Page 29 - summer 22

In communist Russia itself, once the post-revolution civil wars (1918-21) were over,

there was a remarkable explosion of cultural optimism and creativity. Russia’s avant-
garde artists revelled in their new freedom and status. Designers of propaganda
posters had a field-day promoting the ideals of the Revolution; they have since
become valued works of art. Film-makers, notably Eisenstein, celebrated it on the
cinema screen, pioneering and perfecting the new technique of montage, the great
th
Modernist innovation of 20 century cinema. Modernist painters like Malevich
pushed abstraction to its limits (Black Square, White on White). Vladimir Tatlin, a
Modernist architect of the Constructivist school, designed a colossal monument and

headquarters for the Third International, Moscow’s communist propaganda
organisation. His utopian design) had a stupendous double-helix spiral tower, 400
metres high, with large rotating suspended geometric structures, dwarfing the Eiffel
Tower (300 metres). . The tower was to be topped by a projector capable of casting
messages onto clouds on overcast days.
This is how Tatlin’s Tower 11 (1919) was supposed to look, dominating the skyline of
Leningrad (St Petersburg).

Sadly, it was never built; only this model:
.