Theoretical Foundations and Collective Programme of Constructivism in Russian Avant-garde Painting

Abstract

Russian art studies traditionally approach Constructivism as a movement that was opposed to Suprematism. The author of this article, however, believes that both of these movements shared a number of characteristics. They both originated in the Cubist aesthetics and rejected traditional figurative art. They both sought to discover the `new way of seeing' in their effort to develop original painting techniques for this novel multi-dimensional reality. The author demonstrates how the Constructivists put these principles into practice. Constructivists and Suprematists adhered to similar principles and adopted similar techniques when working with material. As a result, in their search for a new style, they tended to follow similar paths. Their creative method is based on dissolving visible forms into the simplest (geometrical) primary elements and recombining these fragments into the new reality. This inevitably raised the question about the relationship between art and life. Constructivists went even further and proposed the ideology of `production art', that is, art that served a practical purpose for the society. Thus, the key Constructivist concepts and ideas were determined by the problems that this movement sought to address - these were the same problems which their precursors (Cubists and Suprematists) had failed to solve. Constructivism was, therefore, the next stage in the development of Russian Modernism.