Seminar 1 Revolutionary Design

Revolutionary Design: Dictatorship and Propaganda

New, modern design, began after the revolution in Russia. This is marked as November,1917, Petregrad. The Bolsheviks led by Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace held by the Tsar. The Tsar where the royalty of Russia and held all the wealth and power, the Bolsheviks where working class, they where tired of the ill treatment of the Tsar, many lived in hunger, poor conditions and they where illiterate. 

This illiteracy forced people to communicate visually. Red was a key colour in all Boelshvik propoganda. It represnted the blood of the oppressed, and this became their identity and somthing to identify them by.

In the notes below are key pieces before and after the revolution, a key element in this is a complete change in aesthetic, paintings before where realistic, after they where more experimental and unrealistic, they where also quite minimal and reflcted a modern aesthtic.

As you can see above when Stalin took over Russia, when Lenin died, he decided socialist realism was only allowed and so design shifted back into more traditional paintings and techniques. It became old fashioned and had the same old ideologies as before the revolution, such as women having children, men going to work e.c.t. and so the modern movement came to holt in Russia.