Советское наивное искусство: между конформностью и нон-конформизмом

Новое искусствознание. История, теория и философия искусства. 2021. № 3. С. 82–90.

Суворова А. А.

Changes in trends, styles, and schools in the USSR art largely depended on the discourse of power and society, on political and social transformations. The Soviet government regarded art as a medium of ideology, as a tool to influence minds and to foster the ‘new’ man. However, moulding the ‘proper’ Soviet man was not the only task of art as seen by the state. Amateur art in the USSR was also a part of the unified system of Soviet culture and art; the system where any artistic statement was conditioned and/or transformed by the political and social objectives of the country. Paintings by naive artists, who had absorbed the Soviet ideological texts, conveyed the portrait of the ‘collective’ man, whose personality was of secondary importance. The world-view of the ‘new’ man determined by Soviet ideology developed according to archaic principles. To a certain extent, the ‘new world’ concept, specific to naive artists, was also close to the ideology principles of Soviet art. While forming its own principles, the Soviet art project strived to break away from the world art context. Art, both professional and amateur, became one of the main channels of media for the Soviet idea. The scope of subjects that naive artists addressed revealed the nonconformity of amateur art in the Stagnation Period. The world of the naive artist may have been developing in such a reality that was completely separate from the social and political realm, with individual values taking the lead and almost forcing out the dominant ideological discourse, and the ‘grand narrative’ of power being transformed into the images of a strictly organized utopia.

Keywords: наивное искусство, Пролеткульт, советское искусство, эпоха застоя, самодеятельное искусство, тоталитарное искусство