Heroic realism
Encyclopedia
Heroic realism is a term which has sometimes been used to describe art used as propaganda
. Examples include the Socialist realism
style associated with Communist regimes, and the very similar art style associated with Fascism
. Its characteristics are realism
and the depiction of figures as ideal types or symbols, often with explicit rejection of modernism in art (as "bourgeois" or "degenerate").
Heroic realism designs were used to propagate the revolution in the Soviet Union during Lenin's time. Lenin doubted that the illiterate population would understand what abstract visual images were intended to communicate. He also thought that artists, such as constructivists
and productivists
, may have had a hidden agenda against the government. Indeed, such movements as Cubism
were denounced as bourgeois and criticized for failure to draw on the heritage of art, whereas proletarian culture had to draw on what was learned in the prior times, and for rejecting the beautiful on the grounds that it was "old". The artists countered such thinking, however, by saying that the advanced art represented the advanced political ideas.
Stalin
understood the powerful message which could be sent through images to a primarily illiterate population. Once he was in power, posters quickly became the new medium for educating illiterate peasants on daily life—from bathing, to farming, the posters provided visual instruction on almost everything. In 1931-2, the early emphasis on the "little man" and the anonymous laboring masses gave way to the "hero of labor", derived from the people but set apart by the scale of his deeds.
In 1934, a new doctrine called Socialist realism
came about. This new movement rejected the "bourgeois influence on art" and replaced it with appreciation for figurative painting, photography and new typography layouts. Writers were explicitly enjoined to develop "heroization." At the Paris World Fair, Vera Mukhina
's Worker and Kolkhoz Woman
exemplified the ideal New Soviet Man
, depicting a man and woman in working clothes, with his hammer and her sickle crossed, in a monumental statue with both striding forward.
When Adolf Hitler
came to power in Germany in 1933, modern art
was condemned as degenerate
, and largely prohibited. The Nazis promoted a style of art based on classical models, intended to nurture nationalism. Heroic realism was to inculcate values of sacrifice, duty, and devotion. The heroic man, who was bound to blood and soil
, acted rather than thought and sacrificed himself. This particularly favored the heroic death.
Nazi theory explicitly rejected "materialism", and therefore, despite the realistic treatment of images, "realism" was a seldom used term. A painter was to create an ideal picture, for eternity. The images of men, and still more of women, were heavily stereotyped, with physical perfection required for the nude paintings. In painting, peasants were popular images, reflecting a simple life in harmony with nature.
Sculpture's monumental possibilities gave it a better expression of Nazi racial theories. The most common image was of the nude male, expressing the ideal of the Aryan race. Arno Breker
's skill at this type made him Hitler's favorite sculptor. Nude females were also common, though they tended to be less monumental. In both cases, the physical form was to show no imperfections. At the Paris Exposition of 1937, Josef Thorak
's Comradeship stood outside the German pavilion, depicting two enormous nude males, clasping hands and standing defiantly side by side, in a pose of defense and racial camaraderie.
Heroic realism was also used during the Spanish Civil War
, and Western democracies have used the style to promote their aims in times of war.
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
. Examples include the Socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
style associated with Communist regimes, and the very similar art style associated with Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
. Its characteristics are realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
and the depiction of figures as ideal types or symbols, often with explicit rejection of modernism in art (as "bourgeois" or "degenerate").
Purposes
Both socialist and Nazi art were explicitly ordered to be heroic and romantic, and was in consequence ideal rather than realistic.Heroic realism designs were used to propagate the revolution in the Soviet Union during Lenin's time. Lenin doubted that the illiterate population would understand what abstract visual images were intended to communicate. He also thought that artists, such as constructivists
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
and productivists
Productivism (art)
Productivism was an art movement founded by a group of Constructivist artists in post-Revolutionary Russia who believed that art should have a practical, socially useful role as a facet of industrial production...
, may have had a hidden agenda against the government. Indeed, such movements as Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
were denounced as bourgeois and criticized for failure to draw on the heritage of art, whereas proletarian culture had to draw on what was learned in the prior times, and for rejecting the beautiful on the grounds that it was "old". The artists countered such thinking, however, by saying that the advanced art represented the advanced political ideas.
Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
understood the powerful message which could be sent through images to a primarily illiterate population. Once he was in power, posters quickly became the new medium for educating illiterate peasants on daily life—from bathing, to farming, the posters provided visual instruction on almost everything. In 1931-2, the early emphasis on the "little man" and the anonymous laboring masses gave way to the "hero of labor", derived from the people but set apart by the scale of his deeds.
In 1934, a new doctrine called Socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
came about. This new movement rejected the "bourgeois influence on art" and replaced it with appreciation for figurative painting, photography and new typography layouts. Writers were explicitly enjoined to develop "heroization." At the Paris World Fair, Vera Mukhina
Vera Mukhina
Vera Ignatyevna Mukhina was a prominent Soviet sculptor.- Life :Mukhina was born in Riga into a wealthy merchant family, and lived at Turgeneva st. 23/25, where a memorial plaque has now been placed. She later moved to Moscow, where she studied at several private art schools, including those of...
's Worker and Kolkhoz Woman
Worker and Kolkhoz Woman
Worker and Kolkhoz Woman is a 24.5 meter high sculpture made from stainless steel by Vera Mukhina for the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, and subsequently moved to Moscow. The sculpture is an example of the socialist realistic style, as well as Art Deco style...
exemplified the ideal New Soviet Man
New Soviet man
The New Soviet man or New Soviet person , as postulated by the ideologists of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was an archetype of a person with certain qualities that were said to be emerging as dominant among all citizens of the Soviet Union, irrespective of the country's cultural,...
, depicting a man and woman in working clothes, with his hammer and her sickle crossed, in a monumental statue with both striding forward.
When Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
came to power in Germany in 1933, modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
was condemned as degenerate
Degenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
, and largely prohibited. The Nazis promoted a style of art based on classical models, intended to nurture nationalism. Heroic realism was to inculcate values of sacrifice, duty, and devotion. The heroic man, who was bound to blood and soil
Blood and soil
Blood and Soil refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity based on two factors, descent and homeland/Heimat...
, acted rather than thought and sacrificed himself. This particularly favored the heroic death.
Nazi theory explicitly rejected "materialism", and therefore, despite the realistic treatment of images, "realism" was a seldom used term. A painter was to create an ideal picture, for eternity. The images of men, and still more of women, were heavily stereotyped, with physical perfection required for the nude paintings. In painting, peasants were popular images, reflecting a simple life in harmony with nature.
Sculpture's monumental possibilities gave it a better expression of Nazi racial theories. The most common image was of the nude male, expressing the ideal of the Aryan race. Arno Breker
Arno Breker
Arno Breker was a German sculptor, best known for his public works in Nazi Germany, which were endorsed by the authorities as the antithesis of degenerate art....
's skill at this type made him Hitler's favorite sculptor. Nude females were also common, though they tended to be less monumental. In both cases, the physical form was to show no imperfections. At the Paris Exposition of 1937, Josef Thorak
Josef Thorak
Josef Thorak was an Austrian-German sculptor.In 1922 Thorak's reputation increased when he created Der sterbende Krieger, a statue in memory to the dead of World War I of Stolpmünde.In 1933 and in following years, Thorak joined Arno Breker as one of the two "official sculptors" of the Third Reich...
's Comradeship stood outside the German pavilion, depicting two enormous nude males, clasping hands and standing defiantly side by side, in a pose of defense and racial camaraderie.
Heroic realism was also used during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, and Western democracies have used the style to promote their aims in times of war.
See also
- Socialist realismSocialist realismSocialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
- Realism (arts)Realism (arts)Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
- Soviet artSoviet artSoviet art was the visual art produced in the Soviet Union.-Early years:During the Russian Revolution a movement was initiated to put all arts to service of the dictatorship of the proletariat...
- Degenerate artDegenerate artDegenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
- Art of the Third Reich
Resources
- Heller, Steven, and Seymour Chwast. Graphic Style from Victorian to Digital. New ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001. 53-57. (This resource provides many good examples of heroic realism and a detailed description of the history.)
- Hollis, R. (2001). Graphic design: a concise history. World of art. New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500203474
External links
- 3rd Reich Art 1933-1945
- http://pyongyangartstudio.com/images/socialistrealism/pp170.jpg
- Review: Art exhibition, Soviet Graphics - States of Illusion (includes Images demonstrating heroic realism in Soviet art)
