The Evolution of Human Eyesight: Mikhail Matiushin's Organic Culture in Russian Avant-Garde Art

Abstract

The Russian avant-garde - whose ground-breaking artistic activities began with the founding of the Moscow group Bubnovoi Valet (Knave of Diamond) in 1909 and came to an end with the declaration of the doctrine of socialist realism in 1932 - has preoccupied scholars in the fields of art history, literature, history, and cultural studies since the late 1960s. Discussion usually centres on its revolutionary aspects, political dimensions, artistic inventions, and utopian visions. Art historians have examined the stylistic inventions of artists, such as Pavel Filonov, Kazimir Malevich, and Vladimir Tatlin, and explored the influences of primitivism, Russian folk art, and icon painting on Russian modernism in the works of Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, and others. Placing the movement in its socio-historical and cultural contexts, scholars have also considered the utilitarian and social aspects of Russian constructivism and the foundational role of the movement in the totalitarian culture of the Stalin era.