Realistic Manifesto

Last updated

The Realistic Manifesto is a key text of Constructivism. Written by Naum "Gabo" Neemia Pevzner and cosigned by his brother, Antoine Pevsner, the Manifesto laid out their theories of artistic expression in the form of five "fundamental principles" of their constructivist practice. The Manifesto focused largely on divorcing art from such conventions as use of lines, color, volume, and mass. In the text, Gabo and Pevsner reject the successive stylistic innovations of modern art as mere illusionism (beginning with Impressionism, and including Cubism and Futurism), advocating instead an art grounded in the material reality of space and time: "The realization of our perceptions of the world in the forms of space and time is the only aim of our pictorial and plastic art." [1]

The text was first published on August 5, 1920, in poster form, on the occasion of an exhibition with Gustav Klucis in Moscow. [2] Extracts were reproduced in the first issue of G in 1923. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literary theory</span> Systematic study of the nature of literature

Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social philosophy, and interdisciplinary themes relevant to how people interpret meaning. In the humanities in modern academia, the latter style of literary scholarship is an offshoot of post-structuralism. Consequently, the word theory became an umbrella term for scholarly approaches to reading texts, some of which are informed by strands of semiotics, cultural studies, philosophy of language, and continental philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literary criticism</span> Study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature

A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's goals and methods. Although the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.

Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound. Noise music includes a wide range of musical styles and sound-based creative practices that feature noise as a primary aspect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abstract art</span> Art with a degree of independence from visual references in the world

Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Burgin</span> British artist and writer

Victor Burgin is a British artist and writer. Burgin first came to attention as a conceptual artist in the late 1960s and at that time was most noted for being a political photographer of the left, who would fuse photographs and words in the same picture. He has worked with photography and film, calling painting "the anachronistic daubing of woven fabrics with coloured mud". His work is influenced by a variety of theorists and philosophers, most especially thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Henri Lefebvre, André Breton, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naum Gabo</span> Soviet sculptor (1890–1977)

Naum Gabo, born Naum Neemia Pevsner was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's post-Revolution avant-garde and the subsequent development of twentieth-century sculpture. His work combined geometric abstraction with a dynamic organization of form in small reliefs and constructions, monumental public sculpture and pioneering kinetic works that assimilated new materials such as nylon, wire, lucite and semi-transparent materials, glass and metal. Responding to the scientific and political revolutions of his age, Gabo led an eventful and peripatetic life, moving to Berlin, Paris, Oslo, Moscow, London, and finally the United States, and within the circles of the major avant-garde movements of the day, including Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus, de Stijl and the Abstraction-Création group. Two preoccupations, unique to Gabo, were his interest in representing negative space—"released from any closed volume" or mass—and time. He famously explored the former idea in his Linear Construction works (1942-1971)—used nylon filament to create voids or interior spaces as "concrete" as the elements of solid mass—and the latter in his pioneering work, Kinetic Sculpture (1920), often considered the first kinetic work of art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antoine Pevsner</span> Russian-French sculptor

Antoine Pevsner was a Russian-born sculptor and the older brother of Alexii Pevsner and Naum Gabo. As the originators of Constructivism and pioneers of Kinetic Art, The brothers are considered pioneers of twentieth-century sculpture, with numerous prominent pieces, e.g., Antoine's widely known sculpture, The Flight of the Bird, located at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan.

Events from the year 1920 in art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abstraction-Création</span>

Abstraction-Création was a loose association of artists formed in Paris in 1931 to counteract the influence of the Surrealist group led by André Breton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constructivism (art)</span> Artistic and architectural philosophy originating in Russia

Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected decorative stylization in favour of the industrial assemblage of materials. Constructivists were in favour of art for propaganda and social purposes, and were associated with Soviet socialism, the Bolsheviks and the Russian avant-garde.

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by being critical and generally systematic and by its reliance on rational argument. It involves logical analysis of language and clarification of the meaning of words and concepts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art manifesto</span> Public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of an artist or artistic movement

An art manifesto is a public declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of an artist or artistic movement. Manifestos are a standard feature of the various movements in the modernist avant-garde and are still written today. Art manifestos are sometimes in their rhetoric intended for shock value, to achieve a revolutionary effect. They often address wider issues, such as the political system. Typical themes are the need for revolution, freedom and the implied or overtly stated superiority of the writers over the status quo. The manifesto gives a means of expressing, publicising and recording ideas for the artist or art group—even if only one or two people write the words, it is mostly still attributed to the group name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Margolis</span> American philosopher (1924–2021)

Joseph Zalman Margolis was an American philosopher. A radical historicist, he authored many books critical of the central assumptions of Western philosophy, and elaborated a robust form of relativism.

Daniel R. Schwarz is Frederick J. Whiton Professor of English Literature and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University, where he has taught since 1968. He has directed nine NEH seminars and has lectured widely in the United States and abroad, including a number of lecture tours under the auspices of the academic programs of the USIS and the State Department. He was a founding member of the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature and served as its President from 1990 to 1991. He has held three endowed visiting professorships. He was a guest Fellow for short periods at Oxford (Brasenose) and Cambridge (Girton) in the UK. He has been the President of the Cornell Phi Beta Kappa chapter since 2009. He is the author of eighteen significant books and numerous articles, many of which have appeared in prestigious journals and collections of essays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art history</span> Academic study of objects of art in their historical development

Art history is, briefly, the history of art—or the study of a specific type of objects created in the past.

Charles Townsend Harrison, BA Hons (Cantab), MA (Cantab), PhD (London) was a UK art historian who taught Art History for many years and was Emeritus Professor of History and Theory of Art at the Open University. Although he denied being an artist himself, he was a full participant and catalyst in the Art and Language group.

Classical reception studies is the study of how the classical world, especially Ancient Greek literature and Latin literature, have been received since antiquity. It is the study of the portrayal and representation of the ancient world from ancient to modern times. The nature of reception studies is highly interdisciplinary, including literature, art, music, film, and games. The field of study has, within the past few decades, become an increasingly popular and legitimized topic of interest in Classical studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Little Review Gallery</span>

The Little Review Gallery was a small Modern Art gallery associated with the magazine American literary magazine The Little Review. The gallery was owned and operated from 1924 to 1927 by Jane Heap, the acting editor of The Little Review at that time. The gallery was primarily devoted to Constructivism, Dadaism, and Machine-inspired art.

G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung was a constructivist magazine published between 1923 and 1926 by Hans Richter. Five issues were produced, with El Lissitzky and Werner Graeff supporting him on the editorial board for the first issue. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Frederick John Kiesler joined the board on subsequent issues.

References

  1. "The Realistic Manifesto." In Art in Theory, 1900-2000, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 299. Malden: Blackwell, 2003.
  2. Editors' introduction to "The Realistic Manifesto." In Art in Theory, 1900-2000, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 298. Malden: Blackwell, 2003.
  3. Mertins, Detlef; Jennings, Michael William (2010). G: An Avant-garde Journal of Art, Architecture, Design, and Film, 1923-1926. Getty Publications. ISBN   9781606060391.