Nathan Altman. Petrocommune. 1921

However, the creators of the exhibition emphasize that today the programmatic part of creativity is not as important as its formal expression. Literally at the beginning of the exhibition we are greeted by two paintings by the artist Nathan Isaevich Altman - this is the famous cubic portrait of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, often found in literature textbooks, and the painting “Petrocommune”, reminiscent of a propaganda leaflet. The first was created in 1914 and is still recognizable; finding the second (year 1921) in the Google search engine without knowing the exact name is quite problematic. Over the course of 7 years, the artist found something to write about in his breakthrough style, but we see that it was his corporate style that immortalized his name, and not the later acquired semantic direction of his work.

Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin. Fantasy. 1925

All the more curious are the paintings at this exhibition that are devoid of any propaganda component at all.

Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova. Bathhouse. 1913

Not only the most famous and striking works themselves, but also their deliberate juxtaposition is part of the general “play to the audience” of this vernissage: Serebryakova’s clear, bright work, glorifying the beauty of the female body, and Larionov’s caricature “Venus” - a very unexpected special effect...

Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov. Venus and Mikhail. 1912, 85.5×68 cm.

Of the works that, while reflecting the essence of the age of change, are not yet politicized, let us take, for example, “The Cyclist” by Natalia Goncharova - an image of a man moving on a bicycle, around whom letters and syllables are scattered, easily forming in the head into standard city signs of the early 20s century.

Natalya Sergeevna Goncharova. Cyclist. 1913, 78×105 cm.

The selected colors, the direction of the cyclist’s movement (forward movement is usually expressed from left to right, while the hero of the picture moves backward) and the mixing of letters from Goncharov’s signs seem to show a person’s lack of understanding of the surrounding triumph of urbanism. The paradox is that man himself has unwittingly become part of this future, because bicycles in their modern form appeared only towards the end of the 19th century.

Similarly, today you can take photographs of ancient mansions with smartphones, post the results on social networks and be horrified that you were born at the wrong time. Avant-garde very accurately and very subtly felt this internal human contradiction, trying to solve it by searching for new forms.

Natalya Goncharova. "Blue Cow", 1911

An interesting point: the exhibition was called “From Chagall to Malevich,” which may seem strange, since Chagall was born and died later than Malevich - by 8 and 50 years, respectively.

Mark Zakharovich Chagall. Jew in red. 1915

...But Mark Zakharovich is an avant-garde in the more Soviet understanding of this term - he is opposed to realism. Chagall himself formulated his creative credo as follows: “If I were not a Jew, as I understand it, I would not be an artist or would be a completely different artist.”

His work is imbued with a rethinking of Jewish folklore and even some Yiddish sayings in the visual arts. Kazimir Malevich was an avant-garde artist by his own decision - the same Chagall was for him a representative of the old school, the one that does not correspond to the times, and whose monopoly should therefore be fought tirelessly.

Mark Zakharovich Chagall. Violinist

Chagall’s gloomy “Fiddler” and “Red Jew” demonstrate his keen interest in the theme of his people, who at that time did not yet dream of obtaining a state, but lived in all sorts of nooks and crannies all over the world, including in Marc Chagall’s native Vitebsk. The loss of this people from the general picture of the world is precisely what determines their inclusion in Chagall’s paintings.

Deprived of Jewish themes, the title painting of the exhibition “Walk” (it is the one that looks at the Viennese from all the posters) combines several meaning-forming elements at once - this is a woman holding a man’s hand and at the same time soaring above the ground, and a picnic laid out on the hills outside the city , standing out like a red tablecloth among all the colors of the picture, and the city merging with nature, visible in the distance behind the heroes.

Mark Zakharovich Chagall. Walk. 1918

And again we see a break from the usual: from the city, from the color and, ultimately, from the earth. This separation should be considered the main avant-garde element in Chagall’s works - separation from general life due to the inability to exist in it due to national origin and individual views.

Mark Zakharovich Chagall. Self-portrait with seven fingers. 1913

Malevich, however, did not have enough of such a separation - he, like Mayakovsky, saw the future of art in the denial of its past. The idea of ​​Suprematism, founded by Malevich, lies in the use of the simplest geometric figures and the dominance of color over other properties of painting.

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. Girls in the field

The exhibition presents three paintings that, according to Malevich’s idea, should become the basis of the future of pure art - “Black Square”, “Black Circle” and “Black Cross”. It was the combinations of such figures and their endowment with colors that were intended to set the vector for art’s development. “Girls in a Field” or “Man in a Suprematist Landscape” very accurately demonstrate what exactly Malevich meant by the simplest figures and dominance of color.

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. Red cavalry. 91x140 cm.

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. Man in a Suprematist Landscape

You can relate to Kazimir Severinovich in different ways - you can follow the example of the girl whose voice I accidentally heard near the painting “Red Square”: “Oh, crazy Malevich. Why the red square? He painted black!”, you can be his fan and argue that only this has the right to be called art, but one fact is indisputable - he made his contribution to the development of artistic thought, even if, like the dominance of color in his paintings, his ideas sometimes dominated over the artistic value of his works.

However, the last conclusion about Malevich is applicable to the “avant-gardes” in general - in their desire for novelty, they often did not take into account the interests of the audience. However, time has put everything in its place: the ideas themselves, worthy of outliving their creators, have done this and are looking at us from the paintings of artists of the early 20th century in the Vienna art gallery Albertina. Ideology, in any case, lost an unequal battle to form - paintings and art have survived and will survive any social system and government regime.

Pavel Nikolaevich Filonov. Feast of Kings. 1913, 175×215 cm.

Vladimir Vasilievich Lebedev. Nude model. 1935

Source - photographic materials and illustrations

Avant-garde(from the French avantgarde - vanguard), the most radical artistic movement in the culture of the 20th century. The term, borrowed from military vocabulary, emphasizes the role of avant-garde artists as pioneers of unprecedented art, in tune with the new century, fighters against the established centuries (since the era Renaissance) artistic system.

In the beginning. 20th century Many avant-garde movements emerged: Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Abstractionism, Surrealism and others. Some researchers believe the 1920s. the final stage of avant-gardeism, others push back its time boundaries until the appearance postmodernism.

H. Gries. "Still life with a bottle of Bordeaux." 1919. Private collection. Berlin

Gris Juan. Shot glasses, newspaper and bottle of wine

To create here an unusual interpretation of the still life genre, the artist used cut-up strips of newspapers. The objects - glasses, a newspaper and a bottle of wine - were taken whole, and then broken into fragments, glued back together and depicted within the boundaries of vertical planes parallel to each other in a cubist manner. Gris creates the impression of perspective and different levels of space by placing these planes one after another. The significance of the painting lies in the innovative method of depicting various facets of an object simultaneously, without traditional cut-off modeling. The artist will thus create a new kind of reality. Although Gris never intended to work in a Cubist manner, the painting is an example of the Cubist style. A Spaniard by nationality, Gris spent most of his life in Paris, and his work remained close to Cubism in its interpretation of form.

Avant-gardeism arose in France, then spread to Germany, Italy, Russia and other countries. Participants in this movement sought to destroy all generally accepted norms, rules, and ideals. Young rebels called for “throwing into the dustbin of history” not only outdated traditions, but also the entire artistic heritage. The ideologist of Italian futurism F. T. Marinetti called: “Put fire on the library shelves! Divert the flow of the canals to flood the crypts of the museums. Oh, let famous paintings float with the wind and the current.” The performances of avant-garde artists were often accompanied by scandals. Daring manifestos were issued (a collection of poems by V.V. Mayakovsky, A.E. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov and brothers V.D. and D.D. Burliuk “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”, 1912). The artists deliberately teased the audience. Everything was shocking: the painted faces, carrots and painted spoons in the buttonholes of their suits; group names (" donkey tail», « Jack of Diamonds"); ways to attract the public (“Knave of Diamonds” imitated buffoons, Italian futurists scattered leaflets from bell towers). However, behind the daring antics hid serious work on the creation of a fundamentally new artistic system. Each of the groups - in polemics with all the others - defended its creative method, its vision of the further development of art.

Transformations covered all types of creativity, but fine art constantly initiated new movements. The masters of post-impressionism predetermined the most important trends of the avant-garde; Its early front was marked by group performances by representatives of Fauvism and Cubism. Futurism strengthened the international contacts of the avant-garde and introduced new principles of interaction between the arts (fine art, literature, music, theater, photography and cinema). In the 1900s-10s, new trends were born one after another in a wide geographical range - from Russia to the New World (with Moscow, Berlin, New York and other centers that increasingly decisively challenged the leading role of Paris as a trendsetter in artistic fashion). Expressionism, Dadaism, surrealism - with their sensitivity to the unconscious in the human psyche - outlined the irrational line of the avant-garde; in constructivism, on the contrary, its rational, constructive will was manifested. However, both principles are constantly combined in the sphere of artistic experimentation, which also captured literature (techniques of “automatic writing", "stream of consciousness", zaumi), music (atonal music, dodecaphony), theater, design and other types of creativity.

U. Boccioni. "Rising City" 1910 Museum of Modern Art. NY

Boccioni Umberto. Head + Light + Surroundings

Forms - fragmentary, torn - rush about, carried away by some kind of whirlwind. A human head emerges from the red and blue edges: this is the world seen in a rotating kaleidoscope. The painting embodies the idea of ​​movement through space and time - an idea that Boccioni was completely passionate about. He was one of the founders of Italian Futurist art and signed the Futurist Manifesto in 1910. Rejecting the past, artists of this movement sought a source of inspiration in science and technology, believing, unlike many of his contemporaries, that the “time machine” has a positive effect on art, Boccioni called on his fellow artists to be imbued with modernity: its speed, the will to live, dynamism. In this painting, the artist tried to reproduce the entire integrity of one-time impressions of reality. Boccioni devoted himself equally to painting and sculpture. In 1915, he voluntarily went to war and, ironically, became the victim of a fall from a galloping horse.

During the period of wars and revolutions of the 1910s, the political and artistic avant-gardes actively interacted. Left forces in politics tried to use the avant-garde for their own propaganda purposes; later, totalitarian regimes (primarily in Germany and the USSR) sought to suppress it with strict censorship, driving the avant-garde underground (as happened with “unofficial art” in the USSR and other countries "socialist camp"). In the conditions of political liberalism, the avant-garde, since the 1920s, has lost its former pathos of confrontation, entered into an alliance with modernity (Art Deco), and established contact with mass culture. Disappointed in his early utopian hopes, here too he increasingly finds himself in a state of “underground”, albeit purely spiritual, not social (in such later manifestations as abstract expressionism or “new figuration”, moods of loneliness, despair, mystical trance). The crisis of the avant-garde, which by the mid-20th century had largely squandered its former “revolutionary” energy, was an incentive for the formation of postmodernism as its main alternative.

In the 1960-70s. new avant-garde movements appeared: actionism, pop art, conceptual art, etc. (they are often combined with the term postmodernism). Never before has European culture known such a variety of movements, trends, artistic systems, and individual styles. Avant-garde artists significantly enriched the language of art and proposed a wide range of new ideas. Among them were great masters: P. Picasso, A. Matisse, V.V. Kandinsky, K.S. Malevich, M.Z. Chagall, WITH. Dali etc. With all the diversity of individual styles, through joint efforts they developed a new artistic system, which is based not on imitation of nature, but on the creative self-expression of the artist. The avant-garde artists accustomed the public to sharp, unexpected aesthetic impressions, to active participation in the perception of works of art, to “intellectual play.” They became true pioneers of modern art.

Picasso Pablo. Crying woman

The sharp color combinations and hard breaks in the lines capture the excruciating pain that distorts the face of a woman overcome with suffering. The viewer's gaze focuses on the faded blue around the mouth and teeth; the shapes of the eyes and forehead are split - literally broken by grief. This image echoes the characters in the monumental panel Guernica, painted the same year, depicting the deaths of women and children during the Spanish Civil War. This painting is one of the most expressive in the series of Crying Women. The fragmented, shifted volumes of the face are a technique that goes back to cubism, a movement founded by Picasso and Braque. Throughout his long creative career, which was accompanied by great success, Picasso created a huge body of work. Being of Spanish origin, he came to Paris in 1901 and remained in France until the end of his life. Picasso is recognized as the greatest artist of the 20th century.

Matisse Henri. Red Room (Dessert. Harmony in Red)

A flurry of primary colors hits the viewer in this dazzlingly gorgeous painting, which depicts the interior of a room with a woman setting a table. The pictorial surface of the canvas is brought to a single harmony by the vibration of pure color, masterfully inscribed in the compositional structure and filling the entire space of the room. The tablecloth merges with the wall, the objects seem completely flat, the artist simplifies and bends their shape. This enhances the impression of a lyrical influx of ornamental forms and iridescent colors. For Matisse, color is not so much a means of representation as a means of expression; he deliberately neglects the traditional rules of drawing and perspective. He and his followers earned the nickname Fauves, or Savages, due to the primitive wildness of their style. Matisse's Fauvist style spanned the years 1905-1908, and the artist's style continued to develop throughout his long creative life. Color always played a major role in Matisse's works, no matter what they were. This is also evident in the magnificent collages he made in his later period.

Wassily Kandinsky. Cossacks

In this semi-abstract, inexplicably attractive composition, the outlines of hills and the figures of Cossacks with sabers are included in the movement of abstract shapes, lines and color spots. There is a special beauty in the simplicity of its construction and an amazing looseness in the manner of applying the stroke. Kandinsky believed that a true artist strives to express exclusively an internal, essential vision. Having initially received a legal education, Kandinsky soon realized that his real vocation was art, and became one of the outstanding pioneers of “pure” abstract painting. After a long stay in Munich, he returned to Russia, where in 1914-1922 he was engaged in teaching activities and founded the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences. The influence of Russian culture was reflected in his appeals to icon painting and motifs of folk art. He taught for a time at the Bauhaus, the renowned school of modern design. Kandinsky realized the significance of abstract art when he discovered in it “extraordinary beauty, emitting an inner light,” without yet realizing that it was the light of his own creativity, seen from the inside, in reverse perspective.

Malevich Kazimir. Suprematism

Geometric elements painted in primary colors appear to float, suspended on the canvas. Malevich created a complex composition of overlapping shapes to convey a sense of depth and perspective. Suprematist work banishes every trace of the object, relying exclusively on the interaction of form and color. Malevich was the founder of Suprematism - a system that sought to achieve the absolute purity of these two principles. For Malevich, Suprematism meant the embodiment of pure artistic feeling, what he called “the feeling of the non-objective.” In 1918, he took the development of non-figurative art to its logical conclusion in a series of compositions called "White on White", consisting of white geometric shapes on a white background - a kind of abstraction of abstractions. Realizing that there was nowhere to further develop the concept, Malevich returned to figurative painting.

Marc Chagall. Above the city

Above a city consisting of simple wooden houses and barns, two fantastic figures fly across the sky. A man gently hugs a woman's chest with his hand. They seem to be lovers who may be on a secret elopement. The strange and naively ordered city, depicted through patches of color, with its wonderful wooden fences and warm colors, reveals Chagall's interest in fairy tales and the fantastic. Chagall was born in Russia, and many of his images are firmly rooted in the world of Jewish folklore of his early life. His style is complex and yet childishly simple; reality and dreams are mixed in his colorful compositions. Chagall was forced to leave Russia because the state required a certain type of art; after leaving, he divided his time between the United States and France. He was a very prolific artist and worked in painting, mosaics, theatrical scenery and tapestries. His works can be found in many public buildings, including the Paris Grand Opera and the UN Headquarters building in New York.

Dali Salvador. Dream

In this fantastic interpretation of a dream, we see only the head of the sleeper against the background of dream images. Its unstable balancing says: if one of the crutches falls, the sleeper will awaken; This is how the fragility and fragility of sleep is depicted. The artist's meticulous attention to detail creates an atmosphere of exaggerated reality. As a participant in the surrealist movement, Dali activated the role of the unconscious and the idea of ​​absurdity in his art. He collaborated with director Luis Buñuel on films such as Un Chien Andalou and The Golden Age, which are still considered milestones in the history of cinema. Despite the fact that he often defied public opinion, Dali's reputation and contribution to art are undeniable. Having worked for a long time in Paris and New York, in 1955 he returned to his native Spain and settled here with his faithful friend Gala, depicted in many of his mysterious and amazing paintings.

Like the trends of modernism that preceded it, the avant-garde was aimed at a radical transformation of human consciousness through the means of art, at an aesthetic revolution that would destroy the spiritual inertia of the existing society - while its artistic and utopian strategy and tactics were much more decisive, anarchic and rebellious. satisfied with the creation of exquisite “foci” of beauty and mystery, opposing the base materiality of existence, the avant-garde introduced into its images the rough matter of life, the “poetics of the street”, the chaotic rhythm of the modern city, nature, endowed with a powerful creative-destructive force, he more than once declaratively emphasized in his works the principle of “anti-art”, thereby rejecting not only previous, more traditional styles, but also the established concept of art in general. The avant-garde was constantly attracted by the “strange worlds” of new science and technology - from them he took not only plot and symbolic motifs, but also many designs and techniques. On the other hand, art increasingly included “barbaric” archaism, ancient magic, primitiveness and folklore (in the form of borrowings from the art of blacks in Africa and popular popular print, from other “non-classical” spheres of creativity, previously outside the scope of the fine arts). The avant-garde gave unprecedented urgency to the global dialogue of cultures.