appear to be in the same plane. In Russia the first step was taken away
from these still purely painterly conceptions towards Constructivism. This
movement set itself to give form to the real world (it is wrong to call any
kind of movement in painting Constructivism). The construction of a picture
out of basic structural forms and relationships depending on laws soon led
to the use, instead of the previous illusions created by colour and space, of
real materials such as tin, wire, wool, wood, glass, etc. What the Cubists,
especially Picasso and Braque, had been trying to do since 1913, to intro
duce into pictures materials previously considered foreign to them, was
now carried to extremes. The start of this movement was characterized by
the "Konterrelief" of Tatlin. It was still an artistic experiment, since reality
was not yet created by the mere (unnecessary) use of real materials. But
these experiments were at least the prelude to a practical exposition of
reality. The love of our new material world of machines and apparatus, our
technical era, soon led the Constructivists along the right path: Tatlin built
a model of his Tower of the Third International, a colossal spiral of glass
and iron. The tower was in fact never built, and it was correctly said that its
author was still in some ways working from a too freely artistic point of
view, and function had been kept too much in the background. That did not
however lessen the basic significance of this achievement. It stands at the
beginning of a movement that is today having its first public successes. At
almost the same time as in Russia, similar experiments were being made in
Germany: above all at the Bauhaus in Weimar, founded by Walter Gropius in
1919, which became the focus of all consciously contemporary design
work. A Bauhaus was also started in Russia at this time (1918), the
"Wchutemas" Institute (the abbreviation for the Russian expression for
Higher State Workshops for Art) with the same aims, the coordination of all
creative activities in building, where for the first time it would make sense.
In both schools the real problems of our time were tackled. By approaching
every problem creatively from the start, and developing its form honestly
out of function, modern materials, and modern manufacturing methods,
models were created for industrial production.
From here on, the development of painting in the last hundred years has
contained sense and content, it becomes coherent, no longer a loose chain
of apparently conflicting "isms" but a decisive influence on the visual char
acteristics of our times. Important as is "absolute painting" (by which term
we can summarize recent tendencies in abstract art) as a point of depar
ture for both design and architecture, that is by no means the end of its
importance.
elle
(Elle)
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