"Art for Art's Sake"

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Alexander Deyneka

May 28th, 2011 . Friday.

It's been a while since I went to visit Alexander Dayneka's exhibition in Rome at Palazzo delle Esposizioni. That same day, the Palace housed another exposure, the one that me and my boyfriend wanted to see, called "100 masterpieces from the Stadel museum of Frankfurt". Simply amazing. A path from classic to contemporary art , passing by impressionism , of course, expressionism, symbolism and so on. That path simply made me feel " I want more" . Back to the story ... once we finished with 100 masterpieces, our attention has been drawn to a big sign that invites visitors to go up the stairs. We follow the sign to found out that another exhibition was placed on the second floor of the Palace. And here I met for the first time Alexander Deyneka. I liked him, his style, at the very first sight. The brightness of his colors, the shapes of the characters presented in the paintings...it reminds me kind of propaganda style. It seems that he forgot about curves, that in his perception everything, human beings included were simply straight, kind of cubism I would say, but different, in the contents perhaps. And the dimension of the canvas were impressive, huge. It seems that every details have been perfectly studied to trasnmit a specific message to the audience.
For instance, " Defense of Petrograd" 1927 is a gigantic white canvas. In the background what looks like a farm and immediately in front of you what looks like a bridge; people walking under the bridge with weapons and a proud expression depicted on their faces . On the bridge, those who returned from the battle field. Still humans being but without the light of life on their faces. They saw something that even the most honorable cause would never erase from their memories, heart, soul.
The structure of the painting, remind me a circle, people are nothing more than a cog in a wheel, they don't really know what they are going to do, why they are doing so, they have just been persuaded that what ever they're doing is for the right cause, there's no space for other options rather than the two presented , either for or against the cause.
Alexander Deyneka's artworks arised in me 1000 thoughts. His style, which looks like cartoons sometimes, graphic novels perhaps, really represented the cruelty of war in all its shapes. And that wasn't only for images of war, there's another painting that I really love. It's called "The Pioneer" 1934 . It represents a kid, looking at an airplane, hoping, one day, to fly everywhere in this world.
Now that I just studied that, I would say that Deyneka's representations of war or dreams seem so dramatic to me because sometimes, reality looks more real when it is represented through images rather than reality itself.