Totalitarian art

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 586.

Totalitarian art was marked by some features which make it a fascinating study: there were rules which prescribed, what size a monument of Lenin should be depending on the importance of the place the monument was to be erected at, and varied from stupendous giants in big cities to small, mass-produced things in villages. A great number of artists, a separate caste indeed, specialized in producing official art which included not only the portrayal of the leaders but also Soviet mythology types: muscled workers in overalls; happy, ruddy and smiling farmers; valiant soldiers; thoughtful scholars, always bespectacled.

The yard of practically every school was “decorated” with a statue of a “young Leninist pioneer” blowing a horn, or reading a book. Almost every park in the Soviet Union had a sculpture of an athlete with an oar – usually a robust woman made of white plaster which, probably, was to symbolize the excellent health and athletic aspirations of the Soviet people.

In a wave of democratic exuberance and excesses, the Eastern European peoples pulled down thousands of monuments of the “great leaders” and of other symbols of totalitarianism. Some of them should have been left. Whether you like it or not, they are part of our history, no matter what kind of history it was. Besides, some of the monuments of the Soviet era were good works of art and not just mass-produced ugly, badly made things. We have forgotten the names of those Pharaohs, kings and emperors who made their subjects erect gigantic pyramids, temples and palaces but we appreciate these creations as great contributions to the world culture.