Soviet Era Art
Activity Guide By Kate Kwasneski ’21
Intern, Grinnell College Museum of Art
Look and Learn
The area that is now Russia has a long and interesting history and has created a vast tradition of art. Russian folk art includes elaborately decorated eggs, intricate embroidery, and a variety of prints and paintings. GCMoA has an extensive collection of prints from the early 1970s on loan from two Grinnell alumni, Brenda Horrigan ’88 and Eric Johnson ’88. The prints seen here were made by members of the Union of Soviet Artists and were found in an abandoned elementary school. In this activity guide, we are going to look at the artwork of this place and time!
The word Leto in Russian means summer. This image shows a sunny summer day with people enjoying the weather. There is a lake in the foreground of the image, and hills in the background. The colors are largely orange and green. What do you think about the color scheme in this image? Do you like the blocks of color?
This image depicts members of the Young Pioneers, which was an organization similar to the Boy Scouts that existed in the Soviet Union from the 1940s into the 1990s. The Young Pioneers form a community together in this image; the Young Pioneers are participating in a ceremony in a town square. The repetition of the uniforms and the orange in the flags make the piece look unified. What do you think of the art style, which looks like a sketch? Do you think it fits the subject matter of this image?
This image shows a group of children, who are likely Young Pioneers based on their neckties, who are building model airplanes together. This scene is more monochromatic, with reds being the main color that appears in the image. The people in this image are all playing with model planes as a group, participating in a community activity. What do you think is happening in this image? Do you like it?
This image is of a circus. It contains a lot of bright and vibrant colors. The background of this image all fades together into one plane, with all the shapes in the background appearing to be at the same level. How many colors do you see here? Do you like the vibrant style of this image? Do you like the style?
Create
Can you create an artwork that uses a similar style to these examples? These images are all prints, so you could use our printmaking guide to make art in the same medium. All these images are characterized by a sketch-like style with lots of visible lines. The shapes we see in these images are simplified and the individual elements are often repeated to create a unified scene. The colors range from muted to vibrant, and the subjects range from people to landscapes, but the way the artists use line and shape is similar throughout. Importantly, in all of the images shown above, we can see people spending time together as part of a community, whether that is through a scouting organization or just through spending some time in a park. Can you bring that sense of community into your artwork?
In this image, I chose to create an early spring landscape. The landscape is not realistic, the trees and hills are much more exaggerated than they would be in real life. I used different colored pencils to make the kind of visible lines we see in the other examples. The stylized silhouettes of people enjoying the weather give the space a sense of community. The style of the people is exaggerated and not realistic to match the rest of the scene. Think about how you can represent your subject in this art style. What details can you add? What medium will be best for visible lines – colored pencils, paint, or something else?
Write
Tell the story of what is happening in your artwork. Are there people in it? What are they doing? Are they a part of a community? What does that community do together? Your story can be as creative as your subject matter!