44 years ago
In the visual arts architecture has, of course, taken first place, and in certain ways Russian architects have great achievements to their credit. The best blocks of living houses in Moscow are extremely impressive, but it is not obvious that they are better than similar buildings produced since the War in Germany, by which they were largely influenced. To judge from photographs the House of Projects at Kharkov is much the greatest single creation of the period. The schemes for the complete reconstruction of Moscow are a model of town planning, but from the specimens of buildings at present being put up there it is doubtful whether individual details will be as good as the general scheme. The return to a rather uninteresting use of the classical orders seems regrettable," and, though it is difficult to judge from the designs, the projected Palace of the Soviets threatens to look more like a giant Selfridge's wedding cake than a worthy monument to the October Revolution. The new Metro, to which so much publicity has been given, is perfect in comfort and efficiency. but it has a Parisian chic and one almost expects a top-hat to emerge from its doors.
However in passing judgment on these achievements it must be remembered that the guiding principle of Soviet art development at the present time is Lenin's remark: 'All the culture left by capitalism must be taken and Socialism built with it. All science. technology, all knowledge and art must be taken'. This explains particularly the situation in the visual arts in which pre-revolutionary Russia left only the most horrible of traditions to its Socialist successors. In painting and architecture, therefore. Soviet artists are now trying to absorb all that is useful in western culture as a prelude to developing a real style appropriate to Socialist conditions. The process is instructive and necessary, but in general the resulting products are not particularly attractive to western minds. But it is at any rate worth noting that the tendency is strictly towards absorbing the realistic elements of western art. neglecting all experiments in abstraction.
In the easel picture, therefore. nothing very original has been produced, and the question arises why the Soviet Union should bother itself so much about a form of art which is essentially bourgeois and based on the idea of private ownership. Perhaps the process is only one of training, and it would in any case be natural to suppose that the great achievements of Socialist art would be in decorative painting on a large scale — as was the case when painting was last a communal art, in the Middle Ages. and as is beginning to be the case in America.
Anthony Blunt
Spectator, 27 September 1935
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