Socialist Realist Painting [Hardcover]

Matthew Cullerne Bown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 1998

After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the new government took control of the art establishment in Russia, nationalizing all art collections and laying down the principles that were to govern the creation of works of art. During the next decades Socialist Realism became the mainstream movement, encompassing the work of nearly all Soviet artists: they were required to produce art comprehensible to the masses that would inspire admiration for the dignity of the working man and his task of building communism.

This book -- the first comprehensive survey of Socialist Realist painting -- traces this style from its artistic and intellectual origins in nineteenth-century Russia through its flowering in the middle of the twentieth century to its decline at the end of the Soviet period. Matthew Cullerne Bown analyzes the formal and stylistic development of the art and discusses the theory underpinning it. He describes the creative work of such key figures as Aleksandr Deineka, Arkadi Plastov, and Geli Korzhev, as well as the work of hundreds of other lesser-known painters throughout the century. He considers the work of artists in Moscow and St. Petersburg and also of those painters active in the Russian provinces and in the Soviet republics other than Russia. In its geographical and chronological sweep, its lavish illustrations, and its wealth of primary source material, the book is an indispensable study of a major art movement of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Soviet socialist art is one casualty of the U.S.S.R.'s collapse that might have remained unremarked without this book. While monolithic Stalinist portraits are missed by no one, Bown examines the many manifestations of socialist realism, from its 18th-century forebears, through its intellectually charged, if politically constrained, developments through Gorbachev's time. Varying rules of form and content were enforced to fortify socialist ideology and optimism, with even the unsentimental Stalin manipulating the persuasive, moralizing powers of art. Bown's theme of the political obsession with art is indeed fascinating. Abstraction, Fauvism, C?zanne, Picasso and Matisse were all censored by the ideology police until Khrushchev's thaw, an immeasurable privation for artists and public alike. Despite censorship, and the dependency of artists' livelihoods on state endorsement, many revelatory works, showing both exciting innovation and real stylistic flair, emerged within these predominantly figurative genres. The 530 plates (346 in stunning color) of this carefully considered selection include many unfamiliar works from both museums and private collections, making it a commendable and collectable oversized edition. The sole detracting feature is the author's transliterations from the Russian: for example, his insistence on using "Shagal" seems a bit supercilious, when the artist preferred to sign himself as "Chagall." His versions are no more faithful to Russian pronunciation, and are disconcerting to readers accustomed to the "norm."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A review of one of Bown's earlier books, Art Under Stalin (LJ 2/15/92), suggested that librarians wait for a more analytical view. As if in response, Bown has produced a massive theoretical and historical analysis of 20th-century Soviet painting. An independent British scholar, he conducted research in Moscow for this volume, which encompasses the turbulent political and cultural currents that affected art. Bown shows that influences on these paintings ranged from the 19th-century academic and "itinerant" styles, religious icons, controversial French Impressionism to the formalism of Post-Impressionism personality cults (especially Lenin and Stalin), utopian idealism, national folk art, themes of the Bolshevik Revolution and World War II, and concepts of narodnost ("art of the people") and partiinost ("party-mindedness"). Recommended for academic and public libraries for its insights into and illustrations of art unfamiliar to Westerners before the Soviet Union's collapse.?Anne Marie Lane, American Heritage Ctr., Laramie, WY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (March 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300068441
• ISBN-13: 978-0300068443
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 10.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #620,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Encyclopaedic, demanding from the reader's point of view, January 12, 1999

By 

C. E. R. Mendonça "Carlos Eduardo Rebello de ... (Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Socialist Realist Painting (Hardcover)

This book is a throughly history of the art of painting in Russia and the USSR from the point of view of the Realist school of painting that began to exist in the 2nd. half of the XIXth. century and, after the October 1917 Revolution, vied for supremacy with the Futurist school about the right to represent the socialist political project in form and content. The book examines the supramacy of Socialist Realism in the field of visual arts since Stalin's rise to absolute power until the demise of the USSR.

The book is encyclopaedic in both narrative and visual terms, since it combines an exahaustive historical account with an astounding array of 1st rate reproductions, taken from all corners of the former Soviet Union.The main shortcoming of the book would be only that, since it dwells not only in the history of Socialist Realist painting as such, but also of its ideological politic foundations (superbly examined) the books requires a prospective reader that has not only a general interest in the relationship between Art and Politics, but also an specific interest in both Soviet and Marxist studies. It's, nonethless, this interdisciplinary aspect that makes for much of the work's charm.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb... beautiful book, September 14, 2001

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J. M. Adamik "Southwest Explorer" (Dallas area -Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Socialist Realist Painting (Hardcover)

Excellent reproductions, fascinating paintings, excellent scholarship by Mr. Bown. I also highly recommend all his other books on Russian / Soviet art.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Only Feature The Black Market, November 18, 2011

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Serkan Ergün "serkan ergun" (izmir,Turkey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Socialist Realist Painting (Hardcover)

Im collector of Russian and Socialist art books. When I opened this book, I said great book is that!! really good texts and articles but not a super art catalog! This book black market now, so too expensive.