Cover of Konstruktivizm by Aleksei Gan 1922

The term of faktura (russian: фактура) emerged in

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

art criticism before the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. David Burliuk used the term as a Russian equivalent of the French word "facture" which refers to the texture of the painted surface. Voldemārs Matvejs used the term in his 1914 text "Printsipy tvorchestva v plasticheskikh iskussvakh: Faktura (Principles of Creation in the Visual Arts: Faktura). It was later developed by

Russian Constructivism Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected deco ...

. Alongside tectonics and construction, faktura constituted one of the three core principles defined by

Aleksei Gan Aleksei Mikhailovich Gan ( Russian: Алексей Михайлович Ган; born Imberkh; 1887 or 1893 – 8 September, 1942) was a Russian anarchist and later Marxist avant-garde artist, art theorist and graphic designer. Gan was a key fi ...

in his book '' Konstruktivizm''. In the period after the Russian Revolution, new definitions of art had to be found, such as the definition of art objects as "laboratory experiments". "Faktura" was the single most important quality of these art objects, according to the critic

Victor Shklovsky Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky ( rus, Ви́ктор Бори́сович Шкло́вский, p=ˈʂklofskʲɪj; – 6 December 1984) was a Russian and Soviet literary theorist, critic, writer, and pamphleteer. He is one of the major figures ass ...

, referring to the material aspect of the appearance. The surface of the object had to demonstrate how it had been made, exhibiting its own distinct property. Thus Faktura could be characterised as the visual demonstration of properties inherent to materials, as illustrated in ''Corner Counter Relief'' (1914) by

Vladimir Tatlin Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin ( – 31 May 1953) was a Russian and USSR, Soviet painter, architect and stage-designer. Tatlin achieved fame as the architect who designed The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Towe ...

References

Russian avant-garde {{art-hist-stub