 During
the 1930s, after Russia had been industrialized and collectivized,
whereby, according to party documents, the "victory of
socialism in the USSR had been guaranteed", the "cultural
reconstruction" began on a broad front. A historic 1932
decision by the party's central committee abolished all creative
trends in art and literature and made all artists conform
to "social realism."
The porcelain industry had evolved in such a way that there
existed "a highly developed artistic culture at the top,
withering for lack of consumers". Works of art from the
Leningrad Lomonosov factory were produced in small quantity
and mainly for export. On the other hand, there was "a
complete lack of any culture at the bottom, at the level of
mass production", and the domestic market was swamped
by "mawkish shepherdesses", as well as articles
with elements of "Saxon" curlicues, "Viennese
chic" and "French fashion", which, according
to an article in the press at that time, was suited to the
taste of small tradesmen and the lower bourgeoisie of earlier
days. Enamel, therefore, was intended to play an important
part in the "fight for the ideological content of wide
areas of material culture". It was said that in isolated
villages without newspapers a porcelain cup might become an
instrument of artistic mass propaganda, as the propagandist
porcelain had been before. Soon, however, it was felt that
"the sloppily painted tractors and furnaces, the schematic
kolkhoz peasant women and the untidy writing of maxims on
simplified table ware did not add up to a new style in porcelain".
The Leningrad porcelain factory with its rich cultural traditions
and its trained work force became the basis for a style that
was in harmony with socialist daily life. In 1931 the first
artistic laboratory was established and a year later Nikolai
Suyetin, who had been co-opted from the Leningrad Artists
Association, became director.
 The
individual creativity of artists such as Ivan Risnich, Alexei
Vorobyevski and Mikhail Mokh, who had been working for the
factory since the mid-1920s, as well as that of the graduates
of the Leningrad College of Applied Arts, Tamara Bespalova-Mikhalyova,
Ludmila Protopopova, Lyubov Blak, Lydia Lebedinskaya, Anna
Yefimova, Anna Yatskevich, Seraphima Yakovleva and others,
had ensured that the artists' collective solved its tasks
with individuality despite the unified style developed under
Suyetin.
The porcelain they created was remarkable for the purity
and gentleness of its shapes, the emphasis on the whiteness
of the material and the concrete nature of its pictorial decorations
and strong colors. It possessed artistic delicacy and a classical
sense of proportion. The decorative style of Soviet porcelain
was a compound of realism, "World of Art" and Suprematism,
at the same time keeping to the general principles of decoration
and suitability of the medium.
With a fine sense for the demands of their time the porcelain
painters produced topical subjects, whether they were allegories
of Soviet reconstruction such as on the service "From
the Taiga to the finished building"; the subjects of
industrialization as decoratively solved in the "Industrially"
service; the glorification of worker heroes as in the "Metal"
service; or representations of the figure of a peasant woman
as in the vase "Hay-Making". Frequently motifs from
Russian folk tales were employed, and traditional decorative
devices such as "borders", "osier", "medallion"
and "freeze" restored to the porcelain the charm
it had lost.
 Alexei
Vorobyevski soon established his own unmistakable handwriting.
His poetic view of the world permitted him to combine exquisite
refinement with the transparent spirituality of Russian folk
art. The work of the realistic animal painter Ivan Risnich
was in direct contrast and Mikhail Mokh was enthusiastic about
the art of the Near East, while Anna Yefimova preferred representations
of nature and jokingly called herself the "Mitshurin
of porcelain" (Mitshurin was a famous plant breeder).
In order to develop new lines for Soviet enamellist creators
turned to simple geometric shapes such as spheres, cylinders
and ovoids. The principle of simplicity and laconism was in
tune with the attitudes of the artistic director Suyetin,
who transformed his Suprematist ideas into porcelain. His
main aim was purity and clarity of form, compositional logic,
dynamism and simplicity of decoration, as he expressed it
in the service "Agrocity".
In 1933 Yeva Strikker, under Suyetin's direction, designed
the first forms for the table service "Intourist",
which was designed for mass production. Shortly thereafter
came the form "Standard", and then the more sculptural
"Crocus" by Suyetin. The service "Tulip",
created in 1936 by the young sculptress Seraphima Yakovleva,
was to become a classic of Soviet porcelain and for many years
occupied a firm place in the range of the Leningrad factory.
 Sculpture,
too, reflected topics of modern life. Many pieces by Danko
were in tune with the style of the time. Worth noting is the
figure "Girl Running" by the well-known painter
Alexander Samokhvalov, a precursor of his later, famous painting"
Girl in Football Clothes", one of the emblematic heroines
of the first five-year plans. Subject from the theatre were
to find original development in sculpture: the friendly caricatures
by the popular trio Kukrynisky (Mikhail Kupryianov, Porfiriy
Krylov, N. Sokolov) of Stanislavski, Katchalov, Moskvin, Prokofyev
and Meyerhold. The artists entertained a large number of the
factory's workmen to commemorate the 100th anniversary of
Pushkin's death.
Decorative porcelain and flat ware, however, comprised only
two or three percent of the factory's total production. At
this time the factory produced nine types of porcelain paste
and nearly 300 articles for chemical or technical use. Under
the direction of the engineer Grigoriy Yefremov, the Soviet
Union for the first time produced spark plugs industrially
in the plant for the automobile and tractor industries. Porcelain
teeth, dental cement and artificial eyes were also made. As
the centre of Soviet decorative porcelain production, the
Lomonosov works were at the same time a leading research centre,
and its many new articles supplied a number of industries.
When in 1936 the Soviet Union was to adopt Stalin's constitution,
the Kremlin organized a small exhibition of the works from
the porcelain factory for government leaders. After the exhibition
the order went out that the production of decorative porcelain
was to be increased almost by a factor of five, which the
workforce received with great enthusiasm.
The artistic director, Suyetin, heard of this while in Paris
at the World Exhibition of 1937, where he was engaged in setting
up the Soviet pavilion, which he had designed. For this project
he was awarded the Grand Prix and the porcelain from Leningrad,
represented by the work of recent years, once again won the
gold medal.
During the second half of the 1930s large vases were once
more produced, created by Suyetin and Yakovleva. They were
modelled on pieces in the Hermitage collection of old Chinese
ceramics. Figures and busts of biscuit porcelain were cast
once again, and imperial porcelain was copied. Portraits and
paintings were once more applied onto the great representational
vases. Both in the case of figures as in the painted decoration,
the main subjects were functionaries of state and party, plus
the achievements of socialist reconstruction - the neat representational
facade of the life of the period. Ceramic art followed the
main stream of official Soviet art of that period.
 The
artists working in the factory took part in the embellishment
of the first Moscow underground stations and created the porcelain
bas reliefs for the facade of the Chimki-River-Station of
the Moskva-Volga Canal. At that time the series portraying
young pioneers of all the nationalities within the USSR was
begun. These life-size porcelain figures were placed in the
central "Artek" pioneer camp in the Crimea. They
were destroyed during the Nazi occupation.
Among the numerous works of this period the decoration on
the large vase "The Song of Igor's Campaign" by
Alexei Vorobyevski occupies a special place. As the basis
for his decoration, he adopted the standard procedure of ancient
Russian miniatures: he created an original work of art, which
gave expression to the basic tenets of the most important
literary monument of ancient Russian culture. The design took
twelve years while six months sufficed for the actual painting.
The themes of patriotism, undying love of country and solidarity
of the people in the face of danger were continued by Anna
Yefimova in the decoration of the vase "No pasaran!"
(They won't pass!) which was dedicated to the Spanish resistance.
The composition of the vase was built with a lively rhythm
of figures, gray and brown colors, and grieving, courageous
figures of old men, women and children. The whole image, which
resembles a large painting rather than the decoration of a
vase, seemed to be a premonition, a warning by the artist
of the hard trials the Soviet people would have to face during
the period of enemy occupation.
|
