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Left Front Of The Arts
''LEF'' ("''ЛЕФ''") was the journal of the Left Front of the Arts ("Левый фронт искусств"''"Levy Front Iskusstv"''), a widely ranging association of avant-garde writers, photographers, critics and designers in the Soviet Union. It had two runs, one from 1923 to 1925 as LEF, and later from 1927 to 1929 as ''Novy LEF'' ('New LEF'). The journal's objective, as set out in one of its first issues, was to "re-examine the ideology and practices of so-called leftist art, and to abandon individualism to increase art's value for developing communism." Productivism Although ''LEF'' was catholic in its choices of writers, it broadly reflected the concerns of the Productivist left-wing of Constructivism. The editors were Osip Brik and Vladimir Mayakovsky: fittingly, one a Russian Formalist critic and one a poet and designer who helped compose the 1912 manifesto of Russian Futurists entitled, "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste". The covers were designed by Alexander Rodc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mysticism, Benjamin made enduring and influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School, and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was also related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders. Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Baudelaire, Goethe, Kafka, Kraus, Leskov, Proust, Walser, and translation theory. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viktor Shklovsky
Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky ( rus, Ви́ктор Бори́сович Шкло́вский, p=ˈʂklofskʲɪj; – 6 December 1984) was a Russian and Soviet literary theorist, critic, writer, and pamphleteer. He is one of the major figures associated with Russian formalism. Viktor Shklovsky's ''Theory of Prose'' was published in 1925. Shklovsky himself is still praised as "one of the most important literary and cultural theorists of the twentieth century" (Modern Language Association Prize Committee); "one of the most lively and irreverent minds of the last century" (David Bellos); "one of the most fascinating figures of Russian cultural life in the twentieth century" ( Tzvetan Todorov) Life Shklovsky was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. His father was a Lithuanian Jewish mathematician (with ancestors from Shklov) who converted to Russian Orthodoxy and his mother was of German-Russian origin. He attended St. Petersburg University. During the First World War, he volunteere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liubov Popova
Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova (russian: Любо́вь Серге́евна Попо́ва; April 24, 1889 – May 25, 1924) was a Russian-Soviet avant-garde artist, painter and designer. Early life Popova was born in Ivanovskoe, near Moscow, to the wealthy family of Sergei Maximovich Popov, a very successful textile merchant and vigorous patron of the arts, and Lyubov Vasilievna Zubova, who came from a highly cultured family. Lyubov Sergeyevna had two brothers and a sister: Sergei was the eldest, then Lyubov, Pavel and Olga. Pavel became a philosopher and the guardian of his sister's artistic legacy.Dabrowski, M., ''Liubov Popova'', Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1991, p.122. Popova grew up with a strong interest in art, especially Italian Renaissance painting. At eleven years old she began formal art lessons at home; she was first enrolled in Yaltinskaia's Women's Gymnasium, then in Arseneva's Gymnasium in Moscow. By the age of 18 she was studying with Stanislav Zhukovsky, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (; rus, Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к, p=bɐˈrʲis lʲɪɐˈnʲidəvʲɪtɕ pəstɛrˈnak; 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, composer and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, ''My Sister, Life'', was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an important collection in the Russian language. Pasternak's translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderón de la Barca and Shakespeare remain very popular with Russian audiences. Pasternak is the author of ''Doctor Zhivago'' (1957), a novel that takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Second World War. ''Doctor Zhivago'' was rejected for publication in the USSR, but the manuscript was smuggled to Italy and was first published there in 1957. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, an event that enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize. In 198 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Kušner
Boris Anisimovich Kušner (Russian: Борис Анисимович Кушнер; 1888 – 1937) was a Russian poet, critic and political activist. He was a publicist for the Cubo-Futurists: In 1917 he wrote a manifesto, "Democratic Art", which called for a guarantee for all art movements to have a right to exist and the creation of an environment whereby fresh forces and views would be encouraged so that all works of art would be available to all people. He worked with Mayakovsky and Osip Brik Osip Maksimovich Brik (russian: link=no, Óсип Макси́мович Брик) (16 January 1888 – 22 February 1945), was a Russian avant garde writer and literary critic, who was one of the most important members of the Russian formali ... in IZO-Narkompros. His association with Mayakovsky continued in LEF and Novyi LEF. He was involved with OPOJAZ, (the Society for the Study of Poetic Language) and their formalist approach to understanding poetry. He saw the comparison of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleksei Kruchyonykh
Aleksei Yeliseyevich Kruchyonykh (russian: Алексе́й Елисе́евич Кручёных; 9 February 1886 – 17 June 1968) was a Russian poet, artist, and theorist, perhaps one of the most radical poets of Russian Futurism, a movement that included Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk and others. Born in 1886, he lived in the time of the Russian Silver Age of literature, and together with Velimir Khlebnikov, another Russian Futurist, Kruchenykh is considered the inventor of ''zaum'', a poetry style utilising nonsense words. Kruchonykh wrote the libretto for the Futurist opera '' Victory Over the Sun'', with sets provided by Kazimir Malevich. In 1912, he wrote the poem ''Dyr bul shchyl''; four years later, in 1916, he created his most famous book, '' Universal War''. He is also known for his ''Declaration of the Word as Such'' (1913): "The worn-out, violated word "lily" is devoid of all expression. Therefore I call the lily ''éuy'' – and original purity is r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleksei Gastev
Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev (russian: Алексей Капитонович Гастев) (8 October 1882, Suzdal, Vladimir Governorate – 15 April 1939, Kommunarka, Moscow) was a Russian revolutionary, a pioneering theorist of the scientific management of labour in Soviet Russia, a trade-union activist, and an avant-garde writer and poet. Biography Youth of a revolutionary Born to a family of a teacher and a seamstress in Suzdal, Russia, Aleksei Gastev's childhood is largely unknown. His revolutionary acts began once he participated in revolutionary meetings at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, but he was expelled as a result. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1901 and participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905; Gastev was the leader of a fighting squad in Kostroma and incited workers to strike in the Northern Russian cities of Yaroslavl, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Rostov. During this time, Gastev was closely associated with the Bolshevik factio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleksei Gan
Aleksei Mikhailovich Gan (Russian: Алексей Михайлович Ган; born Imberkh; 1887 or 1893 – 8 September, 1942) was a Russian anarchist and later Marxist avant-garde artist, art theorist and graphic designer. Gan was a key figure in the development of Constructivism after the Russian Revolution. Life Gan's involvement with creative activity began in 1917 when he became involved with the Moscow Union of Food Workers with whom he set up an amateur theatrical group. The group encompassed various political groupings and following the Bolshevik seizure of power, some joined the Red Army, others the Black Guards or affiliated to the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. Gan reorganised the group as the Proletarian Theatre, which affiliated to the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups. Gan was the first to write on art in the anarchist newspaper ''Anarkhiia'' (Anarchy) when it introduced an art section in early 1918. In March 1921, Gan was one of the seven artists, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolai Chuzhak
Nikolai Fedorovich Chuzhak (russian: Николай Фёдорович Чужак; real surname Nasimovich, russian: Насимович; 1876, Nizhny Novgorod – 3 September 1937, St Petersburg) was a Russian Bolshevik journalist, literary critic and art theorist.The Great Soviet Encyclopedia', 3rd Edition (1970-1979) Chuzhak was a son of a craftsman who was attracted to the RSDLP in 1896. In 1904 he went to Geneva and became involved in the production of ''Proletarii''. He returned to Russia and involved himself in revolutionary politics in St Petersburg, attending the RSDLP conference for military and combat organizations held in Tammerfors in 1906. However he was arrested shortly afterwards and in 1908 he was exiled to Irkutsk. Following the February Revolution of 1917 he joined the unified committee of the RSDLP in Irkutsk and started editing ''Rabochaia Sibir’''. He remained in the Far East of Russia heading the Press department of the regional bureau of the RCP(B), editing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Arvatov
Boris Ignatievich Arvatov (Russian: Борис Игнатьевич Арватов; 3 June 1896, Vilkaviškis – 14 June 1940) was a Russian and Soviet artist and art critic. He was active in the constructivist movement. His father was a specialist in customs law. He had two brothers - Yuri Arvatov (1898–1937) and Vadim Arvatov. Arvatov was involved with the Institute of Artistic Culture (INKhUK) when it was founded in 1920 and was an active theorist and ideologist of the Proletkult. Here he met fellow theorists Osip Brik, Boris Kushner and Nikolai Tarabukin with whom he developed the productivist approach to the role of the 'artist', which they wanted to be orientated towards a more industrial approach aimed at producing socially useful objects. He was one of the founders of LEF. ''Art and Production'' ''Art and Production'' (russian: Искусство и производство) was published in Russian in 1926. An amended version translated into German as ''Kunst un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socialist Realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is characterized by the depiction of communist values, such as the emancipation of the proletariat. Despite its name, the figures in the style are very often highly idealized, especially in sculpture, where it often leans heavily on the conventions of classical sculpture. Although related, it should not be confused with social realism, a type of art that realistically depicts subjects of social concern, or other forms of "realism" in the visual arts. Socialist realism was made with an extremely literal and obvious meaning, usually showing an idealized USSR. Socialist realism was usually devoid of complex artistic meaning or interpretation. Socialist realism was the predominant form of approved art in the Soviet Union from its development in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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