At the Amsterdam branch of the Hermitage, a renowned museum originally based in St. Petersburg, a recent exhibition titled “Russian Avant-Garde – Revolution in the Arts” showcased the largest collection of revolutionary porcelain from the early Soviet era. The pieces came from a factory in St. Petersburg, then known as Leningrad, which was renamed the “State Porcelain Manufactory” by the Bolsheviks who came to power in Russia in 1917.
Taking advantage of a factory that had once served the Russian tsars, the snow-white porcelain served as a canvas for Avant-Garde artists who wanted to show their ideals for a socialist utopia. In a curious twist, the cups, plates, and other china that had once been intended for the feasts of the Romanov family were now emblazoned with images of Soviets trampling the tsar’s ermine furs.
Throughout the 1920s, the factory produced many other pieces of “agitation porcelain,” as it was known, featuring busts of Lenin, peasants taking up arms, workers striding towards a brighter future, and other revolutionary images.
Despite this, however, the images rarely made it to the masses. Instead, they were exhibited across Europe, even winning a gold medal at the 1925 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Even the designs set up for auction to raise money for the Volga famine of the 1920s failed. ”They were too rare, too experimental,” Birgit Boelens of the Hermitage Amsterdam told BBC Culture. ”The individual pieces are of such a high quality that it took too long to mass produce them.”
In addition, the delicate artistry could not withstand daily use, rendering them useless from a utilitarian perspective. Despite this, the porcelain served another purpose – for the unstable new regime to gain the support of the upper-middle class, which the Soviets needed in order to consolidate their power. According to Dr. Sjeng Scheijen, historian and guest curator of the new exhibition, which has since closed due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ”The main reason for the Bolsheviks to maintain the porcelain factory was the preservation of cultural heritage.”
However, this ‘golden age’ of Soviet art was not to last. After the dictator Joseph Stalin firmed his grip on power in late 1920s, art became even more important for the spread of propaganda, but with one important drawback – the necessity to conform completely eradicated artistic creativity in the country.
As Scheijen explains, ”Everything really changes in the beginning of the 30s when artists themselves come under real pressure because there is no independent artistry any more. If you are not part of a union, you can be seen as a parasite and be sent to a camp… If you would not completely conform, then you had a big problem.”
In the end, the socialist utopia that many had so enthusiastically imagined had failed them. The fact that many were starved to death, killed or deported to prison camps by the regime only added people’s misery.
Still, the fact that the porcelain from so many years ago associated with a regime infamous for its cruelty is still appreciated today makes Boelens happy. “We appreciate these pieces so much,” she says. ”The positive thing about this exhibition is we gave them, after all these years, a voice.”
Original article: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220629-how-teapots-were-used-to-spread-russian-propaganda
Taking advantage of a factory that had once served the Russian tsars, the snow-white porcelain served as a canvas for Avant-Garde artists who wanted to show their ideals for a socialist utopia. In a curious twist, the cups, plates, and other china that had once been intended for the feasts of the Romanov family were now emblazoned with images of Soviets trampling the tsar’s ermine furs.
Throughout the 1920s, the factory produced many other pieces of “agitation porcelain,” as it was known, featuring busts of Lenin, peasants taking up arms, workers striding towards a brighter future, and other revolutionary images.
Despite this, however, the images rarely made it to the masses. Instead, they were exhibited across Europe, even winning a gold medal at the 1925 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Even the designs set up for auction to raise money for the Volga famine of the 1920s failed. ”They were too rare, too experimental,” Birgit Boelens of the Hermitage Amsterdam told BBC Culture. ”The individual pieces are of such a high quality that it took too long to mass produce them.”
In addition, the delicate artistry could not withstand daily use, rendering them useless from a utilitarian perspective. Despite this, the porcelain served another purpose – for the unstable new regime to gain the support of the upper-middle class, which the Soviets needed in order to consolidate their power. According to Dr. Sjeng Scheijen, historian and guest curator of the new exhibition, which has since closed due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ”The main reason for the Bolsheviks to maintain the porcelain factory was the preservation of cultural heritage.”
However, this ‘golden age’ of Soviet art was not to last. After the dictator Joseph Stalin firmed his grip on power in late 1920s, art became even more important for the spread of propaganda, but with one important drawback – the necessity to conform completely eradicated artistic creativity in the country.
As Scheijen explains, ”Everything really changes in the beginning of the 30s when artists themselves come under real pressure because there is no independent artistry any more. If you are not part of a union, you can be seen as a parasite and be sent to a camp… If you would not completely conform, then you had a big problem.”
In the end, the socialist utopia that many had so enthusiastically imagined had failed them. The fact that many were starved to death, killed or deported to prison camps by the regime only added people’s misery.
Still, the fact that the porcelain from so many years ago associated with a regime infamous for its cruelty is still appreciated today makes Boelens happy. “We appreciate these pieces so much,” she says. ”The positive thing about this exhibition is we gave them, after all these years, a voice.”
Original article: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220629-how-teapots-were-used-to-spread-russian-propaganda
