Rustaeva N.R. Industrial and Manufacturing Landscape in Soviet Painting of the 1920s—1930s

In the light of the growing interest in the industrial theme in the art of the Soviet period, the questions of terminology and typology are becoming increasingly acute. Their solution helps to understand the artistic approaches to the development of the theme by Soviet painters, to identify and classify certain intra-genre types. One such question, which has not yet been raised by researchers of Russian art, is the definition of the difference between industrial and manufacturing landscapes. The present article represents the first attempt to typologies the Soviet landscape genre, which took shape within the framework of a large industrial theme. The aim of the study is to put forward a hypothesis explaining the terminological and typological difference in the interpretation of the terms “industry” and “manufactory” and to reveal the fundamental difference between the two respective types of landscape in Soviet painting of the 1920s—1930s, the unified species form of which is not questioned. It is shown that the interest of Russian painters in the industrialization of the USSR was manifested with varying degrees of intensity throughout the Soviet period, which was also reflected in the landscape genre: evolving within the theme, it developed the two forms of artistic interpretation considered, which at the dawn of their emergence were inseparable, but by the 1960s—1980s became increasingly distant from each other. Their typological differentiation is revealed, expressed in compositional features, as well as in the conceptual treatment of the theme by Soviet painters to solve different semantic problems. The author proposes the following definitions: industrial landscape is a depiction of an industrial object as an organic part of the natural, urban or suburban environment, demonstrating non-conflict unity and harmony of coexistence, so important in the concept of Soviet reality. The manufacturing landscape focuses, rather, on an architectural portrait of a production facility that dominates the environment. This type of landscape is shaped by the production itself, the factory or its territory. The manufacturing landscape itself becomes the new nature that organizes life around it.

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