Russian Futurism

By 1912, the term Futurist was occasionally used in the Russian press, but it was used invariably as an adjective to describe a work of art and was virtually interchangeable with the term Cubist.

If a painting reflected current modern trends from Russia or from the West, it could be described by a journalist as Futurist just as easily as it could be described as Cubist or contemporary, and the term Futurism essentially became a synonym for the avant-garde in general.

By 1913, the words futuristi and futurizm began to be used by certain Russian artists and writers to describe their own efforts. This was likely a concession to the fact that this is how their work had become known through the press - their own preferred term of budetliane failed to take off in reportage. For the most part, the Russians denied any connection to the activities of their Italian contemporaries who ostensibly operated under the same terminology, and they never consolidated as a formal group. They were, however, forward-thinking artists who were very much invested in the future, and thus for better or for worse, the existing descriptors of Futurism applied to them. It is important to keep in mind, though, that although some Russian artists eventually adopted the terminology of Futurism to describe their efforts, they still considered their work to be entirely separate from any group in the Western milieu.

Concepts and Styles

Reliance on the Past

Early in the Futurist period, the great majority of avant-garde Russian art was strongly influenced by the historical art and culture of the area, looking beyond the academy to the original roots of art in their region. In particular, the visual traditions of religious icons and folk art were referenced again and again as reminders of the deep heritage associated with the culture of Russia and its surrounding countries. The distinctive style of Russian woodcut prints (lubki) was a particularly important reference point. Lubki were a popular form of art, often used by the poor to decorate their homes in place of much more expensive hand-painted icons. Many artists found great expressive power in the use of simplistic, traditional forms and in unsophisticated color palettes, relying on the humble, earnest nature of instinctive representation to address the socio-cultural issues of the day. Traditional visual representations in folk and religious art originally functioned more as language than art, and Futurists sought to incorporate this artistic honesty in their works.

Neo-Primitivism

In the work of Natalia Goncharova and a few other Futurist artists, this looking-back approach came to be known as Neo-Primitivism. A conscious response to French Primitivism, the method harkened back to traditional art forms while simultaneously relying on modern color theory and contemporary approaches to art making. The marked difference between these French and Russian experiments, however, is evident in their very definitions: Primitivism focused very closely on objects and subject matter which belonged to a culture which was foreign or "other" to the West and its French authors, while Neo-Primitivism was very proudly Russian in its roots, always taking cues from traditional cultural practices and themes.

Cubo-Futurism

One of the most popular approaches within Russian art of this period was Cubo-Futurism. This style broke down subject matter and represented motion in a manner reminiscent of Cubism and Italian Futurism, but also frequently incorporated flat planes of color as well as snippets of words and phrases to fully represent an object or a moment. Unlike the Cubist pieces produced in Paris that frequently employed a subdued palette, Cubo-Futurist works tended to explore a broad range of expressive color. Eventually, this breakdown of form and time would lead to the abstract works of Suprematism and Constructivism.

Rayonism

In 1912, Mikhail Larionov and his partner Natalia Goncharova developed a style called luchizm (alternately translated into English as Rayism and Rayonism). This visual approach was based on the notion of light rays intersecting and breaking around objects, sometimes revealing and sometimes obscuring or mangling the depicted object. Rayonism was one of the most clearly defined sections of Russian Futurism, and in many of its works the focus on light rather than the object being lighted broached abstraction.

Rayonism Movement Page

Alogism

As its name suggests, alogism was an approach which turned logic on its head by removing the meaning, and thereby the significance, from the objects depicted in a painting or literary work. The impact of these pieces came from the viewer's struggle to find meaning in an alogical work, which often appeared to represent a complex riddle but was in fact purposely devoid of significance. By flatly denying the importance of symbolic meaning, alogist (or alogical) paintings opened the door to the complete abstraction of Suprematism in 1915.

Theater

Matyushin, Kruchenykh & Malevich (left to right) - authors of Victory over the Sun

Futurism also had a lasting impact in theater and cinema. In December of 1913 the Futurist tragedy Vladimir Mayakovsky (written by and starring Mayakovsky) and the opera Victory over the Sun both premiered in St. Petersburg. Despite high ticket-prices, they played to full houses and the provocateurs became instant sensations. Inspired by the circus and cabarets, the Futurists freed themselves from traditional theatrical conventions. They eschewed professional actors and championed improvisation, audience participation, and the use of zaum and other nonsensical languages and sounds. Their bare sets, modern music, and non-narrative plots anticipated developments in Dada and, even Fluxus.

Further Developments

Marinetti in Russia

In February of 1914, F.T. Marinetti, the founder of Italian Futurism, visited Russia for the first time, giving a series of lectures on Italian Futurism in Moscow and St. Petersburg and claiming that Futurist trends in Russia were purely the result of his own movement. In many ways, this tour marked the beginning of the end for Russian Futurism, as it caused a great divide in the artists of the Russian avant-garde. His visit showed the Russians not only how different they were from the Italians, but also how different they were from each other. One set of artists, headed by Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, praised the Italian for his ideas, while another rejected them out of hand and became even more proudly nationalistic in their thoughts and deeds. When Russia entered the war a few short months later, these nationalistic ideals would solidify, and eventually inspire, major changes.

World War I

The primed environment of World War I brought about a moment of intense self-reflection for the Russian Futurists. In the months immediately following Russia's entry into the war, no formal avant-garde exhibitions were organized, as artists sought ways to give new meaning to their work. Several of the Futurists, including Malevich and Vladimir Mayakovsky, produced a series of war postcards and posters whose images directly referenced traditional Russian woodcut prints (lubki) and were an immediate reflection of the artists' national folklore. Their horrifying imagery made the reality of war unavoidable and served as a strong commentary for the conflict at hand. Natalia Goncharova also produced a series of lithographs called Mystical Images of War (1914), a set that poignantly represented the effects of war on a nation. In this period Olga Rozanova also began work on a series of color linocuts made to accompany a poetic cycle written by her husband, Alexei Kruchenykh, entitled Universal War (1916). Some of these illustrated newspaper reports in the full violence of their content, commenting on the detachment of the press reports from the bloody reality of war. Several artists, including Larionov and Benedikt Livshits, actively served in the war; Larionov was even wounded. He and Goncharova emigrated to the West soon after, as did many other Russian artists and intellectuals.

Resulting Movements

Restrictions on goods and services forced everyone to focus on practicalities, and any sense of play to be found in earlier Futurist works was soon replaced by the gravity of the wartime climate. No longer could a painting simply explore a subject - it needed to be a vehicle for social content. Thus began a focused search for a new, universal visual language, resulting into the separate camps defined by Malevich's fledgling Suprematism and Vladimir Tatlin's Constructivism - both of which had their debut at the December 1915 St. Petersburg exhibition 0.10: The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings. The Russians' incredibly precocious arrival at the non-objective form as explored in both movements was therefore a direct result of Futurist developments.

Rather than seeing Futurism as a standalone movement with a strict beginning and end, it is useful to locate it within the larger context of the Russian avant-garde. Formal innovations in the period following Futurism included groundbreaking contributions to photography, film, and graphic design, most famously in the work of artists such as El Lissitzky and Aleksander Rodchenko. This revolutionary period in the visual and performing arts continued until the mid-1930s when Socialist Realism became the official state-sponsored doctrine.