The victorious October Revolution of 1917 made a radical revolution not only in the political and social life of society; it radically transformed the culture, consciousness, worldview of people. Despite the most difficult living conditions, civil war, devastation and famine, the 1920s and 1930s became one of the most productive years in terms of creative search in painting, architecture, literature, theater, and cinema. True, later, after this cultural breakthrough, a return movement began, with the suppression of "degenerate art", which essentially contradicted the ideological line of the party and the Soviet government.
But this will be in the future, which in the 1920s seemed bright and alluring - with its perspective, novelty, scale. With the proclamation of programs for the country's economic transformations, electrification, industrialization, building a new, communist society, the whole country turned into one big construction site, where the working class became the main character, transforming the surrounding reality at an unprecedented pace.
Against the background of agrarian landscapes and untouched nature, enterprises of the electric power industry, chemistry and petrochemistry, mechanical engineering, metallurgy, and heavy industry began to be massively built.
The scale of the transformation shocked not only the layman, but also artists of various genres and trends. The organizers and followers of the "Jack of Diamonds", "Donkey's Tail" and other avant-garde associations of Russian painters were actively involved in a life fanned by labor romance and enthusiasm, shifting the focus from the "scarecrows" (as Ilya Mashkov called his Fauvist portraits) to the creation of proletarian architectural masterpieces (such , as "Tatlin's tower"), posters, industrial landscapes.
Below is the early work of A. Kuprin “Plant. Etude”, written almost in the style of cubism, although the author avoids the fragmentation of objects characteristic of this direction.
Masters such as Alexander Kuprin, Konstantin Bogaevsky, Alexander Deineka, Alexander Labas, as well as a number of other artists, put aside still lifes, portraits and nudes in order to create a new direction, called industrial landscape. This capacious concept included not only canvases depicting factories or new buildings, but also other economic plots - the construction of new cities and significant objects, power plants and dams, railways and locomotives, advanced production workers in the entourage of technical equipment, machine tools, tractors, cranes.
The artists who painted industrial landscapes were not opportunists trying to ride a new fashion wave and at the same time please the authorities. Their paintings were not "coloured photographs". The canvases of the masters of this direction convey to the viewer the powerful pulse of that time, the enthusiasm of workers, the grandiose scale of economic transformations. At the same time, we can observe the transmission of the industrial rhythm and creative spirit through various styles - socialist realism, avant-garde, impressionism and even futurism (the latter direction for the cities of the future is very popular even now). Probably, the term “allism” by M. Larionov and N. Goncharova would be appropriate here,
implying the use of all techniques and styles.
Below are paintings by K. Bogaevsky, painted by him in different styles in 1932 and 1935.
The painting “Bibi-Heybat”, in which the artist depicted oil developments near Baku, strikes us with its static character and complete lack of movement. The viewer sees only towering oil rigs, residential and industrial buildings near them. Nothing indicates a date; an external observer, as it were, finds himself in a space devoid of time. Only production facilities that are waiting for workers. Who and when will give the signal to start work remains a mystery. Complete static and understatement makes the picture look like an "industrial icon". In its execution, the masterpiece of K. Bogaevsky resembles the canvases of De Chirico, who worked in a metaphysical style.
Completely different approaches are chosen by the artist when painting pictures about the construction of the Dnieper hydroelectric power station. One of them depicts Dneprostroy in an almost impressionistic manner, where the play of light occupies one of the central places. Spotlight beams and flashes from welding work enliven the composition with dynamics and a creative beginning, showing at the same time that work does not stop even in the evening and at night.
In the painting "Panorama of the Construction of the Dneproges", Bogaevsky adheres to a realistic style, carefully writing out the details of an extensive construction site.
The works of Alexander Kuprin are designed in a more uniform and recognizable style, which depicts not only production sites, but also clearly distinguishable workers engaged in creative work.
The canvases of A. Labas have a unique style and charisma, choosing a special palette of colors for the industrial landscape, typical for pastels. In the performance of the artist, the enterprises and the landscape around them come into a state of harmony, which pleases the eye of an external observer.
The paintings of artists representing the industrial landscape in the pre-war and post-war period used
demand from the corporate sector. This type of painting was also close to the working masses, who perceived it as understandable, accessible, advanced. Industrialist paintings did not require additional explanations and lectures, almost necessary for Malevich's Suprematism or Kandinsky's abstractions. Everything was done not only in a highly artistic style, but also had an educational and propaganda function that set the viewer in a creative way.
Monumental paintings, mosaics and embossing, which adorned the buildings of Soviet cities, the territories of enterprises and park areas, became a projection from the industrial landscape. Industrial landscapes have been and continue to be a fixture in executive offices, lobbies and corporate museums. This Soviet tradition has been preserved in a somewhat transformed form even now, having become part of the organizational culture of not only industrial, but also service, transport and other companies.
It should be noted that over time, the attitude towards the industrial landscape has changed. This became especially noticeable after the man-made disasters in Bhopal, Chernobyl, extensive oil spills, and the appearance of industrial smog over cities.
The pipes of industrial enterprises have become a symbol of environmental pollution, an increase in greenhouse gases, wastewater, exploitation of people and the natural environment. In the late 1990s and 2000s, the industrial landscape was increasingly used in the genre of grotesque and caricature.
At the same time, the industrial landscape continues to evolve, taking into account new trends in industrial and landscape design, moving to a new stage of its evolution.
industrialism- comes from the word "industry". Industrial society - an industrial society that develops in the direction of machine production, urbanization, industry. The theme of industrialism is especially characteristic of the period of Soviet painting of the 20th century, when scientific and technological progress was especially noticeable, which entered the lives of people of that time very abruptly. It happened so unexpectedly that people almost instantly changed their outlook on life. New values have absorbed all spheres of life, including art. In painting, sculpture, literature, scenes from industrial life more and more often arose: workers in factories and factories, combine operators in the fields, construction sites, the development and development of new territories, production without end and edge, selflessly and tirelessly, and so on. Usually such art was directed precisely at the heroic component of the working class. People who were engaged in hard work were presented as real heroes, heroes, people who should be looked up to.
In this regard, industrialism itself became so widespread that separate styles and subgenres of industrialism began to emerge on its soil. Particularly striking were the industrial landscape and portraits.
Soviet posters they were mainly engaged in propaganda of the working life of people, accompanied by vivid statements, put the worker on a special level. If earlier the workers were the lowest link in the social arrangement of the country, now the worker was the main cog, an indispensable link in life. In addition, the Soviet poster in the style of industrialism is often similar to military posters. Basically, this is war. War on the home front. Put everything on the future of the country, throw all your strength and spare no effort to turn the USSR into a great state with a developed industry!
industrial landscape he conveyed not the views and beauties of nature, but amazing, completely new types of man-made structures, where the main ones were factories and factories, smoking, smoking, and therefore working for the good of the country. Large-scale construction projects, factory everyday life, trains carrying coal, oil somewhere, and so on. industrial portrait was also extremely common and was one of the most popular at that time. Workers were depicted here, who in most cases were dressed in their work clothes. From the fact that the workers worked tirelessly for the good of the country, they have stern but happy faces, a purposeful look, they stand confidently on their feet and believe in their future. The country had grandiose plans for the future, and the artists tried to realize these plans and dreams even then.
In the 30s of the last century, an interesting direction appeared, called the "industrial landscape". Windmills in the fields, huge plates in the mountains, cows against the background of pipes - all this is in today's selection of industrial landscapes.
1. Nature and road. Interstate 94 in the United States of America on January 12, 2017.
2. Last year China completed the construction of (Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope). The diameter of its reflector is half a kilometer! The FAST telescope will observe objects located at a distance of up to 11 billion light years from Earth. The National Space Agency of China plans that the radio telescope will also be able to detect signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.
3. An interesting structure in Germany, climbing on which offers a view of the industrial zone of Duisburg. The wind is swaying the stairway, creating a kind of "attraction" for lovers of heights. Slides with the name "Tiger and Turtle" are located in Duisburg. (Photo by Kevin Kurek):
4. Solar panels blend well with natural landscapes, Ollague, Chile, January 9, 2016. (Photo by Pablo Sanhueza | Reuters):
7. Oil is pumped near Baghdad in Iraq, October 14, 2016. Who? According to some estimates, America keeps "under the boot" 80% of Iraqi oil rigs. No wonder that in 2003 the Security Council waved a test tube with "anthrax". (Photo by Essam Al-Sudani | Reuters):
9. Cooling towers in France, October 21, 2016. These are devices for cooling large amounts of water with air flow. Sometimes cooling towers are also called cooling towers. (Photo by Regis Duvignau | Reuters):
11. Waste incineration plant near Paris, December 9, 2016. (Photo by Charles Platiau | Reuters):
12. Gold mine. Congo is the largest African country south of the Sahara and one of the richest on paper: huge deposits of diamonds and gold, cobalt, copper, tin, tantalum and many other ores are concentrated here. However, the endless war has turned the Congo into one of the poorest and most unfortunate countries. (Photo by Pete Jones | Reuters):
14. Wind generator - well, a very effective device for converting the kinetic energy of the wind flow into the mechanical energy of the rotation of the rotor, followed by its conversion into electrical energy. Belgium, January 25, 2016. (Photo by Eric Vidal | Reuters):
16. Smoking pipes and power lines. (Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko | Reuters):
17. Beautiful industrial landscape. Cooling tower of a nuclear power plant in Switzerland, November 18, 2014. (Photo by Arnd Wiegmann | Reuters):
18. Kashagan - a large offshore oil and gas field in Kazakhstan, located 80 km from the city of Atyrau, in the northern part of the Caspian Sea. (Photo by Anatoly Ustinenko | Reuters):
The achievements of scientific and technological progress, which have become one of the most important signs of the twentieth century, have affected literally all spheres of human life. They not only provided previously unthinkable opportunities in his hands, but changed the very perception and understanding of the world, which became global thanks to the efforts of numerous scientists and engineers, where events occurring at the same time in different parts of the world turn out to be interconnected, capable of instantly affecting the fate of millions. of people. The contradictory nature of this process worried not only specialists in the natural and technical sciences, but also sociologists, philosophers, writers, and artists. Visual arts, along with philosophy, literature, cinematography, sensitively responded to the changes that the world was undergoing under the influence of intensively developing science and industry. The discoveries and inventions that took place at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries largely anticipated and prepared those social revolutions that soon shocked and transformed the whole world. And, it seems, it is no coincidence that it was in Russia after the victory of the October Revolution, which really marked the beginning of a completely new stage in national and world history, that the industrial, or industrial, theme received such a purposeful and fruitful development. Having discovered its ideological significance for the young Soviet state, it was reflected in the thematic painting, and in the portrait, and in the landscape.
So, already in the 1930s, the industrial landscape was formed as an independent and important section of Soviet art, where the theme of creating a new, man-made nature was reflected both in the constructive graphic quality of the canvases of representatives of the Society of Easel Painters, permeated with the dynamics of modernity, and in those turned to the traditions of realistic art of the 19th century. century landscapes by A. Kuprin and K. Bogaevsky. Another surge of interest in the industrial landscape falls on the 1960s - the time of new large-scale construction projects and significant scientific discoveries. It was at this time that one of the greatest masters of the industrial landscape was A.V. Panteleev, whose work reflected not only the gains of technological progress, but also its costs, many of which turned out to be disastrous for both nature and man. Here it is necessary to immediately pay attention to the fact that the industrial landscape is a vast section of the industrial theme, covering various genres, themes and plot motifs, to one degree or another connected with the reflection of the labor feat of the people, the pathos of the rapid transformation of the world under the influence of human activity. The range of artistic traditions addressed by the authors of these works - and the author of the book quite rightly dwells on this problem in detail - is quite wide. Those significant changes that Soviet art underwent at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s also largely affected the nature of the plastic interpretation of the "industrial theme". Along with the legacy of the Society of Easel Painters, rehabilitated at that time, which became one of the most important artistic landmarks for Alexander Panteleev, the thoroughly forgotten traditions of the Russian and foreign avant-garde of the early 20th century turned out to be in the sphere of artists' attention. And, it seems, it is no coincidence that it was the plastic discoveries of Picasso and the Italian futurists, as well as their Russian associates, that made it possible to adequately embody plots and motives that were completely new for the industrial theme. They, as a rule, were no longer the fruit of the tragic insights and prophecies of philosophers and writers and appeared as a response of a caring person to tragic events that resulted from deep contradictions that were originally laid down in the progress of technogenic civilization.
And here Panteleev was destined to become the founder and even a classic of the "technical theme" - a very special, specific genre for Soviet art of the 1970s and 80s, which highlighted a wide range of serious problems that had yet to be solved in the traditional form of an easel painting. At the beginning of the 21st century, when the problems caused by the unrestrained development of technological progress in all its forms became completely obvious, the appeal to the work of A.V. relevant and necessary.
It should be specially noted that the author often compares the works of Panteleev with the works of other Soviet artists - his predecessors (A. Deineka, K. Bogaevsky, A. Kuprin, G. Nissky) and contemporaries (T. Salakhov, S. Yuntunen, N. Kormashov, E. Bragovsky, V. Vetrogonsky), revealing similarities and differences in the stylistic, pictorial-plastic and figurative-meaningful interpretation of the industrial theme. At the same time, I. B. Balashova finds the right intonations and gives a fair assessment of the work of each of the very respectable authors. In addition, she draws bold and interesting historical parallels between the nature of the figurative solution of the works of Panteleev and the masters of past eras - we are talking, in particular, about the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, the works of the largest representative of the classic landscape of the 17th century, Nicolas Poussin, as well as ancient Russian art, to which goes back to the iconographic solution of a number of later works of the artist dedicated to the image of a robot - a new hero of the era of the scientific and technological revolution.
painting urban industrial landscape
In the 30s of the last century, an interesting direction appeared, called the "industrial landscape". Windmills in the fields, huge plates in the mountains, cows against the background of pipes - all this is in today's selection of industrial landscapes.
1. Nature and road. Interstate 94 in the United States of America on January 12, 2017.
2. Last year, China completed the construction of the world's largest FAST (Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) radio telescope. The diameter of its reflector is half a kilometer! The FAST telescope will observe objects located at a distance of up to 11 billion light years from Earth. The National Space Agency of China plans that the radio telescope will also be able to detect signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.
3. An interesting structure in Germany, climbing on which offers a view of the industrial zone of Duisburg. The wind is swaying the stairway, creating a kind of "attraction" for lovers of heights. located in Duisburg. (Photo by Kevin Kurek):
4. Solar panels blend well with natural landscapes, Ollague, Chile, January 9, 2016. (Photo by Pablo Sanhueza | Reuters):
7. Oil is pumped near Baghdad in Iraq, October 14, 2016. Who? According to some estimates, America keeps "under the boot" 80% of Iraqi oil rigs. No wonder that in 2003 the Security Council waved a test tube with "anthrax". (Photo by Essam Al-Sudani | Reuters):
9. Cooling towers in France, October 21, 2016. These are devices for cooling large amounts of water with air flow. Sometimes cooling towers are also called cooling towers. (Photo by Regis Duvignau | Reuters):
11. Waste incineration plant near Paris, December 9, 2016. (Photo by Charles Platiau | Reuters):
12. Gold mine. Congo is the largest African country south of the Sahara and one of the richest on paper: huge deposits of diamonds and gold, cobalt, copper, tin, tantalum and many other ores are concentrated here. However, the endless war has turned the Congo into one of the poorest and most unfortunate countries. (Photo by Pete Jones | Reuters):
14. Wind generator - well, a very effective device for converting the kinetic energy of the wind flow into the mechanical energy of the rotation of the rotor, followed by its conversion into electrical energy. Belgium, January 25, 2016. (Photo by Eric Vidal | Reuters):
15. In Europe and the USA, huge windmills are a familiar element of the countryside. These beautiful giants are installed not only on the ground, but also in the expanses of water.
16. Smoking pipes and power lines. (Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko | Reuters):
17. Beautiful industrial landscape. Cooling tower of a nuclear power plant in Switzerland, November 18, 2014. (Photo by Arnd Wiegmann | Reuters):
18. Kashagan - a large offshore oil and gas field in Kazakhstan, located 80 km from the city of Atyrau, in the northern part of the Caspian Sea. (Photo by Anatoly Ustinenko | Reuters).
