Sergei Chekhonin, The Union of Art Workers Aids the Starving. Poster, 1921. ‘In 1921 the Volga region was hit by a terrible famine – the result of an unprecedented drought. Posters, slogans, and newspaper articles called on people to help the starving and to share their last crust of bread with them. People did everything they could and more.’
Image: Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Konstantin Yuon, ‘A New Planet,’ 1921. Tempera on cardboard, The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
‘…it is not difficult to see that ours is a birth-time and a period of transition to a new era. Spirit has broken with the world it has hitherto inhabited and imagined, and is of a mind to submerge it in the past, and in the labour of its own transformation. Spirit is indeed never at rest but always engaged in moving forward. But just as the first breath drawn by a child after its long, quiet nourishment breaks the gradualness of merely quantitative growth – there is a qualitative leap, and the child is born – so likewise the Spirit in its formation matures slowly and quietly into its new shape, dissolving bit by bit the structure of its previous world, whose tottering state is only hinted at by isolated symptoms. The frivolity and boredom which unsettle the established order, the vague foreboding of something unknown, these are the heralds of approaching change. The gradual crumbling that left unaltered the face of the whole is cut short by a sunburst which, in one flash, illuminates the features of the new world.’
G.W.F.Hegel, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Trans., A.V.Miller, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977, 6-7
*
In beginnings and in ends,
artists, let your faith be strong.
Know where hell and heaven await us.
It is your gift to measure all you see
with dispassionate eyes.
Let your gaze be firm and clear.
Rub out the incidental details
and you’ll see the splendour of the world.
Find out where the light shines
and you’ll know where lies the dark.
Let all that’s sacred in the world,
and all that’s wicked, pass in unhurried flow
through the fire of your heart and the cool of
your mind.
Alexander Blok, from the poem ‘Retribution’
Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Osip Braz, Portrait of Anton Chekhov, 1898. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery
Nikolai Kasatkin, Peat-worker. Study, 1901. Oil on canvas pasted on cardboard. The Russian Museum
Valentin Serov, Portrait of Maria Yermolova, 1905. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery
Zinaida Serebriakova, Portrait of Polia, 1915. Tempera on paper. The Russian Museum
Nikolai Feshin, Portrait of a Woman, 1908. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum
Source: Russian Portrait of the late 19th-early 20th centuries, I. Pruzhan, V. Kniazeva, Izobrazitelnoye Iskusstvo Publishers, Moscow, 1980
Zinaida Serebriakova, Making Her Toilet, 1909. Oil on canvas pasted on cardboard. The Tretyakov Gallery
Boris Grigoryev, A Girl, 1917. Lead pencil on paper. The Russian Museum
Boris Kustodiev, Portrait of Yulia Kustodieva, the Artist’s Wife, 1903. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum
Mikhail Vrubel, Portrait of the Artist’s Son in a Pram, 1902. Water-colours, whiting and lead pencil on paper pasted on cardboard. The Russian Museum
Sergei Maliutin, Portrait of Vera Maliutina, the Artist’s Daughter, 1909. Pastel on cardboard. The Russian Museum
Source: Russian Portrait of the late 19th-early 20th centuries, I. Pruzhan, V. Kniazeva, Izobrazitelnoye Iskusstvo Publishers, Moscow, 1980
Konstantin Somov, Portrait of Mikhail Kuzmin, 1909. Water-colours, gouache and whiting on paper pasted on cardboard. The Tretyakov Gallery
Zinaida Serebriakova, Self-portrait, 1910s. Lead pencil on paper. The Russian Museum
Konstantin Somov, Portrait of Alexander Blok, 1907. Lead pencil, crayons and gouache on paper. The Tretyakov Gallery
Boris Kustodiev, Portrait of Georgi Vereisky, 1917. Lead pencil and sanguine on paper. The Russian Museum
Isaac Brodsky, Portrait of Maria Andreyeva, 1910. Oil on canvas. The I. Brodsky Home Museum
Source: Russian Portrait of the late 19th-early 20th centuries, I. Pruzhan, V. Kniazeva, Izobrazitelnoye Iskusstvo Publishers, Moscow, 1980
Georgy Vychegzhanin, plate with the monogram ‘RSFSR.’ 1921
Sergei Chekhonin, plate with the emblem of the RSFSR. 1921
Bazilka Radonič, ‘The New Government.’ Plate. 1921
Alexandra Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya, ‘Bell Ringer.’ Dish. 1921
Sergei Chekhonin, ‘Coral Ribbon.’ Plate. 1919
Source: Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Stamp of the RSFSR, The Liberated Proletarian, 1921
Bottom image: Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Rudolf Vilde, Plate with the inscription ‘Be daring now and forever.’ 1921
Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Sergei Chekhonin and Piotr Konchalovsky, cover of the journal Russkoye Iskusstvo (Russian Art), 1923, No 1
Vladimir Favorsky, cover of the journal Pechat i revolutsiya (The Press and the Revolution), 1923, No. 4
Vladimir Favorsky, cover of the magazine Makovets, 1923, No. 3. Xylograph
Vladimir Favorsky, Still Life with Books. 1919. Xylograph
Vladimir Favorsky, View of Moscow from the Vorobyov Hills. From the series Views of Moscow. 1918. Xylograph
Images: Art of the October Revolution, Compiler, Mikhail Guerman, Trans., W.Freeman, D.Saunders, C.Binns, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1986
Excellent post. Beautiful images. I was surprised to see that elements of some of them (including those in the video) look very much like what is in paintings from the period (e.g. Rodin’s ‘Red-headed girl with Parasol’, Monet’s ‘Woman with a Parasol’ [1875, cf. the post-1902 photo by Adolf Miethe]; I think also of a grainy black and white image [in the video] taken in 1846, on display in Texas, that is very reminiscent of early Cubism [specifically, paintings by Braque of L’Estaque] and an early black and white photo I have seen of L’Estaque, and of another which is very reminiscent of Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings). I wonder if there might have been any cross-influences between these photos and paintings or vice-versa?
These are actually not colorized photographs, they’re color photographs by a man named Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. He’s a Russian who really pioneered in, and made the field of color photography something worth funding. He was given funding by Tsar Nicholas II to take 2 trips through Russia photographing everything that came to mind. He went on 2 trips, one in 1909, and one a bit later in 1915.
Gorsky was one of the later photographers in this medium, but he certainly wasn’t someone who fades in comparison. The earlier individuals are people who were experimenting with different methods, cameras, exposures, and emulsions (The light-sensitive coating that was smeared on the glass plate to permanently imprint the image after the exposure). Individuals like Adolf Miethe (who was active in 1902 onwards), and Edward Raymond Turner (The Englishman who filmed the first color photographs in 1902) have one thing in common –They all…
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materialism, mysticism and art 
