Politics and Art

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how politics have had an impact on art and how artists have impacted political structure. The paper shows how, especially during times of unrest, art becomes a political message as a motivational or propaganda tool. The paper looks at the decades prior to and immediately after the Russian Revolution and examines the beliefs and impact of artists such as Ivan Kramskoy, Ilia Repin and Lazar "El" Lissitzky.

From the Paper:

"Artists such as Ivan Kramskoy, for example, were involved with the ideological structure that represented Russian realism in the 1860s, a decade of reform and renovation. This liberal stage of the movement, reflecting the intelligentsia's efforts to free individual thought and public activity from bureaucratic controls, lasted through the mid-1880s. Artists, with their decidedly inferior status in society's estimation
and their own, were overwhelmed with the importunate demands of the radicals that they ceased being quiet supporters of the state and decided to contribute their share to political reform."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Birnholz, A. The Russian Avant-Garde and the Russian Tradition Art Journal 32(2): 146-149.
• Millon, H.A., and Nochlin, L. (1980) Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics.Cambridge: MIT.
• Valkenier, E. K (1975). The Peredvizhniki and the Spirit of the 1860s Russian Review 34 (3): 247-265
• -------------------- (1978) Politics in Russian Art: The Case of Repin Russian Review, 7(1): 14-29.
• Historical Perspectives on the Arts, Sciences and Technology Art and Mathematics in the Thought of El Lissitzky: His Relationship to Suprematism and Constructivism Esther Levinger Leonardo, Vol. 22, No. 2. (1989), pp. 227-236.

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