Russian Constructivism

Russian Constructivism

Russian constructivism was a artistic and architectural movement with origins in Russia.
The key artists involved where:

• Naum Gabo
• El Lissitzky
• Vladimir Mayakovsky
• Alexander Rodchenko
•  Varvara Stepanova

The idea was to make art more accessible for everyone by using everyday materials such as metal, glass, wood and cardboard along with the aim to create a Utopian society when the movement began just after World War 1. In addition to this they where inspired to explore the textural and spacial qualities when creating abstract structures.
The art included:

• Architecture 
• Graphic Design
• Sculptures
• Paintings- Although paintings where not as common as this media was seen more superior and therefore against the idea of an equal society. 

Graphic design in the movement varied from the packaging of products, posters, logos, the covers of books and forms of advertisement. The graphic design work by Rodchenko became an inspiration to many. 

This piece is by Rodchenko has certain features which make it a unique piece. For example, its use of only three colours and its font type and style. This makes the pieces simple yet effective as there isn't to much colour to distract or overly decorated text and therefore gets straight to the point. It also does this with the use of geometric shapes as well as being central and having a structured composition.

This is an abstract piece by Lissitzky and he has used both 3D and 2D shapes which he calls prouns. The 2D shapes are coloured which contradict with the toned 3D shapes and make the image look strange as it is difficult to understand where he has chosen to show where light is hitting the shapes and created the darker parts.

This artwork was created by Naum Gabo and was made with sheets of steel giving the object a brown/slightly red colour. I would say it is a figurative piece as it is very human like with human features. Naum has clearly thought how light will interact with the piece, as like a painting he has featured three tones, mid, light and dark. The work has similarities to cubism as it has been created by different shapes being assembled the way cubism does when breaking and reforming up a subject.