Jump to navigation Jump to search Not to be confused with social realism russian dating florida real socialism. 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 was the predominant form of approved art in the Soviet Union from its development in the early 1920s to its eventual fall from official status beginning in the late 1960s until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Socialist realism was developed by many thousands of artists, across a diverse society, over several decades. Early examples of realism in Russian art include the work of the Peredvizhnikis and Ilya Yefimovich Repin. Shortly after the Bolsheviks took control, Anatoly Lunacharsky was appointed as head of Narkompros, the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment. There were two main groups debating the fate of Soviet art: futurists and traditionalists. Russian Futurists, many of whom had been creating abstract or leftist art before the Bolsheviks, believed communism required a complete rupture from the past and, therefore, so did Soviet art. The first time the term “socialist realism” was officially used was in 1932. The term was settled upon in meetings that included politicians of the highest level, including Stalin himself.
Proletarian: art relevant to the workers and understandable to them. Typical: scenes of everyday life of the people. Partisan: supportive of the aims of the State and the Party. Workers inspect architectural model under a statue of Stalin, Leipzig, East Germany, 1953. The purpose of socialist realism was to limit popular culture to a specific, highly regulated faction of emotional expression that promoted Soviet ideals. The party was of the utmost importance and was always to be favorably featured. There was a prevailing sense of optimism, socialist realism’s function was to show the ideal Soviet society.
Not only was the present gloried, but the future was also supposed to be depicted in an agreeable fashion. Because the present and the future were constantly idealized, socialist realism had a sense of forced optimism. Tragedy and negativity were not permitted, unless they were shown in a different time or place. Revolutionary romanticism elevated the common worker, whether factory or agricultural, by presenting his life, work, and recreation as admirable. Its purpose was to show how much the standard of living had improved thanks to the revolution. Art was used as educational information. By illustrating the party’s success, artists were showing their viewers that sovietism was the best political system.
Art was also used to show how Soviet citizens should be acting. Common images used in socialist realism were flowers, sunlight, the body, youth, flight, industry, and new technology. These poetic images were used to show the utopianism of communism and the Soviet state. The artist could not, however, portray life just as they saw it because anything that reflected poorly on Communism had to be omitted. People who could not be shown as either wholly good or wholly evil could not be used as characters. This was reflective of the Soviet idea that morality is simple: things are either right or wrong. This view on morality called for idealism over realism.
Creativity was not an important part of socialist realism. The styles used in creating art during this period were those that would produce the most realistic results. Painters would depict happy, muscular peasants and workers in factories and collective farms. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Socialist Realism as: a Marxist aesthetic theory calling for the didactic use of literature, art, and music to develop social consciousness in an evolving socialist state. Vladimir Lenin, head of the Russian government 1917-1924, laid the foundation for this new wave of art, suggesting that art is for the people and the people should love and understand it, while uniting the masses. Maxim Gorky, founder of the Socialist Realist movement, proclaimed in 1934 at the Soviet Writer’s congress that any works of art that portrayed a negative or anti-governmental view of Russia were illegal. This turned individual artists and their masterpieces into state controlled propaganda.
However, by the early 1980’s, the Socialist Realist movement had begun to fade. Artist to date remark that the Russian Social Realist movement as the most oppressive and shunned period of Soviet Art. 1922 and was one of the most influential artist groups in the USSR. The AKhRR worked to truthfully document contemporary life in Russia by utilizing “heroic realism”. The term “heroic realism” was beginning of the socialist realism archetype.
